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No wedding, no live music: Macedonian musicians protest selective reduction of COVID-19 restrictions · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

Musicians protest in front of the Republic of North Macedonia's government building in Skopje, on June 4, 2021. Photo by Vasil Buraliev/VBU Music Registry, used with permission.
This story was originally published by VBU Music Registry. This edited translation is republished by Global Voices with their kind permission.
Macedonian musicians held a protest in front of the Republic of North Macedonia's government building on June 4, expressing dissatisfaction with the ‘discriminatory’ manner in which the country's anti-COVID-19 measures are being relaxed. Tight restrictions have prohibited many performers from earning a living.
The protest, organized by the association Muzika Sega! (Music Now!), blocked midday traffic on one of the busiest boulevards in the center of the Macedonian capital. Representatives of a disgruntled segment of the local music industry wore black armbands to declare that Macedonian music is ‘dead’. By observing two minutes of silence, the protesters performed a symbolic burial of live music as an art form. The new government measures, announced June 2, allow live music to be played at weddings, but not in other commercial settings such as bars and clubs.
Trajko Simonovski – Taci at June 4, 2021 protest in Skopje. Photo by Vasil Buraliev/VBU Music Registry, used with permission.
Bass guitarist and Muzika Sega! president Trajko Simonovski – Taci said that he considers the latest easing of restrictions ‘discriminatory and insulting to the intelligence of concerned musicians’. These performers, he explained, had lost their patience, taking to the streets in protest after having been ‘thrown to the streets’ due to their inability to work.
According to Simonovski, the authorities have only declaratively and partially accepted the musicians’ demands. While some musicians are allowed to play at weddings, artists who would typically perform at bars, restaurants, tea and coffee houses are still being barred from exercising their right to work — as stigmatized today, he claims, as lepers were in the past.
During negotiations with the government, Simonovski said they jointly agreed there was a need to create a registry of musicians in order to determine how many people were actually being affected by the live music restrictions. After Muzika Sega! compiled such a list, he continued, the authorities failed to respond.
Protesters complained that the authorities have not explained why they have allowed live music, first at open air shows in May 2020, then at big concert venues that summer, and more recently at weddings with up to 100 guests, but still forbid small-scale live events at clubs and bars. The new set of government measures, which includes subsidies for out-of-work musicians, uses the term ‘licensed musicians’, even though there's no such legal category in North Macedonia, and no chamber of commerce which would issue such licenses.
John Ilija Apelgren at June 4, 2021 protest in Skopje. Photo by Vasil Buraliev/VBU Music Registry, used with permission.
Jazz singer John Ilija Apelgren is one of the people who have been directly affected:
As an individual, independent artist I can make a living only through live performances. I have been forbidden to do my work without any valid reason, alongside my colleagues who don't sing, but play instruments or are DJing. They too can't exercise their  right to earn a living and feed their families.
Maybe we should have brought our families too, so they can tell the representatives of this white building behind me [the seat of the government] how they have been surviving, during these last 15 months without income. How can [people] pay tuition or rent when they don't have family members who are pensioners or employed in state administration?
Those who forbid us to work seem to have forgotten the musicians who are not employed by state institutions such as the Public Broadcasting Service, the philharmonic, national opera and ballet, or Tanec folk ensemble. Could the gentlemen from this white building try to live 15 months without their salaries? This policy will have long-term consequences. Some of our colleagues have already been selling their instruments.
Soon after the start of the pandemic, the government of the Republic of North Macedonia enacted lockdowns, made it obligatory to wear masks both inside and (until June 3) outside, as well as to observe a distance of two meters, and — similar to other countries — enforced restrictions on gatherings.
However, the rules made exceptions for restaurants and bars. In such venues — both inside and on terraces — only waiters were obliged to wear masks, and physical distancing was near impossible to implement, as up to four people could sit at a table. Updated measures now allow up to six customers to sit together at a restaurant table.
Apelgren demanded an explanation for such ‘illogical’ decisions, including the discrimination against certain types of musicians:
…како заклучиле дека музичар кој свири во локал е носител на зараза, или претпоставуваат дека вирусот патува по музичките вибрации. Она што е смешно е да луѓе кои брцаат во салата секој со својата вилушка во еден тањир немаат опасност да се заразат седејќи на маса, али ако диџеј таму во ќошот пушта музика тоа е итекако опасно.
How did  they decide that [only] a musician playing at a venue is a carrier of the infection? Do they assume the virus uses musical waves to travel? It's ridiculous to consider a group of people who all stick their forks in the same salad bowl safe from infection while sitting at the same table, while the DJ playing music from a corner is considered a public health hazard.
In practice, allowing live music at weddings only is driving a genre rift within the music industry. Those who play folk music, considered essential to such celebrations, are in a privileged position, while the remaining prohibitions disproportionally affect musicians playing rock, hip hop, jazz, blues or techno music.
As at the time of publication, the government of the Republic of North Macedonia had not issued a response or given a reaction to the protesters’ demands.

author: Guest Contributor


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Pop-rock music and changing attitudes to the personality cult of Josip Broz Tito · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

In 2012, the right-wing populist regime in North Macedonia erected a new monument to Tito in the center of Skopje, indicating he had more admirers than haters within the electorate. Photo by Filip Stojanovski, CC BY 3.0
Today, the number of declared Yugo-nostalgics who nurture the personality cult of Josip Broz Tito is rather small. However, judging by the backlash against recent statements by Bulgarian politicians who described him as a totalitarian dictator, one can infer that many people consider the long-gone Yugoslav leader a generally positive historical personality in North Macedonia.
While Macedonian officials (with exception of the Mayor of Skopje) took the high road and didn't directly react to the provocative statements, they were discussed at length on social networks and in cafés (allowed under lax COVID-19 protocols).
Arguments against the idea that Tito was an evil dictator are rooted in perceptions about the fundamental differences between him and Stalin, though the differences between the political systems they led resulted in different kinds of personality cults. However, public debate on these issues, as well as academic research on actual beliefs about the legacy of Federal Yugoslavia, are sorely lacking.
From my experience, the generations of children born in Yugoslavia in the 1970s reacted to the break-up of the value system that put Tito on a pedestal with a growing dose of cynicism. Despite official propaganda (which gradually decreased after his death in May 1980) Yugoslav teenagers of that era were more interested in rock songs that challenged the established image of Tito.
These were the children who as babies had been exposed to patriotic songs like “You can count on us” (“Računajte na nas”) by Rani Mraz from 1978, and “Comrade Tito we swear to you” (“Druže Tito mi ti se kunemo”) by pop star Zdravko Čolić from 1980.
In “You can count on us” the singer-songwriter Đorđe Balašević said he “made these lyrics as a pledge to Tito,” assuring that his increasingly Westernized generation (“in the name of all of us born in the 1950s”) would not betray the ideals of the anti-fascist revolution which created Yugoslavia during  World War II, “as the blood of partisans flows through our veins”:
Sumnjaju neki da nosi nas pogrešan tok
Jer slušamo ploče i sviramo rok
Al’ negde u nama je bitaka plan
I kažem vam, šta dobro znam
Računajte na nas
Some people doubt that we are misled
Since we listen to [vinyl] records and play rock [music]
But somewhere within us the flame of the battles still glows
And I tell you what I know well
Count on us
The lyrics of Zdravko Čolić's song were actually a version of a somber patriotic anthem from the 1942 battle of Kozara, whose headline lyrics became an official state/ruling party slogan: “Comrade Tito we swear to you that we will not stray from your path.” Čolić's song was released as a single record, and the B-side “On Tito's path” (“Titovim putem”) was also popular.
Godine su prošle pune muka.
Ginulo se za slobodu nijemo
ili s pjesmom umesto jauka,
Druže Tito mi ti se kunemo.
The years have passed full of torment
One died for freedom in silence
or with a song instead of a moan,
Comrade Tito, we swear to you.
A few years later, those born during Tito's lifetime could identify with at least two-thirds of the song “The Three Times I Saw Tito” (“Triput sam video Tita”). Its author was again Balašević, who more than anyone reflected the Yugoslav zeitgeist. Balašević shared his childhood experiences as a participant in a mass rally when the president visited his city, then an occasion when Tito came to his concert, and at the end, the outpouring of grief across the country around Tito's funeral. The song concludes that Tito lives on in all the good things that have been built around Yugoslavia, its freedom and peace.
In their own way, Sarajevo rock band Zabranjeno pušenje referenced this song in a parody in 1999, with a scene of a child dressed as one of Tito's Pioneers playing for the president in the video for their song “Jugo 45.”
Zabranjeno pušenje was once the subject of a scandal when its singer joked at a 1984 concert in Rijeka, Croatia, that “The Marshall croaked,” allegedly referring to a malfunctioning electronic amplifier. As “the Marshall” was Tito's military title this attracted the attention of the secret police. The media blamed the band for offending the state and their tour and TV show were discontinued. Contrary to then-widespread rumors, band members were not arrested.
Thanks to increasing liberalization, Zabranjeno pušenje were soon back touring, making songs alluding to Tito and social issues. One such hit was 1985's “The Sunday when Hase left” (“Nedjelja kad je otišo Hase”) nominally about the last game of Bosnian football player Asim Ferhatović Hase in 1966.
The descriptions of the sports fans’ behavior were widely interpreted as mourning for Tito. The song ends on a high note, with the crowd saluting their favorite player and patriotically cheering the name of the Union: “Everybody forward, there's only one Hase! Yu-go-slavia, Yu-go-slavia!”
However, their 1987 song “Day of the Republic” (“Dan Republike”) is full of gloom. It describes a disappointed, drunken father, a veteran of the Second World War, who badmouths the opportunism of younger compatriots, and the unraveling the socialist ideals. The song refers to the incoming economic depression, as “the old man” wants to open the windows and shout on November 29, but his wife says their stove isn't working (it's too cold).
It was also Balašević who bade farewell to Tito as a state symbol with his song “Requiem,” from the 1988 album “Panta Rei” which anticipated the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, starting with street protests of “hungry workers” and the swindling of the naïve citizenry by the ruling class.
Ostaće u knjigama i priča o nama:
Balkan krajem jednog veka.
Svako pleme crta granicu.
Svi bi hteli svoju stranicu…
Tope se snovi kao sante, ej Komandante…
A story about us will remain in history books:
The Balkans at the end of a century
Each tribe draws its border.
Everyone would like their own page…
Dreams melt like icebergs, hey Commander…
It is framed as a conversation between the poet and “the Commander,” another synonym for  Tito. It starts with admitting that he no longer sings his once popular song “You can count on us,” which is all but forgotten. At the end of the song, Tito is humanized, addressed with a simple “[hey] man.”
I kad god prođem ulicom sa tvojim imenom
pomislim na panta rei…
Baciće se, tako, neki lik
kamenom i na tvoj spomenik.
Jer sve se menja, i sve teče… Čoveče.
And whenever I pass the street with your name
I think of panta rhei
One of these days some bloke
will throw a rock on your monument too
Because everything changes, and everything flows… Man.
The 1980s ended with a full-blown comparison of the ruling Communist Party to an organized crime syndicate by Belgrade hard rock band Riblja Čorba. They turned the state propaganda slogan “Tito is ours, we are Tito's” upside down with the dismissive “Tito is yours” (“Tito je vaš”). (The Serbian word “vaš” is also short for “vaška”—”a louse.”)
Tito je vaš
A vi ste titovi
i ja vam nisam za to kriv
Tito is yours (“a louse”)
And you are Tito's
and that is not my fault
The title of their 1990 album “Koza nostra” is a transliteration of the name of the Sicilian Mafia Cosa Nostra, and the song “A Member of the Mob” (“Član mafije”) refers to people who obtain their party cards for personal gain at the expense of ordinary people. Moreover, the song “Al Kapone” compared Tito to the infamous American gangster, declaring him the “king of crime and big vermin,” and one of the most evil dictators:
Prema njemu Idi Amin
Lekovit je k'o vitamin
Al Kapone
Prema njemu je Bokasa
Human kao Vojska Spasa
Al Kapone
Compared to him, Idi Amin
is as curative as a vitamin
Al Capone
Compared to him, Bokassa
is as humane as the Salvation Army
Al Capone
Not all Yugoslav kids of the 1970s subscribed to the full regimen of pop-rock's treatment of Tito from hero to villain. Compared to the horrors of the 1990s, many grew to view his reign as rather benevolent.
In the following decades, the citizens of successor states of Yugoslavia with authoritarian personalities in need of a nationalist founding father figure found ample replacements for Tito among the much less illustrious heads of political parties. Many such politicians were members of former Communist political dynasties turned right-wing populists, who “invested” taxpayer funds into building new personality cults.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Filip Stojanovski


