Introduction ~ A (research) project in the Sahel

The Sahel
The Sahel is a loosely defined and not well demarcated region; it comprises the semi-arid transition region between the Sahara Desert to the north and wetter regions of sub-Saharan Africa to the south (CSELS 2010; UNEP 2007; Agnew & Chappell 1999).[i] The Sahel region is often defined by means of the number of days of the growing season or by the average annual amount of precipitation. Alternatively, the boundaries have also been drawn using latitude and longitude (Agnew & Chappell 1999). However, the boundaries are gradual and arbitrary, changing in time following weather patterns (e.g. droughts), climate changes, and land-use changes and concomitant land-cover changes (Ton Dietz, director ASCL, pers. comm. 2015). Agnew & Chappell (1999: 300) argue that “it is normally taken to be the arid West African countries from Senegal to Chad, but some also include Sudan to the East” (Figure 1.1).

The Sahel region constitutes one major ecoregion[ii] of the African continent (Brito et al. 2014). Different habitats can be found in the region, including large flat plains, gallery forests and sand dunes. The plains are mostly used for grazing and extraction of commodities (i.e. food, medicine, fodder and wood), and some smaller areas are also used for cultivation (increasing in area from north to south in the region) (Lykke et al. 2004). Traditional land-use practices such as nomadic pastoralism and agroforestry, as well as modern forestry rules, are adapted to the arid climate and erratic rainfalls (Zwarts et al. 2009; Mortimore & Adams 2001; Boffa 2000). However, this dynamic equilibrium is in jeopardy from increased agricultural and pastoralist activities, but also from overhunting, unsustainable extraction of natural resources and water overexploitation (irrigation and hydroelectric dams) (Adams et al. 2014; Brito et al. 2014; Zwarts et al. 2009).

Most, if not all, Sahel countries’ economies are strongly dependent on natural resources, but at the same time they are depleting their natural capital, making them exceptionally vulnerable (Cohen et al. 2011). Furthermore, agriculture and animal husbandry in the Sahel are highly vulnerable to climate change (Dietz et al. 2004). The region is home to a population of 100 million, and UN demographic projections for 2050 are 300 million. This rapid population growth coupled with environmental degradation and, at the same time a high dependence on the environment, is cause for grave concern. In 2012, 18 million people in the West African Sahel were suffering from malnutrition (Potts & Graves 2013). Indeed, the Sahel is sometimes labelled as one of the poorest and most environmentally degraded areas on earth (Brandt et al. 2014; CSELS 2010; Lindskog & Tengberg 1994).

The African continent is a winter ground for a quarter of the more than 500 bird species breeding in Europe, which includes between 2 and 5 billion individual birds. Especially the continent’s northern savannas, including the Sahel region, serve as a wintering ground for migrant birds. Indeed, the Sahel is an important area for migrant European birds, both for those species that spend their winter here, and for those species wintering further south on the continent that use this region as a staging area. These migrant birds are highly vulnerable to environmental change in the Sahel (Vickery et al. 2014; Zwarts et al. 2009; Jones 1995). Thus, environmental degradation in the Sahel is threatening the survival of both birds and people (Brandt et al. 2014; Ouédraogo et al. 2014; Cresswell et al. 2007).

Download Book (PDF): https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/ASC-075287668-3793-01.pdf

Notes:
[i] “Due to the large contrast in the yearly rainfall, the West African landscape gradually changes from north to south, within a distance of 600-700 km from Sahara desert to humid woodland” (Zwarts et al.2015).
[ii] “Ecoregions are relatively large units of land containing a distinct assemblage of natural communities and species, with boundaries that approximate the original extent of natural communities prior to major land-use change.” (Olson et al. 2001: 933)

ISBN: 978-90-5448-155-3 ~ © Michiel van den Bergh, 2016

It’s been seven years since the outbreak of the Greek debt crisis, yet Greece — the country that gave birth to democracy — is still stuck in a vicious cycle of debt, austerity and high unemployment. Three consecutive bailout programs have deprived the nation of its fiscal sovereignty, transferred many of its publicly owned assets and resources into private hands (virtually all of foreign origin), produced the collapse of the public health care system, slashed wages, salaries and pensions by as much as 50 percent, and led to a massive exodus of its skilled and educated labor force. As for democracy, it has been seriously constrained since the moment the first bailout went into effect, back in May 2010, as all governments that have come to power have pledged allegiance to the international actors and agencies behind the bailout plans — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — and follow closely and obediently their commands, irrespective of the needs and wishes of the Greek people.

Unsurprisingly, this includes the so-called Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), an opportunistic political party with a great knack for old-style cronyism and little experience in managing national affairs. Syriza has been in power for two nightmarish years now, co-governing with the extreme nationalist and xenophobic political party, The Independent Greeks (ANEL).

In the course of the last two years, Syriza, under the leadership of its populist leader Alexis Tsipras, reneged on its campaign promises to voters (ending bailouts, ending austerity and creating public work programs to reduce unemployment), and converted itself into a counterfeit copy of a social democratic party. Since the internal split with the far-left segment, Tsipras has made big-time overtures to European socialists and has attained an observer status in meetings of EU socialist leaders. In this way, Syriza has sought to fill the gap after the collapse of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) while signing a third bailout agreement and committing to execute international creditors’ plans for the sell-out of the country and its conversion into a neoliberal paradise for multinationals and big business interests, analogous to what took place in Latvia.

