Agenda 16 1 2

ISSUE Vol. 16 No. 1 2013

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Contents COVER Tuareg revolt in Mali and imperialism in today's Africa .............. page 5 The dynamics of inter-communal violence in Mali ...................... page 8 Counter-terrorism and security: The leitmotif in US policy in Obama's second term…............................................... page 13

DEVELOPMENT Poor countries robbed ……….......................................................... page 16 Lawyers sue states for multinationals ………................................ page 18 UN's water agenda at risk of being hijacked by big business ….................................................................................. page 20 Is Zimbabwe's education sector on the road to recovery?........... page 22

POLITICS Western Sahara occupied, Africa re-colonised ….......................... page 24

page 7 photo: Tuareg on camel ride

ENVIRONMENT Climate change negotiations: uninspiring Doha pathway….......page 27 Greater efforts needed to avert herder-farmer clashes in Burkina Faso….................................................................... page 31

African Agenda Published by TWN Africa

WOMEN Swazi women find strength in numbers…….................................. page 33

INTERNATIONAL

Editor-in-Chief: Yao Graham Editor: Cornelius Adedze Assistant Editor: Kwesi W. Obeng Circulation: Joyce Ofori-Kwafo Design: David Roy Quashie

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EDITORIAL

Mali, a complex situation An opinion on the situation in Mali by *Samir Amin.

I am one of those who condemn in principle any military intervention by western powers in southern countries as these interventions follow the dictates of the control over the world by the capital of monopolies dominating the system.

Is France's intervention in Mali an exception to the rule? Yes and no. It is for this reason that I am calling for support for this intervention without however thinking this will provide a solution to the continuous deterioration of political, social and economic conditions not only in Mali but also other countries in the region, as a result of the deployment of capitalist policies of the Triad (United States, Europe, Japan) always at work and contributing to the One must be very naïve to believe that the political Islam of some groups describes as “moderate” would disappear in democracy. There is certainly a sharing of tasks between the moderates and the “salafists” that will outflank them with a false naivety through their fanatic, criminal if not terrorist excesses. But they have a common project - an archaic theocracy by definition that is out of touch even with the minimal form of democracy.

De Gaulle had toyed with the idea of a « Great French Sahara » project but the tenacity of the Algerian FLN and the radicalization of the Sudanese Union of Modibo Keita in Mali led to the failure of this project in 1962-63. Perhaps, if there is some nostalgia about this project in Paris, I do not think they will be able to convince politicians with normal intelligence of the possibility of reviving it.

The Islamic « Sahelistan » will pave the way for the establishment of a great State covering a significant part of the Sahara in Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Algeria endowed with important resources such as uranium, oil and gas. These resources will not be open to France but to the dominant powers of the Triad. This “kingdom” like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates could easily “buy” the support of its sparse population and emirs and transform into personal fabulous wealth a fraction of the wealth that is left for them. For the powers of the Triad, the Gulf remains 4

the best useful ally/servant in spite of the utterly archaic and enslaving nature of its social management. The powers in the Sahelistan will refrain from perpetrating terrorist acts on their territory without however, forbidding themselves to support these acts elsewhere.

This war will be long, costly and difficult and the outcome will be uncertain.

Some conditions must be met to ensure victory. There would be the need not only for French troops to remain in the field until victory is achieved but also for a Malian army worth the name to be quickly reconstituted as the military intervention of other African countries cannot be the decisive element for victory.

Nothing much can be expected from ECOWAS countries. The Praetorian Guard in most of these countries has armies only in name. Indeed, Nigeria has many forces but unfortunately they are not disciplined to say the least; and many of the senior officers only seek to plunder the resources of the regions where they intervene. Senegal also has a competent military force and above all very disciplined but small in line with the size of the country. Farther in Africa, Angola and South Africa could provide effective support but due to their geographical location and other considerations, there is the risk that they may not see the merit in doing so.

French diplomacy tagged to NATO and the European Union share the responsibility of its allies in the success of reactionary political Islam. It has provided glaring proof in the Libyan adventure whose sole aim was not to liberate the Libyan people from Kadhafi but destroy Libya which has become an operating ground for war lords, directly responsible for the consolidation of AQMI in Mali.

The reconstruction of Mali can only be done by Malians. However, it is desirable that they are assisted instead of erecting barriers that will make the reconstruction impossible.

France's « colonial » ambition to make Mali a client state like others in the regions may still held by some of those who are responsible for Malian politics in Paris.

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Francafrique still has its proponents but this does not pose a real danger let alone a major one. A rebuilt Mali can quickly assert or reassert its independence. On the other hand, a Mali damaged by reactionary political Islam would not be able to regain a respectable position at the regional and global level. Like Somalia, it may stand the risk of being wiped out of the list of sovereign states worth the name.

Since the fall of Moussa Traore, the people of Mali have enjoyed unprecedented democratic freedoms. However, these seem to have been in vain: hundreds of ghost parties without programme, ineffective elected parliamentarians, and widespread corruption have been the results. Analysts who still habour racist prejudices will hastily conclude that this society (like Africans in general) is not mature for democracy! One pretends not be aware that the success of the Malian people's struggles coincided with the “neoliberal” offensive which imposed on this extremely fragile country a lumpen development model advocated by the World Bank and supported by Europe and France which has generated a social and economic decline and unbridled impoverishment.

These policies are the major factors responsible for the failure of the discredited democracy. This regression has created a fertile ground for the rise of the influence of reactionary political Islam (finance by the Gulf) not only in the North captured by AQMI but also in Bamako.

The reconstruction of Mali will henceforth depend on the rejection of liberal “solutions” which are responsible for all these problems. Yet, on this fundamental issue, France's concepts are those in force in Washington, London and Berlin. The concepts of “development assistance” of Paris fall within the dominant liberal litanies.

Nothing else! France, even it wins the Sahara battle - that is my wish - remains illsuited to contribute to the reconstruction of Mali. Failure would certainly give France's false allies the opportunity to take their revenge. *Excerpts from the original article published in Pambazuka.

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Capt. Sanogho of the Malian Army

French President Hollande

Tuareg revolt in Mali and imperialism in today's Africa The Tuareg revolt and French military intervention has exposed how the practice of electoral democracy and appearance of political stability in Mali had masked oppression and intensified global capitalist exploitation, *writes Hibist W. Kassa.

IN April 2012, the Malian government was overthrown in a coup d'ĂŠtat. The army had just suffered key military defeats against Tuareg rebel fighters and the soldiers blamed the government for poorly resourcing them. A confrontation with the political leadership led to the surprisingly swift overthrow of the elected government led by President Amadou Toumani TourĂŠ. Up until then, Mali had been a poster child as a stable democracy with a steady and liberalised economy in Africa.

The early 1990s was a phase of transition to democracy in Africa marked by demonstrations and protests by movements which had emerged in reaction to the harsh consequences of IMF driven neoliberal

structural adjustment policies in the 1980s.

In Mali these demonstrations led to the overthrow of then long-time dictator Moussa TraorĂŠ. Grassroot mobilisation was significant enough to reach rural constituencies. Thus, after the transition to democracy, cotton farmers demanded significant changes to production and marketing of cotton. Cotton is a major agriculture export in Mali. By 1995, a peace deal was even signed with the Tuareg rebels.

Despite these early signs of progress, the challenges facing Malian society were hardly addressed. Neoliberal economic policies and increasing social and economic inequality, which has bedevilled the country, continued unabated, concentrating AFRICAN AGENDA

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wealth in smaller pockets. Social services, which were already limited, were allowed to decay, in order to cut public spending and to pay debts. These conditions of life worsened with the combined impact of global economic, climate and food crises.

Like most African countries, the majority of Malians are small scale producers in the agriculture sector. The Tuareg (who are mostly nomadic pastoralists) and other settled agriculture based communities, are therefore highly vulnerable to changing weather patterns and access to arable lands.

As a result of climate change, life in the Sahel region of West Africa has been marked by worsening droughts and even famines. Conflicts between settler and 5

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nomadic communities over scarce fertile lands and water are increasing in West Africa, stretching even down south even into countries like Ghana and Nigeria.

The Tuareg and settled agriculture communities also have to deal with forced relocation to make way for commercial agriculture. In this regard, the Wold Bank and International Monetary Fund have been widely blamed for pushing neoliberal policies that have removed regulations in favour of foreign investors in a manner that has had significant social cost. Among these, a few corporate interests in Africa have also benefited at the expense of the majority of Malians. A report by a US Oakland Institute states that by the end of 2010, 22 agriculture investors had either leased or were negotiating the lease of a total of 544,567 hectares. Investors include Lonhro Agriculture (subsidiary of Lonhro Plc based in London), Malibya (owned by the Libyan government), and Huicoma, a company owned by Malian billionaire Alou Tomota.

Libya and Tomota were involved in deals for 100 000 hectares each where there were reports of "expropriation"" and "loss of livelihoods." There were no resettlement plans for the affected communities. Tomota is partnered by the International Finance Cooperation and French Development Agency.

Electoral democracy Thus, the practice of electoral democracy and appearance of political stability in Mali had effectively masked oppression and intensified global capitalist exploitation.

This is the context against which the current Tuareg revolt can be understood. In 2009, an uprising by Tuareg rebels was suppressed successfully by the Malian government with about 600 rebels handing over their arms as part of a peace process.

Islamist forces, which were also present in the country, were routed by the Malian military. By 2011, however, the situation rapidly changed with the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi by rebel forces with significant European and US military support.

The Gaddafi regime had played an important role in supporting the activities of rebel groups and peace processes in Africa. This is especially so in West Africa.

Tuareg rebel groups had had sanctuary in Libya and fought as mercenaries for the Libyan regime. After the fall of Gaddafi, the rebels marched south entering northern Mali and formed the National Movement 6

for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA).

When the elected Malian government was overthrown in April 2011, the Tuareg rebels, under the newly formed MNLA, took over more territories in the north and declared independence in northern Mali.

Islamist elements affiliated to Al Qaeda, Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) had also fought alongside the MNLA. At the time, MNLA emphasised on their disinterest in taking the capital. Two divisions of the Malian army, composed of mainly Tuaregs, defected and joined the rebels.

However, after independence was declared, the Islamists broke off their alliance with the Tuareg rebels. The Tuareg rebels are largely a secular force, and therefore, have different orientation and agenda from the Islamists. Ansar Dine began demanding civilians observe a puritan version of Islam, in some areas, imposing extreme punishments. Since then reports of killings, maiming and rape and the destruction of religious shrines and historic sites have dominated news reports from Mali.

In comparison, prior to the French intervention, atrocities by Malian forces on civilians were not widely reported. In September last year, 16 Muslim clerics were killed by Malian forces when they were travelling for a conference. The MNLA's efforts to distance itself from the Islamists have also been down played. There is also little attention on how Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has supported another Islamist group to fight the MNLA. There are even claims that the Malian government used the presence of the Islamists to weaken the cause of the Tuareg rebels. Whatever be the case, Mali has received significant military aid from the United States as a result of its “strategic position” in the “war against terror” which has in turn strengthened its hand against the Tuareg rebels.

When the town of Konna was taken by militants, less than 40 km away from the capital, France used this development to quickly launch a full scale military intervention labelling it simply as a fight against “Islamic terrorists”. Conversely, just last month the French President, François Hollande refused to provide similar support to the Central African Republic (CAR) government when rebels were advancing on the capital. Hollande claimed that such interventions by France in Africa were in the past. That is obviously far from the truth.

Moreover, French troops are even permanently based in CAR. The claim that French intervention is to fight Islamic terrorists, which has also AFRICAN AGENDA

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been supported by other Western and West African states, is oversimplified and works to draw attention away from the suppression of the Tuareg revolt.

The humanitarian claims of Western countries are also very dubious. In December, 200 000 people were reported to have been displaced. Currently, 230 000 people are reported to have been displaced internally. Another, 260 000 have fled into other countries, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. The situation in Mali is not likely to get better soon.

The UN is expecting 700 000 people to be displaced in the next couple of months. If there is one thing to be learned from the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, more people were killed and displaced by external military interventions.

