We are excited to announce the Summer 2022 Claudia Jones Editorial Intern is Cygaelle “Cy” Bergado, a senior at Temple University majoring in Media Studies & Production. We asked Cy a few questions.
Tell us about yourself.
I am a Filipino-American organizer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My interests include fighting towards social justice, writing, video production and hanging out with my cat. I am ecstatic to be interning with Toward Freedom!
How would you describe your interest in journalism?
It has been rooted in me since I was a teenager; journalism pays duty to the people by informing us about important issues and events. Journalists provide information that help communities shape decisions—and by extension, organize. I’m proud to be in the journalism field.
What drew you to the Claudia Jones Editorial Internship?
Toward Freedom takes a grassroots perspective. I appreciated its diligence in bringing attention to human rights issues. It was very resonating to find TF‘s dedication towards anti-colonial struggles aligned with mine.
What do you hope to report on this summer?
This summer, I would like to report on the political tyranny of The Philippines. It is important to bring to light the human rights violations being committed there. I am looking to report on the fraudulent Philippine elections ridden with vote buying and voter disenfranchisement. These human rights violations are not anything new to the Filipino diaspora; as we have been colonized, militarized and oppressed by the governments of Spain, the United States, Japan and our own for thousands of years. I also hope to report on the struggle of the Filipino diaspora, from all around the globe, to fight back against these fascist empires.
Anything else you’d like to do while you’re at Toward Freedom?
I hope to strengthen my skills in writing, editing and fact-checking. I also am looking forward to meeting, collaborating with and finding solidarity with new comrades.
A coalition led by a Pan-Africanist party has won parliamentary elections in Guinea-Bissau. The PAIGC hasn’t exactly got the catchiest of acronyms, but their ideas are certainly catching on (again!) in the West African nation. Here’s a look at… pic.twitter.com/EnL7FQS7Fl
A coalition led by a Pan-Africanist party has won parliamentary elections in Guinea-Bissau. The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) hasn’t exactly got the catchiest of acronyms, but their ideas are certainly catching on (again) in the West African state. Here’s a look at their independence-struggle origins, and at their track-record at implementing their socialist ideals. African Stream also looks at why voters are turning their back on Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embaló, whose ever closer links to France have bothered many.
Maasai in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya / credit: Henrik Hansen on Unsplash
NAIROBI—Close to 500 organizations and 4,747 individuals recently petitioned the Tanzanian government to respect the rights of 70,000 Maasai pastoralists, who are at risk of being evicted from ancestral land because of the government’s collusion with big-game hunting interests.
The petition was delivered after a government official summoned on January 11 village and ward leaders within the 1,500 square kilometers in question, informing them the government would be making a decision for the interest of the country. Maasai residents are calling on President Samia Suluhu Hassan to drop the plans.
“The Maasai residing within the targeted Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) are disallowed from building decent houses or even planting a tree, including even owning a motorbike,” Joseph Oleshangay, a lawyer representing the Maasai, told Toward Freedom. “Successive governments have eternally destined this community to remain impoverished. Now, this current move is a continuation of the abuse meted on the Maasai.”
The boundaries of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is in pink / credit: Encyclopedia Britanica
Royal Intervention
The Tanzanian government had planned to lease the 1,500 square kilometers of Maasai ancestral land to Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC), which a group of Dubai royal families own, according to the petitioners. But after evictions in 2009, 2013 and 2017, the Maasai sought legal recourse. A 2018 East African Court of Justice (EACJ) ruling placed an injunction, prohibiting the destruction of Maasai property, the harassment of the Maasai, and the eviction of the people as well as their more than 200,000 livestock. The injunction remains until the case arrives in court.
Despite several attempts, Tanzania’s Directorate of Presidential Communications declined to respond to Toward Freedom.
According to Oleshangay, with the government ignoring the court, the Maasai community has gone back to a regional court to seek protection and direction.
Within the three years the Maasai people have faced eviction, an estimated 15,000 people have been displaced from their homes.
Isaya Lesion, spokesperson for OBC and himself a Tanzanian national, told Toward Freedom that all the land in Tanzania belonged to the public and the president holds the land in trust of the citizens and may intermittently change its usage for the benefit of the country.
“It has happened before in Ihefu Basin, Mtwara and Kilobero, just to name a few places where evictions by the government have happened to pave the way for development on behalf of the nation.”
Lesion further says that the coterie of Civil Society Organizations (CSO), particularly in Tanzania, who are opposed to the eviction plans have “turned the Maasais into their milking cows, using them to secure funding from external donors. It’s a lucrative business and the key players, who disproportionately live in urban centers, live large as the Maasais continue languishing in poverty.”
However, human rights violations are the crux of the case against the government. Indigenous Maasai pastoralists are recognized as legal inhabitants of the land. About 2 million Maasai roam the arid and semi-arid parts of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, making them one of the largest pastoral groups worldwide. The Maasai are among the Horn of Africa’s pastoralists and itinerant farmers who have lost access to grazing areas and farmlands because of land grabs.
