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INSIDE AFRICA
Poor in Kenya; FIFA Confederations Cup
Aired June 20, 2009 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to INSIDE AFRICA. I'm Isha Sesay. On the program this week, demanding dignity for those living in extreme poverty in Kenya: David McKenzie visits a slum in Nairobi with the head of Amnesty International.
The 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup is under way. Nkepile Mabuse joins us with an update on what many consider South Africa's trial run for the World Cup.
But first, Zimbabwean prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, recently traveled to Europe and the United States. His mission, to garner support for the country's new power-sharing government formed earlier this year, following last year's contested election. So far, he has collected pledges of more than $100 million in aid to his country, but not directly to his government. Elise Labott sat down with Prime Minister Tsvangirai while he was in the United States.
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ELISE LABOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Prime Minister, you've been making a kind of world tour if you will among many capitals to talk about a new government and aid for Zimbabwe, and it seems that a lot of governments do want to support you and the coalition government in your efforts, but they're reluctant to support a government that still has President Mugabe until you prove yourself, until you make some progress. Is that fair?
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, PRIME MINISTER OF ZIMBABWE: I think it's fair. I understand it, given our history, and given -- and I'm not going to defend President Mugabe's past record. That's not for me to say. But I can also say that as we have agreed to work together to define a new direction for the country, I think it's only possible that we start also fulfilling those global political agreement conditions or those benchmarks we have set for ourselves. I think the international community will reward that development incrementally. And I think that it's fair enough.
LABOTT: Given the fact that there's a world economic crisis, I mean it's very politically risky for countries to say that they're supporting a government with President Mugabe in it.
TSVANGIRAI: President Mugabe in terms of the agreement is the president of the country, and we jointly manage that country through a tripartite executive authority, which is the president, the prime minister and government, and all decisions are by consensus.
Of course, we cannot brush away that history, that sad history, that is OK. But we also realize that Zimbabwe is at a stage where it is to heal and move forward.
LABOTT: You said before coming that you had hoped that President Obama would have some ideas for how to deal with President Mugabe, that alienation hadn't worked, that engagement hadn't worked. Did he give you any ideas?
TSVANGIRAI: Particularly, I think he didn't hide his assessment of the role of President Mugabe. He thinks that he should retire, and it's a fair -- it's a fair comment.
LABOTT: You disagree?
TSVANGIRAI: No, I think that at the age of 85, I think one needs to retire, but circumstances are totally different, and that we have got this political dispensation in which he has to play a part. And for his own legacy, I think it is important to start considering about how to have a dignified exit. And I think this provides him with that opportunity.
LABOTT: You're in a government where President Mugabe has thwarted the international community, but personally has terrorized you, his supporters have beaten you, have tried to kill you. What's it like to work with him, what's your relationship with him?
TSVANGIRAI: We don't have to fall in love to work together, but we have accepted that we have made an agreement to have a workable relationship between the two political parties. I have to confirm that we -- there was acrimony between us. There was vilification and political polarizaton, and we have realized that people of Zimbabwe are not benefiting out of this leadership rankle. So we're now entering a new phase, a new political dispensation in which there has to be a respect between him and me if we have to work as president and the prime minister to push the country forward.
LABOTT: What's it like to look in the eyes every day? Does that sad history affect how you deal with one another?
TSVANGIRAI: Well, let me say that I am a victor (ph) of that sad history. And I want to say that we're inspired by people like Nelson Mandela, who has had to go for 27 years in jail, but still come out and say, let us forget about the past, let's set a new path for the country, for the good of our people. We have chosen the process of dialogue, and we have negotiated, protracted negotiations to arrive where we are. I'm sure that President Mugabe is committed to this. I'm committed to this. Let's history judge whether this historic experiment was the right course of action.
LABOTT: What are your goals for Zimbabwe over the next five years?
TSVANGIRAI: First and foremost, it's to ensure that the democratic process does not stop, that the incremental gains of democratic development in the country will lead to a free and fair election within the next two, three years, and allow Zimbabweans to choose their own -- their own leadership. That's one.
Secondly, Zimbabwe has to heal. I would be happy to see the situation normalize in which the Zimbabweans can talk to each other normally and tolerantly across the political divide. And that's why we have set up a national healing process.
Lastly, I think that Zimbabwe's economy must move from the informal sector that it is, to increasing productive capacity in agriculture and in the industries, as it used to be. And that we have a vibrant economy that is able to (inaudible) for the jobless, who are millions of our young people. That's generally the three most important things. I'm now going to talk about a functional education system, a functional health delivery system -- those are some of the aspects that we can work on.
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SESAY: Elise Labott there with Prime Minister Tsvangirai.
Now, three months after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, he is still at large. We will talk to the prosecutor leading the charge for his arrest.
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SESAY: Welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA. Let's take a look now at some stories making news across the continent this week.
