He went from being rejected by Mike de Leon to spotlighting Filipino films on the Criterion Channel

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Film critic Aaron Hunt on finding Filipino films through Instagram mutuals, being turned down by Mike de Leon, and the ugly side of film distribution

Filipino cinema has earned global attention over the last 10 years. There are the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) retrospectives, boutique Blu-ray releases, and awards from the three big film festivals (Berlin, Cannes, and Venice). These, however, only spotlight the usual suspects of Philippine cinema: Lino Brocka, Mike De Leon, Lav Diaz, and the like. 

But just this May, The Criterion Channel, the library of the streaming arm of the acclaimed home video publisher, Criterion Collection, pushed forward a different side of Philippine filmmaking with the program “When the Apocalypse is Over: New Independent Cinema,” curated by Brooklyn-based Filipino-American critic Aaron E. Hunt.

“When the Apocalypse is Over” contains three feature films and 10 short films from both established and emerging Filipino filmmakers who are playing with form and narrative. The channel also features the Criterion Collection Filipino films restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, “Insiang” and “Manila in the Claws of Light.”

The Criterion Channel is not available in the Philippines, but our US-based kababayans and film enthusiasts on the lookout for new Philippine cinema can enjoy these films that make “innovative use of digital technologies, extreme color grading, and unexpected aspect ratios,” such as the hand-colored “Cleaners” by Glenn Barit, the absurd and newly minted Gawad Urian Best Short Film “Hito” by Stephen Lopez, and the dual-screen horror short “Dikit” by Gabriela Serrano.

“Conventional channels of Western distribution and programming or whatever will always be lagging decades behind the times in terms of what they’re able to show of films beyond the West.”

—Aaron Hunt

Photo by JT Fernandez


This is Hunt’s second work for The Criterion Channel. He previously helped curate the short film program “Who Will Start Another Fire?” by the distribution initiative Dedza films, where he was vice president. 

The program has also been screened in theaters in the US, such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), where other full-length films are paired with short films. It ran for six days. Hunt, who is also a freelance theatrical booker and has helped edit De Leon’s two-volume book “Last Look Back,” hinted that the program will also play in other theaters in the future. 

Here, we sat down with Hunt to talk about his roots as a film critic, formative films, getting rejected by De Leon, and how he ended up programming a whole slate of Filipino films for US audiences. 

The interview has been edited for clarity. 

Have you always watched movies growing up?

Yeah, I guess it was a fairly big thing for my family. I watched films like average working-class American families in the Midwest.

What kind of movies? 

Mostly mainstream stuff, comedies. My dad grew up in a Black American family. He’s Filipino but adopted. So a lot of it was popular Black cinema, like movies with Chris Tucker and Ice Cube. R-rated Black comedies are what I grew up on. 

My dad was very random as a father. He would put a lot of different things in front of me to see if I responded to any of them. He would get the most random movie from the video rental store, stuff that I don’t even think he would necessarily watch, often foreign stuff, and ask me to write a report on the movie.

It’s like initial training as a critic.

Yeah. I resented him at the time for making me do these things. I didn’t particularly enjoy writing about the movies when he would ask. But there were films that he showed me that were pretty formative, which I probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Were there movies from that age that stuck with you?

I think “Nobody Knows,” an earlier one of [Hirokazu] Kore-eda, when he was coming out of documentaries so it’s a little more naturalistic. The naturalism of his latest films feels very contrived. That was a sad movie for my dad to put in front of me so young. Literally, kids are stranded without a parent and dying in the movie. 

How did your journey into Filipino cinema begin? 

My dad was adopted, so I didn’t really grow up around a lot of Filipino culture. When I was maybe in my early teens, I was just sort of curious what the films were like in the Philippines. The first film I found was “Manila in the Claws of Light.” I think I just looked it up. I was so young and I think I was watching a really bad-quality copy, so I didn’t like the film at the time. Now, I’ve seen the restoration and it’s beautiful. 

But I think at that time, I also had a lot of preconceptions about production quality and was so used to the gloss of commercial American films. But I think [the film] stayed with me. I always remembered it very vividly. 

And then it happened slowly after that. I started getting really into Philippine cinema during the pandemic. I was trying to connect with my family more and do the whole connect with the roots, cringy diaspora thing.

“Going into this, I was thinking I needed to connect with my roots. I need to know everything and the program has to be like this perfect representation of the country and the film scene. I think, at a certain point, I learned that this was a road that doesn’t go anywhere, or serve anything.”

—Aaron Hunt

So, I was looking for my biological family, and in the mix of all that, I was also finding older Filipino [movies], and one of the first people I came into contact with during that search was Mike De Leon, I think because I saw some Facebook posts he made about the “Kisapmata” restoration, which he was about to show for a limited time on Vimeo. So I messaged him, ‘You’re showing ‘Kisapmata’ in a month so maybe we can run an interview timed to it.’ He rejected me, and he also judged my Facebook profile. He’s like “I see the kind of articles you write and I’m not interested in doing this kind of thing,” [so] I was like ‘Okay, I respect your decision.’

And then, I don’t know, I think because I was chill about his rejection he eventually came back to me and agreed to do an interview.

How did you end up working with Dedza Films?

[With Dedza], I met [the Malawian-American filmmaker] Kate Gondwe while I was working in production and we became friends. She interned at [the film distribution company] Kino Lorber, and we had been talking during the pandemic about how fucked up distribution is. So she pitched this idea to Kino Lorber, and, to our surprise, they actually agreed to back it or support it in some way.

