This website needs some repairs! Photography temporarily unavailable, but should be back up soon.

Villages in Action is happening this weekend in Kikuube, Uganda. This unique conference is in response to the Millenium Development Goal summit in 2010 where world leaders and experts came together to discuss the plight of the poor – but forgot, yet again!, to include them. Villages in Action brings this community front and center as activists, facilitators and organizers.

Personally, I was quite struck by a series of Twitter Q&As on @tmsruge’s handle. A number of young girls from the Kikuube community were given access to the Internet and had the change to ask questions to other young women around the world. Their concerns and curiosity – from both the girls in Uganda and those responding in other areas of the world – are touchingly similar: innocent questions from a young woman in rural Uganda to another in D.C. I’m hoping they will be published on the Villages in Action website later so you can read them as a whole.

During my final day in Entebbe, the girls running the hotel we stayed at grouped around me for a chat (travelling with a partner has been interesting. The moment I’m alone, I suddenly get approached in large numbers). The young woman, who had just finished her business degree at Makerere and was managing the hotel, was asking me about school and life in Canada. You will generally hear Ugandans saying that it must be ‘easy’ and everything is ‘free’ for foreigners. Perhaps the copious amount of tourists and NGO workers that roam the country with all kinds of gadgets (of which I’m guilty) and purchasing power create this impression.

However, it’s hard to explain to someone that nothing is ‘free’ in Canada and that a tremendous amount of work goes into making ends meet. Or that most of the disposable income I have is borrowed, and I do not have the means (yet) to pay it back. Or that I actually hold down one or two jobs during the school year to help meet my basic expenses and mitigate growing debt (this she seemed impressed by). I don’t think the girl at the hotel was convinced by the rest though.

My partner later commented that he wanted to bring some of his Ugandan family to the US to show them how much time he spends working in order to provide them with extra support and what the cost of living in a city like D.C. is. This reminded me, once again, how mobility is important to economic development and changing mentalities.

For example, a Ugandan friend of mine just returned from working in the US. She went there to help set up micro lending programs for poor American women. What a role reversal! It was fantastic hearing her speak about what it was like to be there. The organization dropped them off in their respective cities, gave them some cash and told them to work out everything from transit to finding a place to live and how to navigate a demanding 9am-8pm job.

These are challenges even for persons used to American-style transit systems or the difficult rental market. She was also impressed by the work ethic and kept mentioning how much people work in the United States compared to Uganda. This, she felt, was something that needed to change in her country if the situation is to improve. She also noted how she was permitted to question and challenge her boss, something she would not have done in a Ugandan organization. Finally, she noticed that the ‘poor’s’ mentality was similar to what she had seen in Uganda. The women she worked with were hesitant to work hard, preferring to rely on welfare checks. She’s had similar challenges trying to motivate members of Women of Kireka to start thinking for themselves and how they want to foster an income stream.

Heading back to weather fluctuating between -5 and -17 celcius and countless pages of readings and essays to write in just under 48 hours. I’ve lost track of the amount of times I’ve entered and exited Uganda. However, this – albeit brief – trip has been unique. Christmas celebrations in a small village near Masindi. Just a dusty road lined with a few shops; not marked on the national map. Welcomed into a home for meals of matoke, posho and beans cooked over the kitchen-courtyard fire. Greeted by the wider community not as a foreign NGO worker but – perhaps – more as part of the community itself. Refusing to take boda-bodas after an accident a few years ago, I mastered the matatu system far better than times before. The stubborn heat, sweat and noise of Kampala for a week. The debauchery of the Ugandan middle class over New Year’s weekend – from never ending parties on the shores of Bugala Island in Lake Victoria to iPads and glasses of wine in Entebbe’s beach bars. The middle class is growing, the country is getting richer and – at least since 2007 – there seem to be some improvements. Yet, the same frustrations of fluctuating power, difficult access to water and a failing health care system remains. Will 2012 bring any changes?

A boat carcass dressing Hornbill Camp’s beach. Bugala Island.

The sun setting over Lake Victoria.

Uganda’s ‘middle class’ enjoying food, wine and a swim in Lake Victoria on New Year’s Day.

In response to Jina’s inquiry about how one’s Christmas on the continent was spent, I thought I’d share a few words.

This year, I spent my first Christmas in Kikuube, Uganda. Kikuube is a small village located about 20 miles from Masindi, the closest town, and about five hours from the capital city, Kampala. My partner’s family has small house just outside the village surrounded by fields of matoke, potatoes, maize and groundnuts. About 1/3 of the family comes home from Christmas with about seven to fifteen children, parents and visitors hanging out at the compound.

