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The Covid-19 Pandemic Advocacy.

Advocacy is Re-active while “forcing” us because problems or issues are already there. Then we use advocacy to respond, seeking to address or reducing their impact.

The best Re-active Advocacies are those brought about by reality strengths who “are forced” to act together because no one can avoid them, because they go beyond individuals, organizations and even states’ power. Covid-19’s pandemic is surely one of the most strong reality strengths.

Any advocacy should have the poor and marginalized at its centre and carried out For, With, By the poor and marginalized. We can see, therefore, as a “gift” coming from actual human suffering advocacy blossoming everywhere on behalf of the neglected and discarded parts of our global society.

On  March 23rd,  the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for a global ceasefire. He urged all parties in conflict to lay down arms and allow war-torn countries to fight the common enemy instead, namely the corona-virus pandemic. He renewed his call on April 2 because “The worst is yet to come. The Covid-19 storm is now coming to all these theatres of conflict,” and “the fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war.”

Echoing his words, Pope Francis sent a message in a live streamed address from Rome to a quarantined world (See the videoed address here) saying, “I join all those that have listened to this appeal and I invite all to follow it up, putting an end to all forms of warlike hostility, fostering the creation of corridors for humanitarian aid, openness to diplomacy and attention to those that find themselves in a situation of greatest vulnerability.”

We need, ” to reinforce fraternal bonds”, he went on, hoping that the Covid-19 may awaken ” in nations’ leaders and other parties involved a renewed commitment to overcome rivalries” through the “joint commitment against the pandemic. Conflicts aren’t resolved through war! It’s necessary to overcome antagonisms and oppositions through dialogue and a constructive search for peace.”

Covid-19 “knows no borders.” Consequently, Pope Francis went on advocating also for those whose housing makes them susceptible to risk, such as nursing homes and shared houses, barracks, overcrowded prisons, and the homeless. He asked authorities “to be sensitive to this problem and to take the necessary measures” to avoid further tragedies.

Such as a pandemic of good-will, everywhere during the corona-virus crisis, there is unfolding a wide range of advocacy initiatives both through actions and appeals. Young people organize teams to bring treatments and food to old people. In a rapidly changing life in New York City (NYC), to help connect  community members in food need, the Hunter College NYC created COVID-19 NYC Food Resource Guides.

The NYC Department of Health, using the 2018 Community Health Profiles of already organized 59 community districts of its neighborhoods, sends out guide lines and zip codes containing over fifty measures, health statistics, and information related to food access within the community, such as meals for students and seniors, delivery services for people with disabilities, and resources for immigrants.

On April 5, the Nuclear Disarmament Task Force at the Unitarian Church of All Souls, the All Souls Peace and Justice Task Force both of NYC, and the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace, and Security organized via Zoom an advocacy meeting asking to Move the Money – from Threatening the Planet with Nuclear Weapons to Defending it Against Catastrophic Climate Change. Resources needed to avert climate disaster should not be squandered on nuclear weapons, is the appeal, since any use of nuclear weapons would be suicidal.

Advice to stay at home to slow the spread of COVID-19, proclaimed and even imposed everywhere and from every social entity, it is not, nevertheless, of much help to homeless New Yorkers. Even if they’re in a shelter, they are particularly vulnerable to a widespread health crisis. They are more likely to contract the virus: the close proximity to one another in the shelters, the lack of access to soap and hand sanitizer for the unsheltered, the challenges in obtaining medical care expose them to the virus, and therefore to get sicker or die.

Many of them can have already been infected and become all the more threatening for people with or without permanent homes. New York City, with its more than 60,000 homeless people in shelters and thousands on the street, released guidance for homeless shelter operators on the best practices for cleaning facilities and dispatched outreach teams to inform the city’s homeless about COVID-19. The city has also set up a system to send meals to those in quarantine in response to their lack of funds or access to food at grocery stores (Read more here).

Hopefully these experiences of Re-active advocacy through concrete actions and appeals to address the main social issues and problems, would open the mind, hearts and way of public authorities and world-wide organizations to Pro-Active advocacy for these same peoples when the virus emergency ends. You can support this advocacy campaign here https://www.avaaz.org/campaign/en/global_ceasefire_3bshare/

John Paul Pezzi, mccj
VIVAT International NGO
with consultative special status at UN

 

 

Ethiopia. Postponed national elections over coronavirus fears.

The national elections that were scheduled for August have been postponed sine die because of the coronavirus outbreak. Some analysts fear that such decision could exacerbate the tense political situation in Ethiopia.

On the last 1st April, the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) announced the postponement of the national legislative elections which were initially scheduled on the 29 August 2020. The Board justified its decision with the existing condition in the country, meaning the Covid 19 pandemics which prompted the government to declare the state of emergency on the following 8 April, after it had registered 52 confirmed cases, with two deaths. Indeed, the fight against the spread of coronavirus and the organization for the forthcoming election was hardly compatible since the government had already banned mass gatherings at the end of March, while regional states have suspended local transportation services and banned movements of people.  Such actions have delayed pre-election tasks, including the training over 150,000 election attendants, explained the NEBE.

The initial expectations were that these elections pushed by the wind of reform, following Prime Minister Abyi Ahmed’s election in April 2018, would be the first free and fair ones since the fall of the dreaded regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991 (except one, none was competitive). But analysts fear that the postponement of the election can increase an already tense situation characterized by protests, repression and censorship.  Abiy, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 as a reward for Ethiopia’s reconciliation with Eritrea, had promised that this year’s vote will be free. His reputation of reformist after he granted amnesty to thousands of political prisoners, allowed the return of exiles and lifted a ban on opposition parties, has given him a widespread popularity in the country But over the last months, the prospects are becoming gloom. The forthcoming campaign could be very tense in a climate that prompted the parliament to pass law punishing “hate speech” and “disinformation” on the 13 February.

The forthcoming elections have been indeed exacerbating ethnic tensions in many parts of the country. The Tigray region, the stronghold of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) which de facto ran the country as leader of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), finds itself in a state of near secession. On the 3 February, the Prime Ministre acknowledged the problem and said that there could not be two armies in the same country. Nevertheless, on the 7 February, the forces of the Tigray National Regional state defied him and made a parade in the regional capital, Mekelle. And after the announcement of the postponement of the election, the leadership of Tigray warned that this measure would pose a danger to the federation.
Ethno-regionalism is spreading throughout the country, including in Abiy Ahmed’s Oromo region, the most populated of the nine Ethiopian states. The Prime Minister is facing there the opposition of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) whose slogan is “make Oromia great again” and which boasts from the support of the popular leader and media-baron Jawar Mohammed. Like opponents in Tigray, he criticized the decision to postpone the election.
“The Board was already behind the schedule by weeks before the coronavirus outbreak became an issue. There was no way they could have held the election as scheduled. The pandemic just gave them justifiable excuses”, accused Jawar Mohammed.

The OFC which absorbed the Oromo Liberation Front of Dawad Ibsa Ayana, is convinced it can win. It has set up a large coalition of other regionalists groups including the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) which is the likely winner in the Somali region, the Afar People’s Liberation Party (APLP), the Sidama People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the Agew National Council (ANC), the Benishangul Gumuz People’s Liberation Movemnt (BGLM), the Kimant Democratic Party (KDP), the Gambella People’s Liberation Movement (GPLM) and the Mocha Domocratic Party (MDP).
Besides, in the Amhara National Regional  State, Abiy’s Prosperity Party which replaces the former ruling EPRDF which was dissolved in January 2020, will be challenged by the National Movement of Amhara (NAMA) and the Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (ECSJ). Yet, the dissolution of the EPRDF is considered as premature even within the government, by the Defence Minister, Lemma Megersa, a former president of the Oromo region, who fell out with Abyi over the issue.
The opposition takes sometimes a violent form. On the 23 February, 29 people were injured in a bomb attack in the town of Ambo, at 100 km west of the capital, Addis Ababa against a rally of Abiy’s unitarist Prosperity Party. The police suspects the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) – the breakaway armed wing of the OLF- for the attack and for the assassination of a top security official two days before in Burayu, a town on the outskirts of Addis Ababa.  The OLA is also blamed for bombings, bank robberies and kidnappings in Oromia.

