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in Tunisia

Tunisia: Protecting Ben Ali’s Feminist Legacy

by Think Africa January 31, 2013, 11:45 am 288 Views

State feminism prospered under the authoritarian rule of Bourguiba and Ben Ali. What are the prospects for women’s rights following the 2011 revolution?

By Maaike Voorhoeve

Is the writing on the wall for women’s rights? A poster of Ben Ali on the side of a building in Tunisia? Photograph by Stewart Morris.

Ever since independence from colonial rule, emancipation and feminist measures have been crucial elements of Tunisian politics. The most famous example of this is the Tunisian Personal Status Code, which regulates issues pertaining to marriage, divorce and inheritance. And unlike reforms in other countries in the region, the code deviates significantly from certain Islamic legal traditions such as polygamy, child marriage, forced marriage and repudiation.

However, debates on what the ‘new’ Tunisia should look like following the revolution of January 14, 2011, have called some of these gains for women’s rights into question. What, then, will be the lasting legacy of these advances that were made under the authoritarian regimes of Habib Bourguiba (1956-1987) and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (1987-2011) and what are the prospects moving forward?

Le féminisme Bourguibien (1956-1987)

Directly after Tunisia’s independence in 1956, the president of the new Tunisian Republic, Bourguiba, issued a personal status code (PSC). As a result, the influence of Islamic law in this domain was ended or at least curtailed, and a (comparatively) more egalitarian family hierarchy was established in law. This code was then, and still is, famous within the Muslim world and beyond for its abolition (or re-interpretation) of classical Islamic precepts. For example, to this day, Tunisia is the only member of the Arab League that expressly prohibits polygamy and allows equal rights in divorce for men and women.

In the years that followed, other codes were issued that aimed at women’s emancipation. In 1959, Tunisia proclaimed a constitution that protected this equality principle, and measures were taken to enhance female participation in society: women were granted active and passive voting rights (1957), an effective programme of family planning was introduced, and women were granted a right to education (1980). In 1985, Tunisia ratified the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which, on the basis of the constitution, prevails over Tunisian national law. These measures are collectively termed le féminisme Bourguibien.

Ben Ali continues feminist policies (1987-2011)

When Ben Ali came to power in 1987, he continued Bourguiba’s feminist politics, and even enhanced several measures issued by his predecessor.

Within the PSC, even if this code was comparatively women-friendly, it did provide that the wife should obey her husband. Under Ben Ali, this principle was replaced by a more ambiguous phrase, stating that the husband is the ‘head of the family’ (1993). Other changes were more clear cut – the minimum age for marriage, which under Bourguiba was set at 15 years for girls and 17 years for boys, was raised to 18 for boys and girls alike (2007).

Ben Ali equally took a number of measures to improve the situation of divorced women. The first concerned financial maintenance after divorce: although the PSC was the only family code in the region obliging the man to pay maintenance to his ex-wife upon divorce, this was often not enforced in practice. In order to improve this situation, Ben Ali created a state fund to secure maintenance payments to the mother and her children (1993).

The second measure related to the nationality code, which allowed women to pass on their nationality to their children. This was crucial in preventing women who had married a foreigner losing custody upon divorce, on the grounds that the child had a foreign nationality (1993).

The third measure provided that couples could choose to enter into marriage with a joint ownership of all their possessions – something that ran against the prevailing practice where spouses did not share any goods, even if they were acquired during the course of marriage. This shared “community of goods” could prevent women who did not earn a living during their marriage from ending up destitute after divorce (1998). Fourth, a mother who has custody over her children obtained the right to stay in the marital home after divorce (2008), even if it belonged to the father.

Besides the rights within the family, Ben Ali extended women’s civil, political and social rights from education and political participation to participation in the labour market. An article was inserted in the Civil Code providing for equality in chances and treatment in matters of work and profession (1993), and in 2000, the provision that women need their husband’s consent to sign a labour contract was abrogated. Both measures showed an acute understanding that women formed a significant portion of the national work force, and reflected not only increasing rights, but also increasing duties for women.

These ‘feminist’ laws were often applauded by the international community, and positioned Tunisia at the forefront of progressive gender laws in the region. They were, however, generally the fruit of authoritarian rule.

State feminism

These feminist laws and policies were almost exclusively a product of top-down impositions, laws made from above, described by the term ‘state feminism’. Those issued before 1959, such as the PSC, were imposed by President Bourguiba, since the Republic did not yet have a constitution that secured a separation of powers. The laws issued after 1959 were equally authoritarian: despite a formal separation of powers, Tunisia was governed by one ruling party, and the president had virtually unlimited legislative powers.

This context has led Tunisian intellectual Kmar Bendana to characterise the Tunisian feminist politics as ‘paternalistic’, aimed at ‘educating the people’. Bourguiba especially, is often associated with being Tunisia’s ‘father’, who knew what was best for his people.

The term ‘state feminism’ is defined by Tunisian feminist Sana Ben Achour as follows: It designs “the state’s will to accelerate the process of equality between the sexes and is employed … to distinguish between feminism as a social movement, driven by women’s collective claim for equality and social change on the one hand, and feminism as a doctrine and politics from the state”. The concept of state feminism appears contradictory, in that it designates the enhancement of rights and freedoms for a group of people, while being authoritarian at the same time. Where exactly did this concern for feminism come from?

In the first years after independence, Bourguiba’s politics were entirely directed towards reform on various levels, including the economic, religious and social level. His aim was turn Tunisia into an ‘advanced’ society and show that they were deserving of sovereignty. The emancipation of the woman became one of the fulcrums of Tunisia’s modernist politics. Under Ben Ali, state feminism served a different goal: in a context of violations of civil and political rights, the protection of women’s rights became a means to gain legitimacy, both on the national and international spheres.

The governments of Bourguiba and Ben Ali cautiously protected their feminist politics. They installed official institutions that promoted state feminism, such as the Tunisian women’s organisation UNFT (Union Nationale de Femmes Tunisiennes, established in 1957), a research centre for women’s affairs (CREDIF), and a special Secretary of State dealing with issues concerning women and the family, later transformed into a ministry. In the meantime, all voices of contestation were silenced through censorship and by making life difficult for those who dared to disagree. But despite (or due to) this repressive context, state feminism was indeed contested.

Contestation

In the 1970s, a ‘political feminism’ emerged. Crucial actors who dominated the public debates were the independent women’s rights organisations Association Tunisienne des Femmes Démocrates (ATFD) and Association des Femmes Tunisiennes pour la Recherche et la Documentation (AFTURD), together with the Tunisian League for Human Rights. These movements called for a number of changes, such as the abolition of reservations to CEDAW and the elimination of the Islamic inheritance law from the PSC. They also lobbied for better protection of women in criminal law. The main issue for these organisations was that the state install an effective policy against domestic violence, which is considered a huge problem in Tunisia. But they also lobbied for a more effective penalisation of rape and the criminalisation of rape within marriage.

These organisations also lobbied for improved conditions in the labour market, arguing that women are suffering more from unemployment than men do, that they earn about 20% less than men, and that their working conditions are often dire. Their advocacy enjoyed some success. For example, in 1998, a law was issued providing that single mothers could claim child maintenance from the biological father of their child, and in 2004, sexual harassment was made punishable.

From the early 1970s, state feminism was criticised by other factions in society, such as the Mouvement de Tendance Islamiste (MTI, later al-Nahda), which promoted limited contact between the sexes and a revival of traditional forms of dress. It called for a reform of the PSC by restricting divorce rights and reintroducing polygamy. They argued that the PSC had caused huge problems within Tunisian families, and led to skyrocketing divorce rates. In the period of economic hardship of the 1980s, the movement further claimed that allowing women to have a job was hurting the Tunisian economy.

While these movements had been muffled for decades, they finally had the opportunity to voice their claims openly once Ben Ali had been ousted on 14 January 2011.

After the revolution: democratic renegotiation of the feminist laws

Very shortly after Ben Ali’s departure, the ATFD and AFTURD organised a march under the slogan ‘March for citizenship and equality’. Women walked with banners that featured slogans such as ‘Don’t touch my PSC’, ‘All united for our achievements’, and ‘A constitution that guarantees the rights of Tunisian women’. Many demonstrations followed, such as the ones on national women’s day on August 13, 2011 and 2012. These marches symbolised the fear among many Tunisians that the departure of Ben Ali would lead to a deterioration of women’s rights. This fear was fuelled when, in the first democratic elections (held on October 23, 2011), the Islamist movement al-Nahda obtained 40% of votes, and obtained 89 seats in the Constitutional Assembly charged with writing a new constitution.

Another factor that contributed to the unrest is the sudden visibility of international Salafist organisations such as Hizb Ut-Tahrir and Ansar al-Sharia, and the fact that a Salafist political party was authorised to run in the next elections (to be held at some stage this year). A Salafist non-governmental organisation (NGO) was given authorisation, a move considered by some as the introduction of a moral police, similar to the ones in Iran and Saudi Arabia, since its goal is to encourage people to respect religious mores, such as wearing the veil.

