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Music. Vietnam. Between Tradition, Pop and Rap.

For the Vietnamese people, music has always been of great importance. A tradition with millennia of history behind it and a present perfectly integrated into international pop trends.
As a land of conquest for the great planetary pop stars – Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and the most popular Korean BTS –  but also fertile ground on which many talented local artists spring up.
If the traditional genre nha nhac (music for court ceremonies dating from the nineteenth century) has been declared a World Heritage Patrimony by UNESCO, the tragic conflict of the sixties and seventies of the last century indirectly favoured an expressive cosmopolitanism, bringing many Vietnamese artists closer to the themes of Anglo-American
pacifist folk protesters.

Suboi performing in Ho Chi Minh City. CC BY-SA 3.0/ Aznboy001

With the end of the conflict, the progressive Westernization of the country then favoured the growth and diffusion of an authentically Vietnamese pop hypothesis and the rise of artists such as Mihn Tuyet and the singer-songwriter My Tam who were able to blend local stylistic elements with the modernity of internationally popular pop.
My Tam is still a very popular star today, but alongside her, there are many artists worthy of mention. Like Son Tung TP, a twenty-nine-year-old from Thai Bihn with a past as a teen idol and a style halfway between neo rhythm ‘n’ blues and dance.
There is rapper Suboi (one of the few artists who can boast some popularity abroad), a hip-hop band Da Lab, a Hanoi pop singer-songwriter Vu Cat Tuong and fellow countryman Dong Nhi who also collaborated with planetary stars the likes of will.i.am and the Black Eyed Peas; the Chillies are an indie-rock band, while artists like Soobin Hoang Son and Bich Phuong are more melodic and catchier.

Phuc Du. Photo: nguoinoitieng.tv

Fortunately, today’s Vietnam is very different from what was exported to the world by the tragic black-and-white reports of the last century and its natural landscapes, still largely untouched, are today more than ever a formidable tourist attraction. But the music of the new Vietnam also springs up on the splendid beaches of Da Nang; from here come, for example, Du Phuc and Den Vau, further significant voices of a country that seems to have left behind the tragedies of the past and that lives its present in a continuous and very rapid transformation; but which brings with it an infinite number of new challenges – social, humanitarian and cultural. (Photo: Traditional Street music in the streets of Hanoi. ©hecke/123RF.com)

 Franz Coriasco

The Role of France in the Indo-Pacific.

The French administration of Emmanuel Macron has given a strong impetus to its foreign policy in the context of the Indo-Pacific.
This is a region of the world with a long historical tradition for the geopolitical interests of the Elysée and which today has become
one of its priorities.

As explained in the 2019 document of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces, ‘France and Security in the Indo-Pacific’, France today has a population of more than 1.6 million inhabitants in its territories located in the Indo-Pacific region. This was possible since, despite the decolonization process of the second half of the last century, Paris was able to maintain some overseas territories both in the Indian Ocean, on all the islands of Mayotte and Reunion, and in the Pacific Ocean, namely the islands of Clipperton, Wallis, Futuna, the archipelago of French Polynesia, and New Caledonia. The latter, in particular, confirmed its loyalty to French sovereignty with the rejection of the referendum on its independence in the autumn of 2021.

Being territorially present in this region, Paris was able to define its own Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) off the coasts of its overseas territories both in the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific, reaching numbers exceeding 9 million square kilometres, the second largest EEZ in the world. It is useful to add that the French presence in these territories also entails a significant deployment of French soldiers, around 6,800 men and women, from the eastern African coasts, with the French military base in Djibouti, passing through the Indian Ocean and ending in the Pacific.

Emmanuel Macron president of France since 2017. CC BY-NC 2.0/ Duosdebs01

Through its status as a medium-sized European power present in the Indo-Pacific context, Paris has established relationships with various regional players over the years. Above all, as confirmed by ‘France’s Indo-Pacific Strategy of 2022’, the bilateral partnerships with India and Japan should be underlined, above all in the field of security and defence.
The partnership with Australia instead, which until 2021 could be considered of equal level, suffered a setback with the signing of the AUKUS pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the USA, which provides for the provision of nuclear-powered submarines by the US and the UK to Australia.
According to Paris, Australia broke a previous agreement with the French group Naval, which would have supplied Canberra with conventional submarines. The episode created a diplomatic crisis between Paris and Canberra, so much so that the new 2022 document specifies that Paris will cooperate with Canberra only ‘on a case-by-case basis’. In addition, France has developed partnerships with multilateral organizations such as ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) and smaller international organizations present in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Recently, Macron’s trip to China in early April, partly together with Ursula von der Leyen, and the G7 summit in Hiroshima in May were two relevant events for better understanding French wishes in the Indo-Pacific.

F 735 FS Germinal. Photo: French Navy

It is clear how Paris, adhering perfectly to a Gaullist vision that can be summarized in ‘friends, allies, but not aligned’ with the USA, wants in every way to avoid taking part in a potential zero-sum game between the United States and China. In the first place, Macron seems intent on not promoting, in misalignment with Washington, a cut in French trade with the People’s Republic of China, which has indeed been strengthened with various agreements signed during the trip to Beijing. Macron also spoke in favour of maintaining the status quo on Taiwan, expressed mainly in the One China policy. According to France, stability in the Taiwan Strait is essential to guarantee freedom of navigation and trade, but at the same time, it does not believe it is in Europe’s interest to risk being involved in a potential crisis between the United States and China over the sovereignty of the island. It is important to underline how Macron tries to Europeanize French interests as if when speaking of Europe, he really has in mind an exclusively French viewpoint. (Open Photo: French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle reaching Toulon at the end of its 4-month-long Indo-Pacific deployment. French Navy picture)

Carlo Miglior/CgP 

The Role of Masato in the Peruvian Amazon.

Masato is the typical and preferred drink of the Asheninka, the Shipios and other indigenous groups of the Peruvian Amazon. Masato is a fermented drink based on yucca, which is a big tuber also known as cassava, its ancestral name is piarentsi.

In some regions of South America Masato can be prepared with other ingredients such as corn or rice and they are not fermented. Its origins date back to the history of the ancestral peoples of the Amazon.
This drink is often associated with cultural and spiritual values among the Amazonian ethnic peoples. There are different methods to prepare this drink. According to Mirian Pérez, an Asheninka woman: “Cassava is peeled and boiled until it is soft. Once soft, you drain the water and mash it in the same pot with a wooden masher, which is made just for this purpose. The brewers, generally indigenous women, who stick to the traditional and original process, chew portions of cassava and then mix them again with the rest of the dough, in order to speed up fermentation. Finally, the jar containing the cassava is covered with banana leaves and left to ferment for three days. At this time the drink is ready, but it has still a sweet flavour given by the cassava starches. From the fourth day the drink becomes strong masato, its alcoholic content is higher, and one can really get drunk with it”.

Preparing masato. CC BY-SA 2.0/Diego Giannoni

In less traditional methods some brewers forego the chewing process altogether. Instead, they add grated raw sweet potato. This helps to increase the amount of sugars and starches in the mix or combination of products. Therefore, fermentation is possible in a faster and natural way.  Bonifacio Pezo, who is one of the great leaders of the Asheninka, reveals to us a third method to help fermentation. According to him, one can speed up the fermentation process by using germinated corn: “The newly grown corn plant is ground and then mixed with the (yucca) dough. After that, it is left to ferment for two or three days uncovered. Once the dough has fermented, it is mixed with water and sieved, and finally served to drink.
According to the Asheninka, there are four types of masato made from cassava: masato mixed with sugar or honey, mixed with cane juice, mixed with sweet potato, and chewed masato. In addition, apart from the masato made from cassava, there are also other types of masato such as the pijuayo masato, and the chonta masato. The preparation of masato may vary among the several Amazonian tribes.

Masato is the first thing an Ashaninka wants after hours of walking or working.

