Posts tagged ‘zimbabwe’

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February 5, 2011

Dear Al Jazeera By KonWomyn

Dear Al Jazeera,

I have decided to write this letter to you as you’ve been the channel I watch the most for informative coverage on events in the Middle East and North Africa. In many ways your coverage has been amazing and I sincerely applaud the unbelievably brave efforts of your journalists who had to work under very difficult conditions to cover events in North Africa. However I now write to you with concern at international media’s coverage of events in Libya, particularly concerning ‘African mercenaries’. I honestly don’t have a problem with the term ‘African mercenaries’ because this is how Libyans probably refer to Black non-Libyans, but what bugs me is the way some of your tv anchors and field journalists continue to push this meme on air. For example on Sunday the anchor on Al Jazeera English, David (I didn’t get his last name, he was an older man with an English accent hosting the news around 6 p.m GMT) said ‘mercenaries are coming from Africa’ …and yet Libya is in Africa. And despite the fact that the Al Jazeera website had an excellent Features article, ‘In Search of an African Revolution’ on Monday (21 Feb) addressing this very issue.

Elsewhere, other Al Jazeera and international journalists who although tweeting in their personal capacity, tweet the news and again they repeat this ‘mercenaries are coming from Africa’ line. One has to wonder whether we’re looking at the same map when we speak of Africa or is this some journo code-speak ordinary people are not privy to?Rumors have also been doing the rounds about these ‘African mercenaries’ and it seems that they are most likely from Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Tunisia and Guinea. Not the Congo, not Somalia and not Zimbabwe as some wild speculations claimed. Yes, there was no plane full of soldiers dispatched from Harare to Tripoli at 1 a.m on Sunday morning – any well-educated Zimbabwean could have told these international journalists tweeting in their personal capacity that this ‘witness account’, as dubbed by Al Jazeera, was untrue. Of course AJE is only the messenger so you can’t be blamed for what you can’t verify and I don’t blame you. But since this is an open letter I may as well post some advice for other inquiring minds who’ll stumble on my blog. For starters soldiers are not mercenaries, our history of mercenaries is mainly from the apartheid era, Mozambique’s civil war and the Angolan war when White South Africans and White Zimbabweans (some of them were former Rhodesian soldiers) would use Zimbabwe as temporary base but they did not operate in Zimbabwe. Secondly today in Zimbabwe we have thugs (don’t often use guns but often beat and rape) not mercenaries (skilled hit-men like Simon Mann (Equatorial Guinea plot)) that are busy with their own electoral campaign of violence, thirdly our thugs have no knowledge of Libyan terrain and finally Zimbabwe doesn’t speak French, but no amount of @’ing international journos on twitter could kill this rumor. But as untruths die in time, I sincerely hope that this untruth will die sooner rather than later.(Checkout David Smith’s column in the Guardian UK)

Anyway about these mercenaries and Al Jazeera’s role in coverage.There have also been suggestions that it is likely the ‘African mercenaries’ are from Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Tunisia and Guinea. I’d like to know you why an investigative journalist couldn’t be dispatched to these countries to find out how the mercenaries work – surely Chad, Tunisia and Niger are not as hostile to international journalists as Mummar Gadaffi’s Libya. If not, a Chadian Ambassador or Activist could be invited onto Al Jazeera to share their view. How can the story of mercenaries be reported to the exclusion of Chad, yet Chad is the French and Arabic speaking nation where some of these hitmen are allegedly coming from?

It bears repeating that Chad is an Arab African nation. It is Libya’s neighbor. As your coverage is mainly centered on the ‘Arab World’ its tempting to think that Chad is perhaps not Arab enough that it should be spoken of and not spoken to in news reports and analyses. I appreciate that this is a fast-developing story and there are many angles to cover, but the impact of events in Libya on security and political relations between these two countries cannot be so insignificant that it’s not worthy of mention, can it? At the very least one would think, Idriss Debymust be having sleepless nights while the Arabs next door are revolting. He could very well be the next Arab dictator to go. Does the Chadian government not have an opinion on the fact that the Brotherly Leader, King of Kings of Africa is using Africans to kill North Africans? Oops I’m sorry, I meant Chadians to murder Libyans? And Niger? Is it too poor to mention? 0.12% of the people speak Arabic if that helps. UNHCR is becoming increasingly concerned at the displacement and violence experienced by foreigners living in Libya, including the other one million plus legal and illegal migrants from different parts of Africa other than Egypt. In the interests of humanity, its only fair and right that Al Jazeera to report on the fate of these people as well as they have reported Egyptian, Turkish and Italian migrants returning from Libya. There are another other one million plus legal and illegal migrants from different parts of Africa other than Egypt. What is their fate? Surely their welfare is important enough to be covered by the media?

