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Bolivia. The Festival of the Chacobo Community.

Wednesday, 1 November 2023 8:00

The Chacobos are a small indigenous people living on the banks of the Benicito river in the northeast of Bolivia. They organise festivals at the time of cassava and corn harvest.

One of the members of the community is given the task to organise the festival, he is supposed to personally invite each man of the community one week ahead of the event. The purpose of this notice is to give time for participants to get new clothes for the party.
Then, the organiser of the festival along with the men of the community goes to the jungle to cut wood to make firewood, in the meantime his wife and the other women of the community prepare the meal and the drinks for the event. After collecting firewood, the men take with them their hammocks and some cassava flour and leave their homes to go hunting in the jungle for two or three days. But if the hunting is not successful, they go fishing as a second option. The Chacobos say that just few monkeys are not enough for their community festivals, they need big animals such as antas (tapirs) and peccaries, in order to have enough meat for everybody.
When men come back home, women roast the meat of the animals the men caught in the jungle. The Chacobo women also go to the fields to collect corn and cassava to make drinks for the party.

The Chacobos Children. File Swm

The festival organiser invites also the nearby communities. The place where celebrations will take place is carefully cleaned. The festival starts early in the morning; the Chacobos wear their party clothes and paint geometric patterns onto their skin. The women sing and prepare the food for the meal which is placed in large pots.
If the festival is a ‘corn festival’, then the meal will be ‘a corn-based meal’: chicha, tamales, and corn of course. If the festival is a ‘cassava festival’ the meal will be a ‘cassava-based meal’.
When everything is ready, they put the pot with the fermented drink in the centre of the place where the guests are supposed to arrive, and the roast meat in baskets around it. The central moment of the party is when the men of the host community begin to play music. Visitors entering the place also play their flutes and dance. Those participants who have a firearm shoot into the air. After the moment of dancing and singing, the host men greet and welcome the visitors. For his part, the organizer invites all to sit, while the women remain outside the premises.

Blue, Yellow and Red Macaws in the Amazon rainforest. 123rf

When everyone is seated, the oldest member or the community healer is given a tutuma (squash container) filled with pieces of meat and he passes it to all the men, who take a piece. Then all the men pick up their arrows and pin them to the ground. The healer makes a sound with his mouth, this is the signal meaning that they can start to eat the piece of meat they received. Later the healer passes them the tutuma with chicha.
Once the healer ritual is over, the host offers the men who sit in small groups a cassava flour-based dish in baskets and some stew, while his wife serves the women. The food is accompanied by the drink contained in the tutuma. People eat, sing and dance to the rhythm of the flutes. When the party ends, at the moment of greetings, it can happen to find a guest already willing to organise the next festival – he and his wife invite those present. This is how the Chacobos celebrate the community festivities in the Bolivian Amazon and these events give this ethnic group the opportunity to strengthen their relationship with their neighbours and the members of the nearby communities. (Open Photo: 123rf)

Jhonny Mancilla Pérez

Mauritius. An African success story.

Wednesday, 1 November 2023 8:00

For many African countries, political independence from the colonial powers has not brought the hoped-for economic development. One positive exception is the island nation of Mauritius. What are the reasons for its success?

Mauritius is a volcanic island of over 2000 km² in the Pacific Ocean, about 2000 km from the African coast. It is surrounded by sandy beaches and the largest coral reef in the world, enjoys a tropical climate and offers a unique biodiversity.
About 48% of the approximately 1.3 million inhabitants are Hindu, 32% Christian and 17% Muslim. English and French are official languages, the population speaks mainly Morisyen, a creole language based on French.
The first Europeans to discover Mauritius were the Portuguese in 1508, who took little interest in these islands. From 1598 on Dutch ships used the island as a stop-over on the way to India. They named the island after Prince Moritz of Orange. Only in 1638 began a slow colonization of Mauritius. The export of ebony and the cultivation of sugar cane, which is still the most important export product, led to the clearing of the tropical virgin forest, of which only 2% remains. More and more slaves were imported from Madagascar and East Africa for the plantation work.

A lavish tropical nature, endless sand beaches and mild weather all year round attract tourists. Ymon/Pixabay

When the Netherlands left the island in 1710, Mauritius first became a “pirate island” before the French took it over and renamed it ‘Isle de France’. They developed the country, expanded the sugar industry and invested cultivation of spices.
During the turmoil of the French Revolution, the island became a base for pirates for the second time. To stop their raids, the British conquered Mauritius in 1810 and made it a crown colony, but without changing the social institutions and culture of the inhabitants. Sugar cultivation became a monoculture on 90% of the arable land.
When slavery was officially abolished in 1835, plantation owners received a compensation of two million pounds sterling. Instead of slaves, Indian contract laborers, also called coolies, were hired, but most of them remained in the country after their contracts expired. Hindu and Muslim workers soon reached 50% of the population, which over the years led to violent conflict between the Hindu working class and the Franco-Mauritian upper class.
The introduction of universal suffrage in 1959 gave the Hindu-Muslim coalition party a majority in parliament, which then voted for the country’s independence in 1968. Before independence, the British separated the Chagos Archipelago, 1200 km away, and leased the island of Diego Garcia to the United States for a military base. Since then, the government has unsuccessfully demanded the return of the archipelago. Mauritius separated from the Commonwealth in 1992 with a new constitution and became a parliamentary republic.

Local Market. Photo: Matthias Lemm/Pixabay

Mauritius has good political and economic relations with the EU and many African countries, especially South Africa. After several crises, Mauritius managed an economic recovery. This was helped by a guarantee from the EU to buy three-quarters of the annual production of sugar at a good price. The government encouraged diversification of the economy through the development of a textile and tourism industry.
The government has created also conditions that make it attractive to international investors:
It offers: A functioning democracy guarantees political stability and internal security and makes Mauritius the safest country in Africa. Investors can rely on a well-developed, growing financial sector for financial transactions. Low taxes and uncomplicated producers’ to acquire land make investments profitable. A lavish tropical nature, endless sand beaches and mild weather all year round attract tourists.
Rapid development has made Mauritius the richest country in Africa, with an average wealth of $37,500 per inhabitant and with the highest number of millionaires. The economic development benefited mainly the upper class, but it also helped to reduce poverty of the rest of the population and to finance a well-developed social security system. (Open Photo: Port Louis. 123rf)

Wolfgang Schonecke

Africa. Reasons for coups d’état.

