Category: News & Politics

Kenyan woman’s pact to marry two men causes outrage

Two men in Kenya have agreed to marry the same woman, taking turns to stay with her and helping raise her children.

Joyce Wambui had been torn between two lovers for more than four years and was unable to choose between them. So she joined in a contract stipulating that Sylvester Mwendwa and Elijah Kimani would “share” her.

But Mwendwa’s decision to go public about the unusual deal has infuriated Wambui, cost him his job and forced him into hiding to escape a public backlash in Kisauni, Mombasa.

The 26-year-old told the BBC that he entered a pact with Kimani to end their rivalry. “It could have been very dangerous if the other man would have come to her house and caught me,” he said. “So our agreement is good as it sets boundaries and helps us keep peace.”

He claimed Wambui’s parents had given her their blessing, adding: “She is like the central referee. She can say whether she wants me or my colleague.”

Wambui, a widow and mother of young twins, is said to be in her late 20s. In a separate interview with Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper, Mwendwa explained: “It’s not because she is a superwoman, but because she is a hard worker and very beautiful.”

(Graphic: Flickr / charlesfettinger)

The unusual arrangement came about after the intervention of Abdhallah Abdulrahman, a community policing officer. “The two men were quarrelling and I wanted to know what they were quarrelling about,” he said. “I found out they were sharing one woman without knowing each other. I wanted the woman to decide which she loved and agree to stay with one. Unfortunately, she refused to decide. She said, ‘I love both of them, I’m not ready to lose them.’

“Both men refused to surrender the woman. They assured me they’re going for a discussion where they’ll settle the differences themselves. They surprised me when they said they had agreed to be together.”

Abdulrahman said he was strongly opposed to the contract. “To me as a Muslim and a Kenyan, I don’t accept it,” he added. “It is against our religion and our African tradition. It is against Kenyan law. Under our Constitution it is not allowed. The community are disappointed and everybody is against it. Sylvester Mwendwa is now in hiding, saying his life is in danger.”

Mwendwa’s willingness to publicise the contract in national and international media has also caused a rift with Kimani and Wambui, putting the whole understanding in jeopardy. On Tuesday the Daily Nation reported that Mwendwa, a butcher, said his boss fired him after he heard the story, and he is reported to have gone into hiding.

Even if Wambui forgives him, there is little prospect of making the three-way marriage legal. Whereas polygamy – one man with multiple wives – is legal in Kenya and widely practised by various communities, polyandry is almost unknown.

According to Kenya’s NTV station, the contract states: “We have agreed that from today we will not threaten or have jealous feelings because of our wife, who says she’s not ready to let go of any of us. Each one will respect the day set aside for him. We agree to love each other and live peacefully. No one has forced us to make this agreement.”

David Smith for the Guardian

12 years ago

Zimbabwe plans $300m ‘Disneyland in Africa’

The formula has worked in California, Florida and Paris. Now officials in Zimbabwe, eager to rebrand a country notorious for economic collapse and political violence, want to build a “Disneyland in Africa”.

Walter Mzembi, the tourism and hospitality minister, told New Ziana, the official news agency, that the government was planning a $300m theme park near Victoria Falls, the country’s top tourist attraction.

Mzembi was quoted as saying the resort would be a “Disneyland in Africa”, although he did not appear to suggest that the statue of explorer David Livingstone, which overlooks the falls, would be supplanted by a jobbing actor in a Mickey Mouse costume.

(Pic: Reuters)

Instead, he outlined plans for shopping malls, banks and exhibition and entertainment facilities such as casinos. “We have reserved 1 200 hectares of land closer to Victoria Falls international airport to do hotels and convention centres,” Mzembi told New Ziana on the sidelines of the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) general assembly , which Victoria Falls is co-hosting with the town of Livingstone in neighbouring Zambia.

Mzembi said the project would cost about $300m.

“We want to create a free zone with a banking centre where even people who do not necessarily live in Zimbabwe can open bank accounts,” he said.

