The Merchant of Death

The Merchant of Death

Journalist Paul Ndiho talks to stephen Braun a national correspondent based in Washington for the Los Angeles Times., co-author of a new book “The Merchant of Death, tells how the Tajik-born arms dealer forged a lucrative career skirting U.N. embargoes to sell weapons and air transport services to warlords in Africa and despots—not to mention the U.S. military and its contractors in Iraq. Stephen Braun : Viktor Bout was a unique creature born of the end of Communism and the rise of unbridled capitalism when the Wall came down in the early 1990s. He was a Soviet officer, most likely a lieutenant, who simply saw the opportunities presented by three factors that came with the collapse of the USSR and the state sponsorship that entailed: abandoned aircraft on the runways from Moscow to Kiev, no longer able to fly because of lack of money for fuel or maintenance; huge stores of surplus weapons that were guarded by guards suddenly receiving little or no salary; and the booming demand for those weapons from traditional Soviet clients and newly emerging armed groups from Africa to the Philippines. He simply wedded the three things, taking aircraft for almost nothing, filling them with cheaply purchased weapons from the arsenals, and flying them to clients who could pay. His background is difficult to ascertain. He is said by U.S. intelligence officials to be the product of an "immaculate conception." He was not, and then he was. He has provided no stories of his youth, very few personal details. He was, according to his multiple passports, born in 1967 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the son of a bookkeeper and an auto mechanic. He graduated from the Military Institute on Foreign Languages, a well-known feeder school for Russian military intelligence, and is known to have a true gift for languages.

Child Soldiers in Africa

Child soldiers in Africa

The plight of child soldiers, especially in Africa, has captured world attention through news reports and personal accounts. Last year, Ishmael Beah's book, A Long Way Gone, about his experiences in Sierra Leone, was a bestseller. Now a documentary by Paul Ndiho explores the psychological and social face of the problem, by telling the true stories of some young victims kidnapped into a rebel force.
This document assesses the extent of the military recruitment of African children and their use as soldiers in armed conflict. In particular, the documentary provides details of national legislation governing recruitment into the armed forces, national recruitment practice (which, sadly, does not always conform to the prevailing legislation), and, where armed conflict is ongoing, the extent of child participation in hostilities, whether as part of government armed forces, government-sponsored armed groups or militia, or non-governmental armed groups or militia. It also includes basic demographic data and information on the estimated size of governmental armed forces and non-governmental armed groups.
An attempt has been made to include relevant and accurate information on the situation in each African country.
More than 120,000 children under 18 years of age are currently participating in armed conflicts across Africa. Some of these children are no more than 7 or 8 years of age. The countries most affected by this problem are: Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda. Furthermore, Ethiopian government forces engaged in an armed conflict against Eritrea, and the clans in Somalia, have both included an unknown, though probably not substantial, number of under-18s in their ranks. In internal armed conflicts in the Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal, on the other hand, there has been little or no recorded use of under-18s by government or armed opposition forces, and there are almost certainly no under-15s participating in hostilities in these three situations.
In addition to the obvious risks to children of participation in armed conflict — which apply equally to adults — children are often at an added disadvantage as combatants. Their immaturity may lead them to take excessive risks — according Herbert Wise, a senior researcher at the Woodraw Wilson Center, a think tank based here in Washington, "[children] make good fighters because they’re young and want to show off. They think it’s all a game, so they’re fearless." Moreover, and as a result of being widely perceived to be dispensable commodities, “they tend to receive little or no training before being thrust into the front line.”
Children may begin participating in conflict from as young as the age of seven. Some start as porters (carrying food or ammunition) or messengers, others as spies. A rebel commander I interviewed in the Congo in 2000 said, "They’re very good at getting information. You can send them across enemy lines and nobody suspects them [because] they’re so young." And as soon as they are strong enough to handle an assault rifle or a semi-automatic weapon (normally at 10 years of age), children are used as soldiers. One former child soldier from Uganda stated that: "We spent sleepless nights watching for the enemy. My first role was to carry a torch for grown-up rebels. Later I was shown how to use hand grenades. Barely within a month or so, I was carrying an AK-47 rifle or even a G3."
When they are not actively engaged in combat, they can often be seen manning checkpoints; adult soldiers can normally be seen standing a further 15 metres behind the barrier so that if bullets start flying, it is the children who are the first victims. And in any given conflict when even a few children are involved as soldiers, all children, civilian or combatant, come under suspicion.
Girls too are used as soldiers, though generally in much smaller numbers than boys. In Liberia, "about one per cent of the demobilised child soldiers in 1997 were girls or young women. But many more took part in one form or another in the war. Like many males, females joined one of the factions for their own protection. Un-willingly, they became the girlfriends or wives of rebel leaders or members: ‘wartime women’ is the term they themselves use.
The risks to these girls of sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancies are enormous.
Child soldiers, sometimes under the influence of drugs or alcohol, which they may be forced to take, have too frequently committed all atrocities. In Congo, for example, a journalist from the local television in Uganda claimed that most of the rebels are children not older than 14, who are under the effect of drugs and alcohol. He reported what one of them told him about torture they inflict on their victims.
Recruitment of Child Soldiers by governments
The overwhelming majority of African States set 18 as the minimum age for recruitment, whether voluntary or through conscription. Indeed South Africa is in the process of increasing its minimum age for voluntary recruitment to 18 (conscription has already been abolished) and Mauritania may also be raising its minimum age from 16 to 18. In Angola, however, a country severely affected by the phenomenon of child soldiers, the government recently reduced the age of conscription to 17 years. Given the lack of systematic birth registration, even younger children are inevitably recruited even if the will to prevent underage recruitment existed. Moreover, reducing the minimum age of conscription to 17 is currently lawful since international law sets 15 as the international minimum age.
Burundi and Rwanda have the lowest legal recruitment ages on the African continent, seemingly 15 or 16 years for volunteers, although Uganda has formerly claimed to accept children with the apparent age of 13 to be enrolled with parental consent. In Chad, parental consent appears to allow the minimum age of 18 to be effectively reduced. Concerns also exist as to legislation in Botswana, Kenya, and Zambia where children with the ‘apparent age of 18’ can lawfully be recruited. Libya appears to accept volunteers at 17 years, if not younger. In South Africa, in a state of emergency, children of 15 years of age or above can be used directly in armed conflict by virtue of the Constitution. Finally, legislation in Mozambique, a country whose past has seen widespread use of child soldiers, specifically allows the armed forces to change the minimum conscription age — 18 — in time of war.

