Court in session

The first trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone got under way today. In a controversial move, the first three defendants to go before the court are former members of the Sierra Leone government (including the former defense minister whose motion to dismiss was recently denied) rather than the Revolutionary United Front, and the trial will focus on the atrocities of the government-affiliated Kamajor militia. The first trial of the RUF, which is accused of atrocities at least as serious including widespread mutilations and murders, will begin in July.

Shas MK: End the occupation (of Karabakh)

The state news agency of Azerbaijan is reporting that MK Amnon Cohen is in Baku on a visit aimed at raising the profile of the Israeli-Azeri relationship. Azerbaijan and Israel have full diplomatic relations, Israel is already providing technical aid in the public health and agricultural spheres, and although Cohen is a member of the opposition, his visit is seen as increasing inter-parliamentary ties. Upon arriving in Baku, he was given a warm and public reception by the chairman of the Azeri parliament and has promised to invite Azeri legislators to Israel.

During the visit, Cohen backed the Azeri position on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, likening it to Israel's fight against terrorism. On the other hand, Armenia's occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh can also be likened to Israel's occupation of the West Bank. Armenia and Israel have quite a few superficial similarities - both are small non-Muslim countries located in the Islamic world, both are homelands of people who have suffered greatly at the hands of their neighbors, both can punch above their weight militarily, both are now occupying foreign soil based in part on claims of historic rights, and both are enmeshed in a web of failed diplomacy and long-term refugee problems.

There are other connections as well: Israel is home to a 1500-strong Armenian community, and as Yossi Sarid recognized during his tenure as Minister of Education, both Jews and Armenians have been victims of genocide. Nevertheless, Israel's desire to build strategic ties with Armenia's neighbors - first Turkey and now Azerbaijan - have largely prevented it from building a relationship with Armenia. It may be somewhat ironic for a Shas MK to call for an end to the occupation of Muslim land, but given the circumstances it is only natural.

Friday morning massacre

In the aftermath of the Likud referendum, I gave the coalition a month at the outside. I was wrong: it lasted a month and two days.

The National Union is gone, with Sharon firing Avigdor Lieberman and Benny Elon from their ministerial posts despite Elon's best effort to act like a spoiled child:

Elon said Friday he would do everything he could to avoid accepting the dismissal notice so that Sharon would not have a majority in favor of the plan.

Speaking to Israel Radio, Elon said Sharon had called him to tell him he was fired but that the dismissal was not official until he received the letter. In any case, he said, he could not verify the phone call was actually from Sharon.

It's a safe bet that, however much Elon might want to play jailhouse lawyer and dodge Sharon's dismissal letter, he won't be able to get into Sunday's cabinet meeting without being served with it. His departure, however petulant, will give Sharon a 11-10 majority in favor of a full Gaza withdrawal - assuming he still has a government.

The question now is whether Mafdal will stay. There are three possibilities (although Gideon Alon sees some others): (1) Mafdal stays and tries to put the brakes on the withdrawal process; (2) Mafdal leaves and is replaced by Avoda; or (3) Mafdal leaves and Sharon calls a general election. The wild card, as always, is a split in the Likud, which is long overdue but which I very much doubt will happen between now and Sunday. At the moment, I'd put odds on a unity government sometime next week, but as I said, I've been wrong before.

Colonial legacy

Only weeks after the formation of a new Maori ethnic party due to a controversial bill reaffirming public ownership of foreshore and seabed land, the New Zealand government is facing another Pacific Island problem. This time, the trouble is being caused by a ministerial committee's rejection of a proposal to repeal the Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act 1982.

This act was a hurried response by the Muldoon government to a Privy Council decision holding that all Samoans who lived in Samoa during the period of New Zealand colonial administration, and their children, were entitled to New Zealand citizenship. No sooner had the decision come down than a bill was rushed through Parliament depriving the Samoans of the citizenship they had just been granted. Since then, the issue has festered, with New Zealand allowing a quota of 1100 Samoan immigrants per year but many Samoans claiming that bureaucratic procedures make this quota difficult to meet.

The Samoan question could be an explosive one for the Labour-led government. Samoans are the largest Pacific Islander community in New Zealand (other than the Maori) at 115,000 people. This is just shy of three percent of the population, and their share of the voting-age population is somewhat lower due to their greater youth, but their influence is magnified by the fact that nearly all of them vote Labour. With Labour already shaken by the possibility of mass Maori defection, it can ill afford to lose another part of its base - and the fact that more than 100,000 people signed a petition calling for repeal indicates that the issue is important to them.

