|
back to top
Gay marriages plan unveiled in the UK
By Matthew Tempest and agencies
June 30— Britain today took the first step towards continental-style
same-sex marriages, with the publication of proposals for “civil
partnerships” for lesbian and gay couples.
Following years of lobbying for equal status with heterosexual couples
from Stonewall and other gay rights groups, the government has initiated
a three-month consultation on how to give same-sex couples next-of-kin,
inheritance and pension rights.
But the Department of Trade and Industry, which is overseeing the white
paper, admitted there was no parliamentary timetable for enacting legislation
— and that giving homosexual partners pension rights could take until
2010.
The proposals, welcomed by most human rights campaigners, were attacked,
however, by Peter Tatchell, the prominent gay rights campaigner, for not
allowing heterosexual couples to take up the new civil partnerships.
But a DTI spokeswoman countered: “Opposite sex couples have options
available to them - religious or civil ceremonies — that same sex
couples do not.”
The equality minister, Jacqui Smith, said: “There are thousands of
couples across the country living together in stable, committed, same-sex
relationships who have no legal opportunity, unlike heterosexual couples
through marriage, to have their relationships recognized by the law.
“We think that’s unfair, it doesn’t promote the sort of
stable and long-term relationships that we want to see and that’s
where we’ll be putting it right through the publication of this consultation
document today and taking forward action on it,” she told BBC Radio
4’s Today program.
Gay couples would not have to live together for a certain length of time,
Smith said. If the relationship broke up it would go through a dissolution
process, she added. Tatchell said the legislation should be broadened
to cover all relationships of “care and support,” not just sexual
partnerships. “Legislation to remedy the lack of legal rights for
unmarried partners is long overdue,” he said.
“It is a pity the government has opted for an unimaginative, watered-down
version of marriage, instead of having the foresight to devise an entirely
new, modern legal framework for partnership recognition, covering gays
and heterosexuals, and lovers and close friends.”
At the launch, Stonewall’s Ben Summerskill said: “We are delighted
as we have campaigned very hard to secure these changes in the law.
“We are dealing at the moment with a woman who has cancer and when
she dies her partner and child will lose the family home to inheritance
tax.
“That is a profoundly unfair position for people who have been together
for more than a decade.”
The mooted proposals are: joint state pension benefits, ability to gain
parental responsibility for each other’s children, obligation to
maintain each other financially, right to register the death of a partner,
right to claim a survivor pension, eligibility for bereavement benefits,
compensation for fatal accidents or criminal injuries, recognition under
inheritance and intestacy rules, tenancy succession rights.
Although any legislation would only cover England and Wales, if enacted
it would follow in the footsteps of nine European countries which already
give legal rights to same-sex couples. They are the Netherlands, Denmark,
Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Portugal, France, Germany, and Spain.
It would now be up to the Scottish parliament to enact its own legislation
for homosexual couples, while “no decision has yet been taken”
on whether to extend the civil partnership to Northern Ireland, although
the DTI insists that any couple having a civil partnership moving to the
province would have their legal rights respected.
The document published by ministers today predicted that up to a third
of lesbians and gays would take part in civil registration by 2050.
In the highest projection, the proportion of gay marriages would be the
same as the proportion of marriages between heterosexuals, it added. In
the lowest take-up projections, gay marriages could be just 3.3%, or a
10th of the heterosexual marriage rate, it said.
The new civil partnership would be available to couples aged over 16,
although 16- and 17-year-olds would have to obtain written consent from
a parent or guardian.
There would also be limitations mirroring the incest laws in heterosexual
marriage, so that same-sex civil partnerships would be prohibited between
blood or half-blood relations, adopted relatives, and in other circumstances
such as relationships arising from former marriages.
The government proposes to introduce new offences of perjury to reflect
the illegality of bigamy in heterosexual marriages. London mayor Ken Livingstone
has already sanctioned “gay wedding” ceremonies at the GLA headquarters,
but the events are largely symbolic.
Source: Guardian (UK)
back to top
Europe united in disgust as Berlusconi
takes EU throne amid Green protests
By Peter Popham
Venice, Italy, June 30— Europe gets its first taste of being ruled
by an Italian billionaire media magnate, as Italy assumes the European
Union’s rotating presidency for the next six months, with Silvio
Berlusconi at its head.
A shiver of dire anticipation ran through the continent at the weekend,
with French, German, Spanish, and British newspapers expressing foreboding.
