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Senegal. Casamance. A ‘Low intensity conflict’.

Forty years have passed since the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MDFC) began its fight for independence from Senegal. During those decades, the conflict was altered, allies changed and numerous non-aggression pacts were signed with poor results. In the meantime, the local population continues to live in the same old conditions of poverty.

Travelling in an overcrowded seven-seater, I visited Ziguinchor, the main city of Casamance. After a few kilometres, the driver has to stop and two soldiers order us to get out and show our identity documents. They look at them look at us, look at them again and finally tell us to get back in the vehicle. The driver smiles at me with a friendly gesture and zigzags between the obstacles and we continue our journey until the next road block. The sun is setting. I see enormous tree trunks at the side of the road, waiting to be loaded on lorries.

The three main products of this region inserted between Guinea-Bissau to the south and Gambia to the north and 450 kilometres from Dakar, the capital: timber, zirconium and, to a lesser degree, cannabis.

The original cause of the conflict
During the eighties, resentment at the marginalisation and exploitation of Casamance by the central government in Dakar gave rise to the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MDFC), and, two years later, one of its branches became its armed wing known as Attika. “There are various reasons why there is a desire for independence – Ricardo Embaló, a local political analyst tells us – First of all, there are cultural and religious reasons.  In most of the region of Casamance, people practise Christianity, while the rest is characterised by the Muslim faith. From the ethnic point of view, we are more similar to the ethnic groups of Guinea Bissau than to those of Senegal. Then there are economic reasons. We have different natural resources to the rest of the country such as timber, ground nuts and palm oil as well as small plantations of cannabis”.  Ricardo adds that zirconium also has an important role in the conflict, even though it was discovered only ten years ago.

President of Senegal, Macky Sall.

The conflict became radicalised in the nineties when international actors came on the scene on behalf of both parties. During its history, the MDFC has been supported by Libya, Iraq and the Gambia, though these allies no longer do so. Senegal also received military aid from France, both in training and in arms. While at first there were just peaceful demonstrations, when the weapons  arrived, it became violent, creating more than 11,000 refugees in Gambia and 8,000 in Guinea Bissau.
Different cease-fires were agreed in the nineties but none of them lasted, often because of internal divisions within the MDFC along ethnic lines and between those who were ready to negotiate and those who refused to lay down their arms. In 1992, the MDFC divided into two main groups, North Front and South Front. While the South Front was dominated by the Jola ethnic group and sought complete independence, the North Front included Jola people who were ready to work with the government according to the failed agreement of 1991. A further cease-fire led to a break with the intransigent rebel groups of the MDFC who continued to attack the military.
In 1999, another meeting was held in the Gambian capital between the Dakar government and the MDFC, but yielded no concrete results.

Neither war nor peace
With the passing of years, the conflict stagnated and the MDFC lost international support. There followed a series of meetings but these failed to provide a lasting solution to the conflict. Finally, on 1 May 2014, the commander of the North Front, Salif Sadio, decided to declare a unilateral ceasefire which was partially respected.

The commander of the North Front, Salif Sadio.

It was decided that the secessionist leader and the president of Senegal, Macky Sall, should meet more often for peace talks but this did not happen. The last one was held in February 2020 with no obvious results.
On the other side, the South Front rejected the accord of the North Front with the government. In fact, the South Front is more characterised for its criminal rather than political activities. Furthermore, the faction has but relative importance on the Guinea Bissau side of the border, an area where there is no government presence and the traditional local chiefs hold most socio-political power. Analysts agree that the region of Casamance is in a situation of ‘no war, no peace’.

New financing sources
How are these guerrilla groups scattered throughout the region financed? Ricardo Embaló says: “First of all, with zirconium. This mineral has various colours, more or less transparent, with a diamantine lustre, great hardness and weight.  It is used mainly for jewellery and the manufacture of containers for nuclear waste, as well as in various materials for mobile technology”.
The analyst continues: “In Senegal, there are two areas where it is extracted: Diogor, in the north of the country and Niafrang, in the south of Casamance”.
Ricardo explains that while zirconium mining at Diogor could easily be carried on without difficulty, it is different at Niafrang where various environmental activists – Senegalese and French in the same manner – and the South Front of the MDFC at first refused. In the words of the secessionists, the Dakar government permits represent a ‘declaration of war’ in Casamance, where the situation is extremely delicate.

Ziguinchor, the main city of Casamance. Photo/ Mireia Saenz de Buruaga.

According to the environmentalists  more than 44 localities would be affected by the mining process since the dune they wish to excavate acts as a natural barrier against the sea – the region is just one metre above sea-level – and its disappearance would be a threat for the villages. The company in charge of the extraction is Astron Corporation Ltd, an Australia-based multinational that has close relations with China. Talks between the Senegalese government and the multinational took six years to produce results and mining began in 2018 – despite the dangers involved for the local population – with a contract that has no time limit. Ten per cent of the profits are said to have gone directly to the coffers of the central government.
“Because the region of Casamance is unlikely to pay the wages of the miners, instead, a good amount of money is to be paid to the guerrilla leaders who agreed to allow mining to start”, says Ricardo.
Another source of funds for the guerrillas is cannabis trafficking, though to a lesser degree. The quality of the plants in the region is rather low and they are not used for export but for local consumption. Almost all the marijuana on sale in Dakar comes from Casamance.
It is a small income but, despite everything, it continues to fill the coffers of the MDFC.

An ace in the sleeve
Finally, there is timber. Deforestation has an immense influence on the region. Tree felling concentrates on two very specific varieties: palisander and teak. Both of these have a high value and they are used to manufacture quality furniture around the world. Deforestation is forbidden in Senegal to avoid the imminent deforesting of Casamance, but the practise is not penalised. Even though timid attempts have been made to tighten the relevant laws, the result has been practically zero due to the conflict in Casamance and following the prohibitions created in 2010, a commercial system that directly interests Gambia and China has been created.
Information provided by the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) shows that 51% of Gambian exports consists of timber – it is the fourth largest exporter in the world – while in Senegal they do not amount to 1%. Nevertheless, and surprisingly, policies against deforestation in Gambia are more severe than those of Senegal and have been seen to be correctly implemented. How come?

In 2016, the then minister for the environment, Haidar El Ali, flew a drone over the border between Gambia and Senegal to show the smuggling of timber between the two countries. The process is very simple: the timber is harvested in Senegal, transported illegally to Gambia and Gambia sells it to the world. Its largest customer is China. The Asian giant receives 98% of the timber exported from Gambia. From 2010 to 2014, exports of palisander to China increased by 700%. It is true that Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo have expressly asked China to reduce its demand for timber but the Asian country never replied. The timber companies, together with the local population and presumably without government support, are the participants in this business: firstly in deforestation and secondly in smuggling. The Senegalese analyst Abdou Sane has confirmed that the Chinese buyers operate outside of Senegal so as to leave no trace of plunder. Timber is the main source of income for the MDFC and with it they purchase arms to continue a low intensity conflict forgotten by the world.

Alfonso Masoliver

 

 

 

Colombia. San Basilio de Palenque. A place of resistance and liberty.

Four hundred years ago, a group of black slaves fled from the Spanish Crown to Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) towards the centre of the country in search of liberty.
They founded San Basilio de Palenque, a village that would become the first free territory in colonial America. To this day, they maintain their traditions and with them their African roots.

