RISE OF THE LOVE MACHINES?

Teens may soon have their first sexual encounters with specially-designed robotic dolls, an expert has claimed. He warns the trend could ruin human relationships.

Professor Noel Sharkey, professor of robotics at Sheffield University, told the Cheltenham Science Festival on Thursday that the rise of the love machines could have terrible consequences for humanity.

“It’s not a problem having sex with a machine,” Sharkey argued. “But what if it’s your first time, your first relationship?

“What do you think of the opposite sex then? What do you think a man or a woman is?”

Sharkey warned that the robots “will get in the way of real life, stopping people forming relationships with normal people.”

While such dolls are already available in Japan and some even have basic speech recognition, Sharkey said they should not be available to under-16s in the UK. However, he accepted they were likely to find their way into the hands of teenagers.

“If your dad or mum had one, you could sneak in and use it,” he warned.

In September 2015, a leading robot ethicist launched a campaign calling for a ban on the development of sex robots.

Dr. Kathleen Richardson, a robotics expert at De Montfort University in Leicester, England, warned that sex robots could contribute to the systematic dehumanization of women and children.

“Sex robots seem to be a growing focus in the robotics industry and the models that they draw on – how they will look, what roles they would play – are very disturbing indeed,” she told the BBC.

Richardson explained her Campaign Against Sex Robots is not anti-sex, but rather anti-exploitation.

Editorial

JOE GHARTEY COMMITTEE

The report of the Joe Ghartey Committee into the Parliamentary bribery scandal is strange for many reasons.

First, it is difficult to understand why Honourable Mahama Ayariga is singled out for punishment when indeed about five other members of Parliament made the same allegation.

It is also clear that the Joe Ghartey Committee failed to follow up on many leads which could have helped it to unravel the truth.

The Insight is also unable to explain how a fact-finding committee ended up convicting a witness especially when the witness was not given the opportunity to cross examine his accusers.

In the light of all these, we are unable to accept the conclusions of the Joe Ghartey Committee as conclusive.

Perhaps somebody needs to do a better job.

LOCAL STORIES:

Ghana launches National Alcohol Policy

Kweku Agyemang Manu

Ghana has launched a National Alcohol Policy after years of working with key stakeholders to combine the fragmented laws that exist on the production, distribution sale, advertisement and consumption of the commodity.

The 33-page document would now set out a policy direction aimed at regulating the production, distribution sale, advertisement and consumption of alcohol, with the aim of minimising the negative impact of its consumption on the individual, family and society as a whole.

It was also to encourage and promote abstinence, reduce harmful alcohol consumption, follow global best practice, and inspire government to leader in ensuring total compliance.

The Policy identifies major propriety areas for the reduction of alcohol related harms, and takes cognisance of data and information available from the World Health Organisation (WHO), and recognises best buy areas in reducing associated harm such as increased taxation, regulating availability and marketing and drink driving counter measure.

Other areas of focus include prevention and management of health effects and social services actions; surveillance, research, monitoring and evaluation; drink driving measures and capacity building, and also using locally designed cultural and social interventions in reducing these alcohol related harms.

The Policy was launched in Accra by Ministry of Health (MOH) in collaboration with the WHO and the Baraka Policy Institute (BPI), a Think Tank established to promote social justice and national development.

Dr Kweku Agyeman-Manu, the Minister of Health in an address, acknowledged all the stakeholders involved in the development of the Policy.

He said the harmful use of alcohol had been a cause for great concern globally and nationally, saying, presently the informal sector which produces alcoholic beverages with high percentages of ethyl alcohol was highly unregulated.

He said although several health disorders had been ascribed to the harmful use of alcohol, productivity losses was yet to be estimated for Ghana, but it was known that its abuse was of huge concern to a number of organisations including the health sector.

He cited some of the negative health effects as neuropsychiatric complications (mental health problems), liver and heart ailments, and diabetes, adding that the trend of non-communicable diseases, many of which had the commodity as the risk factor, was also on the increase.

Dr Agyeman-Manu said alcohol abuse had serious socio-economic effects, especially on families and communities, and its consumption was even worse in the unborn child, children and adolescents, “yet the seriousness of this issue does not seem to register with the public, thus not much has been done to regulate the sector”.

The Health Minister said alcohol use though had been part of the Ghanaian culture and society, the current trend of consumption, and the inadequate regulation especially on its advertisements in both the print and the electronic media, was a source of worry.

He admitted that currently there were many policy issues and regulations on various aspects of alcohol including production and sale scattered in several legislations, and there was the need to pull all these and other policies into a single document, and also form a central coordinating body to ensure its implementation and enforcement.

Dr Akwesi Osei, the Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Authority, in an overview of the Policy, said alcohol consumption accounted for about 3.3 million (5.9 Per cent) deaths globally in 2012, most of them being males.

He said it was estimated that 23.3 per cent of Ghanaians take alcohol, and of these a projected 2.1 per cent were found to be engaging in heavy drinking.

He said the Per capita consumption of alcohol among heavy drinkers stood at 20 litres in a year, which reinforces the need for special strategies to tackle production, sale and consumption of locally brewed alcohol in addition to strategies for the formal industry. 

Both the WHO and the BPI pledged their full support to the immediate push for the development of a Legislative Instrument to make the Policy more biting, and also the establishment of an independent body such as the Ghana National Alcohol Commission to oversee the implementation of the relevant plans developed to achieve the strategies contained in the document in order to achieve the set objectives.

GNA

BAWUMIA ON THE UNBANKED

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia

By Godwill Arthur-Mensah

Vice President Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, on Wednesday, tasked the Ghana Interbank payment and Settlements System to bring together the money transaction stakeholders to ensure the inclusiveness of the 60 per cent financially unbanked population.

He said the ability of a customer to transfer money from one network to another or inter-operability was an important issue that all stakeholders must pay attention to and find ways of making it work.

