The shifting terrain of land reform in South Africa: The National Land Summit, July 2005
Ruth Hall
From 27–31 July 2005, the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs in South Africa hosted a National Land Summit, under the official slogan ‘a partnership to fast-track land reform: a new trajectory, forward to 2014’. The event witnessed the most significant public debate on land reform in the past five years. At the heart of the debate were the deficiencies of the current market-based approach and the extent to which the state should confront the vested interests of landowners by proactively negotiating for the purchase of land and, where this does not yield results, expropriate property.
The gathering, which took place in Johannesburg, was attended by 1,500 delegates from across the country, including representatives of political parties, government departments, churches, white and black farmers, farm workers, land claimants, rural non-governmental organisations (NGOs), banks and academics.
Background to the Summit
The call for a land summit has been a demand of the Landless People's Movement (LPM) since its formation. At the National Land Tenure Conference held by government in 2001, the Minister promised to hold such a summit at which the fundamentals of policy would be revisited. Since then, the continued slow progress of land reform has given weight to the view that policy needs to be revised: while government reiterates its target of transferring 30% of white agricultural land into black ownership through land reform by 2014, after ten years less than 4% had been redistributed.
Debate on land policy has been characterised by a stand-off between government and landowners insisting on adherence to market-based land reform and rejection of this policy from large quarters of civil society. Many participants expected to see a re-enactment of this at the Summit, but the tone set on the first day broke new ground.
A surprising start
In their opening speeches, both the Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and the Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Thoko Didiza, declared that the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ principle underpinning the current market-based approach was a key impediment to improving the pace of land reform and would need to be reviewed. The Minister acknowledged that the resources available have been inadequate, argued that the state should be a ‘market-maker’ and influence price determination, and asked the Summit to address the option of proactive land acquisition by the state. At the gala dinner on the first evening of the Summit, the Deputy Minister Dirk du Toit declared in his speech: ‘Today we have buried willing buyer, willing seller’. The next few days saw convergence at a rhetorical level but ongoing uncertainty about what this would mean in practice.
Preparations for the Summit
In the run-up to the Summit, 25 organisa tions – NGOs, landless groups and the South African Communist Party (SACP) – embarked on discussions to identify substantive policy proposals as well as demands for a more consultative process of policy making beyond the Summit. As at previous national conferences, civil society organisations attempted to build a unified front around common policy demands, and submitted a joint memorandum to the Summit under the name of the newly formed Alliance for Land and Agrarian Reform Movements (ALARM). ALARM prioritised six key demands:
1) Scrap willing buyer, willing seller market-based land reform;
2) Commit to using expropriation actively and aggressively;
3) Re-open the date for restitution claims;
4) Declare a moratorium on all evictions;
5) Review the Communal Land Rights Act;
6) Commit to a consultative and democratic post-Summit process.
The National Summit was also preceded by provincial ‘Pre-Summits’, from which official reports were forwarded to the national event and provincial delega tions were selected by the national ministry rather than elected. The degree of engineering of the process led to a degree of skepticism in civil society; some feared that it would be a window-dressing exercise aimed to defuse the demand for a Summit precisely by having one. How- ever, the event was more fundamental than many had expected.
Plenary proceedings
Although there had been little agreement in the provinces, the provincial reports tabled by agriculture ministers from each of the nine provinces reiterated a number of ‘decisions’ that echoed the demands of ALARM: an end to the willing buyer, willing seller approach; a moratorium on land purchases by foreigners; a mora- torium on evictions from farms; and the re-opening of the restitution claims proc ess.
International guests presented experi ences with land reform, including from Zimbabwe, Kenya and Namibia. Argu ably the most influential was a descrip tion of the Brazilian experience, which combines a market-assisted process of credit-based land purchases with a land occupation campaign by social move ments. In the South African context where the debate has become polarised between those espousing the market as the only means of redistribution and those rejecting any purchasing of land from current owners for redistribution, the Brazilian experience suggested that the two need not be mutually exclusive. This input also endorsed the value to society of promoting small ‘family farms’ and added legitimacy to the view that, given a conducive environment, this sector can contribute substantially to the national economy.
The Summit was not without drama. ALARM tried to prevent the representa tive of the World Bank from speaking by distributing pamphlets calling on del- egates to ‘Rise up and protest the World Bank!’ and interrupting his speech by using a particularly South African cultural weapon: the toyi-toyi (militant protest dance), accompanied by enthusiastic singing. However, when he did eventually speak he promoted a number of demands tabled by civil society, including land taxes, subdivision of large farms, any selective expropriation – while still adhering to a ‘negotiated’ and market-based approach to land acquisition. The debate was clearly becoming more nuanced.
After two days of speeches by politicians, political parties, academics and international guests, delegates moved into commissions to discuss the three pillars of land reform: restitution, redistribution and tenure reform.
Restitution
A substantial number of delegates at the Land Summit were from rural communities claiming back their land through the restitution programme, and impatient with the pace of the process. Also present were people who had returned to their land but were disillusioned with the impact of restitution on their livelihoods. The restoration of rights to land had not led to development in the manner they had anticipated. A further grievance was the exclusion of those who had not submitted their claims before the deadline at the end of 1998. Resolutions of the Summit on land restitution were as follows.
Pace of settling land claims: It was widely agreed that the pace of settling claims was unacceptably slow; although most claims are now settled, the resolution of rural claims, most of which have not been tackled, must be expedited.
Land acquisition : There was a call for the state to negotiate more aggressively with current landowners for the purchase of land under claim and, where they are unwilling to accept the state's offer to purchase, expropriate. Whether expropriation would speed up the settlement of claims was a moot point; bureaucratic delays have also held up the process.
The debate about dates: the Summit resolved that the lodgment process should be re-opened to those eligible claimants who missed the deadline in 1998 because they were unaware of, or misinformed about, the process. This clear demand tended to be conflated with a call to review the parameters of the programme: some delegates called for the right to restitution to be extended to those whose forebears had been dispossessed prior to 1913 (the cut-off date for claims), as far back as the start of colonial occupation in 1652. Despite having popular appeal, this appeared to be something of a political red herring.
Development support : The Summit called for improved planning and support to claimants who have returned to their land, including the provision of infrastructure, agricultural training and creation of small enterprises. Where they enter into partnerships with private sector developers, the state should assist to guard against benefits accruing largely to commercial partners.
Improved communication : There was a strong call for better communication by the Commission with both claimants and landowners whose land is under claim.
Content of rights : Delegates objected to restitution being limited to land and argued for a holistic approach that would recognise the loss of other property rights, specifically mineral rights and rights to water and forests.
Restitution Truth and Reconciliation Commission: The Summit proposed that, to promote understanding and to bring healing and closure, a commission similar to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission should be established to hear people's experiences of dispossession.
Redistribution
Market-based land reform in its South African incarnation has meant in practice that not only is there no compulsion on landowners to sell, but even where they are willing to do so, they can choose to whom they will sell. Delegates complained that land purchase grants were insufficient and that landowners have been able to inflate prices and in some instances have chosen not to sell to land reform applicants. A credible threat of expropriation, coupled with below-market compensation was deemed necessary to encourage landowners to agree to reasonable offers. The Summit proposed a new direction for land redistribution.
Proactive role of the state: With the exception of Agri South Africa (AgriSA), representing the established commercial farming sector, there was consensus on rejection of the willing buyer, willing seller principle, and a call for the state to become the driving force behind land redistribution. The alternative to willing buyer, willing seller was ‘proactive acquisition by the state in response to identified needs, through negotiated purchase and where necessary expropriation’. There was a call for less bureaucratic processes and substantially increased resources to be allocated to the programme, including for staffing, to enable state agencies to engage in active negotiation with land owners and to expropriate land where needed.
Regulating land markets: Various measures were proposed to regulate land markets to reverse the growing concentration of landholding, including a ceiling on the size of land holdings, a right of first refusal for the state on all sales of agricultural land, and imposition of a land tax to curb speculation and bring under-utilised land onto the market. These proposals were not unanimous; AgriSA contested all measures proposed. There was agreement on the need for proactive subdivision of farms to make available parcels of land appropriate to the needs of smallholders.
Who should benefit: Although the issue was not extensively debated, the Summit resolved that specific measures should be taken to target the poor, women, farm workers and the youth. Implicit in this was a rejection of land reform as a means of promoting a black commercial farming class – though most speakers felt that a wide range of land needs should be addressed.
