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Angola. The fall of the Dos Santos Empire.

Sunday, 1 March 2020 8:00

After targeting the President’s son, the Angolan justice, it has frozen the assets of his daughter, the richest woman of the continent
and everyone now wonders whether the former head of state
is next on the list.

The wind of reform is blowing strongly in Angola since the election of the new president João Lourenço in 2017. As soon as he was sworn in, he has embarked on an anti-graft campaign whose main target is the family of his predecessor, José Eduardo dos Santos who ruled the country with an iron fist from 1979 to 2017.
The offensive started in November 2017 when President Lourenço fired 46 year-old Isabel dos Santos, his predecessor’s eldest daughter, from her position of chairwoman of the Angolan state oil company, Sonangol in 2016 and 2017. Two months later, Lourenço sacked José Eduardo dos Santos’ son, José Filomeno, the chairman of Angola’s 5 billion dollars Sovereign Fund.

In September 2018, José Filomeno dos Santos was accused of having transferred illegally from the Banco Nactional de Angola U.S. $ 500 million on a British bank account since he became chairman of the Fund in 2012. He was also accused of forgery and money laundering. After that he was arrested and remained six months in custody. Eventually, José Filomeno, went on trial in December 2019. He is facing a maximum of 12 years in jail if found guilty,
Then, came the turn of Isabel, nicknamed “The Princess.”, whom Forbes describes as Africa’s richest woman, with a fortune of approximately $ 2.2bn . Her empire includes the largest Angolan bank, Banco Bic, with $ 4.2 bn of assets, the telecoms firm Unitel, a supermarket chain, the cement company Nova Cimangola and a television company. Over the past decade, her companies obtained loans, public works contracts and licenses worth billions of dollars from the Angolan government.
According to the “Luanda Leaks” exposed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalist, (ICIJ), over 400 companies in 41 countries are linked to Isabel dos Santos or her husband, Sindika Dokolo, a major collector of African art. The list includes 94 companies in tax havens such as Malta, Mauritius, Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands and the Netherlands.

The investigation started after Isabel’s successor at Sonangol, Carlos Saturnino, alerted the authorities about alleged irregular money transfers. On the 22 January 2020, prosecutors froze her assets in Angola and charged her with money laundering, influence peddling, harmful management, forgery of documents and other crimes. The Angolan authorities will conduct a criminal investigation to determine whether she should be charged.
According to the Luanda Leaks, Isabel dos Santos “benefitted from extraordinary opportunities afforded to her by the government of her father”. The 715,000 documents revealed by the ICIJ include emails, contracts, audits, incorporation papers and organisational charts, board of directors meeting minute, loan agreements, invoices and tax documents. The Angolan government is now trying to recover $1.1 billion that accordingly are owed by Isabel dos Santos, her husband and an associate of the couple.
Investigations concern namely a $38 million payment in November 2017 from Sonangol to a Dubai-based company controlled by a dos Santos associate. Investigations should also focus on the sale by Sonangol of its 40% stake in a joint venture it formed with the Portuguese company Amorim Energia in Galp Energia to Sindika Dokolo’s firm, Exem Holding AG. The sale price was $ 99 million, but Sonangol agreed to lend Exem most of the money needed to complete the sale and only received $15 million up front. Today the stake is worth about $800 million.

The investigators’ task is not easy. Another suspect in the case who managed Sonangol’s account at the Portuguese bank EuroBic, was found dead at his house in Lisbon in January. According to a police source, “everything” suggested that he committed suicide.
Now, can the money be recovered? The Angolan attorney General Helder Pitta Gros warned that if Isabel Dos Santos did not return to Luanda voluntarily, an international arrest warrant would be issued for her. But it might difficult to execute it. Isabel dos Santos who was born in the capital of Azerbaidjan, Baku, has a Russian passport. She has not returned to Angola for the last two years and she spends more and more of her time in Dubai where she stays at the Bulgari Resorts, on a private island in the Jumeirah Bay area. And Dubai is not a jurisdiction which extradites easily its residents.
According to former Byblos Bank executive Daniel Ribant, maybe eventually, part of the embezzled amounts will be recovered. Yet, this make take time since the money has been spread among 400 companies and since Isabel has excellent lawyers.
Therefore, Ribant thinks that a negotiation between the dos Santos family and the government would have been preferable. It would have paved the way for the quick repatriation of part of the money and would have less harmed the image of the country.

But in an interview with Deutsche Welle broadcasted on the 3 February 2020, President Lourenço said that there would be “no negotiations” with people who had allegedly taken their assets out of the country illegally. “People who were involved in acts of corruption benefited from a six-month period of grace to return assets they illegally took out of the country”, he said Lourenço and apparently they missed the opportunity.
The prosecution against Isabel dos Santos and the Luanda Leaks may also have important political implications, says Ribant. Indeed the ex-President, José Eduardo dos Santos himself who is currently receiving medical treatments in Barcelona could be prosecuted outside of Angola, where he ringfenced his immunity in 1992, by amending the constitution in order to make sure that he cannot be prosecuted for any official action except in the event of bribery or high treason.
Ribant suspects the cases against Filomeno and Isabel dos Santos are part of a well-planned operation involving the Serviço Nacional de Recuperação de Activos, created in 2019, whose task is to recover state assets abroad with the technical support of American experts. The Angolan court’s decision to freeze Isabel dos Santos’ Angolan assets, mentions her father’s role in the purchase of the bankrupt De Grisogono jewelry in Switzerland by his daughter with Angolan public money. Investigations should also focus on allegations that Isabel and her husband set up a system to sell Angolan diamonds to De Grisogono below market prices through the Angolan parastatal Sodiam. In fact Isabel is a nominee. Without her father, her fortune would not have existed, says Ribant.

In the banker’s view, the Isabel dos Santos’ case could open a Pandora box; Nobody knows where the anti-corruption wave will stop. It could backfire or spread the scandal elsewhere. Some in Angola are saying that justice should clamp down on other alleged corrupt people of the nomenklatura. Now, warns Ribant, this could spark “a cataclysm” with serious consequences on the ruling party, the MPLA. One of the MPLA’s veterans, former Prime Minister Lopo do Nascimento argues that José Eduardo dos Santos should be protected because the situation is humiliating for Angola. Political scientist Agostinho Sicato says that the Luanda Leaks have harmed the credibility of many Angolan politicians and may incite the Prosecution to investigate other cases. A possible target is the former Sonangol chairman and former Vice-President, Manuel Vicente. He has so far been protected by João Lourenço.who refused to extradite him to Portugal where Vicente faces accusations of corruption and money laundering. In such context it might be difficult for Angola to attract investors who maybe concerned by the corruption levels and reputational risk, warns Ribant.
Meanwhile, Isabel dos Santos denies that her fortune is the result of nepotism and corruption. She claims that the Dubai payments were for legitimate services provided to Sonangol.

François Misser

The custodian of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Sunday, 1 March 2020 8:00

Inevitably, the Jordanian government – and the political arrangement, which has taken decades to craft in order to achieve the present equilibrium among the Jordanian tribes, the Palestinians and the religious authorities – will lose legitimacy.

The Jordanian monarch, pressed with the difficult decision of having to compromise the interests of the various political actors, will necessarily choose in favour of the Jordanian tribes (such as the Fayez and Bani Hasan), which have been the most loyal, and were the first to recognize the Hashemite monarchy in 1946. The tribes wield their power through clienteles, such that Jordanians with access or links to the tribes, advance through the public sector to the highest offices in the security, military and administration.

