Africa: Stealth Assault on African Seeds

AfricaFocus Bulletin
January 19, 2016 (160119)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“There is a renewed and stronger assault on seed … based on legal
systems that permit exclusive rights over seeds on the spurious
contention that plant varieties were ‘discovered’ and improved on.
But these ‘discovered’ varieties are the product of the whole
history of collective human improvements and maintenance carried out
by peasants. To assert exclusive rights over the whole on the basis
of small adjustments is nothing short of outright theft.” – South-
South Dialogue, Durban, South Africa, November 2015

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In rich countries, debate about industrialized agriculture often
focuses on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and the safety and
transparency consequences for consumers. In developing countries
with large sectors of peasant farmers, this is only a small part of
a larger debate on the future of agriculture, pitting multinational
companies and large-scale investors against the autonomy and rights
of peasant farmers.

Land grabbing is highly visible, and has attracted much international attention. Less visible, and potentially even more damaging, is the appropriation of rights to seeds, fueled not only by the companies themselves but also by a concerted campaign to erode farmers’ traditional rights to seeds in favor of patents by multinational corporations. This is a issue not only for GMOs, but also for other seeds produced by other breeding technologies.

The debate is filled with acronyms, as well as the claim that
“scientific” agriculture will provide food and development
benefiting the peasants as well. And the campaign to change laws and
erode traditional rights is unrelenting. It is based on the
Universal Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV
91), which works for the privatization of seeds by imposing
intellectual property rights on plant varieties.

In recent years a drive to extend these laws on “plant variety
protection” in African and other developing countries has rapidly
accelerated.

This Africa Focus Bulletin contains a recent declaration by groups
resisting this drive, and excerpts from a brief article by Dr. Carol
Thompson, noting the apartheid-like differential effect of these
laws. Also included (just below) are linked to other essential
resources on this issue.

For a recent series of short articles featuring interviews with
African grassroots leaders (mainly women), visit
http://otherworldsarepossible.org / direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/hjhe756

For global overviews of the issue, see

* The Berne Declaration. Owning Seeds, Accessing Food. 2014.
https://www.bernedeclaration.ch – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/zcryou5

* GRAIN. UPOV 91 and other seed laws: A basic primer. October 2015.
http://www.grain.org / direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/hlvztp8

Two longer related reports with additional background specifically
on African seeds include:

* African Centre for Biodiversity. The expansion of the commercial
seed sector in sub-Saharan Africa: Major players, key issues and
trends. December 2015. http://www.acbio.org.za – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/qy382hc

* African Centre for Biodiversity. Profiting from the Climate
Crisis, Undermining Resilience in Africa. Gates and Monsanto’s Water
Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) Project. May 2015.
http://www.acbio.org.za – direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/zk32nlu

For talking points and previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on
agriculture, food sovereignty, and related issues, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-ag.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Declaration on Plant Variety Protection and Seed Laws from the
South-South Dialogue

Durban, South Africa

29 November 2015

http://www.acbio.org.za – direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/j5uxvkc

We, participants at the South-South Dialogue, are members of peasant
and civil society organisations and concerned individuals from
Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe working on issues of food and
seed sovereignty, peasants’ control of seed production and exchange,
and biodiversity. We gathered in Durban, South Africa 27-29 November
2015 to share information and knowledge, and to come to a common
understanding on seed and plant variety protection (PVP) policy and
laws and strategies for resistance and alternatives in the global
South.

We are working in our countries and regions to advance the ongoing
global struggle for socially just and ecologically sustainable
societies, in which farming households and communities have control
and decision-making power over the production and distribution of
food and seed.

Human societies and the seeds we use to produce the food that
sustains us have grown symbiotically over millennia. Seeds emerged
from nature and have been diversified, conserved, nurtured and
enhanced through processes of human experimentation, discovery and
innovation throughout this time. Seeds have been improved by means
of traditional and cultural knowledge transmitted from generation to
generation. Seeds are therefore the collective heritage for people
serving humanity. Peasants and indigenous peoples have always been
the custodians and guardians of the collective knowledge embedded in
the wide diversity of seed that has enabled the development of
humankind as a species.

However, today capitalist greed poses fundamental threats to the
continued conservation, reproduction and use of the biological
diversity nurtured for all this time. The forced enclosure of land
and other natural resources and its capture and conversion into
private property was one disastrous step. This has caused and
continues to cause social dislocation and displacement, damaging the
social fabric of human societies, severing the connection between
people and the land, and consolidating social, collectively-produced
wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many.

There is a renewed and stronger assault on seed, agricultural
biodiversity heritage and the knowledge associated with these.
Related law and policy making processes are already far advanced in
Europe, the United States and other parts of the world and are being
imposed on our countries in the South through multilateral and
bilateral trade and investment agreements. They are based on legal
systems that permit exclusive rights over seeds on the spurious
contention that plant varieties were ‘discovered’ and improved on.
But these ‘discovered’ varieties are the product of the whole
history of collective human improvements and maintenance carried out
by peasants. To assert exclusive rights over the whole on the basis
of small adjustments is nothing short of outright theft.

Efforts to expand this expropriation to the global South are being
pursued aggressively by multinational seed and life sciences
corporations and their cohorts in state and multilateral
institutions. This takes the form of a coordinated political and
technocratic crusade to impose uniform and draconian laws and
regulations in favour of intellectual property (IP) rights such as
plant variety protection (PVP) for private interests, the
proliferation of genetically modified (GM) seeds, and exclusive
recognition and marketing of seed and plant varieties that pass
through breeding and production systems tightly controlled by
economic elites.

There are no benefits for peasant and farming households and
communities, or for society in general, from these developments. In
a few short decades – just a small fraction of the time humans have
been engaged in industrial agriculture – this enclosure of the
collective seed heritage has spread virulently across the globe. The
historical practices of context-specific peasant-managed seed
systems we have relied on are vilified, denigrated as being backward
and obsolete, and criminalised. Farmers are taken to court and
imprisoned for maintaining the biological base as a living system
while seed and food corporations make huge profits legitimised by
seed and IP laws.

The result is the alarming erosion of agricultural biodiversity and
related knowledge, and a deepening threat to the sustainable use of
the genetic base, and consequently to food production and ecological
balance, and to humanity. Current seed and IP laws violate the ethos
of sharing between farmers, which is the backbone of peasant farming
systems, seed and people’s sovereignty and the basic human right to
food.

We cannot stand by passively and watch this legalised dispossession
and destruction. We are compelled to resist. We declare our
commitment to work in alliance with one another, with peasant and
indigenous peoples’ movements, and with other likeminded civil
society organisations and individuals, to fight the spread of this
aggressive and violent system of domination on the basis of
autonomy, collective self-organisation, cooperation, sharing,
solidarity and mutual respect.

We declare our principled opposition to any form of IP on life
forms, seeds and related information or exclusive rights to their
use. We reject genetic modification and other current and emerging
proprietary technologies in agriculture as these technologies are
built on the disintegration of holistic farming systems, the
exclusion of farmers from processes of plant breeding and natural
resource management, and the control of seeds and planting material
in the hands of corporate and political elites.

