Colombia apology for devastation in Amazon rubber boom. 

BBC. 13.10.12

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​Colombia's president has apologised to indigenous communities in the Amazon for deaths and destruction caused by the rubber boom around 100 years ago.​

Backed by Colombia's government, a Peruvian firm tapped rubber from 1912 to 1929 near La Chorrera in the south.

Up 100,000 people were killed and communities devastated, according to indigenous leaders.

President Juan Manuel Santos asked for forgiveness "for all the dead and their orphans".

He apologised "in the name of a company, a government".

Mr Santos said that in pursuit of progress, the government of the day "failed to understand the importance of safeguarding each indigenous person and culture as an essential part of a society we now understand as multi-ethnic and multicultural."
Torture and mutilation

Rubber barons in the Amazon carried out horrendous human rights abuses, first documented by British diplomat Roger Casement in 1912.

These included forced labour, slavery, torture and mutilation, says the BBC's Arturo Wallace in Colombia.

The apology was issued on the day Latin Americans mark the beginning of Spanish colonisation.

The Day of the Race, as the date is known in the region, commemorates the arrival of Christopher Columbus on the continent on 12 October 1492.

The president named nine indigenous peoples who were decimated by the rubber-tapping project of Julio Cesar Arana, a controversial Peruvian entrepreneur and politician.

"It is essential to contribute towards healing the wounds inflicted on your lives and in the memory of our nation," he said.

President Santos vowed that such abuses would never happen again.

The Colombian government recognises 87 indigenous groups but the Colombian Indigenous Organisation, OIC says there are 102.

Up to one-third of them face extinction because of the armed conflict and forced displacement.

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​Ofeimun , Adebanjo stoke controversy over Achebe’s comments on Awolowo .

Guardian. Lagos. Nigeria. 11.10.10

 

PREDICTABLY, more diverse reactions are pouring in over renowned author, Prof. Chinua Achebe’s new book – There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra.  While Chief Olanihun Ajayi would not like to comment until he had read the book, a prominent member of the Pan-Yoruba organisation, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo suspects that Achebe had been quoted out of context. He told The Guardian yesterday that he was preparing a treatise to put what really transpired during the Biafra war in proper context.

However, to a prominent poet and author, Odia Ofeimun, Achebe should not have thrown his weight behind the justification for the war in his book, because what the Biafran leaders did, he insisted, amounted to genocide against the Igbo people.

Ofeimun, who spoke at a Book Party organized by the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA), to celebrate the 10 authors shortlisted for the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Prize for Literature in Lagos at the weekend, argued that Achebe had the opportunity to set the records straight in his book but failed to do so.

Adebanjo wondered why anybody could have reported that Chief Obafemi Awolowo started the Biafra war when he (Awolowo) was in prison.  He said: “How can any one report that Awolowo started the war? He was in prison when all this (Biafra war) began. Ojukwu started the war. Even against all odds, Awolowo went to Ojukwu with Chief Samuel Mariere and Prof. Sam Aluko to try to persuade him to avert the war, but Ojukwu insisted.”

However, Ofeimun insisted that the Biafran leaders should have been compelled to face the Nuremburg-Type trial, organized by the United Nations, similar to the one conducted by the Allied Forces in respect of the Nazi Germany war criminals.

He said: “All leaders of Biafra should be taken to Nuremberg-type Trial for committing genocide against their own people and made to face genocide charges. They knew they had no guns; they knew they were unprepared for the war but took the Igbos to war. And because the rest of us were angry, we allowed ourselves to be misled by propaganda. What happened to the Igbos was very bad; it was wrong. The leaders committed genocide. And the rest of us are being made to feel guilty for their crimes. And I expected Achebe to correct the story in his book, he merely took the jelly out of the jar”.

Ofeimun, who, as a 17 years old, was ready to sign up to fight on the Biafran side, lamented that the Igbo leadership that took the war decision misled the rest of the world and the ordinary Igbo people with the propaganda that was mounted. The poet stated that even a Biafran commander, like Hilary Njoku, warned of Biafra’s unpreparedness for the war. He insisted that they couldn’t fight the war.

Achebe’s book, like other various accounts of the bitter Civil War (1966 – 1970) before it, has lived up to the reputation of sparking off controversy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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​Forty People Accused Of Witchcraft Almost Butchered To Death In Tamale. 

Ghananation. 12.10.12

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About 40 old men and women were nearly butchered to death at Sawaba, a suburb of the Tamale metropolis, last Friday by angry youth in the area who accused the old people of using spiritual powers to kill some members of the community.

Holding a list of the suspected wizards and witches, the angry youth went on rampage, searching houses and forcing those on the list out of their homes.

The alleged witches and wizards were then assembled at one place for a special ‘send-off party,’ and had it not been the swift and timely intervention of traditional rulers in the area, a massacre would have taken place.

The Finder gathered that among the youth on rampage were children of some of those accused of possessing witchcraft.

The angry youth said their action was necessary given the series of deaths of very young and energetic people in the area, which they attributed to occult acts allegedly carried out by those on their list.

They claimed that their action would stop further deaths as it would remove those killing their colleagues from the community.

Eyewitness accounts said the alleged witches and wizards were insulted and physically harassed with occasional stone-throwing, as they were matched to the chief’s palace.

“Had it not been the timely orders from the chief and his elders in the community, all the 40 alleged witches would have been summarily executed”, a 42-year-old eyewitness, Fuseina Mahama, told The Finder.

Fuseina said just when the youth started hurling stones at them, there was an order from the traditional authority in the area for the alleged witches to be brought there for interrogations; the intervention, she said, saved the situation.

“I was also nearly forced out of my house as they mistook my identity for someone else because we bore the same name,” Fuseina lamented to The Finder.

Meanwhile, the aged, especially old women in the area, say they are living in a state of fear as they are not sure about their personal security.

Some of the women told The Finder that they may have to move out of the community if no action was immediately taken to guarantee their safety and security.

When contacted, Mr Stephen Azentilo, the Northern Regional director of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), said the action of the youth was against the human rights of the affected persons.

The incidence of mob actions against alleged witches and wizards has witnessed a rising trend in the Northern Region, and the latest case is the third instance last week alone in Tamale alone.