Incubent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

The presidential runoff election scheduled for November 8, 2011 will take place with only one candidate; Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson, the incumbent. The opposition party, the CDC, has announced it is boycotting the election. The CDC has made formal complaints to the Electoral Commission of massive rigging of the first election. These claims have not been examined by the Electoral Commission in depth and they have not reported on their findings. The candidates of the CDC, Winston Tubman and his Vice-Presidential partner, George Weah, are widely popular in the country as has been seen in the campaign and Mrs. Sirleaf-Johnson a great deal less popular.

However, Mrs. Sirleaf-Johnson has several things going in her favour. She has access to a lot of money which she is freely spreading around. Local sources estimate that she has spent almost US$30 million so far on the election, about $150,000 of which is said to have gone to Prince Johnson, a failed candidate in the first election who threw his support behind Johnson-Sirleaf. Prince Johnson was famous in Liberia for his hacking away with a machete at the late President Doe on a video available on You Tube and later, it is said, eating some of the organs of Doe. This prompted the best one-liner in Africa. “Where is Sam Doe? Something he disagreed with ate him”

Some of Mrs. Sirleaf-Johnson’s money was made available from grants from the US, the European Community, the UN and some from the oil companies who are her major sponsors.

Her major support comes from the US, who was instrumental in rigging the Nobel Prize to be given to her just a week before the election. Mrs. Sirleaf-Johnson, who returned from her flight from Liberia to the US during the civil war, returned to serve Charles Taylor in a direct capacity. Not to fall into the error of judgement made by Adam Clayton-Powell, she “arranged things” for Taylor until he left the country and settled many of his problems. Oddly enough the ‘independent observers’ sent by the US to observe the election found that they were fair and transparent. In the words of the State Department yesterday “The CDC’s charge that the first-round election was fraudulent is unsubstantiated. As evidenced by international and domestic observers, Liberia’s October 11 first-round presidential and legislative elections were fair, free and transparent.” This is despite documented cases of fraud and rigging at least about 35% of Liberia’s 4,800 polling places (most of whom were not observed by the observers) as reported by the CDC.

The problem is that Tubman and Weah are playing against a stacked deck. Liberia is an occupied country and has been so for many years. It is occupied by the US and to a smaller degree, by the UN peacekeepers that fall under US military ‘guidance’ and control. Right now the UN Peacekeepers include:

9,216 total uniformed personnel
7,775 troops
133 military observers
1,308 police (including formed units)
476 international civilian personnel (that is private military contractors)
1,000 local staff
240 UN Volunteers

Country contributors

Military personnel
Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gambia, Ghana, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Mali, Moldova, Montenegro, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Serbia, Togo, Ukraine, United States, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Police personnel
Argentina, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Czech Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Fiji, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Namibia, Nepal, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United States, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The UN presence is dwarfed by the presence of the US military in the country (some of whom are included above). The Department of Defense is represented in Liberia by the Office of the Defense Attaché and the Office of Security Cooperation.

According to the Department of Defense:

Office of the Defense Attaché
The Defense Attaché represents the Secretary of Defense; other top military officers and the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Military. The Office of the Defense Attaché provides military and political-military advice, assistance, and support to the U.S. ambassador. The Office of the Defense Attaché has the full authority and responsibility inherent in the position on any military organization commander except the authority to administer military justice.

Office of Security Cooperation
The mission of the Office of Security Cooperation (OSC) is to provide U.S. Department of Defense Security Assistance to the Republic of Liberia on behalf of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and U.S. Embassy Monrovia in order to further U.S. strategic goals and objectives and to improve military-to-military relations. Within this mission, OSC’s primary objective is to build, equip and train a professional, apolitical 2,000 soldier Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) under the Security Sector Reform for National Defense program. Included in this force is the development of a 50-100 person Liberian Coast Guard (LCG).

Current Activities

• Operation Onward Liberty, U.S. Uniformed Mentor program, which includes 50+ mentors in wide range of skills working side-by-side with AFL. Funded by a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Case.
• Provision of U.S. Military Training Teams (MTTs) to train on specific topics within Liberia. Recent examples include outboard motor maintenance and small boat operations for the Liberian Coast Guard.
• Continuation of International Military Education and Training (IMET) program, which sends approximately 40 AFL/LCG personnel to training in the U.S.
• Coordinate military-to-military events in which the AFL can engage with the U.S. on specific topics such as warehouse management and logistics procedures. This has recently been enhanced through the State Partnership Program with the Michigan National Guard.
• Mentoring at the Liberian Ministry of Defense (MoD) staff level using the Defense Institution Reform Initiative (DIRI).
• Continued development of the Liberian Coast Guard funded via a FMS case.
• Funding support for equipment and limited base operations and maintenance through on-going FMS cases.
• Development of armoires and ammunition control points along with proper policies and procedures funded by an FMS case.
• Incorporating the AFL in humanitarian assistance missions and projects funded by the DoD Humanitarian Assistance Program.
• Encouraging healthy relationships with other nations and organizations and taking advantage of skill sets and training opportunities such as with UNMIL.
• Defense HIV Awareness and Prevention Program (DHAPP).

In short, when you add the number of trainers of Dyncorp and the other active private military corporations to the US troops and policemen in Liberia there is a healthy array of force available to the President of Liberia; no doubt an advantage to an incumbent. One can add to this the positive goodwill towards Mrs. Sirleaf-Johnson by the US Ambassador to Liberia, Linda Thomas-Greenfield; one of a number of Black-American female ambassadors to Africa named by Condoleeza Rice. She has been Ambassador to Liberia since 2008 and played a role in the Nobel Prize arrangements. Local sources say she will soon be returning to the US to leave the State Department to return to Liberia as an agent for Chevron Oil.

Challenger Winston Taubman

The key to the importance of Liberia to the world is that substantial amounts of oil have been found nearby (in Ghana, Sierra Leone, etc.) There are signs of large quantities of oil within Liberian offshore water. In 2005 the Liberian Government, through the National Oil Company (NOCAL), entered into a “Production Sharing Contract” with three foreign oil companies to undertake oil exploration in Liberian territorial waters. The three companies include the Joint Consortium of Regal Liberia Limited, Broadway Consolidated, and Orantoe Petroleum Limited. They were among five companies awarded blocks as a result of the Bid Round… Subsequently, most of the oil majors have sought a place in Liberia’s industry. In August 2010 Liberia selected one of the world’s largest oil companies as lead partner to explore potential offshore reserves. The government said that a three-year exploration agreement with the Chevron Corporation involving three deep-water concessions in Liberian waters “has been approved by the Executive and submitted to the Legislature for consideration and ratification.” “We are delighted to welcome Chevron as a partner for Liberia to explore our oil and gas assets,” Johnson Sirleaf said in the Executive Mansion statement. “Energy is one of my top priorities, and with Chevron’s technical skills we will be able to build our own capacity in the sector making a meaningful contribution to economic growth and job creation. “

Local sources say that it is very important for Chevron to finish the deal by getting the required legislation passed and, to that end, would like to see Mrs. Sirleaf-Johnson as President once again… Other oil companies are waiting in the wings. Chevron has already paid out a lot of money for the Liberian acreage and commissions. It doesn’t want to have to do it twice.

Wherever there is oil the level of transparency diminishes. Winston Tubman is doomed to face the financial might of Chevron and the military might of the US Department of Defense. If Mrs, Sirleaf-Johnson rigged the first election there is no reason why she not be expected to rig the runoff. Hence, the boycott. Africa seems doomed to repeat its mistakes over and over. If the lessons of the UN Peackeepers and the French next door in the Ivory Coast are not an example to the Liberians what can happen when foreign armies and oil companies decide on how a country should be run, then no example will suffice.

