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Burkina Faso. Father Jacques. Biologist and Geneticist.

Friday, 1 November 2019 8:00

A Camillian and also professor at the University of Ouagadougou, Father Jacques Simporè assists the sick and most neglected. He has always worked with tenacity against the spread of HIV decimating
the country.

Fr. Jacques Simporè’s dream was to place himself at the service of science and the poor: besides the motivation he received from the Camillian charism, he found within himself the strength to respond to those passions that can transform life into an exceptional and unique experience. Fr. Jacques is a native of Burkina Faso and is professor of genetics and biology at Ouagadougou University. With his studies and what resulted from them, Fr. Jacques Simporè has already published more than 300 articles in the most important scientific magazines in the world (Nature, Sciences, Nature Genetics, Nature Communication and Lancet Hematology are but some of these).

The chief motivations of this researcher: to help others, the sick and the most vulnerable. The forgotten ones, those suffering from sickle cell disease, children afflicted with malaria or measles and those who are HIV positive in the many villages scattered throughout the bush with no access to medical care, in despair and stigmatised by a devious and terrible disease. The HIV virus which causes AIDS became a challenge for Fr. Jacques.
Twenty years ago, the situation in Burkina Faso and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa was indeed very serious. Burkina Faso, a landlocked country of the Sahel, was considered one of the poorest among those occupying the lowest places according to the human development index.

The Fathers and Sisters of the Order of Saint Camillus, during their forty years of work in Burkina Faso, have seen thousands of lives lost due to HIV. In a population of around 14 million inhabitants, it is estimated that around half a million are HIV positive with a mortality rate of over forty thousand per year.
A strong response was required both by way of research into new treatments and into prevention, as well as providing information in the more remote areas where public health workers would rarely go.
Fr. Jacques said: “Research into new treatments, the possibility of providing antiretrovirals free, providing information throughout the country, and creating a decentralised health system able to reach the most isolated areas were our main objectives”.

With the support of the Camillians, the public health plan of the Burkina Ministry of Health was launched for the purpose of reducing the pandemic, containing the mother-child transmission of the virus, of training personnel capable of managing HIV positive patients and of creating a basic network of information to halt the terrifying situation created by the spread of the HIV virus.
The Camillians created the equivalent of a task force and, in a period of about ten years, set up the Candaf Centre and the Pietro Annigoni Centre for Biomolecular Research (CERBA) in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, for the reception and treatment of HIV positive children and adults, with special attention to the terminally ill. They brought into operation a laboratory for blood analysis for the diagnosis and treatment of the condition. The work in their field was and is unending, not only as regards hospital services but even more so in that of research.
Some of Father Simporè’s publications: ‘Risk factors associated with mother to child transmission of HIV-1 spontaneous abortion and infant mortality in HIV-1 infected women in Burkina: a prospective study’, an invitation to continue the research, to learn more about the problem and to be a voice of the sick who cannot speak for themselves.

Father Jacques adds: “Poor health education in some remote country areas and discrimination are the enemies we must fight. To confront the enemy we must look it in the face and concede nothing to it. We must never lower our guard”. This is exactly what Father Jacques is doing, never lowering his guard, giving dignity to all those patients who, not so long ago, felt they were ignored.
Consideration for others is the first motivation that brought Father Jacques to do research in the field for which he was decorated in 2017 with the highest honour conferred by the government of Burkina Faso for his educational service to research and teaching. Ever since the time when he was a student at the University of Rome, while in the context of Camillian public health, where he felt he could experience with every breath the famous motto ‘More heart in those hands’ with which Saint Camillus urged his followers to treat the patients, Father Jacques never looked back. Instead he worked ever harder, with more motivation and with more energy. It is certain that there was no fear of work in this man whose name Pope Francis added to those of the College of Academics of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
Antonella Bertolotti

Western Sahara. The wall that nobody talks about.

Friday, 1 November 2019 8:00

The 2,720 kilometre wall, which separates the areas occupied by Morocco and those liberated by the Polisario Front in Western Sahara, is actually the largest active military barrier in the world, and the second longest wall after the Great Wall of China.

One can observe the wall only from the mandatory safety distance of five kilometres, imposed by a mine field. From that distance, the barrier, which separates the Polisario-controlled areas from those occupied by Morocco, looks like a large mound of sand in the middle of the desert. This 2,720 kilometre military wall, is the largest active military barrier in the world and the second longest on the planet, exceeded only by the Great Wall of China (21,196 km); and yet it has remained practically invisible to the outside world.

At a time when the current president of the USA, Donald Trump, has made talk of building walls to secure borders become fashionable, by calling for the expansion and improvement of the already existing wall at the U.S.-Mexico border(1,123 km), it is worth comparing the barrier dividing Western Sahara with the 819 km long Israeli West Bank barrier; with the wall built between Pakistan and India which is about 750 km long; and the one that divides the two Koreas whose length is 248 kilometres; the 12 km-long Melilla fence; that of Ceuta which extends 8 km, and the historic Berlin Wall that was 155 kilometres long.
The Western Sahara wall is not a linear construction, but a succession of six barriers built between 1980 and 1987, during the war between the Polisario Front and Morocco, after the Alawite occupation – with the Green March, in 1975 -, and the definitive withdrawal of Spain from its province number 53, a year later.

A suggestion from Israel
“By 1979, when Mauritania withdrew from the conflict, the Polisario Front had been able to recuperate 80% of the Sahrawi territory. The end of the 1970s was marked by intense fighting between Moroccan forces and the Sahrawi army. During those confrontations, the Moroccan forces, despite their superiority in numbers and military power, had many military defeats. Israeli military advisers suggested to King Hassan II of Morocco that the country change strategy, moving from offensive to defensive tactics in order to stop the attacks of the Sahrawi army, and to protect the so-called “useful triangle” which includes the cities of El Aaiún, important for its fish catch, Bu Craa, for its phosphate mines, Esmara along with the south point of Dakhla , also important for their fish catch.

King Hassan II of Morocco therefore ordered the construction of a huge line of defensive walls whose construction lasted seven years. “Morocco is the closest Arab country to Israel in history” says Mohamed Uleida, director of the National Resistance Museum, located in the Saharawi refugee camps in Tinduf (Algeria) .
Tiba Chagaf, co-founder of the youth platform “Cries against the Moroccan wall”, describes the physical structure:“The wall is a series of sand and stone walls of two to three meters high; it extends along topographic high points (such as peaks and mountains) throughout the Sahrawi territory. It is protected by bunkers, ditches, trenches, barbed wire, mines and electronic detection systems and defended by more than 150,000 Moroccan soldiers.
Every 5 kilometres of the wall, there is a military base of about 100 Moroccan soldiers. About four kilometres behind each major observation post, there is a mobile rapid intervention force (with armoured vehicles, tanks, etc.) A series of overlapping fixed and mobile radars, with a range of 60 to 80 km, are placed along the wall.”