According to oral narrations, the masato ritual was carried out at the time of the cassava harvest to give thanks to God. It is said that this drink was destined for sacred times and festive moments of the indigenous communities. Piarentsi was made for special occasions such as mijanos, birthdays or other family or community gatherings. It is considered as a sacred drink for rituals. That’s why this drink was prepared by maidens after they had reached puberty. The preparation of masato was also linked to marriage. A young man who intended to marry a girl would go into the jungle to hunt in order to show that he was ready to start a family, and in the meanwhile, the chosen girl prepared piarentsi. When the suitor arrived at the girl’s house with the mitayo (game), she offered him a bowl of piarentsi, thus starting the family agreements and the preparation for the wedding.
Nowadays, masato, among the indigenous communities of the Amazon region, is still prepared and offered on special occasions such as birthdays or mingas (community work). During the patron saint festivities or anniversaries of the community. As a typical drink, masato cannot miss at social events.
Soccer championships, the so-called penalties and chengaritos (sports where players kick penalties only), or other activities that have the purpose of raising funds either for the community or for the schools, are other occasions to prepare and offer masato.

Amazon River. 123rf.

Masato is the first thing an Ashaninka wants after hours of walking, or working, it is the first drink that an Ashaninka offers as a welcome drink to a relative, a friend, or a neighbour that has come to visit. The inhabitants of the cities of the Amazon region, instead, consider masato as just the typical drink of the indigenous people, a drink for just a good bender. That is why talking about masato is almost always a reason for jokes, mockery, and contempt towards Amazonian cultures. The people of the cities joke and emphasize the repugnance of the chewing for the preparation of this indigenous drink, without understanding that this habit is a great solution in the context of the rural world, where everything is scarce.
Masato, among the indigenous people of the Amazon region, is the integrating element that strengthens social and spiritual relations. It is the drink that better quenches thirst after a hard work or a long and tiring journey. It is the drink that accompanies community dialogue, during which the members of the indigenous communities talk about different political, social, and cultural issues. It is the drink that is offered to welcome visitors, friends, and relatives. Drinking masato together, to the indigenous people of the Amazon, also means sharing each other’s experiences, narrating ancestral stories, and making plans for the future of their family and their community while keeping alive the past and its traditions and values.

Jhonny Mancilla Pérez

Iran returns to Africa.

Three countries visited. Cooperation contracts. The intention is to get out of a state of political and economic isolation imposed
by Western sanctions.

Last 12 and 13 July, a delegation, made up of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif and businessmen and led by the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, visited the African continent, after an absence of almost a decade, considering the last visit by an Iranian leader date back to 2013. Raisi’s African tour was divided into three stages, which took place first in Kenya, then in Uganda, and finally in Zimbabwe.

After joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the recent visit to Latin America, the tour of Africa appears as a further attempt undertaken by the Iranian leadership to emerge from the condition of political and economic isolation imposed by Western sanctions. The aim is to propose a multipolar alternative to the Euro-Atlantic centric order, driven by Washington, which could be realized in the Global South movement and in the BRICS countries, of which
Iran now is part.

To date, trade relations are very limited between Africa and Iran, estimated at only $1.27 billion in trade. During the visit, Foreign Minister Zarif stated that Iran’s goal is to increase the volume of trade with Africa up to 2 billion which, however, would represent less than one percent of the total African trade exchange.

The visit to Kenya concluded with the signing of a package of five memoranda, covering the sectors of information and communication technologies (ICT), fishing, livestock farming, and investment promotion. However, commercial relations between Nairobi and Tehran have been substantially underdeveloped, considering that, in 2021, trade amounted to just over 50 million dollars.

As the main economy of the East African Community (made up of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda), Nairobi would allow Iranian goods to reach the wider regional free trade area. At the same time, Tehran, in addition to committing itself to opening a car factory in the country, could also offer its expertise to Kenya in the nuclear sector, in which the country has encountered difficulties in starting its own production. Overall, Kenyan President Ruto’s decision to host Raisi has attracted particular interest due to Nairobi’s historic closeness to the United States and Europe, as demonstrated by the recent Economic Partnership Agreement with the EU.

The tour of the Iranian delegation continued in Uganda, where Raisi met President Yoweri Museveni who, after promulgating an anti-LGBT law last May, risks facing sanctions from the United States, a country with which relations have been excellent until the Biden presidency. During the visit, Raisi and Museveni decided to deepen cooperation between the two countries in some sectors, including that of oil. In fact, Tehran has offered its support in the construction of an oil refinery, with a production capacity of around 60,000 barrels per day, and a national oil pipeline, harshly criticized by Brussels due to its environmental impact.

Finally, Raisi travelled to Zimbabwe, with which Tehran boasts a historical bond that has its roots in Iranian support for Harare’s war of independence in the 1970s. In addition to attacking the West for the decision to sanction both countries, the President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, agreed with his Iranian counterpart on 12 memoranda relating to cooperation in the energy, agriculture, pharmaceutical and telecommunications sectors.

Despite the difficult economic conditions in the country (annual inflation at 175% and an expected drop in GDP of 3.5% in 2023), Zimbabwe, almost entirely dependent on hydrocarbon imports, could fill Iran’s shortages of some resources, through the supply of critical minerals, including gold, platinum, and lithium, in which Harare is rich.

In conclusion, Raisi’s visit should be interpreted as an attempt to relieve Tehran’s economic pressure and political isolation, through a renewed interest in the Global South which, in the future, could play an important role on the international scene. It can be hypothesized that not only African countries will benefit from Iranian expertise in the field of hydrocarbons and nuclear power, but also the Islamic Republic itself will be able to enjoy a climate of cooperation with these countries, allowing it to circumvent international sanctions and the isolation to which it is subjected. (Photo: 123rf.com)

Alessandro Di Martino/ Ce.S.I.

 

 

The search for a just peace in Ukraine.

“Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth by falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages”.  That’s Samuel Johnson in November 1758 writing in his The Idler essays for the London Weekly about the growing role of journalists – ‘news-writers’.  You wonder what he might have made of Putin’s news media.

‘The first casualty of war is truth’, our terse twentieth century version of Johnson.   The aphorism applies to the coverage of the war in Ukraine both through what is generally omitted, what is told and untold.  The ethical principles underlying journalism are accuracy, impartiality, independence, accountability, humanity and truth. They are notoriously difficult to abide by – sometimes career-threatening – in the face of strong public opinion, particularly during war when a degree of self-censorship is prudent.

Take just two examples of Western reporting.  The Russians claimed they were promised in the 1990s that NATO would not expand eastwards.  Denials were reported uncritically.  But US National Security Archives opened in December 2017 reveal Gorbachev was indeed assured in 1990-1991, not only by US Secretary of State, James Baker, but by Thatcher, Kohl, Mitterrand, Major and Bush senior that there would be no NATO expansion.

This litany of assurances – Baker’s “not one inch east” – came as quid pro quo for Gorbachev’s consenting to German unification within NATO.   Promises to Russia were reneged on in response to understandable pressures from Central and Eastern European countries plus lobbying by the six major US armaments corporations led by Lockheed Martin.  In 1996, Congress passed legislation enabling expansion, the NATO Enlargement Facilitation Act.

The former ambassador to the Soviet Union and doyen of foreign policy within the State Department, George Kennan wrote in the 29 June 1997 New York Times with extraordinary prescience: “Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire
post-Cold War era.

Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking”.  As Putin was consolidating his power between 1999-2004, ten countries, four bordering Russia, joined NATO.

​NATO’s expansion does not justify Putin’s criminal invasions of Ukraine nor his war crimes, nor his tyrannical rule.  But it does provide him with a public rationale for attacks on his southern, sovereign neighbour (his imperial fantasies seem to have taken over now).  As long as acknowledging the truth of what Kennan wrote back in 1997 about NATO expansion incurs strident media accusations of supporting Russian aggression, we are not going to learn from history – though perhaps we never do.

The second example of constrained reporting has profound implications for ending the war through a peace agreement and ceasefire.  Russia’s fantasy of blitzkrieg and swift overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-western government failed.  In March 2022, a month after the invasion, as a result of Turkish mediation, Russia and Ukraine appeared on the verge of finding a negotiated end to the fighting.  Key elements were Russia’s withdrawal to its pre-24 February positions in exchange for Ukraine’s neutrality, that is excluding any foreign bases or troops from its territory – even on joint exercises.

