AIDS seen as new threat to African democracy

By Bate FelixMon Jun 4, 5:55 AM ET
AIDS may be killing elected officials in some Southern African countries faster than they can be replaced, creating a new threat to democracy and governance in the region, a new study said.
The Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) said a study of mortality patterns in South Africa, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania and Senegal indicated Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis was reaching deep into elected governments.
"Our findings have shown there has been a sharp rise in the number of elected leaders that have died prematurely of illness," Kondwani Chirambo, head of the governance and AIDS program at IDASA, said at a recent conference in Cape Town.
"If you compare the trends before the onset of the pandemic and after, we do see that patterns of death mimic the mortality pattern of the general population," he said.
Chirambo's research casts a new light on southern Africa's HIV/AIDS problem as South Africa prepares for its biannual AIDS conference in Durban, which begins on Tuesday.
While the epidemic's toll in human lives and medical expense is well documented, the study showed that HIV/AIDS is also responsible for political power shifts and extra strain on treasuries that have to organize by-elections, IDASA said.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for about 25 million of the 39 million people worldwide infected with HIV/AIDS, a crisis that is increasingly felt across social classes.
Few deaths of public figures in Africa are openly attributed to HIV/AIDS, reflecting the deep stigma that continues to accompany the disease across the continent.
But signs are AIDS is taking its toll among politicians, just as it is with ordinary Africans.
In Malawi, a recent study showed that a total of 42 MPs have died between 1994 and 2006. In an official statement in 2000, the speaker of the national assembly attributed 28 of these deaths to AIDS-related causes, Chirambo said.
In neighboring Zambia, in the 20-year period between independence in 1964 and the first reported AIDS case in 1984, only 14 out of 46 by-elections were held as a result of death. Between 1985 and 2003, 102 by-elections have been held and, of those, 39 were a result of officials dying in office.
Between 1994 and 2006, 23 vacancies have been recorded in the South African parliament as a result of death.
Alan Whiteside, director of health economics and the HIV/AIDS research division at the University of KwaZulu Natal, said the new research showed the pandemic is having a cumulative impact on Africa's institutions but that many countries are not equipped to deal with it.
"HIV/AIDS is having an impact not just on electoral institutions, but also on government and governance, and we have underestimated this impact," Whiteside told Reuters in an interview.


Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

Research Paper on Uganda

BACKGROUND

The Republic of Uganda is located in the heart of Sub-Sahran Africa. This landlocked country is strategically positioned within East and Central Africa - Kenya to the east, Sudan to the north, Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) to the west and Rwanda and Tanzania to the south. The capital is Kampala. Uganda is 241,139 square kilometers with water including swamps and the northern half of Lake Victoria, the source of the White Nile making up approximately 44,000 square kilometers. The population of Uganda is estimated at 26 million (2003).

Most Ugandans come from integration of various African ethnic groups. There are four main ethnic groups which all have different origins. By far the largest in number, the Bantus, who came from the west, include the tribes of Buganda, Banyankole, Basoga, Bakiga, Batoro, Banyoro, Banyarwanda, Bagisu, Bagwere and Bakonjo. The Nilotics, who came from the north, include the Lango, Acholi, Alur, Padhola, Lulya and Jonam. The NiloHamitics include the Teso, Karamojong, Kumam, Kakwa, Sebei, Pokot, Labwor and Tepeth and the Sudanics include the Lugbara, Madi and Lendu. According to the CIA World factbook the religious make-up of Uganda is Roman Catholic 33%, Protestant 33%, Muslim 16%, indigenous beliefs 18%. English is the official language, but is spoken by a minority. Swahili and Luganda are most widely spoken.
Source: http://www.government.go.ug/static/history.htm

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS
Infant mortality: 79 per 1,000 live births (2001)
Maternal mortality: 510 per 100,000 live births (2001)
Life expectancy: 43.9 years male, 45.4 years female (2001)
Illiteracy: 21.9 percent male, 41.0 percent female (2001)
Access to basic care: 50-79 percent (access to essential drugs) (1999)
Access to safe water: 52 percent (access to an improved water source) (2000)
Human development index value: 0.489 (2001)
Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2003

COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSPORTATION
The international airport is at Entebbe, on Lake Victoria, some 40 km from Kampala. There are also several small airstrips. East African Airlines, Kampala, operates services to Africa and the Middle East.

