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Tensions between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea.

Thursday, 1 August 2024 8:00

The Navy (PLA Navy) of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has expanded its presence near the Spratly Islands, an archipelago located in the South China Sea, at the centre of bitter territorial disputes.

Although they fall within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, China claims sovereignty over these islands and this has caused the emergence of tensions over time.

On 12 July 2016, in line with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the arbitral tribunal ruled in favour of the Philippines regarding the dispute over the disputed territories with China, but this did not resolve the issue.

In recent months there have been incidents that are leading to strong tension between the two countries in the area concerned. Among the most serious episodes was the accident on March 5, near the Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef in the Spratly Islands.

On that occasion, two collisions were recorded between Chinese Coast Guard ships and their Philippine counterparts, which caused four injuries among the latter.

Subsequently, on May 19, the Chinese Coast Guard attempted to obstruct the medical transport of a member of the Philippine Navy. Furthermore, between May 28 and June 3, the Philippine Navy detected the presence of approximately eleven ships belonging to the Chinese Navy in its exclusive economic zone.

In recent days, Beijing has communicated a possible implementation of the rules on the violation of maritime space, which has caused great concern among workers in the Philippine seafood sector. The new rules, in fact, provide for detention of up to 60 days for foreigners who illegally cross the borders as understood by China.

Regardless, China and the Philippines remain trading partners, which is why Beijing’s recent provocations would seem to be linked more to tension with the United States than to dynamics strictly connected to the relations between the two Asian actors.

The relevance of the South China Sea lies in its rich fishing basin and the presence of oil and natural gas deposits. In particular, its trade route is crucial to the Chinese economy, as 40% of Beijing’s exports pass through these waters. Since 2023, the presence of military ships and the Chinese Coast Guard has increased in the areas near the Second Thomas Shoal to limit the supply missions of the Philippine Navy to the Sierra Madre, a World War II wreck purposely stranded in the shallows in 1999 by the Philippines to assert its own jurisdiction.

In this context, the current President of the Philippines Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr seems to have adopted a less accommodating attitude towards China than his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte. Marcos Jr, in particular, has launched measures aimed at strengthening the control and defence of his territories such as the transparency program with the media and the intensification of the presence of the Coast Guard in the area.

Based on this, the Philippines allowed journalists from the main newspapers access to the disputed area, with the dual aim of raising public awareness of the Navy’s refuelling missions, since in the past the latter were not reported publicly, and document any clashes with Chinese ships in detail. In addition, in the last period, the commitment of the Philippine Coast Guard in escorting some of the missions to the Sierra Madre has been highlighted.

Finally, the Philippine leader sought US support in the framework of the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement of 2014, and in mutual agreement with the US Department of Defence announced the creation of four new military bases in April 2023.

Three of these are planned between the provinces of Isabela and Cagayanuna, in the direction of Taiwan, while the last one will be established on the island of Balabac, near Palawan, a strategic position given its proximity to the Spratly Islands.

Manila and Washington are linked by a Mutual Defence Treaty dating back to 1951. Should an escalation occur in the area, the US State Department has specified that the mutual aid provided for in the event of a foreign attack is also valid for the territories controlled by Philippine Coast Guard, including the Spratly Islands.

The Philippine perspective on regional security emerged a few weeks ago in Marcos Jr’s speech at the latest Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. The President specifically expressed the fear that the states of South-East Asia would become areas of conflict between the superpowers, a concern historically shared by all the countries in the area.

Precisely in this context, the centrality of ASEAN and the negotiations with China for the approval of the code of conduct (COC) aimed at making the South China Sea an area of cooperation and peace
are underlined.

Overall, China seems to want to maintain an assertive type of behaviour, asserting its historical reasons and its superiority in the navigation area. Nonetheless, Manila remains an important trading partner for Beijing, necessary in the supply of raw materials such as nickel and also in the trade of semiconductors, as the country plays an important role in the final part of the microchip production chain.

Both states seem to want a diplomatic resolution and therefore, in the short to medium term, a clash between the two countries appears unlikely. In the short term, a new appeal to UNCLOS by the Philippines cannot be ruled out to guarantee freedom of navigation in its exclusive economic zone and show China’s violation of international law.

Given that Beijing is currently involved in recognizing the authority of international bodies, there is a possibility that it may pause its historical claims in the area. However, the risk of incidents in the area remains rather high and failure to cool tensions between Beijing and Washington could change the current scenario, opening up towards a possible escalation which could also involve the Philippines. (Territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Illustration. istock/Leestat )

Sofia Bertolino/CeSI

African ecological spirituality. Drinking from the wells of tradition.

Thursday, 1 August 2024 8:00

In Africa, there is no separation between the sacred and the profane. According to common African spirituality, all life is sacred, and the entire creation is sacred, as it is an expression of divine force.

African spirituality is rooted in the belief in a mutual interdependence – indeed, a oneness – of all creation, in its origins, in its permanent existence and in its final destiny. Every creature – especially the human one – exists as a result of divine force, is imbued with this force and tends towards the divine.The order that supports all existence is an expression of this force, and it is up to human society to safeguard this order, to be always able to live in harmony both with divine energy and with all the supernatural forces that emanate from it. Offending the order, which makes the world a cosmos, ultimately means putting humanity and the entire creation at risk.

Some woods, rivers, lakes and mountains, as well as some animals and trees, are considered “sacred” because they are closely linked to worship and more directly connected with human life. 123rf

The West is discovering the cure for the protection of creation as a constituent part of a new global spirituality. Africa, however, has always been aware of the obligations that human beings must have towards Mother Earth, thanks above all to their faith in the constant “spiritual” presence (which does not mean “imaginative” or “not real”) of ancestors. The graves of the fathers – which make the place where a person lives not only his “ancestral home” but also his homeland and that of his children – deserve great honour and special treatment.
Some woods, rivers, lakes and mountains, as well as some animals and trees, are considered “sacred” (and, therefore, not to be “tampered with” or “corrupted”), because they are closely linked to worship and more directly connected with human life. Characteristics of divinity are also attributed to the sun, moon and stars, which illuminate the earth and make orderly life possible; a correct relationship between the cosmos and the community is judged not only desirable but also indispensable.

The most important things in life cannot be explained with reason alone, but are “perceived” through intuition, the heart and ritual. 123rf

The African possesses detailed knowledge of his environment. The boundaries between the human world and the natural habitat are interchangeable. Implicit in his lifestyle (or spirituality) is the awareness that mutuality and reciprocity between the anthropological world and the physical cosmos are necessary and desirable.
The modern vision of the cosmos, which the West seeks to impose on the rest of the world, has already caused serious damage to humanity. In a certain sense, it has also managed to undermine traditional African spirituality. But the African, deep in his soul, knows that the most important things in life cannot be explained with reason alone, but are “perceived” through intuition, the heart and ritual.
As African Christians today, we must learn again to drink from the wells of our truest spirituality. We must reclaim our spiritual space in the “affective” dimensions of life that are no less important than those that are rational. This recovery will translate for Africa into “redemption” from the now dominant Western culture, whose inherent “hostility” towards the world no longer needs demonstration. It will also prove to be a catalyst for change for all of humanity: humanity will feel invited to return to being administrators of the earth and responsible for its survival. Everyone’s existence will be happier and healthier. (Open Photo: A Man from ethnic karo group drinking coffee).
(L.M.)

