University Students and their take on the restoration of Presidential Term Limits

CCG LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN for the youths/students to contribute towards defining the national development agenda in the political, economic and social activities providing alternative remedies potraying how far Uganda has come and where it should be in the next 50 years.

 

One of the key consulattive areas is the debate on presidentail term limits. This debate has been ongoing for the last six months and has been informed by several processes including the Citizens Manifesto under the Uganda Governance Monitoring Platform. However, the voice of the youth has been lacking in all this.

 

Therefore, this campaign seeks to give an opportunity to the youths through dialogues, radio and televised debate, to voice out their views on the Restoration of Presidential Trem Limits; Vision 2040 and Uganda they would like to live in in the next 50 years (Vision 2062).

 

It is important to note that citizens action or inaction has important consequncies for democracy and good governance. Its also important to recognise that critically minded and informed individuals are the buiding blocks for an open, globally comptetitive society.

 

This campaign will, therefore, give an opportunity to the youths to play a central role in transforming the political discourse, organising and engage,emt in Uganda.

 

Follow this campaign on Facebook: center for constitutional governance; Twitter CCG @ccg _center; Googleplus: constitutional governance and our website: www.ccgea.org.

What’s the relevancy of the MO Ibrahim Foundation Index to you?

MO IBRAHIM FOUNDATION INDEX 2012

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which was set up six years ago, supports good governance and great leadership in Africa. The foundation which was established by the London-based Sudanese telecom tycoon, Mo Ibrahim, publishes an index, to promote good governance in Africa. It has become one of the standard tools for auditing governance in Africa. The category uses four categories in its assessment and these include: safety and rule of law; participation and human rights; sustainable economic opportunity and human development.

In general, human rights, political freedom, transparency and accountability have deteriorated in the four African “powerhouses” of South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya over the past six years. People’s freedom to participate in political processes has greatly declined.

"Given the vast natural and human resources of these four regional powers, these governance results are a concern," said Abdoulie Janneh, a board member of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which has published the index since 2007. "Each of these countries plays a key role in the economic and political landscape of the continent. To continue to optimally play this role requires a sustained commitment to balanced and equitable governance."

This year's index examines data from each of the four categories, which are broken down into 14 sub-categories, for each country between 2000 and 2011. It uses 88 indicators drawn from 23 independent data providers from Africa and internationally.

Mauritius came top in the overall index, followed by Cape Verde, Botswana and the Seychelles, continuing the same pattern as last year. Somalia was last, a position it has occupied since the index was first published. The country came last in each of the four category rankings. Somalia's overall score has declined since 2006. Tanzania moved into the top 10 for the first time this year, while Liberia, Sierra Leone and Angola registered significant improvements. Sudan and South Sudan were not included this year.

Speaking ahead of the index launch, the Sudanese-born philanthropist Mo Ibrahim told the Guardian that economic success cannot be allowed to overshadow human rights and democratic processes in Africa, a continent that has seen steady economic growth over the past 10 years, even during the "dark days of the financial crisis". "What we need in Africa is balanced development. Economic success cannot be a replacement for human rights or participation, or democracy … it doesn't work," he said. "It worries us a lot when we don't see the trickle-through factor, when gain goes to the top 1% or 2%, leaving the rest behind."

North Africa is an obvious example of the consequences of ignoring people's needs and rights, he added. "Literacy in Tunisia is almost 100%. It's amazing – no country in the region or even in Asia can match Tunisia in education. So we have wonderful human development achievement in education and health, etc. But hundreds of thousands of men and women who graduated from college cannot find work, and not only that but [they] look around and they see an oppressive, corrupt regime. Then you have a volatile mix."

Rwanda, which has risen two places in the overall ranking, to 23rd this year, is also an example of unbalanced development. Although the country ranks 16th and 11th for human development and sustainable economic opportunities respectively, up from 13th and 17th in 2011, it is 31st for safety and rule of law, down one place from last year and continuing a downward trend since 2006, and 29th for human rights and participation, although this is a rise of one place since last year. Last month, the EU partially froze aid to Rwanda over its alleged support of M23 rebel fighters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, following the US, Germany and the Netherlands. The UK had earlier suspended budget support over concerns about the country's human rights record. Britain has since unblocked a portion of this money.

