Cumanana XV-ENG

ISSUE N° 15

JUNE 2022

Cumanana PERUVIAN CULTURE VIRTUAL BULLETIN FOR AFRICA MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

SOUTH AFRICA: A NEW BEGINNING Introduction by Director General for Africa, the Middle East and Gulf countries

SLAVERY

RECIPE

and its impact on African development

Peruvian flavours wih an African influence

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SOUTH AFRICA: A NEW BEGINNING INTRODUCTION Y AMBASSADOR GUSTAVO LEMBCKE HOYLE DIRECTOR GENERAL FOR AFRICA, THE MIDDLE EAST AND GULF COUNTRIES In mid-1993, Peru and South Africa established contacts following the end of apartheid. It was a time of change and optimism, in which the eyes of the world focused on South Africa, a country that changed the path of its history through reconciliation and collective endeavour towards the well-being of its citizens.

At the end of that same year, Peru decided to open an Embassy in Pretoria, the political capital of South Africa, and sent Ambassador Jorge Valdez as the first Chief of Mission the following year. Ambassador Valdez was responsible for initiating contact with the South African authorities and laying the foundations for the excellent relationship that continues to strengthen today.

The document below, which has been adapted to the characteristics of this Bulletin, contains a detailed report on the inauguration of President Nelson Mandela.

Ambassador Valdez’ words let the reader appreciate the expectations of the international community and, more importantly, the commitment of South Africans to adapt to changes and bridge their differences to achieve the growth of the country and the well-being of its citizens.

From this transcendent moment, South Africa positioned itself as a relevant actor in Africa and on the international stage.

Confirming his intention to form a government of national unity, President Mandela announced that, in compliance with the constitutional provision, opposition parties will participate in his cabinet. Therefore, he would be negotiating with the National Party, led by former President De Klerk, six portfolios that would correspond to him, as well as the three that he offered to the Inkhata Freedom Party. He also pointed out that, despite not reaching the level of voting needed to qualify according to the constitution, the President is trying to include General Constandt Viljoen into the cabinet who, in his capacity as leader of the Freedom Alliance and Afrikaner Popular Front, headed the list of that group in the last elections.

President Mandela's message, both at the swearing-in ceremony and at the luncheon offered to foreign delegations and other events in which he participated yesterday afternoon, strove to emphasize the urge to undertake a national reconciliation of the South African peoples and project their energy into the future.

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Pretoria, 5 November 1994 Subject: Swearing-in of President Mandela In an austere ceremony characterized by a spirit of joy among both the South African population and foreign delegations, the leader Nelson Mandela was sworn in yesterday as President of State of the Republic of South Africa. Also sworn in were Thabo Mbeki, President of the African National Congress, as first executive vice president, and former president Frederick De Klerk as second executive vice president.

Ambassador Jorge Valdez Carrillo (C) Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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He constantly offered a tribute to President De Klerk, whom he recognized as an element that, despite his conservative origin in defence of apartheid, knew how recognise and promote the need for change.

Both Mandela's recurrent messages emphasizing the need for conciliation, as well as the extension of Keys’ and Botha’s appointments in Economy and Energy and Mines, have been crucial in reassuring the economic sectors, which are now resolutely expressing their support for what has come to be typified as the “New South Africa”.

The opening ceremony was attended by approximately 180 international delegations, including international organizations that served in the past as platforms for the struggle against apartheid. Also present, among others, were the African Heads of State, the President of Taiwan, the Vice President of the United States, and the leader of the PLO. In attendance from Latin America were President Castro of Cuba, the foreign ministers of Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Paraguay; the presidents of the Senate of Chile and the Congress of Colombia, and the Uruguayan Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs; delegations from Ecuador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador also attended.

VALDEZ

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SLAVERY AND ITS IMPACT ON AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT MC ABEL CÁRDENAS TUPPIA HEAD OF MISSION, EMBASSY OF PERU IN GHANA “Slaves, obey your human masters in everything, not only when being watched, as currying favour, but in simplicity of heart, fearing the Lord.”