Herbs & Plants. Ageratum conyzoides. A remedy for myriads of disease conditions.

Thursday, 1 August 2024 8:00

It is an erect, branching, soft, slightly aromatic, annual herb with shallow fibrous roots. The plant has a goat-like smell and hence the common name “goat weed”. The genus name Ageratum is derived from the Greek words ‘a geras’, meaning non-aging, referring to the longevity of the whole plant.

Ageratum conyzoides (Family Asteraceae) is a tropical plant that is widely distributed in Sub-Saharan Africa. It grows to approximately 1 m in height. The stems and the leaves are 2-6 cm long, egg-shaped and covered with fine white hairs. The flowers are purple, blue, pinkish or white, less than 6 mm across, with an average of 40 florets arranged in close terminal inflorescences. The fruits are small brown, one-seeded achenes and can be easily dispersed. The fruits contain seeds that are photoblastic in nature.
The plant has been used in various parts of Africa in folk medicine to treat a diversity of ailments including skin complaints, cuts, burns, pneumonia, sleeping sickness, stomach ache, fever, malaria, coughs, colds, a painkiller during childbirth and to treat snakebites. In some communities, the plant has been indicated for the treatment of mental and infectious diseases as well as headaches and dyspnea.
It is also reported to be used as a purgative, febrifuge, for opthalmia, colic, and treatment of ulcers.

Photo 123rf

In West Africa, the plant is used as a local remedy for craw-craw condition. In addition to its popular use for treatment of skin diseases, a decoction of the plant is taken internally to treat diarrhea and to relieve pain associated with navel in children. In Central Africa, Ageratum conyzoides plant is used to treat particularly wounds caused by burns while in East Africa, it is used in traditional medicine as antiasthmatic, antispasmodic and as well known to possess haemostatic effects.
The goat-weed has been used traditionally to relieve constipation and fever and applied as a dressing agent and as well as an antiulcer agent. This herb is used to treat measles and snake bite. In Nigeria, Ageratum. conyzoides is used for skin diseases, wound healing, diarrhoea, common colds, headaches, boils, eczema, and even used to treat HIV/AIDS. The juice of the fresh plant, or an extract of the dried plant is used in the treatment of allergic rhinitis and sinusitis. The juice of the fresh plant is also useful in treating post-partum uterine haemorrhage.

CC BY-SA 3.0/Minghong

An infusion of Ageratum conyzoides leaves or the entire plant can be administered for the treatment and management of spasms, and as a tonic. The plant leaves are also used in folk medicine as anti-itch, treatment of rheumatism and sleeping sickness, mouthwash for toothache, antitusive, and as a vermifuge.
The leaf of the plant is also known to be used for the treatment of leprosy and as an oil lotion for purulent opthalmia.
In some communities, tea made from the leaves of Ageratum conyzoides can be used as analgesic, anti-diarrheic and anti-inflammatory. It is widely used by many traditional medicine practitioners against dysentery. The leaves when crushed in water is given as an emetic and is also applied intravaginally for uterine troubles. They are used in treatment of pneumonia by rubbing them on the chest of the patient. The leaves are consumed as vegetables and also used to prevent tetanus. It is also used in the treatment of pneumonia, antitoxin of snake venom, typhoid fever, malaria fever, sore throat, and candidiasis. The leaves are styptic. They are dried and applied as a powder to cuts, sores and the ruptures caused by leprosy, the powder absorbs the moisture caused by the disease and forms a layer that is removed after 1-2 days. The leaves are also used externally in the treatment of ague (Severe fever). A paste of the leaves is used as a poultice to remove thorns from the skin. A paste made of the leaves mixed with equal amounts of Bidens pilosa, Drymaria cordata, Galinsoga parviflora and the rhizome of Zingiber officinale is used to treat snakebites.

Photo 123rf

The roots are used in the treatment of tumours, lithiasis, and diarrhoea in a baby. The juice of the root is antilithic. A paste of the root, mixed with the bark of Schinus wallichii is applied to set dislocated bones.
The flower is used to relieve itching, insomnia, cough, vermifuge, tonics, and antibug parasite. The juice of the flower heads is used externally to treat scabies whilst a paste of them is used to treat rheumatism. A tea made from the flower heads mixed with Ocimum tenuifolium is used to treat coughs and colds.The medicinal activities of Ageratum conyzoides may be attributed to the phytochemical compounds contained in it including terpenoid, sterol, flavonoid, chromene, pyrrolizidine alkaloid, coumarin, pyrrolon, and lignan.
Apart from its use as human medicine for treatment of a wide range of diseases, Ageratum conyzoides is used to make soaps for topical applications on ulcers, lesions, and skin infections. A decoction of the fresh plant is used as a hair wash, leaving the hair soft, fragrant and dandruff free. Ageratum conyzoides is used as a cure for trachoma in cattle, an insecticide and as nematicide. Although cited as poisonous, it is also used as a fodder for cattle, guinea-pigs, horses and goats. (Open Photo 123rf)

Richard Komakech

Australia. Murrawah Maroochy Johnson.

Thursday, 1 August 2024 8:00

She blocked the development of the Waratah coal mine, which would have accelerated climate change in Queensland, destroyed the nearly 20,000-acre Bimblebox Nature Refuge, added 1.58 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere over its lifetime, and threatened Indigenous
rights and culture.

Murrawah’s case, which overcame a 2023 appeal, set a precedent that enables other First Nations people to challenge coal projects by linking climate change to human and Indigenous rights. As the world’s largest exporter of coal by value, the Australian coal mining industry powers coal stations around the world.

One of the largest coal reserves on the planet – 23 billion tons large – sits in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, where industry seeks to exploit what environmentalists have called a “carbon bomb.” The Adani company’s Carmichael coal mine – the first in the basin – started coal extraction in 2021, following a nearly decade-long national campaign that failed to halt the project but succeeded in scaling it back.

First Nations advocates in Queensland strongly opposed the Carmichael coal mine because of its contributions to climate change on their traditional territories, because of the destruction of their country and culture, and because of a painful history of abuse, violence, and land theft at the hands of Australian society, its government, and
industrial collaborators.

For centuries, Wirdi and other Indigenous territories have been systematically taken, their resources exploited, and their lands and waters used to extract the highest monetary value. Today, polluted air and groundwater, sea level rise, loss of biodiversity, and desecration of sacred sites within Indigenous lands are major concerns.

Preventing the construction of new Galilee Basin coal mines has become an urgent goal to stop the release of buried carbon and preserve Indigenous homelands and cultural landscapes for future generations.

In 2019, Australian billionaire and coal magnate Clive Palmer’s Waratah Coal sought final approval to develop the Galilee coal mine, which was projected to extract 40 million tons of coal from the basin each
year for 35 years.

The mined coal would destroy the nearly 20,000-acre Bimblebox Nature Refuge and the surrounding region, with four underground and two open-cut coal mines; it would threaten habitat for 176 bird species, including the endangered black-throated finch, 45 mammal, 14 amphibian, and 83 reptile species, and 650 types of native plants; and it would accelerate climate change by adding 1.58 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere over its lifetime.

