Central African Republic President François Bozizé (in suit) was ousted by a rebel coup on Mar. 24. Credit: Kayikwamba/CC by 2.0

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Mar 27 2013 (IPS)

Despite assurances by the leader of the Séléka rebel alliance, self-proclaimed president of the Central African Republic Michel Djotodia, that a “red brigade” would be established to stop the looting and violence that has ensued since Sunday’s coup, citizens do not feel security has been restored.

“We are not safe, even though the rebels have imposed a curfew in Bangui. There is shooting everywhere, which scares us and the children,” Bibi Menbgi, a mother living in the capital Bangui, where electricity and water cuts have persisted since Sunday Mar. 24, told IPS.

“There are fewer armed youths firing in the air and looting, but tensions are still high. (Former President François) Bozizé had been distributing arms to groups of young men,” John Mourassen, a Bangui-based journalist, told IPS.

Djotodia suspended the country’s constitution, government and parliament on Sunday. The African Union condemned the coup d’état and suspended CAR from the regional organisation, issuing a travel ban and an asset freeze against the seven Séléka leaders, including Djotodia. The United Nations Security Council also condemned the suspension of CAR institutions and called for the reinstatement of constitutional rule.

In his first official statement, on Mar. 25 in the CAR capital Bangui, Djotodia indicated that he would implement the Libreville Agreement, a peace accord signed in January between Séléka and Bozizé’s government.

Séléka, a coalition of rebel groups, had launched an offensive against Bozizé’s rule last December.

Djotodia undertook to retain Nicolas Tiangaye, the prime minister of the government of national unity, to set up a new cabinet. The new president also said that he would organise elections within the next three years.

Contrary to Djodotia’s assurances, the Libreville Agreement provided for parliamentary elections in 2014, and a presidential election in 2016 at the end of Bozizé’s second term. The agreement also stipulates that the current leaders of the transition — the president and the ministers — would not stand for election. There are questions as to whether the rebels will respect this clause.

According to Jean Kinga, a lawyer in Brazzaville, the self-proclaimed CAR president is likely to resort to extrajudicial action. “He has suspended all the legislative and judicial institutions, so he has the freedom to do as he likes. There might be reprisals against members of the old regime,” he told IPS.

To gain people’s confidence Djotodia needs to bring all parties together, “particularly the Bozizé camp and the political opposition,” said Mourassen.

Over the weekend, the situation in Bangui escalated after Séléka rebels decided to seize the capital as the Central African Multinational Force, known by its French acronym FOMAC, stood by.

The Central African Multinational Force, which is under the command of Congolese General Guy Pierre Garcia, did not engage in any fighting during the capture of Bangui. Indeed, FOMAC forces are said to have been shot at by the CAR army, which is loyal to Bozizé, who fled Bangui on Mar. 24 for Cameroon. It is reported that his family members took refuge in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Since May 2012, relations between Bozizé and the sitting chair of the Economic Community of Central African States, Chadian President Idriss Deby, cooled after Bozizé rejected his advice to engage in dialogue with his opponents. The 500 Chadian soldiers who made up Bozizé’s closest forces left CAR in October 2012 after he accused them of committing atrocities.

Bozizé was left high and dry by other heads of state in the Central African region in retaliation for ignoring their advice and seeking military protection from South Africa instead.

South African army forces deployed in CAR to protect Bozizé lost at least 13 men in the fighting. South African President Jacob Zuma confirmed the deaths.

Djotodia accused Bozizé of becoming increasingly authoritarian, and of reneging on the Libreville Agreements sponsored by the President of Congo-Brazzaville Denis Sassou Nguesso, the mediator in the CAR crisis.

At the time of writing, the government of Congo-Brazzaville had not made any comment on the coup d’état. However, sources close to the presidency in Brazzaville declared that Bozizé “had violated the Libreville Agreements and consequently lost the trust of President Sassou Nguesso. He no longer deserved support.”

Jonas Mokpendiali, a Central African resident in Bangui since 2003, said that he is concerned about the future of his country. “Nothing seems to change. (Jean-Bédel) Bokassa was ousted, Andre Koligba was ousted, (Ange-Félix) Patassé was ousted and now it’s the turn of Bozizé, who thought he was the master of Bangui with his brutal dictatorship,” he told IPS.

Gabriel Mialoundama, a sociologist at the University of Brazzaville, considers the events in Bangui to be the latest in a long-standing crisis. “From the time he came to power, Francois Bozizé has failed to unite the people. His approach was to exclude his opponents, particularly President Ange-Félix Patassé who died (in 2011) because of his ineptitude. He wasn’t a strong leader,” he told IPS.

“If Djotodia works hard to bring in a new constitution and put the CAR’s house in order by organising elections where he is not a candidate, he will have done the CAR a great service,” Mialoundama added with optimism.

But the academic doubts that the new leader will have a free hand.

“CAR is in the grip of Congo (Brazzaville) and Chad, who are believed to have supported rebels with the blessing of Sassou Nguesso. As they did with Bozizé, Deby and Sassou will maintain their hold on Bangui; Djotodia will be their puppet,” he said.

Three weeks after the new school year began in Brazzaville, many students in the capital of the Republic of the Congo have yet to attend a single class. The city is still trying to recover from a huge explosion at an arms dump in March. “I still haven’t gone back to school,” said 13-year-old Judicaëlle. Her family is among more than a hundred still living in tents at the Félix Eboué emergency shelter.

“My parents died in the explosions,” she told IPS, “and my aunt still hasn’t received the payment of three million CFA francs (around 6,000 dollars) that the government is giving each affected family.”

The Mar. 4 explosion at an ammunition depot at the Mpila army base in the eastern part of the Congolese capital killed 280 people, according to official figures, with 1,500 seriously injured and thousands more left homeless.

Nancy, 18, is among another group of victims of the blast who have been housed at the Marchand Stadium. She has also dropped out of school.

“There are 20 students here, but we don’t know how to go back to class. Our parents are already struggling just to feed us, and when we ask them about school, they won’t even look at us,” she told IPS.

Among those living at the stadium are people waiting to receive the 6,000 dollar grant the government announced it would pay to each family affected by the disaster. This has left them in a vulnerable position.

“The explosions put me out of work, and my wife saw all her merchandise smashed. No one has come to help us,” said Michel Bobenda, a carpenter whose workshop was destroyed by the blast. “How can we cover the cost of school for the children?”

The United Nations Children’s Fund handed out 400 back-to-school kits at the Cité des 17 shelter. But not all the students who got them are satisfied.

“I’m in high school, and UNICEF is giving out little notebooks meant for preschool and primary. I don’t know what to do,” said Jonas Doungou, who was only able to register for classes at a technical school thanks to a good samaritan. “What’s more, to get from here to school costs me at last 900 CFA (around two dollars) a day for transport. Where will I find that?”

Dozens of other students from the 5 Février Technical School face the same problem. They’ve all been transferred to the 1 Mai school downtown.

“Transport is a problem,” said Juste Iniambe, a first year student, “but the government isn’t doing anything. It’s crazy!”

A total of 22,000 children, from preschool through high school, were affected by the Mpila disaster. The government agreed to pay a monthly transport allowance of 20 dollars per student, but this has proved insufficient for many youngsters who have to travel long distances to reach the schools they’ve been reassigned to.

But the authorities are taking action. Some schools in neighbouring areas that had fallen into disrepair have been rehabilitated. Their capacity has also been increased to accommodate students displaced from around Mpila; for example, the Fleuve Congo School has had 25 classrooms renovated.

Work has also been carried out at the Pierre Ntsiété Primary School, where Lucie Georgette Nguekoua is director. “We actually have extra classrooms now,” she told IPS. “It’s a shame that we had to wait for people to die before refitting these buildings.”

On the other hand, the schools destroyed in the explosion remain in ruins. At the 31 Juillet School, engineer Abdramane Batcheli told IPS that rebuilding would take time.

“We will rebuild both buildings, including the upstairs, and put up a third one. We have just started on the walls,” he said.

Many private schools are also still piles of rubble while their owners wait for compensation from the government.

The 1,400 students at Lycée de la Révolution have been transferred to Agostino Neto High School.

Many students transferred to other functioning schools are still unfortunately missing class. “We have two classrooms for students from 31 Juillet, but most of them are not coming in,” Georges Otaha, director of the Fleuve Congo School, told IPS.

In addition, 480 teachers have been trained to provide psychological care for students who were victims of the explosions. “We will set up groups for psychosocial support at the level of individual schools,” Jean Clotaire Tomby, the director general for social affairs, commented to IPS.

Civil society organisations say the government has to fulfill its responsibility for support for all affected students.

“The state is responsible for what happened, so it has to fix it. School materials, meeting the costs of displacement and providing moral support must be guaranteed for these students,” said Roch Euloge N’zobo, executive director of the Congolese Observatory for Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation based in Brazzaville.

By Arsène Séverin and - -
BRAZZAVILLE, Mar 13 2012 (IPS)

Five-year-old Vianey hasn’t seen his parents since a series of explosions ripped through an ammunition dump in Brazzaville on Mar. 4. A stranger, Jules Bomboko, said he found Vianey days later, wandering around the Tréchot neighbourhood, a few hundred metres from the site of the blasts.

“I’m hungry,” said the child, as though with his last breath.

The explosion at an ammunition store in the Congolese capital killed more than 200 people, injured over 1,500 and left thousands more homeless. Already-inadequate medical and social welfare systems are struggling to deal with the aftermath of the accident, with children amongst the most vulnerable.

Gervais Bouity, in charge of a shelter that was set up at the city’s cathedral, said when Vianey was brought there, he was tired and very dirty, his clothes in tatters.

Twelve-year-old Lucie, who suffered injuries to her skull and right arm, was brought to the Albert Leyono Municipal Clinic on Mar. 5. “When the explosion happened, we all ran,” she said. “I don’t know what became of my parents and my two brothers.”

About fifty survivors of the blast are being cared for at the clinic. One of them, Julien Amona Ngari, told IPS, “Lucie is still traumatised. She needs time to recover. She has nightmares after everything she has seen.”

Across the city, there are dozens of other children in situations similar to those of Vianey and Lucie. One shelter, the Moungali nursery school, had 33 lost children at one point – eleven were still there at the end of the week. At another nursery in the Makélékélé neighbourhood, four of the seven children who were brought in had been reunited with their parents, according to officials.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and its Congolese counterpart have put up noticeboards with information about lost children in front of the shelters. “At this point, 20 children taken in by our teams are waiting for their parents to come for them,” said Anne-Céline Moiraud, responsible for child protection at the ICRC.

“We encourage anyone who has found a child separated from their family to get in touch with our volunteers at these sites,” she said.

