Editor’s Note

FEW areas of the world have suffered from the Much Western media analysis of Africa’s excesses of the international media as Africa has. In problems is centred on the lack of good governance, general, the picture that emerges of the continent is and this is quite often reduced to the issue of corrupt one of unrelieved gloom. Wars, coups, famine, natural leaders who have overstayed in their tenure of office. disasters and human degradation are, it appears from Here there is a large element of selectivity, with the press reports, the staple produce of Africa. The news media ignoring the misdeeds of pro-Western leaders from the continent is so hopelessly and inexplicably while highlighting those of African leaders who are dismal that it justifies the colonial epithet of the ‘dark not. continent’. But the real point is that such analyses, by More recently, however, a different, almost focusing on individuals, ignore the broader social basis euphoric picture is being projected of the continent of the problem. Frantz Fanon, the ideologue of – at least in some sections of the financial and business African liberation, warned more than half a century media. ‘Africa rising’, readers are advised, should be ago of the emergence of a parasitic class which had the new watchword for investors. Africa is ‘booming’ grown up and been nurtured under colonialism and as its middle class begins to flex its new purchasing which would treat the political offices and resources power. Leaving aside the key question of whether of the newly independent nation as its personal growth translates into development, if some analysts patrimony. Decades may have elapsed since are to be believed, the continent is set to challenge independence but the power and influence of this Asia as the next growth centre. class reinforced by new social groups in the post- The attempt to portray a continent as large and colonial era still continue. Admittedly, Africa today varied as Africa as either a centre of endless has its quota of corrupt and incompetent leaders, but catastrophes or the new economic and financial power to ignore this problem’s linkages with the colonial is wholly misplaced. Africa has its bright spots which legacy would be sheer dishonesty. show economic promise, its share of success stories This year marks the 50th anniversary of Africa’s and failures. Most importantly, like the rest of the first steps towards unification of the continent, a Third World, it is struggling against the blight of project which strongly animated its first generation economic underdevelopment and the structural of leaders. As its current leaders commemorated this impediments that underpin it. What the Western occasion earlier this year with another, albeit small media has failed to do is view this whole process in step in the same direction, this is probably an its proper perspective and provide balanced analyses opportune time to take stock of some of the and reporting. developments in the continent. Our cover story What is particularly galling is the failure of the attempts to provide some perspectives on these Western media to appreciate the complexities of the trends. continent’s problems. This is compounded by an In addition to broaching the question of the obliviousness to how foreign interests and their drive towards continental unity and the form it should proxies have succeeded in shunting many an African take, we publish some articles on various aspects of country from its chosen course of development. For economic development, including a return to example, one hardly finds a media analysis of the economic planning which had been scuttled by World current upheavals in the Democratic Republic of the Bank and IMF programmes when a number of Congo which acknowledges that these have continued African countries came under the tutelage of these since independence principally because of Western institutions. The question of political violence is political and corporate intervention in the country’s explored in one article, while another attempts to affairs. And when one turns to another theatre of answer the central issue in North Africa: the fate of upheaval in Africa, the Central African Republic, the the Arab Spring. Finally we assess the progress and question of how French intervention over the years, gaps in advancing the cause of gender equality in the by propping up dictators, has contributed to that continent. country’s current problems is barely raised in any discussion. But quite apart from such interventions, the crucial role of international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in pauperising Africa barely figures – The Editors in any discussion of Africa’s current economic problems. Visit the Third World Network website at: www.twn.my

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 Third World RESURGENCE www.twn.my No 278 Oct 13 ISSN 0128-357X

COVER: A summit was held in Addis Ababa in May (pic) to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity. As Africa strives for greater unity, it has to overcome some serious economic and political challenges. 8

ECOLOGY 17 Industrialisation is an im- sensual US surveillance in perative for Africa – Mexico – Peter Watt 2 Myanmar: Open for business? Kingsley Ighobor – Mike Ives 19 Africa strives to move from HUMAN RIGHTS neo-colonial mining mode – ECONOMICS Alhassan Atta-Quayson 34 Poverty and racism inextri- cably linked, says UN expert 21 Emerging trends in political – Kanaga Raja 6 The man who won a Nobel for violence in Africa – Kwesi W helping create a global finan- Obeng WOMEN cial crisis – James R Crotty 24 Asking the wrong questions: Did the Arab revolutions 38 Trading women for profit – COVER fail? – Ramzy Baroud Graham Peebles Africa at 50 26 The Maputo Protocol: Its Some Perspectives potential for a revolution in TRIBUTE women’s rights – Moreen 8 Africa 50 years on, from Majiwa 41 Gamani Corea (1925-2013) unity to union – Cornelius 28 Reversing the downward – A tribute – Chakravarthi Adedze spiral in Africa’s rural sector Raghavan 10 Africa at 50: Five major – Roger Leakey tasks ahead – Hailemariam ANNIVERSARY Dessalegn VIEWPOINT 44 The silenced voices of 11 The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale history: Asian workers on – Dennis Laumann 30 The wisdom we have lost in the Death Railway – David 13 How Africa is scrambling for knowledge – Jeremy Boggett Africa – Daniel K Kalinaki Seabrook 15 Africa has entered a new POETRY season of planning and long- WORLD AFFAIRS term development thinking – 48 The First Circle – Kofi Adebayo Olukoshi 32 In bed with the bully: Con- Awoonor THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE is pub- THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE is pub- Publisher and Chief Editor: S.M. lished by the Third World Network, an in- lished monthly by Third World Network, 131 Mohamed Idris; Managing Editor: Chee ternational network of groups and individu- Jalan Macalister, 10400 Penang, Malaysia. Yoke Ling; Editors: T Rajamoorthy, Lean als involved in efforts to bring about a Tel: 60-4-2266728 Fax: 60-4-2264505. Ka-Min, Evelyne Hong; Contributing Edi- greater articulation of the needs and rights Email: [email protected] tors: Roberto Bissio (Uruguay), Charles of peoples in the Third World; a fair distri- Printed by Jutaprint, No. 2, Solok Sungai bution of world resources; and forms of de- Pinang 3, 11600 Penang, Malaysia. Abugre (Ghana); Staff: Linda Ooi (Design), velopment which are ecologically sustain- Cover Design: Lim Jee Yuan Lim Jee Yuan (Art Consultant), Lim Beng able and fulfil human needs. Copyright © Third World Network Tuan (Marketing), Yap Bing Nyi (Editorial) E C O L O G Y Open for business? As Myanmar transitions to democracy after decades of military rule, its increasingly vocal civil society is scrambling to protect forests and farmland from rapacious development.

Mike Ives

LATE last fall, the government-built irrigation pipelines in the village of Alwan Sok stopped pumping water to rice fields. Local officials governing this small farming area about 13 miles southeast of Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital, offered no explanation. The fall rice crop had been harvested already, but without irrigation farm- ers wouldn’t be able to plant the year’s second crop in the dry season. That was troubling. Rice is the farmers’ staple food, and most of them are heavily indebted to an agricultural bank where they buy seeds and ferti- liser. Even 30-year-old Ko Aye Htay, A man looks at his watermelon field near the site of a planned ‘special economic whose family owns the most land in zone’ in Thilawa. Villagers in the area have protested their eviction to make way for the SEZ. the village, says he borrows up to half his income on credit. As the weeks without irrigation a tin factory that has long sat idle. national press has chimed in with oc- morphed into months, hope of a Residents were told that while they casional reports on the conflict, and a spring harvest evaporated. Some vil- could continue farming, their land was Yangon nonprofit, Paung Ku, has ad- lagers began selling their cows and state property. They knew there would vocated for the farmers in consulta- motorbikes to cover basic expenses, be trouble again, but they didn’t know tions with investors and the govern- or sharing rice with those who were when. ment. going hungry. Then, on 31 January, In April 2012, the government On 14 February – the day of the hundreds of households in the village signed a memorandum of intent with planned eviction – the government found notices posted on their doors Japanese investors to build a 2,400- backed off. A private newspaper, The ordering them to leave their land in hectare ‘special economic zone’, or Myanmar Times, quoted an agricul- 14 days or face arrest. ‘Some of us SEZ – a term coined by the Chinese ture officer telling villagers that al- thought it would be better to be in government in the 1980s to describe though the government technically prison, because at least there we could sprawling industrial parks that woo owned their land, they would be be sure to eat,’ Ko Aye Htay says. foreign investors with tax incentives. treated fairly. But when I visited The villagers weren’t entirely By November, Japan had agreed to Alwan Sok a month later, the irriga- surprised by the eviction notice. For provide $270 million for the Thilawa tion pipes were still shut off. Villag- decades, Burma’s military govern- SEZ and other economic projects ers said their only hope for a 2013 rice ment had been trying to convert the across Myanmar. Construction was harvest was the annual monsoon that fields around Alwan Sok into facto- scheduled to begin in early 2013. A typically enables them to plant in June ries that would complement the adja- total of 3,900 people in Alwan Sok without irrigation. cent Thilawa port – the largest and nearby villages were ordered to ‘All of the newspapers and maga- deepwater port in the country. Back move. zines are saying that Burma is chang- in 1982, officials confiscated a chunk Ten years ago, the villagers might ing, but the way the officials act, it’s of the village’s farmland, saying they have gone quietly. In this case, they like the old way of ruling the people,’ planned to build an industrial park. protested. Their grievances were farmer Ko Aye Htay told me, his voice The complex never materialised, but widely reported in the local media, tinged with anger as he sat cross-leg- the government kept the land. In 1996, which until last year was governed by ged in a wooden hut beside a stack of it confiscated another parcel and built draconian censorship laws. The inter- newspaper clippings one sultry March

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 2 E C O L O G Y afternoon. ‘They’re always talking about Burma’s history, about how things were done in the past. Well, we don’t feel that the changes are real.’ Activists say the Thilawa SEZ has elements of both the old Myanmar – the repressive military dictatorship that ruled the country for a half-cen- tury – and the new Myanmar that has attracted a flood of international at- tention and development aid since March 2011, when a quasi-civilian government came to power on the heels of the Southeast Asian country’s first general elections in 20 years. The new government – which later introduced a series of landmark reforms including freeing political prisoners, legalising labour unions, and passing several environmental laws – has raised hopes that the coun- Villagers laying a roadblock to protest the lack of compensation for confiscation of try’s days of suppressing dissent are their lands to build a road link for a ‘special economic zone’ in the city of Dawei. coming to an end. But it is still un- Faced with a barrage of industrial projects, local activists and civil society groups clear if the ostensibly pro-democracy are trying to decide what to fight for, how to organise advocacy campaigns and what government will respect the rights of policy reforms to realistically expect. its citizens and protect its ecosystems as it opens its doors to international have been a key source of funding for politics might think its civil society investors. Or if it will sell them out to Myanmar’s junta, the country’s half- remained silent throughout its long era the highest bidders. century of isolation also meant that of military rule. Not so: There were Observers say the answer de- much of its natural resources re- high-profile uprisings against the gov- pends to some degree on how it han- mained undeveloped. ernment in 1988 and 2007, and com- dles the Thilawa farmers’ protests and Today Myanmar still has huge munity groups rallied to help the other land-acquisition conflicts that swaths of intact forests, sizeable off- country recover from natural disasters are flaring up across the nation. shore oil and gas deposits, and a vast like the devastating 2008 Cyclone ‘The space has opened up,’ says catalogue of rare and endangered spe- Nargis. Still other groups have been Paul Donowitz, campaign director for cies. But as the US and the European working quietly for years to fill gaps Earth Rights International, a Washing- Union have lifted or conditionally in government-provided social serv- ton-based nonprofit that supports suspended longstanding economic ices by hosting municipal blood Myanmar activists campaigning for sanctions, many worry that an influx drives or raising funds for families social and environmental justice. ‘The of foreign capital may set off a rush that can’t afford to bury their dead. level of opposition is definitely to extract resources that could cause Although the military government new. That’s why we’re seeing pro- significant environmental damage and regarded civil society groups with tests popping up around major negatively impact, rather than im- suspicion, activists say officials projects.’ However, he adds, there still prove, the lives of ordinary citizens. weren’t categorically opposed to is no community consultation proc- Faced with these complex chal- grassroots advocacy work – so long ess around big development projects, lenges, activists say they are encour- as it didn’t threaten the regime. nor any debate at the highest levels aged by a growing network of civil What’s new, activists say, is a over whether such projects should go society groups that appear willing to sense that they can now be more po- forward. speak out about simmering land and litically outspoken. Local journalists, Investors view Myanmar, for- resource conflicts. The groups range too, feel empowered thanks to recent merly called Burma, as Asia’s new- from Paung Ku, an umbrella organi- laws that have eradicated some, est ‘frontier market’. A central part of sation that operates from Yangon with though not all, censorship. And the the appeal is the country’s 55 million assistance from embassies and devel- new government, hungry for foreign people – a potential consumer mar- opment agencies, to grassroots groups investment, appears eager to make a ket – and the vast natural resources that are fighting proposed hydropower good impression. For example, the that once made the country a jewel of dams and oil and gas pipelines in country is preparing to join the Ex- the British Empire. Although profits Myanmar’s restive hinterlands. tractive Industries Transparency Ini- from timber, minerals, oil, and gas Casual observers of the country’s tiative, a voluntary agreement by

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 3 E C O L O G Y more than 30 countries that governs backs. Today, parts of central Yangon former, he freed Suu Kyi. Two years environmental safeguards and finan- look decrepit, as if a tropical storm later, the NLD, which had boycotted cial disclosure requirements for natu- has just torn through. Weeds sprout the 2010 elections, won 43 of the 45 ral-resource-extraction projects. inside its abandoned British colonial parliamentary seats it contested. On the flipside, activists say, buildings, and at night a handful of Newly elected Suu Kyi went on a tour business in this largely rural and streetlights cast an uneasy, fluorescent of Europe and the United States, meet- densely forested country tucked be- pallor over trash-strewn alleys. Ac- ing with world leaders and attracting tween China and India is still prima- cording to Transparency International, large, adoring crowds. In November rily driven by crooked officials who Myanmar is among the most corrupt 2012 Barack Obama made the first strongarm farmers off their land to places on earth, beating only Sudan, visit to Myanmar by a sitting Ameri- build industrial parks, copper mines, Somalia, Afghanistan, and North Ko- can president. and other large-scale economic rea in a ranking of 176 countries. Suu Kyi’s release and subsequent projects. Activists complain that most election were a key justification for of the new laws that are supposed to Nation in transition the US and the European Union to protect the environment and the poor loosen their longstanding economic are weak, and that many politicians But Myanmar also feels like a sanctions. But observers remain wary in Myanmar’s parliament lack the ca- nation in transition. New construction of the Thein Sein government, which pacity or desire to implement them. projects are sprouting up in Yangon is still dominated by the military. The To what extent political reforms and property values are soaring. (In- constitution, written by the junta in and increased media attention will ternational businessmen are paying 2008, reserves a quarter of the seats translate into victories for Myanmar’s $4,000 a month for two-bedroom in both chambers of parliament for the poor and marginalised is still unclear, serviced apartments in a country military, and requires three crucial says Kyaw Thu, director of Paung Ku where the average annual income is ministries – defence, interior, and bor- and one of Myanmar’s leading activ- about $1,400.) Oil and gas prospec- der affairs – to be held by generals. ists. His group is advocating a slow, tors are vying for offshore energy (Amendments need more than 75% methodical pace of development that blocks and international aid is flow- of votes to pass.) It also bars anyone will give all stakeholders – foreign ing in. The Asian Development Bank with a foreign spouse from running and local companies, the Myanmar is planning to overhaul the country’s for president – a clause that applies government, and affected citizens – crippled road infrastructure; educators to 67-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi, enough time to assess new projects. from American universities are pre- whose late husband was British. And ‘The speed and scale of reform paring to help rebuild the country’s rights groups have accused the gov- and investment is quite huge,’ Kyaw creaky university system; multina- ernment and military of fuelling sec- Thu told me. ‘We still have weak laws tional brands are staking claims to tarian violence that has flared up and poor knowledge of dealing with potential factory space. Thousands of across Myanmar in recent months. international players. It’s too much for imported cars are rolling through Given the junta’s continuing hold over us. We don’t need to rush.’ Yangon’s potholed streets, adding to the government, observers wonder Ruled for half a century by a mili- growing traffic jams that are typical whether the policy reforms will im- tary junta that overthrew a democratic in Southeast Asia’s megacities. prove the lives of everyday citizens government in 1962, Myanmar has These changes mainly kicked off like the farmers of Alwan Sok and long been seen as a pariah state. For in 2011, a few months after Burma’s help responsibly manage the country’s decades the junta pillaged the coun- junta surprised the world by holding rich natural resources. try’s vast natural resources while al- its first general elections in 20 years. Meanwhile, the race is on for lowing basic civil services like For most of 2010, it wasn’t clear to Myanmar’s natural resources. A hotly schools, roads, and hospitals to lan- international observers if the junta anticipated foreign investment law, guish. As Myanmar’s neighbours de- was serious about reform, or how it passed in November 2012, allows in- veloped their economies, the junta’s would deal with its outspoken politi- ternational firms up to 100% owner- widespread human rights abuses led cal foes – notably Nobel Peace Prize ship in most ventures and offers com- Western governments and aid agen- recipient Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, panies five-year tax holidays and 50- cies to impose economic sanctions who had been held under off-and-on year land leases. International inves- against the repressive regime, al- house arrest since 1989. Her party, the tors are now scrambling to get a toe- though some investment did trickle in National League for Democracy hold. The biggest investors so far are – mostly from China and other Asian (NLD), had won a landslide victory China and Thailand, which have com- countries. Tourists largely steered in Myanmar’s 1990 elections but the mitted $14.2 billion and $9.6 billion clear. junta refused to accept the results and respectively for mining, hydroelectric, As the decades wore on, arrested and imprisoned many NLD and mega-SEZ projects. The World Myanmar became increasingly iso- leaders. Six days after the 2010 elec- Bank has approved at least $480 mil- lated and impoverished, even as its tion brought to power Thein Sein, a lion in ‘support credit’ and commu- leaders grew richer on their citizens’ former general and self-professed re- nity development grants. Companies

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 4 E C O L O G Y such as Nestle, Unilever, DuPont, construction of the Chinese-spon- lane road, I saw a large parking lot Carlsberg, Ford, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, sored Myitsone dam on the Irawaddy full of brand-new Toyotas. The gov- and General Electric have all signed River; cancelling a proposed coal- ernment had recently loosened car im- distribution deals. Although many fired power plant in Dawei; and ban- port duties, and my driver said other international investors are hang- ning mining within 100 metres of Thilawa has become the entry point ing back, the World Bank predicts the Myanmar’s four largest rivers. But of most new cars coming into the country’s economy will grow by more analysts say Myanmar still needs bet- country – including the one we were than 6% this year. ter laws that are strongly enforced. in. As some trucks peeled away from As the government clears land for The country’s first environmental the port carrying Camrys, others investment projects, public resent- conservation law, which passed last drove in loaded with thick logs. In the ment appears to be growing. The con- year after languishing for years in early 20th century, Myanmar’s forest- flict over the Thilawa SEZ is just one parliament, has been widely criticised management policies were among the example. Last year, a police raid of for being too weak. (Firms are not world’s best, but now illegal logging villagers protesting the expansion of required to conduct international- is business as usual. Security guards a military-backed copper mine standard environmental impact as- shooed me away as I tried to take pic- sparked nationwide outrage. (Anger sessments before beginning construc- tures. was later directed at Aung San Suu tion.) Environmental activists say We moved onto a roadside shack Kyi, who tried to persuade the farm- while it is positive that the Myitsone for lunch. As we ordered tea and some ers to stop protesting and allow the dam has been suspended, six others fermented meats and fish, the farm- mine to go forward.) And near the are going forward – all of them in ers told me they were hopeful that the coastal city of Dawei, residents con- hotbeds of sectarian violence. dispute would be settled in a way that cerned about environmental and pub- Tobias Jackson, a forester at gave them a place to grow rice, lic health impacts are pushing hard Oxfam who is advising a local Yangon whether in their current village or a against a proposed deepsea port and nonprofit that works with new one. They didn’t seem angry, just a 155-square-mile SEZ that would marginalised farmers, says most citi- deeply disappointed. include steel mills, power plants, re- zens are yet to see tangible benefits I asked U Aung Tint, who is 61, fineries, and a petrochemical plant. from policy reforms. Some new laws, whether he would consider working The project – funded mainly by a Thai he adds, have troubling implications. in a factory at the SEZ. His answer company and slated to be Southeast For example, he says a 2012 land use was complicated. Asia’s largest industrial complex – law designed to clarify procedures Local officials had promised that would be a key transport link connect- around ‘vacant’ farmland may be used when the industrial park is built he and ing Southeast Asia with India, Africa, by developers as a pretext for seizing his neighbours would have jobs. But and the Middle East. It also would land from small-scale farmers who the officials didn’t say how long it displace about 30,000 people, mostly don’t hold land titles. would take for the facility to be built, poor rice, cashew, and rubber farm- ‘All of the laws are open to inter- or how much the farmers would be ers. pretation,’ Jackson says. ‘You could compensated for their land. He said Faced with a barrage of industrial interpret them to be pro-industrial the officials had made it clear that they projects, local activists and civil so- agriculture, pro-big business, and wouldn’t find the farmers a new place ciety groups are trying to decide what sometimes you could interpret them to live. Because many of the farmers to fight for, how to organise advocacy to actually be supportive of small- are sharecroppers without cash or as- campaigns, and what policy reforms holder [farmers] . But in a country sets, the idea of buying new land – in to realistically expect. ‘People are where the rule of law has not been a an area where it is now valued at be- braver about showing their feelings strong point – where an independent tween $10,000 and $20,000 per acre and desires, but what do they want to judiciary does not exist – those inter- – was daunting. And while most of be? They don’t know,’ Bo Bo Aung, pretations, in our assessment, are of- the factory jobs would require an a 29-year-old activist with Dawei ten unlikely to favour smallholders.’ eighth-grade education, most of the Development Association, a coalition Back in Alwan Sok, two older village’s older residents stopped of 50 grassroots groups that is press- farmers – U Aung Tint and U Sein school in fourth or fifth grade. ing for more transparency about Htay – agreed to show me around the As our plates were cleared, U SEZs, told me at a Yangon café. Part Thilawa port and the site of the Aung Tint sipped his tea and looked of the problem, he said, is that activ- planned SEZ that could upend their at the road as trucks whizzed by the ists opposed to development projects lives. We climbed into my rented car roadside eatery, kicking up stones and often don’t propose alternative ways and drove toward the port, which lay dust. ‘They’ve made an impossible of creating jobs or boosting across a large expanse of barren fields. promise,’ he said. ÿu Myanmar’s economy. It was mid-March, weeks before the Thein Sein’s government has annual monsoon, and the empty land Mike Ives is a freelance journalist based in Hanoi. taken a few environmentally favour- looked parched. This article is reproduced from Earth Island Journal able steps: suspending until 2015 the As we drove by the port on a two- (Summer 2013).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 5 E C O N O M I C S The man who won a Nobel for helping create a global financial crisis The award of the Nobel Prize for economics to Eugene Fama (along with two other recipients) came as something of a shock as it was his theory of ‘efficient financial markets’ which, by providing the ideological rationale for financial liberalisation, helped to create the 2007 financial crisis. James R Crotty comments.