The days leading up to Christmas were spent drinking countless cups of lemongrass tea and eating many, many meals of papaya, boiled ground nuts, posho, matoke, irish potatoes and steamed cabbage – all freshly picked from the garden. The days turned around a strict routine beginning with a long run past sugar cane fields and breathtaking views of blue-green mountains, followed by breakfast, lunch and dinner separated only by long naps in the shade and the occasional walk into the village center or to the garden to harvest groundnuts. Dinner was cooked over a bonfire in the kitchen/fire pit with the family gathering to talk, tell stories and drink tea.

Christmas Day itself had the same feeling of ‘busyness’ that I recognize from home. There is a massive meal to prepare: boiled meats, matoke, rice, millet, stewed vegetables. The girls and women are working over the fire in the kitchen as the sun rises, sweeping and tidying the house. The boys wash dishes and run errands. At around 11 am, everyone puts on their best clothing and heads to the church. A one room building made from mud and bricks at the edge of a large, overgrown field. The church houses 30-40 people. Sunday school children are sitting on a mat in their best suits and frilliest dresses. The women are wearing traditional clothing – all kinds of shiny silk and organza – or elaborate dresses with lace and flower prints and the men in smart shirts and suits. Toddlers wearing three piece suits drag their pant legs and sleeves over the red dirt.

The church service starts with an hour of singing, dancing, clapping and beating on drums. Individuals then stand up and say a few words about their health, their wishes for the coming year, and so on. Visitors from other churches or from outside the community introduce themselves. This is followed by a two-hour long sermon. The sermon was done in English (for our benefit, which was beyond considerate) with seamless translation into the local dialect. After more dancing and singing, donations are made and the service ends. People head to their respective homes and we move back to the house, gather on mats placed in the shade of trees and serve ourselves from massive pots of matoke, meats, rice.

After a long nap, we head to the village center. The whole village is out in their best dress and sprawled on chairs, mats, and benches. Children come by with their new presents: shiny bikes tangled with streamers and gift-wrapping. Others sip on syrupy sweet Mirindas and Pepsis. A woman with a baby tied to her back dances with a grandmother. The village drunk stumbles by. I’m sat on a bench and plied with gifts of Mirinda, groundnuts and sim-sim balls. The Christmas festivities continue long after sundown with a big dance behind one of the village shops. Massive boom boxes powered by a mix of generator and solar-power. When I run by in the morning around 6:30 am, the music has just ended and people are still hanging around drinking beers or slowly making their way home.

Overall, Christmas is a day of rest, reunion, and leisure for most – from rural farmers, to small shop owners, to the wealthy. From one continent to another, whether under sun or snow, that atmosphere of temporary rest after a long year remains unchanged.

An interesting article on the Public Order Bill in Uganda. The theme – the use of legislation to crackdown on government critics and to exercise greater control over people’s rights to assemble and protest – is familiar. While working in Cambodia over the summer, I analyzed and studied the Cambodian Peaceful Assembly bill, passed in 2009, which has similar provisions (see pages 10-11 of this report & an article I wrote a few months ago). In particular, the establishment of procedures is susceptible to abuse.

Mpagi, writing in the Ugandan Monitor:

According to the explanatory memorandum for the Bill, it among others “seeks to manage public order” and to “specify the procedure to be followed when organising an assembly, a procession or demonstration as well as the penalties and sanctions to be imposed upon those found to breach the proposed law.”

Mr Solomon Webaalearaali, a human rights lawyer with Street Law Uganda, says that alone means that government is seeking to take away what ideally is the essence of demonstration as a means of expressing dissatisfaction in a democratic society.

“Public demonstration has an element of spontaneity, but this law will seek to establish procedures like applying for permission to demonstrate and if you are denied by the police then you go through an appeal process and then a court process; that takes away the purpose of demonstration, imagine people wanted to demonstrate because they took a mother to deliver in Mubende and she was not attended to and she died, do they have to wait and go through all those processes?”

Of course, the rule by law issue is at the heart of the debate. Is the government using new legislation to consolidate its power in the face of protests while placing itself above the law?

Critics of the Bill say these provisions effectively take away any automatic right for people to assemble and questions government actions or inactions. Those jittery about the Bill in its current form say they are concerned that government is increasingly resorting to rule by law rather than rule of law. They argue that the spirit of the new law is a panicky reaction to increasing public pressure on government expressed through demonstrations especially over the last six years.

I just published an article which is basically an abstract of the major essay I wrote on ‘repressive legislation’ in Cambodia as a conclusion to the internship. You can view the original here and an abstract below:

In late July the Cambodian government released a third draft of its highly contentious Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO Law). A number of provisions in the law have the potential to impair the activities of human rights and civil society actors in the country.

