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Farewell to Renen Raz, Beloved Anti-Colonial, Queer Israeli Activist · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

Renen Raz in front of the “Apartheid Wall.” Uploaded by Ronnie Barkan on Facebook. Source.
“I'm a little bit uncomfortable with the thought that these are my last hours on this planet, that I be put to sleep, and some of you my friends will say a final goodbye, for the last time.” These were the words Israeli activist Renen Raz wrote to friend and fellow activist Ronnie Barkan less than a year ago, on December 20, 2015. He was about to undergo a life-saving operation, and decided to reach out to friends and loved ones, in case things went wrong. Less than a year later, this week on October 24, Raz passed away at the age of 28.
Raz had more to say to his friends last year, too:
I know I didn't do much in my 27 years of living, but it was the best I could do, and looking back I am proud of myself. I hope that if it is really my Last Breath I wish it can do more, to people living under a constant fear, and fighting for a better life. For them and their community. For animals and humans as one. I am fascinated by the thought of writing when I know I am taking a risk […] that might be not the best one, but it [is] something [that] need[s] to be done, and I cannot wait. Sitting on a bed which is not my own. And thinking of leaving this world beyond is not a happy place to be in. I am still young, and can offer more to my few friends, and to all the activities in which I take part. If it's the struggle in Palestine, for equality, justice, BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions]. For my life as LGBT… I never was in love, and maybe only in the very last period of time. I felt part of something, a community, a group of friends, that love care for me, and we respect each other. […] But I feel strong inside of me, just as many other time in my life so far, I am strong because I push myself to be a better man.
Raz's story began as a boy growing up in Kibbutz Dorot near the border with Gaza. He later became an anti-colonial and openly Queer activist. In an interview in 2014, Raz recalled how his upbringing in Dorot affected his politics:
Le kibboutz était entouré de cactus, et il y avait des ruines aussi. Des ruines de l’ancien village palestinien qui était là, avant qu’Israël ne soit créé et qu’on expulse les Palestiniens. On ne parlait jamais de ça, des Palestiniens qui étaient là. Lorsque j’ai découvert pour la première fois ces ruines, on ne m’a pas répondu. J’ai donc cherché par mes propres moyens, et j’ai compris que nous occupions un pays, que l’endroit où je vis se situe sur des terres volées!
The Kibbutz was surrounded by cactuses, and there were also ruins. Ruins of the ancient Palestinian village that was here, long before Israel was created and Palestinians were expelled. We never talked about that, about Palestinians being here before. When I discovered these ruins for the first time, my questions weren't answered. So I looked for answers on my own, and I understood that we were occupying a country, that the country I live in is built on stolen land!
Raz was a refusenik, a term historically associated with Soviet Jews who were denied permission to emigrate to Israel but which is now associated with Israeli Jews refusing to enlist in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in protest against its role in the Israeli occupation. For example, in 2014 a group of 43 IDF soldiers wrote an open letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying they refuse to “serve” in the Occupied Territories. In 2002, 27 reserve pilots published a letter declaring their refusal to fly assassination sorties over Gaza after 14 civilians, including children, were killed. Although the practice is not new in Israel, it is uncommon.
A member of “Boycott From Within,” an Israeli group supporting the Palestinian-led call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel, and “Anarchists Against the Wall,” Raz organized “apartheid tours” to raise awareness about the occupation. He once wrote an open letter to a theater company planning on performing in Israel, telling them:
I'm writing to you because I'm compelled to act in solidarity with my Palestinian friends, who are living under Israeli occupation and apartheid.
[…]
Remember my Palestinian friends who are living under Israeli military occupation will not be able to attend your show because they are not permitted to enter Israel!
Please don't collaborate with oppression and racism.
Please don't play for apartheid.
Please choose justice for us all.
Renen Raz at a protest in Israel-Palestine. Photo uploaded by Ronnie Barkan. Source.
Raz also stood up for LGBTQ rights and was aware of the practices of pinkwashing by the Israeli government. As the group “Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism” explains: “Pinkwashing is a part of the Brand Israel public relations campaign which attempts to hijack the queer movement to promote ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.” This discourse, as Ashley Bohrer, a queer feminist Jewish academic and co-founder of “Jews for Justice in Palestine,” explains “seeks to convince white Americans and Europeans that supporting Israel is an imperative for women, LGBTQ-identified individuals, and their allies.”
In April this year, 972mag reported the following example of pinkwashing:
The LGTBQ community in Israel is threatening to hold a huge demonstration instead of the internationally lauded annual Tel Aviv Pride Parade this year. The bold threat is the result of an announcement that the Tourism Ministry was budgeting NIS 11 million ($2.9 million) to promote the event overseas – 10 times the combined yearly budget of all LGTBQ organizations in Israel.
In January this year, Raz tweeted:
Why most #bds activists are not aware of #pinkwashing #apartheid? #lgbt right are #humanrights
— Renen Raz (@RenenRaz) 14 January 2016
Here is is talking about Pinkwashing with BDS Austria on September 11, 2015.
And here he is speaking about militarism, ultra-nationalism, and homophobia:
As soon as the news of his passing made it to social media, Israeli and Palestinian activists expressed their sympathies to his friends and family and remembered him as a dedicated activist.
The Israeli, Palestinian and international photography collective ActiveStills released a statement observing that “Renen was committed to the struggle against the Israeli occupation, taking a prominent part in the Boycott From Within campaign.” They shared two photos of Raz, one of him being arrested by the IDF during a protest against the occupation the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh in 2011 and another of him taking part in Pride Parade in West Jerusalem in 2010
We are deeply saddened by the loss of activist Renen Raz, who passed away today of illness. Our deepest condolences to his family #AATApic.twitter.com/2JOnDEK38L
— Activestills (@activestills) 24 October 2016
Taoufiq Tahani, the president of the Association France Palestine Solidarité, described him as:
Militant infatigable, il est rapidement devenu un contact important pour nos missions en Palestine, particulièrement pour le groupe jeunes de l’AFPS.
A tireless activist, he quickly became an important contact for our missions in Palestine, especially to our young members of AFPS
Mohammed Matter, the founder of Gaza Youth Breaks Out, remembered Raz fondly:
Renen was a wonderful anti-colonialist, anti-fascist, feminist, vegan, and anti-apartheid activist, despite the illness, he would not remain silent and didn't stop denouncing the atrocities of the zionist occupation. Among many others solidarity activities, Renen joined many of ours too.
The group “One Democratic State,” which advocates for a single-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, wrote:
Our comrade Renen Raz passed away today after a long struggle with a difficult disease. His kind heart rebelled against all forms of injustice and violence.
Younes Arar, from Hebron, told his more than 40,000 followers:
RIP Renen Raz, he was a true freedom, peace and justice fighter who dedicated his self for our just cause, you shall be missed and remembered…My deep condolences to his family, 24 October 2016.
Haitham Khatib, a freelance photographer from Ramallah, did the same with his followers:
Rene was above all a kind man and friend and amazing activist who visited Bil'in many times to support our Palestinian freedom struggle! We are so blessed that he joined us and we keep him in our memory and hearts! Bless you Renen! May you find peace, and love and joy in the afterlife!
Hamde Abu Rahma, another photographer from Ramallah, wrote:
Rest in peace yaa habibi ,as he used to call me when we meet before the demonstrations against the Israeli occupation .
Yoav Beirach, an Israeli activist and a member of Boycott From Within, wrote:
נשמה יקרה עדינה ומתוקה כל כך
עזב אותנו הבוקר אחרי מאבק ארוך במחלה קשה
A sweet and delicate soul left us this morning after a long battle with his illness
Finally, human rights activist Dalia VK wrote a moving farewell letter on her blog. Part of it reads:
Remember when we walked along the beach in Tel Aviv and you felt my heavy heart when I looked at the sea and you told me that this sea belonged to all Palestinians and one day we will all be able to see it again together?
Remember when you said you won’t stop until Palestine will be free?
I won’t stop for you.

author: Elia J. Ayoub


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GV Face: Global Voices on the US Elections · Global Voices
Sahar Habib Ghazi

Trump, Hillary or Stein? Even though many Global Voices contributors cannot vote in the US, we feel invested in this American presidential race like few elections before.
The questions that come to our mind: Will the US become more interventionist or isolationist? Could a woman president in the US change things for women around the world? Will the US become a harder place for immigrants and minority groups to live?
To get our angst and thoughts out every Wednesday, from October 26 to November 9, four Global Voices contributors will get together and talk about the latest news coming out of the US elections, what people outside the US think, and how our American contributors — who travel around the world and are familiar with political processes in other countries– feel about this election.
The first episode of this three-part series is a fun, fast-paced conversation between our Beirut-based social media editor Zuhour Mahmoud, our Middle East and North Africa editor Joey Ayoub, Amsterdam-based US voter and Iran contributor Tori Egherman, and Sahar Ghazi, San Francisco-based US voter and Global Voices managing editor.