Ibrahim said the governments in Kigali and Kinshasa need to be encouraged by their donors and "friends" to sit down and talk to solve the crisis. "I really think Rwanda is not just part of the problem but part of the solution and what we hope is for the different parties to sit together … and have constructive discussions," he said.

Overall, since 2000, governance in Africa has improved. Particular progress has been made in women's rights, said Ibrahim, although he acknowledged there was still a long way to go before gender equality is achieved. "We're very pleased. This is an area [in which] we're moving forward, but we're coming from a very low base," he said. It's easy to introduce new legislation against domestic violence or give women rights over land and in divorce cases, but it's much more difficult to change attitudes and the culture of "male supremacy", he said. "Education helps and the spread of information helps, and courageous, unflinching, uncompromising … political leadership is also required."

For the third time, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation decided not to award any one the prize for African leadership this year, as no one matched the judges' criteria.

The prize recognizes and celebrates excellence in African leadership, and provides winners with the opportunity to pursue their commitment to Africa once they have stepped down from office. It is awarded to a democratically elected former African head of state or government.

The prize committee said: "[We] reviewed a number of eligible candidates but none met the criteria needed to win this award. The award is about excellence in leadership. In the first six years the prize committee has selected three very worthy laureates who continue to be an inspiration and whose examples, we hope, will be emulated."

Previous prize winners have been former presidents Joacquim Chissano of Mozambique, Festus Mogae of Botswana and Pedro Pires of Cape Verde.

KAMPALA UNIVERSITY STUDENTS DETERMINE THEIR ROLE IN NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION

THE ROLE OF THE YOUTH IN NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION

Presentation to the students of Kampala University

By Ms Sarah Bireete

Director of Programmes

Center for Constitutional Governance (CCG)

Uganda has one of the largest populations of young people with 21.3% between 18-30 years according to the UBOS Statistical Abstract for 2010. The youthful population increases to 55.7% when you take the age category 6-30 years. The centrality of the youth in Uganda’s development therefore should be treated as a priority because our demographic trends characterized by a very young and youthful population.

According to the study on youths and unemployment in Africa, 83.3% of the Ugandan youth are unemployed and 93.8% of these are living on less than two dollars per day. This makes our youth one of the poorest in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa and has greatly contributed to the high dependency ratio of 1:1.17, the highest in Africa.

The youths have been treated as a special interest group and have political representation at different levels in local councils, local governments and in the national parliament. However, their representation sometimes has no clear and direct agendas that reflect the needs of young people to integrate in national dialogues and debate. The need to recognize the potential and allow for the fulfillment of young people’s potentials as active players in the transformation of the country. It is true that our society can make real progress if it has an enlightened, informed and engaged youth prepared to build a brighter future.

Institutions of higher learning are centers of Excellency and should promote highly intellectual and ideologically grounded discourse through debate and other mechanisms that encourage exchange of ideas in institutions of learning and the bigger society.

At one of our dialogues, young people – university students decided to start a campaign for ‘Love for Uganda and humanity’. This declaration was manifested in the GARUGA DECLARATION as the cornerstone to development and national transformation by the youth.

H.E THABO MBEKI, while commenting on students and activism in Africa stated that - “It’s true that by the time we grew up; there was a very vibrant intelligentia which was very much engaged in activism issues. But these days, there is too much intervention of the African states against the Universities. Governments see Universities as centers of opposition. This African intelligencia in the process got intimidated and the Universities have not yet recovered including financially and this calls for a conscious intervention by the African intellectuals.

"The progressive voice that was trying to define where Africa should go died away in regard to universities because of the manner in which the ruling groups in Africa acted against universities."

