Letter from Africa: Soul-searching over rape crimes

(A letter from an African Journalist to Africa itself)

 

In our series of letters from African journalists, filmmaker and columnist Farai Sevenzo considers the recent case of the rape and killing of two South African children in Diepsloot.

My abiding memories of Diepsloot - the sprawling shanty town north of Johannesburg - since reporting from there in 2004 are of metal shacks housing many people in small spaces, the smell of paraffin in the darkness, an absence of light, not enough sanitation and vigilantes trying to protect a community from criminals in the face of zero police presence.

Nearly a decade on, nothing much has changed and the police still do not have a permanent presence in this sprawling eyesore of 70% unemployment which was the setting for the heart-wrenching tragedy that brought the police onto Diepsloot's streets.

This month, two cousins, Zandile and Yonelisa Mali, aged two and three, were allegedly abducted in broad daylight by a man who sparked a nationwide hunt and despair in the hearts of mothers everywhere.

The subsequent search ended with the discovery of the children's raped bodies in a public toilet - and the ripples of this heinous crime have the nation soul-searching and the politicians promising justice, while urging restraint.
Armchair judge
Last month, Anelise Mkhondo's five-year-old body was found raped and strangled a hundred yards away from the same public toilet in Diepsloot.

Five men have been arrested for the alleged abduction, rape and murder of the cousins, calming an incendiary atmosphere in Diepsloot, whose residents threatened to target foreigners and lash out at the government's lack of will in providing security for the youngest of the poorest in Africa's most developed nation.

It is easy to sit in armchair judgement about our continent's ills and wonder at the contradictions in policy and rights.

Diepsloot residents say the government is doing nothing for them

 

But what is it about some South African males that render them incapable of relationships with adult females?

How wrong was the first person to suggest that raping a child could cure a grown adult man of Aids?

And what of women with Aids? Is there a supposed cure for them through young boys?

Which mystic "muti" pedlar suggested a man's riches can be increased by human sacrifice and the body parts of young children?

As Gauteng Premiere Nomvula Mokonyane attempted to calm the Diepsloot community with words like "enough is enough", the crowd listened but did not follow her when she urged them to let the police do their jobs and bring these men to justice.

They wanted the suspects to be released to them, into their angry hands for the kind of justice any parent wants before reason and humanity bring them back from the brink of barbarity - the kind that had claimed their daughters.
Meeting for men?
There is of course a tendency among all of us in a changing Africa to decry negative images of our continent and ask where in the world are paedophiles not present, that men rape and that is all there is to it.

But step away from the war zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo and consider the figures.

 

According to the police, a child is raped every three minutes in the "Rainbow Nation".

South Africa's Medical Research Council (MRC) said that in 2009, 40% of all victims who reported rape to the police were under 18 and 15% under 12.

It is in South Africa that nine-month-old girls have been victims of rape.

And, as in every country, only a small fraction of rapes are reported to the police.

Then there is the "corrective rape" of lesbian women, the sexual harassment of students by pupils and teachers and never mind the knee-jerk xenophobia - a third of rape cases against minors are committed by a family member or close relative.

The world is fond of reminding women and girls that they matter in memorable UN days, in Women Empowerment conferences, in A World of Women celebrations - fair enough.

But in South Africa it is time for the men to have a serious meeting.

It is not the politicians, it is not poverty, it is not muti or juju it is not anything but the sickness in our heads.

No woman, no drive - a parody about women driving in Saudi Arabia by Alaa Wardi

Pakistani doctors angered by failure to halt abductions

By Shahzeb Jillani BBC News, Quetta

Medical personnel in Quetta want the government to tackle the wave of kidnappings

On the evening of 17 September Dr Abdul Manaf Tareen, a renowned heart specialist in Pakistan, was about to go home when a group of armed men appeared at his hospital.

When the doctor resisted their demand that he leave with them, he was hit on the chest with the butt of a rifle and dragged away. He was then shoved into a vehicle waiting outside and driven away.

The kidnapping took place at a short distance from the well-guarded headquarters of the main security force in Balochistan province, the Frontier Corps.

Dr Tareen is the latest victim of rampant kidnappings in Balochistan

Access to the area is also protected by numerous police and army checkpoints, while entry and exit points into Quetta are guarded by Pakistani troops and security service personnel.

Yet, as it turned out, none of them could prevent the abductors spiriting away their latest victim.
Growing lawlessness
Dr Tareen is a well-respected cardiologist. Colleagues describe him as a self-made man, who despite his humble origins, worked hard to become one of the best doctors in his field.

Patients come to him from all over Pakistan, and even Iran and Afghanistan. In Balochistan, he is seen as an inspiring figure who has touched many lives.

His abduction has outraged the medical community, already reeling from growing lawlessness in the province.

Doctors angry at the alleged apathy of the authorities have organised almost daily protest rallies, gone on hunger strike and partially boycotted government-run hospitals.

Naqeeb Ullah Achakzai says the government needs to provide adequate security

Their actions do not seem to have had much of an impact on the authorities, but have added to the misery of patients from remote and impoverished areas waiting at clinics without doctors.

"How can we serve people and practice our profession in this lawlessness?" asks Dr Naqeeb Ullah Achakzai. "We are not safe. We want security from the government."
'Everyone looked on'
Dr Tareen's case is only the latest medical practitioner to be kidnapped.

