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Contradicting results.

With a population that is 70% ethnically Malayan, Brunei has been under the influence of a much more rigid version of Islam as compared with bordering Malaysia and neighbouring Indonesia.
The situation leaves little room for religious freedom for other faiths, especially Christianity, of whatever origin, be it Chinese,
tribal or immigrant.

The problem is that, in the sleepy little Sultanate, the situation created by the immense riches of the reigning family, the many opportunities granted by it to its members and a past that has been filtered more by gossip than the proper management of the country, is in danger of exploding. This is due to the contrast between immoral individual and social behaviour and the severity of the sentences inherent in the integral application of Sharia Law. While it is true that, despite the many guilty verdicts for drug trafficking and premeditated murder, not one sentence has been carried out for more than twenty years, it is also true that more liberticidal and discriminatory aspects of the law are still unfortunately present and well known. Observable, for example, in terms of ostracising the LGBTQ community.

Hassanal Bolkiah is the 29th and current Sultan and Yang di-Pertuan of Brunei.

The ruling house abundantly benefited from the guaranteed wealth from petroleum until Hassanal Bolkiah decided to limit his own power and expenditure as well as that of his relatives and to raise national dignity and the public coffers of a country over which he has almost absolute power. After its complex and often-delayed launch, the controversial penal code based on Sharia Law has been applied gradually but with contradicting results. Difficulties immediately emerged starting with the scarcity of lawyers capable of running tribunals and making sure that fair and impeccably legal judgements could be reached.
Of the 103 lawyers who were qualified and registered to operate in the ambit of law inspired by the Islamic faith between 2003 and 2013, only 16 applied to operate in the Islamic tribunals. This number was considered ‘insufficient’ in the same juridical environment, bearing in mind that, according to Ordinance 2013 of the Sharia penal code, they are asked to play an important role in the debates in favour of correct and effective sentences.
In fact, by law, the lawyers specialised in Koranic law ought to make up at least half of those registered in each tribunal, but an enquiry into the reasons why a lawyer ought to specialise in Sharia Law showed that this branch of the profession had little to attract the professionals.
The new regulations have been gradually extended until they took the place of the preceding code that was less harsh and, especially, carried punishments that were less severe.  It has been already been in force for some time in civil ambits such as family law. On paper, the provisions are the same severe and archaic measures applied elsewhere including mutilation for thieves, flogging for crimes that include abortion, and the use of alcoholic drink and stoning for such crimes as adultery and sodomy. These laws are seen as excessive even for the inhabitants, most of whom are Muslims, who live together with a large immigrant population so necessary for the functioning of the country and the needs of businesses and families.

On the whole, the new sentences, said by the Sultan to be ‘a barrier against negative external influences’, have been greeted with deep scepticism and, for the first time, by a veritable wave of protests on the social media, avoiding official censorship.
At the promulgation seven years ago, the Sultan had specified that the application of Islamic law had been in the pipeline at least as far back as 1996, and that, only by the “coming into force of the present law, we fulfil our duty to Allah”, Hassanal added.
However, that may be, despite having a standard of living higher than that of many of its neighbours and British influence, today the country proposes a form of Islam that is less tolerant than that of its regional partners Malaysia and Indonesia (the latter has the largest Muslim population in the world), strictly limiting the presence of different faiths, the prohibition of alcohol and the rigid application of moral rules. To all appearances, it is a situation that serves the image the monarchy would like to convey of itself, the acquisition of a different role in the region and also its lucrative relations with the petro-monarchies of the Gulf.

The Royal Regalia Building – Located at Jalan Sultan, this museum is devoted to the sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.

The first difficulty has been and remains that of explaining the fundamentalist move as not only in the primary interests (unity, stability, wealth, investments and control) of the monarchy which, perhaps not without good reason, given its increasingly close relations with Saudi Arabia, the sovereign had defined as ‘a firewall against globalisation’, doubtless in view of controlling his subjects. It was not by chance that, at the first sound of dissident voices against the introduction of Sharia Law, his warning, expressed in a message handed to the official media, was clear: “Our denigrators cannot continue with these insults. If there is evidence to justify taking them to court, then the first phase of implementing the Islamic penal code will certainly be applied in their case”. It is not mentioned which of the media are referred to, but in a country where the traditional media are strictly controlled, and where the number of those interned is among the highest in Asia, it is probable that the target was the great network and its instruments of communication as part of a broader form of control and the stabilisation of power. (S.V.)

 

Brunei. Under the shadow of Sharia Law.

Far from the reflectors of global strategies and tensions, the small South-East Asian island country seems to be suspended in a reality of wellbeing and peace. But it is really living through profound contradictions and in danger of drifting into fundamentalism as has happened in other nations of southern and South-East Asia provoked, if not motivated, by political reasons.

With more than half of its 420,000 subjects in the capital Bandar Seri Begawan and the rest scattered throughout 5,770 square kilometres of territory facing a sea rich in petroleum and gas deposits, Brunei is one of the better-off countries of the world with a high standard of living, good public services and a more than adequate welfare that includes free health care and education.However, Brunei, located geographically on the southern coast of the immense island of Borneo, and historically heir to the division of the British Malayan colony into several states, has taken the path of integral Islam. This it did in 2014 when it published in its official gazette its official commitment to introduce Koran-inspired Sharia Law within six months.

A radical ‘about-face’ in what was until then seen as a country known more for the excesses of its royal family than its reality, communicated by the Sultan in person, the now 75-year-old Hassanal Bolkiah, the heir in a family that had been in power for centuries, having survived unscathed through colonial wars and conflicts. The most recent of these being that of Great Britain which imposed protectorate status that terminated only in 1984.
It was the Anglo-Saxon-inspired penal codes that then defined crimes and punishment, while religious law was relegated to personal or family disputes. The Sultan had subsequently specified that the application of the Islamic penal code had been in the pipeline for years but had only become a reality with the publication of the law to be applied ‘within six months and in phases’. “With the coming into force of the present law, we are fulfilling our duty towards Allah”, he had added. With severe consequences, given that the new regulations that had been under discussion at least as far back as 1996, foresaw the amputation of limbs for thieves, whipping for people who drank alcohol or practised abortion, and stoning for those guilty of adultery and other crimes.
While much is still to be done in the application of Islamic law, the principle of a state that is subject to religious law remains intact, along with the concerns this raises.

A panorama of Bandar Seri Begawan, capital and largest city of Brunei. (Zulfadli51/CC)

In any event, the new norms have caused perplexity and protests in Brunei itself where demonstrations of dissent towards the decisions of the sovereign and the authorities, in general, are very rare. In particular, activists and ordinary citizens have found the Internet and social media to be useful means in coordinating and spreading their unease.
It is greatly feared that Islamic Law may also be imposed upon non-Muslims or that it may create hostility or discrimination towards them. Among those of this view are the Chinese who make up 15% of the population as well as the immigrants, some of whom follow the Christian faith.With the date of application approaching, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed its ‘deep concern’ at the punishments contained in the new norms considered – it pointed out – to be similar to ‘torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’.

Water taxis ply the Brunei River, linking Bandar Seri Begawan’s waterfront with the sultanate’s most renowned water village, Kampung Ayer. (Photo: Bernard Spragg/CC)

In this there would be nothing new, were it not that the provisions add one more country to the list of those with draconian religious laws which place Brunei in a position of avant-garde among its Muslim neighbours that are much larger and of greater influence (but with a lower per capita wellbeing) such as Malaysia and Indonesia. They do all they can to counteract the pretensions of Islam-inspired politics to set in motion a process of adherence of the law to Koranic dictates according to the interpretation of Sunni Wahabit law, disavowed by moderate Islam and other juridical traditions.
The fact remains that the provisions of the new code have been ardently desired by the sovereign himself and that the various postponements that finally led to its introduction in May 2014, were due – they informed those personalities involved in the study and practical application of the new norms – not to opposition but to ‘undeniable requirements’ of Hassanal Bolkiah. (S.V.)

 

 

Sister Nathalie Becquart. To make History.