Dr Bawumia was addressing the Fifth Edition of the Ghana Economic Outlook and Business Strategy Summit, organised by the African Business Media, in Accra, on the theme: “Unlocking Ghana’s Economic Potential with Mobile Money and Payment Systems”.

He stated: “I will like to encourage banks and mobile money operators to collaborate to increase the rate of making your services available to many Ghanaians owing mobile phones to offer them limitless opportunities to financial products”.

It should be possible for mobile phone subscribers to contribute to Treasury bills, pay insurance premiums and pay bills at the comfort of their homes using their mobile phones, which would eventually formalise the economy, he said.

The Summit brought together captains of industry, financial and investments experts to discuss how best Ghana could explore the mobile money transfer sector to unlock its economic potentials.

The Vice President said the financial inclusion environment comprising the banks, the telecommunication companies and the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GIPSS) was conducive for the implementation of the inter-operability.

The role of financial inclusion, he said, was to promote savings, increase investment and help reduce the interest rate.

Dr. Bawumia, therefore, expressed the hope that the players in the financial industry would work towards achieving inter-operability this year because countries the majority of the population being involved in financial inclusiveness would help to fast-track economic growth.

“I will like to encourage banks and mobile money operators to collaborate to increase the rate of making your services available to many Ghanaians owing mobile phones to offer them limitless opportunities to financial products”.

He said it should be possible for mobile phone subscribers to contribute to Treasury bills, pay insurance premiums and pay bills at the comfort of their homes using their mobile phones which would eventually formalise the economy.

“Government is determined to implement the National Identification System this year that will create a national database, the Digital Addressing System that will provide a unique identification to properties and the Financial Inclusiveness of the majority of the population that will enable Ghana to even leapfrog some advanced countries in the world,” he said.

The Vice President noted that with the aforementioned systems in place, it would serve as the engine that would drive the economic transformation of Ghana and unlock the potentials of the people for greater economic prosperity.

The Vice President said the Government was determined to build a business-friendly economy and, therefore, keen in developing the financial sector to deepen financial inclusion.

In view of this, he said, the Government abolished the VAT on financial services to encourage financial transactions through mobile money transfers.

Dr Bawumia said countries with strong financial transactions often experienced rapid economic growth, created employment and reduced poverty to the barest minimum. 

In his welcome address, Mr. Kwadwo Ohemeng Asumaning, the Board Chairman of the African Business Media, said the forum had created a powerful platform for pragmatic search of feasible solution to the economic challenges and would also propel the growth of the private sector.

In this year’s meeting, he said, it would introduce post-event monitoring and evaluation of all commitments, agreements and implementable outcomes with the aim of issuing periodic report to stakeholders on its findings.

“We are very much mindful of the fact that, part of the motivating reasons for our gathering here is to be better equipped in our field of endeavour; to enhance and embrace our positioning in the technological advancement to achieve success”.

He, therefore, tasked stakeholders to prioritise the modern financial transaction system in the national economic and business growth agenda in order to catch up with other countries that had advanced in that sector.

Dr. Johnson Asiama, the Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, said since the establishment of the Bank, it had implemented policies that had expanded access to financial services and scaled up financial inclusion.

He mentioned establishment of commercial banks, rural banks, community banks, savings and loan companies and the recent proliferation of microfinance companies.

However, he said, there were large segment of the population that remained financially excluded, hence the Central Bank published the Branchless Banking Guidelines in (2008) to provide the framework for branchless expansion of financial services using mobile phones as the delivery channel.

In addition, he said, the review of the guidelines resulted in the introduction of the Guidelines for Electronic Money Issuers and Agents Guidelines in July 2015.

He said the new guidelines had eliminated restrictions on non-bank entities such as telecos to issue electronic money.

However, the telecos were required to establish a separate entity licensed to issue electronic money.

He said the regulatory and supervisory reforms in digital payment was aimed at eliminating payroll fraud and lowering cost of service delivery.

It also aims at improving financial inclusion, reduction in money in circulation, efficiency, safety, competition, transparency and consumer protection. The National Communication Authority has indicated that the Mobile Money Services was introduced in 2009 in view of the increase in mobile phone subscription, which had grown over the years from 15. 1 million to 33.3 million as at December 2016.

FOREIGN STORIES:

Stephen Hawking calls for ‘world government’ to stop robot apocalypse

Professor Stephen Hawking has pleaded with world leaders to keep technology under control before it destroys humanity.

In an interview with the Times, the physicist said humans need to find ways to identify threats posed by artificial intelligence before problems escalate.

“Since civilisation began, aggression has been useful inasmuch as it has definite survival advantages,” the scientist said.

“It is hard-wired into our genes by Darwinian evolution. Now, however, technology has advanced at such a pace that this aggression may destroy us all by nuclear or biological war. We need to control this inherited instinct by our logic and reason.”

Hawking added that the best solution would be “some form of world government” that could supervise the developing power of AI.

“But that might become a tyranny. All this may sound a bit doom-laden but I am an optimist. I think the human race will rise to meet these challenges,” he added.

Hawking has been vocal about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence before.

“The real risk with AI isn’t malice but competence,” he wrote in a Reddit Q&A in 2015.

“A super intelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren’t aligned with ours, we’re in trouble.

“You’re probably not an evil ant-hater who steps on ants out of malice, but if you’re in charge of a hydroelectric green energy project and there's an anthill in the region to be flooded, too bad for the ants. Let’s not place humanity in the position of those ants.”

And he is not alone. American technology firm Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk agrees that AI could pose a threat to human existence.

“I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence,” Musk said during the 2014 AeroAstro Centennial Symposium

“If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful.

“I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish.”

Robots could take 250,000 public sector jobs by 2030

Robots could soon replace up to 90 percent of the British government’s administrative staff, sparking fears of mass unemployment across the economy.

