Time to Get Real About Ending Poverty in Africa

Does she have your attention yet? Her name is Dambisa Moyo. She's got mine. She is smarter than me. I know. I read her book.

From the Wall Street Journal:

By MATTHEW REES

It is one of the great conundrums of the modern age: More than 300 million people living across the continent of Africa are still mired in poverty after decades of effort -- by the World Bank, foreign governments and charitable organizations -- to lift them out if it. While a few African countries have achieved notable rates of economic growth in recent years, per-capita income in Africa as a whole has inched up only slightly since 1960. In that year, the region's gross domestic product was about equal to that of East Asia. By 2005, East Asia's GDP was five times higher. The total aid package to Africa, over the past 50 years, exceeds $1 trillion. There is far too little to show for it.

Dead Aid
By Dambisa Moyo
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 188 pages, $24)

Dambisa Moyo, a native of Zambia and a former World Bank consultant, believes that it is time to end the charade -- to stop proceeding as if foreign aid does the good that it is supposed to do. The problem, she says in "Dead Aid," is not that foreign money is poorly spent (though much of it is) or that development programs are badly managed (though many of them are). No, the problem is more fundamental: Aid, she writes, is "no longer part of the potential solution, it's part of the problem -- in fact, aid is the problem."

In a tightly argued brief, Ms. Moyo spells out how attempts to help Africa actually hurt it. The aid money pouring into Africa, she says, underwrites brutal and corrupt regimes; it stifles investment; and it leads to higher rates of poverty -- all of which, in turn, creates a demand for yet more aid. Africa, Ms. Moyo notes, seems hopelessly trapped in this spiral, and she wants to see it break free. Over the past 30 years, she says, the most aid-dependent countries in Africa have experienced economic contraction averaging 0.2% a year.

America's policy toward postwar Europe is often cited as the model for African assistance, but Ms. Moyo reminds us that the vaunted Marshall Plan was limited to five years and was focused on reconstructing societies ravaged by war. In Africa, she says, the aid spigot never stops flowing. "There is no incentive for long-term financial planning," she observes, "no reason to seek alternatives to fund development, when all you have to do is sit back and bank the cheques."

Inevitably, "Dead Aid" will offend the pieties of the World Bank and the foreign-aid sectors of the U.S. government. But Ms. Moyo is not alone in asking tough questions about good intentions gone awry. Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, has said of the $300 billion in aid given to Africa since the 1970s that "there is little to show for it in terms of economic growth and human development." Senegal's president, Abdoulaye Wade, has expressed similar sentiments.

Given that aid has been, in Ms. Moyo's words, "an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster," why has it continued? One reason, she says, is that there about 500,000 people "in the business of aid," and their livelihoods are dictated more by the size of their lending portfolios than the effectiveness of their programs. There is also the Bono effect. Along with other celebrities, the U2 frontman has become a powerful voice calling for still more aid to Africa, not less. The result is a kind of moral bullying. "Honest, critical, and serious dialogue and debate on the merits and demerits of aid," Ms. Moyo writes, "have atrophied."

Much of "Dead Aid" outlines an agenda for Africa's economic development, such as expanding its trade and developing its banking sector -- that is, creating a reliable system of credit that will allow individuals to earn interest on their savings and businesses to receive the loans they need to grow. Ms. Moyo argues for African countries to create bond markets -- a reminder that her instincts are closer to Goldman Sachs (where she worked for eight years) than to Jeffrey Sachs (the Columbia professor who wants Western governments to pour more money into Africa). She notes that, in the past 10 years, 43 developing nations have issued international bonds but that only three -- South Africa, Ghana and Gabon -- were from Africa.

While criticizing outsiders for their misguided ideas, Ms. Moyo does not ignore Africa's self-inflicted wounds. There are, she notes, steep obstacles to doing business there. According to the World Bank, nine of the world's 10 most hostile business environments are in Africa.

Unlike many experts in international affairs, Ms. Moyo does not believe that democracy is a key to solving Africa's problems. What poor countries need, she writes, is a "decisive benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving." Economic growth, she says, is a prerequisite for democracy. She cites a study showing that democratic governments survive longer as per-capita income increases.

It is too bad that Ms. Moyo did not stop now and then to draw directly on her personal experience -- not only on her work as an investment banker but on her early life in Zambia. (Her mother is chairman of a Zambian bank; her father runs an anticorruption organization.) First-person accounts might have made her argument even more vivid.

Even so, it is vivid enough. She closes her book with a fascinating question: What would happen if African countries were told that in five years all financial aid would end? She doesn't try to answer the question in any detail, other than to dismiss the notion that living conditions in Africa would grow worse. She points to Botswana and South Africa as examples of countries that have prospered precisely because they haven't allowed themselves to become heavily dependent on aid.

Some of us remember Live Aid, the music festival held in 1985 to provide relief to Ethiopia. It was a noble effort and perhaps did some good, but "Dead Aid" reminds us that noble efforts are not enough -- that "help" can often do harm.

Mr. Rees is the founder of Geonomica, a consulting firm, and a former speechwriter at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Race

People often ask me, what will do the most to end global poverty - education, health or trade?
My response is simple - what we are really doing is inviting people to sit with us at a table.
I believe that at that table there should be a banquet: of nutrition, of health, of opportunity, of freedom.
One thing shouldn't go without the other.