So then we did an open call for short films and got 400 [to] 500 submissions or something. We had a little programming committee, and we watched and considered a lot of shorts. During that, I was kind of actively seeking out more Filipino shorts than what was submitted. I learned about distribution and the kind of the shittiness of distribution through Dedza.

Were you always drawn towards the side of distribution?

No, like zero, no interest. And I didn’t really understand how it worked before. I was surprised, and maybe I shouldn’t have been, that even these smaller independent distributors were really exploiting filmmakers. It’s even apparent in the language of distribution, in their contracts. 

So often, distributors at their greediest, will try to acquire all rights to your film. Contracts will say ‘We will exploit all rights of your film.’ Meaning, they want rights to your film in as many territories as they can for as long as possible. If they want, they can ask for not a split but all of the money that the film makes in certain territories over a certain period of time. That’s the worst case, but I mean, Cinema One [Film Festival] used to do that with their older titles.

Photo by JT Fernandez

How did the program come to be? Was there a movie that incited it all?

I think it was definitely the shorts. From an outside point of view, I noticed trends like the heavy influence of the post-production process on how the films were moving or formed or arranged; post-production or heavy manipulation of the medium, I guess, in a particular way that I hadn’t seen.

[The first film was] “It’s Raining Frogs Outside,” Maria Estela Paiso’s film, and the fact that she was part of this post-production house, Malas Malas, kind of informed the rest of the curatorial decisions. Then I think I saw “Cleaners.” A lot of the features in the program were released a couple of years before a lot of the shorts. So you’re seeing these influential features that happened a couple of years earlier and the shorts by emerging filmmakers that followed.

After watching Estela’s short, was there a conscious decision to look for these shorts or features? Or were you just encountering these short films? 

It grew organically and honestly started with following filmmakers and film workers from the Philippines on Instagram. Someone who made a film I liked might post about another film, and I’d be like, ‘Oh, what is that?’ And then I would go follow that filmmaker and ask to see their film. So, it all extrapolated from connecting with the first few films and filmmakers. I realize this is a very Manila-centric film program, in the sense that most of these filmmakers live in Manila or are attached to the industry and funding bodies in Manila, like QCinema and Cinemalaya.

Did you decide to have a more short film-centric program at first? 

The initial program had even more shorts than now. I think it might have been 15 or 16 shorts and six or seven features; I was trying to get as many films on the Criterion Channel as they would let me and I pitched that in early 2022 or late 2021.

I sent that large program, and even then, it had the same title and pretty much the same idea. 

I had never cold-pitched a program, so I didn’t really know what that looked like. I made a kind of random pitch deck and sent it to Criterion, to Ashley Clark who’s a curatorial director there. And he was really into it and supportive from the beginning. 

How did it end up first screening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music?

So I pitched it to Criterion, and they’re like, yeah we’re really interested, but because it’s not timely with Criterion. Things that have an upcoming anniversary or are competitive for time in some way are definitely going to get priority. So this kept getting pushed down the line for two years.

So I had this additional time and I’ve been [doing] theatrical booking so I decided to start booking it in theaters over the course of those two years. I was watching more films and changing the program, honing it. So I decided to do a theatrical run in the US leading up to the Criterion release as a way of generating some word of mouth around these films. 

It took different forms at different cinemas like double features and short feature combos, and sometimes the theater programmers would make their own short blocks or propose their own variations, which was interesting to see. The BAM was most down. A lot of the theaters in the US can’t afford to show independent or smaller films for so long so I was really surprised that BAM wanted to do six days of nearly every film in the program.

What were some of the pairings that surprised you? 

Maybe one that shouldn’t have surprised me but did was “It’s Raining Frogs Outside” and “Nervous Translation.” They’re both about a young woman who’s dealing with social anxiety, and there are explicit connections when you watch them back-to-back. And they’re both apocalyptic in a way.

And a lot of these films are very specific; Glenn Barit says he’s always surprised that “Cleaners” translates outside of even the specific region where it’s filmed. I think there’s a similarity in the fact that these films aren’t sacrificing any of the specific local, regional details. They’re not trying to broaden themselves out or be “international.” But they also happen to be very transferable to a US audience. The audiences in New York were very loud [watching] “Cleaners.” People were just laughing like crazy. One audience member stood up and danced during the emo boy tinikling scene. 

I also wanted to ask if, in the process of making the program, there were considerations about watching these films on a smaller screen. Like “Octogod,” I think, would be great to watch on the big screen.

Yeah, definitely. I guess EJ Gagui’s film, “Rocks in a Windless Wadi,” that was hard to program within a short block because it deals with the trauma of real individuals. It just felt wrong to place it anywhere in a short block, honestly, and it was quite different in tone maybe than a lot of the shorts. So I didn’t program that one theatrically because I don’t think the other shorts would complement it appropriately. But within Criterion, there’s no linear arrangement of the films laid out for you. I think it’s a lot better to come to that film on your own. I do wish it could be on a big screen because it has beautiful wide-screen imagery. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out a way to show that one in a shorts block in the theaters. 

There were other considerations like, honestly, I didn’t want to deal with Cinema One for more than one film. So I chose just one Cinema One film [“Fisting”]. I just chose Whammy Alcazaren’s, because it was more on the theme of frame aspect ratio conscious and medium conscious films, where “Nervous Translation” still is but in a more subtle way. 

You also mentioned that you’re situated as an outsider in programming these films, but what distinct perspective do you think you have in terms of programming these films?

Going into this, I was thinking I needed to connect with my roots. I need to know everything and the program has to be like this perfect representation of the country and the film scene. I think, at a certain point, I learned that this was a road that doesn’t go anywhere, or serve anything. 

