Business and Human Rights, a difficult bridal

After six years in office the UN Special Representative for Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie, acknowledges that he has made ​​progress in his job since his appointment in 2005, but he has been mainly driven by many NGOs that accused for decades the companies’ manners in some countries, particularly international businesses. Carlos Lopez, a senior legal advisor to the International Commission of Jurists, an NGO based in Geneva, reports that national and international corporations – and the states from which they originate – are opposed to excessively restrictive obligations or texts.

These firms consider that these rules could affect their ability to compete against other companies from China, India or Russia, which have different standards. But precisely a hundred years ago, the International Labour Organisation was created to establish standards that everyone would agree to meet.

It goes now beyond the rights of workers. Some suggest e.g. a set of standards, such as the right to a healthy environment. But businesses and their respective states do not want to hear about it. They say we must leave the markets go without putting rules that may impede business operations. Otherwise, facing too many binding rules (eg. taxes), they are afraid they will make less profit. There’s the rub.

A country where standards should urgently be implemented is the Democratic Republic of Congo. Navanethem Pillay, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, has repeatedly criticized the serious violations of human rights in the region, breaches connected to the mining activities and the extraction of natural resources, which are often contracted with transnational industries.

Many armed groups control these areas and they do it for economic reasons. They want to make a lucrative profit because these regions are rich in minerals. It is very well described in the meddling report to the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights. It is precisely in these pockets controlled by armed groups that mining is organized. They manage resource exploitation in situations of terrible abuse that could be defined as international crimes. In addition, international companies and companies located in other countries buy these minerals and are therefore involved in transactions. So there are different levels of involvement of foreign companies. And the international community does little to change that.

Yet the situation in DRC is closely followed by the Security Council. It has established codes of conduct and asks corporations to pay particular attention to the fact that minerals mined in the DRC do not benefit armed groups and do not help fueling the conflict. Companies should have clearer objectives in terms of respect for human rights. It should set more rules to ensure that the entire chain, all activities in any way, do not violate human rights. And that in addition they do not contribute to ensure that others do so.

Last June John Ruggie’s mandate ended. The first Special Representative of the UN for Business and Human Rights has succeeded anyway adopting common principles. However, he did not want that these principles were binding. Thus, only the goodwill shall prevail. That is a bit thin in the competitive world of these often lawlessness areas where victims have often no remedy at law.

The Horn of Africa, a recurring scenario of drought and famine

Refugees from Somalia have to walk for days to reach Dadaab camp

The Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya are grappling with the arrival of thousands of people fleeing drought and fighting in neighboring Somalia. Many, especially children, fail to survive the long journey.

Some 2,000 people have been arriving every day in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps from Somalia, Ethiopia and drought-stricken areas in Kenya. Many walk for weeks to get there. Young children, in particular, often don’t survive the long journey or succumb to exhaustion and severe malnutrition even after reaching the camps. The Dadaab camps are currently home to some 350,000 people.

Crop failure, droughts and floods are not the only causes of hunger. Corruption, mismanagement and bad governance are mainly to blame for catastrophes such as the current famine in the Horn of Africa.

Every day, between 1,000 and 2,000 refugees from Somalia come to the Dadaab refugee camps in northern Kenya. They are fleeing from hunger – and from a nation which isn’t a country at all. The situation is so chaotic in southern Somalia, that it’s even dangerous for aid workers to go there. Rebel groups are spreading fear and terror among the population, blocking desperately needed food aid and making any possible help from the outside world impossible.

Add to this the extreme drought. The result is that many who are already living at the poverty level and below are robbed of their last chance to survive. The food scarcity is causing prices to soar. Whoever can’t pay them starves. Millet is a very important foodstuff in Somalia and is twice as expensive as it was just a short time ago. The people don’t have any choices anymore.

Democracy can battle hunger

But there’s no government to blame for the catastrophe in Somalia. The country is a classic example of a failed state. There is neither a government nor an administration. In these cases, hunger crises are practically inevitable.

The Indian economist and Nobel Prize laureate Amartya Sen proved that acute famine hardly occurs anymore in democracies. However, chronic hunger can prevail under democratically elected governments, as well. This means many people remain undernourished, but they don’t die in large numbers as a result.

Over a billion people worldwide are starving. This leads to a high level of childhood mortality, physical and mental handicaps and hopeless poverty.

Ethiopia can’t battle the problem

The catastrophe currently raging in the Horn of Africa is not daily hunger, though, but rather a famine of biblical dimensions. There are people starving to death during their flight, children who often don’t survive the weeks-long march to the Kenyan refugee camps in Dadaab, or who die shortly after arriving because they are already too weakened to survive.

They come from Somalia or Ethiopia, where the government is also in a desperate battle against hunger.

Ethiopia has invested enormously in the agrarian sector in the past 10 years. Every year, the number of starving has sunk by one to one-and-a-half percent, but beginning at a very high level.

However, the measures aren’t enough. Ethiopia belongs to the poorest countries in the world. The rapid growth in population makes it difficult to expand the agricultural sector sufficiently and ensure food security. A devastating drought like the one right now cannot be thwarted by investments in rural development. Those people who have lost their land or animals due to the drought can only resort to fleeing.

