AFRICA AND THE MILLENNIUM GOALS

OF BRANDING GHANA AND THE MILLENNIUM GOALS

The Ghanaian Times Tuesday September 21, 2010

By Cameron Duodu

QUOTE: In the five years since the Guardian first visited the Klutsey family, Hannah has grown into a beautiful five-year-old. Neighbours say she is a lively girl.

However, the family's living standards have not improved. They now have electricity, but still share a one-room hut. "This is not good for family life. How can we still be living in a single room with our children, some of whom are no longer kids, but adolescents?" Benjamin asks.

They still have no sanitation, not even a pit latrine. Their staple diet is akple, a meal made from cassava and corn, which Mary also sells from a stand outside their home. "Meat is too expensive for us. We can't afford that luxury," she said.

At Christmas, they eat chicken and rice, but sometimes lunch is just a piece of bread. To supplement their diet, local children hunt rats. On the day the Guardian visited, thick black smoke billowed from nearby bushes where a dozen children had set fires to force the animals from their holes. One of the boys was Samuel, Hannah's 10-year-old brother. "It's good meat," he said, pulling the skin from a dead rat.

Hannah's eldest brother, 15-year-old Alfred, is already working, although he has not finished school. He proudly shows off the Manchester United jersey he bought with money earned on building sites.

But his spending is a source of irritation for Mary, who reminds Alfred that school term is about to start but the family do not have enough money to pay his outstanding exam fees. "That's my immediate headache," she said.
Mary hopes she "will one day own a big convenience shop", a business she thinks will help transform her family's economic situation.

Her husband, on the other hand, wants the government to support his farm with subsidised fertilisers and farming implements.
"The crops are not doing well, because the rains have not been regular this season," he said as he dug up a cassava root. "This will do for dinner," he said. "We thank God we have something to eat today ... tomorrow will take care of itself." UNQUOTE

In the next few days, a lot of words will be heard at the UN – once again – about the “millennium goals for development” in Africa.

At the Gleneagles (Scotland) summit of the G8 (Group of Eight rich industrial nations) in 2005, the G8, spurred on by the United Nations, followed up earlier promises and made stirring pledges about what they would do to try and to eliminate poverty, disease and illiteracy from the poor nations of the world, especially, Africa.

Five years on, none of the pledges looks as if it will be fulfilled. Mr Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University (who is also a special adviser to United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals), says the most important pledge of all the G8's promises was the Gleneagles one which stated that by 2010, they would increase annual development assistance to the world's poor by $50bn, relative to 2004.

Half of the increase, or $25bn per year, would go to Africa, the G8 said.

“The G8,” says Mr Sachs, “fell far short of this goal, especially with respect to Africa. Total aid went up by around $40bn rather than $50bn, and aid to Africa rose by $10bn-$15bn per year, rather than $25bn. The properly measured shortfall is even greater, because the promises that were made in 2005 should be adjusted for inflation.

Re-stating those commitments in real terms, total aid should have risen by around $60bn, and aid to Africa should have risen by around $30bn.
In effect, the G8 fulfilled only half of its promise to Africa – roughly $15bn in increased aid rather than $30bn.”

Ironically, Mr Sachs points out, much of the overall G8 increase in aid, “went to Iraq and Afghanistan, as part of the US-led war effort, rather than to Africa.” (It looks as if as far as the US is concerned, if you want it to increase aid to you, then you should allow yourself to be invaded!)

But in all seriousness, what Mr Sachs reports is no less than a sleight of hand being perpetrated by the G8. He writes:
“Since the G8 was off track in its aid commitments for many years, I long wondered what the G8 would say in 2010, when the commitments actually fell due.

In fact, the G8 displayed two approaches. First, in an ‘accountability report’, … the G8 stated the 2005 commitments in current dollars rather, than in inflation-adjusted dollars, in order to minimise the size of the reported shortfall.

“Second, the G8 … simply did not mention the unmet commitments at all. In other words, the G8 accountability principle became: if the G8 fails to meet an important target, stop mentioning the target – a cynical stance, especially at a summit heralded for ‘accountability’.

“The G8 did not fail because of the current financial crisis. Even before the crisis, the G8 countries were not taking serious steps to meet their pledges to Africa. This year, despite [a] massive budget crisis, the UK government has heroically honoured its aid commitments, showing that other countries could have done so if they had tried.”