Payment and compensation for land: There was rejection of paying market prices for land. Except for AgriSA, the Summit resolved that the provision in the Constitution to pay ‘just and equitable’ compensation should be used to justify below-market compensation, taking into account various factors including past subsidies to landowners. There was a minority view that the Constitution should be amended to allow for confiscation with no compensation, in cases where land is unused or underutilised, and where landowners have been abusve of farm workers.
Moratorium on foreign land ownership: Although not debated, the Summit called for a moratorium on foreign ownership of agricultural land but allowing leasehold. Some participants called for the redistribution of land already owned by foreigners and reparations for profits from speculative land purchases.
Constitutional reform: There was a call to insert a ‘social obligations clause’ in the Constitution, which would legally protect landless people who occupy land that is unused, underutilized or owned by absentee landlords or landowners who have abused farm workers. As in Brazil, this would allow land occupations to be regularized through expropriation from the former owner and titling of the new occupants.
Local government role: Delegates agreed that municipalities must play an active role in land reform by identifying local needs, releasing municipal land, identifying land to meet needs and providing services and support to beneficiaries. Delegates proposed a register of land needs and a comprehensive audit of public and private land so that information on who owns what can be made publicly available. Local land forums to identify land needs would need to include landless people themselves, municipalities, the departments of land affairs and agriculture, and landowners.
Municipal commonage: There was a call for municipalities to stop allowing commercial farmers to use commonage land, and instead to promote access for poor people and ‘emerging farmers’ (black but not poor) to this public resource.
Models of land use and development: The Summit issued a call for policy to revisit the dominant models of land use and agriculture and to prioritise public support for small-scale agriculture by investing in coordinated and better-resourced ‘post-transfer support’, including training, extension services, access to market and to finance. There was a call for a moratorium on ‘elitist developments’, such as new golf courses and game farms – a call reiterated by the President, Thabo Mbeki, just weeks after the Summit.
Tenure reform
The insecure rights of those living on land owned by others – farm workers, residents of communal areas and people in informal settlements – continues to be a major grievance despite the existence of tenure legislation. Recent research has shown ongoing dispossession: evictions from farms since 1994 exceed the number of people benefitting from land reform. The commission on tenure reform focused on the rights of farm dwellers.
Legal reform: The Summit called for the revision of both the laws regulating farm dwellers’ tenure rights – the Extension of Security of Tenure Act 62 of 1997 and the Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act 2 of 1996. Other than AgriSA, participants called for a new law to strengthen the rights of tenants and occupiers, to protect the tenure of second-generation tenants, to separate tenure rights from the employment status of tenants so that job losses do not lead to evictions, and to create a class of ‘non-evictable occupiers’, including those born and brought up on the farm.
Moratorium on evictions: The Summit called for a moratorium on the eviction of farm dwellers until a new law and systems for its enforcement are in place, including legal aid and retraining of police and magistrates. Delegates also called for the enforcement of burial rights for people living on private farms, protection of tenants’ livestock, and for effective prosecution and suitable punishment of those violating farm dwellers rights. The moratorium was opposed by AgriSA which argued that legal evictions should continue to be allowed.
Services and planning: There was also a call for public service provision, and to end the stalemate in which municipalities refuse to provide basic services such as water and sanitation to farm dwellers because they reside on privately owned land.
Land for farm dwellers: The Summit resolved that farm dwellers must be prioritised for redistribution so that they can become farmers in their own right, by confirming their rights to land they already occupy and use, or by providing land elsewhere. AgriSA conceded that expropriation could be a measure of last resort in order to secure farm dwellers’ rights, though it is not clear that the majority of its membership would agree.
Overlooked issues
Although there were general calls for support and training for new farmers, agricultural policy was not addressed directly. The Department of Agriculture co-hosted the event, and many of its senior officials were present, but the central question of the link between land redistribution and agrarian reform was elided. In this sense, the event had populist appeal by conceding substantial ground on the state's role in land acquisition, without addressing how land reform relates to wider economic and social processes, and whether it is located within a broader process of agrarian reform. The Deputy President hinted at this more radical agenda when she argued that, in addressing the underdeveloped ‘second economy’, the state must restructure the developed ‘first economy’.
The burning question of who should benefit from land redistribution was similarly skirted. In the past few years, preference and additional resources have been given to those who have capital of their own or are able to access substantial loans. At stake is the relative weight that should be given to providing land to the poor for subsistence purposes and modest ‘family farms’ versus supporting the emergence of a black capitalist farming sector in the image of the white commercial sector. In the hurly-burly of debating the approach to land acquisition, this issue was not tackled. Land reform, it seemed, would continue to be a programme purporting to be all things to all people.
Reflections
The importance government attached to the Summit was evident in the presence of many senior African National Congress (ANC) party officials and an unannounced visit by President Thabo Mbeki on the second day. Commentators and government officials have explained the ANC's increased priority on land reform as due to its expectation of being challenged on its track record of delivery in the upcoming local government elections.
Private sector interests appeared to be more marginal at the Summit than the voices of the landless. Government appeared to be playing to a different audience: progressive civil society and the broader public. The state's embrace of populist rhetoric may mark a new era of blaming white farmers for the failings of land reform, although many shortcomings noted at the Summit were due to inappropriate policy, weak and bureaucratic institutions and insufficient funding. What remains to be seen is whether this merely amounts to defusing opposition by embracing its discourse while retaining the fundamentals of the existing policy direction.
Fast-track on which path?
The status of the Summit resolutions is now unclear. Resolutions were tabled in plenary and objections noted, but the Summit was abruptly drawn to a close a day early, and without the tabling of final resolutions. Since then, government has referred to them as recommendations. The ‘post-Summit’ process to which most parties committed themselves has not yet materialised. Despite the dramatic claims of the Summit to be charting out a new trajectory for ‘fast-track’ land reform – a surprising use of Zimbabwean terminology – government has gone quiet in the two months since the Summit and it is not clear which of the proposals will be taken forward, when, how, and whether there will be further public participation in policy development.
Conclusion
Policy decisions are not easily taken in a forum as large as diverse as the Summit but, to the extent that participation was possible, there appeared to be substantial consensus on key shifts in policy. Agri South Africa (AgriSA) was the sole organisation that objected to the review of the willing buyer, willing seller approach, the payment of below-market prices for land and a moratorium on farm evictions – though they did not object in principle to the selective use of expropriation in the interests of land reform. The question of who should pay for land reform was hotly contested. AgriSA argued that, since land reform is in the national interest, the public as a whole should carry the cost and therefore that increased funding from the National Treasury is needed in order to expedite the process while paying full market prices.
There was widespread acknowledgement that the approaches used in the first decade of democracy have been inadequate and that new policies and strategies are now needed to improve both the pace and quality of land and agrarian reform. Despite contestation on a number of issues, the atmosphere of the Summit was constructive and may mark the start of a new phase of more positive relationships in the sector. The resolution of this high profile event to review the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ principle guiding land reform grabbed the attention of national and foreign media and has undoubtedly altered the political environment in which land reform will be debated and implemented. However, there is little consensus on what will take its place, and what future role the state will play in intervening in or overriding land markets in the interests of a more radical redistribution of land.
Ruth Hall is a researcher at the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa; e-mail: rhall@123456uwc.ac.za.
Tanzania: Is this a pro-poor gender-sensitive budget?
Marjorie Mbilinyi & Mary Rusimbi
Formally established in 1993, the Tanzanian Gender Networking Programme, TGNP, is a leading feminist activist organisation which promotes gender equity, women's advancement and social transformation at all levels of society. Working closely with more than 40 activist national organisations in the Feminist Activist Coalition, FemAct, and a web of grassroots groups and district- level gender networks, TGNP has taken an increasingly high public profile in challenging neo-liberal ideology and promoting public debate on macro economic policy and the growth of inequality and injustice in Tanzania and Africa as a whole. Composed of highly committed staff and members, TGNP works closely with activist organisations, the media, and other partners in civil society.
The budget review reproduced below was presented at the weekly Gender and Development Seminar Series, a public forum which is conducted in the national language, Kiswahili, so as to facilitate full participation of grassroots women and men. Through close ties with the media, the brief was widely reproduced and reported on in the mass media, and backed up by interviews with working people, young women and men and activists of all ages. Budget reviews are a part of the Gender Budgeting Initiative led by TGNP and FemAct which seeks to deepen democratic processes in policy/budget formulation and tracking at all levels.
Civil society reacts to Tanzania's 2005 budget
Tanzanian NGOs reacted skeptically to the 2005/06 budget presented by the Minister of Finance on 8 June where the country's recent economic and fiscal progress was outlined as follows:
GDP growth accelerated from 4.2% in 1996 to 6.7% in 2004, while inflation declined from 21% in 1996 to 4% in 2005; tax revenue has increased in recent years, as has the number of banks (from 2 in 1996 to 26 in 2005); and interest rates have fallen from 26% in 1996 to 14.4% in 2004.