The meaning of the first appointment of a woman under-secretary of the most important Vatican Secretariat. Who is Nathalie Becquart, the first woman with the right to vote in the Synod of Bishops?

An enlightened move to strengthen the role of women in the Church; such seemed to be the choice of Pope Francis with the surprise appointment of two under-secretaries to the General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops. It is the first time that there are two under-secretaries at the same time, but above all, it is the first time that there is a woman.
Women with the office of under-secretary, have been working competently in the Vatican for several years, but none had ever been appointed to a body with an episcopal flavour like the General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops, which is an increasingly central body of the Holy See, but outside the Roman Curia, presided over by the Pope himself, with a cardinal secretary and a bishop under-secretary.

The unresolved knots
The ordinary synod convened by the Pope for the month of October 2022, for which Francis has chosen as the theme “For a synodal Church: communion, participation, and mission”, becomes the key to solving many un-resolved problems, and, on that occasion, a more courageous solution could be found to the long-standing and debated question of ministries, including those for women.

The appointment of two under-secretaries to the Synod of Bishops deserves particular attention. For the first time: an Augustinian religious, Luis Marin de San Martin (at the same time appointed a bishop to enable him to be part of the synodal assembly and, therefore, with voting rights) and a Xaverian nun.
Sister Nathalie Becquart was nominated for the same role, but, as a woman, is disadvantaged, since, under the current Canon Law, she cannot even be appointed deacon. As a woman, she creates a problem that will have to be resolved by forcing the canons.

She will vote at the Synod
The right to vote cannot be denied to Sister Nathalie. Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary of the Synod, gave the first clarification in this regard. In a delicate and important interview with Vatican News, the cardinal took it for granted that “Sister Nathalie will vote at the Synod”. He added: “Her appointment as under- secretary will help us to remember in a concrete way that, on this synodal way, the voice of the People of God has a specific place, and that it is fundamental to find ways to encourage the effective participation of all the baptised along this way”.
In order for it not to remain an exception exhausted in only one case, but the first case resolved for a possible normality, it will be necessary to update the relative canons and regulations. Since 1990, there have been few cases of simple priests appointed as members of the synodal assembly, who were given the right to vote by the Pope. Both Nathalie’s appointment and Card. Grech’s interview seem to be auspices for a stable canonical innovation, possible in the near future, in favour of women.

Francis’ move
 Knowing his care in the matter, Francis has no need of such auspices, since he himself is preparing the Church, with patient but decisive farsightedness, to receive without traumatic breaks the steps of an update, following the principles of the Second Vatican Council.

At the end of the day, it is a question of common sense: it is unthinkable that an under-secretary – a close collaborator of the Cardinal Secretary, with whom he or she shares preparation, study, coordination and checks for the success of the Synod – could be excluded at the time of the vote because she is a woman. And it is precisely the path of common sense, in consideration of the fundamental principle of the Incarnation of the Word, which justifies and explains the Church herself, that will make her fully incarnate in humanity and free her from preclusions and prejudices linked more to the cultures of the times than to God’s saving plan.

Who is Sr Nathalie?
But who is this Sister Nathalie, who has found herself at the centre of such an important case? From her curriculum vitae, written on the occasion of her appointment as under-secretary of the Synod, we learn that she was born in 1969 in Fontainebleau, France. After gaining a master’s degree in management at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris, she studied philosophy and theology at the Centre Sévres of Paris (the Faculty of the Jesuits in the French capital), and sociology at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (École des hautes études en sciences sociales), one of the most selective and prestigious graduate schools of social sciences in Paris. Then, she specialised in ecclesiology at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry (USA), with research on synodality. While working as a volunteer teacher in Beirut, Lebanon, she took philosophy and theology courses at St. Joseph Jesuit University.

After working as a consultant in a marketing and advertising agency for nongovernmental orgnanisations and Christian groups in Paris, in 1995 she joined the Xavières sisters, a religious congregation with roots in Ignatian spirituality.
In 2005, at the age of 36, she took her perpetual vows. She has worked in a variety of roles, including spiritual director for the Ignatian Youth Network in France, national coordinator of a French scouting program for youth in poor urban areas, and director of the National Service for the Evangelisation of Youth and for Vocations at the French Episcopal Conference from September 2012 to August 2018. She served as part of the preparatory team for the Synod on Youth, and was an auditor at that synod. Since then, she has been following Vatican sabbatical programs at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. Following a number of her publications, she is recognised as having specific expertise on the themes of the synodal Church. Next year’s synod, to the preparation of which Sister Nathalie will also make a significant contribution, will make history and could reserve surprises, no less than the beginning of Bergoglio’s pontificate, when he, a Jesuit, introduced himself to the world under the name of Francis.

Carlo Di Cicco

India. The apostle of the lepers.

Fifty years in India alongside the lepers. Curing their wounds but also rejoicing with each one for new found life. This is the story of Sister Bertilla Capra, 82, an Italian Consolata Missionary. 

It was in June 1970 that she arrived in Andhra Pradesh, her first appointment. “Before leaving – she recounts – I went to Fontilles, in Spain, where I completed a specialised course in the care of lepers. Nevertheless, it was a hard blow to experience the reality of India and especially the leprosarium”.
A few months later, she had another equally striking experience: in 1971, the war brought bloodshed to neighbouring Bangladesh, and thousands of refugees poured into India. Sister Bertilla then moved to Calcutta where she lived through that experience alongside Mother Teresa, providing help in the front line to people who had lost everything. “I worked together with her and her sisters during a cholera epidemic – the missionary recalls – During those months in Calcutta, the situation was calamitous and we could not even count the number of the dead. I have never in all my life seen anything like it”.

Vimala Dermatological Centre in Mumbai.

She then returned to Eluru, in rural India, still with the leper patients and their children, who were accommodated in a special hostel. “Since they were born in the leper colonies – she recalled – it would not have been wise for them to stay there. They needed a place where they could grow up healthy, outside that environment”. Finally, in 1981, the Vimala Dermatological Centre was opened in the immense outskirts of Mumbai. It is still her daily destination.
In the meantime, however, many things changed in the treatment of leprosy: “When I first came – she explains – the Sisters who opened the Centre in 1979 identified between twelve and thirteen thousand lepers in the area. Today there are only a few hundred.” This is the result of the giant steps taken in the field of medicine: today, leprosy is a disease that can be cured by medicine that is easily acquired and if action is taken in time, physical deformity can be prevented. However, the fight against leprosy still requires great efforts in control and prevention.

“We are continuing our penetrating work of raising awareness among the population entrusted to our care by the government in these poor outskirts of the immense city of Mumbai – Sister Bertilla recounts – and we have worked well: today we manage to keep the disease under control. We must remember that this is a metropolis where people come from all parts of India; unsuspected cases may easily emerge, as leprosy has no immediate symptoms. It is a rather latent illness; it has a long incubation period and begins with small marks that can be recognised”.
The Vimala Centre has today around seventy patients, both men and women and it has a small hostel with about ten children who have contracted this disease in various ways in their families. Looking after the sick also involves taking care of the children.
What would it take to wipe out leprosy? “I don’t think it can be eradicated; – the missionary answers – it has to be controlled and this is what we are doing. Together with our paramedical personnel, we go around the area the government assigned to us; we ask the people to understand the symptoms to look for and we explain where to go if they find any. It is important to treat leprosy as soon as it is identified.
This is the only way to avoid having confirmed cases where the body is disfigured. We can avoid these if we manage to control the situation
in the territory”.

On the outskirts of Mumbai. (Photo: A.Savin/WikiCommons)

This is the key to helping to defeat the social stigma that always goes with leprosy. “The two things are connected, – Sister Bertilla continues – it is really pitiful to see a person deformed by advanced leprosy. The fact is that people on the buses keep away from them and this is only human. Then, of course, the lepers themselves will withdraw to ghettos in the slums since they do not want to be seen in such a condition. This is why it is so important to let the people know that leprosy is not a curse but a sickness that can be cured like all the others. We need to tell them that when it is soon discovered and recognised, it does not do permanent damage. This method has to be followed with much patience”. Now, however, India too has to face up to a new disease known as Coronavirus. What is the situation here? “It is hard to say, – the Sister remarks – it is not clear how the Covid behaves. Here in India, of course, not all is revealed: there are no exact figures of deaths and people are not careful in observing social distancing. In our leprosarium, we keep people isolated but the road outside our Centre is full of people without face coverings and there is no sanitiser to be seen …”.