"During the last five years, 26 of our highly qualified doctors and professors have been kidnapped," says Dr Aftab Kakar, a spokesperson for the Balochistan branch of the Pakistan Medical Association. "A majority of them returned after paying huge amounts in ransom money."

Among them was Dr Ghulam Rasool, head of psychiatry at Bolan Medical College in Quetta. He was abducted from a crowded street in the city centre by six armed men.

"Everyone looked on, but no-one dared do anything," he recalls. Soon after, he was blindfolded and driven for about five or six hours to an unknown location.

He does not like to talk about what happened next, only that he was freed after 17 days in captivity.

"The ransom money my family had to arrange was big enough that nine months later, we are still paying for it," says Dr Rasool.

He adds that it was a painful experience and one that shook him and his family psychologically and emotionally.
Private guards
"Because we are educated but weak members of this tribal society, we are seen as wealthy professionals and therefore have become a soft target for easy money," explains Dr Rasool.

But it has not stopped him from going about his business.

"I am a consultant psychiatrist, a professor, a trainer and an examiner. I am still trying to get on with life," he says. "The only difference is I now have to carry private armed guards for my protection."

A bomb attack in Quetta last month killed six, amid growing violence in the region

Balochistan has a seen growing violence in recent years.

An extremist Sunni militant group has launched large-scale attacks against members of the Shia Hazara minority community. Criminal and militant groups allied to the Taliban and al-Qaeda have kidnapped and killed scores of people.

These groups have seemingly operated with impunity while thousands of Pakistani troops have been busy fighting a long running separatist Baloch insurgency.

The Frontier Corps stands accused of enforced disappearances, torture and killings of suspected Baloch separatists. It is widely despised as an oppressive arm of the Pakistani state.

And in Quetta, increasingly, the force is also accused of not just tolerating, but protecting criminal gangs.

Maj Gen Ejaz Shahid, the inspector general of the Frontier Corps Balochistan, dismisses such allegations.

He blames "terrorist and "sub-nationalist" groups" for the rise in kidnappings. But he insists that his force is taking new measures to tighten security and ensure better coordination with police and other security agencies to bust criminal gangs.

"I can assure you we are part of the solution, not part of the problem," Gen Shahid adds.

Dr Ghulam Rasool says medics are an easy target

'Turning a blind eye'
But for doctors protesting on the streets of Quetta, these are assurances they have heard before.

"Officially, they tell us they are trying their best [to recover kidnap victims]," says a physician leading the doctor's rallies in Quetta. "Privately, they encourage the families to cut a deal with the abductors."

He says there is growing evidence that security forces often turn a blind eye to kidnappings allegedly because they get paid off by the abductors.

The Pakistan Medical Association estimates that during the last five years, about 82 of Balochistan's best doctors and professors have left the province. Many of them are said to have moved to Europe and the Middle East.

Some of them were friends and colleagues of Dr Rasool.

I ask him if he has considered leaving.

"Yes," he says. "But then I ask myself if all of us leave, who'll be left here to help the people of this province."

For now, Dr Rasool is busy supporting colleagues as they plan their next protest to press the authorities to ensure the safe return of Dr Tareen.

Love Crimes of Kabul - Documentary - Afghanistan (a video)

Prisoners of Tradition: Women in Afghanistan (a video)

Afghanistan 'most dangerous' place for childbirth

It used to be that every 27 minutes a woman would die during or from childbirth.  Now it is every two hours.  That is good improvement, but still a terrible number of women dying every day!

Future Valedictorians - A video of the preschool at Arzu in Bamiyan

Future Valedictorians - the preschool at Arzu in Bamiyan province



This video is precious.  I love it.

But then my cynical side comes out and thinks 'This is the perfect target for a suicide bomber'.  A school that teaches girls and women how to live productive and stable lives.  The Taliban probably can't wait to blow this place up! 

India abuse: 'I reported my acid attack husband'

By Rupa Jha BBC News, Delhi

Almost one year on from the brutal rape of a young female student in Delhi, there are signs that more Indian women are finding the courage to report sexual violence. But many still live in fear, either of strangers - or of the man closest to them.

Reshma has five daughters and is pregnant for the sixth time - against her wishes. Her voice trembles constantly as she tells her harrowing story.
"I kept quiet for many years," she says.
"My husband treated me very badly because I had only given him daughters. Getting beaten up mercilessly became a routine for me. He wanted a son.
"When I got pregnant for the sixth time, he insisted I should get an abortion if it's another girl child. I refused and we had a big row.
"He threw acid on me, aiming at my vagina and abdomen."
Reshma breaks down as she recalls the attack. She has recently undergone an operation to try to repair some of the damage. Her baby is still alive, but she is extremely frail.

It took her four days to get medical help after the attack and that was only after her father arrived. She now lives with her poor parents in Kanpur, 500km (300 miles) outside Delhi.

