A New Proxy War in Scramble for Africa

November 18, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

IDN-InDepth NewsEssay – Part 3 of 3

Kenyans can now reflect on the changing alliances of the US military inside Somalia before and after the Ethiopians were defeated by nationalist elements. Abdi Samatar has written extensively on the ebb and flow of the fabrication of terrorism. It is again apt to reinforce what Samatar has said of the US counter-terrorism efforts in the Horn. In his argument on how the US fabricated terrorism in the Horn of Africa Samatar wrote: "The hallmark of America’s bankrupt policy is the conspicuous gulf between its democratic rhetoric and its support for thugs, warlords, tyrants, and venal politicians in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere."

BEIJING (IDN) – In the same week when President Obama announced that US AFRICOM forces would be assisting the Museveni government to track down terrorists, the army of Kenya moved into Southern Somalia to pursue those that the media label as "Islamist militants."

While the western media dubbed this war as "Kenya’s first major military war on foreign soil", this intervention has been an extension of a low intensity war that has gone on at the Kenyan border since Somalia became the base for western destabilisation of the Horn of Africa.

Many Somalis opposed this intervention just as they have opposed other foreign intervention in their country since 1991. In an attempt to keep this opposition from Somalia out of the international media there were press reports that the intervention by Kenyan military forces was requested and welcomed by the US-backed Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu. Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman said: "The governments of Kenya and Somalia are now cooperating in the fight against al Shabaab, which is an enemy of both countries."

These statements do not hide the reality that all previous incursions by foreign forces have been resisted by the people of Somalia. From the time of the first major deployment of United Nations Operation in Somalia, or UNOSOM, nationalist elements opposed external military intervention.

This phase of external involvement came to a screeching halt after the Black Hawk Down humiliation in October 1993 when US army rangers sent to hunt down Aideed were killed in Mogadishu. After the traumatic experiences of the US soldiers in the so-called Operation Restore Hope of 1993, the experience of Somalia has been trumpeted as an example of how "failed states" provide the breeding ground for terrorism in Africa.

Yet, when the people of Somalia moved to stabilise their political situation, the US colluded with the government of Ethiopia to invade Somalia on the grounds that the Union of Islamic Courts was harbouring terrorists. Abdi Samatar, among others, had penetrated the hype behind the Union of Islamic Courts to outline how the fabrication of terrorism supported the US military presence in the Horn.

Bankrupt Policy

Kenyans can now reflect on the changing alliances of the US military inside Somalia before and after the Ethiopians were defeated by nationalist elements. Abdi Samatar has written extensively on the ebb and flow of the fabrication of terrorism and I have earlier drawn from his work. It is again apt to reinforce what Samatar has said of the US counter-terrorism efforts in the Horn. In his argument on how the US fabricated terrorism in the Horn of Africa Samatar wrote:

"The hallmark of America’s bankrupt policy is the conspicuous gulf between its democratic rhetoric and its support for thugs, warlords, tyrants, and venal politicians in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere. In the minds of most people in the region American foreign policy and practice has become synonymous with dictatorship and arrogance, and most people believe that those are the core values of the America government. Consequently, the US government has lost the hearts and minds of the Muslim people all over. America’s gifts to the Somali people in the last few years have been warlords, an Ethiopian invasion, and an authoritarian, sectarian and incompetent regime."

It is this incompetent regime that has been protected by pliant elements from African states that are allies of the USA. The people of Kenya had witnessed the invasion of Ethiopia and the withdrawal of the Ethiopian troops and how the political leadership in Ethiopia manipulated the Somalia issue to gain support from western powers.

What are the Goals?

The government of Kenya has declared that it will end its military campaign against Al-Shabaab in Somalia when it is satisfied it has stripped the group of its capacity to attack across the border. If one goes by the experience of the past 18 years, then this statement can be read that Kenya will be in for a long-term deployment to Somalia.

The corollary to this is the reality that Kenya and its cities will be spaces of war, security clampdown and general destabilisation of the population. Since the Kenyan foray, there have been two grenade attacks at a bar and a bus terminal that killed one person and wounded more than 20 people in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. These attacks have already affected the tourism industry, one of the most important sources of revenue for the government of Kenya.

Militarism

The deployment of Kenyan troops to Somalia was not discussed openly by the Kenyan Parliament. Those who collaborated with the government of Kenya to organise this deployment in Somalia are looking way beyond the issue of Somalia. The more important question is the matter of democratic participation on Kenya.

Those who have studied wars in Africa, especially counter-insurgency wars, know that these wars have their own dynamic. One such dynamic is that invading armies get bogged down. The more the army is bogged down, the more there are demands for more resources for fighting to get the job done. Wars are not cheap and precisely the moment when the labour of the Kenyan working people was being devalued, this deployment of troops is demanding extra resources from the Kenyan Treasury.

At the same time while resources are diverted to war, revenues from the tourism industry will diminish in the face of the general climate of insecurity that will prevail. . . . Mohamed Najib Balala, the Minister of Tourism sought to reassure foreign tour operators that it is still safe for tourists to visit Kenya, but international news of grenades being thrown into bars do not provide good publicity for the tourism industry.

The longer Kenyan troops remain in Somalia, the more there is a danger of the society being sucked into a long term commitment to fight in a way that demands states of emergencies inside of Kenya itself.

Terrorism of all kinds must be opposed and extremists must be isolated. However, the record of the US in the Horn of Africa is that isolation of extremist elements is the furthest thing from the defence planners in Washington who are seeking new places for the deployment of US military resources in the wake of the withdrawal from Iraq.

Jeremy Scahill has documented the musical chairs of the military entrepreneurs in Somalia and how these entrepreneurs have been able to shift their alliances according to the whims of the US counter-terror experts who are now working with the Kenyan military. In his article entitled ‘Blowback in Somalia’, Scahill drew a picture of the various militarists who were enemies of the US in one moment and allies of the US in another moment. He concluded his analysis in this way:

"In any case, the Shabab’s meteoric rise in Somalia, and the legacy of terror it has wrought, is blowback sparked by a decade of disastrous US policy that ultimately strengthened the very threat it was officially intended to crush. In the end, the greatest beneficiaries of US policy are the warlords, including those who once counted the Shabab among their allies and friends. ‘They are not fighting for a cause,’ says Ahmed Nur Mohamed, the Mogadishu mayor. ‘And the conflict will start tomorrow, when we defeat Shabab. These militias are based on clan and warlordism and all these things. They don’t want a system. They want to keep that turf as a fixed post—then, whenever the government becomes weak, they want to say, ‘We control here.’"

Al Shabab has always benefitted from foreign intervention and the Kenyan foray into Somalia will provide these military entrepreneurs the political legitimacy to argue that they are opposing foreign invaders.

However, from the point of view of this commentary, the more long-term consequence will be the efforts to torpedo the efforts of the people of Kenya to end 48 years of kleptocratic rule where the state is run like a criminal syndicate. If the popular and democratic forces are not organised to demand a full withdrawal from Somalia, the danger is that this deployment will cascade into repression leading to a postponement or cancellation of the elections scheduled for December 2012.