The German newspaper Die Zeit, referring to the new immunity law which
the Italian Prime Minister extracted himself from a trial for bribing
judges that was close to reaching a verdict, commented, “Berlusconi
is putting himself above the law.”
The paper argued that Europe should take developments in Italy as seriously
as it did the election of the neo-fascist leader Jorg Haider in Austria
three years ago, which prompted the EU to impose sanctions.
Der Spiegel, the German news weekly, labels Berlusconi “The Godfather”
on the cover of its latest issue, and comments, “at home he dismantles
justice, subjugates television, has laws tailored to his needs. And now
... he will represent Europe.”
When Berlusconi addresses the European Parliament on July 4, the Greens
have promised to greet him with a banner reading “The Law is Equal
to All” —the motto that decorates every Italian courtroom. In
his latest appearance in court, Berlusconi said that, because he was elected
by the majority, he was “a little bit more equal.”
Beside making himself heard above the howls of protest, the European Union’s
new president must also learn how to work amicably with Romano Prodi,
the president of the European Commission. Prodi, a left-wing former professor
of economics, is the only Italian who has proved he can beat Berlusconi
at the polls (in 1996, when Prodi became Prime Minister).
The styles of the two men could not be more different. “That nice
cyclist” Berlusconi once remarked sneeringly of Prodi (who used to
bike to work) while Prodi has noted that “compared to Berlusconi,
Goebbels was just a kid.” Italy’s biggest challenge during the
presidency will be forging agreement on the new EU constitution, which
it hopes will be ratified at a ceremony in Rome next May. The new statutory
framework envisages a longer-term presidency and an EU foreign minister,
as well as expanded majority voting.
Berlusconi is said to be keen on inserting a reference to Christianity
—though he also wants to throw open the EU to non-Christian countries,
including Turkey and Israel.
Italy faces the challenge of making Europe play its part beside the US,
Russia, and the UN in promoting the Middle East road-map. Berlusconi has
invited Abu Mazen, the Palestinian Prime Minister, to Rome next month,
hoping thereby to assure Europe that his government does not have a pro-Israeli
tilt.
Illegal immigration has become a hot potato with the arrival of thousands
of migrants by sea this month, and with threats of rebellion by his cantankerous
coalition colleague, Umberto Bossi. Italy is pressing Libya, where most
of the sea trips originate, to do more to patrol its coast line, and the
EU to lift its arms embargo so Libya can buy the patrol vessels it says
it needs to do the job.
Source: Independent (UK)
back to top
US intelligence meets with Taliban
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Karachi, Pakistan, June 13— Such is the deteriorating security situation
in Afghanistan, compounded by the return to the country of a large number
of former Afghan communist refugees, that United States and Pakistani
intelligence officials have met with Taliban leaders in an effort to devise
a political solution to prevent the country from being further ripped
apart.
According to a Pakistani jihadi leader who played a role in setting up
the communication, the meeting took place recently between representatives
of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the US Federal Bureau
of Investigation, and Taliban leaders at the Pakistan Air Force base of
Samungli, near Quetta.
The source told Asia Times Online that four conditions were put to the
Taliban before any form of reconciliation can take place that could potentially
lead to them having a role in the Kabul government, whose present authority
is in essence limited to the capital:
• Mullah Omar must be removed as supreme leader of the Taliban.
• All Pakistani, Arab and other foreign fighters currently engaged
in operations against international troops in Afghanistan must be thrown
out of the country.
• Any US or allied soldiers held captive must be released.
• Afghans currently living abroad, notably in the United States and
England, must be given a part in the government — through being allowed
to contest elections - even though many do not even speak their mother
tongue, such as Dari or Pashtu.
Apparently, the Taliban refused the first condition point blank, but
showed some flexibility on the other terms. As such, this first preliminary
contact made little headway. It is not known whether there will be further
meetings, but given the fact that the reason for staging the talks in
the first place remains unchanged, more contact can be expected.
The channels for the contact have been set up by Taliban who defected
when the government collapsed in Kabul, and fled to Pakistan, where they
were sheltered in ISI safe houses. Now these defectors, working with Pakistani
jihadis who know how to approach the Taliban leadership, are acting as
go-betweens.
The backdrop to the first meeting is an ever-increasing escalation in
the guerrilla war being waged against foreign troops in Afghanistan. Small
hit-and-run attacks are a daily feature in most parts of the country,
while face-to-face skirmishes are common in the former Taliban stronghold
around Kandahar in the south.