Somalia's president says his security minister was among those killed in a suicide car bombing. The blast went off in the central city of Beledweyne. Officials say the attack targeted the hotel where Minister Omar Hashi Aden had been staying. He was in the region coordinating operations against Islamic militants.
More threats made from Nigeria's main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND. The group warned the international football association FIFA that it should, quote, "rethink allowing Nigeria to host the upcoming under-17 World Cup series later this year." In the same message, MEND also claimed responsibility for a recently reported attack on a Chevron oil station in the Niger Delta region.
And finally, mixing social networking with Swahili. Facebook has given permission to a group of Swahili scholars to launch a new version of its popular Web site. The Swahili Facebook is the latest in around 50 language versions of the site. It targets the more than 110 million speakers of the East African language.
The International Criminal Court is calling for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But the president continues to defy the ICC and recently attended the COMESA summit meeting in Zimbabwe. Rosemary Church recently spoke with the man leading the charge against al-Bashir, ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. She began by asking him how hard it will be to bring President al-Bashir to justice.
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LUIS MORENO-OCAMPO, ICC PROSECUTOR: The ICC investigated the most serious crimes in Darfur. We have (inaudible) the minister and President Omar al- Bashir, and against rebel commanders. All these (inaudible) are in motion.
I reckon that President Bashir will take crime as a -- there is a process. First, it had to be a national, local decision, and then will be arrested. So it will take time, months or years, but President Bashir's destiny is to face justice.
The issue here is how to stop his crimes. One of important points is (inaudible) case of extermination. Extermination means something very interesting. It's not killing people with bullets or machetes. It's creating conditions to destroy the people, and extermination is committed today. Extermination is committed today in the camps against 2.5 million victims. Imagine, 2.5 million victims suffering extermination today.
That's the point. That's why the priority, the absolute priority today is to stop the crimes. And interestingly, in the last year, peace and justice are working together. The peace efforts are progressing, and I think there is a chance in the coming month to really stop the fight, do the first step to save Darfuris. There is no victory, there is no immediate (ph) victory for Darfuris.
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How do you go about stopping those crimes?
MORENO-OCAMPO: This is interesting, because it's not just about sending troops, it's not -- we're not proposing Normandy. It's not about doing nothing. It is something in the middle. It's legal proceedings. The issue is achieving peace has to be, OK, there is a line you cannot cross. No one can kill these people, and it has to be a firm decision of international community.
The good news are Qatar, prime minister is leading this, African Union, Arab League are involved. All the special envoys from China, U.S., Russia, France, U.K. and European Union were in a meeting in Doha with the mediators to ensure full support. So now we have a united international community dealing with the problem. And that is crucially.
The case that (inaudible) justice, but the impact of our cases, our contribution to prevention of crime is connected with this peace process, and that's -- both are working (inaudible). Justice is in motion, we'll be (inaudible) in Darfur, and peace process is in motion, both in parallel, and that's the opportunity now that the world has to stop the crimes in a different manner. Not with military intervention, but doing something more than nothing.
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SESAY: That was Rosemary Church with the ICC prosecutor.
Amnesty International is launching a new campaign to improve the slums in Kenya. Our David McKenzie talked to the group's secretary-general as he visits one of Nairobi's poorest areas.
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SESAY: Welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA. Amnesty International recently launched its Demand Dignity campaign, to work toward improving the terrible conditions of Kenya's slums. Our David McKenzie caught up with Amnesty International's Secretary-General Irene Khan as she visited one of the slums in Nairobi.
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IRENE KHAN, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL SECRETARY-GENERAL: Hello! Hi!
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the first time to Kenya, but you've been all around the world with your work. What strikes you about people who are living in favelas, in slums, in townships?
KHAN: What strikes me most is the marginalization of the people in the midst of fairly wealthy growing cities, whether it's Nairobi or whether it's Sao Paulo, or Rio, or Mumbai. They're all doing well. They've been part of this great economic growth over the last decade, and right in the middle, in the heart of that are people who are contributing to the global economy, but who are forgotten people and who are trapped in human rights abuses.
Insecurity is very high. Their ability -- I mean they're totally deprived of services, they're the forgotten people, and they tend, of course, to both suffer, to be victims of violence and be criminalized by the societies that live around them, by police and by the authorities.
To me, it seems that this is a kind of a ticking time bomb. There are today more people living urban life than rural life, and of the urban population, a very large proportion, a billion, live in slums. So that's a lot of people that we're talking about who are being marginalized from the prosperity that others are enjoying, and that's an untenable situation. This is why we see this as a human rights problem, but it's also a human security problem that needs to get greater attention.
MCKENZIE: The metaphor in some way of Amnesty has always been like shining a light on issues. Why is that that there are these millions, if not billions of people who everyone conveniently sort of ignores? Why is this the case?