Hakikazi Catalyst led a discussion on this year's budget with village residents in the Arumeru district of Arusha. Participants complained that local governments have few opportunities to influence the resource-allocation decisions reflected in the national budget. They also argued that the resources that actually reach grassroots communities will not be adequate to meet the demands of quality and equity.
Hakikazi Catalyst discussions revealed that people believe that resources are not allocated fairly. Groups such as single and widowed women, children, orphans, youths, elderly people, and those living with HIV-AIDS have difficulty accessing basic services, such as basic health and education (especially post-primary education). While improving the quality of government services and people's access to education and health could help reduce poverty, there are indications that these tasks are not a priority of district councils. What rural communities want is a budget that promotes equity, quality, and participatory budget processes. For further information, contact Emmanuel Kallonga at ekallonga@123456cybernet.co.tz.
Another NGO, the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) based in Dar es Salaam, commented that the new budget continues to favour the national and international corporate sectors over working people and the poor. TGNP noted several positive aspects of the budget, however, including provisions for enhanced social service delivery, economic support for small producers and traders, and increased participation for civil society groups in budget formulation and monitoring. The following is a more detailed look at the budget by TGNP.
Resource allocation
Some 33% of the total budget has been allocated to development activities. A large proportion of the development allocation will go to infrastructure development; there is broad agreement on the need for major construction of rural and village roads, railways, and bridges to support the growth of the rural economy. However, the bulk of the development budget is dependent on external financing, which compromises the sustain-ability of development plans and the autonomy of decision-making on them. Of the remaining total budget, nearly a fifth is allocated to debt repayment, which diverts resources away from growth, development, and social service delivery.
TGNP expressed disappointment that a relatively small portion of the budget is devoted to salaries and wages. Many people, including government, civil society groups, international donors, and the private sector, agree on the need for a dramatic increase in the number of trained health workers to provide basic health care, life-saving services, and treatment for HIV-AIDS. Calls for increased staff have been raised in other sectors of the economy as well, such as agriculture, education, judiciary, and water and sanitation. There is a need not only for more workers but also for enhanced training and increased wages and other benefits.
Wages & taxation
The proposed tax structure would harm the middle class and favor the very wealthy by imposing the same tax rate (30%) on both groups – a rate that is too high for the former but very low for the latter. Instead, TGNP recommends that the government create a lower tax rate for the middle class (not above 20%) and proportionately higher taxes for high and very high earners (at least 50% for the very rich). This would provide substantial revenue for the government while reducing tax burdens on the poor and middle class.
Employment & livelihood
The budget lacks a clear, coherent strategy to enhance employment and sustainable livelihoods. In spite of the present crisis of employment and incomes faced by most Tanzanians, this was not a high priority of the budget.
The government's main employment strategy appears to be to promote privatisation and micro-finance. The government's proposals to enhance credit and micro-finance are promising, but TGNP believes more information is needed on whether their benefits would actually reach groups such as the poor, women, youth, and the disabled. Another major concern is the extremely high interest rates for micro-credit. The budget speech says that bank credit has grown by some 30% per year and that interest rates have fallen, but while that may be true for corporations and rich individuals, the poor continue to pay interest of 30% or more to micro-credit institutions.
In addition, the government needs to provide open information on privatisation agreements and on the degree to which private sector enterprises are hiring local residents and purchasing goods and services from Tanzanian-owned firms. Because Tanzania lacks concrete mechanisms to foster linkages within and between key economic sectors, the country is rapidly returning to the colonial structure of the past, when tiny export enclaves were surrounded by impoverished labor reserves.
Agriculture
To support the agricultural sector, the budget proposes fertiliser subsidies and credit-loan schemes, along with assistance for merchants and big agricultural producers that are exporting agricultural commodities overseas.
The government's strategy of focusing on large agriculture enterprises rather than local producers may well boomerang, given the downward trend in global prices for traditional crops. TGNP recommends an alternative, holistic approach – one that would build on indigenous producers’ expertise in farming and livestock-keeping and link agriculture to manufacturing and services. The government should develop strategies to promote small-scale agriculture and livestock-keeping (particularly among young people and women) as well as the diversification of the rural economy.
Health & HIV/AIDS
Gender activists were disappointed by the budget's relatively small allocation to the health sector and by the very limited attention given to health and HIV/AIDS in the budget speech. According to the ‘state of the economy’ speech by the Minister of Finance, the government's top priorities in the health sector include expanding the distribution of anti-retroviral (ARVS) drugs to HIVAIDS infected people who can use them, strengthening the implementation of key health policies (including those targeting children), and promoting an anti-measles campaign. Resources also have been allocated to improving health-care quality and access.
According to TGNP, the national health budget should place higher priority on the wages and salaries of health workers, as well as on drugs and equipment. To ensure that the burden of health care does not fall disproportionately on the poor, major resources should be directed to supporting home-based approaches to health care and strengthening linkages to community health programs. Finally, private-public partnerships should be enhanced so that faith-based organisations and others providing public health services are adequately supported.
For further information, contact Mary Rusimbi at mary.rusimbi@123456tgnp.org. <http://www.internationalbudget.org/resources/newsletter28.htm>
Enyimba enyi: The Comeback of Igbo nationalism in Nigeria
Kenneth Omeje
Thirty-five years since the end of the Biafran War in Nigeria, ethnic armies and militias are increasingly dotting the political landscape and heightening the temperature of the Nigerian federation. These groups include the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) in the southwest, the Bakassi Boys in the southeast, the Taliban Nigeria Movement and other pro-Sharia groups in the north, and the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF) and other natural resource-based militias in the oil-rich south-south. In addition to these movements, new Igbo nationalist movements advocate a revival of the Biafran project. While these Igbo groups generally do not organise or advocate violence, they can offer very radical rhetoric that draws on the hopes and the experiences of the lost Biafran War of secession, as well as on older Igbo war songs: the enyimba enyi spirit. This briefing reports on the revival of Igbo nationalism in Nigeria, including the problems and challenges it presents.
This roughly translates to English as:
Nzogbu nzogbu enyimba enyi is probably the most famous Igbo traditional war song. The song rallies the people's solidarity and their collective sentiments against any adversarial forces and threats that must be urgently combated and vanquished. It is also a song that evokes the idiom of the presumed bravery and fighting prowess of the menfolk likened to the bulldozing power of elephants, which rely on their extraordinary body mass to trample and crush their adversary. It is therefore an idiom of optimism and faith in the people's ability to defeat any adversary. Indeed, the enyimba enyi spirit subsumes the rhetoric of assured victory in any such eventualities.Although rooted in history, the enyimba enyi discourse should not simply be mistaken for the traditional Igbo nationalism of the classical ‘Acheberian melodrama’ (derived from Chinue Achebe's 1958 classical novel). For a people that have experienced the pain and tribulations of modern warfare, the rhetoric of a ‘battle-geared’ ethnic nationalism represents much more than the traditional or symbolic. The Biafran war, often described as the war of Igbo national self-determination (1967–1970), was more than an Igbo war because Biafra included a cross-section of minority ethnic groups in the former region of Eastern Nigeria. On the Nigerian side, part of the politics of winning the war entailed the deconstruction of Biafra both in physical and philosophical terms by severing the strategic ethnic minority groups on the shoreline of the Atlantic from this separatist project and depicting the project as an enyimba enyi rebellion. This strategy combined with a total blockade of the landlocked Igbo nation proved decisive in crushing the Biafran secession. More than a million people died in the traumatic 30-month campaign. Today, Igbo nationalism tends to revive the Biafran project.
The present reinvention process
Unlike, the Igbo nationalism that culminated in the Biafran revolt which had substantial consensus among the Igbo population throughout Nigeria and beyond, the present reinvention of Igbo nationalism is mostly championed by a motley collection of Igbo civil groups based at home and in the Diaspora, albeit the revival of the Biafra project is the central focus of both sides. The Diaspora strand of the ‘neo-Biafra movement’ is spearheaded by such American-based Igbo organisations as the Biafra Foundation (BF), Biafra Actualisation Forum (BAF), Igbo USA, Ekwe Nche, and Biafra Nigeria World (BNW). At the domestic front, the radical Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), headed by an Indian-trained, pro-Ghandian lawyer Ralph Uwazurike, is most dominant. Most of these neo-Biafra civil groups emerged in the past six years. MASSOB maintains very close links with its counterparts in the Diaspora (notably BF and BAF) and the latter supports and partly bankrolls the former (see BNW, 2002; BAF, 2003).