The US, UK and other countries were to provide joint security guarantees promising to intervene in the event of Ukraine being attacked again.  Crimea would be left on the back burner with an understanding that within the next fifteen-year years, while seeking a resolution, neither party would use military means to change the territory’s current status.  The disputed Donbass area would also be the subject
of separate negotiations.

According to Milan Rai writing in Peace News 2 April 2023 Ukraine abruptly withdrew from the negotiations because of the mass murder of civilians and prisoners of war by Russian troops in Bucha, a town just 25 kms west of Kyiv, and as a result of pressure from the US and UK (Boris Johnson  made a special visit to Kviv on 9 April and refused to sign the proposed special guarantees).  A few days later Russia pushed into the territories it had recognized as independent in eastern Ukraine.

Maybe events simply made steps to reach a just peace impossible.  Maybe Putin was negotiating in good faith.  The Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett who was engaged in the negotiations believed so and thought there was a 50/50 chance of success.  We just don’t know.

The point is that the two parties were at the negotiating table once discussing a plan that might have worked, but talk of negotiations now gets treated as, at worst, a betrayal of Ukraine or, at best, naiveté.  Yet the chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, not known for his naiveté, was talking openly of negotiations in November 2022.  He compared the trench warfare in eastern Ukraine and its appalling casualties with those of the First World War and received a customary backlash for not promoting outright victory for Ukraine.

In a comparable way, Pope Francis has been widely criticised for maintaining the neutral position required for promoting dialogue, and very recently for praising the cultural wealth of ‘great Mother Russia’.  Yet on 2 August 2022 the Vatican had fiercely denounced the Russian invasion: “the interventions of the Holy Father Pope Francis are clear and unequivocal in condemning it as morally unjust, unacceptable, barbaric, senseless, repugnant and sacrilegious”.

Both Pope and President Volodymyr Zelensky find themselves caught between contending expectations and demands.  On the Pope’s side, taking up a clear moral, so partisan, position versus a traditional papal role as neutral peacemaker.  On Zelensky’s, the burden of rising Ukrainian casualties and openness to negotiation versus retaining his international and national support by a position of nothing- but- outright- victory and maintaining his decree banning negotiation. To pursue the former, with a consistent 90% approval rating for pursuing the latter, would be political suicide.

The intensity of the ground artillery war is prodigious.  Both sides are beginning to run out of ammunition.  Stockpiles of 155 mm shells held in the West are very low. The UK has resorted to sending Ukraine depleted uranium tank-busting shells believed to have caused illness amongst civilians and troops in Afghanistan.

The US is supplying cluster bombs known to mutilate children and to take years of clearance post-war.  The Russians are reduced to seeking ordinance and weaponry from North Korea.

On 12 September this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke of Zelensky needing to lift his decree banning talks with Russia as a first step towards negotiations, saying that, if Ukraine was unwilling, it was for the USA to make it happen.

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, a leading member of the Sant Egidio community-based in Rome, which successfully mediated the civil war in Mozambique, has just returned from Beijing. His mandate from the Pope is to “support humanitarian initiatives and the search for ways that can lead to a just peace” in Ukraine.

Are we approaching another March 2022 moment of mutually felt weakness that might make steps towards dialogue, negotiation, a ceasefire and an agreed peace possible? For the sake of the Ukrainian and Russian people dying in Putin’s war let’s hope against hope we are. (Photo: 123rf.com)

Ian Linden
Professor at St Mary’s University,
Strawberry Hill, London.

Central African Republic. The Queen of the gold mines.

Zhao Baomei controls the country’s gold market. With her IMC, she has received numerous licenses, particularly in the areas of Yaloké, Bambari, and near the border with Cameroon. The IMC has caused serious damage to local populations and the environment.

The queen of the mines of the Central African Republic is a 54-year-old Chinese entrepreneur. Her name is Zhao Baomei and she heads Industrie Minière Centrafricaine (IMC). A little information about her.
The silent rise of Zhao Baomei in the Central African Republic is reconstructed in a detailed investigation by Africa Intelligence, published last June. The woman is part of the second ‘transhumance’ of Chinese investors who landed in the country in 2016. In power, freshly appointed as president, is Faustin-Archange Touadéra, who has opened the door to the new gold rush in Beijing, in the west and the centre of the country.

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Central African Republic President Faustin Archange Touadera and his delegation in Beijing. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

In Bangui, Zhao Baomei resides across from the Lycée Boganda in the fourth arrondissement. At the top of the Central African government, her most influential contact is Léopold Mboli Fatran, minister of mines from 2016 to 2021, as well as a long-time friend of President Touadéra, of whom he is still an advisor today. In his mandate as minister, Mboli Fatran would have facilitated the assignment of numerous licenses to Zhao’s IMC, particularly in the areas of Yaloké, Bambari and near the border with Cameroon. Another man with whom Zhao has formed strong ties in recent years is the former Prime Minister Simplice Mathieu Sarandji, also belonging to the circle of President Touadéra’s loyalists.
Officially IMC holds fifteen licenses for mining in the Central African Republic. To evade the restrictions imposed by local regulations, the company has created and registered ad hoc branches in the country which allow it to acquire many more mines than it should.
An indicator of this system emerged from a report a few years ago by a group of United Nations experts. In 2020, IMC declared the production of 19 kg of gold, a quantity that is too low considering that, according to UN experts, its equivalent would be extracted in a month in the
Yaloké area alone.

A group of rebels in the Central African Republic. File Swm

For logistics, IMC has strategic support in Cameroon. In Limbe, near the city of Douala, not far from the coast of the Gulf of Guinea, there is a depot from where fuel, excavating machines and other vehicles are sent to the mines in the Central African Republic.
For the protection of the mining sites, Zhao Baomei did not hesitate to come to terms with local armed groups. According to Africa Intelligence, among these, there would be 3R (Retour, réclamation et réhabilitation), a formation made up of ethnic Fulani militiamen used by IMC to keep the installations in the west of the country safe.
Over the years, agreements have also been reached with the UPC (Unité pour la paix en Centrafrique), a rebel group led by Ali Darass, accused by the Bangui government of having killed, in March this year, nine Chinese technicians who worked in the mine of Chimbolo on behalf of the Gold Coast Group. According to a 2021 UN report, Zhao Baomei’s company has entrusted the protection of the Yassine site to the UPC.
Until 2018, Zhao Baomei always moved in the shadows. Then a scandal that broke out a hundred kilometres from Yaloké, in the town of Bozoum, caused her name to circulate in the international press. Here the extraction activities in some of the mines managed by a network of companies linked to IMC (Tian Xiang, SMC Mao, Meng and Jianin) have caused a huge spill of mercury into the Ouham river, where the concentration levels of the metal have well exceeded twenty-five times the authorized threshold.

Father Aurelio Gazzara has denounced the ecological disaster in the area of Bozoum caused by the mining activities.

Father Aurelio Gazzera, an Italian Carmelite missionary who has been working in Bozoum since 2003, knows this story well. “In April 2019, upon the arrival of the Chinese companies, I immediately documented with photos and videos the mining activities that were carried out in Bozoum, also sharing the materials collected with international media such as France 24, says the missionary”.
And he continues: “Faced with the ecological disaster that was taking place in the area, I returned to the site a second time and at that moment I was arrested, even if only for about ten minutes”.
But his story came to the attention of national politics in Bangui. Many government officials lashed out against Father Gazzera, demonstrating quite clearly that they are colluding with Zhao Baomei’s affairs. But other parliamentarians, who knew the missionary and his activities in Bozoum well, are asking for light to be shed on the matter.
“A parliamentary investigation has been launched, something as rare as it is serious in the Central African Republic – continues Gazzera – and it emerged that the licenses given to IMC in Bozoum had been granted without any checks, bypassing parliament which, instead, should have approved them. The ecological damage caused by the mercury spills from the mines has also been confirmed”.
In June 2020, eighteen months after the arrival of its bulldozers in Bozoum, also thanks to the complaints from Amnesty International, IMC was forced to leave the city.
To clean up her image, Zhao Baomei has promised to build two health centres and a school in some villages in the area. But to date, the only work put in place is a grandstand set up to allow local notables to watch military parades, while the signs of the havoc caused by the uncontrolled exploitation of mines remain along the Ouham river.

