BS: Should we care about Africans?

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 30 May 07 - 02:29 PM

And more from the Washington Post...

A Big Enough Stick for Sudan

By Michael Gerson

Wednesday, May 30, 2007; Page A13

The greeting given to visitors at the presidential palace in Khartoum, Sudan, is an exercise in intimidation. You pass guards in white uniforms with AK-47s, walk under a pair of enormous elephant tusks, then file past a machine gun emplacement. Guests are reminded they have entered the rebuilt palace where Gen. Charles Gordon -- the British father of humanitarian interventionism -- was killed in a 19th-century Islamist uprising. The message of warning to a new generation of Western idealists is given and taken.

Immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, the regime in Khartoum, which once sheltered Osama bin Laden, was suddenly cooperative -- fearful of being visited by the fate of Afghanistan. By the time I met President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2005, the fright had worn off. The regime felt shielded from pressure by close relations with China -- its main market for oil -- and by solidarity with Arab governments. Bashir dismissed accusations of genocide in the Western province of Darfur as "legitimate defense operations" and boldly pushed for an end to American sanctions on his country.

Traveling in Darfur a few days later, I got a whirlwind tour of hell. These "defense operations" involve the use of local militias to destroy village after village, sending millions into densely populated camps. The outskirts of those camps are ruled by brutal mounted militias that use rape and murder as tools of intimidation.

During that visit, it was clear that 15,000 to 20,000 U.N. peacekeepers, armed with attack helicopters and a mandate to protect civilians, could make a difference. That mission was eventually approved by the U.N. Security Council. But leaders of the regime have obstructed the deployment of that force at every turn, fearful it might eventually be used to arrest them on charges of genocide.

Yesterday's welcome announcement by President Bush of stronger American sanctions against Sudan, and new efforts in the Security Council to internationalize those sanctions, is an attempt to break this resistance. Within the administration, most concede these actions by themselves will not be enough. But the effective use of this stick -- banks expelling Sudanese accounts worth hundreds of millions of dollars -- might make the threat of other, heftier sticks more credible in the future.

The new sanctions were opposed by the U.N. secretary general, the Chinese, the Saudis and the Egyptians, who all want "just a few more weeks" to perform diplomatic miracles. But there is also a gathering coalition for stronger action that includes the United States, Britain, Denmark, some African countries -- and now France. The new government of Nicolas Sarkozy is reviewing its Darfur policy and has signaled a willingness to join the U.N. peacekeeping force and perhaps to establish humanitarian corridors in eastern Chad.

Past the current round of sanctions, the choices become more difficult. One option is to keep sanctions in place, reengage the government and the rebels in negotiations, and wait until the conditions for a genuine peace ripen. In this view, the cost of patience is relatively low -- humanitarian conditions in the Darfur camps have actually improved recently by most measures. The cost of military confrontation could be high, if it causes the regime to expel the thousands of humanitarian aid workers who keep millions from starvation.

The problem with waiting for peace, as one administration official put it to me, is that "the regime only responds to pressure. It has no record of responding to positive moves." So the other option is to set out on a ladder of escalation that will compel acceptance of the U.N. force and the disarmament of the militias. This approach would eventually involve the threat of force by a coalition of the willing -- not invasion and occupation, but a no-fly zone and perhaps a blockade. It would also require a clear message to the regime that menacing the refugees would bring terrible consequences. The more credible this threat of force, the more likely that the regime complies without the use of force.

Given other commitments, the U.S. military has been reluctant to even plan for these contingencies. But this leads to the strangest of situations: The French may now be more willing to act against genocide in Darfur than is the Pentagon.

The choice here is far from obvious. Escalation has risks; if not done in earnest, it is better not to begin at all. America is understandably weary and distracted. But a question hangs over the history of our time: Are we too tired to oppose genocide?

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 30 May 07 - 03:44 PM

Bush seeks $30 billion for AIDS program 43 minutes ago



WASHINGTON -       President Bush urged Congress on Wednesday to authorize an additional $30 billion to fight       AIDS in Africa over five years, doubling the current U.S. commitment.

The money would provide treatment for 2.5 million people under the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, Bush said.

Through March 31, the program has supported treatment for 1.1 million people in 15 countries, including more than 1 million in Africa, he said. The program's original five-year mandate, which called for spending $15 billion, expires in September 2008 and Bush asked Congress to renew it.

"When I took office, an       HIV diagnosis in Africa's poorest communities was usually a death sentence. Parents watched their babies die needlessly because local clinics lacked effective treatments," the president said. "Once again, the generosity of the American people is one of the great untold stories of our time."

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the specific goals for the next five years — after Bush leaves office — call for treatment of 2.5 million people, prevention of more than 12 million new infections and the care of more than 12 million people, including 5 million orphans and children.

The president said the money "this money will be spent wisely," in nations where it can have the greatest possible impact and be sustainable.

Bush also announced that his wife, Laura, will visit four African countries — Zambia, Mali, Mozambique and Senegal — that have benefited from the U.S. program and report back to him on her findings. The trip will take place June 25-29.

The president's announcement comes before next week's annual summit of industrialized nations in Heiligendamm, Germany. Germany is pledging to make Africa a central issue and is calling for more aid, further debt relief and improved financial oversight.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 01:50 PM

From the CNN article on the G* conf:

"
Bush agreed, saying Thursday that the summit should stick to the priorities of climate change and aid to Africa, including the fight against HIV/AIDS. He and Merkel drew up the agenda Wednesday.

"They are not keeping their promises" to help Africa, Bono told CNN's Ed Henry in an interview Wednesday.

At the Gleneagles, Scotland, G8 Summit in 2005, boosted by the Live 8 concerts and the efforts of Bono and Geldof, world leaders agreed, at the urging of Blair, to a huge program of debt reduction for the "forgotten continent" of Africa, and massive boost in efforts to curb AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

G8 leaders in 2005 promised an extra $25 billion for Africa by 2010, according to Jamie Drummond, executive director of DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa), an advocacy organization working to eradicate poverty and AIDS in Africa.

DATA also encourages African leaders to support democracy, accountability and transparency.

Bono, a board member, has persistently lobbied the governments of the world's leading industrial democracies, which make up the G8, to keep their financial commitments.

At the end of 2006, just $2.3 billion of the $25 billion promised by G8 leaders by 2010 -- not including debt relief -- had been paid, Drummond told CNN's European Political Editor Robin Oakley.

"The G8 as a whole in 2006 did about half of the aid levels they promised -- just under half. They're planning for 2007 to do just under a third of what they promised. So there's a pattern of off-track behavior," Drummond said.

According to DATA, Britain and Japan are meeting their promises.

Canada, the United States and Germany are slipping behind, and France and Italy are at the bottom.

Bush said Thursday the United States was trying to do its part.

"I asked Congress to double our initial commitment and approve an additional $30 billion for HIV-AIDS prevention, for care, and for treatment over the next five years," he said.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 09:55 AM

From the Washington Post:

Zimbabwe's Unending Agony

By Michael Gerson
Friday, June 15, 2007; Page A21

When I talked this week with David Coltart, a Zimbabwean member of parliament and human rights lawyer, his office in Bulawayo had been without power for five hours. The central business district of Zimbabwe's second-largest city, he said, was "a ghost town," with "hardly anyone on the streets" and "signs everywhere of total economic collapse."

Four days previously the price for a liter of gasoline had been 55,000 Zimbabwean dollars; that morning, gas stations were advertising $85,000. Inflation, by conservative estimates, gallops at an annual rate of 3,700 percent. Perhaps 3 1/2 million people -- about one-fourth of the population -- have left the country in a massive drain of youth and ambition. "Land reform" has been a land grab for the ruling-party elite, which is proving that intimidation and brutality are powerless to make the corn grow. Orphans, many with signs of childhood malnutrition, have begun coming to Coltart's parliamentary office for help.

Zimbabweans have discovered with horror that their founding father, Robert Mugabe, is an abusive parent, as if George Washington had grown mad with power, expropriated Monticello and given Thomas Jefferson a good, instructive beating.

With elections for president and parliament set for next year, Mugabe can hardly run on his record. So he has kicked off the campaign season by attempting to destroy his opposition and rig the election in his favor. In March, his police crushed a protest rally and began arresting and torturing political opponents. In response to international criticism, Mugabe coolly replied, "We hope they have learned their lesson. If they have not, then they will get similar treatment." Constitutional changes are moving forward that will allow Mugabe to handpick his successor. Next week parliament will debate measures that permit the interception of e-mails and the suppression of democratic groups, with the excuse of fighting "foreign terrorism."

Mugabe, having spent a lifetime consuming his country, now seems determined to drink it to the dregs.

For years, nations in the region did nothing in response and called their silence "quiet diplomacy." More recently, those efforts have progressed from nonexistent to inadequate. After the recent round of beatings and arrests, a summit of the Southern African Development Community-- a 14-country regional organization -- appointed South African President Thabo Mbeki to mediate the political conflict in Zimbabwe. Yet the summit's participants refused to clearly criticize the regime's human rights violations. "We got full backing," boasted Mugabe. "Not even one criticized our actions."

South African diplomats tell American officials that there is no serious alternative to the regime -- that the opposition is weak and divided. But perhaps that opposition is dispirited because in March and April, 600 of its leaders were arrested or abducted, 300 hospitalized, and three killed. Any hope of "mediation" in this atmosphere is a sham. How do you sit down at the negotiating table when one side is using a truncheon on the other? The precondition for mediation is an end to beatings and torture on Mugabe's part -- and the South Africans should insist on it. They should also start considering more muscular options if Mugabe continues on his current path. South Africa has tremendous leverage if it chooses to use it. A cutoff of energy, fuel and trade could end Mugabe's regime in a matter of days.

The hesitance of many democracies to confidently promote democracy is one of the great frustrations of recent years. The South Korean government does its best to play down massive human rights abuses in the North. India and Japan do business with the brutal regime in Burma. It would be progress if South African diplomats even raised the issue of human rights in Zimbabwe and began showing the kind of moral clarity that once benefited their own cause.

In Zimbabwe, a collapsing economy, malnutrition, high rates of disease and a failing health-care system have produced some of the lowest life expectancies in the world -- 34 years for women and 37 years for men. So Mugabe, at age 83, has achieved a rare distinction in the history of tyranny -- living twice as long as his citizens are expected to live. According to Coltart, the most vivid image of Zimbabwe is found in the cemeteries, which "are filled to overflowing." "There are burials at any time of the day," he told me, "row after row of fresh dirt, with no headstones, because the poor can't afford them." "It is the way," he said, "that I imagine the Battle of the Somme."

