Tech and African Culture

 

The sudden growth of cell phones has outpaced any other new technology in Africa.

But a unique cell phone culture has evolved that combines necessity with traditional community values.

“Most cell phone owners in West Africa, for example, tend to serve as points of presence or communication nodes for their community. Other people pay them or simply borrow their phones to make calls to relatives or friends,” said Francis Nyamnjoh, a sociologist with the University of Botswana.

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Mr. Nyamnjoh cites a study commissioned by the investment banking arm of Merrill Lynch that found Africa is an ideal market for telephones but demand had never been satisfied before cell phones because of the limitations of the older fixed-line phone system.

The Internet is a slow-starter in Africa because of the expense of home computers and dependency on erratic electricity supply and connectivity to the landline phone system. But cell phones are relatively inexpensive and require no waiting period to acquire.

“Traditional African culture with its emphasis on palaver and oral storytelling boosts phone use as a means of social and family contact. In contrast, you find a terse type of communication in the West, because people don’t like to ‘waste time’ on the phone,” said Connie Manuel, a business consultant in Maputo, Mozambique.

“Contrary to popular opinion, sociality, interdependence and conviviality are not always a liability to profitability,” said Mr. Nyamnjoh.

He said the impact of cell phones on African culture can be measured by the proliferation of the devices and how they are used. In Cameroon, for instance, only 87,000 landline users exist, with their number limited by the expense of stringing wires to remote areas. Cell phone users rose from zero when MTN-Cameroon cellular phone provider began its service to 200,000 users 18 months later. Swaziland’s cell phone users surpassed landline users within two years of the introduction of mobile phones.

The more loquacious a people tend to be, the greater the second measurement of cell phone impact: average revenue per user (ARPU). Nigeria has one-sixth of South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, but the average Nigerian cell phone owner uses his or her instrument five times more than his or her South African counterpart. The United States has 1,000 times Nigeria’s GDP per capita, but revenue earned from an average Nigerian cell phone is twice that of an American user.

For a country with a low level of economic activity relative to the developed world, Nigeria has a high level of minutes of use, according to the Merrill Lynch report. On a monthly basis in Nigeria, the average cell phone is used for 200 minutes per week, compared to 154 in France, 149 in Japan, 120 in Britain, and 88 in Germany, said the report.

“This could be explained by Nigerians receiving more calls than they make, and also by the reality of single-owner-multi-user communities,” said Mr. Nyamnjoh. “This suggests that the economic and social value of a cell phone in countries like Nigeria and Cameroon are very high.”

Penangnini Toure, a consultant in Mali with the UN Children’s Fund, said, “People give the number of a friend’s cell phone to other friends, and they leave messages with him. The friend becomes a communications center. This has led to entrepreneurship. People will invest in a cell phone, and they charge people to use it.”

The problem is Mali is not obtaining a cell phone, which can be purchased easily, but obtaining a cell phone number from the country’s single cellular service provider. UN consultant Toure has waited a year thus far to be issued a number. But individuals who become mobile phone boxes with their Nokia or Siemens units can be found literally from Cape Town to Cairo.

“There’s no doubt the cell phone has contributed to economic development and social contact,” said Teresa Atogiyire, senior editor at the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation. “You have people selling phone calls by the unit, which are about 300 to 600 shillings.”

One U.S. dollar is about 1,800 shillings.

More intriguing is the way clever entrepreneurs have handled the Ugandan hills that can cut off cell phones from transmission signals, rendering the instruments inoperative. The answer is “cell phone towers.”

“These guys, they build tall towers out of timber and stones on top of hills, and put a platform on top. Up there, you can pick up a cell phone signal. A user pays 600 shillings to climb a ladder and make a call. It’s much easier than taking a bus to a place which has a signal,” she said.

African nations differ, and Kagire Danson, publisher of Central African Media Agency in Kigali, said, “Rwandans are a very proud people. We don’t share. A cell phone is considered a status symbol.”

However, Mr. Danson admits he usually takes messages for family members and friends not yet connected to the cellular system.

“A person who is at a communications center becomes important,” said Sam Ndwandwe, a communications specialist in Swaziland. “That is why Swaziland’s 300 chiefs want government to give the chiefs’ runners cell phones, because the chief’s runner is traditionally the voice of the community and the chief’s conduit to the people. How can a chief’s runner not have a cell phone?”.

Immigration Laws

 

Setting out new rights for minorities is a dance of half a step forward and two steps back, say human rights activists.

The half-step forward comes with the announcement by Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy that he is ready to partially revoke the so-called double sanction against immigrants convicted of a crime. This double sanction means that the convicted first serve their sentence, and then they are expelled.

