Police and government corruption is endemic in the US, where politicians should work to tackle human rights abuses at home rather than lecturing other countries, Civil rights activist Toni Sanders, founder of the group Think MOOR (Movements of Organized Revolutionaries), told Radio Sputnik. On Tuesday afternoon a 43-year-old black man, Keith Lamont Scott, was shot dead by police in Charlotte, North Carolina. The shooting sparked protests from the local community, who dispute the police version of events. The local police claim that Scott was armed and “posed an imminent deadly threat to officers” who shot him. However, Scott’s family insist he was unarmed and reading a book in his car at the time of the shooting. On Tuesday and Wednesday residents of Charlotte took to the streets in protest at Scott’s death, and North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency and ordered the deployment of the National Guard and highway patrols after the protests turned violent. One protestor is in critical condition in hospital after being shot, and 12 police officers were injured after protests on Wednesday. Civil rights activist Toni Sanders, founder of the group Think MOOR (Movements of Organized Revolutionaries), told Radio Sputnik that the quick deployment of the National Guard is another sign of disparity in the treatment of African-Americans. “Look how quick they declared a state of emergency in North Carolina and brought the National Guard in. We had (Hurricane) Katrina, which was a major natural disaster over in Louisiana and all those people were stranded on rooftops, thousands of people died, it took eight days for the National Guard to even do anything,” Sanders said. Sanders said that the protests are a response to the shooting and inadequate police investigations into previous police shootings of unarmed black men. “If you commit a crime and then I tell you to investigate yourself, what can I expect except corruption? You don’t want to be found guilty, you don’t want to be liable, so what are you going to do? You’re going to make up evidence and you’re going to try to find ways to get yourself off, which is what they do every single time,” Sanders said. Sanders made a radical proposal for black people to tackle police brutality against them. This includes setting up new educational, economic and security institutions to rival those of the US government. “One of the things I advocate for, honestly, is for black people to get their own schools, start growing gardens and feeding their own communities. To stop depending on the economic structure of the US, because we need to withdraw our funds and keep our money in our communities.” “We mean community policing, that is what is going to empower us and keep us safe. The government is corrupt. The government here in the US is trash, and they tell these other countries, ‘you’re violating human rights, we need to invade your country,’ and right here in their own territory they are violating the human rights of black people every single day,” Sanders said.
AfricaFocus Bulletin
September 14, 2016 (160914)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor’s Note
“Among 36 African countries surveyed in 2014/2015, Gabon ranks at or
near the bottom on every indicator of election quality and fairness,
according to citizen responses collected in September and October
2015. … Gabon ranks dead last in public trust in the election
commission. … [at the same time] Gabon ranks near the top in
favoring multiparty competition and term limits on presidents, as
well as in disapproving of one-party and one-man rule.” –
Afrobarometer
For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/gab1609.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”
To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/gab1609.php
Election observers agree the narrow victory for incumbent President
Ali Bongo in last month’s presidential election was almost certainly
the result of fraud. Yet his opponent, Jean Ping, is also a long-
standing member of the country’s elite, and is reportedly the father
of two children with the president’s half-sister. Ping’s support is
based largely on the fact that he is not a member of the Bongo
family, which has been in power since 1967, when Omar Bongo, Ali’s
father, came to power. The regime in this small oil-producing
country has been notorious for corruption, and for its close links
to the power structure in France, with Omar Bongo reportedly himself
a major influence for decades as a donor in French national
politics.
Ali Bongo has diversified international ties since taking office in
2009, reaching out to the United States and China. But France
remains Gabon’s dominant external partner, intricately intertwined
with both economic and political structures in the country.
For a short overview, see in particular “Gabon’s Bongo Family:
Living In Luxury, Paid For By Corruption And Embezzlement,”
International Business Times, February 15, 2013
(http://tinyurl.com/zordjcq). For more background, see the links
listed at the end of this Bulletin.
Gabon, like other Francophone African countries, is not well-known
to most English-speaking readers. But increasingly, the range of
sources available in English as well as French makes it possible to
access basic sources for both news and analysis.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin, focused on the current situation.
contains two short articles, from Chatham House in London and The
Daily Maverick in South Africa, and press releases from extensive
polling research by Afrobarometer (Everyone concerned about reliable
information on African public opinion should note that Afrobarometer
is currently experiencing a fiscal crisis, and its extraordinarily
useful and revealing research in more than 35 African countries is
threatened with cutbacks from donors, including USAID. Go to
http://www.afrobarometer.org for more background and to contribute
through paypal).
The Afrobarometer studies on Gabon reveal strong support for
democracy among Gabonese voters, but intense skepticism about the
capacity of the system to deliver. Political commentators agree that
significant reforms are highly unlikely, but there is no consensus
on the likely outcome of the dispute over the election results.
For the reader who has the time and internet bandwith to watch,
AfricaFocus highly recommends the Youtube playlist of the four
videos listed at the beginning of this Bulletin (To go directly to
the playlist, click on http://tinyurl.com/zollum3)
For up-to-date news coverage and analysis, see
http://allfrica.com/gabon (in English)
and http://fr.allafrica.com/gabon (in French), and particularly
http://www.lemonde.fr/gabon/ (in French)
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Gabon, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/gabon.php
Announcement: New Resources on Illicit Financial Flows
Newly available on website of US-Africa Network – new resources on
Illicit Financial Flows and the Stop the Bleeding Africa campaign.
Go to https://usafricanetwork.org/home/issues/stop-the-bleeding-africa/
Thanks to Chris Root and Anita Plummer of the US-Africa Network for
preparing and sharing these resources, including “Top 10 Questions
About Illicit Financial Flows and Africa” and a carefully selected
and annotated “Resources about Illicit Financial Flows from Africa.”
Youtube Playlist with recent videos on the situation in Gabon
France 24, September 7, 2016 – part 1, 18 minutes & part 2 – 26
minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88h6q4P4z_Y and
London Business School, November 11, 2015, “My Two Years Working for
the Government of Gabon” – 22 minutes
Anonymous, September 12, 2016 – 6 minutes
Anonymous, June 13, 2013 – 4 minutes
************************************************
Electoral Chaos Leaves Gabon in a State of Uncertainty
Paul Melly, Associate Fellow, Africa Programme, Chatham House
Chatham House, 7 September 2016
https://www.chathamhouse.org/ – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/h57jts2
The country’s democratic credentials have been deeply wounded by
dodgy official results, protest riots and a brutal government
crackdown.
Gabon’s model of political moderation and gradualist reform may have
just imploded. Without external mediation, a full audit of polling
station results and a hitherto absent readiness to compromise on the
part of President Ali Bongo Ondimba and his main challenger, Jean
Ping, the country risks being condemned to months or even years of
unstable and sullen post-election stalemate.
Mild though the crisis appears by the standards of more
authoritarian or conflict-torn neighbours, it is disastrously
damaging for Bongo’s long-held ambition of transforming himself from
dynastic heir into freely-elected architect of modernization and
reform. After seven years trying to mark his country out from the
fiefdoms of central Africa’s strongmen, he now risks cantoning
himself into the category of presidents whose hold on office depends
on power rather than consent.
Contested results
Official results for the 27 August presidential election gave Bongo
49.8% of the nationwide total, compared with 48.23% for Ping; two
candidates pulled out to leave Ping a clear run, while the minor
players who stayed in the race got trivial scores.
Yet the aftermath has been even more damaging. Furious protesters
rioted, setting light to the national assembly, other public
buildings and the shops of West African traders – a longstanding
target of popular resentment.