Wednesday, 1 November 2023 8:00

What happened in Gabon on 30 August was only the latest coup attempt in Africa, a continent that has seen eight in the last three years. The first took place in Mali, a country that suffered two coups in nine months between 2020 and 2021, while the last one before Gabon’s took place in Niger.

On the eve of independence, the African elite split into two trends: the Monrovian (1961) and Casablanca (1962) groups.
The former sought to maintain “privileged” relations with the former metropolises, while the latter hoped for clean breaks and relationships commensurate with their new status.

The Monrovia bloc prevailed, giving rise to bodies such as the OAU in 1963 (which became the AU in 2001) and ECOWAS in 1975. Even if in many cases they were mutually exclusive – as in the case of Niger’s Djigo Bakary who supported the no vote in the 1958 referendum, but 72% of the votes cast were in favor of maintaining links with France. However, under Bakary’s successor, his cousin and fellow Songhai-Zarma Hamani Diori, independence was proclaimed on 3 August 1960.

In some African governments, there was cohabitation, as in the case of Patrice Lumumba (separate from Belgium) and Joseph Kasavubu (collaborationist) in the current DRC, or of Léopold Senghor (collaborationist) and Mamadou Dia (separate from France) in Senegal.

Those who called for separation from the former colonies were often excluded from power. After independence, both blocs fought wars of influence through coups or armed rebellions. However, African conflicts cannot be explained simplistically with this variable. Some involve rival factions within the same bloc, such as the 1999 coup in Côte d’Ivoire, where collaborators overthrew a proponent of this trend. There have also been changes of sides: in Burkina Faso, Compaoré went from separatist to collaborator in 1987.

Behind this premise, which defines the framework for understanding the coups that have shaken the continent since 2020, starting from Mali and ending, so far, with Niger and Gabon this year, there are speculations on their purpose and on the popular support they receive.

Many analysts see them as challenges to France and its neocolonial policy, Françafrique, which has spread beyond its former African colonies. Although there is a desire among some populations to profoundly reform the relationship with France, not all coups
have this objective.

Some support them without aiming for the fall of Françafrique. The latest two, Niger and Gabon, show different realities.
In Niger, the objective is to face France, perceived locally as neo-colonialist and arrogant, by requesting and obtaining the withdrawal of French troops and the ambassador.

In Gabon, the perception is different, as neither the military junta nor the people on the streets are calling for the departure of the 700 French soldiers stationed in the country. There are no complaints from Françafrique either in Gabon or Guinea. International reactions also vary
from case to case.

In Niger, where France had asked for the reinstatement of the deposed Bazoum, there have been sanctions, including suspension from African organizations and the closure of borders, preventing the entry of humanitarian aid, and there is a military threat.

No similar appeals have been launched in Gabon. Although there was electoral fraud that undermined the legitimacy of the ousted Ali Bongo, no one is calling for a recount and sanctions are limited to suspension from organizations such as ECCAS and the AU. In summary, while the coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger seem linked to the conflict mentioned at the beginning, those in Guinea and Gabon could be the result of internal conflict between the supporters of the Monrovia group.

Dagauh Komenan

United States-Pakistan: obstacles to relaunching relations.

Wednesday, 1 November 2023 8:00

In September, the United States undertook a series of initiatives
aimed at reviving its complex relationship with the Islamic
Republic of Pakistan.

The latter, in fact, has not appeared among the priorities of the American Administration for some time, which does not mention Pakistan in any of the latest strategic documents produced, including the strategy for the Indo-Pacific and the national security strategy.

In this context, on September 7, Islamabad’s Trade Minister Gohar Ejaz met with American Ambassador Donald Blome to discuss the state of economic and trade relations between the two countries.
Although the United States is actually Pakistan’s main export market and stands out among the top investors in the country, trade and investments are relatively stagnant.

The meeting between the Pakistani minister and the American ambassador focused on the possibilities offered by the “Special Investment Facilitation Council,” the hybrid civil-military body established by the Pakistani government in June to attract
direct foreign investments.

The discussions, concerned in particular, the strengthening of trade in sectors such as textiles and food products, while strategic areas such as energy, information technologies and minerals received less attention, largely dominated at this stage by the countries of the Gulf.

More recent is the visit of US Ambassador Donald Blome on 12 September to the port of Gwadar, a fundamental hub of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). During the meeting at the Pakistani port, located in the unstable province of Balochistan, Blome underlined the potential and strategic value of Gwadar as an intermediate regional hub to which products destined for the Pakistani market and beyond can be transported. This move appears to be a signal addressed to both the Pakistani and Chinese authorities regarding Washington’s desire to prove itself present and attentive to regional dynamics.

However, the most recent meetings must be inserted not only in a broader framework of economic and commercial initiatives but also in the policies being followed between the USA and Pakistan. For example, in February 2023, a US delegation travelled to the country for what was the ninth meeting under the Trade and Investment Framework. Previously, on 23 September 2022, there was a brief summit meeting between the then Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the President of the United States Joe Biden, in which the former underlined the importance of continued collaboration between the two countries.

However, these attempts at rapprochement must deal with a series of factors that render their success complicated.
At this stage, two above all, seem to slow down this process: the American focus on the strategic partnership with India and, above all, the role of China as a fundamental partner from an economic, political and strategic point of view of Pakistan.

In the Sino-Pakistani vision, in fact, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor would allow the latter to take advantage of Chinese production capacity, capital and know-how for an improvement in infrastructure as a useful element in resolving the structural economic-social instability. Beijing, on the other hand, is focusing on Pakistan to build alternative trade routes to the Strait of Malacca and, as has happened historically, to balance its Indian rival in South Asia.

