i-eclectica.org

The following brief summary (in quotation marks) was taken from the “Oceania - Protecting the World’s Oceans” website:

The World’s Fisheries are in Trouble

“Billions of people worldwide depend on marine fisheries as a source of income and protein. Yet now the future of the world’s fisheries is in question. A study published in the prestigious journal, Nature, found that 90% of all the “big” fish- tuna, marlin and swordfish- are already gone. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), nearly 80 percent of all commercial fish populations are in trouble. Most recently, a team of leading scientists found that 29% of currently fished species around the world have already collapsed and if our fishing practices continue unchanged the populations of all species of currently fished wild seafood will collapse in less than 50 years.

Scientists worldwide have expressed their concern over the fragile state of global marine fisheries. The fate of our fisheries will be decided by the choices we make now. The situation is dire but fisheries are resilient and can be repaired if we act quickly and decisively. Learn More here about ‘What causes overfishing’.

Many reasons have been ascribed for the decline of fishery resources, including poor management and ineffective monitoring of open access fisheries, overcapacity and illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing. However, the massive subsidies that many governments pay to their fishing sector play a major role in increasing capacity which leads to overfishing. According to a recent report by leading scientists and economists at the University of British Columbia, each year governments give support equaling an estimated $30 to $34 billion dollars to the fishing sector. Approximately $20 billion of these subsidies enhance fishing capacity by providing support for boat construction, equipment, fuel and other operational costs. This amount is equal to about 25% of the value of the fish caught globally.

Subsidies provide economic incentives for fisherman to overfish by paying them to fish longer, harder, and farther away, even when resources are in decline. Subsidies have also been linked to IUU fishing, often referred to as “pirate fishing,” and make the destructive practice of high seas bottom trawling profitable.”

World Trade Organization negotiations under way to address the potential collapse of marine fisheries

Eliminating fisheries subsidies that increase fishing capacity would be a very powerful step towards reversing the damage already done to our oceans and fisheries. One way to address fisheries subsidies is through the negotiations currently underway in the World Trade Organization (WTO). It is in the WTO that the 150 member countries negotiate the rules that govern international trade. Fisheries subsidies are part of the agenda for the current Doha trade “round.”

This is an historic opportunity. The WTO can produce the single greatest action to protect the world’s oceans by eliminating overfishing subsidies. By doing so, the WTO has an opportunity to show it can effectively balance trade and conservation and help address one of the greatest environmental challenges of our lifetime. Whether it will do so, given that it represents the world’s most powerful economic interests, will have to be seen.

Currently Avaaz is running a campaign, encouraging people to write an email to their national fisheries ministers to vote for sustainable solutions during WTO negotiations.

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Global fishing trade depletes African waters: Poor nations get cash; the rich send trawlers; a dearth of octopus

23/07/2007
© Wall Street Journal, featured on Yale Global
[images inserted by i-eclectica]

Nouadhibou, Mauritania - Sall Samba prospered for years by catching octopus in the bountiful seas near this scruffy port town on Africa‘s west coast.

Today, he struggles to catch half what he did just a few years ago. Tough times recently forced him to beach two of his three canoes and to fire 10 fishermen. “You used to be able to fish right in the port,” says Mr. Samba, a 39-year-old father of six. “Now, the only thing you can catch here is water.”

Mauritania‘s octopus shortage is the result of the global trade in fishing rights between rich countries and poor. Impoverished nations like Mauritania have been selling access to their seas to European and Asian nations that have fished out their own waters. As a result, small fry like Mr. Samba must compete with huge trawlers from Spain, Russia and China. These days, at least 340 foreign boats are licensed to fish off Mauritania.

Wealthy countries subsidize their commercial fishermen to the tune of about $30 billion a year. Their goal is to keep their fishermen on the water. China, for example, provides $2 billion a year in fuel subsidies; the European Union and its member nations provide more than $7 billion of subsidies a year. Such policies boost the number of working boats, increase the global catch and drive down fish prices. That makes it more difficult for fishermen in poor nations like Mauritania, who get no subsidies, to compete.

The end result: African waters are losing fish stock rapidly, with ramifications both to the economies of Africa‘s coastal nations and to the world‘s ocean ecology. Over the past three decades, the amount of fish in West African waters has declined by up to 50%, according to Daniel Pauly, a researcher at the University of British Columbia.