Why is this happening? There is increased competition between corporations and their representative states, over access and control over cheap natural resources in Africa. Particularly in this period of global economic crisis, France stands to gain by using its military strength to emphasise its standing as a leading global military power. The emergence of China as a rising global economic power house, with significant interests in natural resources in Africa, raises the stakes even higher. This really is another scramble for Africa.

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by imposing a state sanctioned version of Islam as part of its “war against terror”. The government has also repeatedly jailed critics such as journalists and political activists on terrorism charges.

The Tuareg revolt in Mali has reemphasised the point that the underlying problems of increased social and economic inequality and insecurity in Africa must be addressed. The practice of liberal democracy in Africa, which has focused on electoral politics with different factions of the ruling class competing for power, has not reversed the concentration of wealth and power. In fact, in many cases this has intensified since the 1990s especially with the onset of global economic crisis. This is a reality facing many countries in Africa.

Resolution

Tuaregs on camel ride

West Africa is particularly significant in this regard, with oil in Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire making the sub-region a strategic area to control. France also relies heavily on uranium mines in Niger to fuel its nuclear installations. Uranium, gold, oil and gas are located in areas occupied by the Tuareg. Mining is particularly destructive of the environment and livelihoods of local communities in Africa. It is no different for the Tuareg, most of who live as nomadic pastoralists and are heavily dependent on their access to land for grazing and water.

Apart from this, Hollande also benefits from the intervention by shoring up his domestic support on a rising tide of Islamophobia and racism in the midst of persistent economic crisis in France. The growth of far right party, the National Front in recent years shows how real this threat is.

Strikes in Europe, especially in Greece, Spain and France, have shown how the resistance to austerity in Europe has also grown. Racism plays an important role in dividing people and diverting attention from the economic crisis. Thus, much like his predecessor, Sarkozy, Hollande has continued to deport Roma people. So far, the “war against terror” in Mali has worked to improve his popularity in France as a 'strong' leader. Nevertheless, it is not only the West which has interest in the military intervention in Mali.

Some West African governments, particularly Niger and Chad, face the threat of similar rebellions or unrest by Tuareg groups. Tuaregs are present in countries such as Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Algeria and Libya. Thus, in January 2011, Niger attempted to quell discontent by appointing a few Tuaregs into government. Apart from this, Nigeria already has its hands full with the extremist Islamist group Boko Haram and Biafra separatists. In total, West African countries have promised to send about 3 000 troops with Nigeria and Chad promising 1 200 and 2000 troops respectively.

It is not farfetched to expect that the external intervention by Western and West African governments is going to escalate conflicts beyond Mali. Even Ghana, which is not directly linked to the conflict and has sent only 120 troops and is on high alert according to its national security coordinator.

Similar military interventions in Somalia by Ethiopia and Kenya, at the request of the United States, led to an escalation of conflicts and oppression within those countries. In Kenya, there were bomb attacks by extremist groups based in Somalia. There were also hate crimes against people of Somali origin in Nairobi.

The Ethiopian government, on the other hand, has taken steps to regulate Muslims AFRICAN AGENDA

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In the case of Mali, a resolution of these challenges will not emerge from military intervention by France and West African countries. The current military intervention serves the interests of corporations and politicians in Western countries by securing the sub-region within their orbit of control.

West African governments also stand to gain from the suppression of the Tuareg Revolt and the restoration of the status quo in Mali.

The intensification of economic and climate crisis in recent years has increased insecurity and hardship across the world, including Africa. This is likely to intensify Imperialist oppression and resistance in Africa.

The current military intervention works against the interests of the working people and the poor in Mali since it strengthens the hands of the very powers that have benefited from economic liberalisation, debt repayment and cut backs in social spending. In this respect, corporate interests based in the West and within the South are no different. Within Mali itself, the ruling class has benefited greatly from the status quo. This needs to be recognised and challenged by social movements and activists as part of the wider struggle against neoliberalism and imperialism in Africa today. * Hibist Kassa is an alumna from the Development Alternatives with Women in a New Era (DAWN) Africa Regional Training institute in 2010 and a former intern at NETRIGHT. She also writes for the International Political Forum.

7

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Dynamics of intercommunal violence in Mali Since the French-backed onslaught on Malian rebels ethnic Tuaregs and Arabs in towns across central and northern Mali, including Gao and Timbuktu, have been fleeing into the desert or to neighbouring countries as their houses and shops are looted or they are hunted down on suspicion of being Islamist militants. Fears of inter-communal violence are spreading.

Malian women

SHOPS and houses owned by Tuaregs, Arabs or Mauritanians in Timbuktu have been looted since 28 January, according to local reports.

Moulaye Cherif HaĂŻdara, a Malian journalist with national media bureau ORTM, told IRIN from Timbuktu: "Almost all of the Arabs have fled Timbuktu, fearing reprisal attacks. Many here believe Arabs were complicit with the Islamist groups who terrorized populations over recent months."

Two Malians of Arab origin were badly 8

beaten up on the outskirts of Timbuktu when attempting to flee, he said. Malian military leaders are trying to control the situation. Col Keba SangarĂŠ, who is heading Malian operations in Timbuktu, gathered residents in the market-place: "Not all Arabs are rebels. Be careful. Do not take all Arabs and Tuaregs to be associated with jihadist groups. Be tolerant and patient and let the army and the authorities deal with this problem."

In Gao most of the shops run by Arabs have been shut. Three men found hiding AFRICAN AGENDA

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under a tarpaulin in the market-place were reportedly beaten up and left for dead. The mayor, upon returning to town, appealed for peace, telling a reporter from Le Monde: "I am a Peulh, but I cannot live without the Arabs or Tuaregs." Local radio station Radio Koima is also trying to appeal for reason, reportedly warning people to report any suspected Islamists to the authorities, and not to take the law into their own hands.

Even in the capital, Bamako, Tuaregs and Arabs are starting to feel insecure, indi-

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viduals told IRIN. Assaedek Mohamed, a Tuareg, says he is scared to leave the house.

"Believe me, it is not nice to leave your home in Bamako and have everyone look at you strangely... to have people mutter "rebel" as you walk down the street, and to have your fellow citizens tell you the best way to finish off this cycle of rebellion is to get rid of Tuaregs altogether."

Arabs and Tuaregs are considered to be complicit with Islamist rebel groups Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM), Movement for Oneness and Jihad (MUJAO), and Ansar Dine, despite the fact that these groups promptly ousted the secular MNLA from northern Mali in April 2012.

During that time, citizens of the north accused the MNLA, and the Islamist groups who followed, of carrying out widespread looting, sexual violence and other abuses, as evidenced by human rights groups.

Reprisal killings The latest ethnic violence comes on the back of reports from the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) that Malian armed forces carried out reprisal killings against Tuaregs and ethnic Arabs, allegedly feared to be rebel "infiltrators", in Sévaré, Mopti and Niono in central Mali.

Some reports suggest bodies were dumped in shallow graves or in wells. Human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, are further investigating reports of abuses across the country and will report their findings imminently; FIDH has called for an independent inquiry and has supported the International Criminal Court's 28th statement implying it will look at abuses carried out by all sides in Mali since the beginning of 2012.

In Sévaré, citizens spoke to IRIN of hastily buried bodies. Many associated being an Arab or Tuareg with being a rebel.

In Douentza to the north, truck-driver Mohamed Diarra told IRIN he saw men in army uniform quickly digging shallow graves with at least three bodies lined up.

The Malian army has been linked with violent crackdowns against Tuareg rebel uprisings in the past, which has led to tension between Tuaregs and the army, despite efforts to incorporate Tuaregs into the armed forces.

Chief of Staff of the Malian Army Gen Ibrahim Dahirou Dembélé told IRIN his forces would be held to account: "Any Malian soldier that commits atrocities against civilians will be immediately brought from the field and judged by a military tribunal. The army must be without reproach and there can be no question for us that we are sanctioning acts that we blame terrorists for," he said.

He added it was important not to assume that all of the yet-to-be-confirmed atrocities were connected to the Malian army. "There are men who wear Malian military uniforms to commit abuses while pretending to be members of the army," he said, explaining that the army has arrested

Context

“Arabs and Tuaregs are considered to be complicit with Islamist rebel groups Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM), Movement for Oneness and Jihad (MUJAO), and Ansar Dine, despite the fact that these groups promptly ousted the secular MNLA from northern Mali in April 2012.”

50 or so criminals masquerading as soldiers in Sévaré, Diabaly, Douentza and Bamako.

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called on 27 January for the quick deployment of international monitors to Mali, to try to minimize further violence.

Will militias groups get involved?

An important factor dictating whether or not inter-communal violence will get out of control, is whether or not the many militia groups, which have been trained and "intensively indoctrinated" over recent months, get involved, said Yvan Guichaoua, Sahel expert and lecturer in international development at the University of East Anglia.

The Ganda Koy militia, with several hundred members, is the largest of many homegrown armed civilian groups, many of them set up in response to Tuareg rebellions of past decades. Djibril Diallo, head of Ganda Koy, told a reporter: "We consider all Tuaregs MNLA [National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad]."

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The highly complex and ever-shifting network of alliances and rivalries among Tuareg nationalist groups; Islamist groups run by Malians, Algerians, Mauritanians and others; and numerous militia groups in the north and south, has created years of ethnic tension and inter-communal violence in Mali, which sits alongside a cultural context of inter-ethnic tolerance.

The Islamist groups running northern Mali were by no means only Malian: AQIM originated in Algeria (originally the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) and had many non-Malian members; MUJAO was headed by a Mauritanian and an Algerian, and recruited many non-Tuareg youths into its ranks.

Ansar-Dine, which until it split into two recently, was led by Iyad Ag Ghali, a prominent figure in the 1994 Tuareg rebellion and allegedly a key negotiator in myriad hostage deals between AQIM and Western governments, many of which allegedly benefited leaders in the Malian administration, including ex-President Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT).

The dynamics between these groups further complicated long-standing alliances that had been formed, opening up space for more instability. For instance, when the MNLA vied for control of Timbuktu in April 2012, it was soon crowded out by local Arab militias previously allied with the Malian state in Bamako, but which "dramatically shifted their loyalties" to ally with Ansar Dine and AQIM, said Guichaoua, the Sahel expert at the University of East Anglia.

MUJAO, an AQIM splinter group, took control of parts of Gao by allegedly making a deal with youth militias, Arab traders and drug traffickers to oust the MNLA. 9

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Before these events, inter-ethnic relations in northern Mali were already at a very low point, said Guichaoua, characterized by an intensification of micro-conflicts: between farmers and pastoralists; over drug trafficking; over deals on electoral mandates, AQIM's entrenchment, and personal politics.

Tensions between prominent Tuareg groups and members of AQIM were high following a decade during which AQIM had fully entrenched itself in northern Mali, with members circulating widely across the territory. Complaints by Tuareg groups of what they saw as intrusion were not picked up by the authorities in Bamako. Local youths, meanwhile, benefited from paid jobs as AQIM members.

If Arabs and Tuaregs return to their northern homes, more mundane rivalries could also exacerbate tensions between those who stayed in the north and those who fled, said Guichaoua, such as conflict over land, property or livestock abandoned by some who fled, and seized by others.

"These ongoing low-level conflicts could be exacerbated now. It happens in all wars where some had to flee and others had no choice or for various reasons decided to stay," he said, citing a similar dynamic in C么te d'Ivoire's crises over the past decade.

Now that the political situation is changing - and quickly - "all of the people who feel they have been betrayed, want to right wrongs," he added.

In the medium term, the French are likely to rely on Malian, and Chadian and Nigerien forces to secure the north. Troops from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Benin are also arriving, and the overall size of the West African intervention force in Mali is expected to reach 6,000.

In the longer term, only initiating an inclusive south-north peace process that realistically addresses the repeated demands made by northern groups - development dividends, and some degree of selfrule - can sustainable peace be built, say analysts.

On 30 January, French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Philippe Lalliot called for a peace process with legitimate representatives from the north, including non-terrorist armed groups. Charles Gr茅mont of the Centre for African Studies, a research institute in France, told IRIN:"The most important thing is for the representatives of the local population to talk to each and not just leave the affairs to 10

May bear brunt of the conflict : young Tuareg boys having fun

armed groups. Local leaders ... must play their role and talk sincerely amongst themselves, while [the administration in] Bamako and the international community should listen to them."