According to Mohamed Uleida,: “Morocco spends 3.5 million Euro daily to maintain the wall, since every five kilometres there is a base with two guard posts, on the right and on the left, with radar that has a range of about 60 kilometres, and between each of these bases, there is another military sub-base, in addition to 240 heavy artillery batteries and 20,000 kilometres of barbed wire. The money needed for the wall derives from three main sources: first of all, from the generous help of the Saudis and the Gulf monarchies; second, from the exploitation of Saharawi territory, from the phosphates exported to USA and fish to Europe; and the third, the millions of Euro that Morocco receives from Europe, under the pretext of combatting illegal immigration ”.

Phosphate being processed at facilities operated by Morocco’s state-owned OCP, near Laayoune, capital of Western Sahara,

According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which is a global network in some 70 countries dedicated to putting an end to the suffering caused by antipersonnel landmines and cluster bombs, Western Sahara is one of the ten most mined areas in the world.
Malainin Mohamed Brahim, director of the Sahrawi Mine Action Coordination Office (SMACO) estimates that the fortified sand wall is lined with over seven million mines. “It’s impossible to calculate exactly the total number of mines that infest the entire area, because there are many of them also in the occupied areas and Morocco does not allow international organizations to enter there. We can only estimate the number of mines surrounding the wall, which is between 7 and 10 million mines of different types: anti-tank, anti-personnel mines, unexploited shells, and cluster bombs and fragmentation, the latter being the result of aerial bombings. There is an estimated 40 million in the rest of the territory. In early 2019, the Polisario Front destroyed, in the presence of UN representatives, 2,500 anti-personnel and antitank mines, collected in the liberated territories of Western Sahara.

Thousands of dead
According to ICBL, since 1975, more than 2,500 people have been killed by landmines in Western Sahara. The United Nations Mine Action (UNMAS) team estimates that 80% of the victims are civilians. “We have conducted a census which, though it only includes survivors, shows that the number of victims of landmines has reached 1,700 people.

We do not have figures on fatalities, but we think that the number of 2,500 dead, estimated by ICBL is correct , ” says Aziz Haidar, president of ASAVIM, the Saharawi Association of Landmine Victims, who had both legs amputated after a landmine explosion in 1979. Aziz adds: «ASAVIM has helped more than 600 people by providing crutches, prostheses, wheelchairs, medicines, beds for paralyzed people or financial aid to start small cooperatives or businesses”. “Due to their nomadic lifestyle, Bedouins and their herds of camels are those more affected by mines. Besides, victims increase during the rainy season because there is plenty of grazing land in proximity to the wall. Not only the Saharawi shepherds take their herds to graze in the liberated territories, but also shepherds from neighbouring Mauritania, because there are not such good pastures there, ”says Malainin, director of SMACO.

Not just a physical separation
The physical barrier represented by the wall also involves other types of less visible separations. «The structure divides a people, the majority of which lives under Moroccan occupation – forty percent of the population of El Aaiún, and twenty percent of that of Dajla is Saharawi. As a matter of fact there is a strategy planned in order to eliminate the Saharawi identity. For example, there is not a single university in the occupied territories, and the Saharawi have to go to Morocco to study.

The Hassania dialect is disappearing as well as our traditional clothing. The Saharawi people are victims of constant cultural plundering. We are children of the clouds. Our culture is transmitted orally. Landmines endanger the traditional Saharawi lifestyle linked to the desert and prevent divided Sahrawi families from transmitting to their children the traditions and cultural values of their society. Our grandfathers are our library, when they leave us we lose our “oral books” and therefore our culture and identity forever, ” laments Tiba Chagaf, co-founder of the Cries Against the Wall platform.
Malainin Mohamed Brahim, director of SMACO, underlines: «The wall deprives us of our natural wealth and a decent standard of living. We have lived for 43 years in refugee camps and we survive thanks to international aid, though our territory is one of the richest in the world.

The wall has also an environmental impact on the area, in fact, the construction of the wall and the infrastructures that it contains have led to profound changes in the surface of the land that has become more vulnerable to wind erosion and water stagnation.
Due to its structure, the wall acts as a barrier to the flow of water into the areas southeast of the wall. This situation has increased desertification in those areas and hinders agriculture, while on the other side of the barrier there is fertile land.”
“The wall also transforms the occupied territories into a large prison.
This situation has contributed to aggravating the sense of isolation, alienation and vulnerability among Sahrawi population in those areas. War can’t end with the wall still standing”, concludes the president of ASAVIM, Aziz Haidar.
Eugenio G. Delgado

South Sudan. Death. A place of Rest.

Friday, 1 November 2019 8:00

The Bari, a South Sudan ethnic group who live on the Savannah along the White Nile, believe that death is not a curse but a ‘going to rest’ .

Among the Bari, death is seen as something natural, the common fate of all. It is desired by God but is not seen as a curse. God sends death indirectly through illness, old age or wicked spirits.

He intervenes directly only when he sends the lightening. This means that anyone struck by lightning, or their family, has committed some evil act, and God punishes them. Epidemics are also seen as God’s punishment. These considerations, however, are concerned only with the manner of death. Death in itself is long rest, without tiredness or pain. The elders, especially, are happy to meet with their beloved dead of former times and say: “At last I am going to rest”.

Death is liberation from all worries. Dying parents may be displeased if their children are still young as they would still need them. Fathers and mothers who are about to die weep and say: “I am weeping because my children will be left alone with no one to look after them; I am going to my rest leaving them nothing but suffering”. Still, the thought that their children will continue the family consoles them: they have fulfilled their duty as parents. The sorrow a young person feels when about to die is, instead, that of not having left even one son to continue the family line.
The Bari believe death is sent by God but this does not remove the fear and suffering accompanying it. Almost all of them think death is accidental. Many take poison to end their pain. Suicide is available to all due to the abundance of poisonous fruits that cause death in less than five minutes. Hanging is also an option, taken especially by girls who do not wish to marry the man chosen for them by their family. In any case, suicide is seen as cowardice in the face of the problems of life.

