Limpopo Voting Fail
Image by Blyzz
Stats from the voting map on News24.com website (http://www.news24.com/News24/Elections/Home/0,,,00.html#map)
KHARTOUM (AFP) – Fears of tighter press regulation in the wake of South Sudan's secession are proving justified with several Sudanese newspapers closed this month and numerous journalists on trial.
On July 8, a day before the south declared formal independence from the north, the authorities in Khartoum cancelled the licences of six newspapers, including popular Arabic daily Ajras Al-Hurriya (Bells of Freedom).
Officially, the papers were shut down because of their part ownership by southerners, who are no longer Sudanese nationals as required by Sudan's press law, according to Al-Obeid Meruh, secretary general of the Press Council.
Meruh says he instructed the papers to close, with the order coming down from the presidency through the information ministry.
“This was not because of a decision to restrict press freedom. The 2009 press act does not allow foreigners to be a part of the ownership of newspapers,” he told AFP.
“On July 9, every southern became the citizen of another state … If they had transferred ownership to the northern shareholders before July 9, they would not have been suspended,” he said.
“Unfortunately it is now too late, because the order when we received it was to cancel permission to publish,” he said.
Other newspapers barred from publication in the north were the Khartoum Monitor, the Juba Post, the Sudan Tribune, the Advocate and the Democrat, all English-language dailies which, like Ajras Al-Hurriya, had links to the south.
But journalists interviewed by AFP point out that the nationality law, which effectively stripped southerners living in the north of their citizenship, was only passed after the secession and the publishers had received no warning.
They point to a downward trend in Sudan, which was already ranked 172nd out of 178 countries in the 2010 press freedom index, and where foreign journalists have also come under pressure.
Ajras Al-Hurriya's managing director Hussein Saad insists his paper was shut down for political reasons.
“It is because the paper is close to the SPLM and the opposition,” he said, referring to the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the ruling party of the south.
“It was common for the security forces to take Ajras Al-Hurriya and prevent it being distributed after it was printed. It has happened nine times this year,” he added.
Faisal Mohammed Saleh, one of more than a dozen journalists and editors on trial for reporting on the alleged rape of a female opposition activist by security forces, says it was “very clear” that press freedom was deteriorating.
“They are using different tools. One of the tools of harassment is the courts, especially given the state of the judiciary, which everyone knows is not independent,” he told AFP.
Opposition activist Safiya Ishaq charged in videos posted online that she was raped repeatedly by three security officers after her arrest in Khartoum in February.
Two journalists were jailed earlier this month — and subsequently released — for writing about the case, after they were found guilty of publishing lies and violating Sudan's ethics code.
Media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders has accused the Sudanese authorities of prosecuting journalists in a bid to quell revelations of human rights violations by the security forces.
In another case, seven journalists working for Radio Dabanga, a Netherlands-based station which broadcasts in Darfuri dialects, are currently on trial, accused of spying and attacking the constitution.
Their next court appearance is scheduled for August 3.
Shortly after the independence of the south, President Omar al-Bashir pledged to engage in dialogue with all of Sudan's political groups, in a speech to parliament.
The government, meanwhile, plans to reform Sudan's 2009 press act. “We're going to demand to see the draft law,” said Al-Akbar's Faisal Mohammed Saleh.
Tanzania has been spared the internal strife that has blighted many African states.
Though it remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with many of its people living below the World Bank poverty line, it has had some success in wooing donors and investors.
Tanzania assumed its present form in 1964 after a merger between the mainland Tanganyika and the island of Zanzibar, which had become independent the previous year.
Unlike many African countries, whose potential wealth contrasted with their actual poverty, Tanzania had few exportable minerals and a primitive agricultural system. To remedy this, its first president, Julius Nyerere, issued the 1967 Arusha Declaration, which called for self-reliance through the creation of cooperative farm villages and the nationalisation of factories, plantations, banks and private companies.
But a decade later, despite financial and technical aid from the World Bank and sympathetic countries, this programme had completely failed due to inefficiency, corruption, resistance from peasants and the rise in the price of imported petroleum.
