DAUTI KAHURA

Mt Kenya Foundation — a league of top business and political leaders has refrained from publicly declaring its support for presidential hopeful Raila Odinga. An influential institution formed in 2007, the foundation’s approach is a tactical public retreat but its support for Azimio remains strong and unwavering.

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As the presidential campaign gets into high gear and with only 48 days to the general election, a key plank of Raila Odinga’s support group has been very quiet and less and less visible from the public.

For the better part of 2021, the Mt Kenya Foundation (MKF) was very much in the limelight, meeting with the Azimio alliance presidential candidate in carefully choreographed business bashes, cocktail parties, prayer meetings and even in public rallies. Come 2022 and the meetings have gradually petered out.

Or, let’s put this way: their soirées are no longer being reported by the mainstream media, including their “in-house” media house, the Royal Media Services (RMS) owned by media mogul S.K. Macharia, one of the foundation’s members.

Two weeks ago, I had a lengthy discussion with one of their members, who told me that nothing has changed. “Our position and support hasn’t changed; Raila is still our preferred choice. We only decided to continue lending our support away from the public glare.”

The foundation still funds some of his presidential campaigns, albeit discreetly. “Our people [Gikuyu, Meru, Embu Association GEMA] were not, and are not, enthused by our [open] support for Raila. We were getting a lot of flak from them and we reckoned it wasn’t helping his and our cause. Nothing will sway GEMA from not voting for Raila. That’s the brutal fact.”

It’s not only MKF that has stopped declaring their support for Raila publicly. The Council of Elders, which in October 2020 made a hyped trip to Bondo, the ancestral home of the Odinga family in Siaya County, have equally gone mute. “After that trip, the [Kikuyu] people shunned our activities and seemingly avoided us,” one of the elders told me recently. “They didn’t take well to our partisan and public support of Raila.”

The MKF, which was formed in 2007, comprises among others, captains of industry, very senior and influential civil servants, and powerful politicians. The year 2007 was a critical juncture in the politics of Kenya: President Mwai Kibaki, who died in April 2022, was going to face Raila in the coming December presidential elections.

Although Raila had helped Kibaki clinch the presidential seat in the crucial 2002 general elections, against the greenhorn duo of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, by the end of his first term Kibaki had become Raila’s nemesis. Under the Orange Democratic Party (ODM) banner, Raila had already sent shivers down Kibaki’s party ranks that in 2007 elections ODM was ready to wrestle power from him.

It is against this backdrop that some of the richest among the GEMA fraternity coalesced around the MKF. Basically, it was a platform for raising campaign money for Kibaki’s second term. Not ready to witness another change of the rear guard just when they had begun consolidating their riches, after a 24-year hiatus during President Daniel arap Moi’s reign, this ethnic group was not about to take any chances.

Raila mounted a formidable if disorganised campaign. But just as he was on the cusp of wresting power from Kibaki, who was now running under the Party of National Unity (PNU), a new party that had been quickly cobbled together, the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) —precursor to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC)—started relaying startling results.

What the end result of this “startling results” heralded for Kenya is now in the history books: post-election violence (PEV), over 600,000 internally displaced people (IDPs), unmitigated deaths officially put at 1,000 by the state, but recorded figure by non-governmental organisation (NGOs) placed the numbers at three time as much.

The MKF is not an entirely new invention—in 1996, some of the richest Kikuyus from Central Kenya came together to form the Central Province Development Support Group (CPDSG) in anticipation of the GEMA–KAMATUSA (Kalenjin, Maasai, Turkana, Samburu) peace talks. The supposedly “peace group” was formed presumably to stem (ethnic and post-election) tensions that first occurred after the first multiparty elections in 1992.

The talks were also supposed to culminate in the re-settling of the victims of the so-called tribal violence that had erupted in the expansive Rift Valley Province and which mostly affected the Kikuyu people. The reality is that this elite cabal that was again composed of influential civil servants, rich business people and powerful politicians was an informal lobby group that sought to campaign for the hated ruling party KANU and for President Moi in Central Province.

Then, as now, one of the constant figures in these formations has been S.K. Macharia; he belonged to the CPDSG just as he now belongs to the MKF. As with the CPDSG then, the MKF is a lobby group primarily concerned with the survival of its business interests.

