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Africa Update
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Nov 6th, 2009 - 04:32:39 |
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CONTENTS:
1 - BOTSWANA: A risky combination of alcohol and sex
2 - DRC: Fish war prompts thousands to flee
3 - GLOBAL: AIDS funding at "dangerous turning point"
4 - KENYA: Replacing the bucket latrine
5 - MAURITANIA: Don't abandon us, HIV-positive community tells donors
6 - MOZAMBIQUE: Help for landmine victims hard to come by
7 - SUDAN: Poor start to Southern voter registration
8 - ZIMBABWE: Kimberley Process ignores its own advice
1 - BOTSWANA: A risky combination of alcohol and sex
SELEBI-PHIKWE, 5 November (IRIN) - On a recent Wednesday evening, Gillian Otsile, a volunteer at a local NGO, Men Sex and AIDS, approached a group of young men drinking cartons of traditional sorghum beer at a tavern in Selebi-Phikwe, a mining town in northeastern Botswana.
In a country where nearly one in four adults is infected with HIV, Otsile's focus is talking to the patrons of local drinking establishments about the risks of combining alcohol with sex.
Most of the group in the bar in Selebi-Phikwe are unemployed and rely on occasional piece-work to buy beers for themselves and any girls they meet. Tato, who is slightly older than the others and works as an electrician, confirmed that after buying a girl beers all night, he expected to go home with her.
Using a condom depended on how drunk he was. "If you're drunk, you lose half the sensation, so the only way you can do it is flesh-to-flesh. You forget about HIV."
Tato's comments echo the findings of several studies: heavy drinking is associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in sexual behaviours that put individuals at risk of HIV infection.
A 2006 study in Botswana found that both male and female heavy drinkers were above three times more likely to have unprotected sex than non-drinkers; their odds of having multiple partners and paying for or selling sex were also much higher.
Need for policies
Alcohol use as a driver of HIV infections is evident throughout southern Africa, the region worst hit by the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, but few governments have implemented policies to address the problem.
However, in 2008 Botswana President Ian Khama's government acknowledged the link by legislating shortened hours for bars and slapping a 30 percent levy on alcohol. It is too soon to say whether these measures have changed drinking habits enough to have an impact on HIV infection rates.
Some commentators say people have simply switched to drinking traditional beer called Chibuku, which still sells for less than US$1 for a one-litre carton that can be shared between friends. One of Tato's friends pointed out that bars are also popular places to buy condoms, so "if the bars are closed, they're not going to find a condom."
The tavern adjacent to the office of District AIDS Coordinator Lamech Myengwa is still doing brisk business, especially at month-end. "In Botswana, drinking has become a pastime," he told IRIN/PlusNews.
Few small towns have a cinema or much else by way of recreational facilities. "Every evening people will go to the bars to socialise - that's where everybody mixes, young and elderly - no wonder there is this intergenerational sex going on."
Government figures from 2008 show that HIV infections in Selebi-Phikwe, as in most of Botswana and across southern Africa, are highest among young women and older men, demographics that tend to be replicated in the bars.
"The women are young girls, from 16 [years old]," said Dikgang Keabetswe, a project leader at Men Sex and AIDS, one of several community-based organizations receiving funding from Population Services International (PSI), a global health organization, to raise awareness about alcohol and HIV in local bars.
"Some [young women] go [to the bars] without a cent; they look for males to buy them something to drink, and even for transport money. Men mostly expect sex in return. The BCL guys [workers at the local copper and nickel mine] - those who have more money - are mostly over 25."
Employment opportunities for women in Selebi-Phikwe have shrunk since several textile factories closed in the late 1990s, and some have turned to commercial sex work, while others occasionally exchange sex for drinks or small amounts of cash.
On her way home from buying a bag of maize, Elizabeth, 27, has stopped at the tavern where Tato and his friends are drinking. "I want a drink but I don't have money, so I'm hoping someone will buy me one," she said, admitting that some men expected sexual favours in return.
