Diary of a Retail Worker Dear Diary, my first day at work was very, very stressful. Here I am a woman who didn’t know many of the products my company had for sale. I was introduced to very few of my colleagues and just taken to the register to be trained as a cashier. I was not intimidated by the cash register because I had had a short stint as a cashier at a bank when I graduated many years before. But I was intimidated by the manager who was training me. It was like she was impatient for me to get on with it. I became anxious. It was September. It was starting to get chilly in Chicago but believe me I started sweating. I kept telling myself that I was not going to give up regardless of whatever was going around me. After less than an hour of training I got it and I was on my own. My greatest challenge on this day was how to communicate with my colleagues about products which didn’t have SKU numbers. Many of them I had never seen before. Of course my intonation wasn’t American but British so many of them had a hard time understanding me. In the early days one manager began to pick on me saying often at huddle meetings that “She is too needy.” Meaning that I asked for help at the slightest chance. I had to because as I mentioned earlier I didn’t know that some of the company’s products even existed. As a result, I was put on the back burner. I was never allowed to get into the Guest Service box for a very long time. One day I approached a colleague who seemed very friendly and I asked her, “Dorothy, how can I learn the names of all these products?” She laughed and said, “You can never learn everything in a short time but you could come early every day before your scheduled time and walk around the store and get yourself acquainted with them.” I shook my head in disbelief as I turned around to look at all the numerous different products surrounding me and even though I didn’t really get it, I thanked her and decided to try it out. Dairy, as you may well know I had attended college here in the United States from Ghana, West Africa in the early seventies. I had the privilege of working for the foreign student’s office in my sophomore year and as an office assistant till I graduated. So I had the opportunity of working in this country. I loved my job and the people were very friendly. Living on campus, I was cocooned from any discrimination and the Foreign Student Advisor encouraged me all the time to give my best. Some of my duties were to help in the orientation of new students, compiling the student directory, following up on the new students and helping to solve any problems they were having. It was a great time. I graduated with more than a three point grade point average and got married soon after. My aim was to graduate and go on to my Master’s degree program but life in the form of marriage and pregnancy happened. So I waited for my husband to complete his Master’s program and with our son who was 18 months at the time, left the shores of the United States never thinking of coming back but when the children reached college age, they returned and to make sure we had dollars to pay for their school fees, we all returned. I had worked in several managerial positions the last of which took me around the world. It was a fantastic job but I had to resign and return to join my family. And many times, I’ve had to regret making that decision but I chose family over my profession and then couldn’t get a decent job after I returned when the country had entered a recession. Gradually but surely, I started gaining confidence on the job. I grew to love it but boy, retail stinks! Retail? Not me! Yes diary, it does stink. There was this day when a customer brought a product to the register and had a sticker for a lower amount but without a SKU number on it. I knew it was the wrong amount so I excused myself and went and brought the same type of product with the SKU number on it and showed it to the customer and the following ensued. She was with the daughter and the latter said in anger, “Well, it’s not our fault that the SKU number wasn’t on it. We found it like that.” “I’m sorry but this is the actual price. I can call the manger if you want.” The daughter threw the product at me and replied, “We don’t want it.” From then on, whenever I asked them to continue with prompts during the transaction, I received angry responses. Then to crown it all, after I finished with them and handed the receipt to her, she just snatched it out of my hand and walked away to go and complain to the manager that I had been rude to them. It was a very painful experience for me but I needed this job and could not respond in a way I desired to but watched this girl who was younger than my first child act rudely to me with the mother’s encouragement. The following was what was going through my mind while they were behaving abominably to me. “I could wash your mouth with soap girl. How dare you talk to me like this? You’re not even pretty?” But I was smiling all the time while they kept on at their bad behavior. I think this is what irked them. They thought I was mocking them not knowing that that’s how we have been trained to do. To keep on smiling while taking their nonsense but wait, I think I know why they were so angry. They knew that attaching a $2.97 sticker to a $14.97 product was an attempted robbery. They knew they were guilty and had been caught in their tracks and how dare a black woman tell them they were wrong! I had to defend myself to my manager afterwards because having been in sales for many years, I knew the adage, “The customer is always right!” This always made me sick. Even thieves took the high road when you caught them. Another time, a customer came to me with several items and after I had told her the total amount, she had decided not to buy anything. She was walking away when she turned back and asked for a large shopping bag. This was a red flag for me because she wasn’t holding anything that needed to be bagged. Many customers would ask for an extra bag when they had too many things to carry, even things they did not buy from our store. Again I couldn’t ask her what she needed the bag for because, “the customer is always right.” Yes you got it but I decided to watch out for her since I was closest to the doors. So even though I was busy serving others, my eyes kept darting to the doors then lo and behold, there was this young woman with the bag she had taken from me filled with goods and calmly walking out the door. “Hey, have you paid for those things you are taking out?” I shouted. What do you think she did? She didn’t even turn to look at me but calmly dropped the bag and walked out. The customers at my register were as shocked as I was. You would think my manager would commend me from stopping that thief. Oh no. “You shouldn’t have said anything?” “What? Am I hearing you right?” I asked shocked. “Yes because she could have hurt you. So we don’t encourage that. Just call us on the radio to