EUGENE Fama just received a investor has selected the risk-return Nobel Prize for his contributions profile in a portfolio that maxim- to the theory of ‘efficient financial ises her welfare, and financial re- markets’, the dominant theory in sources are made available to those financial economics which asserts who can make the most productive that markets work ideally if not use of them. Market prices are as- constrained by government regu- sumed to be in equilibrium at all lation. The fact that economic ‘sci- times, even though the data show ence’ teaches that unregulated fi- that market prices are much more nancial markets work effectively volatile than would be compatible helped financial institutions and with the assumption of perpetual the rich accomplish their goal of equilibrium. radical financial market deregula- The capital asset pricing tion in the 1980s and 1990s. De- model itself embodies a large regulation, in turn, not only con- number of grossly unrealistic as- tributed to the rising inequality of Eugene Fama (pic) won a Nobel Prize for his sumptions in addition to the as- the era, it helped cause the global contributions to the theory of ‘efficient financial sumed knowledge of the future financial market crisis that began markets’. embedded in the EMH. For exam- in 2007 and the deep recession and ple, it assumes that every investor austerity fiscal policies that accom- to know this information because the holds the same portfolio (those panied it. future is not yet determined in the who want more risk borrow money The theory of efficient financial present; the future is uncertain. Nev- to build a larger version of this port- markets requires the union of two ertheless, defenders of efficiency folio), no one trades securities, and ideas: the ‘efficient market hypoth- adopted the ‘rational expectations’ no one ever defaults on debt. esis’ (or EMH) and optimal (security) hypothesis, perhaps the most ludi- pricing theory (OPT). Both the EMH crous assumption in the history of The theory of ‘positivism’ and OPT are built on crudely unreal- social science, which asserts that all istic assumptions that would lead any- investors know the correct probabil- One might think that the whole one not indoctrinated in a mainstream ity distributions of all future security financial market efficiency project PhD programme to conclude that ef- cash flows and believe that they will should have been rejected out of hand ficient financial market theory is a not change over time. because it is founded on a large set of fairytale rather than serious social sci- The assumed complete and cor- unrealistic assumptions about how fi- ence. rect data about the future is then nancial markets work. Yet not only is The EMH is simply an assump- plugged into one of the basic main- it still the dominant theory of finan- tion or assertion, with no supporting stream models of optimal security cial markets, Nobel Prizes have been evidence, that all information relevant pricing, such as the capital asset pric- awarded to its originators. to the correct pricing of securities is ing model (CAPM), which specifies Why would an academic profes- known by all market participants. For agents’ preferences concerning the sion sanction the use of theories based long-term assets such as stocks and risk and return associated with every on such unrealistic assumptions? The bonds, the relevant information is the possible portfolio of securities. The answer given by proponents of effi- cash flows associated with each se- combination of EMH and a theory of cient financial market theory is that curity in every future time period. Yet optimal pricing determines security the economics profession relies on the it is logically impossible for anyone prices that are efficient in that every theory of ‘positivism’ associated with

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 6 E C O N O M I C S

Milton Friedman as its guide to the sions are run. This is why both sides it is impossible to derive this propo- acceptance and rejection of theoreti- of every important debate in econom- sition from a realistic assumption set. cal propositions. Friedman’s positiv- ics can provide econometric evidence Thus, the profession had no choice but ism states that the realism of assump- in support of their positions. And it is to adopt a positivist methodology that tions does not matter: it has no rela- why economists should not rely ex- sanctioned the use of even absurdly tion whatever to the acceptability of clusively on econometric hypothesis- unrealistic assumptions in theory con- a theory or its derived hypotheses. As testing in assessing alternative theo- struction. Since realistic assumptions Friedman put it, ‘[T]ruly important ries as positivism demands. The real- lead to theories that show the strengths and significant hypotheses will be ism of assumption sets is crucial to but also the myriad dangers and fail- found to have assumptions that are this task, as are historical and institu- ures of unregulated capitalism re- wildly inaccurate descriptive repre- tional analysis, surveys and experi- vealed in the historical record, they sentations of reality.’ The only accept- mental studies. had to be replaced by the large number able test of a theory is ‘comparison Third, when positivist economists of absurd assumptions required to of its predictions with experience’. insist that econometric ‘prediction’ is sustain support for economists’ inher- There are at least three serious the sole judge of the acceptability of ent belief that unregulated or lightly problems with this method. First, if a theory, they put the entire burden of regulated markets create the best of patently false assumptions are proof on econometric tests. But when all possible worlds, maximising both adopted, as in efficient financial mar- the preponderance of such tests turns ket theory, and impeccable logic is out to be inconsistent with their fa- economic efficiency and individual used to deduce hypotheses from them, vourite theory, they never reject the liberty. Positivism is the magic that they cannot – as a matter of logic – theory, as their methodology says they makes it possible to construct a ‘sci- be accurate reflections of reality. must. Rather, they move on to addi- entific’ defence of the proposition that Fairytale assumptions can only gen- tional econometric tests on alternative free-market capitalism has no serious erate fairytale hypotheses. specifications in a potentially endless flaws and dangers. process of data mining. In a widely The objective of the ideological discussed survey of empirical tests of project of the economics profession in the current era is to provide a theo- Fairytale assumptions hypotheses derived from the CAPM in 2004, Eugene Fama and a co-au- retical foundation for unregulated fi- can only generate thor arrived at a striking conclusion: nancial markets and unregulated capi- talism. The fact that the project has fairytale hypotheses. ‘despite its seductive simplicity, the CAPM’s empirical problems prob- succeeded in the face of logic and his- ably invalidate its use in applications’. tory is admittedly a fantastic conjur- The tenets of positivism require that ers’ trick, but it is ridiculous to award Second, econometric tests can at the CAPM should be rejected. How- Nobel Prizes to the conjurers. We best provide suggestive, not conclu- ever, financial economists kept min- should not give prizes to people for sive, evidence in support of the em- ing the data in an endless effort to find the creation and propagation of an pirical validity of predictions gener- econometric results that fit the theory. ideologically based theory that ated by economic theories. With to- Meanwhile, the CAPM sustained its strengthened the drive for radical fi- day’s computing power, it is possible canonical status and efficient market nancial deregulation and thus helped to run literally millions of regressions theory remained unscarred in spite of create a global depression. ÿu to test a theoretical proposition. Such its lack of empirical support. James R Crotty is a Professor Emeritus of Economics regressions may use different data Why would an academic profes- sources, time periods, empirical meas- and Sheridan Scholar at the University of sion adopt a methodology such as Massachusetts Amherst in the US. His writings have ures of theoretical variables, func- positivism that supports theories that appeared in such diverse journals as the American tional forms, lag structures and so are based on unrealistic assumptions? Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of forth. For example, investor expecta- Economics, the Cambridge Journal of Economics, After all, there is an obvious alterna- the Review of Radical Economics, Monthly Review, tions of future cash flows from all tive – begin with a realistic assump- the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics and the available securities are a central de- tion set and use it to derive realistic Journal of Economic Issues. terminant of efficient equilibrium se- hypotheses about the behaviour of fi- The above article is reproduced from the curity pricing, yet there are numerous Triple Crisis blog (triplecrisis.com/the-man-who- nancial markets. This is the method won-a-nobel-prize-for-helping-create-a-global- ways to choose empirical measures of used by Keynes and Minsky to show financial-crisis/, 23 October 2013). It is based on expectations. And the theory itself that financial markets have no effi- the arguments developed in ‘The realism of does not tell us what the appropriate ciency properties and are properly assumptions does matter: Why Keynes-Minsky choice among this vast menu of pos- theory must replace efficient market theory as the thought of as gambling casinos. guide to financial regulation policy’, a Working sible alternative measures is. The answer is that the econom- Paper (No. 255, March 2011, www.peri.umass.edu/ As a result, virtually any hypoth- ics profession is committed ideologi- fileadmin/pdf/working_papers/ esis can be shown to be statistically cally to a defence of the proposition working_papers_251-300/WP255.pdf) published by significant if enough different regres- the Political Economy Research Institute at the that financial markets are efficient, yet University of Massachusetts Amherst.

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 7 C O V E R Africa 50 years on, from unity to union As the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) transformed itself to become the African Union, the challenges that dogged the Pan-African attempt at unity at its birth 50 years ago this year have lingered, writes Cornelius Adedze.

THE desire for a united Af- tered by both the effects of rica, just after the independ- the Cold War and, later, ence of some African coun- structural adjustment. The tries in the 1950s, resulted initial differences on the in the formation of various way forward for African groupings. The two domi- unity became more pro- nant groups were the Casa- nounced as each country blanca Group and the and its leadership looked Monrovia Group. The more toward their indi- Casablanca Group was in vidual country’s ‘survival’ favour of a politically rather than that of the col- united federation of African lective African state. states immediately whereas Just like in the found- the Monrovia Group ing and early stages of the wanted a looser alliance The founding conference of the Organisation of African Unity in OAU, some African lead- based on gradual economic Addis Ababa in May 1963. Fifty years on, Africa remains far away ers stepped up to pursue the cooperation. In the end, on from political and economic union. ‘unity’ agenda in diverse 25 May 1963, in Addis ways. Unfortunately, un- Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, 32 in- ferences may have prevented the like in the founding years when one dependent African countries brought OAU from reaching its goal of unity could count on the likes of Kwame into being the Organisation of Afri- but the decolonisation of the continent Nkrumah of Ghana, Nasser of Egypt can Unity (OAU), a compromised in- is one of the major achievements that and others to hold the fort for those stitution. the organisation can boast of. By the calling for ‘unity’ as soon as possi- Fifty years on, the OAU, now close of the 1970s most of Africa was ble, by the 1970s these ‘progressive transformed into the African Union independent save for Namibia, Zim- voices’ had been silenced, through (AU), has not got any closer to achiev- babwe and South Africa. South Af- coups d’etat or death. The ing an economic union, nor has it rica, the last colonial bastion, was ‘gradualists’ like Houphouet-Boigny blossomed into a loose federation of freed from the clutches of apartheid of Cote d’Ivoire, Senghor of Senegal African states. The fundamental chal- rule in 1994. Beyond decolonisation, and Haile Selassie of Ethiopia then lenges of whether total political unity however, various attempts at unifica- held sway. or an economic union would best suit tion, not just as a United States of Af- The 1970s thus saw a slowdown the interests of Africa still persist. At rica but through cooperation in vari- in the attempts at political unity of Af- the AU Summit in 2007 in Accra, ous ways, have not been fully rica and was punctuated by the effects Ghana to commemorate Ghana’s 50th achieved. of the Cold War as African countries independence anniversary, the subject got caught up in the West and East was touted as the Grand Debate that Faultlines war of ideology and domination. was to finally settle the issue between The faultlines of the OAU were the ‘gradualists’ and the ‘instantists’. Specialised agencies like the Pan made sharper in this period as mem- Unfortunately, the debate was not to African News Agency, Pan-African bers were divided along the ideologi- be. So union government of Africa Telecommunications Union, Pan-Af- cal lines of Capitalism and Commu- once more slipped by, and as then rican Postal Union and Union of Af- nism, no longer along lines of imme- Prime Minister of Lesotho, Pakalitha rican National Television and Radio diate and gradual political unity of Mosisii, put it, ‘Integration should be Organisations have become dormant Africa. gradual rather than precipitous. It if not moribund. The OAU limped on Africa’s efforts at integration must be evolutionary rather than revo- as African countries struggled from have thus been largely influenced and lutionary.’ one challenge to another for economic dictated by individual leaders who True political and individual dif- survival from the 1970s onwards, bat- called the shots due to their economic

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 8 C O V E R or political hold over others. With the Gadhafi’s plan of actualising the brigades with military, police and ci- worsening economic situation in most initial dreams of a united Africa with vilian components. For a force which African countries, the solution to it as a single army, a common currency and was mooted 50 years ago at the found- suggested by some was the strength- trade and travel freedom was thus shot ing of the OAU, the new deadline ening of regional economic blocs that down. Indeed this proposal led rather speaks volumes of Africa’s prepared- would be the building blocks of a fu- to further divisions within the OAU ness to confront its challenges. This ture united Africa. They took a leaf as once again a watered-down version is the third time that a new deadline from the book of the blossoming Eu- resulted in the formation of the Afri- has had to be issued. ropean Union. Thus the era of regional can Union. For some the objectives The African Standby Force’s economic communities (RECs) be- of the African Union are more com- operationalisation had been planned gan. On the heels of these came such prehensive and attuned to the current for 2008, pushed to 2010, then 2013 seminal efforts as the Lagos Plan of needs of the continent than those of and now to 2015. There are doubts Action and eventually the Abuja its predecessor, the OAU. The trans- among experts as to whether the force Treaty that called for the establish- formation of the OAU into the AU will be operational even by then. ment of institutions like the African also coincided with the introduction Economic cooperation has not Central Bank, the African Monetary of NEPAD, the New Partnership for fared better either. Free movement of Fund, the African Court of Justice and Africa’s Development, sponsored by people and goods thereby facilitating in particular, the Pan-African Parlia- the likes of Thabo Mbeki (then Presi- trade among African countries is also ment. The Abuja Treaty reiterated the dent of South Africa) and Abdelaziz a big challenge. Apart from strengthening and consolidation of the Bouteflika of Algeria. This new de- infrastructural challenges (which RECs as the pillars for achieving the velopment paradigm, a neoliberal, NEPAD was to address), policy har- objectives of an African Economic Western-sponsored effort, was dia- monisation and implementation re- Community and finally a union of Af- metrically opposed to Gadhafi’s pro- main major obstacles, although to rican states. posals that relied more on Africa’s varying degrees in the various re- In pursuit of these objectives the own homegrown efforts at develop- gional economic communities. Trade OAU from 1999 initiated a series of ment. among African countries, though on extraordinary sessions aimed at the increase, remains small as com- achieving economic and political in- Challenges pared with trade with the rest of the tegration of the continent. Four OAU world. Only about 10% of Africa’s The NEPAD agenda which summits were critical in this. These imports are from Africa, with close ‘killed’ Gadhafi’s ideas could also not were: to 90% from outside Africa. Should survive, thus throwing Africa back • The Sirte Extraordinary Session Africa sign the Economic Partnership into finding another approach to unity (1999) (decision to establish an Afri- Agreement (EPA) with the European and development. The regional eco- can Union taken) Union, it is likely that trade among nomic communities are themselves at • The Lome Summit (2000) African countries will further dwin- varied levels of integration. Some (adoption of the Constitutive Act of dle as Africa would be swamped with have made some progress whereas the Union) European goods and services. others are still a long way off from • The Lusaka Summit (2001) (the Africa’s quest to work together to achieving their objectives. In the roadmap for the implementation of confront the threat that globalisation meantime, Africa continues to be rid- the AU drawn) poses is also at risk as foreign ‘part- dled with social, economic and politi- • The Durban Summit (2002) ners’ seem to have taken over the cal challenges that the African Union, (launch of the AU and convening of policy direction of the African Union. given its current status, is unable to the 1st Assembly of the Heads of State Some of these foreign partners have resolve. Top on the list are the civil of the African Union). become more or less consultants to strife in Somalia, Democratic Repub- The Sirte Summit was spear- the AU directing its policy whilst oth- lic of the Congo and Mali, among oth- headed by the late Libyan leader ers that the African Union is at pains ers underwrite its expenditure. Muammar Gadhafi, who thought that to deal with. In Mali, the regional eco- Fifty years of the OAU/AU may the time was due for the realisation nomic community, ECOWAS, could have chalked up some successes from of the United States of Africa, a dream not deal with the situation until France decolonisation to efforts at uniting the of some of the founding fathers of the bulldozed its way through. In Soma- continent, but unless the teething OAU. His radical ideas for an imme- lia, where civil war has raged on since problems that were pushed aside in diate implementation, however, as the 1990s, the AU has found it an in- the organisation’s founding years are usual met with resistance from the tractable situation though it has some dealt with, the ghosts of that period ‘gradualists’ and sceptics who forces there. Would the much-talked- would continue to haunt and dog the doubted his intentions and saw in him about African Standby Force have continent’s attempts at unity. ÿu an ambition to become leader of a stood up to these situations? united Africa, just like others before A new deadline of 2015 has just Cornelius Adedze is Editor of African Agenda magazine, which is published by TWN Africa, the him saw Nkrumah as an overambi- been issued the five regions – East, Africa section of the Third World Network. This tious leader seeking to become Presi- West, Central, North and Southern article is reproduced from African Agenda (Vol. 16, dent of a united Africa. Africa – to develop their own standby No. 2).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 9 C O V E R Africa at 50: Five major tasks ahead A special summit of African heads of state and government was held on 25-27 May 2013 in Addis Ababa to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Organisation of African Unity and the African Union. The following extract from the opening address by Hailemariam Dessalegn, Prime Minister of Ethiopia and Chairperson of the African Union, identifies five major tasks ahead for the continent’s leadership.

PREVIOUS generations tion of our vision. We can paid enormous sacrifices to ensure neither peace nor de- liberate our continent from velopment in the absence of all forms of subjugation and democracy and popular par- restore the freedom and dig- ticipation and inclusive nity of the African people. growth. The major responsibility of Of course, we need the the current and future gen- continued support of our erations of Africans is, friends and partners in our therefore, to create a conti- development endeavours. nent free from poverty and First and foremost, we seek conflict and an Africa their understanding on the whose citizens would enjoy need for us to have the middle-income status. I be- Africa has to invest in the development of the agricultural policy space to design and lieve this is the new spirit sector, ‘to transform our economies from the bottom up and implement our own devel- lift millions of our people from abject poverty’. of Pan-Africanism that opment strategies based on should inspire current and the objective realities of our future generations to fulfil the dreams man and technological capability. We countries and drawing valuable les- of our Founders for a peaceful, pros- cannot simply compete on the basis sons from other successful develop- perous and united Africa. of our factor endowments. Hence, we ment experiences. We need the sup- Africa’s Renaissance cannot be need to assimilate technology devel- port and solidarity of our partners in realised without bringing about a oped elsewhere and move up the tech- all these endeavours, which means paradigm shift in our political and nology ladder. socioeconomic governance. We all Thirdly, we need to build infra- fulfilling commitments already made recognise by now that the policy or- structure, a sector neglected over the in various international fora. It can- thodoxy imposed on us from outside past decades. Lack of adequate infra- not be over-emphasised that we also to simply ‘get the prices right’ did not structure is a difficult bottleneck, need a favourable global environ- help us to break the vicious cycle of which arrests growth. We need, there- ment, particularly a fair trading re- poverty and achieve sustainable eco- fore, to undertake massive investment gime, which is critical for boosting nomic growth. Therefore, we have to in infrastructure, establishing national our economic growth. do more than ‘getting the prices right’ and regional networks of roads, rail- I trust that this special occasion and play a proactive role in pushing way, telecommunication, electricity will afford us the opportunity to forward our transformation agenda and other infrastructures. rededicate our efforts towards the so- taking due cognisance of the nature Fourthly, when we say the state cioeconomic emancipation of Africa of our respective political economies should play a proactive role, it does and renew our partnership with the and development potentials. not mean that we need to stifle the rest of the world. It is my earnest hope In my view, there are five impor- private sector. On the contrary, we that by the time Africa celebrates the tant measures that we need to take. should get rid of the political economy centenary of the OAU/ AU by the year First, we have to invest in the devel- of rent seeking and create a dynamic 2063, we will have achieved the opment of the agricultural sector, to and vibrant private sector. dreams of our Founders for a peace- transform our economies from the Last but not least, we need to nur- ful, prosperous and united Africa. u bottom up and lift millions of our peo- ture democratic governance and popu- ple from abject poverty. lar participation in order to create a This extract was earlier published in the South Second is the need to build hu- favourable condition for the realisa- Bulletin (Issue 74, 5 July 2013).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 10 C O V E R The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale Continental unity was only possible with national liberation. A major landmark in this struggle was the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, which marked the beginning of the end of minority rule in Southern Africa, the dismantling of the apartheid system and the total liberation of Africa from European occupation. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of this crucial battle, Dennis Laumann explains its significance.

THIS year marks the 25th anniversary of a key event in the struggle for Af- rican liberation from European colo- nial rule: the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. In that remote town in southern Angola in March 1988, the army of apartheid South Africa was defeated by a Pan-Africanist alliance that included tens of thousands of Cuban volunteers. Their victory forced South Africa’s racist rulers to enter into negotiations that led to the In the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola, the army of apartheid South Africa was unbanning of anti-apartheid organisa- defeated in 1988 by a Pan-Africanist alliance that included tens of thousands of Cuban tions, the release of Nelson Mandela, volunteers. Picture shows a South African tank captured by Cuban forces. the independence of Namibia, and ultimately freedom for South Africa. Although prevailing historical narra- support from the United States. destabilise Angola mainly through tives about the end of apartheid ig- Closely observing events from support of its proxy UNITA (the Por- nore the significance of this epic bat- across the Atlantic, the Cuban gov- tuguese acronym for the National tle, its central role has been empha- ernment unilaterally (in other words, Union for the Total Independence of sised by Mandela himself. without the knowledge of the Soviet Angola). Together with the United The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale Union) decided to defend Angola’s States through its Central Intelligence marked the culmination of more than sovereignty after the MPLA leader- Agency, the SADF trained and armed a decade of South Africa’s war against ship requested help from Havana. As UNITA and coordinated its campaign Angola. In the months leading up to the SADF pushed through the of terror against the Angolan people. Angola’s independence from Portu- Angolan interior towards the capital Whenever the Angolan military, as- gal on 11 November 1975, the South of Luanda, Cuba launched Operation sisted by Soviet and Cuban advisers, African Defence Forces (SADF), with Carlota, named in honour of an Afri- struck against UNITA, the SADF car- covert assistance from the United can woman who led a slave rebellion ried out air strikes and ground inva- States, invaded Angola to prevent the in 19th-century Cuba. Thousands of sions to protect its Angolan mercenar- People’s Movement for the Liberation Cuban soldiers along with vital mili- ies. As a result, two southern Angolan of Angola (MPLA) from assuming tary equipment were transported on provinces were effectively occupied power. The apartheid regime was improvised merchant vessels and pas- by the SADF, thus extending the threatened by the prospect of another senger planes from the Caribbean to apartheid system from South Africa free African nation, espousing social- Central Africa, a reversal of the voy- through South-West Africa into An- ism no less, on its borders since South ages of the ships that carried Angolans gola. Africa occupied neighbouring South- to slavery in Cuba in prior centuries. In July 1987, the Angolan army West Africa (present-day Namibia). By late March 1976, the allied MPLA advanced on UNITA’s camps in At the time, the South West Af- and Cuban fighters successfully drove southeastern Angola. On the verge of rica People’s Organisation (SWAPO) the SADF out of Angola into South- being crushed, UNITA was rescued waged an armed struggle for inde- West Africa, a shocking defeat for the by the South Africans, who attacked pendence in Namibia while in South apartheid regime and an inspiration from their bases in South-West Africa Africa the mass anti-apartheid move- to South African youth who led the that October. The situation quickly ment kept the regime on the defen- historic Soweto Uprising in June that turned dire for the Angolan military, sive. Clearly, South Africa’s white same year. which retreated into a defensive po- minority rulers felt under siege, Over the next decade, South Af- sition at Cuito Cuanavale. Once again, though somewhat emboldened by rica’s racist rulers sought to Cuba quickly answered the call for aid