National Practice
If only domestic legislation were always respected in practice, the problem of child soldiers in Africa would be significantly reduced. Many African States — Benin, Cameroon, Mali and Tunisia to name but a few — appear to follow appropriate recruitment procedures that prevent underage troops being recruited into the army. However, in Angola, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and Uganda, children, some no more than seven or eight years of age, are recruited by government armed forces almost as a matter of course. Some children do volunteer to join the armed forces (though the true number will vary depending on how one interprets the word volunteer). In the DRC, for example, between 4,000 and 5,000 adolescents responded to a radio broadcast calling (in clear violation of international law) for 12-20 year olds to enrol to defend their country; most were street children.
Yet tens of thousands of children are forced to join up, sometimes at gunpoint. In Angola, forced recruitment of youth (‘Rusgas’) continues in some of the suburbs around the capital and throughout the country, especially in rural areas. It has been claimed that military commanders have paid police officers to find new recruits and Namibia has collaborated with Angola in catching Angolans who have fled to Namibia to avoid conscription. In Eritrea, a 17-year-old Ethiopian prisoner of war, Dowit Admas, interviewed by a British journalist claimed that he was playing football in Gondar High School when Ethiopian government soldiers rounded up 60 boys and sent them to a military training camp. In Uganda, there have been persistent reports that street children in Kampala have been approached by soldiers and forced to join the army in order to be sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in November 1998, parents protested against the forced recruitment by the Uganda People’s Defense Forces of 500 youths in Hoima.
In situations of armed conflict, wherever governments have recruited and used children as soldiers, so have armed opposition groups, and just as certain African governments have chosen to violate national laws, so opposition groups have flouted public declarations and pledges not to recruit and use children in combat.
In Sierra Leone, reports have clearly detailed the fact that rebel forces recruit children below 18 years of age and demonstrate that children as young as five are enrolled.
In Uganda, the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) systematically abducts children from their schools, communities and homes. Children who attempt to escape, resist, cannot keep up, or become ill are killed. Generally, the rebels take their captives across the border to an LRA camp in Sudan. There, these children are tortured, threatened and sexually abused. Latest reports suggest that the LRA has now turned to selling abducted children into slavery in exchange for arms.
Children enrolled by force into armed opposition groups often have little choice but to remain and fight. In Uganda, for example, if children abducted by the LRA do manage to escape or surrender, they may face the wrath of the Government. ####

Bluetooth Technology for Cellphones

Bluetooth technology is celebrating a milestone of sorts. Its wireless headset is now 10 years old, with some one-point-five billion of them in use around the world. But there is more to the iconic ear pieces than their popular cell phone connection. Paul Ndiho has the story.

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Obama’s Nomination: Impact on Africa

Will America Rebrand Africa?
After accepting the nomination as the democrat flag bearer for the big office, Obama has become the first African American to command such a following. After his great speech on the historic day marking the day when Martin Luther King delivered his speech I have a Dream, millions resonated that with Obama this dream will be transformed into a reality. This also stands as a proof that racism is no longer a significant barrier to black advancement and interracial equality. As the big day for election approaches, Africans are beginning to weigh the impact their son’s election may bring to this great continent.

Obama’s success will mark a new beginning for progress on a global and national level as business opportunities for minorities will be improved; educational opportunities for underserved youth will be expanded; fair access to capital will be expanded; the criminal justice system will be brought under control; minorities will gain access to innovation and technology opportunities; American troops who have been used to wreck havoc in the globe in the name of peace keeping will finally pack and go back home and federal government programs will be administered with fairness and opportunity.

Africans are hopeful that "with this stride, 'their son' will implement Africa-friendly policies that could uplift the continent from poverty. Nowhere else does Obama’s message resonate more strongly than in Africa through his message of global hope and victory over differences.
Deputy Senate President of Nigeria, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who witnessed the national convention of the Democratic Party in Denver, Colorado said that the proposed presidency of Senator Barrack Obama in the United States offers the best hope for Nigeria and Africa in the next dispensation as Africans believe their own in White House will apply the right foreign policy approach to instutionalise democracy in Africa. Africans believe Obama will turn America into a superpower that deals honestly and respectfully, protecting its own interests while also serving the interests of others.

His impact in Africa has been great. In May this year, the Nigerian militant group MEND unexpectedly announced that it would halt attacks on multinational oil installations if Barrack Obama requested a ceasefire. "Obama is someone we respect and hold in high esteem," said a statement. That a ruthless guerrilla movement is prepared to trust a US senator whom it has never met, and who - has not expressed any opinion on the strife in the oil-rich Niger Delta, may seem odd, but it's just one example of the Democrat's huge popularity in Africa, especially among the youth. He hugely influences the African youth as they struggle with the legacies of colonialism, apartheid, and Africa's perennial place at the back of the global pack. Obama is a beacon of hope to African youths who have been neglected by most systems and clearly points the way that young-turks can indeed lead.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King both looked up to the Pan-African world for solidarity in overcoming American racism. Obama is likely to follow suit now that Pan-Africanism has atrophied to the extent that in this century there is no discernible movement that concerns itself with the problems that afflict Africa and people of African descent around the World.

In his autobiography Dreams from My Father, Barrack Obama has demonstrated his awareness of both a Pan-Africanist and Third World consciousness. Those who know Obama's autobiographical instincts in guiding his best judgments know that his upbringing and struggle to identify himself are a core part of who he is. While heeding the call to be cautious in speculating what a possible Obama presidency might do for the African world, it is worth discussing the extent to which Obama's historic speech at Denver open grounds has the potential to influence new visions and energies in the study of the Pan-African world and its future prospects. Those energies have been on display in many places around the world, not least in Kenya, where Obama's father came from.

Obama's blood connection to Africa, observing that Obama had "relatives living in third world poverty," would help Africans feel "good and know that nothing is impossible no matter where you come from. His foreign policy might look friendly thus he is likely to move away from the policies of sanctions, which has hurt countries like Zimbabwe, to negotiation. He will have tough aid conditions and will move away from the weapons of mass destruction to mass reconstruction as was said by Opposition Malawi Congress Party Member of Parliament Boniface Kadzamira while congratulating Senator Obama.

Throughout his electrifying speech, something was more evident and this was optimism that people and nations can change themselves for the better and that they will be moved to do so even more by their differences than by their similarities. I believe this could be more relevant in Africa where we have diverse ethnic and cultural differences.

I would conclude by reiterating the remarks which were made by Professor Achille Mbembe of Wits “If Africa is to expect anything from an Obama presidency, it would need to invest in itself in order for it to hope to co-operate on equal terms and what we need is a deeper understanding of the shared interests between the US and Africa on the continent and beyond.” As Africans we wish him good luck in the race.



By Akinyi Janet
Editor of The African Executive

Democratic Convention 2008- Obama's Speech

Obama speech - full text
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Barack Obama addresses the Democratic convention

Transcript of remarks as prepared for delivery

To Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin; and to all my fellow citizens of this great nation;

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who travelled the farthest - a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours - Hillary Rodham Clinton. To President Clinton, who last night made the case for change as only he can make it; to Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service; and to the next Vice-President of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you. I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.

To the love of my life, our next First Lady, Michelle Obama, and to Sasha and Malia - I love you so much, and I'm so proud of all of you.

'Turmoil'

Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story - of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to.

It is that promise that has always set this country apart - that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.

That's why I stand here tonight. Because for 232 years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women - students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors -- found the courage to keep it alive.

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this
We meet at one of those defining moments - a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.

Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach.

These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W Bush.

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

Compassion

This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.

This country is more generous than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for 20 years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news.

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.

Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and independents across this great land - enough! This moment - this election - is our chance to keep, in the 21st Century, the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight. On 4 November, we must stand up and say: "Eight is enough."

Now let there be no doubt. The Republican nominee, John McCain, has worn the uniform of our country with bravery and distinction, and for that we owe him our gratitude and respect. And next week, we'll also hear about those occasions when he's broken with his party as evidence that he can deliver the change that we need.

But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush 90% of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgement, but really, what does it say about your judgement when you think George Bush has been right more than 90% of the time? I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a 10% chance on change.

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives - on health care and education and the economy - Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made "great progress" under this president. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisers - the man who wrote his economic plan - was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession", and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners".

'Discredited philosophy'

A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans that I know.

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under $5m a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than 100 million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatise social security and gamble your retirement?

It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy - give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don't have boots. You're on your own.

Well it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America.

Paying the mortgage

You see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country.

We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage; whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma. We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was president - when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of down $2,000 like it has under George Bush.

I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree
We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job - an economy that honours the dignity of work.

The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great - a promise that is the only reason I am standing here tonight.

Because in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton's army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.

In the face of that young student who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

'My heroes'

When I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed.

And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman. She's the one who taught me about hard work. She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well.

I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as President of the United States.

What is that promise?

It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves - protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

That's the promise of America - the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.

That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now. So let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am president.

Workers' tax cuts

Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years, and John McCain has been there for 26 of them
I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95% of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: in 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years, and John McCain has been there for 26 of them. In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office.

Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.

As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies retool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I'll invest $150bn over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy - wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced.

America, now is not the time for small plans.

Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. Michelle and I are only here tonight because we were given a chance at an education. And I will not settle for an America where some kids don't have that chance. I'll invest in early childhood education. I'll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. And in exchange, I'll ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American - if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

Paid sick days

Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child or ailing parent.

Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses; and the time to protect social security for future generations.

And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.

Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime - by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow. But I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less - because we cannot meet 21st Century challenges with a 20th Century bureaucracy.

And Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America's promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us to recover what John F Kennedy called our "intellectual and moral strength". Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient. Yes, we must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programmes alone can't replace parents; that government can't turn off the television and make a child do her homework; that fathers must take more responsibility for providing the love and guidance their children need.

Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility - that's the essence of America's promise.

Iraq

And just as we keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must we keep America's promise abroad. If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next commander-in-chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.

John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won't even go to the cave where he lives
For while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats we face. When John McCain said we could just "muddle through" in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights. John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won't even go to the cave where he lives.
And today, as my call for a timeframe to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush administration, even after we learned that Iraq has a $79bn surplus while we're wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.

That's not the judgement we need. That won't keep America safe. We need a president who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.

You don't defeat a terrorist network that operates in 80 countries by occupying Iraq. You don't protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington. You can't truly stand up for Georgia when you've strained our oldest alliances. If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice - but it is not the change we need.

We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans -- Democrats and Republicans - have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

As commander-in-chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.

I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taleban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st Century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.

Patriotism

These are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain.

But what I will not do is suggest that the senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism.

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America.

So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country
America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can't just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose - our sense of higher purpose. And that's what we have to restore.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America's promise - the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that's to be expected. Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

You make a big election about small things.

And you know what - it's worked before. Because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn't work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it's best to stop hoping, and settle for what you already know.

I get it. I realise that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington.

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

For 18 long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

I believe that as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming. Because I've seen it. Because I've lived it. I've seen it in Illinois, when we provided health care to more children and moved more families from welfare to work. I've seen it in Washington, when we worked across party lines to open up government and hold lobbyists more accountable, to give better care for our veterans and keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.

And I've seen it in this campaign. In the young people who voted for the first time, and in those who got involved again after a very long time. In the Republicans who never thought they'd pick up a Democratic ballot, but did. I've seen it in the workers who would rather cut their hours back a day than see their friends lose their jobs, in the soldiers who re-enlist after losing a limb, in the good neighbours who take a stranger in when a hurricane strikes and the floodwaters rise.

Martin Luther King

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

'We cannot walk alone,' the preacher cried
Instead, it is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.
That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours - a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

And it is that promise that 45 years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead - people of every creed and colour, from every walk of life - is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.

"We cannot walk alone," the preacher cried. "And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."

America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

Facebook Social Networking site

Millions of people around the world use social networking websites on the Internet to communicate and share information. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school and region to connect and interact with other people. Users can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. One of the fastest growing of these sites is facebook.
A Harvard university student founded facebook in 2004. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but eventually expanded to include any university student, then high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. facebook has met with some controversy. Some countries, including Syria and Iran, have blocked its use, and it is not always accessible in china. User privacy also has been an issue, and hackers at times have broken into facebook sites.
Despite these concerns, more and more people are flocking to facebook to catch up with old friends make new ones, build up their social networking skills and even find love. voa's paul ndiho has the story

IMF & WORLD BANK REFORMS

The leaders of 10 Commonwealth countries met earlier this year in London and called for a change in the world's economic system. Those leaders focused on how the World Bank provides development funds to poor countries and
how the International Monetary Fund sets conditions for offering its financial support. Both institutions date back to the closing monthsof World War Two when world leaders met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in the United States to map out a new international monetary system. Paul Ndiho recently sat down with Jonathan Ockenden, a top adviser to the Commonwealth Secretariat. Ockenden explained why the Commonwealth is calling for reforms in international financial institutions

Ethiopian Community Soccer- RFK STADIUM

Tens of t of ethiopian immigrants flooded into washington, dc during the july 4 weekend for the largest african soccer tournament in north america. the Tournament came to washington this year in recognition of the region’s Dominance as the largest home of ethiopians living outside ethiopia and this year T.F.K stadium was the venue. Paul Ndiho has the story

Investment in Science and New Technology Considered Key Elements to Overcome Poverty in Africa

07/07/08
By Paul Ndiho
As the world increasingly adapts to the information age, it’s clear that science and technology will be important to every country's growth and prosperity. For Africa, the development of science and technology is needed for a continent where poverty is rampant. African governments are in constant need of scientific and technical advice on issues such as education, energy policy, disease control, and environmental management.
There is growing recognition that Africa can strengthen its economic performance only through considerable investment using new knowledge. Good governance in Africa is considered not possible without a sound scientific basis for decision-making.

Africa is faced with a set of specific problems, ranging from agricultural production to health, for which scientific, engineering, agricultural, medical and social skills are urgently needed.

David King is the chief scientific advisor for the United Kingdom.

He says, “Long-term economic transformation in Africa will need to be guided by effective science and technology advice. Ongoing political reforms in Africa have coincided with the growing realization that economic growth is mainly a result of the transformation of knowledge expressed in the form of education, science and technology and the associated institutions into goods and services.”

Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili is the Vice President of the Africa Region for the World Bank. She says, “The degree of technological competency of African economies will play an increasingly decisive role in their success as global competitors. African knowledge institutions should be repositioning themselves to strengthen capacity in fundamental disciplines of science, and technology.”