Funerals
When a gravely ill man or woman is about to die, the women surround them while the men remain outside the hut. All the people of the village go to the family of the dying person, without saying much. As soon as the person dies, the women burst into loud cries of mourning. Some men then go inside to verify the death. One of them goes out and sounds the drum to announce the death.
All the people of the village, and even men and women from nearby villages, go to the hut of the deceased to offer condolences to the family.When all the relatives have come – the presence of the maternal uncle is essential – the funeral rites are begun.

The drum continues to sound and some men dig a grave in front of the house of the deceased; in the case of a young unmarried person, the grave is dug in front of the house of the mother. The gravediggers must work barefoot as the soil they dig up is sacred. Meanwhile the closest related women wash the corpse, shave its hair and, in the case of a woman, anoint it with seed oil and dress it in its finest clothes and ornaments. At this point, some men enter the house and cover the body with a funeral sheet, leaving only the face uncovered. Now only men may touch the corpse. They carry it to the grave where the relatives say their last goodbyes, dipping a finger in the seed oil and brushing the face.
There is a deep silence. The face is covered with the sheet and the corpse is lowered into the grave, resting on its side, after the Bari sleeping custom.
Then the relatives, while looking at the corpse, each say a double prayer (not ‘for’ but ‘to’ the deceased: they ask them to pardon any trouble they may have caused them during their life and ask not to be forgotten before God during their glorious repose.
One of the relatives – or one of the parents if they are still alive – throws a little earth into the grave. Then the drum begins to sound, sending out the message that the burial has taken place, while the women recommence their loud weeping and wailing.

Other rites
If the deceased belonged to a large family or had an important social role (sorcerer, village chief, etc.), people dance at their grave throughout the day. After a day free of dancing, the dancing is resumed daily for a month, then less frequently, for a whole year. At first the songs and dances are very sad but gradually become more joyful. Besides these main rites, there are others that are complementary.
For example, after the men have dug the grave, they do not go to the river to wash as they usually do on other days. It is the task of the women to bring them water to wash themselves near the grave: even the soil adhering to them is sacred and they may not take it elsewhere. Other rites concern the relatives of the deceased. On the day following the burial they shave off all their hair: this may take one or two days according to the number of relatives. Afterwards, each person is given a necklace of palm fibres. If the dead person was a married man, his wife will wear a bracelet similar to the necklace, she will dust her whole body with ashes and will not wear her usual clothes for at least a year.
The closest women relatives will keep their heads sprinkled with ashes for at least a month.

All those who come from other villages for the funeral are provided with food by the family of the deceased who kill two or three cattle and obtain two or three barrels of merissa, the local beer. Once those coming from a distance have left, the neighbours gather round the relatives of the dead person to console them. They never leave them alone so as to avoid the possible suicide of the brothers, sisters or parents of the deceased. Games or play of any kind are prohibited; the children of the neighbours are kept at a distance. The children of the family in mourning stay with the adults to weep for the dead person. For at least a week, and sometimes for a month or more, nobody sleeps in the house of the deceased but outside it, close to the grave. The neighbours do the same, in solidarity. All the above concerns only the death of adults. In the case of a young man or woman, or a child, the ceremonies are much shorter: there is no dancing at the grave, not many people come from far away, the drum is not sounded and no cattle are slaughtered. At most a lamb will be provided. The reason for this is social. Among the Bari, an adult man, unlike a child, has many relations; he helps, defends and participates in important times in the lives of many people both in his own village and in others. When he dies, all the good he has done is remembered everywhere he has been.

After death all are equal
While it is true that the Bari see death as a going to rest, they nevertheless do not like to die. Dying is rarely spoken of and people may simply say death is inevitable, a mystery about which one should not speak. Instead, they feel much more at ease saying that, after death, all are equal, both rich and poor.

Death is the last word for all the things of this world. For this reason, nobody should exalt themselves in this life. When a man or a woman shows outstanding talents of superiority, whether real or false, the Bari say: ‘Have no fear, after death we are all equal’. So it is that the poor and those in any situation of inferiority, console themselves. Even children tell their cleverer or stronger companions that they will all be equal after death. The true and only superiority belongs to the one who never dies. For them, this is God alone. All the others, even if they are chiefs, must be humble since there were other more famous chiefs before them and yet they are dead.
Pitya – E. Lado

An Unhappy Fish.

Friday, 1 November 2019 8:00

0nce upon a time there was a colony of little fishes who lived together in their own small pool, isolated from the rest of the fish in the river. It was a still, grey pool, dotted with stones and clumps of weed, and surrounded by thorn bushes and a few palm trees.

Most of these fishes were as happy and as friendly as they could be. But there was one fish, much bigger and stronger than all the others, who kept himself aloof, and who would draw himself up in a haughty manner whenever the others came near him.

“My good fellow,” he would say, opening his eyes as wide as he could, and balancing himself erect on his handsome tail, “do stop making such a commotion in the water beside me. Can’t you see I am having my afternoon siesta? Go away! And take that rabble away with you,” he would add, sweeping one glistening fin towards a shoal of cheerful small fish darting in and out among the shadows.

This sort of thing happened so often that one day one of the older fish said sarcastically: “I wonder you don’t leave this tiny pool and go off to the big river. A fish as large and important as you should surely mix with others of his own size and excellent breeding.” The big fish thought things over for several days, and puffed himself even bigger with pride when at last he decided to leave his home and search for a better one.

“My friend is quite right – he said to himself. – I should be happier if I lived among fish of my own size. How tired I am of these stupid little creatures! With all the rain we’ve been having lately the time must be near when the big river overflows its banks, and the flood-water will soon be coming up into our pool. When it arrives, I’ll go with it and let myself be swept down into the big river, and get away from all this.”

He told his companions what he had in mind. The older fish congratulated him on his enterprise with solemn faces, but the younger ones could not conceal their delight at the thought of being free from the big fish’s criticisms, and they swam backwards and forwards, talking about it among themselves.

After a few more days of heavy rain the floods arrived. They covered the little pool, and the big fish rose to the top of the water and allowed himself to be swept downstream to the river. Once between the banks in the depths of the river itself, he noticed how different the water tasted, and how much larger the rocks and the weeds were. Then he sighed with relief and anticipation, thinking of the good life that lay ahead.

