Years of war forced Passion, 13, to live on the street in Goma, eastern DRC. Experts on conflict say that the implementation of non-violent approaches to conflict needs to become a priority in Africa. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI , May 25 2013 (IPS)

“My husband and older son, unable to cope with the war, became mentally ill. Two of my sons became child soldiers and an eight-year-old daughter was abducted – they were never to be seen again,” Mariamu Dong says, referring to the 21-year civil war between north and south Sudan, which are now separate countries.

Her seven children grew up during those years of bloodshed, but only one made it through.

“I move around like one whose limbs have been cut off, having lost my husband and children to the war. Only my last child was able to survive and now lives in Kenya. All this time, the world watched from a distance,” she says.

The south became an independent nation on Jul. 9, 2011 and Dong lives in what is now South Sudan, in Torit, Eastern Equatoria state. But every day she is reminded of the war that the world and the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which is now the African Union (AU), left to continue unabated.“People ask me about what I want for my future and I give them silence." -- Nisa Luambo, DRC rape survivor.

It was the regional body, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), that finally brokered the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and the government of Sudan. It eventually led to the end of the civil war and paved the way for South Sudan’s independence. The IGAD currently consists of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda.

But experts on conflict say that as the continent celebrates Africa Day on May 25, along with the 50th anniversary since the formation of the OAU, which became the AU in 2001, the implementation of non-violent approaches to conflict needs to become a priority.

“The AU, and the OAU before that, slept through a substantive part of the conflict in Africa. The millions of lives lost across the continent are testament to the fact that the OAU/AU has failed Africans,” Lionel Ibaka, a Congolese expert on peace and security, tells IPS.

Ibaka says one such example is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict that the United Nations estimates claimed about five million lives since it began in 1998.

In March, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution that called for the deployment of an intervention brigade in the central African nation to neutralise rebel forces in eastern DRC.

But the intervention may have come a little too late.

“The bloodshed and terror in DRC has been hailed as the deadliest and most destructive since World War II,” Ibaka says.

According to a 2010 report by the U.N. Refugee Agency titled: “DRC: Mapping human rights violations 1993-2003”, violence in the DRC has been “accompanied by the apparent systematic use of rape and sexual assault allegedly by all combatant forces.”

Rape survivor Angeline Mwarusena lives in Bukavu, eastern DR Congo. She is one of the 2.2 million people have been affected by the fighting in the country which started in early 2012. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

The report also states that 30,000 children were used as child soldiers and experienced “indescribable violence”.

Nisa Luambo, 27, from South Kivu province, eastern DRC, lived through this. And while she is alive, the violence she endured has killed a part of her. She was only 12 years old when the war broke out in 1998 and she became separated from her family.

“I have been sexually abused by both soldiers and civilians. I have had four miscarriages during this time, (and I had) no medical attention and little food,” she tells IPS.

“People ask me about what I want for my future and I give them silence.

“Where were they when we got raped and beaten to near death – if we were lucky – because many people died,” she says adding, that the country is still unstable and that there is no end in sight to the conflict.

“I feel no joy when I think about tomorrow. I know that there is no tomorrow for people living in conflict.”

Vincent Kimosop, chief executive officer of the International Institute for Legislative Affairs, an NGO that offers technical support to government departments, members of parliament and other stakeholders in the legislative process, says that poor governance is at the heart of conflict in Africa.

“The AU needs to do more when it comes to supporting the development of governance institutions on the continent since state institutions provide the bedrock for a country to function,” he tells IPS.

Javas Bigambo, an expert on governance, human rights and development in Africa, concurs.

“The AU must refuse to be blind to atrocities and ills committed by African presidents. Regrettably, the AU has rarely ever found any fault with an African leader, or even come up with remedies to Africa’s governance and economic challenges.”

Bigambo says that the continent’s history of violent conflict “points to Africa’s tattered social and political fabric…Africa is perpetually in turmoil.”

