Responsibility and Justice | JA4change

The Prosavana program is inspired by Prodecer, a Japanese-Brazilian agricultural development program developed in the Brazilian Cerrado since the 70’s. Referred to by Brazilian, Japanese, and Mozambican governments as a success, the Prodecer program promoted the distribution and possession of land to foreigners and turned Brazil into an avid promoter of land usurpation practices abroad.

By way of Prosavana, Brazil plans to export an agro-industrial development model to Mozambique that failed in Brazil where more than 65 million Brazilians are in a situation of food insecurity and millions of people struggle for access to land for food production a means of ensuring livelihood. Experience shows that the benefits of the Brazilian model have been insignificant compared to the devastating impacts on the lives of peasants, forests, and the biodiversity of the country.

The Prosavana program was skilfully and conveniently wrapped in elegant “green” language and has been presented to Mozambicans and the international community as a program of “sustainable agricultural development”, completely leaving out its potential social and environmental impacts. However, in a program of this size which requires the resettlement of communities, it is disturbing to realize that they know little or nothing about it. It is another program designed and decided upon at the highest level without any involvement of farmers, local communities, or the public.

Through Prosavana Japan intends to ensure, in addition to borders, a new source of agricultural goods at low costs the purpose of which is for export to the Asian market particularly Japan and China.
Brazil sees in Prosavana an opportunity for expansion, technical cooperation, and a good investment for their producers and supply companies.
What are the benefits for Mozambique?

A major problem for the promoters of this program is that almost all of the Nacala corridor lands are occupied by peasants. This is the most populated region of the country, whose fertile soil and abundant rain allows millions of peasants to work and produce food in abundance. The Nacala corridor is considered the bread basket of the region providing food to the inhabitants of the Northern provinces and allowing the survival of millions of families. The rationale and purpose of Prosavana promotes the usurpation of land and the expulsion of thousands of local farmers who depend on it. The Prosavana program has been questioned and challenged by civil society organizations among them the National Union of Peasants (UNAC). UNAC is a peasant movement of the family sector founded in 1987 and recognized by the Government as a partner and by Mozambican peasants as its representative at a national level. Over the past 25 years UNAC has been playing a crucial role in strengthening farmers’ organizations in the fight for their rights to land and natural resources and the discussion of public policy for the agricultural sector. It has more than 86,000 individual members grouped into 2200 associations and cooperatives, 83 district unions, 7 unions and 4 provincial unions. Justiça Ambiental corroborates the statement of UNAC on the Prosavana Program.

Justiça Ambiental / FOE Mozambique strongly condemn the whole process of preparing and implementing ProSavana because:

It is based on the import of top-down policy and so far the circulating information is incomplete and unclear;
The program is connoted as “sustainable agricultural development” and has as main targets peasant families and cooperatives of farmers, however, provides for the resettlement of communities and the expropriation of land;
Promotes the influx of Brazilian farmers turning Mozambican farmers into cheap labour;
Requires millions of hectares of land that is not actually available due to the system of leaving land fallow;
This ignores the benefits of the program for the peasants;
The program is structured to promote the expropriation of land to the peasants and local communities in general;
Promotes the violation of the rights of peasants given the insecurity of land tenure, regarding DUAT (Right to Land Use);
Promotes worsened corruption and conflict of interest given the enormous interests involved;
Will aggravate the already precarious living conditions of many communities completely dependent on agricultural production for their livelihoods which could lead to a massive rural exodus;
The program provides a high mechanization and excessive use of chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides leading to contamination of the soil and water courses;
There is a convenient lack of clarity over the use or otherwise of genetically modified organisms which given Embrapa’s connection to Monsanto is probably expected.

We demand that the Mozambican state, as stipulated by Article 11 of the Constitution of the Republic of Mozambique, assume its sovereignty and its leading role in defending the interests of its people.
We demand also that the Mozambican government reassess the ProSavana program taking into account the aspirations, concerns, and needs of Mozambicans, particularly farmers who are most affected by the program and who constitute the vast majority of the Mozambican people. ProSavana, in terms of what it proposes, will threaten food sovereignty, access to land, water, and the entire social structure of families of thousands of Mozambicans thus crippling the nation’s future.

Tagged brazil, food insecurity, mozambique, Prosavana

Oct 18 2012

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Activism, Responsibility and Justice

Is Big Brother Watching?

On Tuesday, we received an SMS on the cell number at the JA! office in Maputo. The person called himself Steven Bongane from South Africa and said he was bringing some goods for us. JA’s Program Officer spoke to “Steven” who spoke in English. When asked what he was bringing, he mentioned “air sampler”.

Indeed, we were expecting our air sampler (called mini-vol or Air Matrix) which was to be sent by our partner organisation, groundWork in South Africa. But we had received no notification that it was on its way, so we were very surprised.