Rebuilding the ailing Malian army and finding solutions to the political disarray in Bamako are also vital. Mali's parliament announced a political roadmap on 29 January to pave the way for 31 July elections.

Tuaregs who spoke to IRIN said they are tired of only being seen as part of the AFRICAN AGENDA

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problem, not part of the solution. "We [Tuaregs] can help fight Islamists. We are part of the solution," said Mohammed Ag Ossade, director of the Tuareg cultural centre in Bamako.

Most of Mali's 15 million people are from the Mande, Peulh and Songhai ethnicities and make up 90 percent of the population, outnumbering the 10 percent that are lighter-skinned Tuaregs and Moors, mostly inhabiting the desert north. * IRIN report

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MALI PROFILE A chronology of key events: 11th century - Empire of Mali becomes dominant force in the upper Niger basin, its period of greatness beginning under King Sundiata in 1235 and peaking under Mansa Musa who ruled between 1312 and 1337 and extended empire to the Atlantic.

14th-15th centuries - Decline of the Empire of Mali, which loses dominance of the gold trade to the Songhai Empire, with its base in Timbuktu - historically important as a focal point of Islamic culture and a trading post on the transSaharan caravan route.

Late 16th century - Moroccans defeat the Songhai, make Timbuktu their capital and rule until their decline in the 18th century.

19th century - French colonial advance, and Islamic religious wars which lead to creation of theocratic states.

1898 - France completes conquest of Mali, then called French Sudan.

1959 - Mali and Senegal form the Mali Federation, which splits a year later.

INDEPENDENCE 1960 - Mali becomes independent with Modibo Keita as president. It becomes a one-party, socialist state and withdraws from the Franc zone.

1968 - Keita ousted in coup led by Lieutenant Moussa Traore.

1977 - Protests erupt following Keita's death in prison.

1979 - New constitution provides for elections; Traore re-elected president.

1985 - Mali and Burkina Faso engage in border fighting.

1991 - Traore deposed in coup and replaced by transitional committee.

DEMOCRACY 1992 - Alpha Konare wins multiparty elections to become Mali's first democratically-elected president.

1995 - Peace agreement with Tuareg tribes leads to return of thousands of refugees.

1999 - Former President Moussa Traore sentenced to death on corruption charges, but has his sentence commuted to life imprisonment by President Konare.

1999 October - Several people killed in fighting in the north between members of the Kunta tribe and an Arab community over local disputes.

2000 February - Konare appoints former International Monetary Fund official Mande Sidibe prime minister.

2001 December - Manantali dam in southwest produces its first megawatt of hydro-electricity, 13 years after it was completed.

AMADOU TOURE 2002 April - Amadou Toumani Toure elected president by landslide. Poll is marred by allegations of fraud.

2002 September - France says it will cancel 40% of debts owed to it by Mali, amounting to some 80m euros ($79m, ÂŁ51m).

2002 October - Government resigns, without public explanation. New "government of national unity" is unveiled.

2003 August - Clashes between rival Muslim groups in west kill at least 10 people.

2004 April - Prime Minister Mohamed Ag Amani resigns and is replaced by Ousmane Issoufi Maiga.

2004 September - Agriculture minister says severe locust plague has cut cereal harvest by up to 45%.

2005 June - World Food Programme warns of severe food shortages, the result of drought and locust infestations in 2004.

2006 June - The government signs an Algerian-brokered peace deal with Tuareg rebels seeking greater autonomy for their northern desert region. The rebels looted weapons in the town of Kidal in May, raising fears of a new rebellion.

2007 April - President Toure wins a second five-year term in elections.

2007 July - The ruling coalition, Alliance for Democracy and Progress (ADP), strengthens its hold on parliament in elections.

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REBEL ACTIVITY 2007 August - Suspected Tuareg rebels abduct government soldiers in separate incidents near the Niger and Algerian borders.

2008 May - Tuareg rebels kill 17 soldiers in attack on an army post in the northeast, despite a ceasefire agreed a month earlier.

2008 December - At least 20 people are killed and several taken hostage in an attack by Tuareg rebels on a military base in northern Mali.

2009 February - Government says the army has taken control of all the bases of the most active Tuareg rebel group.

A week later, 700 rebels surrender their weapons in ceremony marking their return to the peace process.

2009 May - Algeria begins sending military equipment to Mali in preparation for a joint operation against Islamic militants linked to al-Qaeda.

2009 August - New law boosts women's rights, prompts some protests.

2010 January - Annual music event - Festival in the Desert - is moved from a desert oasis to Timbuktu because of security fears.

TERROR CHALLENGE 2010 April - Mali, Algeria, Mauritania and Niger set up joint command to tackle threat of terrorism.

2012 January - Fears of new Tuareg rebellion following attacks on northern towns which prompt civilians to flee into Mauritania.

2012 March - Military officers depose President Toure ahead of the April presidential elections, accusing him of failing to deal effectively with the Tuareg rebellion. African Union suspends Mali.

2012 April - Tuareg rebels seize control of northern Mali, declare independence.

Military hands over to a civilian interim government, led by President Dioncounda Traore.

2012 May - Junta reasserts control after an alleged coup attempt by supporters of ousted President Toure in Bamako.

Pro-junta protesters storm presidential compound and beat Mr Traore unconscious.

The Tuareg MNLA and Islamist Ansar Dine rebel groups merge and declare northern Mali to be an Islamic state. Ansar Dine begins to impose Islamic law in Timbuktu. Al-Qaeda in North Africa endorses the deal.

2012 June-July - Ansar Dine and its Al-Qaeda ally turn on the MNLA and capture the main northern cities of Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao. They begin to destroy many Muslim shrines that offend their puritan views.

2012 August - Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra forms a new government of national unity in order to satisfy regional demands for a transition from military-dominated rule. The cabinet of 31 ministers includes five seen as close to coup leader Capt Amadou Sanogo.

2012 Autumn-Winter - Northern Islamist rebels consolidate their hold on the north. They seize strategically important town of Douentza in September, crossing into the central part of Mali and closer to the government-held southwest.

2012 November - The West African regional grouping Ecowas agrees a coordinated military expedition to recapture the north, with UN and African Union backing. Preparations are expected to take several months.

2012 December - Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra resigns, allegedly under pressure from army leaders who oppose plans for Ecowas military intervention. President Traore appoints a presidential official, Django Sissoko, to succeed him. The UN and US threaten sanctions.

FRENCH INTERVENTION 2013 January - Islamist fighters capture the central town of Konna and plan to march on the capital. President Traore asks France for help. French troops rapidly capture Gao and Timbuktu and at the end of the month enter Kidal, the last major rebel-held town. European countries pledge to help retrain the Malian army.

Credit: BBC News

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Counter-terrorism and security:

The leitmotif in US-Africa policy in Obama's second term Obama's historic election in 2008 was met with jubilation right across Africa but under his administration, the United States has narrowed its vision with respect to Africa: shifting away from the broad political and socio-economic drivers of US-Africa relations to prioritise counter-terrorism, writes *Emmanuel Asiedu-Acquah.

Flashback : President Obama in Ghana in July 2009

IN his State of the Union address very recently, US President, Barack Obama threw in a few words about US-Africa relations. Obama talked about the American plan to “help allies who take the fight to terrorists� in places like Libya, Somalia and Mali, where the Americans believe AlQaeda and its affiliates have set up shop.

American support in the ongoing intervention in Mali, including the deployment of 100 troops in Niger to help with

unmanned reconnaissance flights and intelligence gathering with the French forces in their operations, is an example of this policy approach. A few weeks before the State of the Union address, Obama had recited a worn-out line about supporting democracy in Africa and elsewhere in his second inauguration speech at the US capitol in Washington D.C. That was the only mention of Africa in the inauguration speech.

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prehensive US-Africa policy, these speeches, but the little said, however, is reflective of a narrowing of the American vision with respect to Africa. The aspects of US-Africa relations that entered these speeches show the areas of priority. There is a shift in emphasis from the broad political, social and economic drivers of US-Africa relations that the Obama administration enunciated early in its first term to one whose priority centre's on counter-terrorism.

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In its first term, the Obama administration stressed five broad thematic concerns as the pillars of its Africa policy: there was the usual commitment to the spread and consolidation of democracy; support for economic growth in Africa, with increased agricultural production and food security as the corner stone, as well as the strengthening of trade relations around the already flagging African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA); continued assistance in health, especially public health, where the US President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was to be the flagship program; support for conflict prevention and resolution; and, the development of a partnership for dealing with transnational challenges like drugs and arms trafficking, climate change, clean energy, and the “illegal exploitation of Africa's minerals and maritime resources”, as Johnnie Carson, assistant secretary of state, put it. (The quoted phrasing could be a glossing for competition with China over Africa's resources). These pillars of Obama's Africa policy shared much continuity with the policies of previous US administrations and did not show the envisioning of any new relationship with Africa besides the old.

Illusions The high expectations in Africa for America's first African-descended president may have been unrealistic but he has also been spectacular in doing little to meet those expectations. The balance sheet at the end of the first term scuttled any illusions about the man's Africa agenda and vision.

Apart from the much-reported travels to Egypt and Ghana in 2009, the US president has not been to any other African countries.

The policy document on US strategy towards sub-Saharan Africa was released only in June last year. Against the record of his predecessors, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Barack Obama has been, as some observers put it, nonchalant or detached towards Africa. His predecessors started PEPFAR, AGOA and other such programmes, which he incorporated into his Africa agenda. Under him, there has been US involvement in the resolution of the South Sudan question and the improvement of security in Somalia, which led to the establishment of a new parliament and the coming to office of a president and prime minister. In truth, American assistance in Somalia largely hinged on its interest in dismantling the Al-Shabaab Islamist 14

group, which the US regards as a terrorist group.

It is against this background that the militarization of US-African relations should be seen. The centerpiece in the Obama administration's focus on Africa is increasingly becoming counter-terrorism and other military engagements.

Indeed, some observers have recently argued that Obama lacks a comprehensive strategy for Africa but that is precisely because the vision from Washington D.C., if indeed it can be called a vision, only sees terrorists planning maleficence in isolated outposts in faroff locales and deserts in Africa. The aridity of that vision portends troubling times ahead.

One could trace the Obama and his new Secretary of State John Kerry militarist turn to certain developments in the first term. For instance, in late 2011, Obama sent about 100 US Special Forces and advisors to Uganda to help its government track “The policy document on US down and eliminate the Lord's Resistance strategy towards sub-Saharan Army of Joseph Kony. That programme remains unchanged. Also unchanged is the Africa was released only in policy of offering training, providing equipJune last year. Against the ment and sponsoring joint military exercises with favored African militaries like that of record of his predecessors, Ghana, which also began in the first term.

George W. Bush and Bill The signal event in the prioritization of counter-terrorism in the new term of the Clinton, Barack Obama has Obama administration would be the reachbeen, as some observers put it, ing of an agreement with the government of Niger to host an American drone base a few nonchalant or detached weeks ago. The Americans and the towards Africa.”

Nigeriens insist that the drones will be used to monitor Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and activities in the region. Niger use of drones and there is reason to believe thus becomes the sixth African country to that if they see fit they will use the drones accept to host US drones besides Burkina for more than surveillance purposes in Faso, Senegal, Morocco, Uganda and Africa. As Obama said in his recent State of Djibouti. The insistence on using these the Union speech, his administration drones for just surveillance purposes is a sly would, “through a range of capabilities… response to the criticism emanating from take direct action against those who pose the high death toll of innocent people in the gravest threat to Americans.” Vague places like Afghanistan and Yemen where phrasing like “a range of capabilities” has the US has been using drones to target terbeen the deliberate cover for and an rorists. attempt to parry any serious discussion of There appears to be no desire on the the deadly drone policy. part of the administration to reconsider its AFRICAN AGENDA

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The ongoing French-led intervention in Mali with American support should compel a reflection on the shift to counter-terrorism and military interventions over a more comprehensive US-Africa policy.

Because the interventionists are thinking only in terms of stopping Islamists or terrorists (sometimes both official and media discourse is confusing over this), little thought appears to have been given to the larger political and social causes and ramifications of the Malian rebellion, which invited the intervention. Already, there are news reports that members of the Tuareg rebel and Islamist groups have fled the intervention in northern Mali to Niger and are regrouping. Long marginalized Tuareg clans in Niger have welcomed their brethren or at least have averted their eyes, as it were, as the rebels move in.