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At a glance
Politics: Tanzania has enjoyed stability. Multi-party politics was introduced in 1992
Economy: Annual growth rate has averaged 6.7% since 2006, one of the best in sub-Sahara Africa. Power supplies are erratic and fall short of demand. Gold earnings have been rising
International: Tanzania hosts thousands of refugees from conflict in the neighbouring Great Lakes region
Environment: Experts fear a planned highway threatens the Serengeti game park, Tanzania's biggest draw for tourism
Tanzania's economic woes were compounded in 1979 and 1981 by a costly military intervention to overthrow President Idi Amin of Uganda.
After Mr Nyerere's resignation in 1985, his successor, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, attempted to raise productivity and attract foreign investment and loans by dismantling government control of the economy.
This policy continued under Benjamin Mkapa, who was elected president in 1995. The economy grew, though at the price of painful fiscal reforms. Tourism is an important revenue earner; Tanzania's attractions include Africa's highest mountain, Kilimanjaro, and wildlife-rich national parks such as the Serengeti.
The political union between Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania has weathered more than four decades of change. Zanzibar has its own parliament and president.
BENGHAZI, Libya (AFP) – Libyan rebels sought to stamp out rumours by providing details on the assassination of army chief General Abdel Fatah Yunis while tightening security in their eastern stronghold of Benghazi.
National Transitional Council Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil said on Saturday that Yunis had been summoned from the front by a committee of four judges with the knowledge of the NTC's executive committee, the rebels' de facto government.
“The recall of General Fatah Yunis from Ajdabiya was based on a warrant that was issued with the knowledge of the executive committee” of the NTC, he told reporters.
“I don't know why this arrest (warrant) was issued and we don't know who was present at the meeting when the decision was made… or on what basis the decision was made,” he added.
Jalil last Thursday announced that Yunis had been killed by an armed group after being summoned to answer questions over military matters.
Yunis was a linchpin of Colonel Moamer Kadhafi's regime before defecting to rebels fighting to oust the strongman since February.
Benghazi has since become a whirlpool of rumours and reports on the motives behind the general's assassination and on the identity of those responsible for his arrest.
Jalil said Yunis died from shots fired at the chest and head and that his body had been only partially burned enabling his positive identification.
He ordered all brigades — or katibas — operating in the city of Benghazi to disband and come under the fold of the interior ministry to boost security and unity in the rebel stronghold.
Military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani said that the judges who summoned Yunis for questioning did not have the authority do so and that the minister of defence had written a letter recalling the arrest warrant.
He refused to identify suspects arrested in connection with the assassination on the basis that they are innocent until proven guilty.
“When the full truth is known it will be put to the people and the whole world,” he said, adding that in the meantime he “will cut the road to those trying to start up rumours among the revolutionaries.”
Mahmud Shammam, who handles media for the rebels, slammed foreign and local journalists over their coverage of the general's assassination, saying that “irresponsible news” was being published.
Bani said there was a security breach in Benghazi on Thursday in reference to a prison break for which he blamed members of a “fifth column”, zealous defenders and informants of Kadhafi's regime. Some of the escapees remain at large.
In Zuwaytina, the Union of Revolutionary Forces late Saturday dismissed reports that Yunis was a traitor killed by his own people for providing strategic military information to Kadhafi's regime.
“Anybody can say anything but all this big talk needs proof. The chief of staff was always with us from the beginning,” said Fawzi Bukatif, spokesman of the Union of Revolutionary Forces and head of the February 17 brigade.
The Union of Revolutionary Forces, which was formed on July 13, provides a unified command structure for fighters from volunteer brigades, who now fall under the authority of the rebels' ministry of defence.
He condemned the general's assassination as a “cowardly act” and said that Yunis's arrest and assassination took place without the knowledge nor consent of the Union of Revolutionary Forces.
“We have no relation with the arrest of Yunis or everything that happened… whatever happened was not by our orders,” he said, adding that brigades not affiliated with the Union of Revolutionary Forces arrested Yunis.
Bukatif said that the Obeida Ibn al-Jarah brigade, which an NTC member mentioned earlier as a potential culprit, was not part of the rebel body and no longer fighting on the front, which lies near the strategic oil hub Brega.
He added that Mustafa Rubaa — who belongs to the Union of Revolutionary Forces “as an individual” but not as part of a brigade — was detained for his role in the arrest of Yunis.
The villa of the assassinated general in Benghazi was surrounded by checkpoints and no traffic was allowed on the coastal city's main highway before dawn Sunday as AFP received unconfirmed reports of clashes.
