Lubumbashi (The Republic of Congo) It is busy at the gates of Bralima brewery in Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). About 60 men are waiting at the doors, hoping for them to open and someone to offer them work.

Their numbers have grown since the global economic crisis which has caused the collapse of the local mining industry.

The global economic crisis has hit the central African state hard. Especially the Katanga in the south eastern part of the sprawling country, a region that predominantly relies on the mining of copper and cobalt, has taken a big blow.

Since September 2008, the global demand for natural resources dropped and prices of commodities like copper and cobalt plummeted to all-time lows.

While copper lost over 50 percent of its value, cobalt — a mineral that is predominantly used to make rechargeable batteries and alloys — fell from a peak price of 52 dollars a pound in March 2008 to approximately 18 dollars nine months later.

As a result, over half of the 75 copper and cobalt mining companies operating in the Katanga province were forced to either fully suspend or slow down their production activities.

Subsequently 300,000 people lost their jobs and 60,000 more mine workers face retrenchment in the months to come, as there is no sign that copper and cobalt prices will recover any time soon.

One of the enterprises that suspended its production and processing activities in the Katanga is Anvil Mining. In December 2008, the Australian company, which is one of the leading copper producers in the DRC, announced that it would close its 90 percent-owned Dikulushi mine until further notice. Most of the 1,056 permanent and contract workers at the mine have been retrenched

Anvil Mining says that this decision will save the company around two million dollars per month.

“The Dikulushi mine is uneconomical at present,” explains Bill Turner, president and CEO of Anvil Mining, in a statement. “This decision has not been an easy one to make and is regrettable to our employees, communities that surround the mine and our stakeholders but we believe that it is the best option to preserve our cash resources until market conditions improve.”

Anvil also halted a new development project at its Kanseveré site, which saw 550 jobs being shed. “Of course it is a sad situation,” comments Charles Konya, the administrator of Anvil’s office in Lubumbashi, the provincial capital of the Katanga.

“But the mining industry has to do something,” he continues. “Since September last year, the global demand for copper and cobalt has plummeted. To survive, some companies have closed down completely until further notice. Others have postponed development projects. We hope that the copper price will recover and it will. The question is when this is going to happen.”

Meanwhile, the Congolese franc has lost almost half of its value. “Between October 2008 and early January 2009, the exchange rate dropped from 500 to almost 800 Francs for a dollar,” according to Marijke Splinter, a Dutch expatriate who resides in Lubumbashi.

“This has a tremendous impact on people’s lives, as many Congolese do not earn more than 100 dollars a month,” she adds. “Food prices, charcoal and cooking oil have increased in price too. I also see more and more beggars and children on the streets, compared to a few months ago.”

Eric Meert, who runs Bakanja Ville – a facility in Lubumbashi for street children – confirms Splinter’s observations.

“Up until recently, we knew every child that lived on the streets,” Meert explains. “Over the past weeks, however, we have seen quite a few new faces. This is definitely linked to the economic situation and the retrenchments in the mining industry.”

“Before the crisis, families were already struggling to take care of their children but the current developments have worsened the situation,” Meert states. “As a result, youngsters are sent onto the streets, either to work and to support their parents, or permanently.”

Meanwhile, MONUC, the UN Mission in the DRC, is keeping a close eye on security situation in the province. “The economic crisis is so alarming that we are assessing the social and security related problems which could result from the situation,” according to a MONUC press statement.

The authorities and reports in the local media indicate that violent crime in the city is on the increase. During the last week of December 2008, 11 people were killed in Lubumbashi, including a Chinese and a Lebanese. Two were killed in the town of Likasi.

“This development seems to spring from the crisis hitting the Katanga,” Lubumbashi’s mayor Marie-Gregoire Tambila argues. “At least, this is what we assume, as the attacks follow the influx of miners to Lubumbashi after the closure of various mining companies in Katanga.”

The mining crisis is slowly but surely trickling down to other businesses in the Katanga. “It is much quieter than a couple of months ago as many people have lost their jobs and income,” complains a woman who only gave her name as Sabine. She runs a small takeaway restaurant in Lubumbashi. “It seems that those who still have work are more careful with what they have, which is understandable. These are difficult times.”

source-Inter Press Service (IPS) – February 12, 2009.

Johannesburg (South Africa) – So Morgan Tsvangirai has been thoroughly screwed over, a victim of SA’s and the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC’s) divide-and-rule politics. Here is a man who won the elections in March last year under tyrannical circumstances, yet the Thabo Mbeki government and its allies refused to accept the outcome.

