Ahmed Sekou Toure: An Indispensable Yet Forgotten African Heroic Leader

Post by on November 05, 2020   Views: 18

Ahmed Sekou Toure

Ahmed Sekou Toure

Ahmed Sekou Toure, who was the leader of the Democratic Party of Guinea, was the president of Guinea after its independence and his revolutionary stance was deeply rooted in radical socialism. He opposed the De Gaulle referendum in 1958 and that was the turning point in the crumbling of the old French West African Federation. He was born in January 9th 1922, and died in 26th March 1984 while receiving treatment in the US

He was a Guinean politician and a Pan Africanist who played a key role in the African independence movement. As the first president of Guinea, he led his country to gain its independence from France in 1958. He was known as a charismatic and radical figure in Africa’s post-colonial history.

Toure’s activism for independence and decolonization efforts calumniated into Independence in 1958, when an overwhelming population of Guinea voted in favour of independence, rejecting French President Charles de Gaulle’s offer of joining a new federal community.

Toure’s words regarding de Gaulle’s offer strongly resonated across the Guinean public. He famously said: ”Guinea prefers poverty in freedom than riches in slavery.” It was a comment that angered de Gaulle.

”Then all you have to do is to vote ‘no’. I pledge myself that nobody will stand in the way of your independence,” Gaulle said in response to Toure’s assertion.

Guinea became the first independent French-speaking state in Africa and it was the only country which did not accept the proposal of the French president.

In 1958, Toure became the first president of what became known as The Republic of Guinea.

The French reacted by recalling all their professional people and civil servants and by removing all transportable equipment. As France threatened Toure and Guinea through economic pressure, Toure accepted support from the communist bloc and at the same time sought help from Western nations.

Sekou Toure’s Background:

Born in 1922 in Faranah, Guinea, Toure came from humble origins. His parents were uneducated and poor. Some sources say he was the grandson of Samory Toure, the legendary leader who resisted France in the late 19th Century.

Toure practiced the Muslim faith from his childhood, attending a Koranic school as well as French primary schools. At the age of 14, he displayed the spark of political activism as he led a student revolt against a French Technical school at Conakry from where he was later dismissed.

In 1940, he started working as a clerk at a company called Niger Français. In the following year he took an administrative assignment in the postal service where his interest in labour movement started increasing. Toure formed close ties with senior labour leaders and organised 76 days of the first successful strike in French-controlled Western Africa.

Then, in 1945, he became secretary-general of the Post and Telecommunications Workers’ Union and participated in the foundation of the Federation of Workers’ Union of Guinea which was linked to the World Federation of Trade Unions. He eventually became the vice president of the union.

In order to realise his aim in politics, Toure helped Felix Houphouet of Ivory Coast to form the African Democratic Rally in 1946. A strong orator, he was elected to the French National Assembly in 1951 as the representative of Guinea. How was prevented from taking his seat in the assembly, however.

He was re-elected in the following year but again prevented from taking his seat. When he was elected as mayor of Conakry by getting a majority of votes in 1955, he was finally permitted to take his place in the National Assembly.

Once he became president of Guinea, he worked toward establishing unity with Ghana but couldn’t achieve much on that front. In 1966, when Ghana’s President Kwame Nkrumah was ousted in 1966, Toure gave him asylum. He then faced a failed attack from its neighbour; Portuguese Guinea (today Guinea Bissau). Soon after he started intimidation policies against the opposition.

In post-independence Ghana, Toure won most elections, ruling the country for 26 years. Despite taking a tough stance against opposition parties, he was known as a genial leader on the international stage.

He was tasked with leading the mediation board of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation during the Iraq-Iran war. He became a powerful figure in the Organization of African Unity and played a vital role in the France-Africa summit which took place in France.

In 1984, he died during heart surgery in Cleveland, United States.

Some of his published books are: La Revolution et l’unite populaire (1946; Revolution and People Unity); Les poemes militants (1964; Militant Poems).

