Tutu withdraws from leadership summit

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has withdrawn from participating in a leadership summit in Johannesburg to protest the presence of Tony Blair.

Tutu's decision forms a protest against Blair's decision to back the United States war in Iraq.

"The archbishop has spent considerable time over the past few days wrestling with his conscience and taking counsel from trusted advisers with respect to his attendance at the event," the archbishop's office wrote to the event organisers on Tuesday.

"Ultimately, the archbishop is of the view that Mr Blair's decision to support the United States' military invasion of Iraq, on the basis of unproven allegations of the existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, was morally indefensible.

"The Discovery Invest Leadership Summit has leadership as its theme. Morality and leadership are indivisible. In this context, it would be inappropriate and untenable for the archbishop to share a platform with Mr Blair.

"The archbishop greatly regrets inconveniencing and disappointing the organisers and participants of the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit."

Following Tutu's decision, Blair released a statement.

"Obviously [Tony Blair] is sorry that the archbishop has decided to pull out now from an event that has been fixed for months and where he and the Archbishop were never actually sharing a platform.

"As far as Iraq is concerned they have always disagreed about removing Saddam by force – such disagreement is part of a healthy democracy.

"As for the morality of that decision we have recently had both the memorial of the Halabja massacre where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam's use of chemical weapons; and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million including many killed by chemical weapons.

"So these decisions are never easy morally or politically".

Anger grows

A group of Durban-based organisations want to arrest Blair on charges of war crimes when he arrives in South Africa.

"Various Muslim organisations are in talks about possible actions that will be carried out should Tony Blair visit South Africa," said Mustafa Darsot, a member of the South African Muslim Network executive committee.

"This includes protest marches outside the summit venue, possible sit-ins and legal action against Mr Blair. We have also asked various legal professionals to look at the feasibility of having a warrant of arrest issued against him."

Blair will join several big names, including chess master Garry Kasparov and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan at the annual event, which will take place in Sandton on August 30.

Darsot said the network and several other organisations had written to Discovery Group founder and chief executive officer Adrian Gore urging him to withdraw the invitation to Blair. They did not believe he was "fit to lecture on leadership" because of his key role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"Mr Blair is complicit in the murder of thousands of people in Iraq and should be tried for war crimes," Darsot said. "He violated the trust and responsibility of his office and it was his cosy and illegitimate relationship with the [Rupert] Murdoch press that prevented much of the truth about his role in the invasion of Iraq and murder of its citizens from being revealed in the press."

Offence

But Iona Maclean, head of Discovery Life and Discovery Invest Marketing, said the invitation to Blair would not be withdrawn.

"The Discovery Invest Leadership Summit brings together a range of leaders to debate the challenges that face the world's economy, business, government and society," she said.

"The event is not intended to reflect a political view or cause offence. Discovery Invest selected the speakers based on their experience as leaders from various spheres of society and we will not be withdrawing our invitation to any of the speakers."

Patrick Bond, director of the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said there was no question that Blair could be prosecuted for a "crime of aggression".

"The website arrestblair.org spells out Blair's role in recent mass murder from the Middle East to Central Asia," he said.

"Since Pretoria politicians justifiably complain that the International Criminal Court mainly prosecutes African tyrants, leaving European and American war criminals to travel the world gathering huge speaking fees, some action by Foreign Minister Maite Nkoane-Mashabane would reduce the talk left, walk right accusation against South Africa. She might simply follow the recent lead of Malawian President Joyce Banda, who warned Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to stay away from Lilongwe on threat of arrest."

Bond said if Nkoane-Mashabane did not intervene, South Africans who viewed Blair as a war criminal could attempt a citizen's arrest.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Africa: Border Disputes Do Not Help Africa

MALAWIAN President Joyce Banda made encouraging remarks at a news conference in Lilongwe. She said that her country will not go to war with Tanzania over the ongoing Lake Nyasa border dispute. She explained that negotiations on the matter are still going on between authorities of Malawi and Tanzania, but noted that even if the ongoing diplomatic efforts fail, other channels will be used exhaustively to resolve the matter.