It was that and more like some of these representation politics that I was kind of indoctrinated with at Dedza, which was all about supporting emerging filmmakers of color. Those chosen ended up being, on the whole, filmmakers of color with a lot of privilege and access to filmmaking resources and money.

So this program was letting go of those identity politics and making it more about this feeling I had for certain films. Maybe what’s unique is also my connection and collaboration with some of the filmmakers who helped me curate it. 

Photo by JT Fernandez

I’m sure, people would have a lot to say about the programming, that they would want more of this… or that it should be a representation of films that would reflect, I guess, what filmmaking is in the Philippines now.

I’m aware that this is centered around like the popular film schools and like the popular independent production apparatuses in the Philippines. That’s what I was most exposed to at the time and where this particular wave of films was coming out of. I do want to find more. I know there’s more out there. I hope this opens up the possibility for more. But I’m not sure. Distribution channels, even at the so-called independent level, are pretty narrow-minded. 

When it comes to Filipino cinema, they’re all still hung up on Lino Brocka. These older American people in distribution, who think they are the tastemakers because they have the power to be, are unable to see the appeal of even a filmmaker like Mike De Leon or Ishmael Bernal. It just shows how long it will take them to recognize things and I think that will always be the case. Conventional channels of Western distribution and programming or whatever will always be lagging decades behind the times in terms of what they’re able to show of films beyond the West. 

This is something that you’ve observed as a theatrical booker and a curator? The limitations of distribution? 

Yeah, I’ve always had a pretty cynical view of distribution. I think it’s actually one of the worst elements of the industry. I think distributors are like landlords. They’re just like collecting rent on this thing that, at a certain point, they’re not putting a lot of work into. Or they dictate how much work they put into it. It’s like they’re collecting fees at a bridge or something. It’s very exploitative.

When you’re working at a small scale like Kani [Releasing], I think you can do good work. They are doing work to track down prints and stuff like that, which a lot of distribution companies are not doing. I’m glad it’s literally just like three people. I think some good work can be done, but it’s difficult.

“I think distributors are like landlords. They’re just like collecting rent on this thing that, at a certain point, they’re not putting a lot of work into. Or they dictate how much work they put into it.”

—Aaron Hunt

As a programmer, you’re pitching these to institutions. Do you think there’s a renewed interest in terms of Philippine movies?

These last few years are when I’ve gotten more involved in programming and distribution, so I haven’t witnessed the past years to really know if it’s more elevated now. I mean, I was surprised MoMA did a big retrospective on Mike De Leon’s films, and I think people are assuming we’ll be able to program more Filipino retrospectives with MoMA. I think it’s cool with something like “Bona,” which has not been restored before, and is just a lot more presentable now. Hopefully. I don’t know. I’m a little cynical that we’re in the same pattern we’ve always been but yeah, there does seem to be a lot of interest in Philippine cinema right now from an international audience.

I know that the films in the program focus on how the post-production is done. But was there a certain issue that you wanted to put forward in selecting the films?

There is a throughline in the films, of frustration or longing, about the circumstances that either the character or the filmmakers have been dealt, whether that’s a political reality or something more insular and relational. “Bold Eagle” is pretty political, yeah. Some of them are more explicitly tackling realities under Marcos or Duterte [administrations]. 

It’s almost like these films are stretching the medium to either look at these circumstances that they kind of long to get away from at different angles and you can see different elements about the conditions that they’re living through, in the kind of oddball ways that they focus on them. I feel that there’s a lot of longing for this all to be over so life can begin.  

What do you want the viewers to take away after watching the films? 

I don’t want to impose anything but I guess for me it was just the excitement of seeing those first few shorts. It was like, ‘Wow I’ve never seen anything like that short’ and it kept happening. And maybe the breadth of filmmaking innovation that’s happening in this small sphere of the Philippine film industry that it focuses on. 

It’s just cool to see something new and that’s not just exceptional or individual. It seems like there are generations of filmmakers doing this—realizing there’s such a scale to this new creativity.  

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Sawantwadi’s Traditional Handmade Toys Struggle for Survival

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Arts, Asia-Pacific, Civil Society, Cooperatives, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Editors’ Choice, Environment, Featured, Headlines, Natural Resources, TerraViva United Nations, Trade & Investment

Arts

Shashikant Rane with his wooden fruits. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

Shashikant Rane with his wooden fruits. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

PUNE, Jun 14 2024 (IPS) – Sawantwadi in Maharashtra, on the western coast of India, bordering Goa, has always been known for its wooden toys. A picturesque town amid hills and lush greenery, Sawantwadi retains an old-world charm to this day.  The regal Sawantwadi Palace holds pride of place, with colleges, schools, and temples cloistered around the periphery of the lake, which was once an extension of the royal grounds.  In the centre of the town is the Ubha Bazaar, or Hanging Market, which houses rows of shops selling the iconic wooden toys that are a hallmark of Sawantwadi.

The wooden toys of Sawantwadi are a legacy that the previous rulers nurtured, and they reflect the spirit of the area. Generations of children in Maharashtra and Goa have grown up playing with the life-like depictions of fruits, people, and the pull-along toys that were a necessary part of growing up. But today, these painstakingly carved, hand-made toys made of Pongamia and mango wood are struggling for survival. The once-bustling hilltop market in downtown Sawantwadi, known as Ubha Bazaar (Hanging Market), is now a ghost of what it once was. The artisan families who manufactured and sold these toys from their workshops-cum-homes are now reduced to a handful.

