/PC
Monday, November 9, 2009
Fall of the Wall organically celebrated in a German garden
In case you hadn't noticed from the saturated media coverage it's been twenty years since the Berlin war crumbled under the weight of people power. The front page of the International Herald Tribune last Saturday ran with this photo which captures the moment in a somewhat more original manner (how many images have we seen of people chipping away at the graffitied wall?).
The photo, from Uwe Zucchi (at the European Press Agency), shows a tree growing through the bumper of a VW Beetle near Fuldatal, Germany. The Beelte is supposedly the first car to cross the German-German border after the Berlin Wall was opened. Hiddin in a garden, it stands as a small but symbolic memorial of a major milestone in contemporary history.
/PC
/PC
Friday, November 6, 2009
Albino kids running and hiding out of fear for their lives
After a three-month hiatus in the occult-based killings in the north-west, hunters seized a ten-year-old albino boy, Gasper Elikana, in the Geita district of Mwanza region last month and hacked him to death in front of his black father and neighbours, who had risked their lives to try to save him.
The men fled with Gasper’s severed leg having first beheaded him to stop him screaming. The boy’s father, who received at least one machete blow to the head, was left fighting for his life in hospital but is now said to be out of danger.
The men fled with Gasper’s severed leg having first beheaded him to stop him screaming. The boy’s father, who received at least one machete blow to the head, was left fighting for his life in hospital but is now said to be out of danger.
Mwanza is in shock.
“People are feeling very terrible about this new killing,” said Pauline Kilele, Mwanza regional coordinator for the Tanzania Red Cross Society (TRCS).
“We sent some of our volunteers to Mitindo [school for the blind, near Mwanza town, where more than 100 albino children have taken refuge since the albino killings began] to give moral support, but we don’t have the resources to do much else.
“We have to intervene on the humanitarian level now.”
$Sunburn injuries
The last reported killing of an albino in Tanzania had been on 18 July, police in Dar es Salaam say, and earlier this week a court in the northern town of Shinyanga sentenced four more men to death for killing an albino man last year.
In September three hunters were sentenced to hang for murdering a young boy – the first death sentences in Tanzania related to albino killings.
But it was evident the albino hunters never really put away their machetes.
The most recent arrival of a fugitive albino child at the Kabanga school for the disabled in Kasulu, in north-western Kigoma region, was on 13 September.
Seven-year-old Enus Abel was brought to the school by his mother, who is black: they spent two weeks alone in the bush after fleeing their village, Kigaga, just ahead of albino hunters.
Enus’s head and neck are covered in raw sunburn-injuries, but he is safe.
He was the forty-ninth albino child to take refuge at Kabanga since the killings began in 2007.
The official total number of albinos killed by hunters in Tanzania, who sell their body parts to witchdoctors whose clients buy them for large sums to use as talismans, now stands at 44; some groups have put it higher at more than 50.
Senior police commanders in Dar es Salaam have said a complete set of albino body parts – including all four limbs, genitals, ears, tongue and nose – fetches the equivalent of 75,000 US dollars.
“Hiding in their backyards”
While hunters are known to bribe people to help them find albinos hiding in villages, stories still abound of black relatives and neighbours risking their lives to try to protect them.
Geita on 21 October 2009 was one more such story.
In remote villages, as opposed to the haunts of the mysterious wealthy buyers of body parts, the lure of money more than witchcraft alone is what proves fatal to Great Lakes albinos.
For the foreseeable future, the latest killing in Geita will also have destroyed any hopes of a return home for hundreds of albinos now clustering in schools and, in neighbouring Burundi, improvised shelters guarded by the police round the clock.
Much of the entire albino population – some 8,000 people by the official counts in both countries – will remain trapped in their homes, unable to move around freely to work, trade or study for fear of the hunters.
In the words of one Red Cross worker, “they are hiding in their backyards”.
Neither Kabanga nor the larger Mitindo school at Misungwi, whose total roll numbers 1,245, is now able to close during the holidays because it’s not safe for the albino children to return to their villages.
This places a major strain on the schools’ human and financial resources.
Neighbours unite
Despite the overstretched teachers’ best efforts to keep them covered up and in the shade, albino children there often suffer from acute sunburn.
Fear of the hunters has also spread to the two remaining refugee camps near Kasulu in north-west Tanzania – for Burundians, Congolese and Rwandans – which have been managed by the TRCS for a decade as part of an international programme now involving the American, Japanese and Spanish Red Cross.
Hawa Mwemtabu, 30, who is black, breast-feeds Mayange, her sick albino toddler, in the shade of an umbrella provided by a Tanzanian special-education officer in Nyarugusu camp, which hosts refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
When news of the killings first reached the camp its albino residents asked to relocate to be near the police station, but the Red Cross and other agencies advised them to stay put because clustering would make it easier for the hunters to find them.
The advice seems to have been vindicated: no albinos in the camp have been lost, and Hawa’s neighbours, she explains, are “united in protecting us”.
“I just thank God we can carry on.”
Local appeal
The Red Cross in both Burundi and Tanzania is now urgently seeking ways to expand local efforts to address the humanitarian plight of Great Lakes albinos.
Those efforts, which included a small local appeal in Kigoma that raised just over US$ 4,000, have so far been entirely unsupported externally.
Many Red Cross staff and volunteers, moved literally to tears by the condition of albino children after they first emerged from the bush, contributed out of their own pockets.
The TRCS is shortly appealing for international assistance to provide health education, wide-brimmed hats and long-sleeved tops, and vocational teaching-equipment for both albinos and non-albino children in the schools aimed at increasing the chances of albinos obtaining work indoors.
The overwhelming majority of albinos who are in paid employment (a very small proportion of the total) can only find work out of doors in the sun – the last place they should be – involving activities like roadside trading, market stalls and agricultural day-labour. Those who aren’t survive by tending small plots – again out in the sun.