We are in a race against time to give people health and strength enough to even make it to the table. If you feel there is a role in that involving your time and talent, then we just might make it.

photo: St. Mary Kevin Orphanage Motherhood, Uganda

Pacific Lutheran Soccer

PLUSoccer1978.jpg
Originally uploaded by spumonibiscotti

Can you pick out yours truly from this line up of n'er-do-wells and scurrilous roustabouts?

There is a Bell in Palotaka

There is a bell in Palotaka. And one day it will ring again. It will ring for the child soldiers. The children of Uganda. And Congo. And Sudan. Children - tens of thousands of them, kidnapped, brutalized, turned into killers. Fighting for a cult leader. Joseph Kony - on the lam for more than twenty years - a tragic symbol of modern Africa.

One day the bell in Palotaka will ring for Sudan. For Darfur. For justice in the Nile Valley. For worldwide awareness and resolve that in Africa's Great Lakes and Nile Valley a series of wars has raged for decades. Wars of extreme poverty. Wars of hopelessness. Wars of orphans. Wars of disease. Palotaka is in Sudan - a country as cracked as the great bell of Palotaka. The country of a silent bell.

The bell in Palotaka longs to ring for peace. To ring a song of peace. To ring as beautiful people sing and dance in joy - because they now know what hope feels like. Hope. A feeling never experienced before. Hope, like love, is a verb. Why should it have to be a suppressed? Held down, never explored or experienced. Suppressed into fear, and anger, and rage.

The bell in Palotaka resolves to ring for freedom. Freedom of speech, and of worship. Freedom from want. And freedom from fear. What do those freedoms sound like? You have them. What is their song? What is their dance? The bell in Palotaka wants to ring them. The bell in Paolotaka wants to know.

The bell in Palotaka knows places nearby. A wide spot in the trail called Ri-Kwangba, and a few round huts made of mud and cow dung called Owiny Ki-Bul. These places, like Paolotaka, are just down a red dirt road from Juba, a town that marks a crossing of the Victoria Nile, the "White Nile" in southern Sudan. These places are where the fate of hundreds of child soldiers has been debated by diplomats. Do they know the ring of freedom? Will they dance with the children of Uganda, Congo and Sudan?

Its in the wide spots of the trail that the lives of these children will be decided. The beautiful, fertile Nile Valley provides an ocean of jungle. A bell wants to ring out into that jungle, to ring for justice and freedom in Congo, Uganda and Sudan. Across all of Africa. For children. For you and me.

Only we know that the bell in Palotaka has a sister. A bell for us. A bell that thought it was for everyone on earth. But we have hoarded that bell and kept it only for ourselves. We look at that bell in Philadelphia and only remember the celebration of freedom and justice it represents. Or do we remember the sacrifice of our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor - which made that bell ring for us?

Peace. Freedom. Justice. They are not always comfortable classroom concepts. Debating points. Prostituted on protest banners. Platitudes. Can we understand what they mean if we keep them in a vacuum?

The bell in Palotaka wants to ring. For children. And for you and me.

(Palotaka is a village in southern Sudan near the Uganda border, the jungle locations of Ri-Kwangba and Owiny Ki-Bul have been identified by participants in the Juba peace talks regarding the Lord's Resistance Army child soldier crisis in that region as the only location where child soldiers can turn themselves in. Palotaka has been the crossroads of conflict between the LRA and government regimes for many years. Even with the armies of three nations attacking the Lord's Resistance Army, a general turn-in by child soldiers to end the crisis has yet to happen.)

photo by jdscenicphotography

A Day of Many Blessings

A Day of Many Blessings
There wasn't any secret about how excited I was about the World Vision Experience Village at the Puyallup Fair. My church will be hosting the traveling exhibit next spring, and a couple of years ago the impact of going through the original exhibit deeply moved me (I have been to Africa twice since experiencing the original exhibit). Bringing such an experience to one of the nation's largest fairs really got my attention. I knew doing this was not without risk. But God was clearly in this project. I couldn't wait to get there!

I arrived a couple of hours before my shift was scheduled - mainly because I wanted to see the village - but also in order to have time to take in the fair. When I walked up to the main entrance of the village, the first person I saw was a great friend from law school. Somehow we had lost touch for about ten years. Mike was greeting people at the entrance to the exhibit. He greeted me warmly, and we both began to welcome people to the exhibit. The time passed very quickly. Mike was perfect for the role of greeter. An attorney, he also works as a motivational speaker about safety. You see, Mike is a hero among us. As a state trooper before becoming a lawyer, he was run off the road during a high speed pursuit. His miraculous recovery from third degree burns over virtually his entire body is in the annals of medical history. Mike just feels that every day he walks in grace as a gift from our gracious and loving God.

An attitude like Mike's is "catching" - soon I was reaching out to people from clear across the midway, just as he was. Hundreds of people were pouring in to see the exhibit and experience Africa in the way offered to them. Oh, and did I mention, the rain was pouring too! Mike explained to me that a small percentage of the people would leave the exhibit - they wanted to be there - but it was too emotional an experience on that particular day. That's okay, he assured me - they tried and their heart is in the right place. They will come to this when God has prepared them to act and respond.