announce it.” I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere with this so I replied, “Yes ma’am.” And left. I was puzzled. In the first place, I was safe in the customer service box and it was only a woman walking out the door with goods. Hello! But I learned a great lesson which I came across over and over again and was repeatedly drummed into my ears, “After all, the money is not yours.” What? There was this day when another customer brought a product to my register. It wasn’t on sale after I rung it up but she insisted that she had picked it up at another place where there was 40% sale sign up. Dairy, clearly how can you pick up a product from another end of the store which clearly didn’t belong to this other place she was vigorously defending belonged to this other place. She began to scream and shout, so I called the manager. The manager asked me to give it to her for that price she was asking for. After all, it wasn’t my money. You guessed right. That was how many of them behaved. They knew that if they raised a stink, the managers at this store would give in and give them what they wanted and so went on right ahead and misbehaved. What galled me was that those of us on part time always were the ones who always lost out. This was because, our hours depended on how much we made so when we didn’t make the sale for the day, our hours were cut but the managers who had full time jobs would not be affected. It’s a cold world. Yes, a very cold one so they didn’t care giving away company money. I must be fair to some of the managers though. They would not give in but in a very nice way refuse to give in to such blatant thieves. It’s almost Christmas and sales have been picking up tremendously. Thank God that the meager hours I had been receiving since I started working had been increased. It’s been hard trying to figure out how to plan my life financially since the hours have been yo-yoing. If there’s a word like that. As a newbie, if hours are to be cut, I was the first to receive the honor. I remember one day I had only worked 2 hours when I was asked to go home. I couldn’t believe that I had driven almost an hour to work to be told my hours had to be cut. At one time they didn’t even inform me that my hours were going to be cut before I left home. I had arrived at work, put on my radio equipment and my name badge and was walking to punch in when the manager on duty called me. “I’m sorry that you cannot punch in. Unfortunately we wouldn’t need you today.” What? My mind screamed! And you didn’t have the decency to call me before I drove almost an hour to this place? I was boiling inside but I smiled and responded, “It’s alright. I’ll go.” I was hopping mad. Why on earth isn’t a person’s feelings considered before such a decision is made? I began to realize that in retail all the owners and their managers cared about was making money. Dairy, on this day, we were informed that a new vice president with a knack for customer service had come up with a new rule. To say hello to everyone who entered the store else our jobs will be on the line. It would have been a no-brainer but when customers were being bombarded from all sides when they first entered the door, when they were walking down the aisles, when they were trying to concentrate on making decisions about what they wanted to buy as some customers put it. Hello? And do you know how all this started? It was reported that this vice president had visited a store and had not been welcomed by the workers. It had taken her determination to receive a greeting by walking through 2 team members for her to receive this greeting and boom a new policy comes to life. You might think that such whimsical policies as they came to be known would come to an end. Oh no, not by a long shot. It was like the old adage, “New king, new law.” Another policy that was shoved down our throat was “If you can lean, then you can clean.” This meant that there was no opportunity to rest in between guests and since the new policy was to clean, clean, clean, every opportunity was to be made to clean up the aisles and the shelves even though good money was being made to a company of cleaners to wash the floors and the aisles. Granted, they cannot clean all the shelves and behind the registers. When I started working here, cashiers could go to the guest service area, pick out an application for store credit and discount cards for customers who needed them. Then it was changed and everything was locked up. The red tape in getting these out when the manager or a holder of a store key is not near the cash registers can be imagined. It slowed down the checking out process because we had to wait for these privileged few to walk from wherever they were to come and unlock the drawers. The results, customers grew impatient and started complaining. This policy was then overturned. Ho ho ho, another one bites the dust. We were never informed about the reason for the lock up. But then who are we to ask? Then came the policy of asking customers, “How are you? Did you find everything you needed today?” We were asked to stop asking the latter should in case it generated a bad feeling in the mind of a customer who wasn’t satisfied. Well hello, we were the same people who were told to help and encourage customers. So it was changed to, “Just say hello.” This was fine with me, except that I often heard some of these same managers still asking customers whether they found everything they needed. This always confused me but who am I to ask them, “Didn’t you say we shouldn’t say that? Why are you doing it?” In my mind it was a question of doing as I say and not what I do. Aren’t they supposed to lead by example? Then we were asked not to discuss situations within the company in front of customers. I truly understood this because no one wanted to wash their dirty linens in public but I had a problem with managers who were very rude to a team member or correcting a team member in a way that shamed the individual in front of customers. What? Aren’t we human beings with families at home? Are we just numbers to be trampled upon at the whim of an irritable manager? I remember one time when a new team member was promoted as a manager. She decided to use it to ‘bully’ others. She was using the register behind me and I was helping a customer. How she stopped what she was supposed to do in helping the customer at her own register and interfere with my transaction at the time is still beyond me. And you know what she was doing? She tried to correct me on a transaction I knew more about than she did. Eventually she realized it and stopped arguing with me while the customers in line watched in consternation. The next customer at my register was so angry at her and vehemently asked me to report her to my manger. It was hilarious because she had no idea that it was the manager who so badly misbehaved to me. But I received the satisfaction of the manager overhearing her when she walked away. At