ISSUES

TUESDAY JANUARY 27 2009 13

The new colonists scramble for Africa
J
ust when colonialism was con-
sidered dead and buried, along
comes neo-colonialismin its lat-
est guise. Allied with its close
relatives globalisation, free marke-
teering and lack of transparency, it
is currently launching a new offen-
sive on the disempowered popula-
tion of the African continent.
Kwame Nkrumah, and others in
the post-colonial Pan Africanist
movement, coined the term neo-
colonialism to describe access to
the resources of less developed
nations by national and private
interests allied to wealthy nations.
Government-to-government deals
as well as private deals ostensibly
offer to manage land that is not
being economically used, to improve
food security. But for whom?
This trend is being drivenmainly
by recent rises in the prices of food
commodities, as well as pandering to
the rising interest in crop-based bio-
fuels. While a degree of the food
price increases was driven by short-
ages triggered by natural causes, the
role of speculators in driving up
costs to profit fromperceived short-
ages and seek shelter from other
risky instruments like junk bonds
has been significant.
The food security-focused NGO,
Grain, issued a report on this phe-
nomenonlast October, where it cited
more than 100 examples of this new
neo-colonial land grab. These land
grabs are primarily by nations that
have insufficient natural capital or
space such as the desert-bound
nations of the Middle East and over-
populated nations such as China
and South Korea. They seek to
improve the food security of those
nations while undermining the abil-
ity of host nations to access similar
benefits, through the alienation of
prime agricultural land.
The acquisition of 1.3 million
hectares of land in Madagascar by
the South Korean company Daewoo
Logistics Corporation on a 99-year
lease has raised eyebrows. This land
represents about half of the islands
arable land. A reported 70% of the
population there suffers from food
shortages and malnutrition, and
more than 50%of the population is
below the age of 18. What hope is
there for local youth when South
African farmers are reportedly
being recruited to run the farms?
This land grab is in the main
driven by a new wave of colonial
interests seeking to gain food secu-
rity. Many of the oil-rich Gulf states
are involved as they have little
access to arable land or water.
This new thrust by the Gulf
states is clearly influenced by the
wish to diversify their extensive
financial resources from recent oil
price windfalls, to areas where they
are able to generate sustainable
profit and influence.
China is also seeking new land
and has moved aggressively into
Africa with land interests in Zim-
babwe, Mozambique, Nigeria,
Uganda, Cameroon and Tanzania.
There is perhaps a more worry-
ing side to the newneo-colonial land
grab. This is where corporate and
financial groups and collectives seek
similar opportunities for purely
profit-seeking motives. For instance,
the Danish company Trigon Agri
controls 100 000ha of land in Russia.
MorganStanley, despite its liquidity
problems, owns 40 000ha in Brazil.
Perhaps more sinister is the news
of leasehold rights being acquired
for about 400 000ha of land in Sudan
from the family of former warlord
Gabriel Matip. Ina deal struckby US
financier Philippe Heilberg, who has
used a British Virgin Islands sub-
sidiary of his Jarch Group to facili-
tate the deal, private interests have
intervened in disputed territories.
Given the instability in that
nationandthe forcedevictionof mil-
lions in neighbouring Darfur, this
sort of land acquisition is perhaps a
harbinger of an unsavoury trend in
who gets to control the land in dis-
puted territories.
G
iven that the concept of
neo-colonialism has
Africanorigins, it would be
reasonable to assume that
there would be awareness of these
issues within Africa. However, cor-
ruption, limited democratic partici-
pationby civil society, non-transpar-
ent bi- and multilateral deals, all
coupled to the lack of transparency
within many African governments
themselves, evidently undermine
beneficial outcomes for citizens.
Clearly those accessing land aim
to accrue benefits. But Africa has
not yet fully addressed many issues
from its colonial heritage, such as
arbitrary borders and land dispos-
session by corporations and war-
lords or through internal and exter-
nal political interference.
The NewPartnership for African
Development (Nepad) has actively
sought corporate and private capi-
tal-friendly solutions. The wooing of
powerful interests includes inter-
ventions at G8 meetings by suave
former president Thabo Mbeki, not
to mention numerous jaw-jaw ses-
sions at the World Economic Forum.
This is why so many progressive
commentators have been leery of
endorsing Nepad and its structures,
criticising them as pandering to
vested interests.