Yet again the hand-wringers and chancers of ECOWAS repeat the litany of support for this sustained attack on African sovereignty, just as they did in Abidjan. What future for Africa when it continues to cosy up to international bullies for short-term cash advantages?

By Dr Gary K. Busch

Gary K. Busch is an international trades unionist, an academic, a businessman and a political affairs and business consultant for 40 years, and has traveled and worked extensively in Africa.

Pax Americana Source: freedomsphoenix.com

While capitalism is upheld by Western-European nations as the paradigm for economic fairness and efficiency, it conversely has a 400-year history of profiteering that traces to shameless enslavement and colonizing of non-European people by the same nations. Today, capitalism’s tentacles of debauchery reach beyond the so-called “third world” to now roost among citizens within these very European nations, including America. Once fiscally robust, America is debt-addicted and job-starved, with near-bankrupt states and crippled infrastructures of roads, bridges, schools and airports.

In fed-up response, protesters of the Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWSM) are rightly ranting over capitalism’s recent malfeasance. Yet, in broad-spectrum, it must be reckoned that the descendants of those who were once enslaved or colonized, comprise a majority of people who now live in poverty. The sum of Westernize capitalism – from its extirpations of yesterday to free-market enterprise today – has left trails of billions of impoverished non-European people all around the world wherever labor is performed, services are provided, and resources are located.

With Africa particularly, it is not coincidental that its currencies and economies are among the weakest in the world, while the currencies and economies of Western colonial nations are among the strongest, even though most lack comparable natural resources of the African states they colonized. Capitalist hegemony over Africa siphoned unknown trillions in labor and resources, upon which Western economies unfairly stand.

True, the OWSM cannot undo capitalism’s ugly past. But the point is to stitch threads of commonality and continuity, given that capitalism did not suddenly get derailed by Bush or Obama; or by halos of immunity and tax havens for the rich; or by the cost of war adventurism in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. The middleclass is certainly feeling capitalism’s pitchfork more of late, but capitalism is no more depraved lately than at its inception. A main difference is that – yesterday, its parasitic forces usurped non-Europeans of sovereignty, territories, resources and freedom, while today, extensions of the same parasitic forces are coming home to roost by cannibalizing Americans of all ethnicities of jobs, savings, stocks, pensions, social programs, healthcare and homes.

Like African Americans, growing numbers of Euro-Americans have discovered that capitalismhas nothing to do with “equality” nor is it “democratic.” You don’t vote on the overly-priced gas and oil for your car and home. You don’t vote for who owns or commercializes natural resources. You don’t vote on mortgage or bank interest rates or the elasticity of money supply regulated by the Federal Reserve . . . There’s no such thing as equality or democracy in the Western format of capitalism.

As such, the current 16.7% unemployment rate for Blacks more than doubles the 8% for Whites, and Blacks lag in every major index of economics. It’s interesting that 8% would be long-awaited relief to African Americans. Conversely, 8% is so insufferable to Euro-Americans that it has sparked the OWSM to condemn “certain aspects” of capitalism. But at core, US capitalism is fueled by consumption, which is fueled by credit, which is fueled by the very financial institutions that lie at the heart of the protests. Besides, be it Bush or Obama, both parties are corporate manifestations. America operates a de-facto plutocratic style of governance, where insiders make “contributions” with known intents for favoritism to influence policymaking and party platforms.

With the 2012 election approaching and Obama empathizing with occupiers, the media is setting a stage for Tea Party vs. OWSM showdowns. Beyond partisan bickering however that blames the “other party” for America’s woes, a definitive matter is that, America’s economy is linked to centuries of international graft and gluttony from when Europeans ruled by overt brute force. But with fewer “banana republics,” new Balances of Power are reshaping today’s decolonized world and diminishing the once-sturdiness of Pax Americana (US political, economic, and military advantages).

The fluffy wording of the US constitution is one thing, but America’s capitalistic wealth wasn’t acquired by playing by the “democratic” rules it now wants to export to Africa and the Middle East. So as predatory capitalism is coming home to roost while Americans simultaneously cheer the downfall of “select” governments, Black America should be circumspect that we aren’t in effect, cheering the latest mutation of the selfsame predatory forces of which we are historically among the greatest casualties.

By Ezrah Aharone

Ezrah Aharone is the author of two acclaimed political books: Sovereign Evolution: Manifest Destiny from Civil Rights to Sovereign Rights (2009) and Pawned Sovereignty: Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War and Reparations (2003). He is a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement. He can be reached at Ezrah@EzrahSpeaks.com.

Bodies of black men hanging from highways. Bound and tortured bodies of Africans dumped along the roadsides. Am I talking about Libya or Louisiana?

And all under the approving eye of the first Black President of the USA.

The lynching of Africans in Libya has been so bad that African leaders across the continent have been forced to raise their voices in protest. When the President of Nigeria, the USA’s unofficial enforcer in West Africa leads an African wide outcry against the lynching of his citizens in Libya one would assume that it was heard in the Obama White House.

With the murder or expulsion of most of Libya’s African migrant population well on its way came the massacre and ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Black Libyans.

And all the while Barack Obama and his band of criminal cohorts in the western capitals and television news channels strung together words like “pro-democracy”, “freedom fighters” and “liberation” to describe the orgy of looting and lynching being carried out.

When Black Libyans took up arms to defend their families and homes from the Libyan lynch mobs they found themselves the beneficiaries of “pro-democracy” high explosives, delivered from on high by a freedom loving NATO air force.

Bombed from on high, lynched on the ground, the only choice is to flee for your lives and that is what hundreds of thousands of Black Libyan have been forced to do.

And all under the approving eye of the first Black President in the White House.

Should we be surprised at such serpentine behavior by the first Black President? Isn’t this the guy who raised over $500 million to help him buy the White House, with $300 million of that from Wall Street?

Isn’t this the guy who surrounded himself before his election with the very worst criminals from the Clinton White house such as Anthony Lake, Susan Rice, Gayle Smith and Eric Holder?

But isn’t Barack Obama supposed to know what it’s like to be a black man in AmeriKKKa? Didn’t he used to attend a militant black church where the minister preached the Lord’s damnation upon the racist and genocidal rulers of the USA?

The brutal truth is that, like the shepherd’s dog taken as a pup from its mother to suckle at the tit of a sheep, Barack Hussein Obama spent those most critical teenage years being the only black kid in a school of thousands (Note; this writer attended the same school as Barack Obama, Punahou, some half a dozen years before him).

Punahou is one of the most elite schools in the USA, founded in Hawaii by Yankee missionaries who so famously brought the bible and took the Hawaiians land.

Today Punahou’s alumni include names that adorn the headquarters of multinational corporations like Dole Foods.

Barack Obama discovered what the white man wanted to hear from a black boy at an early age and apparently never forgot it.

From Punahou eventually to Harvard, Obama learned what the elite needed to hear if you wanted to get ahead even if it meant black is white, up is down and wrong is right.

So today we have the spectacle of a son of an African, the first Black President in the White house, broadcasting his approval for all the world to see that Libya or Louisiana, if lynching Africans is what it takes, God Bless the USA…and no where else.

Thomas C. Mountain is the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He can be contacted at thomascmountain at yahoo dot com.