Promises need to be fulfilled

In the long-term, consistent investments in agriculture and poverty reduction is the only thing which could prevent hunger catastrophes like this one. And these need to be investments that are transparent and sustainable – without the funds seeping away through corruption and nepotism. All that, without leaving Africa back in the hands of agribusiness or predatory countries that acquire African land for monocultures and speculation on cereals (China, South Korea); by facilitating and promoting the capitalization of small-scale agricultural projects, local and traditional (encouraging microfinance at all possible levels to generate self-sustaining economies that will fuel food self-sufficiency) — instead of capital investments seeking a return on investment in the short-term.

African Union’s so-called Maputo agreement is welcomed for sure. In 2003, African countries pledged to invest 10 percent of their entire budget into agriculture. Unfortunately, Kenya for example, where the drought is threatening hundreds of thousands of people, has not kept this promise. Additional funds or food reserves need to be put aside for acute crises like this one. Or the international donor community has to be asked for help. But this additional aid by the international community has flowed fairly sparsely – despite all the promises. And it is by far not enough to battle a catastrophe of this degree. UN agencies have a mandate by the governments to help these people, but not the necessary funds.

Many aid organizations are already warning of the next famine: in South Sudan, which has just become independent. The UN’s youngest member nation is marked by a shortage of funds, lacking government competence and growing corruption. The downward spiral continues to turn.

Related Posts: The Horn of Africa – An everlasting battleground

War of words

While we wait for history to judge the decision of the Security Council, words place themselves as judges.

The war in Libya is not virtual but very real. Then the outcome depends a lot on the war of words. Prudence dictates to wait for a positive outcome (with a free Libya at the end of the tunnel) or a disastrous issue instead (with a Muammar el-Qaddafi stronger and more upset than ever) for the decision of the UN Security Council to be judged in the light of history … And while we wait for the history words place themselves as judges — words used to judge what is happening in Libya.

The purpose of resolution 1973 of the Security Council was to protect the Libyan people against the tyrant, but as this reality bothers the tyrant he relieves all sorts of conceivable semantic tricks to transvesty reality and attempt to pass for a victim. Seeing is believing. Muammar el-Qaddafi vows to protect his people against the foreign invader when in fact it is about protecting the very people from the aggression of the tyrant. The crasser is the lie the more likely it is to pass through as true. And it would be a mistake to trifle with it because although the colonel’s propaganda is particularly rough and fallacious, his misinformation affects those whom such propaganda is flattering given their self-interest or ideological reasons. Such as in the case of some countries, headed by China (whom Muammar el-Qaddafi has promised concessions in the Libyan oil if they look the other way – thus allowing him to get out of trouble), as in the case of other regimes - Arab or not - who have no desire for the UN interfering in their affairs to ensure compliance or not with human rights in their respective countries.

But there is a category even more revolting: that of narrow-minded and dumb ideologists  for which any intervention involving Western countries is imperialist by nature. These zealous advocates suffer from true migraines because if, by any chance, Westerners were not a horde of unkind and greedy people, then the imposture  would not fit into their lowbrow straitjacket. It has to be particularly indigestible for them to witness how Western and Arab countries assume jointly undeniable risks to save Libyan rebels – including those who are shouting “Allahu Akbar “. The more if you believe upside down in the war of civilizations and that you deem the intervention hides, as usual, other unlawful and guilt-producing interests.

What then is the alternative to doing nothing?
Muammar el-Qaddafi counts on that – unfortunately widespread – ominous approach. That’s why it is essential to avoid falling into the trap by describing this coalition as a typical western one and try on the contrary to associate the largest possible number of Arab countries. It was not easy to reach an agreement and this alliance will not last long, we know that. As soon as the first air strikes took place, the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, started disassociating oneself. In fact, this former Mubarak minister, greeted by some Egyptians for his hostility to Israel and his support to the revolution, has just one thing in mind: to become the next president of Egypt. And in this case, Mr. Amr Moussa wanted to bet on all winning horses to seduce western countries by giving support to the resolution draft, but without having to accommodate and assume the consequences in the eyes of the Arab citizens in general and in Egyptians’  in particular. The dude in fact bet on Russian and Chinese veto power. But it was not so. Hence his current confusion and hardship, especially having regard to the Egyptian people sensitivity, whose solidarity with the suffering of the Libyan people is more than obvious. The opportunism of Mr. Amr Moussa is currently blamed by Egyptians: he wanted to flatter the people and adulate their demons. He got the wrong war and marched out of step as Libya’s events have nothing to do with the war in Iraq: rebels yell in Benghazi without blushing: “Merci la France, Thak U America” (which for sure would not last long, we know that): indeed, many who now criticize the military intervention would make a great fuss if the United Nations had been passive not facing the massacres of Muammar el-Qaddafi. If the UN would have done so, now Benghazi would have fallen into the hands of the tyrant, the people would have been crushed and probably the Arab spring would have come to an end.

 

While we wait for history to judge the decision of the Security Council words place themselves as judges.

