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Guinea-Bissau. The Gospel and Social Promotion.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

Schools, female entrepreneurship, microcredit. These are some of the initiatives of the Oblates of Mary in this small African country.

Cacine is a village of mud-brick houses, covered with metal sheets or palm leaves, built side by side along two dirt paths, where hens, goats, and pigs roam, and where children play. This small town of two thousand inhabitants, surrounded by forest, overlooks an inlet of the sea that from the Atlantic Ocean insinuates itself like a snake among the mangroves in the south of the country. The Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate went to Guinea-Bissau in 2002.
Cacine is the third mission of the Oblates in Guinea-Bissau. One is in the capital Bissau where they run the parish of Antula and the other is that of Farim in the north of the country on the banks of the Chacheu river where various development projects have been under way for years, ranging from schools to medical clinics passing through the entrepreneurship of women whose work is the dyeing of fabrics.

Father Carlo Andolfi, an Italian with 34 years of missionary life in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, gazes towards the horizon of the sea when the sun turns red in the warm African winter. Every day the missionaries ask themselves how to help improve the lives of these people, how to continue the work of proclaiming the Gospel and developing Christian communities and how to give the new generations an opportunity to grow spiritually and as people.
The answer is their daily commitment that starts with the school. Father Carlo recalls that in one of the nearby villages, Quetafine, a man had started a school under the shade of a tree, to give basic education to the children of the village. Seeing the commitment of this man and the growing interest of the people, the missionaries, together with the local people, decided to build a school and entrust this man with the task of running the small structure. Today that small structure has grown and now there are 6 classrooms and 270 students; with two shifts each day, there is room for all of them.

Sadjo, their teacher, takes care of the little ones in the nursery, while her colleagues patiently teach the older ones: some of those in the second grade who are old enough for secondary school. On each desk, there is a notebook and a pen to copy what the teacher writes on the blackboard. That is all the school material there is. Since the government stopped paying the publishing house that printed the textbooks, it has become difficult to find anything better than a few photocopies.
Outside the school, a concrete base waits for the church to be built; while waiting, the goats sleep there, and some people spread out their rice on it to dry. There is also a school in the village of Cafal, but we are only at the beginning. To visit it, Father Carlo must take the morning boat to cross the sea inlet; he leaves around 10, sometimes even later. There is no precise time so everyone waits on the shore, some with piles of chickens with their legs tied so they can’t run away and some selling fish balls floating in a green broth in small plastic bags.

The crossing takes a quarter of an hour and, on the other bank, we take moto-taxis for the hour-long trip along forest paths, dodging the vines with our heads and holding on to the young and reckless drivers. At last, we reach the small village of Cafal. In addition to accompanying the Christian community, the missionaries also started a school there.
On the waterfront, among the cows licking the salt left by the high tide, there is a group of fishermen. One is from Sierra Leone, another is from Liberia and a third is from Ghana. They have come from neighbouring Guinea: they left Conakry with two fishing boats which were confiscated after they were caught fishing without a permit in Guinea-Bissau waters. For twelve days they have been waiting on the small concrete pier for their boss to send the money to pay the fine and be able to set sail. Even for local fishermen, it is not easy to get something from these waters. Since the Koreans bought the fishing rights, the bulk of the catch is frozen and shipped to Asia. And so, the pirogues made from very light fromager wood, so agile on these placid waters, rest on the sand bringing very few fish for the cooking-pots of Cacine. We are satisfied with rice, at least that is not lacking. Farm animals are slaughtered only on important occasions; chickens are eaten a little more often.

While one young woman draws water from the well to bathe her child, another prepares her bag for the savings group meeting. Her name is Damiana, the animator of five groups of the SILC project (Saving and Internal Lending Communities), in three villages. It is funded by the CRS (Catholic Relief Service – Caritas USA). One of the biggest shortcomings is education in how to save: what you have in your pocket, you spend. Father Carlo says: “Those who join the project deposit a weekly sum, creating a fund which they can then draw on to make important purchases for their families or to start profitable activities, such as buying seeds to produce a crop for sale”. This is but a first step for the new generations in understanding how to become independent and how to bring new development to their community. Open Photo: ©tiagofernandezphotography/123RF.COM

Andrea Cuminatto

Peru. Marriage. An Agreement Between Two Families.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

Marriage is related to the continuation of the family and the community among the Asheninka, an indigenous population who lives in the central forest of the Ucayali district in the province of Atalaya in eastern Peru.

Both types of marriage, the monogamous and the polygamous, are practiced among the Asheninka. If a man opts for the monogamous marriage, he makes a preliminary agreement with the parents of the woman he intends to marry. This agreement can remain in effect for a few months, or half a year, the time necessary to the couple to get to know each other, at the end of which they decide whether to formalize their union or separate.
The final decision is made not only by the couple but mainly by their parents who observe their behaviours and give suggestions.
For this reason, the young couple is supposed to visit each other’s parents and spend time with them, because they are the ones who will have the final say over whether or not the couple can get married or must separate. If the couple gets married, they will remain together until death separates them.

Some Asheninka men, mainly the heads of the community, the curacas, choose the polygamous marriage. In this case they must talk about their decision with their future first wife and make sure that she will accept her polygamous marriage. If men want to marry more than one woman, they are supposed to show that they are skilled farmers, skilled hunters (mitayeros) and good fishermen because they must show that they will be able to sustain their family. Once they can prove they have all these requirements they are allowed to have several tsinanis (wives).
Among the Asheninka communities, one of the man’s fundamental duties to his family is to build a house. Those men who intend to marry more than one woman, are supposed to build a house for each wife, in this way, each woman will be able to have her own space where she can raise her children. Men must also provide food for each wife, so they are supposed to hunt, fish and plant cassava, banana, beans, rice, and other products. Polygamy is accepted among the Asheninka in order to increase the number of the members of their communities so that they can better defend themselves from the dangers of the jungle, from the attack of neighbouring communities or from any other evil that may threaten their personal, family and community life.

According to oral narrations, the Asheninkas were, once, nomadic peoples who moved from place to place as a way of obtaining food, finding pasture for livestock, or otherwise making a living. They were often in conflict among themselves and neighbouring communities. Any disagreement was a good reason to fight and even to kill. Death, therefore, was not infrequent among this population, so, having several wives and many children meant to guarantee the continuation of the lineage and clan.
The parents of the future spouses make a preliminary agreement before the celebration of the wedding and then schedule a date. Before the day of the wedding ceremony, the groom is supposed to go into the jungle to hunt and bring game for the day of the celebration. On her side the bride makes masato (yucca drink). On the day of the wedding, at noon, the groom brings the animal that he has hunted and offers it to his future wife, in the presence of invited guests. The bride, in turn, offers the groom a pachaka (pumpkin container) containing the masato she has prepared. The bride wears a new kushma, the Asheninka traditional dress, painted with achiote pasta obtained from the achiote tree, more commonly known as annatto, whose seeds have a covering of yellowish orange to reddish orange powder. She also wears a crown decorated with beautiful flowers. The groom, after drinking the masato, goes to bathe and get dressed. He also wears a new kushma and a crown adorned with macaw parrot feathers.

