Mohammed YAHIAOUI is a film director from Algeria; he specializes in documentary films dealing with cultural heritage in his country. He decides to visit Ethiopia and make a film of his visit. He’s also the narrator of the film.
Hé’s fascinated by the country: History, myths, legends, traditions, folklore, ethnology, archeology, religions, geology, flora and fauna makes Ethiopia a land of dreams and great hospitality. All aspects of interests are there to stimulate the visitor’s imagination. He sees with the eyes but feels with the heart.
Cradle of humanity, land of the rastas, founded by a mythical union- Queen of Saba and King Solomon, land of ethnic tribes who live in perfect harmony with nature; all of these points are developed in the 22′ documentary film with underlying message is to transmit the feelings, the dreams and the imagination, which are the necessary ingredients to unite all human beings.
The film has been selected among 60 films by the 13th edition of the ADDIS INTRNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL-AIFF; the films are to be screened in 5 different places: Italian Cultural Institute, Alliance Ethio Française, Vamdas Entertainment, Hager Fekere Theatre, and National Archive and Library Agency.
Ethiopia Land of Dream
Seeds of annihilation
By Haile-Gebriel Endeshaw
Lat week I read with great interest the interview given by Dr Tadesse Daba, Director of Agricultural Biotechnology with Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) (Capital April 28, 2019). The doctor tried to brief us about the advantages of consuming GM foods. GMO is an abbreviation that stands for Genetically Modified Organism. It is also used to refer to food products. A writer named Crystal Ayres says in one of her pieces that GMO is created when the genes from one species are artificially forced, in laboratory conditions, in to gene structures of unrelated plants or animals. These genes can originate from any living being, plants, or creature, including humans, and be forced in to the genetic structure of any other living organism.
In the said interview we readers were told by Dr Tadesse only about the advantages of GMO. He said that GM crops are useful for their economic advantages… for the fact that they can solve the biotic problems. He also taught us that GM crops would deter the huge financial allotment for chemical pesticides or herbicides and avoid loss of productivity. GMO improves the nutritional composition of the crops and has tremendous economic implications, according to Tadesse. “They [GM crops] are very safe,” is the very statement articulated by him!
What surprised me most and pushed me to grab my pen is his failure to expound the disadvantages of GMO. Does this mean there is not any disadvantages of GMO? Aren’t there researches that denounce the promotion of GMO? Aren’t there scientists who condemn the initiatives taken by world class mega corporations, like Monsanto, to promote GMO in Africa and other countries? What I can conclude from the interview is that so long as we are beggars, we don’t deserve any chance to choose what we consume. I personally feel that this is a “beggars are not choosers” type of message.
If Dr Tadesse is not bold enough to tell us about the disadvantages of GM foods, let me raise some issues regarding the basic demerits. Global Research (an independent media organization based in Montreal Canada) disseminated a newsletter on December 18, 2014 stating that 124 food and outreach organizations, as well as 26 individual scientists, have signed onto a letter sent to Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation protesting ongoing human trials of genetically modified beta-carotene-enriched bananas intended for Africa. The newsletter further indicates that “most independent research to date suggests that GMOs can induce allergies, trigger autoimmune disorders and even cause cancer, especially after many years of consumption”.
A book, Seeds of Destruction, authored by F. William Engdahl, recounts about the findings of a Russian Scientist, Dr. Irina Ermakova, of the Russian Academy of sciences. Her study found out that more than half of the offspring of rats fed on genetically modified soybean diet died in the first three weeks of life – six times as many as those born to mothers with normal diets. “Dr. Ermakova added flour from Monsanto’s soybean to the food of rats, starting two weeks before they conceived, continuing through pregnancy, birth and nursing. Others were given non-GM soybeans, and a third group was given no soybean at all. The Russian scientist was alarmed to find that 36 percent of the young of rats fed the diet of modified soybeans were severely underweight, compared to 6 percent of the offspring of the other groups. More alarmingly, a staggering 55.6 percent of those born to mothers on the GMO diet died within three weeks of birth, compared to 9 percent of the offspring of those fed normal soybeans, and 6.8 percent of young of those given no soybeans at all.” The most important thing here is that the morphology and biochemical structures of rats are very similar to those of humans, and this makes the results very disturbing.