The Palestinians do not enjoy such access, and the tribes already distrust the demographic expansion of the Palestinian communities. Until now, most non-naturalized Palestinians reside in refugee camps or peripheral cities. Naturalized Palestinian-Jordanians, meanwhile, do not enjoy all of the legal and political rights or public services of ‘full’ Jordanians. The King has used the promise of integration as political ‘bait’ to be deployed in periods of stress, and as a deterrent to the kinds of protests that, for example, led to ‘Black September’ in 1970.
And the monarchy has reason to suspect such a possibility, given the active role that Palestinians played in the protests of 2011 as part of the so-called Arab Spring.
The King will be forced to facilitate the integration of the Palestinians, by allowing them to play a more significant political role; one more commensurate with their demographic and financial strength. Such a path would be fraught with dangers. The tribes would resent the loss of influence, and the very notion of political equality with the Palestinians, who, would resent having to give up their nationalist aspirations, given that the Deal of the Century does not grant any ‘right of return’.
Besides; the Deal of the Century, does not spare the institution of the monarchy itself, compromising its religious roots.

The Hashemite tribe traditionally supplied the guardians of Mecca and Medina. They were the Sharifs of Mecca. After the colonial powers redesigned the Middle East and the al-Saud family took over the custodianship of the Holy Sites, the Hashemite family became the custodian of Jerusalem’s Old City, home to Islam’s third holiest site and the very core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As custodian of Jerusalem, the Jordanian monarch enjoys prestige in the context of the ‘Umma, that is the universal Muslim community; and through the administrative links to the City, it does have a voice in determining its status. There are rumours that the Saudis (and Moroccans) want to replace the Hashemites as Jerusalem’s custodians.
King Abdullah, in public speeches, has admitted to the external pressure for him to relinquish custodianship of the Two Holy Mosques. Apart from the loss of prestige, under such circumstances the Jordanian monarchy would have an even smaller say in matters concerning its sovereignty and the status of the Palestinians. The strategy intends to force the ‘Deal of the Century,’ which creates the conditions for a total Palestinian capitulation, at all costs.
As the Saudi Crown Prince hinted, in a less than subtle way’, the Palestinians should accept the Deal as it has been outlined or “shut up”. Nevertheless, the Deal is so toxic that in its effort to erase Palestinian nationalism, it would also swallow up Jordan’s integrity.
In many ways, the ‘Deal of the Century’ has exposed Jordan’s weaknesses. While the Kingdom has managed to survive crises and a precarious socio-political balance for over seven decades, it may finally crumble under the plans to Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. Jordan may have to follow Syria’s path, pursuing stronger ties to Russia and China, both of which have criticized the ‘Deal’, and both of which have been providing a solid contrast to the West’s influence in the Middle East. In July 2018, Beijing proposed an alternative to the ‘Deal’, involving a two-State solution based on pre-1967 borders.

As for Jordan, China has sought deeper diplomatic relations, envisaging an inclusion in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also known as the New Silk Road. Jordan presents some of the richest evidence of the cultural liveliness of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern civilizations. The country has survived through skilful, almost Machiavellian leadership from the Hashemite kings, who have managed inherent economic difficulties with pragmatic politics, balancing the interests of enemies and allies alike. The But fiscal and monetary stabilization demands from multilateral banking institutions, and the geopolitical machinations in Washington to settle the Middle East (as in Arab-Israeli) conflict entirely in Israel’s favour have exposed Jordan’s structural flaws. These include an excessive reliance on foreign aid and a lack of social cohesion, owing to unresolved ethno-nationalist fractures in the population.

Alessandro Bruno

Philippines. On the side of the underdog.

Sunday, 1 March 2020 8:00

A Benedictine theologian, activist, missionary and intellectual, Sr. Mary John Mananzan speaks of the Philippines of the past and of today. From the former dictator Ferdinando Marcos to the President now in power, Rodrigo Duterte. The Church has always offered resistance and will continue to do so, taking the side of the poor.

“The Church cannot remain silent before injustice”. Especially when this is in the form of state violence that seriously threatens the lives of the poorest. This is the view of a well-known member of the frontier Philippine Church: Sister Mary John Mananzan, a Benedictine, theologian, activist and Superior of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Manila.

To the general indifference of the world in general, the Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte continues with his abuse of power in his own country, ordering summary executions of those he himself considers ‘criminals’. “It is up to us to be courageous, resolute and to resist this tyranny”, says Sr. Mananzan, who heads the Movement Against Tyranny, a global Philippine alliance composed of leading figures in the political, cultural and ecclesiastical world against the arbitrary acts of the President. Duterte is violent and “the ongoing oppression seriously affects the poor and women – Sr. Mary explains – this President is a nightmare for us. He is so rude and misogynous that he thinks the only solution to adopt is that of killing people”.

Sr. Mary is no newcomer to political resistance; for many years she fought against the regime of Ferdinando Marcos, a dictator and the tenth President of the Philippines from 1973 to 1986. Martial law was imposed for the first time in the Philippines in 1972: when the country was in the iron grip of the ruling former liberal who soon dissolved parliament and abolished political parties and had himself invested with full power in 1973, only to flee to Hawaii ten years later. “Even under the martial law of President Marcos – Sr. Mananzan recalls – killings were not taking place daily like today”. She believes Duterte is even worse. This is shown by the words of the President himself: “Imprisonment alone is not enough to deter criminals from committing more crimes: we ought to put them in a boat, perhaps in groups of five and leave them in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to become food for the fish”.

Asked whether the Church suffers persecution by Duterte, Sr. Mary John says: “ The Church is the keystone of social assistance and education in the Philippines. Without the Church, everything would collapse”. The Church in the Philippines is especially at the service of the poor. Take the example of Father Mark Ventura, 37, known for his work against exploitation by the mining companies, who was murdered on 29 April, 2018, after saying Mass on the island of Luzon, in the far north of the country. “Religious Sisters and lay people are the backbone of service to this frontier Church”, Sr. Mary John explains.
“We women of the Church are everywhere, even if we make no decisions. We live with the poor. 80% of those who are active in the Church are women, and the Sisters are considered the best educated group of women in the Philippines. If you want to know why the Church is tolerated in my country, my answer is that it is because of the women”, says the missionary Sister who is also the head of Saint Scholastica College, “not even Duterte dares to attack the Sisters: he never says a word against us religious. Besides, the President attended a school run by the Sisters. Many politicians of today attended our schools and they cannot make trouble for us”.

Sister Mary John is happy to speak also about herself: the first woman to obtain a degree at the Gregorian University in Rome in 1973, she studied theology, she says, proud of her work as a feminist: to clarify she adds, “I was a political activist before becoming a feminist. While at university, I was not conscious of being a feminist, it came instinctively”. In reference to her present activism she comments: “We are not radical but social feminists”.
Always in the front line of the battle on behalf of the helpless, this Sister fights for the protection of creation, and during the recent Amazonian Synod, she took part in some meetings in which she affirmed that, “mining activities carry off the resources of the indigenous peoples and the army, rather than defend them, assists the multinationals”. Hers is a truly ‘spiritual militancy’.