The head of the community declares the spouses husband and wife, and the sheripiri (shaman), performs the ancestral spiritual ritual of pusanga (drink prepared with aromatic herbs). He offers the drink to the couple and puts small bracelets in their hands. The celebration continues and the guests sing and dance to the rhythm of music and enjoy the food: yucca with cooked green plantains accompanied by roast meat. Later the invited guests give the new couple gifts such as hunting, fishing, and cultivating tools, kushmas, animals, fruits and those essentials for a new couple starting their life together. The absence of a godfather or other wedding witnesses is a particularity of the ancestral Asheninka wedding ritual. The agreement between the two families is enough.

Jhonny Mancilla Pérez

Economy. The COVID-19 Challenge.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

The country is divided between two worlds, the world of the poor and the world of the middle class. To understand South Africa, it is important to recognise this. The economy, health care, education and the social life of South Africa is divided into these two worlds.

When COVID struck, the impact on these two worlds was different. The middle class had a buffer, the poor bore the brunt of the pandemic and its effects. In some ways, it can be argued, COVID accelerated was inevitable in the South African reality. The already sharply divided country and a failing state was further exposed by the pandemic.
South Africa’s already fragile economy was brought to its knees. The already dysfunctional health system was thrown into crisis and the huge gap between the rich and poor grew. To make matters worse, widespread corruption and looting of public funds, intended to buy protective gear for the medical sector by politicians, were revealed.
The health minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, resigned from his job in the middle of the worst of the pandemic when it was shown that he siphoned off millions for himself and his family from public funds intended to fight the pandemic.

The COVID highlighted South Africa’s biggest challenge – one that was already a challenge pre-pandemic: its economy. Even in ‘good’ times high levels of unemployment and inactivity – especially amongst young people – was a problem. Out of a working-age population of 40 million, only 15 million South Africans are employed. This includes about 3 million jobs in the public sector (government).
COVID-19 deepened this crisis because low-wage workers suffered almost four times more job losses than high wage workers. Within months of the crisis, many low-wage earners lost almost 60% of their income.

The informal sector
In May 2021 Statistics, South Africa’s quarterly labour force survey revealed that in the first months of the hard lockdown (March/April 2020), about 2.2 million people lost their jobs. South Africa’s labour market lost about 200-million working hours between the first and second quarters of 2020. This is equivalent to more than 4.4-million weekly working hours.
South Africa’s poor bore the brunt of the fallout from the pandemic. The shutdowns by government and the lack of economic activity – as in many parts of the world – caused many businesses to close their doors permanently; they were not able to survive through the lockdowns. Many of South Africa’s poorest engage in and survive by working in the informal sector. Almost 18% of the total employed workforce in the country are working in this sector.

Informal businesses do not have savings and live ‘from hand to mouth’. There is no safety net, they have no recourse to government aid. They do not make a contribution to the country’s Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and they are not entitled to the basic benefits of those protected by the country’s labour law. People in the formal sector who make a contribution to the UIF had recourse to some income through this fund.
It is estimated that one in two informal workers in the country lost their livelihoods during the pandemic. To complicate matters more, we must take cognisance of the fact that many workers have a number of dependents – older people, children and extended family. So, the loss of jobs may not only affect the nuclear family but the extended family too; this can at times amount to 30 people or more.

This is especially pertinent in the rural areas and many of the so-called ‘townships’ – the spatial/geographical separation created in the apartheid era to keep black and white people apart. Many of the townships, because of the legacy of apartheid and the incompetence of the government in South Africa’s democratic era, are still underdeveloped and therefore mostly inhabited by the poor.
Self-employed workers in the informal sector experienced nearly three times greater negative effect on employment than the overall average according to a study done by the School of Governance at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (WITS). The COVID-19-induced employment loss essentially erased the last decade of employment growth in the country. The economic disaster brought by COVID will take a long time to recover.

Health Care
Like the economy, South African has a two-tiered, highly unequal health system. The majority of the country’s poor are catered for by the state-funded system – around 71% of the population. The private system is largely funded through individual contributions made to medical schemes and serves about 27% of the population. The public sector is underfunded and most people cannot afford the cost of private care. While the country’s Constitution would say all have the right to health, this is certainly not the reality in South Africa.

During the pandemic this was acutely shown in the fact that those with money had far more access to testing, oxygen and other necessary COVID-related treatments.
Just over 3.5 million cases of the virus have been reported in South Africa. 96 thousand people, according to statistics, have died. How accurate these numbers are can be disputed. Some would say, due to poor administration and no testing or non-reporting in rural areas, the number could be much higher.
An examination of the numbers per province shows that the poorest places in the country had much higher death rates. In the poor and most rural Eastern Cape (population of 6.7 million) there were 758 excess deaths per 100 thousand people in 2020. The most populous province, with the best infrastructure, Gauteng (population 15.4 million), had a lower death rate. There were 373 excess deaths per 100 thousand people in the same period.
One of the biggest lessons COVID taught South Africa was that poor health care at lower levels meant an increased risk of severe illness and death. The poor, because of their economic position, are generally malnourished and hence have less immunity to infection.
Comorbidities are a huge risk for COVID-19. If the health sector was more efficient and diagnosed and treated people living with, for example, diabetes at the community level, the outcome would have been better. If the country had a strong primary health care network with well-trained and competent health workers, the poorest would have stood a better chance when COVID struck.

Entrance to Dr George Mukhari University Hospital in Ga-Rankuwa area, north Pretoria©sunshineseeds/123RF.COM

The health care sector has massive problems: first, the health care needs of the population exceed the capacity of the system; second, the vast majority of people do not know their health needs (they have no access) and so aren’t treated; third, the way the system is funded perpetuates massive inequality.
The very fabric of many state-run hospitals is poor. Buildings and infrastructure are falling apart and medical equipment is old. Many poor and sick people wait hours or even days for treatment in state facilities.
In order to deal with the pandemic, many hospitals stopped other services and focussed on COVID patients. People could not get treatment for basic health issues and some people could not access drugs – like antiretrovirals for HIV/AIDS. The drugs were simply not being dispensed or people, who had lost income, could not get to places to collect them. Many services like blood-pressure management, tuberculosis, diabetes and even cancer treatments were stopped to cope with the pandemic. This would impact life expectancy beyond COVID.
The already frail public health care system has been stretched beyond crisis proportions. There is a massive backlog of treatments that need to be done.The COVID pandemic has been bad news for South Africa. The burden on South Africa’s poor before COVID was by no means light. They now carry a heavier burden, one in which their basic humanity stands little chance of ever being realised.

Russell Pollitt

Mauritania. The mysterious and solitary Nemadi.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

A small people of Mauritania compelled to change their lifestyle to survive. They once lived in the desert where they hunted wildlife and gathered wild fruits and herbs. Today they raise dromedaries.
Despite being relegated to the margins of society, the Nemadi have never lost their liberty.

To the south of Oualata, one may meet with them at a well as they water their dromedaries. If at first sight there is nothing unusual about the scene, a closer look shows a different sort of people: slender, like all the rest but their clothes are not always blue, unlike all others, and their eyes are sometimes of a clear colour, a unique characteristic. These are the few remaining signs of distinction of the Nemadi. Their history is difficult to trace since almost nobody remembers it.

The anthropological books do not clarify the origins of this people so distinct from the main groups that make up Mauri society.
In Mauritania, Berbers and Arabs are seen as making up a single society, that of the bidan (‘whites’). Their assimilation began in the XVI century when the Arab tribes of the Hassans arrived in Mauritania where they conquered and absorbed the local Berber populations. Many sections of the population from that time onwards became tributaries of the Arabs and the scourge of servile labour, a nuanced term to speak of slavery, took root in society.