The Kenyan Army may be invading southern Somalia allegedly chasing “Somali pirates” yet the fact remains that zero cruise missiles, zero smart bombs and zero snatch and grab commando operations have been carried out against Somali pirates.

To this day not one Somali pirate has been killed on the ground in Somalia by the international naval flotillas in the Indian Ocean after receiving the ransoms they extract for the ships and crews they have captured.

With hundreds of ships seized, thousands of crewmen held in captivity, and by some estimates over half a billion dollars in ransoms paid to the Somali pirates so feared by seamen traveling through the Horn of Africa who clearly have immunity from the international naval task forces patrolling the Indian Ocean.

This immunity also seems to extend to the western media, for no one, not Jay Bahadur in the NY Times or the venerable USA magazine The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill whose CIA vetted junket to Mogadishu was heralded by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! as an “expose” have raised the obvious question, why do the Somali pirates have immunity from attack?

Maybe all the reporters covering the Horn of Africa have been inoculated with a vaccine to provide them with immunity from asking such a simple question, why hasn’t there been any retaliation against the Somali pirates?

As they say, “it doesn’t take a rocket scientist” to notice this, so maybe something is slipped into their inoculations immunizing them before they fly off to the Horn of Africa?

To those of us who actually follow the media based in the Horn of Africa, the answer has been obvious for sometime.

First, the Somali pirates are mainly based in the warlord controlled “autonomous” region calling itself Puntland, which occupies the very tip of the Horn of Africa. The warlord “President” of Puntland is well known for his alliance with and support from the Meles Zenawi regime ruling Ethiopia. Ethiopia has substantial military bases in Puntland and the leaders of Puntland are regularly reported to be welcome guests in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia.

From on the ground in Puntland, Somalia;

Garowe Online (Garowe)
From Allafrica.Com: Somalia: Puntland President Meets With Ethiopian Foreign Minister
2 April 2010

The president of Somalia’s Puntland State government Dr. Abdirahman Mohammed Farole has held meeting with Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Minister Seyoum Mesfin in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

The meeting which was held in Hotel Sharaton, where Puntland delegation is staying, was focused on relation between the two governments and the general security situation in Somalia.

According to press release from the Puntland Presidency, The meeting ended in good note with both parties reaffirming support.”

In Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa the Puntland warlords were seen shaking hands and embracing the top leadership of the Ethiopian regime though behind the scenes it is reported that suitcases stuffed with cash are delivered to Ethiopian V.I.P.’s and nasty quarrels break out over the amount of cash forked over.

A couple of years ago a Saudi Arabian newspaper published what is common knowledge amongst those in the know here in the Horn of Africa.

In an interview with the Eritrean Minister of Information (everything published in Saudi Arabia has to be cleared by the Saudi Intelligence services before publication so this reflected the unofficial position of the Saudi government) it was disclosed that Somali pirates were known to go directly to Ethiopian military bases in Puntland upon receiving their ransom payments.

Once they make their payoffs to the Ethiopians they are immune from attack for Ethiopia is the USA’s policeman on the beat in East Africa and as such their military is off limits to any attack by the international naval flotillas fighting piracy in the Indian Ocean.

With drones flying overhead sending live video feed via satellites to military attack controllers in the USA it is known exactly where these pirates go after receiving their ransom payments so ignorance is not an explanation for the immunity these pirates have.

Suitcases stuffed with millions of dollars buys immunity for the half a billion dollar piracy business in the Horn of Africa and is all to typical of how much of what passes for business is carried out in Africa as a whole.

This has been common knowledge amongst well informed observers in the Horn of Africa for years now and is the only reality based explanation for the absolute on the ground immunity that has protected the Somali pirates based in Puntland for over a decade now.

You pay, you play though those few poverty stricken Somali desperadoes caught in the act of piracy on the high sea’s remain sacrificial lambs, held up for the world to see that there really is a war against piracy in the Horn of Africa.

As I have said many times, truth is stranger than fiction when it comes to the Horn of Africa. That the Somali pirates have absolute immunity on the ground after receiving their ransoms is beyond dispute. The only important question remaining is why this immunity extends to the international media?

By Thomas C. Mountain

Thomas C. Mountain is the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached at thomascmountain at yahoo dot com.

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Photo: Wiki-Commons

The most likely ex-President of Liberia has been given a share of one of the western worlds most prestigious awards, the Nobel Peace Prize yet the residents of the capital Monrovia have not had running water for the full 6 years of her term in office.

Think about it, if after six years and $100’s of millions of western aid the residents of the capital have no running water how desperate must it be in the rest of Liberia?

Access to clean drinking water is the first of the fundamental human rights, including food, shelter and medical care, that make up the most primary of all human rights, the right to life itself.

Lack of clean drinking water has killed more people in Liberia, as a part of the world as a whole, than all the violence and wars combined.

The UN may only have recognized clean drinking water as a right last year but for so many in the third world it is the most pressing daily need.

While the western human rights corporations may preach so vociferously about human rights being elections and freedom of the press, they some how neglect to rate the worlds leaders by how well they are making sure all their people have the first of the basic human rights to life, clean drinking water.

It is little wonder why the Liberian President is so unpopular in Liberia? She has been an utter failure in the human rights department as far as her citizens are concerned, no matter how many Nobel prizes she may receive from her overlords in the west.

Again, think about it, how is a modern city supposed to function without running water? And this utter failure of an African leader got the most prestigious award the west bestows on its vassals?

As for the Liberian Presidents peace building credentials it was just this year that Liberian based paramilitary death squads, armed and supported by the French, helped invade the Ivory Coast to overthrow the Gbagbo government, and in the process murdered untold thousands of Ivorians, with 800 massacred in just one town.

One hell of a peace builder wasn’t she, but then it maybe unfair to blame her for everything gone wrong in Liberia for many claim that she is little more than Mayor of Monrovia and its environs, that warlords, paramilitary militias and bandits actually control most of the country.

Crisis Management is the USA’s preferred policy in Africa as in create a crisis and then manage the subsequent chaos, the better to loot and pillage west Africa’s resources. Liberia has long been a poster child for murder and mayhem, though much hope had been placed in Africa’s first “democratically elected woman President”.

But after 6 years, beau coup millions of dollars and still no running water in the capital of the country one should expect a Nobel prize, at least? For a job well done as far as the western banksters, Firestone Rubber and their minions in the media are concerned.

So remember, its a No-bel Prize for Liberia’s President and No-water for Liberia’s residents, all thanks to an unhealthy dose of western style “democracy”.

By Thomas C. Mountain

Thomas C. Mountain is the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached at thomascmountain at yahoo dot com.

Resource Sovereignty: Congo, Africa, and the Global South by Afrobeatradio on Mixcloud

This program was broadcast on Pacifica, WBAI, 99.5 FM-NYC on AfrobeatRadio on wbai.org on 08.20.2011, and on Pacifica, KPFA, 91.4 FM-Berkeley, and kpfa.org, The Morning Mix, on 09.03.2011.

AfrobeatRadio/Ann Garrison: Presidential polls are approaching on November 28th in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but few observers expect them to be free or fair. The country’s Parliament has changed the Constitution to favor sitting President Joseph Kabila with one round or winner-take-all voting, in which opposition candidates would be expected to divide the opposition vote, leaving Kabila with the most votes and no run-off to face.

Even if the opposition unites behind one candidate, neither Kabila nor the dominant foreign powers in the region including the U.S. and its military partners Rwanda and Uganda are likely to tolerate Kabila’s defeat. The question is how will the Congolese people respond. And, the real question underlying that is: How can the Congolese people claim Congo’s vast resources and defend the claim?