In 1992 there were 1,241 km of 1000-mm gauge track in operation. A programme to rehabilitate the railway network is underway. In 1985 there was a total road network of 28,332 km, including 7,782 km of main roads and 18,508 km of secondary roads. About 22 percent of the roads were paved.

In 2001 it was estimated that there were 63,700 main telephone lines in use and 322,700 mobile telephone subscribers.
Source: Europa World Year Book 2003

ECONOMIC INDICATORS
GDP: $6.2 billion (2002)
Per capita: $250 (2002)
Growth: 5.7 percent (2002)
Inflation: 1.0 percent (2002)
Debt: $3.4 billion (2001)
Defence budget: $153 million (2003)
Defence expenditure: $167 million (2002)
Currency: Uganda shilling (USh). Ush510 = US$1
Source: Military Balance 2003/2004, IISS

The main exports are coffee (the chief export crop), cotton, tea and tobacco while the country imports mainly machinery, military equipment and supplies, construction materials, oil, vehicles, medical supplies. Its major export partners are United States and Western Europe and major import partners are Kenya, Britain, Germany and Italy.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
The chief of state and head of government is the President, Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta MUSEVENI since seizing power on January 26, 1986. The Prime Minister since April 5, 1999 is Apollo NSIBAMBI. The Cabinet is made up of elected legislators who are appointed by the president. The last presidential election was held on March 12, 2001 with Museveni gaining a 70.1% majority.

Legislative branch: Unicameral National Assembly (303 members - 214 directly elected by popular vote, 81 nominated by legally established special interest groups [women 56, army 10, disabled 5, youth 5, labor 5], 8 ex officio members; members serve five-year terms). Elections were last held June 26, 2001 and are due May or June 2006. The National Resistance Movement gained a 69.3% majority. At present there are fifteen (15) Ministries in addition to the Department of Information, the National Movement Secretariat, the Office of the President, Office of the Prime Minister and of the Vice President.

Judicial branch: Court of Appeal (judges are appointed by the president and approved by the legislature); High Court (judges are appointed by the president). Legal and court systems heavily influenced by British common law and practice, supplemented by Islamic law and customary institutions and laws. Supreme Court of Uganda is the highest court, below which are series of appeals courts; civil disputes are dealt with by local resistance committees.

Administrative Divisions: Uganda is divided into 56 districts, 150 counties, 129 municipal governing units.

Politics: The Republic of Uganda gained its independence from the Britain on October 9, 1962. Since independence the country has so far seen a total number of 7 Presidents with 8 regimes. Uganda has a one party system as organized political activity was suspended in 1986.

Foreign Relations: Nonaligned foreign policy; enthusiastic supporter of African and regional economic and political cooperation. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni was elected chair of Organization of African Unity (OAU) in July 1990.


MILITARY STATISTICS
Armed forces: 60,000 active forces. All services comprise the Ugandan People's Defence Force.Paramilitary: 1,800 active forces (estimated); includes the Border Defence Unit, Marines and Police Air Wing
Army: 60,000 forces with 190 main battle tanks
Air Wing: 15 combat aircraft and 6 armed helicopters
Opposition rebels: Lord's Resistance Army is estimated to have 1,500 forces with about 200 in Uganda and the rest in Sudan. The Allied Democratic Front has 200 forces
Source: Military Balance 2003/2004, IISS

ANALYSIS
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Like many African countries, Uganda has had a history of instability and civil war. This instability and authoritarian rule have undermined both democratic norms and institutions in the country. Under the leadership of Idi Amin (1971-79) and Milton Obote (1979-85), some 400,000 Ugandans were killed in acts of political violence. Underlying this violence were deep ethnic and tribal divisions that continue to pose a threat to political stability and democratic politics in Uganda. This is compounded by the fact that there are about 40 different tribes within the country. Also contributing to the ethnic mix are Rwandan, Sudanese, Congolese and Kenyan minorities. Prior to 1986, northern leaders, most of them Nilotic in origin, dominated Ugandan politics. Museveni and most of his closest colleagues, however, are generally from the southern and western Bantu groups.