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 11 C O V E R and resumed direct combat operations in Angola, dispatching tens of thou- sands of volunteer troops and its most critical and advanced arms to south- ern Angola. The ensuing battle grouped together all the main protago- nists in the Angolan war: the armies of liberation – Angola, Cuba, and SWAPO (with members of the Afri- can National Congress (ANC) of South Africa serving in intelligence capacities) – against the forces of im- perialism, South Africa and UNITA, backed by the United States. Cuban soldiers in Angola during the war against South African forces. According to The SADF repeatedly tried to Nelson Mandela, ‘The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the people capture Cuito Cuanavale in early 1988 of Africa.’ but were successfully repelled. While the battle raged, the allied Cuban, room across the ocean in Cuba. To to fight against apartheid, leaving it- Angolan, and Namibian forces, their those who fought against the apart- self vulnerable to attack by the United MiG 23s assuring air superiority, heid regime, there never was any States while expecting and receiving launched a counter-offensive towards doubt who won the battle. As ANC/ absolutely nothing in return for its the west, advancing on Namibia, lib- SACP leader Ronnie Kasrils recently sacrifices. erating the South African-occupied argued in a 25th anniversary assess- In a speech to tens of thousands provinces of Angola, and forcing the ment, ‘. . . the acid test [of the Battle in the Cuban city of Matanzas in July SADF to retreat from their positions. of Cuito Cuanavale] is the outcome – 1991, Mandela praised the contribu- After failing to take Cuito Cuanavale, which was the end of apartheid’. tions of Cuba to African liberation, losing the territory it occupied, suf- declaring: fering heavy losses, and facing grow- Significance ‘We have long wanted to visit ing resistance to the war amongst its your country and express the many base of white minority supporters at It is imperative that scholars and feelings that we have about the Cu- home, the SADF announced its with- activists reassert the importance of the ban revolution, about the role of Cuba drawal from Angola in April 1988. Battle of Cuito Cuanavale not only for in Africa, southern Africa, and the The following month, the apartheid the sake of historical accuracy but also world. regime agreed to negotiations which to honour the memory of those who ‘The Cuban people hold a special took place throughout the year with fought and died for the liberation of place in the hearts of the people of Angola and Cuba on one side of the southern Africa. Cuito Cuanavale was Africa. The Cuban internationalists table and South Africa and the United the largest military confrontation on have made a contribution to African States on the other. The rest, as they African soil since the Second World independence, freedom, and justice, say, is history: the ANC along with War Allies-Axis battles in North Af- unparalleled for its principled and its main ally the South African Com- rica. It marked the beginning of the selfless character . . . munist Party (SACP) were unbanned end of white minority domination in ‘Your crushing defeat of the rac- on 2 February 1990; Mandela was re- southern Africa, the dismantling of the ist army at Cuito Cuanavale was a leased from prison on 9 February; and apartheid system, and the total libera- victory for the whole of Africa!’ Namibia regained its independence on tion of Africa from European occu- Today, visitors to Freedom Park 21 March. pation. It shattered the myth of white in Pretoria will see included on the While the apartheid regime tried supremacy that was the ideological list of anti-apartheid martyrs the to spin its defeat in Angola as a tacti- foundation of the apartheid regime names of the over 2,000 Cubans who cal retreat – and even a win – news- and the entire European colonial lost their lives in Angola. There is no papers in South Africa and the United project. It was a profound demonstra- greater authority than those who suf- States depicted the Battle of Cuito tion of Pan-Africanism, what schol- fered under apartheid, including Cuanavale as a victory for the ars lately call ‘reverse diaspora’, as Mandela himself, on the question of Angolan/Cuban/Namibian alliance. over 50,000 Cubans returned to the the significance of the Battle of Cuito More recently, former SADF com- land of their ancestry to rid the conti- Cuanavale. ÿu manders have acknowledged they nent of racist rule. Finally, it was a were humiliatingly defeated and out- testament to internationalist solidar- Dennis Laumann is Associate Professor of African witted by their opponents, signalling ity as revolutionary Cuba, always cog- History at the University of Memphis in the US and author of Colonial Africa, 1884-1994 (Oxford out the brilliance of Fidel Castro, who nizant of the historic debt it owes Af- University Press, 2013). This article is reproduced directed his troops in a command rica, sent its best forces and materials from African Agenda (Vol. 16, No. 2).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 12 C O V E R How Africa is scrambling for Africa Some 130 years after the Berlin Conference which triggered off the scramble for Africa, a new scramble has begun – this time by African leaders intent on breaking down colonial-era boundaries and reassembling the continent around common economic interests. Daniel K Kalinaki explains.

TWO meetings of African leaders that took place in the last week of Octo- ber in towns 1,000 miles apart point to a reshaping of the continent and the emergence of a new scramble for re- gional political and economic influ- ence. In Kigali, Rwanda, President Paul Kagame hosted Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta to sign off on a Single Customs Terri- tory for the three countries. President Salva Kiir of South Sudan was also In October President Joseph Kabila (right) hosted President Jacob Zuma during the in attendance and his country is ex- latter’s state visit, the first ever by a South African leader to the Democratic Republic pected to eventually join the East Af- of the Congo. rican Community and the regional infrastructure projects at the heart of ing and poorly maintained infrastruc- investment partner has turned eastern the new ‘coalition of the willing’ ture; only about one in 10 of the 70 DR Congo into a theatre of contest within the EAC. million Congolese has access to elec- between the Southern African Devel- Around the same time President tricity. opment Community and the East Af- Joseph Kabila was hosting President Most of the power produced out rican Community. Jacob Zuma on a state visit to Kin- of Inga will, however, be exported – Tanzania, which has a leg in shasa – the first ever by a South Afri- to South Africa, to other countries in SADC, has also contributed troops to can leader to the Democratic Repub- the region, and possibly as far north the brigade which recently dislodged lic of the Congo. as Europe. M23 rebels who retain sympathies Both meetings offer a glimpse and, according to a UN panel of ex- into the changing alliances across Long courted perts’ report, support from Rwanda Africa informed by economic and and Uganda. political interests, and cemented by South Africa has had a partner- In a speech before the DRC Par- cross-border infrastructure projects. ship framework with DR Congo in the liament President Zuma acknowl- In Kigali the three presidents tied their form of the General Cooperation edged the need for the faltering peace countries into an SCT that, in theory, Agreement signed in 2004 and has talks in Kampala and the need for a flattens borders, reduces cargo tran- long courted the country but Preto- political settlement in eastern Congo sit time by 75% and cuts the cost by ria’s newly aggressive foreign policy but he also fired a veiled warning shot half. stance is likely to have wider impli- towards the external actors in the con- In Kinshasa President Zuma and cations on geopolitical configurations. flict. President Kabila signed a treaty to The projection of force under the ‘South Africa remains deeply jointly develop the $80 billion Grand Zuma administration began with the concerned by the enduring conflict in Inga hydropower project. When com- successful installation of Nkosazana eastern Congo, perpetrated by local plete the dam will generate 40,000 Dlamini-Zuma as chairperson of the and externally supported armed megawatts, which is more than two African Union and, more recently, groups on innocent Congolese civil- times the amount of power produced with Pretoria’s deployment of a bri- ians,’ he said. by China’s Three Gorges Dam. gade to the United Nations Interven- ‘Enough is enough, the time for DR Congo currently has an in- tion Brigade in eastern DR Congo. peace is now and to those who would stalled capacity of 2,400MW but only South Africa’s deployment and challenge this for their own self-in- produces about half of that due to age- emergence as guarantor of peace and terests, we stand firm in the message

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 13 C O V E R that your time is now up, running from Cape Town lay down your arms, as no to the jungles of DR longer will the misery you Congo and the beaches of inflict be tolerated.’ Dar es Salaam; an Ethio- Tanzania’s deploy- pian-led East African bloc ment in eastern DR Congo that rises from the hills of alongside South Africa Rwanda to the deserts of gives the Intervention Bri- Sudan; an Egyptian-led gade a distinctly SADC Maghreb bloc that hue. In addition, Tanza- stretches across the top of the continent; and a Nige- nia’s recent announce- rian-led West African bloc ment that it intends to seek A summit meeting of the East African Community. The EAC is that straddles the belt new political and eco- south of the Sahara and the nomic alliances with expected to admit South Sudan as its newest member state, creating a bloc with a GDP of just over $100 billion. forests of Central Africa. Burundi and DR Congo This could lead to at can be seen as a potential least two developments. re-alignment of Dodoma’s loyalties pending on its relations with South First is a deepening of integration away from the EAC to SADC. Sudan, while Somalia has also ex- within each bloc with barriers to trade [On 7 November, in addressing pressed interest but is unlikely to be and the movement of goods and peo- the country’s parliament, Tanzanian admitted until the transitional govern- ple eliminated, as is happening in the President Jakaya Kikwete said Tanza- ment attains reasonable control over Single Customs Territory in East Af- nia would not leave the EAC, declar- the country and its own affairs. rica. ing, ‘We are loyal to the Community The bigger play, however, would Secondly, this could then provide and committed to its growth.’ – Edi- then be for Ethiopia, which is already a geographical base from which cross- tor] involved in the Lamu-South Sudan- border and cross-bloc capital, from This is a significant development Ethiopia Trade Corridor. A united the likes of South Africa’s MTN and for at least two major reasons. First it EAC with South Sudan (population Stanbic to Nigeria’s Dangote Group, tears up the rulebook of regional alli- 156 million; GDP $104 billion) is a flows across Africa in pursuit of ances, which have hitherto been built large market which Ethiopia (popu- profit. around shared colonial history and lation 92 million; GDP $43 billion) With the emergence of powerful geography (the EAC Treaty, for in- can be expected to join as a partner. continental capital houses and invest- stance, requires member states to have Without Tanzania and Burundi ments as well as fewer but larger and ‘geographical proximity’ and ‘inter- the EAC’s position becomes weaker deeply integrated blocs across Africa, (population drops to 98 million; GDP the next step would then be the inte- dependence’). to $74 billion) and Ethiopia can then gration of the blocs themselves. Secondly, it gives added momen- be expected to try and leverage its This would not necessarily turn tum to the expansion and deepening size, position, geo-strategic impor- the continent into a country or a fed- of regional economic blocs. An alli- tance as the home of the African Un- eral political entity – naysayers say ance between Tanzania, Burundi and ion, and its large military to enter as a the continent is too diverse, too var- DR Congo would lead to a bloc of 124 first among equals. ied for that. However, it would turn million people. If this were to align Ethiopia could press its advan- Africa into a more close-knit conti- itself with SADC (population 277 tages further by proposing to join the nent of a few mega regional blocs million; GDP $650 billion according expanded bloc through an alliance of brought together by common eco- to World Bank figures) it would cre- the EAC and the Inter-Governmental nomic interest and welded together by ate the largest economic bloc on the Authority on Drought and Disease, cross-border highways, oil pipelines, continent and an economy that would, which also includes Djibouti, Soma- power grids and railway lines. on paper, be the 20th biggest in the lia and Sudan alongside Kenya and Some 130 years after Europeans world. Uganda. met in Berlin to carve up Africa, a new scramble is underway on the conti- The EAC is expected to admit This would expand the new bloc nent, only this time it is by Africans South Sudan as early as late Novem- even further but it would also give seeking to break down the colonial- ber when the heads of state summit Ethiopia a strong negotiating arm and era boundaries, redraw the map, and takes place in Kampala, creating a a dominant position within the bloc. bloc with a GDP of just over $100 bil- reassemble the continent around com- mon interests, not the interests of co- lion with Tanzania and Burundi ($73.5 Powerful houses billion if the two were to leave). lonial masters or their legacy. Africans are about to colonise Africa. ÿu This is likely to be followed by From a wider perspective, these further expansion northwards. Sudan, alignments across the continent could This article is reproduced from the Africa Review which applied to join the EAC before leave Africa with four distinctive re- website (www.africareview.com). Reprinted with Juba, would be a strong candidate de- gional blocs: a South African-led bloc permission of Nation Media Group (Kenya).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 14 C O V E R Africa has entered a new season of planning and long-term development thinking After a long hiatus, many African countries which had abandoned such practices under the pressure and advice of the Bretton Woods institutions have now reverted to development planning and long-term development thinking. Adebayo Olukoshi explains the revival.

THE interest in, or the revamping of,

development planning is increasing IDEP on the African continent. There are a lot of opportunities and challenges connected to the rebirth of long-term development visions and planning in Africa. For an appropriate develop- ment planning, African countries must have a look back to their experiences of development planning and update The 50th anniversary conference of the UN African Institute for Economic Development their strategies in the light of the les- and Planning held in Dakar in January 2013. Interest in development planning is increasing on the African continent. sons learnt. In doing so, it is impor- tant to recall the history of the prac- tice of development planning in Af- lution. countries adopted the planning ap- rica from the independence era in the The practices of development proach to their development efforts in late 1950s and the early 1960s. planning such as they existed after the the conviction that it offered them a At the time African countries be- Second World War were refracted in much better chance not only to mas- gan to attain their independence, de- their different varieties into policy ter their nascent post-colonial econo- velopment planning was widely prac- design and the economic management mies but also to speedily turn the ta- tised by governments around the approaches of the countries of Africa, ble of underdevelopment. world. Among the countries of West- Asia, Latin America and the Carib- Development planning remained ern Europe fresh from the experience bean as colonial rule ended. India in vogue across the continent until the of the Great Depression and the cri- stood out as a prime example among end of the 1970s. Following the on- ses of the inter-war years, there was a the former colonies where the insti- set of economic crisis on the conti- generalised recognition of the fact that tutions and processes of planning nent in the early 1980s, development major investments had to be made in were strongly embedded but China planning was to come under a severe reinventing public policy and the role was also to embrace planning follow- and sustained attack from the Bretton of the public sector in the develop- ing its Maoist revolution of 1949. Woods institutions (i.e., the Interna- ment process. Much of this thinking African countries mostly joined the tional Monetary Fund and the World was eventually encapsulated in train in the period from the 1950s on- Bank) which, guided by the structural Keynesian economics and it translated wards even if in countries like Ghana, adjustment programmes that they de- into the allocation of a central role to known as the Gold Coast at the time, signed, launched a determined effort planning in the theory and practice of the planning experience predated this to roll back the state and all semblance economic management. period. of state interventionism in preference In Eastern Europe, especially The arguments in support of de- for the ‘free’ market. As part of this among the countries that made up the velopment planning were numerous ideological and political onslaught, old Soviet bloc, centralised systems and were also at the heart of ideologi- planning institutions were dismantled of planning were put in place as a so- cal arguments among economists or downgraded, and in their place, cialist counter to the widespread mar- about how best to govern an economy policies designed to ‘free’ the market ket failures – and the social disloca- and manage the development process. and roll back the frontiers of the state tions associated with them – that con- These arguments need not be repeated were promoted. tributed in part to the spread of revo- here; suffice it to note that African If the period from 1960 to 1980

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 15 C O V E R could be described as the era again, to develop long-term of the growth and consolida- visions and adopt plans for tion of development planning realising them. in Africa following its intro- Over the last five years, duction in the post-war late not less than 30 African colonial period, the period countries have adopted new from the 1980s to the middle long-term visions and three- of the new millennium saw its to-five-year plans for their decline and decimation. In realisation. Institutions of place of the five-yearly plans, development planning and with the overarching ob- which had been dismantled jective of achieving and sus- or downgraded under the in- taining macroeconomic bal- In the 1980s, development planning came under severe and junctions of the Bretton ance that was integral to the sustained attack from the Bretton Woods institutions, viz. Woods institutions are being the International Monetary Fund (pic) and the World Bank. neoliberal reform agenda on rebuilt and imbued with re- the continent, governments sponsibilities for economic were, at best, encouraged to embrace until the financial and economic cri- coordination. Medium-Term Expenditure Frame- sis that struck in the United States in Africa, it would seem, has entered works and Poverty Reduction Strat- 2007-08 and quickly spread to Eu- a new season of planning and long- egy Papers (PRSPs), and in the worst rope. term development thinking. It is a sea- cases, compelled to adopt cash budg- Occurring as it did in the heart of son that has been boosted by the re- eting. global capitalism and shaking the eco- vival of efforts at regional coopera- In this policy climate, planning nomic foundations of the United tion and integration, efforts which became taboo, treated almost as an States and Europe, the crisis has had have witnessed the design and imple- unwanted relic of an equally unhappy the effect of forcing a rethinking of mentation of multi-country economic past when the state not only held sway development, the regulation and gov- projects that span various sectors and in the shaping and implementation of ernance of the market, the develop- demand equally varying degrees of economic policy but also assumed an mental role of the state, the place of cross-border coordination. important regulatory role and domi- public policy, and the necessity of It bears pointing out, however, nated the commanding heights of the planning. that between the late 1950s and to- economy. The context of global financial day, the world has undergone dra- Although episodes of crises in and economic crisis, the relative matic changes that mean that the con- Africa, Latin America and Asia oc- weakening of the grip of the doctrine temporary context of planning is radi- curred with varying intensity and a of neoliberalism that it generated, the cally different from the earlier one. worrying frequency between the major increase in the economic per- Rising to the challenges of the 1980s and the dawn of the new mil- formance and influence of countries changes in context represents one of lennium as to caution against the un- like China, India, Brazil and Russia, the historic tasks confronting today’s trammelled and unidirectional market and the resumption of noticeable lev- development planner in Africa. liberalisation policies which the els of growth in many African coun- Meeting this challenge will re- Bretton Woods institutions were pro- tries after years of stagnation and de- quire a careful attention not just to the moting with vigour and speed, helped cline all added up to create a new en- generation and sustenance of growth by an array of conditionalities, these vironment within which African but also its nature and quality, the dis- warnings were not seriously heeded policy officials could begin, once tribution of its benefits, and the tap- ping of opportunities for structural transformation. An opportunity for development practitioners, senior policy officials, senior policy re- searchers, and other African leaders to strictly look back at past experi- ences and prospect future directions of development planning is more than timely. ÿu

Adebayo Olukoshi is Director of the United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP). This article was originally a background note for the 50th anniversary conference The 2007-08 financial and economic crisis (pic) has forced a rethinking of the of IDEP held in Dakar in January 2013. developmental role of the state and the necessity of planning.

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 16 C O V E R Industrialisation is an imperative for Africa More and more African leaders are agreed that Africa must go beyond being an exporter of commodities and raw materials and embark on industrialisation. The only debate is on how to make this transition.

Kingsley Ighobor while local industry players, armed with modern skills, could insert them- selves into the global trade and exert influence. Value addition could also CARLOS Lopes, the executive sec- boost intra-African trade, which is retary of the United Nations Eco- currently low at 12%. nomic Commission for Africa (ECA), often talks about Toblerone, the fa- Industrialisation drumbeat mous chocolate bar manufactured in Switzerland by Kraft Foods, an $18 The industrialisation drumbeat is billion company. Cocoa for Toblerone sounding louder each passing day. ‘In- bars is imported, probably from Af- dustrialisation cannot be considered rica, where 70% of the world’s cocoa a luxury but a necessity for the conti- is harvested. Lopes once pointed this nent’s development,’ says Nkosazana out to Côte d’Ivoire’s president, Dlamini-Zuma, head of the AUC. Alassane Ouattara, and lamented the More urbanisation, a rising middle fact that only about 10% of the money Seventy percent of the world’s cocoa is class, an improved macroeconomic from chocolates goes to cocoa pro- harvested in Africa (pic) but only about environment, a rising gross domestic ducers, while the rest remains in the 10% of the money from chocolates goes product – all are low-hanging fruits rich chocolate-producing countries. to cocoa producers. that can nourish industrialisation. Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana produce Indeed, the stars are aligned in 53% of the world’s cocoa. But oddly, Africa’s favour. But some fear that This has to stop, Lopes argued chocolates on supermarket shelves in impressive economic growth may with combative fervour at a confer- the leading cocoa-producing countries mask the reality of poverty and breed ence of Africa’s ministers of finance, come from countries that don’t pro- complacency. Although Africa’s eco- economic planning and development duce cocoa. nomic growth is currently at 4.8% and in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, last March. could be nearly 6% by 2014, accord- He would like to see chocolate-manu- Time is now ing to the ECA, economists also talk facturing and coffee-producing indus- about a ‘jobless growth’. Such growth tries in villages in Côte d’Ivoire and It’s the same story with coffee, does not stimulate labour-intensive Ethiopia. Nigeria, the world’s sixth- cotton, groundnuts, crude oil and so manufacturing to dent unemploy- largest producer of crude oil, should on. ‘Up to 90% of income from cof- ment. Africa’s global share of manu- refine enough for local consumption fee goes to rich consuming countries,’ facturing is just 11%, compared to rather than spending $8 billion a year 31% for East Asia, for instance. Its states the 2013 Economic Report on subsidising fuel imports. production of manufactured goods Africa published by the ECA and the Advocates of commodity-driven should increase from the current level African Union Commission (AUC). industrialisation have a compelling of 11% to at least 20% of GDP to Ethiopian coffee farmers may toil day case. It will rev local manufacturing make any meaningful impact, Lopes and night, but they reap comparatively engines and create millions of jobs in told Africa Renewal in an interview. very little. With 12% of the world’s Africa. More jobs will reduce poverty ‘Today on average manufacturing oil reserves, 40% of its gold, about and expand the middle class, which in Africa’s low-income countries is 90% of its chromium and platinum, will in turn demand more goods and smaller as a percentage of GDP than 60% of its arable land and more, Af- services. it was in 1985,’ reinforces John Page, rica should do better at tackling pov- According to the report, adding in a paper for the Brookings Institu- erty, says the report. Instead, it con- value to agricultural produce will un- tion, a Washington think-tank. Page centrates on exporting raw materials leash new opportunities for farmers, adds that the continent’s economic and importing consumer goods, hin- who, assured that excess produce will growth and resilience during the dering the ripple effect that value ad- fetch income, could then actively par- 2008-09 global financial crisis were dition to commodities should have in ticipate in the marketplace. Compa- largely due to ‘new mineral discover- the economy. nies will sprout with new technology,

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 17 C O V E R ies, rising commodity prices and the grounded in the reality of each coun- There was frequent labour unrest recovery of domestic demand’. This try’. in Liberia’s Firestone rubber planta- growth trajectory is not sustainable tion until the company accepted some because commodities are mostly ex- Investing in infrastructure of the workers’ demands for salary haustible, and Africa has little control increases and a ban on child labour. over disruptions in world demand and Poor and obsolete infrastructure Workers who constantly agitate prices. hinders industrialisation efforts. On against a company’s practices can dis- Page notes that sustainable last year’s Africa Industrialisation rupt its operations. Anthony Caroll, a growth will depend on structural Day, 20 November, UN Secretary- researcher at the Center for Strategic changes – as in Chile, which has ex- General Ban Ki-moon noted that ‘to and International Studies, a Washing- panded its agro-industry, and India, facilitate trade in goods and services, ton think-tank, wants companies in Africa to be able to hire and fire staff which has expanded its exports of it is essential to reduce distribution if necessary. On the other hand, services. Lopes agrees and calls for costs’, which is only possible through ‘structural transformation’, which is Michael Clark, adviser with the UN investments in roads, railways and en- Conference on Trade and Develop- ‘a shift from agriculture into industrial ergy infrastructure. ment (UNCTAD), said at a conference and service sectors’. Commodity- With nearly 600 million people in New York last year that liberalisa- based industrialisation, he says, is the without electricity, Africa is the tion policies of the past that softened bridge from economic growth to jobs world’s most energy-poor region, said governments’ grip on national econo- creation and social development. Kandeh Yumkella, the former direc- mies have hurt Africa as massive prof- tor-general of the UN Industrial De- Devil in the details its were repatriated by foreign inves- velopment Organisation, at a Novem- tors. What Africa needs now is ‘stra- ber 2012 lecture at the London Busi- tegic policies targeted at specific sec- As Lopes and others made the ness School. The continent loses ‘2% tors’. Lopes calls that ‘sophisticated industrialisation case at the Abidjan to 3% of its GDP because of the lack protectionism’, which allows the gov- conference, the audience, which in- of reliable energy’. ernment to strategically intervene in cluded many African policy-makers, He noted that Nigeria needs the market in a way that benefits na- nodded enthusiastically. However, as 10,000 megawatts of electricity but tional economies. to how that goal is to be achieved, the generates only 4,500. Yet the country Any attempt to reset the liberali- devil appears to be in the details. Even sation button through policies that the ECA report acknowledges that not has been flaring gas for 40 years. ‘We estimate that the gas flared in Africa appear to go against the free-market all countries have commodities to ex- principle is bound to be controversial. port, while others are landlocked and can supply half of the continent’s elec- tricity needs, but we burn it with no Lopes argues that ‘sophisticated pro- face high transport costs. And most tectionism’ policies do not conflict African markets are small and frag- value addition.’ In general, concurs the ECA, en- with the World Trade Organisation mented, which cancels out any com- regulations, as some economists petitive advantage smaller countries trepreneurs in Africa ‘face high trans- action costs, protracted and cumber- claim. ‘Everybody agrees now that may have. some administrative procedures and there is a role for the state and there To create bigger markets, African bureaucratic bottlenecks, and poor is a role for the market,’ he says. How- countries should integrate their econo- physical and financial infrastructure’. ever, The Economist, a London-based mies. Just imagine the following, said Many African governments are magazine, ascribed China’s recent Lopes: ‘Togo [six million people] investing heavily in infrastructure – huge economic leap to its allowing wants to survive on its toothpaste pro- railways in South Africa, energy in private enterprise to thrive with little duced in Togo, and Benin [nine mil- Ethiopia and Nigeria, road construc- interference, and suggested that In- lion people] also wants to produce its tion in Rwanda and so on. But work- dia’s current economic slowdown and own.’ The right recipe for regional in- ers are ringing the alarm bells, wor- Africa’s high poverty rate may be the tegration is that countries concentrate ried that industrialisation’s promise results of ‘monopolies and restrictive on commodities in which they have a also has its perils. Imani Countess, the practices’. competitive advantage. For example, African regional programme director While the debate continues on the Benin and Egypt could concentrate on at the Solidarity Center, an interna- best ways to achieve industrialisation, cotton, Togo on cocoa, Zambia on tional labour rights organisation, said Yumkella foresees disaster should sugar – each country operating in big- that industrialisation in South Africa Africa continue to rely only on com- ger regional markets. – Africa’s most industrialised nation modity exports. The good news is that Problems with regional integra- – is lowering wages and causing Africa can aggressively pursue indus- trialisation; he adds quickly, ‘We can tion, such as weak political commit- poorer working conditions. Manufac- do it.’ ÿu ment and a lack of policy harmonisa- turing companies put pressure on the tion, are familiar. Yet the 2013 ECA/ government to allow individual com- panies to determine their own labour Kingsley Ighobor is an Information Officer (Africa AU report is optimistic about the out- Section) at the UN Department of Public come of commodity-based industriali- standards, rather than having to ad- Information. This article is reproduced from Africa sation, which it insists ‘must be here to the national standards. Renewal (August 2013), which is published by DPI.