It’s true that Syriza faced incredible pressure from far stronger adversaries once it was elected, especially given the fact that the Greek state was financially bankrupt. However, the party did not need to pursue the course that it opted to follow — namely, betraying the popular mandate and converting itself into a mainstream political party in hopes of remaining in power for as long as possible. The moment Syriza’s leadership realized that it was incapable of resisting the pressures of the international creditors (the EU and IMF), it should have made a direct appeal to the Greek people by explaining the nature of the situation and the anti-democratic proclivities of the euro masters. It could have then stepped down, causing a European crisis, and turned to organizing grassroots resistance and distributive justice from the ground up. But this was never in the works: Syriza’s leadership had paid allegiance to the euro masters and the domestic corporate/financial elite even before it won the election of January 2015.

The reason why Greek governments have opted for all these years to become servants of the EU/IMF duo is quite simple: They are part of the capitalist universe and inextricably linked to the economic project of the European Union. As such, they believe there is no alternative for bankrupt Greece to bailout programs, and subsequently, to ruthless fiscal readjustment along the austerity route, coupled with a massive privatization undertaking and the end of the social state. This sad state of affairs applies even more forcefully to the current Syriza-ANEL government, which is now involved in some very awkward discussions over the completion for the assessment of the new bailout agreement. The IMF has yet to commit itself to this agreement, as it has a rather different perspective from that held by the European fiscal authorities both over the sustainability of debt and the depth of the reforms under way.

Specifically, the IMF finds the current levels of Greek public debt to be simply unsustainable (it stands at 180 percent of GDP and over 90 percent of long-term liabilities are held by public creditors). The IMF has therefore called for a sizeable debt write-off and also pushed for more reforms on all major sectors of the economy (banks, energy, labor market). In fact, the IMF wants the Greek government to commit itself via legislation to measures beyond 2018 — in other words, beyond the expiration of the new bailout agreement. The IMF contends that Greece’s debt levels will explode to much higher levels in the years (and even decades) ahead, and that the reforms proposed by the EU authorities are not specific enough, while their debt sustainability projections are ill-defined.

The European authorities, on the other hand, with Germany at the helm, balk at the idea of a debt write-off and contend that Greece’s debt is sustainable with deeper reforms — as long as Greek authorities implement the current ones with full rigor and do not violate the terms of the bailout agreement as they did in December 2016, when Tsipras decided unilaterally to distribute a “Christmas gift” (approximately around $650 million) to some 1.6 million low-income pensioners whose holiday bonus had been scraped by Greece’s international creditors. The response of the EU authorities to this act of “defiance” on the part of Athens was to suspend discussions on debt restructuring.

Shortly thereafter, Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos — the neo-Marxist academic economist of sorts who replaced Yanis Varoufakis and has been a most faithful servant of the euro masters — sent a letter to the EU authorities in an attempt to keep Greece in the eurozone at any cost. The letter, which was leaked to the press, said this was “a one-off payment” and reaffirmed his government’s commitment to the conditions of the bailout program.

So much for national sovereignty and radical-left politics.

Now, insofar as the row between EU officials and the IMF is concerned over Greece’s debt and the third bailout program, it is quite conceivable that the IMF may not join the Greek bailout program. Instead the IMF may simply act in some special advisory capacity, although German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and the entire EU choir have said repeatedly that there can be no bailout program without the IMF’s participation in it.

In the meantime, the Greek government is in a state of anxiety over these developments and simply prays that current discussions over the assessment of the new bailout agreement will be completed successfully before late February, as cash is running out and the specter of Grexit has returned. It is hard to see any side wishing for Grexit — with the possible exception, perhaps, of Schaeuble. Indeed, if the past is of any guide, the Syriza-led government will accept contingency fiscal measures beyond 2018, and a fourth bailout agreement seems almost inevitable, as it is highly unlikely that Greece will be able to return to private credit markets by 2018.

To put it mildly, then, Greece remains under continuous siege. Having decided to capitulate to the euro masters just in order to keep the country in a straightjacket, Syriza found out that the only option it has is to go along with eurozone’s diktats and seek in the process to dupe the public as much as possible, and for as long as possible, simply in order to remain in power for the sake of serving its members’ own interests. However, both the inexperience and the unscrupulousness of the Tsipras government have been fully revealed by now, and Syriza is expected to suffer a humiliating defeat whenever the next elections take place. Indeed, the Syriza-led government is already widely perceived as the most incompetent government in post-war Greece, a sad and tragic development for the Greek left.

The government’s noxious propaganda that Greece has turned the corner and that development is already taking place convinces no one and only manages to stir further anger among the citizens, and to condemn the left to historical oblivion. Indeed, the new Minister of Economy and Development, Dimitri Papadimitriou of the Levy Institute at Bard College in New York, is leading the propaganda charge of Greece being on the threshold of a new era of development. The analyses of Papadimitriou’s own research team at the Levy Institute, however, have been consistently arguing that the austerity measures that accompany the bailout agreements will only deepen Greece’s economic depression and cause further social malaise. But, of course, upon accepting the aforementioned government position, Papadimitriou pretty much declared to the Greek media that the alternative proposal he was advocating in the Levy Institute publications for the Greek crisis (the introduction of a parallel currency) was utter nonsense.

