|
|
|
 China's big push into Africa worries the small island of Mauritius ,
International Herald Tribune - 2008-05-28
|
Terre Rouge: Sitting under a pair of mango trees and sipping coconut water, Toolsy Poorun, 87, said he thought he would live in Terre Rouge forever. But then Chinese investment came to this part of Mauritius.
Poorun, who lives in the suburbs of Port Louis, the capital of this Indian Ocean island, now finds himself caught up in Beijing's African push. China has poured billions of dollars into the continent in an attempt to lock in access to rich resources, including oil and minerals.
The investment rush in Africa has produced tensions with former colonial masters and international donors. Chinese workers have sometimes clashed with local residents angered at foreigners taking jobs. And some Africans have questioned what the flow of money will mean for China's role in internal politics.
Some of these tensions are visible in Mauritius, where China plans to open a trade development zone for more than a dozen Chinese firms in Terre Rouge, at a cost of around $730 million, making it the largest foreign direct investment in the country.
Details of what exactly will be in the Shanxi Tianli Enterprises business park are still sketchy, but Mauritian officials say it will act as a launching pad for Chinese operations in the region.
As a member of trade blocs like the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, or Comesa, and the South African Development Community, or SADC, Mauritius offers a gateway to African markets comprising half a billion people.
But some of the 1.3 million people on this palm-fringed island are wary of what is known as the Tianli project.
Poorun is among them. He settled in Terre Rouge in 1960 and is one of 106 farmers who have been told to leave their farms and homes to make way for the Tianli zone.
"It was a big shock," he said. "Where should I go next?"
Beyond the plight of the farmers, who will be compensated, there are other broader concerns about the Chinese plans and some doubts that the project will ever actually go ahead.
It is one of those projects that "looks too good to be true," said Tim Taylor, a former chief executive of Rogers, one of Mauritius' largest companies, with interests in tourism and logistics. "They need quite a lot of water, power, what have you. That is going to put a strain on the infrastructure."
Government officials appear to have no doubts, however.
"This is an investment of approximately 20 billion rupees over a five-year period that would create direct, indirect or induced jobs of about 40,000," Finance Minister Rama Sithanen told reporters this month. That investment is the equivalent of $734 million.
It is a large project for a $9 billion economy with a workforce of just 550,000. Sithanen said the Chinese zone would also create exports worth an estimated 6 billion to 7 billion rupees per year, almost 10 percent of Mauritius' total last year.
But while officials are happy to rattle off the headline figures, they are less comfortable discussing the division of benefits and labor between China and Mauritius.
"We will give priority to local people but we know that we have an acute shortage of skills, so in some cases obviously we will need to recruit people from outside," Sithanen said.
Around half of all foreign workers in Mauritius are Chinese. Unemployment on the island was 7.2 percent at the end of 2007.
Mauritius has no mineral resources, but it is stable, strategically located, has preferential trade access to African markets and is seen as having a strong business environment.
It also offers a cultural link to China. Chinese traders first came to Mauritius in the 17th through 19th centuries, and the Chinese account for about 2 or 3 percent of the population.
Mauritius' first prime minister visited China in 1972, four years after the island's independence from Britain. Since then, Mauritius has consistently backed Beijing's policy on Taiwan, while China has provided financing for airport construction, a sports stadium and low-cost housing.
This month, Mauritius asked for another $380 million to build a bridge and expand its congested airport.
Chinese textile firms, mainly from Hong Kong, had a major presence in Mauritius until the end of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement in 2005, which led to the loss of 25,000 Mauritian jobs. This was compounded by high oil prices and the loss of trade preferences for sugar exports to Europe.
The desire to improve the business environment prompted Mauritius to begin changes in 2006 to open and diversify its economy by boosting industries like seafood, tourism and financial services.
The Tianli project was initially billed as an industrial hub, centered on textiles, but the focus has shifted to business services, said Ken Poonoosamy, senior manager at Mauritius' Board of Investment.
"A lot of the Chinese operators who would want to go to Madagascar, for example, they would prefer to have their administrative offices housed in" the Tianli economic zone, he said, citing Mauritius' business climate.
Since the regulatory changes, organizations like the World Bank and the Heritage Foundation, a rightist Washington-based research group, have ranked Mauritius as Africa's top country for economic freedom, ease of doing business and good governance.
The International Monetary Fund said in March that Mauritius' economy was growing about 7 percent a year. Per capita gross domestic product is about $6,700, one of the highest in Africa.
It is not yet known which Chinese companies will be setting up in the Tianli site, which is managed and part-owned by the Shanxi Tianli Group. Officials from Shanxi Tianli declined to comment on the project for this article.
So far the only visible signs of the project in Terre Rouge - the prime minister's district in Parliament - are signboards in English and Chinese, some Chinese workers and a small compound in the middle of a sugar field.
It is not clear when construction will begin. Sithanen said it would start very shortly. However, some business leaders are skeptical, and questions over the whole basis of the project are being asked.
"Must our future be linked so closely to a country which tolerates atrocities in Darfur?" said an opinion piece in the broadly pro-government newspaper L'Express.
China has been criticized by Western governments and rights groups for supplying oil to Sudan, which has been accused of abuses in Darfur, where international experts say about 200,000 people have been killed in a five-year conflict. Khartoum says the figure is about 10,000.
L'Express likened the Tianli project to "a voluntary colonization" and asked what measures China might take to protect its commercial interests, noting Mauritius' small army.
The uncertainty is widespread.
"We don't know what there will be in there," said Jacques de Navacelle, former president of Mauritius' Joint Economic Council. "Will there be factories, offices, housing?"
The farmers who have grown sugar and vegetables for decades on the Terre Rouge site, which covers 211 hectares, or 521 acres, have now been asked to leave. They say they have received some compensation but are worried about the future.
"We are too small to fight the government," said Ravin Bijloll, a planter. "We do not want to stop the project, but we would like to get better compensation.
"Tianli will bring his own people, because in China, labor is cheap," he said. He does not expect to get a job.
As for Poorun, he has no idea what he will do next. He says the government has given him some land, but on a lease.
"The government took the land and gave us money," he said, sitting on a plastic chair next to an enormous field of sugar cane. "But that money is already finished."
* By Ed Harris, Reuters
Source:
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=13208186
|
|
Make peace with Mugabe ,
New York Times - 2008-04-01
|
New York: While ZimbabweÂ?s opposition party is claiming victory in its effort to unseat President Robert G. Mugabe, it would be a mistake to count him out. And if Mr. Mugabe prevails, it would be a mistake to continue to isolate him, as Western governments have done for the last decade.
Mr. Mugabe is bad, but he could get worse.
�My granny was a heathen,� Mr. Mugabe muttered from behind his big wooden desk at his office in Harare, the capital. It was not the sort of comment I had expected to hear from the 84-year-old dictator, but during our 2 ½-hour interview late last year, some of my assumptions about the most enigmatic figure in modern Africa were crumbling.
As soon as I entered the room I realized that the awkward man wearing a finely stitched white shirt and an elegant dark suit was apprehensive of me, just as I was of him. Mr. Mugabe stared hard, and then cleared his throat nervously. I had expected to meet someone exuding power Â? an older version of the steely freedom fighter I encountered over a secret dinner at my home 30 years ago.
Instead I saw a mild and diminished figure, his rumbling but faint voice often barely audible, his head at times lolling forward self-consciously as if he wanted to hide away. As the interview progressed, he slumped and then slid down like a gangly teenager in his threadbare swivel chair, his long limbs dangling. What I eventually realized from Mr. MugabeÂ?s earnest efforts to justify his actions to me was that he is more vulnerable than his outlandish public posturing suggests.
Certainly, Mr. Mugabe is no feeble recluse Â? we have seen him campaigning with sudden bursts of vigor at staged rallies before busloads of supporters of the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front Â? yet he almost never grants interviews to journalists. To obtain mine took two years of requests, the persistent intervention of Mr. MugabeÂ?s priest and then a five-week wait in Harare.
Early on I had assumed that he was too busy to spare the time. Only later did it dawn on me that he might be fearful of the independent press.
That fear is understandable. ZimbabweÂ?s once booming economy is in tatters. Inflation has soared to fantastical levels, unemployment is near universal, starvation looms. And Mr. Mugabe, for all his protestations about the wicked West and for all the sycophantic comments from the yes-men who surround him, must know that he is to blame.
So why talk about his heathen grandmother? I wanted to understand the Robert Mugabe who had been obscured amid the chaos and misrule. The one described by his classmates as shy, bookish, a loner deeply attached to his mother and resentful of his absent father. The one who was at first remarkably forgiving of white landowners when he came to power in 1980. (For instance, Mr. Mugabe allowed his predecessor, Ian Smith, who led the white minority government that ran Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known, to live on in Harare without harassment, even when Mr. Smith embarked on a campaign against him.)
