Zimbabwe on The Huffington Post

Behind the Headlines 12.11.09

2009-11-12T12:46:46Z

Behind the Headlines 12.11.09

SADC continues to disappoint with its lily-livered approach to tackling the crisis in Zimbabwe. Every summit convened so far has produced a long winding paper trail of weak communiqués. Lance Guma ropes in Joy Mabenge from the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for Zimbabwe, and human rights

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Alex Matthews: Zimbabwe Allowed to Mine "Blood Diamonds"

2009-11-10T14:42:05Z

Last week it was announced that Mugabe's Kimberley Process cronies have decided to give him until June to withdraw the soldiers in the Marange diamond fields. The army runs smuggling operations and use forced labour in mines whose profits benefit Zanu PF.

Human Rights Watch exposed the horrors of Marange in June. A task team from the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme followed soon after and confirmed HRW's findings. They recommended Zimbabwe be suspended from trading in diamonds.

But the horrors have continued. "As recently as late October 2009, [HRW] uncovered rampant abuses by the military in Marange including forced labor, child labor, killings, beatings, smuggling and corruption," says the rights body.

There is a clear case for Zimbabwe to be suspended. The gems from Marange are blood diamonds, extracted through the persecution and oppression of those living in the area. But Zimbabwe gets away with it. By letting them off the hook, "this diamond monitoring body has utterly lost credibility," says Georgette Gagnon, HRW's Africa director. She is absolutely right.

Having failed to do anything about the rights abuses and military occupation of Marange over the past few months since abuses have been exposed, it is highly unlikely that Mugabe will implement the Kimberley Process's recommendations by the agreed deadline. And with friends like South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, DRC and Russia -- why should he? Doubtless they'll rush to his defence in June next year.

So the army will continue its plunder. The diamonds will continue to be smuggled. The people -- women, children included -- will continue to be oppressed and exploited. And the revenues will continue to fund senior Zanu PF apparatchiks' lavish lifestyles. All the while, the country continues its implosion: blackouts roll across the country; people starve; hospitals have no medicine; sewage trickles in the street.

Perhaps we should all boycott purchasing diamonds. Of course in these dark times it's not like there are vast hordes rushing to the jewelery shop anyway. But let's boycott nonetheless. If there was a significant drop in sales, perhaps the diamond producing countries that allowed Zimbabwe's shame to continue, will develop scruples. It's worth a try.

After all, there's very little one can do, it seems, except jump up and down, and weep and pray that sanity may prevail in Zimbabwe. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai's re-engagement with Mugabe in the sham "unity" government is a great pity. It means his threats are empty. Mugabe can continue regardless. Do you really think Mugabe's going to fall in line within thirty days like Tsvagirai's demanded he do? And what then -- another deadline?

The unity government has failed to stop Zanu PF's reign of terror: human rights continue to be violated with brutal impunity. And the country continues to fall apart. Tsvangarai is an appeaser. His dalliance with Zanu PF makes me curious: Is he stupid, naïve, or has he been bought by Mugabe's machine? He reminds me of Neville Chamberlain, and the British prime minister's desperate attempts to secure "peace in our time" in the months before World War 2. Well, as that tragic history showed us, appeasement only led to immense suffering, cataclysmic violence and upheaval.

If Morgan Tsvangirai really cares about his country and the members of his party that continue being persecuted, he must act decisively and abandon the marriage he should never have agreed to. Mugabe needs his foe -- and bedfellow -- to maintain his legitimacy. If the latter walks away, the promise of aid, investment and all the other lifelines that would prop up the Zanu PF regime will be pulled away.

I admit, it's not easy for old Morgan. His job is difficult. And lonely. Shamefully, the SADC (which should stand for Southern African Dictators' Club thanks to its tireless support for Mugabe's tyranny) is not interested in true democracy taking root in Zimbabwe. Rather, the regional body craves a continuation of the post-colonial aristocracy in which despotic psychopaths can pillage and persecute freely because they are somehow entitled to. SADC's logic appears to be that such ghastly behaviour is reward for having liberated their countries from the Europeans.

But the threat of regional alienation is no excuse for Tsvangirai to be co-opted by the SADC. It is no excuse for him to become the useful idiot acting out SADC's willful contempt for the democratic will of the Zimbabwean people. Zimbabwe has suffered long enough. It is time Tsvangirai stops talking and starts acting.

Letter from America 09.11.09

2009-11-09T13:01:24Z

In today's Letter from America, Dr. Mukasa argues that SADC has a contractual responsibility to guarantee the global political agreement in Zimbabwe. See transcript

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Healthbeat 07.11.09

2009-11-07T20:16:10Z

Healthbeat

Dr Robert-Grey Choto is a paediatrician and University of Zimbabwe lecturer in the School of Health Sciences. He describes how, despite the meltdown of the healthcare system, Zimbabwe is maintaining a lead in the African continent in its child immunisation programme, thanks to assistance from organisations like UNICEF

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Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: Government Funding is the Only Future for Jewish Day Schools

2009-11-05T16:30:49Z

The single greatest injustice facing American parents today is that they are financially forced to send their children to schools not of their choosing. If you want to understand the level of unfairness you need look no further than my home state of New Jersey. Saturday's Wall Street Journal reported that our state's Supreme Court has "taken control of the $11 billion Property Tax Relief Fund," funded by our astronomical, highest-in-the-nation, property taxes. The Journal reports, "The court sends more than half of the state aid to 31 largely urban "special needs" school districts with the remaining 554 largely suburban towns fighting over the rest."

Want to know how badly abused our tax dollars are in the State's education system? A single community, Asbury Park, gets thirty thousand dollars per pupil -- enough to send them to the country's best prep schools -- and still "they produce dismal test results."

But I knew well before the article appeared what suckers we New Jersey tax payers are from my own community of Englewood where you have to sell a kidney to afford the sky-high property taxes that fund an approximately twenty-three thousand dollars per pupil public school expenditure that likewise produces poor test results.

Included within our community are approximately six hundred hard-working orthodox Jewish families that make up the lion's share of the tax base. But not one of those families gets even a ten dollar subsidy from their taxes to help pay the tuition for their children's religious school, which is curious when you consider how much money the government saves by having children in a values-based education system which produces far lower delinquency rates.

Now, since we read daily of the non-stop corruption and waste that seems endemic to our state, why do we in New Jersey take it? Why aren't there protests in the street? Honestly, I have no idea, other than to say it's becoming prohibitive to even live here and many have indeed begun moving out.

But be that as it may, I personally know scores of religious Jewish families for whom this injustice is beginning to break the bank. They are slowly being bankrupted by the combination of high taxes and high tuition. There is no way on earth they can pay both. And this of course applies to Catholic parents, evangelical parents, and Islamic parents. Why does our country so strongly discriminate against responsible parents who want their kids to pray every day and be more spiritual people? What does our country have against families who believe in ethical, religious traditions? How long will parents whose only sin it is to want their children to know and love G-d be punished?