The truth of the matter is that Greece faces anemic growth rates at best (GDP rose 0.5 percent in the third quarter of 2016, but this is attributed mainly to a very strong year for tourism),persistently extremely high unemployment levels (still over 23 percent), low income levels of large segments of the population that fell below the poverty line (in other words, increasing poverty and marginalization), continuous export problems, consumer pessimism, lack of serious investment undertakings and, of course, unsustainable debt ratios to GDP. And who can forget that the economy has shredded over 27 percent of GDP since the start of the crisis? It could take several decades for the country to recapture this unprecedented loss in GDP, although it is inevitable that an economy that has suffered such extensive damage will, at some point, soon begin to record positive rates of growth. However, no serious recovery can be expected to take place under the existing economic arrangements and without radical changes in the country’s political culture.

To be sure, the Greek crisis has its actual origins in two directly related developments: first, in the internal dynamics of Greek political culture; and second, in the fact that Greece was ill-equipped to join the euro when it did. Since the reestablishment of parliamentary democracy following the collapse of the military junta that ruled the country from 1967 to 1973, the Greek economy marched to the tune of an extremely warped type of “state capitalism” in which a small group of families dominated the key industries while the state provided the impetus for its major profit-making activities. But with the introduction of the euro, the competitiveness of the Greek economy began a downfall trajectory. Growth is now based on a model driven by debt-fuelled consumption, which is one of the main types of financial market-based models of economic development, while capital accumulation continues to rely on the looting of public resources and also serves as the vehicle for the transition into a neoliberal-type economy in accordance with the dictates of the EU.

As things stand, the Greek crisis will remain around for a long time to come, even if a debt write-off occurs at some point in the near future, as long as the nation’s political culture and public administration system remain inefficient and corrupt, and there is no change of course in the model of economic development imposed by the European neoliberal technocrats. Yet, the prospects for either of these developments to materialize are not promising at all. The disastrous stance of Syriza coupled with the complacency of so-called left-wing progressive intellectuals and academicians have struck a heavy blow to the vision of the radical left in Greece, and it will take a long time and a herculean effort for the country’s anti-capitalist forces to recuperate and reorganize a mass movement.

Copyright, Truthout

Nikolaos Karagiannis is professor of economics at Winston-Salem State University, North Carolina; invited visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge, England; and the co-editor of the journal American Review of Political Economy. He has authored, coauthored and co-edited 18 books, and has published over 70 papers in scholarly journals and edited books, and over 60 short papers and articles in newspapers, magazines and electronic media sources in the areas of economic development, public sector economics and macroeconomic policy analysis. His research has focused extensively on the applicability of the developmental state view in different contexts, such as EU countries, the United States, Caribbean small island economies and North African countries. His latest books include The US Economy and Neoliberalism: Alternative Strategies and Policies (hardcover and paperback), Europe in Crisis: Problems, Challenges, and Alternative Perspectives and The Modern Caribbean Economy (2 volumes).

C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. His main research interests are in European economic integration, globalization, the political economy of the United States and the deconstruction of neoliberalism’s politico-economic project. He is a regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project. He has published several books and his articles have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites. Many of his publications have been translated into several foreign languages, including Croatian, French, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.

De 2e man van rechts is Adranoes Lohij, de oppasser ofwel dardanel van overste Veltman, staand tussen een aantal Atjehse teukoe’s. Op zijn borst de Militaire Willems-Orde en de bronzen medaille voor Menslievend Hulpbetoon.

De tentoonstelling ‘De Laatste Batakkoning’ in 2008 in Museum Bronbeek en het daaraan gekoppelde boek gaven een helder beeld wat er voorafging aan de dood van Si Singamangaraja. Het boek, grotendeels samengesteld uit onderzoek van Harm Stevens, is voorzien van vele originele documenten die de lezer meeneemt naar een roerige tijd. Een periode waarin de laatste verzetshaarden worden uitgeschakeld en grote delen van het archipel worden onderworpen aan het koloniaal gezag.

Over de momenten van het leven van de Batakkoning bestaan verschillende lezingen. Met het ontsluiten van een oude foto, met daarop een inheemse ex-militair met onderschrift ‘Oppasser van overste Veltman’ kwamen er nieuwe feiten aan het licht.

De twaalfde Si Singamangaraja
Ompoe Pulo Batu was de twaalfde Si Singamangaraja ofwel Leeuwenvorst in erfopvolging en gold voor zijn volk als heilige. Door een sluier van mystiek die om hem heen hing en zijn hiërarchische positie in de lijn van de offerpriesters, werd hij door de westerse wereld aangeduid als de priestervorst. De in 1849 geboren priestervorst had zich net als de twee voorgaande Si Singamangaraja’s gevestigd in Bakara, gelegen ten zuidwesten van het Tobameer op Noord-Sumatra. De Bataks, gevestigd rond het Tobameer, leefden veelal autonoom en vormden midden negentiende eeuw nog niet een volk. Maar door het opdringen van het Nederlands-gouvernement en de steeds groter wordende invloed van de zending, onder aanvoering van veelal Duitse zendelingen in de laatste kwart van de negentiende eeuw, kregen de Bataks een gemeenschappelijke vijand. Dit leidde in 1883 tot een opstand onder ruim 9000 Toba-Bataks gericht tegen de westerse indringers. Door het geweld ging alles wat westers was in rook op, maar ook de bekeerde Batak-kampongs moesten het ontgelden. De schrik zat er goed in bij de Europeanen en zij velen verlieten hals over kop het Batak-gebied. De priestervorst werd gezien als leider van deze opstand en het Nederlands-gouvernement gelastte in datzelfde jaar het Nederlands Indisch Leger met een strafexpeditie tegen de priestervorst. 4 maanden lang woedde er oorlog het Batak-gebied. Nadat het Nederlands Indisch Leger op 12 augustus zijn residentie in Bakara had bereikt, was de priestervorst al met zijn gevolg gevlucht naar Lintong in de hoger gelegen oerwouden ten zuiden van het Tobameer. Bakara werd door het Nederlands Indisch Leger ‘getuchtigd’ of beter gezegd, geheel verwoest. Het zou tot 1904 duren voor er een nieuwe serieuze poging werd ondernomen om het verzet te breken. De tocht van overste Van Daalen door de Gajo, Alas en Bataklanden, maakte aan vele illusies van het verzet in de binnenlanden van Noord-Sumatra snel een eind. Met een golf van geweld trokken tweehonderd marechaussees ruim vijf maanden lang door de oerwouden van Noord-Sumatra. De marechaussees kwamen ook in het gebied van priestervorst, echter was hij net als in 1883 niet vindbaar. Met de expeditie van Hendrikus Colijn, de latere minister-president van Nederland, werd eind 1904 een nieuwe poging ondernomen. Ook toen werd er geen contact gemaakt met de priestervorst.

