Time to Go Mugabe

In the first anti-government rally in years, thousands hit streets of Harare in Zimbabwe to protest against economic mismanagement. Thousands marched through the streets calling for an end to the rule of longtime President Robert Mugabe. Police had initially threatened to ban the  protest but were eventually ordered by the High Court to allow it to go ahead.

Zimbabwe's economic crisis has worsened in recent months, taking a toll on employment rates and government expenditure.

Rwanda's shameful arms trade

Between 800,000 and 1 million people were killed over the course of 100 days in Rwanda in 1994 during the civil war.

Documents detailing Israel’s defence exports to Rwanda during the country’s civil war and genocide in the 1990s are to remain sealed, the country’s Supreme Court has ruled. Two years ago Professor Yair Auron and attorney Eitay Mack submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Israel’s defence ministry to discover the nature of any arms exports made to Rwanda between 1990 and 1995. The request was denied by the Ministry of Defence and later by the Tel Aviv District Court, upholding the argument that the release of information would undermine state security and international relations.

Mr Mack responded to the decision by calling it “mistaken and immoral,” but said that “at no point during the proceedings was there a denial that there were defence exports during the genocide,” and vowed to “continue to fight to expose the truth”.

Israel was not the only country to have supplied arms into this conflict. Egypt supplied $6million of weapons.  It included 60-mm and 82-mm mortars, 16,000 mortar shells, 122-mm D-30 howitzers, 3,000 artillery shells, rocket-propelled grenades, plastic explosives, anti-personnel land-mines, and more than three million rounds of small arms ammunition. South Africa supplied automatic rifles, machine guns, mortars, grenade launchers and ammunition. In May 1993, a French arms dealer agreed to sell $12 million worth of weapons to Rwanda. On Jan. 21, 1994, in violation of the terms of the recent peace accords, a French DC-8 cargo plane landed covertly in Kigali loaded with weapons, including 90 boxes of 60mm mortars.

Poverty tourism

The South African Emoya Luxury Hotel and Spa company has glamorized poverty tourism.

"Millions of people are living in informal settlements across South Africa. These settlements consist of thousands of houses also referred to as shacks, shanties or Makhukhus. A shanty usually consists of old corrugated iron sheets or any other waterproof material which is constructed in such a way to form a small "house" or shelter where they make a normal living. A paraffin lamp, candles, a battery operated radio, an outside toilet (also referred to as a long drop) and a drum where they make fire for cooking is normally part of this lifestyle. This is the only Shanty Town in the world equipped with under-floor heating and wireless internet access! The Shanty Town is ideal for team building, braais, fancy theme parties and an experience of a lifetime."

Sharpeville remembered (1980)

Sharpeville remembered (1980)

From the March 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

On March 21 1960, at the African township ofSharpeville in the Transvaal, police fired on a large crowd of Africans who, in response to a call by the Pan Africanist Congress, had gathered to demonstrate against the Pass Laws. Sixty-seven people were killed and a further one hundred and eighty-six injured. Three more Africans were killed while attending a similar demonstration at Langa location, near Cape Town.

The PAC had announced on February 14 that it would launch a non-violent campaign against the carrying of pass-books, which they described as “the symbol of white domination”. The plan was that all African men should leave their pass-books at home, march to the nearest police-station and give themselves up. If brought before a magistrate they would make no plea, nor would they accept bail. It was further stated that the campaign would not be called off until the Pass Laws had been abolished and various other conditions had been met, including the promise of a minimum wage of £8.6.8. (£8.34) a week and no victimisation.

Predictably, police witnesses, in their official testimony, denied responsibility for the slaughter at Sharpeville. The familiar excuses were offered and accepted: shots had come from the crowd; sticks and stones had been used; the police were in danger of being overwhelmed. It is revealing to note however, that the senior district surgeon of Johannesburg, Dr Jack Friedman, at the post mortem examination he had conducted on fifty-two of the Africans killed, recorded that 70 per cent of the bullets had entered from the back. Of the police, only twelve were injured, none of them seriously.

In the debates which took place in the House of Assembly on the Sharpeville massacre every effort was made by the government spokesmen to whitewash the actions of the police and to blacken the motives and behaviour of the Africans.

