AJF:Newsletter[quarterly]"Africa NOW" No.99

Africa Japan Forum (AJF) works with African People for African People's better life.

Africa NOW No.99

Issued on October 31, 2013 by Africa Japan Forum (AJF)

Special Topic: ProSAVANA-JBM, problems found through the field survey

"Triangular Cooperation for Agricultural Development of the Tropical Savannah in Mozambique, namely, ProSAVANA-JBM", was signed jointly by the governments of Japan, Brazil, and Mozambique in 2009. From then, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) sent their staff members with Portuguese literacy to Mozambique, who made a preparatory survey, had meetings with Brazilian eqivs and made arrangements with Mozambican officials. Until last summer, JICA prepared the ground for successful ProSAVANA-JBM implementation at least in Japan. But on 11th Oct. 2012, The Mozambican National Peasants Union (UNAC) issued the Statement on ProSAVANA and the things started to go differently. This issue of "Africa NOW" gives you the statement of UNAC, the Mozambican civil society’s Open letter to top officials of Japan, Brazil and Mozambique, and the Japanese civil society statement on ProSAVANA.

pp.4-9 "Testimonies to problems of ProSAVANA-JBM"
by FUNADA CLASSEN Sayaka, WATANABE Naoko, MORISHITA Maiko, AKIMOTO Yoko, TAKAHASHI Kiyotaka

From late July to mid-August, 6 Japanese researchers and NGO staff, went to Mozambique to participate in a civil society meeting held by Mozambican CSOs and to make a survey in the planned areas for ProSAVANA programme. They heard the Agriculture Minister making a promise of implementing the ProSAVANA programme for small-scale farmers at Maputo. On the other hand, in the planned areas they saw that vast farmlands were already grabbed by some big firms and some elements of the ProSAVANA programme had been implementing for large and middle scale farmers. Here are their testimonies.

pp.10-11 "Japanese civil society statement on ProSAVANA-JBM" in Japanese

pp.12-13 "Japanese civil society statement on ProSAVANA-JBM" in English

pp.14-15 "The open letter handed to Prime Minister Abe from the people of Mozambique"
by MORISHITA Maiko

Ms. Morishita asks you, "Do you like soybeans products? If so, you should take care of the Japanese ODA programme in Mozambique for soybean production for Japan not for food unsecure Mozambicans."

pp.16-18 "Open letter demanding urgent suspension of ProSAVANA-JBM"

pp.18-19 "UNAC statement on ProSAVANA-JBM"

pp.20-23 "Forgiveness and reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda: Case of the GACACA Courts"
by KATAYAMA Natsuki

Ms Katayama, a candidate of PhD studying at Tokyo University, has been visiting Rwanda since her sophomore year at Osaka University of Foreign Studies and has many friends in Rwanda. After finishing a thesis on peace-building policies in post-war Rwanda, she started to study forgiveness and reconciliation among people. She focused on people affected by the GACACA Courts and getting support from friends and others had a series of interviews at 4 rural villages last summer. She writes for this issue of "Africa NOW", why she was interested in Rwandan issues, how she has been studying, and what she grasps from her experiences in Rwanda.

Back cover To readers ("Hitotsu no musubime toshite" in Japanese) and Daily Information from the secretariat of AJF to readers.

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