AFRICOM follows the Tradition of US Failed Enterprises in Africa

The present remilitarisation of Africa is being opposed in Africa by those who support peace. Museveni of Uganda and the militarist faction of the Kenyan leadership have been working hard to push the African Union to be completely subordinated to the demands of US military crusaders.

On top of the confusion wreaked by the international media, the peace and justice forces internationally have not been engaged sufficiently on the question of the remilitarisation of Africa. . . . Bill Fletcher, Carl Bloice and Jamal Rogers (have) called upon the progressive sections of the African American community to oppose this remilitarisation. In this article, they asked in relation to the Obama Foreign Policy in Africa, where is the outcry?

"It is no rhetorical flourish to say that the foreign policy of the Obama administration, far from representing a qualitative break with that of the Bush administration, has proven in most spheres to be continuality."

I want to join my voice to the call by these progressive forces to raise the opposition to the new vigour of imperialism in Africa. Additionally, I want to elevate the opposition to the Obama administration’s remilitarisation of Africa. This call is for the peace movement to put on their marching boots just as when the previous generation opposed the US military in their support for Mobutu and apartheid.

From this record, it is clear that at every moment of African agency to break from colonial forms of plunder, the USA was willing and ready to intervene on the side of the exploiters. The most dramatic intervention came at the period decolonisation when the government of the United States conspired to assassinate Patrice Lumumba and derail the self-determination project in Africa. In every region of Africa, progressive and anti-imperialist leaders were executed and puppets maintained in power.

The second period of militaristic deployment was after the African peoples gave notice of plans for economic integration under the Lagos Plan of Action in 1980. The political leadership of the USA responded with the entrenchment of Structural Adjustment Programmes on the economic front and the establishment of the US Central Command on the military front.

Interventionist Thrust

Most recently, at precisely the moment when the peoples of Africa seek to strengthen the African Union by setting an agenda for the Union of the People’s of Africa, the militarists have intensified the interventionist thrust into Africa. In every instance, the commitment for peace and justice won out over repression and destruction.

The previous efforts at military control of Africa failed. The alliance between peace forces in Africa and beyond will ensure that this new round of the scramble for Africa will be resisted and ultimately, defeated. This is one more reason for the work to unify Africa and work for the demilitarisation of Africa.

In their testimonies before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee earlier this year, the representatives from the Department of Defense and the Department of State went to great lengths to outline how US Africa Command was now a force for "diplomacy, development and defense."

Africans have understood these Orwellian doublespeak of the intellectually bankrupt US policymakers who repeat the same arguments that were repeated when the US was supporting Mobutu as a stabiliser in Africa. This writer joins the call of those who are calling for the disbanding of the US Africa Command and for the people of Africa to rise up to oppose dictators and religious extremists who manipulate religion for military purposes. The root cause of the "threats to stability and security challenges" all over Africa stem from the exploitation and plunder of Africa. [END OF PART 3 of 3. Read PARTS 1 and 2.]

* Horace Campbell is professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University. See horacecampbell.net. He is the author of ‘Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA’ and a contributing author to ‘African Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions’. He is currently a visiting professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. A version of this article appeared on Pambazuka News. [IDN-InDepthNews - November 17, 2011]

Picture: Kenyan troops near al-Shabaab town in Somalia | Credit: ramadji.com

2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Behind ‘Counter-Revolution’ In East Africa

November 18, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

IDN-InDepth NewsEssay – Part 2 of 3

The government of Yoweri Museveni in Uganda is seeking external support from the conservative factions in the United States as the region of the Great Lakes becomes a major target for increased oil exploration and production. In what is now being called the largest onshore oil discovery in sub-Saharan Africa in 20 years, UK-based oil exploration and production company Tullow Oil discovered reserves of nearly two billion barrels of oil in rural western Uganda, with the largest finds in the Lake Albert Basin.

BEIJING (IDN) – Yoweri Museveni was part of the Dar es Salaam School. He associated himself with the ideals of liberation in order to gain support from (late Tanzanian president) Julius Nyerere. Soon after coming to power in 1986, Museveni ingratiated himself with the Washington decision-makers in the military and financial institutions. This service became manifest over the years from the alliance with western mining companies in the plunder of the resources of the Congo and the derailment of full liberation in Kenya.

This derailment has continued from the period of Mwakenya up to the recent struggles over elections in Kenya in 2008. Museveni was ready to do everything to keep the Kibaki group in power. Probably, one of the areas that the Uganda leadership has to answer for is the circumstances surrounding the helicopter crash that took the life of John Garang of the Sudan People’s Liberation Front (SPLM).

Opposition to Museveni has been growing inside the society and in the military. After changing the constitution to become eligible to run for president beyond a mandatory two terms, there has been heightened opposition to the Museveni administration. The opposition has devised numerous means to oppose this government with the latest being the ‘Walk to Work’ campaign.

Opposition has also grown inside the military with senior commanders calling for a complete withdrawal from Somalia. These calls inside the military came after the massive bombing in Kampala in July 2010 that took over 74 lives. The Somalia group Al-Shabbab claimed responsibility for this bombing.

Intervening to Thwart

It was long ago in Tanzania when Walter Rodney said to me that of the three countries of the then East African Federation, the radical forces in Kenya were the ones with the deepest roots in their society. Walter Rodney had written a short article on Mau Mau in East Africa where he explored the influence of the war of liberation in Kenya on the rest of East Africa.

The British understood these radical traditions in Kenya and for over 50 years have been working to destabilise the progressive sections of Kenyan society. Working in alliance with other European imperial experts and the United States, the British worked assiduously to diminish the influence of radical ideas in the Kenyan body politics.

This included targeted assassinations and the politicisation of ethnicity and regionalism. Yet, this effort never completely succeeded and the call for the exposure of the crimes of the British in Kenya has recently been through the British legal system with a ruling on the criminal actions that require reparative justice.

The second wave of counter-revolution in Kenya came from the period of the nationalistic government of Daniel Arap Moi. Western military and counter-insurgency forces used military and non-military means to isolate those Kenyans who opposed dictatorship. Up to today, the full history of Mwakenya has not been written and it is a requirement for the healing and truth telling inside Kenya. One of the tools deployed by imperial forces was the massive non-governmental funding which gave Kenya notoriety as the headquarters for many international non-governmental agencies in Africa.

John Le Carré has written one fictional account of the criminal world of some of these organisations in the book, ‘The Constant Gardener’. In interviews Le Carré has said that the truth was even more bizarre than the fiction.

Non-governmental organisations and imperial forces could not hold back the tide of opposition to exploitation and the impulse for democracy burned inside the people of Kenya. The cabal that held on to political power turned Kenya into a regional base for international capital with surpluses gleaned from Southern Sudan, Eastern DRC, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia and from Kenya itself.

Every major scheme for plunder and money laundering in this region passed through the financial institutions that exploded in Nairobi in the past two decades. So lucrative was this position as regional power brokers that the cabal could not countenance leaving power after the elections in December 2007.

These barons of finance in East Africa conjured complicated fraud and theft schemes. Scandals of corruption became so numerous that the populace became immune to the barrage of information of innovative methods of theft that were being practiced. Back issues of the Kenya Law Review have complete information of the level of fraud and theft in the banking sector.