Regardless of these developments, the demonstrations organised by the women’s rights organisations and their lobbies have had a certain effect. On 16 August, 2011, the council of ministers, which then formed the interim government, repealed all reservations to CEDAW, except the general one, which provides that the entire convention does not apply where it is incompatible with Article 1 of the Tunisian constitution (providing that the state religion is Islam). Also, the interim government decided on a quota of 50% of female participation in the Constitutional Assembly. In August 2012, a working group within the Constitutional Assembly proposed the insertion of an article in the constitution, which guarantees that the state’s condemnation of all forms of violence against women.

The advocacy of the feminist activists has also prevented the roll-back of certain laws. For example, when rumours circulated that al-Nahda wished to reintroduce polygamy, the movement immediately intervened by denying this and by stressing that the PSC is in accordance with Islamic law.

In November 2011, a female member of the Constitutional Assembly belonging to al-Nahda, Souad Abderrahim, declared that single mothers dishonour Arabo-Islamic society, and should not receive any care from the government except in cases of rape (both Bourguiba and Ben Ali have established several measures to support single mothers). This was highly criticised by civil society actors such as Association Amal, a centre for single mothers, which forced Abderrahim to apologise the next day.

In March 2012, there was news that al-Nahda wished to change the first article of the Tunisian constitution by providing that Islamic law would become the principal source of legislation. However, after fierce reactions by civil society, al-Nahda announced that the party committee had voted against this change. In August 2012, a working group within the Constitutional Assembly proposed an article for the constitution providing that women are ‘complementary’ to men. Again, after much outrage, the proposal was retracted in September 2012.

Future prospects

Tunisia is currently at a crossroads between authoritarianism and democratic rule. And in this context, women’s rights become a crucial bargaining chip. This is not only true because the feminist laws issued under the previous regimes were imposed on the Tunisian population in an authoritarian way, making a democratic renegotiation of these laws inevitable, it is also due to the fact that the authoritarian feminist laws were progressive, while the current government is relatively conservative.

This situation has caused an intense fear amongst Tunisian feminists of a roll-back in the achievements in the field of women’s rights, however undemocratic these achievements may be.

While the government tries to renegotiate the authoritarian legacy in a democratic way, civil society is being vigilant. As a consequence, they have succeeded in preventing some important losses, which somewhat ironically have turned the previously feminist opposition (ATFD and AFTURD) into custodians of an authoritarian legacy.

A version of this article was originally published here by Consultancy Africa Intelligence.
in Algeria

Algeria: The Real Roots of AQIM

by Think Africa January 29, 2013, 5:19 pm 100 Views

AQIM exists not because of the Arab Spring but Algeria’s military coup two decades ago and serious state-building failures in Algeria and northern Mali.

By Omar Ashour

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika pacified most of the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat but has not been able to control the breakaway AQIM. Photo by primeministergr.

Commenting on the recent Algerian hostage crisis on an international news channel, one terrorism ‘expert’ made a remarkable claim: “al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was founded because of the so-called Arab Spring, after we abandoned our Libyan ally [Colonel Muammar Gaddafi].” After enduring a few more inaccuracies, I felt compelled to put aside the students’ papers that I was grading.

Let’s start by stating the obvious: AQIM is not a product of the Arab Spring. AQIM exists because of the military coup that ended the ‘Algerian Spring’ two decades ago. And it has not been strengthened by the Libyan revolution, but rather by the failure of state-building in northern Mali, the absence of post-conflict reconciliation and reintegration in Algeria, and a lack of accountability for a shadowy Algerian security establishment whose brutal methods have proven woefully inadequate to the challenge.

AQIM’s real origins

AQIM’s history can be traced directly to the coup staged by a handful of Algerian generals against President Chadli Bendjedid in January 1992. Bendjedid, whose memoirs were recently published after he died in October, gave Algeria its first relatively democratic constitution, lifting the ban on political parties and guaranteeing a minimum of basic rights, including freedom of speech, assembly, and conscience. He was the first Arab president to be criticised on state-owned TV (that is, without the critic disappearing afterwards). Algeria was the first Arab Spring country.

But the spring turned out to be fleeting. Fearing threats to their vast economic empire and their grip on high politics, the generals decided to end the reforms, overturn the results of Algeria’s first democratic parliamentary elections, and remove Benjedid from power. In the West, the prevailing narrative is that ‘progressive’ army generals blocked the advance of the ‘fundamentalist’ Front Islamique du Salut (FIS). But that account does not explain why the generals soon allied with another ‘fundamentalist’ group – a faction of Algeria’s Muslim Brotherhood, Mouvement pour la société Islamique – and gave them several top posts, including control of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowments.

Eight months after the coup, in September 1992, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) was founded, soon attracting supporters from every walk of life, including criminal elements and Algerian intelligence agents. By 1998, the GIA’s primary target was not the army, but civilians, rival leaders’ relatives, and FIS strongholds.

Western and Arab researchers documented 642 massacres between 1992 and 1998. Most were instances of ‘electoral cleansing’, occurring in districts that voted for the FIS in the 1991 election. The GIA took responsibility for some of the massacres. But opposition figures, former Algerian intelligence officers, and diplomats accused the military of being complicit or even directly responsible for others.

Then a GIA brigade in the Kabylie Mountains east of Algiers, calling itself the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), split off and condemned the GIA’s actions. Part of the GSPC abandoned armed tactics and made peace with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s regime, which promised reconciliation, the release of political prisoners, investigations of more than 10,000 disappearances, social reintegration, political rights, and, most importantly, civilian control of the armed forces.

Despite the activation in 2006 of the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation (the legal framework for these issues), most of the promises were never fulfilled. Disappointment was pervasive, with some of the former insurgent commanders publicly arguing that the regime was not honouring its obligations, and that the reconciliation process was a sham.

A dangerous breakaway

By January 2007, AQIM had emerged from the GSPC faction that did not demobilise. Most of those named in connection with the recent hostage crisis had joined that faction following the split with the GIA. They included Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who passed through all the phases of Algerian armed Islamist activism, from Afghanistan to the Sahel; and Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, who started as a political activist in the FIS party structure, took up arms in response to the 1992 coup, and then became a hardened hostage-taker in charge of one of AQIM’s Sahara brigades.

Despite being a breakaway faction of a breakaway faction of the defunct GIA, AQIM demonstrated its operational capacity in December 2007, when it targeted United Nations offices in Algiers and the Algerian Constitutional Court simultaneously, killing 41 individuals and injuring 170.

By 2009, AQIM was learning from the mistakes of its mother organisation, the GIA, and its sister organisation, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). AQI not only failed to embed itself in the local context, but had begun eliminating local opponents, fuelling a revolt against it by Sunni militias in 2007. AQIM, by contrast, made a concerted effort to go native, marrying local Tuaregs in northern Mali and taking up their political causes, such as secession.

The estimated 1,200 fighters causing problems in Mali today are operating in an area almost as large as France, making it easy to play guerrilla hide-and-seek. In the long run, the West should aim to help the Malian government to build state institutions and reconcile with its northern population.

In Algeria, security-sector reform – particularly greater transparency – is long overdue. After all, Western and other governments owe it to the families of the 39 foreign workers killed during the hostage crisis to find out if they could have been saved.

The families of the Algerian victims deserve the same from their own government. Then again, so do the families of the more than 150,000 victims of a civil war that began with the turn away from democracy two decades ago. As the recent episode has shown, that war continues to this day.

This article was originally published here by Project Syndicate.
in Burkina Faso

Protect or Prosecute? Conjuring up Solutions to Witchcraft Accusations

by Think Africa January 28, 2013, 3:22 pm 108 Views

Witchcraft allegations typically target the most vulnerable in society. But how can beliefs “as strong as iron” be tackled?

By Peter Dörrie

A centre for children accused of witchcraft in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Photograph by Julien Harneis.

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso:

Being accused of being a witch or sorcerer has never been a comfortable business. Europe and the Catholic Church probably take the price for the nastiest witch-hunts in history, today some of the worst places to be accused of practising black magic are in Africa. The catastrophic and often violent consequences for the mostly innocent victims beg the question of what a government can do to curb and manage witchcraft allegations.

“In the countryside, people’s belief in witchcraft is strong like iron”, explains Sessouma Daouda, who works for the social ministry of the government of Burkina Faso, to Think Africa Press. But this belief expresses itself differently depending on the social context. “As a child my parents would point out certain old people in our village and tell me they are witches and sorcerers, that we shouldn’t play in front of their houses.” This is fairly typical of the mild social exclusion found all over the world that mostly affects those people not seen to be complying completely with certain social norms.

But in one part of Burkina Faso, witchcraft accusations can lead to a decidedly more brutal outcome. On the central ‘Mossi Plateau’ around the capital Ouagadougou, accusations frequently lead to mistreatment and violence against the accused. This can ultimately lead to eviction and the cutting of social bonds.

Often it is an event such as the death of the member of the community that leads to accusations of witchcraft. “In the villages, there is no ‘natural death’. You always have to find out who is behind the death”, explains Awa Nikièma, warden of the ‘Cour de Solidarité’, a government-run institution in Ouagadougou that acts as refuge for those accused of being witches.

Guilt is often established in a ritual called Siongo. The deceased is carried, feet pointing forward, on the heads of two young men. The carriers enter a state of trance and are believed to be ‘guided’ by the spirit of the dead to his or her murderer.