In addition to these tribal/ethnic cleavages, the Ugandan polity has also been weakened by the politicization of religious identification. Divisions between Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim communities have in the past contributed to the chronic political instability of Uganda politics. In an effort to limit the politicization of ethnic and religious divisions within Uganda, since 1986 President Museveni has advocated a "no-party" political system, he has asserted that he is leader of a “Movement” - The National Resistance Movement (NRM).

The ideology of the "no-party" system is that it will be all-inclusive as it was felt that majoritarian democracy exacerbates religious and ethnic tensions in Africa. However, the opposition contends that such a system has become a one-party system which allows the "Movement" to institutionally entrench itself and guarantee its own leaders' domination of the political agenda. The 1995 constitution allows political parties to exist in name, but outlaws all the activities normally associated with political parties. According to Freedom House, in a June 2000 referendum, over 90% of voters chose to continue the "Movement" system for five more years; less than 10% of the electorate supported a return to a multi-party system. However, less than 50% of the electorate participated in the vote. Most of the opposition boycotted the vote because they claimed that the ban on party political activity and the lack of funds for arguing in favor of multi-party politics meant that they could not effectively get their message to the electorate, just as they cannot compete fairly in general elections.

In an attempt to ease the growing political tension in Uganda, President Museveni established a Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) in 2001 to examine possible adaptations to the constitution. Among the issues being examined are the future of political parties, federalism, the size of parliament, voter and candidate eligibility and most importantly the two-term presidential limitation. Speculation is rife however, that President Museveni will seek to lift the existing two-term presidential limit in time for elections in 2006 despite the fact that he has been ruling for 18 years.

In May 2002 the Political Parties and Organizations Act was passed by parliament. The new law, aimed at regulating opposition parties, requires all existing parties to re-register themselves or be deemed illegal. Moreover, the law prohibits parties from opening offices below the national level, restricts activities to their respective headquarters and allows them only one delegate conference per year. In March 2003 the Constitutional Court deemed this law to be illegal. Openly flouting this legal decision, in April 2003 the government claimed all active political parties to be illegal because they had failed to re-register.

In addition to institutional restrictions that favor President Museveni's incumbency, it is reported that the regime systematically represses, obstructs, and intimidates opposition activists. International organizations have reported unlawful arrests and beatings of opposition politicians and their supporters by the police, the military and armed civilians. Opposition supporters are frequently detained and held without charge by security forces. Human Rights Watch, earlier this year, stated that the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) has been committing abuses against civilians including “arbitrary detention, torture, rape and stealing.” It also notes that a few civilians have filed actions for damages whilst noting that the Uganda Human Rights Commission and the judiciary have been making progress toward better protection of the rights of individual from state power. At the same time, the government continues to fight insurgent forces based mainly in the north, some religious-based, others ethnically-based, and others political. Inter-ethnic violence in Uganda, particularly in the country's southwest between the indigenous Banyoro and the immigrant Bakiga. It has been reported that regional tensions have diminished somewhat since 2003, as Ugandan military forces withdrew from the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These units had been sent to suppress rebels who had been perpetrating attacks across the border into Uganda. International human rights groups, however, have criticized Uganda for continuing to support armed militias in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

THE ECONOMY
In recent times, the country has attracted much attention and political visibility for its significant economic recovery after a catastrophic decline. During 1990-2001, the economy turned in a solid performance attributed to continued investment in the rehabilitation of infrastructure, improved incentives for production and exports, reduced inflation, gradually improved domestic security, and the return of exiled Indian-Ugandan entrepreneurs.