Activities to increase agricul-
tural growth in Africa have also
been compromised by questionable
alliances. For example, the Associ-
ation for a Green Revolution in
Africa has seen the undemocratic
and unsolicited intervention of sup-
posedly neutral funders such as the
Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
The relationship between these fun-
ders and pro-genetically modified
food interests has served to under-
mine local agricultural collectives,
NGOs and projects that aim to pro-
mote and share proven solutions to
food insecurity and malnutrition.
This is perhaps the most danger-
ous manifestation of neo-colonial-
ism as it operates behind a veil of
philanthropy while undermining
democratic interests. Instead of
being taxed and distributed by state
organs, the obscene profits accrued
by capital are now in the hands of
ill-informed and often ideologically
biased do-gooders. For instance,
giventhe technocratic origins of the
Gates fortune, it is logical that
undue emphasis will be placed on
technocratic agricultural solutions.
There is an urgent need to exam-
ine these new neo-colonial thrusts.
Careful and objective analysis must
be undertaken as to how food and
land sovereignty is being compro-
mised through naive interaction
with the new global powers of
finance and trade. The interests of
global capital need to be tempered by
intervention and through more
pragmatic approaches that take
account of the historical relation-
ships betweenland, community, food
security and economic development.
It is ironic that while Africans
have fought to cast aside colonial
oppression and its concomitant her-
itage, we have instead opened the
gates to a new wave of colonial
interests that again threaten to
bypass the marginalised while
enriching a well-connected minority.
It would be tragic to cast aside
Africas recently won freedom for a
yoke of a different design.
G Glenn Ashton is a writer and
researcher working in civil society.
Can both peace and justice grow out of the turmoil in volatile Sudan?
By HEIDI KINGSTONE
Independent Foreign Service
Along the stretch of highway lead-
ing to the international airport in
Khartoum, there are illuminated
signs of Sudans President Omar el-
Bashir alternating with those of
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecu-
tor of the International Criminal
Court (ICC) who has indicted him.
It is a jarring sight, and a jarring
statement. The country is waiting to
see if the ICC will issue an arrest
warrant for its leader, the first for a
sitting head of state, making it an
evenmore turbulent time ina turbu-
lent country.
Sudan is always in turmoil and
always at a crossroads, with issues
of power and control at the centre.
Depending on circumstances, it can
always go in several directions.
At the heart of this crisis is Dar-
fur, where the ICC has gathered its
evidence for the 10 charges of
crimes of genocide, crimes against
humanity, and war crimes.
But there is more to Sudan than
Darfur. Darfur is made up of three
provinces, in total the size of
France, and it is one of several
equally critical parts that cannot be
divided or separated fromany solu-
tion in Sudan.
Some of the key problems facing
Sudan, the largest country in Africa
and hugely underdeveloped, have to
do with unity and disintegration,
peace and justice.
Most immediately, Sudan awaits
the impending ruling fromthe ICC,
expected in the next few weeks.
The illuminated posters make
such an impact because the issue
hits straight at the core interests of
the government, whose main aimis
to stay in power and steal money,
says a Western diplomat.
For that, he says, they are willing
to make deals or commit mass mur-
der. Its nothing personal, just busi-
ness.
Nowthe regime is trying to show
it is a good partner to the interna-
tional community and so, in Octo-
ber, it launched the Darfur Peace Ini-
tiative, one of dozens of initiatives
launched over the last few years.
The ICC has put pressure on the
regime.
Many commentators and politi-
cians believe that the whole issue of
having a national initiative is to try
and bail out President Bashir from
what he might face in the ICC, said
Hafiz Mohammed, co-ordinator for
the Darfur programme at Justice
Africa in London.
The real question is whether
there can be peace and justice, aside
fromwhether there should be or not,
and what happens if you give prior-
ity to justice over peace.
The paradox is that the situation
is better now than before the July
indictment. The levels of violence
that peaked in 2003-5 have subsided,
but the situation in Darfur is tense.
Militias originally armed by the gov-
ernment, and rebel groups that reg-
ularly split like amoebas, have made
travelling outside the main towns
dangerous.
Many in Darfur want justice and
believe peace will follow. Other sym-
pathetic voices posit that for the gov-
ernment, which does not accept the
ICC ruling and so does not regard it
as justice, it will simply blow any
chance for peace away, and that is
what Khartoumthreatens.