That terrible battle during World War I lasted 142 days. Zimbabwe has suffered for years -- and the burials go on.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: Mike Miller
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 04:45 PM

The terrible truth is that atrocities occur daily throughout the world. Secterian wars are as common as religious intolerance. Life does not have the same value in every culture and, in every society, the value of life is reletive. The world has never known a time of peace. The world has never, even, known a time without some form of what we now call "ethnic cleansing". Strong nations can object, the UN can sanction, folksingers can post angry protests on Mudcat but, without armed intervention, a lot of people are going to die.
So, unless we expect the US to become the moral policemen of the world (with the resultant morasses that entails), these threads are just blowing in the wind. All they do is give the posters the illusiion of useful activity. Well, I suppose that is better than facing the hard truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 01:45 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/24/AR2007072401852.html

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: GUEST,IBO
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 07:11 AM

YES

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 07:27 PM

You missed the toxic floods in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, bb!

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 05:33 PM

I ceased caring about Africa the day that Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Aug 07 - 04:45 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070806/ap_on_re_af/liberia_rape


"Across Africa, from Sierra Leone to Sudan, rape has been a weapon of war used by militiamen, rebels and government armies. In many places, the problem has been acknowledged and even highlighted by humanitarian agencies and rights groups, but in most cases, little has been done to stop it.

The U.N. says the level of sexual violence in Congo and Burundi is "appalling," but lack of education, resources and honest justice systems made such crimes hard to curb.

Liberia stands in contrast. It has Africa's only elected female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has sought to dispel the stigma associated with sexual assault by publicly acknowledging that she was herself the victim of attempted rape during the war.

Rape was so prevalent during the civil war that many have come to see it as a petty offense compared with other atrocities common during the conflict, such as cutting off the genitals of a man or carving out his heart and eating it.

While a 4-year-old peace has brought an end to such crimes, government officials say rape remains rampant — especially of children, who are easier targets for men deprived of their weapons. Of the 658 rape victims treated since the end of the war at the capital's main rape clinic, more than half were under 12 and 85 percent were under 18, according to Medecins sans Frontieres, which runs the hospital. Several babies have been treated for rape

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 08:49 AM

10,000 Congolese Refugees Flee to Uganda

Wed Aug 22, 2007 12:11 PM EDT
world-news, refugees, congo, uganda

Katy Pownall, AP WriterKAMPALA — As many as 10,000 Congolese refugees have crossed the border into Uganda in the last two days, fleeing violence in their villages, local government officials said Wednesday.

Some of the refugees said they fled after a demonstration by villagers protesting the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to improve security in their remote southeastern Congolese territory.

Refugees told of demonstrators hurling rocks at U.N. troops, and some said they feared that the situation would deteriorate, said David Masereka, the district commissioner of Kisoro, which sits along the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"The influx began yesterday morning and continues up to now," Masereka said.

He said the refugees had gathered on the site of a primary school in the small border town of Bunagana.

"It is mostly women and children that have arrived but they came in haste and were unable to bring food. These people are already hungry but we have no supplies to give them," Masereka told The Associated Press.

Large-scale influxes of Congolese refugees into Uganda are not unusual. The mineral-rich eastern part of Congo, bordering Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, remains the most unstable area of the country. Fighting among rival militias, including groups from neighboring countries, regularly breaks out and often results in civilian casualties.

Uganda occupied part of the region during a 1998-2002 war in Congo that drew in military forces from six neighboring countries.

"We are taking these reports from local government seriously because of the large numbers of refugees involved and we have dispatched assessment teams to Kisoro," said Roberta Russo, a Uganda-based spokeswoman for the U.N.'s refugee agency. "But we suspect that as soon as the situation in Congo normalizes most will cross back to their homes."

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: Silver Slug
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 12:56 PM

I have enough to worry about with my own life to feel too much concern about what is happening to people I've never met in places of which I've barely heard. I object to my Government throwing my money at foreign countries when there is so much to put right in the UK.

Africa has to solve its own problems and the less interference there is from outside, the better.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 09:26 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho)- lewd conduct
From: Peace - PM
Date: 08 Sep 07 - 05:13 PM

Not quite.

"Classified papers show Clinton was aware of 'final solution' to eliminate Tutsis

Rory Carroll in Johannesburg
Wednesday March 31, 2004
The Guardian


President Bill Clinton's administration knew Rwanda was being engulfed by genocide in April 1994 but buried the information to justify its inaction, according to classified documents made available for the first time."

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 03:05 PM

U.N. condemns deadly Darfur attack

Story Highlights
U.N. chief Ban condemns attack, urges parties to prepare for peace talks

10 AU peacekeepers killed in Saturday's assault; 10 injured; 30 still missing

AU peacekeepers number 7,000; U.N. has OK'd 26,000 peacekeeper force

U.N. and Sudanese government have invited rebels to October peace talks


   
(CNN) -- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed outrage after rebels killed at least 10 African Union soldiers in an unprecented attack on a peacekeeping base in the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur.

An African Union spokesman told CNN the casualties were the heaviest suffered by the peacekeeping force since its deployment in 2004.

Some 30 peacekeepers were still missing from Saturday's assault on the Haskanita base and a further 10 wounded, Assana Ba told CNN.

Condemning the attack "in the strongest possible terms," Ban urged all parties to "recommit" to a peaceful resolution to the conflict and to prepare for peace talks in Libya in October.

The attack coincided with the arrival in Sudan on Sunday of Nobel laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter among a peace delegation seeking to help negotiate a lasting settlement ending the regional conflict.

The initiative is the first mission by Nelson Mandela's "Elders" group since its foundation to mark the former South African president and anti-Apartheid campaigner's 89th birthday in July.

Mandela's wife, Graca Machel, and former U.N. envoy to Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi are also among delegates.

"We have come here to the Sudan because we want to listen to the voices of those who have not been heard and want to explore ways that we can lend our own voices to peace." Tutu said at a news conference, shortly after arriving.

After meeting with government and opposition leaders in Khartoum, the delegates will head to Darfur this week before wrapping up their trip on Friday.

AU officers told The Associated Press that Saturday's attack was carried out by 1,000 rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army.

"We battled for hours, but when we ran out of ammunition, we took refuge in this ditch," a Nigerian peacekeeper who identified himself as Aboubakar told AP.

The camp where the attack took place was riddled with the marks of bullet and mortar fire and strewn with charred armoured vehicles and burnt out tents, AP reported.

Other peacekeepers appeared shocked by the scale of the assault and said the attackers had been armed with armored vehicles and rocket-propelled grenades. AU troops carrying their belongings were being evacuated by helicopter as Sudanese soldiers stood guard.

Although it was "too early to say who launched the attack," AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Said Djinnit said initial indications show the perpetrators were affiliated with one of the many rebel groups that did not sign an AU-brokered peace agreement in May 2006. Watch Djinnit talk about the attacks »

Only one rebel group signed the peace agreement which has done little to stop the fighting between government-backed militias and rebel groups estimated by the U.N. to have killed more than 200,000 people and driven about two million from their homes in the past four years.

"We are of the strong opinion here that once identified, those responsible for this attack should bear all consequences," Djinnit said.

"There must be some political and legal consequences from this deliberate attack."

A senior AU officer told AP, "There is a war going on between the rebels and the government, and the AU is crunched in the middle."

About two months ago the U.N. Security Council authorized a 26,000-member peacekeeping mission in Darfur, more than tripling the AU-led force there.

The "hybrid" force of U.N. and AU troops and police -- which will be under AU command -- is scheduled to take over for the current force by the end of the year, according to the United Nations.

The peacekeeping force, which will be known as UNAMID, will be the world's largest peacekeeping operation, according to the United Nations.

The current AU force of about 7,000 has been unable to stop the violence, and Sudan agreed to allow a bigger peacekeeping force after massive international pressure.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 05:42 PM

It's about bloody time.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: Teribus
Date: 02 Oct 07 - 12:59 AM

I believe that the UN has condemned rather a lot over the years, but done very little about any of it.

At present the places grabbing peoples attention are:
- Iran
- Sudan
- Burma

The common stumbling block in each is - China, or a combination of Russia and China. Just like the "old days" isn't it.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 02 Oct 07 - 04:07 PM

Not to worry. Not only has the UN spoken sharply about it, but the controlling figures of the world are getting photo shots there:



Carter, Tutu, other statesmen visit Darfur to promote peace

Story Highlights
Delegation also includes billionaire Richard Branson; Graca Michel, statesmen

"The elders" are promoting a political solution to the region's conflict

More than 200,000 people have been killed, 2.5 million driven from their homes

   
EL FASHER, Sudan (AP) -- A group of elder statesmen, including former President Carter and Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu, began a tour of Darfur on Tuesday to promote a political solution to the region's conflict.

The visit by the delegation of prominent international personalities comes at a crucial time -- with peace talks due to start in Libya and a U.N-African Union peacekeeping force to begin deploying later this month.

It also come days after a stunning attack in which rebels overran an African peacekeepers base in northern Darfur, killing 10 -- the deadliest assault on the force since it arrived in the region three years ago.

"We are not here on a sightseeing tour. We hope we can do something that will make a significant difference ... and bring peace," Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his fight against apartheid in South Africa, told reporters after the delegation arrived in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province.

The Nigerian ambassador to the African Union, Obioma Oparah, tried to dispel fears the weekend deaths of peacekeepers would discourage African governments from contributing troops to the joint force. Sudan has insisted that the bulk of the new force be African.

"No doubt about it, we are deeply saddened by the situation and we condemn the attack on the soldiers," said Oparah, whose country lost the greatest number of troops. But, he said, "We are determined to forge ahead. We are committed."

The delegation visiting Darfur -- called "the elders" -- is headed by Carter and Tutu and also includes billionaire Richard Branson; Graca Michel, wife of former South African Nelson Mandela; and several prominent former statesmen from Africa.

Don't Miss

U.N. condemns deadly Darfur attack
Darfur peace talks to resume in Libya
Israel to grant citizenship to some refugees

Their visit is largely symbolic, aiming to influence all sides to make peace in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven out of their homes in four years of violence.

The group met first with North Darfur governor, Youssouf Kabir, then headed to the compound of an aid camp located next to the sprawling Abu-Shok and Es-Sallam camps where 150,000 refugees who fled Darfur's violence are living.