Murrawah Maroochy Johnson, 29, is a Wirdi woman from the Birri Gubba Nation. She first became an activist at 19 when her elders in the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Council (an Indigenous governing organization) invited her to be a voice for young people and future generations – alongside her uncle, the senior cultural custodian and celebrated cultural performer Adrian Burragubba – in the campaign against the Adani Carmichael coal mine. She is now co-director
of the NGO Youth Verdict, which organizes youths around climate
change in the region.

Upon learning about Waratah’s proposal for a mining lease and environmental approval from the Queensland government to build the Waratah coal mine on traditional Wirdi land, Murrawah and Youth Verdict got to work. They conducted outreach to First Nations communities across the state through word-of-mouth, social media, earned media, and traditional storytelling

Through Youth Verdict, Murrawah partnered with the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO), a public interest law firm, to challenge the project’s mining application in the Land Court of Queensland. Empowered by the recent enactment of the Queensland Human Rights Act, under which Indigenous people have recognized cultural rights connected to their traditional ownership of territories, Murrawah
sought to incorporate the human rights of First Nations people
into her legal strategy.

Through EDO’s lawyers, Murrawah argued to the Land Court that, because burning coal from the Waratah mine would emit greenhouse gases and worsen climate change, the project would impinge on the human and cultural rights of First Nations people across Queensland and elsewhere. The court agreed, opening the case to testimony
from First Nations people in Queensland beyond the immediate
vicinity of the mine.

Despite vigorous objections from Waratah’s lawyers, the Land Court agreed to hear testimony in a historically unprecedented manner.
The court accepted that it needed to understand the worldview of First Nations people to comprehend their testimony, and that
the best way to do that was to hear from them “on country” – that is,
on First Nations territory.

Murrawah brought members of the court to northern Queensland and the Torres Strait Islands to hear from witnesses, whom she had engaged in the case, drawing on familial relations across First Nations and connections developed while campaigning against
the Carmichael coal mine.

First Nations witnesses gave compelling testimony to how climate change destroys ecological systems, which then destroys their traditional cultures that are foundationally tied to the land. Through stories, songs, and dances, witnesses explained how the environment and their cultural knowledge are deeply connected.

They demonstrated their deep knowledge of the environment and described the impacts of climate change. They noted that First Nations people cannot pass on their traditions to their children if, for example, the graves of their ancestors are washed away by rising seas.

Lawyer Sean Ryan recounts the testimony of a Torres Strait elder who said: “In my culture, we are born from earth and return to earth. This island is like my mother, and when I’m away, I miss her like my mother. When I think about climate change taking this island, I grieve for this island like I would grieve for my mother.”

The Waratah company spent millions on the legal case, while Murrawah and her group had pro bono legal support and fundraised for each part of her campaign, including transporting many people involved in the case to distant, “on country” court locations, such as the Torres Straits Islands. She found ways to put people up in shared houses, borrowed cars to drive them around, and managed the sprawling geographic logistics on a bare bones budget.

In November 2022, after “on country” hearings and substantial evidence with respect to human rights, the environment, and climate, the Land Court recommended to the government that the mining lease and environmental authority applications be refused—an unexpected and precedent-setting decision.

The ruling was based on the mines’ contributions to climate change, its impact on the environment, and the unjustifiable limitations placed on the human and cultural rights of First Nations peoples.

By preventing further intrusion into the Galilee Basin, Murrawah and her team stopped 1.5 billion tons of carbon from being released into the atmosphere. Her case was the first successful challenge to coal development using Queensland’s new human rights law, creating legal standing that linked climate change and Indigenous cultural
rights in Australia.

The case also set a precedent for First Nations people to give testimony based on long-held traditional knowledge on their land – “on country” – when challenging new fossil fuel projects, an approach that has since been successfully applied elsewhere. Murrawah’s case overcame a subsequent appeal by Waratah Coal in 2023.

For First Nations peoples in Australia, the land is the law, and they have a special obligation to uphold and protect it. Last April, Murrawah Maroochy Johnson received the Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the “Green Nobel Prize”. (The Goldman Environment Report – Photo Goldman Environmental Prize)

Lula’s global strategy.

Thursday, 1 August 2024 8:00

The G20 finance ministers will meet in Brazil on 16 and 17 August. The summit of the group’s presidents will take place in November. On these two occasions, Lula will present his ambitious plan to tax 3% of the income of the world’s 3,000 richest people.

Approval for this project will not come easy, but it will allow the Brazilian president and pro tempore president of the G20 to focus attention with a proposal that will certainly generate impact. His role as president pro tempore of the G20 is an opportunity that Lula is willing to exploit. He will also present peace projects for Ukraine and Gaza.

As for Ukraine, Lula had already presented a proposal together with China last June to create the conditions for a ceasefire that would allow an attempt at negotiation. Lula will inevitably be the most important representative of Latin America at the summit.

This time he will not confront Mexico, but he will do so with Argentina, and in particular with its president, Javier Milei. But he will do it without presenting it as a clash in an area where the Brazilian president, as president pro tempore, must maintain a balance.

Milei is starting to be an ideological rival to the Brazilian president globally. The Argentine president is betting decisively on the triumph of Donald Trump, the leader and representative of the radical right on the global front. For his part, Lula aligns himself with the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

So far there is little regional support for Milei but it is also clear that Latin America is not his priority. In his eight months in office, the Argentine president travelled five times to the United States, four times to Europe, once to Israel and once to Brazil. In the latter country it was not an official visit, but specifically to support an act of President Lula’s greatest opponent, Jair Bolsonaro.

On his return after one of his trips to the United States, he attended the inauguration of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. The two regional gestures clearly place Milei in his quest to be the leader in Latin America of the radical right.

Lula is the representative of the progressive line, but his leadership over the new Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, over the Colombian president Gustavo Petro, and the Chilean Gabriel Boric is very weak. Countries with centre-right governments such as Ecuador, Paraguay and Uruguay have so far shown economic coincidences with Milei, but have ruled out political alignment.

The absence of Milei at the Mercosur Heads of Government Summit held on 10 July in Asuncion, Paraguay, ended up strengthening Lula’s role as regional leader. His absence was criticized by both the Brazilian president and the Uruguayan president, Luis Lacalle Pou.

There has been no final political declaration, nor has there been a joint reference in support of Argentina’s claim to the sovereignty of the Malvinas, an issue that has been present at a large majority of these Summits. The Argentine president was replaced by Chancellor Diana Mondino. The chancellor evaded signing the texts of commitment to gender diversity and the environment, a line imposed by Ursula Basset, the family law lawyer close to Milei’s sister, who has a leading role in the ideological line of the chancellor’s office.

The Argentine Foreign Minister did not even condemn the US embargo on Cuba, which was another constant in these meetings, nor did he join in supporting Luis Arce in the face of the attempted military coup that Bolivia suffered. July 18 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the terrorist attack on AMIA, but there were no references to the subject. Without the Argentine president, arguments against Latin American dictatorships in the region (Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua) have been weakened. (Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Shutterstock/Isaac Fontana)

Rosendo Fraga/Nueva Mayoria

Syria. The courage to make a fresh start.

Thursday, 1 August 2024 8:00

A journey to the last Christian village in the mountains of Syria where the language of Jesus is still spoken. Islamists almost wiped out the pilgrimage site during the war. Now there is hope again. Thanks also to a courageous nun.