Uganda has often been held up as a model by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In fact the IMF notes that the country under Museveni has experienced a “remarkable recovery”. However major challenges facing the country are reducing poverty disparities, promoting rural development and service, improving governance and accelerating the development of infrastructure. The Bank also cautions that “the risks of corruption and military distribution cloud the future and the sustainability of past growth rates and poverty reduction is uncertain,” (Executive Summary: Uganda – Policy, Participation, People p. xvi)

CHALLENGES TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Uganda has 1.5 million people living with HIV or AIDS. The country was the only sub-Saharan African country to have subdued a major HIV/AIDS epidemic. UNAIDS reported that adult HIV rates continued to fall from 8.3% at the end of 1999 to 5% at the end of 2001. An estimated 880,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS, the organisation said in 2002. At the same time communicable diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis continue to pose a challenge to the sustainable development of the country.

According to the United Nations, over one million people are displaced in Uganda. More than half a million have been affected by drought. Another 200,000 refugees, mainly Sudanese, live in the country. Since July 2002 and during most of 2003, the humanitarian situation in Uganda has worsened. The situation looks equally bleak for 2004, due to the expansion of the Lord's Resistance Army's (LRA) attacks into the Teso sub-region. The LRA has continued to use its bases in southern Sudan to launch attacks into northern districts, and now four central eastern districts too.

On October 27, 2004 the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda signed a tripartite agreement signed to promote security in the conflict-wracked Great Lakes region of Africa. It is hoped that the peace will last so that the gains made in the economy will not be eroded as it is well known that poverty breeds conflict.

Non-Governmental Organizations make a substantial contribution to Uganda's social, cultural, and political life. However NGOs complain of the stringent legal restrictions as well as the registration process. By extension, according to Freedom House, an array of essential workers are barred from forming unions. Strikes are permitted only after a lengthy reconciliation process. However the country’s largest labour federation, the National Organization of Trade Unions is independent of the government and political parties.

SUMMARY
It is indisputable that Uganda, led by Museveni, has had some success in terms of the economy, HIV/Aids and ethnic tension. However corruption, which has been an intractable problem in many countries, especially where it has become systemic to the point where many in government service have a stake in its continuance, seems to be a major challenge facing the Museveni administration. It is not unnoticeable that a Directorate for Ethics and Integrity has been established in the Office of the President in 2003 with a vision of “building a self-reliant society, sharing common ethical values, standards and unity of purpose enjoying sustainable development resulting from good governance and strong effective institutions and systems,” (Speech by the Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity presented at the Uganda Consultative Group Meeting May 14-18, 2003). I am heartened by Museveni’s speech to the United Nations earlier this year where he declared that “I salute freedom and equality of all peoples of the World. Anybody with ambitions to dominate other human beings or exploit them has got illegitimate ambitions.” I believe his heart is in the right place but it will take determination and commitment to address the issues that divide Ugandans.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

The CIA World Factbook: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ug.html

Datta Mitra, J.: Uganda – Policy, Participation and People. The World Bank, Washington DC 2001
Elections in Uganda: http://www.electionworld.org/uganda.htm
Europa World Year Book 2003

Freedom House: http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2004/countryratings/uganda.htm
Government of Uganda: http://www.government.go.ug
_ http://www.myuganda.co.ug/
Museveni, Yoweri K: http://www.museveni.co.ug/reader.php?process=speeches&speechSpec=3

Onyango-Obbo, Charles: Uganda Elections Are Like Going For Kwanjula After 15 Years published in The Monitor, Mar. 21, 2001 http://www.africanews.com/article457.html
The Military Balance 2003/2004, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London
UNDP Human Development Report 2003
UNAIDS: http://www.unaids.org/EN
UN Consolidated Appeal Programme: http://www.un.org/Depts/ocha/cap/uganda.html

Unity Without Freedom is a Sham

Following is a New Year reflection by Jesuit Communications regarding the political situation in the southern African nation.

The prisoners in a police cell are certainly united. They all use the same bucket, eat the same 'chikafu' (food), suffer the same insults, feel the same hardships and yet share the same hope of regaining their freedom. But that is not the unity we mean.

