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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)

Marta Gatti

Africa. The Great Challenge of Agriculture.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

It is mostly farmers who guarantee the production of food, not only in African countries but throughout the world. Estimates by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) speak of 33 million small farmers who contribute 70% of the food needs of the continent. The average size of a field is only 1.3 hectares.

In Southeast Africa 65% of the population depend on agriculture for their livelihood. In West and Central African countries, the primary sector represents 30-50% of GDP and is a source of income for 70-80% of the population. A crucial sector which, however, is still bringing up the rear of public spending. During the Dakar 2 summit, last January, the heads of state and government present renewed their intention to increase public spending on agriculture to 10%. Until 2020, only 4 nations respected the commitment, already expressed in the declarations of Maputo (2003) and Malabo (2014): Lesotho, Malawi, Ethiopia, and Benin.

The variety of climates allows for diversified crops. File Swm

African agriculture is often portrayed in terms of deprivation. Not very efficient and not very inclusive, according to the United Nations. In fact, African food systems export raw materials and experience high losses during collection, storage, and transport. According to the African Development Bank (AfDB), post-harvest losses for fruit and vegetables reach 35-50% and for cereals, they vary from 15 to 25%. Low efficiency also refers to poorly mechanized and non-digitalized agronomic techniques. According to IFAD, dependence on food imports in sub-Saharan Africa amounts to 35 billion dollars (in 2017). Fertilizers and fuel also come from abroad. According to the FAO, the sector tends to exclude women and young people, forcing the former into dependence and the latter into emigration, to the city or abroad. To this must be added the poor access to land, credit, and markets.
Very few farmers have land titles. Interest rates for loans are high and very few have a bank account. The sale of products is complicated by infrastructure shortcomings: bad roads, high transport costs, corruption, and lack of electricity.

Very few farmers have land titles. File © FAO/Riccardo Gangale

Many international trade agreements also favour imported goods over locally produced ones. Monocultures destined for export, standardized production, and the green revolution: this is the footprint of agro-industry in Africa. Reservoirs of raw materials to be exported, destined for large-scale distribution are: cocoa for the Ivory Coast and Ghana; cotton in Benin; tea and coffee in Kenya; and vanilla in Madagascar.
When African agriculture is described positively, it is seen as an investment opportunity. The variety of climates allows for diversified crops; an abundance of arable land and natural resources; and a pooling of the workforce. On paper, the value projections of the agribusiness sector foresee 1 trillion dollars by 2030. In this context, the recipes of the agricultural industry for the development of the sector have not changed. They profess biodiversity but still offer monocultures. They turn to the domestic market but then the bulk is exported. They promise processing industries but invest in raw materials.

According to OECD, FAO, and the World Bank, the top ten exports include cocoa, cashews, tobacco, coffee, oranges, cotton, sesame, tea, cocoa mass, and grapes. File Swm

According to data released by OECD, FAO, and the World Bank, the top ten exports include: cocoa, cashews, tobacco, coffee, oranges, cotton, sesame, tea, cocoa mass, and grapes. Among these, the only processed product is cocoa paste, the others are raw materials destined for foreign industries. In international forums designed to attract investors, the goal is clear: to boost a sector that promises high growth margins. The tools to achieve it are: improved seeds capable of responding to climate change; mechanization; digitization (from apps to robotization, up to e-commerce); fertilizers; and other inputs to increase land productivity. The view of the supporters of peasant agriculture is different. Agricultural transformation is achieved through the diversification of production systems, the promotion of agroecology and agroforestry, water and soil management, the protection of peasant seeds, the autonomy of producers, the creation of local and regional markets, the recognition of land titles, and the strengthening of peasant organizations. (Open Photo: 123rf)

Marta Gatti

Sierra Leone. Moringa Protein and Resistant Coffee.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

There is no shortage of water, but floods are increasingly frequent. To enable families to have enough food and earn their living, a group of Salesians have promoted a project for the cultivation and transformation of moringa.

