wfn.org | ALL AFRICA NEWS AGENCY BULLETIN No. 42/02 (c)

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

ALL AFRICA NEWS AGENCY BULLETIN No. 42/02 (c)
October 28, 2002

All Africa News Agency
P. O. BOX 66878 NAIROBI, KENYA.
TEL: (254 2) 442215 FAX: (254 2)445847/443241
E-MAIL: aanaapta@insightkenya.com

AANA Bulletin
Editor - Mitch Odero

Bulletin APTA
Acting Editor - Silvie Alemba

Central African Republic In Border Dispute With Chad

BANGUI (AANA) October 28 - Border dispute between Central African Republic 
(CAR) and Chad has worsened, prompting the Economic Community of the 
Central African States to meet in Libreville, Gabon  (on October 
2).  Accordingly, they have dispatched 350 peace keeping soldiers to the 
disputed borders

The peacekeeping soldiers are drawn from the member states of this 
sub-regional economic organisation. They include: Equatorial Guinea, 
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Gabon, Cameroon and Mali.

  According to the arrangement, the peacekeeping soldiers are set to move 
in immediately and are expected there for a period between one to six months.

Participants at the Libreville meeting also resolved to have Francois 
Bozize, former head of the army in CAR and who has now fled to Chad to be 
expelled from there. He is being implicated in the CAR coup attempt of 
November 2001.

They also resolved that Chadian rebel Abdoulaye Meskine, who has sought 
refugee in Togo, from CAR, where he had first "settled", be equally 
expelled from there.

  CAR is also accusing Chad for having waged war against it.

By  Correspondent

FEATURES  SECTION

Creating Space For Traditional Peace-Building

African societies developed effective peace-building mechanisms which have 
endured the test of time.  A recent international interfaith meeting held 
in Johannesburg, found that the traditional methods are still valid, 
reports Pauline Mumia of LWF.

P
rogress in the fields of technology, medicine, information, communication 
and commerce, is a hallmark of the 20th and 21st centuries. But peace and 
harmonious coexistence remain beyond reach. Millions of people have been 
killed in violent conflicts.

It is against this background that leaders of faith communities in Africa 
gathered in Benoni near Johannesburg to jointly chart a plan to promote 
peace on the continent.

A significant topic of the October 14-19 Inter-Faith Peace Summit in 
Africa, organised by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and hosted by the 
National Religious Leaders' Forum of South Africa (NRLFSA) was African 
traditional methods of resolving conflicts. Consequently, delegates called 
for the use of traditional systems of peace building in the bid to end 
violent conflicts in Africa.

The summit acknowledged, among other things that traditional methods of 
resolving conflict are inherent in African communal life, and that they did 
in fact work.

Addressing more than 100 representatives of faith communities drawn from 21 
African countries, Prof. Catherine Odora Hopper from the University of 
Pretoria, South Africa, noted that while tremendous progress has been made 
in conflict management, very little has been done in the area of peace 
building.

Africa is racked with conflict "...and it is clear that our understanding 
of innovations should extend to the rediscovery of traditional indigenous 
resources for peace building and human security," she said.

A summit delegate, Ms. Nafisat Musa from the Ministry of Justice, Plateau 
State, Nigeria, said elders still form a crucial part in the administration 
of justice and reconciliation in the Yoruba and other communities in the 
West African country. Issues such as inheritance and domestic antagonism 
within clans and families are often settled by elders.

In East Africa, traditional ways of resolving conflicts have occasionally 
been employed. In all cases, dialogue, mediation, relationship and 
community-based approaches were stressed.

Among the Acholi of northern Uganda, reconciliation and forgiveness form 
the most important factor of good neighbourliness. And like in many other 
African traditions, rituals and taboos have been put in place to protect 
the sanctity of life and dignity of human beings.

The Acholi's Mato-Oput ritual involves the appearance of an individual or 
group of people involved in a conflict before a council of elders 
(Lotido-Apoka). After lengthy deliberations, the root cause of the conflict 
is established. Careful scrutiny in such situations would reveal the party 
that erred and when the guilt is admitted certain prescribed therapy 
follows. By all means the punishment must lead to harmony and peace.

Mato-Oput is usually performed after a fight, disagreement or any rift that 
would affect harmonious coexistence in the society. Where arms are 
involved, a ceremony known as "bending of spears" is performed. This 
involves the exchange of spears between the warring parties and the bending 
of the tips of the same.

