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The Jacaranda. Floral Magic

When southern spring blooms, the streets of Harare and Pretoria are tinged with purple and lilac. In Zimbabwe and South Africa, during the spring season, which in the southern hemisphere begins in September, the large cities are coloured by the flowering of thousands of jacaranda trees (imported from South America at the end of the nineteenth century) which decorate pavements, streets and gardens.

In Zimbabwe, the southern spring blooms in all its splendour in the month of October. Leaving behind Samora Machel Avenue, the great central artery of the capital Harare, with its chaotic traffic, its skyscrapers and ministerial buildings, we cross the city northwards, along the streets that lead to the residential neighbourhoods with graceful colonial houses surrounded by lush gardens.

Beautiful violet vibrant jacaranda in bloom. Spring in South Africa. Pretoria. 123rf

The view is lost in the greenery of the parks, encountering the new face of the city, but, as soon as one crosses Josiah Tongogara Street, the visitor’s eyes and mouth open wide in ecstasy at the fantastic vision that welcomes them.As if transported into a fairytale, you enter a tunnel with a completely purple vault almost a kilometre long. It is one of the many purple avenues of the city, where the foliage of the jacaranda trees that grow along both sides of the road come together to form a canopy which in spring is tinged with the purple colour of thousands of flowers, and when the petals fall to the ground, even the grey asphalt is coloured, creating a purplish carpet.
The best place to admire this explosion of colours is the wonderful avenue of Takawira Street, but jacaranda trees can be found in almost all gardens and city parks. In addition: the tree is present in many other capitals of southern Africa, such as Lilongwe, Lusaka and Gaborone. But it is above all in South Africa that this tree puts on a show. Cape Town is caressed by the purple of these flowering trees, but Pretoria is the city that holds the record, so much so that it is often called “Jacaranda City”.

Exterior view of the Great Hall at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. South Africa. 123rf

Here there are over seventy thousand trees that decorate pavements, streets and gardens and which attract thousands of visitors with their flowering every year. The student tradition of the city, with the famous University of Pretoria, says that if jacaranda petals fall on the head of an examinee, he will pass the exam. In Pretoria the jacaranda has earned the nickname “exams tree” because the exam period coincides with its flowering!Despite having become one of Southern Africa’s most iconic trees, the jacaranda tree is not indigenous to the African continent. Imported for urban decorative use in the 19th century by European settlers, Jacaranda Mimosifolia is native to South America, where it grows widely in Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil at altitudes between 1,500 and 2,500 meters above sea level.

Purple jacaranda trees lining a street in Pretoria. South Africa. 123rf

With its reddish trunk with relatively smooth bark and wide, uniform foliage, the jacaranda can reach 20 meters in height. Paripinnate and compound leaves grow from thin branches, up to 45 centimetres long, but the leaflets do not exceed one centimetre. The composition of leaflets, which can reach up to twenty pairs in the main leaf, is vaguely reminiscent of a fern.
The flowers are certainly the most fascinating part of the tree, with its characteristic purple, lilac or, more rarely, white colour. They grow to a peak in spring towards the end of September and into October, and last for about two months. The fruits appear in the form of woody capsules, whose shape resembles an oyster; and, just like the shell of an oyster, they open, releasing the winged seeds, which then spread and germinate.Despite being classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a “vulnerable” species, the jacaranda is a highly invasive tree, so much so that South Africa has decided to ban its proliferation in gardens. Only its enormous popularity prevented a massive eradication campaign. (Photo: Herd of Waterbucks standing in Savannah of Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary, Swaziland. 123rf)

Gianni Bauce/Africa

The importance of African Names.

In many African cultures, one cannot call directly the name of a person whose rank is higher than one’s own. Father, mother, uncle, aunt, sister and brother… is all you will hear in some families.

Moreover, in Africa, names are not given casually. They are given solemnly in a naming ceremony. There are sometimes cases when given names are rejected. Signs like the abnormal crying of the baby, mysterious diseases are warnings that the naming of the baby has been delayed or that the wrong name has been given to the baby.
Twin babies, babies born face down, babies coming out of the womb legs first, those who are born with the umbilical cord around their waist etc. have special or fixed names in almost all African cultures. In Uganda, there are names that indicate time (Onyango, Owori, Nabwire), season (Okot, Obonyo), human activities (Odoi, Nnamirimu) etc…

Senegal. Transport of African children on the cart from school. In west Africa, names like; Koffi, Kossi, Kodjo, etc.. are all names indicating the day when the child was born. 123rf

In west Africa, names like; Koffi, Kossi, Kodjo, Kwasi, Kwaku etc.. are all names indicating the day when the child was born.
In Uganda, we mainly have Sunday, Friday and Monday, to show that the child is a cosmic entity. The name situates the person who carries it in time and space socialized by the group that gives it. The naming ceremony is therefore a ritual of identification. It is an answer to the following questions: Where does this child come from? Who has sent him/her? Which ancestor has re-incarnated in him/her ontologically or symbolically? The discovery of the right name is the result of efforts
and pre-occupations.
At birth, a baby is examined up to the smallest detail and all his/her resemblances are examined carefully, whether to a deceased adult of the family or to a child of the same mother who died. In this latter case, there is the suspicion that it may be a malignant spirit which transforms itself into babies that die in infancy in order to disturb the family and to deny posterity to the mother in question. This is the reason why still born babies have their legs tied before being buried unceremoniously. The message to the baby is: “don’t come back.” Sometimes, the dreams of the mother, especially about the ancestors are taken into considerations; the family may even seek the services of a diviner if things are not so clear.

In Uganda, there are names that indicate time. File swm

The naming ceremony is also a ritual of orientation. The baby will have to follow his/her model, although this does not mean that he/she will not develop his/ her own personality. The name is both a symbol of openness and a sign of pre-determinism. Telling one’s name is revealing oneself, exposing one’s program of life and showing that freedom can only be exercised
in determinism.
Among the Ugandan Westerners (Banyankole, Bakiga, Banyoro, Batooro), the Banyarwanda and the Barundi, theophoric names i.e., names connected with God. In Western Uganda, names like; Tumuhimbise (we praise God) Tumusiime (we thank God), Tumuramye (we adore God), Twinomuhangi (we are with God) Tumwesigye (we trust God), Mbabazi (God is merciful), Mubangizi (God is our protector) are very common. They show God’s intervention in the family and the confidence of the family in God’s solicitude. They also express a pact between God and his creatures.
The Bakonjo and the Barundi often give names which indicate the position of the child in the line of his siblings. Paluku or Baluku is the first male child in Bakonjo family while Nyabenda is the nineth
in a family of the Barundi.

Uganda. Most of the Baganda have clan names. File swm

Names are delicate in African cultures. The modern policy of calling a mother by the name of her first child, e.g. Maama Joseph, is a way of avoiding her name. The petty names of the Banyoro and Batooro (Akiki, Abwoli etc) may also serve the same purpose.
Most of the Baganda have clan names. Apart from showing to which clan one belongs, the names help to reinforce exogamy: one cannot marry from his or her clan or from the clan of his or her mother. These clan names also reveal one’s connection with the Kabaka (King) since every clan has a special service to the monarch.
One curious thing among the Nilotics is that many of them are “negative” names. Names like Bitho (he will die), Drani (death) Ocan (poor, sufferer), are very rare among the Bantu. The Bantu prefer “positive” names like Ssanyu (Joy), Busingye (Peace), Mbabazi (mercy) etc.
We have here two ways of wading off evil. While the Bantu avoid it by not talking about it, the Nilotics face it squarely and call it by name as a way of keeping it at bay. The modern tendency of changing one’s name at will sometimes leads to absurdity. Girls who give themselves male names or names of their fathers may lead to the confusion as to who is wife or daughter. Whatever was done to find the right name for the person, the circumstances around his/her birth, the importance of the ancestor after whom the person was named— are all lost when the person changes his/her name arbitrarily. (Photo: Young happy girl and boy near sea water on the tropical beach in island of Zanzibar, Tanzania. 123rf)

Edward Kanyike

 

 

Kenya. Turkana. Land, Lake and People

To cope with increasingly recurring droughts and animal deaths, the northern ethnic group, equipped with a solid culture, is changing its habits. Agriculture takes the place of pastoralism, due also to targeted initiatives by the missionaries of Saint Paul.

From the rocky hill, the view of the semi-arid plain is of a beauty that is difficult to express in words. It extends endlessly, empty, without any houses or traces left by man, so open and empty that it seems like a sea and not a plain. Behind us, above the hill, the mountains rise, glistening in the hot sun. The rocks appear wet but in reality, it is just the reflection of light on these volcanic stones.