Being at the home front, MASSOB in a large sense crystallises the broad ideological discourses of the neo-Biafra movement into a practical plan. The organisation first hit the headlines in early 2000 when it started campaigning in many Nigerian commercial cities and Igbo towns to herald what the group called ‘the birth of a new Biafra’ (Uwazurike, 2000). This campaign culminated in the highly publicised Aba Declaration of 22 May 2000 in which, against all entreaties of the President Obasanjo administration, the MASSOB leader announced the birth of Biafra in an open air rally attended by hundreds of Aba traders. On this occasion, the MASSOB leader Ralph Uwazurike performed the symbolic hoisting of the Biafran flag at Aba to the excitement of his home fans.
The Aba Declaration has been followed by series of events and propaganda which, from the standpoint of MASSOB and its allies in the Diaspora, will help the groups to translate their dream of a new Biafra into reality. For instance, the MASSOB leadership has organised series of rallies to inaugurate different local and provincial chapters of the organisation in some major Igbo towns and elsewhere in the former Eastern region and beyond (BNW, 2002; Ogbuwezeh, 2004).
The Diaspora arm of the neo-Biafra movement has also initiated and implemented a number of relevant activities and events. Among the highlights of these events and activities include the acquisition and celebrated opening of the Biafra House in Washington, DC on 23 Septem ber 2001 with the erstwhile Biafran war leader Emeka Odomuegwu Ojukwu in attendance, the establishment of a shortwave radio broadcasting service Voice of Biafra International (VOBI) and the convening of the first international conference of Biafra in Greenbelt, Mary land (US) on 18 October 2003. The Washington-based Biafra Foundation and BAF are behind the above initiatives. The Maryland conference adopted an impassioned communiqué and part of its preambles reads (BF, 2003):
With representation from Eastern Nigeria, Anioma, Europe, and throughout the United States of America and Canada, the first post-war International Confer ence on Biafra was concluded with the agreement that the conditions that led to the Biafra-Nigeria war are still present and worse, that the persecution of Ndi Igbo in Nigeria continues to dictate the overall and specific policies of the federal government. The effect of this has been the gradual destruction of the country itself, its economy, and its overall pride.
Unlike the defunct Biafran Republic, the neo-Biafra movement does not advocate armed struggle as a strategy for the actualisation of Biafran statehood. In stead, the movement advocates the actu alisation of sovereignty through ‘non violence and non-exodus’ and pursue ‘negotiation, dialogue and consultation’ with key stakeholders, including the federal government, Igbo State govern- ments and ethno-cultural organisations, as well as the minority ethnic nationali ties of the oil-rich Nigerian Niger Delta (cf. Uwazurike, 2000; BF, 2003). MASSOB, which is at the home front, in addition, aims to reach out to and conscientise the Igbo public by proclamations of civil disobedience such as the 26 August 2004 stay-at-home day declared by the group's leader ‘to protest against the intimida- tion and marginalisa-tion of the Igbo and the Nigerian occupation of the Biafran territory for more than 39 years’ (Daily Champion 12 August 2004). MASSOB also declares the annual Biafra Day a public holiday for its fans and sympa thisers in Nigeria, an event that increasingly paralyse commercial activities in some major cities where Igbo traders enjoy preponderant control of open market business activities. Both MASSOB and the Diaspora-based Igbo groups that partly bankroll it occasionally make representations to various UN bodies and international human rights organisations to advance their cause. Beyond the self-confessed neo-Biafra organisations, there is a multiplicity of Igbo community improvement unions, trade guilds and other ethno-cultural groups both at home and abroad, which even though not established with the Biafra project in mind, have nonetheless become explicitly pro-Biafra.
Thus far, many prominent Igbo politicians, the pan-ethnic Igbo organisation Ohaneze Ndi-Igbo and the five Igbo State governments (henceforth ‘the Igbo establishment’) have carefully distanced themselves from the activities of the neo-Biafra movement and have also occasionally denounced the agenda of the organisations. The markedly pluralised Igbo establishment, it must be emphasised, espouses a more moderate but less focused, less ideological and arguably elitist agenda of ethnic nationalism, which a significant section of the Igbo grassroots populations consider to be both uninspiring and unattractive. MASSOB and other proponents of Biafra take advantage of the apparent confusion and lack of persuasive and mass-engaging agenda of the Igbo establishment to push through their more radical strands of ethnic nationalism. Thus largely defiant, MOSSOB, the dominant campaigner on the domestic front, maintains both open and clandestine operations and offices in some prominent Igbo towns and beyond and continues to mobilise sections of the Igbo grassroots, mostly traders and youths to its cause. There are growing incidents and allegations of harassments, abductions, incarcerations and disappearances of a number of MASSOB officials and activists in Nigeria due to government's relentless crackdown (HRW, 2003; Ogbuwezeh, 2004).
Chauvinism vs. Romanticism
Whereas most people in Nigeria may not be aware of and familiar with the Diaspora-based neo-Biafra groups, MASSOB is well-known across Nigeria and the group generates mixed reactions from many Igbo and the Nigerian public. To many government officials and politicians, MASSOB tends to be largely portrayed as a platform for infantile opportunism and reckless adventurism. To a considerable section of the local civil society, however, MASSOB is seen as embodying the boldest ideals of the pro-sovereign national groups’ struggle. Yet, the relatively disgruntled Igbo traders and jobless youths see MASSOB representing a timely philosophical anchorage and inspiration for resistance. Yet to many who, irrespective of ethnic backgrounds, are either cynical or apprehensive about the viability of the Nigerian project, MASSOB ultimately evokes a ‘wait-and-see’ sentiment. How far could they go? What is their next line of action? MASSOB aside, why is there a proliferation of ethnic organisations, micro-nationalisms and ethnic militias in the present-day Nigeria? Where do we go from here? These are some of the concerns of many across the length and breadth of the Nigerian federation.
Like many ethnic nationalisms, the neo-Biafra movement ostensibly constructs and espouses a brand of nationalism that slips well into chauvinism as much as it romanticises the unstrategic and unreal. The websites of these civil groups are awash with clips, images and chants that eulogise Igbo sub-culture, war history, ‘heroes’, achievements and folkways, and conversely pour aspersions and indictments on the perceived adversaries of Ndi-Igbo (Igbo people) in Nigeria. They sensationalise what the Biafra Foundation (2004) calls ‘the exploitation and persecution of the Igbo by the Hausa/ Fulani/Yoruba oligarchs’ and variously portray the latter with a range of highly subjective stereotypes.
The brand of ethnic nationalism largely constructed and propagated by the neo-Biafra movement leaves little or no room for constructive criticism and disagreement with the underlying philosophy, programmes and strategies. Hence, some of these organisations condemn and vilify different members of the Igbo establishment who have questioned and objected to the agenda and approach of the organisations.2
Much is wrong with this approach. It creates ideological fault lines on at least two dangerous fronts. The first is an inter-ethnic fault line that exacerbates the structural friction and antagonism between the Igbo on the one hand, and the Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba on the other. Relations between the Igbo and the their two larger Nigerian rival groups have never been worse since the end of the Biafran war and, as opposed to dousing the tension, the adversarial rhetoric of the neo-Biafra activists and their allegations of conspiracy, subjugation and domination by the ‘Hausa/ Fulani/Yoruba oligarchs’ clearly places the campaigners’ brand of ethnic nationalism on a strategic danger of reciprocal bigotry and hate.
The second ideological fault line is intra-ethnic. The brand of Igbo nationalism promoted by the neo-Biafra movement is inherently divisive and has therefore created a rabble-rousing followership among Igbo traders and youths who are increasingly at loggerheads with the Igbo establishment. The generational gap between the two opposing sides tends to compound the deepening friction. Whereas MASSOB's fans and followers, for instance predominantly consist of young adults and youths aged 40 and below and who did not experience the Biafran war, the Igbo establishment comprise many war veterans and much older adults that have bitter memories of the pain and agony of the war. There are, however, a few members of the Igbo establishment who lend measured support to the neo-Biafra cause. The erstwhile Biafran war leader Emeka Odomuegwu Ojukwu ranks prominent among the Igbo elites that support the neo-Biafra project and this causes some anxiety to the federal government. Ojukwu trivialises his support for the neo-Biafra movement arguing that Biafra simply represents ‘an opinion’, which in the context of the basic liberties guaranteed in a democratic society should be allowed to flourish (Ihenacho, 2004).