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: Sahar Habib Ghazi


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Hackers Publish Kremlin Aide’s E-Mails, Allege Plan to Destabilize Ukraine · Global Voices
Isaac Webb

Vladislav Surkov. Source: Kremlin.ru.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian hacking collective “Kiberkhunta” (CyberJunta) leaked more than 2,000 e-mails from the inbox of Vladislav Surkov, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin who is often cited as a key advisor on the Kremlin’s Ukraine policy. The leaked e-mails, which are dated between September 24, 2013, and November 25, 2014, suggest an unprecedented hack into a top Kremlin official's private accounts.
The leak follows Monday's leak of two documents allegedly sent to Surkov that describe a Kremlin initiative to destabilize Ukraine between November 2016 and March 2017. The documents, also released by Kiberkhunta, include an e-mail to Surkov on August 26, 2016, from his assistant, Pavel Karpov (who Kiberkhunta says signed documents under the name “Nikolai Nikolaievich Pavlov”) titled “Priority Action Plan to Destabilize the Social-Political Situation in Ukraine,” and “Concrete Action Plan on the Promotion of the Federal Status of Zakarpattia Oblast.”
The first document details “Crankshaft,” an operation aimed at destabilizing Ukraine by working with opposition parties including Opposition Bloc (the successor to former President Viktor Yanykovych's Party of Regions), Batkivshchyna (a party led by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko), and Radical Party (a party led by populist Oleh Lyashko) to organize “nationwide protests” in the second half of November 2016.
As reported by Gordonua.com, in order to “swing public opinion,” the document calls for spreading fake video and audio clips, and screenshots of correspondence between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his allies that details corruption at the highest levels of Ukrainian politics. It suggests “secretly using” parliament deputies Mustafa Nayyem, Sergei Leshchenko, Svetlana Zalishchuk, and Olga Chervokava, who have become famous for their anti-corruption investigations.
The second document details a plan to give Zakarpattia Oblast “autonomous, federal status within the territory of Ukraine,” for which it proposes supporting local Ruthenian organizations.
RuNet Echo has not been able to verify the authenticity of the documents, though the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) has confirmed they are real: in an interview on TV station “112” on Tuesday, Aleksandr Tkachuk, the SBU head's chief of staff, said that “the majority of the documents” had been confirmed by the SBU.
Ukrainian lawmaker Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the minister of internal affairs, wrote on Facebook yesterday: “The hack of Vladislav Surkov's e-mail—it's true. The documents published by Kiberkhunta are authentic.”
Screenshot of Surkov's Leaked E-Mails
On Tuesday, the hackers also published scans of passports belonging to Surkov and his wife and children, which they claim reinforces the authenticity of the leak:
Киберхунта выложила сканы паспортов Суркова и его жены, подтвердив взлом его почты https://t.co/XDx0nTDqvS pic.twitter.com/6uVZXwyBd8
— Mikhail Golub (@golub) October 25, 2016
Kiberkhunta has posted scans of the passports of Surkov and his wife, confirming the hack of his e-mail.
Знаю Суркова больше десяти лет, ему все время что-то приписывается то ли нашими хакерами, то ли зарубежными хакерами. Он очень талантливый человек, и поэтому, естественно, все стремятся ему что-то приписывать. Чаще всего это не соответствует действительности
I've known Surkov for more than ten years, and domestic and international hackers are always trying to ascribe something to him. He's a very talented person, and therefore, naturally, everyone tries to ascribe something to him. More often than not, it doesn't correspond to reality.

author: Isaac Webb


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In Trinidad & Tobago, Video of Shooting Aftermath Doesn’t Boost Public Trust in the Police · Global Voices
Flora Thomas

Headquarters of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service in Port of Spain. Photo by BBC World Service (Nina Robinson), CC BY-NC 2.0.
Officers of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service who were involved in a fatal shooting of construction worker Adele Gilbert on October 20, 2016, are now under investigation by the country's Police Complaints Authority.
The aftermath was captured on video by the victim's sister and posted on social media, where it has been widely circulated by netizens. (The video is graphic; viewer discretion is advised.)
There was some speculation that the incident was triggered by Gilbert's enquiry about a drone camera located close to the site where he was working. Other reports have stated that Gilbert started shooting at the officers, and that he was wanted by police for several crimes, including drug trafficking and murder — but on the video, Gilbert's distraught sister says that they shot him in his chest although he “didn't do” anything. The officers insist that Gilbert was armed; onlookers claim otherwise.
The incident has stirred up a national discussion about public distrust of the police service — or at least its level of professionalism in carrying out their duties. Although netizens admitted they did not know the full story, many were quick to share their impressions. On CNC 3 television's Facebook page, Chris Marchan commented:
From what I saw in the video is no weapon, officers picking up their shells and hiding it in their pockets, no attempt to help the injured man instead carrying his body like it was a dead dog they were going to dump on the side of the road and lastly male police officers assaulting a female civilian… Now I'm not saying that the individual is innocent, idk the guy or was there but the police could of have executed their job in a better way […]
Other netizens were not convinced that the police service really deserved the criticism they were receiving. Referring to a barbershop robbery that happened on October 7, 2016, in which an off-duty police officer killed one bandit and injured the other, but had collateral damage in the form of four injured customers, one of whom later died, Christopher Peters felt that it was a “damned if they do, damned if they don't” situation:
In the last incident with the inspector in the barber shop, he was condemned for shooting at the bandits. In [another] incident […] the police officer was condemned for shooting and missing the bandits. In this incident, I don't know the circumstances but it do [sic] seem that whatever action the police take they are going to be condemned.
Facebook user Chica Emery tried to bring some balance:
The video only shows part of what happened so it's too early to condemn the police. Do you know what caused the shooting? Never be quick to judge, wait until the entire story is known.
On a discussion group thread on the Facebook page of popular news site Wired868, John Gill posted the reaction of “one guy who lives in the village and knows the [victim]”:
1. That law-abiding citizen wanted for murder and robbery.
2. The lady attack the officer.
3 yall know how many families that young man destroyed?
4. When her brother was killing people why she didn't take him in to the police?
5 let her bawl nah, he made alot of mothers bawl too!!!!!!!
But Vernal Damion Cadogan maintained that there was a lack of compassion:
This has nothing to do with what happened before he got shot or what led to his shooting. This has to do with what passes for police procedure in this place.
I know none of us would like a relative treated this way regardless of what they did.
While a 2015 media report stated that the number of people killed by police was down since 2010 when “49 people were killed by police following varying interactions with the law”, it also noted that the police have a tough job when it comes to the proliferation of illegal firearms and that 75% of the country's murders were as a result of gun use. However, the article also made the point that the slow pace of investigations and the degree to which police and eyewitness reports vary “[do] not bolster public confidence in the police service either”.
Many commenters on the Gilbert video were heartbroken hearing the cries of the victim's sister, and one Facebook user, Asha Williams-Tejada, suggested that the way the situation was handled “further eroded” public confidence in the police force.
At any rate, an investigation has been launched under Section 26 of the Police Complaints Authority Act, which states, “The Authority may conduct an investigation on its own initiative or on the basis of a complaint made by a member of the public, a police officer, a public body or authority, or the appropriate unit or a disciplinary tribunal of the Police Service”. In an official statement, the PCA asked witnesses to the incident to come forward, explaining:
This incident is a clear example of why the PCA has been lobbying support for amendments to its legislation including, but not limited to, providing the Authority with the power to solely and independently take charge of and preserve the scene in instances such as this.

author: Flora Thomas


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Russia Is Reportedly Banning LinkedIn · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

The end of LinkedIn in Russia?
LinkedIn, the world’s largest online professional network, is at risk of being blocked in Russia, where federal censors have convinced a Moscow court to outlaw the network.
A judge found that LinkedIn illegally shares non-users’ personal data without their permission. In what could have even more far-reaching consequences, the Moscow court also ruled that LinkedIn collects personal information from users in Russia without storing the data on servers located in Russia — a legal requirement introduced last year that few foreign Internet companies respect.
According to the newspaper Kommersant, federal censors decided to move against LinkedIn following repeated leaks of user data. Earlier this year, it was revealed that the company lost 167 million account credentials in a data breach in 2012 — far more than the 6.5 million accounts originally thought.
Federal censors say they turned to the courts because LinkedIn has no official representation in Russia. The network has roughly 5 million registered users in Russia (about half of them are believed to be active) and 400 million users worldwide.
In their lawsuit, Russian censors reportedly argued that LinkedIn collects and transfers data belonging to Russian citizens, including Russians who are not members of the website, violating multiple privacy laws. The court ruled in favor of the government on August 4, ordering police to take steps to restrict access to LinkedIn across the country.
At the time of this writing, LinkedIn remains accessible to most Internet users in Russia.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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Sri Lankan Tourism: Booming Again, But Mostly for the Military · Global Voices
Rezwan

Stilt fishing in the evening light—a unique tourist attraction in Sri Lanka. Image via Flickr by Thomas Keller. BY-NC-ND 2.0
Sri Lanka has been a popular tourist destination for centuries, and tourism is a key source of revenue and a driver for local economy. The Sri Lankan Civil War, which spanned more than 25 years and ended in 2009, naturally hurt the country's tourism, keeping the industry stagnate.
Tourism has been rising rapidly ever since the end of the war, however. Among many new developments, the Sri Lankan government is implementing a major 4,000-acre tourism development project 175 kilometers north of the capital Colombo at Kalpitiya, which is revered for its scenic beauty.
Raisa Wickrematunge writes in Groundviews that more than a million tourists visited Sri Lanka between January and August this year alone. This is an industry that provides thousands of people with jobs, either directly or indirectly.
There is evidence, however, that locals are being denied work in the tourism industry on a systematic basis. Wickrematunge found several local people who say they were not allowed to work for tour companies. In some cases, individuals weren't even allowed to offer their own services directly to tourists, such as boating and hospitality services. Indeed many hotels—both private facilities and those owned by the armed forces—refuse to employ local workers.
The Sri Lankan military, incidentally, is investing heavily in the tourism business. The armed forces have several hotels and resorts, many restaurants and cafes, and other tourist facilities.
Infographic courtesy Sri Lanka Campaign For Peace And Justice.
According to a recent report by Global Risk Insights, the military is using press-ganged soldiers receiving negligible wages to staff resort and entertainment venues owned by the army. A report by Society for Threatened Peoples, titled “Dark Clouds Over The Sunshine Paradise,” found that the military secures lucrative additional income through the tourism sector by employing members of the military in tourism, which allows it to beat competitors’ prices in the private sector.
Out of every tourist dollar spent in Sri Lanka, a significant portion goes to funding the military, which critics say is grossly oversized and lacks a raison d’être after the end of civil war. Instead of demilitarization, as many as 200,000 troops remain stationed in the Tamil-populated north—nearly one soldier for every ten civilians.
Board declaring the Tourism Zone in Kuchchaveli. Image via Groundviews.
The rapid development of tourism has also led to other problems. The new tourism initiatives by the military and private companies are depriving many local populations of their traditional lands, most seriously affecting community life and cultures in places like Kuchchaveli, Passikudah, Kalpitiya, Jaffna (in the Northern Province), and Panama (in the Ampara district of the Eastern Province).
Yves Bowie at Groundviews shares a few stories from these local communities:
Kuchchaveli is a small fishing village in the north-east of Sri Lanka. The people are mostly engaged in fishing and agriculture. At the end of the war, a lot of land in Kuchchaveli was occupied by the Sri Lankan Navy. The villagers had to leave their own homes, their farms, and their fishing areas. After the end of the war they wanted to return to their land but the Navy did not leave.
The villagers in Passikudah area are mostly fishermen and their families. They have been fishing in this area for generations. After the hotels were built most of them had to leave their workplaces. The boat fishermen were sent to a very small place in the corner of the bay, which they also might have to leave soon. They are under a big risk of losing their livelihood.
Also at Groundviews, Ruki Fernanda and Herman Kumar write:
Tourism must be centered on local populations and war affected peoples. Consultations with them is crucial if tourism is to act as catalyst for peace, reconciliation and development. Tourism projects should take into account their sufferings, aspirations and support their struggles for truth, justice and economic development in a sensitive way.
Tourism must not destroy or damage socio-economic-cultural practices of local communities and uproot them from their traditional lands and livelihoods. They should not be marginalized and denied economic opportunities presented. [..]
Government and military must not use tourism as means to promote their political agendas and propaganda. Memorials and other remembrance initiatives by local communities must be promoted and government must also initiate official monuments and remembrances focusing on civilians and all those affected.