Very little water flows here in northern Turkana. File swm

Very little water flows here in northern Turkana where Kenya borders Ethiopia, even though Google Maps tells us that we are in South Sudan. Turkana takes its name from the people who have always inhabited it, a population of semi-nomadic shepherds whose footprint on the territory is small, certainly less invasive than the thousands of red termite mounds that rise like columns. The borders are drawn by the states, but these spaces are continually crossed, following their animals, also by other peoples similar to the Turkana, such as the Nyangatom from the north or the Toposa from the west. Sometimes, they come into conflict when drought hits hard and animals begin to die.

Far from Nairobi
We are in Lobur, one of the headquarters of the missionaries of the Catholic Missionary Community of Saint Paul, of Spanish origin, whose members, mostly African, have various communities scattered in this part of Kenya. Their activities are also a spotlight on the county’s problems. Turkana is very different from the other 47 counties into which the country is divided.

Turkana, a population of semi-nomadic shepherds. File swm

It is an arid land, classified as semi-desert, subject to droughts, which are increasingly recurring due to climate change which is felt here more than anywhere else. The average temperature increased by 2 degrees between 1967 and 2012, and the rainy seasons are getting shorter. Turkana herders usually move two or three times a year during the rainy period (which is in November and from April to June) but the drought that has lasted since 2019 has changed their habits. It is estimated that around 440,000 animals died between then and mid-2022 and that 60% of the population is at food risk. In 2019, again as a result of climate change, there was a massive invasion of locusts from Yemen which depleted the vegetation already severely tested by drought. In Kenya, there are 44 different ethnic groups, each with its own language, but the Turkana people are certainly the most isolated and distant from Nairobi not only from the point of view of distance in kilometres but above all from that of education, health and food security.

Agriculture as the answer to drought
Lobur’s mission offers a small model of how to address the county’s major problems. The first is to find water, which is there, but deep in the ground. At the foot of the hill, there are green spaces where cultivation is carried out using the water extracted through American windmills or through pumps powered by solar panels which also serve to provide electricity given that the territory (like most of the county) has no electricity supply. Small dams are also built at natural collection points which serve to create water reserves. Continuing across the plain, we come across an agricultural farm created with the help of experts from the Israeli Arava Research Institute.

Women are more pragmatic. File swm

Some missionaries had met them in the kibbutzim where they had noticed their ability to cultivate even in areas that were extremely arid. The Furrows in the Desert project includes a training school aimed at aspiring Turkana farmers who within 6 months learn to cultivate even in a place where water is scarce and alkaline, therefore suitable only for certain types of vegetation such as squash, small local pumpkins, watermelons, local species of courgettes and spinach. The transition from pastoralism to agricultural activity is not such an immediate thing for a culture as strong as that of the Turkana. Men tend to reject it, but women understand its importance and step forward to manage large community gardens where water is distributed drop by drop. «We are not asking him to change culture but to introduce innovations such as cultivating the land – missionary Father Joe Githintji explains. During a drought, animals die but agriculture continues to give them food. If they produce, they can sell the vegetables and with the money earned, once the drought ends, they can buy back the livestock. It is virgin land, never cultivated before; they must discover this possibility.”

The Turkana County is an arid land, classified as semi-desert. File swm

For women, who are more pragmatic, it’s easy. A few kilometres away from there is a primary school run by the mission. Beyond the school, there are vast community gardens cultivated by women who irrigate them with water extracted from pumps powered by the wind. The produce is partly sold and partly cooked for the children who attend school. This is a way to convince families to send their children to school, given that they have at least one good meal a day there. In this way two objectives are achieved: nutrition and education. According to Save the Children, in Turkana, only half of school-age children are enrolled in primary school, well below the national average of 92%, while the adult literacy rate in the county is 20%.
Water, agriculture, education, and health are the services that these missionaries offer and the people, attracted by these opportunities, migrate and form new villages around the missions.

Violence and Conflict
In the far north of Turkana is the region called the Ilemi Triangle, which is a territory claimed by South Sudan. It is one of the many non-demarcated borders in Africa. There are more than a hundred and they must be resolved by 2027 for the African Union. In Kibish, the capital of the area, the missionary community of Saint Paul has its own outpost which it reaches every 10 days.
In these borderlands, there have historically been many conflicts between the Turkana and the Dassenech (Ethiopia), the Toposa (South Sudan) and, further west, the Karimojong (Uganda).

The government supplied semi-nomadic populations with automatic weapons. File swm

The problem worsened when, at the end of the twentieth century,(mostly Kalashnikovs) to defend themselves against theft of animals or attacks and it is quite common to see shepherds leading their livestock with a war rifle instead of a stick. Father Joe Githintji: «Since 2020 we have achieved peace in this territory and there are no more killings, even if further west on the borders of South Sudan there are still difficult situations». When there are criminal acts of this type, the Kenyan government acts quickly: it captures the thieves, punishes them and returns the animals.

The Lake
Lake Turkana, which runs along the entire length of the county to the east, is the largest desert lake in the world. About 250 kilometres long, it has alkaline water, not suitable for humans or even for irrigation. Despite this, the Turkana still drink for want of anything better incurring various physical problems (teeth and bones). In recent years the lake has been subject to contradictory phenomena: the Ethiopian government is building a dam on the Omo River which supplies 90% of the lake.
Once construction is completed, Turkana risks the same fate as the Aral Sea in Central Asia.

Lake Turkana is the largest desert lake in the world. File swm

In fact, however, the opposite phenomenon is taking place: Lake Turkana has expanded by 10% in the last 10 years, covering an area of approximately 800 km² and this is presumably due to the accumulation of sudden rains that do not dissipate. This causes desertification in the interior and floods on the shores of the lake which force the Turkana to abandon their villages and move inland: two opposite phenomena but both expressions of climate change. «The Turkana who live on the lake – claims Patrizia Annibaldi, a lay missionary from the missionary community of San Paolo in Nariokotome – are mostly fishermen and have this advantage over those who live only from sheep farming, but the lack of drinking water is still a serious problem for them.

Adaptability
The shepherd men, the women who look after their children, cook, erect and dismantle the house when they migrate: this is the traditional life of the Turkana. Will it be able to exist in the future or will it be swept away by modernity and climate change? If you ask these questions, the answer you get is always the same: Turkana culture is strong and will resist. «The Turkana belong to Turkana, to their land, not so much to Kenya – claims Peter Bii, a young aspiring missionary from the community in Lobur. They suffer from climate change, but they hope to solve the problem, they don’t want to leave their land.
If drought comes, they move, here the land is free, without owners, they move where there are dams.

They move to where there is water; they move and life continues.File swm

They move to where there is water; they move and life continues. They accept these difficulties, after all their life has always been hard.” However, this cultural solidity also allows change. During our trip, we met many young non-traditional Turkana people, such as Jacinta and Purity, two girls who were good at school and dressed in modern clothes. The community is proud of the new generations who go to school and does not hinder them; on the contrary, it helps them. Once they have finished their studies, they will decide what to do, whether to live in the city or return to their community to help it. Here too, Peter Bii has no doubts: «Even the emancipated prefer to return. Maybe they work for the government but they also work for their people.”

Nicola Rabbi

 

The Philippines. Preserving Nature in a Filipino Hermitage.

Four religious people have chosen to live in a hermitage community in the southeast of the Philippines, to live in silence and solitude,
and to awaken people’s interest in preserving nature and making
it more productive.

The Mary Mediatrix Hermitage in the landlocked province of North Cotabato sets an example on how to preserve nature, and properly and productively make use of it. The community opens its gate to the public not only to practice faith, but also to let them witness how they as hermits protect nature and make it meet human needs.
They also want people to see that tilling a land can be sustainable and self-sufficient with hard work, discipline, wisdom, technical know-how, and tested and proven practices. “The way the hermitage environment was designed reflects our advocacy for nature,” said Fr. Eugene Vincent De Jesus, Our Lady’s Hermitines (OLH) founding and leading community member. “We integrate awareness on how to care for the earth
in every activity we do here.”

Br. Juan Bulo (L) and Fr. Eugene De Jesus.

The community cultivates a food forest (an agroforestry system that mimics the structure and function of a natural forest but is designed to produce food, fuel, fibre, and other products) and practices permaculture (the growth of agricultural ecosystems in a self-sufficient and sustainable way) in its preservation and enrichment.Fruits and vegetables are grown by the hermits. Animals are raised in six and a half hectares of rolling land, which they have turned into a food forest over the past years. Following the food forest concept and observing permaculture principles, they grow canopy, understory, shrub, herbaceous, rhizosphere, groundcover, and climber plants. They grow durians, coconuts, forest bananas, and mangosteens. Señorita bananas have also been planted recently, creating multi-diversity in the farming of the land. North Cotabato – strategically located in central Mindanao – is regarded as the fruit basket of the country’s second-largest island.
It also borders Mt. Apo, the country’s most prominent peak, with an elevation of 2,954 meters above sea level. The religious men raise cows, sheep, chickens, geese, hogs, and turkeys. They also raise dogs
and cats as pets.