While Sudan continues to
shadow box with the international
community, it is also more stable
than people give it credit for. The
government is entrenched and more
united thanit appears. The National
Congress Party and the Sudan Peo-
ples Liberation Movement (SPLM),
together form the Government of
National Unity in Khartoum. But it
is not is a government of national
unity.
In 2005 they signed the power-
sharing agreement that is part of
the Comprehensive Peace Accords.
This, comprehensive in name only,
brought Africas longest-running
civil war between north and south
Sudanto anend. But it left the south
completely under the domainof one
political group, the SPLM/A, to the
exclusion of other forces. And the
CPA is barely being held together.
People in Sudan also question
why Bashir is being indicted for
crimes in Darfur, horrendous as
they are. The irony is that what hap-
pened in the two-decade-long civil
war was, as the same Western diplo-
mat pointed out, 10 times worse
than what happened in Darfur, and
no one has been indicted for that.
The question remains: can there
be both peace and justice in Sudan?
Rich countries and private interests are striking deals to take over
land and bolster their food security, writes Glenn Ashton
In an effort to clear some of the clut-
ter with which I have surrounded
my life over the years, Ive beensort-
ing through my books and tossing
out those I know I shall never want
to read again.
Sometimes this is like meeting
old friends.
I have ended up withseveral piles
of books one to chuck out, one to
consider further and one under the
general heading of Hey, I must
read this one again.
Needless to say the chuck-out
pile is the smallest.
Theres one book I shall keep for
a very strange reason. It is simply
the most boring book I have ever
owned. I dont have the heart to
throw it away.
Years ago, in a moment of weak-
ness I bought it, thinking it might
help to add a light touch to the Tav-
ern of the Seas column.
It is called The Anatomy of
Humour (Biopsychosocial and Ther-
apeutic Perspectives), by Robin
Andrew Haig MD, FRANZCP, MRC
Psych, Director, Mental Health Ser-
vices, MacArthur Area, Sydney.
When I bought it I was encour-
aged by the dedication To Maria,
who has tolerated my humour
whilst writing this book.
All I can say is the Maria must
have been a saint. I failed to detect a
smidgen of humour between the
covers of this weighty tome. The
good Doctor Haig manages to turn
any suggestion of laughter into a
boring homily.
Here he is on the subject of tick-
ling: The stimulation of cutaneous
receptors at low intensity produces
a ticklish sensation which, if inten-
sified, is replaced by pain. Tickling
of certain areas (eg feet) may pro-
duce anemotional abreactionwhich
has been employed in some alter-
nate therapies. Sully (1902) sug-
gested that the functionof the tickle
response may be to shake off para-
sites that touch the skin lightly,
although it is not clear why this
should be accompanied by laughter.
I think I shall keep the book sim-
ply as a yardstick against which to
measure degrees of boredom. I sug-
gest that the Haig be introduced to
the English language as the basic
unit of boredom.
How did you enjoy the movie?
I rated it about three Haigs.
Wow! As bad as that, hey?
Maybe Tavernreaders have their
own standard measure of boredom.
Id be interested to hear about them.
Murphys law
Since raising the questionof the ori-
gin of Murphys Law, Ive found sev-
eral explanations, each of which
claims to be the genuine article.
As with so many urban legends,
choose the one you like most and
adopt it.
In one story, Commander J Mur-
phy of the US Navy was a procure-
ment officer in charge of obtaining
new aircraft.
He tried to instil simplicity of
maintenance into manufacturers
like Douglas and Grumman. Appar-
ently one of his most belaboured
expressions was: If an aircraft fit-
ter on one of our carriers can re-
install a component wrongly, then
one day he will.
Which led to the famous law.
Another version is that the law
was named after Captain Edward A
Murphy, working on a US Air Force
experimental project.
One day, after finding that a
transducer was wired wrongly, he
cursed the technician responsible
and said, If there is any way to do
it wrong, hell find it.
The project manager kept a list of
engineering laws and added this
one, which he called Murphy's Law.
Take your pick.
Last Laugh
Dancing cheek-to-cheek is just a
formof floor-play.
Tavern
of the
Seas
D A V I D
B I G G S
Tel: 021 788 9710
Fax: 021 788 9560
E-mail: dbiggs@glolink.co.za
Oh, rats! The mobster in me is trapped
Im like a novice mobster on his
first job.
In my head I can hear a Brook-
lyndrawl. Take da bat, Johnny. Hit
it hard, right in da middle of da
body so it dont have time to
squirm. We wanna no squealin. No
squeakin. Just a good, clean hit.