Season of the witch

Interestingly, those accused of practicing black magic and driven out of their communities overwhelmingly conform to a relatively specific profile, says Sessouma Daouda, who has conducted research on the subject. “They are mostly female, poor and without family support. 99% of them are Mossi and old.”

But the typical profiles of accused persons can be different in different places. In Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, accusations are mostly levelled against children. NGOs in the city estimate that as many as two thirds of all of the city’s tens of thousands of street children have been chased away from home due to witchcraft allegations. Meanwhile, in areas of the Central African Republic and Angola it is again mostly old women who are accused, even though there are increasing reports of child accusations in the former.

The fact that witchcraft accusations tend to be fairly uniform in specific areas begs the question of whether there isn’t a deeper social mechanism at work in superstitious beliefs than the mere searching for explanations when the seemingly inexplicable happens.

For Burkina Faso’ minister for human rights, Albert Ouedraogo, the connection is clear. “In regions where there is high demographic pressure, the reaction to witchcraft accusations is violence and eviction”, he says.

“It is the poor, practically isolated women, who are the victims in 90% of all cases. In the majority the cases, they are women after their menopause, who are widows, who are poor, who have no support, and of whom you want to rid yourself, because they have become a useless mouth to feed, in a context of high poverty.”

This would also explain the discrepancy between the Mossi and other ethnic groups in Burkina Faso. While the south of the country is quite fertile and the north is only sparsely inhabited, the central Mossi Plateau is at the same time densely populated and, due to a lack of rain, not overly productive. And in the agrarian society of the Mossi, old women are often seen as the least economically productive members of the community.

A similar case could be made for Kinshasa. As a result of the series of brutal wars that rocked the DRC from 1996 to 2003, many families were left not only with their own children to care for, but also those of deceased relatives. With too many mouths to feed, identifying a witch among children can not only make one’s ‘bad luck’ more explicable, but also ease an economic burden and offer an easier solution than trying to address the politics or armed groups actually responsible for many of the problems. Additionally, the use of child soldiers by many armed groups in the DRC (and, for that matter, the Central African Republic) deeply disturbed the social bonds between society and its offspring.

Conjuring solutions

For the accused, being cast out of their home and social network is often catastrophic, especially because it is typically the most vulnerable of society that are targeted. For states and governments, witchcraft allegations raise both questions around their monopoly of power and of how to deal with the victims.

Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic can be seen as two opposing models in that sense. While Burkina Faso – mostly due to the advocacy of a few dedicated individuals – has prioritised the protection of the accused since the mid-1990s, the Central African Republic still carries on with the French colonial attitude of treating witchcraft itself as a crime and trying to institutionalise the process of accusation and trial.

Both the British and the French colonial rulers introduced laws against witchcraft, but while the French only punished the practice of witchcraft, the British also suppressed witchcraft allegations – no matter if you were accusing others falsely or claimed to be a witch yourself.

Burkina Faso abandoned the French law in the 1990s, but failed at the time to introduce a law banning witchcraft accusations. Instead, the government set up a series of institutions like the Cour de Soldiarité and otherwise relied on laws against communal violence and forceful eviction to punish the perpetrators of witchcraft allegations.

This approach has proven to be insufficient. “For me as an activist, who has worked on the issue for three years”, says Sessouma Daouda, “the victims are not sufficiently protected.” Many of them, for example, do not know how to deal properly with the police and courts. If they even approach law enforcement, Sessouma told Think Africa Press, they are often turned away because they only tell the police about the witchcraft allegations and fail to sufficiently stress other crimes that happened as a consequence of those accusations.

But the lack of specific jurisdiction has made some of the more motivated and interested persons in government services creative, says Sessouma: “One prosecutor in Yako told me that they have found a solution. If a woman who has been accused comes to him, they give the instigator a fine of 50,000 or 100,000 CFA ($100 or $200) for disturbing the public order. He said it works well. It discourages accusations.”

But neither Sessouma Daouda, nor Awa Nikièma of the Cour de Solidarité thinks that such piecemeal solutions are sustainable. The ministry for social affairs therefore developed a new strategy for the protection of those accused of practicing witchcraft. It is an ambitious document, calling for educational activities reaching 80% of the Burkinabé population and a new law that punishes witchcraft accusations on a national level.

By contrast, the Central African Republic has kept its colonial-era law and, contrary to some other African states, is making frequent use of it. According to a study by UNICEF, about 25% of all cases brought to court in the capital Bangui and 80-90% of all cases in rural areas are witchcraft-related. 70% of all prisoners in Bangui central prison are incarcerated because of witchcraft accusations.

In theory, an argument can be made for the punishment of ‘black magic’ in African societies. Witchcraft is not only believed in, but also actively practised all over the continent and the anecdotal and factual evidence of malign witchcraft practices abounds. Completely doing away with recognising witchcraft as a crime therefore bears the real risk of lowering the trust in the judicial system and driving the practice of punishing witches underground; after all, in the eyes of much of the population, somebody has to protect them from the evil intentions of witches and sorcerers.

But this risk is probably worth it if one looks at the problems associated with witchcraft-related trials. How do you prove that somebody is involved with the supernatural? In the Central African Republic, the answer is simple: You just ask somebody else who purports to wield similar powers.

The appearance of féticheurs and traditional leaders in witchcraft trials as witnesses is considered normal and their testimony often bears enough weight to lead to a conviction. Additionally, the accused also frequently confess to their alleged crimes – in many cases the result of earlier mistreatment, fear, and the belief that a confession might lead to a chance to return into the community.

Exorcising witchcraft beliefs

Awa Nikièma is flabbergasted when she is told about the practices surrounding official witchcraft trials in the Central African Republic: “That is hard…If my neighbour gets on my nerves and I want to get rid of her, I [can] just say she is a witch. I’m against that.”

But the Burkinabé approach, while certainly miles ahead of the Central African one, has its own challenges. Among them comes the price tag: it would cost more than €2 million ($2.7 million) to implement the new strategy according to the ministry. With Burkina Faso being one of the poorest countries in the world and with many competing problems to deal with, it is far from clear the money will be found in the government budget or from donors. “[The witchcraft issue] isn’t really the first of priorities at the moment”, admits Minister Ouedraogo when asked about the chances of financing.

The most important part of the strategy is judged by all three interviewees to be the new law banning witchcraft allegations. This theoretically costs little money, but faces other hurdles. Members of parliament might be difficult to convince to vote for the protection of alleged witches, according to the minister. “There is one member of parliament, who told me that he has himself chased away a witch with a pistol. A member of parliament!”

It is also worth asking whether a sustainable solution to the suffering produced by witchcraft accusations can even come from attacking witchcraft related practices at all. As has been established, these accusations are largely a function of underlying social issues like poverty, low levels of education and insecurity. In the long run, Minister Ouedraogo agrees, “if you want to reduce the belief in witchcraft, you must reduce the mortality rates of children, the misery and ignorance”.
in Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s Controversial Gibe III Mega-Dam

by Think Africa January 16, 2013, 10:01 am 139 Views

The Gibe III dam could help Ethiopia’s development, but it might also be disastrous for the environment and threaten half a million people’s livelihoods.

By Mark Kapchanga

A demonstration against the Gibe III dam in 2009 in Kenya. Photograph by International Rivers.

Nairobi, Kenya:

There are concerns that more than half a million people’s livelihoods along the Lower Omo Valley in Ethiopia and Kenya could be threatened by the construction of the Gibe III Dam project.

The work, which has been ongoing since 2006 and is now over halfway to completion, faces overwhelming pressure from environmentalists who have raised concerns over dangers associated with the dam. Often compared to China’s Three Gorges, the Gibe III Dam is to be the world’s fourth largest hydropower project and will generate over 1,800 megawatts of power. The Ethiopian government expects to earn over $400 million annually from power exports.

Awash with environmental concerns

But Ethiopia’s methods for achieving this goal have been widely condemned. In addition to displacing local Ethiopian communities in the vicinity of the dam, the completion of the $1.7 billion project could also wreak havoc in Lake Turkana, a major source of livelihood to more than 500,000 people downstream in Kenya.

Considering the Omo accounts for 90% of the lakes water supply, opponents of the project argue that water levels in Lake Turkana could seriously suffer. Levels could drop by as much as 22 metres (the average depth being only 30 metres). Of particular concern in this scenario is the depletion of the lake’s fisheries. These are the main source of protein for local communities, while trade in dried fish is also a major source of income.

Back in 2009, the World Bank’s Vice-President for Africa, Obiageli Ezekwesili, raised an alarm over the way in which the Ethiopian government was managing the project. In particular, she queried the Environmental Impact Assessment report, saying it was “not conclusive”. She also questioned the manner in which the Ethiopian authorities awarded the contract to an Italian firm Salini Costruttori without competitive bidding.

This compelled the African Development Bank (AfDB) to commission a study arguing that the initial Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) had not captured important aspects of the project.

A more recent audit of the project by a group of researchers from CEE Bankwatch Network Poland revealed that the entity set up by the Ethiopian government to monitor the environmental impact of the project had limited capacity to carry out work. It further said that it had no clout to enforce compliance with environmental safeguards.