They were aware of the terrible life that their daughter had with her husband, but were initially too afraid to think of police action against their own son-in-law.
Eventually, Reshma says, they stood by her.
The acid attack was the culmination of 15 years of violence at the hands of her husband. As she recovered, 35-year-old Reshma decided she did not want to be another female footnote in the death columns of the newspapers.
She registered a police case against her husband on five different grounds of cruelty. Now he is in prison awaiting trial. He denies all the charges.
Changing society The vicious assault on a young medical student on a Delhi bus last December sparked outrage across India and provoked national soul-searching about the extent of gender-based violence.
It also appears to have paved the way for more women to go to the police.
According to government statistics, 1,036 rapes were reported in Delhi in the year so far up to 15 August. That compares with 433 reports during the same period in 2012.
The same seems to hold true for areas outside the capital: in the small state of Jharkand, in eastern India, the number of reported rape cases rose from 460 in the first half of 2012 to 818 in the first half of 2013.
Despite this, as in many other countries, the conviction rate for rape remains low. According to the National Crime Record Bureau it stood at 24.1% in 2012, lower than the previous year.
Police say they are trying to improve the situation, including putting 400 more police vans on the streets of the capital. There has also been a push to recruit female police officers.
Avatar Sing Rawat, a Delhi police officer, says the force is also being trained in dealing with female victims. "The police are better sensitised now," he argues.
Ranjana Kumari, a well-known women's rights activist, says India has seen "structural changes" since the Delhi rape, but that streets can still be dangerous for women.

People across India called for the death sentence for the men convicted in the Delhi rape case
 

"Women are continuing to live their lives, coming out, working despite all the dangers.
But the most frustrating thing is that the state has still not been able to fix the accountability clearly when a crime is committed against women," she says.
"Political parties have made women's safety part of their political manifesto. When I travel to smaller cities I realise more conversations are happening around women's safety, but we need to make the system more accountable."
Walking around Delhi as night falls, it is clear that the streets are still empty of women.
Surabhi, a 25-year-old professional woman who travels to work by bus, says she does not think anything has changed since the outcry over the rape case.
"I don't want to change my lifestyle because of sexual attacks but, yes, I am scared - and I always carry a pepper spray in my bag.
"Men are very aggressive and they find excuses to touch you or feel you."
In Kanpur, Reshma is determined to see through her difficult decision to speak out.
"I don't want him to get out of prison. He made my life hell. I am very happy I took this stand," she says.
"I know speaking up will save many young girls in future. We are women and we also have a right to live life with dignity. I will take care of my daughters and myself."
She uses her scarf to wipe away tears. "Death comes only once. So why should we die every day at someone else's hands?"

Violence against women: The facts

India:

• Rape within marriage is not considered a crime in India if the wife is over 15
• Up to eight million female foetuses are thought have been aborted in India in the decade to 2011
• In India, 22 women were killed each day in dowry-related murders in 2007

Sources: 2011 Census, National Crime Records Bureau, Amnesty International
Global:

• More than one-third of all murders of women around the world are committed by a current or former partner
• As many as 1 in 4 women experience physical and/or sexual violence during pregnancy
• Violence by an intimate partner is the most common type of abuse, affecting 30% of women

Sources: World Health Organization, Women's Aid

Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebru - a musical treasure

Nun’s music makes divine buzz in Jerusalem

 

How a 90-year-old Ethiopian nun stole the show at the city’s Sacred Music Festival.

 

Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebru at the piano. Photo by Tal Shachar/Jerusalem Season of Culture

At the recent four-day Sacred Music Festival in Jerusalem, hundreds of music lovers and performers crowded the city’s holy sites to hear the world’s spiritual and religious music traditions.
With top talent from across the globe taking part, no one foresaw that the biggest attraction at the festival – part of the annual Jerusalem Season of Culture – would be a shy 90-year-old nun.

Ethiopian-born Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebru, who has lived in isolation for more than three decades, had the classical world’s music experts abuzz with divine inspiration.

Critics who had come across her recordings before had dubbed her a “musical treasure.” But it wasn’t until the Israeli event that the music world would know how prolific she has been.
Gebru released her first recording in Germany in 1967 and published several other works over the years. An educational non-profit organization named for her – the Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music (ETM) Foundation — teaches classical and jazz music to children in Africa and helps American children to study music in Africa.
Young Israeli musician Maya Dunietz worked for seven months on transcribing Gebru’s compositions into a book format. Following three concerts dedicated to Gebru’s compositions that were the talk of the Sacred Music Festival, Dunietz and a group of Israeli musicians are now working to release a new recording of her music in the coming year, and perhaps even another book of her compositions.
“The wonderful thing about this project is it happened while she was still alive. She was able to see and hear others play and sing her music,” orchestral conductor Ilan Volkov, Dunietz’s husband, tells ISRAEL21c. “She dreamed of getting recognized for what she does. These concerts showed her what could have been.”
Ethiopian aristocracy to Jerusalem monastery
The nun was born Yewubdar Gebru on December 12, 1923, in Addis Ababa, to an aristocratic family. At age six, she and her sister were sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. There she heard her first piano concert and decided to play and study music – first violin, and then piano.

Gebru accepting flowers from Maya Dunietz after a performance of her music. Photo by Tal Shachar/Jerusalem Season of Culture

She returned to Addis Ababa in 1933, was exiled with her family from Ethiopia in 1937, and returned to her homeland years later. She was awarded a scholarship to study music in London, but Ethiopian authorities denied her permission to leave the country.
Her dream of a career in music came to a halt and instead Gebru secretly fled to the Guishen Mariam monastery, served two years there and became a nun at the age of 21. She took on the title Emahoy and her name was changed to Tsege Mariam.
Following her mother’s death in 1984, Gebru fled to the Ethiopian Monastery in Jerusalem because socialist doctrine in Ethiopia clashed with her religious beliefs.
For nearly three decades, in a small narrow room on the aptly named Ethiopia Street in Jerusalem, Gebru served the church and privately returned to her beloved music. She played up to nine hours a day and wrote countless compositions for violin, piano and organ concerto.
Her music, Volkov says, is a narrative of her life. “It’s very meditative and inward-looking. It has a melancholic air, very generous and beautiful. Some works are more outward-looking, but others are about feelings of loneliness. It’s a dialogue between a person and their God.”
Volkov had no idea that buying a CD in London eight years ago for his pianist/singer/composer/choir conductor/sound artist wife Maya Dunietz, would totally change his life, Gebru’s life and the world of classical music. He and Dunietz listened to their new disc and were in awe of the “mix of styles of traditional Ethiopian, classical and blues,” says Volkov. They read the liner notes to find out more about the musician and were flabbergasted to discover she lives in Jerusalem.
Isolation to the spotlight
Gebru, according to organizers of the Jerusalem Sacred Music Festival, is “one of the most important composers that Africa has ever produced.”