The trouble is that, like the foreshore and seabed issue, Samoan immigration may be a catch-22 for Labour. Although Samoan employment is on an upward trend, labor force participation remains below New Zealand norms, and the perception that Samoans are welfare-dependent has fed widespread opposition to mass immigration. If Labour gives in to the Samoans, then it might lose ground on the right.

One possible compromise may lie in a Green Party proposal to treat Samoans as Australians:

The Green Party's Minority View in the report proposes that the problems of access to entry visas and permanent residence be overcome by putting Samoans on the same footing as Australians in New Zealand. Samoans would then have the right to freely enter New Zealand and live and work here with the same entitlements as Australians do.

If that is not acceptable to the New Zealand Government, then Samoans could be given rights similar to those New Zealanders currently enjoy in Australia - that is, Samoans could enter, live and work freely in New Zealand, with social welfare benefits restricted for an initial period.

This proposal, particularly if adopted in the latter form, might calm fears of "180,000 Samoans on the dole" - but whether it will satisfy New Zealand's Samoan community is another story.

Punishment without crime

A divided panel of the Special Court for Sierra Leone has held that recruiting child soldiers is a crime - with one of the world's foremost human rights figures dissenting. The dissent by Appeals Chamber Judge Geoffrey Robertson may seem surprising at first glance, but its logic becomes apparent from the fact that the decision turned on exactly when such recruitment became criminal.

The court's ruling arose from a motion by Sam Hinga Norman to strike out certain portions of the indictment against him. Unlike most of the Special Court defendants, Norman was not a leader of the Revolutionary United Front; instead, he was a minister in the Sierra Leone government and the national coordinator of the Civil Defense Force. Paragraph 24 of the indictment alleges that, "[a]t all times relevant to the indictment," the CDF "did, in the Republic of Sierra Leone, conscript or enlist children under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups, and in addition, or in the alternative, use them to participate actively in hostilities." It is also alleged that, as commander of the CDF, Norman "knew and approved the use of such children to participate actively in hostilities."

The key phrase, as far as Norman was concerned, was "at all times relevant to the indictment." Norman's lawyers argued that recruitment of child soldiers was not an explicit crime under international law until the Rome Statute was promulgated in 1998, and that his activities before that date could therefore not be punished. The prosecution countered that conscripting underage soldiers was a crime under customary international law even before 1998 regardless of whether it had been explicitly made so by a legal instrument. The majority of the court agreed with the prosecutors:

Prior to November 1996, the prohibition on child recruitment had crystallised as customary international law, as demonstrated by the widespread recognition and acceptance of the norm prohibiting child recruitment in these international instruments, reiterated in the 1990 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

The central question which must then be addressed is whether the prohibition on child recruitment also entailed individual criminal responsibility by 1996, so that the principle of non-retroactivity is not breached. The protection of children is one of the fundamental guarantees articulated in Additional Protocol II and reflected in the Special Court Statute. As can be verified in numerous reports of various human rights organizations, the practice of child recruitment bears the most atrocious consequences for the children. Serious violations of fundamental guarantees lead to individual criminal liability. Therefore the recruitment of children was already a crime by the time of the adoption of the 1998 Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, which codified and ensured the effective implementation of an existing customary norm relating to child recruitment rather than forming a new one.

A norm need not be expressly stated in an international convention for it to crystallize as a crime under customary international law. Furthermore, it is not necessary for the individual criminal responsibility of the accused to be explicitly stated in a convention for the provisions of the convention to entail individual criminal responsibility under customary international law [...] Therefore, child recruitment was criminalized before it was explicitly set out in treaty law and certainly by the time frame relevant to the indictments. The principle of legality and the principle of specificity are both upheld.

Judge Robertson was the sole dissenter. In contrast to the majority, he was in "no doubt that the crime of non-forcible enlistment [of children] did not enter international criminal law until the Rome Treaty [for the International Criminal Court] in July 1998." According to the official summary of the ruling (the full text is not yet online):

Justice Robertson traced the preparatory work leading to the adoption of the Special Court Statute and argued that the state of international law in 1996 in respect of child enlistment was unclear to the UN Secretary-General himself. He pointed out that the question of whether an act was criminalised should be carefully separated from whether it should be criminalised and considered in depth the principle of 'no punishment without law'. He went on to look at customary international law and emphasised that the question was whether child recruitment was a criminal law prohibition under customary international law by 1996. He then traced the relevant treaty law and developments up to 1996. He found that the Rome Statute was a "landmark in international criminal law" and that with its adoption, child recruitment crystallized as a crime entailing individual responsibility.