But bitterness had clearly welled up within him. When I first met him at that dinner in 1975, he seemed to be a considerate man, asking after the health of my toddler son even as he fled into exile to a neighboring country shortly afterward. By the end of 2007, as we sat together again after 28 years of his rule, he exuded the air of a lost and angry man.
Why? Part of the answer came to me in our interview, as Mr. Mugabe expressed almost tearful regret at his inability to socialize with the queen of England. He feels that the West Â? and Britain in particular Â? has failed to recognize his Â?suffering and sacrifice.Â? As someone who by his own estimation is part British, this rejection has taken on the intensity of a family quarrel.
Much of the quarrel centers on the vexed issue of land redistribution. As part of the pact that created ZimbabweÂ?s independence, Britain promised financial aid to help the young country redistribute land from white farmers to blacks.
When this money was misused, the British government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher began to withhold it. Mrs. ThatcherÂ?s successor, John Major, agreed to restore the money. But before he could do so, his successor, Tony Blair, reversed course, taking the aid off the table, where it remains today. It is this grievance against Britain for short-changing him on the land redistribution issue that Mr. Mugabe craves understanding.
I left Mr. MugabeÂ?s office with an uneasy sense of the futility of the WestÂ?s punitive diplomacy toward him. It was my feeling that he was going to stop at nothing to prove that he had been wronged. Indeed, he told me that he was prepared to sacrifice the welfare of his country to prove his case against Britain.
That a precariously balanced individual like Mr. Mugabe is in charge of a country and willing to destroy it to score points against an enemy is a tragedy in itself. That he has an arguably justifiable complaint against a major Western power Â? namely the repudiation of the land reform pledge Â? is doubtless an embarrassment in the West. But that Britain and others choose to shun Mr. Mugabe rather than attempt to settle these differences is quite frankly reckless.
The West needs to change its approach to Mr. Mugabe. Years of isolation and ineffective sanctions, with which he has fueled his propaganda campaign, have only driven Mr. Mugabe downward. More of the same will backfire. A strategy of engagement Â? whether Mr. Mugabe wins re-election and stays in office or whether he achieves his ends through fraudulent means and needs to be talked out of power Â? is the only viable option.
The belief that the situation in Zimbabwe cannot get worse has proved an inadequate strategy for ending the countryÂ?s plight under Mr. Mugabe. More important, the current Western standoff might in itself imperil Zimbabwe as things go from bad to worse and as ZimbabweÂ?s president becomes a great deal nastier. Every effort should be made internationally to set up a conversation with the dictator.
* Heidi Holland is the author, most recently, of Â?Dinner With Mugabe.Â?
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/opinion/01holland.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=all
|
|
Govt to speed up land redistribution,
Mail and Guardian - 2008-02-14
|
CAPE TOWN: The government intends acquiring five million hectares of land next year in an effort to have 30% of agricultural land in the hands of black farmers by 2014, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Lulu Xingwana said in Cape Town on Thursday.
Currently, black farmers own 4,7% of farm land, she told a press briefing.
"We are saying that if we acquire five million next year we will be on target."
She thought this was "realistic" and said strategies previously used were being reviewed.
"We also need financial resources. The willing buyer, willing seller [principle] is not working. The public works minister is tabling the Expropriation Act, so we hope that with all these we can fast-track the process."
Foreign land ownership would "definitely" be regulated, she said.
"At this point in time we definitely agree that we have to regulate foreign land ownership. We will look at the options and international best practice."
She hoped that half of the outstanding land claims would be settled by the end of 2008. These were mostly rural claims held up by disagreements between tribal chiefs over where boundaries lay, as well as white farmers disputing the validity of claims.
Expropriation would be used to settle claims not finalised by the end of 2008, she said.
Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya said efforts to speed up land redistribution were part of President Thabo Mbeki's "apex priorities", announced in his State of the Nation speech.
More attention would be paid to supporting the beneficiaries of restituted and redistributed land, to ensure it was productive.
"Recent experiences of land-reform projects that have failed or are under threat of collapsing have underlined the shortcomings of a singular emphasis on land acquisition and redistribution," he said.
Source:
http://www.mg.co.za
|
|
ZIMBABWE: New land owners face eviction,
IRIN - 2008-02-11
|
HARARE: Resettled farmers in Zimbabwe have been hit by input and financial shortages, and have failed to deliver on production, prompting the government to repossess their plots, according to analysts.
Didymus Mutasa, the land reform and resettlement minister, recently told the official daily newspaper, the Herald, that the government had reclaimed at least 1,449 A2 farms - the category for commercial production - after a land audit completed in 2007 revealed that they were not being used productively.
In 2000 the government dispossessed more than 4,000 white commercial farmers of their land in a controversial land reform exercise and reallocated it, often after cutting it up into smaller plots, to thousands of land-hungry black Zimbabweans.
"Government is repossessing all vacant and unutilised A2 farms and we are not going back on this exercise. We will withdraw the offer letters and allocate them to deserving new applicants," Mutasa was quoted as saying.
He said the government was attempting to address some of the problems faced by the new farmers, and repossession of the plots should not be read as a reversal of the land reform programme.
The owners of most of the farms being taken back by the government had not even taken occupation, said Sam Moyo, a land affairs expert who advised the government on its land reform programme. "A number of plots have remained vacant, meaning that the beneficiaries were not able to go and establish themselves on their plots for a variety of reasons."
Zimbabwe's economy is in meltdown: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that the country's annual inflation rate has reached 100,000 percent and is still rising; shortages of foreign exchange have affected the supply of agricultural inputs and fuel. As a result, many farmers had been unable to make any of the hoped for short-term gains from farming and had abandoned their plots, Moyo said.
According to economic analyst John Robertson, "The bottom line is that most of these farmers have not produced enough to justify being retained on their farms. Those that have managed to do so were either lucky enough to have taken over sound infrastructure they found on the farms, or were the big fish that got favours from the government."
He pointed out that the beneficiaries did not have the "motivation" to farm effectively because they got the land for free, and that the government had hurried to parcel out land "for political populism" without ensuring that the beneficiaries were well supported with money, skills training and inputs.
"Some of these farmers applied for land for the kicks, and that is why they sold the inputs and fuel they obtained, while in some cases farms were turned into weekend barbeque resorts, a trend that was common among multiple-farm owners," Robertson claimed.
The financial squeeze the farmers found themselves in was worsened by reluctance on the part of the banks to issue loans to the new farmers because the 99-year leases offered by the government did not offer adequate collateral security.
No solution
Robertson argued that while repossession of the farms was justified, how would the A2 farmers repay any loans they might have taken? "One just hopes that the government is not using repossession as one of those election campaign tactics, to lure voters with pieces of land that would also be taken away once victory is attained."
The country will be holding joint parliamentary, council and presidential elections in late March and, as happened in 2000 on the eve of another major poll, there are fears that the land issue could be used to sway voters.
The land reform programme coincided with a series of droughts, which hit production and led to livestock deaths. Land was also underutilised by those who lacked the necessary skills to farm, particularly in the case of specialised crops like tobacco.
Most of the farms were carved up into small units, making it difficult for beneficiaries to produce on a large scale, with the new farmers sometimes having to share infrastructure left by the outgoing owners.
However, Moyo had maintained at the time that "Since most of the new farmers don't have adequate finance ... small plots would be the more viable option."
Unfair, say farmers
The new farmers whose land has been repossessed were taken by surprise and are angry. Some cited discrimination. "I don't understand what criteria they used to repossess my farm," said Stanley Banga, 56, who was given a 60ha plot in Goromonzi district, about 50km southeast of Harare, the capital.
"True, I have been struggling to produce adequately, but that cannot be blamed on me. While other managed to get inputs, I had to struggle because I am neither a war veteran nor an active member of the ruling [ZANU-PF] party," he said.
"My only hope is that the authorities will understand ... There was drought, I lost my income and could not access inputs easily. Now it's the heavy rains that have been falling non-stop."
If his plot - largely covered by overgrown grass, except for small patches of maize in the waterlogged fields, with a dilapidated farmhouse left by the previous owner - is taken back, Banga will have nowhere to go.
Source:
http://www.irinnews.org
|
|
Swaziland opposition groups to boycott poll,
Independent Online - 2008-02-03
|
MANZINI: Opposition groups in Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monarchy, have agreed to boycott parliamentary polls later this year, undertaking instead to push harder for multi-party elections.
A dozen political parties, civic organisations and student groupings met in Manzini at the weekend, endorsing the formation of a united front within two months to challenge the status quo in the tiny land-locked kingdom.
Mphandlana Shongwe, founder member of the People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), said taking part in elections would give the state a sheen of false legitimacy. PUDEMO is one of six political parties taking part in the broad movement.
"For the past 24 years we have been able to deny the state legitimacy so we are proud of ourselves and we must not rest until we attain the goals we set for ourselves," Shongwe told a rally on Saturday.
Boycotting the polls in their current format would send a message to the world that change was required, he added.
"Does it mean we have to start butchering people before the western world can realize that there was something wrong with the way the country was governed?"