The government’s response has been uncompromising. During the night
of 31 August-1 September, security force units, supposedly searching
for rioters, took control of Ping’s campaign headquarters. There
were several deaths, while a number of casualties were taken to
hospital with gunshot wounds; dozens were arrested, and senior
opposition figures were still in the building, surrounded by
security forces, a day later.
Gabon, so often a broker in other nations’ disputes, now finds
itself being offered African Union crisis mediation. The justice
minister has resigned from both government and ruling party,
demanding a full audit of all the election counts, polling station
by polling station.
Bongo’s failed strategy
The violence is a tragedy for Gabon. Street protest is hardly new
but is usually curbed with routine policing and the odd volley of
tear gas. Moreover, this bloodshed represents a major failure for
Bongo’s leadership. He came to power in 2009 after the death of his
father, Omar Bongo Ondimba, who had ruled for four decades, in
elections that were opaque and widely seen as a continuation of the
status quo. His subsequent banning of the new Union Nationale
opposition party seemed to confirm this pattern.
But Ali has spent much of the past seven years trying to reshape
Gabon’s governance. He has sought to rebalance and diversify the
economy, improve the performance of the state and foster a more
equitable social model, tilting social services and public sector
wage structures towards the poorer citizens who had previously been
neglected in favour of the governing middle class. Key barons of his
father’s regime were marginalized, the ban on the Union Nationale
was lifted, and Bongo acceded to opposition demands for a biometric
electoral roll. Assets in France held personally by the Bongo family
were transferred to the ownership of the state.
Bongo had hoped that his measures to stimulate the economy and
protect the environment, bolster the efficiency of public services
and help the poor would allow him to shed his image as the inheritor
of dynastic power, and earn his own legitimacy through his own
performance as president. In the face of an opposition dominated by
the ancien regime power-brokers who he had forced out, Ali sought to
present himself as the real incarnation of change.
Many Gabonese feel it is now time to move on from the era of
dynastic rule, even in the refreshed and more modern form that Ali
Bongo Ondimba has provided.
Bongo seems to have been completely unprepared for the strength of
the response to the electoral pitch made by Jean Ping. As a former
regime veteran once married to Ali’s sister Pascaline, Ping could
not claim to be a new face. Indeed, having also served a term as
chair of the African Union Commission, he is very much part of the
establishment.
But he cleverly tapped into the current mood, presenting himself as
the man whose election would show that power in Gabon really could
change hands through the ballot box. A promise to serve only one
term enhanced this appeal – and usefully contrasted with Ali’s
aspiration to yet another extension of rule by the Bongo dynasty.
When most other opposition candidates dropped out at the last
minute, Ping was ideally placed to capitalize.
Furthermore, in the aftermath, Bongo has badly misread the evolution
of attitudes in the international community: France, the EU and the
US want to see a transparent and credible election process. Even
Paris, for so many years a supportive ally of the Bongos, is no
longer prepared to turn a blind eye. As a result, pressure is
mounting for a full breakdown of the vote, to show figures for every
single polling station. Privately, many diplomats feel it is clear
that Ping won, even if there was cheating on all sides.
Looking ahead, there seems no easy way out. The most consensual
option would be a full audit of the election count, with both
contenders fully committed to accepting the eventual result – a
course of action that would offer a face saving and honourable way
out to the loser. Without that, Gabon seems condemned to a prolonged
period of unrest and political confrontation. Even if Bongo hangs
on, his standing will be critically damaged.
In Gabon, overwhelming public distrust of CENAP and election quality
forms backdrop for presidential vote dispute
News Release, 1 September 2016
For full news release, as well as Afrobarometer report released on
September 6, visit http://afrobarometer.org/countries/gabon-0
Gabon’s presidential election dispute is playing out against a
background of overwhelming public distrust of the national election
commission (CENAP) and strikingly negative assessments of the
country’s election environment in advance of the August 2016 vote, a
new analysis by Afrobarometer shows.
Among 36 African countries surveyed in 2014/2015, Gabon ranks at or
near the bottom on every indicator of election quality and fairness,
according to citizen responses collected in September and October 2015.
Gabon ranks dead last in public trust in the election commission: A
majority (51%) of citizens said they do not trust the CENAP “at
all,” and only 8% said they trust the commission “a lot.”
Gabon also ranks among the worst in citizens’ perceptions of the
fairness of the vote count, the freeness and fairness of its
previous national election (2011), fear of voter intimidation or
violence, fair treatment of opposition candidates, and the
prevalence of voter bribery. Overall, Gabon citizens held the most
negative perceptions of how well elections function to ensure that
voters’ views are represented and to enable voters to remove leaders
who don’t do what the people want.
The Gabon findings are part of a new Afrobarometer report, to be
released 6 September 2016, on citizens’ perceptions of electoral
management institutions and the quality of elections, It is based on
almost 54,000 interviews in 36 African countries.
The new report, titled “Election quality, public trust are central
issues as African nations look toward next contests,” will be
available at http://www.afrobarometer.org.
Key findings for Gabon
* A majority (51%) of Gabonese respondents said in late 2015 that
they do not trust the CENAP “at all,” with 17% who trust it
“somewhat,” 24% “a little bit,” and only 8% “a lot” (Figure 1).
Among 36 African countries surveyed in 2014/2015, Gabon ranks last
in public trust in the election commission (Figure 2).
* Only 37% of citizens saw their 2011 election as having been
“completely free and fair” or “free and fair, but with minor
problems.” A majority said the 2011 election was “not free and fair”
(31%) or “free and fair, with major problems” (24%) (Figure 3).
* On perceptions of the election environment (Figure 4), seven in 10
Gabonese citizens (71%) said that votes are “never” or only
“sometimes” counted fairly. Only 15% said the vote count is “always”
fair.
* Almost two-thirds (64%) of Gabonese said they fear campaign-
related intimidation or violence at least “a little bit,” including
almost one-fourth (23%) who expressed “a lot” of fear. One-third
(32%) said voters are “often” or “always” threatened with violence
at the polls.
* A majority (56%) of citizens said that opposition candidates are
at least “sometimes” prevented from running for office. One in five
(22%) said this happens “often” or “always.”
* Three-fourths (77%) of Gabonese said the news media “never” or
only “sometimes” provides fair coverage of all candidates – the
worst rating among the 36 surveyed countries.
*Seven in 10 citizens (71%) said that voters are “often” or “always”
bribed during Gabon’s elections – far above the 36-country average
of 43%.
* Gabon ranks worst among 36 African countries in citizens’
perceptions of how well elections work. More than three-fourths of
Gabonese say elections perform “not very well” or “not at all well”
to ensure that elected officials reflect the views of voters (76%)
or to enable voters to remove underperforming leaders from office
(79%).
Afrobarometer
Afrobarometer is a pan-African, non-partisan research network that
conducts public attitude surveys on democracy, governance, economic
conditions, and related issues across more than 30 countries in
Africa. Five rounds of surveys were conducted between 1999 and 2013,
and findings from Round 6 surveys (2014/2015) are currently being
released. Afrobarometer conducts face-to-face interviews in the
language of the respondent’s choice with nationally representative
samples that yield country-level results with margins of error of
+/-2% (for samples of 2,400) or +/3% (for samples of 1,200) at a 95%
confidence level.
For full news release, including figures and additional findings,
visit http://afrobarometer.org/countries/gabon-0
Behind Gabon’s eruption in post-election conflict, its citizens are
among the strongest in Africa in their support for multiparty
democracy and their rejection of non-democratic alternatives, a new
analysis by Afrobarometer shows.
Among 36 African countries surveyed in 2014/2015, Gabon ranks near
the top in favouring multiparty competition and term limits on
presidents, as well as in disapproving of one-party and one-man
rule, according to citizen responses collected in September and
October 2015.
