text:
The Elephant TV
Green Blood: Journalists Killed or Silenced for Environmental Reporting
Photo: Edin Pasovic/OCCRP
Download PDFPrint Article
In March 2017, Guatemalan fishermen noticed that some parts of the country's largest lake had turned a strange reddish colour. Fearing that the apparent pollution would scare customers away from buying fish, they asked the local government to investigate.
Lake Izabal is near the Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel mine, which is owned by the Switzerland-based Solway Group. After weeks passed with no response, the locals became desperate. Hundreds of protestors from the closest town of El Estor blocked the roads that led to the mine, preventing ore deliveries to the port of Puerto Barrios. About 41 per cent of the nickel mined was slated for export to Ukraine.
Twelve days into the blockade, on May 27, clashes broke out after the government broke an agreement to meet with the fishermen. Riot police fired tear gas and dispersed the protesters; multiple gunshots were reported.
Fisherman Carlos Coc Maaz was shot and killed that day. His lifeless body lay on the road for hours, according to his widow, Cristina Xol Pop. "We called the prosecutor's office to pick up his body, but they didn't arrive," she told Forbidden Stories. "He had already spent half a day lying on the ground, so we picked him up. We took him home."
The prosecutor of the Human Rights Office, Hilda Pineda, told reporters that an investigation about possible police involvement was ongoing. Authorities initially denied that anyone was killed that day, but local journalists Carlos Choc and Jerson Xitumul with Prensa Comunitaria took photos and a video showing that a protestor had indeed been shot.
Barely a month after the clashes, the prosecutor's office accused the journalists, along with five fishermen, of six offences: threats, instigation to commit a crime, illicit association, illicit meeting and demonstrations, damages, and illegal detention. According to the indictment, the reporters allegedly participated in a protest in which four Solway workers were held illegally for several hours.
Xitumul was arrested, and both journalists faced harassment and threats.
At least 13 journalists have been killed while reporting on environmental stories around the world in the past decade, and 16 more suspicious deaths are being investigated, according to the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Forbidden Stories – a consortium of 40 journalists from 15 media outlets, including OCCRP – also found that journalists investigating environmental issues often face arrest, harassment and violence.
"When journalists are reporting on environmental issues, they are often reporting on companies or corrupt actors who are in complete alliance with the government," says Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.
At least 13 journalists have been killed while reporting on environmental stories around the world in the past decade, and 16 more suspicious deaths are being investigated, according to the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
"This means that their enemies become some of the most dangerous people in the world, and I'm hard put to think of a category of investigative reporters who are routinely dealing with more dangerous actors than environmental journalists," Shapiro says.
In Choc's case in Guatemala, a group of armed men attacked his sister's home and started shooting. The journalist went into hiding for several months and was forced to sell his camera and motorbike to support his family. He kept the computer where he stores his work.
Trouble in Tanzania
Forbidden Stories conducted investigations in Guatemala, India and Tanzania this year to report on the dangers journalists face when reporting on multinational mining companies.
In Tanzania, local and foreign journalists have struggled to report on the impact of a remote gold mine owned by Acacia Mining, whose majority shareholder is Canadian mining industry giant Barrick Gold Corp.
"The North Mara Gold Mine is more than a thousand kilometres from Dar es Salaam, where almost the entire press is [based], and therefore it is very difficult to have reporters keeping [tabs] on what is happening in these remote places," said Tundu Lissu, a Tanzanian opposition politician and lawyer who previously represented small-scale miners in the region.
Residents near the mine have suffered from the environmental consequences of gold mining for more than a decade. The industrial mining techniques produce harmful heavy metals, high levels of which have been found in the local water supply.
Mark Nega, who worked in the area as a district medical officer in 2013, said he saw about six patients apparently affected by the water near the mine. "They go to wash [in] that water [near] the mining area and they get [a very bad skin reaction]."
In 2009, a study found high levels of heavy metals and cyanide in the mine's vicinity. Heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium and lead are frequently found near gold mining sites in elevated concentrations.
In May, authorities fined Acacia Mining $2.4 million for allegedly violating the country's environmental regulations and for failing to comply with government directives to fix the mine's leaking tailings storage facility where waste is kept.
Locals have also alleged human rights abuses for years.
Samuel Muchugu Wambura, a father of six from Kerende village, was killed in 2016 by an officer of the Tanzanian police force, which contributes to the mine's security, after he crept onto the property searching for gold. Local artisanal miners lost their primary source of income in 2002 when the North Mara Gold Mine began commercial production.
Wambura's death came about two years after Acacia Mining settled out of court with people from the region who sued the company over alleged injuries and fatalities at the mine, and after Acacia announced its commitment "to promoting human rights and appropriate conflict resolution practices."
In a statement, Barrick Gold said it doesn't exercise operational control over Acacia and that it encourages those who do to implement policies and programmes in line with the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
Acacia told Forbidden Stories that "the Mine has not yet received any supporting reports, findings or technical data in relation to the environmental protection order or the recent statements by the Minister of State in the Vice President's Office for Union Affairs and Environment or the Minister for Minerals."
Tanzania's Minister in the Vice President's Office for Union Affairs and Environment, January Makamba, told OCCRP that part of the blame for the mine's negative impact on neighbouring communities lies with the government.
"It's been ten years [since we noticed the problem] and the tailing storage facility is still polluting, is still seeping," he said, referring to the Acacia waste storage facility that was sanctioned. "We have a bit of responsibility and part of our blame is to consistently believe what the mine was telling us."
Makamba placed most of the responsibility with Acacia, whose "non-compliance, over a long period of time, of government's directives […] have been all ignored," he said.
A difficult environment for journalists
But the government has also created a difficult environment for journalists to act as watchdogs. In Tanzania, press freedom has been on the decline, especially since the election of President John Magufuli in 2015. The country currently ranks 118th out of 180 on Reporter Without Borders' World Freedom Index, dropping 43 places since 2015.
Tanzania's 2015 Cybercrimes Act authorised imprisonment for at least three years, a fine of not less than 5 million Tanzanian shillings ($2,175), or both for knowingly publishing information or data deemed "false, deceptive, misleading, or inaccurate," which has led to prosecutions of reporters and regular citizens.
"Since coming into force, the law has been invoked to persecute dozens of individuals and journalists," civil society groups wrote in a 2018 statement to the president. "In one week alone, five private citizens were charged under the Cybercrimes Act for statements made on Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media platforms, including a three-year sentence handed down to a private citizen for insulting President John Magufuli on Facebook."
Tanzania's 2015 Cybercrimes Act authorised imprisonment for at least three years, a fine of not less than 5 million Tanzanian shillings ($2,175), or both for knowingly publishing information or data deemed "false, deceptive, misleading, or inaccurate"…
In March, the East African Court of Justice ruled that parts of Tanzania's 2016 Media Services Act — which civil society groups say allows the government to decide who is a journalist and which criminalises defamation and so-called sedition — violate the East Africa Community treaty's commitment to good governance, principles of democracy and the rule of law. The court directed Tanzania's government to bring the Act in line with the treaty.
"There is great fear among journalists nowadays – especially those who criticise the government," says Jabir Idrissa, a journalist from Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania. Around two years ago he was working for the Swahili-language weeklies MwanaHalisi and Mawio, both of which have since been banned by the government and are part of the same newspaper group. In 2009, he started to report on environmental pollution in Tarime, the district where the North Mara gold mine is located.
"We had a long discussion in the newsroom when we were choosing which stories to [go] with," Idrissa says. Reporting on them was deemed risky because "the top big shots did not want the public to know about it – what was inside the contracts between Acacia and the government." Even so, they went ahead and published. "Journalism is a job of telling the truth to the people," he says.
In June 2017, Mawio published an article linking two former presidents to alleged irregularities in mining deals decades earlier. The same day, Tanzania's minister of information, culture, arts and sports, Harrison Mwakyembe, banned the newspaper for two years.
The editor-in-chief of Mawio, Simon Mkina, told a news agency that he began receiving threatening phone calls. Idrissa lost his job and was unable to find work in journalism again. He started working in a clothing shop in Zanzibar so he could support his children.
Forbidden Stories has identified a dozen journalists who have been arrested, threatened or censored by Tanzanian authorities for reporting on mining.
"In emerging economies where people depend on natural resources and those natural resources are very valuable to industry or to the government, that can become a very dangerous situation for journalists who are covering the extraction of those natural resources," said Meaghan Parker, executive director of the U.S.-based Society of Environmental Journalists.
'A real chilling effect'
The problems of mining-related pollution and journalistic risk aren't confined to Africa and Latin America. Indian businessman S. Vaikundarajan heads V.V. Mineral, which extracts more beach sand than is allowed by his company's permit in India, according to an expert report submitted to the Madras High Court.
"About, say, 85 percent to 90 percent of beach sand mining, legal and illegal, is monopolised by this one family," says Sandhya Ravishankar, a journalist based in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, where illegal sand mining is rampant.
In a statement to Forbidden Stories, S. Vaikundarajan indicated that "stoppage of mining until the inspection is completed does not amount [to a] ban of mining." Regarding the expert report filed in court, Vaikundarajan indicated that "all the allegations made … is without any basis and not in accordance with [the] law."
It is estimated that between September 2013 and 2017, over 2 million metric tonnes of sand minerals were exported from Tamil Nadu, despite a temporary ban on sand mining in the state, according to the report. Importers included construction material companies from around the world, including from the United States and Germany.
In a report published in May, the U.N. Environment Programme said that sand "extraction in rivers has led to pollution, flooding, lowering of water aquifers and worsening drought occurrence."
Ravishankar started reporting on illegal beach sand mining in 2013. After she published an investigation in India's Economic Times in 2015, a defamation suit was filed within hours, she says, and together with the newspaper she was personally named as a defendant.
Ravishankar struggled to find an outlet that would publish further reporting, at least until 2017 when the Indian non-profit news website The Wire finally published her investigation.
