Struggle News Worldwide

Emma Amaize, The Vanguard, 2 July 2008

MOVEMENT for Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) has confiscated the stool of a royal father in Bayelsa State alleged to be sponsoring sea bandits and also captured seven of the suspected sea pirates. The royal father himself bolted away. One of the captured sea pirates is the commander of the group, while the second one, identified as Kingsley is the manager.

Reports said the high command of the MEND was unhappy with the activities of the sea bandits who specialized in robbing fishing trawlers and other ocean-going vessels around the Pennington River in Bayelsa because of the credibility problem it had brought to the Niger-Delta struggle. The last attack of the sea pirates was on two fish trawlers, belonging to a Lagos-based company. Continue Reading »

Delhi Solidarity Group, 26 June 2008

More than 200 people join the protest march from Shaheed Park to Red Fort and hold a public meeting

New Delhi, June 26 2008 : Remembering the Black Day of June 25/26th 1975 when a State of Emergency was imposed by the Indira Gandhi Government suspending all civil liberties, curtailing freedom of press, powers of judiciary and incarcerating any opposition to her rule, today more than 200 people from various unauthorized colonies, informal sector workers, social workers, and others marched under the banner of NAPM, Delhi (National Alliance for Peoples Movement) and declared that the moment of siege has not ended and India is in a state of emergency. Apart from the prevailing repressive conditions elsewhere in the country, in Delhi, we are witness to demolitions of slums, increasing difficulties for common people, informalisation of labour, inflation, difficult living conditions and worst of all protests by victims of Bhopal on the streets entering now the fifth month along with an indefinite hunger strike for 15 days. Continue Reading »

Sanhati, 27 June 2008

by Richard Pithouse, Durban. 16 June 2008

The battle for land in Harry Gwala settlement

The industrial and mining towns on the Eastern outskirts of Johannesburg are unlovely places. They’re set on flat windswept plains amidst the dumps of sterile sand left over from old mines. In winter the wind bites, the sky is a very pale blue and it seems to be all coal braziers, starved dogs, faded strip malls, gun shops and rusting factories and mine headgear. All that seems new are the police cars and, round the corner from the Harry Gwala shack settlement, a double story facebrick strip club.

But even here the battle for land continues. The poor are loosing their grip on the scattered bits of land which they took in defiance of apartheid more than twenty years ago. The state is, again, sending in bulldozers and men with guns to move the poor from central shack settlements to peripheral townships. In every relocation many are simply left homeless. It is very difficult to resist the armed force of the state but people do what they can. Officials are often stoned. In principle the courts should provide relief from evictions that are not just illegal but are in fact criminal acts under South African law. There have been notable successes but it is often difficult to get pro bono legal support, legal processes are slow and the evictions continue. Continue Reading »

by Fanuel Nsingo, Abahlali baseMjondolo

Zimbabwe, ……………..wait before you……………….!

Excitement gripped me when I was able to go back across the border to visit my family in Zimbabwe. Pleased as I was, I tried to ignore all the media reports on the country’s disregard of acceptable and proper treatment of human beings. Before going home, I braced myself for whatever the hell was to befall me! Imagine going back home to unpredictable situations, disastrous conditions, or even impending death - and when home is Zimbabwe this is no exaggeration. If you have been in South Africa you are immediately suspected of being MDC. Anyway, going home was the only way to please my mum!

From Johannesburg I boarded a bus directly to Harare, Zimbabwe. I paid 300 Rands for the trip and took at least seven hours to reach the Beitbridge Border Post. The border was highly-congested, with border officials dragging their feet at main checkpoints. My stay there was four hours. Later, the bus had to leave for Harare at around 5 o’clock in the morning. The bus took eight hours to reach Harare. Continue Reading »

Curse of the Black Gold, with pictures by Ed Kashi and text chosen by Michael Watts, is now online at: http://www.powerhousebooks.com/blackgold.pdf

It is essential reading. Ed Kashi’s introduction is below.