Below are some of his memorable quotes:

“An African statesman is not a naked boy begging from rich capitalists.”
“Without being Communists, we believe that the analytical qualities of Marxism and the organization of the people are methods especially well-suited for our country.”

Ahmed Sékou Touré, first president of Guinea, as quoted in ‘Guinea: Trouble in Erewhon’, Time, Friday 13 December 1963.

“The private trader has a greater sense of responsibility than civil servants, who get paid at the end of each month and only once in a while think of the nation or their own responsibility.”

Ahmed Sékou Touré, first president of Guinea, as quoted in ‘Guinea: Trouble in Erewhon’, Time, Friday 13 December 1963.

“We ask you therefore, not to judge us or think of us in terms of what we were — or even of what we are — but rather to think of us in terms of history and what we will be tomorrow.”

Ahmed Sékou Touré, first president of Guinea, as quoted in Rolf Italiaander’s The New Leaders of Africa, New Jersey, 1961

“We should go down to the grassroots of our culture, not to remain there, not to be isolated there, but to draw strength and substance there from, and with whatever additional sources of strength and material we acquire, proceed to set up a new form of society raised to the level of human progress.”

Ahmed Sékou Touré, as quoted in Osei Amoah’s A Political Dictionary of Black Quotations, published in London, 1989.

“To take part in the African revolution it is not enough to write a revolutionary song: you must fashion the revolution with the people. And if you fashion it with the people, the songs will come by themselves.”

Ahmed Sékou Touré, as quoted in Osei Amoah’s A Political Dictionary of Black Quotations, published in London, 1989.

“At sunset when you pray to God, say over and over that each man is a brother and that all men are equal.”

Ahmed Sékou Touré, as quoted in Robin Hallett’s, Africa Since 1875, University of Michigan Press, 1974.

“We have told you bluntly, Mr President, what the demands of the people are … We have one prime and essential need: our dignity. But there is no dignity without freedom … We prefer freedom in poverty to opulence in slavery.”

Ahmed Sékou Touré’s statement to General De Gaulle during the French leaders visit to Guinea in August 1958, as quoted in Robin Hallett’s, Africa Since 1875, University of Michigan Press, 1974.

“For the first twenty years, we in Guinea have concentrated on developing the mentality of our people. Now we are ready to move on to other business.”

Ahmed Sékou Touré. as quoted in David Lamb’s The Africans, New York 1985.

“I don’t know what people mean when they call me the bad child of Africa. Is it that they consider us unbending in the fight against imperialism, against colonialism? If so, we can be proud to be called headstrong. Our wish is to remain a child of Africa unto our death..”

Ahmed Sékou Touré, as quoted in David Lamb’s The Africans, New York 1985.

“People of Africa, from now on you are reborn in history, because you mobilize yourself in the struggle and because the struggle before you restores to your own eyes and renders to you, justice in the eyes of the world.”

Ahmed Sékou Touré, as quoted in ‘The Permanent Struggle’, The Black Scholar, Vol 2 No 7, March 1971.

“[T]he political leader is, by virtue of his communion of idea and action with his people, the representative of his people, the representative of a culture.”

Ahmed Sékou Touré, as quoted in Molefi Kete Asante and Kariamu Welsh Asante’s African Culture the Rhythms of Unity: The Rhythms of Unity Africa, World Press, October 1989.

“In the history of this new Africa which has just come into the world, Liberia has a preeminent place because she has been for each of our peoples the living proof that our liberty was possible. And nobody can ignore the fact that the star which marks the Liberian national emblem has been hanging for more than a century — the sole star that illuminated our night of dominated peoples.”

Ahmed Sékou Touré, from his ‘Liberian Independence Day Address’ of 26 July 1960, as quoted in Charles Morrow Wilson’s Liberia: Black Africans in Microcosm, Harper and Row, 1971.

“‘People are not born with racial prejudices. For example, children have none. Racial questions are questions of education. Africans learned racism form the European. Is it any wonder that they now think in terms of race — after all they’ve gone through under colonialism?”