Bigambo says the Rwandan genocide, a mass slaughter that claimed an estimated 800,000 lives according to the U.N., and Kenya’s 2007 to 2008 post-election violence in which 1,000 people were killed and 600,000 internally displaced, are all part of the African narrative.

But Julius Mucunguzi, a Ugandan scholar of conflict reporting, tells IPS that things are improving.

“Africa is on a path of renewal. It is getting better. While the OAU was established 50 years ago, the AU is only slightly over a decade old and is already putting good structures in place to enhance peace and security in Africa.

“But, AU institutions such as its Peace and Security Council must invest in early-warning mechanisms to ensure that signs of possible conflict are picked up and actual conflict is averted,” he says.

Nyan Tuch in her temporary home in a camp outside of Aweil where she is living until the government provides her family with land. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

He adds that an independent, pluralistic and vibrant media is critical to Africa’s development and calls on the AU to create an environment that celebrates press freedom and the right to information.

Press freedom remains elusive in many parts of Africa, with Uganda and Somalia being two such examples. Last year, in Somalia 18 members of the media were killed across the country, according to figures from the National Union of Somali Journalists.

In Uganda, state intolerance of the media came to the fore on May 20 when the government shut down the Daily Monitor, the East African nation’s leading daily.

The paper’s printing press, website and two radio stations were also shuttered for reporting on an incriminating letter about President Yoweri Museveni, which stated that he was grooming his son to take over the presidency.

Mucunguzi says the ongoing instability and turmoil on the continent notwithstanding, “Africa is making significant strides.”

Bigambo says that going forward the AU must “strengthen economic blocks” such as the East African Community, IGAD and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.

“Regional trade is a key building block for promoting an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa,” he says.

The right to a legal identity is fundamental to meeting all other rights and protect a child from other forms of abuse and exploitation. Pictured here children in Kafue, Zambia. Credit: Brian Moonga/IPS

By Martin Mogwanja and Carlos Lopes
ADDIS ABABA , May 24 2013 (IPS)

There is much to celebrate this week as the African Union marks 50 years as an independent pan-African entity. 

In the last half century, Africa has witnessed an era of self-determination and independence. As the continent looks to the next 50 years, the focus must be on how to build an inclusive future based on the aspirations and rights of the continent’s more than one billion citizens.

This will rely on every country in the AU being equipped to lay the best foundation for their youngest citizens, their children.

Yet, as the talk of Africa’s new economic potential increases and more countries move into the middle income ranks, the reality is that this young continent, with half of its population under the age of 18, still has much to do if this youth dividend is to lead to a stable, democratic and fairer place where its young people can reach adulthood.

Under the AU, many progressive plans for human rights and development have been agreed.  Many of them are built on the best of international law, policy and practice. Many of them are built on the basis that the continent’s people, and especially its children, are its greatest asset.

Despite these noble commitments, there is a silent scandal that needs to be urgently addressed: the scandal of invisibility. Across the continent, millions are born and millions die with their lives unrecorded.  For example, only 44 percent of children under five years of age have their births registered.  The majority of these live in rural or remote areas and many are poor and on the periphery of Africa’s new wealth and prosperity.

One only needs to look at other successful developed regions to realise that effective, efficient and modern systems of civil registration and vital statistics form the basis of good governance, economic integration and offer the security of identity that all people require.

How can a country plan when it does not know how many people are born and where? How can a government build a health system if it does not know how many die, where and of what cause?

Conducting a census every few years is a key. But strong vital statistics based on real-time information provide leaders and decision-makers with the knowledge required to plan and deliver basic services.

The right to a legal identity, enshrined in the African Charter of the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, is fundamental to meeting all other rights and protect a child from other forms of abuse and exploitation.

In some countries, proof of birth through a birth certificate can determine whether a child has access to primary school – or not. In others, its absence can mean a girl may be forced into early marriage because even with a law in place, she has no document to prove that she is still too young.  In yet other countries, it means that boys and girls can be forced into armed factions or exploited as cheap labour – because people with the interests of children at heart cannot make a case for exempting those too young to serve.