William Kabogo, the first governor of Kiambu County who is seeking to reclaim his seat in 2022, wrote on his twitter handle: “If you care to know Mt Kenya Foundation specializes on fundraising but the big question is do the funds go to the intended purpose? Your guess is as god as mine. Caveat emptor.”

Among the MKF membership is Mutuma Nkanata, the foundation’s coordinator who is also the CEO of the NGO Coordination Board—the regulatory board for NGOs in Kenya. He is also the Chairman of Kirimara Sports; a Meru-based sports development organisation.

Another member is the former Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) boss Michael Waweru. Waweru was appointed commissioner-general of KRA in 2003 by Kibaki. His contract ended in 2012. An accountant by profession, he was the managing partner at Ernst & Young (EY) – East Africa until 2002.

Also in MKF is Peter Munga, founding chairman of Equity Bank group and one of its largest shareholders. Munga is also a shareholder at Britam, the financial services conglomerate, and a founder of the Pioneer Group of Schools.

MKF member Titus Ibui is the chairman of Lamu Port South Sudan, Ethiopia, Transport Corridor Development Authority (LAPSSET), a regional infrastructure partnership between Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan. Ibui is also the vice chairman of Kenya Leather Council and founder and executive director of Bell Industries Ltd., an agri-business and health solutions company.

Zamara Group chairman, politician and former MP Dennis Waweru is also an MKF member, as is businessman Wilfred Murungi, owner of Mastermind Tobacco Kenya (MTK).

During one of the Raila meetings organised by MKF on 28 September 2021, communications director Joe Murimi said, “The Tuesday (September) meeting between MKF and Mr Odinga is also with a view to coordinating resource allocation and setting priorities for the region’s economic turn-around ahead of 2022. We’re listening to all presidential contenders and our interests as a region are way bigger than only the position of a deputy president.” The foundation had previously met with Raila in June 2022.

Some of the personalities in the June meeting included President Uhuru’ influential maternal uncle, former Catholic priest George Muhoho, Media mogul Macharia and former Kenya Chamber of Commerce vice chairman, James Mureu.

At the meeting, Macharia claimed that it was President Uhuru Kenyatta who made overtures to Raila Odinga. “I’m saying that handshake, we ask him (Uhuru) to leave it in good hands so that it can continue. We believe President Uhuru will leave this country in good hands, the hands he went looking for.”

At that meeting Nyandarua County governor Francis Kimemia confessed that the Kikuyu political class had peddled falsehoods against Raila. “Our work was to tarnish Raila’s name, but now we must change that narrative and tell our people that that was politics then. He asked the class to help undo the lies.”

Two months ago, in April 2022, campaigning in his own Nyandarua County, Kimemia changed his tune, insinuating that President Uhuru had not kept his promise on developments projects in Nyandarua. I called my friend Njenga from Rurii location, to find out was going on with governor Kimemia. “Kimemia was told by the people in no uncertain terms that campaigning for Azimio would take him nowhere, so he got the drift, changed tune and started bashing President Uhuru.”

As MKF makes a tactical retreat in its support for Azimio, it is not only Kimemia who has changed his tune; many of the politicians from the Azimio camp seeking elective posts in Mt Kenya are careful not to mention Azimio or even Raila’s name in their campaign rallies.

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Mr Kahura is a senior writer for The Elephant.

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Lula da Silva’s visit to China in April, centred around an agreement on trading with national currencies, could mark the beginning of a new era for economic relations in the global south.

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The potential creation of a new currency for BRICS countries would shift the focus away from the US dollar as the trade transaction currency. The ambitious proposal, together with Dilma Rousseff’s inauguration as president of the BRICS bank, the New Development Bank, promise to be an alternative to the conditional investment loans of the World Bank and the IMF.

The following is an excerpt of a piece originally published in April, shortly after Lula da Silva’s visit to China. You can read the full article here.

In September 2006, on the occasion of a UN General Assembly , the foreign ministers of Brazil, China, Russia, and India began to outline what would be a grand trade and monetary support agreement. In 2010, at a meeting of the presidents of these countries in Brasilia and a year later in China, it was ratified and began to shape what is now known as the BRICS , a nucleus to which South Africa was added.. Although at first they demonstrated the will to produce greater dialogue between the member countries, over the years the agenda began to contemplate a broader agreement at the international level and, above all, economic and financial associations in strategic sectors such as energy, agriculture and scientific and technological development.

