Category: Perspective

Baba Jukwa, ‘Zimbabwe’s own Julian Assange’

His name is whispered in buses, bars and on street corners by Zimbabweans eager for the inside scoop on President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party. One avid follower even climbs a tree in a rural village for a signal to call a friend for the latest tidbits from the mysterious yet stupendously popular character.

Baba Jukwa, or Jukwa’s father in the local Shona language, is a Zanu-PF party “mole” who says on his popular Facebook page that he is disheartened by the “corrupt and evil machinations” of Mugabe’s fractious party.

Since its launch in March, the Baba Jukwa page has at least 230 000 Likes – more than Mugabe’s and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s.

Baba Jukwa’s Facebook page.

The page reveals what it claims are exposés by well-connected insiders of Mugabe’s health secrets, murder, assassination and corruption plots, and intended intimidation and vote-rigging ahead of upcoming elections scheduled for the end of July.

Zimbabweans who are fans of Baba Jukwa’s page now say they have unfettered access to what they have always wanted to know but never dared ask for fear of being arrested. Under the nation’s sweeping security laws, it is an offence to undermine the authority of the president and national security operatives.

Baba Jukwa claims on the page that there is a bounty on his head, although it is believed there are several authors behind his name because the writing style of the posts changes from day to day.

Inside info
After state-run media loyal to 89-year-old Mugabe said the president made a trip to Singapore for an eye check-up, the Baba Jukwa page stated: “When we welcomed him at the airport yesterday early in the morning our old man, ladies and gentlemen, looked weaned and very weak. It was clear that the chemotherapy process he went through in Far East Asia was still having effect on him.”

The page also said Mugabe was suffering from a severe recurrence of prostate cancer.

With the catchphrase “tapanduka zvamuchose,” a Shona term meaning he has “gone rogue”, Baba Jukwa gives details of secret venues and times of undercover meetings.

Zanu-PF insiders have reported they are afraid to leave important meetings to go to the bathroom in case they are suspected of firing off smart phone texts to Baba Jukwa. The page has reported getting tip-offs from the midst of meetings of Mugabe’s politburo, its highest policy making body, and other confidential gatherings.

Zimbabwe has an estimated 12-million mobile subscribers with 60% estimated to have direct access to the internet through their cellphones, according to commercial company reports from the three main mobile networks.

McDonald Lewanika, director of Crisis Coalition, an alliance of democracy and human rights groups said the Facebook page has provided ordinary Zimbabweans with a platform to access information on secretive state security operations. Lewanika said Baba Jukwa remains anonymous because of the dangers associated with what he is doing.

“It is a bad sign for the country that there’s no free flow of information,” Lewanika told The Associated Press.

The faceless Baba Jukwa vows to end Mugabe’s rule by exposing the alleged involvement of his top officials, secret agents, police and military in the violence that led to disputed elections in 2008 and corruption and internal plotting ever since.

Baba Jukwa says Mugabe won’t be able to withstand a gruelling election campaign.

‘He fabricates lies’
Zanu-PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo said that his party does not know the identity of Baba Jukwa and other possible contributors.

The posts are factually incorrect, he said. However, some have proven to be correct as events unfold. The distribution of private and secret telephone numbers of security agents and forecasts of political developments have been corroborated in later public statements by Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.

“Whoever he is, he fabricates lies and is not doing any good to the morality of our society,” Gumbo said.

Baba Jukwa claims Mugabe’s Zanu-PF is incensed by the page, is making desperate efforts to establish his identity and has put a $300 000 bounty on him or other contributors being unmasked. That claim could not be verified.

“They are wasting their time as I am extremely careful and working from within the country and will never go anywhere as long as these evil old people exist I will continue fighting. My blood will water freedom and democracy for Zimbabweans if I die for this cause,” he posted recently.

“Asijiki“, a word in the local language for “we do not retreat”, is the sign-off Baba Jukwa uses at the end of all the posts.

Baba Jukwa has been dubbed “Zimbabwe’s own Julian Assange” by his followers, but he describes himself in the local Shona language as “mupupuri wezvokwadi” (the harbinger of truth).

