Well, it seems that the e-mail subscriptions to Wild Thoughts from Uganda did not transfer to the new site when I switched it over.
SO – if you are still interested in receiving Wild Thoughts via e-mail, please go directly to http://wildugandablog.com and sign up on the right side of the screen.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Mark
New Site
With growth comes change. Wild Thoughts from Uganda has reached two milestones – it just passed 15,000 hits today, and the 18th of January will be its one-year birthday. This seems like a perfect time to make some changes.
I feel good about its growth, and want it to keep growing, so I am switching to a different platform that will give me more flexibility to develop the site the way I want it to be over time.
But I don’t want you to be left behind!
I will be setting up a redirect tomorrow that “should” forward all links to the new site. I am hoping this will work for subscriptions, too. The reality, however, is that things don’t always work exactly as they should. If you have an e-mail subscription to Wild Thoughts from Uganda, it is possible that you will need to go directly to the new site and subscribe again. You can be expecting a new post from the new site in the next couple of days. If you don’t get one e-mailed to you by the end of the day Monday, it probably means the redirect didn’t work for subscriptions. You can go to http://wildugandablog.com and sign up again.
If you aren’t signed up by e-mail yet, now’s a great time to do that! Each e-mail you receive comes with a link to unsubscribe, so you always have the option of bailing out if I annoy you.
I really hope you like the new look, and I really hope this change doesn’t make Wild Thoughts drop off the face of the ePlanet.
Mark D. Jordahl – Kampala
Watch how carefully this lioness places her huge paws…
Video by Mark Jordahl
Illegal sawpit logging in Uganda
Yesterday a Ugandan man and I were planning an environmental education training for teachers. He was lamenting the poor state of the environment in Uganda and said that he wished Ugandans had the same sense of responsibility towards the environment that Americans have. He said “why can’t we Ugandans see the value of the environment and the forests?”
I pointed out to him that the United States has actually cut down 98% of our original forests, and that we aren’t exactly model citizens from an environmental perspective.
His response was “Yes, but you have something to show for it. We cut down our forests and have nothing – you cut down your forests and put a man on the moon.”
He has a certain point. The rampant resource extraction of the 1800s in the United States made us a very rich country, and until recently that wealth was spread much more evenly across society than it is in many other parts of the world.
So here’s my question to you: Why was the United States able to create national wealth from our resources when Uganda’s resources are just making a few people very rich?
Mark D. Jordahl – Kampala
Deadly clashes in Abyei on first day of South Sudan referendum
By Ngor Arol Garang
January 9, 2011 (JUBA) – A series of clashes over the last three days involving local police force and armed elements allegedly associated with members of nomadic tribe of Misseriya , in the oil-producing region of Abyei has left an unknown number dead.
A family from southern Sudan, who has been staying in the north for 21 years, waits in Khartoum January 9, 2011 to be transported in a convoy back to the Abyei oil region (Reuters)
Yesterday Khartoum-based Arabic newspaper Al-Sahafah reported the more than 49 people were killed and dozens wounded in the clashes in the disputed area, although this has not been confirmed by the UN. Reports over the cause of the violence are not clear with different reasons put forward from both sides.
Al-Sahafah reported Sunday that, nine people of those killed from the Dinka Ngok ethnic group, while the rest were either police of members of the Misseriya tribe. Both sides accuse the other of attacking first. Reuters have reported that a UN official has confirmed the clashes have taken place but have not confirmed the number of killed or injured.
Read the Rest: Deadly clashes in Abyei on first day of South Sudan referendum – Sudan Tribune: Plural news and views on Sudan.
Sudan as Seen from Space
The news out of South Sudan has been very positive for the last couple of weeks, and continues to be after the first day of polling (polls will be open until January 15). Turnout and enthusiasm have been staggeringly high.
Even up to a month ago, many people believed northern Sudan would never allow the south to secede. However, recently, Bashir, the ICC-indicted president of Sudan, made public statements that he would recognize the legitimacy of south Sudan if (when) voters approved secession and that he would not take military action to prevent south Sudan becoming independent.
So now the fears are not so much about what the north will do, but what the southerners might do to themselves. Already on Saturday, a southern militia led by Gatluak Gai staged an attack to disrupt the referendum vote. It was quickly put down by the South Sudanese army, but it shows that there are still elements in the south of the country that want to keep things destabilized. There are also tribal rifts that will not be mended by a referendum and a new identity as “South Sudanese.”
The issue of identity is interesting on a continent where national boundaries were drawn by Europeans with no regard to existing realities and where families were split and enemies merged. The secession of South Sudan is one step towards rectifying this, as north and south Sudan really are two different worlds – Arab/African, Muslim/Christian. It is unrealistic, however, to redraw the map to recognize the thousands of traditional kingdoms, clans and tribal boundaries that existed a few hundred years ago.