Speaking of the Philippines, we ask Sister who protects the President. Sr. Mary believes he is backed by the majority of the Filipino people. It is his populist approach to the problems of crime, drugs and people trafficking that makes him so popular among the people. Apart from the human rights associations, some courageous journalists and activists in the Catholic Church, there is really no political opposition capable of consolidating itself. “Fortunately we had Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle – the Sister says, smiling – an intelligent man and very outspoken. Now he moves to Rome to be the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.”
The Archbishop of Manila has represented a viewpoint and lifestyle that is diametrically opposed to that of the tyrant. “Do not be domineering – Cardinal Tagle said some time ago in a homily – Do not use your power to impose yourselves. Do not use it to accuse people falsely. Just because you are in a position of power does not mean you have the right to destroy or humiliate others. Anyone who does so is fearful and insecure as an individual”.

Miela Fagiolo D’Attilia

Brazil. The Magic and Colour of Movement.

Sunday, 1 March 2020 8:00

A school of dance for the blind, the only one of its kind in the world, located in the outskirts of São Paolo. The challenge of a young woman. Innovative methods. Working against prejudice. A liberating dance. “I have learned to cover my eyes and open my heart”.

On the tips of her toes she moves slowly in a circular movement, allowing her arms to rise upwards. Other ballerinas join in the rhythms of the music of Tchaikovsky, the great Russian composer. The attentive gaze of the instructor helps to create harmony in the group of dancers. We are in the outskirts of the southern zone of São Paolo in Brazil. We are visiting a special school of dance. It is the story of the only blind dancing troupe, started in 1995, in the whole wide world. Its foundress was Fernanda Coneglian Bianchini Saad, who was seventeen years old when she started it. She was a ballerina from childhood. Her parents were volunteer workers at the Padre Chico Institute for the blind, run by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (Vincentian Sisters) in the outskirts of São Paolo.

One day it happened that Fernanda went to see her parents at the Institute, dressed in her dancing clothes. The Sister in charge of the Institute, seeing her dancing costume said: “How would you like to teach classical dance to some of our students?” At first Fernanda was confused and found the idea very odd but then she agreed. Unaware of what was happening, a whole new world, full of surprises, was opening up before her.
Fernanda recalls: “My first group consisted of ten children. My first lesson was to teach a certain step to the children. I explained that they had to imagine they were standing inside a bucket, then jumping out and back in again. One little girl asked me what a bucket was. That took me by surprise. I realised I had to get inside the world of the blind”.
That is how she began to teach dance to some of the students of the institute. The challenges presented by the blind boys and girls forced her to develop a whole new teaching method whose purpose and motto was, ‘To make the impossible possible’. In the words of Fernanda: “A ballerina must always look at the stars, even if she doesn’t see them”.
This method of teaching dance employs the sense of touch and the repetition of movements, expanding the sensibility of the students since those who hear the music close their eyes and open their hearts.
Fernanda made her methodology systematic while writing her degree thesis entitled: ‘Classical Ballet for the Visually Challenged: The Fernanda Bianchini Method’. “When I started, I realised there was no material and no training whatever available that could have helped me teach ballet to visually challenged students”, she says.
In the university context, she came up against a further requirement: “In class I understood that, most of all, I had to increase my sensibility”.

The Fernanda Bianchini methodology soon became well known and the new challenge arose to start a project that would include blind people in dance performances, something unheard of anywhere in the world. The reality proved to be more complex and was enriched by new experiences. The young instructor was continually in demand by new students, people of all ages, not only the blind but also people with hearing, movement or learning difficulties. Little by little, people were competing to join the Fernanda Bianchini School of Dance and it became necessary to divide the students into three groups: children, adolescents, and adults.

The students worked hard for four years, with weekly tests. From the start, Fernanda provided lessons in ballet, contemporary dance, tap dancing, bodily expression, dancing for the elderly, plays, and musical scores, as well as complementary activities such as physiotherapy, yoga and physical exercises. Ever since 1999, the school of dance for the blind and people with other disabilities has been receiving invitations to participate in dancing and festival performances in Sao Paolo and in other parts of Brazil.
The project has never ceased to grow, with activities that respond to some dreams while generating others, so much so that the Padre Chico Institute was unable to accept all the applicants.
In 2003, with the support of parents, friends and volunteers, the Fernanda Bianchini Association, Ballet for the Blind (AFB), was founded and set up in a rented house in the outskirts of Sao Paolo.
Today, with the experience of twenty-five years during which more than a thousand lives were transformed, the AFB is helping 450 students who range from small children to the elderly.

Breaking down barriers
The social integration of the blind and others by means of dance as an extracurricular activity is the main mission of AFB. Fernanda Bianchini wants all the students of her association to be recognised and applauded for their artistic talents and not just out of pity because they are blind or move differently to the majority of people.

An example: one girl student lost her sight when she was nine, due to meningitis. She had seen dancers performing on television and dreamed of joining them. She was one of Fernanda’s first pupils at the Padre Chico Institute for the Blind. She never missed her lessons and travelled alone by bus to school, even though she had to overcome many difficulties while crossing the city. There were no pavements in the city quarter where she lived and she needed help to catch the bus.
Determined to succeed, she persevered until 2017 when she was struck down by meningitis and suffered several strokes. She went into a coma and the doctors feared she would never dance again. Nevertheless, as soon as she came to, she remembered she had a performance planned and said she wanted to dance again. Her recovery was slow but she was supported by her teachers and friends and, with their help, she began to dance again.”The recovery of our first ballerina was a real miracle”, Fernanda Bianchini recalls. “We prayed a lot for her recovery! I believe that faith in God makes life worth living “, she added. The AFB Director has always given importance to the dimension of the faith in her life and devotes herself to her students as if they were her own family.
As well as Fernanda, the AFB has thirteen dance teachers, two of whom are products of the same Institute. Due to the method and spirit of the Association, the performances of the Ballet of the Blind are filled with the colours of movement. The performances include classical ballet, contemporary dance, folk dancing and theatre. Overall, the performances celebrate the subtleties and variety of life. For this reason, the Association has also developed a method for teaching classical and contemporary dance to people in wheelchairs.

The unique mission of the Fernanda Bianchini Association – Ballet by the Blind, has been shown in the more than one hundred distinctions and tens of awards received. In its lifetime, the ballet group has been invited to perform in Argentina, England, Germany and the United States.
Twenty five years have passed but Fernanda’s spirit remains the same. She says: “People come here and dedicate themselves to art. This is my aim in the life of today. To help others to make their dreams come true and to help make the world a better place, more inclusive and less discriminating”. Fernanda insists she, herself, has learned much more than she has taught in all those years.
“When you blindfold yourself, you do not see the difference between one thing and another. I have learned to close my eyes that see only a little, and open the eyes of my heart that see the real world”.

Fernando Félix

Chad / Mons. Miguel Sebastian, “Let us not be intimidated by the regime”.

Sunday, 1 March 2020 8:00

A country where injustice and impunity reign. A government that threatens the Church. Youth in search of a better future. An interview with Mons. Miguel Sebastian, Bishop of Sahr in the south-west
of the country.

“We have here the government of Idriss Déby Itno, President since 1990, a government that does what it likes. The sufferings of the people are increasing. There are ethnic conflicts everywhere which are a total disaster in the east. There is widespread conflict between pastoralists and farmers, not only in the south”, says Mons. Miguel Sebastian, Bishop of Sarh, in the south-west of the country.