 

Fortunately for the world’s music lovers, Dunietz and Volkov struck up a friendship with Gebru and were entrusted to bring her music to the world.
At first, they visited Gebru in her small room at the monastery. Sometimes she would play piano for them; other times they would sit in silence. Their bond grew and Dunietz even organized a road trip to the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), which had been a dream for Gebru.
Then two years ago, Gebru surprised Dunietz with an unexpected present.
“She handed over four plastic bags — old wrinkled Air Ethiopia bags — containing hundreds of pages, all muddled up, a big mess, written in pencil, some of them 60 or 70 years old,” Dunietz told The Guardian. “It was all the pages of her music that she had found in her room. ‘Make a book’, she said.”
Dunietz turned to Jerusalem Season of Culture organizers for help. In addition to the book, the recent concerts marked the first time Gebru heard her music performed by professional musicians.
Gebru was so overwhelmed by the attention that after a few interviews, withdrew back to her solitude.
That left Volkov, Dunietz and others to speak about her scores.
“Emahoy has created her own genre of music,” Volkov tells ISRAEL21c. He says she draws influences from European classic masters like Chopin, Beethoven and Strauss, Ethiopian church music, and Ethiopian pop stars of the 1960s.
“It’s classical music but also sacred. It’s intimate, honest and very personal about family, death, love, a mother’s love. Her compositions tell stories of different elements of life.”
Volkov says that Gebru “has a lot of music still to be released. She also has songs in six languages that we hope will be released.”
Dunietz hopes to join forces with other Ethiopian musicians to present Gebru’s music on stages abroad. The team behind Gebru’s first book is now in contact with a small record company and is working to release her compositions, promising at least one recording in the coming year.
Volkov adds: “It’s possible that she’s still composing.”

 

Arzu Studio Hope's computer lab for women.

Happy International Day of the Girl, focusing this year on innovation, including bringing technology to girls and women in remote areas. Our new computer lab in Bamyan Province is helping us do just that!






 Photos from https://www.facebook.com/arzustudiohope.

DR Congo: Cursed by its natural wealth

The Democratic Republic of Congo is potentially one of the richest countries on earth, but colonialism, slavery and corruption have turned it into one of the poorest, writes historian Dan Snow.

The world's bloodiest conflict since World War II is still rumbling on today.

It is a war in which more than five million people have died, millions more have been driven to the brink by starvation and disease and several million women and girls have been raped.

The Great War of Africa, a conflagration that has sucked in soldiers and civilians from nine nations and countless armed rebel groups, has been fought almost entirely inside the borders of one unfortunate country - the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Many of the country's mining operations are connected to the waters of the mighty Congo River

 

It is a place seemingly blessed with every type of mineral, yet consistently rated lowest on the UN Human Development Index, where even the more fortunate live in grinding poverty.

I went to the Congo this summer to find out what it was about the country's past that had delivered it into the hands of unimaginable violence and anarchy.

The journey that I went on, through the Congo's abusive history, while travelling across its war-torn present, was the most disturbing experience of my career.

I met rape victims, rebels, bloated politicians and haunted citizens of a country that has ceased to function - people who struggle to survive in a place cursed by a past that defies description, a history that will not release them from its death-like grip.

The Congo's apocalyptic present is a direct product of decisions and actions taken over the past five centuries.

In the late 15th Century an empire known as the Kingdom of Kongo dominated the western portion of the Congo, and bits of other modern states such as Angola.

It was sophisticated, had its own aristocracy and an impressive civil service.

When Portuguese traders arrived from Europe in the 1480s, they realised they had stumbled upon a land of vast natural wealth, rich in resources - particularly human flesh.

The Congo was home to a seemingly inexhaustible supply of strong, disease-resistant slaves. The Portuguese quickly found this supply would be easier to tap if the interior of the continent was in a state of anarchy.

They did their utmost to destroy any indigenous political force capable of curtailing their slaving or trading interests.

Money and modern weapons were sent to rebels, Kongolese armies were defeated, kings were murdered, elites slaughtered and secession was encouraged.

By the 1600s, the once-mighty kingdom had disintegrated into a leaderless, anarchy of mini-states locked in endemic civil war. Slaves, victims of this fighting, flowed to the coast and were carried to the Americas.

About four million people were forcibly embarked at the mouth of the Congo River. English ships were at the heart of the trade. British cities and merchants grew rich on the back of Congolese resources they would never see.

This first engagement with Europeans set the tone for the rest of the Congo's history.

Development has been stifled, government has been weak and the rule of law non-existent. This was not through any innate fault of the Congolese, but because it has been in the interests of the powerful to destroy, suppress and prevent any strong, stable, legitimate government. That would interfere - as the Kongolese had threatened to interfere before - with the easy extraction of the nation's resources. The Congo has been utterly cursed by its natural wealth.