Any member of the front who wanted to stand in elections, likely to be held in October or November, would have to resign from his party, delegates concluded.
Political parties were banned in 1973 when the late King Sobhuza II, father of incumbent King Mswati, determined that Westminister-style democracy promoted hatred.
The constitution, rewritten in 2006, allows for freedom of association but people can only stand for elections as individuals.
The parliament comprises 85 members, more than a third of whom are handpicked by the king who also makes all government appointments.
The weekend meeting was initially divided over whether to boycott a system of government some argue is fundamentally flawed, or to propose an unofficial slate of election candidates to try to change the system from within.
Meeting organiser Jan Sithole told the gathering pressure groups stood little chance of making a difference if they remained fragmented.
"Because of our disorganization we have not been able to make an impact on the country's politics," he said.
"We have to claim a place in the country's political terrain."
The front will be officially launched at a conference in early April where a name and constitution would be adopted.
All but two Swazi political parties have agreed to be part of the front.
The last attempt to forge a united opposition failed when the Swaziland Democratic Alliance collapsed three years into its existence when its chairman broke ranks and took part in elections in 2003.
Swaziland, with a population of one million, is one of Africa's poorest countries and also has one of the world's highest rates of HIV infection.
Source:
http://www.iol.co.za
|
|
Long wait is almost over for land claimants,
Independent Online - 2008-01-29
|
JOHANNESBURG: A decades-long wait by hundreds of Paarl residents for the return of land from which they were forcibly removed during the apartheid era may soon be over, the Western Cape government announced on Monday.
About 400 people, known as the "Hockey Field Claimants", were removed from their land during the 1960s, in terms of the notorious Group Areas Act, the province's transport and public works department said in a statement.
The land - extending over two hectares in the centre of the picturesque Winelands town - was later converted into hockey fields for the 148-year-old La Rochelle Girls High School.
The department said the 400 claimants had applied for the return of their land in 2000.
It said a committee acting on their behalf had signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday with the department, the provincial department of education, the national department of land affairs and the Drakenstein Municipality, which would "lead to the land being returned to them".
The department quoted Transport and Public Works MEC Marius Fransman as saying he was thrilled by the agreement.
"It's an historic occasion. What we're talking about here is prime land, more than two hectares in extent, in the middle of the city centre. Its estimated value is R10-million.
"The imminent transfer of the land to the claimants, who applied for its restitution in 2000, will profoundly change their lives," he said.
The statement also quotes Fransman as saying the school had "threatened legal action" on the matter.
Attempts to contact the school for comment were not successful.
Source:
http://www.iol.co.za
|
|
Harare to seize farm, ignores SADC Tribunal ruling,
Zim Online - 2008-01-24
|
HARARE: The Zimbabwe government on Wednesday said it would seize a farm whose white owner last year successfully applied to a regional tribunal for an interim order blocking confiscation of the property.
Land Reform Minister Dydimus Mutasa said the farm would be handed over to a black owner as part of state land reforms and following a Tuesday ruling by ZimbabweÂ?s Supreme Court dismissing an application by the white farmer challenging the seizure of his property.
Â?We are going to occupy the farm after the judgment," Mutasa told ZimOnline. Â?The (new black) owner of the land will soon move onto his land with the help of the police.Â?
The white farmer, William Michael Campbell, was not immediately available for comment on the matter.
Campbell first appealed against seizure of his property at Supreme Court last March but took his case to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal after what his lawyers said was Â?unreasonable delayÂ? by ZimbabweÂ?s highest court in dealing with the matter.
The Namibia-based Tribunal last December barred President Robert MugabeÂ?s government from evicting Campbell from his Mount Carmel farm in Chegutu pending final ruling on the farmerÂ?s main application challenging the legality of the Harare administrationÂ?s controversial programme to seize white land for redistribution to landless blacks.
Campbell wants the SADC court - which sits later this month to finalise the farmerÂ?s case - to find Harare in breach of its obligations as a member of the regional bloc after it signed into law Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment No.17 two years ago.
The amendment allows MugabeÂ?s government to seize farmland without compensation and bars courts from hearing appeals from dispossessed white farmers.
The white farmer has also asked the Tribunal to declare ZimbabweÂ?s land reforms racist and illegal under the SADC Treaty adding that Article 6 of the Treaty bars member states from discriminating against any person on the grounds of gender, religion, race, ethnic origin and culture.
Asked what would happen in the event the Tribunal upholds CampbellÂ?s application, Mutasa was non-committal. Â?The government of Zimbabwe will have to wait and see what happens at the Tribunal but for now we go by the laws of Zimbabwe,Â? was all Mutasa would say.
Government farm seizures have resulted in the majority of the about 4 000 white farmers being forcibly ejected from their properties without being paid compensation for the land, which Harare has refused to pay for saying it was stolen from blacks in the first place.
The government has compensated some farmers for developments on the land such as dams and farm buildings and says it is committed to compensating all farmers for such improvements.
Land redistribution, that Mugabe says was necessary to correct a colonial land ownership system that reserved the best land for whites and banished blacks to poor soils, is blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into food shortages after Harare failed to support black villagers resettled on former white farms with inputs to maintain production.
Poor performance in the mainstay agricultural sector has also had far reaching consequences as hundreds of thousands have lost jobs while the manufacturing sector, starved of inputs from the sector, is operating below 30 percent of capacity.
Source:
http://www.zimonline.co.za
|
|
Swaziland may import power from Mozambique,
Independent Online - 2008-01-23
|
MBABANE: Swaziland is to open talks about the possibility of importing power from Mozambique following after its traditional supplier South Africa froze exports, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Sikhumbuzo Tsabedze, general manager for customer services in the state-run Swaziland Electricity Board (SEB), said alternative sources of supplies had to be found as South Africa's power utility Eskom is grappling with shortages.
"Following the weekend reports that Eskom will reduce the amount of energy given to neighbouring countries, we will be engaging Mozambique so that we may buy electricity from them," Tsabedze told Radio Swaziland.
Eskom said over the weekend that it had halted supplies to neighbouring countries at a time when South Africans are facing rolling blackouts.
Landocked Swaziland currently gets about 80 percent of its energy from South Africa, with the rest coming from its eastern neighbour Mozambique.
Source:
http://www.iol.co.za
|
|
SWAZILAND: Too much bread to buy a loaf,
IRIN - 2007-12-07
|
MBABANE: The escalating price of bread is the latest blow to Swazi households, already struggling with a parallel rise in the cost of maizemeal caused by the worst drought in a generation.
On 10 December the price of a loaf of bread will jump by 10 US cents, and by the end of the year a loaf may cost US$1 in a country where over 60 percent of people live on less than US$1 a day, according to the UN Development Programme.
"Bread used to be called the white or rich person's maize, and maize was the Swazi's or poor person's bread, but now both are beyond reach almost, and it is making more people dependant on food aid," said Samuel Simelane, a food aid distribution officer at the village of Mliba, 100km east of the capital, Mbabane.
Simelane oversees the distribution of maizemeal, cooking oil and beans to double the number of community members who required such assistance last year: over 400,000 people out of a population of 970,000 now need some form of food aid to survive.
The World Food Programme brings in maize purchased in South Africa or donated by the US. The development agency, World Vision, is the primary distribution partner on the ground, while the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) coordinates feeding schemes for primary school pupils, orphans and vulnerable children at neighbourhood carepoints.
Crippling drought is responsible for a decline of up to 80 percent in maize harvests in some parts of the country, although all four regions of Swaziland experienced drought-related crop reductions for the first time.
But the radically escalating price of bread is not related to Swazi weather; no wheat is grown in the country. Rather, the issue is the government's desire for tax revenue. Through its price-fixing arm, the National Agricultural Marketing Board (NAMBoard), an 8.5 percent levy is fixed on all wheat imported into the country.
"Swaziland, the nation with the worst food crisis per capita in the southern African region, has the most expensive flour in the region. This is because of government tax," said the manager of an industrial bakery who preferred that his name not be used.
Bakers are squaring off with government in an effort to further boost bread prices, already raised twice since August. The Bakery Association noted that the price of wheat had been rising by 15 percent to 25 percent per month since July.
Transport costs also add to the mounting bread price, averaging R200 (about $30) per tonne of wheat imported from South Africa. Bakeries say they can no longer absorb the high cost of flour without passing on the increases to consumers. If forced to shut down, they warned that 2,000 jobs could be lost in a country where formal-sector unemployment is above 40 percent.
NAMBoard was set up to find markets for Swazi agricultural output, but critics say it does little more than supply some local produce markets and impose protectionist tariffs on imported agricultural products.
Some of the import levies collected go to NAMBoard operations, and consumer groups have called upon government to use the large surpluses that have been accumulated to subsidise the price of staples like bread and maize, and assist farmers by reducing the price of agricultural inputs like seeds and fertiliser.
"Stakeholders in the agro-industry do not understand why government is charging wheat importers this levy because there are no farmers producing wheat in Swaziland, so who needs to be protected from unfair competition?" asked Sipho Shongwe, a spokesman for Swaziland Livestock Technical Services.