He was resting for a few moments beside a large stone when he felt the water swirling behind him. Suddenly four or five fish, much bigger than he, passed over his head. One of them looked down and exclaimed harshly: “Out of our way, little fish! Don’t you know this is our hunting ground?” Then the others turned on him too and drove him away.

The poor fish hid beneath a large clump of weeds, and peered out anxiously from time to time. Presently two large black and white fish came rushing towards him, with fearsome jaws wide open. They would surely have eaten him up had he not managed to wedge himself in a crevice in the bank, just out of their reach.

“Oh dear!” he gasped, when the two monsters had at last tired of waiting about for him. “I do hope there aren’t any more fish like that in this river. How am I to live if I have to spend the whole day in hiding, with no chance to search for food?”

All day long he stayed in his hiding-place, but when night came he slipped out and began swimming freely in the black water, looking for some supper.

Suddenly he felt a sharp nip in his tail, and turning swiftly he saw the be whiskered face of a large tiger-fish. He was just about to give himself up for lost when a huge dark object passed overhead. It was a canoe, although the fish did not know this, and it disturbed the water so much that he was able to streak away from the tiger-fish and hide in the mud.

“Alas! – he said to himself -. Why did I come to this terrible place? If only I could get back to my own little pool, I would never grumble again.” At last he determined to find the point where he had first entered the river, and then make his way back to the pool before the last of the flood-waters receded. He wriggled slowly along the muddy bottom of the river, until he recognized the spot where he had first arrived. Then with a leap he was out of the river and into the large expanse of flood-water which was surging past him.

How he struggled as he tried to force his way against the swirling water, until at last, when his strength was almost gone, he found himself back in the pool again. There he lay panting on the bottom, too tired to move, and as he turned his eyes this way and that and saw the old familiar landmarks, he said to himself: “If I had only known what the river was really like, I would never have left the safety of our pool.”

After that the tiny fish played undisturbed wherever they pleased, and never again did the big fish say he was too grand to live among them, even though sometimes he may have thought so.

(Folktale from Tanzania)

Eswatini. Arriving unannounced.

Friday, 1 November 2019 8:00

Originally from the Argentine, Mons. José Luis Gerardo Ponce de León has for five years been Bishop of Manzini in the Kingdom of Eswatini, the former Swaziland. He shares his experience with us.

Before becoming Bishop of Manzini I had been appointed, in 2009, to the Apostolic Vicariate of Ingwavuma in South Africa, a diocese on the border with Mozambique. These are the two different nations where I lived: firstly in South Africa and, starting five years ago, in the Kingdom of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland. In both places I started in the same way. I didn’t know much about the area entrusted to me and so I decided to visit each and every community, great or small. Here in Eswatini there are 120. I came unannounced. I didn’t want the people to be there ‘because of the bishop’ but because of the Lord’s Day (Sunday).

It was no simple matter for people to accept my manner of visiting them since they would have liked to welcome me differently. The impact was deeply felt since, in many places, it was the first time for the people to see the Bishop among them.
“Today, we are the cathedral”, they would say, smiling broadly. There were places where they were happy to see a new face among them but it never occurred to them that it belonged to the bishop.
The mission always involves going out to meet others and, especially those who do not feel worthy of such a visit. In fact, my episcopal motto: The Word Became Flesh has become a form of greeting in the diocese. Whereas people used to say: “Praised be Jesus Christ”, they have now begun to say: “Izwi laba yinyama” – The Word became flesh. And people would answer: “Lahlala phakathi kwethu” – And dwelt among us.

The diocese is witnessing to this encounter in fragility, with initiatives unique to this nation. Eswatini is the country with the highest percentage of AIDS sufferers in the world. For the past twenty years, the diocese has been running a home for adults and children who are AIDS patients. First opened when AIDS was a death sentence, it accompanied many to the encounter with the Father. Today, instead, it is a place where they recover their dignity and return to their homes. The challenges lie in having them go back home where they always lived as well as they did with us. The care of the disabled (children, youths and adults) is another expression of this love that raises people up. A few weeks ago, a missionary of the Servants of Mary received an award for having introduced the use of braille for the education of the visually challenged. That man, who died a few years ago, often said to me: “I have managed to do a lot for the disabled but I never succeeded in changing the way their families and society see them”. It is for this that our centres have become expressions of the love of the Father.

The situation of the refugees is a call to look beyond our own little world where we are tempted to close ourselves inside. For many years now, ‘Caritas Swaziland’, as the organ that implements the agreements between the government and the UNHCR, runs the centre for refugees that was opened during the civil war in Mozambique. Today it receives families (composed of a husband, wife and several children) who come from countries of the region of the Great Lakes (Rwanda, Burundi, Congo). They travel the breadth of the continent in the hope of a better future. In response to the appeal of Pope Francis and according to the initiative launched by the laity of the diocese, all the parishes gather once a year at the cathedral to celebrate Mass and present their gifts.
The mission is all of these … a culture of encounter, opening one’s eyes, learning to see, gratuitous love and always the Good News about Jesus who gives us life in abundance.
In welcoming Pope Francis’ appeal to revive the missionary commitment, I asked our diocese to deepen its missionary commitment and awareness by celebrating not just one month but an Extraordinary Missionary Year (EMY), from October 2019 to October 2020”.

The appeal was received with great interest and joy. This year will be an opportunity to deepen the missionary spirit that gave birth to our Church in the Kingdom of Eswatini when four members of the Order of the Servants of Mary came to Mbabane in 1914. After those humble but spirited beginnings, today we thank God for his abundant blessings to be plainly seen in the 17 parishes and the 120 small Christian communities: our commitment to public health through the Good Shepherd Hospital and College and the other medical centres, as well as our commitment to education by means of 47 primary schools and 13 high schools. Last October, during the vigil at our cathedral, a special ‘Missionary Year Candle’ was lit. The candle will visit each parish and community of the diocese to light up our missionary commitment. (R.L.)

Namibian Mosaic.

Friday, 1 November 2019 8:00

With only 2.6 million inhabitants and an area of 824,292 square kilometres, Namibia presents a particularly complicated ethnic and cultural geography.

Low population density and the absence of large urban centres of development (Windhoek, the political capital and the main city of the country, has little more than 300,000 inhabitants) deprive Namibia of the powerful aggregation factor which, in other parts of the continent, is provided by rapid growth in the major metropolitan areas.
The most useful way to interpret Namibia is to note the counter-position between the central-southern area, which includes the capital and the main urban centres, and the northern region bordering Angola, separated from one another by the Etosha Pan, the great saline depression containing the main nature reserve of the country.

