By Travis Lupick
BLANTYRE, Dec 16 2011 (IPS)

On an elegant veranda adorned with a red carpet, Malawi’s Vice President Joyce Banda recalls how her childhood friend Chrissie Mtokoma was always top of their class and how she struggled to beat her. But now decades later Banda is a likely contender for the country’s presidency in 2014, while Mtokoma lives in poverty.

Malawi's Vice President Joyce Banda recalls how her childhood friend was always top of their class and how she struggled to beat her. Credit: Katie C. Lin/IPS

“She went to school in the village and I went to school in the town,” begins the highest-ranking woman in Malawi politics. “I would get home Friday evening and Chrissie would be waiting for me by the roadside.”

Banda tells parallel narratives contrasting her own upbringing with that of Mtokoma’s. “In the village school, Chrissie was first in her class, all the way to standard six (grade eight),” she tells IPS. “I was always number two or three, always fighting to beat her. But I couldn’t.”

Later, both girls were accepted into prestigious secondary schools. But after just three months, Mtokoma was forced to drop out.

“Chrissie’s uncle couldn’t pay for a second semester,” Banda says. “That was it for Chrissie. She went back to the village and into a vicious cycle of poverty, ignorance, early marriage, and then early motherhood. By the time I finished school, she had maybe five children. And today, Chrissie is where I left her.”

Banda maintains she was only able to stay in school thanks to the middle-class income her father earned working as a policeman. “So I went on, finished, and now I am vice president of this land,” she tells IPS. “Chrissie, she is locked up in the village, in poverty. And that makes me angry. Why am I here and she is not?”

As Banda entered adulthood, these childhood memories drew her attention to the benefits of education, and especially economic empowerment, to which she has dedicated much of her life.

In recent years, Malawian women have made significant gains in their struggle for full gender equality. Women are increasingly represented in national politics, for example. Malawi’s May 2009 federal election saw the proportion of female Members of Parliament rise from 14 percent to 22. And though a minority, it is not difficult to find women’s names among the ranks of corporate board members.

Yet women in Malawi remain disproportionately affected by poverty. In 2004, the National Statistics Office found that while only 25 percent of the country’s households were headed by women, they accounted for 58.4 percent of the country’s poorest homes. Moreover, women in Malawi remain significantly under-represented in areas of economic decision-making.

Banda and other leading women argue that the key to addressing these problems is to put more of the country’s money in the hands of its mothers.

Seodi White, national coordinator for Women and Law in Southern Africa, recalls her involvement in the country’s first marches for women, which were held in the late 1990s. More than a decade later, she argues that there is still much work to be done.

Even small amounts of money can create life-changing opportunities for the country’s most disadvantaged women, White says. She describes the results of an experiment her organisation led in a village in Mangochi District. Women were given roughly 110 dollars and left to do with it as they wished.

“We found out that these are not idle hands,” White says.

One woman made sweets out of sugar and sold them to nearby schools. Another baked and sold small cakes. And a third invested in a tobacco operation. The women made enough to keep their small businesses going, and invested excess earnings in purchases that benefited their families; blankets for their children, iron sheets to improve a dwelling’s thatched roof, and household items such as salt and sugar that previously were only provided by their husbands.

“This kind of power can create a level of decision-making at the family and community level that can have cascading effects on the country,” White emphasises.

She points to studies by financial institutions such as Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, which, time and again, have shown that women are significantly more likely than men to invest in areas that alleviate poverty such as health, education, and business improvement.

“Women are trained to care for others,” she reasons. “Very few women would just use money for their own personal gain.”

At the side of the road in Blantyre, a group of women selling scraps of plastic discuss what they wish for their businesses. At the top of everyone’s list is an investment or small loan.

Cecelia Goba, 40, and Ellen Mawuwa, 35, say that they would use funds to import and resell goods from neighbouring countries such as Mozambique.

“I would buy clothes and shoes outside this country and sell them here,” Mawuwa says. “We have friends in such businesses and they are doing quite fine.”

A number of non-profit organisations are active in Malawi supplying the sort of micro-loans made famous by the Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. And the vice president’s newly-formed People’s Party recently launched an initiative called Orange Achievers, which aims to maximise the economic potential of Malawian women.

But supply cannot meet demand. And as Mary Malunga, executive director for the National Association of Business Women, explains, there are a host of other challenges Malawian women must overcome if they are to excel in the professional world.

“Women need to work 10 times harder than men to prove that any job that a man can do, a woman can do too,” she explains. “Women, due to perceived social and cultural roles, are not respected when they are in leadership positions.”

Malunga, a successful businesswomen herself, offered a few words of advice.

“To get to where I am today, it took what I call the three Ps: patience, perseverance, and prayer,” she says. “You need to persevere through all kinds of challenges and obstacles which, at times, will make you feel like you will never reach your intended destination.”

White echoes Malunga’s remarks. “Determination, determination, determination,” she emphasises, warning that this may mean sacrificing other aspects of one’s life, including having a boyfriend. Falling pregnant may end a young girl’s dreams.

“You might get pregnant, and that would be the end of it,” White explains. “Most girls don’t realise the kinds of difficult decisions that some of us had to make to reach where we are.”

And at the vice president’s compound in Blantyre, Banda reiterates that economic empowerment is the path to education and prosperity. But she stresses that this does not mean anybody should wait for a handout.

“My advice to younger women is that we have a moral obligation to make it,” Banda maintains. “Regardless of what we face, we need to forge ahead, we need to keep going. For us, it is a responsibility that we have in order to push our fellow women forward.”

Excerpt:

By Louise Redvers and - -
LUANDA, Nov 15 2011 (IPS)

Adolfo Andre knows what he wants for his country and says he will fight on until he gets it.

Several dozen protestors square off with police in a demonstration in the capital Luanda. Credit: Louise Redvers/IPS

“When I see my brothers and sisters living in these terrible conditions when the country is so rich yet people are dying of hunger and from not having clean water or medicines, I have to fight for this because I am Angolan.”

The 32-year-old, who was born two weeks before Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos took office in 1979, is part of a new youth protest movement which emerged in the country at the start of this year.

Partly inspired by the Arab Spring, partly by their own experiences of living abroad, but mostly by what they say is utter frustration about the huge inequalities that divide Angola, the group has no fixed political affiliations and no formal leadership.

Starting off with just a dozen people, their support base has grown rapidly, thanks to social networking sites like Facebook, and in October they mobilised some 700 people to walk down a main street in Luanda carrying placards saying “Down with the dictator” and “32 years is too long”.

Although still small in size, the protests are largely unprecedented in a country where the government controls the media (both state and private) and uses a sophisticated patronage network to ensure critical voices stay muted.

“There are many people in Angola who know things are not right but who rely on the government and the ruling party for their jobs and livelihoods,” Andre, who lived for 15 years as a refugee in South Africa, explained.

“These people are too scared to stand up and challenge what is going on because of what they might lose.

“But the millions of Angolans who have no food, no homes, no jobs and no hope, these are the people we are trying to mobilise, and we believe things are changing, people are starting to question,” he added.

In the past few months there have been a number of protests staged not just in the capital Luanda, but also in other towns and cities, as well as a rush of rare industrial action, at both private and state- owned companies.

Pedro Seabra, a researcher at the Portuguese Institute of International Relations and Security in Lisbon said: “Angola is still a very long way off from any sort of Arab Spring but these protests are very new for Angola and very significant. Things are definitely staring to change.”

While the oil-rich country has enjoyed stellar growth since the end of its three-decade civil war in 2002, and is forecast to see a GDP hike of 12 percent in 2012, only a few of its people have shared in the peace dividend.

According to the United Nation’s recently-released 2011 Human Development Index, Angola ranks 148 out of 187 countries and more than half of the population lives below the poverty line without access to basic services.

Following the death of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi who spent 42 years in power, Dos Santos now uncomfortably vies with Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang for the unenviable title of longest-serving president in Africa. After decades of unquestioned rule, the 69-year-old is rapidly becoming a hated figure.

“Every member of the Dos Santos clan is rich and his daughters are some of the richest women in Africa,” said Makuta Nkondo, a member of parliament for the main opposition party UNITA (Union for Total Independence of Angola).

“On top of that all the members of the government are rich, and this wealth is scandalous when the people of Angola don’t have water, electricity, health services or decent education.”

But standing up to the Angolan authorities comes with a cost.

Andre, who has experiences in construction and banking and speaks fluent English, said he has been unable to find work since moving back to Angola in January and many of those who have taken part in the demonstrations have also lost their jobs.

“It has made my life a bit difficult and it’s put me in danger,” he said. “The security services follow us all the time, wherever we go they know where we are. There’s nowhere to hide from them, they are everywhere, always listening and watching.”

In September Andre was among several dozen protestors who were arrested for taking part in a demonstration in the capital Luanda. He spent over six weeks in jail before his sentence (for public order offences) was mysteriously overturned by the Supreme Court.

Days earlier he claims the group were approached by a top general and offered cars and money to call off their action.

“When we refused the gifts,” he told IPS, “The guy said ‘you’ll see how the fire burns’, and a few days later at the protest we were arrested and badly beaten by the police.

“My family are worried for me, of course, I have a young son and my girlfriend is currently pregnant, so it is a concern but I am also not scared of these people.”

However after an initially heavy-handed response to the protests, the government has changed tack, condemning the youth as insubordinate and accusing them of wanting to re-start the civil war.

Meanwhile for every anti-government protest that is organised, the ruling MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) stages several of its own events, bussing people into city centres, giving them t-shirts, putting on concerts and calling for the country to work together to preserve peace rather than sow division.

And not only is the state media propaganda machine working overtime, highlighting every government project and success and pledging to improve energy and water supplies, Dos Santos, in his annual State of the Nation address in October, took pains to deny he was a dictator.

“There is no dictatorship here whatsoever,” Dos Santos said. “On the contrary, in the country there is a new democracy which is lively, dynamic and participatory and which is being consolidated every day.”

According to Elias Isaac, the director of the Angola office of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, the protests were getting to the authorities.

“You can see that they are feeling the pressure, otherwise they wouldn’t be reacting like this,” he said.

But MPLA spokesman Rui Falcao Pinto de Andrade denied the government was nervous or that Angola was on the verge of an “Arab Spring”.

“We have nothing to do with North Africa,” he said. “We have come out of a long war and what we need is stability to be able to develop.

“It is easy to be in opposition and criticise everything, to see things that are not there, but we the MPLA are working hard for a new era of development and peace.”

Angola is due to hold elections in 2012, although Dos Santos has not yet confirmed whether he will stand again. Under a new constitution ratified in February 2010, the head of state is chosen from the top of the list of the party that wins the most votes. In 2008, the first election to be held in Angola for 16 years, the MPLA won an 82 percent majority.

The next protest action is scheduled for December.

Excerpt:

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman and - -
KIKWIT, DR Congo, Nov 12 2011 (IPS)

The 11 candidates contesting presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo all pledge to improve peace and security in the country – promises received with varying degrees of scepticism by Congolese voters.

“Our ambition is to provide our country with 150,000 soldiers and 200,000 police officers – well- trained personnel – with a view to greater stability in terms of both national defence and public security,” declared Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito on Nov. 4, as he announced the campaign platform of the Presidential Majority, the group which is campaigning for another term for the incumbent president, Joseph Kabila.

Muzito believes that reforms of the army, police and security services which are already under way are on the right path. “The improvement in pay, with the objective of paying every last soldier and police officer more than 100 U.S. dollars (a month), as well as the cleaning up of staff, will contribute to the establishment of a strong army and national police.”

DRC’s army in particular includes large numbers of poorly-trained personnel, former members of armed groups who have been absorbed into the national army. Training – and in some cases dismissing – unsuitable fighters is a key task facing the government.

Meanwhile, insecurity remains a pressing problem, particularly in the east of the country. Members of the national army, as well as fighters belonging to the country’s myriad rebel groups, have been implicated in widespread assault, murder, rape and terrorisation of the population.

The National Strategy for the Fight Against Gender-Based Violence, a document published in 2010 by the Ministry for Gender, the Family and Children, estimates that six million people have been killed or displaced by DRC’s successive wars, the majority of these women and children.

“The growing number of attacks by armed men against civilians has forced tens of thousands of people in (the eastern provinces of) North and South Kivu to flee,” notes the DRC chapter of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its website.

According to an independent study carried out recently for the ICRC, 76 percent of the country’s population has been affected by the armed conflict. Fifty-eight percent have been displaced from their homes; nearly half have lost a close relative; and more than one in four people know someone who has suffered sexual violence.

Working with responses provided by a nationwide sample of more than 3,400 women in the country’s most recent Demographic and Health Survey, U.S. researchers calculate that between 1.7 and 1.8 million Congolese women have been raped in their lifetime: over 400,000 reported having been raped in the year preceding the data collection in 2007.

In an article published in the American Journal of Public Health in June, the study’s authors – Amber Peterman of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Tia Palermo of the School of Medicine at Stony Brook University and the World Bank’s Caryn Bredenkamp – also report that more than one in five women surveyed reported suffering sexual violence from their husbands or partners – leading them to suggest future policy.

Yet Muzito did not set out clearly what President Kabila will do to fight against gender-based violence, if he is re-elected.

“The improvement of working conditions for magistrates and measures to boost morale in the justice sector aims to establish a judicial system better able to guarantee the rights and freedoms of citizens, and to put an end to the impunity that has been so widely condemned,” he explained.

Vital Kamerhe, who is running against Kabila as the presidential candidate for the opposition Union for the Congolese Nation, has offered a more concrete proposal: “If we are elected, we will put in place a joint international court to try and severely punish the perpetrators of rape and violence against women.”

Kamerhe, a former ally of Kabila who served as president of the National Assembly from 2006 to 2009, says the joint court would have competent and incorruptible judges who would be well paid – all part of measures to ensure the judicial system is well equipped to end impunity.

“For good security, we will have a well-trained army and police, strong and very well paid,” he adds.

“The 150,000 troops and 200,000 police called for by (Kabila’s Presidential Majority) will prove insignificant for a country of 2,245,000 square kilometres and around 63 million inhabitants,” says Viviane Lengelo, president of the Network of Women in Action for Integrated Development in DRC. However, she strongly supports the creation of a joint international court for gender-based violence. “Women have suffered so much for nothing.”

Politicians’ promises don’t seem to have convinced a sceptical public. “Simple demagoguery,” says Rose Muntupanza, a farmer in Bandundu, in the southwest of DRC. “For years now we have heard so many honeyed words – but without concrete actions.”

“Promises are only promises,” agrees Mbuta Mwashi, a member of the Union of Mobutuist Democrats, one of the 400+ political parties. “We are waiting for concrete action.”

“To ensure security for all citizens in a country as large as the DRC is not easy – a country where women suffer from violence of all kinds,” says Laurent Bwenia Muhenia, of the African Association for the Defence of Human Rights, a local civil society organisation. The winner of the elections must respect his promises, “if not, that will not go down well with the population, above all with women,” he added.

Excerpt:

By Emmanuel Chaco and - -
KINSHASA, Nov 10 2011 (IPS)

“In truth, none of the candidates and none of the parties have a programme for society,” asserts Mastaki Mushosi, one of the leaders of the National Union of Catholic School Teachers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Campaigning in DRC began at the end of October for the Nov. 28 presidential and legislative elections. The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) has registered around 19,000 candidates for the legislative elections, and 11 contenders for the presidency.

However, the campaigning was marred by pre-election violence. News wire service AFP reported Monday that fighting between supporters of the ruling Party for Reconstruction and Democracy and the opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress took place in Lubumbashi, the country’s second- largest city.

Despite the large number of candidates – representing no fewer than 417 political parties – only the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), close to the incumbent president, Joseph Kabila; the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC) led by Vital Kamerhe, the former president of the National Assembly now in opposition; and the Union of Forces for Change (UFC) of Senate President Léon Kengo wa Dondo are truly campaigning.

Potentially one of the richest countries in Africa, DRC was ranked dead last in the 2011 Human Development Index published by the United Nations Development Programme.

Mushosi and others say that instead of “demagogic promises”, candidates should explain concretely how they plan to jumpstart the economy and address urgent problems of food production, unemployment, poverty, insecurity and a lack of respect for human rights in the country.

Despite the fragile political and security situation in DRC, the World Bank believes the country’s medium-term economic prospects are positive. Overall economic performance in 2010 showed clear improvement over the preceding year. In 2009, GDP growth slowed to 2.9 percent due to the effects of the international economic and financial crisis, but recovered to around seven percent in 2010. Inflation, which reached 53.4 percent in 2009, fell to below ten percent in 2010.

“The government accumulated fiscal surpluses in 2010 which allowed it to reduce pressure on demand for foreign currency and to maintain relative stability for the national currency, with only a slight depreciation of 1.4 percent in 2010 – compared to 29.2 percent in 2009,” according to the World Bank, whose DRC commitments are among its largest in Africa, involving more than 2.5 billion dollars.

The Bank’s analysts believe DRC’s economy must aim for a growth rate of around seven percent per year – in 2011 it was 6.5 percent, boosted by increased investment and activity in extractive industries as well as a strong contribution from public works projects and the service sector.

But macroeconomic performance does not seem to have translated into improvements in the lives of most Congolese. Government sources indicate that while per capita income is growing, it remains very low at 220 dollars per person.

“No one remembers that civil servants, doctors, nurses, teachers have not received their salaries for months,” adds Mushosi, who believes the candidates are all promising the same things.

As in 2005, the ruling PPRD’s campaign has centred on job and infrastructure creation, improvements to housing, and the provision of water, electricity, health and education, as set out in the “Five Worksites of the Republic” development programme.

“Believe that if you will,” says Joe Mazambi, a resident of Kindu, in Maniema, in the eastern DRC. “Five years after Kabila’s promises (at the last election), we still don’t have roads here. We’re dying of hunger. There are practically no schools and most of the youth are unemployed. The public hospital is a place where we go to die.”

Kizito Nfundiko, who says he has been assaulted three times for being a member of the opposition UNC, adds: “Even the pacification programme here in Bukavu (in the eastern DRC) is an illusion. There have been many attacks against opposition figures here in Bukavu.”

Espérance Mawazo, director of DRC’s Parity Observatory, an NGO based in Bukavu, says: “In a situation of generalised poverty, the candidates must engage in demagoguery less than they did in 2005. They continue to promise things they have failed to deliver since 2005, including parity of women’s representation in public institutions.”

According to the Permanent Framework for Dialogue for Congolese Women, a gender equality pressure group, only 42, or 8.4 percent, of the 500 members of the current National Assembly – the lower house of parliament – are women. With women making up roughly 12 percent of candidates standing for election this year, this seems unlikely to improve significantly.