And let's not march out the over-roasted chestnut of separation of Church and State. This is not the State's money. It's the parent's money. It's their tax dollars. Why is it taken from them without any benefit to their kids?

And what if you're a parent who isn't even religious but simply disapproves of co-education? What if you're of the opinion that children, and especially girls, do much better in environments where questions of popularity among the opposite sex is minimized? Should you be forced to contravene your conscience for money?

At this stage in my life, with two children in College and another six in private Jewish schools, the tuition burden has become almost prohibitive. There is no way we can save anything since, by the time we pay Englewood property taxes and Jewish day school tuition, there simply is nothing left.

And still the Jewish community refuses to seriously address the tuition crisis with the only real solution which is to finally allow public funding for at the very least the secular departments of parochial schools. Hebrew Charter schools are a necessary first step. But walking on egg shells to forestall any kind of accusation of imparting a Jewish identity is simply not a complete solution. Less so is sending your kid to a public school and supplementing it with a Jewish tutor. That still doesn't provide for immersion into a Jewish school environment in which a child wears tzitzis and a Yarmulke, washes their hands for bread, and makes the proper blessings before eating various foods.

Let's not kid ourselves about there being any real replacement for a Jewish day school education when it comes to instilling a Jewish identity and guaranteeing that a graduate make Jewish choices later in life. Daily Jewish education amid total immersion in a Jewish environment is the single greatest guarantor that our children will proudly choose to be Jewish. The same applies to having more Jewish kids. Our community's number one threat today is not intermarriage but the pitifully low Jewish birthrate. And more families are choosing to have less children because in their minds they simply can't afford them, especially the tuition.

Next week the GA will take place in Washington, DC. Sure enough, on the lengthy agenda there is one breakout session entitled, "Accessing Federal and State Support and Services for Jewish Day Schools." That is nice, but it's nowhere near enough. Creating the political will to provide government funding for parochial school education must be our community's number one priority. It cannot be just one of many subjects. And I am declaring my willingness to work with individuals and organizations who are dedicated to seeing this become a reality.

My passion has always been to bring Jewish values to the outside world and help heal an increasingly valueless society. But that cannot and will not happen unless we raise a generation of Jewish children who are versed in Jewish texts, Jewish wisdom, and Jewish history. And if over the next decade we don't find a way to secure permanent funding for Jewish day schools the edifice will come tumbling down.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the founder of This World: The Values Network and is the author of 'Ten Conversations You Need to Have with Your Children' and 'Parenting with Fire.' www.shmuley.com.

Evelyn Leopold: UN Starts World's First Arms Trade Treaty: Will It Work?

2009-10-31T01:04:41Z

At least 2,000 people a day are killed with weapons by criminal gangs, bandits, terrorists, insurgents -- and their own governments. In Africa alone $18 billion is consumed through armed conflict, about the same amount as non-military foreign aid.

In an effort to regulate the arms trade, UN members approved a resolution on Friday setting out a three-year timetable for negotiations on the world's first-ever Arms Trade Treaty. The aim is to set standards for the global $55 billion export business in guns, tanks, attack helicopters, jet fighters, missiles and other conventional weapons. The United States, the world's largest arms exporter, voted in favor.

The UN General Assembly's disarmament committee (known as the first committee) voted 153 to 1 (Zimbabwe) with 19 abstentions. Adoption by the committee, which includes all UN members, is tantamount to formal approval by the General Assembly by the end of the year. The goal is a conference in 2012 for a final accord.

Easier Said Than Done

The project is fraught with difficulties but is a major step forward after years of dithering. The purpose is to set international criteria to prevent weapons from reaching criminals, terrorists and human rights abusers and level arms trade regulations for major exporters. But diplomats acknowledge one could not stop leakage into the black market entirely.

"We need to have a standard that everyone is applying," said John Duncan, the British ambassador for multilateral arms control and a key force behind the resolution. "We now have lots of emerging suppliers operating with different rules. Because of that disunity, we are ending up with things flowing to where they shouldn't be going."

Hopefully, he said, there would be a "name and shame" list if the treaty is adopted. "It's not going to be a panacea but you raise the economic and political threshold. Currently we have nothing."

Arms sales are a major business and large manufacturers in Western nations welcome a treaty as it might help them compete against lax rivals.

The United States has the world's tightest export regulations but there was no dent in its weapons sales abroad last year, even amid a worldwide recession. U.S. firms exported arms valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, over 68 percent of all global business. (Italy was in second place with $3.7 billion, see chart below).

America was also number one in the arms bazaar to developing nations with $29.6 billion in conventional weapons agreements or more than 70 percent of the world's total, according to a U.S. government report in September. In contrast, Russian arms sales to developing countries were $3.3 billion.

Clinton Speaks

Reversing the policy of the Bush administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement on October 14 that:

[The treaty initiative] presents us with the opportunity to promote the same high standards for the entire international community that the United States and other responsible arms exporters already have in place to ensure that weaponry is transferred for legitimate purposes.

But she had a key condition -- consensus -- which gives nearly every country a veto. In practice it means Washington could demolish the treaty if it felt the standards were too low and would put its own companies at a disadvantage. (The proposed treaty already excludes any embargo on nationals bearing arms, thereby allowing the usual seepage of US weapons to Mexican gangs.) At the same time, however, countries who want to sell to human rights abusers can also block agreement.

In Friday's debate, Mexico, for example, noted that the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament was paralyzed because of the consensus rules and that all major treaties, including the key Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), had been adopted by majority vote. Ireland and Germany also had major doubts on consensus but in the end voted in favor.

Among the abstainers were Russia, China, India, and Pakistan, all arms producers, who wanted further discussion before serious negotiations could begin, indicating the process will be a tough one. But they are expected to join the talks, set to begin next July. Most nations in the Middle East abstained but nearly all countries in Africa and Latin America voted in favor.

Zimbabwe, which cast the sole negative vote on the resolution, is accused of using weapons for political oppression and has had some difficulty getting arms. In April 2008 a Chinese vessel carrying weapons destined for Zimbabwe was forced to leave the South African port of Durban with its cargo intact after dock workers refused to unload the shipment.

Active in the lobbying effort was a coalition of hundreds of non-governmental groups from around the world. "For too long, governments have let the flow of weapons get out of control, causing pain, suffering and death in some of the world's poorest regions," said Anna Macdonald of Oxfam International.

ARMS TRANSFER AGREEMENTS WITH THE WORLD, BY SUPPLIER (IN US DOLLARS)

2008-- Total $55 billion:
United States 37.8. billion
Italy 3.7 billion
Russia 3.5 billion
France 2.6 billion
Germany 1 billion
China 800 million
Britain 200 million
All other Europeans 3.2 billion
All Others 2.4 billion

Source: U.S. Government, Congressional Research Service Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2001-2008 by Richard F. Grimmett , September 4, 2009 (PDF).

Sandip Roy: Power Sharing - the Fix-it-All from Honduras to Zimbabwe

2009-10-30T17:50:53Z

It's good to know they have brokered a power-sharing deal in Honduras.