Thousands of civil servants could be given the ax over the next 13 years, potentially saving taxpayers billions of pounds, according to a report by pro-free market think tank Reform.

In the ‘Work in Progress’ report, the charity argues 250,000 public-sector workers could be replaced by smart machines and autonomous robots by 2030.

Reform also calls on the government to replace 90 percent of Whitehall’s admin staff with “artificially intelligent (AI) chatbots,” along with 90,000 NHS administrators and 24,000 GP receptionists.

“Such a rapid advance in the use of technology may seem controversial, and any job losses must be handled sensitively,” report co-author Alexander Hitchcock said in a statement.

“But the result would be public services that are better, safer, smarter and more affordable.”

The NHS is already trialing an AI chatbot to answer medical questions instead of the currently used non-emergency phone number 111.

Reform’s report will add to fears the world is a facing fourth industrial revolution powered by AI which will result in unprecedented job losses.

A study published by Oxford University and consultancy firm Deloitte in October predicted there is a 77 percent probability Britain will lose 1.3 million “repetitive and predictable” administrative and operative jobs within 15 years.

More than 850,000 public sector jobs – including teachers, social workers and even police officers – could also be replaced by computer programs.

Don’t fear robot takeover, says AI pioneer

Humans have nothing to fear from artificial intelligence (AI), a pioneer in the field says, who believes concerns about an apocalyptic world run by robots is overblown.

Deep Mind, Google’s AI subsidiary, has created AI that can mimic the short-term memory of the human brain and technology to help doctors improve how illnesses are diagnosed and treated.

“I don’t think it’s very helpful for other people who are incredible in their domains commenting on something they actually know very little about,” says Demis Hassabis, Deep Mind’s CEO, the Times reports.

“But because they are quite big celebrities now, more than just scientists or businessmen, it gets picked up a lot.”

Elon Musk, the head of SpaceX and OpenAI, and Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder, are among those who fear that AI could pose a threat to mankind.

Famed physicist Professor Stephen Hawking has also raised his concerns about robots. Earlier this month he pleaded with world leaders to keep technology under control before it destroys humanity.

“Technology has advanced at such a pace that this aggression may destroy us all by nuclear or biological war,” he said.

Hassabis told an event organized by the Cambridge Society for the Application of Research: “There are some valid worries and I think these are research questions of vulnerability and interpretability, but I think this general theme of fearfulness doesn’t help reasoned debate.

“It actually drives the debate away. I’ve told all of those people you mentioned [Musk and Gates] that it’s not very helpful. Some of them have moderated their comments, but others haven’t.”

Deep Mind has sought advice from philosophers, mathematicians and digital engineers on how to build a machine that will not run out of control.

Hassabis believes the real danger would come from a self-improving “seed” AI that would understand and rewrite its own source code without any human oversight.

Last year it was revealed a Deep Mind and Royal Free NHS (National Health Service) deal on the management of acute kidney injury saw patient data shared and used without explicit consent.

The agreement shows Deep Mind gained access to 1.6 million patients’ information on admissions, discharge and transfer, including personal details such as whether patients had been diagnosed with HIV, suffered from depression or had ever undergone an abortion.

Bricklaying bots

Although robots may not be on the brink of destroying mankind, they could be about to destroy British construction jobs.

Robo-bricklayers will arrive on building sites around Britain over the next few months, raising fears that thousands of jobs could be under threat.

The device, Sam (Semi-Automated Mason), which has already started replacing humans on a handful of sites in the US, is capable of laying up to 3,000 bricks a day compared with the human average of 500.

“We are going to be going over to the UK in the coming months to meet with some companies and see if we can find a home for Sam there,” company president Scott Peters told the Times.

Although the robot needs to be closely supervised, it has the ability to pick up bricks, apply mortar and lay them. Human workers still need to set up the robot, supervise health and safety, and assist with laying bricks at difficult angles.

Last week, a report claimed millions of jobs in the UK are in jeopardy because of robots taking over. According to consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), up to 10 million jobs are at risk of being replaced by machines within 15 years.

The UK Economic Outlook report claims jobs in the transport and storage sector are more likely to go.

Development in automation, however, does not mean a direct rise in unemployment, the report says, as it increases productivity, which in turn generates more wealth and jobs in different sectors.

The report also says automation may allow workers to take on jobs that are more rewarding and less mechanical.

Robots Are Coming

The UK government is not prepared for the imminent arrival of robots, which will “fundamentally” change lives, take over jobs and raise serious ethical issues, MPs have warned.

Artificial intelligence (AI) such as driverless cars and supercomputers that can help doctors with medical diagnoses will soon be the norm, the Science Technology Committee says, but the government’s role in preparing for the change is “lacking.”

“Science fiction is slowly becoming science fact, and robotics and AI look destined to play an increasing role in our lives over the coming decades,” said Tania Mathias, the Tory acting chairwoman of the committee.

“It is too soon to set down sector-wide regulations for this nascent field but it is vital that careful scrutiny of the ethical, legal and societal ramifications of artificially intelligent systems begins now.”

The committee warned the government does not have a strategy in place for developing new skills to help workers succeed in a world with greater reliance on AI.

“Concerns about machines taking jobs and eliminating the need for human labor have persisted for centuries. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that we will see AI technology creating new jobs over the coming decades while at the same time displacing others,” Mathias said.

“Since we cannot yet foresee exactly how these changes will play out, we must respond with a readiness to reskill and upskill.

“This requires a commitment by the government to ensure that our education and training systems are flexible, so that they can adapt as opportunities and demands on the workforce change.”

The committee added there were ethical and social issues arising from the use of AI.

It said Google’s photo app, which automatically labels pictures, was reported to have classified images of black people as gorillas, and called for action to be taken to stop discrimination being accidentally built into AI systems.