Ahmed Sékou Touré, first president of Guinea, as quoted in Rolf Italiaander’s The New Leaders of Africa, New Jersey, 1961

Source: https://usafrikagov.com/

World (17) ‡ , Ahmed Sekou Toure,  ¶  post | , and modified on November 5th, 2020. Length: [1620] words.

Port Moresby: I have seen too many Evictions

Post by on October 31, 2020   Views: 17

Eviction in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

Eviction in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

In the past 10 years I have been and seen alot of our Papua new Guinea citizens been treated like criminals and been evicted like aminals and it breaks my heart when I see kids crying and mothers when everything they have built is taken down by police and dozers and there is nothing you can do about it.

Yes the first thing people will say is, "send them back to the village". The only problem with this is most are 2nd or 3rd generation Highlanders and NGI who have been in the city since birth.
The only reason why people buy blocks and settle in settlements is because there is no other option for citizens. What are they supposed to do when rentals are so high and the cost of the proper land and house is over K400,000. Government has no solutions.
Everyone wants a proper home and our national Government must breach the gap for citizens with a policy that will give solve the following. 1 Family 1 home.
1. Aquire land in NCD and Central Province
2. Land owners and ILG clans be partners in any land development with the state in at rate share agreement.
3. Government puts all trunk infrastructure into the new suburbs, Eda Ranu, PNG power, Telikom. Roads.
4. Each family is identified and land given as equity for small working class families.
5. Government subsidies should cut first home buyers to about K150,000 per home. With BSP facilities it should be accessible since the land is purchased by the government.
I can't wait until our citizens live in proper structured housing estates, that is the PNG dream. 2017 I put my hand up with my policy team Martin and Francis we have a working policy that will work only problem is political willingness to achieve all our dreams to own our own home.
Good night please my sisters and brothers do you live in block, renting, living with family and wantoks or do you own your own home??

Melanesia (20) ‡ development, eviction, impacts of modernisation, ,  ¶  post |  Length: [615] words.

Ancient ‘trace’ in Papuan genomes suggests previously unknown expansion out of Africa

- Our New Guinean Elders always maintain that We originated from here, in this island.

Post by on October 25, 2020   Views: 16

Several major studies, published today, concur that virtually all current global human populations stem from a single wave of expansion out of Africa. Yet one has found 2% of the genome in Papuan populations points to an earlier, separate dispersal event – and an extinct lineage that made it to the islands of Southeast Asia and Oceania.

A new study of human genomic diversity suggests there may have in fact been two successful dispersals out of Africa, and that a “trace” of the earlier of these two expansion events has lingered in the genetics of modern Papuans.

Three major genetic studies are published today in the same issue of Nature. All three agree that, for the most part, the genomes of contemporary non-African populations show signs of only one expansion of modern humans out of Africa: an event that took place sometime after 75,000 years ago.

Two of the studies conclude that, if there were indeed earlier expansions of modern humans out of Africa, they have left little or no genetic trace. The third, however, may have found that ‘trace’.

This study, led by Drs Luca Pagani and Toomas Kivisild from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, has found a “genetic signature” in present-day Papuans that suggests at least 2% of their genome originates from an even earlier, and otherwise extinct, dispersal of humans out of Africa.

Papuans and Philippine Negritos are populations that inhabit Papua New Guinea and some of the surrounding islands in Southeast Asia and Oceania. In the genomes of these populations, the researchers discovered more of the African ‘haplotypes’ – groups of genes linked closely enough to be inherited from a single source – than in any other present-day population.

Extensive analysis on the extra 2% of African haplotypes narrowed down the split between African (Yoruban) and Papuan lineages to around 120,000 years ago – a remarkable 45,000 years prior to the very earliest that the main African expansion could have occurred.

The study analysed genomic diversity in 125 human populations at an unprecedented level of detail, based on 379 high resolution whole genome sequences from across the world generated by an international collaboration led by the Cambridge team and colleagues from the Estonian Biocentre.

Lead researcher Luca Pagani said: “Papuans share for most part same evolutionary history as all other non-Africans, but our research shows they may also contain some remnants of a chapter that is also yet to be described.