Rocco Bellantone

 

Chameleon wins a wife.

One day frog swam to the surface of a little pond and glanced around him for a place to rest: “The water is cold today – he complained – it would do me good to bask in the sun for a little while.” And so, he left the water and crouched on a warm, flat stone at the edge of the pond.

After some time, a beautiful young girl from the local village named Ngema came to the pond to fetch some water. The Frog remained seated on the stone without moving a muscle so that the young woman eventually began to stare at him, asking herself aloud whether
or not he might be ill.

“No, I am not ill – Frog called to her irritably – why do you imagine such a thing? Can’t you see how strong I am?” “Other frogs usually leap back into the water as soon as they see the villagers approach – replied the girl – but you don’t seem at all frightened and that is why I thought perhaps you must be sick.”

The Frog turned his two big eyes towards Ngema, rose up on his hind legs, and stretched himself impressively towards the sky. “Underneath this body, I am really a fine young man, – he boasted -. I have enough cattle and goats to buy any number of beautiful girls like yourself, but a curse rest on me and I must remain here until it is lifted.”

The Flog continues: “When my father lay on his death bed, he said to me: ‘My son, you will spend most of your time by the water until the day comes when you meet a girl there and ask her to marry you. If she accepts, it will mean happiness for you both, but if she refuses, she will die.’ So, I ask you to marry me here and now, and it is entirely up to you whether you live or die.”

The girl sat down on the grass and began thinking hard. After a while she stood up again and answered the Frog worriedly: “If that curse rests on you, then it rests on me as well. I have seen you and you have asked me to be your wife. I will not refuse you now, for I have no wish
to die just yet.”

So Ngema reluctantly agreed to marry the Frog and led him home to her parents’ hut on the outskirts of the village.

In the courtyard at the front of her parent’s house, there stood a very beautiful palm tree. Among its broad, leafy branches sat a Chameleon watching the approach of the young girl and the Frog.

Ngema escorted her companion indoors and left him there to discuss the wedding arrangements with her father while she sat down at the base of the tree to grind some corn for the midday meal.

The Chameleon now moved cautiously towards her, descending from branch to branch slowly and carefully, his eyes darting suspiciously from side to side, until at last, he stood within a few feet of her. But before he had the opportunity to address the girl, she suddenly turned towards him: “I have been watching you all this time – she said – and I can scarcely believe how long it took you to move such a short distance. Do you know that it has taken you over an hour to reach this spot?’

“I won’t apologize for that – answered the Chameleon -. I am a stranger to you, and had I rushed upon you, you would have been frightened and called out to your people. But in this way, I haven’t alarmed you and now we will be able to talk quietly without anyone disturbing us.”

“I have been so anxious to meet you but wanted to choose my moment carefully. I came here early this morning to tell you I love you and my greatest wish is for you to become my wife.”

The young girl set aside her bowl of corn and fell silent for several moments. At length, she raised her head and answered the Chameleon rather indifferently: “You are too late with your request, and besides, I could never marry anyone who moves as slowly as you do. People would laugh to see us together.”

“Our elders say that empty gourds make a great noise, but it amounts to very little in the end,-  replied the Chameleon -. Think again before
you reject, me. Ngema sighed deeply as she pondered these words. “Well – she said finally -, Frog is inside the house asking my father’s permission to marry me. Whichever of you can satisfy him will earn the right to become my husband.”

So, Chameleon waited for Frog to emerge and then entered the house to see if he could reason with the young girl’s father. Their conversation was not half so difficult as Chameleon had expected and before long, he reappeared smiling to himself, having agreed with the old man that he would return to claim his bride within a few days.

As soon as he had put all his affairs in order, Chameleon returned as promised to the girl’s home, anxious to get on with the wedding ceremony. But to his disgust, he found Frog still pleading for Ngema’s hand, insisting that he was by far the richer of the two and that he would make a much more suitable husband.

Chameleon stormed into the room and interrupted Frog in midstream: “You call me a slow and worthless creature – he yelled furiously – but I call you a slippery, boneless, hideous carbuncle.” And the two continued to hurl abuse at each other for some time, each of them determined to prove their worth before the young girl’s family.

At last, the old man called for them both to stop and when they were ready to listen he offered them the following solution: “I will fix a bride price – he told the pair -, which must be delivered before the end of six days. The first of you to arrive here with everything I demand will win my daughter’s hand in marriage.”

Then the old man listed out the various goods he desired from each of them and without further discussion Frog and Chameleon went their separate ways, eager to assemble their respective cargoes as hastily as possible. The Frog enlisted a great number of his friends to help him and overnight he had prepared a vast quantity of beer and food of every kind, including sweet potatoes, corn, dove peas, shea-nuts and bananas, which he piled onto an enormous caravan ready to take
to the girl’s house.

Early the next morning, a long line of frogs began hopping down the road, travelling at great speed in order to ensure that they would reach their destination before the Chameleon. But as they moved along, they began to attract the sniggers of the roadside workers, for they failed to notice that at every hop, the beer spilt from the gourds, the bananas dropped from the baskets, and the food crumbled to pieces in the open bags and fell to the ground.

When the company approached Ngema’s house, they received a very warm welcome from the large crowd who set off to meet them. Songs of praise were sung by the women of the village and a loud chorus of cheering could be heard for miles around. But when, later that same evening, the villagers eventually came to unfasten the loads, they were horrified to see that all the sacks were completely empty and not a drop of beer remained in the gourds.

The villagers called the father of the girl and reported to him their discovery: “Come and examine the gifts Frog has brought you – they told him -, he has arrived here with empty sacks and dry bowls.”

The old man looked at the Frog sternly and raised his voice in anger: “Why have you come here to mock us? Do you think I would exchange my precious child for such worthless cargo? Go and seek a wife elsewhere, for I have no time for a son-in-law who would attempt to trick me like this.”

The Frog did not pause to argue his case, for he knew that his impatience and arrogance had cost him his bride and that now the curse would never be reversed.

He hung his head in shame and silently slunk away, hopping despondently down the road with the rest of his companions.

Three more days passed by and most of the villagers had abandoned all hope that Chameleon would ever show his face among them. But then, from the opposite direction on the fifth morning, the people spotted a caravan of carriers making very slow progress toward the village. It was mid-afternoon by the time it reached the outskirts, and as before, the villagers went forward to welcome their guests.

But this time, the women of the village were very anxious to inspect the loads before disturbing the father of the bride. They approached the caravan warily, but their fears were quickly laid to rest, for as soon as they began to unwrap the cargo, they found the sacks overflowing with food and the gourds full to the brim with beer.

Ngema smiled as she moved forward to greet the Chameleon, remembering how he had once described to her the hollow sound of an empty gourd. The celebrations now began in earnest and the satisfied father gave his daughter to the victorious Chameleon who took her for his wife the very next day. (Photo: 123rf.com)

Folktale from Kikuyu people, Kenya

 

Mauritania. Caught in the Nets of the Fishing Mafia.

The fishing tradition goes back a long way in Mauritania. But as more and more Chinese fishmeal factories have set up in the country, local fishermen are often left empty-handed. This unscrupulous business threatens the basic supply of the Mauritanian population.

At first glance, the Mauritanian fishing village of Nouamghar, about 150 kilometres northeast of the capital Nouakchott, appears deserted. A few dozen simple houses are scattered along the beach. The waves of the Atlantic hammer their facades, and the plaster is peeling off everywhere. Some families prefer to live in traditional tents, surrounded by fences made of fishing nets to protect their privacy.It is early in the morning and silence reigns in the house of 69-year-old Sheikh Muhammed Salim Biram. The white-bearded man, a former fisherman, is sitting on the floor outside the living room, tying a new net.