Darfur is scene of the world's largest humanitarian effort, trying to feed those hit by the turmoil. The conflict pits the Sudanese military against ethnic African rebels who rose up against discrimination by the Arab-dominated government. To help put down the rebellion, Khartoum is accused of unleashing Arab janjaweed militias who have burned hundreds of ethnic African villages, killing and raping civilians.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Oct 07 - 03:23 PM

Washington Post:

Africa's Ocean Of Need

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, October 3, 2007; Page A23

One of the most uncomfortable and encouraging conversations I've ever had took place a few years ago at an overcrowded AIDS testing clinic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

A nurse had asked me if I wanted to meet one of the women using the clinic's services. I assumed I'd be talking to someone who'd received a negative report. Speaking through an interpreter, I discovered that the young girl sitting across from me was still waiting for the result of her test. I awkwardly assured her that I wouldn't disturb her any further. She interrupted: "A few years ago, I would never have talked to a foreigner about AIDS. But now I know that even if I'm positive, it isn't a death sentence. Three of my friends have already been tested, and I need to know."

This is one reason AIDS drugs, when they arrive, are such a miracle. Without the realistic hope of treatment, there is little motivation to be tested; most of us would prefer denial to hopeless certainty. And without AIDS testing, preventing the spread of the disease is difficult; denial increases risky sexual behavior.

More than 2 million men, women and children are getting AIDS treatment in the developing world -- up from close to zero five or six years ago. Health professionals have demonstrated, against considerable skepticism, that complex drug therapies are possible in impoverished countries. And America has taken undeniable -- even though broadly denied -- leadership in these efforts, currently providing more funding to fight AIDS in the developing world than all other nations combined.

This moral achievement is impressive until it is compared with the scale of the problem -- about 40 million people living with HIV-AIDS. In 2006, there were more than 4 million new infections, far outpacing the growth of treatment. At ground zero of the pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa, about a quarter of those who need the drugs are receiving them. Even countries that have reduced new infections, such as Uganda, are still overwhelmed by the demand for treatment. Efforts to treat AIDS have increased massively, dramatically -- and we are still losing ground.


So a debate has begun. Is the goal of universal access to AIDS treatment by 2010 -- adopted by the United Nations and the wealthy Group of Eight nations -- realistic? Will larger treatment efforts be sustainable as infections rise and resistance to cheaper, first-line drugs develops? Should more resources be shifted toward prevention instead of being "wasted" on lifelong treatment?

There is no doubt -- short of an effective AIDS vaccine -- that prevention is the long-term solution to the AIDS crisis. Some preventive measures are technological and medical -- ensuring safe blood transfusions, circumcising males to lower the risk of infection and administering drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

But AIDS prevention depends largely on changed sexual behavior, which is much more complicated than an operation or a pill. Those looking for a single, magical, preventive technique -- either condoms or abstinence -- will be disappointed. Nations that have made progress reducing HIV infection rates, such as Zambia, Rwanda and Kenya, seem to try everything at once. They have achieved delays in the onset of sexual activity, especially among girls, which argues for the promotion of abstinence among the young. They have seen declines in multiple sexual partners -- which recommends a message of faithfulness. And they have seen increases in condom use during casual sex -- which calls for the broad availability of condoms.

All these efforts deserve increased support (contrary to some angry and uninformed accusations, condom distribution by America in the developing world increased 70 percent in the first four years of President Bush's emergency AIDS plan). But can these efforts take the place of treatment? And should they be funded at its expense?

As a young woman taught me in Addis Ababa, testing is difficult to promote if AIDS is a death sentence. Treatment and prevention, in the end, cannot be separated. And the goal of universal access to treatment seems morally unavoidable. However expensive this commitment might be, there is also a cost to letting 40 million people and more die -- a cost the world should not be willing to pay.

But we also need to be realistic about the nature of this commitment. Defeating AIDS will require major new efforts in prevention. And moving toward universal treatment, according to the United Nations, will require between $32 billion and $51 billion by 2010.

America has done much -- and still we face an ocean of need.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 04 Oct 07 - 01:00 PM

Africa's fucked. We should know. We fucked it.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Oct 07 - 01:18 PM

Washington Post:

To End a Nightmare
Balancing Peace and Justice in Central Africa

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, October 17, 2007; Page A17

In Central Africa -- not uniquely, but disturbingly -- the rules of sanity are occasionally suspended.

In 1986, a priestess named Alice Lakwena, combining elements of animism with a severe reading of the Ten Commandments, led a revolt of northern Ugandans against the newly installed central government of Yoweri Museveni. Her soldiers covered themselves with vegetable oil in the belief it would protect them against bullets. The strategy wasn't effective. After the slaughter, a relative of Lakwena's named Joseph Kony took up the cause and launched a guerrilla war that eventually brought fear to three countries, took tens of thousands of lives and forced nearly 2 million people into refugee camps.

Kony's Lord's Resistance Army specialized in intimidating the people it was supposed to be liberating, cutting off ears and lips to instill fear, and abducting about 38,000 children to become soldiers and sex slaves. A recent article from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting recounts the story of one girl kidnapped at age 14: "I was dragged by my arms and put with other children who had been captured. They only wanted children." A victim named Christine was taken along with her father, who was beaten severely by the guards -- and his daughter was forced to finish his murder.

But sometimes, unexpectedly, sanity makes a comeback. In the past few years, support for the LRA has evaporated in northern Uganda as local leaders have turned increasingly to political solutions to address their grievances. Military pressure has pushed the LRA out of northern Uganda and southern Sudan and into lawless regions of northeastern Congo. An African-led peace process has produced a cease-fire. Hundreds of thousands have returned from the camps to begin rebuilding their homes and lives.

Most amazingly, Kony and his key commanders have begun to talk about demobilization and surrender. "They looked around them," says one senior State Department official, "and found everyone had moved beyond them." And this sets up one of the most dramatic legal questions since the Nuremberg trials: What does justice mean for these brutal men who "only wanted children"?

This week, the International Criminal Court, which has indicted Kony on 33 charges of murder, kidnapping, rape, mutilation and mass killing, gave an answer. The ICC chief prosecutor said: "Those warrants must be executed. There is no excuse." As a relatively new institution, the ICC feels its credibility is at stake -- along with the credibility of future ICC prosecutions in Darfur.

But according to diplomats close to the peace negotiations, these indictments are now a main obstacle to a final agreement. LRA leaders may surrender to imprisonment in Uganda; they refuse to accept a trial and punishment by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The end of the Lord's Resistance Army now depends on three commitments from the international community:

First, the ICC needs to show some flexibility. It should insist that the Ugandan legal process meet high international standards when prosecuting LRA leaders -- but it should not insist on conducting the trials itself. By statute, the ICC is supposed to intervene only when national courts are "unable" or "unwilling" to prosecute. The Ugandans are willing. But Human Rights Watch has set out some reasonable expectations for the Ugandan courts: "credible, independent and impartial investigation and prosecution; rigorous adherence in principle and practice to international fair trial standards; and penalties that are appropriate and reflect the gravity of the crimes." This means imprisonment for LRA leaders, not merely house arrest. If these expectations aren't met, the ICC should reserve the right to move forward itself.

Second, the United States will need to support reconstruction efforts in northern Uganda -- a key to genuine reconciliation. The needs and suffering of northern Ugandans have too often been ignored. This week, President Museveni launched a long-awaited reconciliation and development plan for the region. The United States has promised to support it. But currently, the Bush administration has not included any funds for this project in either the budget or the upcoming supplemental appropriation. By this retreat from responsibility, the administration is undermining a fragile peace in Central Africa.

Third, nations in the region and United Nations peacekeepers need to be ready to launch a military campaign in the Congo against the LRA if its leaders prove recalcitrant. The Congolese military is moving two battalions into the area for possible operations in January. The United States has signaled its endorsement of this operation, which makes sincere and urgent negotiation by LRA leaders more likely.

Central Africa has experienced a two-decade nightmare. With a concerted effort in the next few months, that nightmare may finally end.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 07:54 AM

U.N.: Darfur peacekeeping mission may fail

Story Highlights
U.N. says joint peacekeeping force may be unprepared to take over in Darfur

Mission depends on Sudan quickly accepting units from outside Africa

Force also requires contributing countries to offer critical equipment

More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur since fighting broke out in 2003

   
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- A joint peacekeeping force will not be prepared to take over in Darfur by the start of 2008 unless Sudan quickly accepts units from outside Africa and contributing countries offer critical equipment, a top U.N. official warned Wednesday.

Jean-Marie Guehenno said the world could face a grim choice: either delay the takeover or start the deployment with an ill-equipped force that may not be able to protect its own peacekeepers, let alone civilians.

The United Nations has already been wrangling with Sudan over the U.N.-African Union mission for over a year while the conflict in Darfur has raged. More than 200,000 people have died since fighting broke out in 2003, and the peace process suffered a setback last month when key rebels boycotted talks in Libya.

Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations, expressed frustration with Sudan for resisting critical contributions from Thailand, Nepal and Nordic countries. But he also criticized U.N. member countries for failing to offer helicopters and other equipment.


Ex-Cabinet officials to co-chair task force to prevent genocide
South Africa agrees to offer more support for Darfur force
"If those issues are not addressed very shortly, it means the mission in 2008 will not be able to make the difference that the world wants to it to make and that it may become a failure," Guehenno told reporters after briefing the Security Council.

The 26,000-member force still needs 18 transport helicopter and 6 support light helicopters crucial for sending reinforcements swiftly in emergencies, he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is in constant talks with defense ministers around the world, but has yet to receive concrete offers, Guehenno said.

"I think it tells a sad story on the commitment for Darfur, frankly," he said.

He acknowledged that Sudan's reluctance to accept contributions from outside Africa may be deterring governments from pledging help.

The joint force is to takeover from a beleaguered 7,000-member African Union mission. But Sudan has yet to approve a list of contributing countries despite concessions to its demands that the force be predominantly African.

Diplomats said the Security Council would soon reconvene to discuss what to do about the problem, but offered no indications about possible steps.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 05:15 PM

from the Washington Post:

Ghosts of Rwanda

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, November 28, 2007; Page A23

KIGALI, Rwanda -- We are used to seeing aged Holocaust survivors with faded photographs, telling their stories to remind the young and forgetful. So it is shocking to meet a 31-year-old genocide survivor with memories so fresh they bleed.

I talked to Freddy Mutanguha in a field of white crosses, near a half-finished monument to perhaps 800,000 victims of the Rwandan genocide. "My mom," he recalled, "gave money to be killed by a bullet, because she saw the machetes and knew what they would do to her. But the bullet was too expensive."

The mass violence of Hutu against Tutsi left a nation of corpses -- and a nation of stories. A young man took me on a tour of the neighborhood where he had been hunted for weeks by soldiers and informers. At one point, a friend purchased his life with the bribe of a case of beer. He hugs a woman along the dirt street, commenting as she walks away, "She lost all of her children."