From moringa to Coffea Stenophylla, from horizontally grown tomatoes to new generation tea, in Sierra Leone, where climate change is making itself felt amid droughts and floods, the new experiments help agriculture and fight climate change. “Fortunately, we are not short of water, although it often rains too much and strange atmospheric phenomena occur, such as lightning bolts that kill people”, said Brother Riccardo Racca, a Salesian who lives in the province of Bo, in Sierra Leone. However, thanks to missionary creativity it was possible to start a small transformation project. “We import many products into Sierra Leone, from wheat to rice and tea, but we could grow them here, if only we had more extensive agriculture,” pointed out Br. Racca.

Salesian Brother Riccardo Racca.

“Ours is a country that has become sadly famous for certain phenomena: blood diamonds, child soldiers, and Ebola – said the missionary – but in reality, there is much more to us”. Including a new agriculture that allows to feed many people thanks to small projects.
One of these is related to Moringa oleifera: “It is a tropical shrub imported from India, also called a ‘miraculous plant and tree of life’; it has white flowers, can grow a lot, and become a tree. Nothing of the moringa is thrown away”, said the missionary.
It is dried as a super protein food supplement; one more opportunity in Africa to improve health conditions and limit malnutrition in the poorest communities. “At the level of cultivation, extensive cultivation is still a dream in Africa, because it is difficult to put together technology and lands suitable for mechanized cultivation.

Moringa oleifera and the Salesian tea “brand”

However, with this project, we have managed to include about thirty families and for three years we have been giving them the opportunity to work the land and be part of a community. The moringa plants grow very well in our area; the leaves are gathered and dried – explains Brother Riccardo – the powder is used for cooking, as if it were flour, and is a super protein! It can also be put in bags to make tea”. “The rains come without warning here and we don’t know how to control the phenomenon. So often the crops end badly, while the moringa is very resistant and rarely lets us down”, said the missionary.In Sierra Leone, in addition to the rains, temperatures are also increasing, so much so that even the coffee plantations cannot withstand the heat. Scientists have rediscovered a rare species of coffee, the Stenophylla, resistant to very high temperatures. It is very similar to Arabica, with a strong and full-bodied taste, but it is considerably less refined.

Family at home in the village. 123rf.com

“We tested different qualities of coffee but all the others, although more resistant, were not even remotely comparable to this one in terms of flavour”, explained Aaron Davis, head of World Coffee Research, a non-profit research institute in California. The maximum temperature that the plantations can withstand is 32 degrees Celsius, a limit beyond which even coffee dies.
Especially where drought and new pests attack the fields. Being a shade plant, its ideal habitat is the undergrowth of tropical forests; Coffea Stenophylla trees grow spontaneously on the hills of Sierra Leone.
It is a question of promoting its cultivation and increasing quantities. This plant had almost disappeared over time because it was not considered very commercial; in fact, it takes nine years to reach maturity and bear fruit, two years more than arabica and five more than the robusta coffee plant. (Open photo: 123rf.com)

Ilaria De Bonis/PM

World Youth Day. After Lisbon. The Seven Steps.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

In Lisbon, during WYD23, Pope Francis indicated seven important steps that enable the youth to continue their journey.

Step 1: Called by name

This is how the Pope began his message at the welcoming celebration: “Called because we are loved [by] Him who calls us every day to embrace and encourage; to make each of us a unique and original masterpiece, whose beauty we can barely glimpse”.

The Pope invited each of the young people to think and imagine these words “Called by Name” written within our hearts, even forming the title of our life and the meaning of who we are. In his message at the welcoming celebration, the Pope addressed the young people in this way: “My friend, if God calls you by name, it means that for him you are not a number, but a face, a heart”.

Step 2: Jesus is counting on you

The second step proposed by the Pope to grow as a youth of Christ is to know that each of us matters to Him. If we are called by name, it is because He appreciates us, loves us and counts on us. He trusts us.
He will never abandon us in a sad interior void. Speaking about the illusions of the virtual world in which people feel involved, the Pope wanted to assure us that Jesus will never deceive us or abandon us. Jesus promises and keeps his promises – he wants to give you real happiness, not virtual happiness, eternal happiness and not the momentary happiness of the virtual world. Jesus, unlike the utilitarianism of social media market research, wants us for our uniqueness, for what we are and the way we are.

