Congo: Forest of the dead

Reporter Nima Elbagir and director Edward Watts have gone to the jungles of Nort East Congo, beginning in the town of Dungu. Aid agencies say that in the last few weeks alone, tens of thousands of people have fled their homes here. Nima speaks to some people in the road who are refugees and asks them what happened. the woman said that a group of armed men had come and attacked their village. They came into the village and set fire to it and abducted their children, which is why they have left to go to the next safe town. For the last 2 months there have been constant attacks on their village Duru and many more people are leaving because they're just too scared to stay out in the bush.

Nima and Edward joined the UN mission to the town of Duru. It had been under attack for the last 4 months and it was the first time anyone had gone out there. They went with 3 helicopter carriers of troops because no one knew what were going to find out there. When they landed, the town was deserted. Many of the huts had been knocked down and the catholic church had been looted. Villagers started coming out of the bush when they saw the soldiers. Nima asked one of them what had happened in the last attack. The man said just yesterday 3 people were killed. When asked who did it, they were told it was the Lord's Resistance Army, a gorup of notorious rebels from Uganda. The villagers say that they dont know why this is happening to them. In the beginning the LRA were just looting but then they started stealing their children, then buring their homes and then killing them.

Many people started gathering as word spread about the soldiers and people came to see if they could get aid. One lady was carrying her injured little girl, whose Dad was shot trying to run away with her and the bullet went through his body and into the baby. There is no nurse, the baby is sick and they find out it is unlikely the baby will survive the week. They were taken to a school which the LRA broke into during lesson time and abducted the children. They say nearly 100 were abducted from the class. They broke the windows and started passing the kids out through them.

Because of the dense rainforest, the group are invisible until they strike.

Dungu is the heart of a major military operation launched by Sudan, Uganda and the Congo, which have suffered the most since the LRA first emerged in 1987. So far they remiain undefeated but they have managed to rescue some abductees. They spoke to one 15 year old who was taken from the school in Duru. He was sent to a camp where he had to work in the fields and was recieving military training. A group of boys in his camp tried to escape but were caught and made to lie face down on the ground in front of the other abductees. One by one they had to hit the boys with a club on the head then pass the club along until they had beaten the boys to death. When she asked hin why he thought they were doing the things they were doing, he said that they were never told why they were fighting and if you asked you were beaten so they were questions you learnt not to ask. The LRA have always been notorious for their use of children as fighters. Aid groups estimate that up to 1000 children have been abducted in the Congo since last year.

They visit another village which aid groups were bringing medical supplies to. They are met by a group of men who have made rifles, machetes and spears in an attempt to have something to protect themselves with. Nima spoke to the catholic priest there, Father Maurice, about what had been happening. He said the first time the LRA came was 4 months ago and it was after that that they decided to arm themselves and fight. They were waiting for their deaths. He said that the LRA are trying to exterminate them but they weren't going to be forced off this land. There is no police presence and no government presence. The weapons were their last resort, even he the priest was carrying a knife in self-defence. They go to the huts where the victims in need of medical help are. One of the victims, an old man, was beaten on the head with clubs. Another young man was captured, tied to a tree, beaten with sticks and then they started hacking at him with machetes.

The military offensive has only splintered the LRA into smaller groups, making them harder to find. The countries have tried creating safe areas that are always protected but they are over stretched and under resourced.

So that Nima and Edward could go to another village where there had been attacks, they had to travel on motorbikes with a Congalese soldier and a patrol had been sent ahead because security was so unstable. The first thing they saw when they came in were graves where people had buried their loved ones. They spoke to a vilager, Sebastian, who had actually witnessed the massacre. He said the village had been attacked on Christmas day just after mass and they had just come out of the church to go to where they had prepared their christmas lunch when the LRA surrounded them. The villagers had been tied together and then marched into the bush. They were walked down a path to their death as the LRA started smashing their skulls. They massacred people, left their bodies dripping blood and then sat down and cooked their meals. While going down the path that the LRA had taken the villagers, the soldiers, Sebastian, Edward and Nima find a dead body. Sebastian realised that he knew the woman who had been killed, and that she had been pregnant. Her skull was collapsed in where she was clubbed to death. As they keep walking, they find more and more dead bodies.They were introduced to an old woman, who was the only survivor. She said they came in the afternoon, told the villagers all to lie down and then beat them on the head with clubs. She had been buried under a pile of dead bodies and laid there for a whole night, waiting until morning to crawl out. Her brother that she was visiting was killed during the attack.