“Any attempts to evict them will certainly be unlawful, unjust, and discriminatory under national law and the international human-rights obligations and commitments of the Government of Tanzania,” said Ann Henga, executive director of the Dar es Salaam-based Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), in an interview with Toward Freedom.
Competing Interest
Hassan government announced plans to create a wildlife corridor, so OBC could use it for trophy hunting and tourism. The company describes itself on its Twitter account as “Sustainable Utilization (Hunting) and photography outfitters in Tanzania. Investors in Loliondo GCA hunting concession. 100% for wildlife conservation.”
Wildlife is 1 of the crucial aspect in our heritage as a country, we must invest and dedicate more in Anti-poaching and educating more people about the benefits of it. This wasn’t a successful raid b’coz the damage was already done, but it’s progress, consistency must be the key. pic.twitter.com/NjGrvN2gds
The government plans to lease to OBC the NCA, which encompasses the Loliondo division, among others. NCA is considered one of the most cinematic landscapes on the globe, with more than 1 million wildebeest migrating through the area every year. It is home to the critically endangered black rhino. In 1979, UNESCO declared the NCA a World Heritage Site.
Joan Carling, co-convener of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights International (IPRI), told Toward Freedom international attention appears to have stamped out eviction efforts.
“The inter-related reasons … are the pressure from UNESCO to address the growing number of humans in the area, which they consider a serious threat to the conservation of wildlife, and, in this sense, would affect the status of the park as a World Wildlife Heritage and Conservation area.”
NCA losing UNESCO recognition would mean fewer tourists. Loliondo is on the main migratory route for wildlife north of the Ngorongoro Crater, east of Serengeti National Park and south of Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve.
In November 2017, the government ended a 25-year-old hunting tourism deal with OBC that reportedly was in exchange for millions of dollars to Tanzania’s armed forces.
The Gulf royal families gave $32,000 to the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party and $2 million to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, according to government records The East African newspaper reports to have seen. The monies were given in 1994, according to the regional newspaper, which quotes then-Chief Opposition Chief Whip Tundu Lissu. He said he had interrogated the issue for the past 20 years, but because of the alleged chicanery involved in the deal, the government has kept the details of the engagement shrouded in mystery.
“Once again, the Maasai are facing eviction just to please the UAE royal family, underlining the Tanzanian government insensitivity towards the Indigenous pastoralists, as it clearly prioritizes tourism revenue over its people,” said Dr. Paula Kahumbu, a wildlife conservationist and Chief Executive Officer of Wildlife Direct, a nonprofit registered in both Kenya and the United States, in an interview with Toward Freedom.
Trophy Fees
Despite the November 2017 announcement, OBC did not leave Tanzania for a few days. But current Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said OBC would stay. In November 2018, Tanzania lifted a hunting ban, which had been imposed in October 2015 following abuse and misuse of hunting permits. The OBC had been granted an exclusive license to hunt in 1992 during the presidency of Ali Hassan Mwinyi.
The annual hunting license fee is $60,000 per block allocated to a hunting safari company. Trophy fees for hunting an elephant or a lion are the most expensive. It costs $15,000 to kill an elephant and $12,000 to kill a lion. Presently, Tanzania is focused on attracting tourists who can afford a 21-day hunting safari that costs about $60,000, excluding the cost of flights, gun import permits and trophy fees.
“The Maasai have been subjected to a series of human rights violations and violent evictions in the name of conservation and luxury hunting and safari tourism,” Chris Lang of news outlet REDD-Monitor told Toward Freedom. “The rights of Tanzania’s Indigenous peoples and Tanzanian law must come ahead of a deal with a luxury hunting tourism corporation.”
Charles Wachira is a foreign correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya, and is formerly an East Africa correspondent with Bloomberg. He covers issues including human rights, business, politics and international relations.
On left: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Rwandan President Paul Kagame. On right: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Background: National Unity Platform presidential candidate Bobi Wine / photo illustration: Toward Freedom
SILVER SPRING, Maryland—The United States and its European allies only care about human-rights violations when it benefits them.
That’s what a few dozen members of the Horn of Africa and East Africa diaspora agreed upon as they gathered August 13 outside Washington, D.C.
A regional conference of the National Unity Platform, a political party in Uganda, brought together members of the country’s diaspora from the New York City and Washington metro areas to strategize on how to tackle U.S. meddling that props up leaders.
“The West wants to change regimes for itself, not for Africans—we remember Libya,” said Dr. Berhanu T. Taye, chair of the Global Ethiopian Advocacy Nexus (GLEAN) and member of the Ethiopian American Public Affairs Committee (AEPAC). He was referring to the 2011 U.S./NATO invasion that turned the most prosperous African country into a war zone that hosts slave markets.
