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‘The house search was the last straw’: colleagues react to Russian journalist’s death · Global Voices
Holod Media

Russian journalist Irina Slavina. Photo from Irina Slavina's Facebook account.
On October 2, Irina Slavina, editor of KozaPress, died in Nizhny Novgorod, after setting herself on fire outside an interior minister building in the city. In her last Facebook post, Slavina wrote: “I ask you to blame the Russian Federation for my death.”
Slavina’s death has shocked many, with several groups calling for a criminal investigation into the actions of Russian law enforcement that may have contributed to her death. On 1 October, Slavina’s home was searched as part of an investigation into the Open Russia movement – local law enforcement broke down the door to her apartment and confiscated all her computer equipment. She is survived by her husband and daughter.
Slavina’s website KozaPress covered a range of local issues — from public utilities and pensions to property development and the security services — and by 2019 was the second most-cited media in the Nizhny Novgorod region.
In 2017 and 2018, Slavina wrote three articles for openDemocracy — about how people who migrate to Russia are targeted by the security services. This work included exposing a horrendous fabrication of an “Islamic State” plot in her home region.
The Russian online publication Holod.Media asked people who knew her for their reactions, which was translated to English by oDR, openDemocracy's section on Russia and the post-Soviet space. RuNet Echo republishes this text with the permission of both publications.
Irina was the founder, publisher and chief editor of the most popular independent media in Nizhny Novgorod — KozaPress. In recent years, she dedicated her entire life to working on this media. It’s clear that she was completely independent, because the security services pressured her constantly. They created several administrative cases against her — about insulting [a representative] of the authorities, the “undesirable organisation” law, for organising a march in memory of [Boris] Nemtsov, some other cases. She lived under constant pressure these past few years, in constant fear, anxiety. It seems she couldn’t take it anymore, the search of her apartment was the last straw.
Before she entered journalism, Irina worked as a school teacher. She worked for different regional media in Nizhny Novgorod, then she decided to set up her own – she lacked space for self-realisation, she didn’t want to be limited by some kind of administrative barriers, she didn’t want to serve, she wanted to tell the truth. She built the outlet from the ground up. She collected money including via donations. I donated too, like other people here.
When we first met, KozaPress had not been set up yet, but Irina was already a journalist. She loved Russia very much, her city, she wasn’t planning on emigrating, she wanted our society to become more civilised and for it to become a nicer place to live. She was always joking, and seemed happy. Now it’s clear that there was a lot of anxiety behind this, but she never talked about this publicly. As a journalist, she was marked out by the fact that she always tried to get to the truth, whatever it cost her. There’s no other journalist like her in Nizhny Novgorod. Public officials knew her well and were afraid of her.
The last time I saw her was last week when deputies to the city council were receiving their mandates. There was nothing depressive, no strange remarks from her — we had a normal chat, then she asked me for some photographs to publish with an article.
She never published any article that investigators could have had a go at. You have to understand that the case wasn’t started against her, but someone else who had a lot of administrative cases outstanding, enough to start a criminal case. We don’t have Open Russia in Nizhny Novgorod. She couldn’t have worked with them.
I think that the pressure of the court, the house search led to her taking her own life, nothing else. As someone whose home was also searched yesterday, I can say that it’s a lot of pressure. Especially when it happens over a couple of years. This can totally lead someone to take their own life. It’s hard to live like that, it’s true.
It’s very hard to speak. Ira Slavina is one of the best journalists I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. A person of extreme professionalism and at the same time very strong civic position. To many people, she gave the impression that she was like a stone wall, but actually she was a very sensitive person.
People will say a lot of things now, that it was an act of weakness… What she did is awful, but it wasn’t weak. It seems it was a cry of desperation, to protest against the horror that is happening. I punish myself: today I was going to drop some money to help with the computer equipment… As soon as I saw her post, I wrote her, but she didn’t answer. And then news came. I spoke to her last yesterday, I asked what help she needed. She said that it was very hard for her to speak, that she hadn’t yet recovered from the house search. As far as I understand, it was her first experience of that.
We’ve got used to it, you see – a house search, so what? They’ve taken your computer equipment… But Ira had not developed cynicism. Just like with Anna Politkovskaya — the more she encountered the horror of war, the more sensitive she became. There are people who cover themselves with an armour of cynicism, there are people who just take the stronger side, they sell themselves. Take a look at our propagandists on television — many of them used to be perfectly decent journalists and decent people. But then there’s regression. Ira was someone who was hurt, traumatised by what happened around here, she couldn’t make her peace with it. There are moments when you are filled with anger to the point where it’s hard to live. Some people develop their own armour against this, but she didn’t.
For her, the ideal of a real journalist – independent, dispassionate, unbiased — was very important. Read her last reportage — it’s about the house searches. She doesn’t even mention herself hardly in the text. Just facts, just facts. For her, the idea of journalism as a part of civilised society was a very important value. After all, she hardly ever spoke righteously. Of course, sometimes she did get mad and was annoyed, but she never let herself express it. Sometimes it’s better to express it and say, you’re all rotten, but she kept it inside, and then it exploded.
I knew she was an emotional person, and I was, of course, afraid – but not that she would take her own life, that didn’t occur to me. I was afraid that she would lose it, give it all up… She reacted very emotionally to injustice. Not towards her! She had an instinctive sense of following the truth as a fundamental part of the world. She wasn’t religious, we spoke about this a lot, but she had an incredible sense for truth — which comes from above, rather than a person. She was killed by that gap between the truth that should be, and what she had to constantly face.
Everyone loves to say the right thing and look good, but not everyone’s ready to sacrifice something for the sake of the values that they live by. What happened is awful, but she remained true to herself to the end. I just punish myself that I didn’t see it coming. Perhaps, that’s a lesson for everyone. Perhaps if we were more sensitive in Nizhny Novgorod, then perhaps we would have been worried earlier. Unfortunately, I only became worried when I saw her Facebook post, and then a few minutes later found out she had died. Too late. We’re all guilty. Of course, the cops and the FSB will just wipe their hands. But we’re guilty.
This news has knocked me off my feet. Irina and I were in touch yesterday about the case connected to the house searches. I sent her the case materials that we’d managed to get, she thanked me, wrote something on social media on the basis of those materials. We offered her legal aid via Memorial and OVD-Info. It should be noted that seven activists’ homes were searched yesterday and, as far as I know, only two faced nasty treatment – Irina Slavina and [Mikhail] Iosilevich both had large groups of security services, who used chainsaws to cut down their front doors.
Iosilievich has a specific situation, he’s the main suspect in a criminal case. In Slavina’s case, I think this was most likely an attempt to scare her by the state. The goal was to demonstrate state terror, to show that she was vulnerable to the state. It’s clear that all these searches aren’t really connected to Iosilevich’s activities. It’s just the state has taken the opportunity to scare people and get as much blackmail material that they can take off people’s devices. They hit Irina Slavina as hard as they could. Obviously it was very difficult for her.
Irina and I met at an event to commemorate Boris Nemtsov. She was a resilient and courageous woman. There was an episode with the fourth march in memory of Nemtsov, when she was brought up on administrative charges. She came to the gathering point and then went ahead of the column with a small portrait of Nemtsov. She was basically leading people. She had this capacity for leadership, courage. And of course, I didn’t completely understand how much she was traumatised by the state’s act of terror. We used to seeing her a certain way and didn’t understand how hard it was for her. I feel an enormous sense of guilt, we didn’t support her as we should have.
Irina was a journalist who didn’t just cover events drily. She wanted to influence them. She was a very soulful, good-natured person. We even had to put out a fire once together: we came to a polling station where someone had set something on fire, and we put it out, called the fire brigade. She was someone who could not brush past some problem. Of course, the current government isn’t ready for these kind of people — they want people to keep themselves to themselves, to stay quiet.
It’s completely awful and unexpected that she made the decision she did, because it’s not worth it. She just couldn’t withstand the pressure from the security services, the persecution that was going on in recent monhs. Of course, yesterday’s house searches were the last straw. Law enforcement thinks that everyone is made of steel around them. But not everyone is made of steel. And now it’s the responsibility of those who organised this, the people who created this atmosphere in the country.
Ira was a fighter. She was never afraid to write and speak, she always refused to be more neutral and accurate in her texts. And she loved and believed in her KozaPress.
On 17 September, we went together to a court hearing in Nizhny Novgorod — I represented the interests of her media. I didn’t know her well, but I didn’t see anything concerning. Yesterday I offered the help of our centre, to appeal against the house search. We had a normal chat, I’m in shock at what has happened.
This is a gigantic loss for the city and a huge sadness for people. Irina, it goes without saying, was one of the few honest journalists in Nizhny Novgorod. We were in touch on ecological issues connected to protecting the environment in the city, citizens’ environmental rights. And she always wrote about them honestly.
Irina was a journalist with a capital J — a clear example for all the city’s journalists of how to work. Over the course of several years, she made her own news agency, which successfully competed with larger media companies. A news agency based on one fragile woman. I was always in awe of her capacity, her speed, the amount of information she could process to then produce quality texts. Honestly, I never saw this in Russian journalism – that one person could set up a serious news agency. And she was principled — most likely, this is what caused the tragedy. She could never give up those principles that she believed in.
Irina was an incredibly honest person. Perhaps inside she was afraid of something, but she was always fearless in what she did. And if she was completely sure of something, she either got it, or made other people understand what her point of view was. Of course, she represented the kind of person that’s hard to find today — someone who has a concept of honour.
The fact that she took her life, I think she thought this through. Judging by the Facebook post that she published yesterday, she was in her right mind. There’s our swamp — we make some movements, we express dissatisfaction with our country. But real acts, like those by Nemtsov or Navalny now… She probably decided that she had to do something to draw attention to what is happening in our country, in our city. But what kind of act? Examples of self-immolation are well known. I think she decided that this would be a serious event that could bring people together, people who are not happy with what’s happening in the country. And the country is a piece of shit, we can see that already.
I knew Irina very well. In 2013, in Nizhny Novgorod, we set up a nationwide office for returning direct mayoral elections. Irina was one of the few journalists who actually covered it. I gave her interviews often — there’d be situations where everyone was banned from covering a press conference, and she would come along with a few local journalists. She knew Nemtsov. She was an independent journalist with opposition views, she always helped all the protest groups, always covered their protests.
I heard the following: they constantly humiliated her, the security services constantly pressured her, the counter-extremism officers tried to frighten her. She was very concerned about this. She brought these problems to me when I was an MP [2011-2016]. I’m shocked at what’s happened. They did this to her. They pushed her to take her own life. And that’s a crime.
Interviews conducted by Mikhail Zelensky, Liza Miller, Sofya Volyanova, Maria Karpenko, Olesya Ostapchuk, Yulia Dudkina.
Editor: Alexander Gorbachev