Collectie Stichting Wereldculturen, Tropenmuseum Amsterdam, collectie F.W. Stammeshaus

Brief van Si Singa Mangaradja, die regeert over de Bataks, gericht aan de heer ‘overste generaal, leider van de oorlog van de kompenie’.

‘De brief is aan u gericht omdat u oorlog voert in het land van de Bataks en mijn onderdanen gevangen heeft genomen. Maar ik heb ook woorden ontvangen van de grote heer van Medan en de resident van Tampanoeli (Batak gebied) en van de controleur, zij zeggen geen oorlog te zullen voeren tegen mij en degene waar ik over regeer.
Heb alle betrokkenen een brief gegeven dat er vrede is en ik een oorlog zal voeren tegen de kompenie. Ik zeg nu tegen de ‘overste generaal’, keert gij terug, en ga niet met mij en degene waar ik over regeer in oorlog. Het is toch niet geoorloofd om mij en mijn onderdanen lastig te vallen. Keer terug, anders overtreed u de regeles van de woorden van vrede en afspraak, die gemaakt zijn met de resident van Medan.
En als er klachten zijn over mijn onderdanen, richt u tot mij. Mijn onderdanen willen geen moeilijkheden.
Keer terug, anders overtreed u de regeles van de woorden van vrede en afspraak, die gemaakt zijn met de resident van Medan.
Zo zij het.
3 november 1904′

In de daaropvolgende jaren werden diverse kleine expedities ondernomen om de priestervorst op te sporen, echter zonder resultaat. Op 1 maart 1907 deed assistent-resident der Bataklanden een oproep aan het gouvernement. De onrust, die de ongrijpbare priestervorst met zich mee bracht, moest snel ten einde worden gebracht. Zijn oproep luidde letterlijk: “De buitengewone toestand eischt daarom buitengewone maatregelen: tydelijke verwydering van alle ongewenste elementen en de beschikbaarstelling van eenige flinke marechaussee onder een beproefde aanvoerder b.v. de kapitein Christoffel, aan wien zooveel mogelyk de vrye hand moet worden gelaten…..”.

Anderhalve maand later was kapitein Christoffel, een doorgewinterde marechaussee officier die een deel van de Bataklanden al eens had bezocht tijdens de tocht van overste Van Daalen in 1904, met 4 brigades marechaussee op zoek naar de schuilplaats van Si Singamangaraja. De vier marechausseebrigades onder bevel van Christoffel waren ruim tweeëneenhalve maand op expeditie voordat zij hun doel, de schuilplaats van priestervorst, hadden bereikt.Het was een barre tocht over de ruige hooglanden en door oerwouden van Midden-Sumatra. Op 24 april 1907 maakte een van de brigades contact met de ‘bende’ in Lintong. Daarbij vertoonde de Ambonese marechaussee Lohij volgens koninklijk besluit van 7 maart 1908, No 55 “grooten moed, veel beleid, voortvarendheid en trouwe plichtbetrachting”. Door zijn optreden werd, Ompoe Radja Boli van Lintong, de vader van de belangrijkste verzetsleider Ompoe Babiat gearresteerd en de oudste zoon van de priestervorst, Soetan Nagari, ‘onschadelijk’ gemaakt. Daarbij werd zijn geweer M95 buitgemaakt.

Adranoes Lohij had zich in 1896 te Saparoea vrijwillig aangemeld bij het Nederlands Indisch Leger. Twaalf jaar later was deze marechaussee rijkelijk gedecoreerd met onder andere de bronzen medaille voor Menslievend Hulpbetoon en de Militaire Willem-Orde. De laatste en tevens hoogste onderscheiding kreeg hij voor zijn aandeel van het opsporen en onschadelijk maken van Si Singamangaraja op 24 april en 17 juni 1907. Zijn militair carrière verliep niet zonder kleerscheuren. Hij raakte diverse keren gewond door klewanghouwen en rentjong-steken aan hand, arm, borstholte, bovenbeen en knie. Lohij overleed in 1914 op 38 jarige leeftijd.