Pakistan’s relevance for China emerges from the number of projects launched in the country, some of which are linked to the BRI, with the energy sector emerging as a priority. Among these, we may mention the Diamer Basha dam worth 8.8 billion dollars on which the joint venture between Power China and the Frontier Works Organization, controlled by the Pakistani army, is working.

But China is also active in the country’s automotive sector, with the Chinese Changan Automobile Company setting up a $136 million assembly plant in Karachi together with the Master Group of Industries. The strong ties between Beijing and Islamabad are also evident when looking at partnerships in the defence sector and the share of Pakistani foreign debt held by the Chinese.

In 2022, the latter amounted to approximately 127 billion dollars, of which around 27 were held by China. Through the Chinese State Exchange Administration, Beijing has deposited a total of around 4 billion dollars in the central bank of Pakistan in order to support the country in an economically difficult phase.

In this context, Washington’s efforts do not seem to be able to produce the desired results and, consequently, a US-Pakistan rapprochement appears unlikely in the short term. (Photo: The port of Gwadar.123rf.com)

Alessia Ferraboli/CgP

Israel/Palestine. The Desert, a Sacred Space.

Wednesday, 1 November 2023 8:00

Maria Cecilia Sierra Salcido is from Mexico and has been a Comboni Missionary Sister for 32 years. She has lived in many different countries. She shares her experiences with us. “The desert has become a sacred space for me.”

Everything is grace. Divine gratuitousness and beauty are values that define and guide my life and prayer. “Thank you” is the word that emanates from my depths when I contemplate his actions and feel part of his loving work. This sense of grace and gratuitousness immerses me, connects me with the divine, and prepares me to discover his traces in the world. Truly, God has lavished me with an excess of gentleness, mercy, tenderness, grace, and goodness. I began to discover the beauty and tenderness of God from a very early age. My awareness of his presence began to emerge when I was five, with my first Communion. At the age of twelve, I was a catechist, participating in missionary activities in Indigenous towns. My parents’ ranch, the land, the crops, the trees, and the animals emanated the divine for me.
I ecstatically watched the sunrise and sunset. Isaiah’s words of comfort in Psalm 138, and the person of Jesus in the Gospels have been dominant sources of inspiration.

“We promote education and development activities”.

Grace and the Spirit of God have led my steps to sacred spaces in Italy, the United States, Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, and Guatemala. As a Mexican religious, I feel privileged and enriched by the affection lavished on me, the hearts that have welcomed me, and by so much cultural diversity that challenges and enriches me. I know that I was abundantly blessed. But living in the Holy Land is another level. I have been living in Israel/Palestine for a few months. The desert has become a sacred space for me. My ministry as a Comboni missionary is expressed in working in Bedouin camps in the desert between Jerusalem and Jericho.

Sister Maria Cecilia with Bedouin children.

We visit families daily and promote education and development activities under a scorching sun. That’s why it comforts me to stop at sunset. With the evening breeze, the soul regains its calm and is renewed. Also, at night — in the quiet of our little chapel — remembering the encounters, the faces and the action of God favors communion. From that space, prayer reconnects me with people and their stories, dreams and resilience; with the flowers that bloom and resist the intense heat; with the beautifully shaped stones that yearn to tell their ancient history; with the caves and shelters, the goats and shepherds.
Having overcome the challenge of traveling up and down winding paths, of walking along lonely, tortuous, and narrow paths in the desert comforts and elevates the spirit.

The desert — its immensity and beauty, hardness and aridity — connects me with the ammas (wise women) of the desert. Bearers of the Spirit, they are inspiring icons in my longing for union and encounter with the divine. The beauty of the desert claims the heart: I will take her to the desert and I will speak to her heart (Hosea 2:16).
Feeling the constant call to interiority and recollection, my soul smiles happily and gratefully. Entranced by so much beauty and before such abundant grace, I only manage to sigh deeply and stammer a “thank you” that springs from the depths of my soul.

African Agricultural Growth Poles. A Transformation that Doesn’t Exist.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

There are now about fifty scattered in thirty countries. They aim to change the connotations of agriculture. For now, they are notable for conflicts with rural communities.

Agricultural growth poles, agro-industrial parks, growth hubs and corridors and special economic zones. They have different names but the same purpose: to activate agricultural development. Sponsored as a panacea for all the ills of African agriculture, they have spread to many countries, with the expectation of attracting more investment, increasing productivity, and guaranteeing jobs.
Their goal is to catalyse public and private investments, in a simultaneous and coordinated way, around a resource, thus favouring the industrialization of different sectors. They have in common the simplification of trade, taxation and financing, and the development of a multi-sectoral strategy.

The agro-industrial parks aim to improve the agricultural sector with interventions in mechanization, technologies, packaging, and food safety. 123rf

They aim at the structural transformation of agriculture with roads, warehouses, electricity networks, irrigation, and processing industries. Special economic zones, agricultural growth poles and corridors, and agro-industrial parks also have distinctive elements. The former are small areas equipped with specific infrastructures, the prerogative of the companies that are part of them. The latter correspond to a region or more within a country, develop around an agricultural resource, and coordinate investments and services. The infrastructure is located within and outside the affected area. The corridors develop along transport routes (roads, railway lines, ports) and are transnational. The agro-industrial parks aim to improve the agricultural sector with interventions in mechanization, technologies, packaging, and food safety.
Among agro-industrial poles, corridors and special economic zones, the African Development Bank (AfDB) has listed about fifty initiatives in about thirty countries. The last frontier, sponsored during Dakar 2 last January and the ‘Africa Food Summit’ by the AfDB, are the Special Zones for agro-industrial processing (SAPZ). On paper, they are activators of structural changes and economic transformations, catalysts of infrastructure and investments (public and private), supporters of regional integration and the development of supply chains, strategic for the promotion of inclusive growth (farmers, women), job creators, and channels for the development of human capital. Land control SAPZ have been launched in 18 countries, but Nigeria is the most relevant testing ground, in terms of scope and objectives.

The Special Zones for agro-industrial processing (SAPZ) project will cover 19% of Nigerian land with 8 agro-processing hubs and 15 processing centres.