author: Holod Media


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‘We have a strange destiny’: a conversation with the Livonian poet Valts Ernštreits: Part I · Global Voices
Will Mawhood

Livonian poet and language activist Valts Ernštreits. Photo used with permission.
There are only around 250 of them left in Latvia today, many scattered far from the coastline which bears their name.
Theirs is a Finnic language related to Finnish and Estonian. Hundreds of years ago it was spoken throughout much of Latvia, but as its speakers assimilated into the surrounding population, Livonian began a slow and steady decline. By the 20th century it was confined to a few hundred speakers, concentrated mostly in a few remote fishing villages in Kurzeme, a province in western Latvia.
When Latvia came under Moscow's rule, these coastal areas formed the western border of the Soviet Union and were largely taken over by the military. Access was restricted, and Livonians were prevented from fishing. Many abandoned their traditional homeland.
It is thought that the last native speaker of Livonian was Grizelda Kristiņa, who died in 2013 in Canada, where she had settled after fleeing Latvia in 1944. But since the restoration of Latvia's independence in 1991, the language has seen a slow revival as a small number of people with Livonian heritage or with an interest in its culture have started to learn and promote the language.
One of them is the Livonian poet and translator Valts Ernštreits, who is currently the director of the Livonian Institute, founded in 2018, at the University of Latvia in the capital city Rīga. I spoke with Ernštreits about the past and present of the Livonian language and what he is doing to ensure that it has a future. The interview has been edited for style and brevity.
Will Mawhood: What do you think the importance is of having a Livonian Institute?
Valts Ernštreits: I think we’ve done pretty well. We started in autumn 2018 with zero employees and zero money. Now we’re already running three projects – we are expecting to get one or two more this year – and there are already nine people on the staff.
The Livonian Institute is quite important: first of all for Latvia, because Livonians are a part of Latvia; that’s one area that is pretty under-researched […] This is the first serious attempt for Latvia to enter the Finno-Ugric world in terms of science, and it is also exploiting the fact that there are only a few countries in Europe who have indigenous people, and Latvia is one of them. Although it’s not usual in Latvia to think in these terms: that Latvia does have indigenous people. Somehow on very many occasions it seems for people kind of surprising, but it’s true.
Because the Livonians have quite a strange destiny: there are very very few Livonians, but they still exist. This is something that the world can benefit from – from the Livonian experience, and this is we as an institute can also offer, because by researching Livonians, by researching various aspects of it, we can kind of find a formula for resistance against the world, or a formula for survival.
What I mean by resistance against the world is how to survive in very harsh conditions – because if we compare this to very many indigenous people, and not only indigenous people […] In the 19th century there were two and a half thousand Livonians, which is an extremely small number – that’s a village in Great Britain, I guess. Despite that, 200 years later Livonians still exist, and that’s even without speaking about two world wars, which destroyed the Livonian coast entirely, and the border area that erased the existence of the Livonian-speaking area in general. During all that, the Livonians have managed somehow to survive. So maybe that’s something we can offer to others: how to survive 200 years longer – if two and a half thousand people can do it, everyone can.
WM: So will Livonian be the example for other languages in Europe?
VE: Yes, because if you can use this for Livonians, you can use it for very many cases. Because the Livonians are an extreme case for an endangered nation, because it’s really very small and it has very many problems that others don’t have, like for example lacking [a distinct] area – for many endangered languages, this is not a problem, because it’s a village language or the language of a certain region.
One project we've launched its to collect Livonian place names. So to be precise, because some people tend to get confused about it: not place names of Livonian origin, but place names in the Livonian language.
WM: So just to clarify, that wouldn’t just be on the Livonian Coast – that could also be here [in Rīga], for example? You’re going a long way back.
VE: Yes, if we can get them. The thing is that we are not particularly interested in how it sounds in Latvian; we are interested in what these places were called in Livonian. And we use various methods for doing that like using digital corpora, extracting them from, for example, folklore material like folk tales, then also metadata of various collections. There is a collection, for example, where someone has collected different various household items, but it’s written from which household they were collected and it’s written in Livonian. Then we take them. Another part of that is that we are not only collecting them, but also linking them to geospatial information, basically to get them attached to coordinates. As a result of that, there are two things that come up. Through the coordinates, we are linking these Livonian place names to other official Latvian databases. That enables, for example, us to pull up Livonian signs. So we offer official Livonian versions of Latvian place names. So if they want to, for example, put up a sign in Kolka [a village on the Livonian coast] with its Livonian name Kūolka, they aready have a source in accordance with Livonian language rules, standardised.
WM: You mentioned that Livonian is perhaps unusual in a European context in that it doesn't have a territory where the language is still concentrated. Do you think the internet is unusually important for languages in such circumstances?
VE: It’s a global tendency, it doesn’t only affect Livonian – because people move much more, but what is different is that people can stay virtually connected to their society, by reading [internet] portals, looking at videos in the language that they speak, etc. And for smaller languages and smaller communities, this is extremely important because this is kind of an artificial leg in a sense, because it does supplement something that you have lost. And for Livonians it really was, because the territory was lost in the ‘50s, and after that it was really difficult to get together, simply to have a conversation. Because you need two people, and that means two people have to meet. So now these technologies allow them to do that. But of course there are certain dangers, and they has been a subject of discussion.
For example, Sámi [language activists] are working on automated translation options, but they don’t create tools for translation into Sámi, but only from Sámi. For me, that's also something to think about. It would be very nice if you had tools to translate from one language to another, but then again by not getting good-quality translations into, for example, Livonian or into Sámi, you can suddenly over-populate the language with lots of data of poor quality, and you can actually influence this living organism with a kind of disease. And it ends up that by trying to save the language, you are killing it but by other means. Because people think that it’s OK, and then they start to use it because the majority use it.
This interview was published in two parts. Read the continuation here.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Will Mawhood


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‘We have a strange destiny’: a conversation with the Livonian poet Valts Ernštreits: Part II · Global Voices
Will Mawhood