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 18 C O V E R Africa strives to move from neo-colonial mining mode The Africa Mining Vision is an example of the ‘breakout’ from the mining enclave, a neo-colonial enterprise, to transformative industry through the struggle to control Africa’s resources, writes Alhassan Atta-Quayson.

AS the African Union marks 50 years tion and eventual partitioning of the were major exporters of gold to the since its establishment, one question once-vibrant continent of Africa. With rest of the world. Modern-day Ghana, that lingers on the minds of its people this motive, mining activities were previously referred to as the Gold is the extent to which the continent undertaken with the overarching aim Coast, was for several years the lead- has ‘broken out’ of the colonial ap- of extracting raw materials to power ing producer of gold in the world. proaches used to extract its natural foreign economies in diverse ways. The case of iron and its related resources, especially mineral re- Consequently, as countries politically products is even more telling. Yatenga sources. A related question is the ex- fell under European control, so did in modern-day Burkina Faso, where tent to which these vast resources their rich and vast mineral resources. there existed about 1,500 smelting have contributed to structural trans- The approach to extracting mineral furnaces in production, epitomises formation or otherwise on the conti- resources under these circumstances how vibrant pre-colonial mining in nent. is not difficult to describe: high capi- Africa was and its strong linkages The vastness of the continent’s tal intensity, dominance of imported with the rest of the local economy. The mineral resources – though declining inputs, payments of scanty rent to tra- quality of iron ore and related prod- since they are finite – is not in ques- ditional authorities, little or no atten- ucts made in Yatenga and several tion, after luring European colonialists tion to environmental management, other places across the length and into Africa some centuries ago. disregard for human rights, no con- breadth of the continent meant that Thanks to new discoveries – Africans sideration for local enterprise devel- even in the face of European imports, have not been adequately informed of opment and development of linkages, local iron ore production survived into the types, quantities and qualities of and exportation of minerals produced the early 20th century. Finally cop- the various minerals in their land – in their raw form. per production in Africa, from ancient the continent continues to retain its This model stands in contrast to Egypt through parts of Niger, Mauri- global position as a major producer the approach in Africa on the eve of tania and central and southern Africa, and exporter of mineral resources in the colonial period. The cases of gold, also highlights the continent’s mining addition to hosting a relatively big- iron and copper illustrate this point. credentials prior to the current colo- ger chunk of proven reserves of vari- Prior to the arrival of European nial model that dominates African ous mineral resources (see Table 1). colonialists, west and southern Africa mining. In all these pre-colonial min- Colonial mining model Table 1: Some leading African mineral resources (2005) The modus operandi for the ex- ploitation/extraction of mineral re- Mineral African % African Rank African % of African Rank Resources of World in World World Reserve in World sources on the continent has however largely not changed after European Platinum group 54 1 60+ 1 colonialists were ‘politically’ returned of metals over five decades ago. This is in spite Phosphate 27 1 66 1 of recent (from 2008 onwards) moves Gold 20 1 42 1 by African governments to break out Chromium 40 1 44 1 of the mining ‘enclaves’ operative in Manganese 28 2 82 1 various countries with the adoption of the Africa Mining Vision (AMV) by Vanadium 51 1 95 1 AU heads of state and government in Cobalt 18 1 55+ 1 February 2009. Diamonds 78 1 88 1 The search for and control of raw Aluminium 4 7 45 1 materials, including mineral re- sources, is probably the most impor- Also Ti (20%), U (20%), Fe (17%), Cu (13%) etc tant incentive for European penetra- Source: The Africa Mining Vision (2009)

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 19 C O V E R ing activities, production processes ken the widespread colonial mining a major source of contention, result- that were strongly associated with enclaves on the continent. Unfortu- ing in what has been described as ‘re- other economic activities covered nately the policy did not see the light source nationalism’. These weak- prospecting, mining, smelting and of day. nesses are illustrated by how the re- forging in indigenous ways. Instead, international financial cent mining boom lifted mining prof- The colonial model of mining has institutions (particularly the World its through the roof but left African largely remained, although there have Bank and the International Monetary governments with a disappointing been some minute cosmetic changes Fund), having emerged as lenders to share. As communities go through over time. In the aftermath of the African economies around that time, various challenges in containing capi- ouster of European colonialists, Afri- reconstituted themselves into eco- tal-intensive large-scale mines and the can governments decided to take con- nomic planning agencies and in the general public fail to benefit from trol of their mines as well, noting its mid-1980s prescribed policies for mining because of continued utilisa- relevance – jobs, income and foreign African governments. These policies tion of the colonial mining model, Af- exchange – but failed. While that fail- were contained in the Economic Re- rican governments now feel the brunt ure is not in much dispute, the causes form Programmes (ERP) and Struc- from the receipt of inadequate finan- of the failure continue to be the sub- tural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) cial benefits. ject of debate. that challenged the LPA and more Critical voices in Africa point fin- importantly deliberately opened up The Africa Mining Vision gers at the nature, design and perform- African markets to the detriment of ance of the global metals market and local production. With regard to min- These circumstances have per- the US’ pegging of her currency ing, governments were asked to di- suaded African governments to re- against gold value (price) thereby fix- vest and concentrate instead on pro- think the operative mining model. A ing the gold price for some time. viding an ‘enabling environment’ to key development in this rethinking These circumstances determined the attract foreign investors. Besides on- process was the adoption of the AMV amount of revenues earned by Afri- erous incentive packages (largely fis- and the processes initiated since then can governments and the proportion cal) offered, mines owned and con- towards the realisation of the vision. that could be re-invested in mining ac- trolled by governments were ‘handed The vision rightly acknowledges that tivities. Those revenues were highly over’ on a silver platter to foreign ‘Africa’s efforts to transform the min- volatile and often at the low ends of miners. ing sector away from its colonially- the range. This had obvious implica- The ERP and SAP succeeded in created enclave features have so far tions on re-investment, recruiting and attracting investment to the mining met with very limited success’. keeping expertise and skills, and re- sector but failed in addressing the key The AMV thus set out its primary search – key factors of success in min- issue of transforming the sector into purpose as offering ‘a framework for ing. Yet others are quick to point to a vehicle for sustainable and all-in- integrating the sector more coherently corruption, inefficiency and lack of clusive development. Consequently and firmly into the continent’s foresight in the sector after African Africa’s mineral resources have not economy and society’. Whereas the governments began taking control of contributed positively to structural AMV is viewed as a breakthrough as the mines. transformation. Regrettably, some far as the goal of harnessing mineral conflicts on the continent have been resources for sustainable and all-in- The Lagos Plan of Action linked to extraction of mineral re- clusive development is concerned, sources. challenges and hurdles still remain in By the early 1980s, mining in In many parts of Africa, destruc- the way of realising the vision. While most countries in Africa had nearly tion of livelihoods to pave the way for emerging parallel initiatives such as collapsed amid the dire challenges large-scale mines has been a major the Natural Resources Charter and the that many African economies were source of conflicts as companies European Union’s Raw Materials Ini- facing around that time. These cir- hardly pay ‘adequate’ and ‘prompt’ tiative could challenge the realisation cumstances forced African leaders to compensation to affected farmers and of the AMV, of more importance is draw up a policy whose implementa- landowners, as required by many stat- how African governments can ‘walk tion had a lot of promise for industri- utes on the continent. Various forms the talk’. The regulatory framework alisation and economic transforma- of pollution, especially water pollu- must change to be AMV-compliant tion. This policy was the Lagos Plan tion, and destruction of properties following required changes in na- of Action (LPA). The LPA had some (due to blasting) have also emerged tional mining policies, mining con- thought on how Africa’s vast natural as major contributory factors to min- tracts must be renegotiated, and Afri- resources (including minerals) could ing-related conflicts on the continent. cans, particularly those with respon- contribute to structural transforma- In the past few years, the failure sibilities, must change their ways. u tion. Its implementation would have of the mining regime to produce fair clearly improved Africa’s economic returns to various stakeholders (espe- Alhassan Atta-Quayson is Programme Officer with TWN Africa. This article is reproduced from African standing and more importantly bro- cially governments) has also become Agenda (Vol. 16, No. 2).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 20 C O V E R Emerging trends in political violence in Africa Political violence tied to electoral competition is on the rise across countries in Africa south of the Sahara, along with a contest over livelihood resources. These pose major threats to the well-being of the continent’s population and its young democracies, writes Kwesi W Obeng.

THIS year, 2013, marks the 50th an- Perhaps the phrase that has caught the wealth. In essence, the elite are mostly niversary of the formation of the Or- public imagination around the world unaccountable to the people in many ganisation of African Unity (OAU), the most is ‘Africa rising’. The ‘Af- African polities. predecessor to the African Union, to rica rising’ narrative is woven around Political violence is perpetrated promote the unity and solidarity of Af- the extraordinary expansion of econo- by both state (including the army, rican states to accelerate their efforts mies on the continent, particularly the police and parastatals) and non-state at achieving a better life for Africans. mineral, oil and gas-endowed states, actors. Warfare and even mass mas- Attempts at unifying Africa re- since the year 2000. sacres – as in Rwanda in 1994 and main a work in progress at best but While the focus of this article is Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 1990s African leaders have declared 2013 the emerging trends in political vio- – have not been peripheral to Africa’s as the ‘Year of Pan-Africanism and lence in Africa, it is worth stating that post-independence experience. About the African Renaissance’ to promote with both China and India rapidly two-thirds of countries in Sub-Saha- ‘an integrated, prosperous and peace- pulling ahead in the economic trans- ran Africa have experienced an armed ful Africa, driven by its own citizens formation of their societies, especially conflict since independence but po- and representing a dynamic force in in the last two decades, poverty is now litical violence is by no means excep- global arena’. regarded essentially as an African tional to Africa. According to the Year-long activities are planned problem, nevermind that there are United Nations, more than 90% of all to facilitate and celebrate African nar- many more poor people in India alone Africans live in neither war nor crisis ratives of past, present and future to than in the whole of Africa. areas. energise Africa’s one-billion-strong The causes and motivation for Leading political violence population to use their ‘constructive political violence are immense. Cen- datasets such as the Armed Conflict energy to accelerate a forward look- tral to any analysis of violence in poli- Database from the Uppsala Conflict ing agenda of Pan-Africanism and tics is the question of power. The Data Programme, the Peace Research renaissance in the 21st century’. deeply entrenched patrimonial and Institute of Oslo and the Social Con- Over the last half-century, a rent-seeking politics practised across flict in Africa Database show that in number of issues and events have Africa, in which political leaders es- comparison to other regions of the pulled together to define Africa sentially retain their grip on political world, Africa is the leader in neither (rightly or wrongly); how Africans see power by distributing public re- the frequency nor duration of such themselves; and how the rest of the sources, contracts and jobs to cronies major forms of political violence. Asia world perceives the continent. Two of without recourse to laid-down rules, is a leader in both frequency and du- such issues are poverty and political if they exist, has been noted as a ma- ration of major forms of political vio- violence perpetrated especially on jor source of tension in African poli- lence. Africans by fellow Africans and of tics. Historically, there have been course by external powers. Again, the general lack of distinc- shifts in political violence in Africa. The global perception of Africa tion between the personal and public Over the last half-century, there has is also changing somewhat. Not too and between individual and the state been a shift from anti-colonial wars, long ago, Africa was described as ‘the compounds the opaqueness of Afri- to proxy wars of the Cold War era, to dark continent’, ‘the hopeless conti- can politics and its linkage to politi- what some academics describe as ‘re- nent’ and similar disparaging terms. cal violence and crime. In too many form’ (representing the NRM regime Today, the same people are describ- cases, power holders have treated of Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni) to ing the continent in superlative terms. state resources as personal properties warlordism as exemplified by war- The African continent is now talked as many office holders perceive pub- lords in both the Liberian and Sierra about in the global media and global lic office not so much as a privilege Leonean civil wars of the 1990s. centres of power and commerce as the to serve the people but as an avenue The struggle for independence ‘world’s next economic powerhouse’. to extract and accumulate personal

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 21 C O V E R and the Cold War gave rise to differ- various countries. political figures and their supporters ent kinds of violence. The superpower In many countries on the conti- have characterised Nigerian and rivalry of the Cold War era, for ex- nent, electoral competition is gener- Guinea Bissau elections in recent ample, triggered and funded the bit- ally pursued as a zero-sum game and years. The April 2011 polls that ter civil wars in Angola and Mozam- political opponents are subjected to elected Nigerian President Goodluck bique. In Angola, the United States intimidation, harassment, violent dis- Jonathan to office touched off ethno- along with its Western allies and then placement and even death. That the sectarian riots, resulting in about 500 apartheid South Africa armed Jonas winner of an election gets to control deaths. In South Africa, clashes be- Savimbi’s UNITA against the Marx- nearly every aspect of the state sys- tween the ruling African National ist MPLA regime. In Mozambique tem raises the spectre of violent con- Congress and the Inkatha Freedom too, the United States and other West- testation of electoral outcomes. Party claimed over 2,000 lives be- ern powers and the racist South Afri- Elections may be the sine qua non tween 1990 and 1994. can regime engineered and armed of democracy but they remain signifi- In Ghana, a razor-thin victory by RENAMO to fight another Marxist cantly inadequate, even ineffectual, in one of the two major political parties administration, FRELIMO. Although addressing social grievances, particu- nearly turned violent in 2008. Results they have ended, these wars remain larly grievances linked to growing of the country’s 2012 presidential some of Africa’s longest and most bit- land and water scarcity, environmen- polls were contested at the country’s ter conflicts. tal destruction, food insecurity, socio- Supreme Court. The opposition New Presently there are about a dozen economic inequity and population Patriotic Party contested the declara- low-level insurgencies on the conti- growth in the region. tion of the ruling National Democratic nent. These include the separatist A number of factors may account Congress candidate and former vice movement in the Caprivi Strip in Na- for the high levels of political violence president John Mahama as president mibia, the Lord’s Resistance Army in associated with the electoral process of the republic. After eight months of northern Uganda, Boko Haram in Ni- in Africa, including not least the hearing the case, the Supreme Court geria, the Casamance insurgency in deeply entrenched informal patronage upheld (by a 5-4 majority decision) Senegal, Cabinda separatists in An- systems, politics of exclusion, mal- that Mahama was duly elected. The gola, Tuareg and Al Qaeda affiliates governance and socio-economic un- Court also called for reforms of the in northern Mali and the Sahel, the certainties of losing political power, country’s electoral system. Ogaden insurrection in Ethiopia, sev- especially as most African constitu- Prior to the Court’s ruling on 29 eral armed groups in Chad, Central tions concentrate power at the centre August, civil society groups and African Republic and Congo DR, – the presidency. Weak electoral in- policy research think-tanks had Darfur region in Sudan and insurgen- stitutions, election fraud and the gen- warned of the likelihood of pockets cies in Africa’s newest state, South eral opaqueness of elections and rules of violence breaking out especially in Sudan. governing the electoral process in the Great Accra Region, Ashanti Re- some countries could also be attrib- gion and the Northern Region which- Electoral competition uted to the levels of violence associ- ever way the verdict went. However, ated with electoral contests in Afri- no violent incidents were recorded While there has been a consist- ca’s young democracies. after the Court’s verdict, a poignant ent decline in warfare and large-scale The massive ‘third wave of de- testament to the country’s strengthen- mass killing of civilians including mocratisation’ that swept across the ing democracy. genocide over the last decade, other continent in the 1980s and 1990s was Raila Odinga, former Prime Min- forms and patterns of political vio- expected to end the cycle of sense- ister and the defeated candidate of the lence are emerging or are re-emerg- less violence and introduce a more Coalition for Reforms and Democ- ing in Africa. Of the two most impor- transparent and predictable election of racy (CORD) in the 4 March 2013 tant emerging forms of political vio- leaders and development of rule- Kenyan presidential election, chal- lence, one is closely tied to electoral based governance institutions on the lenged the results at the courts. Ken- competition and the other linked to continent. However, the promise of a ya’s Supreme Court treated with dis- livelihood resources. peace dividend has truly been patch and upheld the verdict of the From Kenya to Nigeria, Malawi shortlived. In some countries, it never Electoral Commission which declared to Madagascar, Ghana to Uganda, materialised. A case in point is Congo Uhuru Kenyatta and his Jubilee alli- Cameroon to Ethiopia, Cote d’Ivoire DR. ance as winner of the polls. No vio- to Guinea and from Senegal to Zim- The brutal killing of about 1,500 lence linked to the Court’s verdict was babwe, election-related violence has people following the disputed presi- recorded but Kenyatta and his vice claimed thousands of lives, homes and dential elections in 2007 in Kenya president William Ruto are facing businesses. These conflicts have the perhaps marked a watershed in this charges of genocide at the Interna- tendency of setting back the economic new trend of political violence con- tional Criminal Court in The Hague. recovery process as they seem to nected to electoral contests in Africa. The charges are linked to their alleged reoccur with each election cycle in the Assassinations of high-ranking involvement in the bloody 2007 post-

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 22 C O V E R election violence. Kenya and Ghana, historical The Rwenzori Experience trendsetters in Africa, may yet be set- The Farmer Family Learning Group Approach to Human and ting a precedent on the issue of con- Social Capital Building, Environmental Care and Food testation of disputed election results Sovereignty through clearly laid-down procedures, the courts, rather than the resort to vio- Mette Vaarst, Jane Nalunga, Thaddeo lence on the streets with guns, ma- Tibasiima, Aage Dissing and Inge Lis Dissing chetes and sticks. However, the payoffs from electoral violence in Af- This booklet is a portrait of a unique rica are huge, including access to juicy participatory learning project involving farming communities in the Rwenzori and high-profile public jobs and con- region of Western Uganda. The project tracts, and so it remains to be seen if brought rural households together in other countries will follow this prec- ‘Farmer Family Learning Groups’ edent. (FFLGs) with the aim of enhancing community food security. But of course other forms of po- Guided by a facilitator, the families in litical violence also matter, not least each group supported one another in their those linked to livelihood resources. farming activities, working together, Indeed, the widely reported electoral sharing knowledge and learning from each other’s experiences. Through such violence cases in Cote d’Ivoire, collaboration and the use of organic and Environment & Development Series no. 15 Kenya and Zimbabwe all had access agro-ecological farming methods, the ISBN: 978-967-5412-66-0 64 pp to land (or the lack of it) at the core. FFLGs have brought about increased As climate change takes its toll yields and improved livelihoods for project, how it has worked in practice, member families. In cooperating on the the successes achieved and challenges on Africa’s vulnerable landscape – farm, members also came to enjoy closer faced. As the authors explain, the leaving its watersheds and rivers dry relationships off it, within and among their Rwenzori Experience is one which – and the extractive industry renders families as well as in the broader local highlights the value of a collaborative its most arable lands uncultivable and community. approach to food security and sustainable This booklet, written by the development. It is an ‘approach which is displaces rural communities, even as coordinators of the FFLG project, looks owned by everybody who uses it, and reinvestment of even the minimal rev- at the guiding principles behind the cannot be patented’. enue from mining into industries that Price Postage can outlive the mines is lacking, con- Malaysia RM9.00 RM1.00 testation over livelihood resources Third World countries US$6.00 US$3.00 (air); US$1.00 (sea) such as land and water is set to inten- Other foreign countries US$8.00 US$4.00 (air); US$1.00 (sea) sify. Orders from Malaysia – please pay by credit card/crossed cheque or postal order. Already the science shows that Orders from Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, given Africa’s geo-physical character- UK, USA – please pay by credit card/cheque/bank draft/international money order istics and lack of depth and poor qual- in own currency, US$ or Euro.If paying in own currency or Euro, please calculate ity of infrastructure, the continent will equivalent of US$ rate. If paying in US$, please ensure that the agent bank is located in the USA. suffer the worst consequences of glo- Rest of the world – please pay by credit card/cheque/bank draft/international bal climate change, unlike any other money order in US$ or Euro. If paying in Euro, please calculate equivalent of US$ region of the world. rate. If paying in US$, please ensure that the agent bank is located in the USA. Linked to these is a growing All payments should be made in favour of: THIRD WORLD NETWORK BHD., 131 Jalan Macalister, 10400 Penang, Malaysia. Tel: 60-4-2266728/2266159; wealth gap as African economies ex- Fax: 60-4-2264505; Email: [email protected]; Website: www.twn.my pand. The growing inequity in the dis- tribution of this new wealth is feed- I would like to order ...... copy/copies of The Rwenzori Experience. ing anger in many parts of Africa. Put I enclose the amount of ...... by cheque/bank draft/IMO. bluntly, the economic growth of the Please charge the amount of US$/Euro/RM ...... to my credit card: last decade has yet to trickle down. American Express Visa Mastercard Africa cannot afford to slip up on tackling both political violence asso- A/c No.: Expiry date: ciated with elections and threats posed to livelihood resources from various Signature: sources. ÿu Name: Kwesi W Obeng is Assistant Editor of African Agenda. This is a revised version of an article which Address: originally appeared in African Agenda (Vol. 16, No. 2).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 23 C O V E R Asking the wrong questions: Did the Arab revolutions fail? Since 2011, Arab countries of Northern Africa such as Tunisia and Egypt have witnessed popular revolts against autocratic rulers. The vicissitudes of these upheavals have provoked some hasty judgments and comments as to their outcome. Ramzy Baroud comments.