Step 3: He wants us the way we are

It is very common to hear older people say that young people should be like this or like that; that young people should conform to this or that way of living in society. Well! Christ’s young people are called and loved as they are, starting from the personal situation in which they live. Pope Francis said “We are called as we are, with our problems, with the limitations we have, with our overflowing joy, with this desire to be better and to triumph. Think about it. Jesus calls us as we are, not as others want us to be.”

Step 4: Feel part of an open community

It was perhaps one of the most evocative moments of WYD23 – when Pope Francis insisted that the Church is a community open to all: “Everyone, everyone, everyone!”. “Friends, I want to be clear with you, who are allergic to falsehoods and empty words: in the Church, there is room for everyone. For everyone! In the Church, no one is too much, there is room for everyone. […] Everyone, in their own language, repeat with me: everyone, everyone, everyone.

This is the Church, mother of all.” And the Pope continues: “The Church must have open arms to all, without exceptions, without prejudices, without moralism, without distinctions of race, sex, social or moral condition… everyone is truly everyone! How? Like a mom! Why? Because a mother, regardless of the condition of her son or daughter, is always welcoming. She may or may not agree with the choices of her son or daughter, but she will never stop welcoming into her arms the one she brought into the world.”

Step 5: Don’t get tired of asking

A young person, according to the Pope, is someone who asks many questions and who must never tire of asking.
The Pope says: “And it is good to ask questions; indeed, it is often better than giving answers because those who ask remain “restless” and restlessness is the best medicine against addiction, that creeping normality that anesthetizes the soul”.

Pope Francis insists on the fact that “God loves by surprise. It is not programmed. And to allow ourselves to be surprised, it is important not to become fixed on convincing and proselytizing answers to all of life’s questions, to the doubts of faith and to the challenges that today’s society brings to us.”. This is why the Pope insists on the fact that it is important not to stop asking questions, even more than always looking for answers to give.

Step 6: Feel Jesus walking with me.

In his Way of the Cross speech, Pope Francis said that young people must feel comforted and always accompanied by Jesus Christ on their journey through the ups and downs of life. “Know that you are not alone. You know Jesus will never turn away from you but walks alongside us in our suffering, in our anxieties and in our loneliness. Young people are therefore called to realize how Jesus gives himself and does so on the cross, on the various crosses of our lives and of our world.”

The Pope said that “the Cross is the greatest meaning of the greatest love, the love with which Jesus wants to embrace our life. Yes, your life, the life of others, the life of each of us. Jesus walks for me and we must tell everyone. Jesus walks this path for me, to give his life for me. And no one can have greater love than he who gives his life for his friends, than he who gives his life for others. Do not forget this: no one has greater love than he who gives up his life.”

Step 7: Get up and don’t be afraid.

In his message for the WYD23 vigil, Pope Francis said: “Walk. If you fall, get up, get help to get up, don’t stay on the ground. Get up and walk towards a goal; train yourself every day of your life. Nothing in life is free, everything is paid for. Only one thing is free, the love of Jesus. Therefore, with this gift that we have, the love of Jesus, and with the desire and will to walk, let us walk in hope. Let us look at our roots, without fear, do not be afraid!”. According to the Pope, these attitudes will generate missionary joy in people. Such a joy that makes us unable to resist bringing the love of Jesus Christ to everyone.

Filipe Resende

South Africa. Catholic bishops back miners’ compensation claims for black lung disease.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

Last August, Southern African bishops filed a class-action suit against a mining company that has failed to compensate miners for black lung disease. This is one of the many cases in an industry where workers pay a huge tribute to profits.

South Africa’s mining sector contributed in 2022 US $ 25 billion and 8 percent of the national GDP. Yet, the miners whom the country owes such amount of wealth get little recognition as some large corporations fail to compensate them for occupational diseases.
On 15 August, the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC), which groups of bishops from Botswana, South Africa and Eswatini, filed a class action lawsuit with South Africa’s High Court Gauteng Local Division, against a subsidiary of the Australian mining major BHP, South32 and against the South African Energy company Seriti on behalf of 17 current and former miners.