The visit to China made last week by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to his colleague Xi Jinping was more than one more step in this integration process. In addition to important commercial and financing agreements signed, the abandonment of the dollar as an exchange currency and trade with national currencies (Chinese yuan and Brazilian real) was announced, which constitutes a great leap towards the de-dollarization of the planet.

“Every night I wonder why all countries are forced to do their trade backed by the dollar – Lula commented – Why can’t we do our trade backed by our currency? Why don’t we bet on innovation? Who decided that the dollar was the currency?, after the disappearance of gold as parity”.

Elvin Calcaño , a political scientist at Polititank , commented to El Ciudadano that “since 1945, after the end of World War II, the United States remained the great power. And it was thus that, based on their specific interests, the current global governance scheme on international politics and economics was designed. Hence institutions such as the IMF and World Bankthat respond to that design ultimately. In this framework, the dollar has always been an instrument of power for the United States in the world sphere. Used, as we have seen so much lately, as a coercive element to discipline and overwhelm, through unilateral economic sanctions, those countries that act outside their geoeconomic interests. Countries like China, Russia, Brazil, India and others in the BRICS orbit are now trying to get out of that design. From their interests that also have them. In the geopolitical sphere, what moves is power and specific interests between the parties. Another thing is the justifying speeches”.

Calcaño added that “Lula’s trip to China must be seen in the context of the geopolitical vocation of the current president of Brazil; which he amply showed in the previous two terms of his government. Lula, from a leftist perspective, has a sovereign vision of foreign relations. Which, being Brazil a regional and world economic power of global weight, generates strong repercussions when such characters come to power. On the other hand, you have to look at it in terms of the geopolitical struggle between the United States and China. Brazil seeks its own space within the framework of this dispute based on its interests; which tend to be, in many sectors, convergent with China, but divergent with the United States. Finally, this visit by Lula to China, for what motivates it and the world scenario that frames it,

In the state of Bahia, an old Ford car factory that was recently closed will be reopened with Chinese capital from the BYD brand, a firm that will produce electric and hybrid cars. The new Chinese plant accounts for the change in global economic powers, previously restricted to the countries of the north of the world.

The agreements signed between Brazil and China mainly concern renewable energy, the automotive industry, agribusiness, information technology, health and infrastructure. In fact, Lula visited the Huawei Technologies factory, which has been operating in Brazil for 20 years and currently supplies 5G technology. The Chinese technology firm since the time of Donald Trump has suffered a series of boycotts and sanctions in the United States.

China is currently Brazil’s main trading partner. Bilateral trade during 2022, despite the distance between former president Jair Bolsonaro and the Chinese government, was $170 million dollars, which doubles the figures exchanged between the United States and Brazil. The trade balance between China and Brazil left a surplus of US$ 30 billion (R$ 157 billion). If on the one hand the Latin American country exports to China soybeans, corn, sugar, coffee, meat and iron, among other products; the Asian giant brings manufactured products to Brazil and generates investments in infrastructure projects.

Brazilians and Chinese are also working together to launch satellites, such as those corresponding to the Sino-Brazilian Terrestrial Resources Satellite (Cbers) program, which between 1999 and 2009 has put six devices into orbit.

The end of the dollar as a currency for commercial transactions and the potential creation of a new currency for the BRICS countries was contested by the former US ambassador to Brazil, Thomas Shannon, who argued that the idea could upset the US government.

“When I go to talk to the United States I am not worried about what China might think. I am talking about the sovereign interests of my country. When I come to speak in China, neither do I. I worry about what the United States thinks. This is how the United States, China and all countries do it” – was the response of the Brazilian president.

Another important step for Brazil was assuming the rotating presidency of the BRICS bank, New Development Bank (NDB), a position that began to be held by the economist and former president Dilma Rousseff, an event held at the agency’s headquarters in Shanghai and attended by Lula.

The NDB was created in 2014 and since then it has approved US$32.8 billion in financing for 96 infrastructure and sustainable development projects in 9 countries, including Bangladesh, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay, in addition to the BRICS countries.