Even in a police state as tightly controlled as South Africa's, any attempt to cover up an event as horrific as Sharpeville was bound to fail. News of the massacre made the headlines all over the world. The event was variously interpreted, some commentators going so far as to assert that revolution was just around the corner. Although there were — and are — many apologists for the behaviour of the South African authorities support for racism and police brutality isn’t confined to South Africa — there was a widespread feeling of shock and horror. Even many in the business world contrived to put up a passable imitation of outrage—as well they might; for Sharpeville promised to be much more than the mere disciplining of a handful of recalcitrant blacks. At stake was the continued ability of the South African ruling class to divide, rule and profit from one of the great cheap-labour markets of the world.

South Africa is effectively a slave state. Its mainly black workforce is divided along racial lines. In order to maintain control over their enormous reservoir of dirt-cheap labour the South African ruling class has underpinned its position by ensuring, through the granting of extensive and exclusive privileges, that white workers are persuaded that they have no interest in identifying with their dark-skinned fellows. For example: where black workers are deliberately under-educated, or not educated at all, white workers are granted free access to all levels of state education; subject, of course, to the competitive rigours of the examination system. White workers may freely organise in trade unions which black workers may not join. Blacks, under the policy of apartheid (separate development) have no permanent right of settlement outside specially designated areas the so-called ‘Bantustans’ or ‘Homelands’. Whites are free to live where they please. A corollary of all these circumstances is the massive job discrimination which exists throughout South Africa.

It is not as if the South African capitalists have any greater love or respect for their white employees than they have for their black or brown ones, despite the fact that all white South Africans are encouraged to believe that the blacks, whom they slightingly refer to as the ‘Bantu’, are essentially less than human. (Can this account for the behaviour of one Dominee J. J. du Toit, of the Nederduitse Hervormde Kerk reported in the Guardian, 17.1.80—who refused to conduct the funeral service, in Germiston, of a white employer because two truckloads of his former black employees turned up to help bury him?) It is rather that they exploit an opportunity to capitalise on the prejudice, jealousy and greed which they have themselves assiduously fomented among the working class as a whole. It is a heightened illustration of what Karl Marx correctly identified as a ‘false consciousness of class’;—heightened because it includes the particularly vicious concept of racial superiority. (Of course, it repays capitalists everywhere, and not only in South Africa, to play off one group of workers against another using wage levels, religion, colour, language or whatever, in order to do so. The method may be examined even closer at hand among our own coloured brothers and sisters whose isolation currently serves the miserable purposes of such as the National Front; or Enoch Powell; or Thatcher).

Sharpeville, then, represented a threat — not to the capitalist system as it was—and is—operating throughout the world, but to the peculiar and highly lucrative manner in which it was operating in South Africa. A police massacre of unarmed, protesting, black near-slaves is hardly calculated to bathe either South African or international capitalism in a very flattering light. In short, the whole affair was acutely embarrassing. But that was not all. If world opinion were allowed to get out of hand then it could begin to endanger the continued amassing of the huge profits hitherto enjoyed by some of the world’s largest corporations and banking interests.

They need not have worried. An initial tactical suspension of the Pass Laws by the South African Government led to even greater repression, with the—by then—re-introduced Pass Laws being more forcibly upheld than before. The black Africans’ right of assembly was withdrawn and the police were armed with even more punitive powers. (Following mass protests and strikes the police had resorted to indiscriminate brutality on a scale and of a type which shocked even many white bystanders.) A state of emergency was declared. The leaders of the Pan Africanist Congress and the African National Congress were gaoled and their organisations proscribed, mass arrests were made of opponents of Government racial policy. South African and world capitalism rode out the storm.

As time passed Sharpeville slipped into the shadows and for the capitalists it was business as usual. Who today can truthfully say that the seventy black workers who died at the hands of South Africa’s police thugs brought about any noticeable change of policy in that country except for a determination on the part of the white ruling class to tighten the screws of oppression? Far more than that seventy have died since: hangings, shootings, mysterious ‘suicides’ by ‘suspects’ who ‘leaped’ from high windows during police ‘interrogation’. Some, like Steve Biko, were kicked and beaten to death for no better reason than that they were black and politically articulate. Then there were the Soweto riots, resulting in yet another crop of police killings. Hundreds languish in prisons such as Robben Island, convicted on trumped- up charges which the South African judiciary and police, lackeys that they are, have ensured need no proper substantiation.