A man I met in passing, I later learned, was 14 when he performed the lonely task of burying his mother, father and siblings in a grave near their home.

And the ghosts seem to gather in sacred places. At Ntarama Church, soldiers surrounded thousands of Tutsis seeking refuge, blocked the door and threw grenades inside. The walls and rafters of the dark sanctuary are covered with the clothing in which the victims were found. Light comes through the tin roof in holes from shrapnel, like constellations frozen at the hour of death.

Some things about the lead-up to the Rwandan genocide are familiar. Victims were dehumanized for years as "inyenzi" -- cockroaches -- just as the Jews of Europe were labeled vermin. Tutsi children were forced to stand up in primary-school classes to be humiliated and abused -- just as Jewish children were once treated. And children were eventually a special target of the murderers, to prevent them from growing up to perpetuate the threat -- one of the excuses the Nazis employed.


And these patterns should be familiar, because at least some of the hatred in this part of Africa has European roots. In traditional African culture, the division between Hutu and Tutsi was social and economic; intermarriage was common, and mobility between classes was possible. Then German and Belgian colonial rulers in Rwanda and other places declared this a racial divide -- measuring the skulls of Hutus and Tutsis to prove their racial theories and issuing racial ID cards.

But there are differences between the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Over time, Germany developed an impersonal machinery of death, with trains and timetables and gas chambers. In Rwanda, the violence was more intimate. Neighbors who had shared meals suddenly became informers and executioners -- adopted children turned upon their families. At one church I visited, soldiers had taken children by the legs and smashed their heads against the wall.

And this has left behind a unique challenge. In Europe, there was little need for post-genocide reconciliation because few Jews were left. Here in Rwanda, many complicit in genocide remain in their neighborhoods or return after prison sentences. For many others, the fate of parents and siblings, after 13 years, is still unknown. Potential witnesses protect the guilty, and justice is uneven. Mass graves continue to be discovered when building foundations are dug. It is difficult for Rwandans to draw grand lessons from all this -- except the need to somehow deliver the next generation from shapeless rage.

The rest of us can draw lessons of courage. A man I met who ran an orphanage saved the lives of nearly 400 children by bluffing the militias and bribing them with food. And those 400 lives mattered, even when 10,000 in the neighborhood around them were lost -- both for the lives themselves and for the affirmation of human dignity that such rescues always symbolize.

We should also draw lessons of shame. Signs of stress and pleas for help were largely ignored in 1994. The world has a poor track record of preventing mass murder, though we have gotten good at the apologies that follow.

As the Rwandan genocide began, a woman named Sifa began hiding the hunted in her home until it was full. When one more arrived, she was forced to turn her crying friend away. But then she reconsidered, saying, "Come back or your tears will judge me forever."

In Rwanda and elsewhere, the tears judge us still.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Dec 07 - 04:22 PM

Washington Post:

'A Different Kind of Genocide'

By Michael Gerson
Thursday, December 6, 2007; Page A29

WALUNGU, Congo -- This village, surrounding a small Catholic church, is as far down the red dust road as you can go without entering territory controlled by the exiled perpetrators of Rwanda's genocide. The rebels often come in civilian clothes to trade in Walungu's open-air market. At other times they raid the nearby farms for supplies and women. The region is known as "the quarter of rape."

In the shadow of the church is a facility run by Women for Women, an organization that matches international sponsors to local women in need of help. Listening to one of those women, I heard the story of a suffering nation in a single life.

Lucianne is 24, dressed in a red top and red skirt. She speaks quietly while looking downward, her hands trembling. Her eyes are staring and empty; her lovely mouth never smiles.

In December of 2005, while her husband was away on business, Hutu soldiers broke into her home, tied her arms behind her back, did the same to her sister-in-law and dragged them into the bush. The two women were marched to their family farm, where Lucianne's brother was also kidnapped. Other families were captured along the way.

"We were taken to a hill, and laid down for rape," she told me. "They gave a flashlight to my brother to hold while they were raping us. When he tried to resist, they struck him with a gun in the face. . . . We were near a stream. When one of them was finished, they washed the blood off us before the next was raped."

Afterward they were moved again. "I was unable to walk properly, and they were beating us along the way. The next morning we arrived" -- here she breaks down, then quietly continues -- "at the place where they killed my brother." She was tied to a tree. Her sister-in-law and most of the other women were taken away to be murdered.

A rebel officer decided that Lucianne would be kept as a "wife." "When I got in the house, I saw my younger sister," Lucianne recalls. "I thought she had died. She told me she was pregnant and ill.

"When I cooked, if there was more or less salt, I was put in prison, which was a hole filled with water. Once I spent three days in prison with swollen legs."

Eventually Lucianne was ordered to escort her sister to town so she could give birth. Lucianne was rescued by the wife of a government soldier, who got help for her sister at nearby Panzi Hospital-- but her sister died soon after childbirth.

Lucianne remained for treatment at Panzi. She had contracted a sexually transmitted disease and was pregnant herself. When she tried to return home, her husband had abandoned her, and her family farm had been occupied by others.

After delivering her child, she tried working on a different farm, but the soldiers came again. "I wanted to hide myself, and they told me, 'Why do you hide? You are Lucianne, and you have our baby.' " She recently saw two of her captors in the market. "Since that day I have never spent the night in the house, because of fear."

Lucianne -- who is young and lost and should be loved -- now sleeps with her child in the cassava fields near Walungu to avoid being captured again.

At Panzi Hospital, which specializes in treating rape victims, there was a long line of women waiting for treatment on the day I visited. By one estimate, 27,000 women and girls were raped in eastern Congo in 2006. The hospital has seen victims as young as 3.

Denis Mukwege, the hospital's medical director, explains that women are sometimes raped by six soldiers at a time and violated in front of their families to maximize the shame. "After the rape, sometimes they destroy their private parts," he says, "introducing firewood and guns. . . . Most people who come back from the bush come back with fistula; they smell bad and leak in their private parts." The excretory organs are no longer under control. "The idea is to destroy the entire community, so they can't procreate anymore, for the race to disappear."

"If they were shot by a gun," says Mukwege, "you would call it genocide. This is a different kind of genocide, which destroys women physically and emotionally over the years."

At the close of my interview with Lucianne, she finally looked up. "I beg you, my fathers and mothers, to help me get safety from these people."

No words of comfort came to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 01:16 AM

...What's needed is for a large oil field to be discovered under the area, That'll get the Yanks interested!

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 02:13 PM

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/sudan1103/


But with China already staking the claim, nothing will be done.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 01:59 PM

Washington Post

Stuck on Darfur

A planned peacekeeping force is stalled, two weeks before it is due
to deploy.
Sunday, December 16, 2007; Page B06


WHEN THE United Nations Security Council approved an expanded
peacekeeping force for the Darfur region of Sudan last summer, some
Western politicians may have concluded -- prematurely -- that one of
the world's worst humanitarian crises was at last going to be
relieved. If so, that's exactly what Omar Hassan al-Bashir was hoping for. Mr. Bashir, Sudan's Arab dictator, has made an art form out of confounding Western attempts to end his genocidal repression
of Darfur's African population. His pattern is to resist
international pressure until it reaches a peak. He then appears to
give in, waits until Western attention wanders and returns to
intransigence.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 02:06 PM

more...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/15/AR2007121501582.html


I can't seem to post it, so...

But given the level of interest here, I doubt if many will bother- after all, you can't blame Bush on this one...

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 05:52 PM

From that article:

"The Bush administration, which called the campaign in Darfur genocide more than three years ago, has done more than most other governments. It provides airlift for peacekeepers and is paying for the construction of their camps. U.S. helicopters might be counterproductive in Darfur even if Mr. Bashir would accept them. But the Bush administration needs to step up its efforts to see that the U.N. force is deployed in January. That means helping Mr. Ban get his aircraft and simultaneously renewing the pressure on Mr. Bashir. The cynical strongman is counting on a failure of will by NATO and the Security Council; it will take an effort by President Bush to disappoint him."

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 07:36 PM

Like I said...

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Dec 07 - 02:53 PM

Washington Post

The Choices in Darfur

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, December 19, 2007; Page A19

On a recent trip to Rwanda, I visited a humble memorial -- the bullet-marked corner of a room with 10 candles arranged in an arc on the floor. It is the site where 10 U.N. peacekeepers from Belgium were executed early in the 1994 genocide. The architects of that genocide calculated that an early atrocity against foreign troops would cause all of them to run. And run they did.

Almost 14 years later, the international community faces a different kind of test. On Jan. 1, the United Nations, in cooperation with the African Union, will take control of peacekeeping operations in the Darfur region of Sudan, where more than 200,000 are dead in a genocide and about 2 million have been forced into refugee camps.

This international intervention must succeed, or all the post-Rwanda promises of "never again" will be revealed as pious lies.

Within the Bush administration, the seriousness and steadiness of the United Nations in Darfur are hotly debated. One diplomat told me that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has pushed for rapid deployment, while other U.N. officials, such as Jean-Marie Gu¿henno, the undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations, have dragged their feet, fearful of failure.

Jane Holl Lute, the head of U.N. peacekeeping operations, dismisses such speculation as "academic." The pace of deployment, she says, is being determined by the military contributions of U.N. member states and by the attitude of Sudan's government. She points to progress -- more Rwandan and Nigerian troops on the ground, the arrival of part of a Chinese engineering unit. She also outlines a number of obstacles.

"There is still the issue with the helicopters," says Lute. The U.N. force requires 24 -- six to eight of which are supposed to be gunships. The Europeans have plenty but no interest in lending them.

The United States is pushing for contributions from China, Ukraine, Poland and South Korea, with little result. "No one other than the U.S. is helping much here," says a frustrated Bush administration official.


And ultimately, according to Lute, "if we don't have the active support of the host country, we're not going to succeed." Which means that a small circle of leaders in Khartoum must actively cooperate in extinguishing a genocide they ignited.

For years, the Sudanese regime has made broad promises of strategic cooperation, then scattered tactical obstacles at every turn. Lute reports current problems "with visas, at the ports, getting land [for bases], moving equipment, night operations."

"Every day is a struggle," she told me, "requiring constant engagement and liaison" -- meaning constant appeals to overturn lower-level obstruction.

All of this leaves the United States with limited options:

The first is just to muddle through -- to "negotiate every single day," according to one Bush official, "to negotiate every 100 boots on the ground." These gradually accumulated forces could eventually create additional leverage on the regime. And this pressure would be paired with efforts to fashion a new peace agreement -- uniting fractious, unsophisticated rebel groups; sponsoring new talks with the government; and hoping for a meaningful settlement.


