This report - produced for the General Agricultural & Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe [GAPWUZ] by the Research and Advocacy Unit [RAU] and the Justice For Agriculture [JAG] Trust - presents the findings of preliminary quantitative and qualitative surveys of workers on commercial farms in the wake of the catastrophic "Land Reform" policy in Zimbabwe. Whilst the companion reports produced from this series of projects have received some attention, this report is the first to deal solely with data gathered from the farm workers themselves. It represents the views of only a small section of the 1.8 million people that lived and worked on Zimbabwe's commercial farms. However, the continued gathering of data means that in time we will be able to paint a detailed picture of the lives of farm workers across the country, as they struggled over the last nine years with State-sponsored invasions, torture, violent assaults, murders, rapes, evictions and other violations of the law and their rights. For the moment, though, the data presented here makes no claim to be statistically representative. ... read full story / add a comment

In the weeks immediately following the June 2008 presidential
elections in Zimbabwe, AIDS-Free World received an urgent call from a
Harare-based organization working on behalf of women and girls. They
believed that hundreds and possibly thousands of women had been raped
by members of President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party as a strategy to
influence the election, and sought help from AIDS-Free World in
documenting these crimes. ... read full story / add a comment

This is a good analysis of the growing political crisis in South Africa.

There are some important corrections though:

1. In the initial confusion it was thought that four had been killed in the attacks on AbM on 26 September 2009 but two badly wounded comrades were later found alive in hospitals.

2. The attack started at 11:00 p.m. on 26 September. The mob attacked Phondo people and AbM members and set about systemically destroying and looting the homes of AbM members. They were also looking for AbM leaders S'bu Zikode & Mashumi Figlan and promising to kill them. The police refused all calls for help. At about 3 a.m. resistance to the attack was organised from within the community by a group of Phondo men. There were causalities on both sides.

3. The police arrived, stopped the resistance, and arrested AbM members. Then, in their presence and that of local ANC leaders, around 30 homes of AbM leaders were destroyed.

These corrections and additions are taken from information on the AbM site, the Pambazuka site and emails from local activists who are concerned that some of the solidarity work has ignored the fact that there was (entirely appropriate) resistance to the fascist ANC mob. ... read full story / add a comment

Over 800 members of Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise took to the streets of Bulawayo on 13 January to peacefully protest about the state of education in Zimbabwe. Five groups started separately and converged on Mhlahlandlela Government complex to hand over the WOZA report on the education system in Zimbabwe entitled 'Looking Back to look Forward'. ... read full story / add a comment

Swazis may face widespread hunger following an admission from the Swazi Government that it does not have the money to subsidise farming this year. In particular Swaziland staple food - maize - will be badly affected. Minister of Agriculture Clement Dlamini said there ‘was no money in place’ to subsidise the cost to farmers of seeds, fertiliser and other necessities.. He said without the subsidies it was impossible to ensure food security. ... read full story / add a comment

On Monday (11th January) over 1000 families in two sections of the Itireleng shack settlement, situated between Atteridgeville and Laudium in the Tshwane region, were brutally evicted by a combined force of Red Ants and the Tshwane Metro Police. During the eviction, the residents were attacked with batons, rubber bullets and some residents reported that live ammunition was also used. As a result, 49 people were injured, several seriously. All the evicted residents were left without any shelter and the majority have been camping by the side of the road for the last two days. ... read full story / add a comment

Richard Pithouse, the much arrested philosopher from Abahlali baseMjondolo, takes apart the ongoing naivety around the achievement of 'democracy' in South Africa. ... read full story / add a comment

The Swazi Government has ordered 14 percent cuts in all department budgets in order to stop Swaziland going into bankruptcy. A total of E1.5 billion must be cut straight away, says Swaziland’s Finance Minister Majozi Sithole. ... read full story / add a comment

Even if the meanings we give to measurements of time are most often overblown, there is something about the mark of a new decade. In the case of South Africa, 1990 marked the beginning of the end of the apartheid system, ushering in a period pregnant with new hopes, possibilities and dreams. When 2000 rolled around it heralded not only a once in a lifetime turn of a century but carried with it the delayed weight of majoritarian expectation of an age of progress and plenty. So what are our 'inheritances' as we begin the new decade? Where do things stand? What is the mark of 2010?