author: Rezwan


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Venezuela’s Government Blocks the Recall Referendum Process, and the Opposition Cries ‘Dictatorship!’ · Global Voices
Marianne Diaz Hernandez

“Danger: High Voltage.” Photo by Flickr user Alejandro Forero Cuervo. Used under licence (CC BY 2.0)
Throughout 2016, the Venezuelan political agenda has centered on a possible recall referendum against President Nicolás Maduro, a path that in recent days has been blocked — definitively, it seems — by the government, which has repeatedly threatened that it would not allow one to happen.
The road to a recall referendum has been riddled with obstacles. The Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE in Spanish) has put up many hindrances to the process, pushed legal deadlines, and created requirements that didn't originally appear in the law. Nevertheless, those pushing for a recall finally managed to get the National Electoral Council to convene the next step of the process (gathering signatures from 20% of the electorate) during the week of October 24, 2016.
However, the petition drive was suspended unexpectedly on October 20 when following the simultaneous ruling of six tribunals, the electoral authority announced its decision to “comply with precautionary measures” and suspend the process indefinitely.
The controversial move comes as the CNE took the unilateral decision to suspend regional elections — which decide federal governorships — until 2017, despite the fact that according to constitutional deadlines, they should take place this year.
Journalist Alberto Rodríguez discussed these events as such:
Las cosas hay que llamarlas, como son, por nombre y apellido.
Por supuesto, que en Venezuela hay una dictadura.
¿Hace falta más prueba?
— Alberto Rodríguez (@AlbertoRT51) October 21, 2016
We need to call things what they are, as they are, by name.
Of course there is a dictatorship in Venezuela.
Do we need more evidence?
In a context of social, political and economic crisis, with the highest violence and inflation rates in the world (it is predicted that inflation will close out the year at 500%), and against a backdrop of grave and complex food and medicine shortages, for many Venezuelans a recall referendum was the only path that would allow the country to recover its lost institutional structures and create a governance pact.
The opposition leader and governor of Miranda state, Henrique Capriles, described the decision to put the brakes on the referendum as a “coup d'état.” Meanwhile, shortly before announcing that the recall had been suspended and just before leaving for a tour of Iran, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, President Nicolás Maduro urged his supporters in a speech not to accept “other elections where the oligarchy may achieve some triumph.”
Francisco Toro, editor of the news website Caracas Chronicles, emphasized in a piece for the Washington Post newspaper how unexpected the measure was for the greater part of Venezuela:
Even for battle-hardened Venezuelans, it all came as quite a shock. A major signature-gathering drive to officially activate the recall vote was scheduled for next week. Opposition activists were busy preparing their plans to get out their voters to sign. No one, not even the military, seemed to have been expecting this.
Meanwhile, the president of the National Assembly, Henry Ramos Allup, declared via his Twitter account:
Un gobierno democrático consulta al pueblo.Una dictadura le huye a consulta electoral. Matan RR (referendum revocatorio) porque gobierno narcorrupto es dictadura.
— Henry Ramos Allup (@hramosallup) October 21, 2016
A democratic government consults the people. A dictatorship flees the electoral vote. They are killing the RR (recall referendum) because a drug-corrupted government is a dictatorship.
In response to the suspension, protests sprung up over the weekend in different parts of the country, and the National Legislative Assembly, which is controlled by a coalition of opposition parties, convened a special session this past Sunday, October 23. The congressional session, however, was interrupted with the entry of pro-government agitator groups onto the floor.
Several of the parties in the opposition coalition have asked the people to join together in civil disobedience. In the context of this debate, citizens have called on political leaders to concentrate on the issues of national importance:
El problema no es ni “el hambre”, ni “el pueblo” ni la “mayoría”; es el Estado de derecho que no existe. Foco, por favor, diputados.
— Erik Del Bufalo (@ekbufalo) October 23, 2016
The problem is not “hunger,” nor “the people,” nor the “majority;” it is the rule of law that doesn't exist. Focus, please, legislators.
During the session, the National Assembly decided to proceed with the immediate appointments of CNE's new rectors and magistrates of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice — the first steps in the process of a possible indictment against Nicolás Maduro. It is important to point out, however, that the Supreme Tribunal of Justice previously declared that all measures taken by the National Assembly would be considered invalid.
The agreement approved by the National Assembly includes a series of bullet points that aim to restore institutional structures to the country:
¿Qué establece el acuerdo que acaba de aprobar la Asamblea Nacional? pic.twitter.com/yajIGcfMUW
— Naky Soto (@Naky) October 23, 2016
Tweet: What does the agreement that the National Assembly just approved establish?
Image: Agreement for the restitution of constitutional order
In spite of taking these steps, some citizens are still discontent with what they consider to be an insufficient response by the National Assembly:
Se le vendió a la gente que hoy en la AN sería la madre de todas las batallas contra el régimen. Ameritaba declararse en sesión permanente
— Daniel Lara Farías (@DLaraF) October 23, 2016
What was sold to the people was that today in the National Assembly the mother of all battles against the regime would happen. It deserved to declare itself permanently in session
In response to the Assembly's special session, the pro-government leader and legislator Diosdado Cabello wrote:
Terminó el show de la AN: Maduro sigue siendo Presidente, el poder legislativo tocando fondo, un Pueblo Chavista moralizado y en combate
— Diosdado Cabello R (@dcabellor) October 23, 2016
The National Assembly's show ended: Maduro continues to be president, the legislative power hit rock bottom, Chavez People are moralized and in combat
The National Assembly's authority, won by the opposition's coalition in the 2015 elections, has been ignored by the ruling party, which controls the remaining four public powers and even decided to approve the national budget for 2017 last week without authorization from the legislative body.
Apparently, the immediate future of Venezuelan politics is a game of chess with very few available moves.

author: Marianne Diaz Hernandez


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Yet Another Socio-Environmentalist Is Murdered in Amazonia · Global Voices
ISA

Luiz Alberto Araújo, environmental secretary in Altamira, shot dead on October 13. Photo: Prefecture of Altamira, use with permission.
This text, written by Letícia Leite, was published originally on the website of the Instituto Socioambiental. It is reproduced here via a content-sharing partnership.
Earlier this month, on October 13, two assassins on a motorcycle murdered Luís Alberto Araújo, the environmental secretary of the Brazilian town of Altamira, Pará State. The 54-year-old was killed in front of his family, according to the Civil Police, as they were walking into their apartment building on the town's outskirts.
The killers reportedlu fled in the direction of the Brasil Novo district and there is still no information about their identity or who may have ordered the assassination.
This murder only adds to the alarming number of such attacks targeting environmentalists in Amazonia, the world capital of such killings.
Araújo had previously served as secretary for the environment in São Felix do Xingu, also in Pará, where he led a pact to promote environmental registration across nearly all rural properties. He then ended up in the crosshairs of illegal land-grabbers and deforesters, who came to threaten him.
In Altamira, Araújo led efforts to install urban sanitation and license sanitary landfills in the city. He also implemented environmental registration in traditionally resistant areas, making progress in the struggle against the region's devastating deforestation.
Araújo gained a reputation for bringing integrity to the application of environmental legislation.
“Altamira has lost an excellent official, always ready to demand the fulfillment of environmental conditions from directors of the construction of the factory in Belo Monte, and [always ready] to lend support to local populations and other affected people,” recalls Rodrigo Junqueira, the coordinator of Instituto Socioambiental's Xingu Program. Junqueira says it is crucial that the federal and state-level governments make efforts to investigate the crime and punish those responsible.