"If I want, I go with him. Sometimes I use a condom, but if he says, 'I don't have a condom', and I see he has a lot of money, I'll agree ... In life, we need money."
She recently tested negative for HIV, but believes it is only a matter of time before she contracts the virus. "I think everyone nowadays has HIV," she said.
Tato and his friends have similarly fatalistic attitudes and a reluctance to change risky sexual behaviours; several said they slept with sex workers whenever they had money.
"I'm not afraid of HIV because there are ARVs [antiretrovirals] for free," said one, referring to the government ARV programme which reaches nearly 100 percent of those in need of the medication. "I'm afraid of it ... when I'm sober," laughed Tato.
Changing behaviours no easy task
Persuading people to reduce their alcohol consumption will have little effect on Botswana's HIV infection rates unless it is accompanied by fundamental changes in attitudes and behaviours.
The young volunteers doing the PSI-funded interventions at bars are trained to strike up conversations with people not only about drinking responsibly, but also about the common practice of having multiple concurrent partners (MCPs) - perhaps the biggest and most neglected driver of HIV infections in southern Africa, according to recent research.
PSI is providing technical assistance to Botswana's National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA) in an initiative launched earlier this year to raise awareness and eventually change behaviour.
The first phase is a mass media campaign featuring the slogan "o icheke" (check yourself), to get people to recognize the risks of having MCPs. Starting in December, a second phase will target demographic groups most likely to have MCPs with tailored messages, said Richard Matlhare, head of behaviour change at NACA.
"We looked at alcohol as one of the predisposing factors, and that's why the President has taken a stance on responsible drinking," Matlhare said. "We know people can't make informed judgements when they're drunk."
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2 - DRC: Fish war prompts thousands to flee
KINSHASA, 5 November (IRIN) - At least 16,000 civilians have fled deadly clashes in western Democratic Republic of Congo and are now languishing, many without food or shelter, in neighbouring Republic of Congo, according to the UN and local officials.
"These villagers fled interethnic fighting [in Dungu, Equateur Province] which has already claimed 47 lives and caused many injuries," said Francesca Fontanini, a spokeswoman for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Equateur's police chief, Col Joly Limengo, told IRIN that clashes had broken out last week between members of the Lobala and Boba communities over access to fishing ponds.
Those who fled are having problems with nutrition, medical supplies and shelter, according to Fontanini, citing the findings of an inter-agency mission made up of officials from UNHCR, other UN agencies, the Interior Ministry and local NGOs.
"Villagers are still crossing [the Ubangi river] to Republic of Congo. By yesterday [4 November], more than 16,000 had done so. Most did not take any provisions at all, or only very few. They are housed in municipal buildings or in the open. There is either no health centre, or insufficient medical supplies where they are," she said.
Officials in Equateur Province said they had initiated dialogue between the warring inhabitants of the villages of Iyele and Muzala.
Government spokesman Lambert Mende said there was more to the unrest than an old dispute about fish.
"It's an insurrection. A certain Edo Bokoto, who has been suspended from his post of sector chief, has mobilized about 10 men from his community to wanted to take control of these fish ponds which belong to people from these villages. They started to attack people from outside their community," he said, adding that seven policemen who intervened in the fighting had been killed.
Equateur is the home province of erstwhile rebel leader and former vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba, now awaiting trial for alleged war crimes at the International Criminal Court.
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3 - GLOBAL: AIDS funding at "dangerous turning point"
JOHANNESBURG, 5 November (IRIN) - Wavering international support for HIV/AIDS efforts is resulting in funding shortfalls that could wipe out a decade of progress in rolling out AIDS treatment, the international medical and humanitarian organization, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has warned.
In a report called "Punishing Success? Early signs of a retreat from commitment to HIV/AIDS care and treatment", released on 5 November, MSF highlights worrying indications that the two biggest international funders helping developing countries expand their AIDS programmes are starting to scale back or flatline their contributions.