Manuel Zelaya is happy. Roberto Micheletti said he had made a "significant concession."

Most importantly Hillary Clinton gave it her blessing calling it "an historic agreement."

This is becoming increasingly the West's preferred policy for dealing with pesky squabbling countries of the Third World. Once the world's policeman, insistent on reshaping the map of the Middle East, now America wants to settle geopolitical disputes like schoolyard fights.

"You have to play nicely together and share the sandbox."

(And don't bother mummy because mummy is very busy being the last superpower standing.)

But there are fundamental differences between rival leaders which cannot necessarily be papered over in a government of national unity. The power-sharing deal, the government of national unity is a way to take the drama off the headlines and stash it away in the back drawer of international politics. The alternatives, truly free and fair elections, putting real pressure on leaders who rig the polls, are costly, both politically and economically. The West has no stomach for it, especially in a recession.

One of the first ideas floated immediately after Afghanistan's electoral debacle was a "power sharing agreement" between Hamid Karzai and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. Eventually when Hamid Karzai agreed to a run-off, Obama gave him a pat on the back. As Jamal Dajani of Mosaic News points out in the Huffington Post, "If someone is caught cheating in the Olympics or another sporting event, the athlete is immediately disqualified, and it is seen as a disgrace. In the case of the recent election in Afghanistan however, cheating has been rewarded and even praised by no less than the President of the United States himself."

Where does that leave the warring parties from disputed elections? They are trapped in an arranged marriage of someone else's convenience.

Take Kenya. After the violent protests following the 2007 elections, the warring sides were brought together in a coalition government. But a report in the Christian Science Monitor quotes Jakoyo Midiwo, chief parliamentary whip for the Orange Democratic Movement as saying "We may have achieved a certain level of peace in the country, but underneath that, there is nothing." Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga's government have become better known for scandals, rather than the new constitution they were supposed to write. According to the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation Monitoring Report, only 40 percent of those displaced in the post-election ethnic violence have returned home. Kofi Annan is now warning Kenya's leaders that that time is running out.

In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe was forced to enter a power sharing agreement with his bitter rival Morgan Tsvangirai. That fell apart a few weeks ago when Tsvangirai accused Mugabe's Zanu-PR party of failing to live up to its power sharing commitments (and after it arrested one of its MPs). Now that's reached a head with the UN torture investigator Manfred Nowak stopped at the Harare airport and not allowed to enter Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai had authorized the visit. But his foreign minister apparently follows orders from a higher master. "The invitation by the prime minister was a nullity," he told AP.

Internationally imposed power sharing agreements might stop civil war. But do they actually bring reconciliation in the long-term? Or do they in effect just divide the pie among the elites, elections be damned? No wonder it's becoming more and more de rigueur for parties to refuse to accept the results of elections, almost before the last polling stations have closed.

Which leads me to wonder why it's always the Zimbabwes and Kenyas and the Afghanistans of the world who are told they need to just get along and share power.

Why not the US itself? Can it take the medicine it prescribes so freely for the rest of the world? There was a disputed election here in 2000 that hung on a chad. Imagine if Honduras had told us then that what the US needed was a Bush-Gore government of national unity.

The Heart of The Matter 29.10.09

2009-10-29T14:01:18Z

The Heart of The Matter

Tanonoka states, "SADC and the African Union are running up and down in an effort to prop up the rotten agreement they fostered on the MDC. We know they are swarming into Zimbabwe to assist Mugabe, not the people of Zimbabwe, let alone the MDC

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Zimbabwe leaders in split unity government meet

2009-10-26T13:52:16Z

HARARE, Zimbabwe — An aide to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai says the former opposition leader who has temporarily withdrawn from a coalition with President Robert Mugabe has held a four-hour meeting with Zimbabwe's longtime leader.

James Maridadi said Monday that Tsvangirai met with Mugabe for the first time since the prime minister pulled out of the unity government Oct. 16.

They were joined by their coalition partner, deputy prime minister Arthur Mutambara.

The leaders made no comment after the meeting but Maridadi said Tsvangirai would issue a statement Tuesday.

Tsvangirai withdrew from the coalition, citing a lack of co-operation and human rights abuses by Mugabe and his party.

Mugabe, 85, has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980.

Read more: Harare-Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, Britain, Home News

Barry D. Wood: Tendai Biti: Brave Reformer in Mugabe's Zimbabwe

2009-10-17T13:29:33Z

Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe's reformist finance minister, knows something about living on the edge. In July, a brown envelope containing a live 9mm bullet arrived in his mail. A message inside read, "prepare your will." A year earlier the successful 43-year-old lawyer arrived back in Zimbabwe from Johannesburg only to be arrested on charges of high treason.

A partner in a prestigious law firm, Biti has a keen legal mind and a reputation as a tenacious defender of human rights. Ten years ago he was a founder of the Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwe's main opposition party.

In February, Biti was named finance minister, as part of a power sharing agreement cobbled together after Robert Mugabe lost the first round of the 2008 presidential election. The 85-year-old Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist since independence from Britain in 1980.

Despite enormous constraints and no background in economics, Biti is credited with significant achievements in seven months on the job. He threw out the worthless local currency and allowed Zimbabweans to use whatever money they choose, which turned out to be the US dollar and South African rand. The result has been a revival in long-dormant economic activity and the return of food to previously empty store shelves.

Under Mugabe's bloated spending and botched land reform, Zimbabwe had descended into hyperinflation and economic paralysis. Inflation reached 500 billion percent in 2008. Schools and hospitals closed. Unemployment reached 90%. Hungry Zimbabweans fled across the borders, mostly into South Africa. Landlocked Zimbabwe, similar in size to Montana, once a food exporter, may have lost a quarter of its population.

This month, London-based Euromoney magazine named Biti Africa's finance minister of the year, an action that infuriated Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party, which retains control of the central bank, the judiciary, the military and the media. Addressing prospective investors at this month's International Monetary Fund meeting in Turkey, Biti urged foreign businesses to come back to Zimbabwe, a land rich in minerals. He said the transition to democracy was a miracle and that an irreversible process had been set in motion.

While wishing him well, his attentive audience was skeptical, particularly since Biti himself voiced uncertainty about the future. He pointedly said that, "politics remains Zimbabwe's number one problem and biggest threat." He accused Mugabe of inflicting massive poverty on the people and "presiding over an unbelievable economic collapse."
He said Mugabe continues to violate the power-sharing deal by holding on to the central bank job and not replacing provincial governors.

Inside Zimbabwe, political tension is on the rise and Mugabe loyalists are calling for Biti's resignation. On October 14th, Mugabe's justice ministry arrested the MDC treasurer, the designated deputy minister of agriculture, an action designed to thwart Biti's plan to revitalize agriculture by restoring property rights and halting the illegal occupation of Zimbabwe's remaining commercial farms. The MDC on October 16th responded to this latest outrage by disengaging from participation in government and promising not to return until all outstanding issues are resolved. Mugabe's party, it says, has proven to be an unreliable partner.