Kapitein Hans Christoffel. Foto: collectie Museum Bronbeek

Johannes Rotikan meldde zich in Menado, hetzelfde jaar als Lohij, aan bij het Nederlands Indisch Leger. Ook hij maakte enkele jaren deel uit van het korps marechaussee en was net als Lohij door de Atjeh-oorlog inmiddels een geharde militair. Op 17 juni 1907, tijdens de overval op de schuilplaats van Si Singamangaraja nabij Pea Radja, zette Rotikan, Lohij en 2 andere marechaussees de achtervolging in op de vluchtende Si Singamangaraja. In het ravijn wordt de priestervorst ingehaald en omsingeld door de 4 marechaussees en doodgeschoten. Rotikan werd een klein jaar later benoemd tot ridder in de Militaire Willems-Orde 4^e klasse bij koninklijk besluit van 7 maart 1908, No 55. “Zich onderscheiden bij de krijgsverrichtingen in de residentie Tapanoeli, hoofdzakelijk in het eerste halfjaar 1907.  17 juni 1907 overval van eene schuilplaats van Si Singamangaradja nabij Pea Radja. Blijken te geven van buitengewoon moed door den priestervorst Si Singamangaradja met behulp van 3 andere marechaussees te omsingelen, onversaagd stand te houden, toen de vorst hem met een rentjong onverwacht aanviel en dezen daarop kalm neer te schieten.”

 Dit relaas komt grotendeels overeen met de citaten uit het dagboek van de eerste-luitenant J.H. Van Temmen, die de expeditie in 1907 meemaakte als ondercommandant. Hij beschrijft hoe de marechaussees de priestervorst inhalen en omsingelen. Daarbij roept de voorste marechaussee: tarok rentjong, tarok rentjong ofwel taroeh rentjong. Hij beveelt de rentjong neer te leggen. Maar de priestervorst legt deze niet neer, hij roept: djangan passang ofwel niet schieten. De priestervorst schijnt op dat moment ook zijn rentjong uit de schede te halen.

Foto collectie Universiteitsbiliotheek Leiden, KITLV 81624

Feitelijk beschrijft Van Temmen bijna hetzelfde als de inschrijving in het register der Militaire Willems-Orde, handelend uit zelfverdediging. Echter bestaat er nog een tweede versie van het relaas die net als de citaten van Van Temmen zijn opgenomen in het Tijdschrift van het Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap van 1944. Deze tweede versie is van de oudste dochter van Si Singamangaraja, Rinsan. Zij was net als haar vader op de vlucht geslagen toen de overval begon. Zij liep een aantal meters voor haar vader, totdat zij het bevel hoorde om te blijven staan. Ze keek om en besefte dat dit commando niet voor haar was bedoeld, maar voor haar vader. Zij hoorde haar vader zeggen “Ahoe Si Singa Mangaraja” ofwel ik ben het SiSingamangaraja.Een marechaussee riep “tarik rentjong, tarik rentjong” ofwel trek je wapen uit, trek je wapen uit. Haar vader herhaalde nog “Ahoe Si Singa Mangaraja”. Daarna hoorde zij slechts geknal en geschreeuw. Toen ze zich terug haastte, zag ze een militair met een lange snor die haar levenloze vader fouilleerde. Zij begreep niet dat haar vader, die zich wilde overgeven, toch werd neergeschoten. De lichamen van Si Singamangaraja en zijn twee jonge zonen werden naar de markt van Balige gebracht en tentoongesteld, zodat de bevolking kon zien dat hun vorst gesneuveld was en het verzet zinloos was.

Foto collectie Universiteitsbiliotheek Leiden, KITLV 81623

De twee versies staan haaks tegenover elkaar; was het zelfverdediging of werd de priestervorst ‘neergelegd’. Een term die veelal werd gebruikt bij het uitschakelen van verzetsleiders tijdens de Atjeh-oorlog. Het inzetten van kapitein Christoffel voor deze ‘klus’ doet het laatste vermoeden. Echter heeft deze rijk gedecoreerde militair al zijn persoonlijke aantekeningen verbrand en rest er slechts nog een officieel relaas.

Een aantal zaken kan men op zijn minst als opmerkelijk beschouwen
De benoeming van 2 marechaussees tot Ridder in de Militaire Willems Orde, die feitelijk waren gekoppeld aan het sneuvelen van de oudste zoon van Si Singamangaraja, de omsingeling en het sneuvelen van Si Singamangaraja, was tot aan de dag van vandaag onbekend. Daarnaast werd de priestervorst volgens de inschrijving van het register door totaal 4 marechaussees ingesloten, wat niet in de publicaties is terug te vinden.

In het artikel “Het sneuvelen van de Si Singamangaraja”, in het Tijdschrift van het Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap van 1944 is een foto gepubliceerd. Deze was beschikbaar gesteld uit de collectie van W.K.H. Ypes, met de aanduiding foto 6. De foto is gemaakt na het sneuvelen van de priestervorst. De oude vrouw in de rotanstoel is de moeder van de priestervorst, rechts en links naast haar zijn voornaamste vrouwen en de rest van zijn naaste familieleden. Op de achtergrond militairen van het korps marechaussee.

Een bijna identieke foto uit de collectie W.K.H. Ypes, die niet gepubliceerd is het Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap van 1944, vertoont een interessant detail. Er staat een militair op die op de beschikbaar gestelde en gepubliceerde foto niet staat. De militair is Adranoes Lohij, een van de 2 benoemde ridders. Opmerkelijk is ook dat er geen (bekende) officieren op de foto staan, ‘slechts’ een Europese onderluitenant, staand in de achterste rij zonder hoed.