A second option is increased unilateral pressure on Sudan. The last round of American sanctions was surprisingly effective, and there are many more targets. In January or February, the administration could quietly make specific demands of the regime and, if these were refused, go after additional Sudanese bank accounts or encourage the collection of Sudan's international debt.

The most difficult and controversial option is regime change. This does not mean an American invasion of Sudan, which would probably be a sun-baked disaster. Instead, it might involve a no-fly zone and a blockade of Sudan's only port, through which its oil flows for export. The message to Sudan would be clear: Fundamentally alter your behavior or change your government.

Few nations would support America in this conflict. And the risks would be considerable. The balance between northern Arabs and southern Africans in Sudan is fragile; both sides seem to be preparing for the resumption of civil war. Any American action that upsets this balance could provoke mass violence.

All of these options have flaws. Intensified negotiations might give diplomats another series of press-release victories that result in little change on the ground -- the kind of barren "progress" we have seen for years. Unilateral pressure goes only so far. Regime change is the messiest foreign policy option, fraught with unintended consequences.

But the choices in Rwanda were also flawed. Once again, the credibility of the United Nations is questioned; its troops are too few in number. Yet their deployment is perhaps the last hope for the betrayed people of Darfur. And we cannot run again.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 01:42 PM

From the Washington Post:

Kenya's Last Chance
As the country's political leaders dither, the risk of civil war is mounting.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008; Page A16

KENYA, a country that for decades has been the anchor of East Africa, is perilously close to an implosion that could destroy what until recently looked like a promising future. In the past two months, ethnic violence has killed more than 1,500 people, displaced 300,000 more and polarized the country along tribal lines. Neighborhoods of Nairobi and swaths of the western part of the country have been swept by ethnic cleansing. The economy, dependent on exports and foreign aid, is reeling, and Kenyans fear the country is close to a merciless civil war -- the "moment that the U.S. was at in 1861," as Maina Kiai of the National Commission on Human Rights put it.

Whether that can be avoided depends on two proud and powerful political leaders who have spent the last few weeks alternately negotiating and threatening each other: President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga. The trouble began after a Dec. 27 election that, in all likelihood, Mr. Kibaki stole from Mr. Odinga. Mr. Kibaki at first tried to ride out the crisis and entrench himself as president, while Mr. Odinga at first insisted that the president resign. By late last week, guided by former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan, they appeared close to a compromise under which Mr. Kibaki would remain president but Mr. Odinga would assume the new post of prime minister, with the cabinet to be shared between their two parties.

By yesterday, however, the agreement had still not been completed. Mr. Kibaki is still resisting handing over substantial powers to Mr. Odinga; in the background is the reluctance of the ethnic Kikuyu, the country's traditional elite, to yield power and economic privilege. Mr. Odinga, a member of the Luo tribe, has threatened new mass demonstrations for later this week if no agreement is reached. That could be the spark that renews the ethnic warfare now precariously on hold.

The United States, along with most of Africa, has a vital interest in preventing Kenya's destabilization. The Bush administration, which initially seemed to tilt toward Mr. Kibaki, has lately pressed for a settlement: Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that without an agreement the government would not enjoy "business as usual" with the United States. The administration now must push both sides -- but in particular Mr. Kibaki -- still harder. Even if a political accord can be reached in the coming days, Kenya will face a steep challenge to overcome its sudden polarization. But each day that the two leaders fail to reach a deal increases the chance that their country will be destroyed by civil war.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 04:14 PM

Washington Post:



An Empty Breadbasket
As an election approaches, Zimbabwe's crisis grows more acute.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008; Page A18

ONCE the "breadbasket of Africa," today's Zimbabwe is desperate. Half of the country's citizens are malnourished. They can be beaten and tortured for expressing anti-government views. The country's inflation hovers around 100,000 percent, meaning the price for a loaf of bread is comparable to what a Zimbabwean might have paid for a house just a few years ago. Yesterday, the exchange rate reached an astounding 35 million Zimbabwe dollars to a single U.S. dollar on the black market, according to Bloomberg news.

This misery results from the policies of President Robert Mugabe, a man once hailed as a liberator but who now watches from his 25-bedroom mansion while his people starve. The world has been hoping that elections scheduled for March 29 will present an opportunity for change. Mr. Mugabe's reelection, though, is all but guaranteed; he seems to be readying his old tricks of brutal voter intimidation, bribery and ballot-box stuffing. Still, the infighting within Mr. Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party -- as evidenced by a presidential challenge from Mr. Mugabe's former finance minister -- gives hope. Mr. Mugabe himself dismisses condemnations from the West, which he derides as continuing colonialism. But disenchanted fellow party members may be more amenable to persuasion, since they know the government's current policies are not sustainable. Western countries should offer financial assistance upon the condition of basic reforms, such as an end to voter intimidation, to encourage party officials unhappy with Mr. Mugabe. Even though Mr. Mugabe has said he won't allow Western countries to provide election monitors, the international community can still send representatives, accredited or not, to bear witness.

Those with the most leverage are Zimbabwe's neighbors -- South Africa and fellow members of the Southern African Development Community. For now those countries are doing precious little to help. While for historical and political reasons they may be hesitant to criticize Mr. Mugabe, whom they respect for his long-ago fight against white minority rule, these countries must realize that stabilizing Zimbabwe and protecting its people from human rights abuses are in the region's present interest. South Africa and its neighbors should pressure Mr. Mugabe to hold a fair election -- and to step down if he does not.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 May 08 - 09:45 AM

Washington Post


The Despots' Democracy

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, May 28, 2008; Page A13

"Things on the ground," e-mailed a friend from a groaning Zimbabwe, "are absolutely shocking -- systematic violence, abductions, brutal murders. Hundreds of activists hospitalized, indeed starting to go possibly into the thousands." The military, he says, is "going village by village with lists of MDC [Movement for Democratic Change] activists, identifying them and then either abducting them or beating them to a pulp, leaving them for dead."

In late April, about the time this e-mail was written, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa -- Zimbabwe's influential neighbor -- addressed a four-page letter to President Bush. Rather than coordinating strategy to end Zimbabwe's nightmare, Mbeki criticized the United States, in a text packed with exclamation points, for taking sides against President Robert Mugabe's government and disrespecting the views of the Zimbabwean people. "He said it was not our business," recalls one American official, and "to butt out, that Africa belongs to him." Adds another official, "Mbeki lost it; it was outrageous."

It is also not an aberration. South Africa has actively blocked United Nations discussions about human rights abuses in Zimbabwe -- and in Belarus, Cuba, North Korea and Uzbekistan. South Africa was the only real democracy to vote against a resolution demanding that the Burmese junta stop ethnic cleansing and free jailed dissident Aung San Suu Kyi. When Iranian nuclear proliferation was debated in the Security Council, South Africa dragged out discussions and demanded watered-down language in the resolution. South Africa opposed a resolution condemning rape and attacks on civilians in Darfur -- and rolled out the red carpet for a visit from Sudan's genocidal leader. In the General Assembly, South Africa fought against a resolution condemning the use of rape as a weapon of war because the resolution was not sufficiently anti-American.

When confronted by international human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch about their apparent indifference to all rights but their own, South African officials have responded by attacking the groups themselves -- which, they conspiratorially (and falsely) claim, are funded by "major Western powers."

There are a variety of possible explanations for this irresponsibility. Stylistically, Mbeki seems to prefer quiet diplomacy with dictators instead of confrontation. Some of his colleagues in the African National Congress (ANC) -- South Africa's ruling party -- argue that because Mbeki was an exile during apartheid instead of a prisoner or freedom fighter, he has less intuitive sympathy for prisoners and freedom fighters in other countries. South Africa clearly is attempting to league itself with China and Brazil in a new nonaligned movement -- to redress what one official calls an "imbalance of global power," meaning an excess of American power. And longtime observers of Mbeki believe that racial issues -- including Mbeki's experience of raw discrimination during the London part of his exile -- may also play a role. He lashes out whenever he believes that Westerners are telling Africans how to conduct their lives, or who their leaders should be. So for years he viewed AIDS treatment as a plot of Western pharmaceutical companies -- and now he helps shield Mugabe from global outrage.

Whatever the reasons, South Africa increasingly requires a new foreign policy category: the rogue democracy. Along with China and Russia, South Africa makes the United Nations impotent. Along with Saudi Arabia and Sudan, it undermines the global human rights movement. South Africa remains an example of freedom -- while devaluing and undermining the freedom of others. It is the product of a conscience it does not display.

Zimbabwe is the most pressing case in point -- reflecting a political argument within South Africa and a broader philosophical debate.

The labor movement within the ANC, led by Jacob Zuma, is close to the opposition MDC in Zimbabwe (which also has labor roots) and is highly critical of Mbeki's deference to Mugabe. Zuma's faction has provided planes to transport MDC leaders. The labor faction of the ANC is using the Zimbabwe crisis to argue that Mbeki is "yesterday's man" -- indifferent to the cause that gave rise to the ANC itself.

And this debate is clarifying a question across southern Africa: Did revolutionary parties in the region fight for liberation or for liberty? If merely for liberation from Western imperialism, then aging despots and oppressive ruling parties have a claim to power. But if for liberty, those who work for freedom in Zimbabwe must also have their day.

So far, South Africa -- of all places -- sides with the despots.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 07:15 AM

Washington Post

Mugabe's Roman Holiday
By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, June 3, 2008; Page A15

With an unerring sense of timing, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe arrived in Rome yesterday, thereby demonstrating the profound limitations of international diplomacy. Indeed, it's hard to think of any other single gesture that would so effectively reveal the ineffectiveness of international institutions in the conduct of human rights and food aid policy. Even someone standing atop the dome of St. Peter's, megaphone in hand, shouting, "The U.N. is useless! The E.U. is useless!" couldn't have clarified the matter more plainly.

For Mugabe is in Rome at the invitation of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, which is holding a conference on the international food crisis. He is also in Rome despite the fact that he has been formally forbidden from traveling to Europe by the European Union, which considers him persona non grata: For the past several years, he has beaten and murdered his political opponents in Zimbabwe so blatantly that even the Europeans noticed.

Nevertheless, it seems that the Italians can't prevent Mugabe from being there this week. Since the summit is a U.N. event, U.N. rules take precedence over European or Italian border rules. This is not the first time Mugabe has taken advantage of this little loophole, either: He attended a U.N. food conference in Rome in 2002, during which he stayed at a five-star hotel on the Via Veneto, sent his wife out shopping and bragged about how his "land reform" program -- i.e., the wholesale theft of land from white Zimbabwean farmers and its redistribution among political supporters -- was going to enrich his nation's food supply.