Judge Robertson is no shrinking violet when it comes to human rights or to the Sierra Leone conflict, and was in fact disqualified from one case due to intemperate remarks he made about the defendant's atrocities. However, he remembers one thing that his colleagues seem to have forgotten - that human rights include the rights of the accused. The majority's decision does violence to the ancient principle of nulla poena sine lege - i.e., that no act can be punished as a crime unless specifically made so by penal legislation. To do otherwise would open the door to unlimited prosecution on the basis of vaguely defined "customary norms" of which the defendant may not have notice until he is indicted. Recruiting child soldiers is an affront to any civilized person, but it was not a crime until 1998, and in their zeal to punish the abuses of the Sierra Leone conflict, the panel has dangerously extended the reach of international penal law.

Dancing with himself

One thing I've noticed in my years of studying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that foreigners who travel to Israel or Palestine nearly always return with their prejudices reinforced. Another thing I've noticed is that this has to do in large part with where they go. Those who favor Israel travel there and come back certain that Israel is a modern, liberal country under threat from mindless terrorism. Those who support the Palestinians go to Rafah or Nablus and return more convinced than ever that Israelis are evil oppressors and Palestinians innocent victims. Only those who cross the line and enter the stronghold of the opposing camp learn differently; many of them also come back with their prejudices intact, but they at least stand a chance of obtaining a broader perspective.

This is as true for literary as for physical travel. Many of those who read Sayed Kashua's Dancing Arabs find in it a story of destructive Arab radicalism or Zionist oppression, one that affirms their conception of relations between Jews and Arabs. But because Kashua is both an Arab and an Israeli, it's impossible to read Dancing Arabs without crossing into the enemy stronghold. This is a book that will change minds.

I admit to reading the book in search of my own preconceptions. As I read, I looked almost obsessively for grace notes - for Jews who liked Arabs, for Arabs who liked Jews, for those who practiced coexistence even if they didn't preach it. And there are such notes. Kashua knows Jewish Israelis too well to believe that all or even most of them are evil. There are Jewish characters who, however naively, try to bridge the ethnic gap, and Jewish society is portrayed as offering freedom from the social constraints of conservative village life.

But Dancing Arabs isn't fundamentally about harmony; it's a story of conflict. The narrator is an Arab Israeli from Kashua's home village of Tira - he is never named, and we are left to guess how many of the details are autobiographical - and Dancing Arabs is the story of how he was caught between two worlds. The narrator's father and grandfather were Palestinian militants, and he is raised on stories of the 1948 war which he retells as if from memory. When he is accepted to a predominantly Jewish boarding school for gifted children, he responds by trying to "pass" - to become as Jewish as possible, to blend in to the Israeli society around him.

The conflict comes from the fact that, from the narrator's standpoint, it is impossible to be both Arab and Israeli at the same time. This is due at least in part to his village background; much of his difficulty fitting in at the boarding school comes from his accented Hebrew and unfamiliarity with middle-class norms rather than his Arab ethnicity as such. He is no middle-class urban Arab who can comfortably consider himself Israeli; to him, Israeli society is Jewish society, and to become an Israeli it is necessary to become a Jew.

But even when he passes for Jewish, he learns another truth - that acceptance is always conditional, that efforts at coexistence are often gratingly artificial, and that the rift between Arabs and Jews will come back to bite him when he least expects it. He ends up a man without a country, too Israelized to return to village life but barred by accident of birth from blending fully into middle Israel. This loss of identity follows him through depression, failure in career and marriage, and finally resignation.

Dancing Arabs is not merciful to Jewish Israeli society - the narrator's sense of injustice and encounters with racism and petty humiliation are portrayed in powerful detail. But Kashua also doesn't let his own people off the hook - his story touches on the brutality and corruption of village life, casual anti-Semitism among the Arab population and the destructive effect of nationalism on Arabs both within and outside Israel. (This may ironically be a sign of how Israeli Kashua is; his uncompromising mirror is well within the tradition of modern Israeli Jewish authors.) One of the last scenes, in which the narrator describes how his father was humiliated at the Egyptian border, is pointedly ambiguous about whether he was abused by Israeli or Egyptian soldiers, and ends with the father concluding that pan-Arabism is a catastrophic failure. Even Israeli Arab militants, in the end, pass for Israeli by comparison with the rest of the Arab world.