Er zijn vele hypotheses te bedenken over de ware toedracht van de dood van de priestervorst. De enige echte getuigen hebben hun verhaal nooit in het openbaar kunnen vertellen of misschien beter gezegd hebben het nooit mogen vertellen. Zelfs in de bekende Atjeh- en marechaussee boeken wordt de dood van de mystieke priestervorst niet meer genoemd. Het doet vermoeden dat de gehele affaire snel vergeten moest worden. Het gouvernement was zeer niet ontevreden met het behaalde resultaat van kapitein Christoffel. Zoals het Nieuwsblad van het Noorden op 22 juni 1907 schreef: “Nu Singa Mangaradja gesneuveld is, behoeft men zich niet het hoofd te breken met de rol, die hem verder zou worden toegedeeld.”

Si Singamangaraja kreeg per presidentieel discreet de titel Pahlawan Nasional Indonesia ofwel held van Indonesië.

Eerder gepubliceerd op: https://kleinnagelvoort.wordpress.com/de-mysterieuze-dood-van-een-priestervorst/

Het blog van John Klein Nagelvoort – Een verzameling verhalen uit ons koloniaal verleden: : https://kleinnagelvoort.wordpress.com/

Young female soldier of the Eritrean Liberation Front Eritrea 1975 – Photo: eritrea-chat.com

Introduction
In the second half of the twentieth century, Eritrea was an arena of uninterrupted armed conflict that went on for about three decades. The conflict was basically rooted in history and geography. But it was also aggravated by outside intervention for many years. Ethiopia being supported first by the US, Israel, and latter on by the USSR, and the Eritrean nationalists by socialist oriented Middle Eastern and Asian countries and organizations turned Eritrea into a proxy battle field between opposing forces during the Cold War era.

The protracted Eritrean war of independence started in 1961 under the auspices of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). The ELF (1960-1981) was the first, and largely Muslim-based, armed resistance movement that emerged to contest Ethiopian rule over Eritrea. Formed in 1960, the ELF carried out political and military activities for the subsequent twenty years in an attempt to gain independence. This armed resistance movement was, however, unable to accomplish its stated goals of achieving independence. Rather, the task of achieving de facto independence was realized by its offspring organization in 1991. This study is, therefore, an attempt to reconstruct the history of a socio-political movement that has been important in the recent history of Eritrea: the Eritrean Liberation Front. In the following sections an attempt is made to outline the fundamental research problem and the motivation for my interest in undertaking the intended study, research questions, scope of the study, theoretical framework, methodology, relevance of the study, and organization of the thesis.

Problem Statement and Rationale
In 1950, the UN passed a resolution that federated Eritrea with Ethiopia, without any form of plebiscite. Within few years, Ethiopia dismantled the pillars of the federation that guaranteed Eritrea’s limited autonomy one by one without hesitation. Throughout the federal period, Eritreans protested against Ethiopia’s violations of the Eritrean autonomy. As it became quite difficult to organize and agitate inside Eritrea, the task of organizing a movement to promote the Eritrean cause fell on the Diaspora. Frustrated with the system, a new breed of Eritrean nationalists founded the underground Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELM)[i] in Port Sudan in 1958. The ELM sought to terminate Ethiopian rule through a coup d’état. But before the ELM could attempt a coup, the war for independence was launched in 1961 under the auspices of the ELF.[ii] After that the country lapsed into a cycle of political disorder, violent conflict and human suffering in the three decades that followed.

The founders of the ELF were Eritrean political exiles and students in Cairo, Egypt, who drew inspiration from the Algerian revolution.[iii] The initial ELF leaders, who were living abroad, came mainly from Muslim backgrounds and this had a profound impact on the membership and mobilization of the ELF. Consequently, during the early years of the first decade of its history, the movement favoured Muslims over Christians.[iv]

In the 1960s, the movement nevertheless grew steadily as it started to attract support from diverse segments of the population and from the Diasporas. The fighters (also called Tegadelti in Tigrinya, one of the most widely spoken languages in Eritrea) were individuals who came from diverse economic, social, educational, gender, and age backgrounds and came to be marked by their devotion to the success of the struggle. Some of the early fighters received training in Syria, China, Cuba, and Iraq; whilst the rest were trained in the liberated areas. Within the next ten years, the ELF became a serious threat to the Ethiopian rule in Eritrea. The impact of its existence was felt beyond the boundaries of Ethiopia, especially when Ethiopian planes were subjected to subversive activities. In 1970, there was a major breakaway from the initial movement. Three splinter groups emerged and latter coalesced to form the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), which became a strong rival to the parent Front. The ELF remained a viable organization for the next ten years, but in the 1970s a series of armed clashes between the two dominant movements occurred. These clashes were typically exemplified by a struggle for dominance. Finally, in 1982, the EPLF superseded the ELF and other smaller groups as the most effective armed resistance to the Ethiopian forces, and defeated the ELF in the process. The ELF fighters fled to Sudan, and many went on to Europe and North America, while some members opted to return to Eritrea and join the rival nationalist movement, the EPLF.
In May 1991, the EPLF took control of the whole country from Ethiopia and Eritrea achieved its de jure independence in 1993 after holding a UN observed referendum, in which 99.8 percent of Eritreans voted for sovereignty. The EPLF transformed itself into the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) in 1994 and has been leading the country since its independence.