The journalist says she received threatening phone calls, was followed, and had CCTV footage of her meeting a source posted on the Internet.
In a letter to the Chennai City Commissioner of Police dated Sept. 24, 2018, Ravishankar wrote that she had "strong reason to believe that a senior IPS [Indian Police Service] officer is colluding with the mining mafia in order to follow me, film and photograph me."
Despite the intimidation, Ravinshakar says "not for a second" did she think about stopping the investigation.
Such tactics and attacks on journalists reporting environmental stories can have "a real chilling effect," says Saul Elbein, an American journalist who has reported on murders of environmental journalists for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
"As more and more of the world lurches toward environmental crisis, there is less and less meaningful reporting coming out of the rural places where environmental crime happens," Elbein told Forbidden Stories. "The lights, in other words, are going out just as they're most needed."
By OCCRP
Founded in 2006 by Drew Sullivan and Paul Radu, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is a non-profit media organization providing an investigative reporting platform for the OCCRP Network.
Love our content? Subscribe to our newsletter today and keep updated.
Every week you will receive a curated digest of our latest and best content straight to your email inbox. We will never share your email address.
EnvironmentGoldTanzania
Geothermal Development in Kenya: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Gold and Gemstone Policy in Kenya: The Devil Is in the Detail
JPM Starts his 2nd Term!
Elections in Tanzania
Tanzania Opposition Leader Tundu Lissu
Fatma Karume in Tanzania
Hijacking Kenya's Health Spending: Companies Linked to Powerful MP Received Suspicious Procurement Contracts
Two obscure companies linked to Kitui South MP Rachael Kaki Nyamai were paid at least KSh24.2 million to deliver medical supplies under single-source agreements at the time the MP was chair of the National Assembly's Health Committee.
Two obscure companies linked to Kitui South MP Rachael Kaki Nyamai were paid at least KSh24.2 million to deliver medical supplies under single-source agreements at the time the MP was chair of the National Assembly's Health Committee, an investigation by Africa Uncensored and The Elephant has uncovered.
One of the companies was also awarded a mysterious Ksh 4.3 billion agreement to supply 8 million bottles of hand sanitizer, according to the government's procurement system.
The contracts were awarded in 2015 as authorities moved to contain the threat from the Ebola outbreak that was ravaging West Africa and threatening to spread across the continent as well as from flooding related to the El-Nino weather phenomenon.
The investigation found that between 2014 and 2016, the Ministry of Health handed out hundreds of questionable non-compete tenders related to impending disasters, with a total value of KSh176 billion including three no-bid contracts to two firms, Tira Southshore Holdings Limited and Ameken Minewest Company Limited, linked to Mrs Nyamai, whose committee oversaw the ministry's funding – a clear conflict of interest.
Although authorities have since scrutinized some of the suspicious contracts and misappropriated health funds, the investigation revealed a handful of contracts that were not made public, nor questioned by the health committee.
Mrs Nyamai declined to comment for the story.
The Other Afya House Scandal
Nyamai has been accused by fellow members of parliament of thwarting an investigation of a separate alleged fraud. In 2016, a leaked internal audit report accused the Ministry of Health — colloquially referred to for its location at Afya House — of misappropriating funds in excess of nearly $60 million during the 2015/2016 financial year. Media stories described unauthorized suppliers, fraudulent transactions, and duplicate payments, citing the leaked document.
Members of the National Assembly's Health Committee threatened to investigate by bringing the suppliers in for questioning, and then accused Nyamai, the committee chairperson, of blocking their probe. Members of the committee signed a petition calling for the removal of Nyamai and her deputy, but the petition reportedly went missing. Nyamai now heads the National Assembly's Committee on Lands.
Transactions for companies owned by Mrs Nyamai's relatives were among 25,727 leaked procurement records reviewed by reporters from Africa Uncensored, Finance Uncovered, The Elephant, and OCCRP. The data includes transactions by eight government agencies between August 2014 and January 2018, and reveals both questionable contracts as well as problems that continue to plague the government's accounting tool, IFMIS.
The Integrated Financial Management Information System was adopted to improve efficiency and accountability. Instead, it has been used to fast-track corruption.
Paying for a Pandemic
Hand sanitizer was an important tool in fighting transmission of Ebola, according to a WHO health expert. In one transaction, the Ministry of Health paid Sh5.4 million for "the supply of Ebola reagents for hand sanitizer" to a company owned by a niece of the MP who chaired the parliamentary health committee. However, it's unclear what Ebola reagents, which are meant for Ebola testing, have to do with hand sanitizer. Kenya's Ministry of Health made 84 other transactions to various vendors during this period, earmarked specifically for Ebola-related spending. These included:
Public awareness campaigns and adverts paid to print, radio and tv media platforms, totalling at least KSh122 million.
Printed materials totalling at least KSh214 million for Ebola prevention and information posters, contact tracing forms, technical guideline and point-of-entry forms, brochures and decision charts, etc. Most of the payments were made to six obscure companies.
Ebola-related pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical supplies, including hand sanitizer
Ebola-related conferences, catering, and travel expenses
At least KSh15 millions paid to a single vendor for isolation beds
Hacking the System
Tira Southshore Holdings Limited and Ameken Minewest Company Limited, appear to have no history of dealing in hygiene or medical supplies. Yet they were awarded three blanket purchase agreements, which are usually reserved for trusted vendors who provide recurring supplies such as newspapers and tea, or services such as office cleaning.
"A blanket agreement is something which should be exceptional, in my view," says former Auditor-General, Edward Ouko.
But the leaked data show more than 2,000 such agreements, marked as approved by the heads of procurement in various ministries. About KSh176 billion (about $1.7 billion) was committed under such contracts over 42 months.
"Any other method of procurement, there must be competition. And in this one there is no competition," explained a procurement officer, who spoke generally about blanket purchase agreements on background. "You have avoided sourcing."
The Ministry of Health did not respond to detailed questions, while Mrs Nyamai declined to comment on the contracts in question.
BPAs Explained
Procurement experts say blanket purchase agreements are used in Kenya to short-circuit the competitive process. A ministry's head of procurement can request authority from the National Treasury to create blanket agreements for certain vendors. Those companies can then be asked by procurement employees to deliver supplies and services without competing for a tender.
Once in the system, these single-source contracts are prone to corruption, as orders and payments can simply be made without the detailed documentation required under standard procurements. With limited time and resources, government auditors say they struggle especially with reconciling purchases made under blanket agreements.
The agreements were almost always followed by standard purchase orders that indicated the same vendor and the same amount which is unusual and raises fears of duplication. Some of these transactions were generated days or weeks after the blanket agreements, many with missing or mismatched explanations. It's unclear whether any of these actually constituted duplicate payments.
For example, the leaked data show two transactions for Ameken Minewest for Sh6.9 million each — a blanket purchase order for El Nino mitigation supplies and a standard order for the supply of chlorine tablets eight days later. Tira Southshore also had two transactions of Sh12 million each — a blanket purchase for the "supply of lab reagents for cholera," and six days later a standard order for the supply of chlorine powder.
Auditors say both the amounts and the timing of such payments are suspicious because blanket agreements should be paid in installments.
"It could well be a duplicate, using the same information, to get through the process. Because you make a blanket [agreement], then the intention is to do duplicates, so that it can pass through the cash payee phase several times without delivering more," said Ouko upon reviewing some of the transactions for Tira Southshore. This weakness makes the IFMIS system prone to abuse, he added.
In addition, a KSh4 billion contract for hand sanitizer between the Health Ministry's Preventive and Promotive Health Department and Tira Southshore was approved as a blanket purchase agreement in April 2015. The following month, a standard purchase order was generated for the same amount but without a description of services — this transaction is marked in the system as incomplete. A third transaction — this one for 0 shillings — was generated 10 days later by the same procurement employee, using the original order description: "please supply hand sanitizers 5oomls as per contract Moh/dpphs/dsru/008/14-15-MTC/17/14-15(min.no.6).
Reporters were unable to confirm whether KSh4 billion was paid by the ministry. The leaked data doesn't include payment disbursement details, and the MOH has not responded to requests for information.
"I can assure you there's no 4 billion, not even 1 billion. Not even 10 million that I have ever done, that has ever gone through Tira's account, through that bank account," said the co-owner of the company, Abigael Mukeli. She insisted that Tira Southshore never had a contract to deliver hand sanitizer, but declined to answer specific questions. It is unclear how a company without a contract would appear as a vendor in IFMIS, alongside contract details.
It is possible that payments could end up in bank accounts other than the ones associated with the supplier. That is because IFMIS also allowed for the creation of duplicate suppliers, according to a 2016 audit of the procurement system. That audit found almost 50 cases of duplication of the same vendor.
"Presence of active duplicate supplier master records increases the possibility of potential duplicate payments, misuse of bank account information, [and] reconciliation issues," the auditors warned.
They also found such blatant security vulnerabilities as ghost and duplicate login IDs, deactivated requirements for password resets, and remote access for some procurement employees.
Credit: Edin Pasovic/OCCRP
IFMIS was promoted as a solution for a faster procurement process and more transparent management of public funds. But the way the system was installed and used in Kenya compromised its extolled safeguards, according to auditors.
"There is a human element in the system," said Ouko. "So if the human element is also not working as expected then the system cannot be perfect."
The former head of the internal audit unit at the health ministry, Bernard Muchere, confirmed in an interview that IFMIS can be manipulated.
Masking the Setup
Ms Mukeli, the co-owner of Tira Southshore and Ameken Minewest, is the niece of Mrs Nyamai, according to local sources and social media investigation, although she denied the relationship to reporters. According to her LinkedIn profile, Ms Mukeli works at Kenya Medical Supplies Agency, a medical logistics agency under the Ministry of Health, now embroiled in a COVID procurement scandal.
Ms Mukeli's mother, who is the MP's elder sister, co-owns Icpher Consultants Company Ltd., which shares a post office box with Tira Southshore and Mematira Holdings Limited, which was opened in 2018, is co-owned by Mrs Nyamai's husband and daughter, and is currently the majority shareholder of Ameken Minewest. Documents also show that a company called Icpher Consultants was originally registered to the MP, who was listed as the beneficial owner.
Jacks of Many Trades
Co-owner of Tira Southshore Holdings Limited, Abigael Mukeli, described the company to reporters as a health consulting firm. However Tira Southshore also holds an active exploration license for the industrial mining in a 27-square-kilometer area in Kitui County, including in the restricted South Kitui National Reserve. According to government records, the application for mining limestone in Mutomo sub-county — Nyamai's hometown — was initiated in 2015 and granted in 2018.