The polls are tilted in favour of those with access to substantial resources.

A press release issued at the end of October by the Kinshasa-based African Association for the Defence of Human Rights noted that “Only the party activists of the PPRD, the UFC, and those closest to them have the (financial) means to campaign, probably because they benefit from the positions they hold in (government) institutions.”

Jacques Djoli, vice president of the electoral commission, has called for candidates who are also officials and public office holders to resign from their present positions to level the playing field: “We must protect the ethics and decency which characterise public office and political engagement.”

Excerpt:

By Robbie Corey-Boulet and - -
MONROVIA, Nov 8 2011 (IPS)

Liberians headed to the polls in what appeared to be modest numbers Tuesday morning for a presidential runoff that has been marred by an opposition boycott and the deaths of at least two demonstrators at an opposition rally.

U.N. armored vehicles enter the compound of the Congress for Democratic Change after the first round of shooting. At least two demonstrators died. Credit: Robbie Corey-Boulet/IPS

In Monrovia, polling centres that saw long lines for the first round witnessed markedly fewer voters as they opened at 8am.

Burnnies Korbor, 20, who voted at a high school in central Monrovia, said she believed the low turnout demonstrated that voters were “scared,” but added that she had no worries about coming out to vote for incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

“She’s doing well in the country,” Korbor said. “Right now there’s no war, nothing. Everything’s calm.”

On Friday, Winston Tubman, the CDC’s presidential candidate and a former diplomat, announced that his party would not participate in the runoff, citing what he said were irregularities in the first round. Although the CDC has stood behind its boycott call, his name still appears on the ballot.

Tubman placed second with 32.7 percent in the first round. Sirleaf, who was named a joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in October, earned 43.9 percent, but needed at least 50 percent to avoid a second round of voting.

Election monitors commended the Oct. 11 ballot as largely free, fair and transparent. The European Union, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States all weighed in with condemnations of the CDC boycott over the weekend. The U.S. State Department said it was “deeply disappointed” by the CDC’s position, adding: “The CDC’s charge that the first-round election was fraudulent is unsubstantiated.”

Aaron Weah, programme associate with the International Centre for Transitional Justice in Monrovia, said Monday evening that it was unclear how the boycott and subsequent violence would affect Tuesday’s vote, which the National Elections Commission said would go ahead as scheduled.

While acknowledging Liberia’s conflict-ridden past, Weah said violence had rarely occurred alongside democratic processes that have been widely viewed as credible. In that respect, he said, “there is no precedent” for Monday’s shootings.

He added that he suspected that the police and politicians shared the blame for Monday’s deaths.

“Today is a lesson that we haven’t broken strongly yet from our past,” he said. “Politicians are still trying to put ordinary people in harm’s way.”

Justice Minister Christiana Tah said at a press conference Monday evening that “unconfirmed reports” indicated that one person might have died. But IPS witnessed at least two dead bodies at the CDC compound on Monday afternoon, one of whom was shot in the head at close range after Liberian police stormed the compound with their guns drawn.

United Nations peacekeepers who arrived on the scene could be seen struggling with the Liberian police and trying to bring them under control.

Since the 2003 conclusion of Liberia’s brutal 14-year civil war, which claimed more than 250,000 lives, the U.N. Mission in Liberia has overseen the restructuring of Liberia’s police force, according to an International Crisis Group report released in August, which noted that the continued presence of U.N. peacekeepers “has been the main guarantor of peace.”

“The national security sector is now able to cope with some threats, but continued international presence is imperative in view of the failings of the police and their very limited reach outside the capital,” the ICG report said.

Tah said at the press conference that she had received reports on Monday of gas stations being looted, police officers being stoned and government and U.N. vehicles being damaged.

She also accused CDC leaders of spreading “inflammatory utterances,” and said such conduct was at least partly responsible for the violence.

“You cannot incite people, especially with disinformation, and that has led to the kind of problem that we have today,” she said.

Excerpt:

Murhula’s* life changed forever when he was nine years old. It was the year that he learned to kill, torture and rape.

Former child solider Mulume* (far left) feels hopeless about his future. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

It was the year militia entered his school in a small village near Bukavu, South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and forced him and several others to follow them into their camps in the forest, where they trained them to become soldiers. “Many bad things happened that I cannot talk about. It was very dehumanising,” remembers Murhula, who is now 25. For nine years he fought for different military groups: first the Rally for Congolese Democracy, then the Mudundo, the Maï-Maï and eventually the Congolese national army.

An estimated 30,000 children in the DRC, more than a third of them girls, have been turned into child soldiers to help fight a war for political and tribal power as well as natural resources in which four million people have died to date.

The DRC has ratified a number of international treaties to protect the rights of children. In 2001 this Central African nation signed the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1341, which demands an end to the recruitment of child soldiers and their demobilisation and rehabilitation. But there is little the Congolese government has done to implement those agreements, says Amnesty International.

After the DRC’s 2006 democratic elections and especially the 2008 Goma peace accord, which brought some measure of peace to eastern DRC, international aid organisations such as the U.N. Children’s Fund, catholic humanitarian agency Caritas, and others jumped in to help demobilise child soldiers. (The country goes to the polls on Nov. 28 for its second democratic election since independence.)

But the psychological support the thousands of traumatised and brainwashed youth need in order to return to a normal life is not part of the demobilisation.

The DRC is left with a generation of children and young adults that cannot remember a life without violence. Traumatised by events that neither adults nor children should ever have to experience, former child soldiers have become feared aggressors, thieves and addicts who struggle to reintegrate in society.

Even parents often refuse to take these children back into the folds of their families because, as Murhula’s example shows, there is a dark truth lurking in many a former child soldier’s past.

Utterly brainwashed by years of strict, hierarchical militia ideology, the boy started to enjoy inflicting pain, justifying his acts as being “normal in a war.”

“I liked being a soldier. I don’t know how many people I killed. In any case, I was just following orders,” he says defiantly.

It is an astounding contradiction to come to terms with – most child soldiers are traumatised victims and vicious perpetrators at the same time.

How this conflicting profile plays out on their psyche and how it needs to be treated is now being researched by German psychologists Tobias Hecker and Katharin Hermenau from the University of Konstanz. They currently work with soldiers at a rehabilitation centre in Goma, the regional capital of North Kivu in eastern DRC.

“We realised that those who had fun being violent suffer less from post-traumatic stress but are more difficult to integrate into society, because they are ready to become violent again,” says Hermenau.

Based on more than 200 interviews, the researchers found that a shockingly low number of former soldiers – 25 percent – experience post-traumatic stress disorder. This means three out of four continue to link positive emotions to violence.

“We see a lot of pride, lust for vengeance and power. Many tell of bloodlust,” explains Hermenau.

The research findings highlight how problematic it is to reintegrate child soldiers back in society.

One organisation that has given itself this difficult task is the Centre for Professional and Artisanal Apprenticeship (CAPA) in Bukavu, the provincial capital of South Kivu, which lies a good 100 kilometres south of Goma. The non-profit organisation teaches ex-child soldiers a multitude of crafts including bricklaying, carpentry, leatherwork and upholstery.

CAPA director Vital Mukuza has no illusions about what it means to rehabilitate former child soldiers.

“It’s extremely difficult. They are aggressive, irritable and prone to violence and vandalism, constantly posing a threat to others.

“They don’t respect rules or authority and are used to taking whatever they want,” he adds. “It takes months for them to adapt to normal life.”

It is here that Murhula is trying to start a new life by learning how to build guitars.

For the past couple of years he has thrown himself into learning this new profession, hoping he will be able to open a small shop some day, maybe even start a family.

“I don’t want to think about the past anymore,” he says.

But most of Congo’s 30,000 child soldiers lack such a network of psychological, social and economic support. Once demobilised, they have to fend for themselves and often lead isolated, poverty-stricken existences.

Mulume*, 22, who was forcibly recruited by the Maï-Maï when he was 17, is now unemployed and admits he feels quite lost. Although he was allowed to return to his home village of Kahungu, 65 kilometres north of Bukavu, he can sense deep distrust all around him.

When asked if he sees a future for himself, he shakes his head “no”.

“I simply have to accept my fate,” he says.

*Surnames withheld to protect identity.

By Zukiswa Zimela and - -
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 21 2011 (IPS)

With six weeks to go before the presidential and parliamentary elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, civil society organisations say the elections will not be fair, as many doubt the ability of the country’s electoral authorities to ensure transparency.

The DRC is set to go to the polls on Nov. 28, in the country’s second democratic elections since 2006.

The Central African country of 71 million people was the scene of what has been called Africa’s World War – a conflict that saw the death of approximately five million people between 1998 and 2003.

However, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), committed to deepening democracy, protecting human rights and enhancing good governance in the region, says the DRC’s National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) has not yet released information that will be vital to ensuring a credible election.

Specifically, there are still insufficient details regarding the location of polling stations and the plan for how these will be made secure for both voters and ballot boxes.

OSISA also says the electoral commission has not said anything about the provision of election monitors and observers, both from the international community and local civic actors, how the results will be tallied, or the process by which ballot boxes will be transported to the vote counting centres.

Several irregularities, including a spike in the number of people on the voter rolls, have caused members of the opposition to protest the legitimacy of the elections.

Leonnie Kandolo, founder of Cadre Permanent de Concentration des Femmes Congolese, a network of women’s organisations in the DRC, says after coming out of civil war the numbers should be down, not up.

“Why has the number increased because we are in a war? A lot of people have died. Now the number of voters has increased very much – and they have increased especially in the provinces that agree with the president,” she said at a briefing in Johannesburg on Thursday.

Kandolo said in 2006 almost 26 million people voted during the country’s first elections. This year the number stands at an estimated 32 million. The country’s constitution does not permit the military, police, foreigners or minors under the age of 18 to vote. But there is suspicion that some of them have been registered.

Jean Robert Efalema, deputy director of the Congolese Media Observatory, a self-regulatory media body which investigates public complaints about press coverage in the DRC, says that when civil society asked the government to clean up the system, it refused.

OSISA says the police also appear to be using excessive force, including live ammunition to manage political demonstrations. Efalema says the ruling party is using young people to try and sabotage the opposition.

“They loot the offices of the opposition parties and they have burnt the opposition party television station,” he said.

Efalema added that both opposition and civil society suspect that the CENI is not independent and is supporting the people in power.

Jonas Tshiombela Kabiena, founder of a national network of 200 associations called “The New Civil Society on the Congo”, says the composition of CENI disregards civil society organisations. The board of the electoral commission consists of four representatives from the governing party and three from the opposition.

“They tried to push civil society organisations to align themselves with one or the other camp, but this is not the case – we are independent and we are outside; our presence is very critical for greater transparency in this process,” he said.

As a post-conflict country, the DRC needs the elections to be fair. Several areas in the eastern part of the country are still at war. Kabiena says there are fears that if the elections go ahead with the current insufficient measures in place, the country could be plunged back into civil war.

“We are very, very afraid to go back to a cycle of violence; if the election goes ahead there will be cries of illegitimacy and we don’t want to go back to that kind of thing,” he added.

The 2006 presidential and parliamentary elections were monitored by many international observers to ensure that the elections were free and fair. Efalema says the international community needs to be involved with these elections as well.

“We are launching a cry of distress on behalf of the people of the Congo. We ask that governments not be distracted by what others are saying; we need help,” he said.

“It is the wish of the Congolese people for the international community to be there, to support free and fair elections,” he added.

Nick Elebe, programme manager in OSISA’s offices in the DRC, says it is time for the country to embrace democracy, and that it is important for CENI to deal properly with these elections and to ensure that they are free and fair.

“We have to make progress. These elections are an opportunity for the Congolese to prove that they now understand that they cannot go back to war and clash continuously any more, that now they have to build on new principles of good governance – and all of these principles start with having a free election.”

Despite the protests by the opposition and calls by civil society for them to be postponed, the elections are scheduled to take place on Nov. 28.

Excerpt:

By Robbie Corey-Boulet, Stephen Binda, and - -
MONROVIA , Oct 18 2011 (IPS)

Former warlord Prince Johnson, who placed third in Liberia’s election last week, has endorsed the re-election bid of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who was named a joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize just days before the vote.

The most recent results from the National Elections Commission (NEC), representing 96.7 percent of total votes cast on Oct. 11, show Johnson with 11.8 percent nationwide. Johnson-Sirleaf is in the lead with 44 percent – she needed more than 50 percent to avoid a runoff. The leading opposition candidate, Winston Tubman of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), is in second place with 32.2 percent. The results are, however, not final.

Johnson, most famous for overseeing the torture and execution of President Samuel Doe in 1990, said in an interview with a community radio station in his native Nimba County on Monday that he would be supporting Johnson-Sirleaf.

Johnson-Sirleaf, 72, will compete with Tubman in a runoff scheduled for Nov. 8.

It remains to be seen how much impact Johnson’s endorsement will have in Nimba, this West African nation’s second most-populous county. Johnson-Sirleaf’s Unity Party earned 25.5 percent of the vote in Nimba in the first round, while Tubman earned just 2.8 percent.

On Monday, Johnson said he believed his supporters were waiting for him to tell them who to vote for, referring to himself several times as a “king-maker”.

The build-up to his endorsement comes amid criticism from the opposition about the manner in which the results have been tallied. On Saturday, nine opposition parties – including the CDC and Johnson’s National Union for Democratic Progress – said they would be pulling out of the election in response to “massive fraud” and threatened not to accept the result.

“We direct all of our party agents assigned at NEC in all capacities to withdraw effective immediately,” the parties said in a statement. “If the process continues we will not accept the results.”

Tubman has since said he would participate in the runoff.

Johnson said Monday that he was convinced there had been widespread irregularities.

“There was cheating,” he said. “There was rigging. Many ballots were tampered with. We have several tally sheets in our possession that clearly indicate that something went wrong.”

NEC has denied allegations of wrongdoing, and a host of international observers have commended the voting process.

The Atlanta-based Carter Center described the vote as “peaceful, orderly, and remarkably transparent” in a statement released Thursday.

“Although the process of tabulating final results is ongoing and preliminary results have not been announced, the electoral process to date is a positive sign of Liberians’ commitment to democratic development,” the statement said.

The Carter Center cited “a number of minor procedural irregularities,” but said none would undermine the integrity of the vote.

“Observed irregularities included polling places where secrecy of the ballot was not strictly maintained, inking procedures undertaken out of order, and ballot papers folded improperly,” the statement said.

Despite his stated concerns about the process, Johnson said any resulting violence would be uncalled for.

“Whatever went wrong should not in any way allow any of us to be so angry to bring about any form of action that would destabilise peace in the country,” he said.

Johnson-Sirleaf delivered an address Monday condemning minor criminal acts reported since the vote, including the torching early Saturday morning of an office belonging to her Unity Party.

International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who was in neighbouring Ivory Coast over the weekend as part of an investigation into the post-election violence that followed that country’s disputed vote last year, issued a warning to Liberia’s political class.

“My office is closely monitoring election-related developments including in neighbouring countries such as Liberia, which could affect stabilisation throughout the West African region,” he said. “We will pay close attention to the actions and statements of the political class, and in particular to the presidential candidates, including after the elections. Resorting to violence will not be tolerated.”

Addressing the factors he would consider in making his endorsement decision, Johnson also raised the prospect of war crimes prosecutions – but he was referring to those covering Liberia’s 14-year civil conflict, which ended in 2003 after claiming more than 250,000 lives.

Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended in 2009 that the country establish a war crimes tribunal and listed Johnson among those who should be prosecuted.

The commission included both Johnson and Johnson-Sirleaf on a list of people who should be banned from politics for 30 years on account of their alleged ties to warring factions. The commission’s recommendations have not been implemented, and the political bans have been deemed unconstitutional by the country’s Supreme Court.

On Monday, Johnson criticised leaders of the CDC – including Tubman and his running mate, former international football star George Weah – for past statements indicating their support of prosecutions.

“When you start arresting people to prosecute you could be bringing us back to zero ground,” he said.

“Frankly speaking, I can’t have my people voting for them,” Johnson continued. “The thing we’re talking about here is nationalism, patriotism. That’s what we are talking about.”

He later added: “We’re not afraid of a war crimes court but we are afraid of bogus charges levelled against us.”

Johnson also said the opposition CDC had failed to promote residents of Nimba County into leadership positions; something he said could hurt its chances in the county.

Excerpt:

By Robbie Corey-Boulet and Stephen Binda
MONROVIA, Oct 11 2011 (IPS)

Liberians cast their ballots Tuesday in an election that has so far been described as orderly and peaceful, though concerns persist that a disputed result could anger voters and fuel minor unrest.

Supporters from President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's Unity Party during the last campaign rally on Sunday. Credit: Robbie Corey-Boulet/IPS

Her top rival that year, former international football star George Weah of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), claimed the election was stolen – despite affirmation of the results from a range of international observers – and refused to admit defeat.

This year, Weah is running for vice president under CDC presidential candidate and former diplomat Winston Tubman, but the allegations of fraud have not gone away. The CDC campaign theme song, “It will not hold,” condemns “the rigging of the election” and accuses President Johnson-Sirleaf’s Unity Party of “depending on cheating.”

At the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) polling station in downtown Monrovia on Tuesday, Emmanuel Kollimealyne, an officer with the Community Watch Forum of Liberia, said he had visited four polling stations in the morning and had found the process to be peaceful.

“I think I’m confident now that since the conduct of the campaign was very peaceful, the elections will be peaceful,” he said. “In Liberia we are more mature now.”

But he said there were still doubts that the CDC would be able to accept defeat. “I think it comes from 2005,” he said. “Also, this year they are pre-empting that they will be cheated. They are starting to (sound) the alarm earlier.”

The first voter in line at the YMCA, having arrived at 5am, was Teddy Tubman, the 25-year-old nephew of Winston Tubman.

“I want this election to be peaceful, free and fair,” Teddy Tubman said. “There should be no cheating.”

Asked how he thought the CDC would respond to a loss, he said: “Well, in 2005 the opposition decided to accept the election result because of peace, because of the people. We don’t want this election to repeat what happened in 2005. Any case of cheating might erupt in violence.”

The campaign period came to a close on Sunday, with the parties holding competing rallies in two stadiums in Monrovia. Though large groups of supporters of the CDC and Johnson-Sirleaf’s Unity Party occasionally encountered each other in the streets, the marching and slogan-shouting generally remained good-natured.

Political observers are expecting a close race that could head to a runoff in early November. The National Elections Commission has said results will be announced by Oct. 26, though preliminary results are expected sooner.