Cartagena de Indias is one of the most visited cities of Colombia. Doubtless, the most popular photo among tourists is that of the Palenqueras, women dressed in the colours of the Colombian flag, skilfully balancing on their heads baskets of fruits of all kinds. Even though these women belong to the colonial city, their name shows their true origin: San Basilio de Palenque.
In this village, located about 40 km from Cartagena, no colonial monuments or large buildings are to be seen – only traditional houses built of mud and palm branches. The roads are not paved and the dusty streets are freely used by people on motorcycles, adults and children, dogs, hens and even pigs.
From the courtyards of one of these humble dwellings comes the sound of drums and a catchy refrain: “Be happy with coconuts and aniseed… I bring homemade happiness… come and buy from me!” That is how the Palenqueras call out in the streets of Cartagena, Leonel Torres sings during a practice run by the Estrellas del Caribe, one of the more representative bands that play Palenquera music.
One of the instruments they use is the tambora, of African origin, made by hand and one of the symbols of the champeta criolla, the musical genre par excellence in this territory.

Even though its inhabitants number only 4,500, San Basilio de Palenque has a proliferation of musical groups, some of whom are internationally known such as Estrellas del Caribe, as well as Kombilesa Mio Sexteto Tabalá. In this Afro-Colombian corner, music is found everywhere and serves to affirm the origin of their forefathers. Scenes of men playing the tambora or the marímbula combine with the image of barefooted women and children dancing energetically.
Among the Palenqueros, music is a means of communication and expression that they use all their lives. When they greet one another, they do so with the famous lumbalú, a ritual of the African ancestors that includes songs and dances that are a part of their identity.
The lumbalú is a special way of saying goodbye to the dead and it is carried out in a festive atmosphere to ‘celebrate’ the passage of the beloved to another world. Usually these events last nine days and nine nights, which correspond to the nine months of pregnancy. In their prayers, the Palenqueros invoke the orishas, African protector spirits. Even though it is a religious rite, the lumbalú originally has a component of resistance, given that the black slaves would sing and dance to forget the pain of humiliation inflicted by the Spanish colonisers.

A free people
In the XV century, the Spanish Crown brought the first slaves to these lands. They were mainly from the Congo, Angola and Guinea-Bissau, the main original countries of the Palenqueros. The main entry port was Cartagena de Indias where, around 1600, an anti-colonial movement began in which people with African roots began to show their desire for independence and liberation. The first flights of the cimarrones – runaway black slaves – had the aim of founding a free country, a ‘palenque’ which really means, ‘a settlement of runaway blacks and their descendants who fled from the slave regime during the colonial period’. The only ‘palenque’ still existing today and where the African heritage is preserved, is that of San Basilio, founded more than four centuries ago by Benkos Biohó, the leader of the revolution, the first to escape from the clutches of colonialism and to reach the territory, at the beginning
of the XVII century.

Monument in memory of Benkos Bioho, he was the founder of Palenque.

In 1603, Benkos Biohó signed an agreement with the Crown that he would, presumably, be free to walk to Cartagena de Indias, an event that marked the start of the recognition of freedom for Palenque.
“In fact, Benkos was deceived and when he was called to go to Cartagena, he was captured and hanged”, John Salado, an expert on Afro Colombian history tells us.
It was not until 1713 that the Spanish Crown recognised Palenque as the first free city of the Americas. During the process of liberation, an Italian priest, Antonio María Cassiani who bore the image of San Basilio, played an important role. For this reason, it was called Palenque de San Basilio or San Basilio de Palenque.

It was in that period and due to the need for communication that the Palenquero language emerged, a Creole language created from Spanish and elements of native African languages. “The aim was to create a common language for the enslaved people because, though they were all from Africa, they were from different countries. They say uepa to say ‘hello’, or asi nawue, to say ‘that’s how it is'”, Salgado informs us.
There were also other means of communication that were less obvious and original: hairstyles which then communicated a message. Salado tells us how “the women’s hairdos were maps that indicated the routes to be followed by escaped prisoners to reach Palenque”. They also used their luxuriant hair to hide gold or seeds”, he adds. Today, the Palenqueros still remember the importance of this communications technique that so greatly helped in the creation of their territory. This is borne out by the famous song ‘Los Peinados’ by Kombilesa Mi.

Social organization
From the social point of view, the Palenqueros have a particular system. Their ancestral territory is administered by a community council called Ma Kankamaná, the highest authority in organisation and social administration. Its purpose is to improve the lives of the inhabitants of San Basilio. In the view of Elías Antonio Sierra Fernández, a lawyer and sociologist, admirer of Palenquera society, “The community council functions as a house of representatives where political and administrative decisions are taken. Furthermore, the council is governed by its own values which are responsibility, honesty and tolerance… always respecting the Palenquero culture and identity”.

Ma Kankamaná was created with the intention of administering the collective land property which belongs to the whole community. This particular is reflected, for instance, in the concept of collective property which means that any of its inhabitants may cultivate it without paying anything in exchange.
At the level of the individual, from adolescence onwards, every Palenquero belongs to an organisation called the kuagro; this is a group of people of the same age whose members render mutual help of all kinds, both economic and sentimental. “Your kuagro can help you to pay a debt or find a partner. It is a more concentrated nucleus of the family itself; it is a second family”, Elias Antonio Sierra Fernandez explains.

Dishonour as punishment
One of the more surprising elements of Palenquero organisation is its security system that consists in the fact that the Colombian police cannot enter the territory of San Basilio de Palenque except for extremely urgent reasons and with permission. The Palenqueros have their own officers, the Guardia Cimarrona which is based on a traditional security system. “They are volunteers and are not paid by the government. The idea is to have an independent security system to maintain our tradition. They are very much respected people. They use persuasion to make the members respect the laws. It is a direct heritage from their ancestors”, says John Salgado.
The most curious thing in this system is that the sanctions are moral and are reflected in social behaviour. “If anyone steals, they are socially punished and the community itself cuts them off. This causes shame; it is a system of values and not of repression, in line with tradition”, Elías Antonio Sierra explains.

The special nature of the territory of San Basilio de Palenque results in the “Colombian government ruling it as a community without intervening directly. The Palenqueros have a special social regime, permitted by the national authorities which they see as a way of compensating for the harm caused during the epoch of slavery. Colombians feel they are indebted to San Basilio de Palenque and its community for all that happened in the past”, Elías Antonio Sierra continues.
Today, San Basilio is not qualified to be a commune but the Colombian government is endeavouring to designate it a ‘special commune’ to help the community to obtain greater political and financial autonomy, something that would amount to a considerable improvement of infrastructure, for example.
The four-hundred-year struggle of the Palenquero people has been a manifestation of the resistance that at that time marked the start of a journey to freedom for other slaves scattered throughout the Americas. By means of their beliefs, their language, their music and their own security system, this ‘piece of Africa’ that in 2005 was declared by UNESCO as an ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’, still resists in the Caribbean region of Colombia.

Yaiza Martin Fradejas –
Open photo. ©Boggy22/123RF.COM

Oil Exploration.

Economically, with a per capita GNP of around $5,000, Guyana is one of the poorest countries in the world with much internal inequality between the shanty towns and the rich financial centres. Almost 40% of the population lives in poverty and the country is in 125th place according to the UN index of development.