Mukeli is also a minority owner of Ameken Minewest Company Limited, which also holds an active mining license in Mutomo sub-county of Kitui, in an area covering 135.5 square kilometers. Government records show that the application for the mining of limestone, magnesite, and manganese was initiated in 2015 and granted in 2018. Two weeks after the license was granted, Mematira Holdings Limited was incorporated, with Nyamai's husband and daughter as directors. Today, Mematira Holdings is the majority shareholder of Ameken Minewest, which is now in the process of obtaining another mining license in Kitui County.
According to public documents, Ameken also dabbles in road works and the transport of liquefied petroleum gas. And it's been named by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations in a fuel fraud scheme.
Yet another company, Wet Blue Proprietors Logistics Ltd., shares a phone number with Tira Southshore and another post office box with Icpher Consultants Company Ltd., according to a Kenya National Highway Authority list of pre-qualified vendors.
Mrs Nyamai and her husband co-own Wet Blue. The consulting company was opened in 2010, the same year that the lawmaker completed her PhD work in HIV/AIDS education in Denmark.
Wet Blue was licenced in 2014 as a dam contractor and supplier of water, sewerage, irrigation and electromechanical works. It's also listed by KENHA as a vetted consultant for HIV/AIDS mitigation services, together with Icpher Consultants.
It is unclear why these companies are qualified to deliver all these services simultaneously.
"Shell companies receiving contracts in the public sector in Kenya have enabled corruption, fraud and tax evasion in the country. They are literally special purpose vehicles to conduct 'heists' and with no track record to deliver the public goods, works or services procured," said Sheila Masinde, executive director of Transparency International-Kenya.
Both MOH and Ms Mukeli refused to confirm whether the ordered supplies were delivered.
Mrs Nyamai also co-owns Ameken Petroleum Limited together with Alfred Agoi Masadia and Allan Sila Kithome.
Mr Agoi is an ANC Party MP for Sabatia Constituency in Vihiga County, and was on the same Health Committee as Mrs Nyamai, a Jubilee Party legislator. Mr Sila is a philanthropist who is campaigning for the Kitui County senate seat in the 2022 election.
Juliet Atellah at The Elephant and Finance Uncovered in the UK contributed reporting.
Speak of Me as I Am: Reflections on Aid and Regime Change in Ethiopia
We can call the kind of intrusive donor clientelism that Cheeseman is recommending Good Governance 2.0. His advocacy for strengthening patron-client relations between western donors and African governments, and his urging that donors use crises as a way of forcing regime change and policy conditionalities, is ahistorical, counterproductive and morally indefensible.
Jimi O. Adesina, Andrew M. Fischer and Nimi Hoffmann
In a piece, published on 22 December 2020, that he describes as the most important thing he wrote in 2020, Nick Cheeseman penned a strong criticism of what he calls the 'model of authoritarian development' in Africa. This phrase refers specifically to Ethiopia and Rwanda, the only two countries that fit the model, which is otherwise not generalisable to the rest of the continent. His argument, in a nutshell, is that donors have been increasingly enamoured with these two countries because they are seen as producing results. Yet the recent conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia shows that this argument needs to be questioned and discarded. He calls for supporting democracy in Africa, which he claims performs better in the long run than authoritarian regimes, especially in light of the conflicts and repression that inevitably emerge under authoritarianism. His argument could also be read as an implicit call for regime change, stoking donors to intensify political conditionalities on these countries before things get even worse.
Cheeseman's argument rests on a number of misleading empirical assertions which have important implications for the conclusions that he draws. In clarifying these, our point is not to defend authoritarianism. Instead, we hope to inject a measure of interpretative caution and to guard against opportunistically using crises to fan the disciplinary zeal of donors, particularly in a context of increasingly militarised aid regimes that have been associated with disastrous ventures into regime change.
We make two points. First, his story of aid dynamics in Ethiopia is not supported by the data he cites, which instead reflect the rise of economic 'reform' programmes pushed by the World Bank and IMF. The country's current economic difficulties also need to be placed in the context of the systemic financial crisis currently slamming the continent, in which both authoritarian and (nominally) democratic regimes are faring poorly.
Second, we reflect on Cheeseman's vision of aid as a lever of regime change. Within already stringent economic adjustment programmes, his call for intensifying political conditionalities amounts to a Good Governance Agenda 2.0. It ignores the legacy of the structural adjustment programmes in subverting deliberative governance on the continent during the 1980s and 1990s.
Misleading aid narratives distract from rebranded structural adjustment
On the first point, Cheeseman establishes his argument early on by stating 'that international donors have become increasingly willing to fund authoritarian regimes in Africa on the basis that they deliver on development'. In support of this assertion, he cites a table from the World Bank that shows net Official Development Assistance (ODA) received by Ethiopia surging to USD 4.93 billion in 2018, up from just over USD 4 billion in 2016 and 2017, and from a plateau oscillating around USD 3.5 billion from 2008 to 2015.
These aggregated data are misleading because ODA received by Ethiopia from western bilateral donors in fact fell in 2018 (and probably continued falling in 2019 and 2020). The World Bank data that he cites are actually from the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) statistics, which refer to all official donors (but not including countries such as China). If we restrict donor assistance to DAC countries – which is relevant given that Cheeseman only refers to the US, the UK and the EU in his piece – disbursed ODA to Ethiopia fell from USD 2.26 billion in 2017 to USD 2.06 billion in 2018 (see the red line in the figure below).
Figure: ODA to Ethiopia (millions USD), 2000-2019
Source: OECD.stat, last accessed 30 December 2020.
There was a brief moderate increase in DAC country ODA starting in 2015 and peaking in 2017. Cheeseman might have been referring to this. However, contrary to his argument, it was likely that the reason for this increase in aid was primarily humanitarian, responding to the refugee influx from South Sudan that began in 2015 and to the severe drought and famine risk in 2016-17. It was also probably related to attempts to induce incipient political reform following the major protests in Oromia in 2014, which Cheeseman would presumably condone given that conventional measures of democracy and freedom improved in 2018. Indeed, it is notable that committed ODA from DAC donor countries fell even more sharply than disbursed aid in 2018, from USD 2.49 billion in 2017 to USD 2.07 billion, reflecting the context in which these countries were negotiating hard with the Ethiopian government at the time.
Instead, the sharp increase in ODA in 2018 came entirely from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group, which increased its mixture of grants and loans to the country from USD 1.1 billion in 2017 to USD 2.1 billion in 2018. This subsequently fell to USD 1.8 billion in 2019 (the dashed green line in the figure).
Such ODA has been explicitly tied to the World Bank's long-standing goal of liberalising, privatising and deregulating the Ethiopian economy, thereby 'reforming' (or disassembling) many of the attributes that have allowed the Ethiopian state to act in a developmentalist manner. These attributes include state-owned enterprises, state control over the financial sector, and relatively closed capital accounts, in strong distinction to most other countries in Africa (including Rwanda).
For instance, in October 2018 it approved USD 1.2 billion from the IDA in support of 'a range of economic reforms designed to revitalize the economy by expanding the role of the private sector… to gradually open up the economy and introduce competition to and liberalize sectors that have been dominated by key state-owned enterprises (SOEs)'. The support aimed to promote public-private partnerships in key state-owned sectors such as telecoms, power and trade logistics as key mechanisms to restructure these sectors, as well as broader deregulation and financial liberalisation. It is also notable that the World Bank prefaced this justification by emphasising the political reforms that had already been embarked upon, and the promotion of 'citizen engagement social accountability' in Ethiopia.
In other words, contra the idea that western donors have been increasing their support for an authoritarian development model, they have been gradually withdrawing aid since 2017. The World Bank pulled up the slack in 2018, and in December 2019 both the World Bank and IMF promised more funding in support of ongoing economic reforms. The economic liberalisation has in turn undermined political liberalisation and has been a key source of political destabilization.
The bargaining hand of these donors has been reinforced by the economic difficulties faced by the Ethiopian economy – in particular, a hard tightening of external foreign-exchange constraints. Balance of payments statistics reveal that the government had effectively stopped external borrowing after 2015, a policy that it was advised to adopt in its Article IV consultations with the IMF in 2016 and 2017 as its external debt distress levels were rising. As a result, the government became excessively reliant on donor grant money as a principal source of foreign financing. Yet the country continued to run deep trade deficits, in large part because its development strategies, as elsewhere in Africa, have been very import and foreign-exchange intensive (e.g. think of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, requiring more than USD 4.6 billion to build, the bulk in foreign exchange). Significant capital flight appears to have taken place as well; for example, errors and omissions reported on the balance of payments were -USD 2.14 billion in 2018. In order to keep the ship afloat, the central bank burnt through over USD 1 billion of its reserves in 2018 alone.
Contra the idea that western donors have been increasing their support for an authoritarian development model, they have been gradually withdrawing aid since 2017
This severe tightening of foreign-exchange constraints needs to be understood as a critical structural factor in causing the development strategy to stall. Along with non-economic factors, this in turn put considerable strain on the government's ability to stabilise political factions through the deployment of scarce resources, of which foreign exchange remains among the most important, especially in the current setting. Again, the point is not to apologise for authoritarianism, but rather to emphasise that the current situation is rooted deeper within a conjuncture of systemic crises that go far beyond any particular form of political administration.
Indeed, Cheeseman commits a similar oversight in ignoring the previous systemic crisis that the present is in many ways repeating. Later in his piece, he asserts: 'The vast majority of African states were authoritarian in the 1970s and 1980s, and almost all had poor economic growth.' This is an ahistorical misrepresentation of the profound global crisis that crippled Africa from the late 1970s for about two decades and which was the source of the poor growth he mentions. Then, as now, economic crisis was triggered throughout the continent by the severe tightening of external constraints, which neoliberal structural adjustment programmes exacerbated in a pro-cyclical manner despite being justified in the name of growth. The combination crippled developmentalist strategies across the continent regardless of political variations and despite the fact that many countries were performing quite well before the onset of the crisis. Such historical contextualisation is crucial for a correct assessment of the present.