Rousseff’s promotion by Brazilian diplomacy reflects the interest in establishing a solid relationship, which would allow Brazil and other countries in the region to have more alternatives and without conditions of neoliberal reforms of the economy, conditions set by loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The political scientist and professor of international relations, Bruno Lima Rocha, believes that Brazil, through the NDB, will seek Latin America as its geopolitical and economic place. “Brazil’s relations with China and with the BRICS are going to be a very important point of Lula’s foreign policy in his third term – the analyst commented to El Ciudadano – It is not by chance that Dilma is indicated to be president of the BRICS bank. If Brazil has the position of the BRICS leadership to make a collateral system of guarantees for the integrated customs currency of Brazil with Argentina as an experiment to advance international trade at an intra-Latin American level without going through the dollar, I believe that the BRICS will operate as the fundamental axis of this notion of development, if not sustained it is at least sovereign.

Lula’s bet is related both to his political experience, having been imprisoned in a trial without evidence pushed by the United States and raised by former judge Sergio Moro, and to the possibilities of his government, internally conditioned by a parliament in which he does not have a majority and the neoliberal policies of a Central Bank empowered by Bolsonaro.

Lima Rocha comments on the matter that “it is necessary to understand that this possibility of the BRICS was one of the most important external push factors for the Bridges Project of the Obama government that resulted in the Lavajato lawfare and brought down Dilma at the beginning of her second government. It can thus be said that the size of the BRICS challenge was fueled by Washington.

The analyst adds that Rousseff’s role will be paramount. “Dilma’s presence in the NDB will be essential to boost the semiconductor industry, operate international chains where Brazil does not enter only as a seller of grains or minerals. This on a macro level. On the other hand, the bank of the BRICS and the Eurasian economic axis complements itself without needing the others. China, India, Russia and even Pakistan can produce everything a modern 21st century society needs. And this has to be an important part of the BRICS policy to put a leading industry to compete with the economic and financial axis that SWIFT manages, for example”.

For his part, Pierre Lebret, political scientist and Master in international relations from La Sorbone, highlights that China and Brazil are important trading partners. He considers it important “that the countries of the South organize themselves, have a voice again and are key players on the global scene. The war in Ukraine is reordering the global geopolitical map. That is why this visit is important, Lula’s return opens a new stage and clearly this must allow the establishment of the bases for integration, for the promotion of a multipolar world”.

Lebret adds that “South-South cooperation will be strengthened, particularly within the framework of the BRICS. The South must also act to avoid scenarios of confrontation between powers. The past shows us that this type of scenario has very serious economic, social and political consequences for the peoples of the South. I also believe that it is important for Brazil to act on the global scene without ceasing to think about Latin America, so that Latin American integration itself has a chance to prosper”.

For Elvin Calcaño, the appointment of Dilma Rousseff at the head of the BRICS bank “is a clear step towards a global geo-economy outside the hegemony of the dollar. Fundamentally from the convergence between emerging and consolidated powers that, outside the western orbit dominated by the Anglo-Saxon North Atlantic axis, are moving towards other designs of world economy”.

One year into the Russia-Ukraine war, China put up a 12-point peace proposal . For his part, Lula since he began his round of meetings with leaders, such as Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, made the end of the conflict an important point of conversation.

In the meeting held with Xi Jinping, Lula, in addition to criticizing the shipment of arms to the war, returned with his proposal that a group of neutral countries mediate in the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. “It is necessary to constitute a group of countries willing to find the way to make peace. That is to say, I talked about it with the Europeans, I already talked about it with the Americans”- the Brazilian president maintained.

Regarding the shipment of arms, Lula commented that those who deliver arms to Ukraine are “fomenting the war.” She argued that “America must stop encouraging war and start talking about peace. It is necessary for the European Union to start talking about peace, so that we can convince Putin and Zelensky that peace is in everyone’s interest and that war for now only interests both of us.”

The political scientist Pierre Lebret comments that “Lula has always been characterized by carrying out humanist, progressive projects, by implementing policies to fight against hunger and poverty. This war is taking root in the collective mind as an ongoing conflict, and is a threat to global stability. A peaceful outcome is an imperative, and for this reason an initiative like the one being proposed by the Brazilian president must be highly considered, firstly, because the civilian populations are paying too high a price, secondly because it is a war that has a global impact, and thirdly because the nuclear risk is still valid. The Brazilian mediation proposal with other countries not involved in the conflict seems to be an opportunity that neither Russia, nor Ukraine, nor Europe should reject”.