If Africa had another $15bn-$20bn per year in development aid in 2010, as promised, (says Mr Sachs) with the amounts rising over future years (also as promised), millions of children would be spared an agonising death from preventable diseases, and tens of millions of children would be able to get an education.”

What this means to everyone in Africa is that we must realize, even more forcefully than before, that we are our own saviours and that we a number photographed by the newspaper should bring enormous pressure on our governments to stop spending money on stupid things while our children are dying from curable diseases, or from sheer malnutrition.

I wrote a column recently about how silly it was to spend precious money to hold a conference to “brand Ghana.” I am sure whoever paid for that conference will be shocked to hear that while hot air was being spewed about “branding” Ghana, a real bit of Ghana ‘branding” was being done in a village away from the air-conditioned conference halls of Accra, for the LondonGuardian newspaper.

The paper sent someone to go and have a look at how a child born five years ago in Ghana – one of a number the paper had selected from across Africa to follow up and see how they would be faring in succeeding years – was growing. This is part of what the paper’s reporter found:

“Hannah Klutsey ran from her family's single-room house with tears in her eyes. A mouthful of bread had lodged in her throat and her eyes were bloodshot and bulging.

“‘Mummy, water!’" she shouted as she struggled to swallow. Her mother, Mary, dropped the bundle of firewood she had carried into the dusty compound and rushed to the huge plastic water pot in front of their ramshackle kitchen.

“She came back with a plastic cup of water, which Hannah gulped down. Only later, when the youngster was recovering on her mother's knee, did they notice the mosquito larvae at the bottom of the cup: half a dozen wormlike creatures writhing in the water.

"The pot must have been left open for mosquitoes to lay eggs in the water," said Mary, whose immediate concern was that her only daughter, who had recently recovered from severe skin rashes, could fall ill again. "She survived her recent sickness by miracle: another illness could kill her," said Hannah's father, Benjamin, said as he emptied the contaminated water from the giant pot.

“There is no running water in Kpobiman, the poverty-stricken community outside Accra in which Hannah and her family live. Like most of their neighbours, the Klutseys use water from a shallow borehole. Others are forced to draw water from stagnant pools, where germs and parasites are abundant.

"The water is so bad you can't imagine this community is just a stone's throw from the city," Jeleelah Quaye, the local assembly representative, said.

“In the past year, more than 300 residents, both children and adults, have contracted buruli ulcer, a waterborne disease causing skin lesions and deformities. Four people have died, Quaye said.

“In the five years since the Guardian first visited the Klutsey family, Hannah has grown into a beautiful five-year-old. Neighbours say she is a lively girl.

“However, the family's living standards have not improved. They now have electricity, but still share a one-room hut. "This is not good for family life.

How can we still be living in a single room with our children, some of whom are no longer kids, but adolescents?" Benjamin asks. They still have no sanitation, not even a pit latrine. Their staple diet is akple, a meal made from cassava and corn, which Mary also sells from a stand outside their home. "Meat is too expensive for us. We can't afford that luxury," she said.

….“Hannah’s father]… wants the government to support his farm with subsidised fertilisers and farming implements. "The crops are not doing well, because the rains have not been regular this season," he said as he dug up a cassava root. "This will do for dinner," he said. "We thank God we have something to eat today ... tomorrow will take care of itself."

As those who attended the “branding” Ghana conference were sitting down to a fine, balanced meal, the proper “brand Ghana” was what was on show to the Guardian. That is what the world will read about Ghana, not some expensively-purchased advertisement or “advertorial” from which advertising agencies collect huge commissions.

Such “branding efforts” are worthless, in the face of the evidence that reputable journalists find and report about our country.

If we want Ghana to be admired, then we must provide all our villages with potable water.

We must make sure that children who go to school are not driven out if they have no money for school fees.

We must eradicate the environmental hazards that produce malaria. And we must build effective and efficient health centres, where our people can go and get good medical attention when they fall sick.

That is the only way in which we can brand Ghana credibly. Everything else is hot air.

what is a nigerian life worth?

By CAMERON DUODU

It has happened again. Is anyone surprised any longer when a “religious riot” occurs in Nigeria?