Many of Africa’s individual states are no longer considered viable economic entities; and some say their future lies in creating trading partnerships with neighboring countries. However, some African countries are seen as starting to take economic integration seriously -- an idea first promoted by the late Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to independence in 1957.

What Does the World Owe Africa?

A critical appraisal of modern Africa by both Eurocentric and Afrocentric scholars reveals several factors as to why the continent is the way it is after several years of independence. Both perspectives, in spite of the occasional optimism, agree that the continent is mostly stagnant: undeveloped in some areas, underdeveloped in others and plagued by disorder, poverty, and volatility in all areas. Even for Africans, the continent is a continuous body of complexities and complications and of almost impenetrable landscape. Why Africa is the way it is has been a subject of empirical and systematic studies by scholars (at least) since 1957 when the African Studies Association came into being. After all these years, the continent is still the playground for domestic and international forces whose reasons for being, it seems, are exploitation, thievery, and conquest.

The Africa continent nags and confounds in spite of the “causes, effects, and roadmaps” that have been propagated and submitted by different schools, scholars and institutions. From Marxism to Modernization and from Dependency to other systems of thought that are cogent or feeble, palpably silly or condescending -- hypotheses about Africa abound. Some commentators believe that it is impossible to understand Africa without having a deep understanding of the suffering and calamities wrought by slavery and colonialism. They think that without slavery and colonialism – Africa would have become a thriving and dominant civilization.

These scholars and commentators point to the residual effects of slavery and colonialism as some of the psychological and physical hindrances that continue to wreck havoc on the continent and its people. Nonetheless, recent philosophy and accepted wisdom holds that Africa has had time to correct most of the imbalances that characterize it instead of continually playing victim. Africa, it is averred, is not a peculiar continent: everything that has ever happened there has happened somewhere else: wars, slavery, colonialism, natural or man-made disasters, ethnic conflicts, corruption, etc. While others are putting their houses in order, Africa seems adrift. Hopeless.

One thus wonders what those who participated in the inglorious Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 -- owe the continent if slavery and colonialism are the starting point of Africa’s debacles. Also, one wonders as Roel Van Der Veen did in What Went Wrong With Africa and ask “why, despite the rising prosperity elsewhere in the world and widespread changes that took place on the continent itself, Africa failed to break free of poverty” and other fetidities. The answers are not limited to weak institutions and the crisis of governance, the enmity between the government and the governed, the inability to draw lines between public and private goods, and the sheer stupidity and low self-esteem of African leaders.

Still, one must ask: “What Does the World Owe Africa?” What must the world do to bring Africa out of its doldrums? Consequential and time-stamped dialogue is needed if we are to find our ways out of the current rut. I am not sold on foreign intervention in Africa’s domestic affairs, but this is one of those times when the West must work in concert with the people of Africa to effect changes.

For instance, London, Paris, and the White House know the right people and the right groups to work with in order to effect these changes. Until now, they have principally collaborated, cooperated, and coordinated their efforts with parasites and leeches. Their approach may have been useful and beneficial during the Cold War era; and indeed, it may have served them right in a capitalist environment. But in today’s world -- more so into the future -- their method of operation will be very costly and destabilizing. In other words, if nothing is done to arrest the African-malignancy, the West itself will not escape the foul winds blowing from the Indian and Atlantic Oceans and from the Mediterranean Sea. The continent’s social, economic and political problems will be theirs to sort out.

In a globalizing and borderless world, how long does the western society think it will be before the core and color and composition of their societies begin to change drastically? What’s to be done by the West? A series of steps needs to be taken: (1) Deny African elites and ruling class funds and any kind of investments in western nations, (2) Deny African leaders, along with their proxies and family members, medical treatment in hospitals in the West; (3) Deny the children of these leaders form accessing learning in Western learning institutions; (4) except for meetings at such places as the United Nations, decline all visa applications by African leaders, access Western courts so African leaders can be sued when war crimes and crimes against humanity are committed.

The aforesaid steps need to be taken by Western Governments if the African-malignancy is to be arrested. This is what the West and the world owe Africa. Not foreign aid. Not handouts. Not loans. For the next twenty-five years, give the average Africans access to your courts to enable them sue their leaders for crimes against humanity.

In Nigeria, the ruling elites, along with their friends and family members steal and deposit their loot in western banks without fear of prosecution at home or abroad. In the same country, medical facilities are not fit for human use. This is why the President and his Ministers fly to Germany and other western nations to get treatment for common cold and flu. As rich as Nigeria is, the country does not have a first-rate trauma center; the vast majority of its citizens do not have access to quality medical care. In a literate world, the Nigerian government tacitly approves and condones illiteracy by its attitude towards education. Students are housed in dilapidated buildings with outdated infrastructures when their leaders and their family members have the luxury of quality education and first-rate healthcare in the West.

The United States and her allies must stop behaving as though there is nothing wrong with Nigeria and with the African continent. They cannot turn blind eyes to those who continue to steal the people’s resources and bring them to their countries. By their actions and inactions they encourage theft and all kinds of dishonesty. They encourage antidemocratic behaviors; they wholeheartedly encourage the illegal trading of dreams, hopes and aspirations. But most of all, they encourage the underdevelopment of a whole group of people and their land. What does the world owe Africa? Simple: help Africans put a stop to the bastardization of their land before it is too late. Let unconscionable African leaders and the elites roast in the inhumane conditions they have created.
By Sabella Abidde O.
A Nigerian Living in U.S.A

Micro Finance in Africa

The concept of providing small loans or microfinancing at little or no interest to help people in developing countries work their way out of poverty is a growing phenomenon. The loans greatly benefit those trying to develop a small business, but who have no collateral for a commercial loan. Some economists contend that microfinancing is particularly helpful for women who have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. VOA's Paul Ndiho has the story.

Struggle for Southern Africa

By Robert G. Mugabe

From Foreign Affairs , Winter 1987/88
Summary: The Republic of South Africa is both engaging in a 'vicious and ugly' civil war and 'waging an undeclared war against its neighbours'. After reviewing RSA intervention in Mozambique and Angola, and arguing that the front-line states are opposed to apartheid, not to whites or to Western interests, calls for US policy-makers to match words with deeds, namely by backing a policy of economic sanctions. Then prime minister, now president of Zimbabwe.

Robert G. Mugabe is Prime Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe, and currently chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement.

As the prime minister of a young and developing nation, I observe with sadness that several developing countries are locked in devastating conflicts. In most cases such countries are mere theaters of wars that have nothing to do with their people or their interests. More often than not, such conflicts occur in areas regarded as "spheres of influence" of stronger and wealthier nations. Indeed, most of the wars that have been fought in the last 40 years have been in Third World countries, but involved the limited participation of the superpowers and some of the great powers. Korea, Vietnam and the Middle Eastern wars are some of the conflicts that brought the world close to the brink of a generalized war.

One such area of conflict now is southern Africa. I use the example of my own region because it presents a clear illustration of wanton destruction of lives and property, and of the danger posed to international peace and security.

Zimbabwe and the United States have mutual interests in bringing an end to the problem of apartheid in South Africa. Time has indeed run out, and South Africa now poses a threat to international peace and security that has implications far beyond the borders of the southern African region.