The war in Libya is not virtual but very real. Then the outcome depends a lot on the war of words. Prudence dictates to wait for a positive outcome (with a free Libya at the end of the tunnel) or else a disastrous issue (with a Colonel Gaddafi stronger and more upset than ever) for the decision of the Security Council of UN to be judged in the light of history … And while we wait for the history words set themselves up as judges, words used to judge what is happening in Libya.

The purpose of resolution 1973 of the Security Council was to protect the Libyan people against the tyrant, but as this reality bothers the tyrant he relieves all sorts of conceivable semantic tricks to transvesting reality and attempt to pass for a victim. Seeing is believing. Colonel Gaddafi vows to protect his people against the foreign invader when in fact it is about protecting the very people from the aggression of the tyrant. The crasser is the lie the more likely it is to pass through as true. And it would be a mistake to trifle with it because although the colonel’s propaganda is particularly rough and fallacious, his misinformation affects those whom such propaganda is flattering given their self-interest or ideological reasons. Such as in the case of some countries, headed by China (whom Gaddafi has promised concessions in the Libyan oil if they look the other way – thus allowing him to get out of trouble), as is the case of other regimes - Arab or otherwise - who have no desire for the UN interfering in their affairs to ensure compliance or not tof human rights in their respective countries.

But there is a category even more awful: the narrow-minded and dumb ideologues for which any intervention involving Western countries is imperialist by nature. They suffer from true migraines because the opposing would not fit into their intellectual straitjacket. It should be particularly indigestible for them seeing how Western and Arab countries assume jointly undeniable risks to save Libyan rebels – including those who are shouting “Allahu Akbar “. Even more if one believes in the war of civilizations upside down and says that the intervention hides other unlawful interests.

What then is the alternative to doing nothing?
And the colonel Qaddafi counts on that – unfortunately widespread – ominous approach. That’s why it is essential to avoid falling into the trap by describing this coalition as western one and try on the contrary to associate the largest possible number of Arab countries. It was not easy to reach an agreement and this alliance will not last long, we know that. As soon as the first air strikes took place, the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, started disassociating oneself. In fact, this former Mubarak minister, greeted by some Egyptians for his hostility to Israel and his support to the revolution, has just one thing in mind: to become the next president of Egypt. And in this case, Mr. Amr Moussa wanted to bet on all winning horses to seduce western countries by giving support to the resolution draft, but without having to accommodate and assume the consequences in the eyes of the Arab citizen in general and Egyptians in particular. The dude in fact bet on Russian and Chinese veto power. But it was not so. Hence his current confusion and hardship, especially having regard to the Egyptian people sensitivity, whose solidarity with the suffering of the Libyan people is more than obvious. The opportunism of Mr. Amr Moussa is currently blamed by Egyptians: he wanted to flatter the people and adulate their demons. He got the wrong war and marched out of step as Libya’s events have nothing to do with the war in Iraq: rebels yell in Benghazi without blushing: “Merci la France, Merci l’Amérique “ (which not last long, we know that): indeed, many who now criticize the military intervention would make a great fuss if the United Nations had been passive not facing the massacres of Gaddafi. At present Benghazi would have fallen into the hands of the tyrant, the people would have been crushed and probably the Arab spring would have come to an end.

Libya, the international community and the responsibility to protect

The situation in Libya requires the international community to get involved early. In such cases, the problem of sovereignty must give way to the responsibility to protect. The international community cannot accept that the government of Muammar el-Qaddafi keeps on insisting that these are facts that relate only to Libyan domestic policy, then to be managed in terms of domestic policy.

The international community’s response must be fast, firm and effective. The history of Rwanda in 1994, Srebrenica and Darfur does not allow us to be very optimistic about the effectiveness of the international community when responding to emergency situations. But we must try it. A special meeting on Libya took place at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday February 25. The next day, the Security Council of United Nations met in New York in this regard. This last resort has ultimately a role and in particular the International Criminal Court – once the ICC is entitled to act at the request of the executive organ of the UN.

The fact that the Security Council of United Nations recognizes that the Libyan issue is of its concern, portends a significant point. At most if the Council just requested the ICC to take hand in the matter. Libya is not a State Party to the Rome Statute (1). Conversely, the Security Council can always promote preliminary investigations: in the case of Darfur, the Council established an investigation committee headed by Italian jurist Antonio Cassese (2). The work of the commission allowed the ICC to be aware and to have jurisdiction on the atrocities committed in the Darfur region.

Such a committee would be useful in elucidating the events in Libya and would be a quick reaction faster to materialize in situ. Its presence and implementation would largely stem the state of violence and abuses that run on the ground at the moment. There are precedents.

So, can the UN act effectively? What can be done?

Both much and little. Because the United Nations are States. The ones that might be fully involved and committed. There has been progress lately, yet the UN machine still remains slow-moving today. The Security Council meets permanently and the Human Rights Council can be in session urgently. Obviously a watchdog having a streamlined executive resolving power would be more effective, but the reality of the current international relations does not allow a real quick response in dealing with such concerns.

Since Monday 28 February, the Human Rights Council shall be meeting for 3 weeks. Surely Libya shall be at the center of the debate. Last Friday, during the Council special session, while the Libyan seat remained empty in the morning, the second secretary at the Libyan embassy in the UN announced in the afternoon, amidst loud applause, that from that moment the Libyan delegation in Geneva represented « the free people of Libya. »

________

(1)  The treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). Adopted in Rome on July 17, 1998, and that 139 countries have now ratified.