The latest one occurred -- once again -- in the city of Jos, and the death toll is given as anything between 300 and 500 people. Attackers wielding machetes killed hundreds of people in pre-dawn clashes between Islamist pastoralists and Christian villagers. Bodies were piled in streets.

Harrowing pictures of the dead have appeared in the media. http://www.nigeriannewsservice.com/index.php/Breaking-News/jos-boils-again.html

Many Nigerians, in sheer disbelief, are wondering how Jos, a city in which hundreds of people were slaughtered like lambs as recently as November and December 2008, and where killings continued sporadically into January and February 2009,could have been left to fall into the mercy of marauding religious fanatics again.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7758098.stm

　

Everyone knows that these clashes are periodic, and yet, the police appear to have been taken by surprise by them. Again.

In sheer frustration, Nigerians are asking: “Is there such a thing as a state of emergency that could be declared to protect life in Nigeria? What about a properly enforced curfew?” They are receiving no answers.

The most recent pictures of carnage, coming hard on the heels of the exposure of extra-judicial killings by the police by Al Jazeera television -- which I reported on 4 March 2010 -- have demoralised the population beyond measure.

Indeed, the headline to this story was printed above a story by a Nigerian, Mr Solana Olunhemse, who wrote in the Lagos Guardian newspaper on 7 March 2010, describing in despairing terms, how a horrible picture had been sent to him about another alleged atrocity against bus passengers in Nigeria. Nineteen people died in that tragedy and pictures of their badly mutilated bodies have been making the rounds. The police say that the incident occurred last year, not as recently as the disseminators of the pictures had sought to imply.

http://www.nigeriannewsservice.com/index.php/Breaking-News/jos-boils-again.html

Irrespective of the date of the incident, the pictures caused a great deal of consternation. The Nigerian Senate summoned the Inspector General of Police on 3 March 2010 to explain the action taken by the police against the perpetrators of the crime. The Senate’s anger was aroused after a member, Mr Ayogu Eze, had circulated the photo clips of the scene of the incident.

http://www.nigeriannewsservice.com/index.php/Breaking-News/jos-boils-again.html

In turn, the Minister summoned the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Ogbonnaya Onovo, and gave him what was described as “an unprecedented tongue-lashing.”

The minister called his own police service “a failure.” He continued: "The current rate of crime across the nation, rising cases of extra-judicial killings, human rights violations, robberies, high-profile assassination and deliberate failure to comply with government directives, are a testimony to the sheer incapacity, or the wilful defiance of [the] police high command of the efforts of the government”.

Reports say Inspector-General Onovo appeared surprised that he and his most senior officials had been called to receive such a dressing-down from the Minister. But the Nigerian populace are fed up with excuses and verbal parrying both by Ministers and the law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately however, the people‘s fears are not about to end some time soon.

This is because Nigeria has only just partially emerged from a paralysis of government caused by the illness of President Umaru Yar’Adua. He has just “returned home” after nearly three months in a Saudi hospital. Hardly any of the top people in the administration have seen him since his return.

He left Nigeria without fulfilling the formalities that would have allowed his Vice-President, Mr Goodluck Jonathan, to rule in his absence. In exasperation, the Senate voted to make Jonathan Acting President.

Even though Yar’Adua is now back, he is still too ill to govern. He is reported to have "endorsed" the declaration of Mr Jonathan as Acting President by the Senate. But there is too much distrust between the “Jonathan faction” in the Government and “Yar’Adua‘s “kitchen cabinet” for the Government to be able to act firmly in the face of a crisis such as that caused by the religious riots.

The distrust has already produced one high-level casualty: Yar'Adua's National Security Adviser, Major-Genera (rtd) Sarki Mukhtar, has been fired. His replacement is Lt.-Gen (rtd) Aliyu Gusau,who held the same post under Yar'Adua's predecessor, General Olusegun Obasanjo. This bold action by Acting President Goodluck Jonathan signifies that the power struggle at Aso Rock, Abuja -- headquarters of the Nigerian fderal Government -- may not be quite over yet.

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so you thought vultures only flew?

By CAMERON DUODU

This weekend (5.3.2010), The New Statesman devoted a full page to an interview with Dambisa Moyo, author and “economist”, in which she was at it gain, going on about how “aid” is useless to African countries and makes them dependent.

http://www.newstatesman.com/africa/2010/03/interview-aid-zambia-jobs

Why the Western media give this woman all that space is a mystery to me. Why don’t they, instead, give the space to another woman who is actually on the ground, not theorising but trying to save lives and improve the living conditions of those she has saved by ending civil war from her society?