author: ISA


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Carnival Designer Apologises for Insensitivity to Trinidad’s Colonial Trauma, But Was It Enough? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Madame Mille Fleur and Monsieur Mille Fleur” — Costumes in the 2017 Mac Farlane Carnival band “Cazabon — The Art of Living”. Photo by Gary Jordan, used with permission.
Trinidad and Tobago carnival designer Brian Mac Farlane, the man behind the controversial carnival band “Cazabon—The Art of Living”, has issued an apology regarding his 2017 presentation, which some people believe shows a lack of sensitivity to the country's turbulent colonial history.
Mac Farlane also announced he would remove the portrayals to which people took the most offense — “La Belle Dame and Garçon de la Maison” (“The Beautiful Lady and the House Boy”).
Prior to his statement on October 25, Mac Farlane hosted a Facebook Live event in which he was joined by representatives of Citizens for Conservation, The National Trust and The Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago.
In the nearly hour-long video, Mac Farlane characterised the mid-1800s to early 1900s—the years in which renowned Trinidadian painter Michel-Jean Cazabon came into his own—as “a wonderful, beautiful era for our country”, when art and fashion were vibrant, and architecture was “in its perfect glory”.
In a statement issued later, Mac Farlane said that by invoking Cazabon in the title of his work, he wished to “help protect and preserve our heritage spaces the best way I knew how – through art, by interpreting the story of that time.”
“While I want to always ensure that I accurately reflect our incredibly multidimensional history,” he continued. “I understand that there is still a lot for me to explore, to unearth, to unlearn and to learn. My intention was never to offend anyone, or to come across as ignorant of our truth, or to idealise insensitivity. It was to depict the clothing of the time. However, I understand how and why it hurt some of us. And it is with this realization that I have made the decision to not move forward with this particular section from the 2017 presentation. I am deeply, deeply sorry for the pain that I have caused.”
Mac Farlane said he welcomed “the healthy debate, because it can lead to a deeper understanding of our growth as a connected people,” and asserted that he had “learned a lot from this experience”. His hope, he said, was that “these conversations build us up to listen to each other, journey with our fellow citizen, act as messengers of change and educate future generations as to the richness and diverse nature of our identity and heritage.”
But both Mac Farlane's apology and his decision to remove the “La Belle Dame and Garçon de la Maison” portrayals were met with mixed reactions.
Gary Jordan, the photographer who shot the images of the costumes, was satisfied with Mac Farlane's statement:
You sir are magnanimous in your response to a situation that if depicted in a movie or other medium, would have been praised for efforts showcasing our history. A complicated, skewed and cosmopolitan history, but it is who we are none the less. I salute you sir for standing up and dealing with the matter head on, even though I believe if we begin to sensor artists for the sake of the masses we are indeed going down the wrong path. Love and understanding is and will always be the only answer.
Other Facebook users felt that Mac Farlane should not have caved into the pressure and pulled the costume designs at all.
In the view of writer and political commentator Rhoda Bharath the objections weren't just about one costume. “Apologising for racism is supporting racism” Bharath added, “and supporting racism is essentially racism.”
In the comments thread of a public post by activist and carnival enthusiast Tillah Willah, one Facebook user suggested that Mac Farlane needed to “go back to the drawing board”, while another wondered whether pulling the section was enough.
Another commenter, however, remarked:
Wow. He withdrew the portrayal with such grace and this is the response of you all? Be careful that fighting for the cause becomes more about the fight. Then we all lose.
Tillah Willah disagreed, calling out “the lack of historical awareness that prompted this whole debacle in the first place”:
if he had done his research before he would have avoided creating such a tone-deaf presentation. and if he had done his research he would have been able to stand by the design, regardless, without apology. that was not the case and I am terribly bored of making concessions for everyone when the same courtesy is not extended the other way.
In another status update, she explained:
Our history is complicated and troubling and painful and horrendous. Our history is red blood fertilising black soil. Our history is beauty out of ugliness.
Asking that those complications be acknowledged is not censorship. It is a cry against the continued erasure, not just of African contributions to this society but also to the largely ignored and denied Indigenous presence.
Stop whitewashing our history.
It is wrong
It is inaccurate
It is disrespectful
Commenting on the controversy in the press, Cazabon's descendants expressed concern that the negative reception of Mac Farlane's interpretation of the artist's themes could have an adverse effect on Cazabon's reputation. They said Mac Farlane should have consulted with family members beforehand.
Kevin Browne, a Trinidadian academic teaching in the United States, also read Mac Farlane's presentation as a “performance” of “erasure.” According to Browne, “It's not that they don't know that their lives depend on those they oppress. They just prefer not to see…”:
This ‘unseeing’ is a performance that we, the unseen, find both baffling and familiar. So much so that while we may justifiably rail and agitate for recognition, we often find the performances so convincing that we struggle to see ourselves.
Colonialism is real.
Empire is real.
Trauma is real.
Racism is real–even here, where so many still deny it.
The joy and beauty and pleasure are real, as well. We dare not forget that–it keeps us alive.
But the struggle? The struggle is real.
And if ‘past is prologue’, we should not only find the portrayal of suffering unsurprising in these times–in Mas or in politics. More importantly and more usefully, we should be just as inclined to recall and enact the different forms of resistance to the cause of that suffering.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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From China to Indonesia to Timor Leste, Discover the Beats of Asian Hip Hop · Global Voices
Juke Carolina

Anuku Lorosae. Screenshot from his music video for “Kata Intimida”.
Hip-hop in Asia is nothing new, although it's an art that's almost always categorized as a non-mainstream genre or indie. Throughout most parts of Asia, oral traditions are a popular yet dying art form. In this context, hip-hop has become a non-conventional way to narrate stories appealing to youth.
Take Yacko from Indonesia for instance, a female MC who's also a university lecturer and a mother. For over a decade she's been breaking the stereotypes of what a modern Indonesian Muslim women can do and wear. Her latest track “Thang” talks about how she'll be doing things she loves without pressure or judgement from others. Yacko almost always raps in English.
Only 17 years old, Jakarta-based Brian Imanuel (a.k.a Rich Chigga) debuted his single “Dat Stick” earlier this year and went straight to the number 4 spot on the Billboard Bubble Up chart during its first week. This makes him the first Indonesian vlogger to break into the Billboard Chart. His self-produced video clip portraying him rocking a pink buttoned-up polo shirt and a fanny pack, and bouncing on what appears to be his parents’ sofa received a positive review from well-known American rapper Ghostface Killah. Later on, Ghostface Killah, one of the original members of East Coast rap group Wu Tang Clan, made an appearance on the remix version of Dat Stick.
From the Lusofone world comes Anuku Lorosae. Forced to leave his war-torn hometown in Timor-Leste at the age of 9, Paulo Egidio Carvalho Dos Santos (his real name) is now based in the United Kingdom.
He began to rap in Portugal with a group called Rap Firma in 2002; that's when he took up the moniker Anuku Lorosae. “Anuku” is his nickname at home. “Lorosae” is a word in Tetun that means “sunrise”. This alludes to Timor-Leste, which is known as The Land of Sunrise.
He raps in three different languages: Tetun, Portuguese and Creole. In his recent song “Kata Intimida,” Anuku talks about his personal struggle and Timor Leste's history facing Indonesian occupation. The lyrics express his indignation against abusive politicians and the shameful disparity between the elite classes and the poor in a free and democratic state.
When asked about what message he intends to put across with his music, Anuku says;
A vida é assim prega nos supresas, a minha vivência, experiências q tive é óbvio relatar a realidade que ronda em nosso redor principalmente na minha pátria timor Leste. Quero fazer que poucos hoje fazem hoje em dia que é tentar abrir mais visões para os mais novos.
This is how life is, it trick us with surprises, my life, my experiences obviously report the reality that surrounds us, especially in my country East Timor. I want to do what few do nowadays: try to open more views to what's new.
Artists of Filipino descent probably were the first ones to break into mainstream hip hop. Filipino American (shortened to Fil-Am) luminaries include Chad Hugo from N.E.R.D and Allan Pineda Lindo (who goes by the stage name apl.de.ap) from the Black Eyed Peas.
Philippines MC Mike Swift, born Michael Olave, combines his love for rap and basketball with activism. Through his project Pinoy Hoops, he brought basketball superstars like Lebron James, Jordan Clarkson, and Paul George to Tenement, an urban poor community in Taguig City, Philippines.
Mainland Chinese hip hop group Higher Brothers has been all the buzz on the underground scene despite web censorship.
They're one of the few Chinese talents using the Sichuan dialect from a province located in the southwestern part of the country, away from the Chinese hip hop epicenter of Beijing.
Their most recent work, Isabellae, talks about ambition and hard work. The song was produced by Ernest Brown a.k.a Charlie Heat, who previously worked with big chart toppers such as Kanye West, Ty Dolla $ign and Pusha T.
Growing up in government housing project, rapper Kohh said that he initially chose hip hop to avoid street violence and drugs. Despite the fact that hip hop is unpopular in Japan, he's determined to make the genre more accepted by the public. He raps about personal experiences and hardships that he and his friends grew up with.
Dumbfounded, who is of Korean descent, brings hard-hitting topics into his lyrics, such as Hollywood's white washing in his track ‘Safe‘ and gun violence in chart topping ‘Harambe’. The latter went to the top of on Global Spotify Viral chart.

