Essential The Africa the Media Doesn't Tell You About

[Poitier]

Zuma battles to save presidency as dirt piles up and ANC warns of 'mafia state'; top party organ meets this weekend

17 MAR 2016 16:14MIKE COHEN, FRANZ WILD, BLOOMBERG

2200
While some ANC members want Zuma to go, his allies dominate the committee and he has shrugged off a succession of previous scandals. He will be looking for his proverbial ninth life this weekend. (Photo/ File)

JACOB Zuma faces a battle to save his presidency as ruling party leaders prepare for a showdown this weekend over a controversy engulfing the government that one top official said is threatening to turn South Africa into a “mafia state.”

The meeting of the African National Congress’s decision-making National Executive Committee comes after revelations that the Guptas, who are Zuma’s family friends and business partners of his son, offered ministerial posts to ruling party officials.

On Wednesday, Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas said he rejected a proposal made personally by the Gupta brothers that he take over the finance ministry position.

“We need to deal with this; it will degenerate into a mafia state if this goes on,” ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe told Bloomberg Thursday by phone. “The fact we are talking about this so boldly now shows that things are going to change.”

The country’s worst political crisis since the NEC recalled Thabo Mbeki as president in 2008 comes at a time when the economy is threatened with recession and hovering close to a junk credit rating, and just months before the country is due to hold municipal elections.

A failure by the ANC to deal decisively with the scandal could erode support for the party, which has won more than 60% of the vote since apartheid ended in 1994.

But counter-intutively, Jonas’ statement has already created some positive sentiment. South African bonds this week surged the most since December, a benchmark stock index climbed to a four-month high and the rand rallied for a second day as investors speculated Zuma’s grip on power is loosening.

South Africa’s economy is highly financialised; what happens in the financial markets has a large impact on the economy, and thus bond movements can be seen as a reliable indicator of the market mood.

‘Better chance’
“As [the revelations] are coming out more and more into the open, there’s a much better chance that the law will take its course and that the economy might start heading in the right direction,” Michele Santangelo, money manager at Vunani Private Clients, said by phone.

“There does seem to be quite a lot of positive moves from some of the ministers that are coming out and saying that they’ve been offered positions by the Gupta family.” The rand gained on Wednesday after Jonas released his statement, trading at 15.68 per dollar by 9:48 a.m. in Johannesburg on Thursday.

“This is a defining moment [for the ANC],” Barbara Hogan, a former minister of both health and public enterprises, said Thursday on Johannesburg-based Talk Radio 702. “This cannot be swept under the carpet.”

The NEC “has a historical mission like never before. It has to deal with this rot, it has to clear it out,” she said.

While some ANC members, including ex-treasurer Mathews Phosa and Ben Turok, the former head of the party’s ethics committee, want Zuma to go, his allies dominate the committee and he has shrugged off a succession of previous scandals.

“Zuma still has control of the majority of the members of the NEC and that’s what counts,” said Theo Venter, a political analyst at North-West University in Potchefstroom, near Johannesburg. “He will survive the week, but with less power than he had.”

While the government canceled its fortnightly post-Cabinet briefing that had been scheduled for Thursday, Zuma is due to respond to lawmakers’ questions in the National Assembly later in the day.

Jonas’s revelation about the finance minister “marks a grave threat to our country’s constitutional democracy,” Business Leadership South Africa, which represents the nation’s largest publicly traded companies, said in a statement.

Public feud
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan is engaged in a public feud with the police over their investigation into the national tax agency, a probe Zuma has backed.

The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, a police unit known as the Hawks, on Tuesday said Gordhan, 66, missed two deadlines to answer questions relating to the tax agency that he led before 2009 and indicated it will force him to comply. Gordhan has described the Hawks’ statements as “threatening” and as harassment.

A series of scandals have shadowed Zuma’s political career. The former head of the ANC’s intelligence wing, he took office in May 2009 just weeks after prosecutors dismissed graft charges against him. Since then, he’s been accused of squandering taxpayers’ money on a 215-million rand ($13.7 million) upgrade of his private home and allowing the Guptas to use an air force base to transport guests to a wedding. He denies any wrongdoing.

Dissent over his stewardship of Africa’s most industrialized economy intensified in December when his decision to name little-known lawmaker as his finance minister in place of the respected Nhlanhla Nene sent the rand and stock and bond markets into a tailspin.

Four days later, Zuma reappointed Gordhan to the post that he’d held from 2009 to 2014, after coming under presser from ANC and business leaders.

While the ANC said it had confirmed the Guptas’ meeting with Jonas and took the allegations very seriously, the Guptas dismissed them as a fabrication.

“These latest allegations are just more political point scoring between rival factions within the ANC,” the family, which has built up a business empire ranging from computers and media to uranium mining, said in an e-mailed statement.

Jonas’ allegation came a day after Vytjie Mentor, the chairwoman of the parliament’s portfolio committee on public enterprises until 2010, said in a Facebook post that the Guptas family offered her the job of public enterprises minister in the past, while Zuma was in their house. The presidency said Zuma had “no recollection” of Mentor and can’t comment on her allegations.

Body blows, no knock-out
Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu, who sits on the NEC, defended the Guptas. “They can make whatever offer they want,” she said. “What’s wrong with that? It’s not their power to appoint people.”

Zuma’s lawyer, Michael Hulley, said while Zuma hasn’t contacted him regarding Jonas’s statement, the president had nothing to answer for because his name wasn’t mentioned. Zuma’s spokesman Bongani Majola didn’t answer calls to his mobile phone.

