Weekly anb11306.txt #6

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 30-11-2000      PART #6/6

* Soudan. Sadek al-Mahdi boycottera les élections  -  Le 15 novembre, le 
chef du principal parti d'opposition soudanaise Oumma, Sadek al-Mahdi, a 
confirmé que son parti boycotterait les élections présidentielle et 
législatives prévues en décembre. L'ancien Premier ministre les a 
assimilées à "un match de football avec une seule équipe, les autres 
participants étant absents ou forcés de l'être". Le gouvernement de M. 
al-Mahdi, élu démocratiquement en 1985, avait été renversé en 1989 par un 
coup d'Etat qui a porté au pouvoir le général Omar el-Béchir, et lui-même 
avait fui Khartoum en décembre 1996. Il est souvent accusé par le reste de 
l'opposition soudanaise de s'entendre avec le régime. (La Libre Belgique, 
17 novembre 2000)

* Sudan. Presidential elections  -  Sudan's Electoral Commission has 
announced that it has approved the candidacy of former president Jaafer 
Nimeiri in presidential elections next month. The general is the fourth 
challenger to the incumbent, President Omar al- Bashir. Of the five 
candidates onoy two are household names -- Mr Bashir and Mr Nimeiri - - the 
other three, Malik Hussein, Mahmoud Juha and Samoual Hussein Monsour, are 
not well known   (BBC News, 21 November 2000)

* Swaziland. Crude repression fuels pro-democracy movement  -  A political 
analyst recently equated Swaziland's monarchist rulers to the figurative 
ostrich that sticks its head in the sand in the face of adversity. He was 
immediately branded "unSwazi" and banished from the State media, but the 
comparison is not without justification. The past three months have seen a 
marked increase in social and political unrest in the traditionally 
peaceful kingdom of one million people. But, unlike in the past, the 
protestors are not just the usual bunch of trade unions, students and 
disaffected politicians. A large percent of the demonstrators who took to 
the streets are rural villagers --the bedrock on which absolute monarch 
King Mswati III's power is built. The villagers, who still revere the 
concept of the monarch as semi-divine, were shocked into public protest 
after King Mswati evicted over 200 families and their chiefs so that his 
brother, Prince Maguga Dlamini, could take ownership of the land. The 
eviction undermined Swazis' ancestral rights to their fore-fathers' land 
and sparked an unprecedented rural revolt that rocked Swaziland's Tikhundla 
government and gave the embryonic pro-democracy movement the ammunition it 
needed to launch an international 'liberation' campaign. The ruling Dlamini 
dynasty appeared unmoved -- if anything, they are moving in the wrong 
direction: crudely tightening their hold over the country. When political 
activists demand greater freedom of expression, the government charges them 
with sedition, places them under house arrest and criminally charges, fires 
or shuts down media critics. When the trade unions express concern about 
the industrial relations climate, it bans their meetings and arrests key 
union leaders even as an International Labour Organisation delegation tours 
the kingdom. When students call for public dialogue on the country's 
future, police forcefully close Swaziland's only university to forestall 
further protests, order foreign journalists out of the country, and 
reintroduce an outdated detention-without-trial law named after the lethal 
Swazi knobkerrie.   (African Eye News Service, S.Africa, 16 November 2000)

* Tanzania. Commonwealth calls for fresh elections in Zanzibar  -  Fresh 
elections should be held in Zanzibar, supervised by "a reformed election 
management machinery," according to a recommendation by the Commonwealth 
Observer Group that monitored the poll in October. The group said that even 
though elections were held 5 November in the 16 constituencies where voting 
had been cancelled on polling day, 29 October, "the case for fresh 
elections remains unanswerable." The observers also called for a reform of 
the Zanzibar Electoral Commission. "These two measures are vital if there 
is to be a credible and secure basis for democracy in Zanzibar," the team 
said in its final report released in London on 16 November. The observers 
commended Zanzibaris who turned out in large numbers to take part in their 
second multi-party elections since independence in 1963. "Unfortunately, 
the conduct of the election fell far short of minimum standards," the 
report said. It cited the lack of ballot papers, which led to the 
cancellation of the election in the 16 constituencies, representing 40 
percent of registered voters. "The cause was either deliberate manipulation 
or gross incompetence," the observers said. (PANA, Dakar, 17 November 2000)