“The team said the construction of such a mega-sized dam would compromise a fragile and unique ecosystem, which is identified as a protected area”, said Jakub Gogolewski, Coordinator for CEE Bankwatch Network. But the group claimed that its team of researchers could not actively pursue the extent of this impact due to concerns of government persecution.

Regardless, environmental and humanitarian organisations remain acutely concerned. A paper published by International Rivers this month has warned that the dam’s completion will likely “generate a region-wide crisis for indigenous livelihoods and biodiversity and thoroughly destabilize the Ethiopia-Kenyan borderlands around Lake Turkana”. The reduced flow of sediments into the lake will “lead to the loss of the ecologically productive floodplain used by wild species, fish, domestic stock and agriculture”.

Of even graver concern is the potential for conflict as a knock-on effect of this ecological turmoil. The paper asserts that those who lose their livelihoods and homelands are “likely to seek out resources on their neighbours’ lands in the Kenya-Ethiopia-Sudan borderlands. Well armed, primed by past grudges, and often divided by support from different state and local governments, these conflicts can be expected to be bloody and persistent.”

Investment drying to a trickle

The European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank withdrew funding consideration from the project in 2010, citing social and environmental risks. Partially because of disrespect from an Ethiopian official allegedly telling the European Investment Bank it could “go to hell” over its policies regarding displacement of indigenous peoples, and partially because the terms of the uncompetitive contract with Salini violate the Bank’s procurement policy. The World Bank also has no current plans to support the project.

It is China then, through the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the Dongfang Electric Corporation, which is to provide most of the necessary $500 million sub-contract. This has also been met with displeasure; details on the power deal between the two countries were made public after the Ethiopian government released an Environmental Impact Assessment report that was widely rejected.

Ikal Ang’elei, the founder of the Friends of Lake Turkana, and winner of the 2012 Goldman Environment Prize for Africa says campaigns to push China out of the project have been unsuccessful. And she says that lack of support from the Ethiopian and Kenyan governments have made the organisation’s attempts to defend the lake’s environment more difficult.

Although it will not fund the dam itself, the World Bank is also under scrutiny by campaigners. In July, the Bank agreed to give a $684 million loan to Ethiopia to build a 1,000-kilometre electricity transmission line from Gibe III into Kenya.

“This could be a signal that the Bank has endorsed the project despite its withdrawal of funding two years ago”, says Richard Leakey, a renowned conservationist and founder of the Turkana Basin Institute. Leakey says the fight will go on until the lake is finally secured.

Power prospects in a parched land

While the social and environmental impacts of the project are huge, supporters of the dam remain convinced of eventual benefits from the sacrifices. “Ethiopia’s electricity generation capacity will go up; power cuts will be reduced; and electricity will be extended to at least some of the more than 70% of the population without access”, says Seleshi Bekele, a senior researcher with the Addis Ababa-based International Water Management Institute.

He claims the power exports will bring important revenue into the country, helping to lift annual per capita GDP (PPP) above $1,100.

Neighbouring Kenya is expected to import more than 500 megawatts to check the recurring power outages that have had a chilling effect on the manufacturing sector. The Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation says more than 200 megawatts will be exported to both Djibouti and Sudan. In addition, a study was conducted to examine the feasibility and profitability of exporting electricity to Yemen through Djibouti, Somalia, Eritrea and Egypt.

As the controversy engulfing Gibe III rages on, plans are on the table regarding the construction of two more energy plants – Gibe IV and Gibe V. These are expected to cover Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan.

“We are not opposed to building power plants in the region. Certainly, we need affordable and reliable power. But we cannot sacrifice our environment for such developments”, says Ang’elei. But, she believes, prior and independent studies need to be carried out to ensure sustainability and conservation of the ecosystem as well.
in DRC

Bordering on the Dangerous: The Invisible Frontline in North Kivu

by Think Africa December 5, 2012, 12:04 pm 120 Views

While international media attention focuses on events in Goma, the political and military landscape of the eastern Congo is changing as Kabila’s hold crumbles in North Kivu.

By Caroline Hellyer

A camp for internally displaced refugees in North Kivu. Photograph by Aubrey Graham/IRIN.

It started with text messages and phone calls, numbers blocked, followed by visits at night: “we are numerous and of various ethnicities” they said before issuing their threats. Some of the messages appeared to be invitations: “join us or face us” or “do not think you are stronger than fire” while others were unmistakeable signposts to a bad end for those who spoke out against war in the Eastern Congo.

After the threats came disappearances and abductions, too easily dismissed as ‘banditry’ and barely mentioned except in whispers for fear of being next. There was no doubt that insecurity was increasing but for those who know the lie of the land, the abductions indicated that a pattern was forming that included human rights defenders, civil society, local chiefs or anyone who challenged the M23 insurgency. People were confused; M23 was no longer a story rumbling at a distance from the borderlands of the region known as the Grand Nord, which stretches down from the Rwenzori Mountains, past Lake Albert and across the Virunga national park. While the international media focused on Goma, they ignored the quiet but steadily developing parallel situation in the Grand North. One inhabitant told Think Africa Press, “There are two fronts to this war and only one is being reported”.

They are not easily frightened around Butembo, Beni and Lubero. The history of wars, militias and violent reprisals has reached everyone’s door, marked everyone’s path, coloured memories with sombre hues and never really left. During the war, the Catholic Bishop of Butembo, in association with local Nande businessmen and politicians, forged strategic alliances with gunmen that enabled a University to flourish, transnational trade links to bring luxury goods, built an elegant Town Hall, paved roads to some parts, providing an appearance of order. For their clients the gunmen guarded the petrol stations, kept the towns calm and enabled business to continue unhindered – for a price. Above all, they allowed the borders to function as a black market free-trade zone in a region that has always been vital for Central Africa as a transit point to the coasts.
“Congo is like banana plantation without an owner” – Yoweri Museveni, July 2012

Congo’s neighbours Uganda and Rwanda have a long history of cross border meddling. Like psychotic twins suckled in the same political nursery, they unite, fight, collude and compete. After the DRC’s then President Laurent Kabila turned on the Rwandan forces that helped topple Mobutu and installed him as president, Rwanda formed the RCD – Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie – in the Kivus and the war multiplied into a deadly conflict that involved 8 countries.

During the Congo wars the Beni and Lubero territories came to be dominated by the RCD-KML a breakaway from the original RCD forces. RCD-KML was backed by factions from Uganda and headed by Antipas Mbusa Nyamwasi who controlled territory all the way to Kisangani, 400 kilometres west of Butembo. The RCD which then became the RCD-G(oma), was the proxy of Rwanda and became the parent of the CNDP which in turn has birthed M23.

Nyamwisi maintained his fiefdom into the post-war transition period by playing off a complex and volatile mix of local Mai Mai, Rwenzori fighters, and Nande traders. Ever the opportunist, he shifted his allegiances to Kinshasa and became a minister in Joseph Kabila’s government before running against Kabila in the 2011 elections.
From ballots to bullets

Voting in the Kivus is never a simple matter. The political classes are so often tainted by association with militias and self-interest that marking a ballot can be a Hobson’s choice. “The election motivates many people and many armed groups to go back to using guns as a way to try and gain power… many ex-combatants are going back to the bush now. Violence is what they know” a community worker explained.

In the Grand Nord a local politician’s popularity can often be directly linked to the deals that come from border control, cheap petrol and other imported goods via Uganda is a winner. The electorate, disappointed in the way the presidential elections were compromised, watched silently as militia-backed political factions made preparations to control the outcomes of the next round. So when a growing insurgency further south seemed to threaten, they did what Congolese do best, they organised and protested.

Blowing vuvuzelas they took to the streets every day at 12 o’clock, wrote press releases ignored by the international media, reported what they saw with their own eyes. As darkness fell they formed neighbourhood patrols and the same whistles and vuvuzelas used in the daylight, became warning claxons to scare away the gunmen that broke into houses to kill or abduct. These cries for assistance in the night were supposed to alert the local military except in too many cases the soldiers ignored them, turning their heads until someone else in authority further away would finally show up. The fears grew, names were muttered, protests were dampened, some who had spoken out the loudest fled.

All through the summer, as diplomats passed time debating ‘solutions’, the military build-ups continued. Weapons, soldiers and equipment slid across the Ugandan border, often at Kasindi which was controlled by Mbusa Nyamwisi’s brother until the Kabila government removed him. Alliances were cemented in Rwenzori and further north in Ituri an attempt to integrate troops of Cobra Mata into the national army saw 1000 of them disappear off the official head-count. Aid projects in Ituri ground to a halt as militia activity increased and the FRPI attacked civilians along the shores of Lake Albert.

Alongside this, a defecting Congolese army (FARDC) officer, Major Hilaire Paluku Kombi, retrieved weapons stored at Nyamwisi’s house and joined his forces with those of another militia leader, Jacques Tahanga Nyoro. Nyoro, an FARDC deserter, was formerly a member of the APC, an armed wing of the RCD-KMLA. This alliance was facilitated by Mbusa Nyamwisi, a UN report charges, who wanted Nyoro as a spokesman. Too weak to control territory on their own, and with Nyamwisi making the introductions, they had already allied themselves to M23. Congolese organisations observed that some of these previously impoverished militias were now awash with money. Civil society activists denounced the recruitment of youths in Rwenzori, South Lubero and in the suburbs of Beni but no-one listened.