This massively increases their susceptibility to the aggressive skin cancers that claim so many young albino lives. But as one young albino told the International Federation, “If you don’t go out in the sun you don’t eat.”
An already-mortal dilemma has been multiplied many times over by the killings.
“People are feeling very terrible about this new killing,” said Pauline Kilele, Mwanza regional coordinator for the Tanzania Red Cross Society (TRCS).
“We sent some of our volunteers to Mitindo [school for the blind, near Mwanza town, where more than 100 albino children have taken refuge since the albino killings began] to give moral support, but we don’t have the resources to do much else.
“We have to intervene on the humanitarian level now.”
$Sunburn injuries
The last reported killing of an albino in Tanzania had been on 18 July, police in Dar es Salaam say, and earlier this week a court in the northern town of Shinyanga sentenced four more men to death for killing an albino man last year.
In September three hunters were sentenced to hang for murdering a young boy – the first death sentences in Tanzania related to albino killings.
But it was evident the albino hunters never really put away their machetes.
The most recent arrival of a fugitive albino child at the Kabanga school for the disabled in Kasulu, in north-western Kigoma region, was on 13 September.
Seven-year-old Enus Abel was brought to the school by his mother, who is black: they spent two weeks alone in the bush after fleeing their village, Kigaga, just ahead of albino hunters.
Enus’s head and neck are covered in raw sunburn-injuries, but he is safe.
He was the forty-ninth albino child to take refuge at Kabanga since the killings began in 2007.
The official total number of albinos killed by hunters in Tanzania, who sell their body parts to witchdoctors whose clients buy them for large sums to use as talismans, now stands at 44; some groups have put it higher at more than 50.
Senior police commanders in Dar es Salaam have said a complete set of albino body parts – including all four limbs, genitals, ears, tongue and nose – fetches the equivalent of 75,000 US dollars.
“Hiding in their backyards”
While hunters are known to bribe people to help them find albinos hiding in villages, stories still abound of black relatives and neighbours risking their lives to try to protect them.
Geita on 21 October 2009 was one more such story.
In remote villages, as opposed to the haunts of the mysterious wealthy buyers of body parts, the lure of money more than witchcraft alone is what proves fatal to Great Lakes albinos.
For the foreseeable future, the latest killing in Geita will also have destroyed any hopes of a return home for hundreds of albinos now clustering in schools and, in neighbouring Burundi, improvised shelters guarded by the police round the clock.
Much of the entire albino population – some 8,000 people by the official counts in both countries – will remain trapped in their homes, unable to move around freely to work, trade or study for fear of the hunters.
In the words of one Red Cross worker, “they are hiding in their backyards”.
Neither Kabanga nor the larger Mitindo school at Misungwi, whose total roll numbers 1,245, is now able to close during the holidays because it’s not safe for the albino children to return to their villages.
This places a major strain on the schools’ human and financial resources.
Neighbours unite
Despite the overstretched teachers’ best efforts to keep them covered up and in the shade, albino children there often suffer from acute sunburn.
Fear of the hunters has also spread to the two remaining refugee camps near Kasulu in north-west Tanzania – for Burundians, Congolese and Rwandans – which have been managed by the TRCS for a decade as part of an international programme now involving the American, Japanese and Spanish Red Cross.
Hawa Mwemtabu, 30, who is black, breast-feeds Mayange, her sick albino toddler, in the shade of an umbrella provided by a Tanzanian special-education officer in Nyarugusu camp, which hosts refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
When news of the killings first reached the camp its albino residents asked to relocate to be near the police station, but the Red Cross and other agencies advised them to stay put because clustering would make it easier for the hunters to find them.
The advice seems to have been vindicated: no albinos in the camp have been lost, and Hawa’s neighbours, she explains, are “united in protecting us”.
“I just thank God we can carry on.”
Local appeal
The Red Cross in both Burundi and Tanzania is now urgently seeking ways to expand local efforts to address the humanitarian plight of Great Lakes albinos.
Those efforts, which included a small local appeal in Kigoma that raised just over US$ 4,000, have so far been entirely unsupported externally.
Many Red Cross staff and volunteers, moved literally to tears by the condition of albino children after they first emerged from the bush, contributed out of their own pockets.
The TRCS is shortly appealing for international assistance to provide health education, wide-brimmed hats and long-sleeved tops, and vocational teaching-equipment for both albinos and non-albino children in the schools aimed at increasing the chances of albinos obtaining work indoors.
The overwhelming majority of albinos who are in paid employment (a very small proportion of the total) can only find work out of doors in the sun – the last place they should be – involving activities like roadside trading, market stalls and agricultural day-labour. Those who aren’t survive by tending small plots – again out in the sun.
This massively increases their susceptibility to the aggressive skin cancers that claim so many young albino lives. But as one young albino told the International Federation, “If you don’t go out in the sun you don’t eat.”
An already-mortal dilemma has been multiplied many times over by the killings.
By Alex Wynter in Dar es Salaam and Stella Marealla Masonu in Kasulu, Tanzania (from www.ifrc.org - again blogger won't let me post more than one photo -- for more go to the mother ship at ifrc.)
/PC
Thursday, November 5, 2009
New ocean forming in African desert
Earlier this year I read a fascinating book by the author Amos Nur called Apocalypse which argued that earthquakes and natural phenomenon have had far more influence on the shaping (or misshaping) of civilization than hitherto given credit, even more than war and politics.
Then today I learn that geologists have confirmed that the African continent is being torn in two, forming a new ocean. An international collaboration has shown that a 35 mile long rift in the Afar region of the Ethiopian desert, which opened in 2005, is likely to be the beginning of a new sea.
The recent study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (well worth signing up for their emailed updates which provide short snippets of the latest initiatives and breakthroughs in scientific research) brings together seismic data from the formation of the rift, showing that it is driven by similar processes to those at the bottom of oceans.
