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Madagascar. Games: Ties Of Friendship.

Thursday, 1 February 2018 8:00
Written by: Fr.Carmine

Every year, young students from Madagascar participate in the sports and cultural competitions that take place on the occasion of the National Days of Catholic Education.

Inhabitants of Toamasina, the populous port city of eastern Madagascar, formerly known as Tamatave, are not particularly interested in the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. They are much fonder of their ‘local Olympic games’, which take place in the facilities of the Stella Maris School of the Brothers of La Salle, during the National Days of Catholic Education.

This is an event that, every year, attracts nearly 3,000 people from all corners of Madagascar and whose purpose is favouring the gathering of the many students of the Catholic schools of the dioceses in the country. “The event helps to establish ties among all participants“, as Father Jules Ranaivoson, the person in charge of the National Direction of Catholic Education (DINEC), who organizes the event explains. “The sports and cultural competitions that are hold in Toamasina are an occasion to share the immense cultural richness that characterizes the different regions of the country. The event is an opportunity for sharing friendship, culture and sports and for ethical and social reflection as well. Last year’s edition’s motto was, ‘Wealth is a blessing when it benefits everyone, – adds Father Jules Ranaivoson.

The motto was an invitation to solidarity. The National Days of Catholic Education event is an opportunity to meet students of all religions, since Catholic churches in the country are open to all, Catholic and non-Catholic students alike, as the enthusiastic attendance of several veiled girls at these competitions shows. The flag-raising ceremony opens the National Days of Catholic Education: the flag of Madagascar is raised first and then that of the Vatican State and that of the Malagasy Catholic School. The raising of the three flags is accompanied by the singing of the respective hymns by the attendees. Then the Eucharist service follows.Sports games, which include football, basketball and athletics, are performed in the mornings, while, cultural competitions, which dance, music and singing performances, unfold in the afternoons.

The ‘Questions for a champion’ contest, which is inspired by a very popular program of the Malagasy television, concludes all the competitions. In last year’s edition, ‘Catholic Religion’ and ‘Education for Life and for Love’, were the two themes chosen for the contest, subjects that are taught in all the Catholic centres of the country. So while the mornings of this event are characterized by sports passion, the afternoons are the moment for a great performance of the rich, beautiful and varied traditional Malagasy culture, through the colourful costumes of performers and through the several dances, very different from each other according to their roots: from the rhythmic dances of African origin to the delicate choreographies from Asia. The National Days of Catholic Education show how the Malagasy Catholic school is very active and that it serves all citizens, without distinction of origin, class or religion; its students are educated to become good and supportive citizens, and at the same time people who respect human and evangelical values.

Josean Villalabeitia

Peru. Mission At The Foot Of The Volcano.

Thursday, 1 February 2018 8:00
Written by: Fr.Carmine

A Comboni missionary describes how his life became more meaningful when he was assigned as parish priest on the outskirts of a town in Peru, at the foot of an active volcano.

Mission work has filled my life with meaning, so much so that today I feel fulfilled as a person and as a Christian. The Comboni mission always involves living at the outskirts with marginalized groups with whom we have a lot to do and more often than not, there is the need of starting from scratch.The happiest moments of my missionary life have been when I was able to share closely the life of the simplest people who are left at the margin of progress and welfare, but are still full of human and spiritual values and are more open and available to accept the message of the Gospel. The names and faces of these men, women and children fill my heart today.

Since the first moment, I have always felt that Peru was the place the Lord wanted for me and where I had to stay. God has made me experience that it is in the geographical and existential peripheries where the Comboni charism demands that we share our life and our faith, where the heart of humanity beats much stronger and, therefore, where we feel the presence of God with greater intensity.

With lay people

The welcoming attitude of the people who always wait for the padrecitos (the priests) with open arms because they have a great sense of God has helped me very much. It has also been important for me to see the collaboration of many lay people, the meaningful and effective presence of the Christian communities in the different villages, the social works of the parish, and the seeds sown by the previous Comboni missionaries.

It has been three years since I settled at Arequipa as parish priest of the Good Shepherd Parish. I feel that this is a Comboni land. The first Comboni missionary, Msgr. Lorenzo Unfried, arrived here 47 years ago. Since then our presence has been uninterrupted with the creation of four parishes in the Alto Selva Alegre district.
Our parish is in the outskirts, in the highest part of the city, about 2500 meters above sea level. It extends to the Misti volcano’s western slope with 35 thousand inhabitants. The parish community has eleven chapels, where the Eucharist is celebrated regularly.

The large amount of missionary work: the evangelization of a majority that up to now has not had much contact with the church; the creation and organization of material, pastoral and human structures in the new sectors of the parish which is in a continuous state of growth; the close accompaniment of the aspirations and struggles of the people in their pursuit of a more dignified life; the formation and orientation of a great number of youth; the support for the more vulnerable groups of the population – children, elderly, women victims of violence; and the formation and promotion of lay collaborators. These are the challenges facing us in our mission work.

Our Presence

One of the most important aspects of doing mission work is our presence – showing itself in social works, accompanying, sharing, animating, bringing the Gospel to the lives of the people in their different realities.Our parish has two nurseries with 240 children and a soup kitchen for the 100 little ones. Parish volunteers bring together, twice a week, a group of senior citizens in order to take them away from their loneliness, and in some instances even from being forsaken, so they may share their faith, receive spiritual and medical attention and also support their feeding.

We are also present in the field of health with two dispensaries which offer medical assistance to the sick with the help of the Daughters of Saint Camillus. The miracle of the solidarity of the Catholic faithful within and outside Peru and the collaboration of many volunteers make it possible to keep up these services that have become a support for many people in need. It would not have been possible to develop so many evangelizing, pastoral and social activities without the collaboration of many persons who have become aware of the life of the community and have committed themselves through their lay ministries.

Reaching Out

Pope Francis urges the Church to go out in order to reach all, and this is impossible without the committed work of hundreds of lay people who give life to their Christian communities, reach the families, shape the faith of the children and youth, direct and animate the social enterprises of the parish.However, I can see that the number of committed lay people is not enough and less still is the quality of the commitment of some of them. They need true faith motivations and a deep encounter with Jesus Christ in order to feel that they are sent to share their mission and overcome the mentality that the Church is just the priests’ affair.

