We take action ourselves rather than rely on politicians or other leaders,
and without creating a hierarchy within our own group, so that everybody
is involved equally and responsibly with the same understanding that
we are campaigning against a common enemy affecting us in the region.
We develop the knowledge, skills and confidence necessary by organising
talks, showing videos of struggles around the world and holding discussion
forums on socio-political issues affecting people across the region.
We organise social nights to raise funds to support various campaigns
across the region. Our network started in 1999 in South Africa as a
partnership of social and economic justice activists who were mostly
students from Southern Africa fighting against privatisation of education
and social services in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Swaziland. The network
is coordinated from South Africa by a team of activists on a voluntary
basis.
Our motivation
'Africa's debt burdens
are the new economy's chains of slavery'
(Rev. Jesse Jackson)
Debt is the biggest
killer of mostly poor people in Southern Africa after AIDS. The region's
poor are denied the right to life by a huge debt and austerity packages
imposed by the International the Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In
countries like Zimbabwe, high levels of inflation were triggered by
IMF structural adjustment programmes which failed. The failed programme
helped to trigger political instability after the political regime in
the country decided to take revenge by boycotting debt servicing and
launching a sustained attack on mostly white land owners. The IMF is
partly to blame for the current political upheavals in Zimbabwe and
the region. There is an increasing need for solidarity amongst people
in the region who are passive victims of social and economic injustices
caused by neo-liberal economic planning. Poor people across Southern
Africa are rarely consulted in micro-economic planning, leaving them
vulnerable to macro-economic adjustment programmes imposed by Western
creditors. The FIOHSA works to challenge these unjust socio-economic
arrangements by mobilising civil society across the region to collaboratively
campaign against the IMF and the World Bank. The effects of neo-liberalism
are taking their toll on people in the region by increasing levels of
poverty and unemployment. This is also causing massive regional migration
thus leading to social upheavals across the region.
Millions of Zimbabwean
immigrants are fleeing from extreme levels of poverty and the torture
chambers of the Zimbabwean dictator to neighbouring South Africa.
With such a dangerous AIDS crisis, money that can help to build strong
health infrastructure, subsidise social services and to provide safety
nets for the poor is spent on servicing debt (most of the debt is odious).
The current socio-economic planning mechanisms in the region left most
people who fail to pay for electricity and water, cut off through cost
recovery strategies, living them in darkness and exposed to health hazards.
This is affecting people in Zimbabwe where inflation is at a staggering
360% and where three quarters of the people are not employed. This situation
was directly caused by an IMF Structural adjustment programme in 1990
((locally known as ESAP) and complemented by a totalitarian political
regime. These two have left millions of Zimbabweans stranded and stuck
in poverty and violence.
Over the border
in Soweto, South Africa and other squatter camps, the situation is not
very different. Most promises of affordable social services and economic
opportunities made by the African National Congress( ANC) after the
democratic transition in 1994 were not delivered. Instead the IMF intervened
by dictating a structural adjustment programme locally known as Gear.
The Gear strategy is delivering the opposite (electricity and water
cut offs, poor housing and evictions). Through the GEAR economic strategy
the South African government is delivering poverty to most poor communities,
through private public partnerships (PPPS). This strategy has helped
to expose poor people in Soweto and other slum dwellers to unaffordable
water and electricity tariffs leading to them being cut off through
cost recovery operations. Most of the victims of this injustice are
AIDS orphans, the aged, HIV AIDS sufferers, and women.
In Swaziland people are facing the same situation. An IMF dictated structural
adjustment programme (locally known as EZRA) has made life impossible
for most poor people and this situation is compounded by a totalitarian
monarchy that is denying Swazi people basic civic liberties.
Malawians were left starving after the IMF forced the Malawi government
to sell emergency grain reserves to repay debt (mostly odious debt)
leaving millions of Malawians vulnerable to a famine. We work to challenge
these regional injustices by building strong community and regional
networks. These networks are increasing people's awareness about social
and economic injustices and building the capacity to fight for reforms
and democratic pluralism in socio-economic planning mechanisms.
Our main aims
Future in Our Hands Southern Africa's main aims are:
· To build capacity across Southern Africa, by mobilising people
to campaign against debt and to challenge neo-liberal economic planning
which robs them of their right to life.
· To document and distribute information to activists and community-based
organisations in the region about socio-economic issues in their respective
communities in order to increase their awareness about current policy
issues that might impact negatively on their lives.
· Provide support by campaigning and exposing human rights abuses
in the region (currently Swaziland and Zimbabwe) by arranging demonstrations,
petitions and economic blockades (Swaziland) to pressure totalitarian
regimes to move towards democratic pluralism and transparency.