Livonian poet and language activist Valts Ernštreits. Photo used with permission.
This is the second part of an interview I conducted with Livonian poet and translator Valts Ernštreits, who is currently the director of the Livonian Institute, founded in 2018, at the University of Latvia in the capital city Rīga. Read the first part here.
I spoke with Ernštreits about the role of digital technologies in language preservation and his hopes for the survival of this endangered Finnic language. The interview has been edited for style and brevity.
WM: Tell me a little bit about the resources that are currently available online to learn Livonian. There’s the website livones.net, and there are Facebook pages and YouTube pages to teach Livonian – at quite a basic level, I think, mostly?
VE: A little bit, yes. In coming years that should change quite fast. On the one hand, what we are developing at the institute are research tools for better research into Livonian and better collection of data on Livonian. But on the other hand, we keep in mind that one part of the audience is the Livonian community, and so we try to work in both directions. But they are closely connected, because you can’t teach Livonian without research and you can’t research Livonian without resources. But the idea is really that as a by-product of what we are creating is something for the whole society, in the sense that all these tools can be used sufficiently for learning and keeping the Livonian language and culture – starting from maps in Livonian.
That’s one project that has come out of this place name dictionary. One part of this which is currently being developed is also – not corpora, but collection of texts. That’s also one problem, because corpora are usually just a mass of texts, but if you want to read them separately, you cannot access them, so for us it’s very important also to have all the Livonian texts in one place, so people can use them for whatever purpose they need – just for reading on a Saturday or for creating digital or language material themselves.
WM: I believe that the Tava Klase (Your Class) programme was the first time that Livonian was made available for study at the national level, even if it was only an introductory course. It's interesting that this happened almost by accident, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures. I read that you were given two weeks to create episodes [for online learning], is that right?
VE: I would say even less. It was a really nice example of how to really exploit this pandemic for the greater good. I received a call from the Ministry of Education, and the person told me “we have this Tava Klase project – distance teaching over the television – and we’ve put Livonian language on the list”. But nobody asked who would do it. Of course we could not leave that unanswered; first of all, to avoid a situation where ministry says “we offered it, and you didn’t take the offer”. So we didn’t want that to be used as an argument [in future].
So we counted seven lessons which we had to make and it became pretty clear that you can't really teach the language in seven 20-minute lessons. It’s impossible. That’s two hours altogether – no language can be learnt in two hours. Then we understood that we had to take a different approach: to offer basic knowledge about Livonian and Livonians in general. And that could be it – that is what could be achieved in this format, just from a calculation of the time.
Then we made the first lesson. We realised that this was something which was going to last […] So was very important that we do it properly, even though we have a time limit and no money. It was difficult, but we had to manage.
This is especially the case with Livonian. If you’re talking about mathematics or Latvian language or English, there are professional teachers who have been teaching full-time. There are long-standing traditions of teaching those subjects in schools, so it’s much easier – although the online format is different; it’s not the same as the school format, which many of the teachers participating in this Tava Klase project didn’t really realise. They kind of took it as “I’ll do the same lesson, just in front of a camera”, which is not really how it works.
We approached it with the principle that we have to make it so that it can be used in years after. So first of all, don’t talk about the pandemic, don’t talk about the current situation, even though small things should be taken into account, because you’re not making it for today. Another thing is that we’re not [only] making it for schoolkids, but also for the broader public. Not only for people in the educational system – again, to save resources.
WM: Do you think you can build on this series you’ve made in the future?
VE: Yes. One thing is that this series filled a particular gap. Because as I said, when we were making it, there was one particular issue: not to give the time when this was made. Not to say “well, this is a brilliant time when all the Livonians are on the Livonian Coast” – in three years no one will really know what that means. Since then we've started thinking of getting into really serious television, and getting into Latvian state television with a series about Livonian history, to develop something much more in-depth.
There are already documentaries about Livonian, but they are kind of emotional. This would be educational. The idea would be that we pick important events in Livonian history and try to show how they correlate with Latvian history – for example, how the building of Rīga is actually an event for Livonian history. To give the Livonian perspective on even well-known events.
We didn’t want only to show good and nice things, but we wanted also to talk about problems, about what has not been good: about the ban on using Livonian place names in Livonian newspapers, or the death of a Livonian patriot in Ventspils prison [Uļi Kīnkamäg, in 1932], who was arrested because of his Livonian beliefs. To show the whole picture, to show that Livonians do have their own view about certain things, and there are events that may not seem important for Latvia but which are very important for Livonians, for these indigenous people of Latvia. That's the idea of the series: to tell the Livonian story to the Latvian public, so they would better understand why Livonian is important. Because 15 years ago, they didn’t even know the difference between Livonians and, I don’t know, people from Bauska [a town in southern Latvia]
WM: Just a comment about the material – you mentioned that you weren’t using it to teach the language as such. You did teach colours, the names of family members, numbers, and so on, but there’s a lot more: you tell stories, you talk about place names… It felt to me that a really big theme of all of the episodes was the connection with Latvia, and the connection with the Latvian language – that seemed to be something you were really emphasising. You talked about the words in Latvian that came from Livonian and so on.
VE: The idea was what we can give in these lessons is some basics of the language, some understanding for people in Latvia of what we have in common and what is different, and also to show various aspects of Livonian culture which people have not seen, and basically in these seven lessons to give an idea about all the various areas. But also how Livonians connect with everyone [in Latvia] – why is it personal? The idea was not like showing something in a zoo – you can see different strange animals there. This was like: why is this important for me, as a Latvian? What do I not know?
For example, in the last episode we were not on the Livonian Coast – it was actually the longest episode, we filmed it for the whole day, and there was already some pre-filmed material. It was dedicated to the places of Latvia, Livonian heritage in Rīga, Livonian heritage around the River Daugava [in central/southern Latvia], Livonian heritage in folk songs which are considered Latvian. And that was especially like: you’ve heard about Livonians, but this is why it’s important for every Latvian person and every schoolkid in Latvia to know about the Livonians.


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The climate crisis message in Jamaican environmentalist’s new novel is rooted ‘in love for home’ · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Jamaican author and environmentalist Diana McCaulay. Photo by Jonathan Chambers, used with permission.
“How do you live, when daylight kills?” That's the question posed in award-winning Jamaican writer and environmental activist Diana McCaulay's fifth novel, “Daylight Come,” published by Peepal Tree Press on September 24.
The story begins on the imaginary Caribbean island of Bacaju in 2084, where a teen girl and her mother have reached a desperation point, fleeing their city and the devastating conditions brought on by climate change. Hiding from the cruel sun, they head for the hills, unsure of what to expect as they embark on a dramatic bid for survival.
The cover of Diana McCaulay's new novel, published by Peepal Tree Press. Image courtesy McCaulay, used with permission.
The tale may sound dystopian, but for McCaulay, it hits close to home. Despite their small carbon footprints, Caribbean islands are at the global front lines of climate change. Since mid-May, the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season has produced tropical cyclones at an unprecedented rate, and the region has consistently suffered from hurricanes in the past. It has also endured increasingly persistent and lengthy droughts, water shortages and high temperatures, as well as periods of extreme rainfall.
As critical discussions drew to a close at New York Climate Week, I interviewed McCaulay via email about the complex issues surrounding the climate crisis in the Caribbean context.
Emma Lewis (EL): What prompted you to write this novel?
Diana McCaulay (DMC): About three summers ago while travelling, I read an article about construction workers in the Middle East falling from scaffolding due to the heat, and I started to think about what would happen if it became too hot to work outside. When I returned to Jamaica, I started paying close attention to all the people working outside. What would happen if no work was possible outside for much of the year? That was the kernel of the idea for “Daylight Come.” I went on to imagine what kind of world might emerge — would people start to work at night and sleep in the day? But suppose there was one person, a teenager, who could not sleep?
EL: The novel is aimed at a young adult audience. Is it a genre that's important to you?
DMC: I never have any audience in mind when I write [but] I seem most inclined to write about young people in the 12- to 16-year-old age group and my writing style is simple, so two of my books have been received as young adult books. That genre is important to me because I loved reading myself from a very early age, so I like the idea of reaching a young audience.
EL: The mother/daughter perspective underlines the generational aspects of the climate change discussion. Is there a disconnect between generations on the issue?
DMC: I do think there is a disconnect — even anger — because successive generations of older people have caused or tolerated the problem, while young people are the ones who are going to have to deal with it. I’m not sure I think about it as bridging a gap in understanding so much as a need for urgent action by young people. This is their fight, their future, their world. Older people need to support them with information, guidance, funding, and access to power.
EL: Communicating about climate change can be quite a challenge. How can we reach different local audiences?
DMC: The language of science is not very useful in communicating a crisis, I’ve found. Science is measured, unfolds slowly and speaks about probabilities and uncertainties, while people want precise predictions. I think the climate crisis message should nest in love for home place, in rootedness, in appreciation of a particular way of life. It should speak about rights and justice and fairness — because it is a profoundly unfair situation that developed countries have constructed high standards of living on fossil fuel energy and now countries who have not enjoyed these standards of living are being asked to NEVER have them.
In terms of reaching local audiences, l learned from my experiences with an anti-litter campaign that music, performance, humour and animation are most effective, but it’s a challenge to communicate danger in that way. The difficulty with climate crisis messaging to the public is the call to action. I don’t agree with making this about individual action, important as that is — you know, the encouragement to save energy and save water  — it’s too late for that. The climate crisis is a problem of governments and corporations and economic systems. It’s a problem of power.
Diana McCaulay and members of her team were part of a flotilla to Jamaica's Goat Islands on September 14, 2013. The expedition aimed to highlight the Jamaica Environment Trust's campaign (chaired by McCaulay) to save Goat Islands, an ecologically sensitive area, from plans to build a mega-port. It was a long campaign, which ended in success three years later. Image by Emma Lewis, used with permission.
EL: What kinds of stories should we be telling about climate change?
DMC: Facts and information are important, but it’s a call to the emotions that causes people to care, to act. I’d like to see more near-future stories — much climate fiction is set very far in the future, so people can tell themselves that this is a long way off and might never happen.
EL: What specific actions would you like to see take place in the Caribbean in the next five years?
DMC: The disconnect I see in the region is between rhetoric and action. We’re certainly talking a good talk, we go to all the conferences, we send in our reports, we sign up to conventions, we celebrate small, local projects. But if you look at the development decisions currently being taken, they’re consistent with a development model that we should already have left behind.
For example, Jamaica has recently permitted a very large hotel in a pristine mangrove area right on the coast, we have a city bypass planned which will take out mangroves, and we’re intending to build an industrial zone and housing on an aquifer replenishment area. In terms of actions, I’d like to see the establishment of no-build zones due to climate vulnerability. I’d like to see us beginning to plan managed retreat from the coastline — so much of our critical infrastructure is at or near sea level.
I’d like to see a reframing of how tourism is marketed, which is entirely a fantasy; you know, those empty, over-raked beaches with all the native vegetation removed. I’d like to see us urgently removing people who are already living in hazard-prone areas, [like] on the banks of rivers or storm water courses. I’d like to see serious protection of all our fresh water resources, as well as those natural resources we know give us resilience to the effects of the climate crisis, like forests, reefs and seagrass beds. And I’d like to see an energy transition, which is somewhat underway, but still based on natural gas, which is a fossil fuel, and not proceeding fast enough.
EL: “Daylight Come” suggests that a series of future challenges face human existence. Is there hope?
DMC: In terms of hope or hopelessness, I think of it as what we should do, how we should act, what the solutions might be, what are the priorities. Tropical ecosystems WILL heal themselves if you give them a chance — and more quickly than many other types of ecosystems. We’ve already lost a lot, but we still have much that is worth protecting, and we should be determined not to lose even more.
EL: There is a growing number of young climate activists, in the Caribbean and beyond. What's your message for them?
DMC: You have more power than you realize. Use it. Organize. Find allies. Speak out. You don’t have to know everything about the science — what you need is concern. Outrage. Determination. Courage.