Still, I must distinguish and be grateful for the presence in our parish of lay missionaries who are living out the Comboni charism. For many years we have relied on the witness of their life and the help of their professional work. At present, we have two Comboni lay persons from Peru, a north-American family of doctors with two daughters, and a young German woman. I know that I have consecrated my life to God, with all its values and capabilities, in order to serve the mission, and I haven’t the slightest doubt that it has been worth the cost. I think that in no other vocational or professional path would I have been given so much scope for myself and for others. If you, my reader, feel the missionary vocation, don’t doubt that this is the great opportunity of your life. Take the risk by committing your whole life to Jesus and His missionary dream.

Father Conrado Franco

Syria. Sowing Seeds Of Hope.

The shooting has stopped in Aleppo. The city is totally destroyed. The difficult process of reconstruction. The traumas of the children. The Church is involved helping people.

“The children have felt the effects of this absurd war. Every day there is death and destruction before their eyes.
They sleep very little at night. They still hear in their minds the sounds of weapons and bombs”. Janmour has two children, Joyce and Cynthia.
They live in Aleppo. She is worried about her children who have grown up surrounded by fear and terror.

Their infancy has been stolen from these children of Aleppo, compelled for years of violence and heavy shelling to play among the piles of rubble in the roads or inside gutted houses and buildings. “Some of them would pass the time amusing themselves with the macabre game of identifying a missile, a shell or an burst of gunfire from the sound of the living horror a few metres away”, Sister Annie Demerjian, a member of the Order of the Sisters of Jesus and Mary, tells us. She has spent the recent years among the civilians of Aleppo, treating the sick and assisting families in difficulty.Today the sound of exploding bombs and mortars are no longer heard: the armed clashes between rival factions have ceased but six years and several months of siege have brought the city to its knees. The metropolis chosen by the ancient world as the essential meeting point of the races, religions, cultures and trade of Europe and Asia lies prostrate under the weight of its own wounds.

The Old City, the patrimony of UNESCO, where riches mixed with fables and poetry, has been severely damaged. The Great Omayyade Mosque, one of the oldest and most revered temples of Islam, is in ruins, devoid even of its minaret.
Franciscan Father Firas Lutfi is responsible for the Terra Sancta Collage of Aleppo. “Electricity and water supplies are unreliable and it is difficult to heat the houses as the winters are quite harsh here with temperatures close to zero”. Sister Annie Demerjian agrees: “The fighting is over but now there is a different battle to be fought: that of survival, of coming back to life. Every family in Aleppo has its own story and its own wounds”. In Aleppo the Franciscans assist the population in every way possible, starting with the distribution of food parcels. The Franciscan father is also charged with training 150 catechists who teach two thousand children: “When life becomes hard, it is then that we must exercise our spirits and look upwards. Faith gives us courage. We respond to the desolation and suffering by giving witness of the joy that has changed our lives”.

Father Ibrahim is parish priest of the Latin Rite parish of St Francis of Assisi, Aleppo. The parish community is involved in various initiatives: reconstruction projects, cleaning the streets, helping small businesses as well as education and training projects, to open the way to a future of peace and hope in this martyr city.
Father Ibrahim comments: “The years of conflict have left deep scars in hearts and spirits. People have been psychologically broken. With reference to the youth, we may say that we are faced with a lost generation with many symptoms of psychological trauma and many wounds, violent in their words and gestures and with strong resistance to any initiative of education or training. We decided to launch some projects to assist and accompany the children, especially the more vulnerable, with three or four hours of evening classes within the school itself, together with medical and psychological care”.

Salesian Father Pier Jabloyan has just celebrated Christmas with the youth and the families of the Don Bosco Oratory of Aleppo, frequented by almost a thousand children. As he spoke to us he remembered how, a year ago, “we celebrated the midnight mass at four in the afternoon because any later it would have been impossible for the faithful to leave their homes. People were afraid: nowhere in the city was safe. Today we look to the future with a different outlook. Living conditions are slowly improving; water and electricity are again available, even if only for a few hours a day”. Father Jabloyan adds; “People want to restore relations. Some Moslem families greet us when we meet and it is not just a formality”. In this festive season, some small decorations can be seen in some streets of the city. This Christmas time is hard to describe: “On the one hand there is great hope that makes us look to the future; on the other there is the pain caused by the atrocities and the many lives lost”, says the Salesian priest. Innocent lives were lost like that of twelve-year-old Salloum who was killed on his way to the parish oratory.
Even in the most difficult times the Salesians kept hope alive. “When we realised that the war would last a long time, we thought that the oratory would be the only way to provide some normality to the children while there was nothing else left”.

One of the more courageous initiatives has been that of evening classes for seventy children with the help of about ten university students. “When there is no water or electricity and food is scarce, it is not easy to think of going to school. But Don Bosco teaches us that schooling means having a future. We therefore decided to open up some rooms at the oratory where we provided food and lessons. At this moment, such things are essential. Many schools have been destroyed or are being used by homeless people. Some of our classes have more than fifty children. The demand for education is enormous”. Half of the civilian hospitals have been reduced to rubble and many medicines are in short supply. At least 80% of the doctors have left the country.
Doctor George Theodory, one of the few who remained, is in charge of Saint Louis Hospital. Working at his side are the six Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition who, during the war, kept the hospital going, comments: “We have to work without essential drugs and equipment. The endless power-outs rendered useless the little functioning equipment we have. But we carry on. We have to keep hope alive in the people who come to us and believe in us”.
Factories and workshops at the heart of local industry have been left in ruins. One result of the war is that in the most industrious, enterprising and mercantile city of Syria, with a renowned workforce and well able to attract investment, there is absolutely nothing to be found.
Rifat Kouri, an entrepreneur: “Formerly, most things were made here and Aleppo supplied the whole country but now everything has to be brought in from outside. All the machinery has been stolen from the factories. We now have to start again with the little we have”.
Father Firas Lutfi concludes: “Aleppo is less and less in the news. The news cameras are focussed elsewhere. However, we believe that the great challenge has begun right now. Our aim is to continue with the rehabilitation of the children, medical care, the recommencement of commercial activities and the reconstruction of the houses. We can do it. The years of suffering have made us stronger”. (F.L.)

Tanzania/Maasai. The Woman Of The Oxen.