The Congo is a massive country, the size of Western Europe.

Stanley's expeditions opened up the Congo for exploitation by King Leopold

Limitless water, from the world's second-largest river, the Congo, a benign climate and rich soil make it fertile, beneath the soil abundant deposits of copper, gold, diamonds, cobalt, uranium, coltan and oil are just some of the minerals that should make it one of the world's richest countries.

Instead it is the world's most hopeless.

The interior of the Congo was opened up in the late 19th Century by the British-born explorer Henry Morton Stanley, his dreams of free trading associations with communities he met were shattered by the infamous King of the Belgians, Leopold, who hacked out a vast private empire.

Congo rubber was in high demand after the pneumatic tyre appeared on the market in 1888

 

The world's largest supply of rubber was found at a time when bicycle and automobile tyres, and electrical insulation, had made it a vital commodity in the West.

The late Victorian bicycle craze was enabled by Congolese rubber collected by slave labourers.

To tap it, Congolese men were rounded up by a brutal Belgian-officered security force, their wives were interned to ensure compliance and were brutalised during their captivity. The men were then forced to go into the jungle and harvest the rubber.

Disobedience or resistance was met by immediate punishment - flogging, severing of hands, and death. Millions perished.

Tribal leaders capable of resisting were murdered, indigenous society decimated, proper education denied.

A culture of rapacious, barbaric rule by a Belgian elite who had absolutely no interest in developing the country or population was created, and it has endured.

In a move supposed to end the brutality, Belgium eventually annexed the Congo outright, but the problems in its former colony remained.

Mining boomed, workers suffered in appalling conditions, producing the materials that fired industrial production in Europe and America.

Uranium used to construct the atomic bomb was sourced from Congo

 

In World War I men on the Western Front and elsewhere did the dying, but it was Congo's minerals that did the killing.

The brass casings of allied shells fired at Passchendaele and the Somme were 75% Congolese copper.

In World War II, the uranium for the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki came from a mine in south-east Congo.

Western freedoms were defended with Congo's resources while black Congolese were denied the right to vote, or form unions and political associations. They were denied anything beyond the most basic of educations.

They were kept at an infantile level of development that suited the rulers and mine owners but made sure that when independence came there was no home-grown elite who could run the country.

Independence in 1960 was, therefore, predictably disastrous.

Bits of the vast country immediately attempted to break away, the army mutinied against its Belgian officers and within weeks the Belgian elite who ran the state evacuated leaving nobody with the skills to run the government or economy.

Mobutu, pictured with Jacques Chirac, was courted by the West for decades

 

Of 5,000 government jobs pre-independence, just three were held by Congolese and there was not a single Congolese lawyer, doctor, economist or engineer.

Chaos threatened to engulf the region. The Cold War superpowers moved to prevent the other gaining the upper hand.

Sucked into these rivalries, the struggling Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba, was horrifically beaten and executed by Western-backed rebels. A military strongman, Joseph-Desire Mobutu, who had a few years before been a sergeant in the colonial police force, took over.

Mobutu became a tyrant. In 1972 he changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga, meaning "the all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake".

The West tolerated him as long as the minerals flowed and the Congo was kept out of the Soviet orbit.

He, his family and friends bled the country of billions of dollars, a $100m palace was built in the most remote jungle at Gbadolite, an ultra-long airstrip next to it was designed to take Concorde, which was duly chartered for shopping trips to Paris.

 

Dan Snow tours Mobutu's former lavish residence at Gbadolite

Dissidents were tortured or bought off, ministers stole entire budgets, government atrophied. The West allowed his regime to borrow billions, which was then stolen and today's Congo is still expected to pay the bill.

In 1997 an alliance of neighbouring African states, led by Rwanda - which was furious Mobutu's Congo was sheltering many of those responsible for the 1994 genocide - invaded, after deciding to get rid of Mobutu.

A Congolese exile, Laurent Kabila, was dredged up in East Africa to act as a figurehead. Mobutu's cash-starved army imploded, its leaders, incompetent cronies of the president, abandoning their men in a mad dash to escape.

Mobutu took off one last time from his jungle Versailles, his aircraft packed with valuables, his own unpaid soldiers firing at the plane as it lumbered into the air.

Rwanda had effectively conquered its titanic neighbour with spectacular ease. Once installed however, Kabila, Rwanda's puppet, refused to do as he was told.

Again Rwanda invaded, but this time they were just halted by her erstwhile African allies who now turned on each other and plunged Congo into a terrible war.

Foreign armies clashed deep inside the Congo as the paper-thin state collapsed totally and anarchy spread.

Hundreds of armed groups carried out atrocities, millions died.

Ethnic and linguistic differences fanned the ferocity of the violence, while control of Congo's stunning natural wealth added a terrible urgency to the fighting.

Forcibly conscripted child soldiers corralled armies of slaves to dig for minerals such as coltan, a key component in mobile phones, the latest obsession in the developed world, while annihilating enemy communities, raping women and driving survivors into the jungle to die of starvation and disease.

Bags of coltan, used in mobile phones, and manganese are carried at a mine

 

A deeply flawed, partial peace was patched together a decade ago. In the far east of the Congo, there is once again a shooting war as a complex web of domestic and international rivalries see rebel groups clash with the army and the UN, while tiny community militias add to the general instability.