Seeds of Destruction (book) dubbed Argentina as the First Guinea Pig for GMO. When the mammoth Rockefeller GMO project was launched, its chosen location was Argentina, where David Rockefeller and Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank had cultivated close ties to the newly-named President, Carlos Menem. The agricultural land and the population of Argentina were slated to become the first mass testing ground, the first guinea pigs for GMO crops. William further exposed in his famous book about the adverse effects GMO has brought about to Argentina. “In the more tranquil era of the 1970’s, before the New York banks stepped in, Argentina enjoyed one of the highest living standards in Latin America. The percentage of its population officially below the poverty line was 5% in 1970. By 1998, that figure had escalated to 30% of the total population. And by 2002, to 51 %. By 2003, malnutrition rose to levels estimated at between 11% and 17% of the total population of 37 million. Amid the drastic national economic crisis arising from the state’s defaulting on its debt, Argentines found they were no longer able to rely on small plots of land for their survival. The land had been overrun by mass GMO soybean acreages and blocked to even ordinary survival crops.”
I read a news item written by Global Research in January 29, 2017 that Nigeria’s Farmers Alliance protested the distribution of GMO and hybrid seeds to farmers in Northeast part of the country. It was stated that Nigeria’s Farmers Alliance of over 14 million farmers have called on all farmers especially in the Northeast to reject the genetically modified organisms (GMO) and Hybrid seeds distributed by the United Nation’s World Food Program (WFP) and the World bank. According to this news document, natural crops that were destroyed by hired mercenaries called Boko Haram would be replaced with GMO and Hybrid seeds from Monsanto (US-based Chemical company established in 1901) and Cargill (American privately held corporation). “This would mean that after this first cropping season with the GMO and Hybrid seeds planted in the entire Northeast food basket of Nigeria, the Food Security of Nigeria would be effectively captured by Monsanto! Farmers cannot replant the patented GMO and Hybrid seeds from Monsanto.” Every planting season they must go to Monsanto seed brokers to purchase the seeds at a cost they cannot afford. “The cost of seeds from Monsanto could go as high as 30 times as was the experience in India with Bt Cotton, where hundreds of thousands of farmers committed suicide because they could not meet up with costs of seeds.”
A document written by Christina Sarich of Natural Society in 2014 indicates about the existence of “over 1,700 independent scientific studies that have linked GMOs to some type of harm to farm animals, insects, people and the environment”. … In 2010 Monsanto adopted an approach of exploiting desperate poor Haitian farmers in the aftermath of the earth quake, but the Haitian farmers caught Monsanto and destroyed the GMO seeds. In 2011, Hungary burnt all the Monsanto GMO and Hybrid corn fields similar to that in the Northeast Nigeria, citing health, environmental and food security concerns. Other European countries including Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Italy and Bulgaria have banned planting GMO and Hybrid seeds.
Arjun Walia, wrote for ‘Activist Post’ stating that over the past few years, a number of countries have completely banned GMOs and the pesticides that go along with them, and they are doing so for a reason. The latest country to consider a complete ban, reportedly, is Russia after top government scientists recommended at least a 10-year ban.
A news item posted by Reuters in December 26, 2013 narrates about China’s rejection of GM corm from US. China has turned away about 2,000 tonnes of U.S. dried distillers grains (DDGs), a corn by-product. More rejections are expected as Beijing imposes strict checks over an unapproved GM crops. The news further states that the move follows the rejection of more than half a million tonnes of U.S. corn after authorities detected the presence of MIR 162, a GMO variety developed by Syngenta AG (Swiss-based agrochemical producing company) and not approved for import by China’s agriculture ministry.
Dr Tadesse said in his interview that Ethiopian farmers in various parts of the country have started using seedlings of GM crops like banana, coffee, pine apple, ginger and others. What I am concerned about is the adverse consequences our poor farmers will face in the future. Once they remove the indigenous organic crops and replace them with the GM seeds, they all will fall victims of the giant profit-making companies like Monsanto. The poor farmers will have to get permission from these corporations if they need to buy and sow seeds and plant seedlings of the new genetically modified crops. They will face charges if they try to use the crops without the consent of these corporations.