CHALLENGING the falsehoods and soon after Tunisian President Zine El simplifications that surrounded the so- Abidine Ben Ali fled the country. called Arab Spring from the very start My argument was a response to doesn’t necessarily mean that one is the euphoria of expectations made by in doubt of the very notion that genu- media ‘experts’ and journalists who ine revolutions have indeed gripped clearly had little understanding or, various Arab countries for nearly three dare I say, respect of history or knowl- years. edge about the complex realities in In fact, the revolutionary influx which each Arab country is situated. is still underway, and it will take many Many went on to write books, while years before the achievements of others inspired audiences around the these popular mobilisations can be world with fiery speeches about col- truly felt. lective Arab Islamic awakenings even One can understand the frustra- before we conjured up basic ideas of tion and deep sense of disappointment what was truly manifesting before our resulting from the state of chaos in own eyes. These manifestations were Libya, the political wrangling in at times very violent and involved Yemen and Tunisia, the brutal civil many players, from Qatar to China, war in Syria, and of course, the col- and groups that varied in roots, ideol- lective heartbreak felt throughout the ogy and sources of funds. Arab world following the bloody Newspaper coverage of Egyptian But as the plot thickened, much events in Egypt. But to assign the term President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in of the distorted accounts of ‘Twitter 2011. Since their outbreak, the ‘failure’ to the Arab revolutions is also revolutions in Arab countries have revolutions’ and such, grew less rel- a mistake equal to the many miscal- headed in sharply different ways. evant and eventually faded away. Take culations that accompanied the nas- the case of Libya as an example. cent revolutions and uprisings from Those with simple answers, reflect- the start. In the rush to emphasise one’s ing a truly modest understanding of intellectual authority, if not ownership Arab societies, could hardly under- Flawed discourse over the narrative and for political stand the complex nature of Libya’s reasons as well, the Arabs were dis- tribal society, the socioeconomics Many lapses of judgment were sected in every possible way, governing relations between East and made early on, starting with the lump- stretched in every possible direction, West, urban areas with desert towns, ing together of all Arab countries into and reduced in such useful, yet and Libya’s African context and rela- one category – discussed as single flawed, ways that quick answers could tionships. news or academic topics. It was most be obtained. When NATO used the Libyan convenient for a newspaper to ask While answers were readily uprising, mostly in the eastern parts such a question as ‘who’s next?’ when available as to why the Arabs revolted, of the country, to achieve its own po- Libya’s Muammar al-Gaddafi was so time has proven much of the early litical objectives, it converted a re- pitilessly murdered by NATO-sup- discourses inane and misleading. The gional uprising into an all-out war that ported rebels. It is equally convenient revolutions have headed in sharply left the country in a status compara- for academicians to keep contending different ways. This is a testament to ble to that of a failed state. Almost with why the Egyptian army initially the uniqueness of circumstances, his- immediately after NATO declared the took the side of the 25 January revo- torical and otherwise, which surround Libyan revolution victorious, the ex- lution, the Syrian army sided with the each country – as opposed to the citement over the Libyan component ruling party, while the Yemeni army wholesale representation offered by of the ‘Arab Spring’ became less vis- descended into deep divisions. the media. It is an argument I made ible, and eventually completely dis-

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 24 C O V E R

the prism of an American plot in which we are co-conspirators, hapless fools or unwilling participants. Challenging the status quo

The Arab revolutions have not failed, at least not yet. It will take us years, or maybe even an entire gen- eration, to assess their failures or suc- cesses. They have ‘failed’ according to our hyped expectations and erro- neous understanding of history. What popular revolutions do is introduce new factors that challenge the way countries are ruled. In the post-colo- A February 2011 protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square against the Mubarak regime. The nial Middle East, Arab countries were mass mobilisations in Arab countries ‘sent the entire region into disarray, but it is ruled through dictators – and their lo- the price one would expect when powerful regimes and foreign powers are challenged by long-disempowered, disorganised and oppressed people.’ cal associates – and foreign powers. The harmony and clashes between the sipated. Since then Libya has hardly to those who insist that the ‘Arab dictator and the foreigner determined followed a path of democracy and re- Spring’ was entirely farce – incepted, the course of events in most Arab forms. In fact, the harms that resulted controlled and manipulated by US countries – in fact in most post-colo- from the Libyan crisis, such as the hands, and funds of rich Arab coun- nial experiences around the world. massive influx of weapons and refu- tries. These critics either have no faith This is where the real significance gees to other African countries, in Arab masses as a possible factor of of the mass mobilisations in Arab destabilised the entire countries becomes very country of Mali. important, for the ‘people’ As a result, Mali too – a factor that is still far went through its own up- from being fully defined – heaval, military coup, civil challenged the rules of the war and finally a French- game and mixed up the led war in the course of two cards. True, they sent the years. Unfortunately, these entire region into disarray, issues are hardly discussed but it is the price one within the Libyan context would expect when pow- since Mali is not Arab, thus erful regimes and foreign such inconvenient stories powers are challenged by do no service to the simpli- long-disempowered, disor- fied ‘Arab Spring’ dis- ganised and oppressed course. people. The consequences of The Arab revolutions the Libyan fiasco will con- have not failed, but they tinue to reverberate for People gathering around a burning car after a fatal explosion in have not succeeded either. many years to come. But the Libyan city of Benghazi, August 2013. ‘When NATO used the They have simply chal- since simple arguments Libyan uprising, mostly in the eastern parts of the country, to lenged the status quo like cannot cope with intricate achieve its own political objectives, it converted a regional never before. The outcome narratives, media ‘experts’ uprising into an all-out war that left the country in a status of the new conflicts will comparable to that of a failed state.’ and other intellectual ped- define the politics of the dlers have moved elsewhere, selling change in their own countries, or have region, its future, and the relationships the same tired arguments about other become accustomed to judging the between governments and the Arab countries by insisting on the world and all of its happenings as a upcoming generations of Arabs. u same failed, expedient logic. colossal conspiracy where the US and While some parties continue to its friends are the only wheelers and Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is a media ascribe the same language they used dealers. As vigilant as one must re- consultant, an internationally syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com, from in the early months of 2011 to these main to drivel promoted as news in which this article is reproduced. His latest book is revolutions, the shortcomings of these the mass media, one must not fall into My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold revolutions eventually gave credence the trap of seeing the world through Story (Pluto Press).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 25 C O V E R The Maputo Protocol: Its potential for a revolution in women’s rights It is now 10 years since the African Union, meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. Moreen Majiwa assesses the significance of this important document in advancing the cause of gender equality in the continent.

‘The speed with which the Protocol came into force on 25 November 2005 sets a new record for the ratification of pan-African rights standards for the continent. A key lesson is that the challenges of working with countries across the continent can be overcome by collaboration between govern- ments, the AU Commission and na- tional and regional women’s associa- tions.’ – HE Alpha Konare, Found- ing Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission (2000-08), 2006, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia The July 2003 summit of the African Union which adopted the Maputo Protocol. The Protocol is the first international instrument to speak specifically to the rights of GENDER plays a significant part in women in the African context. defining and determining the access that women have and the role that they to advocate for effective realisation of abortion in cases of rape, incest or to play in governance, economic devel- women’s rights contained in the Afri- protect the life of the mother. The Pro- opment, and in society as a whole. can Women’s Protocol. Oxfam Pan tocol also binds State Parties to the Traditional gender roles have con- Africa Programme also supports ac- provision of political and economic fined women to the private sphere. celerated ratification, domestication rights on an equal footing with men, Lobbying from women’s rights activ- and implementation of the African obligating State Parties to ensure ists and mounting evidence of the cor- Women’s Protocol through the State equal participation of women at all relation between gender equality and of the Union, a coalition of civil soci- levels of decision-making, mainte- positive economic development and ety organisations that tracks the com- nance of peace and security, and pro- democratic reform have led to efforts pliance of AU State Parties on 14 key vide for affirmative action. at global, continental, regional and policies and frameworks adopted by In the 10 years since its adoption, national levels to mainstream gender the African Union, one of which is the 36 of the 54 African states have rati- equality. The Protocol to the African African Women’s Protocol. fied the African Women’s Protocol. In Charter on Human and Peoples’ Adopted by the African Union in line with ratification, significant Rights on the Rights of Women in July 2003, the African Women’s Pro- strides have been made at national Africa (the African Women’s Proto- tocol is a revolutionary legal instru- level to ensure legislative recognition col) is a manifestation of these efforts. ment on women’s rights and is the first of women’s rights. For instance in Grounded in the belief that instru- international instrument to speak spe- 2004, Ethiopia passed the most pro- ments, protocols, laws and policies are cifically to the rights of women in the gressive abortion laws in Africa. At powerless to change the lives of Afri- African context. Countries that ratify least 22 African countries prohibit can women in the absence of an or- the Protocol agree not only to elimi- discrimination based on sex. Malawi ganised public demand for their im- nate all forms of discrimination and South Africa prohibit discrimina- plementation and enforcement, against women but also to end all tion based on sex and marital status. Oxfam’s Pan Africa Programme forms of violence against women, In the last decade Africa has seen through its Gender Justice Pillar abolish harmful cultural practices that the election of two female heads of works with partners including the affect women including child mar- state (Joyce Banda and Ellen Johnson Solidarity for African Women’s riage and female genital mutilation, Sirleaf); three female Nobel Peace Rights Coalition to build and mobi- and protect women’s reproductive Prize winners (Wangari Maathai, lise a critical mass of active citizens health rights, including the right to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 26 C O V E R

Gbowee); and the first fe- der and women at the na- male head of the African tional level is critical to en- Union (Nkosazana suring informed policy ad-

Dlamini-Zuma). Four Af- ccDiksha41 vocacy that would be tar- rican countries (Rwanda, geted at national and con- Senegal, Seychelles, and tinental institutions. South Africa) are ranked The African Union amongst the top 10 in oversight mechanisms women’s representation such as the African Com- in parliament. mission on Human and Despite encouraging Peoples’ Rights provide an trends and an increasingly Efforts to mainstream gender equality are yet to deliver avenue to monitor imple- enabling women’s rights transformation in gender relations and ensure equal rights for mentation as well as cre- legislative and policy en- women. ate standards on imple- vironment, gender gaps still exist in initiatives that do not deal with the mentation of the Protocol through every sector – access to justice, root causes of gender inequalities in eliciting general comments from the healthcare, education, economic op- society and in some instances rein- African Commission. Capacity devel- portunities and political participation. force them. opment for targeting oversight insti- Women in most parts of Africa con- In order to ensure gender equal- tutions at the national level, i.e. na- tinue to face cultural, social and eco- ity and transformation in gender rela- tional assemblies, judiciaries, relevant nomic barriers because of disparate tions between women and men, a ministries and law enforcement agen- access to education, healthcare, and ‘comprehensive change that radically cies, is crucial for the progressive do- political and economic opportunities. alters the status quo of the power re- mestication and implementation of the Gender roles continue to influence lations’, rather than ad hoc or piece- Protocol. crucial societal and individual deci- meal reforms that simply attach the The progress in gender equality sions on educating women, women’s concepts of gender onto already-ex- and the efforts of women’s organisa- political and economic participation, isting structures, is needed. A robust tions, feminist activists and academ- and on fertility. gendered analysis of the continent’s ics in the advancement of women’s Creating a consensus on the inte- gender equality and women’s rights rights across the continent cannot be gration of the African Women’s Pro- framework could provide the tool for discounted. Existing continental, re- tocol at national level has been diffi- transformation through: gional and national legislative and cult. Though a majority of African • Interrogating existing women’s policy frameworks on women’s rights countries have ratified the Protocol, rights/gender equality frameworks are a crucial foundation and provide several of these countries have placed and mechanisms at both continental a starting point as far as setting conti- reservations on the articles considered and national levels nental norms on women’s rights and controversial. The decision of State • Examining why the existing transformation of gender relations are Parties to ratify the Protocol with res- women’s rights/gender equality concerned. The experiences of coun- ervations particularly in the areas of frameworks and mechanisms fail to tries where there have been efforts at early marriage, property rights and close existing gender gaps domestication and implementation and practical application of the Afri- reproductive rights directly impacts • Challenging the mainstream can Women’s Protocol provide sev- women’s equality. paradigm that allows implementers to eral lessons with regard to the Efforts to integrate women’s pay lip service to gender equality and (in)ability of current gender rights and mainstream gender equal- women’s rights mainstreaming frameworks to deliver ity through the African Women’s Pro- • Holding the AU and member on the gender transformation agenda. tocol are commendable but they are states accountable for normative The African Women’s Protocol pro- yet to deliver transformation in gen- frameworks and policies to which vides an essential entry point for civil der relations and ensure equal rights they have assented. society groups and women’s rights for women. This is because gender/ The African Women’s Protocol organisations to engage with conti- women’s rights reforms have been and the AU’s gender architecture (Ar- nental and national policy makers and piecemeal and have traditionally in- ticle 4L of the Constitutive Act of the push for the adoption of a more volved the ‘adding on’ of gender African Union; the AU Solemn Dec- transformative agenda in national- equality or women’s rights legislation laration on Gender Equality; the AU level domestication and implementa- to already-existing flawed and patri- Gender Policy; and the AU Women’s tion of the Protocol. ÿu archal institutions, structures and Decades) provide significant oppor- laws. In addition, a narrow interpre- tunities for the creation of continen- Moreen Majiwa is legal officer, Gender Justice, at Oxfam GB’s HECA (Horn, East and Central Africa) tation of gender equality as simply the tal standards on gender equality and Office. This article is reproduced from Pambazuka ‘addition’ of women, has led to the women’s rights. Mapping of policies News (No. 647, 26 September 2013, application of several gender reform and laws that relate to or affect gen- pambazuka.org).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 27 C O V E R Reversing the downward spiral in Africa’s rural sector Roger Leakey argues that multifunctional agriculture that simultaneously rehabilitates degraded farmlands and diversifies poor smallholder farming systems with indigenous species of trees may hold the key to boosting the incomes and livelihoods of Africa’s rural poor.

Redefining problems without solutions1

IN Global Development Goals – Leaving No-one Behind,2 the United

Nations Association of the United cc for Trees the Future Kingdom (UNA-UK) presents a col- lection of articles by eminent people in important positions around the globe. Although this report identifies progress towards some Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it rec- ognises that success has been uneven. The principal achievement of the MDGs has been ‘shaping the interna- Trees being readied for planting for the restoration of degraded land in Cameroon. tional discourse and driving the allo- Farmers in Cameroon had called for the reintroduction and cultivation of indigenous cation of resources towards key glo- trees that provide fruits, nuts, leaves and medicinal products. bal development goals ... with unprec- edented political commitment and a strong consensus for tackling poverty biophysical and socioeconomic issues First, there is the crippling decline of and other development problems’. best addressed within holistic inte- soil fertility and a loss of The report itself, however, makes grated rural development pro- agroecological functions. This results rather depressing reading as it seems grammes. Unfortunately, we live in a in land degradation and the loss of we are not really making huge world where problems and solutions biodiversity above and below ground. progress in our efforts to address the are confined to disconnected silos. This is exacerbated by persistent high big issues facing the world, especially How to proceed is also influenced by levels of poverty, which deny farm- with regard to the gap between rich the very different perspectives of peo- ers access to modern technologies and poor. Instead of identifying solu- ple depending on whether they are such as fertilisers and other agricul- tions, this booklet redefines the prob- looking from industrial or the least tural inputs. Consequently we have lems and we go from eight Millen- developed countries. billions of marginalised people, many nium Development Goals to 12 Post- of them farming households, trapped 2015 Development Goals. It seems The poverty trap in poverty and suffering from malnu- we still haven’t learnt that hunger, trition, hunger and poor health. They malnutrition, poverty and many of the Many of the problems arising also lack access to clean water, medi- other things on our ‘to-do wish list’ from poverty in urban areas of least cal and other social services, and op- are part of a bigger and inter-related developed countries arise from inward portunities for education and employ- complex of issues. Why? migration from the countryside. Thus, ment – indeed all the things high- Maybe the problem is the size and central to making progress across all lighted by the Post-2015 Develop- complexity of all the interacting fac- the development targets is tackling the ment Agenda. tors impacting on the lives of people root causes of land degradation and scattered across numerous sectors and rural poverty. Reversing the downward strata of society. The ‘development’ The biggest issue in the rural trop- spiral and closing the yield agenda is very multi-disciplinary and ics is that actual crop yields are well gap is partitioned between rural and ur- below the yield potential of modern ban situations. Furthermore, it re- varieties (this difference is called the To try to get a better understand- quires some detailed understanding of yield gap). The reasons are complex. ing of the issues in rural Africa, the

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 28 C O V E R

staff of the World Agroforestry Cen- long-lived perennial plants that se- development for economic growth tre asked farmers in Cameroon what quester carbon in their biomass, in the and enhanced well-being for billions they would like to see from agricul- soil and in other vegetation. of marginalised people. ture. That was 20 years ago. Their il- Albeit on a small scale (about Hopefully, ‘a new Eden is around luminating and unexpected request 10,000 farmers in 500 villages), the the corner’ if we put our minds to it was for the chance to reintroduce and results of this initiative in Cameroon and put our money where our cultivate the indigenous trees that have been spectacular and the integra- mouths are. This could be the ‘kick- used to provide fruits, nuts, leaves, tion of these trees in local farming off’ to a match where we start scor- medicinal products etc. when they systems has acted as a catalyst for the ing many of the Post-2015 Develop- were hunter-gatherers before the de- stimulation of social, economic and ment Goals. ÿu struction of forests and woodlands. environmental benefits – a list too Responding to this request has led long to present here, except to say that Prof Roger Leakey is Vice Chairman of the to a multi-disciplinary innovation to lives are improving and the average International Tree Foundation and author of Living with the Trees of Life – Towards the Transformation address the complex set of issues driv- income from community nurseries of Tropical Agriculture. This article is reproduced ing the downward spiral to social dep- has risen from essentially nothing to from the website of the Institute of Science in Society rivation in which land degradation $145, $16,000 and $28,350 after two, (www.i-sis.org.uk). drives poverty and poverty drives land five and 10 years, respectively. One degradation. This is the cause of the consequence is that some youths have Endnotes yield gap. To close this yield gap it is decided to stay in the community 1. This article describes one of many necessary to reverse the downward rather than seek urban employment spiral by rehabilitating the land and case studies and solutions to because they can see a future in their poverty presented recently in creating a source of income. villages. The benefits address many United Nations Conference on In simple terms, this involves a of the constraints arising from the fail- Trade and Development three-step approach that can be eas- ure of modern agriculture – malnutri- (UNCTAD), Trade and ily adapted to the needs of different tion, poverty and environmental deg- Environment Review 2013: Wake sets of biophysical and socioeconomic radation, including climate change. Up Before It Is Too Late – Make situations found in different loca- Agriculture Truly Sustainable Now These are the same constraints re- tions. Rehabilitation involves restor- for Food Security in a Changing sponsible for the loss of productivity, ing the ecological health of the farm- Climate, Geneva, 2013, http:// ing system to address declining yields the global food crisis and hunger in unctad.org/en/pages/ and to promote food security by en- nearly half the world population. PublicationWebflyer.aspx?publica suring the proper functioning of the The most innovative thing about tionid=666. See Ho MW, ‘Paradigm shift urgently needed in agroecosystem (step 1); enriching this approach is that it is multi-disci- agriculture’, Science in Society, 60. these farming systems with the ‘Trees plinary and based on the ideas and innovations implemented by poor 2. Global Development Goals – of Life’ that produce highly nutritious Leaving No-one Behind, United and marketable products that are also African farmers. Now, 20 years after Nations Association of the United traditionally and culturally important the start of the World Agroforestry Kingdom, London, 2013, http:// (step 2); and finally promoting local Centre’s study, it is becoming clear www.una.org.uk/news/13/10/ cottage industries to create business that these African farmers actually leaving-no-one-behind-una-uk- and employment opportunities in identified the key which unlocks the releases-major-development- Rural Development Syndrome (relief publication value-adding that lift communities out 3. Leakey R, ‘Three steps to bridging of poverty (step 3).3 from hunger, malnutrition, poverty, the yield gap’, 14 January 2013, The second step mentioned above social injustice, environmental degra- Global Food Security, http:// is in response to the request of the dation and loss of ecological services). www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/blog/ farmers. The World Agroforestry Cen- I have presented ‘12 Principles index.php/2013/01/three-steps-to- tre, together with other research teams for Better Food and More Food from bridging-the-yield-gap/ around the world, have developed a Mature Perennial Agroecosystems’5 4. Leakey R, Living with the Trees of based on lessons drawn from the Life – Towards the Transformation participatory approach engaging lo- of Tropical Agriculture, CABI, cal communities to domesticate these study. It involves the delivery of Oxford, 2012, http:// ‘Trees of Life’ using appropriate vil- multifunctional agriculture to simul- blog.worldagroforestry.org/ lage-based technologies that can be taneously rehabilitate degraded farm- index.php/2012/07/24/leakey- implemented by poor farmers in re- land and diversify poor smallholder book-says-trees-of-life-could- mote villages in the tropics. This proc- farming systems with indigenous spe- nourish-the-planet-build-wealth/ ess and how it addresses big global cies that the farmers in Cameroon 5. Leakey R, ‘12 principles for better food and more food from mature issues is the subject of my book Liv- wanted. These principles point the perennial agroecosystems’, FAO ing with the Trees of Life – Towards way to integrated rural development Workshop on Food Security, the Transformation of Tropical Agri- through the sustainable intensification Rome, 2013, www.rogerleakey.co culture.4 The trees are also of course of tropical agriculture, rural business m/new_publications

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 29 V I E W P O I N T The wisdom we have lost in knowledge Jeremy Seabrook contends that, while the harvest of information reaped by its spy agency, the National Security Agency, may prove invaluable to the US in individual cases, its sheer volume may defy analysis.