“Steven” called back half hour later, saying that he had been stopped by the Mozambican police in Moamba (60 kms from Maputo) but didn’t know why because he didn’t speak Portuguese. The JA person spoke to the police, who said that the fine was 3000 meticais, because the driver had been speeding and his car didn’t have a front license plate. But “Steven” claimed he had no money with him to pay the fine.

Then the policeman told JA person that JA could pay the money by phone by sending mcel credits (a usual way or transferring small amounts of cash in Mozambique), and that we should trust “Steven” will pay us back when he reaches Maputo. We responded that we cannot send money this way, as it is not official, but we would rather send someone to the police station in Moamba, 60 kms away, to officially pay the fine. The police were hesitant at this suggestion.

At this point, we were suspicious, so our Program Officer called groundWork in South Africa to confirm if they had indeed sent the air sampler. And they confirmed that they had not!

Now the plot thickens.

Just the day before, the Program Officer had talked to groundWork using that same cell phone, requesting them to send us the air sampler whenever it was convenient so we could do air quality tests. groundWork responded that they would check with the team that is currently using it. The strange thing is that, Steven and Bongani are real people that are part of the team using the air sampler, but they are two different people!

This is most likely a scam. However, is it something more? How did “Steven” know that JA was waiting for the air sampler? It is a very specific instrument used for air quality control, and not something that normally people use. Furthermore, how did he know Steven and Bongani’s names? And then he mashed the names together.

JA has for long suspected that our phones are tapped and the Mozambican secret service monitors JA’s work and members. This isn’t the first time that such suspicious things have happened. Last year, our e-mail server showed highly unusual activity and suddenly started uploading over 20GB of information. We could only stop it by switching it off. Who was uploading if not us? Were they taking all our email communications? Then in December 2011 our mail servers began receiving thousands of spam mails to the point that it made the system crash. Till date we have not been able to get them functional again.

On another occasion, during a Skype conference chat from our Director, Skype sent her a warning message saying “the authorities tapped on the call”! See the screenshot photo attached.

Is Tuesday’s incident proof that they tapped our phones or emails when we corresponded with groundWork the day before? We don’t know for sure, and maybe never will, but this much is for sure- civil society space is shrinking especially in Mozambique.

Oct 10 2012

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Energy and Society, From the Field, Responsibility and Justice

Notes from the Field: Vale-displaced communities in Cateme

Almost 200 people filled a room at the Escola Secundária Cateme (Secondary School of Cateme) on Saturday, 6 October. Cateme is the region where communities displaced by Vale coal-mining in Tete province, Mozambique, have been resettled. Women, men, children, babies, the elderly, students and teachers from the communities came together this past Saturday to speak out about the problems they are facing in resettlement.

Saturday’s meeting at the Secondary School was convened by Liga dos Direitos Humanos (Human Rights League), UNAC (National Farmers Union), AAAJC (Association for Support and Legal Assistance for Communities) and Justiça Ambiental. The land law and Mozambican constitution were presented for people to understand their rights, and copies of these booklets were given to various community representatives. Following the presentations, community members spoke vociferously one after another, explaining the problems they were facing.

Vale is the second-largest mining company in the world, with revenues exceeding US$ 45 billion and profits around US$ 17 billion. But Vale is also a global leader in its devastating disregard for human rights and environment protections. There is even a global movement around the world called “Affected by Vale”, bringing together communities that are the victims of Vale’s greed. Every time Vale enters a new country or region, the “Affected by Vale” movement ends up with new members. Mozambique is no exception.

In Mozambique, Vale is mining coal at an open-cast coal mine in Moatize, Tete province. The communities living in the area were relocated to Cateme. Every time we visit Cateme and stand in the middle of the village, we understand why Vale is considered the worst company in the world. The area is dry, hot and desolate. The land produces dust instead of crops and the 40°C plus temperatures, including in this past week, turn the small zinc-roofed houses where people have been resettled into over-sized ovens, with inside temperatures exceeding 50°C! The few times it does rain, the roofs leak and even though most houses are only a few years old, they are already cracking.

Life has always been hard in Tete province in inland Mozambique, but people developed survival methods. The community relocated to Cateme because of Vale’s mining had productive lands. They were close to heath posts, schools, churches, friends, family and one of the largest markets in the province where they could sell their crops. Now they are 37 kms away from their main market of Moatize. People said they spent up to 100 Meticais (US$4) per day getting to and from Moatize.

Even the secondary school where the meeting was held was supposedly for the resettled communities. Yet we discovered that out of 150 students, a paltry 20 come from resettled communities, the others are from wealthier families in Tete, Moatize, etc.