Illawarra Metallurgical Coal. South32 has three mining operations in South Africa (Photo: South32)

The workers had previously called the Catholic Church for help after contracting incurable coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, also known as black lung disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease causing breathing difficulties, airflow limitations, and constant chest pains.
In an application for certification of a class action, the Conference’s Commission for Justice and Peace accused the coal mining company South32 of failing to provide workers with adequate training, equipment and a safe working environment, as required by law. According to the application, both diseases caused by coal mine dust can be prevented. The Commission asked the court to order compensation to be paid to those workers. The plaintiffs also call for compensation for the coal miners who died from these diseases.

Cardinal Stephen Brislin, Archbishop of Cape Town.

Cardinal Stephen Brislin, the archbishop of Cape Town, justified in a statement the bishops’ initiative because some of the plaintiffs are retired workers who do not receive any more legal assistance from the trade unions of which they were members when they were still working in the mines. The bishops’ initiative is inspired by the Catholic social teachings included in Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical on capital and labor, “Rerum Novarum”. The claim that “the Church has been close to the suffering of unskilled and vulnerable workers in the context of unbridled industrialization and its support for the coal mine workers is a concrete manifestation of its defense of the dignity of work which is a function of God’s creation”, say the bishops.South32 which is a multibillion-dollar metal mining company based in Perth (Australia), operated South Africa Energy Coal from 2015 to 2021 and has still three operations in Southern Africa (South Africa Manganese and Hillside Aluminium in South Africa and Mozal Aluminium in Mozambique). One of its spokespeople answered to press queries after the SACBC filed its suit, that the company was “unable to comment further at this point in time.”
South32 which has three mining operations in South Africa and employs 9,100 people worldwide, has already run into other disputes this year. In July 2023, it was ordered to pay $2.9m in compensation after an investigation found that one of its coal mines in New South Wales (Australia) had been draining local drinking water to its facility over the last five years. The mine’s operator Illawarra Coal Holdings, a subsidiary of South32, admitted that it never had the permit to use any surface water supply for its mining activities.
In addition, at the end of August, the Australian Collieries’ Staff and Officials Association (CSOA) said that workers at South32’s Appin mine had failed to reach an agreement with the company over an industrial dispute over “having a reasonable work/life balance”.

Hillside Aluminium. South32 employs 9,100 people worldwide. (South32)

Yet, South32 is far from being the only company accused by its own workers of violating their basic rights. In March, the Director of the Commission for Justice and Peace of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC), Dominican Father Stan Muyebe, urged two gold mining companies, DRDGOLD and East Rand Properties Mines (ERPM) to “settle their historic debts to mine workers made sick in their mines as a result of working in unsafe conditions”.
According to Father Muyebe, while 19 companies accepted to settle damages and compensate miners after a class action suit was approved by the High Court in 2019, DRDGOLD and ERPM have appealed the ruling and do not seem to have the intention to pay such compensations for miners who suffer from silicosis and tuberculosis caused by exposure to high levels of silica dust while working in the gold mines or for the families of those who died.
The issue is an important one. In 2022, more than 475,000 workers were employed in South Africa’s mining industry, facing many health challenges. Professor Jill Murray of La Trobe University School of Law in Melbourne and specialist in international labour relations reported that South African miners were facing an epidemic of occupational lung diseases such as silicosis and tuberculosis and that initiatives to influence policy and thus reduce dust levels and diseases had been largely unsuccessful. Obviously, the cases raised by the Commission for Justice and Peace Commission show that the issue remains unsolved.