KHAN: I think it is the case because partly these slums have grown, crept up over a period of time. Partly because it is almost accepted by many governments and others that this is the inevitable byproduct of prosperity and economic development. And what we are saying is that it does not have to be this way. If there was better planning, if there was more willingness to involve the people living in these communities directly, these could be avoided. People don't have to pay this terrible price for economic growth.
MCKENZIE: The price presumably is being paid by individuals here. When you speak to individual people in Africa particularly, who are living in informal settlements, what strikes you about the indignity of -- of their existence in some ways?
KHAN: What they talk about -- of course, they have a physical -- they`re deprived from very physical needs and services, food, proper housing, health, sanitation, education. But what most of them talked to me about is that no one is listening to us. We're not heard, we're forgotten, we're marginalized, we're shut out. And so the voice aspect, that these people are people with voice, is very, very important, I think, for their own dignity.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Royal Dutch Shell recently settled a lawsuit with plaintiffs including the son of Nigerian human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. The suit alleged that Shell was complacent in the 1995 executions of Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists protesting the impact of oil exploration in the Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta. Shell denied any wrongdoing. Our Becky Anderson spoke with Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr. She started by asking him if he thought the group known as the Ogoni Nine got the justice they deserved.
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KEN SARO-WIWA JR., NIGERIAN ACTIVIST: Well, for the Ogonis, we were offered this, and we felt that this -- this represents some kind of a restitution for what we've suffered. But more critically, I think, also it offers the chance for us to face the future and the community to see that, you know, this is what -- we went -- we're not speaking on behalf of the community, we're just -- you know, these are just 10 cases.
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What does the future then hold for the Ogoni people? You say you're not speaking on their behalf, but certainly you must have their sort of collective feeling, and a feeling for them as one of those (inaudible).
SARO-WIWA: Yeah, I mean I think we're part of that collective, and that collective will find the mechanism to decide what it wants to do. But remember, part of this settlements gives the bulk of the settlement to a trust, and that trust is going to fund some particular initiatives which is going to be -- development initiative decided by Ogoni people themselves. So, I think, you know, we've gotten some of the things, the demands that we wanted in the early `90s, in the Ogoni Bill of Rights, to use Ogoni resources for Ogoni development. I mean, I think some of this settlement speaks to some of that.
ANDERSON: What are the broader implications, do you think, of this settlement for the oil industry and for multinationals in general, particularly in Nigeria, but perhaps we should talk about Africa on a wider scale?
SARO-WIWA: It very clearly sets a precedent that oil companies have to be very -- corporations have to be very careful when they operate in -- in places like Africa, that this sets a precedent that you can be brought to trial for human rights violation in -- in America for violations in Africa. So that sets a precedent immediately, the fact that this thing -- it took 13 years to go through the legal process, but clearly, before we started this, corporations felt they could almost operate with impunity. But now I think the legal landscape has changed.
ANDERSON: This case has been watched by many indigenous or lawyers, certainly, working for many indigenous populations fighting multinationals around the world. What would your message be to them today?
SARO-WIWA: I think my message to others is that, you know, however -- however big the task seems, you have to persevere. It took us 13 years, but we -- we got to this point. But a wider message is that we really do need to look at the whole regime of rights and how to hold organizations, corporations to account who are able to incorporate themselves to escape jurisdiction, you know, in local areas. So, clearly some kind of legislation needs to be put in place, in order for us to, you know, to arrive at a fairer, more just -- just world.
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SESAY: Becky Anderson there talking to the son of Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Now, football fans are looking to South Africa for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup. But less than a year until the World's Cup, South Africa's getting a taste of what's to come in 2010.
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SESAY: Eight teams are competing in the FIFA Confederations Cup football championship in South Africa right now. Many are considering this to be South Africa's dress rehearsal for the 2010 World Cup, which includes 32 teams. Nkepile Mabuse has an update on the Confederations Cup and the lead-up to next year's World Cup tournament.
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NKEPILE MABUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Isha.
The Confederations Cup is seen as a sort of dry run for the World Cup, an opportunity for South Africa to iron out its problems ahead of the first football World Cup on the African continent next year.
Now, two issues have arisen during this tournament. The first is the park and ride system that South Africa has in place to ferry fans to and from stadiums. Some spectators called the system chaotic and confusing and inadequate, and some even claim that they have arrived halfway through matches because of the inadequacy of the system.
Now, the local organizing committee says these are just teething issues, and that it will be resolved ahead of the World Cup.
Another issue is the poor attendance at some games. FIFA is now offering free tickets to people who cannot afford to buy Confederations Cup tickets just to fill the stadium.
But overall, there is an air of excitement in South Africa. Everybody is looking forward to the World Cup next year, and FIFA President Sepp Blatter says the seven visiting teams that are here have had nothing but compliments for the way South Africa has organized this tournament. Isha.
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SESAY: And there we must leave it. Be sure to tune into INSIDE AFRICA next week for a brand new episode. On behalf of the entire INSIDE AFRICA team, thank you for watching.
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