News highlights, late February 2015

Dealing with companies exploiting mineral resources:

http://www.oecd.org/corporate/mne/mining.htm

Immunity at the African Court of Justice and Human Rights for sitting officials who commit ‘ genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity’:

http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/11/13/statement-regarding-immunity-sitting-officials-expanded-african-court-justice-and-hu

Armed groups in Burundi:

http://allafrica.com/stories/201502130484.html

Upcoming elections in Burundi:

http://theglobalobservatory.org/2015/02/vulnerable-peace-burundi-elections-nkurunziza/

Europe, Ukraine and accountability for the MH17:

http://www.euractiv.com/sections/europes-east/hastily-signed-minsk-agreement-forgot-perpetrators-mh17-312119

The EU and the South Caucasus:

http://fride.org/download/PB193_Evaluating_EU_policies_in_the_South_Caucasus.pdf

UEFA: arrogance and apathy towards violence and destruction of art

For the Europa League match between Feyenoord Rotterdam and Rome, six Dutch police officers had been sent to Rome to assist 100 Italian police officers already present . Hooligans supporting the Feyenoord Rotterdam football club damaged the recently renovated fountain of Bernini, the Barcaccia (leaky old boat). Approximately 30 hooligans were arrested .

Eric Gudde, the general director of Feyenoord, said he felt ‘disgust and shame’ after the incident. But UEFA will not discipline Feyenoord, as ‘they can do nothing about it’. Really, UEFA, is this the best you can do? For a start, how about making a symbolic gesture, and pay for the damage? Then, why not exclude hooligans from all matches?

Bernini’s fountain was built in 1627-29. In 1644, cardinal and poet Maffeo Barberini, who later became Pope Urbano VIII, wrote the following poem:

 'The papal warship does not pour forth flames, but sweet water to extinguish the fire of war.'

Maybe hooligans could be given a copy of Urbano’s poems, and only released from jail once they have translated them.

EU easing sanctions on Zimbabwe

The European Union imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe in 2002. In 2013, it lifted a ban on diamonds from the Marange fields. In February 2015, it offered an aid package worth € 234 million to spend on health, agriculture and governance issues. The funds will be used by UNICEF and the Food and Agriculture Organization, and not by the Zimbabwean government. The arms embargo, and the travel ban on Mugabe and his wife are still in force.

For the Zimbabwean economic analyst, Vince Musewe, the European Union should not lift its sanctions. In 2014, he said:

Your humanitarian aid is much appreciated and I know that you continue to have concern for the poor and sick and the hopeless and the helpless. For that I am grateful. However, we need you to support democratic forces in our country than to give us handouts. We need your moral support of uprooting this dictatorship more so now than ever. We need you to strengthen our people so that they may fight for what is right. That is the right thing to do.

But EU analysts say that EU sanctions have damaged citizens and not political leaders in Zimbabwe. According to them, the ‘European Union has decided it couldn’t allow the situation to deteriorate any further.’ 

Reporters without borders 2015

Source: http://index.rsf.org/#!/presentation

In particular, in Europe:

According to RSF, 'the European Unions recorded a bigger decline in 2015 than in the 2014 Index, exposing the limits of its “democratic model” and highlighting the inability of its mechanisms to halt the erosion. The EU appears to be swamped by a certain desire on the part of some member states to compromise on freedom of information. As a result, the gaps between members are widening – EU countries are ranked from 1st to 106th in the Index, an unprecedented spread.'

Safe sanitation is important to reduce violence

Excellent research from the Open University: making city officials accountable for building safe toilets in houses in marginalised communities in South Africa and elsewhere in the world.

News highlights, early February 2015

Boko Haram, the United States and upcoming elections:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/world/africa/boko-haram-attacks-major-nigerian-city-in-a-sustained-assault.html

Illicit financial flows:

http://allafrica.com/download/resource/main/main/idatcs/00091146:30e62dbc64e03f86311b910121d0afea.pdf

http://allafrica.com/stories/201404031346.html

Reaction to Charlie Hebdo in Somalia:

http://allafrica.com/stories/201501130094.html

Tensions in Burundi:

http://www.innercitypress.com/burundi1rugurikaus020515.html

Lack of transparency at the African Union on South Sudan:

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/feb/04/african-union-report-south-sudan-delayed

French military intervention in the world, 2015

Source: http://www.defense.gouv.fr/operations/rubriques_complementaires/carte-des-operations-exterieures

Terrible unemployment rates in Spain, Greece, Croatia and Italy

Table from Eurostat, 30 January 2015.

Terrible unemployment rates for Spain and Greece (over 20 %), Cyprus, Croatia, Portugal, Italy and Slovakia (over 12 %). The Euro area unemployment rate is at 11.4%.

Over 40% of young persons under 25 are unemployed in Spain, Greece, Croatia and Italy.

Shame on Iran! Denying war crimes in Syria

Participants in the Chemical Weapons Convention. In red: non-signatory. Source: Wikimedia commons.