What they did instead was make life hell for Tsvangirai. They tolerated assassination attempts, the murder of hundreds, unspeakable acts of torture and rape, passport withdrawals, all with the intention of rendering Tsvangirai powerless. In the end, he was forced to surrender or be excluded.

Compelled to accept the less-powerful ministries of health, education, and finance, the Movement for Democratic Change looks on meekly as Mugabe retains control of the murderous army, police force and security establishment, while the seizure of farms, the muzzling of the media and the reluctance to release political prisoners continue apace. Ignored in the deal are Zimbabwe’s citizens, who are appalled at how the African Union (AU) and SADC continue to give credence to the despot.

It has been reported that at a meeting of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference and the Christian Alliance, delegates were not amused by South African President (Kgalema) Motlanthe’s calls for the immediate removal of sanctions� a move which casts doubt on South Africans’ sincerity in wanting to see genuine power-sharing. Who gave them the mandate to call for the removal of sanctions when they are on record that they are not in a position to prescribe anything for Zimbabweans?

DESPITE the grave misgivings of Zimbabwe’s own citizens, the European Union and the US about the deal, last week a former adviser to Mbeki, Tony Heard, waxed lyrical about this new deal’ in these pages , in an article that was more about him and his failed former boss than it was about democracy, justice and accountability. Diametrically opposed to the Washington Post’s editorial of February 5, which stridently condemns the government of national unity as SA’s campaign to preserve Robert Mugabe’s hold over a dying Zimbabwe, Heard’s diatribe was nothing but a shameful endorsement of a process and a tyrant that have been thoroughly discredited by the international community.

The collapse of Zimbabwe’s once-proud school system and the Zimbabwe dollar exemplify how one man can destroy an entire edifice in a flash, not to speak of that queen of avarice, Grace Mugabe, who continues to run riot, grabbing farms for her offspring, knowing her days are numbered.

What Mugabe and his kind demonstrate once again so true to the old script is how often, when liberation movements get into power, they appropriate the right even to determine what the nature of opposition should be. Denouncing the opposition as counter-revolutionary, they thwart their every effort to become an effective alternative to government. Slowly but surely all the institutions of democracy become weakened, starting with parliament, the judiciary, the independent institutions of parliament, the military and, finally, the media. In this maelstrom of democratic decline, the rule of law becomes the first casualty.

In the vampire state, elected officials use public office as the ladder to instant wealth. At 85, Mugabe is still ascending the ladder of greed, primitively accumulating wealth as he so primitively accumulated power, with SADC firmly holding the ladder lest he gets toppled. That SADC can call this a satisfactory conclusion to the Zimbabwe crisis, and call for the lifting of sanctions, proves that racial solidarity in the AU is a conspiracy of African leaders against the people who voted them into power.

They make former colonial powers seem rather benevolent in comparison.

* Kadalie is a human rights activist based in Cape Town.

�

source.Business Day (South Africa), by Rhoda Kadalie* – February 12, 2009.

Harare (Zimbabwe)� As Morgan Tsvangirai was being sworn in on 11 February as Zimbabwe’s new prime minister, a group of 30 human rights activists, members of his own party, and journalists remain in detention.

The government claims they were involved in military training in neighbouring Botswana to topple President Robert Mugabe, but the authorities in Botswana and the detainees have denied the allegations.

Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had demanded their release before being sworn into office as part of a power-sharing administration with Mugabe’s rival ZANU-PF party.

But Harrison Nkomo, the lawyer representing the jailed pro-democracy activists, including veteran broadcaster Jestina Mukoko, told IRIN that his clients were still in detention at the maximum security prison, Chikurubi.

“Despite earlier promises by the politicians that my clients would be released before the swearing in ceremony, they are still being held in detention. The problem is that the politicicians are saying that they will be released soon but ‘soon’, could be in June and that is not acceptable because some of them need urgent medical treatment which they have been denied since they were abducted last year.”

Mukoko’s organisation, the Zimbabwe Peace Project, was responsible for documenting human rights violations, especially by the military ahead of the 2008 presidential election run off, which included rape, murder and beatings. Mugabe was the sole contestant after Tsvangirai pulled out of the race citing the level of political violence.

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told IRIN that the release of the detainess was being pursued by Tsvangirai. “As the head of government, Mr Tsvangirai is handling that and I can not speak on his behalf as I am a party spokesman and not the spokesman of the Prime Minister.”