Kashua's book practically invites comparison with The Pessoptimist by Emil Habibi, which also portrays an Israeli Arab who tries to out-Zion the Zionists. Habibi's narrator Saeed, however, is an absurdist comic hero whose exploits are told in the form of letters from outer space, and who ends up finding an identity rather than losing one. Dancing Arabs has its surrealist moments - the narrator shifts easily and unpredictably between the present, his own memories and his ancestors' - but it is a realist novel and its self-absorbed protagonist is very much an anti-hero. Perhaps the difference is that Habibi's novel was written in 1974, when there was still some hope for pan-Arabism; it's a book that the father of Kashua's narrator might have written if he'd had a sense of humor. For Kashua's own generation - at least for those who don't see a future as Israelis - there's nothing but to make do.

In a sense, Dancing Arabs is a 225-page answer to the question posed in Nazim Khayr's Identity:

Then I will be the stranger
and perhaps one who belongs
When I sleep in my Israeli belonging
and wake at times in my Palestinian sorrow
in my Arab distress
and my Druse chagrin
then what do you want me to say,
that these are all my identity?

Kashua, however, is a Palestinian rather than a Druze - which means that for him, there is precious little belonging and perhaps a double measure of chagrin.

(With thanks to Laila, who made me aware of this book; her own review is here.)

Irony alert

The South African Defense Ministry is concerned that the army isn't getting enough white volunteers:

South Africa's parliament has established race quotas for the country's defence force in order to ensure a good ethnic mix however, Mr Lekota said that it was not always easy to adhere to that "mathematical requirement".

He said young white people were often lured away by better jobs in the commercial sector.

"Africans do not have these opportunities so they come to the defence force. I still have to meet the percentage quota of whites but what can I do? I cannot pass a law, I cannot compel them to join the defence force."

This is a far cry from the situation prior to 1994, when military service was compulsory for whites and was considered an indispensable part of the apartheid system. The new all-volunteer SADF is apparently becoming more like the American army, with recruits coming disproportionately from the underclass. As such, an institution once dedicated to repressing black South Africans may now be one of their primary means of social mobility.

An unexpected quarter

Former Sephardic chief rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron has added his voice to the chorus in favor of civil marriage in Israel.

UPDATE: Aziz comments.

More quiet cooperation

Al-Ahliyya Amman University, Jordan's first private university, wants to open a branch in Israel. Maher Hurani, the university's owner, evidently hopes that an influx of Israeli Arab students - and possibly Jews as well - will make up for the 500 Syrians who have threatened to resign if the Israel branch is built.

Al-Ahliyya already has some Israeli Arab students at its Amman campus, and might draw more if it set up a branch in Israel; although its tuition and fees are somewhat higher than Israeli universities ($3600 to 5100 per year as compared to about $2500), it offers the advantage of degrees accredited throughout the Arab world. If al-Ahliyya follows through on its Israel plans, it would provide an alternative to the established universities as well as Mar Elias, a newly accredited Christian Arab-run college in the Galilee.

UPDATE: Abu Aardvark notes that Hurani is now denying the report. I have my doubts about the denial - I don't think Limor Livnat would have made a direct statement about a meeting that never took place - but I can see why he might want to deny any Israel-related plans unless and until they're a done deal. After all, if the plan falls through, al-Ahliyya will forfeit considerable goodwill in the Arab world with nothing to show for it. That people still have to think in such terms is a shame, and demonstrates the limits of quiet cooperation, but I can easily imagine Hurani doing so.

Customary conflict

Today is the first day of a conference of governments and NGOs in Suva, with the object of improving enforcement of human rights mechanisms in the Pacific. In an interview with Australian radio, Dr. Shaista Shameem of the Fiji Human Rights Commission argues that, while many Pacific nations have incorporated substantial human rights protections into their constitutions, citizens are often ignorant of their rights and lack knowledge of how to effectively enforce them in court.

The difficulties cited by Dr. Shameem pose a counterpoint to those discussed in Laitia Tamata's 2000 article on the same subject. Tamata argued that Pacific courts were aware of international human rights instruments and were willing to apply them, but that some governments were reluctant to adopt them because of perceived conflicts with customary law. In some cases, Pacific litigants successfully challenged customary norms by means of human rights instruments, but courts and legislatures were more likely to attempt to harmonize customary and human rights law.