THE ‘harvesting’ of infor- retically embraces. mation – in the bucolic If there is any comfort phrase used by what is to be taken from the mam- called ‘the intelligence com- moth intercept, it is that munity’ – has increased by however much the US au- a factor of thousands in the thorities have ‘gleaned’, past few years. The data, the they appear incapable of intercepts, the triage of com- making much sense of it. munications by US and Brit- The global sweep of the ish knowledge-gatherers are power of surveillance is a no doubt as threatening to dispersant, since its political our freedoms as the recent and military masters have revelations by Edward little understanding of what Snowden have shown. (It is it all adds up to. What they significant that his status gain in information they shifted from ‘whistleblower’ Headquarters of the US National Security Agency in Fort lose in insight, coherence to ‘fugitive’ shortly after the Meade, Maryland. ‘However much the US [intelligence] and imagination; qualities extent of his disclosures be- authorities have “gleaned” [from their surveillance activities], indispensable to any effec- came known.) But, despite they appear incapable of making much sense of it.’ tive use to which their ef- the British government’s ef- forts might be put. Perhaps forts to intimidate the press, accusing and will not in the future monitor this is why the US is so angry at the the Guardian of having endangered Merkel’s communications; a tacit ac- disclosures of Assange, Manning and lives and given succour to ‘terrorists’, knowledgement that it had done so in Snowden, and why the UK is intent the implications of the endeavours of the past. Germany is particularly sen- on showing it has greater powers to custodians of ‘the national interest’ sitive to its exclusion from the privi- suppress information than its ally, should perhaps not be exaggerated, leged ‘Five Eyes’ group of since Britain is unencumbered by the serious though they are. Anglophone countries (the US, the First Amendment (on free speech) to The trawl of global intelligence UK, Canada, Australia and New Zea- the US Constitution. by the US National Security Agency land) which routinely share intelli- It is perhaps the fate of all impe- (NSA) and its sub-contractor GCHQ gence. rial entities – and their supporters – in Britain (to which millions of dol- If close allies can be subject to to lack comprehension of those on lars were paid, since British oversight such scrutiny, the potential damage to whom they spy and into whose lives of intelligence-gathering is signifi- leaders neutral or hostile to the US is they pry, whether enemies or allies. cantly more lax than in the US) was considerable. The WikiLeaks revela- Power has never needed to under- indeed comprehensive; it included the tions showed that doubts had been stand. All it requires is that it express monitoring of calls by at least 35 cast upon the mental and emotional itself – like the ‘shock and awe’ vis- world leaders, including those of the stability of Cristina Kirchner of Ar- ited upon Iraq – to cow people into redoubtable Angela Merkel. The cap- gentina, when in a secret diplomatic silence or compliance. turing of her communications was cable, Hillary Clinton asked US dip- Nowhere are these failings more particularly sensitive, since she grew lomats to discover whether she was apparent than in recent Western elec- up in the Democratic Republic of in fact taking medication to calm her tive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It Germany, where monitoring by the state of nervous anxiety. Although this was not only faultiness of informa- Stasi (secret police) was routine: the information was not obtained by in- tion (the lies that authority told the last thing she expected was for the tercepts, it suggests a possibility that public, and even itself, are another intrusive apparatus of the US equiva- even elected leaders may be open to matter) that led to the destruction in lent to target her as a person of inter- manipulation or blackmail by a power Iraq, but a failure to imagine the con- est. The US stressed it is not currently unconstrained by the ‘values’ it theo- sequences of ousting the Sunni mi-

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 30 V I E W P O I N T nority in favour of a ma- enemy: the covetous ma- jority which would inevi- levolence of China, Russia tably align itself with an or other competitors for Iran which is supposedly the secrets of the West’s the principal adversary of miraculous wealth is an the US in the region. In additional reason for the Afghanistan, the idea of extension of our ‘umbrella’ ‘Taliban’ became indistin- of security over the mys- guishable to the clouded teries that have made us eye of power from al- rich. This is a particularly Qaeda, to which the ironic development, since Taliban had offered hospi- US drone strikes generate widespread resentment among the we have been at pains to tality. people of Muslim countries. Picture shows a demonstrator holding spread globally the rules of This is sometimes ac- up a burning US flag during a protest against drone strikes in the game by which coun- Pakistan. knowledged by the tries are supposed to cre- mighty, when they insist that the the knowledge we have lost in infor- ate wealth. The point apparently is that ‘hearts and minds’ of the people mation?’ This ought perhaps to be in- when those rules threaten our su- should be their objective; but it is to scribed over the doorway of the NSA premacy, new forms of surveillance the ‘conquest’, and not to an under- in Maryland and GCHQ in Chelten- must be devised, in order to make sure standing of those hearts and minds ham. The questions posed by TS Eliot that control of the game remains with that it devotes its energies, usually now go further – where is the infor- its originators, who have merely with promises of the same goods and mation lost in data, where are the data franchised their brand to countries that articles with which the peoples of the lost in the glut of gathered facts? now threaten their dominance in the West have shown themselves broadly Every refinement of technology world. contented. They have little sense of takes the world of ‘intelligence’ fur- The bloated inutility of many of the strength and tenacity of other cul- ther from the point it is intended to these endeavours undermines them, tures and traditions, and absolutely no reach. It is significant that among and may, perhaps, lessen some of the insight into those people they wish to those employed at GCHQ, according anxieties of citizens that their most attach to themselves. to Edward Snowden, those who un- private communications are the ob- It is one thing to be observed by derstand advanced mathematics are ject of unacknowledged scrutiny, the unwinking Argos eyes of drones welcome, but there is no place for since it is inconceivable that enough which can ‘take out’ individuals in- classicists. Perhaps, in the restoration, personnel could ever be employed to volved in terror and, at the same time, if not of wisdom, then at least of com- ‘join up the dots’, in the playful im- unnumbered innocents, since this uni- mon sense, it might be considered that age of those set to watch, spy and in- versal watchfulness is highly fallible. those who know something of the form on us. As well as ‘surgical strikes’ on puta- ‘lessons of history’ – constantly in- Spies have always been deployed tive enemies, it also generates wide- voked, but seldom heeded – might to manage the enemy within, as well spread resentments among the people have an ‘input’ of some utility to the as potential external aggressors. Be- of Muslim countries, and serves to purposes of those who wish to gain cause the technology exists, it must recruit more individuals filled with entry into the mindset of potential be used, no matter to what effect, and murderous rage to replace those adversaries, enemies or traitors. even if the technological refinements killed. In this way the cycle of mu- The West must have an enemy far outrun the capacity of democratic tual dependence between the US mili- against which it can define itself as entities to supervise them. But since tary, its victims and their savage and the sole bringer of light and liberty to interpreting the sheer quantity of sur- indiscriminate retaliations is pre- the world. Without the permanent veillance and eavesdropping now es- served; that unstable stasis which presence of an external embodiment tablished exceeds the ability of those seems indispensable to great powers of evil, the ills of capitalism might to whom our ‘security’ is entrusted, and the enemies they require. Mean- become, once more, only too appar- their ability to penetrate the secrets of while, the US appears obsessed with ent. Perhaps this is why, with the death their own citizens is surely limited, obscure internal cultural wars, and of Socialism, the Islamo-fascist en- since who, among the disaffected and scarcely able to engage significantly emy had to be created, just as the al- alienated of their homeland – should – even in its own interests – with a ien creed of Communism emerged any such exist – would now dream of world over which its spies have es- without transition from the van- exposing their subversive thoughts to tablished their sombre electronic quished aberration of Nazism. the grim patrol of the overseers of glo- panopticon. And as if these were not suffi- bal communications systems? ÿu TS Eliot, in his poem ‘The Rock’ cient, our ‘economic well-being’ must (1934), asked, ‘Where is the wisdom now be safeguarded by the same Jeremy Seabrook’s latest book is Pauperland: Poverty we have lost in knowledge, Where is mechanisms that oversee the avowed and the Poor in Britain (Hurst, 2013).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 31 W O R L D A F F A I R S In bed with the bully: Consensual US surveillance in Mexico While the relevations by the whistleblower Edward Snowden of US surveillance of national leaders and officials drew a furious response in some affected countries, it required only a bare assurance of an ‘investigation’ by President Obama to assuage his Mexican counterpart. Peter Watt explains why.

THE revelations leaked by Edward the document claims, wanted to ‘put Snowden that the US National Secu- to bed’ the issue of NSA intrusions. rity Agency (NSA) committed acts of Indeed, nowhere in the summary of espionage against top Mexican offi- their meeting does the issue arise. In- cials and the president himself have stead, discussions focus on maintain- so far provoked only mild indignation ing and increasing border security in from the Mexican political class. Sec- order to protect commercial interests retary of Foreign Affairs José Antonio and on reducing the number of un- Meade appeared to be reassured by documented migrants entering the President Obama’s ‘word’ that he United States. would launch an investigation into the The listless and at times surreal workings of the US government. Not- reaction to NSA surveillance by withstanding the incongruity that any Mexico’s political class demonstrates government investigating its own in- Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto their level of craven subordination to ternal wrongdoing would have any (pic) has been reluctant to push the their US counterparts. One can only interest in publicising conclusive evi- Obama administration further on the begin to imagine the response of the dence of its own criminal activity, issue of NSA spying. US political class and media pundits President Enrique Peña Nieto has were they to discover that Mexican been reluctant to push the Obama ad- committing criminal activities, the intelligence had repeatedly inter- ministration further on the issue, pre- moral and legal implications do not cepted the electronic communications sumably for fear of undermining simply vanish into thin air. A reason- and tapped the phones of the Com- Mexico’s position as a staunch US able observer might instead conclude mander in Chief himself. economic and political ally. that the greater the number of inter- The Mexican reaction to NSA Ex-president Vicente Fox, mean- national government institutions that snooping on the inner circle of gov- while, enthusiastically endorsed US are involved in criminal activity, the ernment stands in stark contrast to that spying on Mexican politicians, claim- more serious the problem, not the re- of Brazil. Snowden’s leaks provoked ing he knew the US spied on him verse. ‘It’s nothing new that there’s fury within the government of Presi- while he was president. Indeed, Fox espionage in every government in the dent Dilma Rousseff. She blasted the took comfort in the fact that the world, including Mexico’s,’ Fox ob- NSA tapping of her phone and inter- world’s superpower monitored his served. Flummoxed as to why ception of government communica- every move and his phone calls, evok- Snowden’s revelations have provoked tions in a fiery speech clearly aimed ing the ominous adage reminiscent of outrage among the Mexican populace at President Obama at the UN Gen- all authoritarian political institutions: and investigative journalists (if not in eral Assembly. She lambasted the one has nothing to be concerned about government itself), he declared, ‘I NSA for spying on millions of Bra- so long as one has nothing to hide and don’t understand the scandal.’ zilian citizens, tapping the phones of done nothing wrong. ‘Everyone will One document obtained by the Brazilian embassies, and spying on do better if they think they’re being National Security Archive at George the country’s partly state-owned pe- spied on,’ he noted, at once reinforc- Washington University details Janet troleum giant, Petrobras. Interest- ing the dubious entitlement of the US Napolitano’s (then Secretary of the ingly, she remarked that the bulk of government to act as the world’s po- US Department of Homeland Secu- NSA spying in Brazil was not de- lice force while simultaneously apolo- rity) official meeting with President signed to thwart potential terrorists or gising for the illegal activities of the Peña Nieto in July 2013. According to undermine the activities of NSA. to Napolitano’s briefing, avoiding dis- transnational criminal organisations, Fox seems unable to comprehend cussion of NSA spying on the upper but instead, to further US business the basic moral and legal truism that echelons appears to be a Mexican, not interests through both international merely because many are involved in solely US, initiative. The Mexicans, economic and commercial spying.

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As a result, Rousseff cancelled her planned diplomatic visit to Wash- ington, called for an international con- ference on data security, began setting up a protected governmental elec- tronic communications system, and proposed changing underwater cables so that international Brazilian Internet traffic would no longer pass through US territory. Brazil’s position, of course, is a reflection of the changing nature of US-Latin American relations more generally. Brazil, the emerging re- gional power and now less of a fix- ture of Uncle Sam’s backyard, can af- ford to take an increasingly independ- ‘Spying and surveillance programmes are key to achieving the US objective of ent stance from Washington. Several continuing and reinforcing a status quo that now sees well over half the population countries in the region are integrating in Mexico living in poverty and unparalleled levels of economic inequality.’ with each other politically and eco- nomically and establishing firm trade seems less to do with the ‘War on Ter- system of total surveillance and in- links with China, India, and South ror’ and the ‘War on Drugs’ – two key creased storage of electronic commu- Africa – an unprecedented dynamic rhetorical tenets of US intervention- nications. In a climate in which there which has had the effect of undermin- ism – and more to do with exist widening socioeconomic dis- ing US hegemony in the region. the realpolitik of ensuring that a pli- parities, a grave security crisis and a Mexico, however, dependent on ant and subservient political class, growing disillusionment with the sta- the US market for 80% of its exports, personified by Fox, Calderón and tus quo, both the US and Mexican is much less able to stand up to the Peña Nieto, guard the current governments have a shared interest in superpower. Indeed, Mexico’s tradi- transnational dynamics – a socioeco- forestalling the development of a tional position as a subordinate and nomic system that rewards the pow- widespread popular political revolt reliable ally of its northern neighbour erful moneyed neoliberal elites on and a potential ‘Mexican Spring’. is becoming all the more crucial in both sides of the border and keeps the Were there any mystery as to why maintaining the waning US empire, poor and marginalised in their place. the Mexican response to Snowden’s increasingly defensive and militaris- There is a further aspect to the revelations was so moderate, one tic as it reasserts its influence over the Mexican response to NSA spying would only need to recall Vicente region. With a myriad of uncertainties which warrants scrutiny. Throughout Fox’s unintentionally shrewd obser- lying ahead for US power in a region the Cold War, the CIA and its Mexi- vation that all governments have an that has witnessed the birth of new can counterpart, the DFS, shared all interest in spying on one another and left-wing social movements that have manner of material and intelligence on their own citizens. The lacklustre had considerable success at the ballot on dissidents (Marxists, communists, reaction from Los Pinos to the NSA box, it is becoming imperative for the students, guerrillas, trade unionists, revelations is reflective of the extent peasant activists, feminists, etc.) who United States to uphold and preserve to which Mexican elite politicians ac- its political, economic, and military were often incarcerated or liquidated quiesce in the intrusions, largely be- alliances as per Mexico and Colom- because, as the authoritarian and pa- cause they themselves use domestic bia. In Mexico, US funding for the so- ternalistic President Gustavo Díaz spying to further their own sectional called ‘War on Drugs’ has provided a Ordaz claimed, they were a threat to convenient pretext for heavy ‘national security’. interests in a country in which, little militarisation throughout the country The current partnership between more than a decade after the ‘transi- and a clamping down on political dis- the US and Mexican governments al- tion to democracy’, the majority of sent and organised popular move- lows for a level of surveillance of the population are excluded from ments. Spying and surveillance pro- which Mexico’s Cold Warriors could meaningful political participation. u grammes are key to achieving the US only dream. In collaboration with tel- Peter Watt teaches Latin American Studies at the objective of continuing and reinforc- ecommunications giants, the US and University of Sheffield in the UK. He is co-author of ing a status quo that now sees well Mexican governments provide the the book Drug War Mexico: Politics, Violence and over half the population in Mexico liv- wherewithal and funding for large- Neoliberalism in the New Narcoeconomy (Zed ing in poverty and unparalleled lev- scale spying on the Mexican citizenry. Books, 2012). This article is reproduced from the ‘Mexico, Bewildered and Contested’ blog on the els of economic inequality. Indeed, Mexico’s Federal Ministerial website of the North American Congress on Latin As in Brazil, US spying in Mexico Police (PFM) has recently designed a America (nacla.org).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 33 H U M A N R I G H T S Poverty and racism inextricably linked, says UN expert In a report to the UN General Assembly, a UN rights expert has emphasised that poverty is closely associated with racism and contributes to the persistence of racist attitudes and practices which in turn generate more poverty.

Kanaga Raja

RACIAL or ethnic minorities are dis- proportionately affected by poverty; and the lack of education, adequate housing and health care transmits poverty from generation to genera- tion, a United Nations rights expert has said. In his report to the UN General Assembly in the week of 4 Novem- ber, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and re- In the United States in 2009, 25.8% of persons of African descent were living in poverty, lated intolerance, Mutuma Ruteere, compared to only 9.4% of non-Hispanic whites. was of the opinion that the issues of poverty and racism are inextricably can descent, indigenous peoples, mi- According to Ruteere, poverty linked. norities, Roma, Dalits and migrants, does not result only from an unequal As has been emphasised in the are still confronted with poverty and sharing of resources. ‘Discrimination Durban Declaration, he said, ‘pov- discrimination, especially in the en- against groups and persons based on erty... [is] closely associated with rac- joyment of their economic and social their ethnicity, race, religion or other ism... and contribute[s] to the persist- rights. characteristics or factors has been ence of racist attitudes and practices ‘The persistence of discrimina- known to encourage exclusion and which in turn generate more poverty’ tion against those groups and indi- impoverish certain groups of the (paragraph 18). viduals remains a challenge to the population who suffer from unequal Ruteere said that as the previous construction of a tolerant and inclu- access to basic needs and services.’ Special Rapporteur on racism under- sive society, and only the guarantee Groups that are discriminated lined in his report to the General As- of equality and non-discrimination against, such as Afro-descendants, sembly in 2009, ‘racial or ethnic mi- policies can redress that imbalance minorities, indigenous peoples, mi- norities are disproportionately af- and prevent those groups that are dis- grants and refugees, are dispropor- fected by poverty, and the lack of edu- criminated against from falling into tionately affected by poverty in all cation, adequate housing and health or being trapped in poverty,’ Ruteere regions of the world. care transmits poverty from genera- emphasised. ‘The complex relationship be- tion to generation and perpetuates ra- tween racism and discrimination sug- cial prejudices and stereotypes in their Poverty and discrimination gests that only the guarantee of equal- regard’. ity and non-discrimination can redress In his report, the Special Rappor- In his report, the Special Rappor- that imbalance and protect such teur welcomed the efforts and initia- teur discusses the manifestations of groups from falling into or being tives undertaken by various states to poverty and racism in the areas of trapped in poverty,’ the Special Rap- prohibit discrimination and segrega- economic and social rights such as porteur stressed. tion and to ensure full enjoyment of education, adequate housing and According to the report, a history civil, cultural, economic, political and health care, and other rights affected of discrimination has left a large social rights for all individuals and in the link between racism and pov- number of racial and ethnic groups in groups. erty, including the right to work in just various parts of the world trapped in He noted that certain groups and conditions, social security, food and conditions of ‘chronic deprivation of individuals, including people of Afri- water. resources’ with limited choices and

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 34 H U M A N R I G H T S vulnerable to multiple violations of their rights. In many parts of the world, race and ethnicity continue to be persist- ent predictors of poverty. The multi- generational nature of poverty, with successive generations inheriting the disadvantages of their predecessors, means that over the years poverty and deprivation have become part of the characterisation of particular racial and ethnic groups trapped in poverty. This in turn fuels prejudice against those members of poor racial and ethnic groups, exacerbating the problems of racial discrimination. A woman standing outside a shack in a Roma camp outside Paris. An unacceptably For most racial and ethnic groups large percentage of Roma live in poverty and suffer discrimination in virtually all aspects of life. living in poverty, said the rights ex- pert, the formal provisions for non- discrimination are not sufficient to ad- tee the enjoyment of human rights for tional educational system and some dress the challenges they confront in all, including the right to education, children tend to remain within their the realisation of those rights that the right to adequate housing, the right community rather than attend school would lift them out of their conditions to health or the right to food and safe and acquire skills that could eventu- of poverty. water. ally enable them to break the cycle of ‘Their situation is that of multi- poverty. dimensional discrimination – as they The right to education He was also of the view that if are discriminated against for being discrimination in education reinforces poor and also on account of their race He noted that one of the reasons poverty, poverty also fosters discrimi- and ethnicity. The nature of this chal- why groups that are discriminated nation. Poverty is one of the causes lenge requires much more than for- against remain trapped in poverty is of the low enrolment rates in schools mal protections and calls for special ‘the perpetual marginalisation they of children from groups that are dis- measures.’ suffer in terms of access to education’, criminated against. Discrimination based on racial, despite the obligation of states to re- The Special Rapporteur is con- religious, ethnic, linguistic and also alise this right for all without discrimi- vinced that the full enjoyment of the socioeconomic factors exacerbates nation. right to education is the prerequisite the vulnerability of those persons and ‘Realising the right to education for the full enjoyment of other rights, groups. This situation and furthermore for all children should be the corner- such as the right to work, freedom of the lack of participation of groups that stone of strategies directed at reduc- expression, or even the right to health. are discriminated against in decision- ing poverty and discouraging dis- ‘For groups that are discriminated making processes is often the result crimination,’ he underlined. against, education is crucial for pre- of historical legacies rooted in tradi- He cited Minority Rights Group paring and equipping them with the tions. International as noting in 2009 that, skills to achieve economic and social The report said: ‘Their situation of the 101 million children out of mobility and consequently to break is primarily the consequence of his- school and the 776 million illiterate the cycles of multidimensional pov- torical systems of inherited status, and adults, the majority are part of racial, erty and discrimination.’ of the formalised exclusion of certain ethnic, religious or linguistic minori- Ruteere noted that poverty and traditional populations in modern so- ties. discrimination are often reflected in cieties, sometimes encouraged by au- In many countries, the low enrol- poor health status. Vulnerable and thorities. Thus, even in countries ment rate of minority children is the marginalised groups disproportion- where resources are sufficient to en- result of official policies that fail to ately face obstacles in accessing sure to the whole population adequate recognise the existence of minorities health care. Many inequalities in ac- standards of living, those groups and as part of the whole population and cessing adequate health care are re- individuals do not fully benefit from to take measures to ensure that they lated to social disparities and exclu- those resources.’ enjoy the rights guaranteed to every sion, themselves often the result of The Special Rapporteur believes citizen. racism, xenophobia and other forms that it is the obligation of governments The Special Rapporteur noted of intolerance. to prevent marginalisation and to en- that, as a result of such discrimina- First, from a geographical point sure protection as well as to guaran- tion, there is a lack of trust in the na- of view, access to health care is often

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 35 H U M A N R I G H T S limited for those living in rural or eco- nomically remote areas and dispari- ties sometimes result from laws, poli- cies or programmes which intention- ally or not concentrate services in ur- ban areas. This can lead to decreased life expectancy and poor health con- ditions for minorities living in marginalised areas. There is also a risk of mistrust in the official health services, due to stereotyping, but also due to the health service providers’ lack of cultural knowledge of a particular cultural minority. ‘Owing to their economic and social conditions, groups that are dis- criminated against are more exposed Dalit villagers in India. Dalits face discrimination and exclusion at social, economic to health risks and diseases. They are and political levels. more likely than others to live in pol- luted and environmentally degraded Highlighting that more than 200 For many persons of African de- areas where the risk of exposure to million persons identify themselves as scent, because of their low-income substance abuse, violence and infec- being of African descent, the Special situation, the issue of food insecurity tious diseases is higher.’ Rapporteur noted that many of them remains a significant challenge. In The Special Rapporteur also ‘continue to face pernicious discrimi- many countries, the situation is the noted that racism and discrimination nation as part of the legacy of slavery result of unequal treatment but also negatively affect the realisation of the and colonialism that still hinders them of the economic situation. It is the case right to adequate housing for the from fully participating in the deci- in Latin American countries where marginalised groups. sion-making process’. disparities of income and resources ‘Legal insecurity of tenure for In North and South America, two are high. poor and marginalised ethnic and ra- regions characterised by great dispari- cial minorities in some cases forces ties, a disproportionate number of Indigenous peoples some of the members of those com- persons of African descent are af- munities to move to urban areas, fected by a lack of income, health The Special Rapporteur further where the only affordable housing is services, quality of education and op- noted that, ‘as a result of historical and in informal and slum settlements with portunities to attain well-being. contemporary factors’, indigenous substandard housing conditions and In the United States, in 2009, peoples are part of a worldwide dis- the daily risks of eviction.’ 25.8% of persons of African descent advantaged minority as they continue Adequate housing is also linked were living in poverty, whereas only to face discriminatory practices to safe drinking water and adequate 9.4% of non-Hispanic whites were deeply rooted in cultural structures sanitation, he said, adding that poor living in poverty. In a similar trend, and reinforced by industrial develop- sanitation and unhygienic practices in Brazil, in 2006, 47% of people of ment. are the indirect results of discrimina- African descent were living below the While they constitute approxi- tion and the marginalisation suffered poverty line, as opposed to 22% of mately 5% of the world’s population by racial minorities. those classified as white. – 370 million – indigenous peoples ‘Groups that are discriminated Ruteere also noted that people of represent around one-third of the against, especially those living in ru- African descent continue to suffer world’s 900 million extremely poor ral or remote areas, experience dis- from discriminatory and consequently rural people. parities in terms of access to sanita- inadequate access to housing at vari- ‘This situation of marginalisation tion and drinking water. These further ous stages of the rental or sale proc- is prevalent in all types of countries contribute to poor health outcomes for ess. regardless of their level of develop- the poor racial and ethnic minorities.’ In the United States, one in five ment, as indigenous people consist- The Special Rapporteur observed individuals of an ethnic or racial mi- ently lag behind the non-indigenous that the problem of disproportionate nority experiences discrimination dur- population in terms of standards of poverty among some racial and eth- ing a preliminary search for housing. living and development.’ nic groups is prevalent in all regions Moreover, 46% of African Americans In this regard, he highlighted, for of the world, and highlighted the situ- were owners in 2011, against 74% of instance, that, as a result of geographi- ation of just some of those groups. whites. cal isolation and marginalisation, in-