Political violence could jeopardize the implementation of economic reforms which attracted billions of dollars of foreign investments. Over the last two decades, Ethiopia made huge progress in health, education and poverty reduction. Life expectancy increased from 52 years in 2000 to 67 in 2020. The economy grew more than 10-fold during this period. Nevertheless, free and fair elections, as promised Abiy may provoke his defeat. The way Abiy is confronting the challenges is raising lots of concern among human rights activists who deplore that in order to clamp down on protests, secession threats and hatred speech, the government is denying the opposition space to campaign openly.
Abyi’s staunchest opposition comes from his own region of Oromia, which celebrated in 2018 his election as a victory.
The PM is blamed for restricting the press and association freedoms. The OLF and the Oromo Federalist Congress complain that their offices have been closed lots of times.
On the 9 March 2020, the New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the Ethiopian government to lift the two-month shutdown of internet and phone communications in Oromia which was justified by the government as necessary during counterinsurgency operations there. Under Abiy Ahmed’s administration, communication blackouts have become routine, deplores HRW.  In January 2020, the Ethiopian government introduced a hate speech and disinformation law that could restrict free expression and access to internet, warns HRW.
According to the Addis Standard magazine, Abiy’s government is filling up the jails again with political prisoners. By end February, nine OLF members and leaders were arrested in Addis Ababa. One of them, former Commander of Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), Abdi Regassa now member of OLF’s Executive Committee, remains in prison. But the government’s refusal to reveal his whereabouts prompted Amnesty International to appeal for his release.

Some areas of Oromia look like an occupied territory. In the market town of Nekemte, residents complain that the presence of the army reminds them of the authoritarian regime which ruled the country from 1991 to 2018. Many local inhabitants see the military, not the OLA rebels, as the main source of instability.
The Oromos who had hoped that they would benefit from Abiy’s election as prime minister, are extremely disappointed.
The repression has become very harsh. Human rights organisations mention dozens of deaths. “Killings are occurring on a daily basis in rural areas,” says Asebe Regassa, a lecturer at Wollega University. Accordingly, farmers are afraid of harvesting because they fear that soldiers may accuse them of growing food for the OLA.  On the 10 January 2020, at Bule Hora University, security forces opened fire on a crowd of protesting students, killing one and injuring more than a dozen.  The bitterness is widespread. Opposition leader, Jawar Mohammed says that Abyi is trying to replace the one-party dominated system by a “one man-dominated system”. Critics are even saying that Abiy Ahmed got the Nobel Prize too soon. (F.M.)

 

SIPRI. World arms exports continued to increase over the last five years.

International arms exports increased by 5% between 2015 and 2019 compared to the previous five years, according to new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which also noted that Africa’s arms exports declined during this period.

SIPRI has just revealed that the largest exporters of arms during the past five years were the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China. The new data shows that the flow of arms to the Middle East has increased, with Saudi Arabia clearly being the world’s largest importer.
Arms imports by African states decreased by 16% between 2010–14 and 2015–19, SIPRI data shows. North Africa accounted for the vast majority (74%) of African arms imports in 2015–19, with Algeria alone accounting for 79% of North African arms imports.
Algeria’s arms imports were up by 71% on 2010–14, making it the sixth-largest arms importer in the world in 2015–19.

The increase occurred in the context of Algeria’s long-standing tensions with Morocco, internal tensions and concerns about the conflicts in neighbouring Mali and Libya. As in 2010–14, Russia remained the largest arms supplier to Algeria in 2015–19, accounting for 67% of Algerian arms imports, followed by China (13%) and Germany (11%).Egypt’s arms imports tripled between 2010–14 and 2015–19, making it the world’s third-largest arms importer, according to SIPRI, with the acquisition of attack helicopters, fighter jets, naval vessels and other hardware. Egypt’s arms imports accounted for 5.8% of the global total and were 212% higher than in 2010–14. The upward trend in Egypt’s arms imports coincides with its military involvement in Libya and in Yemen, and fighting with rebel groups in the Sinai Peninsula.It might also be linked to Egypt’s concerns over the security of gas fields in the Mediterranean and water supply from the Nile Basin, SIPRI said.The USA, which has been giving military aid to Egypt since 1978, was the largest arms exporter to Egypt for any five-year period between 1980 and 2014. Although US arms exports to Egypt remained stable in 2015–19, the USA was only the third-largest arms supplier to Egypt in the period and accounted for 15% of its arms imports, down from 47% in 2010–14.

Because of frictions with the USA related to the military coup in Egypt in 2013, Egypt has intensified its efforts to procure arms from other suppliers. In 2015–19 a total of 35% of Egyptian arms imports came from France, up from 2.3% in 2010–14; Russia accounted for 34% of Egyptian arms imports in 2015–19.
States in sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 26% of African arms imports in 2015–19. Taken together, the arms imports by states in the sub region were 49% lower in 2015–19 than in 2010–14 and at the lowest level since 1995–99. In 2015–19 Russia accounted for 36% of arms imports by states in the sub region, China for 19% and France for 7.6%.
The five largest arms importers in sub-Saharan Africa – Angola, Nigeria, Sudan, Senegal and Zambia – accounted for 63% of all arms imports to the sub region. Angola accounted for 27% of arms imports to sub-Saharan Africa and was the 42nd largest arms importer globally. Even though Angola’s economy was in recession, its arms imports were 2120% higher in 2015–19 than in 2010–14.SIPRI pointed out that South Africa, the largest arms importer in sub-Saharan Africa in 2005–2009, imported almost no major arms in 2015–19. South Africa’s imports of submarines, frigates, light helicopters, fighter jets and combat trainers came after the 1998 arms deal but have tapered off significantly since then as the defence budget has declined.

Between 2010–14 and 2015–19, exports of major arms from the USA grew by 23%, raising its share of total global arms exports to 36%. In 2015-19 total US arms exports were 76% higher than those of the second-largest arms exporter in the world, Russia. Major arms transferred from the USA went to a total of 96 countries.
“Half of US arms exports in the past five years went to the Middle East, and half of those went to Saudi Arabia,” said Pieter D. Wezeman, Senior Researcher at SIPRI. “At the same time, demand for the USA’s advanced military aircraft increased, particularly in Europe, Australia, Japan and Taiwan.”French arms exports reached their highest level for any five-year period since 1990 and accounted for 7.9% of total global arms exports in 2015-19, a 72% increase on 2010–14. “The French arms industry has benefited from the demand for arms in Egypt, Qatar and India,” said Diego Lopes Da Silva, SIPRI Researcher.

Major arms exports by Russia decreased by 18% between 2010-14 and 2015-19. “Russia has lost traction in India – the main long-term recipient of Russian major arms – which has led to a sharp reduction in arms exports,” said Alexandra Kuimova, SIPRI Researcher. “This decrease was not offset by the increase in Russian arms exports to Egypt and Iraq in 2015 -19.” Arms imports by countries in the Middle East increased by 61% between 2010 -14 and 2015 -19, and accounted for 35% of total global arms imports over the past five years. Saudi Arabia was the world’s largest arms importer in 2015 -19. Its imports of major arms increased by 130% compared with the previous five-year period and it accounted for 12% of global arms imports in 2015–19. Despite the wide-ranging concerns in the USA and the United Kingdom about Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen, both the USA and the UK continued to export arms to Saudi Arabia in 2015-19. A total of 73% of Saudi Arabia’s arms imports came from the USA and 13% from the UK, SIPRI reports.India was the second-largest arms importer in the world over the past five years, with its neighbour Pakistan ranking 11th. “As in previous years, in 2019 India and Pakistan -which are nuclear-armed states-attacked each other using an array of imported major arms,” said Siemon T. Wezeman, Senior Researcher at SIPRI. “Many of the world’s largest arms exporters have supplied these two states for decades, often exporting arms to both sides.”

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been militarily involved in Libya as well as Yemen over the past five years and was the eighth-largest arms importer in the world in 2015–19. Two-thirds of its arms imports came from the USA during this period. In 2019, when foreign military involvement in Libya was condemned by the United Nations Security Council, the UAE had major arms import deals ongoing with Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the UK and the USA.
In 2015–19 Turkish arms imports were 48% lower than in the previous five-year period, even though its military was fighting Kurdish rebels and was involved in the conflicts in Libya and Syria. This decrease in imports can be explained by delays in deliveries of some major arms, the cancellation of a large deal with the USA for combat aircraft, and developments in the capability of the Turkish arms industry.(D.N.)

