African Unification Front
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AUF STRATEGY FOR PUBLIC SAFETY
The AUF will establish, under the mandate of the Pan African Parliament and the Banjul Protocol, the African Council for Public Safety, that will be charged with oversight of police forces training, administrative functions, procurement, financial management, personnel, career planning, safety, health, and property management.
The ACPS will establish professional standards for accrediting public safety personnel and enforcement personnel training organisations. Establishing accreditation programs will ensure that enforcement and public safety are consistent and meet the established standard. The ACPS will also identify programs that can be taught by grassroots community methods for the purpose of integrating all Africans in the management of their own safety concerns.
Currently there are over 130 policing agencies in Africa. The conditions under which most of the police forces are trained are inadequate and poorly funded. A government of unity would provide training to State, local and international police in selected programs. This would save costs and secure a high standard of discipline.
The ACPS will prepare public safety and law enforcement professionals to fulfill their responsibilities in a safe manner and at the highest level of proficiency. The ACPS would also ensure that training is provided in the most cost-effective manner by taking advantage of economies of scale available only from a consolidated public safety training organization.
A consolidated approach to public safety will deliver consistency of training content and quality, monitoring and accountability, and the mixing of officials from different communities and agencies that fosters cooperation and networking.
The ACPS would provide strong, collaborative leadership for enforcement and public safety training, working as partners with client agencies including state, local and international organizations, to identify ways that research, training, and education can be used to protect African public and community institutions, ensure public safety, and preserve law and order.
Current enforcent of laws in Africa place specific emphasis of issues that are related to jusrisdictional issues, and residual colonial pandect. Enforcement is without doubt one of the major casues of conflict. Most enforcement actions are carried out by the Army, the Police, Paramiltary organizations such as Wildlife Park Rangers.
Faced with an avalanche of social problems, dislocation and failing communities, Africans rely on the dramatic use of armies and police, suppression of insurgency, and counter-terrorism, hoping that these measures restore order and a semblance of statehood that is modeled on the Western norm.
Colonial legalisms (prisons, re-education) only excerbate the problems inherent in enforcement. The AUF is working for a change in strategy. We should be spending more resources trying to end the international regime of residual colonialism...and to change our relationship to it (like unification, better terms of trade)...instead of shooting one another and keeping each other in prisons and refugee camps
A CASE OF SMUGGLING
The reasons for smuggling are numerous. In some cases the only thing that needs to happen in order for smuggling to take place is "failure to declare" an item. But when there is a conscious effort to "evade disclosure" of an item in transport "for the purpose of avoiding taxes, arrest, or confiscation, it is called smuggling. The item being smuggled may be legal to possess, covert transportation of items across the various state borders in order to avoid taxes.
For the most part smuggling in Africa happens because there are customs regulations that should not exist. Traders are over taxed and constrained by endless legal minutiae that they prefer to transport goods covertly. Sometimes the things being smuggled are not even goods. Smuggling people (such as happens when illegal immigrants enter a state in cargo crates), is common throughout Africa. Lifting travel restrictions for Africans in Africa ought to stop such form of unhealthy transportation.
COMMODITIES VIOLATIONS
Gold smuggling is big business, and because of smuggling governments lose millions in potential revenue in customs duties and export/import tarrifs. Diamonds, coffee, currencies. In most cases you need permits and certificates of origin to pass goods through a ports and border customs posts. People who do not have the correct documents or who cannot afford to pay the fees for the ports prefer to smuggle these items.
Things that are smuggled in Africa include almost everything, depending of course on the circumstances pertaining to the conduct of law enforcement in each state...as well as the economic regulations of each state.
Smuggled items range from live animals (especially small birds, reptiles), foreign currencies, old clothes, weapons, animal hides and tusks, to plastic slippers and cheap imports of toys and clothing accessories.
Many legally traded products are also smuggled in Africa, because of restrictions and senselessly high tarrifs and customs dues. People smuggle coffee (and you get shot for that in some African countries), they smuggle soap, liquor, perfume, make-up, shoes, cigarettes, cars, even toys...but the most lucrative of all is the African art (for European and American collectors).
TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION VIOLATIONS
The high fatality and injury rates result from violations of loading, transport and safety regulations. The politicised nature of enforcement in Africa means that responces to such violations often results in repression instead of accomodation. For example: Minibus taxis do a lot of the intracity transportation. A decision by city authorities to restrict minibus access to certain stops loading zones may cause transport workers to form a union and enlist the help of the press. A typical response might be the arrest of the union leader, who then might be jailed and tortured. Although court do succeed in imposing fair solutions, this kind of enforment is too common.
Issues that might never be addressed in court may include such concerns as being treated badly by the zoning laws that prohibit them from picking up in front of certain buildings owned by "important people".
In Nairobi, overloading was a major problem. The city instituted the No-Standing rules that required city buses to carry only seated passengers. The bus conductors got around this by forcing over crowded passengers to squat and to sit on other peoples laps, especially in zones where the police were expected to be. This was awful for most commuters.
In Kampala City during the same period, the police there were strictor and simply demanded full compliance; the buses could only carry as many communters as the number of seats in the bus. Attempts to add more seats not initially installed by the manufacturer were refused. Hence the bus ride in Kampala were less stressful, but compelled the city to have more minibus traffic in order to fulfill the demand for buses.
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