“Zuma has been hammered by a lot of body blows, but no knock-out punch has been delivered yet,” Daniel Silke, director of Cape Town-based Political Futures Consultancy, said by phone. “There will be a long, messy process as more members of the ANC come out to express their dissatisfaction over the issue of the Guptas and state capture, but they won’t recall him as they did with Thabo Mbeki. It would be too embarrassing.”


Zuma battles to save presidency as dirt piles up and ANC warns of 'mafia state'; top party organ meets this weekend

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Zuma battles to save presidency as dirt piles up and ANC warns of 'mafia state'; top party organ meets this weekend

17 MAR 2016 16:14MIKE COHEN, FRANZ WILD, BLOOMBERG

2200
While some ANC members want Zuma to go, his allies dominate the committee and he has shrugged off a succession of previous scandals. He will be looking for his proverbial ninth life this weekend. (Photo/ File)

JACOB Zuma faces a battle to save his presidency as ruling party leaders prepare for a showdown this weekend over a controversy engulfing the government that one top official said is threatening to turn South Africa into a “mafia state.”

The meeting of the African National Congress’s decision-making National Executive Committee comes after revelations that the Guptas, who are Zuma’s family friends and business partners of his son, offered ministerial posts to ruling party officials.

On Wednesday, Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas said he rejected a proposal made personally by the Gupta brothers that he take over the finance ministry position.

“We need to deal with this; it will degenerate into a mafia state if this goes on,” ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe told Bloomberg Thursday by phone. “The fact we are talking about this so boldly now shows that things are going to change.”

The country’s worst political crisis since the NEC recalled Thabo Mbeki as president in 2008 comes at a time when the economy is threatened with recession and hovering close to a junk credit rating, and just months before the country is due to hold municipal elections.

A failure by the ANC to deal decisively with the scandal could erode support for the party, which has won more than 60% of the vote since apartheid ended in 1994.

But counter-intutively, Jonas’ statement has already created some positive sentiment. South African bonds this week surged the most since December, a benchmark stock index climbed to a four-month high and the rand rallied for a second day as investors speculated Zuma’s grip on power is loosening.

South Africa’s economy is highly financialised; what happens in the financial markets has a large impact on the economy, and thus bond movements can be seen as a reliable indicator of the market mood.

‘Better chance’
“As [the revelations] are coming out more and more into the open, there’s a much better chance that the law will take its course and that the economy might start heading in the right direction,” Michele Santangelo, money manager at Vunani Private Clients, said by phone.

“There does seem to be quite a lot of positive moves from some of the ministers that are coming out and saying that they’ve been offered positions by the Gupta family.” The rand gained on Wednesday after Jonas released his statement, trading at 15.68 per dollar by 9:48 a.m. in Johannesburg on Thursday.

“This is a defining moment [for the ANC],” Barbara Hogan, a former minister of both health and public enterprises, said Thursday on Johannesburg-based Talk Radio 702. “This cannot be swept under the carpet.”

The NEC “has a historical mission like never before. It has to deal with this rot, it has to clear it out,” she said.

While some ANC members, including ex-treasurer Mathews Phosa and Ben Turok, the former head of the party’s ethics committee, want Zuma to go, his allies dominate the committee and he has shrugged off a succession of previous scandals.

“Zuma still has control of the majority of the members of the NEC and that’s what counts,” said Theo Venter, a political analyst at North-West University in Potchefstroom, near Johannesburg. “He will survive the week, but with less power than he had.”

While the government canceled its fortnightly post-Cabinet briefing that had been scheduled for Thursday, Zuma is due to respond to lawmakers’ questions in the National Assembly later in the day.

Jonas’s revelation about the finance minister “marks a grave threat to our country’s constitutional democracy,” Business Leadership South Africa, which represents the nation’s largest publicly traded companies, said in a statement.

Public feud
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan is engaged in a public feud with the police over their investigation into the national tax agency, a probe Zuma has backed.

The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, a police unit known as the Hawks, on Tuesday said Gordhan, 66, missed two deadlines to answer questions relating to the tax agency that he led before 2009 and indicated it will force him to comply. Gordhan has described the Hawks’ statements as “threatening” and as harassment.

A series of scandals have shadowed Zuma’s political career. The former head of the ANC’s intelligence wing, he took office in May 2009 just weeks after prosecutors dismissed graft charges against him. Since then, he’s been accused of squandering taxpayers’ money on a 215-million rand ($13.7 million) upgrade of his private home and allowing the Guptas to use an air force base to transport guests to a wedding. He denies any wrongdoing.

Dissent over his stewardship of Africa’s most industrialized economy intensified in December when his decision to name little-known lawmaker as his finance minister in place of the respected Nhlanhla Nene sent the rand and stock and bond markets into a tailspin.

Four days later, Zuma reappointed Gordhan to the post that he’d held from 2009 to 2014, after coming under presser from ANC and business leaders.

While the ANC said it had confirmed the Guptas’ meeting with Jonas and took the allegations very seriously, the Guptas dismissed them as a fabrication.

“These latest allegations are just more political point scoring between rival factions within the ANC,” the family, which has built up a business empire ranging from computers and media to uranium mining, said in an e-mailed statement.

Jonas’ allegation came a day after Vytjie Mentor, the chairwoman of the parliament’s portfolio committee on public enterprises until 2010, said in a Facebook post that the Guptas family offered her the job of public enterprises minister in the past, while Zuma was in their house. The presidency said Zuma had “no recollection” of Mentor and can’t comment on her allegations.

Body blows, no knock-out
Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu, who sits on the NEC, defended the Guptas. “They can make whatever offer they want,” she said. “What’s wrong with that? It’s not their power to appoint people.”

Zuma’s lawyer, Michael Hulley, said while Zuma hasn’t contacted him regarding Jonas’s statement, the president had nothing to answer for because his name wasn’t mentioned. Zuma’s spokesman Bongani Majola didn’t answer calls to his mobile phone.