This in general has put Africa's progressive movement in retreat.”

There is an urgent need for an overhaul of our education system so that the system's products can have a direct link with what the employment market wants. The increasing unemployment rates in Uganda are not just a result of fewer jobs in the market, no; it has a lot to do with the capacity of the graduates to meet the employment demands including creativity and the capacity to create jobs.

The education system should be tailored to suit the employment demands/ to solve the challenges of the day. For example, currently, for every 10 graduates, only one graduate can get a job and the question that arises here is "where do the nine graduates go?", what happens to them, their families?

"The challenge, therefore, that I would like to pause to the youths- as the generation leaders - mind you, I will not pause this challenge to government because I know they do not have the capacity to provide a solution- the young people should study the development scenarios in Uganda, in East Africa, Africa and the World and systematically analyse the job demands and then design a programme/strategy of satisfying the available employment demands." This, in my view, is the only solution to the existing unemployment in the country.

Also based on this study, Universities should be able to design course units that will promote creative thinking, that will promote entrepreneurship, etc and in the end provide a lasting solution to unemployment crisis.

There is also urgent need for the mind shift by the youth/students themselves. Most students envisage employment only in terms of government jobs, public service jobs, big corporations, etc. This needs to change your thinking/altitude if you are going to be part of the solution to the unemployment puzzle in Uganda; if you are going to be positive agents of socio-economic change in this country.

For example, before the colonial era, Africans used to farm their gardens using locally made hoes by the blacksmiths. When the colonialists came, everything African, everything locally made, all our civilization was declared backward! And we gladly clapped and threw our creativity, our enterprennual skills, and our development out of the window. And now we are completely stuck with 80% of our population as peasants- walking bare footed, tilling the land with imported hoes from China, and with no market for their products!  A big chuck of our population is stuck in poverty, malnutrition, disease, hunger and we are all watching helplessly!

We tend to be comfortable with announcements about how our GDP has increased, about how our economy can grow every year, but the question that the youths should be asking is WHOSE ECONOMY IS GROWING? IS THIS THE ECONOMY OF THE PEASANTS - THE 80% OR OF ABOUT 4 % OF UGANDANS?

The youth must interrogate these statistics, they must demand for details. Because, and this is very serious, after these announcements, year after year, the real Ugandans, rural or urban, are becoming poorer and poorer.

The youths/students must devise ways of changing the status quo because the status quo does not favour them. "The planners of the country are not bothered about your lives, your future, YOU MUST PLAN FOR YOUR SELVES".

The Theme of the day – transformation

The big question that arises now is why are we still talking about transformation now???? What are the key challenges??

Today's governance is characterized by a breakdown of institutions; abuse of the trust ship duty by government; Land grabbing; corruption; lack of economic justice; dehumanization, unemployment; barefooted people and the  jiggers epidemic in the 21st century, among others.

It’s important to note that if a government does not pay attention to its people, then foreigners will automatically occupy the vacuum. Classical examples to explain this scenario is the Cuba and the Libya revolutions. Both Gaddafi and Fidel Castro claimed to be revolutionary leaders but because the Cuban government takes care of its people, USA has failed for decades to overthrow the Cuban revolution. But in Libya, because the "revolution" did not pay attention to its people, the USA swept it out in a few months.

What kind of mind shift should the young people have in order to transform this nation? Why have countries like Malaysia and Singapore developed and Uganda is still struggling with Jiggers?

The time has come for the youth to take their country seriously and conquer their fear in order to take the necessary steps and deliver the much needed transformation.

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo

Former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria stated that - The youths are the foundation of a society. Their energy, inventiveness, character and orientation define the pace of development and the security of a nation. Through their creative talents and labour power, a nation makes giant strides in economic development and socio-political attainments. In their dreams and hopes, a nation finds her motivation; on their energies, she builds her vitality and purpose. And because of their dreams and aspirations, the future of a nation is assured -

Examples of the required transformation:
1. How can the youth ensure that we build better democracy and governance practices?
2. What are the youth obligations to themselves, their communities and to the nation?
3. The youth enjoy some rights but what are the obligations that accrue from the rights that they enjoy?
4. How can the youth demand for accountability using their right of access to information?
5. How can the youth hold their different leaders accountable (the Executive, Parliament, Local Councils and the Youth Councils)?
6. How can the youth demand effective service delivery?