Butembo has already fallen quietly under the military control of Mai Mai PARECO ‘General’ Kakulu Sikuli Vasaka Lafontaine, a Nande whose forces were also integrated into the national army alongside the CDNP. The UN Group of Experts report notes frequent communication between former RCD politician Xavier Chiribanya Chirimwami and FARDC deserter Colonel Albert Kahasha of the ‘Union des patriots congolais pour la paix’ (UPCP) in Southern Lubero. According to the report both Kahasha and Lafontaine assisted FARDC deserters to join up with M23 in Rutshuru.

While the international media focus on erroneous March 2009 agreements, fighting and humanitarian catastrophe further south, another war is being fought in silence alongside. This is the quiet but steady penetration of localities away from frontlines, by those committed to the overthrow of Kabila and the control of territory that lies around the borders with Uganda and Rwanda. All along Lake Albert’s shores and in villages from South Kivu to Ituri this invisible destabilisation and alliance-forming has continued unabated, creating localised networks of terror.
In the shadow of Goma

After Goma’s fall on November 20, students across the DRC reacted angrily against those they held responsible. In Beni and Butembo, students attacked the troops from the UN peace-keeping force (MONUSCO) and burning the office of North Kivu governor Julien Paluku. Paluku was once a leader in Nyamwasi’s RCD-KML but broke the relation to join with Kabila during the elections. Enmired in a massive corruption scandal and having been outspoken about the politics of the region, Paluku, despite returning to Goma, seems to be persona non grata in the Grand North and cannot return.

A few days after Goma’s capture, the government of North Kivu relocated to Beni to re-establish the administration on what was perceived as safer ground. This included the mayor of Goma, MPs, some customs officers and other staff. However, 10 MPs elected in Beni failed to return, while some may have been airlifted to safety, the others chose instead to stay away. The local people, expecting their own MPs to be the first home were shocked to discover that the political landscape seemed to be changing from within the administration. Most of these MPs are members of Mbusa Nyamwisi’s RCD-KML. Mbusa Nyamwisi is hiding out in Johannesburg although he has made numerous visits to Kampala and Kigali. Attempts to interview him have repeatedly failed but his brother-in-law insists that Nyamwisi is the victim of smear tactics by Kabila and is hiding in South Africa “for his own safety.”

As the insurgent landscape shifted in and around Goma and the city fell into M23 hands, Tahanga Nyoro announced on local radio in Beni that he wanted to take the town: “as no-one is in control.” While currently Beni is very quiet, the few soldiers remaining in the town are all former CNDP officers and their guards. On the streets the people huddle in small groups quietly sharing their fears. The citizens of Beni, while unsure of the details, have sensed that control of their town is already a done-deal.

In the spring the Congolese army were causing chaos for civilians as they hunted down the ADF-NALU militia, Mai Mai PARECO and the FDLR, but now with troubles further south, the army has all but disappeared. The soldiers were all troops ‘integrated’ into the national army from the CNDP. To counter their threat, Joseph Kabila ordered one Lingala-speaking and therefore supposedly loyal battalion into the area. They are the only remaining battalion, some 40km from Beni camped in a village groupment that is now so afraid of an attack by insurgents against FARDC the residents near the camp leave their homes to sleep in the forest at night.

As President Museveni convened meetings of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region and hosted M23 representatives in luxury houses, his brother General Salim Saleh, previously cited for corruption in Uganda and for his participation in an elite ‘trans-border shadow network’ that plundered natural resources during the Congo war, was attempting to heal a rift between Mbusa Nyamwasi and Kakolele Bwambale. Kakolele, another ghost from the CNDP past, had been jailed in Uganda in 2006 after Mbusa Nyamwasi accused him of assisting in the infiltration of Rwandan troops into Beni. The re-emergence of these ghosts of past wars hints at what is to yet to come.
Bordering on the dangerous

Whether marked by a colonial pen or the administration of a chief, border zones are sites of exchange, and attempts at subversion. In 1997, academic Mahmood Mamdani identified two tendencies in the Kivu conflicts: militarism and the tendency for all organised politics to take the form of armed politics.

Fifteen years later these tendencies have snowballed as an election hurriedly imposed in a tick-box form of state building by international interests failed to address the very localised issues that become escalated and manipulated by opportunistic power-brokers at all levels. As Professor Tim Raeymaekers observes: “despite all the talk about democratization, the peace process really has generated a lot of incentives for politics – all politics – to become violent and fragmented along opportunistic lines; the consequences of this failure can be observed from Kinshasa up to Goma.”

These ‘opportunistic lines’ now run all the levels from the price of soap in Beni market to the oil and gas contracts along the Albertine Graben and the Congolese borders with Uganda and Rwanda. The shape-shifting M23 insurgency represents a collision of these militarised interests and chaotically links them together through localised land and identity politics, various diasporas across the world, all the way to states that merge national interests with a corrupt form of military entrepreneurialism. The tentacle-like appropriation by factions within neighbouring states of the land alongside the borders through the chaos of militia groups and civilian terror risks further deterioration if and when some of these alliances collapse. Museveni was trounced in local elections in Ugandan provinces along the border and Kagame holds together an increasingly delicate balance of internal interests. The fall of Kabila’s government risks being the domino that triggers the border zone cascade.
in Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam: A Mega-Dam with Potentially Mega-Consequences

by Think Africa December 3, 2012, 3:51 pm 138 Views

Without greater oversight, Ethiopia’s secretive new dam could have disastrous environmental, social and political impacts.

By Haydar Yousif

An Egyptian man uses irrigation water to wash his face. Photograph by James Buck.

While Egypt was undergoing dramatic political changes last year, Ethiopia was secretly moving to unveil “Project X” – a huge hydropower dam it intends to build on the Blue Nile, 40 km from the Sudanese border.

Political commentators, environmental experts and hydrologists have all voiced concerns about the dam’s ecological impact, the strain it might place on relations between the three eastern Nile nations, and the financial burden of this mega-dam on Ethiopian citizens.

Now renamed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the project (due for completion by 2015) is set to become the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa. The scale of the project is staggering: the plant will be capable of producing almost double the electricity of Aswan High Dam in Egypt, while its 63 billion cubic metre (bcm) reservoir is double the size of Ethiopia’s largest natural lake. Crucially for Ethiopia’s Nile neighbours, the filling of this huge reservoir is also likely to greatly reduce the flow of water to Egypt and Sudan for several years, and could even permanently alter the amount of water those countries are able to draw from the river.

Details trickling through

The planning and implementation of this project has all been decided behind closed doors. Its $4.8 billion contract was awarded without competitive bidding, for example, to Salini Costruttori, an Italian firm favoured by the ruling party; Salini is also building the controversial Gibe III Dam on Ethiopia’s Omo River.

Furthermore, the nature of the project was kept under wraps until after site preparation had already begun, to the great surprise of regional governments, Nile planning agencies, and Ethiopia’s Western donors. It was especially shocking to Norwegian agencies who were working with the Ethiopian government on a similar project for the same stretch of the Nile, now made obsolete by the Renaissance Dam.

This level of official opacity has worryingly prevailed beyond the initial announcement of the project. Expert analysis that would normally accompany such a titanic project has either not been undertaken or kept characteristically secret. No environmental assessment is publicly available for the project. And no steps were taken before its launch to openly discuss the dam’s impacts with downstream Nile neighbours Egypt and Sudan.

Do the environmental and social plans hold water?

The consequences for Ethiopia’s downstream neighbours could potentially be catastrophic. The Renaissance Dam’s reservoir will hold back nearly one and a half times the average annual flow of the Blue Nile. Filling the reservoir – which could take 3 to 5 years – will drastically affect the downstream nations’ agriculture, electricity and water supply. Evaporative losses from the dam’s reservoir could be as much as 3 billion cubic metres per year.

The dam will also retain silt. The Ethiopian government argues that this will be a net positive as it will increase the lifetime of other dams downstream, particularly in Sudan where, for example, the Roseires Dam has been nearly incapacitated by sedimentation. But what about the life expectancy of the Renaissance Dam itself? This is a serious issue for the dam’s viability, and there are no known plans for watershed management or soil conservation to address it. In addition, the retention of silt by the dam reservoir will dramatically reduce the fertility of soils downstream. Sediment-free water released from dams also increases erosion downstream, which can lead to riverbed deepening and a reduction in groundwater recharge.

Some have predicted even more calamitous consequences of the dam’s construction. The Grand Renaissance Dam site is in the Great African Rift Valley near the Afar Depression, an area in which tectonic turmoil is so great it could, according to some accounts, eventually tear the continent in two. The dam could be at risk from damage by earthquakes, yet no one knows if it has even been analysed for this risk, or the largest earthquake it is being designed to withstand. The failure of such a huge structure puts the more than 100 million people living downstream at risk.