The Chapel of Yeshua can accommodate up to 200 people.

The foods that they produce are chiefly for their consumption. But their produce is more than enough for the needs of four men with a lifestyle of simplicity and sobriety toward material things. “We plant and raise animals for our food – Fr. De Jesus said – If we produce more than we need, we share them with whoever needs them.
For those who are financially capable, they pay us for what we share in return. Our livelihood is not primarily for profit but for the sustainability of the community.”People and friends make donations for further vegetation of the community’s land. Just recently, an individual sponsored the planting of pine and cypress trees-an act that serves as a testament to the community’s fruitful advocacy for the environment.
The community advocates the integrity of creation and promotes the Encyclical of Pope Francis ‘Laudato Si – On Care for Our Common Home’, said Fr. De Jesus.  A variety of tree seedlings are planted in open spaces of the six hectares of land. Over the past years, hundreds of people have joined the hermits to make the place greener by planting seedlings of an array of trees. The structures built by the hermits are literally in the middle of a forest, which they refer to as a food forest a source of life and protection for human life. But the hermits also see the destruction of the environment by man himself. They view man’s self-centeredness and tight attachment to materialism as tremendous threats to nature. To save nature from potential environmental disasters, man has to be reminded of his responsibility and capability to protect it for
the present and future generations.

Fr Eugene De Jesus with a group of people.

“The mindset of people who are still very anthropocentric and the prevailing culture of consumerism pose dangers to nature – Fr. De Jesus pointed out -. We counter these two threats with the lifestyle we live, espouse, and witness inside the hermitage.”
The hermitage was founded in Davao on the occasion of World Environment Day in June 2010. The Mary Mediatrix Hermitage in Kidapawan was built on the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, 2021. The community members observe silence and solitude. Each has his hut for solitude, prayer, and other private activities.
“Being hermits, we have a regular designated time for prayer and work daily based on our horarium,” said Fr. De Jesus. As hermits who value silence and solitude with a profound meaning, they also offer time for people who wish to see and talk with them in person. “Being with people has a specific purpose and time, too – he continued-. We always value our time for silence and prayer, but it does not mean that people are secondary only nor unimportant to us. Of course, above our horarium, we also are open when God’s calendar has to summon our attention.”

Volunteers during a planting activity in the hermitage community.

Observing silence and solitude separately, the hermits have particular times to see each other. “We only gather together during the celebration of the Eucharist and some special occasions,” Fr. De Jesus said. The mission of the hermits, the priest explained, is five-fold: IECHO, which stands for Intercessory Prayer, Earth Care, Companioning Searchers/Pilgrims, Hospitable Caring, and Ora et Labora (Prayer and Work). Fr. De Jesus was alone at the beginning. He described the idea of hermitage as an offshoot of a call within a call. “But God started to provide kindred souls,” he said. “Some had come and left. Others came and stayed.”
The community has built two chapels. The St. Joseph chapel, which can accommodate 150 people, is open for everyone any time of the day. The Chapel of Yeshua-Perpetual Adoration Chapel is limited to the use of the hermits only but is open to people on special occasions and can hold 200 individuals. Opening the community to people is part of the five-fold mission of the hermits, which are companioning pilgrims and searchers, and hospitable caring. The hermitage is within the sphere of the Kidapawan diocese. It carries on with its advocacy for safeguarding nature and inspiring people to work for the same end.
(Open Photo: 123rf)

Oliver Samson

 

Myanmar. The role of “Scam Cities”.

The fate of the war in Myanmar is intertwined with that of the “Scam Cities”, lawless places that produce money continuously and whose control is linked to billions in earnings.

For several months, a war has been underway in Myanmar for control of the border centre of Myawaddy on the Moei River, opposite the Thai city of Mae Sot. Almost entirely conquered by the Karen Resistance in April, the city once again returned to being the centre of clashes after the counter-offensive of the Burmese coup army which, in February 2021, ousted the government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Its value for the
‘rebels’ is very high: if conquered it would signal their total control
over all the country’s borders.

However, several elements make the situation in Miawaddy even more complex, including some small urban conglomerations overlooking the Moei River which marks the border between Myanmar and Thailand.

They are the so-called “Scam Cities” – a series of places built and controlled by the Chinese mafia in cahoots with compliant local governments and corrupt officials, specializing in cyber-crimes via the web and mobile phones.

It is a widespread reality, especially in Myanmar, but also present in other Southeast Asian countries and continuously expanding from east to west: from Southeast Asia to India, but also to Dubai and Georgia. Apparently, the Scam Cities are the real stakes in the battle on the Burmese-Thai border: criminal centres that produce money continuously and whose control would bring billions in profits.

Scam Cities are not simply call centres but real urban centres of recent construction, as in Myanmar or Laos, or even just more or less disguised buildings in some important Asian cities (such as Sihanoukville in Cambodia). Their control goes far beyond criminal dynamics: as the Burmese case demonstrates, the value of these cities is such that it can change the outcome of a conflict.

According to the United Nations, in South-East Asia alone the scam centres employ over two hundred thousand people, modern cyber-slaves, hired with the promise of large salary rewards through internet advertising or criminal employment offices.

The victims, the future “scammers”, are then deprived of their passports and telephones and are not released until they have reached a certain profit target. Those who try to escape or complain are beaten, tortured and even killed, as told by the stories collected among the rare fugitives by an international team that has been working for years on this criminal, violent and very well-structured phenomenon.

Scam Cities are born with a structure that sees the classic setting of the cities of vice: casinos, online gambling, prostitution, usury, human trafficking, blackmail and violence. But these buildings (compounds), in which there are cyber-slaves assigned to stay on their cell phones
for the whole day, are new.

The Burmese case is perhaps the most interesting because it links Scam Cities to war, a context that facilitates criminal profit. Miawaddy is a clear example of this. The Burmese Scam Cities were born a few years ago along the borders with China and Thailand as large or small border gambling centres. But after the Resistance reconquered these conglomerations on the Chinese border last year with the famous Operation 1027 at the end of 2023, business moved to the border with Thailand, strengthening the Scam Cities already present.

In 2024, however, the Karen Resistance attacked Myawaddy, allying itself with the Border Brigades (BGF), an army of Karen militiamen who, after the coup, had unequivocally sided with the military junta in exchange for protection for the Scam Cities they have controlled since cyber-crimes their creation. The BGF, which transformed into the Karen National Army (KNA) in February, fought alongside the Karen National Liberation
Army (KNLA – the historical force of Karen autonomy),
but only for a short time.

Recently they have changed sides again by allying themselves once more with the military coup leaders and guaranteeing them the possibility of regaining the lost ground in Myawaddy. No wonder: The commander of the BGF-KNA – Colonel Saw Chit Thu – is in fact closely linked to the creation of Shwe Kokko, the headquarters of the BGF-KNA and Scam City par excellence, a few kilometres from Myawaddy.

It therefore seems that these variable alliances – and therefore the outcome of the war – also depend essentially on who will be able to control and manage the Scam Cities that the Karen Resistance says it wants to eliminate while the BGF (and the military junta) want to continue to operate, limiting themselves only to some superficial operations.

A recent Justice for Myanmar investigation into Scam City explains that “The BGF/KNA is led by Saw Chit Thu, a colonel, general secretary and senior advisor to the militia group…who has become a leading figure in the splinter group Karen Democratic Buddhist Army (DKBA).), who signed a ceasefire with the then military junta.

In 2010, the DKBA was transformed into a ‘Border Guard Force’…benefitting, in exchange for integration into Myanmar’s military command, material battlefield support provided by the army and space to build lucrative criminal businesses. The Myanmar army in turn has benefited from the revenue derived from them.”

The dossier was probably ready for months, but during the provisional alliance between BGF/KNA and KNLA, it was kept at a standstill. Now, however, it has been made public and reconstructs the entire chain of command and control of the Scam Cities along the border. The BGF denies all accusations as well as its about-face to the detriment of the Karen Resistance.