(Colossians 3:22) We will define slavery as the condition of someone whose capability of ceasing to serve an enslaver is impeded, and who is treated by the slaver as property. Forced to work, a slave’s location depends on the will of the enslaver. Slavery was a feature of civilization and, in most societies, considered legal, being that people were enslaved because of debts, for having broken the law, or as a consequence of suffering a military defeat.

Historically, slavery was widespread in Africa. When the Trans-Saharan slave trade began, along with the slave trade in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans in the XVI century, many preexisting local African slavery systems supplied captives for slave markets outside Africa. That way, African slavery can be classified into autochthonous and export, depending on whether individuals were traded or not outside the continent.

It should be noted that slavery relations in sub-Saharan Africa used to be complex, with rights and freedoms for slaves and restrictions on the sale and treatment by their masters. Thus, many communities established hierarchies between the different types of slaves, differentiating between those who had been born into slavery and those who had been captured in war, with certain rules regarding their treatment. It was considered dishonourable to violate such rules and thus, domestic slaves, or those born in a man's own home, were treated with more leniency than those who were bought.

Peonage, or debt slavery, was very common in West Africa before European contact. This involved the use of people as collateral to secure the payment of a debt. In those cases, slave labour was performed by the debtor, or by a relative of the debtor (usually a child). Similarly, human sacrifice was common until the nineteenth century and slaves were the most prominent victims.

As for the slave trade, nations such as the Bono State, the Ashanti of present-day Ghana, and the Yoruba from presentday Nigeria, participated in this trade. Groups such as the Imbangala of Angola and the Nyamwezi of Tanzania functioned- as intermediaries or itinerant gangs, waging war on African states

to capture people for export as slaves. Studies indicate that, of the Africans captured and sold as slaves to the New World, about 90% were enslaved by other Africans who sold them to European traders. , Thus, there were two types of slaves: those who had been sold by their family group, as a result of undesirable behaviour, and did not try to flee; and captured slaves, who were prone to escape and had to be relocated hundreds of miles away from their homes to avoid it.

The slave trade in Central Africa had a profound impact and truly changed society. It created a strong commercial network for food and artisanal products from small producers, being that slave transportation via canoe made enough profit to cover the costs of a trip, and merchants could fill unused space with other goods and carry them for long distances, without a significant increase in the price.

Slaver companies were non-existent in West Africa before the Atlantic slave trade, taking into account the small size of markets and the lack of division of labour, since most societies in this subregion were formed by kinship units, so slavery was quite marginal in the production process, for slaves would have had the same functions as free members. Nevertheless, with the development of the trans-Saharan slave trade and gold economies, several states engaged in slave trade, such as the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Bono State, and the Songhai Empire.

Hence, the conditions of slavery in this region of Africa were different at first, for being enslaved implied belonging to a family group: there was no compulsory work, the owner and the slave worked together, ate the same, dressed the same and slept in the same cabins. They were given protection and everything necessary for their subsistence: food and clothing, so they were often better off than free men, but with the onset of the Atlantic slave trade, the demand for slavery in West Africa increased and several States focused on the slave trade and conditions changed.

It should be noted that European writers claimed during the XVIII century, that slavery inside Africa was brutal, as to justify the slave trade in the Atlantic. Later writers used similar arguments to justify the intervention and eventual colonization of European powers to “end” slavery in Africa.

PAGE 4 The first Europeans to reach the coast of Guinea were the Portuguese. Originally interested in trading gold and spices, they established colonies on the uninhabited islands of São Tomé. By the sixteenth century, Portuguese settlers discovered that these volcanic islands were ideal for sugar crops, which are labour-intensive. While Portuguese settlers were difficult to attract due to the heat, lack of infrastructure and the harshness of life, the Portuguese opted for large numbers of enslaved Africans. Elmina Castle, originally built by the Portuguese on the Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1482 to control the gold trade, became a deposit for slaves who were to be transported to the New World..