African and Arabian tectonic plates meet in the desert, and have been slowly pulling apart for roughly 30 million years. The same movement has also been parting the Red Sea. But this is only at a speed of less than 1 inch per year.
The sudden cracking in 2005, referred to by geologists as a "mega-dike intrusion", opened up a rift over 20 feet wide in places. The study has found that this happened over only a few days. According to Cindy Ebinger, a co-author of the study from the University of Rochester: "We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift, but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this." (Credit for photo accompanying this post also goes to the University of Rochester).
The investigation was led by Professor Atalay Ayele of Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. As well as Rochester, other groups involved included Eritrea Institute of Technology; National Yemen Seismological Observatory Center; University of Leeds, United Kingdom; Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, France; and Columbia University, New York.
"The whole point of this study is to learn whether what is happening in Ethiopia is like what is happening at the bottom of the ocean where it's almost impossible for us to go," said Ebinger. "Because of the unprecedented cross-border collaboration behind this research, we now know that the answer is yes, it is analogous."
One to watch and follow for sure and while Nur's thesis, mentioned above, may not be water-tight accurate it is certainly compelling. A corollory of his analysis however can be proven from this interesting research and that is that despite the serious political difficulties between countries - such as Eritrea and Ethiopia - the search for truth through science and understanding knows no borders and has the power to unite even the bitterest of enemies.
/PC
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Afghanistan and the lessons of history
I would never have thought that reflecting about my time in Afghanistan, and my fascination with a 19th century painting from the Anglo-Afghan war, would lead me to Tipperary and Meath.
Last week's suicide bombing and armed raids on a guest house frequented by UN staff in Kabul got me thinking, not for the first time, of this interminable part of the world. The UN bombing had been preceded a few days before hand by a suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul that left at least 17 dead and dozens severely injured. Then, a few days after the UN bomb we had massive explosions in the crowded alleys of Peshawar's sprawling street markets that left more than a hundred civilians dead.
I remember back in 1999 when I had my Afghanistan time, the country - apart from a territory in the north - was presided over by the Taliban and an assembly of war lords. At that time there was no alcohol allowed, no women in the workforce (or anywhere else except mostly indoors), no television, no music - no fun basically. It was a tough time on many levels not least the psychological one. You have no idea how dreadfully depressing it can be to work with some twelve hundred colleagues all of whom are male with an average age of about 50! I longed for female company and I longed also for a cold beer at the end of the day.
Given the lack of social outlet and the very real security threats life was confined to work and (heavily gaurded) home - a good time to catch up on my reading and experiment with some herbal teas. At that time I became fascinated with the historical writings on what is know as the Great Game - the great rivalry between the British and Russian empires that lasted the best part of one hundred intriguing years ending in 1921 with a friendship treaty between the two great foes. The prize for the Great Game was the Indian sub-continent which Britain declared the jewel in its crown and feared mightily that Russia would conquer Afghanistan and use it as a launching pad to snatch India.
So, not for the first or last time in her long and illustrious history, the nation of Afghanistan found itself at odds - through no real fault of its own - with major military powers. A victim of its own geography. But, not being one to turn down a decent offer of a good fight, Afghanistan embraced the Great Game and played both sides off against each other, much like they did with Persia during the same period and of course the Americans and the Soviets in the 1980's.
Never conquered. Never Divided.
History will show that the whole of Afghanistan has never, not once, been controlled from the centre. And, while (in western eyes) treachery and deceipt are a frequent feature of their methods of warfare (rendering the Geneva Conventions culturally biased?) Afghanistan has incredibly remained solidly intact, never fragmenting along ethnic or religious lines and maintaining its borders since its inception. It clings fiercely to the origin of its name which is Sanskrit for "land of the allied tribes".
But, I digress. I did not intend a historical account, even a brief one. But it is necessary for the remainder of my tale. During those turbulent days back in 1999 we did manage to escape on rest and recreation every few months to Peshawar where the first destination was the long-established American Club - a place with cold beer, conversation with women and late night darts. At the entrance of this modest but grand old building, just before you climbed the stairs to the bar, hung a gilt-framed oil painting which always stopped me in my tracks and urged me to ponder awhile. It was an original copy of "Remnants of an Army" depicting a lone soldier, Scotsman Dr. William Brydon, at the gates of Jalalabad, which lie approximately half way along the 200 mile road between Kabul and Peshawar.
Brydon was reportedly the sole survivor of a sixteen thousand five hundred strong retreating British army that fled Kabul in 1842 - all but Brydon were mercilessly massacred with horrific efficiency by Afghan forces lying in wait (depicted above). The same Afghan forces, it should be mentioned, with whom they had been allied just a few days before - things can change very quickly in Afghanistan.
This effectively brought to an end the First Anglo Afghan War (1839 - 1842) and one of the lessons learned (for evaluation it seems was also a practice back then - makes you wonder if it is really possible to learn from our mistakes) was a telling and succinct recommendation whose relevance today is obvious: The First Afghan War provided the clear lesson to the British authorities that while it may be relatively straightforward to invade Afghanistan it is wholly impracticable to occupy the country or attempt to impose a government not welcomed by the inhabitants. The only result will be failure and great expense in treasure and lives.
From Tipperary to Afghanistan and back
Now, that painting (shown at the top of this post), as mentioned, fairly captivated me at the time especially as I was so enamored with Peter Hopkirk's writings of the Great Game that repeatedly recalled the resilience of the Afghans throughout their long and combative history. Staring at the forlorn figure of Brydon, the lone horseman, one didn't know whether to feel pity or pride. His form embodied defeat, set against an unforgiving and alien landscape; and such were the incredible odds against his survival that you were forced to wonder whether the Afghans let him loose on purpose - a barely living testimony to their military might.