times, I really wondered whether such people would have done this to a white team member. It was so blatant at times that it was ridiculous. You will hear other team members taking initiatives in doing things by first informing the manager on duty on the radio. But there is this manager who could not bear to hear me make the same suggestions to her. Her responses to me on the radio was just like, “How dare you even think of taking an initiative? You are supposed to be dumb because you’re black and you are even from Africa!” This became so obvious that believe me I used to hear comments to me from my colleagues. As painful as it was, I acted professionally and just shrugged it off but I learned to be careful with her. So one day when I was to close at night with her, I decided not to even attempt to lock the main entrance doors after numerous announcements I had been making to customers to be ready to check out because we were getting to closing time. This was because I had suggested to another team member to lock the doors at 5 minutes to closing, something which I had heard many team members do. But this night when I made that suggestion, she responded with, “That’s not your call, Anna, it’s mine alone.” What? Why didn’t she ever say that to other white team members? What I did wrong was the very fact that I shouldn’t have made that suggestion because………. So on this night after I had made the last but one announcement to customers, the point at which the main entrance doors are locked up, I did nothing and we had a customer walk in at almost 8.53 pm with her daughter and boy did she give us a tough time .She didn’t even bother to make haste to bring her purchases to be checked out even after I had made the last announcement that we had closed. So she walked to a team member for help and I suppose the person had been busy in the process of locking things away ready for closing and she had asked the customer to go and receive permission for her to open up what she had already locked down. I heard the customer and the manager having words over this. Later some of my colleagues asked why I didn’t call someone to lock up the doors. Of course you know my response. I’ve had it with rude managers who had made up their minds not to acknowledge me as a human being. It was very painful. Dear Diary, I hope you are ready to listen to some painful experiences I’ve been having at work. Well after my third year with this company, I decided to apply for the position of a manager. After all I thought I had a Business Administration degree with a marketing major and also had over 20 years experience of management in all forms under my belt. After the interview, the district manager told me that as much as I qualified for the position, I didn’t have the experience. What??? This was the same store I had seen 2 people who didn’t have a degree, who had had no experience in retail and merchandizing and had spent less than 1 year, the policy requirement for anyone to become a manager promoted as managers. When out of curiosity I had asked each one how they got promoted, without fail they both told me they were asked to become managers. But as newbies? Yes I know because I did my homework. I’ve not been a manager and lived and worked in over 18 countries without knowing my stuff but just for a retail manager, I was told I wasn’t qualified. My heart was broken but I am not a quitter. Dairy, I remember when my first novel was rejected 11 times but later became a best seller and it’s now in its 3rd edition. I have also managed to write 3 more novels in addition, the latter of which is going to be a trilogy. Just for your information, I have also published 3 Books for my former non-profit organization who has offices in over 40 countries. But here, I was treated as a dummy who knew nothing. It hurts, yes very badly. I thought this was the country where they said was a land of opportunity. I went to school here and knew but now??? I had applied to many non-profit and for profit organization without success dear Diary when I returned. What do you think was the problem? Was it because I returned when the country was in recession or something else? Anyway, I decided to work harder and make all my hours available to this store for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday since as a part time worker you could only get at least 20 hours a week, that is, if you’re being treated fairly. Well, in my fourth year, I decided to do something about it. I approached the Store Manager and asked him the reason why I had been there longer and yet wasn’t even clocking 20 hours a week. He gave me the run around but even when I reminded him about students still in school, who were there just as a stepping stone to college and further having more hours than I was getting, he asked me to open up my hours. I reminded him that my hours were already opened. He promised to take a look at it. I waited about 2 weeks and reminded him again, eventually I had to go above him to the district manager. My question to this one was, “Doesn’t this company reward its employees for loyalty?” He was aghast at the reason why I was asking and I narrated everything to him. He couldn’t believe it. By the way Diary, this was the open door policy we were required to use if we felt uncomfortable about anything at work and nothing was being done about it. So I was following policy and not being rude or anything. At this point, I was desperate but continued to do my job professionally. So he promised to look into it. The following week my hours were increased. It went on for 2 weeks and then it sank below the hours I had had before. I endured it for another 2 weeks and I called the district manager again. Of course he was shocked again! That was how my hours kept on zig-zagging. Then one of my colleagues pointed out to me that she had seen I wasn’t being trained in other areas. Diary, what this colleague didn’t know was that I had been asking about this matter for years. I would go the operations person and she would lay the blame at the door of the store manager and when I went to him, he would promise to do something about it but had never done so for years. Yes, I watched newbies, including students trained at almost all other areas and of course they received more hours than I did. Diary, what will you call this kind of treatment? Are other people being treated like this? What I discovered was that without wanting to do so, I started thinking about discrimination. Fact is, I met only 2 black women at this store when I started work there but one of them who was also working part time left in frustration. I saw many black women, black men and girls come and go one after the other and eventually I was left with this one woman who opened the store with them and was the only full time black woman still working there. She told me she wasn’t interested in any managerial post and was satisfied even though she sympathized with me often. Dairy, when