“While our research is in almost complete agreement with all other groups with regard to a single out-of-Africa event, this scenario cannot fully account for some genetic peculiarities in the Papuan genomes we analysed.”

Pagani says the sea which separates the ‘ecozones’ of Asia and Australasia may have played a part: “The Wallace line is a channel of deep sea that was never dry during the ice ages. This constant barrier may have contributed to isolating and hence preserving the traces of the otherwise extinct lineage in Papuan populations.”

Toomas Kivisild said: “We believe that at least one additional human expansion out of Africa took place before the major one described in our research and others. These people diverged from the rest of Africans about 120,000 years ago, colonising some land outside of Africa. The 2% of the Papuan genome is the only remaining trace of this otherwise extinct lineage.”

The Estonian Biocentre’s Dr Mait Metspalu said: “This endeavour was uniquely made possible by the anonymous sample donors and the collaboration effort of nearly one hundred researchers from 74 different research groups from all over the world.”

Metspalu’s colleague Richard Villems added: “Overall this work provides an invaluable contribution to the understanding of our evolutionary past and to the challenges that humans faced when settling down in ever-changing environments.”

Researchers say the deluge of freely available data will serve as future starting point to further studies on the genetic history of modern and ancient human populations.

Melanesia (20) ‡ , genome, human race  ¶  post | , and modified on October 25th, 2020. Length: [725] words.

Brazil drastically reduces controls over suspicious Amazon timber exports

Post by on March 15, 2020   Views: 57

  • Forest degradation nearly doubled in the Brazilian Amazon last year, rising from 4,946 square kilometers in 2018, to 9,167 square kilometers in 2019. Experts say this is likely due to soaring illegal timber harvesting and export under President Jair Bolsonaro.
  • To facilitate illegal harvesting of rare and valuable timber, like that of the Ipê tree, whose wood can sell for up to $2,500 per cubic meter at Brazilian export terminals, Bolsonaro’s environment officials have reversed regulations that formerly outlawed suspicious timber shipments, making most such exports legal.
  • Experts say that the relaxation of illegal export regulations not only protects the criminal syndicates cutting the trees in Amazonia, but also shields exporter Brazil, and importers in the EU, UK, US and elsewhere, preventing them from being accused of causing Amazon deforestation via their supply chains.
  • Activists fear overturned timber export regulations will embolden illegal loggers, who will escalate invasions onto indigenous and traditional lands, as well as within conservation units. More than 300 people were assassinated over the past decade as the result of land and natural resource conflicts in the Brazilian Amazon.
IBAMA logging inspection in Uruará, Pará state in October 2017. Since Jair Bolsonaro came to power on 1 January 2019, budget cuts have resulted in regulatory field operations being severely curtailed. Image courtesy of IBAMA.

At the end of last year, Brazilian environmentalist Carlos Rittl sent out a perplexed tweet, accompanied by a graph, showing that forest degradation had almost doubled in the Brazilian Amazon in 2019 under the government of Jair Bolsonaro.

Forest degradation soared to 9,167 square kilometers (3,540 square miles) last year as compared to 4,946 square kilometers (1,910 square miles) in 2018, based on data obtained from Deter-B, the satellite monitoring system used by Brazil’s International Institute for Space Research (INPE) to detect near real-time deforestation.

Forest degradation in the Amazon and elsewhere in Brazil often gets its start when loggers hack out rough tracks into the forest to cut and remove valuable timber. Even though the loggers leave most trees untouched, the forest loses almost as much biodiversity as it would if it were clear-cut. It also becomes more vulnerable to drought and forest fires.

In recent years, forest degradation was significantly curbed by Brazil’s strict rules blocking suspicious timber exports. What changed and caused the sudden surge in 2019, Rittl wondered?

Amazon timber allegedly illegally harvested in Pará state. Note the lack of license plates. Image by Sue Branford.