The centre and the south show more clearly the influence of South Africa and the imprint of German colonisation. It was due to the Afrikaans-speaking semi-nomadic ‘Cape Coloureds’, supported by the English and German missionaries of the Rhenish Missionary Society (predecessors of the Basters community of Rehoboth and the other coloured communities that today make up 6,5% of the population of Namibia), that, during the eighteen hundreds, Windhoek and the other towns with Dutch names scattered throughout the country, were founded. It was also they who made the first attempts at the political organisation of the region involving also the Khoikhoi groups (the Nama who today number 5% of the population) and the Bantu (Damara, 7%, and Herero, 7%), who were already settled in the region.

German-speaking minority

Starting in 1884, this fluid and unstable mosaic was under German domination that unified the country within its present boundaries and left behind it a network of roads and a very efficient postal system, the spread of the Lutheran version of Christianity and a German-speaking minority that today numbers around 30,000 people (little more than 1% of the population), concentrated mostly in the business and professional communities of the major centres. The period from 1915 to 1918, when it was under South African protection, was a decisive moment in the transformation of ‘South West Africa’ into a sort of appendix to its more powerful neighbour to the south.

While it may be true that the long drawn-out controversy over the extension of the mandate (originally conferred by the League of Nations) attenuated somewhat the impact of apartheid law, the transformation of the country into a ‘fifth province’ of South Africa favoured the birth of a white Afrikaner minority (now little more than 4%) and the increasing gravitation towards the South African economy and Cape Town which finds itself functioning as the ‘capital’ of the country of Namibia.

Ovamboland

Far from the colonial centres of development, relegated to the margins of the history of the country up to the Second World War, the northern periphery has taken a leading role since the sixties. Still living in tribal conditions, despite being evangelised by the Lutheran Finnish missionaries, the Ovambo (now by far the largest ethnic group, with 50% of the population of Namibia) took a neutral stance during the violent repression by the Germans of the violent Herero and Nama revolt of 1904-1905 and did not participate even in the first phases of resistance against the segregationist South African regime, led by such Hereros as Mosea Kutako and Clemence Kapuuo, in the forties.

However, their role increased when the industrial revolution, sorely in need of manpower, began to force them, during the time of the harsh ‘Contract Labour System’, to move to the large centres. During the fifties, the Old Location in Windhoek (the only large black township in the country) and the industrial areas of Cape Town became the stage for the awakening and political mobilisation of a new Ovambo elite, which would give rise to the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), an organisation which, during the seventies and eighties, would gradually impose its hegemony of black liberation.
The change to armed struggle (1961) also helped to accelerate the shift of the centre of gravity of the country towards the north.
The fall of the authoritarian Portuguese regime in Angola and the formation in Luanda of a black, Marxist-inspired government in the mid-seventies made Ovamboland the main infiltration area for SWAPO guerrillas and the natural stronghold of the liberation movement. It remained so even after the guerrilla war had ended and Namibia had become independent, restoring SWAPO majorities in all elections held from 1989 until the present day and thus contributing decisively to ensuring that the SWAPO movement continued to be in control of the new democratic institutions. (R.R.)

Peace and Climate Justice is Needed to Save the Planet.

Friday, 1 November 2019 8:00

The world is afire again, the flames heartbreakingly consume shrubs, trees and forests in Australia, Portugal, Brazil, and recently in California and Siberia and elsewhere too. The world community has reacted in protest to the hundreds of fires burning the Amazon rainforest. These are destroying the habitat of thousands of endangered species and the communities of indigenous people living in their ancestral lands and forests.

The naturally recurring forest fires can be helpful to the forests but the man-made forest fires are too huge, frequent and overwhelming for the forest to recover and revive by a natural process. Deforestation is totally destructive and when primeval rainforests are cut, the loss is almost irreversible. Let us tell it as it is.

In Brazil, the Amazon is on fire and it is caused by farmers, business interests, settlers and development corporations that are cutting the trees and clearing forest by burning to create pasture and raise cattle. The injustice to the indigenous people is enormous. Peace is not present while their lands are being burnt and deforested. From the Amazon to Peru and Chile, the destruction goes on.

In South America the loss of the vital forests to cattle-raising as the world eats more beef is of particular concern. The trees can absorb the industrial CO2 from factories, power plants and cars. The billion or more cattle raised for dairy and beef products on cleared forest land produce millions of tons of methane gas that is worse than CO2 in warming the planet and accelerating climate change.

The melting of the Siberian bogs is releasing millions more tons of methane. Then there is the dangerous greenhouse gas that is leaking from the worlds electrical supply grids. It is one of the most powerful and polluting. It is called sulphur hexafluoride FS6. Leaks of this gas into the atmosphere in 2017 are equivalent to the vehicle emissions of 1.3 million vehicles. The leaking has to be stopped.
The urban poor suffer greatly from the toxic fumes from diesel carbon particles that float in polluted cities.

The good news among the gloom and doom is that more people are becoming aware of the dangers of climate change and the need for climate justice and are calling for change- political, social and environmental. Students are refusing to go to school on Fridays and protest instead. Thousands of people are marching and raising their collective voices.

The global warming is melting the Arctic ice sheet at an alarming rate. Scientists are astounded .This is causing the sea level to rise, sinking the island nations in the Pacific and bringing severe climate disruptions causing droughts, floods, hurricanes as seen recently in the Bahamas where the island was practically wiped out by a massive storm. There is more to come.

The towns and cities on the coasts will be inundated in the years to come. Those of Eastern England, Bangladesh, Pacific Islands and Florida are the most vulnerable and will the first to go under. There is no holding back the rise in ocean levels. Besides this, the polar bears, reindeer and the wildlife of the Arctic are increasingly under threat of extinction and the indigenous people suffer greatly due to the destruction and changes in their environment. We are at war with the planet and each other.

We humans yearn for peace and an end to war. We are the most powerful and aggressive species that dominates the environment and we are destroying it. The planet has evolved millions of creatures but none so destructive and dangerous as us humans. The high levels of human antagonism, distrust, fear and insecurity has led to confrontation between individuals, communities, and nations. Peace is illusive. Even in the most economically developed countries, division, violence and racial hatred are present. In Syria, Yemen, the Congo, Northern Nigeria, Afghanistan and the Middle East, war is a daily occurrence. If we are not killed by gun fire as in America, thousands die from opiate overdose.