It hasn't. According to Oxfam, 80 percent of Zimbabwe's population now lives on less than $1 a day, thanks to Mugabe's policies, and lacks access to basic foods and clean water. Inflation is at 100,000 percent, this year's harvest was poor, and Zimbabweans are fleeing their country in large numbers. Meanwhile, Mugabe is notorious for using food aid as a political weapon, distributing it only to those who reliably vote for him. Thus does his presence at a U.N. food summit contain layers of troubling irony. Stephen Smith, the Australian foreign minister and one of Mugabe's more vocal critics, put it less delicately: "Robert Mugabe turning up to a conference dealing with food security or food issues is, in my view, frankly obscene."

And the timing couldn't be worse: The United Nations is still (or should be) smarting from its recent failure to persuade Burma's generals -- also notorious for using food aid as a political weapon -- to accept any outside help. As a result, a month after Cyclone Nargis hit the Burmese coast, a quarter of a million or so Burmese are still not receiving a steady supply of food and water. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon did, after much wrangling, visit Burma, and the generals did, after much stalling, agree to allow a few foreign aid workers to enter the country. But even the highest-ranking U.N. food relief official recently conceded that " urgent work remains" to be done there. Translation: The regime still refuses to let relief workers travel to the afflicted region, still refuses to let others into the country, still refuses to let foreign ships land on the coast with aid.

In fact, the root of Burma's humanitarian crisis is a political crisis. The root of Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis is a political crisis, too. But because the United Nations was never set up to deal with political crises, it can't really address these humanitarian crises either. Officially, the United Nations has to respect the decision of the Burmese government not to feed its people. Officially, it has to invite Mugabe to Rome, despite the E.U. ban. Indeed, one U.N. official justified Mugabe's presence on the grounds that the United Nations is "about inclusiveness, not exclusivity" and besides, the food issue is so serious and this week's food conference is so significant that "the rest is irrelevant."

That, of course, is nonsense: In this case it is "the rest" -- the vicious dictatorship, the manipulation of agricultural policies for political ends, the fear and violence -- that matters, not the rise in international commodity prices, the mass planting of crops for biofuels, or drought. To their credit, European leaders have tried to address "the rest" and put pressure on Mugabe by restricting his movements, shunning meetings he attends, seeking to demonstrate that his behavior is unacceptable. Though not especially effective so far, this isn't a pointless policy: Mugabe clearly cares how Europe treats him or he wouldn't go out of his way to defy its ban.

The European boycott might work better, however, if the United Nations didn't help the Zimbabwean leader flout it. Indeed, the United Nations should join it. If this really is a serious food conference, after all, then an egregious abuser of his own country's food policy has no place at the table.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Jun 08 - 08:12 AM

Police stop Zimbabwean opposition leader 8 minutes ago



HARARE, Zimbabwe - Police stopped Zimbabwe's opposition presidential candidate at a roadblock Friday and ordered him to go to a police station, another setback in a campaign to unseat Robert Mugabe that has been marred by violence and intimidation.

Reporters with the convoy heard police at the roadblock say Morgan Tsvangirai's planned rallies were illegal. He was ordered to follow police to Esigodini, a town about 30 miles southeast of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest city.

Tsvangirai's spokesman George Sibotshiwe said the candidate and other top officials entered the police station, as others in the convoy waited outside.

In a statement Friday, Tsvangirai's campaign called for his immediate release and said his detention was "yet another shameless and desperate act by the Mugabe regime" to frustrate the opposition's campaign.

Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he was not aware of Friday's incident, but said that it is not uncommon for police to stop drivers at roadblocks to ensure they are not transporting weapons.

"Tsvangirai and his convoy are not immune to search," he said. "They can be searched at any roadblock they pass."

He also said candidates had been informed they needed to inform police before holding a political rally.

On Wednesday, Tsvangirai said he was detained for nine hours at another police station near Bulawayo. Bvudzijena denied police were interfering with the opposition campaign.

Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the March 29 first round, but did not garner the 50 percent plus one vote necessary to avoid a runoff, which is scheduled for June 27.

Opposition and human rights groups accuse Mugabe of orchestrating violence to ensure he wins re-election amid growing unpopularity for his heavy-handed rule and the country's economic collapse.

On Thursday, a mob of Zimbabwe "war veterans," a group of often violent Mugabe loyalists, waylaid a convoy of American and British diplomats investigating political violence, beating a local staffer, slashing tires and threatening to burn the envoys, the U.S. Embassy said.

Mugabe frequently accuses Britain and the United States of plotting to topple him and return Zimbabwe to colonial rule.

Also Thursday, aid groups in Zimbabwe were sent a memorandum from social welfare minister Nicholas Goche ordering an indefinite suspension of field work.

Millions of Zimbabweans depend on international groups for food and other aid as the economy crumbles.

James Elder, a spokesman for the UN children's agency, said the suspension was "completely unacceptable and hugely concerning. Hundreds of thousands of children are in need of immediate assistance.

"With the onset of the winter in Zimbabwe, the timing is critical for children who are among the most vulnerable and most in need of support," Elder said.

Goche's memorandum to the United Nations and other aid groups made no mention of government claims that aid was distributed to favored recipients or opposition supporters, or that civic and human rights groups registered as voluntary organizations were campaigning against Mugabe's party.

Earlier this week, the aid organization CARE International said it had been ordered to halt operations pending an investigation of allegations it was campaigning for the opposition. CARE denies the allegation.

Mugabe has led Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980 and was once hailed as a liberator who promoted racial reconciliation and economic empowerment.

But he has been accused of clinging to power through election fraud and intimidation, and of destroying his country's economy through the seizure of white-owned farms beginning in 2000.

Discontent over the economy propelled Tsvangirai to the top in presidential voting March 29.

Tsvangirai, who lost a 2002 presidential election that independent observers said was rigged in Mugabe's favor, had only returned to Zimbabwe in late May to campaign for the runoff. He left the country soon after the March first round, and his party has said he was the target of a military assassination plot.

He has survived at least three assassination attempts. In 1997, unidentified assailants tried to throw him from a 10th-floor window.

Last year, he was hospitalized after a brutal assault by police at a prayer rally. Images seen around the world of his bruised and swollen face have come to symbolize the plight of dissenters in Zimbabwe.

Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change says at least 60 of its supporters have been slain in the past two months

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Jun 08 - 09:14 AM

Washington Post:

Africa's Messiah of Horror

By Michael Gerson
Friday, June 6, 2008; Page A19

A friend, the head of a major aid organization, tells how his workers in eastern Congo a few years ago chanced upon a group of shell-shocked women and children in the bush. A militia had kidnapped a number of families and forced the women to kill their husbands with machetes, under the threat that their sons and daughters would be murdered if they refused. Afterward the women were raped by more than 100 soldiers; the children were spectators at their own private genocide.

This is ultimately the work and trademark of a single man: Joseph Kony, the most carnivorous killer since Idi Amin. As the military and spiritual leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Kony is a combination of serial murderer and cult leader. He raises armies of captured boys, who are often forced to kill their neighbors and engage in cannibalism to sever all their ties of community and conscience. Girls are kidnapped into sexual and domestic slavery. Kony has a messiah complex -- all must prostrate themselves in his presence -- but he is a messiah in reverse, who sheds his humanity instead of assuming it.

After a decade-long campaign of intimidation in northern Uganda that displaced more than 1.5 million people into camps, Kony finally seemed to be cornered and running out of options. With his forces chased into Garamba National Park in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kony's emissaries entered peace talks two years ago and promised demobilization.


A peace agreement ceremony was set for April 10 in the Sudanese town of Ri-Kwangba near the Congo border. Hundreds of delegates, journalists and observers arrived. But after a series of confused excuses -- too many people, not enough security -- it became clear that Kony had no intention of showing up or giving up. "The people speaking for Kony, it turned out, weren't speaking for Kony at all," says a frustrated U.S. official.

In fact, Kony has used the peace-negotiation lull to rebuild his power. He has issued orders to abduct 1,000 new "recruits" from Congo, the Central African Republic and south Sudan. Since late February, he has begun training between 200 and 300 kidnapped children at a camp in northeastern Congo. Agents of the LRA in the region have supplied satellite phones, tents, generators and uniforms. LRA forces have dug up weapons caches, attacked barracks in south Sudan to obtain weapons, and established at least six new bases along the Sudanese border.

All this makes Kony more than a moral menace; he is a regional threat. The government of Sudan -- the author of the Darfur genocide -- has historical ties to the LRA, which Khartoum once used as a proxy to fight Uganda's government. According to some reports, those contacts between the Sudanese regime and the LRA have now resumed. After last month's unsuccessful attack by Darfur rebels on Khartoum, Sudan's capital, the regime may again be looking for a proxy to engage its enemies -- this time in Darfur or neighboring Chad. In this part of Africa, there is a market for useful thugs -- and Kony is a particularly effective one.

What should be done?

First, the U.S. State Department needs to finally put Kony on its terrorism list. He deserves that designation by any definition -- including the narrow standard of threatening the lives of Americans in the past. This designation would give the president more latitude in tracking the threat from Kony, and eventually dealing with it. The executive decision to define Kony as a terrorist has been made, but it has been held up by State Department bureaucracy.

Second, American defense and intelligence officials will need to be tasked with keeping close tabs on Kony's whereabouts. If he begins to move north to interfere in Sudan or returns to the killing fields of northern Uganda, America needs to know.

Third, the time has arrived for those countries with stakes in the region -- Congo, Uganda, the Central African Republic, Britain, France and America -- to deal with Kony himself. A report by Enough, a project of the International Crisis Group and the Center for American Progress, calls for a "military strategy to apprehend Kony and disband the rest of the LRA." It is overdue.

We are seeing the second coming -- surrounded by an army of children and trailing clouds of death -- of Joseph Kony. If this is not a cause for horror -- and a justified cause for international action -- it is difficult to imagine what would be.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Jun 08 - 11:26 AM

Zimbabwe aid ban 'puts millions at risk'

Story Highlights
Zimbabwe orders aid groups to stop field work

Government accuses aid group of political campaigning

Diplomats safe after threats from security forces, U.S. and UK say

Opposition leader MorganTsvangirai arrested for second time this week

   
(CNN) -- Millions of people in Zimbabwe already facing economic hardship and hunger are being put at risk by a government ban on relief organizations, the United Nations warned Friday, saying it would urge a lifting of restrictions.


Robert Mugabe's supporters are accused of mounting a campaign of intimidation and violence.

Agostinho Zacarias, the U.N.'s top humanitarian coodinator in Zimbabwe said he planned to meet with authorities to ask them to let aid agencies resume providing food, clean water, medical care and other services.

"This decision is likely to affect millions of people," he said.