Tsvangirai was sworn in at State House by Mugabe at a private ceremony attended by government officials, diplomats and leaders from the region. The negotiated power-sharing deal between the opposition MDC and Mugabe’s ZANU-PF seeks to break the political deadlock after last year’s flawed elections, and create an opportunity to address Zimbabwe’s deep humanitarian crisis.

The swearing in of Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, the leader of a breakaway MDC faction as deputy prome minister, was welcomed with jubilation around the country, especially after Tsvangirai pledged to pay civil servants in foreign currency rather than the near useless Zimbabwe dollar.

“If we are to successfully address our nation’s humanitarian crisis, we must first address the urgent plight of our civil servants. As Prime Minister, I make this commitment that, as from the end of this month, our professionals in the civil service, every health worker, teacher, soldier and policeman will receive their pay in foreign currency until we are able to stabilise the economy.”

Finding the long-term resources to make good on the pledge will be one of the many challenges confronting the new unity government.

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)- February 12, 2009.

Harare (Zimbabwe)� A powerful symbolic reconciliation was staged in Harare on Feb. 11 when President Robert Mugabe administered an oath of office to make his bitter political rival Morgan Tsvangirai prime minister of a government of national unity.

But the continued incarceration of political prisoners linked to the Movement for Democratic Change is only one of the issues that threatens to cloud the much-awaited implementation of the power-sharing deal.

After the MDC faction led by Tsvangirai resolved on Jan. 30 to join a government of national unity to be led by President Mugabe as per recommendations of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders, the MDC-T leader issued a statement in which he categorically stated that he would not be joining the all-inclusive government unless and until all political prisoners were released by Feb. 1, the date set by SADC leaders for his swearing in as Prime Minister together with his two deputies.

“We (the MDC-T national council) resolved that all abductees be released unconditionally before the 11th of February,” said Tsvangirai on Jan. 30.

As part of a strategy to arm-twist Tsvangirai to the negotiating table, several MDC officials and supporters were abducted from their homes by state security agents between October and December 2008.

But Tsvangirai was at pains to reassure about 30,000 supporters who turned up to hear his inaugural address that he would spring the detainees from jail within 24 hours. He also named stabilising the economy as his first priority and pledged to pay soldiers and public sector workers’ salaries in foreign currency.

“I am aware there are political prisoners in prison,” said Tsvangirai. “I am not happy that they are still locked up. I wanted them to be here celebrating with us. This has not been possible but I want to assure you all that they will not stay any day longer in prison,” he said.

More than 30 political prisoners are being held in the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Prison on charges ranging from attempting to destabilise Zimbabwe to seeking to oust President Mugabe using violent means.

“Of the 30 political prisoners, 11 cannot be accounted for,” said Irene Petras, the director of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. “All the political prisoners urgently require medical treatment after being brutalized in custody by state security agents.”

Among those in prison is 72-year-old Fidelis Chiramba, the MDC-T district chairman for Zvimba South, President Mugabe’s rural home. According to court documents lodged by lawyers, Chiramba, along with several others, was subjected to an enforced disappearance at around 3 am by six heavily armed men on Oct. 30.

“He was heavily assaulted and subjected to beatings on the soles of his feet. He was put into a deep freezer, and then removed, had his clothes taken off and hot water poured on his genitals. He was made to parade naked in front of female abductees and his physical build mocked by his captors. He was never given medical treatment for his injuries,” reads the affidavit prepared by Petras.

Douglas Gwatidzo, president of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, has personally Chiramba and several other political prisoners.

“On 6 February, Mr. Chiramba was taken to the Avenue Clinic for treatment. He exhibited evidence of congestive cardiac failure secondary to severe hypertension. He still exhibits evidence of soft tissue injuries secondary to assault. His medical condition warrants admission and stabilisation in a functional and properly equipped hospital,” said Gwatidzo, in a statement issued to the media on Feb. 7.

He said Kisimusi Dlamini, MDC-T chief security officer, and Gandhi Mudzingwa, a former personal assistant to Tsvangirai, were also attended to on the same day and found to have serious medical conditions that needed hospitalisation. They are also still locked up in Chikurubi.

“We unreservedly condemn the continued denial of access to adequate medical treatment of persons detained at Chikurubi Maximum Prison following their alleged abduction and subsequent torture,” said Gwatidzo.

Petras, whose ZLHR is coordinating the legal representation of all those languishing in prison, said political prisoners remained incarcerated while politicians congratulated themselves about progress made in moving towards the establishment of an inclusive government.

