Human Rights Watch is writing to express our serious concern about the widespread killings of civilians and other abuses being committed in the areas controlled by the Uganda military (UPDF) in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. We therefore urge you to ensure that your military forces and those of all your allies in Ituri respect international humanitarian law and protect civilian lives.

There will be no elections in the disputed regions of Sool and Sanaag when Somaliland holds its presidential polls next week, according to the neighbouring self-declared autonomous region of Puntland.

President Joseph Kabila was sworn in as the interim head of state of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at a ceremony in the capital, Kinshasa, on Monday, news agencies reported. Kabila will preside over a transitional government to be formed soon for a two-year period, leading up to democratic elections.
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* Rebels Declare Inauguration Invalid
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What really happens when the World Bank imposes its policies on a country? This is an insider's view of one aid-made crisis. Peter Griffiths was at the interface between government and the Bank. In this ruthlessly honest, day by day account of a mission he undertook in Sierra Leone, he uses his diary to tell the story of how the World Bank, obsessed with the free market, imposed a secret agreement on the government, banning all government food imports or subsidies. The collapsing economy meant that the private sector would not import. Famine loomed. No ministry, no state marketing organisation, no aid organisation could reverse the agreement. This is a rare and important portrait of the aid world which insiders will recognize, but of which the general public seldom get a glimpse.

Both the public and private media agreed that violence in the recent Highfield and Kuwadzana by-elections was a cause for major concern in the electoral process, but they differed on who the perpetrators were, says the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe in its weekly update. The public media accused the MDC of fanning violence and used isolated incidents that broke out during the previous week’s stay-away as examples. Conversely, the private Press observed that violence against ordinary civilians and those perceived to be opposition party supporters by ZANU PF activists and security agents would render the elections not free or fair.

The Angolan judicial system should be deeply reformed in the sense that it should be able to fight corruption in terms of the abuse of power and nepotism to guarantee the establishment of a State where no one is above the law. This was one of the recommendations of a colloquium on “The Role of the Citizens in the Management of the Country's Resources”, held in Luanda in March.

The World Movement for Democracy is a global network of democrats, including activists, practitioners, academics, policy makers, and funders, who have come together to develop new forms of cooperation to promote the development of democracy.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has sacked his deputy information minister, John Mwaimba, for alleged fraud, a government spokesman has said. Mr Mwaimba is alleged to have used a fake title deed as a guarantee in the purchase of $300,000 worth of fertilizer.

The chairman of the Democratic Party (DP), Reverend Christopher Mtikila, says he cannot be sued for his allegations of corruption against Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye and others unless the premier is first brought before a court of law on criminal charges.

Good to see you speaking out against Zimbabwe's rulers. (Pambazuka News 105: http://www.pambazuka.org/newsletter.php?issuedate=2003-04-03)

No fewer than seven million Nigerians who hope to vote in the general elections which begin on Saturday would be unable to do so as the nation's apex electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), voided their application. INEC chairman Abel Guobadia said a total of 7,069,740 prospective voters who participated in the last registration exercise had been disqualified.

Tanzania is one of six countries to complete a debt relief program. According to the World Bank, Tanzania received $3 billion in debt relief. Tanzania has used the savings to increase education spending and eliminate school fees for elementary school education. Almost overnight, an estimated 1.6 million kids returned to school. Tanzania is one of four African countries who have benefitted.

In mid February high-level meetings were held in Washington DC to examine proposals to reform the governance of the World Bank and IMF. The next major discussions will be at the Bank/Fund Spring Meetings in Washington on 12-13 April. Some limited capacity-building measures for Southern Executive Directors may be announced, but there has been no progress on more significant reforms. A serious effort to improve Southern country voice at the institutions would require going far beyond capacity-building to change the composition, voting shares and transparency of the Bank/Fund Boards.

Experience in other Third World nations shows that upon the election of a new administration, an 18 to 24-month "window of opportunity" opens up during which time public support and confidence about the future facilitates the implementation of a range of anti-corruption measures, said John Githongo, Kenya's Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics in the Office of the President, during a keynote address to the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya last month.