Rejiggering timber export regulations

The environmentalist got the answer to his query last week when Reuters reported that during 2019 Brazil exported “thousands of cargoes of wood from an Amazonian port without authorization from the federal environment agency [IBAMA], increasing the risk that they originated from illegally deforested land.” An IBAMA employee told Reuters off-the-record that at one port in Pará, over half of the timber exported last year was not authorized.

According to a report published by the news website, Intercept Brasil, the IBAMA office in Pará tried to fix this embarrassing revelation, not by tightening its monitoring procedures, but by relaxing its regulations, turning what looked suspiciously like illegal imports into legal shipments abroad.

The report revealed that, in February, Walter Mendes Magalhães Junior, a retired military police officer from São Paulo state, who last October was appointed IBAMA Superintendent for Pará State (despite lacking experience in environmental regulation), had issued a retroactive export license for five containers of suspicious timber being held by customs authorities in the U.S., Belgium and Denmark.

The timber belonged to Tradelink, a British company, which boasts on its website of its “27 years of experience” and “its high quality product lines.” With Magalhães’ action, Tradelink salvaged cargoes together worth R$795,000 (US$168,258). In a document written at the time, Magalhães said that his help to Tradelink was not a one-off, as he would take similar “emergency action” to help “other companies that found themselves in a similar situation.”

When questioned by Intercept Brasil, Magalhães said that Tradelink had asked for export authorization, but IBAMA had not been able to deal with the request in a timely fashion. Magalhães explained that, with “very few employees,” IBAMA could not respond adequately to the “huge demands” it faced. As a result, the agency’s investigative oversight was summarily bypassed.

IBAMA Superintendent for Pará State, Walter Mendes Magalhães Junior. Image by Denis Bonelli / SSP.

Legalizing deforestation with a pen stroke

These irregular exports of hard timber are not limited to Pará state. Alexandre Saraiva, head of the federal police for Amazonas state, sounded an alarm at a press conference after carrying out two operations to combat export fraud last September. He estimated that 90% of timber leaving Legal Amazônia was being illegally harvested. Legal Amazônia is vast — covering all, or parts, of nine Brazilian states.

After a public outcry surrounding events in Pará, environmentalists expected Eduardo Bim, IBAMA’s president under the Bolsonaro administration, to allocate more staff to monitor timber exports to ensure that such flouting of regulations didn’t occur in future. However, Bim reacted very differently, navigating a bureaucratic exit from the conundrum similar to the one adopted by Magalhães.

Bim took advantage of the lack of press scrutiny during Carnival at the end of February by quietly revoking a 2011 IBAMA policy requiring agency authorization before forest products could be given an export licence. Now authorization will only be required for species of trees threatened with extinction or in other special circumstances. In effect, he opened the spigot wide for large scale illegal timber shipments from the Brazilian Amazon.

Annual area of degraded Brazilian Amazon forest through selective logging from 2015-2019. Data provided by INPE, image by Carlos Ritll and Infoclima on Twitter.

With the stroke of a pen, Bim ensured that all future unauthorized timber exports, previously regarded as illegal, would become legal. But, despite this bureaucratic sleight of hand, the likelihood remains just as high as ever that this now “legal” timber will have been illegally logged from indigenous territories or protected land, as nothing on the ground has changed. The rule revision horrified some IBAMA staff. According to Reuters, Bim overruled the opinion of five IBAMA experts.

According to Intercept Brasil, Bim made his decision in response to demands from Brazil’s timber industry. The Centre of Pará Industries, a lobbying group, celebrated Bim’s action in a press release saying that the measure “put in order exports of legal and authorized timber from Brazil and, particularly, Amazônia.”

But Bim’s actions made many IBAMA staff very unhappy. One employee, who spoke to Intercept Brasil off-the-record, said that personnel burst out laughing when Bim told them they will have access “a posteriori” (that is, after the event) to export data provided by the companies. “What use will it be then?” lamented the employee.