The economy is mainly agricultural. Agriculture is responsible for 40% of GNP with rice and sugar cane among the principal products of the sector. Sugar cane cultivation takes up most of Guyana’s agricultural lands.
Other important activities for the economy of the country are the production of rare woods, shrimp fishing, though in decreasing amounts and the production of textiles. In contrast with the poverty of the population, the country is rich in mineral resources. In fact, Guyana has some of the largest gold mines in the world including the Aurora Mine, the Omai Mine and the Toroparue Mine. Diamond deposits are also present as well as bauxite of which around two million tons are exported annually. There is little home production and all sorts of goods must be imported – food, fuel, manufactured goods, etc. – mainly from the United States and Trinidad.

In the nineties, a plan for economic reform was launched to guarantee constant growth which reached its peak of 7% in 1977. The plan, whose objective was to attract foreign investment to re-launch the main production sectors, was based mainly on privatisation and the granting of licences for forest and mineral exploitation. In addition, an industrialisation strategy was introduced for the production and export of goods with greater added value but this failed to achieve positive results. The country is also rich in petroleum deposits which have been explored in recent years. In Guyana, the petroleum sector was never considered important in the history of the country. The governments in power preferred to devote their attention to other sectors such as the above-mentioned bauxite and sugar.
In the early nineteen hundred, the British preferred not to explore the petroleum resources of Guyana, preventing any possible action even from abroad by means of the British Mineral Oil Regulations launched in 1912. However, in the thirties, these restrictions were reformulated perhaps due to the success of Venezuela which, in a matter of eight years, from 1921 to 1929, increased its oil production from 1.4 million barrels to around 13 million. The first explorations took place in the forties with results that were far from impressive.

In 1981, the government announced that it wished to go ahead with the creation of a national oil company but nothing further was heard about it. In 1999, the then President Bharrat Jadegeo signed an accord with the US Exxon Mobil for the exploration of the vast offshore area of around 26,800 square kilometres nicknamed Stabroek Jadgeo. Exploration work went on for some years without the hoped-for results at first. For this reason, together with the collapse of oil prices, there was a change in the partnership of the project which brought in the Royal Dutch Shell which decided, in 2014, to leave the country, selling its quota for one dollar to the Hess Corporation, an American oil company and the Chinese CNOOC company which took 30% and 25%, respectively. The newcomers gave new impetus to the partnership which started work in March 2015 with the exploration of the Liza-1 well, 125 miles from the coast which, in two months, succeeded in finding oil and discovered about twenty more wells that have made Guyana the country with the largest oil reserves in the world. It is estimated that Guyana could produce 6 billion barrels of high-quality oil of a type that is light and easily refined, more than Kuwait produces per head. Oil in such quantity and such quality could make Guyana, as the US Ambassador to Guyana said, the richest country in the hemisphere, if not the richest in the world. In 2017, Saipem also became part of the project with a contract worth $880m signed with Esso Exploration and Production Guyana controlled by ExxonMobil, for the development of undersea structures in the Stabroek Block.

These huge resources have caused an enormous increase in economic growth which, despite the pandemic of 2020, grew by 52% and, according to IMF estimates, ought to reach impressive levels even of 85.6%. The estimates of Exxon Mobil are also impressive, suggesting a production rate of around 750,000 barrels per day by 2025, a rate equal to a barrel per day for every person in the country.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to point out that 75% of production in the first years must go to repaying the exploration and production costs incurred by ExxonMobil and its partners, while the remaining 25% will be regarded as profit with 50% going to the government. The agreements stipulate a royalty of 2% of gross profits which will bring the government’s share to 14,5% of the total income.
This percentage ought to increase with the passage of time as foreseen by the IMF and the government itself which estimates an income of $5 billion by 2025, to be managed by a sovereign fund and used for the energy transition of the country.
However, as an institution, the country seems to be weak and ill-prepared to take on a challenge of such huge dimensions as prevail in the petroleum industry, with a set of laws going back to the eighties and an Energy Department which has hitherto managed an annual budget of two million dollars. From this point of view, it will serve to bear in mind what happened in other countries where huge quantities of crude oil encountered weak institutions and, instead of increasing the well-being of the country, brought about corruption and its decline. Unfortunately, Guyana has neither the experience of oil production nor the infrastructure to handle this crisis. (F.R.)

Herbs & Plants. Canarium schweinfurtii. A Medicinal Plant.

Known as African olive or bush candle, this tropical tree is highly beneficial to human beings.

Medicinal plants have been utilized for different medicinal purposes for thousands of years. These medicinal plants are processed in different forms such as teas, decoctions, infusions, powders, tinctures, poultices, and other herbal formulations before admission for a given health condition. One of the medicinal plants with great medicinal potential is Canarium schweinfurthii Engl., that belongs to the plant family Burseraceae. This perennial plant is popularly known as African olive or bush candle; a tropical tree that is highly beneficial to human beings. It is one of the largest forest trees with its crown reaching to the upper canopy of the forest, with a long, straight, and cylindrical trunk. Its bark is thick, becoming increasingly scaly and fissured with age.

This plant, its leaves pinnate and clustered at the end of the branch, is widely distributed in east, central, and West Africa. It is known by various local names throughout its distribution range, including Abel (Cameroon), Aiele (Ivory Coast), Elemi (Nigeria), Bediwunua, Eyere (Ghana), Muwafu (Luganda in Uganda), Mpafu /Mbani (Swahili in East Africa).The health benefits of Canarium schweinfurthii are numerous in that it is beneficial to virtually all the internal organs and the external parts of the human body. The importance of this special fruit and its derivatives can be practically seen throughout its distribution range in most African regions.
It is a good source of health promoting secondary metabolites, including phenolic and terpenoic acids, and has been reported to possess several pharmacological activities such as analgesic, antimicrobial and antioxidant, anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory activities.

In many communities, the ripe fruits of Canarium schweinfurthii are picked and first soaked in warm water for about 2-3 days to soften before consumption. In fact, the soaking in warm water is also believed to boost its taste. The outer pulp of the fruit is oily and often used as an ingredient for preparing dishes. This oily fruit pulp can be cooked and processed into a fruity-butter.
The pulp oil is known to contain palmitic acid and oleic acid. The seed-kernel is oily and edible and contains several fatty acids including oleic and  linoleic acid, palmitic, and stearic acid.Canarium schweinfurthii has been used traditionally, for a long time, to treat various ailments of the human body throughout its distribution range.  The stem bark is emetic and purgative and its decoction is used as a treatment against hypertension, sickle cell anemia, dysentery, gonorrhoea, coughs, chest pains, pulmonary affections, stomach complaints, food poisoning, roundworms, colic, and pain after childbirth. The pounded bark is used in the treatment and management of leprosy and ulcers.
The root of Canarium schweinfurthii is used against adenites (inflammation of a lymph node) and root scrapings are made into a poultice. The leaves are boiled with other herbs and the decoction
used to treat coughs.
The leaves can be squeezed to obtain the sap that can be used alone, or combined with other herbs for treating coughs and colds.

Furthermore, the leaves are used as stimulant against fever, malaria, constipation, diarrhea, post-partum pain, rheumatism and sexually transmitted diseases. The resins collected from Canarium schweinfurthii tree stem bark can be used for preparing herbal medicines that treat and fight against intestinal worms such as roundworm and as an alternative for mastic used for dressing wounds. Furthermore, the resins also serve as an emollient, which is effective for treating skin infections such as eczema, skin rashes, and sunburn. The seeds are roasted and pounded and the resulting powder mixed with jelly to treat wounds.
The high medicinal potential of Canarium schweinfurthii stem bark may be due to the various secondary metabolites contained in it including anthocyanins, flavonoids, tannins, quinones, saponins, alkaloids, steroids, terpenoids and leuco-anthocyanins.
In addition to the medicinal values, Canarium schweinfurthii seeds can be used for ornamental purposes such as making necklaces, bangles and costumes. The seeds can also be used for making local instruments. The resin obtained from the stem bark is heavy and sticky and is used to repair broken pottery, for caulking boats and as a gum for fastening arrowheads to shafts.