When the elections were stolen in January 2008, the western forces organised a ‘government of national unity’ to keep the cabal in power. Corruption in Kenya had gone beyond the question of law enforcement and became interwoven with the struggles for democratic rights.

Since the establishment of the government of National Unity with the victors suborned as junior partners, the conditions of the people of Kenya have deteriorated with the increases in prices, shortages of food and groups calling for an Unga Revolution.

Novel forms of organising were being fashioned at the grassroots and these new techniques came to the fore in the effort to write a new constitution for Kenya. The grassroots organising is also calling for those responsible for the killings in 2008 to be brought to justice. However much Kenyans oppose the International Criminal Court (ICC), there is a call for an end to the levels of impunity enjoyed by the ruling plutocrats in Kenya since 1963.

Kenya and the War on Terror

From the period of the launch of the War on Terror, the people of Kenya have been used as political football. Every document relating to the war on terror starts off with the experience of the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Mombasa in 1998. Yet, the U.S. never fully took on the interconnections of the bombings and a wider world of extremists until the events of September 11, 2011 in the USA. From that period the state apparatus of Kenya became more deeply integrated with the US military deployment in the Horn and the Indian Ocean.

It is now well documented how there was collusion between the U.S. government and the government of Kenya to arrest and illegally ‘render’ Kenyan citizens. These issues of kidnapping and ‘rendering’ Kenyan citizens remain one of the issues of the vibrant human rights lobby in Kenya. But, the War on Terror served to destabilise one of the most vibrant communities in Nairobi, the Eastleigh constituency. This is an area of Nairobi where hundreds of thousands of ethnic Somalis reside.

This constituency was the scene of electoral manipulation and for three years there was no real representative in this constituency. Less than three months after the election brought a representative that vowed to bring the people of this area of Nairobi together, we have this deployment into Somalia to track down ‘terrorists.’ Kenyan citizens of Somali extraction are being criminalised as the escalation of war and repression take root in Kenya. [END OF PART 2 of 3. Read PART 1.]

* Horace Campbell is professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University. See horacecampbell.net. He is the author of ‘Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA’ and a contributing author to ‘African Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions’. He is currently a visiting professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. A version of this article appeared on Pambazuka News. [IDN-InDepthNews - November 17, 2011]

Picture: Uganda President Museveni | Credit: kenyastockholm.com

2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Africa, Featured, Geopolitics, Politics Tagged With: ,

Remilitarisation of Africa Set to Fail

November 16, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Horace Campbell*

IDN-InDepth NewsEssay – Part 1 of 3

Kenya’s foray into Somalia, led from behind by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), represents a heightened threat to peace and reconstruction in Africa, especially East Africa. This Western-supported incursion is more against the Kenyan people than against the forces of Al-Shabaab, or whatever name that will be given to the musical chairs of military entrepreneurs in Somalia.

BEIJING (IDN) – At the same moment when the Libyan adventure backfired with the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) retreating from taking credit for the end of the Gaddafi regime, the U.S. government announced the deployment of 100 troops to Uganda to assist the government of Yoweri Museveni to track down the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Later the same month in October 2011, there was news that the Kenyan army had been deployed into Somalia in pursuit of armed Somalians known as Al-Shabaab (‘The Youth’) that Kenya blames for a series of kidnappings on its soil. It was also revealed that France would be supporting the Kenyan invasion in Somalia.

Sensitive to the future relationship with Africans who want peace, the spokespersons for AFRICOM have been ‘leading from behind’ in this Kenyan operation.

In the past 20 years, the U.S. support for militarism in the Horn of Africa has destabilised this region of Africa. Since independence in 1963, Kenya has been the cockpit of imperial ventures in Africa. This was because the radical traditions of Kenya from the period of the Land and Freedom Army had to be contained.

After three periods of containment using force, non-governmental organisations and sowing divisions among the progressives, the awakening in Africa pointed to the vibrancy and potential for people-centred change in Kenya. Thus, the security planners in Western states were not going to wait to be surprised by a Tahrir Square uprising in Kenya.

This process of remilitarisation will fail in Africa, just as support for Mobutism and support for apartheid failed decades earlier. The challenge for peace and social justice forces in North America and Europe is to take the question of the militarisation of Africa to the forefront of the struggles against the one per cent, and link the issues of militarism more closely to the banking industry and its private military contractors.

I will start with the six points that highlighted the catastrophic failure of AFRICOM in Libya, retrace the failure of the Operation Lightning Thunder of 2008 and then examine the fear of revolutionary uprisings in Kenya. The conclusion will retrace the intellectual and political crisis within the U.S. ruling circles in this depression, and explore why the current remilitarisation of Africa is being opposed fiercely in Africa and will influence the present movement for peace and social justice in North America and Western Europe.

Catastrophic

When Seumas Milne from UK newspaper the Guardian wrote, "If the Libyan war was about saving lives, it was a catastrophic failure," he was communicating a conclusion that had been echoed in newspapers and by analysts all over the world. From Asia, writers were linking the role of AFRICOM to the new power grab in Africa while there was massive opposition from Africa. In studying the catastrophic failures, I will briefly list the top six.

a) The first point that has been made by numerous writers that far from protecting lives in Libya, far more lives were lost from the NATO intervention. Seumas Milne wrote: "What is now known, however, is that while the death toll in Libya when NATO intervened was perhaps around 1,000-2,000 (judging by UN estimates), eight months later it is probably more than ten times that figure. Estimates of the numbers of dead over the last eight months – as NATO leaders vetoed ceasefires and negotiations – range from 10,000 up to 50,000. The National Transitional Council puts the losses at 30,000 dead and 50,000 wounded."

b) The second major point of the NATO led quagmire in Libya is the destruction of the society. The rubble of former cities and towns is a testament to the unlimited bombing. Sirte, in particular has been completely destroyed.

c) The third point refers to the crimes of war committed by NATO and NATO supported troops. NATO and their surrogates committed atrocities and the execution of prisoners constitute a crime under the laws of war. There is no statute of limitation for crimes of war.

d) Fourthly, the banks and the financial institutions are involved in the financialisation of energy "markets." The extent to which the Gaddafi regime was linked to Goldman Sachs and the opaque world of commodity financial contracts is yet to fully emerge. The Libyan Investment Authority lost billions of dollars and the peoples of Libya will have great difficulty unfreezing their assets that were frozen by western countries and the banks that are now plunging the world into a depression.

e) The now exposed role of Qatar troops and other forces on the ground when the UN mandate explicitly precluded ground troops.

f) The support for conservative Islamists who want to roll back the rights of women and the gains of the people of Libya.

Once the multiple layers of failures began to be documented around the world, the euphoric rhetoric about NATO success in Libya receded as General Carter Ham (head of AFRICOM) hid behind, while NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen flew to Libya in a self-congratulatory one day visit to hail the "success" of the NATO mission to assist the National Transitional Council.

While some senators in the USA were posturing about the NATO victory, the Obama White House was embarrassed by the exposure of the discussion about the assassination of Gaddafi while he was in the hands of the ‘National Security Council’ forces.

General Carter Ham who at the start of the Operation in March Libya was willing to take credit for the bombing of Tripoli was shy to have a full discussion on Libya. Carter Ham spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CISS) in October to present a public relations effort in relation to the new deployment in Central Africa.