The Bishop continues: “ People speak of a ‘democratic’ country just because elections are held. In reality, it is a despotic regime supported by the military. The citizens are very disillusioned, almost desperate. While doing the rounds of the parishes, everyone spoke to me of injustice. The people can take no more. Impunity is the order of the day. Then, many young people leave the country in search of a better future abroad. Many go to Sudan as they say there is gold there. They abandon their villages and create a crisis in the local economy”.
From a political standpoint, there has recently been a change in the leadership of the opposition. The leader is no longer Saleh Kezbabo but Sande Ngaryimbe, the head of the Union for Renewal and Democracy (URD), a party founded by Wadel Abdelkader Kamougue, the historical opponent of the regime.
Mons. Miguel Sebastian comments: “ It seems to me that the new leader has taken a conciliatory attitude towards the government. However, the real issue is that the opposition and civil society may cry out, criticise, and condemn, but nothing changes. In the diocese of Sarh we have reconstituted the Commission for Justice and Peace. And we will act. We will not remain silent but condemn. We shall use the community radio, Radio Lotiko. Violence leads nowhere but our voice will”.

The Bishop of Sarh does not spare France in his criticism. “It is present everywhere, especially militarily in the war against the Jihadists, but also at the service of N’Djamena. As a matter of fact, the civil authorities take advantage of this to label as a terrorist, anyone coming down from the north. This is how it receives help from the USA but especially from Paris”.Speaking of the involvement of the Church, he says it must go ahead despite the threats of the president. “It must not give way. For example: the last time we bishops intervened to ask for a constitutional referendum to approve reforms, President Idriss Déby turned against us. He even threatened us, stating that he would not tolerate a similar initiative again. He also accused us of writing messages that were too critical. He really did threaten us. In our Christmas message, we bishops of Chad once again analysed the situation of the our country, a real catastrophe, and we denounced what is not right and brought our own little light to call everybody to build a better Chad. We especially called on Christians to be bearers of hope. In this time of general discouragement, hope must mobilise our forces, both individual and communitarian because Christian hope is dynamic”.

The diocese of Sarh has an area of 57,000 Kms. In a population of 1.5 million, the Catholics number about 13%. There are 32 diocesan and 26 religious priests serving 21 parishes. Mons. Miguel Sebastian has been Bishop of Sarh for nine years. Previously, he was Bishop of the diocese of Lai, for 16 years. He was one of the first Combonis to go to Chad in 1977. “From a pastoral point of view, the main problem is that of vocations. The priests are very few. When I visit parishes, everyone tells me to send them some priests. Vocations pastoral is a priority of mine.
It is not normal that such a large diocese, founded 58 years ago, should be short of priests”.

Speaking of the priests, he says: “They are very generous. The people want them and follow them. As a result, they are very active but not contemplative enough. We have a problem of spirituality. I speak a lot with my priests, preaching retreats for them and making it easy for them to meet me. The second problem is that many priests live alone. We cannot go on like this since the dangers are great and the temptations very strong. Nevertheless, they live in very difficult social situations. The presbyteries are a disaster: old buildings, badly maintained. There is a great shortage of finance. The priests have very old cars but do not complain. The real problem is that if we are not rooted in the Lord, we cannot work well”.
Looking to the future, Mons. Miguel Sebastian says: “We must continue being the voice of the suffering people. On our part, we are determined to continue. As we wrote in our last Christmas message: we Bishops call upon all Christians to be bearers of hope and peace”.

Filippo Ivardi Ganapini

African Youth activists and climate change.

Sunday, 1 March 2020 8:00

Africa emits only 5% of world greenhouse gas emissions yet is most at risk from worsening heatwaves, droughts and floods.

African youth activists urged their governments to do more to combat climate change to safeguard food and water supplies on the continent most vulnerable to rising temperatures.
Deforestation in Africa and local energy policies promoting fossil fuels were all adding to the crisis, said Makenna Muigai of Kenya. “I urge African leaders to take into consideration that all of us at the end of the day will be affected by climate change,” she said.

Ndoni Mcunu, an environmental scientist at Witwatersrand University in South Africa, said that African nations should make their economies more efficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “Africa only contributes 5% of the greenhouse gases yet we are the most impacted,” she said. China, the United States and the European Union are the top emitters.According to African Development Bank, Africa has 15% of the world’s population, yet is likely to “shoulder nearly 50% of the estimated global climate change adaptation costs”, noting that seven of the 10 countries considered most vulnerable to climate change are in Africa: Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Among policy advice, Vanessa Nakate, 23, of Uganda urged a halt to construction of a pipeline to export Ugandan oil via Tanzania to the Indian Ocean port of Tanga.
She said that activists in Africa often felt ignored, both at home and abroad. “The biggest threat to action in my country and in Africa is the fact that those who are trying as hard as possible to speak up are … not able to tell their stories,” she said, adding that some feared arrest if they took part in local protests about climate change.
“If their voices are silenced it means they won’t be able to explain to the people that we are facing a climate crisis. It’s important for every voice to be listened to no matter where they come from.”

East Africa is currently facing its worst locust invasion in decades after one of the wettest seasons in 40 years came on the back of a drought — a situation scientists say is becoming the new normal.
“Uganda mainly depends on agriculture and we’re really affected by climate change, for example by extreme weather conditions — droughts in some places, floods in other places — that means food prices are affected and only the more privileged can get something to eat and the less privileged are left with nothing,” said Nakate.

Last January, Nakate won unwanted attention after she was cropped from a news agency photograph at a meeting of political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland. Her absence meant the image showed only white activists, including 17-year-old Thunberg.
Nakate said that the controversy about the photograph – subsequently reissued to include her – might end up helping. “I’m actually very optimistic about this. I believe it is going to change the stories of different climate activists in Africa,” she said.

Teenage activist Ayakha Melithafa of South Africa said it was difficult to galvanise local action on climate change when many people in Africa suffered crises, of poverty and unemployment. “It’s hard to convince people in Africa to care about the climate crisis because they are facing so many socio-economic crises at the same time,” she said. She called for better public education to show that climate change would exacerbate strains on water and food supplies.
Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg and her “Fridays for Future” youth movement, said that African nations have a role to play even though global warming has been caused overwhelmingly by major industrialised nations.

Alister Doyle

South Sudan migrants in Australia. Integration, thorns and rap.

Sunday, 1 March 2020 8:00

Being a small community, they try not to lose their own cultural identity. Motivated by a rapper, a photographer and a woman singer.

“We are not as bad as you think we are, why are you making our life hard?” rapper Krown sings as he proudly affirms his origins. From Melbourne with his musical video Let Us Live, the twenty one-year-old emerging artist responds to some local media guilty of using double standards in the information they provide about his community
which, though small, has, in recent years, become the most talked
about in the country.

Renowned as one of the most successful multi-cultural experiments, today’s Australia is confronting some racists involved in a debate on the theme of accepting and, especially, the theme of the integration of refugees.According to the 2016 census, there are 7,700 residents who were born in South Sudan but it is estimated that there may be as many as 20,000, counting native Australians born to South Sudanese families. It is Melbourne, followed by Sydney, that has the most and it is here that the media frenzy starts: in March 2016, at the annual Moomba festival, there were violent clashes whose leaders, some of the South Sudanese, were said to be members of a presumed African gang called Apex. Despite the fact that Victoria State police definitively pointed out, in April 2017, that that gang is only presumed to exist and that it is rather a matter of episodes of unorganised youth crime, many mass media still obstinately refer to ‘gangs’. In this way, the South Sudanese become associated with every criminal episode that takes place.