South African miners. 123rf.com

Another study published by the executive director of the National Institute for Occupational Health in Johannesburg, Barry Kitansamy and other researchers in 2018, revealed that between 2012 and 2017, 111,000 miners received compensations, half of them for permanent lung impairment and 52,000 for tuberculosis. Yet, accordingly, an almost equivalent number of claims (107,000) were unpaid.
Dr Gill Nelson, an epidemiologist from the Faculty of Health Sciences at Witwatersrand University also found out that between 1975 and 2007, the percentage of white miners with silicosis increased from 18% to 22% in gold mines while the proportion of black miners affected with the same disease soared from 3% to 32% in the same environment. The study concluded to the failure of the goldmines to control dust and prevent occupational respiratory diseases in the workplace. Besides, Dr Nelson identified high risks of asbestos-related diseases in diamond and platinum mines. (Photo:123rf.com)

François Misser

Captagon. The New Drug of those Fighting in Syria.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

It has spread to the entire Persian Gulf, representing, to date, a new threat also for Europe.

Captagon is the name given to phenethylline, a synthetic stimulant, a narcotic that causes disinhibiting effects and gives a sense of invincibility, considerably altering the perception of what one is doing, facilitating acts of extreme violence, as well as improving physical resistance.The rapid spread of Captagon is due to the fact that the synthesis of phenethylline requires cheap and legal raw materials, and no sophisticated equipment, thus allowing its production in clandestine laboratories and its abuse in the Middle East and North Africa. In reality, the counterfeit versions, marked with the Captagon logo, available throughout the Arabian Peninsula, do not contain phenethylline due to low supplies. However, these pills contain other amphetamines and derivatives capable of inducing similar effects. In addition to being the drug most used among the wealthy young populations of the Arabian Peninsula states, it is now recognized as the drug of fighters, as it is consumed among militants and jihadists due to its effects.

127 bags of Captagon seized in Syria. File: US/Christopher Brown

Captagon is in fact used by the soldiers of the Islamic State for its fear-inhibiting effects; the drug makes them euphoric and full of adrenalin, thus allowing them to fight for a long period of time. Furthermore, it raises the pain tolerance threshold and reduces the level of tiredness, allowing terrorists to function even with little sleep, without feeling tired and without a significant decrease in attention or strength.
To date, Syria has been found to be the main producer, consumer and exporter of Captagon, thanks to its strategic position at the crossroads of the Middle East, which allows its distribution to neighboring countries and renders smuggling easier. The pills retail for between $5 and $20 and are one of the most widely used substances in the region. This represents a substantial source of income for Syria. Data show that, in 2021 alone, the Syrian regime earned $5.7 billion from the Captagon trade. Faced with the paralyzed economy due to the civil war that began in 2011, the regime of Bashar al-Assad, to address the crisis and with the support of Iran, supported cooperation between Iranian militia groups, their allies such as the Lebanese Hezbollah, and some Syrian army leaders to sell various types of drugs outside Syria.

Over the past three years, the boom in Captagon production has attracted the attention of various manufacturers and smugglers, who generally send shipments from the northern port of Latakia which has been under the control of the Assad family since the 1980s, using the commercial sea routes, and overland through Jordan, to reach consumption centers in the Persian Gulf.
In fact, in addition to Syria, the drug is also widespread in Saudi Arabia (which appears to be the main destination of this market), the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iraq.
Among the destinations of the Captagon, not even Europe seems unlikely. The national law enforcement agencies of various European countries, including Italy and Germany, have often confiscated large quantities of containers containing Captagon pills. In reality, the drug is not yet widespread in the West, but its diversion through Europe is part of the plan outlined by smugglers to deceive customs officials in Saudi Arabia and Dubai. In fact, once in Europe, the containers are repacked and sent back south to the Gulf.

A portion of the 86 million Captagon pills police in Dubai say was seized. File: Police Dubai

On April 24, the Council of the European Union outlined a list of 25 people and 8 entities responsible for the production and trafficking of drugs, in particular Captagon. Various members of the Assad family have been identified, accused of promoting instability and corruption in the country thanks also to drug trafficking, leaders and members of regime-affiliated militias, as well as people associated with the Syrian army and Syrian military intelligence.
Meanwhile, the EU remains committed to finding a lasting and credible political solution to the conflict in Syria on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and the 2014 Geneva Communiqué.
However, faced with this new scenario, it is important that a plan to restore the country includes projects and tools aimed at dismantling this deep-rooted dynamic which currently supports the regime’s economy, worsening an already highly unstable political and social situation. (File: 123rf)

Erika Russo/CgP

Ethiopia. A country is falling apart.