What some IBAMA staff and environmentalists fear is that this regulatory manipulation will effectively “launder” questionable timber, not only protecting illegal loggers at the wood’s point of origin, but also sparing the nation of Brazil from deforestation accusations. At the same time, it will shield countries and major retailers receiving the valued timber at the far end of the supply chain in the EU, UK, US and elsewhere, preventing their green reputations from being linked to, and tarnished by, illegal Amazon deforestation.

Bim was the first major appointment announced in December 2018 by Ricardo Salles, the soon-to-be environment minister under President Jair Bolsonaro. Salles has never hidden his siding with the timber industry, even when illegal loggers attacked IBAMA staff. Following the minister’s guidelines, Bim has made it difficult for IBAMA staff to talk to the press. After the recent reports by Reuters and Intercept Brasil, Bim reacted by repeating his demand that staff refer all press requests to IBAMA’s Department of Communications.

Ipê (Handroanthus albus), one of the most valuable tree species in the world, and a popular target of illegal loggers. Image by Hermínio Lacerda / Banco de Imagens do IBAMA.

Threat of violence

The lax new regulations will allow illegal logging crime syndicates to operate with a free hand in the Amazon, not even having to maintain a veneer of legality, say human rights activists who fear that violence will escalate as timber cutters invade the lands held by indigenous and traditional communities.

At the beginning of 2019, Amazon activists Osvalinda and Daniel Pereira, whose story has been reported by Mongabay, had to leave their plot of land in the Areia Settlement in the west of Pará due to increased death threats from illegal loggers. “The number of trucks transporting timber increased and with it the pressure on us,” said Osvalinda.

The couple lived at the center of an illegal timber hotspot. In 2017 alone, loggers using the road passing through the Areia Settlement illegally extracted an estimated 23,000 cubic meters (812,237 cubic feet) of ipê, an extremely valuable hardwood, from the Riozinho do Anfrísio Extractivist Reserve, according to the Brazilian NGO, Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA). The shipments were worth R$208 million (US$168,258).

Ipê is among the most valuable tree species in the world. The high value of Ipê wood —made into flooring or decking for upscale European or US homes — can sell for up to $2,500 per cubic meter at Brazilian export terminals. Loggers must penetrate deep into rainforests to harvest the trees, creating roads later used by other invaders.

The Human Rights Watch report, Rainforest Mafias – How Violence and Impunity Fuel Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon, analyzed 28 assassinations and 40 cases of death threats in the region, and offered strong evidence that criminals see activists and resistors as an obstacle to illegal logging. One reason for the authorities’ failure to stem the violence, the Human Rights Watch concluded, is the recent weakening of environmental crime monitoring.

IBAMA officers conduct a timber inspection in the years before Bolsonaro took office. They measure the volume of timber and confirm botanical identification at a sawmill suspected of receiving illegal Ipê logs in Pará state. Experts say that fraud is likely occurring along the entire Brazilian timber supply chain. Image © Marizilda Cruppe / Greenpeace.

One indication of this weakening is the decline in penalties imposed by IBAMA for such crimes. In 2019, the number of environmental fines fell by 34% to 9,745, the lowest in 24 years. The value of the fines fell even more heavily, by 43%, to R$2.9 billion (US$614 million). This is the lowest level of fines since 1995, when Brazil was setting records for Amazon deforestation. If the past is any indication, those fines will go mostly uncollected, and eventually may be forgiven altogether.

Meanwhile, over the past decade, more than 300 people, many of them leading activists and leaders, were assassinated as the direct result of land and natural resource conflicts in the Brazilian Amazon, according to the Catholic Church’s Pastoral Land Commission (CPT).

People living in the forest today, in the midst of this brutal conflict and often far from law enforcement, now worry that the Bolsonaro administration’s weakening of regulations governing timber exports will leave them at the mercy of emboldened timber harvesting crime syndicates.

Osvalinda fears that human tragedy will come hot on the heels of 2019’s record levels of forest degradation. “With so many indications of growing impunity,” she says, “I can only think in great sadness that the next record to be broken will be the number of deaths in the countryside.”