I am talking, of course, about Mrs Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia, who, since she took office in January 2006, has been battling with poverty in the country that had been torn to bits by two decades of civil war.

She needs to build schools. Rehabilitate hospitals and clinics. Repair roads. And sink wells to give people water. And above all, give the people a sense that something can be done to lessen their pain.

In all these endeavours, Liberians are volunteering their labour, or working for very little pay. What they need are the tools for the job -- cement, nails, electric pumps, coal-tar, spare parts to repair broken machinery. And the trucks to take people and materials to and from the sites where work is going on.

All these things can only be bought with foreign exchange. And Liberia’s shattered economy has very little of that. But its shortfall in foreign exchange earnings can be made up by carefully targeted aid. Mrs Johnson Sirleaf, having been a banker like Ms Moyo (in fact, she held a much a much more responsible position in a bank: regional Vice-President of Citibank) knows how to make a penny go a long way. But she must first lay hands on that penny.

Yet listen to Dambisa Moyo: “The fundamental problem is that the aid industry has become so pervasive that governments abdicate their responsibilities.”

Mrs Johnson Sirleaf will “abdicate her responsibilities” to an aid organisation? It is not only an insult but a deadly lie, which will, if listened to by the politicians of the rich West with as much relish as the Western media,

only make the rehabilitation of Liberia unnecessarily difficult.

For while Liberia is working hard to increase its exports, such as rubber, timber and iron ore,

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/6618.htm

in order to earn the foreign exchange that will finance its rehabilitation, it cannot do this if the country’s roads are full of potholes; if its ports are incapable of efficiently loading exports into ships and offloading crucial imports from them; and if it cannot import medicine to keep the dock-workers healthy. In other words, without foreign exchange, Liberia will be chasing her own tail.

Now, Mrs Johnson Sirleaf is not the late Mobutu Seseseko. Nor is she Omar Bongo or the panoply of other African leaders, in whose hands money melted into nonsensical expenditures mainly conceived out of the fancies of megalomania.

But Ms Moyo lumps Mrs Johnson Sirleaf together with these African dunderheads when she says “governments abdicate their responsibilities” when they obtain aid. The notion is so stupid it makes one want to tear one’s hair out. If a government is foolish or corrupt or both, then it will do idiotic things, whether with aid money or its own money.

But certainly not all African governments are stupid? For instance, in her interview, Ms Moyo singled out Botswana for praise. But she implied that Botswana is prosperous only because it encourages private investment. What she omits to mention is the wise leadership provided by Botswana’s late President, Sir Seretse Khama and his successors, who have been clever enough to leave the mining and selling diamonds (a highly skilled operation better left to private companies) to De Beers (now Debtswana) whilst keeping a watchful eye on how it goes about its business.

The Government of drought-stricken Mali isn’t stupid, either. But if Western Governments listen to Ms Moyo, Mali should be denied the aid that will enable it to import the fertiliser that can help Mali’s farmers increase their cotton yield -- when the rainfall is good (that is).

I urge Ms Moyo and those who subscribe to her views to watch a programme shown by the BBC TV programme, Newsnight, recently:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8538889.stm

This programme is about the activities of Western companies, known as “Vulture Funds”, which buy up “dead cheap”, the debts of poor countries that contract international debts and are unable to pay them back. Nations such as Liberia.

http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/?lid=2893

One such “Vulture Fund” recently sued Liberia for $28 million and won. The Liberian debt for which $28 million is being demanded was bought at a derisory price.

Countries that allow “Vulture Funds” and other predator companies to use their law courts to screw poor countries like Liberia, bear a responsibility for Liberia’s dying babies and school children, who are sinking into illiteracy. They can fulfil this responsibility by giving such countries aid.

Of course, there are flaws in the aid system. But too much is made of the ineffectiveness of aid. If a project is well thought out by the two sides; if inbuilt auditing of funds is agreed upon; if there is enough flexibility in the disbursement of funds, so as to allow for materials to be sourced from the cheapest sellers and not necessarily from the donor country only, aid for particular projects can be made to work.