In his talk to prospective investors, Biti was philosophical. "Politics," he repeated, "is choking us," and we need to get rid of all the politicians. He laughingly quoted from Shakespeare's Henry VI: "let's kill all the politicians."

In today's Zimbabwe, Faust's pact with the devil is a more apt dramatic parallel. An expatriate businessman, fresh from a visit to family in Zimbabwe, believes Mugabe remains firmly in charge and that by entering into coalition with him, the opposition has sold out.

Biti's memory of Henry VI also needs to be refreshed. In the play, the butcher Dick doesn't speak of politicians. Rather, he says, "the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe PM, Boycotts Unity Government

2009-10-16T11:38:12Z

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Citing the "persecution" of a top aide, Zimbabwe's prime minister abandoned – at least temporarily – shared rule with President Robert Mugabe, marking a setback to the country's struggle to emerge from political gridlock, economic collapse and international isolation and sanctions.

Morgan Tsvangirai told reporters Friday his party members would not attend Cabinet meetings or engage in other executive work with Mugabe's party. His erstwhile governing partners said good riddance, even though both sides need the coalition.

Michealene Cristini Risley: The Last Resort : A Moving Memoir About Growing up in Zimbabwe

2009-10-15T12:30:31Z

If you read my blog at all, you know how much I write about the situation in Zimbabwe. Over the summer, a friend from one of the local bookstores passed me a galley of the The Last Resort, a memoir of Zimbabwe by Douglas Rogers. Rogers is a born and raised Zimbabwean whose moving portrayal of his parents struggle to reinvent themselves during the chaotic and tumultuous Mugabe regime of this once bountiful, shining example of a prosperous nation, is heartbreaking as well as captivating. This book is a must read. (I have now read it twice!)

In a moving, sometimes laugh out loud funny tribute, we meet Doug's parents Rosalind and Lynn Rogers, whose amazing resilience turns out to be part of the core of what makes people Zimbabwean. After leaving the country as a young man, Doug began to increase his travel back home as his fear for his parents' safety grew. In the process, his memoir paints an uncanny sense of what is was like growing up in Zimbabwe as a child, and returning to this country as an adult in the midst of the current political crisis under Robert Mugabe. A crisis that has dragged many Zimbabweans through a long and protracted hell of which most of the world community is ignorant.

Rosalind and Lynn take that little piece of hell and turn it into opportunity that would shock most children who faced these issues with their parents. Yet his parents bounce along as their once famous back-pack and pizza place becomes a brothel for the Zanu-PF party. He can't quite believe that the diamond smugglers make this their hang out or that dad finally succumbs to growing marijuana. As an adult child, facing those kind of issues with your parents is like imagining them having sex. Truly funny.

As the story unfolds it illuminates a powerful human aspect to the Zimbabwe crisis through the eyes of human beings that are still stuck there. The story moves beyond race to "ordinary people, not black or white, who are trying to survive the regime of Robert Mugabe and all his crazy laws," says Doug. Yet throughout it all, there is a national pride and stoicism that we wish all of us would learn from our parents. This story of the Rogers' has left an indelible impression on me.

Doug's parents, who are often funny, are resilient and able to shift to the changing landscape like chameleons. In the beginning of the book, Doug hears of the first white farmer who was killed and calls his parents in a panic. In a funny exchange he realizes that they are busy watching a cricket game and oblivious to the murder. Rosalind's response to her son's panic makes one see the steel-eyed determination that allows her family to survive during these tumultuous times. Her attitude serves her well in a country that continues to throw curve balls at any human being, black or white, that starts to wish Mugabe gone.

The author sheds some light on the political climate in this book, but not from a dry, educational perspective -- he illuminates the situation through the effect Mugabe has had on human beings and their lives. Some of what he shares is staggering, given that the popular press can't get it right. For example, only 28% of that country is commercial farmland. The whites own only 14-15% of that farmland. Mugabe is a master at framing the issues, and in 2000, he framed his land reform movement on the fact that 70% of the land was owned by white commercial farmers. All of the international press took those numbers at face value when they were completely inaccurate. Of that 14-15 % those farmers paid ½ of the GNP. In 2000, the farm workers on those white farms numbered over 300,000. These farm workers supported families with a population of close to 2 million.

What does not come out in the press, is that Mugabe's land reform idea was a planned and systematic decimation of the opposition party led by very false data that the International press took at face value. Sound familiar? These black farmers, along with the white farmers supported the opposition, and were part of the opposition stronghold. Mugabe wanted to destroy this. In the process, he not only destroyed Zimbabweans who lived on this land for generations, but the farms that made Zimbabwe a shining example to the west.

At one point in the story, Rosalind loses her citizenship via the Government Citizenship Act of 2002. She is forced to not only renounce the citizenship of her parents (if one is not born in Zimbabwe) but she must prove that she would never become a citizen of that country. She has to go to the embassy and get a letter that she is not eligible for citizenship to that country. As you see her struggle with these crazy laws, one feels as if Mugabe has taken on the character of Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. He outshines Johnny Depp's portrayal in his sinister craziness. Willy or not, Rosalind's experience with the Government Citizenship Act is a great example of Mugabe's continued ploy to stop Zimbabweans from voting.

I spoke with Doug about his book that conveys the human story about this situation and couches the politic debate. "No one wants to listen to analytical bullshit; no one wants to hear the details of why Mugabe's governance and laws are ridiculous," he says. And he is right. Mugabe has managed to shovel a once successful country into the manure pile, and most of the world looks on. Doug's story can move the political debate to the human fallout. There are lots of bodies.

The Last Resort is a compelling story about one family's struggle, the sometimes hilarious perspectives of marriage and the coming of age of a son who discovers how truly special Zimbabweans are. "Strangely though, while things around them were falling apart, my parents had an incredible ability to laugh at the absurdity of their situation." I can imagine his mother's reply, she would say, "Darling, of course, we are Zimbabweans. "

Byron Williams: Dr. Robert Scott's Legacy Will Be Impossible to Fill

2009-10-15T10:54:17Z

Last week, Oakland, the Bay Area and the world lost a giant of man with the passing of Dr. Robert Scott. In short, Scott was an humanitarian of the highest order.

Ask people who knew Dr. Scott, and they will be hard-pressed to convey in words the magnitude of his premature passing at age 65.

I say premature because even if Scott lived to be 125, his passing might still have been considered premature. Scott managed to serve two communities thousands of miles apart with the same love, compassion and dogged commitment.

Scott was an HIV/AIDS specialist as well as a tireless advocate for people living with HIV/AIDS in America as well as in Zimbabwe.

He was co-founder of the Allen Temple Baptist Church AIDS ministry in Oakland. But every church in the Bay Area that had an AIDS ministry knew Scott.

Under Scott's leadership, the Allen Temple AIDS ministry partnered with local congregation such as St. Benedicts in Oakland, Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian and City of Refuge in San Francisco to expand its ability to deliver much needed services.