Richard Komakech

 

From Mother Earth to Earth’s Mothers.

Mother’s Day for the year 2021 is celebrated on Sunday, May 9th. It is a time to honor mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers for their contribution to family and society. What about those mothers who are the primary providers for the majority of the world’s 925 million hungry people?

Women produce 60 to 80 per cent of all food, both as subsistence farmers and as agricultural wage laborers. They are the primary providers for the majority of the world’s 925 million hungry people, obtaining food, collecting firewood and water, and cooking. And yet they have less access to land and the resources necessary to grow on it than their male counterparts. Inequitable distribution of land, labor, and resources leaves farming women triply burdened by work: in the fields, in the home, and in society.

How do the agricultural policies of international financial institutions (IFIs), such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, affect women? How do the most important movement for women rights – such as Women’s Liberation Movement or Riot Grrrls – really address the situation of so many women living in poverty and supporting their family in extreme conditions?

  • When the collapse of agricultural markets – often precipitated by IFI policies – forces men to leave their home and travel to other countries in search of work, women are left behind to tend to the family and work family farmland.
  • IFI pressure on governments to abolish taxes on food imports and repay debts reduces governments’ ability to pay for healthcare and education. Spending cuts in these sectors inevitably cause the most harm to women and girls.
  • Rising food prices put additional pressure on already strained household budgets. When women enter the formal work force to help support household consumption, girls are often forced to leave school to attend to household chores and care for younger siblings.
  • IFI agriculture investments support big businesses, not women farmers. IFI investments tend to focus on agro-processing and commercial agriculture, which mainly utilize male laborers and focus on external markets. These investments tend to overlook women, who are often restricted to subsistence farming, and instead mainly benefit the transnational corporations that win IFI procurement contracts.

Nevertheless, though facing difficult challenges, women around the world hare are making strides both in national policy and in land movements themselves. In some places, they are gaining greater access to arable land, technology, credit, markets, training equipment, and control over agriculture knowledge. In certain countries, they have won the right for their name, not just their husband’s, to go on the land title, making them direct beneficiaries of land reform.

More women are directly earning wages for their agricultural labor, instead of through their husbands or fathers. Some countries are articulating women-specific labor rights in their constitutions. Not alien to this progress are the contribution of academic research, analysis and empowerment coming from enlightened women.

John Paul Pezzi, mccj

 

Rare-Earth Elements. A new Eldorado.

The sustainable future of humanity is bound by a double cord to the Rare Earth Elements (REEs) due to their special electromagnetic properties, both magnetic and optic.

For the most part unfamiliar, there are the 17 metals of the periodic table of chemical elements, with colours varying from grey to silver. Bright, malleable and ductile, they include scandium (Sc) and Yttrium (Y), as well as the entire series of lanthanides, the chemical elements with atomic numbers from 57 to 71. In their order: lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), terbium (Tb), dysprosium (Dy), holmium (Ho), erbium (Er), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), lutetium (Lu). All of these were recovered relatively recently: the first, terbium, was discovered in 1782 in Sweden and the rest between 1800 and 1900, with the exception of promethium which was produced artificially in 1945.
To these we must add the so-called ‘raw materials’, the basic raw materials that include the others, the ferrous metals and the better-known ‘non-metals’ such as lithium, cobalt and nickel which are equally indispensable in green technology. It is well known that they, too, are the cause of environmental destruction and the exploitation of the peoples of the countries where large deposits are to be found.

We are not familiar with the names of these rare soils. However, all of us handle them every day. They are in fact inside our smartphones, our touchscreens, in bulbs and computer hard disks. They are also the source of fibre optics and lasers, a great deal of medical equipment and batteries for electric cars.
They are used in permanent magnets, electric sensors, and catalytic converters essential for cars, wind turbines and solar panels. All the innovations of the medical, military and automobile industry depend on them as do the steel industry and the petroleum sector.
The other side of the story is that their use in complex electric and electronic equipment contrasts with the lack of adequate infrastructure for collecting and recycling them. This is why less than 1% of rare earth elements is recycled.
Notwithstanding the rarity suggested by the name, due also to the difficulty in identifying them, in comparison with other metals, they are, in fact, rather plentiful in the Earth’s crust. Cerium is just as plentiful as copper and two of the rarest metals in the series (thulium and lutetium) are 200 times more plentiful than gold. However, unlike gold, there are no pure ‘deposits’ of rare earth elements.

The elements are spread throughout the natural world in about a hundred minerals that contain very low concentrations of them. They are associated with other elements such as calcium, beryllium, iron and aluminium, under the form of oxides, carbonates, silicates and phosphates. It is because of this that very complex processes of mining and refining are required to separate the different elements, using powerful solvents such as hydrochloric or nitric acid. These processes seriously impact the environment causing the pollution of soil and aquifers substrata. To date, this work has been carried out in China creating a dangerous concentration that obliged the United States and especially Europe, totally dependent on both superpowers, to change their policy and strategy.
China continues to dominate the global supply of rare earth elements, even though after halting exports to Japan and the USA, with the consequent speculative bubble of 2010, production of REEs again increased in the USA something vigorously promoted by the then-president Donald Trump and the Pentagon. At present, according to estimates provided by the National Minerals Information Centre of the United States, global production has increased to 210,000 tons of oxides of rare earth elements. This denotes an increase of 11% compared to 2018. In the United States, internal production of refined minerals, all for export, increased to 26,000 tons, 44% more than in 2018.

Rare earth elements loaded on cargo ship in China. (photo: Canva)

According to the Chinese ministry of industry, the mineral quotas for production and separation for 2019 were 132,000 and 127,000 tons, respectively. The People’s Republic of China, aware of its primacy, since the time of Deng Xiaoping, in importing and processing, is investing heavily in the complete chain of production from planning, with the highest number of registered patents in the world, to the regulation of a market which, a short time ago, was out of control.
According to a report by the Xinhua News Agency, in 2019, despite the official quota of 130,000 tons extracted, the actual quantity was very much more. This shows that most of the rare earth elements were extracted illegally.
While trading in conventional metals takes place in recognised stock exchanges, there are no official markets for rare earth elements. There are indicative quotations such as those provided by the National Minerals Information Centre. Some of those metals with the highest quotations, according to the Swiss Institute for Rare Earth Elements, were scandium, at 3,486,87 dollars per kilo, lutetium at 647,15 dollars per kilo and kg and terbium at 645 dollars per kilo. It is therefore up to the individual companies to negotiate directly with the refiners. The rare earth elements market, both for oxides and metals, is completely free and subject to possibly enormous fluctuations.