“We believe that the manner in which Mr. Chiramba and his fellow political prisoners are being treated is a reflection of the lack of sincerity of politicians in ensuring that the security of all persons in Zimbabwe remains paramount,” she said.

Speaking on the eve of the swearing-in ceremony, Ernest Mudzengi, a political analyst with the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), a non-governmental organization drumming up support for a new people-driven constitution said Tsvangirai would be in a fix if he proceeded to be sworn-in while his supporters remained locked up.

“The fact that political prisoners are still in makes the whole agreement of the inclusive government tricky and controversial,” said Mudzengi.

“In all transitions usually there is a release of political prisoners before a major ceremony like tomorrow’s swearing in ceremony of Tsvangirai. If the swearing in of Tsvangirai is to usher in a new historic epoch, the political prisoners should be released. It they are not released it will appear as if the country is continuing under the old political dispensation,” he said.

source.Inter Press Service (IPS) – February 12, 2009.

SOUTH AFRICA: Growing food and money in the city

Photo: Lee Middleton/IRIN

A harvest and a livelihood

CAPE TOWN, 12 February 2009 (IRIN) – Nestled amongst an endless horizon of shacks in the impoverished informal settlements and townships on the Cape Flats near Cape Town, South Africa, there is a life-saving 5,000 square metre patch of green.

“This garden has changed my life,” said Phillipina Ndamane, 74, a member of the Fezeka Community Garden (FCG) in Gugulethu township. “We were suffering; we had no food to eat so we tried to make a garden,” she told IRIN.

The FCG, beneath towering electricity pylons, is one of 20 community gardens nurtured into existence by Abalimi Bezekhaya, an urban agriculture and environmental action association.

Since its inception in 1982 as Catholic Church project, from which it separated in 1994, Abalimi, meaning “The Planters” in Xhosa, has helped individuals, groups and community-based organisations to develop permanent organic food-growing and conservation projects as the basis for sustainable livelihoods, job creation and poverty alleviation.

Abalimi provides training and low-cost, subsidised gardening resources like manure, seeds, tools, and organic pest control at its two gardens in Nyanga and Khayelitsha townships, which are staffed by fieldworkers from those communities.

Every year around 3,000 micro-farmers make use of the gardens, but the benefits spill over into the wider target of roughly one million people who live in the vast informal sprawl on the outskirts of metropolitan Cape Town, where unemployment is around 40 percent.

Growing self-sufficiency

We were suffering; we had no food to eat so we tried to make a garden

Abalimi helps its farmers develop their own organic vegetable gardens to supplement their diet, improve household food and nutritional security, and provide sustainable additional income. The personal satisfaction, community building, and heightened self-esteem that come from growing food are added benefits.

“We didn’t know a lot of things like spinach, which is a healthy thing; we didn’t even know the green pepper! Now I eat green beans, and the children, they also like all these vegetables,” said Phillipina, who helps care for at least a dozen grandchildren.

“If this garden had been here before, I wouldn’t have gone to work outside as a domestic worker. As a domestic worker, you’re working for the money to pay for the vegetables. But in the garden, you grow your own veggies to eat or sell. You own it,” said Shaba Esitang, 78.

The advantages manifest not only on the dinner table: those who grow more than they need sell the surplus.

“They employ themselves – we’re there only to motivate and help,” said Abalimi’s operations manager, Christina Kaba, affectionately called “Mama Christina”.

A hopeful harvest

At Abalimi’s packing centre in Philippi township, half a dozen women and one young man wash and sort piles of brightly coloured vegetables and pack them into ‘weekly boxes’ of produce that are pre-ordered by families in the area.

With the assistance of the South African Institute of Entrepreneurship, ‘Harvest of Hope’ was created in early 2008 to provide a new market for excess produce. As a result, nearly 10 percent of the farming groups now earn a secure monthly income.

A box of vegetables sells for 95 rand (US$10), half of which goes directly to the farmer. Current output is around 120 boxes a week, according to Abalimi’s director, Rob Small, who maintains that the project could create one full-time job earning up to R3,000 ($300) a month on just 500 square meters of land.

Photo: Lee Middleton/IRIN

Packing provides the poor with jobs

“But it’s a farming job, not a 9-to-5, so that’s the tricky part: to inspire people to work that hard, and that’s where the limiting factor comes in – most people are waiting for something easier.”