What message, then, should workers draw from these and other similar happenings around the world? Firstly: it cannot be emphasised strongly enough that, appalling though such disasters as Sharpeville are, they are nevertheless manifestations of a condition which all the world’s workers share: the capitalistic exploitation of their labour power in exchange for wages. If this can be achieved voluntarily then so much the better. If it cannot then our masters can resort to the methods described above. This would be true even were the present white regime in South Africa to be overthrown and replaced by black rule: black governments throughout Africa bear witness to the validity of this assertion. Doubters will shortly be in a position to test it anew against events taking place in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia on South Africa’s borders. At the time of writing, that country—ostensibly preparing for elections—is demonstrating all the signs of a plunge into a civil war even more ferocious than it has suffered hitherto. What is certain is that whoever emerges ‘victorious’ will proceed with as much dispatch as possible to take over capitalism where the last lot left off. (In reassuring Rhodesian whites of their future position, the so called Marxist Robert Mugabe was reported by the BBC on 27 January as saying that if his party came to power they would have to inherit a capitalist economy and any reforms would be built on that basis.) It will make not a scrap of difference whether the troops who hold the ring are South African, British, Cuban, or whatever: black and white workers alike will merely find themselves saddled with a new set of exploiters. The demands that are made of them will not have changed. And it is certain that unless and until workers are prepared to understand this then any protest they may make can in the end be no more effective than that which led to the bloodletting at Sharpeville.

Richard Cooper

Corruption and Tax Havens

Oxfam estimates, at least $18.5 trillion is hidden in tax havens worldwide. The organisation found that two thirds of this offshore wealth is hidden in European Union related tax havens while a third is in UK-linked sites where it is left undeclared and untaxed.  Oxfam said that their estimate is a conservative one. Tax Justice Network suggests that between $21 to $32 trillion is being diverted into offshore companies. Oxfam found that tax dodging by multinational corporations alone costs the developing world between $100 billion and $160 billion per year. Added with profit shifting, approximately $250 billion and $300 billion is lost. This “missing” money could lift every person above the $1.25 per day poverty threshold three times over, according to Brookings Institution calculations. Oxfam added that for every $1 billion lost through commercial tax evasion, 11 million people at risk across the Sahel region could have enough to eat, 400,000 midwives could be paid in Sub-Saharan Africa which has the highest maternal mortality rates, and 200 million insecticide-treated mosquito nets could be purchased to reduce child mortality from malaria.

Former governor of Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta State James Ibori was also implicated in the Panama Papers,allegedly using Mossack Fonseca as an agent for four offshore companies in Panama and Seychelles. These entities provide anonymity, hiding true owners’ names and actions and thus allowing for finances and assets to be undeclared and untaxed.

Though he was detained in 2012 for diverting up to $75 million out of the country, Nigerian authorities estimate that Ibori stole and stored over $290 million in tax havens.

Like Uganda, Nigeria ranks low in health indicators, contributing to some 10 percent of global maternal, infant and child deaths. Poverty has increased in the country with 61 percent living below the poverty line, according to the most recent Nigerian Bureau of Statistics report.

The Niger Delta region in particular, despite being a significant contributor to the country’s economy through oil production, remains the poorest and least developed region in Nigeria. In Ibori’s Delta state alone, 45 percent of people live in poverty. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) report found that the majority of people in the region lack access to potable water, electricity, health facilities and infrastructure including roads and telecommunications.

“Have you seen any taps here?…Water used to run in public taps, but that had stopped 20 years ago. We basically drink from the river and creeks…hygiene is secondary,” a Niger Delta Resident told UNDP.

Though Ibori’s stashed money represents only a slice of Nigeria’s budget, it is indicative of a global and pervasive problem that goes beyond Mossack Fonseca.

Transparency International’s Senior Policy Coordinator Craig Fagan told IPS: “If you think about the millions of files that have been released and the number of high profile individuals [in the Panama Papers], this is just one law firm in Panama. We can be certain that there are many other law firms whether in London, Hong Kong, New York, Miami that are operating similar structures,” he said. The Swiss Leaks in 2015, revealed how over 106,000 clients from Venezuela to Sri Lanka hid more than $100 billion in Swiss HSBC bank accounts.

This is the same rigged system that has created the situation where the wealth of the richest 1% surpasses the combined wealth of the rest of the world.

Turning children into bombs

One in every five "suicide bombers" used by Boko Haram in the past two years has been a child, a report by UNICEF says.