Earlier this year, a report by Deloitte said a quarter of jobs in Britain’s business services sector would be taken over by robots in the next 20 years because of falling technology costs and rising wages.

Another report by the Big Four firm said more than 11 million jobs in the UK are at risk of automation, with the manufacturing, wholesale and retail, and professional, scientific and technical sectors to be hit the hardest.

The London Business School predicts jobs in law, medicine, architecture, communications and space technology would be performed by robotic workers in the next 20 years.

There have also been serious ethical concerns about artificial intelligence raised.

Cuba offers 1,000 medical scholarships to Colombia peace process

By Prensa Latina(PL) 

As a new contribution to the Colombia peace process, Cuba will award 1,000 scholarships to members of the Revolutionary Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) and victims of the conflict to study medicine on the island. 

Cuban Ambassador to Colombia, José Luis Ponce, announced the plan before the Commission for Follow up, Advance, and Verification of the Implementation of the Final Peace Agreement (CSIVI), while the announcement was made to government representatives on the commission by FARC-EP Secretariat member Iván Márquez. 

Ponce explained that 200 scholarships will be awarded every year for five years – 100 for the FARC-EP and 100 for the Notational Executive – and constitute a contribution by Cuba to the implementation of the Peace Agreements reached in Havana, and to the construction of a post-conflict Colombia. 

The scholarship students will begin their studies in the 2017-2018 academic year, according to the Cuban ambassador.

The program will be offered to young demobilized FARC-EP recruits, displaced persons, and other victims of the armed conflict, the latter chosen by the government. 

The Cuban Embassy will present the FARC-EP and Colombian government with a document containing all the details of the offer, which is currently being prepared by Cuban officials, according to the island’s diplomat. 

Cuba hosted the four-year peace talks between the guerilla front and the government of President Juan Manuel Santos, which ended in 2016, and together with Norway, also served as a guarantor nation to the bilateral conversations. 

Taking to his Twitter account, Márquez described Cuba’s contribution to the implementation of the Havana accords and creation of a post-conflict Colombia, as a gesture of pure humanity. 

To Army General Raúl Castro (President of Cuba) we express our gratitude filling Colombia with your love and solidarity. Supporting peace and offering us doctors, added the guerilla commander.

Mugabe: The Dictator?

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace greet supporters of his ZANU (PF) party during the "One Million Man March", a show of support of Mugabe's rule in Harare, Zimbabwe, May 25, 2016. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo.

By Caleb T. Maupin

Is Zimbabwe’s 92-year-old leader really the oppressive dictator the West makes him out to be, or is he demonized for not succumbing to a history of destabilization and intervention attempts by the West?

In covering a recent protest movement unfurling in Zimbabwe, mainstream Western media seem unable to report on country’s president without making references to him as a “dictator” and “authoritarian.”

Yet the case against Robert Mugabe, the 92-year-old president of Zimbabwe and leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), is difficult to justify, especially considering all of Zimbabwe’s recent elections have been monitored by the United Nations, and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main opposition party, currently divided into two factions, is widely represented in the government.

Further, Zimbabwe’s emergence as a nation struggling against not just the power of colonialism and white supremacists, but also the economic domination of a settler minority, tells an entirely different story.

Opposition parties like the MDC, which receives support from the United States, are allowed to operate freely in Zimbabwe. Newspapers that support the MDC and openly praise the previously existing apartheid regime are widely distributed, coexisting alongside pro-government state media. The idea that Zimbabwe is a totalitarian state that forbids dissent is simply not consistent with reality.

While Western media has few positive things to say about Mugabe, Zimbabwean voters clearly disagree. A 2015 survey by Zimbabwe’s Mass Public Opinion Institute found that Mugabe continues to enjoy popularity among the country’s urban and rural populations.

Even in 2012, a year before the last elections were held, popular support for the MDC was on the decline. In May 2013, The Guardian quoted Raymond Majongwe, secretary general of the 14,000-strong Progressive Teachers’ Union, as saying: “I’m feeling seriously let down by the MDC.”

His statement came after the party entered into a power-sharing agreement with the ZANU-PF following contested elections in 2008, but before that so-called “unity government” ultimately dissolved. He noted, presciently:

“The power-sharing agreement could be the undoing of the MDC leadership. They exposed their own naivety and appetite for opulence and extravagance. In four years the level of wealth these MDC guys have accumulated is shocking. If the MDC wins the election, fine, they can go ahead and loot the country like their predecessors.”

US has long planned to oust Mugabe

U.S. machinations to overthrow the Mugabe-led government in Zimbabwe are nothing new, particularly in terms of Washington’s support to the MDC.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC, who served as prime minister from 2009-2013, toured the world in 2009, meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. President Barack Obama. After his meeting with Obama, Tsvangirai said he was “grateful to him for his leadership” and that Obama would “continue to provide us with direction.”

In “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2005-2006,” the State Department reported: “The U.S. human rights strategy in Zimbabwe focused on maintaining pressure on the regime, assisting democratic forces, strengthening independent media, increasing public access to information, promoting accountability for the regime’s crimes, and providing humanitarian aid for Zimbabwe’s suffering people.”

The report further noted U.S. efforts to disseminate information on civil rights and made accusations of fraudulent parliamentary elections.

The State Department’s 2007 Performance Report on Zimbabwe boasted of the United States’ role in propping up the MDC as a viable opponent to Mugabe’s ZANU-PF:

“Following the bloody onslaught of the Mugabe regime against the MDC and civil society during the past year, USG [U.S. government] assistance helped rebuild the party’s battered structure and better position it to participate in the upcoming elections. The USG also assisted the MDC to effectively identify, research, and articulate policy positions and ideas within Zimbabwe, in the region, and beyond. In particular, USG technical assistance was pivotal in supporting MDC\’s formulation and communication of a comprehensive policy platform, which demonstrates the party’s preparedness to take over the reins of government in 2008.”