The Maasai have a saying: “you cannot touch what belongs to a woman”. Indeed, the Maasai – who live in a patriarchal society – are nonetheless very respectful of women’s private property. The proverb came about because of an event that happened years and years ago …

Long ago, when the Maasai had just climbed the escarpment, an old man and his newly-wedded bride went to graze their cattle. Two warriors arrived and admired the cattle. One of them told the old man: “Father, would you mind us taking these oxen of yours?” The old man replayed: ” I do not mind, however, you have to ask my wife, if she does not mind, you may go ahead.” The warriors were surprised. What was this nonsense of asking a woman for her opinion? So, they chose the two best oxen and took them. In the meantime, the old man asked his wife to check what the warriors were doing, and find out who they were.

Time passed, and the young lady gave birth to a son, then another. Finally, she gave birth to two twins. The children grew strong, and the father was happy to give them gifts of meat. The four boys grew and were circumcised. They became warriors after their shaving. It was only them that the father called them and asked them to pick up their weapons and follow him.

He took them to the country of the warriors who had taken the oxen. By then the warriors had become elders and were sitting outside their homes playing enkeshui, a game played with pebbles on a wooden plank. After they had exchanged greetings, the father of the four warriors told the other elders to come together in counsel, for he had something he wanted them to discuss.

The men gathered for the meeting. The old man called one of the men who had taken the oxen and told him: “My friend, do you remember me? Do you remember me?” Recognising the old man, the former warrior said “Yes, I remember you”. The old man continued: “Do you remember the day you took two of my oxen and I told you to take them if the young lady did not mind?” The other man said he remembered the day. “That young bride never had a chance to tell you she did not want you to take the oxen. These young warriors you see are the sons of that young bride. They came here to recover their property.”

What else was there to do? Forty-nine cattle were driven being the fine for one ox, and another forty-nine for the second ox, since those men had committed robbery. This confirms the truth of the saying: “That which belongs to a woman cannot be taken away.”

(Story from Maasai people, Tanzania)

Burkina Faso. ‘The Ants Can Carry An Elephant’.

Thursday, 1 February 2018 8:00
Written by: Fr.Carmine

The Mossi are the most numerous ethnic group in Burkina Faso with 6.2 million members making up 40% of the population. Mossi wisdom notes.

For the Mossi, wisdom consists in respecting traditional practices and customs. ‘If you go to a village and find everyone walking heads down, do the same yourself ‘, and do not ask why: customs must be respected without question. For example, before digging a well, ask yourself if you should begin it on a Saturday or rather wait until Monday: you will avoid something bad happening to those working on it. No matter what happens, never begin on a Friday: that would end in failure. Children born on that day are always very ‘hard-headed’, perhaps because they are thought to be so and treated as such right from infancy, they become so, even if they are not born that way.

On the other hand, it is easy to find a girl to marry among those born on a Friday as the father will give her to the first suitor just to get rid of her. Consequently, even the poorest man is able to pay a dowry and set up house. Wisdom consists in creating equilibrium and preserving harmony between the various powers that make up society. Besides, ‘if everyone had the same intelligence, it would be impossible to establish a village’. We might have many chiefs and philosophers but no one able to build a hut.Instead, God gives each one particular gifts and intelligence proportional to the task he must perform. In this way, the activities of society become diversified: ‘If everyone were to weave baskets, there would be no one to buy them’. This is for the good of all: as the proverb says, ‘When they are all in agreement, the ants can carry an elephant’.

The strongest

Wisdom also consists in recognising that, in this plurality of functions, the chiefs have a privileged place because ‘when the water reaches the hill, it has reached its limit’. Therefore, you should never oppose them or it will cost you dearly: ‘Betrayed by the darkness, the hyena grasped a lion: he can neither release it and flee or kill it. It ends up like the python that swallowed a porcupine’.

For the chiefs, wisdom requires that they be careful and not demand too much from their subjects. ‘You can teach a dog to sit but not to close its eyes’. The powerful must therefore consider the weak, never forgetting that they too have some power.’One day, the beasts of the forests gathered around the lion to see if the strong were really able to overcome the weak. The sparrow hawk jumped up and, having caught a chameleon, it carried it high up in the sky. They all exclaimed: “It is true. The strong always win”. However, the female chameleon asked everyone to wait before jumping to conclusions. Meanwhile, up in the sky a struggle to the death was taking place: the hawk was trying to eat the chameleon and the chameleon was trying to insert its tail into the hawk’s nose. It succeeded. The hawk suffocated and fell to the ground dead while the chameleon went home cheerfully’. Popular wisdom also tells why the great and powerful cannot always do what they want: ‘If God does not kill, the chief does not kill. There are many chiefs but only one God, and we all depend on Him’.

‘A vulture was concentrating on his stomach: he had spent three whole days without even the smallest morsel of carrion to eat and now he was wondering what to do. And so he began to pray. A hawk was flying by and asked him what he was doing. “I am praying to God to let me have some food”, said the vulture. The hawk answered: “You really are a fool! In this world we have to trust in our own resources, not in God! Do you see that partridge there on the rock? Watch me”. And he swooped on the partridge but the partridge spotted the shadow of the hawk and moved away at the last instant. The hawk was broken to pieces against the rock. The vulture thanked God for the food and happily began to eat’. Finally, wisdom means reconciling honesty – ‘To tell the truth and go to bed hungry is better than telling tales and eating’ – with the ability to compromise, ‘The little peacocks hide their intelligence and follow the hen, so as to get some food (the Mossi use hens to hatch the peacock eggs).

The truly wise

Real wisdom, in brief, is the ability to read the events of life, discover the forces at work in them and draw useful conclusions for one’s behaviour. ‘A certain man had spent the whole night meditating after which he left his house and started walking. Soon, at the edge of the road he saw a glittering stone. He kicked it away but it came back to its place. “God Almighty”, exclaimed the traveller. Then the stone retorted: “That’s nothing! Keep walking and you will see!”.