Leaked information
A former minister from Mugabe’s party was killed in a car wreck on June 19 after a post from Baba Jukwa had warned of an assassination plot against him several times. The page claimed Edward Chindori-Chininga was suspected of being a Baba Jukwa contributor who leaked inside information on infighting in Mugabe’s party.

“I told you there will be body bags coming this year … The war has begun,” Baba Jukwa posted on his wall.

His posts have detailed the correct private phone numbers of police, intelligence chiefs and under-cover intelligence officers and urged readers to call them.

Saviour Kasukuwere, the nation’s black empowerment minister, publicly admitted to receiving least 50 insulting calls a day. Some even went to his children and aging mother.

He said the calls were taking a toll on his family but added: “It’s a price we have to pay for our country”.

Baba Jukwa has promised to revealed his identity in time.

“I assure you will know me in a new Zimbabwe where our government will be transparent,” he said. – Sapa-AP

12 years ago

Sexual violence in Egypt: ‘The target is a woman’

Randa, a 22-year-old from Cairo, has been dressing as a teenage boy throughout most of her country’s so-far disastrous two-year “transition” to democracy. The medical student thinks it is the only way to avoid sexual assault on the streets during a period of unprecedented abuse.

Randa (afraid of giving her full name) goes for the vaguely preppie American look of tracksuit bottoms, polo shirt, baseball cap and trainers when she joins a demonstration. It means she can blend in with vast numbers of men and run away if anyone sees through her disguise. They seldom do: the anonymity of the crowd combined with the chaos and confusion of disorganised rallies serves her well, and besides, most of the main protests take place after dusk. Glasses and a slight build make her look particularly unthreatening.

“As a young woman who is politically minded, I am an obvious target for the cowards, but not as a weak-looking boy,” Randa said this weekend, just after statistics in a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report pointed to an “epidemic of sexual violence”. Attacks including particularly sadistic rapes have become commonplace in a city that during the Arab Spring was seen as the focal point of enlightenment and progress. Well over 100 women have been seriously attacked since the end of June, usually in a manner that is as arbitrary as it is cruel. One woman required surgery after a “sharp object” was forced into her.

“The only thing that the attackers are interested in is that the target is a woman,” said Randa. “It does not matter if she is young or old, or what her background might be – if you are female you are viewed as someone who is worthy of punishment – these violations transcend politics. They represent innate prejudice and hatred. The real problem is that they are getting worse, and more frequent.”

Volunteers form a safe zone between men and women to prevent sexual harassment during a protest against Mohamed Morsi in Cairo on July 3 2013. (AP)

It would be naive to overlook the drastic increase in crime since Hosni Mubarak, the dictator, was forced out of power in February 2011. Some 51 people were murdered in Cairo on Monday morning alone, during demonstrations against the removal by military force of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president. Yet there is something particularly disturbing about the rise in taharoch el jinssi – Arabic for sexual harassment – especially as it involves men of all ages and backgrounds. The incidents laid out by HRW are only the very worst ones. Name-calling and random groping are now the norm, to the extent that they are unlikely to be reported. The really harrowing data is offered by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, who say that 99.3% of Egyptian women have suffered some form of sexual harassment.

Women are advised to travel in groups, to carry personal alarms, to make sure that friends and family know where they are at all times and – as in the case of Randa – even to disguise themselves.

Lara Logan, the South African CBS television reporter, brought the issue to worldwide public attention. She was subjected to an assault on 11 February 2011 – the very day that Mubarak was deposed. It lasted around 25 minutes and involved up to 300 men who had been celebrating victory in Tahrir Square itself. After her attack, Logan returned to the US and spent four days in hospital. None of her tormentors was ever brought to justice. The majority of the crimes outlined in the HRW report also remain unpunished.

Highlighting how these kind of sexual assaults are now relatively normal, survivor Hania Moheed told HRW in a videoed interview: “They made a very tight circle around me, they started moving their hands all over my body, they touched every inch of my body, they violated every inch of my body.”

The reality is that many Egyptian men blame women for bringing attacks upon themselves with their conduct in public. Ahmad Mahmoud Abdullah, a radical Islamic preacher, suggested women protesting in Tahrir Square “have no shame and want to be raped”. In February 2012, members of the Shura Council, Egypt’s upper house of Parliament, also blamed women for the assaults being carried out on them in Tahrir Square. One member, Adel Afifi, said: “Women contribute 100% to their rape because they put themselves in that position [to be raped].”