AfroBeatRadio spoke to Maurice Carney, Executive Director of Friends of the Congo who believes that Congo, like the rest of resource-rich Africa should look to the Global South, to Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil for models and allies in asserting resource sovereignty.

AfrobeatRadio/Ann Garrison: Maurice Carney, you’ve said that the real story may be after the election in November. Could you explain?

Maurice Carney, Executive Director, Friends of the Congo Maurice Carney: Yes, the current regime headed up by Joseph Kabila will not easily release power if the votes go against them, and, the votes are not likely to go against them because they’ll use the resources of the State to make sure that an electoral victory goes their way.

Now, as we have seen with the increasing crowds that are attending the rallies held by Etienne Tshisekedi and proclamations coming from Tshisekedi, that he believes he can win the election outright . . . should Kabila remain in power, it’s probable that those crowds that are mobilized to support Tshisekedi may also be mobilized to go into the streets.

So, as observers of the Congo, as allies of the Congolese people, we ought to watch the situation very carefully for potential post-election disruption, should Kabila wind up “winning” and the Tshisekedi forces remain mobilized and in the streets.

AfrobeatRadio: Yesterday you said that whatever sort of candidate Tshisekedi is, an honest election would be a victory for the people.

Carney: Well, yes, what I was saying is that in the Congo, one of the challenges has been ascension to power. Leaders have ascended to power by fiat, by coup, and the degree to which power can be acquired in a peaceful way through, in this case, election, the process, the process going forward would be a benefit to the people. So as long as the people believe that there was a fair process, an open process, a transparent process, then that bodes well for the future of the country. If that tradition can be established whereby leaders assume the highest level of office through a process that the population views as being fair, legitimate and transparent, that can only bode well for the future of the country. So it’s that process, let’s call it the democrats, those democratic forces, are trying to hold onto.

AfrobeatRadio: You also said that there isn’t really an organized popular movement to support any one candidate after an election.

Maurice Carney of Friend of the Congo

Carney: No, especially if you use the standard, I believe we’re talking in the context of Latin America. . . if we use the standards of Bolivia for example or Brazil or even Venezuela, all we have to do is look to 2002 in Venezuela when there was a coup and Chavez was removed from power. It was the organized masses that came out in the streets and demanded the return of the leader that they elected and put in power, and that organized mass changed the equation to the point where Chavez was put back in power.

That type of organized national movement does not exist in the Congo, and understandably so, because Congo has gone through, over the last 50 years, assassinations, dictators, wars, invasions. All have worked to weaken the institutions in the Congo and those institutions that would form the foundation for such an organized movement; institutions such as labor, women’s groups, students groups, across the board civil society.

So that’s one of the biggest challenges facing the Congo in the near and long term future – that is, to develop institutions that are strong enough to protect the interests of the people, such as we see happening in Bolivia or happening in Venezuela and Ecuador and Brazil. Those institutions among the people are strong enough to protect their interests.

That’s what the Congolese people in particular and Africans in general have to aspire to, in looking south, to see what their fellow people of color are doing in the southern hemisphere, the models of Bolivia, the models of Ecuador and Peru and Brazil and Venezuela. These are models for Africans to aspire to.

It’s a new day in Latin America where the interests of the people are beginning to be served, where the resources of those countries are beginning to be owned by the people, so it would behoove Africans to draw lessons from what’s happening in Latin America and apply those lessons to the situations on the African Continent. And probably no other country needs those kinds of lessons more than the Congo because it’s so central to the African Continent, and whatever happens there reverberates throughout the continent.

AfrobeatRadio: Given the winner take all, one round scenario that we’re looking at for the Congo election, how important do you think it is for the opposition to unite around one candidate? Lots of people are calling for that.

Congolese presidential candidate Étienne Tshisikedi in Kinshasa

Carney: Well, to the degree that we . . . how can I say . . . leave certain elements to the side. Remember, even if the opposition wins the election, we’re still talking about a country that’s on the edge, a country that’s owned by multinational corporations, a country that responds and is a victim of dictates from foreign governments in Europe and America. So these elections are taking place really in a space that is not controlled by the Congolese people. I mean just think about it. The elections themselves . . . the Congolese government is going abroad to get money to fund its own election. So we’re talking about a country that’s in a dependent situation. So, ultimately, ultimately, the kind of change that is needed is a change to sever those dependent ties to the point where people control and determine their own affairs.

Now that being said, within that narrow confine of what we call elections, it would certainly increase the chances of the opposition, were they to unify behind one candidate, but I’m not even sure that’s efficient because you can bet, now I’m not a prognosticator, but you can bet and reasonably conclude, Ann, that the power structure in Kinshasa and the foreign governments and foreign corporations that back them are going to make sure that Joseph Kabila wins this election, or it can be said that he wins the election because Kabila is their man, and he’s their man because he’s provided unfettered access to Congo’s resources, and the Western powers and foreign governments, multinational corporations do not want to see anybody come in that could potentially overturn contracts that have been put in place that facilitate the extraction of tens of billions of dollars from the Congo to Western investors.

AfrobeatRadio: That sounds really grim, but how can you imagine a people’s movement like those that are restoring some of the wealth and resources of the Global South and Latin America to the people arising in Congo? How can you imagine that?

Carney: It will be a long slog and it will come from the youth who are organizing now with full understanding of the geopolitical dynamics that are at play in the Congo and what is at stake. It’s not going to be something that’s going to happen overnight, but if you don’t have a vision for a new Congo where the Congolese people are organized and mobilized then you might as well just give up. And, the Congolese people, the youth, are not of the mindset that they’re going to give up on this situation. They’re fighting day and night. They’re educating their peers. They’re educating their communities. And they’re mobilizing throughout the country to bring about change whether the change comes today or it comes tomorrow. They’re clear that they have to be organized in order to protect their interests and no one, no one, can protect their interests like they can.

And the first step is for the Congolese people in particular, but people on the African continent, is to look for their solutions to the Global South because it’s the Global South that has been successful in resisting the imperial entry of the North so first they have to have an awareness that that’s where they need to look.

Although it’s symbolic and not necessarily substantive, but noteworthy, one of the Congolese presidential candidates calls himself the Lula of Congo. Now that’s obviously preposterous because Lula came out of the labor movement in Brazil and had an organized base from which he ascended to power, and no presidential candidate in the Congo has that foundation. But just the very fact that that leader is aspirational, that is to say he wants to be like Lula, that gives you an indication that people are orienting, the Congolese and Africans, at least are aware and orienting at least their vision or, as you say, their imaginations towards the Global South.

So it’s not lost on the people of Africa that Lula himself was invited when the African Union met in Equatorial Guinea this past summer and he scolded the African leaders and shared with them that they are not acting in the interest of their people and they need to start acting in the interest of their people. They need to stop dropping their pants for the West as he so eloquently put it.

So, what needs to happen is: One, an awareness that the global South has the answers. Two, an orientation towards the global South. And three, learning the best practices from the global South. Four, applying those practices to the Congolese and the overall African situation. I believe with those four steps we’ll start to see change come about and, Ann, I must add that if Congolese and Africans take those steps, they will quickly see an increase of support for their efforts from the likes of Bolivia, from the likes of Brazil, from the likes of Venezuela, from the likes of Ecuador. They will see that support coming to them in numerous ways.