“Zuma has been hammered by a lot of body blows, but no knock-out punch has been delivered yet,” Daniel Silke, director of Cape Town-based Political Futures Consultancy, said by phone. “There will be a long, messy process as more members of the ANC come out to express their dissatisfaction over the issue of the Guptas and state capture, but they won’t recall him as they did with Thabo Mbeki. It would be too embarrassing.”


Zuma battles to save presidency as dirt piles up and ANC warns of 'mafia state'; top party organ meets this weekend

Jacob Zuma

 

[Poitier]

Meet the woman freeing Mauritania's slaves
In a country where slavery can be as much a psychological state as a physical one, Salimata Lam tackles it holistically.

Jacinda Townsend | 09 Dec 2015 07:59 GMT | Human Rights, Africa, Women

• When we arrive at the SOS Esclaves offices, which are tucked away on a side street in the capital city, we find a man sweeping the entrance corridor. He is dressed in a polo shirt and slacks, and, with his serene smile and efficient movements, seems quite possibly the happiest sweeper I have ever seen.
  
  "He was a slave," Lam tells me as we head upstairs to her office.
  
  I am shocked that this man with the carefree aura of someone who has spent a lifetime untouched by tragedy was once a slave.
  
  As I spend the day in the SOS offices, I see him do many things - he empties the rubbish, runs errands, brings me more water. He is one of the many former slaves whose lives have been transformed by the job training that Lam coordinates.
  
  At SOS Esclaves, former slaves can learn to style hair, dye clothes, tailor, and cook. Such job training is essential in the caste-based Mauritanian economy, where former slaves often find that once they've escaped, there's no competing in a job market where employment is so firmly bound to ancestry.
  
  Lam's comprehensive approach to helping people transition from slavery to freedom seems entirely appropriate for someone who has long been about the business of assisting others.
  
  She enjoyed what she calls "a very happy childhood" in the village of Boghe, which is in the Brakna region of southern Mauritania along the Senegal River, and says of her paternal grandparents, who housed and educated her: "They made me what I am today."
  
  In 1968, Lam succeeded in entering her sixieme, the first year of secondary school under the French educational system, at the College des Jeunes Filles, and made the move 317km north to Nouakchott to attend.
  
  It was as a young student in Nouakchott that she canvassed for the Mouvement National Democratique, which was founded in 1968 as a semi-clandestine organisation with a left-wing agenda that opposed the domestic policies and foreign alignments of then-President Ould Daddah.
  
  "I learned the fight against social injustices then," she says. "The years passed, but watching social disparities did not desensitise me. I realised that it is only in the defence of human rights that I could find my place, despite the risks."
  
  She started her career teaching the blind, and then moved on to other kinds of human rights work. Along the way, she had four children of her own - two sons and two daughters. When I ask her how she managed to balance career and family, she remains modest. "Like so many women," she says, "I simply try to fulfill my family responsibilities and my work responsibilities without one infringing on the other."
  
  In 2010, she was recruited for the post of national coordinator of SOS Esclaves and happily accepted. "This work," she says, "puts me in direct contact with victims of slavery, particularly with women and children who have experienced a lot of violence and deprivation. They need much accompaniment and support."
  
  
  
  
  A family of freed slaves sit on the floor of a tent as they share their story [Jacinda Townsend/Al Jazeera]
  Born free
  
  Even if slavery is hard for the Mauritanian government to quantify and punish, it isn't invisible. It is everywhere you look, if you know what you are looking for. It is there in the darker-skinned woman who sits outside a tent beside a stove while a lighter-skinned family sits inside, fanning themselves. It is in everything you hear, if you know what to listen for. The young girl, no older than 10, who hangs laundry on a roof all morning long, and then goes back inside, only to be heard screaming a few moments later as though she is being beaten.
  
  In the late afternoon, I am driven from the offices of SOS Esclaves to a tent on the outskirts of Nouakchott. There, I meet a woman who has escaped slavery with her eight children - some of whom were fathered by her master, all of whom are the product of rape.
  
  One of the woman's children, a sickly girl who looks to be around the six or seven years of one of my own children, collapses in a fit of coughing. All eight of the children gather to sit on the tent's raffia-matted floor. Unlike my girls, they are perfectly still and perfectly quiet. I ask if I can take a photograph and they oblige.
  
  I close my eyes and hear the wind gathering in the sand; I open my eyes and wonder, since there is obviously no plumbing and no outhouse, how they are bathing and where they go to the toilet.
  
  Lam had arranged for an English-speaking student from the University of Nouakchott to accompany me on the visit, and the happy, sweeping man has come along too. He starts speaking to me in Hassaniya Arabic, and the student begins translating. It turns out that the happy sweeper is the escaped woman's brother. He shares their story.
  
  After his own escape, he began searching for her, he says, but the local government in her region claimed it had no record of her existence. Various emissaries from SOS Esclaves, including Boubacar Messaoud himself, travelled north in search of the woman, but no one could find her in the vast network of dunes and scarps that make up the northern part of the country.
  
  Rural Mauritanians tend to be nomadic - and given the vast area of desert that the search had to cover, no one would have been surprised if it had been abandoned. But the woman's brother persisted. When the man's sister was eventually found, she was eight months pregnant.
  
  She delivered her baby just after escaping, in a city between the site of her rescue and Nouakchott. This baby, who is sleeping so profoundly as we speak, is the first in her family born outside of slavery.
  
  I ask if I can hold her, and as I do, I breathe deeply of her sweetness. As a black American, I'm not that many generations removed from slavery myself. To fight my gathering tears, I focus on the tiny gold earrings in her tiny, delicate ears, and I feel something for which there are no words in the English language. I feel what every slave in every place in all of history felt when he or she saw their first child born free.
  