The board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which largely relies on money from developed countries to award grants in 140 poor countries, will soon decide whether to cancel its 2010 call for funding proposals.
If so, it will be the organization's first year since 2002 without a funding round; the total amount of HIV grants recommended for funding in 2009 was 35 percent lower than in 2008.
Countries like Malawi are heavily dependant on Global Fund grants to finance their antiretroviral (ARV) treatment programmes. The MSF report notes that with the Fund in crisis, Malawi's chances of achieving universal access to treatment are sinking.
The US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), under the leadership of former President George Bush committed to scaling up treatment from the more than two million people it supports to at least three million by 2013.
Now, faced with an economic crisis, President Barack Obama's administration has flatlined US funding for HIV/AIDS in 2009. In Uganda, a principal beneficiary, some PEPFAR-supported organizations have stopped putting new patients on ARVs.
"We're launching this report because we think we're at a very dangerous turning point," said Dr Tido von Shoen-Angerer, director of MSF's Access to Essential Medicines campaign. "Critical decisions are being made by governments and we're starting to see the early effects on the ground."
After leading the charge for universal access, the UK Department for International Development (DfID) has started redirecting funds to other health issues, while Netherlands is considering a reduction of 30 percent in its HIV/AIDS spending.
"The message five years ago was 'Go for it and we'll support you'," said Dr Eric Goemaere, MSF medical coordinator for South Africa and Lesotho. "Now that we're midway across the river, they seem less sure."
Von Shoen-Angerer was critical of the recent trend in global health policy of pitting AIDS against other health priorities, such as maternal and child health. He pointed out that AIDS was "a continuing emergency" and accounted for more than half of all deaths in five of the countries with the highest HIV prevalence.
"Clearly, there are other global health needs, but it can't be an either-or game," he said. "The dirty secret here, I think, is that donors are getting cold feet about funding a long-term chronic disease."
The decision by some donors to shift funding out of HIV/AIDS treatment and into prevention also created what Goemaere called "a false dichotomy" - for instance, areas like South Africa's Western Cape Province, which had achieved high levels of treatment coverage, were seeing the greatest drop in HIV infection.
Von Shoen-Angerer warned that the cost of treatment was set to rise in coming years. The World Health Organization is considering revising guidelines to reflect research findings that starting ARV treatment earlier improves survival rates and reduces the incidence of opportunistic infections. This could effectively double the number of patients who qualify for treatment.
A growing number of patients will also need second-line ARV drugs, which are currently much more expensive than first-line medications.
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4 - KENYA: Replacing the bucket latrine
WAJIR EAST, 5 November (IRIN) - The sound of the evening bell at a local boarding high-school in Wajir, in the northeast of Kenya, did not always signal the end of the day's classes. Instead it marked the end of the evening bathroom break as "bucket toilets" were emptied for the day.
Such stories are commonly told with a mixture of humour and concern in the semi-arid region of Wajir, where most residents have little access to improved sanitation - with serious health implications.
"Wajir is prone to diarrhoea outbreaks," Francis Njoroge, Wajir East medical health officer, told IRIN. "Diarrhoeal diseases are [the] third [most] common illness in children below five years.
"Several factors could be contributory: the town lacks a sewerage system [and] uses a bucket system... people depend on boreholes... and many of the community water wells are not protected, exposing them to contamination," Njoroge said.
Outside the town, people use water from open dams, which they share with animals. "During the rainy season, run-off water washes animal waste into the dam, contaminating it," he said.
Wajir residents rely on shallow wells, due to increasing water salinity at depth, which are exposed to contamination during flash floods and from seepage.
The larger Wajir, which borders Somalia, Ethiopia, as well as the Kenyan towns of Mandera, Moyale, Isiolo and Garissa, lies in an area with large aquifers supplied by perennial rivers and dry seasonal river basins - also sources of contamination.
Like most of northern Kenya, Wajir has experienced a prolonged drought and livestock deaths. Animal carcasses litter watering points, posing a further health risk.