The ELF, emerging years before its rival the EPLF, and having been in a position of prominence in military terms with regard to the latter, nevertheless was superseded and destroyed in a relatively short period of time. This calls for investigation into the reasons why one movement, from the outside looking stronger, so spectacularly failed not only to achieve its aims but even to maintain itself as an organization, while a seemingly weaker front, the EPLF, not only managed to outflank and supersede its rival but also went on to occupy the whole of Eritrea. The Eritrean example, in this manner, offers a unique comparative example of two movements with different strategies and with very different fortunes. Although it is beyond the scope of the study to address the ELF from a comparative dimension, it is important to at least note that the Eritrean example may hold general lessons on the variables that affect the viability and strength of national-revolutionary movements.

In my previous career as a junior researcher and archivist at the Research and Documentation Centre (RDC), the acting national archive of Eritrea, from 2004 to 2012, I was confronted with a large amount of archival materials concerning the movement in question. Despite the availability of such bulky serviceable source materials, the history of the Eritrean struggle for independence remained by and large incomplete and undeveloped.[v]
This absence of well researched publications and analysis poses a challenge in developing a broader understanding of the dynamics of the Eritrean politics prior to the independence of the country. This experience instilled in me the desire to study the nature and development of the ELF using the idea of writing history from the stand point of those former ELF fighters. In this study,special attention has been given to its origin, development, and demise of the movement, and the how and why questions have also been investigated thoroughly.

Download book (PDF): https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/ASC-075287668-3671-01.pdf?

Notes
[i] Ruth Iyob, The Eritrean Struggle for Independence: Domination, Resistance, Nationalism, 1941-1993 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 98-101; see also Dan Connel and Tom Killion. Historical Dictionary of Eritrea (2nd ed.) (Lanham, Toronto and Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2011), Connel and Killion, 218-20.
[ii] Ruth, 103; see also Redie Bereketeab, “Eritrea: The Making of a Nation 1890-1991” (PhD. diss., Uppsala University, 2000), 183-184.
[iii] John Markakis, National and Class Conflict in the Horn of Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 113.
[iv] Redie, 185
[v] Bairu Tafla, “Interdependence through Independence: The Challenges of Eritrean Historiography,” in New Trends in Ethiopian Studies, ed. Harold G. Marcus. (Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1994), 500.

Prologue
Ojok: An exemplary case of suffering and quests for well-being by wartime children in Gulu Municipality I will call this child Ojok (not his real name) to ensure anonymity. In 2004 when I met him, Ojok was a fifteen-year-old boy (1989) who was born in Kitgum four years after the beginning of the then twenty-year-old insurgency in northern Uganda. When telling his life history, he related how, whenever he asked his mother who his father was, he provoked anger, tears and fear. His mother, like a substantial number of women in northern Uganda, had been raped by a group of men in the rebel army. When she went to report the case to the state army, instead of being helped she was detained for weeks and subsequently raped frequently by a group of state soldiers. She managed to escape to one of the camps in the neighbouring Gulu district, but was already three-months pregnant with Ojok – a child-of-rape. Statistics are unavailable but it is well-known that as a consequence of any armed conflict, there are a substantial number of children with a similar life history. Ojok serves as an ‘archetypal case’. A substantial number of children such as Ojok were neglected till they died of malnourishment or abandoned in public hospitals and camps in Gulu. Ojok was lucky to survive till his age.

When Ojok was two years old, his mother got married to an ex-combatant with the Lords Resistance Army, who had escaped, and had settled in a camp in Gulu where she lived. In this marital union they had three children, aged 13, 9 and 7 years respectively in 2004. Although they were a relatively stable family, Ojok’s stepfather succumbed to HIV/AIDS when his youngest child was five years old. Before his death he had introduced his family to his patrilineal kin, but made it clear that Ojok did not belong to the family. According to Ojok, they had been living together in good peace with his stepfather’s kin even after his death. However, two years later, he also lost his mother to HIV/AIDS. Being the eldest in the family of four orphans, automatically Ojok assumed the responsibility of caring for his siblings, including providing for food, healthcare needs and where possible educational costs. He had to drop out of school in order to do leja leja (casual farm labour) and other income generating activities to meet all these expenses. One weekend in April 2004, he was summoned by his stepfather’s kin for a meeting. In this meeting he was told that he did not belong to the family and was subsequently ordered to vacate their land together with his siblings. To confirm their determination, the entire kinship group uprooted all the crops Ojok had on his farm and demolished the children’s house. Ojok together with his siblings left for Lacor night commuters’ home where they lived at the time of interviews in July 2004. He still worked at the hospital premises and other neighbouring places, but had a lot of medical complaints.

When Ojok was asked about his experiences in a one month recall he mentioned malaria, cough and diarrhoea. For malaria he bought chloroquine from a grocery shop for 100 Uganda shillings (approximately 0.043 euros), but for cough he and his siblings used mango and guava leaves. The nurse gave him some yellow tablets for diarrhoea. For his siblings, he bought chloroquine when they had malaria.

According to the night commuters’ shelter nurse where Ojok lived together with his family, “he is always taking Panadol for his headache, which never recovers”. Sometimes, the nurse gave him a higher Panadol dosage, say three instead of two tablets, but still he complained of headache. At night, Ojok presented another challenge to the people at the night commuters’ shelter. If he was not tossing around on his mat he was always having violent nightmares. Therefore, the nurse gave him a dose of Valium each evening. However, in the recent past, the nurse complained, “even if Ojok took five Valium tablets, they did not work! The administration was considering giving him oxazepams and perhaps other very strong tranquilizers”. Assessing Ojok holistically, it is clear that underlying his persistent complaints is a web of all sorts of social and psychological issues.