  After a time, it is overwhelming. The tide of my emotions takes such a physical form that I feel I might wake this dreaming baby. I hand her back to her mother, and I return to taking notes in my small Moleskine notebook.
  
  Later, as I leave the SOS offices, I ask Lam how I can help. "The most important outside aid," she tells me, "is advocacy for significant changes in policy direction".
  
  Write to your own state department, I think to myself. Write to your senator.
  
  "The work of activists and human rights defenders in Mauritania is a difficult job because one must do it at all times. We who defend human rights are investing a lot but faced with many obstacles on the ground. But it remains very meaningful work, and there are always changes. There are no fewer slaves now, but there is all the time a slave who becomes aware of his situation and who dreams of another life with freedom and dignity," she continues.
  
  All the fight in the world
  
  The sun sinks as I tell Lam goodbye, and go on to spend one of the most beautiful evenings of my life at the grand home of Messaoud, who is holding an iftar dinner in the courtyard of his residence. We are covered by a large version of one of the tents that are so customary here in Mauritania. It is cool white on its canvas underside, held up by steel columns that make it as expansive as a sail.
  
  Messaoud and his wife offer course after course of delicious food: succulent vegetables, restorative bissap, chicken that falls off its bone. The guest list for the evening is pure kindness: my translator, his friend, a young female student from Mali, and others who work to communicate with me in French. After a day without food, I feel my body singing at what has been served, but I feel my soul singing too: for what has been served is grace.
  
  I get on a plane the following day and fly back over that sea of high dunes, but the moment I remember as a departure is my descent from Messaoud's SUV, the moment I waved him salaams and told him, over the traditional Mauritanian music he has playing in the tape deck, that I wish SOS Esclaves all the fight in the world.
  
  I walk through the packed sand of the road and the gate of my hotel thinking about the work of Salimata Lam, and how she uses her kindness to assist slaves in their transition from a life in black and white to a life in technicolour.
  
  I leave Mauritania so much more peacefully than I arrived, because now I have seen that there is so very much power in that infinity of sand.
  
  Source: Al Jazeera
  Meet the woman freeing Mauritania's slaves

 

[Poitier]

Mauritania commits to ending modern-day slavery

By Emma BathaMarch 14, 2016 3:12 PM

By Emma Batha


LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Mauritania has vowed to ramp up its fight against slavery, becoming the second African country to approve a United Nations treaty designed to give countries the legal muscle to combat forced labor and trafficking.

Slavery is a historical practice in Mauritania and both adults and their children are the property of their masters.

The Haratin, who make up the main "slave caste", are descended from black African ethnic groups along the Senegal river. They often work as cattle herders and domestic servants.

The West African country has the highest prevalence of slavery, according to the Global Slavery Index, which estimates that 4 percent of the population - or some 150,000 people - are living as slaves.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Monday that Mauritania was the fourth country to sign up to the protocol which includes measures to prevent modern forms of slavery as well as compensate victims.

An estimated 21 million people are in forced labor worldwide, generating about $150 billion a year in illicit profits, according to the ILO. Many are enslaved in brothels, farms, fisheries, factories, construction and domestic service.

The ILO is aiming to persuade at least 50 countries to sign up to the protocol by 2018. The three other countries which have already done so are Norway, Niger and Britain.

Mauritania criminalized slavery in 2007 but a new law passed last year makes the offense a crime against humanity and doubles the prison term for offenders to 20 years.

However, campaigners say complaints are not properly investigated and that anti-slavery campaigners have been arrested and jailed.

The U.S. State Department's annual trafficking report says as well as age-old forms of slavery in Mauritania, girls are also trafficked for sex to the Middle East.

Countries ratifying the U.N. protocol, which modernizes a forced labor convention from 1930, will have to change laws to improve victim protection, compensation and access to justice.

The ILO's Africa director, Aeneas Chapinga Chuma, said Mauritania's ratification was "a first concrete step in putting in place the legal framework to protect people from the scourge of human exploitation and forced labor".

(Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories.)

Mauritania commits to ending modern-day slavery

 

[Poitier]

PRODUCERS
Rwanda Tries To Persuade Its Citizens To Drink The Coffee They Grow
Updated March 20, 20168:25 AM ETPublished March 6, 20165:18 AM ET
ERIKA BERAS

Emmanuel Baziruwile, 54, works at a coffee plantation in Cyimbiri, Rwanda.

Erika Beras for NPR
Some of the best coffee beans in the world are grown in Africa, and while the number of coffee consumers there is growing, most Africans still don't drink it. That's something Rwanda's government would like to change.

The country's coffee industry, which nearly collapsed after the genocide in 1994, has gradually become one of its largest and most profitable agricultural exports. Rwanda exports 99 percent of its coffee.

Now, the government wants to increase the domestic market – mostly by tapping into the expendable cash of Rwanda's growing middle class.


THE SALT
Rwandan Coffee Farmers Turn Premium Beans Into Harvest Gold
Gerardine Mukeshimana, minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, says the future of coffee is both domestic and international, largely due to the instability of prices in international markets.

"You don't want to be in a situation that if they go down, your whole economy is disturbed. You have to have a plan B. That's why we promote local coffee consumption," she says.

So the Rwandan government is attempting to get its citizens to at least try what they grow. For the past couple of years, government-sponsored radio ads have been touting the benefits of drinking coffee and telling people that the drink isn't just for foreigners.

And in the past decade, privately owned coffee shops have popped up in Kigali, the country's capital.

Mihigo Jones, 25, a barista, makes a latte at a coffee shop in downtown Kigali. He first started drinking coffee when he began working at the shop.