The political and economic conditions that sparked the rebellion in Mali are shared in Niger and other countries in the region.

The outcome of the intervention would therefore not be, as one expert, Sebastian Elischer, puts it in Foreign Affairs, the end to the conflict in Mali but the eastward “migration of the problem. Drone policing [and any other military effort, for that matter] the Obama administration's preferred tactic

- provide little more than a short term fix.”

America's own Cold War history is instructive here. The covert operations, subterfuge, targeted killings and hot wars engineered by successive US administrations in the name of containing the ideological influence of the Soviet Union in Africa wreaked disaster all over. That mindset, not completely abandoned in Washington DC, conflated and reduced everything to the spread of Soviet influence. There were communists here, communists there, communists everywhere. Today, the obsession is about the spread of Al-Qaeda influence: there are terrorists here, there and everywhere.

The redrawing of the geopolitical map of terror to include Africa is highly problematic. (Remember Mitt Romney's mention of Mali twice in response to a question on the Middle East during the last of the US presidential candidates' debates in November of last year). The re-mapping of the Middle East to include Mali could only make sense if one reduced the complexity of life in these two places to terror and of course, the Islamic connection. In that perspective, local material conditions and concerns like the complex situation in Mali take a backseat.

There is some talk in the American media about debates (and dissension) within the Obama administration over diplomatic/political versus military efforts in American foreign policy strategy generally.

If indeed there is such a debate, the diplomatic party is losing out. Not that diplomacy is going to be abandoned but it may have to play second fiddle to more macho approaches in foreign policy. The US domestic political situation also appears not to favor the stances of the diplomatic party.

The Republicans have been baying for blood since the killing of the US ambassaAFRICAN AGENDA

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“The re-mapping of the Middle East to include Mali could only make sense if one reduced the complexity of life in these two places to terror and of course, the Islamic connection. In that perspective, local material conditions and concerns like the complex situation in Mali take a backseat. “ dor and three others in Benghazi, Libya, last September. All congressional inquiries have been used by the Republicans to push for a greater US security presence abroad.

Obama may disagree with them over some issues but he has not shown himself to be any less belligerent. The focus on counterterrorism and security suit temperaments on either side of the political divide well.

Given the frail state of the American economy, there will be some attention given to trade and investment. This is particularly so when the American economic presence in Africa vis-à-vis the Chinese is getting weaker. AGOA, for instance, is up for renewal in this second term. However, in the current militaristic state of mind economics remains a sub to security concerns.

A different dynamic could be anticipated if African leaders took the initiative in their relations with the US but recent years provide no such examples. In any case, the counter-terrorism and security theme fits in well with those leaders who are struggling for legitimacy at home. So the right noises about democracy and freedom will be made, offers of support to deal with unstable situations will be given, while partnerships to tackle terror will be forged with Africa so Uncle Sam can feel that his interests are secured. * Emmanuel Asiedu-Acquah is a PhD candidate at Harvard University.

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Leaders of the world’s leading 20 economies

Poor countries robbed Developing countries experienced an outflow of nearly US$6 trillion in funds between 2001 and 2010 - a historical high writes *Jaya Ramachandran.

Crime, corruption, and tax evasion recorded near-historic highs in 2010, with illicit financial outflows costing the developing world US$859 billion in 2010, just below the all-time high of $871.3 billion in 2008, the year preceding the global financial crisis.

Besides, nearly $6 trillion were stolen from poor countries in the decade between 2001 and 2010, says a new report and urges world 16

leaders to increase transparency in the international financial system.

"Astronomical sums of dirty money continue to flow out of the developing world and into offshore tax havens and developed country banks," said Raymond Baker, Director of the Washington-based advocacy organization, Global Financial Integrity (GFI).

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"Regardless of the methodology, it's clear: developing economies are hemorrhaging more and more money at a time when rich and poor nations alike are struggling to spur economic growth. This report should be a wake-up call to world leaders that more must be done to address these harmful outflow," he adds.

Co-authored by GFI's lead economist

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Dr Dev Kar and economist Sarah Freitas, the study, Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2001-2010 points out that as developing countries begin to relax capital controls, the possibility exists that the methodology utilized in previous GFI reports - known as the World Bank Residual Plus Trade Mispricing method - could increasingly pick-up some licit capital flows.

The methodology introduced in this report - the Hot Money Narrow Plus Trade Mispricing method ensures that all flow estimates are strictly illicit moving forward, but may omit some illicit financial flows detected in the previous methodology, the study's authors say.

"The estimates provided . . . are still likely to be extremely conservative as they do not include trade mispricing in services, sameinvoice trade mispricing, hawala transactions, and dealings conducted in bulk cash," explained Dr Kar, who previously served as a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund. “This means that much of the proceeds of drug trafficking, human smuggling, and other criminal activities, which are often settled in cash, are not included in these estimates,� he added.

The study, released on 17 December 2012, finds that the $858.8 billion of illicit outflows lost in 2010 is "a significant uptick" from 2009, which saw developing countries lose $776.0 billion under the new methodology. It estimates the developing world lost a total of $5.86 trillion over the decade spanning 2001 through 2010.

"This has very big consequences for developing economies," explained the report's co-author Freitas. "Poor countries lost nearly a trillion dollars that could have been used to invest in healthcare, education, and infrastructure. It's nearly a trillion

dollars that could have been used to pull people out of poverty and save lives."

The authors' research tracks the amount of illegal capital flowing out of 150 different developing countries from 2001 through 2010, and it ranks the countries by magnitude of illicit outflows. According to the report, among the 20 biggest exporters of illicit financial flows over the decade are: China recording unlawful outflows of $274 billion average ($2.74 trillion cumulative); Mexico ($47.6 billion average and $476 billion cumulative); Malaysia ($28.5 billion average and $285 billion cumulative); Saudi Arabia ($21.0 billion avg. and $210 billion cum.); Russia ($15.2 billion avg. and $152 billion cum.); Philippines ($13.8 billion avg. and $138 billion cum.); Nigeria ($12.9 billion avg. and $129 billion cum.); India ($12.3 billion avg. and $123 billion cum.); Indonesia ($10.9 billion avg. and $109 billion cum.); and United Arab Emirates ($10.7 billion avg. and $107 billion cum.) Others include: Iraq ($10.6 billion avg. and $63.6 billion cum.); South Africa ($8.39 billion avg. and $83.9 billion cum.); Thailand ($6.43 billion avg. and $64.3 billion cum.); Costa Rica ($6.37 billion avg. $63.7 billion cum.); Qatar ($5.61 billion avg. and $56.1 billion cum.); Serbia ($5.14 billion avg. and $51.4 billion cum.); Poland ($4.08 billion avg. and $40.8 billion cum.); Panama ($3.99 billion avg. and $39.9 billion cum.); Venezuela ($3.79 billion avg. and $37.9 billion cum.); and Brunei ($3.70 billion avg. $37.0 billion cum.).

The report, funded by the Ford Foundation, also reveals the top exporters of illegal capital in 2010: China ($420.36 billion); Malaysia ($64.38 billion); Mexico .($51.17 billion); Russia ($43.64 billion); Saudi Arabia ($38.30 billion); Iraq ($22.21 billion); Nigeria ($19.66 billion); Costa Rica ($17.51 billion); Philippines ($16.62 billion); Thailand ($12.37 billion); Qatar ($12.36 billion); Poland ($10.46 billion); Sudan ($8.58 billion); United Arab Emirates ($7.60 billion); Ethiopia ($5.64 billion); Panama ($5.34 billion); Indonesia ($5.21 billion); Dominican Republic ($5.03 billion); Trinidad and Tobago ($4.33 billion); and Brazil ($4.29 billion).

Previous reports China, the largest cumulative exporter of illegal capital flight, as well as the largest victim in 2010, was the topic of an October 2012 country-specific report by Dr Kar and AFRICAN AGENDA

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Freitas. Using the older methodology, 'Illicit Financial Flows from China and the Role of Trade Misinvoicing,' found that the Chinese economy suffered $3.79 trillion in illicit financial outflows between 2000 and 2011.

"Our reports continue to demonstrate that the Chinese economy is a ticking time bomb," said Dr Kar. "The social, political, and economic order in that country is not sustainable in the long-run given such massive illicit outflows."

Mexico, the second-largest cumulative exporter of illicit capital over the decade, was also the topic of a January 2011 GFI report by Dr. Kar. The study, 'Mexico: Illicit Financial Flows, Macroeconomic Imbalances, and the Underground Economy', found that the country lost a total of $872 billion in illicit financial flows over the 41-year period from 1970 to 2010.

Furthermore, illicit outflows were found to drive Mexico's domestic underground economy, which includes - among other things - drug smuggling, arms trafficking and human trafficking.

Possible solutions Global Financial Integrity report urges world leaders to increase the transparency in the international financial system as a means to curtail the illicit flow of money highlighted by the organization's research.

In particular it stresses the need for addressing the problems posed by anonymous shell companies, foundations, and trusts by requiring confirmation of beneficial ownership in all banking and securities accounts, and demanding that information on the true, human owner of all corporations, trusts, and foundations be disclosed upon formation and be available to law enforcement.

The report also calls for reforming customs and trade protocols to detect and curtail trade mispricing; requiring the countryby-country reporting of sales, profits and taxes paid by multinational corporations; requiring the automatic cross-border exchange of tax information on personal and business accounts; harmonizing predicate offenses under anti-money laundering laws across all Financial Action Task Force cooperating countries; and ensuring that the anti-money laundering regulations already on the books are strongly enforced. *The above article is reproduced from Third World Network Features, February 2013.

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Lawyers sue states for multinationals Lawyers are making huge profits from suing governments on behalf of multinationals purportedly for violating international investment treaties writes *Pratap Chatterjee.

Permanent Court of Arbitration

DOZENS of highly paid international lawyers are pocketing millions of dollars in fees from multinational corporations to sue governments in secretive “arbitration tribunals” for profits they claim to be owed under international investment treaties, according to “Profiting from Injustice” - a new report from Brussels-based Corporate Europe Observatory and Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute.

If governments lose at these tribunals, they face penalties that can run into billions of dollars which are often passed onto tax18

payers. This is despite the fact that the judgements sometimes run counter to public interest laws such as those on environmental and human rights. Even if the governments win, they may still be liable for multi-million dollar legal bills for defending themselves against frivolous lawsuits.

Either way, the lawyers earn a lot of money, notes Cecilia Olivet, a co-author of the report. “A handful of (law) firms are actively encouraging corporate clients to sue governments,” says Olivet. “Meanwhile top arbitrators are using their influence to AFRICAN AGENDA

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secure investor-friendly rules and sustain the flow of multi-million dollar lawsuits.”

Members of the public cannot attend most of the trials conducted by these arbitration tribunals. Decisions are made by tribunal judges who are partly selected by the company bringing the dispute and final judgements cannot be appealed to a Supreme Court in any country or even in national parliaments.

Legal experts have denounced this trend. “Investment treaty arbitration … imposes exceptionally powerful legal and

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economic constraints on governments and, by extension, on democratic choice, in order to protect from regulation the assets of multinational firms,” writes Professor Gus van Harten of the Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto.

12,500 teachers for one year or vaccinated 3.8 million children against diseases such as TB, diphtheria, tetanus and polio.

Ultimately Fraport lost the lawsuit when it was revealed that the company had offered bribes to secure the contract.

But damage was done. “The costs of these legal actions weigh on governments in the form of large legal bills, weakening of social and environmental regulation and increased tax burdens for people, often in countries with critical social and economic needs,” note the authors.

Investment Treaties The system of arbitration was originally created by Western governments to ensure the assets of their national corporations could not be seized by another country. The idea was to encourage investment across borders and create a system of fair international dispute settlement mechanisms that could be viewed as above the national interests of any single country.

There are five major arbitration tribunals that take on these cases - the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington DC, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague, the Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) in London, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris and the Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm (SCC).