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Barbados’ prime minister chastises musicians for violent lyrics; artists defend freedom of expression · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, speaking at the 16th Raúl Prebisch Lecture, held in Geneva, Switzerland, on September 10, 2019. Photo by Timothy Sullivan, UNCTAD on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
On June 1, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley addressed the nation about a matter on which she said it was “impossible […] to remain silent”. She was speaking out against a music video compilation put out by Barbadian dancehall performers, all riffing over the “Trojan Riddim” track. Their lyrics, Mottley said, “glorified gun violence.”
Riddims, the Patois version of the English word “rhythms,” provide an instrumental beat, usually created and sold by music arrangers, over which musical artists, especially in the genres of dancehall and soca, can overlay their own lyrics. These vocals give each song an individual feel, despite the fact that one riddim can be used on scores of songs.
Prime Minister Mottley said she was “horrified” at the video, and “personally disappointed in the artists who have not recognised that there is an obligation on their part [to accept] that to whom much is given, much is expected.” Her statement also dismissed the “artistic license” defence by noting that some people in Barbadian society lack the maturity required to not interpret the musical message literally:
There has to be a zero tolerance approach to gun violence in this country. [We] cannot play light with issues such as this.
It is not the first time she has spoken out about gun violence. Prior to Prime Minister Mottley stepping in, the country's minister of home affairs, Wilfred Abrahams, had condemned the video:
This Government does not promote or support gun violence or retribution killings against anybody. The position of this government cannot and will not be to support any artiste who is involved in promoting gun violence. There is a place for artistic expression but then there is a time that that crosses over into irresponsibility, especially when you are considering what Barbados is going through at this particular point in time.
Barbados, like many of its Caribbean neighbours, has been grappling with a rising homicide rate, linked primarily to the use of illegal guns. Peter Ram, whose song “Roll Out” was featured in the video, apologised, saying it was “never [his] intention to offend anyone.” Other featured artists included Lil Rick, Mole, Screwface, Mallis, Lead Pipe, Brutal Crankstar, Chiief Diin and Quan De Artist, most of whom publicly denied that they were encouraging gun violence.
As expected, public opinion seemed split down the middle, with some people supporting the artists’ freedom of speech and others firmly behind the prime minister's stance.
The local arm of Digicel, a telecommunications company that has an influencer contract with Lead Pipe, announced on June 2 that it would terminate their arrangement with immediate effect, as “his recent musical project does not align with our values.” Some social media users interpreted the move as “corporate responsibility at its best,” but it was short-lived. By June 3, the company had rescinded its decision, but the singer clapped back by saying that he had opted not to renew his contract.
The video in question was uploaded on April 6 to Lil Rick’s YouTube page, which has 7.21K subscribers. As at the time of publishing, the “Trojan Riddim” mix had more than 150,000 views and 2.9K Likes, suggesting that the prime minister's stance may have fuelled interest in the music. Several tracks from the compilation have since appeared in Apple Music's Top 100 in Barbados.
Along with her demand for a public apology to the people of Barbados, Prime Minister Mottley noted that those “who have put this video up have a responsibility to take it down,” explaining that performers cannot expect the government to compartmentalise its support for their artistic endeavours. Both Peter Ram and Mole had been involved in the Ministry of Education's 2020 COVID-19 safety campaign, targeted at the nation's youth.
Posting both Mottley's address and Ram's apology on Facebook, IrishandChin Jamaica watched the situation with interest, especially in the context of the pushback Jamaica's prime minister, Andrew Holness, recently received when he attempted to link violent dancehall lyrics with an increase in gender-based violence in the country.
Like Jamaicans, many Barbadian netizens failed to see the direct link between violent lyrics and gun crime. Nevertheless—Vybz Kartel is just one example—dancehall performers’ lives have sometimes imitated their art:
If lyrics in a song persuade you to take up a weapon and harm someone you as an individual had a bigger issue from before the music and has been failed several times before.
Root of the issue vs the low hanging fruit…..
— Wuk up Scientist (@nandixnegasi) June 2, 2021
A woman just say on Basstacks
“Music DOES NOT influence people cause my aunt does listen to Christian music everyday and she still wicked”
???
— ᴍᴀʀ. (@justleemar) June 2, 2021
Tone deaf hypocrisy. That is what it is giving… but I am seeing disingenuous arguments on both sides. Of course music has an influence on its audience, but to scapegoat local artists in this way is unnecessary and unfair. Let’s talk about socioeconomic conditions…
— Sade N. Jemmott (@shazgem) June 2, 2021
This perceived double standard was quite a sticking point. Referencing Barbadian pop icon Rihanna's song “Man Down,” one Twitter user observed:
Ri shoot a man in central station , and get a whole gap w a sign in west bury road … gotta love my prime minister
— T ? (@tierrxo) June 2, 2021
She added:
Don’t let me hear another American song promoting gun violence on my radio
— T ? (@tierrxo) June 2, 2021
There were also comments suggesting that the artists were being scapegoated:
I promise you, an AR-15 cannot come into Barbados in a suitcase. Make a newspaper article when you ready to talk about the rich people and the corrupt bureaucrats who are importing them.
— Wavez?? (@ocean_campbell1) June 2, 2021
Honestly.. can we talk about how the guns are even entering Barbados? Cause it’s not the Bajan artists..
— Brandie Stewart (@LoveBrandiee) June 2, 2021
Lil Rick, on whose page the mix was first posted, has refused to take down the video, preferring instead to “remain true” to his artistic identity. Although he admitted that the timing of the video was “unfortunate” given “the number of recent [gun-related] incidents in our island,” he maintained it was important to have diverse content.
Some Twitter users decided to poke fun at the whole controversy:
PM: apologise and take down the video.
Lil Rick: pic.twitter.com/hy7HONWopV
— SimplyDotish (@empressmediiic) June 3, 2021
How artists gotta make music in 2021 pic.twitter.com/FRcspx7Auv
— RoBeezy (@RoBeezy8) June 5, 2021
Meanwhile, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, John King, who is responsible for culture, thinks it is time Barbadians move on from the controversy:
It can’t be one-sided. Everybody has to listen, everybody has to be on the same page, everybody has to be able to discuss things. This is why I say that we could all learn from this experience.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Belt and Road Initiative projects ramp up Nigeria’s favourable perception of China · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