author: Emma Lewis


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‘The war in Karabakh has made the possibility of conflict resolution even more distant’, fears Armenian politician Mikayel Zolyan · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Armenian politician and analyst Mikayel Zolyan. Photo courtesy of Mikayel Zolyan, used with permission.
The conflict currently raging in Nagorno-Karabakh does not only concern Armenia and Azerbaijan. This conflict has significant international dimensions: neighbouring countries with interests in the South Caucasus can play a significant role in inflaming or de-escalating the violence. As a member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), Armenia has close ties to Moscow. Meanwhile, Turkey appears to have offered extensive political and military support to Azerbaijan during the recent fighting. Nearby Iran and Georgia watch warily.
Much has changed in Armenia since a ceasefire in 1994 cemented the status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh. Rulers have come and gone, several of them made and unmade by their approach to this bitter dispute. In 2018, Armenians launched mass protests and ousted longtime President Serzh Sargsyan, himself a native of Nagorno-Karabakh. These events, which became known as the Velvet Revolution, brought a new generation of politicians to power — key among them Nikol Pashinyan, a former journalist turned opposition deputy who became Armenia's prime minister.
Another is Mikayel Zolyan, who entered politics in the 2018 parliamentary elections as a deputy for Pashinyan's ruling My Step Coalition. Zolyan is also a member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations of Armenia's National Assembly. Before starting his political career Zolyan, who holds a phD in political science, was a prominent analyst and commentator on the South Caucasus for various research institutions. In this interview, he shares his thoughts about the latest violence in Karabakh and what it means for Armenia and beyond.
In this interview, Zolyan uses certain terms to describe territories and locations that reflect his own perspective. These do not imply an editorial position on their status. For more on the issue of disputed names, check our explainer here. This interview has been edited for brevity and style.
Filip Noubel (FN): In which way is the escalation that started on September 27 different from previous fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia?
Mikayel Zolyan (MZ): The short answer is that it is not an “escalation” any more. It is a full-blown war, with artillery, tanks, missiles, airplanes and killer drones. All this weaponry is being applied against the civilian population: Stepanakert [the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh] and other towns of Artsakh [an Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh] have been under heavy shelling for days, with casualties among the civilian population. The First Karabakh war — we can already call it that — ended in 1994, leaving behind an unstable ceasefire. It was often broken by more or less significant incidents, but still allowed most Armenians and Azerbaijanis to live in relative peace. The current war represents a completely new level of violence, unseen for 26 years. And many of the young people dying on the frontline on both sides were born long after the end of the first war.
Another major difference is that this time we know for sure what has happened: this war started around 7 a.m. on Sunday, September 27. The order to start the offensive came from Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev, with encouragement from Turkey’s president [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan. These two people bear the full responsibility for all the deaths and destruction happening today. The fact that it was Azerbaijani forces who started the full-scale offensive is so obvious that even Aliyev’s propaganda is hardly trying to deny it. So is the fact that Turkish military are taking part in the fighting on Aliyev’s side, together with pro-Turkish mercenaries from Syria, recruited and transported by Erdoğan.
FN: Why is Turkey so prominently and openly supportive of Baku this time? What does that mean for Turkey’s ambitions and for Armenian politics?
MZ: The war in Artsakh is part of the regional strategy of Turkey’s Erdoğan, who seeks to re-create some version of the Ottoman Empire. Artsakh is just another piece in the chain of Erdoğan’s aggression along with Northern Syria, Northern Iraq, Libya, Greece, and Cyprus. His aim is to project power and make Turkey a key player in all these regions. He is competing with both Russia and the West.
And in this case, Erdoğan made Azerbaijan’s president Aliyev a tool for his neo-imperialist agenda. Aliyev has been willing to allow that, since his hereditary petro-dictatorship is under severe strain because of the weight of economic difficulties and lack of popular legitimacy. “A small victorious war” is the perfect way to salvage a crumbling autocracy, especially since anti-Armenian sentiment is pretty much the only thing that unites Aliyev supporters and critics in Azerbaijan.
For Armenia, Turkey’s involvement means that what is happening today is an existential matter. It takes only a little bit of empathy to understand what Turkey’s direct involvement means for a people that still vividly remembers the 1915 genocide in Ottoman Turkey, which by the way Erdoğan’s government continues to deny.
FN: Do you think Russia is unable or unwilling so far to impose a ceasefire, perhaps because of Pashinyan’s ambiguous position on Armenia’s dependency on Russia?
MK: Russia is one of the mediators in the conflict, as co-chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, together with the US and France. For years, the Karabakh conflict was one of the few remaining areas where Russia and the West had a relatively efficient cooperation. The current war presents a major challenge to all the three mediators, since it undermines their role in the region, It is an especially acute challenge for Russia, since it is happening in the vicinity of its borders. Russia is also a military ally of Armenia, as member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), however the CSTO guarantees apply to the territory of the Republic of Armenia proper, while the Republic of Artsakh is not a member of CSTO. Finally, Russia also has a working partnership with Azerbaijan, which it is not willing to lose. Moreover, there is a strong Azerbaijani lobby in Russia, which is trying to paint Armenia’s current government as “secretly pro-Western”. In any case, Armenia after the [2018] revolution has been loyal to all its commitments. What we are doing today is keeping our partners, both Russia and other co-chair countries, informed about the situation, and it is up to them to choose which actions can be more efficient in stopping the war. We see that today both Russia, France, and the US are working to stop the conflict.
FN: In your view, what are most optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for the coming days and weeks?
MK: Well, we all hope that the fighting will end as soon as possible. However, it is hard to tell. The blitzkrieg strategy of the Aliyev regime has failed to achieve his goals, but he is doubling down, like a gambler who has already lost a lot. Erdoğan is encouraging Aliyev to keep raising the stakes, both through public statements and continuing flow of weapons and mercenaries into Azerbaijan. If this continues, the escalation of the war can become uncontrollable and have disastrous consequences for all sides involved. Today the South Caucasus is seen as the meeting point of Eastern Europe and post-Soviet Central Eurasia: both Azerbaijan and Armenia are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Council of Europe, OSCE, EU's Eastern Partnership. If this war continues, especially with the involvement of mercenaries and terrorists, the South Caucasus may become the gate through which instability floods both Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space. That is why I believe it is in the interests of both Russia and the West to stop this war as soon as possible.
FN: Do you see space for dialogue in Azerbaijan and in Armenia? What voices are calling for it? If so, whose and where?
MK: Official negotiations can start only after the aggression against civilian population is stopped. As for contact between civil societies, it is hard to imagine such contacts at this point. In any case, Armenia is ready for dialogue, both on the government level and on the society level, but right now we are fighting to defend the lives of people in Artsakh, our freedom, our independence and the gains of the Velvet Revolution of 2018. I don’t know what Azerbaijanis are fighting for, but I assume they believe that they are defending some kind of a just cause. So, dialogue is hard to imagine today. When the war is over, there will be a lot of work to do in order to establish a new dialogue. I am sure that one day Armenians and Azerbaijanis will be able to come together and talk about their issues not as enemies, but as people who want to resolve them. But this war has made the possibility of conflict resolution even more distant. After the war in the 1990s there already was a lot of pain and suffering separating Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Unfortunately, the new war has made this gap even more difficult to bridge.
Read an interview with the Azerbaijani journalist Rovshan Aliyev here