According to people familiar with Afghan resistance movements, the one
that has emerged over the past year and a half since the fall of the Taliban
is about four times as strong as the movement that opposed Soviet invaders
for nearly a decade starting in 1979.
The key reason for this is that the previous Taliban government —
which is dispersed almost intact in the country after capitulating to
advancing Northern Alliance forces without a fight — is backed by
the most powerful force in Afghanistan: clerics and religious students.
For centuries, these people were the most respected segment of Afghan
society, and before 1979 they never participated in politics. On the contrary,
their role was one of reconciliation in conflicts. During the Afghan resistance
movement against the USSR, things changed, and clerics threw their weight
behind the mujahideen struggle, but, with a few exceptions, such as Maulana
Yunus Khalis, they were not in command.
With the withdrawal of the Soviets and the emergence of the Taliban in
the early 1990s, though, the situation once again changed. The Taliban,
taking advantage of the power struggles among bitterly divided militias
in Kabul, consolidated themselves into an effective political movement
led by clerics and in 1996 seized power in Kabul. A part of their success
also lay in the fact that initially Afghans, especially Pashtuns who make
up the majority of the country, were reluctant to take up the gun against
clerics.
Now, in the renewed guerrilla war against foreign troops, it is the clerics
who are calling the shots. For instance, Hafiz Rahim is the most respected
cleric in the Kandahar region, and he commands all military operations
from the sanctuary of the mountainous terrain.
The US forces have employed maximum air support and advanced technology
in an attempt to curtail attacks, but without the help of local Afghan
forces they are unable to track down Hafiz Rahim, who to date has targeted
US convoys scores of times. The United States has admitted a few deaths,
while the Taliban claim they have killed many more than the official numbers
state. For funds, the Taliban use money looted from the central bank before
they abandoned Kabul, estimated in excess of $110 million, in addition
to money received from Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida.
At the same time, famed warlord Gulbbudin Hekmatyar has joined the resistance
after returning from exile in Iran. His Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA)
is the most organized force in Afghanistan, and its participation has
added real muscle to the resistance. Many top slots in the Kabul administration
are occupied by former HIA members who, although they were once anti-Taliban,
are loyal to the Islamic cause and anti-US. Also, several provincial governors
and top officials are former HIA commanders. They are suspect in the eyes
of the Americans, but because of their huge political clout it is impossible
to remove them.
With this groundswell of support — even if in places it is only passive
— and with Kabul’s influence restricted to the capital, the
Americans and their allies will remain vulnerable targets, let alone be
in a position to restore any form of law and order. It is in situations
like this, argue most experts on Afghanistan, that traditionally insurrections
begin in the Afghan army against foreign administrators.
This is not the end of the problems. More than 2 million Afghan refugees,
according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, have returned
to Afghanistan from countries all over the world, including India, Russia,
Cambodia, Malaysia, Zimbabwe and Central Asian countries. Many of them
belonged to communist factions during and after the Soviet invasion, while
a number of their counterparts remained and now hold positions in Kabul.
At present, Kabul is divided into two main factions. The first is pro-US,
which is represented by the US and allied troops and those loyal to President
Hamid Karzai. The second is pro-Russian and pro-Iranian, represented by
Defense Minister General Qasim Fahim and his Northern Alliance forces.
Although the camps are cooperating at present, they are silently building
their support bases to make a grab for full power once the present interim
administration runs its course, a process that is due to begin in October
with a loya jirga (grand council).
In this respect, every returned or returning former “communist comrade”
is important, for should the Northern Alliance faction develop sufficient
critical mass, it would come as no surprise if its leaders openly forged
an alliance with the resistance movement.
Source: Asia Times
back to top
US ready to intervene in Liberian conflict
By Adrian Blomfield
Accra, Ghana, June 30— The United States appears to be on the brink
of sending troops to end the brutal civil war in Liberia.
Officials in Washington met round the clock over the weekend to plan a
possible armed response - its first mission to Africa since the disastrous
intervention in Somalia almost a decade ago.
A statement is expected within the next few days, possibly as early as
this evening.
President George W Bush has come under pressure from Britain and France
to lead an emergency combat force to the Liberian capital, Monrovia, where
at least 700 people were killed when rebels attacked a fortnight ago.
It is understood that the State Department and Pentagon are keen for action
but have met opposition from the White House. Bush has called on Liberian
President Charles Taylor, indicted for war crimes by a United Nations
court earlier this month, to step down.
Taylor has welcomed a United States-led intervention, not just to end
14 years of near-constant civil war in his country, but perhaps believing
it could allow him to cling to power.
