Another world is possible / CHRONICLE 2001

.WITH A SPECIAL FOCUS ON THE MAJORITY WORLD

JAN | FEB | MAR | APR | MAY | JUN | JUL | AUG | SEP | OCT | NOV | DEC
Click a month above to read an alternative view of the key events of that month.

AFGHANISTAN The bombing begins. (See december box)

ICELAND A hydro power project, one of the largest dam projects ever planned in Europe, is set to dam 11 rivers and tributaries to create a 57-kilometre reservoir, to produce electricity for energy-intensive industries such as aluminium smelters in the heart of the Icelandic highlands, just north of Vatnajökull, Europe’s largest glacier.

INDONESIA US diplomats and their families prepare to leave Jakarta as threats escalate against US interests and authorities refuse to curtail increasingly hostile action from militant Islamic groups.

ITALY Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi attracts scorn and abuse for his tactless remarks on a visit to Germany, in which he claimed that Western civilisation was ‘superior’ to Islam.

MACEDONIA Albanian guerrillas, led by Ali Ahmeti, disband, bringing seven months of conflict to an end. NATO will oversee the continuation of the peace process.

Panos Pictures

ZIMBABWE The Abuja agreement, brokered by Nigeria in September to end illegal land seizures by supporters of the President Robert Mugabe’s government, fails as farm invasions and violence continue.

BANGLADESH The Nationalist Party, led by Khaleda Zia – widow of former Prime Minister Begum Zia – wins power in national elections, ousting the discredited Awami League, held responsible for unprecedented levels of state terrorism and corruption.

UKRAINE Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh concedes that Ukraine may have accidentally shot down a Russian airliner that crashed into the Black Sea en route from Israel to Siberia.

SOUTH AFRICA Trade-union leaders accuse the ruling African National Congress of character assassination and stifling criticism after a leaked document alleges the existence of a ‘leftist’ plot to launch a rival political party and draw the liberation movement back to its socialist roots.

POLAND The last Communist leader, Wojciech Jaruzelski, appears in court to deny ‘politically motivated’ charges of ordering the shooting of shipyard workers in 1970.

MEXICO Digna Ochoa, a human-rights lawyer who defended poor people accused of insurrection, is assassinated.

PAKISTAN 15 Christians are gunned down at worship in Bahawalpur by six militants sympathetic to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

THE VATICAN The Pope apologizes for the sins committed by Christians against China in an attempt to renew diplomatic relations after half a century of hostility.

AFRICA At a summit in Abuja, Nigeria, 12 African leaders launch the New African Initiative (NAI), hailed as a ‘Marshall Plan’ for Africa, which has received broad promises of support from the European Union and the G8 leading industrial countries – although there have so far been no concrete commitments of money to the initiative.

You can be forgiven for not knowing, since even serious media in the West did not consider it worth reporting, but in 2001 the African Union came into being (as advocated and trailed in NI 326 in 2000). The idea of a United States of Africa – cherished and promoted by Kwame Nkrumah in the 1950s and 1960s but since fallen into disrepair – was relaunched by Libya’s Muammar al-Qadafi in 1999. It met with initial scepticism from the continent’s big hitters – particularly Nigeria and South Africa. But by 2001 everyone had come around to the notion of an African Union consciously modelled on the European Union: it will eventually have a parliament, a common market, a single currency and a court of human rights. The African Union formally took the place of the Organization of African Unity in July and Amara Essy from Côte d’Ivoire was elected as its new Secretary-General. Crispin Hughes / Panos Pictures Real union, rather than the declaration of intent, will take a little longer. The initial goal is for the African regions – east, north, west, south and central – to negotiate their own economic and monetary union. Many are sceptical that a continent so ravaged by conflict could ever come together. Yet at least one of the long-standing conflicts – the civil war in Burundi – showed some signs of resolution that might have owed something to the air of continental rapprochement. Facilitator Nelson Mandela oversaw a new peace agreement which on 1 November saw the Tutsi Pierre Buyoya installed as President with a Hutu deputy, Domitien Ndayizeye; the positions are to be voluntarily exchanged after 18 months. There were also peace moves afoot in the other running sore – the tangled war in the Democratic Republic of Congo in which at least five countries are involved. Why the change of heart on African Union, though? Today it is plainer than ever that African countries are in danger of falling off the map of the world as charted by globalization. In the days of the Cold War, African nations had a certain influence deriving from the superpowers’ need to garner support. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union individual African countries are being entirely bypassed by any benefits of the global economy in which they are ill-equipped to compete. Individual nations have been picked off by transnationals, set against each other by rich countries and dictated to by the IMF. And the health and development catastrophe that is HIV/AIDS, which has seen life-expectancy figures in southern Africa plummet to pre-independence levels, has provoked little concern or action in the Western halls of power. African leaders have realized that they have no alternative. The outgoing President of the OAU, Gnassingbé Eyadema of Togo summed up the altered thinking when asked if the African Union might one day be a federal United States of Africa. ‘The United States of Africa?’ he said. ‘We do not have a choice.’