author: Filip Noubel


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Turkey’s involvement in the Karabakh conflict could harm Azerbaijan, warns journalist Rovshan Aliyev · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan meets Azerbaijani President IIham Aliyev in Baku, February 2020. Photo CC-BY-4.0: President.Az / Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.
This isn't the first time in recent years when fighting has flared up in Nagorno-Karabakh.
But what is new, observers say, is the scale of the latest clashes — which can now be more accurately described as a full-blown war. Regional power brokers are also playing an increasingly important role in the conflict. If Armenia's ally Russia has remained uncharacteristically remote, the same cannot be said for Azerbaijan's close partners in Ankara. Turkey has offered extensive political and likely military support to Azerbaijan in recent weeks. International media have reported that mercenaries from Turkish controlled areas of northern Syria have been transferred to the South Caucasus to fight on Baku's side — reports which the Azerbaijani authorities have roundly dismissed.
Turkey and Azerbaijan share the smallest of borders — Azerbaijan's exclave of Nakhchivan borders eastern Turkey, though Nakhchivan is itself separated from Azerbaijan proper by Armenia and Iran. For decades, they were also divided by the Iron Curtain; Azerbaijan came under Soviet rule in 1920 and Turkey became a NATO member state in 1952.
However, Turkey and Azerbaijan also share Turkic roots, very similar languages, and a shared narrative about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Turkey was the first to recognise Azerbaijan as independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, its relations with Armenia are officially non-existent; the long border between the two countries has been closed since the first Karabakh War in the early 1990s. Importantly, Turkey's refusal to recognise the events of 1915 as an act of genocide continue to infuriate Armenian public opinion.
In this context, it is not surprising that Ankara remains a staunch supporter of Baku. But observers are increasingly wondering: why now? Why on this scale? And what role does domestic Turkish politics play?
To understand more, I spoke to Rovshan Aliyev, a former Radio Free Europe journalist from Azerbaijan who currently works as a media trainer in the Czech capital of Prague. This interview has been edited for brevity and style.
Rovshan Aliyev, photo used with permission.
Rovshan Aliyev (RA): Well, this is not a routine disruption of the [1994] ceasefire, something that has been happening occasionally on the frontline for years. This is almost a full-scale, continuous military operation. During previous standoffs, even in the most recent one in 2017, Armenia never openly threatened Azerbaijan with a military intervention to Azerbaijan, saying that the forces holding Azerbaijani territories are the self-defence army of Nagorno-Karabakh. But this time, we see a policy change, as Armenia is no longer hiding its direct involvement. On March 30, the Armenian Defence minister David Tonoyan declared that his country must prepare for “a new war for new territories” on the website Aravot.am. In May, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan participated in an inauguration event in Shusha, a city in Nagorno Karabakh that holds special significance for Azerbaijanis as a cultural centre and a place formerly inhabited almost exclusively by Azerbaijanis which has been since ethnically cleansed. More recently, Pashinyan's wife, Anna Hakobyan also posed on social media holding a Kalashnikov rifle. Finally, in July, Armenian forces also shelled the region of Tovuz, which is situated inside Azerbaijan.
FN: Why is Turkey so prominently and openly supportive of Baku this time? What does it mean for Turkey’s ambitions and for Azerbaijan’s politics?
RA: Turkey was always supportive [of Azerbaijan] in terms of politics and diplomacy, but did not display direct military support. In 1991, Turkey recognised the independence of Armenia, but after Armenian forces occupied territories around Nagorno Karabakh, that is an additional seven districts of Azerbaijan, Turkey closed its border with Armenia. This was a form of economic sanction, but not a full-scale one, as to this day, the trade turnover between Turkey and Armenia amounts to several hundred millions of US dollars.

This time it seems that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to go beyond words and to support Azerbaijan with hardware. But I think such cooperation might harm more Azerbaijan than help it. Authoritarian leaders like Erdoğan try to take advantage of every situation, so Azerbaijan must be careful as Turkey’s direct involvement may complicate the conflict even more. So far, I don’t see any proof that the Turkish air force is directly involved. Concerning military equipment sales, it is not a secret that each side buys the weapon from several countries: Russia sells weapons to Azerbaijan, and sends more to Armenia for free, via Iranian territory. Azerbaijan has a US$1.6 billion contract with Israel, while Serbia has sold weapons to Armenia.
FN:
RA:  The previous political tandem in Armenia of President [Robert] Kocharyan and Prime Minister [Serzh] Sargsyan, the leaders of Russia and Armenia had a mutual understanding for many years, despite their interests being so different. In my opinion, the new Armenian leader Pashinyan [who came to power in 2018] felt himself alienated from this trio. As the revolutionary euphoria diminished in Armenia, the social, and then political crisis deepened, so Pashinyan desperately started to play the Karabakh card. I think he calculated that militarist behaviour might help him strengthen his position in Armenia. But Russia’s more neutral behaviour when compared to previous times shows that Pashinyan has miscalculated.
FN: In your view, what are the most optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for the coming days and weeks? Furthermore, Do you see space for dialogue in Azerbaijan and in Armenia? What voices are calling for it? If so, whose and where?
RA: I think [the conflict] will be shorter than Azerbaijan wants, but longer than Armenia and its international allies want. I always believed in people's diplomacy, but the governments of all three countries have hindered such initiatives. On the Armenian side, most people are prisoners of the militarist ideology of the Dashnaktsutyun party, that has suppressed alternative voices. This group has fuelled the conflict from abroad, published many books, falsified many historical facts, and filled libraries with charged literature, particularly during the Cold War. Western powers were interested in the collapse of the USSR, thus the Dashnaktsutyun ideology was very suitable for this purpose. I’m against communism and the USSR, but I’m against using ethnic discrimination and ethnic conflicts to achieve their demise. The  Azerbaijani rhetoric, including the militaristic and hateful speech which we see in the media, is a reaction to this Dashnaktsutyun propaganda. It is not a rational reaction.

Therefore, I personally know many Armenians, like Filip Ekozyants, a brave Armenian intellectual, who must be supported as alternative voices. Azerbaijani and Armenian people need a common project to find out ways to bring their positions closer. We must recognise that a century ago, Ottoman officials decided to deport Armenian people from their homes, and it resulted in a catastrophe, even some don’t want to use the word genocide. But we must also recognise that Azerbaijanis were not participants in this. A century ago two empires disintegrated: in the Ottoman Empire Armenians suffered, while in the Russian Tsarist Empire, Azerbaijanis suffered. Thus if some Armenians think that they must take revenge for Ottoman crimes in Nagorno Karabakh and other Azerbaijani territories, this notion is unrelated, unacceptable, and ridiculous. On the other hand, Azerbaijanis must be vigilant in order not to support neo-Ottoman rhetoric spread by Erdoğan supporters.
Read an interview with the Armenian politician and analyst Mikayel Zolyan here


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Historic homicide reduction in El Salvador continues to spur debate in the country · Global Voices
Eddie Galdamez