The painting was the work of an artist called Lady Elizabeth Butler. When writing this post I could not remember her name so scoured the internet until I found it - and I found out a few other aspects which struck me as interesting. Elizabeth was born in Lausanne (Switzerland) but married an Irish soldier, writer and adventurer called William Francis Butler. William hailed from the impoverished famine fields of Tipperary and had risen to great heights in the British army. The couple returned to Ireland upon William's retirement and lived in Bansha Castle before moving eventually to the east coast of Ireland, settling down in Gormanstown Castle where they stayed till their final days and are buried at nearby Stamullen Graveyard.
Year's after my own Afghan adventure I tracked down some of Elizabeth's paintings at the Imperial War Museum in London, and I was not disappointed. I have heard that the painting of Brydon - the last remnant of a decimated army - now hangs at the Tate but will have to confirm that at a later date. It may be coincidence that a painting which had such a hold over me ten years ago somehow turned out to have strong Irish connections. Whatever the case, I'll be making my way to Stamullen cemetery the next chance I get to track down the last resting place of this incredible couple and pay them my respects.
/PC
I remember back in 1999 when I had my Afghanistan time, the country - apart from a territory in the north - was presided over by the Taliban and an assembly of war lords. At that time there was no alcohol allowed, no women in the workforce (or anywhere else except mostly indoors), no television, no music - no fun basically. It was a tough time on many levels not least the psychological one. You have no idea how dreadfully depressing it can be to work with some twelve hundred colleagues all of whom are male with an average age of about 50! I longed for female company and I longed also for a cold beer at the end of the day.
Given the lack of social outlet and the very real security threats life was confined to work and (heavily gaurded) home - a good time to catch up on my reading and experiment with some herbal teas. At that time I became fascinated with the historical writings on what is know as the Great Game - the great rivalry between the British and Russian empires that lasted the best part of one hundred intriguing years ending in 1921 with a friendship treaty between the two great foes. The prize for the Great Game was the Indian sub-continent which Britain declared the jewel in its crown and feared mightily that Russia would conquer Afghanistan and use it as a launching pad to snatch India.
So, not for the first or last time in her long and illustrious history, the nation of Afghanistan found itself at odds - through no real fault of its own - with major military powers. A victim of its own geography. But, not being one to turn down a decent offer of a good fight, Afghanistan embraced the Great Game and played both sides off against each other, much like they did with Persia during the same period and of course the Americans and the Soviets in the 1980's.
Never conquered. Never Divided.
History will show that the whole of Afghanistan has never, not once, been controlled from the centre. And, while (in western eyes) treachery and deceipt are a frequent feature of their methods of warfare (rendering the Geneva Conventions culturally biased?) Afghanistan has incredibly remained solidly intact, never fragmenting along ethnic or religious lines and maintaining its borders since its inception. It clings fiercely to the origin of its name which is Sanskrit for "land of the allied tribes".
Brydon was reportedly the sole survivor of a sixteen thousand five hundred strong retreating British army that fled Kabul in 1842 - all but Brydon were mercilessly massacred with horrific efficiency by Afghan forces lying in wait (depicted above). The same Afghan forces, it should be mentioned, with whom they had been allied just a few days before - things can change very quickly in Afghanistan.
This effectively brought to an end the First Anglo Afghan War (1839 - 1842) and one of the lessons learned (for evaluation it seems was also a practice back then - makes you wonder if it is really possible to learn from our mistakes) was a telling and succinct recommendation whose relevance today is obvious: The First Afghan War provided the clear lesson to the British authorities that while it may be relatively straightforward to invade Afghanistan it is wholly impracticable to occupy the country or attempt to impose a government not welcomed by the inhabitants. The only result will be failure and great expense in treasure and lives.
From Tipperary to Afghanistan and back
Now, that painting (shown at the top of this post), as mentioned, fairly captivated me at the time especially as I was so enamored with Peter Hopkirk's writings of the Great Game that repeatedly recalled the resilience of the Afghans throughout their long and combative history. Staring at the forlorn figure of Brydon, the lone horseman, one didn't know whether to feel pity or pride. His form embodied defeat, set against an unforgiving and alien landscape; and such were the incredible odds against his survival that you were forced to wonder whether the Afghans let him loose on purpose - a barely living testimony to their military might.
Year's after my own Afghan adventure I tracked down some of Elizabeth's paintings at the Imperial War Museum in London, and I was not disappointed. I have heard that the painting of Brydon - the last remnant of a decimated army - now hangs at the Tate but will have to confirm that at a later date. It may be coincidence that a painting which had such a hold over me ten years ago somehow turned out to have strong Irish connections. Whatever the case, I'll be making my way to Stamullen cemetery the next chance I get to track down the last resting place of this incredible couple and pay them my respects.
/PC
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Albinos: Life under Police Protection in Burundi
Since that time there has been widespread interest in the issue and even offers of financial aid which we have diverted to the Tanzanian Red Cross.
Alex Wynter, who wrote the original posts, has now returned to the region where he is putting together a comprehensive advocacy paper and video reportage on this disturbing story (which is planned for release in mid-November - watch this space).
Welcome to Baby Napolean
Napoleon Ahishakiye, a healthy boy, was born on Thursday 15 October 2009 – as far as anyone knows the first albino birth in one of the shelters still scattered around the eastern Burundian province of Ruyigi, near the border with Tanzania.
After the occult-based killings began here in August last year, the Ruyigi local authorities had to resettle 60 albinos in secure locations the police could guard.
And there at least 20 remain, including Napoleon’s albino mother, Emelyne Banteyineza, 18, who sits in the shade next to her grandmother, Candide Ntawenganyira, who is black and estimates her age at “about 70”.
Emelyne has seven siblings, including one other albino. Candide, whose own parents were black, says she puzzled for a while about the sudden emergence of albinism in the family, then decided “it’s God’s will” and dismissed the issue.
Candide, whose Kirundi name translates as “I have no one to take my worries to”, is clearly too delighted with her new great-grandson to think much about the shadowy albino-hunters – working for big-money buyers in Tanzania, most Burundians believe – who have killed 12 people in Burundi and caused the displacement of many others in several provinces.