 From then on, all the parties must vow not to harm one another, since they 
are united by the ritual and therefore rendered brothers and sisters.

Another example of peace-building mechanism comes from the Banyarwanda 
community in Rwanda. Gacaca, an intricate system of customs and traditions 
that starts at community level, derives its name from a grass called 
Urucaca that thrives well in homesteads. The mechanism is founded on 
dialogue, reconciliation and reparation.

Whenever there is a feud between two or more parties, elders gather in 
front of the homestead amidst Urucaca. Each party is then asked to present 
their case.

The role of the council of elders is to facilitate the reconstruction of 
relationships. Meanwhile the party in the wrong is required to pay a fine 
as a way of punishment. Soon after, beer is shared by both parties and the 
council of elders, followed by a feast.

In modern Rwanda, Gacaca is used as an institution to find out the truth 
about the 1994 genocide. The country's special genocide courts have tried 
less than six percent of those detained for suspected genocide offences.

There are some 110,000 Rwandese in the country's detention facilities, the 
vast majority of them still awaiting trial. The Gacaca system currently 
works as a tribunal, having been embraced by the community and the law.

Late last year, 260,000 adults of "integrity, honesty and good conduct" 
were selected by local communities to serve as magistrates on the more than 
10,000 Gacaca tribunals.

In Botswana, traditional courts form a critical part of the justice system, 
Judge Elijah Legwaila, President of Botswana's Industrial Court, told 
participants in the inter-faith summit.

Traditional dispute resolution, principally aimed at preventing the rupture 
of relationships, in addition to rectifying the wrong, begins at the family 
level. In cases where disputes cannot be dealt with at that level, they are 
referred to the ward Kgotla, a localized court in the vicinity of the 
defendant's home.

Throughout the process, the defendant's kinsmen are actively involved. If 
the matter cannot be resolved at the ward Kgotla, then it goes to the main 
Kgotla, which is presided over by the chief. Mokgwa le Molao, the legal 
system in this context, literally means "law and custom," and expresses the 
character of a system of law that prescribes a moral content.

African philosophies emphasise a way of being with the world that admits 
the openness of a circle concept that acknowledges obligations, seeks 
harmony, balance and equilibrium. It is upon such principles and spirit 
that Ubuntu, an attitude of togetherness in spirit and humanness is founded.

According to Rev. Dr. Ishmael Noko, LWF General Secretary, Ubuntu bears the 
central meaning that nobody can survive and realise their full potential in 
isolation from others, whether the isolation is by choice or intended.

Ntate Kgalushi Koka from the Karaites Institute of Africology, South 
Africa, says the continent is at a period of reawakening, during which it 
should re-examine the intricacies of its glorious past for a rebirth of 
spiritual, social and political concepts that can provide a solution to the 
present conflicts.

Kenyans Are Drinking Themselves To Death

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going, so it is said, only that 
in Kenya, the tough have resorted to potent killer drinks to cope with the 
pains of ailing economy.  Our special correspondent Robert Otani found 
during a research that the "tough" were wasting away to their graves.

"E
ven if you put off the light, we shall continue to  drink," said 38 
year-old James Kariuki to the woman selling a popular traditional drink to 
him and his colleagues at Mai Mahiu, a trading centre 30 kilometres west of 
Nairobi.  But the woman had not switched off the oil lamp, nor did Kariuki 
and his four co-revellers continue drinking.

For not only did the father of four become instantly blind, but he also 
died after swallowing a few mouthfuls of the deadly concoction.

Three of his colleagues also died almost immediately.  The other, a young 
man barely in his 20s, was luckier; he was saved by a neighbour who rushed 
him to a nearby dispensary.  But his eyesight could not be saved, he became 
permanently blind.

This incident happened about four years ago, but the incidence of Kenyans 
consuming cheap uninspected alcoholic beverages has become so commonplace 
that one wonders if these brews will not decimate the population unless the 
government clamps down on them.

"The Church has a role to play as well," says Rev John Omolo, an evangelist 
in Kisumu, Kenya's second city.  "We cannot sit back and watch as our 
people, most of them in the prime of their ages, kill themselves in the 
name of entertainment."

Call it Changaa, Busaa, Kumi Kumi, Sorghum Baridi, El Nino, Sweet Engineer, 
Tornado, Medusa or what you will, but cheap and mostly illicit brews are 
killing Kenyans by their tens everyday.

