Overcoming trauma of displacement through storytelling, illustration

Sketching her journey: Refugee past inspires Vietnamese illustrator

 

20 Jun 2009

Written by: Katie Nguyen

Lucie Trinephi

It wasn't her journey as a refugee that scarred Lucie Trinephi. It was the destination.

Fleeing Vietnam by a military ship was just a memory, whereas punches and jeers from school bullies hurt. So did growing up on a rundown housing estate near Paris. Westernising her name didn't stave off the racist abuse as her family started their lives over again.

"I don't think I was really traumatised by the escape," Trinephi reflected in an interview. "I was more traumatised when I arrived in France. I wanted to go back."

Some 20 years later, she did, at least in her head. Cycling by the sea in Copenhagen, she had a sudden flashback to 1975. The thwack of the rotor blades above Saigon, the tense silence of the adults, and her own curiosity - it all came flooding back.

Now she's channeling these vivid memories into an illustrated book of her personal story. From Maus via Persepolis to Waltz with Bashir, cartoon explorations of identity have proved popular in recent years, adding graphic depth to harrowing stories.

But for Trinephi, the aim is not to pen a bestseller as much as to find peace.

"It's quite a meditative thing to do because I'm free to express myself," she said. "I come from an Asian background where people don't talk about their feelings."

The daughter of a surgeon, Trinephi was seven when she fled Vietnam with her mother and five brothers and sisters, just hours before northern Communist forces seized the southern capital Saigon, expelling American invaders and the civil war.

Her illustrations reconstruct their journey to Europe, via a landing craft carrier bound for the Philippines, which they boarded thanks to an uncle in the South Vietnamese navy.

Crammed inside the cavernous belly of the ship were scores of other families whose relatives had fought against the north's Viet Cong guerrillas, and shared the same fear of reprisals as they seized control of the country.

One frame of her book shows a child falling off the walkway to the ship in the crush to get on. He was never found.

Trinephi remembers long days staring at the sky and exploring the vessel with her sisters, weaving past other refugees and their piles of suitcases. The packets of instant noodles her mother packed were shared among the seven of them. One packet a day, one bite each.

In the Philippines, they boarded a U.S. naval carrier which took them on to Guam and a refugee camp. After a while, they were allowed through the barbed wire to play on the beach. In the evenings they watched films in the open air.

After several weeks in the camp, Trinephi's family left for France to join her father, a doctor, who was already there.

EPIPHANY

In her early twenties, Trinephi's curiosity about her roots started calling her. She went to Hong Kong, where she worked as an interpreter in a Vietnamese refugee camp. By this time, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were on the move in wooden boats, most of them spending months if not years in camps from Malaysia to Australia.

Trinephi's job was to encourage them to return to their homeland. After years of feeling like an outsider, it came naturally.

"In my basic Vietnamese, I was telling them to go home because I had this big identity crisis," she said. "I told them: 'don't think you arrive and you'll get a job and money'."

During the same trip she went back to Vietnam for the first time. But she did not feel as if she belonged, and left more confused than ever. She moved to Denmark to work as a cartoon colourist, and it was there that she experienced her epiphany.

Now living in London, Trinephi is working on a trilogy of graphic narratives. The first volume depicts her escape, the second the history of the war. The last will tell the stories of others who left after it ended, like her uncle who was sent to a Communist re-education camp for 10 years. His wife thought he had vanished forever, but they were eventually reunited in the United States.

"Graphic art is a good way of telling a story," Trinephi said. "And, I have many more stories to tell."

To see Lucie Trinephi's work, click www.vovchic.com

Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.

 

Source is here.

 

 

Biodiversity cushions impact of environmental vicissitudes

Q&A: 'Variety Can Protect Against Famine'
Sabina Zaccaro and Miren Gutierrez* interview three 'GUARDIANS OF DIVERSITY'

Panagiotis Sainatoudis Credit:Bioversity International

ROME, Jun 17 (IPS) - How many varieties of date palm or melon exist? And why should we care? IPS spoke to three 'Guardians of Diversity' so named by Bioversity International for their contribution to conservation.

Bioversity International is the largest international research organisation dedicated to conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity.

Slimane Bekkay is a farmer in Ghardaia, Algeria. Conservation of date palm diversity has been his mission for a long time, both for scientific and cultural reasons. His lexicon of date palm varieties explains the different terms used in Arabic, Mozabite (an ethnic language in central Algeria) and French in order to provide insight into the role of the date palm in Arabic and Mozabite culture.

Jose Esquinas-Alcazar collected seeds of nearly 400 varieties of melon while a young man in his native Spain. Today, these form the basis of the national melon diversity collection. For 22 years, Esquinas-Alcazar served as secretary of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) commission on genetic resources for food and agriculture; he is now professor of plant production at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and director of studies on hunger and poverty at the University of Córdoba in Spain.

Panagiotis Sainatoudis is the coordinator of Peliti, a non-governmental organisation in Greece that distributes local crop varieties to growers. To date, roughly 50,000 packages of 1,500 varieties of vegetables and cereals have been collected and distributed to farmers around Greece.

Bioversity International celebrates the Guardians of Diversity in the Mediterranean. They are farmers, community activists, scientists and scholars who have devoted their lives to safeguarding the diversity of animals and crops that people depend upon for food and agriculture.

IPS: What prompted you to start collecting and tracking plants?

SLIMANE BEKKAY: What led me to date palms is their longevity and the importance that the Islamic religion bestows on the date palm. It appeared together with human beings on earth.

JOSE ESQUINAS-ALCAZAR: In the 1970s there was a tremendous amount of melon diversity in Spain. I wanted to prevent this abundance from being lost, together with traditional knowledge. When I started to collect seeds, I found 380 different varieties of melon; nowadays only 10 or 12 of them are available in the markets or cultivated at all.

PANAGIOTIS SAINATOUDIS: In January 1991 a friend asked me if I wanted to buy some seeds that he had brought from abroad. He said they came from a bank of seeds in the U.S. The parcel contained seeds and roots from various plants from all over the world; the most impressive was a variety of maize that was very colourful and was cultivated by Amerindians, a population that had almost disappeared!

The following year, I went home for the marriage of my brother. In a courtyard I saw a kontoroko black corn. I asked the owner, an old lady, for a few seeds. So I got this idea of asking people to share with me seeds from their own varieties. I collected seeds of maize, pumpkins, beans etc...From then on, wherever I went, I asked the local people which seeds they cultivate, and also how to cook and maintain them. In the beginning I did not realise their value. Only after many years I began to see their political, economic, social and cultural dimension.

IPS: What makes dates or melons special? Why should we all worry about their conservation?

SB: The date palm's specificity is that this plant is growing in warm places and its production is extremely healthy. Their diversity and conservation is important to us because of the significant number of date varieties and the continuous coming up of new varieties. We are not afraid of its disappearance because there are always new varieties. I think the date palm will only disappear with the Universe.

JES: Natural resources, and agricultural biodiversity in particular, are limited resources that we have inherited as a treasure from our parents and that we must transfer in their entirety to our children, so that they may deal with unforeseeable future environmental changes. Diversity is the basis of adaptation and we need it to meet the unpredictable environmental changes, including climate change. You can select only from diversity, not from uniformity. This is why agricultural diversity is so important.

When I was collecting melons, one of the places I visited was Las Hurdes (in Spain). While waiting for the bus, I met a farmer with a small donkey. I explained to him that I was collecting different melon varieties. He told me that he had a variety that when the rest died, remained alive, and that he could give me some seeds.

We rode on the little donkey for three-and-a-half hours. He gave me some seeds. When we analysed the seeds in the lab we discovered that they were resistant to certain diseases, including some rare ones, which was a big surprise. Nowadays, thanks to those seeds, this resistance has been introduced into many commercial varieties, both in Spain and abroad.