Contamination
Wajir South Development Association (WASDA) programme manager, Haretha Bulle, told IRIN of the challenges.
"There are [largely] no flush toilets and no pit latrines," Bulle told IRIN. A few flush toilets can be found in some hotels and in newer settlements but are rare in households.
According to a UN World Health Organization report, latrine coverage in rural Wajir is about 5 percent and just a little higher in the town.
Because of the high water table, pit latrines are not viable, and residents mainly rely on unhygienic bucket toilets - improvised from plastic jerry cans.
"Waste is collected from the bucket latrines by a tractor, which serves the whole town," Bulle noted. The town has a population of about 220,000.
"Households are not able to dispose of waste [and] are forced to dispose it anywhere," she said. "When it rains, the whole town smells. The water gets contaminated more easily and changes colour."
Refuse pit and open pit dumping is prevalent.
El Niño threat
According to Wajir town resident, Khadijah Ibrahim, ongoing El Niño-related rains will only exacerbate the situation. Her family of eight shares one bucket toilet with three other households - about 24 people in total.
"Sometimes the municipal council comes to empty the bucket after a week or 15 days. By the time the waste collectors come, the bucket toilet is already overflowing," Ibrahim said.
Her children, the youngest of whom is three, have been trained to wear shoes before going to the toilet to protect themselves, "but they only use soap to wash their hands before they eat", Ibrahim said.
Eco-toilets
The Arid Lands Development Focus (ALDEF) NGO is piloting eco-toilets, which use heat trapped by solar panels to burn human waste, reducing it to ash.
The toilets do not use water, instead relying on a dehydration/evaporation system. Diyad Hujale, ALDEF programme manager, told IRIN the target was mainly the town centre, which requires about 5,000 toilets.
Hujale recommended that Wajir town's by-laws should make it compulsory for any upcoming construction to have an eco-toilet facility. The challenge, he said, is "how to get rid of the bucket toilet".
However, the cost of setting up an eco-san unit, about KSh60,000 (US$800), is prohibitive for private households.
Health education
Past recommendations to improve drainage and sanitation in Wajir have not yielded much, according to Bulle of WASDA. "It is one disaster after the other. When the rains come, we think of the drainage but forget about it when the drought comes."
At present, village elders in Wajir are being taught how to chlorinate the community wells, according to health officer Njoroge. Health education on the importance of protecting the wells is also being provided.
He said the construction of more toilets is being encouraged in new settlements, where communities are provided with water treatment chemicals.
"Health education is ongoing. Of importance is that there is continued disease surveillance in the district," he said. The solution lay in "providing clean water to the community and safe disposal of human waste via a sewerage system".
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5 - MAURITANIA: Don't abandon us, HIV-positive community tells donors
NOUAKCHOTT, 5 November (IRIN) - People living with HIV in Mauritania are voicing their concerns about the suspension of HIV/AIDS funding by the World Bank and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. They feel powerless in the face of the decisions, of which they are suffering the consequences.
On 14 October dozens of people living with HIV organized a sit-in in front of the World Bank building in the capital Nouakchott to draw the Bank's and the international community's attention to their situation.
"By suspending their programmes without consulting us, donors have not taken our distress into account," Fatimata Ball told IRIN/PlusNews. Ball represents people living with HIV at the SENLS (the national AIDS committee) Executive Secretariat, the government body implementing Global Fund and World Bank programmes.
"We, people living with HIV, did not bring about these problems, so should we suffer the consequences?" she added. "The reason donors give millions to Mauritania is that we are a poor country. They gave us hope of a second life when we had given up on that hope; they should not drop us."
US$21 million of World Bank funding through 2009 was suspended in August 2008 following the military coup against President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi.
Shortly afterwards the Global Fund suspended HIV/AIDS funding, $15 million over five years which was granted in 2006, following suspected irregularities in grant management. An audit in September 2009 confirmed "embezzlement" had occurred, which led the World Bank also to carry out an audit.