For the moment, at least, in Burundi they seem to have melted away. The last killing of a Burundian albino was on 14 March, according to Kazungu Kassim, the director of Albinos Sans Frontières Burundi, and himself an albino. The picture shows Napoleon Ahishakiye, an albino baby born on Thursday 15 October 2009 and as far as anyone knows the first albino birth in a shelter, with his 18-year-old albino mother, Emelyne Banteyineza. (Photo: Alex Wynter)
Humanitarian response
But conditions in the stifling shelters are dreadful: children sleep on foam blocks on bare concrete; they are filthy and often hungry; and, lacking proper protective clothes, many are also badly sunburnt.
The Burundi Red Cross (BRC) was instrumental in coordinating the spontaneous humanitarian response to the albino crisis last year, which included local NGOs, UN-agency staff, churches and schools.
The BRC collected food, clothes and – as in the Kigoma region of Tanzania – cash that volunteers and others had donated from their own pockets.
At Emelyne’s shelter – a derelict building most recently used as a barracks during the war – BRC volunteers continue to manage vegetable plots on behalf of the albinos; they’re now productive enough to provide a small cash-surplus.
But it isn’t enough. And in any case the long-term goal is for albinos to be reintegrated into their communities.
“We’re forming a donor partnership with the World Lutheran Federation,” says Jean-Pierre Sinzumunsi, BRC regional coordinator for Ruyigi and Cankuzo provinces.
“We want to help our volunteers better understand the problems of albinism and to promote the integration and protection of albinos.
“We also aim to sensitize the local authorities, the police, the military, priests, local NGOs and village elders.”
Lynched
In Burundi to an even greater extent than Tanzania, albinos are an unknown quantity. The lack of proper data is almost total: “We know so little,” says Kassim.
There are believed to be at least 1,000 albinos in Burundi and they suffer varying degrees of marginalization. With a mock cruelty not uncharacteristic of the very young, schoolchildren have been heard calling albino classmates marchandise or iboro in Kirundi, according to Sinzumunsi – a reference to the trade in their body parts for use as occult talismans.
But it is not their neighbours who pose the mortal danger. Quite the reverse.
The suspected albino-hunter who rode his bike straight at Marie Niyukuri’s eight-year-old albino son, Ephreim, last year was lucky: he was saved by the police from being lynched on the spot by her vigilant neighbours, who were jumpy since a small albino boy had been snatched and killed in the next colline (hill or village administrative-unit).
It seems the man had attempted to fake a road accident and make off with Ephreim’s body, but the boy was pulled away by his black friends.
In at least one other incident recorded by the BRC, police did not arrive in time to rescue an albino hunter from being lynched by his victim’s friends and neighbours.
Front row
Marie’s confidence seems, if anything, to have grown since last August. She, her husband Protais, Ephreim’s 14 year-old albino sister, Faustine, and eight black siblings live next to their plots on a hillside near Ruyigi town.
The family took refugee in a shelter in town with other albinos, but the fact that “people round here are on the alert now,” as Marie explains, is a large part of the reason why they returned home.
The children walk the three kilometres every day to school, unescorted, but Marie’s other concerns for her highly vulnerable son quickly reasserted themselves once the immediate threat to his life seemed to pass. “He’s struggling,” she says.
“He had to repeat his first year three times. While we were in the shelter and he was at school in town the teachers put him in the front row so he could see, but not here.” (This is the easily rectified problem facing so many albino schoolchildren.)
But perhaps most seriously, neither Ephreim nor Faustine, who speaks in a whisper with her head bowed, has had any medical attention for the melanomas that liberally speckle their faces and arms.
Neither child possesses a potentially life-saving wide-brimmed hat.
“We got married very young,” says Marie. “When I started having albino babies [another albino child, the first of the three, died in infancy] I was shocked and I looked for an explanation, but I gave up and just accepted them and treated them the same.”
Armed hunters
Twenty-seven-year-old Jeremie Ndayiragije’s story is very different – but thankfully far less typical.
The married albino father-of-two had just returned from a wedding reception with his albino brother Daniel when they heard noises outside. Daniel went to investigate and found himself confronting a group of armed albino-hunters.
“Daniel fought and stopped one of them,” says Jeremie, “but he had no chance – they shot him, cut off his arms and legs and left his torso.”
The awful twist in the brothers’ story is that it was a third, non-albino brother, who had betrayed them to the hunters in exchange for 300,000 Burundian francs (about US$ 250).
A number of men arrested in connection with the attack are now in jail.
Jeremie is in hiding.
/PC (note: blogger acting up - unable to post more than one photo - see more on www.ifrc.org)
This story was originally written for IFRC.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Ethics - not Evidence - can achieve real Climate Justice
The climate change debate gathers pace as the crucial negotiation horizon of Copenhagen lies only 50 days away. HDEO believes there is too much distraction and distortion endlessly debating whether or not this disaster, that drought, or the next typhoon is linked to climate change or not. The fact remains climate change is linked to human behavior, specifically behaviors that strive for unregulated economic growth - whatever the cost. At its most fundamental it is an ethical issue. An issue of climate justice.
We would appear to be living in an increasingly hazardous world. Over the last few weeks we have witnessed wildfires in California, typhoons in the Philippines and the continuation of devastating droughts in East Africa.
There has been a tendency, in the media and among the environment and development community, to attribute human agency to all meteorological hazards - basically, every time the weather "misbehaves" there are people who want to project human agency onto the catastrophe offering the event as "evidence" of climate change.
But unfortunately, it is impossible to link any single anomalous weather event to human-induced climate change.
I wish I could get on my soap box and tell people that their profligate resource-consuming behaviour is causing droughts in Kenya. But as a scientist, I know I can't do this.
While I firmly believe that some of the changes in climate being witnessed around the world today are a result of human-induced climate change, I cannot condone the slipshod analysis of non-specialists who use received wisdom, as opposed to science, to draw links between humans and climate.