As Ilias tells his story, he repeatedly strokes a wooden beam with his hand. However tenderly and carefully he does it, however much feeling he has for the wood, what he describes is sadly cruel. He is a man with powerful hands, a sharp eye and definitely not easily scared. He likes the feeling of being half a step ahead of destiny. It is not a mistake, especially not in his country of origin, Syria, a country that has known nothing but war since 2011.

The soldiers of the Syrian National Army at the gates of the city. Shutterstock/ART production

In Maalula, a town 56 km northeast of Damascus, he thought, it would be even safer for him and his family. The remote village, inhabited by Christians for almost two millennia, had so far been spared from the fighting. It had no strategic or military importance and was far from the hotbeds of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad. The village, its churches and its monasteries were all places of pilgrimage. Before the war, visitors came here from all over Syria, including Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, including Muslims.
There was also a good understanding with the local Muslim families. People knew and appreciated each other, and everyone lived their own life, which wasn’t bad thanks to tourism. But everything changed on September 7, 2013; that was when the inferno started.

Well-controlled anger
A rocky massif appears on the horizon, a jagged rock in which small white houses are set. From a distance, Maalula still looks idyllic today. Until the first road signs appear and you arrive at the ruins of the entrance gate where it all began with a car packed with explosives and with a man inside who blew himself up. This is how Ilias describes the beginning. The suicide bomber blew himself up at a Syrian army checkpoint. The way was clear for the self-proclaimed warriors of God. The Islamists stormed the village in their pickups.
They come in shooting and shouting. In a short time, they took the village. Anyone who did not convert to Islam would die, they announced and then took the first hostages.

Destroying Sacred Places
The Melkite Greek Catholic Monastery of Saints Sergius and Bacchus sits high above the rugged rocky slopes of Maalula.A thick-walled fortress, built starting from the year 313 AD. and therefore one of the oldest churches still existing in the world. Dedicated to two early Christian Roman soldiers who were killed for their faith, the monastery would again become a site of martyrdom during the Syrian Civil War.

The gorge leading from Maaloula to the Monastery St Takla, Syria. 123rf

Broken crosses, destroyed icons and a desecrated altar. Many images of the Mother of God and the Messiah with their eyes erased. What happened here was not at all the result of blind hatred. It was well-calculated anger. An orgy of systematic destruction, perpetrated by the Islamists of the Al-Nusra Front. They invaded Maalula to destroy it and began by killing three Melkite monks.

The Our Father in Aramaic
Today is Sunday marked by the sudden ringing of church bells, a priest waving a thurible and singing the litanies. Those who remain remember the scenes of destruction and anger. Sunday Mass in the monastery is like waking up from a bad nightmare. Except it was real. What has happened since then is nothing short of a miracle. The monastery was rebuilt and the traces of the destruction present in the church were erased as much as possible. Local volunteers, in collaboration with Christian humanitarian organizations from around the world, have achieved the impossible and restored dignity to one of the most important places of ancient Christian faith.

St. Thecla Monastery in the Christian village of Maaloula. Shutterstock/Torsten Pursche

Worshippers have even restored the altar slab, which had been smashed to pieces by Islamists and which dated back to ancient times when the building was still a pagan temple, as well as the channel through which the blood of sacrificial animals flowed. Some precious icons were also saved. The monks had smuggled them out of the village in coffins along with their dead. There is a real thrill when the Our Father is finally sung in Aramaic. Maalula is the last Christian village in Syria where the language of Jesus has survived to this day.
A woman who humbly sat at the back during Holy Mass is partly responsible for Maalula’s rebirth. Her name is Annie Demerjian and she belongs to the Congregation of the Sisters of Jesus and Mary.

Sister Annie Demerjian (© Aid to the Church in Need)

After Mass, Sr. Annie takes us down a deep, narrow entrance and tells us how the first Christians once found refuge in the intermediate caves. One of them was Thecla, a noble woman who was a follower of the apostle Paul and was later canonized. According to legend, she led the Christians to the mountain, in front of which she began to pray until the saving ravine opened. This is how Maalula got its Aramaic name, which means “entrance”.Sister Annie, who grew up in the village, leads us to her family home, one floor of which remains burned to this day.Her brothers were taken hostage. “One of them pointed the barrel of the gun to my forehead and ordered me to recite the Shahada, the Islamic creed, in other words, to convert, only in this way would he let me live”, says one of the brothers who replied: “Go ahead. Just kill me. It’s better to die than live among people like you.” In the end, the two brothers were saved after the family paid a large ransom. Blindfolded, with their bodies completely battered, they were pushed out of a car in the middle of the night and abandoned in the middle of nowhere.

Profaned churches
As Sister Annie listens to her brother, she pats him on the shoulder. She soon realised that her home village would become her next mission. After months of siege, Assad’s army, together with Christian volunteers, managed to retake the city from the Islamists in April 2014. Most of the 3,000 residents, 70% of them Christians, had long since fled.
Maalula, the rock-hewn village, lay bleeding like an open wound. The churches had been desecrated and burned, the icons destroyed or sold abroad, and almost all the houses seemed uninhabitable. “We understood one thing – says Sister Annie – If we want this place to have a future and not disappear forever, we must give it one”. That was how Sister Annie and Ilias crossed paths.

A mission of reconstruction
Ilias had brought his family to safety in those disastrous days and had resisted with the other men to defend the village. “When the Islamists realised we were fighting back, they moved to the mountains above Maalula.” They entrenched themselves on top of the pilgrims’ hotel and the Melkite monastery and from there began targeting the village. “They made fire bombs and threw them at the village with burning car tyres. Our churches and houses here are tens of centuries old, they are built of clay, stone and wood. We had no chance but to die in the flames “. Ilias who, like Sister Annie was born here, had to flee.
“I prayed to Our Lady that in the end good would triumph over evil. I laid all our destinies at her feet and the moment I left, I felt I would return. God would not abandon us.”

The monastic complex of Saint Sarkis. Photo: Effi Schweizer

That’s exactly how it happened. Ilias, an architect by training, and Sister Annie, a courageous nun, developed a joint plan. She wanted to raise funds from Christian humanitarian organizations so that Ilias could use them to start rebuilding the old houses. From the start, they had no idea of all the difficulties they would meet. Looking at the oldest part of the village, they could see some buildings that were built in the first and second centuries AD. The narrow alleys and roadways were repeatedly interrupted by stone gates. It took a lot of skill, patience and money but the results are impressive: 108 houses have already been rebuilt thanks to generous donations and another 40 are planned. The original inhabitants began to return. Many of them had already fled to Damascus but never lost hope that they would again see Maalula.

The Mother of God watches over Maalula
“Making a fresh start is difficult,” admits Sister Annie, “because, unlike in the past, only a few pilgrims who once lived in the place come to visit. Syria’s economy is ruined, the people are poor, many are hungry, the sanctions are working. There is electricity for maybe an hour a day and prices continue to rise dramatically. Efforts are being made to find other sources of income for the returnees. A small jam factory has been established, peaches have recently been grown and now, after such a long time, wine production is thriving on the slopes of Maalula.