Large majorities also expressed support for democracy in general and
for elections as the best way to choose leaders, although on these
issues Gabon ranks only average or below. Gabon’s less enthusiastic
endorsement of elections aligns with citizens’ strikingly negative
views on the national electoral commission (CENAP) and the fairness
of the country’s elections (see press release titled “In Gabon,
overwhelming public distrust of CENAP and election quality forms
backdrop for presidential vote dispute” at www.afrobarometer.org).
Findings on citizens’ perceptions of electoral management
institutions and the quality of elections in Gabon and 35 other
African countries will be released in a new Afrobarometer report on
6 September 2016.
Key findings for Gabon
*In interviews in September-October 2015, two-thirds (68%) of
Gabonese citizens said democracy is preferable to any other
political system, matching average support for democracy among 36
African surveyed in 2014/2015 (67%).
* Gabonese overwhelmingly rejected autocratic alternatives to
democracy. Nine in 10 citizens disapproved of one-party rule (91%)
and one-man rule (89%), including majorities who “strongly”
disapproved (Figure 1). These assessments place Gabon near the top
among surveyed countries. Seven in 10 Gabonese (70%) rejected
military rule.
* Three-fourths (76%) said regular, open, and honest elections are
the best way to choose leaders, compared to 82% across all surveyed
countries (Figure 2).
* In their support for multiparty competition (80%) (Figure 3),
Gabonese are second only to Ivoirians (82%) and far above average
(63%).
* Nine in 10 Gabonese (92%) supported limiting presidents to two
terms in office (Figure 4). Gabon’s support for term limits is
second only to Benin’s (93%) and well above the 36-country average
(75%).
[for full report, including figures and additional findings, visit
http://afrobarometer.org/countries/gabon-0
http://www.dailymaverick.co.za – Direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/hodtpeh
Opposition leader Jean Ping is incensed that Gabon’s president stole
the recent election. He’s right to be. But maybe Ping should have
harnessed this fury earlier, when he was in a position to do
something about it. Instead, as top boss of the African Union, he
helped to legitimise dodgy polls and obscure accountability. Now he,
and Gabon, are paying the price.
Let me tell you the parable of the boy who didn’t cry wolf. One day,
in an African country of your choice, a wolf passed through the
village. Observing from afar, the boy said nothing, and called no
one, even as the wolf feasted. The next day, the wolf came to
another village. Again the boy saw, again the boy ignored the
tortured shouts of the villagers as they screamed and begged for
help. And so it went on, village by village, as the wolf devoured
his way through the continent; instead of raising the alarm, the boy
stayed silent.
And then the wolf came to Gabon, where the boy lived, and started
snapping its jaws in his direction. The boy screamed and shouted and
cried “wolf!” at the top of his lungs, but by then it was too late.
Everyone around him, everyone who could have helped, had already
been eaten.
The real-life star of this little story is Jean Ping, opposition
candidate for president in Gabon.
Ping is not a happy man right now. Last week, he lost the
presidential election by the slimmest of margins – just 6,000 votes
– and he believes the poll was rigged. “The whole world knows today
who is the president of the Republic of Gabon. It’s me, Jean Ping,”
he said. “Each time the Gabonese people have chosen their president,
the dark forces are always gathered to place he who was not chosen
as head of state.”
Ping is right, of course. These elections were stolen, and brazenly
so. Despite an average turnout of around 60%, an unbelievable 99.3%
was recorded in Haute Ogue, home province of incumbent Ali Bongo –
with Bongo winning 95% of the vote there. That statistically
impossible aberration made all the difference to the final count.
Ping has rejected the outcome, and is pursuing a legal challenge.
Meanwhile, an estimated 5 people have died in post-election violence
between rival supporters and security forces.
Bongo’s security forces may have pulled the trigger, but their blood
is also on Ping’s hands.
Ping, you see, was not always an opposition candidate. He wasn’t
always an outspoken advocate for free and fair elections. He wasn’t
always a fierce critic of dictators and police brutality.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
Although memories fade fast, we must not forget that it was only
four years ago that Ping was forced out of his position as chairman
of the African Union Commission. Between 2008 and 2012, he was the
continental body’s most senior and visible leader.
In this position, he oversaw and monitored elections all over
Africa: polls both free and flawed, and everything in between. But
instead of raising the alarm when something was wrong – instead of
crying wolf – Ping legitimised dodgy polls and obscured
accountability. The very same tactics that Bongo is now using
against him, Ping previously would rubber-stamp.
Take, for example, the Sudanese elections in 2010, in which
President Omar al-Bashir – then and still wanted for war crimes by
the International Criminal Court – strolled to victory in a vote
marred by intimidation, gerrymandering, and accusations of “massive
rigging” by an opposition group. Ping, who headed the African Union
observer mission, had a more generous take:
“These historic elections have indeed afforded the majority of the
Sudanese citizens the opportunity to exercise their civic and
democratic rights by electing representatives of their choice for
the first time in 24 years. The mission believes that the just-
concluded multiparty elections will enhance the peace and democratic
processes under way in the country.”
It also fell to Ping, early in his term, to lead the African
response to Zimbabwe’s tightly contested election in 2008. In the
first round, challenger Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic
Change led Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF. A state-sponsored campaign of
violence and intimidation forced Tsvangirai to withdraw from the
second round of the vote, which he was on course to win.
While the AU was involved in mediating the Zimbabwe situation, its
solution allowed Robert Mugabe – architect of the brutality- to stay
in charge as part of a government of national unity. Ping refrained
from condemning the violence, and downplayed the extent of the
crisis. A reading of the AU’s observer mission statement, following
Mugabe’s uncontested second-round victory, noted vaguely that “there
was violence in the run down to the elections”, but failed to
attribute blame; a neat diplomatic side-step that helped Mugabe’s
regime avoid responsibility.
As leader of the African Union Commission, Ping repeatedly failed to
enforce international electoral standards, or hold African
governments to account for human rights abuses. This is not a unique
failing; a general reticence to criticise is a characteristics of
the AU, and Ping’s successor Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is also rarely
outspoken.
But now Ping finds himself on the other side of the fence. Suddenly,
he is on the receiving end of a rigged vote and electoral violence;
suddenly, he wants those international standards enforced and human
rights observed. If only he had defended these virtues earlier, when
he was in a position of
influence and could have made a real difference. If only Ping had
cried wolf before it was too late. DM
“Gabon’s presidential election: are the opposition’s attempts at
unifying too little too late?,” by Oumar Ba
African Arguments, August 22, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/h7us69a
“Gabon is in chaos — and France is to blame,” Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry,
The Week, September 2, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/zu7wsj5
“Meet Ali Bongo Ondimba, Obama’s Man in Africa,” by Siobhán O’Grady,
Foreign Policy, April 5, 2016
http://foreignpolicy.com – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/j2cjv7h
“The murky world of Omar Bongo,” BBC, May 21, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8056309.stm
“A fight inside Gabon’s kleptocratic dynasty exposes the complicity
of French business,” Emma-Kate Symons
May 01, 2015
http://tinyurl.com/hqb4lvt
“Keeping Foreign Corruption Out of the United States: Four Case
Histories: Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations,”
http://tinyurl.com/hvhqby4
September, 2010 – one of the case histories is President Omar Bongo
of Gabon – for a brief summary see
http://www.africafocus.org/docs10/usa1002.php
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org
HAVANA, Cuba, Sep 9 (acn) Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the US economic, financial and commercial blockade still persists, and caused Cuba damages for some 4.68 billion dollars last year alone.