On top of that risk is that of ‘reservoir induced seismicity’. A dam with a reservoir as large as this is not just vulnerable to seismic events – it can cause them. Scientists believe that there have been more than 100 instances on six continents of large reservoirs inducing earthquakes. The most serious to date was China’s devastating magnitude 7.9 earthquake in 2008, which some experts believe was induced by Zipingpu Dam.

Holding back the tide of criticism

However, some of the most pressing concerns regarding the dam’s construction are political. Although its timing coincided with Egypt’s political upheaval, the sudden unveiling of the project nevertheless resulted in an outcry. Egypt’s primary fears are a reduction of its main water supply from the Nile, and diminished nutrients and sediment essential for agriculture.

Towards the end of the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s rule, Ethiopia adopted a more aggressive stance over the Nile, moving swiftly to build a number of large hydropower dams. However, tension in the region regarding control of the Nile waters has not all be centred on Ethiopia. In May 2010, five upstream Nile states (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania) signed a Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) to access more water from the Nile. The move was strongly opposed by Egypt, which brandished a colonial-era treaty from 1929 asserting its exclusive rights to the Nile’s water supply.

With the Renaissance Dam, these tensions seemed to be coming to a head. Following its announcement in March 2011, Egyptian authorities were quick to lobby international support and strongly hinted that a military response was not deemed disproportionate to protect such a vital resource. Indeed, Wikileaks recently released documents detailing a planned Egyptian attack on the dam from Sudan.

However, attitudes appear to have since softened, and dialogue was opened last month between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan. In a bid to allay Egypt’s wrath, the Ethiopian government proposed an International Panel of Experts (IPoE) to review and assess the dam’s impacts on downstream neighbours. The panel of ten consists of two members from each of the three countries eastern Nile countries, plus four international experts. Their names have not been released and their meetings are behind closed doors, but they are expected to announce their findings four months from now. This seems to have placated Ethiopia’s neighbours for now.

Yet whatever the IPoE’s findings, the Ethiopian government seems adamant the dam will continue. In September 2012, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that Ethiopia would never halt or slow the construction of the dam due to external pressure, calling into question the significance of the panel. Needless to say, many in Sudan and Egypt still have serious concerns about the project.

Whatever the outcome of political arbitration, it remains irresponsible for Ethiopia to build Africa’s biggest hydropower project, on its most contentious river, with no public access to critical information about the dam’s impacts – a flawed process which can hardly result in a sustainable project. If the Ethiopian government is serious about maintaining good relations with its Nile neighbours, and if it truly wishes to develop projects that will carry its people and the broader region into prosperity, it must begin by allowing some light to penetrate this secretive development scheme.

Amendment 5/12/2012: The third from last paragraph of the article stated that Egypt’s has toned down its opposition to the dam. This has been removed at the request of the author.
in Gender

The Elimination of Violence Against Women: “Time has Run Out for Complacency or Excuses”

by Think Africa November 25, 2012, 10:45 am 99 Views

Sustained by institutional, cultural and structural discrimination, violence against women continues, with Africa particularly badly affected. Read around the subject with Think Africa Press.

By James Wan

Pushing for change: Women protesting in Cairo in 2010. Photograph by Sarah Carr.

Progress in the struggle to eliminate violence against women has been excruciatingly slow. The 19th century rights of men to “physically chastise an errant wife” may no longer exist, and a host of conventions, declarations and resolutions against gendered violence may have been enshrined in international law in the meantime. But violence against women continues to corrode the fabric of society in every country of the world. In homes, workplaces, and public spaces; in times of conflict and peace; through explicit and criminalised (though rarely prosecuted) acts, and through implicit and culturally-sanctioned practices, violence against women prevails and is widespread.

This violence can take physical, sexual, and psychological forms and has or will affect an estimated one in three women in the world. This figure is even higher in Africa where legal and institutional mechanisms to prevent violence and gender discrimination are weak in many areas, armed conflicts have perpetuated the use of rape as a weapon of war, and numerous groups maintain traditions of forced early marriage and female genital mutilation.

But no country in the world, let alone continent, has come close to eliminating gendered violence or extinguishing its roots, which lie firmly embedded in, and nurtured by, normalised cultures of discrimination, domination and objectification.

This is why, while enforceable laws are a step in the right direction – even if, as in the case of marital rape, it took the likes of the UK until the 1990s to take the necessary steps – they are far from sufficient. Ending physical, sexual and psychological violence also requires accompanying drives to tackle the more hidden economic, institutional, and cultural assaults faced by women and girls.

In the words of Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “eliminating violence against women necessarily encompasses measures to empower women to stand for their own rights, make decisions on their lives and participate fully in the life of their communities”.

This struggle will no doubt take much time, continue to encounter fierce resistance, and require unrelenting efforts from the grassroots as well as political and cultural leaders. But it is something in which we are all inescapably implicated. To quote Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of UN Women:

“This is not just a women’s issue, this is a responsibility for all of us. This violence is an outrage and it must be stopped. Time has run out for complacency or excuses.”

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

To mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, below is a selection of Think Africa Press’ articles on gendered violence in Africa.

Read Leonie Taylor’s piece on Nigeria’s high rate of domestic violence for an examination of how cultural, economic and institutional structures can help silence victims, subtly condone discrimination, and facilitate the perpetuation of gendered violence.

Read Maha El-Sanosi’s article to learn how Sudanese activists have continued to battle against often brutal security forces in their campaign to eliminate article 152 of Sudan’s penal code, a law which has seen countless women beaten and arrested for “indecent and immoral acts” including wearing trousers.

Read Travis Lupick’s feature on efforts in Liberia to end the traditional practice of female genital cutting for an insight into the complex tension between protecting girls’ human rights and maintaining groups’ cultural rights. “You’re talking about educating a nation to abandon its cherished heritage,” explains Liberia’s Minister of Internal Affairs in the article. “Take time to be holy.”

And read Natasha Smith’s article for her personal account of being stripped, beaten and violated by a gang of men in Cairo, and for an examination of the shockingly high prevalence of gendered violence in Egypt as well as the ever-stronger tide of grassroots opposition to it.
in Uganda

Who Could Succeed Museveni?

by Think Africa November 6, 2012, 3:07 am 82 Views

With uncertainty surrounding Museveni’s plans, there are a number of candidates who could take over Uganda’s presidency.

By Risdel Kasasira

A pro-Besigye poster from the 2011 election. Photograph by Gabriel White.

Kampala, Uganda:

Back in 2001, during a hotly contested presidential race, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni told voters that, if re-elected, this would be his final term and urged the electorate to support him one last time.

In that election, Museveni was, for the first time, facing a strong opponent in Kizza Besigye who ran against the president again in 2006 and 2011. Over the past decade, Besigye has been Uganda’s central opposition symbol and figurehead, redefining Uganda’s political landscape and drawing a faction of Museveni allies to his own ranks. Meanwhile, President Museveni’s popular support is declining.

However, while recent surveys suggest that many do not support Museveni’s ‘Project 2016’ re-election bid, they also suggest that Besigye is not necessarily the first choice for his replacement.

Museveni vs. Besigye

Museveni and Besigye have been political rivals for over a decade, but their history together stretches further back than that. Besigye served as Museveni’s personal physician in the National Resistance Army (NRA), and after the group’s ascent to power in 1986 held ministerial appointments in the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government. In 1989, Besigye re-joined the army, first as a battalion commander, then as the chief of logistics and engineering. This firsthand knowledge of military deals made him cynical about NRM leadership, particularly where military procurement was concerned.

In 1998, he applied to leave the army after publicly criticising top figures in the military and government. But the fallout between the two men started in earnest in 1999 when, still serving as an army officer, Besigye authored a dossier attacking Museveni’s regime for “losing track” of the original ideals of the NRA’s bush war. He cited corruption, nepotism, and other undemocratic tendencies. The army threatened to court-martial Besigye, but he escaped punishment with a hurried retirement.

In a move that is said to have taken even Museveni by surprise, Besigye soon after announced that he would stand against his former boss, promising to reform Ugandan politics. Since then he has lost three times in president elections, including in 2006 after Museveni had removed presidential term limits allowing him to run again.

Over this time, some Ugandans think the contest between Museveni and Besigye has degenerated into an obstructive personal rivalry, long since ceasing to be a political contest. If this about politics, “there would be different faces on Uganda’s political scene”, Ndebesa Mwambutsya, a political history lecturer at Makerere University, explained to Think Africa Press, “It wouldn’t be Museveni versus Besigye”.

More Museveni?

After 26 years of Museveni rule, the voices within the ruling party urging him to retire in 2016, before the next election, are growing louder. But his loyalists are singing a different song, and some of his lieutenants seem to be paving the way for him to run again.

However, Museveni’s re-election would not be easy this time round. Civil societies, especially religious leaders, are calling for an end to Museveni’s prolonged rule and for the reinstatement of presidential term limits. Museveni has responded by telling religious figures to told “mind their business” and leave politics alone, but retired Assistant Bishop of Kampala, Zac Niringiye insisted to Think Africa Press that it is their right to discuss the political future of Uganda. “We want him to retire peacefully”, Niringiye explained. “We don’t hate him. We are telling him to retire honourably.”

Debate and uncertainty surrounding Museveni’s succession has also bred internal fighting within the NRM and the president may faces challenges from within. The NRM seems increasingly dominated by a newer generation of members interested in political change and a group of young NRM legislators has threatened to break away and form a new political party.