Seeds of Deception, another book written by Jeffrey M. Smith, recounts the following story. Bill Lashmett watched as two or three cows were let into a feeding area at a time. The first trough they came to, contained fifty pounds of shelled Bt corn. The cows sniffed it, withdrew, and walked over to the next trough, which contained fifty pounds of natural shelled corn. The cows finished it off. When they were done and released from the pen, the next group came in and did the same thing. Lashmett said the same experiment was conducted on about six or seven farms in Northwest lowa, in 1998 and again in 1999. Identical trials with hogs yielded the same results, also for two years in a row. Lashmett, who has a background in biochemistry and agriculture, says that animals have a natural sense to eat what is good for them, and avoid what isn’t. He witnessed this first hand in another experiment conducted by a feed store in Walnut Grove, lowa.
Surprisingly, Dr Tadesse tried to tell us about the “very safe” GM crops which are detested by animals. He also denied the very fact that the GM seeds could be monopolized by the mega corporations like Monsanto… What I can suggest here is that we all should take initiative to unveil the hidden truth that the problems being witnessed in India, Nigeria, Argentina and many other countries can indisputably be reflected here in Ethiopia… Does Tadesse need this to happen to local farmers of his country? Does he need to see Ethiopian farmers while committing suicide like those poor farmers in India? Does Dr Tadesse like to see the spread of super weeds and bugs (caused by GMOs) across this country? … I don’t think so!
Anyone who is interested to read books on GMO can get soft copies from this writer through: gizaw.haile@yahoo.com
The Horrendous Saga of Gold Miners in Peru’s Andes
A recently published report reveals the horrendous saga of gold miners in the Peruvian Andes. La Rinconada, home to some 50,000 to 70,000 mining inhabitants and competing mafia mobs that control them. La Rinconada, in the Peruvian Andes is where the world’s highest, chaotic, poisonous and illegal goldmines are found. La Rinconada, is also considered one of the most horrific places on earth: a crime gang-run city, spreading through a valley and up the hills, no running water, no sewerage, no electricity grid.
La Rinconada looks and smells like a wide-open garbage dump, infested by a slowly meandering yellowish-brownish mercury-contaminated brew which is tailings from illegal gold mining, what used to be a pristine mountain lake. The thin, oxygen-poor air is loaded with mercury vapor that slowly penetrates people’s lungs, affecting over time the nervous system, memory, body motor, leading often to paralysis and early death. Average life expectancy of a mine worker is 30-35 years, about half of Peruvian’s average life expectancy.
Life has no value. People are killed for carrying a rock that may contain some tiny veins of gold. Bodies are often just thrown on to garbage heaps to rot. Occasionally a body is found and then buried right on the garbage dump. It’s not unusual to find a grave right in the midst of a field of trash. Human rights do not exist in Rinconada. Child labor is common place. And so is child prostitution, women and drug trafficking. Time off is a life of drunkenness and drug deliria. Life is worthless.
Small boys are used to work in underground mining galleries, where adults hardly fit. When the galleries collapse and a child or several children, dies, nobody cares. Many are not even identified. Most likely they are not missed. They are children of non-parents, like in non-humans, those that run this hellish mining industry, and those who send their children there to help them make a living. No love, no ethics, no respect for nothing but the legendary gold nugget, for greed and necessity. No mercy. That’s La Rinconada.
Miners come voluntarily. Nobody forces them. Most are poor. Some are just greedy – the never-dying ‘Gold Rausch’ attracts them. The dream of getting rich in the goldmine makes them accept the most horrendous working and living conditions: surviving in an open dump-ground of everything, garbage, toxic heavy metals, wading in mercury-polluted tailings, thin air, contaminated by poisonous vapors, no heating, most of the year sub-freezing temperatures with trash and debris everywhere.
But the miners don’t complain. Some bring their wives, few bring also their kids. It’s their choice. Some stay ‘temporarily’ only, 6 months, 12 months, 2 years? For some the dream of hitting the riches never dies; they stay until they die. They know they will be abused, enslaved. They know, they can take it or leave it.
Miners work for usually long hours and are working during 29 days for free. On the 30th day they may keep whatever they take out of the ground, amounting to about $250 – $320 per month. Sometimes day 30 brings nothing. Sometimes some rocks with traces of gold. All are hoping for a gold nugget. This type of mining wage is not unique to Peru. Bolivia and other Andean countries that are open to the most environmentally and socially destructive industry – mining – apply similar systems.