Along with non-economic factors, this in turn put considerable strain on the government's ability to stabilise political factions through the deployment of scarce resources, of which foreign exchange remains among the most important, especially in the current setting.
In this respect, there is a danger of putting the cart before the horse. Most countries that descend into deep protracted crises (economic or political) generally stop being nominally democratic, and yet this result becomes attributed as a cause, as if authoritarianism results in crisis or poor performance. Cheeseman cherry-picks two papers (one a working paper) on democracy and development performance in Africa (which like all cross-country regressions, are highly sensitive to model specification and open to interpretation). However, drawing any causality from such studies is problematic given that states tended to become more authoritarian after the global economic crisis and subsequent structural adjustments of the late 1970s and 1980s, not the other way around. For instance, 16 countries were under military rule in 1972, compared with 21 countries in 1989 during the height of adjustment. Faced with crippled capacity under the weight of severe austerity and dwindling legitimacy as living standards collapsed, many states responded to mass protests against the harsh conditionalities of adjustment with increasing force. As such, economic crisis and adjustment plausibly contributed to the rise of political instability and increasingly authoritarian regimes. Other factors include the Cold War destabilisation, which western countries fuelled and profited from. In other words, the political malaise across Africa at the time was driven by as much by external as internal factors.
Aid as a lever of regime change
This leads us to our second point concerning Cheeseman's vision of aid as a lever of regime change. Cheeseman is at pains to emphasise that rigged elections and repression of opponents have contributed to the recent emergence of conflict in the Tigray region. While these are important features, Ethiopian intellectuals have also emphasised that conflicts in contemporary Ethiopia have taken place against a history of imperial state formation, slavery and debates about the 'national question', or what has sometimes been called 'internal colonialism'. These conflicts are shaped by the system of ethnic federalism, in which ethnically defined states control their own revenues, social provisioning and security forces. They have been affected by foreign agricultural land grabs, which interact with older histories of semi-feudal land dispossession. Most recently, there have been concerns that regional tensions over the Renaissance Dam and agricultural land may help draw neighbouring countries into the conflict.
In the face of this highly complex and rapidly changing context, no one person can identify the optimal response. It plausibly requires regular collective deliberation by people who are deeply embedded in the context. In particular, the brief political liberalisation of 2018 was followed by a sharp uptick of political violence on all sides, rooted in fundamental tensions between different visions of statehood. Such situations cannot be solved simply by 'adding democracy and stirring'; they require deliberative governance.
Yet, Cheeseman's piece seeks a reimposition of the very political conditionalities that were a primary factor in subverting deliberative governance on the continent during the first wave of structural adjustment and its attendant Good Governance agendas. Such conditionalities work by constraining the open contestation of ideas and the process of informed consensus-building. They undermine the sovereignty of key institutions of the polity and the economy. And by doing so they degrade the historical meaning of development as a project of reclaiming social and economic sovereignty after colonialism.
Indeed, as Thandika Mkandawire has argued, the previous wave of political conditionalities and democratisation reduced democracies to formal structures of elections and, by wedding and subordinating them to the orthodox economic policy frameworks established under structural adjustment, led to what he called 'choiceless democracies'. Such 'disempowered new democracies' are incapable of responding to the substantive macroeconomic demands of voters and thereby undermining substantive democracy, deliberative governance and policy sovereignty.
In particular, the idea of a democratic developmental state is meaningless in the absence of policy sovereignty. The institutional monocropping and monotasking of the type that Mkandawire wrote about does not merely prevent key institutions, such as central banks, from using broader policy instruments to support the developmental project. It also involves the deliberate creation of unaccountable policy vehicles, such as Monetary Policy Committees (MPCs), which operate outside of democratic oversight, but have considerable hold on the levers of economic policy. MPCs are in turn wedded to neoliberal monetarism. The message to such disempowered new democracies is that 'you can elect any leader of your choice as long as s/he does not tamper with the economic policy that we choose for you.' Or as Mkandawire wrote in 1994, 'two or three IMF experts sitting in a country's reserve bank have more to say than the national association of economists about the direction of national policy.'
As Thandika Mkandawire has argued, the previous wave of political conditionalities and democratisation reduced democracies to formal structures of elections and, by wedding and subordinating them to the orthodox economic policy frameworks established under structural adjustment, led to what he called 'choiceless democracies'
In such contexts, the prospect of a democratic developmental state is severely diminished. Ensuring significant improvements in people's wellbeing is important for the legitimacy of democracies. Yet the subversion of policy sovereignty significantly constrains the ability of new democracies to do so, setting them up for a crisis of legitimacy.
If democracy is to be meaningful it should involve the active engagement of citizens in a system of deliberative governance. Civil society organisations, in this context, are meaningful when they are autonomous institutions of social groupings that actively engage in boisterous debate and public policymaking in articulating the interest of their members. Yet, donor clientelism in Africa has wrought civil society and advocacy organisations that are manufactured and funded by, and accountable to, donors, not the citizens. This is a substantive subversion of democracy as a system of deliberative governance.
In this respect, we can call the kind of intrusive donor clientelism that Cheeseman is recommending Good Governance 2.0. His advocacy for strengthening patron-client relations between western donors and African governments, and his urging that donors use crises as a way of forcing regime change and policy conditionalities, is ahistorical, counterproductive and morally indefensible. In particular, it does not take into account the destructive, anti-democratic role of western-backed regime change and policy conditionality across the Global South during the era of flag independence. Even recently, these donor countries have disastrous human rights records when pushing for regime change in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Their support for military dictatorships, such as in Egypt, has been a central pillar of foreign policy for decades. And several of these donor countries worked hard to uphold apartheid in South Africa. They have no moral high ground to push for regime change, and little record to ensure that they could do so without causing more harm than good.
Moreover, external actors attempting to enforce their narrow view of democratisation in contexts of deeply polarised and competing visions of statehood, and in the midst of economic instability reinforced by already burdensome economic conditionalities, austerity and reforms, could well be a recipe for disaster. As a collective of intellectuals from across the Horn has emphasised, the people of Ethiopia in particular and the Horn in general must be at the forefront of developing a lasting peace. This would likely require a developmental commitment to supporting state capacity and deliberative governance, not undermining it through external interference and conditionalities.
This article was first published in CODESRIA Bulletin Online, No. 2, January 2021 Page 1
Mohamed Bouazizi and Tunisia: 10 Years On
Last year marked the 10th anniversary of the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, who on 17 December 2010 set himself alight at Sidi Bouzid in an act of self-immolation that made him the iconic martyr of the Tunisian revolution.
Habib Ayeb
Mohamed Bouazizi's name is familiar to all; less so is his background, although the facts of his story are well known and documented. This article will explore the links between the different sequences of 'protest' processes in Tunisia, from the 2008 strikes in the minefields, to the most recent (2017-20) El Kamour protests in the country's south-east. It will also consider the concept of socio-spatial class solidarity, both in turning an individual suicide into the spark for a major uprising, and in facilitating collective resistance and its role in long revolutionary processes.
Two key questions arise: what in Bouazizi's profile, life and circumstances was of such significance that his suicide sparked a huge popular uprising whose impact, direct and indirect, was felt worldwide. And what can he teach us about the origin, scale and longevity of the Tunisian revolution?
We must therefore examine the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi within its familial and personal context, but also within the more general context of the political protests against the Ben Ali dictatorship, and especially against the processes of dispossession, impoverishment and exclusion. Sidi Bouzid was clearly a focus of the protests and resistance then spreading throughout Tunisia's marginalised regions. The prolonged mining strikes of 2008 were a key stage in the actions.
Born into poverty, Mohamed Bouazizi was raised by his mother after he lost his father at the age of three. As the eldest son he grew up with a moral 'obligation' to support his mother, to the detriment of his education, and he left school without qualifications. Some time before his dramatic act, he acquired a barrow and scales and started selling vegetables but his informal business attracted endless administrative hassles and police harassment. Finally, on 17 December 2010, the police seized his meagre equipment to put a stop to his trading. Angry, frustrated and desperate, he turned to the only act of resistance that still appeared open to him and thereby unwittingly triggered the countdown to Ben Ali's fall, scarcely one month later, on 14 January 2011.
'Individual' suicide and class solidarity
Between the prolonged mining strike of 2008 and the shows of solidarity unleashed by Bouazizi's self-immolation, many social movements were active across Tunisia. Among them were the protests made in Sidi Bouzid in June and July 2010 by peasant farmers whose demands focused on a number of issues: access to natural resources such as agricultural land, and water for drinking and irrigation purposes, state aid, and the complex problem of indebtedness.
According to several witnesses interviewed in Sidi Bouzid, as well as two family members, Mohamed Bouazizi took an active part in these demonstrations. Whether or not this is so, I would identify a clear link between the peasant 'protests' of summer 2010 and those that followed Bouazizi's desperate act – a link that explains why this particular case, in contrast to other suicides, sparked a popular uprising across the country. First to take to the streets after Bouazizi's self-immolation were other peasant farmers' children identifying with his fatal act of resistance and despair.
Here was a clear example of 'class solidarity' among local populations directly affected by the region's multiple social and economic problems. Over the next few days that same class solidarity also found expression nationwide, moving from the 'rural' zones (including 'rural towns'), to the popular quarters of larger towns, and finally to the big urban centres, including Tunis. The progress of the protests suggests the existence of a distinct class-consciousness embracing all the 'popular' classes, rural and urban.
Since the early 1980s, the governorate of Sidi Bouzid has been the site of a rapid, state-initiated intensification of farming, designed to create a modern, export-oriented agricultural hub based on exploiting deep underground water reserves and attracting private and public capital. Over the past four decades Sidi Bouzid has been transformed: from a semi-arid desert fringe with an extensive agriculture based on olives, almonds, pasture and winter cereals, it has become Tunisia's leading agricultural region, producing over a quarter of the nation's total output of fruit and vegetables.