We reject the imposition of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on
its country members, through the Trade Related aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, to adopt rules
allowing the privatization of seeds and related knowledge. We reject
the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of
Plants (UPOV) type laws and other intellectual property regulation
on seeds and plant varieties. It is also unacceptable that bilateral
free trade agreements impose on Southern countries intellectual
property measures that go beyond the provisions of the WTO.

We are opposed to laws dealing with the marketing and certification
of seed. These new seed laws undermine peasant seed systems that
have been developed locally over generations of farmers and are
geared towards creating massively increased private sector
participation in seed trade. In addition, these laws promote only
one type of seed breeding. The entire orientation of these seed laws
is geared towards genetically uniform, commercially bred varieties
in terms of seed quality control and variety registration. What is
very clear is that these laws criminalise the marketing of farmers’
varieties. The ultimate aim of these laws is to facilitate new
markets for commercial seed companies and the occupation by
multinationals in the seed sector in the global south and displace
and criminalise peasant seed systems.

We oppose the fragmentation of genetic information and the divorce
of this information from physical resources through the Global
Information Systems (GIS) such as DivSeek (a global information
system on genetic sequencing and related knowledge for seed,
proposed by the World Bank), since there is the possibility of the
use of this information expediting the further privatisation of
seeds through international legal systems.

We will fight for laws, policies and public programmes that support
and strengthen peasants and communities to continue with their
diverse and context-specific practices of plant breeding, selection,
production and distribution. We will fight for a more responsible
role for public sector activities based on ongoing democratic,
participatory and transparent processes of engagement with citizens
and inhabitants of our countries and regions. We will continue to
defend our rights to produce, use, exchange and sell all seed and
planting material. We will work to recover, maintain and expand the
use of native and local seed, and the revival of diverse food
cultures as the most effective routes to protect biodiversity. We
recognise the irreducible diversity that can only be managed through
peasant seed production systems and maintained by peasants as
breeders and users of seed.

We believe seeds are the people’s heritage in the service of
humanity that should be managed collectively, democratically and
sustainably. We reaffirm the centrality of agricultural producers as
the primary stewards of our collective genetic resources, especially
women peasants who continue to play a direct role in the maintenance
and enhancement of these resources. We commit to supporting peasant
households and communities in their stewardship, and to building
links with allies, wherever we may find them, to advance the cause
of food and seed sovereignty.

Organisations:

Acción Ecológica – Ecuador, Acción por la Biodiversidad – Argentina,
African Centre for Biodiversity – South Africa, Articulación
Nacional de Agroecología/Grupo de Trabajo en Biodiversidad,
Asociación Nacional para el Fomento de la Agricultura Ecológica –
ANAFAE- Honduras, Commons for EcoJustice – Malawi, Earthlife Africa
Durban, Fahamu Africa, Farmers’ Seed Network – China, GRAIN, Growth
Partners Africa, Grupo Semillas – Colombia, JINUKUN – COPAGEN,
Cotonou, Benin, Kenya Food Rights Alliance, Movimiento de Pequeños
Agricultores (MPA) – Brasil, Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana,
PELUM Association Zimbabwe, Red de Agrobiodiversidad en la Zona
Semiárida de Minas Gerais – Brasil, Red de Coordinación en
Biodiversidad – Costa Rica, Red Nacional para la defensa de la
Soberanía Alimentaria en Guatemala, REDSAG – Guatemala, Red por una
América Latina Libre de Transgénicos Swissaid Guinea-Bissau Zimbabwe
Smallholder Organic Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF)

South-South Dialogue Participants (list available in original
document)

********************************************************

Apartheid Seed Law

Carol B. Thompson

Pambazuka News, June 3, 2015

[Excerpts only: for full text and references with explicit
comparisons to apartheid laws, see the original text at
http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/94834]

[Carol Thompson is a professor emerita at Northern Arizona
University, a member of AGRA-Watch in Seattle, Washington, and co-
author with Andrew Mushita of Biopiracy of Biodiversity: Global
Exchange as Enclosure, which was featured in AfricaFocus after its
publication in 2007.]

Although political apartheid was dismantled by the 1994 election of
President Nelson Mandela, a new form of economic apartheid is now
stalking the entire African continent.

This new economic apartheid refers to the seed convention known as
UPOV91 (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of
Plants), advanced by the European Union, the United States, and the
World Bank presuming to protect plant breeders’ rights under the
World Trade Organization. The EU is requiring its implementation by
African governments as a prerequisite for trading under the Economic
Partnership Agreements (EPAs), scheduled for 2016.

UPOV91 gives exclusive proprietary rights to plant breeders, who
work in modern laboratories full of expensive equipment. The
convention gives these breeders, or their corporate sponsors,
private ownership over a new strain, extending property rights
beyond the seed, to the full plant, and to “essentially derived”
products (e.g., flour from wheat).

To obtain this legal ownership, the new variety must be distinct,
uniform, and stable (DUS), characteristics not found in farmers’
newly bred varieties after their experimentation in the fields. It
means that farmers’ new varieties are not protected by the UPOV
convention and remain free for the taking.

Farmer breeders do not desire seed traits that are highly stable,
for they are looking for nuances in traits in order to choose the
next seeds for breeding. As one farmer asked, “what do they mean by
‘heritage seed’? Aren’t the seeds changing all the time?”

During the 20 years of proprietary rights for breeders of DUS
varieties, no one can exchange, use, experiment or save the seed
without permission, a prohibition eradicating farmers’ rights to
work with any seeds. Because farmers have cultivated diverse food
crops over millennia, two international laws protect farmers’ rights
(International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and
Agriculture and the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological
Diversity). For African governments to incorporate UPOV91 into
national laws, they would have to violate these two treaties.

Farmers’ experimentation and freely sharing involve not only seeds
but the indigenous knowledge embedded in them. African farmers, for
example, know the hundreds of varieties of millets and sorghums or
teff, grains more nutritious than maize or rice or wheat, and ones
that are regaining interest on the continent because they grow well
in semi-arid conditions, while the more familiar maize varieties are
not standing up to climate change aridity. Smallholder African
farmers grow 20-25 crops on one hectare, sharing knowledge—sometimes
formally in farmer field schools but also daily in informal
ways—about which variety grows best under another crop, where to
place the various crops in terms of moisture percolation in the
small field, and especially, variable planting times in case the
rains come late, or start early. Farmers know the nutrition value of
their biodiverse crops, encouraging children and mothers to partake
more of one (e.g., pearl and finger millets) than of another
(cassava). And nutrition includes feeding the living soil with
leguminous plants rotated with grain crops.

Why would anyone want to destroy farmers’ experimentation and
knowledge? For the same reason apartheid reigned too long: it is
profitable. UPOV 91 offers another way to privatize a living
organism, accomplished more easily than the difficult job of
enforcing a patent across the globe.

[The following comparisons make clear the parallel to apartheid
laws, in establishing unequal rights to access to resources that are
essential for human survival.]

Segregation with inferiority

UPOV91 is trying to establish, by law, the inferior status of
smallholder farmers who breed and do scientific experiments in the
field. It legitimizes the corporate plant breeders’ entitlement and
presumed superiority. The normative law translates back into profit
for the corporations benefiting from PVP – plant variety protection.
This constructed distinction between two different types of breeding
becomes a “ritual of truth”.