The people tried to discuss the issues with Vale and the government, and when that failed, they stood up and demanded to be heard. Earlier this year they held a peaceful protest and occupied the road and railway to make Vale take their concerns seriously. The reaction from the Mozambican government, backed by Vale, was unmitigated violence by the rapid intervention police, who used live ammunition, and shot rubber bullets directly at unarmed peaceful protesters, sending 6 to the hospital and 14 to jail. One man’s horrendous injuries were photographed in January. We photographed him again and his injuries persist almost 9 months later.

Photo Credits (from the top down):

Photos 1 & 2: Gregor Zielke

Photo 3: Mauro Pinto

Tagged affected by vale, Cateme, coal mining, Human rights, JA fieldwork, Moatize, mozambique, relocation, resettlement, Tete, Vale

Sep 17 2012

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Energy and Society, Pollution and Environment, Responsibility and Justice

Mozambique’s Gas Master Plan

This past week Justiça Ambiental fired off comments in response to the Natural Gas Master Plan for Mozambique which was presented in a workshop on 6^th September in Maputo. The World Bank and the Government of Mozambique commissioned consultants from ICF International based in the USA to write the Master Plan.

Lack of effective participation

The timeline and the participation process was a mockery. We were given only one week to read and respond to the report. We were not provided with the full report, despite having requested it, only the Executive Summary. It would be ethically incorrect if the government or the consultants claimed that a public participation process has occurred.

Hidden Truths and False Intentions

Although the Plan says its intention is to “maximize benefits to Mozambique society”, it appears like the intention is to maximise benefits to international oil companies and Mozambican elites instead.

There are many important questions the Master Plan does not address.

Is this the right time for gas to be explored in Mozambique?
Does the country have the necessary critical factors in place to prevent the gas resource from turning into a resource curse?
Does it have the necessary well-functioning legal, regulatory, and financial systems?
Does it encourage vibrant and democratic civil society institutions?
Does it focus on ways to improve accountability, transparency, and participation?
Does it focus on developing small and medium industries?
Does it effectively ameliorate social and environmental impacts?

The lack of attention in dealing with these issues will only result in feeding the growth of the corrupt elites and place Mozambique on the long list of African countries plagued by the resource curse.

Lack of effective regulatory, legal and other systems

The Master Plan is alluding that Mozambique has some readiness to approach gas development because it has “over the past decade been steadily building a regulatory framework under which to manage the development of its gas resources.”

This is totally misleading because Mozambique has at best taken steps only on paper, and these laws and regulations have not actually been transferred into reality. Mozambicans often sceptically say that these paper laws are to show foreigners and for the powerful to ignore. Many laws recently created in Mozambique have huge loopholes.

Where is the Corruption? Missing in this Master Plan!

It is quite shocking to note that the word ‘corruption’ appears in this entire 46-page document once. But that too is in reference to Nigeria, not Mozambique.

Isn’t it strange that the Gas Master Plan doesn’t even mention corruption in Mozambique when we have the dubious distinction of being in a low 120 out of 182 position on the Corruption Perception Index.

Gas or Tourism

Tourism is one of biggest contributors to Mozambique’s economy and one of the fastest-growing sectors. With gas exploration in the Rovuma basin, the tourism potential of the region will be jeopardised. The impacts of gas exploration on the Quirimbas marine reserves will be devastating.

Mega-projects: Who benefits?

The Master Plan recommends that Mozambique should prioritise mega-projects. However, the history of mega-projects in Mozambique clearly shows that they are purely self-serving, extractive, export-oriented ventures that provide Mozambique with only a small amount of low-skilled jobs and a lot of pollution.

The contribution of mega-projects to the Mozambican state in 2010 and 2011 was insignificant. The President of Mozambique’s Tax Authority said in an interview that the 2011 contribution of megaprojects to the state was even lower than the contribution of the informal sector.

Social and Environmental Impacts Ignored

The Master Plan claims that increased employment in the country is an objective. The Mozambican government does not prioritise training and capacity-building of Mozambicans, nor supporting small and medium industries, so it is clear that foreigners and local elites will walk away with the lion’s share of benefits from the gas sector.

This Master Plan pretends as if environmental impacts are small and can be ameliorated if managed properly. This is a fallacy. These activities are highly environmentally detrimental and Mozambique does not have a good track record in conducting effective Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs). In most cases, the EIAs just act as a ‘rubber stamp’ whereas the political decisions for projects are made before the EIAs are even conducted.

Tagged effective participation, exploration, gas, gas master plan, mega-projects, mozambique, natural gas, quirimbas, tourism

Aug 27 2012

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Responsibility and Justice

How much is enough?

Last week we marched to deliver a declaration to our Southern African heads of state who met in Maputo for the SADC (Southern African Development Community) conference. We demanded that the SADC be reclaimed for the people of the region, for people-centred development, but as I sat in my office to read the weekly local news, I feel overwhelmed by sadness but also utter puzzlement.