Legal experts say the convicted are being punished twice for one crime, and have been pleading for years for an end to these double blows, particularly on immigrants who have strong family or social ties in France.

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In an Oct. 26 radio interview, Mr. Sarkozy said that the double sanction could be applied only to convicted immigrants with short-term residence. “All foreign criminals with a residence permit issued less than a year before the committing of a crime should be expelled after they have served their sentence,” he said.

Mr. Sarkozy clarified that these were his views, and that he had not discussed a revision of the double sanction either with Prime Minister Jean Pierre Raffarin or with Minister for Justice Dominique Perben. But, following the Sarkozy comments, the Ministry of Justice announced it would review the practice of expelling immigrants.

Legal experts and human rights activists called the Sarkozy announcement “a considerable improvement.” Bernard Bolze, president of One Sanction, a group which has been campaigning against this practice for years, said: “This is very good news. We have been waiting for such an improvement for a long time.”

The campaign against double sanctions has peaked over reports of imminent expulsion of two Algerians. They are ChŽrif Bouchelag, 32, born in Algeria, but who has lived in France since he was 11-years-old, and Mamar Douani, 40, who was born in France, has lived all his life here, but has Algerian nationality.

Mr. Bouchelag was convicted for drug trafficking and Mr. Douani for several other crimes. Both have served their prison sentences. Mr. Douani has spent 17 years in jail. His wife is expecting their first child.

Novelist Nancy Houston has written to Mr. Sarkozy that Mr. Douani will face ruin if he is expelled. “During his prison years, Mamar Douani took lessons to learn a job,” she wrote. “Armed with an uncommon will, he successfully passed his bachelor’s degree, and became a renowned cook. Having paid his debt to society, all he wants is the chance to take part in French life as a normal citizen, with his wife and his child.”

Despite the apparent concessions announced, human rights and legal groups continue to protest other laws affecting immigrants.

A new law on internal security approved by the council of ministers particularly targets minority groups. It envisages strong sanctions against gypsies, foreign beggars and prostitutes, and children of immigrants.

This new law, which is due to come into force before the end of the year, makes parking vehicles by gypsies in open spaces a crime. It will also criminalize what it calls “abusive” meetings in social housing projects, and “aggressive” begging.

Mr. Sarkozy has defended the proposed laws. The laws will restore “the authority of the state in the whole country, and answers to the cry of desperation raised by French people during the electoral campaigns in the spring,” he said.

More than six million voters, out of a total 41 million, supported neo-fascist presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in May. Both Le Pen and rival candidate President Jacques Chirac condemned what they called the vacillations of the former Socialist government in fighting crime.

Power in Congo

 

On paper, the chances of an end to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have never been so good.

The warring parties in the conflict, in which more than two million civilians are estimated to have died, mainly due to starvation and disease, were scheduled to soon sign an “in principle” peace-deal, in South Africa.

The latest deal was brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki and United Nations special envoy, Moustapha Niasse.

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This is the first time that the two main armed rebel groups in the DRC–the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RDC) and the Congo Liberation Movement (MLC) – and the country’s government have agreed on a power-sharing deal.

Other political and civil society groups in the DRC also have given the agreement a cautious thumbs-up.

In terms of the agreement, DRC President Joseph Kabila will become the head of a planned transitional government. The last round of negotiations in South Africa, held earlier this year, stumbled to a halt after the DRC government refused to budge on rebel demands that Mr. Kabila step down.

However, President Kabila will now have four vice-presidents, who will represent the present DRC government, the RCD, the MLC, and one who will act for other political parties and civil society in the country. This interim government will prepare the way for democratic elections.

After the deal is signed in the first week in November, there will be a two-week break in the talks. They are scheduled to resume on Nov. 15, when the parties will work out exactly how power in the Congo will be shared and who will get what cabinet posts.

However, some South African observers, who have been following the talks closely are still concerned that the peace deal may run into resistance on the ground in the Congo. They point out that local and regional warlords, who have used the conflict to get rich, have no vested interest in building peace.

However, the withdrawal of foreign troops, who were drawn into the DRC conflict, is seen as a real move towards peace. The DRC rebel groups were backed by Rwanda and Uganda, while the DRC government received military support from Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola.

At the height of the war, there were well over 50,000 troops from seven different African states fighting in the Congo.

The last Zimbabwean, Angolan and Namibian troops left the Congo in early November. Rwanda had already withdrawn its forces. Uganda is keeping some troops in the Congo at the request of the UN to help maintain security in the vast Central African country.

Mr. Mbeki will meet with Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kigame, in South Africa to assess progress towards peace in the Congo and the Great Lakes region.

