Struggle Towards Human Rights in Africa

When the new African states emerged from colonialism from the mid fifties
to the mid sixties, hopes were high that finally, the era of liberty has
come. For example, at the All African Peoples Conference in 1958, Kenyan
trade union leader Tom Boya* stated "civilized or uncivilized, we the
African States deserve a government of our own choice. Let us make our own
mistakes." He was subsequently assassinated in 1969. Addressing the UNGA in
1961, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah,** recalling the days of imperialism, exploitation
and degradation said "These days are gone forever - and now.I am speaking
with the voice of freedom proclaiming to the world the dawn of a new era."

Background

o The constitutions were modeled after those of the West.
o The main objectives of the leaders were to shape the nation. One of the
consequences of the colonial system was putting together various peoples
who had little in common with each other (lack of intercommunal coherence),
and maintaining control through policies of divide and conquer. The pillars
of the Organization of the African Unity Charter were the intangibility of
borders, and the non-interference in internal affairs of members States.***
o In the mid 1960's and 1970's, the system became unstable and centralized
bureaucratic regimes were created in which all the powerful President, with
the help of the bureaucracy, police and the army, controlled all the
machinery.
o The new African states were born during the worst period of the Cold War:
the West generally supported any president who was anti-Communist; issues
of competency were left aside.(Example in the former Zaire, support given
to Jonas Savimbi in Angola against the Marxist regime since 1975,etc..)
In most cases, the African states failed to realize the desirable
connection between the people and the State because, again in most cases,
they behaved exactly like the colonial powers. The negation of human rights
was not effected by force, but through instrumentalism and through
legislation. As a result, many draconian laws were promulgated (or kept):
for example, emergency regulations, detention without trials, provisions of
compulsory labour, and proscription of public meetings. In other words, the
colonial modus operandi was well suited for post-independence governance.

Consequently, right from the beginning, most of the African Administrations
failed to:
o Inspire loyalty in the citizenry
o Produce a political class with integrity
o Inculcate in the military, police and the security forces an
understanding of their proper role in society
o External factors: the Cold War, economic interests, etc.

I. The General Causes of Human Rights Abuses

According to the first comprehensive OAU report on 1999, some of the causes
of human rights abuses included:
o Racism (tribalism, ethnicism), migration
o Post-colonialism
o Poverty
o Ignorance
o Religious intolerance
o Monopoly of power
o Mismanagement
o Lack of judicial and press autonomy
o Border conflicts

Economic, cultural and political rights are badly affected by these elements.
Extent of poverty: 2/3 of the entire population of Africa lives in absolute
poverty, on one dollar a day.
Education: the adult illiteracy rate is almost 50% in Angola, Burkina Faso,
Chad, Liberia and the Sudan, to give a few examples. Women's illiteracy
reaches levels of 60%.
Health: Africa's statistics on health care are grim - life expectance in
many countries range between 41 and 69, infant mortality between 23 to 169
per 1000 live births. Malaria, cholera and meningitis are still destroying
large portions of the population. Today, AIDS is taking a heavy toll: 24
million Africans are infected with the virus as of October 31, 2000 and
nearly all will die before 2010. Each day, 6,000 Africans die of AIDS and
an additional 11,000 are infected.
Brain drain: created by a conjunction of negative factors

At the international level, several instruments have been adopted to give
effect to the demands made in the name of human rights. The most important
are:
o The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
o International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 16 December 1966
o The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 16
December 1966
o The Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights of 16 December 1966
o The Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, aimed at the abolition of the death penalty (resolution 44/128 of
15 December 1989)

These constitute the International Bill of Human Rights added to the United
Nations Charter.

Regional organizations were encouraged to develop their own human rights
regimes. After Europe in 1950 and the Americas in 1969, Africa adopted its
own Charter on Human and Peoples Rights in 1981. It is also called the
Banjul Charter (Banjul is the capital of the Gambia), which entered into
force on October 21, 1986.