Aesthetics of segregation

UPOV91 legitimizes the view that “real plant breeders” wear white
coats and work in a sparkling laboratory with the latest
instruments, while projecting that farmer breeders working in the
soil are inferior. Because they cannot produce DUS (distinct,
uniform, stable) seeds, they are not breeders. The Gates
Foundation’s Program for African Seed Systems (PASS) call farmers’
seeds “weak” and “recycled”, “used for decades”. Like apartheid
benches “for whites only” in the parks and on the beaches, only a
breeder of DUS seeds can sit on the laboratory stool as a recogn1zed
seed breeder; farmer breeders do not qualify.

Legal enforcement of apartheid

The pass laws, restricting the movement of Africans at all times,
became a core impetus for organ1zing against apartheid from the
Defiance Campaign (1952) through “making the townships ungovernable”
(1980s). Any “non-white” without a pass could be detained for 90
days, or more, without trial or notification of any lawyer.

Farmer breeders will not be summarily detained, but Canada has
already made violation of its UPOV-based law a criminal act, not a
civil offense. The U.S. courts have upheld Monsanto’s allegations
against hundreds of farmers that they stole a “Monsanto gene”, when
most often, pollen carried by wind fertilized the farmers’ crops.
With these precedents, the economic apartheid of UPOV91 will most
likely be strictly enforced by the courts.

Resistance

Civil society and farmers across the African continent are
organizing against UPOV91, but the threat of the looming European
trade agreements (EPAs) remains. Just as civil society resistance in
the North changed the context for domestic apartheid, the
international community needs to voice and organize rejection of
this apartheid seed law.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization recognizes two seed
systems: the formal one and farmers’, because all breeders are
essential to cultivate new food varieties in this time of climate
change. Further, farmers are more advanced breeders because their
new seeds are already “field tested”, whereas laboratory-bred seeds
often fail during field trials, not expressing the traits desired.
Let us not allow UPOV to gain any “sensibility of normalcy” in
segregating and denigrating farmer seed breeders:

The international community’s vociferous and sustained rejection of
this new economic apartheid would protect the future of food for us
all.

*****************************************************

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providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
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I am reminded of Lenin’s definition of a revolutionary situation, whose language is reflected in this comment of mine:

 

* * * *

Two minutes of embryonic fascism from yesterday (Jan. 8, video link below)
It may seem everything is going according to plan for the U.S. fascists and their financial-monopoly money bags.
But I am very glad that AFL-CIO president Trumka representing 15 million workers has spoken against the push to divide workers along religious lines.
People are being pulled into two diverging and combative political movements in the U.S., pulled by the millions into action.
They each cannot continue to live in the same way.
The fascists plan is to:
1. Suck workers into fighting each other on sectarian lines.
2. Have them fight for solutions that leave the real problem untouched in a reckless effort to prolong the rotting profit system
This is a situation where even capitalists have lost faith in their own system and are starting to decide they can rule in the same way no longer.
The sulfurous smell of war and the open terrorist dictatorship of the financial-monopoly capitalist class is in the air.
But the labour movement is rising against it, millions of people behind Bernie Sanders’ socialist nomination bid are staunchly opposed to fascism, and the U.S. election will be a supreme test for democracy versus incipient fascism.
Note also that two people wore a label “Muslim” as demanded by Trump, but only the woman was targeted for eviction.

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/08/politics/donald-trump-muslim-woman-protesting-ejected/index.html?sr=fbCNN010916donald-trump-muslim-woman-protesting-ejected0229PMVODtopLink&linkId=20232169

OR

https://www.facebook.com/cnn/videos/10154366085446509/?pnref=story

 

– Darrell Rankin, a Canadian comrade.

http://www.c-span.org/video/?160702-1/gus-hall-memorial-service

AfricaFocus Bulletin
December 10, 2015 (151210)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

As the climate talks in Paris draw to a close this week, the
countries present are still far from full agreement. Among the
latest surprises was the announcement by the Marshall Islands and
St. Lucia of a “Coalition of High Ambition Countries,” spearheaded
by small island states which are the most at risk of being submerged
due to climate change. The coalition  includes over 100 countries,
including the European Union countries and the United States, but
notable exceptions are the largest developing countries, such as
China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.

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Details of the latest negotiations are complex, the outcome still
highly uncertain, and positions within each of the many negotiation
alliances are themselves subject to change. The remaining stumbling
blocks as of today are summarized in this article in The Guardian,
which has been covering the talks extensively as part of its “Keep
it in the ground” campaign.

“The six key road blocks at the UN climate talks in Paris” The
Guardian, December 10, 2015 http://tinyurl.com/p2nakd8

What is agreed among virtually all observers and participants is
that the results of the conference will fall far short of that
needed to curb climate change short of even more catastrophic
results in the coming decades, added to the documented increase in
“extreme weather events” already making themselves felt.

The outcome will depend in part on the agreed words on paper in the
next few days, but even more on the practical effect of multiple
technical and political trends around the world, both positive and
negative.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains substantial excerpts from
articles on two particularly important issues beyond those in the
Paris text, namely the future of coal, and the threat to climate
action by governments coming from parallel and little noticed
negotiations in Geneva on the “Trade in Services Agreement” (TiSA).

There are also brief snippets from other relevant articles, on
agriculture, on critiques of the new OECD report estimating rich
country contributions to climate finance to date, and on rapid
advances predicted in renewable energy for both Africa and the
United States.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on climate and the environment,
visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Year-end Break for AfricaFocus; Asking for your Support

With this issue AfricaFocus Bulletin begins a year-end break in
publication. Publication will resume in early to mid-January. As
usual, the AfricaFocus website and social media pages will continue
to be available.

This is also time for a reminder that while AfricaFocus is and will
remain free to you and other readers, it continues to depend on
support from those readers who decide to make a voluntary payment to
help support this work. If you are able to do so, and continue to
find this publication useful, please go to
http://www.africafocus.org/support.php to make a secure contribution
on-line or to download a form to mail in with your check or money
order. Although this contribution is not tax-deductible, it may be
deductible as a business expense.

Best wishes to all for the holiday season and for the coming year.

William Minter, Editor, AfricaFocus Bulletin

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

“Thousands of Planned Coal Plants, if Built, Could Doom Efforts to
Contain Global Warming”

by Maureen Nandini Mitra, managing editor, Earth Island Journal

Alternet, December 4, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/q8gmjzo

I landed in Calcutta (Kolkata, if you are a stickler for official
names) on November 30, the day the world leaders, policy makers, and
environmental activists gathered in Paris to figure out how to curb
climate change. Officially, it’s wintertime in this city of my
birth, but the air on Monday night was anything but chilly. Instead,
it was uncomfortably muggy. The only sign of winter was the hazy air
— a regular year-end feature in this overcrowded, traffic-choked
metropolis in eastern India.

The unusually warm weather might be an anomaly, at least that’s what
the local weathermen say, but in my experience, winters here have
certainly become milder in recent years. (While winter is receding
here, the waters are rising. Calcutta is among coastal cities across
the world most vulnerable to increased flooding due to climate
change.)

Meanwhile farther south by the tip of the Indian peninsula, another
coastal city, Chennai, has been flooded for two months due to
torrential rains that have submerged homes and disrupted normal
life. The Indian Army has been deployed there to rescue people
stranded in their homes. The rains have broken a 100-year-old record
with one day’s rainfall covering an entire month’s average in a city
that’s more used to blazing heat than damp days.