“I think the US ought to come now, using my strength, my popularity
and my legitimacy and work to bring peace in Liberia,” Taylor said.
The rebels, who called a ceasefire on Friday, say the president must step
down within 30 days to pave the way for a transitional government. Taylor
has refused to surrender power until his term expires in January.
Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, has asked the UN Security Council
to approve a military mission to enforce the truce. A delegation from
the council flew into nearby Ghana yesterday.
While the details of exactly what role the Americans would play in such
a force remain unclear, Washington’s choice appears to stark: command
the mission, or do not get involved at all.
Britain, which recently led a similar mission in Sierra Leone on Liberia’s
northern border, and France, intervening in Ivory Coast’s civil war
to the south, clearly believe it is America’s turn to become involved
in West Africa.
Both countries have signaled they may be willing to provide military or
logistic aid.
Peace in Liberia is crucial for much of West Africa. Civil wars in Ivory
Coast, Sierra Leone and instability in Guinea are all offshoots of the
Liberian conflict fuelled by Taylor’s wider ambitions.
As he grapples with Africa, a continent he will visit for the first time
next month and which he has virtually ignored since coming to power, President
Bush will be keenly aware of President Bill Clinton’s doomed efforts
in Somalia in 1994.
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
back to top
Israeli controls choke Palestinian economy
By Peter Hirschberg
Jerusalem, June 28 (IPS)— Yusuf wakes up every morning at 3:30 am.
He sets out on foot from his West Bank village, taking care to avoid Israeli
army roadblocks, where he would be asked to produce a work permit he does
not possess. Ninety minutes later, he arrives at the Israeli community
where he works cleaning homes. At the end of the day, he makes the same
journey back.
Yusuf, 24, is one of a lucky few. He has work, unlike most Palestinians
living in the West Bank, where unemployment is now more than 50 percent.
And the 600 dollars or so he earns a month is a fortune in territories
where the poverty line is two dollars a day.
“I have an uncle who has five children and he hasn’t worked
for 18 months,” Yusuf says. “The economic situation is bad.
Things were better before the Intifada.”
That is a colossal understatement. In September 2000, before the uprising
began, some 128,000 Palestinians worked in Israel and in Jewish settlements
in the territories. By the end of last year, their number was down to
16,000. All the indicators point to a dramatic decline in the Palestinian
economy and in the standard of living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
over the 33 months of fighting.
A World Bank report, ‘Two Years of Intifada, Closures and Palestinian
Economic Crisis’ released in March says 60 percent of the more than
three million Palestinians in the territories are living below that two-dollar
poverty line. Exports are down by half, imports by a third, and gross
national income has fallen to nearly half of what it was when the fighting
started.
In 1999, the report says, investment stood at an estimated 1.5 billion
dollars; last year it was just 140 million dollars. Per capita food consumption
has dropped 30 percent.
The main reason for this astounding economic decline is the Israeli policy
of closure, which brings stringent restrictions on the movement of Palestinian
people and goods inside the territories, and between Israel and the territories.
Israel argues that the Palestinians have only themselves to blame and
that closure is a vital measure in stopping suicide bombers. The Palestinians
say that closure is collective punishment aimed at crushing their resistance
to occupation.
“Israel’s legitimate right to defend its citizens from attack
is unquestioned,” the World Bank report states. “The challenge
is to find ways of doing so without destroying the Palestinian economy
and the livelihoods of ordinary Palestinians.”
The myriad roadblocks the Israeli army has set up across the West Bank
— certain roads are also off limits to Palestinians - have devastated
Palestinian economic life. The journey from Yusuf’s village to the
Palestinian financial center Ramallah once took 20 minutes. Now, says
Yusuf, “it takes two and a half hours because of the roadblocks.”
A truck loaded with goods driving out of a West Bank city has to stop
at the edge of the city, offload its goods so that they can be inspected
by troops, and then reload everything back on another truck. Goods being
moved between Nablus in the north of the West Bank to Hebron in the south
would have to undergo this back-to-back loading process, as it is called,
no fewer than three times.
The manufacturing sector has contracted 35 percent in the last three years.
“Closure creates many uncertainties,” Nigel Roberts, director
of the West Bank and Gaza Program of the World Bank told IPS. “For
factories there’s the problem of movement to and from the workplace,
and the cost implications of all the interruptions. Fulfilling orders
on time also becomes extremely difficult and so you lose credibility with
your client.”