The various United Nations agencies have received about a hundred inquiries from parents who have lost touch with their children.

“Since that day (Mar. 4), I haven’t seen either of my two kids. I have been to visit all of the sites, but I’ve found nothing,” said one mother, near tears.

According to hospital records, children made up roughly a third of those treated for injuries – 338 of the 866 people who received medical care at the Makélékélé and Bacongo hospitals, and at Brazzaville’s University Hospital.

The quality of care available to these children since the disaster has been mixed. “My son, who was wounded on the head, hasn’t received any care,” complained Nicole Ibondo, mother of an eight-year- old boy.

“We are doing what we can with our own means, because we have still not gotten any assistance,” said Suzanne Maleka, director of the Makélékélé nursery. “The children who we’re hosting are showing numerous signs of illness like malaria or malnutrition.”

At the cathedral, where around 5,000 people affected by the disaster – including 120 unaccompanied children – have been sleeping in the open air, a team from the local non-governmental organisation Médecins d’Afrique (MDA) fears there are already cases of malnutrition.

“We’re seeing children who are beginning to have problems with malnutrition. But we lack medicine and other things to properly respond,” MDA coordinator Sara Pillar told IPS. She said that of the 200 health check-ups that the organisation’s staff carry out each day, a third involve children.

At certain shelters, such as at the Albert Leyono Clinic and the Marchand Stadium, children are being fed bread and sardines. “They will leave here suffering haemorrhoids,” said a Congolese Red Cross staffer.

Thanks to support from international organisations, centres specifically caring for children are now being set up. The United Nations Children’s Fund has also sent teams to the sites and to health centres to help children deal with their traumatic experience.

“When they got here, some of the children didn’t speak. Since we’ve been working with them, there has been a slight improvement,” said Martial Lounoungou, a specialist in childhood trauma.

Also affected, if less immediately, are nearly 20,000 schoolchildren – and 470 preschool-aged children – according to UNICEF. Their schools were destroyed by the explosions, and around 6,000 desks will be needed to accommodate them temporarily in other schools.

Students who are preparing for final exams will be placed in schools that were unaffected, with the authorities committing to paying for transport so they can continue their studies.

The government has also decided to allocate a grant of roughly 6,000 dollars to each family affected by the disaster.

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Aug 26 2011 (IPS)

Authorities in the Republic of Congo are showing an encouraging new readiness to arrest and prosecute people trading in endangered species.

Chen Xiongbing, a Chinese national, was sentenced to four years in prison on Aug. 10 in the Congolese capital, Brazzaville, for “possession and trafficking of tusks and other ivory objects”.

Apprehended in January 2011 at the Brazzaville airport as he attempted to fly to Beijing, Chen was also ordered to pay a 6,000 dollar fine and 8,000 dollars in damages to the government.

The civil engineer’s sentence – for attempting to smuggle five large ivory tusks, three statuettes, several carved document seals and numerous other ivory items – was unprecedented for a wildlife smuggling case in this central African country.

The completion of Chen’s case follows the March conviction of Congolese citizen Jules Ngami, who was sentenced to 15 months in prison and a 600 dollar fine for “possession and commercialisation” of two leopard skins. Around the same time, three other traffickers in leopard pelts began serving their 12- month sentences in Brazzaville prison – they were each also assessed a 1,000 dollar fine.

These convictions of wildlife smugglers are a new phenomenon in Congo. Previously, rangers and forestry and water officials only impounded cargos of prohibited species. The payment of a minor fine was enough for the offence to be forgotten.

There was for a long time no law specifically covering the hunting of or trade in protected species. But Congo, having ratified the international treaties including CITES – the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora – has reviewed and revised its domestic legislation, explained lawyer Ghislaine Mayoulou.

Nearly two-thirds of Congo’s surface area is forested – 11.6 percent of the country has been designated as protected areas. Congo has three national parks, six game reserves and several sanctuaries for chimpanzees and gorillas. A number of international organisations are working alongside the government to protect threatened animal species.

In November 2008, the Congolese government adopted a Law for the Protection of Wild Animals and Protected Areas which explicitly forbids “the export, import and commercialisation of protected animals or their parts”.

“It’s thanks to this legislation that law enforcement agents have begun to track poachers and traffickers of prohibited species,” William Nguembaud, a Brazzaville lawyer and environmentalist, told IPS.

“We are helping the government to send a message of zero tolerance to ivory traffickers,” said Naftali Honig, head of PALF, a wildlife law enforcement project. “We decided to support the government in this way, because the application of the law is the part which is lacking in conservation. But there is still much to do.”

In the interior of the country, even three years after its passage, few people know about the law on wildlife, and many continue to butcher protected animals. In March 2011, a trafficker in leopard skins was arrested at the Tiétié market in Pointe-Noire, the economic capital in the south of the country.

At major intersections in some of the country’s large towns, large billboards have been set up, showing the list of protected species. “We are trying to raise public awareness of this new law,” said Honig.

“The hunters don’t respect the law, and hunt without permits. But if we catch them, we enforce the law,” said Pierre Kama, head of conservation and wildlife management at the Ministry for the Forest Economy.

But the crackdown on trade in endangered species has had some undesirable effects. Rangers have carried out violent searches of entire villages, beating up anyone caught with even a scrap of meat suspected to come from a protected species.

“The people living near wildlife parks have suffered humiliation or beatings, sometimes for nothing more than possession of a simple ground squirrel,” said Roger Bouka Owoko, the executive director of the Congolese Human Rights Observatory and author of a 2006 report on the poor treatment of indigenous populations.

Non-governmental organisations believe that some prominent people are involved in this traffic. “We welcome the fact that the poachers have been tried and sentenced. But, the links making up the rest of their networks are still unknown. For example, in the traffic in ivory, the customers are not bothered,” said Bouka Owoko.

“Often, government officials arm the hunters to kill protected species. The same people help traffickers to sell their product in the city,” said Vivien Ilahou, president of Congo Environnement, an NGO based at Dolisie, in the southwest.

In April, at the northern town of Ouesso, seven people – including four rangers employed by the government – were convicted of trafficking in ivory and leopard skins. They were transferred to detention in Brazzaville to serve sentences of between 12 and 24 months.

Paul Telfer, head of the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society’s Congo programme in Brazzaville, said “Corruption in conservation is not acceptable. The rangers must be more honest.”

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Aug 24 2011 (IPS)

Marguerite Kassa feared she would find herself alone in the small crowd of a dozen other pregnant women at the integrated health centre in Mossendjo, in the southwestern Republic of Congo. “I am six months pregnant already, but I hesitated to come here before now, because there is so much contempt for us,” the thirty-year-old indigenous woman tells IPS. “Yet I was warmly welcomed.”

While around 80 percent of Congolese women give birth in health facilities, fewer than one in four indigenous women give birth at health centres.

Widespread discrimination

In 2007, indigenous people in Congo numbered 43,500, just under two percent of the country’s population of 3.7 million. To promote and protect their rights, a law was adopted in February 2011 which “forbids”, in its first article, the usage of the appellation “pygmy”. Article 22 of this law guarantees “access without discrimination” to health services for these populations.

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), less than 20 percent of indigenous women in Congo visit a clinic even once during their pregnancy.

“They don’t go because of discrimination. The staff treat them like objects,” says Jean Nganga, president of the Association for Defence and Promotion of Indigenous Peoples, based in the Congolese capital, Brazzaville.

“The midwives leave us waiting, they laugh at us even before we reach the integrated health centre (CSI). This discourages us,” explains Kassa.

In a survey conducted in April and May 2011, the Congolese Association for Health in Cuvette-Ouest, a non-governmental organisation based at Mbomo, in the north of the country, found that of 520 women of child-bearing age, only eight had given birth at a health centre.

“They tell us they don’t have money to pay the consultation fee or for baby clothes,” says Thomas Okoko, the head of the NGO.

“We see them pregnant, but we don’t know where they give birth, because they don’t turn up in our maternity wards,” confirms Léonard Itoba, a doctor at the hospital in the northern town of Ouesso.

“I don’t think that a lack of baby clothes is the real reason,” says David Lawson, the UNFPA’s representative in Congo. “These are snapshots of the demeaning stigmatisation which pushes them away from health facilities.”

“Hostility towards indigenous women in the CSIs is what pushes them to give birth in the forest,” agrees Roger Bouka Owoko, executive director of the Congolese Observatory for Human Rights, an NGO based in Brazzaville.

Community cares for its own

In Paris, a village some 60 kilometres from Ouesso, a traditional birth attendant says that on average she helps five or six indigenous women give birth each month.

“I am sometimes forced to use a razor blade to ease the birth of the child, because of the lack of antenatal care, these women have very small/constricted uteruses,” she says.

“We still have confidence in our traditions,” explains a sexagenarian woman in the village of Ngouha II, in the south of the country. “For example, when a woman is approaching full term, she no longer walks alone in the forest. And once the birth pains start, she knows what needs to be done: she has to sit down at the base of a tree.”

Gyldas Ngoma-Mifoundou, a sociologist at the Université de Brazzaville tells IPS: “It’s a question of culture, and there are many herbs which help indigenous women to give birth more easily.”

Change beginning to be felt

To encourage more pygmy women to labour and give birth in the presence of a skilled attendant, the CSIs in two of the country’s twelve administrative departments, Lékoumou in the south and Sangha in the north, have waived consultation fees for pre and post-natal checkups. “We have directed that not a single franc should be asked from a pregnant indigenous woman,” Dr Marcel Elion, director for health for Sangha, tells IPS.

Supporting this initiative by the departmental directors, the UNFPA is supplying birth kits to indigenous women. “The bag has got baby clothes, medicine, gloves and syringes,” says Philomène Ipande, an indigenous woman.

Angélique Bounda, 24, is a young indigenous woman who gave birth at the Dolisie Maternity Unit in the southwest of Congo-Brazzaville at the end of July. “I came in to be weighed [prenatal checks] here and I followed the advice of the midwife right until the delivery,” she tells IPS with a smile.

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Jun 16 2011 (IPS)

Only two of the eleven countries that share the Congo Basin have validated their plans to participate in the forest conservation process known as REDD+.

Preparatory plans for REDD (the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of Forests, the plus refers to the extension of the programme to encompass certain tree plantations) have been completed by only the Republic of Congo and its neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The Central African Republic, which has forest cover of 3.8 million hectares, has been waiting since January for the valuation of its plan. “CAR has already begun its REDD process and we believe we could benefit quickly from the benefits of carbon credit,” said the country’s president, François Bozizé, at a Brazzaville summit earlier this month. The summit involved international donors and representatives drawn from the world’s three largest tropical forest basins, the Congo, the Amazon and the Mekong- Borneo basins.