I thouroughly enjoyed my shift as a greeter at the Village. Being there with Mike made it extra-extra special - he "trained" me as a greeter in the lightning-fast couple of hours prior to my shift. He poured out love and warmth to the crowds on a wet day. And just by spending time with him, showed me (again) what it means to walk in grace as a follower of Christ. See you at the fair!

Blessings and all the best to you!

Scott

Uganda to become Africa's Bangalore

Uganda could out-compete India on price for call centres

Commonwealth Business Council taking initiatives for setting-up of an IT Park

by R Jai Krishna

NEW DELHI: The Commonwealth Business Council (CBC) is working on a proposal for developing Uganda as Bangalore of Africa.

The CBC is also taking initiatives for setting-up of a state-of-the-art IT Park in the African country, apart from drafting an IT Policy framework.

According to a recent CBC report, Uganda is best bet for IT companies as it has a strong English-speaking young workforce, who constitute over 40 per cent of the overall population like India.

Moreover, the country has a strategic Time Zone of GMT+3 hours, which enables the country to serve companies in the Middle East, Europe and African countries, and also offers lower cost of labour, for the IT companies.

Though not a proven location like India, Uganda has a high-end IT talent base which could be expanded. The country is also in the process of formulating IT policies and developing infrastructure, apart from a body equivalent of Nasscom to be set-up.

The CBC report states that companies moving into Uganda will have a first mover advantage in Africa, especially in the context of a good Tax holiday, grants and other benefits being extended by the government there.

With these benefits in mind, the CBC is in the process of setting-up a state-of-the-art IT and Business Services Park within the Kakungulu satellite city, situated about 18 kms from the airport.

The IT Park, will constitute of offshore development centres, call centre, back office/ data processing centre, and data centres. The proposed park is to be enabled by high speed Wi-Fi internet access and data connectivity, IP telephony, high security and controlled access infrastructure. With transport links to and within the park, Uganda government will be offering single-window clearances for the interested companies.

The Ugandan government also plans to have residences comprising of studios, apartments and luxury condos. Hotels, and convention centres, schools, colleges and also hospitals and medical centres, will also be part of the proposed park.

The CBC has also formulated a draft for Uganda’s IT policy, and has proposed 100 per cent tax exemption for lease income, capital gains and services provided in the IT parks, apart from 100 per cent tax compensation for companies and their staff located within the premises for 20-years from commencement.

The CBC has urged for a simplified and quick clearance of work permits, and dependent permits for IT park staff.

© CyberMedia News

Urbane Analysis: Broadband is going to change everything in Africa - but it is up to Ugandans themselves to finally break the chains of corruption. Otherwise this very good idea will remain only that...

Uganda: No Peace Without Justice

"To insist on international prosecution when peace is at hand... is to allow one idea of the perfect to be the enemy of the good."

by Katherine Southwick
Washington Post

JOSEPH KONY, the rebel leader in Uganda who rapes, murders, and abducts children has been indicted by the International Criminal Court. He says he'll help restore peace if charges against him are dropped. Can this work?

I say no, peace must come with justice, but justice takes many forms.

The twenty-year long war in northern Uganda is one of the world's longest-running conflicts. The Lords Resistance Army (LRA) is a splinter group of a rebellion that sought to defend northern interests after a southerner, current President Museveni, came to power in 1986. Although a peace agreement was signed in 1988, LRA leader Joseph Kony continued attacks against the government, initially seeking to create a regime based on the Ten Commandments. Civilians were caught in the middle: the LRA punished those who didn't support it by burning villages, murdering, and abducting thousands of children to train as fighters.

Meanwhile, the Ugandan Army committed rape, torture, and murder. As many as 1.6 million people subsist in displacement camps, where nearly 1,000 people die per week from disease or violence. After commencing an investigation in July 2004, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its first indictments for five LRA leaders in October 2005.

Then in July 2006, peace talks in Juba, Southern Sudan, began. They are widely seen as the best opportunity for peace ever. The new Government of Southern Sudan acting as mediator. But LRA members being investigated by the ICC demand the cases against them be dropped if they are to negotiate peace. Yet it is a mistake to characterize the northern Ugandan dilemma simply as a peace versus justice debate. This could prolong the plight of two million people and impair the potential of the ICC. More sensibly, our discussion should be about bringing peace with justice.

Anyone who has been to northern Uganda can grasp that peace is the overwhelming priority for the people there, who have suffered the brunt of the conflict and face enormous challenges ahead. But the imperative of accountability has not been lost on anyone, including the LRA leadership. ICC indictees Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti have publicly expressed interest in finding ways to atone for their crimes.

I met the LRA delegation in Juba last July as the talks began. We spent hours discussing accountability mechanisms, such as truth and reconciliation commissions, public apologies, and victim compensation. These concepts are rooted in Ugandan culture and the transitional justice experiences of several other countries, including South Africa. In collaboration with Ugandans such as traditional leaders and Parliament, the Liu Institute at the University of British Columbia is doing important work exploring these mechanisms.

The fact remains that ICC prosecution is not obviously among the accountability options in the event a peace agreement is reached. LRA indictees will not voluntarily surrender to the ICC. They could only be brought by force, if not shot on the spot. And in the process, as history demonstrates, efforts to capture the leaders would result in killing child captives and renew attacks on civilians, worsening security in Uganda, Congo, and Sudan, where the LRA is present. To avoid more violence, exile, or some form of accountability apart from ICC prosecution appears to be the only option for the indictees under a peace agreement.