When I spoke with a journalist friend living there last morning
(it’s past 3 a.m. Thursday morning here as I write this), she was
stuck in her second floor apartment with her invalid mother and
little girl with no power. Her cellphone, the only way she can
connect with the outside world, had barely any charge left. The
first floor of her building was completely inundated and she feared
the waters would soon rise further. “Even if the rescue boats come,
I can’t leave because they most likely won’t be able to evacuate my
mother,” she told me, before I hung up, not wanting to waste her
cellphone charge needlessly. I haven’t heard from her since.

This is it: the real, harsh, personal face of climate change. Given
such stark news, it was doubly depressing to read a new report  by
Climate Action Tracker that shows that thousands of new coal plants
being planned in countries across the world, including India, could
doom efforts to contain global warming.

If all the 2,440 coal plants in the pipeline were to be built, by
2030, emissions from coal power would be 400 percent higher than
what is consistent with a 2degC pathway, says the “Coal Gap” report,
which was released in Paris on Tuesday. Using data from Earth Island
Institute’s CoalSwarm project’s updated Global Coal Plant Tracker,
the researchers calculated the effect of coal-fired power on global
emissions and concluded that even with no new construction, in 2030,
emissions from coal-fired power generation would still be more than
150 percent higher than what is consistent with holding warming
below 2degC.

The researchers based their assessment on planned new coal plants
both globally, and in the eight countries that each plan to build
more than 5GW of coal power capacity: China, India, Indonesia,
Japan, South Africa, South Korea, the Philippines, Turkey — plus
the EU28. In emerging economies, like India, the plants are being
planned in hopes of meeting rapidly increasing electricity demand,
while in the EU28, new coal plants will mainly replace existing
capacity.

Of course, the biggest offender here is China, which has 722 planned
plants that would emit 2.2 gigatons of carbon emissions a year. But
India isn’t lagging too far behind. The report notes that the large
amounts of new coal capacity planned in India and Turkey “could have
a relatively significant impact.”

“In India, stopping new coal fired power plants to be built could
mitigate 0.7 GtCO [gigatons of carbon emissions], provided low
carbon technologies are implemented,” it adds.

The researchers say, ideally, plans for these plants should be
canceled, but I sincerely doubt that will happen. At least not here
in India, where coal companies have deep ties with the political
class, and where the environment minister (who’s currently in Paris)
gives that same old line about the floods in Chennai being a
“natural calamity” that “can’t be directly linked to climate
change.”

*******************************************************************

The Coal Gap: planned coal-fired power plants inconsistent with
2degC and threaten achievement of INDCs

Climate Action Tracker, Dec. 1, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/h7b7jfp

Summary

* Holding temperature increase below 2degC, or below 1.5degC by
2100, requires a rapid decarbonisation of the global power sector.
IPCC AR5 scenarios indicate that this sector needs to reach zero
carbon emissions globally around 2050, 35 years hence. This means
phasing out emissions from coal-fired power by 2050.

* Even with no new construction, emissions from coal-fired power
generation in 2030 would still be 150% higher than what is
consistent with scenarios limiting warming to below 2degC above pre-
industrial levels (middle of the range). If the planned new coal
capacity – estimated by the Global Coal Plant Tracker – were to be
built, it would exceed the required levels by 400%.

* The planned new coal plants alone (globally, 2440 plants,
totalling 1428 GW) could emit approximately 6.5 GtCO2 , 16 – 18% of
the total allowed emissions in 2030 (under a 2degC-compatible
scenario). Including existing capacity with a technical lifetime
beyond 2030, total annual emissions from coal-fired power generation
could reach 12 GtCO2 in 2030.

* The CAT has assessed the impact of planned new coal plants both
globally, and in the eight countries that each plan to build more
than 5GW of coal power capacity: China, India, Indonesia, Japan,
South Africa, South Korea, the Philippines, Turkey – plus the EU28.
[The USA only plans to expand coal capacity by 3.5 GW.]

* Of these nine countries (incl. EU28) all have a CAT-rated INDC of
“inadequate” or “medium” (i.e. not sufficient to keep warming below
2degC), and have “current policy pathways” that are even less
ambitious. Their combined planned new coal capacity (2011 new coal
plants, totalling 1210 GW) could put them in an even worse
situation, adding emissions of around 1.5 GtCO2 to the CAT’s
projected currently policy levels.

* In seven of the nine studied countries – China, EU28, India,
Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Turkey – planned coal plants
threatens the achievement of the already only medium or inadequate
INDCs.

* The estimated emissions impact of planned plants that have been
announced and pre- permitted – i.e. not under construction or
permitted – would be 3.5GtCO2. Cancelling these plants could lead to
emissions reductions of 2GtCO 2 below current policy levels,
bringing countries closer to their proposed INDC levels.

[more at http://tinyurl.com/h7b7jfp]

*****************************************

Climate Deception: Non-binding “Targets” for Climate, but Binding
Rules on Trade in Services by Deborah James

Huffington Post, December 4, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/h6femp2

[Also note that the global Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS)
network works with PSI against the proposed TiSA. For more
information, visit http://ourworldisnotforsale.org/en/themes/3085]

The whole world is watching as world leaders from nearly every
country across the globe meet in Paris this week to set carbon
emission reductions targets to address global climate change.

Unfortunately representatives of 50 of the same governments are also
meeting this week in Geneva to negotiate binding rules that will
seriously constrain countries’ ability to meet those targets.

The 15th round of talks to create a “Trade in Services Agreement,”
or TiSA, are occurring once again in Geneva. Members of the TiSA
currently include Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mauritius, Mexico,
New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, South Korea,
Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, the U.S., and the 28 member states of
the European Union. How come everyone knows about the Paris talks,
but not those in Geneva? Because the Geneva talks are convened in
secret – precisely because the negotiators don’t want the public to
know what they’re up to.

The TiSA is modeled on the General Agreement on Trade in Services
(GATS) of the WTO, which Naomi Klein has documented in her book,
This Changes Everything, has been used extensively against
environmental policies. Yet the point of the TiSA is to go further
than the GATS because corporations see the existing rules as not
“ambitious enough.” The financial services, logistics and
technological corporations, largely in the United States and also
the EU, are attempting to expand the WTO’s GATS to develop a set of
deregulation and privatization rules that constrain public oversight
of how services operate domestically and globally, setting aside
environmental, labor, and development issues in favor of
transnational corporate rights to operate and profit.

Fortunately, Wikileaks has come again to the rescue. Today they are
publishing analysis and secret, leaked proposals that would create
far-reaching rules that give corporations rights to access markets
and limit public oversight of environmental and energy services and
road transportation in TiSA member countries.

The analysis of a proposal for an “Energy Related Services (ERS)”
annex of the TiSA would give “rights” to foreign energy corporations
in domestic markets. Far from mandating reductions in carbon
emissions or promoting access for poor countries to clean
technologies, the proposed TiSA annex would actually limit the
ability of governments (on national, regional, or local levels) to
set policies that differentiate between polluting and carbon-based
energy sources, such as oil and coal, from clean and renewable
energy sources such as wind and solar. This is according to the
“principle of technological neutrality,” revealed in the analysis of
the proposed chapter by Victor Menotti published by the Public
Services International (PSI) global union federation today.