Humans have beaten each other to death with clubs and then deadly weapons for centuries. They have nuclear bombs now to bring about our own extinction. We must live with fear of mutually assured destruction to survive. To stop this gallop to self-harm and destruction of the planet and our environment, there needs to be a huge change in lifestyle among humans.

We are all responsible for causing pollution by extensive traveling, using non-recyclable plastic, unnecessarily buying imported foods instead of growing food locally and eating millions of tons of beef instead of more fruits and vegetables.

We can save the planet if governments implement the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions of CO2, methane and FS6 gasses. Changing to electric cars and renewable energy production are all-important ways to combat climate change.

Growing public protest and positive action gives hope and encouragement to more people to change their lifestyle and demand governments around the world to act decisively to protect the planet and give climate justice to those deprived and hurt by the environmental damage caused by wealthy nations. We have to work for change.
Be an advocate.
Father Shay Cullen

DR. Congo. “I am a missionary doctor, in love with God”.

Friday, 1 November 2019 8:00

She lives and works in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has dedicated all her life to her mission to welcome and care for the worst cases, those who need her as an experienced surgeon and as one who has unfailing faith in divine providence.

“In the Congo, it is the missionaries who are really close to the people”, Doctor Chiara Castellani tells us. For 29 years she has managed the hospital at Kimbau, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that has been afflicted by unending and devastating conflicts. She formerly worked in Nicaragua, another country deeply wounded by war.

She has lived through those intense experiences with humility in service and total abandonment, in radical fidelity to the Gospel, bearing witness by alleviating the sufferings of others. She is a noted surgeon and a person with deep feelings, one who is therefore single-minded and concrete in what she does. Speaking of how, in 1992, she lost an arm in a car accident, she says: “What is the loss of an arm in comparison with being free of all the pain and the happiness of knowing I had survived? What is an arm in comparison with the gift of life itself?”. From her childhood, she dreamed of going to Africa where she has now discovered the deepest meaning of the Gospel.
She continues: “I have found myself with seemingly impossible cases: I entrusted them to God and they pulled through. That happened many times. In such cases, it is best to be, as Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, ‘A pen in the hands of God’. You just have to do something. You have to act. Then He will certainly lend a hand. One case I remember well concerned a child for whom we had no hope whatsoever: we watched over him for most of the night. I was so tired I fell asleep. An hour later I woke up to find the child breathing better and I asked the nurse what she had done. “I just prayed”, she said”.

“I remember well another case of a child I could not resuscitate. I asked the mother if she wanted me to baptise him. I baptised him and he immediately began to cry. He was out of danger. I cannot explain this as I had done everything humanly possible, to no avail”.
Doctor Chiara continues: “It is wonderful to experience what happens when we save a new-born baby who is ‘depressed’ and does not cry. It does not start to breathe and sometimes its heart stops. If we succeed, the child wakes up and starts to cry. Those are moments of real joy. I also remember the case of Didier: He was born with tuberculosis. His mother also had TB. She was very poor and found it very hard to take care of her health or even to find food.
Didier recovered completely. He worked so hard at school that he is now head of the fight against TB in Kimbau”.

Doctor Castellani works in the east of the country. “The area is continually at war. I am based at Beni Butembo, on the border with Uganda and the north of Rwanda where there is both the Ebola disease and war. The war prevents those helping Ebola victims to control the disease. Both humans and the virus kill people. The Ebola is spreading and there are now more than 500 cases”.
“But Ebola is not the only disease – the missionary doctor continues – there is also AIDS, leprosy, tuberculosis and the sickness of poverty, usually the result caused by injustice and, in most cases, the lack of access to medical care. AIDS in Africa is spread by heterosexual relations rather than anything else; often, venereal diseases are not treated because people cannot afford the medicine. As regards leprosy, there are, unfortunately, still many cases: the treatment is available free but the problem arises when the health system does not function and people are diagnosed too late or not at all. Meanwhile, they may spread the disease to others, especially multibacillary leprosy. At the same time, the lesions develop and may lead to mutilation”.

She also speaks of the projects they are engaged in: “We have started to build a Mother and Child Health Centre at Buzala. With the financial help of a group of doctors in Trieste, we have laid the foundations; later, we shall have to install the solar panels we have already acquired, as well as the rest of the equipment, most of which is still to be bought. Our school, on the other hand, has been functioning for some years, though we still need to add the last three classrooms”.
We may ask what drives this medical missionary to dedicate herself in this way. She answers: “The contagious optimism of the African people and their love for life. Even when barely surviving, the Congolese smile, sing and, if they can, they dance. I do it for my patients who never give up hope of a cure. I do it for the many patients whom we did not manage to save. We continue the struggle in memory of them. I do it because of my faith in a God who saves and gives us the courage to continue”. (R.C.)

New Catacombs Pact.

Friday, 1 November 2019 8:00

More than a half century after a group of bishops at the Second Vatican Council made a solemn pledge “to live a simple lifestyle close to their people”, a group of participants from the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon signed a new pact in the Catacombs of Domitilla.

On 16 November 1965, just a few days before the closing of the Second Vatican Council, 42 Council Fathers celebrated Mass in the Catacombs of Domitilla, to ask God for the grace ‘to be faithful to the spirit of Jesus’ in the service of the poor. After the celebration of the liturgy, they signed the ‘Catacombs’ Pact of the Poor and Servant Church’. Later, more than 500 Council Fathers added their names to the pact.
More than 50 years later, the legacy of those Council Fathers was taken up by a group of Bishops and participants in the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region. During a celebration mass held in the Catacombs of Domitilla, on Sunday 20^th October, the Synod Fathers present signed a new “Pact of the Catacombs for the Common Home. For a Church with an Amazonian face, poor and servant, prophetic and Samaritan”. The document contains 14 points.

The bishops promised to defend the Amazon rainforest, to promote an “integral ecology” of care for people and for the Earth and, “before the avalanche of consumerism,” to live “a happily sober lifestyle that is simple and in solidarity with those who have little or nothing.”
They made a renewed commitment to listening to and walking with migrants, the poor and, particularly, with the indigenous people of the Amazon, helping them “preserve their lands, cultures, languages, stories, identities and spiritualties.”
The bishops committed themselves “to abandon, consequently, in our parishes, dioceses and groups all types of colonist mentality and posture,” instead “welcoming and valuing cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity in a respectful dialogue with all spiritual traditions.”
The pastors also pledged to recognize ecclesial ministries in the communities, and to go from “pastoral visits to pastoral presence” to ensure that the right to the “Table of the World and the Table of the Eucharist is effective in all communities.”