South of Benghazi, rebels reported an attack by pro-Kadhafi forces on the southern oasis town of Jalo but said that it had been successfully repelled.
Kadhafi's regime meanwhile accused NATO of killing three journalists in an air strike on state television on Saturday and said that the murder of the rebels' army chief proved Al-Qaeda was instigating the country's armed revolt.
Deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaaim said early Sunday the Kadhafi regime was in contact with members of the NTC.
“There are contacts with Mahmud Jibril (number two in the NTC), and (Ali) Essawy (in charge of external relations), (religious leader Ali) Sallabi and others,” Kaaim told a news conference in the capital.
The deputy minister denied rumours about recent contacts between the regime and Yunis.
Meanwhile diplomats said that the UN Security Council is ready to release Libyan assets frozen under UN sanctions to buy humanitarian aid for the population facing growing shortages.
This is the third time that confiscated ivory has been burnt in Africa
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Elephant tusks seized in Nairobi
Kenya rangers kill ivory poachers
Country profile: Kenya
Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki has set on fire nearly five tonnes of ivory worth $16m (£9.9m) to curb poaching.
Mr Kibaki said the burning – only the third of its kind in Africa – showed the continent's determination to fight “criminal networks”.
The ivory was seized in Singapore and sent to Kenya where DNA tests showed it came from Malawi and Tanzania.
The countries agreed earlier this year to jointly stop the trade, which conservationists say is increasing.
At a ceremony in the Munyani region of eastern Kenya, Mr Kibaki used a long stick with a ball of fuel-doused cloth at the end to light the tall pyre of tusks.
‘Clear message’
Some 335 tusks and more than 40,000 ivory carvings went up in smoke.
“We cannot afford to sit back and allow criminal networks to destroy our common future,” Mr Kibaki said.
“Through the burning of contraband ivory, therefore, we are sending a clear message to poachers and illegal traders in wildlife about our collective resolve to fight this crime in our region and beyond.”
The contraband burnt in Munyani represents 10% of Kenya's ivory stockpile
The BBC's Wazir Khamsin in Munyani says the ivory that went up in flames on Wednesday represents only 10% of Kenya's stockpile.
The destruction of the ivory stockpile followed an agreement in May by Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya to strengthen law enforcement efforts to end wildlife smuggling.
The burning was the first involving the three countries, after Singapore agreed to return the stockpile nearly 10 years after it was seized.
In 1989, Kenya burnt its own stockpile of seized ivory, while Zambia torched tusks three years later.
Africa has nearly 500,000 elephants, but the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) says they are increasingly threatened.
“We share the view of most experts that illegal or poorly regulated domestic ivory markets in some countries – Thailand, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, in particular – are the main drivers of this increased elephant poaching,” the WWF says.
Commercial trade in ivory has been banned since 1989 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).
Africa Endeavor planning conference, Bamako, Mali, January 2011
Image by US Army Africa
Participants in the Africa Endeavor 2011 planning conference listen to an exercise overview in Bamako, Mali, Jan. 24, 2011.
U.S. AFRICOM photo by Susannah Dowell
U.S. Africa Command concluded the main planning conference for Africa Endeavor 2011 in Bamako, Mali, Jan. 27, after four days of deliberation and exercise planning sessions.
Africa Endeavor is an annual, multinational communications exercise that focuses on interoperability and information sharing among participating nations.
"The goal of Africa Endeavor is to improve the communications, command, control and information capabilities of African militaries so as to strengthen African stand-by forces," said Maj. Gen. Gabriel Poudiougou, Chief of Staff of the Malian armed forces at the opening ceremony.
"In short, a country’s security is reinforced by open communications with its neighbors," said Ambassador Gillian Milovanovic, U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Mali at the ceremony. "The Africa Endeavor exercise aims to improve communication and to strengthen relationships among countries in the region and across the continent in order to improve everyone’s security."
To this end, the planning conference brought together more than 180 participants from 41 African, European and North American nations, as well as observers from Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Eastern African Standby Force and NATO to plan interoperability testing of communications and information systems of participating nations.
"This conference had the largest number of participating countries to date in the Africa Endeavor series," said Brig. Gen. Robert Ferrell, director of U.S. Africa Command’s Command, Control, Communications and Computers Systems Directorate during the closing ceremony.
