10.1111@dpr.12175_40d.pdf - 0 views
10.1111@dpr.12174_40d.pdf - 0 views
10.1111@dpr.12172_40d.pdf - 0 views
China in Africa, a Sierra Leonean viewpoint - 0 views
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Solomon A.J Pratt’s ‘Jolliboy…’ will help you get detailed accounts of this role played by Sierras Leone. So attempts to discuss China’s presence in Africa today should always take into account this historical fact.
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This is especially so with the last decade or so, following the establishment of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum .The creation of FOCAC came about in 2000 as a framework upon which to build on the friendly cooperation between China and Africa, cope with challenges that may come as a result of economic globalization and work towards promoting common development projects. (http://forum.eximbank.gov.cn/forum/channel/focac.shtml ).
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Wei Jianguo is former Vice Minister of Commerce and currently now Secretary-General of the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges. He wrote in his book, titled, ‘Africa A Lifetime of Memories…’ that “as China-Africa relations have progressed over the past half century and more, a special China-Africa cooperation model has taken shape. This China-Africa cooperation model derives from the process of China’s aid, investment and trading in Africa and it adopts practices different from those of Western countries. Its most notable characteristic is a focus on equality and mutual benefit with no political conditions attached.”
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Amilcar Cabral and the Pan-African Project | CODESRIA - 0 views
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my paper will focus on the lessons we can draw from Cabral’s revolutionary thought for the successful implementation of the African national project.
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Elsewhere, I have defined democratic governance as “the management of societal affairs in accordance with the universal principles of democracy as a system of rule that maximizes popular consent and participation, the legitimacy and accountability of rulers, and the responsiveness of the latter to the expressed interests and needs of the public.”
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We are not interested in the preservation of any of the structures of the colonial state. It is our opinion that it is necessary to totally destroy, to break, to reduce to ash all aspects of the colonial state in our country in order to make everything possible for our people. … Some independent African states preserved the structures of the colonial state. In some countries they only replaced a white man with a black man, but for the people it is the same. … The nature of the state we have to create in our country is a very good question for it is a fundamental one. … It is the most important problem in the liberation movement. The problem of the nature of the state created after independence is perhaps the secret of the failure of African independence.
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The working class does the job - Le Monde diplomatique - English edition - 0 views
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To suggest that rising global wealth and global poverty are interrelated, and that the former is premised upon the latter, is not something that most players in international development want to do because it would reveal the sordid foundation of their vision of development.
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UN Millennium Project director Jeffrey Sachs defends sweated labour across the global South, saying the “sweatshops are the first rung on the ladder out of extreme poverty” (1).
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One of neoliberalism’s founding fathers, Friedrich Hayek, wrote: “I have not been able to find a single person even in much-maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under [deposed former president] Allende” (3).
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Of liberation & betrayal | Frontline - 0 views
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White South African mining magnates, billionaires and businessmen were meanwhile meeting the exiled leaders of the ANC, such as Mbeki, in European capitals, to offer deals and hammer out the economic structure of post-apartheid South Africa; a favourite meeting place was a majestic mansion, Mells Park House, near Bath, in England.
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The white ruling elite had prepared for such outcomes with great deliberation. It had methodically nurtured a new black entrepreneurial and professional class through loans, subsidies, etc., whose interests predictably came into conflict with those of the black working classes and the poor who were the mass base of the anti-apartheid struggle in all its aspects. Like any typical national bourgeoisie in post-colonial Africa and Asia, members of this newly confected class aspired to little more than becoming intermediaries between global capital and the national market.
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Thabo Mbeki—once a member of the central committee of the SACP, trained in economics in England and in guerrilla warfare in the Soviet Union, an eminent leader of the ANC who criss-crossed continents during the 1970s and 1980s to connect the exiled political leadership with the externally based military units, Vice-President under Mandela and President of South Africa after him—could, in the fullness of time, gleefully say, “Just call me a Thatcherite.” Self-enrichment is at the heart of varieties of Thatcherism. Or, as Deng Xiaoping famously said: “It is glorious to be rich.”
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NAI Forum - 0 views
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The prevailing optimism gives no true picture of Africa. Short-term exploitation and large-scale agriculture are neither socially nor environmentally sustainable. Economic and social inequalities are growing on the continent.
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The current overall African growth rate of about 5 per cent annually is largely based on natural resource exploitation for export, especially of oil, gas and minerals.