No doubt, the most obvious and widespread association with 2010 in South Africa is the upcoming soccer World Cup. The amount of work, money, media coverage and public propaganda expended in the last few years on this month-long event is unparalleled in our short post-apartheid history. Indeed, the sporting showpiece, is being presented as South Africa's defining moment, the crowning glory of the political, social and economic standing of a nation, confirmation that South Africa is on the right path and has 'arrived' as a 'world class' country. Anything to the contrary is to be seen and treated as unpatriotic, negative and inherently treasonous ('counter-revolutionary' can't be far away ...).
... read full story / add a comment

The following is an extract from the sexgenderbody website about the murder of Swazi woman Pitseng Vilakati who was vilified by the Swaziland press after she announced that she and her lesbian partner Thuli Rudd were to marry each other. Thui Rudd was arrested late December 2009 and charged with the murder of Vilakati. ... read full story / add a comment

The Anti-Privatisation Forum and all of its 30+ community affiliates, are saddened by the passing away of comrade Dennis Vincent Brutus earlier today in Cape Town. Comrade Dennis passed away in his sleep, aged 85. At the same time, we celebrate his incredible life of literary, intellectual and activist principle and commitment to justice and equality for all. ... read full story / add a comment

Abahlali baseMjondolo, the largest poor people's movement to emerge in post-apartheid South Africa, is under serious attack. Sarah Cooper-Knock reflections on the repression and her personal experience with the movement. ... read full story / add a comment

Swaziland police fired over the heads of textile workers protesting that they had not been paid by their employer. In what is becoming a standard practice with Swazi police, the cops threatened the workers with violence, even though they were engaged in a legitimate protest. ... read full story / add a comment

Looking back on the September attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo members in Kennedy Road, Durban, Raj Patel profiles the views of key Abahlali activists including S’bu Zikode, Zodwa Nsibande and Mazwi Nzimande. Though strongly disrupted by the African National Congress-led (ANC) attack in September, Abahlali has continued to meet, while the absence of its leaders from the Kennedy Road settlement has illustrated the deficiencies of the ANC. ... read full story / add a comment

Today the five members of the Kennedy Thirteen who are still in detention returned to court for their 7th attempt at requesting bail. On each of the 6 previous occasions the state failed to provide any evidence against the accused and the Magistrate postponed the bail application to give the state more time to produce some evidence of their guilt. On each case the state has failed to produce this evidence at the next hearing. This has led Bishop Rubin Phillip to call this case a 'travesty of justice '. ... read full story / add a comment

A new essay by Michael Neocosmos on the political significance of the attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo and the state of democracy in South Africa. He also develops an interesting (and non-economistic) periodisation of the failures of post-apartheid democracy. ... read full story / add a comment

It has been ten years since the South African government held its first annual ’16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women’ (and children) campaign. While the campaign has, no doubt, achieved a degree of success in relation to raising awareness, this has clearly not translated into much positive, practical impact. ... read full story / add a comment

It hasn’t taken long for Swaziland’s police force to show their true colours when it comes to defending people in power. ... read full story / add a comment

The lives of Zimbabwean women have deteriorated dramatically over the past decade, writes activist Prespone Matawira, but now is the time to be creative and confront, unpick, challenge patriarchal and capitalist power in order to make lasting change real for women. Feminist consciousness, says Matawira, challenges many of our deep-held assumptions which are not often noticed because they are so pervasive. And its complexity helps us understand other related oppressions based on race, class, age, sexual orientation, and disability. ... read full story / add a comment

I’ve been warning for some time that the kingdom ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch is living beyond its means. With 70 percent of the one million population earning less than one US dollar a day and receipts from the Southern African Customs Union about to be cut to ribbons, there is next to no money coming into the government in Swaziland. ... read full story / add a comment