"The use of children, especially girls, as so-called suicide bombers has become a defining and alarming feature of this conflict," Laurent Duvillier, regional spokesman for UNICEF said. "It's basically turning the children against their own communities by strapping bombs around their bodies."

Boko Haram child "suicide bombings" have surged ten-fold in West Africa in the last year, with children as young as eight, mostly girls, detonating bombs in schools and markets. Suicide bombings have spread beyond Nigeria's borders, with an increasing number of deadly attacks carried out by children with explosives hidden under their clothes or in baskets. Some young children probably did not know they were carrying explosives, which are often detonated remotely, Duvillier said. The tactic has proven effective in increasing the number of casualties as people do not usually see children as a threat.

There were 44 child "suicide bombings" in West Africa last year, up from four in 2014, UNICEF said, mostly in Cameroon and Nigeria. Three-quarters of the "suicide bombers" have been girls. Abducted boys are forced to attack their own families to demonstrate their loyalty to Boko Haram.

Almost one million Nigerian children are missing out on education as Boko Haram has destroyed more than 900 schools and killed more than 600 teachers, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

"Boko Haram is robbing an entire generation of children in northeast Nigeria of their education," Mausi Segun, Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

World Socialist Movement (video)

Sub-Saharan Africa’s economies have lost steam

Economic activity in Sub-Saharan Africa slowed in 2015, with GDP growth averaging 3.0 percent, down from 4.5 percent in 2014. This means that the pace of expansion decelerated to the lows last seen in 2009. The plunge in commodity prices – particularly oil, which fell 67 percent from June 2014 to December 2015 – and weak global growth, especially in emerging market economies, are behind the region’s lackluster performance. Commodity price drops have lowered Africa’s terms of trade in 2016 by an estimated 16 percent, with commodity exporters seeing large terms-of-trade losses. Sub-Saharan Africa countries will continue to face low and volatile prices in global commodity markets.  In several instances, the adverse impact of lower commodity prices was compounded by domestic conditions such as electricity shortages, policy uncertainty, drought, and security threats, which stymied growth.

Housing and transport are particularly costly in urban Africa. Housing prices are about 55 percent higher in urban areas of African countries relative to their income levels. Urban transport, which includes prices of vehicles and transport services, is about 42 percent more expensive in African cities than cities in other countries. Like households and workers, firms also face high urban costs.

The World Bank report warned of “downside risks,” meaning that its predictions for growth this year and next were still vulnerable because of the global economic environment, in particular commodity prices, but also China’s industrial slowdown.

World Socialism (video)

Early marriage, early death

Uganda which has one of the world's highest rates of pre-teen and teenage pregnancies as the east African nation struggles to enforce laws to clamp down on child marriages. 300,000 girls every year get pregnant. One in every four girls aged between 15 and 19 fall pregnant, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, and nearly half of girls are married before 18. Ugandan authorities have struggled to enforce laws that set a minimum marriage age of 18.

A study by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2013 indicated that early marriages and resultant pregnancies are the biggest cause of deaths among 15 to 19-year-old girls in Uganda, accounting for 20 percent of maternal deaths. Others of those who survive the pregnancies can suffer lasting complications like fistula and disability.

Nakubulwa Mayi, a senior midwife at Mulago Referral Hospital the biggest hospital in the country, said pre-teen pregnancies posed serious physical and emotional risks to young girls. "At this age a girl should be playing with dolls but not to have to handle a baby," she said. 

Ignorance on risks of child marriage, limited access to education for girls, cultures dictating girls should marry young, and poverty, have all contributed to this growing trend of child marriage in Uganda.

Agnes Igoye, assistant coordinator of the anti-trafficking task force at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said early marriage is a form of sexual and gender-based violence with physical, social and economic effects. "Once married, few girls return to school even if it becomes economically viable," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A Broken Heath Service

The incidence of cancer is on the rise in Africa. 

Uganda's only radiotherapy machine used for treating cancer is broken beyond repair, the country's main cancer unit says. This leaves thousands unable to get potentially life-saving treatment. The cancer unit is currently talking to the ministry of health to find a way to buy a new machine, but it is not clear when that will happen.

The cancer unit at Mulago Hospital in the capital, Kampala, is now looking for $1.8m (£1.3m) to buy a new machine. It gets 44,000 new referrals a year from Uganda, as well as from neighbouring countries including Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. 