Ms Banda stressed that the dispute is not a good reason and will never be, for the brothers and sisters of the two countries to go to war. The border dispute erupted last year when Malawi issued a licence to a British firm, Surestream Petroleum, to prospect for hydrocarbons. Tanzania claims a portion of the 29,600 square kilometres lake, but Malawi cites a colonial-era agreement dating from 1890 that stipulates that the border between the two countries lies along the Tanzanian shoreline of the lake.

The dispute between Tanzania and Malawi over Lake Nyasa, which is known as Lake Malawi in Malawi, is yet another of African headache brought about by the colonial division of the continent. In drawing up the boundaries between their "possessions" in Africa there was little precision in the process

Problems with borders are commonplace in Africa. Sources show that the continent has more than 100 border disputes brought about by its former colonial rulers. Arbitrary lines drawn on maps by colonial powers sitting at the Conference of Berlin in 1884 have left countries with meaningless boundaries that are now the source of conflicts.

These have led to countless disputes, some leading to war, others to years of diplomatic and legal wrangling. It is hoped that Tanzania and Malawi are going to give diplomacy the chance in amicable resolution of the dispute over Lake Nyasa and continue living as brothers and sisters.

Both countries have many problems at present including poverty and diseases that need to be overcome as soon as possible. Wars will never take the two countries anywhere and should not be an option since they will make things worse. Let the leaders and experts meet and resolve the dispute.

Source: All Africa

Malawi president dies after suffering heart attack

Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika has died after a heart attack, a hospital source said on Friday, but the government's official silence has created political suspense over his succession. The impoverished nation was plunged into a long night of intrigue after Mutharika's heart attack in the capital Lilongwe. He was rushed to hospital but doctors were unable to save him, a source at the hospital said. "He died ... after two hours of resuscitation", shortly after midnight, the hospital source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the government has not yet made a formal announcement.

Mutharika was reported by state radio to have been airlifted to South Africa in the early morning hours. Reporters at the airport in Lilongwe said they were chased from the terminal during the night departure. Neither the South African government nor hospital officials in Johannesburg could comment on Mutharika, saying only Malawi's government was authorised to speak about the president. The hospital source in Lilongwe said he was taken to South Africa to be embalmed, in a move widely seen as an attempt by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party to get its house in order over the succession issue.

Under the Constitution, Vice-President Joyce Banda is next in line. But that succession is politically fraught because Mutharika kicked her out of the ruling party in 2010 as he chose to groom his brother as heir apparent instead of her. Her ouster angered many urban voters who saw the move as an attempt by Mutharika to concentrate his power. Mutharika, a former World Bank economist who first came to power in 2004, was re-elected with a sweeping majority in 2009 as president of the poor Southern African country. But he has increasingly come under fire for attempts to rein in the media and to shield the government from public criticism. His feuds with donors and lenders like the International Monetary Fund have hamstrung the economy in an aid-dependent nation, which is suffering from shortages of foreign currency that have left Malawi unable to import enough fuel to meet its needs.

Public frustrations erupted into nationwide street protests in July, when police shot 19 people dead. Last month a broad coalition of rights groups called on Mutharika to resign. Malawi suffered for decades under the brutal dictatorship of Kamuzu Banda, and is proud of its hard-fought democratic freedoms ushered in with multi-party elections in 1994. Any attempt to circumvent the Constitution would certainly meet with resistance, analysts said. "It's automatic that she takes over the presidency. The reality on the ground is that Banda takes over until the remainder of the term in 2014, unless someone wants to change the rules," lawyer Wapona Kita said. Kita said the Constitution "clearly states that in the event of incapacitation or death of the president, the vice president takes over."

Banda formed her own People's Party after being sacked from the ruling party. Mutharika then filed a case at the high court seeking to force her from office, arguing that his running mate had become an opposition figure. The official silence has heightened anxieties in Malawi, with the Daily Times writing that Malawians are in "huge suspense" over the president. "The nation's suspense has been intensified after high-profile officials who included several cabinet ministers arrived at the hospital and went straight to the intensive care unit," it said. "After some time, they trooped out with sad faces and without a word."