In another development Friday, Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested for the second time this week, his spokesman said.

Zimbabwe imposed the aid agency ban Thursday, accusing international aid groups of political meddling ahead of a June 27 runoff election that opposition groups say long-time President Robert Mugabe is trying to rig through intimidation.

Bright Motonga, deputy information minister for Zimbabwe, accused several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of telling people they would not receive food unless they voted for an opposition presidential candidate.

Agencies must re-register with the government and state their purpose clearly to continue working in Zimbabwe, he said, and the government hopes that happens soon.

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Kenneth Walker, a spokesman for the aid agency CARE, told CNN on Friday that the government's action has sowed confusion.

"All the NGOs are in the dark. They have no idea what this letter means. They have no idea how long it's going to last," he said.

"There's some serious concern about the impact on the millions of Zimbabweans who now won't be receiving food aid, clean water and sanitation facilities, help with agriculture and a wide variety of other services that the NGOs provide."

Henrietta Fore, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, urged the government of Zimbabwe Thursday to "lift the suspension on all international aid agencies involved in humanitarian work in the country."

Fore told CNN that the "suspension is a direct threat to the lives and well-being of tens of thousands of innocent people in Zimbabwe."

In another development on Thursday, a convoy of U.S. and British diplomats was halted by Mugabe supporters and threatened with violence in what both countries have condemned as a major breach of diplomatic protocol. Watch condemnation over diplomatic detentions »

U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee said the British and American vehicles were halted at a roadblock, where Mugabe supporters slashed their tires and threatened to burn the vehicles with the diplomats inside.

Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga denied McGee's claims, insisting the diplomats were detained after trying to flee police at a roadblock.

The alleged incident, which ended with the release of the unharmed envoys, will be seen as the latest in a long line of efforts by Mugabe's regime to antagonize international critics -- particularly the country's British former colonial rulers.

And threats aimed at what McGee said was a mission to check on election-linked violence will do little to ease concerns over the June 27 vote, despite claims by Mugabe that he will end his three-decade rule if he loses.

Opposition politicians, led by Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change party, insist they won an initial round of voting in March and say Mugabe supporters are intimidating voters ahead of the runoff election.

In the latest incident on Friday, Tsvangirai was stopped at a roadblock and taken to a police station as he was on his way to a regularly scheduled rally, his spokesman, George Sibotshiwe said. He was released after two-and-a-half hours.

"We've noticed that it's going to be a common trend in this campaign and obviously the government and Robert Mugabe are trying to prevent [Tsvangirai] from going about his campaign freely and peacefully," Sibotshiwe said.

He said that unless the African Union deploys peacekeepers to the country, "campaigning in Zimbabwe is now virtually impossible."

" What I can convey is that since this morning we have had 10 or 11 central intelligence organization vehicles following us everywhere. There was heavy intimidation with armed military people following us everywhere as well and they basically pushed the president up to this roadblock before arresting him."

Sibotshiwe said there were no grounds for the arrest.

"The way they work here is they don't give you any reason," he said. Obviously, there is no charge."

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 08:36 AM

Rights group calls for intervention in Zimbabwe

By DONNA BRYSON, Associated Press Writer
27 minutes ago



JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - With just three weeks until a presidential runoff, a leading human rights organization said Monday that the African Union must push longtime Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe to end political violence.
The 14-nation Southern African Development Community appointed South African President Thabo Mbeki to mediate between Mugabe and the opposition, but those efforts have "not borne any fruit," said Human Rights Watch researcher Tiseke Kasambala.

In its report, HRW said it had documented 36 deaths and more than 2,000 injuries at the hands of Mugabe party militants backed by the police and army, but that the real figures may be much higher.

The rights group also said hospitals had been told not to treat victims, scores of opposition activists had been arrested, and homes and businesses of opposition supporters had been looted.

"There's no way a credible runoff can take place unless there are drastic improvements in the remaining weeks," Kasambala, who prepared Monday's report, said in a telephone interview from London.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat Mugabe and two other candidates in the first round of voting March 29, but did not win the 50 percent plus one vote necessary to avoid a runoff, scheduled for June 27.

Tsvangirai's party, foreign diplomats in Zimbabwe, and Zimbabwean and international human rights groups accuse Mugabe of unleashing violence against the opposition to ensure Mugabe wins the runoff. Zimbabwean government and party spokesmen have repeatedly denied such allegations.

The current SADC chairman said there were few options for finding a solution. Zambian Information Minister George Mulongoti predicted the need for mediation would continue after the runoff.

Tsvangirai has called on Mbeki to step aside, saying the South African leader's quiet style of diplomacy has been ineffective and questioning whether Mbeki is biased toward Mugabe.

Mukoni Ratshitanga, a spokesman for Mbeki, said Monday that South Africans "remain seized of the matter, together with the rest of SADC and the rest of the continent."

Mulongoti, the Zambian official, said: "The difficult thing is that Zimbabwe is a sovereign state." He said all fellow Africans could do was "advise" Mugabe.

Whatever the results of the runoff, Mulongoti said it was unlikely they would be endorsed by both sides. Mediation then would be aimed at finding "some transitional arrangements," possibly a unity government, he said.

Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, was lauded early in his rule for campaigning for racial reconciliation and building the economy. But in recent years, he has been accused of holding onto power through fraud and intimidation, and trampling on political and human rights.

Zimbabwe's collapsing economy was a major concern of voters during the first round of voting. People are going hungry in what was once the region's breadbasket, with the world's highest inflation rate putting staples out of reach.

The country's economic decline has been blamed on the collapse of the key agriculture sector after the seizures — often violent and at Mugabe's orders — of farmland from whites. Mugabe claimed the seizures begun in 2002 were to benefit poor blacks, but many of the farms went to his loyalists.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 03:36 PM

Africa's Food Crisis Opportunity
By Josh Ruxin
Thursday, July 3, 2008; Page A17

KIGALI, Rwanda -- Every time Americans buy groceries, we feel the crisis in food prices. But while inflation presents discomfort in the United States, it is causing dire hardship elsewhere. In many of the world's poorest communities, food prices have become an obstacle to survival. Yet rapidly rising prices -- which are hurting the 73 million people fed each day by the World Food Program and the hundreds of millions who work for low wages in cities -- may also create an opportunity: the first chance in years for the world's poorest farmers to climb out of poverty.

More than a billion people around the world eke out an existence on less than a dollar per day. Most people here in Rwanda fall into that category. But since they rely on themselves for food production and are too poor to afford fertilizer, tractors or advanced seeds, they are insulated from price spikes. For years, working as a farmhand in Rwanda meant slow starvation. Yet with basic food items now priced too high for the average person to afford, local production of food is more attractive, meaning that farmworkers are better able to maintain a living wage.

Since 1850, commodity prices have declined steadily. Coffee, maize and even oil have all become cheaper -- until recently. The surge in fuel prices has, ironically, driven up demand for corn-based ethanol. And, while biofuels won't lessen the need for crude oil, at least not yet, the resulting corn shortage has forced food prices higher.


In Africa, the crisis is imparting sharp lessons. Freer, more democratic nations with better economic policies appear more immune to the spike in food prices. Meanwhile, less-open countries have employed anachronistic policies of subsidies and tariffs, exacerbating market fluctuations. It's no coincidence that Nigeria and Ethiopia have experienced rioting while Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania have been relatively calm.

Asian countries that are becoming industrial economies are in the toughest spot: Low-wage factory workers' situations are less elastic, leaving those workers more hard-pressed when the prices of common household goods rise. But subsistence-level farmers who are not reliant on expensive fertilizer or oil-fueled machinery can sell their excess produce at higher prices, which are still less than prices for food that might be trucked or flown in. The resulting boomlet benefits sub-Saharan Africa's small farmers, who cultivate, on average, less than 2 1/2 acres and who can, with appropriate assistance, expand their production to meet increasing demand. It's also possible that a local agricultural renaissance may attract some of the world's urban poor back to the countryside to cultivate fallow land and earn decent wages.

A report released in April by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization confirmed that farmers worldwide would benefit from reducing their dependency on fossil fuels and adopting practices that help protect their environments. This means reducing the amount of fossil fuel used for cultivation, as well as transported fertilizers and pesticides, in favor of locally available resources. To be sure, inputs such as fertilizer can tremendously boost poor farmers' productivity and earnings in the short term. A colleague from Nigeria wrote to me this spring saying that while the cost of fertilizer had increased by 50 percent, the selling price of corn was up by 100 percent. In other words, those productive small farmers who had had access to the increased capital required to obtain fertilizer had doubled their income in a year. Other key areas of productivity investment for poor farmers in which donor governments would do well to invest include advanced seeds, technical assistance for terracing and irrigation, and diversification into higher-value crops that are less likely to be influenced by fluctuations in international commodities markets.

It has taken Americans decades to warm to the common sense of producing and consuming locally. Fortunately, the trend may catch on more quickly in the world's poorest countries. Many have argued for an African "green revolution": better farming practices and greater productivity through larger investment in smallholder farms. The timing could scarcely be better for following up on these opportunities. We should also resist the temptation to apply traditional fire-control responses to counter rising food prices, responses such as expanding subsidies or protecting markets. Investing in the poor today may enable many to make the transition out of poverty that has been so elusive for decades. If smallholder farmers can increase their income in real terms for the first time in 50 years, aided by improvements in health and education, they may manage to claw their way out of poverty, as many in Southeast Asia have done.

In the coming months, many will need food relief, but many more will benefit from investments in farm cooperatives and small farms. These investments will help to maintain progress, support stability, and, most important, help the world's poor feed themselves and their neighbors.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jul 08 - 02:00 PM

Worth reading: Zimbabwe youth militias hold sex slaves


The Los Angeles Times interviewed a 21-year-old woman who says she is being held as a sex slave by youth militias loyal to President Robert Mugabe.

The story, which is based on anonymous sources, says she was seized 10 weeks ago because her mother supports the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

"She has to stay most of each day and night at the base, a sex slave of the thuggish youth militias unleashed by the government. The Times interviewed her during one of the several short daily periods she is allowed to leave the ZANU-PF base," the paper says. "When asked why she doesn't escape during that time, Asiatu gives a chilling explanation: 'They promised me if I run away, my mother will be killed.'"

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: GUEST,Greycap
Date: 08 Jul 08 - 01:27 PM

This seems to just be the 'beardedbruce' slot. I'm outa here.Time to go, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 05:25 AM

Diplomats: Zimbabwe talks to get under way

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 10 minutes ago



PRETORIA, South Africa - Diplomats say talks between Zimbabwe's ruling and opposition parties will soon get under way in South Africa's capital.