The man continued his journey and, on the savannah, he met a walga (small gazelle) with twelve arrows stuck in its body, seemingly without doing it any harm. “God Almighty”, the man exclaimed. “That’s nothing”, replied the walga, “continue your journey and you will see”. There, a little further on, was a yaka (a large gazelle) killed by a single arrow. “How come?” the traveller asked himself. “A large gazelle killed by a single arrow and a small gazelle still able to prance around with twelve arrows in it!”. “That’s nothing!” said the yaka, “continue your journey and you will see!”. As he reached a plain well irrigated with flowing water, he saw an ox that was lean and skinny and hardly able to stand. “God almighty!”, he exclaimed. “Even with all that grass and water, why is the ox in such a state?!” The ox replied: “Continue your journey and you will see something even more surprising!”.
There in front of our traveller was a desert and in it was a fine fat ox. “First there was the lean ox and now a fat one with not a blade of grass in sight!” he thought. “Don’t be so surprised”, said the ox, “continue your journey and you will see”. “Then our friend entered a strange village where a group of children were playing with an old man. “God almighty!”, he exclaimed, seeing such a strange thing. But the old man told him to sit in the shade, to be quiet and wait until the games were finished.

At midday, the children stopped their playing and prepared to have a meal. The old man then invited them to share their food with the traveller. They were so many and so generous that soon he had a large plate of polenta before him. The water was also shared with him and our friend ate and drank to his heart’s content. When the meal was over, the old man approached him and explained the meaning of the wonders he had seen. “The stone is nothing more than some strange fact all chatterboxes are interested in. It goes here and there but then comes back to its place. The small gazelle is a stubborn child: he misbehaves in all sorts of ways but waits for the twelfth heavy blow to punish it. The large gazelle is the stranger: one small error and he is lost. The lean ox in the green grass represents the munatika, the braggart who spends his time telling tall stories: nobody trusts him and so he ends his life in misery. The fat ox represents a young man: everywhere he attracts people’s gaze and he is always thriving. As to myself, as you see, I live in a village where all the elders and adults are dead. What can I do but share my life with the children and play with them? I use the situation to instruct them and guide them towards the good. Have you seen how they welcomed you? They have learned to deprive themselves of some of their share to give it to you”. “Yes”, our friend thought, “continue your journey and you will understand!” (L.M.)

USA. Montclair Sanctuary Alliance

Bnai Keshet is a Jewish community founded in 1978, and at the same time a Synagogue. It defines itself as representative of the broader community: mature couples, singles, “traditional” Jewish families, interfaith families, and gay and lesbian Jews.

It is now renovating an apartment with the support of partners, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Montclair (UUCM), First Congregational Church, Faith in New Jersey and other local faith leaders. They intend to offer a family (or individual) at risk of deportation, physical shelter, safety, support, and time to seek a resolution. They call the effort the Montclair Sanctuary Alliance (MSA).

The Sanctuary Movement began in the 1980s when U.S. faith leaders organized to protect asylum seekers fleeing violence in Latin America. In mid-December, MSA held an interfaith gathering at Bnai Keshet, rededicating their sanctuary to Sanctuary.

On Bnai Keshet’s website, they explain the loving the stranger and protecting the vulnerable is the moral core of all the partners’ traditions. And that the Bible commands us to protect the stranger “at least 36 times.” “So you too should love the resident alien, for that is what you were in the land of Egypt.” (Dt 10:19)

The pastors of UUCM wrote their support to “make it clear to all in the community that we understand our religious duty includes providing sanctuary to people upon whom certain sectors of our government and citizenry may try to single out for incarceration and removal.” As Pope Francis wrote: God is present in “the unwelcomed visitor, often unrecognizable, who walks through our cities and our neighborhoods, who travels on our buses and knocks on our door.”

The partners of MSA are fully aware that U.S. law does not protect undocumented immigrants who are given sanctuary. But, because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has so far avoided arresting immigrants on congregational property, they choose to publicly offer sanctuary in order to change hearts and minds. They say, “Tightening borders lets us imagine the U.S. can wall off the suffering in other places. We hope that supporting and collaborating publicly with immigrant neighbors and friends will strengthen the fabric of our society and ultimately, help change federal policy.”

MSA not only stranger with the apartment but asking support for the initiative is awakening the awareness that loving the stranger is the real support for a long-term guest seeking sanctuary. “Many of us – the word is addressed to immigrant Jewish – are living lives that are the fulfillment of our parents’ and grandparents’ risks and sacrifices to come to the United States. Our freedom, prosperity, safety and in many cases our existence – came about because a previous generation took the risk in a moment of uncertainty to come here. Maybe that is why so many of us are alarmed and concerned by immigrants being threatened with deportation.”

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

Sudan. Young People For Peace and Non-Violence Action.

A Sudanese University student Fatah Elalim brought back lessons to his community in Sudan’s Western Kordofan State, about dialogue as a way to transform local conflicts non-violently.

Fatah Elalim is a student at the University of Dalanj, located in the second biggest city in South Kordofan State, a conflict-affected area at the border with South Sudan. When he is not in class, he moderates Sustained Dialogues between diverse students, organised by the University’s Peace and Development Studies Centre.

Each week Fatah Elalim facilitates dialogue sessions for a group of ten students, during which he helps them deconstruct prejudices and negative stereotypes by giving them space to reflect on and analyse their identities and life experiences.

The students talk about the conflicts they witness or have participated in, with a particular focus on issues of discrimination between rural and urban students, women and men, and students from diverse communities. By meeting on a weekly basis over a few months, the dialogue participants strengthen their understanding of each other’s experiences and perceptions. They eventually collaborate to design and plan non-violent actions they can take for peace on and off campus.

Last June, when Fatah Elalim was home, he witnessed violence breaking-out between his community and a nearby community. Many casualties were reported. Confident that he could contribute to resolve this conflict non-violently, he decided to create a Sustained Dialogue in his own community and make an effort to scale-down the violence. He explained, “with the help of some friends we selected a few young men who were potentially the driving force of the violence and talked about the possibility of bringing them together for a dialogue session.”

After this meeting, Fatah Elalim brought together twenty-three community members of different ages and spoke about the positive role of dialogue in mitigating tensions and in helping both communities foster peaceful coexistence.

“I was impressed by the positive reaction from the young people towards the Sustained Dialogue idea. Throughout my vacation time, many of them came to me asking about the [process].” The Fatah Elalim’s conversations and meeting began to pay off. He explained, “many of them started re-assessing their views about conflict and its fatal impacts on the local communities. Although, tensions were high and people were hateful, we succeeded in making the community more aware and cautious about taking part in any future conflict.”

Syria. Behind ‘Operation Olive Branch’.