The African Charter makes a significant contribution to the human rights
body; the most notable being the "three generations of rights" including
the concepts of people's rights and the imposition of duties on
individuals. Furthermore, the Charter added ethnicity to the prohibited
grounds of differentiation. This provision intended to reflect the central
importance of ethnicity in Africa.

The African Charter was adopted in 1981, at a time when no African state
except for Gambia, Senegal and Botswana could be considered a democracy.
The Charter was certainly important because it represented an
acknowledgement by African states that human rights had become an
inescapable element in the international landscape and it represented an
effort to adapt international human rights standards to the specificities
of the African context.

However, in spite of this progress, the human rights situation in the
African states has remained bleak for the last 15 years. In June 1999 the
then-UNESCO Director General expressed his deep concern over the
ever-increasing number of African countries affected by war and associated
with human rights abuses. Amnesty International reported that 24 states had
serious, widespread human rights violations and that armed conflicts,
social and political unrest continued, leading to appalling human rights
abuses throughout the continent.

In May 2000, UNHCR estimated that there were about 3.5 million refugees in
Africa, 80% of them women and children under the age of 5 (1998). In 1999,
Human Rights Watch indicated that this population had increased to 6.3
million and that the top ten producers of refugees in the world were
African (Sierra Leone, Liberia, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan).

On October 20, 2000, to mark the launching of the Campaign Against Torture
in the African regions, Amnesty International said that torture is
widespread across Africa in a variety of different contexts: in police
stations, on the street, in the home and in conflict zones. According to
the 2000 Annual Report:
o Confirmed or possible extrajudicial executions were carried out in 17
countries in the region in 1999
o People "disappeared" or remained "disappeared" in 10 countries
o Confirmed prisoners of conscience were held in 15 countries
o Political prisoners received unfair trials in 15 countries
o People were arbitrarily arrested and detained without charge or trial in
24 countries
o Executions were carried out in 6 countries
o Prisoners were under sentence of death in 18 countries
o Armed opposition groups committed serious human rights abuses such as
deliberate and arbitrary killing of civilians, torture and hostage taking
in 18 countries

III. The Human Rights Movement in Africa

African human rights organizations vary enormously in their origin,
history, structure and objectives. They grow in a very challenging context
although, in South Africa for example, one such organization has existed
since 1955. For decades, individuals, generally lawyers, journalists,
teachers, trade unionists, members of religious organizations (mostly
within churches) have monitored and reported human rights violations, often
in very hazardous circumstances. Some organizations officially exist with
different mandates, but do human rights activities.

Amnesty International has been on the African scene for over 30 years. Its
main focus has been on the release of prisoners of conscience, the
abolition of the death penalty and an end to torture. Amnesty and the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have several sub regional
offices in Africa, but their work has not been easy because the majority of
African governments considered those organizations to be alien.

Most NGO's in Africa began to mushroom in the 1980's, with stated
objectives towards social justice and the rights of the individual
(Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe), with the Law Societies and Catholic
Peace and Justice Commissions playing a great role in many countries. In
many cases, local activities undertakes by grassroots groups to face the
adversarial economic context gave birth to a vibrant civil society: craft
centres, rural credit unions, farmers' associations, community-run skill
development centres, community banks, cooperatives, community-financed
schools, etc. But these are almost children of necessity, created to fill
the gap left by the failure of the state.

By mid 1999, and according to the African Directory of Human Rights
Organizations, a cooperative effort of Human Rights Internet in Ottawa and
the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, 750 NGO's existing in 53 African
countries are concerned with human rights and social justice.
o 250 have a broad generalized concern for all human rights, with almost
100 located in South Africa;
o 200 are either women's organizations or have specific concerns for
women's rights as human rights;
o 70 are looking after the rights of children;
o The remainder share legal orientations, peace and non-violence or are
affiliated to a church or to another religious body.