Either the United Nations Security Council or the ICC Prosecutor can legally defer prosecution under Articles 16 or 53 of the Rome Statute, the document constituting the Court, "based on new facts or information" or in the interests of peace, victims, or justice (such as local justice). These provisions convey that under certain conditions, arguably at play in the northern Uganda case, deferral would neither "sacrifice" justice for peace, nor reflect the triumph of realpolitik over rule of law.

Indeed, the ICC indictments, while partially blamed for scuttling a previous peace effort led by Betty Bigombe in 2004, have no doubt helped pressure the LRA to come to the table this time. ICC pressure has also strengthened commitment on all sides to acknowledging the need for justice. But these "contributions" cannot be realized unless the ICC credibly holds out deferral as a carrot. The LRA leaders will not strive to meet the conditions implicit in the Rome Statute if there is no real possibility of deferring the indictments or otherwise ensuring the indictees' security.

That peace cannot last without some form of justice is a plausible assumption. Yet equally true is that peace is unsustainable without some deference to local priorities and approaches, including those that bear on factors, such as international indictments, that will ultimately be a major issue in making peace.

To insist on international prosecution when peace is at hand (a determination to be made largely by the parties) and when an alternative vision for accountability is emerging on the ground is to allow one idea of the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Having long failed to help resolve this brutal war, the international community, including the ICC, now has an opportunity to help Uganda achieve -- through peaceful means -- lasting peace with justice. This would be a result that is democratically based, refuses to condone impunity, and in the end, is not a bad deal.

Formerly of the Refugee Law Project in Uganda, Katherine Southwick is a lawyer in New York and lived in Uganda in the 1990s. She has worked for human rights organizations in India and Thailand, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague, and the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. State Department. She has commented on the northern Ugandan crisis in the International Herald Tribune, YaleGlobal, NPR, and Voice of America.

A Time for "Mataput" in Uganda

Uganda Peace Hinges on Amnesty for Brutality
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: September 15, 2006

GULU, Uganda — In the beginning, it was simply called the Acholi war, and despite its brutality, few people outside Uganda paid attention.

In Gulu, residents say they hope a cease-fire brings lasting peace.

The Lord’s Resistance Army, a messianic rebel group, was exploring a new dimension of violence by building an army of abducted children and forcing them to burn down huts, slice off lips and pound newborn babies to death in wooden mortars, as though they were grinding grain.

“I killed and killed and killed,” said Christopher Oyet, an 18-year-old former rebel who was kidnapped at age 9. “Now, I am scared of myself.”

But, for the first time in 20 years, the killing has stopped. The rebel leaders, boxed in and with dwindling support, signed a cease-fire agreement on Aug. 26. Whether it lasts depends on whether Joseph Kony, the phantom rebel commander who is said to live deep in the jungle with 60 child brides, and his top deputies are given amnesty.

That is uncertain, because they have been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Still, this is the furthest any peace deal has come, fueling hopes that one of Africa’s most grotesque and bizarre wars, which cost tens of thousands of lives, may finally be over.

White flags are already fluttering in Gulu, the hub of Acholiland, even from the antennas of government trucks. People are no longer night commuting, the signature north Ugandan exodus from villages to towns every evening for safety’s sake. Instead, they are returning to the carpeted green hillsides to plant cassava, corn and beans, and this time their hoes and machetes are being swung to make things grow, not to destroy them.

The victims of this war are so desperate to put the nightmarish days behind them that they want to forgive, just as much as they want to forget. Typical is Christa Labol, whose ears and lips were cut off by bayonet-wielding prepubescent soldiers she now says she would welcome home.

“Only God can judge,” Mrs. Labol said through a mouth that is always open.

Of course, the rebels are not out of the bush yet. Many still hide in a remote, lawless corner of northern Congo. Some people wonder if Mr. Kony, who has told his troops he is possessed by spirits, will ever give up.

Mr. Kony has said he will but only if he is not prosecuted.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Mr. Kony and four of his commanders. Ugandan government officials have said they will ensure that the rebels get amnesty if they surrender. But the rebels have said the amnesty must come first. It is an impasse that possibly only the international court can break, but the court, established in 1998, has not indicated what it will do.

“We’ve never had such a situation,” said Claudia Perdomo, a court spokeswoman.

The Acholi people have their own solution. It is the mataput — the word means drinking a bitter root from a common cup — and it is a traditional reconciliation ceremony. Peace is more important than punishment, Acholi elders say, and they would rather have Mr. Kony return to Gulu for a mataput than rot in some European prison. Although the fighting may be over, it seems a new battle has begun: tradition versus modernity.

“In our culture, we don’t like to punish people,” said Collins Opoka, an Acholi chief. “It doesn’t really get you anywhere.”

The Acholis know something about punishment. For decades, it was customary for members of southern tribes to get the prized university spots and good office jobs, while northerners like the Acholis were stuck in the fields. The Acholis were known as superstitious — and tough — and filled the ranks of the national army. They fought rebel forces led by Yoweri Museveni, and after Mr. Museveni seized power in 1986 — he has been president since — the Acholis were marginalized and persecuted.