In accordance with the Global Fund's terms for reinstating funding the new government, named in September following June presidential elections, began proceedings against four SENLS members suspected of being involved in the embezzlement. The State has also promised to return $1.7 million to the Global Fund and to provide supporting documents on the use of a further $2 million. Finally, the government has also committed to re-structuring the CCM (Country Coordinating Mechanism), the country's Global Fund funding management body; weakness of the CCM is seen as contributing to the problems.
Commitments
While SENLS members recognize the problems that have occurred over the last few months, they are convinced that the new government is keen to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. "The State has made a strong commitment to clearing up the situation. We asked the state general inspectorate to carry out audits and they are now underway," Ahmed Aida, the recently appointed interim SENLS national executive secretary, told IRIN/PlusNews.
"Corrective measures have been taken to ensure things go smoothly in the future. We need [partners] to join us," he urged.
In the meantime SENLS wants to ensure that medical care and support issues are addressed. "The government is willing to take responsibility for treatment," Aida said. In theory, access to treatment is safeguarded under a law introduced in 2007.
The Global Fund have said they are aware of the government's commitment and will do all they can to limit the impact the suspension has on people living with HIV. "We are 100 percent committed not to break up treatments and we will do whatever we can . to continue the grant," Jon Lidén, Head of Communications at the Global Fund in Geneva, told IRIN/PlusNews.
"There is a difficult situation [because of] corruption. but the Global Fund is very committed to continue working in the long term to re-establish a way to deliver services in a safe and predictable way, and to expand them as planned," he added.
The World Bank reaffirmed it is keen to clear up the situation as quickly as possible, but also that they are available to help people living with HIV overcome this crisis.
"We are aware of the urgent nature of the situation and we continue to look after the sick," François Rantrua, World Bank representative in Mauritania, told IRIN/PlusNews. In terms of care and support for new patients, "we are well on our way to finding a very short-term funding solution," he added.
While Global Fund-financed HIV/AIDS programmes have been suspended this has not affected patients who were already on ARVs before the irregularities were discovered - just over 1,000 people have continued to receive their medication; but it has not been possible to add any new patients (totalling around 40 people a month) to the treatment programme.
And other activities in the fight against AIDS funded as part of these programmes have also come to a standstill, such as prevention activities and support (psychological, socio-economic) for people living with HIV.
"We are not against [donors] checking [the accounts] because this will make our lives more secure", said Ball. "But what is affecting us is that things stopped so suddenly. If we had had some warning we would have been able to mobilize to find other solutions. We are already suffering due to AIDS; we don't want to be victims of procedures too."
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6 - MOZAMBIQUE: Help for landmine victims hard to come by
MAPUTO, 5 November (IRIN) - Helena Numaio was 12 years old in 1990 when she lost both her legs and a finger in a landmine explosion while collecting firewood in the Moamba district of Maputo Province, Mozambique.
The landmine put an end to her education. Nearly 20 years later Numaio has fled an abusive marriage and now is solely responsible for bringing up her three children aged five, eight and 10. She sells food and second-hand clothes on the streets of the capital, Maputo, to make a living.
Mozambique's only local NGO dedicated to assisting victims of landmines and unexploded ordnance, RAVIM, gave her a wheelchair in 2007 and she went back to school, but had to withdraw after two years. The fees were US$4 a year, but an extra levy of $2 a month to pay for the after-hours security guard at the local school meant she would have to choose between providing for her children and improving her education.
"Before getting the wheelchair I was dependent on others to take me anywhere," Numaio told IRIN. The wheelchair enabled her to set up a small business, but the city's broken roads and sidewalks were unforgiving, and the wheelchair that had given her a new lease on life now stands immobile.
Emmanuel Mounier, seconded to RAVIM from Handicap International (HI), which works with landmine victims, told IRIN the harsh environment shortened the lifespan of crutches, wheelchairs and other aids used by the disabled, but spare parts were hard to come by and there were few specialized workshops, so repairs were expensive.