They also promised to “recognize the services and real ‘diakonia’ of a great number of women” already ministering to Catholic communities in the region. The pact included a pledge “to walk ecumenically” in finding ways to inculturate and proclaim the Gospel and to defend the environment.The bishops also promised to enact a “synodal” style for the life of the church in their dioceses to ensure that all members of the church, “because of their baptism and in communion with their pastors, have a voice and vote in the diocesan assemblies, in pastoral and parish councils and, ultimately, (in) everything that concerns the governance of the communities.”
In addition, they promised to stand by “those who are persecuted for their prophetic service of denouncing and remedying injustices, of defending the earth and the rights of the poor, of welcoming and supporting migrants and refugees.”
They also promised to “cultivate true friendships with the poor, visit the simplest people and the sick, exercise the ministry of listening, comfort and support that brings encouragement and renews hope.”

The pact was signed by about 40 bishops and by women and men participating in the synod as observers, experts or “fraternal delegates” of other Christian churches.
The main celebrant was Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the General Relator, of the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon. For the occasion, Hummes wore the stole of late Brazilian Archbishop Helder Camera of Olinda and Recife, the driving force behind the 1965 declaration.
When Mass ended, Hummes gave the stole to retired Austrian Bishop Erwin Kräutler of Xingu, Brazil, which is located in Amazonia, saying he deserves to carry the “relic.” The Austrian is believed to have been the architect of this new Catacombs Pact.(D.B.)

Ethnicity and National Unity.

Friday, 1 November 2019 8:00

The SWAPO movement succeeded in bringing on board the different ethnic groups, even co-opting some of the tribal leaders.

In Namibia too, as in the rest of Africa, ethnic diversity is a difficult problem to manage. It may be said that the political fortunes of SWAPO were due, leaving aside the fidelity of the Ovambo and the support of the United Nations, to the ability to minimise, at least partly, the differences between the ethnic communities present in the country, and to attract and co-opt within itself some of the ethnic and tribal leaders that the South African administration, during the long drawn-out independence negotiations that lasted from the sixties to the eighties, had tried to use as a counter-weight to the liberation movement.

In this sense, the SWAPO leadership owes much to the lesson of the Herero and Nama leaders such as Karina and Kutako, who believed it was necessary to construct a united front capable of overcoming ethnic rivalry. After independence, SWAPO had to work hard to keep the support of the Ovambo ethnic group upon which it depends for its electoral leadership. It also had to guard against such support creating doubts regarding the superiority of the new national identity over all forms of belonging based upon race, language or the tribal traditions still important in most of the country. This concern explains the decision to elevate English, the mother tongue of only 3% of the Namibian population, to the only official language of the state, as well as the moderation with which the question of the redistribution of land was tackled, a problem that risked, by its very nature, polarising the black population against the white minority.

A linguistic web

The linguistic panorama of Namibia shows the fragmentation typical of almost all the states in the Sub-Saharan area. Top of the list of mother tongues is Oshiwambo (50%), the dominant Bantu language in Ovamboland, on the border with Angola, but also to be found in the main cities of the South-Central area following the Ovambo emigration.

This is followed by Afrikaans (10%), the two Bantu languages Herero (9%) and Kavango (8%), the Khoikhoi language of the Nama and the Damara (11%) then Lozi, English (3%), German and the languages of the San, Tswana and Portuguese.
The function of a widely-spoken informal language alongside English (the language of the more advanced economy and higher-level education and, since 1990, the only official language of the Namibian state) which in many African countries is filled by the language of the majority ethnic group, cannot be provided by Oshiwambo – a language with no standard version and far too secondary.

In the whole of the southern and central part of the country, in fact, a similar function is filled by Afrikaans: not only among the whites in the cities but also in the countryside where the dialect of this language used by the Basters and other mixed-race groups, has become established as the second language among the Nama and the Herero.
Recent studies have shown that English is making inroads among the young people of the cities, especially where the Ovambo are more numerous as in the capital Windhoek. Nevertheless, while it is true that the media under government control and the most important newspaper of the country (The Namibian) are in English, Afrikaans is still the language of the second most widespread daily (Die Republikein), as well as the language of many of the more popular TV and radio stations. (R.R.)

Chad. The golden triangle of Tibesti.

Friday, 1 November 2019 8:00

In the Chadian region bordering with Libya, an area rich in gold,
we find a crossroads of illegal trading, ethnic disputes and military positioning.

The Tibesti region is a triangle of mountains and desert in the north west of Chad, confined between the Libyan and Niger borders. It is an impenetrable territory accessible only by air or over very rough roads. For some time it has been focussed upon by militias, tribal clans and rebel groups that ‘govern’ the chaos reigning in this central part of the Sahara desert. The objective being fought over is the gold mines and Tibesti is especially rich in gold.
The gold racket is a transnational business. Once the gold is extracted in northern Chad, it is taken across the porous border of southern Libya. One of the first distribution points is Sebha, in Fezzan: there the gold is melted down and sent to the ports on the coast, or else it is sent by air to countries in the Persian Gulf.

The miners who work in the deep mines are mostly from the south of Chad but some are from Nigeria, Mali and Burkina Faso. Their adventure in the mines does not last long and their pay is hardly enough to survive on. In a matter of a few months, they become easy prey for armed groups or human traffickers. In many cases, workers accept to go to the mines as a last desperate effort to reach the coast of Libya and attempt to cross the Mediterranean.

The Toubou routes
Tibesti is swarming with militias that fight among themselves for control of trade in gold, arms and human beings. The ethnic Toubous are the historical inhabitants of the region and they control the routes leading to Libya. All the rest is divided between the Sudanese Movement for Justice and Equality, active in Darfur, and a network of Chadian rebel groups: The Front for Change and Concord in Chad, The Military Command for the Salvation of the Republic and The Union of Forces for Democracy and Development. The most serious threat to Chadian President Idriss Déby comes from the Union of Resistance Forces (UFR).