Passengers boarding a train in Nigeria. Screenshot from a video on African news
In December 2020, the latest of China’s many industrial investments in Nigeria, the railway between Lagos and Ibadan, became operational. Running 156 kilometers long and costing some $1.5 billion US dollars (USD), its opening was accompanied by public fanfare and Chinese government tweets, celebrating it as another victory for both Chinese-led development, and for China’s public image in sub-Saharan Africa.
Here we go! ??? #Lagos #Ibadan railway in #Nigeria made trial operations with passengers!
The first double-track standard gauge modern railway in West #Africa is constructed by Chinese company @CCECC8. pic.twitter.com/D529v0T8rt
— Shen Shiwei沈诗伟 (@shen_shiwei) December 9, 2020
Over the past two decades, China’s investment in Nigerian industries, and especially transport, has offered Nigeria access to capital and expertise for badly needed development, at levels unseen since colonial Britain built African railways. This investment has been accompanied by a broad acceptance among Nigerians of China’s narrative of goodwill, even as a perception of China as a neo-colonial power in Africa has sprung up in other quarters.
Nigeria became a signatory to China's international infrastructure development plan known as the Belt & Road Initiative in 2018. Since then, Chinese diplomats have framed the BRI investments as part of a larger mission of Beijing's support for Nigeria as a nation.
Yet, questions linger about the debt burden Nigeria must take on in return for Chinese financing. For example, China’s Export-Import Bank issued a 1.5 billion USD loan to support the Lagos-Ibadan line in 2017. The Nigerian government aims to repay this loan through profit from passenger and cargo services.
Chinese investments in Nigeria are very substantial. According to a 2019 report issued by the Chinese embassy, Nigeria hosts 70 construction, 40 investment and 30 trading Chinese companies. In 2018 alone, Chinese companies were awarded 175 construction contracts in Nigeria, worth $17 billion USD, with 11,088 Chinese workers working in these projects.
Similar projects in Nigeria built over the past decade have set the tone for Nigerian attitudes toward China. For example, the construction of the Abuja-Kaduna railway, completed in 2016, spiked a positive perception of China by Nigerians who lived nearest to the project. An analysis by Pew Research Center published in April 2021 discovered that “an average of 62% of Nigerians living within 150 kilometers (93 miles) of the project expressed a positive view toward China.”
Nigeria has benefited from a number of BRI projects. The popular ones include the Abuja/Kaduna Standard Gauge Rail Line linking the nation's capital Abuja to Kaduna, a trade centre and transportation hub in north-western Nigeria, the Lagos/Ibadan Standard Gauge Rail Line linking Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital to Ibadan, the former administrative capital of southwestern Nigeria, and the Lagos/Kano railway, which is an ambitious project connecting the two most populous cities in southern and northern Nigeria. Others include new international airport terminals in Abuja, Port Harcourt in crude oil-rich Niger Delta region and the ancient city of Kano.
Most BRI projects are tilted towards rail transportation. A brief look into Nigeria’s train industry will offer an explanation.
North South Railway at Makurdi, Central Nigeria. Image by Pastor Sam via Wikimedia Commons.
One of the British colonial government's greatest legacies was the construction of an extensive rail route in Nigeria. The country’s 3,505-km narrow-gauge rail network made it easier for the colonial government to transport agricultural produce from the hinterlands to the port, from where they were shipped abroad.
Nigeria railway map. Image by Jkan997, via Wikimedia Commons.
The British managed the rail lines from 1898 till Nigeria’s independence in 1960. However, the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) entrusted with the management and construction of rail lines in the country, ran this colonial legacy aground.
Tokunbo Ayayi, a scholar at the University of Ohio, states that NRC inherited an “old, dilapidated, inefficient and inadequate” network of rail lines. But, successive Nigerian governments did little or nothing to transform the decrepit rail structure. The focus on road development, coupled with unbridled corruption, poor maintenance and absence of government funding for rails resulted in the bankruptcy of the NRC and by 2002, passenger services were stopped altogether.
In the absence of trains, the bulk of Nigeria’s transportation shifted to road and air. However, with increased port inefficiency, congested traffic gridlocks on damaged roads, the return to rail transportation was almost inevitable.
This historical context explains why the Chinese BRI projects are mainly focused on railways. The Chinese get to do profitable business while providing a timely intervention that fills a glaring infrastructural gap in Nigeria.
Some Nigerians see negative effects from China’s railway development. Gbenro Adegbola, a Nigerian publisher, for example, described the Lagos-Ibadan rail line as poorly designed and executed:
I used the Ibadan-Lagos train service for the 1st time this last Saturday 8th May. I returned by the 4 o’clock service today.
While I commend the FG on providing this service, I’m appalled at the lack of respect & courtesy for citizens.
The 2 stations are construction yards!
— Gbénró Adégbolá ن (@GbenroAdegbola) May 10, 2021
Adegbola was distressed by the absence of any type of “comfortable temporary arrangements” in the Ibadan end of the station. As a result, “ticketing is done under the open skies.” The Lagos end of the station was no different. According to Adegbola, “we had to walk over 100 meters on rail tracks to the station in pitch darkness. My wife almost fell [while] descending the track aggregate ballasts.”
The Nigerian writer Tade Ipadeola has drawn attention to the presence of “silica dust” which he described as a “respirable and a known carcinogen” in the Lagos-Ibadan rail station:
Thread. What @GbenroAdegbola has drawn attention to, and, more importantly, proffered a simple for, is a very serious situation. The dust at this location is silica dust. Respirable and a known carcinogen. Every building within 100m of this site is currently covered. https://t.co/YFsXJ4hypW
— Tade Ipadeola (@tadepen) May 11, 2021
In addition, the Lagos-Ibadan railway may lack the capacity to improve economic conditions in Nigeria, according to an investigation conducted by Columbia University BRI scholars Alessandra Laurel Lopez and others. “With a lack of infrastructure connecting industrial parks and facilities to the railway, along with unclear plans for a capacity-increasing dry port, economic spillover attributable to the Lagos-Ibadan SGR is modest at best. A handful of scattered residential developments along the trunk line cannot support a message of regional stimulus to the Nigerian economy,” the scholars assert.
Considering the scope of BRI infrastructural intervention, it is no surprise that public perception of China in Nigeria is largely positive. However, this has not eliminated the misgivings, especially within Western circles, about a perceived attempt by China to colonize the continent, Nigeria included.
During a trip to Nigeria in February 2006, Britain's then-foreign secretary, Jack Straw, remarked that “what China was doing in Africa was much the same as what Britain had done 150 years ago.” This inference to China’s colonization of Africa under the guise of economic investments was also made in June 2010 by Hillary Clinton, then U.S. Secretary of State.
Western pundits have since described Chinese investments in Africa as “the rise of Chinese neo-colonialism” or “China colonising Nigeria.” This narrative is also evident in perspectives forwarded by non-Western opinion makers.
However, the simplistic and populist narrative of colonisation does not capture the many complex layers of Sino-African relationship.
Mary Edel Madeleine Wan Yan Chan, a scholar at La Trobe University points out that China will seek to maintain its strategic national interests in the same way as other global powers. Wan Yan Chan asserts that Chinese investments in the continent are driven by three motivations: the role of Africa’s rich natural resources for Chinese growth, an expanding market for Chinese trade, and an expansion of Chinese soft power that counters Western aid.
A 2014 study by Chinese-based political scientists Jian Junbo and Donata Frasheri revealed that China has neither forcefully occupied any African country, nor does it control the continent’s economic and political systems. The Chinese also presently have no military bases on the continent, unlike Europe and the US. Junbo and Frasheri insist that China is not colonialist, but rather a successful capitalist in Africa.
Tat’yana L. Deych, professor of history, has described Chinese investments in Africa as “as mutually beneficial, a win-win strategy.” Deych’s survey revealed a wide positive perception about China’s investments that “convincingly refutes the theory of Chinese ‘neo-colonialism’.”
Rather than new colonisation, Carlos Martinez asserts that the BRI projects may create “the conditions for formerly colonised countries to break out of dependency.”
In 2013, former Central Banker of Nigeria Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, noted that: “China, like the United States, Russia, Britain, Brazil and other global powers before them, came to Africa not to support our interests, but to satisfy its own.” Many Nigerians often view proposals from the West as not only lacking but more often framed in condescending paternalism.
At the same time, Africa’s main value proposition lies in building critical infrastructure that will drive development, argues Sanusi. These investments are essential for Africa’s development, which could in turn wean her off development dependency from both Western and Eastern foreign powers, although misgivings about Beijing’s BRI as a form of economic colonisation should not be dismissed.
According to a survey, China was ranked as “Africa's most beneficial partner”.
Unsurprising, as US and UK can continue to write zillions of negative articles about the Belt and Road Initiative (which nobody in Africa will read), but the Chinese build visible infrastructure.
— Onye Nkuzi (@cchukudebelu) April 17, 2021
With a high deficit of critical infrastructure, propounded by years of neglect by successive governments, Nigerians are mostly grateful to the Chinese for alleviating their affliction. It's no wonder Nigerians have a positive perception of Beijing.

author: Nwachukwu Egbunike


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Indigenous people denounce Chinese oil giant’s extractions in Peru’s Amazon Forest · Global Voices
Isolda Morillo