Around 75% of these may require radiotherapy, the unit's spokesperson Christine Namulindwa told the BBC. 

 Patients are still able to get other treatments, such as chemotherapy and surgery, but if they need radiotherapy, and they can afford it, they will have to travel to neighbouring Kenya.

The War in Ethiopia (1978)

Another from our archives  From the March 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard The fighting now taking place in Ethiopia is a tragic testimony to the cynicism and ambition of the major capitalist powers, including Russia. The strategic plotting of the Russian ruling class has led to a situation where destitute African peasants, exhorted to sacrifice themselves for nationalist ends, use Russian-supplied weapons to murder each other. It is the policies of the governments of Somalia and Ethiopia, plus those of the superpowers, which explain how this has come to happen. In 1969 a military coup took place in Somalia, and Major-General Mohammed Barre became head of state. The new rulers claimed to be revolutionaries, and spoke loftily of establishing “Scientific Socialism”. The only legal political party is the so-called Somali Socialist Revolutionary Party, of which Barre is the Secretary-General. In fact, Barre’s government pursued a policy of as rapid as possible a development of capitalism in what was and remains a very backward country, with subsistence wages and almost no health service. The method was that of state capitalism, with the land and many companies being nationalized. Their revolutionary rhetoric did not however prevent them from accepting American financial aid, which was used to build a port at Kismayu in the south of the country. But the greatest support came from Russia, which supplied Somalia with weapons and helped to make the city of Berbera a well-equipped port and naval base which could be used by the Russian navy. Missile storage facilities were also built, again for Russian use —an ironic priority in a country without a single mile of railway track. It was clear that Russia was hoping to make Somalia into a Russian military base on the Indian Ocean, and a counter in Eastern Africa to Ethiopia, then ruled by Emperor Haile Selassie’s savage Christian dictatorship. Murderous Struggle Then in 1974 the Ethiopian army deposed Selassie. A murderous struggle for power among various political and military factions ensued, but again the new rulers, the Dergue, claimed to be revolutionary Marxists. In December of the same year, Ethiopia was officially declared to be a “Socialist” state. As in Somalia, the government actually pursued a policy of state capitalism, nationalizing the land and various branches of industry, as the quickest way to develop the forces of production. The Russians saw their chance again, and supplied arms to Ethiopia. As the Somali- supported separatist guerrilla war in the northern province of Eritrea (which was only fully incorporated into Ethiopia in 1962) spread and the separatists occupied large parts of Eritrea, Russian and Cuban advisors were sent to help the Ethiopian government. Meanwhile a Somali-backed revolt was taking place in Ogaden, in the western part of Ethiopia. For a while the Russians were able to back both sides in this way. But in November last year, the Somali government expelled their Russian “advisers”, and asked the Americans to supply more arms. The Russians thus lost access to the port facilities at Berbera, and are now defending the Ethiopian government against alleged Somali aggression. The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, as it is called, is just the kind of “national liberation movement” that the Russians have supported in some parts of the world — and fought in others — when it suited them to do so. In Eritrea, now, Russian planes and rockets are used against the guerrillas. Eritrea contains Ethiopia’s main Red Sea port, Massawa, a prize that would help compensate the Russians for the loss of Berbera. The Russians may have decided that Eritrea is not viable—or sufficiently useful to them—as an independent state, and so are concentrating their efforts on keeping Ethiopia intact and friendly to Moscow. The Dergue, the present military government of Ethiopia, operates with the usual brutality of a dictatorship. Since 1974 thousands of people have been imprisoned, and hundreds executed, for political activity hostile to the government. The Ethiopian air force’s tactics in Eritrea include the bombing of civilians in towns captured by the guerrillas. Peasants who refuse to be conscripted into the Ethiopian army are said to be killed in front of their families. Flour given by the Red Cross to relieve a famine in Ogaden has been commandeered by the army. The Dergue is no more than an old-fashioned military dictatorship. Reports that the Russians have been actually involved in the fighting on behalf of Ethiopia have not been independently confirmed. No doubt the Russians would prefer not to risk their own troops in pursuit of their ambitions, but to let the Ethiopians and Somalis shoot it out between themselves. Their economic policies show that the Somali and Ethiopian governments have a great deal in common, though both may have something to gain by invading the other. The ones with nothing to gain in any of this are the workers and peasants, the ones who do the actual fighting and dying. In order to defend their own military bases and gain control of strategic routes, the Russian ruling class are quite prepared to foster and support wars between other nations, where the real losers are the ordinary people concerned, who face death, hunger and homelessness in a cause not their own. Paul Bennett

Who are the culprits in the Congo?