Formed in 2009 at the height of tensions between Chad and Sudan, the UFR is composed of eight armed groups, trained mostly by militias of the Zaghawa tribe to which the President belongs. Up to 2010, it was based in Darfur, and was then forced to move to the south of Libya. Most of its commanders took part in an attempted coup in Chad that started in 2008 in Darfur but was halted at the gates of the presidential palace in N’Djamena. Then, like today, the UFR was led by Timan Erdimi, a nephew of the President who has lived for years in exile in Qatar. Timan Erdimi and his brother Tom Erdimi (in exile in the USA), entered on a collision course with their uncle when, in 2006, he removed their right of succession and re-wrote the Constitution to have himself re-elected. This ‘family feud’ descended into open conflict. The most recent relevant action of the UFR goes back to last February when the intervention of French fighter planes halted a rebel incursion from Libya.
More than 250 militias are said to have been captured and more than forty vehicles destroyed.

Awkward allies
The episode has shed some light upon the ‘awkward allies’ of Déby. On the one side there is the Libyan National Army of the Cyrenaica General Khalifa Haftar who, last January, launched an offensive at Sebha to bring pressure to bear on the Toubou and the Chadian rebel groups based in the south of Libya, in a clear attempt to take over the illicit trade passing through, including that of gold. On the other side there is France. Paris has very sound reasons to challenge the golden desert of Tibesti.

In N’Djamena the general headquarters of the Barkhane anti-terrorist operation has its base while, in Tibesti, in the Wour zone, in support of the Sahel G-5 (a pan African military Force which, together with Chad, is also composed of soldiers from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania) the Elysée Palace, together with the European Union, is preparing to invest millions of Euro to construct a military base and a landing strip. An air bridge could prove useful both to Chad and to France for the swift transport of gold from the region.

Soldiers as allies of the miners
Although strengthened by this support, Déby seems destined to become bogged down in the frantic Tibesti gold rush. His soldiers are badly paid and they have no intention of waging war on those working the mines. Instead, they actually provide protection for the installations (generators for electricity, metal detectors, mercury to separate the sand from the gold and small excavators) and supplies (petrol, food and water) for the prospectors in order to obtain some share of the profits of gold digging.

For this reason, the latest attempts by the President to tighten the noose around the traffickers have proved futile. Since November 2018, the army has suffered a wave of desertions: In February, a colonel was dismissed for refusing to attack Miski (where there are deposits) and, in March, the offensive at Kouri Banda (another mining area) produced no results.With its army over-stretched in external conflicts (in Mali and in the Lake Chad Basin against the Jihadists of Boko Haram) beyond its capabilities, and demoralised by cuts in compensation for the economic crisis caused by the fall in oil prices, Déby can only support his military.
The result is that the chaos which governs this desert triangle also appropriates the gold of Tibesti.
Rocco Bellantone

Mining in Africa, an Object of Desire.

Friday, 1 November 2019 8:00

Among all the natural resources that Africa possesses, minerals are the most coveted by developed countries including the European Union (EU).

In fact, in 2017 the European Commission published a Communication updating the list of certain minerals that are essential for maintaining economic growth in Europe. The number of critical raw materials has been growing over the years and the EU has been rewriting the list of these minerals in the last decade. The criteria for considering minerals as critical are economic importance and scarcity. These minerals include rare earths, magnesium, tungsten, antimony, gallium and germanium.

The Communication of the European Union including the list of critical raw materials is part of The Raw Materials Initiative of 2008 in which the EU established a strategy to access those minerals that are essential for both the industry and jobs.

Europe needs Africa and its minerals, but Africa also needs Europe as an investor for its economic development. This relationship between Africa and the European Union is established in the Cotonou Agreement, which is based on three negotiation pillars: Development cooperation, Political cooperation and Economic and trade cooperation. This Agreement is in the process of renewal without having reached any agreement so far despite the new rhetoric (equals, neighbours, partners) to old concepts (Economic Partnership Agreements-EPAs, migration control and critical raw materials) employed by the new President-elect of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen.

The difficulty of access to minerals to the EU is of threefold. Firstly, many of the minerals found in Africa are not found in Europe. Ensuring access to these natural resources is therefore crucial for an EU that is dependent on imports of these minerals. These coveted minerals are essential for the development of sectors such as construction, chemicals, automotive, aerospace, machinery and equipment. The second lies in the competitiveness of the minerals market itself.

Extraction costs, low taxes and the price of labour make Africa an attractive place for mining companies. They squeeze out the continent’s subsoil at low prices, move the minerals for processing in third countries and take advantage of the supply chain to locate their headquarters in tax havens. In addition, the royalties paid by extractive companies to African governments barely exceed 10% at best as set out in the new Democratic Republic of Congo mining code.

The third drive for sourcing minerals outside the shores of the EU is the stringent environmental regulation that exists in Europe. While in Africa there is a certain passivity in the face of environmental crimes, in Europe they are highly prosecuted. This is why mining companies use countries with looser environmental protection standards to process minerals. Taking advantage of Africa’s weak democratic institutions makes mining profitable despite the transport costs along the entire production chain.

Mining is an important source of income for countries in the African continent. However, Africa does not take advantage of the potential of these minerals as engine of economic development despite the importance of these minerals in technological development at global level. Most of the minerals extracted from the subsoil of the African continent are exported immediately outside their borders to be transformed in other countries such as China as an intermediate step in the production chain. Perhaps this is why Africa’s technological and business development is seen as a threat to developed countries as it would increase the economic value of these minerals if they are transformed in Africa and become more expensive for Europe.

Dependence on minerals has become a double threat to Africa, but also to Europe. Many countries in Africa are economically dependent on the profits from these mineral extractions, as well as on oil as is the case in Nigeria. Raw material crises directly affect the economic well-being of those countries that lack the investment needed for a first transformation. Moreover, dependence on critical natural resources extends to Europe, which needs to secure the import of these minerals at a reasonable price. In addition, Europe’s dependence has been increased under the pressure of climate change that forces the EU to access minerals that allow the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Firstly, the EU as importers and African countries as exporters of minerals and other raw materials have to change their production model through renewable energies and by encouraging the use of those minerals which are less polluting and which make economic development models more sustainable.

Second, mineral-exporting countries on the African continent should review their mining codes to control their natural resources and ensure that the benefits of these minerals accrue to their people.

Thirdly, the responsibility for combating climate change lies with Europe and Africa. Both should be more demanding with their legislation, being respectful of the environmental commitments especially the agreements reached with COP 21.

But more important than all of the above is our personal commitment, the users of the goods and technologies produced with these minerals. It is not enough to recycle in our daily lives, but we have the responsibility as consumers: investing on those goods and services that are respectful of the environment and human rights and rejecting those brands that, no matter how prestigious they are generate injustices.

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

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