The project will cover 19% of Nigerian land with 8 agro-processing hubs and 15 processing centres. According to forecasts, they will create 400,000 direct jobs and induced jobs of more than one million beneficiaries. The choice is not a coincidence, given that the current president of the AfDB was Nigeria’s minister of agriculture. The program follows the ‘basic product processing areas’ launched in 2013 by Akinwumi Adesina. For example, the cassava district is managed by the US multinational Cargill, the rice district by the Singaporean company Olam, and the palm oil district by the multinational Wilmar. Like all investments based on land control, agricultural poles and SAPZ also risk excluding and impoverishing rural communities: they exacerbate inequalities, violate land rights, undermine the lifestyle of small producers, especially women, and lead to the degradation of soils and water. This is demonstrated by the complaints of civil society at the absence of the free, prior, and informed consent of the population and the lack of environmental impact assessments.
In Nigeria, Olam and Wilmar are accused of dispossessing communities and farmers. In Madagascar, the Collective for the Defence of the Malagasy Lands, in 2021, denounced the opacity of the government program which provides for the development, over 10 years, of agribusiness poles on approximately 4 million hectares.

People harvesting salt on Lac Rose or Lake Retba. Dakar. Senegal is developing five agricultural growth poles. 123rf

Senegal is developing five agricultural growth poles, divided by geographical area, for the implementation of 14 supply chains (rice, onions, mangoes, cashews, corn, fonio, peanuts, salt, cereals, milk, chickens, cattle, sheep, and cotton). The launch of the western agricultural hub, in the Malicounda-Nguéniène-Sandiara area, generated protests from the local rural community concerned about the downgrading of a forest and the reduction of transhumance routes. The agricultural centre of Ziguinchor, in the south of the country, is also accused of land grabbing. Another emblematic case is the agro-industrial park of Bukanga Lonzo, in RD Congo, at the centre of a political and economic scandal involving a former prime minister. The project was called a fiasco that blew a $100 million hole in public budgets and was an example of embezzlement and irregularities. According to the Californian study centre The Oakland Institute, which has analysed the matter, the park is responsible for land grabbing and human rights violations. These events have in common the heartfelt appeal to governments to invest in farmers, guaranteeing them access to land, water, and markets. (File: Parc Agro)

Marta Gatti

The Seeds of Discord.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

It is called participatory genetic improvement of seeds, takes place in the fields, involves farmers, and stems from the reduction of biodiversity. It prevents seeds from being controlled by a few.

The FAO defines food sovereignty as the ‘right of peoples, communities and countries to determine their own agricultural, labour, fisheries, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique reality. Everyone has the right to safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food, the resources to produce it, and the ability to support themselves and their societies’.
On the other hand, there can be no food sovereignty without seed sovereignty because the cycle of many plants that provide us with food begins with the seed at the time of sowing and ends with the seed at the time of harvest.Seed control, therefore, involves the control of food and our health. Today, over 60% of the world seed market is controlled by three large corporations (Syngenta/ChemChina, Monsanto/Bayer and DuPont/DowChemical) which also hold a similar percentage of the pesticide market (insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides).

No food sovereignty without seed sovereignty. File © FAO/Ami Vitale

With seeds and pesticides in the hands of a few, the autonomy of farmers regarding what to grow is reduced as is, consequently, the autonomy of people as to what to eat and therefore food sovereignty. The consequence of the seed oligopoly is the uniformity of the agricultural panorama that characterizes agriculture in the countries of the northern hemisphere with three species – wheat, rice, and corn – which supply over 60% of the proteins of vegetable origin.
Not just a few species, but a few varieties within species and plants all the same within varieties. Through international organizations, this uniformity is also introduced in the countries of the southern hemisphere including Africa, not only in the form of hybrids and GMOs, which are nothing more than the most advanced expression of uniformity pursued almost exclusively by modern genetic improvement, but also of food aid in the event of famine.

Witbank, South Africa. Commercial Maize Farming. The introduction of hybrids and GMOs is frequently motivated by the need to increase production to fight hunger. 123rf.

The introduction of hybrids and GMOs is frequently motivated by the need to increase production to fight hunger; however, the resulting uniformity is exactly the opposite of the message that comes to us from ecology, namely that greater diversity corresponds to greater productivity (therefore feeding people) and greater resilience (to better tolerate extreme events).
One model of genetic improvement that avoids the reduction of cultivated biodiversity is a participatory genetic improvement. This model differs from conventional breeding because it is decentralized, i.e., the selection takes place in the fields and not in the experimental stations, and because the farmers participate in the whole process starting from the identification of the targets.

In Africa, for example
In Africa, this model has been used in about thirty countries in the improvement of barley, durum wheat, teff, beans, banana, cassava, lentils, broad beans, chickpeas, peas, pearl millet, African millet, and sorghum. In Eritrea, new drought- and disease-resistant varieties of barley, wheat, lentils, broad beans, and chickpeas were identified within a four-year participatory project. Pearl millet production in West Africa has been increased by applying participatory breeding to local varieties with the result that farmers have easier access to seeds and the ability to share the information learned through the research process.

Farmer is standing in his growing corn field. He is satisfied because of good progress of plants. in bringing control of the seeds back into the hands of the farmers. 123rf

In Mali, the farmers engaged in a participatory program on sorghum, a species of fundamental importance for nutrition, have regained control of the hybrids, benefiting not only from their higher productivity but also from the sale of the seed through small local shops, thus freeing themselves completely from external sources. Despite its success among farmers and its scientific basis, participatory breeding has rarely been institutionalised. The reason is to be found in the greater power of control over the seeds that this model gives back to the farmers. From mere users, they have returned to being protagonists of biodiversity in the field and have regained their lost skills. Mixtures and evolutionary populations, i.e., varieties made up of different plants, represent a further step forward in bringing control of the seeds back into the hands of the farmers in a more autonomous way than participatory genetic improvement which implies the presence of an institution. Due to their structure and as a result of natural selection and the crossings that occur naturally within them, evolutionary mixtures and populations evolve, i.e., the seed that is harvested is always different from the one that is sown and therefore they are not patentable. Their constantly evolving diversity represents a dynamic response to climate change, protects crops from parasites, but above all allows the farmer to regain control of the seed: because there is no better seed than the one that literally evolves under his feet. (Open Photo: Fao)

Salvatore Ceccarelli

Cambodia. Two Sisters and a Church Reborn.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

In Cambodia, Songvat and Tharin, today Sister Marie and Sister Teresa, are the first women to enter the religious life since the bloody regime of the Khmer Rouge. A conversion that went hand in hand with the reconstruction of the country.