Erika Beras for NPR
On a Sunday afternoon, expats and wealthier Rwandans are in a Kigali coffee shop which appears to be modeled after Starbucks. The walls are decorated with folk art and large photographs of coffee farmers.

Kayumba Polepole, a 33-year-old banker, sits alone at a table, drinking a latte and sending emails. He drinks coffee because he likes the taste, but also because he wants to buy local.

"If we have a finished product that is made in Rwanda, I think that it's a pride also to consume that product instead of sending the best quality abroad," he says.

But for most Rwandans, the price of coffee makes it unattainable. A single cup costs 2,500 francs – about U.S. $3. That's the equivalent of several days' pay in Rwanda. Most Rwandans drink Fanta and tea, which cost a lot less.

Coffee is so expensive because Rwanda doesn't have enough places to roast the beans. They are exported to Europe or the United States, then reimported after roasting.

At a plantation in the lush Northwestern hills of Rwanda, Emmanuel Baziruwile and Fabien Ntawuruhunga are pruning dead branches from Bourbon Arabica coffee trees. They've worked here for decades, but neither of them had tasted coffee until they got a cup as part of a government campaign called "Coffee Days."

"Because now I know the taste, if I could afford to buy it in any shop, then I can buy it and prepare it at home. But I don't have any means to buy coffee," says Baziruwile, as he carefully avoids snipping clusters of ripening coffee berries on branches.

In the hills outside Gisenyi, Rwanda, coffee berries ripen on a tree. When they turn red, they're ready for picking.

Erika Beras for NPR
Other than giving growers an annual taste, the government has no programs to subsidize the cost of coffee.

For Fabien Ntawuruhunga, who could afford a cup of coffee, drinking it is just not part of his culture.

"We didn't drink coffee because we didn't know anything about how to drink coffee," he explains. "We knew coffee as beans — but nothing about drinking."

German and Belgian colonizers introduced the crop to Rwanda more than a century ago. Under the Belgians, Rwandans were forced to grow coffee for export under brutal conditions.

"Beating them, forcing them, created a cycle of hate. They saw it as something they had to be forced to plant," says Eric Rukwaya, who works for the National Agricultural Export Board. He said these conditions created distaste for coffee.

Reporting for this story was supported by The International Women's Media Foundation.

 

[Poitier]

 

[Yehuda]

Mugabe and the $15 billion question

March 14, 2016 in Opinion

“We have not received much from the diamond industry at all. I don’t think we have exceeded $2 billion, yet we think more than $15 billion has been earned … Lots of smuggling and swindling has taken place and the companies that have been mining, I want to say, robbed us of our wealth.”

GUEST OPINION BY ALEX T MAGAISA

These were the words of President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s ruler for 36 years. He was speaking to the ZBC, the national broadcaster on the occasion to mark his 92nd birthday. Mugabe was complaining about the plunder of Zimbabwe’s diamond fields in Chiadzwa, first mined commercially less than a decade ago.

Listening to him moaning over the looting of diamonds, you would think he was a helpless by-stander. But he is the head of state and government, the man ultimately responsible for the management of the country’s resources.

He has the powers to prevent the looting and to ensure looters are brought to book. Yet, he narrates it so casually and pitifully as if it were just another story of loss over which he is helpless and blameless.

He blames the Chinese companies which his government gave generous freedom to operate in the Chiadzwa diamond fields.

The Chinese enjoyed preferential treatment over Western companies, thanks to frosty relations between Mugabe and the West, which led Mugabe to adopt a Look East policy. Awarding mining rights to Chinese companies ahead of their Western counterparts was in part, to spite the West and a form of retaliation for what he regarded as unfair ill-treatment by the West. Now though, Mugabe seems to have come to a late realisation that unless you remain vigilant, anyone can exploit you.

The Chinese that he trusted so much are only the latest to take advantage of the leadership’s gullibility.

It’s odd to hear Mugabe complaining now because for years his government has ignored civil society activists who have raised red flags over the Chiadzwa diamonds, highlighting the corruption and human rights violations that have taken place over the years. Among them are Human Rights Watch, Partnership Africa Canada and Global Witness, also a Canadian civil society group. In Zimbabwe Farai Maguwu’s Centre for Research and Development has been at the forefront on this issue. These groups have been consistently monitoring developments in Chiadzwa and reporting regularly on the problems around the diamond mining industry in Zimbabwe.
However, they have either been ignored or dismissed as Western organisations interfering in Zimbabwe’s affairs and bent on stifling trade in the country’s diamonds. Yet all that they have been highlighting about the corruption and plunder at Chiadzwa is now being confirmed by Mugabe’s own admission.

Former Finance minister Tendai Biti constantly complained about the failure of the diamond industry to contribute adequately to the national coffers.

In 2012, Biti expected a minimum of $600 million from the diamond industry but only received a paltry $43 million.

The diamond industry was shrouded in secrecy. There was a parallel economy funded by the diamond industry and benefitting political elites, most of them connected to Zanu PF.

When Biti protested against the haemorrhage in the diamond fields, Mugabe took no notice. The plunder was going on right under his watch, and he was warned several times, and yet today he moans that, “we have not received much from the diamond industry at all”. His own Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa does not even bank on receipts from diamond mining anymore.

In 2013, as he campaigned for re-election, he was presented with a $10 million dummy cheque by his then indigenisation minister Saviour Kasukuwere. It was representing funds pledged by the diamond mining companies as their contributions to the local community development trust.

But just a year later, the companies were denying that they had ever made those pledges. Yet despite having been hoodwinked, Mugabe did nothing about it.

In 2013, Edward Chindori-Chininga, an MP chaired the parliamentary portfolio committee on mining and energy which carried out an extensive investigation into the diamond industry.