Virgin Mary in the mountains around Maalula. Shutterstock/ Fly and Dive

Primary and secondary schools are again open. No one has regretted returning, as Samen Kalloume says. He sits in a wheelchair, runs a small business with his wife and was one of the first to return to the village after it was cleared of mines by Islamists. The house where he was born is one of those that have been rebuilt. Looking out the window, he can see many of the village’s 22 churches, which are gradually being restored to their original form. “It will never be the same again,” he says, “but this applies to all of Syria. We are all suffering; we are all fighting. But here I have a refuge and I am closer to our Lord than anywhere else.”
He lifts his gaze to the three-metre statue of the Mother of God perched on a rock above Maalula. Islamists destroyed the original in the early days of their reign of terror. Now she has returned as the “Patron saint of peace” thanks also to the help of some local Muslims. Mary is once again watching over Maalula. (Open Photo: Maaloula, a small Christian village in the Rif Dimashq Governorate in Syria. Shutterstock/ Anton_Ivanov)

Christoph Lehermayr/allewelt

The Thieving Frog.

Thursday, 1 August 2024 8:00

Why does the frog croak? Why are its eyes always bulging out of their sockets? And why does it live only in ponds? This story from the ethnic group of the Birrwa-Limba (Sierra Leone) will explain it all to us.

The sun was setting and all the animals had gathered around the pond to drink. When they had quenched their thirst, Ngiovo the elephant told everyone to wait because he had important news to tell them. He raised his trunk to call for silence and began: “Friends! This is a serious matter! There is not a drop of honey left to sweeten our lips.”

“It’s true! – insisted Kamba the tortoise. – I don’t know who to turn to either. “Tell me about it – interrupted Chule, the frog – I can’t even smell it. When I think of honey, I want to die!” “We have to find a solution – continued the elephant – Please give your opinion, and based on your suggestions, we will make a law to solve the problem.”

“It is clear that if we all eat honey every day, it will run out. Consumption must be reduced,” ruled Nsazu, the honey bird who always knows where the bees are working.

“A year without honey? Do you want me dead? grumbled the frog.” “Shut up, Chule! – said the elephant, laughing. Does anyone else want to speak? I see there are no other suggestions. Kamba is right. So, the law will be this: for one year, no one will touch the honey. Anyone who disobeys will be put to death.”

In a short time, the animals got used to living without honey, so much so that some of them stopped eating it for the rest of their lives. The frog, however, could not accept this. During the day he talked about honey, and at night he dreamed about it.

The buzzing of the bees made his abstinence unbearable. He wandered here and there to at least enjoy the smell of the honeycombs. He talked to the bees, urging them to increase production; he marked the places where the honeycombs were so that he could remember them better at the end of the year. It seemed to him that time would never pass. The temptation was great.

One day, Chule was out in the countryside. The sweet smell of honey came from a lonely eucalyptus tree. She went up to smell it. In a hollow at the foot of the trunk, she saw two swollen honeycombs. His mouth watered. “Just a little bit. What harm can it do?” he thought. “There’s the law! What if someone sees you?” his conscience told him. “But who can see me?” thought Chule, looking left and right. “There is no one here, not even a butterfly. And I will take just a tiny little piece.”

With that, he grabbed the nicest honeycomb and disappeared into the grass. What a treat! Finally, some honey after so much fasting. He ate it quickly and would have liked to try the other one, but decided to save it for the next day. He finished licking his ‘moustache’ and lay down in the shade of a small tree.

“What a surprise! What are you doing here?” Chule woke up and squinted his eyes, looking for the animal who had disturbed him. He could see nothing but a twig moving, even though there was not a breath of wind. Finally, he saw an insect the size of a stick. It was the praying mantis. It went on: “Can you not answer? What are you doing here?” The frog tried to reply, but the words turned into a stunted, hoarse, trembling croak. “I beg your pardon. I’m so sorry… I …”

“What’s the matter, Chule? You look so frightened, like a thief.” At the word ‘thief’, the frog ran away in terror. He was ashamed and thought he had been caught. He ran away, not knowing where he was going.

“Where are you staggering off to? Watch your step.” The frog almost fainted at the sudden voice. She blinked and found herself facing the snout of Kalula the hare, who was quenching his thirst at the edge of the pond. Instead of the usual voice, there was a hoarse croak coming from the Chule’s throat. “I am so sorry … excuse me!” “What’s wrong, Chule? Are you ill? Your eyes are popping out of your sockets. “I’m not ill… it’s nothing… nothing”, he replied.

“Yes, you are. You must have something. What have you done? Did you steal the honey? You stole it, Chule, didn’t you? Hare’s questions grew more insistent and his voice more threatening. Chule trembled with fear. Seized with despair, he jumped and disappeared into the water of the pond, where he made his home from that day on, keeping out of sight of the animals as much as possible. His beautiful voice never returned and he continued to croak for the rest of his life, and her eyes remained bulging out of their sockets forever. (Photo: Pixabay)

Folktale from Acholi People. Uganda

Brazil. Resistance and Resilience of a People.

Thursday, 1 August 2024 8:00

Two young lay Comboni missionaries talk to us about their experience among people fighting for their rights and dignity.

About 25 minutes have passed since the last whistle of that endless train with 300 carriages and 4 km long, and now another one is already arriving. As time goes by, we pay more and more attention to it. From our house, the noise of the train can be heard in the distance, while in the city the rattling of the railway line running over the heads of the inhabitants is more pronounced. The value of the mineral transported on it daily corresponds to millions of dollars, with no consideration for those who try to survive on only 5 dollars a day.
The history of Piquiá goes back almost 60 years and it would be a small paradise but it experienced the beginning of its decline in 1985, when the railway built by the mining giant Vale S.A. was inaugurated, for the transport of iron from the huge deposit in the Serra do Carajás, one of the largest mines in the world, in the distant city of São Luís. This involves 900 km of rails travelled non-stop every day for the export of minerals all over the world, including Italy.

Lay Comboni missionaries Gabriele and Anna with their daughter working in Brazil. “. It is here that we have inserted ourselves, among the wounds of this people, learning to know and give our support in this battle”. File swm

Our house is located a few hundred meters from Piquiá de Baixo. Our names are Gabriele and Anna, two 30-year-olds who have chosen to leave for Brazil as lay Comboni missionaries to participate in the missionary activity of the Comboni family of Açailândia, in the state of Maranhão. We are involved at the parish level in numerous activities, and we share moments of prayer and work activities with the Comboni Missionaries. Less than 2 km from our house there is a cement factory (Cimento Açai) and two iron processing plants (AVB – Aço Verde do Brasil, and Viena Siderurgica S.A.), both supplied with iron from Vale S.A.
Piquiá is a town that has undergone gradual depopulation; but after 20 years of struggle and eternal waiting, perhaps it is at a turning point in its history. It seems that the families who until now have suffered the negative consequences of the iron companies built around their lives will be able to move to a new neighbourhood, conquered with hope after a long struggle: Piquiá da Conquista. Located a short distance away, our neighbourhood suffers from the same damage present in Piquiá de Baixo: the iron plants, in fact, are active day and night, a process that generates black fumes, covers food, clothes and everything else with dust and often causes incurable respiratory diseases, tumours and other ailments. The wounds of this land, however, are even deeper.