Attacks on civilians in the Beni region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have killed more than 500 people in the past 18 months. Congolese officials accuse the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamist rebel group with links to Uganda, of committing the massacres. Local political leaders refer to the ADF as an Islamist militia and stress its ties to extremist networks across the region, such as al-Shabab in Somalia and Kenya. But it’s not that simple. Behind the narrative of an Islamist menace there is evidence of Congolese military involvement, with potential links to smuggling rackets. But some civil society leaders and human rights groups believe the authorities are deliberately exaggerating the ADF’s role. “To directly point out ADF as responsible for a certain attack is very difficult,” said Michel Musafiri, a researcher with a human rights group in Beni. “So far, only a few attackers have been identified. When authorities and others claimed fighters were members of the ADF, it later turned this was not the case.”

The ADF has been based in Congo for more than two decades. It has forged strong links with local political and economic figures and has tapped into trafficking networks, mainly timber, taking advantage of corruption within the FARDC and the local administration. This illicit economy has been at the heart of the violence and instability in the east for decades.

While there is no doubt the ADF is responsible for a number of abuses, including murder, rape and the recruitment of children, a recent report by the Congo Research Group, a project monitoring violence in the east, has questioned that official line. It has called on the government to launch an urgent investigation led by a senior military prosecutor. “The ADF is not really what people make it out be,” said Jason Stearns, the report’s lead researcher. “It’s not a foreign Islamist organisation, but a militia deeply rooted in local society with links to political and economic actors. While ADF are responsible for a majority of the massacres, it is clear that other groups, including Congolese soldiers, were involved as well.”

The researchers spent six months interviewing more than 100 people, including victims, civil society leaders and officers from the national army, the FARDC. It concluded that, “In addition to commanders directly tied to the ADF, members of the… national army; former members of the rebel Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie—Kisangani/Mouvement de Libération (RCD–K/ML); as well as members of communal militias have also been involved in attacks on the civilian population.”

When massacres have taken place close to where peacekeepers and FARDC troops were stationed, the troops have failed to intervene. In some cases, FARDC commanders have allegedly ordered their troops not to respond. “The authorities have focused all their efforts on fighting the ADF without properly investigating who is behind the attacks and making sure the responsible are brought to justice,” said Musafiri. The authorities have arrested a number of individuals believed to be associated with the ADF, but no one has ever been tried or convicted. This has led human rights groups to believe there may have been high-level complicity. 

“Recognising that many of the violations are driven by local rivalries is key to bringing stability to North Kivu,” said Teddy Kataliko, a civil society leader, referring to the province that includes Beni.

According to the Congo Research Group, “it is clear that the Congolese government and MONUSCO (the UN’s peacekeeping and stabilisation mission in Congo)  have not put sufficient effort into addressing this crisis and have incorrectly identified the enemy.”

The soil not the oil

“South Sudan has virgin land. Yet we import most of our food from neighbouring countries,” South Sudan’s finance minister, David Deng Athorbei, complained.  South Sudan has ignored agriculture since it achieved its independence in July 2011. Up to 75 per cent of the country’s land area is suitable for farming. During the first two years of independence, the country was producing nearly 245,000 barrels of crude oil per day, raking in billions of dollars in revenue annually. As a result, the elite saw no value in labour-intensive activity like farming. “The business of trade is over. We now need to embark on the business of production. We have to change our ways of doing business. Let’s start with agriculture,” Athorbei advised.

Before the fall of oil prices below $30 a barrel in the international market, oil-rich South Sudan used to import virtually all of its basic requirements from overseas. Chicken came from Brazil. Tomatoes, onions, maize flour, cooking oil, dairy products and beans are still being imported from neighbouring Uganda. China and Dubai export a variety of goods such as soft drinks, smart phones as well as construction materials. In South Sudan prices have continued to spiral beyond the reach of the poor. The crisis has prompted parliament to urge government to reduce inflation to mitigate the sufferings of ordinary persons.

Every year, South Sudan spends between US$200-300 million on food imports, according to estimates for 2013 provided by the Abidjan-based African Development Bank (AFDB). “South Sudan currently imports as much as 50 per cent of its needs, including 40 per cent of its cereals from neighbouring countries, particularly Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia”, according to AFDB.