Challengers within the party

There are also a number of groups in the ruling party with favoured candidates for the presidency in mind. Until a recent falling out, Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi had been widely perceived as Museveni’s most likely successor, and there is a prominent pro-Mbabazi camp within the NRM. But since Museveni seemed to want to run again, this faction has become quieter, realising a battle against Museveni would be one they would be unlikely to win.

The prime minister’s biggest undoing has been his public image. He is seen as aloof, arrogant and is accused within NRM circles of being a plotter. He has also allegedly been involved in many corruption scandals, and been accused of misusing his influence in a land deal worth 11 billion Ugandan shillings ($5.5 million). An even more dramatic corruption case almost saw him censured by parliament for allegedly misusing money meant for security gadgets during a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala in 2007.

Mbabazi’s current silence may however be a tactical withdrawal, and the NRM should not be surprised if he reignites his intention to contest for the highest office in the country in a few years’ time.

Another possible contender for the presidency is First Lady and Minister of Karamoja Affairs, Janet Museveni. However, even if Museveni retired in 2016, the transition of power from husband to wife would probably be seen as an intolerably crass monopolisation of power within one family.

Another candidate could be Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga whose popularity is rising not only within the ruling party, but even amongst opposition. A number of women activists praise her for her impartiality while presiding over the national parliament.

Public opinion divided

But what does the electorate think? A survey conducted by Research World International in 2011 and released in May 2012 indicates that 55.6% of respondents belonging do not want Museveni to run again. On Besigye, 45% said he should stand again while 43% opposed the idea.

Asking NRM supporters who the next leader of the NRM should be, 13.8% favoured the First Lady, 13% former vice-president Gilbert Bukenya, 11.5% Kadaga and 8% favoured Mbabazi. Amongst all respondents (NRM and non-NRM supporters alike), however, the most favoured presidential candidate was Kadaga.

The 2016 elections are still a long way away and a lot could change in that time. However, if internal divisions within the NRM deepen into pronounced factions, the party’s ability to compete at the elections may be significantly weakened. In this instance, the downfall of Museveni and the NRM would not have been the work of Besigye and the opposition over several hard-fought years, but the result of intrigue and mudslinging within the ruling party itself.
in Burkina Faso

25 Years On: The Mixed Legacy of Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara, Socialist Soldier

by Think Africa October 15, 2012, 2:54 pm 364 Views

After four years of Sankara’s socialist policies, Burkina Faso achieved near food self-sufficiency. Then his best friend killed him and took office.

By Peter Dörrie.

Thomas Sankara (left) was killed in 1987 on the orders of Blaise Compaore (right) who has been president ever since. Photographs by Wikipedia and UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso:

“Fatherland or death, we will prevail!”

With these words, Captain Thomas Sankara proclaimed the revolution on August 4, 1983. He had just led a successful coup against the government of Burkina Faso, back then still called Haute-Volta. His words were prophetic, for just four years later the charismatic officer, later remembered as “Africa’s Ché Guevara”, was murdered, shot by the men of his best friend.

But these four years were enough to make Sankara one of the most important political figures of his time. He became one of the sharpest critics of imperialism and celebrated leader of the non-aligned movement. His social and economic policies, the centerpiece of his revolution, can still be called visionary. Nothing drives this point home better than looking at Burkina Faso today, 25 years after his death.

Unemployment, poverty and high prices

Kpénahi Traoré sits in the leafy garden of the French Cultural Institute in Ouagadougou, the capital city. The young journalist finished university a year ago. In this country, where only every fourth person is able to read and write, this is a real privilege. But equivalent to prosperity – or even a permanent job – it is not. “At the beginning of our studies we were told that journalists can make 100,000 CFA-Francs ($200) per month”, she recalls. “But this is only possible if you work two jobs.”

The situation isn’t much different for graduates of other subjects. “It’s not easy to find a job. Everybody takes what he can get, no matter if it actually fits his degree or qualification”, she tells Think Africa Press. For the great majority of the population who don’t have any school or university degree at all, the situation is even worse. Those in the larger towns often work seven days a week as craftsmen, mechanics or street hawkers, without making even the official minimum wage of around $65 per month. In the countryside, most people sill rely on subsistence agriculture. If the rains don’t suffice, families are not able to afford school fees for their children and girls are often married off as young as possible because parents hope that the prospective husband can provide for the bride.

Chrysogone Zougmoré is confronted with these kinds of stories every day. The 56-year-old is the president of the largest human rights organisation of Burkina Faso and chair of the Alliance Against the High Cost of Living. The rising costs of living over the last years have driven many people into poverty, he says.

Prices for the most important household goods – basic food stuffs and natural gas for cooking and petrol – are rising constantly. Burkina Faso relies on imports for practically all goods consumed in the country, which makes it highly vulnerable to changes in world market prices. The little money generated through the export of gold, cotton and sesame benefits mostly external investors and the corrupt elite.

Sankara’s social policy

This was different under Sankara, Zougmoré says: “You have to say that social policy under Sankara was really good”. Sankara disappropriated the country’s economic elite who controlled most of the arable land and real estate at that time. The fields were divided between subsistence farmers and in the cities social housing was constructed. He even declared the whole year of 1985 rent free.

In the international sphere, Sankara aspired to a “second independence” from the former colonial master France. He developed ties to the Soviet Union and Cuba, which he admired for its domestic revolution. He despised development aid, conscious of its potential to lead to dependence and external domination.

To make Burkina Faso independent from foreign loans, Sankara tried to create an industrial base for the dominantly agrarian Burkinabé economy. Civil servants were forced to wear locally made clothes during office hours to increase demand. In a move untypical for many socialist presidents, he also supported private business, establishing special economic zones and improving the infrastructure of the country. The programmes paid off: four years after Sankara came to power, Burkina Faso was practically self-sufficient in its demand for basic food stuffs. Today, the government has to import much of its food, even in years with a good harvest.

Compaoré’s cronyism and corruption

There is one individual that both Kpénahi Traoré and Chrysogone Zougmoré see as most responsible for this change of fates: President Blaise Compaoré, Sankara’s erstwhile best friend, mastermind of his assassination and head of state since October 15, 1987. It was under his leadership that the current system of corruption, cronyism and impunity was introduced that keeps Burkina Faso from developing despite being a relatively stable and peaceful society.

“The regime depends on corruption”, explains Zougmoré. Important offices in the government are given to supporters of the president. Ministers and members of parliament use programmes for ‘agricultural development’ to chase subsistence farmers off their land and to develop it into private estates for sugar cane and cotton production. Gold mining – one of the country’s biggest foreign exchange earners – is a deeply criminal business and regularly development aid in the millions is siphoned off through corrupt practices. One of the worst offenders for self-enrichment and cronyism is none other than the mother-in-law of the president’s brother. The political-cum-economic elite show off its wealth openly, zooming through the city in petrol sucking luxury cars. Under Sankara, excesses like this were unthinkable.

“Things like corruption, embezzlement, cronyism, all that didn’t exist”, remembers Zougmoré. “You could talk of an era of integrity. And that was the pride of the Burkinabé. Between 1983 and 1987, the death of Sankara, we were proud when we were abroad and said “we are Burkinabé”.”

Sankara abolished many of the privileges of the oversized government bureaucracy. Civil servants had to donate a month’s wage every year into a state fund. In what must still be one of the most innovative and humble government policies of all times, he also sold off all extravagant official vehicles. In their places, the Renault 5, the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at the time, was made the official vehicle for all civil servants and government personnel, including the president himself.

But Sankara was ahead of the times in other fields as well. His projects for environmental protection and his literacy and vaccination campaigns were highly innovative and mostly successful. He was especially engaged in promoting the rights of women, leading African countries in allowing them to join the army, banning female genital mutilation and putting women into top government and state-owned company positions.

Today, not much remains of these reforms. His revolution followed Sankara into the grave.

Sankara the soldier

It is tempting to put the blame for this exclusively with those who profited from this development: the self-serving elite of the country and France, which could re-establish its hegemonic power over Western Africa.

But the search for the culprit who condemned Burkina Faso’s experiment with an enlightened and progressive approach to economic and social development to failure, wouldn’t be complete without implicating Thomas Sankara himself. Sankara’s character, like his revolution, can only be judged in shades of grey, not black or white, explains Chrysogone Zougmoré.

Thomas Sankara lived “his” revolution to the fullest extent possible. When the following regime tried to implicate him in embezzlement of government funds to justify the coup, it was disappointed: Sankara’s assets at the time of his death consisted of an average house on which he was still paying off the mortgage, $350 in the bank and some bikes.

But at the same time, he was a soldier to his soul. It was an army scholarship that allowed him to attend secondary school. He gained his first political experience during a visit to an officers school in Madagascar, where he witnessed a socialist coup d’état. Even as a president, he continued wearing uniform and his personal sidearm.