In recent days, Zimbabwe has been fed with propaganda about Unity, meaning the Unity Accord signed on 22 December 1987 between the ruling party and its rival, ad nauseam. Even the dead had to be brought back to (electronic) life on the TV screen to sing the same 'Unity' tune: Joshua Nkomo especially, Simon Muzenda and Canaan Banana. (Do we no longer respect the dead and their eternal peace? They, of course, are defenceless and cannot protest about how their recorded words and images are being taken out of context and manipulated.)
Unity without freedom is a sham. True unity is based on the free, unforced agreement of the united. The fusion of two political parties may or may not be appropriate. It is not national unity.

The unity of a people is expressed and realized in a constitutional state to which all can subscribe, in a constitution which has the support in its essential parts of all citizens, in the acceptance of a Bill of Rights guaranteeing equality before the law for all, based on a firm belief in the inalienable dignity and worth of every person, of every woman, man and child.
Christmas which we celebrated just now gives us the ultimate reason why every person must be respected as of infinite worth and dignity: if God, as we Christians believe, became Man and accepted our human condition, the same in all things as us humans except for our sinfulness, then every human being has been given infinite value as a son or daughter of God the Father and a brother or sister of Christ, the Son.

The constant manipulation of our (admittedly inadequate) constitution for short-term political gains and the unwillingness of government to allow the people to write their own constitution show complete lack of respect for the people.

What the 'Unity' propagandists have not been telling us is that it was also in 1987 that the executive presidency, then introduced, was given uncontrollable powers. This has alienated the majority from this state. There is division in fundamentals, not unity.

We did not find unity in 1987. We are still to find it in a constitutional agreement sometime in the future. May the year 2006 bring us nearer to that day.