In Nouamghar, people have made their living from fishing for generations. Photo: Swm

In Nouamghar, people have made their living from fishing for generations. “In the past, the fishes used to come very close to the beach” says the sheikh. Today the fishermen go far out on the sea and often come back empty handed”. His two sons listen to their father’s words, without daring to interrupt him.
The old man continues: “My neighbours come to me and complain because they haven’t caught anything. But what can I do against the government?”. The sheikh believes the blame for the disappearance of the fish lies with the politicians. “They brought the Chinese into the country – he grumbles -. They steal our fish and make meals for their pigs while our people don’t have enough to eat”.

Coveted fishing grounds
The abundance of Mauritanian fish has sparked a craving for fishing over the last century. At first, Europeans fished off the almost 600 km-long Atlantic coast. For some years now, trawlers from all over the world have been fishing in the waters off West Africa. Most of them fly the Chinese flag. But the most lucrative business takes place on land, in factories hidden behind high walls and protected by armed guards.
In Nouadhibou which is Mauritania’s second largest city and serves as an important trading centre, some 550,000 tonnes of fish are processed into fishmeal and fish oil each year, and 130,000 tonnes of fishmeal are exported. Fishmeal is rich in protein, mainly used in fish farming, but also in animal fattening. Almost a quarter of the world’s wild fish is processed into fishmeal.

Almost a quarter of the world’s wild fish is processed into fishmeal. Photo: Swm

“There are 30 fishmeal factories in the city and another ten in southern Mauritania. It is evident that there are too many; our neighbour Morocco, which has a coastline twice as long as ours, only has ten,” says Aziz Boughourbal, managing director of Mauritanian Holding Pelagic. He goes on to say: “Although every fishmeal producer must also produce fish for consumption, most of the big fishmeal producers do not”. Boughourbal’s company has its own fishing boats but also buys from traditional dugout boats that moor in an anchorage about 80 meters from the shore. There, the fish are sucked up and pumped through a pipeline to the factory. A conveyor belt then transports the fish into cylinders where they are steamed at 95 degrees. When the sardine shoals are ready, the Boughourbal factory can ramp up production to 400 tons of sardines per day. The product is packed in phylogram bags and shipped to Japan, Russia, and the EU.

The sea smells
Most of the factories are located on a promontory behind the local fishing port. A paved road, “Fishmeal Avenue”, is lined with trucks that bring fish from the port. Eight factories are located right next to the port, where fishing boats are also repaired. “Foreigners are not welcome here. They have brought us nothing but trouble”, says boat builder Muhammed Fal. “First of all, the Chinese, who pollute the sea here with impunity”. He points to the warehouses of the Chinese SFHP fishmeal factory, hidden behind a yellow wall. From a hose coming out of the factory, the reddish and smelly water pours into the sea.
“They pour all the dirt into the bay”, Muktar Nguye tells us. The 26-year-old has just returned from fishing with his pirogue, with about two tons of mullet on board. “In the past, we rarely went home with less than six tons”, the young man says.

Chinese fishing vessels outnumber the small fishing vessels. Photo: Swm

He could get 25,000 Ouguiyas, about 600 Euros, for the catch. “I have to use it to pay for fuel and six crew”. Nguye used to fish mainly for sardines but there aren’t enough anymore, he says. Chinese fishing vessels outnumber the small fishing vessels. It’s not the competition in fishing that annoys Nguye, but the lack of respect for people and the environment: “They dump used oil, diesel and plastic residue into the water” says Nguye. “The sea stinks and the smell scares the fish away”.
He steers his dugout close to shore, where his men wait in waist-deep water with empty plastic crates on their heads. They fill them with fish and walk ashore to unload the fish onto the flatbed of an antique Peugeot 404. An hour later, Nguye’s boat is empty. He collects his money and goes home.
He lives with two older brothers, their wives, and children on the outskirts of town; the house is only half finished. Space is scarce, and each family occupies a room. “We want to add a floor – says the fisherman – but lately the fishing has been poor and we don’t have the money”.Nguye is a member of the National Fishermen’s Association (FNP), where he advocates for fishermen’s interests. Here their concerns are taken seriously. “There is a war going on out there” says FNP chairman Sid’ahmed Abeid. “We are still enduring everything, but sooner or later, the fishermen will rebel”.
Eventually, the government must intervene, he says, because the Chinese do not respect the closure periods or protected zones. “And when they are stopped, they invoke the treaties and threaten the intervention of the embassy or of their government”, he points out.
The government avoids conflict with China because the country depends on finance flowing from Beijing. Already in 2006, China and Mauritania concluded a cooperation agreement. As a result, the Chinese have financed about 40 projects across the country, including the international airport and the new foreign ministry.

A Chinese world of its own
In Nouadhibou, the Chinese have been living in a parallel universe for years. Except in their factories, they have almost no contact with the locals. On the main road, there are numerous shops selling items imported from China.
There are a dozen Chinese restaurants in the city that also serve beer, vodka and the Chinese liquor called baijiu, despite Sharia laws.
Most Chinese travel to Mauritania to make money. After a few years, they return to China or move on to another African country.

Many locals are unhappy with the privileges the central government has granted to China. Photo: Swm

Many locals are unhappy with the privileges the central government has granted to China’s Poly Hong Dong fishmeal factory, for example, which has close ties to the Chinese People’s Army. It obtained the license to produce fishmeal under undisclosed conditions. It was allowed to build its own fish farm directly across from the factory. The Chinese company owes this permission to its local partner who does business with the presidential family. In Mauritania, foreign factories must have a local partner because foreigners are not allowed to buy or lease land. Local companies lease the land and take part of the profits – a business that could hardly be more lucrative.

Lawless spaces
“The factories have powerful local backers,” says Malum Obet. A high school teacher who is part of a popular group that reports violations by fishmeal factories. The group conducted an investigation and found that only three Nouadhibou producers are complying with the law. No Chinese factories were among them. Obet says, “The Chinese are poisoning the population and treating their workers like slaves.  Although the law requires it, many workers do not have a contract. As day laborers, they sometimes work 16-hour days, with no additional pay. Nevertheless, many people queue up for work because there are no other jobs in the area”.

An industrial zone is planned to be built 60 kilometres north of the capital where new Chinese fishmeal factories are to be built. Photo: Swm

The government of President Mohamed Ould Ghazouanie, by and large, keeps out of the conflict. Mohamed Salem Louly, the adviser to the fisheries minister, says they are aware of the danger of overfishing.
For this reason, the ministry, together with the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries Research, has determined the catch levels at which stocks can grow sustainably. On this basis, quotas were set well below the critical limits.The reality is different because the Coast Guard lacks the money for patrolling. And the situation could get worse. An industrial zone is planned to be built 60 kilometres north of the capital where new Chinese fishmeal factories are to be built.
In Nouamghar, people can feel the effects of the crisis. “Young people are leaving the village because there is not enough work”, said Sheikh Muhammed Biram. “Some are trying to emigrate to Europe”. His children are also waiting for an opportunity to leave. Some friends have tried to reach the Canary Islands in a wooden boat, crossing the Atlantic for 1,000 kilometres. But not all of them arrived safely.

Andrzej Rybak/Kontinente

 

Music. King Ayisoba.

Kolongo is a musical genre that takes its name from a two-stringed lute of the Frafra ethnic group, between Burkina Faso and Ghana. Among its main performers is King Ayisoba, a Ghanaian musician.
The artist has just released Work Hard, one of the best African
albums of recent years.

In Africa there is one great family of musical instruments ranging from one to five strings, with a handle and a wooden sound box or consisting of a half gourd, on the open side of which a skin is stretched: with various names, they range  – just to give a few examples  –  from the guembri of the Gnaoua of Morocco to the tidinit of Mauritania, from the Ngoni of Mali to the xalam of Senegal, and much further afield in the continent. Instruments that have travelled extensively in time and space: traces of them can be found in the paintings of ancient Egypt and the slave trade brought them to the other side of the Atlantic. It is probably to instruments of this kind that the origin of the American banjo must be traced. In his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), Thomas Jefferson, later the third president of the United States, speaks of “the banjar, which they (the slaves) brought from Africa.”