How much is all this worth? According to the UNODC, illicit financial flows in the Mekong region suggest that “the scam industry in a single country in the region could generate between 7.5 and 12.5 billion dollars or half the gross domestic product of the country itself”. Very relative estimates and probably underestimated. Sufficient profit of which to be in control. (Open Photo: The border gate in Myawaddy. CC BY-SA 3.0/Go-Myanmar

Emanuele Giordana/ISPI

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful Kaya.

Kaya was the most beautiful girl in the village. All the boys courted her, each bringing her small gifts. There were so many invitations from her suitors that she never had a moment’s freedom.

Rich in virtue too, Kaya was the pride of her parents. But she liked only one young man: the son of the village chief and a great warrior.

All the women in the village tried to seduce him, but he refused to marry. Every evening, the beautiful Kaya, dressed in a beautiful pagne, went to sing at the door of the man she liked. Her hair braided with coloured pearls and her bracelets beautiful, she tried by all means to attract his attention.

Unfortunately, nothing happened! In desperation, the young woman decided to stop worrying about her appearance and instead make herself loved for the beauty of her soul. So, she went to the village fetishist and explained her problem.

Saddened by Kaya’s tale, he threw a handful of herbs into a pot, added the ashes of the dead and, uttering the ritual phrases, handed the girl a steaming bowl of the mixture. She took a sip and suddenly her features became swollen and distorted, her hair fell out in clumps, her mouth twisted into a horrible grimace and she began to stammer.

After the magic session, the young woman recovered and returned to her village. When she arrived there, unrecognizable, she was thought to be a poor, ugly beggar. No one dared to chase her away, but no one spoke to her or brought her food. From that moment on, her life became
sad and monotonous.

Whatever kind gestures the poor girl made, no one would approach her. Children teased her and threw stones at her; dogs bit her; men laughed at her appearance and none of them dreamed of courting her. Without ceasing to wonder if she had gone too far in making herself ugly, the girl began to waste away. A cloth merchant who had come to the village saw her and was immediately touched by her melancholy and goodness. He took care of her for a few days and eventually fell in love with her.

He then asked her to be his wife, assuring her that he thought she was the most beautiful girl in the village. Overwhelmed with happiness, Kaya realized that she was finally loved for who she was. And she accepted the man’s offer with all her heart. On their wedding day, everyone attended the ceremony with the intention of mocking the bride.

But as soon as the marriage was sanctioned, a purple cloud rose up around her, restoring her to her original beauty. The husband, concerned only with his companion’s soul, took no notice of the metamorphosis. Instead, a great murmur of surprise spread through the room. And all the young men, unable to forgive themselves for having mocked the most beautiful girl in the village, wrung their hands in anger at not being there in the place of the happy groom.

Since then, many men have married ugly girls in the hope of waking up next to a beautiful creature the day after the wedding. (Pixabay)

Folktale from Fon People, Benin

Kenya. Mombasa. The first East African port, threatened by congestion and competition.

It is East Africa’s first port, but its development is being challenged by a series of rival projects in Berbera and Djibouti to the north, and Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo to the south. Almost everywhere, the Emirati company DP World controls the traffic.

By far, the port of Mombasa which was built before Portuguese explorers arrived in the region and was known as “the city of merchants”, is the largest on the eastern coast of Africa. In 2023, the total volume of cargo discharged and loaded at the port reached 35.96 million tonnes. It also handled 1.62 million TEU of containers representing 61 percent of its total capacity of 2.65 million TEU. The state-owned Kenyan Port Authority (KPA) which manages the port expects the traffic of Mombasa to increase up to 47 million tonnes by 2025.
The wider Mombasa port complex now managed by the Danish company AP Moller Maersk, comprises 19 berths, a grain terminal, 2 oil terminals, 6 container berths and 12 berths that handle general cargo. It includes the Kilindini Harbour , the Mbaraki wharf operated by the Bamburi Cement company and the Mbaraki Bulk Terminal that deals with petroleum products. The port also hosts the biggest grain handling facility in Africa. Leading exports include avocado, coffee, tea, vegetables, cashew nuts, fish fillets, and other foodstuffs and beverages.

Port of Mombasa. Cargo operations in the container terminal. Shutterstock/ Ungureanu Catalina Oana.

Transit cargo accounts for about 20 percent of the total volume of traffic since Mombasa is the main outlet for Uganda which accounts for 61 percent of the transit traffic as against 17 percent for South Sudan and four percent for Rwanda. It is also the main outlet for the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo which account for 14 percent of the transit volume. According to the KPA, cargo destined for Burundi through Mombasa more than doubled in the first six months of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. Such traffic is facilitated by railway connections to Uganda and Tanzania and road connections to South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Rwanda and Burundi.
According to KPA’s Managing Director William Ruto, the improved performance is owed to increased efficiency in operations including the expansion of container handling berths, increased automation of services, acquisition of modern ship and cargo handling equipment. The container vessel turnaround time has improved indeed from an average of three days in 2022 to two days in 2023, reducing the dwell time for containers to three days, from four days.
Yet, the port of Mombasa risks to lose its regional leadership. Kenya’s neighbours are indeed expanding and modernising their port infrastructures. Mombasa’s position is under threat namely because of the ascendance of political considerations over economic interests, claim maritime business sources.
In 2015, the KPA and DP World were encouraged by the Kenyan government to set up a partnership but docker unions who feared job cuts and privatisation opposed to the move.
In a report published in 2022, the London-based African-led Advisory services firm GBS warned that the dominance of Mombasa is being challenged by other regional facilities that are less resistant to badly needed reform. Maritime consultants warn indeed about the “shrinking capacity” at the Mombasa Port which is suffering from congestion, delays, mismanagement and frequent industrial action, accordingly. Kenyan ports have been facing increasing pressure due to rising cargo volume and limited capacity which led to delays in cargo handling and increased costs for shipping companies.

Kilindini Harbour, Mombasa. Photo: CC BY-SA 2.0/Andrew Thomas

Contrasting with William Ruto’s optimistic perspective, a report over the best performing container harbours, published in 2022 by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence, lists in that order Djibouti, Berbera in Somaliland, Mogadishu and Dar Es Salaam as more performing than Mombasa. One symptom of the congestion problems in the Kenyan port is the 20 percent decrease to 2.3 million tonnes of the volume of transshipment cargo destined for other ports.
“Africa’s Ports: Fast-tracking Transformation” report lists Mombasa, along with Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Cape Town, South Africa, as facilities with short-term infrastructure deficits. The report, compiled by the Africa CEO Forum and Okan, a strategy and financial advisory firm, says that without investment, the situation risks worsening in the face of growing demand. Globally, shipowners are looking to maximise profits by carrying more cargo on fewer but larger ships, which can reach 20,000 TEU capacity. Ports are increasingly challenged to provide space to accommodate these monsters.
Dar es Salaam Port is undertaking infrastructural and institutional reforms which may threaten Kenya’s position as a regional hub if plans to build six berths there and in Bagamoyo with public-private partnership financing go ahead. The US$ 421 million Dar es Salaam Maritime Gateway Project (DMGP) is being implemented since 2017 to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Dar es Salaam Port. The project, co-financed by the Tanzanian government, the World Bank and the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, involves the reconstruction and deepening of seven berths to 14.5 metres in order to enable the port to handle large vessels.

Container terminal in port of Mombasa. 123rf

In October 2023, the Dubai-based global port operator DP World signed a 30-year concession agreement with the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) to operate and modernise the Dar es Salaam Port, connecting it to the hinterland through a network of roads, highways, railways, and dedicated freight corridors. This modernisation includes investments in cold storage facilities to enhance the agricultural sector,
According to the Shippers Council of Eastern Africa (SCEA), the lobby representing importers and exporters of goods, Ugandan and Rwandan companies are gradually increasing volumes through Dar Es Salaam via the central corridor of only 1,300 km through Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Eastern DRC. Dar es Salaam is becoming a regional transshipment hub for tea, coffee, tobacco, oilseeds, cotton, sisal, cashew nuts and copper although it also faces congestion problems. The average waiting period for a ship to offload cargo is five days there. By end 2023, the KPA reported that some ships destined for Tanzania were being diverted to Mombasa.