Over the last two decades, these tribunals have evolved into a de facto international legal system that has accompanied the rapidly expanding global free trade system. While many of the arbitrations take place between two companies, many countries have signed up to the system via some 3,000 bilateral and international agreements (like the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, Mexico and the United States) which typically require the settlement of any kind of dispute between investors and foreign countries to be referred to these tribunals.

The number of such lawsuits registered at the ICSID has skyrocketed. In 1996, just 38 cases were under arbitration but by 2011, this had risen almost 12 fold to 450.* While the original idea of the system was to be fair and neutral, in reality it has favored the companies over the governments, and private interests over public, say the report authors. For example, the fees required to defend against such lawsuits are beyond the reach of most small countries: lawyers charge as much as $1,000 an hour to work on these cases and the average cost of fighting a case is over $8 million. The judges can be paid as much as $1 million to work on these cases.

Opting Out

These sums are small change for the Fortune 500 multinationals. So Philip Morris, the US tobacco multinational, is suing Australia and Uruguay for compulsory health warnings on cigarette packets while Vattenfall of Sweden is suing Germany for €3.7 billion ($4.8 billion) for deciding to phase out nuclear energy following the Fukushima disaster in Japan. In the past US billionaire Ronald Lauder successfully sued the Czech republic in the Netherlands for $270 million.

Now law firms are aggressively trying to expand their business - some actively encouraged companies to take advantage of the collapse of the Libyan government and the Eurozone crisis in Greece to pursue lawsuits.

“Investment lawyers have become the new international 'ambulance chasers', in a similar way to lawyers who chase hospital wagons to the emergency room in search for legal clients,” write the authors of “Profiting from Injustice.”

Some of the top law firms profiting out of this include Freshfields of the UK, which was involved in 71 cases in 2011 alone, followed by White & Case of the US with 32, and King & Spalding of the US with 27.

And over half of the judges hired to work on all known investment treaty disputes are limited to a tiny pool of 15 powerful individuals.

These lawsuits - some of which are speculative - make life difficult for developing country governments. For example, the Philippine government spent $58 million defending two cases against German airport operator Fraport, which the authors estimate could instead have paid the salaries of AFRICAN AGENDA

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“International investment treaties are a powerful corporate weapon to rein in government and make taxpayers pay for business losses,” writes Pia Eberhardt, the other co-author of “Profiting from Injustice.”

“Policy-makers who sign such treaties are handcuffing themselves and their successors for decades to come.”

Today a few countries have started to realize that the system is stacked against them and have decided to opt out of the system of bilateral treaties altogether. (This is not as easy as one might imagine because many of the treaties are protected against regime change and revolution via “survival clauses” that make them binding on a country for 10-15 years, even after a country withdraws from such agreements) To date Argentina has refused to pay the $1.15 billion in judgements against it.

Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela have terminated several agreements. Australia has announced it will not sign any new ones while South Africa has said it will cancel its agreement with Belgium and Luxembourg.

Foreign investors are not happy about this trend but some governments are standing firm for now. “If there are investors who stay away because they feel that we don't have old-style, dated, antiquated bilateral investment treaties in place, I can assure you there are plenty of other investors from other parts of the world who are happy to come and don't insist on this,” says Rob Davies, Trade and Industry Minister of South Africa. *Pratap Chatterjee is the Executive Director of CorpWatch.

The above article is reproduced from Third World Network Features.

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U.N.'s water agenda at being hijacked by Big B

Amidst growing new threats of potential conflicts over fast-dwindling water resources in the world's will commemorate 2013 as the International Year of Water Cooperation (IYWC) *wri

BUT Maude Barlow, chairperson, Council of Canadians and a former senior advisor on water to the president of the U.N. General Assembly in 2008-2009, warns the U.N.'s water agenda is in danger of being hijacked by big business and water conglomerates.

“We don't need the United Nations to promote private sector participation under 20

the guise of greater 'cooperation' when these same companies force their way into communities and make huge profits from the basic right to water and sanitation,” Barlow told IPS. At this time of scarcity and financial crisis, she said, “We need the United Nations to ensure that governments are fulfilling their obligations to provide basic AFRICAN AGENDA

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services rather than relinquishing to transnational corporations.”

The Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), which has been designated the lead U.N. agency, formally launched IYWC at a ceremony in the French capital Monday.

In New York, Secretary-General Ban

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ders, “We need to cooperate for the benefit of all now and in the future… Let us harness the best technologies and share the best practices to get more crop per drop.”

Back in December 2010, the 193member General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring 2013 as the IYWC, following a proposal by Tajikistan.

The 2013 World Water Day, which will take place on Mar. 22, will be dedicated to water cooperation.

Barlow told IPS big water corporations have gained influence in almost every agency working at the United Nations.

The CEO Water Mandate, a publicprivate sector initiative launched by the United Nations in July 2007 and designed to assist companies in the development, implementation and disclosure of water sustainability policies and practices, puts corporations such as Nestle, Coca Cola, Suez and Veolia directly into a position of influence over global water policy and presents a clear conflict of interest, she said.

Corporate capture

t risk of Business

s arid regions, the United Nations ites Thalif Deen.

Ki-moon warned of the new pressures on water, including growing populations and climate change. One-third of the world's 7.1 billion people already live in countries with moderate to high water stress, he said.

“Competition is growing between farmers and herders; industry and agriculture; town and country,” Ban said.

Upstream and downstream, and across bor-

“For-profit private companies cannot uphold the public interest if it conflicts with their bottom line,” said Barlow, who is also founder of the Blue Planet Project.

Even the World Water Development Report is now advised by an industry group on “business, trade, finance and involvement of the private sector,” she added.

Tom Slaymaker, senior policy analyst on governance at the London-based WaterAid, told IPS the United Nations recognised the “human right to water and sanitation” back in 2010.

“But today over 780 million lack improved water supplies and 2.5 billion lack basic sanitation facilities,” he added.

The 2013 International Year of Water Cooperation will be a critical year for the United Nations to reflect on why universal access has not yet been achieved, he said.

Slaymaker said it's also time to reflect on the kind of political leadership and new forms of partnership that are required to accelerate progress towards universal access as part of the emerging post-2015 development framework of the United Nations.

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awareness, both on the potential for increased cooperation, and on the challenges facing water management in light of the increase in demand for water access, allocation and services.

Since the General Assembly recognised the human right to water and sanitation, a number of countries, including Mexico, Kenya, Bolivia, The Dominican Republic, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ecuador, El Salvador, The Netherlands, Belgium, the UK and France, have either adopted laws recognising the right to water or amended their constitutions to do so.

The Vatican recently recognised the human right to water and added that “water is not a commercial product but rather a common good that belongs to everyone.”

And last June, all 193 member states signed the Rio+20 Declaration which includes the recognition of the human right to water and sanitation as a universal right.

Specifically zeroing on the role of the private sector, Barlow told IPS that corporations are among those pledging their support for IYWC. Aguas de Barcelona, the water company at the heart of a fierce debate in Spain over control of drinking water, is participating, she pointed out.

So are “corporations who fought us on the right to water are now scrambling to claim it in their own image”.

She quoted Nestle as saying that 1.5 percent of the world's water should be put aside for the poor and rest should be put on the open market.

If Nestle gets its way, she argued, there will one day be a water cartel similar to big oil, making life and death decisions about who gets water and under what circumstances every day.

“But at least we have this recognised and acknowledged right that no one should be allowed to appropriate water for personal gain while others die from an inability to pay for water,” she said.

With time, “we will build consensus around the right to water and the understanding that water is a common heritage and a public trust.” * Thalif Deen writes for the IPS from New York.

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DEVELOPMENT

Is Zimbabwe's education sector on the road to recovery?

There are indications the education sector in Zimbabwe has turned the corner and is beginning to improve.

ZIMBABWE'S education system, once regarded as the finest on the continent, was a casualty of the country's economic meltdown in the 2000s, when it nearly collapsed - but lately there have been signs of recovery.

The education malaise was widely blamed on hyperinflation, which made teachers' salaries worthless and funding for school materials and maintenance impossible.

But with economic reforms of 2009 and the establishment of a donor funding mechanism, the school system is seeing modest, gradual improvement. Still, vast challenges - from poor infrastructure to teacher shortages - remain.

A turnaround

Zimbabwe’s schoolgoing children have paid a heavy price for the country’s political and socio-economic crises

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David Coltart, the education minister, told IRIN that the country's education crisis actually predates hyperinflation.

“Contrary to what many people think, the downward spiral began long before hyperinflation occurred. It started with the sector not getting as much as it got during the first 10 years of independence,” he said.

Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980.

The education system's deterioration accelerated under the effects of hyperinflation. Then, in early 2009 the country ditched its local currency and adopted a multi-currency financial system using the US dollar, the Botswana pula and the South African rand, ending hyperinflation overnight.

By the time Coltart assumed his post in February 2009 - after the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, entered a government of national unity with President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANUPF party - the economy was beginning to turn around.

Coltart found the education system “chaotic”, with schools closed, teachers on

strike and infrastructure in a state of disrepair. One of the first steps towards overhauling it was the establishment of the Education Transition Fund (ETF), a mechanism to allow donors control over their funds.

“The way the fund works is the donor community provides funding, I chair the education transition fund meetings, and UNICEF [the UN Children's Fund] is the ultimate manager of the fund. So we reach consensus regarding how the money is to be spent, and the ministry decides what its priorities are,” Coltart explained.

Funding for the ETF varies from year to year. A variety of donors - including the European Commission and the governments of Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the US - contribute to the fund, which UNICEF then administers.

In 2012, the ETF was funded to the tune of about US$12 million, and in 2013, $25 million is earmarked for it, UNICEF said in a statement.

Green shoots of recovery Hyperinflation had prevented the publication of school textbooks. “In some schools, as many as 15 pupils shared a textbook, while in some rural schools only the teacher had a bedraggled textbook,” Coltart said.

Julia Mapondera, principal of Gwinyai Public Primary School in Mbare, a poor neighbourhood in the capital, Harare, told IRIN that erratic attendance by students and teachers, combined with the unavailability of text books, proved a toxic mix.

Prior to the crisis, students learned to read and write in their first year of school; student Kelvin Bimha, now 11, didn't gain those skills until his fourth year, and then only with the assistance of remedial classes during the holidays.

Donor funding has since helped address the textbook shortage; the pupil-tobook ratio is now one-to-one, Coltart said.

Next are plans for the distribution of nonacademic books to encourage a culture of reading; $9 million is budgeted for this in 2013, with donor support through the ETF. At the height of the crisis, in 2008 - dur-

ing which food insecurity and waterborne disease were widespread, and schooling was disrupted by political violence and teacher strikes - the pass rate for the final year of primary school dropped to 52 percent. The previous year, it had been 70 percent.

In 2009, only 39 percent of those who sat for the final-year exams passed. It has since improved, with 2010 seeing a pass rate of 42 percent and 2011 a rate of 45 percent.

Still, Coltart expects the pass rate to remain low for several years and then gradually improve.

Principal Mapondera says lack of infrastructure continues to undermine the education system. In 2012, the number of students at Gwinyai was close to 2,000 - nearly double its intended capacity. The overcrowding has led to a practice known as “hot seating”, in which some children attend morning classes and others attend afternoon classes.

Coltart says the situation is not unique to Gwinyai. “We've got 8,000 schools. If you go to most of these schools, you'll see the infrastructure is crumbling - schools not being maintained, toilets in a terrible state of disrepair. Many schools don't have desks, don't have blackboards.”

“Prior to the crisis, students learned to read and write in their first year of school; student Kelvin Bimha, now 11, didn't gain those skills until his fourth year, and then only with the assistance of remedial classes during the holidays.”

Low salaries He said the $500,000 from the 2012 national budget for school maintenance was “less than drop in the ocean”, and his ministry would be seeking donor assistance.

“We could spend a billion dollars on the education sector, and we wouldn't address all these structural problems.”

The education budget for 2012-2013 is $750 million. More than half of this, Coltart says, goes to primary and high school teachers' salaries, which average about $300 a month.

During the hyperinflation years, many teachers just walked off the job, as their salaries fell to the equivalent of $1 or less a month. The ministry has declared an amnesty for these teachers, and many have returned. But many others moved to other countries in search of employment and better salaries, and it has proved difficult to lure them back. It is estimated that 20,000 teachers left the country between 2007 and 2009.