Normative contradictions & structural limitations
Even though MASSOB and its Diaspora allies advocate non-violence struggle, a large and growing proportion of the group's followers tend to favour militancy and chances are high that these zealots could take the struggle much farther than presently envisaged.
Nigeria is already awash with small arms and armed militias, which in the context of the several dysfunctionalities of the highly beleaguered state, fulfils in theory the minimum condition for a major conflagration. In this respect, the comeback and upsurge of the enyimba enyi spirit remains potentially detrimental to the Igbo as the human and material consequences of turning Igboland into a battleground for a major conflagration (albeit this is still most unlikely) or for the more probable scenario of intensified crackdown of insurgencies would be most colossal. A change of strategy to embrace a full-blown armed struggle by the separatist campaigners remains unlikely at least in the foreseeable future, as such action would not go down well with majority of the Igbo who are still reeling from the crushing defeat and setback of the previous war.
Without delving into the controversial arguments of whether or not there are sufficient justifications for MASSOB's self-determination campaign, it suffices to say that MASSOB and its fans and allies do not seem to have the necessary political infrastructure, resources and authority to provoke a serious attention from both the Igbo establishment and the federal government. Indeed, as opposed to taking them seriously, the federal government is likely to continue to hunt and persecute MASSOB if the highly respected and influential Igbo establishment is not directly or indirectly supportive of their cause. It seems to be the case that MASSOB does not sufficiently understand the post-war dynamics and power game in Nigeria. Under an authoritarian political dispensation with weak democratic culture and institutions, it would be sheer naivety for one to expect the government to open up negotiations with a seemingly inconsequential movement that poses no serious threats to its hegemony and the state's interests.
The experiences of various contemporary political insurgencies suggest that even militias and rebel movements that posed relatively consequential threats had hardly succeeded in forcing their governments to a roundtable until they were able to achieve de facto control of a significant territory of the state or to inflict sufficient and sustained disruption of the latter to render it inoperable or ungovernable. Nostalgic reflections, sophisticated propaganda, effusion of sentiments and pro-Ghandian alternatives would hardly achieve statehood in a neopatrimonial postcolonial setting where high stakes like oil (the life-blood of the state) are involved. Mahatma Ghandi, in all probability, could have hardly succeeded with his non-violence strategies in the twenty first century India if as opposed to the decolonisation of India from British rule his goal was, for instance to establish the sovereignty of Kashmir or Punjab.
Concluding remarks
Beyond MASSOB, however, a fundamental question that needs to be urgently addressed is why 35 years post-Biafran war, ethnic armies and militias are increasingly dotting the political landscape and have heightened the temperature of the Nigerian federation – the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) in the southwest, the Bakassi Boys in the southeast, the Taliban Nigeria Movement and other pro-Sharia groups in the north, and the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF) and other natural resource-based militias in the oil-rich south-south. The recently concluded National Political Reform Conference (NPRC), which many right-wing optimists originally thought could be the best political forum to address this conundrum, was repeatedly torn apart by issues of oil revenue distribution formula between the federal and subnational governments.
The final report of the national conference forwarded by President Obasanjo to the national assembly for consideration in July 2005 is still being contested by some of the aggrieved delegates to the conference who felt that the dominant pro-establishment faction connived with the conference executive committee to generate a status quo friendly report.
Where does all this leave Nigeria vis-àvis the agitations and demands of the diverse resistant and separatist groups menacing state sovereignty and national and human security? It does not seem that there is an end in sight for the pro-Biafra project and for similar breeds of centrifugal micro-nationalisms in contemporary Nigeria.
Kenneth Omeje , Research Fellow, Africa Centre, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK; email: k.c.omeje1@123456bradford.ac.uk.
Oil & injustice in Nigeria: Ken Saro-Wiwa
Amnesty International
Ten years after the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the struggle for justice for the people in the Niger Delta continues.
The execution of writer and human rights campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists, (the ‘Ogoni nine’) on 10 November 1995, raised a storm of outrage across the world. Their deaths highlighted the suffering of the Ogoni people in the oil-rich delta of the Niger river. The Nigerian government was widely denounced and the oil company Shell condemned for its ambiguous and belated interventions. But 10 years later, how much has changed for the people of the Niger Delta?
Ken Saro-Wiwa fought for an end to the environmental damage that was turning his homeland into what he described as a ‘wasteland’, endangering the people's health and livelihoods. Today oil spills still blacken the land and pollute the waterways. Hundreds of gas flares burn day and night, filling the sky with soot and fumes. Operational practices such as these, so close to people's homes, farms and waterways, would not be tolerated in the countries where the oil companies have their headquarters.
The inhabitants of the Niger Delta remain among the most deprived oil communities in the world – 70% live on less than US$1 a day. In spite of its windfall gains, as global oil prices have more than doubled in the last two years, the Nigerian government has failed to provide services, infrastructure or jobs in the region.
The military government which executed Ken Saro-Wiwa and his companions was replaced in 1999 by a civilian government. Yet government security forces continue to kill people in the Niger Delta with impunity. Excessive force is used to protect the oil industry and restore law and order – and the human rights of communities are regularly violated.
The powerful oil companies operating in the region are perceived by communities and many activists on the ground as complicit in past human rights abuses. Some oil companies have admitted that their operations have contributed to fuelling conflict. In recent years, under pressure to demonstrate corporate responsibility, companies have developed voluntary codes of conduct, but these have not been able to reduce the negative impact of their operations in the region.
It is like paradise and hell. They have everything. We have nothing… If we protest, they send soldiers. They sign agreements with us and then ignore us. We have graduates going hungry, without jobs. And they bring people from Lagos to work here, says Eghare W.O. Ojhogar, chief of the Ugborodo community in Delta State.
Just two weeks later, at least 17 people were reported to have been killed and two women raped when soldiers raided the town of Odioma. The attack was ostensibly to arrest members of an armed vigilante group suspected of killing 12 people, including four local councillors. Members of this group were reported to have been recruited by a sub-contractor of Shell's subsidiary in Nigeria and to be responsible for security in an area where oil exploration was being conducted, despite their alleged criminal record. The suspects were not captured but 80% of homes in Odioma were razed.
The Delta's marginalised peoples have no effective recourse against such human rights abuses. It is time for the Nigerian government to end the impunity enjoyed by the security forces for human rights violations past and present. It is time for oil companies and the international community to ensure that business operates within a framework of international human rights standards for companies, like the UN Norms for Business. Ten years after the ‘Ogoni nine’ were executed, it is time for justice for the people of the Niger Delta.
Editor's Note: See ROAPE 66, 1995 for our Tribute to Ken Saro-Wiwa. Also see Caroline Ifeka & Sylvanus Abua, ‘Nigeria: Conservation, Traditional Knowledge & the Commons’ in ROAPE 104/05, June/September 2005.
The Eritrea opposition moves towards unity
Martin Plaut
The shifting sands of Eritrean politics are never easy to understand. Eritreans themselves have to work hard to keep up. Foreign observers struggle to make head or tail of the complex alliances and divisions that characterise the Eritrean political scene. An attempt to map out these groups and parties is provided at the end of this article. Having acknowledged these difficulties, however, it seems clear that important changes are under way.
In January 2002 the EPLF Democratic Party was born. This was the result of the purge that took place in September the previous year, in which President Isaias Afeworki arrested eleven of his closest associates and closed all independent newspapers (Plaut, 2002). The EPLF-DP has since changed its name to the Eritrean Democratic Party, and is led by Mesfin Hagos, one of President Isaias's few close and critical associates who escaped imprisonment because he was outside of the country (see Conversations with Eritrean Political Prisoners, Red Sea Press, 2005)
The intervening time has not been easy for the opposition; it remains fragmented and weak. But it has not been idle and in recent months it has attempted to revive its flagging fortunes. Meetings have been held in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the United States. There has been vigorous debate. An attempt has been made to win over the powerful diaspora, whose remittances are so important for the finances of the Eritrean state.
These efforts have now begun to bear fruit. A meeting held in Khartoum between 18–22 January 2005 has been hailed as ‘truly historic’ (Competition, Co-operation and Change, Awate team, 2 February 2005 http://www.awate.com/artman/publish/article_3948.shtml). It is too early to conclude whether this assessment is correct, but a concerted effort is clearly now being made to unite the opposition. This briefing is an attempt to map that development.