At the beginning of March, Lula spoke with Volodymyr Zelensky by videoconference , who took the opportunity to invite him to Kiev, to which the Brazilian president replied that he was willing to go to the Ukrainian capital at an appropriate time, adding that the return of peace would facilitate said meeting.

On that occasion, Lula expressed his readiness for any effort to bring together a group of nations willing to talk with both parties to the conflict. A few weeks earlier, breaking the tradition of abstaining in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Brazil voted in favor of a resolution condemning Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine, approved by 141 countries, 7 against and 33 abstentions. On the occasion, Lula stressed that “Brazil defends the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

Brazil was the only BRICS country, along with India, Russia, China and South Africa, to vote against Russia . While India, China and South Africa abstained.

Despite his position in said vote, Lula’s two-sided game also implies having contacts with Russia. For that, he sent his main adviser on foreign relations , his former foreign minister Celso Amorín , to visit France and Russia recently.

Starting this Monday, Brazil also received the visit of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov , who anticipated his visit to Latin America by publishing a letter in newspapers such as Folha de São Paulo in which he argued about the urgency of defending a multipolar world .

A few days ago, Lula told reporters at the Planalto presidential palace that “this war has gone too far” and urged China to play an active role in the peace negotiations.

“What does Putin want? He can’t keep the Ukrainian land. Perhaps the Crimea will not be discussed, but what he recently invaded is going to have to be rethought ”- Lula said and then added that“ Zelensky cannot have everything he thinks he may want either ”.

However, the peace proposal put forward by Lula was not well received by the Ukrainian authorities. The foreign spokesman, Oleg Nikolenko, although he appreciated “the efforts of the Brazilian president to find a way to stop the Russian aggression”, maintained the position of unrestricted respect for the Ukrainian sovereign territory and the recovery of Crimea as a condition for the end of the conflict.

Subsequently, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky , reinforced his position against peace. Through a video he maintained that “the world should know: respect and order will return to international relations only when the Ukrainian flag returns to Crimea.”

This recent Sunday Lula returned to the subject. “I think the construction of the war was easier than the way out of the war will be,” she said.

He then added that “President Putin does not take the initiative to stop. Zelensky does not take the initiative to stop. Europe and the United States end up contributing to the continuity of this war. I think we have to sit at a table and say enough is enough, let’s talk because the war has never brought and will never bring benefits”.

Similarly, Western countries are pressing for Brazil to limit its participation in the new BRICS bloc. For this Lula invited by the Japanese minister Fumio Kishida to visit Hiroshima, where the next meeting of the G-7, which brings together the richest economies in the world, will take place between May 19 and 21. Although it is not the first time that Lula has attended these meetings, having already participated in 2004 and 2009, the invitation responds to an effort by the United States and Europe to undermine the new multipolar pact.

Lula is also expected to take advantage of this occasion and the next scheduled visits to Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom to promote the peace proposal.

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This article was first published by Progressive International.

ROAPE’s Hannah Cross writes that the UK government’s policy to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda has been ruled unlawful by the Court of Appeal. Asylum seekers, the court argued, risked being returned to their home country and could face inhumane treatment and persecution. Paul Kagame’s Rwanda, with the complicity of Western media and international financial institutions, has been presented as a successful developmental state, but in reality it is a place of systematic state brutality.

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A major contradiction of free market capitalism is that, for all its ‘imperfections’, it is supposed to end feudalism, creating free circulation in the labour market and bringing political equality to people ruled by an impartial market. Yet as it accelerates, these market relations can only hold with authoritarian state intervention, repression, and more imposition of feudal relations. Hence a government that has no interest in controlling the destructive profiteering of the private sector, while growing numbers of people lose access to the necessities of life, does all it can to elevate aristocratic rule, stimulate divisive nationalism, and intervene heavily in the movement of people.

The force of the UK governments fascist-inspired efforts to remove political freedoms has advanced with the force of economic chaos facing the majority. Recent developments suggest some of its efforts are failing, but it will fight on. The House of Lords, including Conservative peers (from the governing party), brought wrecking amendments to the illegal Migration Bill last week. These would require the government to abide by international human rights conventions, allow unaccompanied children to claim asylum, and stop potential victims of human trafficking from being detained or deported before their cases are heard. Further amendments passed on Monday concerning deportation, detention and processing limits for LGBTQ+ migrants, pregnant women and children, and asylum seekers in general.