Sunday, 1 October 2023 8:00

Less than one year after the war in Tigray, Ethiopia has been hit by another conflict in the Amhara region. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has seemingly embarked on a military strategy. Many intellectuals warn that this could lead the country to fall apart.

Less than one year after the end of the war in Tigray, Ethiopia is plunging again into violence. Since last April, unrest has escalated in the Amhara region, which is the second most populated of the country, home to more than 30 million people, after the federal government announced plans to dismantle the regional Amhara Special Forces (ASF) and integrate its members into the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF). The government’s aim is to rebuild the unity of the Ethiopian nation which is threatened by the coexistence of regional armies which group dozens of thousands of soldiers.
But while some ASF soldiers joined the federal army and the police, many others deserted and joined in the mountains the “Fano” Amhara militias which had been reactivated by Abiy during the war in Tigray to fight the secessionists of the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) and are mainly composed of young rural men.
Fano is an Amharic word which means “freedom fighter” and was used to name the resistant fighters who opposed the Italian occupiers during the Abyssinia war of 1935 and 1936.

Landscape in the highlands of Lalibela in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia. File 123rf

Nowadays, this is a war between former allies. From late 2020 until the November 2022 peace agreement in Pretoria, signed under African Union auspices between the Addis government and the Tigray authorities which put an end to the war, the ASF and the Fano militias fought alongside the ENDF against the TDF.
Following the war in Tigray, the Fano emerged well-armed and stronger but without a centralised command. This situation prompted Prime Minister Abyi to get rid of them and of other regional forces that had been created during the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front government (1989-2019).
The crisis reached momentum by the end of April when the federal government ordered the ENDF to take action against “extremist” elements after an unidentified armed group killed Girma Yeshitila, the head of the Amhara Prosperity Party, one of the 10 factions of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s ruling Prosperity Party.
The grievances of the Amhara are enormous: they complain that after the end of the war in Tigray, the government did not address issues related to massacres, displacements and harassment of the Amhara and Afar peoples. As a result, Amhara youth joined en masse the Fano militias units which acted as Amhara self-defence groups. They clashed about 30 times with government forces in the Amhara region before 4 August, mostly in North Wello and West Gojam.

Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed. (File: Office of the Prime Minister)

In early August, the Fano militias swept into towns and cities, briefly taking over some. They threatened the two largest regional towns, Bahir Dar and Gondar before being pushed back by the ENDF. They attacked police stations and garrisons, captured weapons, freed prisoners of the Bahir Dar jail and briefly took control of the airport of Lalibela, Ethiopia’s most popular tourist town. Violent demonstrations were reported. Roads were closed in Debre Markos, Dembecha, Bure, and Amanuel to obstruct ENDF movements. There were attacks on local officials while the regional police and kebele militias aligned with Fano militias. Many of these officials fled to the federal capital, Addis Ababa.
The government responded by sending in the Army, shutting down the internet across the region on the 3 August and declaring on the 4 August a six-month state of emergency, including restrictions on demonstrations and allowing arrests without a court warrant. The federal government also threatened to extend, the state of emergency to the rest of the country. It also announced by mid-August that it had detained individuals in Addis Ababa in informal detention centres, including schools, who were being denied access to court and legal counsel, according to Amnesty International.
By mid-August, human rights organisations reported that over 3,000 Addis Ababa residents, mostly ethnic Amhara were arrested since the state of emergency was declared.