In a 2008 analysis of the document, Stephen Gowans, a Canadian writer and political analyst, noted:

“The neo-liberal, foreign investor-friendly economic policies Washington favors are central to the policy platform of the Tsvangirai faction of the MDC. The State Department document reveals that the MDC’s policy orientation may be based more on US government direction than its own deliberations.”

It’s also important to consider the role of U.S. aid money and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, in Zimbabwe. The organization, which has a long history of imperialist intervention under the guise of humanitarian aid, has remained active in Zimbabwe despite targeted sanctions imposed by the U.S. In fiscal year 2012, for example, Zimbabwe received $152,534,664 in U.S. economic assistance, including $61,987,763 from USAID and $49,648,024 from the State Department.

‘Rhodesia’ was wiped off the map

To understand why Washington is working to topple Mugabe, the country’s repeatedly elected president, and the ZANU-PF, its internationally-recognized government, one must be familiar with Zimbabwe’s history.

Defenders of the Israeli settler regime will often accuse their critics of being “inflammatory” and “extremist” for wanting to “wipe Israel off the map.” However, there is historical precedent for the erasure of European settler regimes. Zimbabwe became a country after Rhodesia, a country whose 1969 constitution enshrined the rule of whites, was toppled.

Rhodesia was the name given by settlers to the region in southern Africa that the indigenous people called Zimbabwe. It was named after Cecil Rhodes, the famed colonizer and advocate of British imperialism. When Zimbabwe declared its independence from Britain in 1965, the white minority owned almost all of the land, except for the Tribal Trust Lands, where black Africans were forced to live, similar to the “bantustans” of South Africa. During the day, blacks worked as servants and laborers in the estates, plantations, and cities owned by whites, and at night they returned to the designated areas where they were allowed to live and farm.

Roger Riddell, a staff member of the Catholic Institute for International Relations and editor of the institute’s series “From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe,” wrote an article in 1980, titled “Zimbabwe’s Land Problem: The Central Issue.” In the article, Riddell explains that not only did Europeans hold vastly more land than the Africans, they also held more fertile agricultural land:

“The importance of land in Rhodesia does not lie so much in the inequalities per se, but because inequalities in access to land are accompanied by growing overpopulation, landlessness, land deterioration, and increasing poverty in the African areas alongside serious underutilization of land in the European areas.”

The 7 million Africans were not full citizens of Rhodesia, unlike the white minority, which peaked at just under 300,000 in the late 1960s. Ian Smith, the wealthiest white farmer and prime minister of Rhodesia from 1964-1979, said: “The white man is the master of Rhodesia, has built it and intends to keep it.” The country’s 1961 Unilateral Declaration of Independence, which was committed to independence from Britain but not majority rule, reserved 50 national assembly seats for the country’s white settler minority and just 15 for the African majority.

Receiving weapons and support from both China and the Soviet Union, the indigenous African population took up arms against Smith’s white-minority rule in the 1970s. ZANU-PF, currently the ruling party in Zimbabwe, is the result of a merger of several different armed revolutionary organizations that fought against the apartheid government of Rhodesia. Britain deployed troops to fight against the African people, and the U.S. formally recognized and backed the Rhodesian apartheid regime. International media and Western politicians generally referred to the uprisings of impoverished African people as “terrorism” and supported the white settler government in the name of opposing “communism.”

As the white settler government of Rhodesia faced a wider insurgency from African people, it became a favored cause among white supremacists. Neo-Nazis and fascists from all over the world went to fight against the African rebels. James Earl Ray, who was convicted of assassinating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had worked closely with the “Friends of Rhodesia.” During his 2015 killing spree inside a church in South Carolina, the white supremacist murderer Dylann Roof wore the flag of the long deposed Rhodesian settler government.

Mugabe emerged as the charismatic leader of the armed uprising. With Mugabe as their commander and representative, guerrilla fighters carved out what the white settlers called “no-go areas,” liberated territories which were controlled by the African revolutionaries and served as bases for the uprising. ZANU-PF described itself as a socialist party. Interviewed during the war, Mugabe said:

 “It is absolutely wrong to allow a set of individuals to acquire control and ownership of those resources that are God-given. They are not man-made, the land, the water, the forest, the animals, the fish in the river, the minerals. These are given to us by nature, and it is in principle wrong for any one man to claim ownership of such resources that should belong to the people as a whole.”

On Dec. 21, 1979, the prolonged conflict known as the Rhodesian Bush War concluded with the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement. Rhodesia was abolished, and the Republic of Zimbabwe came into existence. The treaty specified that the new government could not seize white-owned land for ten years. At the time of the agreement, the country’s 120,000 white families controlled at least half of the country’s arable farmland, while 7 million Africans lived in extreme poverty.

Eroding white supremacy, changing property relations

Many predicted a “white genocide” following ZANU-PF’s election under the new constitution. However, once ZANU-PF assumed power in the elections following the 1979 treaty, no such thing occurred. Despite leading a “white republic” and ordering his troops to slaughter tens of thousands of civilians, Ian Smith, the leader of the white settler government, was spared any punishment for his documented war crimes. He lived in luxury on his estates until his death of natural causes in 2007.

Many whites left Zimbabwe, relocating to South Africa or Europe, but aside from a few incidents, no reports of widespread revenge killings took place. In accordance with the Lancaster House Agreement, whites who were owed pensions by the oppressive Rhodesian apartheid government continued to received payments from the new government until 1990.

The government led by ZANU-PF vastly expanded access to education, and Zimbabwe leads Africa in adult literacy. During the 1990s, the economy of Zimbabwe, presided over and tightly regulated by the ZANU-PF, was described by the Washington Post as being “among the strongest on the continent.”