Amazon forest, photo from Pixabay
In Peru, Indigenous groups and local NGOs are using innovative advocacy strategies to ensure that Chinese investment in their communities includes them in the decision-making process and doesn't come at the expense of the environment.
Block 58 is an oil and natural gas block located in southern Peru in the province of Cusco of nearly 4 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, and it has been an important investment hub in recent decades, particularly for Chinese oil and gas company China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).  Block 58 also overlaps with protected natural reserves of the Amazon rainforest as well as the traditional territories of various Indigenous communities such as the Tangoshiari, Kirigueti, and Kochiri.
These Indigenous communities and local NGOs demand that extractive companies operate there with greater transparency, respect for the environment and their rights as Indigenous peoples.
Denisse Linares, an advocate for the rights of Indigenous communities through the NGO Rights, Environment and Natural Resources (DAR for the Spanish acronym), claims that new modifications to projects in the Block 58 are being conducted without the participation of citizens.
To cope with the situation, a coalition of non-governmental and Indigenous organizations came together to push the Peruvian government to better protect Indigenous consulting rights and to hold companies accountable.
“Prior consultation is key because it informs the communities of the situation, on the possible impact of the projects to their lives,” Linares told Global Voices through WhatsApp. Despite the region’s wealth in natural resources and the foreign investment influx, Indigenous groups have not benefited from an improvement in rights or living standards, with 23 to 26 percent of the local population currently living in poverty, according to reports.
Amazon forest in Peru, near Block 58. Photo from DAR, used with permission.
The key player in Block 58 is China's largest oil and gas company, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). The giant oil company, which claims to be the third-largest in the world, was granted permission by the Peruvian government to explore and exploit Block 58 in 2017. The company will purportedly invest up to $4.4 billion USD by 2023.
Over the past three years, China began acquiring strategic energy assets in Latin America as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Between 2017 and 2019, 56 percent of BRI energy investments went to oil and gas, while 39 percent went to renewables, according to Natural Gas Intelligence. China is the world's top greenhouse gas emitter.
China’s pledge to peak its emissions before 2030 has increased its thirst for natural gas, which emits about 50 percent fewer greenhouse gases than coal when used to
On left sight: Dry Forests (3.2%), Andean Forests (0.2%), and Tropical Forests of the Amazon (53.9%). Block 58 is located in the Amazon forest. Map from Peruvian Ministry of Environment.
make electricity. Yet, this demand is stretching the finite amount of resources on the Amazon.
The Amazon forest, which covers part of Brazil, Peru, and Colombia, is home to half of the tropical forests that remain on earth, with a known richness in biodiversity. Because the forest sits on large reserves of oil and gas, it is affected by the unprecedented gas extraction in the region and the intensive construction of roads – one of the most important causes of deforestation in the Amazon. Maintaining the forest cover of the Amazon is also a key piece in reducing climate change.
Studies have also shown that Indigenous peoples play a crucial part in environmental conservation. But the exploitation of hydrocarbons in Peru has affected their lives for decades, since Shell discovered the first deposits in the Ucayali region in the 1980s, according to DAR.  Now, Indigenous Peruvians face a similar challenge from CNPC.
The Amazon's Indigenous people have acquired great knowledge of the forest through thousands of years of observation, including how to regenerate the native ecosystem, according to a report by Amazon Frontlines, an NGO promoting the preservation of the Amazonian environment.
Photo from DAR activists showing maps of Block 58, used with permission
International scholars have also pitched in. In a recent 2021 study, Dr. Kerry Ratigan wrote that the losers in these projects “tend to be poor, Indigenous, rural communities who suffer the environmental consequences with little economic benefit, but the Peruvian government continues to favor resource extraction.”
Moreover, in 2018, local groups presented the “Lote 58″ (Block 58) case to the United Nations Council for CNPC's alleged violations of consultation rights.
A year later, China, by recommendation of the United Nations, adopted some of the groups’ demands. It agreed, for example, to encourage its projects to be compatible with human and environmental rights. China also agreed to consider establishing a legal framework to ensure that the activities carried out by its industries do not undermine human rights abroad, among other measures.
Entry to Urubamba district, where Lote 58 is located. Photo from DAR, used with permission.
However, Indigenous people report that they were still not consulted despite the project moving along.
In October 2020, the Indigenous rights groups wrote a letter to the Chinese ambassador in Peru to request both governments to include an environmental chapter in Peru-China Free Trade Agreement, “in recognition that the complex environmental and social reality of Peru requires strengthening the framework for promoting sustainable development and investment governance.”
Due to the high stakes, the Chinese government offered Peruvian NGOs the opportunity to hold talks with Chinese state-sponsored institutions and Government organized NGOs such as Green Camel Bell, China Civil Climate Action Network, Chongqing Renewable Energy Society, Chongqing International Culture Exchange Center and Zhang Jingjing from China Accountability Project. DAR held online talks with these Chinese organizations in 2020 to help China better understand Peru’s political and economic context and its environmental and social regulations.
Unfortunately, these exchanges did not translate into real improvements in terms of understanding and meeting the demands of the communities involved.
Despite promises from Chinese and Peruvian officials,  it remains unclear if these megaprojects will actually mitigate damage to the environment, improve the lives of Indigenous people and, allow them to enjoy some of the fruits of the huge investments in an impoverished region.
This story is part of a Civic Media Observatory investigation into competing narratives about China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and explores how societies and communities hold differing perceptions of potential benefits and harms of Chinese-led development. To learn more about this project and its methods, click here.

author: Isolda Morillo


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Late-night raid at Turkey’s Boğaziçi University as students continue resisting interference in campus affairs · Global Voices
Dokuz8Haber

Peace01234 at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
This story was originally published on Dokuz8Haber website. A lightly edited version is republished here under a content-sharing agreement.
Since early January, Istanbul's renowned Boğaziçi University has been the center of an exemplary show of resistance by students against the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) appointment of government affiliated trustees to replace elected university officials, including university rectors.
Six months later, students, alumni, and faculty members of the university are still agitating against the government-appointed rector Melih Bulu and his policies, which they claim are eroding the campus’ democratic culture. As part of the resistance, faculty members have been physically turning their backs to the Rectorate Hall every day.
Although Bulu was appointed by Turkey's president, he has not been approved the University Senate, so his decisions lack legitimacy under the university's guiding principles.
To bypass the need for a Senate majority, Bulu appointed himself dean of the university's faculty of communications, which was recently established by a Presidential decision. Naci Inci, who is also the director of the Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences and the Institute for Graduate Studies in Sciences and Engineering, was appointed as one of Bulu's deputy rectors, and others appointed as deputy rectors also occupy various positions within the university. Under normal circumstances, these positions require campus elections and consultation with university departments.
Since January, students have been organizing open lectures, workshops, artistic productions, concerts and campus rallies, while Boğaziçi alumni organizations around the world have been holding solidarity protests in various metropolises.
Activities on the Boğaziçi campus have frequently been targeted by campus security as well as undercover police.
Most recently, Bulu suspended classes offered by part-time lecturers. Among them was Feyzi Erçin, a lecturer in the Western Languages & Literature department who taught classes in the Film Studies Certificate Program. Erçin had also been offering legal counseling services to students arrested during police raids.
Following the suspension order issued by Bulu against Erçin on May 31, students joined their professors outside the Rectorate Hall, declaring: “You have not forsaken us when we needed you, now we will not forsake you either.”
Students also set up tents on campus green spaces, only to be forced onto concrete after the rectorate’s management ordered campus sprinklers to be turned on. As students engaged in their tent resistance on campus, police gathered outside the campus gate. Then, at 1am on June 1, campus security guards, undercover police and riot police launched a coordinated intervention.
Following #BoğaziçiUniversity students setting up tents in solidarity with the suspension of part time lecturers including @feyzi_ercin, riot police and detention vehicles are deployed at the campus gate.
Police is said to be preparing for intervention.https://t.co/Fuw5b3gzss pic.twitter.com/uEhz3LGDcq
— dokuz8NEWS (@dokuz8news) May 31, 2021
Police continues rallying outside the #BoğaziçiUniversity South Campus gate as the students are still on campus ground with tents. pic.twitter.com/MY6eF4h4NJ
— dokuz8NEWS (@dokuz8news) May 31, 2021
After #BoğaziçiResistance started Tent Resistance on #BoğaziçiUniversity‘s South Campus in protest of part time lecturers’ suspension, intervention began at 1 am.
Midnight raid on campus started with Private Security Guards’ intervention.https://t.co/NonPGAcsyv pic.twitter.com/NXSvjdah1O
— dokuz8NEWS (@dokuz8news) June 1, 2021
The “midnight intervention” on the Boğaziçi campus bore echoes of the police intervention at Gezi Park in 2013, both in terms of timing and actions, in addition to roughly coinciding with the eighth anniversary of the #OccupyGezi protests. During that intervention, riot police set fire to protestors’ tents in the early hours of May 30, 2013. Pro-government media were quick to blame the protestors for the fire and accuse them of damaging public property.
Multiple students reported being wounded by the police battering that night at Boğaziçi, but no students were detained in the raid.
As Turkey heads to a general election in two years, the continuing resistance at Boğaziçi University is the latest and most prominent sign that the ruling Justice and Development Party may be losing not only popularity, but also control.