“The biggest limiting factor is poor people not gaining quickly enough the skills and tools with which to supply the market. We’ve got enough farmers, but most are uneducated or semi-educated – some don’t know what a square meter is,” Small commented.

“If they had those skills and tools, and the ability to work consistently at a disciplined level, we could be supplying 600 boxes and more in the next month. The demand is definitely there.”

Despite the lack of alternative jobs, the youth have not shown any great enthusiasm. “Young people don’t want to even see the garden – they think gardens are done by poor and uneducated people. When I started, people laughed at me; they said, ‘How can you come to Cape Town to work in the soil like a rural area?’” Kaba said.

Small agreed. “Probably there wouldn’t be an urban agricultural movement in Cape Town if there wasn’t 40 percent unemployment, but it’s starting to be the case that bigger rewards are coming [from farming], and lately a lot of young faces are checking in,” he commented. “They’ve heard, and smelled the money, and once they get involved, who knows? They might even find they love farming.”

lm/tdm/he

 source. http://www.irinnews

Gaborone (Botswana) Thousands of mining jobs in Botswana are in jeopardy as diamond and other mineral sales dwindle and companies begin retrenching to cut costs. The Botswana Mine Workers Union (BMWU) have been locked in talks with management in an attempt to avert looming retrenchments as diamond sales plummeted in response to the global financial crisis.

Further declines in diamond sales are anticipated. Botswana has used its mineral wealth to enhance its development, unlike some of the continent’s other resource-rich countries, where minerals have often become a source of conflict.

“Diamond sales revenue is expected to decline by about 50 percent, as prices are estimated to decrease by 15 percent, while production is expected to reduce by 35 percent,” the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Baledzi Gaolathe, said in his recent 2009/10 budget address.

Per capita income has grown from US$80 to about $7,000 since Botswana gained independence from Britain in 1966. Government provides free education until the age of 13, and sponsors most tertiary education students. In response to the AIDS pandemic it has rolled out a huge antiretroviral programme through an established network of health clinics, and has built an infrastructure that is the envy of its neighbours. The country has held regular elections since independence and is viewed as a model democracy, and has also been an almost lone voice in the region against the excesses of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe.

In recent weeks, Debswana Diamond Company – a joint venture between South African diamond company De Beers and Botswana’s government – the world’s leading producer of diamonds by value, has been fervently trying to avert mine closures. Mine management and union officials have held a series of meetings ahead of the planned closure of two mines, Damtshaa Mine and Orapa Mine’s No. 2 plant, as well as possible job cuts at Letlhakane diamond mine, in central Botswana. The mines employ about 2,000 people.

“We are still in negotiations with the unions over the fate of the workers that have been affected by the closure of the two operations and are hoping to reach an agreement this week,” Debswana spokesperson Esther Kanaimba told IRIN. “We are going to look at many strategies so that damage to workers is minimal. Retrenchments will only be used as a last resort after all other strategies have been exhausted.” The mines have as yet not been closed.

Debswana employs about 6,500 people, accounting for about 2 percent of Botswana’s workforce, but general unemployment is still estimated as high as 40 percent. The country’s biggest employer is government, with nearly 300,000 employees, or more than one third of the workforce.

However, the diamond industry creates secondary industries and a fall in diamond production will have an impact on those, as well as on government revenues and therefore its ability to pay its workforce.

Bamangwato Concessions Limited (BCL), a copper mine in Selebi-Phikwe, northeastern Botswana, controlled jointly by the Botswana government and Norilsk Nickel Mining & Metallurgical Company, a Russian enterprise, has announced 348 retrenchments, but the job losses were put on hold by government in a move viewed as a political strategy ahead scheduled elections later in 2009.

Mine General Manager Montwedi Mphathi told local media recently that BCL could not reconcile labour costs – 40 percent of production costs – in the current economic climate. The retrenched employees, out of staff compliment of 4,000, will receive assistance and advice. “The Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) has agreed to provide counselling. They will be advised on how to use their exit packages and be enlightened on some of the possible projects they can venture into,” Mphathi said.

Moolman Mining has retrenched 177 workers, out of a planned 400, at its nickel plant in Mowana, central Botswana, but the labour department has become involved in the dispute after dissatisfaction was expressed over retrenchment packages.

“We believe that we are an indispensable stakeholder in this scenario,” said BMWU Secretary-General Jack Tlhagale. “Moolman should consult and negotiate with us instead of presenting a scantily thought out retrenchment package in which we had absolutely no input.”

�

source.UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) – February 12, 2009.