Scott also traveled quarterly, largely at his own expense, to Zimbabwe to provide care to more than 600 clients in two clinics, clients who would otherwise have no one to serve them. He was also the physician for more than 200 children orphaned by AIDS and violence at the Mother of Peace Orphanage in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe has a population of roughly 7 million with an additional 6 million Zimbabweans displaced largely in South Africa, the U.K., and the U.S. It has one of the world's highest levels of HIV infection; the official estimate is 25 percent

It is believed that up to 7,000 people die weekly in Zimbabwe from AIDS-related infections. Although, with a widely dispersed population and limited access to medical facilities. this figure may be considerably higher. In 10 years, life expectancy has dropped from an average of 75 to 36 for men and 32 for women. Estimates have Zimbabwe's orphan population at 1.5 million.

Zimbabwe is also a country that toils under the oppressive heat of economic and political chaos, under the miserable leadership of President Robert Mugabe.

This is the climate where Scott found himself providing lifesaving care to nearly thousands of patients in Zimbabwe, faithfully meeting the needs of society's "least of these." Moreover, all of the patients in Zimbabwe were treated free of charge through the efforts of the Allen Temple AIDS Ministry.

Former Director of Alameda County Public Health Department Arnold Perkins has seen the impact of Scott's work firsthand. Having made several sojourns with Scott to Zimbabwe, Perkins recalled one visit seeing people ravished by AIDS reduced to nothing but skin and bones. According to Perkins, the death sentence had already been given.

But on Perkins' next visit, he would find some of those same people healthy and full of life, thanks to the medications that Scott brought into that war-torn desolate area.

Born in Chicago, Scott earned his bachelor's degree at Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, and master's degrees at the University of Illinois and the University of California, San Francisco.

He came to Oakland in 1969 as an instructor at Laney College. He completed an internship in medicine at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, in 1975, and a residency in internal medicine at Stanford.

Commonly logging 13-hour days, Scott's Oakland-based practice reportedly served more than 4,000 patients, more than 400 have the HIV virus.

Scott's amazing life leaves us to ponder a plethora of unanswerable questions. What did he possess that so many of us lack? Why would he use personal resources to cover travel cost for volunteers, medication and medical supplies? I can understand someone going to, say, Paris quarterly, but Zimbabwe?

It requires a commitment that few of us possess, so we must acknowledge when such rare people cross our path.

The natural reaction is to hope someone will come along to replace Scott. But that's impossible; his presence is irreplaceable. We can only hope that a number of people will heed the clarion call to serve by following in Scott's trailblazing path.

The manner in which I found out about Scott's passing adds in small way the impact he had on those who knew him. I was at afternoon worship service. I saw Scott's photo on the program and my immediate thought was: "What has Dr. Scott done now?"

I had no idea it was leaving a legacy impossible for one individual to fill.

Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist and blog-talk radio host. He is the author of Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections of the Iraq War. E-mail him byron@byronspeaks.com or visit his Web site:byronspeaks.com

Zimbabwean court orders MDC official back to prison

2009-10-14T19:15:33Z

A Zimbabwe court has ordered the prison detention of Roy Bennett, a senior official in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party, and ruled that he should stand trial on terrorism charges.

Read more: Zimbabwe, Home News

Roy Bennett, Zimbabwe Opposition Figure, Sent To Prison And Indicted On Terrorism Charges

2009-10-14T16:58:30Z

Jesse Larner: Obama and the Nobel: Just Bizarre

2009-10-09T18:38:33Z

First media check of the morning - my web browser opens to the NYT - and I thought it was a joke. "Has someone hacked the Times site?"

Nope. Obama really did win the Nobel Peace Prize, eight months after his inauguration.

Now I know a lot of people are going to be very happy about this; a new day has dawned, etc. Personally I found it inexplicable. And disturbing. And vaguely annoying.

The Nobel is supposed to mean something, although it's been awarded to some dubious people. Rigoberta Menchu, for example, for some an icon of the Guatemalan freedom struggle. All of the acts of terror and martyrdom that she describes in her autobiography really did happen. But many of them didn't happen to her, and the discovery of her lies set back the cause of peace in Guatemala by an incalculable quanta, since it allowed the reactionaries to pretend that nothing was very much wrong in Guatemala anyway, or that it was all the Indians' fault. Yasser Arafat also won the prize, as the right-wingers love to point out, although I don't think he deserved it less than his interlocutors and co-winners, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. None of them were willing to move their people towards what will ultimately be necessary for peace in the Middle East: The Palestinian abandonment of the dream of expelling the Jews from the region, and the Jewish abandonment of an undemocratic Jewish state in which Jews have special rights based on ethnicity.

And for every right-winger enjoying his outrage over Arafat's award, there's a left-winger who is dismayed at both Arafat and Kissinger receiving the prize.

Still, the peace prize has had many impressive and deserving laureates: Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Yunus, Aung San Suu Kyi, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Shirin Ebadi, among many others. Quite a few more good people than bad, people who changed the world or their little corner of it. What exactly has Obama done to deserve this honor, eight months out? He's embarked on a program of humility in diplomacy abroad, no doubt warming the hearts of the Norwegians who chose him [all the other Nobel prizes are awarded by Swedish institutions; the Peace Prize by a Norwegian one.] America now presents itself as merely an equal in the company of nations. I hope we're only doing this in public, not behind the scenes, because the world desperately can't afford, right now, for America not to lead military, economically, and diplomatically; and, yes, as a champion of freedom in the world. We don't have to be arrogant about it. But we do have to do it.

Obama hasn't done much about climate change besides talk about it a lot. He has more or less continued the Bush drawdown in Iraq, and he hasn't responded very forcefully to signs that the nascent and fragile civil society of Iraq may not be able to survive the absence of American soldiers, any more than it can survive the presence of American soldiers. Yes, it's a conundrum. What is Obama doing about it? I don't know. I doubt the Swedes and Norwegians do either.

Obama has suggested that the United States and the international community should move to complete nuclear disarmament - the thing that is more likely than any other thing in the world to guarantee the return of major wars between superpowers that kill tens of millions. This should not recommend him for a peace prize.

On Afghanistan, the most important issue before him at the moment, he's dragged his feet on a strategy. Signs are that he may be looking for a split-the-difference approach: Less than the full 50,000 troops that General McChrystal has requested, less than full engagement in nation-building, but more than simply a remote-controlled, killer-drone strategy of attacking al-Qaeda wherever it might be found in the country, leaving the Afghans to struggle with the Taliban on their own. Such neither-nor half measures might well be the worst approach possible, gaining neither stability in Afghanistan nor the minimum security we need to dishonorably abandon that country.

Sure, it might work. So might ignoring the Taliban and sending the drones after Zawahiri. So might the strategy I would like to see: One last try at getting nation-building right, involving a lot more troops, a lot more economic development, a lot more wisdom, and a much more realistic policy toward Pakistan. But again, we don't know. We can't know yet, because nothing has really been tried. So the prize seems a bit premature. Jimmy Carter got a peace treaty and diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt, and the return of the Sinai. He had to wait thirty years for the call from Oslo.