Enter Mr. Kony, a former Catholic altar boy revered in his village near Gulu as a prophet since he was 12. He smeared himself with shea butter, said his body and those of his Acholi followers were impervious to bullets and vowed to overthrow the government.

“We saw him as our savior,” said Mary Olanya, who knew Mr. Kony growing up.

Mr. Kony claimed to be guided by the Ten Commandments but soon his army was violating each and every one.

From about 1988 on, the rebels terrorized their own people, raping, robbing and killing across Acholiland. According to former rebels, Mr. Kony communed with spirits and his rules became stranger by the minute — anyone caught bicycling had to have his feet chopped off; all white chickens were to be destroyed; no farming on Fridays.

After the Acholi War Few adults wanted to join his cultish, bloodthirsty movement, and soon the only recruits were children, most against their will.

Mr. Oyet said he was snatched one night nine years ago from his hut near Gulu and forced to march miles into the bush. The boys whose feet swelled and could no longer walk were clubbed to death — by other boys. All new recruits had to help with the killing. It was called registration. The population responded to the rebel violence by seeking safety in numbers. Nearly two million people abandoned their villages and crowded into government camps. “It was a desperate time,’’ said Quinto Otika, a Gulu elder.

And it continued for years, nourished by the Arab-led government of Sudan, which gave the rebels arms and sanctuary as payback for Ugandan support for the Christian rebellion in southern Sudan.

But by 2002, the Sudanese government was making peace with southern separatists and no longer supporting the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Mr. Kony — and his bodyguards and harem — fled to Congo, where, according to Ugandan military sources, they set up a slave kingdom, living off the land and slaughtering wildlife. By then, the elusive rebel army had shrunk to a shadow of a shadow, with fewer than 2,000 fighters left. The West mostly ignored this war, more focused on Rwanda, Somalia, and Darfur, Sudan. But in 2005, the Ugandan government persuaded the international court to issue arrest warrants against rebel leaders, despite pleas from Acholi elders.

In Acholi culture, killers are accepted back into the community after they have paid compensation, admitted to their misdeeds and shared a meal, usually a roasted sheep, with the relatives of their victim. This is the mataput ceremony, and it comes from the days when clans were tightly intertwined by marriage and trade and could not afford to alienate one another.

The Ugandan government eventually warmed to the idea and signed a cease-fire with the rebels that took effect on Aug. 29. Since then, some rebel soldiers have emerged from hiding. They plan to assemble at collection points in southern Sudan, where they will wait until a full peace agreement is reached.

Though some United Nations officials have bristled at the idea of granting immunity to Mr. Kony and his top commanders, Ugandan officials say they are confident a deal can be reached.

“We can go to the judges and say there are new circumstances and that the indictments are no longer needed,” said a Ugandan government spokesman, Robert Kabushenga.

People are already beginning to wonder what Mr. Kony will do if he comes home a free man.

“He never aspired to be a politician,” said Florence Adokorach, now in her early 20’s, who was kidnapped at age 14 and forced to be one of Mr. Kony’s brides. Instead, he told his young wife, he just wanted to return to spreading God’s word.

Back to Africa

Wow, I'm leaving for the airport in a couple of minutes - and so must say "I promise" to get more information out on this trip in the days ahead. For the background, watch the three video clips found here. And then watch this.

Because I'm off for northern Uganda, and will let you know more in the days ahead.

Watch "Invisible Children" Here

Tell everyone you know: click here to watch Invisible Children on Google Video. Please help raise awareness about this - in order to make headway against this crisis we need your help. Help in raising awareness. Help for these children. Your help. Oprah Winfrey is correct: we can no longer look away from this holocaust.

Osama bin Laden calls for Jihad in Sudan

"I call on mujahideen and their supporters, especially in Sudan..."


Osama bin Laden's latest gambit: war in the southern Sudan. Media sources all over the world, including this front page report from the left-leaning Guardian Online, have reported on the latest recording aired by al-Jazeera.

In extracts from a tape broadcast by al-Jazeera television, a voice sounding like Bin Laden's said the western public shared responsibility for the actions of their governments, particularly for what he described as "a continuous crusader-Zionist war on Islam".

And then he gets specific:

"I call on mujahideen and their supporters, especially in Sudan and the Arabian peninsula, to prepare for long war against the crusader plunderers in western Sudan," he said.

"Our goal is not defending the Khartoum government but to defend Islam, its land and its people," he added.

Perhaps out of concern for Islamo-facist apathy and indifference (toward what he calls "long war") he went on:

"I urge holy warriors to be acquainted with the land and the tribes in Darfur."

Or maybe, just maybe, he is aware of the usual tendencies toward lapses in geographical comprehension. People are people, after all. Anyway, the Guardian offers this backgrounder on the conflict, though I don't pick up on any of the paper's usual anti-American virulence (he said in astonishment):

The Darfur conflict erupted in 2003 when mostly non-Arab tribes revolted, accusing the Arab-led government of neglect. Khartoum retaliated by arming mainly Arab militias, known as janjaweed, who began a campaign of murder, rape and plunder that drove more than 2 million villagers into squalid camps in Sudan and neighbouring Chad.

And surprisingly, the Guardian is willing to report on the religious demarcation which frames the conflict. Will wonders never cease...