· Strengthen regional networks in order for people to collaboratively
challenge globalisation and neo-liberalism.
· Develop a dedicated programme of political education
Our Past activities in Southern Africa.
South Africa
We actively participated in the fight against privatisation in South
Africa by supporting Soweto residents (Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee)
to protest against the South African electricity utility ESKOM's strategy
of cutting off poor people from electricity after they fail to pay high
electricity rates. The Soweto residents succeeded in this campaign which
was code named operation Khanyisa (meaning light). FIOHSA was involved
in the formation of the Anti-privatisation Forum (APF) which is a forum
of community based organisations and students in South Africa fighting
against private finance schemes (PPPS).
Swaziland and Zimbabwe
In Swaziland,
FIOHSA works with Swaziland Campaign Against Poverty and Economic Inequality
(SCAPEI) which is fighting against an IMF imposed structural adjustment
programme and a totalitarian monarchy. We also helped to organise peaceful
demonstrations during a visit by an IMF delegation to South Africa to
the World Economic Forum to remind them that the people of Southern
Africa are against structural adjustment programmes. In Zimbabwe we
supported campaigns by Zimbabwean activists against the escalating violence
and abuse of women by militias. We are providing ongoing support in
the form of publicity and financial donations to help Zimbabwean activists
to campaign against a dictatorship which is robbing them of their civil
liberties.
Our Activities
across the region
Dissemination
of information on policy development
We believe that
'information is power'. FIOHSA monitors local, regional and national
policymaking bodies to identify and disseminate information on relevant
issues (socio-economic) to community groups in the region. We are working
towards publishing a bulletin on a quarterly basis highlighting relevant
forthcoming changes in legislation and other related socio-political
issues affecting communities in the region. The bulletin will be translated
into various local languages and disseminated to communities groups
across the region. This will enable local people to gain a better understanding
of changes that might affect their lives and to motivate them to join
campaigns against neo-liberalism.
Under the above
activity we seek to achieve the following:
· Higher levels of consciousness in communities across the region,
this will allow people to join campaigns that will bring autonomy and
transparency to communities affected by centralised pro-neo-liberal
decision making mechanisms.
· Increase the opportunities for communities across the region
to network locally, regionally and nationally so that the learning and
capacity building that takes place can be sustained and developed beyond
the areas of immediate impact.
Non violent direct
action across Soweto
We believe
in the strength of collaborative approaches and solidarity, because
it's only when poor people support each other and speak with one voice
that their campaigns become successful. We are going to hold workshops
in communities on issues related to privatisation and globalisation.
These workshops will focus on developing the capacity of communities
to critically analyse their situation, to understand the root causes
of deprivation and to learn from experiences of other communities. This
will help people across the region to take action collaboratively.
In South Africa, people can be evicted during the night. People in Soweto
and in Johannesburg Central have a twenty four emergence alert system;
this helps victims of late night evictions to call activists from other
communities for assistance in resisting eviction in a non violent direct
action. This enhanced communication network has been effective across
Soweto, where the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) has been
using it to coordinate late night resistance against electricity cut
offs.
Under this campaign we seek to achieve the following:
· An end to all to rent evictions and the attachment of household
goods
· An end to all privatisation projects in poor communities, especially
in Soweto where residents are denied the right to water and electricity.
· The free supply of a minimum amount of electricity and water
needed for health, hygiene, cooking and heating.
Solidarity campaign
(Zimbabwe)
Zimbabweans are facing the biggest social and political dilemmas since
the country was liberated from British colonialism. Life in Zimbabwe
is now impossible because of a totalitarian regime and unsustainable
levels of inflation. The situation has reached dangerous levels, international
economic sanctions targeting the totalitarian regime in Zimbabwe are
affecting mostly poor people as the country gets deeper into a financial
crisis. The crisis is increasing the burden for a population already
weakened by HIV AIDS and a famine. The situation is worsened by politically
motivated violence which is claiming the lives of activists and human
rights campaigners. The South African government's dubious diplomatic
position towards the Zimbabwe regime is also helping to sustain violence
in the country and gross human rights abuses. Since the regime in Zimbabwe
stole the election in 2002, the South African government did not openly
condemn vote rigging and still maintains diplomatic ties with a regime
that is plunging the country into one of the greatest social and economic
disasters in the region. The regime coordinated a violent programme
of intimidation, murder and rape before an election which international
observers declared unfair. The South African political attitude towards
Zimbabwe is helping the totalitarian regime in Zimbabwe with some form
of legitimacy.