A week after presenting a report which exposed the corruption that was going on in the diamond fields, Chindori-Chininga was killed in a car crash. Many people suspect he was murdered.

One of the committee’s findings was that there were serious discrepancies between what the diamond firms claimed to have paid in taxes and what the national revenue authorities had actually received.

Now, in his latest interview, Mugabe complained that the locals whom government appointed to look after its interests had done a poor job as gate-keepers.

Instead, what he called the “eyes and ears” of government had also been complicit in the corruption.

He spoke of this as if it were a new discovery, yet a person in his position, with full access to information and all these reports should have long-known that there was something seriously wrong going on in the diamond industry.

While acknowledging the corruption, plunder and looting of diamonds, Mugabe didn’t seem to offer a recovery plan, except to order the nationalisation of the diamond mines.

But looking at the history of corruption in Zimbabwe, it is not altogether surprising that there is little, if any, appetite to deal decisively with corruption.

Corruption, along with patronage and nepotism provide the life-blood that sustains “The System” in Zimbabwe, which represents the totality of structures, processes and human agents that make up the ruling establishment.

An historical assessment of corruption in Zimbabwe demonstrates that for Mugabe, corruption is a potent political tool.

Mugabe knows people around him are corrupt. He knows the State presents vast rent-seeking opportunities, which his subordinates cannot resist. It becomes both a trap and a sword that he can use in managing power.

Firstly, his subordinates become so comfortable on the gravy train that they have every incentive to stay.

Their lives and businesses are entirely dependent on their relationship with the State and the party. Corruption feeds the system and in order to continue enjoying the benefits, they will keep away from challenging him. And they will fight to the death to defend the system.

This is why it’s very rare for anyone to leave Zanu PF voluntarily. The vast majority have to be pushed, often kicking and screaming because departure entails a huge loss of rent-seeking opportunities.

Secondly, for Mugabe, corruption is an instrument of control.

It is allowed to flourish in order to trap those who benefit from it. As his former deputy, Joice Mujuru told the British Sunday Times recently, “He [Mugabe] keeps files on everybody”. These files contain all their corrupt dealings.

They are threats against those who dare challenge him. In true Machiavellian fashion, by not prosecuting corrupt subordinates, Mugabe appears as the virtuous, kind and compassionate ruler — this attracts loyalty and devotion from them. But he will occasionally deploy his other side, sacrificing a few, more as a reminder of his power, that a true commitment to eradicate the scourge of corruption.

In the case of his revelation of the missing $15 billion diamonds, Mugabe knew exactly what he was doing. He is updated daily on what happens in the country and it’s unlikely that he would not have known what was happening in the diamonds fields. He probably has a list of all the suspects within his government and outside. But Mugabe is a master of deception.

He is merely feigning ignorance but the truth is he knows his targets. Sooner or later, a commission will be established or suspects will be named. This time, the issue is elimination of rivals through corruption charges.

In this regard, there are at least two targets: first, Mujuru and her allies in the new Zimbabwe People First party.

The Mujuru family has been involved in diamond mining, first at River Ranch and later at Chiadzwa. One of Mujuru’s daughters was once implicated in a gold smuggling syndicate.

It is most likely that part of the $15 billion dollar loss will be pinned on her and her allies.

The second group could be one of the factions in Zanu PF, probably the Mnangagwa faction which is opposed to G40 which has the First Lady as a key ally, if not leader.

The security establishment was also heavily invested in the diamond mining industry. If Mugabe wants to get rid of some people, he might just open his files and advise them to quit or he will allow criminal prosecutions to follow, with devastating consequences. This might be a clean way of eliminating potential successors.

It is highly unlikely that Zimbabwe will recover a penny of the $15 billion allegedly lost in the diamond fraud and corruption. But recovery of lost funds was never the main issue of this revelation.

The revelation is a deliberately crafted strategy designed to create outrage and to open the path for the elimination of rivals, both within the party and in the opposition.
*Abridged version

l Alex Magaisa is a lawyer and academic. He blogs at www.alexmagaisa.com where this article was first published. Twitter handle: @wamagaisa Email: wamagaisa@gmail.com

Mugabe and the $15 billion question - The Standard

 

[Poitier]

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Why would anyone try to save the ZANU-PF regime? Are they waiting to get chunks of the Zimbabwean cookie when it eventually crumbles? The state has nearly collapsed.

 

[Poitier]

PM Zinsou concedes defeat to Talon in Benin president vote



Cotonou (AFP) - Businessman Patrice Talon won the second round of Benin's presidential election on Sunday, his adversary and incumbent Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou told AFP before the release of official results.

"The provisional results point to a decisive victory for Patrice Talon," Zinsou told AFP by telephone. "The difference is significant, (Talon's) electoral victory is certain.

"I have called Patrice Talon this evening to congratulate him on his victory, wish him good luck and put myself at his disposal to prepare for the handover."

The electoral commission is expected to announce provisional results at some time on Monday, he.

Some 4.7 million people were eligible to cast their ballots in the vote to elect a successor to outgoing President Thomas Boni Yayi.

He is bowing out after serving a maximum two five-year terms, marking him out from many African leaders who have tried to change constitutions to stay in power.

Prime Minister Zinsou, from Boni Yayi's Cowry Forces for an Emerging Benin (FCBE) party, hailed "an exceptionally serene and calm campaign, without trouble or tension" in the small west African country.

Zinsou came out top in the first round of elections held on March 6, with 27.1 percent of the vote, compared to 23.5 percent for the "king of cotton" Talon.

Since then, 24 of the 32 other candidates who stood in the first round have come out in support of the businessman, including third-placed Sebastien Ajavon, who won 22 percent of votes.