Diwali lamps. (Siddarth Varanasi/CC)

What is certain is the heavy blow struck by the economic crisis to the poor people of India “When the lockdown began, the Consolata Sister recounts, we tried to help the people as much as possible: all our lepers are poor. We began buying rice, cereals and sugar to distribute food parcels to people we know: we handed out 500 of them. In a metropolis like Mumbai, this is just a drop in the ocean. Poverty is spreading: I cannot imagine how people manage to survive today in the slums”.
However, not even these difficult times ought to make us despair. “The Lord is speaking to us, – the Sister adds – we must not lose hope: our faith must keep us going. We ought to cling more to the Lord at times like these. It really is a time to examine our consciences”.
Thinking of her fifty years in India, Sr Bertilla says: “One of the best things India gave me was the Diwali, the festival of light. The Hindus celebrate it according to their mythology: light overcomes the darkness and the streets and houses are full of lights. For us Christians too, Jesus is the light of the world. This is the message we want to bring
to our people”.

Giorgio Bernardelli/MM

Catholic Church: ‘the Periphery within the Periphery’.

A small Catholic population. The seven pastoral priorities. Living under Sharia Law. Cardinal Cornelius Sim, apostolic vicar of Brunei talks about his community. 

Last November, Pope Francis made mons. Cornelius Sim apostolic vicar of Brunei, a cardinal. “For me, it was a bit of a shock and unexpected”, said mons. Sim. “I think this appointment’s significance is not so much about the person but the people and region that he represents. Because the Pope is trying to reach out to the Church in the periphery. When you talk about Brunei, the Church is ‘the periphery within the periphery’. I find it very significant that Pope Francis is taking this approach”.
In Sim’s view, the Pope understands that the Church exists “in those little places where there is not much publicity” but where the faith is alive.

Pope Francis greets Cardinal Cornelius Sim, Apostolic Vicar of Brunei. (Photo: Vatican Media).

The Catholic Church has had a presence in Brunei for more than 90 years. Its three Catholic schools are especially an area of contribution, and 60 percent to 70 percent of their students are Muslim.
Cardinal Sim and his three priests serve the roughly 20,000 Catholics who live in Brunei. Catholics can freely practice their faith within the church compounds and at home, but public displays of the faith are restricted. A majority of this small Catholic population, about 70 percent, are migrant workers from the Philippines. Another 20 percent are migrants from other countries such as Indonesia, India, and Malaysia. The remaining 10 percent are indigenous Bruneians.
According to Cardinal Sim, the Catholic Church in Brunei must work to “provide a home away from home” for its large immigrant community. It supports these migrants in times of illness or death and provides financial aid and food programs.
He pointed out: “We have seven priorities that we walk by since we established our vicariate. These are Bible literacy, adult faith formation, youth, promotion of vocations, witnessing to Christ, social welfare for people, especially migrants, and focus on family. These are the seven priorities we try to walk with. It is really about building a strong Christian community around these principles”.

Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Bandar Seri Begawan.

He stressed: “The whole idea is that the Church is about relationships. It is about liturgy, but it is also about relationships. First of all, relationships within the family, then with one another in the parish. From there, we also look for enriching our relationship with our community outside the parish, in the places we work, where we share lives with everyone else. That is mainly our thrust”.
“For Catholic natives, the Church must build their faith to help them be ‘more conscious and more willing to be engaged’ in supporting the Church”. “Young Catholics, Sim said, draw their views from their counterparts in their ‘own world’ of social media and their relationship with authority is different from that of previous generations”.
For Sim, the Church cannot simply be a subculture: “as a Church we are not one little group of people, all isolated on our own in our little bubble”.Rather, the Church cuts across boundaries of race, colour, social status, or migrant status because “all of us are children, sons and daughters of Jesus Christ”, he said, adding “you cannot have God as your Father unless you have the Church as your Mother”.

The Sultan has made Islam a state religion.  Cardinal Sim explains: “As the country leader, the Sultan is committed to making Islam the national religion, which is part of the constitution. But the constitution also states right at the beginning: ‘The religion of Brunei Darussalam shall be the Muslim religion according to the Shafeite sect of that religion. Provided that all other religions may be practiced in peace and harmony by the person professing them in any part of Brunei Darussalam’. The Church is also constitutionally accepted as a religion in Brunei. So, I think the situation in Brunei is unique. There were many controversies, mostly outside Brunei, when Sharia law was included here (in 2014). But we, including Catholics, have lived with Sharia in an uncodified form for many decades. But only later it was codified and formally accepted.
But in practice, these laws were there. Now, they are implemented in a wise and very refined manner. It is not implemented haphazardly or with any malicious intention”.

The Cardinal said: “If anyone wants to talk about Brunei intelligently, he should live here or be part of the people here. People generally are looking for a common good. That is what we are invested in, whether in our schools, in our churches, and that’s the way we interact with people. If there is an issue, we always consult, dialogue and engage in conversation. That’s is the way we do things here”.
Cardinal Sim, 69, was born in Seria, Brunei, and is of Chinese and Dusunic descent. An engineering graduate from Scotland, he worked in Brunei for seven years before starting his priestly studies. When ordained in 1989, he was Brunei’s second local priest. He was named vicar general of Brunei in 1995 and two years later, Prefect of the Apostolic Prefecture of Brunei. In 2004, Pope John Paul II appointed him Vicar Apostolic of Brunei, and he received episcopal consecration in 2005. Bishop Sim, is the first cardinal from Borneo Island and will have the voting right to elect a pope until 2031.

Stefano Vecchia

 

 

Uganda. Empako a sign of respect among the Batooro.

Besides their family names, the Batooro have pet names called empako. It was a sign of social identity. When greeting each other, the Batooro use the empako. It must be mentioned as part of the greeting.

Tta Akiiki! Tta Abwooli!  That was how we saw people in Tooro share pleasantries as soon as they come across someone they were familiar with. If one is not familiar with you, he/she will greet you while telling you their pet name (Empako), before we knew it, someone came and told us, “empako yange Ateenyi”, eyaawe? (my pet name is Akiiki what is yours?) since we did not have one, we never responded, we told Ateenyi that we did not have empako and they just knew that we were from a different part of the country.
After asking around, we found out that when greeting someone in Tooro, you are supposed to address them with their empako because it was a polite way of addressing someone with respect.

In Uganda, the batooro are known for being very humble and polite people.
When a person tells you their pet name in Tooro you are required to respond by telling them your pet name as well. We were made to understand that in Tooro people address each other with pet names. They also told us that this was a culture brought in by the Babiito-Luo who are kings and still rulers of Tooro kingdom.
We were told that, thousands of years ago, it was believed that Bunyoro Kitara before the Tooro kingdom broke away was invaded by Babiito-Luo who in turn drove out the rulers of the time who were the Chwezi. The Babiito-Luo then assumed the kingship of Bunyoro Kitara.
The Babiito-Luo were from the Luo tribe who were Nilotic and had different cultures from the Bunyoro/Tooro who are Bantu speaking. Among the many things they introduced in Bunyoro/Tooro, was the Empako which was to be used as a title to address someone; they too dropped their language and instead picked up the bantu speaking language of the batooro.

A retired teacher from Tooro, Nyaruhuma Abwol, said that among the Batooro, it’s an abomination and lack of respect for a junior to address a senior with their names; they use the empako to address their seniors and even a senior will use a junior’s empako to address them. He added that everybody in Tooro is given the empako and anyone associated with the Batooro people also receives the empako.
Once a man or woman from a different culture marries or is married among the Batooro he/she will be given the empako by his or her in-laws and they will address him accordingly.
He added that once a child is born, they will take days before it is introduced to the public.  If it is a girl, it will take three days before she is introduced to the public and if it’s a boy, he will be kept away from the public until after four days when he is brought out. That is the day the baby will be given a surname and it will receive its empako on the same day. Nyaruhuma also said during the naming ceremony, a ritual is performed and family, friends and well-wishers are usually invited to attend the ceremony.