Sam Bahour, an Ohio-born Palestinian, has spent the last five years trying
to build what he calls “the first modern chain of supermarkets in
Palestine.”
Closure permitting, Bahour told IPS he finally hopes to open a new plaza
that will include a 2000-square-meter supermarket and a children’s
play area in Ramallah within a month. It has taken some doing. “During
construction,” he recalls, “building materials didn’t arrive,
workers couldn’t get to the site, and suddenly you’d find out
that one of your technicians had been arrested (by the Israelis).”
Childrens’ game machines ordered by Bahour from France spent three
months in the southern Israeli port Ashdod awaiting security clearance.
“Then there were the custom-made roof pins I ordered from Jordan,”
he says. “I needed them to support the steel roof, but they looked
like little missiles and so the (Israeli) security officials cut five
of them in half to make sure there was nothing inside. That set me back
another three months. It’s been a rough road.”
The Palestinian economy has been saved from total collapse by the cohesion
and resilience of the society. Yusuf, for instance, helps to support his
parents and seven of his eleven siblings still living at home. In many
cases, this kind of net stretches to the extended family — to aunts,
uncles and cousins who might be out of work.
This strong social responsibility is clearly enhanced by the sense of
an outside enemy and of common involvement in a national struggle. “Despite
violence, economic hardship and the daily frustrations of living under
curfew and closure, lending and sharing are widespread and families for
the most part remain functional,” the World Bank report states. “The
West Bank and Gaza has absorbed levels of unemployment that would have
torn the social fabric in many other countries.”
Mismanagement and corruption in the Palestinian Authority have aggravated
the situation. The reform process that has begun in governing institutions
— with Yassir Arafat’s grudging consent — is vital in creating
donor confidence. The Israeli government has also long expressed concern
over the diversion of donor funds to groups carrying out attacks on its
citizens.
Without support from donor countries, the Palestinian Authority, which
employs a third of those still working, would surely collapse, and with
it schools and hospitals. Donations — 75 percent of the money comes
from Arab states — now add up to about a billion dollars a year,
twice the pre-Intifada level.
Roberts says donor funding per capita is 320 dollars a year. “That’s
the highest anywhere on a sustained basis since World War Two. Yet in
the same period real incomes have dropped by over 40 percent.”
Financial aid in a conflict environment is not a panacea. Were donor countries
to double their commitment over the next two years, it would only reduce
poverty by four percent. Funding can stave off a humanitarian crisis,
but it cannot save the economy.
“We have recommended that the donors preserve the basic level of
funding,” says Roberts. “But they cannot do this forever. This
is a highly distorted situation and money can’t solve the problem.”
The unavoidable conclusion, he says, is that “there is no substitute
for a political process.”
back to top
Palestinian militants agree to end suicide
bombings
By Justin Huggler
Jerusalem, June 30— The Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic
Jihad formally announced yesterday that they are halting all suicide bombings
and other attacks on Israelis in a ceasefire, effective immediately. Hours
later, Yasser Arafat’s ruling Fatah party announced that it was joining
the ceasefire.
And yesterday evening the Israeli army began withdrawing from the Gaza
Strip under a deal to return control to Palestinian security forces.
The ceasefire and the withdrawal represent the first real progress under
the road-map peace plan personally backed by President George Bush, and
the first hint that respite from almost three years of relentless bloodshed
may be at hand.
The announcement coincided with a visit to the region by President Bush’s
National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, for talks with both sides.
Abd al-Aziz Rantisi, the most prominent leader of Hamas’s political
wing, said: “The two movements [Hamas and Islamic Jihad] decided
to suspend military operations against the Zionist enemy for three months.”
Hours later, Fatah announced that it was joining the ceasefire, a move
that it is hoped will bring with it other militant groups.
Israel immediately dismissed the ceasefire. Gideon Meir, the deputy director
general at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said: “I will repeat what
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said two hours ago to Condoleezza Rice.
This ceasefire is a ticking bomb because it actually maintains the infrastructure
of terror.”
Rantisi, whom Israel tried to assassinate three weeks ago, said the ceasefire
was conditional on Israel halting its policy of assassinating militants,
stopping military incursions into Palestinian towns and cities, and releasing
Palestinian prisoners. “We consider ourselves free from this initiative
if the Israeli enemy does not implement all the conditions,” Rantisi
said.
Israel has made clear it is reluctant to stop assassinations, and has
said it will do so only in areas where the Palestinian Authority takes
over security, and only if Palestinian security forces act against militants.