On 4 February 2015, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which was created in 1997, condemned the use of chlorine as a weapon in three villages in northern Syria (in Talmenes, Al Tamanah, and Kafr Zita) from April to August 2014. The use of chemical weapons is a breach of international law.

The Executive Council of the OPWC did not attribute responsibility to the Syrian government for the alleged use of chlorine, but it expressed its ‘strong conviction that those individuals responsible for the use ofchemical weapons should be held accountable’. This is a crime which could lead to an investigation by the International Criminal Court.

Iran was the only state which refused to condemn the use of chlorine, despite being a member of OPCW.

Here are all the other states which made the condemnation possible:

Algeria, Cameroon, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia (Africa)

China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, Korea and Saudi Arabia (Asia)

Belarus, Croatia, Poland, Russia and Serbia (Eastern Europe)

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Uruguay (Latin America and the Caribbean).

Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States (Western European and other states).

Corrupt politicians can only look on in horror as Mr Integrity takes Italian presidency

Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Source: Wikicommons.



Italy has a new president in the form of Sergio Mattarella, a 73-year-old constitutional judge from Sicily. Mattarella was elected to the role in the wake of the retirement of Giorgio Napolitano, who had held the post for nearly a decade.

The president of Italy has limited powers: he or she guarantees that politics complies with the Italian constitution, but real political responsibility remains with the government. However, the election of Mattarella is important for both the centre-left prime minister Matteo Renzi and his Democratic Party. Mattarella represents integrity, and has made no secret of his contempt for the kind of politics that has bolstered the interests of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi over the years.

In securing the job for Mattarella, who is a former Christian Democrat, Renzi has humiliated his main rival Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister who is still leader of Forza Italia.

He made the nomination without any consultation, and members of Forza Italia said that this went against the “patto del Nazareno” he had established with Berlusconi. This pact was agreed in 2014 in order to reform voting laws and the constitution. Voting laws need changing, as the current system makes it nearly impossible to legislate.

Italians were expecting Renzi to agree with Berlusconi on the nomination of a candidate who had the blessing of both leaders. However, Renzi opted for a candidate who would be viewed positively by all the members of his own Democratic Party, including those who disagreed with the Berlusconi pact.

Renzi has succeeded in severely weakening Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. In early January 2015, opinion polls put national support for the party at just 13%, and now around 40 out of 142 Forza Italia members of parliament voted for Mattarella as president, despite Berlusconi being against him. Forza Italia members are clearly starting to realise that Berlusconi no longer has a future in Italian politics.

Sergio Mattarella is an incredibly bold choice for Italy. After holding different ministerial positions, and contributing to the creation of the Democratic Party in 2007, he became a judge of the Constitutional court in 2011. But he is most commonly associated with his firm stance against organised crime and corruption. He fought the mafia (unlike Berlusconi’s Forza Italia) and even resigned from his post as an education minister in the Democratic Christian government of Giulio Andreotti in 1990 when a law that would enable Berlusconi to further expand his media empire was passed.

Mattarella’s father Bernardo, an anti-fascist who opposed Benito Mussolini, was one of the founders of the Christian Democratic party. But Sergio only entered politics after the murder of his brother Piersanti Mattarella at the hands of the mafia in 1980, when he was president of the regional government of Sicily.

He went on to promote the “Palermo Spring”, which encouraged citizens to promote a culture of legality and rebellion against the mafia. This eventually led to the creation of associations that enabled them to stop paying protection money to the mafia. Supporting the movement was an unusual stance for a member of his party at the time. Other Christian Democrats in Sicily, such as Vito Ciancimino, who was mayor of Palermo, and businessmen Ignazio and Antonino Salvo – who were close to the leader of the Christian Democrats – were linked to the mafia.

For these reasons and more, Mattarella represents the fight against corruption in Italy. His election follows that of Pietro Grasso, head of the National Anti-mafia Directorate, as president of the Senate in 2013.
Together they have much work ahead. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index of 2014, which measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide, Italy was the most corrupt state in the European Union – and it was ranked 69th worldwide. And in 2014, a corruption ring was exposed in Rome, involving dozens of administrators and civil servants who now stand accused of criminal activities such as vote rigging, usury, extortion and embezzlement.

Sergio Mattarella. Source: Wikicommons.


Famous Italian writer Leonardo Sciascia, who denounced the power of the Mafia in Sicily, said that Mattarella was “tenacious and inflexible”.

On his first day in the Italian parliament, Mattarella received a standing ovation. He said: “In the fight against mafia, we have had many heros. I would like us to remember Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino”, both anti-mafia Sicilian magistrates killed by the mafia in 1992.

Now that he is president of Italy, he will no doubt be thinking about his brother, of whom he said he would share his values and behaviour in order to “benefit the good of all”.



This article first appeared in The Conversation located here.

Advocating economic and social change in African states