The family of the newly born baby will prepare a meal which has smoked meat and mushrooms cooked in cow ghee and it will be served with millet (traditional Tooro meal). The retired teacher pointed out the meal will be served to the invited guests after the toddler has been given a name and empako to accompany his name and they will begin addressing the baby with his empako immediately.
If the person getting the empako is from a different tribe and culture, the family or friends will prepare a meal of smoked meat and mushroom cooked in the cow ghee and served with millet and then the person will be given the empako.
The Batooro and Banyoro have a number of empakos which are given to men only, then to both men and women but the Tooro King has a special empako which he never shares with anyone in Tooro, which is Okali.

Empako monument in Fort Portal.

Another empako which is rare in Tooro is Bala this is given to chiefs especially. Then Araali, Ocaali and Apuuli are only given to the men, the rest of the pet names can be shared among the women and men.
He added that, the empako have meaning although the Batooro do not attach meaning to names; this he said was a culture from the Luo people who attach meaning to all their names and which is the of Babiito origin who ruled and still rule the Tooro kingdom.
Some of the empako can be interpreted by the Luo to mean something for  them; for example among the Luo, Amooti means greeting, Adyeeri comes from Adyera and means friendship.
Other empako which can be shared by both men and women are Akiiki, Abooki, Atwooki, Abwooli, Ateenyi.
The elder said that some of the empako are also given to people depending on character; he said for instance that abwooli is given to a very calm person. Nyaruhuma said that the empako have not only remained native to Tooro, but have now crossed boundaries and other people from different tribes and cultures who have no connections to Tooro have also taken up the names.

Irene Lamunu

Global Warming Can be Stopped.

Climate change is disrupting our world and the temperature has risen one degree centigrade and it will not go back. We have reached a point of no return and that is a security risk to the planet and to every nation. We can stop it rising higher.

One of the grave security risks is the increase in number and severity of natural disasters that is turning millions of people into victims of draughts where rice fields are turning to deserts in one part of the world and becoming permanent lakes in others.

The devastating fires around the world have driven thousands from their homes and killed millions of animals. Wildlife is fast disappearing. Many people are so complacent to see birds flying and fish swimming in the sea cannot and cannot imagine or accept that they may soon be no more as many are already diminished or extinct because of us and our fossil fuel-based lifestyles.

Millions of poor people are the worst affected and will live in greater poverty than before. Climate refugees are becoming the greatest threat as millions are displaced by natural disasters and abandon their shacks and shanties and the hunger and poverty and head for the rich nations and besiege their borders begging for help and work. Their numbers will continue to increase.

Besides, the growing increase in CO2 from coal plants and vehicles is making the earth warmer. Vast tracts of marsh lands in Siberia and near the Arctic Circle are melting, releasing billions of tons of methane into the atmosphere. This, too, is adding to the blanket of gas that is insulating the planet and preventing the heat from escaping while the sun beats down roasting everything on the planet.

Winters are already harsher, colder and more prolonged as happened this year again in the northern hemisphere reaching as far south as Texas in the USA, cutting the electric power grid and people almost dying of cold as one child did. This is unheard of in many years. Nothing like this increase in global temperatures has happened for millions of years and when it did, the earth was uninhabitable, even animals could hardly survive, and thousands of species became extinct. It’s happening again all because of us humans, the species with the big intelligent brains who should know better. We do know better, but good choice does not always follow the facts.

Many politicians and corporate bosses especially in the developed economies refuse to face and admit the truth of global warming and dangerous climate change simply because of corporate greed,
the love of comfort and money and to retain political power and economic growth.

The near absence of political will and the blindness of denial are allowing the planet’s temperature to creep upward to the maximum allowable temperature increase of 2 degrees before even greater disaster will occur. Even this one degree increases, the experts say, is already a calamity. An increase of .75 degrees is causing the death of the coral reefs- the life-giving food of thousands of species of fish upon which millions of families depend for a daily meal.

The oceans are under threat, too, not only from over-fishing but they are absorbing all the CO2 they can and they are becoming more acidic. Global fish stocks are threatened as a result. There will be more massive crop failures, drought, floods, rising sea levels, greater forest destruction and massive population migrations.
The prices of food commodities are increasing at an alarming rate and as production drops, famine could once again kill millions in some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is not only war but war against nature that is endangering the world population.

It sounds all gloom and doom, it is, and we have to take serious action to stop it. The deadline is a tipping point of global temperature that when reached could make the warming irreversible and perhaps it already is. If we humans continue destructive behaviours, like destroying forests and burning fossil fuels in coal plants to make electricity and populating the world with billions of methane-making cattle, we are making big trouble for ourselves and the rest of humankind.

The forests are threatened not only by greedy humans in Hungary, the Amazon and South East Asia, by logging and growing soya and raising cattle for beef but by disease due to the warmer temperature where tree-destroying diseases and insects thrive.
The billion cattle in the world are releasing methane, a greenhouse gas and dangerous to the planet.

Committed environmentalist march, demonstrate and petition and electing “green” politicians to push governments and corporate tycoons to stop building more coal plants and turn to non-destructive and renewable ways of making electricity such as geothermal, solar
and wind power.

We too can change our community to be more climate friendly by protecting our local environment, speaking out against logging, planting trees, recycling, and establishing organic food gardens to feed ourselves and eat less meat. This is the challenge for our future and the future of our families and the next generation. Each of us can find a way to be involved in saving the environment in our community.

Fr. Shay Cullen

 

 

Ethiopia. Eritrea’s involvement in Tigray exacerbates tensions with the West.

The Tigray conflict has dampened the enthusiasm raised by the Ethiopian Prime Minister and Nobel Prize Abiy Ahmed three years ago. The UN wants massacres of civilians by the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies to be investigated.

On the 4 March 2021, the UN Security Council was warned of a dire humanitarian crisis in the Tigray region by the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock, Accordingly, 4.5 million Tigrayans out of a population of 6 million need food assistance and much of the area is inaccessible. Lowcock spoke of a high risk of famine and escalating violence, four months after the conflict broke out in Tigray, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered troops to respond to an attack on military bases by forces allied with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) which rules the region. By early March, the death toll amounted to at least 52,000, according to opposition sources and over 61,000 Ethiopians had fled into Sudan according to the U.N.

Tens of thousands of Ethiopians have been displaced by the ongoing conflict in the Tigray region. (UNICEF/Zerihun Sewunet).

On the same 4 March 2021, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet called for an investigation into the atrocities which took place during the conflict including mass killings, rapes, abductions of civilians, destruction of offices, churches and monasteries. She corroborated information about the indiscriminate shelling of the regional capital Mekelle and of the towns of Humera and Adigrat during the Ethiopian offensive of November. On the 26 February 2021, another massacre was perpetrated in the village of Dengolat, North of Mekelle. According to Bachelet, such violations could amount to “war crimes and crimes against humanity”. Possible perpetrators include the Ethiopian National Defence Forces, the TPLF, the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF), the forces of the neighbouring Amhara region which side with Addis Ababa and allied militias.In February, Amnesty International published a report which accused the EDF to have killed hundreds of civilians “including monks in the monasteries” in a “coordinated and systematic” manner in order “to terrorize the population into submission”, on the 28 and 29 November 2020 in Axum. “The massacre was carried out in retaliation for an earlier attack by a small number of militiamen, joined by local residents armed with sticks and stones” says Amnesty. According to a deacon at an Orthodox Church who spoke to the Associated Press, at least 800 people were killed on that weekend.

Church of Our Lady St. Mary of Zion, the most sacred place for all Orthodox Ethiopians in Axum, Ethiopia.