* Tchad. Situation alimentaire précaire  -  Selon l'agence AFP, de graves 
pénuries alimentaires sont attendues dans les régions sahéliennes du Tchad, 
qui s'attendent à de mauvaises récoltes pour la saison 2000-2001 en raison 
de la faible pluviométrie de ces derniers mois. Le 16 novembre, le ministre 
de l'Agriculture a lancé un appel pressant à la communauté internationale 
pour engager une aide d'urgence. Les départements les plus frappés sont 
Biltine (est), Kanem (ouest) et Batha (centre), qui regroupent près d'1,5 
million d'habitants. - D'autre part, le 21 novembre, 50 personnes ont été 
tuées, à 350 km de la capitale, lors d'une véritable bataille rangée entre 
deux groupes d'éleveurs à propos du partage de la terre.   (ANB-BIA, de 
sources diverses, 23 novembre 2000)

* Tunisie. Grévistes de la faim  -  Quatre détenus politiques tunisiens, en 
grève de la faim à la prison de Tunis, sont dans un état grave, a annoncé 
le 22 novembre à Paris un responsable de la Fédération internationale des 
ligues des droits de l'homme. Il s'agit de trois islamistes et d'un 
militant d'extrême gauche. Selon les membres de leurs familles, deux de ces 
détenus, "dans un état de fragilité extrême", risqueraient de mourir, 
victimes notamment de diabète et d'hypertension.   (La Libre Belgique, 23 
novembre 2000)

* Uganda-Lesotho. Controversial dam projects  -  For critics in Lesotho and 
Uganda, the recent report of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) is likely 
to stir up further resistance to the construction of controversial dam 
projects in the two countries. The report portrays the Lesotho Highlands 
Water Project and the proposed Bujagali Hydroelectric Dam project in Uganda 
as especially harmful. It questions the social and environmental impacts of 
the projects and their justifiability on the basis of environmental 
implications as well their economic benefits. The Lesotho Highlands Water 
Project (LHWP), Africa's largest infrastructure project, is a massive, 
multi-dam scheme built to divert water from Lesotho's Maloti Mountains to 
South Africa's industrial Gauteng Province. The first phases of the World 
Bank-supported project involves the construction of three large dams which, 
when completed will dispossess more than 30,000 rural farmers of homes, 
fields, and grazing lands and deprive many of their livelihoods, according 
to the WCD report. The project, the report says, poses serious threats to 
Lesotho's mountain river systems because of reduced flow rates and 
less-frequent floods. Several endangered plant and animal species in the 
Senqu River basin or Orange River in South Africa "will be placed under 
severe strain and may entirely disappear from project areas," the report 
warns. It raises similar overtures over the 530-million-US dollar Ugandan 
Bujagali project that seeks to drown Bujagali Falls on the River Nile. The 
multi- million dollar project is to be funded by the US-based AES 
Corporation.   (Nicodemus Odhiambo, PANA, 20 November 2000)

* Zambia. Over $500 million needed to fight AIDS  -  Zambia, one of the 
countries hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, has estimated that it will 
need about 558 million US dollars to implement a three-year national 
programme to combat AIDS. The government is expected to put in 126 million 
dollars, most of which would be expended on personnel costs to support 
hospital care and other government salaries, while donor partners are 
expected to contribute 414 million dollars. According to the costed 
national HIV/AIDS Strategic Framework for 2001-2003 document to be 
presented to Zambia's co-operating partners this week, about 31 million 
dollars is currently committed by donors to support the framework. "The gap 
between the estimated total cost for implementing the Framework and the 
financing known to be available is 382 million US dollars. Approximately 39 
percent of this gap is attributable to the estimated cost of drugs for 
Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART)," the document says. About 67 
million dollars would be needed as cost of drugs for treatment of 
opportunistic infections and about 61 percent of the total budget would be 
channelled to hospital care of AIDS patients and to HAART. "The costs to be 
borne by the Zambian government for hospital care -- 116 million US 
dollars, are by far the predominant amount among all the costs to be borne 
by the government. Approximately 93 percent of funds committed by the 
government for activities to combat AIDS would be expended on hospital care 
of AIDS patients," it adds.   (PANA, Dakar, 19 November 2000)