 

Has People Action Any Meaning?

It is given as a fact that any advocacy cannot have success without some sort of campaign. A campaign “is the process of mobilizing people to join together in taking action and challenging the powerful to make decisions that help and benefit the powerless.”

It is a way of bringing about improvements or changes for a particular group in the community by identifying a problem, making the target audience aware of the problem, mobilizing other actors to support the intervention, persuading them to take action to resolve the problem or change a certain behavior.
In one word, it is about tackling the causes of injustice, inequality, unfair treatment and marginalization by challenging those structures, policies, and practices which serve to keep the poor in poverty.

Beyond the good intentions, and always laudable efforts, how consistent, effective, and successful are mass mobilization to move forth towards a social justice? This seems the aims of Mass Mobilization Project (MMP) https://massmobilization.github.io/

The Mass Mobilization Project is, therefore, an effort to understand citizen movements against governments. The Mass Mobilization (MM) data shows what citizens want when they demonstrate against governments, and how governments respond to citizens.

The MM data cover 162 countries between 1990 and 2018. MMP Data gathers events where 50 or more protesters publicly demonstrate against government, resulting in more than 10,000 protest events. Each event records location, protest size, protester demands, and government responses. It has three main sections: Data, Visualization, Models.

Data offers texts for research. Its Dataverse is an open source web application to share, preserve, cite, explore, and analyze research data. It facilitates making data available to others, and allows you to replicate others’ work more easily. Researchers, journals, data authors, publishers, data distributors, and affiliated institutions all receive academic credit and web visibility.

Actually, every Dataverse repository is the software installation, which then hosts multiple virtual archives called Dataverses. Each Dataverse contains datasets, and each dataset contains descriptive metadata and data files (including documentation and code that accompany the data). As an organizing method, Dataverses may also contain other Dataverses.

Visualization analyzes Regional Protest Behavior, Country Protests Over Time, Yearly Change in Protests through tables, graphics and pictures. Here you can choose your country of interest with information on violent protests, and the trend of the country compared with the violence
trend of the world.

Finally, Yearly Change in Protests analyses Protest behavior year by year, starting from 1991 through 2018. Blue bars represent an increase in total protests between that year and the previous year; red bars represent a decrease in total protests between that year and the previous year; grey line represents the trend in yearly change in total protests. About one country, Burundi for instance, in Change in Yearly Protest behavior the graphic shows an increase from 1991 through 2013 and then a decrease bringing the trend lower than the average.

For each event, the MM data itemizes what protesters demand across as many as seven categories, including labor/wages, land, police brutality, political process, prices/taxes, removal of a politician, and social restrictions. The dataset also records up to seven types of government responses, including accommodation, arrests, beatings, crowd dispersion, killings, and shootings.

The Mass Mobilization project is sponsored by the Political Instability Task Force (PITF). The PITF is funded by the Central Intelligence Agency. The views expressed herein are the Principal Investigators’ alone and do not represent the views of the US Government.
See an example of MMP application in The Impact Of Mass Mobilization And Citizens Participation In Community Development (A Case Of Umuerim Community Of Owerri West, Imo State)

John Paul Pezzi, mccj
VIVAT International NGO
with consultative special status at UN

 

The Nubian People: between Egypt and Sudan.

The legacy of the time of the Pharaohs of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty is being ransomed after the silence caused by intentionally misrepresented history. Now, researchers and institutions are recovering the splendor of the Nubian civilization.

The fascinating culture, history, monuments and religion of Egypt have often overshadowed another not less remarkable and surprising civilization that developed along with the Egyptian one, the civilization of the Black African people of Nubia: the biblical Kush, which due to geographical, climatic and historical circumstances remained forgotten and buried in the burning sands of the Nubian desert for thousands of years. Today the Nubian civilization is coming to light again, revealing its admirable secrets, thanks to the enormous work and efforts of archaeologists and organizations such as the UNESCO, which seek to save it from the water flow behind the Aswan Dam.

Nubia is an ancient region in north eastern Africa, extending approximately from the Nile River valley (near the first cataract, in Aswan, Upper Egypt) eastward to the shores of the Red Sea, southward to about Khartoum (in what is now Sudan), and westward to the Libyan Desert. Nubia lies in the south of Egypt and the north of Sudan. Although it was split between two countries during the European colonization of Africa, it has a distinct culture and language. Ancient Nubia was a homogeneous and independent state. It was the seat of one of the earliest civilizations of ancient Africa with its own rulers, customs, religion and culture.Nubians were a people of artisans, merchants, goldsmiths, very skilled archers and fierce warriors who were able to compete with their powerful neighbour to the north. At one point, the Nubian Pharaohs of the 25th Dynasty even ruled over Egypt for 75 years. Egyptians did, however, conquer Nubian territory at various times, and over centuries their influence, customs and culture overshadowed and absorbed the Nubian civilization.

To the south of the Third Cataract on the east bank of the Nile River, is the city of Kerma, which was a very important centre for trade located between northern Egypt and the kingdom of Kush, where Egyptian merchants went mainly in search of the coveted gold. Kush was known by the Egyptians as the land of gold, which was so appreciated by pharaohs. But the kingdom of Kush was also a thriving centre for the trade of other metals, livestock, all kinds of wood, aromatic plants, incense, pottery and slaves. The city of Kerma was surrounded by walls and is home to one of the oldest and most enigmatic structure in the world and, undoubtedly in Africa: the Deffufa, a mud brick temple where ceremonies were performed on top.
This complex structure is 50m by 25m, and 18 meters tall. It is interesting to note that the Deffufa dates back to around 4,500 years ago, just like the first Egyptian pyramids. So, the time of the beginning of the Nubian and Egypt civilization apparently coincides.

Misinterpretations of Nubian Civilization
The forgotten Kingdom of Kerma was re-discovered by the American archaeologist, George Reisner, during the early 20th century. Fascinated by the site’s wealth, he could not imagine it to be the work of an indigenous Nubian civilisation. Kerma was thus considered a faraway post administered by the Egyptians, who had known how to stimulate the development of the region.

This interpretation nonetheless prevailed for several decades until numerous studies and new findings proved and recognized the historical value of the Nubian African kingdom of Kush.
Like everything related to the people and kingdom of Kush, also the Black Pharaohs remained an unknown chapter in history, since the same Egyptian Pharaohs were responsible for erasing their names from monuments and writings. All these misinterpretations and omissions made the Nubian civilization remained unknown until archaeologists brought it back to light.

The Libyan presence in Egypt
Egypt suffered a great political, religious and moral crisis around 730 B.C. Each city or region of the kingdom had its own ruler. This fragmentation of power favoured the settlement of communities of Libyan origin, which over time, took control of the north of the country. When the influential priests of Ammon in Karnak, started to feel threatened by the presence of the Lybian communities, they urged Pharaoh Kushita Piye – or Pianji – to save the Egyptian civilization from its ultimate destruction and disappearance. Acclaimed by the priests as the son of the god Amun, the Pharaoh quickly assembled an army to invade Egypt. As ruler of Nubia and Upper Egypt, Piye took advantage of the squabbling of Egypt’s rulers by expanding Nubia’s power beyond Thebes into Lower Egypt. Piye considered himself the legitimate successor of great Egyptian Pharaohs such as Thutmose III and Ramses II. Piye viewed his campaign as a Holy War, commanding his soldiers to cleanse themselves ritually before beginning battle.

In just over a year, all the rulers of the north were defeated and the long-awaited political and religious union of Egypt was restored. Once he had consolidated his power and restored the unity of the country, Pianji returned to Kush, his homeland. Under his mandate Egypt regained sovereignty, and the cult of Ammon, of the other gods and the Egyptian religious culture were restored. When he died in 715 B.C. he was buried with four of his horses, in an Egyptian-style pyramid.
Pianji was the initiator of the XXV Dynasty, known as that of the Black Pharaohs in the history of Egypt.Upon his death, his brother Shabaka assumed power and chose Memphis as his residence. During his rule he had to face several uprisings by Libyans, and he had also to confront with the Assyrian king Sennacherib who attacked the fortified cities of the Kingdom of Judah. Instead of ordering the execution of his enemies, Shabaka generally ordered that they dig irrigation canals and dikes in order to protect villages from the various floodings of the Nile. He was succeeded by his nephew Taharca, son of Pianji.