"This is a significant indicator that the word is getting out on the great work done during Africa Endeavor," Ferrell said.
But true interoperability is more than just compatible communications systems; it’s also developing a cadre of professionals who know how to communicate with each other.
"The best part of these events is the opportunity to interact with people from dozens of different countries," said Malian Army Lt. Col. Moussa Traore, Malian liaison for the exercise. "I’m from western Africa, but now I have family in the east and in the south and in the center. These people who I have met and have learned to know through Africa Endeavor have become members of my extended family."
The weeklong event included the review of exercise goals and objectives, the development of exercise scenarios, deliberations to determine the roles of the different countries in the exercise, the regional network architecture and a list of required equipment, a visit to the exercise site and initial discussions to determine the site of next year’s exercise.
"We have made significant progress on standardizing communications tactics, techniques and procedures that will be tested and refined during the final planning conference and executed during the main exercise," said Ferrell.
The final planning conference will be held in the Gambia in April, and Africa Endeavor 11 participants will return to Bamako in June for the main exercise.
"The impact of improved cooperation and coordination is evident far beyond military engagements," said Ambassador Milovanovic. "When a natural disaster strikes, for example, affected populations benefit from our cooperation and fewer citizens might perish or be injured as a result. Disasters and do not stop and national borders. Our communications efforts must therefore follow the same model if we are to be effective."
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ABUJA (AFP) – Nigeria's government will open talks with an Islamist sect blamed for scores of deadly bomb blasts and shootings in the northeast, a federal government statement said Saturday.
The panel will negotiate with the Boko Haram sect and report back to the government on or before August 16, the statement from the office of the secretary of the federal government said.
President Goodluck Jonathan has named the seven members of the panel, including the ministers of defence and labour as well as the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, which encompasses Abuja, the statement added.
Describing the panel's duties, it said they would include acting “as a liaison between the federal government … and Boko Haram and to initiate negotiations with the sect.”
It would also work with the national security adviser to ensure the country's security forces were acting with “professionalism,” the statement said.
A police-military task force in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, where most of the violence has occurred, has been accused of carrying out raids in recent weeks that have left dozens dead and residents' homes burnt.
The panel will be inaugurated on Tuesday, the statement said.
The decision to negotiate with the sect is almost sure to be controversial.
Many people have argued against such a move, objecting in particular to any suggestion the Islamists be given an amnesty similar to that provided to militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta.
Jonathan appointed the panel after meeting with leaders from the mainly Muslim north earlier this month, the statement said.
Nigeria's northeast, particularly Maiduguri, has seen almost daily bomb blasts and shootings in recent weeks blamed on the sect.
The sect has claimed to be fighting for the establishment of an Islamic state in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation of 150 million people split roughly in half between Christians and Muslims.
Boko Haram launched an uprising in 2009 put down by a brutal military assault that left hundreds dead.
It seemed to re-emerge last year with assassinations by gunmen on motorcycles of police, soldiers, politicians and community leaders.
Bomb blasts have become more common in recent months, with most occurring in Maiduguri, though an explosion ripped through a car park at police headquarters in the capital Abuja last month and several blasts have occurred in Suleija, near the capital.
There has been intense speculation over whether some of the violence has been politically linked and if the sect has received support from Islamist groups outside of Nigeria.
Jonathan won April elections in a vote that showed the country deeply divided, with many areas of the north backing his main rival, ex-military ruler Muhammadu Buhari.
Jonathan's candidacy broke a ruling party arrangement that sees its candidates rotated between the north and south every two terms. Jonathan is a southern Christian and the first president from the Niger Delta.
The amnesty in the Niger Delta has been credited with bringing relative calm to the region.
But analysts say the fundamental problems of corruption, poverty and unemployment remain unaddressed and will likely lead to more violence.
PARIS (AFP) – Rebels fighting Libyan ruler Moamer Kadhafi no longer need France to drop weapons to them since they are getting more organised and can arrange to arm themselves, Paris said Tuesday.
“There is emerging a political order distinct from that of Tripoli,” French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet told reporters.
“The (rebel) territories are organising their autonomy… That is why the parachute drops are no longer necessary.”
He added: “This autonomy allows them to establish relations with outside partners, including when it comes to self-defence.
