The war in Ukraine is serving as a justification for multinationals to speculate massively on the prices of commodities, as well as energy and world transport. The war in Ukraine could have been avoided if its president had not wanted to make his people suffer by destroying a nation, or if the European Union had taken the necessary steps to bring Russia and Ukraine closer together in peace and thus avoided what is happening today, a global economic war of unprecedented speculation with unpredictable consequences for civilian populations.
The presidents of the governments involved, both in the direct conflict and those who unconditionally support Ukraine, could have diplomatically stopped this war madness in which we are immersed, where the only beneficiaries are undoubtedly the arms companies – which have their great field of business in war conflicts – and the politicians who, with their bad public management, blame the war driven by themselves for the rises in all basic prices. It has been the perfect dish to avoid having to justify their mistakes and mismanagement. And while all this is going on, they are asking the civilian population to tighten their belts, turn down their heaters and save energy. Who has asked the people for a consultation to enter into an economic war that has got out of hand? Why have they given arms to kill, instead of diplomacy and peace? Where are the demonstrations that the Socialist Party promoted to say No to war when now they themselves have entered into a war that will cause more poverty and hunger in the world?
But this is not all. The European Union’s support for the war has clouded and erased from its objectives the fight against climate change, or those other war conflicts that nobody talks about and which are claiming the lives of thousands of people. What hypocrisy and what foolishness the leaders of the European Union possess, those who have not been elected by the citizens and those MEPs who dance to the beat of the drum that warms their armchairs the most. That is the reality. There is no democracy and there is no freedom of vote even among the deputies, senators or MEPs who are beholden to obeying the particular interests of each party. The world political system must change if we are to have a society with dignity.
At the same time, the murder of indigenous peoples continues in a shameful and unscrupulous manner, without the governments themselves respecting them, breaking the laws that protect them, violating their constitutional rights, devastating their communities, denying them citizenship and cutting off all aid, while expelling them from their legally acquired and legally recognized territories.
Today, as reported by Survival International without any media coverage (they are too busy with Ukraine), thousands of Maasai fled their homes and took refuge in the bush after a brutal police crackdown, as they demonstrated against the Tanzanian government’s attempts to drive them out of the Serengeti National Park, in order to make more space for trophy hunting by wealthy foreigners or mass tourism which only increases the serious problem against the native peoples, in a clear business deal between the government and the various companies involved in the exploitation of the Serengeti.
Survival International reports that on 8 June, dozens of police vehicles and some 700 officers arrived in Loliondo, Northern Tanzania, next to the Serengeti National Park, to demarcate 1,500 square kilometres of Maasai land as a game reserve. On 10 June, the officers fired on Maasai protesting against the attempt to evict them from their land. There have been numerous injuries and one death so far, as the exact number of victims is not known, as there has been a huge raid to try to ensure that no images taken on mobile phones have recorded the brutality of the police, confiscating the mobile devices and arresting numerous people.
Where is the European Union that does not call for immediate sanctions against Tanzania for the brutal repression of the Maasai? Where are the politicians denouncing these genocides and crimes against humanity? Where are the images that inform citizens of what is happening to the Maasai so that no one travels to Tanzania to protest this serious aggression?
According to Survival International in its press release, Germany is a major funder of nature conservation projects in Tanzania and is heavily involved in the development of conservation policies in the country, which have led to the expulsion of thousands of indigenous people from their land. The Frankfurt Zoological Society, according to Survival, funds rangers and officials, some of whom, according to the Maasai, have been involved in recent evictions. The UAE-based Otterlo Business Company (OBC) organises hunting trips for the country’s royal family and their guests, and we are calling on the company to stop organising trips to Tanzania in protest at the government’s infamous harassment of the Maasai, the true owners of their land.
Clearly, we are facing an acceleration of harassment and genocide of indigenous peoples to take their lands and exploit the natural resources found on them, in the face of the looming global crises and the need to remove the land in search of minerals essential for rich societies to continue to subsist, for example with electric vehicles that on the one hand claim to be environmentally friendly while thousands of companies are already looking like real moles for the minerals needed to power the batteries, at the cost of the massive destruction of our sensitive planetary biodiversity.
And this is not just about the Maasai. I recently denounced what is happening to the Batwa in the Kauzi-Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo or the direct harassment of the Qom Indigenous Community in Formosa (Argentina). The Consejo Indigenista Misionero-Cimi denounces that the Bolsonaro government uses the war in Ukraine to advance its project of death against indigenous peoples, using a private and hidden war in front of the media that are often complicit in the silence of these criminal genocides, which today continue to advance irremediably violating their human rights. This is just one example of a long list of oppression of original peoples that is being silenced without action being taken against the governments that carry it out.
The Maasai have been the latest victims so that rich people from all over the world can go to the Serengeti to kill elephants and lions without shame or consciousness, or for those long queues of tourist vehicles to see the animals without realising that because of them, an ancestral people are dying and being repressed so that the business of tourism or hunting can continue to line the pockets of politicians and officials of an already poor country. It is therefore necessary that tour operators cancel trips to Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo until they respect the Maasai and Batwa as they deserve, with all the guarantees, and hand over their stolen territories.
It is outrageous and beyond all rationality, the behaviour of the governments and the passivity of the International Community that is only interested in seeing what it wants and at a certain time, closing the doors to the evidence of the crimes against humanity that are being committed and the passivity of doing nothing, closing their eyes and only shouting when they see their personal interests being endangered. This is the current political model that has been implanted in the world’s societies. Until it is changed, and it will be difficult to change, we will be doomed to the destruction of human society, where ambition and economic power, which uses politicians as absolute puppets, will put an end to the world’s democracies and envelop us in an absolute chaos that will be difficult to escape. This is not science fiction, it is a reality and future generations will find themselves in a dead end.
That is why society needs to wake up and, shouting “enough is enough”, we must learn to take the peaceful course of the Earth ship and take it to a safe harbour for repair so that, once repaired, we can sail in peace and freedom on the seas and paths of our own evolution.