PS: Local varieties are living pieces of our culture, our history, our family. They fill our tables and our lives with colour and perfume, forms and flavours. They resist illnesses, and will continue giving us fruits. We can cut a beautiful red tomato, eat it, and then if we like it, keep its seeds for next year. We determine freely what we will put on our table and in our body. The seeds are food, and who controls the food has an enormous political and economic power. So, whoever keeps his own seeds is self-sufficient and keeps a piece of his freedom.

IPS: We have all heard about how a potato disease was the cause of the Great Famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. But what is the relationship between hunger and nutrition, and biological diversity?

SB: Biological diversity allows maintaining an important number of species and varieties, and this can guarantee that we have enough food and prevent famine.

JES: The potato grown throughout Europe was very homogeneous since it derived from the few samples that arrived in Spain from the 'New World'. In Ireland it soon became the basic staple of the country's diet, which leads us to an event that best exemplifies the importance of biodiversity.

When the phytosphora infestans fungus appeared in Europe it destroyed all the potato farms in Ireland and the rest of Europe, causing what became known as the 'European famine'. The famine caused the death in Ireland alone of between 1.5 and two million people. Many millions more had to migrate. This potato disease affected almost half the population.

The solution was then found in Latin America, where they were surprised to find potatoes of all colours: violet, blues, red, orange, yellow, shaped like a corkscrew, cylindrical, oval, etc. In this immense variety a large number of resistances are hidden, among them resistance to phytosphora infestans. Through crossbreeding the resistant plants with European commercial varieties, the resistant genes were introduced and the European problem was solved. Biodiversity is essential for buffering unexpected changes and to prevent future famines.

PS: What is it that saves people when an epidemic strikes? The fact that all humans are not the same. Exactly the same thing can save a plant population: diversity, or what scientists call a "large genetic base".

Modern varieties and hybrids have a limited genetic base. This is dangerous in case of an epidemic. For example, 30 percent of the wheat in the world comes from only one parent and 70 percent is derived from a total of six parents. During the 1970s in the U.S. an epidemic destroyed more than half the production of corn, which was all derived from the same hybrid. The solution was found in a little variety of corn in the region of Chiapas, Southern Mexico. The 'rich' U.S. survived with the help of the 'poor' farmers of Southern Mexico.

Today a great famine in the world could happen because there is a very poor genetic basis, and also because of the lack of genetic material.

IPS: What is the link between culture and biological diversity?

SB: Language is a means to study biological diversity as a science and a culture at the same time. The relation is interdependent.

JES: Genetic resources represent the identity of the people. Language is the instrument used for transmitting this identity and the traditional knowledge on the natural world that surrounds us. I am thinking for example of traditional medicines. Altogether, culture, language and genetic resources are the three pillars that define the identity of people.

PS: Where there are minorities there is also increasing biodiversity. The Greek immigrants of the 1960s and 1970s cultivated their own seeds from their villages in their new homelands. Today's refugees come from rural areas and preserve their own seeds, as a living memory of their homeland. Seeds are an essential part of culture and language, customs, cuisine and even clothes. Maintaining agricultural biodiversity is maintaining our historical memory. And this is important because people without history are a tree without roots.

*Miren Gutierrez is IPS Editor-in-Chief. (END/2009)

Source: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47256

Volunteer action-oriented network for the environment created in Romania

ROMANIA: Volunteers Promote Green Living
By Claudia Ciobanu*

Mai Mult Verde volunteers at work. Credit:Alexandra Radu/IPS.

BUCHAREST, Jun 17 (IPS/IFEJ) - A network of volunteers from Romania has managed to plant more than 100,000 trees and collect 70 tonnes of trash in just one year, filling in gaps in the working of state institutions, and showing that there is potential for civic engagement among Romanian youth.

Mai Mult Verde (More Green) is a small NGO that was set up in the spring of 2008 with the goal of creating a permanent network of volunteers who would help design and implement projects for cleaning up nature and providing education on the environment.

Over the past year, more than 8,000 people from all over the country have got involved in various projects of the group, showing that many young Romanians are ready to volunteer to do environmental work if the proper framework is made available.

The initial goal of Mai Mult Verde was to plant 10,000 trees and collect 20 tonnes of trash in a year. Their final results surpassed the most optimistic predictions.

"Judging by our interactions with the volunteers, it is clear that the idea that Romanians are passive and indifferent to the public good is an old prejudice with no basis in current reality," says Miruna Cugler, communications manager for the group.

The volunteers have been integrated in an online community, which allows them not only to take part in implementation of projects, but to have a say in their creation.

Dragos Bucurenci, president of Mai Mult Verde, says one of the main problems of NGOs in Romania is that they only include volunteers at the implementation stage. This approach restricts creative inputs from the grassroots, and prevents a deeper involvement of volunteers in tackling the social problems they care about.

The goal of the group is to form a network of 10,000 volunteers in five years, of which a quarter would stay constantly involved in its actions.

The focus of most Mai Mult Verde projects so far has been cleaning up the environment. Groups of volunteers have picked up trash left behind by people having barbeques in forests. Others have cleaned up garbage from rivers. Alongside trash collection, the group is promoting recycling.

At present, about 10 percent of waste is recycled in Romania, compared to 60 percent in Germany.

Companies involved in processing recycled materials say business is not profitable. "Unfortunately, Romanians recycle very little, it is not yet a part of their culture," says Octavian Burlacu, director of the waste management company Supercom in Bucharest. "It is difficult to keep our activities running because while the costs with equipment and personnel are high, we do not get enough material to process."

Mai Mult Verde runs ad campaigns asking people to recycle, and is calling for Romanians to write petitions to authorities asking for more facilities for separated collection to be made available across the country.

The group also plants trees. In collaboration with Romsilva, the national forest administration, volunteers from Mai Mult Verde have planted more than 100,000 trees in areas affected by deforestation around the country. Many of the zones targeted by the group have been repeatedly devastated by floods as a result of deforestation.

Romsilva provides land and saplings. "We are extremely glad to receive this un-hoped for help with planting from the volunteers," says Theodor Chiriac, Romsilva manager for the Bucharest region. "The work of the volunteers makes it possible for us to reach our reforestation targets."

"Whenever we get involved in planting trees, we sign an agreement with Romsilva that the plantations will be cared for and that the use of the land stays the same for the next 50 years," Miruna Cugler from Mai Mult Verde told IPS. "We also have agreements with the local municipalities where we plant, through which they commit to ensure the security of the plantations for the duration of their political mandates, of up to five years."

In addition to planting saplings in the areas affected by floods across the country, the group has planted 30,000 saplings over 12.5 hectares of land around the Bucharest bypass. The trees are meant to clean the air in what is one of the most polluted areas of Romania.

Much of the work of the group is to promote a cleaner and greener lifestyle among Romanians. One of their most successful initiatives is the opening of the first bike rental centre in the Romanian capital.

According to data provided by the group, people have moved for more than 4,600 hours on bicycles rented from Cicloteque since the centre opened in August 2008. Through the use of bikes in place of cars, the emission of 49 tonnes of carbon dioxide has been prevented, the group says.

The success of the group seems to derive from a combination of a new interest in the environment among Romanians, and some smart campaigning from the ten permanent employees and four office volunteers.

Funding for the group comes exclusively from private companies. Last year, the NGO had a budget of one million euros. But director Dragos Bucurenci says that this year's financing is barely at a third of the level of money received last year, because several companies have been hit by the financial crisis.

But the group's campaign still has high visibility through involvement of musicians, TV stars, politicians and journalists. The network of volunteers is still growing, and the group has just trained 100 young people to lead communities.