There is a simple reason, however, why people are being forced to make links that cannot be proved conclusively by science: They are desperate to force change at all costs. And, frankly, who can blame them?
It would be nice to think that the science would speak for itself. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the current atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide far exceed the natural range over the last 650,000 years; the IPCC also states that warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
In Africa, for example, this warming could reduce yields from rain-fed agriculture by up to 50% and expose 75 to 250 million people to an increase in water stress by 2020.
But sience doesn't stir people's hearts and minds; scientific reason hasn't been a traditional basis for mass behavioural change.
If quantitative reason isn't enough then we have to try to make people realise what is at stake by doing what I have criticised above - linking human behaviour to specific weather events.
USE ETHICS TO DRIVE ACTION
And finally, if that doesn't work, we have to speak to the innate sense of right at the core of most of humanity. We need to use moral philosophy - ethics.
Realising something is wrong should force action. What humans (mainly those in the industrialised North) are doing to the environment for short-term economic growth is wrong.
Indeed, the concept of justice makes everything very clear. Even if you're a climate change skeptic, you cannot deny the fact that if everyone in the world were to live like the average UK citizen, we would need the resources of three Earths simply to exist, let alone "develop".
This simple fact shows that our behaviour, and the economic and political systems that underpin and promote this behaviour, are wrong and unjust.
So climate change as a justice issue becomes much easier. We can move away from the uncertainties of the science that preclude action and we can focus on human behaviour. We can start to conceive of, and work towards, a more sustainable future.
Yet even when climate change is framed as a justice issue there are still barriers to progress. Amazing as it may seem, most people (in the countries that caused the problem of climate change) are simply too busy to worry about the environment and how their actions impact it.
So while I cannot condone ungrounded analysis and "untrue" messaging about climate change, I get why people do it. If facts don't work, if reason doesn't work, if ethics don't work, then what are you left with?
If we want to promote a more reasoned analysis of climate change and want to see "sound" science underpin all aspects of the climate change debate - from local campaigning through to international negotiations - then we have to take action today.
Taking action now will buy time to ensure the ways we mitigate and adapt to climate change are appropriate.
In order to buy time, and to create space for sensible, reasoned analysis of climate change, we need politicians to take concerted action. Unfortunately, most politicians value their economies above nature and therefore actions to address climate change are perceived as secondary especially at a time of global recession.
BLIND GROWTH NOT THE SOLUTION
We are living through crazy times when the blind pursuit of economic growth - the cause of climate change - is perceived to be the solution. It is interesting to note that cancer cells (like the global economy) grow for growth's sake - but eventually destroy their host.
Politicians are going to meet in Copenhagen in December to decide a deal on global climate action. I reiterate the fact that it is impossible to attribute any single catastrophic weather event to human-induced climate change.
But the people I work with in Africa, Asia and Latin America are seeing changes to their weather that are destroying their livelihoods and their ability to flourish as human beings.
If there is even the remotest possibility that these changes could be the result of human activities then I have a moral obligation to take action - and so do you.
The photo above depicts Niuleni artificial islands, part of the Solomon Islands group and now the focus of a Red Cross disaster-preparedness effort that aims to protect against possible climate change impacts like rising sea levels and more intense storms: Photo, George Baragamu, Solomon Islands Red Cross.
This post was written by Mike Edwards and first appeared in Reuters Alertnet. Mike is the climate change adviser for CAFOD.
/PC
There has been a tendency, in the media and among the environment and development community, to attribute human agency to all meteorological hazards - basically, every time the weather "misbehaves" there are people who want to project human agency onto the catastrophe offering the event as "evidence" of climate change.
But unfortunately, it is impossible to link any single anomalous weather event to human-induced climate change.
I wish I could get on my soap box and tell people that their profligate resource-consuming behaviour is causing droughts in Kenya. But as a scientist, I know I can't do this.
While I firmly believe that some of the changes in climate being witnessed around the world today are a result of human-induced climate change, I cannot condone the slipshod analysis of non-specialists who use received wisdom, as opposed to science, to draw links between humans and climate.
There is a simple reason, however, why people are being forced to make links that cannot be proved conclusively by science: They are desperate to force change at all costs. And, frankly, who can blame them?
It would be nice to think that the science would speak for itself. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the current atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide far exceed the natural range over the last 650,000 years; the IPCC also states that warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
In Africa, for example, this warming could reduce yields from rain-fed agriculture by up to 50% and expose 75 to 250 million people to an increase in water stress by 2020.
But sience doesn't stir people's hearts and minds; scientific reason hasn't been a traditional basis for mass behavioural change.
If quantitative reason isn't enough then we have to try to make people realise what is at stake by doing what I have criticised above - linking human behaviour to specific weather events.
USE ETHICS TO DRIVE ACTION
And finally, if that doesn't work, we have to speak to the innate sense of right at the core of most of humanity. We need to use moral philosophy - ethics.
Realising something is wrong should force action. What humans (mainly those in the industrialised North) are doing to the environment for short-term economic growth is wrong.
Indeed, the concept of justice makes everything very clear. Even if you're a climate change skeptic, you cannot deny the fact that if everyone in the world were to live like the average UK citizen, we would need the resources of three Earths simply to exist, let alone "develop".
This simple fact shows that our behaviour, and the economic and political systems that underpin and promote this behaviour, are wrong and unjust.
So climate change as a justice issue becomes much easier. We can move away from the uncertainties of the science that preclude action and we can focus on human behaviour. We can start to conceive of, and work towards, a more sustainable future.
Yet even when climate change is framed as a justice issue there are still barriers to progress. Amazing as it may seem, most people (in the countries that caused the problem of climate change) are simply too busy to worry about the environment and how their actions impact it.
So while I cannot condone ungrounded analysis and "untrue" messaging about climate change, I get why people do it. If facts don't work, if reason doesn't work, if ethics don't work, then what are you left with?