The youth, can indeed achieve all the above and much more if they are committed and make clear demands to the responsible people.

Uganda is a unique country in the World because for its fifty years of Independence, Ugandans have never witnessed peaceful handover of power! We can only achieve regime change by using violence! This is critical for the young people in Uganda today to engage because 80% of our population is composed of young people. Why should the young people allow the 20% to dominate them?

What kind of Uganda can the young people bring about??
1. A country back on the road to constitutional governance and democracy

2. Ugandans feeling a sense of belonging, security, and peace

3. A country where each person's views are respected and tolerated

4. A country where citizens enjoy their rights and exercise free political processes

5. A corruption free country

6. A country where everybody is valued and respected.

The future of Uganda is in your hands and like the Americans say "Ask not what your country has done for you, ask what you have done for your country."

And as I conclude, I will leave you with the words of Franz Fannon who stated that "Every generation has got its cause and it’s their duty either to fulfill or betray it".

THE TIME FOR THE YOUNG PEOPLE TO RE- AFFIRM THEIR ZEAL AND DEFEND THEIR MOTHERLAND IS NOW!

FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY

HAS UGANDA ENGAGED A CRITICAL MASS THAT IS READY TO BUILD A BRIGHT FUTURE?

TAKING STOCK OF UGANDA'S MULTI PARTY DEMOCRACY

Uganda embraced the return to multi party politics in 2006 after major constitutional amendments in the 1995 Constitution. This was followed with the necessary amendments in the Political Parties and Organisations Act to allow political parties more freedoms to function normally.

There are, however, key political and governance issues that need to be addressed for multi party politics to take deep root in Uganda. Challenges in general, range from electoral processes that lack legitimacy and failure to carry out required electoral reforms; low capacity of the various political parties to reach out to the population; governance safeguards embedded in the legal regimes and their implementation; clear and updated voter registers acceptable by all stakeholders; early warning systems for electoral violence and how it should be avoided and/or managed; free and fair competition for state power; political and civil rights; to mention but a few.

Another key challenge facing Uganda's democracy today is the active role of the military in our politics. This started right after independence when there was mutiny in East Africa but Tanzania and Kenya downgraded their armies whereas Uganda co-opted her army into politics. There is need, therefore, to determine the future role of Uganda's military in our politics by all stakeholders.

It is important to note that a society cannot make real progress unless it has enlightened, informed and engaged a critical mass of its population prepared to act to build a brighter future. The fundamental problem in our society today is the under developed but sometimes suppressed political culture evidenced in the operations of various political parties/players as well as the State and its institutions which undermine and erode the very basic democratic foundations of the state and wider society.

What are your views?

WHAT ARE THE GLOBAL CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES TO OUR ENVIRONMENT?

WHAT ARE THE GLOBAL CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES TO THE ENVIRONMENT?

By Ms Sarah Bireete

Director of Programmes

Center for Constitutional Governance (CCG)

A- Definitions:

Environment means the complex set of physical, geographic, biological, social, cultural and political conditions that surround an individual or organism and that ultimately determines its form and nature of its survival.

Ecosystem means a dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment interacting as a functional unit.

Climate change means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.

Hazardous waste means a waste which, because of its quantity, concentration, or characteristics, may be hazardous to human health or the environment when improperly treated, stored, transported, or disposed.

Natural resources means renewable and non renewable resources, tangible and non tangible, such as minerals, climate, soil, water, flora and fauna.

Ozone layer means the layer of atmospheric ozone above the planetary boundary layer.