At a press conference to present the report Cuba will take to the United Nations, Rodriguez stressed that the economic siege has lasted over half a century and it has a negative impact on the well-being of Cuban families and the socio-economic development of the country.
The Foreign Minister said the main losses for Cuba were in the export of services and goods, increased prices to products because the need to buy them in faraway markets, and the impossibility of using US dollars in its financial deals.
Cuba will introduce at the UN General Assembly next October 26 Resolution 70/5 under the name: Necessity to end the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States to Cuba.
Despite the improvement on the relations between Cuba and the US, the harm the blockade does to the Cuban people forces Cuba to present this resolution again, said the Minister
Denuncia Cuba persistencia del bloqueo de Estados Unidos
AfricaFocus Bulletin
September 7, 2016 (160907)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor’s Note
The “post-apartheid” period is now over, it seems. Whether one dates
the change from the massacre of miners at Marikana in 2012, the
death of Nelson Mandela in 2013, student protests in 2015, or the
municipal elections last month, a generation has now passed since
the high hopes of the first democratic elections in 1994. South
Africans, particularly the generation known as the “born-frees,” are
coping with the realization that that political victory was only the
beginning, not the achievement of the hopes for social and economic
transformation so many had hoped and died for.
For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/sa1609a.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”
To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/sa1609a.php
As in other African countries a generation after the achievement of
political independence, and in the United States a generation after
the dramatic gains for political rights in the 1950s and 1960s, it
is clear that centuries of history of oppression are still deeply
embedded in current stubborn structures of inequality, as well as in
the dominant culture. The number of years counted in a generation
are generally taken as somewhere from 20 to 30. But changes in
consciousness are uneven, and sharply marked by transformative
events.
Those experiences differ, of course, from country to country and
continent to continent. But in the age of hashtags such as
#BlackLivesMatter and #FeesMustFall, there are also striking
convergences and linkages across continental boundaries. Yet the
unequal balance in global media (including social media) means that
the outside world is far less aware of the changes in South Africa
than of the highly publicized events in the United States.
Today’s series of two AfricaFocus Bulletins, therefore, focuses
particularly on South Africa.
Another AfricaFocus Bulletin, not sent out by email but available on
the web at http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/sa1609b.php, contains
excerpts from a forthcoming chapter by Patrick Bond, focusing on the
link between student protest in South Africa and the current heated
debates about the government budget and economic priorities in South
Africa.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin includes, as is our normal format, several
articles and additional links related to selected topics: recent
protests by black girls against racist hair codes at elite private
schools, analysis of the aftermath of the municipal elections, and
the planned launch of a new progressive trade union federation.
A new feature this week, however, consists of links to a Youtube
playlist of highly recommended videos available for free watching,
including two acclaimed feature films on the Marikana Massacre of
2012 (Miners Shot Down) and on the student protests of 2015 (The
People Versus the Rainbow Nation) as well as shorter videos and
interviews, such as the explosive speech by ANC veteran Sipho
Pityana at the funeral of ANC leader Makhenkhesi Stofile in last
August. You can find the listing below, with links to each video.
But, if your time right now is limited, I suggest you save this
email for later reading and go directly to Youtube to pick what to
watch and save any you are interested in to “watch later.” See
“South Africa in the 21st Century in Video: A Youtube Playlist,”
available at http://tinyurl.com/hqpr255.
Watching these videos and preparing the playlist has been both
enjoyable and highly informative for me, but it is also much more
time-consuming than selecting written material from email and web.
So I would much appreciate feedback on whether readers find any of
the videos useful, and whether you would like similar playlists to
be an ongoing feature for AfricaFocus.
To provide feedback, after you have watched a video, please fill out
this form: https://goo.gl/forms/skDu3L9MxgfpJIJj2
If you prefer audio to video, and have time to listen (a bit less
than an hour), note that KPFA radio host Walter Turner interviewed
me about South Africa after the municipal elections on his program
Africa Today. For the discussion with Walter, focused on trying to
understand South Africa’s present situation in comparison to the
parallels in the United States, visit the KPFA site at
https://kpfa.org/program/africa-today/, and scroll down to the
program for August 15, 2016. I’m not doing a form on this one, but
if you listen, any feedback (email to africafocus@igc.org) would be
welcome.
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on South Africa, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/southafrica.php
[For regular progressive coverage of South Africa, follow The Daily
Vox on Facebook or subscribe to the weekly “Top of the Vox” at
http://tinyurl.com/z5fvnpm]
I don’t think I have ever seen anything quite like it.
The little girl – now known to all as Zulaikha Patel – standing in
front of a row of three white males, refusing to back down, calling
on them to follow through with their threats to arrest them – for
their hair.
“Take us all,” she said, for half a dozen girls at the school. “They
want to take us prison … take us all.”
It was an act of extraordinary courage that left us tingling. Who
were these brave girls and how had they secured such resilience
against authority?
I watched the video on a loop on Instagram. Stolen moments from a
protest that left me breathless. I think it was five times before I
dared to blink. And still, there was an artistry in the execution of
their defiance. A calmness that betrayed possible consequence.
For Zulaikha – her resolve was as natural as the curls on her head
and the light creases on her young face. It was earnest, determined
and uncomplicated.
Their actions were undeterred by mortgage payments and outstanding
car loans. Unconcerned about the impact of her actions on “her
career” or “that promotion”.
A free spirit, asking only for the right to be herself.
The photo of her standing tall with steely eyes, arms outstretched
and fists folded above her irresistible afro in a defiance of an
antiquated, warped and racist policy will be studied and fluttered
over for years to come.
We learnt later that Zulaikha had been previously put in detention
for her hair. That she had to leave three schools because her hair
challenged the system. Her sister said she was continually mocked,
her hair described as “exotic” and looking like a “cabbage”. She
would come home in tears. It is remarkable then that she didn’t
look for ways to mend the “problem”.
I know I would have. I know I turned a blind eye to any whispers or
condescension from teachers or classmates at both primary and
secondary school reserved for the few brown and black faces in the
former Model-C schools I attended. I know I put on a purported
civilised face each morning I entered that school and showed my true
colours each afternoon back home or with fellow brown savages at the
local madrassa.
Then, as profiling at airports or certain cities continue to
proliferate, so many of us are shifting our behaviours,
assimilating, changing the way we curl our tongues so we fit in, or
draw attention to ourselves. And if we protest, it will be decided
after a cost-benefit assessment: based on time and place, potential
to win and lose, energy levels and interest to take on the prejudice
or let it slip. We are all in awe of Zulaikha, because we wish to
hell we could have all been her, growing up. We wish we could be
her, as a grown up.
While so many of us were trying as children, and then as adults, to
make the world work for us, we forgot that world already belonged to
each and every one of us. We’ve been left so insecure and desperate
to “make it”, we’ve been wired to forgo anything, including
ourselves.
I wondered after watching the clip another five times: what if there
hadn’t been a video to record the sublime protest initiated by the
girls of the school? The reported narrative would have never gone
viral. It would not have brought the school to its knees, its
policies into the spotlight. It might not have brought politicians
and policymakers into the discussion. Zulaikha might have found
herself immediately suspended, or expelled, maybe jailed. It might
have all been in vain.
We don’t know, as per her sister’s admission, how all of this
attention will impact on Zulaikha. She is just a 13-year-old after
all, acting on her own accord. And this is not a fight she was ever
meant to fight.
But she has provided a most memorable lesson.
Justice, it turns out, simply needs people to speak out against
injustice.
And it’s apt, that it would take a child to make us remember that.
—————
See also, for a description of the protest and its background,
“Pretoria Girls High:Â A protest against sacrificed cultures and
identities,” by Greg Nicolson, Daily Maverick, August 30, 2016 (
http://tinyurl.com/hjqpzek).