“But that is not the business of the coalition and it is not the business of of resolution 1973,” one of the UN Security Council resolutions under which France and NATO allies launched strikes on Kadhafi's military sites.
France said last week that it supplied light arms including rifles and rocket launchers to the rebels for “self-defence” in line with a UN resolution and that it informed NATO and the Security Council of its plan to do so.
Russia had criticised the arms drops and France's NATO ally Britain had expressed reservations.
UN Security Council Resolution 1970, passed in February, prohibited states from providing any kind of arms to Libya. Resolution 1973 in March authorised nations “to take all necessary measures” to help protect civilians.
Longuet was cautious about the rebels' chances of defeating Kadhafi in a major planned offensive on Tripoli.
They have a “growing capacity to organise politically and militarily” but are “currently not in a stabilised, centralised system,” he said.
Kadhafi's government said on Monday that its forces intercepted two boats in waters west of Tripoli loaded with weapons from Qatar.
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan rebels say the gunmen who shot dead their military chief were militiamen allied in their struggle to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, raising questions about divisions and lawlessness within rebel ranks.
The assassination of Abdel Fattah Younes, apparently by his own side, has hurt the opposition just as it was winning broader international recognition and launching an offensive against Gaddafi's forces in the Western Mountains.
After 24 hours of confusion, rebel minister Ali Tarhouni said Younes had been killed by fighters who were sent to fetch him from the front and his bullet-riddled and partially burned body was found at a ranch near the rebel capital of Benghazi.
Tarhouni said late on Friday a militiaman had been arrested and confessed that his subordinates had carried out the killing.
Younes had been part of Gaddafi's inner circle since the 1969 coup that brought the Libyan colonel to power and was interior minister before defecting to the rebels in February.
Many rebels had been uncomfortable working under a man who had been so close to Gaddafi for 41 years, and rebel sources said on Thursday Younes had been recalled over suspicions he or his family were secretly in contact with the Libyan leader.
Rebels were divided over who had killed Younes, some suspecting his execution was ordered by rebel leaders for treason, many believing he was killed by Gaddafi supporters who had infiltrated rebel ranks, and still others suggesting a rebel splinter group had acted alone.
Gaddafi's government pointed the finger at Fawzi Bu Kitf, head of the Union of Revolutionary Forces, a federation of armed rebel groups operating in the east of the country.
In an apparent effort to distance himself from the killing, Bu Kitf on Saturday named the key suspect as Mustafa al-Rubh, the field commander who had been dispatched to arrest Younes.
“He is a member of the Union as an individual,” Bu Kitf told reporters. “Whatever was done was done through his own idea.”
Whatever the truth, the killing deepens concerns among the rebels' Western backers, keen to see them prevail in a five-month-old civil war but frustrated by their lack of unity and nervous about the influence of Islamists.
The United States, which like some 30 other nations has formally recognised the opposition, called for solidarity.
“What's important is that they work both diligently and transparently to ensure the unity of the Libyan opposition,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in Washington.
REBELS TARGET GADDAFI STRONGHOLD
Rebels who rose up against Gaddafi in February have seized swathes of the country but remain poorly equipped and are still far from ousting him, despite support from NATO airstrikes.
Rebels said on Saturday they had encircled Gaddafi's last stronghold in the Western Mountains and hoped to seize it soon.
Rebel tanks fired at Tiji, where some 500 government troops are stationed.
“We have Tiji surrounded and we hope to take it by the end of the day,” rebel commander Nasir al-Hamdi, a former police colonel, told Reuters as gunfire crackled in the distance.
Rebels also made a new push on the front just west of the rebel-held city of Misrata. Hospital sources said 12 rebels were killed and 60 wounded in fighting that rebels said took them to the edge of Zlitan, the largest city between Misrata and the capital Tripoli to the west.
“Most of the casualties today were from GRAD missiles and mortar fire. We have advanced well and God willing we will be in Zlitan soon,” said Ibrhaim Buwathi, 24.
NATO strikes also continued in western Libya overnight. NATO said early on Saturday it had bombed three satellite dishes in Tripoli to stop “terror broadcasts” by Gaddafi, but Libyan state TV remained on air and condemned what it said was the targeting of journalists.