While in March, Carter Ham was willing to be on the international news celebrating the role of AFRICOM in Libya, even before the execution of Gaddafi, Carter Ham was trying to shift attention from the on-going war crimes in Libya to speak of "threats to stability, security challenges and crises all over the continent." The more tuned-in policymakers who attended grasped that Ham was clutching at straws and that no mention was made or attempt offered at setting out what the structural or underlying root causes of the ‘threats to stability and security challenges’ all over Africa actually are.

Carter Ham reproduced the same ideas about security and how to help client states in Africa protect U.S. interests. The criteria that AFRICOM continues to use to determine where it will look to offer ‘assistance’ to confront threats and address security challenges includes:

(a) dictators and constitutional democrats who will seek AFRICOM’s assistance to remain in power, (b) emphasis on the East African region as a strategic area for projection of force, (c) the importance of Uganda and East Africa for future U.S. planning, and (d) the usual justification for militarism, that of fighting Al Qaeda in Somalia.

What was not stated was that the goal of the United States in Africa was to pre-empt other revolutionary uprisings of the type and scale that removed the regimes in Tunisia and Egypt.

Assisting Museveni

Less than two weeks after this public relations exercise at the CISS, newspapers in the USA announced that AFRICOM will send two combat teams of about 100 to Africa (Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,) to help fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army.

This deployment brings out the desperate efforts of Museveni to remain in power after 25 years. This ‘assistance’ of the U.S. military to Museveni is not new. In 2008, there was a much-publicised operation by the U.S. military to assist the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) to wipe out the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

This operation ended in a failure and reinforced the alienation of the people of Northern Uganda from the Museveni regime. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by this war that has been waged so that the Ugandan society can be partially militarised. Even a usual pro-interventionist ‘humanitarian’ NGO such as the Enough Project criticised the Uganda and U.S. governments over the past operation of 2008-2009. The Enough Project described the operation as ‘poorly executed’ and ‘operationally flawed’.

Peace activists in East Africa have for decades exposed the use of the war in the North of Uganda for the Museveni regime to stay in power and promote self-enrichment. Those sections of the Ugandan society who had any progressive leanings left the Museveni regime and those military personnel with any integrity died under dubious circumstances.

Major Reuben Ikondere and Noble Mayombo were two members of the UPDF who had progressive Pan-Africanist leanings. They lost their lives at young ages. Other progressives who had joined the National Resistance Movement (NRM) in opposition to dictatorship slowly left Museveni. The most outstanding of this group were the former underground forces from Kitwe who had been the liberating force inside of Uganda during the era of dictatorship and other militarists.

The Museveni government spurned efforts by elders from all across East Africa who wanted a negotiated solution to the fighting in order to isolate the LRA’s Joseph Kony and his murderous bands. While the brutal atrocities of this group were well-known, there were elders in Acholi land with links to elders in the region who were capable of isolating Kony. Just as the U.S. military benefited from keeping Osama Bin Laden alive as a threat, so the Museveni regime holds this scare of the Kony bands over the people of Uganda.

More significantly, the Museveni government is seeking external support from the conservative factions in the United States as the region of the Great Lakes becomes a major target for increased oil exploration and production. In what is now being called the largest onshore oil discovery in sub-Saharan Africa in 20 years, UK-based oil exploration and production company Tullow Oil discovered reserves of nearly two billion barrels of oil in rural western Uganda, with the largest finds in the Lake Albert Basin. Subsequent press reports exposed the reality that drilling will yield ‘several billion’ barrels of oil; at least 15 major strikes by various oil companies have been made throughout Great Rift Valley since Tullow’s discovery.

As many readers of Pambazuka know, where there is oil, there is the U.S. Africa Command. [END OF PART 1 of 3]

* Horace Campbell is professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University. See horacecampbell.net. He is the author of ‘Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA’ and a contributing author to ‘African Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions’. He is currently a visiting professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. A version of this article appeared on Pambazuka News. [IDN-InDepthNews - November 15, 2011]

2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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DEVELOPMENT-UGANDA: Better Coffee Brings Better Living Conditions

February 24, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Wambi Michael

BUKALASI, Uganda, Feb 24, 2011 (IPS) – Producing quality Arabica coffee beans on the slopes of Mount Elgon in eastern Uganda is only viable once farmers are assured ready access to the global market. Fair trade has made this possible.

Rural communities in eastern Uganda have gained much-vaunted access to the global market by supplying coffee to Cafédirect, a British company in which founders, growers and employees alike own shares. And coffee consumers thousands of miles away benefit by enjoying organically cultivated coffee.

Taking a bumpy road, IPS visited farmers in Bukalasi sub-county in Bududa district, about 275 km east of the capital Kampala.

Stanley Nasasa, 63, has worked almost his entire life as a coffee farmer but feels he is only now enjoying real benefits. The reason: fair trade.

Nasasa is secretary of the Bukalasi cooperative society. The society is a member of the Gumutindo coffee cooperative, or grower organisation, that works with Cafédirect to ensure ready market access and better prices for the Arabica coffee farmers of the area. Gumutindo means "excellent coffee" in the vernacular Lugisu.

Getting prices on which livelihoods can be sustained is of uppermost importance to farmers as that allows them to build houses, educate their children and transform communities.

At Nasasa’s home IPS discovered why he has become a fair-trade crusader. His family had just moved into a newly built brick-walled house with a cement floor after living in a mud and tin-roofed house in a mudslide-prone area.

"I bought this piece of land for three million shillings (1,300 dollars) and the house has so far cost me 10 million shillings (5,000 dollars). These are the fruits of fair trade under Gumutindo," he told IPS.

Flanked by his wife Stella, Nasasa said the money came from savings after receiving good fair-trade prices and "social premiums".

Gumutindo pays a social premium with each kilogramme of coffee that is produced, which comes in the form of a bonus that farmers can use for support projects that are also aimed at people not engaged in coffee production.

Nasasa told IPS that, "the fair-trade arrangement has saved us from predatory coffee dealers who give farmers far less than the market price of coffee. We have come a long way, I tell you.

"There was a time when we would carry coffee all the way to Chebukube market in Kenya. It was not easy because some people lost their lives." He was referring to the coffee-smuggling days of the 1970s during dictator Idi Amin’s reign.

Amin’s policies caused an economic meltdown that affected the marketing of coffee. Farmers stored coffee in their houses because of lack of markets. They had to trek through the mountains to neighbouring Kenya to sell their coffee in order to survive.

Nasasa said the new house is a relief to his wife who always had difficulty climbing the hilly area where their original house was located. "Life is better here. We lived in fear after several people near to where we stayed were killed by mudslides last March (2010)."

Behind the house is a barn with two Friesian cows producing milk for the family. There are three raised stands with wire mesh in the compound. The stands are used to ensure a clean space for the drying of the Arabica coffee beans.

Inside Nasasa’s house one big room has been reserved for storing and drying coffee. He squatted, showing IPS very white coffee beans in his hands while smiling: "This one is surely AA grade, the highest quality according to Gumutindo standards," he remarked.

About 50 m from the Nasasa home lives Wilson Mabala, another Gumutindo supplier. Asked about the benefits of supplying coffee under fair trade rules, Mabala replied that, "since we joined Gumutindo we have maintained our lands using organic manure. We are getting a good price for our coffee.