CDC Chairman Geraldine Doe-Sheriff has said the party would release its own results, a possibility that has sparked alarm among election monitors. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, General Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s former head of state and head of the Carter Center’s 55-person international election observation mission in Liberia, said such a move would be illegal.

“It is not right. The only person to announce the result is the chairman of the National Electoral Commission,” Gowon said. “If they do it, it is against the law and I hope there is a process whereby such a thing can be dealt with. But it will not be accepted as the result.”

Gowon also said the election was going “exceptionally well” despite light rainfall around midday. “People have turned out in great numbers and enthusiastically,” he said. “It has been going well so far and we hope that it will continue to go well in all places.”

Winston Tubman cast his ballot at around 10:30am at a high school in central Monrovia. “Liberians are peaceful people who are seizing the ballot boxes to do what is necessary so that we can get back on a normal path,” he told reporters.

Asked whether he would win, he responded, “Sure, and in the first round.”

But Mother Ainoson, a 56-year-old supporter of Johnson-Sirleaf, said she believed the incumbent would prevail, and that any allegations of fraud that might ensue would be unfounded.

“If you look at the whole aspect, people have security at all of the polling stations, so who will bypass that and cheat?” she said. “So I want to say that everything will be fair.”

Excerpt:

By Robbie Corey-Boulet
GRAND GEDEH COUNTY, Liberia, Oct 10 2011 (IPS)

As Liberia gears up for Tuesday’s presidential and legislative elections, officials stationed near the border with Ivory Coast have expressed concern that insufficient border security – a problem highlighted by two recent cross-border attacks – could fuel electoral violence.

Bleblocoula Sylvain (foreground) lost eight members of his family during a March raid in Diboke, Ivory Coast. Credit: Robbie Corey-Boulet/IPS

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 72, of the Unity Party, who jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, is seeking a second term of office. The incumbent president is running against 15 presidential candidates, including one from the Congress for Democratic Change, which initially earned more votes than her in 2005 (she later won in a runoff).

There is no credible polling in the West African nation, but observers expect the race will be close, potentially resulting in a runoff in early November.

The campaign period has been marked with divisive rhetoric and talk of vote stealing that some observers have warned could spill over into violence depending on the result.

Last year’s disputed election in Ivory Coast sparked a conflict between forces loyal to ousted President Laurent Gbagbo and his successor, Alassane Ouattara, that claimed an estimated 3,000 lives and sent a flood of refugees into Liberia. Liberian mercenaries were also recruited into the fighting, and there are reports that Ivorian Gbagbo supporters have resettled on the Liberian side of the border.

Corinne Dufka, a senior West Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), said that while she believed Liberians were committed to maintaining peace, it was important to remember the extent to which past conflicts “have reverberated across each country’s porous borders, causing significant flows of arms, combatants and refugees, and untold human suffering.”

Thomas Kahn, an immigration official stationed at the Behai border crossing in Grand Gedeh County, in eastern Liberia, recommended that the government double the present number of security forces in order to prevent the cross-border trafficking of small arms. He also noted that during the election some security forces would be called away from the border to man polling stations elsewhere in the county.

“Over the past months there has been a problem in Ivory Coast, so we need more manpower at the border now,” Kahn said. “It is a security risk.”

Jerry Zeah, the town chief of Behai, also said he believed there was insufficient security in the area to ensure the safety of residents.

Last month, HRW documented an attack allegedly perpetrated by Gbagbo supporters based in Liberia that killed 23 people in two villages located 25 kilometres south of the Ivory Coast town of Tai. The attack was similar to a cross-border raid carried out in July that killed at least eight people in Ivory Coast.

According to HRW, the attacks are believed to have been launched by youth from Ivory Coast “who served as pro-Gbagbo militiamen during the country’s six-month post-election conflict” and are now based in Liberia. The victims, meanwhile, “tended to support” Ouattara.

Women and children were among the victims in both attacks.

In a statement detailing the July attack, HRW said: “One witness described attackers sticking a gun barrel in the mouth of a man whom they’d trapped; they then shot him. A Burkinabé man living in the area was found with his throat slit.”

“These armed groups appear determined to wreak havoc on a population that has already suffered greatly from Côte d’Ivoire’s deadly post-election crisis,” said Daniel Bekele, HRW’s Africa director. “United Nations peacekeeping missions in Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia need to assist state authorities in preventing more bloodshed.”

Despite this call from HRW, Napoleon Viban, the acting head of the Liberia peacekeeping mission in Zwedru, Grand Gedeh’s capital, said it was up to Ivory Coast authorities to investigate the attacks – even though the perpetrators are believed to be in Liberia.

Beyond the logistical challenges of an investigation by Ivory Coast authorities, HRW said there was a chance the Ivorian armed forces would commit rights abuses during the course of an investigation, noting that torture and extrajudicial killings were “common during the conflict.”

Several residents of Tai, the Ivory Coast town located near the site of the attacks, said that after the Jul. 18 attack, Ouattara forces “detained a local pro-Gbagbo village leader and fired between his legs during questioning.”

“Côte d’Ivoire’s armed forces must ensure that those who commit attacks, whatever their political affiliation, face their victims before a court of law, and not be subject to the summary executions that too often marked the Ivorian crisis,” Bekele said.

Concerns about the tactics of Ouattara’s forces resonate with Bleblocoula Sylvain, a 28-year-old Ivory Coast refugee who now lives in the Grand Gedeh town of Tuzon. Sylvain lost eight members of his family during a March raid in Diboke. He said he had no intention of returning to Ivory Coast under Ouattara.

“People loyal to him still hold arms,” Sylvain said. “He’s the one to rule the country, but he killed a lot of people. I don’t ever think this government will maintain peace.”

HRW said the border “is notoriously difficult to monitor, because of its length and the thick vegetation that marks the region.” The statement noted that both the U.N. and the Ivory Coast government had agreed to send more forces to the area following the Sep. 15 attack.

Viban noted that the mission was “part of the joint border patrol.” He also said that while the primary goal of the mission was to bolster the capacity of Liberian security forces, the mission “will always intervene in line with its mandate.”

He said that while he believed the situation at the border remained “calm,” even in light of the recent attacks, in the event of electoral violence the U.N. in Liberia will “work with the government to quickly come in when human lives are at stake.”  

Excerpt:

By Robbie Corey-Boulet
MONROVIA , Oct 9 2011 (IPS)

As the Norwegian Nobel Committee named Liberian President Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf a joint winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, opposition party supporters were flooding the streets of Monrovia to demand that she be voted out of office in the upcoming election.

Opposition party supporters demanded that Nobel Peach Prize winner Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf be out of office. Credit: Robbie Corey-Boulet/IPS

The Nobel committee announced that the prize would be divided into three equal parts. Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian peace activist who organised a women’s movement calling for an end to civil war in the West African nation, was also named a winner, as was Tawakkul Karman, a Yemeni journalist and activist who has played a prominent role in that country’s Arab Spring protests.

But in Monrovia, the focus Friday was squarely on Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state who is running for a second term in a vote scheduled for Oct. 11. The prize was awarded on the same day that supporters of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), the leading opposition party, marched in support of political change.

In a statement, the Nobel committee said Johnson-Sirleaf had “contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women.”

On the contrary, the CDC has consistently accused Johnson-Sirleaf of bringing war to the country, citing her early financial support of former President Charles Taylor, now on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity at The Hague.

Taylor launched a coup in 1989 that plunged Liberia into 14 years of civil conflict that claimed more than 250,000 lives. In 2009, Liberia’s South Africa-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission report included Johnson-Sirleaf on a list of 49 politicians who should be barred from politics for 30 years owing to their ties to warring factions. Johnson-Sirleaf issued an apology to the nation shortly thereafter, saying she only supported Taylor in the hope that he would overthrow dictator Samuel Doe.

In an interview late last month, however, CDC presidential candidate Winston Tubman highlighted the president’s ties to Taylor, saying: “The government that we are seeking to replace is a government that oppressed the people. It is a government that brought war.”

Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated economist who has previously worked for the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank, has been accused by her opponents of courting international favour at the expense of voters back home.

Speaking to IPS by phone on Friday, Tubman said the prize was further evidence that the views of the international community did not match those of Liberians.

“If the international community feels that she deserves such a prize, they should watch out for today’s march, because the CDC is prepared to vote her out of power peacefully,” he said.

TQ Harris, a former independent presidential candidate, struck a similar note in an SMS text message sent to supporters and journalists. “This explains why Liberians have yet to get a war crimes court… the international community has an agenda that is not in line with ours,” he said.

Thousands of CDC supporters turned out for Friday’s rally marking the end of the party’s campaign, dancing and drinking in the streets, shouting slogans and brandishing banners. While waiting inside Antoinette Tubman Stadium for the arrival of Tubman and his running mate, international football star George Weah, 36-year-old voter David Mzor described why he thought the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Johnson-Sirleaf was inappropriate.

“I don’t think President Sirleaf deserves it because she has not been able to reconcile the Liberian people. She’s not a reconciler,” he said. “She helped to put our future way back. That was not the right way to remove (dictator Samuel) Doe. There were other alternatives.”

Thomas Queayahn, 19, who was also among the CDC supporters in the stadium, agreed. “She was a fighter before she was a leader,” he said of the president. “She brought war to the country.”

The president’s many supporters take the opposite view, praising her for restoring peace and stability against significant obstacles.

As he watched the CDC marchers go by Friday from his stall on Benson Street, petty trader Prince Worzie hailed the president as a peacemaker. “She has brought peace to Liberia,” he said, adding that he also commended her efforts to promote women within her government. “That alone justifies that indeed she should deserve the award.”

John Ballout, a senator with Johnson-Sirleaf’s ruling Unity Party and a member of her campaign team, said the attempt to paint her as an instigator of the war was a political tactic on the part of opposition leaders “who want to shift the discussion.”

“Yes, she has been very supportive of all of the struggles to resist dictatorship in this country,” he said. “It’s not that she’s been supporting conflict or war – she’s been supporting resistance.”

*With additional reporting by Stephen Binda and Saye Messah

Excerpt:

By Robbie Corey-Boulet
BONG COUNTY, Liberia , Oct 6 2011 (IPS)

It seems all of Liberia is paying close attention to the campaign for the Oct. 11 presidential and legislative elections. But Sekou Camara is one exception.

That is because when Camara, a member of Liberia’s Mandingo Muslim ethnic group, went to register to vote back in January, officials with the National Elections Commission (NEC) accused him of being Guinean based on the spelling of his surname. Liberians typically spell the name “Kamara”.

“Immediately when I completed spelling my name they told me that I was from Guinea since in fact my last name begins with ‘C’ and the Liberian Kamara begins with ‘K’,” Camara, who lives in central Liberia’s Bong County, recalled recently.

Though he lived in Guinea for part of Liberia’s devastating 14-year civil conflict, which ended in 2003, he said he never became naturalised there and thus retains his Liberian citizenship. “I am a Liberian and not a citizen of Guinea,” he said.

The Electoral Reform Law of 2004 empowered officials in this West African country to take measures to facilitate the registration of voters who were displaced by the war. However, the language of the law indicates that these measures were limited to the 2005 elections.

Under the 2010 voter registration regulations, Liberian voters can present an array of documents, including a passport, a birth certificate or an old voter card, when registering. If these documents are unavailable, alternate steps include enlisting the sworn testimony of two other registered voters or a Liberian traditional leader.

In Ganta, a city in Nimba County in north Liberia, directly across from the Guinean border, Mohammed Karnay, a 29-year-old Mandingo, had an experience similar to Camara’s. He said that when he went to register, NEC officials became suspicious of his speech. Mandingoes often do not speak Liberian English (English peppered with Liberian slang that is sometimes indiscernible to English speakers), preferring to communicate in their tribal dialect, Mandingo.

“They told me to bring along my documents or someone to identify me as a Liberian citizen,” Karnay said. “I was unable to bring in my documents due to the fact they were all destroyed during the war. So I brought in my uncle, Lassana Karnay, who came and told them that I was a Liberian citizen born in Lofa County. Yet still they denied me.”

An untold number of Mandingo Muslims in Liberia were barred from registering to vote on dubious grounds this year, according to Korkesi Jabateh, the Muslim youth leader in Nimba County. “Many of our citizens were denied during the process,” Jabateh said. He acknowledged, though, that coming up with numerical estimates was difficult – in part because rejected voters did not always report their cases.

In an August report, the International Crisis Group (ICG) called on officials to address such allegations. “The government and NEC should engage with Muslim leaders to defuse tensions that erupted when some persons with Muslim names were not allowed to register on grounds that they were Mandingoes and thus not Liberian,” the report said. “The Muslim community, particularly the youth, is increasingly bitter over this recurrent ‘institutionalised’ discrimination against it.”

But NEC officials say the registration process went smoothly, and that they frequently caught non- Liberians trying to register to vote. “I am aware that there are certain parts of Liberia, certain border areas, that are considered to be problem areas for voter registration,” said Samuel Cole, NEC’s director of civic and voter education. “During voter registration, people who were not Liberians in some cases crossed over to register.”

He added that NEC’s screening practices “did not target any particular tribe.”

“As far as I know, there is not a particular tribe that will say they have been marginalised,” he said.

Cole said he did not believe that NEC would act on the ICG’s recommendation to reach out to Mandingoes. “I try as much as possible to take ethnicity out of voter registration,” he said. “In terms of voter registration, I do not want to target a particular ethnic group.”

In Saniquellie, the capital of Nimba, NEC magistrate Princeton Monmia said his staff had an especially difficult time registering Mandingo voters because Mandingoes from Liberia are quite similar to Mandingoes from Guinea, and vice versa. By contrast, he said, the ethnic groups of Gios and Manos who live in Liberia are different from their counterparts in Guinea – in large part because they speak Liberian English.

“We have Mandingoes in Liberia. We have Mandingoes in Guinea,” Monmia said. “If we want to register Mandingoes we have to make sure.”

Monmia said NEC officials worked with immigration officials to ensure that Mandingoes attempting to register had not crossed the border from other countries.

The NEC magistrate said that he had no Mandingoes on staff at the time of voter registration, which complicated screening efforts. “I do not speak any Mandingo,” he said.

If Mandingoes did not have documentation proving they were born in Liberia, they were asked to bring in relatives, friends or neighbours who could vouch for them, he said. If they were born in another county and could not bring anyone to testify on their behalf, they were interviewed by immigration officials.

Monmia said the questions immigration officials asked would-be voters were not standardised, but rather varied from case to case. “We can use all means to elicit facts,” he said.

In the end, he said, those involved in voter registration did their job “perfectly”.

“Those people who were denied, they were not Liberians,” he said. “They were denied because they could not answer questions that people asked them.”

Excerpt:

By Eprahim Nsingo and Lwanga Mwilu
LUSAKA, Sep 23 2011 (IPS)

The election of Michael Chilufya Sata as Zambia’s new president shows that Zambians are more interested in issues of accountability and transparency than mere service delivery, say analysts.

Zambians went to the polls on Sep. 20 and elected a new president. Credit: Ephraim Nsingo/IPS

Sata’s victory brings an end to the 20-year rule of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), where he was formerly a national secretary before breaking away. This was Sata’s fourth attempt at the presidency.

Reuben Lifuka, president of Transparency International Zambia, an international civil society movement with an exclusive focus on corruption, told IPS that Sata’s and the Patriotic Front’s (PF) victory showed political players that they should not be complacent.

“This election has changed the political landscape,” said Lifuka.

He said that when the MMD first came to power in the 1990s their focus had been on service delivery.

“Now people are not just interested in roads, boreholes, schools, and other social services. They are more interested in other aspects of governance. The new yardstick is not about how many boreholes the new government will construct, but how the whole governance process is carried out. People are more interested in issues of accountability and transparency.”

Sata, 74, was declared winner of the country’s Sep. 20 general elections with 43 percent of the vote in the early hours of Friday morning after he beat nine other presidential candidates. Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) Justice Irene Mambilima announced the results though votes from seven remaining constituencies had yet to be counted. Sata garnered 1,150,045 votes.

His closest rival, President Rupiah Banda Banda of the MMD, took 36.1 percent of the total votes. Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development came third with 18.5 percent.

The other seven candidates shared the remainder.

Sata was quoted in Zambia’s The Post newspaper as saying that Mambilima woke him up early Friday with news of his victory.

“This is the beginning of the long journey and where we are going, it is not easy. It has not been easy because this result should have been declared two days earlier,” he told the newspaper. The PF claimed that the results had not been announced sooner because the MMD had tried to change them, a charge Banda denied.

Making his maiden speech as president on Friday afternoon at his inauguration, Sata promised to create jobs and transform government within 90 days – a pledge he made during his campaign.

The leader of the PF also indirectly dispelled widespread concerns that he would pounce on Chinese investors, saying he would work to attract foreign investment, but stressed that investors “need to adhere to the labour laws” of Zambia. He has criticised Chinese investment in Zambia in the past.

In a show of reconciliation Sata arrived at his inauguration with Banda; the two have had a hostile relationship in the past.

Sata’s victory was celebrated across the country. Jubilant Zambians took to the streets singing, dancing, chanting slogans, honking car horns, blowing vuvuzelas (a plastic horn) and flashing the PF party symbol of a raised fist.

“This is good news, we knew this time we were going to (win). Last time they cheated us and only beat us by 35,000 votes, but this time we did not give them a chance,” said Christine Chisulo, who was part of a group of young people who took to the streets in Lusaka’s Woodlands suburb to celebrate Sata’s victory.

Reacting to the PF’s victory, losing presidential candidate Ng’andu Magande said the only other times he had seen such scenes of joy over a political victory were when this Southern African country gained independence from Britain in 1964 and in 1991 when Zambia became a multi-party democracy.

“The removal of a government through the ballot sends an important message that (political) office belongs to the citizens and those leaders who do not do what is expected of them will be removed,” he said.

Banda conceded electoral defeat on Friday in a farewell address to the nation.

“The election campaign of 2011 is over. The people of Zambia have spoken and we must all listen,” said Banda.

He called for maturity, composure and compassion, and urged the victors to celebrate with a magnanimous heart.

“Enjoy the hour but remember that a term of government is for (five) years. Remember that the next election will judge you also. Treat those who you have vanquished with the respect and humility that you would expect in your own hour of defeat,” he said.

Banda said his party would accept the results as they would not “deny Zambians”. He said his party never rigged elections, never cheated and never knowingly abused state funds.

The outgoing president, who was in a sombre mood, wondered where his party had gone wrong.

“We must all face the reality that sometimes it is time for change,” he said.

Banda said he has “no ill feeling in my heart, there is no malice in my words”, saying he believed Zambia was still “in good hands”.

“But now it is time for me to step aside. Now is the time for a new leader. My time is done. It is time for me to say good bye,” he said.