So, that’s how we see that broad based organized effort can start to take root if the Congolese people in particular, Africans in general, learn from their brothers and their sisters in the Global South.

Bolivian President Evo Morales holds up a tin ingot after nationalizing a Glencore tin smelter in Bolivia, 2007.

AfrobeatRadio: Well, it sounds like a good place to note that Evo Morales in Bolivia nationalized a Glencore International tin smelter in 2007 and earlier this year he initiated talks with mining unions about further nationalizing Glencore International properties mines in Bolivia, and Glencore International owns 77% of Katanga Mining and has been accused of all sorts of human rights abuse and anti-labor aggression in Congo.

Carney: Yes, absolutely, and what we see with Glencore, in fact: Glencore went in to save Katanga Mining because there was a period there at the start of the economic crisis where the commodities had taken a dive and Katanga Mining, owned by Belgian George Forrest, and also partly owned by Israeli Dan Gertler, and Forrest and Gertler are two of the major, what you would call, barons in the Congo. That is to say they have a tremendous influence on what happens in regard to leadership in the Congo. So Glencore came in and rescued Katanga Mining and, as you so rightly pointed out, it’s the classic case of where the wealth of a country is really being traded between external forces.

Now, in terms of Bolivia and the nationalization, we see murmurings of that kind of talk, not necessarily coming out of Congo, but certainly coming out of South Africa with the young ANC youth leader Julius Malema, who has articulated a need for the resources to be owned by the people. So here, as I stated earlier, where we’re going to see the change in terms of breaking with the old order, it’s going to come from the youth of Africa and Julius Malema is a classic example of that with his articulation of the need of the people to benefit from their resources.

So again, we see examples and it’s just a question of building on those examples to the point where a critical mass is reached on the African continent, where the people finally control and determine their own affairs and assume ownership of their resources for their benefit and not the way it is right now, where it’s benefiting external powers.

AfrobeatRadio: You know I’m glad you brought up South Africa because South Africa’s mineral wealth is comparable to Congo’s, more than any other country in Africa. South Africa’s mineral wealth is comparable to Congo’s, no?

Carney: Yeah, I mean. . . in relation to Congo you have South Africa and you have Angola and you have Guinea. They call Guinea little Congo. Just across the board, Nigeria of course with its tremendous oil wealth. Wherever you turn on the continent it’s just flush with natural wealth.

AfrobeatRadio: Let’s not forget Sudan right now.

Carney: Oh Sudan, as I say, wherever you go, it’s remarkable the wealth that’s on the continent. So yes, South Africa is certainly, you can say, comparable even though Congo just dwarfs every country on the continent.

AfrobeatRadio: So who was the leader you were describing in South Africa, the young leader?

Carney: He is the head of the ANC and he is the youth leader of the ANC, Julius Malema.

AfrobeatRadio: And so this sounds like an effort to push beyond what was achieved by the abolition of apartheid.

Carney: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely, because even in the current situation of the people, they’re suffering, in terms of high unemployment, poor health, lack of housing, lack of participation in the wealth of the country and ownership of the wealth of the country. People in South Africa are suffering tremendously and the youth who are usually the vanguard of any movement are aware and conscious of this and are calling for radical changes that are different from the leadership of the elders and the African National Congress. So, this is something to look out for in the coming years, where young people, y’know we see it . . . In North Africa it’s reflected, in Tunisia and Egypt, but in Southern Africa we already see the South African youth calling for a greater ownership of their own wealth which they’re not benefiting from or participating right now.

AfrobeatRadio: It’s heartening to hear about that because I hear a lot of depression and cynicism, about the consequence of apartheid, about it not really improving the living standards of most Black South Africans.

Carney: There are some spectacular statistics out there as it relates to the life expectancy, for example. It has gone down from the apartheid era. Now a lot of that is surely due to the AIDS epidemic that has hit South Africa, but across the board there is some really spectacular data that deals with the standard of living and how it has not improved much for the masses of the people. Of course for a certain Black elite there has been tremendous improvement, but as you know, within the capitalist model, it allows a few to benefit and those few that benefit are held up as the example to follow and the masses are looked upon and say well, only if you follow the path of those that we hold up as your model, you can be like them too. But we know that’s a game that’s played to keep people pursuing an unattainable goal.

So the young people that are organized, particularly within the ANC, are looking to change that dynamic where the masses actually get access to the resources of the wealth of the country and benefit from it. And that’s best exemplified and represented in the articulation of Julius Malema.

AfrobeatRadio: There was actually a neoliberal wave of privatization after apartheid wasn’t there?

South Africa's ANC Youth League President Julius Malema

Carney: Well, I don’t even want to say after apartheid. If you read Naomi Klein’s work The Shock Doctrine, she talks about it. She has a chapter in there that deals with the negotiations leading up to the end of apartheid and how it is that the economic power structure, economic power structure both inside South Africa and outside South Africa were assured, through Thabo Mbeki, because he was primarily responsible for negotiating some of the economic dynamics at the time, that there wouldn’t be any radical change, for example the ANC wouldn’t hold to the tenants of its charter which called for resource sovereignty.

Even after Mandela, and after Mbeki, when Jacob Zuma, who was supposed to be more of a populist, was evident that he was going to come to power. He had talks with companies at the time like Merrill Lynch and reassured the financial markets that under his leadership there wouldn’t be any radical change in the economic order and that business would go on as usual. So that’s been consistent from Mandela to Mbeki and now to Zuma. Now what comes after Zuma, there may be some uncertainty there, especially if the youth of South Africa have its way.

The thing is, Ann, and it’s always important to remember, these commodities markets and people from the North, they need those resources more than Morales needs them. They have entire industries that are based upon getting cheap resources, so they’re in a stronger position than one would normally think.

AfrobeatRadio: And, that was the conclusion of AfroBeat’s Radio conversation with Maurice Carney, Executive Director Chevron oil refinery in Richmond, California of Washington D.C. based Friends of the Congo. We’d like to thank Maurice for his time and I’m sure we’ll be talking to him again, because this is one of AfroBeat Radio’s central concerns; the challenges faced by African people organizing, as Latin Americans have, to claim Africa’s natural resources and defend the claim.

As a citizen of the state of California, I’d like to add that our problems out here are not a lot different as our public schools, universities, courts and health and human services suffer crippling cutbacks and big oil continues to extract California’s oil and natural gas without even paying a severance tax at the wellhead. An archive of today’s program can be found at afrobeatradio.net and sfbayview.com.

For Pacifica, WBAI and AfroBeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.

Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire wears handcuffs, as she listens to the judge during the her trial in Kigali, Rwanda Monday, Sept. 5, 2011. Ingabire, an outspoken critic of President Paul Kagamea's regime, is charged with allegations of providing financial support to a terrorist group, causing state security and formenting ethnic divisions. (AP Photo/Shant Fabricatorian)

“I am a political prisoner (…) don’t be afraid, nothing will stop the ongoing political change”, Ingabire told the High Court today after the presiding judge ordered the hearing to proceed.

Flawed High court ruling on the procedure against political prisoner Ingabire: It was in front of many people, Rwandans and Foreigners, including Ambassadors and diplomats from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom that the disappointing ruling was announced. After three days of deliberations the High Court revealed its decision on Ingabire defence submissions on the non-retroactivity of the criminal law, the territorial jurisdiction of the High Court on some counts and the violations of the Constitution of the Republic of Rwanda: “the defense procedural submissions on jurisdiction are baseless and the hearings must proceed without any further delay”, said the presiding judge. There is no possible appeal until the end of the whole trial, according to the Rwandan law. The evidential trial has continued today.