Boats for Migration

On Africa‘s coast, thousands of fishermen have been put out of work. Some have been using their boats to try to migrate illegally to Europe. The economic effect extends beyond fishermen to the many women who sell fish in markets in coastal communities.

Shifting global dietary patterns are partly to blame. A booming world-wide appetite for seafood has lifted the fishing industry‘s global production to record levels. Total fish trade grew to $71.5 billion in 2004, up nearly 25% from 2000, according to the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, an office of the United Nations. “There are too many boats chasing too few fish,” says Grímur Valdimarsson, director of the FAO‘s fisheries division.

EU officials and other beneficiaries of fishing-rights agreements contend that the real problem is that domestic fishermen aren‘t regulated. They work close to shore, where fish like to spawn. EU officials also maintain that developing countries are woeful managers of their own fish stocks.

Decades ago, when fish got scarce off one nation, commercial fishermen simply went somewhere else. Until the 1970s, boats from places with big fishing industries, such as Spain, the United Kingdom and Japan, simply fished wherever they wanted.

Iceland and Norway — two nations especially hurt by the practices — led an international movement to gain rights for individual governments to restrict fishing in their coastal waters. In 1982, U.N. member nations signed a treaty that gave countries the power to restrict fishing within 231 miles of their coasts. Foreign vessels had to obtain permission before fishing within those areas.

African nations began selling fishing access to governments and companies. Most of these African countries didn‘t have large commercial industries to protect. At first, local fishermen working close to shore didn‘t notice. There was little oversight or management of fish stocks. For years, the arrangement seemed to make sense. The rich world got affordable fish; poor governments got cash.

Because European fish stocks had declined sharply, the EU — whose member nations account for about 85,000 fishing vessels — needed to find new fishing grounds. Serafín Fernandez, managing director of the company that owns the Segundo San Rafael, a 100-foot Spanish vessel that fishes for octopus in Mauritania, notes that rising fuel costs and low-cost Chinese competition are squeezing profits, adding to pressure to find waters where fish are more plentiful.

The EU has struck deals with more than a dozen African countries, ranging from Angola to Mozambique. Paying for access to foreign waters is vital “to preserving the economic vitality of our industry,” says José Ramón Fuertes Gamundi, president of Anacef, an association of Spanish companies that fish in African waters.

China, Russia, Ukraine and other nations have also signed deals with Mauritania, sometimes paying with military equipment. The U.S. has several deals to fish for Pacific tuna with island nations like Micronesia.

Some governments have changed their minds about whether such deals make sense over the long term. Senegal, which used to dump old cars into the ocean to make artificial reefs to attract fish, last year canceled its contract with the EU in an effort to preserve fish stocks for its own fishermen. Morocco suspended its fishing agreement with the EU in 2001 for the same reason. It renewed the deal last year, but cut down on the number of boats allowed.

Mauritania‘s waters are attractive to foreign fishing vessels. Wind blowing off the Sahara draws cold water from the bottom of the ocean, creating ideal feeding conditions for fish.

Until recently, this nation of 3.2 million has managed to preserve its fish stocks better than most, in part because of its culture. A French colony until 1960, Mauritania is split between Arab and black Africans. Nomadic Arabs, who dominate politics and the economy, do not have a tradition of fishing. “We like the desert, not water,” says Mohamed Ould Sid Ahmed, an engineer for fishing companies.

A drought in the 1970s and 1980s pushed people to the coast. The number of small fishing vessels grew to 3,600 in 2000, from 500 in 1986, according to the EU. Eager to keep its people fed, the government made no effort to license or control domestic boats or catches.

The government also began relying on revenue generated from sales of fishing rights to foreigners. The cash helped sustain the nation through hunger, war with Senegal between 1989 and 1991, and several coups d‘état.

The EU inked its first fishing deal with Mauritania in 1987. When negotiations on a new treaty began in 2004, the EU promised to respect a U.N. treaty agreement against fishing depleted stock.