B - Law Applicable:

1. The Environment Act (EA)

2. NEMA Act (National Environmental Management Act)

3. Protocol on Environmental and Natural Resources- EAC

4. The Kyoto Protocol - The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992

C - Common Law Principle on environmental damage:

The "Rule in Rylands v Fletcher"; that "the person who for his own purpose brings on his lands and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief, if it escapes, must keep it in at his peril, and if he does not do so, is prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape".

This doctrine was further developed by English courts, and made an immediate impact on the law. Prior to Rylands, English courts had not based their decisions in similar cases on strict liability and had focused on the intention behind the actions rather than the nature of the actions themselves. In contrast, Rylandsimposed strict liability on those found detrimental in such a fashion without having to prove a duty of care or negligence, which brought the law into line with that relating to public reservoirs and marked a significant doctrinal shift. Academics have criticised it, however, both for the economic damage such a doctrine could cause and for its limited applicability.

The exception to the rule in Fletcher’s case on damaging the environment – is the act of God.

But what happens if the act of god is provoked by man’s actions like deforestation, bush burning, dumping, radioactivity, mineral refining, etc that have resulted into unpredictable weather changes, flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, etc?

Global warming and the tipping point:

This is the hottest decade on record in Africa - Read “To cook a continent - destructive extraction and the climate crisis in Africa" by Nimmo Bassey, which raises the need for a bidding agreement; bridging the emissions gap and fundamental transformation among others.

Issues:

- How can we pursue Africa’s climate justice?

- Who is producing the carbon emissions and why should Africa pay the price?

- The US and China and other developing countries have destroyed the environment and they should pay environment reparations to Africa

- How best can Africa develop/ industrialize but at the same time maintain its eco system balance- the mabira forest debate?

Cascading negative effects of global warming -

Rising temperatures, increasing warm spells and decreased number of cold nights, continued decreases in precipitation, impacts on hydrological systems, increased desertification, disasters of increasing frequency and intensity, effects on agricultural productivity, etc

The big question here is: How can we control the damage?

Like Archibishop Desmond Tutu put it "Condeming Africa to an incineration". Look at whats happening in the extractive industries, refineries, dumping, oil spills, deforestation, forest burning, etc.

Global warming requires earth democracy:

The right to live and exist, the right to be respected, the right to re-generate its bio capacity and to continue its vital cycles and processes free of human alteration, the right to clean water as a source of life, the right to clean air and the right to comprehensive health.

Climate change requires system change. Like Amilcar Cabral put it "And in our time, with the progressive democratization of atomic energy, it is possible to promise, if not take men to the stars, at least to humanize the universe."

Conclusion:

What environmental challenges are we faced with as a country - taking into consideration upstream and downstream petroleum activities (challenges with our new found black gold – oil)?

It’s important to note that the activities in the sector will have a profound and long lasting impact on the environment. Environmental Impact Assessments is a legal requirement for any investment plans/programmes in Uganda. The EIA so far carried out on oil have fundamental flaws yet pollution is one of the major effects of oil exploration and production. Whereas the already existing legislation on the environment have capacities to control pollution during oil exploration, it is reported that local people are already affected by the strong bad smell from the mud pits that are dug during oil exploration and moreover the mud pits have been deposed properly.

The current EIA reports have no mitigation measures and monitoring for the identified impacts; they lacks a comprehensive environmental management plans to deal with biodiversity, air quality, water, fisheries, wastes, oil spills and pollution, affected communities, tourism; there is no Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment and yet a number of oil drilling sites; limited public participation; and most documents such as EIA reports are written in English an official language and yet some Ugandans especially in rural areas cannot read it.

There is need to:

§ Put in place the health and Safety Measures.Health and safety measures are crucial in oil exploration and production because the activities are dangerous to people.

The Oil and Gas Policy makes provisions for protection against activities that affect health but with limited specialized institutions/capacity to handle petroleum management issues. Shortage of skilled of personnel in the field of petroleum geo-sciences, petroleum negotiation skills and limited local participation in the petroleum and gas industry activities.