The White Man and the New South Africa

By Laurie Goering Tribune foreign correspondent Sun Jul 17, 9:40 AM ET

Worried about surging violent crime and the future of his two young daughters, Steve Wimberley six years ago quit his veterinary practice in South Africa, flew to England and soon tracked down a new job in Portsmouth.
It was a very nice job, in a very nice place," he recalled.
But when he flew home to pack for the move, "I never could settle with it. I was so uneasy. The decision kept me up," he said.
Finally, after a week of sleepless nights, staring out into what he called "the beautiful African night," the fourth-generation South African abandoned his plans to emigrate.
"I decided my heart was here," the 42-year-old recalled. "I've never regretted that decision for a minute."
More than a decade after the end of apartheid, white South Africans still are weighing their future in a society where creating economic clout for the country's long-repressed black majority has become the top national priority.
Under broad affirmative action programs, blacks are favored for the civil service jobs whites used to take for granted. White business people are obliged to hire black subcontractors, train black employees and sell shares of their companies to black co-owners or face losing government contracts.
The country's black leaders are pushing for what a ruling
African National Congress' name=c1>SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3>
African National Congress briefing paper calls a "critical mass of common culture and cultural practices." Whites who fail to back the ANC's transformation efforts and adapt to the country's changing culture, leaders suggest, may ultimately no longer be considered South Africans.
For South Africa's 4 million whites--many from centuries-old South African families or white communities that fled unwelcoming African countries such as Zimbabwe--the prospect of becoming unwelcome in the last white stronghold in Africa is chilling.
"There can be no more fundamental threat to a community's sense of security than to declare them, even in a roundabout way, unwanted aliens in their own country," Max du Preez, a white columnist for Johannesburg's Star newspaper, wrote recently.
When President Robert Mugabe of neighboring Zimbabwe declares that his nation "is for black people, not white people," and South Africa's leaders fail to rebuke him, "this drives a red-hot poker through the hearts of white South Africans, especially those with no cultural, emotional or family links with any country outside Africa," du Preez said.
Deeply rooted traditions
Africa, at the start of a new century, is struggling to find ways to make itself a success. Its leaders, eager to ease the continent's persistent poverty, promote peace and development and prove that black leaders can solve Africa's problems, are sorting through deeply rooted cultural traditions, colonial-era legacies and the demands of a newly globalized world, searching for African answers to the continent's woes.
Where Africa's dwindling number of whites fits into the continent's future remains in question. For 50 years, the famed Freedom Charter of South Africa's multiracial African National Congress has insisted that "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white." Most South Africans, black and white, believe that, and believe that a non-racist, if not exactly non-racial, future is possible.
But some whites are nervous. South African President Thabo Mbeki has been quick to dismiss criticism of his government, particularly by white opposition figures, as racist. His failure to denounce economic misrule and human-rights violations in Zimbabwe, his suggestions that the country's judiciary needs to be less independent and more in tune with the ANC's programs, and his hints that English-speaking white South Africans may not be as genuinely African as their Afrikaner counterparts have all raised fears about the future of whites and non-racial democracy in South Africa.
"It's undermined confidence," said Helen Suzman, a white liberal icon of the anti-apartheid struggle, and now a critic of the ANC government. During more than four decades of apartheid, a steady flow of whites left South Africa "because they didn't like the system," she said. "Now a lot are leaving because they don't like their prospects."
Fifty years after white colonial rule in Africa began to collapse, relatively few whites remain in sub-Saharan Africa. In Kenya, a former white stronghold, Europeans, Asians and Arabs combined now make up less than 1 percent of the population. Zimbabwe has lost nearly three-quarters of a million whites in recent years; today just 35,000 remain.
In places such as Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Zambia, whites are so few that census takers no longer bother counting them as a separate racial category. In total, sub-Saharan Africa has less than 5 million whites, out of a total population of more than 600 million people.
Many whites have left as colonial-era jobs and privileges disappeared. Some have fled wars, crime, declining living standards or collapsing economies. Others have become political targets, particularly in places such as Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe.
In South Africa, at least a quarter-million whites have emigrated since the end of apartheid a decade ago. But the country remains home to 80 percent of the continent's white community, and after a decade of relative peace and prosperity, most of those who remain say they hope they are here to stay.
Unlike whites in much of the rest of Africa, most have nowhere else to go. In particular, the country's millions of Afrikaners--descendants of primarily Dutch and French immigrants who began arriving 400 years ago--speak a language used nowhere else in the world and have no family ties anywhere else.
While some English-speaking whites--like Wimberley, who almost emigrated--have the right to British or other passports through ancestral ties, "there's no other place for us," says Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, an Afrikaner political analyst. "I wouldn't know where to start looking."
Because of their long history in the country, whites in South Africa--unlike in most African countries--rarely are seen as outsiders. The ruling ANC was formed nearly a century ago as a multiracial organization, and whites numbered among the country's most prominent anti-apartheid fighters.