A Church that is reborn thanks to the preaching of the Gospel in the marketplace. This is how one could summarize the experience of Sister Marie and Sister Teresa. Converts to Christianity, they are the first two Cambodian nuns since the end of the Khmer Rouge regime led by the dictator Pol Pot, who between 1975 and 1979, was responsible for killing an estimated 1.5 million people.
The country was shaken by this experience and for another decade, despite the progressive improvement of the situation, Cambodia remained a poor and unstable nation.

Old Battambang Catholic Church in Pet Yiey Chee compound was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge in 1975. Photo: Tangnamoretch

However, at the beginning of the 90s, there was something new in the air. Marie, whose name before her baptism was Ang Songvat, works mornings as a secretary, and in the afternoon, she goes to the Kompong Cham market where she works as a seamstress. In the evening she attends evening school for her high school diploma. She did not manage to finish high school due to the armed guerrilla clashes that took place in some areas of the country.
It is in the market that she befriends a woman who – though she is not yet aware of it – would change her life. We are speaking of Bun Nath who sells fish together with her friend, Bun Tharin, and who, thanks to a French priest, had learned about Christianity before the missionaries were expelled in 1975, the year in which the Khmer Rouge took power. Bun Nath was only a child when she frequented the home of Father André Lesouef, of the Paris Foreign Missions, who in 1968 was appointed first apostolic prefect of Kompong Cham, the local capital which is located 120 kilometres east of the national capital Phnom Penh.
At the time, the priest would welcome non-Christian children into his rectory and talk to them. Upon his return to Cambodia in 1992, all the works of the Catholic Church had been lost. Or so it seemed. Bun Nath, now an adult, wrote a letter to the seventy-year-old missionary, then living in the capital Phnom Penh. Father André not only managed to find her, but he baptized her. She was the first Christian in the revived Cambodian Catholic Church.

Sister Marie and Sister Teresa were in Rome recently. (Photo: M.M)

Songvat and Tharin first met on a motorcycle trip. Bun Nath had begun to recount his experience with Christianity at the market, but the question of what would later become of Sister Marie became more and more complex. So, Bun Nath asks Bun Tharin to accompany Songvat to Father André who was now assisted by two Thai nuns, Pelagie and Xavier. Both belonged to the congregation of the Lovers of the Cross Sisters, an order founded in Thailand by Father Lambert De la Motte in the 17th century. Bun Tharin knew Father André by sight and through Bun Nath’s words, but she had never thought of converting to Christianity from Buddhism. She had finished middle school but then, due to her family’s economic difficulties, she had started working at the fish market, and only later was she able to attend a vocational school.

Baptism at St John the Apostle parish in Siem Reap.

When Songvat met the French missionary priest, she did not actually find the answers she was looking for. Instead, she was greeted with a question: “Do you want to study the Word of God?” Father André asked.
After this meeting, the two women began their catechetical journey with the missionary, still separately. Between 1994 and 1996, when they were still under 30, they were baptized. In those years there were one, two or a maximum of four converts every year, but the Cambodian Church had begun to germinate again. Marie and Teresa were happy with their choice, but it was not a simple decision: “We were Buddhists by tradition, but I felt touched by the enlightenment of the Lord. Culture is something that you absorb from the outside, but the Word of God came to meet us along the way”, explains Sister Marie.
Due to Father André’s increasingly precarious health, Marie and Teresa continue their catechesis with the Thai nuns. “Their Khmer was rudimentary – they said – but our faith was determined and motivated, going beyond the formality of the lessons”.

St Joseph’s Church, Phnom Penh. CC BY-SA 4.0/ Io Herodotus

At one point, Pelagie suggested that Marie teach sewing and writing at her home in the evenings to a group of girls who were not yet baptized. When Teresa also went to live with them, the two women began to think about the religious life. Bun Nath often spoke of the Vietnamese Sisters of Providence she had known before the Khmer Rouge, and she gladly shared memories of them. Here, too, there is an important cultural obstacle: “Our families would ask us: ‘Why don’t you get married and have children?’”, said Sister Teresa.But Marie and Teresa had already decided to become part of the Lovers of the Cross Sisters. The first year of the postulancy was spent in the service of others and Father André, to be sure of their intentions, sent them to Phnom Penh to work with an NGO called New Humanity International. In 2002 they began the novitiate and in 2004 they made their first religious profession and were assigned to the mission in Prey Veng, where they managed some student houses for girls and courses of initiation into the Christian faith – more or less the same activities they still engage in today.
Songvat remained in Prey Veng, while Tharin lives in Stung Treng, in the north-east of Cambodia, with nine other professed sisters.
Looking back on their lives, Sister Marie and Sister Teresa, who are now over 60 years old, recall that, after receiving baptism, they no longer performed the traditional religious rites at Buddhist pagoda festivals with their family. And they themselves did not understand why they were so different. “At the time we didn’t know how to answer our own questions – they say – but today we understand that the Word needed to be announced precisely in that particular context”. (Open Photo: St. John’s Catholic Church in Siem Reap, Cambodia)

Alessandra De Poli/MM

Nicaragua. “We Shall Resist”.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

Repression, kidnappings, intimidation. The Catholic Church under siege. But ‘the hearts of the people resist’. We received this letter from a religious sister who writes under a pseudonym for security reasons.