Jeremiah Ngubane, a shopkeeper and restaurant owner in the central commercial town of Manzini, told IRIN, "This is all about tax revenue for government. Why are they taxing food during a food crisis? It makes no sense - it's just greed."
How big is a loaf?
Some bakeries are coping by cheating, and stories about undersized loaves of bread feature extensively in the local media. The Times of Swaziland sent out a crew with a scale, and found shops selling bread as small as 640g a loaf, when the government gazette stipulates 800g.
The scoop inspired Enterprise and Employment Minister Lutfo Dlamini, whose ministry negotiates commodities prices, to tour shops with his own scale, making sure that photographers were on hand.
Dlamini's stunt was criticised in the press as grandstanding in anticipation of next year's parliamentary elections, at a time when bread prices are causing real pain among working-class Swazis.
"For the life of me, I can't begin to understand what the heck he is doing out there weighing bread, when he should be ensuring that his ministry has adequate staff to do the job regularly," said political observer Wilton Mamba.
Government has blamed escalating global wheat prices for the country's bread crisis, even citing the diversion of grain crops for biofuel production in the developed world as a cause for an increasingly unaffordable loaf of bread in Swaziland; it has not responded to calls for lowering or eliminating tariffs on imported wheat and other foods.
"We will have a crisis with food donors, who are now keeping so much of the population alive," predicted food aid distributor Simelane. "They will ask why government is not doing more to make food affordable."
"If government needs tax revenue, why doesn't it clean up corruption?" asked shop owner Ngubane.
Finance minister Majozi Sithole told parliament last week that government receives only 20 percent of the customs duties due to it because of the under-declaring of goods and other cheating at border posts. Since 2004, he has reported annually that the amount of money lost to government through various forms of corruption is equal to the nation's annual debt.
"But not one person has ever gone to jail for corruption in Swaziland," said a bitter Ngubane. "Instead, the average person cannot afford the price of a loaf of bread."
Source:
http://www.irinnews.org
|
|
Hundreds homeless after storm in Swaziland,
Independent Online - 2007-11-30
|
MBABANE: Hundreds of people have been left homeless in the landlocked kingdom of Swaziland after a severe storm wreaked havoc, disaster officials said on Thursday.
Ben Nsibandze, chairperson of the National Disaster Management Agency, said 76 households had been given tents and blankets after the heavy rains which began sweeping through eastern and southern Swaziland on Tuesday.
The downpours had been initially welcomed after a lengthy drought but had eventually exacerbated the situation by ruining donated crops, said Nsibandze.
"This is now destroying the little that our people were going to get during the harvesting season but now they have to start afresh," he told reporters.
Jimmy Hlophe, a lawmaker for one of the affected areas, said heavy floods had washed away crops that had been planted after donations from the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organisation.
"This was the first time for us as a community to get farm inputs and it leaves us in a dilemma as to where we will get other inputs because our people were poor and they depend on food rations from the donor community," he said.
Source:
http://www.iol.co.za
|
|
Land inequality in SA a 'ticking time bomb',
Mail & Guardian - 2007-11-19
|
MULDERSDRIFT: For more than a decade, Molefi Selibo has been sent from pillar to post by the South African authorities in a futile quest to own a plot of land for his family.
"Land to us, it is a very key issue. There is a hunger for land in South Africa," says Selibo as he looks out across the rolling green hills of Muldersdrift which he still one day hopes to transform into a thriving village.
"It is very, very, very frustrating. It is more than 10 years. People become disillusioned, they start questioning whether this thing is progressing," says Selibo, eyeing the land which lies fallow.
His frustration is indicative of a wider sense of disillusionment about the pace of land reforms in post-apartheid South Africa.
Thirteen years on from the end of white rule, the World Bank is warning the issue of land ownership, which has already proved toxic across the border in Zimbabwe, is "a time bomb" that could blow up if not defused.
The land at Muldersdrift, about 30km west of Johannesburg, is the third property the Ethembalethu (Our Hope) community has tried to buy and develop in a ten-year battle with stubborn white land-owners, conflicting government policies and miles of bureaucratic red tape.
South Africa's land ministry admitted earlier this month that drastic measures were necessary to save the country's land reform programme, whose slow delivery has sparked anger and fears of Zimbabwe-style land grabs.
Despite the government maintaining it is "committed to stability" and using a system of payment for land and negotiation with white farmers, patience is wearing thin for those awaiting land.
At the onset of democracy in 1994, about 87% of agricultural land in the country was owned by white South Africans, who form less than 10% of the population.
Thirteen years later only 4% of land, or four-million hectares has been transferred to black South Africans, and the ministry's annual report says it will be a "serious challenge" to reach its target of 30% -- 25-million hectares -- by 2014.
In 1996, Selibo and others living in Muldersdrift had a dream to become self-sufficient.
A group of about 250 families started putting away R100 a month, until they saved enough to make their first purchase offer.
The community has since faced numerous obstacles, two cancelled sale agreements, court battles, as well as an out-of-court settlement where white landowners paid them not to move into their neighbourhood.
Now, since 2001, they have an agreement to occupy the 30,8ha property owned by the municipality, but have still not won the right to develop or farm on the land.
"It has cost us almost all the money we have saved," said Selibo.
"It has gone to paying the consultants to do the studies that are required. We have been going from pillar to post."
The land ministry has come under fire for its chaotic record-keeping, its failure to fill staff vacancies and the dismal state of its financial affairs, with the department's director general ousted last month.
Chief land claims commissioner Tozi Gwanya said that land reform had been hampered by opposition from landowners who dispute the validity of land claims and demand exorbitant prices.
He said when the government tried to fast-track the process, "prophets of doom" suggested the country was going the same route as neighbouring Zimbabwe.
"We do not want to see what has happened in Zimbabwe and we will always ensure that our land reform programme remains socially, economically and politically sound."
However Rogier van den Brink, World Bank country economist to South Africa, said time was running out to resolve the land issue peacefully.
"The World Bank has always said that a land inequality of this magnitude is a ticking time bomb, at some point some politician will run with this.
"What happened in Zimbabwe, little did we know it was the president of the country who would run with this issue. You cannot predict when and how a land crisis will emerge."
Back at Muldersdrift, Selibo says the community has been battling an absence of any clear policy to help black South Africans buy land in areas near towns.
However over the hill, a high-income development which will eventually include 120 houses, has surged ahead, easily gaining planning permission.
"Each and every landowner is opposing this development. People go far to prevent others from having a better life," said Selibo, who is employed as a civil servant dealing with land issues.
He said the community did not want to build another township where people lived in appalling conditions.
"We have now allocated a site for a primary school. We also planned to have community facilities, a hall and a taxi rank.
"The difference is here we also look at the agricultural side. Here there are no shacks."
Van den Brink says the country is missing out on massive growth opportunities by not using agriculture or land reform to its full potential.
"Countries with more equal land distribution grow faster, permanently," he said.
Source:
http://www.mg.co.za
|
|
NAMIBIA: Land reform reproducing poverty,
IRIN - 2007-11-15
|
JOHANNESBURG: Namibia's land reform programme is a "zero sum game" that merely swaps one form of poverty for another in its current resettlement programme, according to an independent report on attempts to find a equitable solution to racially skewed land ownership.
The Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), a non-governmental human rights organisation based in the capital, Windhoek, said in a report reviewing the achievements so far of Namibia's land reform programme, No Resettlement Available, that "most [resettlement farms] are not doing very well; in fact, it is not apparent that any are."
The size of the farms allocated and the agricultural methods practiced were among the problems identified. "Black farmers get smaller units than white farmers held, but remain stuck with the same plan to be livestock farmers," said the report.
"Since even the larger white farms were not very profitable, this apportionment is both setting black farmers up to fail, and failing to reconceptualise a new Namibian agricultural order that could both feed the growing population and provide reasonable incomes to the new black commercial farmers."
Namibia, which won its independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990, inherited a colonial division of land in which about half the agricultural land is owned by 3,500 white farmers. Farms average about 5,000 hectares in the north of the country and 10,000 hectares in the south, while nearly 1 million black Namibians live on "heavily overgrazed" communal lands.
The report by Willem Odendaal, of the LAC's Land Environment and Development Project, and Sidney Harring, Professor of Law at the City University in New York, said the government's agrarian policy had failed to adapt to the demands of a modern Namibia or benefit African farmers.
"Dividing large farms into units of one-fifth to one-seventh the size [of the original farm] - being the typical resettlement farm size - not only applies the failed colonial model [of cattle farming], but further weakens it, in that farms of such small sizes cannot succeed. The large commercial farm of the apartheid era, an old and inefficient structure of agriculture, is being reproduced in a diluted form."