The Great Lakes Region comprises the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Zambia.

In the meantime, the Transitional Government of Burundi and the armed rebel group, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD), entered into cease-fire negotiations in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The two parties met in committees in which experts from the two sides negotiated technical details of the draft cease fire agreement, according to South African Deputy President, Jacob Zuma, who is facilitating the Burundi peace talks.

Mr. Zuma also met with another Burundian rebel group, the Palipehutu Forces for National Liberation (Palipehutu-FNL), in an effort to get them to join the talks. However, they indicated that they did not have a mandate to negotiate with the Burundi transitional government until their demands had been met. These include that the Burundi government officially recognize the group, enforce the return of all government soldiers to their barracks and suspend all criminal courts, among others. Mr. Zuma does not plan to hold further meetings with the Palipehutu-FNL.

South Africa as chair of the African Union has been pushing hard to end the conflict in the Congo and the Great Lakes region. International support for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)–the social and economic development program of the African Union–is broadly dependent on improving political and security stability on the continent.

Pay Zimbabwe

 

The British official who chaired Zimbabwe’s independence process has called on the UK government to meet its promises in helping pay for land resettlement and agricultural reform that has been at the center of controversy in this southern African country.

Lord Peter Carrington says money set aside at the time of the Lancaster House negotiations at independence should be used to compensate the resettled White farmers. The British government has, however, rejected the proposal, although it is reportedly sitting on a pot of 36 million pounds offered to Zimbabwe last year.

When Zimbabwe gained independence in 1979, the London government promised to help with the cost of resettlement, but it transferred to Harare only 45 million pounds before the program ground to a halt in 1996. Despite two attempts to restart it, the British fund has remained frozen.

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Mr. Carring-ton said the program was started in good faith, but halted amid suspicions over how the funds were used. He said suspicions arose that Mr. Mugabe was confiscating lands from White farmers, not paying them anything, and giving the land to his allies. So the British government at the time decided to cut the funding for land resettlement.

The British government blames the Mu-gabe administration for failing to ensure orderly resettlement. However, some campaigners criticized the British government for making unrealistic conditions.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) President Colin Cloete and Director David Hasluck have resigned as divisions within the White farmers group widened.

Messrs. Cloete and Hasluck recently announced their resignations in separate statements. The CFU has witnessed internal bickering about how to respond to Pres. Mugabe’s controversial land resettlement program that seizes land from White farmers and resettles it with Black peasants and war veterans. The land is confiscated without compensation.

While the union has been vacillating between dialogue with the government and confrontation in the courts as the best way to resolve the land seizure issue, Mr. Hasluck raised eyebrows recently when he criticized Britain for failing to help pay compensation to White farmers who have been forced off their land as Britain had promised the Mugabe government.

Pres. Mugabe has accused Britain of reneging on the promise, but Britain rejects the accusation, saying it will only support land reform that is fair and transparent and reduces poverty.

So far the government has forcibly acquired 9154 White-owned farms covering more than 40 million acres. The government says it has resettled 300,000 landless blacks on the land.

In Cape Town, South Africa, British Defense Secretary Geoffrey Hoon withstood a scathing attack on British policies toward Zimbabwe by ruling party African National Congress (ANC) MPs.

During a briefing to Parlia-ment’s defense and foreign affairs committees, the MPs said Britain is to blame for the situation in Zimbabwe, not Pres. Mugabe.

Mr. Hoon said Britain was ready and willing to provide funds for land reform in Zimbabwe, but insisted it must be undertaken in terms of the rule of law. He said Britain was not prepared to hand over money that would end up in the pockets of those exploiting the situation.

The MPs accused Britain of having contributed to the “demise” of Zimbabwe and of having “reneged” on Lancaster House undertakings.

Better Way

 

White Farmers Reaping

 

David Hasluck asks a question that has been asked for nearly a century in this southern African country.  Only this time, the question comes from the other side of the table.

“Where’s the justice in this?” he ponders, speaking to Black reporters from America on the spacious property that houses the Commercial Farmers Union building on the outskirts of this capital city.

Mr. Hasluck and his 3,000-member union has to grapple with the “fast track” land reform program of President Robert Mugabe. They are angry because the program usurps hundreds of thousands of acres of White-owned farmland without compensation and places it in the hands of landless Black peasants and liberation war veterans. It is a process, to some extent, witnessed by Blacks during the early days of colonial occupation of the land.

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After more than two decades of a failed policy of giving back land to Blacks, the country is at this contentious point in history.

“We’ve never been opposed to land reform,” says Mr. Hasluck, a soft-spoken man whose 3,211 acre farm was reduced to about 1,235 acres as part of the resettlement program.