Echoing concerns raised elsewhere, civil society in CAR has called for the land rights of forest communities like the Mbororos and the Anka to be taken into account, to ensure that they too can benefit from carbon finance.

François Naoueyama, the CAR’s minister for the environment and ecology is bullish on the prospects of the process. “The REDD+ process for us is an opportunity to receive necessary funding for the reduction of emissions from deforestation,”

The Republic of Congo, after having a plan rejected by civil society in July 2010, has now completed its Readiness Preparation Plan. “After this validation, we are waiting for funding for our national strategy,” Georges Claver Boudzanga, the country’s point person for REDD told IPS.

“After all the efforts we’ve put in, we don’t want REDD+ to be a white elephant here. We are awaiting funding so we can implement alternative activities and prevent the destruction and degradation of forests,” he said.

Loïc Braume, a forest expert from the World Bank, said Congo can expect 3.4 million dollars to support its REDD strategy as well as developing alternate livelihoods for forest communities battling poverty. This is also the amount he says was made available to the DRC’s REDD preparations.

“This money also allowed the setting up of some project pilots, such as the tree plantaions in Batéké,” said Braume.

The DRC, with 25 square kilometres of protected land, includes the largest share of the basin. DRC’s Readiness Preparation Plan has been approved at the level of the REDD+ Partnership, composed of wealthy countries and forested countries. Central Africa’s largest country is already the beneficiary of two REDD+ project pilots, including a plantation on the Batéké Plateau, not far from the capital, Kinshasa.

The DRC’s environment minister, José Endundu, said his country is expecting much more support. “It’s a drop in the ocean in light of the size of the country and the size of the population relying on the impact of REDD+ on the ground,” he told IPS.

Outside of Cameroon, which is presently preparing tools for REDD+, the other countries of the Congo Basin – Burundi, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Chad, Rwanda and Sao Tomé – are not even in an embryonic phase.

“It’s a real gap for us in Burundi. The authorities need to wake up so that we can benefit from funding like the other countries,” said Albert Mbonerane, president of the Green Belt Action association, based in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura.

Donors attending the Brazzaville summit confirm that resources exist to support countries starting the process. In the framework of the Congo Basin Forest Fund, managed by the African Development Bank, countries who want to begin the process will receive between 200,000 and 400,000 euros. “In three months, these funds will be available in the Congo Basin,” says Braume.

There are also funds which come from individual wealthy countries. Norway and the United Kingdom have already financed conservation and biodiversity projects, according to Guillaume Chomert, an expert from the REDD+ Partnership. “There are several countries which already benefit from this financing, including the DRC in the Congo Basin.”

But the countries which have already made progress did not attempt to conceal the difficulties they’ve faced in understanding the international carbon market. “There are subtleties, there’s no single method for the calculation of carbon, all of which makes it important that the Congo Basin countries unite and strengthen their cooperation,” said Minister Endundu from the DRC.

Launched in 2008 by the United Nations, the REDD+ process is considered an alternative response to deforestation and to the degradation of forests by forest communities who survive thanks to the forest. According to Juvenal Tais, coordinator of REDD+ at the United Nations, 71 countries – including 54 low-income countries – are involved in the process.

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, May 31 2011 (IPS)

Heads of state from the Amazon, Congo and Borneo-Mekong basins are meeting in the Congolese capital, Brazzaville: leaders hope to reach an accord on sound management of valuable rainforest ecoystems, but civil society actors believe the problems faced by local populations may be ignored.

Sawmill in a Malaysian forest. Credit: Stephen Codrington/Wikicommons

Worldwide worries

Ahead of the summit, forest policy in several countries came under the spotlight. In Brazil, the government is considering a controversial revision to its Forest Code, which if passed by the Senate, will expand the amount of forest that is threatened by deforestation. The same day that the lower house of Brazil’s legislature approved the code, forest defenders José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo, were shot to death by as-yet unknown assailants. The two had received death threats for their activism against illegal logging in the northern Amazon state of Par”.

The loosening of protections for forests in Brazil comes at the same time as satellite data revealed that forest losses in March and April 2011 were at least five times greater than during the same period last year. Nearly 600 square kilometres of forest were destroyed in these two months, the damage attributed to ranchers and soy farmers.

In Indonesia, a moratorium on the issuing of new permits to clear forests belatedly went into force on May 19, freezing proposed logging or conversion of some 64 million hectares of peatland and primary forest according to a report in the Jakarta Globe. But the measure – which included exemptions for permits already agreed in principle, extensions to existing permits, and for projects linked to production of sugar, rice or energy – has been criticised by activists.

“This is a bitter disappointment,” Paul Winn of Greenpeace Australia-Pacific told the paper. “It will do little to protect Indonesia’s forests and peatlands. Seventy-five percent of the forests purportedly protected by this moratorium are already protected under existing Indonesian law, and the numerous exemptions further erode any environmental benefits.”

Greenpeace elsewhere raised concerns that timber certified as sustainably harvested by the Forest Stewardship Council in the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere did not meet the required standards. A May 27 press release specifically cited two companies operating in the DRC, Société de Développement Forestier and Congolaise Industrielle des Bois, for damaging valuable areas intended to be left undisturbed and for violating human rights in the provinces of Bandundu and Equateur.

Prioritise people

Reached by phone, the minister for communication for the provincial government of Equateur Province, Rebecca Ebale-Nguma, said she had appealed to the government in Kinshasa to take advantage of the Brazzaville summit to take note of the problems of the population in this forested region.

“In Lisala, in Mbandaka and at Basankusu (in the north of DRC) for example, the population see tremendous wealth leave the province in the form of timber, but live in extreme poverty,” said Ebale-Nguma.

“Entire cities here – in Equateur – are without clinics or schools.”

The Republic of Congo’s environment minister said the ten countries of the Congo Basin have between them drawn up a plan for convergence over the management of their forest ecosystems. “There can be some differences, but these will not compromise the overall plan,” said Djombo.

But numerous civil society groups in the Congo Basin and beyond believe the summit will fail to take into account the problems facing forest communities and indigenous peoples.

“The participation and consultation of the people affected does not seem to be taken seriously,” said Indra van Gisbergen, a member of the Forest European Resources Network. “There must be real access to information and awareness campaigns for these people.”

For van Gisbergen, the Brazzaville summit will be more about the commercialisation of carbon than the good of the people. “It is clear from reading the draft declaration and cooperation agreement, that the emphasis is on promoting the carbon market and financing emission reductions via the market,” she told IPS.

In a position paper published ahead of the summit, the Congo Basin Network, based in Cameroon, expressed its indignation over the direction indicated in draft documents.

“Given that the outcome of this summit will be very influential, our organisations are calling on heads of state to not give priority to carbon trading with regards to the REDD (Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) process,” Roch Euloge N’zobo, one of the spokespersons for the network, told IPS.

Maixent Fortuné Hanimbat, another member of the Congo Basin Network, said the draft documents do not clearly define a role for civil society in following up the recommendations of the summit.

Representatives of indigenous pygmy communities are also complaining. “Our association of indigenous people does not even know how to register. Once again, we will be present, but not to give our point of view,” said Jean Nganga, president of the Association for the Defence and Promotion of Indigenous Peoples, based in Brazzaville.

“Perhaps we will be the most significant absentees from this event.”

* Terna Gyuse in Cape Town contributed to this report.

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, May 11 2011 (IPS)

It’s noon at Jean-Félix Tchicaya Primary in Pointe Noire, the economic capital of Congo. Students are settling into their chairs, but not to resume their lessons. They are waiting eagerly for the hot meal that’s served in the classroom each day, their plates already laid out on their desks.

Providing primary school students with a hot meal coincided with an increase in attendance between 2007 and 2011. Officials are worried by interruptions to school lunch initiatives due to a lack of food for the programme.

It’s the best moment of the day, after the math lesson,” nine-year-old Garry Makoundou told IPS.

“I love it when it’s vegetables,” says Judicaële Malela, 11.

According to the school’s administrators, the World Food Programme (WFP) provides them with 756 meals each day, covering every grade from grades one to five.

Around the country, the WFP supplies 188 schools with 70,000 lunches, serving mostly green beans, rice, canned tuna and semolina.

“Thanks to these meals, the completion rate is now 92 percent and the dropout rate is only four percent. The food programme reinforces the staff in the schools,” said Alix Loriston, WFP representative in Congo.

Some children have to walk more than 15 kilometres on an empty stomach each day to get to school. The school lunches allow these children to stay in school and study in the afternoon,” Loriston told IPS.

According to the United Nations Development Programme, 42.3 percent of the 3.8 million Congolese lived below the poverty line in 2010. And nearly 22 percent have never gone to school and are illiterate.

In Lékoumou, in the southwest, the U.S. non-governmental organisation International Partnership for Human Development currently serves 10,000 meals in 48 schools in four districts of this district. According to the IPHD, 25,000 meals will be supplied in 2011-2012, as the programme is extended to preschools.

In March 2011, after harvesting of 1,300 tonnes of maize from its large farm in Mouindi in the south of the country, Christian Bana, head of IPHD in Congo, said that much of this produce was destined for school meal programmes.

To add variety to the meals, the programmes in the Lékoumou département have set up school gardens in which the students grow vegetables: tomatoes, carrots and eggplant.

“Contributions from parents, in addition to building a storage shed, cover the cost of water, firewood and condiments,” says Loriston.

“One doesn’t get tired of looking for wood and drawing water to keep these kitchens running,” says one parent.

“it’s not too much to ask of us with regards to what the children eat at school,”says Philomène Mbani, a parent. “We save on sending them to school with a lunch; the child only has to eat in the evening at home.”

Food shortages

But the hope raised by these programmes has been extinguished in many schools, like at Joseph Kéoua Primary in Brazzaville, the capital. Here 890 students have not received school lunches since November 2010 due to a shortage of food.

“We are recording lots of absences from class and there’s little enthusiasm from the students,” said Thomas Richard Meza, director of one of the school’s two streams.

“We fear the exam results at the end of the year will be bad,” says his counterpart, Bienvenue Danielle Mankita. “The meal programme was important here.”

At the “Friendship” school in Brazzaville, 1,200 children disappointed by the disappearance of the programme are slowly returning to class. “It was a shock at the beginning, but after some discusison, most have returned and adapted themselves. It’s a question of poverty,” said Jean Lucien Manganga, a teacher at the school.

The school lunch programmes in these schools began the 2010-2011 school year working with stores carried over from the previous year. They all closed down a month later for lack of food. It was only in April 2011 that food was procured, thanks to a 11.2 million dollar donation from Japan. This gift allowed the programme to be relaunched, Kanji Kitazawa, Japan’s ambassador to Congo, told IPS.