‘Aid An Instrument of Western Neocolonialism’
While the conference’s theme was “Democracy & Security In East Africa & the Horn of Africa,” a series of protests the group staged the day prior was called, “No to Neo-Colonial African Dictators.”
Neocolonialism refers to the stage of colonialism in which a colonial power continues to control a country or a nation of people by supporting the rise to leadership of those within the oppressed nation who serve the colonial master. This continues the process of extracting material wealth for the benefit of the colonial powers. Loan programs through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are seen as tools to subjugate and profit off oppressed countries.
Taye referred to Western aid as “opium.” He encouraged conference attendees to get better organized for the struggle. “Aid is not only an instrument of Western neocolonialism, but of underdevelopment.”
The party’s regional conference included attendees and speakers from countries outside East Africa and the Horn of Africa, including Chad, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau.
The Horn of Africa highlighted in yellow / credit: Wikimedia
Some party members and attendees from other countries expressed frustration with non-governmental organizations and the U.S. government not taking their concerns seriously.
“The likes of [Ugandan President Yoweri] Museveni and [Rwandan President Paul] Kagame… would not be able to do what they do without the backing of the United States and the United Kingdom,” said Maurice Carney, who spoke remotely to the audience via Zoom. Carney is founder and executive director of U.S.-based nonprofit organization Friends of the Congo.
Among the violations the group denounced were Museveni’s government being partly responsible for destabilizing the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by sending arms and proxy fighters.
Meeting notes from an August 8 convening of the United Nations Security Council show officials pointing out the Ugandan government’s support for a Daesh affiliate group.
The violence in the DRC has internally displaced 5.6 million Congolese, while 990,000 take shelter across the African continent. In February, the International Court of Justice ordered Uganda to pay $325 million in reparations to the DRC.
‘Billions Go Out the Back Door’
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s International Trade Administration encourages U.S. companies to do business in the DRC, citing “tens of trillions of dollars” in mineral wealth.
“The DRC is one of the most blessed places on Earth,” said Taye. “Sadly, the agents in the neighborhood—Kagame and Museveni—are facilitating the looting of Congo for the West.”
Non-governmental organization Global Witness reported in April that 90 percent of minerals coming out of one DRC mining area were shown to have come from mines that did not meet security and human-rights standards. Companies relying on minerals from such mines include U.S.-based Apple, Intel and Tesla.
“Aid that comes in the front door with tens of millions of dollars is a mirage,” Carney said. The United States has disbursed $618 billion in aid to Uganda since 2001. “Billions go out the back door in the form of extractions [of resources].”
‘Africa Is Going to Be Punished’
Conference moderator Joseph Senyonjo said the NUPUSA (the party’s U.S. arm) has attempted to engage U.S. Representative Karen Bass (D-CA), chair of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
“She has done nothing,” he said.
Senyonjo added Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) has been unhelpful. Meeks chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and has introduced a U.S. House bill that would punish African countries for bypassing U.S. sanctions on Russia. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in an August 5 speech in Ghana that U.S. sanctions are not to blame for the global wheat shortage, all while threatening action if African countries buy Russian fossil fuels. However, cutting off Russia from the SWIFT global payments system prevents it from trading wheat, a major Russian export.
What does that mean for African countries that have relied on Russia for 32 percent of their wheat imports?
“Africa is going to be punished,” Senyonjo told conference attendees.
“Internationalism is the Achilles’ heel of U.S. imperialism,” said Netfa Freeman, keynote speaker at the August 13 regional conference of the National Unity Platform (Uganda) held outside Washington, D.C. / credit: Julie Varughese
‘We Can’t Be Timid’
Netfa Freeman, the keynote speaker, warned attendees of approaching the U.S. government from a weak position and with the intent of appealing to the conscience. He said the United States cannot recognize human rights because it was built by violating the human rights of the Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans. Now, it holds one-fifth of the world’s prisoners, including the longest-held political prisoners in the world.
“Convincing them cannot be the goal,” said Freeman, an organizer with Pan-African Community Action, a grassroots organization based in southeast Washington. He also is a member of the Black Alliance for Peace Coordinating Committee and hosts a local radio program.
Freeman added officials such as Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin Lloyd mirror the comprador class that holds power in various African countries. A comprador appears to independently operate as a leader, but answers to colonial powers.
Freeman encouraged conference attendees to widen the scope of their solidarity to include Afro-descendants in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, for example, because they, too, suffer under U.S. sanctions and threats of invasion. He connected events that took place during the same timeframe on the continent—the assassination of DRC Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the driving into exile of Ghanian Prime Minister and President Kwame Nkrumah—with the assassinations of Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Internationalism is the Achilles’ heel of U.S. imperialism,” Freeman said.
Freeman added the struggle must be waged against the system, not against individual leaders.
“We can’t be timid. We don’t ask for anything. We demand.”