“Indeed, Whites were colonizers of this country. And we accept absolutely that some things that the colonialists did were very bad. But equally, if we’re to be held guilty for the sins of our forefathers, there is not very much we can do about it other than try to reconcile it with humility and dignity in a constructive, progressive way so there is benefit for everybody in Zimbabwe.”

But it has been this pace of reconciliation and the stumbling blocks that have been placed in its path over the years that has produced the uneasiness.

When Black liberation war soldiers were about to take Harare in the late ’70s, a conference was quickly called in London to discuss peace. During this meeting, the Lancaster House agreement was struck. Liberation fighters contend the British and the United States promised to fund the repayment of White farmers who would be displaced from their land or have the size of their farms reduced. In addition, for the first 10 years of independence, the Black war vets agreed that land would not be expropriated; land would only change hands under a “willing seller, willing buyer” arrangement. At that time, White farmers owned 70 percent of the country’s arable land.

This arrangement moved the process along very slowly, but the fatal blow came during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Tony Blair, when the United States and Britain, respectively, told the Zimbabwe government they would no longer fund the land reform process.

“I think a lot of our difficulties … have been related to the failure of the diplomacy of the British government and Tony Blair and Robert Mugabe,” says Mr. Hasluck, who was drafted by the White Rhodesian government and fought against Mr. Mugabe during the war for liberation. “It became very apparent that because Britain rejected any inherited responsibility in terms of the colonial cost for what they might do for Zimbabwe in terms of land reform and the resettlement program, (that) we as (White) farmers began to be referred to as ‘British.’

“I am (not) British … and when I’m called by the president a child of the British, I am insulted. But this is some of the political rhetoric and stereotyping that White farmers have been associated with,” a bitter Mr. Hasluck explained.

Before the political turmoil over land repossession exploded during the 2000 presidential elections here, Mr. Hasluck’s group consisted of more than 4,000 members, including 700 Black farmers. By November this year, he says, 95 percent of White-owned farmland will have changed hands.

His bitterness also stems from his feeling that President Mugabe’s “Stalinist” economic policies are running the country into the ground. He says that price controls on farm produce set by the government make it difficult for Whites to be in the business of farming.

He dismisses the argument that drought conditions plaguing the country are responsible for food shortages that have hit the country. The displacement of White farmers is largely responsible, he says, citing statistics like maize, soybean and tobacco crops are at critically low levels.

He contends that his predicament is largely a political problem, with the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) Party using the land issue to win an election. White farmers, he says, have in fact tried to reach a peaceful settlement of the land issue, particularly around 1994 when he offered to sell his own farm to the government.

“The fact that the government didn’t buy it was partially because there wasn’t the political will and neither did the government have the resources or were willing to commit the resources to pay people for their farms,” says Mr. Hasluck.” My farm is my business,” he continues, “and it’s my home. If I’m to be dispossessed the way I am, and I’ve had part of my farm taken away … I want to follow the process laid down in our statutory law that will lead to government rightfully and properly acquiring property. And in terms of the law that I be entitled to compensation.”

The farm union director says he inherited his farm from his parents, who brought it from another White settler. The land before being settled was “hot, tropical, horrible and malaria infested,” he says, admitting that there was also inhabited land that Blacks were displaced from.

But should he or his offspring be held accountable.

“Yes, to some extent in my generation,” he says. “But in my children’s generation, none whatsoever.”

Does Mr. Hasluck think this land reform idea of Mr. Mugabe’s will spread to surrounding countries like South Africa and Namibia where the land primarily is in the hands of Whites?

“The only experience I have is, if you are a White man, no matter whether you were born in Zimbabwe or born in Namibia, don’t believe that you will be treated in the same way as if you are an indigenous Black person. You won’t be. It’s not bloody fair,” he says. “So what I say about what should happen in Namibia is not going to help them one little bit.”

From Exile With Love

 

Assata Shakur is a Black American folk hero. She is a freedom fighter that escaped the chains of oppression. She made it to the other side. She is a sister that defied the definitions of expected behavior by a Black woman.

Her life is the subject of books, movies and poetry. In her own words, she speaks on Cuba and terrorism, differences between Blacks in Cuba and the U.S., living in exile and her hopes for a new world:

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“When I was in the Black Panther Party, they (United States) called us terrorists. How dare they call us terrorists when we were being terrorized? Terror was a constant part of my life. I was living under apartheid in North Carolina. We lived under police terror.

“People have to see what’s really happening. Cuba has never attacked anybody. Cuba has solidarity with other countries. They send teachers and doctors to help the people of other countries. It believes in solidarity.