So, what caused the busy hands of these artisans to fall silent?

By the looks of it, several factors are responsible.

Female musicians in concert. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

Female musicians in concert. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

Backgrounder

Unlike the cheap machine-made toys that flood the market today, toys are a traditional craft in India, commanding a hoary lineage from the era of the Indus Valley civilization. Like many other centers in India, Sawantwadi always boasted gifted artisans capable of painstakingly breathing life into wood and carving out an array of life-like figures inspired by everyday life. Over the decades, the life-like depiction of fruits and vegetables was always been a specialty of Sawantwadi craftsmen. Of course, there were other toys too, for every age group of children: pull-along toys for toddlers, kitchen sets for little girls, bullock carts and other vehicles for bigger children, as well as spoons, cutters, and ladles used in the kitchen. What always made these toys stand out was the environment-friendly techniques and colors that were used to produce them.

Toy-making in Sawantwadi had its origins in the arrival of  Telangana Brahmins in the 17th century, who visited the kingdom to take part in religious debates with the then ruler, Khem Sawant II, who was extremely well-versed in Hindu religious scriptures and philosophy. The Chitrali artisans who arrived with the Brahmins brought the craft of toy-making and ganjifa (playing cards) to Sawantwadi.

Ideally suited to the greenery and scenic landscape of Sawantwadi, toy-making here made use of Pongamia and mango wood, which thrived in the thick forests here. The wood used for the toys would be collected in the summer and, after being washed and dried, left out to get thoroughly soaked during the entire monsoon. After thorough drying, they would be carved as per the desired shape. Once the toys were carved out, they would be covered with five layers of earth and left aside for a certain period of time. The lathe would then be used in this stage to impart the desired shape and finish. They would be painted with a powdery mixture made of tamarind and other seeds once dusted off and smoothed with sandpaper. After applying several coats of paint, a coat of lacquer and natural gum would add the finishing touches.  To this day, the lacquer used in Sawantwadi toys is their special feature. It is durable and never fades or chips away, no matter how roughly the toys are used. When toy-making was on the verge of fading out at one point in time, the local royal family gave it an impetus in the early 1970s. Primarily responsible for this shot in the arm were the Queen, Maharani Satvashila Devi and her husband, the reigning king, Rajesaheb Khem Sawant VI, Lt Colonel Shivram Sawant Bhonsale. The reigning royal family also set up a workshop to make hand-painted ganjifa cards at the palace, which is functional to this day.

Sawantwadi Palace grounds. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

Sawantwadi Palace grounds. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

Difficulties in Procuring Inputs

Historically, Sawantwadi was a vassal state of the mighty Maratha empire. When the British defeated the Marathas, Sawantwadi continued to exist as a small principality with a benign ruler during the British Raj.  The erstwhile British Resident’s home in downtown Sawantwadi, at a stone’s throw from the Palace, testifies to those bygone days. The early years of the 20th century saw Sawantwadi thrive in matters of education and culture, with the rulers also making efforts to nurture traditional crafts and artisans.

In recent times, however, deforestation has made it difficult to get adequate supplies of pangara (Pongamia) wood, while mango is not suitable for products that need the lathe machine.  Artisans have now turned to Acacia, Shivan (Gmelina Arborea) and Glyricidea, compromising on the quality of the toys.  Glyricidea has particularly emerged as a favorite, notwithstanding its being environmentally unsound and causing rats to overrun homes.

Lack of skilled artisans

The painstaking nature of the job, the difficulties in procuring wood and other inputs, and an uncertain market that cannot guarantee earnings in keeping with the efforts put in have resulted in many skilled artisans moving out of the industry and opting for employment elsewhere.  Industrialization in the neighboring districts has also been a big draw, while government initiatives to train young artisans in wood carving have been lackadaisical at best.

Very few can carve wood now, unlike in the past. So, instead of carving out a toy, the prevailing trend is to fill up sawdust into ready moulds. This also helps keep costs low and is not labour-intensive.  Shashikant Rane, one of the very few remaining master craftsmen in Sawantwadi, who the government approached about opening a Hastkala (handicrafts) Kendra (centre), tells me, “I entered the profession in the early 1960s, thanks to my father, who had received special training from Abha Gawde, a well-known master in the craft. Traditional toy-making requires a great deal of patience, starting with the procurement of the right wood. You procure the wood in May but cannot work on it until a few months later. In these times of quick turnarounds and massive profits, few are willing to put in the effort,” he points out.

Rane has been training 30 youngsters in the craft every year at his modest workshop-cum-home and is a much sought-after craftsman for prominent projects all over India. Referring to the government’s lackadaisical approach to training artisans, Rane tells me,  “The Minister-In-Charge had identified the venue for setting up the Hastkala Kendra and spoken to me about his vision at length.  But it is over a year now, and the plan still awaits finalization.”

Unfair Competition and Dwindling Demand

There are other factors, too. Cheap Chinese machine-made toys have also made consumers move away from these beautiful, hand-carved toys, which, owing to rising input costs, sell at higher rates. One also perceives a change in taste. P D Kanekar and Company, a prominent seller of toys in Sawantwadi, has moved to manufacture non-traditional toys in recent years.  Ankita Kanekar, from the Kanekar family, tells me, “Pangara (Pongamia) wood was always used to make life-like fruits and vegetables in the past. But no one is interested in playing with those now, unlike the previous generation.  Pangara trees are only available in a few villages now. Besides, a single set takes around one and a half months to be made. The work is painstaking and exacting, and the return is very little. There are very few good artisans practicing the trade.”