A beautiful view from a boat of the waving sea and the green coastline in Lamu. The Lamu Port is meant to replace Mombasa’s Kilindini harbour as Kenya’s largest port facility.123rf

Despite the competition, cargo volumes at Mombasa and Dar es Salaam ports have kept growing. In January 2024, Tanzania announced the completion of the DMGP and plans to expand its maritime infrastructure as it opened storage for cargo destined to four East African Community (EAC) states. According to its director Mrisho S. Mrisho, the Port of Dar es Salaam intends to handle 24 million tonnes of cargo in 2023/2024 fiscal year. Besides, the Tanzanian authorities have allowed the China Merchant Holding to develop a 20 million TEU container capacity at the port of Bagamoyo which will be the largest of Eastern Africa. Another regional competitor for Mombasa is the port of Djibouti which has undertaken extensive developments, increasing efficiency at its Doraleh Terminal which is the main outlet for the Djibouti International Free Trade Zone opened in July 2018.
Meanwhile, Kenya has also developed its own domestic alternative. In 2014, the KPA agreed with the China Communication Construction Company for the construction of three berths in the Port of Lamu that forms part of the Lamu Corridor linking it to Sudan and Ethiopia. The idea of Lamu as an alternative to Mombasa emerged in 1975. In 2012, the late President Mwai Kibaki, the then Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir laid the foundation of the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET). When completed, the Lamu Port is meant to replace Mombasa’s Kilindini harbour as Kenya’s largest port facility. It would comprise a railway terminal, storage tanks, container freight stations and oil pipeline, oil refineries and several airports. But this project has been stalled owing to regional security concerns on the border with Somalia and political instability in Kenya. Indeed, the corridor should comprise the Lamu-Ethiopia-South Sudan highway, the Lamu-Juba-Addis Ababa railway and a 2,240km pipeline linking oil fields in South Sudan to a new oil refinery at Lamu Port. But the Uhuru Kenyatta administration failed to allocate sufficient resources to the project, with only three berths completed in eight years and the port is currently underutilised because of lack of infrastructure to link it to Ethiopia and South Sudan. DP World aims to operate the three berths in Lamu and create a special economic zone, focused on agricultural activity and servicing the Lamu corridor.

Liquefied cargo carrier in port of Mombasa. 123rf

Yet, the economic viability of the Lamu port is threatened by a recent development. Indeed, Ethiopia, its key target, has turned its focus on the port of Berbera in the non-recognised state of Somaliland, which is set to become the most modern port in the Horn of Africa once completed. Berbera operated by DP World is indeed the closest sea outlet for Ethiopia, an 11-hour journey by road. In May 2016 the Government of Somaliland signed a 30-year agreement with DP World to develop and manage Berbera Port at a cost of $442 million. Recently the DP World Group say that the port, which can currently handle 500,000 will expand into handling one million TEU and up to 2 million TEU at a later stage. According to GBS, Berbera is “the most exciting seaport facility in the region” while the World Bank forecasts that the volumes of cargo handled in Berbera will increase from 3 million to 18 million tonnes between 2016 and 2050. Nevertheless, the KPA keeps defending Mombasa’s leadership. It has expanded the new container terminal of the Port of Mombasa to include two new berths with plans to proceed with a third one. The KPA managing director also announced in early 2024 the dredging of the port channel to accommodate bigger vessels. The KPA’s list of projects includes beside the new Kipevu Oil Terminal - an offshore island facility at the Port of Mombasa that was completed in January 2022 - the third phase of the second container which will increase its capacity by 400,000 TEU which will be funded by the Japanese International Corporation Agency (JICA). At Mombasa Port, DP World has been allocated four berths and turn them into a modern terminal capable of handling one million TEU, remaining thus the main regional player. (Open Photo: Container and tanker vessels in port of Mombasa. Shutterstock/ Druid007)
François Misser

Puerto Rico. Dancing in circle.

If you take a walk at sunset along the northeastern beach of Puerto Rico at the end of July, you can hear the sound of drums giving the welcome to nightfall. Groups of black people get together
in front of their houses or under coconut trees ready to dance to
the rhythm of the drums.

The smell of fried fish and cries of joy announce the Saint James feast held in Loiza, a village that combines Spanish culture and African traditions. Here, people celebrate with enthusiasm and in typical African Boriquen style (‘Boriquen’ is the indigenous Indian name for Puerto Rico) the feast of the town’s patron saint, St. James the Apostle, the
Yoruba people’s Shango.

Bomba Dance in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. CC BY-SA 2.0/ chispy2

It is an annual multi-day event that occurs around July 25, the feast day of Saint James, who is believed to have appeared in a tree trunk, years ago.  An event that has been celebrated, in the inhabitants’ words, “since God walked on earth”, referring to it as a feast, whose origins are lost in the mists of time. The majority of the population in Loiza is black. Through the centuries, the joining of Yoruba and Christian elements has given rise to strong religious syncretism in this community.
In fact, in the Yoruba culture, brought by the Nigerian slaves, Shango is the deity of war and lightning, and has the power to call down fire from heaven and destroy the infidel. Shango is depicted as a warrior on horseback, just like St. James.

Three statues
There are three images representing Saint James. They are related to three different groups: Santiago de los Hombres (Saint James of the Men), Santiago de las Mujeres (Saint James of the Women), and Santiago de los Niños (Saint James of the Children).
Each of these statues are guarded, throughout the year, by three people, usually women distinguished for their devotion to the Saint. They are in charge of preparing the statues for the celebration. The statues will be carried in procession through the town from the church. The guardians of the statues enjoy widespread prestige in the village. Before celebrating the feast, preparatory novenas are held.

Bomba dancer in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. CC BY-SA 2.0/ chispy2

These novena songs, are readapted to the typical African rhythm and tone, and have particular emotional and spiritual impact on the devotees. During the celebrations, people follow the three statues carried in procession through the streets of the village, singing and dancing in their traditional costumes. The three statues play a specific role in the traditional celebrations: the ‘caballero’ figure represents the force of good in the fight against evil. The ‘vejigante’ image is the antithesis of the ‘caballero’ figure, it represents evil, the devil that St. James must fight. The ‘vejigante’  mask has a grotesque facial expression with exaggerated nose and teeth and has horns on the front or on the side of the mask. The ‘vejigante’ has become a popular symbol of St. James’ feast. The  ‘Viejo’ (the old man) figure, fallen into disuse by now, represents an old man wearing rags, who wanders about  looking for gifts. St. James’ celebration with its processions, dances, music, and mass celebrations is still one of the most popular and traditional ‘fiestas’.’Bomba’ dancing is the main attraction during Loíza’s festival of Santiago. The black labourers, who worked on plantations created the ‘bomba’ in the 18th century as their primary social dance.

Vejigante in the Puerto Rican Museum of Art. CC BY-SA 2.0/Šarūnas Burdulis

Distinctive ‘bomba’ styles have developed in various parts of the island, such as: sikti, coembé, kalindti, yulti, cocobalé, babu, calindti, all words of African origin. Given the long history of slavery, colonialism and the attempts to strip black people of their African culture, it is important to the Puerto Ricans to highlight, by names and symbols, the African legacy. The ‘Bomba’ dance is to these people a representation of self-affirmation and an attempt to preserve and recuperate their real image and history. ‘Bomba’, among slaves living along the coastal areas where they cultivated sugar cane, was a way to reassert their dignity and recover their past. Basically ‘Bomba’ came to be a language in common, among African slaves who spoke different languages. It represented an important moment of unity and cohesion.
‘Bomba’ dances, songs, the beating of drums during the feast of St. James, usually express the alternative language, and reflect a deep social organization, an understanding of social reality and a way to express feelings of joy and concern.

Dancing in a circle
The participants of the dance create a circle that includes musicians, among them at least two drummers, and singers. The women’s voices are predominant. Dancers enter the circle and begin to dance. Next, dancers approach the drummers and offer salutes to express respect. From this point, the dancers improvise accents to challenge or converse with the high-pitched drum. The more equally matched in skill that the drummer and dancer are, the more intricate and satisfying the ‘bomba’ will be. It becomes a dialogue between dancers and drummers.

Afro-Puerto Rican women in Bomba dance dress. CC BY-SA 4.0/ Spreadofknowledge

‘Bomba’ is a body language dance. Various ‘bomba’ rhythms, verse structures, and intensities guide the dancers in movements and attitudes. Each rhythm calls for a different attitude. It is an important moment of cultural performance to the people of the village. It is also a way to express different realities: the need of a non-linguistic communication for those who are victims of social and economic oppression. The chance to express through music and dance what would be prohibited in a different context. A moment and a place where individuals through body language and music-talk feel socially free in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Still today, ‘Bomba’ reflects the African heritage brought by slaves: it is a cultural expression that resists the pressures of the modern world. ‘Bomba’ is a source of identity and dignity for people who were marginalised due to racial and class discriminations. This dance is an instrument of integration and cohesion resisting socio-political and economic pressure. St. James’ feast and the ‘bomba’ dances have kept Loiza people attached to African traditions. These celebrations, even if influenced in recent times by modernization, symbolize the dignity of a people who continue to make a significant contribution to culture. (Open Photo: 123rf)

Ester Padilla

 

DR. Congo. Apple accused of buying conflict minerals by Kinshasa.