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Myanmar’s long history of revolutionary poets · Global Voices
The Irrawaddy

Poets who were killed by Myanmar's military regime since the February 1 coup. Left to right: K Za Win, Kyi Lin Aye, Khet Thi. Photo from The Irrawaddy, used with permission.
This article was originally published in The Irrawaddy, an independent news website in Myanmar, and is edited and republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Poet Khet Thi was arrested by some 100 junta troops on the evening of May 8. The following day, he was dead. His wife reportedly had to ask the authorities for permission to collect his body from Monywa Hospital; his internal organs had been removed for autopsy.
The 45-year-old poet had been arrested for alleged possession of explosives, but no evidence was found at his home. He was the third poet to be killed by junta forces in Sagaing Region’s Monywa in just two months. Poets K Za Win, 39, and Kyi Lin Aye, 36, were shot dead in crackdowns in March.
U Yee Mon, the poet-turned-defense-minister in the National Unity Government (NUG) formed to rival the military regime, wrote on his Facebook page:
Khet Thi and K Za Win, two Monywa poets have fallen. I am sad. I am committed to fight until we win.
More than a dozen poets who have shown solidarity with the people against the military regime have also been detained in Yangon, Ayeyawady’s Pathein and Taninthayi’s Myeik.
In Myanmar’s long history of revolution, poets have fought injustice with the power of their art.
After Myanmar’s last monarch King Thibaw was dethroned and sent into exile, renowned poets from the royal capital Mandalay, including Saya Pe, Sebunni Sayadaw, U Kyawt and Maunghtaung U Kyaw Hla, wrote poems intended to promote nationalism and patriotism. Saya Pe was not content fighting with the pen and went to Shan State to take up the sword. He died there. Maunghtaung U Kyaw Hla was also the first poet to be arrested under colonial rule for his anti-colonialist poems.
The most famous poet laureate in the colonial period was Thakhin Kodaw Hmaing, also known as Maung Lun, who said he would fight with poems for the independence of the country. His pen proved to be mighty in instilling nationalism and patriotism in Myanmar’s people.
In 1941, his reputation as an anti-colonial nationalist and patron of Doh Bamar Asiayon (the We Burmans Association) earned him a place on the British authorities’ “Burma List,” making him an “enemy of the state.” The group played an important part in Myanmar’s independence struggle, bringing together nationalist elements and fresh political ideals while raising political consciousness.
During the time of the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League government after independence, poets Daung Nwe Swe, Ne Thway Ni, Maung Yin Mon and others were known for their works supporting the movements of students, workers and farmers as well as anti-war poems and satirical works critical of bureaucrats.
However, draconian censorship was imposed after General Ne Win seized power in 1962. Poet Min Yu Wai was sacked as the chief editor of military-run Myawady Magazine after writing a poem deemed critical of the dictator.
Poet Win Latt and editor Win Khet of the journal Perspective were sentenced to two years in prison for publishing a satirical poem about Ne Win and his wife Khin May Than.
Many poets were put behind bars under the rule of the Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP) as they took part in every movement against the repressive regime.
In the 1970s, poet Lay Maung from Mandalay, who was serving time as a political prisoner in Coco Islands, staged a hunger strike together with other prisoners. They called for abolishing the island prison, which was dubbed as a Burmese “Devil’s Island.” He died in prison after staging a hunger strike for more than 50 days. Thanks to the sacrifices of the poet and seven others, the BSPP transferred all the prisoners to Yangon’s Insein Prison, marking a significant event in the history of Myanmar’s correctional system.
Poets were united with the people in the pro-democracy uprising in 1988 that toppled the single-party dictatorship of Ne Win. U Min Ko Naing, one of the prominent student leaders in 1988, is also a poet.
Student leader Shwe Phone Lu, who would later become a best-selling author-poet under the pen name Taryar Min Wai, wrote a poem asking the students to boycott education as the military regime re-opened universities and schools after the uprising. He was jailed for five years for that poem.
Famous writer Min Lu was arrested in 1989 for his satirical poem “What has happened?” that criticized coup leader General Saw Maung and Myanmar’s military. The poem became a phenomenon and both he and the publisher were given five-year prison terms.
Poet Min Thu Wun, father of the ninth president of Myanmar and the first president of the National League for Democracy (NLD) government, U Htin Kyaw, also had his poems banned by the military regime after the NLD won the 1990 general elections because he had taken an active part in the party’s campaigns.
Poet Tin Moe, a prominent figure of the NLD, was also jailed for five years because he wrote poems and gave talks across the country for the cause of democracy. He was forced into exile after his release and died abroad in 2007.
In 2008, poet Saw Wai was arrested for his Valentine’s Day poem with a coded message, ridiculing the then-dictator Senior General Than Shwe. The first words of each line of the poem read, “power-crazed Snr-Gen Than Shwe.”
Over the past 136 years since King Thibaw was dethroned in 1885 up to military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s seizure of power on February 1, this year, poets have shown solidarity with the ordinary people and have been at the frontline in every revolution in Myanmar. Khet Thi’s poem is a testimony to that:
In heads, they shoot
Never do they know
Revolution lies in hearts.

author: The Irrawaddy


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Belarus bans foreign travel for citizens, EU closes airspace to Belarusian flights · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

A map of Belarus border crossings. Screen shot from Google Maps, public domain.
The Belarusian government of Aliaksandr Lukashenka has put in place temporary restrictions preventing most of the citizens from going abroad. The travel ban comes amid ongoing mass repressions in the country following protests against the outcome of a disputed August 2020 presidential election.
Under the new rules published at the end of May 2021, which according to the state border security agency are designed to halt the spread of the coronavirus, all land border crossings essentially have been blocked.
Belarusian poet Valzhyna Mort lamented the growing crackdown on civic freedoms in her home country.
I signed up to Twitter to share poetry. Since then, my country's been taken hostage. Out now: Belarus bans citizens (whoever is not a state official) from leaving the country. In the air, in the streets, in homes, in jails, Belarus is being held hostage.https://t.co/RUjjfqiZys
— Valzhyna Mort (@ValzhynaMort) June 1, 2021
Belarusian researcher Maryia Rohava was also critical of the travel ban.
Now only permanent residency in another state will allow #Belarus|an citizens to leave the country using the land border. This authoritarian government feels very comfortable making Belarusian citizens its hostages and cutting transnational links with the Belarusian diaspora https://t.co/9imp6mpcdO
— Maryia Rohava (@MRohava) May 31, 2021
The State Border Committee said there are some exceptions to the travel ban, including for Belarusian civil servants on official trips and state transport staff. However, Belarusian citizens with foreign residence permits will only be allowed to leave the country if they have permanent residence in another state. Temporary permit holders are barred from leaving Belarus via land travel.
The new travel rules also apply to foreign citizens: those with temporary or permanent residence permits for Belarus are barred from leaving, while visitors from “red” list countries can only leave after a 10-day period of self-isolation, as part of public health restrictions due to the pandemic.
Valery Kavaleuski, a foreign affairs advisor to opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who lives in exile in Lithuania, criticised the travel restrictions on Twitter.
Lukashenka's regime's severely limited the right of Belarusians to travel asserting that certain grounds (residency abroad) aren't sufficient to leave Belarus. Yet the Constitution stipulates no conditions at all. Outright violation of the law by @GpkGovBYhttps://t.co/QZliAzNEKu
— Valery Kavaleuski (@kavaleuski) May 31, 2021
The land travel ban comes amid near-blanket restrictions on airspace around Belarus, after the state's military scrambled a fighter jet to force the landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk to arrest Raman Pratasevich, an opposition journalist who was on board. He later appeared on Belarusian state TV in an interview-confession that regime critics have described as “under duress”. EU representatives and other officials condemned the move an act of aerial piracy and urged European airlines to seize flights to and over Belarus. In response, state airline Belavia cancelled all flights to the EU shutting down the majority of escape routes for Belarusians.
To exert further pressure on Lukashenka's government, on June 5 the EU officially banned Belarusian planes from accessing EU airspace or European airports. The ban is part of a broader package of sanctions against Belarus and requires member states “to deny permission to land in, take off from or overfly their territories to any aircraft operated by Belarusian air carriers”.
Airline industry representatives were critical of the move, with Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), calling it “a politicisation of aviation safety”. The flight ban has drawn criticism from some human rights defenders who argue that it further limits escape routes for those who face state pressure in Belarus. However, independent journalist Hanna Liubakova argued that the blame for the travel restrictions ultimately lay with Lukashenka.
How are people traveling from #Belarus right now? They can still leave through Moscow, Petersburg, Tbilisi or Istanbul. There are options, people are not left without any chance to escape dictatorship. It is not the EU but #Lukashenko who should be blamed for sanctions pic.twitter.com/RRTXJMOWCC
— Hanna Liubakova (@HannaLiubakova) June 6, 2021

author: Tanya Lokot


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Mexican registry for cell phone users sparks privacy concerns · Global Voices
Jacobo Nájera