According to the crime statistics agency of the state of Victoria, crimes committed by Sudanese (including South Sudanese) in the three years 2016-2018 amount to little more than 1%, while more than 70% is to be attributed to native Australians. Despite this, in January 2018, the minister for internal affairs Peter Dutton stated that “the people of Melbourne are afraid to go out to restaurants because of the African gangs”. All this culminated in July 2018 when the National South Sudanese-Australian Basketball Association had to cancel its annual tournament because of the absurd restrictions (on timetables, the number of spectators allowed, etc.) imposed by the directors of the stadiums, fearing episodes of violence.
That same month, hundreds of exponents of the African communities, led by the South Sudanese, gathered to protest, chanting “enough is enough”, outside the headquarters of Channel 7, a TV channel and one of those mostly to blame for the continual mystification of the facts about the ‘gangs’. The Daily Mail Australia and the Herald Sun together published almost 200 articles in the past three years on “African Crime”.

According to Krow, whose real name is Wol Riak, one of the leaders of the South Sudanese protests, “the media have had a negative impact on the hopes of our families for a better future for their children who already find it hard to integrate”. Achol Marial, president of the South Sudanese Community Association in Victoria states: “As a result of our mobilisation, there has been an improvement in the terminology used by the newspapers in their stories about us. The police too, with whom we have organised monthly meetings, are very cautious in dealing with cases involving Africans and have improved their operational guidelines”.
Most of migration to Australia starts with countries bordering Sudan: Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya have 800,000; 280,000 and 115,000 South Sudanese refugees, respectively. The humanitarian programme of the Australian government by which the possibility of relocation is granted, involves a Refugee Programme and a Special Humanitarian Programme. The first establishes refugee status according to the criteria of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It selects and accepts the majority of the applications for asylum made to the Department of Immigration which has the final say. It is also possible to seek asylum without going through the UNHCR.

The second Programme admits those who, while they are victims of human rights violations, cannot be defined as refugees but are sponsored by an Australian resident, whether related or not, or by an organisation. It is in this way that 74% of humanitarian visas were granted to South Sudanese during the years when most refugees were coming to Australia.
Once permission has been granted to relocate, there are considerable difficulties in cultural adaptation, especially within families: there is frequent conflict over parental roles caused by the new reality of equality among parents; this situation continually forces migrants to come to terms with the past and the present. The recent tendency of Australian society to try to assimilate new arrivals without understanding their origins has the effect of hindering the formation of a feeling of belonging. A 2014 study carried out by Victoria State University analysed the experience of South Sudanese mothers while bringing up their children in Australia. Tensions emerged between the local culture and the family self-image and this was marked by aversion to the western sense of self, transmitted by parenting practices. Many mothers displayed fear of losing their children both literally and symbolically.

Stressed by media attention and broken up into dozens of ethnic-based associations, often having to deal with internal tensions reflecting those present in South Sudan, the South Sudanese community finds it hard to shrug off the nickname of ‘refugee’. Its children belong to the diaspora, continually searching for a new identity. At times they are trapped between their memories of their native land (which they left all too soon in their lives) and a completely different Australian daily life. Among those who affirm their own identity, already developed, are the exponents of the South Sudanese artistic scene who, not without great effort, are beginning to achieve a sort of recognition that smacks of redemption and acceptance. “Most of my work explores the history of a pre-existing art that places at the centre our blackness and our visual language”, explains photographer and painter Atong Atem. He has already had various exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and New York and proposes the theme of decolonisation through his work Studio Series: “The first photographs of African subjects belong to the colonial ethnography, giving a distorted and problematic view of it. I turned the lens towards ourselves and overturned that ethnographic tendency just to see what would happen”.
The series is composed of photo-portraits whose subjects, decidedly African and black, immersed in a mixture of colours, even if they may feel lost in different dimensions, belonging to the first or second generations of migrants, proudly keep their own culture alive.
The message contains an autobiographical reference: Atong Atem was born in Ethiopia of South Sudanese refugee parents, was brought up in Kenya and relocated to Australia. “I am pure South Sudanese.
This is my complete identity”.
Krown’s music may deal with the modern social questions of his generation such as Waiting for Payment – in which he criticises the unemployment cheques given to unemployed South Sudanese because they create dependency and prevent people from entering the world of work, already sceptical towards them – that of Ajak Kwai is a leap into the ancestral Dinka tradition.

Originally from Bor in South Sudan, she suffered several bereavements due to the conflict with Khartoum and arrived in Australia in 1998, when she had just turned twenty two. In an effort to correct a speech problem, as a child she started to sing, learning songs handed down from her ancestors which she now sings for her audiences in three different languages: Arabic, Dinka and English. In 2014 she was named the best Afro-Australian singer. In her album Cows, Women and War she shows what it means to be a woman of the village, tied to the land.
“It is through the idea of the land that we can best connect with Australia – not the Australia of the British colonists but that of the aborigines who share the same sufferings as ourselves”. Even though she has family members in Bor, Ajak has not gone back there since she left her country twenty years ago and seems to have no desire to do so: “The aborigines fared worse than the South Sudanese. Unlike myself, they have no country to go back to; but everything I knew as a child was destroyed in the war. I want to hang on to my memories just a little longer”.

Jacopo Lentini – Photos by George Dale

The president Trump’s plan for ‘Peace to Prosperity’.

Sunday, 1 March 2020 8:00

“President Trump announced the launch of his Deal of the Century to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine.” “Donald Trump’s peace plan isn’t a plan for advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. It’s a plan for scuttling them.” “The administration’s peace plan tears up the playbook of prior presidents who have tried and failed to make real progress on peace in the region.” These and more supporting or opposing, calm or furious opinions from politicians and experts will fill the air in the coming months. However, advocacy is empowering people to speak for themselves, so what is the interested communities reaction? Here an example.

Mae Elise Cannon, 29 January 2020, Churches for Middle East Peace. “Earlier this afternoon, the Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) staff gathered around a laptop in our office – just a mile or so from the White House – to watch the President and Prime Minister Netanyahu announce the much anticipated “plan” for Israelis and Palestinians. As I listened to the speech, I was devastated. I was heartbroken as I thought of all the pain, suffering, and injustice that this plan will perpetuate.

The plan presented by President Trump and further fleshed out by Prime Minister Netanyahu is nothing less than a recipe for endless oppression and injustice. Palestinians for far too long have suffered under Israeli military control, a reality which today was denied and ignored. The proposed plan would further entrench the Israeli security establishment, ensuring that generations of Israeli young men and women will serve in a military tasked with continuing control of the Palestinian people. The inevitable result will be more human rights abuses, trauma, and violence. This cannot stand.

In addition, as Christians, we must not stand by and let our faith be perverted. It is clear that Christian values are being weaponized in an attempt to give a veneer of moral legitimacy to a plan that is, in fact, meant to facilitate further Israeli control over Palestinian lives,
land, and resources.

The use of Judeo and Christian religious and spiritual imagery to justify political aims and agendas is idolatry. Referring to the modern geopolitical state of Israel as “a light unto the world,” and glorifying “places inscribed in the pages of the Bible,” without seriously addressing the injustices suffered by those who have lived under decades of occupation, flies in the face of what the Prince of Peace taught us. This appropriation of religious ideals diminishes the true spiritual significance of the land we call Holy and is a betrayal of the Christian faith.

At first glance, some of the language of the plan sounds promising. For example, we heard, “No Palestinians or Israelis will be uprooted from their homes.” Certainly a good thing! However, when the repercussions of the plan are understood more fully, it becomes clear that another reading is possible. Palestinian citizens of Israel might not be moved out of their homes, but it is very possible that they would be disenfranchised, and the territory their homes are on would be deemed a part of the triangle communities of the “future Palestinian state.” This would be a part of the proposed “land swap” meant to maximize the amount of land under Israeli control while minimizing the number of Palestinians living on the land.