Since reducing the dependence on fossil fuels is the basis of much
of today’s climate policy, it is hard to imagine how governments
could achieve the reductions in fossil fuel usage required by the
targets if they are not able to differentiate among energy sources.

Developing countries have demanded that principles of common but
differentiated responsibility become enshrined in any new climate
deal; the TiSA would instead sidesteps developing country concerns
raised at the WTO, and fails to include the (weak) flexibilities for
developing countries included in the WTO’s GATS.

In fact, a main point of the TiSA seems to be to “shift political
power over energy and climate policies from people using their
governments for shaping fair and sustainable economies to global
corporations using TiSA for restricting governments from regulating
energy markets, companies, and industry infrastructure,” according
to Menotti. This includes ensuring domestic economic benefits from
natural resource extraction, a key strategy for poverty reduction in
many developing countries.

…

Both the TPP and the proposed TiSA would restrict governments’
ability to use public procurement to promote “green purchasing,”
through the chapter disciplining government procurement, which in
the TiSA is cross-referenced to environmental and energy services
chapters. According to the analysis by the Third World Network,
government purchasing “provides a major source of demand for
domestic service suppliers and reserving that for domestic companies
(or otherwise preferring them) can facilitate social and economic
development, provide employment and business opportunities for
marginalized or disadvantaged individuals and communities and act as
a ‘wealth redistribution’ tool.” The leaked chapter on government
procurement in the TiSA would open up government purchases that are
subject to public tender, by all government agencies, in any amount.

Thus like the TPP, the TiSA constrains the ability of governments to
set policies that favor environmental job creation policies
advocated for by Trade Unions for Energy Democracy and the call for
a Just Transition developed by the International Trade Union
Confederation (ITUC) and endorsed by We Mean Business, The B Team
and seven major civil society networks including CIDSE (the
international alliance of Catholic development agencies), Friends of
the Earth International, ActionAid International, Greenpeace
International, Christian Aid, WWF and Oxfam International.

[For more, read full article at more at http://tinyurl.com/h6femp2]

*****************************************************

Other relevant recent articles

(snippets only; for full articles see links)

“US Solar Market Prepares for Biggest Quarter in History” Greentech
Media, Dec. 9, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/zj7aho6

GTM Research expects the fourth quarter of this year to be the
largest quarter for solar installations in U.S. history. Led by the
utility-scale segment, the United States will install more than 3
gigawatts. Looking further out, cumulative PV installations will
nearly double between now and the end of 2016, bringing the
nationwide total to 41 gigawatts.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Africa plans renewable energy drive that could make continent
world’s cleanest,” The Guardian, Dec. 7, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/zubqq8e

The African Renewable Energy Initiative (Arei) plans to develop at
least 10 GW of new renewable energy generation capacity by 2020, and
at least 300 GW by 2030, potentially making the continent the
cleanest in the world.

The International Energy Agency, which has said that Africa is at
the “epicentre of the global challenge to overcome energy poverty”,
estimates that annual electricity consumption per capita in Africa
for 2012 was around 600 kWh, compared with the world average of
3,064 kWh.

The plan to accelerate solar, hydro, wind and geothermal energy
could see Africa leapfrogging other continents by developing
thousands of small-scale “virtual power stations” that distribute
electricity via mini-grids and would not require transmission lines,
which involve a loss of up to a quarter of power during the process.

+++++++++++++++++

“More countries reject OECD study of climate aid” The Guardian, Dec.
8, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/jt2zl48

China, Brazil and South Africa have joined India in rejecting a key
OECD study stating that rich countries have already mobilised nearly
two-thirds of the $100bn (£67bn) pledged to secure a new climate
deal.

The refusal by the world’s four most powerful developing countries
to accept the methodology used by western economists, to calculate
the money raised for poor countries to adapt to climate change,
suggests that finance will be the major hurdle at the end of the
talks on Friday.

The OECD study claimed that rich countries had already mobilised
$57bn of climate aid in 2013-14, as pledged in 2009. But Indian
government economists have claimed that the OECD study counted loans
made to developing countries and double-counted aid money, putting
the real figure closer to $2bn.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“A secret weapon to fight climate change: dirt” The Washington Post,
Dec. 4, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/z2hf4wd

We think of climate change as a consequence of burning fossil fuels.
But a third of the carbon in the atmosphere today used to be in the
soil, and modern farming is largely to blame. Practices such as the
overuse of chemicals, excessive tilling and the use of heavy
machinery disturb the soil’s organic matter, exposing carbon
molecules to the air, where they combine with oxygen to create
carbon dioxide. Put another way: Human activity has turned the
living and fertile carbon system in our dirt into a toxic
atmospheric gas.

It’s possible to halt and even reverse this process through better
agricultural policies and practices. Unfortunately, the world
leaders who gathered in Paris this past week have paid little
attention to the critical links between climate change and
agriculture. That’s a huge mistake and a missed opportunity. Our
unsustainable farming methods are a central contributor to
greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change, quite simply, cannot be
halted without fixing agriculture.

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

AfricaFocus Bulletin
December 1, 2015 (151201)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“I’ve thought a lot about the outrage over unequal media coverage
when it comes to attacks in the Western world vs death in ‘other’
black and brown countries. I cringed when Barack Obama called the
Paris attacks an attack on ‘all humanity’–as if brutal attacks in
Pakistan, Lebanon, Nigeria, Kenya and Somalia and Mexico are not
quite up to that benchmark. I agree that we in the media need to do
a better job … [but] I can’t help but think that the ‘Why didn’t
the media care about _____’ stories will come, generate outrage
clicks and shares, and pass, without people really taking the time
to examine their own media consumption habits. … the stories were
written, you just didn’t click.” – Karen Attiah, Nov. 17, 2015

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clik1512.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clik152.php

As Washington Post digital editor Karen Attiah notes, there are
solid grounds for outrage at unequal media coverage of deaths in
different parts of the world. But the outrage often comes without a
differentiated analysis of “the media,” and failure to recognize
that each of us can have some effects on changing that coverage.
Granted that those who can make the most difference are the media
gatekeepers and editors who decide priorities for coverage on a
daily basis. But “the media” most of us have access to today include
not only the so-called “mainstream media,” but also many other forms
of media less restricted by gatekeepers, such as blogs, Facebook,
Youtube, and many more.

Readers and viewers can affect the reach of both mainstream and
other media by clicking, sharing, and other forms of multiplier
actions. In this digital age, mainstream editors must also pay
attention to click counts, and you can have influence by “boosting”
good articles by good journalists, not just complaining about the
bad ones.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from an outstanding set
of articles on the attack in Bamako, Mali, from one prominent
mainstream media outlet, The Washington Post, in the weeks following
Karen Attiah’s Facebook post cited above. So if you care about
Bamako as well as Paris, read these excerpts and also click to read
the full articles on The Washington Post website.