Commitment to a multiracial society also is long-standing and considered a "high moral principle" within the ANC. At the Rivonia trial, where he was sentenced to life in prison in the 1960s, Nelson Mandela insisted he was opposed to white domination and to black domination. Mandela, the former president, said then that he was prepared to die to achieve his cherished ideal "of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunity."
Fears of exclusion
In South Africa, "it's taken for granted that both white and black people live here and always will," said Xolela Mangcu, executive director of the social cohesion and identity unit of the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa. Even after the ugly apartheid years, white fears of being forced out are unfounded, he insisted.
The tougher question is how comfortably whites may continue to fit into a country run by a ruling party bent on uniting all South Africans behind its policies and ensuring that the country's long-disenfranchised black majority gets ahead.
The ANC last month held a national party meeting on what it calls "the national question," or how to unite South Africans behind a common culture.
Leaders of the ANC, which already enjoys the backing of about 70 percent of South Africans, say bringing the rest of the country on board is crucial to achieving party aims and uplifting the country's black majority, still suffering from high poverty and unemployment rates.
"The ANC must intensify the mobilization of the whole of South African society behind a program of fundamental change," Mbeki insisted at the meeting's opening.
Critics, however, warn that the dominant ANC's growing demand for consensus and impatience with dissent could result in those who refuse to sign onto the party's aims being dismissed as less-than-genuine South Africans.
Mbeki has said he believes Afrikaners and black Africans can work together because "they share common African roots and are tied to our country by an emotional bond." That remarkable discovery of common ground with the ethnic group that spawned apartheid comes on the heels of a decision by the New National Party--the modern progeny of the hated apartheid National Party--to disband and fold itself into the ANC.
But while Afrikaners "are embracing the new South Africa and Africanism," according to the ANC, English-speaking whites--including many active in the liberation struggle and now vocal in their criticism of the government--have been increasingly dismissed as racists, and as perhaps less-than-African.
"Mbeki is so delighted to have swallowed up the NNP that he's embraced [Afrikaners] while the people who fought against apartheid are brushed aside with contempt," Suzman said.
What worries many whites is that if the ANC's undisputed power is genuinely threatened, the party could follow Mugabe's lead and blame whites for the country's failures in an effort to divert attention from anti-government discontent.
"We could quickly see the ANC resort to the old African style of eliminating the opposition. I think that's a fairly realistic possibility down the line," Wimberley acknowledged. "I'm pretty optimistic about this country, but you never know. Things could turn at any time."
Most South African political analysts, however, say they believe such a scenario is very unlikely. South Africa, a much larger and more economically powerful nation than Zimbabwe, has a vibrant civil society, a strong independent news media and entrenched governmental institutions that so far serve as an effective check on the ANC administration.
Just as important, "everyone here can see what's happening in Zimbabwe doesn't solve a thing," said van Zyl Slabbert, the Afrikaner political analyst. By attacking whites and other political opponents in an effort to cling to power, an increasingly unpopular Mugabe has instead driven his once-prosperous country to the brink of economic collapse.
New class of blacks
One change seen as encouraging for whites in South Africa is that class is fast catching up with race as the country's major dividing line. Economic affirmative action policies--known as black economic empowerment--have created a new class of wealthy black business magnates, and a growing South African economy has slowly allowed an increasing number blacks to join the middle class.
Congestion on Johannesburg's roads is growing as more black South Africans buy cars. Middle-class blacks are moving into formerly all-white neighborhoods, buying homes with swimming pools, hiring maids and putting their children in private schools, just like their white neighbors.
At the same time, poorly educated whites--once first in line for government jobs under apartheid--are joining the lines of black beggars at traffic lights and moving into black townships such as Soweto, which are more affordable.
Challenge to create jobs
In South Africa, "race is increasingly not the issue," van Zyl Slabbert said. Instead, the challenge is to create enough economic growth and new jobs to lift the country's still struggling majority rather than just a fortunate black minority.
How well South Africa succeeds in that effort will largely determine what the future looks like for white--as well as black--South Africans. If the country's immense poverty and joblessness are left unchecked, whites and their new middle-class black neighbors may move in ever-greater numbers into the posh walled neighborhoods springing up at Johannesburg's fringes, hoping guards and electric wire can keep the desperate poor away.
Failure to improve life for South Africa's impoverished majority could lead to a populist backlash that would reverse the country's commitment to free markets and leave everyone poorer, economists warn. Similarly, affirmative action programs, if kept up too long, could eventually drive whites--and investment--away.
What is likely is that race will be less of an issue for South Africa's children than for its older generations raised under apartheid. Wimberley's daughters study with black and white classmates and have neighbors and friends of various races.
"It will take years for the hang-ups of race to leave this country," Wimberley warned. "But I know my children have far less hang-ups than we ever had. That's a positive."