The Congolese authorities plan to make the programme permanent and extend it. “These canteens have had a favourable impact in our schools, because they have contributed significantly to increasing the percentage of children in school,” said Benoît Chrysostom Mienkouono, the national head of primary education.

According to Mienkouono, primary school attendance in 2010 was 114 percent, and could this year reach 117 percent. (The percentages are calculated by counting the number of children in primary school, regardless of their age, and dividing this by the total number of Congolese children of school age according to official statistics.) The rate was just 92 percent in 2007.

“Both in both the city and the countryside, there is poverty. The school meals programme is necessary to increase attendance, and therefore raise the success rate,” he said.

“The government will subsidise the programmes going forward,” says Mienkouono. “We know that one day, our partners will leave.”

The Congolese government has already set aside three million dollars to support school lunches.

Excerpt:

In the hope of strengthening its agricultural production, the Republic of Congo has handed over 80,000 hectares of arable land to a company owned and operated by 14 South African farmers.

“Our country is experiencing a food shortage and to resolve this problem, it is necessary to make land available to agricultural operators who are also investors. It’s the new policy and we’re going to continue with it,” says Rigobert Maboundou, Congo’s Minister of Agriculture and Livestock.

An agreement signed on Mar. 10 in Pointe-Noire, the Congolese economic capital, the group of South African farmers and their jointly owned company, Congo Agriculture, handed over 63,000 hectares of land at Malalo II and an additional 17,000 hectares at Dihesse, in the south-west of the country. According to the agreement, the South Africans are going to set up a food processing industry in Malolo II, which should also create employment.

“Congo has been waiting for this kind of investment initiative, the creation of jobs and most importantly, an abundance of food, because these farmers are going to grow food-producing crops and farm livestock,” says Pierre Mabiala, Minister of Land Reform, who handed over the title deeds.

The South Africans plan to grow rice, maize and soya. “They are also going to breed cattle, goats and pigs,” says Genge Manelisi, South African ambassador in Brazzaville, the Congolese capital.

The land handed over to the South Africans in Malolo II and Dihesse was occupied by smallholder farmers relying on traditional agricultural methods.

“I was shocked when the people from the government told me that I had to move off my cassava and groundnut field,” says Jean Mbenze, a peasant farmer from Dihesse.

“It’s about access to information,” says Christian Mounzéo, president of the Pointe-Noire-based NGO, Conference for Peace and Human Rights. “Why is this issue of dividing up the land not made public, leading to national debates that would allow people to engage with each other, rather than just deciding without consulting the affected communities?”

The eviction of farmers to make way for the Congo Agriculture concession is added to growing pressure on others who grow food to supply the country’s urban centres.

“Here in Pointe-Noire (in the south-west) we don’t have any more land for market gardens, as it’s been sold so that buildings can be put up. We bring in carrots from Dolisie (160 kilometres from Pointe-Noire) sold at 1,500 CFA francs (about three dollars) a kilogramme, which we resell at 2,000 francs,” Clementine Mpaka, who used to farm at Ngoyo, which has now become a built-up area of the city.

“It’s the same in Brazzaville, where the market gardening strips along the Congo River, in the Mpila city district, – though protected by the state – have been divided into plots for buildings,” says Kevin Mviri, from the Association for Human Rights and the Prison Environment. He condemns the beatings that have been inflicted on these peri-urban farmers by the men in power who have bought up their land.

“Nobody assists them, and the state graciously hands over this land to a bunch of strangers.”

Not exactly a breadbasket

Around 100,000 small farms are the basic livelihood for many Congolese families, though their output barely makes a dent in the country’s food requirements.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), of the 10 million hectares of arable land in the country, the Congolese only farm two percent. This is why, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute, 21 percent of Congolese face serious food insecurity.

The government still spends 60 million dollars on food imports every year, according to official statistics.

The small farmers are displaced to make way for more productive operations, as in a project launched in 2010, in Moulende, where the U.S.-based NGO International Partnership for Human Development (IPHD) is currently harvesting 1,300 tonnes of maize.

“We are all winners in this, as the government is no longer having to import this food from outside. We are also going to supply school canteens and produce cattle feed,” Christian Bana, head of IPHD in the Congo, tells IPS.

“We just need some goodwill and resources, now that we have the workforce in place, and we will have great harvests, like the IPHD’s. We are looking for more companies and initiatives this,” Maboundou says.

Between 2011 and 2015, the Congo is projected to invest 80 million dollars on agriculture, a negligible figure held against its current budget of roughly six billion dollars a year. The government says that new agricultural villages, with a potential output of 2,000 tonnes of cassava per year, and around 2,500 eggs per day, are being set up.

“There’s more to it than just calling on South African farmers who can bring their experience in agricultural development. We mustn’t forget that our participation in the national agricultural development project requires the provision of a wide range of inputs and forms of support to our farmers, before bringing in foreign companies,” says Mounzéo.

By Arsène Séverin
POINTE-NOIRE, Congo, Nov 24 2010 (IPS)

The Autonomous Port of Pointe-Noire has evicted 8,000 residents of a fishing village to make way for expanded facilities. The move is a blow to the community’s livelihoods, as well as closing down the market that supplied the city’s poor with affordable protein.

Fish is an important source of protein in Congo. Credit: Laudes Martial Mbon/IRIN

“I have fished here since my youth, and I don’t know where we can go,” said Joseph Takpo, an elderly fisherman.

Seated beside a corrugated iron shack, Charlotte Makaya, a Congolese woman married to a Béninois fisherman, is perplexed. “This is our life. How will we live away from the sea?”

Adelar Sossou is arranging several parcels of fish beside his canoe. “While we wait to be definitively evicted from here, we can still fish to survive,” he said, negotiating a price with one of the few clients who have ventured out to the displaced village.

“We used to come here every day to get fresh fish for very low prices. Now there’s not so much as a sardine,” said Clémentine Milandou, a resident of Pointe-Noire.

The port is embarking on an expansion of its infrastructure with $14.5 million of funds from international donors. According to port officials, several meetings were held with residents beginning in 2008.

“This was a humane and coordinated eviction, after considerable delays,” according to a communiqué from the director general of the port, Jean-Marie Aniele.

In October, the Pointe-Noire High Court ruled the villagers had to move, threatening those who resisted with stiff fines of $110 a day.

According to the residents of Village des Popos, their community of 8,000 residents – government insists no more than 5,000 lived there – included citizens of both Congo and a large majority from the Benin Republic.

Some of the Congolese have rejoined their families living elsewhere in Pointe-Noire. But others, particularly women, are still there, on the edges of their former village, with nowhere to go in a city already struggling with a general housing crisis in the city.

“Those who only had wooden shacks, got a compensation payment of 50,000 to 58,000 francs CFA (between 110 and 125 dollars),” explained Joseph Itsalou-Mombo, the commercial director of the Autonomous Port of Pointe-Noire (PAPN). “But there are some who think they are due millions.”

The port has paid out only 504 people so far. “The others did not want to take the money. Now they have come back and we are working through an additional list,” he told IPS.

“These people have been in this area for years. They make a living from the informal sector. The compensation is insufficient for these families,” said Christian Mounzéo, president of the Coalition for Peace and Human Rights, an NGO based in Pointe-Noire.

“You also have to realise that these people sell their fish at a low price, allowing poor people in Pointe-Noire to survive,” said Mounzéo.

According to official statistics, these artisanal fishermen catch 12,000 tonnes of fish every year, against only 9,000 tonnes from the industrial fishery. And while imported frozen chicken costs an average of four dollars, an equivalent amount of six to eight fresh fish from the Village des Popos costs the equivalent of a dollar.

The loss of this fish market, so close to the city will have an impact on the diets of the poorest.

To avoid leaving the fishers completely destitute, the port has assigned them another space for their activities, at Loango, 30 kilometres down the coast. PAPN is building a warehouse there for fishing gear.

“It’s not a place to live, but rather to store outboard motors, nets and other things,” said Itsalou-Mombo.   No space has been found for the Béninois to live. “If we have proceeded with compensation, it’s so that each one can fend for themselves to find a shack in the city,” said Itsalou-Mombo. But a plot of land costs around 1,000 dollars in the peri-urban areas of Pointe-Noire, fully ten times the amount of their compensation.

Many from this fishing community are prepared to set up fishing at the new location, despite its drawbacks. “It’s now a matter of cooperatives; I don’t know if we can fish individually from that place,” says Takpo.

The balance sheet for Pointe-Noire’s port thus starts in deficit, with the destruction of thousands of livelihoods.

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Nov 12 2010 (IPS)

An emergency vaccination campaign against polio begins Nov. 12 in the Republic of Congo, where an epidemic centred on the southern city of Pointe-Noire has killed at least 100 people since the beginning of October.

Administering oral vaccine: a risk of polio epidemics remains as long as the disease exists anywhere in the world. Credit: IRIN

A World Health Organization update released on Nov. 9 reported 184 cases of acute paralysis and 85 deaths, noting that the majority of cases have occurred in the population aged 15 and older. Polio usually affects children under the age of five.

“This is a very high death rate, given the number of cases. “It’s a real national catastrophe,” said Dr Jean Vivien Moumbouli, director of research at the National Laboratories based in Brazzaville.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, based in Atlanta in the U.S., where samples were sent for analysis, the epidemic is of virulent strain of the type 1 polio virus.

In Pointe-Noire, the epicentre of the epidemic, the population is désembarées. The government has said very little about the illness. “We don’t even know what’s happening, we’re just guessing,” said Jean Bakala, a resident of the Loandjili commune, which has so far reported the largest number of victims.

“My 45-year-old father contracted polio. But the doctors didn’t want to go near him, fearing that they themselves could be infected. That shocked me,” Hermane Bouity, told IPS. His father, who died several days later, was admitted at the Adolphe Cissé Hospital in Pointe-Noire.

All cases in this coastal city have been referred to the two general hospitals at Loandjili and Cissé. “We are overwhelmed. We ourselves are afraid,” confessed a nurse at Loandjili hospital.   The government has come in for criticism.

“One doesn’t know what precautions to take, because we are ignorant of this illness. The population has been abandoned,” said Brice Mackosso, secretary general of the Commission for Justice and Peace, an NGO close to the Catholic Church in Pointe-Noire.

“The government is totally responsible for the spread of this epidemic, because it has failed to communicate. On television and radio, on sees nothing, hears nothing,” said Roch Euloge N’zobo, from the Congolese Observatory for Human Rights, an NGO based in Brazzaville. “The authorities’ reaction has been hugely ineffective.”