Octopus Concern

Octopus was a particular concern to Mauritania‘s fishermen. Each year, it accounts for about half of the country‘s $140 million of fish exports. A committee of Mauritanian scientists found that the octopus stock had declined by 31% from historical averages. The country‘s fisheries ministry recommended opposing any deal that permitted EU nations to fish for octopus, arguing that the species needed to recover.

EU negotiators offered to cut the number of boats fishing the species to 43 from 53, but not to limit the total octopus catch. Former Mauritanian President Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, a colonel who seized power in an August 2005 coup, pressured his fisheries ministry to accept the deal, Mauritanian officials say. Mr. Vall could not be reached for comment.

Last July, Mauritania netted the EU‘s biggest fish payout ever: $700 million over six years, with a clause allowing for a renegotiation after two years. The money now provides one-third of the government‘s annual budget.

Life expectancy in the country is just 55 years; the literacy rate is only 60%. A government spokesman says the country is committed to spending on health and education.

The EU defends its decision to fish octopus. “We are cutting capacity,” says Rachid Karroum, who coordinates the fisheries agreement for the EU from Mauritania‘s capital, Nouakchott, a city of dusty roads and crumbling bungalows. “We want to help Mauritania manage its stock.”

The pact calls for Mauritania to spend $13 million a year on conservation measures, including using radar to keep track of boats in its waters and licensing the country‘s 4,000 or so canoes.

EU scientists say the country‘s waters can only support 1,000 canoes, and that unregulated fishing by locals pressures fish populations. Fish like to spawn in protected coastal areas, making them especially vulnerable to small-scale fishing.

There are 99 Chinese boats fishing in Mauritanian waters, all operating in joint ventures with domestic companies. In 2005, China, which catches more fish than any other nation, gave Mauritania two fighter jets as partial compensation for fishing rights.

For Mauritania, the alternative to selling access to its waters is to develop companies to catch, package and export fish on a larger scale. But the challenges are great. The nation‘s barter culture has hampered the development of a sophisticated banking system, and interest rates exceed 25%. Daily power outages mean companies would need to invest in generators to make ice for storing fish.

The port of Nouadhibou also presents problems. Dozens of aged and rusty boats, mostly from Asia, fish Mauritanian waters. There are now 107 wrecks in the port, so only a few vessels can come in at once.

These days, most local fishing is an exercise in subsistence. On recent days in Nouadhibou and Nouakchott, men hauled boats out of the water, filled boxes with fish, then carried the boxes on their heads or on donkey carts to local markets or small processing companies. Children scooped up fish that fell to the ground and handed them to the women who sell fish in stalls and markets throughout the city.

Mr. Samba, the Nouadhibou fisherman, has been more successful than most. In 1989, a local processing company lent him money to buy a wooden canoe. He also bought the plastic octopus pots he lowers from the side of his boat. In three months, he says, he made enough to reimburse the company, the Cooperative des Produits Artisanaux de l‘Atlantique, or CPAA.

“Meeting EU health and safety standards is expensive,” says Aziz Boughourbal, general manager of CPAA, one of Mauritania‘s few domestic processing and packaging companies. “We found international loans to build our plant, but we‘re an exception.” Next door is a shantytown where women sell mounds of fish buzzing with flies.

Times were good for Mr. Samba in the 1990s and early 2000s. His boats usually caught 160 pounds of octopus on each five-day sortie, which could bring in as much as $2,300 a month, he says. After paying costs and crew, he says, he could take home $600 a month, a rich sum in a place where average monthly wages are around $200. In 2004, he finished building a house in Nouadhibou. He bought new canoes in 1997 and 2004.

Although Mr. Samba has money saved to buy more vessels, it wouldn‘t be worth it, he says, because octopus catches are falling fast. His monthly income from fishing, he says, has now dropped below $200. CPAA is also suffering. The volume of octopus it processes dropped to 818 tons last year, from 1,241 in 2001.

Processing in Dakar

The Segundo San Rafael, the Spanish vessel, catches octopus in far greater quantity than Mr. Samba can. Dragging a nylon net, the vessel and its crew of two dozen can catch 260,000 pounds of octopus on a 45-day outing, according to Mr. Fernandez, managing director of the company that owns it. After processing its catch in Dakar, Senegal, or in Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands, the company exports it to Europe, Japan and the U.S.