The main objective of this exemplary case is to show the complexity of the effects of armed conflict on children’s lives, including their illness experiences and quests for therapy. The content in Ojok’s story signifies a child facing uncertainty, having relatives dying of HIV/AIDS and the direct effects of the breakdown of social networks leading to complex healthcare issues in wartime. Ojok as I mentioned, is a synecdoche or archetypal case of a substantial number of children living in a situation of armed conflict. And for the armed conflict in northern Uganda which had lasted more than twenty years at the time of this study Ojok’s experiences could only be a tip of the iceberg of the magnitude of problems in conflict and post conflict northern Uganda which are intertwined with health and healthcare issues.

Download book: https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/ASC-075287668-2755-01.pdf

ISBN 978-90-5448-095-2 © Grace Akello, 2010 – African Studies Collection, vol. 25

Street child in Ndjamena, Chad, the expectation of the phone (photo taken by Mija Hesseling)

Inaugural Address – September 2008
My phone at home in the Netherlands never stops ringing nowadays and on the display I often see the Malian, Chadian or Cameroonian country codes. And in the evenings there are always ‘missed calls’ from African numbers too. This was unimaginable when I started doing my PhD research in central Mali in the early 1990s. For the people at home then, I was far away. People’s understanding and experiences of distance are very different today.

At breakfast I often speak Fulfulde to Ahmadou, a herder from central Mali who tells me how he is sitting under the trees next to his cows. The costs of communication have apparently dropped so much that he can afford just to call to greet me, the owner of a part of his herd.

We met in 1990 and became like a brother and sister sharing life in the Fulani cattle camp where his father hosted me and my husband. Ahmadou is his eldest son and married two wives and has today 7 children. After the death of his father in 2006, he became the head of his family and clan.
The telephone has given him the chance to change his life, as was apparent when he asked our family to support his political campaign. We agreed; after all it was the least we could do since he had herded our cows for so many years.
Ahmadou has big plans. He would now like to build a house in the city. In one of our phone conversations, he asked me to bring him a television on my next visit. His last call was to communicate his victory in the political campaign!

For 35 years, the people of Chad have been living in the midst of a civil war and with repressive state machinery. But even in the regions where war and hunger are a daily reality, people now have access to mobile telephony in spite of widespread deep-rooted poverty. Mongo, the country’s fifth largest
city, has had access to mobile telephony since 2005. I worked and lived in 2002/2003 in Mongo and met with Ousmanou who became one of my research assistants.
Ousmanou did some investigation on his own, being a literate, and together we developed a plan for a NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) to help impoverished children who live in the streets of Mongo. He is married and has four children. The mobile phone helps to continue our exchanges.
Ousmanou regularly sends text messages to keeps me updated of the recent ups and downs of his family and the city. The telephone has also been a good help to raise some funds for this NGO. However during the last upsurge of fighting in Chad (in 2008, and also before in 2006 and 2007), all telephone connections were cut, which led to a high degree of panic amongst our Chadian acquaintances (and us). With no way of contacting the outside world, their
lives were suddenly once again in the hands of the authoritarian regime of President Idriss Deby.

It will be clear that the way information from these ‘remote’ parts of Africa is being transferred to those in the West has changed with these new methods of communication. The growth of mobile telephony in Africa became possible after the liberalization of the telecommunications market and its
escalation has been astonishing. The unexpectedly high access to mobile telephones has risen from 1 in 50 persons at the beginning of the 21st century to 1 in 3 just a few years later in 2008. Even the inhabitants of remote rural areas in Africa are being introduced to the world of wireless telephony.
Ahmadou and Ousmanou live in marginal regions of the world where modern technology is sparse and where it is not easy to survive due to the difficult natural and economic circumstances of these harsh regions and their political instability. Government interest and investment in marginal regions are usually minimal as they are considered to be areas of little economic or social interest. But Ahmadou and Ousmanou do not see themselves as being marginalized at all. For them, these regions are part of their identity and their use of the mobile phone makes it clear that these marginal areas are not isolated at all, in spite of the absence of good infrastructure. On the contrary, these regions’ relations stretch as far as Europe.The margins cannot be demarcated geographically; they are social margins.

I am interested in the question if and how mobile telephony, a new communication technology, will change the social, political and economic dynamics in the social margins of our world in the coming years? Does it reflect a revolution in communication and development, or will nothing ultimately change at the end of the day?

Ahmadou and Ousmanou and their families in Mali and Chad have become part of these changes. I have been following them and their families since 1990 and 2002 respectively and will continue doing so. And I have recently started a project in the Grassfields area in Cameroon. In the coming years I will be following families in Mali, Chad and Cameroon and try to understand the new dynamics in their societies also through their eyes.

Here, therefore, I am not presenting a completed story but an initial exploration of possible changes in the social margins of Africa. To be able to look into change I will introduce my understanding of the social margins, elaborate on the concept of communication ecology and social relations in the margins. And then I will explore possible social changes that are the result of the new communications technology. I will thus introduce a current and important field of study within African Studies, where interdisciplinary collaboration can make a contribution to the study of mobility and migration, of poverty and of social conflict.

Download Text (PDF): https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/ASC-075287668-2048-01.pdf?