| メディアの皆様へのご案内 |
| ►2008.01.16 |
【情報提供4】 アフリカ関係の情報 |
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アフリカに注目されているメディア関係者の皆さま
旧年中は大変お世話になりました。ついに2008年が幕開けました。
わくわくどきどき、というより戦々恐々という感じですが、ケニアの政治危機、モザンビークでの大洪水など、年明け早々心配な事態が続いております。
毎日のようにアフリカ関係の新しいイニシアティブが政府から打ち上げられているのですが、実は中身の詰めはまだのようで、最後のチャンスとばかり頑張っています。
さて、今後アフリカ関係の情報で皆さんのお役に立ちそうな情報をbccを使ってお送りしたいと思います。是非、取材等に役立てていただき、アフリカの情報を少しでも多く紙面・テレビなどで活かしていただければと思います。
今回は、注目の「アフリカ・中国関係」の研究会の議事録がウェブにアップされたとの情報と、モザンビークの大洪水の情報です。
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■「アフリカ・中国関係」 以下のサイトでご確認ください。
> http://www.ide.go.jp/Japanese/Publish/Report/2007_03_03.html
■モザンビーク洪水
MOZAMBIQUE 120
MAJOR FLOODING
PULLING THE PLUG ON ZIMBABWE
45,000 MINERS EARN $93 mn
7.6 mn REGISTER TO VOTE
========
News reports & clippings no. 120 from Joseph Hanlon
14 January 2008 (j.hanlon@open.ac.uk)
This is an irregular service of news summaries, mainly based on recent
AIM and Noticias reports.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, see note at end.
=========
FLOODS HIT CENTRAL MOZAMBIQUE
AND WATER IS STILL RISING
Heavy rain in Mozambique and neighbouring Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi
has flooded the major rivers in the centre of the country – the Zambeze,
the Pungue and Buzi in Sofala province, and the Save which traditionally
marks the border between central and southern Mozambique.
At least four people have died so far in the floods on the Pungue and
Buzi rivers, and 54,000 people have been displaced. On the Save 3500
people have been displaced. Many roads in Sofala province are impassable.
On the Zambeze, increasing amounts of water are flowing into the Cahora
Bassa dam, which in turn has increased its releases from 5100 cubic
metres a second a week ago to 6600 cubic metres of water a second now,
and discharges are likely to reach 8,000. An estimated 63,000 people
have being evacuated from low ground near the river and from river
islands, which are expected to be submerged soon. Low lying parts of
Tete city are inundated, with the patios and kitchens of some
restaurants beside the river bank under water.
The rail line from the northern port of Nacala to Malawi was reopened to
traffic last week, after a six day interruption caused when heavy rains
washed away an embankment in the district of Nampula-Rapale, leaving the
railway line dangling in mid-air.
CAN DISASTER TOURISM
BE AVOIDED?
The aid industry is circling Mozambique like vultures. On 4 January
Oxfam International said: “Answering a call for help from the Mozambican
government, aid agency Oxfam International today dispatched emergency
staff to flood-hit areas”.
http://www.oxfam.org/en/news/2008/pr080104_mozambique_floods_health_crisis_alert
In fact, the government is explicitly refusing to issue an emergency
appeal, and is insisting on using local resources first. The same thing
happened last year, with the government initially able to cope but
donors pushing government for an appeal that they could use as a basis
for fund-raising. The Mozambican Red Cross (CVM) has said it will make
an appeal for international support only if this years floods become
worse than those of February 2007.
The government is working with a group of agencies which are long term
resident in Mozambique and which already have working relations with
government ministries, including the World Food Programme, UNICEF, MSF,
Save the Children, and Oxfam, which are providing staff and other
support for food, water and sanitation, according to INGC head Joao
Roibeiro, reported in Noticias this morning (14 Jan). But there has been
no “call for help”.
Indeed, the National Disasters Management Institute (INGC), under the
dynamic leadership of Paulo Zucula, who was named to the job a year ago,
seems to have the resources to cope with the present level of flooding,
which is quite normal for Mozambique.
What is, however, very worrying is that the rainy season started
relatively early. Indeed, Mozambique had originally scheduled elections
for later this week, 16 January, on the assumption that most parts of
the country would still be accessible by road. But the rains have been
heavy, and flooding is occurring earlier than normal, so if rains
continue to be heavy over the next few weeks, the flooding could become
quite serious.
In last year’s much worse floods in the Zambeze valley, the government
repeatedly told international donors and NGOs that there will be no
international appeal for aid. In particular, NGOs and other donors were
discouraged from flying in staff and goods, and instead asked to give
money to buy fuel and pay other working costs. The INGC under Zucula won
high praise from donors and the UN. As is happening this year, Zucula
worked with NGOs which are already in Mozambique. Last year, disaster
tourism became a serious problem, with a flood of international NGOs and
Mozambican politicians who needed to be seen to be “helping” and have
their pictures taken in accommodation centres. Mozambican media talked
of “calamity Janes” and vampires causing disruption rather than helping,
and the only people who seemed to be benefiting were local business
people who provided beds and food to the tourists.