“The regime that came into being after the coup of August 4, 1983, was a military regime. Even though they proclaimed a revolution, they remained a military regime with military management procedures”, explains Zougmoré, who still judges Sankara’s legacy critically for this reason. “You had the impression that the whole of Burkina Faso was a military barracks. There were not any unions or youth organisations, at least no independent ones. Committees for the Defence of the Revolution [CDRs] were imposed on everything. There was a CDR for the youth, a CDR for women, a CDR for farmers, CDR unions.”

A silenced majority

Independent unions had a long tradition in Burkina Faso. Many Burkinabé, including Zougmoré, who returned from his studies in France in 1985, had hoped for political freedoms as well as economic rights when the revolution started. They were disappointed. When unions called for a general strike in March 1985, a furious Sankara fired 1,300 striking civil servants and students and replaced them with cadres loyal to the revolution. These were ideologically educated, but often brought few qualifications for their actual job.

Sankara and his supporters also didn’t succeed in getting the larger population to internalise the ideals of the revolution. “He didn’t understand that you cannot force a revolution on a population. You have to educate the population politically before you can start a revolution”, explains Zougmoré.

But political education in a country where the illiteracy rate even today is at over 70% and where the majority of the population can only be reached via poor dirt roads is next to impossible. The change Sankara tried to implement ended up being too fast and radical for many people.

This was exemplified in his attempt to wrest power away from the traditional rulers of Burkina Faso. Especially in the countryside, this highly hierarchic system of kings and chefs de terre still wields tremendous influence.

“In Sankara’s conception, the traditional rulers were a source of stultification. They didn’t allow the populace to liberate itself and comprehend the world”, says Zougmoré. “But he didn’t realise that the influence of these rulers was real, that you couldn’t just decapitate the system.” Instead, he made enemies out of this powerful elite and its supporters.

This was similar in the international sphere. He received acclamation from leftist circles for his rhetorically brilliant bashing of imperialism. And he became the hero of the pan-African movement, because he clashed with the governments of neighbouring countries, which he denounced as kleptocratic and subservient to French political interests. But he was never able (or did not want) to convert this clout into real international influence.

That made it easy for his enemies to agitate against him. The deadly shots by Compaoré’s men and the announcement of a “rectification” of the revolution did not produce any appreciable resistance in Burkina Faso.

A country at a crossroads

Today, a quarter of a century later, Burkina Faso is at a crossroads. “The country is finished and without any perspective”, sighs Chrysogone Zougmoré. Despite its relative political stability, it is still one of the ten least developed countries in the world (with most of the other nine having experienced internal conflict during the last 15 years). The president and his entourage have enriched themselves during a time of mass privatisations while the rest of the country stagnated.

“They don’t seem to care”, marvels Kpénahi Traoré. “If the government doesn’t take care, this will lead to an explosion.” Both Kpénahi Traoré and Chrysogone Zougmoré agree that if this explosion happens, it will likely come in 2015, the year of the next presidential election. The constitution does not allow President Compaoré to stand for another term. If he tries to change this, or, as many suspect, tries to install his brother François, there will be resistance.

“The population has to mobilise to bring a bit of movement into the affair and to inject new breath into democracy”, says Zougmoré. “Burkina needs a profound change.”

If you talk to young Burkinabé about this change, they mention the name of Thomas Sankara. 25 years after his death, he has become an idol to many who never experienced his rule personally. Maybe his legacy will soon inspire the next revolution in Burkina Faso. If so, let’s hope that the revolutionaries of tomorrow also learn from his mistakes.
in Kenya

Kenya’s Coalitions of Convenience and Ethnic Politicking

by Think Africa September 25, 2012, 12:18 pm 230 Views

As general elections approach, pragmatic allegiances along ethnic lines and tensions between communities could increase.

By Nikita Bernardi

Prime Minister Raila Odinga talking to press in Nairobi. Photograph by Demosh.

Nairobi, Kenya:

The conflict in the Tana delta region of Kenya between the Orma and Pokomo communities claimed more than 100 lives in just two weeks earlier this month. A curfew, the deployment of the General Service Unit and calls for military intervention seem to have quelled the fighting, although the government’s sluggishness in responding has been criticised. And even though the violence has stopped and arrests have been made, hundreds more villagers have lost their homes, livestock and farming land and they are too afraid to return to the area, choosing instead to remain in makeshift camps along the Kenyan coast.

Although claims of two mass graves apparently discovered near Ozi village have been dismissed, the mystery around them grows, and many are starting to blame the clashes in the area on more than just land and water disputes. The attacks on villagers have been described as organised and planned, leading many to believe that underlying political forces contributed to the violence.

What motivated the violence?

As has been pointed out by one researcher, if this was really a dispute over access to land and water – a “herder-farmer problem” – the Orma and Pokomo should have been able to formulate some kind of creative solution as other tribes in the Laikipia region have done. Even more worrying is the revelation that the government was reportedly warned about the possibility of conflict as early as May. At that time, residents complained to the government about boundaries changes and gave a three-month notice period, after which, they said, they would solve the issue themselves by any means necessary.

Furthermore, the politicking between acting Internal Security minister Yusuf Haji and local Galole district MP Dhadho Godhana, each of whom blames the other and refuses to partake in peace talks because of personal differences, enhances the political undertones of the violence.

Indeed, the Kenyan media seems sure that these are predominantly political battles, describing the violence as being due to “jostling for elective positions in next year’s General Election”.

‘Politics’ without politics

In Kenya, votes are rarely cast due to a political or ideological belief. The fight is not so much between Left and Right but between individual candidates, both at the local and national level. This is no more evident than in the curious fact that every time there has been a general election since the Kenya African National Union (KANU) lost for the first time in 2002, the individual politicians competing for the top positions have often been the same even though the political party backing them frequently changes.

People do not vote because of ideas but according to what will be most beneficial for them – this is usually the party from their region or a leader from their ethnic group. The majority of parties in Kenya are more of a support system for a specific candidate and are almost always ethnically-based, using this specific identity to mobilise support. Kenyan parties are merely a formality for elections and remain inactive when there is not an election year, as reflected by the overwhelming lack of party websites. Instead, we see the personal websites of Uhuru Kenyatta, Kalonzo Musyoka, Raila Odinga and William Ruto, each contending in next year’s election.

Kenya’s political elite can be seen then as an entity that fights amongst itself for the top spots using means other than political ideology to garner votes when necessary.

Ethnic allegiances

The centrality of ethnicity to political mobilisation in Kenya has been well-documented by academics and journalists inside and outside Kenya. Ethnicity is thought to be the easiest identity to exploit during elections and it is notable, for example, that President Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, won around 97% of the vote from his home region of Central Province in the 2007 elections.

The widely held assumption that Kenyans will vote along ethnic lines is partly due to the connection between the elite and their communities. It is understood that if a certain community votes someone into a position of power, the people of that community will benefit. There is an attitude that the state is a prize which will be shared out amongst a community once it has been acquired. This is in part a legacy of Kenya’s political system under colonialism in which colonialists would often explicitly associate political figures with their ethnic community and take them as representative of it.

Owing to the fact that not all ethnic groups are of the same size, however, politicians vying for the presidency often resort to forming alliances and coalitions with leaders from other ethnic groups. This is what academic Sebastian Elischer has labelled “coalitions of convenience”. A clear example of this is the National Alliance Rainbow Coalition (NARC) which defeated KANU in 2002. Kibaki and Raila were both a part of NARC but even by 2005 they had split into separate groups – the Party of Natonal Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) – and eventually went head to head in the 2007 general election.

Making deals

However to blame all Kenya’s political problems on ethnicity would be irresponsible and reductionist. More often than not, after leaders of the opposition have lost an electoral battle, they simply shift allegiance to the party in power. Or, as is being shown by the rising popularity of Uhuru’s newly-formed The National Alliance (TNA) party, even before elections, politicians or those with vested interests will “scramble” to show their support if it seems a certain individual’s power is increasing.

More recently at a political rally in Ukambani, an area with a predominantly Kamba population and therefore a stronghold of Kalonzo Musyoka, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, a Luo, suggested that himself and Musyoka should join forces. Odinga advised Kamba people to “shun” ethnic politics and vote for him, but to be safe invited Kalonzo to join him. As the election – slated for March 2013 – nears, these kinds of proposals will continue and it will be interesting to see who will be the first to abandon their personal bid for the top spot in exchange for a lesser position of power but one that that will at least guarantee a term in government.

All this highlights the unfortunate situation in which Kenya’s political elite use apparent ethnic differences when it is convenient for them. It is this pitting against each other of ethnic groups by the elite which tends to have short-term gains for the politicians and devastatingly long-term losses for unlucky communities that miss out.

The Orma and Pokomo are two relatively small tribes who, apart from a few isolated incidents, have managed to coexist in considerable peace. Yet as the election nears, their apparent differences seem to become a problem – this is certainly not mere coincidence. If reports of incitement to violence by local MPs in the Tana delta are true, one cannot help but be concerned about the even greater power struggles that will occur next year. The problem is not that Kenyan people “like to fight”; as can be seen from social networking sites and talking to Kenyans, those against the violence always outnumber those for it. The problem is a culture of political contestation based on what is purported to be a zero-sum competition along essentialised ethnic divides, something promoted and sustained by a political elite who stand to gain the most and lose the least. For the long-term good of Kenya, politicians need to be more responsible – inciting violence should never be an option.