Three weeks after the first cases emerged, government was still trying to identify the exact nature of the epidemic. It was only at the beginning of november that they began to hesitantly communicate over the threat.

“It’s a virus which attacks the nervous system, which paralyses the body and which kills,” Dr Alexis Elira Dokekias, national director general of health, told state media. “It’s necessary to observe basic hygiene. The virus is found in faeces/stool and transmitted orally. In the absence of proper hygiene, it can contaminate through water, it can be passed on through careless handling of vegetables or fruit.”

The vaccination campaign that begins on Nov. 12 will first target the residents of Pointe-Noire, then the rest of the country’s population. Twelve million doses of the vaccine will be required, according to Elira Dokekias.

“The vaccines have arrived very late. Those who are affected can no longer be saved, because it needs at least three weeks to take action, said Anatole Bikou, a medical officer in Pointe-Noire.

The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has announced support with five million doses coming from stockpiles in Denmark. UNICEF is looking for around $3 million to acquire the remaining doses.

Dr Edouard Ndinga, the official in charge of the country’s Expanded Programme of Immunisation, declined to say how many doses Congo already had on hand.

“We have nothing. We are waiting for the international community to come to our assistance,” said N’zobo.

Figures from the EPI for 2009 showed the rate of coverage for polio in Congo was 90 percent. The last polio infection in the country was recorded in 2000. Authorities suspect the virus came from “a neighbouring country”.

According to the World Health Organization, Angola has reported 25 cases of polio IN 2010, and 28 were recorded in the Democratic Republic of congo. Among the cases found in Pointe-Noire, four people came from Cabinda, the Angolan province adjacent to Congo. “We have relaxed our epidemiological surveillance at the border,” said Elira Dokekias.

The outbreak comes in spite of recent progress in controlling polio. According to WHO, the number of cases globally this year stands at 767, around half the number at the same point in 2009. This is largely due to steep reductions in cases reported from Nigeria and India.

Containing the outbreak in Congo with a vaccination campaign that will extend to neighbouring DRC and Angola is a top priority.

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Nov 4 2010 (IPS)

“Today, I’m ashamed to have signed the documents creating this park, because I didn’t know that we would die of hunger in the middle of the forest.” Mpaka- Mbouiti is a leader in the village of Loussala, in the Conkouati-Douli National Park.

Villager in a field destroyed by elephants. Credit: Arsène Séverin

Congo has 3.6 million hectares of conservation zones, slightly more than 11 percent of the country’s total area. The government is determined to strengthen protection in these areas.

Conkouati-Douli covers half a million hectares in the south of the country, stretching inland from the Atlantic. It is home to a number of threatened species, including chimpanzees, gorillas and forest elephants; along the sea it hosts one of the world’s most important seat turtle hatcheries.

It is also home to roughly 3,000 people who support themselves by fishing, farming and hunting.

The park’s ecosystem is threatened by deforestation, pollution from the offshore oil industry and poaching. When a Global Environment Facility- funded conservation project there ended in 1999, anti-poaching patrols also ceased. Conservation groups saw an increase in the numbers of professional hunters shooting animals to sell their meat in Pointe-Noire, the country’s second largest city.

In November 2008, Congo enacted a law governing national parks and protected areas. The law strips forest-dwelling people of all usage rights within the core conservation zones, while defining peripiheral areas where hunting, fishing and cultivation is permitted. Hunters must have a permit, ranging in cost from $30 to $100 depending on the quarry.

But locals say the law has caused confusion and hardship.

“We don’t even know where the areas zoned for our use are; everywhere it’s the park. We even hesitate to farm,” said Mpaka-Mbouiti.

The situation is no different around parks in the north. “Not only do the rangers forbid us to hunt, they come right into the kitchen, right into our pots to fish out a piece of meat (to see if it’s bush meat),” said Clémentine, a resident of Ngombé, near the Nouabale Ndoki National Park.

Confronted over these claims, the head of the conservation and wildlife management service not only justified government’s action, he issued a warning. “It’s a group of stubborn people who defy park rangers. In the discussions we had with people before signing the agreements that created the parks, they knew very well that hunting would be forbidden there,” said Pierre Kama.

“If there are people with bad intentions who try to ignore the law, then we will punish them. Sometimes the rangers react in self-defence, the hunters being equally armed,” he said.

“It’s true, people are experiencing a restriction of their activities. But they can hunt and fish, they just have to respect the law,” said Kama.

The U.S.-based non-governmental organisation Wildlife Conservation Society, which has supported Congo’s efforts to create and manage parks for over 20 years, also rejects the complaints by locals.

“It’s a lie. No one can show us the villages where we will find this,” said Nazaire Massambe, responsible for communications for WCS Congo.

“If a park ranger goes to see, on his own, what’s in some woman’s pot, he’ll lose his job, that’s clear. All we are trying to do is to prevent is the sale of bushmeat to the cities. But not local consumption.”

But several human rights organisations lend support to locals’ claims. “We are not against conservation,” said Roch Euloge N’zobo, from the Congolese Human Rights Observatory, “but what’s taking place here, the rights of locals are completely violated.”

N’zobo says there is widespread confusion over the boundaries of the zones designated for different activities, leading villagers to plant crops only in small areas adjacent to their homes. He also reports communities facing problems protecting their fields from animals.

“Around the Conkouati-Douli Park, for example, the locals share the fields with elephants. They are forced to plant behind their houses,” said N’zobo.

The government recognises it has made some mistakes, and has announced some revisions to the implementation of the November 2008 Law on Wildlife and Protected Areas. “We have to admit that in the past, forest communities were not involved. But with the implementation of the management plans, it will be necessary to put in place conservation committees,” said Kama.

One such coordinating committee has been functioning since 2009 in the northern district of Sangha, where communities are carrying out projects to resolve problems of transport in particular.

“The government is responsible, it carefully considers the use-rights of affected communities,” says Joseph Moumbouilou, in charge of research and projects at the country’s Ministry for Sustainable Development.

For WCS, the local communities are actually the first beneficiaries of conservation.

“We employ more than 300 agents, and the majority come from these communities,” says Massamba, adding that at Bomassa, near the Odzala Kokoua Park, in the north, students enjoy free education. These communities also have access to a discount store where they can buy staples at reduced cost. The management of this park, at 1.5 million hectares the most important in the country, has just been entrusted to a South African company, the African Park Network.

Elsewhere, in Ntandou Ngoma village near the Conkouati-Douli Park, the community enjoys access to clean drinking water, television stations and satellite dishes all thanks to conservation groups.

N’zobo is scornful. “It’s smoke in the eyes: the communities have truly gained nothing. Conservation has not only alienated them from their rights, it has also made them poor,” he said.

“We are in the process of drawing up maps, with the participation of locals, so that their areas of activity can be clearly defined and guaranteed.”

The tone is confrontational, but the outcome need not be. Daniel Akouele- Oba, president of the Movement of Congolese Youth for Reflection and Analysis, underlines the essential point. “The protection and conservation of biodiversity will only succeed with the participation of local communities.”

*This story is part of a series of features on biodiversity by IPS, CGIAR/Biodiversity International, IFEJ and UNEP/CBD, members of Communicators for Sustainable Development ( http://www.complusalliance.org).

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Aug 26 2010 (IPS)

“I came here out of curiosity, but I ended up taking an AIDS test. I have the results,” Gerard, 30 years old, told IPS. He adds, right before leaving: “The results are negative.”

“My brother and I knew that the van was coming here and we came as volunteers,” says Judith, one of the few women in the ranks of those who came to be in Kinsoundi, a neighbourhood in south Brazzaville, the Congolese capital.

“We have already done over 50 tests, and there’s still a crowd waiting,” Dr. Wilfrid Hervé Poaty pointed out to IPS. Hervé manages the mobile screening unit, a van purchased in December 2009 by the National Council Against AIDS (known by its French acronym, CNLS) in Congo.

Each of the van’s appearances in public places like markets and major intersections in the city consistently draws crowds. “There are usually 100 to 115 tests per outing. Amongst these, we often find two to three people with HIV,” said Dr. Poaty.

According to the CNLS, from the programme’s launch in December 2009 until Apri 2010, 5,275 people were tested and 114 (2.4 percent) were diagnosed with HIV.

The mobile screening unit has encouraged more people in Brazzaville to know their HIV status. The vehicle is often surrounded by curious onlookers as well as those those seeking services. “Some churches and mutual aid societies have also invited us to come,” says Poaty.

In Congo, only 10 percent of the population knows their HIV status. The CNLS wants to raise this rate to 50 percent by 2013. “That’s why we have adopted this mobile strategy and it has been very successful,” says Poaty.

Approximately $215,000 was needed to purchase the van and furnish it with a sampling chair, a fridge, a laboratory and a generator. That money was raised thanks to a telethon held in Brazzaville in February 2009.

There are other testing centres, but very few people use their services. In five years, from 2004 to 2009, the country’s two anonymous voluntary testing centres screened 40,085 people, amongst whom 4,323 were found to be HIV positive.

“We screen less than ten cases per day,” says Dr Daniel Yokolo, head doctor at the Centre de Bissita in Bacongo, a neighbourhood in south Brazzaville. “Most people don’t know that the screening is free, and some are afraid to know their status.”

The other centre conducts even fewer tests. “We receive two to four people per day. But we provide more support services than screenings,” says Dr Merlin Diafouka of the Outpatient Treatment Centre (CTA).

Those who test positive, are referred to care centres. “Treatment is available here, and people come because they know that it’s free,” said Yokolo.

However, patients at the centre are not satisfied with the care received, even demonstrasting at the Ministry of Health in June.

“The products we are given, such as Alivia or Calitri, are expired, and there’s often supply shortages,” Valérie Maba told IPS. Maba is HIV positive and serves on the board of the Congo Network of HIV+ Persons, based in the capital.

“[Drugs] for new patients aren’t added to the balance sheets, even less so for existing cases.”

“It’s a real disaster,” says Thierry Maba, president of the Association of HIV Positive Youth of Congo).

The authorities insist that medicine is, in fact, available. “Stopping treatment of HIV positive patients would be criminal. Drugs are available everywhere, there are only a handful of patients who want to stir up trouble, and we do not know why,” says Alexis Elira Dokekias, Congo’s Director-General of Health.

“We have not had drug shortages for two years. All support centres have their medication, and the government keeps a close watch. When these patients began their campaign, we showed them our supplies which included medicines. None of the medicine is expired, contrary to their accusations,” he added.

However, IPS noted that the mobile screening unit was grounded for a period (from late-May to mid-June) due to missing chemical reagents to carry out laboratory tests, according to the CNLS communication office.