I realized what was going on, I decided never to leave the store. I realized I was deliberately being frustrated to leave like the other blacks. But I refused to leave, you know why? I have hated injustice since I was a little girl. My father had been a politician and advocate for my country of birth and had even been detained for 7 years for speaking out and his blood run in my veins. The last organization I worked for, a non-profit was into ensuring that the poor and the vulnerable and the so called lower strata of the society and the voiceless got justice. So I was in my element. This organization actually helped me to realize my potential. Through the organization, I became part and co-founder of the Domestic Violence Coalition in that country and through rain or shine, through peaceful demonstrations, had ensured the passage of a bill that was passed into law just before I resigned to come and join my family here in the States. I am still in touch with them, contributing my little quota to their affairs. Dairy, I had studied the policies of apartheid and sympathized with my fellow black people who lived in this country and had suffered years and years of degradation but even though I had sympathized with all these issues, even though I had gone to college here in this country and had lost my first job as a Bank teller because of some kind of discrimination which at the time I didn’t think anything about ‘cos I knew I was never going to live in this country. So Diary, I didn’t really care. But here we are and here I am suffering injustice and cannot do anything about it. Fact is, I have always hated to pull the race card and had vilified those who had done so but little did I know, I was going to suffer emotionally, mentally and physically as I continue to be treated with a smile but stabbed at the back every time. “Et tu Brutus?” Diary do you remember that? It’s the worst form of discrimination where the perpetrator does so in subtle ways always knowing that an open way would result in a law suit. So this is my situation but I will not quit! No, not by a long shot! I know that is what they want but I will refuse to quit! I have a dream, that someday, my case will be heard. Dairy, then another form of abuse began where at store meetings known as huddles, the store manager would go on and on about not being there to make anybody rich. He often said, “I don’t care how long you have worked here, I’m not here to make you rich.” I knew he was speaking about me but I totally ignored him and smiled within me. “Hm, really?” He did this several times but I kept on ignoring him ‘cos I felt that he was goading me to act or do something which he could use as an excuse to fire me. Through all these trials, I must say that I was on first name basis with many many customers. Some would even go out of their way to hug me across the register. One time one woman was at my register and she looked very sad so I asked whether everything was alright with her. She teared up and told me that her best friend had been diagnosed with cancer. I told her I would pray with her and she told me she would be grateful. Then she revealed that her church was also praying and guess what, we happened to be attending the same church and as part of the prayer team in my church, I realized that I had seen the prayer request which had been sent to the team but I had not connected the name of her friend to that request. I was so moved that we both teared up and hugging, I promised to continue to pray for her friend. Then another time, one woman brought certain things to my register and since we’re encouraged to engage with customers, upon asking what she was going to use the stuff for, she told me it was for her daughter who was on admission for treatment for cancer. I empathized with her and all she said was for me to pray for her daughter. Ever since, every time she came to the store whether she came to my register or not, she would come and give me updates about her daughter’s progress. Then once when my husband was on admission and she came to me, I also asked her to pray for me because we had become that close. Diary I must tell you that I had many of such nice women who always made my day. The rude customers were not so many else I would have left the place. What irked me with these rude ones was that the managers always took their side and spoke to you as if you had no rights at all. It hurts! The worst part was when managers would tell you to smile, leave all your problems at home and then they would turn around and treat you like dirt. How on earth did they expect us to be smiling when one is hurting? This was the question I asked myself all the time. In the break room, many team members complained about the snotty attitude of some managers. So when they put up a chart in the break room for us to express our beef, the chart exploded with comments like, “I will appreciate it if some mangers would also leave their problems at home and not yell at us at the slightest chance.” Another wrote, “How am I expected to be nice to customers when these same people aren’t nice to us?” It went on and on and then it became hilarious when at a huddle a few days later, one manager said the chart wasn’t for such things. What? We all turned to look at one another but nobody was bold enough to ask the reason why. They removed the chart and it became a joke among us that we dare not write what we feel so we discussed among ourselves all the time and felt we didn’t need a chart anyway. We shrugged and just moved on. So Diary, the conclusion was that instead of the chart encouraging us to vent out our unhappiness so that the managers change their attitude towards us, we had to suppress our feelings. There was never a time one could sit down with a manager and expressed one’s feelings. We were all so busy busy. It was rumored that the Store Manager who was responsible for dictating how much anyone earned had his own favorites. Someone even asked me to check the hours of such favorites. When hours were being cut, they would be the last to be cut. But it wasn’t like that when I first started working there. To be fair to this first manager, she would cut the hours of newbies first before cutting any others but after she left, everything was turned around; favoritism became the order of the day. Diary, this week, as a matter of fact for the past 3 weeks, my hours have been only 17 then I was called this morning that a whole day had been cut out of my hours and instead of 17, I will have only 12 hours. So when I went to work the next day, my curiosity was peaked. I wanted to see who had replaced me. Lo and behold it was a newbie! Well, I’m getting used to it but clearly I’m not going to quit until things become really bad but dread this because I know the saying, “Quitters never win and winners never quit” is really true. I will really lose hope for blacks in America if I have to leave due to discrimination. Is anyone listening? I hope so.