author: Juke Carolina


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Leaked Xinjiang Police Report Describes Circumvention Tools as ‘Terrorist Software’ · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The Great Firewall of China. Image from Digital Trends.
A police report leaked last week from China's Xinjiang province describes Internet censorship circumvention tools as “second class violent and terrorist software.”
The leak raises serious questions about the consequences of using VPNs, web proxies and other tools that help Internet users get around censorship and other obstacles (like slow speeds) in online networks. While some companies offering these services are banned or disrupted in China, others are fully licensed to operate. It has been estimated that 1-3% of China's internet users use circumvention tool to visit overseas websites.
The leak, which was firstly appeared on mainland Chinese social media but deleted quickly, has made waves in a number of overseas Chinese news outlets, prompting widespread concern about the legalities of using such tools. As one user on Reddit put it:
I understand this isn't in all of China but if I travel to China with a VPN already installed on my laptop could I technically get arrested?
The report (below) was filed by a prefecture police inspection team on October 13 in Changji City, a Muslim autonomous area in Xinjiang, where the majority of population belongs to the politically marginalized Uyghur ethnic group. The report is to seek help from the county-level police to follow up on the case.
According to a report from Solidot.org [original post was deleted, content has been republished on Letscorp], the circumvention tool described in the report is a VPN (virtual private network), which allows users to access censored websites. The report calls it a “violent and terrorist software”.
Filed under the category of “online violent and terrorist acts,” the report's subject line reads: “a netizen in Changji city is suspected of downloading violent and terrorist circumvention tool.”
Leaked crime report document. Original deleted, copy via letscorp.net
The descriptive text of the report reads as follows:
A netizen in Changji (online account number: XXXXX IP: XXXXX) is suspected of downloading a violent and terrorist circumvention software at 12:42:21 on October 13. The software can run on mobile for sending different types of documents. Once installed, the software can be operated on the mobile management tool set for searching documents, games, backing up photos and sending text messages. This software has been classified by Public Security Bureau as second class violent and terrorist software.
Initial inspection: Phone number: XXXXX, Name: XXXX male, ID number XXXXX, Home address: XXXXX Active in Changji city.
The exact downloading time marked in the “crime report” suggests that the suspect’s communications have been under surveillance for irregular online activities. The report does not describe any actual crime taking place, but rather it anticipates a crime merely because the suspect attempted to access censored web content with a circumvention tool.
Judging by the “function” described in the case report, the circumvention tool is merely giving its user access to overseas search engines and cloud storage. While the document specifically says that the circumvention tool has been classified by the public security bureau as a type of “second class violent and terrorist software”, there is no public information describing how it was classified as such, or what other products share this classification. This leaves Internet users with no way to know if their software or other tools are legal or not.
This is not the first time that Xinjiang police have targeted netizens who use circumvention tools.
Since the terrorist attack that killed 29 in Kunming Station in early 2014, government leaders in Xinjiang have begun to cast blame on circumvention tools for the spread of violent and terrorist messages. In 2015, Xinjiang residents were told that the use of VPNs would lead to the suspension of mobile phone services. In some cases, the netizens have had to report to the police in order to restore suspended mobile connections.
As former Xinjiang Communist party chief Zhang Chunxian put it:
90 percent of terrorism in Xinjiang comes from jumping the wall. Violence and terrorism keep happening due to the videos on the internet.
Zhang's mention of “jumping the wall” refers to the use circumvention tools like VPNs to access overseas sites blocked by China's domestic network filter, the so-called Great Firewall.
Though Chinese authorities have attempted to crack down on unlicensed VPN services, particularly when political tensions run high, use of VPNs is still fairly common in China. Institutions and corporations with overseas links have to rely on VPNs to connect to their business clients and partners. Even the Chinese authorities sometimes encourage their online civilization armies to circumvent the Great Firewall in order to influence certain political events such as the Taiwanese presidential election in 2015.
Online, some have expressed optimism that the labelling of circumvention tools as violent and terrorist software will remain limited to Xinjiang. As an American expat pointed out on Reddit:
As an American living in China for the past 2 years, I call bullshit. Everyone here uses a VPN. Even Chinese people who work for international companies use them. It's openly talked about. I have a VPN for my work to access my email, google, and youtube. I have a personal VPN for my home computer. I have one installed on my phone to get on facebook. I do it openly in public and no one bats an eye. I agree with other comments about this only being in Xinjiang, but I'm guessing there were other problems happening as well. Bottom line, no one is really afraid to use VPNs in China.
This is certainly the case in much of mainland China right now. But a source from the China Electronics Technology indicates that these pre-crime surveillance software, among other “anti-terrorist” technologies, are simply being tested in Xinjiang and Tibet, and will later be introduced throughout the country. Once passed, China's pending draft cybersecurity law may provide a firm legal basis for unrestricted access to user information online and facilitate the nationwide launch of such techniques.
The leaked document also provides more details about the development of pre-crime technology and crime prevention enforcement in China.
As reported by Bloomberg in March 2016, the Chinese government began investing in pre-crime detection technology in 2014. A major antiterrorism technology development project which had an operating budget of US $25 billion was contracted out to a company called China Electronics Technology. The company’s engineer told Bloomberg that:
…he said the software would be able to draw portraits of suspects by cross-referencing information from bank accounts, jobs, hobbies, consumption patterns, and footage from surveillance cameras. The program would flag unusual behavior, such as a resident of a poor village who suddenly has a lot of money in her bank account or someone with no overseas relatives who makes frequent calls to foreigners.
According to this logic, a person with no overseas business using circumvention tool to communicate with people outside the country can be viewed as suspicious. And in the case of Xinjiang, where the authorities see 90% of the violent and terrorist crimes are related to getting access to censored information, detecting the downloading and usage of circumvention tool is part of the pre-crime crackdown.
China’s new anti-terrorism laws, which went into force in January 2016, have empowered the authorities to gain access to bank accounts, telecommunications, and a national network of surveillance cameras called Skynet. The leaked document suggests that the use of circumvention tools may also be documented as part of this program.
On China's Twitter-like Weibo, a Chinese public security agency boasted about its success in pre-crime crackdowns:
去年，中国的杀人案每10万人0.7起，与世界上最安全的国家——瑞士相当；98%以上的境内暴恐事件，都在萌芽阶段就被警方打掉了。一个最直观的体验是：无论白天黑夜，你脚下的土地，几乎都可以让人安心漫步。这是很多西方国家做不到的。
Last year, Chinese homicide rate is 0.7 case in 100,000 population. The figure is similar to Switzerland, the safest country in the world. 98% of the violent and terrorist incidents have been deterred at the pre-crime stage. Either in day time or at night, you can feel safe walking in this land. This is something that many other western countries cannot accomplish.
While the pre-crime indicators would likely vary from region to region, it appears that both the law and technology will soon be working in sync to watch Chinese netizens, in the name of crime prevention.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Locals Want a Disruptive Dam Project in Northern Myanmar Terminated Once and for All · Global Voices
The Irrawaddy

The entrance to the Myitsone Dam project. / Nan Lwin Hnin Pwint / The Irrawaddy
This article by Nan Lwin Hnin Pwint is from The Irrawaddy, an independent news website in Myanmar, and is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
It has now been five years since the Myitsone Dam project in Northern Myanmar was suspended, but a local ethnic Kachin man, Mung Ra, is still not satisfied. He wishes that the project had been entirely terminated.
He frequently laments the loss of his farm and bamboo plantation—he had to leave these behind when he was forcefully relocated for the project.
Mung Ra used to live in Dawn Ban, one of over 20 villages that were relocated to make space for the Myitsone Dam. He and his fellow villagers had to leave Dawn Ban behind in 2011 because the village lies in an area designated for a sluice gate.
Bamboo trees are not useful to urban residents, but to people like Mung Ra—who live alongside the “Myitsone” confluence of the Mali and N’mai rivers, which forms the Irrawaddy River 26 miles north of the Kachin State capital Myitkyina—bamboo is a crucial source of income.
A boat in the Myitsone river confluence. Photo: Nan Lwin Hnin Pwint / The Irrawaddy
“Bamboo is the source of our livelihood. We sell bamboo in towns to producers of bamboo matting. And we use this money for our household expenses,” said Mung Ra.
In 2011, locals were ordered to move as farmlands and bamboo trees were cleared for the dam project. Each household only received 100,000 kyats (about US$78) for moving expenses, and the authorities compensated villagers 5,000 kyats ($4) for each cluster of bamboo plants cleared. No compensation was given for the actual farmland left behind.
“A bamboo plant is sold for at least 1,500 kyats [US$1.18] in town [Myitkyina]. But the compensation we receive is only 5,000 kyats for the entire cluster of bamboo plants. On my bamboo plantation, the smallest cluster has at least 50 bamboo plants, and the largest cluster has about 300 plants,” Mung Ra said.
Dawn Ban villagers were relocated to new homes in Mali Yang village, where new spaces were created by clearing farms and bamboo plantations—which of course had been a source of income and indeed livelihood for the villagers of Mali Yang. Moreover, Mali Yang locals had to give up their farms in order for roads, also part of the project, to be constructed.
Shops on the banks of the Myitsone.(Photos: Nan Lwin Hnin Pwint / The Irrawaddy)
Brang Mai of Mali Yang village recounted his experiences: “I’ll never forget the day when Chinese men came to check terrain conditions for road construction in December 2011. We were drying paddy on the embankment, and because they didn’t want to walk in the mud, they stepped on the paddy with their shoes.”
Since then, Mali Yang residents have reclaimed bushes for farming, but even so, those lands are not fertile enough.
Farms were previously close to the Mali Yang village, and it only took approximately three months to farm for the year. But now, the new farming site is some 10 miles away from the village, presenting a great inconvenience to villagers.
This story is not unique. About 3,000 people from some 20 other villages face hardships similar to those of Mung Ra and Brang Mai.
An agreement on the China-backed $3.6 billion-dollar Myitsone Dam was signed under the military regime of former Snr-Gen Than Shwe, and construction of the project started in 2009. The China Power Investment Corporation is the developer. Under the agreement, China would receive about 90 percent of the power generated.
A boat in Myitsone. Photo: Nan Lwin Hnin Pwint / The Irrawaddy
Yet in the face of opposition from local ethnic Kachin and environmental and political activists, former President Thein Sein suspended the project in September 2011.
The previous government, however, granted licenses to gold mining companies along the confluence after the relocation process. The Irrawaddy visited this area earlier this month and found that some companies are still digging for gold, despite an official ban.
The previous government built two new villages in Waingmaw Township, east of Myitkyina, for those 3,000 people who were relocated from over 20 villages. They had no choice but to start new yet difficult lives with the small houses given by the government—and without proper compensation. In some cases, locals were even coerced by authorities to move.
Lu Ra, a villager from Tang Phare village who is now living in the newly constructed Aungmyintha village, said: “We didn’t want to move, and we decided to stay, no matter what came. But police and Chinese men came and said that even if we didn’t move, we wouldn’t be allowed to live in the village, and that we wouldn’t be given a new place. I have children and a family, [so] I agreed to move.”
Some Tang Phare villagers, because they could not immediately find a source of income in the resettlement area, continued to grow crops on their farms in their old village. But they were quickly arrested, though the authorities later released them.
Locals who have been affected by the dam said that they voted for the National League for Democracy (NLD) in the November 2015 general election because they believe that the party will listen to their voices and ultimately terminate the project. The party went on to win in a landslide.
Locals staging a demonstration against the dam in 2015.(Photos: Nan Lwin Hnin Pwint / The Irrawaddy)
“If the dam breaks, it will sweep away the people to the south of it [downstream of the Irrawaddy River]. This isn’t a wild guess, but an actual possibility,” said Dr. Manam Tu Ja, chairman of the Kachin State Democracy Party (KSDP).
Ethnic Kachin oppose the dam not only because it puts lives at risk, but also because it endangers the historically valuable Irrawaddy River, the KSDP chairman said.
“Weighing the pros and cons, the dam has more disadvantages than advantages. That’s why we’re calling for its termination. Even President U Thein Sein’s government listened to the wishes of the people; the new government shouldn’t continue it,” he added, saying that the NLD government should take decisive steps toward terminating the project.
In March, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told the Chinese media that the Myitsone Dam deal is still in force, and that the project is crucial for China. China is upset that the project has been suspended and has urged for its continuation.
At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Myanmar’s de facto leader, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, visited Beijing in August. In a joint statement, the two leaders vowed to enhance cooperation between their governments and promote neighborly ties.
The statement only mentioned cooperation in vague terms regarding the economy, trade, agriculture, water resources, and power generation; it did not touch on the Myitsone Dam.
However, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told Chinese Premier Li Keqiang that she would like to work out a solution to the project that is acceptable to both sides without negatively affecting their mutual interests.
A 20-member commission was formed by presidential order in August, ahead of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to Beijing, to review proposed hydropower projects on the Irrawaddy River, assessing the potential benefit to Burmese citizens and making recommendations on whether they should proceed. The first report is due by November 11.
Promising to listen to locals, the commission conducted a field survey in September.
The Irrawaddy made phone calls for three consecutive days to Kachin State Chief Minister Dr. Khet Aung, who is a member of the commission, to ask about the body’s findings but was unable to obtain comment.
Dr. Manam Tu Ja of the KSDP said the commission should take the people’s opinions into serious consideration.
While conducting the survey, however, commission members only met with a few locals and failed to meet most of the ethnic Kachin displaced by the dam project, said La Awng of Hkan Bu village.
Mung Ra, Lu Ra, and La Awng were among those who voted for the NLD, believing that it would not ignore their wishes. But now they are not so sure.
“We’d like to tell [NLD] lawmakers what we face on the ground. But they no longer come to us,” said Mung Ra.
Lu Ra said that she, along with her fellow villagers, had asked to meet Kachin State’s chief minister in September to talk about the dam project—but he refused their request, saying that he had no time.
Looking to the future, La Awng called the project “a big weapon that threatens locals every day.”
Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

author: The Irrawaddy


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Morocco Unblocks VoIP Applications Ahead of UN Climate Conference · Global Voices
Afef Abrougui