I recently read an article in The Monitor, called South Sudan: Countdown to Freedom, that got me thinking. It refers to a South Sudanese politician talking about “Suganda.” Basically, that South Sudan and Uganda have more in common than north and south Sudan, and that they could form a unified state. This got me thinking about a single country comprised of South Sudan and Northern Uganda.
It could make a lot of sense. Northern Uganda already feels disenfranchised from control and power in Uganda, and culturally there as many, if not more, similarities with South Sudan than with central Uganda. Intermarriage and cross-border trade already make the boundary fuzzy. The oil wealth in southern Sudan and the agricultural potential in northern Uganda could combine to create a formidable economy. Once Uganda builds an oil refinery, a pipeline could even be built to that facility, making the current one through northern Sudan obsolete. This would further cement the independence of the African south from the Arab north, and also justify a larger refining facility in Uganda. It could also make it easier to manage for the wildlife that migrates across the current border.
Obviously there are challenges to this. Part of the reason why northern Sudan is allowing this referendum to go forward is because the oil currently must go through the north, enabling them to continue sharing in the oil revenues. A reroute of the oil would reduce this willingness. The power center in central Uganda would also not take secession lightly, leaving Suganda landlocked and surrounded by uncooperative neighbors.
Northern Uganda has also not been abused by the central government of Uganda nearly as much as South Sudan has been by the north, so the political will is not there at this point. However, if South Sudan becomes strong in the next ten years, and the trade relationship grows even more, who knows? With national identity being tenuous in many African countries, success in South Sudan could cause many people to take a new look at old boundaries.
This referendum is momentous. It is a victory after a hard-fought battle that raged for years and took many lives. There are still challenges ahead, such as establishing the boundary between north and south, and getting control of the many militias still operating throughout the south. Hopefully the visionary leadership that got South Sudan to this point, and who captured the world’s attention, will create a new country that can represent all of its citizens and make them proud to be South Sudanese.
Mark D. Jordahl – Kampala
Yellow fever kills 45 in Northern Uganda
By Anne Mugisa
AT least 2.5 million people will be vaccinated in northern Uganda against yellow fever that has so far killed 45 people and infected 178.
According to the Ministry of Health, 2.5 million vials of the the yellow fever vaccine will be urgently imported to protect the people from the deadly viral disease, which is spread by mosquitoes.
The disease has been reported in nine northern Uganda districts of Abim, Agago, Lamwo, Kitgum, Pader, Gulu, Arua, Kaabong and Lira.
The deadly disease, which doctors say can kill in one week, is recurring in Uganda after almost 40 years. It was last in Uganda in 1972, according to officials from the health ministry.
A statement from the Ministry of Health said they had instituted measures to fight the disease in collaboration with the World Health Organisation and the Centres for Disease Control.
Read the Rest: New Vision Online : Yellow fever kills 45 in Northern Uganda.
I’m off for holiday travels and don’t know how regularly I’ll be updating this blog in the next few weeks, so I thought I’d leave you all with this song, performed by a very dear friend, Lee Bob Watson:
In the words of Lee:
“Oh Holy Night” has been my favorite Christmas song for quite some time. This version was recorded late in the night of Dec 20 2009, the sounds of the street are from the alley below my window in North Beach. For me, the sounds of strife amplify the longing expressed in songs such as this one. Regardless of one’s religion, we all hope for deliverance sometimes.
This song has always been one of my favorites, too, I think because of the sense of melancholy that is woven through the beauty of the song. That’s my experience of this holiday – beauty with a dash of melancholy.
The images in my head of Christmas involve people sitting nice and cozy by the fireplace, sipping hot chocolate and hot buttered rums. I love the fact that at this time of year, in the parts of the world that celebrate this holiday, people who might never talk to each other at any other time will stop to say “Merry Christmas” to the people sitting near them on the train or in line at the grocery store. It is a time that brings family together and makes people think about giving rather than getting.
But I can never shake the melancholy. I can never stop thinking about the fact that for many people around the world, Christmas is just another day of struggle. And I don’t want to shake the melancholy. I never want to forget that many people don’t have the luxury that I have of stepping out of life for a week or two and enjoying good meals and presents around the tree.
I don’t know if it helps at all, but part of what makes Christmas a “Holy Night” for me is dedicating some of my thoughts to remembering that not everybody is as lucky as me, and wishing for Peace on Earth for everyone in this season.