Over Christmas and Boxing Day the LRA carried out a series of coordinated attacks across the North East of Congo. The death toll stands at nearly 1000 and new bodies are still being found.

Next Nima and Edward went to the Duru hospital to meet some of the victims. They met Elaina and her grandchildren. The LRA had killed the childrens mother, Elaina's daughter and hit the children on the head with wooden clubs and left them for dead. Elaina had been told that one of her grandchildren would never walk again.

They met a man who was trying to make a list of all of those that had died, so that they wouldnt be forgotten. There were many babies and pregnant women on the list. He said there are very few survivors as once the LRA have entered a village, you have to presume everyone is dead. When Nima asked him why he thought they were doing these things, he said he didnt know.

Nima and Edward flew to the north of Uganda, the birthplace of the LRA, to see if anyone could tell them why they were doing this and what it is they actually want. One of the old generals of the LRA, who had turned himself in years earlier, agreed to speak to them. He was abducted as a child by the LRA and fought with them for 18 years. Nima asked him why the way they are killing civilians is so horrifically violent and he said it was a campaign of terror designed to scare villagers into leaving so that the LRA could take over their territory. she asked him what they want and he said the LRA's leader Joseph Koni was fighting for his survival, to protect his life and existence. When asked how it can be stopped, he said the time for talking was over and the world had only one option: the military one.

Nima asked a village elder what he though the cost of the war has been for the people of Uganda. He said that they had watched their women raped, their children butchered, that the war had destroyed their people and that there were now more dead than living.

No one knows how long it will take for peace to come.

Image: Joseph Koni

If you live in the UK, you can watch this documentary here

Greek Independence Day

After centuries of unsuccessful uprisings and failure of the Ottoman Empire to assimilate and convert the Greeks, The War of Independence began in 1821 rising up against 400 years of occupation and oppression by the Ottoman Turks. The origin of the Turkish occupancy began in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople (currently referred to as Istanbul). During the dark years of the Ottoman occupation, thousands were killed and tortured for attending church or teaching their children culture, history and language. It was the Greek Orthodox Church that helped to retain their very identity by the institution of Crypha Scholia (Hidden Schools).

The celebration of Greek Independence Day on March 25th draws inspiration from one of the holiest days for Greek Orthodox Christians, the Annunciation of the Theotokos. This is the day that the Archangel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bear a child. Bishop Germanos of Patras seized the opportunity by raising the banner of revolution, in an act of defiance against the Turks and marked the beginning of the War of Independence. These freedom fighters, or klephts as they were called, of Greece sacrificed much for their country. Kolokotronis, Nikitara, Karaiskakis, Bouboulina, and Mpotsaris are some of the heroes of the revolution.

During this period there was a strong maritime tradition on the islands of the Aegean which, together with the emergence over the 18th century of an influential merchant class, generated the wealth necessary to found schools, libraries and pay for young Greeks to study at the universities of Western Europe. It was there that they came into contact with the radical ideas of the European Enlightenment, the French Revolution and romantic nationalism. Educated and influential members of the large Greek diaspora, such as Adamantios Korais and Anthimos Gazis, tried to transmit these ideas back to the Greeks, with the double aim of raising their educational level and simultaneously strengthening their national identity.

The struggle for independence was supported abroad by intellectuals of the day. In addition to the Secret Society of Friends (Filiki Etaeria) and the Sacred Band (Ieros Lohos) prominent world figures including Lord Byron of England, Daniel Webster and Dr. Samuel Gridly Howe of the United States raised the interest level among Europeans and Americans.

The Peloponnese (a region in southern Greece), with its long tradition of resistance to the Ottomans, was to become the heartland of the revolt. The crucial meeting was held at Vostitsa (modern Aigion), where chieftains and prelates from all over the Peloponnese assembled on 26 January. There, the klepht captains declared their readiness for the uprising, while most of the civil leaders presented themselves sceptical and demanded guarantees about a Russian intervention.

On 17 March, 1821, war was declared on the Turks by the Maniots in the town of Areopoli. An army of 2,000 Maniots advanced on the Messenian town of Kalamata, which fell to the Greeks on 23 March. On the same day, Andreas Londos, a Greek primate (bishop), rose up at Vostitsa. On March 28, the Messenian Senate, the first of the Greeks' local governing councils, held its first session in Kalamata. On 22 March, the revolutionaries declared the Revolution at the square of Agios Georgios in Patras, in the presence of archbishop Germanos. On the next day, the leaders of the Revolution in Achaia sent a document to the foreign consulates explaining the reasons of the Revolution. On 23 March, the Ottomans launched sporadic attacks towards the town while the revolutionaries drove them back to the fortress.