An old phone at a hotel in the city of Tangier. Photo by Steve Calcott.
Moroccan authorities have unexpectedly lifted a ban on VoIP applications that has eliminated voice calling features of tools like WhatsApp and Skype since January 2016. As of 24 October, Moroccan users have been able to access these and other applications without using VPNs or other circumvention tools.
The country's telecommunication industry regulator, the National Agency for Telecommunication Regulation (known by its French acronym, the ANRT), has not released any official statement on whether this lift is temporary or if it is the result of a policy change. However, Moroccan users are speculating that the ban was lifted due to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP22) set to take place in the city of Marrakesh between November 7 and 18. They anticipate that the ban will be reinstated as soon as the conference is over.
#Morocco lifting the #VoIP ban during the #cop22 is an insult to Moroccans that are treated like lesser humans. https://t.co/7zvJgQ2cDG
— Aida Alami (@AidaAlami) October 25, 2016
Remise en marche #voIP au Maroc pour la #cop22 sinon en tant que citoyen marocain on peut pas y acceder le reste de l'année. Honte à l'ANRT!
— GhizlanD (@dghizlan1) October 24, 2016
VoIP services unblocked in Morocco for the #COP22. Otherwise, as Moroccan citizens, we cannot access them the rest of the year. Shame on the ANRT
Voip débloquée au Maroc, les 30.000 étrangers comptent plus que les 30 millions marocains 😑 #COP22 #Censure
— Sara (@Sara_med24) October 24, 2016
VoIP [services] unblocked in Morocco. 30,000 foreigners are more worthy than 30 million Moroccans
Pour ne pas passer pour un État policier pendant la #COP22, le Maroc débloque temporairement la VoIP.
— Mo Drissi (@mdrissi) October 24, 2016
to avoid being seen as a police state during the #COP22, Morocco temporarily unblocks VoIP services
Morocco's VoIP ban being lifted for #cop22 reminiscent of activists not beat up on select days intl reporters r permitted 2 cover a protest
— Zineb Belmkaddem (@Onlyzineb) October 25, 2016
The ANRT imposed the ban on VoIP applications including WhatsApp, Skype and Viber early this year under the country's postal and telecommunications law of 1996 which establishes a licensing scheme for the provision of calling services.
Despite protests from angry users who launched a two-day boycott against telecom operators, access to these services have not been reinstated. The case of Morocco is not unique. Several other governments across the MENA region partially or fully block at least one VoIP application, as the map below by igmena.org shows.
Bans on VoIP services across the Middle East and North Africa region. Map by igmena.org
In a study on the issue, the Internet governance research initiative iGMENA writes that bans on VoIP are often motivated by the need to “protect the profits of the incumbent telecom operators, many of which have a monopoly and are at least partially owned by the government.”
Yet these bans do carry an economic cost. According to a report by the Brookings Center for Technology Innovation on the cost of internet shutdowns and disruptions, Morocco's nationwide ban on VoIP applications cost the country's GDP US$320 million in 182 days. Following the January ban, Moroccan entrepreneurs also expressed concerns that the ban could hamper the development of startup businesses, particularly those relying on VoIP services to communicate with their international clients.
In addition to the business cost, the blocking of calling and messaging applications is sometimes a matter of life and death, particularly at times of unrest and conflicts. Earlier this month in Yemen, Houthi militants reportedly blocked WhatsApp, obstructing citizens’ abilities to communicate, account for each other's safety, and spread information in a country where dozens of news sites have been blocked since the beginning of the conflict.

author: Afef Abrougui


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After a Well-Known Artist’s Tragic Death, Taiwan’s LGBT Community Demands Marriage Equality · Global Voices
I-fan Lin

Jacques Camille Picoux's solo exhibition poster in 2012.
The death of a gay French professor who reportedly never fully recovered from the loss of his partner to cancer last year has triggered a call for the Taiwan Legislative Yuan to pass the pending Marriage Equality Act.
Jacques Camille Picoux, born in 1948, moved to Taiwan in 1979. On October 17, 2016, one year after his partner's death, he was found dead outside his apartment building in Taipei. He had died after falling from the top floor of a 10-story building, according to Taipei police. The police have ruled out homicide and foul play as they did not find any signs of fighting or a struggle in his apartment nor on the building’s rooftop.
Jacques was a well-known artist in Taiwan. After he retired from teaching French in 2005, he continued making art and held a solo exhibition in 2012. He also played an important role in an award-winning movie called “The Assassin” (2015).
His students and friends believed that he was driven to death out of depression following his partner's death in 2015; the fact that their partnership was not recognized legally had left him in agony.
Yen-Jong Lee, a former student of Jacques, posted photos of Jacques and his partner and wrote about their story on her Facebook in October 2015, after Jacques’ partner passed away.
這是關於兩個男人的真實故事。
他與他，是一對愛好生命、愛好生活的伴侶，兩人在一起生活了35年，曾經許諾相伴終生，但是比較年輕的那位卻提前因病撒手人寰…我們姑且喚他作C吧—C因癌症復發住院，之後病情每況愈下…病重的他只有一個執念，那就是讓J能夠繼續住在他們兩個人的家，留下足夠的錢給J，讓J的餘生可以無憂無慮地生活。這是一個多麼簡單的願望阿，但是他們沒有結婚、彼此沒有法律上的親屬關係，這樣一個簡單的遺願，現實上就是無比地複雜。…幾個與J相熟的學生是到很晚期才得知C不久於人世的消息，大家趕到醫院後，才知道C的家人已經開始進行財產的移轉…35年的共同生活，只因為沒有婚姻關係，到了最後還是任人宰割。
幾天後，C的狀況越來越差，差到已經沒有意識…J心裡面明白，C是希望一切盡早結束的，「越快越好」，他說。然而，醫師的對口是C的家人，作決定的是C的家人，只因為J與C沒有結婚，他們在法律上，就是兩個不相關的陌生人。
C走了。那一天，J在家裡，不願意進食，只不斷地喝著伏特加，昏睡，醒來，哭泣。
This is a true story about two men.
They were a couple who loved life, and they had been together as partners for 35 years. They promised to share their life together, but the younger one passed away due to sickness… Let us call him C here — C was hospitalized due to recurring cancer, and his situation got worse quickly… He had only one wish when he was in the hospital: Let his partner, J, continue living in their apartment and leave sufficient money to J so that he could carry on with his life without having to worry too much. This was such a simple wish. However, they were not married, and their relationship had no legal protection. His simple wish turned out to be extremely difficult in real life… J's friends and students didn't learn about C's condition until very late, and when they went to the hospital, they found that C's family had started transferring C’s property to his family members… Even though C and J had lived together for 35 years, J could not do anything about it because they were not legally married.
Several days later, C’s condition became worse and he fell unconscious… J knew that C wanted the pain to end as soon as possible. He told the doctor ‘as soon as possible’. However, the doctor only listened to the opinions of C’s family, and they were the ones to make the decision [about resuscitation]. Just because J and C were not married, they were unrelated strangers, legally speaking.
C passed away. On that day, J stayed at home. He refused to eat and kept drinking vodka. Slept, woke up and cried.
Jacques Picoux and his art.
The death of Jacques has prompted Taiwanese to push for the passage of the Marriage Equality Act, which has been pending in the Legislative Yuan.
The bill was presented to the Legislative Yuan in 2012 and had its first reading in 2013. However, after a massive mobilization against same-sex marriage in 2014, the bill was suspended. While current Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen is a strong supporter of LGBT rights, the LGBT community is disappointed that the Tsai administration has stalled the legislation.
Taiwan is considered one of the most liberal countries in Asia because of its LGBT-friendly environment. Yet Jacque's death speaks volumes about how being “friendly” is not enough.
Upon hearing the news about Jacques’ death, Hsin-Yi Chu, who is gay herself, criticized the lip service paid to LGBT rights and urged for more concrete act of support:
畢安生老師也在今天走了。
為什麼在一起35年的伴侶卻不能以合法的配偶身份生活，不能以合法的配偶身份一起面對疾病與死亡？
這個世界根本就很虛假！說什麼台灣已經對同志很友善，根本就是口惠，口頭上說支持同志，卻一點點權益都不願意鬆手，那根本就是虛偽！
說什麼同志平權，假的！只要同志婚姻不合法化，一切都是假的！
Professor Picoux passed away today.
Why couldn’t a partner of someone for 35 years live as someone’s legal spouse and face sickness and death together like a legal spouse?
This world is hypocritical! For those who say that Taiwan is very friendly to LGBT groups, those words are just lip service. They say that they support LGBT groups, but they refuse to give LGBT groups any right. [The “friendliness”] is pure hypocrisy!
Don't just pay lip service to “equal rights for the LGBT community”. Words are empty! As long as same-sex marriage is not legalized, it means nothing!
The LGBT community is also preparing to make a final push to speed up the legislation in the upcoming pride parade in Taiwan on October 29. The theme of this year's parade is “Shatter the mask of hypocritical kindness“:
我們的環境充斥著各種「為你好」的「假友善」說詞，裡面包裹的不僅是幽微、隱形的歧視，更是一種自以為是的假性接受，未見LGBTIQA性多樣社群真實的生命經驗與處境，於是歧視變的更加難以察覺卻仍舊存在，不只讓性多樣社群無法自在展現，還必須不斷與之角力、對抗，讓人身心俱疲，傷痕累累。
Our society is paying a lot of lip service [to the LGBT community]. They talk using kind and friendly words and claim that this or that is “for your own sake”.
At the core of these words are minute and disguised discrimination and feigned acceptance. They do not see the real-life experience and do not address the difficult circumstances faced by the diverse people within the LGBT community. Discrimination becomes minute but prevailing. Under such discrimination, LGBT people are not free to be themselves and they have to struggle and fight against [prejudice disguised in kind words] constantly. It is frustrating and painful.
The parade organizers highlight some examples of the above mentioned “kind” words:
我不反對同性戀，我的孩子不是就好。
I do not object gays or lesbians, as long as my kids are not one of them.
女女我可以，男男我不行。
I am fine with lesbians, but I cannot accept gays.
我覺得變性人很勇敢，但還是別讓小孩接觸，小孩子不懂。
I think those transgender people are very brave, but we should not let kids know about them since kids know nothing.
得愛滋就好好保重不要出門，否則對別人來說很危險。
If you have AIDS, you should not come out, or you will be dangerous to other people.
做自己是很好，但女生還是要保守一點。
It is good to be yourself, but girls better be conservative.
Some believe that the passage of marriage equality legislation in Taiwan is just a matter of time. But the bill has been pending for more than three years now, and some are worried that the government might water it down to a law establishing same-sex partnership — not marriage — to gain more public support. The LGBT community and their supporters are getting impatient about the delay.
Update: The once suspended Marriage Equality Act, which is a proposed amendment to the Civil Code that would allow for same-sex marriage, was revised and submitted by a group of legislators again on October 25. Although it will take a lot of time and effort to pass the new amendment, the bill is finally set for consideration again.