The Nation, another independent newspaper, criticised the government's handling of Mutharika's hospitalisation. "It is time to do things well through provision of timely information," the paper said, adding that the government "could have done better than the sketchy statements broadcast on state radio -- as almost everyone was left guessing."

Source: Mail & Guardian

Malawi's president refuses to budge

Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika on Thursday responded to growing civil unrest and calls for him to resign by saying he could rule his destitute Southern Africa state "forever". A loose alliance of opposition and civil society groups backed by influential religious leaders last week gave him a two-month deadline to step down or face even larger protests.

"If I wanted to, I would use the majority I have and amend the Constitution to rule for another term, or forever," he told supporters at a rally.

"I will not resign because that's not what the law says. I will only be able to do that when my term expires in 2014," Mutharika said.

Anti-government protesters set fire to a police station in the capital Lilongwe on Monday, raising tension in the country, rocked last July by the police killing of 20 people during nationwide demonstrations against government policies and suspected corruption.

Malawi's budget has traditionally relied on aid for about 40% of its funding but major donors Britain and the US have frozen packages worth hundreds of millions of dollars over concerns about human rights abuses and creeping autocracy under Mutharika.

Malawi officials have been hoping to open up an aid lifeline in meetings this week with a visiting delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The IMF's aid programme is on hold due to disagreements between Lilongwe and the lender. Mutharika has defied calls by the IMF to devalue its kwacha currency.

Authorities have clamped down on dissent in the past week by arresting a leading opposition youth leader and the head of the government's human rights commission which blamed Mutharika's forces for the deadly crackdown on the July protests.

Police have stepped up their presence in major cities after sporadic protests and violence in the past several days.

Malawi has averaged economic growth of more than 7% annually in recent years, but life has become increasingly difficult in the past year due to shortages of fuel, medicine and foreign currency.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Government Should Respect Privacy Rights of All Malawians

On December 26, 2009, Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, conducted a traditional engagement ceremony (chinkhoswe, in Chichewa) in the city of Blantyre. After newspapers reported on the chinkhoswe, police in Blantyre arrested Monjeza and Chimbalanga at their home on December 28, charging them with "unnatural offenses" and "indecent practices between males" under sections 153 and 156 of Malawi's criminal code.

Malawi's law criminalizing consensual homosexual conduct is a legacy of the country's colonial past. As Human Rights Watch has documented, British colonial rulers imposed laws regulating sexual and social conduct in dozens of countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. These laws are now often defended by Asian and African governments in the name of native culture and tradition. "These laws criminalizing consensual homosexual conduct are legacies of foreign rule, but they still have teeth," Nath said. "Malawi should rid itself of this disgraceful colonial relic."

Chapter IV of the Malawian constitution guarantees every person's right to liberty, dignity, and security of person. Article 20 prohibits discrimination on all grounds, and article 21 guarantees the right to privacy. Section 153 of the Malawian criminal code, which criminalizes consensual sexual conduct between adults, and section 156, which criminalizes "indecency" in both public and private, directly violates the right to privacy.

These criminal law sections are also contrary to international human rights standards. Specifically, article 2 of the African Charter on Human and People's Rights prohibits discrimination on all grounds; articles 3 and 19 secure for all the right to equality; and articles 5 and 6 guarantee the right to dignity and liberty.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee, which authoritatively interprets the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and evaluates the compliance of states with its provisions, found in the 1994 case of Toonen v. Australia that laws criminalizing consensual homosexual conduct among adults violate the covenant's protections of private life and against discrimination.

Forensic medical examinations to "prove" homosexual conduct are archaic and discredited, and when conducted without consent in conditions of detention, may constitute torture. Article 19(5) of Malawi's constitution reads: "No person shall be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation without his or her consent." Article 7 of the ICCPR protects against torture and cruel or degrading treatment; it specifically guarantees that "no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation."

Source: Human Rights Watch
The Text of the nternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) can be found here.

Malawi's child tobacco pickers 'poisoned by nicotine'

Children in Malawi who are forced to work as tobacco pickers are exposed to nicotine poisoning equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes a day, an investigation has found. Child labourers as young as five are suffering severe health problems from a daily skin absorption of up to 54mg of dissolved nicotine, according to the international children's organisation Plan.