The High Court ruled that it has recorded all the submissions, objections and exceptions of both parties and it will take them into consideration at the right time. “This court has jurisdiction, and it belongs to the court to interpret all relevant acts of the legislator and to decide accordingly”, read the presiding judge Alice Rulisa.

The idea that the High court might uphold an argument on the illegality of the trial against the opposition leader Madame Victoire Ingabire or the abuse of executive power in the Rwandan judicial is ultimately very naïve. The margin of the court is so narrow that all the legal basis of the non-retroactivity of the criminal law and the jurisdiction of the court was simply excluded from consideration.

Why should reasonable people believe that a governmental appointed court by Paul Kagame’s regime might serve as an impartial referee in a dispute between his regime and his key opposition leader? Those courts are more likely to confirm a political programme set by the victor in order to sit his rule over the country without any dissenting voice. Current courts and judges are depending upon the RPF government by their appointments and tenure.

Madame Victoire Ingabire explained the political context of her case and exposed the continuing interferences of President Paul Kagame and his government in order to silence all dissenting voices. She laid down how the case was masterminded, fabricated after she announced her intention to contest the 2010 presidential elections. She was saddened by prosecutors’ smear campaign against her family, falsely accused of being historical genocidaires while a part of them was slaughtered by Hutu and Tutsi extremists from both the warring sides. Genocide cases were framed against her parents who already suffered ostracism and exclusions when the RPF war started. Her father was sometime before imprisoned for years by the previous regime accusing him of complicity in a failed military coup attempt; he was arrested afresh and accused of supporting the RPF rebellion. After the genocide he was appointed Mayor by the current regime. The father was arrested on his way to swear in as one of MDR party designates Members of Parliament before it was banned. He died afterwards.

Upon her return home, a devilishing campaign was initiated by the highest levels of this regime. The party FDU-Inkingi was not registered and members of the interim Executive Committee are still under a permanent intimidation. With the support of other members, the coordinating committee of overseas members and our political partners, nothing will stop the wind of change and the road to democratisation.

Together we shall overcome.

Submitted by FDU-Inkingi
Boniface Twagirimana, Interim Vice President. Kigali, 13 October 2011

Prime Minister Melez Zenawi. Ra'iisul wasaare Meles Zenawi/Google Images.

Recently released Wikileaks Ethiopia files expose how Ethiopian security forces planted 3 bombs that went off in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on September 16, 2006 and then blamed Eritrea and the Oromo resistance for the blasts in a case that raises serious questions about the claims made about the bombing attempt against the African Union summit earlier this year in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In a report from 2006 marked “Secret ; Subject: Ethiopia: Recent Bombings Blamed on Oromos Possibly the Work of GOE [Government of Ethiopia]…by: Charge [d’Affairs] Vicki Huddleston”, “An embassy source, as well as clandestine reporting, suggests that the bombing may have in fact been the work of the GoE security forces.” Cable reference id: #06ADDISABABA2708

At the time the western media reported the Ethiopian National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) claims that the bombs were “part of a coordinated terror attack by the OLF [Oromo Liberation Front, the oldest national liberation movement in Ethiopia] and Sha’abiya (Eritrea) aimed at disrupting democratic development”.

The Wikileaks report goes on, “a typically reliable information source, contacted Post to report that” the bodies of three men found at the bomb sites were “men [who] had been picked up by police a week prior, kept in detention and tortured. He said police then left the men in a house and detonated explosives nearby, killing 3 of them.”

This exposes the history of how the Ethiopian regime has planted bombs and then blamed Eritrea and the Ethiopian resistance. The lies that make up the official version of this alleged terrorist attack raises serious questions about the credibility of the recently released report by the UN via its US State Department affiliate, the Monitoring Group for Eritrea and Somalia which blames the Eritreans and the OLF for the January bombing attempt at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Identical lies about a nearly identical “terrorist attack”, all accepted as fact by the western media. This should also deliver another body blow to the Obama White House and its claims that Eritrea supports terrorism in the Horn of Africa.

So once again the bellowing against Eritrea by the USA and it lackeys at the UN going back to 2006 is exposed as complete bunkum and an identical frame up of Eritrean and the Oromo resistance in Ethiopia that has been regurgitated by the UN and its truth challenged Monitoring Group on Eritrea and Somalia must be subject to a more critical scrutiny. Based on this expose’ it can only be hoped that the UN inSecurity Council, which has yet to decide whether to pass severe sanctions against Eritrea, will refrain from doing so.

By Thomas C. Mountain

Thomas C. Mountain is the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached at thomascmountain at yahoo dot com.

King Mswati. Source: pigeonproject.com

In response to Swaziland’s fiscal crisis and its inability to pay for essential services such as the provision of health care, public education and salaries of civil servants, the government was grateful to receive a financial life-line from its neighbor, South Africa, early August 2011. The R2.4 billion ($350 million) loan the South African Reserve Bank granted the Central Bank of Swaziland was guaranteed by the South African government after the government of Swaziland failed to secure fresh loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) due to its failure to meet specified fiscal performance related targets.

Labor and human rights organizations in Swaziland and South Africa were however not so grateful and objected to the loan. The main concerns in this regard were that the loan will be used to maintain the current system of government in Swaziland, they were opposed to, and that there were insufficient conditions attached to the loan in order to foster democratic changes and bring about good governance in the country. There were also concerns that the loan will simply be used to maintain the lavish lifestyle of the ruling elites in Swaziland at the expense of the poor – King Mswati III of Swaziland, the last absolute monarch in Africa with 13 wives, has an estimated wealth of more than $100 million, making him one of the richest monarchs in the world. The spokesperson of the Swaziland Solidarity Network, Lucky Lukhele, described the loan as ‘a handout from a sugar daddy,’ due to personal relations between prominent South Africans and the Swazi Royal family – President Zuma was engaged to a niece of the Swazi King whilst one of the wives of the South African Zulu King, Princess Mantfombi, is his sister.

The deputy-president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), Zingiswa Losi, following her arrest and deportation from Swaziland during a pro-democracy march on September 7, 2011 in support of multi-party democracy was of the opinion that the South African loan ‘does not address the need for democratization in any serious manner,’ and the secretary general of COSATU, Zwelinzima Vavi, said the granting of the loan to Swaziland was a mistake. And in a much stronger language, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), an affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, described the loan as a ‘treacherous life-line to a reactionary regime.’

The position of the South African government was that the loan was made in order to avoid the collapse of the economy of the Kingdom of Swaziland and the consequences of such collapse for South Africa and that the loan would also help to bring about necessary democratic changes in the Swaziland. The South African ruling party – the African National Congress (ANC) – was in favor of the loan and naturally supported the position taken by the South African government.

What is of fundamental importance however, are the underlying issues and circumstances that led to the loan – the challenges for democracy and good governance under the rule of an absolute monarch – and how these will be addressed in order to avoid another life-line being thrown to the Kingdom of Swaziland and an eventual collapse of its economy.

Underlying issues behind the loan

Swaziland protests against the King. Source: royaltyinthenews.com

The effects of the 2008-2009 global economic crisis that also affected other Southern African states and the 60 percent loss of revenue from the Southern African Regional Customs Union (SACU) in particular – Swaziland’s main source of revenue – were the killer punch that forced the kingdom with its already ailing economy to turn to its neighbor for assistance.