"I have personally benefited a lot. With the better earnings, I have sent my children to better schools than I could afford in the past," he added.

Primary education in Uganda is free of charge but many parents concerned about the quality of education opt to take their children to private schools where they foot the bill. Mabala told IPS that he spends over one million shillings (500 dollars) per year on school for two of his children.

A short walk farther IPS came across a project where the Bukalasi cooperative society stores are being expanded to create more storage facilities for coffee.

Mabala, who is also chairperson of Bukalasi cooperative society, told IPS that the stores’ expansion is financed with social premium receipts.

"The farmers sat and decided that we should expand the store so as to create more room for the storage of coffee. You cannot have ‘gumutindo’ (excellent coffee) when you store it badly," he explained.

Behind the store, IPS found Sera Nafungo tilling a garden where coffee has been planted with beans and yams. Nafungo, who has four children, remarked that fair trade has taught farmers to preserve their soil using organic manure. "We get free coffee seedlings and have been taught how to prevent pests and keep the nutrients in the soil," she enthused.

"I have managed to buy some Friesian cows and now have a constant supply of milk at home, some of which is sold," she added.

Mabala told IPS that other farmers in the area have witnessed the benefits of fair trade farming and were eager to join. "We hope to expand our membership but we are doing it systematically. A new member must be taught about quality requirements before we can admit him or her," he insisted.

According to Cafédirect’s website, the company is the result of "Oxfam, Equal Exchange, Traidcraft, and Twin Trading’s decision to bypass the conventional market and buy coffee direct from disadvantaged growers in developing countries".

Over a period of five years, it had paid growers more than 13,4 million dollars over and above market prices for raw materials.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Africa, Agriculture, Development, Report Tagged With:

UGANDA: Kato Murder Re-ignites Gay Rights Debate

February 12, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Joe Opio *

KAMPALA, Feb 12, 2011 (IPS/INSP) – For the government of Uganda, the timing of David Kato’s death couldn’t have been more unfortunate. Kato was killed on Jan. 26, a national holiday to commemorate the ascent to power of the ruling National Resistance Movement party.

Kato was the face of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), an advocacy group actively campaigning against the controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

The international press, foreign governments and gay rights activists have cast Kato’s death as the result of the prevailing climate of homophobia in Uganda; a charge the government refutes.

Kale Kayihura, the Inspector General of Police, insists that Kato’s murder had nothing to do with his activism, saying that he was just a victim of a private disagreement.

"The circumstances surrounding this incident have no indication regarding Kato’s campaign against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament," Kayihura said in the days after the murder became public.

Police initially declared Kato’s death as the latest in a spate of crimes committed by thugs in the Mukono area near Kampala, which has seen more than a dozen people battered to death using iron bars in the last two months.

"The killing was an act of thuggery," Information and National Guidance Minister Kabakumba Masiko stated at a recent press conference. "It was not organised because of what he was. Much as homosexuality is prohibited by the Constitution, his death was a (private) mission gone bad. The government is doing whatever it takes to ensure that those who killed Kato are brought to book."

Human rights activists, though, beg to differ. They maintain that it’s no coincidence that Kato was killed just a month after his face appeared in a local tabloid that published pictures and addresses of Uganda’s "Top 100 Homosexuals" under the screaming front-page headline, "Hang Them!"

In a press release soon after the police’s statement, the activists wrote: "The Sexual Minorities Uganda and the entire Ugandan Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex Community stand together to condemn the killing of David Kato and call for the Ugandan Government, Civil Society, and Local Communities to protect sexual minorities across Uganda. David has been receiving death threats since his face was put on the front page of Rolling Stone Magazine, which called for his death and the death of all homosexuals."

Kato’s lawyer claims that the activist had feared for his safety prior to his death, even alerting police. But the government and conservatives believe that by condemning Kato’s murder as an act of homophobia, the local gay rights movement and its foreign supporters are intent on pushing their agenda by converting a victim of random violence into a martyr.

The heated war of words between conservatives and human rights activists has cooled slightly since police arrested Enock Nsubuga, who confessed to committing the murder, but is by no means over.

Nsubuga, an ex-convict, confessed to killing Kato in an extra-judicial statement he recorded at Mukono magistrate’s court.

The 22-year-old Nsubuga claims that he killed Kato for enticing him into homosexual practices with material and financial promises that never materialised.

"The suspect was working in Kato’s garden at the time of the activist’s death," says police chief Kayihura. "According to the suspect, Kato, 46, promised to pay him money for having sex with him. But Kato never fulfilled his promise.

"The suspect then took a hammer from the bathroom and fatally beat Kato. The attack was not a hate crime, as has been widely reported, but rather stemmed primarily from the suspect’s desire to get money from Kato."

Kayihura nevertheless cautioned the public and anti-homosexuality pastors to show sensitivity towards the gay community in the country. "You should stop engaging in extremist campaigns that can be interpreted differently."

If the police had hoped that Nsubuga’s confession would put the matter to rest, they must have been monumentally disappointed.

Gay rights activists have questioned the veracity of Nsubuga’s confession, stating that, the latter’s claims are designed to portray gay people in unflattering light.

"Nsubuga’s reasons for murdering Kato depict Kato as a deceitful human being. He’s also portrayed as someone who used promises to make Nsubuga do things the latter didn’t want to do," a SMUG official said.

"This is consistent with messages from homophobes who have accused the gay rights movement of using gifts and money to entrap and entice young students into homosexuality. This is wrong. It’s also a calculated attempt to smear Kato’s name even in death and to further depict the gay rights movement in Uganda in negative light."

Some activists have expressed fear that Nsubuga might be a fall guy, as the government tries to deflect international scrutiny on Uganda over protection of gays.

Val Kalende, from gay rights group Freedom and Roam Uganda, insists that the government can’t wash its hands clean of responsibility.

"David’s death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S. evangelicals in 2009. The Ugandan Government and the so-called U.S evangelicals must take responsibility for David’s blood."

Uganda retains anti-sodomy laws that punish homosexual acts by up to 14 years to life in prison and is considering passing an Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would impose the death penalty on homosexual behaviour.

* This article first appeared on the Street News Service

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This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Africa, Human Rights, Report Tagged With: ,

UGANDA: ‘Why Waste ARVs on Sex Workers?’

December 3, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi

KAMPALA, Dec 3, 2010 (IPS) – Sex workers, among the populations most at risk of HIV infection in Uganda, say they are yet to realise their right to health.

Sex workers say they have been left out of national HIV prevention programmes and have difficulty accessing life-prolonging drugs.

"Its not that these [HIV/AIDS] services are not available, it’s about the stigma attached to the sex worker," says Maclean Kamya, a sex worker and human rights defender in the capital, Kampala.

"When we visit health centres, some health workers say, ‘But you are just a sex worker and we are just wasting our ARVs. Why should we give you our treatment? We have to give it to someone who needs it.’ That is total discrimination," she said in an interview with IPS.

According to the latest UNAIDS report, sex workers constituted 10 percent of new HIV infections in 2009. Yet government is using punitive laws to discriminate against the groups considered most at risk, such as sex workers and homosexuals. Activists say this creates stigma and discrimination and leads to denied access to treatment, care and support.