Bin Laden, who was based in Sudan for several years during the 1990s, also denounced the peace accord between Khartoum and the mainly Christian and animist south, which was signed last year. "This agreement is not worth the ink it was written with and does not bind us," he said, adding that southern Sudan was "part of the Islamic lands".

"It's very dangerous," said Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper and author of a book on al-Qaida. "The timing is extremely important. He's sensing that there's a failed state in Sudan and he would like to extend his bases."

Or maybe Osama is banking on that folks in Sudan are still upset about that Bill Clinton cruise missile attack thing, whatever that was...

The combination of a weak government in Khartoum and the prospect of UN forces being sent to Sudan was creating "an atmosphere that he loves", Mr Atwan said.

And that sums it up. As far as what Osama loves - and fertile conditions for his brand of hate - don't forget the usual crushing poverty, as well as the absolute absence of democracy and rule of law. And let not your hearts be troubled, comrade crusaders, Osama is also mad at our Buddhist fellow travelers:

In the summarised sections of the tape, Bin Laden denounced the UN security council for giving a veto to "the crusaders of the world and the Buddhist pagans". He also mocked King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for promoting a "dialogue among civilisations" when - according to Bin Laden - it was the west that had launched an assault against Islamic civilisation.

GNC - A New Generation of Leaders

David Porter Orlando Sentinel

No longer invisible


Help put a face on grim risk facing Uganda's children

Forty-three years ago, thousands of black children walked out of their schools in Birmingham, Ala., to protest racial segregation. Television news images of authorities using police dogs and fire hoses to attack black children forced mainstream America to confront racism. Through their courage, Birmingham's children made this nation better.

Next Saturday, thousands of teenagers and young adults across America, including Orlando, will take an equally profound stand to stop the brutal exploitation of Uganda's "invisible children."

Bet you never heard of the "invisible children." Don't feel bad. I didn't know much about them either.Earlier this week, I saw Invisible Children: Rough Cut, a documentary by three young guys from California who went to investigate the result of 20 years of fighting in Uganda -- Africa's longest running war.

There's part of me that wishes that I didn't see the documentary because it's very grim and difficult to forget. It showed that thousands of children -- many younger than 10 -- have been abducted and turned into killing machines by the rebels trying to topple Uganda's government.

The rebels torture and kill kids in front of the abducted children. Then rebels tell the abducted children they will get the same treatment unless they pick up AK-47s and start slaughtering people.

Children in northern Uganda don't want anything to do with the rebels. So every day before the sun sets, more than 20,000 children leave their villages and walk to larger towns to avoid being abducted when rebels sweep through after dark. Children crowd into bus stations and other buildings for protection while they sleep. The next morning, they return home. That's why they are called "night commuters."

The documentary has had a powerful effect on many who have seen it. One 16-year girl sold her horse so she could send money to help the children. Another young woman whose soldier-fiancee was killed in Iraq donated the money she had saved for her wedding.

The documentary actually has been making a circuit through high schools and colleges for a couple of years. Next Saturday, young people throughout the country will be holding a "global night commute" to demonstrate their solidarity with the Ugandan children who don't want to be turned into weapons.

The goal is to put pressure on the United States and United Nations to stop the ruthless slaughter and exploitation of children in northern Uganda. Certainly the past colonization and exploitation of Africa by European countries contributed to much of the fighting in Africa, but that's no excuse for the brutality that is now inflicted on children, which includes the systematic rape of girls younger than 10.

No doubt some Americans would just as soon shrug off the horror. After all, it's just Africa. Why should Americans care?Let's take the selfish point of view. Homeland security demands that we care. The military slaves in the rebel army can easily be shaped into human bombs by terrorists with grudges against the United States.

We should care because "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness." (Those words are from our Declaration of Independence.) Pessimists certainly will dismiss the young adults who built this campaign as naive idealists. Surely, the same was said of the men who founded this great nation.

Orlando is playing a key role as one of 130 cities selected to host a "global night commute." City leaders are letting organizers hold it at Trotters Park, formerly known as Ben White Raceway. That is on Lee Road, just east of the North Orange Blossom Trail. The event will begin at 7 p.m. next Saturday and end at 7 a.m.

Participants will spend the time writing letters to Washington leaders and creating artwork that expresses American values of freedom and the significance of the "global night commute." Then they'll sleep together under the stars. I'm excited to think about all the positive energy that will be put to work for a great cause. (For more details on what participants should bring, go to Invisible Children .com, or call 407-719-7060. Organizers encourage participants to pre-register on the Web site.)

I'm proud to report that my 16-year-old daughter will be there. The 17-year-old daughter of one of my co-workers will be there, too. They knew about this movement long before me. I applaud them.I hope that other parents and adults will encourage the teenagers in their lives to participate, too.

If the pastor or youth minister at your house of worship doesn't mention this event on Sunday, I would ask why not.

Most people, if they're lucky, get only a few opportunities to make a real difference. This is one of them.

What these young people are planning to do is important work. By standing up for this cause, they will help make the world safer for us and African children who are hunted down by monsters.

It's noteworthy that mostly white kids are driving this movement, and they deserve credit. Black kids cannot afford to relax on the sidelines. We're talking about Africa here.Hopefully Central Florida's predominantly black institutions, including Jones and Evan high schools, and Bethune-Cookman College, will be strongly represented.

You don't have to be an adult to be a leader. That was proved in Birmingham four decades ago.