Some 1,700 patients receive continuous treatment at the Brazzaville CTA. “The drugs are available. We always have a three month reserve in our supply to avoid shortages,” Dr. Merlin assured IPS. The CTA is funded by the French Red Cross.

According to statistics published by CNLS in 2009, 3.2 per cent of Congolese are living with AIDS, roughly 120,000 people.

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
KINKALA, Congo, Jun 22 2010 (IPS)

The trees are falling in Pool, and there are plenty of people to hear the sound. In a painful irony, the end of armed conflict in 2003, has signaled the wholesale devastation of forests in this southern region of the Republic of Congo.

All along the 75 kilometre road between the capital Brazzaville, and Kinkala, the southern region’s principal city, there are bundles of wood and sacks of charcoal stacked ready to be trucked to feed the household energy demands of the capital.

Since the end of the civil wars which lasted from 1998 to 2003, production of charcoal and firewood has become profitable for the people in the Pool department, one of 12 administrative areas in the country.

There are farmers who produce nearly 100 sacks of charcoal every month. A 15-kilo bag sells for the equivalent of $10 in Brazzaville.

“Once they’ve acquired land, farmers prefer to cut trees down to make charcoal and go sell it in Brazzaville, rather than wait two years to harvest a field of cassava. With the money they earn, they buy their supplies of manioc and fufu in Brazzaville,” Virgil Safoula told IPS. Safoula is director of a non-governmental organisation called Environment and Development of Community Initiatives (known by its French acronym, EDIC)

Most of the food sold in Kinkala now comes from the cities.

“Non-wood products such as mushrooms, caterpillars and asparagus have disappeared from Pool forests,” Prosper Mayembo, director of environment for the Pool Department, told IPS.

According to the Pool Departmental Council, before the war, the region’s 44,000 hectares of arable land accounted for fully 30 percent of national agricultural production.

“The practice of charcoal production and bush fires have stripped and depleted soils, to the point that famine is overtaking Pool,” says Safoula.

According to government statistics, more than 6,000 hectares of forest were lost in this department between 2007 and 2008. And during the first quarter of 2009 alone, over 62,000 sacks of charcoal were produced in the district of Kinkala, more than 78 percent of them from Pool.

In the same period, 200,000 bundles of firewood from Kinkala were transported to the capital. “As long as energy needs … remain important in Brazzaville, the forests will be seen as a solution,” Mayembo told IPS.

Not even fruit trees are spared, says Emmanuel Sengomona, a landowner in Kinkala. “As you can see, almost everything has been razed. Mango, avocado and safou ended up in the charcoal ovens.” (Safou is a dark, oily fruit widely eaten in Central Africa.)

“When we were growing up, our parents hunted in large forests here. But today, there is no more game,” said 60-year-old Matthias Youlou.

“My fear is to see Pool become a desert because they cut the trees without respite. There will be no agriculture and we will die of hunger,” says Mayembo.

A farmer from Mabaya, who wouldn’t give her name, shrugged off the criticism. “If we do not do this, how will we live?” The sale of firewood can bring in the equivalent of 3,000 dollars every three months, she says.

Congo has laws to prevent the wholesale destruction of forest, but the trucks bearing this eviscerating cargo stream into Brazzaville undistrubed.

“These trucks pass through because they’re paying money to the government. It’s a shame because we do not respect the ratified conventions. The government can not stop the traffic,” says EDIC’s Safoula.

“When shipments of wood and coal are seized, how many people pay fines as the law requires? None. They negotiate to pay less,” says Mayembo.

But the situation is not simply one of easily-corrupted inspectors. “Most people involved are former militiamen,” says Mayembo. “We must avoid reigniting the fire (of civil war) by stopping them abruptly. We must therefore proceed with tact.”

NGOs are severely critical of this attitude. “At Missafou and Madzia (areas in Pool), we see how the trains transport the wood to Brazzaville, but the government does nothing. Authorities levy some fees just to camouflage their irresponsibility,” said Roger Younga from the Brazzaville-based NGO Congo Vert (Green Congo).

While trying to educate rural communities about the dangers of deforestation, NGOs propose alternatives. “Since 2009, we have maintained a nursery of flame trees, palm trees and jatropha to provide the people of Pool with reforestation alternatives. We’ve negotiated with Pool land managers and secured a site where the nursery will be installed,” says Safoula.

Despite its immense agricultural potential, official statistics state that as a consequence of the 1998-2003 civil war, Pool’s inhabitants suffer the highest rates of malnutrition in the country – two in five went hungry at some point in 2009. In a report covering the same year, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) stressed that one in five children in the region suffered chronic malnutrition.

“And if people turn away from agriculture, the impact would be catastrophic,” Younga told IPS.

In response to the threat, the World Bank is urging the government to accelerate the process of setting up a national plan to fight deforestation.

“We will allocate 200,000 dollars to the government for the adoption of this plan,” said Andre Aquino, head of the World Bank’s Reducing the Effects of Deforestation and Degradation programme in the two Congos told IPS.

“Once that is done, NGOs and communities can access our funds because we have up to 3.4 million dollars available.”

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Dec 29 2009 (IPS)

“But why do they kill gorillas, why do they trap them and put them in cages? One day, if i’m president, i’ll stop all those who kill gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos,” says 11-year-old Judicaëlle, a student at the Holy Sprit of Moungali School in Brazzaville.

Children at a workshop explaining the importance of protecting gorillas. Credit: EDIC

This course on gorilla protection is being put on by non-governmental organisations in this central African country that is home to an important population of gorillas.

“We are teaching these things to children because they are the ones who will be in charge of humanity tomorrow. They must become aware of these questions now,” says Virgile Safoula, one of the course leaders and executive secretary of Environnement développement des initiatives communautaires (EDIC), an environmental NGO based in Brazzaville, the Congolese capital.

“We have to begin at the roots. We can’t let parents impose on their children a different idea, that accepts the capture or eating of gorillas. Besides, all children who attend the course are very interested,” says Laurent Loufoua, another course leader from the Association for the Protection of Primates in Congo.

In every corner of the room there are pictures of gorillas and posters which forbid harmful actions on encountering these animals. The children listen to stories of the forest, with puppets giving their voice to frogs and tigers who tell of the suffering of gorillas. At the end, the children are asked about what they have seen and heard.

“Here we have a child threatened by a gorilla. That means to say that the gorilla is not a pet, it’s not a domestic animal,” says one of the children, Safoula, in front of a portrait of one of the threatened apes.

A tenth of the Congo Basin’s rainforest is found in Congo-Brazzaville shelters 10 percent of the forests of the Congo Basin. The basin’s forests are second in size only to the Amazon forest of South America, and it is here in the Congolese forests, that you find the great apes: the gorilla and the chimpanzee. The third great ape, the bonobo, is found only in the mountains in the east of Congo’s neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But NGOs and forest rangers report massacres of these primates by poachers and by communities living near protected areas who hunt them for food.

To put an end to this, the Congolese government adopted a new law on wildlife and protected areas in November 2008. “If people commit these infractions, it’s because they don’t know the law. Through a special programme, we will sensitise people to this law. Step by step, we will get to the point where most people will no longer kill gorillas,” says Safoula.

At the same time, Congo is developing a project of reintroducing gorillas at a sanctuary at Lésio-Louna, 170 kilometres north of Brazzaville. In this 170,000 hectare reserve, there are a hundred gorillas. Launched in 1994, the Gorilla Protection Project (its French acronym is PPG) is financed by a British John Aspinall Foundation.

Some of these gorillas were rescued from poachers. Many of them, rescued very young, do not survive their release. “A third, around sixty, have succeeded in surviving after we reintroduced them to the wild,” explained Luc Mathot, PPG coordinator.

The Aspinall Foundation has run a similar project in neighbouring Gabon since 1990. The two countries between them had a population of Western lowland gorillas estimated at more than a 100,000, before the appearance of the Ebola virus which affects all primates. The number is far lower today, says Mathot, without being able to provide an exact figure for the decline.

For Roch Euloge N’zobo, from the Congolese Observatory for Human Rights, the protection of gorillas must go hand in hand with the protection of people’s rights. “Often, conservationists forget that on the edges of forest reserves, there are people. They chase them out, they forbid them to touch animals to make a living. One must take people’s needs into account,” he said.

Jacques Ibara, a member of the NGO Environment Protection, feels that gorillas have been on the path towards extinction not simply due to being hunted, but also because of exploitation of forests. “The destruction of forests is also a factor. This destroys gorilla habitat so they can no longer reproduce, forced to spend all their time in flight,” he said.

But, underlines Loufoua, “the continued survival of gorillas on the ground shows that the lessons are being learned, not just by children, but also by their parents who live near forest reserves. Not long ago, it was easy to find baby gorillas in the streets of our cities, but today everyone is afraid to do that. The government is cracking down.”

In the airports, the railway stations and on the roads, in schools and markets, the authorities have put up posters announcing penalties of five years in prison and $10,000 fines against those who are caught with a a gorilla.

*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by Inter Press Service (IPS) and the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), for the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (www.complusalliance.org).

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
NGOUHA II, Congo, Dec 22 2009 (IPS)

Two kilometres from the village of Ngouha II, a party of villagers are busy repairing an old bridge made of logs, and filling in a massive pothole.

“If we don’t do it ourselves, no one will help us, and our agricultural produce will spoil. That’s why the whole village is mobilised to carry stones, wood and earth. It’s an effective solution,” says the village chief, Pierre Ngoro. The chief has organised a day of work to fix the road and allow vehicles to to reach the weekly farmers’ market.

Singing, the peasants work throughout the day to fill the hole and repair the old bridge, constructed by a logging company here at Kolila, two kilometres from the village, a decade or more ago. Faced with the deterioration of rural roads, small farmers have to take the initiative or see their harvest rot in the fields or in storage in the villages.

“There, it’s done! The last time, we had to transport squash, peanuts, taro root, fruit and vegetables, and cassava – all of it on our heads to this point, as the bridge was broken,” says Pierre Mavinda, a farmer.

A few dozen kilometres away, in Ndiba, a village not far from the railway station at Bouansa, also in the southwest region, young men have taken a similar initiative to repair a rural road, following multiple complaints by farmers who are watching their crops rot in the fields. Armed with shovels, hoes and picks, they fill potholes and gullies, especially bad where the road crosses the river Loua; the bridge there has been gone for several years.

Jean Louamba, a major producer of fufu, cassava flour, potatoes and maize at Ndiba, has struggled to get his produce to the station. “All vehicles refuse to come because the road is very bad. My only hope is what these kids are building here,” he says.