But behind this undoubted technical success lies a real social and ecological failure. Socially Sidi Bouzid remains one of Tunisia's four poorest regions (of 26 in total), while ecologically the level of the water table is plummeting, water for irrigation is increasingly saline, and soil damage is visible, even to non-specialist eyes.
Since the early 1980s, the governorate of Sidi Bouzid has been the site of a rapid, state-initiated intensification of farming, designed to create a modern, export-oriented agricultural hub based on exploiting deep underground water reserves and attracting private and public capital
Here investors – who are mostly outsiders, often called 'settlers' by the local population – accrue capital and profits; meanwhile peasant farmers accumulate losses, tragedies and suicides. Without this huge socio-spatial fault, which divides Tunisia between a dominant centre and dependant periphery, Mohamed Bouazizi's death would scarcely have merited a mention. And that same divide also lies at the heart of several other shocks which will be discussed below.
After the Sidi Bouzid uprising ended with the fall of the Ben Ali dictatorship, several more protest movements arose, all forming part of the same resistance processes in the social and spatial periphery.
The Jemna oasis movement began in 2011 and concerned rights to land and resources, while the El Kamour movement (2017-20) also involves rights to local resources and in particular to 'development': two different struggles each of which constitutes a key moment/sequence in the same process of dissent.
At Jemna and El Kamour, as in other cases, the key to mass mobilisation lies in the processes and dynamics of socio-spatial class solidarity: 'This is where I come from, I belong to this region and this social group, I am being deprived of resources materially and/or symbolically, so I support those who dare to say "no" and resist'. In summary, this is what you can hear in Kebili-Jemna, Tataouine-El Kamour and elsewhere; what you can read in the media reports of declarations made by local populations. And underlying it all, 'driving' resistance and 'cementing' solidarity, lie profound feelings of injustice and demands for dignity.
Jemna: rights versus law; a disruptive legitimacy
Following the Sidi Bouzid episode and the fall of the dictator, in 2011 an oasis was 'discovered' that was probably new to the majority of Tunisians. Situated in the desert, midway between Kebili and Douz, the Jemna oasis owed its sudden appearance on the map to a significant new collective action, stemming directly from specific elements of colonial history that resurfaced after the wall of silence placed around them had been breached.
While most French colonists chose to settle in north or north-west Tunisia and created big cereal farms and/or stock-raising enterprises, and even vineyards and orchards, others preferred to head south and specialise in date farming – in particular the Degla variety, whose export market in France and Europe was virtually guaranteed. Among this latter group was one Maus De Rolley, who in 1937 created a new date-palm plantation around the core of the ancient Jemna oasis. The plantation today covers some 306 hectares, including 185 hectares planted with approximately 10,000 date palms.
Although local populations had held these lands as common and indivisible (tribal) property, they were dispossessed without compensation on the pretext that nomadic herding (pastoralism) was not a genuine productive activity, and that the land therefore was uncultivated. At independence, these populations – who had battled against the occupiers – held great expectations that the new authorities would return their stolen lands.
The Jemna oasis movement began in 2011 and concerned rights to land and resources, while the El Kamour movement (2017-20) also involves rights to local resources and in particular to 'development'
When the colonial lands were nationalised in 1964, however, the government decided to place them under state control, confiding their management to the body that administered the state's agricultural land, the Office des Terres Domaniales (OTD), which thereby became Tunisia's biggest agricultural landowner. Bolstering this strategy was the collectivisation policy of the 1960s, which aimed to reorganise agricultural land and create state 'socialist' cooperatives.
Yet the real argument against the redistribution of the nationalised lands lay elsewhere: small peasant farmers were judged too ignorant and archaic, too lacking in the necessary financial and technical means, to develop a modern intensive agricultural sector – a stigmatisation that still recurs today whenever discussion returns to this subject and/or to questions of agricultural models and political choices related to farming and food.
Over the following decades, the heirs made some efforts to reclaim these lands, but it was not until early 2011 that the first organised occupations of OTD lands were launched by local populations describing themselves as the legitimate successors. Among them was Jemna's local population, who occupied the former De Rolley plantation, claiming rights of property and of exploitation. The authorities demanded an end to the occupation, and the resulting impasse lasted for several years. The government argued that the occupation was illegal, while the occupiers countered that they held a legitimate right to resources and especially to community assets, including the indivisible and inalienable commons.
After a long period of tension a compromise was reached. By mutual agreement, the state ceded full management of the palm plantation to the local population while retaining ownership of the land. Might the latter have believed this negotiated settlement to be the only viable compromise?
Underlying the government position was the fear that any solution implying the grant of freehold to the legitimate heirs might create a legal precedent and set an example that would unleash a torrent of other land claims, all drawing on the same colonial and post-colonial past. But the occupation alone had set that example already, inciting other local populations to reclaim – with some attempts at occupation – the lands snatched from their grandparents during colonisation. Furthermore, I would argue that the Jemna case also served to fuel claims of a legitimate right to other local 'natural' resources such as water, minerals (for example, phosphates) and oil that mobilised populations in the Tatouine region.
El Kamour: the 'will of the people'
Resistance entered another phase, not without success, at El Kamour – a locality situated in the barren steppes of south-eastern Tunisia, south of the town of Tatouine, on the tarmac road leading to the oil-fields in the extreme south of the country. The 'dispossession pipeline' carrying crude oil to the port of Skhira, 50 kilometres north of Gabes, runs through here, and this geographical position close to the pipeline is the immediate reason for El Kamour's sudden appearance on political maps of Tunisia, as well as in the media.
Behind El Kamour, however, lies the governorate and town of Tataouine (Tataouine is the capital of the governorate of the same name), with over 180,000 inhabitants. Arid and barren, this region contains most of Tunisia's oil reserves, producing 40 per cent of its petrol and 20 per cent of its gas. Yet Tataouine also records some of the nation's highest levels of poverty: in 2017, for example, 28.7 per cent of its active population were unemployed (compared with a national average of 15.3 per cent), while for graduates the rate rose as high as 58 per cent.
Events in El-Kamour, 2017-2020: a brief chronology
The El Kamour movement began on 25 March 2017, with protests in various localities in the governorate, all converging on the town centre of Tataouine. The protesters were demanding a share of local resources, particularly oil, as well as greater employment opportunities and infrastructure development. Met by silence from the government, on 23 April they organised a sit-in at El Kamour. Tensions mounted on both sides, and an escalation became inevitable after the prime minister visited Tataouine and met the protesters. His plans to calm the situation with a few token promises came to naught and the discussions ended in deadlock. On 20 May the pumping station was occupied for two days before being cleared by the army, and tensions remained high.
Eventually, on 16 June 2017, an agreement was signed with the government through the mediation of the Union générale tunisienne du travail (UGTT), which acted to guarantee its implementation. The terms of the agreement promised the creation of 3,000 new jobs in the environmental sector by 2019, and 1,500 jobs in the oil industry by the end of 2017. A budget of 80 million dinars was also earmarked for regional development. But, to the frustration of the local population, the agreement was never implemented. The government simply bided its time, gambling that the militants would tire and the movement run out of steam.
'This is where I come from, I belong to this region and this social group, I am being deprived of resources materially and/or symbolically, so I support those who dare to say "no" and resist'. In summary, this is what you can hear in Kebili-Jemna, Tataouine-El Kamour and elsewhere.
On 20 May 2020, however, the El Kamour activists resumed their protests and sit-ins in several places, piling on the pressure and blockading several routes to bar them to oil-industry vehicles. On 3 July they organised a new general strike throughout the public services and the oilfields, and on 16 July they closed the pumping station, blocking the pipelines carrying petroleum products north. But the El Kamour militants had to wait until 7 November 2020 before they could reach an agreement with the government's representatives, in return for which petrol producers and other oil-sector enterprises were to resume operations immediately.
Signed by the head of government on 8 November 2020, the agreement contains a number of key points, including several that had previously featured in the 2017 accord but had not been implemented. These included, dedicated 80-million-dinar development and investment fund for the governorate of Tataouine; credit finance for 1,000 projects before the end of 2020; 215 jobs created in the oil industry in 2020, plus a further 70 in 2021; 2.6 million dinars for local municipalities and 1.2 million dinars for the Union Sportive de Tataouine.
The big social movements discussed above all have several points in common. Firstly, they are very largely located in southern, central, western and north-western Tunisia, the same marginalised and impoverished regions that between 17 December 2010 and early January 2011 saw huge protests in support of Bouazizi and against current social and economic policies. Secondly, while differing in detail, the principal demands of these movements all relate essentially to the right to resources, services and a decent income. None, or virtually none, are linked to 'political' demands (political rights, individual freedom). Thirdly, in their choice of language, and of several 'spectacular' actions, these social movements display a radicalism that marks a clear break with the political games played in and around the centres of power. Finally, almost all these movements are denounced and accused of regionalism and tribalism, sometimes even of separatism and treachery. Protesters are suspected of being manipulated, of being puppets in the hands of a political party or foreign power.
Yet these movements have enjoyed some, albeit relative, success – a success impossible without the class solidarity shown in the three examples discussed above, and the ties of domination and dependency that for decades have characterised the relationship between Tunisia's centre of power (the east coast) and its deprived and impoverished periphery. Finay, these same examples, and other more recent cases, demonstrate that the 'revolutionary' processes launched in early 2008 are still active in Tunisia and will probably remain so for many years to come.
This article was first published in The Review of Africa Political Economy journal
Op-Eds2 weeks ago
Our Man in Kampala: Museveni and the Americans
The Sea That Eats Our Children
Culture2 weeks ago
Shot After Curfew – the Death of "Vaite"
Uganda Elections 2021: The Elephant Website Blocked Ahead of Poll
Democracy for Some, Mere Management for Others
Culture7 days ago
Removing a Dictator
The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.
Copyright © 2017-2021 The Elephant. All Rights Reserved.
This platform uses cookies to improve your browsing experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. ACCEPT