ZIMBABWE UNPLUGGED
FOR NON-PAYMENT
Mozambique’s Cahora Bassa dam unplugged Zimbabwe for non-payment of
bills. The cut off can be seen in part as putting political pressure on
Zimbabwe. When Cahora Bassa was run by the Portuguese, electricity was
never cut off. But Mozambique took control of the dam on 27 November.
Zimbabwe’s debt was $19 million, and in mid-December, just two weeks
after Mozambique took control, Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB)
reduced supplies to Zimbabwe from 150 to 75 megawatts. Zimbabwe still
did not pay the debt, and so, on 28 December, all HCB power to Zimbabwe
was cut off. HCB said supplies would be resumed only when Zimbabwe paid
at least $10 million. It did so last week, and power was restored on
Saturday 11 January.
Mozambique acquired a majority stake in HCB by paying $700 million to
Portugal for 67% of the HCB shares was finalized. This brought the
Mozambican state’s holding in HCB to 85%, while the Portuguese holding
shrank to 15%.
7.6 MILLION REGISTER
FOR ELECTIONS
7.6 million people have registered to vote, a quite respectable 75% of
the 10.1 million voting age adults (over 18 years old). Registration was
to have been only from 24 September to 22 November, but it stated slowly
due to problems with training staff to use the new briefcase
registration computers, and was extended to 15 December. Finally, an
entire new registration period was announced, from 15 January to 15 March.
The Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE) insists that
the computer problems that plagued the first phase of voter registration
last year will not recur when registration resumes tomorrow. “We are
much better prepared”, STAE’s new general director Felisberto Naife told
a Maputo press conference on Saturday.
The entire electorate is being re-registered from scratch since it is
generally accepted that the existing registers are unreliable. The new
phase will have 3242 registration brigades through country.
In nine of 11 provinces, brigades have already registered more people
than were registered in 1999. However, in Nampula and Zambezia, which
have 40% of Mozambique’s total population, fewer people have registered
than in 1999; they are also the only provinces where below 70% of
potential voters have registered. This is politically sensitive since
Renamo gains most of its votes from those two provinces, and in the 2004
election there were apparently justified complaints that some voters in
Renamo areas of Zambezia had not been registered. The problem will be
made worse because both provinces are affected by the heavy rain and
flooding. (In Sofala, the other Renamo stronghold and the province
currently worst hit by floods, registration in the first phase was just
at the national average of 75%.)
Naife admitted that last year some parts of Nampula, Niassa, Cabo
Delgado and Tete provinces were not reached at all during the first
registration campaign. They were to have been covered by mobile
brigades, but because of the long delays in receiving the computer
equipment, they were left out. Naife said these areas would be the top
priority for the second phase of registration.
An informal target for registration appears to be 85% of eligible
voters, which has been typical of past registrations. This will require
registering 1 million people in the coming two months.
ANTI-CORRUPTION FORUM
ABOLISHED
At the demand of the Renamo opposition, President Armando Guebuza has
abolished the joint government-civil society anti-corruption Forum.
Donors pushed Mozambique to establish three bodies – a civil service
commission, and a legality and justice council, and a joint
anti-corruption forum – and government docilely did as the donors told
it. But donors simply applied models from elsewhere, without looking at
Mozambican law, and all three turned out to be unconstitutional.
Renamo opposed the forum on narrow constitutional grounds, and has not
called for an alternative.
The Centre for Public Integrity (CIP) criticised the Constitutional
Council for taking an excessively narrow view of what is permitted. But
it went on to say that there should be a much broader debate about
reform. Something like the anti-corruption forum is needed, CIP says,
but the trouble with the Forum was that it was dominated by “cadres of
the central, provincial and district governments and members of the
ruling party”; figures from civil society, which included CIP head
Marcelo Mosse, were “merely decorative”, CIP said.
45,000 MINERS IN
SOUTH AFRICA, SENDING
BACK $93 MILLION
South African mines recruited 45,000 Mozambicans last year, slightly
down on 46,000 in 2006. Of the 45,000, nearly 37,000 were renewing
contracts and 8000 were experienced miners with new contracts. Only 227
had no mining experience.
TEBA, the mineworkers recruitment agency, says that miners remitted 655
mn Rand ($93 mn) to Mozambique last year, up from 475 mn Rand (then $79
mn) in 2006 and only R 315 mn (then $30 mn) in 2002.
But the number of Mozambicans trying to work in South Africa is very
much larger. In December alone, 83,000 Mozambicans were expelled from
South Africa for trying to enter and work illegally.
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