To all those working at the Egyptian Ministry of Interior and who are involved in torture or who have ordered it or refrained from stopping it, although they knew it was taking place: The undersigned organisations know how you have spent the last three days torturing our colleagues, antiwar activists and other Egyptian citizens who have walked the same path of the millions of citizens all over the world and have peacefully expressed their protest of the killing going on in Iraq.

Mr Sam Seepei, Manager of the BHPBilliton Trust, handed over a cheque for R1.334 million to the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Malegapuru William Makgoba, signifying a vote of confidence in the University and its highly successful Science Foundation Programme (SFP).

The controversial Bujagali dam project reared its head at the Third World Water Forum held in Japan last week with an expert on hydropower saying lack of democracy was at the heart of the project's failure to attract ready funding. Bujagali, which has become one of Africa's most controversial hydropower projects in the past few years, is already seven years behind schedule. The dam has stalled for seven years now following charges that its environmental assessments were faulty, and that Uganda had given too much away when it negotiated a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the American company AES.

In Pambazuka News issue 103 you reproduce a copy of the article 'Landmark elections in Burkina Faso' of which I am co-author with Mr. Carlos Santiso. In your introduction you mention the International Centre for Democratic Governance (ICDG) at the University of Georgia (2002). ICDG has not been involved with the Center for Democratic Governance (CDG) so far. As Director of the Center for Democratic Governance, I would like to clarify that the CDG has been established with the support of International IDEA, an intergovernmental organisation with 22 member states from all over the world with a mandate to promote democracy worldwide and with which the CDG remains working in close partnership since 1996. You can find more information under

Augustin Loada
Driector, Center for Democratic Governance, Ouagadougou

Home affairs minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi on Tuesday for the first time lifted the lid on allegations of irregular expenditure, totalling millions of rands, in a written reply to the portfolio committee on home affairs.

Environmental activists and academics alike are realizing that a sustainable society must be a just one. Environmental degradation is almost always linked to questions of human equality and quality of life. Throughout the world, those segments of the population that have the least political power and are the most marginalized are selectively victimized by environmental crises. Just Sustainabilities argues that social and environmental justice within and between nations should be an integral part of the policies and agreements that promote sustainable development. The book addresses the links between environmental quality and human equality and between sustainability and environmental justice.

As usual, Pambazuka is essential reading. But, may I ask, why is there no reference this week to the political trial of Morgan Tsvangirai? As you know, along with several collegues in the IAPC, I am trying to encourage western press and media to take an interest in his case. Morgan ought to be the poster child of Amnesty International, but he is not even mentioned on their Zimbabwe webpage. Amnesty was, after all, established to bring to light the injustice suffered by political prisoners. Well, Tsvangirai and his MDC colleagues represent the most egregious case of political persecution taking place on the planet - but their plight seems to be invisible to Amnesty International, world press and media. Why?

There is ample media coverage of the trial in heavily censored Zimbabwe to feature one, two or even three items each week in Pambazuka. I am sure that you and your excellent staff know the relevant Zimbabwe websites.

I would like to thank you for everything you have done to make your readers aware of the trial of Morgan Tsvangirai in previous issues of Pambazuka News. Might I suggest that some of your readers would like to remain current on the appalling developments unfolding so brutally in a courtroom in Harare where the state is attempting to assassinate its political enemies by constitutional means.

Michael Carmichael
The Oxford Centre for Public Affairs, Oxford, UK

Only about half the countries of West Africa are on track to reach targets set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halving rates of severe poverty and hunger by 2015, according to a recent regional forum in Dakar, Senegal, organized by the UNDP Regional Support Centre there.

In the Shinyanga region of west central Tanzania, one of the poorest in the country, small-scale mining at Bulyanhulu once offered rural people an income about 6 times what they could make from farming. But in August of 1996, less than a year after President Benjamin W. Mkapa took office, that changed. According to eyewitness reports, affidavits, photographs, and even video by Tanzanian police, and in violation of an injunction from the High Court of Tanzania, eight entire settlements around the town of Kakola were razed, an estimated 200,000 miners or more were evicted from the mines, and in the process some 54 miners at Bulyanhulu were buried alive in mineshafts sealed by bulldozers. By July of 2001, the mine, now revamped as a huge high-tech operation, was officially opened with great fanfare by President Mkapa.

Expressing profound concern at the continuing armed conflict in Liberia and its toll on the civilian population, the United Nations human rights chief has urged all parties to the conflict to commit themselves immediately to the protection of civilians. In a statement issued from Geneva, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), Sergio Vieira de Mello, said he has continued to receive credible reports of serious abuses and violations of human rights and humanitarian law by both parties to the Liberian conflict.

Mountain Watch provides the first map-based overview of environmental change in mountain regions and its implications for sustainable development. New global maps are presented to illustrate selected values of mountain ecosystems and many of the pressures that are causing environmental change.

General elections in Liberia will go ahead as scheduled on 14 October "even in the midst of war" between government soldiers and rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), President Charles Taylor said on Friday.

Corruption in South Africa, gripe many locals, is as bad as in the rest of Africa. Poorly-paid policemen let offenders go in exchange for a few notes. Officials pocket pensions and other welfare payments they are supposed to pass on. Even the admired captain of the national cricket team, the late Hansie Cronje, was caught taking money from betting syndicates. Shady practice was long a problem during white rule, says President Thabo Mbeki, but he admits that it remains so today. In December, he promised to "fight graft and root out and defeat networks of corruption". This week, that promise gained some credibility. On March 19th, a court in Pretoria sentenced a senior politician to four years in jail. Tony Yengeni, who was until last year chief whip of the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), was found guilty of defrauding Parliament.

A parliamentary select committee this week recommended the government's controversial purchase of a luxury jet for King Mswati III should not go ahead.

Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa called on government leaders on Tuesday to increase transparency and to avoid hindering the media's attempts to disseminate information to the public.

Mali – a poor, landlocked country in West Africa – became the seventh Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) to reach ‘Completion Point’ under the World Bank and IMF’s enhanced HIPC initiative on March 7. Mali had already received some debt cancellation under HIPC. Mali is the first country for almost a year to receive any write-off of debt under the HIPC initiative, which campaigners have criticised for failing to keep to the schedules promised to the international Jubilee 2000 campaign.

President Thabo Mbeki will participate in his first major golf tournament, the inaugural Presidential Golf Classic 2003, to raise funds for youth development in the sport. Presidential spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said the tournament, to be hosted by the president, would be held at the Woodhill Country Club in Pretoria on March 22.

It has been argued that good governance is an integral element in the creation of the enabling environment of peace, security, the rule of law, legitimacy and stability, in which sustainable human development can be promoted. This paper presents a regional overview of the impact on poor people and disadvantaged groups of the failures of accountability of institutions of governance.

A prominent member of South Africa's governing African National Congress has been sentenced to four years in prison after he admitted defrauding parliament. Tony Yengeni, the former chief whip of South Africa's parliament, was sentenced in Pretoria.

This article looks at the current state of Internet access in the African countries of Ghana (in West Africa), Kenya (in East Africa) and South Africa. The different approaches for hooking onto the Internet backbone are discussed with a view to the availability and cost to Internet services for the community at large.