(2) Antonio Cassese was the first President of the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia. He is Professor of International Law at the University of Florence and Editor in Chief of the Journal of International Criminal Justice

Related Posts:

· The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ in the spotlight

Universal Periodic Review, A Lukewarm Success

Updated March 2, 2011

>> Pulse aquí para la versión en Castellano

US report booklets are displayed on a table during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on United States of America of the Human Rights Council at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, November 5, 2010. © PressTV

Late February the 7th meeting session on Universal Periodic Review came to a close in Geneva. UPR is a mechanism introduced in 2006 — and first started early 2008 — that might allow scrutinizing the overall human rights situation in the 192 UN member countries during four years. 112 countries have been examined so far. This seventh session assessed in detail states as El Salvador, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iraq – Iran and Egypt especially generated the most reactions. Two years gone after this mechanism kick off, what conclusions can we draw?

The presentation takes about 2 or 3 hours by country. Previously, each country under review presents the measures that have been launched to improve the inland situation of human rights, while other states put forward their questions and offer their recommendations: that is what the UPR is. In fact states examine each other – but when this instrument first started, many NGOs feared that the states concerned do not act condescending each other.

For Julie de Rivero, Geneva advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, after two years the balance is ultimately positive:

“For us, this is a useful tool because it allows open debate on the human rights situation in a country, despite being an assessment between states (…) NGOs have the opportunity to enforce the discussion in presenting documents which provide support for the review, and otherwise enable us to make allegations on countries participating in the review (…) Thus, proposals of the NGOs have been accepted in the final recommendations.”

Eric Tistounet, Secretary of the UN Human Rights Council, makes a fairly positive assessment despite the initial reluctance:

“We shared the initial fears with NGOs. As High Commissioner our vision (…) is that peer review has given a more effective result than if it had been carried out by experts. Another positive point was the attendance of all participants. At first we feared an audience of only 60 or 70%, which is usual, ie normally countries cooperate within the system. This time all were there, including micro-states and states without delegation in Geneva. That allowed us to realize our influence over a majority of states, which we have been able to run in a non-controversial or political mood. “

For Julie de Rivero it is also essential that discussions raised during the UPR have to be undertaken at a national level – and here it is where international and domestic NGOs are involved to attempt influencing political decisions. In the case of Egypt and Iran both rejected criticism during the session. Iran has categorically rejected all criticism and has not supported favorably the request for inspection by independent experts on torture and freedom of expression, although the authorities had promised to do so earlier.

“It’s just an opportunity for a state to face up its commitments and promises (…) It is clear that there is no enthusiasm on the part of Iran – more reason to maintain the pressure.”

The downside, as a result of each session, is post monitoring. After examining, each state returns home with lots of recommendations (between 150 and 200, on average), and this is where the mechanism has shown its limits. Eric Tistounet, from the UN Human Rights Council:

“The recommendations can not be in the air (…) It is necessary to implement a proper monitoring system so that the main recommendations come into effect at least. Knowing what kind of action or how it will work is the next project. “

112 states have been examined to date. 80 remain from now till late 2011. At the 8th meeting in May Guinea, Haiti, Kenya, Belarus, Turkey and Spain will be examined among many other countries.

Sources: The Universal Periodic Review Mechanism (HRW) / Véronique Gaymard, RFI – Chronique des droits de l’homme, Paris, march 2010 / Universal Periodic Review – Seventh session meeting highlights

Related Posts:
· The United States and the Human Rights Council
· U.S. faces criticism from HR abusers at Universal Periodic Review

Revolts put focus on Arab civil society

Youth revolts in Tunisia and Egypt could spread throughout the Maghreb and the Arab World as the discontented masses take to the streets.

Street clamor is not exactly the same in Egypt as in Tunisia

In Tunisia, a popular insurrection knocked down a dictator for the first time in Arab history. In the meantime, the largest protests in decades have broken out in Egypt. Could Morocco and Algeria be next?

Tunisia’s revolution generated tremors not just in Egypt. Throughout the Maghreb, authoritarian regimes like those in Morocco and Algeria have a difficult time addressing the frustration and despair of their young populations. Could the revolutionary example set in Tunisia take root among its neighbors?

The revolution arose on mid December when a desperate, unemployed computer scientist named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the small town of Sidi Bouzid. Bouazizi’s death symbolized the despair of a generation, triggering a series of general protests that ultimately swept longtime dictator President Ben Ali from power.

“We have 13 percent unemployment but the figures in the interior of the country are significantly higher, sometimes upwards of 70 percent,” said Adelwahab El Hani, a Tunisian human rights lawyer from Sidi Bouzid. “80,000 Tunisians have just finished up with their studies and they need jobs. That’s an enormous challenge for the government.”

Extreme imbalances and poor human rights records
One Tunisian student said it was like the top cover had shot off of a pressure cooker. He wasn’t just alluding to his homeland, but to the entire Maghreb. In Morocco, half the population is under 25 years old and 40 percent of them do not have a steady job. Young graduates are especially hard hit. The grumbling from the streets has become audible. Sure, there are limited political freedoms, woman’s rights, a parliament and a government – but no genuine open democracy. The military and secret police are omnipresent. The social imbalances are extreme.

