It is very disheartening to see people making money out the predicament of others. But to extend such a callous activity to helpless and innocent children is despicably wicked. Sadly though, it happens on a daily basis. At the beginning of this October, Plan International, an NGO based in the UK, started such a villainous programme of child exploitation. It launched a children’s rights campaign as part of the activities marking the 10th anniversary of its existence in Cameroon. The programme, they said, would run for one year through radio broadcasts. During the launching ceremony, children were paraded in...
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Recent events on the world stage, not least the latest meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations, seem to suggest that the noose is fast tightening around the neck of world capitalism. The vociferous pronouncements of the “Green” parties and groups, the massive demonstrations against the wars in the Middle East, the pitched battles between protesters and security forces at the meeting grounds of the G8 summits and World Trade Organization gatherings, and the latest bold attacks on George Bush, the chief representative of the international capitalist clique by his fellow national presidents, point to what appears...
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There is no doubt that the military constitute a vital force in today’s society. This fact is based on the conventionally perceived role they play in the lives of the populace. Being an armed section of a nation, the military have the primary role of defending the nation against external aggression. They are trained in modern warfare and furnished with whatever weapons the state is capable of procuring to enable them repulse the enemy as swiftly and as brutally as possible. But in times of peace, the military engage themselves in such occupations as the construction of roads, bridges,...
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The party political campaigns for next year’s general election have commenced early. With the elections well over a year away politicians, as usual, have positioned themselves in various camps and have begun allying themselves into competing coalitions. Increasingly nowadays, in Kenya’s tribal and ideological politics, politicians group themselves together and divide the country into this or that tribal region, all in a bid to win votes. The backward politics of this country can stem perhaps from the so-called founding fathers. During the clamour for independence, they divided the country into regions and classified people into tribes. Thus if...
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This year, 2006, has been election year for several African countries. It is therefore important that we take a serious look at the nature of this periodic event. Conventional wisdom has it that elections are indicative of how democratic country is. The real question, however, is how democratic the elections themselves are. One of the cardinal points that underpin elections is that people are free to choose whoever they wish to lead them. As such, the constitutions of countries state that any citizen of a certain age can compete for the presidential seat. In practice, however, the people...
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President Thabo Mbeki says war remains one of the central causes of disabilities on the African continent. He was speaking at the end of the World Blind Union’s conference in Cape Town today. Delegates from 60 countries attended the event. Mbeki says government will continue to fight for peace and stability in Africa. “War is one of the central causes of disability in Africa … therefore we should not only have correct policies and programmes to meet the needs and aspirations of blind people and others with disabilities. We must also act vigorously to address the causes of disability,”...
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Africa and Poverty
Writing in the Ecologist magazine at the height of the Make Poverty History campaign last year, Dr Vandana Shiva (an Indian author and environmentalist) said, “by robbing the poor of their resources, livelihoods and incomes. Before we can make poverty history, we need to get the history of poverty right. People don’t die for lack of incomes. They die for lack of access to resources.” According to Dr Shiva, what makes poverty is that people are no longer able to live “off the land”; instead they are forced into becoming consumers. “People”, she says, “no longer have access to...
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