“Beyond the food that the farmers are giving us, we’re asking for five dollars from each vehicle that enters the village. It’s our job, we have to get paid, no?” asked Arman Mpandzou, one of the youth, laughing.

But in other areas, the transport situation is worse. Gilbert Koumba, a banana grower near the Les Saras rail station, is facing ruin. “I’ve been here a week waiting for the train to take my bananas to Pointe-Noire. The train is the only means of transport. I’m afraid of losing everything here,” he laments, squatting in front of this stock of rip bananas.

At Kibangou, the bridge over the Niari river, built under the colonial administration in the 1950s, was broken by a logging truck, cutting off the agricultural region of Divenié from the market provided by the 100,000 people in the area’s major town, Dolisie.

“Regardless of what we’re willing to do, I can’t see how we can rebuild the bridge,” sighs the local member of parliament, Serge Victor Ignoumba Maliga.

In Congo, in place of the government, it is routine for members of parliament to support construction of roads for their constituents. The MPs spend money from their salaries to pay locals to carry out public works, or to rent heavy equipment to fix a road; this expense is not repaid.

Nor is it enough.

“The isolation is the rule rather than the exception in Congo. There are no roads leading to the major agricultural centres. The complaints everywhere are the same,” declares Irène Mboukou-Kimbatsa, who is in charge of evaluation and follow-up of the Agricultural Development and Rural Roads Rehabilitation Project.

Half of the 40 million dollars of funding for the ADRRRP comes from an arm of the World Bank, the International Development Agency (IDA), with the government in Brazzaville putting up the rest.

The project aims to build some 1,321 kilometres of rural roads across the country over the next four years: “It’s nothing compared to what’s needed,” comments Mboukou-Kimbatsa.

“The government is not indifferent (to this issue),” says Jean Isben Moukouba, coordinator of multilateral cooperation at Congo’s ministry of agriculture and livestock, “because if there are no roads, there will be no agriculture and we will die of hunger in the big cities.

“Even if the government doesn’t buy the produce, private business will be interested in this production once there are roads. But with the current state of the roads, I can’t see who will risk destroying their vehicles.”

Elsewhere, the Rural Development Project (known by its French acronym PRODER) financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) plans to build 400 kilometres of roads.

“Of the 400 km to be built, we have already completed planning for half of them and the call for tenders to begin work has already been issued. The selection of roads for repairs was made taking into account all the major areas,” explains Paul Bizibandoki, responsible for PRODER Sud.

“The plan is not to construct kilometres of contiguous roads. The IFAD strategy is to fix the bottlenecks, such as bridges, culverts, potholes… but where things are okay, we will leave it. The priority for IFAD is to allow farmers to get to market,” says Dominique Kenga, responsible for PRODER 3.

However, the roadwork has not yet begun on all sites, despite the eagerly awaiting farmers. “In 2009, we imagined we’d have already built 123 kilometres of roads. But the assessment, procurement and financing made us late,” says Mboukou-Kimbatsa.

“At whatever pace, fixing the roads is essential for us. In the past, many roads were built in rural areas, but farmers were not involved in their maintenance. And when it rains, it’s no longer practical,” observed the agriculture ministry’s Moukouba.

If the independent initiative of farmers and local elected officials can be combined effectively with these two ambitious rural road construction projects, smallholders in Congo’s southern regions could soon be on the road to greater prosperity.

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Jun 18 2009 (IPS)

As Omar Bongo Ondimba, the Gabonese president who died at age 73 in Barcelona on Jun. 8, is buried in Franceville in the south-west of Gabon on Thursday, his 41-year-reign as absolute ruler of this oil-producing country of 1.5 million has received mixed reviews.

End of a 41-year reign ... Omar Bongo Ondimba Credit: Wikicommons

Bongo was instrumental in negotiations between former enemies in Congo’s 1997-1998 civil war. Sassou Nguesso returned to power for the second time in October 1997 after Angolan troops helped him depose the incumbent, Pascal Lissouba, in October 1997. Bongo mediated the accord in December 1999 between Sassou Nguesso and many of his rivals for power, and a later national dialogue in 2001 that further consolidated his government and permitted his opponents to return from exile.

Several members of the Congolese opposition have acknowledged Bongo’s role in enabling their return to the country. Although deposed President Lissouba and his two prime ministers, did not participate in the dialogue, Jacques Joachim Yhombi Opango and Bernard Kolelas subsequently returned to the Congo in 2005 and 2007 respectively.

“It is thanks to him (Bongo) that we were able to speak, and we were able to destroy weapons held by civilians,” says Michel Ngakala, high commissioner for the re-integration of ex-combatants of the Congo.

Too close to France

But according to less forgiving analysts, Bongo sold his own country, Gabon, to France. “He was practically the Vice-President of France, responsible for Africa. He knew everything about France’s involvement in Africa, even coups. Either he was financing them or supporting them – as was the case in the Central African Republic when Ange Félix Patassé left, or in the Congo with Pascal Lissouba’s departure,’ Ernest Ibambo, a sociologist and researcher in Brazzaville told IPS. “(Bongo) was France’s valet in Africa.”

Some critics, including French ones, accuse President Bongo of financing the campaigns of presidential election candidates in France. After Bongo’s death, former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing also accused his former rival Jacques Chirac of having received financial support from the Gabonese president for the 1981 presidential election. The accusation has been rejected by those close to Chirac.

Journalist Joseph Bital Bitemo, author of a documentary entitled “De Gaulle, man of Brazzaville”, sees things differently. “I do not subscribe to the view that Bongo sold Gabon to France. It was a reciprocal relationship. Bongo had very privileged relations with all the French presidents of the Fifth Republic, but he never sold his country. Those who say so make a shallow analysis,’ he tells IPS.

Bital Bitemo added, “While managing crises, Bongo used money, strength and tact. This is a combination of forces France-Africa will miss (referring to relations between France and some African states). A noticeable gap will be created.”

Domestic legacy

However other observers believe the man did nothing for socio-economic conditions in his country. “Here’s the proof – if everything was going well in his country, he wouldn’t have gone to die far away in Europe. The recent general strikes in the health sector show that Bongo achieved nothing. Instead, he realised the dream of all dictators; dying peacefully while still in power, “says Bouka Owoko.

In fact, in spite of its natural resources, notably oil, minerals and timber, Gabon ranks 124th out of 177 countries, according to the 2007 UNDP report on human development. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), only 14 percent of Gabonese can afford a doctor’s consultation.

In 2007, Gabon’s debt stood at $2.5 billion including $ 1.1 billion owed to France, while the country imported 60 percent of its food. Also, according to UNDP, 33 percent of Gabonese live on less than one dollar a day.

Professor Hervé Diata, Dean of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Brazzaville, says the situation in Gabon is not good. “This is a cash economy based on oil and mining. No effort is made to create competition. Gabon’s economy cannot survive like this much longer.

“The death of Bongo will not change things. The new authorities must shift attitudes by incorporating the concept of good governance. This has been the case in Mali and Ghana, where the departure of rulers has produced a powerful economic system,” says Diata. “The way I see it, the economic situation in Gabon is very negative,” he adds.

“Those who criticise his economic record must also recognise that he created almost constant growth in Gabon, even if there was little development,” says President Sassou Nguesso.

Gabon’s gross domestic product grew by three percent in 2008, according to the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa. According to the UNDP, growth was two percent in 2005, against 0.7% in 2003.

Who leads Gabon next?

Thoughts in the country – and the region – have turned to the future. Boaka Owoko says, “This is an opportunity; Gabon must hold honourable elections and prevent the ghosts of the past, particularly Bongo’s children, from returning to perpetuate the system with the help of fraudsters and cheats. Because if they do, in an instant the country will begin to regress. We need to close the Bongo chapter. ‘

For the moment, he has been succeeded by the president of the senate, Rose Francine Rogombé, as interim head of state in line with the constitution.

Roger Bouka Owoko tells IPS, “We congratulate the people of Gabon for following the constitution. But it would be even better if they could successfully organise free and fair elections. This would truly be an appropriate succession to the Bongo era.’ Owoko is executive director of the Congolese Observatory of Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation based in Brazzaville, the capital of Congo, a country with which Gabon shares its longest border to the east.

She is expected to organise a presidential election – in which she cannot be a candidate – within 45 days.

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Jan 8 2008 (IPS)

At the Integrated Health Centre of Bissita, located in the Bacongo area of Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, pregnant women seated on a long bench wait to have prenatal examinations.

A member of this talkative group, Sylvie Bakani*, wears a concerned expression. Due to deliver in a few weeks, she is also HIV positive.

“The doctor wanted her to take the test when she arrived for the first time at the centre, three months pregnant. When the test was positive, her husband threw her out, accusing her of being a prostitute. With time, she regained her courage, and (now) comes daily to be weighed,” Eugénie Mbondji, Sylvie’s mother, explained to IPS.

This situation encapsulates the problems facing those who are trying to encourage pregnant women in Congo to get tested for HIV, to prevent them from passing the virus on to their babies.

“Despite sensitisation campaigns, less than 60 percent agree to be tested during prenatal consultations,” says Jean Angouono Moke, who oversees efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission in Congo. “The women are threatened by their husbands in cases where they get tested and the tests are positive…They are scared.” Some also fear stigmatisation by the community.

Notes Mélanie Mbioka, a young teacher in Brazzaville: “I am five months pregnant, but I do not want to get tested. I prefer that this (HIV status) is revealed later, during the birth. I could not bear being pregnant and HIV positive. And, my husband and his relatives will never allow it.”

Moke accepts that eradicating all mother-to-child transmission poses huge challenges. “But we want to reduce the rate of transmission, that is still at 6.2 percent here.”

He says that about 400 HIV positive pregnant women were received in 2006 in the country’s integrated health centres, mostly in Brazzaville and Pointe- Noire, a port city and Congo’s economic capital. Almost 100 doctors and more than 200 midwives have been trained to care for pregnant women who have contracted the HI virus.

The Centre for Mobile Treatment in Brazzaville started a service dealing with mother-to-child transmission last year because of the large number of such cases. In addition, it has begun work on constructing a building to house maternity services for pregnant, HIV positive women, with financing from the French Red Cross.

Jeannine Obosso, an HIV positive mother who comes to be weighed at a hospital in Talangaï, Brazzaville, strongly recommends testing during pregnancy. “Really, I call on young, pregnant women to get tested. If they are HIV positive, the doctors will care for them right until the birth.”

However, preventing transmission can prove costly.

Since January last year, AIDS treatment has been offered free in Congo- Brazzaville. But examinations and tests for mother-to-child transmission still have to be paid for – some costing up to 60 dollars.