Thursday, 1 February 2018 8:00
Written by: Fr.Carmine

Are Turkey and the United States on a collision course on operation Olive Branch? What consequences could we expect for the region?

The Turkish raid in Afrin – Operation ‘Olive Branch’ – has put Turkey on a collision course with Washington. But, to a lesser extent, it has also put Turkey on a collision course with Moscow. Turkey intends to stop the YPG from establishing an autonomous region in northern Syria. It could achieve some form of ‘state’ linking the Afrin canton with the Kobani and Jazeera cantons further east. Ankara calls this potential formation a “terror corridor.” Given the geographic boundaries, the operation could extend as far as the Iraqi border. Ideally, Turkey wants to secure a buffer zone deep within Syrian territory to ensure the PKK and YPG have no direct territory links.

Turkey was always more concerned about the expansion of PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party) ambitions westward within Turkey. But, the U.S. announcement that it was planning to train some 30,000 troops based mostly on the YPG (People’s Protection Units) to police the Turco-Syrian border was the trigger. The YPG are the main element behind the U.S. backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Turks want to take Afrin to end the YPG/PYD Kurds’ hopes of ever controlling a territory in north-western Syria with access to the Mediterranean. The Turkish plan clashes with the Americans on paper, but less so on the ground. The Americans were more committed to protecting Kurdish interests, east of the Euphrates. Russia, perhaps, was more involved with Afrin claims. Since early 2017, in order to ensure the defeat of ISIS and bring them alongside in the fight against the other rebels (al-Qaida/Nusra, /etc.), Moscow would protect the YPG.

That suggests that Turkey and Russia may have agreed about the offensive because both don’t want to see an American backed ‘border force’. Moscow remains intent on pursuing the Syrian comprehensive peace plan such that the PYD/YPG are rewarded with the kind of partial autonomy that the Kurds enjoyed in Iraq after the U.S. invasion. Given the absence of resources like oil it should be easier to achieve than the Iraqi example. I also believe that despite the rhetoric from Damascus, the Syrian leadership seems ready to concede Turkey a few security concerns in exchange of a bigger peace. Similarly, Turkey publicly complained about the Syrian offensive over Idlib, but privately it’s likely it approved, given the role this had in getting rid of ‘Tahrir al-Sham’, the latest incarnation of al-Qaida in Syria.
Indeed, one of the risks is that Turkey may rely on its Arab allies within Syria from the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA), the original and disjointed Syrian military opposition, which Damascus considers part of the ‘terrorist’ forces. The FSA faded in the shadows as the Salafi / radical groups, many backed by some of the Gulf petro monarchies stole the scene. The United States had encouraged and organized a coalition comprising some FSA and YPG forces, calling them the Syrian Democratic Forces. It was the U.S. main ally in the fight against ISIS in Raqqa.

Turkey has caused an embarrassing problem for the United States. Already struggling to keep together a crumbling Middle Eastern diplomacy – except when it comes to Israel – it must mediate between two allies. One is Turkey, evidently, which, it should be noted, has the NATO’s second largest army. The other allies are the Kurds in Syria, whom the U.S. encouraged with recent suggestions that the U.S. would help them set up a 30,000 strong force in northern Syria to act as a barrier from both Damascus and Ankara. Erdogan understood the U.S. was serious, as Washington increased its own troops in the area from 500 to 2,000. Thus, the risk that U.S. and Turkish troops might clash is substantial.The main goal for Syria, Turkey, Russia and Iran – if not the United States necessarily – is to stabilize Syria. Russia’s military and diplomatic efforts are aimed to reach that goal; and also to keep Damascus within its sphere. Washington has urged Turkey to set a time limit and declare how far it intends to conduct its operation against the terrorist PKK’s Syrian affiliate, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Afrin. Nevertheless, both presidents Trump and Obama had assured Turkey that the YPG – America’s allies against ISIS (and eventually/presumably against Asad as well) would shift away from the Ifrin and Idlib areas, further east, beyond the Euphrates. Ankara insists that the YPG has not done so. Ankara also asserts that the U.S. has heavily armed the YPG – since the Obama administration. Therefore, Erdogan – with the support of many Turks, and certainly his voter base – will push the YPG as far east as possible.

The United States does not want to lose Turkey as an ally. It has too high a strategic value. It also has other things that Turkey wants, including the dissident Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan suspects of being one of the main instigators of the July 2016 coup attempt. Erdogan is playing himself up for the next elections (2019), and he wants to use Afrin as a trophy for electoral campaign purposes to appeal to the Ataturk nationalists and AKP Party supporters, who dream of an ‘Ottoman renaissance’. Tensions between Ankara and Washington are stronger where the subject of Jerusalem is concerned. Indeed, Israel is one of the leys to understanding what is happening.

The U.S. wants to make sure that Syria emerges broken up from the conflict. Otherwise, Iran and Russia would emerge too powerful for American and Israeli interests. Thus, it’s important to contain Kurdish ambitions with a military action designed not to eliminate but merely ‘scratch’ the Kurds such that they don’t become too greedy. Ultimately, the main tensions will be south in the Golan and closer to Damascus, which Israel attacks almost on a regular basis as a provocation. Nonetheless, while Moscow appears to have given Turkey a ‘yellow light’ for operation Olive Branch, there’s the risk that the Syrian air force may shoot down a Turkish fighter jet, as President Asad has warned would happen in case of Turkish incursions in its air space. As part of its strategy to maintain good relations with Turkey, one of Russia’s diplomatic victories of 2017, Moscow may have advised Damascus to give up any plans of retaliating against Turkish jets in its airspace.

Alessandro Bruno

Anti-Migration Walls.

Thursday, 1 February 2018 8:00
Written by: Fr.Carmine

The year 2016 was the year of anti-immigration walls, the militarisation of frontiers and a record year for deaths in the Mediterranean, sad phenomena closely affecting Europe.
The famous ‘Balkan route’ bringing migrants from the Middle East to Europe was broken up by a series of barriers to stem the flow of migrants: first among these is the Evros wall between Greece and Turkey, followed in 2014 by that between Bulgaria and the nation led by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan.