The origin of the name
The Nemadi, are one of the non-slave minorities though subject to the payment of tribute, like the Imraguen, a fishing people living along the northern coast. Today, the Nemadi are pastors, devoted to raising dromedaries but, until the recent past, they were hunters of small game and gatherers of wild fruit and herbs. Their name indicates the term ‘nomads’ the etymology of which is the Greek word nomós (‘pasture’).

In the ambit of anthropology, the term is usually attributed to the populations that by pasturing in vast arid territories which they know well and whose sparse, scattered resources of water and grass, they use to their advantage, and move according to various modalities and rhythms, together with their animals.
Today, the tendency is to use the term and concept with reference to all peoples with no fixed abode, dwellers in desert places and used to wandering, even if not for pastoral reasons. This is the case with the Nemadi, also known as the N’Madi, hunters and Arabophones who, until the 1880s, lived in the area of Nema, from which, presumably, they take their name, located to the south of the well-known oasis of Oualata.

A precarious existence
Today, the Nemadi do not possess land and live in rather precarious huts built of straw and pieces of cloth, quite different from the classical khaima of the Mauri (tents woven from goat or camel hair and, today, increasingly made from white cotton). There have been no official censuses by which to obtain up-to-date figures, but it is estimated that they are few in number, amounting to only a few hundred. Among the reasons for the demographic decline and the change in lifestyle is the reduction of the game they used to hunt, especially antelopes, oryxes and addax gazelles. The drastic reduction in the numbers of wild animals was not caused by them but by a combination of factors such as indiscriminate hunting which the Mauris, spread throughout the whole country, practised in past decades using modern arms and motorised means of transport.

The large dama gazelle, for example, was once widespread all over the Sahara but is today greatly reduced in numbers. Desertification, fed by climate change, is irreversibly reducing its habitat also in Mauritania. Its hunting has been banned to protect the species, but the indiscriminate ban has ended up penalising the poorest and most fragile communities such as that of the Nemadi who once used its meat as their main source of food and now find it hard to get enough food to eat. As with all peoples who are used to moving within their surrounding space, the adoption of a sedentary life is the most one can expect from them, and perhaps the rearing of dromedaries is the lesser evil, bearing in mind that this is the most prized animal in the country and ownership of it guarantees a degree of prestige.

Cut off from everyone else
However, the Nemadi live on the margins of society. Considered ‘savages’ by the Mauri, they are relegated to a position outside the pyramid of the social classes (like the Untouchables in India), and even considered inferior to the harratin, the black Sub-Saharans.

It is said that the Nemadi were in the habit of hunting during the hottest part of the day when the prey was tired from the heat. The use of dogs (so valuable that they formed part of the marriage dowry), highly skilled in isolating and immobilising their prey, rendered the Nemadi unique and renowned in the Sub-Saharan areas.
It was perhaps due to the fact that they moved together with their dogs, animals indicated as impure and undesirable in the Arabic-Islamic world, that they became so disliked.
Like all minorities, the Nemadi have suffered discrimination and prejudice. The fact that today, little or nothing is known about them, points out two facts: their dilution within the dominating social fabric and the darkness that seems to have descended upon their civilisation. In their solitude, they have not succeeded in carving out for themselves a space of liberty in the heart of the desert.

Elena Dak/Africa

India. Phulkari, floral work.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

The folk art of phulkari, that represents the tradition and culture of Punjab, is now regaining popularity globally.

If it is colourful, geometrical and traditional, it is got to be phulkari, – the magnificent hand embroidery from Punjab. Literally meaning floral work, phulkari has been synonymous with the people and the culture of Punjab for centuries. In fact, it continues to be an integral part of the religious, birth and wedding ceremonies in the northern state of India.
The women of Punjab still embroider odhnis or chunris (shawls to cover the head) or ghaghras with phulkari work.
The word phulkari first appeared in Punjabi literature in the 18th century when poet Waris Shah, in his composition Heer Ranjha, elaborated on Heer’s trousseau. Famous Punjabi artist Amrita Shergil, in her painting Resting, immortalised phulkari, where a woman sitting among a group of Punjabi girls is seen wearing the craft work.
Legend has it that phulkari arrived in India from Iran where it was called gulkari meaning flower crafting.

Three generations of Phulkari embroiderers in Punjab. CC BY-SA 4.0/ Sheebamadanloewinger

Usually, embroidered shawls and ghaghras was made by a family for personal use and having completed a phulkari signified an important step for an unmarried girl on her way to becoming a woman. As phulkari was part of a girl’s trousseau, she had to work on it herself from an early age. In fact, her proficiency in the skill added to her eligibility as a bride.
In the past, on the birth of a girl child, the mothers and grandmothers world star making phulkari, to gift them at the time of the girl’s wedding. The parent would give away dowry of 11 to 101 phulkaris, with bagh phulkari being the most precious and impressive one.
The rich and the famous families occasionally employ professional embroiderers for bagh phulkari where an entire surface is ornamented
by a connected pattern.

Hand embroidered Phulkari dupatta from Patiala. CC BY-SA 4.0/ Sheebamadanloewinger

Today, phulkari is done on cotton, chiffon, georgette and silk. However, plain cotton fabric or khaddar was used. The thread was manually spun and dyed with natural pigments.
Punjab, known for cotton cultivation, was an appropriate region for producing khaddar locally. From 50 varieties of phulkari stitches in vogue at one point, only a few have survived. The stitching is now done with silk thread. Cotton or woollen threads are used occasionally.
With the use of long and short darn stitches on the wrong side of a coarse cotton cloth, a variety of characters, form and designs are created. Some other stitchers like herringbone, running or button-hole stitch were used earlier.
In traditional phulkari, the patterns are dispersed at intervals over the cloth. With skilful manipulation of the darning stitch, numerous intricate motifs are contrived through horizontal, vertical and diagonal stitches. A peculiarity of phulkari is that the fabric itself is used geometrically as an inner decoration so that the medallions or diamonds are not just patters sewn on but become an integrated combination of colours. This is achieved with absolute accuracy in thread counting. The narrower the stitch, the finer the piece.
Madder brown, rust red or indigo are the preferred choices for background colours. The stitchers are golden yellow, white or green.

Phulkari stoles worn at a Punjabi wedding. CC BY-SA 4.0/ Sheebamadanloewinger

There are several varieties of baghs or garden styles in phulkari. Some of the baghs are shalimar, chand, chaurasiya, satranga (seven-coloured), pachranga (five-coloured) or bawan bagh where the fabric is divided into 52 boxes with embroidery.
The baghs are named according to their utility and the motifs embroidered on them.
Vari-da-bagh is gifted to new brides by her in-laws upon her arrival at the new home.
Most common motifs used in the embroidery are based on the wheat and barley stalks that grow all over Punjab. When pieces of mirror are stitched on phulkari, it is called shishedar phulkari. Another style of phulkari, with its own set of motifs, is darshan dwar. Here a gate is embroidered on a fabric and is offered at temples and gurdwaras. Other types of phulkari include Thirma phulkari which is seen as a symbol of purity as it has a white base fabric. In Sainch phulkari , motifs represent the Punjab’s rural life of Punjab with the use of human figures, animals and birds.