The draft law, in a likely violation of freedom of expression which is protected both in the Cambodian Constitution and the ratified International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), makes it mandatory that any group of Cambodians (including clubs and networks) operating as a non profit in Cambodia register with the government. These bodies also have to fulfill a number of complex and technical registration requirements. If they fail to do so, the government has a ‘legitimate’ excuse to prevent them from operating. The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO), a human rights organization operating across Cambodia, dubs this approach the “tyranny of the technicality” and believes it is likely that the government will use this power to shut down entities advocating for human rights or reporting on government corruption.

For ‘informal networks’ or loosely associated groups of individuals like farmers and taxi drivers, who do not have the means to open bank accounts or have formal office addresses, these requirements could severely impair their ability to register. It may force a majority of them to operate illegally, rendering them even more vulnerable. These networks are key partners in the development process, providing first-hand information on the situation of at-risk groups in the country and assisting international donors who continue to fund about half of the Cambodian government’s budget.

While these concerns may seem speculative, there have already been a number of recent situations foreshadowing what is to come. For example, the Ministry of Interior, without any clear justification, arbitrarily closed an NGO called Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT). A few weeks before, the NGO had published a report finding that the compensation offered by the government to households affected by a government railway project and slated for resettlement was too low.

LICADHO’s director, Naly Pilorge, perhaps best summarized the overall effect of the NGO Law were it to pass: “Everything that would happen to informal networks under the draft law is already happening now [like STT being shut down]. If the law passes, it legalizes these restrictions.”

Repression through new laws

Activists believe the NGO Law is representative of a larger trend by the Cambodian government to use ‘repressive’ legislation to impair freedom of expression and assembly.

During his recent unofficial visit to the country, Frank La Rue, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion, dubbed this emerging Cambodian style of governance a “legal dictatorship.” Surya Subedi, the current UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, has called it a “legal offensive.”

Along with the NGO Law, the new Penal Code and the Law on Peaceful Assembly also facilitate this trend of repression through the courts in Cambodia.

Commenting on the Penal Code, the Cambodian Minister of Information, Khieu Kanharith, said: “Before, using the argument of ‘freedom of expression’ and opposition party status, some people could insult anybody or any institution. This is not the case now.”

Human rights bodies in Cambodia are particularly concerned by the possibility that Penal Code provisions like incitement to commit a felony and defamation will be indiscriminately used to silence activists in the same way the crime of disinformation under the former UNTAC Criminal Code was applied.

Two recent cases justify this concern:

A LICADHO staff member was charged with incitement during his appeal hearing in July. Originally charged with disinformation for distributing anti-Vietnamese pamphlets, the judge not only violated international fair trial standards, but also clearly affirmed that the court believes that this type of political leafleting can actually constitute an act to cause unrest in Cambodia or ‘incitement.’

A second case is that of Seng Kunnaka. In December 2010, Kunnaka, an employee of the World Food Program, was convicted on a charge of criminal incitement under the new Penal Code for printing and sharing material from KI-Media, an online blog that aggregates information critical of the government. He was sentenced to six months in jail and a $243 fine.

The third ‘repressive law’, the Law on Peaceful Assembly, is primarily giving the authorities a means to isolate and neutralize protests. The law provides for the creation of “Freedom Parks” across Cambodia. These parks are assigned zones for peaceful protests of up to 200 people. They are typically isolated from heavily trafficked areas. Authorities use the existence of these parks as an excuse to disperse peaceful assemblies not happening within their confines.

[Continued]

In October at the McGill Faculty of Law:

Radha D’Souza on “Imperial Agendas, Global Solidarities and Third World Socio-legal Scholarship: Methodological Reflections.”

 | October 3, 12.30 -2.00 PM, Room 202, New Chancellor Day Hall.

Azim Hussain on “Fraternity and the Debate regarding the Face-Veil: France, Belgium, and Quebec in Comparative Perspective | October 19 in room 316, New Chancellor Day Hall, McGill Faculty of Law, between 12.30-2.00 PM.

Summer is coming to an end: I will be flying out of Phnom Penh on Monday, Hadijah, Women of Kireka‘s Kampala based business consultant, has started a new fellowship program in the United States, and Women of Kireka’s wonderful intern, Katie Gleason, is heading back to Harvard. Katie has posted a lovely set of photos from the summer on our website and Facebook. Despite all these departures, we’re expecting a busy fall: our partnership with Touch Jewelry is leading to some beautiful new mixed paper bead designs, Women of Kireka’s new intern and recent Yale graduate, Stacey Diaz, will be joining us in September, and I will be hosting a small Women of Kireka event in Montreal in a few weeks.