McDonald Lewanika, director of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, part of Zimbabwean civil society representatives observing the election, told IPS that while the ECZ could be commended for the transparency of the elections, they could have avoided the violence caused by voting delays.

“There were a number of issues which raised concern, especially issues of logistics, which resulted in unwarranted delays in some areas, and this is what led to the violence.”

On Thursday there were protests on the outskirts of Lusaka’s central business district and there was a heavy police presence in most parts of the Lusaka city centre.

There were also massive protests in the Copperbelt cities of Ndola and Kitwe on Thursday morning. In Kitwe, the Nakadoli Market, which provides employment for hundreds of locals, was razed to the ground by a suspicious fire. Police reportedly used water canons and teargas to break up protests. Some banks suspended business because of the violence.

In a notice to customers, mobile service provider Airtel Zambia announced that the company had closed its stores in the Copperbelt province.

Many businesses had closed and ordered their employees to stay at home until the situation normalised.

Excerpt:

By Lwanga Mwilu and Eprahim Nsingo
LUSAKA, Sep 20 2011 (IPS)

Only two incidents of violence, triggered by the late start of voting and the suspicion of electoral fraud, were reported as Zambians went to the polls to elect a new president and government on Tuesday.

Zambians went to the polls to elect a new president and government on Tuesday. Credit: Lwanga Mwilu/IPS

The nationwide violence expected and feared by many did not occur as citizens spent Monday stocking up on basic commodities.

The Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) has dismissed reports of electoral fraud and extended voting hours at all polling stations affected by the late commencement.

In a live broadcast on local radio Q-FM, ECZ public relations manager Chris Akufuna announced that all voting will be extended at these polling stations.

Some polling stations did not open at 6am as planned as voting materials had not been delivered. In Kanyama and Lilanda East in Lusaka the late commencement of voting triggered violence. When ballot papers were finally delivered, some irate voters tore them and set them alight claiming that they were pre-marked in favour of a particular candidate.

The situation in both areas degenerated when some citizens became riotous. At the Lilanda Basic School polling station in Lilanda compound, vehicles were stoned and one was set ablaze.

At Nakatindi polling station in Kanyama compound, voting had not started by midday and infuriated citizens ran riot as they suspected the ballots were pre-marked and they vandalised the voting area. Akufuna described the violence as unfortunate and denied suggestions that it was due to a lack of preparedness on the commission’s part.

“The ECZ was very prepared for these elections and the situation of the late delivery of materials in Lusaka is just disappointing … Our instructions were that all materials be in polling stations yesterday. As a commission, we will ultimately take responsibility for these disruptions but we tried our best to ensure the best scenario,” he said.

A number of reports of pre-marked ballots have emerged in different parts of the country but Akufuna dismissed all these allegations of electoral fraud.

“That is just a report. It does not arise because all ballot papers were physically inspected and none were pre-marked. These reports are probably emanating from people who wish us ill. Yes we have had challenges and we are dealing with them but fraud is not one of them,” Akufuna said.

As the clock ticked towards the opening of polling stations for Zambia’s tripartite elections, the fears of Zambians became evident on Monday.

Scores of people rushed to supermarkets to buy basic commodities, fearing that the situation could deteriorate after the elections.

“I am just trying to be on the safe side, people are circulating all sorts of rumours about what may happen after the election. I have bought enough food for my family for the next few weeks, just in case we experience what happened in Zimbabwe (after the 2008 elections), where they stayed for more than a month waiting for results, and during that time there was a lot of violence.

“Schools have not closed, but I will not take my children to school until after we are sure the situation has calmed down,” said Kaywala Chibwe, one of the many shoppers who filled up their trolleys at a Lusaka supermarket.

Some supermarkets even struggled to supply enough trolleys for their customers.

Meanwhile, the country’s only female presidential candidate, Edith Nawakwi of the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD), called for peace ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

“We need peace, we need stability and we need our people to start thinking about creating wealth at household level,” said Nawakwi.

“Zambia is the heart of central Africa. Anything that goes wrong here during or after the elections will affect our brothers and sisters in the region. Zambians must understand that in the region, everybody is busy with a development agenda; no one in Southern Africa wants to start dealing with a horde of refugees that arise out of post-election conflict.” She said she hoped her participation in the elections was a uniting factor for Zambians. “I pray that my fellow Zambian women will realise that women have a much larger role to play in this election and that role is to keep peace in the homes, in the streets, we must pray and urge our members, our children not to involve themselves in violence,” Nawakwi said.

“I am appealing that…after the elections, people must conduct themselves in a manner that will ensure that there is peace and stability for all citizens,” said presidential candidate Dr. Fred Mtesa of the Zambians for Empowerment and Development.

United party for National Development presidential candidate Hakainde Hichilema said: “We have done enough work and the rest is for the people for Zambia to decide what they want, what sort of life they want. We have given the message.”

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
LUSAKA, Sep 19 2011 (IPS)

As Zambians go to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new government and president they do so amid fears of election violence.

Edith Nawakwi, the only woman presidential candidate, attended the electoral commission's meeting of presidential candidates. Credit: Ephraim Nsingo/IPS

President Rupiah Banda has said that he and his ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) will accept the results.

“I can only speak for myself and my party when I say that we will abide by the results,” said Banda in a national address on Sunday. “I hope that all the other parties contesting the elections will also pledge to abide by the final results. My main concern in the remaining time is that all candidates, all parties and all supporters conduct themselves within the laws of our land.”

Banda added that he hoped the rumours of post election violence were merely that, but he warned that police would exert the full force of the law on those who perpetrated violence or intimidation.

“I have this message for you: I have ordered the police to arrest and prosecute all those who offend. Expect no mercy, expect no favour, and expect only the full force of the law to come down on you.”

On Monday, hours before the 6,456 polling stations across the Southern African country were set to open, the ECZ held a meeting with the presidential candidates to remind them of the rules of the elections.

ECZ spokesperson Cris Akufuna called for peace during and after the elections, adding that the commission hoped to announce the results within 48 hours.

Akufuna added that there was no room to manipulate the election results. He said the ECZ had “put in place a transparent system where there will not be any space or chance for anyone to manipulate.”

He explained that after the votes were counted, polling agents from the various political parties would be able to sign off the results.

“Having signed off the results, the results will be pasted on the notice board outside the polling station and each one of the monitors present will be given a copy of the results.

“Having done that, one of the polling agents will accompany the presiding officer and security officer to the collation centre to deliver the results sheet,” said Akufuna.

But in a move viewed as confrontational, the opposition Patriotic Front (PF) has encouraged its supporters to stay at polling stations after casting their votes.

PF leader Michael Sata, who is widely viewed as the biggest challenger to Rupiah Banda for the presidency, urged his supporters to stay at polling stations after voting. “We still maintain that our people should
remain at polling stations after voting,”
Sata said.

Addressing a rally in Lusaka, Sata said this was to help guard against possible rigging. He even encouraged his supporters to sleep at polling stations, where necessary.

Despite being out of active politics for a while now, former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda has been very vocal ahead of the elections.

He has been campaigning for political parties and their supporters to uphold peace before, during and after the elections. Kaunda, who became Zambia’s first president in 1964, currently features in a number of radio, television and print adverts by the ECZ.

One advert reads: “Campaign peacefully, do not intimidate. Allow voters to vote for the candidates of their choice on Sep. 20, play your part to ensure that this year’s elections are peaceful.”

Zambian police have even gone so far as to temporarily ban the sale of axes, hoes, machetes, catapults and other small weapons that could be used to perpetrate violence. The police have also banned the sale of alcohol by street vendors, especially a highly-toxic drink popularly known as Tujilijili.

Tujilijili is brandy and gin, sold in 30ml and 60ml sachets, which has an alcohol content of 45 percent. It is manufactured illegally in Lusaka, and is normally sold on streets and in public places like markets and bus ranks for as little as 20 cents.

On Friday the Inspector General of Police, Francis Kabonde, ordered all Tujilijili traders to stop selling the alcoholic drink.

Kabonde said: “The Zambian police will be out on the street to make sure that all those that might break the law are arrested regardless of who they may be.”

The national brewery, Zambia Breweries, has also done its bit to curb election violence and announced it was restricting the sale of its alcoholic beverages on election day and the days that follow in order to minimise consumption. The company did not explain how this restriction would be implemented.

But most people have bought beer in large quantities ahead of Tuesday’s elections.

Churches and faith-based organisations have also called for peace during this year’s elections.

The Reformed Church in Zambia’s Reverend Madalitso Banda warned against “false prophets” who may want to bring confusion.

Even international observers monitoring the elections have called for peace. The chairperson of the Commonwealth Observer Group and former Nigerian president, Yakubu Gowon, urged parties “to ensure that their followers do not engage in violence before, during and after elections.”

The European Union Election Observer Mission in Zambia also reported that the its Chief Observer Maria Muñiz De Urquiza, a Member of the European Parliament (Spain), would hold a series of discussions with stakeholders in the run up to the polls.

The African Union, Southern Africa Development Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa have also dispatched their observer missions.

Excerpt:

When Zambians go the polls on Sep. 20 they will have the most effective team of observers monitoring the electoral process – themselves. Citizens, through social media, will be able to report offences and irregularities during and before the general elections.

A poster asking people to vote for Edith Nawakwi, the only woman presidential candidate. Credit: Ephraim Nsingo/IPS

An initiative called Bantu Watch was launched on Saturday by civil society to ensure that the Southern African nation has a higher level of citizen participation in monitoring the elections.

It is a simple system. People can text anonymous reports to a local number, 3018, using their mobile phones or they can log onto the website to report incidents online.

Formal election observers based in the areas where the reports originate will first verify electoral irregularities that require action from either electoral staff or police.

As voters go to the polls next week to elect a president, parliament and local government representatives, there have been fears of election violence. Opposition parties have accused President Rupiah Banda’s ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) of intimidating those who oppose the president and the party.

Civil society and politicians have hailed the initiative and see it as a means of quickly addressing any incidents.

“It is a great electoral malpractice preventive mechanism as people can report, in real time, offences such as intimidation, hate speech, vote buying, polling clerk bias, voting misinformation and so on. Action can be taken right away,” Lee Habasonda, executive director of the Southern African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (SACCORD), told IPS. The project is run by Zambia’s civil society and social media representatives under SACCORD.

Even those running for office have welcomed the initiative. The presidential candidate for the opposition National Restoration Party, Elias Chipimo Jr., said any initiative that could help reduce election violence should be embraced.

“There is too much pre-election violence and intimidation and any effort to prevent this will not be wasted. One of our members is currently nursing a wound after being assaulted by a ruling party cadre and there are eyewitness accounts which can confirm this. So my party fully welcomes this initiative,” he said.

And voters are welcoming it too.

Reports are already flowing in to the Bantu Watch website from across the country. The unverified reports describe incidents of bribery, electoral fraud, and violation of the electoral code of conduct, among others.

One report from someone identified only as “MSimushi” from Senanga in western Zambia says: “Agents of ruling MMD party in Senanga are busy trying 2 bribe appointed poll staff with cash in return 4 favour @ vote count.”

Another says: “#Zambiaelections: Vehicle allegedly used in (the United Party for National Development) UPND campaigns identified as judiciary property.”

“We expect a great response to Bantu Watch because this is a simple enough thing to do, and it does not require complicated technical expertise. All a person needs is access to either a mobile phone or the internet, which are platforms many people already use every day.”

Habasonda said trained monitors in the country’s nine provinces would verify the citizen reports before forwarding them to the relevant authorities for action.

“We have trained system administrators to receive and verify reports, they will act like gatekeepers. Depending on how successful this is, the initiative will be institutionalised and become part of every election,” he said.

The opposition Patriotic Front’s Secretary General Wynter Kabimba was hopeful that Bantu Watch would allow electoral offences to be reported while something can still be done about them.

Kabimba, whose party has petitioned election results before, said many reports of irregularities had not been investigated further in the past and some only managed to reach the relevant authorities after they had already been overtaken by events. He said in some cases the people who the complaints were about had already taken office and intimidated the complainants. “This initiative is therefore a very welcome thing, as it will finally give people a chance to report cases while something can still be done about them,” he said.

Kabimba, however, urged the project administrators to be aware that sometimes people’s perceptions of an incident differed from what really happened and they tended to be alarmist.

The spokesperson for the ruling MMD, Dora Siliya, agreed.

“Zambians should continue to have faith in the Electoral Commission and trust them to do a competent job of delivering free and fair elections. Yes it is important to have such initiatives that allow citizens to monitor and report, but we also know that sometimes people do things out of malice and some of these reports may be motivated by this,” she said.

Media academic Dr. Elijah Mwewa Mutambanshiku Bwalya of the University of Zambia’s Department of Mass Communication said: “Ordinary voices have been missing from the public media, which have been monopolised by the ruling party. So this initiative is a great way of finally allowing citizens a voice in the electoral process.”

He added that he was concerned that those in rural areas would not be able to use Bantu Watch as many did not have mobile phones, let alone an internet connection.

The data compiled will become part of a report with recommendations for improving the electoral process.

By IPS Correspondents
LILONGWE, Sep 2 2011 (IPS)

For the last two weeks, Malawi’s president has been running the country’s 22 ministries on his own after firing his entire cabinet. But political and economic analysts say that his delay in appointing a new cabinet is detrimental to the country’s development. Some analysts say government has come to a standstill because of this, while others say the situation shows that the president has lost control.

Vice-President Joyce Banda (far left) was expelled from the ruling party after being accused of insubordination. Credit: Claire Ngozo/IPS

It is not known when Mutharika will appoint a new cabinet. Hetherwick Ntaba, spokesman for Mutharika’s ruling Democratic People’s Party (DPP), told IPS that it is the president’s prerogative to dissolve the cabinet.

“The president can appoint and remove ministers when he sees fit and that’s his right,” said Ntaba. He confirmed that Mutharika was heading all 22 ministries.

However, the decision comes soon after unparalleled mass protests against Mutharika in July, where 20 people were killed by police. Among other things, demonstrators had demanded that Mutharika reduce the size of his cabinet, which had grown to 42 from 29 in 2004 when he assumed power.

The protesters said the bloated cabinet’s monthly wages amounted to 100,000 dollars – money that could pay the monthly salaries of 428 nurses or 1,000 teachers. Up to 60 percent of Malawi’s 13.1 million people live below the poverty line.

Noel Mbowela, a political analyst at Mzuzu University, told IPS that Mutharika probably fired his ministers because he lost trust in them.

“He has taken too long to replace the cabinet and this only shows that he is having difficulties running the country and his own party. It is, however, unfortunate that he is holding the whole country to ransom and putting progress on hold while he is struggling with decisions on who to appoint to the cabinet next,” said Mbowela.

He said Mutharika seems to have lost control governing the country for some time now and the unprecedented demonstrations only cemented this fact.

“The president went on radio and asked Malawians why they doubted him. He knows he has lost control and he is really struggling to resolve that,” Mbowela told IPS.

In June Mutharika addressed the country on state-controlled radio and pleaded with Malawi’s citizens to trust him, as he knew what he was doing. Malawians once lauded Mutharika for turning the Southern African country into the breadbasket of Africa thanks to his economic policies, which favoured small- scale farmers.

Mustapha Hussein, a political analyst at the University of Malawi, told IPS that Mutharika is shortchanging the country. He added that government has come to a standstill because of the absence of ministers.

“Policy formulation is now in the hands of one man – the president. He is not getting any advice at all and that is dangerous for the country’s development,” said Hussein.

According to Malawi’s constitution, ministers are supposed to not only advise the president, but also direct, coordinate and supervise the activities of government departments, initiate bills for submission to parliament and formulate the budget of the state and its economic programmes.

Mutharika is also at loggerheads with Vice-President Joyce Banda. He no longer works with her and refuses to assign her any duties. Last December he expelled Banda from the ruling party after accusing her of insubordination – that was the last time she worked as part of government.

Banda had refused to endorse Mutharika’s brother, Peter, as the ruling party’s candidate for the 2014 presidential elections. She has since launched her own party but still remains the country’s vice- president. The office of the vice-president is an elected and constitutional office.

However, Hussein hopes that Mutharika will appoint a new, leaner cabinet soon.

“The country can’t afford to spend money on 42 ministers. The work they do can be done by a maximum of 15 cabinet ministers,” said Hussein.

He said in the past the president had appointed certain people as ministers for political reasons.

Economic analyst Dalitso Kubalasa, who heads the Malawi Economic Justice Network, a coalition of more than 100 civil society organisations that promote economic governance, agreed with Hussein. He also called for ministers to be appointed on merit and soon.

“We hope the president is taking his time to appoint a new cabinet because he is consulting and choosing the right people.

“The president needs assistance in resolving the social and economic turbulence that the country is going through,” said Kubalasa.

Malawi is experiencing an economic downturn and faces fuel and water shortages, power outages and a lack of foreign exchange.

The country’s relations with its traditional donors have also suffered greatly following accusations of bad governance.

Up to 40 percent of Malawi’s national budget has been dependent on donors and 80 percent of the country’s development budget was provided under the Common Approach to Budget Support. This included contributions from Britain, Germany, the African Development Bank, Norway, the European Union and the World Bank. However, the British and German governments have refused to release up to 400 million dollars.  

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
LUSAKA, Aug 12 2011 (IPS)

Although there is a female presidential candidate contesting Zambia’s Sept. 20 general elections, her prospects are not strong. And in fact, fewer women overall are likely to be elected into public office this year, analysts say.

A poster asking people to vote for Edith Nawakwi, the only woman presidential candidate. Credit: Ephraim Nsingo/IPS

Only the Forum for Democratic Development (FDD) nominated a woman, Edith Nawakwi, to contest the presidential race. She is the only woman out of the 15 presidential candidates. Initially there were 17 candidates, however, two have since dropped out.

In the last parliament, there were 22 women out of 158 members in the National Assembly, accounting for a 14 percent female representation.

The ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) was the first to publish its list of parliamentary candidates on Jul. 20, and it only had 19 women out of 150 candidates.

The main opposition parties, the Patriotic Front and the United Party for National Development, are yet to publish their lists, but women’s rights activists feel there will not be much of a difference.

Emily Sikazwe, the executive director of Women for Change, a non-governmental organisation that advocates for the economic and political empowerment of women, told IPS that this year the prospects for women being elected look bleak.

“Already, all the political parties have adopted few women,” Sikazwe said.

In September, Zambia will hold tripartite elections to choose a president, 150 members of parliament and councillors.

When the registration for presidential election candidates opened on Aug. 7, scores of women turned up at the Supreme Court, the venue for the nominations. These women were from different walks of life, but they had one common purpose: to cheer on FDD’s party president, Nawakwi – who is the only female presidential candidate.