Namibia is an arid country of about 825,400sq km, of which only about 100sq km are suitable for dry [non-irrigated] crop cultivation; it suffers drought in six out of every 10 years and its growing population of about 2 million people has seen "several hundred thousand blacks ... crowded off ... communal lands and move to sprawling squatter camps surrounding every town in Namibia," the LRC report said.
Slow pace of land reform
The Namibian government, like those of neighbouring South Africa and Zimbabwe, has made land reform a central policy tenet, and "government's resettlement scheme has placed 800 farms in black hands in the 17 years since independence", the report noted.
"This is about 12 percent of all farms, or less or than one percent a year, so the process will take over 100 years to complete, depending on what proportion of white commercial farms the government plans to place in blacks hands before deeming the process complete."
Sakkie Coetzee, executive manager of the Namibian Agricultural Union, which draws it membership from mainly white commercial farmers, told IRIN that according to their records, "more than 1,000 farms" or about 16 percent of commercial farmland, had been transferred to previously disadvantaged people.
He said the agricultural capacity of the country was "overstated" and the "perception of large [farms] is not necessarily the right perception", owing to the country's predominantly dry climate and paucity of surface water, which required economies of scale to produce sustainable farming. The policy of subdividing farms was "devastating" and under such a regime the new "farmers would never make it".
Coetzee, whose farmers' union officially supports land redistribution, attributed the policy of creating smaller farming plots to the influence of such institutions as the World Bank's one-size-fits-all approach, which meant that while a small plot in Ghana might be sustainable, this was not the case in Namibia.
He said the union was attempting to "convince the government to rethink and redesign their policies, as the global practice was seeing farms getting bigger and bigger because of the higher production costs".
New agrarian model required
The report recommends an overhaul of the agricultural sector, from the "apartheid era" agricultural colleges emphasising cattle farming, to new farming methods such as "crop cultivation and tropical agriculture".
Tropical agriculture is usually labour-intensive subsistence farming and cash-crop production, using techniques like moveable cages that confine animals to feeding on weeds, the use of crop residues as litter in the cages, disposal of human waste in deep pits that are later planted with trees, and the use of ashes as fertiliser and in soap production.
The LAC cited numerous failures in the division and resettlement of commercial farms, from not granting land title and "leaving poor people in some kind of tenant relationship with the government [which] is not empowering them," to a lack of transparency, the absence of any support for resettled farmers and the overblown bureaucracy of "the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement - and the government generally".
"Given the small number of people involved, what the ministry and staff actually do is not apparent. For example, resettling 9,000 people in 12 years amounts to fewer than 800 a year, hardly more than 125-130 families. Yet it takes a staff of perhaps 1,000 government employees to do this work," the authors pointed out.
"Almost all of the 209 or so resettlement farms have staff of the ministry on their premises or in a nearby town, yet it is not obvious that these people are well trained and performing their duties."
Resettlement Farms
The "poor record keeping" also meant that the exact number of people resettled on these farms was uncertain, and "many have already left the rural poverty of the resettlement farms, and more leave every day," the LAC said.
While white commercial farmers were heavily subsidised with both capital and large numbers of livestock by past German and South African colonial governments, "resettled farmers have neither, and are left to an impoverished lifestyle which is often as bad or worse than the one they had prior to joining the resettlement programme".
The report identified an unpalatable conundrum: "Any 'average' resettlement process will move five 'disadvantaged' families to a farm at the same time that it removes six farmworkers and their families to homelessness and poverty ... each resettlement process displaces as many as it resettles."
Commercial farms are one of the country's major employers, while farmworkers and their dependents comprise an estimated 222,000 people, but many farmworkers do not want to be resettled because of negative experiences suffered by others.
"Even as poorly paid farm workers, they have their basic needs met: they receive a regular salary, are allowed to have chickens, small stock and perhaps even cattle, and live in reasonably good housing. All of this disappears on a Namibian resettlement farm."
The authors suggest the adoption of a land-reform model used in South Africa as alternative: farmworkers are trained to perform management roles and provided with higher skills levels, with the intention that land title could gradually be handed over to farmworkers or other poor people with the requisite skills to operate the farm.
Both South Africa and Namibia have trod delicately around the issue of expropriation, given the experiences of neighbouring Zimbabwe, and both countries place great emphasis on the rule of law.
The LAC report recommends an "increased pace of expropriation", but that pace "depends on public confidence that land reform is being successfully implemented at grassroots level, i.e., that small black-owned farms are being created successfully."
The Ministry of Lands and Resettlement was not available for comment.
Source:
http://www.irinnews.org
|
|
SWAZILAND: Declare HIV/AIDS a "humanitarian emergency",
IRIN - 2007-11-05
|
JOHANNESBURG: The impact of HIV/AIDS in southern Africa, which has nine of the world's most affected countries, needs to be reassessed as a "humanitarian emergency" on its own, enabling interventions to be made timeously, a leading AIDS researcher argues in a new paper.
For this to happen, Alan Whiteside, director of the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, said in the paper, co-authored by researcher Amy Whalley, the conventional understanding of a humanitarian emergency has to be rethought.
"Traditional humanitarian thinking focuses on the short term, and is often aimed at returning affected populations to 'normality'," he said in Reviewing 'Emergencies' for Swaziland: Shifting the Paradigm in a New Era.
To make the point, the authors used Swaziland, which has an HIV prevalence rate of 33.4 percent among people aged between 15 to 49 years - the world's highest, according to UNAIDS - and the world's lowest life expectancy, just 31.3 years in 2004, as noted in the UNDP's Human Development Report. The paper was commissioned by Swaziland's National Emergency Council on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA).
The region also has eight other countries with some of the world's highest prevalence rates: Botswana 24.1 percent; Lesotho 23.2 percent; Namibia 19.6 percent; South Africa 18.8 percent; Zambia 17 percent; Mozambique 16.1 percent; Zimbabwe 15.6 percent, and Malawi 14.1 percent, according to UNAIDS.
"HIV/AIDS in Swaziland has been characterised by a slow onset of impacts that have failed to command an emergency response. With insufficient resource allocation and a lack of capacity, slow onset events can become emergencies," Whiteside maintained. The situation was not very different in the region's other affected countries.
Part of the problem was that, spurred by its consistent economic growth in the 1990s, Swaziland had been classified as a "low-middle-income country" by the World Bank, and a "medium human development country" by the UN Development Programme (UNDP). This classification altered the perception of the country in donor and international eyes as a 'poor' country to that of one able to support itself, restricting potential external funding.
Whiteside has tried to establish a correlation between the ever-increasing HIV prevalence recorded by national sero-sentinel surveillance surveys - which has shot up from 3.9 percent in 1992 to 42.6 percent in 2004 and declined slightly to 39.2 percent in 2006 - and the falling social and economic indicators. "If negative trends were noticed earlier in Swaziland, some wider shocks may have been preventable".
Over the past 15 years, Swaziland has become characterised by a decline in economic growth, spreading poverty, and a rise in mortality and morbidity rates. "Current death rates now exceed the daily mortality thresholds used by agencies as an indicator of a disaster."
The number of people living below poverty line climbed from 65 percent in 1995 to 69 percent in 2001, while annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) plunged from 6 percent in the 1990s to a current level of around 2 percent, resulting in negative per capita growth.
Whiteside said maize production had more than halved in AIDS-affected households and cited a 2004 study, A Systematic Review of the Economic Impact of HIV/AIDS on Swaziland, by F.T. Muwanga, published by the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, showing that the average loss in GDP growth attributable to HIV/AIDS was around 1.6 percent per year.
Tardy interventions
"Had interventions happened on time, the impact of HIV/AIDS might not have been that severe," commented Derek von Wissell, director of NERCHA.
Whiteside noted that in the absence of an adequate response, Swaziland still "stands to lose the next generation of human capacity through a lack of investment in human capital, health and the continued low morale that affects workers in such contexts".
According to the paper, the UN has argued that responses require adjustment to consider a triple threat: a lethal epidemic, deepening food insecurity and a hollowing out of government capacity.
"But the point that we are trying to make," said von Wissell, "is that the response does not take into account HIV/AIDS as the root cause - and is designed as such, rather responding to the triple threat on a short-term basis - and the conditions imposed by other UN agencies such as the International Monetary Fund on funding."
Mark Stirling, the Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa at UNAIDS, told IRIN that in 2002 the UN system had recognised the triple threat posed by HIV/AIDS, and that this constituted an emergency. He acknowledged that the "low-middle-income" classification had prevented the country from accessing much-needed funds, saying, "There is a need to change the rules."
It was the "job of every government to protect and serve their people", he said, but not all of them had the funds to respond in time to implement effective strategies, such as universal access to antiretroviral therapy (ART). Despite the world's highest HIV prevalence rates, none of the southern African countries, including Swaziland, has achieved the goal of universal access to ART.
Regional impact
Fiona Napier, of the UK-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), Save the Children, in South Africa, pointed out that "The impact of HIV/AIDS in high-prevalence countries in southern Africa is profound. Many in government, donor and NGO communities know this, but we fail to approach HIV/AIDS with the same urgency as we approach other disasters, yet the impacts are widespread.