Women in Punjab, India embroidering using a tracing. CC BY-SA 4.0/ Sheebamadanloewinger

Along the years the art and craft of making a phulkari have almost disappeared. Today a number of non-governmental organizations are working to keep this rural art alive. In fact, the method of creating a phulkari work has also changed with machines replacing manual work. However, a significant increase in the demand for the traditional phulkari in India and abroad is s sign of popularity, timeless appeal and uniqueness of this traditional Indian embroidery. (Open Photo: Embroidery on a shawl from Punjab. CC BY-SA 4.0//Kritzolina)

Shalini Mitra

DR Congo. Side-by-side With Those Who Have Lost All Their Rights.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

Crowded cells, a corrupt judicial system, a health crisis aggravated by the Coronavirus. A Comboni nun committed to enforcing the rights of prisoners in the largest prison in Kinshasa.

It is five o’clock in the morning, the sun starts to make its heat felt. A long queue of people wait outside Makala prison gates. Visits have been abolished since the Coronavirus broke out, though people can bring food for the prisoners.Pauline, with her little one Elise, is waiting for her turn. “My husband is innocent – she says with her head looking towards the prison door – they accused him unfairly. Some witnesses say they saw him in that damn house. It’s not true. It’s not true”. The husband was sentenced to ten years in prison for stealing and beating the owners of the house.In front of her is Rose, who has a 17-year-old son locked up in prison. “They accuse him of drug dealing – she says – but two years have passed and he has not yet been tried”.
So many stories of suffering and humiliation intertwine in this large space in front of the prison.

Kinshasa’s Makala Prison, built in 1954, can accommodate 1,200 but there are currently nearly 9,000 inmates. There are 9 blocks for adult men and one for minor boys, as well as a block for minor girls and women. The cells are opened at 07:00 and closed at 17:30.
The inmates can move as they please in the spacious prison compound. At 15:00, preparations begin for their return to the cells before they are closed at 17:30.
Sister Anna Brunelli, a Comboni missionary, has worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1971. For several years she has been involved in helping prisoners in Makala. She says: “When I enter Makala, I cannot fail to see human beings who live in worse conditions than animals: insufficient sanitary facilities, inappropriate medical treatment. Those who arrive at the health centre are often told ‘there is no medicine’ and they are given a prescription. If they have family members who can help them, fine, but most of them turn to the Catholic Church for medicine.
Volunteer doctors come from time to time to help out. It is the same thing with the food: although the manager has increased the rations and improved the food, it is still not enough and the food is not good. Drinking water is often lacking in Kinshasa. Imagine being in a prison where prisoners suffocate, crammed into cells, without water to wash or drink. If they want water, they have to buy it.”
Her job, in agreement with the chaplain who is in charge, consists in coordinating all the activities started by the chaplaincy and divided into different commissions: liturgy, catechesis, caritas, education (literacy, languages, information technology), justice and peace, finance and health. “I try to be aware of the needs of the inmates and help them as much as I can: things like razor blades, a phone call to their families, a weekly collection for the ward, medicines, toothpaste, judicial files”,
says the missionary.

Sr Anna works in collaboration with various NGOs including the Congolese Association for Access to Justice (ACAJ) and is in contact with various lawyers. One of them, Samuel Atweka, a lawyer at the Kinshasa court and also president of the NGO “Promotion des droits de l’homme et de la justice” (PRODHOJ), commenting on the inadequacy of the judicial system says: “In Makala, many men, women and children remain imprisoned in inhumane conditions even though there are no compelling reasons to keep them in detention. A well-functioning judicial system would contribute in some way to solving the problem of prison overcrowding in the country”.
“The vast majority of Makala detainees are in irregular detention – continues the lawyer – in addition, there are many people incarcerated for minor offences such as stealing a cell phone. In the context of the pandemic, these people should benefit from the decongestion measures put in place at the start of the pandemic. There are also detainees who have been acquitted or given bail, but do not have the means to have the proceedings registered by the court chancellery. They therefore remain in prison for months”.
Last year the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, urged the government to reduce the prison population, saying that “measures taken in the midst of a health crisis should not undermine the fundamental rights of those in prison”, including their right to adequate food and water. Safeguards against ill-treatment of persons in custody, including access to a lawyer and doctors, should also be fully respected”. “Words that have remained on paper”, Atweka says.

Sr Anna has a particular interest in the minors’ block. She says: “In Kinshasa there are over 40,000 street children, often abandoned by their families because they are accused of bringing bad luck, causing illness or problems in the family. They end up on the street, stuffing themselves with cheap sedatives. Abandoned by everyone, they live by begging. Some of them end up in Makala. I try to talk to them and understand where they come from and when possible, I try to contact the family. But it is a very difficult job”.
Sr Anna also describes the commitment of the Catholic Church: “The church is close to the poorest and most despised and to those who have lost all their rights. It is the refuge of those who have been abandoned by their families. It is thanks to the Church that there is still some humanity … the Catholic chaplain helps the most serious cases with food, medicine or legal assistance … in the last six months, more than one hundred prisoners have been freed thanks to the intervention of the chaplain. We often intervene with sums of money so that the prisoners pay administrative or judicial fees in order to be released”.
It is five o’clock in the afternoon and Sister Anna goes towards the exit. Outside some women are waiting for her, they want news of their loved ones. The missionary gives them some news and has a note for one of them. As she walks home, she cannot forget the despair on the faces of those men and women she saw today. (Open Photo: 123RF.COM)

(C.C.)

The Tortoise, The Leopard and the Hyena.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

One morning, once upon a time, the tortoise had a very pleasant surprise when he came out of his hiding place under a rock. He found himself in the midst of a lot of delicious mushrooms. They had come out of the ground overnight. He started to eat them enjoyably.

It was not long before the hyena passed by. He saw the tortoise feasting on the mushrooms and enjoying himself thoroughly. He became envious. He had gone for three days without anything to eat. He was very hungry. He could not stand the sight of the tortoise having so much to eat while he himself had nothing to eat and was so hungry.

“What are you doing, tortoise?” he asked angrily. “I am eating these mushrooms. They came up overnight. I am so blessed today. Come and have some,” the tortoise replied joyfully. “How can you insult me by suggesting that I should eat mushrooms? Have you ever seen me eat that rubbish? Now there will be two of us starving!” the hyena said angrily.
He picked up the tortoise in his hand from the ground.
He looked at him menacingly. He had half a mind to dash him against a rock. The tortoise was very scared.

He knew that the hyena was up to no good. He appealed for mercy frantically. The hyena changed his mind. Instead, he climbed up a nearby tree with the tortoise in his hand. He perched up the tortoise precariously on a branch of the tree and left him there. The hyena then climbed down. He left the place and went away to look for his own food.

The tortoise was stranded up in a tree. He could not climb down the tree to the ground. He did not know how to climb up trees or down trees. He could easily tumble down on the rock and break his shell. He was afraid of injuring himself. After some time, the tortoise decided to call for help. He shouted for help. The leopard heard his calls for help and hurried over. He was very surprised when he saw the tortoise perched up dangerously so high in a tree. He could not help but fall into laughter.

“When did you start climbing up trees tortoise and what are you doing up there?” he asked. “I did not climb up here. It is the hyena who put me up here. He saw me eating the mushrooms on the ground and said he could not stand seeing me with so much to eat while he had nothing to eat. He said I should starve too,” the tortoise replied very sadly.

The leopard decided to help the tortoise immediately. He climbed up the tree quickly. He took the tortoise in his hand and climbed down gently with him. “There you are! Enjoy yourself!” the leopard said as he started off. “Wait a minute, Leopard! You have been very kind to me,” the tortoise said as he hurried away into his hiding place.