Photo by Kristin Hardwick at stocksnap, under public domain.
Mexico has approved a plan to register biometric data, names, and addresses of cell phone users in a database, in what activists say is an alarming decision. The Mexican government has already failed several times to protect personal data.
The Senate of the Republic of Mexico approved and then published on April 16 a decree that modifies the Mexican law on telecommunications and broadcasting to create the National Registry of Mobile Telephony Users (Padrón Nacional de Usuarios de Telefonía Móvil, PANAUT, in Spanish).
The registry is a database that includes information about the subscribers of cell phone services, managed by telephone operators. This is what the decree establishes:
Registration of the cell phone number in the National Registry of Mobile Telephony Users will be mandatory for the users, who will have to provide official identification, proof of address and biometric data for the activation of the cell phone services (…)
This means that cell phone users in Mexico are required to register their SIM cards along with their personal and biometric data, such as fingerprints and facial features. The telephone operators will be in charge of collecting and managing these records. It is estimated that the creation of the registry will cost 700 million pesos, or &35.4 million U.S. dollars.
The justification for making these legislative changes, according to the Mexican Senate, is the “collaboration with the competent authorities in matters of security and justice in matters related to the commission of unlawful acts.” By 2019, an estimated 22.3 million people were victims of crime, according to national data. Achieving “peace and security” was one of the most important core promises of Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador when he was elected in 2018.
Criticisms arose during the legislative procedure and after its approval. The civil society organization Network for the Defense of Digital Rights, or R3D, warned in the early stages that there is no evidence this type of mechanism contributes to the reduction of crimes. They also said these mechanisms are easy to evade. Meanwhile, the database would also violate fundamental rights such as privacy and could jeopardize the security of individuals due to the possibility of unauthorized access or leakage of personal data. The organization states that it would affect the presumption of innocence since “the reform establishes that all legal acts performed from a cell phone number [will be attributed] to the person registered into the registry,” meaning that people would have to prove that they cannot be held responsible in the event of theft or impersonation, for example.
One sector of the electronic telecommunications industry, which comprises 1,000 companies, asked the legislators to reject the bill. They argue that it would be difficult to create a database in an environment where each operator uses different technologies and that this initiative would discourage further investment, in addition to the claim that it would not reduce crime levels.
In Mexico, while there is an increase in trust in the federal government according to official figures, Mexicans also reported a 7.5 percent increase in the number of corruption victims, according to the 2019 National Survey on the Quality and Impact of the Government. Organizations fear that the list of personal data will be lost and fall into the hands of malicious individuals, thus increasing the feeling of insecurity.
Several cases were documented in Mexico where government institutions have failed to protect personal data, according to the federal agency in charge of personal data protection. One of the most recent examples is the Ministry of Public Function, which disclosed the data of 830,000 civil servants of the federal administration.
Another similar case occurred in the health sector. In 2018, 2.3 million clinical records were leaked and released from the state of Michoacán. Federal authorities determined that the “potential responsibility” lay with the technology company Hova Health. Within the same sector, in 2020, an investigation revealed that personal data of patients employed by the State were available on internet search engines.
The creation of a similar registry was attempted in 2009, the so-called National Registry of Mobile Telephony Users (Registro Nacional de Usuarios de Telefonía Móvil, or RENAUT, in Spanish). It had been operational for only two months before it was discontinued after it was reported that the database was for sale. In 2013, the electoral registry was also for sale online.
Citizens have taken legal action against the creation of the cell phone registry, but the majority of these actions were dismissed by the judges. For its part, the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (Instituto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso a la Información y Protección de Datos Personales in Spanish) decided to file an action for lack of compliance with the Constitution because it considers that the registry violates the protection of personal data and access to information. The Federal Telecommunications Institute (Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones, or IFT, in Spanish) also joined these actions, on the grounds that it could not allocate resources for the creation and operation of the registry, since no budget was approved, and it could also affect freedom of expression and access to telecommunications services.
For its part, the initiative #NoALPadrón (#NoToTheRegistry), made of 10 social organizations, demanded that the National Commission for Human Rights (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, or CNDH, in Spanish), an autonomous state agency, file an action to challenge the unconstitutionality of the registry. However, the Commission responded that it would not join and will only follow up.

author: Jacobo Nájera


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Pressure on journalists, bloggers mounts ahead of Uzbekistan’s presidential elections · Global Voices
Paolo Sorbello

Otabek Sattoriy during one of his YouTube videos. (Screengrab from his Xalq Fikri channel)
Otabek Sattoriy ran a solo citizen journalism operation on his Telegram and YouTube channels until he was arrested January 30 on extortion charges.
The charges were immediately cited by media freedom and rights organizations as trumped up and a punishment for his anti-corruption activism in a provincial town over 600 kilometres from the capital Tashkent.
But these voices counted for little on May 10 when the Surkhandaryo regional court in the southeast of the country sentenced Sattoriy to six-and-a-half years in prison for extortion and slander.
Sattoriy's case was just the latest in a series of incidents involving journalists across the country that have left Uzbekistan's press fearing a return to darker days as presidential elections loom.
Evidence against Sattoriy was only produced after the trial had started, highlighting the tenuous grounds on which the local court had ordered his arrest.
Sattoriy was a thorn in the side of the local administration in the city of Termez.
His YouTube and Telegram channel output was hyper-local in focus, but touched on murky public sector spending and other problems that are systemic in the country of 34 million people.
Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, called the sentence “a clear attempt to frighten the press away from covering sensitive issues as presidential elections grow near.”
Sattoriy ‘s conviction comes weeks after blogger Miraziz Bazarov was brutally attacked after issuing regular criticisms of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
Three masked men waited outside Bazarov's Tashkent home and attacked the blogger as he emerged from it on March 28. None of the men have been apprehended, but Bazarov has since been placed under house arrest.
Bazarov, who does not identify as LGBT, has been a vocal advocate of LGBT rights, including the decriminalization of homosexuality.
In Uzbekistan, same sex relations between men are punishable by law with prison sentences of up to three years.
Two weeks before the attack parliamentarian Rasul Kusherbayev had said:
The day we allow (legalised gay sex) will be the day of our death.
After the attack on Bazarov, Komil Allamjonov, Chairman the Public Foundation for the Support and Development of the National Mass Media, released a video that urged foreign governments, NGOs, and journalists to refrain from covering LGBT issues:
In our country, where the majority of the people are Muslim, the society does not tolerate unnatural men and women. Our holy religion, Islam, does not allow it.
Allamjonov added that if the laws punishing same sex relations are relaxed and LGBT people become more visible, “the number of lynchings may increase.”
These kinds of declarations send cold shivers across the spine of the many LGBT people and activists who have been oppressed for decades in the country.
They also sharply exposed the limits of a reform drive that began in Uzbekistan after the death of its hardline first president, Islam Karimov, in 2016.
Allamjonov and Kusherbayev have both styled themselves as progressive officials at the forefront of the bid to ease Karimov's strongly authoritarian system.
Helena Fraser, the UN coordinator in Uzbekistan condemned the attack on Bazarov in a statement:
The U.N. also condemns hate speech, which is an attack on tolerance, inclusion, diversity and the very essence of universal human rights norms and principles.
Police detained Bazarov on charges of slander immediately after he was released from hospital on April 29.
Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska, a Tashkent-based Polish journalist who works for Al Jazeera, had gone to the hospital where Bazarov was being treated.
Subsequently, she came under pressure from the interior ministry, which accused her of spreading “negative and unobjective information” about the case.
Pikulicka-Wilczewska had been in the news in the weeks prior to this incident, when she publicly accused an official handling her accreditation request of sexual harassment.
Pikulicka-Wilczewska said she had previously raised concerns about the official's suggestive behaviour with another government contact, who had told her the complaint was “being dealt with.”
The 24-hour scandal that played out on Twitter saw the foreign ministry backtrack and issue both an apology and accreditation to Pikulicka-Wilczewska.
The foreign ministry also said that the government had fired the person she had accused of harassment.
In the build up to this statement, Allamjonov, a former presidential press secretary whose foundation wields great influence over the local media scene, met with Pikulicka-Wilczewska in a show of support.
Once famous for blanket suppression of freedom of expression, Uzbekistan is now keen to retain international goodwill as it positions itself as a more open country.
This new outlook has on occasion seen authorities respond proactively to self-inflicted freedom of speech scandals and attempt to portray them as aberrations.
But the harsh sentencing of Sattoriy despite an uproar indicates that the regime may be reverting to type ahead of an October vote that will offer few real alternatives to Mirziyoyev.
Pikulicka-Wilczewska's victory over the system, meanwhile, proved a fleeting one.
This is a typical view from my window these days. Whenever I ask them if they need a tea or coffee they disappear?♀Sadly, I don’t have any pics of the guys on the other side of the house, always on the phone.Not sure where they work but it seems like a boring job.More pics coming pic.twitter.com/Xzum81yA1W
— Agnieszka Pikulicka (@Aga_Pik) April 4, 2021
On June 2, she tweeted that the Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairshad refused to prolong her accreditation, triggering a fresh wave of condemnation from press freedom watchdogs.
“Denying accreditation to a journalist on account of her news coverage is simply unacceptable,” Said of CPJ wrote in the organisation's press release.
President Shavkhat Mirziyoyev has repeatedly called for critical reporting and told journalists earlier this year that he “stands behind” them and their efforts to highlight problems.
At present, his government is standing behind them and peering over their shoulders.