As Libya's civil war grinds on into Ramadan with no end in sight, Libyans on both sides of the conflict say shortages, high prices, rising summer temperatures and worry about loved ones fighting on distant fronts could mar the Muslim fasting month.
“Ramadan will be very tough for us. We're already struggling now. The weather will be very hot and we won't have the energy to fight while we are fasting,” said Abdelbadr Adel, 19, a rebel fighting in the Western Mountains.
LIBYA'S WILD EAST
In the east, confusion reigned over who had killed Younes.
Rebel fighters said members of the February 17 Martyrs' Brigade, a rebel group that is part of the Union of Revolutionary Forces, had collected Younes from the frontline near Brega on Thursday.
However, Tarhouni, the rebel minister, said it was another militia, the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade, who had killed Younes.
Locals said the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade mainly comprised former prisoners of Gaddafi's notorious Abu Salim prison in the capital Tripoli, who had always distrusted Younes. Obaid Ibn Jarrah Brigade was not a member of the Union, which is employed by the Transitional National Council for security.
Named after one of the companions of Islam's Prophet Mohammad, the group is likely to have Islamist leanings.
One rebel commander, who asked not to be named, said Islamists whom Younes had targeted as interior minister may have killed him in retaliation.
“Some of those Islamists are now fighting with the rebels and they have always refused to fight under Younes's command and have always viewed him with suspicion,” he said.
“I don't think the investigation will lead anywhere. They don't dare to touch the Islamists.”
Further complicating an already murky situation, some Libyans said they feared that Younes' death would trigger a bloody tribal feud. But in an apparent effort to calm nerves, a rebel source said Younes could be replaced by Suleiman Mahmoud al-Obeidi, a member of the same tribe.
The longer the war drags on, the further eastern Libya appears to slip into lawlessness, raising questions about what kind of Libya could emerge if Gaddafi goes.
Tarhouni told reporters on Friday night a gang had attacked a prison using rocket-propelled grenades, helping about 300 former Gaddafi soldiers and loyalists to escape.
(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Hawamid; Mussab Al-Khairalla and Ayman al-Sahili in Misrata; Missy Ryan in Tripoli; Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Souheil Karam in Rabat; writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Sophie Hares and Mark Trevelyan)
Repeat offenders constitute between 68% – 94% of South Africa's prison population, depending on the crime
6,000 prisoners are released each month, 80% of these go on to re-offend
Most common offences are for crimes of violence, such as robbery, murder and rape
240 prisons in South Africa built to house 115,118 inmates
Current prison population: 157,996
Source: Dept Correction Services
Once you enter prison you never live your own life. You live under someone's rules, you lose all sense of who you are, you become just another prisoner waiting to be told what to do, when and how to do it.
I've been seeing social workers to help me to cope with this environment.
The first few months were the hardest. No-one cares about you in here, everyone has their own problems – I was alone for the first time in my life. It was a very painful feeling.
I don't think I would have survived without my family, my grandmother kept me holding on.
She would always say: “You can either make your life better or you can make it worse while you're in here.” That haunted me, it still does.
I know how much I have disappointed them and I can't believe they didn't give up on me.
It's strange that it took me coming to prison to appreciate how important family is.
I've been staying out of trouble because if you misbehave in here you can end up staying longer than you have to.
I have taken part in as many programmes as I could just to keep busy, from life-skills training to anger-management classes and HIV and substance abuse courses.
It's like time stands still when you are in here, you have to keep busy or you'll lose your mind.
Fighting temptation
Some people leave prison worse than they were when they got in – I think I'm better than I could have ever been.
I'm sure I would have done much worse if I had not been arrested, who knows where I would have ended up.
I keep a calendar in my cell and I've been counting down the days to my release. It feels unreal.
A part of me is worried though. Yes I have changed but nothing else has changed.
My family is still poor, many people in my community still don't have jobs – it is easy get tempted into crime.
My gang is still there and I don't know how I am going to stay away from them. I don't want that life anymore; I know I have to cut them out of my life.
I want to get a job as a panel beater and fix people's cars. I think a job will keep me out of trouble but I'm not sure if I will get hired.
How many people hire people with criminal records?
I have to work harder than I've ever worked to get people to trust me and I am prepared to do that.
All I need is just one chance to prove that I want a better life for myself and I want to do it right this time.