The ZANU-PF government stayed true to its promise not to forcibly redistribute property until 1997, long after the ten year period agreed to in the treaty. Prior to 1997, many white farmers left Zimbabwe, voluntarily selling their property to the state for negotiated compensation. Britain welcomed white farmers with open arms, and has even established Zane, a charity that supports whites who wish to migrate from Zimbabwe.

Beginning in 1997, land belonging to the white minority has been gradually, forcibly redistributed to Africans. Veterans of Zimbabwe’s revolutionary army were the first to receive land, and by 2011, over 237,000 African families had acquired their own land, while 300 white farms remained intact.

When the land seizures began, Western press reports alleged the land reform was corrupt and giving land only to government bureaucrats. However, The Zimbabwean published the results of a 10-year study of the program, which found that less than 17 percent of the land went to civil servants, and the overwhelming majority went to rural peasants, unemployed Africans, and others who were not deeply connected to government officials.

No one debates that the majority of those who have received land hold a favorable view of the ZANU-PF government. Following the land redistribution campaign, violence erupted on more than a few occasions when white farmers refused to give up land and held violent standoffs with government officials and locals.

‘We want to be left alone’

As the reforms began, Mugabe was subject to demonization in Western media. In 2000, ZANU-PF suffered its first major defeats at the polls and began sharing power with the MDC, which has received funding from the State Department and whose leader has openly admitted to taking “direction” from President Obama.

The redistribution process slowed agricultural production in Zimbabwe. The process of transitioning farms from the large plantations owned by white settlers, to small individual plots owned by African families, was difficult on its own. But it was also compounded by the fact that Africans who had never owned their own farms did not have easy, immediate access to many types of modern agricultural technology previously employed by white farmers. The U.S. made the economic situation far worse by imposing economic sanctions on Zimbabwe starting in 2001, heavily restricting its ability to export agricultural goods. The sanctions also limited Zimbabwe’s access to key agricultural imports needed to make fertilizer.

Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly in 2008, Mugabe said, “We want to be left alone.” He urged Western forces to stop meddling in his country’s internal affairs, and to allow Zimbabwe to alter its economic system toward one featuring a more equitable distribution of wealth.

Despite continued demonization in Western media, Zimbabwe continues to make economic changes. In December, Zimbabwe announced that it was adopting the Chinese yuan as legal tender. In exchange, the People’s Republic of China cancelled Zimbabwe’s $40 million debt to Chinese banks.

In March, Mugabe announced that the country’s diamond mines will be nationalized.

“Companies that have been mining diamonds have robbed us of our wealth,” Mugabe said. “That is why the state must have a monopoly.”

When making the announcement, Mugabe also pointed out that a recent drop in diamond prices has increased the frequency of swindling and corruption surrounding the already crime-stricken industry. Zimbabwe supplied about 13 percent of the world’s diamonds in 2013, but experts quoted by Reuters warned that the country is expected to account for less than 3 percent of the global supply this year.

The president criticized not only Western-owned mining corporations, but also those based in China, and argued that nationalizing the mines will ensure that the people of Zimbabwe get a fair share of the wealth created by their natural resources.

For those who follow U.S. foreign policy, it should be clear why Washington seeks an end to the rule of Mugabe and the ZANU-PF: Zimbabwe’s government is seizing control of the country’s natural resources, redistributing land, and cutting into the profits of Western corporations. Furthermore, Zimbabwe has aligned itself with China, an emerging economic rival of Wall Street.

Western intervention is never the answer

Western media and the CIA have learned to manipulate humanity’s basic feelings of compassion and solidarity for the purpose of conducting “regime change.” Media campaigns routinely highlight atrocities — both real and invented — and build up public opinion for “humanitarian intervention.”

This is the case in Zimbabwe, where Western media selectively report on corruption, violence and suffering in line with biases for regime change held by Washington and its Western allies.

It also happened in Libya, where NATO bombing and a coordinated campaign to topple the government of Moammar Qaddafi were carried out with the stated objective of saving the lives of innocent people. However, the result has been widespread chaos and poverty in what was once Africa’s most prosperous country. The previously stable country stands divided today, as rival factions battle for power, while militant groups like Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the terrorist group known in the West as ISIS or ISIL) have set up shop.

Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria have all suffered the effects of U.S.-backed regime change waged in the name of human rights. The populations that were championed as oppressed victims in the Western media broadcasts that built the case for intervention, are far worse off than before.

American media’s talk about human rights is selective. Governments that reject economic domination by American-based banks and corporations, and those which compete with them on the global market, become targets of demonization. Meanwhile, atrocities perpetrated by repressive regimes that cooperate with the U.S. are generally overlooked, or, as in the case of Saudi Arabia, supported.

A movement like the one unfolding in Zimbabwe right now — a movement championed in Western media and led by someone who has since fled to the U.S. — is unlikely to improve the situation of Zimbabwe’s people. U.S. efforts to cripple Zimbabwe’s current leader and party by funding the opposition isn’t evidence of U.S. concern for human rights; it’s evidence that Mugabe and the ZANU-PF aren’t adhering to the rules of U.S. hegemony and Western dominance.

While Zimbabwe certainly faces social and economic challenges, the Pentagon will not solve them. Western destabilization and intervention will make matters worse. Only the African people — people who have defeated an oppressive regime and rolled back the horrors of white minority rule — only they can lead the country forward.

Source: Mint Press News|| 

Remembering Peter Tosh and the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre

By Ajamu Nangwaya

March 21 was the 57th anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre that was carried out by the South African apartheid regime against protesting Africans in 1960. This protest was organized by the liberation organization the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). It targeted the pass law of the settler-colonial regime that regulated the movement and residential pattern of the indigenous Africans. International opinion was so outraged by the murderous behaviour of the apartheid system that the United Nations’ General Assembly was inspired to declare March 21 the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (IDERD).