The government’s policy to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda has been ruled unlawful by the Court of Appeal. After the High Court had ruled that Rwanda was a ‘safe third country’, this case brought by asylum seekers and Action Aid reversed the decision, finding that asylum seekers risked being returned to their home country and could face inhumane treatment and persecution. The Home Office itself, with the remit of enforcing the policy, has found it unworkable. This week, it reported that the plan would cost £169,000 per person, significantly higher than the cost of housing asylum seekers in the UK.

Lawyers at the Court of Appeal argued that the High Court showed ‘excessive deference’ to the Home Office leadership’s assurances that deportees would be protected. The material provided by the Rwandan authorities was lacking in credibility, with ‘blanket denials and clear contradictions.’ It is barely credible that the successive Home Secretaries leading the Rwanda policy are assured of the safety of the policy.

Last year, the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents Home Office members, joined asylum seekers, Care4Calais and Detention Action in a case which prevented the deportation of eight asylum seekers and showed that Rwanda was an unsafe country, with the possibility of forced conscription for those sent there after fleeing war-torn countries. Home Secretary Priti Patel was found to have ignored the Foreign Office warning of human rights abuses.

Paul Kagame’s Rwanda, with the complicity of Western media and international financial institutions, has been presented as a successful developmental state, working with donors to achieve high development indicators. From 2015 onwards, researchers in ROAPE challenged this narrative and the claims of a ‘Green Revolution’ in which neoliberal agrarian modernisation had brought widespread benefits to the country’s rural populations. Some of the researchers had to publish anonymously for fear of reprisal by the state in Kigali, while the veracity of their data was followed up by a Financial Times investigation into the country’s poverty statistics. The terrible finding that there had been a true increase in poverty did not only damage the credibility of the state’s top-down developmentalism, but also of the World Bank, which endorsed its data, the IMF, and bilateral donors.

As for the politics of the regime, its bureaucratic state apparatus and spatial planning lends itself to the outsourcing of detention centres, while state violence has included the killing of refugees. An investigation last year found that a 13th Congolese refugee had been shot dead at the hands of state authorities, months after 12 protestors from the Kibiza camp were killed in 2018.

Suella Braverman, who praises the opportunities offered for asylum seekers entering Rwanda, is backed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as she fights back for her flagship policy. The fightback is built on further unsubstantiated claims and deceptions. The idea that the human and economic cost of the Rwanda plan is justified because it would deter channel crossings might have a twisted logic if France were a safe country for refugees and onward migration were a choice.

However, it is not: if asylum seekers are coming from countries outside Europe and are racially identified, they find themselves destitute and suffer physical violence, humiliation and the destruction of shelter, food, and water supplies by the French authorities.

Brexit opened up the possibility of asylum in the UK because the Dublin convention, which allows governments to return people to the European countries they have passed through, could no longer be enacted; thus, English-speaking refugees and those with potential connections to the country might have some chance here of finding safety, building a tolerable life and supporting their families, no matter how risky and hostile their reception.

This forced condition of migration exposes the emptiness of Braverman’s repeated suggestions that all the world would come to the UK if it could, so harsh penalties are necessary. Her argument shows an arrogance that ignores the ways that people are uprooted from their lives in specific circumstances, are torn from their families and struggle to find safety anywhere. Britain has a role in many of these upheavals, including in Sudan’s counter-revolution. Moreover, it has contributed significantly to Fortress Europe and its militarised borders, as well as to its failure to find a workable asylum policy, and this has created the conditions for irregular migration.

Because most migration is not by choice, the closure of legal and safe routes does not deter people or fundamentally reduce numbers. It makes the journey unsafe and kills people. This is borne out by the terror that the Rwanda policy announcement brought to refugees in Calais in early June 2022, yet the channel crossings increased in the summer and have continued in their thousands this year, with Afghans becoming the largest nationality.

Nor are there any grounds to the repeated claims that the Rwanda policy would be ‘the will of the people’: this government and its new programme is not even elected by the people. And one further lie, that the Labour Party – the country’s main opposition party – has been particularly complicit in, is that the fight against ‘illegal immigration’ is a fight against the traffickers and smugglers, when in reality it is migrants and their dependants who suffer the brunt of it, and smugglers are often in a similar situation. Considering the layers of deception on which the policy flounders, it is remarkable that an opposition party led by a barrister has done little more than mock the failure of the policy to reject the people arriving in boats.