Such comments reflect an arch-conservative belief that women should stay at home with their families rather than engage in the political process – a view that was given official sanction following the election of Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, as head of state.

Some have tried to legitimise male “guardianship” by equating gender equality with anti-religious liberalism. Mubarak was a friend to the imperialist US and it was Suzanne Mubarak, the detested and now deposed first lady, who pushed for pro-women legislation, including a wife’s right to sue for divorce and a quota system favouring female election candidates. As the Muslim Brotherhood moved to reverse such measures, these policies became firmly associated with the rejected dictatorship.

Whichever government ends up administering the fledgling post-revolutionary state of Egypt over the next few months, it is unlikely that controlling the abuse of women will be a priority.

Instead vigilante groups such as Tahrir Bodyguard and Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment (OpAntiSH) offer to discourage attackers, usually through strength of numbers but if necessary by using sticks and belts. It is a rough and potentially inflammatory form of deterrence, but in a country where almost everybody is becoming a victim of some kind, it is pretty much all women can hope for.

Nabila Ramdani for the Guardian

12 years ago

Life in Libya: The good, the bad and the ugly

Don’t believe everything you read, the old adage goes. In the case of post-revolution Libya, that cannot be truer. Dramatic headlines of civil war, chaos and a failed state are just that: dramatic. I know this to be the case because in a series of crazy and adventurous events, I left my comfortable western life to see how I could make a change in my ancestral homeland.

Since 2004 I’ve been coming to Libya for short summer visits. My father left the country in the late 70s in open and active opposition to the Gaddafi regime, so we weren’t raised with extended family. I enjoyed getting to know them during these trips.

But after two months of North African hospitality, I could not wait to get back to my convenient and consumerist lifestyle in the States. It was a novelty to pick fresh almonds, use tree branches to sweep the floor and milk goats, but I kept thinking about what I would do the moment I was home: get a pedicure and make a Taco Bell run.

Something changed in the summer of 2012. I came to post-revolution Libya and fell in love. It wasn’t with a handsome boy with a dashing smile. It wasn’t a summer fling. I fell in love with the revolution street art; with children making the peace sign as they hung out of car windows; with the protests of people unhappy with the government; with the billboards memorialising our fallen heroes. I fell in the love with the excitement, freedom, and carefree feeling in the air. I fell in love with Libya. And for the first time, I actually imagined moving here.

A Libyan girl in traditional tribal costume flashes the V-sign for victory as families parade in their cars through the streets of Tripoli in celebration on February 16 2012, the eve of the first anniversary of the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi. (AFP)

My decision shocked me and everyone who knew me. I am a Walmart-going, interstate-driving, ridiculously large-sized diet-Coke-drinking, Kentucky Basketball-supporting, rap music-listening, preamble-memorising American. I’m the product of the American Dream, of immigrant parents who fled their homeland to give their children freedom, education and a bright future, yet I grew up with a deep-rooted love for Libya. Of course, the promises of “going home” once Gaddafi died or was overthrown were repeated continuously in our home but I didn’t give it much thought. I was just a kid then. Later, I figured that this tyrant wasn’t going anywhere after 40 years and I wasn’t inclined to give up Netflix even if he did. So when I came to Libya last year, fell in love and found a job that would keep me here, it took a small push and a big leap of faith to say yes.

I’ve been in Tripoli for almost seven months now and, as with all situations, I’ve found the good, the bad and the ugly. The good: I no longer worry about gas prices. At a cool 15 Libyan cents per litre, I can fill up my car for the equivalent of 3.75 US dollars. The bad: Because fuel is so cheap, everyone is on the roads and there’s always traffic. The ugly: There are no traffic laws here so if someone hits you, odds are you’re not going to be compensated.

Living in Libya has made me more flexible. There are no one-stop shops with all my needs. I might not find brown sugar and people will cut in line at check-out, but gentlemen rush to help with heavy items or insist on loading my groceries. I’ve realised how much of superfluous stuff there was in my life – who needs a mini pocket iron? I have become Libya’s pioneer woman. If I want Mexican food, I hunt down avocados, I make sour cream, and I chop my tomatoes for salsa. It’s been in a lesson in humility and character-building.