Another momentous Zimbabwean March has come and gone. But this time it ends on a high note. The mix of menace and jubilation, of terror, fear, anger and defiance, is electric, explosive. The long-suffering, patient, apathetic Zimbabweans have had enough and are finally reacting to the horrors of the past three years.

A year ago the mood was different. An election which most thought would relieve us of deepening poverty and intensifying government abuse had been stolen. The sacrifices which had been made by thousands of committed opposition cadres stretching their energies to the breaking point seemed to have been made in vain. We stared into a dark future, afraid, confused and deeply depressed.

And our fears were justified. The past year has been horrendous. Government has used the Public Order and Security Act to prevent organised activity by the opposition as well as all civil society organisations, even during campaigning for by-elections. Opposition leaders have been continuously hounded, arrested, harassed and brutally tortured, while their supporters have been beaten, abducted, raped, and chased from their homes.

The justice system has been subverted, with the police selectively arresting members of civil society and the MDC without any evidence of crime, while standing watching while government supporters commit the worst atrocities. Independent judges have been hounded out of office and replaced by those who appear more compliant. When these don't satisfy their ZANU PF bosses, they too can be arrested. Cases which threaten to embarrass the government never get hearing dates, with the result that some election petitions from the 2000 Parliamentary elections have yet to be heard, and one year later we are still waiting for the court challenge to the Presidential election. Constitutional challenges to restrictive press laws are also still awaited. The courts are rather spending their energies harassing opposition leaders with spurious charges ranging from fraud to murder to treason.

The civil service has been systematically purged of non-government supporters. Those in senior posts are expected to publicly show approval of ZANU PF policies and make appearances at party meetings. Hundreds if not thousands of teachers have been chased from their schools as suspected opposition supporters. Graduates of the government militia who have been trained in propaganda, brutality and torture methods have been infiltrated into all government offices and placed on salaries, even though they have no relevant skills. Teachers colleges, nursing schools, polytechs and vocational schools have instructions to give priority to militia graduates: if they do not satisfy the entry requirements, no problem; just finish them before completing the course in order to get a certificate. These torturers and abusers are to be unleashed into our schools to prepare our children for life!

And the economy. A year ago inflation was 70%; today it is 220% - officially. Unofficially probably over 300%. Few farms function at above subsistence level. Jobs are unobtainable; the “informal sector” rules. Those living on pensions or savings are destitute; the lucky ones have children outside the country who send pounds, or dollars, or rands. Those who can still afford to own cars cannot pay for insurance. And cannot buy petrol. Eight days in a queue is common. Those who rely on public transport must be on the street before 6 a.m. to get to work by 8, and even then they are often very late. School children often leave home at 5 a.m. and return at 6 p.m. Goods are scarce, and expensive.

Government's answer to inflation was to control prices, when inputs cannot be controlled. The result was predictable - a further collapse of production and a flourishing black market, frequently controlled by ZANU PF bosses. Exports from the manufacturing sector have dropped catastrophically. The foreign exchange which they should earn to pay for fuel and electricity imports is not available. And we are producing less of our own electricity due to break down of machinery and lack of forex to buy spare parts. A very vicious circle prevails, producing what has been termed “meltdown”.

The so-called land reform is a distant memory. The agricultural sector has diminished by gigantic proportions. But no one is sure what's happening on the farms - settlers, war vets, ZANU PF thugs, genuine land-hungry villagers and government cronies are all battling for a share of the spoils, which no longer exist, since all the movable property and crops have been plundered and few of the beneficiaries really wanted to farm. Those who do are struggling with lack of inputs. Poor rains at the beginning of the season have reduced the output of those who succeeded in planting crops, while much of the crop is being stolen from the fields by starving villagers and displaced former farm workers. The prospect for the next planting season later this year is grim, because very little seed maize has been planted and even less will be available for use, as it is being eaten.

Donors are distributing food aid in many rural parts of the country, while in others, hunger and even starvation is common. Government continues to attempt to interfere, but has not succeeded in most cases. In towns, staple food is scarce, and is obtained through “connections”, political and otherwise. Long queues have frequently been attacked by riot police beating people (mainly women) with batons and chasing them away.