Speaking of “opportunities for Palestinians” to have a prosperous future without recognizing the root causes of the suffering experienced by generations worldwide obfuscates the problem and presents a distorted “solution.”
While Palestinians at times have not contributed constructively toward peace, we must be clear: the root of their despair is decades of dispossession, violence, and lived humiliation — a perpetuated dynamic that is not without consequences for Israeli society. For Israelis to have hope for a future without fear, where their legitimate security needs are met, there must be a peace plan where U.S. and Israeli governments recognize and commit to just resolutions in response to the legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people.

What we also did not hear was an articulation of the basic rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, freedom, equality, and dignity in a land to which they have centuries-old ties — something that money can’t buy. So where do we go from here?
We must redouble our efforts to advocate for a durable and just peace that, unlike this and other plans of the past, centers justice, equality, human rights, and freedom for all in Israel and Palestine.
Please join us in prayer.

Let us know your thoughts and desire to stand in solidarity with all people in the Holy Land, especially those who were not present at the “peace table” today. Please stay tuned in the coming days and weeks for positive actions you can take to engage in advocacy as part of the CMEP community and in your networks. As we prepare for the work ahead, I offer this prayer: Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Working together. Justice can Prevail. Peace is possible”.
See, CMEP’s Executive Director Responds to the Trump “Peace” Plan

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

The Indian Ocean.

Saturday, 1 February 2020 8:00

In this new re-establishment of international balances in which Asia is acting as the leader, the Indian Ocean, the theatre of numerous conflicts in recent decades, has assumed a role of primary importance.

It does, in fact, function as a logistical connecting platform assisting Asian economic development since it connects Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, facilitating the passage of abundant loads of energy to be used to maintain production in the major global economies.
It is no coincidence that the US administration, in elaborating its new strategy of Chinese containment, replaced the term ‘Pacific Asia’ with ‘Indo Pacific’ in referring to the area from the western coast of India to that of the United States.

The geopolitical and geo-economic importance of this area is based upon two elements: the first concerns the security of the Chinese economy which depends upon the Indian Ocean as its principal transit route, and this has forced Peking to develop a maritime strategy focussed on two oceans, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, identifying two fundamental logistics bases in Pakistan and Sri Lanka; the second concerns the Indian strategy. India, having suffered over the years under the strategies of the various powers, each with its own hegemonic aims, considered it opportune to adopt a new approach with the aim of making of this area a resource and not a threat, elaborating its own maritime doctrine according to which ‘control of the sea is the cardinal concept around which the Indian navy is structured’.

To this end, it intends to utilise its own maritime power to help keep the region stable and protect the maritime communication routes along which 83% of the crude oil imported by the country travels. For India, indeed, the maritime lines of communication are of crucial importance due to the turbulent state of its bordering neighbours which makes it impossible to use land routes. While developing its maritime strategy, India insists on maintaining its own autonomy, despite its close military cooperation with the United States, confirmed by numerous military agreements regarding the sharing of logistic infrastructure whose objective is Chinese containment.
The concept of autonomy for India is indeed of crucial importance in that it allows it to dialogue with China on maritime affairs and guarantees its own room for manoeuvre with respect to the US mechanism, based on the ‘Indo Pacific Strategy’ which includes India as well as Australia and Japan. Furthermore, India has strengthened its position as a regional leader by instituting the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium composed of 24 members for the purpose of promoting cooperation between maritime security agencies.
Bearing in mind the role being played by India and China at the global level, it is very clear that the economic security of this area is of vital importance also for those countries that maintain economic relations with these new actors. The area, being in a central position, connects the East, the South, the South East, Western Asia, Africa and Europe. The two powers, after a critical period, resumed their dialogue, giving priority to the stability of the area as well as agreeing fully on certain global issues.

The naval policy promoted by China also aims at ensuring its use of the maritime routes of the Indian Ocean since it has developed in the area considerable economic cooperation relations with the countries of the Persian Gulf and Eastern Africa. At the same time it is creating what is known as the ‘String of Pearls Strategy’, or the construction of a network of port ‘garrisons’ along the vital Persian Gulf-China maritime route. This explains why Peking is working to consolidate relations with such countries as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand, all of which are strategically placed along the supple lines of the Indian Ocean. It is through this close network of partnerships and, even more, through huge investments in the construction of the modern port of Gwadar in Pakistan and the modernisation of the port of Sittwe in Myanmar, that Peking is trying to create new land routes for the transport of goods as alternative routes to the Malacca Straits which constitute a choke point that still cannot be defended against any action by the USA. Equally strategic is the project for the construction (still under way) of the port of Colombo in Sri Lanka, facilitating the containment of India which is already placing obstacles in the way of Chinese economic expansion by launching the Mausam Project. But the Chinese port network is not confined to its nearby Asian coasts. It extends along the coast that includes the Indian Ocean and the coast of Western Africa, reaching that of the Mediterranean. In this regard, we note that, at Bagamoyo, in Tanzania, the Chinese are building a port that will be added to the list of those built in Guinea, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Djibouti, South Africa and Egypt.

India, too, like China, is vitally in need of developing a vast infrastructure network capable of connecting it with the Centre-South of Europe, passing through Iran, central Asia and Russia. This network must necessarily circumvent Pakistan, India’s historical rival, whose geographic position constitutes a heavy obstacle for the country of the Ganges.The problem is aggravated by Sino-Pakistan cooperation which led to the new port of Gwadar, forcing New Delhi to increase cooperation with Teheran by investing in the Iranian port of Chabahar, in the region of Balukistan, 100 km from its rival structure at Gwadar.
In addition, India has planned to construct a ‘North-South Corridor’ capable of connecting India to Northern Europe, passing through Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia. With this project, the Indian vessels would sail from Mumbai and dock at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, in the Straits of Hormuz, a stretch of water at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and then despatch goods overland.
The goods would pass through Baku and Astrakhan, reaching Moscow and Saint Petersburg and then enter Europe.

Besides the countries mentioned, their bordering countries would also benefit by reduced prices and availability of goods in an area that is strategic for the future of the world economy. In this context, India, whose rate of growth is among the highest in the world (now more than 7% per year), will play a crucial role in its own development.
The new central position and strategic importance assumed by the Indian Ocean have doubtless created competition based upon economic development and investment in infrastructure. This challenge, launched by major powers in the area, is also being taken up by smaller competitors such as Oman, favoured by its geographical position, which hopes to increase its influence and assertiveness in the immediate future, in a strategic area of the first order.

Filippo Romeo

10 Ways We Pretend War is Not a Crime.

Saturday, 1 February 2020 8:00

Advocacy, more than economic interests, is about consciousness and knowledge. It is about building a strong democracy, holding those in power accountable. It is about focusing on questions left out or hidden, on how information is shared or concealed.

So, as maybe you know, but most people do not, a Peace Pact was signed on August 27, 1928, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, an international agreement to outlaw war. The inspiration, vision and endless labor behind it came from a mass movement begun and led by a lawyer from Chicago named Salmon Oliver Levinson. Obviously the pact did not succeed and a few months ago, on its anniversary, David Swanson, executive director of World Beyond War, listed 10 Ways we pretend war is not a crime. With the dark clouds thickening at the start of 2020 it can be useful to summarize his list.

1-. Normalization. “Many people can’t imagine a world without war,” says D. Swanson. “Our entertainment, our education, our mass media, and our politics treat violence, often extreme and sadistic violence, as normal and unremarkable, and participation in war as an admirable and praiseworthy ‘service’ completely regardless of whether the war participated in is an evil murderous catastrophe.”