“Motives for these kinds of revolts are all over the Maghreb,” said Francis Ghiles, from the Center for International Studies in Barcelona. “The elites in Morocco live the high life, but that doesn’t guarantee social stability. The pie can’t just belong to the rich. When there’s no redistribution of wealth, when the upper class parades around arrogantly, then there will be revolt someday.”

In Algeria it has already reached that point. This massive land is a social barrel of gunpowder. In January there were wounded during protests against high grocery prices. In many Algerian cities, the young expressed their rage in a flurry of stones, tear gas grenades and Molotov cocktails.

Algeria’s government promised to take decisive action, but the country is politically stagnant. Longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is supported by a corrupt clique of military officers and secret police. Three-fourths of Algerians are under 30. Most of them do not have jobs, lodging or perspective. All this despite the fact that the state strongboxes are full with money from oil and gas exports.

Algeria “has accumulated 150 billion euros in foreign exchange,” Ghiles said. “The problem is not a lack of money, but a clientele economy. It’s a casino. There’s no order, no plan, no perspective. And on top of that the government is autistic. Those in power just don’t listen, they don’t see the problems of their people, or they simply just don’t want to see.”

But now they have to see. A growing number of desperate, well-educated young people are extinguishing themselves in gasoline and lighting themselves on fire: In Egypt, in Yemen, in Mauretania and also in Algeria. Just like Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, whose final act of self-determination set a whole country in flames.

Domino effect
Ghiles believes that the so called “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia is a historic event that has shaken the entire Maghreb. However, he does not believe that it will set off a domino effect which collapses other authoritarian regimes throughout the region. The Moroccan King Mohammed VI has a broad power base and his role as the highest religious leader of the Moroccan people lends him additional legitimacy.

In Algeria the middle class, which played a critical role in Tunisia, has largely disappeared. There has been social turmoil for years, but the regime has never been seriously threatened. The military and secret police are so tightly connected with the halls of power and the oil and natural gas industries that they have too much to lose in a revolution.

In glaring contrast to Tunisia, the Algerian army would gun down demonstrators. And nobody wants a new civil war in Algeria – the last one cost 200,000 lives. Even if the states of the Maghreb do not fall like dominoes, Tunisia serves as a warning. When these kinds of events repeat themselves, like recently in Algeria or a few years ago in Morocco, or even in Tunisia or Egypt, then governments have to draw some conclusions. If they don’t do that, then the pressure cook will explode – just somewhat later.
________
Francis Ghiles, The Maghreb refuses to share, Le Monde Diplomatique, Feb. 2010; El Coste del No-Maghreb, IEMed and ToledoPax, Madrid, May 2006 and Barcelona, Nov. 2007.

Slavery still exists in our globalized world

Discrimination is a pivotal part of slavery practices because it allows people to disengage their humanity and justify or tolerate the violation of other people’s human rights.

Despite living in an age capable of achieving great technological dreams, the same old slavery (the buying and abduction of persons for private use) remains unchanged in some countries. While the most prestigious organization fighting against this evil scourge, Anti-Slavery International, was born at the time of ancient slavery, when the boats were traveling packed with human flesh. The NGO goes on fighting … The latest news could not be more pessimistic. One of the greatest abolitionist fighters, the Mauritanian Biram Dah Ould Abeid, is being tried along with five other activists from the organization he’s heading, the Initiative de Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste en Mauritanie.

Prosecution inquires for a million ouguiya (2,700 euros, in a country where 25% of the population lives with less than one euro a day) and three years in prison, on grounds of a demonstration where he allegedly assaulted a police officer. At the time of arrest demonstrators were engaged against slavery of two Haratin girls, ethnicity that has suffered for centuries. In fact, slavery in Mauritania is hereditary (100% of actual slaves come from former slaves) and although it is prohibited since 2007, activists put it at over 20% of the population. Fatimata Mbaye lawyer, human rights icon, president of the Association Mauritanienne des Droits de l’Homme and three times imprisoned, speaks of systematic practice. And this is how this friendly Islamic Republic, theoretical ground of the struggle against jihadist phenomenon operating in the area, allows its white castes continue enslaving black Africans, as they have done for centuries. In this regard, the trial of Biram is highly significant. Biram’s public message is clear: the Government is more interested in prosecuting the anti-slavery than suing those pro-slavery.

But Mauritania is not the only case and Anti-Slavery is blunt: there are millions of slaves in the world. Sudan takes the cake, along with Emirates, Pakistan, Haiti and Mauritania itself – but in the form of unpaid work— the practice extends to many other countries.

Consequently, Biram’s trial is a tragedy. However, I express my frustration. Who cares in our well-off countries? Mauritania is so far from our mental map that it does not awaken  any inner gloom. Yet, these harsh facts should really break us if we were citizens of this world, and not just residents in our small inner planet.