No assistance for victims
Landmines are the third leading cause of amputations in Mozambique, after diabetes and road accidents, and the threat they still pose - more than 17 years after peace came to the country following four decades of independence and civil wars - is deemed big enough for HI to spend 40 percent of its annual country budget on mine clearance.
Both conflicts saw the extensive use of landmines and HI believes that the handful of recorded victims killed or maimed each year grossly underestimates the ongoing impact of these hidden weapons.
Yann Faivre, HI's programme director in Mozambique, told IRIN that "the number of mine accidents each year are given as a minimum by the authorities, but we just don't know the number of accidents."
There are no benefits for the survivors of landmine blasts, or those who died, or their next of kin, so there is no incentive to report incidents of landmine accidents to the authorities, Faivre said.
In one of the world's poorest nations, assistance for the disabled is often far down the list of priorities. There are government-run orthopaedic centres in the 10 provincial capitals, except Manica Province, where it is situated in Chimoio, but all share a common bond of "essential equipment not working or not being replaced," Faivre said.
"For example, in Inhambane [in central Mozambique, currently the most mined province] the [orthopaedic] centre is not open. In Beira [Mozambique's second city] the oven to make prosthetics is broken and has not been replaced," he said. "The situation [at orthopaedic centres in Mozambique] is not at the level of the minimum standard."
The majority of Mozambique's 20 million people live in rural areas, and the poor reputation of the orthopaedic centres means that "most people needing assistance don't bother to go [to the provincial capital] as they see it as a wasted and expensive journey," Faivre said.
The plight of landmine victims and the lack of assistance in many of the world's mine affected territories will be a major focus of the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World, or the second five-year Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty, which begins on 29 November 2009 in the Colombian port city of Cartagena.
HI, which works with all disabilities, said it supported the Cartagena summit's aims of providing greater assistance to mine victims, as it might also lead to improved resources for all the disabled in impoverished countries. "No one is going to ask someone without a leg, who goes to an orthopaedic centre, how they lost it. Improved facilities will be made available for all the disabled," Faivre said.
Self help
Luis Silvestre Wamusse, national coordinator and a co-founder of RAVIM, which was established in 2005, told IRIN: "If you compare someone who was born disabled, they had no choice but to adjust to their situation. It is more difficult for someone who lived a first life as a normal person and then, from one day to another, suddenly sees their dreams broken. They have to first accept their new condition and then start their second life."
In 1984 Wamusse was a 22-year-old student in Tete Province in northwestern Mozambique, when he lost a leg and two fingers to a landmine while looking for firewood. His family brought him back to Maputo for rehabilitation. Manuel Amisse, co-founder and programme director of RAVIM, was a 26-year-old government soldier when he stepped on a mine on 11 August 1982 while on patrol in Tete.
After being evacuated by donkey cart, Amisse was eventually treated by a "not very skilled intern" in Songo, a town east of the Cahora Bassa dam, and underwent two more amputation procedures to produce a "proper stump".
"The main priorities for victims are psychological rehabilitation, the healing of the wound, and getting a prosthesis - but that first need is already not covered," Wamusse said.
In March 2007 an armoury exploded in the city of Maputo, spewing rockets, ammunition and other ordnance into the surrounding suburbs, killing more than 100 people and injuring hundreds more. RAVIM provided counselling to people who had lost limbs or sustained other injuries.
"People did not believe that we [Wamusse and Amisse] were also victims and had had limbs amputated, so we had to take off our prosthetics in the hospital and show them that we have adapted to live a normal life ... I told them, 'You lost your leg, you did not lose your life, so please do not lose your will to live'," Wamusse said.
Tales of a child soldier
Paulino Alfredo Sambo was a 15-year-old rebel soldier when he was caught in an ambush by government soldiers near Vilanculos in Inhambane Province in 1991, a year before the civil war ended. The impact of a rocket propelled grenade severed one leg below the knee and left his remaining foot in tatters. It was amputated by a nurse in a primary health care facility soon after.