He came out of the small cave with a big gourd and a whisk. He asked the leopard to look away as he dipped the whisk into the gourd. He then pulled out the whisk and splashed some liquid over the leopard.
“Thank you very much for your kind deed, Leopard. You can go away now. I will not tell you what I have done to you. It is for others to tell you,”the tortoise said.

The leopard went away. When he arrived where the other animals were, they all admired his beautiful spots. They asked him where he had got those beautiful spots from. He told them what he had done for the tortoise and what the tortoise had done to him, in deep gratitude. The hyena was furious when he heard what the leopard said. He hurried away, back to where the tortoise was. He found the tortoise busy eating the mushrooms. He picked up the tortoise again in his hand.

“I was here before the leopard came. Yet you did not give me the beautiful spots you have given him. I am going to smash you against the rock now and kill you instantly, unless you give me beautiful spots too,” the hyena threatened the tortoise angrily.

“Alright! Alright!” the frightened tortoise said, “just put me down and I will do it for you too,” The tortoise was very scared of the cruelty of the hyena.The hyena smiled with satisfaction. His intimidation had worked.

“You had better hurry up about it. I want mine to be even better than those of the leopard,” he ordered the tortoise. “Yes, Sir!” the tortoise said as he hurried away into his hiding place under the rock.

Pretty soon he brought out the gourd and the whisk. He told the hyena to look away before he splashed him with a different liquid. “What I have done to you is not for me to say. Others will tell you,” the tortoise said as he hurried away into his hiding place under the rock.

The hyena hurried away to where the other animals were. He was expecting to be admired more than the leopard had been admired. Instead, they all laughed at him derisively. He had ugly spots.

The hyena ran away in shame. He headed back to where the tortoise was. He was very angry with the tortoise.
This time he intended to smash the tortoise against the rock right away, if the tortoise did not reverse the ugly spots.

He arrived at the spot but the tortoise was nowhere to be seen. The tortoise had gone into his hiding place. “Tortoise! Tortoise! Come out, this instant! – he commanded -, I told you to give me better spots than those of the leopard. Instead, you have made me ugly for everyone to laugh at me! You undo what you have done instantly before I smash you against the rock.”

From the security of his hiding place under the rock, where the hand of the hyena could not reach him, the tortoise laughed out loudly. “Go away in shame you cruel animal! I have given you ugly spots to reflect your ugly heart and dark deeds,” he replied. That is how the leopard got his beautiful spots and that is how the hyena got his ugly spots.

Folktale from Malawi

Women Rangers. Defending Mother Nature.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

From Zimbabwe to South Africa and Kenya, Women Rangers are fiercely defending wildlife against poachers.

In their camouflage uniforms and armed with assault rifles, they scour the Phundundu Wildlife area in Zimbabwe, the natural habitat of 11,000 elephants. These are the Akashinga women rangers, a name that means courageous in the Shona language. As part of the innovative programme that bears their name, sponsored by the International Anti-Poaching Foundation (IAPF) — a non-profit organisation dedicated to combatting poaching worldwide — these ranger women protect animals in danger of extinction. The programme was launched in 2017 by Damien Mander, a former agent of the Australian Special Operations in Iraq and founder of the IAPF. In their first four years of operations, the Akashinga women achieved an unprecedented reduction in elephant poaching estimated to have been around 80 per cent, in the Lower Zambezi Valley, the area of the world with the highest concentration of these gigantic pachyderms.

Black Mambas Anti-Poaching unit. (photo UNEP)

The goal of the IAPF is to hire a thousand ranger women full-time to protect a network of 20 nature reserves. The Akashinga programme now includes six wildlife reserves covering an area of 630,000 acres, almost 255,000 hectares. Currently, 160 full-time women rangers are completing their training in addition to the dozens already in service.
The recruits had to undergo hard training. “After studying the habits of the wildlife and the secrets of the environment – Damien Mander explains – the aspiring scouts have been trained to face the most challenging scenarios through the use of weapons, hand-to-hand combat and exercises in guerrilla action like those that may occur in the context of combatting illegal hunting”.
The Akashinga have also learned the techniques of patrolling and camouflage, the rudiments of first aid, arrest and search techniques, the acquisition of evidence, and crime scene preservation. In the imagination of those who know the history of Zimbabwe, the Akashinga, for their pride and ardour, remind them of Queen Lozikeyi Dlodlo who succeeded her husband King Lobegula in governing the Ndebele people in the late 1800s. She tenaciously opposed, both by diplomacy and military force, the occupation of the country by white colonialists who successively instituted former Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

The Black Mambas Anti-Poaching Unit in Balule Reserve, South Africa. (photo UNEP)

In South Africa, in 2013, to combat poaching, the Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit was formed; it takes its name from a deadly snake, the black mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis). Its purpose is to protect species in danger of extinction such as the rhinoceros, the cheetah, and the wild hunting dog. Craig Spencer, head of Balule Game Reserve, a private reserve bordering Kruger National Park says: “When we founded Black Mamba, the original purpose was to defend the rhinos. Often, we had to deal with hunters from the surrounding villages attracted by the huge profits”. The rhino horn is, of course, very much sought after in the Orient as a natural aphrodisiac and a powerful healing medicine. It may be worth as much as $65,000 dollars per kilo.

The work of the women rangers is not only to protect wildlife but also to conduct awareness campaigns. (Photo Brent Stirton)

The work of the women Black Mamba rangers is to patrol and defend the wildlife from poachers over an area of 40,000 acres of savannah inhabited not only by rhinos but also by elephants, gazelles, giraffes and lions. “Each day, we inspect the boundaries of the reserve, check the condition of the fences and examine the health of the animals”, Leitah Michabela, one of the leaders of Black Mamba, tells us.
The work of the women rangers is not only to protect wildlife but also to conduct awareness campaigns. Leitah continues: “We want our children to be able to enjoy this natural treasure. For this reason we also go to the schools to raise awareness of the need to defend nature since this is the only way we can build a future of hope”.
On the vast savannah at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, Purity Lakana, 23, walking slowly and peering at the ground, spots the tracks of a lion that recently passed that way. Further on, she sees a group of elephants peacefully grazing. The animals wander freely between the Maasai-owned land outside the park and in the park itself.
Purity is one of a group of eight Maasai women aged from 20 to 28 and known as ‘Team Lioness’ who form part of a team of 76 rangers of the Community Wildlife Rangers (CWR) in the Ogulului-Olalarashi Group Ranch (OOGR) guarding leopards, elephants, giraffes and other wild animals in the area of 147,000 hectares (363,000 acres) surrounding the Amboseli National Park in Kenya. They are the first group of women rangers of the strictly patriarchal Maasai community. “At first, the community thought we would not succeed, believing we are weak”, says Mary Amleset, 24, during a recent foot patrol.
“They considered this to be a work just for men and so they discouraged us … but we told them: ‘No, we will succeed, and we did’”, Amleset proudly adds.

Kenyan wildlife ranger. (Photo Ifaw)

Patrick Papatiti, head of the rangers in the community of the Olgulului-Olalarashi group recalls that the idea of having an all-women group of rangers came to the fore about two years ago when he began to work for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
When the idea was suggested to the Maasai leaders, “they were a bit doubtful” Papatiti recalls. Despite their initial reluctance, each of the eight Maasai clans, after being well informed, sent representatives to be interviewed for the jobs. Two years on, Team Lioness has exceeded all expectations. The women have shown courage and ability, especially in gathering information.
The Coronavirus pandemic has halted the tourist industry in Kenya which provided an income for many Maasai living near the Park. Tourism usually provides almost 10% of the GNP of Kenya, with 2.5 million tourists visiting the country each year.
With no source of income, some members of the community resorted to poaching wild game, Papatiti told us. Today, the rangers are not only up against organised crime but also some of the community who have taken up poaching to survive.