Among those who came to offer solidarity to Nawakwi was women’s rights activist Beatrice Grillo, the chairperson of the Non-Governmental Organisations Coordinating Council (NGOCC), an umbrella body for women’s organisations.

“We have been looking forward to this occasion. We will support her not because she belongs to any party, but because she is a woman. We want to see an end to the poverty that is in this country. We want the women of Zambia to stop struggling. Those are the issues we are looking for and that is what she has promised,” Grillo told IPS.

Grillo was adamantly confident that Nawakwi and other women contesting various positions in the elections would perform well. She said the NGOCC has even come up with an election fund to support women who will be running. The fund will support female candidates in acquiring campaign material. The candidates will, however, not be given cash.

“We have campaign teams that will be going out to campaign for all women from all political parties,” said Grillo.

But not all women share Grillo’s excitement about Nawakwi’s presidential candidacy. Some feel the struggle for women’s representation has been lost before it has even started.

Although the exact figures have not yet been compiled following delays by some of the parties to announce their final lists of candidates, a number of sitting female MPs were dropped and replaced with either male or female candidates.

In Zambia, political parties do not conduct primary elections to choose candidates for parliamentary elections. That task falls to the national executive committees of the parties, which are male- dominated.

“Some women who were in the previous parliament worked hard in their constituencies, but they were replaced. This presents a challenge for us having to (work) with new people over and over again,” Sikazwe said.

Even Nawakwi’s nomination has not really inspired Sikazwe.

“Symbolically, yes, we say we are happy she is filing. But we know she is not winning. There is currently a lot of hate language and this does not inspire women to participate,” added Sikazwe.

But Nawakwi told IPS in an interview immediately after filing her nomination that she was in the race to win it.

“Nothing and no one will stop me now,” said Nawakwi. “I believe that Zambia will only be saved by a woman and that Zambia is ready for a woman president. As soon as the men heard I was contesting, they all panicked. I will work and deliver like I delivered when I was minister of finance.”

With slightly over one month left before the elections, Sikazwe said it only makes sense now for the women’s movement to start preparing for the next elections in 2016.

“We cannot resolve that (under-representation of women) now, but it is a challenge for us to start working and make sure that come 2016, we will be ready. In the next five years we will have to work hard in addressing these issues. Watch us after five years.”

Sikazwe said in a number of cases, political parties were also causing unnecessary tension among women by replacing experienced female candidates with inexperienced ones.

In her view, this is one of the many schemes by men to cause confusion among women.

“This is how men make women fight, replacing females with females,” said Sikazwe. “This is a bitter lesson for us as women. A lot of women gave themselves to (their) political parties, but they have been slapped in the face.”

In July, the former gender minister and member of parliament Sara Sayifwanda said women were to blame for their poor representation as candidates because they only contested posts in a few constituencies in the country.

She told reporters that women ended up competing for only a few available seats.

Excerpt:

By Eprahim Nsingo
LUSAKA, Aug 10 2011 (IPS)

In Zambia’s highly patriarchal society Edith Nawakwi, 52, has broken a few records on the political scene over the last two decades. And she broke another one on Sunday by being the only female candidate to file for nomination to run for president in Zambia’s upcoming elections.

Edith Nawakwi is the only female candidate to run for president in Zambia's upcoming elections. Credit: Ephraim Nsingo/IPS

All candidates are required to file nomination papers with the country’s Supreme Court to get legal confirmation that they are standing as a presidential candidate. Come election day on Sept. 20, about 17 candidates will battle it out to lead the country. Nawakwi is well-known in Zambian politics. In 1997 she became the first woman in southern Africa to be appointed as a minister of finance. The former member of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) left it in 2001 when she and other officials opposed then President Fredrick Chiluba’s bid for a third term.

They formed the Forum for Democratic Development (FDD) and Nawakwi was elected as the party’s first vice president. In 2005 she became the first Zambian woman to lead a political party when she was elected president of the FDD.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: You have just filed for nomination as a presidential candidate. What was going through your mind? A: As I went to file my nomination, as I walked up to the Chief Justice, I asked myself ‘Why am I doing this?’ I was (asking) myself ‘am I equal to the task?’ But when I looked at my supporters and their excitement, it helped me appreciate the trust. I believe Zambia is ready for a woman to be president. Only a woman can bring about real change in this country.

Q: What can be done to change the mindset, the negative perception and stereotypes about women? A: Zambian women have the same rights as men, and running for political office is not an exception. When I took over as minister of finance people had all sorts of negative questions because I was a woman… I was minister of finance during one of the most difficult phases in the history of our country, but I managed to contain the situation.

I was minister of finance at a time when Zambia was at its lowest. I remember there was a day when I was required to effect payment for half a million dollars and the government did not have any money. We had to borrow from one of our commercial banks. We were trying to liberalise the economy but we had no income in the country. I was privileged to be one of those who managed to push through the structural adjustment programme.

Liberia has had the best leader (President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf) post conflict to manage that economy. And it is not just about the economy, but people’s attitudes as well. I believe that if Africa believed that one of its major assets is women, we would be much better.

Look at what is happening in Libya, Somalia and all the carnage… who is making those decisions? The motherly instinct of a woman would not allow such, as mothers our stomachs move when we see such carnage.

I believe that with women in charge, we would not be seeing most of the conflicts we are seeing in Africa today.

Q: You are the only woman who has filed for nomination as president. You are also the only female president of a political party in Zambia. Is this a sign that women are not yet ready for the challenge? A: We have to start somewhere, and this is what we have been discussing with other women. I am a product of the women’s lobby myself… in a highly patriarchal society like ours, you have to break that mind-set that women cannot do certain things. I was democratically elected as president of our party at a convention that was contested by five men and they all confirmed that I was better than them. Having broken that barrier, I see more of our (women) colleagues coming in.

Q: What is it that you are going to do differently during this campaign? A: Nothing and no one will stop me now. I believe that Zambia will only be saved by a woman and that Zambia is ready for a woman president. As soon as the men heard I was contesting, they all panicked. I will work and deliver like I delivered when I was minister of finance. The current leadership belongs to the liberation struggle era. We need leadership for the 21st century!

Our agenda when we get into government (will) be to provide a constitution that provides for the rights of all individuals, including women and persons with disabilities.

Q: In terms of policies, what are the major highlights of your manifesto? A: We are pushing for the decentralisation of political and economic power, to ensure that our people are empowered to drive development.

I am a passionate believer in the power that the country has in its people… our people’s quality of life continues to decline, yet we are one of the richest countries in the world. There is no deliberate policy to put the ordinary Zambian at the centre of any economic policy.

This is because we have an over centralised government and this has been the case since the colonial days when resource allocation was done in line with (what) had been used in Britain. This unfortunately resulted in corruption. Resource allocation is centred in the hands of a few … we need political and economic decentralisation.

If you have decentralisation, even members of parliament will now be interested in serving their people at the local level because that is where the resources will be directed. You will see that most of the world’s successful economies have been decentralised.

Q: How do you intend to make decentralisation work in Zambia? A: I think that for purposes of accountability and transparency there is a need to make sure planning is influenced from the district. We would want to have the minister of finance to come up with budgets for districts, which then coordinate the allocation of resources.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents and - -
RIFT VALLEY, Kenya , Aug 10 2011 (IPS)

The Mawingu camp for internally displaced persons affected by Kenya’s 2007- 2008 post-election violence is a desolate place. Located in the Rift Valley, the camp is a collection of tattered, sagging and forlorn tents.

The Mawingu camp for internally displaced persons is a desolate place. Credit: Peter Kahare/IPS

In the middle of the haphazardly erected tents that provide shelter from the vagaries of the weather stands a frayed, faded tent.

Initially there is a deafening silence. But then Truphosa Achudo, the owner of the tent, emerges with her hands on the scarf wrapped around her head.

“I have just taken my drugs, they are strong and I am weak, which is why I am breathing heavily,” says Achudo.

Achudo is HIV-positive and she has a two-week-old baby girl, Philomena Wambui. She does not know her daughter’s HIV status.

But unlike other lactating mothers, Achudo is not eating fruits and vegetables or even drinking milk to aid with her milk supply. She cannot afford these luxuries. Instead her diet consists of only starchy maize and maize flour, which are donated by government every few months.

When the supply runs out, Achudo’s husband, Samwel Njau, has to find casual work in order to buy them food. Njau, whom she tells IPS is suffering from severe flu, left at 7am to look for casual work.

But her family is not the only one having a hard time. The living conditions in the camp are deplorable and are taking a toll on HIV-positive people. Food and financial insecurity is rampant; most here only get one meal a day as they rely on government’s relief supply, which comes once every several months.

There are 2,300 people in this camp, both children and adults. Many of those who live here were informal traders before the 2007-2008 violence and many did not have their own homes. Instead they lived in rented houses and they have not returned because they still fear recurrent violence. Violence erupted in the country after incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the presidential election.

At the peak of the violence, the United Nations Secretary General’s representative on IDPs estimated that there were between 350,000 and 500,000 internally displaced persons.

While government has managed to relocate many IDPs, it has had a problem finding suitable land on which to resettle this community. Also, many have resisted attempts by government to resettle them on arid and semi-arid land.

Achudo’s predicament encapsulates the desperate situation characterising life in the camp for HIV- positive people. She was diagnosed with the virus in 2007 and immediately started taking anti- retrovirals (ARVs). She is still on ARVs and, like other HIV-positive people in the camp, she gets the treatment for free at the nearby Olkalou District Hospital.

Achudo also has a persistent dry cough. After visiting the Olkalou District Hospital, she was given drugs to treat it. It brings her daily regime of pills to 24 tablets a day.

“The drugs are strong, I should be eating well for them to work in the body, but there is no food,” she says.

She coughs through the night and she can only pray that it is not a relapse of tuberculosis, which she suffered from early this year. It is an opportunistic disease that affects many HIV/AIDS patients in the camp.

She has found some solace in her condition by becoming a member of the camp’s HIV support group Tumaini, which means hope. But general despondency prevails in the camp and among members of the group.

The few toilets in the camp are a health hazard as they are full and overflow with human waste. When it rains at night the tents get soaked, offering little protection to those inside. And hygiene is an issue. The HIV-positive women cannot afford sanitary towels, for instance.

But all is not hopeless. The group is chaired by the strong and outspoken Margaret Gathoni who says “the members have refused to die.”

“We have been denied casual work out there with some employers saying we shall infect their workers and friends. Our colleagues in the camp whisper negatively as we pass by, (the) majority of us are widows and we feel vulnerable,” says Gathoni.

Stigma has been a major concern in Kenya for people living with HIV, but this group has decided to be open about their status.

Out of the 45 people in the group there are only two men. The youngest in the group is a 17-year-old girl, while the oldest is a 60-year-old.

“There are up to 250 HIV-positive people in this camp. (The) women have tried to come out and accept their condition but men have shied away and kept secret their (status), though we know them, we even meet with them at the hospital,” says Gathoni.

But Francis Wanderi is one man who has come out and accepted his condition. He says acceptance is equal to prolonging one’s life.

Until a home can be found for those living in the camp, the HIV-positive group has banded together to support each other through their challenges.

Excerpt:

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Aug 5 2011 (IPS)

Many public officials in Swaziland do not think that access to information is a public right, but rather a privilege – which can be withdrawn at anytime.

Information is one of the most important tools citizens need to make informed decisions, especially about education. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

Nothile Dlamini, 16, found this out first hand when she participated in the Right to Know, Right to Education project, whose focus is on budgets, child rights and education and the concept that access to education and information are inextricably linked.

As part of the project Dlamini was one of seven people who had to seek public information from various government institutions in order to assess the response public officials give to different people. The project was carried out by Save the Children-Swaziland in collaboration with the Department of International Development (DfID).

“I realised that for someone to get information in the country it depends a lot on who you are,” said Nothile Dlamini.

She said most government officials, especially at national level, did not even want to hear her out because they only saw her as a child who was wasting their time. Not only did some officials refuse to give her an ear, they were also rude to the point where she nearly broke down and cried.

The study found that only 27 percent of public officials were willing to give out information.

Save the Children legal advisor, Jackson Rodgers, said while it is difficult for many people to access information, it gets worse for children.

This is particularly relevant in a country where 26 percent of the reproductive age group between 15 and 49 years old is infected with the virus that causes AIDS. And where, according to UNICEF, the United Nation’s children’s fund, about 70,000 children have been orphaned from HIV, and the number of child-headed households is high.

“Access to information among children is particularly relevant for child-headed households because these are children who have the responsibility of taking decisions that affect their families,” said Rodgers.

Public institutions in the southern African kingdom denied citizens access by saying the information requested related to issues of national security, privacy, commercial secrets, public safety and effectiveness and integrity of government decision-making.

Rodgers said access to information may be granted in accordance with Section 14 of the constitution under the freedom of expression and association clause, but it is not clear whether it is guaranteed.

And the public has no external body to which to appeal if it feels a public official has unfairly refused to share information.

The participants of the study were a trade unionist, a person working for a non-governmental organisation, student Nothile Dlamini, a school committee member, a person living with disabilities, a journalist and a parent.

Launched in September 2010, the study took place over five months and all seven participants had to visit the same public institutions at different times, requiring access to public information.

The exercise revealed the different attitudes civil servants display to members of the public when seeking information.

According to Save the Children monitoring and evaluation officer, Nomfundo Dlamini, participants who produced requests for information on letter heads got better attention compared to their ordinary counterparts like Nothile Dlamini, the person living with a disability and the parent.

“Public institutions claim that they give information to people they can trace and that’s why they would rather deal with organisations and not individuals,” said Nomfundo Dlamini.

However, smaller institutions such as schools are more accessible compared to national public organisations such as the Regional Education Office. In fact, some regional and national institutions refused to accept letters requesting information.

“Getting appointments with relevant officials to (get) reasons for refusals proved to be difficult,” said Nomfundo Dlamini.

Swaziland is among six countries in Africa to take part in the Right to Know, Right to Education project. The other countries are Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

According to Save the Children-Swaziland director, Dumisani Mnisi, this project is aimed at promoting the participation of ordinary people, especially women and children, in the education sector.

Information, said Mnisi, is one of the most important tools citizens need to make informed decisions, especially ones that affect the education system of the country. He said the project will help build capacity for ordinary citizens to see how they can have an impact on the education of their children through participating in decision making from schools to national level. With government already rolling out the Free Primary Education Programme since 2009, reasoned Mnisi, ordinary people need to be more informed so they can decide on the kind of education the country needs.

Access to information has also been proven to be an anticorruption tool, said Mnisi. Swaziland scored poorly in the 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index, drawn up by global watchdog Transparency International, ranking 91 out of 178 countries. Minister of Finance Majozi Sithole has repeatedly told the nation that Swaziland loses 11.5 million dollars a month because of corruption.

“Governments do not function well in secret,” said Mnisi.

Getting information is also very difficult even for journalists whose jobs depend on the right to know, said Swazi Observer senior reporter, Fanyana Mabuza, who also participated in the study.

“I realised that there is no policy addressing access to information (from) government,” said Mabuza. “It just depends on the discretion of each public official.”

There is a general fear in the country when it comes to giving out information, said Thembinkosi Dlamini, an economist at the Institute of Democracy in Africa (IDASA).

“What are you going to do with the information?” was the most common question from public officials, said Save the Children’s Nomfundo Dlamini.

Officials were comfortable giving out basic information, such as the number of pupils at school, but were reluctant to cooperate when quizzed on sensitive issues like audited financial statements.

“School principals would refuse to give financial statements saying it is only the principal secretary at the Ministry of Education who can request that information,” said Nomfundo Dlamini.

However, said Nomfundo Dlamini, no legislation or policy prohibits the public from getting school records.

“If you’re dealing with the education sector, you’re told to appeal (to) the Education Ministry, which makes it difficult to get any redress,” said Rogers.

However, said Rogers, the Education Sector Policy, 2011 is a huge step in the right direction in ensuring that schools and institutional information is shared. The policy compels schools to compile information and data and avail it to the public to help guide the education sector at all levels.

“The challenge would be the implementation of the policy because it can only be effective only when followed,” said Rogers.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
JUBA , Jul 27 2011 (IPS)

Less than three weeks after gaining independence, South Sudan is embroiled in a row with Sudan over pipeline fees charged by the latter to export oil.

Last week South Sudan made its first shipment of oil as an independent nation, despite the lack of an agreement on revenue sharing of oil exports between the two countries.

South Sudan has 85 percent of the oil that comes from both South Sudan and Sudan. Until Jul. 9 the two countries divided oil revenues equally. But with independence, South Sudan says that the deal is over.

The two countries have yet to formally agree on how much South Sudan should pay to export its oil through pipelines in Sudan to Port Sudan. However, a bitter row is now brewing over what the new state sees as exorbitant taxes charged by its neighbour for South Sudan’s first shipments of oil as an independent state. Sudan is charging about 16 times the highest fee that can be paid according to international practises, at 33 dollars a barrel. According to sources in South Sudan, the highest fee charged internationally is two dollars.

The director general for the energy ministry, Arkangelo Okwang, said that one million barrels were shipped out of the country using Sudan’s pipeline on Jul. 18. South Sudan produces about 385,000 barrels of oil a day.

Okwang said South Sudan shipped another 600,000 barrels on Jul. 23 and expects Sudan to bill them for the use of the pipeline.

But on Thursday Sudan’s parliament passed a revised 2011 budget that included expected income from oil transit fees to be paid by South Sudan.

The budget figures showed that Sudan expected South Sudan to pay 2.6 billion dollars in oil transit fees this year. It is almost the same amount that Sudan would have earned if the 50-50 oil revenue sharing agreement was still in place.

For South Sudan’s first shipment of one million barrels, it was charged a tax of 33 dollars per barrel by Sudan. Experts estimate the first shipment to have been worth 100 million dollars.

As South Sudan threatens to halt oil exports in complaint against the high tax, Sudan says the new country has no option other than to pay the fees it is charging.

Lual Deng, the former oil minister in Sudan’s government of national unity, said Sudan had previously agreed to let South Sudan’s July shipments pass through their pipelines until a final deal is reached on the rate of fees.

Taban Deng Gai, governor of the oil-rich Unity State, told IPS that officials in Sudan were imposing unacceptable terms.

“Can you imagine they are charging 33 dollars per barrel for processing and transiting oil from the oil fields in Unity State (in South Sudan) to Port Sudan (in Sudan)?”

The price of oil per barrel varies but oil called Dar Blend is sold for about 80 dollars per barrel, while Nile Blend is sold for 114 dollars per barrel.