"A recent study Save the Children conducted found that 4 out of 10 children who had crossed borders in the southern Africa region said that the death of a family member was the main reason as to why they had left home and were seeking improved livelihoods elsewhere," she said.
Drawing comparisons from Malawi and Zambia, Whiteside and Whalley found that, as in Swaziland, HIV/AIDS was "altering the structure of society", and all three countries were experiencing falling population growth.
"This is projected to continue to fall over the next fifty years. Malawi and Zambia are both expected to experience gradual falls in population growth.
Swaziland, meanwhile, has a sudden drop into negative figures over two years."
By 2025 "there is expected to be a thinning of both the older age groups and the very young [in Swaziland]; by 2050 an overall drop in population is anticipated. A recent vulnerability assessment found deaths are concentrated among 16-35 year olds. These accounted for around 45 percent of all deaths, a significant departure from the norm, where death rates remain low until people age".
According to Whiteside, the affected countries in the region are suffering from the impact of three different but related epidemics: an HIV epidemic, followed by an AIDS epidemic, which in turn leads to an impact epidemic. "As prevalence rates have now been at high levels for 10 years, impacts are being seen ... The fallout from this will be long-term, forever altering the future development paths of these countries."
Failure of HIV prevention strategies
Save the Children's Napier said it was time to acknowledge that "prevention strategies over the past 20 years have not proven successful enough to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in southern Africa".
"We all need to acknowledge this, and develop concerted, out-of-the-box thinking now, if we are to prevent thousands more children becoming orphaned, or having to cross borders, or resorting to other more desperate measures in order to keep food on the table and their siblings in school," she suggested.
"For a start, more resources at an international and national level need to be made available to heavily promote and offer PMTCT [Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV] at community level."
At UNAIDS Stirling said that despite the drop in HIV prevalence rates recorded in some countries in the region, he had to acknowledge that prevention strategies, particularly those targeting behavioural change, such as inconsistent use of condoms and having multiple concurrent partners, had failed.
The Swazi government itself had responded promptly to the crisis, declaring the disease a national disaster in 1999, he said. Aid workers pointed out that governance issues like the perception of the ruler, King Mswati III, "as a big spender", doling out millions for expensive cars every year, had made donors reluctant to part with their money for programmes in Swaziland.
"But donors must disassociate humanitarian issues from political and governance issues - you cannot just walk past millions dying because of that," said von Wissell, who has served as a health minister in the Swazi cabinet.
Out of the box
There was a renewed focus on impartiality and the allocation of resources on the basis of need, according to Whiteside. "While this is necessary to provide immediate assistance, it still fails to specify conditions where it will be given, and focuses on the crisis nature of emergencies instead of the nature of need."
The authors underlined the importance of assessing changes in socioeconomic indicators over time in response to the changing nature of emergencies. "A
framework assessing social and income indicators, and mixing the short-term needs of a stressed country with their long-run capacity needs, is essential".
"We are not offering any new policies or solutions; with this paper we are trying to make room for debate," said von Wissell, head of NERCHA.
Whiteside's paper harks back to a long-simmering debate in the humanitarian community on acknowledging the impact of HIV/AIDS on conventional humanitarian emergencies.
A few years ago, when Whiteside and Alex de Waal, a British writer and activist, outlined the concept of HIV-induced famine there were few takers. Unlike traditional drought-related famines, which kill dependents first, HIV-related famine affects the most 'productive' family members first.
In 2002, senior UN officials trying to respond to one of the biggest food shortages in Southern Africa, when 14.4 million people faced the threat of starvation, acknowledged that the impact of HIV/AIDS would exacerbate the famine.
"The connection between HIV/AIDS and food security has not always been recognised. The food crisis is the manifestation of a larger HIV/AIDS crisis," Urban Jonsson, then UN Children's Fund Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, was quoted as saying by IRIN.
"But this time it is different," Whiteside told IRIN. "I am calling for the declaration of HIV/AIDS as a humanitarian emergency - not a global one, but in the most affected countries in Southern Africa."
Source:
http://www.irinnews.org
|
|
Puntland warns of looming humanitarian crisis ,
IRIN News - 2007-10-25
|
NAIROBI: Somalia's northeastern self-declared autonomous region of Puntland has appealed for assistance for hundreds of displaced families from Sool region, which was overrun by forces loyal to the self-declared republic of Somaliland on 15 October.
"We are issuing this appeal to assist the displaced from Sool who are scattered around Puntland," said Abdullahi Abdirahman, the head of Puntland Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management Agency (HADMA).
"We would like to alert our humanitarian partners of a developing situation before it becomes a crisis," he added, noting that HADMA had received reports of diarrhoea outbreaks among some displaced children.
According to a local journalist, the families were scattered in many parts of Puntland, with some reaching Bosasso, the Puntland commercial capital.
Abdirahman said a task force had been set up to monitor the situation of the internally displaced persons and to come up with exact figures. "Teams have been dispatched to all areas that have reported displaced from Sool and we should be able to come up with a better picture of the numbers involved."
Preliminary indications, he added, showed the displaced population was in urgent need of food, shelter, clean water and medicines.
Puntland and Somaliland have both laid claim to the disputed Sool region and the neighbouring Sanag region.
Tension between the two sides increased after the fall of Las Anod, the regional capital, to the Somaliland forces, prompting an estimated 20,000 people to flee their homes.
Source:
http://www.irinnews.org
|
|
Surprise ANC objections to land ownership study ,
Business Day - 2007-10-18
|
CAPE TOWN: Cabinet-backed plans to limit foreign ownership of land ran into unexpected opposition in Parliament yesterday, when African National Congress (ANC) MPs criticised aspects of a report drawn up by a team led by Prof Shadrack Gutto.
Their concerns echoed criticisms by the Democratic Alliance (DA), with one ANC MP warning against reintroducing race as a criterion for land ownership.
The report of GuttoÂ?s expert panel, appointed in 2004, was approved by the cabinet in July and has since been published for public comment. It controversially recommended that the race and gender of those purchasing land be recorded on title deeds.
This led opposition MPs to say that nearly 15 years after the Group Areas Act was scrapped, the ANC was poised to introduce race declarations into the law. Yesterday ANC MPs joined the DA in calling for race not be included in the Deeds Act.
Land affairs official Sipho Sibanda, briefing ParliamentÂ?s agriculture and land affairs committee on the report yesterday, said that race and gender were recommended for inclusion so that the government could use the information to judge the success of land reform.
ANC MPs also criticised the length of time taken for the investigation. Hardline ANC MP David Dlali was concerned that the Land Use Management Bill was the chosen instrument of the department for achieving some of the recommendations.
Â?Come on, guys, the land use bill was started in 2001 and has only reached cabinet this year. This is a critical issue but we do not know how you are going to deal (with) it. ItÂ?s a joke,Â? he said.
DA MP Maans Nel said that including race in the disclosures required by the Deeds Act amounted to the Â?re-racialisationÂ? of land ownership.
Â?You cannot go back to the past. This piecemeal approach is exactly how apartheid started,Â? Nel said.
He warned that property was the cornerstone of a free economy and the recommendations of the panel would result in disinvestment because banks would not grant loans in an uncertain environment.
ANC MP Salamuddi Abram said while he was in favour of controls over foreign land ownership Â?we must be extremely careful about returning into our law terms that caused considerable conflict in the past. To put race back into the law will be in conflict with the constitution.
Â?We should be talking about nationality and not race,Â? Abram said. Â?To put race back into the law will be in conflict with the constitution.Â?
He said the report and its recommendations were contradicted by the actions of the government. This was demonstrated by the fact that Cape TownÂ?s prime Waterfront was sold by the government to an Arab-English consortium and not retained for all South Africans.
Â?But please, in GodÂ?s name, let the terms black and Indian never again appear in SAÂ?s law,Â? Abram concluded.
DA MP Andries Botha wanted to know if with the introduction of race as part of the deeds disclosure there would also be a new race classification law.
Â?What are you going to do, go back to the pencil in the hair test? ItÂ?s ludicrous,Â? he said.
Sibanda, replying to the criticisms, said he appreciated the wisdom of the MPs but stuck to his guns on race being included because Â?we must look at the purpose for which it is included and that is to measure the success of land reformÂ?.
Botha criticised the claims by the investigation that once the corporate ownership of farms in SA was unravelled it would show even higher levels of foreign ownership than now appeared. He said most commercial farms were registered as companies or trusts, and when this was taken into account the probability was the foreign ownership of agricultural land would be reduced rather than increased.
His colleague, Kraai van Niekerk, said there were many points made in the report such as black people being persuaded to front for white buyers, and the indiscriminate sale of municipal land in return for favours that the DA agreed with.
Source:
http://www.businessday.co.za
|
|
Who will mediate in Zimbabwe?,
Reuters, Sapa-AP - 2007-10-02
|
DAKAR: Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said on Monday he would travel to Zimbabwe this month to recommend multilateral mediation by African heads of state to try to solve the crisis in the Southern African country.