These events in Axum were the culmination of a wave of violations carried out since 19 November, when Eritrean and Ethiopian forces entered in the city, after shelling the city and firing at those who tried to flee, says Amnesty. The report was denied by Eritrea’s Minister of Information Yemane Gebremeskel who called it a “fabrication”, reported the Voice of America on the 27 February. Ethiopian and Eritrean officials also denied that Eritrean forces were involved in the Tigray conflict, despite accounts who identified Eritrean soldiers by their dialects.
“Eritrean Defence Forces must leave Ethiopia, and they must not be enabled or permitted to continue their campaign of destruction”, said the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. But the UN Security Council failed to reach consensus on the issue on the 4 March 2021. Previously, the United States also called on Eritrean troops to withdraw from Tigray, while the EU declared that their presence was “exacerbating ethnic violence” in the region.

A man stands beside a damaged building in Tigray region of north Ethiopia/ CFP

However, to some extent Eritrea’s involvement in the Tigray conflict is  “explainable”, claims Nathanael Tilahun, assistant professor of Law at Coventry University. First of all, the relationship between the TPLF and Eritrea are bad. At the beginning, they were intimate movements.
Both were led by Tigrayan Christians and were Marxist. They remained allies since the creation of the TPLF in 1974 during their common war against Colonel Mengistu’s DERG regime. EPLF troops helped the TPLF during its victorious offensive of 1991.
But relations became tense when both movements became rulers of their respective countries.
The EPLF which claimed to be an older and better run organisation, and the TPLF, ruler of a much larger country did not sort out their ” big brother-little brother  quarrel “. Things ended up with a border conflict launched by Eritrea in 1998. It was only in 2018, with Abiy that Ethiopia and Eritrea set normal relations.
Eritrea’s involvement in the Tigray conflict was foreseeable after the TPLF attack on the ENDF headquarters in Mekelle and on the four other military bases in Tigray on the 3 November 2020. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accused the TPLF of dressing its soldiers in uniforms resembling those of the EDF to “implicate the Eritrean government in false claims of aggression against the people of Tigray”. Then, the likelihood of Eritrea’s involvement increased after Prime Minister Abiy told the Ethiopian Parliament that ENDF soldiers who survived the TPLF attack of the 3 November had been ordered to withdraw into Eritrea.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed (L) with Eritrea’s President, Isaias Afwerki.

Before that, in the run up to the conflict, elite Ethiopian army units were sent already into Eritrea as part of a security pact between both states, wrote the former Eritrean Defence Minister Mesfin Hagos in an article published by African Arguments on the 4 December 2020. These units were expected to be the hammer and the ENDF Northern Command the anvil to strike the TPLF. Then, more ENDF troops were airlifted into Eritrea after the outbreak of conflict.  Local sources in Asmara counted 30 military airplanes flying in thousands of Ethiopian soldiers, before TPLF’s rockets hit the Asmara on the 14 November.
The Eritrean army’s response was massive. Eritrean support units provided intelligence and logistics to the Ethiopian troops’ offensive into Tigray, before taking part massively in combat. According to Mesfin Hagos, at least three Eritrean mechanized divisions and eight Eritrean infantry divisions entered into Tigray.
Without Eritrea, it would have been difficult to defeat the TPLF and regain control of the main cities of Tigray by end of November 2020, say Abiy’s supporters. When the war broke out, the TPLF was a ” formidable military force taking possession of more than half of the country’s military equipment “, reminds Tilahun. The TPLF could have marched on Addis Ababa, without much resistance.
Clearly, the Eritrean President, Isais Afworki finds now himself in a position of king saviour, say analysts. De facto, Abiy owes him the survival of his government. According to Alex de Waal, the executive director of the World Peace Foundation, ” It’s now clear that Afwerki saw the peace deal as a security pact with Ethiopia to eliminate the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s (TPLF) leadership”.

Displaced people in Adigrat town, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. (WFP/Leni Kinzli).

Another consequence of the war is the damage inflicted to the image of the Ethiopian Prime Minister who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, for having brought to an end the military tensions with Eritrea. He is now under the pressure of the West, namely United States whose ambassador at the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield declared that “The onus to prevent further atrocities and human suffering falls squarely on the Ethiopian government’s shoulders”.  The European Union suspended its budgetary support to Ethiopia in February which disappointed Ethiopian Diaspora Associations in Belgium and Luxembourg. In an open letter sent by their coordinator, Zerihun Assefa, to the president of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, they express their concern after a debate on the situation in Tigray on the last 11 February and deplored the “unfounded accusations that the government of Ethiopia was using humanitarian aid and sexual violence as weapons of war”.
The letter went on: “We were also disappointed after waiting in vain for anyone to point out that the conflict in Tigray was an insurrection by the TPLF in which scores of unsuspecting EDF personnel were gunned down in their sleeps and their weapons and supplies confiscated. Neither have we heard even a passing remark about the callous massacre of innocent civilians in Mai Kadra by TPLF-associated militia”, who are suspected to have killed 600 people mainly from the Amhara ethnic group.

Ethiopian refugees rest and prepare food near UNHCR’s Hamdayet border reception centre after crossing into Sudan. (UNHCR/Hazim Elhag)

These tensions with the West and the UN add to the Ethiopia’s diplomatic problems. Relations are indeed becoming very tense since mid-December with neighbouring Sudan. whose authorities deplored that a border patrol unit was ambushed by “Ethiopian forces and militias” in the disputed area of Al-Fashqa. Then, in mid-February, Sudan summoned home its ambassador to Ethiopia, while both sides were accusing each other of seizing territory by force. The Sudanese authorities reported at least a dozen deaths, including some soldiers, due to incursions by Ethiopian militias.
All this context may not bode well for the future of the difficult negotiations concerning the filling of the reservoir of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, between Egypt and Sudan on the one hand and Ethiopia on the other, as both Arab countries want to involve alongside with the African Union, the EU, the US and the UN which are all at odds with Ethiopia over the Tigray issue.

François Misser

What Britain did & didn’t do to Nigeria.

Nigeria is full of energy, enterprise and dynamism.  Like most big states it struggles to create national unity from a plethora of cultures and languages.

With a total population of 206 million – rising fast – it will soon have the third largest population of English speakers and Christians in the world.  At 100 million, roughly the same number as Nigerian Christians, it already has the third largest Muslim population.  If Muslims and Christians can’t live together in amity in Nigeria Africa is in even deeper trouble than the troubled Middle East.

When Nigeria became independent in 1960 the population of the British Empire was reduced by more than 50%.  Under British rule none of its weaknesses as a political entity had been resolved.  Arguably some of the worst had been intensified or created by the British. Nigeria today is fixed in British minds as the land of scams, corruption, and, for my generation, military coups and starving Biafran children.

Kidnapping is one the few features to gain international attention, a dark market economy with ransom tariffs set according to the profession of the victims.  A professor is worth more than a priest.  Big gangs raid schools and charge bulk prices for returns.  Banditry and armed robberies afflict several areas. Pastoralists, fighting over land-use, kill agriculturalists and vice-versa.  Da’esh-linked terrorists still cause havoc in the North-East and around the northern borders. Inter-ethnic killings are increasing. Nigeria is a fragile state.

You might imagine that the recent amalgamation of Britain’s Foreign Office and Department for International Development would be justified by a coordinated response to Nigeria’s mix of security and developmental problems.  You’d be wrong.

Discounting its own expertise in humanitarian aid and the training of police and security forces, the British government plans to cut development aid to Nigeria by 58%.  This despite thousands of displaced people fleeing violence in Borno State, a Federal army too underequipped and unmotivated to fight terrorism successfully, as well as a police force that needs intensive training.  But British support is receding.

Max Siollun, in his recent What Britain did to Nigeria, traces the origin of Nigeria’s ills to the early colonial period, the century of British engagement from the 1820s to the 1920s.  Siollun’s treatment is balanced and illuminating but his book will provide fodder for fashionable arguments between academics of the colonialism-bad and the colonialism-good schools – though lack of relevant statues will limit conflict to the seminar room.