Screenshot from Al Jazeera news report from September 6, 2020, on YouTube.
After 15 months of governance, it seems that president Nayib Bukele — a 37-year-old politician who put an end to an old two-party system — is delivering on his promise to reduce El Salvador’s legacy of violence and homicides. Since he took office, El Salvador has had the lowest homicide rate since 2015, the deadliest year El Salvador suffered recently. Yet, hypotheses and analyses of how the statistics have dropped are subject to much debate in the country.
President Nayib Bukele attributes the success to his “territorial control plan“. On the other hand, some analysts, journalists, and the political opposition believe that Bukele has a secret truce with gangs to lower homicides and win votes in the next parliamentarian elections in February 2021, as reported in the El Faro newspaper.
Bukele's territorial control plan consists of seven phases that will be implemented during his term in office. The first three phases are about increasing the presence of security forces on the streets, modernizing the equipment of police forces, and prevention activities for youth at risk. The estimated cost of the security plan's initial three phases is $575 million. As of today, only phase one and part of phase two have been implemented. Lack of funding is delaying the implementation of phase three.
Phase one of the security plan aims at “taking back control” of the territory controlled by gangs. To accomplish this, the government deployed a large number of soldiers to help the National Police with security and moved high ranking gang members into separate prisons, mixed rival gangs in the same jail cells, and removed all phone devices from the jails.
Autoridades de @CentrosPenales trasladaron a varios reos de alta peligrosidad a cárceles con mayor rigurosidad, con el objetivo que no sigan ordenando delitos. Esta acción es parte del #PlanControlTerritorial implementado por el gobierno, informa @SeguridadSV_. Fotos cortesía. pic.twitter.com/a2yDzCfpaj
— elsalvador.com (@elsalvadorcom) June 21, 2019
Authorities from @CentrosPenales moved several highly dangerous inmates to prisons with greater control, with the aim of stopping them from ordering crimes. This action is part of the #PlanControlTerritorial implemented by the government, reports @SeguridadSV_.
Sofía Martinez, an expert consultant in Central American security, questioned the tactics used by President Bukele, which were already implemented by previous presidents from 2003 to 2018. None of which had given positive results in the past.
The investigative digital newspaper El Faro reported on September 3 that Bukele's government had secretly negotiated with the largest gang in El Salvador, MS-13, to reduce the number of homicides and receive electoral support. MS-13 is perhaps the most notorious and arguably most violent street gang in the Americas. This gang is firmly established in all 14 departments of El Salvador, both in urban and rural areas.
El Faro asserted that they had hundreds of pages, such as reports and logbooks from maximum-security prisons, as evidence. El Faro wrote:
The documents reveal negotiations between the Salvadoran administration and incarcerated leaders of MS-13 dating back to June of 2019, when President Bukele took office.
El Faro stated that in return for lowering the homicides and getting electoral support in the upcoming elections, MS-13 would receive small prison privileges such as receiving fried chicken, pizza, candy, and pupusas in their gang cell blocks and the removal of aggressive prison guards. Larger benefits would also be at play, such as revoking the decision to mix rival gangs in the same jail cell and “even promising to soften the maximum-security regime, repeal laws, and give gang members ‘benefits’ if the government can take control of the Legislative Assembly in the elections in February 2021,” according to El Faro.
The Bukele administration swiftly responded to El Faro's allegations by ridiculing its claims on Twitter. Vice Minister of Justice and General Director of Penal Centers Osiris Luna took reporters to all three prisons mentioned in El Faro's report to show that inmates had no benefits of any kind and that rival gangs were housed in the same jail cell.
The report by El Faro is not the first of its kind that came out indicating the alleged gang truce between the government and gangs. The International Crisis Group wrote an article on July 8 that questioned whether the plunging violence was “a miracle or mirage”.
Furthermore, on October 1, InSightCrime published an investigation on Bukele and gangs that dates back to the time he was mayor of San Salvador. The investigation by InSightCrime focuses on the rehabilitation of the San Salvador Historic District. InSightCrime stipulates that the rehabilitation of the historic district was accomplished by Bukele due to secret negotiations with gangs in the area.
President Bukele has continued to criticize and ridicule El Faro and other media outlets for the reports on his administration. This criticism of El Faro and other media outlets has raised worries among journalists and international observers about freedom of the press in El Salvador. Latin American journalists asked IACHR to act on the president's attacks in El Salvador in the context of the slandering of El Faro.
President Nayib Bukele denied accusations that he is attacking the press:
“Algunos periodistas dicen que este gobierno ataca a la prensa; nosotros estamos comprometidos con la libertad de expresión, pero algunos pasan publicando una sarta de mentiras y lo que nosotros hacemos es desmentirlos. Eso no es violar la libertad.”
Presidente Nayib Bukele.
“Some journalists say that this government attacks the press; we are committed to freedom of expression, but some go around publishing a string of lies and what we do is deny them. That is not violating freedom.”
President Nayib Bukele.
In 2012, a secret truce to lower the homicide rate was adopted by the ex-president Mauricio Funes administration and both main Salvadoran gangs, MS-13, and 18th Street. The killings dropped in 2012 and 2013, but when the truce fell out, the number of homicides spiked to the infamous 2015 rate of 18.2 daily murders.
Journalist Oscar Martinez fears that this might happen again if there is a secret truce today between the government and the gangs. He encourages the president to openly negotiate with the gangs to restore peace in society. However, Martinez may be in the minority as the vast majority of the population is opposed to negotiations with gangs either in secret or in public according to polls dating from 2014. Those surveyed stated that negotiations give legitimacy to ruthless criminal organizations.
Soon after the El Faro allegations were made public, the Salvadoran General attorney Raul Melara opened an investigation into the alleged secret negotiations.

author: Eddie Galdamez


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‘Life and Limb’: Foresters on the front line of climate change in Vanuatu · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Foresters in Vanuatu. Source: Facebook page of Vanuatu Department of Forest.
One of the films being screened at the ongoing 2020 Eugene Environmental Film Festival is ‘Life and Limb’ which features the work of foresters in Vanuatu.
The Eugene Environmental Film Festival highlights initiatives around the world that share  “a deep connection and responsibility to protect the environment and work in solidarity with others in the struggle toward environmental justice.” This year the festival is free and all films are screened online.
Vanuatu is a South Pacific nation of 80 islands. It is extremely vulnerable to climate change, in particular the threat posed by rising sea levels to coastal communities.
One of the environmental protection initiatives that the Vanuatu government has recently launched aims to make an inventory of forest lands on 12 major islands. This was last done 30 years ago.
Ginny Stein, a veteran Australian journalist and filmmaker, documented this work. Stein has been helping Vanuatu’s Department of Forestry as a volunteer and consultant.
Global Voices emailed Stein and asked what inspired her to document the work of the foresters:
After a long career as a foreign correspondent and film maker, I moved to Vanuatu to work as a volunteer in communications at the Department of Forestry.
The National Forest Inventory kicked off while I was there. I thought it was a great chance to teach foresters about the power of media in raising public awareness about what they do. I was fortunate to get a chance to work with them, to talk about filming using phones and tablets, before they departed for the field.
She added how her team decided to make a documentary:
They started sending me short video clips which I would turn into social media videos and post on the forestry Facebook page. At the same time, I had the chance to meet up with them in the field, on a number of islands where I would film with them. Over the course of six months, I realised we had enough material to make a documentary, which is how ‘Life and Limb’ came together.
The documentary follows a team of foresters who are part of the government project to make an inventory of the forest lands and offers a glimpse into their battle against climate change. It also shows the importance of the forest in Vanuatu culture and how logging for several decades has gravely affected the ecological balance in the country’s small islands.
It also narrated the impact of the rise in cash-crop demand on Vanuatu’s agricultural and forest lands.
For the past year I have worked with the Forestry Department of Vanuatu to help protect one of this South Pacific Island's most unique and valuable resources….its forests. Foresters became camera operators as they began the first stocktake of the island's forests in more than 30 years. The proof of everyone's efforts…a documentary "Life and Limb" will be launched next week at the Australian High Commission in Port Vila.  For the past few weeks, we have all watched from here in horror as Australia's forests have burned. Vanuatu, a small pacific island on the front lines of climate change, is one of a number of island countries that has chipped in to help Australian firefighters.  This documentary is about Vanuatu's forests, but it highlights the value of forests to people's lives the world over. Tankio tumas olgeta blong Vanuatu and all who helped make it. #forestartist #forestmapping #forests #conservation #lifeandlimb #climateemergency #wildlife #wildseas #kauri #nabunga #forestry #climatechange #climate #sustainability  #theworld #camera #documentary
A post shared by  VanuatuForestryDepartment (@vanuatuforestrydepartment) on
Stein explained some of the challenges faced by the foresters:
For the teams, the biggest challenge was getting to where they had to go, by boat, truck, or foot. And the weather. They were reliant on the support of communities. For me, connecting with them was the greatest challenge. And data is really expensive in Vanuatu.
The film was screened in Vanuatu in January 2020. Stein shared the feedback of the audience:
Showing the film the first time and watching the reaction of foresters was priceless. There was lots of joy and pride in what they had done. And a thrill of seeing themselves on the big screen. Taking it into communities was very rewarding. At Hog Harbour in Santo, people watched it at an outdoor screening. There was laughter and joy at seeing ni-Vanuatu working for their country. People really loved the music as well. I was lucky that Vanuatu's Cultural Centre gave me access to some of their archived music and that the Soul Harvest Choir also allowed me to use some music I recorded with them.
Finally, Stein’s message to the international community:
My message is please watch “Life and Limb”, and please support those on the frontlines of climate change who are working hard knowing there are great challenges coming their way. You can do that by taking action yourself, wherever you are. By learning more about climate change, and calling on your representatives to start taking action now.
The whole film can be watched by visiting the website of the Eugene Environmental Film Festival. Watch the film’s trailer here:

author: Mong Palatino


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On China’s National Day, scripted interview with ‘patriotic’ Hong Kong citizen draws online mockery · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Image from the Stand News. Used with permission.
On October 1, when China celebrates National Day, a media stunt by Beijing’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong attracted widespread ridicule online.
With celebrations of this year's holiday halted in the city due to COVID-19, Beijing distributed a set of packaged National Day news to Hong Kong's media outlets consisting of a muted video, a set of photos and a news story.
The story, published on October 1 by several media outlets, depicted the Liaison Office's director Luo Huining's visiting two supposedly “ordinary” Hong Kong citizens.
One of them was Ng Pik Han, a 74-year-old resident of Siu Sai Wan who claims to have donated HK$110,000 (US$14,200 dollars) to mainland China earlier in the year when COVID-19 broke out in Wuhan.
Luo praised Ng’s act as a testament of the connection between Hong Kong and mainland China, using the Chinese expression “blood is thicker than water.” Ng then responds by quoting Luo's own speech from September 30 that “patriotism is not a choice, but an obligation and a righteous path.”
The other interviewee was Xu Tianmin, a man who lives in an 8-square-meter apartment in the Shum Shui Po complex. Xu says in the video that, because he's unemployed, his wife and daughter have had no choice but to return to their hometown in Hunan province.
Luo then comments on how the protests and the pandemic have struck Hong Kong's economy, and proceeds to tell his staff to help Xu find a new job.
Pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po published on October 1 a separate interview with Xu, who then said he helped organize pro-China protests since June 2019, when the anti-extradition demonstrations broke out, and that he had spent about HK$ 100,000 (about US$13,000 dollars) to help clean up anti-China graffiti and posters from the streets.
Netizens were quick to question Xu's identity.
While a cropped photo briefly led some to wrongfully conclude that he was a reporter from Beijing, soon it became clear that he was indeed a pro-China protester who had been interviewed by mainland Chinese and pro-Beijing media outlets in Hong Kong multiple times in the past.
@Lazyyyyyyy is among the netizens who dig into the story:
3/ It seems that Xu is indeed a Hunan native currently living in #HongKong as suggested in the Xinhua article. Xu appears to be a “patriotic” pro-police “activist”. There are plenty of photos of him participating in different anti-US and pro-government rallies. pic.twitter.com/SROPLPn45Z
— “爱国爱港”Lazyyyyyyy (@Lazyyyyyyy) October 2, 2020
On October 2, Wen Wei Po published another interview with Xu on its front page. This time, Xu said he had donated nearly one million Hong Kong dollars (US$130,000 dollars) earlier this year to mainland China for COVID-19 relief. The story stressed that Xu’s act reflected the spirit of Luo’s speech on “patriotism is not a choice, but an obligation”.
The search for Xu’s real identity has triggered a large number of comments and jokes on the Hong Kon internet. Below are some picks from various public pages on Facebook:
連基層也是山寨
Faking the grassroots.
沒維穩費要一人分飾多角
One actor has to take up multiple roles, the stability maintenance fund has been used up.
好撚煩，成鳩日做戲，同電話騙案一鳩樣，已經冇人上當㗎啦，都要做
That kind of drama is like telephone scams, no one believes in them but they keep the show on.
其他愛國藍絲應該好好學習!賣左層樓奉獻畀國家!唔係點配得上愛國呢2粒字!
Establishment supporters should learn this. Sell their apartment, donate it to the country or they can't be a patriot.
蘇聯作家、諾貝爾獎得主索忍尼辛：「我們知道他們在說謊，他們也知道自己是說謊，他們也知道我們知道他們在說謊，我們也知道他們知道我們知道他們說謊，但是他們依然在說謊。」
Russian writer and Nobel Prize laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn [editor's note: widely circulated unverified quote]: “We know they’re lying, they know they’re lying, they know that we know they’re lying, we also know that they know that we know they’re lying, but they still lie.“

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
Serbian government first flaunts, then denies having sold weapons to both Armenia and Azerbaijan · Global Voices
Istinomer

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Serbian Armed Forces weapons during a military exercise on August 21, 2020. Publicity photo by Presidency of Serbia/Dimitrije Goll. Use permitted.
This story originally appeared at Istinomer (Truth-O-Meter), a fact-checking initiative of the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA). An edited version is published below as part of a content-sharing agreement with Global Voices.
A raging conflict in the South Caucasus over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh has started to impact several other countries in often unexpected ways — Serbia is among them.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are once again fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region internationally recognised as Azerbaijani territory. During the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region's ethnic Armenian population voted for unification with neighbouring Armenia. A war ensued which led to thousands of casualties and hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenian and Azeri civilians fleeing both countries. A fragile peace was brokered in 1994, which left the territory controlled by Karabakh Armenians as an unrecognised state supported by Armenia.
Although there have been many clashes in subsequent years, the current conflict is the most serious escalation since the end of the first Karabakh war.
Armenia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a Russian-led military alliance. Azerbaijan is not, though it also enjoys good relations with Moscow and with Armenia's foe Turkey. Ankara appears to have provided significant political and military assistance to Baku in the ongoing conflict.
Therefore, the front lines in this mountainous region bristle with weaponry. Several countries, not least Russia, Israel, and Turkey, have done a brisk trade in keeping those armies replenished. Serbia also has a well-developed weapons industry, producing munitions, firearms, explosives, protective devices and vehicle parts. This is an inheritance from former Yugoslavia, which focused on self-reliance as part of its policy of non-alignment with neither the Eastern nor the Western Bloc during the Cold War.
When it comes to geopolitics, Serbia courts all sides. The country is a candidate for EU membership, but strongly rejects the idea of joining NATO and is an observer of the CSTO. Belgrade has close ties with Moscow and in recent years has grown closer to Ankara; Turkish firms have significant investments in the Balkan state.
The latest statements of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, who denied that Serbian weapons could have been used in the latest conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh, has been rated as false, as the fact-checking service Istinomer compared the publicly available evidence from the last few years.
In a statement for Serbian state news agency Tanjug, given on September 29, Serbian President Vučić exclaimed:
Što se tiče njihovog sukoba, naslušao sam se gadosti u prethodnih 48 sati o tome kako je otprilike Srbija kriva jer se tamo ubijaju srpskim oružjem. Nema tamo srpskog oružja.
Concerning their conflict [between Azerbaijan and Armenia], in the last 48 hours, I have heard abominable stuff how Serbia is somewhat to blame because they are killing each other there with Serbian weapons. There are no Serbian weapons there.
President Vučić has said that Serbia considers both Armenia and Azerbaijan to be friends and “brotherly nations.” Vučić acknowledged that while Serbian weapons were apparently not being used in Nagorno-Karabakh, Belgrade had been selling ammunition to both sides, “in fact, more to Azerbaijan, than to Armenia.” He also stressed that the export of weaponry and materiel was not illegal:
To su bile dozvoljene “end user” destinacije, ali topovi i tenkovi, bespilotne letelice i avioni koji koriste, ništa nije srpska proizvodnja. Pa jesu li time Amerikanci, Rusi, Turci, Francuzi i svi ostali krivi za sukob? Pa šta to znači? … Mi želimo mir i to su naša dva bratska, prijateljska naroda. Želimo im da to što pre sve stane. Mir je važniji od svega.
Those were allowed “end-user” destinations, but cannons and tanks, unmanned aerial vehicles and planes used there, these are not Serbian products. Does this mean that Americans, Russians, Turks, French and the other are to be blamed for the conflict? What was that supposed to mean? (…) We want peace, and those are two brotherly nations of ours, friends. What we want for them is for that to stop as soon as possible. Peace is more important than anything.
The Serbian government subsequently started to put out misleading information about these arms sales. Serbian government representatives have issued various statements about their country's role in the arms race between the two South Caucasus states during the last few months. They are largely inconsistent with Vučić's words above.
In July, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan expressed “deep disappointment and confusion” due to information that Serbia had transported huge amount of mortars and other weapons of various calibres to Armenia, which had reportedly used them to attack Azerbaijani personnel.
Apparently, a licence was obtained to export arms to #Armenia last year, no direct evidence linking the mortars and last year's licence as neither specifically mention them, but it is possible.#azerbaijan #Serbia #conflict
Source: https://t.co/dnDUhCIlup https://t.co/smPXOTbJnz
— Nagorno Karabakh Observer (@NKobserver) July 19, 2020
As N1 TV has reported, Azerbaijan's Deputy Foreign Minister Kalaf Kalafov has notified Serbian ambassador Danica Veinović about this and underlined that this case “casts doubt on friendly relations and cooperation between the two countries at the highest level.”
In the series of explanations given by the local politicians, Rasim Ljajić, Serbia's Minister of Trade, has said that this sort of export had to be authorised by three ministries and that the country's Security Intelligence Agency (SIA) has given a “green light” too.
“In 2020, the weapons were exported to Armenia by one private company, and the state-owned companies had not participated in that. I cannot say which company it was, but it has been known that they had mostly exported shotguns and handguns, in value of less than one million euros and that the goods were delivered in two batches, in May and June,” Ljajić told the Nova.rs portal.
A few days later, Ljajić provided a more detailed explanation in a statement for Radio Free Europe (RFE).
U 2020. godini, u maju i junu, Srbija je odobrila dva ugovora za izvoz naoružanja u Jermeniju i u pitanju je bila municija za puške i pištolje. U ranijem periodu, 2015. godine, mislim da je bilo i izvoza te vrste naoružanja o kojoj govori Azerbejdžan.
In 2020, in May and June, Serbia has approved two contracts for exporting weapons to Armenia, which referred to ammunition for shotguns and handguns. In the earlier period, in 2015, I think that such type of weapons Azerbaijan mentioned had been exported.
“Cooperation in the area of military industry is not public,” stated Armenia's Ambassador to the Czech Republic Ashot Hovakimian to RFE in late July, when answering a question about whether Armenia had purchased weapons from Serbia and if so – when and from which company. (Hovakimian's remit also includes diplomatic relations with Serbia.)
In the end, the final word on this diplomatic affair was given by Vučić himself. At the end of July, he said that “both have been sold weapons produced in Serbia since this is the only way to secure the success of the domestic military industry.”
“We are friends with both Azerbaijan and Armenia. We have sold ten times more weapons to Azerbaijan in the last couple of years,” said Vučić at a press conference at the offices of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), reported RFE on July 31.
The government in Belgrade kept to their position that Serbia's friendship with Azerbaijan was not disturbed by these acts. Minister of the Interior Nebojša Stefanović flew to Azerbaijan's capital Baku shortly after, although the public was not informed on the aim of that visit. With only vague information provided to the public, the topic of the meeting was determined to be cooperation in the area of security.
When it came to arms dealing, an old name surfaced once again. On July 29, the independent and reputable weekly NIN magazine reported that a company under the control of Slobodan Tešić had exported a large number of weapons to Armenia from the Krušik factory in Valjevo, Prva Petoletka from Trstenik, and Zastava Arms from Kragujevac.
One of the few publicly available photos of Slobodan Tešić is from a former Interpol warrant from 2012. Screenshot by Istinomer. Fair use.
Arms dealer Tešić has been involved in exports of Serbian weapons to Libya and Yemen in the past, and has been blacklisted by the United Nations for violating arms exports embargo to Liberia, as well as under United States’ treasury sanctions since 2017. Serbian opposition claimed he serves as a key donor to the ruling party SNS, led by Vučić.
NIN claimed that its journalists had viewed documents indicating that weapons from Serbian factories were transported from Niš Airport in southern Serbia to an airport close to Armenia's capital of Yerevan on July 14 and 15, just a few days after another round of clashes broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
As expected, Serbia's politicians have lost no time in blaming any disturbances to relations with Azerbaijan on the former government. On August 10, Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin said that the government of Mirko Cvetković, who was prime minister from 2008 to 2012, had passed a decree permitting the export of weapons to Armenia.
Moraju da se ispune svi zakonski uslovi, a da ne bi oružje otišlo u bilo koju zemlju, potrebno je da ta zemlja, na prvom mestu, nije pod sankcijama UN. Ja ću vam reći da je značajno veća oprema i oružja, uključujući i tehnologiju, izvezena u Azerbejdžan nego u Jermeniju.
All legal requirements had to be met so that weapons would not go just to any country; it is required, first of all, that the country is not under the UN sanctions. I will tell you that a significantly larger amount of equipment and weapons, including technology, was exported to Azerbaijan than to Armenia.
It soon transpired that that five years had passed between that government resolution from 2012 until the first export of weapons to Armenia in 2017, when the current ruling party (the SNS) was already in power. By that point, Serbia had apparently exported almost thousands of tonnes of weapons to Armenia.
“Since 2017, 19 permits for exporting weapons to Armenia were issued, and export was allowed for the companies Vectura Trans, Partizan Tech, and Zastava Oružje,” said Minister Ljajić.
According to the documents examined by NIN, 142,000 mines of different calibre and ten 120mm Grad shells were to be delivered from the Krušik factory. Furthermore, a minimum of 100 mortars with 120mm shells from Prva Petoletka and three 20mm anti-aircraft guns with the designation M55A4 from Zastava Arms were contracted and transported. These weapons had been the subject of the contract which Tešić’s company Vectura Trans had signed with Armenia's Ministry of Defence in 2018.
In conclusion, recent statements from Serbian officials don't add up. It is possible that their mixed messages may be an attempt not to antagonise their Russian or Turkish partners.
President Vučić himself mentions how much weaponry Serbia had been selling to both warring countries; the subject had been a topic of great discussion this summer when the top officials of Azerbaijani government raised the alarm due to the use of Serbian weapons in the July clashes in the South Caucasus. Serbia's Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin and Minister of Trade Rasim Ljajić made numerous statements on the weapons Belgrade had been selling, and Vučić himself said that the Balkan country had sold ten times more weapons to Azerbaijan than Armenia.
Therefore, although President Vučić has claimed that “there are no Serbian weapons there” and that Serbia was only selling ammunition to the warring Caucasus countries, Istinomer rated his latest statement as false.