On 27 April, Girma Yeshitila head of the ruling Prosperity Party, Amhara region branch, was shot dead. Yeshitila was the figure of the government’s controversial decision to abolish the regional special forces and reorganize them into the national army, federal and regular police. (File Addis Media Network)

In the Amhara region, the government-imposed night curfews in six towns, including the regional capital Bahir Dar. Public meetings were banned. The ENDF was deployed in the entire region and the government used Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones in the repression. A strike at Finote Salem, on the 14 August, killed at least 26 people during an anti-government demonstration. In a communiqué from the 18 August, Amnesty International said it had also received allegations of mass killings in Bahir Dar and Shewa Robit. On the 25 August, the head of the Amhara region Yilkal Kefele resigned. Since then, clashes between Fano militias and the ENDF continued unabated.
The main reason for the resistance of the ASF to the dismantlement of their troops despite that they were offered a choice to integrate the national army or police or to get compensation to return to civil life is that like the Fano militias, they see themselves as self-defence units. They consider that their role is to protect ethnic Amhara who have been persecuted in several parts of the country, in Tigray, in the Benshangul/Gumuz region near Sudan and around Addis Ababa, from where they have been forcefully displaced while facing harassment by Oromia’s security forces when travelling to Addis Ababa, which is an enclave in the Oromia region.
The Fano and Amhara militias complained for months that the federal government did nothing to protect Amhara settlers.

A street in Bahir Dar. the Amhara regional capital. CC BY-SA 4.0/ O.Mustafin

Amharic ethnic militias demand that ENDF troops withdraw from the Amhara region and they accuse the federal government whose leader Abyi is Oromo of being dominated by this ethnic group which is the country’s largest with over 40 million people.
The Amhara militias also demand that the Welkait, Tselemt, Humera, and Raya areas in Tigray region, with large Amhara populations, be officially incorporated into the Amhara region. They claim that when the TPLF still controlled the federal state, these areas were put without consultation under the control of Tigray. Abyi’s decision to eliminate regional special forces is also regarded in Amhara as a threat to the region’s ability to protect itself against aggressions from other regions, in particular attacks from Tigray.
The Fano militias consider that the dismantling of the ASF before the integration of the disputed areas of Tigray into the Amhara region, is premature unless the federal government provides guarantees. Another grievance was that the Amhara militias were left out of the African Union-backed peace talks that ended the war in Tigray, despite their involvement on the Addis government side.

Archbishop Abune Sawiros of South West Shoa Diocese and two other archbishops oversaw the appointment of 17 bishops for dioceses in the Oromia region, and nine bishops for other dioceses at a ceremony in Oromia, without the involvement of the ruling Holy Synod.

The political and social climate is spoiled by anti-Amhara moves in which the members of this ethnic group see the hand of the Prime Minister. The rivalry has even reached the religious sphere. At the beginning of this year, a conflict broke out inside the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church along ethnic lines and the government was accused to recognize indirectly the breakaway synod of Oromia and Nations and Nationalities formed in January. Abuna Sawiros, who headed the new synod, justified the decision was necessary to ensure that spiritual fathers familiar with the culture and language of churches in Oromia and other regions are appointed. The decision was seen as an answer to the claim by the Oromo of taking a larger role in Ethiopia’s socio-political space, which had previously been dominated by Amhara and Tigrayans, including inside the Orthodox Church. Government troops and regional Oromia Special Forces supported the rebel bishops. The police clamped down on demonstrators who were opposing the takeover of the St. Michael Church by bishops of the new synod. At least eight people were killed during these incidents in February, according to the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. After an unprecedented episode of mutual excommunications of bishops by each group, eventually, in mid-February, both sides came to an understanding after discussions in the presence of the prime minister and traditional elders. But the wounds may take time to heal.

Lalibela Airport . CC BY-SA 4.0/ Sm105

Concerning the Amhara region conflict, the government’s approach is more military than political, which is not very surprising: Abiy Ahmed, known worldwide as the 2019 Peace Prize recipient for having ended the border dispute with Eritrea and seen as a “reformer” is also a former decorated military officer.
The government tone is bellicose. On 9 August, it claimed that the ENDF had annihilated the Fano in Bahir Dar, Gondar, Shewa Robit and Lalibela. Unconfirmed reports claim that 3,000 civilians were massacred in Bahir Dar alone and that other massacres took place in Gondar, Debre Berhan, Shewa Robit and Lalibela.
The Amhara region has been for centuries the heart of the Ethiopian state. Should it explode, Ethiopia would fall apart inevitably. (Open Photo: Flag of Ethiopia. 123rf.com)

François Misser

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