(*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS - Inter Press Service, and IFEJ - the International Federation of Environmental Journalists.) (END/2009)

Source: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47253

"End Hunger: Walk the World" mobilised people in 70 countries

 

DEVELOPMENT: Thousands March as Food Crisis Deepens
By Shari Nijman

Young people walk against hunger in New York City. Credit:Shari Nijman/IPS

NEW YORK, Jun 8 (IPS) - An estimated 300,000 people across the globe hit the streets Sunday to support the World Food Programme (WFP) and its mission to feed hungry schoolchildren and battle malnutrition worldwide.

"End Hunger: Walk the World" mobilised people in 70 countries, covering all 24 time zones. The event started in Sydney, Australia, where the famous Harbour Bridge was climbed by local celebrities, and ended 24 hours later on the Polynesian island of Samoa.

In New York City, some 700 people, dressed in white, blue and orange, turned out to support the WFP, which provides both emergency food aid and also works to help reach the longer-term U.N. Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of hungry people in the world by 2015.

"Food prices have gone up dramatically, and the global economic crisis is pushing more and more people into the vicious cycle of hunger," Karen Sendelback, president of the group Friends of World Food Programme, said at the rally.

Most of the world's hungry live in developing countries. According to the latest Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) 2008 statistics, there are 963 million hungry people in the world and 907 million of them are in developing countries. They are distributed like this: 565 million in Asia and the Pacific   230 million in Sub-Saharan Africa   58.4 million in Latin America and the Caribbean   41.6 million in the Near East and North Africa

Other factors driving world hunger are an increase in natural disasters such as floods, tropical storms and drought; armed conflict (since 1992, the proportion of short and long-term food crises attributable to human causes has more than doubled, from 15 percent to more than 35 percent); extreme poverty and inadequate agricultural infrastructure, such as roads, warehouses and irrigation; and the threats to farmland posed by erosion, salination and desertification.

According to the WFP, hunger and malnutrition remain the world's number one health risk, greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

"One in six people go to bed hungry every night," Bettina Luescher of the World Food Programme told IPS. '"People always think that hunger is such an overwhelming problem, that it can't be solved. But it takes only 25 cents a day to feed a child."

"In theory, we could feed every hungry schoolchild in the world for three billion dollars. And we know that it's possible," she added.

Children's early development is critical to their future. Economists estimate that every child whose physical and mental development is stunted by hunger and malnutrition stands to lose 5-10 percent in lifetime earnings.

The gathering in New York City was by no means the largest in the world. The most impressive numbers were seen in Africa, where 53,000 people walked in Malawi. In Tanzania, another 50,000 people walked the five kilometres for WFP.

"Every walk is five kilometres long," Berthilde Heijmeskamp of the global mail and express delivery company TNT told IPS. "This represents the average distance that poor schoolchildren walk every day from home to school to get education and meal."

In Kenya, the event started a day earlier, on Saturday, so its participants could attend mass on Sunday. The most famous walker in Nairobi was Paul Tergat who, as a little boy, received school feeding himself.

He walked many miles every day to get an education and a healthy meal. Eventually, he grew up to be one of the fastest marathon runners in the world, winning the New York Marathon and establishing multiple world records.

"This is a perfect example how a bit of food can help children realise their talent and passion," Luescher said.

'End Hunger: Walk the World' started in 2003 as an employee engagement initiative by WFP and TNT. That year, a relatively small number of people walked the five kilometres on the Great Wall of China.

In the next few years, the event grew so fast, that WFP decided to include two other corporate partners, Unilever and DSM, in the walk.

Unilever, one of the biggest suppliers of consumer goods in the world, joined WFP in 2007. They participated in the walk as part of their 'Together Child Vitality' programme.

"We use this walk to raise awareness among our employees and the rest of the world about child hunger and malnutrition," said Amanda Sourry, an executive vice president of Unilever.

The latest addition to the walk was DSM, a life sciences and materials sciences company, which joined for the first time this year.

"Giving children just any food isn't good enough. It has to have enough nutritional value to develop things like eyesight," Jim Hamilton, president of DSM Nutritional Products in New Jersey, explained to IPS.

DSM partners with WFP to create packages with micro-nutrients providing schoolchildren with the necessary vitamins to develop their bodies and skills.

"This is a good example of corporate responsibility - people in big corporations actually also enjoy inspirational stuff," Hamilton said.

(END/2009)

Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47135

 

 

 

Farmers take brunt of economic woes - suicides increase in India

The extreme class-society of India causes society to neglect the rights of its poorest citizens to earn a living.

 

INDIA: Farm Suicides Turn Children Into Farmers
By Jaideep Hardikar

Digambar Rathod with his mother, Sunita, elder sister Roshni (in yellow), and younger siblings Saroj and Mahesh (right foreground). His father committed suicide on Jan. 1. Credit:Jaideep Hardikar/IPS

YAVATMAL, India, Jun 10 (IPS) - Eleven-year-old Digambar Rathod looks older than his age. Shy and uncertain, he stares disconcertedly at the garlanded photograph of his father Jaideep, a 42-year-old cotton farmer who committed suicide on Jan. 1, 2009 in Tiwsala village, in eastern Maharashtra state's suicide-torn Yavatmal district.

As the new head of the household, the boy-turned-farmer has adult responsibilities like the repayment of a bank loan of 190,000 rupees (roughly 3,960 dollars) that was the cause of his father's death.

Digambar has dropped out of school, says his mother, Sunita, grief-stricken and burdened by the terrible tragedy the family has suffered. His older sister Roshni too has left school to take over the household work. The two younger children, a boy and a girl, are too young to work, says Roshni.

But everyone knows that it won't be long before all four Rathod children join the ranks of Vidarbha's baccha-kisans (child farmers). Here in six districts including Yavatmal, Wardha and Akola, thousands of cotton farmers have taken their lives due to mounting debts and a dramatic decline in farm incomes over the past decade or so, and their children have stepped into their shoes.

Daughter as 'Burden' In November 2005, a 17-year-old schoolgirl from an impoverished farm household in Aasra village, Maharashtra state, committed suicide. "If I don't my farmer father will (take his life)," Neeta Pudalikrao Bhopat wrote in her dying note. "My family can't make 1,000 rupees (roughly 20 dollars) a month. I have two younger sisters. My parents can't bear the burden of our marriages when we don't have enough to eat. So, I am ending my life." The inability to meet dowry demands is one of the many factors driving poor farmers to suicide, a study commissioned by Government of Maharashtra found in 2005. At that time, there were over 300,000 farm households with marriageable girls in the six worst affected districts of Vidarbha's cotton belt. The Institute of Health Management, Pachod (Aurangabad) found last year that the age of marriage of girls has fallen sharply in Maharashtra, particularly in the crisis-ravaged areas. Archana, 13, will be married off early, says her mother Annapurna Rameshwar Suroshe, a farm widow in Naheshwadi village of Yavatmal. The legal age of marriage is 18. Annapurna's two sons, Mangesh and Nakul, study in a boarding school in the nearby town of Umarkhed thanks to financial support from her brother. But she has not allowed her daughter to go away. "It is not safe for Archana to be on her own," she says. Saraswati Amberwar says one of the causes for her husband's suicide was worrying about where he would get the money to marry his four daughters off. Now their second daughter Jaishree blames herself for her father's death and is clinically depressed, according to doctors.

According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), 40,000 of the 184,000 farmers' suicides reported in India between 1995 and 2007 were from Maharashtra. Over 25,000 of the deaths in the state were registered after 2002.

Ganesh Diliprao Kale in Ralegaon village, Yavatmal, was barely 13 when he became the eldest male in both his own and his two uncles' families. Over a span of five years, between 2003 and 2008, his father's brothers and father were driven by debt to suicide.

"Ganesh cultivated our farm last season with little support from relatives," says his mother Shalini. Her school-going daughter, Ashwini, 11, assists them on the weekends. She's already taken over much of her mother's work in the house.