If government’s appeal for the Rwanda policy succeeds, the main victory for the Tories will be that they are no longer restrained by international law or a functioning democratic state in its narrowest sense, and this will embolden their suppression of any threats to their survival, domestic and international. The decisions of the Court of Appeal and House of Lords, and Home Office scrutiny, might give the sense of having the ‘good governance’ and democracy that British policymakers claim to offer the Global South.

However, the terrible conditions of indefinite detention that asylum seekers face and the failure to protect children, the ‘unfree’ labour that British production relies on, and the prosecution of dissenters, all coexist with military and economic imperialism in parts of Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. The Rwanda policy would be a further step to an illiberalism that is already deeply embedded in the state and most evident in its external relations. We can find surprising alliances in its resistance and must retain the internationalist class perspective in the first instance.

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This article was first published by ROAPE.

A version of this blogpost was first published as ‘Floundering in the depths of deception – new blows to the government’s deportation policy’ on the Counterfire website.

Featured Photograph: Activists in London participating in a protest against racism, holding a Care4Calais banner, an organisation which provides essential basics and legal support for asylum seekers in Belgium, France and the UK (19 March 2022).

In Senegal, women’s bodies are weaponized as political objects in electoral battles.

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On June 1, 2023, Senegalese courts finally ruled on the Sweet Beauty case, in which Adji Sarr, a young woman employed at the Sweet Beauty massage parlor, had accused Ousmane Sonko, a 2024 presidential elections candidate and the leader of the African Patriots for Work, Ethics and Fraternity political party (Pastef), of rape and making death threats against her in February of 2021.

Sonko was acquitted of the death threats, but the rape charges were requalified into that of corrupting the youth. He was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 600,000 CFA francs (1,000 USD). They also ordered him to pay 20 million CFA francs to Adji Sarr (33,000 USD). Ndèye Khady Ndiaye, the owner of Sweet Beauty, was sentenced to two years imprisonment for incitement to debauchery. They fined her 600,000 CFA francs as well, and ordered the closing of Sweet Beauty.

Following this verdict, violent unrest shook Senegal for days, resulting in people’s deaths, widespread sexual assault, and the ransacking of public and private property. According to official sources, more than 20 people died, 500 were arrested, and eight cases of sexual violence against women were reported, as well as numerous cases of missing persons.

Many, especially feminists, were troubled by the verdict, which they found ambiguous and confusing. Whichever way one looks at it, this verdict deals a significant blow to the fight for women’s rights in Senegal, particularly with regards to the gains that have been made towards criminalizing rape. In this case, rape was not ruled out, but was reclassified as a corruption of youth charge instead. However, the unhealthy nature of Ousmane Sonko’s sexual relationship with Adji Sarr has been established.

According to legal experts, the corruption of youth charge refers to an adult who imposes a form of moral constraint or psychological pressure on a young person under the age of 21. At the time of the incident, Adji Sarr was 19 and Ousmane Sonko was 46. Given Adji Sarr’s precarious social status, this verdict suggests that there was illicit sexual contact between the two, but Sarr was not raped by Sonko.

Rape is one of the most challenging crimes to prove, especially because in Senegal, a sexist legal system places the burden on survivors to prove they were raped. Those who believe in the word of survivors like Adji Sarr, conclude that Ousmane Sonko’s public profile and notoriety helped him win a favorable ruling from the judge who re-characterized a set of facts which would have resulted in a crime punishable by ten years imprisonment.

However, Ndèye Khady Ndiaye’s criminal conviction shows that the massage parlor was not intended for licit activities. The massage parlor’s packages, such as the “body-body”, “happy ending” had sexual connotations. Some say that although this is not a morality trial, but it is suspect that a 46-year-old man and member of parliament who is aspiring to be president, would frequent—late at night and during a COVID-imposed curfew—a shady massage parlor where a socially and economically vulnerable 19-year-old woman was working in a profession that made her an easy sexual prey.