It is not easy to nourish hope in Nicaragua. Blow after blow, it seems that the intention of President Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo is to make us reckless and deranged like them. If the mission of the Servant of Yahweh announced in Isaiah is not to quench the flickering flame nor to break the crushed reed, that of the regime is the absolute opposite: not only to quench the flame but to crush the candle itself, not just to break the crushed reed but to annihilate it, destroy it, denationalize it, accuse it of treason and confiscate the field in which it dared to grow.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice-presidential Rosario Murillo. (Photo:VOA)

It is not easy to imagine the future of Nicaragua. In the taxis, in the markets, in the barrios and even within the Sandinista Front, the talk is always the same: how long will it last? How much longer will they go on? When will it all end? And the answers – mostly speculative – challenge the Christian principles contained in the fifth commandment, citing possible exceptions. But in the end, almost everyone agrees: it has to be peaceful; we don’t want another war.
It is no joke to breathe in Nicaragua, to speak in Nicaragua, to live in Nicaragua. The confiscation of the Jesuit Catholic University by the government was also an assault on hope as one of the last spaces of freedom. The expulsion of the Jesuits from their home and the annulment of their legal status is also an expression of the vulnerability in which all of us who have engaged in the civic struggle in defence of human rights live, and also of the regime’s desire to punish us, to subject us to contempt, to expose ourselves to humiliation so as not to forget its slogan: “Even if they cry in anger, we are in charge here and we are not going away”. At least, not in a good way.”

Crowd fills street at a May 2018 protest, in Managua. CC BY 2.0/ Jorge Mejía Peralta

But in this same country where Church members have been kidnapped, silenced, slandered, and persecuted, on August 10th, during the traditional ‘Festival of Saint Dominic’, many, many people were heard courageously shouting “Long live Free Nicaragua”, “Long live the Catholic Church” amidst the shouting and dancing, just half a meter away from the police fence that ‘escorted’ the image of Saint Dominic. And when the image stopped in front of the stage of the mayor of Managua Reyna Rueda and applause was asked for the National Police, many, many people expressed their rejection and repudiation with whistles and shouts. What does all this mean? What message are devotees sending in the face of this manipulation of religious symbols by the regime? What does it tell us about peaceful resistance?

Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Nicaragua was sentenced to 26 Years in Prison by Ortega Regime. (Photo: Matagalpa Media)

In this same country where Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes remains silent on the increasingly numerous and arbitrary decisions of the government to prevent priests, nuns and relatives of political prisoners from entering the country, but calls a jubilee for the anniversary of his priestly ordination – with plenary indulgence included – as if there was much to rejoice about, it so happened that on a bus in Managua an evangelical pastor was preaching the importance of fasting and prayer. This sermon would have gone unnoticed if he had not also said that it is fasting and prayer that will help defeat the evil and satanic force that is Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, who were able to touch a holy and courageous man like Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, until imprisoning him unjustly and for whom we should all pray daily. And on that bus, at that time, even those who were there said with a strong and decisive voice: “Amen”. What happened to that elderly and bold shepherd? What did those who listened to him think that morning? Is religious force still a force of resistance to injustice, outrage, and desperation in Nicaragua? In this very country where there is a police force that obeys orders to remove unarmed Jesuits from their homes at gunpoint and where young people, university students and professionals continue to be kidnapped and imprisoned for the simple crime of believing and wanting a different Nicaragua.

Ortega regime seizes Catholic university accused of being ‘centre of terrorism’. (Photo Swm)

In this very country, a small group of young people from a public school receive an assignment from a language teacher and Sandinista Front sympathizer: to produce a newspaper with news on the country. A ridiculous task in a country that has closed and confiscated more than 30 media outlets and killed, expelled, and imprisoned journalists. Young people come to class with their completed projects. The name of the newspaper? La Prensa. First page? The regime confiscates the Universidad Central Americana with a court order without evidence. The teacher’s response: “I don’t want news against the government”. The young people’s response: “What you don’t want is the truth”. And when they told the story, they said, “He didn’t take our work. But he saw it. He had to see it. You know we’re not stupid”. How much influence did the Christian formation received in their parishes have? What dreams would these young people be capable of in a free Nicaragua?
In this country of Nicaragua, its beloved León Pinita Gurdián, grandmother of Tamara Dávila, a political prisoner, was buried. She was a woman committed to the Gospel, a faithful follower of Jesus and always ready to risk all for justice and freedom. The regime seized her passport thus preventing her from seeking treatment for the cancer she suffered from and from seeing her children and grandchildren, some of whom were expelled and denationalized and, so, unable to enter the country. In this country, voices have been heard that have dared to believe and sing: Who said all is lost?

A student stands near a burning barricade holding the national flag of Nicaragua. (Photo: VOA)

Blow after blow they want to drive us mad and make us abandon hope. Blow after blow Daniel Ortega, Rosario Murillo and those who earn money and power through them, want to break the faith of the people, render ineffective their Christian commitment, or at least deprive them of their prophetic role. Blow after blow they want to convince us that this country belongs to them. And perhaps it is true that for now everything they have stolen belongs to them: the UCA and the countless church properties, the religious congregations, the Catholic schools, the non-governmental organizations. But they don’t have people’s hearts. Little by little they want to extinguish the light of hope. They are capable of anything, blow after blow but we will resist, despite everything.
(Photo: VOA)

Guadalupe Romero

Nigeria. The Egungun Cult among the Yoruba People.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

The Yoruba people are one of the largest in West Africa; they live in southern Nigeria and Benin. They have developed a refined culture, at the centre of which is a religious world rich in symbols, mythologies, and ceremonies.

One of the most characteristic aspects of the Yoruba religion is the masks. One of these is Egungun. Literally, the word Egungun can be translated as ‘living dead’, or, in its variant ‘ara orun, as ‘inhabitants of the sky’. In the broadest sense, it designates a masked figure wearing a costume, a disguise for ancestor worship. For Yoruba all over the world, the Egungun cult represents the communion between the living and the ancestors. They celebrate the visit of ancestral spirits to their descendants to bless them, encourage them to persevere in cultural values and, when necessary, judge the living.

The resplendent colours of the Egungun. 123rf.