This isn’t just an Arab story, its an African story and it’s a World story too. It must be told as such, with its multi-layered, complex, tragic and heartwarming narratives including the all too-often forgotten voices of poor migrants and refugees of all hues, tongues, nationalities and faiths.

Al Jazeera’s code of ethics states that the organisation aims to:

1. Adhere to the journalistic values of honesty, courage, fairness, balance, independence, credibility and diversity, giving no priority to commercial or political over professional consideration.
2. Endeavour to get to the truth and declare it in our dispatches, programmes and news bulletins unequivocally in a manner which leaves no doubt about its validity and accuracy.

To me, this suggests that Al Jazeera strives to be impartial, give a voice to the voiceless and empower people to hold their governments and institutions to account. As the media organisation is becoming a leading player in international affairs, Al Jazeera has the chance to re-shape political and social discourses of our time, it has the potential to shift the centers of power from the traditionally empowered to the historically marginalized. Given that Al Jazeera wields this potential influence to enable a plurality of voices to speak, as a viewer, I don’t understand why the Libyan Uprising being covered from a largely singular perspective. I feel that the story is still told from a West v Middle East perspective. Granted it is thankfully being told from the Middle Eastern side, but the speakers still remain the same. You promise to uphold ‘fairness, balance’ so it’s fair to ask when will other voices be invited to speak on this matter? Here’s a suggestion, just for a day, in between field reports, you could have ongoing satellite conversations with diplomats from the UN, AU and Arab League battling it out with Libyan activists and bloggers who want to know where the real help is for Libya is, rather than going through a never-ending list of London and Washington’s political and financial experts. I think that would be an ‘unequivocal’ display of ‘fair and balanced’ ethics, non?

If the Arab League, the EU and United Nations are being interrogated for their role in stopping the carnage in Libya, then the AU should be in the spotlight too. Its shameful that they have been silent on this issue and yet they, under Article 4 of the Constitutive Act, have a humanitarian responsibility to intervene in the affairs of a member state of the African Union when a crime against humanity is committed. Its funny but sad and infuriating that Al Jazeera spends more time discussing what the Arab League must, can or will do yet it can only issue condemnations and suspensions of Libya. None of these things will stop the carnage. The African Union has a peace keeping force that could help Lybia, that is why John Kerry of the Obama administration suggested this tonight (at about 7 p.m GMT 22 Feb), but the Al Jazeera anchor and Libyan analyst in the studio glossed over this and went back to discussing the Arab League and UN. The news broadcast then switched to gathering views from around the world and South America, North America and Europe all had opinions. Nothing from Africa. Nothing from Asia. I laughed out loud, but inside I died a little and hurt a bit. Is the Africa beneath the Sahara that irrelevant? Have African leaders, diplomats and UN representatives not been asked? Perhaps your Africa news desk is aware that there African Heads of Missions (AU) might be meeting in South Africa today. If its taking place it would be great if one of your correspondents in S.A could ask senior AU figures about the possibility of sending Lybia some of the peacekeeping troops that are largely funded by Gadaffi? This is Libya’s security investment so the AU should be pressured to get in there and save Libyans from the terror of this mad man and his sons. Please don’t let the AU escape from responsibility because it doesn’t fit the ‘Arab World Revolutions’ narrative. Right now Libyan lives matter more than pondering about ‘new pan-Arab uprisings’ and decoding Hillary Clinton and William Hague’s diplo-speak.