I know this first-hand, for Ghana’s Volta River Dam at Akosombo, to whose construction I was an eyewitness, has served the country handsomely since it came on stream in 1966. It was built with aid from the US, Britain and the World Bank. The negotiations for this aid were almost interminable. But it meant there were no loopholes in the project’s profile.

The deficiencies in aid financing are too well known not to be capable of elimination by a pair of countries determined to make aid work.

As for Ms Moyo and her ilk, I request them not to view aid in isolation. They should remember whose slave labour built up the economies of those countries currently capable of donating aid. They should carry out research into the histories of the port cities of Bristol, Liverpool and London and maybe they will appreciate that these cities did not become rich in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, merely because they had good merchants, but merchants who made huge profits from human beings kidnapped from Africa.

Account should also be taken of the amount of profiteering that colonial-style investments in Africa -- buy raw materials on the cheap, ship them in your country’s own vessels “home” to add value, hundreds of times over, to what was paid for the raw materials, and flog the finished product -- enabled Britain, the US, France, Portugal, Germany and Spain derived fro such investments in order to become the rich countries they are today.

If the Governments of these countries give back little bit of the taxes they scooped from the companies as aid to Africa, it is not the act of charity it is often touted to be. It is but a small part settlement of an enormous debt which may not be acknowledged legally, but looms very large when moral justice comes into the picture.

the ups and downs of being a premier football player in the UK

By Cameron Duodu

If one went by the tabloid press in Britain, one would imagine that life as a football star is the worst hell there could be.

You go to a nightclub to unwind after a tough football match, and the paparazzi won't leave you alone to drown the sorrow of not having played as well as you know you could have done, or your mates could have done. Run out of luck for one second, and they will plaster your drunken face all over the pages of the tabloids the next morning.

You prang your Ferrari in the sleepy, wee hours of the morning. Someone gets a picture of it.

A colleague pinches your girl friend a few months after you've dumped her. And they make it look as if you were not only still with her, but that you were married to her and have been cuckolded. They create a hullabaloo which makes your erstwhile friend lose his captaincy of England. All eyes are on you the next time your team plays his. And you play along by refusing to shake hands with him.

You don't ever pause to ask: Are there divorces in this country? Do married people -- whatever their stations in life -- have affairs? Are the editors of the tabloids above taking out a secretary who used to go out with the chief sub but would murder him now if she got a chance?

What bunkum. The tabloids and their readers and those high-minded people who sneer at them but nevertheless monitor their moralising crap with a fine toothscomb, just force the football stars to live in an unreal world -- on the field, off the field and in an imaginary places called "our national life". It's amazing that half of the football stars are not bonkers.

The television interviewers too know damned well that these players are not going to be able to say anything worth noting about the match they've just won or lost. And yet, they will have them come on, faces and hair freshly done up as if they've never tousled their hair in disgust at a referee's decision, to mouth inanities and falsehoods meant to enhance the reputation of "The Game".

Occasionally, though, one of them emerges, not totally scathed by it all. In an interview given by Rio Ferdinand in the London Guardian, the new England captain manages to present himself as such a person -- despite what must have been a relentless effort to lead him down The Cliche Path. He even had something sensible to say about "Wags" (Wives and Girlfriends to the uninitiated.) Here is the full interview:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/mar/03/rio-ferdinand-new-england-captain

To Ferdinand, I can only say one word: Respect.

Keep it up, man. You'll make a great captain if you remain a real human.

Boris The Faltering Bull Is Saved by Viagra

By CAMERON DUODU

According to the Sun newspaper, Boris a bull on the farm of farmer Dave Joyce (see photo) had proved "more of a laughing stock than breeding stock, after failing to finish what he started with a herd of cows."

So it was reluctantly decided that next stop for him was --the abattoir.

But farmer Dave then had a brain-wave: he would try to save the life of Boris with -- a love potion.

Performance ... Boris was given her-bull Viagra to give him a boost

Newsteam

He fed Boris a diet of herbal Viagra for a week. And just two days before the bull was due for slaughter, "Boris had regained the horn."

Or was it perhaps the 'North Pole'?

The farmer explained: "Since the herbal treatment we have never seen him so rampant. When the cows come out - he's the first in there. Now he is totally on the straight and narrow and calves are back on the agenda. It means we don't have to turn him into burgers."