Banner image caption: A raid by IBAMA agents — conducted previous to the Bolsonaro administration — seized this timber illegally harvested in an Amazon indigenous reserve. Image courtesy of IBAMA.

by Thais Borges and Sue Branford on 11 March 2020 Source: https://news.mongabay.com/

World (17) ‡ Brazil, , timber  ¶  post | , and modified on March 15th, 2020. Length: [2740] words.

Indonesian police charge indigenous men in dispute over nutmeg plantation

Post by on February 28, 2020   Views: 14

  • Police in Indonesia have charged two indigenous men with vandalizing heavy equipment after a confrontation with a company accused of illegally logging their ancestral land.
  • The company, CV Sumber Berkat Makmur, has a concession to cultivate nutmeg trees in East Seram district, Maluku province, but it’s unclear whether the ancestral land of the Sabuai indigenous community falls within the concession.
  • Activists and local lawmakers have called for a halt to the company’s activities while the uncertainty about its permit is cleared up.
  • The case is just the latest in Indonesia in which local authorities have opted to pursue criminal charges against communities mired in land disputes with companies.

AMBON, Indonesia — Activists in Indonesia have called on police to drop criminal charges against two indigenous men who took part in a confrontation against a company accused of illegally logging their ancestral forest.

Police in East Seram district, in the province of Maluku, have charged Stefanus Ahwalam and Khaleb Yamarua, of the Sabuai indigenous community, with causing damage to the property of plantation company CV Sumber Berkat Makmur.

They were among 26 indigenous people arrested by the police on Feb. 17 following a confrontation over the company’s logging activities in forested area deemed sacred by the community. The 24 others were released without charge on the complaint filed by the company, while Stefanus and Khaleb face a possible prosecution that could see them jailed for more than two and a half years.

“This can’t be tolerated. This is an environmental crime that must be resolved,” Usman Bugis, director of the environmental group Nanaku Maluku, told local media. “After damaging our customary forest, [the company] is now persecuting our people.”.

A map of the Maluku Islands province, in red, in eastern Indonesia. Image by TUBS via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

The case is the latest in a long list of disputes between forest communities and the companies laying claim to the land. As with most of those other cases, the authorities appear to have prioritized the company’s grievances over those of the community, according to the Sabuai.

The community says it had previously consented to CV Sumber Berkat Makmur, which has a permit to cultivate nutmeg trees, operating in three other locations in the area, but not in the ancestral forest on Mount Ahwale, where the Sabuai bury their dead. On the morning of Feb. 17, a group of Sabuai men observed workers from the company loading up a truck with logs at the site in question. They demanded the workers stop and leave the area, but the workers refused.

A scuffle broke out, during which the indigenous men reportedly vandalized the heavy equipment on site and confiscated the keys. The company subsequently reported the incident to police, leading to the arrests. But the community says it plans to fight back, and has secured a March 12 court date for a pretrial motion to get the charges against Stefanus and Khaleb thrown out.

“How dare the company encroach into a location that’s prohibited by the community?” Niko Ahwalam, the Sabuai chief, said in a statement received by Mongabay on Feb. 22.

“Our action is solely to defend our rights on the forest and mountain that the company has grabbed. The forest is highly sacred. There lie the graves of our ancestors, and the site itself was the old village of the Sabuai people.”

Sabuai men at the disputed site amid logging equipment belonging to CV Sumber Berkat Makmur. Image courtesy of the Sabuai indigenous community.

A key question in the case, and one obscured by the opaque permitting process in Indonesia, is whether the Sabuai ancestral forest falls within the concession awarded to CV Sumber Berkat Makmur in 2018. Mongabay has been unable to access the company’s plantation maps as of the time of this writing.

Imanuel Darusman, a director at CV Sumber Berkat Makmur, told reporters that the company had all the required permits to operate in the forest, including to clear trees ahead of planting and sell the timber. He said the company had also fulfilled all its promises to the Sabuai community as agreed on by both sides, including employing 70 community members. Imanuel said this was the first dispute to arise between the two sides since CV Sumber Berkat Makmur began operating there, and suggested other parties were to blame for inciting opposition to his company’s operations.