So if arguments for building strong civil registration and vital statistics are well accepted, why are we still not yet seeing them translated into results on the ground?

Momentum is building. African leaders agreed in 2012 to make this a priority and regular ministerial meetings are held every two years to share expertise and help strengthen civil registration systems.

Under the auspices of the Africa Programme on Accelerated Improvement on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics, African governments are now working alongside the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank and other U.N. agencies to provide the technical support needed to help build effective systems.

We have seen the introduction in some countries of technology and innovations to help leap frog progress. The U.N. Children’s Fund, with support from the European Union, is identifying ways to use new technology to increase birth registration and expand services to remote areas.

Coordination between ministries and between local, state and national governments is improving and initiatives such as setting up registration sites in hospitals and health clinics are also helping to increase the numbers of newborns being reached.

But even with this success, progress is still too slow, with too many people not registered and technological and digital advances not being introduced in areas where they could make a dramatic difference.

In remote and rural regions, civil registers often struggle, due to inadequate transport or a lack of incentives, to reach their constituents and instead wait for people to come to them. Often parents do not understand the importance of their child being registered or the contribution it could make to a country’s national development. Often budgets are inadequate to roll out services to everyone.

As African Heads of State meet to celebrate the achievements of independence and forge plans for the next 50 years, it is now time for them to be practical. Investing in civil and vital registration systems to make sure that all of the continent’s citizens, especially the very youngest, are counted right from the start is a critical first step.

*Martin Mogwanja became U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) deputy executive director in 2011. He has worked all over the world for UNICEF including serving as Representative in Pakistan, Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo and also as deputy regional director for West and Central Africa in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

**Carlos Lopes of Guinea-Bissau is the executive secretary of the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa. He has more than 24 years experience at the U.N. as U.N. Development Programme resident coordinator and resident representative in Brazil and Zimbabwe. A member of several African academic networks, as well as a strategist and socio-economist, Lopes has vast experience in capacity-building and technical cooperation on the continent.

By Sudeshna Chowdhury
NEW YORK, May 24 2013 (IPS)

Say “Africa” and myriad images flood our minds. Like its landscape and peoples, the continent’s history is rich and diverse. While numerous books have been written and films made on the African slave trade in the West, a lesser-known aspect of the continent’s history lies in India.

Courtesy of Sylviane Diouf.

On the occasion of Africa Day and the Asian-Pacific American heritage month of May, IPS correspondent Sudeshna Chowdhury interviewed Sylviane A. Diouf, a renowned historian who studies the African diaspora, about the presence of Africans in India and the rest of Asia.

Diouf is also one of the curators of an exhibition called “Africans In India: From Slaves to Generals and Rulers” which is on display at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: How different is the story of Asian Africans from the African diaspora in the rest of the world, such as in America or Europe?

A: Not all Africans arrived in Asia as slaves. Some were traders, artisans, and religious leaders. India had an abundance of local slaves to perform hard labour, so the Africans and foreign slaves were mostly employed in specialised jobs as domestics in wealthy households, in the royal courts, and in the armed forces.

Africans were regarded as exceptional warriors and they fought in armies all over India, alongside Arabs, Turks, Indians and Afghans. They could rise through the ranks and become “elite slaves”, amassing wealth and power and even becoming rulers in their own right.

Elite slavery was often a frontier phenomenon, often found in areas that underwent instability due to struggles between factions and where hereditary authority was weak. Rulers considered Africans reliable because they were outsiders with no family, clan or caste connections to the indigenous populations, so they promoted them as court officials, administrators, and army commanders."Elite slaves were frequently at the centre of court disputes and sometimes seized power for themselves." -- Sylviane A. Diouf

These elite slaves were frequently at the centre of court disputes and sometimes seized power for themselves. Slave soldiers, guards, and bodyguards were routinely freed after a few years of service, often married local women, and were integrated into the larger society.