She also blames the current transport infrastructure for dwindling sales. “Earlier, the road links from Mumbai and Pune passed through Sawantwadi. But the highways now skirt our town.”

Changing tastes are evident when one browses through the shops today. Imitations of machine-made toys hold pride of place as compared to the artistic depictions of musicians, vegetable -sellers, or fishermen in traditional attire. It is tough to spot a bunch of bananas or betelnuts either.

Lack of government support is another major factor.

The active support of the ruling royal family had bolstered the toy industry in the previous century. This kind of support is no longer forthcoming. The lack of a strong toymakers’ cooperative or guild is also partly to blame. “There is no unity among the various people in the trade to negotiate in one voice with the authorities and demand guarantees or protective subsidies,” rues a prominent toymaker, requesting anonymity.

Consequently, Sawantwadi toys were devoid of geographic identification (GI) until now.

Light at the End of a Tunnel

As I write this, toymakers are jubilant about a GI tag having been granted to Sawantwadi wooden toys on March 30, 2024. This opens up a new vista for them. Toymakers like PD Kanekar have already taken to selling their toys online. “ We started selling online during the pandemic when everything shut down,” Ankita Kanekar tells me. The Kanekars sell through the DirectCreate platform to buyers all over India. Otherwise, sales are made to wholesalers based in Goa, who, in turn, sell to those traveling to India. This is because “international courier services are not yet developed from Sawantwadi. ”

Even so, with Goa’s newly-opened MOPA airport just 15–16 km away, international tourists often come down to Sawantwadi to buy these iconic toys.

One could well say that the GI tag and the inclusivity it bestows on these beautiful handcrafted toys are a good beginning. However, a lot more needs to be done if these toys are to capture the attention of a global market. Improving the courier services as well as government subsidies to the makers could go a long way here.

IPS UN Bureau Report

IPS UN Bureau, IPS UN Bureau Report, India

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Haiti: Transitional Administration Faces Stern Test

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Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Featured, Gender Violence, Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Credit: Bruna Prado/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

LONDON, Jun 14 2024 (IPS) – There’s been recent change in violence-torn Haiti – but whether much-needed progress results remains to be seen.

Acting prime minister Garry Conille was sworn in on 3 June. A former UN official who briefly served as prime minister over a decade ago, Conille was the compromise choice of the Transitional Presidential Council. The Council formed in April to temporarily assume the functions of the presidency following the resignation of de facto leader Ariel Henry.

Upsurge in violence

Haiti has seen intense and widespread gang violence since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. Henry was finally forced out as the conflict escalated still further. In February, two major gang networks joined forces. The gangs attacked Haiti’s main airport, forcing it to close for almost three months and stopping Henry returning from abroad.

Gangs took control of police stations and Hait’s two biggest jails, releasing over 4,000 prisoners. The violence targeted an area of the capital, Port-au-Prince, previously considered safe, where the presidential palace, government headquarters and embassies are located. Haitian citizens paid a heaver price: the UN estimates that around 2,500 people were killed or injured in gang violence in the first quarter of this year, a staggering 53 per cent increase on the previous quarter.

Henry won’t be missed by civil society. He was widely seen as lacking any legitimacy. Moïse announced his appointment shortly before his assassination, but it was never formalised, and he then won a power struggle thanks in part to the support of foreign states. His tenure was a blatant failure. It was when the gangs seemed on the verge of taking full control of Port-au-Prince that Henry finally lost US support.

Now the USA, other states and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have thrown their weight behind the Council and a Kenya-led international police force, which has recently begun to deploy.

Contested developments

Gang leaders can be expected to maintain their resistance to these developments. The most prominent, ex-police officer Jimmy Chérizier, demands a role in any talks. But this looks like posturing. Chérizier likes to portray himself as a revolutionary, on the side of poor people against elites. But the gangs are predatory. They kill innocent people, and it’s the poorest who suffer the most. The things the gangs make their money from – including kidnapping for ransom, extortion and smuggling – benefit from weak law enforcement and a lack of central authority. Gang leaders are best served by maximum chaos for as long as possible, and when that ends will seek an accommodation with favourable politicians, as they’ve enjoyed before.

Political squabbling suits the gangs, which makes it a concern that it took extensive and protracted negotiations to establish the Council. The opaque process was evidently characterised by self-interested manoeuvring as politicians jockeyed for position and status.

The resulting body has nine members: seven with voting rights and two observers. Six of the seven come from political groupings, with the seventh a private sector representative. One observer represents religious groups and the other civil society: Régine Abraham, a crop scientist by profession, from the Rally for a National Agreement.

The Council’s formation was shortly followed by the arrival of an advance force of Kenyan police, with more to follow. It’s been a long time coming. The current plan for an international police force was adopted by a UN Security Council resolution in October 2023. The government of Kenya took the lead, offering a thousand officers, with smaller numbers to come from elsewhere. But Kenya’s opposition won a court order temporarily preventing the move. Henry was in Kenya to sign a mutual security agreement to circumvent the ruling when he was left stranded by the airport closure.

Many Haitians are rightly wary of the prospect of foreign powers getting involved. The country has a dismal history of self-serving international interference, particularly by the US government, while UN forces have been no saviours. A peacekeeping mission from 2004 to 2017 committed sexual abuse and introduced cholera. This will be the 11th UN-organised mission since 1993, and all have been accused of human rights violations.