I’ve also realised how very normal my life here is. I wake up in the morning, brew my coffee, sit in traffic yelling at the idiot in front of me, get to my office and rush in, pretending I’m not late. I help my customers, reply to email requests, laugh with coworkers at the water cooler, and come home exhausted. I eat dinner with my feet up on the couch and hit the sack – only to do it all again the next day. True, my social life isn’t what it used to be – there isn’t a cinema or big shopping malls. I spend Friday nights at local cafés with friends, enjoying great conversation, strong espresso and Tripoli’s latest craze: Cinnabon. I have beach days on the beautiful Mediterranean shore and I can tell you where the best Indian food in all of Libya is.

Libyans cool off at the seaside on June 9 2013. (AFP)

Yes, I may hear the occasional 14.5mm round go off, but it has become my Libyan white noise. Life in Libya is carrying on, it’s business as usual. Bakeries are filled with delicious soft bread, cafés buzz with their loyal caffeine- and nicotine-addicted patrons, vegetable stands are filled and shopkeepers are bringing in the latest styles (skinny jeans and flats are all the rage). There isn’t a week that goes by when I don’t stand back and say: “I can’t believe this is Libya.”

Articles and analyses by “experts” portray Libya on a broken, dangerous, and dead-end path. But these writers are not here. They don’t see kids running happily to school with new books and uniforms. They don’t see the policemen who’ve just recently graduated guarding our neighborhoods. They don’t discuss the grassroots initiatives that clean up the streets.

Libya might make my OCD tendencies flare up and stores may not have my favorite balsamic dressing, but this country has given me an opportunity to grow personally and professionally. It’s the land of my father and the place I now call home.

Assia Amry is a Libyan-American and a graduate of political science and international relations. She currently lives in Tripoli. Follow her on Twitter.

12 years ago

After tears: Mandela’s middle-class legacy

One of our neighbours had an after-tears function at their home on Sunday. It’s when people get together after the funeral of a loved one in vibrant (and often raucous) acknowledgement of life and the person who has passed on.

I’ve only known the sombre solemnity of the aftermath of Muslim funerals, so to hear vibey gospel music and the chatter of relatives on lawn chairs filter through our bedroom curtains was something of a novelty.

Our neighbour was considerate enough to ask us beforehand if her guests could park on the area just outside our house.

Of course, it’s the neighbourly thing to do. We pardon the inconveniences.

Quid pro quo.

I also live across the road from a recently built mosque in a neighbourhood that, during apartheid, was classified as a whites-only suburb.

With the growing number of Muslims in the area, every Friday, cars choke both sides of our street for the Jumuah prayer.

One of the other neighbours has short driveway pillars placed along the grassy embankment outside his fence.

Whether his decision was motivated by a Stonehenge design aesthetic or a desire to not have people park outside of his house, we can’t say for sure.

If he ever required the use of our space for extra parking, that would be okay too.

While we aren’t the type of neighbours who gossip and philosophise with each other over the boundary wall, it’s a convivial non-complicated relationship. Like nice, friendly Muslims, we send over small gifts at Eid, wave and nod at each other, are polite to their dogs and go about living as quietly and non-disruptively as possible.

Our neighbourhood is mild, middle-class and multiracial.

An impossible scenario 30 years ago, when the house we now live in was built (complete with an outside Bantu toilet in its blueprints).

An old blueprint of our house in Ridgeway, Johannesburg South. (Saaleha Idrees Bamjee)

And while I can’t speak for those less fortunate or the well-monied, where the balances are still so severely skewed, the middle is where it’s at.

It’s where me and my black and white neighbours are at.

In the middle, all together.

Saaleha Idrees Bamjee is a freelance wordworker/IdeaGirl who also dabbles in writing, rhyming/speaking words, crafting, upcycling, cooking, and peak-time-traffic karaoke. This post was first published on her blog Electric Spaghetti. Connect with her on Twitter.

12 years ago

Barack Obama’s debt to Africa

His name hangs like a talisman across Africa, from the President Barack Obama High School in Nigeria to the Obama Barbershop in Tanzania, so delighted is the continent to have an American president it can call its own.