One of the great Pharaohs
By reading the inscriptions on some steles, it is clear that Taharca was remembered as one of the great Pharaohs of Egypt. In 690 B.C., he was crowned in Memphis and acclaimed as the chosen one of Amón. During his twenty-six year rule, Pharaoh Taharca was able to guarantee peace and prosperity to the kingdoms of Egypt and Nubia.
Taharca, following the path of the great Pharaohs, commissioned the building of several monuments, including two temples in the Nubian city of Napata, where the sacred mountain of Jebel Barkal, birthplace and residence of the god Amun, is located.
Taharca was the most important Black Pharaoh of the XXV Dynasty and his influence in Egypt was so great and important that neither his enemies nor time have been able to erase his memory.

His successor, Tanutamani, tried to reunify the Egyptian kingdoms again. He remained on the throne in Thebes for eight years, then the Assyrians defeated him and forced him to return to Nubia, where the Kushite kings continued to reign for a millennium, first in Napata and then in Meroe.
The Black Pharaohs of the XXV Dynasty were considered the saviours and unifiers of the religious and cultural values of Egypt at a critical time in its history. Being considered as the sons of Ammon, they were guarantors of the continuity of the Egyptian divine dynasty, of all its traditions and principles. That is why they fought against invaders that endangered both unity and culture. They ruled as authentic Egyptian Pharaohs controlling the administration, religion, priests and commissioning imposing buildings. They considered themselves fully Egyptian because of their culture and religion, although they came from a different ethnic environment. They were never seen as invaders but as an integral part of the same kingdom, Upper and Lower Egypt and, also very important, that of Kush.

Luis Casado

Bangladesh. The mission of dialogue.

After 45 years of missionary work in Bangladesh, Fr Bob McCahill still continues pedaling to find and bring help to rural disadvantaged people. His energy comes from prayer and a sober diet of veggies. He tells us his story.

After my ordination in 1964, I was assigned to the Philippines. During 11 years, I lived in remote areas, traveling often by motorcycle where there were roads or on foot in the hills, to be with farmers in their barrios and at their fiestas. It was a busy and satisfying life of service to the poor people.  In 1975, an invitation for priests to work in Bangladesh was given to my missionary institute, the Maryknoll Society. We were five who volunteered, arriving on December 2, 1975 in Dhaka in Bangladesh. After a few months of our language studies we asked, the Archbishop of Dhaka, mons. Theotonious Amal Ganguly, to give us permission to live among the Muslims.

At the beginning of our eighth year in Bangladesh, the community of five was reduced to two. Fr Douglas Venne and I decided to leave Tangail, the place where we had lived for the previous eight years, to go to places we felt the need to be, as witnesses of our brotherhood with Muslims and Hindus. Doug chose to be a village-based farmer; I chose to be a seeker-helper of the disabled.
Thus, began my programme of spending three years in a town and them transferring to another town and district. Often a curious Bengalis wanted to know why I had come to live among them. To be a Christian among Muslims is my purpose. To illustrate our feelings of Christian brotherhood with all people has been my effort. Searching for and finding persons in great need of medical attention or surgery has helped folks understand my name: Bob Bhai (Bob Brother).

A simple lifestyle
I go around villages and bazaars, between one and thirty kilometres from where I dwell, searching for persons in need of a brother’s help. As the years have passed, I have limited the service I offer to young persons and children having these three characteristics: they are young—up to age fifteen years; they are poor—and cannot imagine seeking professional help; and they have serious conditions—medical, surgical, or therapeutic. I hope to make the disabled poor more able. I am pleased to be recognised as their brother.
Every town I go to live and serve in is a new experience. The first days find me prone to anxiety, especially on day number one. Will I find a place to stay for a few days while I search for a more permanent place? Refusals to rent to me, brush-offs, and exorbitant rental demands: I meet with them all. God inspires me to trust during those days. “Trust Me!” urges me to hang on, to keep seeking, to refuse discouragement.

God has always arranged living conditions for me which demonstrate how important it is that a missionary among Muslims and Hindus regards has a simple lifestyle. It must be a quite simple lifestyle. Simplicity refers also to cooking for myself on a single burner kerosene stove. It feels good to fix my own food. Before leaving my shelter every morning to bicycle to villages I have a boiled egg and a large banana. Then, on the road, perhaps an hour later, I stop for parata dipped in lentils. At noonday, I eat a snack named shingara and drink lots of water to replenish the fluids I lose through biking. Then, in the afternoon, at 4, I enjoy my daily cooked meal, always like the meal from the previous day: rice and lentils mixed with veggies such as potatoes, string beans, okra, small squash, seasoned with a five takas packet of spices. All are cooked together in one pot for 12 minutes and of it I do not tire. Neither meat nor fish are necessary. Vegetable kichuri satisfies.

“You are an angel”
To accept the Christian’s witness of service without any expectation of a reward is difficult for many Muslims to believe, unless they experience that stringless service. The openness of Bangladesh Muslims and Hindus to accept and appreciate the Christian servant is, in itself, proof of a converted heart. Suspicion is relegated along with hatred for the distant past, opening the door to brotherhood. Occasionally, I cross paths, by accident, with persons I had known in other towns and times.

Recently in Dhaka, on a bus, the young man beside me—whom I did not recognise—reminded me of the services I had offered to the poor and disabled in his town and district. Finally, he summarized his feelings for his once-upon-a-time neighbour: “People there say you are a feresta” (in Arabic, an angel). I know quite well that I am no angel, so I replied to him: “You mean people say I am a feringi” (in Arabic, a foreigner). “No!”, he protested gravely. “You are an angel because you do what angels do: you come as a stranger and bring benefits to persons in need.” Thus, I am no mere foreigner. I am their brother, indeed.

Sometimes, church persons ask me, “What is the result of your lifestyle and service among Muslims?” My answer will have no exactness. Nor am I expecting positive feedback in order to continue this apostolate. All apostolates depend on God and I feel that what I am doing is God’s will for me. I reckon that God has prepared me by my early life and environment for just such an apostolate. The happiness and peace I experience is surely God-given and is a sign I should continue on this path for as long as stamina—physical, mental and spiritual—remain. Am I practising a form of dialogue that the Church approves? Surely so, because each and every Christian is readied by God, guided by the Spirit, led by our Model in life, Jesus, to fulfil mission in multiple ways. My way happens to be a way of dialogue with persons of other faiths. We pray for the courage to place ourselves wherever dialogue and trust can blossom and flourish. Tea stalls, the ubiquitous tea stalls of the sub-continent, are suggested to us as dens of dialogue.

Challenges Facing Africa.

An examination of issues related to the extractive industries, trade agreements, land grabs, capital flight, corporate tax evasions, human trafficking, mass migrations, the endemic conflicts and other things that deprive Africans of their dignity can be anchored on problem
of governance.

Africa: Impoverished By Wealth. Africa is perhaps the richest piece of land on earth, given its natural resources, rich fertile land, precious minerals and its bio-diversity. Yet majority of Africans live in abject poverty conditions. Why? Basically, it is the failure of government in the promotion of the common good, resource distribution, lack of transparency and accountability and independent  judiciary system that works for all. Analysts who anchor the problem of poverty and development in Africa strictly on the economic sphere are missing something fundamental to the causes of poverty and underdevelopment. Numerous programs such as the structural  adjustment programs (SAP), privatization, currency devaluations, and trade liberalization that have the economy as their primary focus have not only failed to alleviate the problems but have worsened the  fortunes of many Africans, making them poorer today than they were before these programs were initiated.

Governance and the role of citizens. An essential component of good governance is the promotion of the common good and protection of its citizens. Leaders must seek the good of all their citizens in formulating policies and applying laws. Both laws and leaders must be transparent and accountable to enable robust civil society participation in the governing process. They must uphold the principles of subsidiarity, that is, governments must not arrogate to    themselves the functions of a lower body. An over centralized federal government undermines the democratic principle.

True politics is a local affair. Former US Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neil aptly noted that “All politics is local.” African governments have failed to understand this. Politics in modern Africa is centralized in the hands of a few, and the majority of citizens are alienated from the process of governance and from their governments who privatize the state and act with impunity. Leaders in     countries with active citizenry are less likely to act with impunity.