The DRC government accuses Apple of buying conflict minerals and funding armed groups in the east of the country. However, boycotts of these minerals and sanctions have so far proved ineffective
in curbing the violence.

On 25 April, lawyers hired by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) accused American tech giant Apple of buying conflict minerals and threatened legal action if the practice continued.  In a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, London-based lawyer Robert Amsterdam demanded answers about the sourcing of minerals used in the company’s products. The lawyers claim that the products Apple buys are “tainted with the blood of the Congolese people”. Paris-based lawyers William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth also sent the formal notice to two Apple subsidiaries in France.

Apple CEO Tim Cook. CC BY 4.0/European Union, 2024

According to the French lawyers, “Apple has consistently relied on a number of suppliers who purchase minerals from Rwanda, a mineral-poor country that has exploited the DRC and plundered its natural resources for nearly three decades. Now Rwanda is also a producer of tantalum, tin and tungsten (the 3Ts), which are used in the electronics industry to make smartphones and computers. This prompted the European Union to sign an agreement last May to secure supplies of these minerals for the manufacture of solar panels and electric vehicles. However, the French lawyers claim that Apple bought minerals smuggled from the DRC to Rwanda, where they were laundered and “integrated into the global supply chain”.
Their accusation is based on reports that may suggest such a scenario is plausible, but no smoking gun has yet been provided. The allegation is also based on the fact that Apple’s efforts to source its minerals ethically are “notoriously inadequate”.
According to the report, “Apple appears to rely primarily on the vigilance of its suppliers and their commitment to Apple’s code of conduct”. Most importers like Apple rely on certification from the International Tin Supply Chain Initiative (ITSCI), which has numerous and serious shortcomings, the DRC government’s lawyers claim. According to a report published in October by the Belgium-based International Peace Information Service (IPIS) and the Dutch NGO PAX, importers of 3TG metals such as Apple rely on refiners and smelters to disclose key information. But information about the country and mines
of origin is often not disclosed.

Woman from North Kivu. Military conflict in the region since 1998. Shutterstock/Sam DCruz

Both NGOs stress that EU importers’ reports are often deficient in providing information on the origin of minerals, as the data stops at the level of the smelter or refiner. As a result, China is often listed as the country of origin. The DRC government lawyers’ accusation is also based on a report by the British NGO Global Witness, which in 2022 accused the ISTCI programme, set up by the industry over ten years ago to ensure the supply of ‘conflict-free’ minerals, of contributing to the laundering of these minerals, child labour, human trafficking and smuggling out of the DRC. Global Witness claimed that industry sources at the time argued that the ITSCI programme had been set up deliberately to launder minerals.Several sources accuse the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels of smuggling the minerals that finance their activities into Rwanda or other neighbouring countries.
The M23’s seizure of the mining town of Rubaya, where tantalum is mined, in early May 2024 adds to the suspicions. However, it is not clear why Apple was specifically targeted by the Paris and London lawyers, as Tesla, Intel and Samsung are also named by the activists as companies dependent on ITSCI for their supplies.
In any case, Apple denies the allegations. “Based on our due diligence … we have not found a reasonable basis to conclude that any of the smelters or refiners of 3TG (tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold) identified in our supply chain as of 31 December 2023 have directly or indirectly financed or benefited armed groups in the DRC or any adjoining country.

At least eight million people in eastern DRC depend in a way or another from artisanal mining. File swm

Even assuming that Apple or other companies have unintentionally funded armed groups in the DRC, it is not clear that stopping their imports from the DRC would significantly improve the security situation there. Since 2010, the United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on actors involved in the illegal exploitation of the 3T minerals. On the ground, however, the ongoing armed conflict continues to have a severe impact on the civilian population. At the end of 2023, more than 100 armed groups were still active in the provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu and Tanganyika, including several groups with fighters from neighbouring Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.

M23 fighters move along the road towards Goma. CC BY-SA 2.0/MONUSCO/Sylvain Liechti

In January 2023, the German liberal Friedrich Naumann Foundation quoted the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) as concluding that despite more than a decade of efforts to stop ‘conflict minerals’, the level of conflict in eastern DRC had not noticeably decreased. Militarisation in and around artisanal 3T mines has decreased since the implementation of responsible minerals initiatives in the sector, but at the same time militarisation in artisanal gold mines has increased.
In some cases, sanctions and boycotts have worsened the humanitarian situation and led to growing opposition to such measures from local civil society, whose grassroots organisations representing the interests of millions of artisanal miners are not consulted by those initiating these policies in the United States or Europe.  It is conservatively estimated that at least eight million people in eastern DRC depend in one way or another on artisanal mining, as miners, customers, suppliers or relatives. Families rely on this income to buy medicines or pay school fees.
Congolese civil society organisations argue that the lists of Conflict Affected and High Risk Areas (CAHRA) drawn up by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the EU or the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI), in which 500 companies participate, discriminate against their country, while the non-inclusion of Rwanda and Uganda gives these countries a safe status that encourages mineral smuggling through their territories. This position is also supported by 20 EU NGOs, including ActionAid, Global Witness, Diakonia and Justice & Paix.
Armed groups have been supported in part by revenues from minerals, but it is money, not mining per se, that is their primary objective. For rebel groups, mineral extraction is a means rather than an end in itself.  These armed groups move on to other criminal activities, such as illegal gold mining, illegal logging or charcoal production, wildlife trafficking or extortion at roadblocks.

North Kivu. FARDC soldiers reinforce their presence in and around Goma. CC BY-SA 2.0/ MONUSCO/Clara Padovan

Another unintended consequence of preventing Apple or other companies from sourcing their minerals from the DRC is that the government’s FARDC troops and their Wazalendo militia allies could be negatively affected. For years, the Belgium-based International Peace Information Service (IPIS) and other observers have warned that the FARDC has been the armed group most involved in the region’s mines.
What will be the reaction of the FARDC if they cannot any longer extort money from the artisanal or more formal miners ? The Congolese soldiers receive miserable wages. A large part of them is siphoned by corrupt officers who also sell sometimes weapons and fuel to the rebels they are supposed to fight. In such conditions, the most likely scenario is that the FARDC soldiers’ priority will be to choose other preys rather than fight ethnic militias. In the end, sanctions designed in Washington or Brussels will miss their targets as long as social and political issues concerning both military and militias are not addressed by the government. And the Kinshasa authorities may sweel shoot themselves in the foot…(Open Photo: 123rf – Apple)

François Misser

Niger. Jihadists aiming for Niamey.

The most serious threat is that the extremists will expand south and close the access routes to the capital. The military actions of the military junta have so far brought little results. Civilian casualties
have increased.

After the latest coup in Niger, all the countries in the central Sahel region are governed by military juntas and we have therefore entered a new phase of the conflict against jihadist extremism which has been going on for over a decade.Last year Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger also formed the new Alliance of Sahel States (AES) which, as announced in March, will deploy a joint military force to fight against the jihadist cartels that have long been established in the tormented region of three borders,
the Liptako-Gourma.

The military junta led by Colonel Abdourahamane Tchiani, took power in July 2023. ORTN

It is not yet known how the AES will act and how many personnel it will make available, but the new external partners – Russia, Iran and Turkey – raise fears that the approach to terrorism will be mostly security-related and armed. A strategy which, as reported by Human Rights Watch, has already caused serious violations and war crimes against the population in Mali and Burkina Faso, exacerbating the conflict.Some data confirms how the situation on the ground is worsening: half of the deaths from terrorism in Africa in 2023 occurred in the Sahel, where victims increased by 38% and civilian victims by 18% (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project – Acled).
The military junta in Niger (CNSP), led by Colonel Abdourahamane Tchiani, took power in July 2023, justifying his action as “necessary” to take control of a “continuously deteriorating situation” in the fight against terrorism.In reality, according to Acled, the levels of violence and attacks were down by 39% in the country in the first 6 months of 2023 and the coup seems to have instead worked in favour of the jihadists, given that the year ended with an increase of 9% in violence (231 events reported) and victims (48%).