PM Zinsou concedes defeat to Talon in Benin president vote

 

[Poitier]

More of the same please! ‘Unusual’ trends as African ruling parties concede and go quietly— and life continues

22 MAR 2016 20:10M&G AFRICA WRITER

200
Supporters of presidential candidate Patrice Talon celebrate before the official announcement of the presidential elections results in Cotonou on March 21, 2016 (AFP Photo/Pius Utomi Ekpei)

BENIN’S recent presidential election run-off featured two candidates that could not have been more different. Outgoing prime minister Lionel Zinsou cut a suave image, a Franco-Beninese financier who was last year persuaded by exiting president Yayi Boni to join government, occupying a position that had been vacant for two years.

Six months later, the former head of France’s investment bank was endorsed by Boni as his successor, with the blessings of former colonial ruler France, in which Zinsou is also a citizen.

His eventual conqueror, businessman Patrice Talon, could not have had a more chequered political career even if he had tried. Arguably Benin’s richest man, he looms large in the country’s politico-economic history—where he made his fortune in its mainstay cotton industry and the related shipping.

Talon was accused by the government of trying to poison Yayi in 2012, sending him fleeing to Paris. A year later Benin sought to extradite him, claiming he was involved in regime change attempts. Paris refused, and would later mediate a presidential pardon that allowed Talon back in last year.

The divide could not have been more conducive for a fall-out in many other African countries. Frontrunner Zinsou won the first round as expected, but his two main competitors were not far behind, raising the stakes for the tie-breaker round.

Boni would have been loathe to see Talon win—the tyc00n was a major bankroller of his successful presidential election wins, before their sensational falling out—and his propulsion of Zinsou up the ranks was seen as helping stem the eventuality.

His excellent economic credentials aside, Zinsou quickly—and effectctively— found himself painted as an outsider with little knowledge of the country, and who would be a puppet in the hands of his backers. On the continent, the perception that you are an outsider can be a big blow to voters, a tactic that has been used to varying effects in countries such as Zambia and Ivory Coast.

Personal campaign
No stranger to controversy in Benin, Talon’s campaign against him was still extremely personal, while in a presidential debate he accused Yayi of running a “banana republic” that was now “the laughing stock of the world”.

During the vote-hunting, the flamboyant Talon was seen in Porches, bespoke suits and stunners in a country with high youth unemployment, as he unabashedly flaunted his wealth.

President-elect Talon.

As it turned out, this flashy image was a vote-getter: young voters bought into his self-made man image, in the hope that he will lift them to the same status.

But Zinsou was still first to concede, calling Talon who had by now consolidated the vote of a majority of the crowded field, to congratulate him, this even before the final results were out.

“The provisional results point to a decisive victory for Patrice Talon,” he told a reporter by telephone. “The difference is significant, (Talon’s) electoral victory is certain”.

Further west, Cape Verde’s ruling PAICV party was dislodged after 15 years in power, losing to the liberal opposition MPD.

Anyone familiar with Lusophone African history will know that liberation movements have generally tended to be immutable objects after they came to power—apart from in Cape Verde.

Threw in towel
But ruling party leader Janira Hoppfer Almada, who had hoped to become the country’s first female prime minister, also threw in the towel gracefully.

“I congratulate the MPD on the victory and I promise from now on to better prepare for the next electoral battles,” the 37-year-old said, ahead of forthcoming municipal and presidential votes later this year.

Voters punished the PAICV for among other issues not doing enough to help victims of a volcanic eruption in 2014 in a country with one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa, but which still struggles with high poverty rates.

The president of the 10-island country, Jorge Carlos Fonseca is a member of the new ruling party. In 2011, he defeated the ruling party’s candidate Manuel Sousa in a tight run off, taking 55% of the ballots but leaving him handicapped in parliament.

The two were contesting to replace president Pedro Pires, who like Boni, was stepping down at the end of his maximum two terms. Pires would shortly win the Mo Ibrahim Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership.

Rejection of defeat
The speedy concessions are welcome: the continent’s recent history is dotted with conflict that stemmed from the refusal of ruling parties to accept election results. Ivory Coast ex-ruler Laurent Gbagbo is in an international court for his role in a civil war that followed his rejection of defeat by Alassane Ouattara in 2010.

Kenya’s near-ruinous unrest in 2007 was stoked by the opposition’s stance that they had won the election against then incumbent Mwai Kibaki, a fallout that also saw its leaders indicted at the International Criminal Court.

Would Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, in power since 1986, have stepped down had he lost elections in February? Will Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso, looking to extend his 32-year reign, let go if he loses last weekend’s vote?

Or would South Africa’s African National Congress hand over the reins if it were actually voted out of power in 2018 elections?

Presidential debates
Benin and Uganda also held their first ever presidential debates ahead of their elections, helping strengthen a trend that has also taken root in countries such as Kenya, even as others such as Zambia, which holds a vote in August, weigh up such public duels.

The two countries—Benin and Cape Verde—sizeable diaspora were also allowed to vote, despite right or wrong perception being that they tend to be sympathetic to the opposition.

The electoral developments in the two West African countries that both only introduced multiparty democracy in 1990 could go some way towards shifting continental electoral attitudes as reactions by many delighted Africans on social media showed, but there is a long way to go.

Read: Believe it or not, 19 African leaders have been defeated in elections.

In lopsided results following second-round ballots in Niger and Zanzibar, the incumbents carried the day—with 92% in the case of the former.

In Tanzania, despite the buzz created by new leader John Magufuli, losers are still not allowed to challenge election results in the courts.

Creating the space for the opposition to fell enfranchised enough to put their grievances to voters will be vital, but it has definitely been a good news week for the continent.