The potential conflict between human rights instruments and Pacific traditions is still a fertile source of political rhetoric. In Tonga, for instance, the government justified last year's press restrictions as necessary to preserve traditional culture, and the new press law specifically provides that newspapers may not "infringe upon... the cultural traditions of the Kingdom." The government also argued that the initial ban on the opposition Taimi 'o Tonga that started the press crisis was warranted by the paper's "strong cultural insensitivity." In Fiji, where land rights and the balance of power between the indigenous and Indo-Fijian populations are major political fault lines, conservative political leaders have claimed that human rights and Westminster democracy are Western inventions that must give way to indigenous custom. Repressive and nationalist governments have pitted human rights against custom in much the same way as Mahathir and Lee Kuan Yew invoked "Asian values" to justify their anti-democratic policies.

Dr. Shameem, however, argues that the gap between custom and human rights may be more for show than otherwise, and rejects the notion that "some of the international human rights conventions and institutions don't mesh with realities on the ground in the Pacific." As proof, she cites regional governments' responses to her human rights questionnaire:

"The other thing that's interesting about this is that prior to this consultation, we sent out a questionnaire to all of the islands that we thought might be interested in coming to the consultation, and we've just received responses back on the questionnaire.

"The questionnaire basically asked what each of the islands - and that includes both NGOs and governments - thought were the main issues, the human rights issues were in their islands, and they've all come back with something similar to perhaps what would be common internationally in respect to human rights generally - not specific to culture or anything like that but issues about good governance, about corruption, about civil and political rights, economic, social and cultural rights, the right of NGOs to be recognised, the right of government to have dialogue and so on and so forth.

"So I was quite surprised because I had thought there would be these issues about cultural sensitivity and so on, but not a single questionnaire came back with a response about cultural sensitivity... All of them were about the issues that perhaps a person living in Europe or Africa or any other country of the world would have as the same concerns for human rights."

I'm not entirely convinced. Pacific governments have historically paid lip service to the concept of human rights, and have tended to play down potential conflicts in international forums. It is in the domestic political arena that the conflicts between international norms and custom are highlighted and used to win votes or to justify government policies. While the lack of public human rights education is certainly one of the obstacles to human rights enforcement in the Pacific, the hostility of right-wing ministers or political parties also continues to be a factor.

Judicial review

A panel of the Israeli Supreme Court issued a ruling the other day deciding claims arising from the IDF raid in Rafah. While the court dismissed most of the claims as moot in light of the IDF's withdrawal, Chief Justice Aharon Barak stated that "the duty of a military commander does not end in avoiding harming the Palestinian's lives and honor," and that he "must also defend the lives and honor of local residents."

This isn't the first time that sort of rhetoric has come from the Israeli courts, and in the past it has been honored more often in the breach than otherwise. This time, though, Barak coupled his human rights rhetoric with actual directives concerning logistical planning in future operations. From now on, IDF commanders "must prepare for the possibility that water infrastructure would be damaged during battle, and make sure there is enough water and food available for local residents," and must also do everything possible "to make sure that... bodies are brought to honorable burial according to local customs."

The terms of the ruling, in themselves, constitute relatively minor changes to Israel's rules of engagement, but they may also mark a shift in the attitude of the courts. In the past, Israeli courts have been aggressive in protecting the rights of Israeli Arab citizens, but they have largely deferred to the government and armed forces on security matters. This deferential attitude may now be changing, possibly with the excesses of the Rafah operation as a tipping point. If so, then the courts may play more of a role in managing IDF rules of engagement and in implementing the human rights instruments to which Israel is signatory.

Memorial Day

No blogging today.

Ngilu's dilemma

This week's Financial Standard has a rundown on Kenya Health Minister Charity Ngilu's universal health care plan, which is part of an overall NARC proposal "that also includes free primary education and a state-sponsored social security plan." The plan is running into heavy opposition not only from the usual suspects in the medical and insurance industries but from urban workers, and a look at the numbers shows why.

Part of the problem is the method of financing. If the plan is implemented as envisioned, health care will be financed by a payroll tax similar to the method by which Social Security and Medicare are financed in the United States, with employees contributing 2.9 percent of their salaries and employers contributing a further 5.8 percent. In America, the primary complaint about this method of taxation is that it is regressive, with the rich - who have a higher percentage of unearned income - not paying their share. In Kenya, the problem is exactly the opposite: the entire burden of financing national health care would fall upon those who have jobs, while those who are subsistence farmers or work in the informal sector wouldn't pay in.

