www.witness.co.za DUNCAN DU BOIS 

A recent international survey placed Kenyans at the top of the poll in terms of their optimism for the future. The success of the opposition alliance in smashing the ruling party's 39-year grip on power has rekindled Kenya's hope for the future - hope for better governance.

Kenya's political turnaround is significant for democracy and for governance. It shows that despite four decades of political baasskap and corruption, hope of deliverance remained in the minds of the majority of Kenyans. It also indicates that dictators like Daniel arap Moi can be removed from power and that they are not ordained to rule indefinitely. In 1991, Zambians celebrated when Frederick Chiluba replaced Kenneth Kaunda as president after 27 years. Ten years of Chiluba, however, failed to reverse the terminal decline that Kaunda had inflicted on Zambia. Will Mwai Kibaki, who once served as Arap Moi's vice-president, succeed in reviving Kenya's slumped economy and in transforming its corrupt civil service?

Closer to home, Zimbabwe's tragic situation cries out for governance and deliverance from tyranny. Although free elections in Zimbabwe would see the opposition MDC sweep to power, the damage caused by Mugabe's systematic rape of the country has so retarded it that tangible economic upliftment will take years. That is the shocking legacy of Mugabe's abuse of power. Although he died in 1986, Mozambique is still paying the price of Samora Machel's ruinous rule. While it now posts record economic growth rates, it is only progress to recover what once was rather than growth beyond that level.

Although Kenyans are jubilant now, only time will tell whether they have exchanged one oppressive government for another. The history of post-colonial Africa in this regard is not encouraging. As historian Basil Davidson stated in his book, The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the curse of the nation-state (1992): "The state was not liberating and protective of its citizens; on the contrary, its gross effect was constricting and exploitative "

Disillusionment with governments is not peculiar to Africa. It's a worldwide reality. Only 40% of Americans bothered to vote in the 2002 mid-term elections. Germans are anything but enamoured with the Schr‰der government, which seems to know only how to raise taxes while the economy stagnates and 10% of Germans are unemployed.

In Venezuela and Argentina, citizens seething with anger against their governments have taken to the streets in protest. Their plight is universal as governments serve themselves. It's become the purpose of their existence. From their arrogance and contempt for criticism, it is obvious that they see electorates only as a means to the gravy train as they pay lip service to good governance.

With the emergence of sophisticated power blocs such as the EU, the whole edifice of government has become more powerful, self-serving and isolated from those it claims to represent. Ask UK residents how they see their relationship with the European Parliament in Strasbourg. It's simply another tax at the price of another slice of national sovereignty. Governments have become closed, cloned clubs. They no longer function as Abraham Lincoln envisaged - being of the people, for the people and by the people.

Locally, the SADC is a case in point. It pays lip service to criteria like good governance, democracy and independent judiciaries, while it shelters rogues like Mugabe. Indeed, he enjoys protection and even favour from the SADC and the Non-Aligned Movement, while he terrorises and starves Zimbabweans. At the ANC's national conference in Stellenbosch last month, Mugabe's brutal regime was actually praised for being "progressive", which is newspeak for advancement of collectivist baasskap. Consistent with this mockery of the ideal of good governance is Mbeki's decision this week to support Libya's election to the chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, notwithstanding the Gaddaffi regime's involvement in international terrorism and its denial of human rights in Libya itself.

How long has the euphoria of the 1994 election lasted in South Africa? The same survey that placed Kenyans on a high of optimism found Thabo Mbeki's ratings at an all-time low. By-election results reflect a huge decline in voter turn-out for the ruling party. It's probably one of the reasons it was anxious to avoid the snap election the IFP/DA recently threatened to call in KZN. The same mistake of not "liberating its citizens" is being made in the new South Africa as elsewhere. Worldwide, what people want is good governance. Instead, they are being dished out more government, more bureaucracy, more centralisation, more control, less freedom - and all for more money. Ninety percent of the taxes this government collects are spent on maintaining itself. Exacerbating the situation is the nanny-state socialism to which the ANC has always been partial.

Doing nothing, as Edmund Burke warned over 200 years ago, is not an option because it facilitates the process of enslavement, in this case to big government. The solution lies, as Thomas Jefferson once said, in less government and in the devolution of power into the hands of the electors. Then, as is the case in the Swiss canton system, governance, rather than government, prevails.

• Duncan du Bois is a DA Durban Metro ward councillor. He writes in his personal capacity.

Publish Date: 24 January 2003

www.witness.co.za DUNCAN DU BOIS 

A recent international survey placed Kenyans at the top of the poll in terms of their optimism for the future. The success of the opposition alliance in smashing the ruling party's 39-year grip on power has rekindled Kenya's hope for the future - hope for better governance.