The Zimbabwean regime
has been exploiting this diplomatic loophole, and violence in Zimbabwe
has been increasing day and night unchallenged. Cronyism in African
diplomatic circles is also helping the political regime to launch a
sustained attack on civil society in the country. The absence of a strong
united civil society in Southern Africa is of major concern. The political
crisis is generating social and economic shockwaves in the whole region
leading to massive migration of people escaping from state managed violence
in the country. The most affected country is South Africa, host to over
two million asylum seekers fleeing Zimbabwe. Most of the millions of
people including women and children that are escaping the violence to
South Africa will cross the border to face the brutality of the South
African policy ( SAP), which has been authorised by the South African
government, to round up immigrants, lock them and transport them back
to face the iron fist of an ageing dictator. Women are the most victims
of this state-managed violence in South Africa. After escaping from
rape and torture in Zimbabwe, they face the same violent situation in
South Africa, a country which is on top of the list of the most xenophobic
countries in Africa.
The brutality and
barbarity that Zimbabwean immigrant women face in South Africa leaves
them vulnerable to AIDS. There has been an increase in the number of
women affected by AIDS in the region, most of them through sexual abuse
or pushed into unsafe sex because of economic conditions. Most of the
women awaiting deportation are sexually harassed and mugged by corrupt
immigration officials. This violation of human rights has been going
on unreported since the Zimbabwean crisis started. We seek to launch
a solidarity campaign with the Zimbabwean asylum seekers to expose human
rights abuses at police cells and the repatriation camp where immigrants
are locked before being deported in badly ventilated lorries. The campaign
will lobby the South African government to change its attitude of quiet
diplomacy in order to address the political mess in Zimbabwe. We believe
South Africa has a fundamental political role to play in helping to
bring back democracy in Zimbabwe by openly condemning the political
infrastructure in Zimbabwe. South Africa is indirectly contributing
to the suffering of Zimbabweans by endorsing the political regime in
Zimbabwe as legitimate. We have already written to the United Nations
Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), highlighting our concerns about the
South African position towards the political situation in Zimbabwe.
This campaign
will seek to achieve the following:
1 Help change the
South African government political stance towards Zimbabwe, so it can
help to bring democracy back to Zimbabwe by using its economic position
in the region to force the Zimbabwean regime to respect human rights
and allow democratic pluralism in the country.
2 Lobby the South African government to grant Zimbabwean immigrants
asylum status until democracy is restored in Zimbabwe, and for South
Africa to honour human rights, as it is signatory to the United nations
universal Human Rights declaration of 1948.
3 Document and expose human rights abuses at the notorious repatriation
camp (Lindela) in South Africa where immigrants are violently rounded
up and inhumanly, locked like criminals and women raped at will.
4 Seek the political support of international organisations in reporting
the atrocities committed against Zimbabwean immigrants in South Africa.
Activities planned
under this campaign
1. We are going
to organise continuous non violent protests at the notorious Lindela
repatriation camp where innocent people are locked in squalid conditions
before being deported to Zimbabwe. We will print and photocopy leaflets
and banners to disseminate and expose the brutal treatment of innocent
people at the repatriation camp. The local and international media will
be approached to provide publicity for the protests in South Africa
and across the world.
2. A petition signed by several local people and civil society will
be sent to the home affairs minister demanding an end to human rights
abuses at the repatriation camp. The petition will also demand the granting
of asylum status for and an end to police brutality against, Zimbabweans
running away from violence.
3. We will engage human rights lawyers and the South African Human Rights
Commission (SAHRC) to highlight the plight of asylum seekers abused
and killed during deportation. We will lobby the SAHRC to intervene
and stop the deportation of asylum seekers until democracy and political
stability is restored in Zimbabwe.
4. The protest and petitions will be extended to the office of the South
African president and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)
for them to use their political authority in the region by initiating
constructive dialogue with the political regime in Zimbabwe to restore
democracy in the country.
Coordinating
committee
The FIOHSA is governed by a council made up of representatives of
member organisations that meets currntly on a quarterly basis. The coordinating
committee is made up of one delegate from each of the four countries
that FIOHSA is working in. Activist's forums are called on an ad hoc
basis to rally people opposed to social and economic injustices in communities
across the region.
Grasian Mkodzongi:
Coordinator (Zimbabwe)
Nhlahla Msweli :
Secretary (Swaziland)
Victor Mtimukhulu
: Treasure (South Africa)
David Mafa : Committee
member (Malawi)
Help us by supporting
one of our various campaigns across the region, Southern Africa needs
you!
Postal Address
P.O. Box 30677
Braamfontein 2017
Johannesburg
South Africa
Account Details
Bank Name: First National Bank (FNB)
Branch Name: Braamfontein
Account Name: The Future in Our Hands Southern Africa
Account no: 62056715463
Branch code: 251905
Swift code: FIRNZAJJ950