author: Paolo Sorbello


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World Oceans Day: The Caribbean Sea faces dual threat of climate change and overfishing · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Cleaning a fish at Old Harbour Bay, St. Catherine, Jamaica. Photo by Emma Lewis, used with permission.
Oceans cover approximately 71 percent of the earth’s surface, and contain 97 per cent of its water, so how is our “blue planet””—and specifically, the Caribbean Sea—faring? Is the blue economy, touted as a sustainable solution to the region’s concerns, little more than a catchphrase, or the Caribbean’s last hope?
The theme of World Oceans Day 2021 is “Life and Livelihoods.” Although the Caribbean Sea, with an area of just over one million square miles, represents only around one percent of the global ocean area, it is a critical resource for its people, just about 70 percent of whom live in coastal areas. Certainly, the Caribbean depends in some way on the sea and its coastlines for a living.
The region’s marine environment faces a long list of challenges, including pollution of all kinds: plastics and other forms of trash, as well as abandoned fishing gear and the runoff of pesticides and other chemicals used in agriculture, much of which is unregulated. Drastic changes to island coastlines to accommodate tourism developments, including hotels, marinas and cruise ship ports, have resulted in the removal of vital mangroves and other coastal habitats and impacted coral reefs and seagrass beds. Prospecting and drilling for oil is another growing concern for some Caribbean territories.
Another issue, not to be discounted, is the poaching and hunting of important marine and coastal species, including endangered sea turtles and marine mammals. The United Nations Caribbean Environment Programme (UN/CEP), headquartered in Kingston, Jamaica, will be focusing on this for one month beginning on World Oceans Day in order to raise awareness of the region's mammals, including whales, sharks, and the endangered West Indian manatee:
Our marine mammal campaign starts tomorrow #WorldOceansDay2021? until July 7!
Learn interesting facts about marine mammals?? in the Wider Carib, the threats they face, conservation efforts being undertaken to protect them & how YOU can help!
…because #MarineMammalsMatter! pic.twitter.com/5M7BxMWg5U
— UNEP Cartagena Convention & Caribbean Enviro Prog. (@UNEP_CEP) June 7, 2021
The UN agency is currently wrapping up its focus on yet another challenge, sargassum seaweed, which has afflicted some of the Caribbean's loveliest beaches—and its tourism trade—in recent years.
As the region marks World Oceans Day, however, two pressing and seemingly intractable issues stand out: the impacts of the climate crisis, and overfishing, including illegal and unregulated fishing by both local and overseas fishers. These concerns, among others, will be the focus of discussions throughout the day on June 8, as they are certainly not unique to the region.
After a series of devastating hurricanes in recent years—most recently, 2019's deadly Hurricane Dorian—the Caribbean has established itself as being exceedingly vulnerable to climate change. Its creeping impact on the marine environment is showing itself in various ways, including the extreme degradation of Caribbean coral reefs, which support over 60 species of corals and 1,500 species of fish, and on which much of the region's tourism industry through leisure activities. The drastic decline, due to higher sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification, makes the corals more fragile. Both coral reefs and mangroves, which act as protective barriers and breeding grounds for ocean life, have been damaged by an increased number of high-intensity storms. According to a 2020 National Environment and Planning Agency of Jamaica report, none of the island's coral reefs are in good shape, with 36 percent rated as being in critical condition.
Etoile Pinder, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Project Coordinator of the Hurricane Recovery Project in the Bahamas, in Green Turtle Cay, Abaco, with members of Friends of the Environment and IDEA Relief as they clear marine debris left by Hurricane Dorian. Photo courtesy the UNDP Bahamas Hurricane Recovery Project office, used with permission.
Local non-governmental organisations are seeking to redress the balance. In Jamaica, several community-based groups are painstakingly restoring corals using various “gardening” methods, and replanting their cultivated young corals on dead reefs. In Grenada, a “biorock” material is also being used to restore corals. The results of such innovative endeavours remain to be seen.
Meanwhile, Sustainable Grenadines (SusGren), a trans-boundary non-governmental organisation (NGO) focusing on the coastal and marine environment and sustainable livelihoods for the people in the Grenadines (located between Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines), has embarked on a sea moss cultivation project. One of its major undertakings was the restoration of Ashton Lagoon, a failed marina project that is now a successful eco-tourism coastal attraction.
The matters stressing out the Caribbean Sea are all connected. The Caribbean is one of the world's most over-fished regions. Over-exploitation of the sea's resources, in particular, the global issue of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, both within the region and from overseas fishing interests, in turn affects Caribbean coral reefs and, by extension, the lives and livelihoods of local fishing communities.
On World Oceans Day, at a webinar hosted by the Earth Journalism Network, regional experts will discuss the issue of fisheries subsidies, and whether ongoing treaty talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO) will make a difference.
Quite apart from the efforts of NGOs, which are often supported by grant funding from multilateral organisations, it is now up to regional governments to work closely with its citizenry to protect the sea and all the creatures that live in it. Some are doing better than others: Belize, for example, has expanded its Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to protect its vibrant coral reefs.
Ratification and accession to key international agreements such as the SPAW Protocol, which countries like Jamaica have not ratified, and the Cartagena Convention on Biodiversity would also help provide training, technical assistance, grant funding and encourage the establishment of more MPAs.
Political will and action, informed and guided by local scientists such as climate change scholar Professor Michael Taylor and marine biologist Professor Mona Webber at the University of the West Indies, would help propel Caribbean leaders towards a workable and urgently needed plan to protect the sea. On a daily basis, strict enforcement of environmental regulations and greater vigilance against illegal fishing in and around coastal waters needs to be stepped up.
The beautiful, turquoise waters of the Caribbean, which have given so much of their bounty to its people and their economies, deserve nothing less.

author: Emma Lewis


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What a Kyrgyzstan oil refinery reveals about China’s Belt and Road Initiative · Global Voices
Aizat Shailoobek kyzy

An oil refinery at night. Photo by Gregg Tavares. CC BY 2.0 (Flickr)
The Zhongda oil refinery, one of China’s largest investments in Kyrgyzstan, typifies the jobs versus pollution debate that surrounds Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) vision.
The refinery is a paragon of opacity. A decade on from its construction, many Kyrgyzstani citizens know very little about its work, or why it recently halted production.
Zhongda, also known as Junda, was built in the town of Kara-Balta, 60 kilometres west of the capital Bishkek, with Chinese investments of more than 300 million US dollars.
The company that operates the refinery, “Zhongda China Petrol Company” (中大中国石油公司), is owned by the state-owned Shanxi Coal and Chemical Industry Group based in Shanxi, China, via a daughter company called Central Asia Energy Company.
The project was agreed not long before the corrupt, authoritarian regime of Kyrgyzstan's second president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was jettisoned from power in a 2010 revolution.
When it was finally commissioned in 2014, it became the largest oil refinery in Kyrgyzstan, a resource-poor Central Asian country of 6.5 million people.
Unemployment in Kyrgyzstan is chronic, and the refinery was part of a series of Chinese investments made around the time of the revolution that partially offset the trend of hundreds of thousands of Kyrgyzstanis who seasonally migrate to Russia in search for work.
Around two-thirds of the 800 workers at the refinery are locals, while the rest are Chinese.
But many of China's investments, particularly in the extractive sector, have been mired in scandals over perceived environmental damage and poor community relations.
What is most striking about the Zhongda refinery, according to Niva Yau, a researcher at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, is how close it is to residential buildings in Kara-Balta:
Living next to an oil refinery is bad anywhere in the world. In this case, however, the Chinese company did not assess the impact on placing the factory so close to a village. It was a cost-cutting measure, because a more remote location would have placed the cost of laying down water and energy transmission networks on the shoulders of the company. Strapped for cash, the Kyrgyz government would have not been able to afford this. In China, the government tries to build new refineries farther away from settled communities and they compensate the locals in case of exposure to environmental harm. Building the Zhongda refinery was convenient for the Kyrgyz government. At the end of the day, what happens in Kara-Balta does not affect Bishkek.
Bishkek is Kyrgyzstan's capital, where the political decisions are made. Presidents and lawmakers are often accused of taking the money from investments while leaving local communities to sort out their issues with foreign companies alone.
Several residents of Kara-Balta told Global Voices that their health has suffered since the refinery started its operations.
Sulaiman Satykeev, a member of the local government, claimed that the number of residents suffering from allergies, asthma and other lung issues has grown:
Especially in the morning, the air smelled like gas. We tried to reach the mayor, arguing that the plant is harmful to the environment. People were getting sick due to the polluted air. The refinery’s work, however, went on. We tried our best but nobody was listening to us. Now, thank God, the Zhongda factory is not working and the air has become much cleaner.
The pause in production at the refinery came the same year that the coronavirus struck. The refinery's operators have not given an explanation over the pause, or a schedule for the plant starting work again.
This is the second time the facility has gone offline. After four years in operation, the refinery’s work was suspended in 2018 following a legal dispute over tax evasion and worker rights abuse.
Some see the refinery's problems as being linked to competition for the energy market between China and Russia.
Russian energy giant Gazprom traditionally dominates the fuel market in Kyrgyzstan, while several prominent Kyrgyz politicians have businesses importing fuel from there.
Пирматов все четко сказал.ПКР будто бы специально угробило местное производство в угоду импорта ГСМ из РФ.С нашими чиновниками врагов не надо,сами все отдадут.Джунда и КПК кстати легально экспортировали наш ГСМ низкого качества в афган,платили млрд налоги.https://t.co/EfWu5IGVHl
— Bruno Tatali (@BrunoTatali) May 10, 2021
(Lawmaker) Pirmatov tells it like it is. The government is seemingly intent on destroying local production (at Junda) to create benefits for refined fuel imported from Russia. With our officials, who needs enemies? They ruin everything. The Junda refinery, by the way, legally exported our low quality fuel to Afghanistan and paid billions (of Kyrgyz soms) in taxes.
In 2019, Zhongda was one of a number of Chinese-run operations raided by a self-styled nationalist patriot group called Kyrk Chorolor that garnered popularity by taking an aggressive anti-Chinese stance.
Chinese investment skeptics in Central Asia often contend that the industrial component of the BRI will bring into the region dirty production that is no longer needed in China.
This sentiment was highlighted over the border in Kazakhstan, the region's largest economy, during protests against the government's backing for Chinese investment projects two years ago.
Антикитайские протесты проходят уже в пяти крупных городах Казахстана.
Самый грязный завод в Кыргызстане – китайский НПЗ Джунда в Кара-Балте. https://t.co/nbEHTZDhwh
— Azis Isa (@Azis_Isa) September 4, 2019
Anti-Chinese protests are happening in five major cities of Kazakhstan. The dirtiest factory in Kyrgyzstan is the Chinese refinery Zhongda in Kara-Balta.
The refinery's representatives rarely give interviews to Kyrgyzstan's local press, which is the most independent in the Central Asian region and known for asking difficult questions.
In a 2019 interview with the Sanqin Metropolis Daily, Shi Jianguo, manager of Zhongda China Petrol Company, hailed the plant as “the first large-scale industrial enterprise in Kyrgyzstan.”
Local officials have also avoided mentioning the problems faced by the project in their interviews with the Chinese press.
In a 2017 interview with Xinhua News Agency, Turusbek Nogoev, then-governor of the Chuy region where the refinery is located, used a phrase beloved of Chinese officials to describe the refinery:
Zhongda Petrol's operations and output are a win-win for Kyrgyzstan and China. The refining company has made sizeable tax contributions to Kyrgyzstan’s budget and is a model for foreign investors.
The Central Asia Energy Company said in 2017 that the company paid an average of 3 to 3.5 million US dollars in taxes per month, placing it among the top three taxpayers in Kyrgyzstan.
At present, the state budget is missing out on that money and local workers are missing out on salaries. Many other Kara-Balta residents are just happy to have their air back.

author: Aizat Shailoobek kyzy


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Germany recognizes colonial-era genocide in Namibia, but survivors say it’s not enough · Global Voices
Lisa Plank