Anyone looking for Central Florida's future leaders can find them next Saturday night at Trotters Park.

David Porter can be reached at dporter@orlandosentinel.com or at 407-420-5533

PIN codes vrs. fraud in Uganda education

Uganda: Education ministry introduces PIN numbers to stop ‘ghost’ pupils

African News Dimension ANDnetwork .com

(Kampala) The ministry of education has introduced Pupils’ Identification Numbers (PIN) to fight ‘ghost’ pupils in primary schools.The campaign is to start in 20 districts in eastern Uganda.

Addressing over 180 teachers at Jinja Town Hall during a training workshop last week, PIN coordinator George Ouma Mumbe said the system would save the government from unnecessary spending.

He said some headteachers were getting large sums of money under the Universal Primary Education programme by inflating the number of pupils.

The district assistant inspector of schools and PIN technical officer Alice Nabeta said the system would also control the movement of pupils from one school to another. She said the PIN would operate in government-aided and private schools which are registered and licensed.
Nabeta said the PIN would assist the Government to establish the actual number of pupils and plan appropriately.

The district education officer Abraham Were cautioned school heads against embezzling school funds.

He cited Bufuula Primary School headmaster Charles Kikuni, who was reportedly jailed for embezzling school funds.

Source: New Vision

Why Kony must be taken alive to end the LRA

Acholi People Trapped Between Vicious Cult And Vengeful Army

by Richard Dowden allAfrica.com
Kitgum

It was one of the deadliest encounters United Nations troops had ever engaged in. Guatemalan Special Forces, operating under UN command in northeastern Congo, made contact with 300 Lord's Resistance Army fighters who had crossed from Uganda into the Garamba National Park.

Authorised to use maximum force against the warlords and militias, the Guatemalans closed in for the kill. But the LRA unit laid an ambush. After a fierce gun battle, eight Guatemalans were dead. The terrorists beheaded the commander and escaped. How could one of the world's most experienced special forces be outfought by what is usually described as a cult of half-crazed cannibals whose tactics are murder, rape and pillage? How could their leader, a dreadlocked psychopath called Joseph Kony with no military training, lead such a successful army?

The LRA is portrayed as a mindless terror gang, so evil it makes political or military analysis unnecessary. But the difficult truth is that, although the LRA controls no territory, it has also been one of the most effective guerrilla armies in Africa. Supplied until recently by Sudan, it moves fast and undetected for hundreds of miles in days, breaks into small groups and re-forms.

Many people had assumed the sheer virulence of the LRA would quickly burn itself out. Surely no human could maintain such appalling brutality for long, let alone win a guerrilla war with it. But it has lasted 20 years. It grew out of the Holy Spirit Movement, another bizarre cult, led by Alice Lakwena, a priest who claimed that her fighters were protected from bullets by butter. She was defeated by the Ugandan army, but Kony, said to be her cousin, took up the cause.

Its origins go back to the defeat of the Okello regime by the army of now-President Yoweri Museveni in 1986. Tito Okello, a former British army sergeant, was an Acholi, the ethnic group which formed the backbone of the Ugandan army. The 1986 defeat traumatised the Acholis, but they did not abandon their fighting skills. A former UK soldier who interviewed captured LRA fighters was appalled to find that they use standard British army orders, handed down from colonial times.

In the Nineties, Sudan gave the LRA refuge and supplied it with weapons in retaliation for Ugandan support for southern Sudanese rebels. For a while it had anti-aircraft missiles, mortars and a battlefield communications system. Western governments have pressed Sudan to end its support, and a new plan is to get the Sudanese to arrest Kony or drive him into Congo, where the UN could hand him to the International Criminal Court.

Accepted wisdom is that the LRA is a mad cult led by a lunatic: kill Kony and the problem will go away. But a young Anglican church worker in Kitgum said: 'Kony has a spirit. It is in a sheep which leads him around and tells him what to do. When the spirit comes into him, his face changes, his voice changes. It is someone else. You must never look into his eyes. What we are worried about is this: the spirit was in Lakwena and when she crossed the Nile it went into her father and then to Kony. If anything happens to Kony, maybe it will leave him and move to someone else in their clan.'

The Acholi live in squalid camps where 1,000 people die each week, according to the World Health Organisation. A separate report last week by 50 charities in northern Uganda said 41 per cent of the dead are children under five. The violent death rate is estimated to be three times higher than in Iraq and the study says that the war is costing Uganda $85m a year. All this puts the region in the UN emergency category.

The official line is that these camps were formed voluntarily to protect the people from the LRA, but in the past five years the Ugandan army has placed a free-fire zone outside them. People out after sundown are regarded as rebels. When the Burundi government used similar tactics against its rebels a few years ago, international donors moved quickly against it, but, protected by Britain, which needed Museveni as a rare African success story, Uganda gets away with it. The camps exist only because the UN and the charities feed the inmates.

At Labuge camp on the outskirts of Kitgum, some 18,000 people live in traditional grass-roofed huts packed tightly together. Sanitation is minimal and rains make the camp a fetid swamp. If a fire starts, thousands of huts burn in minutes. Disease spreads more quickly. There is nothing for men to do but drink. Women are left with childcare, cooking and brewing beer. Ragged youngsters run wild.

'Children think food is something that comes off a UN lorry,' said a local priest. Fly over the once-rich farmland and you see an abandoned landscape.