BOW TIES. MADE FROM JACQUARD FABRIC.
TOUCHDOWN SPORTS TIES. TIES ARE MADE FROM JACQUARD FABRIC.
LONER CHRISTIAN TIES. TIES ARE MADE FROM JACQUARD FABRIC.
TROPICAL FISH ANIMAL TIES. TIES ARE MADE FROM JACQUARD FABRIC.
AMERICAN FLAGS FLAG TIES. TIES ARE MADE FROM JACQUARD FABRIC.


text:
History Homework Papers
Sample Paper on Colonial Rule and Independence: Latin America
Saturday, 08 February 2020 / Published in History Homework Papers
Colonial rule and independence: Latin America
Latin America territories were under Portuguese or Spanish empires after the two colonial were among the first colonial powers to make forays into the region in early days. Precisely, Latin America can be said to be all states south of America. Spaniards and Portuguese had established their empires on these states to exploit them economically and spread introduce or impose their religious beliefs to the people. The independence of Latin Americas was inevitable due to some factors that were more civil than revolution. Spain could not consistently maintain her authority over Latin Americans as some global activities like revolutions and growing population which was as a result intermarriages gradually realised the oppression they were facing was reversible. The Latin Americans felt that they were not respected at all and noted that the Spanish looked down upon them and despised them. This gradually created a rebellion where the Latin Americans demanded for better treatment which Spanish were not ready to do. There was restricted trade where the Spanish colonies were only allowed to trade with Spain which restricted their expansion economically. Spain wanted to be a single beneficially of the products from her Colonies. Moreover, colonialism came to an end due to the influence of revolutions in other countries notably the United States which motivated the Latin Americans. They motivated by the fact that that though the struggle called for sacrifice, the benefits that came with the sacrifices were much better. In addition, the events were timely in that Spain was weakened by the death of Charles III and his successor was generally weak. Spain's weakness was also as a result of her fight in collaboration with France with the British. The end of colonial rule was further influenced by the fact that the Latin Americans felt they were different from Spain. They felt they needed their own identity and not inclined to Spanish beliefs or rule of law. The invasion of Spain by Napoleon also greatly led to end of the colonisation where both Spain and Portugal were both conquered. The rebellion by the Latin Americans due to continuous oppressions and restricted trade rules by Spain catalysed their independence. Napoleons invasion is however credited most as it greatly weakened Spain due to massive destruction on her ships and troops.
The outcome of Latin America's independence was inevitable due to several emerging issues and events that unfolded. Historical bad relationship between the Latin America and Spain could not be contained and hence the Spanish Empire had to give way. Lack of inclusion in major sectors by Spanish could have certainly caused a rebellion in that the Latin America would feel discriminated calling for reaction. Disruption and exposed weakness of Spanish rule by Napoleon's invasion opened a new chapter and made the Latin America believe they would also conquer. On the case of Brazil, the elite class felt time was due for them to be independent and run their affairs. The rebellion was growing and extended even to the low illiterate class where they also felt separation from the Portuguese was the best option (Miguel 21-36). In addition, Brazilians were motivated by the trend of considerable number of nations attaining their independence from Britain. They felt they were also in capacity to sacrifice and attain their self-rule. All these factors made their quest of independence inevitable and indeed they succeeded.
The beneficiaries of self-independence were the Latin Americans. The Latin America were able to find lucrative new markets for their products unlike when they were dictated to trade with Spain alone. Growth in infrastructure was also another tremendous benefit arising from this independence. The growth and expansion of professional class in Latin America was also realised due to attainment of self-independence. The other benefit to Latin America that was as a result of independence is maturity, change and growth of the political class. The independence in Latin America also brought cultural and social diversity in gender and ethnicity precisely. There were efforts to integrate different races and genders to break down male dominance in equally all sectors. The benefits notably extended to other neighbouring countries and new allies of the Latin America. It is eminent that countries like the United States of America benefited as the Latin Americas encouraged industrialization hence creating conducive environment for investors. Apart from investing the new ally countries benefited from the exports from Latin America unlike in colonial era when exports were precisely meant for Spain. Britain on the other hand benefited from the independence attained by Latin Americas since there was an increased trade partnership with those countries. Extensively, the citizens of the new independent nations benefited due to rise in income and new avenues of earning.
Some changes experienced in these countries were gradual and took a period of to be realised. After independence there were challenges that escalated from colonial era and also new emerging challenges. Notably inequality was a major negative aspect since most quotas were dominated by males. There were misunderstandings in leadership roles with each class, who felt they should have the final say in various decisions. Social diversity was experienced in that freedom of worship, among other social aspects, was diversified. This was contrary to the earlier scenarios when diversity wasn't encouraged and individuals had to follow a given order. The growth of liberalism was witnessed after the independence of the Latin America countries. Notably, there was a sense of inferiority by Latin elites since independence brought about equality to all stakeholders (Bulmer 45-62). The elites however had influence in the leadership of many countries as strong men ruled under their. Unlike in colonial era, progress was felt in these nations due to change in lifestyle and economic activities. Establishment of formidable and well-coordinated military for future defence against aggressions was also universal step taken equally the Latin Americas.
Political instabilities were also rampant when militaries tried to overthrow leaders from their position. This was at times influenced by the fact that some leaders were viewed as corrupt and dictators. This led to several leaders losing their positions and in some occasions the military would partially take over leadership or instil other leaders. There were arguments on how governments should be made and run with some not going down well with the idea of the majority having their way. There was also an issue on whether there should be a central government or the governing systems should be delegated to regional levels. In some cases, there was misunderstanding between those who supported mornachialism and those who felt republicanism was the best way.
Bulmer Victor Thomas, .The Economic History of Latin America since Independence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Miguel, Vinicius Valentin Raduan. "Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Latin America." Political Affairs August 4, 2009. Available at http://www.politicalaffairs.net/colonialism-and-underdevelopment-in-latin-america/
Sheinin, David. Colonial and Post-colonial Latin America. African Studies Quarterly 7, (2-3) (2003): 219 – 224. Available at: http://asq.africa.ufl.edu/files/Sheinin-Response-Vol-7-Issues-23.pdf
Sample History Paper on The story of early human migration
Sample History Paper on Technology in Nuclear Bombs
History Paper on Primary Source Analyses: Atlantic Slave Trade
History Paper on Movie Report on the "Kingdom of Heaven"
History Paper on How the Wheel Changed the World
Sample Essay on Asian American Experience
History Assignment Paper on Abigail Adams
Sample History Paper of how the Universe and the things in it came to be
Sample History Paper on The Alawi community in Syria
Sample History Paper on The Policemen of the World
History Paper on The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
What impresses you about what American got right during its first hundred odd years?
Sample History Paper on Social Justice Movement: Women's Rights
Sample History Essays on Renaissance and reformation
Sample History Paper on Military Leadership
Factors That Led to The Emergence of The Nation-State System in Europe
History Paper on American-Israel Relations from 1948 to Present
Sample History Essays on The Mongol Empire
History Book Review on Where the Domino Fell
Sample History Paper on Poverty in South America