The daily struggle for food and transport in towns is what has brought the people to the breaking point. Women have progressively amended their family feeding to omit more and more items - cheese, milk, chicken, meat, fruit - not affordable; mealie meal, flour, margarine, bread, vegetables, sugar - not available. We are left with beans and rice. And for most rice is also not affordable. As the position worsens by the week, government has become increasingly repressive.

Zimbabweans did not easily give up hope that President Mbeki and the ANC would finally understand the true nature of our distress. But finally it has become clear that it was not a question of misunderstanding but deliberate prevarication in order to positively support Mugabe's dictatorship.

The shift began with cricket. Failure to get the world to acknowledge the need to boycott Mugabe by shifting the World Cup matches made it very plain that our salvation would only come from ourselves. And so the protests finally began. Henry Olonga and Andy Flower set it off, as if singing the overture, at the first Harare cricket match. Then the women took up the score on Valentine's Day in both Harare and Bulawayo ; the cricket protests began in earnest when the scene moved to Bulawayo, and were brutally suppressed. International Women's Day saw more demonstrations in defiance of POSA, and further arrests. Finally the orchestra swelled into the massive support for a stayaway called by the MDC in mid-March. The brutality of the reprisal measures undertaken by the militia, army and police in the wake of the stayaway has only increased the anger and the determination. But the demonstrations and stayaway had taught beleaguered Zimbabweans the most important lesson: we have the power, we can face arrest, we can even face torture. The MDC followed up the stayaway with an ultimatum to the government to restore rule of law and human rights. It expired with the month at midnight March 31. As midnight struck Zimbabweans were jubilant - in the face of extreme intimidation, cheating and physical violence against voters, they had persevered and won so strongly that even ZANU PF could not deny them victory.

And so March has ended. April lies before us. Will Independence Day on the 18th mark another new beginning? Maybe not just yet, but now the people are waiting and ready for the mass action which will finally bring the end of this evil regime. It cannot come soon enough.

* Mary Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean human rights activist.

* Previous editorial by Mary Ndlovu: March – Zimbabwe’s Month of Destiny

* Please send comments on this editorial to editor@pambazuka.org

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has expressed concern that the world has dropped further behind commitments made at a 1994 global conference to invest $17 billion a year on population and reproductive health by 2000. “Given rising demands and HIV/AIDS infections, the mobilization of resources is more critical to the success of the Cairo Programme of Action and the Millennium Development Goals,” UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid said.

Corruption is a major obstacle to development, lowering investment and retarding economic growth, Center for Public Accountability (CPA), chief executive officer Prince Bowo Olateru-Olagbegi has said. He advised government to give adequate attention to addressing the issue of corruption because of its adverse effects on the nation's socio economic development.

There are two opposing views on corruption in Tanzania. Some observers, including former anti-corruption Commissioner Joseph Warioba and global watchdog Transparency International (TI), see endemic official corruption in the country as an abuse of human rights and a major factor undermining the country's development prospects. Others, including many senior government officials, take the view that corruption is not a fundamental problem and that Tanzania's poor image – last year, Transparency International ranked it among the four most corrupt in a poll of 85 countries – reflects the more "widespread and open discussion" of corruption in Tanzania.

Most South African businesses believe that bribery has become an accepted practice and that police officials were the most corrupt of all, the first comprehensive assessment of corruption in the country has found. The finding is contained in the "perception-based" Country Corruption Assessment Report, compiled over two years by the department of public service and administration with assistance from the United Nations office on drugs and crime.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) has deplored the violence that erupted in Highfield after the announcement of the election results. The Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) Mr Pearson Mungofa won the election with 8 759 votes beating his main rival Mr Joseph Chinotimba of the ruling ZANU PF party who polled 4 844 votes. Mr. Chinotimba indicated that he is not accepting the results. In Kuwadzana MDC’s Mr Nelson Chamisa won the seat by 12 548 votes against his main rival Mr David Mutasa of ZANU PF who polled 5002 votes. "We note with concern however, the pre-poll violence, intimidation and visible vote buying that characterised these by-elections," said the ZESN.