The Sun Also Rises: And the Darkest Hour is just before the Dawn
John Matisonn
Daily Maverick, 29 August 2016
http://www.dailymaverick.co.za – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/grp9h3a
[John Matisonn is the author of God, Spies and Lies, Finding South
Africa’s future through its past, and host of Cape Town TV’s Between
the Lines, a series of half-hour programs each featuring an
interview with a key South African newsmaker or analyst.]
[For a Youtube playlist of Between the Lines beginning in June 2016,
visit http://tinyurl.com/jsotek5 – For links to selected interviews,
see “South Africa in the 21st Century” below]
I guess I’m cursed to be a contrarian. By late 1996 I could see that
this democratic government so many had risked life and limb for
would not be strong against corruption. I saw it first-hand when it
sided against the honest in the first big corruption scandal of the
ANC era, at the Independent Broadcasting Authority. Everyone else
was optimistic, and I, an IBA councillor, was out of step.
Now, as President Jacob Zuma’s rank disdain for the people he
governs has seen in some a spiral of despair, I feel positive. Why?
Because August 2016 will go down in this country’s history as a
turning point. Zuma is not finished yet, but my crystal ball tells
me that whatever damage he does before he goes, and there will be
damage, politically speaking he is a dead man walking. The South
African voter has awoken. And you can take that to the bank.
Of course this may not be the end of the ANC. If good leadership,
leadership with vision and integrity, takes the helm, the ANC
obviously can rebuild. Too many people care about it to abandon it
if given new reasons for hope. But every day Zuma remains in charge
is a blessing to Mmusi Maimane and Julius Malema. For them, the
president is the gift that keeps on giving. And from the day after
Zuma goes, he will be like apartheid: Support Zuma? Who, me? Never
happened!
The cascade of good people coming out against Zuma and for Gordhan
should bring tears of relief to the patriotic eye. Let’s be blunt
for a moment, like we know South Africans are at home: a lifelong
Communist of Indian descent has the hopes and admiration of a
grateful nation. His courage, smarts and sensibleness have brought
out the best in leaders in every field and of every ethnicity.
Not a day goes past without an icon of the struggle, or a gaggle of
academics or a billionaire business leader, scathingly attacking the
president. And Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has finally lifted
his skirt. After a seemingly endless period of the unseemly
grovelling necessary to stay in his job, he’s given a limited idea
of what we are asked to believe is the real Cyril: he backed Pravin
Gordhan unequivocally at an ANC funeral.
Don’t bet the farm that Cyril will not cover those ankles again.
Zuma retains the majority in the decision-making National Executive
Committee, and Ramaphosa knows how to count. But for ordinary South
Africans, either the ANC throws out Zuma, or voters continue to
nibble away at the ANC’s eviscerated credibility and votes.
It will be a long time before all of us — commentators,
politicians, businesspeople, academics and the jobless — digest the
news of August 2016. Around 10 percent of the national budget, and
hundreds of thousands of jobs, are no longer controlled by the ANC.
Even in the unlikely event of a 2019 ANC recovery from these local
election results, further losses will accrue in provincial and
national legislatures.
The ANC lacks the tools for opposition politics, except perhaps in
Johannesburg, where the outgoing mayor, Parks Tau, retains his
skills and moral compass.
If Herman Mashaba messes up as mayor of Johannesburg, Tau’s people
will be back in 2021. That’s in the future. For the rest of this
decade, the defeated will have to adjust.
The new metro governments have something going for them. That hunger
and lack of entitlement, the feeling they have no God-given right to
govern and everything to prove, may serve them well.
Do not underestimate the prize: even if they do not get the ANC
below 50% in 2019, think about the thousands of town councillors who
lost their jobs this month, and the MPs and MPLs who know they will
be unemployed in 2019. Think about the tens (hundreds?) of thousands
of cadres whose guarantees of deployed positions just evaporated.
They must prove themselves competent, or they’re next. Those old
enough will remember that apartheid slugger John Vorster’s famous
phrase: adapt or die.
The adaptations to come will boggle the pre-August 2016 mind. Zuma
seems determined to take out Paul Mashatile as ANC Gauteng
provincial leader. He, Tau, and Gauteng premier David Makhuru
represent the best in the ANC. Urban, urbane, modern and honourable.
What will they do?
The answer follows logic: some will stay ANC to the bitter end. But
others will switch parties. It may still seem impossible to imagine,
but when they are out in the cold, their choice will be fairly
simple: DA or EFF. Perhaps COPE or the UDM will attract a few, but
they lack the infrastructure or heft to make it on their own. The
future is with three parties. Only in KwaZulu-Natal will the fourth,
the Inkatha Freedom Party, remain in the running, though the age of
its leader, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, and his failure to prepare
for succession mean it too is on borrowed time. As in the white
politics days of the United Party’s Douglas Mitchell and before that
the British imperialist Dominion Party, the languid politics of our
tropical province will be slow to catch up.
The country needs to move to debate that’s more concrete. Probably
nothing is more critical or central and essential to debate than
reprioritising the national budget. That requires a public argument
tied to what the government is actually doing as opposed to what it
says it’s doing.
To give but two examples: Every government leader says we are
prioritising infrastructure, but the companies that would be
building infrastructure — construction companies — are staving off
collapse because so little is being commissioned. Infrastructure
brings jobs and growth, both short-term and long-term.
Second, the government wants a zero fees increase because it is
scared of students. But it hasn’t offered a way to pay for it.
Universities are a top priority. They provide the job creators (as
opposed to the claim especially by the American right that cutting
already low taxes on the 1% creates jobs).
Where should the money come from? That is what the debate must be
about. But first, a major step must be to cut the public sector
payroll. If we don’t we will be Zimbabwe — where Robert Mugabe has
stayed in power for 36 years by protecting public sector salaries at
the expense of the economy. In 2016 that chicken (his party symbol
is the rooster) has finally come to roost. This week, after he
proved unable to meet the payroll yet again, he finally agreed to
the cuts. That is the worst possible way to do it — to cut when you
have no money to redirect productively.
What happened on August 3 may be the best possible outcome for a
number of reasons besides giving the ANC a well deserved bloody
nose. The fact that the transfer of power occurred largely
peacefully is a good sign. That makes it more likely that the ANC
will accept the next round of losses.
As important, this slow easing of power away from the ANC is better
than an overnight landslide, for this reason: South Africa is
extremely hard to govern. Its complexity, managing unruly and
compromised trade unions and increasingly confident traditional
leaders, remain substantially the ANC’s problem.
So keep your chin up. Take the long view. The wheels of democracy
grind slow but sure. The majesty of democracy is a wonderful thing
to behold. South Africa will be back. China won’t bring it back.
America and Europe won’t bring it back. Only we, South Africans, can
and must. DM
See also Sahra Ryklief, “South Africa’s 2016 municipal elections –
why the excitement?,” GroundUp, August 23, 2016 (
http://tinyurl.com/jvbx4aw)
“Zwelinzima Vavi’s address to the FAWU [Food and Allied Workers
Union] National Congress”
22 August 2016
[Brief excerpts from beginning of speech by the former general
secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and
convenor of the Steering Committee for a New Trade Union Federation.
Full text available at http://tinyurl.com/j8b6roc]
It is also a time of extreme hardship for millions of workers and
thousands of your own members, particularly on the farms, where far
too many employers still act as if apartheid had never ended.
Poverty pay, casualisation, exploitation and racism are widespread
and even getting worse, as the job-loss bloodbath continues. Entire
industries are in danger of disappearing. Unemployment at 36% is
among the highest in the world, and employers have been quick to
exploit the desperation of the unemployed to find or keep jobs at
any cost in order to drive down wages and working conditions.