It should be remembered that Pope Nicolas V addressed Afonso of Portugal through the document Divino Amore Communiti in 1452, to allow the invasion of the territories “of the Saracens, pagans, and other infidels enemies of Christ” who retained and occupied the lands of Christians and authorized their subjection to slavery.

The establishment of the Dutch East India Company in the early XVII century led to a rapid increase in the volume of the slave trade in the region, which transformed from a marginal aspect of economy to the most important sector in a relatively short time.

Therefore, the Atlantic slave trade reached its highest point in the late XVIII century, when the largest number of West Africans was captured and taken to America. The increased demand for slaves due to the expansion of European colonial powers in the New World made the slave trade much more lucrative for the West African powers, which led to many empires in this region thriving thanks to it. Thus, the gradual abolition of slavery in European colonial empires during the XIX century led to the decline and collapse of these African empires.

It could be said that slavery relations in Africa were transformed through four processes: 1. The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade, 2. The Indian Ocean Slave Trade, 3. The Atlantic Slave Trade, and 4. The policies and movements of emancipation of slaves (XIX and XX centuries). Each of these processes changed the customs, intensity, and economy of slavery on this continent.

The decline in the number of healthy people, as a result of the Atlantic slave trade, is considered to have limited the ability of many societies to cultivate their lands and develop themselves. Studies argue that the transatlantic slave trade left Africa underdeveloped, demographically unbalanced, and vulnerable to future European colonization.

Anti-colonial struggles in Africa often brought together slaves, former slaves and masters, all fighting for independence; however, this cooperation was short-lived, and, after independence, political parties were then formed based on stratifications between slave and master.

The continuing anti-slavery movement in Europe became an excuse and a casus belli for the colonization of Africa. In the late XIX century, the struggle for Africa entailed a rapid division of the continent among the imperialist European powers, and one of the first, though secondary, goals of all colonial regimes was the suppression of slavery and slave trade, but colonial regimes often ignored slavery or allowed slavery practices to continue..

Regarding the destructive impacts of slave trade, it can be said that this practice undermined local economies and political stability, as vital labour was sent overseas, while slave raids and civil wars became commonplace. With the rise of slave trade, driven by European needs, enslaving the enemy became less of a consequence of war and more of a reason to go to war. Thus, the slave trade prevented the formation of larger ethnic groups, causing ethnic factionalism and weakening political structures throughout the continent. It also reduced the mental health and social development of African peoples; situations still present today.

“My family's history, like that of many African-American citizens, is full of oral histories of loss, mourning, discrimination, lynching, escapes north and facing systematic and institutionalized racism to this day... African Americans and, indeed, Africans around the globe, have spent centuries wrestling with the label of inferiority, which has been constructed to justify the exploitation of a capitalist system of an entire race of people.” (Ato Ashun, "Elmina, the castles and the Slave Trade"; P. iii.).

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RECIPE: CHIRULÍN

The oldest reference to the production of pisco was found in documents dating from the sixteenth century, referring to its origin in the region of Ica, famous for being an important nucleus of the African diaspora in Peru since the viceroyalty. The Valley of Pisco was the location from where the production and commercialization of this spirit advanced, thus adopting the name of its place of origin.

Chirulin is a little-known Afro-Peruvian cocktail, typical of the village of El Ingenio. This cocktail was created by the Afro-Peruvian residents of the area without external influences, honouring the enslaved hands that planted the vines and harvested the grape more than 400 years ago.

INGREDIENTS 2 oz Pisco acholado 1.5 oz pink grapefruit juice 1/4 oz Creole lemon 1 oz cinnamon syrup For cinnamon syrup 20 gr cinnamon (one small stick) 250 gr sugar 200 ml water Ice Grapefruit skin

PREPARATION Cinnamon syrup Bring the ingredients to a boil until they form a syrup.

Reserve the cinnamon stick Cocktail Fill the glass with ice to cool In a shaker, pour the pisco, grapefruit, cinnamon syrup and lemon. Pour ice into the shaker and beat hard.

Remove the ice from the glass and pour the contents of the shaker.

Decorate with grapefruit skin and the cinnamon stick used for the syrup.