Over the past few months, Uganda’s parliament has been considering several controversial laws, among them the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Bill, which human rights activists say can only act as catalysts for the AIDS epidemic by forcing sex work underground. Sex work is already criminal under Uganda’s penal code.

The Prevention and Control Bill criminalises the spread of HIV; far from slowing the spread of the virus, the bill’s opponents say it only makes it more difficult for at-risk populations to get treatment and information about sexual health.

Because of the stigma attached to sex work, Kamya revealed, sex workers who discover their status often become desperate and resort to alcohol and drugs rather than seek help.

"They feel that the world has forgotten them," said Kamya, who is also coordinator of the sex workers’ fraternity in Kampala.

‘Illegal and criminal’

For the sex workers, it’s not just about access to medicines but also striving for the right to assemble, share ideas and forge ways on how to guard against violence, human rights abuses and HIV/AIDS.

Uganda’s government recently prevented the staging of a regional conference on advancing sex workers’ health rights and economic empowerment. The conference, organised by pan-Africanist women’s rights group Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMWA), had attracted sex workers from across the East African Community (EAC) economic bloc and was scheduled to take place in a Kampala hotel.

In a strongly worded letter to the hotel, State Minister for Ethics and Integrity, James Nsaba Buturo, warned that hosting a sex workers conference would be abetting illegality in Uganda.

Buturo later told IPS that there was no way a "prostitutes’ workshop" could take place on Ugandan soil. He defended his actions using provisions in the Penal Code Act and the Uganda 1995 Constitution to justify his actions.

"We have a position as a country which is supported by our laws. So to demand that even when their activities are illegal they should be recognised and supported is criminal really. They should be grounded and reminded about this," he said.

Compromised rights

Kamya said Buturo misunderstood the agenda of the conference which was to focus about leadership skills, building self-esteem and entrepreneurial skills. It also looked at health rights like HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health and economic empowerment.

"Personally I felt really terrible. So ashamed, embarrassed and hurt. We were trying to bring out issues that affect us as sex workers and thought the government would come out and support and appreciate us in our economic empowerment and reproductive health issues. But we were wrong," Kamya said.

AMwA Executive Director Solome Kimbugwe said government’s actions were discriminatory and in violation of women’s rights as the issues for discussion that day were pertinent to women’s health and HIV issues.

"We had a big block around sexual and reproductive health and well-being because we are very conscious of the [HIV] statistics. We are also very conscious of the fact that sex workers have been dying of the HIV epidemic and that they are denied even the inherent rights that all of us abuse; like information, education and health. Many of them are also far away from accessing free ARV’s just because they say they are sex workers," she said.

The sex workers said the minister’s actions were also in contravention of Article 29 the Constitution of Uganda, which guarantees the Freedom of Assembly, Speech and Non-discrimination. They also said the actions were denying them access to information on how to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS amongst them.

"Now we can’t have conversations; we can’t engage. Of course now they are going to go back to hide because it’s very scary. You don’t want to be arrested and wait in any of the jails in this country. The justice process is so long and protracted.

"Most importantly, such conversations allow for sex workers to know that they are active participants in their own journeys, in issues around sexual health, issues around choices and issues around managing the HIV epidemic. The biggest impact is the UNAIDS statistics. It’s very clear," Kimbugwe said.

UNAIDS Country Coordinator Musa Bungudu expressed concern. "The right of an individual to access information, treatment and services should not be compromised for any other thing. We must all be inclusive and not exclusive. By denying the sex workers what they wish to do, we are not being inclusive," he said.

Responding to a statement by Buturo that the current law on prostitution is not strong enough and that the government would want to "draft a new one that responds to the times we are now in," Bungudu cautioned that such a move would need to be in line with international human rights instruments that government has signed up to.

"Whatever [the government] wants to do, it should be in line with the norms of the global community. And whatever human rights commitments Uganda has signed up to, it’s important that they respect it," Bungudu said.

"It’s also important to look at how certain governance policies can support or make a situation worse. Uganda has 1.2 million people living with HIV. As at December 2009, there were 124,000 new infections. Ten percent of these were among sex workers.

"I think we need to be extra careful on doing anything that will help promote these statistics even higher," Bungudu stressed.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Africa, Health, Report Tagged With: , , ,

Cancer Treatment Out of Reach for Ugandan Women

November 4, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Rosebell Kagumire

SOROTI, Uganda, Nov 4, 2010 (IPS) – Josephine Adongo’s heart leapt when she heard that two doctors from Kampala were offering free medical exams in Soroti. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer at a regional hospital more than a year previously, but unable to afford to travel to the capital for treatment.

Adongo, a 68-year-old farmer who lost everything during Uganda’s long conflict against the insurgent Lords Resistance Army, was diagnosed with cancer at the local hospital in May 2009. But the only cancer treatment centre in Uganda was 300 kilometres away.

She was disappointed to find that the visiting doctors had only come to screen women and refer anyone with dangerous signs to Kampala.

The screening, which is rare service to ordinary women across Uganda, was being offered by ISIS-Women’s International Cross Cultural Exchange, as part of the commemoration of ten years of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. ISIS is a women’s organisation that seeks to raise attention on the reproductive health of women in post-conflict areas.

Cervical cancer, caused primarily by the human papillomavirus (HPV), is the second most common cancer among women worldwide. In Uganda it ranks as the most frequently occurring cancer among women. According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) September 2010 report titled, "Human Papillomavirus and Related Cancers in Uganda", every year 3,577 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 2,464 die from the disease.

Women like Adongo, in remote regions are at high risk.

The number could also be high due to the low level of cancer screening and limited data on the HPV burden in the general population of Uganda. Cancer screening services are only available at regional referral hospitals and many women cannot afford the transport costs to these centres.

Women, particularly from war affected areas, are also at high risk because of massive sexual violence, often gang rapes, they were subjected to.

According to Dr Tom Otim, gynecologist at Mbale Hospital in eastern Uganda, early marriages among rural women also places them at higher risk.

"The other major hindrance to prevention and treatment of cervical cancer is lack of information," said Otim.

"If the women came when the conditions that lead to cancer can be detected it would greatly help. But few women have information about the existence of this cancer."

Most Ugandan women report to health centres with advanced stages of cervical cancer, which include irregular vaginal bleeding and in some cases post menopausal bleeding.

"The outcry of many women is, why do you refer us to Mulago for radiotherapy when we can’t afford it?" Otim said. "It is demoralizing to diagnose a woman and you cannot improve her life. But what is even more painful is when you tell them the service is available but they cannot afford it because they are poor."

The few regional cancer screening and treatment centres are mostly donor funded and once the donor funds are finished, there is little government uptake of the projects.

Helen Angura is a registered midwife trained in cervical cancer screening. The hospital where she works, Mbale regional referral hospital, has been unable to care for women whose tests show early symptoms that could develop into cervical cancer.

The screening project was funded by Women Health initiative under the National Institutes of Health. It was launched in May 2009 but after a year the radiotherapy machine at the hospital is not in operation.

"We have been unable to treat women with lesions that could develop into cervical cancer because the nitrous-oxide gas used to run the machine ran out four months ago," said Angura.