2-. Exceptionalism. Swanson points out that media report as if we have “a right to kill people anywhere, as ‘needed’,” as well as a right to defend ourselves against what we deem ‘aggression.’ This gives us grounds for bombing the offending nation. If civilians and children die, it “is not a crime when a U.S. president does it.”

3-. The near total absence of consequences. The International Criminal Court, till now, has only prosecuted ‘War Crimes.’ “While occasionally low-ranking members of the military are punished for particular atrocities, there is no accountability for those who launch wars or commit crimes within wars, unless they are African.”

4-. The good war problem. “We have not only a faith in the possibility of the good war, of bombing for peace and justice, but a requirement, to believe in the existence of good wars.”

5-. Secret agencies plan and fight wars, and media outlets ignore them. “The CIA and all of its relatives in the U.S. government and around the world have normalized lying, spying, murdering, torturing, government secrecy”, lawlessness, and distrust of foreign and our own governments, and our ability to “participate in self-government, and acceptance of perma-war.”

6-. Treaties are not just ignored and violated but also torn up and rejected, generating enemies and avoiding disarmament. By the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation nuclear-armed nations committed not to transfer nuclear weapons to other nations or encourage other nations to acquire nuclear weapons. The U.S. “keeps nuclear weapons in other nations and has given nuclear technology to other nations.”

7-. Just War Theory. Theories of the Sts. Ambrose and Augustine describing the four conditions that must be met in order for a war to be just (the roots of just-war theory go back to the Roman orator Cicero) “have saturated western culture and made their way into the minds of us all,” until recently. Even though, in the conference held in Rome on April 11-13, 2016 “Nonviolence and Just Peace”, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace moved away from just war theory.

8-. The U.S. Presidency has been given imperial powers. Swanson says that, “It is the opinion not only of the current president, that anything a president does is legal.”

9-. Laws like the U.N. Charter are ignored or forgotten, or are circumvented through the use of excuses, pretenses, and obfuscations. It should useful to ask what are the obligations under the U.N. Charter. There cannot possibly be obligations of peace.

10-. Laws like the Kellogg-Briand Pact are ignored. However, this pact bans all war and is a treaty to which the governments are parties. That makes it the supreme “law of the land under the U.S.” and other signatories countries’ Constitution. It is a treaty that has not been ended or abolished or withdrawn from. Therefore, what David Swanson says regarding the U.S. is valid for all countries that signed it.
See the entire article, Ways we pretend war is not a crime

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

Philippines. Make a difference.

Saturday, 1 February 2020 8:00

Boys collect plastic bottles on the streets while others take them from the polluted waters of Manila Port. Families that live by collecting rubbish. A Priest and a Sister are trying especially to help the children to live with dignity.

The bigger lads are always faster than little Charles in grabbing the best bits of rubbish. Along the streets there is another group collecting Coca-Cola bottles and plastic containers. When the bag is full, they take it to the recyclers to receive a little money to buy something to eat.
Then the sound of the rubbish lorry can be heard. The lorry comes from the well-to-do quarters of the city. The boys jump aboard where they search the rubbish, breaking open some plastic bags in search of food. Charles is seven years old and runs after the lorry but he is too small to climb on board. Then the lorry goes round a corner and out of sight. “There is nothing we can do”, says his cousin Josette. Looking at her thoughtfully he replies, “I must learn how to swim”.

Manila is near the sea and a large amount of rubbish accumulates in the port basin. Sometime previously, a friend told him that if he knew how to swim he could earn some money. Charles is living there without any parents. He never met his father. He only knows he was in prison for years. His mother has a new family in another city where she has moved. Only his grandparents helped him, but they themselves are very poor. They live in a hut made of planks of wood and corrugated iron sheets. Tondo is a Manila slum. Both the land and the water are being increasingly polluted. The Philippines is the world’s third-largest ocean polluter; half a million tons of plastic are dumped into the sea there every year.Charles has decided to learn to swim. In a corner of the slum area there is a small bridge over the water and Charles dives in. In a short time he can manage to stay afloat, and he will soon be able to swim some distance.

It is now time for the boy to start work. He wants to collect as much rubbish as possible from the port. Taking a running jump, he dives into the water, trying to make his way through the algae to where he sees a bottle. The surface of the water is covered with oil dumped by ocean-going ships that dock at the port and there is also a cloud of black smoke. At last Charles manages to grab the plastic bottle. When he tries to swim back he goes under for a moment and swallows some of the oily water before reaching the bank, gasping for breath. That evening, after a day spent at his work, he has a large yellow bag full of plastic bottles. He drags it through the narrow streets of the shanty town and sells it for fifty pesos to the dealer. That is his day’s pay. He uses the money to buy some rice and runs home. “Nana, Nana, look and see how much I earned today”. The grandparents are proud of him but are ashamed they cannot offer Charles a better life.

Charity in action
Every Sunday Father Reynaldo Daguitera, a Canossian working in the parish of Saint Paul the Apostle celebrates Mass at Happy Land, a small quarter with twelve thousand slum dwellers. He tells us: “The parish is located in the densely populated area of Tondo with over 100,000 parishioners. It is close to the port and has sixteen Barangays (quarters) in zona 8 of the first district of Manila.

There are about 30,000 illegals in different colonies (Happy Land, Temporary housing, Aroma, Tambakan etc.). Some families live under a bridge. Most of them lack the bare necessities: clean water, electricity and sanitation”.He continues: “Because of the close presence of a large dump to Smoking Mountain shanty town, an increasing number of people, especially children, search through the rubbish for something to help them survive”. However, Father Reynaldo is moved by what he sees: “Seeing Charles and his friends swimming and collecting plastic in poisonous water breaks my heart”.Father Reynaldo is well known in the shanty town. He spends time going through the narrow streets, greeting everyone and offering words of comfort and encouragement. He often visits the families and shares whatever food they have. The people are happy to have Father Reynaldo in their homes. The priest knows that his sermons are credible only if charity is transformed into action. He wants to make a difference and, together with some volunteers, he has decided to organise food for the children, the too many children underweight and malnourished. The priest is helped by an eighty-year-old Catholic man who gets up early each day to prepare breakfast for a dozen or so children, starting at 6.30 am.

That was the first step. The children also need their lessons. Study first, then enjoyment, is the priest’s motto. The three R’s are the order of the day. Then there will be singing and dancing. Charles and the other children enjoy it all.
One day Charles found a treasure in the sea of plastic. Father looked at him in disbelief. He had brought home the door of a broken-down fridge and could not understand why. Charles dragged the door to the port and into the water. He had never seen a fridge before but knew that the polystyrene could be used to make a small boat. As proud as a ship’s captain, Charles now rows his boat to collect the plastic.
Seeing Charles rowing so strongly, Father Reynaldo smiles but, at the same time, is worried for Charles and the many boys and girls of the shanty town. He knows he cannot really change much to free the children from the vicious circle of poverty and plastic.

The priest set to work and found more supporters. He also persuaded Sister Mary John Mananzan to collaborate. In the past, the Sister was involved in many projects and is a genius at improvising.
They continue serving breakfast to the children and in the afternoon they have school classes followed by games. Father Reynaldo has convinced some young doctors to devote some hours each week to organise a small clinic where they can receive patients, especially children. Sister Mary assists with the women regarding hygiene in their homes. They may be poor but they must be clean. They are also working with university students on a sanitation project.
Meanwhile, Charles dives in once more and comes out with another plastic bottle. “I have to continue collecting the bottles, otherwise we will have nothing to eat at home”, he says in a tone bitter beyond his years.”
Beatrix Gramlich

The Church in Northeast India. Building Bridges.