The Segundo San Rafael is owned by Senevisa SA, a Senegalese subsidiary of Grupo Eduardo Vieira SA, a midsize Spanish fishing company founded in 1888. The company fished the North Sea until three years ago, when fish stocks fell too low to make a profit, Mr. Fernandez says. The company now focuses on the Pacific and West Africa.

Mr. Fernandez, who is based in Dakar, agrees that West African waters are overfished. “You have the EU, the Russians, the Chinese and all the small boats,” he says. The solution, he contends, is for African countries to keep a tighter grip on their own waters, and to manage their resources through joint ventures, with the help of fishing companies like Senevisa.

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As far as politicians go, I guess, this is kind of a positive story. On this date in 1997, K.R. Narayanan became the first and only Dalit and Malayali (people living in the state of Kerala) to have held the office President of India. That was a remarkable rise, given that the Dalits in India’s indefensible caste system belong to the untouchables in that country and therefore represent the poorest and least educated group in India.

K. R. Narayanan was born in his tharavaadu (ancestral home), a small thatched hut at Perumthanam, Uzhavoor, as the fourth of seven children of Kocheril Raman Vaidyar, a physician practicing the traditional Indian medical systems of Siddha and Ayurveda, and Punnaththuraveettil Paappiyamma. His family (belonging to the Paravan caste, whose members are assigned the task of plucking coconuts as per the caste system) was poor, but his father was respected for his medical acumen. He was born on 4 February 1921, but his uncle, who accompanied him on his first day in school, did not know his actual date of birth, and arbitrarily chose 27 October 1920 for the records; Narayanan later chose to let it remain official.

Narayanan had to walk to school for about 15 kilometres daily through paddy fields, and was often unable to pay the modest fees. He then would listen to school lessons while standing outside the classroom, having been barred from attending because tuition fees were outstanding. The family lacked money to buy books and his elder brother K. R. Neelakantan, who was confined to home as he was suffering from asthma, used to borrow books from other students, copy them down, and give them to Narayanan. Narayanan matriculated from High School in 1937 and completed College in 1940, aided by a merit scholarship. In 1943 he obtained his B. A. (Honours) and M.A. in English literature in 1943, becoming the first Dalit to obtain this degree with first class at the university in Travancore.

After working for some time as a journalist with The Hindu and The Times of India (1944-45) during which he once interviewed Mahatma Gandhi^, Narayanan then went to England to study political science, obtained an honours degree of B. Sc. (Economics) with a specialisation in political science. During his years in London, he (along with fellow student K. N. Raj) was active in the India League under V. K. Krishna Menon. He was also the London correspondent of the Social Welfare Weekly published by K. M. Munshi. He shared lodgings with K. N. Raj and Veerasamy Ringadoo (who later became the first President of Mauritius); another close friend was Pierre Trudeau (who later became Prime minister of Canada).

Narayanan began his public service career in India as a member of the Indian Foreign Service under the Nehru administration. He has served as ambassador to Japan, United Kingdom, Thailand, Turkey, People’s Republic of China and United States of America and was referred by Nehru as “the best diplomat of the country”. He entered politics at Indira Gandhi’s request and won three successive general elections to the Lok Sabha and has served as a Minister of state in the Union cabinet under Rajiv Gandhi. Elected as Vice-President in 1992, Narayanan went on to become the President of India in 1997, a post he held until 2002.

Advocate for the abolishment of economic and social injustice

Important though were not just that Narayanan rose to prominence despite his cast links, that he played a small part in the Indian nationalist movement that in the end led to the demise of the British from India or that he became India’s president; he also had a strong concern for social and economic justice. Narayanan in his speeches consistently sought to remind the nation of its duties and obligations towards the Dalits and Adivasis, the minorities, and the poor and downtrodden. He called the nation’s attention to various recalcitrant social ills and evils, such as atrocities against women and children, caste discrimination and the ingrained attitudes it nurtured, abuse of the environment and public utilities, corruption and lack of accountability in the delivery of public services, religious fundamentalism, advertisement-driven consumerism, and flouting of human rights, and lamented the absence of public concern, political debate, and civic action to address them. Drawing from the experiences of his own home state Kerala, he pointed out that education was at the root of human and economic development. He hoped that the establishment would not fear the awakening of the masses through education, and spoke of the need to have faith in the people.