“From our house, the noise of the train can be heard in the distance, while in the city the rattling of the railway line running over the heads of the inhabitants is more pronounced. Iglesia y Mineria

The so-called rural exodus caused by the arrival of soy and eucalyptus monocultures is growing in the countryside, which through the aerial spraying of pesticides no longer allows small farmers to live off the produce of their land. We are talking about the lives and stories of young people who only have one alternative for survival: working as labourers in the steel industry or in the soybean fields, becoming cogs in a machine that causes the negative conditions mentioned above. Living here, at the same time, teaches us to observe and learn from these same situations of suffering, faced with great resilience by the inhabitants.

“We are involved at the parish level in numerous activities, and we share moments of prayer and work activities with the Comboni Missionaries”.

Those who live in Piquiá or in the surrounding countryside do not give up in the face of this situation but continue to fight for their rights by building a new history, without abandoning their roots. There are stories of resistance against giants who are part of a system that involves us all. Despite the future inauguration of Piquiá da Conquista, in fact, the steel installations will continue, unabated, to pollute the surrounding air as has been the case for 40 years now; in rural areas, people will continue to fight against an agri-food system that is killing the environment. It is here that we have inserted ourselves, among the wounds of this people, learning to know and give our support in this battle. (Open Photo: A people’s struggle. Iglesia y Mineria)

Montenegro between Russia and the European Union.

Thursday, 1 August 2024 8:00

Montenegro is a small but strategic Balkan state, a member of NATO and a candidate for entry into the EU, with dependence on the Russian capitals of oligarchs close to the Kremlin. Will the country be able to reduce Russian economic influence and support the reforms needed by the European Union?

Montenegro obtained independence from Serbia in 2006 through a referendum, accepted by the international community and also by the Government of Belgrade, a process wanted by the “dominus” of the country over the last twenty years, Milo Dukanovic.During the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Dukanovic was a close collaborator of the Montenegrin President Bulatovic, loyal to Milosevic, but after the Dayton agreements of 1995, he espoused positions, supported by the West, in favour of Montenegro’s independence and its rapprochement
with the European Union.

Russia, on the contrary, did not appreciate the separation of Montenegro from Serbia also due to fears of Podgorica’s future entry into the Atlantic Alliance, a decision taken by the majority of the states of the former communist bloc between the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s.
Entry into NATO, which took place in 2017 following the Parliament’s decision in 2016, provoked a coup attempt supported by the Russian secret services, and violent protests both by the Serbian Montenegrin minority (30% of the population), against the Alliance for the Allied Force operation in 1999 against Serbia, and on the part of the Serbian Orthodox Church, close to the Patriarchate of Moscow and adverse to Western “aims” on the country.
Dukanovic also tried to separate the local Orthodox Church from that of Serbia, imitating what former Ukrainian President Poroshenko did in Ukraine with the separation of the Ukrainian from the Russian Orthodox Church, to the point of promoting a law in 2019 regarding ecclesiastical properties that it generated strong protests and worsened relations with Belgrade.Montenegro has been a very interesting object of investment for several Russian oligarchs close to the Kremlin, such as Oleg Deripaska, owner of the Basic Elements corporation, one of the most powerful holding companies in the Russian Federation.

The Millennium Bridge is a key landmark in Podgorica, Montenegro’s capital. iStock/ SbytovaMN

For the Russians, the Balkan country is useful both for extending their sphere of influence in the Mediterranean Sea and for the possibilities, offered by the permissive Montenegrin legislation, to consolidate business and obtain privileges, such as the purchase of citizenship for investments above 450 thousand euros, which allows visa-free travel also within the EU based on bilateral agreements with Brussels.
Russian investments have concentrated on sectors such as construction and tourism, bases of the local economy thanks to which the Montenegrin coast, in the towns of Budva and Tivat, has benefited from the construction of residential buildings, amusement parks, luxury hotels and landing places like Porto Montenegro, projects of an international consortium to which the tycoon Deripaska was connected.
It is estimated that around 20 thousand apartments throughout the country are in the possession of Russian citizens, in several cases to evade illegal practices into which the Russian judiciary had opened investigations for money laundering and the export of capital abroad.

The Interior of the Cathedral of the Resurrection in Podgorica.iStock/maylat

Several investments have been promoted directly by the Kremlin, in particular in the gas and oil supply market, through the subsidiary Lukoil, owner of ten fuelling stations in the country and almost 20% of the local hydrocarbon trade.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has had clear repercussions on the Balkan country, one of the favourite tourist destinations for Russians and Ukrainians, with a percentage of over 25% of total local flows.
Despite the economic influence of the Russian oligarchy, Montenegro, albeit reluctantly, formally joined the economic sanctions imposed by the West against Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The sanctions have had consequences on the tourism economy, both due to the impossibility of direct flights from Russia and the restrictions on capital and banking circuits, although several cases of circumvention are documented, thanks also to the large border with Serbia, the only European country, with Bosnia and Herzegovina, not to align itself
with these measures.

Budva old medieval walled city lights at night. Centre of Montenegrin tourism. 123rf

Furthermore, in Montenegro, there are hundreds of people of both nationalities who have taken refuge to escape the conflict and to avoid conscription imposed by the Kremlin. In Budva, voluntary associations were formed on site which helped their insertion into the local context, promoting harmony between Russian and Ukrainian citizens opposed to the ongoing war, an uncommon convergence in the current European geopolitical context.
Despite the economic dependence on Russian capital, for the majority of Montenegrins, it is important to continue the path towards full integration into the EU, which to date sees 33 negotiating chapters open, but still many unresolved issues, such as the fight against corruption and the state of justice, the Achilles’ heels of the Balkan country.
The ease of tax avoidance has allowed Russian capital to find refuge in Montenegro and it is clear that this is one of the main aspects on which the European Union will judge the country’s progress towards the integration of the entire Balkan mosaic into the European family, an elemental long-term strategy for Brussels. (Open Photo: Montenegro Flag wooden sign with mountains background. iStock/ gustavofrazao)

Lorenzo Pallavicini/CgP

From Baby Doc to Aristide.

Thursday, 1 August 2024 8:00

The occupation of the country implemented by Washington opened the way for big US capital eager to extend their control over the sugar cane plantations and other sources of wealth.

Washington, in particular, took care to secure its investments by establishing an impressive police force with the task of guaranteeing order and peace but above all the defence of the interests of its capital. However, it is important to reiterate that the reasons for the US military occupation did not only concern the strictly commercial aspect but also the strategic military aspect due to the fact that, following the opening of the Panama Canal, Haiti had assumed an extremely privileged position for the control of the routes that passed through the Caribbean Sea. Securing control of the island would have guaranteed the United States the power to maintain the security of the Caribbean routes.
The American occupation, which ended in 1934, however, gave the Haitians a country with some more infrastructure but with an economy in tatters. A country literally on its knees that would soon force its inhabitants to migrate to nearby Santo Domingo to find work in the sugar cane plantations. Competition with local workers and a deep-rooted racist spirit resulted in ethnic cleansing that caused 20,000 Haitian victims by the Dominican army.