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There are currently about 106,000 teachers; about 30,000 more are required.

However, even if the teacher target is achieved, Coltart says, there will not be enough classrooms available for them to teach in.

He says the government's relationship with the teachers' unions - such as the Zimbabwe Teachers Association and the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe is improving. But threats of strikes are never far from the surface.

The education sector had been stabilized, but remains fragile. “Until we see literacy rates starting to improve, until we see grade 7 [the final year of primary school] examination results getting back to the levels they were perhaps 10 years ago, I will remain concerned about the education sector,” he said. * An IRIN report from Harare, Zimbabwe

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DEVELOPMENT

Western Sahara occupied, Africa re-colonised *Malainin Lakhal argues that it is 'a subject that should concern all Africans, and all actors who know that Africa can never rise up as a Union or as a future power unless it jointly struggles for its freedom from poverty, ignorance, re-colonisation, foreign exploitation, internal rivalry, and lack of communication between all its peoples and elite.'

THE conflict in Western Sahara seems to gain more and more visibility and importance in the regional and international geopolitics this last decade, despite the great lack of media coverage and academic 24

analysis of its different facts, aspects, possible consequences and perspectives. It is thanks to some brilliant academics, jurists, human rights defenders, activists and journalists, both foreign and Saharawi that the AFRICAN AGENDA

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question of Western Sahara has remained impossible to ignore whenever the debate tackles the future of North Africa, the Maghreb Union, the North-South and South-South interrelations and influence.

DEVELOPMENT

This clear-cut and easily identified conflict is about decolonisation in terms of international law.

It is brought to the spotlight by the contributors in this Pambazuka special issue on Western Sahara. They have proven each in his or her own way how the Western Sahara conflict is made complicated by the opposite positions held by the two parties to the conflict, Polisario and Morocco. The former wants decolonisation and self-determination, the latter wants territorial expansion by military means. But also by the conflicting geo-political agendas of the regional actors and the super power nations who have their own agendas and strategic goals, not only regarding their position on Western Sahara, but also their vision of the future of all North Africa, African Union and the Middle East.

Last colony of Africa The objective of this second special issue on the conflict of Western Sahara is not the result of a simple opportunity to cover one of the hottest conflicts on the modern political arena. It is rather a well thought-out and carefully discussed step towards communicating to readers some of the international legal facts, political theory debates, and on-the-ground realities relating to the last colony in Africa. It is thus a subject that should concern all Africans, and all actors who know that Africa can never rise up as a Union or as a future power unless it jointly struggles for its freedom from poverty, ignorance, re-colonisation, foreign exploitation, internal rivalry, and lack of communication between all its peoples and elite. Africa needs to build its model for the future on the basis of a conscious awareness about the huge potential it has, and above all its human resources.

This second special issue presents some new aspects and discussions of the conflict in Western Sahara. It cannot of course cover everything, but it offers a lot of interesting questions, ideas and facts to those who would like to know better what is at stake in the region. What is at stake is that the international legal order seems to be so easily violated and purposely manipulated

by certain international actors, especially Morocco. Morocco could not continue its illegal occupation of Western Sahara and defy more than 100 United Nations resolutions unless it had a mysterious green light from Uncle Paris, and an even more mysterious complicity from other countries such as the US. But above all a criminal and immoral support from multinationals and international trade that does not care about the violation of the Saharawi people's right over their own natural resources. Readers can read this history of the Western Sahara conflict in the article submitted by Aluat Hamudi, a Saharawi Master's student.

Complex issues So what is at stake is momentous. Are Africans aware of it? This is another question. But what is certain is that the persistence of the occupation of Western Sahara, the violations of Saharawi people's political, economic, social and cultural Rights, the exploitative plundering of their natural resources and the persistent pressures exercised directly or indirectly over them during the last 40 years is only maintaining a very dangerous situation that can explode at any time, especially in a region that is far from stable. Dr Jacob Mundy contributes again by writing about the security issues across the Sahara-Sahel region, as part of a wider debate about Morocco's annexation of Western Sahara also a factor of regional instability. Dr Sidi Omar, a Saharawi colleague writes of the involvement of the African Union in the Western Sahara story, and of the factors that should rather convince the parties to reach a peaceful and fair solution so as to make this region one of the main assets of the Maghreb and African Union.

The articles collected in this edition cover many issues but our main theme focuses on the legal issues of the conflict and the status of Morocco in Western Sahara. The article by Pedro Pinto Leite and Jeffrey J. Smith offers a new insight in their detailed examination that questions technical legal theory on self-determination processes and the United Nations. Katlyn Thomas has provided us with her October 2012 Testimony to the Special Political and Decolonisation Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, alongside which we also provide the web link to the United Nations Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York June 2012 full report on the legal AFRICAN AGENDA

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“The Western Sahara conflict is made complicated by the opposite positions held by the two parties to the conflict, Polisario and Morocco. The former wants decolonisation and self-determination, the latter wants territorial expansion by military means. But also by the conflicting geo-political agendas of the regional actors and the super power nations who have their own agendas and strategic goals, not only regarding their position on Western Sahara, but also their vision of the future of all North Africa, African Union and the Middle East.� issues involved and the principle of selfdetermination.

Western Sahara Resource Watch provides an update on an imminent vote in the European Union regarding the importance of protecting Western Sahara's natural resources, another key issue in the persistence of illegal occupation. It was thus impossible to prepare this second issue without a special focus on this key topic of the Moroccan and European illegal exploitation of the natural resources of this territory, but also a chance to listen to the stories that Saharawi activists and fishermen on the ground, such as Khalil Asmar and Mohammed El Baykam, sent us.

The Saharawi women and the unique experience of the Saharawi refugees in the process of the efforts of nation-state building is another aspect that is seldom discussed. The few studies on this subject were almost all done by wonderful women from many countries who were able to visit these camps and see first-hand how they function, such as Dr Alice Wilson's introduction to the Saharawi direct democracy experiment based on her PhD research, and Sonia Rossetti's PhD research on Saharawi women's involvement in state building.

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Joining them are four Saharawi women, Fatimetu, Senia, Asria and Agaila, all students and who illuminate the thoughts and experiences of being refugee youth caught up in exile from their homeland. We hope this serves to show how the Saharawi woman is a pillar in the building of the modern experience of Saharawi society.

Rights violation The phenomenon of the massive and systematic violations of human rights in Western Sahara is another major aspect treated in this issue. It is a phenomenon because it is strikingly obvious that the Moroccan authorities of occupation are blatantly violating all internationally recognized rights, freedoms and liberties in this colony, while the international community seems to be wilfully turning a blind eye on this fact. All international human rights organizations, without a single exception, including the UN High Office of Human rights in addition to governments, parliaments, political parties, trade unions and civil society actors, have been denouncing the many human rights violations committed against Saharawi civilians in the occupied zones of Western Sahara. Konstantina Isidoros has provided a summary about the 17 February 2013 news of the Moroccan military tribunal of 25 Saharawi human 26

rights activists and provides readers with links to the world-wide campaign groups who have spoken against the military sentencing of civilians.

Yet in the 40 years since Morocco's illegal invasion of Western Sahara, the UN Security Council seems to be unable to adopt a simple resolution to mandate the UN peacekeeping mission (MINURSO) in the territory to monitor and protect Saharawi civilians from the Moroccan oppression and humiliation. MINURSO is in fact the only UN peacekeeping mission in the world without a Human Rights component and this is 'thanks' to the French refusal in the UN Security Council to allow such a decision to be taken. Both the UK based Western Sahara Campaign and Vivian Solana (also a PhD researcher) share their updates with us on this imminent renewal of the MINURSO mandate, and Salah Mohammed provides an insight of what happened when Christopher Ross, the UN special envoy, came for the first time to El Aaiun in Western Sahara in early November 2012.

Another astonishing factor that can help readers, as Africans, to link with the Saharawi people and self-determination struggle is the history of Saharawi culture, AFRICAN AGENDA

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which is ethnically a mixture of Arabs, Berbers and Africans.

So too is Saharawi music deeply rooted in both African and ArabBerber traditions. We are grateful to Danielle Smith and Violeta Ruano from the UK based arts and human rights charity, Sandblast, for providing us with the visual colour, culture and music of the Saharawi, which we weave through this very international law-themed second issue.

Danielle's article illuminates how Sandblast has set up a music project in the refugee camps and Violeta shares her PhD research on Saharawi music's role in our independence struggle. In contrast, Saharawi journalist and activist, Said Zeroual and RuGaibi Abdullah Mohammed Sheikh, have written how Saharawi under Moroccan military occupation feel about the theft of their culture and history, which is another important issue about our cultural heritage.

Finally, this Pambazuka second issue on Western Sahara offers valuable information about new books and films on our as yet un-decolonised African nation.

Anthony Pazzanita, a long-time Western Sahara observer and current editor of the 'Historical Dictionary of Western Sahara', joins us again by sharing his forthcoming book review of 'Western Sahara: The Refugee Nation' by Pablo San MartĂ­n, another academic researcher who lived in the refugee camps. Throughout the special issue, we have posted links to the a range of films and documentaries from which readers can further discover how the Saharawi are trying to use the tools of non-violent protests and freedom of speech to continue to resist the occupier, despite facing enormous pressures, oppression and violence. * Malainin Lakhal, in the Saharawi refugee camps, is Secretary General of the Saharawi Journalists and Writers Union

ENVIRONMENT

Climate change negotiations:

Uninspiring Doha pathway The latest UN conference on climate change held in the Qatari capital offered very little hope that the world is ready to resolve the climate crisis. After weeks of intensive and mostly fractious negotiations, Doha neither set more ambitious goals for reducing global emissions nor addressed the question of long term finance, writes *Kwesi W. Obeng.

THE Doha UN climate change conference (COP 18) which took place in the Qatari capital from November 26 - December 7, 2012 was particularly important as it was the first COP after the regime change that the Durban Mandate represents.

Delegates had three key tasks to grapple with in Doha: to successfully conclude work under the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action (AWGLCA) track of negotiation including a clear pathway on pre-2020 finance and Longterm finance to enable developing countries to respond to climate change; renew emission reduction commitments of developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol (the

first commitment period of which expired on December 31, 2012) and agree on a work plan for the negotiation of a comprehensive climate change agreement (drawn from the Durban Mandate) by 2015 for its implementation to start post-2020.

But after the two weeks of intensive and mostly fractious negotiations, Doha neither set a more ambitious goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions nor addressed the question of long term finance.

Five years after its launch in Bali, Indonesia, in 2007, the Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) track of negotiations was terminated in Doha amidst protest from develAFRICAN AGENDA

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oping countries that the track had not completed its mandate. Most uncompleted issues from the AWG-LCA were transferred to subsidiary bodies of the UNFCCC. Key Doha decisions include further extension, until 2020, of the Kyoto Protocol (KP) on reducing GHG emissions and a post-2012 work plan for negotiating a new global climate change deal by 2015 for implementation to begin from 2020 under the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (AWG-ADP).

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Doha : Climate change negotiators

Key Doha decisions include further extension, until 2020, of the Kyoto Protocol (KP) on reducing GHG emissions and a post-2012 work plan for negotiating a new global climate change deal by 2015 for implementation to begin from 2020 under the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (AWG-ADP).

The European Union got away with an eight-year second commitment period (2013-2020), as it offers these countries and other developed country parties that subscribed to KP-II another eight-year window to further pollute the atmosphere with climate altering gases. Ironically, the EU is projected to meet its emission reduction targets under the KP-II by the close of 2013.

The United States, a non-signatory to the protocol, couldn't be so bothered except, like some other Annex I parties, they pushed for the market mechanisms under the protocol to be accessible even to nonKP parties. Russia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and a few other developed countries which have pulled out of the KP (second commitment period) fought hard to retain access to these mechanisms too.

Negotiators will however review the targets by 2014 to raise these emission targets of participating countries. Access to flexible market mechanisms under the 28

Protocol including CDM (i.e. ability to transfer and acquire Certified Emission Reductions- CERs) were conditioned on participation in the second commitment period, a demand forcefully made by developing country groups at the negotiations.