The illusion to hit it “BIG” by finding the legendary ‘gold rock’ is a passion; it is obsessive. And if and when a miner does find a treasure to keep, he is vulnerable of being robbed, even killed, body discarded – another miner gone missing. Or not. Just disappeared. Maybe in a garbage dump. They are endless in Rinconada. They reflect the character of Rinconada. Refuse, waste, stench and death.
Nobody cares or not enough to investigate the death, the missing. It’s the name of the game. Miners come by their free will. They are not coerced. They enslave themselves, in the vane hope to get rich. Instead, they intoxicate themselves from mercury fumes, from a totally poisonous environment, daily exposure to heavy metals. Their nervous system slowly but surely fails them. Memory loss; brain damage, muscular dystrophy, collapsing lungs, paralysis, early death. For many, it’s a dream gone dead. That’s what poverty does; it kills while dreaming of a better world.
In Rinconada, the mafia rules. Police work in connivance. Murders and assassinations are of the order. Prostitution, alcohol and drug abuse is rampant. Nobody cares. It’s survival of the fittest, and often survival succumbs to hardship, misery and yet hope for a better life. These criminal organizations are all local, meaning from the vicinity. No foreign mining companies are allowed. They, huge world (in)famous gold and precious metals corporations, are waiting ‘downstream’ to buy the blood-ware, without identity, without origins. So that nobody can trace them to the crime.
Women generally do not work in the mines. Superstition. They bring bad luck. They make the gold veins disappear. They distract the men. The mines are masculine. Only men are allowed to work them. The mountains may get jealous, and who knows what jealousy is capable of doing. Women have other chores. They collect loose rocks that may contain some remnants of gold; they clean, prepare food, mind the household, children, if a family is unwise enough to bring their offspring to this hellhole and, they are “taking care of the men”, in more ways than one.
Peter Koenig, an economist and geopolitical analyst stressed that La Rinconada is one of the most horrible places on earth. Hardly known to the rest of the world. According to Peter Koenig, most people in Lima, the capital of Peru, have no idea that Rinconada exists, and if they have heard the name, they associate it with a lush country club in the elite district of “La Molina” of Lima. They don’t know what it also stands for – The Devil’s Paradise. Peter Koenig strongly noted that what Rinconada produces is “blood gold”, akin to blood diamonds, blood emeralds in other parts of the world.
If this is the case, then, who buys this “blood gold? We will discuss it next week.
Sheger derby returns: Ethiopia Coffee Vs Saint George
The 23rd week end Ethiopian Premier League fixture brings the country’s biggest derby match: Ethiopia Coffee versus Saint George clash while Hawassa to face Sidama Coffee in Debub derby today. Defending champions Jimma AbaJifar travels north to visit in good form Welwalo-Adigrat.
More to fans theatre than the real football Ethiopia Coffee entertains city rival Saint George in a decisive Sheger derby match. Back from 1-0 away defeat to Adama, Ethiopia Coffee is in search of its recent time first ever derby match victory over Saint George that Popped out for third in the table after a huge 1-0 home victory over league leaders Mekele Town on Tuesday. Third in the table and trailing the top spot eight points behind, today is a crucial match to Giorgis to stay on track while 8th in the table with 32 points; Ethiopia Coffee needs victory to win back the diehard supporters that are in sheer frustration following their team’s poor performance this season.
Their number one striker with nine goals in his name Abubakar Naser for four matches suspension, ”The Brown Shirts” under make shift Coach Gezahne Town are expected to face difficulties to find the back of the net thus unlikely to go home with three points.
Fourth in the table Sidama Coffee visits in poor form Hawassa in the famous Debub derby match today. Back from 1-0 defeat to AbaJifar and slipping from second place, leading scorer Addis Gdey’s spearhead Sidama need a win by all means to stay in the title race while the home side to compensate for the shocking 4-0 away defeat last Tuesday.
7th in the table with 33 points Welwalo Adigrat hosts in top form defending champion Jimma AbaJifar. Famous for its defense line Welwalo faces back-in to-business Okiki Afolabi in action therefore a huge showdown expected on Monday.