The African continent at the centre of Worldwide Poaching
Africa is the continent most affected by the exploitation of protected species. Poaching represents a many-sided threat to biodiversity, a fundamental condition for human survival. The most sought-after items on the flora and fauna black market are elephant tusk, rhinoceros horn, rosewood, and ant-eater scales. The market for wild flora and fauna is controlled by organised crime. Africa, with its enormous quantity of wildlife, is the continent at the centre of worldwide poaching.

According to the estimates of the World Wildlife Crime Report, 157,000 elephants were killed illegally in Africa between 2010 and 2018, an average of around 17,000 each year. The area most stricken by these crimes is Southern Africa. 75% of the remaining rhinos are concentrated in South Africa alone where 86% of global confiscations by the authorities takes place and where, according to the latest data, in 2019, 600 rhinos were illegally killed. Africa is the continent most in the sights of the poachers and this is easily understood: the combination of the presence in the continent of many species such as elephants and rhinos together with unreliable systems of protection (often corrupt) creates fertile ground for the work of poachers. It has been said that corruption is effectively an accelerator of crimes against nature, gaining a foothold at each level of the chain of command and involving many different actors and not only police agents but also administrative personnel, part of the army and a small percentage of rangers. Furthermore, we must not underestimate the spiral of crime that ties the poaching activities to some African terrorist groups: it is not unusual for the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn to be used as a means of financing armed militias and supporting the terror campaigns in some areas of the continent. (Open Photo: 123RF.COM – IFAW)

John Mutesa

Mozambique. Bazaruto’s enchanting waters.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

Off the southern coast of Mozambique, there lies an uncontaminated paradise of six islands surrounded by the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. The union of land and sea has its own special
magical alchemy

The habitat is uncontaminated, a place where land and ocean embrace according to the cycle of tides or the blowing of the wind, erasing frontiers, playing among the changing dunes, the weightless flights of the birds, the song of the whales and the darting of the dolphins.

Old traditional sailing boats in the sea of Bazaruto Archipelago. 123rf.com

This magical place is the Bazaruto Archipelago, a handful of islands breaking through the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean about twenty kilometres near the mainland city of Vilankulo.

The kingdom of the dugongs
The archipelago was once a peninsula until, twenty-five thousand years ago, the level of the oceans rose and the waters engulfed large parts of the land. Warmed by the hot Benguela current, the islands form an ideal environment for the growth of coral and the barrier rising off the eastern coast of the archipelago is home to abundant marine life. These waters are frequented by more than six hundred species of fish including sharks, manta rays and whale sharks; there is no shortage of cetaceans such as whales and five different species of dolphin.

Group of dolphins swimming in the sea. 123rf.com

Winding gracefully despite their heavy armour, the marine tortoises seem to fly in the temperate waters; however, the most extraordinary and elusive creature in these islands is the rare dugong (Dugong dugong), a vegetarian siren that ‘grazes’ on the algae-covered seabed. The skies above the beaches and hinterland of the islands are inhabited by more than a hundred and sixty species of birds including herons, egrets, flamingos, peacocks, pelicans and even sea jays, fishing martins, cormorants, African jacanas, two species of bee-eaters and many storks, without counting the thousands of migratory Palearctic birds that populate the archipelago during the summer months.

A protected park
This exceptional biodiversity is spread across a territory with the most varied ecosystems ranging from savannahs to mangrove forests, from dense woods to sand-dunes, from a coral reef to swamps regularly flooded by the tides. All this natural richness induced the government of Mozambique, in the year 2000, to declare the archipelago a National Park and there is now a project of partnership with the international African Parks organisation for the joint management of the area.

The history of human habitation on the islands is relatively recent: the Arabs established trading stations there in the XV century, while the Portuguese arrived only in the middle of the following century on the island of Santa Carolina, to trade in pearls and ambergris. The archipelago was spared the devastation of the civil war in the eighties thanks to its distance from the mainland, but a considerable number of refugees sought shelter there creating devastating pressure on the environment which fortunately ceased when the war ended (1992) and the fugitives could return to their villages.
Today, the archipelago has about three thousand inhabitants, mostly fishermen, spread over the five main islands and living in symbiosis with the environment.

Bays and lagoons
Bazaruto, elongated in form, is the largest of the islands of the archipelago. Almost forty kilometres long and seven wide, it features coasts of yellow sand facing the ocean, some of which, such as
that of Baia do Veleiro, consist of extremely large dunes
continually changed by the wind.

Dunes and forest near the beach on the Bazaruto Islands near Vilanculos. 123rf.com

At Ponta do Arena, on the extreme north-east of the island, there is the Baia dos Golfinhos (Dolphin Bay) where the Farrol do Bazaruto is located, a lighthouse built in 1913 by the Portuguese colonial authorities to indicate the island to vessels coming from the Indian Ocean. It is part of an array of lighthouses built between 1908 and 1931. During that period, along the coast of Mozambique, as many as thirty-two lighthouses were erected for the benefit of maritime traffic, twenty-three of which are still functioning.
The central spine of the island is punctuated by lagoons surrounded by reeds and palm groves inhabited by herons, cormorants, and pelicans. Occasionally, the nose and cold eyes of a crocodile break the surface of the water in search of prey.

Delicate pearls
To the south of Bazaruto rises the island of Benguerra, a little more than a quarter as long as its larger sister. Its enchanting beaches lapped by the tides, it is the pearl of the archipelago. A walk along the coast reveals the exoskeletons of the ‘sea-dollar’ (maritime invertebrates closely related to the sea-urchin); when the animal dies and decomposes on the sand, there remains only the white circular skeleton with a characteristically purple floral design at its centre.
The island, lashed by the wind, faces the turquoise ocean out of which, at low tide, there emerge sandbanks that appear like swift brush stokes marking the azure and green of the water; here, flocks of flamingos gather to feast on the crustaceans left high and dry by the tide.

Magaruque and Bangué are the smaller sisters that emerge to the south of Benguerra: cloaked with the whitest of sand forming enchanting and deserted beaches that face stretches of coral reefs of rare beauty, they have sea-beds full of extraordinary fauna where dolphins play but a few metres from the shore.
Half way between the island of Bazaruto and the continental coast rises the island of Santa Carolina, a tiny, crescent-shaped island about three kilometres long and looking out over a splendid coral reef. This oceanic jewel was violated in the eighties by the construction of a luxury hotel that is now completely abandoned and in disrepair. The only redeeming aspect of this ruined edifice is represented by the project to dismantle it and use the rubble to construct an underwater barrier to protect the eastern coast of the island. If no measures were to be taken, the island of Santa Carolina, exposed to the violence of ocean currents, would eventually be broken in two by the erosive action of the waves. Furthermore, if the climate change now taking place is not halted, the entire paradise of Bazaruto could disappear forever under the waves of the ocean. (Open Photo: Bazaruto island. 123rf.com)

Gianni Bauce/Africa

Uganda. Luwombo, a Traditional Dish Cooked in a Banana Leaf.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

Among the Baganda people living in the area north and northwest of Lake Victoria in south-central Uganda, Luwombo is one of the most popular dishes. It is prepared for specific occasion by specific people.