By the end of March, the Greeks effectively controlled the countryside, while the Turks were confined to the fortresses. Many armatoloi in Central Greece had joined the Filiki Eteria. When the revolution erupted they took up arms alongside the revolutionaries. The first region to revolt in Central Greece was Phocis on 24 March. In Boeotia, Livadeia was captured on 29 March, followed by Thebes two days later. The Ottoman garrison held out in the citadel of Salona, the regional capital, until April 10, when the Greeks took it. Cretan participation in the revolution was extensive, but it failed to achieve liberation from Turkish rule due to Egyptian intervention. The final major engagement of the war was the Battle of Petra, which occurred north of Attica. Greek forces under Demetrius Ypsilantis, for the first time trained to fight as a regular European army rather than as guerilla bands, advanced against Aslan Bey's forces and defeated them. The Turks would surrender all lands from Livadeia to the Spercheios River in exchange for safe passage out of Central Greece.

From November 15 to 20, 1821, a council was held in Salona (present-day Amfissa) in which the main local notables and military chiefs participated. Under the direction of Theodoros Negris, they set down a proto-constitution for the region, the "Legal Order of Eastern Continental Greece", and established a governing council. A month later, a national legislative assembly was formed at Epidaurus, consisted almost exclusively of Moreot notables. The Assembly composed the first Greek Constitution and appointed the members of an executive and a legislative body that were to govern the liberated territories.

On 21 December 1828 the ambassadors of the United Kingdom, Russia, and France met in the island of Poros, and prepared a Protocol, which provided for the creation of an autonomous state ruled by a monarch. Under the pressure of Russia, the Porte finally agreed on the terms of the Treaty of London of 6 July 1827, and of the Protocol of 22 March 1829. Soon afterward, the United Kingdom and France conceived the idea of an independent Greek state, trying to limit the influence of Russia on the new state. Russia was not delighted by the idea, but could not reject it, and, consequently, the three powers finally agreed to create an independent Greek state under their joint protection, and concluded the Protocols of 3 February 1830.

The consequences of the Greek revolution were somewhat ambiguous in the immediate aftermath. An independent Greek state had been established, but with Britain, Russia and France claiming a major role in Greek politics, an imported Bavarian dynast as ruler, and a mercenary army. The population of the new state numbered 800,000, representing less than one-third of the 2.5 million Greek inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire. In the long-term historical perspective, this marked a seminal event in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. For the first time, a Christian subject people had achieved independence from the Ottoman rule and established a fully independent state, recognized by Europe. The Greek Revolt legitimized the concept of small ethnically-based nation-states and emboldened nationalist movements among other Christian subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire. The Serbs, Bulgars and Romanians would all subsequently fight for and win their independence, while the Armenians would fail as even in their traditional homeland they were outnumbered five-to-one by Muslims (Turks and Kurds).

The flag of Greece has not changed since the revolution. The white cross in the upper left hand corner covering one fourth of the flag signifies the important role of the Greek Orthodox Church in the formation of the Hellenic Nation. The blue and white alternating stripes represent the sea and the relentless waves of the Aegean. According to legend, the Goddess of Beauty Aphrodite emerged from these waves. There are nine stripes representing each letter of the Greek word for freedom, Eleftheria.

Information from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_War_of_Independence#Central_Greece

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmud_II

http://www.helleniccomserve.com/greekindependence.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areopoli

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primate_(religion)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnese

Saint Joseph's Day in Italy, Malta, The Philippines, Spain and the USA!

Saint Joseph's Day, March 19th, the Feast of St. Joseph or Solemnity of Saint Joseph is in Western Christianity the principal feast day of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is a Solemnity in the Roman Catholic Church, a feast in the provinces of the Anglican Communion, and a feast or festival in the Lutheran Church. Saint Joseph's Day is the Patronal Feast day for persons named Joseph, Josephine, etc., for religious orders, schools and parishes bearing his name, and for carpenters. It is also Father's Day in some Catholic countries, mainly Spain, Portugal, and Italy.

March 19th always falls during Lent and according to Canon law if the feast day falls on a Friday, the obligation to abstain from meat or do penance is lifted. If the feast day falls on a Sunday (other than Palm Sunday), it is observed on the next later available date instead: this is the following day, Monday March 20. From 2008 onwards, if St Joseph's Day falls during Holy Week, it is moved to the next earlier available date, usually the Saturday before Holy Week. This does not apply to Traditional Roman Catholics who follow the older calendar and maintain his feast on March 19 as well as on the Wednesday before the Third Sunday after Easter.

