Ota Benga Alliance For Peace, Healing and Dignity

In the first of two articles, OBA Executive Board member Raj Patel describes how IMF/World Bank policies, backed by the US, have led to a corporate stranglehold on the world food system, bringing malnutrition and famine to the countries of southern Africa. In the second, "Exploration on Human Rights," he covers the response of the international peasant federation, La Via Campesina, and other social movements, to these conditions and their call for food sovereignty. Patel explores these and other topics in greater detail in his recently published book, Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System".  read more »

Reposted from Abahlali baseMjondolo on June 21, 2008.

The industrial and mining towns on the Eastern outskirts of Johannesburg are unlovely places. They’re set on flat windswept plains amidst the dumps of sterile sand left over from old mines. In winter the wind bites, the sky is a very pale blue and it seems to be all coal braziers, starved dogs, faded strip malls, gun shops and rusting factories and mine headgear. All that seems new are the police cars and, round the corner from the Harry Gwala shack settlement, a double story facebrick strip club.  read more »

From Cité Soleil (Haiti) to Durban (South Africa)
…where Freedom Day is now being seen as Unfreedom Day

April 30-May 4th 2008.

This is a brief report from a visit to Durban, specifically to see for oneself places like Kennedy Road, Motala Heights, to meet with people like S’bu Zikode and Shamita Naidoo whose words continue to impact us in a way which is still generating new thinking. We were on our way to meet people who can be described as the staunchest defenders of the poor, and, by extension, of humanity.  read more »