II

The Republic of South Africa is in the middle of a vicious and ugly civil war. The root cause of this crisis is the obnoxious system of apartheid which the majority of black people of South Africa do not want, as well as their own desire for freedom and independence in the land of their birth.

In the run-up to the general elections of May 6, 1987, we heard a lot of rhetoric about reform of apartheid from the ruling National Party, led by President P. W. Botha. But that was soon proven to mean only cosmetic changes affecting pass laws, freehold title, trade unionism and aspects of social segregation. President Botha’s regime is determined to maintain the two pieces of legislation that form the cornerstone of apartheid—the Population Registration Act, which color-codes people according to their race, and the Group Areas Act, which color-codes the places where they live. The structure of political power in the hands of a white minority remains intact, reinforced by the military.

Following the collapse of the Portuguese colonial empire in 1974, the South African Ministry of Defense reviewed the political situation in the region and evolved a long-term strategy. In 1977 the ministry issued a White Paper on what was described as the "Total Strategy." This strategy simply meant mobilizing all available resources for national defense purposes. It advocated the need to maintain "a solid military balance relative to neighboring states." It also advocated economic and other "action" in relation to transport services, distribution and telecommunications, with the objective of promoting or enforcing "political and economic collaboration" in the southern African region.

P. W. Botha was then minister of defense; in September 1978 he became the prime minister, and later president. From the day he took over the reins of power, the military has assumed a dominant position in South African politics. Some people even say a military coup d’état has taken place. Real power and decision-making authority has been shifted from the Parliament in Cape Town to the State Security Council, in which all the branches of the military, the intelligence services and the police are represented. This council has more than 500 Joint Military Committees throughout the country, and members who sit on every village committee or town board. In other words, the entire governmental apparatus is run in order to prosecute the civil war in defense of the interests and privileges of five million white South Africans. About half of the white population consists of Afrikaners, most of whom support the ruling National Party and its racist ideology of apartheid and discrimination, and half are descendants of British settlers. The May election saw an alliance of Afrikaners and English-speaking whites voting together for the security promised by P. W. Botha’s National Party.

The representative organizations of the black majority, which numbers some 22 million indigenous people, are determined to overthrow the apartheid regime and establish a democratic government by a combination of internal armed struggle supported by economic sanctions and the material assistance that Africa and the international community are able to give. The balance of forces is shifting in favor of these organizations as more people get involved in the anti-apartheid struggle and the confrontation between black and white sharpens.

The African National Congress of South Africa was formed in 1912 and tried for almost half a century to negotiate the sort of society which we now have in Zimbabwe and are continuing to build. It was not until some 50 years later that the ANC decided that all peaceful options had been exhausted and there was no recourse but armed struggle. ANC leader Nelson Mandela, who has now been in jail for 25 years, explained in testimony during his trial on charges of subversion in 1964:

All lawful modes of expressing opposition to [the principle of white supremacy] had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and when the government resorted to a show of force to crush its opponents, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.

The decision to fight for independence is not a phenomenon peculiar to southern Africa. Nor is the decision to fight for a nonracial society. Americans, more than most, must be aware of this, and also Europeans, who fought only 45 years ago to free their countries from Nazi occupation. Independence and the democratic right of the majority to decide their destiny is, or should be, a sacred principle to all of us.

Unfortunately, in South Africa the stage is set for a protracted and bloody conflict. It is one into which African states, the middle powers and the superpowers will be drawn, possibly on opposing sides, thereby setting the stage for a generalized war.

III

Soon after taking power Botha proposed a "constellation" of southern African states dominated militarily, economically and technologically by Pretoria. It was to include the Bantustans or "homelands" (thus giving them de facto, if not de jure, recognition), other members of the South African Customs Union (Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland) as well as Malawi and Zimbabwe, and possibly others in the region which could be co-opted.

To this end South Africa poured large sums of money into the 1980 pre-independence election in Zimbabwe. The objective was to bring to power a malleable client in our country which, for geographical reasons, held the key to the "constellation" concept. Zimbabwe, as a client state, and the other countries of the region caught up in South Africa’s plans for regional hegemony would have been under considerable pressure to recognize the Bantustans. And, in Pretoria’s view, once they had done so, other countries would follow.

Our independence in Zimbabwe, on April 18, 1980, was an important watershed for the region. The people of Zimbabwe thwarted the Botha "constellation" project by giving my party an overwhelming majority in the elections held at the end of February under the auspices of a British governor and his administration. As a result, I was able to join my colleagues from the other Frontline States in the formation of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference, our instrument for closer regional economic cooperation and for reducing dependence on South Africa. To South Africa’s surprise, SADCC also incorporated Malawi, Swaziland and Lesotho, and was initiated with the support of the European Economic Community.

The creation of SADCC was a recognition of our regional and economic reality. Six of the majority-ruled states to which I have referred are landlocked: Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. For our trade and our survival we have these alternatives: to use the railways and ports through Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania, or to use the South African transport system and its ports. Our stated intention of reducing dependence on South Africa by upgrading routes through Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania threatened Pretoria’s regional supremacy. The creation of SADCC also threatened to reduce South Africa’s trade surplus with the region, then estimated at $2.5 billion a year, at a time when its own economy was stretched. Much of this surplus derives from rail and port revenues.

Over 40 percent of Zaïre’s mineral exports transit South Africa to its ports when logically they should go along the Benguela line through Angola. Zimbabwe, forced to use the long routes through South Africa, pays an additional $38 million in freight bills each year. Malawi and Zambia also pay vastly increased freight bills to send their trade south because of South Africa’s destruction of our shorter and cheaper trade routes through Angola, Tanzania and Mozambique.

The government of Mozambique had closed its borders with Rhodesia in early 1976, in compliance with U.N. sanctions. It paid a considerable price for doing so ($556 million over the next four years in lost rail and port tariffs, according to U.N. estimates). Mozambique had served as an outlet for the landlocked hinterland in Portuguese colonial times; the end of the Rhodesian impasse offered the opportunity for it to resume that role, which had accounted for a large percentage of its foreign currency revenue. My country’s independence in 1980 offered the possibility of using these non-South African routes. An early decision of my government was to maximize Zimbabwe’s usage of our most convenient trade routes through Mozambique.

At the time of our independence no Zimbabwean trade passed through the Mozambican rail and port system, but by the end of 1983 almost half of our trade was transiting Mozambique. Today South African-instigated sabotage has cut that figure back to less than 20 percent. We are increasing it again as we rebuild the Beira Corridor and rehabilitate the Chiqualaquala line to Maputo. We need to utilize the full capacity of the two ports of Beira and Maputo to handle about nine million tons of goods from Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.

We commend those friendly Western countries that have come to the aid of Mozambique and assisted with the rehabilitation of the port of Beira and reconstruction of parts of the Beira Corridor. South Africa has set out to destroy systematically our alternative communication routes to the sea and ensure our continued dependence on their ports and railways. Our dependence on South Africa has not come about by accident. It has been a strategy carefully worked out over many years.