The government has plans to invest $150m in expanding the town’s airport to accommodate bigger aircraft, according to the report from Ziana. Mzembi said the government had found funding partners including multilateral financial institutions.

Visitors travel from across the world to see Victoria Falls where water plummets more than 100 metres into the Zambezi gorge, generating mists of spray so high they can be seen up to 30 miles away. A bridge linking Zimbabwe and Zambia offers bungee jumping but made headlines for the wrong reasons last year when an Australian tourist narrowly survived her cord snapping.

The nearby town offers few reasons to linger or spend money, however, despite the launch last month of an open-top bus tour in an attempt to drum up interest. Mzembi hopes to appeal to a younger market.

Tourism conference
Zimbabwe’s considerable tourism potential was devastated by a decade of conflict and hyperinflation but has recovered in recent years. The government says it recorded a 17% increase in tourist arrivals in the first quarter of 2013, up 346 299 to 404 282. It has predicted the tourism sector will contribute 15% to GDP by 2015 if the country remains stable.

Following a mostly peaceful, though bitterly disputed, election last month, Zimbabwe’s co-hosting of the UNWTO conference this week is seen as another milestone towards that stability. But the decision to award the conference to Zimbabwe as a co-host was condemned by the independent UN Watch human rights group as a “disgraceful show of support — and a terribly timed award of false legitimacy — for a brutal, corrupt and authoritarian regime.

Hillel Neuer, head of the Geneva-based group, added: “Amid reports of election rigging and continuing human rights abuses, Zimbabwe is the last country that should be legitimised by a UN summit of any kind. The notion that the UN should spin this country as a lovely tourist destination is, frankly, sickening.”

President Robert Mugabe’s associated status as UN “leader for tourism” has also been questioned by critics of his 33-year rule.

David Smith for the Guardian

12 years ago

Dogs hand cheetahs a lifeline in Namibia

Winding through the parched Namibian farmland, Bonzo, an Anatolian shepherd dog, has a singular focus: protecting his herd of goats from lurking predators.

He pads along, sniffing the air and marking the scrubby landscape, just like a bodyguard ready to ward off any threat to his charges, which he considers family.

“They’re not pets. They’re not allowed to be pets,” said Bonzo’s owner farmer Retha Joubert.

Anatolian shepherd dog Bonzo leads a herd of goats on Retha Joubert’s farm near near Gobabis, east of Windhoek. (Pic: AFP)

The breed descends from ancient livestock dogs used thousands of years ago in what is now central Turkey. And they not only save sheep and goats, but have handed a lifeline to Namibia’s decimated cheetah numbers by reducing conflicts between farmers and predators.

“The dogs are protecting the flock in such a way that the farmers don’t have to kill predators,” said Laurie Marker of the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) which breeds the dogs near the northern city of Otjiwarongo.

“It’s a non-lethal predator control method so it is green, it’s happy, it’s win-win.”

The concept is simple.

The dogs are placed with a flock when a few weeks old to bond with the livestock. They live permanently with the animals, loyally heading out with them every day to deter hunters, and bedding down with them at night.

Marker’s centre started breeding the livestock dogs to promote cheetah-friendly farming after some 10 000 big cats – the current total worldwide population – were killed or moved off farms in the 1980s.

Up to 1000 cheetahs were being killed a year, mostly by farmers who saw them as livestock killers.

But the use of dogs has slashed losses for sheep and goat farmers and led to less retaliation against the vulnerable cheetah.

‘Fight to the finish’
“We see about 80% to 100% decrease of livestock loss from any predator when the farmers have the dogs,” said Marker.

In the last 19 years, around 450 dogs have been placed with farmers and more than 3 000 farmers trained.

There is now a two-year waiting list for the dogs – either stately Anatolian shepherds or Kangals – and the programme has expanded to other countries with predators.

For Joubert, staying up late at night worrying about her sheep and goats coming home is a thing of the past.

Her farm near Gobabis, east of the capital Windhoek, lost 60 animals in 2008.