Do our leaders really give a thought as to the real needs of the people?

In Mozambique, I sit and read about more multinational corporation investments being approved, unfortunately, there is very little doubt as to whom the government is catering.

In the same week, we witnessed a shocking contradiction of news. Macauweb reported that the government had approved two more forestry concessions for a British company, Obtala Resources group, covering an area of 117,618 hectares, to be located in Cabo Delgado and Nampula provinces. From these concessions, the group expects to extract 8994 cubic meters of wood with a high retail value. The concessions even include very valuable species such as African Blackwood.

At the same time, Verdade newspaper reported that local carpenters in Maputo are struggling to survive with some workshops closing down and workers losing their jobs and livelihoods. Why? It is because they are facing more and more difficulties in purchasing wood without which their profession is impossible.

While Mozambique is exporting shiploads of wood, to the extent that we are one of the biggest suppliers of wood to the European and Asian markets, the carpenters of Mozambique can’t even etch out a decent, hard-working livelihood anymore. “The wood that is not ours anymore,” they lament.

This contradiction is what is known in Mozambique as “development”! Yet this contradiction is not new to us, however sad and shameful it seems, as we have been listening for many years to the woes of the local artisans increasingly facing a lack of wood. However, whenever communities raise their voices or when they lose hope and act to demand justice and their right to a decent life, they are treated as criminals, and their voices are shut down by threats, as happened in Cateme last January where people were protesting mistreatment in Vale’s coal-mining efforts.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, as we are hurtling towards becoming the poster-child for the “resource curse”, while at the same time we are touting how great our development numbers are.

The Marikana platinum miners who were shot dead by South African police last week were just demanding better wages in an industry that mints billions of US dollars every year. Similarly, the Mozambican carpenters are just asking for the chance to continue their trade and livelihood. People are not asking for hand-outs. They are asking for a chance for survival. They are asking the government to take their side for once and enforce policies that support the struggling masses.

Tagged african resources, environmental justice, forest, Marikana, mining, mozambique, poverty, resources, SADC, Vale, wood

Aug 17 2012

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Land Use and Conservation, Responsibility and Justice

Together We March! Reclaiming the SADC for Peoples’ Development

Yesterday (August 16^th2012) the beautiful coastline of Maputo was covered with a sea of green t-shirts. As the city welcomes Southern African heads of state arriving today for the SADC (Southern African Development Community) Summit, the people decided to respond by taking to the streets and marching for their rights.

People gathered yesterday morning, most of them wearing bright green t-shirts to represent the life-sustaining gifts of the land and the environment, and marched almost 5 kilometres along Avenida Marginal to the Chissano Conference Centre where the SADC talks start today.

The marchers held high their placards with powerful messages such as ‘Africa is not for sale’, ‘No to biofuels, stop land grabbing’, ‘Enough with intentions, we want actions, for the right to land, water and food sovereignty’, ‘Are we eradicating poverty, or the poor’, “Land-grabbing = Plantations, dams, mining’. Another banner demanded: ‘There is nothing about us Without US’, showing the need of the people to be involved in the decision-making that affects their lives. At the end of the march, a few representatives then went to deliver to the SADC the Peoples’ Summit declaration “Reclaiming SADC for Peoples’ Development”.

For the past 3 days, activists from social movements and organizations from Mozambique, South Africa, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have participated in the Peoples’ Summit of the SADC 2012. The Summit brought together farmers, fishermen, landless people, rural and industrial workers, rural women, feminist movements, and social and environmental activists.

There was consensus that the immense power that multi-national corporations (MNCs) exert over government and even community leaders is a major concern. Farmers raised their voices against land-grabbing, against GMOs, and for access to water, etc., during the Peoples’ Summit. Participants asserted: “The people will take over if their human rights are not respected and if their resources are continuously mismanaged.”

“Cash crops divert water and key resources from sustainable development because this is where big corporations dominate sovereign states and agriculture through the selling of seeds and fertilizers”

“Fishermen are realising that their access to the sea or rivers have been cut off and they are faced with newly-built fences – which seriously affects their livelihoods.”

The outcome of the meeting was the declaration of the concerns of the development path that the SADC is taking with undemocratic governance, impunity of corporates in extractive industries, exploitation of natural resources, dominance of corporates in the energy sector, increasing violence against women and children, displacement of communities by MNCs with active collaboration of SADC governments, increasing food insecurity, damage to ecosystems, wrong choices concerning energy policies such as; more fossil fuels, problems of mega-infrastructure including dams and mines, growing inequalities, and the continued violations of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights. Mozambican organisations such as UNAC (National Farmers’ Union), Women’s Forum, Justica Ambiental, Peoples’ Dialogue, Livaningo, and others have been involved in this process.