Due to its economic challenges, the kingdom currently, as per data compiled by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), has about 69 per cent of its population living in poverty (Swazi government puts this at 63%) and 20 to 25 percent suffers from food insecurity. The country also has a high unemployment rate estimated at 25 percent according to the 2011 World Economic and Financial Survey report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Its human development index of 0.498 for 2010 is worse than that of 1990 at 0.511 as indicated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Public schools and the University of Swaziland were unable to open their doors in August 2011 due to the country’s crippling financial crisis.

The irony and concern about this turn of events is that Swaziland’s economy was doing relatively well since its independence, from the United Kingdom on September 6, 1968, until the early 1990s. Swaziland’s development indicators during its early stages were, according to the World Bank, ‘broadly on par with those of East Asia and Arab states and well above those of Southern Asia.’ The country’s economy performed better in 2000 than in 2009 and thereafter, as indicated by the World Bank. In 2000 for example, it had a 10.1 percent economic growth (GDP growth) compared to a growth of 0.4 percent in 2009; an inflation rate of 0.2 percent in 2000 and 5.5 percent in 2009 and $91 million of Foreign Direct Investment in 2000 as opposed to $66 million in 2009.

The demise of the economy of Swaziland which has seen a reversal of its developmental progress over many years is, according to the World Bank, due to ‘a combination of policy choices (especially in the areas of microeconomic fiscal policy, public expenditure management and allocation of social expenditures) and governance challenges, compounded by exogenous shocks.’ The challenges and reversals in Swaziland’s fortunes occurred under the reign of King Mswati III, who ascended to the throne on April 25, 1986.

Relation between good governance and sustainable economic development

The relationship between economic development, peace and security and good governance (democratic governance that is accountable and that allows adequate participation of citizens in public affairs) is now recognized and widely accepted.

Heads of state and government in the 2005 UN World Summit acknowledged that ‘development, peace and security and human rights (pillars of the United Nations System) are ‘interlinked, mutually reinforcing and are the foundations for collective security and well-being (paragraph 9)’. The UN Millennium Declaration of 2000 (at paragraph 13) also acknowledges that good governance is a key element in the elimination of poverty and in advancing economic and social development.

Several scholars such as Ian Bremmer (The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall), Paul Collier (The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It and Wars, Guns And Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places) and Amartya Sen (Development As Freedom) have also written and commented on this relation. Paul Collier for example, states that ‘terrible governance and policies can destroy an economy at an alarming speed’ and argues that the lack of accountability and its resultant socioeconomic conditions is one of the reasons the world’s poorest nations are still poor today.

On the relation between political pluralism – that is best attain by a multiparty political system- and responsive and accountable governance Amartya Sen in his book, Development As Freedom, correctly observed that:

Political and civil rights give people the opportunity to draw attention forcefully to general needs, and to demand appropriate public action. Governmental response to the acute suffering of people often depends on the pressure that is put on the government, and this is where the exercise of political rights (voting, criticizing, protesting and so on) can make a real difference. This is part of the instrumental role of democracy and political freedoms (at pp 150-151).

The current system of government in Swaziland, where political parties have been banned since 1978 and where the executive authority in terms of the 2005 Constitution vests in an absolute monarch who is immune from taxation, criminal and civil ligation is responsible for much of the policy choices and governance challenges referred to by the World Bank that have led to much of the country’s economic demise.

The power of the King – who is also the head of the defense force, police and correctional services – to appoint at his discretion, 20 of the 31 senators and 10 of the 76 members of the House of Assembly, makes accountability of the executive to the legislature difficult if not an impossible task.

Implications of South Africa’s loan for good governance and democracy

While the loan by South Africa is important in alleviating Swaziland’s current precarious financial situation; the main question and challenge is whether the conditions attached to South African loan will help to bring about meaningful and desired changes in the country in terms of good governance and democratic participation or, as maintained by those opposed to it, the loan will have no such effect and would instead be used to maintain the status quo including the lavish lifestyle of the King and his supporters.

The Confidence Building Measures, one of the four conditions – whose implementation by the government of Swaziland will be monitored over the five-year loan period entails measures pertaining to the promotion of democracy, good governance and respect for universal human rights and the rule of law. This condition is based on a 2004 Agreement pertaining to the establishment of a Joint Bilateral Commission for Cooperation (JBCC) between the two countries.

The difficulty with this loan condition however, is that very little was done by the government of Swaziland to honor the 2004 Agreement (JBCC) in respect of human rights, good governance and democratic participation and it is doubtful whether much has changed in this regard. The South African government, as borne by the current state of affairs in Swaziland, did nothing much since signing the Agreement.

Conclusion

The current system of government in Swaziland – rule by an absolute monarch- is not sustainable and conducive to economic and social developmental needs of the country and should be changed. The system is also not in accordance with international standards and is contrary to the objectives and guiding provisions of the Constitutive Act of the African Union pertaining to popular participation and good governance. The continued ban of political parties in Swaziland also goes against the provisions of the AU’s 2007 African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance requiring member states of the African Union to recognize the role and rights of political parties through their national laws – Swaziland signed the Charter on January 29, 2008 but has yet to ratify it.

Challenges of democracy, human rights and good governance in Swaziland if not addressed would have a far greater impact on South Africa – beyond the $350 million loan it has already agreed to extend to Swaziland – and would also affect the much needed sustainable economic development in the Southern African region as whole.

The current financial and related political challenges in Swaziland and the renewed demands by many of its citizens for changes in how the country is governed should hopefully spur the kingdom in the right direction and help it to bring about a system of government that allows for greater political pluralism through the recognition of political parties; that promotes accountability and transparency; and that is responsive to the needs and welfare of the citizens.

The South African government should also play a greater role in promoting democracy, respect for human rights and good governance in Swaziland and should ensure that the loan guarantee conditions based on the 2004 Joint Bilateral Commission for Cooperation (JBCC) agreement between the two countries are implemented.

As the country enters its 44th anniversary of independence – as it did on September 6, 2011, amidst pro-democracy protests in which t-shirts bearing the King’s picture were burnt – it stands at the cross roads and has to make a choice to either maintain the status quo or take necessary steps towards promoting good governance and democratic participation in order to ensure sustainable economic, social and political development that prevent a possible downward spiral that could eventually turn the country into another failed state.

By Tseliso Thipanyane

Tseliso Thipanyane, independent consultant on human rights, democracy and good governance and former chief executive officer of the South African Human Rights Commission. Tseliso is Director-Editorial and Marketing at AfrobeatRadio. He can be reached at tseliso@afrobeatradio.com.

Nouakchott, Mauritania: On August fourth Mauritanian anti-slavery activists staged a sit-in before a Nouakchott police station to prevent them from releasing a woman the public prosecutor had just indicted for slavery. The police intervened. Thirteen abolitionists were hospitalized and nine arrested with one sentenced to prison for “unauthorized gathering and rebellion”. The suspected slave owner has disappeared as has the young girl allegedly enslaved.

The Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement in Mauritania (IRAM) says there are still 600 thousand slaves in Mauritania, almost one in five of the country’s 3.2 million people, despite a law voted in September 2007 making slavery a criminal offense, punishable by ten years in prison. “Nothing has changed in Mauritania,” says Balla Touré, an agricultural engineer and IRAM secretary for foreign relations. “No slave owners have been jailed.”

Western diplomatic sources disagree with the figure saying the number of slaves is much lower. They do admit the government shows little enthusiasm in enforcing the 2007 law. “No cases have been successfully prosecuted under the anti-slavery law despite the fact that de facto slavery exists in Mauritania,” writes the US State Department in its 2010 Human Rights Report.