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


(September 20, 2018) – The "British Bomb" Liam Doran will make his second Americas Rallycross (ARX) start in the final round of the 2018 season at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas next week (September 29 – 30).
After the COTA ARX finale, Doran will also complete the World RX season with the team in Germany and South Africa. "I'm super excited to be finishing the season with GCK and Prodrive. It's been a great experience so far and I feel I've been able to have a positive impact in developing the car further alongside Guerlain [Chicherit]. We have really improved our lap times and overall performance and I'm looking forward to building on that over the next few races until the end of the season. It's unbelievable for me, it's an opportunity I never thought I'd get and I'm so appreciative to have been given it, I'll make sure to give it my all to prove them right," he said.
Doran will be one of two British drivers racing in ARX at COTA, joining regular competitor Oliver Bennett on the starting grid.
Tickets for the ARX Finale at World RX USA are available for purchase now. See the American debut of the FIA World Rallycross championship alongside the championship finale of ARX. Tickets for the September 29-30 event at Circuit of The Americas are available now at www.worldrxusa.com/tickets.


If oneself are wanting for Affordable Wholesale Purses at a discount it incorporates never ever been simpler because of in direction of our price tag Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP By Prof Mollie Quigley IV preserving on the net digital storefront. Design and style Purses Outlet Shopping mall is a exceptional point toward obtain the simplest on line discounts! No subject what type of Affordable Purses or Affordable Designer Purses by yourself are hunting for Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP By Prof Mollie Quigley IV, be it refreshing or utilized, by yourself will identify listed here at Model Purses Outlet Shopping mall.
Perhaps the greatest accessory that will certainly get you noticed is the ever trendy sunglasses! Yes, even the latest in eyewear hasn't forced past the expensive indicate as yet. Sunglasses are just as important as all the outfits you put together;Bath Faucets it provides a much better overall impression. Let alone, it gives you an air of mystique. No ponder people have been purchasing eyeglasses every now and then. The decision to buy is not simply arbitrary; it must be calculated even to the last details.
✩ Do by yourself need a good and cheap Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP By Prof Mollie Quigley IV? Why never yourself shift in direction of Bath Faucets to buy Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP By Prof Mollie Quigley IV towards take pleasure in it? Make sure you sense no cost to keep track of the quality of Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP By Prof Mollie Quigley IV Although oneself get at our retail store. Let's shift toward Bath Faucets and get Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP By Prof Mollie Quigley IV. We are keeping a sale for the 200 1st customers.Do yourself require a very good and cheap Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP By Prof Mollie Quigley IV? Why will not on your own move to Bath Faucets toward invest in Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP By Prof Mollie Quigley IV in the direction of delight in it? Make sure you sense free of charge to keep an eye on the top quality of Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP By Prof Mollie Quigley IV after oneself get at our retail outlet. Let us shift in direction of Bath Faucets and buy Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP By Prof Mollie Quigley IV. We are keeping a sale for the 200 initial customers.
ExtremeDesign Export Trading is a Fashion Jewelry Export Company located in Cebu City, Philippines. We manufacture, produce, and set up fashion jewelries, surprise items, windchimes and any type of handi crafts Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP By Prof Mollie Quigley IV Extreme Design and home decorative items made of indigenous materials such as sea-shells, wood, coco, bone, horn, stone, buri, bamboo sheets and other natural materials. We are rendering the best and unique designs of today's market and have very competitive prices that will be offered specially for VOLUME ORDERS or WHOLESALERS. We strictly observe QUALITY CONTROL on our finished products to function the best and gain more satisfaction to our foriegn buyers. We also customize designs exclusively for you. Just send all of us pictures of your designs and specification for estimate.
The web is another way that you can go about finding information on a in your area based fashion store. A large number of businesses, including fashion stores, have online websites. Those online websites will likely describe Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP By Prof Mollie Quigley IV the location of the store in question, as well as contain other important pieces of information. Pretty to find a few pictures and other information about the fashion items and accessories sold at a fashion store on their online website. You can find the online website of a local fashion store, whether they have one, by executing a typical internet search. An individual may also be able to use business directories, as many url to the business's online website.
Harris 1 Oz Pest Control Concentrate With 32 Oz Professional Spray Bottle Value Pack 2 Pack 2HPC1 PRO32VP.
Sterilite 1 25 Bushel Ultra Hiphold Laundry Basket 12108006.
12 Piece Orange Drinkware Set ORAN12PC.
Valcom 4 In 1 Way Ceiling Speaker VC V 1010C.
BEHR Premium Plus 5 Gal ECC 61 2 Stonewashed Pink Semi Gloss Enamel Exterior Paint 505005.
The Home Depot Men S White XL My Toy Store T Shirt 1301613 04.


The lien can be against you, your spouse, or your company. A lien against your company would seize your accounts receivable. At this point everything you own is just one short step away from becoming the property of the United States Government.


To locate us and get a prompt response please call the Broker in charge at the number below.
We encourage you to please fill out the form below for a faster and quick respone regarding your situation. We are ready to respond to your wants and needs, or any service you might require regarding Real Estate. We are just a phone call or an email away.
We, at Willy Baello Realty, are looking forward to hearing from you.
Our site is still under construction please be patience with us!
Please have a complete information for a prompter response.
Your mobile number is more preferred due to time differencial from State to State.
Please have a short detail of you request including bedrooms and bathroom or a brief info of your situation.


New Delhi, Dec 16: All those who are waiting for their JioPhones to be delivered then this news is for you, as per reports fresh stocks of JioPhones will be available across all Jio stores in the next two to three days. Interested buyers can register themselves on Reliance Jio website and company will alert them via SMS on availability and pre-booking status.
Terms and conditions for purchasing the JioPhone have remained unchanged. The buyers will need to pay a security deposit of Rs 1,500 which will be refunded after three years if user fulfils the terms and condition of the company.
Reliance Jio is also inviting online registration for new JioPhone to know the demand of the people so they can prepare their plan to meet the requirement. You can also sign up for the news updates about the phone on Jio.com, after visiting the company's official website you will be required to fill up your contact details and click on "Keep Me Posted".


The surname "Sarason" is not included in the US Census Bureau's ranking of surnames with 100 or more people. Since fewer than 100 people with this surname were included in the 2000 Census, it is relatively uncommon.
Histopolis currently has 2 grave(s) with the surname "Sarason".
Search the Histopols Grave Index for the surname "Sarason".
Sorry, there are currently no resource links for the surname "Sarason".
Surnames that Sound Like "Sarason"
The surname "Sarason" has a Soundex code of S625. The following 212 surname(s) may sound similar to "Sarason" since they share the same Soundex code.


Want to know how to reverse diet? First, what exactly is a reverse diet? Read on to know more.
In the never-ending battle against excess pounds, most people are too focused on the goal of losing weight.
Once they achieve that goal, they revert to old habits.
Soon, they find themselves regaining the exact weight they had lost or, worse, gained more extra pounds than what they had at the beginning.
Believe me when I tell you this.
Losing weight through dieting, exercise and all other weight loss measures is just half the battle. The greatest battle ahead of you is KEEPING THOSE POUNDS OFF!
Scientists have said it many times and verified it through years of research. Dieting is not effective for most people.
Because months of restrictive eating only build up the hunger and the cravings.
Once you're done with your diet, those calories you've been counting don't matter anymore, so you go right on eating until you realize that you're back to square one.
The question that begs to be asked now is this: How can you keep the weight off but still manage to curb the hunger and cravings?
The solution is REVERSE DIETING!
It may be too simple to define Reverse Dieting as "eat more, do less", but that is the premise behind this technique. After you've done all the grunt and grind of a full weight loss program, you gradually add calories to your diet to boost your metabolism while doing less cardio at the same time.
This increase in calories after prolonged caloric restriction helps to prevent unintended overeating, bingeing, and unwanted weight gain.
In addition, after you lose weight, your body goes through a number of physiological adaptations that cause you to eat more and do less physical activities.
Putting it simply, it's because of these adaptations that you find it very hard to move on from losing weight to maintaining weight.
If you want to make this smooth transition, then Reverse Dieting is the right method for you!
How to Reverse Diet No. 1: Exercise more through heavy compound weightlifting.
What is heavy compound weightlifting? This involves training more than one large muscle group at a time by lifting heavier weights. What this means is that you should perform your basic squats, bench and military presses, and deadlifts while lifting weights equivalent to or greater than 75 percent of your one-rep max (approximately within the rep range of 8-to 10 and with heavier weights).
For the short term, it promotes the rapid increase of your metabolic rate so that you burn a great amount of post-workout calories.
For the long term, it builds muscle, which in turn promotes greater burning of calories while at rest.
It promotes progressive overload of muscles, which drives greater growth of muscles.
How to Reverse Diet No. 2: Eat a high protein diet.
The problem with undergoing a rigid weight loss regimen is that, afterwards, you are so starved (especially for the foods you love) that you end up bingeing on high carbs, high fat fare, like chips, cookies, donuts, pizza, and ice cream. At this point, the last thing on your mind is to eat anything that is heavy on the protein.
However, even after you lose weight, you still need to continue eating a high protein diet to prevent the stunting of muscle growth and fast fat regain. If you are after improving your body composition, eating lots of protein is the key.
Just how much protein should you eat while on a Reverse Diet? The recommended daily intake is 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.
How to Reverse Diet No. 3: Observe gradual increase of your caloric intake.
Now, we come to the very heart of Reverse Dieting, namely the "eating more" part.
You need to increase your daily caloric intake on a weekly basis until you reach the number of calories that you burn daily (or, as it is more simply known, your Total Daily Energy Expenditure or TDEE).
Every five to seven days, you need to increase your daily caloric intake by an estimated 150 calories. You can achieve this goal by eating a combo of proteins, carbs, and fats.
If you want to get the best results though, you can just eat more carbs and fats.
Let's say that you have just finished your weight loss program. During that time, you were eating 2,000 calories daily.
Now that you will be Reverse Dieting, you need to achieve the "maintenance" TDEE of 2,800 daily. Please note though that your protein intake should still be 1 gram per pound daily.
Now, on the first week of your Reverse Diet, you increase your caloric intake to 2,150 calories daily. You can accomplish this by changing the carbs intake in your meal plan to 40 grams (equivalent to 150 to 160 calories).
Next week, you add another 150 calories to the 2,150 calories you are eating to make 2,300 calories. For this week, you increase your daily fat intake by 15 grams (around 135 to 150 calories).
The week after, you decide to make the jump to 2,500 calories per day by increasing your carbs and fats intake. You continue increasing your intake until you reach your TDEE target of 2,800 daily.
The best way to monitor your calorie and macronutrient consumption is by making a meal plan. With a meal plan in place, you can be able to portion out your macros and calories throughout the day.
Of course, it is vital that you follow this meal plan strictly if you want to achieve the best results.
You don't have to fall into the trap of overeating and bingeing after all those long months of losing weight.
Now you know how to reverse diet, not only will you be able to plan your calorie and nutrient intake, you will be able to maintain that magnificent physique that you have achieved.