As well as outsourcing, casualisation of work and using labour
brokers, the bosses are now waging a concerted campaign to sabotage
collective bargaining structures and weaken the power of organised
labour. Some, like Uber taxis, want to redefine all their workers as
self-employed so-called ‘partners’, with no benefits or union
rights.
Inequality is widening globally, but South Africa remains the worst
in the world, and it is still blatantly racial as the gap gets wider
between the white, super-rich capitalist elite and the black working
class majority, women in particular, who remain even more firmly
mired in poverty, hunger and squalid living conditions. Wealth is
shifting further into the pockets of the white capitalists.
This widening inequality fosters a mood of growing anger and despair
as the problems which the ANC keep promising to solve remain as bad
as ever or get even worse. Community protests against the lack of
basic services, corruption and unaccountable local officials have
become so frequent that they rarely make the news headlines, except
in traffic reports when they disrupt motorists travel plans!
This is all aggravated by the unchecked explosion of
maladministration, corruption and theft of our wealth not just by a
few rogue families but the entire capitalist class and their
political allies in the ANC, DA and other political parties. It is
not just President Jacob Zuma and the Guptas who are plundering the
wealth created by our labour, but the entire corrupt capitalist
system of which they are part.
More and more reports are leaking out revealing systematic tax
evasion and money-laundering by big business. Millions of rands are
disappearing from the country as investors put their cash where they
will make the quickest and biggest profits, with no regard for the
welfare of the people, the environmental price and least of all the
conditions of their workers who produce the wealth in the first
place. Big business is sitting on R1, 5 trillion in the banks and it
blames this investment strike on ‘uncertainty’.
These are all the real reasons for the decline in the ANC vote and
the record high number of abstentions on 3 August. Although it is
still the biggest party, the ANC’s vote dropped from 62.9% in 2011
to 54.4%.
…
********************************************
South Africa in the 21st Century in Video: A Youtube Playlist
Videos selected by AfricaFocus Bulletin (http://www.africafocus.org)
as key resources for understanding South Africa today. The full
playlist is available at http://tinyurl.com/hqpr255
Miners shot down [Full documentary]
Award-winning 2014 film on the 2012 Marikana Massacre.
1 hour, 26 minutes
Shutting Down the Rainbow Nation: #FeesMustFall
by Africa is a Country
Short film on #FeesMustFall student protests. October 2015.
11 minutes
The People Versus The Rainbow Nation
by MTV Base Africa
Feature film. May 2016. Inside look at students and the issues
behind the protests.
1 hour, 2 minutes
Between The Lines Episode 1
by Cape Town TV
Interview with Sylvia Vollenhoven, June 2016. From rediscovery of
history of the Khoisan to corruption and illicit financial flows in
the mid-1990s.
26 minutes
Between the Lines Episode 3
by Cape Town TV
Interview with Andrew Feinstein. June 2016. Corruption in the South
African arms deal & the global arms trade.
24 minutes
Between the Lines Episode 6
by Cape Town TV
Interview with leading university educator Jonathan Jansen. July
2016. The state of South African higher education. Financial &
policy neglect.
26 minutes
Between the Lines Episode 8
by Cape Town TV
Interview with #FeesMustFall activist Akosua Korenteng at University
of Cape Town. August 2016.
26 minutes
Between the Lines Episode 11
by Cape Town TV
Interview with election analyst Bob Mattes. August 2016. Data-based
analysis of municipal election results.
24 minutes
Full Speech: Sipho Pityana Attacks Jacob Zuma at Makhenkhesi Stofile
funeral
by Tribe2Tribes
Devastating critique of regime corruption at funeral of respected
ANC leader. August 25, 2016.
30 minutes
“Sipho Pityana speech at Stofile funeral,” News24,
2016-08-26. Background and partial transcript at
http://tinyurl.com/glhkhgx
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org
AfricaFocus Bulletin
July 26, 2016 (160626)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor’s Note
At the 21st International AIDS Conference in South Africa last week,
“optimism faded as delegates arrived to news that donor countries
had reduced global HIV funding by more than $1 billion from 2014 to
2015. … Nearly 20 million people are [still] in need of
antiretroviral therapy. [and] nearly half of the $44 billion cost
could be unfunded between 2016 and 2020.” – Washington Post, July
25, 2016
For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/hiv1607.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”
To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/hiv1607.php
Overshadowed by the U.S. presidential campaign and by acts of
terrorism around the world, the 21st International AIDS Conference
was held in Durban, South Africa earlier this month. Sixteen years
after the previous International AIDS conference in Durban in 2000,
which marked a turning point in international action on AIDS, there
were successes to celebrate. In 2000, the only people receiving life
securing antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in Africa and other
developing countries were accessing medicines through clinical
trials. The few that were rich enough purchased life through private
healthcare. Sixteen years later, 17 million people across the world
receive ARVs, mostly through public health care systems. This
accomplishment is unprecedented, and UNAIDS has laid out the goal of
putting “an end to AIDS.”
But there were also dire warnings of the danger of reduced
international commitment to confront the continued death toll.
Africa, and in particular South Africa and neighboring countries in
Southern Africa, continue to be the epicenter of the pandemic.
Worldwide, the reality is that only 51 percent of people know their
status and of the 37 million people living with HIV, only 17 million
are on treatment. Almost one in five South African adults are living
with HIV, and the percentages are even higher in Botswana, Lesotho,
and Swaziland. And, noted International AIDS Society president
Linda-Gail Bekker, “there is a horrible funding gap we have to
address. We had so much money when we didn’t have the tools. Now we
have the tools and we don’t have the money.”
For an excellent series of maps, tables, and charts on the current
status of HIV/AIDS in Africa, visit
http://www.afri-dev.info/ – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/hhzaln9
For coverage of the Durban conference by South Africa’s Daily Vox,
visit http://tinyurl.com/hfnjmns
For the Washington Post article quoted above, go to
http://tinyurl.com/hjr4vf2
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on health issues, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-health.php
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
AfricaFocus Break from Publication
AfricaFocus Bulletin will be taking a break from publication for the
next six weeks. Automated news feeds on the website (
http://www.africafocus.org) will continue to be updated regularly.
AfricaFocus social media will also be updated occasionally during
this period.
Many thanks to those subscribers who have sent in a voluntary
subscription payment this year to support AfricaFocus Bulletin. Your
continued support is needed to continue publication and to expand
AfricaFocus outreach. Send in a check or pay on-line with Paypal.
See http://www.africafocus.org/support.php for details.
The response to AIDS has shown another world is possible
Mark Heywood
Daily Maverick, July 19, 2016
http://www.dailymaverick.co.za – Direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/hk6kosx
[Mark Heywood is Executive Direction of Section27 and an executive
member of the Treatment Action Campaign]
We live in a nasty, fragmented, divided world, where hatred is more
and more ruling the roost. Glorious bastards who have been pushed
beyond the pale of civilised behaviour are on a killing spree. Their
intention is to provoke new wars and civil wars where person fights
person on the basis of differences based on race, or religion or
ethnicity.
A gleeful arms industry has found a new market for drones with
bombs. The indiscriminate ‘fightback’ against terror frequently make
matters worse. Ironically groups like ISIS are aiming to push people
into the hands of bigots like Trump, Marie Le Pen and Nigel Farage.
They want more violence against marginalised people. They want
racial and religious civil wars.
It’s a zero-sum war game.
While reports of these horrors washed across our TV screens, the
21st International AIDS Conference began in Durban. Sadly, the
energy and idealism that is evident here risks being eclipsed by
global instability. Yet, in the AIDS activist movement and the 30-
year response to AIDS, we have seen glimpses of another world;
another way of living and loving, dying and doing business.