Also under Joint Implementation only participating countries in the 2nd commitment period can transfer and acquire CERs, Assigned Amount Units (AAUs), emission reduction units (ERUs) and removal units (RMUs) valid for emissions trading in the second commitment period.

The Group of 77 and China and other developing country groupings sought for a five-year commitment period to avoid locking in low emission targets and pledges but these were in effect dismissed. Developing countries also pushed, albeit without any success, for rich countries to move to the top of their pledged ranges and without conditionalities.

The renewal of KP-II may be no more than symbolism as actual GHG cuts will amount to just about 18 per cent of global emission reductions. This is not enough to save the plant from warming above two degrees Celsius.

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“The renewal of KP-II may be no more than symbolism as actual GHG cuts will amount to just about 18 per cent of global emission reductions. This is not enough to save the plant from warming above two degrees Celsius.� presented at the negotiations paint a grim picture for the planet. Current global emissions, the report shows, are way above emission levels consistent with the two degree Celsius target in 2020. The report starkly indicates that the world is on a trajectory of four to six degrees Celsius of overheating Global emissions which declined briefly during the peak of the global financial and economic crisis between 2008 2009 have picked up again. Emissions are now already 10 per cent above what they need to be in 2020. The world is thus on track to exceed by up to a third the level of carbon emissions necessary to ensure emission cuts can take place at a cost manageable in 2020. They must peak by 2015 to

ENVIRONMENT

have any chance of reversing any damage to the planet.

Significantly, Doha mainstreamed “Loss and Damage” caused by climate change into the climate negotiations. The decision called for an international mechanism on “Loss and Damage” to be established under the UNFCCC. Developed countries resisted an agreement on “Loss and Damage” mechanism as it could form the basis for developing countries' claim for compensation for the negative effects of climate change, which is one of the key reasons for which developing country groupings, especially AOSIS campaigned for the decision.

For developing countries the decision on the mechanism is a further recognition of the suffering and the negative effects of climate change on the poorer parts of the world.

But by far the two most contentious issues at the Doha negotiations were emission reduction and finance, especially firm pledges on adequate finance from developed countries for the pre-2020 period and long term finance.

Although the Green Climate Fund (GCF) was set up in Durban in December 2011 to enable developing countries to meet the challenges imposed by an over-

heating planet, it has remained an empty fund as no country is willing to make any pledges. To avoid a discussion of finance, some developed countries led by the United States and European Union stayed away from a couple of scheduled sessions, in preference of small group consultations between influential developing and developed countries. The United States categorically declined to pledge any funds even though the Fast Start Finance ended on December 31, 2012.

Blocs The hard line stance of rich countries on finance seemed to have pulled poor country blocs together. Developing country blocs led by the G77 and China proposed a US$60 billion finance gap that rich countries ought to provide to enable developing countries to deal with climate change between 2013 and 2015. The Durban Decision requires a new climate regime to be negotiated with legal outcomes not later than 2015 for its implementation to kick-in in 2020.

The three-year Fast Start Finance (FSF) to which developed countries agreed in Copenhagen in 2009 to commit US$30 billion dollars to enable developing countries to address climate change expired on AFRICAN AGENDA

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December 31, 2012. There would be no new Fast Start Finance, rich countries told developing countries in Doha.

Doha agreed to extend the work programme on long-term finance for another year -to the end of 2013 to enable parties to more concretely resolve the issue.

However, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden and the EU Commission pledged US$6 billion dollars to enable developing countries to respond to climate change but not as part of the GCF. The absence of a concrete decision on long-term finance could undermine non-Annex I parties' ability to undertake their Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs).

Developed countries certainly walked away from Qatar the happiest, as the Doha deal further sets the scene for negotiation of a new climate regime that excludes some of the fundamental principles of the Climate Convention and key demands of developing countries. The Doha package further dismantles some previous successfully negotiated agreements and systems to address climate change. * Kwesi W. Obeng is assistant editor, African Agenda.

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sions so that the world can stay below the agreed maximum 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise.

I) Amendment of the Kyoto Protocol The Kyoto Protocol, as the only existing and binding agreement under which developed countries commit to cutting greenhouse gases, was amended so that it will continue as of 1 January 2013.

•

Length of the second commitment period will be 8 years.

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Agreed on the legal requirements that will allow a smooth continuation of the Protocol.

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The valuable accounting rules of the protocol were preserved.

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Countries that are taking on further commitments under the Kyoto Protocol have agreed to review their emission reduction commitments at the latest by 2014, with a view to increasing their respective levels of ambition.

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The Kyoto Protocol's Market Mechanisms - the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Joint Implementation (JI) and International Emissions Trading (IET) - can continue as of 2013.

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Access to the mechanisms will be uninterrupted for all developed countries that have accepted targets for the second commitment period.

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Joint Implementation (JI) will continue to operate, with the agreed technical rules allowing the issuance of credits, once a host country's emissions target has been formally established.

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As part of accounting rules, provisions relating to carry-over of assigned amount units from the first to the second commitment period were further developed, aiming to strengthen the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol regime. In addition, Australia, the EU, Japan,

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Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway and Switzerland clarified, through declarations attached to the Doha decision on the second commitment period, that they will not purchase such surplus units from other Parties.

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A significant number of meetings and workshops are to be held in 2013 to prepare the new agreement and to explore further ways to raise ambition.

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Governments agreed to submit to the UN Climate Change Secretariat, by 1 March 2013, information, views and proposals on actions, initiatives and options to enhance ambition.

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Elements of a negotiating text are to be available no later than the end of 2014, so that a draft negotiating text is available before May 2015.

III: Completion of new infrastructure •

In Doha, governments moved to completion of new infrastructure to channel technology and finance to developing nations and move toward the full implementation of this infrastructure and support. They:

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Doha endorsed the selection of the Republic of Korea as the location of the Green Climate Fund and the work plan of the Standing Committee on Finance. The Green Climate Fund is expected to start its work in Sondgo in the second half of 2013, which means that it can launch activities in 2014.

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Doha confirmed a UNEP-led consortium as host of the Climate Technology Center (CTC), for an initial five-year term. The CTC, along with its associated Network, is the implementing arm of the UNFCCCs Technology Mechanism.

Governments have also agreed the constitution of the CTC advisory board.

IV: Long-term climate finance •

The Doha agreement merely encourages developed countries to increase funding between 2013 --2015 at least to the average annual level with which they provided funds during the 2010-2012 Fast-Start Finance period.

This is to ensure there is no gap in continued finance support while efforts are otherwise scaled up.

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Germany, the UK, France, Denmark, Sweden and the EU Commission announced concrete finance pledges in Doha for the period up to 2015, totaling approximately US$6 billion.

II: Time table for the 2015 global climate change agreement and increasing ambition before 2020 Governments to work toward a universal climate change agreement covering all countries from 2020, to be adopted by 2015, and to find ways to scale up efforts before 2020 beyond the existing pledges to curb emis-

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POLITICS

Greater efforts needed to avert herder-farmer clashes in Burkina Faso Despite peace bids, Burkina Faso farmers and herders recently clashed, forcing hundreds of people to flee from their homes.

RECENT fighting between herders and farmers in Burkina Faso's central-eastern Sangou area which left seven people dead is a warning that recurrent violence between the two groups could get out of hand unless urgent action is taken.

“We are used to having frequent clashes between herders and farmers in this part of the country, but they have never been this bad,” said Allahidi Diallo, governor of the Central-East region, one of the coun-

try's most fertile.

On 31 December clashes broke out again between Fulani herdsmen and Bissa farmers after a herder's cattle grazed on a farm. “A lot of property, including houses, granaries and cattle was destroyed,” said Diallo adding that a temporary curfew was imposed in Sangou village and the surrounding areas. He said fighting had spread to areas as far as 100km away.

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erately attacking others because of their ethnicity. We must put an end to these practices where communities are attacked when one of their members has committed an offence. There is no collective responsibility under Burkina Faso law,” Interior Minister Jerome Bougouma told reporters.

He said the violence was mainly due to lack of faith in the judiciary, and the reliance on traditional laws and collective punishment. He pledged that a security forces' unit 31

POLITICS

Shepherd and his flock

would be established in the troubled region.

“There is a lack of confidence in the judiciary and the administration. We will work to rebuild confidence and the rule of law so that people can understand that they need to abide by the state laws and not traditional laws which encourage collective punishment.”

Peace efforts Deadly clashes between farmers and herders are frequent in Burkina Faso. In 2012, the government held workshops in the country's 13 regions to seek ways to ease tensions among different communities.

According to government statistics, 55 people have been killed in clashes in the past four years and on average there are 600 such conflicts every year.

The peace initiative focused on land regulation, the importance of protecting nomadic paths and seeking ways in which farmers and herders can sustainably use natural resources. In Burkina Faso, livestock are an economic mainstay for many families, with 80 percent of rural families keeping at least one or two animals to fall back 32

on when times are hard.

“During sensitization campaigns, we failed to reach a huge part of the population.

How many of those who clashed in the Centre-East region have taken part in our meetings?” asked Hassan Barry, head of Tapital Puulaku, a Fulani cultural organization promoting understanding between pastoralists and farmers. “This is not something that will end immediately.”

Barry urged that local administration officials be trained to increase understanding between farmers and herders and “sensitize them before the beginning of rainy seasons in order to have zero deaths”.

“In December, farmers lost their donkeys after an attack… but later the perpetrators were released by the security forces,” said Halidou Barry, a Fulani herder. “Justice must prevail when there are attacks from either side.”

Displaced Around 600 people, mainly women and children, have been displaced by the latest fighting, Diallo told IRIN. Some have sought refuge in villages outside Sangou AFRICAN AGENDA

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while others crossed the border into neighbouring Ghana. A local resident told IRIN the men were hiding in the bush with their cattle.

“We lost two children, one aged three months and another aged four years… because they were sick and we could not take them to hospital. It is cold, we lack food and water,” said Zaman Diao, one of those who fled after the attack.

Burkina Faso's Ministry of Social Welfare has sent food and tents to the displaced, but Diallo said more was needed.

“The emergency aid sent was done on the basis of first estimates which are now outdated…

“On security, the situation is under control. But there is an emergency. The imperative now is the management of humanitarian issues because there are huge concentrations of displaced persons in certain areas,” Diallo added. “There is no attack and no clashes. Security forces are patrolling.” * An IRIN report.

WOMEN

Swazi women find strength in numbers A majority of children in Swaziland are raised by single mothers or grandmothers, according to women's groups.

Swazi women remain forbidden from owning property

SWAZI women are organizing to promote their rights and welfare, convinced that discriminatory laws are at odds with the essential roles they play in their families and in their country's economy. “We are taking a page from the past to achieve the recognition Swazi women deserve as the ones who keep this society going. It is a scandal how the authorities refuse to take women seriously when we are holding the country together,� said Cynthia

Simelane, an activist who works with female garment workers at the Matsapha Industrial Site, outside the city of Manzini.

The Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civil Organisations has noted that the Swazi government has signed various international accords pledging to end gender discrimination, but it has never enacted legislation to put those pledges into action.

In 2005, King Mswati III, a strict traditionalist with 13 wives, signed a new constiAFRICAN AGENDA

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tution granting men and women equal rights. However, discriminatory laws - such as one that prevents women from taking out bank loans - remain in place. Another such law, forbidding women from owning property, remains on the books despite having been ruled unconstitutional.

In the past year, the Swaziland Single Mothers Association (SWAMASO), which aims to improve the lives of single mothers and reduce high teen pregnancy rates, 33

WOMEN

doubled its membership.

“In Swaziland today, a majority of children live with one or no parent, mostly because of AIDS but also because Swazi men have many girlfriends," said Thabsile Ndwandwe, a SWAMASO member. "A majority of Swazi children are raised by single mothers or by their grandmothers if the mother is no longer alive. Where are the programmes to assist these mothers?

Where is even the government acknowledgement of this reality?”

"It is a scandal how the authorities refuse to take women seriously when we are holding the country together" Instead, the government announced last week that elderly Swazis, including grandmothers, will not receive their pension stipend this quarter due to “limited resources”. Swaziland's financial crisis has not eased since the last time the government suspended pension payments in 2011.

The amount of the stipend is only US$73 per three-month period, but the majority of elderly live in chronic poverty and the suspension of the pensions will hinder their ability to purchase food and medicines and care for their grandchildren.