Foreign Aid and Interference. Foreign aid on Africa impact on Africa is mostly negative. They have strong strings attached in favour of the donors.  Corporations contracting foreign aid make hundreds of millions of dollars, dodge taxes, and expatriate the money abroad. Foreign aid facilitate corruption, entrench “strong men” and create dependency. In general the donors do not conduct feasibility study for the viability of the projects and local communities are not consulted in the transaction. Some donors work in cahoots with the political elite to siphon the money out of the country in various ways including inflations of contracts, phony projects and direct theft of funds.

Africa and the global market. Africa’s participation in the global market is reduced mainly raw material exports (crude oil, minerals, and other primary products) whose value are tied to speculation by the stock   markets, making Africa’s economy unstable and subject to the “national interest” of international trading partners . African leaders continue to implement programs that serve the interest of these partners to the detriment of their citizens. A systemic change is needed to reverse this situation. This can be achieved by engaging citizens in shaping a future that promotes the common good, one that benefits them.

Just Governance Project – Rationale. An institution that is sustained over many generations with no major interruption takes on a life of its own and acquires a “sacred” status. The likelihood that it will persist regardless of the personnel or the challenges it faces becomes high. American political institutions continue to weather the economic and political storms regardless of their leaders.

African countries, especially those in the sub-Saharan region are not only a hodgepodge of ethnic communities merged together for colonial economic convenience; most lack a national spirit and have not had the chance to develop and sustain strong governance institutions across generations.  The transformation and sustained development of African countries will be achieved by engaging peoples at the grassroots in their social, political and economic environment and enabling them to work for the common good.

Aniedi Okure, OP
The Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN)
Washington, D. C.

 

 

Africa. Coronavirus is spreading fast: 43 countries affected.

Africa which is already hit by several epidemics is now facing the challenge of the health and economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemics. So far, 43 countries and territories have been affected.

Since the first cases were registered in Egypt by mid-February, according to the World Health Organisation, so far 43 countries has reported affected with 1,988 cases including 58 deaths ( April 1). Egypt is the most affected with 366 cases and 19 deaths. South Africa (544 cases), Algeria (230 and 17 deaths), Senegal (79), Morocco (134 including 5 deaths) and Tunisia (89 and 3 deaths). Burkina-Faso ( 144 and 4 deaths), Cameroon (66) and Côte d’Ivoire (25).
The DRC  ( 45 and 2 deaths), Nigeria (40 and 1 death), Ghana ( 27 and 1 death) and Namibia (4).  Ethiopia  (12), Gabon (6 and 1 death), Guinea (4), Kenya (16), Sudan (2 and 1 death) , Togo (18), Equatorial Guinea (9), Eswatini (5), Mauritania (2),  the Central African Republic (4), Rwanda (36) and the Republic of Congo (4).

The first cases concern people who arrived from Europe. According to the director of the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM), based in Antwerp (Belgium), Marc-Alain Widdowson, it is difficult to project what will happen accurately since epidemic viruses, especially new ones can be very unpredictable. Africa has much fewer cases than Europe for the moment, but he warns that “Almost certainly there are more cases than those which have been diagnosed and reported”. “This is because testing is time-consuming and costly and the symptoms can be very mild or even not apparent, therefore no test is concluded. Over the coming months, I anticipate more countries to reports cases” tells SouthWorld the ITM director. Contrary to some rumours, “it is important to realise that respiratory viruses like influenza and likely Covid-19 do spread well throughout the year in warmer, tropical climates”, he warns.

The lethality of the virus could be serious on a continent already invaded by epidemics of measles, ebola, cholera and HIV.  “Covid-19 causes most severe disease in people with underlying disease and the elderly. So, for a Covid-19 pandemic in Africa, where there are high rates of untreated underlying illness and tuberculosis, there is a real risk of more severe disease. However, the population in Africa is younger, so there may be fewer deaths overall since these mostly occur within the elderly population”, analyses Widdowson.  Besides, ongoing epidemics also increase Covid-19 lethality by soaking up health care resources, he says.
In South Africa, there are particular concerns related to the country’s long-running HIV epidemic – one of the worst in the world. Indeed, more than seven million South Africans live with a virus that seriously weakens immune systems, leaving many people more vulnerable to Covid-19.
Yet, some countries are more prepared than others to cope with the pandemic. “For severe disease, intensive cared beds are often needed, with mechanical ventilation and oxygen supply. These are not widely available in most countries and this capacity would get overwhelmed quickly. Also, infection control practices are often not fully followed because of lack of resources and capacity so large outbreaks in hospitals are a very real risk”, says the ITM director.

On the positive side, some countries such as the DR.Congo have had experience with H1N1 and Ebola and preparedness is better, accordingly. « So far we have not seen any Covid-19 hotspot in Africa but clearly any country with poor surveillance, poor laboratory infrastructure and public health systems is at risk of larger spread” considers Marc-Alain Widdowson. In addition, countries and areas where the health care utilization is low owing to conflict such as the DRC, the Sahel or Somalia are at risk of large amounts of transmission before getting detected.
In this context, ITM is in close contact with partner countries and with the Addis Ababa-based Africa Center for Disease Control (Africa CDC) to help them find out how the virus behaves in African populations and to improve controls. The ITM is developing projects on the epidemiology and the impact on health care systems of the virus.
In Widdowson’s view, the biggest contribution, developed countries can make is to support the Africa CDC with technical and financial resources. Support will be also needed in strengthening public health through the development of national institutes. So far, the Africa CDC has already trained laboratories from 43 countries to test the virus.
The response is intensifying throughout Africa. Airports across the continent are testing passengers’ temperatures on arrival – and quarantine suspected cases. This is namely the case in Rwanda where in the capital Kigali, bus terminals had placed mobile hand washing sets for passengers to use before boarding transport.  Uganda, the DRC and Eritrea enforce quarantine for suspected travelers while Ethiopia is screening travelers from China, Italy, Japan, Iran and South Korea.

Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control is publishing daily reports on cases and contact tracing. It has a free phone number and WhatsApp number for enquires and advice. Likewise, South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases has also toll-free number. The governments of Kenya and Tanzania have set up quarantine centres. Kenya also Kenya named two coastal towns and its capital Nairobi among the regions at high risk of coronavirus outbreak. Tanzania’s football federation has banned handshakes between players while Ghana and Gabon impose temporal ban on foreign travel. Librevillee also closed the border with Cameroon on the 8 March.  Tunisia has suspended ferry services to Italy.
Major conferences and events are being cancelled. The list includes the ministerial conference organised by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, (UN-ECA) which was due to take place in Addis Ababa between the 18 to the 24 March and the Africa CEO forum which was scheduled to be held on the 9 and 10 March) in Abidjan. The Basketball Africa League, which was scheduled in Senegal, has been postponed over the coronavirus outbreak.

In Morocco, all football league matches are plaid behind close doors. In Nigeria, the Parliament has been closed for two weeks, while Zimbabwe’s Health Minister threatened to deport foreigners who enter the country without medical clearance from their respective countries.
Consequences are being felt as well on the economic front. Owing to the recession provoked by the pandemics in Asia and to the contraction of demand that it has caused, around 70% of cargoes from Nigeria and Angola remained  unsold in early March  African airlines have also lost U.S. $400m since the outbreak began after Kenya Airways, RwandAir, South African Airways, Air Tanzania, Air Mauritius, EgyptAir and Royal Air Maroc suspended their flights to China.

François Misser

 

Pope Francis invites youth to take risk, change world.

It’s two years until the next World Youth Day, which will take place in the city of Lisbon in 2022 and in that intervening time, Pope Francis is inviting young people to reflect on the themes for the diocesan World Youth Days of 2020 and 2021.

“Young man, I say to you, arise!” is the 2020 theme taken from Luke’s Gospel; and 2021 features the biblical text taken from the Acts of the Apostles: “Stand up. I appoint you as a witness of what you have seen”.

Focusing his attention on this year’s message, Pope Francis says that for the young person who has lost his or her vitality, dreams, optimism and enthusiasm, there is hope. That hope is in Jesus, who the Pope says, “stands before you as once he stood before the dead son of the widow, and with all the power of His resurrection He urges you: ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’”

That passage in the Bible, the Pope explains, “tells us how Jesus, upon entering the town of Nain in Galilee, came upon the funeral procession of a young person, the only son of a widowed mother. Jesus, struck by the woman’s heartrending grief, miraculously restored her son to life.”