It is extraordinary.
Sixteen years ago the International AIDS conference first came to
Durban. At that point, the only people receiving life securing
antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in Africa and other developing
countries were accessing medicines through clinical trials. The few
that were rich enough purchased life through private healthcare.
Sixteen years later, 17-million people across the world receive
ARVs, mostly through public health care systems. This accomplishment
is unprecedented in the history of any medicine. Seventeen million
deaths have been averted. Although activists are rightly critical of
UNAIDS’ (http://www.unaids.org) talk of the end of AIDS, the fact
that an end can even be discussed – and that it is theoretically
possible – indicates just how far we have come.
How did we come so far?
People who stood up for their human rights achieved this. Activists
achieved this.
In the 1980s AIDS began its deadly rampage as an epidemic of
recrimination and prejudice. Stigma is by no means over. Yet, the
way in which people with HIV have stood up for each other has gone a
long way towards breaking the stigma. Solidarity with people most at
risk has won greater acceptance and recognition of sex workers,
understanding of difference in gender and sexual orientation and the
rights of drug users, prisoners, migrants.
Where once AIDS was marked by total hatred, there are now
significant pockets of respect for love and diversity, solidarity
and empathy, in every country in the world. A long way to go, yes,
but a start.
Other profoundly important things have happened. Once upon a time
almost every poor person with HIV was denied life by pharmaceutical
companies intent on amassing vast profits from essential medicines.
Activists shamed drug companies, challenged them in court, exposed
their corrupt practices. Prices tumbled. As a result different
business models began to emerge, ones that could make smaller
profits from meeting the needs of larger numbers of people. Prices
tumbled and tumbled.
Activists confronted the whole model of intellectual property
‘rights’ and by doing so were able to push back the WTO Agreement on
Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property, an ‘agreement’ that
had been forced on developing countries in 1995 at the height of
capitalist triumphalism. As a result a massive market opened for
generic companies based in India in particular. If similar
challenges were mounted around drugs for cancer or other causes of
illness millions more lives are there to be saved.
Learning how to make a market out of genuinely meeting needs and
human rights is something other corporates must learn, including for
decent food, housing and a hundred other of life’s necessities. That
battle must still be joined by other advocates, that wisdom still
acquired by a short-sighted business community.
So, AIDS is about AIDS. But it’s also about so much more than AIDS.
It’s about justice and social justice. In the words of Edwin
Cameron: “AIDS has taken us on a journey of light.”
In the weeks before this conference I warned that the job is only
half done.
The global statistics remain frightening. According to UNAIDS:
* There are 1.1-million deaths due to AIDS a year;
* There are 5,700 new HIV infections a day;
* Epidemics of TB and MDR-TB run largely unchecked.
My fears were not unfounded. As we sit in our padded seats, or
rather as we march, sing, argue, meet, learn from each other,
debate, shout, advocate, commiserate and occasionally cry, it’s
becoming clear that this glimmer of hope risks being snuffed out.
Conferences like this that refocus human rights activism, where
politicians come to account to people, might be the last kick of a
dying horse.
In activist meetings a very different picture is emerging to the
optimistic one that government officials, ours included, wanted to
make the AIDS story. There are medicine stock-outs in many
countries. Sex workers and drugs users are humiliated, imprisoned
and sometimes murdered. Poor people in rich countries are being left
behind by the artificial segmentation dreamed up by some bright
spark in the World Bank that declares certain developing countries
‘middle income’, ignoring the local context of inequality,
corruption and severe deprivation.
Try telling the 12-million hungry people in SA or 25% unemployed
that ours is a middle income country. “Dream on”, they will reply,
“we would be happy if it was a ‘some-income’ country, rather than a
no-income country.”
Human rights respecting countries like South Africa are silent on
the human rights abuses by our economic allies in countries like
China, India and Russia. Attacks on civil society organisations and
activists are growing. In India, the Lawyers Collective – an
organisation that has shone a light for human rights for 35 years –
and 15,000 other NGOs are under attack.
Finally donor funding from developed countries for preventing and
treating HIV and TB is declining fast. As right wing governments
rise in the West and as the unwinnable ‘war on terrorism’ consumes
ever greater resources, the appetite for matters-just is declining.
If we are to meet the target of universal access to ARV treatment
UNAIDS has announce that there is a funding gap of $7 billion a
year. But apparently taxpayers in developed countries feel that they
have done enough now.
My answer to that, dear US Ambassador Gaspard and others, is to
appeal to you that your governments try a little harder to talk to
your taxpayers. Show your citizens how their investments in others’
lives have brought us half way across the river to the “end of
AIDS”. Appeal to them to continue their largesse. Explain to them
why their investment in AIDS is something they should take proud
ownership of, how it has been an investment in humanity, health
systems and social fabric. It has saved millions of lives. Tell them
the job’s not done. Tell them the world will be safer for it.
Try also to persuade them that today’s way to win the war on
tomorrow’s terrorism is in large part with love and respect for
human rights, solidarity and empathy, inclusion rather than
exclusion.
If we do not arrest these developments the response to HIV risks
evolving once more into one based on market calculations about
profit and investment frameworks rather than fundamental human
rights. We will never come back to Durban to celebrate.
The question we have to ask, the question you have to ask, is
whether we will allow this recession?
There are 18,000 people at this AIDS conference. We are
0.00000000000000000000001% of the world’s population. We are
0.000000001% of the 37-million people still alive with HIV in the
world. We have a huge burden on our shoulders. But we also have the
power of human rights law, of advances medicine and scientists, of
morality, of love. In the words of the Deputy President Cyril
Ramaphosa, who opened the conference, “We must throw ideas at each
other, not stones. It is through human action that we will end this
epidemic.”
So, will this conference be the last kick of a dying horse?
While achieving these 90-90-90 goals would set the world on course
to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030–in line with the Sustainable
Development Goals–the reality is that only 51 percent of people
know their status and of the 37 million people living with HIV, 17
million are on ART. As the 21st International AIDS Conference opens
this week in Durban, South Africa, activists are calling for
treatment for all.
Meanwhile, HIV infections among adults are not on the decline. In
fact, infections are on the rise across some regions.
While there are promising new prevention tools such as pre-exposure
prophylaxis (PrEP), it’s not yet widely available in many settings,
particularly for key populations.
And all this is happening while funding for response is on the
decline, with more emphasis on countries most affected by HIV to
finance their own responses, as many transition to middle-income
country status.
Q: UNAIDS has set the very ambitious 90-90-90 targets to be achieved
by 2020. There’s 17 million people out of 37 million living with HIV
on ART. What needs to be done to scale up people’s access to ART?
A: We have been ambitious because during the last five years we’ve
been able to double the number of people put on treatment, which
means that countries were not overwhelmed by the problem and they
were able to define their strategy, to reach people and make sure
that treatment was available. The biggest challenge I personally
feel will be this one: the health systems. The huge number of people
[receiving] treatment is [shedding] light on the inefficiencies of
our health systems and the capacity of the health system to absorb
and to be able to scale up quickly, more than they have been able to
do.
If we don’t have a shift in the service delivery approach–to think
about strengthening the community, reinforcing the interface between
the last service provider and the community, and bringing civil
society and others to become providers of services–it will be very
difficult for us. That’s why I’m calling for 1 million community
health workers to be implemented really quickly.
[Secondly], financing will be critical. What I’m seeing right now
has scared me, if we continue to harbor the flattening and reduction
of funding. We cannot lie to each other. I cannot see how Malawi,
Zambia, even South Africa can get to 6 million people on treatment
without any financial support. We need to continue to call for
global solidarity. I think financing will be a key issue.