Siollun shatters the comfortable assumption that the transition from pre-colonial to colonial government in what became Nigeria avoided the monstrous bloodshed in, say, the Congo under Leopold II of Belgium.  In my own online Emirs, Evangelicals & Empire I underestimated the violence of the British takeover.

Siollun tells of the racism, brutality and arrogance of many local British ‘Residents’, colonial officers – both civil and military – from the early Royal Niger Company to Lord Lugard’s West African Frontier Force.  But because most of the fighting fell on mercenary troops, mainly Hausa, with longstanding inter-ethnic and local animosities, the burnt villages and piles of corpses, after crushed uprisings and punitive raids, belonged to Africans.

The culturally very different North and South of Nigeria were amalgamated in 1914, not in some grand imperial vision, but, as Siollun suggests, to save on administrative costs.  Indirect Rule was not a British strategic plan – though it divided and ruled with near impunity. Britain just could not afford enough colonial officers.

The Colonial Office budget determined governance.  And there was the bonus that someone else did dirty work like tax collection and recruitment of forced labour. Punishment of those who saw little difference between this and former enslavement was severe.

Unsurprisingly there was considerable resistance to British rule, much of it caused by repression and extortion but used to justify severe and often disproportionate military response.  The Fulani of Sokoto Caliphate in the North-West suffered the most because their structured military force and cavalry encouraged set-piece battles against the British ‘square’ and the unforgiving Maxim gun.  The South-East lacked regular fighting forces and local guerrilla warfare was far more effective against British-led troops, especially along its narrow densely forested paths.

​‘Dash’ given to chiefs who provided the Royal Niger Company with exclusive rights of trade in palm oil was the prototype of today’s endemic bribery.  Treaties that few chiefs could read and understand gave coercion and fraud a veneer of lawfulness.   The earliest colonial era scam was to imitate messengers from British-appointed ‘warrant chiefs’ imposed on, for example, Igbo societies.  The scammer donned a red fez and insisted on payments of different kinds with the spurious threat that failure to pay would involve heavy punishments from the chief with British support.

There were also mitigating development and reforms.  Slavery, twin infanticide, and the burial of servants/slaves with their chief in some South-Eastern societies were gradually eliminated.
Colonial provision of roads, railways and education was transformative.  Christian missions followed by government schools brought educational change to the South.

Today most southern states have high rates of adult literacy.  The contrast with some Northern states is striking.  According to EduCeleb, a Nigerian educational news agency, in Sokoto 80% of women aged 18-24 are illiterate but only 1.8% in the South East’s Imo state.  Nationally the adult literacy rate was 22% at Independence in 1960.

Sixty years on, years when Nigeria stumbled from one disaster to another somehow surviving, somehow holding together, that heritage wears thin as an excuse.  The latest crisis looks particularly dangerous.  Nigeria’s Catholic Bishops informed by  detailed information from their parishes around the country published a formal statement this February. They are not in the habit of crying wolf.

“The very survival of the nation is at stake. The nation is pulling apart. Widespread serious insecurity for long unaddressed has left the sad and dangerous impression that those who have assumed the duty and authority to secure the nation are either unable – or worse still unwilling – to take up the responsibilities of their office. Patience is running out.

The call for self-defense is fast gaining ground. Many ethnic champions are beating loudly the drums of war, calling not only for greater autonomy but even for outright opting out of a nation in which they have lost all trust and sense of belonging. The calls for secession on an ethnic basis from many quarters should not be ignored or taken lightly.

Many have given up on the viability and even on the desirability of the Nigeria project as one united country. No wonder many non-state actors are filling the vacuum created by an apparent absence of government.

The Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari can no longer delay rising to its obligation to govern the nation; not according to ethnic and religious biases but along the lines of objective and positive principles of fairness, equity and, above all, justice. It is not too much for Nigerians to demand from Mr. President sincerity both in the public and private domain. There are no more excuses”.

Sadly the British Government has plenty of excuses for finding something better to do than worry about the future of what is arguably the most important country on the African continent.

Ian Linden
a visiting Professor at St Mary’s University,
London.

Philippines. 500 years of Christianity. Looking forward to the future.

In 2021 the Church in the Philippines marks half a millennium of Christianity.  “We are all ‘gifted to give.’  This is a challenge to both celebrate the Christian faith and be vigorously motivated to go and share this precious gift with others.”

The latest statistics show that the Philippine population has reached nearly 110 million.  The Philippines is the world’s third largest local Church (after Brazil and Mexico).  Of Asia’s 120 million Catholics over 60% are Filipinos.  These significant facts invite deeper exploration of the multi-faceted Philippine Church.

Some may ask: Why celebrate this event?  Bishop Broderick Pabillo, apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Manila, explains: “This is indeed something to celebrate, for in 500 years the Christian faith in the country has not only survived, but has been a strong influence in the culture and character of the nation, and is still going strong….  The 2021 celebration will be marked with great thanksgiving to Almighty God for the great gift of the Christian faith.  In God’s providence the Christian faith has come to our shore, took root in it, and bore much fruit among its people.”  The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) logo for the 2021 event asserts: we are all “gifted to give.”

A long journey
After the introduction of Christianity by Ferdinand Magellan in March 1521, a systematic and organized program of evangelization was begun in 1565 by the Augustinians who accompanied the Basque Spanish Miguel López de Legazpi’s expedition.
The Augustinians were followed by Franciscans (1578), Jesuits (1581), Dominicans (1587), and Augustinian Recollects (1606) from both Spain and Mexico.  Manila became a bishopric in 1579 and an archbishopric in 1595.The early missionaries often sought to protect the natives from abuses; they had a vigorous leader in Fray Domingo de Salazar, OP, the first bishop of the Philippines.  The Philippine Church of the sixteenth century certainly took sides, and it was not with the rich and powerful, but with those who were oppressed and victims of injustice.

Church historian John Schumacher notes: “Skeptics have often questioned the reality of the rapid conversion of sixteenth-century Filipinos.  If one wishes the answer, it is to be found right here, that the Church as a whole took the side of the poor and the oppressed, whether the oppressors were Spaniards or Filipino principales.”  Promoting both faith and justice remains a perennial task of every local Church.
These tasks were almost exclusively the concern of the Church during the entire period of Spanish rule.  Before the end of the sixteenth century, Manila had three hospitals, one for Spaniards, another for natives, and a third for the Chinese.

In 1595 the Jesuits opened a grammar school for Spanish boys that later developed into the University of San Ignacio and had attached to it the residential college of San José, founded in 1601 and today the San José Seminary. The year 1611 saw the beginnings of the Dominican University of Santo Tomás, which continues today as a vibrant educational center.  In 1640 the Dominicans also took charge of the College of San Juan de Letrán, started about a decade earlier by a zealous layman for the education of orphans.  Various religious communities of women established themselves in Manila; frequently, they undertook the education of girls.  Numerous educational institutions and social action centers operated by the Church continue to play an important role in Philippine life.

The Local Clergy and Religious Societies
Catholicism had taken permanent root in the Philippines as the religion of the people by the eighteenth century, if not earlier.  However, one serious weakness was the retarded development of the native clergy.  Apparently, only in the late seventeenth century were native Filipinos ordained.  Bishops became increasingly eager for a diocesan clergy completely under their jurisdiction.  Archbishop Sancho de Santa Justa y Rufina of Manila (1767-1787) ordained natives even when they lacked the necessary aptitude and training; the results proved disastrous.
Some improvement in formation and an increase in vocations occurred after the arrival of the Vincentians (1862), who took charge of diocesan seminaries.Among the active priest-leaders and social spokesmen were Fathers Gómez, Burgos, and Zamora, who were executed by the government for alleged complicity in a mutiny of native garrison troops in Cavite (1872); they are considered national heroes today.
Historically, the slow development of the local clergy remained a serious limitation; thus, the departure of a large proportion of Spanish clergy after the transfer of sovereignty from Spain to the United States (1898) left over 700 parishes vacant.