The Khartoum meetings
The first Khartoum meeting was supposed to get under way on 12 January 2005, but the start had to be delayed until 18 January while the Eritrean National Alliance (ENA) held a preliminary meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
Thirteen groups formed the ENA in October 2002 as a loose alliance in opposition to the Eritrean government, but with close ties to Ethiopia (see note 2 below). Led by Herui Tedla Bairu it admitted receiving finances from the Sudanese, Ethiopian and Yemeni governments (Irin, 1 May 2003). In April 2003 it announced the establishment of a single military wing to launch attacks on Eritrean government targets. ‘It is not going to be against individuals, it is not going to be used against personnel, but things like institutions and the economy,’ Herui said. ‘Like, for example, the television and radio centres’ (Ibid.). Based in Khartoum and Addis Ababa, the ENA has denied accusations from other opposition parties that it is a tool of Ethiopian foreign policy.
When the Khartoum meeting got under way some senior opposition leaders were absent. This included the ELF-RC leader, Seyoum Ogbamichael. Despite this, it was a considerable achievement, overcoming the kind of vicious accusations that are characteristic of the politics of exile.
Over the last two years, the Eritrean body politic has been saturated with accusations and counter-accusations: you are traditional; I am modern; you are too soft on PFDJ, I am tough; you are too soft on Weyane (Ethiopian ruling party MP), I confront; you don’t stand up for Eritrean sovereignty and I do; you are not a democrat, I am; you are exclusionary, I am inclusive; you are hoping to get to power by riding on a Weyane tank, I am supported by the ‘people’; you are a Trojan horse, I belong to a ‘patriotic block’.
After four days of discussions (not attended by all leaders – some left early, including Mesfin Hagos) a basis for agreement was reached. The parties agreed to form a united opposition grouping called the Eritrean Democratic Alliance. A second meeting was planned for 4 February 2005 in Khartoum. A seven person team was selected to oversee matters until the second meeting could take place.
It is not clear where the agreement to form the Eritrean Democratic Alliance left the ENA, or the other loose alliances – such as the ‘Block 1’ formed by the Eritrean Democratic Party, the Eritrean Liberation Front and the Eritrean Liberation Front Revolutionary Council in August 2004 (see declaration below) or the ‘4 +1’ grouping.
There were also discussions in Khartoum of a range of difficult issues – including the position of Eritrea's nine ethnic groups and their autonomy within an Eritrean state, the place of Sharia or Islamic law and the question of the armed struggle. None of these could be resolved at the meeting, but at least they were broached. Some issues were simply ducked. For example, there was no discussion about the question of the importance and urgency of demarcating the Ethiopian/Eritrean border as a precondition for improving relations between the two countries. Members of the Eritrean National Alliance, with their ties to Addis Ababa, relegated this to the status of a ‘secondary issue’.
Perhaps the real achievement of the meeting in Khartoum was that it took place at all, and that none of the participants walked out.
Despite holding preparatory meetings, the team selected to prepare for the next meeting was unable to bring the movements together on 4 February, as planned. The postponement was at the request of the Eritrean Democratic Party, which issued a press release thanking the other parties for accepting the postponement of the meeting until the third week in February, to allow Mesfin Hagos to conclude what it called a ‘personal and working’ visit to the USA (http://eritrea1.org/press/Press%20Releasefeb08.html). This included meeting senior members of the US administration.
Worrying, for the Eritrean opposition, was an attack in January 2005 on Eritrean forces by fighters belonging to the Eritrean Islamic Reform Movement, that left seven dead. This raised the awkward question of the armed struggle in a way that could not be postponed. The Eritrean Democratic Party felt obliged to issue a press release on 2 February 2005, denouncing the killings.
EDP has from its inception underscored that the process of democratising Eritrea cannot be accomplished through violence. The brutality of the regime and the use of reactive violence by a segment of the opposition will only delay the advent of democratisation and constitutional governance in Eritrea. Violence will not be the midwife of democracy and equality. The cycle of violence will only reinforce the enemies of democracy and peace.
We offer our deepest condolences to the families whose near and dear ones have been killed or injured in this barbaric incident’ (EDP Condemns the Killing of 7 Eritreans, Press Release, 2 Febru ary 2005; http://eritrea1.org/)
Despite these differences, the Eritrean Democratic Alliance finally held its sec ond meeting towards the end of February. The meeting elected a nine-strong Central Leadership, chaired by Berhane Yemane ‘Hanjema’, as well as an execu tive office. Since then the leadership has been visiting the diaspora to establish branches and offices in Sudan as well as North America, Australia and Europe. The chairman of the executive, Hussein Khalifa, said it has established media offices in Sudan and Ethiopia and produced two editions of a magazine (Gulf Information Centre interview, 6 July 2005). The organisation is due to hold its third meeting in August, probably in Sudan, when its political positions will become clearer.
Relations with Ethiopia
The relationship between the opposition and the government in Ethiopia is prob ably the most difficult issue facing the Alliance. Given that Eritrea fought a two year war with Ethiopia from 1998 to 2000 that left tens of thousands dead, not to mention the 30 year war of independ ence, any ties with Addis Ababa would always be controversial.
It was therefore something of a defining moment when members of the Eritrean opposition decided to meet the Ethio pian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, in the presence of Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir in December 2004. What was critical about this gathering is that it not only included members of the Addis based Eritrean National Alliance, but organisations like the Eritrean Demo- cratic Party, which had previously re- fused to have dealings with the Ethiopian government. Exactly what was discussed has not been revealed, but the two sides did talks about the border demarcation issue, Prime Minister Meles's five-point peace plan and past relations between the TPLF and EPLF. Again, the fact that the meeting took place at all is important, since it broke new ground and eroded distrust.
Ethiopia has its own reasons to try to make links with the opposition. In the past both Ethiopia and Eritrea have used opposition parties to further their foreign policy objectives, including destabilising each other during times of conflict. The Eritrean opposition not based in Addis was taking a considerable risk in meet- ing Prime Minister Meles. It left them open to charges from Asmara that they were ‘consorting with the enemy’, since the border between the two countries has still not been demarcated after the 1998 – 2000 war.
If meeting the Ethiopian leader was controversial, the decision to elect Berhane Yemane as Chairman of the EDA was even more divisive. As the leader of the Eritrean Revolutionary Democratic Front (best known by its Tigrayan initials Se.De.Ge.E.) he is most closely aligned to Ethiopia. Not only did he serve with the Tigray People's Liberation Party (the party controlling the current Ethiopian government) during the war against President Mengistu Haile Mariam, he also led his forces into Eritrea behind the advancing Ethiopian troops during the 1998 – 2000 border war.
In an extensive interview he is unapologetic about the role his organisation played (Awate, interview with Berhane Yemane (‘Hanjema’) 29 March, 2005; http://www.awate.com/artman/publish/article_4040.shtml).
After explaining that he believed that Badme (the disputed border town that was the flashpoint that ignited the war) belonged to Ethiopia he says:
We went in there to help the people while they lived in caves. We helped them gather about their belongings. We helped resolve disputes between the people, we guarded against the environment of chaos that war brings. We helped co-ordinate the delivery of emergency supplies. We did this for nine months, and all the while, the people's front [EPLF] was reduced to watching from a distance. When the right time comes and the people are free to speak, they shall be a witness to the type of help we provided. I have no doubt about that.
This is part of our organisation's history and is something that makes me very proud, at an organisational and personal level, because I was there personally.
Worse still, they were associated with the mistreatment of their fellow countrymen during the Ethiopian occupation. This included the rape of Eritrean women by Ethiopian troops and the looting and substantial destruction of a number of towns, including Senafe and Tserona (see Partial Award, Central Front Eritrea's Claim, Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague, 28 April 2004, pp. 19–29.) For these reasons Eritreans have found it difficult to understand why the EDA chose Berhane Yemane as its chairman.
Conclusion
Relations with Ethiopia are only one of a range of issues that the EDA will have to debate. There is also the difficult question of armed struggle referred to above. If this is rejected (and it would require some EDA members changing their stance on the subject) how is the Eritrean government to be opposed?
As numerous reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch indicate there is next to no democratic space in Eritrea today, which tolerates no dissent. Then there are the perennial questions of language and nationality, which have dogged Eritrean political organisations for decades. These are all divisive questions, which will have to be faced if the opposition is to thrive and finally pose a real alternative to the current regime in Asmara.
The Eritrean opposition
Below is a list identifying the current state of the Eritrean opposition. It is drawn from a number of Eritrean websites (particularly Awate) and discussions with Eritreans. It is broken down into the the following headings: organisation, the leaders, ‘Blocks’, Notes and whether they are in an Eritrea National Alliance (see notes 1 & 2).