A few miles away, in Khadakdoh village, in south Yavatmal, Kavita Kudmethe and her two daughters, around 13 years of age, scrape a living as farm workers. Her husband killed himself in 2007, and his parents threw Kavita and her daughters out of the house.

She knows that had one of them been a son, the family would not have turned her out. Girls are considered a social burden in India. The tension of finding a groom for their daughters has emerged as a contributing cause to the spate of farmers' suicides, according to a 2005 study commissioned by the Maharashtra government.

Kavita hopes to marry her daughters off as soon as they turn 15 although the legal age of marriage for girls is 18. "That'll relieve me of my burden," she says. Farm suicides in Vidarbha have robbed so many children of their childhoods.

Swati Thote, 12, shoulders the responsibility of domestic chores and tending the livestock while her mother Sarla works on their 4-acre farm in Kosurla village, Wardha. Swati's cotton farmer father committed suicide in December 2005.

At 13, Roshani Shete takes care of her mother, Shobha in Pimpalkhuta village, Amravati district. Her landless father took his own life, having accumulated huge debts for a farm he had leased. The girl, a constant smile on her face, does most of the chores, and goes to school without fail. "She's become my mother," says Shobha.

But the smile may be hiding a deep emotional scar. Roshani has not slept soundly since her father's suicide in October 2008, her mother says. The father and daughter were very close. In fact, she is terrified to sleep in his room in their tiny mud hut, her mother reveals.

"These children are inheriting debt, distress and emotional upheavals," laments Vijay Jawandhia, a sexagenarian farmers' leader from Vidarbha. "The impact of the agrarian crisis on generations (within families) is terrible and has long-term consequences."

Dr Sujay Patil, a young psychiatrist in Akola has been offering free consultancy services to farmers showing signs of depression or mental illness from his home district of Akola. He says, "younger and younger farmers are turning up for medication as they are unable to cope with the pressures of agriculture and the new economic order."

According to Dr Shailesh Pangaonkar, a Nagpur-based child psychologist, "early maturing of children, who haven't had time to mourn the loss of their fathers, could lead to a subtle depression throughout their lives." He advises that such children need "education, cultural involvement and economic stability, for healthy growth …"

For most rural families, especially in Vidarbha, this is a distant dream. Cotton farmers have been acutely affected by soaring input prices, declining incomes, lack of irrigation, and volatile global prices, among other things.

"I simply can't support my daughters emotionally or feed them nutritious food," says Kavita, the dispossessed widow. "My daughters are as vulnerable to (sexual and physical) exploitation as I am," she adds in a resigned voice.

A random study of 20 children from suicide-affected households by this journalist in 2008 found them emotionally disturbed. While some were extremely aggressive, the others were very docile.

Saraswati Amberwar, in Telangtakli village of Yavatmal, says her second daughter, Jaishree has not recovered from the shock of her father's suicide 10 years ago. "She is on medication, and has become silent and submissive, as if she's dead from inside," she says.

In contrast, Prasheet Pethkar, 14, in Kurzadi village, Wardha district, spews abuse at his mother who he blames for the family's problems and his father's suicide.

"There should be government intervention," says Vilas Bhongade, a social worker and child rights campaigner in Vidarbha. "The impact of the farm crisis on children must be seen in the light of a child's right to survival, protection, development and participation."

"These children desperately need emotional support," adds Prabhakar Nakade, a school teacher in Wardha and member of the District English Language Teachers' Association (DELTA) which has experience with children from suicide-affected farm households.

"Though they work and support their families like adults, we must not forget they are just children," he pleads. (END/2009)

 

Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47158

Complete ban on alcohol: The only thing that could save their community from going under

 

 

Q&A: How an Alcohol Ban Revived an Aboriginal Community
Shari Nijman interviews JUNE OSCAR, CEO of Marninwarntikura Fitzroy Women's Resource Centre

June Oscar Credit:Shari Nijman/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, May 22 (IPS) - In 2007, a group of aboriginal women from Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia decided that the only thing that could save their community from going under was to impose a complete ban on the sales of takeaway alcohol.

In the previous year, the community had witnessed 13 suicides and many alcohol-related deaths, resulting into a funeral every week. By pushing for a drinking ban, the women of Fitzroy Crossing hoped that the crisis would be resolved and the aboriginal community would regain its strength.

This week, activist June Oscar and others screened 'Yajilarra', a documentary about the women of Fitzroy Crossing's quest to fight the drinking culture, at United Nations headquarters in New York.

Oscar and some 2,000 indigenous leaders from around the world are attending the eighth session of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues here from May 18-29.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

IPS: The women of Fitzroy Crossing have successfully pushed for a ban on the sale of hard takeaway liquor in your area. Do you think the drinking problem among aboriginals much larger than it is within non-aboriginal communities?

JUNE OSCAR: I think the problem is actually a lot larger in non-aboriginal communities. But we are a minority in our country and we are more visible. Just because we don't see the non-aboriginal people out in public drinking, I don't think non-aboriginal people are not drinking at high levels. Alcohol is not just an aboriginal problem; it's a problem in all societies.

We see a lot of non-aboriginal children drinking directly after they graduate from year 12. Also, we see a lot of drinking by people who aren't aboriginal, at sporting events and other events in the country.

The type of drinking that happens among many of our people is binge drinking. When the money comes in, large purchases [of alcohol] can be made and there is a lot of activity concerning alcohol.

There are, however, many people in our community that are very responsible when drinking, or who don't drink at all. But unfortunately, the ones that get highlighted are a small minority doing a lot of damage to their communities, their families and to themselves.

IPS: What kinds of changes have you witnessed in Fitzroy Crossing since the restrictions?

JO: We have seen many improvements and changes. But we've witnessed new challenges as well. There has been a decrease in [alcohol-related] patients at the emergency department of our hospital from about 85 percent to around 35 percent.

For the very first time in years, the professional staff at the hospitals consists of people with permanent positions, rather than emergency personal. Before, we couldn't get any hospital staff to stay and live in Fitzroy Crossing for longer than three months. Now, we have all our doctors positions filled and all our nurses positions filled.

We have seen an increase in school attendance. Furthermore, a lot more people have entered into employment, and people are generally looking a lot healthier. We witnessed people making better life choices and being a lot more responsible when they are using alcohol.

IPS Do you think a drinking ban should be implemented in the whole of Australia?

JO: I think there is a real opportunity here for some honest discussion about how alcohol is seen as part of the Australian culture. There is a need for a real discussion with the breweries, which profit from the production and the sale of alcohol. They have to be aware of the levels of damage that the governments of some communities have to pick up on.

You see it [alcohol] marketed to young people in a colourful and tasty manner. It's something that really concerns me. People who make alcohol and sell it are making it accepted to our young people. We see an industry that's growing and creating more profit, but at the other end of the spout that means more problems, more health issues and more family relationship issues.

Alcohol is a big issue for non-aboriginal people as well, especially around young people, in public places in the city. So we really need to have an honest discussion in Australia and I think the time is right.

IPS: Could the progress that has been made by the alcohol restrictions have been achieved in any other way, maybe without a complete ban?

JO: This is the way that we have chosen to deal with it, because the situation on the ground needed this level of intervention. The community needed drastic and decisive action. We had to justify and build a case to convince the director general of liquor licensing to impose this decision. I don't believe we could have achieved the same results in any other way. This is what we have done, and this is what we learned. This is just the beginning.

Because there is much suffering, and much loss and pain in these communities, the inconvenience for someone returning home at the end of the day and not be able to have his alcoholic beverage isn't that important. In the scheme of things, this is bigger than individuals. This is about a society of people surviving into the future. We are a minority people in our country and we need all of us to go forward.

IPS: Do you think the effects achieved in Fitzroy Crossing will inspire more communities in Australia to impose a drinking ban?