But maybe that's the point. Maybe the more absurd and bizarre it is, the more of a kick in the pants it is to the Bush presidency, of late, unlamented memory. This is how much we hate you, George; anyone who comes after you will win the Nobel prize, just for not being you. This may be satisfying to some. It is rather childish, however. And a poor use of the power of the prize.

Here are a few of the other reported finalists for 2009:

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe, a man of almost unbelievable courage in standing up to the thug regime of president-for-life Robert Mugabe. Tsvangirai withdrew from last year's runoff election for president, even though he would surely have won a fair ballot, because, he said, he could not ask his supporters to risk their lives for any cause, not even for democracy; and certainly not for his, Tsvangirai's, election; although he himself risks his life for the freedom of his fellow citizens every day. Since that canceled election, his wife of more than 30 years, Susan, was killed in an automobile "accident" in which Tsvangirai himself was also injured; and his three-year-old grandson, Shaun, "accidentally" drowned in a swimming pool. Tsvangirai's withdrawal from the election was the kind of act that will always separate men of conscience like himself from bullies like Mugabe.
Hu Jia of China, a human rights and democracy advocate who has paid dearly for his desire for freedom. He's presently serving a three and a half year prison sentence for "inciting subversion of state power."
Dr. Sima Samar of Afghanistan, a physician who has set up medical services for refugees, and who served as Afghan Minister of Women's Affairs until she was driven from office by the death threats she had earned through being insufficiently cowed by the demands of Islam (she questioned the legitimacy of Shari'a law, and of customs that kept women isolated, ignorant, and powerless.) She is now the chairman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (not a safe job) and is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Sudan.

But - not the year for any of these good people. More important to lift up a president of dubious international achievements, whose legacy in regard to war and peace we may not know for years, in order to confirm the Nobel committee's insular and naive beliefs about the world.

I wish that were all there was to it. But am I the only one who found something vaguely sinister in the statement by Thorbjorn Jagland, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, who said "We would hope this will enhance what he (Obama) is trying to do." Is this really the role of the Nobels - to influence policy? If so - and remember that there's a $1.4 million cash prize attached to the honor - it could be considered an illegal interference with the United States' exercise of sovereign power in the conduct of its foreign policy.

Wouldn't it be great if Obama were to refuse the prize? That would surely be even more astonishing, and even more worthy of acclaim, than the award. He could point out that initiatives are one thing, and results another, and that he will wait for results before accepting accolades. He could also mention the fact that the United States of America does not need guidance or "enhancement" of its policies by a private foreign committee. And he could do a lot of good by drawing public attention to the causes of the other finalists.

Imagine how that would confound his fanatical right-wing opponents; how popular - and how empowering - it would be at home. And political confidence at home is an important aspect of power and influence abroad; which might, actually, help Obama to accomplish something that would be important in securing world peace at some point down the road.

Second media check of the day: "Mr. Obama said he was 'surprised and deeply humbled' by the committee's decision, and quickly put to rest any speculation that he might not accept the honor."

Rules 4 our Rulers 05.10.09

2009-10-05T14:04:34Z

Rev Chisvo on Rules 4 our Rulers

Rev Mucharucha Chisvo was one of the speakers at a recent UK conference entitled 'Locating the Role of the Diaspora in Zimbabwe's transitional process', organized by the Council of Zimbabwean Christian Leaders UK. The conference featured prominent academics like

Read more: Zimbabwe, United Kingdom, Home News

Through the Valley 03.10.09

2009-10-02T15:02:56Z

This week on Through the Valley, Richard talks to Qobo Mayisa of the Council of Zimbabwean Christian Leaders UK, about the just ended international conference for the Zimbabwean Diaspora. Qobo says the Diaspora has a huge potential to make important changes in Zimbabwe, particularly in the shaping of the constitution and pushing for legislation that affects them,

Read more: Zimbabwe, Home News

Jonathan Elliott: Zimbabwe: Hold the Line

2009-09-29T15:31:23Z

The Europeans have spoken. After a recent high-profile visit of European Union officials to Harare, the EU said it will not lift targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe and that it was premature to resume development aid to a country that had not made needed reforms.

The European case is solid. Although a coalition government was formed more than six months ago, there has been no meaningful change in the country. The political balance of power remains severely lopsided in favor of Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party. He continues to control Zimbabwe's security forces and judicial institutions, and uses them to attack members of civil society and Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, the former opposition party and current partner in government.

Having seen for themselves, the Europeans know that, rather than helping promote change in Zimbabwe, a flood of development aid for the new government may simply reinforce Mugabe's institutions of repression. The Obama administration should follow the Europeans' lead. Mugabe, Zimbabwe's octogenarian president, may be hoping that the new team in Washington feels the need to "do something" on Zimbabwe. He may hope that the Obama administration will overlook his track record of ignoring agreements he does not like.

Human Rights Watch recently issued a report on Zimbabwe's new government ("False Dawn", at www.hrw.org/africa). It shows that state agents affiliated with ZANU-PF continue to abduct and kill MDC activists with impunity, and to arrest its legislators on spurious charges. Zimbabwe's oppressive media laws remain in force. Illegal invasions of commercial farms are increasing, and the military has used child labor to mine diamonds illicitly for its ZANU-PF bosses.

Before Zimbabwe's complicated power-sharing deal was put into effect in February, southern African leaders pressured Tsvangirai, now Zimbabwe's powerless prime minister, to accept the pact. They promised that it would be implemented in letter and in spirit.

Tsvangirai attended a regional summit of the same leaders this month. He arrived with evidence of Mugabe's failure to honor the most basic elements of the deal. What did the region's leaders do? With the Congolese president, Joseph Kabila, in the chair, they refused Tsvangirai the time to air his concerns. However, they did find time to demand that the West lift targeted sanctions aimed solely at Mugabe's inner circle, the people who instigated Zimbabwe's lawlessness. So much for solidarity with Zimbabwe's people.

But Mugabe is in a Catch-22. He wants to deny the MDC any real power and slowly strangle it out of government. Yet he must maintain a façade of sharing power if he hopes to attract urgently needed Western development aid. Mugabe wants aid flowing into the central bank, which he still controls in breach of the power-sharing agreement.

Tsvangirai has been lobbying Washington and other Western capitals, arguing that Western aid will empower moderates in ZANU-PF and marginalize hard-liners opposed to sharing power. But no-one seems able to identify who the so-called ZANU-PF "moderates" are.

Western humanitarian aid, food, and medicines have kept millions of Zimbabweans alive for several years. The US and Europeans should continue to give this desperately needed help through international agencies. But throwing good money into an unreformed government now will not help Zimbabweans who most need it. If Western aid officials may think they can prevent money from being diverted, they should ask the South African government what happened to $30 million it gave Zimbabwe in January.