Eritrean Democratic Party: Mesfin Hagos, Dr Asefaw Tekeste Mohammed Nur, Ahmed, Semere Kesete (student leader, formerly with MDC); Block 1; Former EPLF, signatories of the G15 or G13 (see note 1); N.
Eritrean Liberation Front: Abdallah Idris, Hussien Khalifa, Hassen Asad, Yohannes Zeremariam; Block 1. Original Eritrean Liberation Movement, founded 1958; Main Base Sudan; Y.
ELF / Revolutionary Council: Seyoum Ogba michael, Ibrahim Mohammed Ali, Mengisteab Asmerom; Block 1; Y.
Eritrean Federal Democratic Movement: Beshir Ishaq, Dr Jelaledin Saleh; Block 1.
Eritrean Co-operative Party: Hruy Tedla Bairu; Y.
ELF / National Congress, Dr Beyene Kidane, Ahmed Naser; 4 + 1 formed 31 July 2004; formerly ELF-RC; Y.
Eritrean Revolutionary Democratic Front: Berhane Yemane; 4 + 1; Formerly ELF; Y.
Democratic Movement for the Liberation of Eritrean Kunama: Qernelios Osman; 4 + 1; formerly ELF; Y.
Red Sea Afar Democratic Organisation: Ibrahim Haroun, Amin Ahmad; 4 + 1; formerly ELF; Y.
Eritrean Peoples Movement: Adella Adem (formerly EPLF) plus Mohammed Ibrahim ‘Secretariare’ (ELF); 4 + 1; N.
ELF / United Front: Dr Osman Abubeker; Block 3; Y.
Eritrean Democratic Opposition Movement (Gash/Setit): Ismael Nada; Block 3; Y.
Eritrean People's Democratic Front: Tewelde Gebresellasie; Block 3.
Eritrean National Democratic Front: Mohammad Osman Abubeker; Block 3; Y.
Eritrean Initiative Association: Yesmin Mohammed Ali; Block 3; N.
Others
Eritrean Islamic Party for Justice and Development ‘Alkhalas’ (formerly Eritrean Islamic Salvation Movement and before that Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement): Khelil Mohammed Amer, Hamed Turki; Y.
Eritrean Peoples Congress (Harakat Al Islah): Mohamed Taher Shengeb, Saleh Selman; Islamists, the political wing of the group denounced by EDP for killing Eritrean soldiers; Y.
Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (Arduf): Muhyadin Mafatah.
Eritrean National Alliance: Herui Tedla Bairu; General Secretary (an Alliance, not a party) based in Ethiopia. Deny being under Ethiopian control.
Sierra Leone: Dirty aid, dirty water
World Development Movement
In ROAPE 104/05 we carried the following (abridged) ‘stop press’ item.
The UK's Department for International Development (DfID) is spending UK aid money on a public relations campaign to pursue a privatisation agenda in Sierra Leone. Documents obtained by development campaigners the World Development Movement (WDM) show that in June of this year DfID advertised for an ‘international consultancy’ firm to both advise the Sierra Leonean government on privatising state enterprises, including water, and to run a communications campaign to promote privatisation. Six of the eight short-listed companies are British; they include Adam Smith International and PriceWaterhouseCoopers; both companies have previously been contracted by DfID to promote privatisation in developing countries. So concerned are WDM about the government's latest move that they have written to DfID asking a series of specific questions about the contract and querying its legality.
DfID says: ‘The Government of Sierra Leone asked for international support to advise on reform that would help boost the economy, stimulate investment and reduce the financial burden on the government.’
WDM says: There is little evidence to show that the work that DfID proposes to fund and its eventual outcome ie, water privatisation in Freetown, will achieve any of these objectives. In particular, it is a myth that water privatisation stimulates investment which reduces the financial burden on government. In Tanzania, for example, the water privatisation in Dar es Salaam was accompanied by a loan of $143 million from the World Bank and other interna tional donors to pay for improvements to infrastructure. However, it is the Govern ment of Tanzania and Tanzanian taxpayers who will eventually need to pay back this $143 million. Moreover, the Tanzanian government allege that the private firm involved, City Water, made less than half of the small $8.5 million investment that they were contracted to make, as part of this deal.1 That was one of the reasons cited for the cancellation of the City Water contract earlier this year.
In Ghana, the privatisation of water has been on the agenda for ten or more years. In the early stages, strident claims were made that the potential private operators would invest tens of millions of dollars into the system. Over the years, these claims have been gradually dropped, so as to make the contract more attractive to private investors. As a result, the scope and scale of the privatisation project has also been reduced. Now, the present contract makes no demands on the op erator to provide capital to the project. Instead, the entire water and sanitation capital investment burden rests with the Government of Ghana and its taxpayers.
In the specific context of Sierra Leone, WDM has been unable to find any evidence that the various options for reform open to the water company in Sierra Leone have been assessed and we have found no evidence that water privatisation is likely to bring more benefits than, say, public sector reform in Sierra Leone. This issue is compounded by the fact that we can find no evidence that a Poverty and Social Impact Analysis has been carried out, to explore the impacts of privatisation on poor communities. As for the communications component of DfID's proposed contract, there is no evidence that paying international consultants to conduct a pro-privatisation public relations campaign, such as the pop song and video done in Tanzania in the late 1990s, will contribute to the above objectives, and perhaps more im portantly, that it will achieve DfID's stated aim of achieving poverty reduc tion. WDM believes it is a waste of UK taxpayers’ money.
These issues form the basis of WDM's concerns about this contract and it is on these grounds that WDM has taken legal advice and written a letter to DfID asking for a response to these and other concerns.
DfID says: ‘DfID does not force develop ing countries to privatise their water or any other service as a condition for the receipt of aid. That is a matter for individual governments.’
WDM says: The fact that in March 2005 the UK Government announced it was committed to ending the imposition of economic policy conditions in return for UK bilateral aid,2 does nothing to miti gate the fact that water privatisation has been a condition for Sierra Leone receiv ing World Bank and IMF loans and debt relief for over six years.
The history of the conditions applied to international support to Sierra Leone in recent years is covered in the timeline that WDM has pulled together. This illustrates the role that the World Bank and IMF have played in pushing a major privatisation programme in Sierra Leone.
The UK is a key player in the setting of World Bank and IMF conditions. Gordon Brown has been Chairman of the International Monetary and Financial Com mittee (IMFC) of the IMF since 1999. The IMFC meets to decide on overall strategic direction for the IMF. According to the UK Government, it is ‘the main forum for discussing IMF policies at the Ministerial level’.3 It has 24 members and meets twice a year at the Spring and Annual meetings. The UK also holds 4.96% of the votes at the IMF, more than 43 African countries have in total.
Hilary Benn is the UK's Governor on the Board of the World Bank where the UK holds around 5% of the vote. The UK is now the biggest supporter of the World Bank's work. DfID currently gives 12% of its aid to the International Development Association (IDA), the only part of the World Bank requiring funding from rich countries, which makes the UK proportionally the largest donor to the World Bank. When measuring the total amount of actual aid money given to IDA, the UK is second only to the US.
The UK must accept its share of responsibility for these institutions imposing this policy on Sierra Leone since 1998.
It is true that Sierra Leone now has a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) that, according to the rhetoric of the UK Government, is ‘country owned’ and involves consultation with civil society. However, civil society groups involved in consultations around the PRSP say they were not made aware that GVWC was one of the 24 companies slated for privatisation. In fact, in the PRSP, the water section makes no reference to privatisation, and the private sector section of the PRSP makes no reference to water!4
The fact that the PRSP includes loan conditions ‘cut and paste’ from previous agreements between the Government of Sierra Leone and international donors suggests that claims of ‘country ownership’ are bogus. The past history of water privatisation loan conditions and the influence of the World Bank and IMF over the PRSP mean that we will never know whether the Sierra Leone Government would have freely chosen to privatise water in Freetown.
In addition to the major role that the UK plays in these international institutions, by announcing this contract, DfID is firmly stamping its approval on the Sierra Leonean privatisation programme and moreover, it is funding work that is designed to overcome the expected ‘public resistance’ to it.5
DfID says: ‘DfID spend on consultants has fallen from 10% of the total aid programme in 1997 to 5% last year.’
WDM says: In 1997–98, DfID's total bilateral programme was £1,042 million,610% of which is £104 million, while in 2003–04, the total DfID bilateral programme spend was £1,972 million,7five per cent of which is £99 million. It therefore appears as if the actual programme spend on consultants has not significantly altered since 1997. Regardless of how much money DfID is spending on consultants, WDM's criticisms of the privatisation contract in Sierra Leone are specific to this contract and DfID's claim in this context is irrelevant.