“To see Cuba called a terrorist country is an insult to reality. If people come to Cuba, they’ll see a reality unlike what they’re told in America. This country wants to help, not hurt. The U.S. government has lied to its people. The U.S. government invents lies like Cuba is a terrorist country to give a pretext to destroy it.

“Ronald Reagan convinced people that the little country Grenada was a threat to the big United States, that allowed the U.S. to go into Grenada.

“The people in the U.S. have to struggle against a system of organized lies. When President Carter was here they said Cuba was involved in biotechnology to create bioterrorism, but now they back track and say it isn’t so. They lied and they continue to lie about Cuba.

“Look at the struggle with Elian (Gonzales). Look at the terrorism committed by the Miami terrorists, the Miami Mafia. Those people (Cubans who fled after the revolution) are ex-plantation owners, exploiters of people. They want to make Cuba the same kind of place it was before but that’s not going to happen.”

Her name means “she who struggles,” and that is the life she’s led. From growing up in racist Wilmington, N.C., to her activism with the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army (BLA), Ms. Shakur has struggled:

“My life wasn’t beautiful and creative before I became politically active. My life was totally changed when I began to struggle.”

But that’s what it means to be Black in the Americas, a life of struggle. Blacks in Cuba and the United States share a history of slavery yet their paths separate in how they view their lives. I asked Sis. Assata what she saw as the differences between Blacks in Cuba and the United States:

“We’ve (Blacks in America) forgotten where we came from. People in Cuba have not lost their memory. They don’t suffer from historical and cultural amnesia. Cuba has less material wealth than America but are able to do so much with so little because they know where they come from.

“This was a maroon country. The maroons escaped from slavery and started their own community. Everyone needs to identify with their own history. If they know their history, they can construct their future.

“The Cubans identify with those who fought against slavery. They don’t identify with the slave master. Those who made the revolution won’t let the people forget what happened to them. The people here seriously study history.

“We have to de-Eurocentrize the history we learn. We have to give the real perspective of what happened. We have to create a world to know and remember our own. I had no idea how ignorant I was until I came to Cuba. I had no knowledge of authors, filmmakers and artists outside of America. We believe we’re free but we’re not. Our world vision is tainted.

“We are oppressed people in the U.S. and don’t even know it. We have fewer opportunities to be doctors and lawyers as tuition increases. Our problem is that we want to belong to a society that wants to oppress us. We want to be the plantation owner. In Cuba, we want to change the plantation to a collective farm.”

The time is 1973 and an incident of what would now be called “racial profiling” takes place on the New Jersey Turnpike. Ms. Shakur, actively involved in the Black Liberation Army (BLA), is traveling with Malik Zayad Shakur (no relation) and Sundiata Acoli. State troopers stop them, reportedly because of a broken headlight.

A trooper also explains they were “suspicious” because they had Vermont license plates. The three are made to exit the car with their hands up. All of a sudden, shots were fired.

That much everybody seems to agree on. What happened next changed the course of history for Assata Shakur. Shots were fired and when all was said and done, state trooper Werner Foerster and Malik Shakur were killed. Ms. Shakur and Mr. Acoli were charged with the death of state trooper Foerster.

The trial found them both guilty. The verdict was no surprise. But many question the racial injustice by the all-White jury and admitted perjury by the trial’s star witness:

“I was shot with my arms in the air. My wounds could not have happened unless my arms were in the air. The bullet went in under my arm and traveled past my clavicle. It is medically impossible for that to happen if my arms were down.

“I was sentenced to life plus 30 years by an all-White jury. What I saw in prison was wall-to-wall Black flesh in chains. Women caged in cells. But we’re the terrorists. It just doesn’t make sense.”

In a letter to Kofi Owusu dated August 24, 1973 from the Middlesex County Jail in New Brunswick, N.J., she describes the life behind bars:

“i (sic) can’t begin to imagine how many sisters have been locked in this cell (the detention cell) and all the agony they felt and tears they shed. This is the cell where they put the sisters who are having hard times, kicking habits or who had been driven mad from too much oppression.

“It’s moods like this that make me aware of how glad i am to be a revolutionary. i know who our enemy is, and i know that me and these swine cannot live peacefully on the same planet. i am a part of a family of field niggas and that is something very precious.

“So many of my sisters are so completely unaware of who the real criminals and dogs are. They blame themselves for being hungry; they hate themselves for surviving the best way they know how, to see so much fear, doubt, hurt, and self hatred is the most painful part of being in this concentration camp.

“Anyway, in spite of all, i feel a breeze behind my neck, turning to a hurricane and when i take a deep breath I can smell freedom.”

She spent six and a half years in prison, two of those in solitary confinement. During that time she gave birth to her daughter Kakuya.