For previous articles by Karen Attiah in the Washington Post, visit
http://tinyurl.com/gqqy8ox

See in particular for related comment on the media:

“How Western media would cover Baltimore if it happened elsewhere,”
by Karen Attiah, April 30, 2015
http://tinyurl.com/zpm7vge

“Stop being angry at Western media for ‘ignoring’ Boko Haram,”
by Karen Attiah, Jan. 16, 2015
http://tinyurl.com/hq8fzc5

Another related article on Mali appeared in the Washington Post on
Nov. 30. “After this month’s attack in Bamako, what do we know about
fundamentalist Islam in Mali?,” by Sebastian Elischer
http://tinyurl.com/gry4399

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on peace and conflict issues,
visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-peace.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Facebook post by Karen Attiah, Nov. 17, 2015

http://www.facebook.com/KarenAttiah

I’ve thought a lot about the outrage over unequal media coverage
when it comes to attacks in the Western world vs death in “other”
black and brown countries. I cringed when Barack Obama called the
Paris attacks an attack on “all humanity”–as if brutal attacks in
Pakistan, Lebanon, Nigeria, Kenya and Somalia and Mexico are not
quite up to that benchmark. I agree that we in the media need to do
a better job capturing that humanity in our stories on a regular
basis, not just when an act of mass violence rips lives apart. We
need to care about LIFE in countries and cultures other than our
own.

I can’t help but think that the “Why didn’t the media care about
_____” stories will come, generate outrage clicks and shares, and
pass, without people really taking the time to examine their own
media consumption habits. We didn’t Ignore Garissa. We didn’t ignore
Nigeria. Let me echo my colleagues and say, that the stories were
written, you just didn’t click.

I suggest that for all who are upset at what is perceived as a lack
of coverage of places like Kenya, Nigeria, and Lebanon, now would be
a good time to find, follow, subscribe to, click on, share the
stories of the many journalists who are reporting and writing these
stories in the places you are concerned about and who sometimes risk
life and limb to do so.
The clicks, the shares, the likes, on stories from Africa, from
Latin America, the Middle East–it makes a difference. It tells us
in the media that YOU care about these stories.

**************************************************************

“Extremists stormed the Radisson hotel in Mali’s capital, and at
least 20 people are dead. These resources can help you learn more.”
by Laura Seay and Kim Yi Dionne

Monkey Cage, Washington Post, Nov. 21

http://tinyurl.com/hb7nqqn

[article includes introduction and an extensive list of resources,
with links]

**************************************************************

“Mali’s president declares state of emergency after deadly hotel
attack, National mourning in Mali after gunmen storm luxury hotel,”
by Pamela Constable

Washington Post, Nov. 21, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/oz4622y

[Kevin Sieff in Nairobi contributed to this report.]

Bamako, Mali — On most weekends, every table at the Canoe Club, a
stylish riverside bistro and bar, is reserved long in advance.
Western diplomats and United Nations staffers rub elbows with Malian
officials and business travelers late into the evening, noshing on
paella or pizza and enjoying French wine and champagne.

On Saturday, a day after terrorists invaded the luxury Radisson Blu
hotel in this poor West African capital, taking 130 people hostage
and leaving 21 dead, the Canoe Club was deserted. Idle waiters
repolished glasses or refolded linen napkins. Patrick Aleine, the
chef and co-owner, sat at the empty bar in a despondent funk.

“This is a disaster,” he said, speaking in French. “We have always
tried to make foreigners feel at ease and secure here, and we are
always full. Today, there is not a single customer. Tomorrow, there
is not a single table reserved. I am staying open for now, but if
the foreigners don’t start coming back, the Malians won’t come
either. Then we will be finished.”

On the surface, the crowded, hardscrabble city of nearly 2 million
people appeared to return to normal with astonishing speed so soon
after a horrific terrorist attack.

Motorbike traffic clogged the narrow streets and red-dirt alleys.
Fishermen poled canoes on the Niger River, which divides the
capital. Women with babies on their backs hung laundry outside tin
shanties, sold baskets of fruit or ladled out rice and stew at lunch
stands. Every few hours, the Muslim call to prayer echoed from
mosques scattered across the city.

In the morning, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita announced a 10-day
state of emergency, giving security officials extra powers to enter
homes without a warrant and to ban public rallies or marches. He
also declared three days of national mourning, acting to tamp down
public reaction to the violence. Police and army troops were
stationed on many corners, and armored pickup trucks full of combat
troops circled the Radisson Blu and other sensitive areas of the
city.

Later, the president visited some victims of the hotel attack in a
local hospital and toured the hotel, accompanied by Prime Minister
Modibo Keita and surrounded by bodyguards. Camera crews, blocked
from following them inside, peered at glass and debris strewn across
the lobby floor. Amid the scrum, a group of grim-faced Western
guests emerged with loads of baggage and were hustled into waiting
SUVs by armed escorts, headed out of the country.

From behind a police barricade, a crowd of young men watched the
scene. Most said they were Muslim, as are 95 percent of Malians.
They expressed anger and consternation at the attack, saying it was
the act of terrorists who did not represent their religion. One
violent regional jihadist group, the Mourabitounes, has claimed
responsibility, and witnesses said that the attackers freed hostages
who could recite the Koran.

“This is not good for us or for our country,” said Mainanto Mamdu,
21, a mechanic. “There is no meaning to what these terrorists are
doing, but it seems they can do whatever they want.”

Nafila Dao, 23, who sells cellphones, said the threat of Islamist
extremism is “everywhere now, and we cannot stop it. We were taught
that Islam is tolerant of all religions and people. These people are
just murderers.”

There was a jittery tone to every conversation and encounter, an
uneasy chill beneath the routine commotion. Many people walked away
nervously when asked about the hotel attack. Despite the new
security measures, many people seemed to feel that their government
was helpless to stop terrorism. Some worried that the close
relationship Mali has long enjoyed with its European allies,
especially France and Belgium, was at stake.

… [article continues at http://tinyurl.com/oz4622y]

A senior police official, whose squad was among the first to reach
the besieged hotel Friday, said Mali and its international allies
must work together to fight extremists. “We are facing a menace to
all countries and all colors,” he said. “I have brave men and they
stopped the guests from panicking, but we cannot defeat these groups
with force. We have to go deeply into their mentality and their
psyche.”

**************************************************************

“Five things you should know about Friday’s terrorist attack in
Mali,” by Susanna D. Wing

Monkey Cage, The Washington Post, Nov. 21, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/nqsnro2

[Susanna D. Wing is associate professor and chair of political
science at Haverford College. She is also the author of the award-
winning book, “Constructing Democracy in Africa: Mali in
Transition.”]

The Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, hosted a gathering of first
ladies of West Africa when I was staying there in October 2011. The
regal, powerful women and their attendants dominated the upscale
lobby. The hotel was known for being safe and secure — a
requirement for its diplomatic and business clientele.

In the early morning of Nov. 20, the hotel was the target of a
brazen attack in which gunmen breached the security perimeter of the
hotel, shot a security guard and then took more than 100 people
hostage. Thankfully, most of those hostages escaped. Sadly, many did
not. What are the five things you should know about the Mali and the
attack on the Radisson Blu?

1. The Bamako and Paris attacks are connected, but analysis should
focus less on global terror trends and more on the complicated
history of Mali politics. In the wake of the tragic Paris attacks,
it is tempting to frame the most recent Bamako attack as connected.
While the terrible events in Paris and Bamako are linked because
terrorists in both instances crave the attention that such high-
profile attacks bring to their project, the Malian attack is part of
a more complicated history of insecurity linked to local politics.