The country has collapsed, roads no longer link the main cities, healthcare depends on aid and charity. The new regime is as grasping as its predecessors.

I rode on one of the trainloads of copper that go straight from foreign-owned mines to the border, and on to the Far East, rumbling past shanty towns of displaced, poverty-stricken Congolese.

The Portuguese, Belgians, Mobutu and the present government have all deliberately stifled the development of a strong state, army, judiciary and education system, because it interferes with their primary focus, making money from what lies under the Earth.

The billions of pounds those minerals have generated have brought nothing but misery and death to the very people who live on top of them, while enriching a microscopic elite in the Congo and their foreign backers, and underpinning our technological revolution in the developed world.

The Congo is a land far away, yet our histories are so closely linked. We have thrived from a lopsided relationship, yet we are utterly blind to it. The price of that myopia has been human suffering on an unimaginable scale.

Dan Snow answered readers' questions on Twitter using #AskDanSnow.

Afghanistan's pioneering female MP seeks asylum as progress for women unravels

For years she was a symbol of a new country rising from the ashes of Taliban rule, as one of the women whose voices were finally being heard after a decade of brutal oppression in Afghanistan.

Noor Zia Atmar is currently living in a shelter for battered women 

By Rob Crilly, Kabul

6:00AM BST 11 Aug 2013

 

Noor Zia Atmar, a young activist and then one of the country’s first woman MPs, travelled the world with her colleagues to show that things were changing.

That was three years ago. Now, she lives in a shelter for battered women, the victim of an abusive husband - and a symbol of the way progress in women’s rights is unravelling as the West withdraws and more traditional conservative values return to the fore.

“Women are in a worse condition now. Every day they are being killed, having their ears, noses cut,” said Ms Atmar, 40, speaking in a strong, clear voice, her eye make-up hidden behind dark glasses. “It is not just women in villages - it is also people like me.”

Progress in women’s rights is frequently hailed as one of the great successes of Nato’s coalition, the International Security Assistance Force. But as it marks its 10th anniversary on Sunday, campaigners say Ms Atmar’s case is one of several examples that show how reforms are coming undone.

Not only are conservatives agitating to close women’s shelters, which they describe as whore houses, the country’s parliament is considering a change in the law to prevent relatives testifying against each other. That would effectively make prosecutions for domestic violence all but impossible.

Human rights groups say this is the latest in a string of measures that will weaken protection for women and raise fears of a return to the days when Islamists all but erased women from public life.

^{Afghan refugee women buy household items from local market in Peshawar (AFP)}

Under the Taliban, girls schools closed, women were banned from working outside the home and were forced to wear the burka.
It was a difficult time for Ms Atmar’s family. Her father, an engineer, had died when she was young, but her mother had fought hard so that she might receive an education. Those years, she said, helped her develop the mental toughness necessary to become a campaigner in a conservative country.
The family fled to Pakistan on the day the Taliban marched into Kabul - along with millions of Afghan refugees - returning only after they were ousted by the US-led invasion that followed al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks in 2001.
She first worked for community groups, travelling to remote villages to help women find education and health care.
Then came elections in 2005, under a new constitution that was drafted with American guidance and which guaranteed the rights of women and minorities. At the time, the polls were hailed as a decisive break with the Taliban’s medieval mindset.
More importantly, so far as Ms Atmar was concerned, it also guaranteed a quarter of the seats for women, offering her chance to take her local message of women’s empowerment to a much wider audience.
Her campaign was run on a tight budget. At one point she sold a gold necklace to keep things moving but managed to win a seat in the women’s section.
It was a heady time, filled with optimism, according to Ms Atmar. She helped push through landmark legislation banning 22 acts of violence against women and still has the visa stamps in her passport from her visits to the UK, India, Turkey and France where — along with other female legislators — she was welcomed as the embodiment of the new Afghanistan.
But things began to change for her and for Afghanistan, she said, at about the same time she got married, towards the end of her five-year term as an MP.
Unable to compete with her rivals’ war chests in what she said was an increasingly corrupt campaign, she lost her bid for re-election in 2010. And it gradually became clear that her husband, a businessman who she had hoped would support her career, did not share her ideals.
He refused to let her leave the house and at one point banned her from using the phone. “He would get drunk and demand I remove his shoes. Then he would shout at me to put them back on, over and over. If I refused he would beat me. It was torture,” she said.
“He would come to me the next day and apologise but then at night he would do it again. Finally I asked for a divorce.”

^{Afghan women during Ramadan, in Kabul, Afghanistan (EPA)}

For most Afghan women, products of a conservative society where even without the Taliban they appear in public only beneath the billowing folds of a sky blue burqa, divorce is not even an option - and even in the more liberal atmosphere of the capital, Kabul, Ms Atmar’s family disapproved. They insisted she do anything but seek a divorce.
“They saw my face bruised, and scars from the knife, but they told me it was a traditional society, that I would bring shame on the family,” she said.
When she sought out a lawyer anyway, they abandoned her, leaving her to fend for herself.
Home has been a shelter for the past two years. She said she was uncertain about what the future might hold. Informal approaches to the British embassy had ended with a curt message that asylum was not available for victims of domestic abuse.
“They said that would open the doors to too many women to come,” she said.
Ironically, the Nato effort to secure Afghanistan from the militants over the past 12 years, assisted by Western aid donors, has done much to open other doors, by helping girls into education and ensuring that women have a voice in society. Maternal mortality has been slashed.
However, campaigners say that this year there have been a string of reversals for hard-fought women’s rights. As the West scales down its involvement, a conservative society is gradually reasserting itself through parliament, overturning quotas and legal protections which many see as imposed by the US.
Earlier this month, another symbol of women’s emancipation was shot dead by gunmen. Lieutenant Islam Bibi had defied threats from her own family to rise through the ranks, becoming the most senior female police officer in Helmand Province.
 