Open fronts
Due to its geographical position, Niger is busy on several fronts. In the north (Agadez region) and in the centre (Tahoua region) it also has to deal with banditry and illicit trafficking with infiltrated al-Qaida cells. To the south-east, in the Diffa region, it has to deal with the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Boko Haram.
But the focus of the violence is concentrated in the Tillabéri region where the Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (Jnim) and the branch of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (Eigs) are active.
It is in the latter region with long and porous borders with Burkina Faso and Mali that attacks continue to occur. The last one of significant severity occurred last February, and caused the death of 23 Nigerien soldiers in an ambush claimed by the EIGS.
Since the latter terrorist group got the better of the Jnim last year for dominance in the neighbouring Malian region of Menaka, the extremists of the Islamic state have increased their actions in the Nigerien Tillabéri, with strategies more inclined to the killing of civilians and the use of kamikazes. “The most serious threat for Niger is that the extremists, who now have control of the borders in the northwest, also expand to the south and close the access routes to the capital,” says El Hadj Djitteye, president of the Timbuktu Centre for Strategic Studies on the Sahel, as Niamey is located right in the centre of the Tillabéri.

Nigerien Army in the north. They also have to deal with banditry and illicit trafficking involving infiltrated al-Qa’ida cells. Shutterstock/ Katja Tsvetkova

Today the situation may become more complex and fragmented because the Alliance of Sahel states has begun to equip itself with aerial equipment, such as drones supplied by Turkey. It is certainly a point in their favour, but “it pushes the jihadist cartels towards more complex, fragmented strategies and above all towards simultaneous attacks with frequent indiscriminate violence”, explains the analyst. The repeated use of airstrikes leads to an increased risk of targeting civilians and simultaneously pushes armed groups to respond with remote violence (e.g., improvised explosive devices, land mines, mortars and rockets) and suicide attacks, methods which also endanger the defenceless population. El Hadj Djitteye claims that the former Nigerien government of President Mohamed Bazoum had “attempted dialogue with local communities and undertaken rehabilitation and disarmament programs”. For this reason, in his opinion, there had been steps forward, which unfortunately “the military-only approach undertaken so far will cause to vanish into thin air”.

Marco Simoncelli

 

 

 

South Africa. Durban. Missed opportunities to divert ships to avoid Houthi attacks.

As Africa’s largest port, Durban faces many challenges that are hampering its development. These include congestion, lack of reform and competition from other regional ports.

Managed in a landlord capacity by the Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA), the port of Durban is the largest in Africa. It has strong maritime connections with the rest of the world and a unique geographical location on one of the world’s busiest international routes between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic. During the fiscal year 2023/2024 , the volume targets were 81.4 million tons for the bulk cargo and  826,033 automotive units. The port also hosts facilities for the fishing industry, shipyards, cruise liner vessels and recreational boating.
Durban is also the second main container port of Africa after Tangier-Med in Morocco, with a target of 4.2 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent units (TEU) in 2023/2024.
Established in July 1977, the Durban Container Terminal operates as two terminals Pier 1 and Pier 2, handling 65% of South Africa’s (SA) container volumes.Yet, the port of Durban is facing a number of serious challenges which threaten its development and efficiency. The most important is the congestion of the harbour.
According to UNCTAD’s Review of Maritime Transport in 2020, the median stay in South African ports was 3.32 days in average as against in 2.02 neighbouring Mozambique and 1.05 in Namibia.  The World Bank’s 2022 Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) ranked Mozambique’s Beira Port (a private joint-venture between Mozambique Ports and Railways and Rotterdam-based Cornelder Holdings) as the most efficient in Southern Africa.

Aerial view of the Durban container port. CC BY-SA 2.0/ Media Club – IMC-KZN-00074G

Durban ranked 341 out of 348 global ports. In Southern Africa, Beira (Mozambique) ranked much higher (223) followed by Maputo (Mozambique), Port Elizabeth (South Africa), Walvis Bay (Namibia), Luanda (Angola) and Ngqura (South Africa).
One of the main problems is outdated and insufficient port equipment which according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), means that despite its dominant position in Africa, the performance of Durban is sub-optimal. The port is one of the most expensive in the world, basically due to high cargo dues.
A World Bank report published in May 2021, ranked the Ports of Cape Town, Ngqura and Durban as among the worst ports in the world in operational efficiency. Moreover, a worrying aspect, underlined by the report SA-TIED (South Africa-Towards inclusive economic development) published in 2021 with the support of the United Nations, the European Union, the South African government and local and international research institutes, is that the average terminal efficiency of South African container ports has decreased from 76 to 66% between 2010 and 2019 while regional and global peers increased from 67% to 88%. Weather conditions may also worsen the situation. In January 2024, 100 km-an-hour winds have indeed interrupted container operations across the Durban, Cape Town, Ngqura and Port Elizabeth container terminals during two weeks, with 63 vessels kept waiting before Durban. In addition, the landlord authority, the TNPA has done little to stimulate competition between its ports.

The port of Durban is facing a number of serious challenges. The most important is the congestion of the harbour. Courtesy Transnet Port Terminals

Durban and the other South African ports are also increasingly facing the competition of other regional ports and corridors. One of them is Walvis Bay, in Namibia, which competes with Lobito (Angola) and the South African ports for the evacuation of products from the landlocked countries and regions of Southern Angola, Katanga, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana as well as the Northern Cape province in South Africa. By 2025, it is planned that 2 million tons will be evacuated through the Walvis Bay-Ndola-Lubumbashi Development Corridor, 9 million more through the Trans-Kalahari Corridor from Angola, Botswana, and South Africa and 6 million through the Trans Orange corridor from South Africa.
The container capacity at Walvis Bay is being expanded from 350,000 TEU to 850,000 TEUs in 2025 and to 2.2 mil in 2045. It will enable it to become the first port of large container ships on the West Coast in the southern hemisphere. Due to a favourable business environment, the time required for customs clearance is shorter there (2 days) than in South Africa (5 days). Yet, Durban still retains a comparative advantage. The leasing price of land for warehouse is cheaper than in Walvis Bay.
The Angola port of Lobito is another potential competitor. Indeed, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Zambia are trying to revive the Lobito corridor with a support from the United States and the European Union which considers that connecting the Zambian and Congolese Copperbelt with the Atlantic is a geopolitical move in their race against China which dominates the strategic supply chains for the energy transition. One of the advantages for mining houses in both the DRC and Zambia is that the distance between the mining capital of Kolwezi (DRC) to Lobito is only 1,600 km or half the distance to Durban.

Durban and the other South African ports are also increasingly facing the competition of other regional ports and corridors. Courtesy: Transnet Port Terminals

The Lobito corridor has a railway line which was entirely rehabilitated in 2019 by a subsidiary of the China Railway Construction corporation until the Congolese border. In July 2023, the DR Congo and Angola officially granted a 30-year concession to the Lobito Atlantic Railways consortium to operate, manage and maintain the line, between Lobito and the DRC’s Copperbelt. This consortium, led by Singapore-based commodity trader Trafigura, which includes Portuguese construction firm, Mota-Engil and Belgian railway operator Vecturis, will invest up to US$555 million in the project.The promotors are banking on the booming demand for critical minerals necessary for the world’s transition to clean energy to attract investment in the region since the International Energy Agency projects that demand for rare earth metals – primarily for electric vehicle motors and wind turbines  – will grow by three-to-seven-fold by 2040. Likewise, according to IEA, the demand for copper will increase by 40%, nickel and cobalt by 60-70% and lithium by almost 90%.Trafigura says the Lobito Corridor will offer the DRC and Angola the fastest export route
to Europe and the Americas.
So far, the DR Congo has been relying on three routes for its exports of metals and minerals: to Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Beira (Mozambique) and Durban. But all are congested. The US International Development Finance (DFC) has conducted due diligence for a potential financing package of U$ 250 million for the project announced by President Joe Biden at the May 2023 G7 meeting in Japan. Yet, there is a bottleneck on the Lobito corridor: indeed, 400 km of railway to the mining town of Kolwezi on the Congolese side badly need to be rehabilitated and by early 2024, the investment had still to be secured.

One of the main problems of the Durban Port is outdated and insufficient port equipment. Courtesy: Transnet Port Terminals.

In order to face all these challenges including the competition of other regional harbours, and the address the country’s ports operation problems, the South African government decided in 2021 to create a clear separation between the roles of the infrastructure owner, which is the Transnet National Ports Authority, and the terminal operator, which is Transnet Port Terminals. The purpose was that the functional and legal separation of these roles, which were operating divisions of the same company, would enable each to be fulfilled more independently and with greater efficiency. Among other projects for the ten coming years, the Ports Authority decided to deepen the entrance channel of Durban harbour and widen it from 122 to 230 meters. In January 2024, the TNPA announced plans to privatise several aspects of South Africa’s port operations. To this end, it hired a team of contractors to run the eight terminals that lack operators.
The TNPA hopes that this arrangement, which will last for three years, will smooth the transition to new long-term operators for the terminals. Yet, the reform is a delicate one since powerful dockers unions which fear job losses are hostile to such privatisation.