Tuesday's talks in Pretoria come a day after President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai agreed on the conditions to meeting. The talks aim to set up a power-sharing deal to end their country's crisis after a violent, widely condemned presidential runoff in June.

The diplomats say the negotiations will kick off with only mediators. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of angering their sources.

Parties to the Zimbabwean agreement have given themselves two weeks to complete negotiations. And they have signed a clause promising not to communicate about them with the media.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 05:27 AM

Papering over the cracks in Zimbabwe

The push for Mugabe and Tsvangirai to reach a political deal must not overlook the root causes of violence in the country

Blessing-Miles Tendi guardian.co.uk, Monday July 21, 2008


Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF party and Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party are reportedly close to signing a deal setting out a framework for talks on the country's political crisis. A political stalemate exists between both sides over the legitimacy of last month's violent one-man presidential election runoff won by Mugabe. The move towards the beginning of talks has been welcomed in some quarters with Zimbabwe's leading labour group, the ZCTU, calling for the talks to be conducted swiftly because "the economy is in bad shape". Tsvangirai is reported to be in favour of pressing ahead with negotiations on the grounds that "the people have suffered enough". This emerging rush to reach a power-sharing deal between Zimbabwe's contending political parties risks papering over the need to address the country's enduring legacies of violence, impunity and pseudo-reconciliation.

Zimbabwe experienced one of the most bloody and bitterly fought wars against colonialism in Africa. There were untold human rights violations on both sides but these were never addressed because of an independence settlement reached at Lancaster House that did not lay a constructive foundation for nation-building. Systematic racial discrimination was the pillar of white domination in the colonial years but its negative legacies were not tackled post-independence. Race relations remained problematic from 1980 but the subject was never taken seriously and some even romanticised independent Zimbabwe's so-called racial reconciliation.

The British-sponsored, short-sighted Lancaster House agreement was more intent on appeasing and protecting the white minority's privileges than it was long-term nation building. The Lancaster House agreement left white Zimbabweans susceptible to envy and resentment by a majority black population that understood white dominance in terms of unresolved colonial legacies, fertile earth for demagogues attempting to rouse nationalist sentiment. Mugabe had preferred a total military victory over the white-settler government. His eventual resort to reconciliation was expedient. The language of racial reconciliation bought western acceptance for his government, which many had feared would espouse communism and disregard private property rights by nationalising white-owned assets. These unresolved legacies are part of the seed for the violent anti-white farm seizures that erupted in 2000.

The early independence emphasis on racial reconciliation resulted in the neglect of the need for meaningful reconciliation within the black population. Little surprise that in the early 1980s Mugabe ordered a campaign of violence aimed at crushing the Matabeleland province's allegiance to ZAPU, a rival black nationalist party to Mugabe's Zanu-PF. Up to 20,000 lives were lost. There is no existing official explanation for the atrocities and the victims have been disallowed the right to articulate their victim-hood publicly.

There have been other violent episodes in Zimbabwe's independence period history, all of which are unaccounted for officially, nor has any form of justice been served. In 1980, hundreds of Zimbabwean strikers were arrested and others killed during state repression of massive strikes mostly against multi-national corporations. In popular riots against the Zanu-PF government over increases in the price of basic commodities in 1998, Zimbabwe's military forces, equipped with live ammunition, guns, teargas, baton sticks and armoured vehicles, were deployed in the townships to suppress the unrest. Mass violence, beatings, intimidation and looting ensued for three days. Uncounted deaths, injuries and arrests transpired. In 2005, the Mugabe government carried out Operation Murambatsvina – a nationwide "urban clean-up" – in which more than 569,000 Zimbabweans lost their homes in evictions which, according to a UN report (pdf) "took place before alternatives could be provided, thereby violating human rights and several provisions of national and international law".

The disturbing violence and human rights abuses witnessed in Zimbabwe's presidential election runoff have some of their roots in the country's unresolved legacies of impunity, intolerance and the primacy of a coercive state. The current diplomatic push to reach a political deal in Zimbabwe must not overlook the pertinence of resolving these negative legacies once and for all. If they are disregarded, as they were at Lancaster House and throughout the post-independence period, Zimbabwe will experience more violent occurrences in future – and the international media, concerned states, and international and regional bodies will once again look on helplessly wondering, "how can such violence be happening?"

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 05:28 AM

Somewhere in Africa - McClatchy Newspapers
Buying time - and little else - in Zimbabwe

Posted by Shashank

Mon Jul 21, 5:47 AM ET


Word comes today that Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai are ready to start negotiations over last month's universally condemned election in Zimbabwe. The BBC says the two sides "are close to signing a deal outlining a framework for talks." This, for Zimbabwe, qualifies as a breakthrough, although I wouldn't be too quick with the champagne.

It's been four weeks since Tsvangirai pulled out of the election due to violence against his supporters. Despite world furor over his tactics and leadership, Mugabe -- with help from friends in South Africa, Russia and China -- has hung on long enough since the vote that nothing short of a miracle will overturn June's election result, however flawed.

Mugabe's goal all along appears to have been to buy time, wait for Zimbabwe to fade from world headlines and then negotiate from a position of strength. Obvious enough if you have no intention of leaving office, but there may also be a financial imperative. As reported Friday by the always-excellent Africa Confidential, a London-based journal, ruling-party officials since the election have quietly been socking millions of dollars away in offshore bank accounts in South Africa, Namibia, China, Malaysia and elsewhere.

Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono and other Mugabe cronies are laundering money through Zimbabwean companies with links to reputable institutions in the UK and South Africa, and then shifting it to more opaque destinations "to avoid the threat of tightening sanctions and the possibility of financial scrutiny by a power-sharing government," AC writes.

It is this outflow of capital that is more than anything else destroying Zimbabwe's economy. Zimbabwe's capital exporters have intensified their operations as political and economic conditions have deteriorated, promoting a cycle of decline.

No coincidence, then, that today Gono's Reserve Bank rolled out Zimbabwe's latest ridiculous bank note: the 100-billion-dollar bill, which, as of this writing, is worth about 2 U.S. dollars. Spend it now, because it could be worth less than a single greenback by the weekend.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: Teribus
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 06:03 AM

"Word comes today that Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai are ready to start negotiations over last month's universally condemned election in Zimbabwe. The BBC says the two sides "are close to signing a deal outlining a framework for talks." This, for Zimbabwe, qualifies as a breakthrough, although I wouldn't be too quick with the champagne."

Neither would I, and I would strongly recommend that Morgan Tsvangirai take a good look at what happened to Robert Mugabe's last "political partner" and his supporters - Joshua Nkomo, remember him?

Anybody that thinks that Zimbabwe's woes will disappear when Mugabe dies is dreaming. All Morgan Tsvangirai will be doing in aligning himself with Mugabe's ilegitimate regime is ensuring that MDC share Mugabe's guilt in what he has done to the country.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 11:21 AM

Washington Post

Zimbabwe's Talks

Robert Mugabe's campaign to stay in power continues by other means.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008; Page A16

NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN Zimbabwe's government and opposition broke off yesterday four days after they began, which should have surprised no one who has followed Robert Mugabe's brutal and uncompromising campaign to remain in power. Since the 84-year-old strongman lost a presidential election March 29, his thugs have murdered at least 120 people, including some who were tortured before they died. Villages suspected of supporting the opposition have been looted and burned, and humanitarian groups have been prohibited from distributing food. In agreeing to two weeks of talks, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai obtained a commitment that the violence would end and won the involvement of international mediators who could help ensure that the peace was kept. But even that has not stopped the rampage of government goons in the countryside.

The talks stopped at a predictable point: Mr. Mugabe is refusing to yield power and instead seeks to manipulate Mr. Tsvangirai into accepting a subordinate position in the regime. In that aim, Mr. Mugabe is abetted by the chief broker of the talks, South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has dedicated the waning months of his own tarnished administration to propping up one of Africa's most heinous rulers. With the help of dictator-loving Russia and China, Mr. Mbeki managed to block the U.N. Security Council from approving new sanctions against Mr. Mugabe's government this month. The two cronies no doubt hope they can use the negotiations to further deflect international pressure; if they can co-opt Mr. Tsvangirai, they will have an argument for lifting the Western sanctions now directed at the regime.


Neither Mr. Tsvangirai nor Western governments should allow such a maneuver. The only acceptable outcome of Zimbabwe's political bargaining -- if it resumes -- is a transition to Mr. Mugabe's retirement, the removal of the criminal clique that supports him and the staging of fresh democratic elections. The opposition already has offered to spare Mr. Mugabe and others from prosecution; they could also be allowed to keep some of the assets they have stolen. But until Mr. Mugabe leaves office, the campaign to punish and isolate his regime should continue. The Bush administration and European Union sent the right message last week by approving new sanctions directed at the Mugabe clique. If the suspension of the talks continues, or if the talks fail to produce results in the original two-week time frame, the United States should reopen the debate at the Security Council.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 11:46 AM

I agree.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 01:22 PM

U.N.: Almost 10 million Ethiopians need food aid


Story Highlights
Ethiopia in the grip of worst drought in five years

Number of people needing emergency food aid has doubled, U.N. official says

9.6 million need emergency food, up from 4.6 million in June, U.N. says

   
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- A U.N. official says the number of Ethiopians needing emergency food aid has more than doubled.

World Food Program spokesman Barry Came says 9.6 million people need emergency food. This is more than twice the estimate of 4.6 million people released in June.

Came says the rise in Ethiopians needing food aid includes people not accounted for in previous assessments.

He said Monday that the increase comprises about 2 million residents of Ethiopia's southeastern Somali region. The figure also includes 3.2 million people who had been covered by a plan intended to stave off chronic food shortages but now need emergency food aid.

Aid workers say this year's drought is the worst since 2003.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: GUEST,Dandy in Aspic
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 01:54 PM

A very firm NO.

They have elected governments that seem to be able to buy weapons and armoured cars and maintain an army. Yet when it comes to feeding and caring for THEIR OWN PEOPLE they look towards America and Britain the two soft touches to load up planes and send out the weeks shopping.

If they wish to hold tribal fights good luck to them. I recently watched a programme in which they used rubber tyres filled with petrol on eachother, it was barbaric. Machete rule is still the order of the day out there. And many wonder where the 300% increase in knife crime in London comes from !

It en't our problem, and if any of you think you have the solution for it I would love to hear it. Throwing food and money hasn't worked, America or Britain will not be going in with guns blazing. Failed actors or singers going our and singing love songs full of dope and hugging sick babies hasn't worked either.

Dandy in Aspic

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Africans?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jan 09 - 08:17 AM

shhhh...

They are not being hurt by Jews, so it must be ok.