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A growing African elite and middle class in collaboration with foreign allies have also secured benefits for themselves. Therefore, economic inequality is growing rapidly in Africa, as in Asia.
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South Africa's untold tragedy of neoliberal apartheid | ROAR Magazine - 0 views
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All of this became painfully obvious in August last year when militarized police forces violently cracked down on a wildcat miners’ strike in the platinum town of Marikana. In the ensuing bloodbath, the most serious bout of state violence since the Sharpville massacre of 1960 and the end of apartheid in 1994, 34 workers were killed after being peppered with machine gun fire at close range.
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The story of South Africa over the last 20 years must qualify as one of the most authentic political tragedies of our era. Once upon a time, not very long ago, the country was held up as an example to the world. In 1994, when the apartheid regime finally came to an end and South Africans overwhelmingly elected Mandela as their first democratic President, the world looked to South Africa with a mix of hope and expectation.
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In this brave new world, Mandela was a former revolutionary turned philosopher-king; an elder of the global village who came to represent not only the suffering and aspirations of black Africans, but also the hopes and desires of Western progressives. Mandela mingled with world leaders, the European royalty and multi-billionaires; he hung out with popstars and sports legends, but he also maintained a close friendship with Fidel Castro and Muammar Khaddafi. Father Madiba, in a way, was above politics. Or was he?
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Pambazuka - Somalia's rough road to peace - 0 views
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Without Barre’s iron fist, the clan-based political rivalries which had been artificially repressed for two decades bloomed and a country swimming in foreign arms and local animosity was plunged into a vicious civil war.
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Where international peacekeepers and foreign soldiers had cut and run, the UIC, working with the local population, struggled to extract peace and order from chaos.
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By 2007, a weak Somali transitional government called for international military action to help destroy the Islamic courts. Ethiopian forces – bolstered by the United States’ blessing and with the support of some its arms – entered the fray to destroy an organisation supposedly linked to al-Qaeda. However, this same organisation had won the respect of many Somalis by rescuing parts of the country from chaos and random violence. Although Ethiopia’s military action in Somalia decimated the UIC, it also forever de-legitimised the Transitional Federal Government.
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DEVELOPMENT: Economic Boom Worsened De-industrialisation of LDCs - IPS ipsnews.net - 0 views
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"But higher commodity prices -- of mainly oil and gas -- have not solved the issues of price fluctuation and dependence on commodity export," he noted. This pattern of growth is "non-sustainable" and "non-inclusive".
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UNCTAD proposes a "New International Economic Architecture" that goes beyond aid and trade to include technology, commodities and climate change.
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"In NAMA (the non-agricultural market access negotiations) we have to be able to maintain the (original) developmental perspective of the Round to help countries diversify; get value addition; deal with tariff peaks and escalation; and eliminate all trade distortions. We should not add and add agendas in NAMA."
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Pambazuka News - 0 views
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ZIMBABWE AND THE QUESTION OF IMPERIALISM First, there should be an attempt to clear the landscape of certain obstacles. Zimbabwe was in growing trouble before the sanctions imposed by the governments of Britain and the United States. Still, the attempt to bully a small country’s ruler who was in turn bullying his compatriots draped Robert Mugabe in the role of a hero against imperialism. The attempt encouraged a blundering ruler to stay on course. The ZANU-PF forces and sympathizers have blamed the disastrous economic situation on the sanctions. Yet, the political leaders have accumulated wealth in such a conspicuous manner that their consumption of luxury goods stands out in a country where more than 80 per cent of the eligible workers are unemployed. Millions more Zimbabweans have been rendered as economic refugees in Africa and beyond.
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Zimbabwe‘s situation has some striking parallels with that of the recent history of Guyana in the Caribbean, where rivalry between anti-colonial forces started long before independence and was only draped in flags at the moment of Uhuru, without serious attempts at a deep resolution of the difficulties. Once in power the Burnham regime did nothing to resolve the ethnic conflict but superimposed on it a parliamentary dictatorship.
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Of late the western media and certain forces within the United Nations have been reporting the possibility of talks of power sharing, and the arrangement of some form of a transitional authority. While the spirit of these discussions may be guided by the search for social peace, it is urgent that these discussions between the various elements are not carried out behind the backs of the people and do nothing to undermine the political will of the people. But above all there must be an engagement by all to ensure that the elections and its aftermath does not deteriorate into the kind of violence and destruction that was witnessed in Kenya after the elections of December 27, 2007. At all costs, war must be avoided. The present leadership cannot expect to be supported when it terrorizes its own people and unleashes the very same Rhodesian military apparatus (the Joint Operation Command) against the opposition and unarmed civilians.