The landlocked countries of the region can be serviced by five rail-to-port systems other than the South African routes. One is the Tazara railway linking Zambia to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam. To the west is the Benguela railway to the Angolan port of Lobito. That has been out of action virtually for a decade as a result of sabotage by the Angolan rebel group UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), an instrument which is supported by South Africa and the United States. To our east, through Mozambique, we have three routes to the ports of Beira, Maputo and Nacala. These three ports could easily handle all the trade of Malawi, Swaziland, Zaïre, Zambia and Zimbabwe. But the routes to Maputo and Nacala have been out of operation for three years as a result of sabotage. And the Beira route is kept open only at huge military cost. Soldiers from the national armies of Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe are now stationed in Mozambique to secure our communications routes and help rid that country of the terrorist menace South Africa has unleashed.

Documents captured from South Africa’s surrogates in Mozambique clearly show their South African military masters ordering them to destroy our trade routes and our power lines, and to begin urban terrorism in our cities. The minutes of a meeting on February 23, 1984, between the South African military and their Mozambican surrogates define the following targets: "Railways, Cabbora Bassa [a large hydroelectric dam in Mozambique], cooperantes and other targets of an economic nature such as the ones belonging to SADCC." This is the type of state terrorism we have to contend with in this region.

Why does South Africa do this to its neighbors? It is certainly not because we are a military threat. South Africa’s motivation is in part economic, in part due to the acquiescence of the international community, and in part due to the deep-seated knowledge of apartheid’s rulers that their system of racial segregation and minority rule is doomed.

We are not militarily at war with apartheid, but apartheid is at war with us. And militarily, economically and socially we are paying an enormous price. Since 1980 the direct and indirect cost of South Africa’s destructive actions against its neighbors has been well over $20 billion. In the case of Mozambique alone the cost from 1980 through 1985 is estimated at between $5.5 billion and $6.5 billion. And even these figures do not give a true picture, for they exclude the vast amounts of money we are forced to divert from development to defense to protect our hard-won sovereignty.

IV

South Africa, while at war with its own people, is waging an undeclared war against its neighbors. The combination of tactics varies from state to state, depending on the political, economic and military vulnerabilities of each, but at the heart of this policy of "destabilization" is the regular sabotage of the regional transportation system to ensure that all trade flows south through South Africa. In order to maintain this regional dependence Pretoria pursues a policy of aggression and destruction that has devastated neighboring economies and caused widespread suffering.

All of South Africa’s neighbors have been subjected to direct incursions by the South African Defense Forces—attacks ostensibly aimed at members of the ANC, but whose victims have almost always been innocent citizens of the target state. Pretoria also relies extensively on the use of the surrogate forces inherited from anticolonial struggles to its north, trained and armed by the SADF to murder, maim, rape and destroy on its behalf.

The history of the so-called Mozambique National Resistance has been told in considerable detail by the former head of Rhodesian intelligence, and was put on the record in Washington recently by State Department testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This group was created by Rhodesian Intelligence and handed over to South Africa’s military intelligence just prior to Zimbabwe’s independence. South Africa converted the MNR, as Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker said, "from a nuisance into a well-armed rebel group" and remains a "reliable supplier of high-priority items." These surrogate forces have no political program and no credible leadership, and their brutalization of the population is not likely to win many converts.

We know that the leaders of these bandit units are campaigning hard for recognition by the United States. They have secured the support of several congressmen. Following the July 1985 repeal of the Clark Amendment (which banned aid to Angolan rebels) and the granting of aid to UNITA in March 1986, a meeting of these various organizations was held in Washington in August 1986. They hoped to get the kind of recognition and assistance that Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA has been granted. To deny the legitimacy of the government of the Popular Liberation Movement of Angola (MPLA) is to invite chaos and disorder. UNITA’s support is drawn from a single ethnic group, not from the population of the whole country. The South Africans have made no secret of their intention to overthrow the Angolan government. Cuban troops were invited by the MPLA government to defend the sovereign government of Angola, part of whose territory had been overrun by South African forces.

We would be as delighted as the Angolans to see the Cubans, and indeed all foreign troops, leave Angola—once South African troops have withdrawn, the occupation of Namibia by South Africa has ceased and an independent government has emerged there, and the violent apartheid state of South Africa has been destroyed. The root cause of the stalemate in Namibia’s progress toward independence is South Africa’s insistence that the popular liberation movement SWAPO (South West African People’s Organization) should not rule, and U.S. insistence that the departure of Cuban troops from Angola be linked to Namibian independence.

The Western nations have failed to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 435, passed in 1978, which calls for Namibian independence. South Africa’s attempt to set up a transitional government as an alternative to SWAPO has failed dismally. South Africa’s administrator-general continues to rule Namibia with an occupation force of 120,000 South African military and locally raised irregular forces. No one can accuse SWAPO of being a communist organization; it has a national, democratic program with a socialist approach, the form and timing of which are to be determined by an independent legislature. South Africa’s campaign for regional dominance has cost about 500,000 lives in Angola and Namibia in the past five years, according to an estimate by the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Given South Africa’s destructive strategy against all its neighbors, we are shocked that the U.S. Congress, instead of coming willingly to our assistance, has attached conditions to the proposed $50 million in aid to SADCC. The aid legislation, passed in July, includes the Pressler Amendment, which bars assistance to countries in the region that advocate the form of terrorism commonly known as "necklacing" or allow persons who practice "necklacing" to operate in their territory. "Necklacing" is used by certain persons in the townships in South Africa against those they regard as collaborators with the regime. No country in the region has ever condoned the practice nor has any South African liberation movement. We have condemned it forth-rightly from every public platform. We are a peace-loving people who are appalled by the brutality that is a fact of daily life in South Africa, brutality that is unleashed first and foremost by the regime.

We in the region regard that vote in Congress as an attempt to blackmail us into supporting apartheid, since it concerns a practice over which we have no control whatsoever. The so-called necklacing practiced in the South African townships certainly did not come from us and has never been experienced in any of the other liberation wars in southern Africa. To suggest that we condone it is a mere excuse for the United States to continue supporting apartheid instead of assisting the forces of freedom and justice.

V

What are the vital interests of the United States in our region? More than half of the United States’ purchases of a dozen minerals considered strategic or critical are imported from South Africa. Most of the strategic minerals, however, can be purchased elsewhere in the region. For example, although South Africa accounts for about one third of the world’s production of chrome ore, my country contains most of the known deposits of high-grade chrome ore. Zambia, Zaïre and Botswana are also alternative sources of some strategic minerals.

The United States is tied to the South African economy by as many as 200 U.S.-based multinational companies, which have direct investments estimated at billions of dollars. The pressure of the anti-apartheid protest has forced several companies to divest their shareholdings in South Africa. It must also be noted that these corporations’ investments in black Africa north of the Limpopo River and south of the Sahara are much larger than those in South Africa.

Another common excuse for the maintenance of U.S. relations with apartheid South Africa is the protection of the Cape sea route. This is an old excuse for policies of aggression in our region. The British government used it as the main justification for proposing to sell arms to South Africa in 1971. But it is common knowledge that modern air transport has made the Cape sea route irrelevant as a strategic point. The U.S. Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on South Africa, which published its report in January, concluded that "the active collaboration of the South African government, whatever its ideology, is not an important factor in protecting the Cape sea route."