"We have sent letters to the hospital administration since June and we haven’t heard from them. Hundreds of women whom we screened have been waiting."

In a country that spends less than 10 percent of its annual budget on health, issues like reproductive health and especially conditions like cervical cancer are mostly ignored.

Uganda runs a decentralized healthcare system but funding comes from the central government.

Otim says the government must invest in prevention of cervical cancer. HPV vaccines that prevent against HPV 16 and 18 infections are now available but few Ugandans can afford them.

"We have very safe vaccines that have been proven to prevent cervical cancer but one has to pay over 600,000 shillings (US$300) for an entire dose," Otim explained.

There are only two hospitals offering free vaccination. The programmes are all funded by Pathfinder International, an organisation that seeks to ensure that people everywhere have the right and opportunity to live a healthy reproductive life.

The WHO report recommended that government must include HPV vaccines in the national immunization programme if the risk is to be greatly reduced. The report also called for the integration of vaccination and cervical cancer screening programmes so that every woman who is screened is vaccinated. It would also require a countrywide campaign to inform ordinary Ugandans about the disease.

Meanwhile, women like Adongo will have to wait.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Africa, Gender, Health, Inequality, Report Tagged With: , , ,

UGANDA: Sand Fleas: Neglected Threat to Primary Education

October 21, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Wambi Michael

KAMPALA, Oct 21, 2010 (IPS) – Jowaali Dhikusoka sits on the side of the road, alone and bored. The twelve-year-old doesn’t play much with the other children in his village because he has trouble walking. His hands and feet are infested with sand fleas, in Uganda commonly called jiggers, which itch and cause him a lot of pain.

Jiggers are also the reason why Jowaali dropped out of primary school in Mafubira village in Uganda’s eastern Busoga region. Apart from the pain and the constant itching, his hands are so badly infected with the fleas that he cannot even hold a pencil.

Jowaali is one of hundreds of children and adults in Uganda’s rural Busoga region who suffer from a jigger epidemic that has spread in the poverty-stricken area due to poor hygiene and sanitation.

Neglected disease

Jiggers, also known as Chigoe fleas, thrive in unclean, sandy grounds, especially where people share their homesteads with domestic animals. The fleas mostly feed on warm-blooded animals, but pregnant, female fleas also burrow themselves into the skin of humans.

According the national Department of Education, only 20 percent of pupils who enroll for primary education end up completing Grade 7, the highest level in Uganda’s primary education. Although the department does not have statistics on how many children drop out of school due to jiggers, it acknowledges that the sand fleas are a key contributor to the problem in rural areas.

Some education experts believe the flea epidemic is actually hindering the country from achieving Millennium Development Goal 2 of achieving universal primary education by 2015.

Despite the fact that jiggers are a widespread and recurring problem in Uganda’s rural areas, the country’s health ministry only sprang into action with a campaign to eradicate the fleas in mid-October. Cabinet directed the health, finance, gender and local government ministries to work together to promote education around hygiene and sanitation as well as treatment of affected individuals.

New measures in place

Primary health care minister James Kakooza says government has set aside $177,000 for the jigger campaign and the emergency treatment of more than 600 people in Busoga, after which more money will be released for treatment of more people infested with the parasites.

The campaign was launched after a public outcry when the epidemic caused deaths in Busoga and Burgiri in September. Jigger infections can lead to severe inflammation, ulceration, fibrosis, lymphangitis and gangrene. A three-month-old baby died in Mufumi village in Bugiri, another district in eastern Uganda, for example, while nine other village residents had to be admitted to hospital.

Nasitanzio Akisa, a local councillor from Nabijingo Parish in Burgiri district, blames health authorities for the severity of the epidemic. He says jigger prevention has been neglected despite the fact that is a seasonal problem that peaks during each hot, dry season, when there is plenty of dust.

"This problem can be addressed by spraying the homesteads with insecticides, but the health department has been reluctant to implement this," she says.

Inexcusable delay

Salaamu Musumba, a member of opposition party Forum for Democratic Change in Busoga, complained to IPS: "There is no excuse that we, the people of Busoga, can be hosts to jiggers. Jiggers have intensified during the current regime."

Even government officials acknowledge that infestations can be prevented and cured relatively easily.

"The issue of jiggers is an issue of sanitation. We are telling people not to sleep on the floor, not to share houses with chicken, goats and pigs," explains Rebecca Kadaga, deputy speaker of parliament and a Member of Parliament for the District Women’s Constituency in Kamuli, Busoga.

"We are also asking the local governments in the affected districts to institute by-laws on household hygiene to ensure weekly smearing of floors and walls with cow dung and ant hill soils, especially for houses without cement. And the local leaders should enforce it," she adds.

To get the epidemic under control, government is also cooperating with global children’s aid organisation Plan International. Children are most affected by jiggers, because they play in dusty soils and their soft skin provides easy entry for the fleas.

Plan is distributing indoor spray to kill the fleas as well as a potassium permanganate solution, which kills jiggers, while at the same time treating the wounds. "We are determined to get rid of this problem, and we are already achieving some success because some of the children that we have treated are already back at school," says Plan programme coordinator Sam Echodu.

The high school drop out rate is not only due to the pain and discomfort the sand fleas cause, but also because jigger infections are highly stigmatised.

Eight-year-old Derick Ntalo from Mayuge district in Uganda’s east is one of the many jigger-infected pupils who refuses to go to school because he feels discriminated by his peers. "The teacher and the other children are laughing at me," he explains why he dropped out of Grade 3 eight months ago.

Local government councillor Charles Mukiibi confirms that absenteeism at schools is high because of the stigma attached to the epidemic: "The children are teased because they keep on itching their hands and feet in class and cannot concentrate."

He believes many more children would be attending primary school in eastern Uganda, if the health department would bring the epidemic under control.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Africa, Education, Environment, Health, Report Tagged With:

AFRICA: Customary Law Bars Women’s Access to Land

October 1, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Susan Anyangu-Amu and Joshua Kyalimpa

NAIROBI and KAMPALA, Sep 30, 2010 (IPS) – Regina Namukasa has been twice dispossessed – first when her husband died and his clan left her out when dividing up his estate, and again when she was denied a share in her father’s land. But this time she’s fighting back.

When Namukasa’s husband died fifteen years ago, she did not struggle with his relatives for a share of his estate; she moved back to her own family’s home in central Uganda’s Luwero district with her three children to start a new life.

But when her father died, his sisters decided only her younger brother was entitled to a share in the land, and asked her to leave.

Uganda’s constitution grants women equality and legal protection against discriminatory traditional practice, but there have been no reforms to the law and the constitutional provision has had little impact.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, customary law is hindering efforts to reform land tenure and increase women’s access to and ownership of land.

—–
Flawed reform

Dzodzi Tsikata, a senior research fellow at the University of Ghana, says that land tenure reforms across Africa have had few positive results due to the fact that customary laws have been reaffirmed.

"Most of these customary laws have discriminatory provisions against women, which have not been addressed. Despite the existence of these policies guaranteeing women land rights, there are no tangible results where one can attest to actual numbers of women owning land increasing," she says.

She cites the example of Customary Land Secretariats (CLS) in Ghana, which formally recognised a role for traditional authorities in administering land. She criticises the CLS programme as an accommodation with chiefs, despite growing evidence from across Africa that rather than promoting equitable access, chiefs are most likely to strengthen their control of land at the expense of other land users.