François Duvalier, also known as Papa Doc, was the president of Haiti from 1957 until his death in 1971. File archive

The corpses collected from a small river that flows on the border between the two countries led those who wanted to keep the memory of that vile extermination alive, to rename the waterway with the name of Riviére du Massacre.
The economic crisis in Haiti lasted until the 1940s. Furthermore, the end of the US occupation led to a resumption of conflict between mulattoes and blacks with the army beginning to take on an increasingly marked role in the political life of the country.
In 1946, Dumarsais Estimé, a supporter of the black cause, rose to the presidency but his commitment to remedying the country’s inequalities was strongly opposed by both the mulatto elite and the army, both supporters of a corrupt government. In 1949 a military junta led by Paul Magloire deposed the President in office, grabbing power and maintaining it until the 1957 elections which decreed the rise of Francois Duvalier, known as the “Doc Pope”. The latter, who presented himself to his electorate with a rather exotic program, imbued with mystical, racist and nationalist elements, governed in a dictatorial manner supported by US military and financial aid. In 1964 he declared himself President for life and upon his death in 1971, he was succeeded by his son Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as “Baby Doc”.
The period mentioned was truly terrible for Haiti which transformed into a deadly place where ethnic confrontation became increasingly bloody and exacerbated. Those were the years of violence, looting, torture, human burnings and hangings practiced by the paramilitaries of the “Tonton Macoutes”, a death squad created by “Papa Doc” to eliminate his political opponents and all those who dared to put his regime in a bad light. They were almost three decades of theft, corruption, state terrorism, persecution, torture, poverty, and social marginalization throughout the country. This series of factors caused a popular uprising in 1986 which, in addition to throwing the country definitively into chaos, forced the President into exile. Power passed into the hands of the army and the presidency was entrusted to Henry Namphy, a lieutenant very close to Duvalier who was also ousted in the following years by another coup d’état.

Jean-Claude Duvalier, nicknamed “Baby Doc” was the President of Haiti from 1971 until he was overthrown by a popular uprising in February 1986. File Archive

However, the dismissal of Jean-Claude Duvalier “Baby Doc” did not lead to the suppression of the Tonton Macoutes paramilitary group which, while still active, recycled itself in more death squads, and then later merged into the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), a creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
In the meantime, a popular movement of Catholic origin led by Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a spokesperson for liberation theology, began to make headway in the country. Father Aristide became an important voice for most of Haiti’s poor; a popularity that pushed him to go beyond his mission and take to the field, running for leadership of the country with a new formation he founded himself, the “Front National pour le Changement et la Démocratie”.
In 1991 Aristide, defeating Marc Bazin – the US-backed candidate and former World Bank official – in free elections with 67% of the votes, won the presidency of Haiti. However, despite his success, the new president lasted only a few months in office since on 29 September 1991 he was overthrown in a military coup and was consequently exiled, first to Venezuela and then to the USA. According to the theories of careful observers, it would seem that the reason for this coup was to be found in the intense anti-drug campaign that the President had tried to implement and in his opposition to neo-liberal policies. A few years later, Aristide was allowed by Bill Clinton (recently elected President) to return to his homeland. In the meantime, the pressure exerted by the international community, together with Resolution no. 940 of the United Nations Security Council of 31 July 1994, convinced the military regime to resign while US troops were deployed in Haiti by order of Clinton. Returning to his homeland, Aristide was able to continue his mandate on the condition, however, of carrying out the economic program of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), terms and conditions which he accepted and which allowed him to return to Haiti with 20,000 US soldiers in stand-by for the transition where he remained in power until the 1996 elections when he was succeeded by René Préval. He regained office in the 2001 elections but, only a few years later, in 2004, he was eliminated again by a new coup d’état that broke out in the midst of a political crisis that forced him into exile.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide won the 1990–91 Haitian general election, with 67% of the vote. He was briefly president until a September 1991 military coup. Aristide was president again from 1994 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2004. He was ousted in the 2004 coup d’éta. Photo: Daniel Morel

It is easy to understand how the end of Aristide’s Presidency was part of a very broad geopolitical, geostrategic and geoeconomic logic. In fact, Aristide, although initially accepting the IMF’s conditions, had however refused to implement the privatization of companies and moved the geopolitical centre of gravity towards the south, establishing a network of relationships with the governments of Chàvez and Castro. Furthermore, his range of action did not stop at the continent alone. The President, in fact, began to court the new poles of power.
Following the coup, Resolution No. 1542 was approved by the United Nations Security Council whose purpose was to train the Haitian National Police force and to provide peace and security for the population. Thus, a Provisional Multinational Force (FMP) was sent to the country, initially formed by the United States, France, Canada and Chile and which, upon the expiry of its mandate, was replaced in 2004 by a special mission, the MINUSTAH (Mission of the Nations United for the Stabilization of Haiti). (Open Photo: Presidential Palace. Photo: Daniel Morel)
F. R.

Between Environmental Catastrophes and Poverty.

Thursday, 1 August 2024 8:00

The year 2017 saw the end of the MINUSTAH special mission made up of around 7,000 soldiers belonging to an international force provided by 19 states most of them Latin American.

In addition to the failure to obtain the results it should have achieved, it was tainted by serious scandals linked to episodes of sexual violence and a cholera epidemic, attributable to the Nepalese contingent, which devastated the country already affected by the 2010 earthquake whose very strong earthquake of magnitude 7.0 – with an epicentre located about 25 km south-west of the capital – caused approximately 222,517 victims and left 2.3 million people homeless and housed in tent cities or other makeshift homes. According to experts, the earthquake, which was quite atypical in nature, appears to have been caused by a vertical shift of the tectonic plates along a hitherto unknown fault. This atypicality, also revealed by the fact that earthquakes in the region are the result of horizontal displacements of the plates, has led scholars from the University of Miami to suppose that the earthquake could have been triggered by a series of geological phenomena that affected the area, including the deforestation of the mountains west of the capital Port Au Prince and the hurricanes that hit the region in 2008. In the opinion of experts, in fact, the heavy rains would have accelerated the process of soil erosion facilitated by deforestation with the consequence that the eroded mass, from the mountains towards the epicentre, could have created pressure on the earth’s crust such as to generate vertical sliding.

The 2010 earthquake caused approximately 222,517 victims and left 2.3 million people homeless and housed in tent cities or other makeshift homes. File swm

But in addition to the terrible earthquake of 2010, what made the conditions of the local population even more terrifying and precarious was the impact of Hurricane Matthew which in 2016 overwhelmed the country with unprecedented violence and gusts of wind of up to 200 kilometres per hour, causing the deaths of hundreds of people and the loss of thousands of homes. Subsequently, in 2021, a new earthquake caused the death of a further 2,247 people, facilitating the return of cholera and the new food crisis which still dramatically affects the population today. In fact, according to the results of an estimate produced by the IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification), the problem has reached exorbitant and unmanageable peaks with almost five million people – about half the country’s population – barely managing to feed themselves. However, it should be clarified that the food crisis is not a contingent situation, but has a substantially structural nature and is caused by countless factors including food aid programs and land grabbing which, over the years, by flooding the country with food produced by agribusiness companies and by grabbing the lands of small farmers, not only have they not solved the problem but have, on the other hand, weakened local agriculture and changed the eating habits of the inhabitants.

