Panel Blames Graduate's Arrest on African Corruption, Instability

The recent arrest of a Harvard graduate for protesting in Malawi stems from corruption and instability currently plaguing many African countries, said a group of students and faculty at a "teach-in" on Friday.

The event, held at the Barker Center, featured talks by Pauline Peters, a lecturer on public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Samuel Amadi of the Nigeria Center for Public Policy and Research and Shyaka Kanuma, a former journalist and current Neiman fellow.

They described the arrest of Danga Mughogho '94 for publicly protesting a proposed move by the Malawi government to allow the current president to run for a third term, despite a constitutional prohibition.

Mughogho is currently released on bail. His trial is scheduled to begin tomorrow.

The discussion of Mughogho's situation soon broadened into an analysis of the political corruption and economic instability in Malawi and other African countries.

Derrick Ashong '97, a first-year graduate student who helped organize the event as a member of the Harvard African Student Alumni Network, said the goal was to urge people-like Mughogho-to make personal efforts to help eliminate injustice.

"If you can recognize some challenges other people have with democracy, you become more aware of the rights you have here and less likely to sacrifice them," Ashong said. "It's not a matter of what we're going to do, it's a matter of what I'm going to do. If you have folks who ask and are willing to stand up, you will have change."

The speakers at the teach-in said this sort of change is much-needed in Africa.

Kanuma, a journalist from Rwanda, said he was shot at for writing articles critical of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"It's a story that's a daily occurrence in any country in Africa," he said in reference to Mughogho's arrest. "It's just lucky that he's an alumnus of Harvard."

Peters, who has worked in Malawi since 1986, said the government there is "both inept and corrupt." She described the situation in Malawi as one with ineffective public service organizations but an extremely effective secret service, governmental money-laundering and bribery of officials in opposing political parties.

Often, she said, journalists, university scholars and students face harassment for voicing criticism of these problems.

"[In Malawi] there is a very clear program of harassment and an attempt to completely diffuse opposition," she said.

But even this opposition has been scant, Peters said, since Malawi is one of the world's poorest countries and a significant proportion of its population are farmers who must struggle to achieve financial security.

She said that because of widespread governmental corruption, Mughogho's case might not even be heard. If it is, she said, the judges might be instructed to rule against him.

But she said there have been cases in which a judge ruled in a way unfavorable to the Malawian government.

Ashong said he hopes Mughogho is released and the government is changed.

He said people should emulate Mughogho's actions.

"He has taken his life into his hands and he has said 'I am going to change things,'" Ashong said. "There is a world outside Wall Street. And they need us as much, if not more, than corporate America."