Here, as in much of Indonesia, the driving factor behind the dispute over indigenous land is the lack of formal title. Prior to a landmark 2013 court ruling, all indigenous lands across the country were considered state land, and were parceled out accordingly by the authorities for plantations, logging concessions, mines and more. The court ruling relinquished the state’s control over the land, but notably did not order it handed back to the respective communities. Instead, the government has had to do that on a case-by-case basis, and progress has been slow.

In the case of the Sabuai, the local government must first formally recognize that the Sabuai are an indigenous community, said Leny Patty, head of the Maluku provincial chapter of the Indigenous People’s Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN). This recognition, issued in the form of a bylaw, can then be used by the Sabuai to apply to the central government for formal indigenous land rights and a title to their forest.

“If we have this indigenous rights bylaw, companies won’t be able to just come in and grab the rights of the Maluku people,” she said. “All of the forests in Maluku are customary forests.”

Police release most of the Sabuai men arrested after the Feb. 17 confrontation with workers from CV Sumber Berkat Makmur. Image courtesy of the East Seram Police. Police release most of the Sabuai men arrested after the Feb. 17 confrontation with workers from CV Sumber Berkat Makmur. Image courtesy of the East Seram Police.

With the case shrouded in uncertainty, pressure is growing for a freeze on CV Sumber Berkat Makmur’s operations to investigate the complaints by the Sabuai.

The Sabuai Student Alliance has filed a police report against the company, alleging illegal forest clearing without the requisite permit. It says the community was left out of the process of carrying out an environmental impact analysis for the plantation, and thus any permit issued to the company on the basis of that analysis cannot be valid.

Abraham Tulalessy, an environmental law expert at Pattimura University in Ambon, the provincial capital, has backed the calls for a police probe into the permit issue.

“The company must be investigated,” he said, adding the Sabuai community was the victim in the dispute.

The provincial legislature has also called on the company to temporarily halt its forest-clearing activity on the disputed land. It says the provincial forestry department should evaluate the company’s operations.

“The conclusion is that we must visit the site to cross-check the claims by NGOs and by officials from Sumber Berkat Makmur,” Richard Rahakbauw, a provincial legislator, said on Feb. 23.

This story was first reported by Mongabay’s Indonesia team and published here on our Indonesian site on Feb. 28, 2020.

by Nurdin Tubaka on 12 March 2020 | Adapted by Basten Gokkon, Soure: MONGABAY

Nature Care (22) ‡ Ambon, , , , ,  ¶  post | , and modified on March 15th, 2020. Length: [1706] words.

Israel’s chief rabbi calls Afro-Americans ‘monkeys’

Post by on December 22, 2019   Views: 7

Israel’s chief Rabbi, Yitzhak Yosef, has stoked controversy by describing Afro-Americans as “monkeys” during one of his weekly religious lessons.

The remark, which will prompt further discussion about entrenched racism within the country, was reported by Israeli newspaper Ynet News.

Yosef, whose status as chief rabbi is constitutionally recognised, is no stranger to inflammatory remarks having previously issued a “religious edict” encouraging the killing of any Palestinian armed with a knife.

While Yosef’s incitement of violence against Palestinians may have been overlooked his description of Afro-Americans as “monkeys” has drawn wide attention.

Read: Netanyahu says non-Jewish migrants bigger threat than terrorists

Yosef made the remarks as he cited a hypothetical story about encountering a black person in the US. He referred to black people using the pejorative Hebrew word “kushi”, which refers to a dark-skinned person usually of African descent, and called a black person a “monkey”.

“We don’t say a blessing for every negro,” said Yosef while explaining that praise and blessing is only said for the “negro” whose father and mother are white. “If you know, they had a monkey for a son, they had a son like that,” blessing shouldn’t be offered to them, he explained.

Source: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com

Uncategorized (29) ‡ ISrael, monkeys, Rabbi, racism  ¶  post | , and modified on December 22nd, 2019. Length: [334] words.