But the arrival of Bonzo, her first Anatolian, as a puppy five years ago has slashed losses to just one animal last year.

Joubert is now training four-month-old Kangal !Nussie – whose name starts with the exclamation point typical of Namibia’s Nama people – to follow in Bonzo’s footsteps.

The fluffy-coated pup is learning the ropes by going out with a flock every day on a leash with a human herder and beds down in the animal enclosure at night. She gets half an hour in the evening to play in the yard.

“She must associate herself with the goats, she must be a goat, she’s part of a group, that’s the main thing I think to make them to protect the animals,” said Joubert, who is deeply proud of her dogs.

The dogs’ presence and intimidating bark is usually enough to deter predators, who would rather opt for prey that does not have a guardian.

But they will attack if a hunter does not back off.

Bonzo for example, has killed jackals, who attack in packs and a young, weak cheetah.

“If indeed they do come in, the dog could and would fight to the finish,” said Marker.

A cheetah eats at The Cheetah Conservation Fund centre in Otjiwarongo, Namibia on August 13 2013. (Pic: AFP)

Altercations between the dogs and cheetahs, though, are rare and those who target livestock are usually desperate, such as being wounded.

But working in Namibia’s tough landscape takes it toll.

Bonzo has been bitten by snakes, stung by a scorpion, attacked by baboons and now has tongue cancer from exposure to the relentless sun.

Ironically, despite cheetahs being seen as livestock killers, analysis of their droppings has shown only 5% had preyed on farm animals.

“They do occasionally take livestock,” said Gail Potgieter, a human-wildlife conflict specialist at the Namibia Nature Foundation.

“But the perception that any cheetah is going to start killing livestock as its main diet is very wrong.”

Cheetah numbers hit a low of 2500 in 1986. But the population has now potentially reached nearly 4000 – the biggest wild cheetah population in the world.

Cheetahs still face threats on game ranches, where they eat valuable animals, and on cattle farms where the dogs are not suited.

But for small stock farmers, they have proven their worth.

“For the type of livestock farming that’s going on in Namibia, it’s definitely one of the most promising solutions that they have,” said Potgieter, who used to manage the CCF’s dog programme.

In Gobabis, Joubert needs no convincing.

“I will always have dogs here,” she said.

Justine Gerardy for AFP

12 years ago

Moving forward in Liberia

Liberia is getting back on its feet after a protracted civil war that killed over 200 000 people, displaced over a million, and largely destroyed the country’s infrastructure and institutions. After a decade of peace, the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Office (Echo) is pulling out of the country, saying its needs are shifting from humanitarian to developmental.

Liberia has indeed made progress, particularly in attracting international investment that has led to steady growth in GDP, and most importantly in maintaining peace. But poverty and unemployment remain rife, corruption is pervasive, and little headway has been made towards post-war justice or reconciliation. In short, significant challenges remain.

IRIN recently spoke to a few key individuals who worked on Echo-funded projects – most of them health-related – during and after the war, to learn how far Liberia has come.

Moses Massaquoi, doctor:

Moses Massaquoi started working with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) after being displaced by a rebel attack in July 1990. He went on to work with the NGO in numerous postings across Africa before returning to Liberia with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (Chai).

“The main challenge in the post-war [era] is a challenge of building the system, from the point of view of having the necessary human resources,” he told IRIN. “So I would say the big challenge is capacity. How do you build the capacity, with all systems broken down – health, education and everything?”

Massaquoi has committed himself to rebuilding a health system left in tatters by the conflict. In particular, he would like to see Liberia producing its own medical specialists.

He says he wants the country “first and foremost, in my own medical profession, to bring back a system of specialisation. We didn’t have control of producing our own specialists. The government had to send people out [abroad], and when they go out, they don’t come back,” he explained.

A sign of progress in this area, he says, is a post-graduate training program currently being established by the government, which will see its first students starting in September 2013.

Barbara Brillant, nurse:

Another former MSF employee currently engaged in medical training is Barbara Brillant, who runs a nursing school in the Liberian capital, Monrovia.