Convention against Enforced Disappearances comes finally into force

On 23rd December 2010, almost four years after its adoption by the General Assembly of the United Nations, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance eventually reached the 20th ratification by Iraq which was necessary for its entry into force. Later on Brazil also ratified this treaty, which the Convention enters into force with 21 member states.

“This is an historical date”, said Mary Aileen D. Bacalso Chair of the Asian Federation Against Disappearances (AFAD) and focal person of the ICAED (1), which gathers associations of families of the disappeared together with human rights NGOs.

“The Convention represents by itself an achievement of associations of relatives of disappeared people and NGOs from all over the world. Its adoption was first requested by families of victims of disappeared people from Latin America, back in the eighties. It took more than 30 years to the international community to adopt this legal tool, which fills an immense and intolerable gap: the lack of an international treaty to prevent and suppress enforced disappearance. Contrary to what many people think, enforced disappearance is not a practice of the past nor is it limited to a few regions of the world. All the continents have experienced or are experiencing this criminal practice. People are disappearing in many parts of the world. In such light, the Convention will be an effective tool for the international community in its struggle against this scourge”.

Everyone remembers the mothers of Plaza de Mayo whose we’re still hearing about today. In the late 70′s they paraded on the main square in Buenos Aires at the worst moment of the Argentine dictatorship, when thousands of people disappeared. They brandished pictures of their sons, their daughters by asking “¿Dónde están?” (“Where are they?”)

It is these and other organizations of families of the disappeared who rally together in support of this convention to stop these practices. Olivier de Frouville (2), member of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances:

“This is the culmination of a long and arduous process that began in the late ’70s with the action of the families of the disappeared in Latin America next to United Nations to first identify the practice of enforced disappearances as such and achieve (…) bannishing them. “

For several months, 19 states had already ratified the convention. All was needed was one more country to sign so the treaty comes into force. Iraq was the 20th country that ratified this international treaty and consequently it allowed the instrument coming into force December 23, 2010. Besides, according to Olivier Frouville:

“There are undoubtedly pressures, but also the interest of the new Iraqi regime (…) to shed light on violations of human rights that took place during the former regime (of Saddam Hussein). “

Iraq is indeed one of the countries where it was found the highest number of disappearances. The Committee on Enforced Disappearances has identified that country as a one with the largest number of cases reported and demonstrated.

Neither China nor Russia nor the United States have ratified the Convention. In contrast, many Latin American countries have done so. Some African countries like Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mali and Nigeria, as well. Very few Asian and very few European countries. It’s a shame. Especially since the disappearances involve European countries: they have affected them in the past, especially through the colonial wars, and they still affect them through practices related to the fight against terrorism, particularly secret detentions and extraordinary renditions that are practiced by the United States with the complicity of a number of European countries.

The Convention provides for the right not to be subjected to enforced disappearance as well as the right for the relatives of the disappeared persons to know the truth. The Convention contains several provisions concerning prevention, investigation and sanctioning of this crime, as well as the rights of victims and their relatives and the wrongful removal of children born during their captivity. The Convention further sets forth the obligation of international cooperation, both in the suppression of the practice and in dealing with humanitarian aspects related to the crime. The Convention establishes a Committee on Enforced Disappearances, which will be charged with important and innovative functions of monitoring and protection at the international level.

Enforced disappearance is considered a continuing crime. Families of victims can now use this convention to require that light be shed on the fate of their missing.

________________

(1) International coalition against Enforced Disappearances

(2) Olivier de Frouville is professor of law at the University of Montpellier 1 and member of the Academy of European Law of Human Rights.

Development, Democracy and Human Security

An approach to the concerns on democracy promotion.

There is a great debate about the principles that should guide promotion of democracy abroad.  There are sensitivities involved in promoting democracy and we should be mindful of how its democracy assistance is perceived in recipient countries.  Others should raise the importance of democratic assistance to Western interests and values.

Many analysts see democracy promotion as a key foreign policy responsibility and suggest that Western states should focus on a holistic approach with a specific focus on developing civil society and establishing long-term goals. Western countries need to be accountable for their actions abroad. They can best promote democracy by leading by example.

Other analysts note that Western countries should only engage in democracy promotion activities when invited by other states, arguing that democracy must take root from within.  Still others felt that democracy promotion was best left to NGOs with indirect support from Western governments.

Significant elements of democratic governance

There is a wide variety of elements of democratic governance.  Some think that developed countries should focus on civic education of children (particularly girls) and youth while others think the establishment of democratic institutions and rule of law are of greater importance.

There is a great debate on what should come first: democracy or development – yet, no consensus is formed. Views diverge on whether economic development is sufficient to bring democracy to other countries.  Many specialists suggest that a market economy is not a precondition or impetus for democratization. Some others focus on the need for an empowered civil society, human rights and free media as essential elements of democratic governance.

How developed countries can promote Democracy

Following along from the discussion of guiding principles above, one should agree that democracy is best cultivated using a bottom-up approach:  hence, the important distinction between democracy promotion and imposition.

In this light, West can promote democracy through its participation in international or regional forums (i.e. by sharing best practices).  In that way, EU missions abroad could support democracy promotion by engaging citizens who had previously lived in the EU.

