For those who have not seen it, the “Ami i fidju di Guiné” video campaign has been playing a lot since its launch on November 13, 2023.
Having shared it via direct video on WhatsApp groups, I received around forty requests for contacts, between lawyers, rights defenders, people speaking ethnic languages or Afro-centrist groups!
This morning, November 27, 2023, 10 a.m., I received an email from a journalist from Vatican Radio, requesting an interview. I jumped at the opportunity right away, the Vatican being one of the parties involved in the "Dum Diversas" war (don't ask me to call it slavery or the slave trade anymore, it was a war, and further, you will understand why).
Appointment agreed at 1 p.m. the same day!
I am very proud of this first interview on the subject of repatriation and naturalization of Afro-descendants. Even though I didn't manage to say everything I wanted to, it is, I hope, a first step towards other solicitations of local media to raise awareness and education on this cause.
Below you will find the text that I prepared 1 hour before, without knowing the questions she was going to ask me. The part in red is the part I couldn't express during the interview.
Thank you very much for this invitation, it is really a great opportunity for me to be able to express myself on Vatican Radio.
The video campaign that was launched, called “Ami i fidju di Guiné”, aims to convince government authorities to finalize the naturalization procedure for 16 African-American citizens who have proven their origins by DNA test from the company AfricanAncestry . Precision is important because we have all heard of several companies doing DNA testing but only AfricanAncestry allows you to test non-recombinant DNA from the maternal or paternal side and give results on similarities with ethnic groups like Balanta and Fula from Guinea or Temné from Sierra Leone and not from the regions as we see in other DNA tests which give 20% Nigeria, 40% Senegambia… All this remains very vague.
This DNA test naturalization process has only been implemented in 2 other countries: Ghana and Sierra Leone. If the Council of Ministers of Guinea-Bissau validates these requests, we would therefore be the 3rd country in the entire African Union to open our arms and doors to the descendants of slaves whom we should no longer call as such but rather descendants of prisoners. of war slaves, I will return to this point a little later.
But in addition, by reducing the naturalization tax by 50% and exempting the presentation of the vast majority of documents, Guinea-Bissau could become the most progressive country with regard to the reintegration of the sons and daughters of the territories now belonging to Guinea-Bissau.
This naturalization project is only part of the activities that we are doing, because there is a real movement of reparation and repatriation which is accelerating.
Reparation, because the story was unfortunately not told in the most honest way and it is high time that each stakeholder took their responsibilities.
On the African side, certain ethnic groups have “sold” some of their brothers. Their responsibility today is to be able to reintegrate this diaspora in the best conditions, this therefore involves citizenship but also language courses: Kriol as well as all the necessary ethnic languages, but also cultural reintegration and customary ceremonies for that the souls of those who have departed may rest in peace and that the living may be considered equals in their respective communities. All this will have to be done in partnership and consultation with the councils of elders and traditional chiefdoms.
But on the Western side, slavery was not just isolated explorer travelers with their small boats who discovered a rich African coast. When the European royalties and firstly the Kingdoms of Portugal and Spain learned from the Moors of the Sahara that rich lands existed beyond the desert, it was a real armed organization with the best war technologies of the time which landed on the Senegambian coasts, with the blessing of Pope Nicholas V!
On June 18, 1452, he signed an apostolic edict called “Dum Diversas” which gave the king of Portugal the power, I quote “to invade, conquer, fight and subdue” the peoples of Africa and “ reduce them to perpetual servitude . Because it did not distinguish between combatants and civilians, the Dum Diversas is today considered a declaration of total war under international law. Thus, according to the Geneva Convention, the descendants of the Balanta, Djola, Fula, etc. of the Americas are still considered “prisoners of war”. The Decade of Return campaign is therefore a campaign aimed at getting the government of Guinea Bissau, the Vatican, the United States and other governments to provide funding and logistics for the voluntary repatriation of anyone providing proof DNA of maternal or paternal ancestry from a people of Guinea Bissau.
On July 18, 2022, Kamm Howard, a member of the Balanta Society in America, traveled to the Vatican to deliver the PRESENTATION TO THE HOLY SEE FOR REPAIRS to Monsignor Paul Tighe, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture. We are still waiting for an official response.
Meanwhile, there are several families in Colombia, all with the surname "Balanta", who we hope to include in a Decade of Return tour in 2024 so that they too can reconnect with their ancestral homeland and receive their citizenship.
Here is the link to the interview: https://www.vaticannews.va/pt/africa/news/2023-12/repat-bissau-uma-campanha-virada-para-as-diasporas-guineenses.html