While 2015 ended with the decision of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to suspend the Dublin regulations (the European legislation that obliges migrants to seek protection in the first country of the EU that they enter) and to receive on German territory more than 600,000 Syrian war refugees, 2016 represents a diametrically opposed position. In fact, in the early months of the year, the Balkan route was blocked by the tightening of border controls by countries like Hungary and Fyrom (Former Republic of Macedonia), and by the construction of wars and fences such as the one 175 kilometres long between Hungary and Serbia, built by the nationalist government of Viktor Orban. In a matter of a few months, populist and xenophobic campaigns, instigated by extreme right parties, poured petrol on the fires of discontent in Europe, a continent wounded by the crisis, making immigrants the scapegoat of the EU that was becoming increasingly disjointed and weak.

Added to the concrete and barbed wire barriers is the bureaucratic sort blocking millions of fleeing men and women in an infernal limbo; the agreement sealed by Brussels with Ankara on 18 March 2016 has, in fact, definitively closed the Balkan route linking Turkey with north-west Europe, a route that passed through Greece, Fyrom, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and the other Balkan states. In return for six billion Euro in aid, Ankara agreed with the EU not to allow refugees to leave the two coasts and to accept that migrants reaching Greece after 20 March should be deported to Turkish territory.In a short time, the political EU-Turkey wall produced its effects in abundance, transforming the hotspots, former registration centres, into four inter-connected walls.In effect open air prisons where migrants are forced to await enforced repatriation.

Nevertheless, the phenomenon of raising anti-migration barriers is not new in Europe: there is the well-known case of the barbed wire barrier built by Spain in 1990 to halt illegal migration and the trade in drugs from Morocco to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Together with the raising of walls, there has also been the business of investments for the control of frontiers. “Resettlement, relocation and the protection of borders go together. I am confident we will make good progress in 2016”, Juncker said as he opened the Dutch semestral presidency of the EU and launched the idea of Europe-wide border guards. This idea became fact in September 2016 with the creation of a European Border Guard, substantially to reinforce Frontex, the European agency for the control of external borders. The new force, even though it has no guards of its own, can count upon 1,500 agents chosen from the national border guards, ready to intervene in case of an emergency in any of the European countries. The expenditure of European funds, neither for the protection of human life nor to aid people in difficulty, but for the militarisation of borders in the past decade, has been enormous. According to the Border Wars report (Mark Akkerman, ‘Border Wars: the Arms Dealers Profiting from Europe’s Refugee Tragedy’, Transnational Institute, December 2016) edited by student Mark Akkerman, the bill for Frontex between 2005 and 2016 increased by 3,688%, moving from 6.3 million to 238.7 million Euro per annum. Notably, it has almost trebled from 97 million in 2014 to reach 281 million Euro in 2017. The first beneficiaries of the policy of reinforcing frontiers are the militaristic, technological and security firms.

As revealed in ‘Border Wars’, lucrative contracts were made between the EU and arms-producing companies such as Airbus, Finmeccanica, Thales and Safran, together with the technological giant Indra. These companies not only benefited from the militarisation of the borders of Europe but also created political pressure in favour of this approach by lobbying. Other beneficiaries of European funds have been Israeli companies (the only ones from outside Europe, due to an EU-Israel 1996 agreement), in appreciation for Israel’s contribution in reinforcing the borders of Bulgaria and Hungary, promoting its competence as shown by its control of the West Bank wall and that of the border with Gaza.
The Israel Company BTec Electronic Security Systems was chosen by Frontex to take part in a workshop on Platforms and sensors for guarding borders. The letter of presentation boasted of the excellent ‘technologies, solutions and products installed on the Israeli-Palestinian border’.Lastly, Akkerman revealed that many of the companies doing business with Frontex are the same ones selling arms to the Middle Eastern and African countries from where migrants are fleeing, following the mirage of the European dream. The unprecedented economic expenditure for the control and militarisation of borders has also coincided with the dramatic record of deaths in the Mediterranean where, according to figures obtained by IOM (International Organization for Migration) 5,143 persons were drowned in 2016. It is estimated that 3,718 people lost their lives crossing the Mediterranean in 2017.

In the World: the case of Mexico

To add to the sorry list of extra-European anti-migration walls we must add that between the US and Mexico. The latter returned to the attention of international news when President Trump brought up the issue of planning the wall, making it part of his political manifesto. Doubtless the most frequented border in the world is that between Mexico and the US, with around 350 million legal crossings every year, and it is one of the most guarded.
According to some estimates, from 2005 to the present day, the US has spent 132 billion dollars to reinforce its security, increasing expenditure each year (in 2015, almost 3.8 billion dollars were spent on it). However, the wall is so long that is practically impossible to guard it properly: it is 3,200 kilometres long. In real terms, there are at present, at the more sensitive points of the border, structures that act as barriers, together about 1,000 kilometres long. Of these, about 560 kilometres are made up of a simple fence five metres high, while along a little less than 500 kilometres, there is a very low barrier to prevent vehicles passing. A further 1,500 kilometres is taken up by natural obstacles such as mountains and water courses. Despite this, the American government spends billions of additional dollars annually on such things as ‘sensors, night-vision cameras, radar, helicopters and drones and legal expenses to prosecute those caught crossing the border illegally’, as summed up by Arizona Republic. The main company that sees to the control of the border is Border Patrol, a federal agency with over 20,000 employees —making it one of the biggest in the country — occasionally backed up by local forces.

Despite this deployment of forces, hundreds of thousands of people try each year to cross the border illegally, mostly to improve their living standards. Every year, many Mexicans and Central Americans are captured by the armed forces guarding the border. In 2016 they numbered almost 416,000: in recent years, the number has gone down for different reasons, one of which is the improvement of the economy in Mexico, the increase in security measures by American governments and the creating of new ways to enter American territory illegally (such as obtaining a legal permit, perhaps for tourism, and staying in the US after its expiry).At present there are eleven million people living in the US who contribute to its economy.
Trump’s intention to deport them all or to suddenly interrupt the flow of immigrants would create considerable problems. If it were to be built, Trump’s wall — costing tens of billions of dollars and considered strategically useless — would not resolve these problems but would probably cause more suffering and harm to the American economy:
in fact it has been calculated that if the government were to implement a programme of deportation en masse and halted new arrivals, as Trump has promised, the American GNP would diminish by 1.5%.
(CB/DF)

Nicaragua’s Channel Future.

The channel aims to be the most ambitious project in the history of Nicaragua and the largest to be developed in Latin America, after the construction of the Panama Canal.