Protesting the Herero and Nama Namibian genocide in Germany. Image by Uwe Hiksch, March 22, 2012, (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
After more than a century of official silence, Germany has formally recognised as genocide a series of colonial-era massacres in Namibia between 1904 and 1908 when German settlers brutally killed thousands of people from the Herero (also known as Ovaherero) and Nama ethnic groups.
The offer by Germany to pay 1.1 billion euros (approximately 1.3 billion U.S. dollars or 18.6 billion Namibian dollars) came after five years of negotiations between the governments of Germany and Namibia. The payments will go into funding projects in Namibia over a period of thirty years. However, the German government insists that these payments are not “reparations,” as there are no legal claims for reparations, but only a moral obligation.
The Namibian government has accepted Berlin’s offer. However, descendants of the victims of the genocide, who were excluded from the negotiations, strongly resent the terms of the agreement which state that payments will be made through the government’s development projects and not directly to them.
This gesture is in “recognition of the immeasurable suffering inflicted on the victims. Our goal was and is to find a common path to genuine reconciliation in memory of the victims,” German foreign minister Heiko Maas noted in a press statement released on May 28, 2021. “This includes naming the events of the German colonial period in what is now Namibia and in particular the atrocities in the period from 1904 to 1908 without sparing or glossing over them. We will now also officially call these events what they were from today's perspective: a genocide,” said Maas.
Wir haben heute nur ein Wort für das, was die deutsche Kolonialbesatzung zwischen 1904 und 1908 in #Namibia verübt hat: Völkermord. Umso mehr hoffe ich, dass wir heute einen wichtigen Schritt in Richtung Versöhnung gehen können. (1/2)
— Heiko Maas ?? (@HeikoMaas) May 28, 2021
We have only one word today for what the German colonial occupation perpetrated in #Namibia between 1904 and 1908: genocide. All the more I hope that today we can take an important step towards reconciliation. We will ask #Namibia and the descendants of the victims for forgiveness. As a gesture to them, we will provide 1.1 billion over the next 30 years, e.g. for agriculture and education. We cannot change the past, but together we can look to the future.
On June 4, 2021, while addressing the media at State House in Namibian’s capital Windhoek, Vice President Nangolo Mbumba said the negotiations with Germany have been very difficult. “We are not proud of the amount. (…) The payment of reparations was the most difficult part. Germany has accepted a moral obligation to pay money” but vehemently “refused to pay reparations,” Mbumba said according to a report from the daily newspaper, The Namibian.
Between 1884 and 1915, Namibia was a German colony called German South West Africa. Historians agree that between 1904 and 1908, German settlers killed at least 65,000 of the 80,000 Ovaherero and at least 10,000 of the 20,000 Nama.
Genozid-Denkmal vor der Alten Feste [Genocide – Memorial ” in front of the old fortress in Windhoek] Pemba.mpimaji via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The genocide was triggered by an uprising of Herero who worked in German facilities and farms. As a result, the German colonial forces commander Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha ordered 15,000 German soldiers to put down the uprising.
The Hereros fled to the almost waterless Omaheke Desert in eastern Namibia but Von Trotha had the desert sealed off and chased them away, far from any source of water. Thousands of Hereros died of thirst. Then he issued an extermination order: “The Herero are no longer German subjects. (…) Within the German border, every Herero with or without a rifle, with or without cattle, will be shot; I will no longer take in women and children, drive them back to their people or have them shot as well.”
The Namas also rose up in solidarity with the Hereros. Yet, they avoided direct confrontation with the German forces. Instead, they started a guerilla war. After Namas leader Hendrik Witbooi and Jakob Morenga died, they gave up.
At the end of the rebellion, when German forces had conquered “the revolt, the Hereros all but ceased to exist as a cultural entity. Of the original 80,000 Hereros, only 20,000 remained alive,” according to genocide scholars Samuel Totten and William S. Parsons.
Opposition parties and affected communities have highly criticized the agreement, which included limited participation of descendants of the affected communities.
To the Nama and Ovaherero people, this agreement reflects the lack of will for true reconciliation by the German government.
‘UNJUST’ … The Ovaherero and Nama traditional leadership, among others, are protesting against what they describe as an unjust settlement deal between the Namibian and German governments. Video: Puyeipawa Nakashole pic.twitter.com/5RQhdcqPBK
— The Namibian (@TheNamibian) May 28, 2021
According to the newspaper The Namibian, the traditional chiefs from the Maharero, Kambazembi, Gam, Zeraeua and Mireti royal houses of the Ovaherero people have rejected the German government's offer. They want 478 billion euros (about 8 trillion Namibian dollars) as financial reparations for the 1904 to 1908 genocide, paid over 40 year-period as a pension fund for the descendants of the victims.
Similarly, on June 1, 2021, chairperson of the Namibian Genocide Association  Laidlaw Peringanda said in an interview with Al Jazeera: “If the German government wants to reconcile, they need to give us our dignity back. But that can’t happen as long as they are excluding us.”
This Namibian Twitter user described the negotiations as “an insulting mess” that resulted in “an embarrassingly premature celebration of steps to ‘reconciliation’”:
Two important parts to this story:
1) former Pres. Khama bringing up recognition of diaspora Ovaherero (finally!), i.e. Baherero in Botswana who fled during the genocide
2) German foreign minister Maas cancelling his trip to Namibia “indefinitely” ?https://t.co/KbcWwnFINz
— Zoé (@ztsamudzi) June 2, 2021
Some Namibians also criticized the promised amount of money, which they say will have little impact.
Howard Rechavia-Taylor, German colonialism scholar at the Columbia University noted that the impact of German colonisation is still prevalent today, as evident in the unequal distribution of land:
The elephant in the room: white people still live on huge swathes of Herero and Nama land- they often sit on the graves of ancestors that Herero and Nama people still have to request access to. “Reconciliation” without attention to the land question can only be PR.
— Howard Rechavia-Taylor (@howierechavia) May 28, 2021
But criticisms have not been limited to Namibia alone. Dissenting voices against the agreement have also been raised in Germany as well.
“Germany negotiated mainly with the Namibian government, but not with the authentic representatives of the Herero and Nama,” said the Berlin-based Herero activist Israel Kaunatjike in an interview with Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland. “What has now been decided is a small development aid programme, which has nothing to do with reparation payments,” said Kaunatjike.
An alliance of black organisations in Germany also called for a solidarity demonstration in Berlin.
Wir rufen zur Teilnahme an der Demo zum sogenannten #Versöhnungsabkommen zwischen #Namibia und der BRD – ohne die Beteiligung von #Herero und #Nama Selbstvertretungen. Schon 2016 galt: “It cannot be about us without us. Anything about us without us is against us!” pic.twitter.com/rdSqelKHuh
— Decolonize Berlin e.V. (@decolonize_e) May 27, 2021
We call for participation in the demonstration on the so-called #Reconciliation Agreement between #Namibia and Germany – without the participation of #Herero and #Nama self-advocacy groups. Already in 2016 it was true: It cannot be about us without us. Anything about us without us is against us!”
However, not everyone is against the agreement. On June 3, the chairperson of the Ovaherero/OvaMbanderu and Nama Council, Gerson Katjirua, announced that the entire council accepts the offer and will be signatories of the agreement:
WE ACCEPT OFFER … The chairperson of the Ovaherero/OvaMbanderu and Nama Council Gerson Katjirua on Thursday morning in Windhoek said the entire council accepts the 1,1 billion euros offer from the German government. Video: Shelleygan Petersen pic.twitter.com/mbWs5Gm9rD
— The Namibian (@TheNamibian) June 3, 2021
Katjirua stated that not all descendants of the victims were against the reparations offer. “We will be signatories of this agreement,” he said.

author: Lisa Plank


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Global Voices’ top stories on environmental destruction, as the planet just observed World Environment Day · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

The proposed Kanal Istanbul project would split Istanbul's European continent by a 45km long shipping canal joining the Black Sea to the Marmara, and running parallel to the Bosphorus strait. Screenshot from BBC News Türkçe video
June 5 marks World Environmental Day, the date chosen by the United Nations in 1972 to raise global awareness about the vital importance of the environment.
Global Voices has covered environmental issues extensively over the years, and one focus of our stories has been the way pollution, as well as massive urbanization, development infrastructures, human-caused accidents are destroying fragile ecosystems, poisoning the food chain and harming humans as well as animals. Here are the ones that have most captured our attention so far this year:
Are GDP and environmental protection necessarily a contradiction? While many governments tend to prioritize economic growth, including foreign investment, they forget or ignore the fact that on the long term, societies end up playing a high price to compensate for natural destruction brought by project not meeting environmental standards.
For certain governments, one quick way to claim a green GDP is to simply export their waste to other countries and let those countries deal with the consequences of their own unsustainable model of consumerism.
While nearly 70 percent of the world's population now lives in cities, urban development is often failing to include green models of planning to accommodate even larger numbers f urban dwellers.
The Japanese government has announced it plans to release contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in 2023, yet this decision poses serious implications for communities along the Fukushima coastline.
Oil tankers are a source of major ocean and water pollution around the world. When governments do not react timely to such threats, environmental activists are on the frontline to raise awareness and call for real action.
In Oman the government is determined to ignore concern by environmental activists in order to go ahead with urban development despite the threats posed to a lush valley.
A port development project might put at risk Peru's biodiversity, recognized as one of the most diverse in the world. While civil society was able to push back once, the government is apparently approving the project without major changes and despite an independent environmental assessment demonstrating a negative impact for local communities.
In Trinidad and Tobago, residents are committed to stop a quarry project in the country's last valley with untouched watershed, and this for the third time as government and business seem to ignore their plea for dropping the project.

author: Filip Noubel