The ball is in Mugabe's court. ZANU-PF should make the first move and implement in full the power-sharing agreement and restore the rule of law. Those responsible for human rights violations should be held to account. Corrupt officials should be replaced and charged, and made to return stolen assets.

And before the US hands over a single dollar of development aid, there should be an internationally supervised program of government reform and audit. Media restrictions should be lifted completely so that Zimbabweans can scrutinize their elected and unelected officials. This list shows just how far Zimbabwe still has to go.

Barack Obama has sent a powerful signal to Africans that he will make good governance the basis of US engagement on the continent. His administration has made a positive start in places like Kenya. But Zimbabwe is where the rhetoric, and any substance behind it, will face its first serious test.

Jon Elliott is Africa Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch.

Zimbabwe Virgins Forced into Marriage to 'Appease' Evil Spirits

2009-09-29T10:12:56Z

By Nyarai Kachere

MUTARE, Zimbabwe, Sep 29 (IPS) - Three years after being seized from their families and forced to marry and have sex with adult men in a Shona ritual to appease an avenging spirit, five teenagers are facing a dismal reality.

The girls from Honde Valley in Manicaland had to drop out of school, become under-age wives and mothers and live an impoverished life as vegetable vendors to contribute to their new families' household income.

In 1999, Felicitas Nyakama, Nesta Maromo, Juliet Muranganwa, Precious Maboreke and Perseverance Ndarangwa, who were then between the ages of seven and 15, were handed over by their parents to the family of Gibson Kupemba as payment for the man's murder. The girls' relatives killed Kupemba to prepare muti, traditional medicine, which is sometimes made from body parts.

According to traditional belief, a murderer's relatives need to appease a dead person's spirit with virgin girls, sometimes as young as six years old. The virgin has to live with the murdered person's family, no matter her age. When she reaches puberty, she is made the wife of one of the male members of her new family.

Kupemba's grandson Gibson (junior) said his father appeared to him in his sleep, demanding a virgin girl as compensation from each family involved in his murder. He insists the girls were not forced to offer themselves, but it was their personal choice to rescue their families from an evil spirit.

"They came here to confess on their own volition. Each girl must be accompanied by 22 heads of cattle," said 28-year-old Kupemba junior, who married Precious Maboreke in 1999, when she was 15 years old. They have three children.

While five girls have already been pledged to the Kupembas, Kupemba junior says his family still demands twelve more virgins to avenge his grandfather's death.

Kuripa ngozi, or virgin pledging, is a punishable offence under Zimbabwe's Domestic Violence Act, the practice is rampant throughout the country but no perpetrators has ever been prosecuted.

The saga of the five girls began in 1995, the year Kupemba was murdered by four local grocery shop owners with the help of 13 other villagers. Kupemba's mutilated, decomposing body was found discarded in a dry riverbed.

Some time later, locals say, Kupemba's spirit started causing sudden ailments and deaths in the families involved, resulting in some of them confessing to killing him. The shop owners admitted to having chopped off his private parts, little fingers, tongue and a patch of hair for the preparation of traditional medicines to boost their businesses.

Despite the confessions, no arrests were made, and Kupemba's relatives allege the shop owners bought the police's silence.

To appease the dead man's spirit, the families handed over the first five virgins to the Kupemba family from 1999 onwards, but the process was stalled in 2006 when children's rights organisation Girl Child Network (GCN) compelled the police and the Department of Social Welfare to investigate the matter and return the girls to their families.

But shortly thereafter, investigations were put on ice. Headman Samanga of Honde Valley told IPS he pulled out of the Kupemba case, as all involved families had accused him of preventing them from resolving private, domestic affairs.

"In this area, people strongly believe kuripa ngozi can only be settled by offering a virgin girl. I was the lone voice against the practice, and it was soon drowned. The families believed I was hindering their efforts to settle their transgressions," he explained.

Eventually, the police, which had rescued four of the girls from the Kupemba family and put them under the custody of GCN, ordered GCN to send the girls back to their families, who returned them to the Kupembas.

Only the mother of one of the girls, Anna Ndarangwa, says she tried to rescue her daughter from the ritual. "I had a heated argument with the Kupembas," she said, but did not manage to take her daughter home.

Ndarangwa believes the girls were brainwashed into believing that the health and well-being of their families were dependent on their personal sacrifice. "It was like something was upon them. I don't want my daughter to pay for a crime she did not commit. I will die fighting for her," she declared.

Afraid to talk to the media, all five refused to be interviewed by IPS.

Read more from Inter Press Service.

Evelyn Leopold: Whirlwind Obama at the UN; Dictators Busy Also

2009-09-21T11:21:26Z

UNITED NATIONS - President Obama makes his debut appearance at the United Nations this week, attending and presiding over a breathless array of events far beyond the usual schedule for U.S. presidents. A standing ovation is not out of the question among the world body's 192 member stations, drowning out much of the U.S. bashing since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Whether any of his foreign policy aims will be accomplished in three days is doubtful. For one, his meeting with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday is not expected to yield any immediate results in restarting peace talks. But the personal contact with world leaders and his anticipated reception may be invaluable for long-term aims.

And it is not for lack of trying. On Tuesday, Obama speaks at a summit meeting on climate change, followed by private sessions aimed at giving impetus to a new international pact to reduce carbon emissions. China is expected to present new proposals, but Obama's commitments will be difficult before the Senate approves a cap and trade bill.

During a break, the president hosts a lunch for "responsible" leaders (not all are invited) from sub-Sahara Africa. He also intends to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao and attend a dinner hosted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In between he scoots over to former President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative forum, making sure no surface transport will move in mid-town Manhattan.

On Wednesday, Obama addresses the General Assembly in the morning -- followed directly by Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi. He meets privately with Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama for the first time, chairs a sessions with countries contributing troops to the U.N. peacekeeping operations, attends Ban's annual lunch for all participants, meets Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and ends the day hosting the traditional U.S. reception visiting world leaders.

On Thursday, September 24, Obama chairs a summit-level meeting of the 15-member U.N. Security Council on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament, the first time for a U.S. president. It is also the first time in years that the Council presidency, which rotates monthly according to the English alphabet, falls to the United States in September. A draft resolution would voice support for a treaty to ban the production of fissile material, ban nuclear tests, support intrusive inspection by the International Atomic Energy Commission and encourage nuclear disarmament, among other measures. Then he and 19 other world leaders fly off to Pittsburgh for a crucial evening meeting on the international financial crisis.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has her own non-stop schedule, including a meeting of the quartet of advisers on the Middle East, the six nations meeting on Iran's nuclear programs, a Security Council session on rape as a weapon of war and many others.

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, insists the Democrats have a new approach to the world body from the Bush administration (which sometimes scorned the U.N. but still used it when it was in its interest to do so)

"In the 21st century America's security and well-being is in fact inextricably linked to the security and well-being of people elsewhere. So we've changed course. We've embraced as our own the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which we had previously shunned. We've rescinded the Mexico City Policy that barred U.S. assistance to programs that support family planning and reproductive health services. We signed the first new human rights convention of the 21st century, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We reversed course to back a statement at the General Assembly opposing violence and discrimination against people on the basis of sexual orientation. We no longer balk at mentions of reproductive health, or oppose references to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women."