Durban is the most advanced and largest port in Africa.Courtesy: Transnet Port Terminals

These port improvements announced by the TNPA come at a time when large numbers of ships are being routed around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid hostilities in the Red Sea where Houthi militants in Yemen are targeting Israeli-linked vessels in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. By the 24 December 2023, 125 ships had been diverted from the Suez Canal around Cape Town. But the congestion problems of South African ports mean that shipping companies face difficult choices over where to refuel and restock, analysts say.
Durban is the most advanced and largest port in Africa, so ships rerouting around the continent have not many choices for berthing for replenishment, despite its congestion says a logistics consultant. But when they can, vessels routed around the Cape which need for bunkering in route, are trying to do so either in Walvis Bay or in Port Louis (Mauritius) depriving Durban and other South African ports from business opportunities, say shipping line companies sources. (Open Photo: Harbour of Durban. CC BY-SA 3.0/ below)

F.M.

Africa. To make a difference.

A climate activist, a cultural producer and a writer. Three African women with a proposal: Redefining the African narrative.

Vanessa Nakate is much more than an African Greta Thunberg because the reality of the continent is more complex than that of Europe when reflecting on the effects of climate change. But the Swedish activist inspired her to take action when, in 2018, temperatures began to rise in Kampala (Uganda) and she decided to go on hunger strike in front of Parliament to criticize the inadequacies of African governments regarding the climate.
Although she has not yet turned thirty, Vanessa Nakate is already a point of reference in international forums. She founded the Youth for Africa’s Future and the Rise Up Movement, is the spokesperson for the Fridays for Future (founded by Thunberg), and participated in the latest United Nations conferences on climate change, where she protested because the most polluting countries on the planet, led by The United States, do not keep their economic promises to those who suffer the most: only 4% of global pollution is attributed to the African continent.

Vanessa Nakate. “No voice is too small to make a difference” CC BY-SA 4.0/ Paul Wamala Ssegujja

“My country relies heavily on agriculture, most people living in villages and rural communities struggle to get food due to high prices. Lack of rain means hunger and death for the less privileged,” she said in an interview.
Based on the evidence, Nakate insists on how climate change will expose 118 million of the poorest Africans to drought, floods, and extreme heat by 2030. The young Ugandan activist is part of a network of local activists who demand action that cannot wait. “Instead of asking how far climate activism has to go, we need to ask how far environmental destruction has to go before our leaders wake up and do what is necessary to combat the problem,” she declared to Future Planet last year.In 2021 she published the book A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis, which encapsulates what she has learned from her years of activism: the certainty of increasing poverty and inequality generated by climate change, as in the case of the Congo River rainforest, which by the year 2100 could lose thousands of plant and animal species on which 70 million people depend. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020, she denounced racist treatment by the media when she was cut out of a photograph in which she appeared with other young climate activists.
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2022 and recognized in 2021 by Time magazine as one of the 100 global leaders, Nakate has managed in five years, through her Vash Green Schools project, to operationalize 39 solar panel installations in Ugandan schools. “I am a terribly shy person, but I found the strength and courage to make a banner and stand before Parliament in 2019. No voice is too small to make a difference and no action is too small to transform the world,” she declared in a forum after recalling that her activist friend Evelyn always says that “we can’t eat coal and drink oil, and money will be useless on a dead planet.”

NoViolet Bulawayo. Writer
Elizabeth Zandile Tshele was born in Tsholotsho Department, Zimbabwe, on 12 October 1981. Known in the literary world as NoViolet Bulawayo – the name recalls her mother, who died when she was just 18 months old, and the town where she grew up, the second largest in Zimbabwe, after Harare. Her literary career has been brief, with only two books published, We Need New Names (2013) and Gloria (2022), She was known from the start for her ability to describe, explain and recreate the difficulties, suffering, joys and sorrows of a country that was transformed, in a few years, from a British colony to a promising independent nation – at the hands of a then enthusiastic Robert Mugabe – only to fall into a state in which repression – with Operation Gurkurahundi, led by the army, in which almost 20,000 citizens considered dangerous to the regime were eliminated, poverty, hyperinflation or attrition led to the disillusionment and emigration of a large part of the population.
These themes, permanent in Bulawayo’s literature, are also a way to position herself in the face of the reality of her native country: “The criticism is totally intentional. In the times we live in, I believe that not being an activist is not an option. Above all, if we tell the stories of vulnerable people”, she said recently in an interview, in the presentation of her book: We Need New Names.

NoViolet Bulawayo. “I believe that not being an activist is not an option” CC BY-SA 4.0/ EuphoricOrca

In this novel, the condemnation was disguised, among other tricks, as simple children’s entertainment. Bastardo, Sabediós, Chipo, Stina or Darling, some of its protagonists, played at being countries, and the winners chose the United States, Switzerland or Canada – destinations of much of the emigration from the southern nation – as a reward for the victory, while the losers embodied South Africa, Botswana or Tanzania. In real life, those who remained in post-colonial Zimbabwe suffered from an increasingly despotic Mugabe, while those who left, like Bulawayo herself – who left at 18 for the United States to complete her academic education and start his literary career – found themselves in a context far from the ideals, the myths and dreams they had before embarking on the migratory project.
This pioneering work placed her on the shortlist for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, making her to be considered the first black African capable of winning the prize. She received due recognition when she was awarded the Caine Prize (2011) for her story Hitting Budapest, the Etisalat Prize and the Hemingway Foundation Award.
In addition to lecturing at Cornwell University, between 2014 and 2018 she was part of the pan-African literary initiative Writivism. Four years after leaving that project, she returned to the fray with Gloria, a work in which many analysts see parallels with Orwell’s Animal Farm. Bulawayo uses satire to denounce a power – that of the late Mugabe and that held by the current president, Emmerson Mnangagwa – for which the author is not a comfortable figure. “I know the government is not passionate about my work, but I’m not worried.” And she adds: “If I remain silent, I will in no way help resolve this situation.”

Koyo Kouoh. Cultural Producer
She lived until the age of 13 in her native Cameroon, then emigrated with her family to Zurich, Switzerland, where she studied economics. In 1995 she went to Dakar (Senegal) to interview the director Ousmane Sembène and discovered that she wanted to dedicate herself to culture. She started with literature and cinema, then with photography, and in 2008 she launched the RAW Material Company project – an art centre, exhibition hall, artist residency and debate space – in Dakar.
In 2019 she arrived in South Africa. After 20 years of participating in biennials and curating cultural projects, it is now the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Arts Africa, known as Zeitz MOCAA, in Cape Town, where Kouoh is investing all her talents as CEO and Chief Curator.
Upon taking on the role, she recalled that her obsessions as a curator, “women, politics, artists creating universes, diaspora, the idea of modernity and, of course, the digestion of colonialism with an emphasis on South Africa”, would have been at the centre of his choices. In fact, she has not stopped fighting to ensure that the representation of Africa is far from the usual negative and pejorative connotations. “I’m interested in the stories and paradigms we offer about ourselves,” she told the New York Times in August, referring to artists from the continent and the diaspora who represent an “expansive culture.”

Koyo Kouoh. “Proud of the beauty of African culture”. Photo: University of Pittsburgh

The MOCAA was opened in 2017. Shortly thereafter, its first director, Mark Coetzee, resigned. Nigerian curator Azu Nwagbogu served as interim director until Koyo’s vitality came like a whirlwind to resolve the almost total lack of a work system, employees, funds… Then came the pandemic and the museum was closed for seven months. “There was an urgency to come back to life,” Koyo said, convinced she would succeed. To ensure that an average of 2,000 people visited MOCAA every day since the beginning of her mandate, she postponed the exhibition of works by prominent authors such as Tracey Rose or Otobong Nkanga and began with an open call to any artist, amateur or professional, from Cape Town who would like to share their work. “Many South Africans have a psychological barrier to these art spaces, but our proposal brought them here, they came to see their works in the museum.” She then opened the space to artist residencies, discussions and meetings and created a global board of advisors for MOCAA. Her personal, social and educational experience in Africa and Europe allowed her to make the decision to return to the African continent when she had her first child as a single mother. “I couldn’t stay in Europe, in that saturated space. I had become a mother and I couldn’t imagine raising a black child there,” she explained about a decisive moment in her life. She then adopted three more children.
She declares herself a “conscious addict” of shoes, clothes and food, although what obsesses her is showing that on the African continent, there is enormous “mutual support, generosity and care”. She is part of a professional generation that declares itself “proud of the beauty of African culture”. (Illustration: Tina Ramos Ekongo) – Carla Fibla Garcia-Sale & Javier Farinas Martin)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Gallery – Snapshots from Africa

Advocacy

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