VICTIMS OF CORPORATE ABUSE –THE NEWMONT GHANA STORIES FOR SIC CAMPAIGN 1. Mr. Bonabe Wale- 75 years old “Poverty and hunger is killing us!” This was the desperate cry of Bonabe Wale, a 75 year old man living at the Ntotroso Resettlement Camp of Newmont Ghana in the Brong Ahafo Region. Bonabe Wale had lived at Kwakyekrom for 40 years with his family of 11 before they were resettled. “We had plenty to eat because I had a big farm which my children and I cultivated. All we needed to buy was salt because we could trap small animals for meat from the farm as well. All was going well till one day we saw a bulldozer moving over our farm and destroyed every crop that we have toiled and struggled to keep for more than 30 years. We had heard Newmont wanted to resettle us and they had given us a lot of promises and we had agreed but what we never expected was the destruction of our farmlands before our resettlement. As it happened, Newmont did not move us to our new home after the destruction of our farm till almost one year after the fact. Madam, what did they expect us to eat in the meantime? For almost one year we had to scramble, to go and pick food from other people’s farms after we had worked for them in order to eat. As a result my children are now scattered. I don’t even know where all of them are, all because we have nothing to eat.” Newmont Ghana had promised to supplement their efforts at feeding with a bag of rice every month but this stopped after three months of moving to the new settlement. “We had no land to farm in the new settlement and for the past two years since we have been living here, we have to walk a long distance to go and work on someone else’s’ farm on condition that we give him 1/3 of our produce every time we harvested our crops. This leaves us with not enough food to feed the rest of my family and nothing to sell to help educate the rest of the children. My youngest daughter has dropped out of school because I have no money to send her. Newmont has failed us.” When I interviewed Akua Wale, the 13 year old youngest daughter of Mr. Wale, this is what she had to say: “I like to go to school and I got to Form One but I had to stop because my father could not give me the ¢1000 (1000 cedis equivalent of 10 cents) daily to buy food when I go. In the morning my mother will tell me there is no food to eat and yet they wanted me to go to school with no food in my stomach and no money to buy food. I used to feel headache and weak from walking all that way. I was very hungry so I decided not to go again.” 2. Madam Mercy Sarato 44 years old “I lived at Kwakyekrom also with my husband and six children before we were resettled. We had a big farm which had yams, plantains, corn, palm nuts and even cocoa. I would sell the cocoa when we harvest it and some of the food crops to take care of the family. The compensation Newmont gave us for destroying our farms did not go far because the only thing we could have done was lease some land for farming but we could not get land to do this. We did not have to buy anything at Kwakyekrom except salt but now over here where we cannot farm because there is no land to farm, we have to buy everything and yet we have no money. Even to get ¢1000 for each of the children to go to school is a big problem. They complain of hunger so they are all staying at home. The worst time for me is at night. I have to walk a long distance to go and be hired to work at any place they will hire me. My husband and I have to give the little food we get to the children and I have had to sleep hungry almost every day. Look at me, I was not as skinny like this but I am dying of hunger. At night I hear the stomachs of my children rumbling with hunger and many times I get up instinctively to want to go out to get them food from a neighbour but then I turn back knowing that my neighbour’s are suffering the same hunger. What hurts is that we cannot do anything about it. We have been living here for the past two years and see how we are suffering. What will happen in a year’s time? Probably we will all be dead by then. Initially Newmont was begging us to move and made many promises but now they do not care anymore.” 3. DAAVI AFI MUMULANU- 40Years old Daavi Mumulamu has eight children and lived with her family at Dormaa before they were moved to the Kenyase Resettlement Camp by Newmont Ghana. “We had cassava and plantain farm at Dormaa where I could cultivate more than an acre of the crop and process most of it for sale as ‘gari’. We were quite prosperous and my husband who is much older than I am felt secure that we will not worry about anything. Then Newmont came. They demarcated our land and warned us to stop farming. One day they came and uprooted all our crops whether they were ready for harvesting or not. They cut down our plantains telling us that if there was nothing to hold us at Dormaa, we will leave. We were afraid because we had heard that they had not fulfilled a lot of the promises they had made with other people but they begged us and promised that they will not go back on their promise. Apart from food what we needed most was water and they promised to give us everything. Then after we moved here, we discovered that there was no land to farm, my husband is old and where was I going to get food for the family? At first I used the money they gave to us for compensation to go and buy the cassava to process but we had no water. Newmont brought