These then are the cosmetic issues for which there are alternatives and solutions. The Advisory Committee report goes on to say: "A greater source of danger to the West is the growth of Soviet influence in the region, promoted by white intransigence in South Africa, growing political instability, rising levels of racial violence, and armed conflict."

Political and material support of desperate bandit groups, dissidents and self-seeking, discredited individuals by a superpower like the United States is a prescription for chaos and instability in the international political system. Calling such a hodgepodge of individuals "freedom-fighters" does not make them any such thing. The bandit groups that gathered in Washington in August 1986 have no such credentials.

Financial and material aid, and food, should not be used as levers in the conduct of the foreign policy of a superpower. The far right in the U.S. Congress focuses much attention annually on the foreign aid bill in order to deny financial resources to those states which seek to pursue an independent policy.

In Zimbabwe we have totally rejected any aid or investment from any quarter that seeks to change, influence or modify the policies that we have enunciated, based on our perception of Zimbabwe’s national interests. For us, this is a matter of principle. Although we have been blacklisted and denied financial aid by President Reagan’s Administration, we have stuck to our principles and strongly defended our sovereign right to define our own policies, and articulate them in any forum.

We will neither amend our policies nor change our behavior in order to please others, even if they are superpowers. My party is one of the few liberation movements in the world that fought a major war of national liberation, involving thousands of troops, without the support of a superpower. The sovereignty and independence we have now attained are so dear to us that no number of pieces of silver can ever buy them from us.

For me this campaign of the right goes over familiar ground. During our war of liberation I was accused of leading surrogate Russian forces, when in fact the Russian government adamantly refused to give us a single gun or ruble, and in 1978 they even refused me permission to pass through the Moscow airport in transit. The ANC and the Pan-Africanist Congress of South Africa and SWAPO of Namibia are fighting for the same freedom and independence that we fought for.

We have been encouraged to see the U.S. State Department seeking to improve its relations with Mozambique. In his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa on June 24, 1987, Assistant Secretary Crocker said "no country in southern Africa has worked more consistently than Mozambique with the U.S.A. to further the cause of peace and stability in southern Africa." He praised Mozambique’s human rights record, and the strenuous efforts which we know are being made to revitalize the economy and strengthen institutional development.

The Reagan Administration now apparently regards the fate of Mozambique as a critical issue for southern Africa and for U.S. interests in the region. It is giving Mozambique $75 million in humanitarian aid and $10 million in economic aid. Mr. Crocker approvingly cited British training for Mozambican army personnel and new British economic assistance, and noted that Britain and the United States have recently assigned resident military attachés to Maputo. This should be a good signal to Pretoria. He also pointed out that all of Mozambique’s neighbors, with the exception of South Africa, support the government "against the insurgents and would regard official contact with them by Western governments as a hostile act implying endorsement of South African destabilization efforts."

In spite of the expressed support of the American and British governments for the Mozambican government, we were surprised that so little aid was granted to Mozambique, and that Angola was excluded from the list of those SADCC countries to be aided in the current year. As I have argued, these governments are the main targets of South Africa’s destabilization policies in the region. They are the legitimate governments of their respective states. They are greatly in need of political and material support. Denying them much needed resources means direct support for South Africa and destabilization.

We take note of the Reagan Administration’s commitment to operate within our regional consensus. But we remain concerned that the main objective of the Administration’s policy planners is not to stem Pretoria’s regional aggression; rather, their main fear is that the people of the region may turn toward communism and the Soviet Union. We are cognizant of the fact that both superpowers are searching for friendly port and/or military facilities in the region, trying to expand their political and economic influence and to deny that influence to the other.

But it should be noted that, in keeping with our philosophy of genuine nonalignment and true independence, no country in the region has permitted military or naval base facilities to either superpower, although Britain has provided military training to the Mozambican government and sent a military vessel to call at the port of Maputo last year. Britain also provides military training to the Zimbabwean army, and has done so since our independence in 1980. A British Special Air Service unit was sent to Botswana for a training exercise in 1986.

The socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Asia are willing to give us weapons to defend ourselves against apartheid’s onslaught. And when they do so there are those who question our nonalignment. This is mischievous and inaccurate. None of us fought for our independence to become the proxy of anyone else. Nor are we. The vast bulk of our trade is with Western countries, and they also provide most of our development aid, but this does not make us a proxy of the West any more than arms from the socialist countries make us their proxy. If it were not for apartheid’s destabilization of our region, we probably would not need these arms.

Those who judge Africa in terms of East and West do us a grave disservice and they display deep ignorance. Those who see South Africa only in the context of "the whites" and "the blacks" display equal ignorance. We are not opposed to the whites in South Africa; neither are the liberation movements, as they have often stated. It is the policies of apartheid that we oppose and will continue to oppose with all the moral, political and diplomatic power available to us, in support of the oppressed people of South Africa.

We would like to take seriously the words of Secretary of State George Shultz, speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last year: "We want a democratic and prosperous South Africa, where all races participate politically and economically, at the center of a peaceful and rapidly developing southern African region."

These words must now be matched by deeds, and existing relations expanded to create mutual trust. This will not be achieved through loaded Senate votes making these relations conditional, but by taking concrete steps to remove the source of violence in our region. Only when we have achieved this will the region be able to achieve its vast economic potential. The interests of the United States in peaceful development are eloquently presented in the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee report:

As a nation with long-term interests in southern Africa and a fundamental commitment to the promotion of justice and democratic values, the United States cannot stand aside as a human tragedy of potentially immense proportions threatens to unfold in South Africa. The stakes are too high. At risk are the lives of thousands, possibly millions, of South Africans, black and white, the future political and economic viability of the entire southern third of the African continent, and history’s judgment of the United States.

Against this background it is necessary for the U.S. Administration to condemn by concrete actions those enforcing the apartheid system and to support, again concretely, those struggling for freedom and justice. The U.S. Congress did pass last year, over the Administration’s veto, a package of limited sanctions. But the United States should give political, moral and material assistance to the majority who will sooner or later take their "rightful place in the governance of the country," and whose relations with the United States will be "strongly influenced by the links that are established during the period of the struggle."

The time has passed for engaging in dialogue with only the apartheid regime; the policy of "constructive engagement" is dead and has been committed to history. U.S. policymakers and leaders of other nations deeply involved in South Africa should encourage dialogue among all parties and promote compromise. I would add that African leaders from the region have played a positive role in this regard and will continue to do so. We have provided venues for informal meetings to encourage familiarization and communication that can lead to a better understanding between individuals on both sides of the problem. There is a vast barrier of culture and scarce or false information (the latter deliberately created) that must now be bridged. We emphasize the importance of these informal discussions, such as those held recently in Senegal and elsewhere. It is urgent to convince Mr. Botha that it is in his interest to negotiate sooner rather than later. He and his colleagues must be persuaded of the need for a new political system, and that apartheid cannot be "reformed." He must be persuaded at the outset to extend basic human, legal and judicial rights to all citizens of the country, and to reintegrate the "homelands" into one country, to release political detainees and to lift the bans on individuals and political organizations.