Alex La Guma: Twenty years in Cuban memories
David Gonzalez
2005 marks the 80th anniversary of the birth of Alex La Guma, and the 20th anniversary of his death. Both are remembered in Cuba, the country where he lived and produced many works that we continue to locate and collect.
Justin Alexander La Guma was born in Cape Town on 20 February 1925, in a working-class family, the son of a well-known South African freedom fighter. He spent his early years in the ‘Sixth District’, a proletarian Coloured neighbourhood that exerted a strong influence on his character (Rixaka, 1986:17). He tried unsuccessfully to fight – at age thirteen – in Spain with the international brigades and, a shortly after, in World War Two (La Guma, 1981b:8). Having spent his adolescence between demonstrations, public protests and reading, he began to work at a factory of predominantly Black workers as a clerk, a labourer and finally a bookkeeper. Here he experienced the economic exploitation that he had read about: he joined the workers’ union and was discharged for organising a strike (Ibid. pp. 8–9). He joined the Communist Youth League in 1947 and the South African Communist Party (SACP) in 1948.
But 1948 was marked by the rise to power of the National Party that would institutionalise the abominable apartheid regime. In spite of decreasing legal options for transformative actions, Alex stood out as a leader and organiser of mass movements. By 1950 he was a member of the District Committee of the SACP (banned that year) and of the Executive of the Coloured Peoples’ Congress, to the founding of which he actively contributed. His political activities did not prevent him from forming a home: in 1954, he married Blanche Herman, with whom he would have two children, Eugene (1956) and Bartholomew (1959).
Alex played an outstanding role in the efforts to create a multi-racial alliance in a ‘Congress of the People’ scheduled to meet in July 1955, in Kliptown, to adopt the Freedom Charter. Solely to prevent his presence there, he was arrested and then freed as soon as the meeting was over. This was the first of a long series of imprisonments that he would suffer. Simultaneously, the writer was emerging within Alex. He recalled:
Well, one of our papers, the New Age, asked me to write for them. Journalistic work linked me to a reality that I still only partially knew: I interacted with many people, studied the conditions under which they lived, made interviews, wrote on various events. That was around 1955. I think that I inevitably moved near to fiction writing, since no other means offered me better possibilities of expressing my life experiences and ideas’(Ibid.).
The laws that racially segregate the various urban areas decreed that this would become an industrial area for Whites, and so the old neighbourhood was razed to the ground. My home, therefore, disappeared from the face of the earth (La Guma, 1981b:8).
Although the stories in this collection […] do not reflect his active participation in political matters, the acuteness of his observations was tantamount to a strong political stand (Mbachu, 1987:1970).
I don’t think that there should be any contradiction between politics, that is, the peoples’ struggle to attain a higher level of social living, and literature, because both are complementary. […] the individual does not exist isolated from his community, and the interests of the community exert their influence on him (La Guma, 1981b:9–10).
I try to achieve a universality of opinion and ideas because … even if you have to write within a framework, a particular environment, or to depict a particular environment … I believe that anyway, within that environment universal ideas can be expressed … Although the scenery might be seen in a particular environment, your ideas and your writings are not confined (Mbachu, 1987:1970).
Alex was living in Cuba and had a place in the history of South African literature when his fifth and last novel, Time of the Butcherbird (Heinemann, 1979) – de scribed as a ‘novel of an awesome power’ (Rixaka, 1986:18) – appeared. Alex now sets his work in the rural universe to demonstrate that even if in urban areas ‘revolutionary thought and political ideas are more easily disseminated’ (La Guma, 1981b:13), that objective and subjective conditions had been brewing for the rural struggle (Ibid. pp.12–17). Alex also contributed many memorable short stories,
… characterized by a sensible and encour aging reaction against the realities of apartheid. La Guma transcends what is topic and reveals, in a laborious quest to the details, the universal truths that crisscross apartheid's borders in its impli cations. […] Alex La Guma's stories […] prepare us for a more in-depth and elaborate exploration of the central sub jects and situations of his five novels. […] All these later works contribute to define the personality of this extraordinary talent that certainly constituted one of the more outstanding and vigorous voices of the African literary scene of our days (Omo Asein, 1986:6).
Alex was also active in organisations of militant intellectuals: he attended Congresses of African and Afro-Asian Writers in Stockholm and Beirut (1967) and the Havana Cultural Congress (1968); He received – from Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi – the Lotus Award (1969), the highest of the Association of Afro-Asian Writers of which he would become Secretary-General in 1979; and from Congolese President Dennis Sassou Nguesso – the African Literature Award in his capacity as ‘Africa's most outstanding writer’, as well as the ‘Order of Officer of Arts and Letters’ from France's Ministry of Culture (1985). Commenting on all his awards, Alex underlined that he wrote because there was a struggle in his country and, with his usual modesty, observed that, beyond his literary abili ties, they constituted firstly ‘demonstra tions of solidarity with the struggle of the people of South Africa’ (La Guma, 1985c). His works were translated into 14 lan guages (Ibid.).
Alex La Guma in Cuba
In his ‘South African Analysis of Jose Marti in Cuba’ (La Guma, 1982b), Alex gives us an idea of the lack of objective information about Cuba in his country, recalling that Cuba's history only occupied half a page of the textbook that Cape province students had access to when he went to school (Ibid. pp.2–3). But after the 1959 revolution
our people begin to know more about Cuban history from the viewpoint of mass struggle and the ideology maintained during the many decades that the struggle lasted. As a consequence of this, we consider that solidarity between the revo lutionary people of Cuba and the people who struggle in our country has strengthened (Ibid. p.3).
Many of us, when we arrive in Cuba, we think that we have returned to our fatherland: to the fatherland as it will be some day. Here there are peoples of various races: Blacks, Coloureds, Chinese; people who have created a new society, and we say: ‘Ah, in South Africa we will see these same scenes’. There might be different experiences, different particularities, but, in general, we see the image of our future (La Guma, 1981b:7–8).
Furthermore, his paper to the Havana Cultural Congress had been published in a leading Cuban magazine (La Guma, 1968c); he had also been interviewed by the Cuban press (La Guma, 1968d) that also regularly published articles that mentioned his works (see, e.g. González, 1968, and Bayo, 1969). At least three articles written by Alex on political or cultural topics had appeared in Cuban periodicals – particularly Tricontinental magazine – towards the late 1960s and early 1970s (La Guma, 1968a, b; 1971).
In Cuba, Alex worked tirelessly. In the last seven years of his life he collaborated with several Cuban publications (La Guma, 1979a, b, c; 1980b, c, d, e; 1981a, b; 1982a; 1983b; 1985a, c; 1986), notably Tricontinental review. He delivered papers at seminars of various institutions, among them the Center for Studies on Africa and the Middle East (CEAMO) (La Guma, 1983a, 1984b), the Cuban Movement for Peace and Sovereignty of Peoples (La Guma, 1984a, 1985b) and the Cuban Institute of Friendship with Peoples (La Guma, 1982b). Reviewing some of those texts, we discover that they are not limited to literature, culture or the struggle against apartheid that, not surprisingly, concentrate most of his works. We find reflections of a global scope related to the arms race and disarmament, the role of the Non Aligned Movement and the scourge of mercenaries among others (see, e.g. La Guma, 1979e, 1980a, 1981d & 1984c). His political activism and, beyond that, his humanistic and internationalist nature inclined him to debate conflicts such as the Vietnam war, and his own trajectory as a committed intellectual led him to study the character and the works of Cuban hero, José Marti. Among his inconclusive projects, Alex also cherished the idea of writing about Cuba:
Personally, I confront a dilemma: the great affection I feel for Cuba on the one hand, and my commitment with our struggle on the other; I would like to write a book about Cuba (La Guma, 1981b).
‘Between my political activities and other activities in which I am involved, I also try to keep up my literary work, and this will always, of course, depend on time and opportunity. But I will persevere’ (La Guma, 1985c).
What I might have produced in the field of literature emerged from the moving influence of our people's commitment with the battle to survive the attacks of apartheid, to overthrow the racist regime and to establish a democratic South Africa. If literature is linked to life, then the life of our heroic people should inspire all the writers of our country (Rixaka, 1986).
We Cubans, who enjoyed the privilege of having Alex among us in the final years of his life, have the privilege of being the custodians of his mortal remains, together with a portion of his intellectual production. We have, therefore, a role to play in the collection, conservation and dissemination of a part of his memory and of his ideas that are a patrimony – beyond his own people, for whose freedom he dedicated his life's efforts – of revolutionaries in every corner of the world.
David Gonzales, CEAMO, Havana.