author: I-fan Lin


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Upscale Chocolate Could Help Turn the Tide on Haiti’s Devastating Deforestation · Global Voices
Ensia

Cocoa drying in Grande Riviere du Nord. Photo by Nick Hobgood. CC 2.0.
This post by Meg Wilcox was originally published on Ensia.com, a magazine that highlights international environmental solutions in action, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
When a tiny Quebec chocolate maker won a gold prize at this year’s premier International Chocolate Awards for a bar made with Haitian cocoa beans, it rocked the specialty chocolate world. The cocoa beans had been on the market for less than a year, and a Haitian chocolate bar had never before received the award.
Haiti produces less than 1 percent of the world’s cocoa. But today, cocoa industry players are aiming to put the Caribbean nation on the craft quality chocolate map, while providing some of the world’s poorest farmers with a better life and stemming the forces that have left Haiti a near moonscape. Stunningly 98 percent deforested, Haiti is an environmental mess, vulnerable to devastating floods and mudslides.
Efforts to connect poor cocoa farmers in Haiti to consumers willing to pay upwards of US$8 for a single chocolate bar are part of a much broader movement within the development community to combat global poverty and protect natural resources through access to such specialty markets.
But can these efforts make a difference in tackling some of the key drivers of environmental degradation? And can they do it at a scale that actually transforms struggling rural economies?
Grinding poverty is a root cause for Haiti’s deforestation. Per capita income was just US$828 in 2015, and two-thirds of Haitians are subsistence farmers. The vast majority cook their food with wood charcoal. Charcoal production fuels deforestation, which leads to soil erosion, loss of productive agricultural land, and a vicious cycle of poverty.
An estimated 50 percent of Haitian topsoil has washed away, destroying Haiti’s farmland and contributing to crop losses that reached 70 percent in some places in the face of extreme drought this year.
Cocoa is a tree crop that grows well in agroforestry systems, which is why Ralph Denize of FOMIN (Multilateral Investment Fund) says, “Cocoa is one of the best crops you can use for reforesting the country.”
“As long as the market is stable and farmers can depend on it, those trees will be in the ground for at least 40 years,” adds Emily Stone, founder of Uncommon Cacao.
Currently, some 20,000 smallholder farmers harvest cocoa as a cash crop in what they call “creole gardens” in two regions of Haiti. But, “garden” is a misnomer, because these dense tangles of vegetation, averaging an acre (half a hectare) in size, form mini-forests. Larger coconut, breadfruit, mango, and avocado trees tower over and offer shade to the smaller cocoa trees, as well as food for the farmers and habitat for birds and other animals.
Cocoa farms are in fact one of the few places in Haiti with standing trees, according to Patrick Dessources from Root Capital, which finances small agricultural businesses and is partnering with FOMIN and other groups to rebuild Haiti’s cocoa industry.
Haiti currently exports 4,000 metric tons (4,400 tons) of cocoa per year, a big drop from its peak of 20,000 metric tons (22,000 tons) in the 1960s and far less than neighboring Dominican Republic, which exported 70,000 metric tons (77,000 tons) in 2014.
Revitalizing Haiti’s cocoa industry can help reforest the country, but key to that revitalization is building capacity for producing the high-quality fermented cocoa beans that are used by specialty and dark chocolate manufacturers, like Palette de Bine, the award winner. Those beans fetch higher prices that help farmers live better.
As Denize puts it, “moving from unfermented to fermented cocoa is about keeping the value added in the country.”
Merviel Chilmise is a cocoa farmer in northern Haiti who sells to PISA, a fermentation facility that produced cocoa beans that went into a chocolate bar that won a gold prize at the 2016 International Chocolate Awards. Photo by Meg Wilcox
Currently, more than 90 percent of Haiti’s cocoa beans are sold and exported in their raw, unprocessed state for mass-produced chocolate because farmers have few options for fermenting their beans. Currently there are only three fermentation facilities in the country.
One of those facilities is operated by Produits de Iles S.A, or PISA, which produced the fermented beans for Palette de Bine’s winning chocolate bar. PISA sources cocoa beans from 1,500 small, family-run farms spread across the foothills of the Massif de Nord mountain range.
PISA pays farmers double the price they would receive for raw beans. That motivates them to protect their trees from the charcoal market. Pierre Daniel Phelizor, for example, a cocoa farmer of 15 years, says he’s “doing real business” with his trees now that he sells to PISA. What’s more, Phelizor runs a small nursery, selling cocoa, breadnut and mango trees to other cocoa farmers.
One of PISA’s main buyers is Taza Chocolate. The first U.S. specialty chocolate maker to enter Haiti, it did so not out of altruism, but for the quality of Haitian cocoa. “We know we have a good product — ancient variety, good terroir, organic by default,” says Taza’s sourcing manager, Jesse Last. “People will fall in love with the taste, and we hope that Haiti will benefit as it gains recognition as a source for fine-quality cacao.” Taza is partnering with Whole Foods to market the bar, which it began producing this year.
PISA needs more buyers like Taza to grow its business and expand its environmental and social impact. Gilbert Gonzales, the Haitian entrepreneur who founded PISA four years ago as a subsidiary of the Haitian agro-industrial corporation REBO, estimates that PISA’s exports will reach 160 metric tons (176 tons) this year, a sliver of the country’s capacity.
Stone, who introduced Palette de Bine to PISA’s high quality cocoa beans, says that is already starting to happen.
“We’re in conversation with much larger chocolate makers that might not be at the Hershey’s level, but they have significantly more buying power than craft chocolate makers,” she says. Dandelion Chocolate, Raaka Chocolate and Valrhona Chocolate are a few.
Globally, the specialty chocolate market accounts for less than 1 percent of the estimated US$98.3 billion chocolate industry, according to Stone. Tiny, but growing. Uncommon Cacao, for example, has grown from selling 6 metric tons (7 tons) from one country in 2011 to over 200 metric tons (220 tons) from five countries in 2016, and from just two buyers in 2011 to over 90 in 2016.
Longer term, carbon markets may help expand agroforestry systems for cocoa in Haiti, says Elizabeth Teague at Root Capital. The Livelihoods Carbon Fund, for example, raises capital from investors who earn returns via carbon credits through the United Nations’ Clean Development Mechanism or Verified Carbon Standard.
The fund is helping to finance a major reforestation project in Guatemala that aims to plant 5 million trees — citrus, coffee, cardamom, and cocoa among them — over 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres). The project aims to sequester 2 million metric tons (2.2 million tons) of carbon dioxide and provide sustainable livelihoods for smallholder farmers.
Pur Projet in Peru offers another model. Started in 2008 by one of the founders of Alter Eco, the initiative is working to restore one of the most deforested regions of Peru in the heart of the Andean Amazon. Nearly 10,000 small-scale coffee and cocoa farmers spread across 21 communities are involved in the project, which has now reforested close to 1 million acres (close to 400,000 hectares) — an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.
Pur Projet is verified by both Verified Carbon Standard and the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance standards for the carbon offset market. Project partners are in the process of registering close to 5 million acres (2 million hectares) of land, including both the reforested area and surrounding forest, as a Biosphere Reserve at UNESCO World Heritage. Registering the land with UNESCO will help protect the forest from development pressures and ensure that it remains a carbon sink.
Currently there are few such initiatives, says Teague, because “carbon markets are seen as unreliable.” However, several major land restoration initiatives that view agroforestry as a prime solution have been gaining traction since COP 21. Initiative 20×20, for example, aims to reforest 20 million hectares (50 million acres) of degraded land in Latin America by 2020, and is a looking at agroforestry as one key approach.
But rebuilding Haiti’s cocoa industry won’t be enough to stop deforestation. Haitians need access to alternative, affordable fuel sources, such as propane or solar stoves.
Juan Mejia, co-director of Death by a Thousand Cuts, a 2016 documentary on a brutal murder related to Haiti’s charcoal trade, says that’s the approach the government of the Dominican Republic took in the 1960s and ’70s, and Haiti could do the same thing. But, he says, “the government needs to be brought into a comprehensive plan. It can’t be a bunch of aid groups working separately.”
Ultimately, Haitians need economic opportunities. “No one wants to do the charcoal trade,” says Mejia. “It’s grueling work and for very little pay. People will tell you, ‘It’s what you do so as not to steal.’”
Rebuilding Haiti’s cocoa sector, and more broadly its agricultural capacity, can help provide those economic opportunities while also benefiting the environment.
“I’m a believer that meaningful market access for sustainable cacao production across the board can change economies,” Stone says. “We’re seeing more and more markets and chocolate makers large and small reimagine how their cacao supply chains work and thinking more deeply about these questions.”
And, adds Teague, “we know agroforestry farms can help mitigate climate change while providing habitat for local biodiversity, conserving the soil and ensuring trees remain part of the landscape. But how can we expect farmers living on less than $2 a day to take on this work all by themselves? As supply chains, as consumers, we need to incentivize sustainable production practices if we want to stop deforestation and address climate change.”
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author: Ensia


text:
Conservationists in Madagascar Race to Exterminate Troubling Toad · Global Voices
Ensia