Editorial

Mugabe needs to be thrown out

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Tomorrow, when Zimbabweans go to the polls to elect 120 members of their 150-seat parliament, we hope they will send a loud and strong message to President Robert Mugabe that they will no longer tolerate his despotic rule of that southern African country.

We hope too, that the people of Zimbabwe will not cower in fear at Mr Mugabe's scare tactics, which he seems to revel in utilising to disrupt the democratic process at each election.

This newspaper has, in the past, expressed its disappointment with Mr Mugabae's behaviour. Not only has he trampled on the rights of his people by trying to silence opposition, but he has also undermined institutions, thereby creating the kind of tension that can explode into civil disorder and plunge Zimbabwe further into poverty.

Mr Mugabe, according to wire service reports, made his latest tyrannical utterance yesterday at a rally in Bindura when he told 15,000 supporters of his ruling ZANU-PF party that a win by the Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would "not be tolerated".

The day before, at a rally in Mutoko, he branded as "traitors", everyone who intended to vote for the MDC in tomorrow's elections.

Mr Mugabe knows very well that this kind of inflammable rhetoric will spur members of his party and its feared youth militia to take violent action against Opposition supporters and candidates. For, it has happened in the past.

While the election campaign thus far has not seen the level of violence experienced in the 2000 parliamentary elections and the 2002 presidential vote, Mr Mugabe, it appears, would not mind his supporters using their "sticks" to "beat out the snakes" among them, as he so viciously instructed after an election victory in 1985.

But really, what else could we have expected of this bully whose security forces last Sunday arrested 146 Opposition supporters after a campaign event; has shut down most independent media in Zimbabwe while using state resources for campaigning; and whose government has threatened to withhold food aid to Opposition supporters?

Frankly, with each passing day, Mr Mugabe appears more of a demented tyrant wallowing in corruption while Zimbabwe, which many people, including Jamaicans, helped in the tough struggle against apartheid, continues to collapse.

The world should not allow him to continue destroying the democracy that so many fought to achieve.

Taken from the Jamaica Observer

Elections in Zimbabwe

So in a few days the people of Zimbabwe will go to the polls! Will they oust Mugabe as people in some quarters have been urging or will the world see more of the toughness of the African demi-god? Who knows? The results surely will be telling as well as interesting.

What's next for Sudan

Sudan: UN Urges Larger African Peacekeeping Force for Darfur


UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
March 18, 2005 Posted to the web March 18, 2005
Nairobi

An 8,000-strong African Union (AU) peacekeeping force with an enhanced mandate would be needed to protect the nearly two million displaced people in the western Sudanese region of Darfur and bring stability to the volatile area, a UN spokesperson said on Friday.
"Jan Pronk [the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for the Sudan] felt that, for the AU [African Union] to strengthen its role in Darfur, it would need to expand its capacity to 8,000 troops and adopt a mandate with a stronger focus on protection," Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for the UN Advance Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS), told IRIN.

"When you look at their [the AU] experience on the ground, whenever they were there, such as in Labado [a town in South Darfur which suffered some of the worst fighting in recent months], the situation stabilised," Achouri added.
An AU-led assessment team, consisting of senior AU, UN, EU (European Union) and US officials, arrived in Addis Ababa on Friday, having completed a week-long assessment of peacekeeping requirements in Darfur. The team was expected to finalise its joint report over the next few days.
"The assessment team looked with satisfaction at the situation in local communities in which the AU was present," Nourreddine Mezni, spokesman of the AU in Khartoum told IRIN on Friday, adding that the AU presence had encouraged local communities and internally displaced persons to resume their normal life activities.
A preliminary observation by the assessment team, Mezni noted, was that, given the current AU troop strength of 2,193 soldiers, the mission was doing the utmost within the possibilities of their limited resources.
"The assessment mission is looking at ways to enhance the performance of AMIS [African Union Mission in Darfur] and it is understood that proposals to increase the size of its force are part of that discussion," Mezni added.
Pronk was in Luxembourg to meet with the EU ministers to request technical, financial and logistical support for the AU forces in Darfur, and EU troop commitments for the proposed UN peace support mission for southern Sudan.
"If the AU would agree to expand their number of troops in Darfur, additional support is needed, as it would pose a considerable burden on the African countries that are providing the troops," Achouri added.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council on Thursday extended the mandate of UNAMIS by a week, after having done the same on 10 March, while its members discussed the establishment of the peace mission for southern Sudan.

A draft resolution, prepared by the US, seeks to authorise the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force of over 10,000 soldiers for southern Sudan, impose targeted sanctions on individuals responsible for atrocities in Darfur and specify where to try the perpetrators.