Rape is widespread and commonplace in Senegal, and the men accused are rarely convicted. The verdict on the Sweet Beauty case shows that Senegalese judicial authorities (who are predominantly men) seem reluctant to apply the recent law criminalizing rape. As a reminder, despite the decades-long struggle led by women’s associations to criminalize rape in Senegal, the courts previously considered rape a simple misdemeanor The law instituting its criminalization was only voted for in January 2020, after several cases of rape followed by murder that happened in the country in the previous years. The frequency of rape charges being reclassified as misdemeanors illustrates the reluctance of the courts to apply the recent law.

All the discussions and actions surrounding the trial and its verdict reveal many social realities in Senegal, not least the vulnerability of young girls in a patriarchal environment fortified by the exploitation of their vulnerability. The socio-economic fragility of young women like Adji Sarr, places them at the crossroads of several oppressions, at the heart of which are sexism, classism, and sexual exploitation. Deteriorating living standards also particularly weakens young people and women, who are doubly affected. The radicalization of political discourse and the closure of civic space contribute to silencing women. We are witnessing the advance of a self-centered male discourse in which the grievances of Senegalese women remain on the periphery and are not considered.

By using this private affair for political ends, both sides—the opposition and the ruling party—are united on one point: to undermine women’s voices and weaponize their bodies. Their instrumentalization of Sarr’s case accentuates their subordination in a misogynistic society. The entire country is caught between the whims of two powerful men. Furthermore, President Macky Sall’s silence on whether or not he intends to run for a third term disadvantages women and highlights their vulnerability. His silence has served as a pretext for politicizing a private affair between two Senegalese citizens. Adji Sarr’s body is thus tossed between the two leaders’ camps and used as a punching bag.

In recent weeks, national and international media has broadcasted a misogynistic show in which Senegalese men, including high-profile intellectuals, engage in a duel of words in the media, invisibilizing Adji Sarr and trivializing her rape. Many Senegalese people, including Ousmane Sonko, do not even know what constitutes rape. In the collective imagination, rape is just flirtation that goes too far.

By making fun of his victim’s physical appearance with abject remarks such as “If I had to rape, I would not rape someone who looks like a monkey who had a stroke,” Ousmane Sonko reveals how he considers sexual assault to be a form of flattery, a favor granted to any worthy woman. Beyond the animalistic caricature of her and the ableism of his words, Ousmane Sonko ignores that rape is neither romantic nor about sexual attraction. Rape is about power and control and has nothing to do with the victim’s appearance. Otherwise, babies and toddlers would not be sexually assaulted. An example of this is the current case of the 36 girls aged between six and 16 who have been sexually abused by a Koranic teacher near Touba.

Furthermore those who accuse Adji Sarr of being manipulative are being sexist and infantilizing. These allegations suggest that women cannot formulate accusations on their own. It reinforces sexist stereotypes and minimizes the voices of women who report sexual violence. This assumption also questions the value of the words of rape survivors. Every time a rape survivor comes forward, she must put in much physical and psychological effort. Just as there is no typical rapist, there is not a perfect survivor. Each survivor works through her trauma differently and remakes her life in her own way. Adji Raby Sarr is no exception. Nor is Mr. Sonko, even if he is known by the sobriquet “mu sell mi,” The Holy One.

Rape is a weapon of domination, and women are the first to pay the price. Over the course of the recent unrest, eight women were raped: three students at the Assane Seck University in Ziguinchor, and five others by hooded men who attacked the Columbia hotel bar in Diamniadio. Women’s bodies have been commodified and turned into public property to be plundered like the commodities stolen during demonstrations by looters; to be grabbed and consumed at will.

Senegalese women’s voices must free themselves from the grip of politicians craving power. The facts surrounding the Sweet Beauty case must be reported in their unforgiving truth, notwithstanding the assumptions, prejudices, preconceptions, and stereotypes that they embed. Their chronology leaves no doubt in the mind of a free thinker. Senegalese politicians exploited a private affair for their own political ends and to shield a political leader from having to answer for his actions. That the same affair was used by the other side to eliminate a political adversary is possible, especially given the country’s recent history. Politicians have undermined women’s voices and bodies by mixing politics and private affairs.

The reputation of the Senegalese state as an exceptional example of democracy in Africa is nothing but a mirage. It has been built to the detriment of women, women who have not been able to express the suffering they endure on a daily basis in a hypocritical society. We are witnessing the expression of Senegalese masculinity in perfect hegemony against a backdrop of the destruction and abuse of women.

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This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site every week.

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