the water here alright but to our dismay they locked the pipes asking us to pay for the water. Go round and you will see that the pipes are locked. Others are not locked because people are complaining that the water from these taps is not good. It makes people sick so no one is going to collect water from there. So we have to pay for water and after taking the cassava to another town for processing, I don’t gain much because of the costs involved so now I have abandoned the cassava business and I am into palm oil processing for which I don’t have to travel far and do not need water for but this is not as lucrative so our income is low. As for feeding, it’s not like before. We can no longer farm so our older children have left home to go and find something to do. The promise of Newmont that they will give our children jobs has not materialised. Even if you walk into someone’s farm for a simple ‘nkotomire’ leaves, you will be arrested. We have been here for only two years now but the future looks bleak. For now it’s a matter of “Wo didi kakra a, didi preko” (when you get food to eat, eat and enjoy because you don’t know when you will get your next meal). We use to raise chickens in our former place. Newmont promised to relocate our fowls but we are yet to see them after living here for two years. We don’t even have a single feather to call our own. She said they had tried to mobilise themselves to petition Newmont concerning the hardships but “we have discovered that those who do not join us receive fowls and grasscutters for their support of Newmont. So we are being victimized for fighting for our rights. Our house is leaking now but they say we should repair it ourselves and yet we have no money to do it. We are tired of pursuing Newmont now.” 4. Osei-Agyemang -30 years Old “For us the youth in this community, there is no hope for us”. The jobs Newmont promised us have not come. We have no work and if you do not work how can you eat?” Osei was working on a cocoa farm at Soobegya till the farm was destroyed by Newmont machines. He has a Junior Secondary School certificate which cannot support him in any gainful employment. “Here we have no jobs. I could eat from the farm but now it is impossible to have even one meal a day”. Newmont came one day, packed our things into a car and set fire to our homes burning them to the ground because we resisted and demanded guarantees for jobs. Now I do odd jobs here for people in order to eat. The day I don’t get anything to do, I sleep on an empty stomach. Even the water I can use to fill my stomach. I now have to buy it but if I don’t have money to eat where is the money for water? I thank God I have no wife or children else I don’t know how I would have been able to feed them. As for now, any hope of getting married is lost because no woman will marry a poor man like me who doesn’t have a pesewa to his name.” Osei spoke about the health hazards they were encountering as well. “During the dry season, there is so much dust around here that many of us started coughing. Five of us got together to fight against this and warned Newmont that we will not allow their cars into the camp. It was after this warning that they would come and water our streets but we are paying dearly for it even though they have stopped the watering. Those who did not support our action are being given rice where as we have been left out. This is a clear case of discrimination. As I sit here now, at 11 am, I have not lighted my fire in my house to cook because I have no food to cook. You have met me here because I am going round to see what odd job I can get in order to eat. Another thing is that they built us the houses but they didn’t provide us with lights. You have to find money to connect light to your house. The houses are cracking due to the mining blasts. We have asked them to repair them and they replied that they gave us six months guarantee and since it was over we have to maintain the houses ourselves. Yet they have not stopped the blasting. It goes on day and night. How are we going to manage in this place?” 5. Madam Salamah Salaam- 60 years old Madam Salaam lived with her husband and six children at Soobegya before they were relocated to the Kenyaase Resettlement Camp. “We had a farm with corn and cassava which we could harvest and had extra for sale. We were doing well till we were relocated. They moved us here; we saw a house but no land to farm, not even a small land to cultivate food to eat because Newmont has warned us not to farm here. We have protested but no one is listening to us. My older children go about to look for odd jobs in order for all of us to eat. Now we are 10 in the house because one of my children has moved here to join us with his family because he cannot find a job. Eating is very, very difficult for us. The corn I harvested to bring here is now finished.” Usman Salaam 20 years old “What my mother has said is true. I went to school up to primary Five. Newmont promised to give us labourer’s job but up till now, we have not seen anything. We have been here for one year now. I stopped school in order to stay home with my mother because my older siblings have left to go and look for work to feed us. Our father has left us to go back to our home town Bawku, in the Upper East. He left us because he had no extra money to take us along. We left Bawku because of poverty so now even if we go back what are we going to do?”