Brillant first arrived in Sierra Leone as a missionary in 1977. “I arrived here [in Africa] as a young lady… with a lot of enthusiasm, and I was going to cure the world and teach everybody. And I ended up here 38 years later, having learned a lot,” she told IRIN.

“It [the conflict] was very, very sad. For me personally, it was scary, no doubt about it. But as a missionary and having lived with the people of Liberia, the sorrow was more seeing the Liberian people in the condition they were in,” said Brillant.

She says she saw both resilience and pride, but also “evil at its worst” during the conflict.

Sister Barbara, as she is known to the 450 students in the nursing school, is concerned that behind Liberia’s current peace there is no true reconciliation. She sees little improvement in the quality of life of most Liberians.

“It’s a pity, because… the hurt is still there, the anger is still there. You can only pray and hope that time will heal a lot of the wounds. They will never ever forget it, that’s for sure… They’re having a very hard time.”

Despite peace, “it’s a difficult place to live in,” she said, with cost of living having risen steadily over the years. “To rent a house now is insane,” she added.

Nyan Zikeh, programme manager:

Like Massaquoi, Nyan Zikeh began working for MSF while himself a refugee. He returned to Liberia in 1998 and has since worked with the NGOs Save the Children and Oxfam, where he is currently a programme manager. He says he now feels the dividends of Liberia’s lasting peace. “What I’m grateful for is that we have peace, and the chance to raise a stable family now exists,” he explained.

His plans for the future are to leave his job and become an agricultural entrepreneur, which he says will create opportunities for others to work, earn a living and learn. “I will still be working in development, but not in charity,” said Zikeh, who is concerned about the dependence being created by Liberia’s current aid culture.

“It is also to let the authorities know that we can make examples, that we don’t have to sell all of our land to very large companies,” he said. Recent large-scale land acquisitions by foreign businesses have been criticised for exploiting local communities and engaging in corruption in the awarding of concessions.

A recent audit revealed that only two of 68 land concessions awarded since 2009 fully complied with Liberian law.

Nathaniel Bartee, doctor:

When the war broke out in 1989, Nathaniel Bartee was a doctor who had just returned from earning a master’s degree in the UK. He started the organisation Merci to deal with the humanitarian situation in Monrovia; it quickly expanded into the provinces.

During the conflict, Bartee was at times separated from his family. “I didn’t want to leave Liberia because of the amount of suffering, and the [numbers] of health personnel were not many. So I stayed to guide a younger generation of doctors.” By the end of the conflict, he was one of just 50 doctors left in the country.

Bartee says there has been clear improvement in the provision of health services since those days. “Today I think health is much better. Most of the health workers have returned, and there are more graduates being produced,” he explained.

But he is concerned that the Liberian government is not sufficiently prioritising healthcare. For this reason, he intends to become a senator to push for increases in the health budget in Parliament.

Ma Annie Mushan, women’s peace activist:

In late 1989, Ma Annie Mushan was, in her own words, “not a woman to speak of”.

“I was just a housewife” she told IRIN. During the war, Mushan was displaced from her village and ended up living in the town of Totota, where she was approached by the women’s peace movement that had sprung up in Monrovia.

Mushan eventually became the leader of the Totota branch of the women’s peace movement, which ultimately played a significant role in putting an end to the conflict.

Like many Liberians, she is frustrated by the slow pace of post-war development. “Even though there is progress, people in Liberia are looking for jobs up and down… There are so many people that are not working in Liberia – not a day. That has been one of the major problems we’re faced with.”

She now works on the Peace Hut project, which emerged from the women’s movement, and seeks to address the problem of gender-based violence, which she sees as one of Liberia’s biggest challenges. Mushan feels the existing court system in Liberia is unable to effectively deal with cases concerning women’s issues.

“My focus will stay on the women, to build their capacity up. I still want to be working for the Peace House [Hut], because it is the Peace House [Hut] that got me where I am today,” she concluded.