Ed Kashi

Shadows and Light in the Niger Delta

Iraq led me to the Niger Delta. Actually, it was my work in Iraq that brought me to the attention of Michael Watts, a Berkeley-based scholar. For over thirty years, Michael has studied issues of oil and conflict, especially in regards to the Niger Delta. With Michael’s guidance, on my first trip to Nigeria in July 2004, my eyes and heart were opened and my anger and disgust were ignited. To tell this difficult, but profoundly important, geopolitical story in a visual way became an obsession.

The Delta is the pivotal point where all of Nigeria’s plagues of political gangsterism, corruption, and poverty seem to converge. In late 2005, I returned alone to continue the project and faced severe restrictions and frustrations. There were moments in Port Harcourt, lying in a dark, hot, mosquito-infested room, when I wondered if I could continue to see beyond my own weaknesses to overcome the seemingly insuperable obstacles that challenged me at every turn. Continue Reading »

Open Democracy, 22 June 2008

by Hope

This morning I woke up to the sound of my cellphone beeping messages about what was happening in Harare. The day started to roller-coaster forwards from there, fuelled by adrenaline and anxiety.

While I was scrambling to get the pages of the blog to open up to add news received via sms and emails, the question going through my mind the whole time was: “Will the MDC call the rally off or not?” At that stage my mind hadn’t reached far enough forwards to contemplate whether they might consider pulling out of the 27 June run-off.

I felt genuinely frightened this morning, and at one point I said to a friend: “I am scared; today could be our ‘Sharpeville massacre’.” Continue Reading »

Sokwanele, 22 June 2008

MDC Press Release:

At 1500hrs President Tsvangirai announced that he and the MDC will no longer participate in the 27th of June 2008 Presidential run off election.

President Tsvangirai stated that, “The MDC won the 29th of March election despite the conditions that were far from free and fair. Our party’s message of peaceful, democratic change and rebuilding a new Zimbabwe enjoy the support of vast majority of Zimbabweans.”

“Our election victory confirmed this to Mugabe and since that date he and his supporters have been waging a war against the people of Zimbabwe.

This violent retributive agenda has seen over 200 000 people internally displaced and over 86 MDC supporters killed, over 20 000 houses have been destroyed, and over 10 000 people injured and maimed in this orgy of violence. ” Continue Reading »

Sanhati, 20 June 2008

1. India’s Emerging Food Security Crisis: The Consequences of the Neoliberal Assault on the Public Distribution System - Analytical Monthly Review
2. A man-made famine - Raj Patel, The Guardian
3. The World Food Crisis: Sources and Solutions - Fred Magdoff, Monthly Review
4. Manufacturing a Food Crisis - Walden Bellow, The Nation
5. Global food crisis: ‘The greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model’ - Ian Angus, Socialist Voice
6. Soaring prices are causing hunger around the world - Washington Post Editorial
7. The World’s Growing Food-Price Crisis - Time magazine

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Continue Reading »

Sokwanele, 18 June 2008

The following entries are sample testimonies randomly selected from the data sheets we used as a source for the information on our map here. We have taken pains to obscure any details that could potentially identify the victims - words inserted in square brackets are ours. These testimonies are selected from locations all over the country and all report atrocities that have occurred after the March 29th elections.

» My husband, I and our child were abducted by 100 zanu youth. My child managed to escape but we were taken to their base where we were beaten the whole night. They also burnt down our house. Continue Reading »

by Isaac Ombe, first published in The Nation, republished by the Niger Delta Solidarity Group, 14 June 2008

The Nation’s correspondent in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Isaac Ombe, moved round the communities that produced the first oil wells in the country and examined the infrastructural development in the area and how the residents fare as a result of neglect over the years.

“For over 20 years, no flash of light in this community where oil was first struck in commercial quantity”, says Otuogidi community.

“This community has not benefited from Shell’s presence here since the past 20 years. It was only in June last year that Shell awarded a one kilometre road contract”, says the traditional ruler of Otabagi community , one of the communities where oil was first struck.

“Infrastructural development by Shell in Oloibiri community is nothing to write home about here.”

These and more were words that came out of residents of three communities where Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) was involved in oil exploration and exploitation activities in the ‘50s through the ‘70s and left the area after milking it dry. Continue Reading »