After a stint in rehabilitation and attending a government re-skilling programme for former soldiers, where he trained as a metal worker, seven years after the ambush, HI provided him with prosthetics.
"After the incident I excluded myself from society - I was ashamed of my condition - but I have accepted that I will not have legs for the rest of my life," Sambo told IRIN.
He lives with his wife, Nilsa, and three children aged two, three and four in Matola City, about 20km from Maputo. He has a lathe in the front garden and from the proceeds of his work is gradually building a family home.
The stigma associated with landmine victims and the disabled in general nearly thwarted their marriage. "Neighbours [of his prospective wife's parents] spoke against me. They told Nilsa and her parents that I would not be able to support her. I told Nilsa, 'You have the choice - I will never change."
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7 - SUDAN: Poor start to Southern voter registration
JUBA, 5 November (IRIN) - Sudan has started registering voters for presidential, legislative and regional elections, but officials in the south and international observers say the process has begun on a flawed note.
"This process could easily be referred to as 'dead on arrival'," Anne Itto, secretary-general for the south of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), said on 3 November.
The National Election Commission (NEC) deputy head Abdalla Ahmed, however, told the Sudan Tribune on 2 November that the NEC had mobilized concerned authorities to ensure the success of the exercise.
The month-long process began on 1 November. It is a key step towards the April 2010 polls that are seen as a landmark of the 2005 peace agreement that ended two decades of civil war between north and south.
An estimated two million people died in that war, which ended with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
"In the context of Southern Sudan, where you don't have [telephone] networks, where you don't have roads, where you don't have public transport, it is very unrealistic to expect registration to be completed by 30 November," Itto told reporters in the Southern capital, Juba.
Should the NEC fail to take immediate and drastic action, warned the SPLM, fewer than 10 percent of eligible voters in the south would be able to register and vote.
"If things go the way they are going now, I believe less than 10 percent of the total population will be registered," Itto said.
The NEC has set up some 15,000 registration centres to cater for an estimated 20 million Sudanese voters.
Concerns
Observers, however, said the centres had been slow to open even in state capitals, and reports indicated that access for rural populations was poor.
Awareness that registration had begun or even knowledge of the need to register was low, while state election committees had complained of delays in operational funding.
Those concerns were echoed by the US-based Carter Center, whose international observers are monitoring the electoral process, which said more must be done countrywide to ensure registration.
On 2 November, the centre "expressed concerns about the obstacles facing election observers, including delays in finalizing their accreditation procedures and delays in election preparations, as well as continued reports of harassment of political party and civil society activity".
Citing Darfur, it warned of the difficulty of running election activities in the troubled region: "The continuing state of emergency means that a free and open electoral process remains difficult to contemplate."
Insecurity worries
Separately, the Washington-based Enough Project warned that poor preparations would impact on future key events, including the referendum on the south's potential full independence slated for January 2011.
"The deck is stacked against a free and fair election in five months," wrote Sudan-based researcher Maggie Fick in a 5 November report. "There are worrying signs that it could be a trigger for further insecurity."
The process, she added, could, however, provide key lessons for the actual elections. The voter registration process "could also serve as a trial run in which some of the issues that could negatively impact [on] the polling period could be resolved", she added. "Alternately, the registration process could expose a reality that... has been felt on the ground for some time: these elections could destabilize already insecure areas as the all-important 2011 referendum draws nearer."
Awareness problems
In capitals like Juba, awareness is poor, despite efforts by the authorities to advertise the process through street marches, poster campaigns and radio broadcasts.
"I registered on the first day, but I know many people who are not aware," Opio Moses Korduk, a local resident, told IRIN.
Others however, said that as southerners, their concern was the 2011 referendum and not the election.
"The north cheated us when they ran the census results," said James Deng, a student at Juba University, referring to the contested national census results released earlier this year.
"So why should we think the election will be any different? I am waiting for the referendum because independence is the only future for the south," he added.
Rising tensions
Meanwhile, talks continued between north and south following meetings with the US Special Envoy Scott Gration to tackle sticking points of the CPA.