SWAMASO's attempts to lobby the government to give more assistance to single mothers have not yet paid off, but the organization is making a difference in other ways. Its network of community groups plays an important role in educating girls about avoiding pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. A quarter of Swaziland's population is HIVpositive, the highest rate in the world.

Tradition of organizing Activist Simelane pointed out that Swazi women have a long tradition of organizing according to their age groups, from the young maidens who assemble to collect building material for the Queen Mother ahead of the annual reed dance to the grandmothers who supervise community improvement projects.

Other women's groups include the Swazi Women for Positive Living, established in 2003 by HIV-positive women to assist other women living with the virus, and the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse, formed by women to influence policy on the country's high rates of domestic and gender-based violence.

Last month saw the establishment of a new group - the Swaziland Young Women's Network - which announced its launch with 34

A Swazi student

a march through the streets of the capital, Mbabane, to protest the prevalence of sexual harassment. The police blocked the march on the grounds that some of the women were wearing miniskirts.

A week later, the Royal Swaziland Police Force spokeswoman Wendy Hleta invoked a 19th century public indecency law as a basis for arresting women wearing miniskirts or tank tops. Hleta added that women who wore revealing clothing were responsible for provoking rape.

Her comments drew a flood of unfavourable reports in the international media, prompting a government spokesperson to deny that a mini-skirt ban was in place. Gender rights activists considered this a partial victory.

“The government's first response to women seeking our rights was to block us and threaten us with arrest, and to control us by telling us what to wear. That is their instinct, and it is going to be hard to overcome, but we are determined not only for our own sake but for the sake of the country,” said Simelane.

Ntombi Dube, a health worker in Manzini, argued that the only way for Swaziland to reverse economic and social decay was for women to assume a greater role in policymaking.

“This is what Swazi women have been AFRICAN AGENDA

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doing in our 'regiments' for generations…

Men have got to stop seeing our call for the end of discrimination against women as an attempt to usurp their authority,” she said.

The new constitution stipulates that a third of members of parliament should be women, but the actual proportion is about a quarter - and parliament's role is limited to raising and debating issues, as legislation can only be drafted by cabinet.

The women's advocacy groups insist they are not asking Swazi women to choose between traditional Swazi life and Western concepts of femininity, arguing that this is a false choice.

“There is no traditional life to live any more. It is sad that the old multi-generational homestead where women held respected roles is a thing of the past,” said Dube. “We can't go back to that, and we have to adapt as African women who are proud of a culture that respects women.

That respect got lost somewhere.”

Simelane agreed: “All these laws that make Swazi women second-class human beings, they were not part of traditional Swazi life because we did not live under Western laws. Swazi women want to return to the way it was when we were equal.” * IRIN

INTERNATIONAL

Transition:

Africa remembers Hugo Chavez Venezuela has been inundated with messages of condolence from around the world including Africa as the country mourns the death of its hugely popular and charismatic President Hugo Chavez.

Chavez who had been president of Venezuela since 1999, died on March 5 after a two-year battle with cancer in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, at the age of 58.

Vice-president Nicolas Maduro made the announcement on public television shortly after, speaking from the Military

Hospital in Caracas, where Chavez was being treated. Several Latin American countries declared days of mourning for the late Venezuelan leader.

Venezuela will hold a presidential election within 30 days. Vice President Maduro meanwhile has taken over the presidential duties.

Chavez reduced poverty in half in his country and nationalized Venezuela's oil resources for the benefit of the people. The former president emerged from the African and Indigenous working class communities AFRICAN AGENDA

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of Venezuela. He often spoke proudly of his African ancestry, saying, “We love Africa.

And every day, we are more aware of the roots we had in Africa.�

Chavez visited Banjul as guest of honour of the 7th African Union summit The Gambian capital hosted in 2006. At that summit, Chavez proposed a joint commission for four areas of cooperation among the peoples of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean in the spirit of South-South cooperation.

35

INTERNATIONAL

The areas were “Petrosouth, Telesouth, Bank of the South and University for the South”. Petrosouth for leaders to harness the power of oil for social development of their peoples; Telesouth to establish a TV station for the peoples; the Bank of the South will be a development bank to assist the poor from the three regions while the University of the South would assist in training the youths of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean in key areas.

But Chavez was essentially demonized by the United States and many other Western countries.

South Africa President Chavez's second official visit to Africa took him to South Africa in September 2008 but he had millions of admirers across the continent.

In his tribute, South African president, Jacob Zuma described Chavez as a visionary leader who was committed to the social struggles of the less fortunate. He said President Chavez's 2008 visit “further strengthened the existing solid bilateral relations between the two countries”. Zuma said, “our hearts are with the family of President Chavez, as well as the government and the people of Venezuela during this difficult time of mourning the departure of this respected revolutionary leader of Venezuela…under the leadership of President Chavez, Venezuela instituted a dramatic change under the government's 'Bolivarian' approach in Latin America and beyond in promoting regional integration based on the principles of social justice”.

Ghana Ghana's President John Mahama in a message of condolence to the government and people of Venezuela said, President Chavez would be remembered for dedicating himself to building a new society in his country through progressive social and economic change that took millions of Venezuelans out of poverty.

Flashback : 2008 Chavez with South Africa’s ex-President Mbeki

admirable efforts to improve the living conditions of underprivileged Venezuelans," said a statement from Aso Rock, the presidency.

Kenya Outgoing President Mwai Kibaki said “the people of Venezuela have lost a dependable leader who had the interests of his country and people close at heart". He noted that stronger ties forged between Venezuela and several African countries constituted “a memorable legacy of President Chavez that we shall cherish”.

Sudan Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in his message of condolence expressed his appreciation for “the late President Chavez's stances in support of Sudan". He described Chavez “a world leader who called for liberating peoples from hegemony”.

Gambia Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan expressed his “sincere commiserations to the government and people of Venezuela”. “President Jonathan and Nigerians join the brotherly people of Venezuela in mourning President Chavez who greatly endeared himself to the ordinary people of his country with his 36

bully people and other countries but instead transform the lives of the ordinary people at home and abroad. “This is a proper example of what a real leadership is,” said the presidential statement.

In Gambia, the government dedicated two days of prayer for the late Venezuelan president, his family and the country. The Yahya Jammeh government said, “The Gambia has not only lost a dear friend but a true fighter for the poor and helpless”.

The government hailed the late president for not using his country's wealth to

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United Nations Gen-Sec UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed sadness at the death of Chavez and offered his condolences to the family of the president, the government and the people of Venezuela. “President Chavez spoke to the challenges and aspirations of the most vulnerable Venezuelans.”

The late president “provided decisive impetus for new regional integration movements, based on an eminently Latin American vision, while showing solidarity toward other nations in the hemisphere,” Ban said.

In a tribute TransAfrica noted that although Chavez was often reduced to onedimension by the mainstream media, he was a dynamic leader who will be remembered for his tremendous contributions to strengthen the well being of the most disadvantaged. “Chavez's policies had an impact not only on the poor in Venezuela, but with his leadership Venezuela also reached out to help support those most in need beyond its borders.”

INTERNATIONAL

Hugo Chavez and race: The shift from avoidance to inclusion In the wake of the death of the President Chavez, *Janvieve Williams Comrie offers an Afro-descendant view on the meaning of Hugo Chavez,

“RACISM is very characteristic of imperialism and capitalism. Hate against me has a lot to do with racism. Because of my big mouth and curly hair. And I'm so proud to have this mouth and this hair, because it is African.�Hugo Chavez, September 21, 2005 The death of democratically elected President Hugo Chavez Frias (1954-2013) has evoked serious thoughts and reflections on the meaning of his life and the process he led from peoples and communities throughout the Americas and the world.

Despite much criticism by many right wing

governments and people in the West, Hugo Chavez led a process in Venezuela that symbolised the new assertiveness and self-consciousness of nations in Latin America that saw a future for themselves, liberated from the heavy-handed, oppressive and economically draining policies of their powerful neighbour from the North.

But along with the symbolism connected to the new politics of authentic decolonisation that many of the centre-left states embraced, Chavez was committed to a process of providing real, substantive support to states in the region who were willing AFRICAN AGENDA

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to pursue a course that could result in a real shift in power in the region. What that signified for many of us in the Afro-descendant communities in the Americas, was that the rise of Chavez and the Bolivarian process that the people of Venezuela had embarked on would raise the spectrums of a new kind of politic in the region. We hoped that with the new commitment to social inclusion and the ending of all forms of oppression that the issue of race and racial discrimination would become an acceptable and indeed an essential element of the transformation process in the Americas.

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INTERNATIONAL

Flashback : Hugo Chavez meets former AU Commission chairman Jean Ping

Venezuela and its relations to African descendants in the diaspora Under his 14-year leadership, Chavez was able to guide unprecedented government initiatives that led to programmes and policies that resulted in significant progress toward combating the historical legacy of racism and discrimination that historically plagued the country. Chavez also provided similar parallel support to other nations with predominantly Afro descendant populations, where their governments were not willing to make it a priority. President Chavez was able to institute many reforms to ensure African descendants in Venezuela could have full and equal access to social, economic and cultural rights.

The preamble of the new 1999 Constitution, states that Venezuela "is a multiethnic and multicultural society" that "guarantees the right to life, to work, to culture, to education, to social justice and equality without discrimination or subordination". Among the several reforms to support this new recognition of race and culture was the creation in 2005 of the Presidential Commission for the Prevention and Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination in the Venezuelan Educational System. This commission was tasked with examining, advising and proposing reforms on racially and culturally appropriate education, including but not limited to literacy programmes, access to higher education by all, and a series of programmes intended for Afro descendants 38

and indigenous peoples to leverage their education in the context of their cultural idiosyncrasies (including learning in their traditional languages). Chavez also took the bold step of requiring that all schools include the contributions of AfroVenezuelans in their curriculum.

Also included in his work against racial discrimination is the creation of the "law against racial discrimination", the incorporation of the category of Afro Descendant in the census, and the creation of Afro Venezuelan Day, as well as the expansion of embassies and consulates in Africa to name a few.

While the United States has a historical pretense of humanitarian support of devastated countries, its record in actually providing expedited support to countries that do not fit into their strategic economic relationships, Venezuela under President Chavez rose to the support and plight of several issues related to African descendants in other countries, including the United States.

After the ravishing of Hurricane Katrina through the Gulf coast in 2005, despite a strained political relationship with the United States government, Venezuela offered aid to the region through its Venezuelan Embassy in the form of mobile hospitals, medical workers, power plants, and food, among others. Venezuela's offers were overtly denied by the US government (under then President George W Bush).

Haiti is another example of how Chavez has prioritised and ensured that the AFRICAN AGENDA

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historical plight of African descendants for economic, social and cultural rights be respected. In light of the multiple natural disasters that have plagued the first free African country in the region since 2010, Venezuela wrote off Haiti's over US$395 million in foreign debt, and pledged more financial support to relief the devastation than either the United States or the European Union.

And if that was not enough, since 2005, Venezuela has been leading initiatives in Afro descendant communities such as New Orleans and the South Bronx, providing them with discounted heating oil, and free energy saving light bulbs to poor and low income families during the winter months, and providing grants to community-based organisations to build self-sustaining institutions such as worker-owned cooperatives, and holistic healthcare for women.

Following a legacy Many African descendants in the region are certainly mourning the passing of President Chavez. He represented a refreshing lesson on upholding human rights, rather than talking about them, through his prioritisation of African descendent issues and politics, not only within Venezuela, but also outside of Venezuela.

Many of us will remain attentive to what the near future of Venezuela holds for it in the next few days and months, to view and see how either a continuum of the current government and leadership or a new government will continue to uphold the strides that were accomplished by President Chavez.

And although he has left this life to join the ancestors, we know that he will always be with us. We are proud of this "AfricanAmerican" president and with his example we will continue to uphold the principles that he stood for as we struggle for a new world free from domination and oppression. * Janvieve Williams Comrie, is the current Executive Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Community Center. Her previous professional experience include the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights Central America Regional Office and the US Human Rights Network in the United States, where she worked directly on race and racial discrimination and human rights. Comrie's article was first published by Al Jazeera.

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