The normal life of the Catholic Church suffered disastrously during the years following 1898; from 1898 to 1903 the total number of friars decreased over 75% from 1,013 to 246.  This severe shortage of priests and religious was met in part by new, non-Spanish missionary congregations of women and men from Europe, Australia, and America.  Among others: Irish Redemptorists, Mill Hill Missionaries, Scheut-CICM, Sacred Heart Missionaries and Divine Word Society, LaSalle Brothers, Oblates of Saint Joseph,Maryknoll Missioners, Columban Missioners, Society of Saint Paul, Quebec-PME Society and Oblates-OMI. Most of these societies have personnel in the country today.

War and Church Services.
Japanese forces invaded the Philippines in December 1941.  Allied forces under General MacArthur returned in 1944, but severe fighting continued until the Japanese surrender in August 1945.  The war inflicted heavy damage; 257 priests and religious lost their lives, and losses in ecclesiastical property. Priests, brothers, sisters, and dedicated Catholic women and men exhibited great faith and heroism during the war; many suffered imprisonment.
The origins of what is known today as the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) can be traced back to February 1945 when Apostolic Delegate William Piani, even as the war was still raging, appointed John Hurley, SJ to take charge of relief work and created the Catholic Welfare Organization (CWO). The 1945-1965 period in the life of the local Church in the Philippines is characterized by: quite rapid recovery from the ravages of war, greatly expanded school system at upper levels, involvement of Catholics (laity, sisters, clergy) in social action, and growing Filipinization of Church structures.

Ferdinand E. Marcos, first elected president in 1965, declared martial law in 1972 and imposed a form of “constitutional authoritarianism.”  The martial law period posed new, challenging questions for the Church and nation.  Among the more pernicious effects of the two-decade Marcos era (1965-1986) were: increased militarization, insurgency, the absence of juridical procedures, the destruction of democratic processes, economic decline, and pervasive fear.  The end result, in the words of a Filipino social scientist, was to place the country “on the trembling edge of a social volcano.”
This period proved a time of testing and growth for the local Church.  Prophetic stances were often met by military abuse, imprisonment and torture, and even deportation for foreign missionaries.  The Church evolved a position of “critical collaboration,” cooperating with the regime on programs beneficial to the populace while criticizing government actions judged harmful.  An important 1977 CBCP pastoral letter, The Bond of Love in Proclaiming the Good News, sought to enunciate a clear, holistic vision to guide the Church’s mission of integral evangelization.
The Philippine presidential and vice-presidential elections were held on February 7, 1986. The church and in particularly of the Cardinal Jaime Sin Archbishop of Manila played a significant rule to overthrow Marcos’ regime.  It was “a victory of moral values over the sheer physical force on which he had relied.”  It signaled people’s determination not to shed Filipino blood.  The revolution was a “movement for active non-violence which was promoted by Church-related groups.”

However, basic social issues of wealth and power that plagued the nation for generations remained.  Many Filipinos still found themselves outside the mainstream of national social, political, and economic life.
Corazon C. Aquino took over and served as Philippine president from 1986-1992.  Aquino’s main contribution was the reestablishment of a democratically functioning government.  Difficult issues faced Aquino; yet, she guided the Filipino people to free and fair elections in May 1992 and the orderly transfer of power to President Fidel Ramos (1992-1998).  Aquino, an “icon of integrity,” died on August 1, 2009.

A vision of the church
The vision of the Second Vatican Council has taken root in the Philippine Church.  The presence of strong Base Christian Communities (BECs) provides grass roots structures for spiritual, catechetical, ministerial, and social growth.  Important strengths are present in this vision of Church: the inductive and experiential approach of theology; its inculturated social teaching; its spirituality of human development; its renewed ecclesiology and missiology; its concrete service to many Filipinos facing diverse dehumanizing social ills; its engagement in social issues in a non-partisan but active manner; its efforts to promote and practice non-violent approaches to socio-political crises; its commitment to create structures of participation in Church and society.

A definite sign of a vibrant local Church is its mission outreach.  In mid-2000 Catholic Filipino missionaries numbered 1,329 women and 206 men from 69 religious congregations serving in some 80 countries.
One may validly assert that over the past five centuries an authentic local Church has emerged in the Philippines; undoubtedly, this is a wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit!  This local faith-community exemplifies the vision propagated by the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), which asserts that “the local church is a church incarnate in a people, a church indigenous and inculturated.  And this means concretely a church in continuous, humble and loving dialogue with the living traditions, the cultures, the religions—in brief, with all the life-realities of the people in whose midst it has sunk its roots deeply and whose history and life it gladly makes its own”
The FABC challenge to engage in a “triple dialogue” with the local people, their cultures, and their religions as a verified pathway to building an authentic local Church has been guiding Church leadership in this Vatican II era.  This “incarnational approach” has proven to be effective in the Philippine context; it must continue to guide all the evangelization initiatives for the next many decades and even centuries.

 James H. Kroeger, MM
Professor at Loyola School of Theology,
and East Asian Pastoral Institute,
Manila (Philippines)

 

 

Fragile Peace in South Sudan.

There have been close to twelve peace agreements but they have failed to bring about significant long-term peace in the country. The future of peace and stability in South Sudan will very much depend on the political will of the political leaders.

South Sudan is currently the youngest nation in the world, having gained its independence from Sudan in 2011. The struggle for independence was bloody, largely between the Arab North that was ruled under the Sharia Law, and South Sudan, mainly inhabited by black Africans.
The history of the then Sudan has been highly characterized by protracted conflicts leading to the civil war (1955-1972) which opposed the dominant ‘Arab/Muslim north’ (actual Republic of Sudan) and the diversified south. The 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement and later on the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement put an end to the conflicts, providing South Sudan more autonomous governance and paved the way for the independence of South Sudan.

South Sudan is one of the poorest countries on the planet, considering that it ranks 185th in terms of human development index (0.433) as per the 2020 Human Development Report.
Since its independence in 2011, South Sudan has been subjected to another civil war in 2013 which played along religious and ethnic lines and generated a heavy humanitarian crisis in the country.

Humanitarian Crisis
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, an estimated 400,000 people have been killed since 2013. As of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), the numbers are among the highest in the continent. Indeed, according to the latest UNHCR data, there is a recorded 2,193,010 refugees and asylum-seekers from South Sudan located in several neighbouring countries notably Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the DRC. Further, according to the 2020 mid-year update from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, during the first half of 2020, there was an estimated increase of 90% from the 259,000 new displacements recorded from January to December 2019.

According to the report, one of the most affected regions is the central state of Jonglei which is referred to as the “epicentre of intercommunal violence.” Furthermore, the report suggests that intercommunal violence and cattle raiding have been at the source of 90,000 displacements in the state of Warrap, in addition to continued conflict between the government and the non-state armed group in Central and
Western Equatoria.

Complex Peace Process
The civil war ended in 2018 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement which was considered to be a big step into stabilizing the country. The Republic of Sudan and Uganda have played an important role in mediation, leading to the peace agreements. However, the 2019 Freedom House report suggests that the two countries have supported different sides to the civil war with Sudan sometimes backing the Deputy President Riek Machar’s armed faction and Uganda defending the ruling government side.

The reconciliation process in South Sudan is rather complex and needs to be preceded by a genuine process of peacebuilding that involves main protagonists in conflicts, community elders, religious leaders, and different ethnic representations.
Chapter V of the Revitalized Peace Agreement draws attention to a more comprehensive approach to peace and reconciliation and recommends a number of institutional mechanisms, namely: the Hybrid Court for South Sudan, the Commission on Truth, Reconciliation, and Healing, and the Compensation and Reparation Authority.

Dialogue Table
The first step towards reconciliation in South Sudan ought to be political reconciliation, which normally brings together conflicting parties to a dialogue table. According to the Economist (2020), there have been close to twelve peace agreements that have been struck by the two major political figures of the country namely, President Salva Kiir and Deputy President Riek Machar, who both belonged to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) that fought for independence but failed to bring about significant long-term peace in the country as a consequence of frequent delays and failures to implement agreements. The political reconciliation process under the framework of the revitalized peace agreement has faced numerous challenges.