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 36 H U M A N R I G H T S digenous children are less likely to ternal and infant mortality. to live a dignified life, many migrants access education in comparison to Turning to the Roma, the Special continue to live in poverty and to ex- non-indigenous populations. Rapporteur said that with an estimated perience discrimination in many ar- For instance, in small indigenous population of 10 to 12 million, they eas of everyday life.’ communities in Southern Arnhem represent one of the most important Land (Australia), up to 93% of the minority groups in Europe. Good practices population is illiterate. In Ecuador, the He observed that, in spite of ef- illiteracy rate of indigenous peoples forts at both regional and national lev- The Special Rapporteur however was 28% in 2001, compared to the els to improve the situation of the noted that states around the world national rate of 13%, while in Ven- Roma, an unacceptably large percent- have developed and implemented ezuela, the indigenous illiteracy rate age continue to live in poverty and many good practices which can alle- (32%) was five times higher than the suffer discrimination in virtually all viate problems associated with the non-indigenous illiteracy rate (6.4%). aspects of life, including employment, intersecting problems of racism and He asserted that the increasing health care, education and adequate poverty. expropriation of indigenous peoples’ housing. These include collection of lands for economic purposes also re- On average, in 2011 in Europe, disaggregated data, programmes inforces their vulnerability in terms only one out of two Roma children aimed at increasing education and of their right to adequate housing by attended pre-school or kindergarten educational opportunities, laws which affecting their ancestral culture, which and only 15% of young adults sur- protect disadvantaged groups gener- is based on communal land and re- veyed completed upper-secondary ally and in labour markets, poverty sources. general or vocational education. alleviation initiatives, and special The Special Rapporteur cited the With regard to health, the Roma measures aimed at enhancing equal- Department of Economic and Social may be one of the most vulnerable ity between all groups. Affairs as noting that there has been groups in Europe and their life expect- Amongst his recommendations, an upsurge in infrastructure develop- ancy is shorter than the rest of the the Special Rapporteur invited mem- ment, particularly of large hydroelec- European population. In 2011, one- ber states to adopt comprehensive tric dams, oil and gas pipelines, and third of Roma respondents aged 35 approaches for tackling the intersec- roads in indigenous territories; there to 54 reported health problems limit- tion of poverty and discrimination has been a constant failure to consult ing their daily activities and about which is prevalent around the world. the populations concerned first. 20% of respondents had no medical In particular, he recommended As a result of those development- coverage. that member states review and rede- driven displacements, many indig- The caste system continues to be sign policies and programmes which enous persons migrate to urban areas the source of discrimination against may have a disproportionate effect on where they frequently live in poverty the Dalits, who have a low hierarchi- racial or ethnic minorities in view of and face discrimination. cal status according to tradition and their socioeconomic vulnerability and Ruteere also said that many in- beliefs, said the rights expert, adding implement effective measures to im- digenous people have inadequate food that a disproportionate percentage of prove the access of such groups to access and are exposed to high levels the Dalits live in abject poverty and civil, cultural, economic, political and of malnutrition. For instance, in Latin face discrimination and exclusion at social rights. America, malnutrition among indig- social, economic and political levels. The Special Rapporteur further enous children is twice as high as Most of the Dalits live in rural encouraged the stakeholders of the among non-indigenous children. areas, and are often excluded from post-2015 agenda to continue focus- In Ecuador, chronic malnutrition services only available in urban areas. ing on reducing socioeconomic in- is more than twice as high in indig- It is estimated that less than 10% of equalities while taking into account enous as compared to non-indigenous Dalit households can afford safe issues surrounding discrimination. communities. In El Salvador, an esti- drinking water, electricity and toilets, While the Millennium Develop- mated 40% of indigenous children and approximately 75% are engaged ment Goals have addressed the reduc- under five are malnourished, com- in agricultural work, although many tion of extreme poverty, he suggested pared to the national average of 23%. do not have their own land. that in the post-2015 agenda specific Poor nutrition, discrimination and The Special Rapporteur also ob- goals and targets be developed to en- limited access to quality health care, served that the situation of migrants sure that everyone, regardless of so- and contamination of resources, also remains precarious and called for cioeconomic status or ethnicity, has contribute to poor health conditions closer attention, particularly as many universal access to health care, edu- among indigenous peoples. Overall, host countries continue to experience cation, water, food and security. ÿÿÿu the life expectancy of indigenous peo- economic difficulties. ple is up to 20 years lower than that ‘In spite of measures taken by Kanaga Raja is Editor of the South-North of non-indigenous people, and they some States to integrate migrants and Development Monitor (SUNS), from which this article is reproduced (No. 7692, 8 November 2013). also experience higher levels of ma- provide them with the opportunities SUNS is published by the Third World Network.

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 37 W O M E N Trading women for profit Trafficking is the extreme inevitability of a distorted economic system which fuels inequality and encourages profiteering, greed and the exploitation of the most vulnerable members of society, says Graham Peebles.

THE act of buying and selling sits at educated, desperate and therefore eas- damentalism facilitating a subtle ac- the very heart of the global economy. ily manipulated by ‘recruitment ceptance of the criminal and inhu- In a commercially motivated system agents’, who paint a false picture of mane; for what is commercial is good that P Sainath rightly describes as decent, well-paid, legitimate work in and industry must be encouraged at ‘market fundamentalism’, competi- one or other of the major cities of the any cost; it feeds the economy, which tion and conservative uniformity are world. must be constantly stoked in order to central elements. Creative independ- Trafficking is the exploitation of fuel economic growth, which as we ent thinking and originality are anath- people, day after day, for years on end. know is the source of lasting happi- ema to this relentless homogenous Men (often supported by women ex- ness. So goes the dishonest, corporate machine, which breeds conformity, victims) drive human trafficking, spe- political propaganda, rooted as it is crushes individuality and, ‘Borg-like’, cifically trafficking for sex, which is in self-interest and thoroughly intoxi- assimilates all into ‘The Collective’. a major cause of the spread of HIV/ cated by profit. The aim of all traders is to buy cheap AIDS – fuelled by arrogant men who The CSI has been given a major and sell for the highest price possi- refuse to wear condoms. boost by the Internet, providing as it ble; keep costs (including workers’ (currently) does an unregulated plat- wages) low and maximise profits for form for pornography. The porno- stockholders, directors and senior Millions of victims, graphic material freely floating management. This methodology is around cyberspace is beyond shock- applied no matter the commodity: innocent and vulnerable, ing, the statistics startling: over 12% cars, mobile phones, tomatoes, lip- are trafficked into a life of all Internet sites deal in pornogra- stick, fridges, land or human beings. phy of one kind or another – totalling Trading in people – historically of extreme exploitation, 420 million pages. Every month there known as slavery – is now called traf- violent abuse and are 72 million worldwide (primarily ficking. It is a term which the United male) visitors to these websites Nations Office on Drugs and Crime slavery. At the heart of packed with explicit pornographic (UNODC) says ‘can be misleading: this 21st-century images, many showing abusive prac- it places emphasis on the transaction tices, which feed into and strengthen aspects of a crime that is more accu- epidemic are women. a conditioned view that defines rately described as enslavement’. The women in a purely sexual manner and worldwide spread of market funda- promotes the idea of women as sexual mentalism (or globalisation), Victor objects, commodities to be used for Malerek in The Natashas: Inside the Millions of victims, innocent and pleasure, exploited fully and totally. Global Sex Trade states, ‘has created vulnerable, are trafficked into a life The proliferation of online por- people who are vulnerable and easily of extreme exploitation, violent abuse nography is a major factor in the ever- enslaved’, giving rise to ‘more human and slavery. At the heart of this 21st- growing commodification and sexu- slaves in the world today than ever century epidemic are women, mainly alisation of women and young girls. before in history’. And apparently young – most are under 24, some are Whilst this is not necessarily new, the they are cheaper than they have ever as young as six – always poor, des- level of accessibility is. Extreme been. perate, and frightened. They make up sexual behaviour like paedophilia, Modern-day slavery or traffick- 80% of an unknown total number of bestiality and rape, which saturates ing of persons is the second most prof- people trafficked every year. Although the Internet, encourages obsessive be- itable, organised and destructive glo- the US State Department says it’s haviour and is a crippling poisonous bal criminal activity after drugs, and around one million, the figure could ingredient in the lives not only of girls within the next five years is expected just as easily be double that. and women, but also of men, young to ascend to the number one spot. It What is known is that the major- and not so young. is a huge, highly profitable worldwide ity of women are forced into prosti- business that is destroying the lives tution of some kind or another and sex Debt, abuse and exploitation of millions of vulnerable people. Men slavery; constituent parts of the bur- and women who have the misfortune geoning global commercial sex indus- ‘Forced’ or ‘bonded’ labour is a to be born into poverty, are poorly try (CSI). The language of market fun- major factor in the trafficking of per-

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 38 W O M E N sons. The International Labour Or- when pregnant, the commodity the resses and even as dancers.... I felt ganisation (ILO) says as many as ‘21 newborn baby – sold on the black like I had stuck a knife in my own million people are victims of forced market: ‘the profit is divided between stomach, knowing what I was taking labour – 11.4 million women and girls the traffickers, doctors, lawyers, bor- them to, but I could not stand one and 9.5 million men and boys’ – the der officials, and others’. The mother, more day [in the brothel]’. totals may be and probably are much if she is lucky, may ‘receive a few Traffickers scour the planet look- higher. hundred US$’, records Louise Shelley ing for potential victims. They find ‘The most widely used method of in Human Trafficking: A Global Per- them in at least 127 countries, enslaving people around the world’, spective. Brokers are the initial crimi- UNODC reports, and put them to according to Anti-Slavery Interna- nal contact; they charge extortionate work in over 137. New opportunities tional, is through bonded labour. A fees for their ‘services’ and load in- for the ever-watchful criminal preda- person becomes entrapped, they re- terest charges of up to 40% onto loans, tors are created by natural disasters port, ‘when their labour is demanded trapping women and their families (many caused by global warming) that as a means of repayment for a loan’. into a never-ending cycle of debt and have left millions homeless, impov- It has been a method of control and perpetual enslavement. erished and vulnerable, as well as exploitation of the poor for centuries The only way of paying the loan major global events such as the end and is today highly prevalent in South back is through working for nothing. Asia, particularly India – the hub for of the Cold War, the integration of Banjit from Thailand was trafficked China into the global economy, and trafficking of women in the region. into Britain in 2005 and incurred a Rooted in the unjust caste system, it the break-up of the former Soviet debt of £27,000, the Guardian re- primarily affects the Dalits (or Union. Repressive regimes, from ported. On arrival in London her pass- untouchables) and Adivasi (indig- which people are seeking escape, also port was confiscated by a Thai brothel enous) people, who make up 9% or provide fertile ground for traffickers. more of India’s 1.3 billion population. keeper who told her ‘she would be The majority of citizens (90%) flee- The ILO estimates almost 12 mil- able to pay off the debt within two to ing the repression and poverty in lion people in the Asia-Pacific area are three months by providing “services” North Korea, for example, are trapped in bonded labour, due over- to buyers such as anal sex and sex women. Almost all who find their way whelmingly to debt. Bonded labour without a condom’. She was forced into China are herded into the CSI. occurs because ‘of poverty and the to work seven days a week in broth- Protesting victims are deported by existence of people who are prepared els all over the city and give all her their criminal handlers back to North to exploit the desperation of others’. earnings to the Thai ‘madam’. Real- Korea, where ‘they are thrown into India boasts of a decade of 9% ising ‘she would never be able to re- gulags or are executed. 30,000 vic- growth, and yet because all wealth is pay the debt, Banjit eventually ran tims of sex trafficking die each year’, concentrated in the hands of the elite away without her passport and turned relates Dana Liebelson in ‘Nine out and the aspiring, India has the high- to the police for help’. of Ten Women Escaping North Ko- est percentage of malnourished chil- A report published in 2012 by rea are Trafficked’. In all cases wom- dren: the poor are growing in number, Foundation Scelle estimated there to en’s vulnerability is the common levels of inequality are greater than be around 42 million prostitutes thread, leading to violent exploitation, ever, desperate parents are selling worldwide: how many, one wonders, humiliation and extreme suffering. their daughters and young women are are imprisoned through debt bond- being forced to take loans from un- age? scrupulous ‘recruitment agents’, men Imagine a just and fair Returnees or ‘broken-in girls’, as system with neither conscience nor morality well as taking on the role of ‘guard- living off the misfortune of others, ians’ or ‘jailers’ in destination coun- who sell the girls on up the criminal Measures are urgently needed to tries, are used to persuade young girls chain into sex slavery and years upon prevent the trafficking of women: to become commercial sex workers. years of sexual violence and exploi- awareness programmes to deter girls ‘Sex traffickers often train girls them- tation. The lives lost are countless. from migrating and improved access Loans are taken either to meet selves, raping them and teaching them to schooling and higher education; the requirements of daily living, or in how to behave with clients,’ reports stringent enforcement of national traf- order to pay traffickers/agents fees for Victor Malerek. The only way some ficking laws and the observation and services, which include providing women can escape their own enslave- implementation of international cov- (forged) documentation and travel ment is to return home and recruit enants, plus the eradication of official/ expenses. Women in their quest to young girls. An Albanian woman told police corruption. All such find employment become victims of the Guardian how she returned to her commonsense measures would be trafficking at this stage; some are hometown and told ex-school friends helpful. Added to this, a change in aware that they are entering the CSI ‘that there were great opportunities in destructive gender attitudes is essen- – most are not. Others are recruited the UK for them, you know, as wait- tial, together with a reassessment of

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 39 W O M E N the current economic model that en- courages the commodification and The Importance of International Trade Reform in commercialisation of everything, in- Making Agriculture Truly Sustainable cluding people, specifically women. Trafficking is the extreme inevi- Lim Li Ching and Martin Khor tability of a distorted economic sys- Reforms of the international trade regime tem which fuels inequality and en- require a significant reduction or removal courages profiteering, greed, and the of harmful subsidies currently provided exploitation of the most vulnerable mainly by developed countries, while at the same time allowing special treatment members of society. A fundamental and safeguard mechanisms for developing shift away from such a divisive sys- countries in order to promote their tem, which has failed the vast major- smallholder farmers’ livelihoods. Such ity of people and caused environmen- reforms, coupled with policies in support of sustainable small-scale agriculture in tal mayhem throughout the world, to developing countries, would improve local a model based on the creation of so- production for enhancing food security. cial justice and equality is needed. The There is also a need for regulatory current model, Arundhati Roy in the measures aimed at reorganizing the prevailing market structure of the Guardian states, has ‘reduced the idea agricultural value chain, which is of justice to mean just human rights’ dominated by a few multinational Environment & Development Series no. 18 (and let us add, retribution), and ‘the corporations and marginalizes smallholder ISBN: 978-967-5412-91-2 48 pp idea of dreaming of equality became farmers and sustainable production systems. Policies that increase the choices productivity while strengthening blasphemous. We are not fighting to of smallholders to sell their products on their resilience to shocks, such as tinker with reforming a system that local or global markets at a decent price climate change, and reducing the needs to be replaced’. We need, she would complement efforts to rectify the adverse impacts of conventional rightly asserts, to ‘redefine the mean- imbalances. agricultural practices on the In addition, a shift to more sustainable and environment and health. The trade ing of modernity’, to alter the way life ecological agricultural practices would policy framework should therefore is organised and to create the possi- benefit smallholder farmers by increasing support such a shift. bility of looking ‘at something with- out thinking of it as a resource to feed Price Postage Malaysia RM7.00 RM1.00 the kind of capitalism that is leading Third World countries US$4.00 US$2.00 (air); US$1.00 (sea) the planet to a crisis’, and causing Other foreign countries US$6.00 US$3.00 (air); US$1.00 (sea) immense suffering to millions of the Orders from Malaysia – please pay by credit card/crossed cheque or postal order. most vulnerable people in the world. Orders from Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Whilst economic prosperity for UK, USA – please pay by credit card/cheque/bank draft/international money order nation states is important, we should in own currency, US$ or Euro.If paying in own currency or Euro, please calculate ask what the nature of prosperity is equivalent of US$ rate. If paying in US$, please ensure that the agent bank is located in the USA. and question, as P Sainath does, ‘who Rest of the world – please pay by credit card/cheque/bank draft/international is this growth for’: the corporations money order in US$ or Euro. If paying in Euro, please calculate equivalent of US$ and multinationals is the immediate rate. If paying in US$, please ensure that the agent bank is located in the USA. collective reply. The proceeds of All payments should be made in favour of: THIRD WORLD NETWORK BHD., 131 Jalan Macalister, 10400 Penang, Malaysia. Tel: 60-4-2266728/2266159; growth must and should be shared Fax: 60-4-2264505; Email: [email protected]; Website: www.twn.my amongst the people and not collected I would like to order ...... copy/copies of The Importance of International into the already overflowing coffers Trade Reform in Making Agriculture Truly Sustainable. of the wealthy and aspiring. Such a I enclose the amount of ...... by cheque/bank draft/IMO. move would be a giant step towards Please charge the amount of US$/Euro/RM ...... to my credit card: establishing greater levels of equal- American Express Visa Mastercard ity and social justice and would make many disadvantaged people – particu- A/c No.: Expiry date: larly women – a great deal less vul- nerable and susceptible to exploita- Signature: tion. ÿu Name: Graham Peebles is Director of The Create Trust in the UK (www.thecreatetrust.org). This article is Address: reproduced from the NationofChange website (www.nationofchange.org).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 40 T R I B U T E Gamani Corea (1925-2013) – A tribute Gamani Corea, world-renowned Sri Lankan economist, Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (1974-84), and former chairman of the Board of the South Centre, passed away after a brief illness in Colombo on 3 November, a day before his 88th birthday. Chakravarthi Raghavan pays tribute to this ‘champion of the global South’.

THIS writer came to cessors). know Gamani Corea well ‘It gave me a perspec- from about 1978. At that tive and impelled me to take time, when the Geneva- interest in politics and de- based UNCTAD was at velopment, that carried over the centre of various ne- into my post-university ca- gotiations, with long reer in the Central Bank, group meetings and nego- and then the United Nations tiating sessions running and the development as- into the early hours of the pects there,’ Corea said to morning, Corea would be the writer, explaining his at his desk in the secre- journey from being a con- tariat or in the lounge servative economist and around the meeting room, central banker to the UN and spent time with the Committee on Develop- writer, not only discussing ment Planning, involvement UNCTAD matters but in the panel of experts pre- also touching on his own life and a well-renowned and affluent politi- paring for the UNCTAD-I background, and discussing a range cal family of Sri Lanka. His mother’s conference under Raul Prebisch, and of wider issues of international politi- brother, Sir John Kotlewala, was a the work of UNCTAD itself where cal economy. Prime Minister of Ceylon, while his during the Prebisch era, he chaired a Early on, he took on hand the task grandfather, Victor Corea, was a free- commodity conference on cocoa. of guiding this writer in some detailed dom fighter. After an educational career in reading of economics literature – clas- Gamani once told this writer that Colombo and then Oxford and Cam- sical, neo-classical and development he was an only child and the family bridge (1945-52) for a doctorate, he economics, and trade, money and fi- on his mother’s side was so affluent came back to Colombo to enter gov- nance – an almost one-to-one eco- that no one in the family thought of ernment service in the economic de- nomics crash course (without having guiding him into any particular edu- partments of planning, as research to do term papers!). cational discipline or a professional director in the Central Bank, and in Corea was closely associated career, and he was thought too shy and the government as Secretary of the with the International Foundation for reserved for political life. Department of Planning, Governor of Development Alternatives (IFDA) However, by himself, he began the Central Bank, and then in diplo- based in Nyon, Switzerland, and en- taking an interest in the national poli- matic service, as Ceylon’s ambassa- couraged the founding and publica- tics of Ceylon (but not to plunge into dor to the European Economic Com- tion by IFDA in 1980 of the Special politics), and was very much influ- munity in Brussels, and several UN United Nations Service – SUNS (sub- enced by the national movement and positions, including as member of the sequently South-North Development freedom struggle under Gandhi and UN Committee on Development Monitor – SUNS). Nehru in neighbouring colonial India. Planning. Deshamanya Gamani Corea ‘I would get hold as a young man He was appointed in 1973 as Sec- (‘Deshamanya’ was the title, one of of every writing of Jawaharlal Nehru retary-General of UNCTAD for an the highest civilian honours of the and read him avidly,’ he once said to initial three-year term, when the sec- country, conferred on him by the Sri the writer in 1979 (at a time ironically ond SG, Manuel Perez-Guerrero, re- Lankan government), as he himself when India was going through a phase signed to become a minister in Ven- narrated to this writer, was born into of denigration of Nehru by his suc- ezuela.