In 1979, she was liberated by comrades in a daring escape that continues to infuriate the New Jersey State Troopers. There was a nation-wide search for her. In 1984 she went to Cuba and was united with her daughter:

“When I came to Cuba, I expected everyone to look like Fidel (Castro). But you see everything and everyone is different. I saw Black, White, Asians all living and working together. The Cuban women were so elegantly dressed and groomed.

“People would just talk to me in the street. I would wonder why until I realized that people are not afraid of each other. People in America are afraid to walk the streets; it’s not like that here.

“I realized that I had some healing to do. I didn’t know the extent of my wounds until I came to Cuba. I began to heal with my work, raising my daughter and being a part of a culture that appreciates you.

“Living in Cuba means being appreciated by society, not depreciated by society. No matter what we do in America, no matter what we earn, we’re still not appreciated by American society.”

Who are the people on the tiny island nation of Cuba only 90 miles from Florida? Who are these people that dare to say “no” to America? Who are these 11 million revolutionaries that resist in the face of the most powerful country in the world:

“Cubans feel like they have power. No matter who they are. They see themselves as part of a world. We just see ourselves as part of a ’hood. They identify with oppressed people all over the world.

“When the Angolans were fighting against South Africa, they asked Cuba for help. Soldiers were sent. They went gladly.

“Cubans have a different perspective of outrage and justice. A White Cuban soldier came back from fighting and expressed his disdain for the Whites that were supporting apartheid.

“I just looked at him because in my mind he was White like they were but that’s not how he saw himself. He couldn’t understand how the South Africans could support apartheid.

“Anytime you have a country that makes people feel indignant about atrocities, wherever they are, that country has a special place in my heart. Cuba is trying to end exploitation and atrocities.”

For nearly 20 years, she has carved out a life for herself in Cuba. She lives in exile and while many rejoice in her new life, America has not forgotten her alleged crimes. In 1997, the New Jersey State Troopers wrote to the Pope asking for the Pontiff’s help in having her extradited.

Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd-Whitman issued a $100,000 enticement for anyone to assist in the return of Assata Shakur. Congress issued H.R. 254 calling on Cuba to send her back, which was supported by most Black congresspersons.

In the absence of normalized relations with Cuba, there is no binding extradition treaty between Cuba and the United States.

What is it like to live in exile? What is it like to be away from family and friends:

“Living in exile is hard. I miss my family and friends. I miss the culture, the music, how people talk, and their creativity. I miss the look of recognition Black women give each other, the understanding we express without saying a word.

“I adjusted by learning to understand what was going on in the world. The Cubans helped me to adjust. I learned joys in life by learning other cultures. It was a privilege to come here to a rich culture.

“I had a big fear that the Cubans would hate me when I arrived. They are very sophisticated. They were able to separate the people from America, like me, from the government.”

What message does she have for the youth of our people? What does she want people to know about her life:

“I don’t see myself as that different from sisters who struggle for social justice. In the ’60s it was easier to identify racism. There were signs that told you where you belonged. We had to struggle to eliminate apartheid in the South. Now we have to know the other forms that exist today.

“We had to learn that we’re beautiful. We had to relearn something forcefully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the importance of coming together and being active. That fueled me.

“We knew what a token was then. Today young people don’t see Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell as tokens. That’s a problem.

“I realized that I was connected to Africa. I wasn’t just a Colored girl. I was part of a whole world that wanted a better life. I’m part of a majority and not a minority. My life has been a life of growth. If you’re not growing, you’re not going to understand real love. If you’re not reaching out to help others then you’re shrinking. My life has been active. I’m not a spectator.

“We can’t afford to be spectators while our lives deteriorate. We have to truly love our people and work to make that love stronger.”

Ms. Shakur is finishing another book about her life in exile and her experiences in Cuba.

Zimbabwe Land Crisis

 

On a long stretch of rural road that cuts through vast open countryside outside the capital city, Menard Muzariri and Alan Graham live just miles from each other but are otherwise worlds apart.

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Mr. Muzariri, 48, a Black farmer who acquired his land last December, is just getting started in what he hopes will be a bright future of raising cattle and growing food to feed the citizens of this southern African nation and for export.

Mr. Graham, a White farmer who came to this country when he was eight-years-old, has a future that is up in the air, hinging on a decision that can come at any moment from the government that will determine how much of a future he has in farming–at least in Zimbabwe.

It is this land dilemma for Whites and Blacks that has this nation at the center of controversy in the world’s eye and has catapulted President Robert Mugabe to pariah status in the western press.

“Everything has got a background,” Mr. Muzariri says, addressing a delegation of 38 journalists and religious leaders from America who visited his sprawling farm.

