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NEWS & LETTERS,
August-September 2002
Lead article
Africans struggle to overcome slavery, AIDS, neocolonialism
by Bakary Tandia and Pauline Muchina According to reports from the Special Session of the UN
General Assembly, three quarters of the more than 36 million people currently
living with AIDS/HIV are living in sub-Saharan Africa. The general secretary,
Kofi Annan, has asked for $7 to 10 billion a year to fight AIDS and other killer
diseases, but little has been raised for Africa. Don’t human rights and
democracy promotion start with disease prevention and human life protection? POLITICS OF AIDS In the history of human disease, HIV/AIDS is unique
because it raises many emotional issues about families, law, and access to
health care. In Africa women and children are more vulnerable than men for many
reasons, biological, social and economic. Their social status puts women at risk
more than men. In some countries polygamy is practiced; one man is infected, but
two women are at risk. If a woman thinks that her husband or boyfriend is
infected, she cannot force him to use a condom because of the power relationship
within the family. Because of the economic situation, if she wants to challenge
him, she will find herself outside without any resources. There is also the
infection from mother to infant and the stress tied to this. It has become urgent for Africa to find the means to
appropriately deal with the HIV/AIDS crisis. Yet there are several stumbling
blocks. African countries are dealing with financial crises with international
financial institutions, specifically debts. Last year, the sub-Saharan African
region paid $13.3 billion in debt repayments. How will those countries be able
to deal with the HIV/AIDS crisis when they must pay such an amount? Another stumbling block is landmines. It is a big issue
and the U.S. has not signed the landmine treaty. In Africa we have 30 million
landmines. In Mozambique alone there are 12 million. They cost maybe $3 per
landmine, but in order to remove them, it costs about $300 each. If you multiply
$300 by 30 million, think of how much it will cost for countries also trying to
deal with the HIV health crisis. The third stumbling block is the force of globalization.
African countries are being forced into globalization without being ready. The
G-8 leaders met in Canada in June to give aid to Africa, with strings attached.
All the players must equally participate in setting the rules, but that is not
the case with African countries. The fourth stumbling block is neo-colonial leaders.
Neo-colonialism is worse than colonialism because you don’t know that you are
colonized, but things are getting worse day by day. It is clear that Africa is expendable to the West. The
focus away from Africa started shifting when, with the collapse of the Soviet
Union, the post-Communist Eastern European nations were created and a lot of
strife and economic crises took place. It was also on the non-governmental
organization (NGO) level where funds were tied up in Eastern Europe. What can we
do as Africans when we feel so left out in the global economy? MAURITANIAN SLAVERY We are in the 21st century and slavery still exists in
this world and in Mauritania and Sudan specifically. In Mauritania slavery is
not what people describe as modern forced labor. It is a classic slavery in
modern times. It took place prior to the Atlantic slave trade, around the 13th
century when the Arabs came from the Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa. Since
then, it has been prevalent in Mauritania from generation to generation by
birth. If you are a slave, your children will become slaves. Slaves are used for agricultural and domestic work in
Mauritania. They take care of the cattle and also produce dates. More
importantly slavery is part of the culture. The more slaves a man has, the more
powerful he is. What is amazing is that slaves vote. For the person who has 200
or 300 slaves, their voting power goes to somebody in a town who, for instance,
wants to be mayor. Because slaves will follow the instructions from their
master, this kind of democracy has created additional interests in having or
keeping slaves. Of course, if slaves are free and have the freedom to vote, the
Arab minority will lose the guarantee to keep power for themselves. The Mauritanian population of 2.5 million is divided and
subdivided. Among the two main groups, Arabs, who rule the country, represent
30% of the population. Black Mauritanians comprise the other 70%. They are
divided into two groups. One subgroup, 40% of the population, are slaves or live
in the same conditions as slavery. They are Black, but they speak Arabic, much
the same way African Americans speak English. They live in their country, but
they have no memory of their ethnic origin. The rest, 30%, live in the South and are divided into
four ethnic groups: Pulaar, Soninke, Wolof, and Bambara. They have their own
cultures and their own languages. The government has designed policies to
destroy the Black African culture in the South. As part of the implementation of
that policy, in 1989 it deported more than 80,000 Black Mauritanians from their
own country and sent them to Senegal and Mali. There they live in refugee camps.