Despite President Kiir earlier in December 2016 announcing a national dialogue process, no meaningful progress towards peace was achieved. According to the letter dated 25 November 2020 from the Panel of Experts on South Sudan, which was established following the Security Council resolution 2206 (2015), addressed to the President of the Security Council, there is clear documentation of the failures of the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity formed in February 2020. For example, in an attempt to address the conflicts, President Salva Kiir announced in July 2020 a nationwide disarmament program.

Flawed Peace
The Catholic Bishops of Sudan issued a pastoral letter in February 2019 underscoring that: “We fear that this peace agreement is fatally flawed in itself and cannot bring true peace; we fear also that the current leadership does not have the will to implement peace.” There have been reported cases of violations against civilians during the exercise of disarmament as the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) task force was responsible for several cases of rape and looting of livestock from the local population in Romic.

Pope Francis kneels to kiss the feet of South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit.

Pope Francis invited the Catholic bishops alongside other religious members from South Sudan to the Vatican for a retreat on reconciliation. In a rather powerful and dramatic gesture, the Pope kissed the feet of the political leaders and pleaded with them to embrace peace: “I am asking you as a brother to stay in peace. I am asking you with my heart, let us go forward. There will be many problems but they will not overcome  us. Resolve your problems,” Pope Francis encouraged the political leaders to face the challenges of peace with a commitment to building sustainable peace in South Sudan.
Dr. Andrew Yaw Tchie, the Senior Research Fellow for Africa Security at King’s College in London, raises attention on the potential for further conflicts in the country, particularly given that “… shaky security arrangements, an avoidance of the root causes of the conflict, lack of focus on local conflict prevention, and the absence of a long term plan” may be at the origin of further conflict in the country.
In his analysis of what is missing from the September 2018 Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan, signed in Addis Ababa, he suggests that power-sharing has been the focal point of the agreement, therefore, failing to clearly include enough implementation provisions for accountability mechanisms as well as profound state reforms.

Political Will
The future of peace and stability in South Sudan will very much depend on the political will of the political leaders, and more especially the incumbent government of Salvar Kiir Numerous attempts by regional governments, the African Union, religious leaders, and civil society have borne some fruits but the country is yet to achieve sustainable peace and remains fragile to further conflicts.

It would be important to initiate a national reconciliation process that is comprehensive and inclusive, much more geared towards restorative justice grounded on relationship building rather than retributive justice that is likely to provoke further revenge. A culturally and religiously based truth and reconciliation process geared towards nation-building rather than fault-finding will be crucial in bringing diverse communities into a common reconciliation ritual.

Elias O. Opongo sj
Director of Hekima Institute of Peace Studies
and International Relations (HIPSIR),
Nairobi – Kneya

Dubai. The crossroads of African gold.

An interwoven series of criminal gangs, terrorist groups, traffickers of all sorts, networks of illegal commerce, African gold passes through the Emirates. 

Gold represents the best investment during great economic and financial crises. The past fifteen years have been characterised by a dizzying climb in the price of this product which has given rise to the creation of several ‘artisan mines’ in the countries of eastern and central Africa.
Such enterprises, in unstable or conflict zones as in the case of Africa, represent a greedy segment that must be divided up and controlled, of criminal gangs, terrorist groups, traffickers of all sorts and networks of illegal trading. The business is even more greedy when there is a large amount to be extracted as is the case in the areas in question where the value of the gold extracted is around $3billion a year.

The ore produced represents a considerable source of revenue for the estimated 19 million workers of the artisan mines and the communities to which they belong. Although the work is very heavy, done with no protection whatever and involving women and children – the children, being physically small, are able to crawl into the narrow tunnels – the workers receive but a tiny part of the earnings.
Research carried out by The Sentry, a US organisation that aims at unmasking the economic sources that foment and support armed conflicts, examined the four countries richest in gold reserves – Sudan, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo – whose common characteristic is that they have been the scene of decades-long conflicts.

It has emerged from this study that, within this chaotic universe, the criminal groups are free to control the supply lines by taking the place of legal intermediaries, due also to connections with foreign companies looking for easy earnings which, by using qualified traders, succeed in obscuring their ties with armed groups and bring the gold to the legal market. In more detail, it is apparent that in eastern Congo, where each year 10 to 20 tons of gold are mined, thanks to the work of about 250 miners employed in the sector, about 70% of the mines is controlled by smugglers and armed groups. The situation in the Central African Republic is not dissimilar where 27 armed groups control the smuggling of 90% of the annual production which recently showed a significant increase, reaching 5.7 tons per year, worth around $235 million.
Then there is Sudan which, with its production of 90 tons of gold per year, makes it the third-largest producer in the world, where production is on an industrial scale with only a minimal presence of artisanal mines. Despite this, the rules in force are the same as those in other producer countries since a good proportion of production is managed by the Sudan Liberation Army -Abdul Wahid – and by the Movement of Liberation of the north of the Sudanese people which, with funds generated by the artisanal mines, finance their activities.

In South Sudan, activity is in the hands of the two main armed groups, the Movement for the Liberation of the People of Sudan/Army of opposition and the National Salvation Front. The gold produced by these territories ends up on the global market: in the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. However, before reaching it, 95% of production passes through Dubai where it is mixed with other gold from the legal market so as to eliminate any traces of its origin and then place it ‘legally’ on the international market. This practice is facilitated by weak legislation in the UAE concerning the subject and poor inspection practices regarding the origin and certificates of purchase of the mineral, as well as the possibility of making the transactions in cash or by exchange. These factors are decisive for the large international intermediaries which are devoid of scruples and make Dubai the main sorting-house for illegally produced gold. Gold is, for the economy of the Emirates, a strategic asset and exports in 2019 were valued at $19billion, not far behind the petroleum companies.

From Dubai, the gold is taken to India, China, Switzerland and the Middle East, in what is in essence a process of recycling, for which other countries, especially Switzerland, must certainly bear no less responsibility. Switzerland, in fact, gives fundamental support to this strategy of triangulation with other destinations. There, the gold coming from Dubai undergoes further refinement and then goes to the United Kingdom, making it a world-level importer.
Returning to the start of the journey, it is observable that, as indicated by a study led by the Director of Africa Confidential Patrick Smith, that from Bukavu in South Kivu, 300 kg of gold pass every month towards the Gulf, while officially only 5 kg are declared. According to Mario Giro, the former Italian vice-foreign minister, the refineries present in the area of the Great lakes produce as much as 330 tons and one of the largest refining companies is the Ugandan ‘African Gold Refinery’, capable of refining 219 tons per year, and the Rwandan ‘Aldango’. Both have in common the fact that they are the bases for a Belgian company whose sales office is located in Dubai.
The Sentry report also shows export data together with those of imports and, here too, the emerging anomalies clearly show that the Emirates declared they import from the African countries a quantity of gold superior to what those countries declare they have exported.
In this regard, significant cases are those of Sudan which declares that it exported, from 2010-2014, 152 tons of gold to Dubai which received, during the same period, 248; that of Uganda which declares it produces 3 tons of gold per year while declaring that it exports around 9 tons to the UAE; of Rwanda with official production of between 0.03 and 0.36 tons while the data show it exported more than 18 tons. The same is true also for Kenya, Burundi and Chad.

A cause for some concern is the situation in the area of Sahel where Jihadist groups are trying to gain control of the greatly expanding market with the combined annual production of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso amounting to around 50 tons per year. In Zimbabwe, on the opposite part of the continent, a declared exponential increase in production gives rise to suspicions that it concerns South African gold illegally bought and sent to Dubai.
Within this framework, another element that strikes the eye of analysts and which needs to be focused on is the partnership between the Eastern African countries and the Emirates which, through massive investments exceeding $250 billion, gained control of ports and infrastructure, thus participating in the African section of the Chinese Silk Road. This has made them become actors in local political life by interfering in the internal crises of various countries, and support by way of money and arms to various local groups.

Filippo Romeo

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Gallery – Snapshots from Africa

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