Civil society points to the Kenyan police’s long track record of committing violence and rights abuses, and is concerned it won’t understand local dynamics. There’s also the question of whether resources spent on the mission wouldn’t be better used to properly equip and support Haiti’s forces, which have consistently been far less well equipped than the gangs. Previous international initiatives have manifestly failed to help strengthen the capacity of Haitian institutions to protect rights and uphold the rule of law.

Time to listen

Haitian civil society is right to criticise the current process as falling short of expectations. It’s an impossible task to expect one person to represent the diversity of Haiti’s civil society, no matter how hard they try. And that person doesn’t even have a vote: the power to make decisions by majority vote is in the hands of political parties many feel helped create the current mess.

The Council is also a male-dominated institution: Abraham is its only female member. With gangs routinely using sexual violence as a weapon, the Council hardly seems in good shape to start building a Haiti free of violence against women and girls.

And given the role of international powers in bringing it about, the Council – just like the Kenya-led mission – is open to the accusation of being just another foreign intervention, giving rise to suspicions about the motives of those behind it.

The latest steps could be the start of something better, but only if they’re built on and move in the right direction. Civil society is pushing for more from the government: for much more women’s leadership and civil society engagement. For the Kenya-led mission, civil society is urging strong human rights safeguards, including a means for complaints to be heard if the mission, like all its predecessors, commits human rights abuses. This shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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African Activists Call on the West to Finance Climate Action

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Africa, Civil Society, Climate Change Finance, Climate Change Justice, Conferences, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Environment, Featured, Global, Headlines, Human Rights, Humanitarian Emergencies, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations

Climate Change Finance

Activists at Bonn accuse developed countries of frustrating the process on climate finance. Pictured here are Danni Taaffe, Head of Communications at Climate Action Network (CAN), Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa and Sven Harmeling, Head of Climate at CAN. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

Activists at Bonn accuse developed countries of frustrating the process on climate finance. Pictured here are Danni Taaffe, Head of Communications at Climate Action Network (CAN), Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa and Sven Harmeling, Head of Climate at CAN. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

BONN, Jun 13 2024 (IPS) – As the technical session of the global climate negotiations enters the final stretch in Bonn, Germany, climate activists from Africa have expressed fears that negotiators from the developed world are dragging their feet in a way to avoid paying their fair share to tackle the climate crisis.

“I think we will be unfair to the snail if we say that the Bonn talks have all along moved at a snail pace,” quipped Mohammed Adow, the Director, Power Shift Africa.

“Ideally, there will be no climate action anywhere without climate finance. Yet what we have seen is that developed countries are frustrating the process, blocking the UAE annual dialogues, which were agreed upon last year in Dubai, to focus on the delivery of finance so as to give confidence to developing countries to implement climate actions,” said Adow.

According to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United Arab Emirates (UAE) dialogue was created to focus on climate finance in relation to implementing the first Global Stoke Take (GST-1) outcomes, with the rationale of serving as a follow up mechanism dedicated to climate finance, ensuring response to and/or monitoring of, as may be appropriate and necessary, all climate finance items under the GST

The two-week Bonn technical session of Subsidiary Bodies (SB60) was expected to develop an infrastructure for the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), a climate change funding mechanism to raise the floor of climate finance for developing countries above the current $100 billion annual target.

In 2009, during the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) of the UNFCCC in Copenhagen, developed countries agreed that by 2020, they would collectively mobilize $100 billion per year to support priorities for developing countries in terms of adaptation to climate crisis, loss and damage, just energy transition and climate change mitigation.

When parties endorsed the Paris Agreement at COP 21 in 2015, they found it wise to set up the NCQG, which has to be implemented at the forthcoming COP 29, whose agenda has to be set at the SB60 in Bonn, providing scientific and technological advice, thereby shaping negotiations in Azerbaijan.

However, activists feel that the agenda being set in Bonn is likely to undermine key outcomes of previous negotiations, especially on climate finance.

“We came to Bonn with renewed hope that the NCQG discussions will be honest and frank with all parties committed to seeing that the finance mechanism will be based on the priorities and needs of developing countries and support country-driven strategies, with a focus on Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs),” said Memory Zonde-Kachambwa, the Executive Director, FEMNET.

“Seeing the devastation climate change is causing in our countries in terms of floods, storms, and droughts, among other calamities, it was our hope that the rich countries would be eager and willing to indicate the Quantum as per Article 9.5 of the Paris Agreement so as to allow developing countries to plan their climate action,” she said.

So far, negotiators from the North have been pushing for collective “mobilization of financial resources,” which African activists believe is merely the privatization of climate finance within NCQG, thus surrendering poor countries to climate-debt speculators and further impoverishing countries clutching onto debt.

Also in the spotlight was the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), where the activists feel that the means of implementation is being vehemently fought by the parties from developed countries.

“Adaptation must be funded from public resources and must not be seen as a business opportunity open to private sector players,” said Dr. Augustine Njamnshi, an environmental policy and governance law expert and the Executive Secretary of the African Coalition for Sustainable Energy and Access. “Without clear indications on the means of implementation, GGA is an empty shell and it is not fit-for-purpose.”

According to Ambassador Ali Mohammed, the incoming Chair for the African Group of Negotiators (AGN), the SB60 is an opportunity to rebuild trust in the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.

“That trust can only be rebuilt if we come out of Bonn with a quantum that adequately covers the needs of the continent,” he said, noting that the figure Africa is asking for, which is to be part of the agenda for COP29, is USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2030.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Venezuela’s Opportunity for Democracy

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Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Democracy, Featured, Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, Press Freedom, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Credit: Jimmy Villalta/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jun 10 2024 (IPS) – Venezuela’s 28 July presidential election could offer a genuine chance of democratic transition. Despite an array of challenges, the opposition is coming into the campaign unified behind a single candidate. Many Venezuelans seem prepared to believe that voting could deliver change.