Traditional authorities – almost exclusively male – have successfully placed themselves at the centre of reformed land tenure systems developed by government officials and donors, including the World Bank, yet chiefs can not be assumed to be managing land on behalf of a community.

"Customary land management under the CLS has potential to deepen the discrimination against women both as members of the land holding group and as potential buyers of land," Tsikata said.

—–

Despite the fact that women form the majority of subsistence farmers in Africa, and play a critical role in food security, they typically have limited control over land.

"Far fewer women own land than men," says Fatou Diop Sall, "and often have access to land only through male family members, marking them as dependent mothers, wives or daughters. In cases where couples divorce, or a man dies, women often run the risk of losing their entitlement to land."

Sall is the coordinator of a research project on gender and society at the University of Gaston Berger in Senegal.

Sall says Senegalese law stipulates that men and women have equal access to land. But just as in Uganda, the reality on the ground is markedly different. Women’s representation on village land councils, for example, is limited; when it comes to inheritance, women are also often excluded.

"Despite what the law says, women are blocked from land control by cultural and economic factors. Most women do not have the financial might required to purchase a piece of land. When families are sharing out pieces of land, women are not allocated portions," Sall says.

Namukasa’s grandfather originally gave the piece of land in question to her father, and her aunts ruled it belongs to the clan; having been married, they say, Namukasa must look to her deceased husband’s family.

"It’s because of culture which dictates that girls are worthless and should get their share where they get married," Namukasa told IPS.

She has turned to the courts to defend her rights. "I approached the resident district commissioner for Nakawa, Fred Bamwine, who helped me by taking [the case] to court."

Namukasa is a defiant exception to the rule in Uganda and elsewhere.

Magadelena Ngaiza, a senior lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, says ignorance of their rights is still blocking women from land ownership.

In her native Tanzania, legal provisions to address land rights inequalities between men and women have not yet had the desired effect.

"The majority of women are not aware of what the law states with regard to land ownership. They are not informed that they have such rights and must demand for them. Most do not even consider themselves landowners and actually are surprised by such a suggestion," she says.

She says attempts at improving women’s access to land must begin with massive awareness creation, educating women on existing land laws and policies.

Women must also be empowered economically to ensure they can access land and not just be tied to be small scale farmers.

"Any discussion towards improving women’s land rights must go beyond empowering them at a small scale. We must visualise a situation where they become large scale producers and this requires them to own large tracts of land. Financial might is what will make a difference here," Sall says.

Back in Luwero district, Namukasa is sad that her own relatives have turned against her. "Imagine: it’s women mistreating a fellow woman. My father must be turning in his grave."

"This government should help us women becasue they say that they are helping us but why should they look on when women are mistreated?"

Namukasa’s case is being heard in Nabweru court, and she is convinced she will get justice.

"I will not rest until I get my share, in fact even your very own brother can deny you a share because a girl should not not inherit property this is unfair," she says.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Africa, Agriculture, Gender, Inequality, Report Tagged With:

AGRICULTURE-UGANDA: Pee Solves a Problem

October 1, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Wambi Michael

KAMPALA, Oct 1, 2010 (IPS) – Faced with a severe decline in soil fertility and low crop production as a result, Ugandan farmers have turned to human urine to improve the richness of their soil.

Scientists have found that urine is a first-rate source of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, elements that are all vital for plant health and disease resistance. They say using urine as fertiliser will help to rehabilitate the country’s eroded and damaged soils.

Using human urine is also much cheaper than chemical fertiliser. This is a bonus for the country’s small-scale farmers who often lack the financial means to purchase farming inputs. In Uganda, a 50 kilogramme bag of fertiliser costs a whopping $70, while urine costs… nothing.

Waste not…

The idea of using urine as liquid fertiliser was initially promoted by Ecological Sanitation (EcoSan), an international manufacturer of waterless, eco-friendly toilets, through the Ugandan Red Cross. EcoSan toilets separate urine and faeces into separate compartments so that they can be re-used as liquid fertiliser and manure.

But since the Red Cross can only sponsor a limited number of such toilets, which cost between $320 to $1500, most Ugandans – who earn an average of about $300 year, according to the International Monetary Fund – cannot afford to buy their own.

Instead, farmers in more than 30 districts in Uganda have come up with an alternative: they simply get all of their family members to wee into buckets or jerry cans to collect urine.

Rose Nabirye, a farmer from Mayuge in eastern Uganda, says she was sceptical at first and thought urine fertiliser is unhygienic, but when she tested it, she was extremely happy with the results.

"Now I have containers behind my pit latrine to collect urine every morning and evening. I then store it in closed containers for about a week and pour it onto manure which I apply in the garden," she explains.

…Want not

Nabirye says the urine-soaked manure, in addition to liquid fertiliser, has helped her to increase her maize and vegetable yields.

Steven Nabuyaka, a vegetable farmer in eastern Bududa district, recounts how he used to spend about $20 each farming season to buy a few kilos of fertiliser for his onion garden until he learnt that he could use urine instead.

He says once aid organisation like the Red Cross and Catholic charity CARITAS started to educate smallholders about human urine fertiliser, news travelled rapidly across the country’s farming communities via word-of-mouth.

"I tried it, and it works," Nabuyaka says with delight. "Last season, I didn’t buy any fertiliser from the market, and the yield was okay. I have tried it on the bananas, and the results are promising."

He also found that urine helps to fight pests, especially in banana plants.

Fertiliser essential

As for Nabuyaka, the urine fertiliser is for most farmers the first viable opportunity to nourish their land. Uganda has one of the lowest levels of fertiliser use in Africa.

According to a 2006 study by the national Department of Agriculture, Uganda uses only 0.37 kilogrammes of fertiliser nutrients per hectare, compared to six kilogrammes per hectare in Tanzania, 16 kilogrammes per hectare in Malawi, 31.6 kilogrammes per hectare in Kenya and 51 kilogrammes per hectare in South Africa.

As reasons for this, the study identified high fertiliser prices, low levels of fertiliser distribution in rural areas and farmers’ perception that Uganda’s soils do not need to be replenished.

Yet the opposite is true: soil nutrient depletion and erosion have been major problems in Uganda for decades and have led to widespread farmland degradation and food insecurity. The soil is being depleted of nutrients at an alarming rate, as farmers struggle to feed the rapidly expanding population.

Professor Matete Bekunda, soil scientist at the Faculty of Agriculture at Makerere University in Kampala, confirms that agricultural productivity in Uganda has remained largely stagnant due to low soil nutrition content.

He says a major problem is that farmers no longer land fallow for a season to give it a chance to regain some of its fertility. "The population pressure now forces them to grow crop after crop, season after season. This mines the soil of nutrients without replenishing it. So the food produced by the infertile soil will be little," he explains.

According to a 2009 United Nations Habitat report, Uganda has a population growth rate of 3.3 percent, compared to the global average of 1.1 percent. About 80 percent of the population relies on resources like land and lakes for their livelihood.

Agricultural experts like Bekunda hope that using urine fertiliser might be a way of slowly improving one element of the situation, the degradation of the land.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

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