This is the reason why it has always been the Chinese system that influenced prices and conditioned the market. This is also why, in recent years, associations have been springing up between producers to develop an industry of rare earth elements and a sustainable circular economy such as the REIA (Rare Earth Industry Association), which is meant to associate European producers and academic experts together with national Chinese, Japanese and American associations.
The control of rare earth elements is fundamental to the future of green economies. This also explains the Sino-American ‘cold war’ in the Arctic over the grabbing of new deposits that are more easily accessible as the permafrost melts. This also involves other states such as Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia and Russia, as well as Greenland.
All this explains the intervention by the European Commission last September, when it announced the creation of a new European Agreement on raw materials, ‘to strengthen the resilience and strategic autonomy of rare earth elements’.
The aim of this action is to identify barriers and investment opportunities in the entire supply chain, from the extraction of the minerals to the reclamation of waste.
This constitutes an attempt to influence its sustainability and global social impact.

Rosy Battaglia/Valori

The Leopard and the Hare.

Once upon a time there was some trouble between a leopard and a hare. The leopard had cheated the hare of his goat. As the leopard could not find the means to repay the hare, the leopard asked the hare to go with him to visit some kinsfolk on an island where he might obtain a goat to pay the debt.

The leopard said to the hare, “Make up four lunches, because the part of the lake we have to cross is dangerous, and unless you throw some food into it to appease the lake spirit you cannot cross it safely. I will also take four lunches and throw them into the lake.”

The leopard, however, instead of tying up food, tied up four stones as packages and took his food in a bag. When they had floated some distance on a raft, the leopard said to the hare, “Throw over your food here.” So, the hare threw his lunches into the lake. When they reached the island, and were walking up from the shore, the leopard said, “In the bag of a great person there is always something to eat,” and he took out some food and began to eat it, but he did not give the hare any.

The hare understood then that the leopard meant to starve him to death to escape paying his debt. When they had gone a little further, the leopard said, “When the host brings us beer to drink in the place to which we are going, you go and bring a beer tube with which to drink it. The hare promised to do so. When they arrived at the garden, they were given some beer, and the hare went to bring a beer tube, but when he came back, he found the leopard had drunk all the beer.

In like manner when they were about to have a meal, the leopard said to the hare, “Go and bring a plantain stem with which we may wash our hands.” The hare went, but before he could return with it, the leopard had eaten all the food without washing his hands. The hare was very hungry, but said nothing.

In the evening after dark the leopard, unobserved, slipped out quietly, stole a little goat from the neighbours, and killed and ate it. He took some of the blood and smeared it over the head and eyebrows of the hare while he was asleep. Early the next morning the people missed their little goat and accused the visitors of stealing it, because they traced the footprints to the house. The leopard came out saying, “I know nothing about it, perhaps my companion does.”

When the hare came out, the blood was on his head, and he was accused and condemned. The leopard pretended before the people that he was very angry, saying, “I will not go about with a thief; take him and kill him.” The hare was then killed. When the leopard returned home, he told a long story and pretended to be sorry for his companion who had thus been caught and killed. The brother of the hare did not believe the story. He, therefore, went to one of the spirits and asked his advice. The brother was told how the Leopard had caused the death of the hare.

The brother, therefore, went to the leopard and said, “You must pay me that debt now that my brother is dead.” The leopard agreed to do so, and also expressed his sorrow for the death of the hare.
The leopard said, “Let us go to the island where my people live; they may help me to pay the debt.”

The brother of the hare agreed, and the leopard told him he must take four lunches to appease the lake spirit.  The brother of the hare had been warned of the trick, and therefore put stones into the packages as the leopard had done; he also put two very white cowry shells and some food into his bag, and went off to meet the leopard at the lake.

When they reached the place where the leopard said the lake spirit had to be appeased, they dropped their packages into the lake, and then proceeded on the raft to the island.When they arrived and were walking up from the lake, the leopard said, “In the bag of a great person
there is always food.”

The brother of the hare said, “No.” He put his hand into his bag and brought out some food. When the leopard saw this, he was very angry and said, “Eat mine also; I don’t like impertinent people.” When they reached the border of the garden, the leopard said, “When we come to these people and they offer us beer, you must run and bring a beer tube.” The brother of the hare thought for a moment what he could do to be even with the leopard, so he said, “I feel sick, wait while I turn aside into the grass.”  He had, however, gone to cut a beer tube, which he hid away in his clothing to be a match for the leopard in the next trick he would try to play.

When they reached the garden the leopard said, “When we are given food you bring a plantain stem to wash our hands.” The brother of the hare said he would, but he made an excuse to turn aside again; and while he was away he got the plantain stem and hid that also in his clothing.

When they were given beer, the leopard said, “Bring a tube for us to drink the beer.” The brother of the hare ran away, then, to get it, and came back at once with it, saying, “Do you see how quickly I run? Here is the tube.” When they were given food the leopard said, “Bring a plantain stem for us to wash our hands.” The brother of the hare ran off and came back almost at once, saying, “See how fast I run; here it is.”

After sunset when they went to rest, the brother of the hare took his two cowry shells and fixed them on his eyes and went to bed. Presently the leopard slipped out quietly and stole a goat from their neighbours, which he killed and ate. Then he brought some of the blood to put on the brother of the hare; but, seeing the white shells shining, he thought they were his open eyes and said, “Are you not asleep?” This waked the brother of the hare and he replied, “No, I am sick.”

The leopard went away for a time and then tried again, but again he found the brother of the hare apparently awake, and stole back to his bed. By this time, it was daylight and the people had missed their goat and followed the footprints to the house in which the guests were. There they called out, saying, “The visitors have stolen our goat.”

The brother of the hare ran out and said, “I am no thief; examine me and see.” When the leopard came out, they saw the blood on his mouth and fingers; so, he was condemned to death. The brother of the hare said, “I will not go with a thief; let him be killed.” The leopard was taken and killed. The brother of the hare was thus avenged of the hare’s death.

Folktale from Madagascar

 

 

 

Nigeria. Telling their tales of suffering.

Kidnappings, rapes and murders are part of daily life for many in the north of Nigeria. Boko Haram continues on its path of violence and destruction. Stories of suffering and pain. The Church stays by the side of the people. 

There are some days that are carved into memory and never leave us. The memories keep coming back with their anguish and pain. It was on a Thursday, 18 January of 2018 when Keviana saw with her own eyes the murder of her three children by the Boko Haram Jihadists. She had first fled to Cameroon but had now returned and found emergency refuge on church property near the cathedral of Yola, in the north of Nigeria. The camp holds 172 women, 30 men and 500 children. The shelters are improvised using plastic sheets and sheets of corrugated iron. Keviana leans on a stone wall where she has her house. Tall and oval-faced, her gaze is serious and profound. Next to her, Sister Maria Vitalis Timtere tries to make eye contact but Keviana’s eyes are but a blank stare but she begins to speak: “We live in Kaya, a village in the district of Madagali. We were small farmers. My husband became ill and died young. I brought up our six children, three boys and three girls. The children were all going to school and I was proud of them”.

In a sad voice, she continued: “It was dark when they came, about nine in the evening. My smallest child, Innocent and I, were sleeping in the same room while the other two boys, Kenneth and David, slept in another. My two daughters Salomi and Sarah were not at home having gone to stay with friends and the youngest girl Rose had gone to Yola to do an English exam. All of a sudden we heard shooting, shouts and the sound of motorcycles and cars. From the window we saw some people coming into our courtyard carrying guns. I looked around and Innocent said: “Mamma, let’s block the door “. I told him to hide under the bed. After a few minutes, someone kicked in the door and they came inside the house. They shout at me saying they want money. I tell them I have nothing and I am a widow. Then they beat me, threatening to kill me if I do not give them money. One of them gathered up the few belongings I had. When they grabbed the mattress they saw my boy. Without a moment’s hesitation, they shot him at point-blank range”. Raising her finger to her forehead, Keviana says: “Right here”.
Others are trying to enter the room where Kenneth and David are hiding. They open the door, shouting. The two boys are paralysed with fear. The men drag them outside to join their mother. Keviana says: “ I saw them fire two shots. My two boys fell dead in a pool of blood”. The memory brings floods of tears to her eyes.