The kologo also belongs to this family. It is made with a half gourd as a soundbox and has two strings that were traditionally cow veins and today are made of nylon; one string is high and one low, and the tuning of the instrument is not fixed, but is related to the scale in which the player sings. The kologo is typical of the Frafra ethnic group that settled between southern Burkina Faso and northern Ghana.
In the northeastern region of Ghana, the kologo is at the centre of a music phenomenon that is not confined to a purely traditional dimension and is anything but residual.
The protagonists are musicians who have often learned to play the instrument by themselves, generally in early adolescence if not in childhood; many pieces are performed only with voice and kologo, others also with percussion and with instruments such as the flute.
The singing is generally rather ‘shouted’, with peremptory and often harsh voices, and the lyrics are sometimes in Frafra and sometimes in pidgin English.Pulsating and engaging, even when it remains totally acoustic, the music is extremely dynamic and modern and has achieved great popularity, so much so that it acts as a counterweight on the national scene to the most popular modern genres such as hip-hop,
R&B and Afrobeat.

There are dozens of competent interpreters and there is no shortage of stars. One of these is King Ayisoba, who has also given impetus – not only for his own benefit – to the international circulation of this music. He is behind the initiative of a beautiful anthology called ‘This Is Kologo Power!’ with recordings by various artists mostly made in Accra, a compilation edited by Zea of the historic Dutch punk group The Ex and released in 2016 by the Amsterdam label Makkum Records. Compared to the very free-range examples of kologo offered by this collection, we have the slightly more elaborate, but nonetheless uncompromising, musical integrity of King Ayisoba’s album 1000 Can Die, produced by Zea and released in 2017 by a very prominent label in the field of world music, the very active Glitterbeat. Alongside completely acoustic songs, there are also others with a calibrated use of electronics and some by guest artists, including the Ghanaian rapper and producer M3nsa, and two historical figures (both of whom have since passed away) such as the Jamaican producer and singer Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and the Nigerian saxophonist Orlando Julius.

Glitterbeat has now released a new album by King Ayisoba, Work Hard, which offers an interesting evolution of his music: again, Zea has a hand in it but the substance is decidedly Ghanaian. The context is evidently that of the kologo as a genre, even if in Work Hard it is not so much the kologo as an instrument that is in the foreground, but – on the pressing and sometimes hypnotic bases of percussion, including electronic ones – a formidable variety of voices, in an assortment of expressive scales. The voices are often hoarse and with something grotesque or mocking, voices that articulate in a rhythmic, shouting and scathing manner, female and falsetto voices, children’s voices and voices in chorus, all in a very vital and dynamic game, full of humour and corrosive spirit, the result of an orchestration in which great musical talent is intertwined with a wise sense of ‘theatrical’ staging. The language is almost always Frafra, and the themes are not taken for granted: in Bossi Labome, for example, King Ayisoba points out the difference in treatment depending on whether adultery is committed by a woman, a reason for reprobation, or by a man, even a reason to boast.
It is very difficult today to have a clear perception of the mosaic of music which in Africa has an effective vivaciousness and strong roots in specific areas: to compose it would take many albums such as the highly enjoyable This Is Kologo Power! which had the merit of providing us with a sample of his music. King Ayisoba’s Work Hard is one of the best and most original African albums of recent years: This Is Kologo Power! It allows you to listen to Work Hard placing it in a context, and to understand the musical texture that nourished its creativity. (Photos: CCA -Share Alike 3.0/ Schorle)

Marcello Lorrai

 

Social-economic inequality.

According to the estimates of the last census, carried out in 2022, the Dominican Republic has a population of 10,695,000. Of these 3/4, equal to 73% are mestizos, 16% white and 11% black.

The other minor ethnic groups present in the country are Asians, especially Chinese, and Europeans (mainly Spanish). There is also a small presence of Jewish migrants, made up of about 600 people, which originated between 1940 and 1945 thanks to the visas granted by the Dominican government to allow them to escape Nazi persecution
during the Second World War.
The Dominican Republic is also home to small but vibrant communities of Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians who arrived during the Ottoman Empire period of the early 20th century. All of these groups have made great contributions to the growth and culture of the Dominican Republic, and this is reflected in the food, customs, and celebrations of the various regions of the country.

Santo Domingo City. CC BY 4.0/ Ronny Medina. About one million people live in the capital.

Spanish is the official language with variations spoken in different parts of the country and the Spanish dialect that is commonly used is Dominican Spanish, a subset of Caribbean Spanish based on the Canarian and Andalusian dialects of southern Spain. This language borrows some words from the Arawak language and from the African languages spoken by the populations who arrived on the island, including some words from archaic Spanish.
From an administrative point of view, the country is divided into 31 provinces which must be added the district of the capital Santo Domingo which constitutes the major economic and cultural centre, as well as the oldest European city in the ‘new world’, since the year of its foundation dates back to 1496. About one million inhabitants live there, while the entire metropolitan area, called Gran Santo Domingo, has a much higher population of about 2.6 million. In addition to Santo Domingo, the main cities include Santiago de los Caballeros with about one million inhabitants, Los Alcarrizos which has 245,000, and La Romana 225,000. The rest of the population live in smaller urban centres, while around 30% of the population live in rural areas.

The Basilica-Cathedral of Our Lady of Altagracia in Salvaleón de Higüey. Around 70% of the population belongs to the Catholic church. Photo: Ph

From a religious point of view, about 70% of the inhabitants belong to the Catholic faith, 20% adhere to the Protestant faith, and the remainder follow Islam, Judaism, Caribbean Vodou, Eastern religions or other beliefs, or declare themselves non-religious. It must be said that the Catholic Church, over the centuries, has contributed decisively to the socio-economic development of the Dominican Republic through the implementation of numerous development projects and the creation
of schools and hospitals.
The living conditions that the population has to deal with are not at all satisfactory. Despite the economic growth of the last decade, it is estimated that a large portion of the population still live below the poverty line. This is clearly seen in aspects such as the quality of health and the lack of basic means for a large part of the population such as drinking water or electricity. In recent years, this economic and social disparity has generated numerous internal tensions also favoured by the spread of corruption, a social scourge that affects the judicial system and the proper exercise of police activity.
The spread of child prostitution is another direct consequence of the endemic state of poverty of the Dominican population. The phenomenon, which was also accentuated following the economic and financial crisis of 2008, was denounced by the major international organizations also due to the high number of cases which often give incentives to families in a state of poverty. In fact, as the economic crises worsen, there is an increase in the phenomenon which, in addition to minors, involves the adult population, both female and male. The latter is based mostly in tourist resorts such as Boca Chica, Puerto Plata, and Santo Domingo. There is also the international traffic of Dominican women, destined to be exploited above all in Western Europe,
Argentina, Brazil, and Costa Rica.

Illegal Haitian working in the sugar plantation. CC BY 2.0/Fran Afonso

In the last decade, within the political-administrative apparatus, there has also been an increase in individual and group interests, corruptive networks with a significant presence of actual criminal components, which have deeply penetrated and weakened the political system causing a significant reduction of trust in democracy and political parties. These, with few exceptions, end up occupying a grey area that makes the differences between them irrelevant and mobile. At the same time, favouritism has become widespread even among social actors.
These problems are also to be associated with those of Haitian migrants gathered in villages called bateyes, lodgings built among the plantations with recycled materials without sanitary facilities or running water. Many of them, once the harvest period is over, find themselves in the position of not being able to leave the country because they are in debt and illegally present. Their children were born in Dominican territory, but the lack of documents prevents their recognition either by the Dominicans or the Haitians, with the result that basic rights such as access to school and medical care are denied. This limbo, which offers these subjects no alternative, means they must work on the plantations in conditions of slavery, thus fuelling the vicious circle. (Open Photo: ©aleksrybalko/123RF.COM) – F.R.

World Bank. New President, Old Doubts.

Marrakech will host the annual assemblies of the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 9 to 15 October. The event, which marks a return to Africa comes 50 years after the assembly in Kenya. This time the World Bank will be led by a new president. Ajay Banga’s new course faces three challenges: competition with the banks of China and BRICS, involving
private finance, combining efforts against climate change
and the fight against poverty.