I honestly don’t mean to offend, but I’m a frustrated viewer who enjoys Al Jazeera’s coverage and believes that the network has the ability to be the champion of the people. All people. As an African I was raised to see to the Continent as a whole with all its differences and contradictions, not to the exclusion of others. Sub-Saharan Africa may be the North’s poorer half, but we matter too. In solidarity, the Lybian, Egyptian and Tunisian struggles are mine too as a young-ish person who lives under an oppressive regime. Including the Sub-Saharan Africans in this conversation would only further the North Africans cause as both the AU like the Arab League is a mixed club of despots and liberals all of whom have a case to answer to oppressed peoples on the whole Continent.

You can see a slightly longer version of this letter posted on my blog. A number of people have read it, shared it on twitter and some people, North Africans included, have commented on the post. I have also shared it on Twitter and have gotten a positive response thus far. I hope that despite, my cheekiness you will address my concerns. You may perhaps take comfort in knowing that I’m not singling out Al Jazeera, it’s an across the board progressive media non-engagement with Africa as a whole and I will be writing open letters to the few revolutionary-inclined print media organisations that I’ve relied on for coverage as well.

I look forward to receiving a response from you regarding the concerns I have raised.

Thank you for reading my letter.

Yours Sincerely

A. Viewer

Follow the author on twitter .http://twitter.com/KonWomyn

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December 21, 2008

Its A Political Hot Potato

From his tented refugee camp, James Karanga Ngugi seethed as he scanned a vast horizon of fallow, unoccupied land — most of it owned by two of Kenya’s most prominent political families.     

“Why do they have so much and I have nothing?” he asked.

His grandfather once prospered here, before he was displaced by British colonialists. After independence, villagers regained control, but were soon forced out again, this time by a rich Kenyan businessman with ties to the president.

As compensation, Ngugi received 10 acres of land about 100 miles away, but residents there, from a different tribe, always resented his presence. During the election turmoil late last year and early this year that grabbed headlines worldwide, his house and business were burned down.     

“Now I have to restart with nothing,” he said.As this East African nation struggles with food shortages, a sluggish economy and wounds from post-election violence, there’s a growing consensus that one issue rests at the heart of Kenya’s woes.

It’s the land, stupid.

All across Africa, battles over land continue to simmer, largely a fallout of European colonialism. During most of Africa’s history, sparse population and tribal traditions meant land was plentiful and disputes were rare. Colonialists introduced alien concepts such as borders and private ownership. Since independence began to sweep the continent 50 years ago, fledgling African governments have struggled to unwind injustices, sometimes with disastrous results. The Zimbabwean economy was devastated by President Robert Mugabe’s campaign to seize and redistribute land owned by white farmers.

Kenya suffered a similar colonial legacy, but has taken a different route. As is the case in many African nations, more than half of Kenya’s land is owned by a minority of its richest families, including some white foreigners. But unlike Zimbabwe and South Africa, where the struggle has pitted whites against blacks, the land here is owned mostly by Kenyan politicians who have grabbed millions of prime agricultural acres in questionable real estate deals over the last 45 years.”This is really an issue between us as Kenyans,” said Paul Ndungu, head of alandmark 2004 report that investigated more than 40 years of land fraud. “It’s Kenyan versus Kenyan.”Tribal clashes that killed more than 1,000 people after the disputed presidential election last December, were rooted largely in historic disputes over land. As Kenya struggles to feed its people, vast swaths of its most productive terrain sit idle and underutilized — and the land grievances remain unresolved.

“Peace, tranquillity and stability in Kenya is predicated on sorting out this land issue,” said Odenda Lumumba, head of the Kenya Land Alliance, a land-reform advocacy group.Newly installed Lands Minister James Orengo, a former student activist who was once jailed for aiding a 1982 coup attempt, has vowed to take on Kenya’s rich and powerful with a progressive new land policy.Among other things, he wants to reclaim stolen public lands, bar foreigners from owning property, introduce taxation on idle land and increase squatters’ rights.Orengo also is pushing to computerize Kenya’s aging system of land records, which hasn’t changed since colonial times. Paper records have made forgery and corruption easier. When one shady developer was investigated recently, police believe he covered his tracks by burning down the local survey office where records were stored.