For the multinational companies that operate in Kenya, this disproportionate burden won't be much of a problem. Locally owned businesses, though, tend to operate on a much slimmer margin, and the payroll tax could endanger their existing insurance schemes or even their viability. Employers fear that universal health care will put them out of business; workers fear that it will eliminate their medical coverage or, in the worst case, their jobs. The urban workers in Kenya may be richer than the subsistence farmers, but only in relative terms, and most of them can ill afford to have their employers' meager health care budgets directed elsewhere.

Even a more equitable method of financing would still run into the obstacle of Kenya's overall poverty. By some estimates, "basic outpatient and inpatient care" would cost nearly half of Kenya's GDP, and given an HIV prevalence of between 7 and 15 percent, much of the population will need more than that. The amount of revenue that will be raised from the payroll tax is forecast at about 9 percent of GDP, and some of this amount will inevitably be lost to inefficiency and corruption. If this level of funding - or even twice this level - is combined with diminishing private-sector insurance revenues, hospitals may be forced to close. The best that can likely be expected from socialized medicine in Kenya is something along the lines of Cuba - enough to improve public health and life expectancy, but highly deficient by the standards of developed nations - and even this may be impossible given Kenya's poverty. Placing such a strain on Kenya's health care system may instead cause it to collapse.

This isn't to say that Kenya can't do more with what it has. One way to implement a form of universal health care might be to combine an increased stream of tax revenue with a redirection of resources toward public health and prevention rather than palliative care. Another possibility might be to provide free or low-cost medical training in return for a commitment to practice in rural or poor urban areas at a government salary. Alternatively, Kenya could implement a two- tier licensing system in which large numbers of people can be trained to provide basic care and advice, and to practice within certain limitations, without undergoing a full course of medical education. Full-scale socialized medicine may not be possible in Kenya at the moment, but it may at least be feasible to provide the population with at least some access to basic health services and preventive knowledge.

Amazing Grace

Claire Donnelly profiles Zimbabwe's First Shopper.

Controversial congress

Namibia's ruling party, SWAPO, has begun a two-day congress in which it will resolve a close race between three contenders for nomination in the November 2004 presidential election. Given the fragmented opposition and SWAPO's continuing dominance of Namibian politics, the winner will in all likelihood be the successor to Namibia's founding president, Sam Nujoma, who is stepping down after three terms.

The contest pits former Foreign Minister Hidipo Hamutenya and Higher Education Minister Nahas Angula against Nujoma's favored candidate, party vice-president Hifikepunye Pohamba. The succession process has not been without controversy, however, as Nujoma abruptly fired Hamutenya last week from his ministerial post. Although Nujoma gave no reason for sacking Hamutenya, it was widely rumored that he did so to improve Pohamba's chances, and the act drew condemnation from Namibia's leading newspaper:

It is within the President's mandate to [dismiss a minister]; and-or to discipline cadres for alleged unparty-like activities. However, the timing and manner in which he this week chose to do this to a Minister who is one of three presidential candidates contesting the Swapo nomination in the already highly-charged atmosphere of the Swapo extraordinary congress this weekend, throws into question his motives:whether there really is substance to the move, or whether he just wanted to take out a man he sees as a threat to his favoured successor. It also creates the impression that the President is prepared to go all out to get his way at any cost.

This, along with Swapo HQ's interference in the Ongwediva post-election process, does not bode well for democracy. Swapo overturned the choice of the voters at Ongwediva by preventing newly elected councillors from being sworn in and replacing them with their own handpicked people. That is cheating the people [...]

On top of this, during the last fortnight, the President has resorted to innuendo, insinuation and outright insults in attacking those he perceives as not bowing to his will. At such a delicate time in our country's history - a time which should be characterised by good judgement and sensitive leadership while we make the transition from one President to another - the Head of State cannot afford to go on unbridled tirades against individuals, such as opposition leader Ben Ulenga.

In his 15 years in office, Nujoma has done quite a few things right. Namibia has a growing economy, a free press, a working judicial system and a decent if flawed human rights record. The Namibian government has also handled land reform issues much better than in Zimbabwe: targeting unproductive and abusive farms, proceeding via compulsory sale rather than chaotic farm invasions, and working with the commercial farmers' union to identify target farms. Indeed, Nujoma's decision to stand down after three terms rather than clinging to power at all costs shows his genuine concern for the interests of his country.

On the other hand, Nujoma is prone to Mugabe-style rants and has disturbing autocratic tendencies, and his attempt to manipulate the SWAPO congress might taint the presidential succession. The last service a revolutionary leader can do for his country is to step down gracefully, and Nujoma hasn't quite managed.