Wade said he wanted to discuss with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe how African leaders, including himself and South African President Thabo Mbeki, could mediate between Mugabe and his opponents, both domestic and international.
"I'm going to go there in two weeks' time ... to talk with him [Mugabe] to see what Africa can do," the Senegalese president told a news conference in Dakar.
Wade said the situation in Zimbabwe was deteriorating, with inflation running at well over 6 000%, the highest rate in the world, and basic goods running short.
Mugabe (83) who has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980, rejects accusations that he has abused human rights and wrecked Zimbabwe's once-prosperous economy.
He accuses Western countries of sabotaging the economy as punishment for his seizure of white-owned farms to resettle landless blacks.
Wade, who like Mugabe is in his 80s, complained that there was no official African Union (AU) position on Zimbabwe and repeated his view that mediation should not be left to Mbeki alone.
A grouping of Southern African nations has mandated Mbeki to secure a deal on constitutional reform between Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change ahead of March 2008 presidential and parliamentary polls.
But Wade, who from his small West African country has often sparred with Mbeki over leadership on African issues, said Zimbabwe should be dealt with on a wider basis.
"Mbeki is a man of goodwill ... [but] we should tackle the problem at the level of several heads of state, including Thabo Mbeki," he said.
Wade said any mediation for Zimbabwe should also bring in former colonial power Britain, which had been party to a 1979 accord on reforms to end land ownership imbalances between blacks and whites.
Wade said the British government had stopped compensating white farmers under the land redistribution reform accord, while Mugabe had stepped up seizures of land without redress.
"I think that this method is not acceptable ... the whites should have compensation," Wade said.
Diplomats said the compensation from Britain had been halted because London felt Mugabe's government was no longer respecting its side of the 1979 Lancaster House accord which paved the way for independence.
Wade said the need for mediation in Zimbabwe was urgent.
"There are elections next year. Who will mediate between the government and opposition?" he added, speaking in English.
Wade said disagreements over how to deal with Zimbabwe were threatening an upcoming European Union/African Union summit planned for December in Lisbon, after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would not go if Mugabe attended.
'"I leave you with a promise'
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's central bank said on Monday it would help to restock empty store shelves by the end of the month.
Among the planned programmes were cheap loans to manufacturers to restore productivity, and hard currency payments to farmers to keep them in business.
"I leave you with a promise most basic goods should and will return to the shelves in the next three weeks," Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono said on state television.
Gono said the bank also planned to change the nation's currency, striking more zeros off bank notes for the second time since August of last year.
In June, the government issued an edict to slash prices on all goods and services by about half. This included a crackdown on overcharging in which more than 7 000 corporate executives, business managers, traders and bus drivers were arrested, jailed and fined for price violations.
The price cuts were meant to tame inflation. Instead, the effect was to worsen already acute shortages of food and basic goods in the crumbling economy.
Under a new central bank loan programme, producers and rural stores hard hit by supply shortages would be able to borrow funds to restore their businesses at the country's lowest interest rate of 25% over nine months.
To boost production of staple foods, the bank would help the government pay the world parity price of around $200 a tonne for maize and wheat, half in local currency and half in hard currency that could be used by farmers to buy their own fuel, fertiliser and imported materials, Gono said.
He said the price crackdown had caused fear and mistrust between the government and businesses and called for what he called for "a spirit of reconciliation and healing" in the economy.
He said many of the nation's economic difficulties were self-inflicted, including the price cuts and a programme to seize control of white and foreign-owned businesses.
In August last year, the central bank slashed three zeros from the currency and issued new denominations of notes after basic transactions became unmanageable and calculators and accounting systems could no longer cope with amounts traded.
Independent estimates put real inflation closer to 25 000% and the International Monetary Fund has forecast it reaching 100 000% by the end of the year. Bundles of bank notes are again common in basic purchases.
Gono said the zeros had now returned, again making transactions unwieldy. He said a new currency would be issued possibly in the next two weeks but gave no further details.
"It's a process that could turn into a hurricane for those who keep cash outside the banking system," Gono said. In the rampant black market, "cash barons and dealers are in the habit of creating mini central banks in their homes".
Gono said the printing of extra money, now a routine practice, contributed to inflation and was against "basic textbook economics".
"We are living in extraordinary times and extraordinary measures are needed. Once we are out of the corner, we will have no problem formulating policy playing by the book. But for now, the game is one of survival," he said.
Source:
http://www.mg.co.za
|
|
Small Island States, Least Developed Countries Seek Urgent Collective Action by General Assembly to Help Them Cope with Climage Change Impacts,
United Nations - 2007-09-27
|
NEW YORK: Alarmed that their countries were buckling under the physical impacts of global warming, and reeling from the heavy economic toll on local industries and livelihoods, leaders from several small island nations and least developed countries today challenged the General Assembly to take collective action to help them cope with the increasingly severe effects of climate change.
Emanuel Mori, President of the Federated States of Micronesia, emphasized that, long before the global warming issue had become Â?fashionableÂ?, his country had been on the front lines of those calling for action on what was now being acknowledged as a global emergency. Â?For years, we have argued that, as a small island developing State, we are among the most vulnerable -- climate change threatens our very existence,Â? he declared.
Collective -- and responsible -- action was now needed to save the planet, he stressed, and for such action to be effective, it must be carried out within the United Nations framework. At the same time, developed countries must provide adequate and additional funding to help small islands with their adaptation and mitigation strategies. To that end, the Federated States of Micronesia supported the appropriate institutional backing for the Adaptation Fund, established to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing-country parties to the Kyoto Protocol. The Fund should be responsive to the needs of small island developing States.
Highlighting measures that his country had undertaken, he said his Government had presented a proposal to enhance the effectiveness of the landmark Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. In addition, at the Eighth Conference of States Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau had showcased the Â?Micronesia ChallengeÂ?, a regional intergovernmental initiative that would facilitate more effective conservation of marine and forest resources. It aimed to conserve 30 per cent of near-shore coastal waters and 20 per cent of forest land by 2020. The Federated States of Micronesia was seeking international assistance and partnerships within and outside the region to overcome hurdles in implementing the Challenge.
Echoing that call, Camsek Chin, Vice-President of Palau, said ocean ecosystems provided the backbone for his island nationÂ?s existence, and efforts to eliminate the destructive practice of sea bottom trawling would be fruitless if rapid progress on climate change was not made at the international level. When temperatures increased, corals were bleached and seas rose, jeopardizing livelihoods and destroying identity, Â?we are no longer in total control of our own destinies,Â? he said.
He stressed that, given the particular vulnerability of small island developing States to the impacts of climate change, there was an absolute need to reach agreement on quantified emission reduction targets for the second implementation phase of the Kyoto Protocol. Targets must reflect the urgency of collective circumstances and be consistent with a mitigation framework that protected the most vulnerable parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It was imperative that the post-2012 regime address the mitigation of climate change impacts on small island developing States as a benchmark of its effectiveness.
The adverse affects of global warming, deforestation and increased salinity were already evident, said Fakhruddin Ahmed, Chief Adviser of the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh, noting that his country was still recovering from two devastating rounds of floods that had forced the evacuation of more than a million people earlier this month. The reality for Bangladesh was that 30 per cent of its land would be submerged if the Bay of Bengal rose just one metre.
Pointing out that floods like those occurring this year had become an annual calamity, he said the resilience of the Bangladeshi people and the quick mobilization of limited national resources had helped overcome the crisis. The Government envisaged that such action could become more difficult and enhanced international cooperation was therefore needed to alleviate the climate change burden.
Adding a developed-country perspective, David Milliband, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom, acknowledged that the poorest countries and people would suffer the greatest devastation from climate change. The United Kingdom called for urgent agreement by States on steps towards progress, and beyond that, for the development of a road map for the Conference of Parties to UNFCCC, scheduled for Copenhagen, where a global deal for the post-Kyoto period would be hammered out.
All countries should take on equitably distributed responsibilities, with the richest taking the greatest action, he explained. The United KingdomÂ?s climate change bill, to be enacted soon, would cut carbon emissions by at least 60 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050. Similar binding commitments by all rich nations were needed.
Also speaking today were the Presidents of Rwanda, Croatia, Serbia, Colombia, United Republic of Tanzania, Dominican Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Timor-Leste, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Cameroon, Guinea-Bissau, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and the Comoros.
The Prime Ministers of the Netherlands, Slovenia, Andorra, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, Albania, Viet Nam and Guinea also participated in the debate, as did the Vice-Presidents of Burundi, Liberia and Gambia.
Others addressing the Assembly were the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Kuwait and Togo.
Speaking in exercise of the right of reply were the representatives of Serbia and Albania.
The Assembly will reconvene at 9 a.m. tomorrow to continue its general debate.
Source:
http://www.un.org
|
|
Alleged fraudulent land claims discovered,
Sapa-AFP - 2007-09-26
|
JOHANNESBURG: At least forty people who were given land or who were compensated under government's land restitution programme might have made fraudulent land claims.