The forest of fear
For more than a decade, Boko Haram terrorists have been bringing death, destruction and fear to the people of northern Nigeria.
There have been at least thirty thousand deaths and almost 2.8 million people have been displaced.
Some say the jihadists have supernatural powers. One place where they hide is in the Sambisa forest. This is in a national park where tourists could once see monkeys, antelopes, ostriches and elephants. Today the forest is a refuge where terrorists have imprisoned thousands of people. Kaya, Keviana’s village, is close to the Sambisa forest. In 2014, the family had already gone to Yola fleeing from Boko Haram. Six months later, they returned. They wanted to live in their own home and cultivate their fields. The government said they could safely return. Keviana paid a high price for this mistake.

Listening helps
Many of the camp residents come from villages near the forest. Almost all of them have witnessed the death of family members, friends or neighbours, and even their own children, in some cases. “Seeing people who have to live with the fact that someone has killed their children before their very eyes breaks my heart “, says Sister Maria. Nevertheless, despite the pain, the Sister feels it is helpful for people to speak of these things. “The people tell me how they feel. They share their stories with me, some in a loud voice. I help them to express their pain and find some comfort”. Sr. Maria is a nurse. She came to the camp to work in public health and hygiene but she later realised people needed to tell their stories about what they went through. It was this that made Sr. Maria decide to spend time listening to them.

Nigerian refugees who crossed the border last week seek shelter in the Cameroonian town of Goura, after fleeing violence in Rann. (UNHCR/Xavier Bourgois).

Walking together among the huts, Sr. Maria points out Tabitha. She and her family fled from Ngoshe village. We approach her and soon she tells us what happened: “One evening in the village we were celebrating. The atmosphere was exciting and people came from other nearby villages. Then we heard the sound of cars and motorbikes. We thought they had come for the celebration but suddenly they began shooting. Everyone ran away. I saw several people falling and there was blood everywhere. So much blood!”
Tabitha managed to escape with her husband and her eight children, including week-old twins. As she was fleeing, she saw the jihadists shooting her brother. She saw many people she knew dying. All the inhabitants of the village fled to the mountains. After walking for three days, they crossed the border into Cameroon.
“During our escape, Andrawus, one of the twins, got sick and died a few days later “, Tabitha tells us. The family was received into a camp for refugees. “When we saw many people getting sick and dying in the camp, we decided to return here to Yola, in Nigeria “, she added.

Catholic Bishop of Yola DIocese, Stephen Mamza (Photo SWN).

Since that time, I stayed in the town – together with eighty-five families who cannot return to their home villages. The Church helps them with food and some of them find occasional paid work, especially in the fields. Tabitha gazes at her children playing. She thinks of her home and the friends she will never see again. She wonders why they have had to suffer so much. Under a plastic tent, Augustin is cooking some beans he has just brought from his garden. His wife, Rebecca, has her baby daughter Guada in her arms. The child is only a few weeks old and is the pride of her parents. They have seven children. When Boko Haram attacked their village of Dar in 2014, their children were alone at home with a relative. Augustin was sick in hospital at Michika, where his wife Rebecca was visiting him.Rebecca recounts: “That was the time when Boko Haram was not burning down the villages. My father-in-law heard of the attack and how the jihadists were planning to take away the women and children to the Sambisa forest. “One night, he carefully approached the hut where the children were hiding and took them away. They walked for days on end.” Rebecca continues: “We heard of the attack on the village and we didn’t know if the children were still alive. Our anxiety went on but after some days we heard they were alive. Two weeks later, they arrived here in Yola”.

Women and girls are the ones who suffer most: even the very young are kidnapped and forced into marriage with the jihadists. In April 2014, the kidnapping of 276 girl students in Chibok scandalised the whole world. Some of them were released in October 2016. In 2018, Boko Haram kidnapped 110 girl students in the town of Dapchi, in Yobe state. They were released after secret negotiations with the government and a probable payment of a large sum of money. The most recent incident was in December when armed men burst into a secondary school for boys in Kankara, in Katsina state, in the north. They abducted a large number of students. The local media spoke of 600 boys kidnapped. They were almost all released a few days later.
Nobody knows exactly how many people have been kidnapped or killed in recent years since the Nigerian government prefers not to speak of kidnappings or murders. “There are no statistics”, explains Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja.
“We find out about robberies and abductions only when we are informed by our people in the rural communities when they raise the alarm. Often, we know neither who they are nor where they are going.”

“We have no peace…”
Augustin, 42, worked as a public health worker before he had to flee. “I would really like to study but the Boko Haram business has spoiled all my plans. We cannot do what we want with our lives”,  Augustin quietly tells us. Of course, he would like to go back home. “But we cannot do that. Each time the terrorists come, the soldiers drive them back into the bush but then they come back again and attack our villages.

The government is not doing enough to fight them. We are living in fear; we have no peace. There is no peace in our hearts. That is why we stay here. I hope we can find a safe place here”.Meanwhile, the Church is building houses for the families in a village community near Yola. Each home also has a piece of land to cultivate.“We hope to get one of those houses. I would like to cultivate a piece of ground there”, Augustin says. “Our children can go to school and make a future for themselves”. The Church has opened a school under a large tent.

Bettina Tiburzy/Kontinente
Photos: Hartmut Schwarzbach

 

 

 

Ghana. Living and dying in Agbogbloshie.

Agbogbloshie, in Accra, the capital of Ghana, is one of the largest waste dumps for electronic appliances in the world and the workplace of thousands of people who are daily exposed to some of the
most toxic substances resulting in premature death. We went
to see the dump.

Sule uses a hammer to strike what looks like an old engine spark plug. It is hard to tell one piece from another in the jumble of metal objects in front of him. A dismantled microwave oven, a steering wheel from a car, parts of a fan, wires of all sizes and colours, some metal tubes. They are all piled up on the ground that is blackened with ashes. Sule says he is fifteen. He wears jeans and a blue shirt stained, like his skin, with soot. “I have been working here for the past three years”, he says. “I make my living by selling spare parts for vehicles that have been thrown away. I know which parts can still be useful and can be sold for a little cash”.

It is very hot in Agbogbloshie, believed to be one of the largest ‘technological’ dumps in the world. It covers about two hectares and stands on the bank of the Korle River. It is like any other district of the Ghanaian capital, in a country of more than thirty million inhabitants, located on the Gulf of Guinea where 25% of the population live below the poverty level and 7% live in extreme poverty.
There is one big difference: here the hot air is mixed with a toxic cloud of grey dust and there is a strong smell of burned metal and plastic. Agbogbloshie smells of endless pollution.

Various studies carried out in recent decades confirm this. A Greenpeace study found that the samples they analysed contained several dangerous substances, some of which were highly toxic such as those containing lead, cadmium or antimony which were present in the soil in concentrations 100 times the normal level. Another report by the UN stated that the pollution of the water and the soil had completely destroyed all the biodiversity of the area in a matter of ten years.