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 41 T R I B U T E

Corea assumed the post in April of a new round with new issues. ing harsh language, he stood up 1974, and was reappointed thrice, his The new trade round, the Uru- throughout his tenure to pressures and last term ending in December 1984. guay Round, was ultimately launched bullying tactics of the United States He continued in the post at the request at Punta del Este in Uruguay in Sep- or European Communities and their of then UN Secretary-General Javier tember 1986. attempts to influence senior staff ap- Perez de Cuellar, and then was told pointments by planting their own (indirectly) that he would not be con- Developmentalist vision men. tinued (the writer was with him at his He also stood up to the Interna- house when the call came from the Prebisch, as head of UNCTAD, tional Monetary Fund (IMF) and SG’s office in New York to give him had shaped international thinking on World Bank, whose leadership at- the information, not by the SG him- development economics and raised tempted sometimes, as an observer at self but by one of his senior staff). awareness within the UN system of UNCTAD board meetings, to scoff at The rich OECD countries were the problems of development in the UNCTAD views and any alternative by then dead set against Corea for his newly independent ex-colonies, and thinking differing from the IMF/ role in giving intellectual support for the special needs and problems of World Bank ideology and rulebook. the developing-country Group of 77 developing countries for develop- efforts at restructuring the world ment, and their need for special treat- From the South Commission economy and international economic ment and assistance such as official to the South Centre system (monetary, finance and trade) development aid, trade preferences for a more equitable and just order. and the like. After retirement from UNCTAD, He relinquished his post at the end of Corea carried forward the Corea continued in international pub- February 1985. Prebisch outlook, providing intellec- lic life, especially in the economic Sometime later, when he was on tual weight and economic arguments arena, and was a member of the South the South Commission, he told an- to the UNCTAD secretariat docu- Commission. other friend, Branislav Gosovic in the ments and proposals, with calls for After the Commission wound up Commission secretariat, that the main restructuring the global economy and and the South Centre was set up in reason for annulling his third term in international economic relations and 1991, he played an important role in UNCTAD and giving him only one governance, and addressing problems its work. He had the trust of South year was the fear among the US and of development and money, finance Centre Chair Julius Nyerere, and the OECD group of countries that and trade in an interdependent man- Corea acted as the final authority and Corea ‘would spoil’ their attempts to ner. filter approving policies, documents launch a new round of multilateral and publications of the Centre. trade negotiations with new issues at According to then officials of the the General Agreement on Tariffs and Having an inner Centre, he was consulted on a daily Trade (GATT) forum. basis, both while he was in Geneva In 1985 and in early 1986, the conviction and strength, (a lot of the time) and when he was in developing countries were united un- he was a visionary and Colombo, and was one of the key per- der the leadership of Brazil and In- sons to help put the Centre on its feet. dia, and the informal group was in- developmentalist, He became chairman of the sisting that the unfinished business of egalitarian despite his Board of the South Centre, assuming the previous negotiating round, the the post about three years after Tokyo Round, should first be taken affluent personal Nyerere died. up and accords reached at the GATT, background. He resigned his chairmanship af- before any new issues like intellec- ter a mild stroke which impacted on tual property, services or investment his writing abilities. could be considered as issues for ne- Living almost in seclusion in gotiation. Having an inner conviction and Colombo from the late 1990s, caught After Corea was sent home, strength, he was a visionary and up in legal tangles created by some UNCTAD was left headless, with a developmentalist, egalitarian despite relatives with an eye on his property, senior official, Alistair McIntyre, act- his affluent personal background. he found himself physically unable to ing as officer-in-charge. The situation Within UNCTAD he developed sev- travel, and mentally and socially iso- was used to break up the unity of de- eral programmes to help develop- lated, for a while even prevented from veloping countries, with then GATT ment, and remained firm in his view meeting any visitors and friends. Director-General Arthur Dunkel act- that UNCTAD should remain a part As he had indicated to several of ing from behind the scenes to create of the UN, an organ of the UN Gen- his friends (including the writer) while a group – the ‘cafe olé group’ as it eral Assembly devoted to Trade and he was in Geneva at the South Cen- was dubbed, led by Colombia and Development. tre, he had in Colombo created a foun- Switzerland – to support the launch While not confrontational or us- dation to which he willed his proper-

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 42 T R I B U T E ties, a testament he had executed when in full possession of his abilities, a Standing in the Way of Development? disposition that would now need to be A Critical Survey of the IMF’s Crisis sorted out in Colombo. Response in Low-Income Countries As an important member of the South Centre, he participated in some By Elisa Van Waeyenberge, Hannah Bargawi and Terry McKinley of the civil society meetings in the run-up to the 1992 Earth Summit in The International Monetary Fund (IMF), Rio de Janeiro. At the time of the 1991 which has been criticised for the rigid economic policy conditionalities attached to second preparatory committee meet- its lending programmes, says it now ing in Geneva for the Summit, it was provides borrower states greater flexibility fashionable for officials of the secre- to adopt expansionary policies. Standing in the Way of Development? assesses this tariat, including the Secretary-General claim in the context of the IMF’s central role of the Summit, Maurice Strong, to in dealing with the effects of the global advise developing countries not to financial crisis in low-income countries (LICs). adopt or follow a consumerist North- This paper evaluates the general ern style of development. macroeconomic policy scheme promoted by Speaking at the civil society the Fund and closely examines the nature of its engagement during the crisis in a meeting at that time, Corea scoffed at representative sample of 13 LICs. The such efforts of the North to constrain authors find that, despite some relaxation ISBN: 978-967-5412-60-8 96 pp the development of the South to main- of policy restraints, the IMF essentially light of this, this paper outlines tain the North’s own consumption and remains wedded to its longstanding prioritisation of price stability and low fiscal the broad contours of an lifestyles. deficits over other macroeconomic goals. alternative macroeconomic He told the NGO forum and the Such a policy stance, it is argued, policy framework geared towards supporting long-run Group of 77 that if such an effort was could undermine not only LICs’ prospects for a quick recovery from the crisis but also equitable growth and poverty made, and even if governments of the their longer-term development outlook. In reduction. South accepted at Rio such instru- ments to curb their development, PRICE POSTAGE ‘long before global warming, the Malaysia RM11.00 RM1.00 world will be engulfed in global dis- Third World countries US$7.00 US$3.00 (air); US$2.00 (sea) First World countries US$10.00 US$5.00 (air); US$2.00 (sea) order’ – an assessment that perhaps governments of the North and South Orders from Malaysia – please pay by credit card/crossed cheque or postal order. now engaged in UN climate change Orders from Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, UK, USA negotiations might usefully bear in – please pay by credit card/cheque/bank draft/international money order in own cur- mind. rency, US$ or Euro. If paying in own currency or Euro, please calculate equivalent of Corea was also present at Rio, as US$ rate. If paying in US$, please ensure that the agent bank is located in the USA. a member of the Sri Lankan delega- Rest of the world – please pay by credit card/cheque/bank draft/international money tion. At that time, he told Gosovic order in US$ or Euro. If paying in Euro, please calculate equivalent of US$ rate. If paying in US$, please ensure that the agent bank is located in the USA. (who was there as a staff member of All payments should be made in favour of Third World Network Bhd., 131 Jalan the South Centre with a Centre del- Macalister, 10400 Penang, Malaysia. Tel: 60-4-2266728/2266159; Fax: 60-4-2264505; egation led by Nyerere) that the Sri Email: [email protected]; website: www.twn.my Lankan delegation had been told by I would like to order...... copy/copies of Standing in the Way of Development? the US ‘not to rock the boat’ and to A Critical Survey of the IMF’s Crisis Response in Low-income Countries. bear in mind that Sri Lanka’s loan re- I enclose the amount of US$/Euro/RM ...... (cheque/bank draft/IMO). scheduling application was before the IMF (where the US could block it). Please charge the amount of US$/RM ...... to my credit card: At the end of that Rio Earth Sum- American Express Visa Mastercard mit, in an interview with Thalif Deen for the conference newspaper Terra A/c no.: Expiry date: Viva, Corea famously summed up the outcome as: ‘We negotiated the size Signature: of the zero.’ ÿu Name: Chakravarthi Raghavan is Editor Emeritus of the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS), from Address: which this article is reproduced (No. 7689, 5 November 2013).

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 43 A N N I V E R S A R Y The silenced voices of history: Asian workers on the Death Railway October marks the 70th anniversary of the completion of the notorious ‘Death Railway’ linking Thailand and Burma which the Japanese army constructed with forced labour during the Second World War. While the privations of the Allied soldiers used for the construction have been highlighted in Western historiography, the unspeakable plight of the numberless Asian workers who were involved has generally been ignored. David Boggett focuses on this neglected dimension.

THIS year marks the 70th anniversary of the completion of the notorious ‘Death Railway’, constructed by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Over 400 kilometres in length, the Death Railway was built to link the existing railway systems of Thai- land and Burma, in order to supply the Japanese armies in Burma. Post- war images of the Death Railway were based on the successful – and largely fictional – movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, and on the mem- oirs and diaries published by West- erners who survived the ordeal of the Railway’s construction. Some 60,000 Allied soldiers, Hundreds of thousands of Asian workers were drafted by the Japanese to work on prisoners of war captured after the fall the construction of the Death Railway in appalling conditions. of Singapore, were mobilised as con- struction workers. Of these, around 13,000 died – due to ill-treatment by Death Railway is usually seen through Singapore and Indonesia, many Asian the Japanese soldiers and Korean the accounts of the Western prison- workers later claimed that in the post- guards; lack of adequate food, cloth- ers. war confusion they had never heard ing and medical supplies; and diseases At the end of the war, the return- of any such repatriation attempts. The such as malaria, dysentery, tropical ing Allies estimated that around scattered testimonies of Asian survi- ulcers and – in the monsoon seasons 270,000 Asian workers had been vors suggest that a far greater number – cholera. The graves of the deceased drafted, a figure that is continually of workers were involved – possibly Allied soldiers are carefully preserved repeated in books, articles and muse- more than half a million, of whom in two war cemeteries in ums today. It is unlikely that the Al- probably more than 100,000 perished. Kanchanaburi in Thailand and one lies in 1945 or early 1946 could have The Japanese had two weeks in near Thanbyuzayat in Burma. ascertained with any degree of accu- which to burn documents related to The understandable preoccupa- racy the number of Asian workers in- the Railway’s construction before the tion with the Allied prisoners’ ac- volved. Unlike the Allied prisoners Allied forces occupied Thailand. Gen- counts has tended to overshadow, and who remained concentrated in camps eral MacArthur expressly forbade any even conceal, a perhaps even greater run by their own military, the Asian movement of Mountbatten’s forces tragedy – the plight of the enormous workers, disorganised and distressed, from Ceylon to South-East Asia until numbers of Asian workers mobilised were straggled along the entire course he had staged his dramatic surrender by the Japanese from their new colo- of the Railway. Although the British ceremony aboard a ship in Tokyo Bay. nies. There are no Asian workers in and Dutch did make some efforts to During the intervening two weeks, the movie either, and the story of the repatriate Asian workers to Malaya, Thai witnesses state, smoke from the

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burning of documents could be seen lagers were given financial rewards camps. all along the Railway camps. The if they reported any escaped workers On 18 December 1942, in the Japanese openly admitted to the Al- to the Japanese. Besides the natural very early days of Railway construc- lied soldiers that they had destroyed deaths from disease, ill-treatment and tion, Thai workers attacked the Japa- all documents related to the Asian overwork, it is believed that the Asian nese quarters in Ban Pong, killing four workers. They claimed that, although workers faced such appalling condi- Japanese military officials and se- the Japanese government had signed tions that suicides were not uncom- verely wounding two others. Besides (though not ratified) the Geneva Con- mon. their severe treatment by the Japanese, ventions regarding treatment of mili- Not only are there no graves but the Thais had become enraged when tary personnel captured during war, – with a single exception – there are they heard that a Japanese soldier had it had never been signatory to any no monuments to the Asian workers slapped a Thai Buddhist monk in the treaties regarding civilian labour. The in the Kanchanaburi area either. The face. Some accounts say that it had matter of civilian labour was, there- exception, paradoxically, is the monu- all started because the Thai monk had fore, an internal matter of the then ment erected by the Japanese military given some cigarettes to Allied pris- Japanese Empire, and Japan was not itself on completion of the Railway oners. Needless to say, the Japanese bound by any international treaties or in March 1944. It is located near the authorities were furious at these agreements. bridge made famous by the movie. It deaths and wanted the ringleaders is not particularly attractive in design, rounded up and executed and finan- Plight of the Asian workers being made out of rough concrete, but cial reparations paid. They also called it is an important memorial, as the for the execution of the Thai monk For all these Asian workers, the Japanese did at least admit that deaths (which is not permissible under Thai situation was arguably even worse had occurred. This is unusual and may law – you cannot execute a monk!). than that of the Allied prisoners. Many be the only Japanese wartime military Known as the Ban Pong Incident, Asian workers were barely literate monument to make such an admis- this event had serious political reper- and unable to speak English or Japa- sion. cussions. To avoid having to deal with nese. They could not record their ex- The central pillar of the monu- the Japanese Army’s demands, Thai periences. The Allied prisoners were ment is surrounded at the four corners Prime Minister Field Marshal Plaek able to maintain their own military of the outer wall with smaller struc- Phibunsongkhram removed himself structure in the camps – they were not tures, each bearing an inscription in a from Bangkok for several days. The separated from their friends. This different language: English, Thai, matter went as far as Tokyo where it structure provided camp discipline Chinese, Bahasa Malaysia/Indonesia, was decided to appoint a personal and hygiene and, of course, they had Tamil and Vietnamese. (One plaque friend of Prime Minister Tojo Hideki their own military doctors. This mili- destroyed by Allied bombing has (and an outstanding diplomat), Gen- tary camp structure of the prisoners never been replaced and was probably eral Nakamura Aketo, as new head of enabled their leaders to record the cir- in either Burmese or Javanese.) These the Bangkok Garrison Command to cumstances of nearly every single inscriptions are a clear indication that deal with the difficult situation. After prisoner’s death and place of burial. labourers from the language groups the Ban Pong Incident, the Japanese It was based on these records that the represented worked and died on the military became reluctant to recruit bodies of the Allied dead were re- construction of the Railway. The Vi- Thais, probably increasing their de- trieved after the war. However, there etnamese inscription is something of mand for other Asian workers. are no graves for the deceased Asian a puzzle, as nowhere have any records It is unclear how much Thai la- workers; they were just buried where of Vietnamese workers on the Rail- bour was involved in the Railway. The they died and forgotten. way yet been found, but this inscrip- Thai Chinese Chamber of Commerce The Asian workers had no sup- tion is evidence that labour from the recruited 16,000 Chinese for the Japa- port system on which they could fall former French Indochina was also nese Army. These people had been back. They had no doctors, no medi- involved. forcibly relocated to Bangkok from cines, no sense of how to organise Even in Thailand, few people re- the Northern Thai provinces which their living quarters in the inhospita- alise that Thai workers were involved. were thought to have been sensitive ble jungles then lying beyond Thais were first used by the Japanese military areas. Around 6,000 other Kanchanaburi; they were separated to construct the initial stages of the Thai workers were registered in from their fellow villagers and often Railway bed around Nong Pladuk and Kanchanaburi as working directly mixed together with people whose Ban Pong. Today, Ban Pong has a under the Japanese Army. Most Thai languages they could not understand; large temple, situated on the site of workers, however, were not directly and they had no means of recourse the Railway workers’ camp. This was under the supervision of the Japanese when the Japanese soldiers mistreated an important camp, because all work- military – rather they were employed them. As they were unfamiliar with ers, both prisoners and Asian labour- by Sino-Thai companies and business the foreign Thai countryside, it was ers, had to pass through Ban Pong on concerns which had been sub-con- difficult for them to escape. Thai vil- their way up to the Railway work tracted to do the Railway work by the

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Japanese. It is not known how many quarters. Once on the train, however, being treated with comparative con- Thais were involved through these they were kept under guard and sideration.’ private sector arrangements. Inter- brought right up to Siam and marched The abbot of Ban Pong Temple, views in villages around the in droves up to the camps on the river. who was a young novice at the time, Sangkhlaburi area disclosed that Thai There must be many thousands of related that he often saw the workers villagers had still been employed in these unfortunates all along the rail- passing through Ban Pong and he re- Railway construction further up the way course. There is a big camp a few membered clearly that there were line and suggest that perhaps a further kilometres below here, and another 2 women and children in the ranks of 5,000-10,000 Thais (perhaps chiefly or 3 kilometres up. We hear of the the Indian workers. It seems that ethnic Mons) were drafted. Possibly, frightful casualties from cholera and many Tamils thought that Railway if civilian contractors are included, as other diseases among these people work would be similar to the planta- many as 30,000 Thais may have been and of the brutality with which they tion work for which the British Im- involved. are treated by the Japanese. People perial authorities had brought them to who have been near the camps speak Malaya in the first place. Many Tamil ‘Widespread barbarities’ with bated breath of the state of af- women were used in the camp kitch- fairs – corpses rotting unburied in the ens as cooks and cleaners. In 1990, a mass grave of Asian jungle, almost complete lack of sani- Most published works estimate labourers was discovered in a tation, frightful stench, overcrowding, the number of Tamil workers at be- sugarcane field in Kanchanaburi. By swarms of flies. There is no medical tween 80,000 and 100,000. Historian the time I visited the site, the skeletons attention in these camps, and the Michael Stenson estimates that the of some 400 workers had already been wretched natives are of course unable population of the Indian community removed. This was not the first such to organise any communal sanitation.’ in Malaya during the war period ac- excavation of ‘Asian workers’ bones’, Dr Hardie also adds: ‘When one tually decreased by around 100,000 nor was it the last. The most recent hears of these widespread barbarities, or nearly 7%. This indicates the seri- was in 2008, probably on land near to one can only feel that we prisoners of ousness of the Indian labour mobili- the 1990 excavations. The exposure war, in spite of all the deaths and per- sation. After the war the Indian Con- of this latter grave was, however, of manent disabilities which result, are gress Party sent a delegation to Ma- great importance. Many Thai residents in the area came forward to recount The Kra Isthmus Railway what they had seen. They described how camp workers would come to THE Death Railway was not the only railway built in Thailand by the Japanese bury between five and 10 workers military. The first such railway to try to link Thailand with Burma was the Kra every day; how bodies of women and Isthmus Railway. Construction began in June 1943 and it was completed by children were also interred; and even November of the same year. how some, probably afflicted with It was a short line of roughly 90 kilometres, starting from Chumphon, an cholera, had been thrown into the important station on the Southern Thailand Railway, to the small village of Ban Khao Fa Chi near the Burmese border. From Ban Khao Fa Chi goods were grave while still alive. One skeleton transferred to boats and shipped down the River La-Un and the Kra River to was that of a child less than 10 years Victoria Point in Burma. It was abandoned in 1944 due to Allied bombing as the of age. The child must have been railway course ran through a very exposed area. Tamil and still had bangles on its lower The importance of this Railway is that it was built only by Malayan labour – legs. Not only Tamils were involved from all the communities in Malaya, Malay, Indian and Chinese. When I visited – Thais remember other Malayans, Ban Khao Fa Chi around 2004, the son of the wartime village headman, Sabiang Javanese and even Burmese also be- Chuchat, told me that one Tamil worker had stayed behind after the war. He recounted in an interview: ing thrown into the graves. ‘Among the Malayan workers, there were many Indians. Many were very Some of the Allied prisoners were dark-skinned. I used to know one Indian who stayed behind after the war . He aware that the Asian labourers were had been affected mentally by his experiences and had nowhere to go. He was suffering even more dreadfully than called Ladam.’ themselves. We can find many de- Sir Andrew Gilchrist had been a member of the staff of the pre-war British scriptions in the prisoners’ diaries, Embassy in Bangkok. He was returned to the UK early in the war by the Japa- such as the following by British doc- nese as part of an exchange of diplomatic personnel and was secretly para- chuted into Thailand, near Chumphon, before the war’s end. He must have tor Robert Hardie: been the first British official to visit the camps in the area. He vividly describes ‘A lot of Tamil, Chinese and the terrible conditions in the camps in his book Bangkok, Top Secret. One of his Malay labourers from Malaya have photographs bears the caption, ‘When I removed the blanket to take the photo- been brought up forcibly to work on graph the man was alive; when I bent down to put it back he was dead.’ the railway. They were told that they Published accounts suggest that between 60,000 and 120,000 Malayans were going to Alor Star in northern were involved in the construction of the Kra Isthmus Railway. After the work Malaya; that conditions would be was completed, many Malayans remained to operate the Railway, as engine drivers, maintenance workers, station staff and clerks. good – light work, good food and good

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 46 A N N I V E R S A R Y

laya and Thailand, headed by VS thrown into huge holes. That was all! in all Indonesian language dictionar- Srinivasa Sastri, to investigate the The guards could be very fierce. Even ies today. Labour was also recruited conditions experienced by the Tamils if you just wanted to piss, you had to in large numbers from other Indone- on the Railway. In a letter to Nehru, ask permission first. If you didn’t, sian islands, notably Sumatra. MC Sastri mentions ‘a lakh’ (100,000) of they would tie your hands behind your Ricklefs, a historian of Indonesia, Tamil workers. back and beat you with sticks teem- states that between 200,000 and ‘Lung’ (Uncle) Yu ing with live red ants. You would get 500,000 Javanese were drafted for Chalawankumphi, one of the Malays bitten all over your body. The bites labour work. Japanese historian Sato sent to the Death Railway, remained from these red ants were unbearably Shigeru claims that, if ‘temporary’ in the Tarsao (Nam Tok) area after the painful . workers are included, the total number war’s end. Probably the last surviv- ‘After the war, I didn’t go back. of people affected at some time by this ing Malay worker left in Thailand, he Indeed, many never returned; they labour mobilisation may have been as recalls: remained scattered here and there many as 10,000,000. A smaller ‘I was brought here from Kota along the course of the railway I number of the Javanese labourers Baru in [the Malayan state of] was very depressed at that time and were sent to work on the Death Rail- Kelantan when I was 15 years old. I so sad. I’d wanted to return The way, and some survivors have been was picked out at random by the Japa- British soldiers who came after the interviewed by Japanese television in nese. It wasn’t voluntary; they sim- war never helped me; they never the Jogjakarta area. The Japanese cor- ply took one out of three males. Per- asked or tried to find out about us poral at Appuron told Major Campbell haps out of every five or six young workers at all. They never offered any that 100,000 workers had been men, three would be picked out. It was assistance. I was so miserable!’ brought from Java. all arbitrary – at random. Many of my Total figures of the drafting of Burma was another source of friends from Kota Baru were selected Malayans for work on railways in large labour recruitment. Lin Yone too, and we travelled up together . Thailand are difficult to ascertain, due Thit Lwin was a volunteer labour or- After we arrived, I was split up from to the Japanese Army’s destruction of ganiser for the Japanese. Even though the friends who’d been rounded up records. A policy of minimising the his situation would have been a little together with me. I was never able to number of Asian workers they had better than that of the compulsorily meet them; we were all split up. I drafted was probably made known to drafted workers, he and his friend, Then Tha Sin, escaped from the hor- never knew where they were. The the higher-ranking Japanese officers rors of the Railway, eventually return- Japanese military never made any lists on the Railway. However, Major R ing to their homes. After the war, Lin of the names of us labourers. Campbell, commanding officer of ‘K’ Yone Thit Lwin became a well-known ‘I was put to work immediately. Force, records in his report to the Brit- writer recording his escape from the I started at Nong Pladuk and worked ish military that a Japanese corporal Railway and the terrible conditions right up to the Burmese border. The involved in logistics, whom he inter- faced by the other Burmese workers area was virgin jungle then, very viewed at Appuron in Burma imme- in a diary entitled The Thai-Myanmar wild I was working more than two diately after the war in 1945, stated Railway: A Personal Memoir, pub- years. We had been promised pay at that 250,000 Malayans had been lished in Rangoon in 1968. In his the rate of 600 a month. I can’t recall brought to work on the Railway. It is book, Lin Yone Thit Lwin states that the currency unit but it was certainly possible that the lowly-ranking cor- 170,000 Burmese workers were origi- 600 a month! The unit doesn’t matter poral had not been informed of offi- nally recruited. But as many Burmese, because we never actually received cial army policy to minimise or re- being familiar with their own coun- anything at all; no pay at all for all main silent about the extent of Asian tryside, frequently escaped (despite those months’ labour... labour utilisation. As this figure pre- the serious penalties if caught), the ‘We couldn’t understand what the sumably includes the workers on the Japanese were continually finding Japanese guards were saying. There Kra Isthmus Railway (see box) and fresh recruits to fill the place of miss- were no Japanese who spoke Malay. the 100,000 Tamil labourers already ing workers. The wartime Prime Min- I couldn’t understand anything at all! mentioned, the Japanese corporal’s ister of Burma, Ba Maw – who was They would beat or prod us to show estimate is highly credible and prob- generally sympathetic to the aims of us how they wanted us to work. Most ably accurate. The remainder of the the Japanese military – in his book, of the guards were terrible .We had figure must have comprised workers Breakthrough in Burma, calls the to work every day, regardless of the from Malaya’s Chinese and Malay drafting of Burmese labourers ‘an weather; in the monsoon rains or the communities. appalling mass crime’. ÿu fierce sunlight. There was no medi- The Japanese mobilisation on cine available in those days. Even Java was of staggering proportions. David Boggett is an Emeritus Professor of Kyoto when sick, we were forced to work. So great was the recruitment of labour Seika University in Japan, where he worked for 37 So many people died, especially of on Java that the Japanese word for a years. He has led several groups of Japanese dysentery and cholera. Many also died worker, romusha, has become part of students on field study trips to the Kanchanaburi area. He is presently retired, living in Chiangrai, of malaria. The dead bodies were just Bahasa Indonesia and can be found North Thailand.

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 47 P O E T R Y

Kofi Awoonor (1935-2013) was a Ghanaian poet and author whose work combined indigenous African traditions with modern literary forms. He was tragically killed in the September 2013 attack at Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya.

THE FIRST CIRCLE

Kofi Awoonor

1 the flat end of sorrow here two crows fighting over New Year’s Party leftovers. From my cell, I see a cold hard world.

2 So this is the abscess that hurts the nation – jails, torture, blood and hunger. One day it will burst; it must burst.

3 When I heard you were taken we speculated, those of us at large where you would be in what nightmare will you star? That night I heard the moans wondering whose child could now be lost in the cellars of oppression. Then you emerged, tall, and bloody-eyed.

It was the first time I wept.

4 The long nights I dread most the voices from behind the bars the early glow of dawn before the guard’s steps wake me up, the desire to leap and stretch and yawn in anticipation of another dark home-coming day only to find that I cannot. riding the car into town, hemmed in between them their guns poking me in the ribs, I never had known that my people wore such sad faces, so sad they were, on New Year’s Eve, so very sad.

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE No 278 48