The brews have permeated all parts of the country as the unemployed and 
poorly paid workers strive to find a more affordable stimulant, and as the 
conventional legal beers and spirits become more and more out of their reach.

Kenya's devastated economy has brought also into the market, cheap and 
legal locally distilled spirits going by such flamboyant names as "Tyson", 
and they sure pack a powerful punch.  All of these drinks have the property 
of doing one thing  -  sending Kenyans to their early graves.

And the culprit is the government, for it has failed to put in place a 
proper legal framework for the control, manufacture, marketing and 
consumption of the suspect drinks.  Thus, brewers, distillers and even 
retailers mix the drinks with all kinds of additives to make them more 
potent and to boost their earnings.

One such additive is the lethal methanol, which boosts the concoctions 
potency and distends sellers pockets.

The trade and industry ministry in May proposed that brews such as the 
Changaa spirit and Busaa, a fermented cereal flower brew, be legalised to 
help revitalise the tattered economy, which last year registered a negative 
growth rate for the first time since independence from Britain in 1963.

This, the ministry officials argued, would also be fillip to the struggling 
alcoholic beverages sector, especially after South African Brewers 
relocated to Tanzania from Kenya early this year.

The argument is that Changaa and Busaa, the traditional drinks in towns and 
villages, have ceased to be what they once were - cheap and safe alcoholic 
beverages.

In neighbouring Tanzania and Uganda, Changaa has been legalised and is 
selling in bars in the form of Konyagi and Uganda Waragi.  Its manufacture 
and sale are controlled by the government to avoid adulteration.

In Kenya, opposition MP Karisa Maitha recently recommended in parliament 
that Mnazi, a popular palm wine at his home turf on the Indian Ocean coast, 
be legalised to curb its abuse and to provide a means of steady livelihood 
to the local tappers and sellers.

The illegal retailers also use such additives as formalin, the chemical for 
preserving dead bodies, bang and sisal juice, ethanol, fertilisers, battery 
water, baking powder and methylated spirit.  Occasionally, things go awry 
and the lethal methanol finds its way into the poorly policed shebeens.

About two years ago, 100 residents of a Nairobi neighbourhood were killed 
after they consumed an illegal spirit calling itself Kumi Kumi, or Ten Ten, 
in reference to its price of 10 Kenya Shillings a measure.  Others went 
permanently blind.

In December last year, about 500 women went out into the streets of Nyeri 
town in central Kenya to demonstrate against the drinks, arguing that they 
were making their husbands impotent.

"If they were legalised, some minimum basic standards could be applied.  As 
things stand now, the government cannot tell what the contents are.  How do 
you analyse what is illegal; it wont be available?" laments Dr Eric Achoki 
of the National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NACADA).

NACADA boss Joseph Kaguthi admits that the government is aware of the 
presence and dangers posed by the beverages. "But the police are 
compromised through the  'protection fee' from the manufacturers and the 
sellers," he stated.

In some areas, says NACADA, the situation is so bad that even primary 
school children, including girls, have access to the drinks. "We have 
evidence that school girls are turning more to alcohol," Kaguthi says.

Pupils each save money and pool it to buy minipaks.  Cheap legal spirits 
are sold also in 30 ml polythene satchets.

Dr Achoki says brewers of drinks such as Kumi Kumi buy ethanol, which is 
used in making the legal spirits, from backstreet vendors at $44 for a 20 
litre jerrycan.  Then they mix it with water to get 80 20 litre jerrycans 
of a highly potent drink.

Each of the 80 jerrycans retails for $10.  This means that from the initial 
$44 investment, a dealer makes up to $800.  But occasionally, the 
backstreet vendors cannot tell methanol from ethanol, and they end up 
selling the poison with devastating repercussions.

What makes the problem even more difficult to tackle is that the Kenya 
police are also in the retail business.  "So who will arrest the police 
dealers," wonders legislator Paul Mugeke, who represents Mathare, a Nairobi 
slum neighbourhood notorious for the making, selling and consumption of the 
drinks and therefore crime.

Thus, argues NACADA, the only course of action likely to curb the menace is 
to legalise some of the concoctions, or to make the legal ones more 
affordable.  But the latter is unlikely, especially with Kenya Breweries 
Limited being back to its beer brewing and merchandising monopoly after 
South African Breweries, its only strong rival since 1998, withdrew from
Kenya.