Campaigners are now focusing on food production to mitigate the impact of a devastating civil war. South Sudan has vast fertile lands, abundant water and climate suitable for production of wide variety of food and cash crops. Experts estimate that up to 300,000 metric tonnes of fish could be harvested on a sustainable basis from its share at the River Nile swamps and tributaries. What food South Sudan produces often is left rotting in the bush due to poor road network to transport the commodities to the market.

Uganda and the Panama Papers

The Panama Papers show how an oil  company based in Jersey, a British crown dependency, attempted to avoid paying $400m (£280m) in Capital Gains Tax to the Ugandan government.

 In 2010, Heritage Oil and Gas Ltd realised it would be hit with a huge tax bill and started making efforts to avoid it by moving the country where the company was registered from the Bahamas to Mauritius. Mauritius has a double-tax agreement with Uganda, which in principle means companies pay tax in only one of the two countries. Since Mauritius does not impose any Capital Gains Tax, charged on the sale of assets, this would mean Heritage reduces its bill to zero.

An accountant acting on behalf of Heritage said the move to Mauritius would act as a "second line of defence" in efforts to "eliminate the potential tax charge imposed by the Ugandan authorities". Elsewhere, he was more precise: "We are looking to re-domicile Heritage Oil and Gas Ltd. [HOGL] to Mauritius (primarily due to the double tax agreement between Uganda and Mauritius). HOGL… is due to complete the sale of an asset in Uganda within the next 11 days. "Due to tax reasons emanating from Uganda, the directors have been advised by tax accountants to re-domicile HOGL to Mauritius from the Bahamas before completion."

The legal services head of the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Patience Tumusiime Rubagumya, told the BBC that the "re-domiciliation of Heritage had tax avoidance manoeuvres written all over it". The leaks, if true, only go to validate the position taken by URA as far back as January 2010." The dispute over the $400m tax bill has been dragging on since 2010 in a lengthy series of court battles in both Uganda and the UK. A Tax Appeals Tribunal heard the case, as the company denied it was liable to Capital Gains Tax on the sale of its assets. While the tribunal ruled in favour of Uganda, Heritage disputed the decision and the case was moved to a court in London and dragged on for months.

In the meantime, the Ugandan government clamped down on the new owners of the oil assets, Tullow Uganda Ltd, and relations between the two started to break down. In an attempt to salvage its business operations in Uganda, Tullow paid the Ugandan government and later successfully sued Heritage to reclaim the money.

In a region littered with mineral deposits of many sorts, and brimming with exploration being carried out by foreign companies, the revelations contained in the Panama Papers highlight the need to tighten tax laws, says Ms Rubagumya. "Base erosion and profit shifting through aggressive tax planning, treaty abuse and double non-taxation requires concerted effort from the revenue authorities and policy makers," she told the BBC. "African countries should therefore close all potential loopholes and stand firm to ensure that tax due is paid." 

Mossack Fonseca, is named as the registered agent of Heritage, whose founder Tony Buckingham is, according to the London-based Guardian newspaper, a donor of UK Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative party.

Same old story

At least six million children in Ethiopia face critical food shortages as a result of the worst drought in 50 years, Save the Children warned. The number of Ethiopians without enough food is rising as the drought intensifies in the African country with children particularly vulnerable.

The drought-affected area is vast with a population of about 30 million affected - with more than one-third in need of emergency food assistance. The region has now suffered three failed growing seasons in a row since mid-2014. More than 14,000 pastoralist families have been on the move since July, looking for work or clean water supplies.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, chief executive of Save the Children said, "Thousands of children are at high risk of malnutrition and waterborne diseases. Families are on the move, desperate to find food and water. We have all the right early warning systems in place to prevent potentially enormous human suffering, but what use is early warning if the international community doesn't come forward?"

Habiba, a mother of seven children from Bekato, said she has suffered along with her children because of the crisis. Six of her children became sick and were being treated. "There was no milk, food, or water as the well had dried up. Can you understand as a mother what it is like to see six of your children so ill?"

Layla, mother of four-year-old girl Malou, said she's worried after her daughter was diagnosed with pneumonia.  "We came here from our village. We had to walk six hours on foot to come here," Layla said. "This is the longest drought I have ever seen."