Yet Obama’s trip this week will be only his second to sub-Saharan Africa since he became president more than four years ago. His first was a flying 20-hour trip to Ghana in July 2009 (preceded weeks earlier by a stop in Egypt). So it’s no surprise that wherever he goes this week Obama will be faced with questions about how well he has treated his father’s homeland.

Two-year-old Princess Smith sits with her father Francis Smith as they await Obama’s arrival at the International Conference Centre in Accra on July 11 2009. (AFP)

For in the race to do business with an increasingly prosperous and opportunity-laden continent, America is lagging behind. The United States is no longer Africa’s leading trade partner; it lost that position to China in 2009. In contrast to Obama, the new Chinese president, Xi Jinping, visited the continent on his first trip abroad – an indication of its strategic importance to Beijing. It’s a perfect partnership: China needs resources and Africa wants cheap imports and investment. Countries such as Japan, Brazil and Turkey are also aggressively positioning themselves to get in on the act.

At the same time, the Obama administration appears to be struggling to develop a coherent African strategy. In August 2009, barely a year into the administration, Jendayi Frazer, US assistant secretary of state for African affairs during George Bush’s second term, lamented “the Obama administration’s penchant for lecturing Africans rather than listening.” Indeed Hillary Clinton, Obama’s first-term secretary of state, seemed to spend much of her time warning Africans to beware of China. Journalist Howard French wrote recently of the need to “put an end to the belittling, small ball ritual whereby African leaders are invited to Washington in groups of three or four (as if an African country by definition didn’t merit a one-on-one discussion), offered a quick photo opportunity, a few homilies about democracy and governance and then sent on their way”.

Obama’s much-vilified predecessor set a pretty impressive record of engagement with Africa. Under Bush II the US government launched Pepfar, a remarkably successful $15-billion commitment to tackling HIV and Aids. The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US foreign aid organisation that rolls out poverty reduction programmes in developing countries (much of its work is in Africa), was established during the Bush era.

The Bush government left footprints across the continent beyond the aid arena. It played a role in the signing of the peace agreement that brought an end to decades of civil war in Sudan, showed a lot of interest in bringing an end to the wars in the Congo region, and helped bring about an end to the civil war in Liberia, helping ensure Charles Taylor’s resignation, and eventual arrest and prosecution. (Taylor has of course since wondered aloud why Bush is himself not facing prosecution for his own “crimes”).

Against this background of US, Obama comes across as positively neglectful. His only activity of note has been to ramp up US military activity in Africa, adding drone bases and deploying significant numbers of troops. When he was first elected there were celebrations across the continent, and perhaps unrealistic expectations that he would champion African interests on the world stage. Indeed on his first visit to Ghana, he declared that he had “the blood of Africa within me”. Since then his absence has been keenly felt, sparking accusations that he has betrayed his roots.

But is this fair? Does Obama have a special responsibility to the continent, because of his ancestry? Perhaps not. Perhaps the emphasis on Obama as a black president is missing the point. Because it’s not just for reasons of solidarity that the US president should attend to Africa. There are more selfish reasons, both , economic and political, as well.

Barack Obama meets Senegal’s President Macky Sall for bilateral talks at the presidential palace in Dakar on June 27 2013. (AFP)

Africa, as the much-touted “last frontier” for global trade and investment, is today arguably more important than at any other time in its history. Obama would do well to provide more government support to American investors and entrepreneurs seeking to do business in Africa, and to nudge Congress to relax limitations on the US export-import bank’s mandates. To allow the continent to increase its share of global trade – currently only about three percent – America ought to lead the way in abolishing unfair trade tariffs and agricultural subsidies. America can and should also do more to use its clout to deter the global flow of the proceeds of African corruption – whether it’s stolen crude or laundered money – and impose sanctions on the beneficiaries.

“Two-term presidents traditionally devote most of their second terms to foreign policy, which they can control with less interference by Congress,” wrote journalist Jonathan Alter in The Promise, his book on Obama’s first year in office.

The world will be watching to see if that holds true for Obama, and how much of this devotion will be directed at the continent where his father was born and lies buried, and where there’s so much opportunity to leave a lasting presidential legacy without having to break America’s bank.

Tolu Ogunlesi for the Guardian Africa Network