author: Istinomer


text:
Thai ‘Bad Students’ protest against abuse in schools, call for Education Minister to resign · Global Voices
Prachatai

Protesters gathering in front of the steps to the ministry building to escape heavy rain. Photo and caption by Prachatai. Used with permission.
This edited article is from Prachatai, an independent news site in Thailand, and was edited and republished by Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
The student activist group Bad Student organized a series of protests on October 2 at various high schools in Bangkok to protest against the abuse and mistreatment of students in schools. Afterward, the group went to the Ministry of Education to call for Education Minister Nataphol Teepsuwan to resign.
The protesters rode a truck and unfurled banners as they visited five high schools throughout the afternoon: Samsenwittayalai, Triam Udom Suksa, St. Joseph Convent, Debsirin, and Wat Rajabopit, all of which have been the subject of reports alleging that teachers abused and harassed students.
The students submitted letters to the principals of each school calling for an end to the use of violence against students. They also put up banners detailing the abuse that has happened at the schools, including incidents of teachers hitting students or snapping students’ bra straps as punishment for dress code violations.
Students put up banners in front of the Wat Rajabopit School which said “Teachers at this school still hit students”. Photo and caption by Prachatai. Used with permission.
At Samsenwittayalai high school, school administrators locked the gates to stop their students from joining the protest. Meanwhile, St. Joseph Convent School cancelled all afternoon classes ahead of the protest. School administrators also played the school song on the PA system in an attempt to drown out the speeches. The students instead began singing it as part of the protest.
A representative of students from Wat Rajabopit high school also mentioned that the police tried to stop them from staging the protest, claiming that the school is within 150 meters of the Grand Palace, where public gatherings are not allowed under the Public Assembly Act, and also that the protest would block traffic.
At 5:45 p.m., the protesters arrived at the Ministry of Education in the heavy rain which began earlier in the afternoon and parked their truck in front of the Ministry. Education Minister Nataphol was reportedly in another province and Permanent Secretary Karun Sakulpradit came to meet the protesters instead.
The organizers then read out the resignation letter they wrote for Minister Nataphol, and called for him to resign due to the poor administration of his duties as Education Minister, his failure to stop the human rights violations against students in schools, and for being involved with the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) protests.
[The PDRC led large rallies in 2013 and 2014 and opposed the holding of elections. Instead, they pushed for the appointment of an unelected ‘People's Council’, which many believe is contrary to democratic principles].
Laponpat Wangpaisit (right), a representative of the Bad Student group, speaking to Permanent Secretary Karun Sakulpradit (left). Photo and caption by Prachatai. Used with permission.
Due to the heavy rain, protesters moved inside the Ministry, where they sang the national anthem while holding their hands up in the three-finger ‘Hunger Games’ salute, now seen at the majority of anti-government protests in Thailand. They also threw piles of the resignation letter onto the steps in front of the Ministry building.
Laponpat Wangpaisit, a member of the Bad Student group, told the Education Permanent Secretary that they were making the same demands they made a month ago: an end to harassment of students, the abolition of outdated rules, and education reform, alongside demands made by students at various schools, which, according to Laponpat, the Ministry has yet to act on despite their promises.
Laponpat said that the abuse case at the Sarasas school [where a teacher was caught on video physically abusing a kindergarten pupil] is only one among thousands and asked why it is not possible to start making schools safe now. Laponpat said:
The question is these things happened, but you would have no idea about them if students weren’t speaking out. I’m talking to you as a representative of Minister Nataphol, because I believe that something should be done already, not just making promises, and in the end these things continue to happen and are not getting any less frequent.
17.45 As the protesters arrived at the Ministry of Education. Laponpat Wangpaisit, a member of Bad Student made a performance, conversing with Nathapol Teepsuwan about the problems that students have been facing.#ขับรถแห่ไปกูจะไปไล่อีณัฏฐพล#whatshappeninginthailand pic.twitter.com/qQleB2kqv5
— Prachatai English (@prachatai_en) October 2, 2020
An official from the ministry gave this response as reported by the media: “We received the petition from the students and will investigate them.”
A Year 10 student at Samsenwittayalai School who participated in the protest told Prachatai that the problems students face at their school include haircut rules which violate students’ rights, a curriculum which does not fit the students’ needs, and teachers abusing students, something which is seen as normal by society.
She also said that a teacher once pulled on her hair and made her run laps around the field because her hair was too long and because she had a fringe. This student said that she has been to two protests and said that her family supports her participation in the protests because they see that it is not right that young people have their rights violated in schools. However, she said that many other families are not like this and that she has friends who have gone to protests and were disowned by their families. She added:
It’s understandable that some homes do not understand. Many are like that, but I’m happy that my parents are open to listening to the problems of my generation and listening to me, and don’t just base things on their own opinion. I actually want other parents to be able to think like this too. I have sympathy for others in my generation, others who face the same fate, who not only have their rights violated by their schools, but also have their feelings hurt at home.
Another Samsenwittayalai student who joined the protest said that she had been punished for violating the school dress code and haircut rules, and faced other abuse at school. Until she attended a class on law and realized that what was done to her was illegal and became more aware of her rights. She also said that her family supports her participation in the protest because they see that the issues she faces have been a problem for a long time. She added:
(In the class), we talked about human rights violations and about society and politics. We were debating, because we already know what the problems are, so we talked and tried to find a solution, but we couldn’t find any, because we are the ones who are oppressed and we can’t do anything to them.

author: Prachatai