"It is a difficult and lengthy process, but failure is not an option," Gration warned in Khartoum on 2 November.
Tensions have risen between north and south, especially following comments by Southern President Salva Kiir that voting for unity in 2011 would make southerners "second-class" citizens in Sudan.
The two sides are still divided by ideological, religious and ethnic differences over which the civil war was fought.
"It is why it is critical that we ensure that the process is fair and credible and that the will of the people, as expressed through the national elections and the referendum, is respected peacefully," added Gration.
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8 - ZIMBABWE: Kimberley Process ignores its own advice
JOHANNESBURG,, 5 November (IRIN) - Zimbabwe's rough diamond trade has escaped a six-month suspension by the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) - an international initiative to stem the flow of conflict diamonds - after its own investigating team recommended earlier in 2009 that the country be temporarily barred from importing and exporting the gems.
No consensus on Zimbabwe's suspension could be reached at the annual plenary, said Annie Dunnebacke, of Global Witness - a UK-based NGO that seeks to prevent the use of natural resources to fuel conflict, and a prime mover in setting up the KPCS - who described the meeting in the Namibian coastal town of Swakopmund, as "the most disorganized plenary session ever held."
The KPCS, established in 2002, brings together governments, the diamond industry and concerned NGOs to police the trade in conflict diamonds, also known as blood diamonds. The organization has 49 members representing 75 countries, and covers about 99.8 percent of the global production of rough diamonds.
The credibility of the KPCS has been on a knife edge since the decision not to take action against Zimbabwe. According to one delegate, who declined to be identified, Zimbabwe's escape from suspension was ensured by its neighbours, but would not divulge which countries in the region objected to punitive measures against the offender.
Southern Africa's economies are already seeing the effects of the global recession in depressed diamond sales, and any return to international boycotts against diamonds originating in Africa would further impact these fragile economies.
"We [civil society] are very disappointed" with the outcome, Dunnebacke told IRIN. Instead of suspension, an action plan to ensure Zimbabwe's compliance with the KPCS was called for, with the dispatch of an official to monitor the country's adherence.
In July an 11-person KPCS review team, led by Kpandel Fiya, Liberia's deputy minister of mines, visited the Chiadzwa diamond area in Marange district, Manicaland Province, bordering Mozambique in eastern Zimbabwe, and documented a litany of human rights abuses.
Yet the action plan did not address human rights abuses or the militarization of the Marange alluvial diamond fields. "The implementation of the action plan depends on Zimbabwe showing commitment and sincerity," she pointed out.
The KPSC had been "undermined by this decision ... the KP [Kimberley Process] has to look at itself ... it is too important to fail, and that is why we have not walked away from it yet ... are we endorsing a system that we cannot believe in anymore?"
Ian Smillie, of Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), one of the architects of the certification scheme, has walked away. He resigned as civil society representative to the KPCS in June 2009, saying: "When regulators fail to regulate, the systems they were designed to protect collapse ... I feel that I can no longer in good faith contribute to a pretence that failure is success, or to the kind of debates we have been reduced to."
In the KPCS review team's report, addressed to Obert Mpofu, Zimbabwe's minister of mining, Fiya said: "Sir, I was in Liberia throughout the 15 years of civil war, and I have experienced too much senseless violence in my lifetime, especially connected with diamonds. In speaking with some of these people [in Zimbabwe], minister, I had to leave the room. This has to be acknowledged, and it has to stop."
A report in June 2009 by the international watchdog, Human Rights Watch, accused Zimbabwean security forces of killing more than 200 miners in 2008 - an allegation denied by President Robert Mugabe's government - and recommended that Zimbabwe be suspended from the KPCS.
A 2009 report by PAC - Zimbabwe, Diamonds and the Wrong Side of History - said, "Zimbabwean diamonds are produced from mines that benefit political and military gangsters, and they are smuggled out of the country by the bucket load."
Another KPCS review team is expected to visit the country within the next six months.
Emeka Diru
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