But a high ranking US Embassy official in Nouakchott tells me they received confirmation one slave owner did go to jail this year although this is not information they verified in person.

The truth is slavery continues unpunished but nobody knows the real number of slaves in the country and investigating is very difficult. The French based NGO, SOS – Esclaves, estimates “approximately 18% of the Mauritania’s population lives in slavery.”

If you wanted to investigate, you would have to go out into the desert villages. Balla Touré says you can find communities of ten thousand people where “150 are the owners and the rest are slaves.” Western embassies have told their nationals most of Mauritania is off-limits because of the danger of being kidnapped by bandits or al-Qaeda. A slave owner could easily see that a bothersome reporter was disappeared.

The government is also determined to keep slavery out of the limelight. As of this writing CNN has been waiting for over five weeks to get a visa to do a story for their modern slavery series. US Embassy efforts have not worked. CNN may have to forego a slave story on the country which is perhaps the world’s biggest slave state.

Three ethnicities and two races

Meriéme Mint Sa'ada who was born a slave is now claiming her rights and freedom with the help of SOS Esclaves. Courtesy Anti-Slavery International

The slaves and descendents of slaves are a group called the Haratine. They are of sub-Saharan origin but after centuries of servitude took on Moorish culture and language, the Hassaniya dialect of Arabic. They make up between 40% and 50% of the population. “Ninety-nine percent of them are illiterate,” says Mohamed O., the son of a former slave owning family who denies slavery is still widespread in the country.

The Haratine are Black but have little in common with Mauritania’s more educated Black Africans who make up about 30% of the population and live in the South along the Senegal River. What the two share is perhaps the poverty imposed by a regime dominated by a minority of wealthy White Moors.

But the racism goes both ways. “All those in government are slave owners,” says Salé, a Haratine militant with IRAM. “White Moors own everything,” adds Bella Touré who is not a Haratine but a Pulaar speaking Black from the south. “My condition as a Black,” he explains, “is linked to the condition of the slaves.”

Tourad, a rare educated Haratine and a teacher, insists the White Moors are attached to slavery more than anything else. “The Army, Gendarmes and Police are all led by Whites,” Touad says, “while 99% of their personnel is Black.” These figures are contested by progressive Moors who point to the occasional successful Black.” Six of the country’s 40 diplomats are Black I am told, although it does not mean they are Haratine which makes sense if less than five percent of the slave caste ever received any schooling.

IRAM, unlike the two other anti-slavery groups in the country, is made up of young, mostly Haratine, people. Their radicalization has western embassies worried that it could create political and ethnic instability. “The IRAM Chairman, Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid, said recently he “will bring down the government,” a US embassy official warned me. “This is not the language of an NGO.”

Many IRAM members were either babies or not even born in 1989 when deadly ethnic and racial violence broke out in Mauritania and almost led to armed conflict with Senegal. The 12 young men I met are angry and therefore impatient and lack the historical perspective of their elders who remember all too well the bloodshed of a generation ago. The Moor run military and police are better equipped and trained than ever thanks to the west — France and the US in particular.

Don’t rock the ‘war on terrorism’ boat

Activist Biram Oula Dah Ould Abeid. Source: rmibiladi.com

Mauritania is a major ally of the US and France in the fight against al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, AQMI, and any instability in Mauritania could hurt American efforts in the ‘War on Terrorism’. All talk of slavery in the country could push western public opinion against foreign aid to the regime of General Ould Abed Aziz who seized power in a coup d’état in 2008.

IRAM members say the government has offered them “money and jobs on numerous occasions” if they would scale back their anti-slavery activities. The US embassy encourages them to be more moderate in their actions and words. IRAM’s Chairman is even being offered a trip to the US to meet with NGOs and discuss their practices in the hopes it will help temper his language.

The situation between Black Mauritanians and White Moors is tense. “White Moors have fired 60 thousand Black workers in the past few months out of fear,” says Mohamed O., a former official with the Information Ministry. In April Moorish students and Blacks clashed at Nouakchott University over what the Blacks called “the complete Arabisation of the Administration.” The Moors want to see Arabic take over while the Blacks, who in this case are not Hassaniya speaking Haratine, are better versed in French and insist both official languages be used. The linguistic battle is just another element indicating extreme ethnic animosity.

This is the powder keg of racial and ethnic tension western diplomats do not want to see people like IRAM ignite. A racial explosion with a background of slavery could raise questions back home about the intense military cooperation Washington and Paris enjoy with the Mauritanian regime.

Mohamed O. admits there is a Haratine problem but says it is not ongoing slavery. “Nothing has been done to help the Haratine integrate society,” he says.

Corruption does not help. In August 2010, the Human Rights Commissioner, Mohamed Lemine Ould Daddeh, was fired when he was unable to reimburse nearly one million dollars that went missing. This is the amount of money set aside for the assimilation of the Haratine.

Balla Touré says in villages where slavery exists the master holds on to the voter registration cards of his ‘slaves’ and negotiates the way they will vote with the politician who offers the most favors. This, along with tribal loyalties, could explain why a candidate obtains impossibly high percentages in different regions. Such practices make a mockery of democracy in Mauritania, a country which Transparency International lists among the most corrupt in the world: n° 148 out of 178.

Meriéme Mint Hamadi was taken from her mother as a child and was forced to carry out all the domestic work for her master. Courtesy Anti-Slavery International

Those who see slavery in Mauritania as a thing of the past say what destroyed the institution was the drought of the 1970s and not the never enforced 1981 presidential decree abolishing the practice, and even less the un-enforced 2007 law. The drought wiped out the country’s livestock, litterally millions of head, and devastated agriculture. “The master became poorer than their slaves,” Mohamed O. says. The result was the slave owners abandoned their slaves and flooded into Nouakchott leaving the helpless to fend for themselves.

Those Haratine who found themselves abandoned did not fare well and many followed their masters to the city. Under slavery “the master took care of the slaves needs,” Mohamed O. says, “his food, clothing and health. All of a sudden that stopped.”

But activists deny recurrent drought ended the practice. “If slavery disappeared,” asks Moulai, a Haratine now in Nouakchott, “then who takes care of their livestock in the countryside?” Still today, they say, any child born to a slave belongs to the master, even if the former slave’s freedom was bought. In Mauritania “slavery is an inherited status,” the NGO Anti-Slavery International writes.

The situation is complicated. Many Haratine fear leaving their masters with no way to survive on their own. In the early 1970s Mohamed O. asked Maria, the slave who breast fed him and his siblings, why she did not go away and live her own life as a free person. “She grabbed her breast in her hand and said ‘I fed you from here and now that you are a big boy you want to send me away?’” The scene still brings tears to Mohamed O’s eyes today, as it did to Maria’s all those years ago.

It is not rare for people like Mohamed O. to receive phone calls about people who are in trouble and say their father or grandfather was a slave of his family’s 40 years ago. Mohamed O. feels obliged to help “people I don’t even know. I am paying for sins I never committed.”

The West is concerned about the instability Islamic guerrillas could cause in the region and they have found a willing ally in President-General Ould Abdel Aziz but they may not be seeing an even more pressing cause of instability: the anger of a generation of young Blacks left out by a small minority of Moors who own and control the country. These Blacks are becoming more vocal, more active and more radical.

By George Kazolias

George Kazolias is an American Journalist based in Paris and a Professor of Global Communications at the American University in Paris. He runs the blog kazodaily.