Certainly, the Radisson Blu hotel was targeted precisely because it
is a favorite among expatriates. Moreover, a video released this
past October by Iyad Ag Ghali, leader of Mali-based jihadist
organization Ansar Dine, explicitly connects dissatisfaction with
Mali’s political settlement to attacking Mali’s former colonial
master, France. In the video, Ag Ghali claimed those who signed the
Algiers peace accord — a recently brokered peace agreement that
offered partial autonomy to northern Mali — had sold out. Ag Ghali
also praised the January attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris and called
for continued attacks on France.

In recent months, Amadou Koufa, an ally of Ag Ghali, created the
Macina Liberation Front (MLF) and has led attacks against the United
Nations Mission in Mali. In conjunction with Al Mouraboutin, an al-
Qaeda affiliate led by Moktar Belmoktar, it claimed responsibility
for the attack on the Hotel Byblos in Sevaré in central Mali
occupied primarily by peacekeepers. The week prior to the attack at
the Radisson, embassies called for increased vigilance in Bamako and
the capital was placed on a heightened terror alert. Al-Mouraboutin
has claimed responsibility for the attack.

2. The French intervention in January 2013 was only effective in the
short term. Following the 2012 coup d’état in Mali, the French were
able to rapidly retake Northern territory occupied by extremist
groups such as Ansar Dine, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in
West Africa (MUJAO), and al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM). Many
Malians applauded the French intervention, and a former French
diplomat claimed that it was a courageous act on the part of
President Francois Hollande. The same diplomat also pointed out that
the intervention ignored the root causes of terrorism and “denied
the troubling reality of Malian politics.” The military response
only temporarily dispersed adherents to the rebel groups who then
splintered and formed new alliances.

The French Operation Serval and subsequent Operation Barkhane did
not include a long-term mandate for achieving stability in Mali. The
French left those tricky issues to be sorted out and moved on to
focus on regional counter-terrorism. However, the political crisis
in Mali is intimately linked to the rise in terrorist activities in
the country.

3. Counter-terrorism campaigns in the Sahel prioritize security and
not politics. The U.S. State Department, in partnership with USAID
and the Department of Defense, has led the Trans-Sahara Counter
Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP). The program has suffered from poor
management, a lack of coordination and slow disbursement of funds.
Some argue that the U.S. program has been a complete failure and,
sadly, the French counterterrorism program in the Sahel is modeled
on the U.S. war on terror.

Mali President Amadou Toumani Touré promoted the flagship Special
Program for Peace, Security and Development in Northern Mali
(PSPSDN) to address insecurity in the North. The program focused
primarily on bolstering security forces at a time when local
populations in the North complained about discrimination by security
personnel and a lack of development funding reaching the region. The
program was rife with corruption and only served to stir up
animosity across the region.

4. The 2015 Algiers Peace Accord was fragile from the start. In June
2015 rebel factions in Mali signed The Algiers Accord with pro-
government groups. Few people had much faith that the accords would
actually bring peace and be fully implemented. Mali has a long
history of peace accords with the Tuareg that have not been fully
implemented. These suspicions were proven warranted when a ceasefire
was broken nearly immediately. Since the accords were signed,
violence has spread southward.

5. Mali’s fragile democracy remains rife with tensions. The conflict
in Mali today is part of ongoing tensions that go back decades
despite the country’s democratic reputation. Mali was considered a
model democracy prior to the March 2012 coup d’état. Since
independence, various Tuareg groups pushed for autonomy and the
creation of an independent state of Azawad. The Tuareg are not the
only ethnic group living in northern Mali, in fact, they are a
minority, which complicates the creation of Azawad.

Even before the crisis in 2012, tensions in the capital had been
increasing between those promoting a secular state and those
challenging those ideals. The High Islamic Council of Mali gained
political legitimacy as President Amadou Toumani Touré became
increasingly unpopular. The calls for an Islamic State of Mali, led
by Ansar Dine and others, were an extreme version of this
complicated tension. In response to the attack on the Radisson Blu,
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita declared three days of national
mourning and a 10-day state of emergency. Commenting on the
terrorist attack, a cellphone merchant in Bamako, Nafila Dao,
proclaimed “We were taught that Islam is tolerant of all religions
and people. These people are just murderers.”

**************************************************************

“Malians defy the threat of terror,” by Pamela Constable

Washington Post, Nov. 22, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/jdpvd6e

[Pamela Constable covers immigration issues and immigrant
communities. A former foreign correspondent for the Post based in
Kabul and New Delhi, she also reports periodically from Afghanistan
and other trouble spots overseas.]

Bamako, Mali — Church bells pealed and wedding music blared across
this West African capital Sunday, as Malians dressed in their vivid
holiday best defied the threat of terror and skirted a state of
emergency to celebrate the rituals of life.

After visiting the luxury hotel where two gunmen shot and killed 19
people after taking about 130 hostage Friday, Senegal’s president
Macky Sall said at a news conference Sunday that a meeting of a West
African regional organization would be held soon to discuss regional
security concerns.

A coalition of separatist groups in northern Mali claimed that the
attack on the Radisson Blu Hotel had been aimed at sabotaging peace
talks they are holding with the Malian government of President
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. A critical peace meeting was scheduled to be
held at the hotel soon. The group’s leader said jihadist groups are
trying to destroy the country.

The attack has been claimed by al-Mourabitoun, a violent jihadist
group affiliated with al-Qaeda that seeks to drive Western influence
from Mali and has been responsible for a number of other deadly
assaults in the past several years. But experts said the gunmen, who
also died, could be linked to other extremist Islamist groups in the
region, a confusing array of shifting leaders and allegiances.

The social and religious outings held across the capital Sunday were
congenial but not fully carefree, and the hotel siege was still on
everyone’s mind. Some foreign church-goers were accompanied by
bodyguards, and male wedding guests sat and watched with extra
attentiveness as their wives and daughters danced in outdoor tents.

But despite the jolting reminder Friday that Mali and its capital
remain vulnerable to a variety of violent groups — and the
announcements Saturday of a 10-day reduction of civil liberties and
three days of national mourning — thousands of people decided not
to let grief or anxiety ruin their plans.

From mid-morning on, people streamed into churches to sing and pray,
then mingled in the shade afterward to chat. Many women were clad in
brilliant patterned gowns and turbans; some men sported loose tunics
called fokia, printed with colorful drawings of Jesus and Mary or
with phrases from the Bible.

In interviews, some worshipers confined themselves to cautious
platitudes about the future being in God’s hands. But others offered
concerned comments about Islamist violence, which has spread from
the country’s arid north, threatening the social peace that both
minority Christians and majority Muslims have long known in the more
developed south.

“It’s true that we Christians are especially exposed, but so are
moderate Muslims,” said Edmund, 60, a retired airline worker wearing
a tunic with “Glory, hallelujah” written across it. He asked that
his last name not be used. “These terrorists do not speak for God.
It is easy for them to indoctrinate young people in our precarious
societies, with so much poverty and lack of work, but it is a
perversion to promise them a better world through force.”