Whenever, we commemorate the Sharpeville Massacre and the IDERD, we are politically obligated to highlight the valiant effort of the late reggae singer, Pan-Africanist, Rastaman, revolutionary, and human rights champion Peter Tosh in creating greater public awareness of the crimes of South Africa’s apartheid system. Tosh was one of the original Wailers’ trio alongside Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer. He was a reggae superstar at the time of his assassination by lumpen elements in Jamaica on 11 September 1987. Tosh was known as a militant cultural worker and organic intellectual who did not mince words in condemning the powers-that-be like the Old Testament prophets.

According to Tosh’s former manager Herbie Miller in the book Remembering Peter Tosh, Tosh loved to read about international affairs and politics in general, biographies of noted Pan-Africanists as well as “literature about the origins of the apartheid system.” Tosh’s 1977 album Equal Rights was an anthem against racial and economic oppression and Miller said that

“it was this era of legal segregation and political unrest that inspired Peter’s recording of the album.”

On this album, Tosh demonstrates his function as an organic intellectual of the international African labouring classes with the anti-apartheid song Apartheid that exposed the economic motivation and action of the apartheid regimes in South Africa and Namibia. The first four lines in the song bear witness to the natural resources extraction activities of the white supremacist, capitalist, settler-colonial regime in Southern Africa:

Inna me land, quite illegal
You inna me land, dig out me gold, yes
Inna me land, diggin’ out me pearl
Inna me land, dig out me diamond

Tosh is not distracted by the ideological structure of white supremacy that was used in a vain attempt to mask the economic and financial imperatives behind the system of apartheid. It is not accidental and is quite instructive that this Rastafari prophetic voice went straight at the foundation of the system of apartheid in this song – the theft and occupation of Africans’ land and exploitation the natural resources.

This militant reggae icon exposes and indicts before the court of international public opinion the vicious and murderous apartheid system for its neglect of the social needs of the oppressed. Since the apartheid regime lacks legitimacy in the eyes of the people, it was forced to invest heavily in the coercive arm of the state (the police, army, courts and prisons) in order to keep in check the people’s struggle for freedom:

You inna me land, you no build no schools for black children
You inna me land, no hospital for black people
You inna me land, you built your prison
You inna me land, you built your camp

Peter was quite aware of the threat of the apartheid regime in South Africa and Namibia to international peace and regional stability in southern Africa. The settler-colonial apartheid regime did not confine its vile and brutal actions inside the territories under its control. It went after the liberation movements from Namibia and South Africa. South African apartheid brought death and destruction to the people of the frontline states that gave shelter to the freedom fighters and anti-colonial forces:

You cross the border, you shoot off the children
Cross the border, shoot down women
Cross the border, you take your might
Cross the border to beat the right

Tosh told the apartheid regime that it must expect a fight from the victimized Africans. He knows that the language of force is the one in which the forces of white supremacy and Babylon were most fluent. The downpressed had no option but to fight:

Now we have to fight, fight, fight
Fight ‘gainst apartheid
Black man got to fight, fight, fight
Fight ‘gainst apartheid
Come on and you fight, fight, fight
Fight ‘gainst apartheid
We got to fight, fight, fight
Fight ‘gainst apartheid

If the call to arms against the forces of exploitation and the disastrous consequences for them are not clear enough, Tosh outlines the desperate situation in which the downpressors will find themselves in the decisive and final moments of the triumph of the downpressed. In the song Downpressor Man from the Equal Rights album, he informs the exploiter of his fate:

Downpressor man
Where you gonna run to
Downpressor man
Where you gonna run to
Downpressor man
Where you gonna run to
All along that day

You gonna run to the sea
But the sea will be boiling
When you run to the sea
The sea will be boiling
The sea will be boiling
All along that day

You gonna run to the rocks
The rocks will be melting
When you run to the rocks
The rocks will be melting
The rocks will be melting
All that day

Long before activists coined and popularized the slogan “No Justice, No Peace,” Tosh captures that sentiment of the people and immortalized it in the song Equal Rights. This Rastafari cultural worker knew that the foundation of peace is justice and equity. The absence of peace and equal rights would ensure the continuation of predatory warfare by the downpressor and the necessity of revolutionary violence or armed self-defense by the downpressed:

Everyone is crying out for peace, yes
None is crying out for justice
Everyone is crying out for peace, yes
None is crying out for justice

I don’t want no peace
I need equal rights and justice
I need equal rights and justice
I need equal rights and justice
Got to get it, equal rights and justice

Tosh was an internationalist and he links the fight of Africans against racism, settler-colonialism and apartheid in Southern Africa with the struggle of the Palestinians against Zionism and Israeli apartheid. In the song Equal Rights, he proclaims that “Palestinians are fighting for equal rights and justice.” This reggae and Rastafari revolutionary took the opportunity at the 1977 No Nukes concert in Madison Square Garden, New York, to demonstrate his solidarity with Palestinians and other Arabs against Israeli colonial and military aggression.

Herbie Miller says that Tosh purchased and performed in the traditional clothing and headgear of the Gulf State Arab men. According to Miller,

“He intentionally did this at the No Nukes concert because he knew that there were certain countries with nuclear armaments and the concert date also fell close to one of the Jewish holidays. He made this political statement fully aware of the ongoing conflicts between the Arab and Jewish states in the Middle East.”

Tosh expression of internationalist solidarity with the cause of Palestinians and others in the Middle East might have caused the withdrawal of his invitation to address the relevant United Nations’ committee on apartheid. He would have been the first reggae cultural worker to do so.

We should share Tosh’s legacy of principled resistance and solidarity against apartheid, racism and economic exploitation with young people. Tosh used his art to turn the people on to the struggle for justice, equal rights and world peace.

Ajamu Nangwaya, Ph.D., is a writer, organizer and educator. He is a lecturer at the Institute of Caribbean Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus.