Narayanan spoke on various occasions on the condition of the Dalits, Adivasis, and other disadvantaged groups in society, and the various inequities they faced (often in defiance of the law), such as denial of civic amenities, ostracism, harassment and violence (particularly against women), and displacement by ill-conceived development projects. He felt that the policy of positive discrimination in the education and other public sectors had had not worked due to administrative distortions and narrow interpretations of the law, and needed to be implemented with renewed vigour and sincerity. Being concerned about what he described as a counter-revolution among some privileged sections seeking to reverse progressive policies, he reminded the nation that these benefits were not charity, but rights provided by human rights and social justice legislation to those large sections of society made up of landless agricultural labourers and industrial workers who are contributing to the economy but nevertheless remain impoverished and disadvantaged. In his 2002 Republic Day address, he drew attention to the Bhopal declaration on the Dalit and Adivasi agenda for the 21st century and spoke of the necessity of the private sector adopting policies to promote equitable representation of the economically and socially disadvantaged in private enterprise. In a governmental note on higher judicial appointments (which was leaked to the press in January 1999), he observed that eligible people from those disadvantaged sections of society were available and that their under-representation or non-representation was not justifiable. K. G. Balakrishnan, a Dalit, was elevated to the Supreme court on the June 8, 2000 but that represented only the fourth such instance in the nation’s history and the only one since 1989.

Narayanan was passionate about education and political organisation. He felt that Ambedkar’s (chief architect of India’s constitution) exhortation to “educate, organise, agitate” continued to be relevant. With the Dalits forming a quarter of the population in a democracy with universal adult suffrage, he promoted the notion that the ultimate destiny of the disadvantaged lay in their own hands and that they, with the help of education and agitation need to organise themselves socially and politically to ensure that their constitutional rights are met.

Towards the end of his Presidency, Narayanan was deeply pained and anguished. When the Australian missionary and social worker Graham Staines and his two minor sons were burned alivein January 1999), he condemned this act as a barbarous crime belonging to the world’s inventory of black deeds. When communal riots broke out in Gujarat in February 2002, he described the situation as a grave crisis of the society and the nation. He called it the duty of every Indian to strive to restore peace and thus preserve and strengthen the foundations of the state and the tradition of tolerance. Narayanan even sought the intervention of the Indian Army to protect the minority Muslim population — a move that was of course not accepted by the country’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). After he had left the Presidency, and after the Vajpayee government had been voted out of power in the general elections of May 2004, Narayanan said in an interview on the third anniversary of the riots (in February 2005):

“There was governmental and administrative support for the communal riots in Gujarat. I gave several letters to Prime Minister Vajpayee in this regard on this issue. I met him personally and talked to him directly. But Vajpayee did not do anything effective. I requested him to send the army to Gujarat and suppress the riots. The military was sent, but they were not given powers to shoot. If the military was given powers to shoot at the perpetrators of violence, recurrence of tragedies in Gujarat could have been avoided. However, both the state and central governments did not do so. I feel there was a conspiracy involving the state and central governments behind the Gujarat riots.”

He also stated that constitutional limits on his powers had prevented him from doing anything further.

Narayanan did not stand the election for a second Presidential term due to the lack of support from the ruling government. After the demission of Presidential office, he lent his support to alternative globalisation movements like the World Social Forum. He died in New Delhi in November 2005 at the age of 85.

[Source: Wikipedia, which has a lot more background information on Narayanan]

[Images from top to bottom: Narayanan; K. R. Narayanan’s tharavaadu (ancestral home), Perumthanam, Uzhavoor; K. R. Narayanan conferring the Gandhi Peace Prize 2000 on Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa; New Delhi, 16 March 2001; K. R. Narayanan with Pakistani human rights activist Asma Jehangir at the World Social Forum 2004; Mumbai, 21 January 2004]

Israel historically is well-acquainted with so-called terrorism. On this day, 61 years ago, a violent Jewish right-wing underground movement in Palestine, the Irgun Zvai Leumi, blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 soldiers and civilians.