Dave's assistant, Rob Smith, discovered the product on the internet. The capsules include Horny Goat (sic) Weed, Damiana, Avena Sativa and Muira Puama — all claiming to rev up your love life.

Dave added: "Boris couldn't finish off what he started with the cows. For some reason his tackle would veer off at 45 per cent at the vital moment, and all was lost. But after a few days of the treatment, Boris was back to his randy old self."

Dave was so impressed with what it did for Boris he is putting a small amount of the herbal remedy in a range of "Bang Bang" (sic) sausages for humans he sells from his farm shop. Unfortunately, the Sun neglected to give the address of the farm. But watch this page. We shall trace it -- even if we have to go to Kokokraba Market to look for it.

can omar bashir hold sudan together?

SUDAN

Cutting the Umbilical Cord
02/09/10, Cameron Duodu

Under the cosh: Sudanese President Omar al- Bashir. Can he hold Sudan together?

As Southern Sudan prepares for a referendum on its status in the larger Sudan, Cameron Duodu, leading African journalist and a pan-Africanist asks: Will President Omar al-Bashir really allow Southern Sudan to go?

The 14th Summit of the African Union held in Addis Ababa from January 31 to February 2, 2010, was noteworthy not for what took place formally at the meeting but what happened outside it. A diplomatic wrangle occurred over Sudan that can be compared to the west African dance of kpanlogo.

This is an impish hi-life dance in which the partners waggle against each other, upwards and downwards, whilst simultaneously wiggling forwards and backwards, as partners and onlookers shout"Kpanlogo!" at each stage.

The Addis Ababa "shuffle" went like this: the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, told the Summit: (STEP ONE, BODY UPRIGHT) "In Sudan, time is of the essence. The elections are three months away. The two referenda to determine the future shape of Sudan are in just under a year.

"At the same time, millions continue to be displaced in Darfur. Earlier this morning I attended a mini-Summit on the future of Sudan organized by the African Union Chairperson... I was pleased that African leaders supported the United Nations efforts to pursue a four-track strategy ...namely to forge consensus among member states on the way forward;...continue to strengthen the UN presence on the ground;...promote discussions on key post-referendum issues and...build the capacity of South Sudanese institutions. At the same time, we must continue work to deepen the encouraging improvement in relations between Chad and Sudan."

Although the Sudan versus Southern Sudan conflict is fraught with difficulties of perception, none of the protagonists could reasonably object to anything that Ban Ki-Moon told the Summit. Outside the Summit, however, he gave an interview to two French journalists, which seemed to freeze him in one of the positions of kpanlogo (to the consternation of the spectators at what might be called the "Summit Ball"!)

STEP TWO: (BODY BENT DOWNWARDS, AS WRIGGLING CONTINUES) Or how a translation error led to an international incident.

"On Saturday morning, Ban Ki-moon appeared to be breaking with five years of standing U.N. policy toward Sudan, by telling two French news agencies that he would try to prevent Africa's largest country Sudan from splitting into two nations in the 2011 referendum on independence for Southern Sudan." "We'll work hard to avoid a possible secession," the wire service Agence France Presse (AFP) reported him as saying."

Ban's remarks ... set off a major international incident in Sudan, prompting Sudan's Southern leaders to accuse the Secretary-General of interfering in the South's decision to determine its own political future. Southern Sudan's president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, wrote to Ban, saying his remarks constituted "an erroneous description of the U.N.'s role as a guarantor" of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended the Sudanese civil war and gave southerners the right to vote on independence in January 2011.

Ban was quoted by the French reporters as saying that he favours a unified Sudan, adding, "We will try to work hard to make this unity attractive." But AFP had apparently mistranslated the English language interview (Kpanlogo!) in its first French version of the story(Kpanlogo!), and then repeated the mistake when the French was re-translated into English.(Kpanlogo!)

The actual quote by AFP said: "Then we will work very closely -- we will have to work very closely -- not to have any negative consequences coming from this potential or possible secession."

The story first appeared on the wires in French in the morning and in English in the early afternoon. It played out over three days in the international press, getting picked up by news agencies, the BBC and the Financial Times, causing consternation. (Kpanlogo!)