Regional land claims commissioner for Gauteng and North West, Tumi Seboka, said on Wednesday that the commission on restitution of land claims had received complaints about alleged fraudulent claims in the Payneville restitution project.
Seboka said it seemed some forty of the claimants in the project near Springs in Ekhuruleni, which was settled in 2000, might not have qualified for restitution.
"It seem there were misrepresentation by claimants in their affidavits, (claiming to be) rightful claimants as people who were dispossessed, when in fact it might be established that they were not the original owners of the stands or property at the time of dispossession," she said,
The Payneville project was one of government's premier restitution projects which saw people being offered an option of a serviced site in a housing development or financial compensation.
The rightful claimants were forcibly removed from the area by apartheid authorities in the 1950s and 1960s and relocated to the Kwa-Thema township.
Seboka said the commission would refer the matter to the police.
"The commission has concluded to take legal action and engage relevant security agencies to conduct forensic investigation and take appropriate legal action against those who would be found to have deliberately and intentionally defrauded government," she said.
Seboka hoped the case could be finalised before the end of December this year.
Source:
http://www.iol.co.za
|
|
SWAZILAND: Two-thirds of women beaten and abused ,
IRIN News - 2007-09-17
|
MBABANE: One in every three female Swazis has experienced some form of sexual violence before turning 18, and two out of three aged 18 to 24, according to the first national survey to chart the scope of sexual and other types of violence perpetrated against women and girls.
From infancy to until they turned 24, nearly half (48.2 percent) of Swazi women experienced some form of sexual violence, according to the National Survey on Violence Experienced by Female Children and Youths in Swaziland, conducted by the government, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
A key question in the survey was: "Has any adult ever kicked, bitten, slapped, hit you with a fist, threatened you with a weapon or thrown something at you?" The findings were the result of interviews with 1,300 women and girls aged between 13 and 24, randomly chosen from about 1,900 households across the country.
"We knew it was bad for women in Swaziland; we just did not have the statistical evidence to show how bad," said Primrose Tsabedze, a counsellor for abused women in the central town of Manzini.
Statistics from the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA), an NGO working to combat gender violence, have shown a steady rise in cases of violence against women during the past decade, which has been partly credited to better reporting of such crimes.
"Our statistics are based on our case loads," said Nonhlanhla Dlamini, a SWAGAA director. "We have always needed a national survey; that is why it is so important that one has now been done, even if the results are horrifying."
Why so much abuse?
Before the new constitution was adopted in 2006, Swazi women had the legal status of minors, and were unable to own property or open a bank account without the permission of a male relative or husband.
The traditionally low status of women has also been linked to the staggeringly high levels of HIV infection: 40 percent of adult Swazis are estimated to be HIV positive, the highest rate in the world.
Some observers blame worsening economic and humanitarian conditions in the country, along with the belief by some HIV-positive men that sleeping with a virgin girl can prevent AIDS, for the rise in violence against women and children.
Sexual coercion was common: six out of 10 Swazi females reported that they were forced into their first sexual experience; of these, five percent said they were raped or otherwise "forced".
Fear of violence
Women often submitted to unwanted sex out of fear of physical violence: about 28 percent of girls aged between 13 and 17 experienced physical violence, and the likelihood that they would be assaulted increased as they grew into adulthood, with 33 percent of women aged between 18 and 24 saying they were violence survivors.
Exposure to education was no protection against violence - 98 percent of women and girls who participated in the survey had been to school.
Abortion is illegal in Swaziland, and family planning is generally disdained by Swazi men: 29 percent of women and girls reported unwanted pregnancies but despite the multiplicity of sexual encounters reported by women under 24, only 12.9 percent of them were married.
Commenting on the preliminary survey report this week, United Nations Children's Agency (UNICEF) representative Jama Gulaid, said, "It is important to know the epidemiology of violence against children and women - how big the problem is, who is affected, when, where and possibly why. We need such information to improve our response."
The need for such a survey was raised in December 2006 by UNICEF's Swaziland office, which provided funding and technical support. The ministries of Health and Social Welfare, Education and Justice, NGOs like SWAGAA and World Vision, and other UN agencies such as UNAIDS, the UN Population Fund and the World Health Organisation, helped conduct the survey.
Little community support
Community support for sexually and physically abused women was also examined, to establish what might be required by way of safe houses, clinics and legal services.
"There is very little [support] available to women and girls who suffer violence," said Tsabedze, the Manzini counsellor. "The perpetrator is almost always a family member, and neighbours and authorities are reluctant to intervene in family matters."
The Deputy Prime Minister's Office told IRIN that the police have been sensitised to domestic violence issues in recent years, and had made arrests leading to convictions.
Since 2004, the Ministry of Education has run a four-digit toll-free telephone number (9664) for children experiencing abuse at school or at home. Callers receive basic on-line counselling, and cases are followed up by Regional Guidance Officers. Half of the callers have been boys, suggesting the need for a survey investigating abuse perpetrated against them.
However, use of the service has dropped drastically since its inception, indicating that reported abuse was either not being resolved or children have lost confidence in the initiative. Cases dropped by half from 2004, when they numbered 1,574, to 745 in 2006.
"Violence has a huge cost to society," said UNICEF's Gulaid. "The physical consequences include injuries to the body, and disability. The psychological consequences include alcohol and drug abuse, depression, anxiety, development delays, eating disorders, suicidal tendencies, feelings of shame and guilt."
The sexual and reproductive consequences include sexual dysfunction, unwanted pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases, he said, which was particularly dangerous in Swaziland, where over a quarter of sexually active Swazi adults are infected with the HI virus.
One of the saddest statistics reported by the survey was that 67 percent of Swazi women told researchers they felt depressed.
Source:
http://www.irinnews.org
|
|
Panel delivers land ownership recommendations,
BuaNews - 2007-09-03
|
PRETORIA: A panel of experts appointed to investigate the effects and extent of foreign land ownership in South Africa, have amongst others, recommended all potential property buyers disclose race, gender and nationality.
The Panel of Experts on the Development of Policy Regarding Land Ownership of Foreigners in South Africa was appointed in August 2004, due to uncertainty regarding how much land is owned by foreigners and its resulting impact on property markets.
The recommendations advise, amongst others, that all property owners - not only foreigners - be subject to Compulsory Disclosure Requirements.
The 10 member panel was chaired by Professor Shadrack Gutto, and tasked with gathering information on this issue, for the purpose of designing a policy and regulatory framework.
Speaking at the release of the panel's report and recommendations to the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs, panellist Mandla Mabuza told media on Monday, the process of gathering the relevant information has been a great challenge.
"It has not been an easy process, this is a very complex subject as this is a very contentious issue," said Mr Mabuza.
"It is entirely up to the Department [of Agriculture and Land Affairs] in what it does in terms of possible legislation or policy framework," said Mr Mabuza.
Explaining some of the recommendations contained in the report, fellow panellist Professor Dirk Kotz, said the investigation itself took a lot longer than was initially expected.
"[One] of the difficulties we encountered [as part of our mandate was] in terms of trying to identify the nature of foreign ownership and the extent of foreign land ownership in South Africa," noted Mr Kotz,.
The panel's focus, he said, was firstly on the nature and extent of foreign ownership and also how it impacts on other forms of property ownership, with a focus on resulting property price escalations.
Foreign land ownership and its affect on the issue of land transformation in South Africa, was also probed.
"We looked at how ownership of residential, urban and rural agricultural land affects land reform in general," said Prof Kotz,.
He explained that Cabinet has instructed the panel to make the report and its recommendations open for the set 30 days of public scrutiny. The report has been published in the Government Gazette.
The general public can then provide the Panel with comments and feedback, whereafter the panel will finalise the report.
It was also recommended that Special Ministerial Approval be sought for certain changes in land use, especially if the changes impact negatively on land reform.
The establishment of a permanent Inter-Ministerial Oversight Committee was also suggested, to monitor trends in foreign ownership.
The panel called for the outright prohibition on foreign ownership in classified and protected areas, and also called for a Limited Temporary Moratorium of approximately two years prohibiting the disposal of state land to foreigners and also South Africans who do not qualify under national land reform policies.
The panel found fronting by land owners and businesses as an issue that can undermine Government's policy on land reform and regulation of foreign land ownership.
After visiting and studying land ownership policies in countries including Canada, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, England and Scotland, the panel concluded that Government "may consider medium and long-term leases of public land as a viable mechanism for future acquisition of land use by foreigners."
Whilst the report noted that about 1 percent of South Africa's privately owned land was in foreign hands, statistics on property ownership by foreign corporations are "incomplete and extremely difficult to collect and interpret."
The panel's previous report, released in mid-February 2006, did not attract much public comment.
The earlier version mentioned South Africans were of the opinion that foreign land ownership contributed significantly to the lack of readily available and affordable land for reform
Source:
http://www.buanews.gov.za
|
|
|
|