Irgun (Hebrew; shorthand for Ha’Irgun Ha’Tsvai Ha’Leumi B’Eretz Yisrael, “National Military Organization in the Land of Israel”) was a clandestine militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine from 1931 to 1948. In Israel, this group is commonly referred to as Etzel, an acronym of the Hebrew initials. For secrecy reasons, people often referred to the Irgun, in the time in which it operated, as Haganah Bet, Haganah Ha’leumit or Ha’ma’amad.

The group made retaliation against Arab attacks a central part of their initial efforts. It was armed expression of the nascent ideology of Revisionist Zionism, expressed by Ze’ev Jabotinsky as that “every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs and the British; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state”. The organisation was a political predecessor movement to Israel’s right-wing Herut (or “Freedom”) party, which led to today’s Likud party.

The most well-known attack by Irgun was the bombing of King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946. British authorities condemned Irgun as terrorist already in the 1930s. The commander of Etzel/Irgun from 1943-1948 was Menachem Begin who later became Israel’s sixth prime minister.

[for more information see Wikipedia]

Aminata Palmer, born and brought up in Sierra Leone, was interviewed here by Riz Khan on Aljazeerah (English Edition) on January 29, 2007. She currently is 13 years old and goes to school in Freetown. According to UNICEF UK, she joined two years ago her school branch of the Children’s Forum Network (CFN) which is a group of young people that lobby the government on behalf of children. She has been involved in helping to educate other children through activities that aim to promote Child Survival and Development (CSD) issues such as quality basic education and girls’ education, HIV/AIDS, child exploitation, improved health care facilities and poverty; one way in which she helps to raise awareness of these issues is through a program she presents on the Voices of the Children radio station - all quite remarkable given her age.

Aminata became an active member of the organisation’s drama group; the CFN uses drama to convey messages on the rights and wellbeing of children to other children as well as adults in schools, institutions and communities. Not surprising then, she soon found herself talking to street girls who had been raped: “We ask them how they feel and they tell us. Then we go back to our network and sit as a group and make plans on what should be done. We take them to the leaders and make sure that something is done.” This determination is part of her passion for the rights of girls: “In Sierra Leone, boys are seen to be more important than girls. If a woman gives birth to a boy, it is celebrated with great joy. On the other hand, if it is a girl, it is still celebrated but not as greatly. This is because girls are seen as a burden added to the family, which is why a girl who is still a child will be married off to a man older than her father.” (New Internationalist)

This discrimination and human rights abuse do not just happen in Sierra Leone - it is a worldwide phenomena. Despite all the talk of gender equality and girl power, there are millions of girls who are treated with contempt. Nikki van der Gaag from Plan UK writes in the New Internationalist’s July 2007 issue that “an estimated 100 million women are ‘missing’ due to female foeticide and the growing practice of sex-selective abortion, according to the [Because I am a Girl] report [by Plan International]. Baby girls are often fed less than their brothers. Meanwhile, 62 million girls are still denied primary schooling, despite to commitments to girls’ education in the Millennium Development Goals. Millions of girls, like those Aminata refers to in Sierra Leone, are married at an early age, risking not only their education but their health and future prospects. Half a million women, more than 50 per cent of them under 19, are lost unnecessarily to pregnancy-related deaths each year.” And then there is of course female genital mutilation. UNICEF reports that “estimates of the total number of women living today who have been subjected to genital mutilation/cutting in Africa range between 100 million and 130 million. Some 26 million have been subjected to infibulation, the most severe form of female genital mutilation/cutting. Given current birth rates, this means that some 2 million girls are at risk of some form of genital mutilation/cutting, including infibulation, every year. These practices have been reported in at least 28 African countries, among a number of groups in South and East Asia and among some immigrants in Europe, North America and Australia who come from these countries and regions.”

Any form of sex and gender discrimination is morally, culturally, politically and socially indefensible, which means that governments who generally have signed international agreements like the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women have to be held accountable. Aminita certainly does exactly that. Two years ago, when she was still eleven, she met Gordon Brown at the G8 summit in Scotland and asked him ‘what he is doing for girls’. “When I meet him at this summer’s G8 summit, I am going to say: ‘Why haven’t you done anything since we last met?’” I am sure he’ll have some weasel words at hand to brush off any embarrassment, but I am also certain that this won’t get Aminata of his back!