[Thirdly], how we will reach hard-to-reach people–those key
populations who are today representing 35 percent of new infections?
If we don’t have a strategy that can really quicken the pace and
reach them and get them treatment services, then our ambitious goals
will not be achieved.
Q: A recent UNAIDS report found that new HIV infections among adults
have stalled, failing to decline for at least five years. In eastern
Europe and central Asia, new HIV infections rose by 57 percent
between 2010 and 2015. What role do you think PrEP can play in HIV
prevention and how can you expand its use among countries that are
against it?
A: We are completely supportive of PrEP. We are working with
countries to try and introduce PrEP in countries such as South
Africa among sex workers. We are [also] trying to see how in Eastern
Europe and Central Asia we can start pushing to make sure they can
have the appropriate policy reform which can help them to target
people who inject drugs so it can reduce infections. I think they
are not closed to that [idea], even though we face the dilemma that
we continue to believe that harm reduction programs should be put in
place, that people should not be criminalized, and that people
should not be facing prejudice and exclusion.
Even if with PrEP, if you cannot come for services, you cannot get
the pill … that is the trade-off we need to manage properly–not
just making sure that a pill becomes the magic response but
restoring the dignity of people, making sure they are not hiding and
not discriminated against. There’s a tendency to think that with
PrEP pills will help us to resolve issues of infection. That’s true,
but if you don’t reach people, if you have a series of bad laws that
are not removed, it will be impossible for us to implement because
the impact will be little.
Q: There’s insufficient coverage of harm reduction programs across
the globe and policies that criminalize people who inject drugs. The
United Nations’ target to reduce HIV transmission among people who
inject drugs by 50 percent by last year was missed. How can UNAIDS
better advocate for harm reduction programs?
A: A good example is China: It was [previously] zero tolerance for
people who inject drugs previously. What we did, was really bring
the leadership of China to really understand the evidence–the
science and the strategy information–coming from other countries.
China today has the biggest harm reduction program in Asia. I think
groups that are put on those programs are close to zero new
infections. So it means that the pragmatic approach of China helped
to completely change the face of the epidemic among drug users.
And there’s a lot of uncertainty around funding for AIDS response in
the future. How will UNAIDS advocate for funding for key
populations?
We are working closely with PEPFAR who in New York announced $100
million for key populations. I think it’s a catalytic fund and, for
me, that’s what we need, to have the courage to say “these are
targeted funds” [that] will help us to see how to better reach those
people with a community network. I think it will certainly bring
different modalities in the future–how to finance those groups and
how to support them–because until now they were part of a package
of financing.
Having the courage to say that we have $100 million behind you and
want to succeed, that really could completely change the way we can
leverage [the funding] to scale up. We will see a lot of community
groups who will start to be more vocal because they can get small
amounts that help them to demonstrate that they can have an impact
if they are given more resources.
Q: Given that only 51 percent of people know their status, what role
do think self-testing is going to play in the future? How can we
increase its outreach?
A: I think we need to completely change our approach to testing.
It’s good to go for routine testing and make sure that we make
testing more convenient. Self-testing can therefore play a very
important role, on one condition: we need to think about our service
delivery approach. It’s not possible to have self-testing when you
don’t have a different health system, which can be really big not on
just the health system per se but a system for health. We need to
think about systems for health–the community approach, so we have
community health workers, a subsystem of health, which will be able
to really deal with this self-testing [and] go door-to-door because
they are trusted, have the capacity and are close. But, if not, we
cannot tell people to go self-test … It will fail completely
because again we’ll have a lot of people who will test positive but
will not have the ability to access services–they will be scared
and they will not trust anyone.
What we need to think about in this period is how we electrify a
different type of communication approach. Most young people are
complacent. They don’t see people dying of AIDS. So we have a bulk
of young people that need not just to be protected, but becoming
actors of transformation in terms of prevention. That is, for me, a
future challenge.
Aids Conference 2016 – the Gains, the Gaps, the Next Global Steps
The Conversation (Johannesburg), July 22, 2016
http://allafrica.com/stories/201607220830.html
Interview
By Linda-Gail Bekker, University of Cape Town
As the 21st International AIDS Conference wraps up in Durban, South
Africa, Professor Linda-Gail Bekker, incoming International AIDS
Society President, talks to The Conversation Africa health and
medicine editor Candice Bailey about what was achieved and what
still needs to be done.
Q: What are the three interventions or innovations that stand out at
the conference in terms of taking the fight against HIV
forward?
A: There has been exciting work about how we do treatment better to
make sure we get to the 34 million who are infected. And that’s
absolutely critical. We have to reach those 34 million people but we
know that health systems, particularly in the sub-Saharan region,
are struggling. So there was some wonderful work on differentiated
models of care, how we can do business more effectively and
efficiently and ways we can do the steps in the cascade more
efficiently.
And I’ve loved some of the testing innovations. Addressing all the
steps from testing is critical.
Secondly I’m passionate about primary prevention but I think we’ve
got some gaps on how we can do it. I’m a great proponent of daily
pre-exposure prophylaxis and I really think we should roll it out
because it works. But I’m very excited about the prospect of what’s
coming down the road in terms of less frequent dosing for pre-
exposure prophylaxis.
Number three is a fresh approach to adolescents. This conference has
reinvigorated the notion that we have to get adolescents to the
table. We have done well, I think, in getting adolescents to be
really well represented. And it works. You feel their voice.
The message I have heard here is that we need to have an integrated
approach. We can’t just talk HIV treatment or just HIV prevention.
It has to take into consideration structural issues, behavioural
issues, rights, access — a lot of issues. And I think it becomes a
model of how we really look after our adolescents around the world
and HIV is a great catalyst within that.
Q: Based on the discussions at the conference where are the gaps in
the global HIV response?
A: At the moment it’s money. There is a horrible funding gap that we
have to address. We had so much money when we didn’t have the tools.
Now we have the tools and we don’t have the money. I feel desperate
about that.
In 2000 we missed opportunities because we didn’t have our systems
and our thinking right. I’m taking collective responsibility but
there was a leadership gap and we lost lives because of that. Here
we stand now and if we don’t act in the way that we should, we will
have lots of lost lives and infections that we don’t have to. And I
don’t want that on my record.
When we get help from Sir Elton John, Prince Harry, Princess Mabel
from The Netherlands and Charlize Theron to shine a focus on this we
are eternally grateful. We need help from everyone to carry the
message that the job isn’t done. Otherwise we will miss the moment
and we will have regrets. And I don’t want to be in that camp.
I am very pleased that the Replenishment of the Global Fund
Conference is being held in Canada because I think the Prime
Minister of Canada is really showing that he can get the job done.
Justin Trudeau’s a great example of moving forward when he needs to
move forward and doing uncomfortable things when they have to be
done because it’s right. I have a sense that he does what’s right.
So I’m excited about that because I think that’s important.
We have to keep showing people that it’s not only the right thing
and the compassionate thing and the humane thing but that it makes
good financial sense. We are bleeding where we don’t need to bleed
in terms of finance. And if we can shut it down earlier we will do
the world a favour.
Q: What is the message that is coming out of this conference?
A: The job is not done. We have tools that can be deployed; we have
a lot of work to do. We have the energy but this is not the time to
not have the resources. It’s a collective global effort. And we’re
excited. Durban has reÂenergised the whole sense of community and
engagement. Now we need the rest of the world to get on board. And I
think we can do it. The optimism that I have felt here is real. But
the reality is that if we don’t move forward from today that
trajectory will
flatten out.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org