But the authoritarian government is digging in its heels. The opposition reasonably fears the election could be suspended or the government could suppress the opposition vote. Large-scale fraud can’t be ruled out.

All credible opinion polls show that authoritarian president Nicolás Maduro, in power since the death of Hugo Chávez in 2013 and seeking a third term in office, is highly unpopular. But his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) extensively controls the state apparatus. Electoral authorities aren’t neutral and the election system is riddled with irregularities. A recent decision by the government-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) excluded from voting over five million Venezuelans who’ve emigrated.

If the opposition defeats the PSUV at the polls, the government will only accept the results if the costs of repression outweigh the costs of withdrawal. This means some form of exit guarantees will need to be agreed. An agreement to coexist would also be needed for a transition period that could last several years, during which PSUV supporters would continue to hold important positions and the party would need to be given the chance to reinvent itself as a participant in democratic processes.

Civil society in resistance mode

Venezuelan civil society has long played a key role in promoting democracy and defending human rights. But civic space has increasingly been shut down, with activists and journalists routinely subjected to threats, harassment, intimidation, raids, arrests, detention and prosecution by courts lacking any independence.

Many civil society organisations (CSOs) and media outlets have closed and others self-censor or have changed their focus to avoid reprisals. Numerous journalists, academics and activists have joined the exodus to other countries.

The government give repression legal cover through a barrage of laws and regulations, supposedly on grounds such as the defence of sovereignty and the fight against terrorism. Many of these, starting with the 2010 National Sovereignty and Self-Determination Law, sought to restrict access to funding to financially suffocate civil society.

In 2017, the state introduced the Constitutional Law Against Hatred, for Tolerance and Peaceful Coexistence, known as the Anti-Hate Law, imposing heavy punishments, including lengthy jail sentences, for inciting hatred or violence through electronic means, including social media. The law leaves the definition of what constitutes hate speech to the government-aligned courts.

In 2021, the government passed an International Cooperation Act that includes a mandatory register of CSOs and an obligation to provide sensitive information.

The government has doubled down ahead of the election. In January, the National Assembly approved the first reading of a draft law known as the Anti-NGO Law, which would prohibit CSOs from engaging in vaguely defined ‘political activities’. The National Assembly is also currently discussing a law against fascism, aimed at banning and criminalising ideas, expressions and activities it deems to be ‘fascist’.

A united opposition

Over the years, the opposition has found it hard to present a unified front and a credible alternative. But this has changed in the run-up to the 2024 election, with the opposition agreeing to select a single presidential candidate.

María Corina Machado emerged as a consensus candidate with over 90 per cent of the vote at the October 2023 primary election. More than two million people were said to have taken part, defying threats from the authorities, censorship and physical attacks on candidates.

In an attempt to regain the initiative, the government sought to stir up nationalist sentiment by activating its dispute over Essequibo Guiana, a large territory in Guyana claimed by Venezuela. In December 2023 it held and predictably won a consultative referendum on the issue.

A week after the opposition primary, the Supreme Court suspended the process and results. In December, Machado filed a Supreme Court writ, but instead the court ratified her disqualification. So on 22 March, three days before the deadline for candidate registration, she announced 80-year-old academic Corina Yoris-Villasana as her replacement.

The government couldn’t find any excuse to disqualify Yoris, so instead it blocked the registration website. Right up to the deadline, the automated system had selective technical issues that affected opposition candidates.

Following an international press conference in which Machado denounced the manoeuvre, support came from two unlikely allies, the leftist governments of Brazil and Colombia. The CNE eventually authorised a 12-hour extension to register its candidates.

As a result of further negotiations in April, all registered opposition candidates withdrew apart from one. The compromise candidate was former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, a moderate few could object to.

International community’s role

Some countries, notably European Union (EU) members and the USA, have supported the Venezuelan opposition and urged the government to respect human rights and hold free and fair elections.

Anything the USA does is open to the accusation of imperialist interference, but the EU has been able to supply a credible set of proposals on how to hold fair elections. Recommendations of its report following 2021 regional and municipal elections included strengthening the separation of powers, abolishing disqualifications, holding a public voter education campaign, allowing balanced media coverage, repealing the Anti-Hate Law and ensuring enough properly trained and accredited polling station officials are available on election day.

However, the EU’s role in the upcoming election remains in doubt. After the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Machado’s disqualification, the National Assembly leader said the EU wouldn’t be allowed to do election observation.

A key step in the right direction was taken in October 2023, just ahead of the primary, when government and opposition representatives met in Barbados and signed an agreement on the right of political organisations to choose their presidential candidates, an electoral timetable and a set of procedural guarantees.

The day after the signing of the Barbados Agreement, the US government eased its oil and gas sanctions but warned it would reinstate them if the government didn’t honour its commitments; in April 2023, it brought them back. The Venezuelan government immediately breached the agreement’s first point, as it initiated legal proceedings against the opposition primary.

Upon the signing of the agreement, the US Secretary of State also said that political prisoners were expected to be released by November. Five were immediately freed, but many more remain behind bars. Their release is a key opposition demand ahead of the election.

Two months before the big day, everything hangs in the balance. The unofficial campaign is well underway. Machado and González are touring the country, promising orderly and peaceful change. The government has launched an aggressive smear and disinformation campaign against González. Relentless harassment follows Machado wherever she goes. Local activists are routinely arrested following opposition rallies in their area.