Kenya's political turnaround is significant for democracy and for governance. It shows that despite four decades of political baasskap and corruption, hope of deliverance remained in the minds of the majority of Kenyans. It also indicates that dictators like Daniel arap Moi can be removed from power and that they are not ordained to rule indefinitely. In 1991, Zambians celebrated when Frederick Chiluba replaced Kenneth Kaunda as president after 27 years. Ten years of Chiluba, however, failed to reverse the terminal decline that Kaunda had inflicted on Zambia. Will Mwai Kibaki, who once served as Arap Moi's vice-president, succeed in reviving Kenya's slumped economy and in transforming its corrupt civil service?

Closer to home, Zimbabwe's tragic situation cries out for governance and deliverance from tyranny. Although free elections in Zimbabwe would see the opposition MDC sweep to power, the damage caused by Mugabe's systematic rape of the country has so retarded it that tangible economic upliftment will take years. That is the shocking legacy of Mugabe's abuse of power. Although he died in 1986, Mozambique is still paying the price of Samora Machel's ruinous rule. While it now posts record economic growth rates, it is only progress to recover what once was rather than growth beyond that level.

Although Kenyans are jubilant now, only time will tell whether they have exchanged one oppressive government for another. The history of post-colonial Africa in this regard is not encouraging. As historian Basil Davidson stated in his book, The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the curse of the nation-state (1992): "The state was not liberating and protective of its citizens; on the contrary, its gross effect was constricting and exploitative "

Disillusionment with governments is not peculiar to Africa. It's a worldwide reality. Only 40% of Americans bothered to vote in the 2002 mid-term elections. Germans are anything but enamoured with the Schr‰der government, which seems to know only how to raise taxes while the economy stagnates and 10% of Germans are unemployed.

In Venezuela and Argentina, citizens seething with anger against their governments have taken to the streets in protest. Their plight is universal as governments serve themselves. It's become the purpose of their existence. From their arrogance and contempt for criticism, it is obvious that they see electorates only as a means to the gravy train as they pay lip service to good governance.

With the emergence of sophisticated power blocs such as the EU, the whole edifice of government has become more powerful, self-serving and isolated from those it claims to represent. Ask UK residents how they see their relationship with the European Parliament in Strasbourg. It's simply another tax at the price of another slice of national sovereignty. Governments have become closed, cloned clubs. They no longer function as Abraham Lincoln envisaged - being of the people, for the people and by the people.

Locally, the SADC is a case in point. It pays lip service to criteria like good governance, democracy and independent judiciaries, while it shelters rogues like Mugabe. Indeed, he enjoys protection and even favour from the SADC and the Non-Aligned Movement, while he terrorises and starves Zimbabweans. At the ANC's national conference in Stellenbosch last month, Mugabe's brutal regime was actually praised for being "progressive", which is newspeak for advancement of collectivist baasskap. Consistent with this mockery of the ideal of good governance is Mbeki's decision this week to support Libya's election to the chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, notwithstanding the Gaddaffi regime's involvement in international terrorism and its denial of human rights in Libya itself.

How long has the euphoria of the 1994 election lasted in South Africa? The same survey that placed Kenyans on a high of optimism found Thabo Mbeki's ratings at an all-time low. By-election results reflect a huge decline in voter turn-out for the ruling party. It's probably one of the reasons it was anxious to avoid the snap election the IFP/DA recently threatened to call in KZN. The same mistake of not "liberating its citizens" is being made in the new South Africa as elsewhere. Worldwide, what people want is good governance. Instead, they are being dished out more government, more bureaucracy, more centralisation, more control, less freedom - and all for more money. Ninety percent of the taxes this government collects are spent on maintaining itself. Exacerbating the situation is the nanny-state socialism to which the ANC has always been partial.

Doing nothing, as Edmund Burke warned over 200 years ago, is not an option because it facilitates the process of enslavement, in this case to big government. The solution lies, as Thomas Jefferson once said, in less government and in the devolution of power into the hands of the electors. Then, as is the case in the Swiss canton system, governance, rather than government, prevails.

• Duncan du Bois is a DA Durban Metro ward councillor. He writes in his personal capacity.

Publish Date: 24 January 2003

Posted: Thursday, January 23, 2003 - 2:27:12 AM By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue www.vheadline.com

In thoughtful mood after the death of his grandmother, Carmelina, Lt. Colonel (ret.) Francisco Arias Cardenas reminisces incidents in her life span starting with stories she heard from her teenage mother, who bravely questioned the right of a black Federal War General sitting at the gentleman’s table.

The story about his uncle, Luis Level de Goda, who Antonio Guzman Blanco refused to help on the battlefield, arguing that his (Blanco Guzman’s) mule was also injured. The great grandparents fleeing in exile to Arauca in Colombia where she was born.  Her love of music and fun led to love and marriage with Felipe Sebastian Cardenas.