Malawian tobacco is found in the blend of almost every cigarette smoked in the West. The low-grade, high-nicotine tobacco is often used as a filler by manufacturers, reflecting a long-term global shift in production. Tobacco farms in America declined by 89% between 1954 and 2002. Three-quarters of production has migrated to developing countries, with Malawi the world's fifth biggest producer. Seventy percent of its export income comes from tobacco and the country is economically dependent on it.

Plan cites research showing that Malawi has the highest incidence of child labour in Southern Africa, with 88,9% of five to 14-year-olds working in the agricultural sector. It is estimated that more than 78 000 children work on tobacco estates -- some up to 12 hours a day, many for less than 1p an hour and without protective clothing. Plan's researchers invited 44 children from tobacco farms in three districts to take part in a series of workshops. They revealed a catalogue of physical, sexual and emotional abuse and spoke about the need to work to support themselves and their families and pay school fees. The children reported common symptoms of green tobacco sickness (GTS), or nicotine poisoning, including severe headaches, abdominal pain, muscle weakness, coughing and breathlessness. "Sometimes it feels like you don't have enough breath, you don't have enough oxygen," one child said. "You reach a point where you cannot breathe because of the pain in your chest. Then the blood comes when you vomit. At the end, most of this dies and then you remain with a headache."

GTS is a common hazard of workers coming into contact with tobacco leaves and absorbing nicotine through their skin, particularly when harvesting. It is made worse by humid and wet conditions, which are prevalent in Malawi, as residual moisture on the leaves helps nicotine to be absorbed quicker. Everyday symptoms of GTS are more severe in children than adults as they have not built up a tolerance to nicotine through smoking and because of their physical size. There is a lack of research into the long-term effects of GTS in children, but experts believe that it could seriously impair their development. Neal Benowitz, professor of medicine, psychiatry and biopharmaceutical sciences at California University in San Francisco, said: "Numerous animal studies have shown that administration of nicotine during infancy and adolescence produces long-lasting changes in brain structure and function, as well as behavioural changes that are not seen when nicotine is administered to adults. "The brain of a child or adolescent is particularly vulnerable to adverse neurobehavioural effects of nicotine exposure."

Plan called on Malawi's government to enforce existing child labour and protection laws and on plantations to provide safer, fairer working conditions for those children forced to work. It demanded that multinational tobacco companies scrutinise their suppliers far more closely and follow their own corporate responsibility guidelines. Macdonald Mumba, Plan Malawi's child rights adviser, said: "This research shows that tobacco estates are exploiting and abusing children who have a right to a safe working environment. "Plan is calling for better enforcement of child labour laws and harsher punishment for employers who break them. These children are risking their health for 11p a day."

Source: Mail & Guardian

Now for Hire: South Africa's Out-of Work Commandos

To the old apartheid regime and supporters of its influence in this region, they were heroes, fighters who in units with names like Selous Scouts or Crowbar carried out devastating clandestine operations against neighboring countries or propped up clients of South Africa. To most of South Africa's neighbors, they were seen as brutal enforcers of this country's unchallenged dominance in the region.

With the apartheid era now over and the cold war a memory, South Africa's special forces, as they were known, briefly found themselves without a role. But now, with civil wars still dotting this continent and outside powers less interested than ever in becoming involved, scores of retired officers have signed on with a new breed of military outfit that straddles the line between the role of classic foreign adviser and outright guns for hire.

Nowhere have these new outfits played a larger role than in Angola, which has been embroiled in civil war for most of the last two decades. There, a Pretoria-based company known as Executive Outcomes has been credited with quickly turning around the civil war in favor of the nominally socialist Government, and forcing a settlement on Jonas Savimbi, leader of the badly battered rebel movement known as Unita, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola. In the proxy conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa during the cold war, many of the 500 or so South African recruits with Executive Outcomes fought alongside Mr. Savimbi, a longtime client of South Africa and the United States. Their enemies at the time, in addition to the Angolan Army, were the 50,000 Cubans sent by Havana to bolster the forces of a Communist ally.