Developed countries could assist with enhancing the elements of democratic governance.  For example, contributing to dynamism of civil society, supporting the logistics of a free media, encouraging forums of assembly, giving support to international exposure of grassroots democratic struggles, promoting human rights and generally providing consultation and support for countries who request it.

Barriers such as conflict and state fragility, poverty and authoritarian regimes are often interlinked.  Western countries can work to increase transparency and accountability through their efforts to strengthen corporate social responsibility, meet an Official Development Assistance (ODA) level of 0.7% of GDP and restrict financial support to countries with authoritarian regimes (Note that some countries just focus their resources on one region of the world.)

Other analysts mention that it could best assist democracy by focusing at home and implementing, for example, a proportional representation electoral system.

This graphic is world imports in 2002, Colors reflect the level of democracy (blue) or autocracy (tan) in each of these countries (based on the POLITY IV indicators).

What is most notable about this cartogram is the disappearance of the African continent: Africa is almost invisible in terms of global trade patterns, a continuing point of contention in (barely) ongoing global trade negotiations.

© Department of Political Science, Duke University

Main obstacles to democracy promotion

The state, whether authoritarian or exaggeratedly bureaucratic, is the main obstacle to democracy promotion.  In these situations, it is highly recommended to support the community-based democratic initiatives and a strong focus on the mobilization of civil society and a strong middle class.

Lessons learned from South Africa

In this regard, it is interesting to note the South African experience. According to the South African Institute for Security Studies, four critical elements are particularly important to strengthening democracy:

1. Fairness of elections and electoral processes;
2. Freedom to form and participate in an opposition party;
3. Adherence to limits on time served in office as outlined by constitutions; and,
4. Independence of the judiciary.

Another remarkable action is the relative success of US NGO involvement in the colour revolutions (1) that occurred in three countries of the former Soviet Union.  But note that although this method was an example of productive outside intervention, it may not be appropriate in other areas of the world.

Sources:

· David Held, Models of Democracy, Polity and Stanford University Press, 1987.
· New Institute for Multiparty Democracy (IMD).
· openDemocracy.
· Rights & Democracy.
· Samantha Power, Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Take a view on her very interesting approach at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUUOO5cCNVg.
· Wikipedia.

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(1) Participants in the colour revolutions have mostly used nonviolent resistance to protest against governments seen as corrupt and/or authoritarian, and to advocate democracy. These movements all adopted a specific colour or flower as their symbol. The colour revolutions are notable for the important role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and particularly student activists in organizing creative non-violent resistance. So far these movements have been successful in Serbia (especially the Bulldozer Revolution of 2000), in Georgia’s Rose Revolution (2003), in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution (2004), and (though more violent than the previous ones) in Kyrgyzstan’s Tulip Revolution (2005). Each time massive street protests followed disputed elections and led to the resignation or overthrow of leaders considered by their opponents to be authoritarian.

The seamy side of American diplomacy and China’s true face

The Wikileaks list seems interminable. American diplomats spy on the United Nations Secretary General and on other senior UN officials, to the extent of learning their credit card numbers. The Gulf monarchies are pressing Washington to start a war against Tehran before Iran becomes a nuclear power and brings them to their knees. Turkey’s moderate Islamist government faces continued resistance from secular army officers, and a secret Islamist plan is feared. Beijing orders a cyber-attack on Google at the end of 2009, while planning to ditch its long-time Stalinist ally in North Korea in return for hegemony over a unified Korean peninsula. Pakistan discreetly supports terrorist groups, while its nuclear arsenal grows. To do business in Morocco you have to pass on a cut to the royal house, which maintains its army in a deplorable state. Saudi Arabia is the main source of financing for Islamist terrorism.

The list extends to every continent. The emotional stability of the president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is a worry to many; when her husband was alive she passed official business on to him. Cuban-Venezuelan relations are so close that Cuban spies operate freely on Venezuelan soil. The Cubans also treated the Bolivian president for a serious nose tumor. The German coalition government is limping along due to the chancellor’s timid, reserved personality. The French president, the most pro-American since De Gaulle, has a despotic streak. The Spanish prosecutor’s office played a questionable role in the inquiry into torture at Guantánamo…

Further material may yet emerge from the State Department papers, which renowned newspapers (1) have been publishing having had access to the massive leak mounted by the Wikileaks organization. Significantly, its founder is wanted by Interpol, and his website is being boycotted by servers and service providers.

The publication of the diplomatic cables has stirred international opinion and surprised some governments, who often adduce false arguments to downplay or discredit this news bomb. The security of individual sources has been assured by eliminating names and data that might endanger them. The media that have published the revelations have acted within the limits sketched out by the US Supreme Court in the Pentagon Papers case (2), opting for freedom of information and the citizen’s right to know.

There is no historical precedent for this in term of scope, as it affects so many conflicts throughout the world. The revelations show a seamy side of the political world, about which we all had well-grounded suspicions, but no clear certainty. We are, in a sense, freer now than we were before.

China shows its true face.