JO: I think so, because it is clearly demonstrated to the government that all these public funds are being spend mopping up after just one industry that is creating so many problems in many communities. The situation in Fitzroy Crossing has really shown that both costs and lives can be saved here.

 

Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46945

"Peace Builders" - an organisation comprising Jewish, Muslim, Christian and "even agnostic" women

FRANCE: Sharing a Recipe for Peace

By Alecia D. McKenzie

Baking together for peace. Credit:Ale McKenzie

PARIS, Jun 1 (IPS) - Fourteen women are gathered in a Jewish kosher bakery on a sunny afternoon in Creteil, a multi-ethnic commune southeast of Paris. Bent over bowls of flour, tubs of butter and cartons of eggs, the women share jokes and anecdotes, speaking in both French and Arabic, as they knead dough and crack eggs open.

The women are members of the Bâtisseuses de Paix, or the Peace Builders, an organisation that comprises Jewish, Muslim, Christian and "even agnostic" women, working to improve relations between the Jewish and Muslim communities in France amidst a growing number of anti-Semitic incidents.

They meet once a month at this bakery, Les Jardins de la Mediterrannee, located in a shopping centre flanked by beige and grey housing blocks. There they concoct pastries from Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Israel and other countries, in an activity that brings together individuals who might normally not meet, or even speak to one another.

"I love this rapprochement of people," says Julie Sultan, a Tunisian-born Jew who has lived in France 53 years. "No white, black, brown or any colour. Just a meeting of hearts. We are all sisters, and to tell the truth, I feel closer to Arab women than to French women."

Ouafa Kabsi, a Tunisian Muslim, says that for her, being a member of the group is a way to "open up" and to change preconceptions. "We're all human beings, we're all the same," she says.

Formed in 2002 by French Jewish journalist Annie-Paule Derczansky in response to acts of anti-Semitism in the suburbs around Paris, the Bâtisseuses say they have a core membership of some 60 women and see a further 300 to 400 each year at their various activities.

"Women are the backbone of Mediterranean families and the builders of the future," says Derczansky. "What we do is an example to children that happy co-existence is possible because we've seen many friendships develop between Muslim and Jewish women."

These sentiments contrast with the rise in ethnic tensions in France, home to the largest Jewish and Muslim populations in Western Europe (numbered at around 600,000 and five million respectively). Indeed, several high-profile cases involving both communities have hit the courts over the past month, leading to much discussion and soul-searching.

In the most disturbing case, a Frenchman of African origin, Youssouf Fofana, is on trial for the 2006 murder of a Jewish young man, Ilan Halimi. Also accused are 26 alleged accomplices of Fofana, including women and teenagers.

Halimi was kidnapped in January 2006, held for ransom, and tortured for three weeks in a cellar in the Paris suburb Bagneux before he was left handcuffed to a tree near a railway station. When police found him, he was in a state of shock, his body covered with burns and cuts. He died on way to hospital. Prosecutors say the perpetrators targeted Jews for ransom money.

The Bâtisseuses de Paix are now planning meetings to "allow people to comprehend what in the education of young people could have led them to commit such a crime," says Derczansky, who also acts as president of the group. "We don't want to explain or to excuse, but to try to understand."

Along with the bakery workshops, the group organises dinner meetings where diplomats, psychoanalysts and other experts are invited to give speeches. The Bâtisseuses also work with schoolchildren, taking them alternately to the Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute) and to the Musee d'art et d'histoire de Judaisme (Judaism Art and History Museum), both in Paris. "The idea is to show how much Jews and Muslims have in common," says Derczansky. Her hope is that if religious harmony can be fostered at a young age, there might be fewer cases of ethnic violence.

But the group has its work cut out for it in other ways. Although members make it a point to avoid discussing the political situation in the Middle East, events there can reignite simmering hatred. During the Israeli military campaign against Hamas in January of this year, some synagogues were attacked, and Jewish students were abused on the streets.

The Bâtisseuses suspended all meetings because "everybody was feeling too much pain," says Derczansky. She proposed a talking session, "like in psychoanalysis", but no one responded.

"Nobody got back to me," she recalls wryly. "But the important thing is that no one withdrew from the group."

The organisation is now busy with another of its projects: trying to get the Grande Mosquée of Paris to erect a plaque showing that Jewish adults and children were sheltered there during World War II before they made their escape to other countries.

The group has launched an appeal to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria (under whose authority the mosque falls) to open the historical archives on the role of the mosque during the German occupation of France.

"This would send such a strong symbolic message if people knew that Muslims were working to save Jewish people during World War II, while the French government was in collaboration with the Nazis," Derczansky says.

Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47048

Pakistan: One of the largest (2 mill.) and quickest displacements of people the world has ever seen

How Pakistanis' generosity is increasing poverty

03 Jun 2009

Written by: World Vision

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.

Photo by Chris Webster" src="http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/imagerepository/PKsisters193.jpg" name="mainimage" width="193" border="0" height="202">

Saima, 12, and 10-month-old sister Sana. Saima has walked 20km across mountains to escape fighting.
Photo by Chris Webster

By Chris Webster I am in Pakistan's northwest, where some of the poorest communities on earth are opening their doors to more than two million people fleeing fighting across Swat Valley. At times up to 100,000 have been uprooted each day, most of them taking refuge with extended family or local people desperate to help. And, as fighting goes on, the exodus continues. This is one of the largest and quickest displacements of people the world has ever seen. Only we haven't really seen it. More than two million people are out of sight, absorbed into homes with up to 25 people in one room. Many are suffering under 40 degree heat with no access to clean water, shelter, food or healthcare. The numbers are so hard to comprehend that part of me dismissed it. Another part of me was afraid to comprehend it. It is impossible to dismiss the children and families I met. "It was scary when we ran," says 12-year-old Saima. "It was like my heart was beating in my feet. There was a time I couldn't go another inch because of ulcers under my feet ... but the fear kept us going somehow." Saima and more than 30 members of her family and relatives walked 20 kilometers across rugged mountain paths leading away from the frontlines. They were eventually collected by a truck and taken to a village in Buner where they found refuge in the home of Rizwan Ali, a complete stranger. Rizwan Ali's daughter-in-law died in child-birth so he now looks after the new-born boy as well as Saima and her family and relatives. Rizwan, 59, has already sold a portion of his land in order to afford the increased burden on his finances. He even paid for the truck to rescue them. As a result of sharing everything, Rizwan now fears he and his family may soon face extreme poverty, or even displacement. "I'm exhausted," he says. "We have to play so many roles, host, provider, security, breadwinner." Families taking in hundreds of thousands now face a desperate situation where their hospitality puts their own livelihoods and survival on the brink. Or they have to ask their guests to leave. "It will be easier to die than to ask displaced people to leave our homes," says Rizwan. This is the generosity of hosts here in Pakistan. A cultural and deeply rooted code that means you share everything you have with those in need, whoever they are. I think I had romanticised this ideal before I saw it for myself in Pakistan's northwest villages. This is hospitality that hurts. It is gritty, sacrificial and hard. It is etched in the faces of those we meet. The root of the word 'compassion' means to 'suffer with'. Pakistan's hosts are truly suffering with those displaced. They are enduring daily turmoil as their assets are sold at a reduced price. They are giving out of their impoverishment. If we only give of our excess we will not know what it is to suffer with, or to show compassion. I think compassion fatigue is a condition only the wealthy can afford to suffer. World Vision is in Pakistan and is reaching out to hosts and those displaced in the region. But it is not enough. If we are not able to do more for Pakistan's displaced millions, the hosts look set to join them. The world is going through a monumental economic downturn; our means to give financially are dwindling. Yet we must all shoulder the burden, the international community must fully fund the appeals. Could we too consider the example of Pakistan's hosts and other poor communities on the frontline against poverty? Let's share some of their compassion.

Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.

Source: http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/53806/2009/05/3-110423-1.htm?refer=wd20090603

Saudi ties to Taliban a factor in destabilization of Pakistan, Afghanistan

US looks for Saudi help in Afghanistan, Pakistan

3 June 2009

AP – FILE - In this December 16, 2007 file photo, Muslims pilgrims walk outside of the Grand mosque in Mecca, …

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By SEBASTIAN ABBOT, Associated Press Writer Sebastian Abbot, Associated Press Writer –

KABUL – The United States, grappling with how to counter the spread of Taliban militants on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, is turning to Saudi Arabia for help. But so far the kingdom seems wary of diving into the thorny conflict.

Pakistan will be on the agenda when President Barack Obama meets with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh on Wednesday, according to Mark Lippert, deputy national security adviser.

Obama's defense secretary, Robert Gates, has already asked the Saudis for help in staving off the spread of militants in Pakistan and encouraging Pakistani officials to work together in countering the terrorist threat.

"Saudi Arabia clearly has a lot of influence throughout the entire region, and a long-standing and close relationship with Pakistan," Gates said after a visit to the kingdom last month.

Many experts say the Sunni Arab powerhouse could be crucial in mediating some form of reconciliation with the Islamic extremists wreaking havoc in both countries. Saudi Arabia could also help cut off large sums of money that flow to militants from wealthy Saudi donors and Islamic charities.

Saudi Arabia has historical ties with the Taliban. The kingdom and Pakistan worked together to facilitate the rise of the radical Islamic movement in the 1990s and they, along with the United Arab Emirates, were the only countries to recognize Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Saudi relations with Pakistan are equally deep. Riyadh and Washington worked through Pakistan's intelligence services to provide money and weapons for Islamic fighters battling the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Saudi Arabia also holds a special religious status as the land of Islam's two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly asked Saudi Arabia to mediate between his government and the Taliban.

Still, the kingdom is reluctant to take an overt mediation role unless all sides are clearly ready to make peace, said Ali Awadh Asseri, the former Saudi ambassador to Pakistan, who left his post in May.

Saudi Arabia learned from its experience in the 1990s after the Soviets left Afghanistan, he said. At the time, the kingdom invited the warring Afghan factions to Mecca and brokered a peace deal, but they returned home and resumed fighting.

"So we will only be involved when there is absolute commitment by all factions," he said. "We're not going to jump in."

But that doesn't mean the Saudi role has been nonexistent. It has always preferred to work through secret back channels rather than public diplomacy, and its approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan has been no different.

Abdullah held a secret meeting with Afghan officials and former Taliban government members in Mecca last September to explore the possibility of mediating reconciliation talks, said Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, who attended the meeting.

Saudi Arabia has contact with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and other militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban deputy higher education minister, who also attended.

"If Saudi Arabia can't convince the Taliban to negotiate, nobody can," said Rahmani.

But many experts believe the Taliban won't be ready to strike a deal that is acceptable to Afghanistan, Pakistan and their allies until they lose momentum on the battlefield.

"I believe as long as a range of militant groups believe they are powerful and feel they can spread influence, they are not going to want to reconcile," said Seth Jones, an expert on Afghanistan and Pakistan at the RAND Corporation.

The Obama administration has indicated a willingness to reconcile with more moderate members of the Taliban. It also hopes the thousands of additional troops it is sending to Afghanistan this year and the recent Pakistani military operation in the country's northwest will help reverse militant gains.

But there are limits to the effectiveness of Saudi mediation.

Steve Coll, an expert on Afghanistan and Pakistan who heads the New America Foundation, pointed out that the Saudis were unable to convince the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s.

"The Saudis have attempted over the years a number of mediations of this character because of their religious prestige," said Coll. "But the agreements in Mecca tend not to stick when the parties get back home, and the Taliban in particular have proved intractable in Saudi mediation."

The Saudis could be better help in policing the large sums of money that flow into the countries, especially Pakistan, from wealthy donors and Islamic charities in the kingdom, said Daniel Markey, an Afghanistan and Pakistan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Saudis have insisted they are doing all they can to rein in terror financing. Many experts believe they could do more but say the Saudis are wary about angering religious conservatives in the country who are key government supporters.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090603/ap_on_re_as/as_saudi_afghanistan_pakistan

Uzbekistan: Child labor widespread despite government ban

OneWorld reports.

In Brief: Child Labor in Uzbekistan Cotton Fields

June 1, 2009

OneWorld US, OneWorld UK, Environmental Justice Foundation, EurasiaNet.org

WASHINGTON, May 29 (OneWorld.net) - State-sponsored child labor in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan remains widespread, despite a government ban enacted last year in response to international criticism.

Cotton growing in a field near Samarkand, Uzbekistan. © AudreyH (flickr)» Seeds of Child Labor Lie Deep in Uzbek Cotton Industry
from EurasiaNet.org

OneWorld.net's editors also suggest:

» Report: "Still in the Fields"
from the Environmental Justice Foundation

» Child Labor Topic Guide
from OneWorld UK

Pakistani Girl Calls for Peace - 1.2 million displaced in Northwest

Two articles from Oneworld.net reporting from war-torn northwestern Pakistan.

In Brief: Humanitarian Updates from Pakistan

May 27, 2009

OneWorld US, International Rescue Committee, Human Rights Watch, IRIN, Save the Children

WASHINGTON, May 27 (OneWorld.net) - As the conflict in northwestern Pakistan continues, humanitarian groups are reporting on rising numbers of uprooted people, 1.2 million vulnerable children, severe shortages of food, water, and services, lack of medical care for displaced pregnant women, and trapped civilians, some by Taliban landmines.

» People uprooted by the conflict in Pakistan. © bbcworldservice (flickr) Number of Displaced Pakistanis Grows as Does Need for Water, Food, and Services
from the International Rescue Committee

OneWorld.net's editors also suggest:

» Save the Children Assists Displaced Children in Pakistan
from Save the Children

» Pregnant Displaced Women Lack Facilities, Skilled Medics
from IRIN

» Fear Amid Reports of Landmine-Laying in Mingora
from IRIN

» Pakistan: Lift Swat Curfew for Trapped Civilians
from Human Rights Watch 

A Pakistani Girl's Call for Peace

May 27, 2009

Oxfam America, OneWorld US, International Rescue Committee, Inter Press Service, ActionAid, Human Rights Watch , Islamic Relief Worldwide, Refugees International, United Nations News Center

WASHINGTON, May 26 (OneWorld.net) – Prevented from attending school due to ongoing violence in northwest Pakistan, 11-year-old Malalay speaks out about peace and her right to an education.

What's the Story?

Pakistan children refugees ©  bartdegoeij (flickr)

"I represent Swat, the Switzerland of the East, which, was once so beautiful, so peaceful and so full of life has now become a valley of violence, bloodshed, and denial of respect for humanity and values," said Malalay, speaking on behalf of her classmates at a peace conference organized by the international poverty alleviation group ActionAid and its local partner Citizen Rights and Sustainable Development. "O' the protector of human rights and justice, Come out! Stand by us! Give my books back! Give my pen back!" reads a poem Malalay wrote and used to address local elders.

Due to recent violence in northwest Pakistan, including Malalay's native Swat valley, hundreds of schools have been burned down. In addition, millions of people have been forced to flee the ongoing conflict between the Taliban and Pakistani military. Together, these factors are "causing girls to lose their right to an education," says ActionAid. (See the organization's full statement below.)

Pakistani Civilians Fleeing

The number of people fleeing and seeking to flee their homes in northwest Pakistan has spiked since a massive operation by the Pakistani military was launched on May 5 "to flush out Islamic fighters in Buner, Swat, and some areas in the nearby Dir district," according to the humanitarian news agency Inter Press Service.