Minimum wage
Sule is but one of 6,500 people working in Agbogbloshie – some estimated put the figure at 40,000, according to the season – and lives on the other side of the road in Old Fadama, a slum with about 100,000 people and known as Sodom and Gomorra due to the high level of crime. The people of the district are mostly from the north of the country.
The poverty level is worsening and drugs of all kinds are commonly sold there. It is a place where people are used to armed robbery, continual clashes with the police and military on the one hand and with criminals on the other.

There are no gaps between the mud-walled houses with tin roofs. “I can earn around 600 Cedri a month – about  95 Euro. It is not a bad wage but I have little or no choice in any case. This is my livelihood”, Sule says. In Ghana, the minimum wage is about two Euro per day and the young man is not far wrong; he is earning half as much again as a worker in some sectors, though he has to work ten hours a day, six days a week among the worn-out electric appliances. He is risking his life and knows it may be shorter than the average.
It is difficult to establish the source or quantity of all this electronic waste that ends up in Agbogbloshie. Despite the Basel Convention that forbids the export of electronic waste, the port of Tema receives dozens of containers of rubbish from the European Union under the guise of second-hand, reusable appliances. Much of it is also produced in the EU.

An exhaustive report by Euronews published in July 2019 analysed the commercial itinerary of this waste and stated that 85% of the electronic rubbish sent to Ghana came not only from Ghana itself but also from other West African countries.  The remaining 15% exported is not examined before leaving the European ports due to the enormous quantities of goods daily passing through them.”I estimate that around 80% of the goods exported to Africa are illegal. The Ghana port authorities say that 75% of the goods that enter the country do so as second-hand items.
The idea is that the local market should repair these appliances and try to sell them. Whatever cannot be sold is sent to Agbogbloshie”, stated Jim Puckett, executive director of the environmental watchdog Basel Action Network which in 2018 placed more than 300 GPS trackers in e-waste to track material coming from Europe.

Living without basic facilities
When asked who organises and controls everything in Agbogbloshie, they all say it is Idrisu Shaibu, a man in his sixties with a stubby beard, blackened teeth and a rough complexion. Today, Idrisu is wearing a white tunic and a kufi skull cap made of grey lace. He lives in a small shed at the entrance to the dump. He tells us: “We have many problems here. I think the worst of them is the smoke, black smoke that makes it very hard to breathe. The doctors tell us that all these chemicals cause serious illnesses like cancer”.

Official statistics show he is right beyond all doubt. For example, the probability of getting cancer due to inhaling arsenic is 70,000 times greater in Agbogbloshie than anywhere else in the world.  A study by the Chemicals Environmental Division of the Ghana Water Research Institute has discovered that as many as seven out of every hundred workers at the dump will contract cancer during their lives, something of a death sentence in a country with such a poor health service. Other epidemiological studies have shown a direct relationship between exposure to the metals commonly present in the area and various types of tumours, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, endometriosis, premature menopause and changes in the hormones of testosterone and the immune system.

Shaibu, who protests against the lack of attention Agbogbloshie receives from the local authorities knows that his living there could shorten his life. “We have one hospital, a small one set up by a German NGO, but it is not sufficient”, he says. He also says that the solution is not to criminalise the place or the business where so many people earn their living or the workers themselves. “This business started around 1975 and at first there were just a few of us. Over time, others came, especially people with no possessions. We are now an important sector of the economy of the country”, he continues. Of course, it is a sector that forms part of the 88% of the population of Ghana who live by working informally.
Idrisu Shaibu also emphasises how Agbogbloshie has such poor social services. Even a simple thing like attending school can be very difficult for the hundreds of children living there. According to the NGO Africa Education Watch, all the schools around the site are privately run and are mostly inaccessible to the residents. The organisation also stated that this leads to a premature end to the basic education of the children who see the electric waste as one of the few ways of earning a living.
From a distance, we watch Sule as he continues working with his hammer and chisel on that old spark plug, like all the other workers in Agbogbloshie, in the unrelenting heat. The air is slowly filled with a black cloud of thick smoke and the dusty ashes of nearby fires colour everything a dark grey.

Text and Photos: José Ignacio Martínez Rodríguez

The Energy Charter Treaty. A New Threat to Africa.

The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is an international treaty that came into force in the last decade of the last century.

The ECT is a multilateral investment agreement signed by more than 50 countries and its main objective is to ensure the protection of investors in the energy sector, especially transnational companies operating in coal, oil and gas extraction. The ECT allows investment companies to bring claims before private arbitration tribunals against countries whose governments change energy legislation and which may cause economic damage to investors.

A distorted origin. Although the origin of this treaty was to provide legal security to companies that decided to invest in Eastern European countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall, today this treaty is turning
into a legal strategy, used by financial speculators to obtain
economic profitability.

So far, the countries harmed by the ECT have mainly been central and eastern European countries, but the new trend is to extend the scope of the treaty to new members, especially in Africa, where the ECT threaten to ruin the economic stability of these countries with lawsuits against their governments. Under the ECT, corporate investors would be able to sue governments only when their profit expectations are threatened. Thus, an improvised investment by a small company would legitimise that company to sue a state for millions of Euros.

The ECT on the margins of justice. The Energy Charter Treaty can be described as a variant of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), with the same aim of protecting investors, but applied to the energy sector. Civil society has publicly warned of the risks of ISDS for developing countries and expressed its opposition to the ISDS as it allows transnational companies to create a parallel justice system in which disputes between investors and states are settled in private arbitration courts. So far, the ECT agreements have been negotiated and implemented with a secrecy that has made them almost unnoticed
by civil society.

The ECT an economic threat to Africa. Currently Burundi, Eswatini and Mauritania are in the ratification process of the ECT, Uganda is waiting for the formal invitation to accede to the ECT and Kenya, Niger, Chad, Gambia, Nigeria, and Senegal are among the countries preparing their accession. The quiet progress in the expansion of ECT in Africa has called the attention of civil society.

The Energy Charter Treaty is promoted by extractive transnational companies in the energy sector (coal, gas and oil extraction) that seek to perpetuate their economic power and political influence, preventing political decisions to promote an energy transition to renewable energy sources in line with the Paris agreement (COP 21). These energy companies see political decisions promoting renewable energy sources as a threat to their economic interests and investments.

ECT prevents urgent climate action. The promotion of the ECT is completely contrary to the fight against climate change which limits the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere. Fossil energy sources are the main cause of global warming and therefore their use should not be encouraged. Legal mechanisms should not be created to facilitate the continuation of this fossil fuel sector.

The fight against climate change must be guided by public policies that allow for the transformation of the energy sector. The transition from fossil fuels to renewable and clean energy sources requires changes and adaptation of energy companies; and Governments should facilitate this transition. African countries require progressive adaptation to enable them to break their dependence on fossil fuels and thus join the committed fight against climate change.

The ECT, a continued colonisation. The continuation of the ECT would once again benefit the countries of the North, home to the main investors of fossil-based energy companies, and would economically harm those countries in Africa that are dependent on raw materials.

The ECT obliges the countries that sign the treaty to continue to maintain this dependence without giving them the option to promote new development policies that would give them self-governance over their natural resources. The treaty is a mechanism to maintain the economic and political dependence of African countries. The treaty makes them relinquish sovereignty over their natural wealth and forces them to settle their economic future in international bodies that are outside their judicial system.