There are surely many more twists and turns ahead. The Venezuelan government is used to ignoring international criticism, but it’s harder when calls to respect the democratic process come from leftist Latin American leaders. They can play a key role in urging Venezuela to let genuine elections happen and accept the results. The logic of democracy is that sooner or later Maduro will have to go. It would be wise for him to start negotiating the how.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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India’s Election: Cracks Start to Show in Authoritarian Rule

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Asia-Pacific, Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Featured, Headlines, Human Rights, Press Freedom, Religion, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Credit: Himanshu Sharma/picture alliance via Getty Images

LONDON, Jun 7 2024 (IPS) – India’s Hindu nationalist strongman Narendra Modi has won his third prime ministerial term. But the result of the country’s April-to-June election fell short of the sweeping triumph that seemed within his grasp.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has shed seats compared to the 2019 election, losing its parliamentary majority. Modi remains prime minister thanks to coalition partners. It’s a long way from the 400-seat supermajority Modi proclaimed he wanted – which would have given him power to rewrite the constitution.

The outcome may be that Modi faces more checks on his power. If so, that can only be good news for those he’s consistently attacked – including civil society and India’s Muslim minority.

Modi’s crackdown

Under Modi, in power since 2014, civic space conditions have deteriorated. India’s election was accompanied by the usual headlines about the country being the world’s largest democracy. But India’s democracy has long been underpinned by an active, vibrant and diverse civil society. Modi has sought to constrain this civic energy, seeing it as a hindrance to his highly centralised and personalised rule.

Modi’s government has repeatedly used repressive laws, including the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, to harass, intimidate and detain activists and journalists on fabricated charges. Law enforcement agencies have raided numerous civil society organisations and media companies. In October 2023, for example, police raided the homes of around 40 staff members of the NewsClick portal and detained its editor.

This was one of many attacks on media freedoms. Independent journalists routinely face harassment, intimidation, threats, violence, arrests and prosecution. Last year, the government banned a BBC documentary on Modi, followed by tax investigation raids on the corporation’s Indian offices.

The authorities have also used the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act to block access to international funding for civil society organisations, targeting those critical of their attacks on human rights. In 2020, the government amended the law to make it even stricter, extending powers to freeze bank accounts. Since the start of 2022, the authorities have cancelled registrations of almost 6,000 organisations.

The authorities have also unleashed violence against protesters. In 2019, citizenship legislation created a way for undocumented migrants to become Indian citizens – but only if they weren’t Muslim. Despite India’s secular constitution, the law introduced religious criteria into the determination of citizenship. The passage of this discriminatory law brought tens of thousands to the streets. Security forces responded with beatings, teargas and arrests, accompanied by internet shutdowns.

It was the same when farmers protested in 2020 and 2021, believing new farming laws would undermine their ability to make a living. The farmers ultimately triumphed, with Modi repealing the unpopular laws. But several farmers died as a result of the authorities’ heavy-handed response, including when a minister’s car ploughed into a crowd of protesters. Once again, the authorities shut down internet and mobile services, and police used batons and teargas and arrested many protesters.

As the new citizenship law made clear, those who have least access to rights are the ones most under attack. Muslims are the BJP’s favourite target, since it seeks to recast the country as an explicitly Hindu nation. The party’s politicians have consistently stoked anti-Muslim hatred, including over the wearing of hijabs, interfaith marriage and the protection of cows – a revered animal in Hinduism.

Modi has been accused of spreading anti-Muslim hate speech and conspiracy theories, including on the campaign trail. During the election, he called Muslims ‘infiltrators’ and alluded to India’s version of a narrative often advanced by far-right parties – that a minority population is out to replace the majority through a higher birthrate and the conversion of partners.

The BJP’s populist rhetoric has encouraged hatred and violence. In 2020, Delhi saw its worst riots in decades, sparked by violence at a protest against the citizenship law. Groups of Hindus and Muslims fought each other and 53 people were killed, most of them Muslims.

Top-down institutional violence followed the unilateral revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special autonomous status in 2019. The removal of constitutional protections for this Muslim-majority region was accompanied by a military occupation, curfew, public meeting ban, movement restrictions and one of the world’s longest-ever internet shutdowns. Indian government authorities have detained thousands of Kashmiri activists and criminalised countless journalists.

Disinformation thrives

Ahead of the election, the state detained key opposition politicians such as Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and froze opposition bank accounts, including of the main opposition party, Congress. Almost all politicians investigated by the government’s Enforcement Directorate are from the opposition.

Indian elections always take several weeks, given the huge logistical challenge of allowing up to 969 million people to vote. But this one, spread over 82 days, was unusually long. This allowed Modi to travel the country and make as many appearances as possible, representing a campaign that put his personality front and centre.

Disinformation was rife in the campaign. BJP politicians spread claims that Muslims were engaged in what they called a ‘vote jihad’ against Hindus, accompanied by accusations that the opposition would favour Muslims. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was a particular target, with false allegations of links to China and Pakistan and doctored videos in circulation.

But despite the many challenges, the opposition coalition performed better than expected. The result suggests at least some are tired of the Modi personality cult and politics of polarisation. And for all the BJP’s attempts to emphasise economic success, many voters don’t feel better off. What matters to them are rising prices and unemployment, and they judged the incumbent accordingly.

It’s to be hoped the result leads to a change in style, with less divisive rhetoric and more emphasis on compromise and consensus building. That may be a tall order, but the opposition might now be better able to play its proper accountability role. Modi has lost his sheen of invincibility. For civil society, this could open up opportunities to push back and urge the government to stop its onslaught.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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