If we want to promote a more reasoned analysis of climate change and want to see "sound" science underpin all aspects of the climate change debate - from local campaigning through to international negotiations - then we have to take action today.
Taking action now will buy time to ensure the ways we mitigate and adapt to climate change are appropriate.
In order to buy time, and to create space for sensible, reasoned analysis of climate change, we need politicians to take concerted action. Unfortunately, most politicians value their economies above nature and therefore actions to address climate change are perceived as secondary especially at a time of global recession.
BLIND GROWTH NOT THE SOLUTION
We are living through crazy times when the blind pursuit of economic growth - the cause of climate change - is perceived to be the solution. It is interesting to note that cancer cells (like the global economy) grow for growth's sake - but eventually destroy their host.
Politicians are going to meet in Copenhagen in December to decide a deal on global climate action. I reiterate the fact that it is impossible to attribute any single catastrophic weather event to human-induced climate change.
But the people I work with in Africa, Asia and Latin America are seeing changes to their weather that are destroying their livelihoods and their ability to flourish as human beings.
If there is even the remotest possibility that these changes could be the result of human activities then I have a moral obligation to take action - and so do you.
The photo above depicts Niuleni artificial islands, part of the Solomon Islands group and now the focus of a Red Cross disaster-preparedness effort that aims to protect against possible climate change impacts like rising sea levels and more intense storms: Photo, George Baragamu, Solomon Islands Red Cross.
This post was written by Mike Edwards and first appeared in Reuters Alertnet. Mike is the climate change adviser for CAFOD.
/PC
Monday, October 26, 2009
Wordle of the Day
I attended a conference on Online Communication at the end of last week where I came across this neat little tagcloud generator from Jonathan Feinberg (IBMer) - it can be accessed at www.wordle.net - this example is for the Head Down Eyes Open Blog, pretty cool stuff. /PC
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Droning on, the Cubicle Warriors
War is peace, the party said, in Orwell’s prescient 1984. My first reaction when I saw Obama had won the Nobel peace prize was one of satisfaction, that this man of relative peace (compared to his predecessor) had been honoured, perhaps too soon, but honoured nonetheless. I was a bit peeved for Morgan Tvangirai, a mighty man if ever there was one, but Obama getting the Nobel call felt kinda good, fluffy, warm.
But, as the New Yorker magazine reflected, Obama would probably have preferred to get the Olympics for Chicago as a present from the Skandies. “At least at the Olympics the judges wait till after the race to give you the gold medal. They don’t force it on you while you’re still waiting for the bus to take you to the stadium. They don’t give it to you in anticipation of possible future feats of glory, like a signing bonus, or an athletic scholarship. They don’t award it as a form of gentle encouragement, like a parent calling “Good job” to a toddler who’s made it to the top rung of the monkey bars. It’s not a plastic, made-in-China “participation” trophy handed out to everyone in the class as part of a program to boost self esteem. It’s not a door prize or a goody bag or a bowl of V.I.P. fruit courtesy of the hotel management. It’s not a gold star. It’s a gold medal.”
Let’s remember that this is a wartime president. And this war is unlike any war that has preceded it. The Obama administration, according to the New Yorker in a different article, has carried out an may unmanned drone strikes in ten months as the Bush administration did in its last three years.
Drones are unmanned planes, effectively missiles, that are being used more and more in the lawless and impenetrable “Tribal Areas” of Pakistan. Last March the US government allowed Pakistani authorities to nominate its own targets.
Now, while Drones are touted as deadly accurate, more so than dropping bombs (or for that matter packing a car full of semtex and just driving right at the target), according to the New America foundation (which has links to the New Yorker magazine) as many as 320 innocents have been killed by these American robots since 2006: http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/revenge_drones
And drones are working. Half of the top 20 most wanted Al Qaeda terrorist suspects have been taken out of service. But surely, the (presumably quite large) families of the 320 innocents are at risk of being radicalized when they see their loved ones vaporized by … well, by whom?
The New Yorker says that the job of piloting these missiles halfway round the world is, wait for it, outsourced. The joysticks are being wiggled by civvies sitting in cubicles in Bartfark Ohio (or maybe not even in the US at all, maybe in the Drone pilots equivalent of a call centre in Chennai, “hello, this is Raj, who can I help you kill today?”).
This makes for interesting dilemmas for the rules of war. Back to the New Yorker: “If the United States can legally kill people from the sky in a country we are not at war with, other countries will argue they can do the same thing.”
The cubicle warriors could be considered by international law to be engaged in warfare, when, viewed from the neighbouring cubicle, they are just jiggling an Xbox.
/JL
Monday, October 19, 2009
Social impact of economic crisis documented for the first time
At the end of this summer we started to receive intermittent reports from around Europe about more and more people coming to the local branches of the Red Cross for help. This in itself is not so unusual but we were witnessing a sudden upsurge in people not normally associated with seeking social support, namely middle classes.
The indicators were such that we conducted a survey of some 50 national red cross or crescent societies across the EU, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and this culminated in a report which we launched today in Geneva to political and media circles. The report is best described as a 'barometer' of what we are witnessing in towns and communities across the region. It is an 'early warning' for policy makers at the national level to take into account.
As the data started to come in from our grassroots network certain trends became quickly identifiable such as:
Furthermore, groups already vulnerable or marginalized, such as migrants for instance, are under considerable pressure to just survive and while 'reverse' migration is a reality for some, others are faced with the stark choice of emigrating to more robust economies.
As the data started to come in from our grassroots network certain trends became quickly identifiable such as:
- Social and humanitarian needs are escalating as the resources needed to deal with them steadily decrease or, in many cases, simply evaporate.
- Youth are identified as a particularly vulnerable group, mainly due to increasing inability to access labor markets - related to this is a clear rise in demands to enlist in Red Cross substance abuse and psycho social programs.