By comparison, in 1989, only 125 human rights organizations existed in 33
countries, and they had limited freedom.
The international context in the early 1990's was favorable to the growth
of human rights organizations in Africa. It included:
o The fall of the Berlin Wall
o The collapse of the Soviet Union
o The freeing of Nelson Mandela (whom took the lead against human rights
abuses, for example South Africa initiated the draft resolution before the
United Nations condemning the execution of Ken Saro Wiwa by the Nigerian
Authorities)

However, most of these organizations had and continue to have significant
problems to overcome in order to strengthen the movement.
1. Lack of regional coordination, internecine rivalries among the
organizations
2. Lack of coordination and collaboration at the national level
3. Urbanization of the organizations - most organizations operate in
cities, with little rural contact or context
4. Societal/ethnic/ tribal divisions
5. Undemocratic organizational structure and the use of the organization as
a stepping-stone
6. Funding

IV. Women's Rights

"I know of no inherent reason why social change, industrialization and
modernization has to negatively affect the status of women; the African
woman increasingly is falling backward to a position similar to that of
Western women in the early stage of the industrial revolution," wrote an
American sociologist working with the Kenyan government in the 1970's.

Despite many legal instruments adopted at the international level,
especially the Convention on the Elimination of All Discrimination Against
Women and the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on Violence Against
Women, it is clear that much remains to be done. The African Women's
Movement has continued to grow since the 1985 United Nations Conference on
Women in Nairobi. Five years ago, in preparation for the Beijing
Conference, the African Women's NGO identified some of the areas of
critical concern:
o Alleviating women's poverty (access to credit, agricultural training,
ending unequal access to education, ending discrimination in family law).
o Improving women's health, ending violence against women and ending
practices negatively affecting women and girls
o Protecting women's legal and human rights and empowering them politically
at all levels
o Ending the violence women suffer in armed conflict and protecting women
refugees.
(I just mentioned two different views by African women and also the
divergence between cities and villages)

March 30-Apri1: West African Human Rights organized a meeting under the
platform of the West African Human Rights Forum, was held in Abuja (capital
of Nigeria ) - It was important because NGO's, the National Human Rights
Commission, governments and ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African
States) Secretariat got together for the first time to discuss a variety
of human rights issues as they affected the people of West Africa (Note:
ECOWAS was created in 1975)

The most important thing to do is to correct the causes of the weaknesses
mentioned earlier and to develop real cooperation.
In this sense, the collaboration shown between African, European and
US-based organizations leading to the indictment of President Hissein Habré
( former Head of State of Chad who fled the country in 1990 and lived since
then in Senegal. He was indicted in January 2000 under human rights
violations and the charges were dropped in June, for "technical reasons" )
is a tremendous example.
o Existing grassroots organizations need more education and everyone needs
to be more involved - they must be involved.
o Human rights should be part of adult literacy classes
o Human rights educators must persuade governments to include human rights
education in the police training, international humanitarian law in the
training of the army - the greatest abusers of people's rights
o Human rights should also be taught in the school as part of the regular
curriculum

VI. The role of NGO's from outside

Most of the African NGO's in Africa seek funding from external sources, and
most of the time, donors dictate how the local NGO's should function.
Northern NGO's should reinforce the work of African NGO's in bringing local
issues to the attention of the wider population in the international
community. They could offer technical expertise, consultancy services for
training, monitoring and evaluating human rights projects and activities.

They can also:
o Pressure their governments and multinational corporations to bring an end
to the selling of arms to Africa
o Pressure to get Western banks to repatriate money sent outside by leaders
o Assist in getting educational materials for schools and local communities
o Mobilize support for crises such as famines, natural disasters, refugees,
etc.

I will conclude with the words of Issa Shivji : "Human rights activity
cannot be separated from the general struggle of the people against
oppression. Human rights struggles are an integral part of social movements
and that is where human rights activity should be presently located."

-===========
* Assassinated in 1969
* * Overthrown in 1968 and died finally in exile in Romania
*** Those principles embodied in the Organization of the African Unity
(OAU) are considered sacro-saint by the African States until Ethiopia
allowed to Eritrea to became independent, after more than 30 years conflict

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