Q: Why do you think Africans were able to distinguish themselves so easily in countries like India, unlike say in Western countries? Is there a greater story of assimilation here that made it possible for Africans to rise from slaves to generals and then rulers?

A: Due to Islamic laws, enslaved Africans tended to have much greater social mobility than West Africans did in the Americas. One distinctive trait of slavery in the Islamic world was that, contrary to what happened in the West, bondage and “race” were not linked. Instead, factors such as religion, ethnicity, and caste were often more influential than colour.

The Africans’ success in India was theirs but it is also a strong testimony to the open-mindedness of a society in which they were a small religious and ethnic minority, originally of low status. As foreigners and Muslims, Africans ruled over indigenous Hindu, Muslim and Jewish populations. It would have been unthinkable in the West.

Today, in a country of 1.2 billion people, there are about 50,000 to 70,000 African descendants. It is thus not surprising that most Indians have never heard of them. Many people know of the famous 16th century Malik Ambar, a former Ethiopian slave who became a prime minister and regent and was a bitter foe of the Moghuls, but some are not aware he was African.

Our exhibition will travel to India and this will help put the Africans’ place in India history in more people’s consciousness.

Q: What is the current state of these Africans in India? In most cases, why do you think they continue to live in poverty?

A: A majority of Sidis (Africans in India are called Sidis) live in poverty or are part of the working class: drivers, domestics, security guards, etc. Others are farmers and some belong to the middle class. According to their own organisations, the lack of education and of strong leadership is an impediment.

Some Sidis are recognised as “scheduled tribes” and benefit from affirmative action programmes, but others are denied the status or are not given the opportunity to make use of it.

Q: Any interesting observations during your visit to India? Was the African community in India aware of their roots and identity? Did they care?

A: It’s a diverse community. Some people are aware and do care, others are not and perhaps would not care. The people I met were very conscious of their identity as descendants of Africans and as Muslims. They were also very conscious of being Indians.

For the past several years, Western and Indian scholars have been doing research on the communities for books, photographs, articles, exhibitions, and documentaries and that has led some Sidis to learn about and value their own past and history.

Q: Do you see the image of Africa changing in today’s world? Has it managed to move beyond its stereotypical image of poverty, hunger and deprivation?

A: I think the image has already changed positively in some circles: the arts world, among younger generations, for instance, thanks to the extraordinary crop of writers, painters, musicians, designers, architects, and other artists who are producing wonderful work.

Excerpt:

By Siphosethu Stuurman
May 24 2013 (IPS)

With its youthful population, fast growing economies and an expanding middle class, Africa has much to celebrate on 25^th May, Africa Day.

This year Africa Day also marks the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963.

When IPS Africa spoke to a few health experts we found out that advances in health, especially treatment of HIV and Aids are some of the areas we can celebrate this Africa Day.

We also heard what needs to happen over the coming years to make greater progress in the area of healthcare.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/Africa_Leads_Fight_Against_HIV.mp3[/podcast]

South Africa is a country rich in culture and diversity but its Africa Day awareness seems to be lagging behind.

By Siphosethu Stuurman
May 22 2013 (IPS)

As the continent prepares to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on Africa Day, 25^th of May, IPS Africa speaks to ordinary South Africans to hear how they plan to celebrate this important day.

However the responses we received were rather disappointing.

Africa Day is an annual commemoration of the historic 1963 meeting of leaders of 32 independent African states to form the OAU, now simply known as African Union (AU).

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/SA_Africa_Day_Awareness_Lagging_Behind.mp3[/podcast]

Dr Theresa Moyo says there are increasing signs that Africa is taking gender equity seriously.

By Siphosethu Stuurman
May 20 2013 (IPS)

History was made last year July when the African Union Commission elected Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as its chairperson, making her the first woman to lead the organisation.

Now as the continent gears-up to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the 1963 formation of the AU, then known as the Organisation of African Unity, IPS Africa spoke to a few leading women and gender activists to find out if women have equal status with men on the continent.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/Gender_equity_a_work_in_progress.mp3[/podcast]