Merry Christmas
Mark D. Jordahl – Kampala
You know those people who just have to print out every e-mail they get, and every document that gets forwarded to them? I have frequently found myself thinking hard about whether or not to include somebody on an e-mail with an attachment because I know they will print it out, even if they’ll never look at it again. Entire forests get needlessly cut down for these people.
Well, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has come up with a solution. They have developed a PDF-type format that can’t be printed out. That’s right – if you send a party announcement, memo or other document to these folks, you can first save it as a WWF document and know that you have not been an accomplice to the early demise of a Douglas fir or western hemlock tree.
Will it catch on? Who knows, but at least it is creative, and anyone who downloads the free software will probably give some though to whether they want to send their documents as PDFs or WWFs.
So far it is only available for Mac operating systems, but a Windows version should be coming soon.
For more information, go to Save as WWF, Save a Tree
Mark D. Jordahl – Kampala
Are you a conscious shopper? When you buy lumber or wood furniture, do you always buy it from a certified sustainable source? When you buy clothes, do you check to make sure the company doesn’t use sweatshop labor? Is your chocolate fair-trade? Are your diamonds conflict-free?
Is there really any way to know?
Despite having the best intentions to use your consumer dollars to lobby for human rights and sustainable practices, and despite the hard work of NGOs with their certification schemes, it can be nearly impossible to know where your money is actually going.
Zimbabwe’s Chiadzwa region, near the border of Mozambique, is the source of a large percentage of the world’s diamonds. In the last few years, Mugabe’s soldiers have been strafing independent miners with machine guns and forcing them to work in the mines as virtual slaves before smuggling the gems out of the country for sale. The diamonds are often smuggled through Mozambique, which is not a party to the Kimberly Process, the primary international certifying scheme for diamonds. The money from these diamonds has funded much of Mugabe’s brutal regime in Zimbabwe, which is why the diamonds have not been cleared for sale by the Kimberly Process.
It would make your buying decision easier if that was the end of the story. The diamonds aren’t certified, so they shouldn’t show up on the market, right? Wrong. In the last few months, South Africa, Namibia and Angola have all said that they would allow Chiadzwa diamonds to be mixed in with their own certified diamonds for sale to international markets if the Chiadzwa diamonds are not approved. They believe that the Government of Zimbabwe has met the demands of the Kimberly Process and should now be approved. According to a news source in Zimbabwe, though, “the military has continued its brutal control of Chiadzwa and there have been continued reports of abuses at the military’s hands. This has included reports of intimidation of local villagers, forced labour and rampant smuggling.”
The Kimberly Process has been going back-and-forth on whether or not to certify the diamonds, feeling the pressure both from African nations that want them certified, and international human rights groups that are fighting the certification. The United States still has sanctions in place that don’t allow U.S.-based diamond dealers to knowingly purchase diamonds from this region, and this ban is likely to stay in place regardless of the decision by Kimberly. One way or another, the validity and authority of the Process will be questioned once the final decision is made.
Illegal Products Can Slip Through the Cracks of Any Certification Scheme
While “blood diamonds” have gotten a lot of attention in the media after the movie with DiCaprio came out, not every product has such a heavy-hitting spokesperson. All certification schemes, be they fair trade coffee, sustainable forestry, non-DRC coltan, or conflict-free diamonds have chinks in their armor and can’t be perfect. Wherever humans are involved, there are people who can be bought off. Wherever borders are permeable, as they are in much of Africa, smuggling can take place, confusing the origin of any product. You can buy illegally-cut mahogany from Uganda and poached Ivory from Zambia, all through legal channels, because of these weaknesses.
Certification schemes are an important part of our increasingly-globalized economy. We need other people and organizations to watch out for us, because we simply can’t do enough research into every single product we use. These watchdog groups also put pressure on oppressive regimes or industries and make it a lot harder for them to abuse their employees, their citizens or the environment. They are a huge improvement over the free-for-all a few decades ago when nobody was watching, and it is much harder to hide anything in this connected world. Buying products that are certified is, for the most part, much better for people and the planet.
But we can’t just sit back and assume that these certification schemes will do all the work for us, because they can’t. We still need to do at least some research, and then make our decisions. If 80% of certified diamonds on the market truly are conflict-free, is that a high enough percentage to make it worth buying that ring and supporting that industry? Only you can make that decision.
Questions:
If you are inspired to do so, please put your answers in the comments section so that we can all benefit from your thoughts:
Read More About Zimbabwe’s Chiadzwa Diamonds:
Africa plans to subvert Zim diamond ban
Conflict & Blood Diamonds: Zimbabwe
US$1 billion Marange diamonds looted
Critics step up call for Kimberley Process Reform
Mines Minister insists full diamonds sales will resume
Mark D. Jordahl – Kampala
Wild Thoughts from Uganda 