The World Bank (WB) – strongly controlled by the USA with a majority share of over 17% – and its president, always nominated by the American administration, cannot fail to take into account the directives coming from Washington. This will also be the case for the new president, who will naturally want to make his personal contribution and at the same time take into consideration, at least in part, the proposals and policies of the other member countries.
The brief declarations of appreciation for the appointment of Ajay Banga – elected on May 3 – by President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, help to understand the new mission. Biden highlighted that Banga “Is uniquely equipped to lead the World Bank at this critical moment in history. He has spent more than three decades building and running successful global companies, creating jobs, and driving investment in developing economies, and guiding organizations through periods of fundamental change. He has a proven track record of managing people and systems and working with global leaders around the world to deliver results”.

President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Photo. Usa Gov.

Biden will support his efforts to transform the World Bank, which “Remains one of humanity’s most important institutions for reducing poverty and expanding prosperity around the world”. For her part, Yellen noted the ability of the new president to mobilize resources and public and private partnerships to face the most urgent issues of our time, including global warming.
As chairman of the World Bank Group, Banga also becomes chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

In competition with two banks
His first task will be geopolitical since it is the ongoing economic, political, and military conflicts that determine the redefinition of global power. The WB will be strengthened to benchmark and blunt the international operations of two other emerging banks, China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), with India as its second-largest shareholder, and the New Development Bank (NDB), created by the group of BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).

The headquarters of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing,. CC BY-SA 4.0/ N509FZ

The AIIB is also the banking and financial instrument of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the so-called New Silk Road, which finances development and infrastructure projects, especially in much of Asia. It undoubtedly reflects Chinese economic and geopolitical interests, but at the same time, it is already able to respond, in part, to the many requests for development from poor countries, especially in Africa.
During the 2019-20 fiscal year, the World Bank disbursed $14.5 billion to Africa, but only a small fraction of that went towards building new infrastructure.By comparison, the African Development Bank (AfDB) disbursed $5.1 billion, most of which went to infrastructure.
In the same year, the AIIB paid $6.23 billion to its Asian members for green infrastructure projects in the fields of energy, water,
and urban development.

The logo of the NDB in the bank’s HQ in Shanghai. CC BY-SA 4.0/ Bb3015

The NDB promotes agro-industrial and infrastructural projects and trade exchanges between the BRICS countries and places the support and involvement of poor and emerging countries among its priorities. In fact, the two banks cover the shortcomings of the WB and in many cases replace it. Furthermore, in their trade and investments they favour the use of local currencies, bypassing the dollar.
They do so not out of a mere anti-American spirit, but because after the Great Crisis of 2008, they know that the entire international financial and monetary system, born in Bretton Woods, is in free fall, and they do not want to be crushed by it.

Challenges and false steps
In the geopolitical operation, Banga will focus on Africa, which will increasingly be the continent where the forces fighting for global hegemony will collide. His international profile is perfect, he knows and frequents world leaders, in recent years he has worked a lot with several African countries and, if necessary, can play the card of his Indian origins, the largest developing country. It is no coincidence that he made a long journey of contacts in many states, especially those of Africa such as Kenya, Ghana and the Ivory Coast, to promote his candidacy.
The second task of the new president is to involve the private financial sector in the activities of the World Bank. “There’s not enough money without the private sector,” he told reporters last March. No one could be against private aid and investment. The real question is one of money for whom and for what really controls and drives operations.

Kenya. Nairobi. In recent years Ajay Banga has worked a lot with several African countries. Photo Swm.

Undoubtedly Banga has vast experience in the field of finance, in particular, however, in the speculative sort, the type that is greedy and insensitive to the needs of the poor and of those who have to fight to improve their basic living conditions. His entourage lets it be known that it is intended to distinguish poor countries from those with acceptable development. The former would depend only on the subsidised credits of the IDA, while the latter, which sometimes already venture into international markets to sell their bonds, could be involved in some form of ‘creative finance’. It is feared that IDA funds will become increasingly scarce in the future.
His previous experience as a MasterCard executive in South Africa can be enlightening. In 2016, he made an agreement with the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and with Net1, a financial services company owned by BM, and with its subsidiary Cash Paymaster Service (CPS) to use MasterCard debit cards for the distribution of pensions and other state benefits.
It was supposed to be an initiative of greater administrative efficiency in support of destitute citizens who in this way could avoid endless queues at the counters, possible muggings, and other problems. It was greeted positively by all as an example of inclusion.

South Africa. Shopping Centre in Johannesburg. When Ajay Banga was a MasterCard executive in South Africa, he made an agreement with the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and with Net1, to use MasterCard debit cards for the distribution of pensions and other state benefits. Photo.Swm

It was an experiment for a potential pool of 500 million people worldwide. It should be borne in mind that, until the end of the last century, the World Bank was openly opposed to electronic money transfers as it feared that they would negatively alter the consumption patterns of the poorest people. The second step, however, was to collect the personal data of at least 18 million citizens. On the basis of this vast source, a series of offers of contracts of various types, small insurances, such as those for funerals, telephone subscriptions, etc. was instigated.
Monthly payments for these services were automatically deducted from debit cards. However, many citizens soon found themselves in great difficulty when they realized that there was very little left for day-to-day living. The most dangerous element was the entry of financial engineering. Given that the flow of money was guaranteed by the state, those who issued the debit cards, the insurance companies and the other financial services involved behaved, in fact, like uncontrolled banks, the so-called shadow banking, and started with securitization, i.e., the issuance of securities based on the value of the contracts in their possession. This is exactly what happened in the 2008 crisis with subprime mortgages and the creation of the gigantic bubble of financial derivatives issued on real estate mortgages. In 2020, the CPS
filed for bankruptcy.

Climate change and poverty
The third task concerns the role of the World Bank in the face of climate change. Banga has said that “poverty reduction and shared prosperity cannot be separated from the challenges of managing nature”. A sacrosanct principle on paper. We need to see how it is handled in reality because not all parts of the world are the same. The Bank’s roughly $100 billion a year to help developing countries cope with climate change is well short of the trillion needed. Many developing nations fear that the focus on climate change will divert attention from the fight against poverty. These countries have been hit hard by the pandemic, rising food and energy prices, and unsustainable debt levels.
It must be noted that on the African continent, a large part of budget expenditure is covered by revenues from energy sources, such as oil, gas and coal, or other raw materials.

Many developing nations fear that the focus on climate change will divert attention from the fight against poverty. 123rf.com

This aspect must be duly taken into account in the so-called green transition. In this regard, we must remember that the centre of global pollution is elsewhere. According to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA), in 2050 the United States, China and India together will generate CO2 emissions equal to 42% of the total, more than Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, combined. It would be unacceptable if under the presidency of Banga – a former advisor of BeyondNetZero, the climate change fund of General Atlantic, of which he was vice president – the WB used the ‘ecological yardstick’ to condition its interventions and its investments in the poor countries of Africa. We must bear in mind that its current mission is to end extreme poverty and improve the living conditions of 40% of the citizens of each country who live at the lowest end of income distribution. (Open Photo: Ajay Banga, 14th President of the World Bank Group. WB)

 Paolo Raimondi

 

Africa. UN Peacekeeping missions in crisis.

Last June, the UN Security Council ended the mandate of MINUSMA in Mali while the DRC government announced the end of MONUSCO’s mandate within six months. There are also tensions between MINUSCA and the Central African government.
Increasingly, African fragile states are banking on private military companies to regain control of their territory.

On the last 30 June, the UN Security Council decided unanimously to end the mandate of MINUSMA, the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, following the Bamako authorities’ request for an immediate withdrawal of the blue helmets. As a consequence, the Council adopted resolution 2690 to organise the cessation of its operations, the transfer of its tasks, and the withdrawal of its personnel before 31 December 2023.
This is not the first time a UN mission in Africa has been kicked out: in 2010, the UN operation in Chad (MINURCAT) was asked to leave by President Idriss Déby.
MINUSMA is the UN’s largest operation with a $ 1.26 billion annual budget and 17,430 personnel as against $ 300 million and several hundred staff in the Chadian case.
MINUSMA was established by the Security Council in 2013 after an uprising in northern Mali by armed groups linked to al-Qaeda. Ten years later, its efficiency is questioned by the authorities. The Malian interim government, formed in the wake of the 2020 and 2021 coups, justified its request, citing a “crisis of confidence” with the UN. MINUSMA “has certainly not achieved its fundamental goal of supporting the efforts of the government in securing the country”, said the Malian ambassador to the UN, Issa Konfourou, after the vote.

