Africa

After a long struggle, the system of apartheid in South Africa was overcome. Elections based on universal suffrage were held. The chief architect of this transformation was the African National Congress (ANC). However, recent municipal elections have been widely appraised as a major electoral setback for the ANC. Why did this happen, and what next?

To corporations, the forest is only business. To communities, the forest is everything: trees, medicine, culture, spirituality. Land-grabbing and the removal of communities from forests and land breaks the community, displaces access to food and water, and uproots the connection to nature and [local] knowledge. If the community structure is broken, if the land – the means of food production – is lost, we lose everything.

For 30 years, the Ugandan leader who is poised to extend his rule in this week’s elections has presided over a militarized regime supported by the West. The citizens desperately need change but they have no way of achieving it through compromised procedural democracy. The forces for change in Uganda must re-strategize and keep up this struggle after the elections.

The outcome of the meeting, the so-called Nairobi Package, was a slap in the face for the peoples of the South. It was especially egregious that the US used the 10th Ministerial, with the help of the Kenyan leadership, to undermine the future of Pan-African trading relations and to drive a wedge between the BRICS societies and those that the US wants to manipulate in the poor countries. The 10th Ministerial has hastened the demise of the WTO.

The real role of women is in the seed. It is the women who harvest, select, store, and plant seeds. Our seeds come from our mothers and our grandmothers. To us, the seed is the symbol of the continuity of life. Seed is not just about the crops. Seed is about the soil, about the water, and about the forest.

The difficulties of restoring order in Burundi are strong. More basic reconciliation is even more difficult. The UN's Expert Mission is unlikely to discover new elements. Thus we must watch the situation closely and see what means to bridge building are possible.