The cultic function, in fact, is above all that of solving the problems of the community; this sacred dimension explains why the Egungun is a secret society, the basis of which is the law of silence.
There are different types of Egungun masks.
The Omo Egungun, ‘son of Egungun’ or ‘young Egungun’, has costumes made with variegated and ornate bands of fabric, which whirl in a slow and majestic dance.
The Agba Egungun, ‘senior Egungun’, on the other hand, have costumes made of dirty rags and masses of clay with animal skulls encrusted with shells.Traditionally, the Egungun mask is reserved for men, assisted only by a woman named Iya Agan, the priestess of the cult deity. She symbolizes the bond between gods and ancestors.

Mask Yoruba Egungun – Glenbow Museum. Calgary, Canada.

According to tradition, women should not know the identity of the wearer and it is dangerous for them to touch them. Some Agba Egungun are said to be able to identify witches, who in Yoruba culture are almost always women.
The Egungun masquerade is a multi-faceted ceremony, which includes the presentation of offerings and honouring ancestors for their life of virtue. During the ceremony, the living implores their help for peace and harmony in the community. For the Yoruba, ancestors are heavenly promoters, capable of crossing the line that separates the world of the dead from that of the living. Among the wide range of themes associated with Egungun’s masquerade, there is the correction of social and cultural stereotypes.
In the Yoruba social organization, the appearance of the mask is periodic, to celebrate and invoke the dead. This period is known as the Egungun festival, which lasts about a week.
However, communities can decide on the release of the mask during clan ceremonies from birth to death. Thus, it is customary for an Egungun to come out of the dead man’s chamber sometime after the burial and imitate him as he brings the greetings of the dead to the other members of the family. In this cult, the costumes must be beautiful to communicate an impression of vigour and prosperity. An Egungun costume is made up of several layers of strips of cloth made with expensive and prestigious fabrics which express the wealth and status of a family, as well as the power of the ancestor.To make the costume more beautiful, and therefore powerful, the strips are decorated with motifs of patchwork, braids, sequins, pompoms, and amulets.

Egungun displaying during a festival. CC BY 4.0/Aborisadeadetona

Although they differ from region to region, they must completely hide the identity of the wearer. The mesh effectively hides the facial and hand features that could reveal the wearer.
The costume is repaired and renewed for use year after year, with layers of new strips and amulets added to express memory and honour.
The other function of worship is to entertain. The Egungun festival is also a festive time similar to the carnival. During these popular outings, the Egungun dance around the city to amuse the public.
They are accompanied by supporters, holding whips to ward off people who try to get too close. Other members of the community and followers of other beliefs, including Christians and Muslims, also dance to the rhythm of the Egungun. Today, Egungun festivals are organized not only by the Yoruba communities of West Africa but also in America and the Caribbean. (Open Photo: Ceremonial mask dance, Egungun. 123rf.)

Silvia C. Turrin/SMA

Delima Silalahi. Defending traditional forests.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

She has led a campaign to secure legal stewardship of 17,824 acres of tropical forest land for six Indigenous communities in North Sumatra.

Her community’s activism reclaimed this territory from a pulp and paper company that had partially converted it into a monoculture, non-native, industrial eucalyptus plantation. The six communities have begun restoring the forests, creating valuable carbon sinks of biodiverse Indonesian tropical forests.

Indonesia is among the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Most of the emissions are the result of cutting and burning forests and peatlands to establish industrial plantations; between 2015 and 2019, fires burned 10.8 million acres of forest and peatland, an area larger than the Netherlands.

At the same time, Indonesia has the third largest total area of rainforests in any country – with vast, biodiverse forests that store enormous quantities of carbon essential to combating climate change. The island of Sumatra is the only place on Earth where rhinos, orangutans, tigers, and elephants co-exist in the wild. Today, habitat destruction threatens these critically endangered species; among the most threatened is the Sumatran tiger: the remaining population of 500 is the last extant tiger population in Indonesia.

North Sumatran communities have long cultivated benzoin styrax trees in the undergrowth of forests to harvest the resin, known locally as kemenyan, the frankincense of Sumatra. Historical records indicate that the resin – used in incense, perfume, and medicine – has been harvested and traded since at least the 8th century. When sustainably cultivated within forests, benzoin resin can be extracted from a tree for 60 years; this resin has been a significant source of local income.

In recent years, Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL), a pulp and paper company, has encroached on North Sumatran forests that are traditionally held by Indigenous communities, clearing these biodiverse forests to establish large, monoculture eucalyptus plantations.

The lack of official recognition of community-managed forests enabled TPL to seize these territories. An investigation by Indonesian NGOs found that TPL uses child labour on its plantations. When local communities protested the destruction of their forests, TPL has called in the police, which forcibly dispersed and arrested protestors.

Delima Silalahi, 46, is the executive director of Kelompok Studi dan Pengembangan Prakarsa Masyarakat (KSPPM), an NGO dedicated to traditional forest protection in North Sumatra. She is a Batak woman from Siborong-Borong in the district of North Tapanuli in North Sumatra, one of many districts affected by forest clearing for industrial plantations. Delima was an activist in college and joined KSPPM as a volunteer in 1999. The KSPPM office is located far from her family, and she spends weeks away from them, often sleeping at the office
and in the community.

In 2013, a precedent-setting constitutional court ruling confirmed that customary forests are not state forests, creating the opportunity for Indonesian Indigenous people to claim legal stewardship of their traditional forest territories.

Very concerned about the massive expropriation of Indigenous territories for the pulp and paper industry – and its huge impact on forests in the Lake Toba region – Delima and her team at KSPPM began organizing local communities to legally claim their traditional forests.

Delima travelled from village to village and educated communities about laws that support the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ rights and claims to customary forests. Women in Tano Batak communities are often excluded from decision-making, but she made sure that their voices were heard throughout the process, incorporating gender education as a central organizing tool. Delima herself faced many challenges as a female leader in Indonesia and was criticized for being away from her husband and children for weeks at a time.

Delima and KSPPM facilitated participatory mapping of the forests with each community to document its traditional territory. They organized high-profile protests against TPL in the districts where it operates. In June 2021, Delima and community members met with the Minister of Environment and Forestry, urging her to recognize the communities’ traditional forests.