Opposition is quickly building. Critics have dubbed Orengo the “doyen of radicalism.” One group of landowners said his “Marxist ideologies” would lead to a “Zimbabwe-style economic meltdown.”But Orengo’s biggest obstacle probably will come from within the government. Members of the political elite have been the nation’s biggest land grabbers over the decades, which is why Kenya never pursued land reform and redistribution, as other African nations did, experts say. Many of those leaders remain in power.”The people responsible for this mess still find themselves in government and they’ve used their influence to delay [reform],

” Ndungu said.His report named some of the nation’s most powerful leaders as benefiting from illegal deals, including members of parliament, ministers, judges, military commanders and local councilors. Opposition leaders also were singled out, including Prime Minister Raila Odinga, whose family reportedly benefited from a suspect deal involving a molasses plant.The study identified more than 300,000 titles as illegal and called for government seizure of as much as half a million acres. But the recommendations were never implemented. In fact, the previous lands minister initially tried to black out politicians’ names before releasing the report.Glaring disparities in Kenya’s land wealth began with British colonialists, who forcibly removed thousands of families from lush highlands so white farmers could grow coffee and tea.  

Rather than unwind the disputes after winning independence, Kenya’s founding fathers compounded the injustices, helping themselves to the departing colonialists’ spoils and even continuing forced resettlement schemes. Every Kenyan president has been accused of accumulating massive land holdings, diverting public properties to his tribe members and doling out real estate titles like candy to win votes.The family of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s George Washington, sits on half a million acres, while his successor, Daniel Arap Moi, holds more than 100,000 acres, a government commission found. Current President Mwai Kibaki owns about 30,000 acres, according to local reports.

As long as the current crop of Kenyan leaders stays in power, Ndungu is pessimistic about reform’s chances. “I don’t see the political will,” he said.     

Orengo acknowledged that he faces an uphill battle, particularly in pushing his plan through the Cabinet. But he vowed to start reclaiming public lands, beginning with buyers and lessees of government land who have not developed the properties in accordance with their contracts.He is threatening to not renew 99-year leases with foreigners and descendants of white settlers, particularly if they are not maximizing use of the land or living up to lease commitments. He also wants to cancel all 999-year leases, which were negotiated by the British with unwitting tribal chiefs a century ago.Orengo said he planned to redistribute seized property to the landless or displaced, and said he wouldn’t hesitate to shame or embarrass politicians who refuse to return ill-gotten land.

“It’s a political hot potato,” he said. “But some critics will find it difficult to talk too loudly. There are people in the government who benefited immensely. It’s obscene.”

*LA Times ,Sunday 21st, 2008.

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December 9, 2008

Editorial:British-Imposed Sanctions Killing Innocent Zimbabweans

Throughout the African people’s history of fighting for liberation and human dignity, each gain and breakthrough we have made was mainly due to our ability to overcome our enemy’s overt brutality, deceit and manipulation.Because the colonialists and imperialists have actively engaged in both our physical and mental oppression, the web of deception created by their Media and networks is a crucial and deadly weapon .

The manner in which the European and British media have reported how cholera is spreading in Zimbabwe not only reveals they enjoy watching a people whom they cannot intimidate and control suffer, but even, more importantly, it is clearly a masquerade by supposedly compassionate human beings who have nothing to do with the problem.

The Zimbabwean Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa, and his staff deserve ultimate praise, not only for their tireless efforts to maintain Zimbabwe’s broken health infrastructure, but for having the courage and integrity to inform the world that the sanctions — and not negligence or bad governance — are the root cause for problems with the country’s health delivery system.

While the cholera problem is tragic and deserves our immediate attention, the British government and its supporters (raila Odinga and Co), obsessed with illegal regime change in Zimbabwe, should be the last ones allowed to pass moral judgment on how President Mugabe and Zanu-PF deal with this matter.

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October 12, 2008

Kibaki:A Failure in Leadership

Guest blogger Koigi Wa Wamwere (Former MP)

When leaders hoist themselves to the highest perch of power – the Presidency – they expose themselves to public scrutiny and judgement. When Kenyans fail to acknowledge their leaders’ failures, they do so at their own peril and pay dearly for the services those leaders fail to deliver.