"Circus of the Dictators"

The list is long since the purpose of the General Assembly is to invite each government leader in the world, which is also its value as corridor conversation and bilateral events abound.

Not to be outdone by Obama's busy schedule Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in New York nearly all week, ending with a UN press conference on Friday. He is trying to meet everyone he can, hosting a series of dinners and appearing on TV shows. Obama is one person who will attempt to avoid him at every event.

Last year Ahmadinejad was chastised by many world leaders for his country's nuclear ambitions and his openly anti-Semitic seminars in Iran questioning the Holocaust. This year his nuclear ambitions remain on the table, he prefaced his appearance in New York by calling the Holocaust "a lie" (Tehran rally, Sept 18) and achieved office through a rigged election, drawing protests in the jammed New York streets from Iranian exiles.

In what Human Rights Watch media director Minky Worden calls the "circus of the dictators," Myanmar's (Burma) ruling junta is sending Prime Minister Gen. Thin Sein. In anticipation of criticism, the country (planning its own rigged elections next year) has just released 7,114 prisoners of the 65,000 it has put in jail. But no one knows how many political prisoners the amnesty includes.

And among the disputed election winners, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, who, like Ahmadinejad, uses the military to enforce political objectives, is expected to plead for Western countries to lift sanctions following the country's new unity government. In the past his General Assembly speeches have blamed Britain for his nations' ills.

And then there is Gaddafi, who is attending his first General Assembly. Libya is also a member of the Security Council. Asked if he might use the occasion to make a speech that went beyond the theme of nuclear disarmament, Susan Rice said leaders were asked to speak no more than five minutes.

"And we expect no less from President Gaddafi should he come."

Lauri Lyons: Women in Hip-Hop: The B-girl Be Festival

2009-09-18T15:46:59Z

In the context of popular culture the history of Hip-Hop has been recited and mythologized many times over. Born in the 1970's South Bronx, from a foundation of Jamaican DJ techniques and verbal delivery, African-American soul music, Brazilian capoeira inspired breakdance moves, and technicolor aerosol paint, grew the international phenomena known as Hip-Hop. The one element of Hip-Hop that has never been fully acknowledged is the role of women in the spotlight and behind the scenes.

In 1979 Sugar Hill Records became the first record label to produce and distribute a rap record. The company's first single, Rapper's Delight became a national sensation and is considered to be a hip-hop classic. The co-founder of Sugar Hill Records was Sylvia Robinson. In 1981 Tommy Boy Records, released Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force. Tommy Boy Records was also co-founded by a woman, Monica Lynch.

Once again women were at the forefront when the female trio, The Sequence (featuring a young Angie Stone) released the hit Funk You Right On Up. The 1979 single is considered to be the first female rap record. Soon afterwards female MC's such as Salt -n- Pepa, MC Lyte and many others became forces to be reckoned with. For rhythmic backup women employed female dj's such as Spinderella and Jazzy Joyce for beats and rhymes. When the male MC's hit you with machismo, the women counterpunched with sass and class.

On the graffiti wall of fame you can most certainly see the name Lady Pink. Lady Pink is considered to be a female graffiti artist and muralist with artistic skills as strong as, if not better than her male peers. She painted nyc subway trains from 1979-1985 and now her work is collected by major art museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lady Pink also had starring roles in Wild Style and Bomb It, classic films about Hip-Hop culture.

In everyday life women are natural multi-taskers, and in hip-hop the fact remains the same.
Female artists that developed their artistic and entrepreneurial skills have taken the art form to another level. In the early '90's Dee Barnes, a former MC and radio host became the first woman to host a syndicated hip-hop television show, Pump It Up! Queen Latifah quickly followed in her footsteps with a very successful recording career, the TV sitcom Living Single, a talk show, major cosmetic campaigns and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Eve, has also done well for herself . Her empire has encompassed records, a sitcom, and a clothing line.

Wendy Williams (the original DJ Spinderella for Salt-n-Pepa) was a wildly popular radio host, and now has one of the most highly rated talk shows on television. DJ Beverly Bond is using hip-hop as an educational tool to reach the youth. She is the founder of Black Girls Rock Inc! Black Girls Rock! is a mentoring program focused on helping young black women interested in careers in music obtain the skills and guidance necessary to be successful in the business.

For every woman in the spotlight there are hundreds more behind the scenes. Women are the people primarily working as artist's publicists, sylists and choreographers in the hip-hop world. If you liked the designs worn by Missy Elliot and Busta Rhymes, you can thank stylist June Ambrose. If you are familiar with the many hip-hop album covers shot in the last ten years, you were probably looking at the work of photographer Sarah A. Friedman. When it comes to choreographers who got their start in hip-hop, think of In Living Color's Fly Girls alumni Rosie Perez, Jennifer Lopez, and Laurie Ann Gibson. All of whom have choreographed too many television shows, videos, movies, and concerts to mention.

Today the future is brewing in Minnesota and there are many women's names about to be known. Intermedia Arts, located in Minneapolis, has unleashed the mother of all hip-hop festivals; B-girl Be. The B-girl Be festival is the only arts festival in the world solely dedicated to the contributions of women in hip-hop. The mission of B-Girl Be is to influence and inspire leadership to change the perceptions and roles of women in hip-hop for current and future generations. The fourth annul event is curated by Michele Spaise and Theresa Sweetland.

This year's festival features Mama Said Knock U Out! an international visual art exhibition showcasing 28 female artists from around the world who use their art to empower, inform and organize. These women are employing hip-hop culture as a means of expression, connection, education and global social activism. Mama Said Knock U Out! will include work in video, photography, painting, sculpture, film, and textiles. I am this year's featured artist. I was commissioned to produce my first sculpture and sound installation, in the main gallery. Past participants have included Lady Pink, Martha Cooper, Faith47 and Roxanne Shante.

On Saturday, September 19th, Intermedia Arts takes it back to the streets with the B-Girl Be Block Party, an all-day festival that brings together women from Minneapolis and all over the world to celebrate hip-hop's girl power. The B-girl Be Block Party will showcase dance, live mural painting, film, a spoken world slam and an art marketplace.

This year the B-girl Be organizers will have the power to literally choose the belle of the ball.
The McNally Smith College of Music has donated a $10,000 scholarship to a B-girl participant for the McNally Smith's Diploma program in Hip-Hop Studies. The program is for prospective students who want to explore and develop in a cross-departmental curriculum that covers music, recording technology, language, music history, and music business.

When it comes to women in hip-hop, don't call it a comeback. Women have been here for years.

Purchase tickets online for the B-girl Be Block Party. The Mama Said Knock U Out! exhibition will be on view until October 23.

Lauri Lyons is a photographer, artist and author. Her books include Flag: An American Story and Flag International.