My first session of the day started at 830am. I'm listening to several economists from the National Association or Realtors talk about Residential economic issues and trends. Obviously geared towards the US market but still telling information.


text:
Q: Swift ! does not remove Optional() Before, I have successfully added a ! to force an unwrap to remove the "Optional()" from a variable. I am unable to do this in data returned from Parse.com
    query.findObjectsInBackgroundWithBlock {
        (objects: [AnyObject]!, error: NSError!) -> Void in
        if error == nil {

            for object in objects {
                println(object[myObject]!)
            }

        } else {
            println("Error: \(error) \(error.userInfo!)")
        }

    }

In the example above, the entire table from the Parse.com class is returned and printed to the console. However,

Optional(...)

is returned for each line even though I force an unwrap using ! at the end
What am I missing?
(Note: myObject is the name of the Column in the Parse Class database)

A: You only have to put "!" at the end of your variable, in print area
self.addressLabel.text = "\(subThoroughfare) \(p.thoroughfare!) \n \(p.subLocality!) \n \(p.subAdministrativeArea!) \n)".

A: MirekE was right. It was a nested Optional(Optional()).
to fix I:
println(object[myObject]!!)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Web developers of all stripes are in hand, and that doesn't look like it's going to be changing anytime soon. But with so much need for capable front end designers and the potential for students to learn the ins and outs of the craft right from home without having to attend a college, it can be hard to determine when is the right time to start applying for junior web positions. While hiring practices will vary on a company by company basis, there are some hard and fast rules you can follow to determine if you're ready to step up to the plate.
The first question you should ask yourself is whether or not you feel ready for the job. Confidence is infectious, and while some junior developers can learn the ropes while on the job, that's not always the case. The simple fact is that programmers spend their whole life learning more, so it can be hard to say whether or not your education is done. If you're on the fence about how well-equipped you are for the job, start with a project. The ability to share some substantive results with your prospective employer on your GitHub account will go a long way towards getting you a job. Even better would be to find a freelancing job if you think you have the competencies you need to get the work done.
When you go to an interview, there are a few standard things you'll want to have available. A portfolio isn't always a necessity, but it can make a big difference when you're trying to score your first job. It's okay if all of your work is non-paid or non-commissioned. The ability to create something from scratch can demonstrate your aptitude even if you didn't get any money for it. You'll also want to make sure that you understand the basic principles of development and are able to explain them. Being able to complete a task is one thing. Being able to break down how it works is another, and one of the most common complaints hiring managers have about self-taught applicants and those educated at coding camps is that they don't understand the fundamentals.
The important thing to keep in mind is that there's no singular right answer for everyone. Your confidence and capabilities have as much a part to play as the company in question. At the very least, a series of failed interviews can give you a better indicator of where your weaknesses are and how far you have left to go. For more information click here https://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/9rspl8/when_am_i_ready_for_junior_web_positions/.


text:
Q: I have written the following code with kivymd(python) but my list is not showing up This is my code (I want to add a list on the second screen when pressed the search recipe...)  :
In my code i have made a kivy avatar icon list and added in the screen but the first screen occur and when i press the button it opens a white instead of the screen with the list.
MAIN.PY
import pandas as pd
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.core.window import Window
from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.uix.screenmanager import ScreenManager, Screen
from kivymd.app import MDApp
from kivymd.uix.list import OneLineAvatarIconListItem
Builder.load_file('design.kv')
Window.size = (300, 500)
fridge_items = []

class FridgeScreen(Screen):
    tim = []
    def add_item(self):
        global lst
        i = 0
        fridge_items.append(self.ids.inp.text)
        self.ids.inp.text = ''
        for x in range(len(fridge_items)):
            lst = OneLineAvatarIconListItem(text=fridge_items[i])
            i += 1
        self.ids.list.add_widget(lst)
    def search_recipe(self):
        book = pd.read_csv('RECIPE_BOOK.csv')
        ingredients = book['Ingredients']
        recipe_chodh = book.drop(columns='Recipe')
        lst2 = []
        recipe_freq = {}
        for items in fridge_items:
            for ill in ingredients:
                if items in ill:
                    lst2.append(ill)
        for recipe in lst2:
            if recipe in recipe_freq:
                recipe_freq[recipe] += 1
            else:
                recipe_freq[recipe] = 1
        top_recipe = sorted(recipe_freq.items(),
                            key=lambda kv: kv[1],
                            reverse=True)
        z = 0
        for items in top_recipe:
            tommy = recipe_chodh[recipe_chodh['Ingredients'] == top_recipe[z][0]].index.values
            foo = recipe_chodh['Name'][int(tommy)]
            self.tim.append(foo)
            z += 1
        print(self.tim)

class RecipeScreen(Screen):
    def add_lst(self):
        a = 0
        for it in range(len(FridgeScreen.tim)):
            pluto = OneLineAvatarIconListItem(text=FridgeScreen.tim[a])
            root.ids.recipe.add_widget(pluto)
            a += 1

class My(RecipeScreen):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(**kwargs)
        self.app = App.get_running_app()

class RootScreen(ScreenManager):
    pass

class MainApp(MDApp):
    my = My()
    def build(self):
        return RootScreen()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    MainApp().run()

DESIGN.KV
<FridgeScreen>:
    Screen:
        GridLayout:
            cols: 1
            MDToolbar:
                title: 'KITCHEN'
                left_action_items: [["menu", lambda x : print(x)]]
            GridLayout:
                cols: 1
                padding: 10
                MDTextField:
                    id: inp
                    hint_text: 'enter your ingredients'
                    size_hint_x: None
                    width: 200
                ScrollView:
                    MDList:
                        id: list
            GridLayout:
                cols: 2
                size_hint: 0.2, 0.2
                padding: 10
                spacing: 80
                MDRectangleFlatButton:
                    text: 'search for recipes'
                    on_press: root.search_recipe()
                    on_press: app.my.add_lst()
                    on_press: root.manager.current = 'recipe_screen'
                MDFloatingActionButton:
                    icon: "plus"
                    on_press: root.add_item()
<RecipeScreen>:
    id: recipe_screen
    Screen:
        ScrollView:
            MDList:
                id: recipe
<RootScreen>:
    FridgeScreen:
        name:
            'fridge_screen'
    RecipeScreen:
        name:
            'recipe_screen'

Sorry for silly naming(its juz for some fun)

A: there is an issue with object <-> class.
So, you have the class 'FridgeScreen'. And an instance of this class with actually no name, but it's created in your kv-file:
    FridgeScreen:
        name:
            'fridge_screen'

This line:
self.tim.append(foo)

You modify an attribute of your FridgeScreen-instance.
This line:
for it in range(len(FridgeScreen.tim)):

You are accessing an attribute of your FridgeScreen-class

And these are just two different attributes ;). FirdeScreen.tim is always an empty list like initialized in line tim = [].
Solution:
Give your FridgeScreen-instance a name (=id) and create a reference from your RecipeScreen to your FridgeScreen:
<RootScreen>:
    FridgeScreen:
        id: _fridge_screen
        name:
            'fridge_screen'
    RecipeScreen:
        fridge_screen: _fridge_screen
        name:
            'recipe_screen'

Now you can access the correct tim-attribute within RecipeScreen-Class using:
self.fridge_screen.tim

Hint: You'll need to do something similar with root, since by default root attribute is only available in your kv-file.
RecipeScreen:
    root: root

And in your code use self.root.


The Village at Shirlington is holding a fun, outdoor celebration of pets on Saturday, Aug. 24 from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.
Wags n' Whiskers is a community-oriented event for animal loving shoppers of all ages and their pets to spend an afternoon with like-minded animal lovers. There will be more than 50 exhibitors onsite ranging from pet services and accessories to onsite adoptions.
For entertainment, there will be pet photos for $5, live music, demonstrations and children's activities such as face painting, balloon art, strolling entertainment and more.
When you're done shopping, you can socialize at one of the many Shirlington Village restaurants that have pet-friendly outdoor seating, or, take a short stroll across South Arlington Mill Drive and hit the Shirlington Park Community Canine Area.
See below for some pictures from past Wags and Whiskers events.


Don´t forget… Tomorrow is Valentine´s Day! In case your loved ones are far away Hooman Samani, an artificial intelligence researcher in Singapore, had an idea. He has developed a robot with a virtual mouth that can emulate and transmit a kiss – bringing an extra touch of intimacy to a long-distance relationship or even a video game.
The "Kissenger" has the size and shape of a softball and has a pair of touch-sensitive lips that detect and copy how each partner delivers the kiss.


The County Council, which commissions mental health services, is reviewing some of the services run by charities.
We are helping to make sure that service users' views are heard as part of this review.
If so, you are welcome to come along to a meeting at Wolsey Hall to talk about the type of services you receive or would like to receive.