* Zimbabwe. Budget deficit to fall  -  Zimbabwe's budget deficit will be 
reduced from 23 per cent to 15.5 per cent of gross domestic product next 
year by spending cuts and inflation, the country's recently appointed 
finance minister, Simba Makoni, said. In his address to the country's 
parliament, Mr Makoni announced tax concessions and a new export incentive, 
which are likely to be welcomed by business. But while he made no attempt 
to disguise the gravity of the country's economic situation -- he predicts 
a 4.2 per cent fall in real GDP this year followed by a smaller decline of 
2.8 per cent in 2001 -- observers noted that he failed to bring forward any 
significant measures likely to ease the long-running crisis. Agriculture, 
which grew 3 per cent in 2000, is forecast to contract by 9.5 per cent next 
year, largely because of the government's "fast track resettlement 
programme", though the minister did not say as much. To finance land 
resettlement, US $18m is being set aside -- a five-fold increase on last 
year's vote. But despite the second worst HIV/AIDS crisis in the world, 
according to the UN, real spending on health will fall by almost a third, 
while the education vote is down 40 per cent in real terms. Defence 
spending is halved in real terms, with the minister hopeful of "the 
anticipated positive outcome of the initiatives to bring peace to the 
Democratic Republic of Congo", where Zimbabwe has deployed 11,000 troops in 
support of President Laurent Kabila.   (Tony Hawkins, Financial Times, UK, 
16 November 2000)

* Zimbabwe. The Connemara Open Prison System  -  An interesting innovation 
in Zimbabawe - - The Open Prison System at Connemara, the one-time medium 
security facility near Kwekwe -- opened its doors in February 2000 to 
receive a first batch of inmates. Comfortable secure accommodation 
partitioned into single rooms or shared accommodation, with wide open 
windows, has created a sense of freedom, unlike other secure accommodation 
in Zimbabwe's prison system. With the existing fiscal restraints in 
Zimbabwe, the Government is having a difficult task transforming the old 
war-time structures into a modern penitentiary, capable of rehabilitating 
inmates. Better living standards in such institutions are benefiting a 
certain category of convicts. The Prisons Amendment Bill, gazetted by the 
Government on 19 July, is now waiting to be passed into law. This will 
empower prison officers to separate healthy inmates from those with 
infectious or communicable diseases. It will also enable the authorities to 
compulsorily test all inmates for diseases, which is presently not allowed. 
There are presently 70 inmates. Convicts are allowed to bring their own 
radios and cassette/CD players with them, plus other items for personal 
use. They can also go out at weekends on business trips. It should be noted 
however, that the category of prisoners assigned to Connemara does not 
include hard-core prisoners.   (Dumisani Khumalo, ANB-BIA, Zimbabwe, 20 
November 2000)

* Zimbabwe. Farmers to challenge court ruling  -  Farmers leaders are to 
appeal against a High Court ruling telling police not to evict squatters 
from farms they have occupied. Zimbabwe's High Court issued a provisional 
order on 20 November, allowing squatters to stay on commercial 
farms,pending a final ruling on the government's land programme. (BBC News, 
21 November 2000)


Weekly anb1130.txt - End of # 6/6


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Un homme meurt chaque fois que l'un d'entre nous se tait devant la tyrannie 
(W. Soyinka, Prix Nobel litterature)
Everytime somebody keep silent when faced with tyranny, someone else dies 
(Wole Syinka, Nobel Prize for Literature)
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