These specific concerns must be addressed to their logical conclusion especially considering the fact that the oil region in western Uganda is a key ecological area.

PROMOTE EARTH DEMOCRACY FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE AND A HEALTHY LIVING.

THE BLACK EXPERIENCE BETWEEN THE GLOBAL WAR AND UNIVERSAL PEACE

THE BLACK EXPERIENCE BETWEEN GLOBAL WAR AND UNIVERSAL PEACE:

FROM ENSLAVEMENT TO ENLISTMENT

By Ali A. Mazrui, Director, Institute of Global Cultural Studies and Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities

Binghamton University

State University of New York at Binghamton, New York, USA

Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large Emeritus

and Senior Scholar In Africana Studies

Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA

A RACIAL PARADIGM OF WORLD ORDER: THE ARGUMENT

When is the story-teller part of the story? This paper has been based on African elite views of world order and world security. The author is himself a member of the African intellectual and media elites. Can this story-teller disentangle himself from the story? This author has not too sharply separated the participant from the observer.

Partly because African history and the Black experience were profoundly affected by racism and imperialism, African perspectives on the world system are influenced by a fear of imperialism and a profound suspicion of racism. The paper has tried to indicate how this has given rise to a race-centric worldview and a racial paradigm of world order.

In the African experience, as in the Irish experience, the past is part and parcel of the present. The day-before-yesterday is part of today.

Samuel Huntington is wrong that the clash of civilizations is something to be confronted after the end of the Cold War. The Western world has made sure there have been clashes of civilizations for the last four hundred years — inspired by Western racism.

We have identified the following waves:

The FIRST wave of racio-cultural confrontation was the peopling of the Americas in a manner which involved large scale decimation of native American populations. This was the genocidal phase of history.

Should we characterize the trans Atlantic slave trade as the SECOND wave of racio-cultural confrontation? — resulting in the enslavement phase and export of millions of Africans to the so-called new world.

For many Africans this horrendous past lives on in the present. This history has been an impediment to Black military and upward social mobility.

The THIRD wave of racio-cultural confrontation was Europe’s colonization of much of the rest of the world — Asia, Africa, Latin America and the islands on the sea. The era of the West triumphant. This was the imperial phase.

The colonial past is central to the post-colonial present: Once again history is impediment to economic and military security.

FOURTH wave of racio-cultural confrontation is the present one of military discrimination and economic stratification. This is the hegemonic phase.

White countries may have nuclear weapons but darker races should be denied. Israel may have weapons of mass destruction, but Muslims in the Middle East may not. The United States may use chemical weapons against Vietnam and use nuclear weapons against Japan in World War I, but Middle Eastern countries may not develop either weapons.

The greatest economic victims of the new racial cold war are Black people; greatest military victims are Muslims. More than 500,000 have been killed by westerners since 1980. These had happened before the Iraq War of George W. Bush.

Curiously enough the two world wars of the twentieth century were initially intra-civilizational — starting as European civil wars. But they coincided with a period of history when Europe was calling the tune in most of the rest of the world.

In reality two factors turned European civil wars into world wars — the involvement of European empires and the cooptation of the United States. But for Africa World War II was also a positive development. It weakened the European powers, stimulated anti-colonialism and set the stage for genuine decolonization and independence. For Africa World War II was, on balance, a liberating experience — terrible as it was for Europe and parts of Asia.

The Cold War was also a liberating and trans-racializing experience. White Russians were supporting Black liberation movements against White minority governments in southern Africa.

Karl Marx and V. I. Lenin — two White men — were the icons of millions of people of colour. Oppression and liberation were deemed to be race-neutral. The liberation of Portuguese Africa and southern Africa might have been delayed for a generation if there had been no armed struggle.

And armed struggle was made possible by an alliance between Black nationalist fighters and white socialist governments who provided Africans with arms. 4

The Chinese were also major allies of Black liberation fighters in Southern Africa. Once again the Cold War was a trans-racializing experience.