“You know, the oil leaves South Sudan when it has 10 percent of water in it. When it reaches Heglig (an oil field located on the Sudan border) they have to remove the water from it. They are charging 2.9 dollars for that process,” said Gai.

“In addition, Sudan charges South Sudan 22 dollars per barrel to transport the oil from the fields in Unity State to Port Sudan. In Port Sudan they charge 6.9 dollars per barrel for handling and impose additional taxes,” he explained. With an additional 1.2 dollars in export tax, the total comes to 33 dollars per barrel.

He added: “If you calculate these fees at the rate of 33 dollars per barrel, you find that we are still giving the north (Sudan) exactly 50 percent of the oil revenue.”

On Jul. 21, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir told reporters that the country would rather not export any oil at all if they had to pay Sudan unreasonably high fees.

Gai agreed with Kiir and added that Sudan’s fees were “contrary to international practices.”

“Because for Chad, they pay only 0.4 dollars per barrel for their oil to go to the international market. In the whole world the highest you can pay is two dollars per barrel for the whole process,” Gai said.

“We cannot pay 33 dollars and we cannot even pay five dollars per barrel. The highest we can pay is two dollars per barrel because this is the highest fee that can be paid according to international practices,” he asserted.

Kiir said South Sudan would rather wait three years for its own pipeline to be built. However, the country receives 98 percent of its revenue from oil. He did not say what it would do financially while it waited for the construction of the pipeline.

But the Sudanese finance minister, Ali Mahoud, said on Thursday that Kiir’s position is unrealistic, given that South Sudan has neither oil pipelines nor refineries.

“South Sudan has no alternative other than exporting the oil through the north (Sudan). What (Kiir) says doesn’t make any sense because he doesn’t have any other options than to use our pipelines,” said Mahmoud.

“For airplanes flying over our skies they pay us a fee, so if South Sudan is using our pipelines on the ground, should they not also pay? This moment, as I am speaking to you, there is oil (from South Sudan) in the northern (Sudan’s) pipelines going to Port Sudan,” Mahmoud said. He added the pipeline was Sudan’s asset and South Sudan had to pay to use it.

Gai said South Sudan’s government would prefer to build its own pipeline and refineries.

“We will ask the people of South Sudan not to receive salaries for two years, not eat for two years so that we can build our pipelines to go through Kenya or Djibouti.”

He acknowledged, however, that building South Sudan’s own pipeline would be expensive.

“It will cost us between 1.5 and three billion dollars to build a pipeline, but it is an option we might have to go for given the conditions being imposed by our brothers in the north (Sudan),” said Gai.

Earlier, David Loro Gubek, the undersecretary in South Sudan’s ministry of energy and mining, said government planned to build a refinery in each of South Sudan’s three regions of Upper Nile, Equatoria and Bahr al Ghazal.

The refineries would produce oil for domestic use and the pipeline would enable South Sudan to transport its oil through either the Port of Djibouti or the Port of Mombasa in Kenya, which is nearer than Port Sudan.

Despite Kiir’s and Gai’s tough words, experts in South Sudan believe the government will not have money to pay its bills if the country stops exporting crude oil. Currently oil constitutes more than 98 percent of South Sudan’s budget.

South Sudanese and Sudanese officials are scheduled to meet to discuss the pipeline fees. Separate meetings regarding South Sudan’s future use of Sudan’s facilities to process and export its oil are also under way in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. And until a solution is found, there is a risk that South Sudan’s government could ground to a halt if the country stops oil exports.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
JUBA, Jul 8 2011 (IPS)

Mother of eight, Jessicah Foni, 36, hopes that independence will mean a hospital will soon be built in her village. Foni, who has travelled from a remote village in South Sudan to the state’s capital to celebrate independence, lost two babies at birth because of the lack of medical facilities in her area.

“I come from a very remote village that is far away from any medical facility. I have lost two children due to problems related to delivery. Our new government should build hospitals close to us so that we can access medication,” she said.

South Sudan has one of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the world. Out of 100,000 live births, 2,054 women die.

Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar, the medical officer in charge of the World Health Organization (WHO) office for South Sudan, said the harsh and unfavourable living conditions, coupled with very limited access to basic health services, contributes to the poor health status of the population

According to the Sudan Household Health Survey and the World Children’s Status Report 2008 by UNICEF, out of 1,000 live births in health institutions, 102 infants die.

It also found that only 48 percent of Sudanese women visit medical facilities during pregnancy while only 13 percent deliver at hospitals, attended to by skilled workers who constitute only 10 percent.

Grace Joan, 26, a mother of five says she has never delivered any of her children in hospital.

“When my time is due, I just call a neighbour who helps me deliver my children. But I am happy that we have our freedom, which will enable the government to provide health facilities to all people so that women and children do not die of preventable diseases,” she said.

Abubakar says only 25 percent of South Sudanese have access to medical facilities, making it hard to provide services to the population.

“Preventable infectious diseases like malaria, presumed pneumonia and diarrhoea account for the majority of the reported diagnosis in health facilities for all health groups combined. Preventable infectious diseases and malnutrition are the most common causes of morbidity and mortality for children under five years of age,” he said.

But as South Sudan prepares to celebrate its independence on Jul. 9, experts and policy makers all agree that urgent steps have to be taken to address the health sector in the country.

Dr. Olivia Lomoro, the Under Secretary in the ministry of health says government is aware of the situation and has put in place systems to address the problem.

“For the past five years since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the government has taken over the payment of salaries to all the workers in the health sector. The government also procures and distributes all essential drugs for all the medical facilities. We had our first ever health symposium last month to discuss ways to improve the health sector,” she said.

Robert Kimani, who owns a small pharmacy in Juba, said life is very expensive in the city and residents would rather buy food than drugs – even if they are sick.

Dr. Meshack Adan, who works at the Juba Referral Hospital, the country’s biggest and only referral facility, said government should encourage people to use existing medical services.

“Where are the 75 percent of our people who don’t get medical services?” he asked.

Lomoro said government, in collaboration with WHO, have drafted a five-year National Health Framework which commits government to addressing the health situation in the country. The policy framework will allow government to address the acute shortage of personnel by training health personnel to improve services.

Abubakar said only 10 percent of the staffing needs are filled by qualified health workers and there is an urgent need to train doctors, clinical officers, and midwives, among others, to offer the best services to the people.

He called on government to reconstruct the country’s dilapidated medical facilities and to improve infrastructure so that medical staff can respond to emergencies.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
KHARTOUM, Jul 8 2011 (IPS)

Sudan is closest to civil war since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005.

A poster in Juba as South Sudan prepares to become Africa's newest country on Jul. 9. Credit: Protus Onyango/IPS

A report released by a coalition of Sudanese, African, Arab and Western non-governmental organsations warns that Sudan is closest to civil war since the signing of the CPA in 2005.

The report titled “Beyond the Pledge: International Engagement After Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement” views the ongoing conflict between the North and South as a predecessor to a full-blown civil war and urges the international community to adopt more targeted sanctions.

Abdel Moniem Al Gak, an activist and co-founder of the Sudan Democracy First Group was involved in the writing and production of the report. Through his organisation, he lobbies for human rights and democracy in Sudan.

He has been based in Juba since his arrest and subsequent detention after the Sudanese government cracked down on international and Sudanese organisations following an arrest warrant issued for Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court in March 2009.

“Sudan is not on the brink of war, Sudan is at war. It is living a state of displacement, destruction, violation of rights and deterioration of human rights in all parts of the country,” said Al Gak in a phone interview with IPS.

He added that citizens in different regions in Sudan, the East, Darfur, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan could suffer the same fate as South Sudan and call for their right to self-determination. He attributed this to peace agreements that do not affect the average citizen and development that contributes to more suffering and causes loss of heritage and displacement.

In May 2011, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) declared that they seized control of Abyei after three days of bloody clashes with Southern soldiers. The army attributed the reason behind the conflict as the ambush and subsequent killing of 22 soldiers of northern origin. Abyei was the site of aerial bombardment and most of its population fled.

International condemnation and campaigning pushed the United Nations to take action immediately and in June, the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei was formed and it deployed 4,200 Ethiopian soldiers on Jun. 27 for six months.

Abyei, an area barely visible on a map, has witnessed a series of conflicts since the singing of the CPA between the government of Sudan led by the ruling party, the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). In March 2008, at least 25,000 were displaced after soldiers from the SPLM clashed with Sudanese soldiers.

Currently, the coalition’s report estimates that 113,000 are displaced as a result of conflicts in Abyei. Abyei was supposed to hold a referendum simultaneously with the South Sudanese referendum to choose whether it wants to become part of the southern “Northern Bahr El Ghazal” state or the northern “South Kordofan” state. The referendum was postponed indefinitely after the two peace partners disagreed on the terms of eligibility to vote.

The report recommends that Abyei and Southern Kordofan need an immediate ceasefire for the displaced to return home and the volatile north-south border on which they are located needs to be a demilitarised zone.

Al Baqir Mukhtar Afifi, the director of Al-Khatim Adlan Centre for Enlightenment and Human Development, one of the organisations involved in the report, states that the report was inspired by all the pending issues between the two partners in the CPA that remain unresolved even though it expires in two days.

“In addition to the issues that may ignite war – citizenship, borders, oil, international debt and assets, Abyei is a real possibility of becoming the ignition of war between the two parts of the split country and the war in Darfur is still going on, and an additional war has erupted in Southern Kordofan. “Even the president who is beating the drums of war, has stated that he expects a war between the north and the south,” he told IPS.

The report concludes that the unresolved issues between the north and south will not end on Jul. 9 and it invites the international community to examine its policies towards Sudan to prevent the birth of two states with more problems than prior to the CPA through continuing its engagement in negotiations between both states to ensure “peace, prosperity and stability in the region.”

Meanwhile, South Sudan prepares for independence on Jul. 8. Hafiz Mohammed, Director of Justice Africa (Sudan) said he did not believe there would be security problems on the day of independence.

“There are threats but they are not based on real challenges. It is fair to say that it is not in anyone’s interest to ruin this day, especially the Southerners who see this as a big day, the day their nation is born,” Mohammed said.

He added that South Sudan had the right to secession. “It is also a sad day, we are witnessing the separation of Sudan. We only hope to see a successful nation in the south,” Mohammed said. He added that he hoped the north would benefit from lessons learned from the secession of the south.

“It should try to protect Sudan from further separations and unite the country.”

Ibrahim Al Grefwi, co-founder of Sudan Unite, a coalition of artists who attempted to raise awareness about the secession and keep Sudan united, said it will be a historical day when South Sudan becomes independent.

“It is a historical day for Sudan and it is also a very sad day. I feel sad and I feel that we have failed to unite the country. We also lost important aspects of Sudan’s rich cultural diversity,” Al Grefwi said.

“People in the north just realized that they lost a huge and an important part of Sudan. The political process marginalised the citizens and they just woke up to find that separation is a reality.”

Simon Monoja from the Centre for Peace and Development at the University of Juba in South Sudan said he believed independence day would go smoothly.

“We have militias of concern s in Unity State and Jonglei but I believe that the event tomorrow ill be smooth because it is a day for all Southern Sudanese, they will all want to celebrate it and have it succeed.”

But not everyone is happy. “I came from the north two days ago, I was there for 2 months. Most of the northerners are gloomy, they are so worried about the inability to predict what will happen after separation is declared tomorrow. I don’t expect celebrations in the north tomorrow.”

Excerpt:

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Jul 8 2011 (IPS)

As South Sudan prepares to cede from the North, it faces tremendous challenges towards building a nation and a sense of nationhood.

A poster in Juba as South Sudan prepares to become Africa's newest country on Jul. 9. Credit: Protus Onyango

The focus has been to create structures to respond to humanitarian needs especially in light of the scores of Sudanese returning to South Sudan. The government estimates that 2.4 million Southerners are still living in the North and that half a million are expected to return in the next six months.

As South Sudan waits to raise the new nation’s flag on Jul. 8 to signify new beginnings for the South Sudanese community, it is against this backdrop that IPS spoke to Fikru Abebe, director of the Sudan Southern programme at Plan International. Excerpts of the interview follow:

Q: What is the mood in South Sudan hours before they officially secede from the North? A: There is a carnival mood with a lot of excitement and hope. (There is) hope that this independence will facilitate the building of a nation that is stable and peaceful. The feeling is that at last, the Southerners are taking their rightful place in the community of nations.

<Q: What are the main challenges that this country will have to grapple when it becomes Africa’s newest state? A: The challenges are many such as building lasting peace with the North, reconstructing the infrastructure that was extensively destroyed in the many years of requires, building manpower to deal with the present and future workforce challenges. Many young people were involved in the war and it will take great investment to re-integrate them into civilian life and to ensure that they access basic and vocational education so that they can achieve self sustenance.

Q: Shed some light on the South Sudanese government’s three-year development plan, which was launched in June to drum up support for its reconstruction and development agenda? A: The government of South Sudan presented its 2011 to 2013 development plan to donors, development agencies and NGOs .The idea was to share the key areas of development that the government would focus on with the intention to raise funds as the country moves to rebuild its economy.

Q: Plan International will be mobilising 30 million dollars over the next three years for South Sudan. To what end are these funds being invested? A: Over the next three years, this money will go into improving girl child enrolment in schools, building primary schools and the relevant capacity building issues. The money will also go into improving youth employability through vocational training and technical educational towards sustainable human development.

Plan is also concerned with the plight of children, there will be efforts to invest in local institutions that provide a lasting and enabling environment in which the rights of children and youth are met and where there is preparedness to respond to emergencies and other humanitarian needs.

Q: With regards to social infrastructure, what are the main priority areas in order for South Sudan to achieve sustainable development? A: These include schools, hospitals, roads and telecommunications. A functioning social infrastructure will create an enabling environment for opportunities in civil service, business and the private sector for sustainable economic growth.

Q: How can the government partner with the private sector and interested parties form neighboring countries towards sustainable growth? A: By creating a conducive environment for regional partnerships through liberalised economic policies including incentives. Favorable bilateral agreements with various partners in order to diversify economic opportunities.

Q: Does this country have what it takes to be self reliant? A: It is a hard-earned freedom and despite the devastating civil war and the significant challenges ahead, there are tremendous opportunities for growth because this country is endowed with a rich resource base. Nonetheless, for this country to prosper, peace and stability remain critical. The same optimism was expressed by Deng Deng, a youth who grew in the war and was part of the many young men who joined the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) in what Sudanese saw as a struggle to be independent.

Q: What does Jul. 9 mean to you? A: It means an opportunity to start afresh, to be free. I am happy to see this day as there are many young people who fought in the struggle but are not as lucky to stand at the Dr. John Garang Memorial Park to usher in a new nation.

Q: What do you see as the biggest challenge towards building a sense of nationalism? A: There are some unresolved issues with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005 that ended years of war between North and South. But the strife is not over, the issue of how to share revenue between the North and the South remains unresolved as does the oil rich Abyei region as well as the border demarcations between the two regions.

Q: What are the main challenges that will face SPLM as it transits? A: It was a guerilla movement, turning it into a professional army will be difficult because it will also demand that many soldiers are also dis-armed. The disarmament process begun in 2006 but many guns are still in the wrong hands.

Q: What does the future hold? A: We are like a newborn baby, we have many South Sudanese people returning home and many of them are in camps awaiting opportunities to rebuild their lives. These are major challenges, but when the flag goes up at midnight Jul. 9, that action will symbolise hope for a better future and a break from the past. We are ready for what the future holds.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
JUBA, Jul 7 2011 (IPS)

The sharing of oil between North and South Sudan needs to be urgently addressed otherwise conflict between the two regions will escalate and could possibly lead to civil war, according to government officials and rights organisations.

Ambassador James Morgan, who represented Sudan in Indonesia until June, said matters related to oil need an urgent solution.

“There is no oil in South Sudan now for a week, because the North blocked the pipeline before they started bombing Abyei. Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir is insisting on a 50/50 percent share of the oil. But we just want to pay rent for the pipeline and the use of Port Sudan, which we use for our oil export,” says Morgan.

South Sudan produces 85 percent of the oil from Sudan. On Jul. 9 South Sudan will celebrate the birth of a new nation, the 55th nation in Africa, and will separate from North Sudan.

The speaker of South Sudan’s Legislative Assembly, James Igga, will proclaim the independence of the Republic of South Sudan, then the flag of Sudan will be lowered and the flag of the new republic hoisted.

President Salva Kiir will sign a new transitional constitution into force and then take his oath of office as president of the new country. The country will be divided into 10 states, all to be headed by governors.

But as South Sudan prepares to celebrate independence, the issue of oil sharing and the resolution of the conflicts in Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states are yet to be addressed.

Global Witness, an organisation which has analysed several trends regarding Sudan, says there needs to be greater transparency in Sudan over its oil revenues to help preserve peace.

“The most important thing about southern secession is what will happen to the oil revenues,” says Rosie Sharpe from Global Witness, which released a report on the country’s wealth.

“Without a new, equitable oil deal between the north and south, it is difficult to see how Southern separation will pass off peacefully,” she adds.

“A new oil deal between between north and south is essential to prevent a return to full-scale war. There has been much mistrust over whether the current revenue distribution system has been implemented fairly,” the report says.

The report also states that currently Sudanese citizens cannot be sure how much oil their country produces and therefore cannot be sure that the oil wealth-sharing agreement is being implemented fairly.

“It is therefore important that these issues are addressed,” the report states.

The Sudanese government and China National Petroleum Corporation – the region’s main oil company – have not adequately accounted for discrepancies in published production figures.

Since the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), North and South Sudan split the country’s oil revenues equally but analysts estimate that almost three-quarters of the daily 500,000 barrels of oil comes from the south.

North Sudan’s economy will suffer with South Sudan’s independence. According to Global Witness, oil revenues accounted for 50 percent of domestic revenue and 93 percent of Sudan’s exports in 2009. Already prices for food and basic goods are rising, as the government scales down on subsidies it feels it will no longer be able to afford.

Publicly, the northern authorities are optimistic and exude confidence. Nafie Ali Nafie, a close confidant of Sudan’s Al-Bashir and a former head of national security, said that those who spread rumors that the economy in the North would collapse due to South’s secession were “greatly deluded”.

But South Sudan’s reliance on oil, which provides 98 percent of its revenue, makes it vulnerable too. Since the CPA was signed South Sudan received almost 10 billion dollars in oil revenue. But many people say they have seen little benefit from the petrodollars, and South Sudan remains one of the least developed regions on earth.

If the oil stops flowing, South Sudan’s economy would collapse. The 85 percent of its people who depend on agriculture might not be directly affected, but the state would be unable to pay its soldiers and instability would undoubtedly be the result.