Photo:

Refugees wait for the distribution of food and non- food items in Akobo town, Southern Sudan

The slow-grinding machinery of the U.N. only issued its first public denial three days later. It read: "In order to clarify erroneous reports about remarks attributed to the Secretary-General concerning Sudan, the Secretary-General's spokesperson would like to reaffirm the Secretary-General's position, which is that the United Nations would work to support the parties in their efforts to "make unity attractive", as well as the exercise by the people of Southern Sudan of their right to self-determination in a referendum.

"Any suggestion that the United Nations may have taken a position that may prejudge the outcome of such a referendum is incorrect."(Kpanlogo! Alogo Aloogo, Kpanlogo!

Whew! The brouhaha points to the hidden landmines that still lie in Sudan's path to real peace. Next year's referendum will, of course, be held under "international supervision". But are there any guarantees that there won't be hanky-panky? Did Ban Ki-Moon let slip a potential UN sleight-of-hand, when he spoke to the French journalists? Why did it take three days to correct the "mistranslation" if it was indeed a "mistranslation"?

The people of Southern Sudan cannot be blamed if they ask such questions. I mean, even in a country under the international spotlight as Afghanistan, an election was held in which most of the opponents of the eventual "winner", President Hamid Karzai, accused him of massive election rigging. They also charged the international community -- including the United States and its ally, Great Britain, the loudest advocates of democracy throughout the world -- of condoning Karzai's fraud.

Can the frail, infant regime of Southern Sudanese resist any electoral crimes that are deployed through a hidden international agenda to influence the outcome of the 2011 referendum? The answer is disquieting, when one remembers what took place in Afghanistan, and before that, the electoral frauds in Kenya and Zimbabwe and the annulment of the Nigerian election of June 12, 1993.

Meanwhile, another grenade has been lobbed into the road-map of the Sudanese peace process. The International Criminal Court has been told, by its own appeals panel, to add the crime of genocide to the charge sheet against President Omar al-Bashir. President Bashir already faces an arrest warrant on seven charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The appeal panel's decision means that the prospects are now closer for adding thegenocide charge. The appeal was against an earlier ruling by the ICC, which said there was "insufficient proof" that Bashir had intentionally participated in genocide.

If a genocide charge is preferred against Bashir, it will be the first by the ICC against a serving head of state. (Slobodan Milosevic, the late Yugoslav leader, faced genocide charges but only after he had stepped down. He died in jail whilst being tried.)

Bashir rejects the charges against him, and his Government in Khartoum is claiming that the ICC has deliberately announced the genocide charge now to "obstruct" the elections to be held in Sudan in two months time. April. A Sudanese Information Ministry official, Rabie Abdelatif, said: "This procedure of the ICC is only to stop the efforts of the Sudanese government towards elections and a peaceful exchange of power.

We are not bothering actually what the ICC will say, whether it includes genocide or not."

But a spokesman for one of Darfur's most powerful rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), welcomed the ruling. "This is a correct decision," Ahmed Tugud told Reuters. "We believe that what we have seen on the ground in Darfur amounts to a crime of genocide. Now we are assessing our situation on whether it is ethically possible to negotiate with a government accused of committing genocidal crimes against our people."

But is the ICC decision of any real import? President Bashir has indeed avoided arrest since the ICC issued a warrant against him, because many African and Arab leaders have become wary of the people the ICC chooses to seek an indictment against. Since the warrant was issued Bashir has visited Qatar, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe among other nations.

More important, the African Union has been split in its support for the warrant. Although countries like Botswana have been very critical of Bashir, the AU's most senior diplomat, Jean Ping, for instance, has hit out at the ICC, accusing the court of only targeting African nations. "We are not for a justice with two speeds, a double standard justice - one for the poor, one for the rich," Ping said.

Although Ping did not name any countries or personalities, the illegal invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain, with the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths it has caused, could not have been too far from his mind. If George Bush, the former American President who launched the war against Iraq, and his principal ally, Tony Blair, are both walking free with no warrants issued against them, a problem of perception is caused in African and the Arab world for the ICC. Many Africans, remembering that the ICC has put ex-President Charles Taylor of Liberia behind bars, have begun to suspect that the ICC's Machiavellian approach is, "If you can catch them, then issue a warrant. But if their countries are too powerful, then don't try."

The ICC, in other words, is undoubtedly engaged in its own version of kpanlogo!