What then will history say about President Kibaki? It will not say he was a great leader. It will say he had five cardinal failures.Kibaki’s supporters have always denied his cardinal sin of cowardice but posterity will judge him most harshly for his recent criminal failure to protect thousands of Kenyans who were killed and displaced in the worst ethnic fighting in our history.Kibaki is guilty because Government intelligence services informed him of who was planning war, where and against who but did nothing to protect innocent Kenyans who ended up dead or displaced. For his omission, he is as guilty of war as its perpetrators.

Kibaki

Kibaki

Kibaki’s second cardinal sin is that throughout his life, he has never fought for the freedom he has never hesitated to enjoy. Indeed, posterity will remember him most for equating fighting dictatorship with the madness of felling a fig tree with a razor blade.But fighting for freedom means sacrificing and Kibaki has never sacrificed for any cause, person or even self. Despite his lack of gratitude, others have always sacrificed for him.Kibaki’s third cardinal sin is his failure to acknowledge, thank and compensate freedom fighters or even those who have fought and sacrificed for him. Like one who has never heard that when a cow suffers injury in the pastures, it drags itself home for assistance, when freedom fighters and their families turn to him for acknowledgement and support, he looks the other way.

Without being taken to court, Kibaki’s government has refused to acknowledge, thank, compensate and apologise to freedom fighters for all the pain and ruin they suffered with their families. By failing to compensate freedom fighters, Kibaki’s fourth cardinal sin has been perpetuation of past injustices like corruption and ruin of freedom fighters. Mau Mau freedom fighters who lost land remain landless.Fighters for second liberation who lost their jobs and incomes remain destitute, hungry and sick. The State will pay them neither compensation nor pensions. Even their children lack employment because their parents could not educate them from graves or prisons.

The fifth cardinal sin of Kibaki comes to mind when you read about Italy’s recent paying Libya $5 billion for colonialism or Germany’s earlier compensation to Jews for holocaust.Unlike Gaddafi, Kibaki has failed to stand up to Britain for Kenya and demand both apology and compensation for colonialism, Mau Mau brutalities and wars of colonial conquest. Instead, like Kenyatta and Moi before him, Kibaki bows to Britain as if by colonising and robbing us, she did us a favour.But many Kenyans share Kibaki’s guilt. We supported and voted for his presidency, despite our clear knowledge of his weaknesses. Kenya must never fail with another leader the way it failed with Kibaki and Moi.

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July 22, 2008

Problem Of Peace (Kenya)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8sK-epEAy0]

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July 1, 2008

Zimbabwe Responds ‘Odinga’s hands drip with blood’

The zimbabwe government has responded to kenyan prime minister, raila odinga’s calls for military action on zimbabwe and for the african union to expel the country from the group by saying he is not qualified to speak on zimbabwe as his hands ‘drip of blood’. In response to questions about recent utterances by prime minister odinga presidential spokesman, george charamba said: “you follow politics carefully.

I hope you follow kenyan politics closely. Prime minister raila odinga’s hands drip with blood,” said charamba. He continued, ”raw african blood, and that blood is not going to be cleansed by any amount of abuse of zimbabwe.”odinga has become one of the harshest critics of the zimbabwean government. He called for zimbabwe to be suspended from the african union until president robert mugabe allows ‘free and fair elections’ adding that the au would be making a grave mistake if it recognized president mugabe as a legitimately-elected president.he also asked the african union (au) to deploy peacekeeping forces in zimbabwe to protect opposition supporters from alleged harassment and torture.charamba’s response referred to kenya’s recent which saw raila odinga declared prime minister after coalition talks with president mwai kibaki.

The kenyan election was marred by the worst election violence ever seen on the continent, with 300 pre election deaths and over 1 500 people dying post election.the government of president kibaki accused odinga’s party of unleashing “genocide” on the kenyan people. The coalition government in kenya has not been without problems as violence has continued in kenya.kenyan politics is deeply embedded in tribalism with most members of parliament elected on the basis of tribal and community votes.recently tension has been rising in kenya’s rift valley, the epicentre of last january’s post-election chaos

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