 “Zimbabwe is born out of a bitter war. So people should ask themselves, why did the people decide to go to war? It is because the land had been taken away from them?”

The “background” Mr. Muzariri refers to is the colonization of his country in the late 1800s by the British. In 1895 colonizer Cecil J. Rhodes proclaimed the land Rhodesia. Shortly thereafter, the first short-lived Chimurenga, or “War for Liberation,” ignited. By 1966, the second Chimurenga began and was not to be denied. Independence was gained in 1980.

“I am a war veteran,” Mr. Muzariri proclaims, proudly displaying the letters ZALA branded onto his arm. “I participated in the liberation war.”

Mr. Graham, a man in his early 50s, doesn’t talk much about the “background” initially.  He’s more preoccupied about his immediate future.

He is harvesting a crop of wheat, overseeing the 150 Black farmhands who work his farm when the delegation of Black journalists from the United States approach him.

“As far as I know, that was before my time,” he says when asked about the background that Mr. Muzariri talks about. But later he admits, “I have to live with the situation created by my ancestors.”

Mr. Graham may have to pay a high price, just as Blacks paid a high price when they were violently driven off the most fertile areas of their land and subjugated on land mostly unfit for farming.

Any day now he will get word from President Robert Mugabe’s land minister on whether or not he will be allowed to continue to farm. He has met with representatives of the government and has offered to give up 184 hectares, about 457 acres, of his 584 hectare, or 1,442 acre, farm. Large commercial farms are limited to 400 hectares, or 988 acres, according to Mr. Graham.

“I’ve been told verbally that my offer has been accepted; we have nothing in writing,” he says. “Without a document from the Ministry of Agriculture, the banks won’t lend us money.  Right now we are in October, our season is starting, it’s a difficult time. We don’t know quite where we are, whether to move forward or not.”

A dark history

Back in 1888, Cecil Rhodes led a colonial movement across South Africa into Zimbabwe, setting up mining operations from Cape Town to beyond Harare.  In 1893, King Lobengula fled as British forces invaded Zimbabwe and by 1895, the colony established by Mr. Rhodes became known as Rhodesia, launching a nightmare of tyranny for Mr. Muzariri’s ancestors and the indigenous population.

After the first “War for Liberation” was crushed in 1897, British settlers flooded the region and by 1923 the British Crown became the sovereign of Rhodesia.

Over the next 11 years, Blacks were legislated off all fertile land through the Land Apportionment Act. Labor laws excluded Blacks from skilled professions and banned them from White areas.

Black anger and resistance boiled. Black activism led to the establishment of the African National Congress in 1957, and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) were formed in 1961.

Meanwhile, the new Rhodesia distanced itself from England, issuing the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. It was during these years also that leaders of the future “War for Liberation”–men like Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe–were being shaped and fashioned into revolutionaries.

In 1966, ZANU guerrillas attacked Rhodesian forces at Chinhoyl, about 100 miles west of Harare, thus launching the second Chimurenga. In 1980, Mr. Muzariri and other war veterans celebrated Zimbabwe’s independence.

As liberation fighters neared certain victory, the British Crown offered to negotiate peace and during a meeting in London the Lancaster Agreement was drafted.

Under the Agreement, the new government was forbidden to take any privately-owned farms from Whites for a period of 10 years. Meanwhile, England and the United States agreed to start a process of purchasing land from White farmers to resettle Blacks. However, England reneged on her promise, freezing the funds in 1990, making it difficult for Mr. Mugabe–who had become president–to resettle landless Blacks.

“The government kept telling the people to wait,” said Mr. Muzariri, “but until about 1997, the money never came and the British had the guts to tell our government they were not going to honor (the agreement). It was at that time that our people went back to the drawing board.”

War veterans began to stage takeovers of White-owned farms. Their actions forced Mr. Mugabe to back the effort and legislate a “fast pace” land reform program that ultimately lead to the jailing this year of White farmers who refused to vacate their land as ordered by new law.

Only a matter of time

Mr. Mugabe has been accused by his detractors of orchestrating the war vet takeovers as a means of extending his rule. He was elected prime minister in 1980 and elected as the country’s first president in 1987. He won re-election earlier this year.

But Mr. Mugabe’s supporters contend that vets’ actions were spontaneous and borne out of frustration. They say a handful of White farmers, roughly 4,900 of them, owned 70 percent of the arable land and many Whites owned more than one farm. The war vets grew tired of seeing good farmland go unused because the farms were too big for the farmers to fully utilize.

“There’s been so much land available for farming but some of it has been idle,” says Fungayi Simbi, marketing director for Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (ARDA) and a former seed salesman for U.S.-based Cargile Co.