Will Africa Implode?

Part II

Then we come down to the West of Africa. Ghana was the first black African nation to gain independence from British Colonial rule in March 6, 1957. The country has gone through several coup d’états like her powerful neighbor Nigeria. We have all heard of the civil war in Liberia which led to horrific consequences of genocide. Sierra Leone has also had its share of woes and a beautiful city like Freetown is a shadow of its past glory. How about Cote d’ Ivoire? Under the dictatorship of Boigny, the once Paris of Africa has also been reduced to its former shell.

I am just naming the bigger States and their current conditions. Out of all the countries I have named in West Africa, I can say that only Ghana has succeeded in handing over power peacefully a couple of times and is operating in a peaceful democratic atmosphere.
Togo would have dissolved into chaos had not the Africa Union and the United Nations stepped in to correct the perpetration of the late Eyadema’s dictatorship. At his death, he had the negative honor of being one of the longest dictatorships in Africa. His son was ‘selected’ to rule in his stead but thanks to the powers that be, this was resisted. Yes, Eyadema junior is in power today through a ‘rigged’ election as they say.

As at now in West Africa, Cameroon’s leader is fighting to become one of Africa’s dinosaurs as I call them; rulers who are refusing to allow others probably better than themselves to also use their intellect to help propel their countries out of poverty!
Omar Bongo of Gabon recently died and he had the singular honor of being the longest dictator in Africa if not the world! “Africa’s longest-entrenched autocrat” the CNN labeled him at his death in June 2009, this year. He ruled for 41 long years!
Listen to what it was reported of him and his leadership.

“Mr. Bongo, a disciple of the first generation of African leaders, came to power in 1967, when Lyndon B. Johnson was still president. He presided over an oil boom that fuelled an extravagant lifestyle for him and his family — dozens of luxurious properties in and around Paris, a $500 million presidential palace, fancy cars. But the tide of money did little to lift his country of 1.5 million people out of chronic poverty.” CNN

This my friend is the order of the day for many many African rulers. Sanni Abacha the late vicious dictator of Nigeria under whom thousands were assassinated or imprisoned was crowned “the Dictator of the month in July 2002” People database reported. He stole and amassed a record 3 billion dollars even surpassing the notorious master of the thieving leaders in Africa, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire.
Almost all these leaders ruled with the proverbial “iron hand’ crushing any opposition that stood in the way of their bloody rampage! Stealing the hard earned wealth that could have catapulted Africa into a might and great continent.

When we come to the East, Kenya suffered a tainted democratically elected leadership when riots and mayhem broke out after the election into power of Mwai Kibaki, the current leader. Before him had been Arap Moi and Jomo Kenyatta the first president. The latter’s death revealed that he and his family owned almost every good thing in Kenya at the time of his death. What else is new? Kenya had been under one party rule under Kenyatta and Moi until 1992 when riots forced Moi to allow multi-party activities.

Let’s not forget Uganda. Who can forget the likes of Iddi Amin and Milton Obote? In their wake is Yoveri Musevini who took over power in 1986. He is currently ruling with some semblance of democracy termed ‘stolen’ since all his activities have been termed “sly” by others in order to perpetuate his solid hold on the country. The northern part has been brutalized by rebels known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Karamajong and sent millions into exile while internally displaced citizens in Uganda number more than any other country in the world.