… [article continues at http://tinyurl.com/jdpvd6e]

Some of the [wedding] celebrations went on for hours, with women in
elaborate party costumes singing and dancing traditional welcomes to
the groom while the bride was hidden nearby, being attended by
friends. At one wedding, an uncle of the bride, dressed in a
ceremonial white cap and robe, watched the festivities with a
satisfied smile and a close eye on the street.

“We are all troubled by this attack, and we know people are dead,
but we must still celebrate the living,” said the uncle, a 56-year-
old office administrator named Sidib Boubacar. “We are a little
limited by the current circumstances,” he added, referring to the
new security restrictions, “but if we stop what we are doing, it
will show we are afraid.”

**************************************************************

France’s war in Mali has not been able to end extremist violence

By Pamela Constable

The Washington Post, Nov. 25, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/obfexxp

Bamako, Mali — Two years after French troops drove jihadist forces
from northern Mali, a deadly attack on a luxury hotel has raised
concerns that Islamist extremists are gaining ground again in this
volatile country, despite a new peace accord among domestic rebel
groups.

While Malian and U.N. officials point to the peace agreement as a
potential milestone in pacifying the lawless, Arab-dominated north,
they also worry that violence could surge again. The weak central
government is struggling with a host of challenges: entrenched
poverty, drug smuggling, and a mix of growing competition and
collaboration among Islamist factions in the West African region.

“Mali today is as fragile as it was before the coup in 2012,” said
Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council in
Washington, referring to the military power grab that occurred as a
rebellion in the north gained strength. France intervened the
following year, after Islamist fighters seized control of a large
chunk of territory.

“The French may have prevented an Islamist takeover, but you can’t
rebuild a hollowed-out state in two years,” Pham said. “The borders
are fictional, and there is a fluid and permeable dynamic among
jihadist, rebel and criminal groups in the region. We are still
playing Whac-A-Mole.”

Few people predict that this nation of 17 million people will become
an Islamist beachhead again. But both Malian and foreign observers
worry that extremist groups based in surrounding countries could
still create turmoil, by capitalizing on domestic discontent here
and on the momentum from recent terrorist attacks in Paris and
elsewhere.

Two jihadist groups have asserted responsibility for last week’s
attack on the Radisson Blu Hotel, which left at least 20 people dead
in the bustling capital, hundreds of miles from the vast desert
region where Islamist militias normally operate. Experts differ on
the possible motive, with U.N. officials insisting the attack was an
effort to derail the peace talks and others suggesting it was part
of a new muscle-flexing rivalry between pro-al-Qaeda and pro-
Islamic-State groups in the region.

There also are conflicting opinions about the best way to contain
the possible comeback of Islamist extremism after two years of rule
by the government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, which is
widely described as democratic but sluggish and corrupt.

Some look to the 8,000-member Malian army to enforce security,
although it is thinly spread and in dire need of reform and training
as well as equipment and funding, analysts say. Others say the key
lies in quickly bringing development, services and jobs to the long-
abandoned north, calling this the only way to prevent large numbers
of unemployed young Muslim men — as well as older ex-rebels from
various tribal separatist groups — from being recruited by well-
financed jihadist groups.

“It is a great achievement that the combatant groups have been
brought together and speak with one voice, but we need to bring
peace dividends — water, electricity, roads, schools — so the
population sees peace making a difference in their lives,” Mongi
Hamdi, the U.N. special representative for Mali, said in an
interview. “That is the glue that will keep people attached to
peace.”

Mali is heavily dependent on the international community for
security and economic survival. A U.N. peacekeeping force with more
than 10,000 troops is stationed here, and a smaller French
counterterrorism force has been based here since 2013. Large amounts
of development aid have come from the United States, France and
other countries. Some critics say the funding has been partly wasted
through corruption, but Hamdi and others argue that even more is
needed to reinforce the writ of the state in conflict areas.

Until now, Mali has been viewed largely as suffering from the
predations of extremist groups spawned in neighboring countries.
Libyan militants thronged into northern Mali after dictator Moammar
Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011, and a notorious Algerian jihadist
leader named Mokhtar Belmokhtar formed the group al-Mourabitoun that
most experts believe planned the Nov. 20 hotel attack.

… [article continues at http://tinyurl.com/obfexxp]

“There is still a positive peace dynamic, but the state is weak and
corrupt, and we have only had a democratic government for two
years,” said Mahamadou Camara, a magazine editor and former press
official in the Keïta administration. “The greatest risk we face
today is that the positive momentum will reverse into a new spiral
of violence.”

**************************************************************

“This is what citizens say is needed to end Mali’s insecurity,” by
Jaimie Bleck, Abdoulaye Dembele and Guindo Sidiki

Monkey Cage, The Washington Post, Nov. 27, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/qx9pcq3

Jaimie Bleck is an assistant professor of political science at the
University of Notre Dame. She is also an American Council of Learned
Societies fellow currently conducting research in Mali. Her book
“Education and Empowered Citizenship in Mali” was published earlier
this year.

Abdoulaye Dembele is the national coordinator for the Farafina
Institute in Mali.

Sidiki Guindo is the director of the GISSE Institute for Public
Opinion Polling in Mali and a professor at ENSAE (l’Ecole Nationale
de la Statistique et l’Analyse Economique) in Dakar, Senegal.

On Nov. 20, the world’s eyes turned to Mali once again as 21 people
were killed during an attack at the Radisson hotel in Bamako, the
country’s capital. Many more were trapped in the building until
Malian Special Forces led a joint raid and killed two assailants.
Two different groups have claimed credit for the attack and two
arrests were made Thursday, but at the time of writing there is
still speculation as to which actors were responsible and an
unspecified number of accomplices are still at large.

The siege of the Radisson was only the most recent attack against
civilians in a wave of instability that has struck the country since
an insurgency began in northern Mali in early 2012. Mali continues
to face widespread insecurity despite a French intervention (in
2013), the restoration of presidential and legislative elections
(also 2013), the ongoing presence of more than 12,000 international
troops, and the recent signing of peace accords in June 2015. An
increase in attacks in Mali against U.N. forces over the last two
years has earned the peacekeeping mission there the dubious
distinction of being the “world’s most dangerous.”

In trying to understand the crisis, we return to the summer of 2013
— before the elections that ushered Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (IBK) in
as president — and ended more than a year of junta rule. At that
time, more than 500,000 citizens had fled Northern Mali. We surveyed
nearly 900 internally displaced persons who fled to Bamako as well
as Sévaré and Mopti, twin cities that acted as an unofficial
dividing line between the government-controlled south and the north
at the height of its rebel occupation. We note that our study
population is not representative of all who fled; for instance, they
are typically more pro-government than those who fled to camps in
Mauritania.

When asked to name solutions to the crisis in Mali, the largest
percentage of displaced people — over 40 percent — referenced the
importance of improving governance and reducing corruption. In other
words, the most popular idea to resolve the crisis pointed not to a
security response but to government reform.

… [article continues at http://tinyurl.com/qx9pcq3]

As the Malian government and international donors seek to understand
what led to the attack and how to prevent other similar tragedies in
the future, the testimony of ordinary citizens suggests the need for
a broader reflection on the strength and evolution of state
institutions. While even the strongest states are vulnerable to
these acts of terror, forgetting the importance of a capable and
well-governed state risks trapping Mali in a cycle of crisis.

*****************************************************

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