“Now it’s really necessary to free some land to people who can use it because the initial land distribution (by Whites) targeted land with poor soil.  My personal view is Whites were holding too much land. And a lot of crop was targeted for export because it was much more lucrative.”

Min. Akbar Muhammad, international representative of the Nation of Islam and leader of the press delegation, warned that the reason the West is so angry at Mr. Mugabe is that his act of justice in resettling the land might catch on in other southern African nations where White settlers still own most of the arable land.

Recently, Namibia’s Foreign Minister Hidipo Hamutenya said his government is frustrated with the slow pace of land transfers under his country’s reform program that depends on a “willing seller, willing buyer” policy.

“It’s only a matter of time that this call for justice will spread and get louder,” Min. Muhammad said. “The best policy for the White settlers would be to act accordingly with justice.”

He also warned that Black America should not be duped by media that portrays White farmers as being thrown off their land, and that they read between the lines when they see opposition parties in Zimbabwe that are sponsored by England and the United States.

The first phase of Mr. Mugabe’s land reform program allocated small plots to vets that allows them to produce food for their own families. Phase 2 calls for preservation of the commercial farm status through allocating small, medium and large plots.

The government identified Whites–many of whom owned large tracts of land or more than one farm–and negotiated a division of the land or ordered them off the land if they owned more than one farm.

The process of resettlement

An application process for Blacks was implemented and candidates for farms were chosen on qualifications such as their ability to manage the land and their resources. Out of some 92,000 applicants for the Phase 2 process, 52,000 of them qualified, according to Mr. Muzariri.

Rev. Al Sampson, another member of the delegation and an activist for Black farmers in America, says he’s impressed by the “process” of Mr. Mugabe’s land reform.

“The process for acquisition is under the rules of equity first, and second is that the process has integrity,” he told The Final Call, referring to the application process and examination of qualifications of candidates.

Min. Muhammad added that he was touched by the opportunity now being afforded to people who live in poverty and virtually in communal camps.

“What I saw is a man who left his father’s farm at the age of 18 to fight in the liberation war. He never lost his ability to farm and unless this land reform was implemented, he never would have gone back to the land,” he said about meeting Mr. Muzariri.

“The outside world must understand this and not cause additional suffering to people who already suffer by linking sanctions on Mugabe just because the West doesn’t like his bold moves. Drought and AIDS have already plagued the country. They don’t need a third plague, which is isolation,” he said.

Mr. Muzariri’s farm consists of 467 hectares, about 1,153 miles. The arable land consists of about 600 miles. The rest is used to feed his 200 head of livestock. But he says he faces the same problems that many resettled farmers face, the main problem being the lack of equipment.

He explained that many of the White farmers destroyed equipment and irrigation systems prior to turning over the land to the Blacks, including the farmer who previously owned the farm he now tills.

“Are they engaged in a land reform program? The answer is no. It is natural drought that has hit southern Africa,” he says.

Mr. Graham’s farm consists of 1,442 acres, just over half of which is suitable for farming. He grows cotton, maize, soybean, wheat as well as raises cattle. He says he’s willing to cooperate with the program although he resents it because he paid for his farm after independence when he brought it from a White farmer.

“This land issue has gotten slightly out of control. A lot of (Whites) who lost farms should still be on it,” he says.

But Mr. Simbi notes that the government tried on many occasions to negotiate with the White farmers.

“It’s well documented there have been several attempts made by government to discuss this with the commercial farmers. If commercial farmers were more prudent in their vision and foresight they could have engaged in negotiations much earlier to allow a smoother transition,” he said.

Mr. Simbi said he expects food production to decline for a few more years but it will rebound once the land is fully settled and the farmers gain access to equipment and gain more experience handling large tracts of land.

“It’s a big challenge for the nation, but a lot of our people were providing the labor to help the commercial farmer so they have the knowledge to farm.

“You need to organize; you need equipment; you need finance. It will take three years to get back to normal,” he said.

Mr. Graham concedes that “there certainly is cause for redistribution of land,” even though he says “hatred” has come into the whole redistribution process.

“Britain should honor its commitment. We must find a way to go forward,” he said.

Members of the delegation included Lorenzo Martin of the Chicago Standard; Sylvia Perry, Jacksonville Free Press; Rosalind Bacon, Sarasota Bulletin; Shantella Sherman, Philadelphia New Observer; Alice Tisdale, Jackson (Miss.) Advocate; Todd Burroughs, writing for the National Newspaper Publishers Assn.; senior media consultant Bill Cherry and pastors Al Sampson of Chicago and Rev. Carl Kennedy of Durham, N.C.