^{Afghan police-women search voters during the security check at a polling station in Herat (AFP)}

In May, the Wolesi Jirga — the House of the People, the lower chamber of Afghanistan’s national assembly - revised the country’s electoral law, as its conservative-minded legislators ditched the guarantee that at least a quarter of seats in each of 34 provincial councils be reserved for women.
And the parliament has never actually ratified the law, drafted by Ms Atmar and her fellow pioneers, setting penalties for rape, child marriage and baad - the giving of girls to resolve disputes. It was pushed through by presidential decree, but a recent attempt to make the law more enduring by securing parliamentary approval was abandoned after 15 minutes amid stiff opposition and accusations by male MPs that it was un-Islamic.
Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said new wording of the criminal procedure code would also prohibit relatives of a defendant being questioned against the accused. It would make it all but impossible to prosecute people who beat, forcibly marry or sell their female relatives, he added.
“While Afghan officials give lip service to women’s rights at the UN, the president, parliament and courts are actively undermining those rights,” he said. “Afghanistan’s foreign donors should be loud and clear that they won’t stand by while Afghan women’s hard-won rights are swept away.”
But the leverage that western donors have enjoyed over recent years is already waning, and as Afghanistan prepares for greater independence from foreign military and financial support it may fade completely away.
Many fear that an Afghan government that is focusing on its own survival is preparing the ground for a peace deal with the Taliban, and is more interested in shoring up support among conservatives than in pushing through reforms.
At the end of next year international combat troops will have completed their withdrawal. And Ms Atmar, and other Afghans like her, wonder whether that means the world will forget about Afghan women all together.
“It will be a huge tragedy if this happens,” she said, wrapped in a black overcoat, her head covered by a scarf. “We must remove fundamentalism from Afghanistan. The world should remember that the fire from here might not reach their country, but the smoke will.”

Akram Khan - a 13 year old boy in Kabul

    Photographer: Fardin Waezi

August 2013 Featured Photographer of the Month

 

Title: Victims of War

Akram Kahn's Story
I went to Pakistan with my family during civil war. We were not well off and it was hard to live in Afghanistan during winter. Because we are poor we needed to collect wood for winter. Once when I was out collecting wood, there was a cable in the forest. I did not notice it and when I touched it, it shocked me and threw me 25 meters away.
After a month in the hospital I woke up and when I saw my hands were cut off I was crying, my family was crying. There was no chance, there was only hope and I could not do anything. After three months my family and I returned  to Kabul and I am now living in an IDP camp in front of Dalaman. My job is to collect money, be a beggar, asking money from people. I am responsible for the nine members of the family.
I really like to study and I also like to play computer games, play on the cellphone, like to play football and other things.

http://socialdocumentary.net/exhibit/Fardin_Waezi/2238
  

http://rahmatgul.blogspot.com/

http://rahmatgul.blogspot.com/


This is the website of an Afghan photographer who lives in Afghanistan.  There are lots of great photos on his site. 

He also has a facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/RahmatGulPhotography


Two young girls play house, mimicking their mothers in burqas cut to their size, on the outskirts of Jalalabad, east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, March 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)


Afghan Police


Afghan girls reading Quran

Iran lawmakers pass bill allowing men to marry adopted daughters   

Saeed Kamali Dehghan

theguardian.com, Thursday 26 September 2013 19.11 BST

Young girls in Chah Bahar, Iran. Iran's body of clerics and jurists has not yet vetted the new legislation on child marriage. Photograph: Jamshid Bairami/EPA

 

 

Parliamentarians in Iran have passed a bill to protect the rights of children which includes a clause that allows a man to marry his adopted daughter and while she is as young as 13 years.
Activists have expressed alarm that the bill, approved by parliament on Sunday, opens the door for the caretaker of a family to marry his or her adopted child if a court rules it is in the interests of the individual child.
Iran's Guardian Council, a body of clerics and jurists which vets all parliamentary bills before the constitution and the Islamic law, has yet to issue its verdict on the controversial legislation.
To the dismay of rights campaigners, girls in the Islamic republic can marry as young as 13 provided they have the permission of their father. Boys can marry after the age of 15.
In Iran, a girl under the age of 13 can still marry, but needs the permission of a judge. At present, however, marrying stepchildren is forbidden under any circumstances.
As many as 42,000 children aged between 10 and 14 were married in 2010, according to the Iranian news website Tabnak. At least 75 children under the age of 10 were wed in Tehran alone.
Shadi Sadr, a human rights lawyer with the London-based group Justice for Iran, told the Guardian she feared the council would feel safe to put its stamp of approval on the bill while Iran's moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, draws the attention of the press during his UN visit to New York.
"This bill is legalising paedophilia," she warned. "It's not part of the Iranian culture to marry your adopted child. Obviously incest exists in Iran more or less as it happens in other countries across the world, but this bill is legalising paedophilia and is endangering our children and normalising this crime in our culture."
She added: "You should not be able to marry your adopted children, full stop. If a father marries his adopted daughter who is a minor and has sex, that's rape."
According to Sadr, officials in Iran have tried to play down the sexual part of such marriages, saying it is in the bill to solve the issue of hijab [head scarf] complications when a child is adopted.
An adopted daughter is expected to wear the hijab in front of her father, and a mother should wear it in front of her adopted son if he is old enough, Sadr said.
"With this bill, you can be a paedophile and get your bait in the pretext of adopting children," Sadr said. Some experts believe the new bill is contradictory to Islamic beliefs and would not pass the Guardian Council.
An initial draft of the bill, which had completely banned marriage with adopted children, was not approved by the council and it is feared that MPs introduced the condition for marriage to satisfy the jurists and clergymen. This is why Sadr fears it can pass the council this time.
The bill has prompted backlash in Iran with the reformist newspaper, Shargh, publishing an article warning about its consequences. "How can someone be looking after you and at the same time be your husband?" the article asked.
Shiva Dolatabadi, head of Iran's society for protecting children's rights, has also warned that the bill implies that the parliament is legalising incest. "You cannot open a way in which the role of a father or a mother can be mixed with that of an spouse," she said, according to Shargh. "Children can't be safe in such a family."
Execution of juvenile offenders in Iran has also been in spotlight in recent years amid confusion between the age of majority – when minors cease to be legally considered children – and the minimum age of criminal responsibility, which is 15 for boys and nine for girls under Iranian law.