- Social cohesion is under a stress not seen for decades mainly due to the fact that less privileged groups are now competing for scarcer services and, on top of this, more and more families are becoming 'newly' vulnerable and in need of external support from the Red Cross or similar organizations.
- Development gains made across the whole region during the last decade stand to be completely lost. And this is as true for 'developed' economies as less developed ones.
All of this is underscored by the fact that there are almost 50 million people (including dependents) newly affected by unemployment across the euro zone alone. As mentioned youths are particularly at risk - in Sweden for example the unemployment rate for working-age youths has jumped three fold from 9% to almost 30%.
Incredibly, in the European Union we learned that more than two thirds of our member national red cross or crescent societies are now distributing food aid; an activity more associated with post-war Europe and food insecure Africa or Asia. In Spain for instance, more than half a million people receive essential food aid today from the Spanish Red Cross.
Incredibly, in the European Union we learned that more than two thirds of our member national red cross or crescent societies are now distributing food aid; an activity more associated with post-war Europe and food insecure Africa or Asia. In Spain for instance, more than half a million people receive essential food aid today from the Spanish Red Cross.
Furthermore, groups already vulnerable or marginalized, such as migrants for instance, are under considerable pressure to just survive and while 'reverse' migration is a reality for some, others are faced with the stark choice of emigrating to more robust economies.The challenge now is to work together with national governments so that they can reassess the criteria they use for identifying vulnerable groups - current structures are no longer relevant in the new reality and groups such as youth and indebted middle-income families must also be considered for support and assistance either through domestic programs or with non-governmental humanitarian groups.
Interesting too were the reactions from our governmental partners today who noted the 'timeliness' of the report which focuses on social consequences (as opposed to economic consequences) of the financial crisis - a component of the global crisis which has been "curiously under communicated" according to one diplomat.
We now aim to follow up individually with governments, through existing national structures, to improve our understanding of this new vulnerability and to ensure that the response is timely and effective, especially as the severe European winter looms in the near distance.
We now aim to follow up individually with governments, through existing national structures, to improve our understanding of this new vulnerability and to ensure that the response is timely and effective, especially as the severe European winter looms in the near distance.
/PC
Sunday, October 18, 2009
A Bountiful Flood for Mosquitoes
My intrepid friend and colleague, John Roche, veteran of dozens of conflicts and disasters over the last 20 years was on the spot within hours to support the relief effort. As the floods now recede John has taken a breath to put some reflections on paper and consider the massive road to recovery that lies ahead. The stench of decay and the lucrative flood-bounty for mosquitoes are just some of the lingering images. John has long-threatened to post for Head Down Eyes Open - let's hope this opens the floodgates (no pun intended).
The first thing one notices as you drive into the Andhra Pradesh district of Kurnool, which was badly affected by South India’s recent floods and was inaccessible for several days, is the stench of decaying debris. Almost two weeks after the disaster, the devastation in this area is of major proportions.
As one local government coordinator told her district officers: “This is a time to be practical. We are battling to support the communities that have been crushingly affected by this disaster and, with the Red Cross’ help, we can bring a human touch to this misfortune.”
As the clean-up operations here reach maximum capacity, one can get a picture of how much suffering this community has been witness to.
Indiscriminate flooding
“It happened so fast and we were unprepared,” says Dr Reddy, district branch secretary for Kurnool. “The flood waters have been so indiscriminate and almost everyone has been affected - poor, rich, businessmen, prominent personalities almost 90 per cent of the residents. Andhra Pradesh has not seen any floods on this scale in more than a hundred years – the region is normally associated with droughts.
“Residents walk around in a state of shock. The extent of the damage runs into millions and the thick black sludge left by the receding water poses a dangerous hidden threat to health – it’s a fight against the clock to prevent a serious outbreak of infectious diseases,” Dr Reddy adds.
With tears in his eyes, Kurnool’s mayor also has that shocked stare. All he can say is: “We need help … don’t forget us.”
Washed away
While a kind of normality is returning to this once thriving town, the crisis is far from over. Not only have so many livelihoods been lost, but people’s lives have been washed away in a flash. Their memories - the photographs of loved ones and the lifetime possessions – are gone and cannot be replaced.
As the devastating consequences of this disaster unfold, a new danger - the increased exposure of outbreaks of infectious disease - is lurking in the mist. Mosquitoes seem to be the only ones to benefit from the disaster, as the remaining floodwaters provide a happy breeding ground in this malaria-prone region.
As one travels outside of Kurnool into the heart of the rural communities in the neighbouring district of Mahaboonager, one sees more despair and desolation. People’s homes have either been washed away or are now unliveable. As a result, community members have been forced to move out of the areas they have lived in for so long, and take refuge in makeshift settlements exposing them to further danger. Women are particularly vulnerable as no adequate sanitation facilities are available in these open areas.
Needs are overwhelming
With touching solidarity, unaffected communities are providing assistance to flood-affected people, and there are lines of trucks on the highway distributing cooked food. But the needs are overwhelming despite all the goodwill.
The Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) has been closely monitoring the situation along with its State branches since the disaster began.
The IRCS Control Room (Flood Operations) has been activated to receive and consolidate information from the disaster areas. Family packs amounting to INR 11.88 millions released, and enough relief items for 5,000 families were sent to Andhra Pradesh in the first days following the flooding. These items include stoves and blankets and kitchen sets, and were sent to Karnataka State branch.
Health education
The society’s national headquarters also deployed four water and sanitation units that are capable of producing 5,000 litres of water each hour for drinking and hygiene purposes. Trained Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers have been supporting and leading health education discussions in temporary camps to help reduce the risk of disease among those displaced.
The IRCS has launched an appeal to boost its relief efforts with technical support from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
The initial appeal aims to meet the needs of some 250,000 persons, providing temporary shelter, replace crucial kitchen materials that have been washed away ,support the promotion of hygiene and provide a safeguard from health hazards such as malaria. (this post also appeared on the mother ship at www.ifrc.org)
/PC
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