Urbane Analysis: This story goes to the heart of what so many Ugandans have told me: Joseph Kony must be taken alive - and kept alive - in order that the "spirit cult" not "pass over" to a desperate Kony follower. As was stated, it happened before when Kony himself proclaimed the same spirit taken from its original progenitor, Alice Lakwena (for more about this, watch the documentary Invisible Children). The LRA problem is bigger than most people realize. It needs more attention than Western governments are paying. And it needs more careful handling than the Ugandan government is capable of providing. The UN Security Council simply must place this crisis among its most immediate priorities alongside Iran, North Korea and the like. The death count in Uganda alone, due to violence as well as preventable disease and malnutrition caused by the violence, demands this immediate course of action.

Oh, and though it is obvious, let us be clear: military might is a non-starter regarding the LRA. While rooted in a bizarre cult, the LRA is conducting a classic insurgency against an unpopular ruling authority. This crisis can only be addressed by improving overall living conditions throughout northern Uganda - so that even the LRA lieutenants can see that they are pursing a false agenda. Right now they are so isolated, and continually confronted with desperate conditions to deal with (yes, even as they further the desperation around them); so from where they are at - the "line" that they hear from Kony often continues to make sense to them.

The obvious means to deal with the LRA is to lessen their isolation (not increase it as the Ugandan army and UN is attempting), and improve overall conditions throughout the region to increase the demand among the lower level LRA commanders to "come in" - for twenty years they have been trying it the other way and it hasn't worked. Now it is time to establish a propaganda war, even as quick (footed and witted) negotiators begin to cut deals with LRA units on an individual basis to turn in their arms. The goal here is to finally make the LRA "whither away" due to defections. Basically, what this means is trying the Betty Bigombe "approach" but with about 10,000% more effort. Former LRA fighters and commanders who have escaped back to the "real world" need to be carefully "played" as communicators of the truth. But that is only part of the work to be done.

There is a role for the military here. Though it is an undercover one. The Allies employed very successful "Psy Ops" during World War II, as did NATO during the Cold War; today there are many more refined and updated techniques that can be employed against the LRA. But this approach will only work if measures are implemented to dramatically (and suddenly) improve health, living conditions, nutrition and economic opportunity (have I said that enough?). Overall, it is frustrating that this is not already being undertaken by the Ugandan government with the assistance of specialist advisors in the British and American military who know how to get results.

Pass the word and talk it up: that is the only way to move toward peace in Uganda. And let us be mindful of what Senator James Inhofe said on February 2:

"I urge President Bush to examine every aspect of his executive authority to relieve the suffering in northern Uganda. I also urge far more action from the United Nations. These significant steps can shed light into the darkness that has cloaked this ongoing tragedy in Uganda and can begin to affect change for peace."

UN Floats Northern Uganda Peace, Recovery and Development Plan

Northern Uganda has been the scene of one of the most brutal civil wars, pitting the government against the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which has held the Acholi subregion in a stranglehold for almost 20 years. The LRA is best known for abducting young children to serve as fighters, porters or sex slaves to rebel commanders.

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

Uganda: Survey reveals grinding poverty in war-affected north

Kampala, 7 Apr 2006 (IRIN) - Seventy percent of the population in war-affected northern Uganda live in absolute poverty, with each adult's consumption expenditure at about 20,000 Uganda shillings (US $11) per month, according to a survey released this week.

A government study of the living conditions and social welfare of people living in northern Uganda, many of whom have been displaced by civil conflict, revealed a dire humanitarian situation in the region. Dwellings were substandard, and most of the population lived on less than $1 a day.

Christopher Laker, executive director of the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund, said the survey analysed the state of education, health, labour, housing and household expenditure, vulnerability, welfare and community characteristics.

Its findings will be used to guide a Peace, Recovery and Development Plan (PRDP), a new initiative by the United Nations, the World Bank and the Ugandan government to address the economic and social disparities between the north and the rest of the country. "The statistics are going to form a good pillar for building up the new and existing programmes," said Laker.

Northern Uganda has been the scene of one of the most brutal civil wars, pitting the government against the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which has held the Acholi subregion in a stranglehold for almost 20 years. The LRA is best known for abducting young children to serve as fighters, porters or sex slaves to rebel commanders.

According to relief agencies, as many as 25,000 children have been abducted. Up to 2 million people have been displaced from their homes by the civil conflict. Some 1.6 million people live in scattered camps for internally displaced people, prevented by insecurity from cultivating their fields or engaging in any economic activities.

People live hand-to-mouth in the north. Half the working-age population, especially in Acholi, is a redundant labour force, as there are no job opportunities in the camps. The survey found that food, alcohol and tobacco consumed about 70 percent of household income.

Other expenditures included 11 percent for rent, fuel and power; 7.6 percent for health; and 4.4 percent for transport, the report said. Only 0.8 percent of household income went towards education.

The Acholi region had one of the lowest literacy levels in Uganda. "Literacy rate in the region stands at 54 percent compared to the national average of 68 percent," the survey said. Fourteen percent of people between six and 25 years of age had not been formally educated.

Sanitation is still precarious, according to the report, with 33 percent of households having no toilets." In Karamoja subregion, 88 percent of the all the households still use the ‘bush’ as a toilet facility," the report observed.

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