These amounts are beyond the reach of many in Congo, where 51 percent of people live on less than a dollar a day, according to a government study published in July last year. A 2004 World Bank study put the figure at 70 percent.

The website of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimates adult HIV prevalence in Congo at 5.3 percent.

*Certain names have been changed to protect those concerned.

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Nov 16 2007 (IPS)

As 2007 draws to a close, citizens of Congo can look back on another year in which the challenge of introducing greater accountability into the Central African country’s opaque and corrupt oil sector loomed large.

In October, a council representing a cross-section of interests was set up to supervise implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Congo, the fourth-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. The creation of such a body is stipulated as one of the steps to be taken by countries that want a stamp of approval under the initiative.

EITI was launched by former British prime minister Tony Blair in 2002 at the World Summit for Sustainable Development. It gathers government, business and civil society together in promoting the use of internationally accepted standards for reporting on revenues from the oil, gas and mining sectors – notably in countries that have a wealth of resources, but a poor record of using these resources to benefit all citizens.

Activists from the local branch of the Publish What You Pay (PWYP) campaign and others have been sceptical about figures issued by the National Petroleum Company of Congo. (PWYP is also aimed at increasing accountability in the resource sector, through pushing for disclosure of fees paid for resources.)

Now, “We have…an opportunity for companies and the government to make available, seriously and sincerely, the real figures (concerning oil) in a way that civil society, parliament and communities can have the means of understanding the extent of revenues,” Christian Mounzéo, an activist who lobbies for accountability in the Congolese oil sector, told IPS by e-mail from New York.

“Credible international validators will be recruited to scrutinse this information.”

Mounzéo serves as vice president of the executive committee of the council, which also includes other activists, such as Brice Mackosso; François Okoko, a government representative, heads the committee. Members of the council were named in a decree issued in September by President Denis Sassou Nguesso.

Congo first came out in support of EITI in 2004, and the country has committed itself to improved management of its oil sector in exchange for debt relief.

But, the treatment meted out to Mounzéo and Mackosso in previous months highlights how far government has to go in bettering the oil industry.

The two men were given 12-month suspended sentences in December last year after being convicted of misappropriating funds from their non-governmental organisation (NGO), the Gathering for Peace and Human Rights.

The proceedings were described as a sham by many rights organisations, which viewed them as retribution for the activists’ stance against the looting of Congolese oil revenues.

A Nov. 14, 2006 press release from Global Witness noted, for instance, that the men were put on trial “despite the fact that their international funders have categorically denied any mismanagement, and the pre-trial investigation dropped a charge of misappropriation for lack of evidence.” (Global Witness is an NGO headquartered in London that reveals instances of corrupt exploitation of natural resources.)

Mackosso points out that government’s 2007 budget assumes a rate of 45 dollars per barrel of oil, even though the commodity has been selling for much more: on Friday, crude rose to over 94 dollars a barrel in European trading. “Where is the balance of this money going?” he asks.

For their part, authorities claim the surplus profits – 303 million dollars for 2005, and 512 million dollars for 2006 – are in a stabilisation fund at the central bank.

Mounzéo has estimated Congo’s 2006 earnings from oil at about 2.5 billion dollars. For over three decades, oil has been the mainstay of the economy, accounting for most of the budget; it is also Congo’s principal export.

Brazzaville’s commitment to rooting out graft in the oil sector may also be tested in its willingness to follow a corruption trail that apparently leads to the family of the president himself.

Earlier this year, Global Witness published documents that, according to the group, suggest illicit expenditure of oil revenues by the president’s son, Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso, and by Blaise Elenga of Cotrade – a governmental agency that sells Congolese oil. Christel Sassou-Nguesso later made an unsuccessful bid in the London High Court to have the NGO remove the information from its website.

According to an Aug. 15 press release from Global Witness, the two men “spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on what seem to be personal items, including designer brands. The bills were paid by companies which appear to have received, via other shell companies, money related to Congo’s oil sales.”

This apparent instance of luxurious living contrasts sharply with the daily reality of most Congolese. Official figures published in July indicate that 51 percent of the country’s three million citizens make do on less than a dollar a day (2004 statistics from the World Bank indicated that 70 percent of people lived below the poverty line).

The extent to which graft has taken hold in Congo was also indicated by the 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index, published by Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International. Congo tied with several other countries at 150th position; 179 states were ranked on the list.

Sylvestre Ossiala, head of a parliamentary commission on economy and finance, admits to “errors” in the negotiation of petrol contracts.

But, he claims certain front companies are formed to prevent Congolese petrol cargoes from being seized by vulture funds: firms which acquire the debts of poor countries cheaply, later suing for the full amount of debt as well as interest owed on it. Substantial amounts of Congolese debt are owed to commercial lenders.

“We must camouflage ourselves to avoid losing everything,” Ossiala says, noting that civil society should be more prompt in exposing wrongdoing within the oil sector – not when “when you can no longer correct errors”.

Anger at Congo’s oil-related injustices has also contributed to the rash of conflicts that the country has experienced since the 1990s.

Ironically, the commodity that this country produces so much of is not even regularly available to its citizens. Fuel and paraffin shortages are often experienced – and last year transporters went on strike to protest against an increase in the price of petrol, now selling at about a dollar per litre.

“Our paraffin can no longer…be found on the market. A litre presently costs 1,000 CFA francs (about two dollars). This is hard in a country where electricity is also scarce,” Pamela Ngoma, a teacher in the coastal town and economic capital of Pointe-Noire, told IPS.

“A minority in power monopolises all the wealth and dismisses the majority that slave away in misery. What are we doing with our petrol?”

Excerpt:

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Mar 2 2007 (IPS)

Sixteen-year-old Bamanandoki Pitchou hasn’t finished his apprenticeship in hairdressing yet, but he already has a small business. A former street child who lives in Kinsoundi – a suburb in the south of the Congolese capital, Brazzaville – Pitchou trains in the morning, and attends to clients in the afternoon.

“He has changed completely in a short space of time; he’s no longer the street child that we took in a few months ago, with clothes in tatters. He is taking responsibility for himself and his family,” said Jean Didier Kibinda, head of the Family Reintegration Project for Street Children, one of several groups that assist children living rough in the Republic of Congo.

According to the director-general of aid group Social Action, Florent Niama, the only study on street children was undertaken three years ago, putting their number at 1,900: “Today…we put it at 3,000 if not more, since the trend is growing in towns.”

While the history of each child is generally as different as the factors that push them onto the streets, many come from divorced parents, noted Kibinda. Several were orphaned by the 1997-1999 civil war or by AIDS, he added. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, adult HIV prevalence in Congo-Brazzaville is 5.3 percent.

The Family Reintegration Project for Street Children was launched by government in August 2005, with funding from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“Our goal is to go and find the children in their ‘ngunda’ (refuges), (and) to return them to their parents, even distant relatives, providing that they will accept the child,” Kibinda told IPS.

“In the pilot phase we reintegrated 60 children of whom 40 were in Brazzaville, and 20 in Pointe Noire where we have a Caritas centre which takes over their care,” he added. (Caritas is a humanitarian organisation; Pointe-Noire is a port city in southern Congo-Brazzaville.)

Some 40 other children rejoined their families last year. Some of the returnees go to school and others learn a trade in workshops contracted to the project.

“For the families that receive reintegrated street children, we provide financial assistance to create an income-generating activity so that they are capable of supporting the new arrivals. We know that street children are a sign of poverty,” said Kibinda.

“Last year, we worked with a budget of 40,000 dollars. In 2007, we expect to increase our activities by reintegrating perhaps 400 children.”

The Centre of Integration and Reintegration of Vulnerable Children (Centre d’insertion et de réinsertion des enfants vulnérables, CIREV) is another government initiative.

“At present, we have 84 children that we have taken from the streets. Amongst them, 32 live with their parents, but we continue to take charge of their schooling and future employment. If they do not pass by the centre at midday, food will be taken to their homes in the evening,” Martin Malanda, assistant head of CIREV, told IPS.

“In addition to children that we place in or return to school, we have about 20 at workshops apprenticing for trades. There are, for example, six in leatherwork, four in dressmaking (and) four in baking,” said Malanda.

“These children, being younger than 18, cannot yet go to work – the law forbids it. We thus extend the duration of their training to three years.”

CIREV only deals with boys, whose ages vary between eight and 17.

The Jarot Centre of Brazzaville also takes in street children; while the group is private, it does receive some government assistance, notably through support to 60 families who have taken in children.

Gildas Okoungou, 19, is one of those who has benefited from the organisation.

With funding from UNICEF and Don Bosco, a Catholic humanitarian organisation, he started a shoe manufacturing concern that makes use of denim and old bags, in the Total market – one of the largest in Brazzaville.

“Before the Catholic sisters rescued me, I slept under the Centenary Bridge of Brazzaville. I made a living from begging, a few jobs and sometimes theft. Now, I earn about 10 dollars a day and am not only able to help my grandmother – but also certain street children who come to beg from me,” Okoungou told IPS. (The Centenary Bridge was inaugurated in 1980 by French President Jacques Chirac, then mayor of Paris, to mark the 100th anniversary of Brazzaville.)

Both of his parents were killed during the war, leaving him to be brought up by his grandmother who could not afford to educate him, Okoungou explained.

Finding sufficient funds to back the programmes for street children remains a challenge, however.

Of the children helped by the Family Reintegration Project for Street Children, 11 went back to the streets because of the lack of resources to follow up with their cases.

Notes Social Action’s Niama, “If the number of children for reintegration this year is to be doubled, we must also double funding. It’s unhappily a big problem that we have. Beside the 135,000 dollars that we received (in 2006) from our funder (UNICEF), the state gave only 40,000 dollars.”

“This is far below what we expected. We are busy knocking on other doors to see how we can correctly manage this project,” adds Niama, who is also co-ordinator of all the programmes of reintegration.

“With the support of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) we have, for example, supported 12 children who have today all mastered a skill,” he says, noting that about 20 children are expected to complete training next year.

A good number of street children who have passed through aid initiatives have made a success of their lives, he observes further: “There are several and we have many testimonies. Some have become taxi drivers, bakers, dress makers.”

Complaints about finances are also voiced by Malanda. “Today (2006) we have a budget of 84,000 dollars. But, it must be said that the mechanisms for disbursing this money are so complex that we do not access all the funds. There is an apparent lack of interest on the part of authorities.”

CIREV was started with financing from UNESCO of about 6,000 dollars in 2004.

Said Kibinda. “The phenomenon of street children is extensive and shames our country, considered very wealthy abroad because of its oil. We will perhaps not eradicate this phenomenon, but we are trying to reduce it.”

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