Saturday, 1 February 2020 8:00

From being a tiny minority, the Church in the Northeast region of India has grown exponentially since the beginning of last century. Today, it comprises about two million Catholics with 15 dioceses.

The first missionaries in North-eastern India adapted themselves to the people and their culture amidst hardships and difficulties, and their words had persuasive power with the villagers. People from the most interior places came forward to accept Christianity. Frequent visits to the communities and intense relationships with people made a big difference. Priests and sisters moved from village to village, stayed among the people, visited homes and educated the community in their faith. They took a number of young people into hostels and gave them a more systematic training in Christian teachings and traditions as they pursued their studies.
Catechists deepened the faith of the people in their own homes. They moved to new villages, approached new families and communities, shared the Gospel in intimate exchanges, and invited them to accept the message if they found it acceptable. And many did accept the message.

From very early times there were associations for youth, mothers, parents, and other specific groups. Meetings and training programs were held every month for the catechists, retreats and other animation events for different categories of the laity every year, and also for the parish as a whole. The annual parish feast was not only a celebration but also a three-day reflection on Christian teaching. The marriage preparation course lasted ten days or longer.
There were continuous programs in parishes all through the dry season so that one could move from one event to another without break. Our traditional faith-formation events were intense and effective. They motivated individuals and communities. No wonder that the Church growth was visible, steady and sustained. New contacts were continuously made and maintained.

Educational Ventures
At the early period of our mission history, there were very few institutions. However, almost from the beginning some form of educational service was offered at every parish centre, supported by humble boarding houses both for boys and girls. It took time for Primary Schools to grow into Middle Schools and High Schools.

Today there is a High School at almost every parish centre. Even considering these limitations, we have built up an educated laity in impressive numbers, producing leaders in every field, including the political, and a good proportion of the bureaucrats.
Colleges have come up in different places, and today, there are also two Catholic universities in the region.
Furthermore, the Catholic educational institutions always served an evangelical purpose, of both deepening faith in Christian youth and exposing others to the values of the Gospel, and offering them a chance to make an intelligent choice.

Medical And Social Services
Health assistance was given in a small way by the pastoral sisters from the beginning; standard hospitals came up only of late. But gradually their number has increased and their scope widened. These bigger health institutions reach out to the villages and poorer urban centres with health assistance, health camps, and health education programs. They intervene in times of emergency like floods and epidemics.

Social services began as assistance to good health in the villages. Gradually it has grown to embrace a vast variety of services related to development. Social workers reach out to the villages and organize collaborative efforts with the local communities to solve their common problems. Women’s training centres too have increased in number, giving lessons in tailoring, kitchen garden, child care, cooking, house maintenance, family duties etc.

Work For Peace
Another context where the Christian message manifests in concrete terms is the Church’s work for peace. Though this work is a necessity in all social contexts, we were dragged into it in a big way during the Bodo-Adivasi conflict in 1996, when over 250,000 people had to take shelter in temporary camps and relief work was done for them on a massive scale in collaboration with the other Evangelical Churches. What began as a relief-work collaboration developed into ecumenical peace-work collaboration with the name Joint Peace Mission Team of Northeast India.
There has been, in addition, a certain amount of theological reflection on the theme of evangelization in our region, and theological publications. Such publications have been on themes like evangelization, inculturation, tribal culture, indigenous communities and their traditions, tribal ethos, tribal values, tribal spirituality and related anthropological considerations.

A Dynamic Force In Society
All these activities put together undoubtedly make an impact on the wider society, and the Church in the region as a whole is respected as a force for good by the majority community. Her influence in civil society is greater than what our numbers stand for. The public is aware that the Christian leadership is well educated, that the Catholic community is well-motivated, that the Christian youth is upwardly mobile, that the Christians are doing immensely precious things for society, and that they are going to be effective in whatever good work they will take up. For these reasons they respect the Christian community.

In the hill states where the Christians constitute a significant number, the Catholic Church undoubtedly wields even greater influence. In order for this to continue it is necessary that the missionary team gives importance to its cultural and social insertion into the local community, both at the personal and social levels. This will mean frequent interactions with the people of the neighbourhood no matter what their persuasion (members of other religions, agnostics, diverse ideologies).
I would consider the engagement with the thinking element of society to be another important aspect: the thought-provokers, the opinion-shapers, the value-setters, the goal-proposers, the ideals-planters, the vision-projectors, the energy-sustainers, the soul-inspirers.
It is when missionaries have entered into companionship with such stalwarts that they gain a certain moral authority in society. It is here that missionaries seek to be present with a humble but effective contribution. In the present context of serving the larger society in a multi-religious and secular situation, this is a realistic goal which we can seek to move forward.

Building Bridges
It is a great mission to initiate a meaningful dialogue with individuals and teams that shape the collective mind of a society. Our aim is to build up a common ground with the real world around us and lead reflection a little further. These are all spheres of life where diversity of opinion is possible. Our mission is to promote intelligent thought and mutually stimulating discussions that will lead to responsible decisions.
Our mission is to be present where we are needed most: even at the crossroads of ideologies, in social trenches, in areas of confrontation, and amidst the burning exigencies of man. Yes, Jesus’ message ought to be brought to life and proved capable of yielding a hundredfold.

This mission is amazingly complex: listening, enriching, correcting, supplementing, and co-thinking with one another. Let Christians of various traditions talk to each other; let believers listen to each other. Socially committed agnostics too have a message for us. Let people of all different points of view learn from each other.
We Christians believe that history is not shaped in the battlefields only, but also in lecture halls, thinkers’ clubs, study groups, workshops, school rooms, libraries, laboratories, artists’ dark rooms, adoration chapels, and cloistered convents, in catechist training centres, and during the village visits of missionaries. That is why we are present in all these places with diverse approaches.

Northeast’s Contribution
The Church in Northeast India, which was once considered by some at the national level as being in an unimportant corner of India, has moved to a respected position today. Many national events of importance are held now in Northeast India.
Furthermore, vocations are rising in the Northeast while they are declining in the traditionally vocation-rich areas. With the size of the family growing smaller in the older Catholic pockets of India, the Northeast seems to be the hope-filled area for vocations increasing the number of congregations. What is even more encouraging is the fact that this young Church has been quickly sending out missionaries to the ends of the earth. This trend is bound to grow, even though the present number is still small.

What will the hills and valleys of the Northeast contribute? Will it be its missionary dynamism in a spirit of joy? It is not easy to judge at this stage. However, the calibre of the Northeastern contribution will depend on the quality of the togetherness and the collective thinking that the Church in the region will cultivate and strengthen along with its traditional joy and enthusiasm.

Difficulties Bring Redemption
We in India are living through difficult times these days. We may have to look forward to more difficult times if the Hindu right takes the destiny of the nation into its hands. Hindutva radicalism as a cultural force is sure to remain around us. Though we see that the communities of the Northeast are not much attracted by this extreme ideology, they are bound to be influenced. Rather than take our worry to excess or seek to address the problem only in the way of public protests, we will have to learn to dialogue with the moderates among them, who in turn can soften their group’s exaggerations. If Christianity has survived 2,000 years in India it was because our society was tolerant, and it is likely to remain so in the future.

Thomas Menamparampil
Archbishop emeritus of Jowai, India

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