The wealth of the west was built on Africa’s exploitation

By Richard Dryton

Britain was the principal slaving nation of the modern world. In The Empire Pays Back, a documentary broadcast by Channel 4 on Monday, Robert Beckford called on the British to take stock of this past. Why, he asked, had Britain made no apology for African slavery, as it had done for the Irish potato famine? Why was there no substantial public monument of national contrition equivalent to Berlin’s Holocaust Museum? Why, most crucially, was there no recognition of how wealth extracted from Africa and Africans made possible the vigour and prosperity of modern Britain? Was there not a case for Britain to pay reparations to the descendants of African slaves?

These are timely questions in a summer in which Blair and Bush, their hands still wet with Iraqi blood, sought to rebrand themselves as the saviours of Africa. The G8’s debt-forgiveness initiative was spun successfully as an act of western altruism. The generous Massas never bothered to explain that, in order to benefit, governments must agree to “conditions”, which included allowing profit-making companies to take over public services. This was no gift; it was what the merchant bankers would call a “debt-for-equity swap”, the equity here being national sovereignty. The sweetest bit of the deal was that the money owed, already more than repaid in interest, had mostly gone to buy industrial imports from the west and Japan, and oil from nations who bank their profits in London and New York. Only in a bookkeeping sense had it ever left the rich world. No one considered that Africa’s debt was trivial compared to what the west really owes Africa.

Beckford’s experts estimated Britain’s debt to Africans in the continent and diaspora to be in the trillions of pounds. While this was a useful benchmark, its basis was mistaken. Not because it was excessive, but because the real debt is incalculable. For without Africa and its Caribbean plantation extensions, the modern world as we know it would not exist.

Profits from slave trading and from sugar, coffee, cotton and tobacco are only a small part of the story. What mattered was how the pull and push from these industries transformed western Europe’s economies. English banking, insurance, shipbuilding, wool and cotton manufacture, copper and iron smelting, and the cities of Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, multiplied in response to the direct and indirect stimulus of the slave plantations.

Joseph Inikori’s masterful book, Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England, shows how African consumers, free and enslaved, nurtured Britain’s infant manufacturing industry. As Malachy Postlethwayt, the political economist, candidly put it in 1745: “British trade is a magnificent superstructure of American commerce and naval power on an African foundation.”

In The Great Divergence, Kenneth Pomeranz asked why Europe, rather than China, made the breakthrough first into a modern industrial economy. To his two answers – abundant coal and New World colonies – he should have added access to west Africa. For the colonial Americas were more Africa’s creation than Europe’s: before 1800, far more Africans than Europeans crossed the Atlantic. New World slaves were vital too, strangely enough, for European trade in the east. For merchants needed precious metals to buy Asian luxuries, returning home with profits in the form of textiles; only through exchanging these cloths in Africa for slaves to be sold in the New World could Europe obtain new gold and silver to keep the system moving. East Indian companies led ultimately to Europe’s domination of Asia and its 19th-century humiliation of China.

Africa not only underpinned Europe’s earlier development. Its palm oil, petroleum, copper, chromium, platinum and in particular gold were and are crucial to the later world economy. Only South America, at the zenith of its silver mines, outranks Africa’s contribution to the growth of the global bullion supply.

The guinea coin paid homage in its name to the west African origins of one flood of gold. By this standard, the British pound since 1880 should have been rechristened the rand, for Britain’s prosperity and its currency stability depended on South Africa’s mines. I would wager that a large share of that gold in the IMF’s vaults which was supposed to pay for Africa’s debt relief had originally been stolen from that continent.

There are many who like to blame Africa’s weak governments and economies, famines and disease on its post-1960 leadership. But the fragility of contemporary Africa is a direct consequence of two centuries of slaving, followed by another of colonial despotism. Nor was “decolonisation” all it seemed: both Britain and France attempted to corrupt the whole project of political sovereignty.

It is remarkable that none of those in Britain who talk about African dictatorship and kleptocracy seem aware that Idi Amin came to power in Uganda through British covert action, and that Nigeria’s generals were supported and manipulated from 1960 onwards in support of Britain’s oil interests. It is amusing, too, to find the Telegraph and the Daily Mail – which just a generation ago supported Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and South African apartheid – now so concerned about human rights in Zimbabwe. The tragedy of Mugabe and others is that they learned too well from the British how to govern without real popular consent, and how to make the law serve ruthless private interest. The real appetite of the west for democracy in Africa is less than it seems. We talk about the Congo tragedy without mentioning that it was a British statesman, Alec Douglas-Home, who agreed with the US president in 1960 that Patrice Lumumba, its elected leader, needed to “fall into a river of crocodiles”.

African slavery and colonialism are not ancient or foreign history; the world they made is around us in Britain. It is not merely in economic terms that Africa underpins a modern experience of (white) British privilege. Had Africa’s signature not been visible on the body of the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, would he have been gunned down on a tube at Stockwell? The slight kink of the hair, his pale beige skin, broadcast something misread by police as foreign danger. In that sense, his shooting was the twin of the axe murder of Anthony Walker in Liverpool, and of the more than 100 deaths of black people in mysterious circumstances while in police, prison or hospital custody since 1969.

This universe of risk, part of the black experience, is the afterlife of slavery. The reverse of the medal is what WEB DuBois called the “wage of whiteness”, the world of safety, trustworthiness, welcome that those with pale skins take for granted. The psychology of racism operates even among those who believe in human equality, shaping unequal outcomes in education, employment, criminal justice. By its light, such all-white clubs as the G8 continue to meet in comfort.

Early this year, Gordon Brown told journalists in Mozambique that Britain should stop apologising for colonialism. The truth is, though, that Britain has never even faced up to the dark side of its imperial history, let alone begun to apologise.

Dr Richard Drayton is a senior lecturer in imperial and extra-European history since 1500 at Cambridge University. His book The Caribbean and the Making of the Modern World will be published in 2006.

Source: Guardian Hear Africa campaign 2005