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Victory for us must mean reconciliation of divided populations. Reconciliation will fail utterly if it is imposed; or allows free rein to corruption, militarism or if it ignores the choices of the people in valid elections. We have responsibility as progressives and Pan-Africanists to Zimbabwe.
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A more nuanced yet still critical view of Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Particularly useful for critically evaluating the original liberation.
Governance for Development in Africa Initiative launched at SOAS - 0 views
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The Centre of African Studies at SOAS has received a tremendous boost with a donation to fund an initiative on Governance for Development in Africa, which will create a dedicated environment to support Africans to study both the legal aspects of governance and the links between economic development and governance.
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Read in context of critical literature on Mo Ibrahim.
Africa's Unnatural Disaster - 0 views
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AGRA’s assumptions – and those of the mainstream media – rest on the premise that the Africa’s hunger problem is one of production. While production may be part of the story, it’s far from the complete picture. The heart of the agriculture crisis that Africa and the world are currently experiencing lies in the failed policy paradigm promoted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, institutions that still have enormous control over economic policy in many African countries.
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The second concession that the 2008 WDR makes to reality (as opposed to market fundamentalist ideology) is an allowance for targeted subsidies.
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The recommendations of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa and the World Bank amount to insanity – recommending more of the same and expecting better results.
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The strategies of the World Bank and IMF have successfully applied shock doctrine methods to plunder the globe, causing widespread hardship and suffering, for the benefit of the few and creating millions of victims. They are the embodiment of psychopathy on a global scale, and from that perspective, they are not 'failed', but actually a devastating and horrific success.
Institute for Policy Studies: Africa and the Economic Crisis - 0 views
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The current crisis, however, has dictated a more central role for African governments in regulating their economies, preventing capital flight, and creative taxation, so that Africa's resources benefit her people. Africa's focus must be on creating decent jobs by supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises that add productive value to Africa's vast natural resources.
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The current crisis, however, has dictated a more central role for African governments in regulating their economies, preventing capital flight, and creative taxation, so that Africa's resources benefit her people. Africa's focus must be on creating decent jobs by supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises that add productive value to Africa's vast natural resources.
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The current crisis, however, has dictated a more central role for African governments in regulating their economies, preventing capital flight, and creative taxation, so that Africa's resources benefit her people. Africa's focus must be on creating decent jobs by supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises that add productive value to Africa's vast natural resources.
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Coal versus Communities in Mozambique: Exposing poor practices by VALE and Rio Tinto - 0 views
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This paper by Dr. Claude Kabemba and Camilo Nhancale for the Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW), entitled Coal versus Communities in Mozambique: Exposing poor practices by VALE and Rio Tinto, details many of the problems associated with the massive new coal mines from lack of contractual transparency to preference for expatriate workers and foreign suppliers to the unjust resettlement programme, which sparked protests in early January.
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Vale reportedly paid US$123 million dollars for the mining rights but the money has never been registered with state agents. If this is correct, Vale’s presence in Mozambique – far from benefiting citizens – is undermining revenue transparency and accountability.
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Vertical integration is undermining local entrepreneurshipThe two investments have provided a new lease of life to Tete Province. There are new economic activities opening up and an influx of people descending on the town. But beneficial links between the extractive companies and local communities do not really exist.
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Pambazuka - Unraveling the leadership conundrum in Cameroon - 0 views
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In short, Inoni’s new agenda was perceived as a storm in the ethnocentric teapot that Cameroon has become in this day. Let me be clear on this: I am not prescribing ruthlessness as a qualification for leadership in Cameroon. Far from it! What I am saying is that Cameroon is not beyond repair.
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The malaise that should incessantly haunt our leaders (but does not) is that they have betrayed irretrievably Cameroon’s destiny in the community of nations. The countless billions that a generous Providence has poured into our national coffers in the last three decades (1982-2012) would have been enough to launch Cameroon into the middle rank of developed nations and transformed the lives of our needy compatriots.
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Nothing in Cameroon’s politics captures her problem of aborted national integration more graphically than the mixed fortune of the word tribe.
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