People have been walking great distances in search of food, water, shelter, and medicine, reports Oxfam America. The aid organization has had to double its efforts as the total number of people seeking refuge from the violence recently passed 2 million, "making the crisis the greatest internal displacement of people in the country's history."

"Of the nearly 1.5 million people that have fled [the most recent bouts of conflict] so far, some 131,000 people are staying in camps, with more than 1.3 million staying in private accommodation, with host families or friends, and some in schools," notes the United Nations (UN) News Center. 

The influx is putting extreme pressure on existing resources and the UN refugee agency has said it is crucial to establish new camps for those affected.

Some Still Trapped In Conflict Zone

While over a million civilians have escaped the fighting, hundreds of thousands remain trapped in the conflict zone, where "severe shortages of food, water, and medicine are creating a major humanitarian crisis," says Human Rights Watch.

Calling on Pakistani authorities to lift a 24-hour curfew on certain provinces, including Swat, the international monitor adds it has received "persistent reports of ongoing civilian casualties from Pakistani artillery shelling and aerial bombardment as desperate civilians break the curfew in search of food and water or to flee hostilities."

"Pakistani armed forces and Taliban militants should take all necessary precautions to avoid civilian casualties in fighting in Pakistan's volatile Swat valley and adjoining areas of the North West Frontier Province," appealed HRW amid earlier reports that the Taliban is preventing civilians from leaving the combat areas and using them as human shields.

"Hundreds of thousands of people are still trapped," said the International Rescue Committee (IRC), calling for "a humanitarian corridor so people can flee to safety and vital aid can be delivered."

U.S. Response

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced last week plans to send $110 million in aid to displaced Pakistanis, reports Refugees International (RI).

While the funds will help aid agencies respond quickly to the current situation, RI expressed concern that the funding is "insufficient compared to the scale of the crisis." Says RI Advocate Patrick Duplat: "the U.S. must provide many more resources" to support and protect Pakistanis forced to flee their homes.

Background: Repression and Conflict in Northwest Pakistan

"Since 2007, the Taliban have imposed their authority in Swat and adjoining areas through summary executions -- including beheadings -- of state officials and political opponents, public whippings, and large-scale intimidation of the population," writes HRW. "Girls' schools have been shut down, women have not been allowed to leave their homes unless escorted by male family members, polio immunization programs were halted, and nongovernmental organizations were expelled."

In early April, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari signed a peace accord increasing the Taliban's control over numerous districts within the NWFP and allowing them to establish their version of Islamic law in Swat in exchange for laying down their arms.

Two weeks ago, however, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani "declared an end to the peace deal with the Taliban, citing multiple violations of the deal by the Taliban and vowing to 'eliminate them,'" explains HRW.

Take Action

The U.S.-based group Islamic Relief Worldwide launched an initial $750,000 emergency appeal to assist the nearly 2 million people affected by the violence and growing humanitarian crisis in Pakistan. "Assistance will include the provision of emergency aid such as blankets, clothing and cooking sets, supplies of clean water, and psychosocial support for traumatized children," writes the organization. Click here to read more and get involved.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Malalay: A Pakistani Girl Speaks Out in Swat

From: ActionAid

Ongoing war in Swat displaced more than 1 million people in the past six weeks. Families are forced from their homes due to the conflict. And when they leave, they lose much more than the roof over their head. They lose their ability to make a living, access to food and other assets they might have stored, and the ability to predict what tomorrow might hold for their children.

This violence and the increasing pressure brought to bear by the Taliban and other extremists in Swat is causing girls to lose their right to an education. Hundreds of schools were burnt down in the recent violence. The war is taking shape as a war on female education. In the face of this, Malalay, an 11-year-old girl from Swat - and a gifted student - speaks out.

"I represent Swat, the Switzerland of the East, which, was once so beautiful, so peaceful and so full of life has now become a valley of violence, bloodshed and denial of respect for humanity and values," says Malalay. "My valley is turning into ruins and my school is threatened to be turned into ashes."

ActionAid in collaboration with Citizen Rights and Sustainable Development (CRSD) organized a peace conference with community groups from Swat and other conflict-prone areas in Pakistan to discuss and highlight the effects of extremism and the on-going war on terror. Malalay spoke on behalf of her classmates as this conference.

Fhaheen Bibi, 25, stands outside a temporary shelter with a baby.
Copyright © Warrick Page/ Panos Pictures/ ActionAid

Malalay whose name is derived from a heroic folk lore character, gave moving account of her life as a girl in Swat. She shared her fears and concerns about the future which seem to hold nothing but bleakness. She explained that her community has complied with all the Taliban's orders but they still continue to harrass the community.

"Every child of my age in the area is terrified. We are not allowed to go to schools, when they asked us not to go to schools, we stopped going there," she added. "Yet, they torched our schools. We couldn't go out to play."

"I want to become a doctor. I want to tell all the extremist elements that if they deny female education, where would they send their own daughters for medical treatment," Malalay said.

Malalay is also fearful for her teachers who are threatened everyday by these militant elements.

"My teachers have dedicated themselves for the mission of imparting education and yet, these forces have threatened to kill them and forced them to stay at home," she added

"My school has 62 teachers and around 700 children are studying in the school and it's been weeks that no educational activity has taken place in our schools. I won a quiz competition on my last day at school and I was so happy that I beat all the other students of my age, but now I dread that I would never be able to go to school, participate in quizzes and win prizes for my abilities," Malalay said, with tears in her eyes.

Malalay is a very intelligent girl and has a very good understanding of what is happening in her community. Her love for her homeland and her anguish on the current situation is very obvious from this poem, which she wrote herself to address elders and the people in power.

Education is my basic right

My books have been burnt

My pen has been broken

My school has been torched

O' the protector of human rights and justice,

Come out! Stand by us!

Give my books back!

Give my pen back!

I am the daughter of the Eve!

I'm a mother, I' m a sister, I' m a daughter...

I am an honorable part of this global village...

Is there anyone to hear my voice, to hear Swat??

Help us and protect us!

Malalay inspires people with her conviction, from the originality of thoughts. Her words are source of strength, encouragement and hope. She vows to continue speaking out against the violation of girls' rights, especially their right to education, as she believes education is the only way to prosperity and better future.

Please join ActionAid as it assesses the current situation for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing northwest Pakistan due to a recent rash of violence between the government and Taliban forces.

OneWorld TV: Humanitarian Crisis in Pakistan's Camps

Cattle raised for beef a factor in clearing Amazon forest

Amazon rainforests pay the price as demand for beef soars

Inquiry highlights concerns over ranching in heartland of Brazil

A three-year survey by Greenpeace shows that western demand for beef and leather and an increase in cattle ranching is leading to intensified deforestation in the Amazon. Source: guardian.co.uk Link to this video

Four-year old Daniel Santos da Silva and his older brother Diego Mota dos Santos, 10, heard their first gunshots in April. Their father was shot in a dispute over land on a cattle ranch near the Brazilian town of El Dorado, in the Amazonian state of Para. The boys heard he was taken to hospital, but they have not seen him since.

The ranch is called Espirito Santo, holy spirit, though goodwill to all men is hard to find there. Heavily armed guards protect the thousands of cattle that roam its lush pastures and the hacienda-style complex built on a hill at the farm's centre, complete with swimming pool.

Daniel and Diego live on the muddy fringe of the farm in a hastily erected collection of palm frond-roofed huts to shield them and a hundred-odd other families from regular tropical downpours. They are squatters, but squatters rights are rarely observed in Para.

Espirito Santo and thousands of farms like it raise cattle on Amazonian pasture that was once rainforest. The farms are huge, and so is their impact. The cattle business is expanding rapidly in the Amazon, and now poses the biggest threat to the 80% of the original forest that still stands. Where loggers have made inroads to the edge of the forest in the states of Para and Mato Grosso, farmers have followed.