Afghanistan reach first Cricket World Cup

Afghanistan beat Kenya to reach first Cricket World Cup

 

World Cricket League, Sharjah: Afghanistan 96-3 (20.5 overs) beat Kenya 93 (43.3 overs) by seven wickets

Match scorecard:

Afghanistan will play in the World Cup for the first time in 2015 after beating Kenya by seven wickets in their final qualifying match in Sharjah.

The country - one of the world's poorest and affected by decades of conflict - only received associate status, the second tier below Test nations, earlier this year. 
They reached a target of 94 to finish second behind Ireland in the World Cricket League  and will be in England's group at the World Cup, which is being held in Australia and New Zealand.

World Cup 2015 Pool A

England, Australia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Afghanistan, qualifier 3

Their first match in the competition will be against Bangladesh in Canberra on 18 February 2015 and they will also face Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand before taking on England in Sydney on 13 March.

Needing a win to move above United Arab Emirates and Netherlands, Afghanistan's bowlers restricted Kenya well, with only Morris Ouma and Rakep Patel reaching double figures.
Skipper Mohammad Nabi, in his 27th one-day international, steered them to victory with an unbeaten 46 that featured three fours and two sixes.
In the 20th over, the 28-year-old thumped a six over long-on and in the next dispatched slow left-armer Shem Ngoche out of the ground. He struck the historic winning runs two balls later with a four through mid-wicket.
"I can't express my feelings," Nabi said. "It is a very big day in my life. I'm sure there will be huge celebrations back home. I'm happy for the people of Afghanistan and look forward to playing in Australia and New Zealand.
"I didn't expect to play in a World Cup when I started playing cricket. But now I can cherish this moment and look forward to playing against the best sides in some of the best playing facilities. Playing in a World Cup will be one grade up and we'll try to work hard and do better."

World Cup 2015 Pool B

South Africa, India, Pakistan, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Ireland, qualifier 4

Afghanistan coach Kabir Khan, the former Pakistan left-arm seamer who played four Tests and 10 ODIs from 1994-2000, said: "I'm lost for words. This is the best day of my coaching career. I had very few great and memorable days in my life and this is right up there. It has been a dream for so many years and now we have achieved it.

"There will be tremendous atmosphere in Afghanistan and I'm so happy for them. This year they'll get two Eids [Muslim holidays] to celebrate."
Two more associate nations will qualify for the tournament in a play-off competition in New Zealand next year.
The Netherlands and the UAE will compete with Scotland, Kenya, Namibia, Canada, Uganda, Hong Kong, Nepal and Papua New Guinea - the latter led by Kent and former England wicketkeeper Geraint Jones, who was born there.
Afghanistan were playing in Division Five of the World Cricket League as recently as 2008.
In 2010, they reached the ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies by winning a qualification event in UAE, but lost both group games in the tournament to India and South Africa.
They also qualified for last year's World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka after finishing second to Ireland in qualifying, but were beaten by both India and England in the opening group phase.

Curing blindness - the Himalayan Cataract Project!

Imagine living for decades, or a lifetime, with blindness due to cataracts.  Imagine that with an 10 minute specialized surgery and a $25 surgery you can be cured!

Introducing the Himalayan Cataract Project. 

The Himalayan Cataract Project’s top priority is to reach the greatest number of unserved blind people, with the highest quality care, at the lowest possible cost. It thrives on the enduring passion of its founding directors, Dr. Sanduk Ruit and Dr. Geoffrey Tabin, ophthalmologists who dedicate their lives to eradicating unnecessary blindness.

 

Blindness is most prevalent in developing countries where malnutrition, inadequate health and education services, poor water quality and a lack of sanitation leads to a high incidence of eye disease.

Can a 10-Minute, $20 Medical Procedure Change a Life?

Yes! The material costs for a sight-restoring surgery are less than $25. With the cost of finding and transporting the patient, supplying the surgery and follow-up care, the total cost is still usually under $100.
According to WHO, cataract surgery is among the most cost-effective public health interventions.

Here is a link for my favorite video about the Organization:  http://abcnews.go.com/International/WorldNews/gift-sight-us-doctors-11-fix-epidemic/story?id=20450591