St. Josesph's Day in Italy

In Sicily, where St. Joseph is regarded by many as their Patron Saint, and many Italian-American communities, thanks are given to St. Joseph ("San Giuseppe" in Italian) for preventing a famine in Sicily during the Middle Ages. According to legend, there was a severe drought at the time, and the people prayed for their patron saint to bring them rain. They promised that if he answered their prayers, they would prepare a large feast to honor him. The rain did come, and the people of Sicily prepared a large banquet for their patron saint. The fava bean was the crop which saved the population from starvation, and is a traditional part of St. Joseph's Day altars and traditions. Giving food to the needy is a St. Joseph's Day custom. In some communities it is traditional to wear red clothing and eat a Sicilian pastry known as a Zeppole on St. Joseph's Day.

Upon a typical St. Joseph's Day altar, people place flowers, limes, candles, wine, fava beans, specially prepared cakes, breads, and cookies (as well as other meatless dishes), and zeppole. Foods are traditionally served containing bread crumbs to represent saw dust since St. Joseph was a carpenter. Because the feast occurs during Lent, traditionally no meat was allowed on the celebration table. The altar usually has three tiers, to represent the trinity. Some villages like Belmonte Mezzagno use to burn wood and logs in squares on the day before St.Joseph, as thanksgiving to the Saint. This is called "'A Vampa di San Giuseppe"(the Saint Joseph's bonfire).

St. Joseph's Day in Malta

This is one of the public holidays in Malta, known as Jum San Ġużepp. In this day people celebrate mass in the morning, and in the afternoon go for a picnic in the countryside. It is a liturgical feast in the localities of Kalkara, Manikata, Msida, and Qala, but the Maltese typical festa each of these localities celebrate it in a particular Sunday in summer. However, the city of Rabat celebrates the traditional Maltese feast on the 19th of March, where in the evening a procession is also held with the statue of St Joseph. On this day also the city of Żejtun celebrates the day, known as Jum iż-Żejtun (Zejtun's Day). In the past years the Żejtun Parish Church has celebrated these feast days with a procession with the statue of St Joseph.

St. Joseph's Day in Spain

In Spain, the day is a version of Father's Day. In some parts of Spain it is celebrated as Falles. The Falles (in Valencian) are a Valencian traditional celebration in praise of Saint Joseph in Valencia, Spain. The term Falles refers to both the celebration and the monuments created during the celebration. Each neighbourhood of the city has an organized group of people, the Casal faller, that works all year long holding fundraising parties and dinners, usually featuring the famous speciality paella. Each casal faller produces a construction known as a falla which is eventually burnt. A casal faller is also known as a comissió fallera.

St. Joseph's Day in The Philippines

In the Philippines, many families keep a tradition in which an old man, a young lady and a small boy are chosen from among the poor and are dressed up as St. Joseph, the Virgin Mary, and the child Jesus, respectively. They are then seated around a table set with the family's best silverware and china, and served a variety of courses, sometimes being literally spoon-fed by the senior members of the family, while the Novena to St. Joseph is recited at a nearby temporary altar.

St. Joseph's Day in the United States of America

In New Orleans, Louisiana, which was a major port of entry for Sicilian immigrants during the late 19th century, the Feast of St. Joseph is a city-wide event. Both public and private St. Joseph's altars are traditionally built. The altars are usually open to any visitor who wishes to pay homage. The food is generally distributed to charity after the altar is dismantled. There are also parades in honor of St. Joseph and the Italian population of New Orleans which are similar to the many marching clubs and truck parades of Mardi Gras and St. Patrick's Day. Tradition in New Orleans also holds that by burying a small statue of St. Joseph in your yard, your house will sell more promptly. In addition to the above traditions, some groups of Mardi Gras Indians stage their last procession of the season on the Sunday prior to St. Joseph's day otherwise known as "Super Sunday," after which their costumes are dismantled. In the Mid-Atlantic regions, St Joseph's day is traditionally associated with the return of anadromous fish, such as striped bass, to their natal rivers, such as the Delaware. St Joseph's Day is also celebrated in other American communities with high proportions of Italians such as New York City; Buffalo; Chicago; Kansas City, MO; Gloucester, Mass.; and Rhode Island. St. Joseph's Day is also the day when the swallows are traditionally believed to return to Mission San Juan Capistrano after having flown south for the winter.

Information from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falles and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Joseph's_Day