VI

When it comes time for negotiating, Mr. Botha must have (as Rhodesia’s Ian Smith had) a powerful force standing over him to guarantee good faith in enforcing the decisions, because South Africa has amply proved its unwillingness to keep its word in international negotiations. It concluded its nonaggression Lusaka Accord with Angola and its Nkomati Accord with Mozambique in early 1984, but the report of the Commonwealth’s "Eminent Persons Group," Mission to South Africa, confirms that "South Africa violated both these Accords from the very outset, giving the region further proof that it could not be trusted to honor even solemn Treaty obligations."

An atmosphere conducive to negotiation can be achieved with a combination of internal and external pressures that increase the cost of maintaining apartheid. Even the State Department’s advisory report agrees that multilateral sanctions will have an effect in terms of signaling the termination of economic growth and political stability until apartheid is ended.

The Anti-Apartheid Act passed by the U.S. Congress a year ago was just such a signal. It banned the importation of South African coal, uranium, iron and steel, agricultural produce, textiles and krugerrands, and prohibited new U.S. loans, investments, credits and the sale of computer technology to the South African government and its agencies. It also terminated landing rights for South African Airways. Unfortunately, the thrust of the Anti-Apartheid Act has been blunted and watered down by the Pressler Amendment to the 1987 Appropriations Bill. As noted, the effect of this amendment is to deny financial resources to selected Frontline States, thereby making it difficult for them to participate in the sanctions program against South Africa.

Despite its pleading to the contrary, the United States has considerable leverage which has never been used, and sanctions are only part of this. It is the superpower to whom South Africa looks as an ally; it is a major trading partner and a member of many international organizations. There are material pressures which have never been used, or in some cases not enforced, in political, economic, cultural and military areas. It is true that only 200 U.S. corporations have, or had, direct investments in South Africa but these corporations wield considerable influence in Washington. If they are serious in their attempts to divest and distance themselves from apartheid, they must also use their political clout at home to bring apartheid to an end as quickly as possible.

The Commonwealth has been active in the international campaign to end apartheid, both in imposing its own limited sanctions and earlier leading the way in promulgating the international arms embargo.

Sanctions relating to military, economic, cultural and sporting activities isolate the regime; they are one method of raising the cost of apartheid both economically and psychologically. South Africa has been taking serious steps for a decade to prepare for this eventuality and to minimize the effect on the economy and the military machine. However, that is no reason to exclude sanctions from the list of pressure points, nor is the excuse that sanctions will destroy the economy.

The opponents of sanctions say, in the first place, that such measures will hurt the blacks in South Africa the most. This is a spurious argument. In South Africa, the black response has been clear and categorical: if sanctions will play a part in terminating the suffering, they must be imposed. The Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, has put this point most eloquently:

For goodness sake, let people not use us as an alibi for not doing the things they know they ought to. We are suffering now, and this kind of suffering seems to be going on and on and on. If additional suffering is going to put a terminus to our suffering then we will accept it.

A second argument is that sanctions against South Africa will hurt the neighboring majority-ruled states. But we are already suffering, as I have clearly illustrated earlier, and if additional suffering is necessary, we are also ready to pay the price. For several months the Frontline States consulted each other on whether to impose the Commonwealth package of sanctions, which was agreed upon at the Bahamas summit. It became clear that some Frontline States are not able to impose sanctions because their economies are tied into the South African economy like Siamese twins. This is true of those countries in the South African Customs Union as well as others. But although unable to do so themselves they urge those who can—especially the big powers—to adopt sanctions.

A third excuse used to argue against sanctions is that they do not work, the case of Rhodesia being cited as an example. But no single government, not even South Africa, could give formal recognition to the Rhodesian regime as long as it remained the target of comprehensive U.N.-sponsored mandatory economic sanctions. They worked in limited, but important and costly ways. Rhodesia was forced to sell its products at below-market prices and buy its imports at a premium.

VII

The time for easy and comfortable choices in South Africa has run out.

This is the conclusion of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on South Africa, and it is a conclusion that we, the inhabitants of southern Africa, heartily agree with. We now expect those who wield power in the United States to understand the magnitude of this conclusion and seize the opportunity to retrieve their moral credibility by actively seeking a solution that can bring peace and justice to our region and allow us to invest our resources in the development of our people instead of defense. This should be the priority of U.S. policy toward the region.

The U.S. Administration should accept the value of sanctions as a means of raising the cost of maintaining apartheid, and should persuade its allies to adopt them. The United States should broaden its contacts with South Africans of all races and political persuasions in an effort to bridge the credibility gap widened by previous policies. This assumption of a more open, less rigid position applies also to its political and economic influence elsewhere in the region, which can be enhanced considerably by increasing assistance to the SADCC member countries and ending aid to UNITA bandits in Angola.

The United States and its allies have the capacity to play the role of power brokers in initiating negotiations toward a just, equitable society in South Africa and the participation of all its citizens in the democratic process. This is a process which we in southern Africa understand very clearly, for precedents abound within our region.

We in Zimbabwe saw how our armed struggle and our political mobilization, coupled with sanctions and other international pressure on Ian Smith, brought him to the bargaining table and ended the intransigent position of no majority rule "in a thousand years." There is now the example of Zimbabwe’s reconciliation, our nonracial society and our agro-industrial economic base by which to judge the future of a black-ruled South Africa.

Zimbabwe is also an example by which to judge the enforcement of a cease-fire; one in South Africa could end the spiral of violence that has sucked the children of the townships into its vortex. When the cease-fire was declared in Zimbabwe the guns were laid down, and despite provocations from our adversaries, our people did not pick them up again but went to the polls in peace and cast their ballots and chose their government. Our circumstances in the region are not easy, and we have made mistakes as well as achieved successes, but I think people will agree that our transformation from a state of war to a country in which people of all races participate fully offers some hope for the future of our misguided and restive neighbor.

It goes without saying that in South Africa such negotiations cannot take place from prison cells, and therefore political prisoners and detainees must be released and bans on individuals, organizations and political parties lifted, so the representatives of the people can take their places at the bargaining table. The alternatives, in the words of Mr. Botha’s predecessor, the late Mr. John Vorster, more than a decade ago, "are too ghastly to contemplate." Civil war is already upon us. The Commonwealth’s Eminent Persons Group presented the reality clearly to the international community in their report, published more than a year ago:

The blacks have had enough of apartheid. They have confidence not merely in the justice of their cause, but in the inevitability of their victory. The strength of black convictions is now matched by a readiness to die for those convictions. They will, therefore, sustain their struggle, whatever the cost.

Time has run out. Serious choices must be made now. Just as the leaders of the United States over a century ago chose to try to overcome their house divided and use the strength of freedom, equality and human dignity to build a powerful nation, we must make the choices necessary to assist South Africa in shortening this difficult period in its history and getting on the road to prosperity and peace. We must do this, not only in the interest of regional peace and security, but in the interest of global peace and stability, giving due and careful consideration to the future of our small planet.