The Chinese telecommunications entrepreneur Wang Jing announced an investment of 40,000 million dollars, almost four times the GDP of Nicaragua. The plan is to build in ten years a channel that crosses the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Thus, a double-span canal to Panama that provides an alternative transoceanic passage in the region.

The Nicaragua’s National Assembly approved the project by majority on June 13 of 2014. The promoter company, HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. Limited (HKND Group), has its HQs in Hong Kong and it is headed by W. Jing. The agreement signed between Ortega and W. Jing attributes to the Chinese company the control of the channel for fifty years, extendable for another fifty years. However, it was intended that the work began in late 2014 but currently it has not advanced with the megastructure.

In December 2014, W. Jing and the government of Nicaragua inaugurated the first works of the interoceanic canal. Nevertheless, the project currently does not advance as planned and this arises questions about the viability of the channel. The HKND group in charge of the mega project offered subprojects that included oil pipelines, roads, tourist centres, airport, railroad, among others; also, the subprojects included the intention to purchase provisions to feed about 25 thousand workers. Nonetheless, none of these projects has started.

Despite the great promotion of the project, the promise of the channel is uncertain, especially, because the businessman W. Jing has not visited Nicaragua in over two years. Therefore, the HKND group has gradually decreased its presence in the Central American country. On the other hand, W. Jing has maintained a low international profile until the point where there is not news about him. However, recently he reappeared in an article by Bloomberg Businessweek, which mentions the mishaps that confront their different projects in the world Jing’s current situation in the business area is problematic. On one hand, he has had difficulties positioning his company Xinwei as a strong telecommunications corporation. On the other hand, W. Jing has had to face the recent business scandal related to Ukraine.

The recent nineteen agreements, in different sectors, signed by Panama and China strengthen the commercial relationship between these two nations, which undoubtedly will benefit the pursuit of economic strengthening. Panama, with the deepening of these commercial and investment links with China, will be positioned as an important logistics hub in the region. Panama will increase the flow and interaction of the market in Latin America through its channel.

Additionally, the possibility of materializing Nicaragua’s interoceanic channel is greatly diminished by the fact of Panama being a geostrategic partner in China’s trade policy. This possibility could take place if China finds a more favourable scenario with Panama than with Nicaragua. Likewise, with the recent agreements signed, China gains a logistics hub and will be able to strength its presence in the growing and important Latin American market.

Given the latest movements regarding its trade policy, China has opted to deepen its free trade with the infrastructure offered by Panama. The infrastructure is modern, and it is currently making extensions; also, it is important to highlight that it has years of experience and improvement in the field of maritime trade. Above mentioned, one can affirm that the Panama Canal accomplish the requirements that the Chinese trade policy needs. For that reason, the following question arises: does China need another interoceanic canal? Does China support Wang Jin in the construction of the Nicaragua canal?

Nowadays, no reliable indicators that show a serious interest from international investors to develop the project. It involves enormous technical, technological and logistical challenges that have not been developed; therefore, this enterprise is delayed and has no evidence of concrete progress. On the other hand, leaders of the private sector in Nicaragua have doubts about the promises made by the government and W. Jing because the businessman has not shown a serious interest in the development of the project. In the same way, the problems W. Jing is facing with his other companies are evidence that it is not a good moment to start an entrepreneur like the cannel.

Besides previous information, it is important to keep in mind that the Chinese government’s trade policy with Panama is against it. So far there is not reliable plans in the construction of Nicaragua’s channel because of three reasons; first, the signing of nineteen agreements with Panama on trade matters; second, cooperation with the China Development Bank; finally, the study to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA).

Camilo Salazar

Bangladesh. At The Roots Of Islamist Extremism.

“Here in Bangladesh the factors which drive Jihadist recruitment and mobilisation are multiple. The processes of Islamist radicalisation have historical roots which must be taken into consideration and which exceed the connection poverty-extremism”. Shahab Enam Khan, docent in international relations at Jahangimagar University in Dacca and a member of the Enterprise Institute, has completed an extensive study of radical Islamist movements. In a recent interview the scholar recalls that to understand the spread of jihadist-Salafism and the future challenges it is necessary to look at the past: to the period immediately following the country’s independence, obtained in 1971 after a bloody war to free itself from control by Pakistan.

The conditions for the affirmation of radicalisation of Islamist matrix, says Shahan Enam Khan, depend on the political polarisation created in the years following independence. When political movements and parties fought each other in the name of different principles and ideologies, while institutional incapacity to guarantee efficient governance became increasingly evident.
This led to a political vacuum plugged with new radical Islamist movements, whose recruitment strategies focussed precisely on criticism of the establishment, and the incapacity to guarantee services and rights for the majority of the population.
Corruption of the administrative and statuary machine together with that which invests the judiciary sector, supplied other elements for propaganda.

In more recent years, another factor has emerged: contradiction between the country’s economic growth, which benefits only an educated urban elite, and the non-inclusion of the majority of the population, especially in rural areas.
According to recent estimates by the Asian Development Bank, Bangladesh’s gross domestic product in 2017 grew by more than 7%, and forecasts for 2018 remain at the same level.

However growth is not inclusive and poverty remains widespread, according to reports issued by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and the World Bank: about 30% of the population lives below the national poverty line, 17% (circa 25 million) suffer from extreme poverty; the unemployment rate is about 4%; every year of between 2 million and 700,000 more young people wanting to enter the world of work, only one fourth succeeds; the average monthly salary goes no higher than 5.500 Taka (60 euro), one third of the sum necessary for living in a decent manner.

Around these factors, groups pertaining to the local variegated radical galaxy have organised a rhetorical battle. This battle passes by various channels of distribution, ranging from pamphlets printed underground and distributed in rural areas and city peripheries, to word of mouth communication, ending up on social media, ever more accessible and inexpensive. Precisely along these channels of communication beginning with the institution of the so-called Islamic State in the Summer of 2014, there has been a grafting of global jihadist rhetoric, of the group led by the self-proclaimed Calif Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the earlier one of al-Qaeda. Both the present number one of al-Qaeda, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri and his rival, al-Baghdadi, look with particular interest towards the Indian sub-continent, potentially an enormous recruitment area.