Halting the spread of ECTs in Africa. Ending TCEs is a task of shared responsibility for governments in both Europe and Africa. EU governments require coherence in their sustainable development policies. The EU’s commitment to the Green Deal consistent with the energy transition is incompatible with the inclusion of the ECT in international treaties. That is why the EU’s will must be firm
in rejecting this treaty.

But governments in Africa also have a responsibility not to accept ECTs; both because of their negative economic consequences and because of their contribution to the fight against climate change. The future of economic development in Africa and the well-being of its people involves ending economic dependence on fossil fuels. This does not mean switching from fossil energy sources to renewable energy sources, but requires integrating clean energy sources into the development of sustainable economic policies.

José Luis Gutiérrez Aranda,
Trade Policy Officer,
Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN)

Music. Fatima Said. Enchanting Voice.

Capable, beautiful and full of positive energy, the Egyptian soprano Fatma Said with her formidable voice has won her place on the most prestigious lyrical venues.

Her success is also due to the efforts of her family who supported her every time the burden of prejudices and common places seemed to suggest she place her enchanting voice at the service of other schools of expression. This was true at least until her debut at La Scala in Milan in 2016. Today, Fatma is based in Berlin and tours the world, from Paris to the United States and performs with amazing naturalness, works ranging from Mozart to Berlioz, from Ravel to Mahler or Manuel De Falla. However, her heart is still in Egypt in Africa, and Egypt is in her blood and in her voice.

So much so that her recent debut solo album, El  Nour, ends with four Arabic pieces: “In the West, nobody seems to know this music; just as among my people the classics and opera are almost unknown”,  she said in a recent interview. “There is just one opera in Egypt; ‘Aida’ is a symbol even though very few have actually heard it. In Cairo, we have an Opera Theatre where countless performances of the Aida and folk or pop concerts are held. Nevertheless, there are also some new composers like Sherif Mohieldin, the author of Miramar, from the novel by Mahfuz. But the problem lies in the roots: there is a lack of musical education in the schools”.  Fortunately, music, especially Great Music, the sort that varies so smoothly from blues to classics, from jazz to multi-ethnic folk, will always find a path that leads from the ear to the heart.

Fatma was still a young girl when she had her first singing lesson. From then on, her ascent into the unknown world of the Bel Canto has been unstoppable, without ever ceasing to learn and explore. She does this with great humility but also with great human sensibility: a tendency that has led her to represent Egypt at Geneva on the World Day of Human Rights 2014, and three years later, to present her art in the suggestive surroundings of Luxor to promote the rights of children to education and dignity. There is no need to mention her work for women’s rights which won her the prize of the Egypt National Council for Women.
Her technique is corroborated by her passion and interpretative eclecticism which in recent years enabled her to dress in the costumes of Nannetta in Falstaff, of Clorinda in La Cenerentola and of Berta in the Barber of Seville.

Furthermore, in 2016, the BBC had already marked her out among the most promising of the new generation of lyrical singers; but it is clear that her consecration took place on the exclusive stage of La Scala, under the sword of Damocles wielded by the most demanding critics of Europe.  In 2020 Fatma’s performances have included a studio concert with the Bayrischer Rundfunk in Munich, recitals at the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Wigmore Hall, and an appearance at Leeds Lieder. She will also be part of the annual Concert de Paris and the Festival de St. Denis.

Fatma has shared the stage with renowned musicians such as Leo Nucci, Rolando Villazón, Juan Diego Florez, Michael Schade and Jose Cura and performed recitals with clarinetist Sabine Meyer and pianists such as Malcom Martineau, Roger Vignoles, Julius Drake, David Fray and Joseph Middleton. “I feel so fortunate to work with all kinds of musicians from across the world, and to perform music by so many composers from all over world”, comments Fatma. “The thing that connects us is music. It is a commonality, and I love that in listening to live music, in a way we create a moment of peace together”.

Franz Coriasco
Open photo: Felix Broede

DR Congo. Giving dignity and independence.

The Daniel Comboni House of the Comboni Missionary Sisters is a structure that assists the social rehabilitation of young women so that they can manage their own lives independently and with dignity. We visited the House.

Daniel Comboni Social House is to be found in the Kimbondo quarter on the outskirts of Kinshasa. Originally, the Comboni Sisters wanted to open a hospitality centre for the women being released from Makala prison, to provide them with accommodation and help them to take their place again in society, but in the end, they decided to open a centre to provide all emarginated women with a place where they could manage their own lives independently and with dignity. Above all else, they wanted them to feel at home. In May 2018, the first group of women began their experience at Daniel Comboni Social House. “We did not want to call it a ‘centre’ because we wanted the women to feel they were part of a family and that this was their home as long as they lived here”, says the Italian Comboni Missionary Sister Giovanna Valbusa who, since 1977, has lived in Kinshasa, the capital, though she has been in the country since 1961.

At present, there are eight women living in the house, aged from 20 to 26 years. “The purpose of this house  – Sr Giovanna emphasises – is to help these women to get back on their feet and take control of their lives. On the one hand, we offer them the choice of learning a profession and, on the other, multidisciplinary support in line with the needs of each one. But it has to be understood that it is they who have the last word. If they let themselves go and do not help themselves, there is nothing we can do”. A stay in the House lasts a maximum of one year.
Daniel Comboni Social House offers the possibility of training courses: dressmaking, aesthetics and hairdressing. The students attend courses lasting six months, from Monday to Friday morning, at the Centre for Specialised Trades (CAMS), located not far from the House. In the view of the missionary Sister, the Centre has many advantages. “It is of a high standard and awards official certificates to those who pass the final exams; furthermore, it allows new students to enrol at the beginning of the month, which offers some flexibility in incorporating young women during the course of the year. Lastly, we prefer that they are not confined to the House but meet other people and socialise with them”.

Joelle, who is in the sixth month of her training, says: “The tailoring course has been a great help to me. One day, I would like to have a big house like this one to take in other people and help them as well”. Sara’s comment is almost identical: “I am very happy to be able to help my family, my children and other women”.
Apart from their studies, the young women devote their time to making small hand-made objects such as purses and handbags the sale of which helps to meet the running costs of the house. Other afternoons are spent in the garden where they learn to cook or have lessons in life education and disease prevention. In addition, three times a week, according to their education level, they have lessons in literacy and French.
The staff of the Centre is composed of two Comboni Sisters and two social educators. Ruth is one of these and she teaches reading and writing. She tells us: “They differ from one to another and so we work in two groups. There are those who cannot read or write and find it difficult to hold a pen in their hands. These need special attention but I feel that most of them really want to learn and take charge of their own lives. I have been working with this project from the beginning and I have seen the great progress these girls make in a few short months”.

Sr Giovanna says: “The message we want to get across is that we mustn’t waste time. They have to get organised responsibly so as to see to their training and prepare for their future”. The missionary Sister continues: “We also help them in their faith, teaching them how to pray and to live in the presence of God, resolving their problems in the serenity of reflection. We also help them to express their emotions through the use of films, games, birthday celebrations. These are just ordinary but very necessary things for them. To sum up, we try to create the family atmosphere that many of them have never known so that they can bring out the best in themselves”.
One of the tasks of the missionary Sisters is to find tailoring shops and beauty parlours so that the girls can have a professional experience of work for three months before setting up their own businesses. The Sisters also help them to set up their own independent businesses. “The results are encouraging”, Sister Giovanna adds “and we have a number of girls who have started working independently and we know that they will pass on to others all they learned here”.

Enrique Bayo

 

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