The Israeli government was not the only one to criticize the ceasefire.
A leaflet was released in the name of the third major Palestinian militant
faction, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, rejecting the ceasefire.
The Al-Aqsa Brigades, which have links with Fatah, have been responsible
for the deaths of scores of people in suicide bombings and their refusal
to join in could undermine a ceasefire.
The withdrawal from the northern Gaza Strip which began last night is
the first Israeli pullback under the road-map, which calls for Israel
to withdraw to the positions it held before the intifada began in September
2000. Palestinian security forces will assume responsibility for stopping
militant attacks.
Source: Independent (UK)
back to top
South Africa’s first female-led party
launched
By Farah Khan
Johannesburg, South Africa, June 30 (IPS)— South Africa’s first
significant female-led political party was launched in South Africa by
Patricia de Lille, a former trade unionist and leader of the Pan Africanist
Congress.
De Lille, one of the country’s top ten most popular politicians,
is taking the ruling African National Congress head-on with her Independent
Democrats. Several surveys show that De Lille is a nationally recognizable
politician with strong support across the racial and physical geographies
of the country.
A feisty 52-year-old leader, with the mien of a street-fighter, De Lille
is aiming for five percent of the national vote in next year’s general
election. “I always equate our democracy with a young tree and nine
years into our young democracy this tree is growing askew. Now we can
all sit back and watch this tree grow off course or we can take positive
and decisive actions to rectify the situation,” she said to the rousing
applause of 500 delegates who attended the party’s first congress
on the East Rand of Johannesburg.
A native of the port city of Cape Town, De Lille began her working life
as a laboratory technician in the paint industry, from where she was drawn
into South African Chemical Workers Union. At the time, she notched up
another first for a female leader. The union was affiliated to the National
Council of Trade Unions (NACTU), which at the time was one of the country’s
largest trade union federations. In 1988 she was elected national vice-president,
at the time the most senior woman labor leader in the country.
From her base in NACTU, De Lille became active in the Pan Africanist Congress,
a liberation movement that enjoyed more clout than it does today. At the
negotiations to end apartheid, she took pole position in her party’s
team. “[She] won respect for her firmness and clarity,” says
the “A to Z of South African politics,” which chronicled the
talks. In 1994, she was elected to parliament and has since earned a reputation
as an anti-corruption crusader.
A R60-billion (about eight billion US dollars) arms deal to re-equip the
defense force has attracted numerous allegations of corruption, and De
Lille took center-stage in opposing it. This has propelled her into the
center of national politics and imbued her with a reputation as a graft-buster.
“The ANC? They’re too corrupt. Look at the Yengeni business.
Look at the Terror Lekota business,” complained Elana Fourie at the
party launch.
The ANC’s former chief whip in parliament, Tony Yengeni, took a bribe
of a discounted Mercedes Benz by one of the arms companies in the deal,
while Defense Minister Terror Lekota was found in May to have failed to
declare his private business interests to parliament as he is compelled
to do. The two high profile corruption cases are alienating the ANC’s
support base, some of whom are joining De Lille’s flock.
Dressed in a fusion-Xhosa-contemporary outfit with ukuchokoza marks dotted
elegantly around her eyes, 20-year-old Dudu Shabangu from Port Elizabeth
was also at the launch. She said, “I was not an ANC member, but I
grew up in the Sasco [South African Students Congress] tradition. We looked
to people like Tony Yengeni as role-models. Now you lose hope and faith.”
She adds, “What I like is that she’s a woman. There’s lots
that us as women can do. Women power,” she reflects, “for youth
like me it’s the most important thing.”
The second issue De Lille will campaign on is HIV/AIDS to win the political
support of a powerful lobby. “Thousands of our people die of HIV/AIDS
each year; scores more will die in the next fifteen years. At least three
HIV-positive people will sit in the leadership of this party,” she
said to claps from the 500-odd launch supporters.
In South Africa, HIV and Aids have massive gender implications: most people
infected and affected by the pandemic are women. Other strong gender policies
include plans to beef up the resources and systems to fight women and
child abuse.
With the disgracing of Winnie Mandela (she was found guilty of fraud earlier
this year and resigned from parliament), De Lille stands to eclipse her
as the country’s most popular female politician. “There’s
this aura around Pat. I don’t know? It’s like Nelson Mandela,
like Breyton Paulse (a national rugby player). I can say there’s
something in her that draws you to her,” says Rodney Lentit who helps
run the party’s Western Cape office.
back to top |