With its 172 million Muslims and intermittent but constant unrest between different religious communities, India is the morsel most sought after. Bangladesh, a nation with the fourth largest Muslim population in the world and a secular nationalist government led by Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League and unpopular with the Islamists, follows immediately. Not by chance, in September 2014 al-Zawahiri announced the creation of al-Qaeda on the Indian sub-continent (AQIS Asian quantum Information Science Conference).

Unlike the leader of the so called Islamic State, which only recently appeared in the area of South East Asia, here the al-Qaeda roots are solid, based on alliances, contacts, acquaintances consolidated during decades, since the 1990s, and Afghan Mujahedin resistance to Soviet occupation. That jihad involved about 3,400 Bangladeshi. Some of them formed in 1992 the group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh (local branch of the Pakistani group of the same name), which in 2005 inaugurated an ambitious agenda of power taking in ten years, supressed by members of the security.

From the end of the 1990’s to the beginning of the following decade, professor Shahab Enam Khan told Fides, the scene was dominated by two more groups : Jamaitul Mujahedin Bangladesh and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, responsible in the Summer of 2005 for 500 explosions in different parts of the country. Groups with a network of militants active in rural areas and metropolitan peripheries, composed mainly of young men without schooling, poor, marginalised, excluded from the job market, lacking opportunities for social improvement, filled with resentment.

However, widespread poverty and lack of schooling alone cannot explain the spread of Islamist fundamentalism. Here in Bangladesh, as elsewhere, in jihadist mobilisation other factors come into play, as sociologist Diego Gambetta explains in his book Engineers of Jihad: the Curious Connection Between Violent Extremism and Education. And as demonstrated in biographies of certain Bangladeshi jihadists. The leader Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, Bangla Bahi (also known as Siddiqul Islam and Aziz Ur-Rahman, executed in 2007), who had a degree in Bengali literature. Four of the five jihadists responsible for the attack in July 2016 at Holey Artisan Bakery in Dacca for which the so-called Islamic State claimed responsibility, came from well-off, privileged families, had solid studies behind them, and guarantees for the future.

Behind the affirmation of Islamist radicalisation there lies another battle of even greater importance, social and ideological. It concerns the definition of Bangladeshi identity, the role of Islam– and what form of Islam – within a social and cultural transition which in the 21st led century a country split between a majority anchored to the cultural and social coordinates of the rural world and a minority in power and is influenced by alternative exogenous models. Jihadist groups are also response to this transfer.

They exploit the new social and identity fractures. Fractures which are part of the deeper rift that has countermarked Bangladesh since its establishment: the rift between those who have in mind a nation which is secular and liberal , as stated in the country’s first Constitution 1973, and those instead who aspire to a nation founded on Islam as the state religion, as stated in the 1988 constitutional amendment. More than in poverty, it is in this cultural land-sliding – badly managed and often stoked by institutional politics– that the matrices of Islamist radicalism must be tracked down.

Julian Battiston

A Precursor Of The Fight Against Landgrabbing

Henri Burin des Roziers was a French Dominican, who in Brazil was called the advocate of “the landless”. He died Sunday, November 26^th, 2017 at the age of 87 in the Saint-Jacques convent of Paris even though he would have liked to be in Brazil when “death surprises him.”

Born in Paris in 1930, from a bourgeois Catholic family, he was 17 years old when with the Saint Vincent de Paul Confreres he visited the working class families in the outskirts of Paris. There were five children in his family, but in that visit he discovers families of seven or eight children packed up with their parents in narrow slums. This experience brought him out from his comfort zone: “It struck me a lot – he will comment later – Why was I enjoying such advantages, and not they?”

The Algerian war (1954 – 1962), in which he lived as a second lieutenant between 1954 and 1956, contributed in finally opening his mind to the perception of injustices. In 1957, while obtaining a doctorate in law, he met the Dominican Congar. In Yves Congar he discovered the free spirit of a great theologian who later would infuse that freedom into Vatican II opening it towards the world and the future.

Thus, in 1958, he joined the Dominicans and was ordained a priest in 1963 just in the middle of Vatican II. Afterwards he becomes chaplain of the Law Faculty, in rue d’Assas (Paris) whose paving stones became the weapon of the May 68 student revolution. In a book of interviews, he told how, in those days, he did not hesitate to hide wanted students in Saint-Yves center and, dressed as a priest, to carry them in his car.

He became a worker priest in Besançon and in 1970 in Annecy took care of Tunisian immigrants, employed in small factories and suffering from racism and health problems. There he defended them before the labor courts, engaged himself with tramps and suffered from the refusal of local politicians who did not appreciate his commitment with the poor. He then met the theology of liberation and agreed with his community to move to Brazil where he arrives in 1978.

He started immediately to serve in the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT). This commission, created two years earlier by the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB), had as its mission to support the agrarian reform and to accompany the peasants’ fight against injustices. In the Amazon, he becomes the advocate of landless peasants and of the forest against major mining projects.

With the end of the dictatorship and the promises of land reform, the landless in Brazil put their hope in the Movement of the Landless (MST), but the “fazendeiros”, the big landowners, were ready to do anything to defend their privileges: peasants were imprisoned and tortured for occupying fallow land. With other Dominicans, Henri fought for their liberation, kept explaining that “complaining” was a way of overcoming the fear of reprisals, accompanied the peasants to the federal police, and defended their family when some of them were murdered.

The “fazendeiros” put a price on his head and Father Henri had to protect himself from possible “pistoleiros” and hit men. In 2005 an American nun, Dorothy Stang, was murdered. “At the time of her assassination, while Dorothea was prized of 50,000 reis, I was 100,000 reis. The state governor imposed protection for me. I could not refuse so as not to be deported from Brazil,” he wrote in his book Comme une rage de justice (Cerf, 2016). He then remembered the words of a liberation theologian Tomas Balduino, one of the Pastoral Commission of the Land’s founders, he had listened long before in Paris: ” Living the Gospel nowadays, is very costly.”

As a scholar in law, theology and philosophy, Henry saw all the implications of injustice and was outraged. In “its region” the Amazon, “In 2010, there were 207 land conflicts, 18 murders and 30 death threats,” he stated in a conference shortly before his death. The legion of honor knight, he received in 2005 an international award for Human Rights, and now just joined the legion of all faith members who understood that the Land is of God. And fought for a land administration tempered with justice. “His life, after all, was in perfect harmony with his ideas,” said his niece Aude Ragozin.

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

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