Then we go to Marcellos for
spaghetti and meatballs.
Standing with a rock in my
hand, gazing up, I waver between
feeling icy and Italian, and gentle
and Genevan. The Italian side of
me sans moustache, Uzi and a
mama who uncomplainingly laun-
ders my bloodied suits is telling
me to take motioninto account, and
hurl the lump a few centimetres in
front of my target to ensure a per-
fect hit. The Genevan voice whis-
pers, Vork avay. Vee are all Kods
creatures. Vee canliff inpeace. Site
by site.
The Genevan accent isnt quite
what I imagined. I had pictured
Julie Andrews in The Sound Of
Music. And ratacide is muchharder
than I thought.
Im not sure how many are up
there. I hear them in the day,
rustling and gnawing in the attic,
their cold feet busy among boxes
and camping gear. In the evening,
they trundle along the telephone
wire like tramps on tarmac, com-
muting between the compost heap
and their sealed condo.
What was the builder thinking?
Paid handsomely with our entire
flexibond to convert our study into
a bathroom, he correctly ripped out
the stairs leading up to the attic, but
incorrectly sealed up the entrance,
leaving an anorexic hole ingen-
iously situated above the new
shower.
Now, whenever we plan to go
camping, we have to embark on a
strict diet of watercress soup so we
can squeeze past the shower head
and up into the musty loft. And if
visitors are coming to stay, we have
to season the soup with creatine so
the unfortunate sod who ventures
up there has the strength required
to toss the stored mattresses out of
the attic window into the garden
below.
And now there are the rodents.
A colleague at work recently
described howher dogs are experts
at catching rats. Enthralled that we
are not alone in our infestation, I
gabbled about howour rats emerge
in the evening. How they are adept
at trapeze work. How they seem to
like climbing the palm tree. How
they would look so splendid in tiny
yellowtrousers and pink leotards. I
almost felt proud of the critters.
Yes, but my rats come fromthe
shed where they keep the horse
food. Its not like were dirty,
replied my colleague.
Granted, there are days when I
might leave aneggy pot to soak, and
I sometimes cant be bothered to
sweep up the pelts our dogs shed on
the floor, but does having rats mean
we are dirty?
That night I Googled Rats
killing. One of the sites showed an
entire family, including a see-
through baby and a grey-muzzled
grandpa, clamped lifelessly in a
row of traps.
My Genevan vegan hissed that
this was genocide.
Another website informed me
that poisoning would cause a slow,
cramping death and a smell of ran-
cid chops. My inner mobster stuck
a baseball bat in my ribs.
Whichis howI end up inthe gar-
den, taking aim with a rock. If the
rats need to be lightly killed, it will
be by my own hand. Mano-a-mano.
Or mano-a-rato. Telling the voices
in my head to take their fight out-
side (where the Genevanwill surely
end up face down in the Plectran-
thus), I take aimand fire. Just then,
a wind gusts through the garden,
and the rat catapults into the air, on
to the grass, and scuttles into the
bushes. I watch its tail flicking
through the ivy and followthe wav-
ing foliage as the rodent makes it
way towards the palmtree, back up
to the telephone wire.
Such tenacity.
Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly
this split personality stuff gets
confusing the Genevan has given
the mobster third-degree burns
with a red-hot poker, and is now in
my left ear, telling me to put down
the rock. Leave the creatures be.
Perhaps build them an en-suite
bathroom, complete with mini
bidet, Tretchikoff prints and
streaming audio.
I just dont have murder in me.
That night there is silence
upstairs, as though the ratriarch
has instructed everyone to lie low
for a while.
In bed, my husband turns over,
listens. Hey, youve sorted them
out, he murmurs. How many
traps did you put up there?
In my pre-slumber haze, Julie
Andrews beams in my head,
singing of hills and children and
goats and cheese. Of rats being
alive with the sound of music.
Von Trapp, I mumble, sliding
into sleep.
Only one? my husband replies.
Impressive.
helen.walne@inl.co.za
Human
League
H E L E N
WA L N E
SOWING THEIR SEEDS: a shortage of space in overpopulated countries has seen many of them snap up land
on the African continent often to its detriment, the writer argues
Africa has not
yet fully
addressed many
issues from its
colonial heritage,
such as land
dispossession
C A _ N W S _ E 1 _ 2 7 0 1 0 9 _ p 1 3 C M Y K