In the message, Pope Francis reflects on Jesus’ “ability to see pain and death.” He points out that Jesus, “in the midst of the crowd, makes out the face of a woman in great pain. His ability to see generates encounter, the source of new life.”

In today’s world the Pope asks, how often do we end up being eyewitnesses of events without ever experiencing them in real time? Sometimes, he adds, “our first reaction is to take a picture with our cell phone, without even bothering to look into the eyes of the persons involved.” Pope Francis goes on to say that many young people are “‘dead’ because they feel hopeless.”
Others, he continues, “waste their lives with superficial things, thinking they are alive while in fact they are dead within”.

“Negative situations”, the Pope emphasizes in the message, “can also be the result of personal failure, whenever something we care about, something we were committed to, no longer seems to be working or giving the desired results.”
But failures, he underlines, “are part of the life of every human being; sometimes they can also end up being a grace.”

The Pope continues say “to have compassion”, he counsels young people not to be robbed of this sensitivity. “If you can learn to weep with those who are weeping”, Pope Francis says, “you will find true happiness.” “So many of your contemporaries are disadvantaged and victims of violence and persecution. Let their wounds become your own, and you will be bearers of hope in this world.”

To come forward and “touch” is the third section of the message, and the Pope notes how Jesus in the passage from Luke’s Gospel stops the funeral procession and demonstrates His closeness. The touch of Jesus, the living One, comments the Pope, communicates life. Pope Francis goes on to says that “if you can feel God’s immense love for every living creature – especially our brothers and sisters who experience hunger and thirst, or are sick or naked or imprisoned – then you will be able to draw near to them as He does.”

Pope Francis writes that “people who are not on a journey never fall; then again, neither do they move forward.” “This life is really a new creation, a new birth, not just a form of psychological conditioning”, the Pope says.

He also stresses that young people need to look deeper than mere fashionable phrases and words. It is Jesus’ Word, he says, that has a deeper resonance, because “it goes infinitely deeper. It is a divine and creative Word, which alone can bring the dead to life.”

Talking about “Living the new life as ‘risen ones’”, Pope Francis returns to the Gospel passage which recounts that the young man “began to speak”. Those touched and restored to life by Jesus, the Pope says, “immediately speak up and express without hesitation or fear what has happened deep within them: their personality, desires, needs and dreams.”

Concluding his message, the Pope points out that today, “we are often ‘connected’ but not communicating. The indiscriminate use of electronic devices can keep us constantly glued to the screen.” With this Message, Pope Francis writes, “I would like to join you, young people, in calling for a cultural change, based on Jesus’ command to ‘arise’. He calls us to embrace a reality that is so much more than virtual.”

“Arise!” he adds, is also an invitation to “dream”, to “take a risk”, to be “committed to changing the world, to rekindle your hopes and aspirations, and to contemplate the heavens, the stars and the world around you.” The Pope then invites young people to “give their passions and dreams free rein, “and, through them, offer the world, the Church and other young people something beautiful, whether in the realm of the spirit, the arts or society… Make your voices heard.” Diocesan World Youth Day 2020 is marked on Palm Sunday, April 5.

Energy Transition in Europe, Minerals Conquer in Africa.

In December 2019, the European Union agreed on the objective of achieving a climate-neutral EU by 2050. The fight against climate change along with the aim to limit global warming to well below 2°C in this century are at the heart of the EU’s energy policies.

Achieving these goals requires a strong commitment from EU governments to reduce the carbon emissions caused by the current model of energy production.
These objectives are essential if extreme climate effects would be avoided such as floods, forest fires, landslides and hurricanes, as well as the feared rise in sea levels that would lead to catastrophic changes especially for developing countries and their populations.

However, energy transition policies require decisions that must put an end to the concrete practices of current fossil energy model. Therefore, the EU is starting a period of energy transition in which concepts such as sustainable development, greenhouse effect, biodiversity, rare earths and renewable energies affect people directly, countries’ lifestyles, production systems, economic models, trade, etc. But do we know exactly what we are facing when we talk about energy transition and what consequences it has for developing countries and especially Africa?

The energy transition announced by the European Union makes direct reference to decarburization in forms of energy production. That is, it is the passage between the forms of energy production as we have known them until now (through fossil energy sources such as oil or coal) that generate an emission of CO2 into the atmosphere (producing the so-called greenhouse effect) and those clean energies that are produced without releasing carbon into the atmosphere and are therefore considered green or clean energies. Among the best known clean energies are wind energy, photovoltaic energy, solar energy, biomass or that produced by electric batteries.

However, to generate this type of green energy that does not emit CO2 into the atmosphere, many materials are needed that are not always easy to obtain, either because they are scarce in nature or because they are controlled by few countries. In this group of minerals, considered essential for the energy transition are the so-called rare earths that constitute a group of 17 elements of the periodic table. These along with other elements such as indium, thallium, gallium, lithium, tellurium or cobalt are essential for the development of new technologies.  Furthermore, in cases such as Lithium or Cobalt, their extraction is at least ethically questionable due to the destruction it causes to the ecosystems and communities where these minerals are found; as well as, human rights violations or corrupt practices.

In the pursuit of this energy transition, the EU needs Africa once again and is reviving its assault on the continent’s mineral wealth for its own benefit. Through mining operations or the installation of solar and wind power plants, the EU seeks to secure access to clean energy sources to ensure consumption in Europe.

Africa’s wealth is mainly found in its subsoil, as it has one third of the world’s mineral reserves that are needed for the energy transition, such as 90 per cent of platinum reserves; 80 per cent of coltan; 60 per cent of cobalt; 70 per cent of tantalum; 46 per cent of diamond reserves; and 40 per cent of gold reserves. But the African continent is also brimming with clean energy sources such as river basins in Central Africa, uranium deposits (in Mali, Gabon, Niger or Namibia); sunlight in the Sahel countries; and geothermal potential in East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda Burundi, Zambia, DR Congo).

Public-private investment policies on the continent have led to economic growth in Africa in recent decades, but at the same time have made Africa a hostage to its investors. And this is once again the risk that the countries of the African continent face with the arrival of new investments to exploit renewable energies. The European Union takes political measures without considering the implications for developing countries that directly affect their development policies. The EU is once again thinking about access to these energy sources to ensure its clean future, while forgetting the reality of the supplier countries.

Again, the future of the rich countries is built on the abuse of those countries that depend on foreign investment. The dependence on income from renewable energy and energy transition minerals, the lack of industrial investment, the lack of economic diversification together with the abuse of multinationals and corruption make us foresee the same pattern of relationship between the North and the South in the energy transition period. A responsible and sustainable energy transition therefore requires developed countries, including the EU, to make an energy transition that does not create new inequalities.

The energy transition has to be first and foremost Just. The EU cannot carry out a new colonialism that would monopolize the energy wealth of the African continent. The EU must develop policies that guarantee the development of the countries and regions in which it operates by ensuring an adequate distribution of renewable energies.

 Firstly, the EU cannot supply itself with renewable energy and condemn developing countries to remain dependent on fossil energy. The energy development model must break with the economic dependence that African countries currently have on natural resources and must develop economic diversification strategies that create quality and stable jobs.

Secondly, the energy transition must provide security of energy supply for all countries, but especially for those countries who are the legitimate owners of the energy sources. Africa’s unstoppable economic growth requires increased energy supplies, which will grow in the coming years. This makes rich countries (the EU) nervous as their access to such energy is threatened.

Thirdly, the energy transition must be progressive and in line with the reality of each country, sensitive to the situation in Africa, encouraging the use of renewable energies and supporting any initiative that promotes their adaptation. It would be unfair to ask and demand that developing countries adapt all their infrastructure to new supply models that they could not afford.

Africa’s role in the global energy transition is crucial. That is why we argue that the energy transition must be for all countries, rich and poor, respectful of environmental quality standards, ensuring respect for human rights and doing everything possible to ensure that multinationals carry out their activities with transparency, fighting all types of corruption that benefit only the political and economic elites. The economic transition has to be for everyone or it will
not be for anyone.

José Luis Gutiérrez Aranda,
Trade Policy Officer,
Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN)

Burundi. Heading towards troubled elections.

The presidential and parliament elections scheduled for the next 20 May are unlikely to put an end to the political crisis which is ongoing since 2015. On the contrary.