A report today from Greenpeace details a three-year investigation into these cattle farms and the global trade in their products, many of which end up on sale in Britain and Europe. Meat from the cattle is canned, packaged and processed into convenience foods. Hides become leather for shoes and trainers. Fat stripped from the carcasses is rendered and used to make toothpaste, face creams and soap. Gelatin squeezed from bones, intestines and ligaments thickens yoghurt and makes chewy sweets.

Greenpeace says it has lifted the lid on this trade to expose the "laundering" of cattle raised on illegally deforested land.

The environment campaign group wants Brazilian companies that buy cattle to boycott farms that have chopped down forest after an agreed date. To get the industry onside, it is seeking pressure from multinational brands that source their products in Brazil, and, ultimately, from their customers. Three years ago, a similar exposure of the trade in illegally grown Brazilian soya brought a rapid response from the industry, and a moratorium on soya from newly ­deforested farms that still holds.

Last month, the Guardian joined Greenpeace on an undercover visit to the cattle farming heartland around the town of Maraba, deep inside the Amazon region. While saving the rainforest is a fashionable cause in faraway developed countries such as Britain, in Maraba it is a provocative and even ­dangerous ideal.

Many people in Maraba work at the slaughterhouse perched on a hill that overlooks the town. The facility is owned by the Brazilian firm Bertin, one of the companies targeted by Greenpeace for buying cattle from farms linked to illegal deforestation. After slaughter, Greenpeace says Bertin ships the meat, hides and other products to an export facility in Lins, near Sao Paolo. From there, they are shipped all over the world. The firm is Brazil's second largest beef exporter and the largest leather exporter. It is also the country's largest supplier of rawhide dog chews.

Bertin denies taking cattle from Amazon farms associated with deforestation. The company says it "makes permanent investments in initiatives that minimise impacts resulting from its activities" and that it seeks "to be a reference in the sector". It says it has already blacklisted 138 suppliers for "irregularities".

Brazilian government records obtained by Greenpeace show that 76 cattle were shipped to the Bertin slaughterhouse in Maraba from Espirito Santo farm in May 2008. Another 380 were received in January this year.

Standing on Espirito Santo's shady veranda, Oscar Bollir, the farm manager, insists they do nothing wrong.

Under Brazilian law, such farms inside the Amazon region must retain 80% of the original forest within their legal boundary. So why is there pasture for as far as the eye can see? The farm is very big, Bollir says, and most of the required forest is on the other side of some low-slung hills in the distance.

The squatters on the farm, part of a political movement to settle landless people on illegally snatched farmland, are troublemakers, he says. "They don't want land they just want trouble. They want to take all the farms." Earlier that day, he says, he and his men had been forced to visit a neighbouring farm where squatters had killed cattle. Unlike the previous incident on Espirito Santo, when Daniel and Diego's father was shot alongside several others, Bollir says, this time there had been no trouble.

He adds that he is aware of environmental concerns, but that his priority is to produce food and jobs. "Why are these other countries looking at Brazil and telling us what to do?"

The next day, Greenpeace investigators flew over Espirito Santo – the group has a single-engined plane donated by an anonymous British benefactor. Bollir's promised bonanza of forest was not there. GPS data combined with satellite images show that just 20% to 30% of the farm is forested. A local lawyer also reported that during the nearby dispute over the killed cattle, three squatters had been shot and injured.

The Greenpeace report identifies dozens of farms like Espirito Santo that it says break the rules across Para and Mato Grosso to supply Bertin and other slaughter companies. Campaigners say there are probably hundreds or even thousands more.

Cheap pasture from clearing and seeding rainforest is very attractive to farmers without easy access to the expensive agrichemicals and intensive land management techniques used in more developed countries. Within a few years, the planted pasture becomes overrun with native grass, unsuitable for cattle. Many farmers then take the cheap option and knock down adjoining forest to start again, leaving swaths of unproductive deforested land in their wake.

Andre Muggiati, a campaigner with Greenpeace Brazil based in the Amazon town of Manaus, says efforts to protect the forest in frontier regions such as Para are crippled by a lack of effective governance. Government inspections are inadequate and many farms are not even registered so checks cannot be carried out. Casual violence and intimidation are common. "It's totally unregulated and many people behave as if the law does not apply to them. It's like the old US wild west," he says.

Illegal deforestation is not the only problem: farms are regularly exposed as using slave labour, and, like many tropical forest regions, there are regular and violent clashes over land ownership.

The problem is clear a three-hour flight across the patchy forest from Maraba, where a clearing on the side of the river is home to a few hundred Parakana people, a tribe with no contact with the outside world until 1985.

Greenpeace can only reach the village because its plane is equipped to land on the sluggish water, but cattle farmers are steadily intruding. Hundreds of farms have been set up in the surrounding reserve, and they are not welcome.

"Since the invaders arrived there have been many problems," says Itanya, the village chief. Food is harder to find, he says, and discontent is growing. "If the government don't find a solution we will solve it ourselves. We know how to make poison arrows and we are ready to kill people." It is not an idle threat: in 2003 the bodies of three farmers were discovered in the jungle not far from the village. Itanya says it was the work of a neighbouring group.

"We asked them many times to stay away," Kokoa, the chief of the neighbouring group, told the Guardian through an interpreter. "They wouldn't, so one time we said to them that you will never go back and you will stay here forever. We killed them. We are proud that we defended our land."

Food for thought

How much of the Amazon rainforest has been lost and how quickly?

Since the 1970s, when satellite mapping of the region became available, around a fifth of the rainforest has been destroyed, an area the size of California. Greenpeace US estimates that, between 2007 and 2008, another 3m acres (1.2m hectares) have been destroyed.

What is driving the destruction?

Logging, cattle farming and soy plantations are key, plus the increased construction of dams and road, and shifting patterns of farming for local people and mining (for diamonds, bauxite, manganese, iron, tin, copper, lead and gold). These factors are often interlinked – trees are cut down for timber and the cleared land can be used for grazing cattle. Soybeans are then cultivated on the same land. Land is also cleared for biofuel crops. According to Greenpeace, around 80% of the area deforested in Brazil is now cattle pasture. Brazil's biggest export markets for beef are Europe, the Middle East and Russia. Friends of the Earth Brazil estimate that cattle farming in Brazil has been responsible for 9bn-12bn tonnes of CO² emissions in the past decade, almost equivalent to two years worth from the US. Infrastructure projects such as hydroelectric dams also threaten the forests because they cause large areas to be flooded. Currently, the biggest planned project is the Tocantins River basin hydroelectric dam, the effects of which stretch over a distance of 1,200 miles.

Why are cattle a particular problem?

In 2006, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation found that the livestock industry, from farm to fork, was responsible for 18% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, livestock-rearing can use up to 200 times more water a kilogram of meat compared to a kilo of grain. Furthermore, global meat consumption is on the rise, having increased by more than two and half times since 1970.

Who is trying to stop the destruction?

At this year's climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, governments will consider the "Redd" mechanism. This is the idea that richer countries could offset their carbon emissions by paying to maintain forests in tropical regions. The idea has roots in the 2006 review of the economics of climate change by Nicholas Stern, who said £2.5bn a year could be enough to prevent deforestation in the eight most important countries. But Friends of the Earth says the proposals seem to be aimed at setting up a way to profit from forests, rather than stop climate change, and fail to protect the rights of those living in the forests.

In 2007, Greenpeace also came up with a plan to stop deforestation in the Amazon by 2015. It included creating financial incentives to promote forest protection; and increased support for agencies to monitor, control, and inspect commercial activities. So far, only some of these proposals have been taken up by the Brazilian government. Alok Jha

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/31/cattle-trade-brazil-greenpeace-amazon-deforestation