Now we come to Zimbabwe on the West Southern coast of Africa. We all know it as the former Rhodesia where the late Ian Smith ruled with impunity against the rightful owners of the land. We all supported Mugabe and his freedom fighters to lead the fight against apartheid in Rhodesia. Mugabe even lived in my country Ghana and married a Ghanaian wife Sally, may God rest her gentle soul. I was in primary school during the violence that clouded the skies of Rhodesia and I never ever imagined that that country would come out from under apartheid rule but God is a righteous judge and allowed it to happen. You can imagine the joy and euphoria that spread not only through out the whole of Africa but around the world as well. Little did anyone ever imagine that that joy and hope would turn into dust and ashes in our mouths.

I will end here and continue with Zimbabwe and its current status.
Cheers!

Will Africa Implode?

Introduction:

I started wrinting the article below in 2009, so many of the events have changed but I want to produce it as it was just to allow you the reader to experience some of the events that have led Africa to the state that it is in now.
Bear with me and read it as I wrote it. Some of the events especially in Darfur and Egypt have changed. Mubarak is no longer the Head of State for Egypt since we all saw the revolution that took place to overthrow his government.
Darfur has also gained independence on July 9 2011 this year even though there is still speculation whether Omar al Bashir, the President of Sudan, who congratulated Southern Sudan will allow the 'baby' nation to survive. Why this scepticim? This is because on becoming independent, Sudan lost about one third of its territory and about three quarters of its oil reserves. Do you think al-Bashir will leave them alone? Let us see what happens. As for me, I am sceptical but I keep praying that my brothers and sisters in the South will find peace at last.
So here goes, enjoy the discuss and let me have your comments.


WILL AFRICA IMPLODE?
December 8th, 2009

Preamble:

As I write now from my home on the Plains of Mid-West in the United States, my heart is breaking for my continent Africa. News coming from Africa somehow is always different from news about Africa which Western nations report.
Yes, Western nations report about Africa, the conflicts, the corruption and the commotion. What they fail to report is the major reasons why Africa is what it is today.

As I write now, the genocide in Darfur is still raging since it first started in 2003 after rebel groups from the Western part began attacking government targets accusing them of discrimination in favour of Arabs.

Chad is accusing the government of Sudan of backing Arab rebels against their villages and Sudan is counter accusing Chad of supporting rebels attacking the Sudanese government using Chad as their launching pad. The Central African Republic (CAR) is also accusing the Sudanese government of supporting CAR rebels who have taken over some villages inside the country.

If one looks closely, it is a fact that the conflict in Darfur has spilled over its borders into Chad and CAR. Who is to blame? That is the million dollar question resonant of the question of whether the egg came before the chicken or vice versa.

On the horn of Africa in the East is the conflict in Somalia that began after the corrupt government of Siad Barre was overthrown in a coup in 1991. Since then, “the country has been in a state of near-anarchy, with no effective national government, rival warlords and clans disputing control, and regions declaring their independence or autonomy.” BBC.
Major-General Muhammed Siad Barre had overthrown the government of Shermarke in October 1969 and assassinated him in the process. He suspended the country’s constitution and declared Somalia as a socialist dictatorship which eventually led to his own downfall. In 1992, he fled the country with his family into exile in Kenya leaving the country in shambles and tatters.
Since then the United Nations and other nations have failed in their attempts to help stabilize the country.
Today, Somali is embroiled in Islamic conflicts and piracy. The majority of the people are starving and the most affected are women and children and the elderly who always face the greatest brunt of any conflict anywhere in the world
Egypt has its own share of violence and as I write today, Egypt has become a “police state where torture has become systematic” reports AFP. Since the assassination of Anwar Sadat, Egypt is reportedly being operating under a state of emergence which has become the norm despite protests by human rights groups.

"Everyone who falls in the grasp of the police, particularly the poor, is in imminent danger of torture and bodily harm inflicted through various means, including beatings, kicks, floggings, burning with cigarettes, sexual harm... electroshocks to the feet, head, sexual organs and breasts, and hanging from iron bars or the door of the cell," the report continued.
As I see it, this state of events has ripened the potential of Egypt to descend into chaos after Mubarak leaves office. Will Egypt also become the next Somalia?

Ethiopia cannot be left out with the current government’s systematic ‘stealing” of votes during elections. One of my own colleagues and ActionAid’s partner when I worked for ActionAid were thrown into prison with over 100 others for treason just because they were standing in for the majority voiceless Ethiopians who had become impotent to speak up against their government’s corruption.

We will continue with events in West Africa, beginning from my country Ghana next time.

Peace!!!

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