Poverty affects as many as 80% of the population. 123rf

Among the areas most affected by the food famine are the Artibonite valley – the breadbasket of the country – where armed groups have taken control of agricultural land and stolen crops, the rural areas of Grand’Anse in the south and several poor neighbourhoods of the capital, including Croix des Bouquets and Cité Soleil, which saw pockets of catastrophic hunger in late 2022.
Closely connected to the issue of hunger is poverty, which affects as many as 80% of the population, and the difficulty in accessing water due to the absence of structures capable of managing the resource, with the immediate consequence of the proliferation of pathologies. resulting from these critical issues (in fact, some data show that 90% of Haitian children suffer from water-borne diseases and intestinal infections). Then there is the problem of AIDS, respiratory infections, meningitis, typhoid and the lack of health infrastructure. Furthermore, 47% of the population over 15 years of age are illiterate and almost 75% of the houses are made of tin, wood and cardboard, and have no sanitation facilities. In addition to the extreme conditions of poverty and destitution, the country is also burdened by unprecedented levels of violence practised by criminal gangs under whose control large portions of the population live in daily worsening conditions. F.R.

India. A mission among the tea-growers.

Thursday, 1 August 2024 8:00

Among the ethnic groups of the Indian state of West Bengal, the missionaries accompany a Christian community that is very poor but proud of its roots.

A single asphalt road winds through the brilliant green of tea shrubs. Arriving in the evening, along the way you come across motorbike headlights or cell phone flashlights. Groups of children hidden in the darkness giggle and welcome visitors with the Indian Christian greeting “Jai Yeshu,” clasping their hands in front of them. We are in the parish of Kharubanga, among the tea-growing villages of Darjeeling, in the Indian state of West Bengal. Continuing along the road you reach the site of a church under construction. Upon arrival we meet Father Bala Showri Yaruva, originally from Andhra Pradesh, in the south of the country, who tells us: “We are building a bigger church because, during the celebrations, most people had to follow Mass from the courtyard”.
This a sign of the religious fervour of the community made up mostly of Adivasis, an indigenous population of India who is often relegated
to the margins of society.

Woman tea picker working in tea plantation. 123rf

In this case, the distance between the ethnic groups compared to the rest of India is also physical: Kharubanga, made up of eight villages (about 400 families with a total of 1,700 people), is part of the diocese of Bagdogra, but is far from the big cities and away from the main road heading north that leads to Siliguri, the city that represents the centre for trade on the border with Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet.
In the villages, on the contrary, there are only a few sheet metal shacks selling basic necessities.
“Our parishioners struggle to escape the reality of their villages”, continues Father Bala, a PIME missionary who in his ministry in the parish is supported by Father Xaviour Ambati, who started this mission four years earlier after years of experience in Cameroon. “Most of the people speak only their local language and cannot read or write Hindi”, the lingua franca of the northern states of India, “much less English”, the missionary explains, “For this reason, even if one earns very little in the village, no one tries to move. And those who do so return to Kharubanga after a few months.”

Tea plantations
Most Adivasis are employed on tea plantations: the working day begins at 8 am and ends at 5 pm, with an hour for lunch, six days a week. The leaves, collected by hand, are piled into large bags which are emptied into small trucks at the end of the day. Left to dry in warehouses for four days, they are then ready to be packaged and shipped all over the world. The plantation workers, however, do not participate in the division of the profits: the daily wage is only 250 rupees, just over 2.50 euros, and is paid only during the dry season, because in the monsoon period, from June to August, the fields are all flooded and it is impossible to work.

Women working hard on a tea plantation 123rf

“For a harvest exceeding 15 kilos a bonus is granted, but the money is still insufficient, barely enough to buy food for a week and send a child to school”, Father Bala adds. Children and young people, therefore, often run around the streets, and no one checks that they go to class. The local government school officially has only nine students enrolled, because the majority of Adivasi children attend primary school which the bishop of Bagdogra, Monsignor Vincent Aind, has decided to entrust to the missionaries together with the parish. The arrival of Father Ambati has allowed a leap in quality: six local teachers have been hired (whose salaries vary from 5,000 to 7,000 rupees a month, between 55 and just under 80 euros) and the families are asked for an annual fee of 200 rupees. A sum that, however little, many are still unable to provide.

Woman pick tea leaves. 123rf

To give support to the teachers (who have not received specific training) the missionary – also originally from Andhra Pradesh – called two Missionaries of the Immaculate, Sister Nirmala Beck and Sister Carmela Ekka. Both come from the state of Jharkhand, where the local culture is similar to that of the parishioners of Kharubanga, who mostly belong to the Kurukh tribe, also called Oraon.
Groups of Sadri and Santali also live in the diocese of Bagdogra, whose languages resemble more closely resemble Hindi while the Kurukh language remains incomprehensible to the missionaries. For this reason, the help of the two nuns is fundamental: “We waited a year and a half to come here because there wasn’t even a house where we could stay”, says Sister Nirmala, the older of the two. “It’s a difficult mission because there is nothing here. It is challenging, especially due to the poor levels of education and because there is also so much to do for the missionary animation of young people. But that’s the beauty of challenges. And being in the midst of the greenery of the tea plantations is beautiful.”

School under a tree. MM

In the morning the missionaries work as teachers in the parish primary school. Lessons are held outdoors, in the shade of the trees in the garden. In the afternoon, however, Sister Nirmala and Sister Carmela give tutoring: “Even a little girl as young as three asked us to give her a lesson”, explains Sister Carmela, laughing. Sometimes the two nuns also help the PIME priests, who learned Hindi on the mission, because in Southern India it is not always taught in school.
The nuns go to visit the families of the villages together with the fathers. Riding the motorbike, we travel along the only road that connects homes and tea plantations to listen to the problems of the parishioners: many wives say they have been left by their husbands and ask for help with the bureaucracy. In other houses, there is a need for the support of missionaries because there are those who drink too much, often fermented rice produced locally. “But we see the worst situations when someone gets sick,” says Father Bala.
Although the companies that manage the plantations have made emergency health services available, the hospitals, in addition to being far away, are also very expensive for Adivasis: most people prefer not to go there. “They also turn to us for medicines because no one can afford them”, the priest continues. “During Mass, we do not receive monetary offerings, but kilos of rice and potatoes, which we resell at a lower price to the poorest families”, comments the missionary. The parishioners then go to the fathers’ house to obtain the priests’ signature on the baptism and marriage certificates, or to get drinking water from the cistern, built thanks to funding from the Institute. “There are also other tanks amongst the villages that were built by the government, but maintenance is not done, so they become unusable.”

Most Adivasis are employed on tea plantations: the working day begins at 8 am and ends at 5 pm . MM

Despite the lack of resources and extreme poverty, the inhabitants of Kharubanga are still happy and proud to be part of the Christian community and at the same time have maintained their tribal traditions. The young people rejoice at the presence of the religious at their engagement parties, which take place according to tradition: the future spouses, sitting facing each other in the middle of the community, exchange a lit candle and then drink some water from the other’s cup. The celebrations last until late at night: “We Southern Indians – comments Father Bala – are not used to all these group dances and songs”, rigorously accompanied by the mandar, the typical elongated tribal drum.But the most important indigenous festival remains that of Karam, celebrated every year between the end of August and the beginning of September to ask for an abundant harvest. The name derives from that of the kadamba tree, an evergreen from which perfume is obtained. For the occasion, the Adivasis wear the typical white clothes embroidered in red and once again they dance to the rhythm of the mandars. “There is still a lot to do for the people here – says Father Bala -. The church will be inaugurated in November. But it is important not to force things: our job is to accompany this community as best we can.” (Illustration 123rf)
Alessandra De Poli/MM

Photo Gallery – Jubilee 2025. Pilgrims of Hope

Advocacy

Baobab

Youth & Mission