12 years ago

Eritrea’s unique architecture under threat

Eritrea’s capital Asmara boasts buildings unlike anywhere else in Africa, a legacy of its Italian colonial past, when architects were given free rein for structures judged too avant-garde back home.

Modernist architectural wonders in this highland city include a futurist petrol station mimicking a soaring aircraft and a funky art-deco bowling alley with checkered, coloured glass windows.

“The city is a living museum of architecture,” said Medhanie Teklemariam, an urban planner in Asmara’s city administration.

Yet while many of the buildings survived a decades-long liberation war from Ethiopia that ravaged settlements elsewhere, preservation and restoration projects have been hampered, threatening to erode the country’s rich cultural heritage.

Medhanie said money remains a critical obstacle, along with a lack of local technical expertise required for specialised restoration projects.

“To undertake a major restoration of all these buildings is very, very challenging because of one, the funding issue and, second, technical capacity,” he said, sitting before a map of central Asmara.

But Medhanie is pushing for change. He is lobbying for the historic city centre to be included on the United Nations World Heritage list and working to renew a European Union-supported project to restore a market building and the Capitol, an Expressionist-style cinema.

He sees the preservation of Asmara’s precious buildings – mainly from the first half of the 20th century – as a matter of maintaining the country’s national fabric.

“This heritage… it is very important for Eritrea’s identity,” he said.

World Heritage status would also be a rare opportunity for Eritrea to win positive international exposure. The Horn of Africa nation normally makes headlines only for its raft of repressive policies.

“The international reputation… would be boosted,” said Edward Denison, a photographer and co-author of Asmara: Africa’s Secret Modernist City.

A bowling alley in Asmara. (Pic: AFP)

A different side of Eritrea
Most of the buildings in the former Italian colony were constructed between 1936 and 1941 as part of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s plan to expand his foothold in Africa.

Asmara used to be known as Piccola Roma, or “Little Rome”. In the 1939 census, more than half the city’s inhabitants were Italian – 53 000 out of a total of 98 000.

Italian architects were brought over and encouraged to experiment with innovative designs that were frowned upon in conservative Europe.

Asmara gained a reputation as an “experimental playground” where wacky designs were welcomed.

Cinema Impero in Asmara. (Pic: AFP)

Today, Eritreans have a deep appreciation for the buildings – even though many were built by compatriots carrying out forced labour under colonial rule – and are proud of their unique city.

While some buildings sit unused, such as the Teatro Asmara with its high arched awnings and Roman-style pillars, many of them remain functional.

Asmara Theatre (Pic: AFP)

Tables are busy at Cinema Roma, as regulars sip macchiatos on the terrace beneath the marble facade. Inside, dated American movies and Eritrean shows are screened to visitors who watch from plush red seats.

According to Denison, the buildings could be a major boost for the sagging tourist industry.

“The opportunities are boundless, and Eritrea is very aware of that with the various other cultural and natural attractions that it has. I think architecture is a key component of that,” he said.

Luckily, the city’s slow development has preserved many of its old buildings, most of which have been left untouched since Eritrea’s war for independence kicked off in 1961.

Dennis Rodwell, architect and author of “Conservation and Sustainability in Historic Cities”, describes Asmara as a “time warp”.

But preservation efforts have been held back in part by Eritrea’s staunch principle of self-reliance. Rodwell said that outside support is sometimes seen as “a threat rather than an opportunity”.

The $5-million World Bank-funded Cultural Assets Rehabilitation Project ended in 2007 as funding dried up and relations between the World Bank and Eritrea soured.

EU funding earmarked for architectural restoration projects remains frozen for review.

Denison, the photographer, agrees that preservation efforts could be improved through greater collaboration with outsiders, but notes Eritrea’s rebel-turned-politician leaders have long struggled to balance “self-reliance and collaboration internationally”.

Yet despite stalled progress in recent years, he says he is hopeful that Eritrea’s rich architectural heritage can be preserved.

Jenny Vaughan for AFP