By early March, twelve candidates had announced plans to register for the presidential election. President Pierre Nkurunziza’s most likely successor is the candidate of the ruling Conseil national pour la Défense de la Démocratie-Forces de Défense de la Démocratie (CNDD-FDD) party, 52 year-old general Evariste Ndayishimiye.

His election by a majority of 77% at the CNDD-FDD congress of end of January came as a surprise. Nkurunziza said in 2018 that he would not seek another mandate although he could have done so, since the constitution was amended to allow him to run for a fourth mandate. But everyone suspected him to restore the monarchy, while promoting one of his straw men, General Gervais Ndirakobuca, the head of the patron du Service National de Renseignements (SNR) as president, during a transition period.But the former SNR boss, Gen. Steve Ntakirutimana, the army chief of staff, Gen. Prime Niyongabo, and the former secretary general of the National Security Council, Gen Silas Ntigurirwa, had other plans and convinced congressmen that they should rather vote for Ndayishimiye. In fact congressmen were not given a choice to object since the building where the vote took place in Gitega, the new capital was surrounded by 3,000 soldiers. As a result of this setback for Nkurunziza, Gen Ndayishimeye is now the favourite. He is certainly less extravagant than the current President. Unlike Nkurunziza, who is a born-again Christian, celebrated as a prophet by the leader of the Rock Church, his wife, Denise Bucumi, the general, a roman catholic, does not claim to be the Envoy of God.
Yet, the general does not look more ready to compromise with the opposition..Since his appointement in 2016 as secretary general of the CNDD-FDD,  he has organised in Bujumbura demonstrations against Belgium and the UN because of their call to set up a commission of enquiry into human rights violations. A former guerrilla fighter in the war against the Tutsi-led army, he has served as Nkurunziza’s Minister of Interior and Security and as the Presidency military chief of staff.

Ndayishimiye’s main challenger is the leader of the National Council of Liberation (CNL) opposition party, Agathon Rwasa, who led the National Forces of Liberation (FNL) guerilla   The leader of the Burundian Front for Democracy (Frodebu), Léonce Ngendakumana and a former member to this party, the ex-President Domitien Ndayizeye are also running alongside candidates of break-away parties, supported by the CNDD-FDD to weaken the opposition : Gaston Sindimwo from the Tutsi-led Uprona, Jacques Bigiramana from the FNL and Frodebu dissident Kefa Nibiza. None of them or the independent candidates Francis Rohero and Dieudonné Nahima stands a chance.
The challenge is to restore peace and stability in a country that has been deeply affected by the political crisis sparked in 2015 by Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third mandate, in violation of the spirit of the constitution and of the Arusha peace agreement. The toll is very high.

According to the International Criminal Court, since 2015, 1,200 people have died as a result of clashes between government forces and rebels and of the repression of protest marches. Over 400,000 people live in exile. The other challenge is to relaunch the economy which has been severely depressed with negative GDP growth rates in 2015 (-3.9%) and in 2016 (-0.6%) and with a sluggish rate of 0.5% for 2017 and 2018.  In 2019, official reserves did not cover one month of imports, two-thirds of the population live below the poverty line, and the youth unemployment is above 65%. Food security remains a major challenge while donors have considerably reduced their support.
Yet, the improvement of the political and business climates doest not look as the most likely scenario. Last September, the President of the Senate, Révérien Ndikuriyo dashed all hopes of free and fair elections, when he told the national radio RTNB that foreign observers were not welcome. And the inter-Burundian dialogue between the government and the opposition to end the crisis, led by the East African Community has stalled, because the lack of pressure from Uganda and Tanzania. Besides, Nkurunziza has also expelled foreign actors who could have plaid a mediation role.

The Electoral Commission is fully in the hands of the ruling party. The coalition of forces of the Burundian opposition for the restoration of the Arusha Peace Agreement (CFOR Arusha) claims that a single party system has been restored. The government seems unwilling to give space to the opposition. Since February 2018, 80 offices of the main opposition party CNL were destroyed and 500 militants of this party are currently in jail.
The regime has embarked simultaneously on a dangerous campaign of ethnic hatred against the Tutsis in order to attract the support of members of the Hutu majority who have joined the opposition. SOS Burundi in a report published last January deplores that no prosecution have been undertaken against a journalist who is sending via Whatsapp anti-Tutis reports which remind of the ten commandments of the Hutu which were published in Rwanda before the genocide by the Kangura Hutu extremist paper. Moreover, Radio Izamba, set up by exiled journalists, has revealed that members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda armed group, created by officers who participated to the 1994 genocide, have been recruited in Burundi’s Presidential guard or incorporated into the Imbonerakure militias. Besides, the new constitution has introduced changes which allow the parliament to adopt organic laws by a simple majority instead of a two thirds majority, which risk to marginalise completely the Tutsi minority.
Increasing divisions whithin the CNDD-FDD could also trigger violent reactions among the Imbonerakure militias which are increasingly incontrollable and influent. They have integrated all security forces and replaced them in rural areas. The CFOR-Arusha coalition warns about a risk of confrontation between Ndayishimirye and Nkurunziza whose plan is to become “mwami” (king). Accordingly, the general is unlikely to hand over his prerogatives after this election. But Nkurunziza who was reaffirmed as the party’s “eternal supreme guide” at the Congress is not willing to lose his influence.

There are also fears that the last weeks of the campaign and another rigging of the elections may trigger new violences. This factor, added to the lack of perspectives of improvement of the situation and the on-going repression may incite more young Burundians to join the guerrilla groups, which are active at the country borders. In October, RED-Tabara rebels who are based in Eastern Congo claimed responsibility for an attack in North-Western Burundi which was the beginning of the “resistance”, allegedly. In November 2019, eight Burundian soldiers were killed in an ambush in the North-Western of Burundi by guerrillas quipped with bullet-proof vests and night googles and withdrew to Rwanda after the attack, say Burundian army sources.
On the 22 February, the Burundian army reported another rebel attack in the Bujumbura rural area and said it killed 22 “wrongdoers”.  But the CNL says this was a masquerade used to justify a wave of arrests of its members. These arrests seem to fit into a plan to create “a climate of fear and intimidation of all persons who do not support the ruling party, which has been exposed by the UN’s Commission of Inquiry on Burundi.

François Misser  

Turkey & Russia Chessboard Power Play.

They share too many interests to engage in direct conflict over Syria. But there are many risks.

After a six-hour long summit in Moscow last March 5, Presidents  Putin and Tayyip Erdogan adopted a joint document, reaffirming their commitment to the ‘Astana format’, announcing a ceasefire. The summit became necessary after Syrian government forces, fresh from engaging Tahrir al-Sham militants in Idlib, were challenged by the Turkish army, which resulted in the death of 36 Turkish soldiers. In retaliation, Turkey attacked the Syrian army, claiming that it had killed some 300 Syrian military personnel, and destroyed several military vehicles.

Almost a month later, the tentative agreement to address the spiraling tensions in the Syrian province of Idlib appears to have held.
This situation follows an ongoing civil conflict which has entered its tenth year. Tensions began on March 15, 2011 and have not subsided since then. In this context, Turkey has placed itself alongside the rebels, whose goal is to overthrow the Assad regime. The latter, in turn, is supported by Moscow. In addition, Ankara has control of more than 12 posts in Idlib Governorate alone, the last stronghold placed under the control of opposition forces and at the center of a violent offensive since April 2019. Before the March 5 truce, Ankara had started the “Spring Shield” operation, urging Assad’s forces to withdraw from the de-escalation area in north-west Syria. The new offensive followed the death of about 34 Turkish soldiers, died of a Syrian raid on Idlib on February 27. An episode that had feared a further exacerbation of tensions, although both Ankara and Moscow had spoken out against a direct conflict on Syrian soil.