Finally, in February 2022, due to Delima’s and her community’s dedicated campaigning, the Indonesian government granted six Tano Batak communities legal stewardship of 17,824 acres of their customary forests. These six communities have begun reforesting the area with native forest species, including benzoin trees.

Delima and KSPPM are supporting the communities as they replant and restore the ecosystem while boosting the forests’ tree cover and natural climate resilience. In standing up to the most powerful industry in North Sumatra, Delima and her community secured legal stewardship of the communities’ traditional forests—a win for climate resilience, biodiversity, and Indigenous rights.

Last April, Delima received the Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the “Green Nobel Prize”. (The Goldman Environment Report – Photo Goldman Environmental Prize)

“The Key Is Agroecology”.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

The director of the Institute for Research and Promotion of Alternatives in Development, Mamadou Goita, criticizes the policies of the African Development Bank.
And he argues that it is necessary to transition to a model based on access to the land, the rational use of natural resources and the re-appropriation of the genetic heritage is necessary.

In Africa, traditional methods of agricultural production, which aimed at food self-sufficiency, have been destabilized by the model of the green revolution. Before its imposition, soil fertility was safeguarded, and plant and animal biodiversity were promoted. The model of the green revolution, already developed in India, arrived on the African continent in the 1970s. Productivity at any cost with the combination of three factors: intensive use of synthetic fertilizers, adoption of hybrid seeds, and intensive water management. The model was supposed to ensure food security. Added to this is the entry of multinationals which has completely changed African food systems.

Mamadou Goita, director of IRPAD (Institute for Research and Promotion of Alternatives in Development). File: AFSAfrica

The new model focused on products with high-added value that could be marketed abroad. The Ivory Coast has intensified the production of cocoa and coffee, Mali, and Burkina Faso that of cotton, and peanuts in Senegal. These industrial crops prevailed at the expense of the more nutritious cereal crops. The catastrophe came in the early 1980s when governments were forced to adopt structural adjustment plans after years of indebtedness. The state, at that point, withdrew completely from the sector by abandoning the farmers. In Mali, for example, there was an industrial fabric linked to agriculture: the processing of juice, mills for grinding cereals and manufacturing units for agricultural work tools. Industries have been privatized, cereal production has dropped due to the invasion of products for the international market, and everything has shifted to cotton. We talked about it with Mamadou Goita, a member of the panel of experts of the IPES-Food international study centre, executive director of IRPAD (Institute for Research and Promotion of Alternatives in Development) and one of the founders of AFSA (Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa).

Why does the green revolution model not work?
Because it completely eroded the genetic diversity of our peasant seeds which were able to withstand drought. Furthermore, industrial hybrid seeds could not be replicated but had to be repurchased every year. Now it is the landed assets that are in danger. With the excuse that the farmers are no longer productive, the lands were handed over to companies that produce monocultures for export. The model then generated deforestation, water pollution and changed the diet of Africans. We have become dependent on imports. Take rice for example: in West Africa, it was a niche product and is now the staple of the diet.

The headquarters of the African Development Bank in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. CC BY 3.0/ Citizen59

The rice is imported from Asia and is of poor quality. It has taken the place of more nutritious crops such as millet and sorghum. Today Senegal is completely dependent on rice imports because it has lost the knowledge and skills to produce anything else, and even the traditional rice varieties best suited to survive in certain climates have disappeared.

Why do governments and institutions such as the African Development Bank (AFDB) still propose this model?
The AFDB is a problem for the continent. I know well how it works because I chair the Civil Society Coalition (CSO) for the transparency of this institution. The current president, Akinwumi Adesina, served as the vice president of AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) and before that, he was in charge of the hybrid rice program Africa Rice. During his tenure as agriculture minister in Nigeria, he increased the use of chemical fertilizers. Most of the vice presidents present at the Dakar 2 summit last January come from the system of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the green revolution. Many heads of state and government are manipulated by this model and therefore benefit from the support of institutions such as the AFDB.

Last January, during the Dakar 2 summit (“Feeding Africa”), 34 African heads of state and government stressed the need to achieve food sovereignty. It is the same concept that you have been
claiming for years…
Now that African and global civil society is increasingly affirming the concepts of food sovereignty and agroecology, governments are trying to take them over. In Senegal, for example, there is a ministry of agriculture and food sovereignty, but the country is preparing to authorize the use of GMOs.

Food must be consumed first of all in the territories where it is grown, and the wealth generated within the communities must be reinvested. © Benedicte Kurzen/NOOR for FAO

At the Dakar 2 summit they did not invite any representatives of civil society who have been fighting for food sovereignty for years.
They try to appropriate the words, they promise funds and they sow discord within the peasant organizations, always conveying
the model of the green revolution.

What model of a food system do you propose?
Agroecology integrates production, transformation, conservation, and the sale of products. Food must be consumed first of all in the territories where it is grown, and the wealth generated within the communities must be reinvested.

A young local farmer standing on a grass with a bunch of garlic in his hands. The recognition of peasant seeds. 123rf

This means restoring soil quality, adopting a model of climate equity and justice, and focusing on diversity. Agroecology must be included in a model of food sovereignty that passes through the re-appropriation of our genetic heritage, based on access to land, the rational use of water and all natural resources. A fundamental role is played by the nearby markets where local agricultural products are found. An important step is the recognition of peasant seeds in all legislation so that they can be reproduced, exchanged, donated, or sold.

How can we change the mentalities of governments and supranational institutions?
Some regional integration institutions such as the Economic Community of West African States (CEDEAO), for example, have recognized food sovereignty. It is civil society; it is the farmers’ organizations that must continue to fight for the adoption of this model. In several countries, the movements are defining the strategy for agroecological transition. In eastern and central Africa, organizations have sprung up which ask for the recognition of peasant seeds. In Kenya, the movements that fight against GMOs have reached the Supreme Court. Initiatives to support agroecology have also sprung up in Tanzania, Uganda, and Cameroon. The situation in the north and south of the continent is more complicated. In South Africa, Morocco and Egypt, the green revolution model is deeply rooted and therefore more difficult to question. (Open Photo: 123rf)

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