The international community, in particular the UN, is not doing anything to help
them. The reason for the deportations was to destroy the Black African community
in order to make the land vacant for the Arabs along the Senegal River valley. Besides that, in 1990 the government of Mauritania
arrested 500 Black military officers, made them political prisoners, and killed
them while in detention. This was documented by Human Rights Watch and by
Amnesty International. Before that, in 1989, they destroyed over 300 villages,
which is also documented. The worst is the game the government is playing with
slavery. Legislation has supposedly abolished slavery three times. However the
intent of the current Mauritanian government has not been to effect freedom, but
rather to assuage and lull the international community--and aid donors--into a
false belief that action has been taken. The most recent abolition occurred Nov. 9, 1981 through
Ordinance No. 81.234. The second article of that ordinance granted compensation
to slave masters for the loss of their “property,” whereas no compensation
was made to those slaves who were “freed.” There is no mention of slave
owners being punished for disobeying the law. For over 10 years, movement organizations have been
struggling to put an end to the practice of slavery, but the government has
refused to recognize them, and so they cannot operate legally, receive donations
or obtain any resources. A member of an illegal organization can be arrested at
any time, which often happens. And in January the main opposition political
party struggling against slavery, the Action for Change Party, was banned by the
government of Lt. Col. Taya. The problem is not just the action of the government,
but also the international support that regime is enjoying. In 1990 during the
Gulf War, Mauritania sided with Iraq. The reports from the U.S. State Department
were very critical. Since then Mauritania has cut off diplomatic relations with
Iraq and signed a full diplomatic agreement with Israel as a member of the Arab
League. The whole language from the State Department changed. Yet nothing has
changed people’s lives. AT THE MERCY OF FOREIGN POLICY More recently the U.S. is forging alliances that will
help it continue its war against terrorism. With the growth of Islam and
Arabization of the continent, the U.S. is very afraid. The Arab nations are also
paying a lot of attention to Africa right now, with aid for education and
health. After September 11, one of Osama bin Laden’s close advisors was known
to be in Mauritania, and many people were arrested in connection with Al Qaeda.
President Bush was in touch with President Taya seeking secret cooperation. So
the U.S. government is ready to develop some kind of close cooperation with any
country where they can get help. It has even resumed discussions with Sudan. Within Africa, when refugees from Mauritania started
coming to Senegal in 1989 due to the deportations, Abdou Diouf, president of
Senegal, stated, “If I didn’t allow apartheid in South Africa, there is no
way to allow it next to my door,” but not long after, he shut his mouth
because French interests were in jeopardy. For Mauritania and Senegal are former
colonies of France, and if there were a conflict between them, it would put him
in a very uncomfortable situation. That’s why the two countries were forced to
resume diplomatic relations though nothing was done to change the situation with
the deportations. Even where victims of slavery find solidarity, religion
and politics interfere. This can be seen in the differences between Sudan and
Mauritania. In Sudan there is civil war. In Mauritania there is none. In Sudan
women and children are taken into slavery. In Mauritania there is no such thing;
slavery is passed from generation to generation. In the case of Sudan, because
Christians are the victims, they have the strong support and attention of those
in the U.S. and in Europe. In Mauritania since the population is all Muslim, the
Americans and Europeans are silent. In terms of human suffering people should
not be supported selectively based on religion. PEOPLE AS ROOT OF CHANGE Many looked with hope toward the World Conference
Against Racism in Durban last year. The U.S. came with conditions, though, not
to talk about reparations for the slave trade or about the crisis between
Palestinians and the Israelis, nor about economic underdevelopment as a form of
racism. Once the U.S. delegates realized that these conditions were missing,
they walked out. They went back to poor African, Caribbean and Latin
American governments and told them, “If you work for reparations or
Palestinian statehood, we’ll cut you off.” So the African governments went
back to their own NGOs and said, “Look, our hands are tied” and they were
absent for votes on those issues. Clearly aid does not come from a human rights
approach. In South Africa itself, liberation is not complete.
Although it had a very persistent movement that brought the fall of apartheid,
it didn’t go far enough in terms of the poor people. And after apartheid, the
truth and reconciliation movement didn’t transform the system. Very few national movements today are viable. One
movement that has shown itself to have a supposedly socialist perspective in
Kenya is Mungiki. They follow the Mau Mau tradition that fought against
colonialism. They’ve been arrested and there have been killings. But they are
patriarchal, even requiring female circumcision for membership in their
organization. And then there is the South-South initiative which is a
movement within the African continent, but also reaching out to other Southern
hemisphere nations, trying to trade with one another. Unfortunately it is not
entirely free of capitalism. The movement, though, is real strong on the local level.
You see it by the way people are appealing to their traditional way of relating
to one another. Kenyans have a system, especially amongst women, where they farm
together and share the resources amongst their communities. In Mauritania there are two abolitionist organizations
fighting for freedom and equal opportunity, El-Hor, which means “the free,”
and SOS-Slaves. Both organizations educate slaves with the knowledge that they
become aware of their rights. These organizations also fight for the
criminalization of slavery and the adoption of socio-economic measures to
translate the legal fictions of freedom into a lived reality. In Africa in general, people have learned that they must
take destiny into their own hands. Ending gender discrimination and ending
poverty in Africa is one way of stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Also whenever a
chance is given to African countries to organize themselves through the
democratic process, they seek to truly do it in their best interests. There are a lot of movements organized locally by grass
roots organizations to fight corruption, to help people rejuvenate their
economies, to make sure education is getting to people, and to make sure
HIV/AIDS education is getting to people. The resources to do that are not
available, but we have the human resources. That’s a very strong force. When the people are trying to make their contribution, we know that diversity is positive and every person, every community has something different to bring. Africa did not have a revolution; it’s in the making. |
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