UPDATE: Pohamba has been chosen on the second ballot, which means that concerns about the way he was selected might dog the presidency throughout his first term.

Uncertain measure

The parties to the Darfur conflict have signed an agreement providing for African Union monitoring of a ceasefire. The text of the agreement creates a ceasefire commission that will include representatives of the AU, the European Union, Chad, Sudan and two rebel factions, and will have a mandate to monitor compliance with the ceasefire and investigate violations. The commission will be accompanied by an African Union monitoring team and a 270-member military observer force that "may be lightly armed."

This agreement brings the parties no closer to a political solution, and provides no real control over their activities; the mandate of the CFC is to monitor rather than enforce the ceasefire. It doesn't seem that the CFC could even conduct effective monitoring; such a small force will have difficulty covering the entire province of Darfur, and it is unlikely that ceasefire violations could be investigated quickly enough for the commission to request timely corrective measures or sanctions. The AU is obviously gambling that the mere presence of an international observer commission will have a calming effect - a gamble which, given the history of the conflict and the often-loose control that the parties have over their affiliated forces, may not pay off.

Held for ransom

Several hundred army reservists are reportedly holding Madagascar's parliament hostage in an effort to win compensation for backing President Marc Ravalomanana after a disputed 2001 election that left the country divided for six months. It's not immediately clear whether this is a straightforward extortion attempt or a coup in the making, nor has the regular army yet made its intentions known.

UPDATE: False alarm; the reservists have apparently gone home after making their point. No word on whether there will be reprisals or action on their demands.

Airline clash

The failure of Tonga's national airline has reignited the conflict between Tonga's democracy movement and the royal family, with seven of the nine elected MPs calling on Prince Ulukalala Lavaka Ata to resign as Prime Minister. Prince Lavaka was the chairman of the airline's board prior to its collapse, and the MPs are arguing that his resignation is needed to restore some semblance of accountability to the kingdom's finances. The elected MPs, however, are heavily outnumbered by the nobles and royally appointed ministers who hold 21 of 30 seats in Parliament, and as in the past, their opposition is unlikely to be effective.

The first Jews in London

The long-awaited update to the Old Bailey Online archive is now online, including more than 8000 previously undigitized trials from 1674 to 1714. The update takes the online archive back to the earliest days of modern Jewish Britain, with records beginning only 18 years after Jews were readmitted to England on the petition of Sephardic rabbi Menasseh ben Israel.

During this period, the Jewish community of London was very small, numbering perhaps 400 in 1690 and rising to two or three thousand by 1715. Nevertheless, Jews begin appearing in the Old Bailey records very early on, with the first one appearing as a victim of theft in 1679:

A Young woman was prosecuted by, one she had formerly lived with, for stealing a Gold-Ring set with a Ruby, value 14 l. a Silver Plate, and some other things. The Prosecutor and his Witnesses were Jews, and so were sworn on the Pentateuch; the things were taken on the Prisoner, who to excuse her self from being a Thief, acknowledged her self to be a Whore, and told a scandalous story, that the things were privately given her upon a Debauch, &c.; Which not being regardable, she was found Guilty.

Neither the perpetrator nor her victim is named in this trial, but the other names appearing in the early records show that the community was primarily Sephardic. The most common source of Jewish immigration at this point was the Netherlands, but by 1700, Jews from other countries were beginning to settle in London. One Joseph Portall, from the Spanish-held city of Ceuta in Morocco, suffered a tragic fate when he was kidnapped by John Smith and sold into indentured servitude in Maryland:

The Evidence for the King, on the First Indictment, proved very fully, that the said Portall who came from Ceuta in Africa, to see his Friends in England, and had been here but Two Days, was enticed off from the Exchange to an Office by St. Mary-hill, and there bound to serve Smith the Prisoner, and that from that time he was sent on Board, and seen in England no more.

The same Smith "had lately bound several Hundreds of young People at the said Office, who are all sent for Slaves as aforesaid." No doubt Portall, who was newly arrived in London and didn't speak the language, was easy prey for a wily slaver like Smith.

In other decisions, we see the 18th-century Jewish community of London starting to take shape. By 1682, the Old Bailey records mention Jews living in Aldgate ward, which would the center of Jewish London in the succeeding century. A theft trial in 1713 is the first to mention a "Jewish Synagogue" in Berry Street, St. James. Jews were also beginning to assimilate; one of the more interesting aspects of the 1684 bigamy trial of Diego de la Sarda was that neither of his wives, Joan Kellam and Priscilla Dodd, were Jewish. London during the 17th and 18th centuries was in many ways the first modern Jewish community, and it began facing modern issues very early in its history.