Indeed, even as some militias have tried to prevent the joint patrols from operating, in a significant display of Ankara’s commitment, Turkish military commanders have stated they would neutralize the radical elements that have obstructed the joint Russian-Turkish patrols. The militias have been especially active in targeting traffic along a key six-kilometer long section of the Aleppo-Latakiya M4 highway to ensure the movement of security and humanitarian traffic. Local residents, for their part, have set up roadblocks and set fire to tires on the highway to prevent the Russian and Turkish convoys from moving. To avoid escalations, the Russians and Turks have agreed to reduce the area to be monitored, citing “security reasons”, as both expect the protests to continue. In fact, the many local inhabitants, have close ties to the militias (under the names Jabhat Ansar al-Din, Jabhat Ansar al-Islam or Ansar al Tawheed) who are fighting against the Syrian army.
For all of Erdogan’s grandstanding, the Turkish leadership appears to have changed course in Syria. Its enemy is no longer Damascus. And the Islamist militias know this. That’s why the rearmed groups, isolated in Idlib as part of the Astana process in 2017, no longer appear to be following orders from Turkey, which used them as a proxy. And this is the weak link in the agreement.

If the joint patrols are stalled, Russia could decide to act more directly, and there’s certainly a high risk of this happening and breaching the accord. The risk is high because, by challenging the militias militarily, Turkey would terminate any chance of cooperation with the militias in key areas of support within the context of Operation Spring Shield, launched early in 2020 with the aim of backing those very militias. And, more urgently, fighting the militias would trigger a new wave of refugees, which would rush toward the borders. Beyond the ‘confines’ of the agreement, the Syrian government may exploit the Russo-Turkish stalemate to focus on ‘clean-up’ operations south of Idlib toward Hama being careful to avoid the M4 highway.

But there are risks.
Under the agreement, Turkish and Russian troops would deploy joint units to patrol Idlib, one of the last remaining centers of Islamist anti-Syrian government activity. The Syrian war between the Syrian government and a variety of opposition groups and militias, including several terrorist groups, started in 2011. By 2017, with Lebanese Hezbollah, Russian and Iranian help, Damascus managed to regain a significant portion of national territory. Damascus also agreed to a ceasefire with some opposition militias (or terrorists as it calls them) with Russia, Iran and Turkey acting as guarantors in agreement reached in Astana, Kazakhstan in January 2017. The Astana agreement has served as a blueprint to achieve the end of the Syrian conflict.
But, if ending the recent escalation of violence in the northern areas of the country to encourage refugees to return to the (degraded) areas and restore some semblance of peaceful existence remain a priority, skirmishes between Turkish and Syrian troops appear to have compromised the Astana process, prolonging Syria’s agony, and risking a direct conflict between Russia and Turkey.

Nevertheless, the Russo-Turkish summit of March 5, has reaffirmed the Astana process and calmed fears of Ankara and Moscow coming to harder blows. More importantly, the Astana process helps keep afloat the notion that Syria will remain a single ‘unit’ and that it won’t be partitioned – in the manner the Sykes-Picot accords split the Middle East after WW1 – in areas of influence. The official statement from the March 5 summit deliberately professed to safeguard Syria’s national unity. The paradox of that notion is that Turkey has made it clear, it cannot afford to allow Syrian ‘unity’ to remain as it presents itself today.
Turkey’s domestic policy demands that it prevent northern Syria from serving as an operational base from where Kurdish insurgents can stage attacks into Turkey, fomenting Kurdish nationalist aspirations (and on that front, Moscow has not interfered). From a more practical and immediate perspective, Turkey also fears the influx of hundreds of thousands more refugees fleeing Syria, as Damascus’s forces take back areas occupied by anti-government militias – most of which have amassed in Idlib, and whose members and civilian backers fear repercussions from the government. Such a predicament effectively drives these populations to head for Turkey, which already serves as a refuge for some 3.5 million Syrians. Therefore, Astana’s purpose serves more the military than the social or political aspects of an eventual resolution of the Syrian conflict. There’s also a fear that a final and complete resolution of the Syrian conflict would ‘encourage’ millions of Syrians, now dispersed around the world and mostly in Europe, to return home. Therefore, the best that can be hoped from these agreements is temporary respites.

Gas and Guns
As for a contrast between Russia and Turkey itself, apart from significant economic and trade links (a gas pipeline in the Black Sea started to deliver Russian natural gas to southern Europe through Turkey in January 2020, eliminating Ukraine out of the ‘equation’), at some $17 billion in contracts signed in 2019 alone, Turkey has become one of the top five importers of Russian weapons according to  Dmitry Shugaev, director of the Agency for Technical-Military Cooperation of the Russian Federation. Notably, Russia has sold its S-400 missile defense system (a competitor of the American Raytheon Patriot system), angering Washington, which canceled Turkey’s rights to acquire the F-35 jet fighter.

Ankara took delivery of four S-400 batteries, but the disagreements with Washington have opened the way for a potential Turkish acquisition of Russian Su-35 or Su-50 jets. Turkey has stressed it has not yet deployed the S-400, but the United States are not pleased, and there can be little doubt that Washington will do everything possible to derail the latest Putin-Erdogan agreement over Syria. The growing military relationship suggests that whatever happens in Syria, Moscow and Ankara have sufficiently intertwined interests, preventing them from entering into a direct conflict – despite the vastly different strategic interests in the Middle East, which remains unstable. Still, the neo-Ottoman theories that bolstered Turkey’s efforts to destabilize Syria, seeking a ‘grander’ role for itself have also waned.

The End of Neo-Ottomanism?
Since the first months of the uprising which began in 2011, President Turkey played a significant role in fomenting it, directly encouraging the formation of anti-government militias, supplying weapons and allowing the passage of fighters and munitions from its borders into Syria. Current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, (Prime Minister when the Syrian conflict began), pursued his policy in the context of a more aggressive Turkish foreign policy which, after years of cautious isolation, adopted the geopolitical concepts of ‘strategic depth’, conceived by Ahmet Davutoglu. Davutoglu, appointed Turkish Foreign Minister in 2009, has been described as the mind Turkey’s global awakening (Foreign Policy). After the 2014 presidential election in Turkey, the winning AKP party called Davutoglu as the new prime minister, leaving Erdogan to be elected President of the Republic.

Erdogan’s swift actions against the Syrian government, leaving many observers baffled and concerned in 2011, was inspired by the theories of Ahmet Davutoglu (a University Professor) contained in his doctrine of ‘strategic depth’ as a basis for strategy. Davutoglu captured a sentiment that was emerging during the leadership of Prime Minister Turgut Ozal (1983-1989) favoring a gradual politicization of Islam, adopting in moderate form, some of the concepts of the Muslim Brotherhood. Neo-Ottomanism became more prominent as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan adopted it as a guiding principle in the AKP (Justice and Development Party) for domestic and foreign policy. Neo-Ottomanism, not a term popular in Turkish political circles, more than a theory, marks a renewed practical impetus to revive Turkey’s presumed glorious and ambitious past, considered uncomfortable and losing for decades. 
Its salient aspect is to encourage Turkey to conduct an assertive policy in all neighboring and nearby theaters, in order to project national interests based on investment and increased trade, but also military power. And Turkey’s acquisition of an aircraft carrier, marks a more aggressive posture compared to the role that Turkey played in the bipolar period of the Cold War. Thus, Davutoglu and Erdogan agreed to turn Turkey into a significant geopolitical actor to be ‘respected’ regionally and globally. Davutoglu identified eight areas to project Turkish influence: the Balkans, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and Central Asia. However, in 2016, Davutoglu and Erdogan clashed, and it’s unclear what remains of neo-Ottomanism in the AKP. Erdogan now appears more interested in defeating a rising opposition and preventing Turkey from being overrun by refugees, while still asserting a degree of power and assertiveness – yet more vis-à-vis its NATO and American allies than against some of its presumed ‘enemies’ like Russia.

In 2020, Europe and the rest of the world will have to confront what could be an even bigger recession than 2008 due to the outbreak of a pandemic involving a new coronavirus variant, forcing much of the world to restrict the movement of people and goods. Therefore, if it was unlikely before the coronavirus outbreak that Europe would engage more actively in Syria, deploying more troops to obstruct Damascus’s plans to restore authority throughout the country (and in the Idlib area in particular – which has served as a base for various rebels and fighters) it has become even more unlikely now. With the possible exception of the United States, which has a small military contingent in northern Syria, this effectively leaves Turkey freer to pursue its strategic goals at the expense of Damascus. To achieve its goals, it must only face Russia. Yet, President Putin is unlikely to give up his ultimate plan of completely restore President’s Bashar al-Asad’s authority throughout Syria in order to secure it as a strategic ally or protectorate in the eastern Mediterranean.

Alessandro Bruno

 

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