It is a stew steamed in banana leaves; it has been considered to be a very special dish that was/is served only to very important guests in the Baganda culture. These include the king, chiefs, visitors, and in-laws.
The dish was originally reserved for special occasions like traditional marriages, parties, festivities, and last funeral rites; it is served
only to in-laws.

Luwombo may contain chicken, beef, and mushrooms in a groundnut stew, or smoked fish, and plain groundnut stew. It is a different kind of cooking where the ingredients are tied in banana leaves and steamed. This dish will take from two to three hours to cook.Luwombo is prepared by specific people depending on the occasion. For ordinary festivities, any member of the family will be given the task of preparing it but with strict instructions as to how and what to do when cooking it, otherwise one may serve a semi-cooked sauce for the guests.For a traditional marriage, it is the bride’s paternal aunt (Senga) who cooks it, and she is the only one supposed to serve it to the groom. At the last funeral rites, every wife makes sure she has cooked and served a Luwombo dish for her husband’s family.
Luwombo is a dish that was and still is used to show respect to visitors and to honour the occasion. In Buganda, a ceremony or festivity without Luwombo is considered a very minor ceremony.
During traditional marriages, the bride’s Senga is given the responsibility to make sure that the Luwombo is prepared well and reaches the muko (groom) while still intact.

They usually entrust the Senga to do the cooking and she is told to guard it jealously while cooking. No one else approaches the Senga while she is cooking, unless called by her. It is believed that during this cooking, a jealous person can poison the food or add herbs that will charm the groom to change his mind about marrying the bride, or herbs that will cause the newlyweds to have marital problems. She on the other hand, while cooking this Luwombo, has special herbs or a love potion which she adds to it. The love potion is believed to increase the love the groom has for the bride. The Senga’s other job is to make sure that the muko eats the Luwombo.The Senga is given a cock which she dresses, without cutting it into pieces. She cooks it whole and then, during serving, she brings her special dish and serves the groom. She then sits beside him to make sure he eats most of it.
The Luwombo served to in-laws (Baako – the groom and his entourage) is prepared with a lot of care. The Senga of the bride is the only one supposed to serve it to the groom. Though it is a special dish served to in-laws, during the first visit where the man shows interest in marrying the girl, Luwombo is not supposed to be served to him. The reason is that the groom is visiting the Senga who will serve them ordinary food. It is also believed to be a bad omen to serve Luwombo to a man who is showing interest in marrying your daughter. They say he may never come back to ask for her hand in marriage after eating the Luwombo.
At the last funeral rites, the in-laws are served Luwombo as a sign of respect from the family of the woman because in-laws are considered important people in Buganda. Once a husband attends the last funeral rite at his wife’s home and is served food on a plate, that is a sign that he has ceased being an in-law and that all such respect has now ended.
This Luwombo is supposed to be prepared by the woman and her paternal aunt, yet when the last funeral rite is at the man’s family, the wife is not served Luwombo but since she has to make sure that her family members are accorded the respect they deserve, she cooks the food and serves her family.

During festivities, a good wife in Buganda is expected to cook Luwombo for her family. Cooking Luwombo is one of the yardsticks of a good wife in Buganda. A lazy wife will not cook Luwombo for her family because it requires a lot of work.
This dish is steamed using banana leaves. The reason for this type of cooking is that it was adopted from the ancestors of the Baganda. In the past, they didn’t have enough cooking pots so they would place matooke and the sauce in one cooking pot, but the Luwombo would be wrapped in different banana leaves.
Not all banana leaves are used in the preparation of Luwombo because some banana leaves are already mature and difficult to fold, or they tear when folded. A banana leaf used to prepare Luwombo is not supposed to tear; it should fold easily. That is the reason they look for young and tender leaves from sweet small bananas (yellow bananas) which are preferably used because they are soft and more flexible.

The cook will harvest tender leaves that have not been torn by the wind or damaged by hailstones and which will hold the sauce better. He then roasts them over a very hot fire.
Once the leaves are roasted over the fire, the stalks are removed and kept aside. The banana leaves are then folded from left to right and placed in a basket. The different types of Luwombo are placed in different folded leaves and water is added to a large pot with banana stalks. The tied up Luwombos are piled one on top of the other, covered with a large banana leaf, and placed over the fire to cook.
Today Luwombo has become a popular dish in Uganda and it is no longer a dish served only by the Baganda but other tribes are adopting this cuisine like the Basoga in the eastern part of the country. They have adopted the trend and also serve Luwombo to their in-laws. It is also one of the main dishes on the menus in many Ugandan hotels and restaurants. In Uganda, one is sure to be served a delicious dish of Luwombo. (Open Photo: Fresh fruits and vegetables from Uganda. 123rf.com)

Irene Lumunu

UK/Rwanda. Prioritizing economic rights over individual rights.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

Why did British Home Secretary Priti Patel, claiming her aim is to destroy the cross-channel traffickers’ “business model”, choose Rwanda for her recent £120 million Migration and Economic Development Partnership? And from what budget does the funding come?

Asylum seekers and migrants seeking a safe or better life in the UK are to be treated like toxic waste to be dumped in foreign lands, a striking illustration of the Johnson Cabinet’s moral bankruptcy. But quite likely here is a Minister playing to the Tory gallery unconcerned that their announcement can’t be implemented. Legal challenges are already being prepared. If this were just another half-baked initiative that will never happen, a Johnson specialty, there wouldn’t be much more to say. But why Rwanda and what’s in it for the Home Secretary?

The announcement provoked widespread and powerful reactions. “We pray that those who seek solutions do so with compassion, and with regard for the dignity which is innate to every human being. This week’s policy announcement simply lacks these qualities” Cardinal Vincent Nichols responded.

The Archbishop of Canterbury described this “subcontracting” of responsibilities as “the opposite of the nature of God” – more theological but less clear – while the civil servants union called it ‘inhumane’. Matthew Rycroft CBE, Permanent Secretary in the Home Office with a distinguished diplomatic career behind him, wrote to Priti Patel that he was not in a position to conclude there was “a deterrent effect significant enough to make the policy value for money” and therefore needing a Ministerial directive to proceed. In short, the deal was immoral, unworkable, probably illegal, and would likely cost a fortune.

Protest was strong but the choice of Rwanda and its geopolitical implications have aroused negligible in-depth comment. They should have. There is much to be learnt from Rwanda’s tragic history. My “Church and Revolution in Rwanda”(Manchester University Press 1977) examines the roots of the bitter political and ethnic conflict already happening 45 years ago. Following the 1994 genocide, I wrote about the failure of the international community, the complicity of the French, and the aftermath of the take-over by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Rwanda is much more than the ‘Switzerland of Africa’.

Rwanda today is economically a remarkable success story for which its President Paul Kagame is justly credited. A former military commander, in his mid-60s, trained at Fort Leavenworth, USA, he directed the RPF take-over after the genocide and today leads a tiny, poor, mountainous, densely populated country not much bigger than Wales whose population is 3.17 million. According to the World Bank, 60% of the 13 million Rwandans still survive in extreme poverty on $1.25 a day, but many of the usual poverty indicators are moving in the right direction.

The Kagame government has achieved impressive economic and social progress. 30% of Rwanda’s budget is spent on health and education. There is almost universal primary education along with innovative health measures, though malaria remains prevalent. Life expectancy increased from 49 years to 67 between 2001-2017. Significant efforts have been made to overcome the ethnic divides that lay behind the genocide.