Photo by EOL. CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0
This post by Edward Carver was originally published on Ensia.com, a magazine that highlights international environmental solutions in action, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
In early 2014, biologist Jonathan Kolby was working with a group of amphibian researchers in Madagascar when they received a surprising email from a man living outside of Toamasina, the country’s major port city. He’d attached a picture of a brown toad never before seen on the tropical island nation known for its rich biodiversity. Intrigued, the researchers found the man’s house, just next to a nickel refinery, but they didn’t expect to find the toad. The man assured them that wouldn’t be a problem. “Wait ten minutes,” he said.
Shortly afterward, as dusk fell, they stepped outside and immediately saw half a dozen Asian toads. “Big, fat breeding-size adults,” recalls Kolby, a Ph.D. candidate who studies amphibian diseases at Australia’s James Cook University. “We were like, ‘Shit, this is bad.’”
Two years on, that’s still the scientific consensus. This bumpy, toxic toad from Southeast Asia, Duttaphrynus melanostictus, is disrupting Madagascar’s fragile ecosystems, imperiling its unique wildlife and threatening its people. The poison in the toad’s skin can kill animals and even children. If it continues to spread, the toad could spell serious trouble for some of the island’s most iconic species of lemur and fossa (the lemur’s predator, which looks like a small puma), animals already threatened by habitat loss.
Now a group of herpetologists and invasive species experts is pushing to eradicate the rapidly reproducing toads before it’s too late. With some 4 million toads to kill, it would be one of the largest attempts ever made at stomping out an invasive amphibian. The campaign would likely cost anywhere from US$2 million to US$10 million, money the scientists don’t have. They’ve asked for help from a mining company whose shipping containers may have provided the pathway for the invasion, but the company — while generally cooperative, and helpful in first identifying the toad as a problem — has declined so far, citing a lack of hard evidence that it was at fault and choosing to defer to the government on a direction forward.
“The potential consequences are devastating. Madagascar is one of the hottest biodiversity hot spots.” –Pete Lowry
Even if the scientists raise the funds, there’s no guarantee the eradication campaign will work. But experts say failing to take action would have even greater costs.
“I cannot imagine how decision-makers in Madagascar could sleep at night if they simply said, ‘Sorry, it’s going to cost too much to deal with this. The cat’s out of the bag already,’” says Pete Lowry, a biologist at the Missouri Botanical Garden and a board member of Madagascar Fauna and Flora Group, which is helping to coordinate the eradication effort. “The potential consequences are devastating. Madagascar is one of the hottest biodiversity hot spots.” About 70 percent of the island’s roughly 250,000 plant and animal species live nowhere else on Earth.
Earlier this year, the group released a feasibility report that makes the stakes clear. “Eradication is the only option that has a definitive end point,” the report explains. “All other responses would need to be carried out in perpetuity.”
The threat has special resonance because of what happened 5,500 miles away in Australia starting in 1935, when 100 cane toads were imported from Hawaii by sugar farmers hoping to control beetles that were destroying their crops. The toads ran amok, spreading across much of the continent and causing severe declines in the populations of some predators who died after eating them. In many habitats, cane toads have contributed to the decline of lizards like the goanna and marsupials like the quoll, which in Australia are top-of-the-food-chain predators that keep ecosystems functioning. Eight decades on, Australians are still working to contain the toads. Scientists are developing fences that keep the toads away from breeding grounds and chemicals that trap the tadpoles. Backpackers to the country can even earn visa points helping to fight the toads’ spread.
The Asian toads, which scientists believe snuck into Madagascar as stowaways in industrial shipping containers, could turn out to be just as destructive as the cane toads have been in Australia, according to James Reardon, a zoologist with New Zealand’s Department of Conservation and co-author of the report. “I absolutely know that if we could go back to a time when cane toads were limited to a small area in Australia — as Asian toads currently are in Madagascar — that we would throw everything at an eradication attempt,” he says.
In Madagascar, the matter is urgent because scientists expect the toads to spread quickly. Currently, they occupy about 120 square kilometers (46 square miles) near the Pangalanes Canal, a perfect conduit for amphibians that runs down the tropical east coast of the island.
Lemur expert Patricia Wright of Stony Brook University worries the toads will travel down the canal to the city of Mananjary and then move inland to Ranomafana National Park, a biodiversity haven she has worked to protect for more than three decades. The toads may already have arrived on a narrow strip of water that leads into the canal, the scientists worry. Letting the toads reach the main body of the canal is “like building them a highway to the rest of the country,” says Christopher Raxworthy, a herpetologist at the American Museum of Natural History.
The island has no other toads, so the new arrival could be devastating for predators and prey, the report warns. The tenrec, a hedgehog-like creature found mainly in Madagascar, is one of many animals that could eat the unfamiliar toad and die from the toxins, while the voracious Asian toads will likely prey on the hundreds of colorful frogs and other amphibian species on the island — 99 percent of which are found nowhere else  — and they could eat leaf chameleons or hatchlings from any species, says Raxworthy.
The threat is just as real to people. Children in Laos have gotten sick and, in at least one case, died from consuming the Asian toad, and the risk to Malagasy people, less familiar with the toads, may be even greater. The report also says that snakes are dying after eating the toads; a decline in snake populations could cause black rat numbers to surge, and more rats could mean more sanitation issues in a country that already battles the plague.
Scientists have three important reasons to hope that an environmentally friendly eradication is possible. First, the infested area contains no rare or native species that could be harmed during the attempted eradication. Second, male toads convene around bodies of water at night, calling females, so there’s a convenient place to capture or kill them. Finally, recent testing reveals that spraying a citric acid solution — with a concentration similar to lemon juice, according to Raxworthy — kills toads through rapid dehydration without doing serious harm to other animals.
As a next step, members of the working group hope to do a “mini-eradication” along the southern edge of the incursion zone, in order to restrict the toad’s expansion into the canal and further refine killing methods. But even this small effort would cost about US$400,000, and the scientists are still looking for the funding.
“We’re essentially operating on a shoestring budget,” Reardon says. “It’s been a sort of ragtag collection of donations from the international conservation community.”
This raises the question: Who should pay to handle invasive species like the Asian toad in Madagascar?
To invoke corporate responsibility, scientists like to refer to the transport of invasive species as “biological pollution.” A seminal 1998 study led by David Wilcove, now an ecologist at Princeton, cites invasive species as the second leading cause of extinction in the U.S., after habitat loss.
James Carlton, a marine biologist at Williams College in Massachusetts, has proposed that a “polluter pays” model be adopted for invasive species control. Petroleum companies have used such a system since the Exxon Valdez disaster; when their tankers take to the water or their pipelines begin pumping crude, they pay a few cents per barrel into a fund for future cleanups. But right now, companies at risk of shipping and transporting invasive species pay no such fee, so there is no fund for control or eradication. Calling the current system “ecological roulette” because of the lack of regulation, Carlton writes, “Industries that play a fundamental role as vectors transporting non-native species should bear more of the costs of prevention, control, and research.”
In the absence of such a comprehensive system for dealing with invasive species, experts are left to sort out responsibility on a case-by-case basis, a difficult task.
Scientists in the working group suggest that nickel and cobalt company Ambatovy may have accidentally brought the toad to Madagascar in a shipping container. The company was bringing equipment and supplies into the incursion zone to construct a large refinery about the same time the working group believes the first toads arrived.
Sherritt International, the Canadian mining corporation that owns 40 percent of Ambatovy and operates the plant, says that 170,000 containers pass through the port in Toamasina every year, many from Asia, and less than 5 percent are for its business. “In terms of identifying a specific container or a specific entry point, it’s incredibly difficult to do that,” says company spokesman Scott Tabachnick.
However, Reardon, the New Zealand zoologist, says statistics from the port are not relevant because the toads were not released at the port — in fact, they still haven’t reached it. (But, as with the canal, he worries the toads will soon reach the port, a domestic and international shipping hub, and hop into another container.)
“We’ve got no hard proof, but it’s highly likely the toads are in Madagascar because of Ambatovy’s activities,” Reardon says. The company has a direct rail link from the port to its plant, where containers are unloaded.
But it’s impossible to know for sure how the toads arrived, especially since there are two other importers of goods in the area: Malgapro, a general import/export business based in the core of the incursion zone, and SolCiment Callidu, a company located on the periphery.
“From the point of view of managing Madagascar’s biodiversity and managing this crisis, it doesn’t make any difference who introduced the toad,” says Missouri’s Lowry, who has an unpaid position on Ambatovy’s scientific advisory panel. “The point is not to look back and say who’s guilty. Time that gets spent doing that is time taken away from acting on this critical issue.”
“At some point it will become infeasible. The longer it’s delayed, the less likely it is to succeed. Without a doubt, we’re running out of time.” –Jonathan Kolby
No matter how the toad problem arose, Lowry hopes Ambatovy will be part of the solution. “There’s a ticking clock,” he says. “Everybody who has something to contribute needs to step up to the plate and get started — now.”
After a December meeting, Lowry’s advisory panel — a group of scientists separate from the one that completed the feasibility report — recommended the company “take the lead” on toad eradication efforts, acknowledged Ambatovy spokesperson Vony Ramahaleo in an email. But the company points out that it already sits on the committee set up to deal with the invasion, along with government ministries and conservation organizations. “As the government of Madagascar has appointed a committee to lead this fight, we cannot substitute for them,” writes Ramahaleo.
Without major donations, eradication efforts are on hold. But local people are still eager to get rid of the toads, which they call radaka boka (“leprous” or “scaly” frogs) or radaka Dynatec (which translates roughly to “frogs from Ambatovy’s refinery”). Mikahely, a side project of the popular Malagasy music group Mika & Davis, recently released a song, Radaka Boka, about the invasion. Even the country’s three telecom companies have teamed up to help; they’ve started a free text message system so people can report toad locations.
Still, Kolby regrets that more has not been done in the two years since he first spotted the toad. “Right now it’s still worth going forward with eradication,” Kolby says. “At some point it will become infeasible. The longer it’s delayed, the less likely it is to succeed. Without a doubt, we’re running out of time.”  Code Embed v2.2.1    End of Code Embed code
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