MINUSMA Peacekeepers in Ménaka Region in Mali. UN Photo/Harandane Dicko

On the 1st June 2023, the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres admitted that fighting was continuing in the North, with Islamic State in the Greater Sahara expanding the area under its control. Meanwhile, in Central Mali, groups affiliated with Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin still pose a significant threat. Between July 2022 and May 2023, 1,002 civilians died and 445 others were injured because of armed conflict. These unsatisfactory results coincided with some 300 fatalities for MINUSMA, making it the deadliest UN peacekeeping operation worldwide. The relations between the UN and Mali also deteriorated sizeably after the publication of a report in May 2023 accusing the Malian Armed Forces and the Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group to have committed a massacre of 500 civilians at Moura, in Central Mali, in March 2022. The UN withdrawal could bear many consequences. Armed group signatories to the 2015 peace agreement referred to MINUSMA’s departure as a “fatal blow” to the peace process. Several northern armed groups already withdrew from the peace agreement in December 2022. Other sources suggest that such withdrawal will embolden jihadists and put an end to the protection of humanitarian aid operations. The departure of the UN could also deprive the authorities of the UN logistical support for the elections in 2024.
MINUSMA’s departure is also likely to worsen Mali’s international standing, possibly leading to further reductions in international donor engagement. Inevitably, Mali will be more dependent on Wagner. Finally, the departure of MINUSMA raises questions about the future of UN peacekeeping worldwide, says a former political advisor of MONUSCO, the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

MONUSCO Helicopter Operates in Mutwanga, North Kivu. UN Photo/Michael Ali

The days or months of MONUSCO itself are numbered as well. MONUSCO is the third largest UN peacekeeping operation concerning its budget ($ 1.12 bn) after MINUSMA and UNMISS, the UN Mission in South Sudan, whose budget reaches $ 1.2 bn. It is also the third largest in size with a staff of 17 753 after UNMISS (17 954) and MINUSCA, the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (17,885). MONUSCO, is present in the DRC since 1999. Yet, Kinshasa announced on 13 June 2023 the withdrawal of MONUSCO within six months.

The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix said that the blue helmets would leave Congo “as soon as possible”. UN Photo

The Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix on a visit to Kinshasa on the last 7 June declared that the blue helmets would leave Congo “as soon as possible” but “in a responsible way”. Accordingly, some conditions must be met beforehand. The list includes the decrease of security risks, of the negative impact of armed groups and the increase of the capacities of the Congolese army. On 19 June, MONUSCO’s boss, Bintou Keita confirmed that the departure of MONUSCO was on track but that the withdrawal should take place in a peaceful and worthy way. Besides the conditions mentioned by Lacroix, she spoke of the implementation of the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reinsertion of armed group fighters and the organization of credible, transparent, and peaceful elections on time, in December 2023 as prerequisites.
The Congolese Minister of Communication, Patrick Muyaya, said that no date for such withdrawal could be fixed yet. But the Kinshasa government is adamant to put an end to MONUSCO’s mandate. Since 15 November 2022, it is putting pressure on the UN to leave the country. The UN presence in the DRC has become unpopular. By the end of July 2022, angry youth demonstrated against MONUSCO in several cities of Eastern Congo, calling for its withdrawal. Their grievance is that MONUSCO failed to end insecurity in the area.
The lack of combativity of the blue helmets, accused to be “per-diemists” and to be only concerned with cashing high salaries and daily allowances is blamed by the local people. The UN already closed offices in the Kasai and Tanganyika provinces.
In an interview with Radio France Internationale, on 19 September 2022, the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres admitted that MONUSCO was unable to fight successfully against the M23 rebels who are active at the Rwandan and Ugandan borders. Accordingly, the M23 is a modern army, with heavy equipment which is more sophisticated than MONUSCO’s one. The statement infuriated Kinshasa. According to Congolese Foreign Minister, such statements are demoralizing Congolese troops.

MONUSCO’s departure will leave thousands of internal displaced persons in Eastern Congo without protection. © UNHCR/Hélène Caux

Nevertheless, MONUSCO’s withdrawal could be postponed for another year since President Felix Tshisekedi needs the UN logistical assistance to transport the ballot boxes and the election kits and to compile the results as it did for previous elections in 2006, 2011 and 2018. Meanwhile,  the Congolese authorities have already prepared the alternative by hiring mercenaries. A Bulgarian-registered company called Agemira RDC, led by French businessman Olivier Bazin, signed a deal in May 2022 for the refurbishment and the maintenance of two Russian-made Sukhoi SU-25 fighter aircraft and of two MI-24 attack helicopters, manned by Georgian pilots, on the Goma airbase.
Hundred military instructors from the Romanian private military company Associata RALF led by former French legion officer, Horatiu Potra, arrived in Goma at the end of 2022. Previously Potra trained the Emir of Qatar’s guard and worked as an instructor of Faustin-Archange Touadera’s presidential guard, in the context of a Russian contract. Another consequence of MONUSCO’s departure would be to leave thousands of internal displaced persons in Eastern Congo without protection and to stop reporting about human rights violations.
The mandate of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) expires on 15 November 2023. Since the end of MINUSMA, this mission stands now as the most important UN peacekeeping operation both in terms of budget ($ 1.26 bn) and staff numbers (17,885). Its priorities consist in protecting civilians, the rule of law and humanitarian aid, supporting the peace process, the implementation of the ceasefire and the reform of the security sector and the disarmament, demobilization, reintegration and repatriation program.

The mandate of the MINUSCA expires on 15 November 2023. UN Photo

Like other UN missions, MINUSCA is criticized for the misbehaviour of some of its members. On the last 21 June, it decided to repatriate the Tanzanian blue helmets accused of sexual abuse like their colleagues from DRC and Gabon who were repatriated earlier for the same reason. Over the last few years, many other incidents occurred between MINUSCA and the local population. On 21 February 2022, four French soldiers of MINUSCA were arrested at the Bangui airport by the Central African Armed Forces (FACA). In November 2021, the presidential guard shot on a bus transporting Egyptian members of the UN Police and injured ten of them. During that month, the Portuguese Justice revealed that former MINUSCA members of the Portuguese Special Forces were involved in diamond trafficking.
These incidents contributed to deteriorate of the climate between local authorities and MINUSCA, especially after the deployment of 1,200 Wagner mercenaries in 2018 in the context of an agreement with Moscow. These mercenaries have been accused of human rights violations but they have also allowed the Bangui authorities to regain control of most of the cities of the country, point out analysts.

Rwandan peacekeeper in CAR.

MINUSCA’s future seems however less fragile than MINUSMA’s since its relations with Wagner and President Faustin-Archange Touadera are less tense than the UN relationship with the Malian leadership. Unlike in Mali, the blue helmets and Wagner are collaborating with each other, reported the French paper Libération on 5 July 2023.
A key element in the cohesion of the pro-government side in the CAR, is the presence of 2,100 Rwandan troops within MINUSCA and the simultaneous presence of 1,200 Rwandan Defence Force soldiers alongside the FACA in the framework of a bilateral agreement between Bangui and Kigali. Unsurprisingly, all these Rwandan soldiers communicate with each other, which helps to avoid incidents.
A strategic alliance has been set up by Presidents Touadera and Paul Kagame, which goes beyond military services. More than 100 Rwandan companies are registered in the CAR in a number of activities including transport, logistics, tourism, agriculture and real estate. A subsidiary of the Rwandan Crystal Ventures holding has obtained a 25 years concession to open five mines, whereas another company called Afrika Oko is active in the gold and diamonds sectors. To some extent, Rwanda and Wagner have a vested interest in maintaining a working relationship to preserve stability and thereby their respective businesses. (The Egyptian contingent of MINUSMA, based in Douentza in the Mopti region of central Mali. UN Photo/Harandane Dicko)

François Misser

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