In 2008 a law against gender-based violence was passed and some 62% of parliamentarians are now women. Inequality in Rwanda as measured by the Gini coefficient (Sweden 0.3, South Africa 0.63) is 0.44. According to Transparency International, Rwanda is the least corrupt country on the African continent. An extraordinary example of national regeneration after the genocide.

Foreign aid accounts for from 30-40% of Rwanda’s annual budget but, poor though the country remains, the government hopes to leap-frog into the cyber-age and make the country a regional ICT hub; 4,000 kilometres of fibre optics have been rolled out and 600,000 laptops distributed. The national university has a course on Artificial Intelligence. Rwanda – formerly Francophone now in the Commonwealth with an English language policy – has become a darling of British Development Aid. What’s not to admire?

The maggot in the apple is Kagame’s violation of individual human rights. Years ago, I was threatened by the head of Rwanda’s official human rights organization for taking too much interest in human rights violations. Opposing Kagame is dangerous. Deutsche Welle’s Global Media Forum (the German equivalent of the BBC World Service) reports ‘enforced disappearances’ (the official legal name used in a 2006 human rights UN International Convention) of journalists and opponents of the Rwandan government as well as mysterious deaths in South Africa and Mozambique of Rwandan exiles.

You have to be a very courageous to criticize the government. The country is ranked 155 out of 180 for Press Freedom and, placed between Angola at 122 and Zimbabwe at 133, is 128th out of 167 on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index. In the 2017 elections, after 22 years in power as President, Paul Kagame allegedly received 99% of the votes achieving a constitutional change that would allow him to stay in power until 2034. Rwanda is now amongst the world’s authoritarian one-party States.

Western governments making decisions about relations with Rwanda face a dilemma. Its work for social and economic rights inspires support and engagement. Its violations of individual rights, rights by which the West officially sets such store, call in question the fundamental opposition the West asserts between democratic governments and the growing number of authoritarian States around the world.

The contemporary China-Russia alliance has made the West’s defense of democracy an overriding geopolitical priority. The Cold War between Communist States and Western democracies is resumed with once again the (false) choice between the personal freedoms of the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights and the economic and social benefits of the 1966 UN International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. Does achieving the social and economic rights laid out in the 1966 UN International Covenant really depend on suppression of political opposition? Hardly. It’s a counter-factual argument but a democratic Rwanda could have done just as well.

The West sees itself championing democracy and a culture of democracy underpinned by respect for human rights, especially those violated by authoritarian regimes. So, what is the UK doing planning to deport asylum seekers for ‘processing’, many of whom will be fleeing one authoritarian regime only to end up in another? This is no-one’s idea of ‘constructive engagement’.

Priti Patel in her choice of Rwanda is de facto prioritizing economic rights over individual rights, reversing the West’s longstanding geopolitical position. Perhaps she simply doesn’t notice that there might be a wider problem here in the message she is giving to the world in her migrants for money partnership. (Open Photo: © Can Stock Photo / focalpoint)

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

Pygmies, the last caretakers of the forest.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

Indeed, the Pygmies have always been the caretakers of the forest, truly forest advocates.

Messok Dja, an area of Congo rainforest especially rich in biodiversity, is the ancestral land of the Baka people who have managed the forest since time immemorial. The Baka are one of the many Pygmy groups living in the forest spreading from the Congo Nile Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. They are called the African Pygmies, the African rainforest hunter-gatherers or Forest People of Central Africa. Scientists roughly identify them in three main geographic groups: the western Bambenga, the eastern Bambuti, and the central and southern Batwa.

That of the Pygmies is a fascinating world. They live by hunting and fishing, they are semi-nomadic gatherers. They have always lived in their own world and happy to be there. Modernity arrived and contaminated, tore up their traditions. The Bantu treat them as pariahs; exploit them like beasts, without any rights or dignity. Now modernity diseases, viruses and bacteria from the outside world that their elders did not know haunt their life.

Red earth tracks enter the rainforest almost with arrogance, the same arrogance of the villagers towards the Pygmy population, increasingly harassed, discriminated and despised throughout the countries. Yet, according to UNESCO, the Aka – also called Bayaka – and all other Pygmy groups are the earliest inhabitants of the rainforest spreading in almost eight countries from the Congo Nile Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. Yet Pygmies are the poorest of the poor in these least developed countries.

While pretending to establish a conservation zone on their land without their consent the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) threatens the Baka. Park rangers commit violent atrocities against them, assaulting, robbing and murdering people in the name of “nature conservation.” There are armed rangers patrolling the area even though the park is not yet established. WWF has been aware of this for many years but has done little to tackle the problem. Actually, logging and palm oil corporations, among others, fund the WWF’s project.

The devastating results of a major investigation just released, document grave human rights violations and atrocities taking place against the indigenous Batwa people in Kahuzi-Biega National Park (PNKB), eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The report by London-based Minority Rights Group (MRG), released on 06 April 2022, shows that Park authorities have engaged in a three-year program of violent forced expulsions (Read the report here).

The pygmies have an intimate connection to their land, where they have lived since time immemorial. They also rely on the forest for medicine, food, and shelter and have their own sophisticated codes of conservation. The forest is their life. Taking the forest from them means stopping them from feeding themselves. They are going to die. Therefore, they are instinctively the caretakers of the forest not because there were the good savages imagined by J.J. Rousseau but because protecting the forest they advocate for themselves.

A pygmy pointed it out to an Okapi Wildlife Reserve’s ranger of the Ituri Forest. The ranger was forbidding him to hunt there “because you are going to kill Okapi for meat.” The pygmy answered, “Not at all, the Okapi’s meat is not good, we eat monkeys.”
Actually, who attacked the rangers on Friday 14 July 2017 killing four of them because they were preventing the hunting in the park was an armed local rebel group, not the Pygmies.

International law says that any projects taking place on tribal land can only go ahead with the agreement of the people whose land it is. The Messok Dja project has broken this law, as did Okapi Wildlife Reserve: these projects did not secure the free, prior and informed consent of the local communities before they started the process of creating the park. The forest is now off limits to the Baka tribe as it is to the Bambuti group. If they try to go there, the rangers stop them.

Like the indigenous people in the Amazonian Forest, the Pygmies are the African forest’s best caretakers. In Latin America, REPAM (Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network, in Spanish acronym) was set up in 2014 answering to the concerns of Pope Francis and the Latin American Church regarding the “deep wounds that Amazonia and its peoples bear”. It embodies Pope Francis’ “a whole-hearted option for the defense of life, the defense of the earth and the defense of cultures.” REPAM efforts produced a main event the Amazonian Synod.

In March 2015, the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) launched REBAC (Ecclesial Network for the Congo River Basin), whose mission is to bring each inhabitant of the Congo Basin, especially young people, to appropriate the issues of the environment and climate change, as well as the vision of REBAC.

This vision and hope is that “north-south, indigenous peoples and local communities, present and future generations have access to a life of better quality through responsible and sustainable management of natural resources and especially energy, fisheries, biological, forest and animal resources available. We advocate, and hope, and will advocate that REBAC, as does REPAM for indigenous people, will take special attention to the Central African Pygmies.

John Paul Pezzi, mccj

Photo Gallery – Comboni Youth Movement at World Youth Day

Advocacy

Baobab

Youth & Mission