The end of the Cold War has threatened those trans-racializing tendencies. Russia is now too weak to be a major player in North-South relations. Western moral commitment to Africa has drastically slackened.

Racism has increased in Western Europe and has emerged in Eastern and central Europe. Affirmative action and other civil rights gains are under threat in the United States. The shadow of global apartheid hangs over the world system with a structure of it in the form of a racial pyramid — White-ruled countries at the top, east Asian countries next, South East Asian next, South Asia and Arabs after that black people have been pushed to the bottom.

And yet the solution preferred by Africa is not "leave us alone." The solution has three parts.

To avoid further imperialism from outside, Africa would police itself more efficiently. A system of

Pax Africana needs to be developed — stronger African states coming to the rescue of weaker ones. This is partly RACIAL SOVEREIGNTY as a principle.

So the issue of military security, the preferred option is regional self-reliance. ECOMOG in Liberia — "Bay of Pigs" in Rwanda — Pan African sanctions against atrocities in Sierra Leone and Liberia. 

On the issue of economic security, Africa has to sell its minerals and its agricultural products. It does not want to opt out of the world economy. It simply wants a fairer basis for global economic interchange and pricing system.

If a motto was needed for this strategy it would be "Military Regionalism and Economic Globalism." On the whole, regions should solve their own military problems at the regional level. But in economics, the scale has become global.

On the issue of racial rehabilitation, Africa demands compensation for hundreds of years of enslavement, exploitation and racial degradation.

—Jews got compensated for the Holocaust

—Japanese-American internees in World War II got compensated by the USA.

—Kuwait got compensated by Iraq for Iraqi aggression.

—Steps towards making it up t the Aborigenese of Australia are beginning to be taken

I and eleven others were sworn before African presidents as a Group of Eminent Persons on Reparation. But what kind of reparations? The options include the following:

—

Capital Transfer (like the Marshall Plan)

—

Skill Transfer (to transform the educational and skill capacities of the Black people)

—

Power-sharing, giving Africa access to such citadels as the veto or permanent membership of the Security Council and weighted membership on governing bodies of World Bank and IMF.

In the military field regional self-reliance should be consolidated as much as possible. In the economic field, equitable global interdependence in trade, investment and, where appropriate, foreign aid would be promoted.

In the racial field there would be a long drawn out struggle to bring the western conscience to the level when it can one day accept the principle of compensation for the awful damage to Black people — a damage which is here and now, and not simply a page in history.

The past is now — and it casts a shadow on perspectives of world security and on the search for enduring solutions.

APPENDIX

WORLD WAR AND CONTRASTING CONSEQUENCES

Intra-Civilizational Conflicts in the Northern hemisphere can have positive consequences for the Southern hemisphere.

The pessimist

"When two elephants fight it is the grass which suffers"

"When two elephants make love, it is still the grass which suffers."

The optimist

"When two elephants make love, they are too busy to eat the grass."

<><>
<><>
<><> <><>
<><>
<><> <><>

WORLD WAR II: CONTRASTING CONSEQUENCES Destructive for Europe

Liberating for Africa and much of Asia

German expansionism Destruction of principles of sovereignty (Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, etc.). Occupation and humiliation of France Destruction of major European cities by aerial bombardments Death of many millions of Europeans as war casualties Nazi war crimes and crimes against humanity with special reference to the death camps for Jews, Gypsies and other condemned minorities.

Liberating for Africa and much of Asia Weakened the might of the imperial powers France and Belgium were humiliated as imperial powers The war undermined the mystique of the invincibility of the white man — sometimes by cutting him down from demi-God to fellow human The war internationalized the horizons of the colonized peoples as they tried to follow war news blow by blow The Africans who fought in the war came back home with new attitudes against being colonized. The rhetoric of the war was for "Freedom." Well, what about freedom for the colonies? The war diminished Europe in world politics and gave birth to two anti-imperial superpowers. The USA and the USSR. The war gave birth to the UN