More of the same please! ‘Unusual’ trends as African ruling parties concede and go quietly— and life continues

 

[Poitier]

 

[Misreeya]

New Investigations Begin on the Pyramid of the Mysterious Queen Khennuwa

After almost a century, archaeologists are re-entering the burial chambers of the mysterious Queen Khennuwa, who remains a mysterious personality of the Kingdom of Meroe.
The archaeologists re-opened the tomb to increase documentation and research on the queen and site. According to Heritage Daily , the burial chambers were completely decorated with executed paintings and hieroglyphic texts, many of which are still in a good state of preservation. It was identified as the tomb of Queen Khennuwa due to the inscriptions in hieroglyphic texts.
The pyramid of Queen Khennuwa was excavated in 1922 during the excavations in ancient Nubia by George A. Reisner of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. However, the documentation created by his team wasn't complete, it contained only a few photographs and a few hand copies of inscriptions. This lack of information about the burial led archaeologists from the Qatari Mission for the Pyramids of Sudan (QMPS) to ask for permission to re-open the tomb.
- See more at: http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-....krf4JDEB.dpuf


http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-...hennuwa-005405


http://archaicwonder.tumblr.com/post...a-investigated

 

[Misreeya]

Stone eye inlay (with ostrich egg shell) from a coffin mask. Found today in pyramid tomb G322 at #amarawest

#amarawest hashtag on Twitter

from the thread i created

http://www.thecoli.com/threads/anci...ent-temple-in-what-is-now-north-sudan.393316/

 

[Misreeya]

6 MARCH, 2016 - 19:40 NATALIA KLIMCZAK
Tiye: One of the Most Influential Women of Ancient Egypt
(Read the article on one page)

Tiye was the Great Royal Wife of the ancient Egyptian equivalent to Louis XIV – Amenhotep III. Her son Akhenaten, was one of the biggest causes of scandal during the pharaohs’ time in Egypt. She was also a grandmother of Tutankhamun, and the sister of Ay. She was one of the most influential women of Ancient Egypt, nonetheless, her name had been forgotten for centuries.

Tiye, known also as Taia, Tiy and Tiyi, is believed to have lived from about 1398 BC – 1338 BC. The story of her life is as mysterious as all the people who lived in this period. The world she lived in collapsed with the capital city of her son Akhenaten – Amarna.

According to ancient inscriptions, Tiye is a daughter of Yuya and Tuya and sister of the pharaoh Ay. Some Egyptologists say that there is no link between Ay and Tiye, but the position of her brother (known also as Anen) seems to be a proof – he was the Second Prophet of Amun and inherited most of the titles of Yuya. Apart from this, there is no other reason for the high position of Ay in the royal court - he was most likely related to Yuya, Tuya and Tiye.

A Mummy with Beautiful Hair
When in 1898 Victor Loretin discovered a chamber with hidden mummies, he saw a woman with beautiful long hair. It was unusual to see such a beautiful face and so well preserved hair on a mummy.

In 2010, DNA tests by the team of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the National Geographic Society and Siemens confirmed the pretty “Elder Lady” discovered in KV35 was Queen Tiye. The research also confirmed that the woman was Tutankhamun’s grandmother, Akhenaten’s mother, and also the mother of the “Younger Lady” discovered in KV35.

The mummy of Queen Tiye, now in the Egyptian Museum. ( Public Domain )

The mummy was discovered unwrapped. It had been very badly damaged by thieves who had entered the tomb, perhaps in ancient times. The whole front of the abdomen and part of the thorax were damaged. She was discovered and described by the researcher G.E. Smith as a middle aged woman whose right arm was extended vertically at the side with the palm of the right hand placed upon the right thigh, but the left arm was crossed over the chest and she was holding in it something at the time when she was buried. This was the first suggestion that she could have been a queen. Her teeth and hair were well-preserved, however the mummy had been reburied in KV35 with almost no goods, and even without the attempt to re-wrap her.

She was perhaps originally buried in Amarna, in Akhenate's royal tomb. Akhenaten and Maketaten (her granddaughter) were buried next to her. The gilded burial shrine where Tiye appears with Akhenaten was discovered in the tomb KV55 9 (the final burial of Akhenaten), but her shabtis were discovered in WV22 tomb – the one which belongs to Amenhotep III.

• Kiya - The Most Mysterious Woman of Amarna
• Tiye is believed to have been an adviser of both Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. Her position on their courts was strong. She was married to Amenhotep during his second year of reign. They were both children, but they spent their whole lives together. Tiye appears in history as a smart adviser and the most important woman in Amenhotep’s court, who also became an important person during the reign of her son.

Colossal statue of Amenhotep III. ( Public Domain )

Amenhotep and Tiye had a few children, but it is unknown how many of their children survived childhood. She was also perhaps the mother of the eldest daughter of the pharaoh – Sitamun. Tiye was elevated to the position of Great Royal Wife during the reign of Amenhotep. Her other daughters may include Isis, Henuttaneb, and Nebetah (who seems to be the same person as princess Baketaten). She had at least two sons with the pharaoh as well. The first one was Thutmose – the High Priest of Ptah, and the second was born as Amenhotep IV, but is known in history as the king who created a revolution – Akhenaten.

The Great Royal Wife Tiye, matriarch of the Amarna Dynasty - now in the Neues Museum/Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin, Germany

Queen Tiye temple ruins along with her Husband temple still stands in what is now known as Northern Sudan today, along Amenhopet temple which is better preserve in comparison to Queen tiye temple.

Temple of Soleb

Soleb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Queen Tiye temple

Société des Cultures Nubiennes- La Nubie historique et archéologique -Sedeinga

the link is above of queen Tiye temple, and many excavations is still conducted at her temple along with new discoveries and new questions.