In addition to training Angolan Government soldiers, military observers here say that in the last two years the recruits have moved into remote bases that were abandoned after the Cubans pulled out in 1991, upgrading communications and flying highly effective combat sorties in Soviet-made Hind helicopters and MIG-23 fighters. "We consider that they made a very considerable difference to the success that M.P.L.A. has been able to achieve," said William Sass, a retired brigadier of the South African Defense Force, referring to the governing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. "The line of what is a mercenary and what is not is a matter of interpretation, but they made an invaluable contribution to the operations of M.P.L.A. on the ground. If Unita had not signed the cease-fire, one could easily conceive of them having been wiped out."

South African officials describe Executive Outcomes as a dangerous outfit and concede that it could destabilize the region. So far, however, the officials say current laws leave the Government nearly powerless to crack down on such groups. With its Angolan successes high on its resume, Executive Outcomes has been aggressively marketing itself to other African countries with civil wars or other security problems. Just last week, the company announced that it had signed a deal with the Government of Sierra Leone to help its poorly organized army fight its civil war against a shadowy but increasingly effective rebel force known as the Revolutionary United Front.

Beyond Angola and Sierra Leone, Executive Outcomes has declined to specify the African countries in which it is involved. Experts in African military affairs say there are indications that the group has opened talks with the Sudan, Somalia, Mozambique and Malawi.

With the arrival of Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone, diplomats and other experts in African affairs say the chances for a peaceful resolution there may be receding. The country's leader, Capt. Valentine Strasser, has repeatedly offered to negotiate, but the rebels have said any talks must come after the withdrawal of foreign military personnel. Unlike the rebel movement in Angola, where an effective international embargo and the loss of his outside patrons prevented Mr. Savimbi from rearming, the insurgents in Sierra Leone have free rein over much of a mineral-rich countryside. With growing receipts from the sale of diamonds, timber, gold and other resources, there is little to stop them from beefing up their forces with outside help, thus turning a relatively low-intensity conflict into a much more devastating war.

Officials of Executive Outcomes have always declined to reveal the terms of their agreements with African countries, or even how many men they employ. Military experts and diplomats here say that the company typically pays $2,000 a month or more, and provides recruits with generous insurance coverage in case of injury or death. The company said that at least 10 recruits had been killed in Angola, including at least 2 executed by Mr. Savimbi's men. Officials of the company said that only Eeben Barlow, its general manager, who is a veteran of the Angolan conflict and a former officer in the South African intelligence service, was authorized to speak publicly about Executive Outcomes. But Mr. Barlow, who is 38, has neither returned calls nor responded to a detailed fax seeking comment. Assistants said he was out of the country this week and could not be reached.

In the past, Mr. Barlow has reacted angrily to suggestions that he is running a mercenary outfit. "Where the security in a country is a problem, we assist," he recently told the Reuters news agency. "We assist in water purification, construction and medical services. White South Africans are the only ones prepared to make a difference."

People familiar with the operations of the company scoff at the notion that civil construction is a large part of its activities. Instead, they describe a business that takes little interest in the moral implications of its work and is willing to sign on with whoever can pay them. If it is true that the company is primarily involved in training, experts say that its men also become closely involved in battlefield operations, if its record in Angola is any indication. "Our concern with Executive Outcomes is that something of a rogue in the region has been created," said Jackie Cilliers, director of the Institute for Defense Policy, a Johannesburg research organization. "While it may have actually contributed to a settlement in Angola, we may be witnessing the creation of something outside the control of government that could easily become a force for destabilization in Africa. It is guns for hire."

At the same time, people who have followed the company's involvement in Angola say it has expanded into numerous business ventures in areas like shipping, fishing and trucking. "These groups encourage a country not only to continue a war, but to escalate," said Aileen Marshall, an expert in conflict management at the Global Coalition for Africa, a Washington-based research organization of retired American diplomats, academics and former officials of several African countries. "Down the road there is the risk of a Cambodia-type situation where the Khmer Rouge are using gems and forests to fuel the war so that when the war ends the resources are either gone or are in illegal hands."

Source: New York Times