When grandmother Carmelina found out that her grandson, Francisco was in love with a girl from Maracaibo, ’No doubt she identified the place with the imprisonment of her husband when he challenged warlord Eustoquio Gomez armed with a flute.

"She wouldn’t find today’s Venezuela all that strange as we still walk the path towards a national structure … God willing, the crisis will see an end to messianic warlords (a recurring characteristic of our peoples) and the end of oligarchies or groups of power stage-managing puppet politicians, defending their interests and living like leeches off the National Treasury. "

seattlepi.nwsource.com Thursday, January 23, 2003 · Last updated 2:40 p.m. PT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Most workers at Venezuela's state owned oil monopoly and half of its administrators have abandoned a 53-day-old strike against President Hugo Chavez, the company's president said Thursday.

The claim was denied by Fedepetrol, Venezuela's largest oil workers union, which said that 17,000 of its 20,000 members remained on strike.

Ali Rodriguez, president of the Petroleos de Venezuela SA monopoly, also said Venezuelan crude oil production has surpassed 1 million barrels per day, the state news agency Venpres reported.

But striking executives said in a report Thursday that Venezuela has raised its daily oil production to 812,000 barrels Thursday from 714,000 barrels on Wednesday. The pre-strike figure was 3.2 million barrels a day, the executives said.

Chavez's government claims that it is breaking the strike, which has drastically affected production in the world's fifth largest exporter of oil and a top supplier to the United States.

Hopes for a resumption of Venezuelan oil output helped depress crude oil futures Thursday.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, contracts for March crude ended down 60 cents at $32.25 a barrel.

Earlier this week, tanker pilots said they were returning to their jobs in the oil-producing region of Lake Maracaibo. The move would ease concerns about safety conditions at Venezuelan ports and persuade foreign-flagged tankers to resume loading and shipments.

Rodriguez said 75 percent of oil workers and 50 percent of administrators have returned to work. PDVSA employs 40,000 people, about half of them blue collar workers.

About 35,000 PDVSA employees went on strike Dec. 2 to demand that Chavez call early elections or resign. Crude production reached a low of 200,000 barrels per day during the strike.

Gasoline shortages continued, the striking executives said. On Wednesday, 427 of 1,811 service stations in the country received gasoline, or 24 percent of the total. Only 16 stations received gasoline in Caracas, the capital city of 4 million people.

But Rodriguez said the government, which has imported gasoline during the strike, has enough gasoline in stock to supply the country for 15 days.

news.bbc.co.uk Friday, 24 January, 2003, 00:41 GMT

One person has been killed and at least 12 others wounded after a suspected bomb exploded near a pro-government rally in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

"This appeared to be an explosive device... unfortunately there is one person dead up to now," Caracas Fire Chief Rodolfo Briceno told local radio. I like him [Chavez] because he's a very honest man Julio Altube, marcher

The blast happened a few blocks from where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was greeting supporters.

Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered to protest against a seven-week strike organised by Mr Chavez's opponents.

The demonstration came a day after the Venezuelan Supreme Court suspended an opposition-backed referendum on whether the president should stay in office.

Opposition groups have accused Mr Chavez of behaving like a dictator and mismanaging the economy and have called on him to resign.

Cuban flags Earlier, the demonstrators, chanting: "Hey, hey, Chavez is here to stay", poured into the city centre in a massive display of support for the beleaguered president.

Many of the marchers were brought in from the provinces in buses adorned with red, yellow and blue Venezuelan flags.

Chavez has refused to step down Some of the protesters carried Cuban flags and portraits of left-wing revolutionary Che Guevara, reflecting Mr Chavez's ideology.

Despite the economic damage caused by the strike, opinion polls say 30% of Venezuelans still support their president.

"I like him [Chavez] because he's a very honest man," said marcher Julio Altube.

"You can really see that he feels for the poor. He really suffers. All the time he talks about love," he said.

Opposition supporters, who have staged equivalent demonstrations on an almost daily basis over the past few weeks stayed away on the instructions of their leaders.

At least six people have been killed in clashes between rival protesters since the strike began last December.

The strike has crippled Venezuela's oil production and driven the country to the brink of collapse.

Crisis meeting The huge rally came a day before the six-nation Group of Friends was due to hold its first meeting to try to help Venezuela find a way out of the crisis.

The strike has crippled on oil and petrol output The group - Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the United States - will consider two plans presented by former US President Jimmy Carter to end the strike and hold early elections.

The BBC's Adam Easton in Caracas says that as a strategic supplier of fuel to the United States, Venezuela is coming under increasing international pressure to resolve the strike.

But there is precious little trust between the government and opposition.

At the moment, neither side appears prepared to give in.

Mr Chavez was handed a victory on Wednesday when the Supreme Court postponed the referendum scheduled for 2 February, six months before a binding referendum is due.