So it is paramount that oil keeps flowing after separation. South Sudan’s government has said it will respect deals that have already been signed and some oil executives have already moved to South Sudan’s captial, Juba, from Khartoum.

But in the long term the South will need to diversify its economy away from oil. “With additional discoveries, it is estimated that output will peak in the 2011-12 year and then gradually decline thereafter and is likely to run out in 20 to 30 years,” says Dirk-Jan Omtzigt, the Referendum Taskforce economic advisor.

There is no enough electricity in South Sudan but other businesses are booming. The construction industry leads the way and there are a number of buildings being erected in the region.

Leonard Moss, a civil engineer says he is happy with independence because it will now give the South Sudanese an opportunity to enjoy the proceeds from their natural resources.

“Our country has a lot of national parks and good rains, we shall prosper if everyone plays his role,” he says.

But a visit to shops owned by North Sudanese in downtown Juba two days before independence shows that many are not optimistic and are scared of being kicked out of the new country.

Abu Masri, a North Sudanese who sells spare parts, separation to will mean being expelled by the South Sudanese who feel the North has trampled upon them. He thinks that the assurance from Kiir that there will be no discrimination against North Sudanese is not enough to pacify people.

“We as traders not only fear negative reprisals like being forced to return to Khartoum, but also the possibility the Southerners will take most of Sudan’s oil with them,” says Masri forlornly.

But Dr. Barnabas Mariel Benjamin, South Sudan’s minister of information and broadcasting is upbeat. He is urging people to come out and celebrate the country’s new-found freedom.

“It will be a historic occasion for all our people who have travelled a long and difficult road to the birth of this nation. We all know we face many challenges ahead but we will face them as united, peaceful and independent and build a stable and prosperous country. Outstanding issues will be negotiated in a separate process, with the support of the international community,” Benjamin says.

Excerpt:

South Sudan is facing severe fuel shortages less than three weeks before it gains independence from the rest of the country. Many gas stations have shut down and those that remain open have people lining up overnight for fuel.

The shortage has affected all aspects of life. For the last two weeks many offices in oil-rich South Sudan’s capital, Juba, have closed or only opened for half the day because they could not find fuel to power generators.

The transport industry has also been affected. Moses Kenyi, a taxi operator, said he could not find petrol for his vehicle. “I have searched everywhere and I cannot find any. I would like to buy fuel however expensive it is so I can continue to operate my business. The problem is I cannot find it.”

The fuel shortage has led to an increase in pump prices. A litre of petrol used to cost 1.10 dollars but now costs as much as two dollars. On the black-market a litre of oil costs as much as 10 dollars.

Government officials, humanitarian workers and local media have blamed North Sudan for the fuel and food shortages, which began in May.

North Sudan’s government has denied it imposed any blockade on the south. While sources in the industry blame the fuel shortage on South Sudan’s failure to prioritise the supply of this essential commodity and a battle with suppliers over price controls.

Sudan’s oil, which is mostly found in the south, is being pumped by international oil companies including China National Petroleum Corporation, India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Berhad.

In mid-May government imposed a price limit for both diesel and petrol at about 1.90 dollars per litre.

Petroleum companies, which include Imatongas, Hass Petroleum, and Global Petroleum among others, have said this is unfair and means they will sell fuel at a loss. They have complained they are already paying inflated prices for fuel from their Kenyan suppliers and face heavy taxation to import it.

The petroleum companies import diesel, petrol and kerosene from Kenya, which is closer than North Sudan’s capital Khartoum. Though some petrol is imported from North Sudan.

Sources speaking on condition of anonymity, for fear of government reprisal, said suppliers had stopped importing fuel from East Africa and would not start again until government ended price controls.

David Loro Gubek, the Undersecretary in South Sudan’s ministry of energy and mining, said government would not give in to this threat.

“It is difficult for us to agree to that because all over the world the government has an upper hand to control prices,” he said.

“So I think the government is not in a position to allow them to be free to charge (high prices) because there is a government that is in charge and it must control (prices),” he added.

In addition, petroleum suppliers want South Sudan’s government to allocate them foreign exchange from the Bank of Southern Sudan, which has a good dollar exchange rate.

But the government refused the demand saying it lacked sufficient foreign currency.

Majak Arop Bilkuei, chairman of the South Sudan Petroleum Dealers’, said the high dollar rate was hurting fuel importers and affecting their profit margins.

“If I change money in the black market definitely it will be at a high cost. The (official) bank rate now is at 2.70 to 2.80 (Sudanese pounds to the dollar) in the black-market the range is 3.20 to 3.30 Sudanese pounds to the dollar,” he said.

Bilkuei added: “So if the government can do something about this issue this can keep the prices low and we operate without any problem.”

There are reports that some of the petroleum companies are stockpiling fuel until the price controls ended. But Bilkuei denied this.

He added that since government was not subsidising petroleum importers, the latter should be allowed to increase fuel prices.

“The market is free when nobody helps you in solving problems. If the government is not helping you and you are struggling alone to bring this fuel (into the country) you have a right to sell it (at a price of your choice),” he said.

“But if the government helps you to bring the fuel then the government can say; I helped you why do you increase the price?”

Reliable sources told IPS that the fuel shortage has been made worse because what little fuel that is being imported from East Africa and North Sudan is being bought and stored by South Sudan’s government in anticipation of a war with the north.

Observers say even if the current crisis ends, shortages like this could be a recurring problem if relations between North Sudan and South Sudan remain as bad as they are now.

But Gubek said government had long-term plans to prevent this, including building storage facilities.

Representatives of the petroleum importers are scheduled to meet with government officials to discuss the matter. Both were hopeful that a solution to the fuel shortage would be found.

A new constitution, voters’ roll and electoral law, among other things, have to be in place before elections in Zimbabwe can be held but observers doubt if this can be implemented.

The special Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit held from Jun. 10 to 12 in Johannesburg concluded that an agreement signed by the country’s three political parties, which agreed to a number of democratic measures among them the drafting of a new constitution for the country, democratising laws and reconstituting the country’s electoral body needed to be implemented. So far only the electoral body partially set up.

The Global Political Agreement (GPA) was signed by the country’s three political parties, Zanu PF, the Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai (MDC-T), and the Movement for Democratic Change- Mutambara (MDC-M) in 2008. President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF has refused to implement some of the GPA reforms until sanctions imposed on its officials by European and western countries are lifted.

But SADC insists that these reforms need to be implemented by August and that there should be “a conducive environment to holding of elections that will be free and fair under conditions of a level political field.”

The SADC summit comes on the back of serious moves by Mugabe to push for early elections despite objections from his political partners in the coalition government. Many feel that if Mugabe succeeds and holds early elections they will be held in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

Civic groups are also opposed to a hasty election and want it deferred until all the necessary political reforms are fulfilled. Even South African mediators have publicly stated that it will be impossible to hold elections this year.

But some observers have questioned whether SADC has the willpower to decisively deal with the long- drawn political crisis in Zimbabwe.

“SADC has persistently been reluctant to resolve the critical issues resulting from Mugabe and Zanu PF’s reluctance to share power equally with the MDC and there is nothing on the ground to indicate that this will change,” University of Zimbabwe political analyst John Makumbe told IPS.

A report released in April by Zimbabwe’s conflict mechanism body, the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) accuses all the country’s political parties of having a hand in inter- party violence incidents in the country.

The regional appointed facilitator, South African President Jacob Zuma, expressed concern on the continuing violence in Zimbabwe. In his report to the SADC Organ Troika meeting held in Livingstone, Zambia in March, he warned that if not dealt with, the continuing violence had the potential to plunge the region into a crisis similar to the political uprisings in North Africa and the Arab world.

However, SADC, in a significant move proposed to follow through its directives with the appointment of its own representatives to monitor violence in Zimbabwe. The three representatives will work closely with the JOMIC.

The JOMIC functions have been heavily affected by lack of funds but will now receive financial support from SADC. This will allow it to carry out independent investigations into reports of violence in the country as opposed to receiving reports from political parties.

Reacting to the outcome of the summit, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC), a Zimbabwe pressure group working to promote democracy, told IPS that while it welcomes the summit decisions it remains doubtful whether they will be implemented.

“While they have said the right things, the challenge remains that of implementation. The communiqué did not address time-lines in concrete terms. It did not address measures to be taken by SADC in the event of non-compliance,” Dewa Mavhinga CiZC regional coordinator said.

“The team to work with JOMIC is a significant development, depending on their specific terms of reference. We would have wanted a clear indication that progress should be reviewed at the August Summit in Angola. From this communiqué it is inconceivable that elections will be held in 2011.”

Amnesty International Zimbabwe researcher, Simeon Mawanza said SADC must ensure that the agreed reforms are allowed time to take root.

“To hold an election 2011, as Zanu PF is arguing, will be intimidating (to) people. We need to allow the reforms that will be agreed on in the roadmap to take effect to cool down tensions in the country and to assure the people, particularly those in the rural areas, that they will not be exposed to the high levels of violence that they were exposed to in 2008,” said Mawanza.

By IPS Correspondents
ABIDJAN, Jun 9 2011 (IPS)

In a shelter covered by a tattered blue tarpaulin, Ibrahim Traoré sits beside his militia commander to hear complaints from residents of the Abidjan neighbourhood of Abobo-Avocatier.

“We get between 10 and 15 complaints a day,” Traoré told IPS, “from people who have been attacked in their homes or in the street by armed men. The problem is that wearing combat fatigues and carrying a weapon has become commonplace, so it’s difficult to distinguish between a thug and one of our own. So we are accused every time there is an incident.”

Traoré is a member of the Republican Forces – a coalition of armed groups known by its French acronym, FRCI – which backed Alassane Ouattara in his struggle for power against former president Laurent Gbagbo following disputed elections in November 2010. The FRCI swept south through the country in late March and April to seize Abidjan, the economic capital; since then, elements of the FRCI have been visible patrolling many neighbourhoods.

At the end of May, Joseph Akichi, a retired teacher in Abobo, was visited twice by armed men in uniform. “The first time, they took my savings of 300,000 francs CFA (around 600 dollars). The second time, they took everything, even the furniture,” he told IPS.

“With the police station being closed, I came here each time to explain my problems, but I’ve got nothing to show for it,” said Akichi, still fearful at the prospect that his assailants will return.

In Marcory, in the southern part of the city, Fabrice Mensah, who runs a business selling auto parts, the victim of a hold-up on May 26, during which armed men took away three of his company’s vehicles. The uniformed bandits returned two days later, and this time made off with eight million FCFA – 40,000 dollars – intended to pay his 15 employees.

“I opened my shop again three weeks after the post-election crisis was resolved. There were encouraging signs, so I wasn’t expecting to suffer a blow like this so quickly,” Mensah said. Following his misfortune, the 35-year-old says, he and other businesses in the area have decided to close again, temporarily laying off their employees while they wait for an improvement in the security situation.

Traoré condemns the attacks. “There are many fighters who are still out of control,” he says, “and the climate of insecurity that they create could get worse if the process of bringing them into barracks and disarming them continues to lag.”

He told IPS that he and his fellow FRCI fighters are waiting to be integrated into the new army. “They’ll have to offer a payout to combatants before they’ll give up their weapons and military equipment.”

The Ivorian president, Alassane Ouattara, formed his first government – comprising 36 members – on Jun. 1. One of its principal tasks, he said, is to improve security in the country over the next few weeks and to restore confidence among business owners, which suffered greatly during the crisis. The Business Confederation of Côte d’Ivoire estimated losses to the private sector during the post-election crisis at around two billion dollars.

But nearly two months after Gbagbo’s surrender on Apr. 11, restoring security remains a challenge, even in the medium term, say observers.

“We have entered the most delicate phase after the crisis, because many indviduals – combatants as well as prisoners freed during the conflict – have light arms or heavy weapons and are using them against the population,” said Armand Obou Kessié, a former police officer, now an expert in security in private practice.

The country has still not returned to stability; in many cities, including Abidjan, police stations are still occupied by elements of the FRCI, he told IPS.

“Where the FRCI combatants have allowed the return of security agents to their offices, they refuse to allow them to go out into the field (alongside the millitia) on patrol. Yet, without training in security and maintaining public order, the fighters are not suited to this task and frequently commit abuses,” says Kessié.

But a combatant called Commandant Soum told IPS: “For the moment, the police and gendarmes have not completely returned to work; so we are doing it with our own forces. After the registration of combatants (in the new army), we will hand over to them…”

Excerpt:

By Nebert Mulenga
MANSA, Zambia, May 27 2011 (IPS)

Mirriam Kauseni is on a quest to become her town’s first ever female parliamentarian. She has yet to be elected to run for the post by her party, the Patriotic Front (PF), but Kauseni has already been conducting door-to-door campaigns, telling people to vote for her in the country’s national elections.

Mirriam Kauseni has been conducting door-to-door campaigns, telling people to vote for her in the country's national elections. Credit: Nebert Mulenga/IPS

“I have never stopped going into the field from 2006 to-date. I have been to remote villages in Mansa Central. My name is a household name,” she says.

The PF is yet to announce its candidates for the forthcoming general election, but Kauseni has continued to campaign. When asked why she was campaigning before the party made its final decision on her candidature, she tells IPS: “I don’t know the chances but if they follow popularity of a candidate, then I think I stand a very good chance. I am working very hard, I am campaigning, I am on the ground to ensure the party adopts me, to ensure I win the election after I am adopted.”

This is Kauseni’s second attempt to run for parliament. She first put herself forward as a parliamentary candidate in Zambia’s 2006 general election. She was then a member of the ruling Movement for Multi- party Democracy (MMD).

But she says she was not elected to run by the MMD because she had no money to fund the campaigns. She adds that she also believes she was not elected because she was a woman. She has since defected to the PF, the country’s main opposition, which enjoys massive support in northern Zambia. The PF is not funding her campaigns either, but her husband now financially supports her campaigning. Kauseni does not say why her husband did not support her campaigning when she was with the MMD but says his support has enabled her to reach the outmost parts of the constituency. But, Kauseni says, she cannot always rely on her husband’s support. “But sometimes even my husband tells me … ‘I have given you enough money so, this time look for some money on your own.’ He gets tired and it’s normal, because I am always asking for money. So that’s my biggest challenge. Besides that, I don’t get anything elsewhere. The political party also doesn’t give me anything, not yet,”

Kauseni’s main campaign issues hinge on opening up agricultural-based factories and markets for farming produce, as well as improving the road network in the rural parts of the constituency.

Kauseni is not alone in her quest. The Zambia National Women’s Lobby Group (ZNWLG), a gender-based non-governmental organisation promoting the participation of more women in governance, is fully behind her.

Since early 2011, the ZNWLG has been empowering prospective women politicians with skills in public speaking, self-confidence, self-esteem, and usage of persuasive language when articulating issues, among others. Women ‘politicians’ are also learning about public office etiquette, the functioning of the arms of government, and leadership in general.

Kauseni is one of 198 women trained under the programme so far. “The (ZNWLG) training was about encouraging us not to give in to men, not to accept any type of intimidation, to be confident, to be visionary and to be courageous. There’s going to be a bit of change like in the approach. They taught us how to best approach the people,” Kauseni tells IPS.

The women being trained were floated by their political parties as prospective candidates for parliamentary and local government seats, says Beauty Phiri, chair of the ZNWLG.

Zambia has one of the worst records in the region in terms of women participation in politics. Out of the current 150 MPs, only 22 are women; with a further 91 women occupying local government seats out of the over 3,000 councillors countrywide.

The ZNWLG is concerned and says the record is embarrassing for Southern Africa’s oldest democracy.

“Our biggest worry is that men are still the final decision makers in this. A woman would have laid the ground, done everything in that constituency, but when it comes to adoption, it is the men who have to make the final decision,” Phiri comments.

“They will tell her, ‘yes you have done everything but we feel financially you cannot manage, so you are going to be the campaign manager for this gentleman who has a financial muscle’.”

But the response to the ZNWLG training programme is providing a window of hope for better things to come. Phiri explains: “The response is overwhelming. In southern province, for example, we had a programme to train about 35 women but 45 turned up and instead of sending them away, we had to train them all.”

Meanwhile, Kauseni believes in herself and has just relinquished her position as PF vice-treasurer for Mansa District, which she has held since 2008, to concentrate fully on her campaign as a prospective parliamentary candidate for Mansa Central Constituency.

“I am going to do it, with or without the money. I talk to people; I tell them what I stand for. With or without the money, I am going to talk to the people because I don’t intend to buy them. I intend to talk to them.”

Excerpt:

At independence in 1980, Loyce Tshuma (55), a villager in rural Tsholotsho in Matebeleland North, was a loyal believer in politics as a powerful vehicle to change and better lives. Since then she never missed an opportunity to cast her vote.

But now, with the upcoming national elections, Tshuma has lost all trust in the process. “So much has changed about what I used to believe in about politics,” Tshuma says.

“There has not been any commitment to better our lives and some now think things could be better if we had promoted our own women to lead us,” she said expressing a common frustration that emerged during IPS interviews with some rural women.

As the country heads for national elections that President Robert Mugabe insists must be held in 2011, the general feeling among rural women who spoke to IPS is that there has not been much improvement of their lives since independence.

Early in 2011, an audit by the Zimbabwe Election Network (ZESN) found that very few women (48 percent) were registered by 2010 to vote in 2011 as many – alongside youths – had lost interest in participating in national elections.

There also remains a palpable absence of female political leaders in rural parts of the country. Activists say there are no signs that women will challenge positions and seats currently held by their male counterparts despite commitments by political parties to ensure gender parity within their structures

While political parties have made commitments to elect women to positions of influence in line with SADC protocols and other multilateral policy frameworks that seek gender parity in parliament and government, the coming elections offer a test for those commitments.

The main political parties themselves are struggling to meet gender parity commitments they set for themselves as seen by the recent Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) congress. Here top posts were dominated by men. Out of thirteen senior posts, only one was won by a female, Thokozani Khuphe, who was re-elected party deputy president.

Gender activists say the Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) (ZANU-PF), the former ruling party that now forms part of the government of national unity, has also not faired well in gender equity. There are only seven female cabinet ministers in Zimbabwe.

“Women are still not taken seriously even by male politicians themselves,” said Tabitha Khumalo, a senior MDC official.

“We still need to change attitudes among ourselves before we take on men in elections and only then will other women whom we want to vote for us take us seriously,” she said.

The Women in Politics Support Unit (WiPSU) says statistics about women’s representation in parliament “reached nine percent at its lowest and 22 percent in 2009 at its highest – a far cry from the 30 percent minimum set by the 1997 SADC Declaration on Gender and Development and even further from the achievement of the 50 percent benchmark set by the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development and the Millennium Development Goal three.”

