Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 January 2000 — Page 7

FRIDAY, JANUARY 28,2000

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

International News

Africa spends $4 billion yearly on expatriates HARARE (IPS) —Some 100,000 expatriates working I across the continent are costing sub-Saharan Africa $4 billion annually in technical assistance, according to a think tank here. The group, the Africaih Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), which is based in Harare, Zimbabwe, has attributed the presence of expatriates to the colonial legacy of weak institutions and a weak human resource base, inadequate local resources and the brain drain of talented Africans, who now live in industrial countries. Some 40,000 Africans with PhDs live outside the continent. To reverse the brain drain, the ACBF, formed in 1991, is working toward building and strengthening human and institutional capacities in policy , analysis and development management in sub-Saharan Africa. “The lack of capacity to analyze, design and implement programs, particularly economic reform programs has been a major impediment to their effectiveness and has left many African countries dependent on external technical assistance,” Kwesi Botshwey, chairperson of the foundation board, says. Through the foundation, Botshwey hopes to see a reduction in the number of expatriates working in Africa. “But one should not assume

that in the Jong term, only Africans will be working in Africa,” he says. “Globalization has aggravated the brain drain. But there is room for other people to work in different continents just like we have Africans in other places.” — Lewis Machipisa Mandela moves peace talks in Burundi back to center stage KIGALI (IPS) — As promised, Nelson Mandela has moved Burundi’s embattled peace process back to center stage. Making his debut as the new mediator, Mandela recently told Burundian delegates in the northern Tanzanian resort town of Arusha: “Please join the modem world.” Echoing his predecessor, Julius Nyerere, Mandela asked the Burundians: “Why do you allow yourselves to be regarded as leaders without talent, leaders without vision?” The former South African president has promised to try and give the long-running peace talks a higher profile, issuing invitations to leaders like President Bill Clinton and French President Jacques Chirac to attend the next round of discussions in mid-February. Mandela’s initial efforts won him a standing ovation from his audience. But reports from inside Burundi suggest things may get a lot worse before they get better. — Chris Simpson

‘Voodoo’ leaders In Benin split over donor funding

By MICHEE BOKO OUIDAH (IPS) — Disagree- < ments over money have caused I practitioners of “voodoo” here to celebrate the National Day of Beninois Traditional Religions in divided camps. < j > ' The festival, which is sap^ nc posed to be a celebration 6f the voodoo tradition, took place in two separate locations. The followers of Daagbo Hounon, Supreme Chief of the National Council of Voodoo Religion in Benin (CNCVB), celebrated in the cult’s traditional center, Ouidah, while those loyal to Sossa Guedehoungue, the elected chief of the voodoo in Benin, celebrated in Grand- ^ Popo. Grand-Popo, near the capital Cotonou, had been officially designated as the site of the festivities by the Beninois government, in accordance with ' the wishes of many top voodoo

leaders.

The two main voodoo leaders have been divided since PROMETRA (Promotion of Traditional Medicines), a local non-governmental organization, pledged a subsidy of some several billion CFA francs. One U.S. dollar is equal to 600 CFA

francs.

The disagreement came to a head, observers say, over - PROMETRA’s 80-billion CFA franc plan to renovate a city and devote it to world spiritualism. The city will also house headquarters for the voodoo religion. The chosen city will receive a huge influx of capital from all over the world to pay for its reconstruction, and, as a byproduct, a hefty annual flow of tourist dollars. The monetary advantages the proposed world cultural site will bring in accounts for much of the crisis presently rocking the voodoo leaders in Benin. “The major problem affecting the Beninois voodoo right now is certain sponsorship arrangements and unrealistic plans for a so-called spiritual renewal. These issues are gnawing away at the last vestiges of dignity ^ among some of our leaders, who ' are obsessed by perceptions that 11 they will shortly be receiving

windfalls of dollars or Euros,” says Daagbo Hounon, the CNCVB leader, in Ouidah. “For a lousy million CFA francs that PROMETRA, the NGO, promised to each voodoo cult leader if they participated in i theJuuaiy lQtfnrivaL x/ao rpromptedameeting in whmhthe^ cult leaders accejjtfcd, without the slightest modification, PROMETRA’s rules and regulations,” says Hounon. Hounon says he is unhappy with the way some traditional religious leaders have bowed before the almighty dollar. “Voodoo is not the same class of crude fraternity that government leaders, such as presidents, secretaries, treasurers, and their like belong to,” he says. “Many people think voodoo is something that sprang up yesterday, not realizing that it is based upon doctrinal and juridical foundations handed down to us over the millennia by our ancestors,” Hounon says. These individuals, he says, “set themselves up as bogus voodoo religious leaders, interested in nothing more than making money any way they can, even if it means just putting on a show for the tourists.” The Beninois government seems to have taken sides in the struggle between the religious chiefs. Although government officials were present at the Grand-Popo celebration, none was on the scene at Ouidah. A Beninois sociologist, Emile-Desire Ologoudou, who is also the spokesperson for the Permanent Secretariat of the CNCVB, acknowledges that money has caused the rift among the traditional voodoo leaders. Unfortunately, Ologoudou says, “Even voodoo luminaries are not tough enough to resist the promise of cash. They are exposed to all sorts of manipula-

tive influences.”

According to some historians, voodoo — a set of magical beliefs and practices used as a form of religion — originated in ancient Dahomey, which is now modem Benin. It gained adherents in the rest of Africa and arrived in the New World with the European slave trade.

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