Pitcairn paper

The Pitcairn Miscellany, which has been publishing in print form since 1959, is now online. The web site is for subscribers only at the rate of $10 per year.

UPDATE: I've taken out a subscription, and the Miscellany is basically a school paper - it's a four-page monthly sheet edited by the teacher with most of the articles written by students. If you're looking for serious articles about the sex crimes prosecution, the nature of British rule and the future of the island, you won't find them in the Miscellany, but it's the place to go for anecdotes about island life and mutineer history.

Mixed signals

The Sudanese government and the SPLA have signed three protocols resolving the remaining disputed issues with respect to the country's six-year transition period:

The protocols outlined the formation of a decentralised government of national unity, and devolution of power to Sudan's individual states, Kenyan Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka said during the ceremony. The south would have its own government constitution, which would conform with the interim national constitution, he added.

[SPLA leader John] Garang will be the first vice-president of the government of national unity, and president of the government of southern Sudan.

Administrations for the contested Nuba mountains and southern Blue Nile have also been agreed upon, while Abyei will be administered by the institution of the national unity presidency for the interim period and then allowed to hold a referendum on secession.

Even as the south moves closer to peace, however, atrocities are continuing in Darfur, where a 45-day cease-fire has expired and there are few signs of a political settlement on the horizon.

Reflection on royalty

Sometimes monarchy can be really, really embarrassing.

The pyramids of PNG

Papua New Guinea is increasingly at risk from Ponzi schemes, which are flourishing due to the combination of widespread poverty and an economically unsophisticated population. While these schemes have not yet reached the level of the massive fraud that wrecked Albania's economy in 1997, they are reportedly growing, and PNG's poor infrastructure makes it possible for perpetrators to commit repeat scams:

The most notorious of recent years was U-Vistract, which promised fabulous wealth to the many thousands who invested in it. Some of the contributors, usually high profile Papua New Guineans, received their payouts. But most didn't, and were still waiting for their money when the central bank stepped in and closed down the scheme.

U-Vistract's promoter, Noah Musingku, is still on the run, facing arrest warrants in PNG and Solomon Islands. He's now said to be in Bougainville, in the company of reclusive secessionist Francis Ona, and reportedly making more claims about big payouts.

The governor of Bougainville, John Morris, told our reporter, Caroline Tiriman, that Mr Musingku is misleading a lot of people on the island. "I guess it is convenient for him to hide in the mountains of Panguna and continue to mislead those who are gullible," Mr Morris says.

Economist Utpal Bhattacharya of the World Bank has argued that transition economies are particularly vulnerable to Ponzi schemes, pointing to the large-scale frauds that occurred in post-Communist Russia and Romania as well as Albania. Although Papua New Guinea is not a post-Communist country, it is also in transition from subsistence agriculture and fishing to a modern urban economy, and its people are still adapting to new economic conditions. Such circumstances have facilitated Ponzi schemes in the past, particularly where - as in Haiti in 2002 - prominent citizens and political leaders are induced to participate. Although the PNG government has begun to take measures to combat fraud, "in an environment where economic challenge is a daily reality, most expect the promise of a quick and fantastic return will continue to attract many."

Stalemate

The fallout from the disputed Malawi election is continuing to spread with the largest opposition party, the Malawi Congress Party, joining a coalition of other parties in mounting a legal challenge to the results. The candidate of the ruling United Democratic Front was declared the winner with 35 percent of the vote as against 27 percent for his closest challenger, but the opposition's court petition cites widespread irregularities in voter registration and counting.

The opposition of the MCP - which was the party of former dictator Hastings Kamuzu Banda and whose leader was Kamuzu's right-hand man - could make life difficult for the UDF even if its court challenge fails. The election made the MCP the largest party in parliament with 59 of 193 seats, as against 49 for the UDF; its relations with the other opposition parties have been uneasy, but if they form a united front, they can deny parliamentary backing to the president. The threat of such a deadlock may be what leads to a negotiated resolution of the election dispute.

Send lawyers, guns and money

Somali warlord Hussein Mohammed Aidid has fallen a long way - all the way to debtors' prison in Kenya. The American-educated faction leader was freed today upon intervention of the Kenyan government, which was afraid that his followers might retaliate against Kenyan targets.