It has become an accepted feature of local politics for women to don party regalia bearing the image of the party president, and that is where their active participation ends as reflected in the numbers that are voted into office.

“Rural women are easy to forget for politicians as soon as the election is over as they have all forms of communicating with the world blocked because of being in rural areas,” says Josephine Ngulube, a Bulawayo gender activist.

“If the politician cannot go to them, they too cannot go to him. The disenchantment with the electoral processes is understandable because it can be proven that they remain the poorest in the country affected by years of economic hardships,” said Ngulube.

However, it is the disgruntlement of rural women such as Tshuma that could be telling about the state of women’s participation with voting and leadership.

Mugabe’s ZANU-PF has announced it will be targeting the registration of women ahead of the coming polls as the party claims its support is in the rural areas.

Rural women have traditionally been looked upon as a huge constituency for political parties who have nevertheless continued to field men for parliamentary and senatorial seats. But changing attitudes and perceptions about voting itself by rural women, at least according to IPS interviews and the ZESN report, could mean the drive for gender parity in government and parliament could have a setback.

“We have seen in the past that women would generally not support another woman, but women are beginning to be politically literate and are voicing that they would rather vote for one of them based on the kind of leadership they have received from men,” said Samukeliso Mthunzi, a Zimbabwean gender relations researcher based in South Africa.

“Attitudes must change if women are to assert themselves in the market place of political ideas, otherwise we will see women voters simply boycott polls without any long-term solutions to why they stayed away in the first place,” Mthunzi said.

According to agencies such as the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development, rural women in sub-Sahara Africa are some of the poorest in the world as they survive as smallholder farmers. It is this lamented poverty that persists despite their being able to vote for change that could see them shying away from the polls, Mthunzi believes.

By IPS Correspondents
JOHANNESBURG, May 24 2011 (IPS)

Political parties should be forced, through changes in legislation, to bring more women into government.

Only 17.25 percent of councillors who made it onto South African municipalities are women. Credit: Tinus de Jager

Janine Hicks from the CGE says the number of female councillors that made it onto South African municipalities is very disappointing.

She says it is clear that more needs to be done to ensure equal representation for women at all levels of government in the future.

“This is in clear conflict of the legislation that guides municipal elections. The legislation calls for 50 percent representation of women on the councils, but it says political parties must ‘endeavour to get there’. Clearly this is not working.”

Hicks says there are two methods available to address the inequality of women in government. Firstly, through legislation and secondly gender groups, activists and other non-governmental organisations must engage with political parties to convince them to push up their numbers.

The low female representation in local government is despite the fact that a majority of voters polled by IPS said they were voting for female candidates, no matter which party they stood for.

In Auckland Park, a suburb of Johannesburg, nine out of eleven voters canvassed on election day said they were voting for the women candidate, not matter which party they stood for.

“Women are more trustworthy,” said 81-year-old Kathleen*. “They are not in politics for the money, they are here to make a change.”

Others questioned were not as vocal, but most of them also supported the female candidate.

After the votes were counted, however, women are falling way short of targets. More than half of the South African population are women but only 37 percent of the candidates in this year’s election were women. Even more dismal were the election results as less than one in five councillors elected are women.

But some political parties say that although they were involved in ensuring that they had women on their ballot sheets, they do not believe in the quota system.

Dr. Pieter Mulder, party leader of Freedom Front Plus, said his party was actively recruiting women before Wednesday’s election.

“In the Free State, for example,” Mulder said, “some 38 percent of our candidates are women. They were mostly young women as well. But they came to the floor on merit … the people nominated them and I think that is good. “I don’t think to nominate women as representatives, based on a quota system, is good for women.”

Mulder did not want to commit himself to equal representation for women candidates in the South African government, “as this practice is artificial and bad for the image of women.”

On the day before the election, the outgoing chief electoral officer, Pansy Tlakula, expressed her concern about the skewed gender representation in South Africa and said if the situation does not improve, the country may have to legislate to address the issue.

Mulder disagreed, and so did the leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), Helen Zille.

“We don’t believe in quotas,” Zille said, “we believe in fitness for the purpose. The DA has a female party leader, the party with which we are in a merger, currently, has a women leader (the Independent Democrats). The national spokesperson (of the DA) is a woman and we are all there because we can do the job.”

Lisa Vetten, of the Tswaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, said South African women need to be more involved in the daily running of government, on a local, provincial and National level. And that will only happen if their numbers in government are closer to the percentage women make up of the South African population.

“… Sometimes you need to do different things … even if they are not the most popular … to ensure equality, fairness and justice,” Vetten said.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) saw a drop in overall support, with 61 percent of the vote from 64 percent in 2006. The ANC still controls the majority of local councils in South Africa, followed in a distant second by the DA, which received 24 percent of the total votes cast. Almost one in five South Africans voted in the May 18 election, compared to less than one in five in 2006.

*Not her real name.

Excerpt:

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, May 24 2011 (IPS)

Very soon wives in Uganda will legally have the right to a share in their husband’s property, that’s if the country’s new speaker of parliament has her way.

Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga is the first female speaker of Uganda's parliament. Credit: Wambi Michael

And one of the first things she will do as speaker will be to ensure that parliament enacts the Marriage and Divorce Bill 2009 into law. The bill, in various forms, has been under consideration for forty years. Once enacted, the bill will recognise co-habitation in relation to property rights, among other things.

The Marriage and Divorce Bill 2009, which also seeks to consolidate laws relating to marriage, separation and divorce lapsed with the end of the last parliament. The bill was being considered by the Legal Affairs Committee of parliament but it could not be considered by parliament as its term ended on May 18.

It has been a practice that unfinished business from the previous parliament is not considered by the new one. Kadaga, however, says she has studied parliament’s rules of procedure and discovered that this practice is not law and the bill can be reintroduced.

“I have heard people say that this bill cannot be debated under this parliament. That is wrong. I have looked at our rules and I don’t see any provision that business of the past parliament cannot be considered by this parliament. The women should rest assured that the law will be considered under the current parliament,” she said.

This is not the first time that Kadaga has been involved in issues of women’s rights. In the past she has been involved in a campaign that led to the abolition of female genital mutilation in Uganda. Kadaga said she will ensure that the bill is debated and enacted into law before the end of her first year as speaker. The new cabinet has to go through a lengthy procedure to have the Marriage and Divorce Bill 2009 reintroduced in the new parliament.

Kadaga is no stranger to parliament. She has served as the deputy speaker for 10 years before her party, the ruling National Resistance Movement Party, endorsed her to run for speaker. She ran against the opposition Forum for Democratic Change Party’s Nathan Nandala Mafabi. She defeated him by 302 votes to 57, showing that she had the support of members from both the opposition and ruling parties.

Elijah Okupa, a member of parliament (MP) from the opposition told IPS that Kadaga deserved the elevation given her track record.

Kadaga was one of 120 women elected to parliament during the elections, an increase from 102 in the previous parliament, which saw 31 percent female representation.

Kadaga, a lawyer by profession who has a Master of Arts specialising in Women’s Law, promised to be a speaker for all MPs, regardless of their political affiliation.

“What is expected from us is that the public expects good services, they also want value for money, they want transparency, accountability and overall good governance. This should be the main focus of parliament,” said Kadaga ” It is also my intention to continue bridging the gap between parliament and the voters through outreach programmes in rural areas.”

Gender activist Solome Kimbugwe Nakawesi said Kadaga’s election was a positive step to women’s emancipation in Uganda.

“We are excited by her election. It has shifted the tables of this country. It changes the whole syndrome of deputising that had befallen Ugandan women. It has been practice the even the best caliber of women are always deputies to men. Her landslide victory brings a new dimension to women’s emancipation in Uganda,” said Nakawesi.

Patricia Munabi Babiiha, the executive director of the Forum for Women in Democracy, a non-partisan women’s organisation, was excited that their campaign to have a woman leading Uganda’s parliament has finally yielded fruit.

“For us the election of Rebecca Kadaga is exciting because we have few women in Uganda holding key positions, apart from parliament. We acknowledge that in parliament we have reached a thirty percent parity level. But when it comes to ministerial posts and other jobs, we have not reached it,” she said.

Babiiha said there are efforts to raise the number of women in parliament from the current 31 percent to about 40 percent in the next parliament as they strive to ultimately attain the 50 percent female representation specified in the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa.

Mary Karoro Okurut, an MP and spokesperson of the ruling National Resistance Movement Party, said Kadaga’s election is a huge indicator of the increasing importance of women in Uganda’s political domain.

“It must be noted that Kadaga has not been elected just because she is a woman; we are not taking affirmative action here. She is elected for the simple reason that she is a competent person in her right,” said Okurut.

Lydia Wanyoto Mutende, a member of the East African Legislative Assembly told IPS that: “It is good for Uganda and good for the East Africa community. I have seen Tanzania and Rwanda where women are speakers of parliament the service delivery has improved. The appropriation of the budget in gender terms is much better and I have no doubt that we are about to see that happen in Uganda.”

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By IPS Correspondents
ESCORT, South Africa, May 17 2011 (IPS)

Victoria Zanele KaMagwaza-Msibi admits she is no angel. But for 30 years she’s navigated through South Africa’s tough political landscape, mainly as a member of a male-dominated party, and now as the leader of her own political party.

Victoria Zanele KaMagwaza-Msibi has navigated through South Africa's tough political landscape. Credit: Fidelis Zvomuya/IPS

They are the words of a tough South African woman who is now leader of the newly formed National Freedom Party (NFP). KaMagwaza-Msibi (49) left the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and her post as its national chairperson under acrimonious circumstances in January to form the NFP.

Born in Makhosini near Mahlabathini, in KwaZulu-Natal, she is a teacher by profession and obtained her primary teachers’ diploma at KwaGqikazi College of Education. But KaMagwaza-Msibi is much more than that. She has navigated a difficult political system and opened up doors for female advancement.

She made a name for herself by becoming the first female chairperson of the IFP, a male-dominated party. She also opened doors for women through the implemention of projects meant to improve the financial well being of women in the Zululand Municipality, where she was mayor.

But it has not been an easy ride to the top for KaMagwaza-Msibi.

”When a woman tries to move on to higher office, she risks losing the advantages of her super- volunteer status at the local level. She becomes perceived as personally ambitious rather than a high- minded, dedicated public servant. You are caught in the bind of your femininity,” she explains.

KaMagwaza-Msibi has embraced her feminine virtues, edging into the old boys’ network, cutting deals in smoked-filled rooms and promoting the economic and social causes affecting women.

“It’s true, the best man for the job is always a woman. It is women who experience sexual harassment on the job, violence in the home, (and) who are still the primary care givers. If we are going to have a representative government, we have to have women in high office,” she says.

Generally seen as the blue-eyed girl of the IFP’s president, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, KaMagwaza-Msibi was considered to have literally hit the KwaZulu-Natal political scene with a bang. The IFP has had previous women leaders, such as the two former education MECs, Faith Gasa and Eileen kaNkosi-Shandu. But KaMagwaza-Msibi has gone a long way in defying the real or imagined stereotypes about the IFP.

She was also nominated as the party’s first female premier candidate for KwaZulu-Natal ahead of the 2009 elections. But the party did not win the majority in KwaZulu-Natal and she was not elected to the post of premier.

But later her relationship with the IFP soured and KaMagwaza-Msibi was accused of sowing division in the party when her supporters started campaigning for her leadership of the IFP. In January she lost a court application to force the IFP to hold an elective conference and to prevent it from taking her to a disciplinary enquiry. This led to the launch of the NFP.

Most of the members of the NFP say KaMagwaza-Msibi’s leadership is not just a symbol and a statement, but a breakthrough.

“She is an amazing woman. She broke one huge barrier, which includes defying male dominance in the IPF,” says Rosemary Mmantombi Ngubane an NFP candidate in the uMhlabuyalingana Municipality elections.

“(She is) an inspiration to women across the country even (during) her days as IFP national chairperson and Zululand mayor. Her vision, dedication to duty, paved the way for improving women’s access to political office and reducing statistical discrimination,” Ngubane adds.

KaMagwaza-Msibi is not a believer in fielding female candidates just to meet the gender quota system. She says these quotas reinforce stereotypes that women are not worthy of being elected on their merits.

But KaMagwaza-Msibi adds that women’s representation at local government level is very important since women can put the needs of women voters first. She says that “women still face numerous obstacles both as candidates and voters.”

“Women voters play an important role (and continue to) elect male councilors due to an internalised bias against women as politicians, as a consequence of socialisation. Very often patronage plays a role in the election of local councillors as a reward for loyalty to parties or ethnic groups. This is what the NFP is going to remove,” she says.

There is a slight increase in the number of women running for election in this year’s local government elections. More than 19,700 women will stand as candidates, compared to 15,718 in the 2006 local elections. This means that 37 percent of the candidates are women, a two percent increase from 2006. Women remain the majority on the Independent Electoral Committee voters’ roll, which has more than 24.5 million South Africans registered. A total of 121 political parties will contest the local government elections on May 18.

But even a wave of victories by female candidates will not make women dominant in local governance. Should a female candidate win in every possible race, local authorities will still be 67 percent male.

KaMagwaza-Msibi is full of confidence that the NFP will win in Zululand, where she was a very popular mayor before being deployed by the IFP to the Pietermaritzburg Legislature.

The NFP is only four months old but has fielded 2,591 candidates in eight provinces for the coming local government elections. More than 50 percent of its members are in KwaZulu-Natal where it was founded.

Nathi Mazibuko, University of KwaZulu-Natal political analyst says KaMagwaza-Msibi’s strengths might tip the political scales in her favour.

“What is unique about her is her modus operandi. Most of the leaders of the breakaway parties formed interim leadership structures and put people in positions temporarily. This, as we have seen with Cope, made these people refuse to vacate these positions later,” he says.

Mazibuko says that the NFP has not done this but has instead formed branches.

“It has formed branches with the intention of letting branches elect leadership at a later stage. That distinguishes it from others and it gives this new initiative some semblance of being democratic,” says Mazibuko.

He also notes that KaMagwaza-Msibi is a very popular leader, albeit mostly in rural areas.

“That might be seen as a negative. But she could also win a lot of sympathy backing given that she is generally seen as a person who has been persecuted – by men. Instinctively women will identify themselves with that party,” says Mazibuko.

KaMagwaza-Msibi admits that she has seen most of the post-1994 parties struggle to survive. Parties such as the National Democratic Convention, the United Democratic Movement and Cope have struggled to make it and convince people that they are an alternative to the ruling African National Congress.

She says her party is not made up of a “bunch of angry people” and has hard workers who have excelled as leaders in many spheres in KwaZulu-Natal. “We have taken note of these parties’ failures and used them as a case study. We will work on a more democratic process and also build on members’ principles,” she says.

She has held elected office for more than half her life and in her people see a strong, solitary figure who consoles herself with mountains of work.

“I’ve always wanted to serve others, to brighten people’s darkest days. It is about understanding the depths of people’s anger and despair,” KaMagwaza-Msibi explains. “You know, I get angry, too. I understand the anxiety, not just in KwaZulu-Natal but all across South Africa.”

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By Zukiswa Zimela
JOHANNESBURG, May 16 2011 (IPS)

Come rain or shine, single mother of five, Sylvia Mathebula,* can be found selling fruit and cigarettes at the roadside because it is the only way her family can survive. “Since the government is not helping us with jobs, rather than work as a maid for a white person I decided to start this little business by myself,” she says lamenting the lack of opportunities for unskilled women.

Civil society is calling for women's issues to be prioritised by political parties. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

This is despite the fact that 45 percent of female-headed households live below the poverty line, according to Statistics South Africa.

Janine Hicks from the Commission on Gender Equality says that none of the five major parties have mainstreamed the issue of gender. “We have looked at a sample of party manifestos and we did a scan and analysis and in the main parties have not mainstreamed gender in their manifestos. Their main focus seems to be on service delivery,” she says.

Hicks says service delivery means something different for women and men as women have different needs compared to men. Municipalities need to recognise this and plan accordingly for service delivery. If there is no adequate sanitation in schools, girls tend to drop out of school because of the lack of private, functioning latrines and water when they menstruate, she adds.

During the last general elections in 2009 the Africa Media Monitor found that gender issues only featured in one percent of the rhetoric, this is despite the fact that women constitute more than half the country’s population and more than half the registered voters.

This is also despite the fact that South Africa has achieved a 45 percent female representation in parliament. This places the country third in the international women in Parliament rankings, behind Rwanda and Sweden.

Lisa Vetten, from the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, says that while there has been an increase in the number of female representation in parliament, the situation on the ground has gotten worse for them. There has also been a decline in policies that would improve women’s lives.

Vetten says this is because it is difficult for women to fight for women’s issues if they are not on the party’s agenda. “What we need to remember is that women represent political parties, we don’t vote for them as women. They are there to represent the line that their political parties take which makes scrutinising party manifestos very important,” she says.

Vetten further adds that is important not to think of women as one homogenous group but to identify their specific needs. She says that some women are more at risk than others. Lesbians in South African townships are vulnerable targets for corrective rape and homophobia. Corrective rape is when men rape homosexual women with the belief that they can change their sexual preference.

The country has been rated by Interpol as having the worst incidence of rape among Interpol states.

“Already we have had two murders (of lesbians) in KwaThema in Springs. We need to ask what local government is doing. Clearly there is a problem in that area,” she says. Eudy Simelane, a lesbian, was raped and murdered in 2008. In April 2011 Noxolo Nogwaza, a victim of corrective rape, was gang raped and murdered.

Vetten says that sex workers are also a vulnerable and marginalised group. “Loitering and some municipal by-laws are used to unlawfully arrest women who engage in sex work. We see police abusing women when they arrest them. Women are reluctant to go and report when they have been raped as sex workers,” says Vetten.

“I think there is also reluctance sometimes, people feel like women have enough equality and they don’t need more,” Vetten says.

Hicks points out that although men and women deserve equal access to energy and services, their positions in their family and in society means that they need them for different things.

Often the onus is on women to provide fuel for the family. This is something that municipalities need to consider when prioritising who should be able to access electricity, and even the cost of electricity for poor communities Hicks adds.

“So you look at women gathering coal, and dung and other unclean forms of energy using productive hours that they could use for running a small business in gathering energy,” says Hicks.

“There is a general assumption that because we have gender equality in the constitution, gender equality has been achieved,” says Vetten.

Vetten called for civil society to be louder in voicing the needs of women and making sure that women’s needs do not fall off the agenda.

Meanwhile, Mathebula will not be voting on May 18. She have given up hope and lost faith in government. “This voting that we do does not work. All they want is for us to vote while they get all the money,” she says.

* Not her real name.

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