If the Chinese government was hoping to snuff out the international repercussions of yesterday’s presentation in Oslo of the Nobel Peace Prize to the dissident Liu Xiaobo, the results of its attempt turned out quite differently. The Beijing regime sentenced him to 11 years in prison as a deterrent to all other dissidents, as has been revealed by the US State Department cables by WikiLeaks. And once Liu Xiaobo had been designated a Nobel winner, China managed to reduce the numbers of foreign state representatives at the ceremony after a forceful campaign of diplomatic threats, at the risk of exposing the limitations of the country’s political system in full view.

All this, added to the campaign of slander and harassment against the Nobel winner, his family and friends, seriously damages China’s international reputation.

The status of emerging power has turned China into an inescapable force in the world. With this award for Liu, Beijing had the chance to prolong the current situation in which all the leading powers, with the United States at the forefront, choose to minimize their demands in terms of human rights given the necessity of reaching understanding with a country considered so crucial to the shaping of the world’s future. After such a display of bad temper on the part of Beijing, maintaining the delicate balance somewhere between cynicism and realism becomes that much harder.

Among the steps it has taken in reaction to the Norwegian committee’s decision, China decided to create an alternative to the Nobel, the Confucius Peace Prize. The aim of this distinction is to reinforce the singularity of China’s attitude toward internationally accepted principles, such as the need to respect human rights and political and civil liberties.

China to award Confucius peace prize

This is yet another mistake. The reasoning behind the Confucius Prize is identical to that which is employed by other authoritarian regimes when they are denounced for human rights violations. China is therefore aligning itself with such nations.

Dealing with the situation created by China with its reaction to the Nobel for Liu Xiaobo will not be an easy task for the international community. Cynicism and realism cannot be so easily combined from now on. And in the same way that China has been forced to show its true face, so too now must all the governments which maintain an ever-more intense relationship with the emerging power.

So, does traditional diplomacy have any contemporary relevance yet?

Related posts:
Should we be afraid of China?
WikiLeaks reveals essentials of the ‘dirty war’ in Iraq

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(1) WikiLeaks turned over all of the classified U.S. State Department cables it obtained to Le Monde in France, El Pais in Spain, The Guardian in Britain and Der Spiegel in Germany. The Guardian shared the material with The New York Times, and the five news organizations have worked together to plan the timing of their reports.

(2) The Pentagon Papers was a top-secret United States Department of Defense history of the United States’ political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. The papers were first brought to the attention of the public on the front page of the New York Times in 1971. A 1996 article in the New York Times said that the Pentagon Papers “demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance”. In the summer of 1971, David Ellsberg, a Harvard graduate and former Marine, brought out 7,000 pages of secret notes on the war in Vietnam. The Nixon administration had no mercy with Ellsberg, spied him, harassed him, attacked him. Ellsberg won his trial in 1973. Also did The New York Times — which published excerpts of the Pentagon Papers.
New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), was a United States Supreme Court per curiam decision. The ruling made it possible for the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers to publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censure.
President Richard Nixon had claimed executive authority to force the Times to suspend publication of classified information in its possession. The question before the court was whether the constitutional freedom of the press, guaranteed by the First Amendment, was subordinate to a claimed need of the executive branch of government to maintain the secrecy of information. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did protect the right of the New York Times’ to print the materials.

Aung San Suu Kyi faces her destiny

Freed at present, the Burmese opponent seems to be bound hand and foot. According to the international press, it is far too early to declare victory.

Aung San Suu Kyi even released and celebrated by activists of her party, remains the bete noire of the military regime in Burma. (Soe Than Win / AFP)

Aung San Suu Kyi, released Saturday after seven years under house arrest in a minute-by-minute operation described by the Guardian, has come back to work Monday morning at her party’s headquarters, the National League for Democracy (NLD officially dissolved by the junta). Sunday, Burmese dissident had held her first political speech since 2003. Burma’s Nobel peace laureate (1991) has called on the opposition to merge, telling her supporters that she would take time to listen to her fellow citizens before deciding on a strategy. Because we know that for the past fifteen years, her leeway against the military junta in power is narrow actually.

“So what is her political future?” seems wondering the Bangkok Post in its editorial: If she wants to launch a protest movement and “challenge her enemies in the new government, she needs to urgently consolidate the opposition forces. Now that the new political landscape in which Burma becomes a little more civilianised is providing the rightful context for Mrs Suu Kyi to play a role, she must take this opportunity to work with numerous factions in the opposition and the ethnic minorities. But it will not be an easy task.”  Because of her long years under house arrest, Mrs Suu Kyi has little experience political dealings: “She has never directly participated in politics and has been idolised as the icon of democracy and the face of Burma’s struggle against dictatorship. Her angelic image has sustained the anti-military junta movements inside and outside Burma.” But this isolation “has come at a heavy price. It has made her more “divine”, thus separating her from the political reality.”

Her party singularly lacks of activists who can make the link between pro-democracy personalities and the electorate base. Thus, she is exposed to a threat: “she will be locked in a subtle, yet intensifying, competition among opposition forces. The continued fragmentation of the opposition would in turn strengthen the power interests of the new regime.” For the exile journal The Irrawaddy, these personalities may even try to sabotage her return to politics [...]. The battle that awaits opponent is complex: “how to rebuild and reinvent herself in the new Burmese political environment?”

Besides, Libération asks: “Freedom, so what?”, pointing that Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi “will have to learn again to know her country” where, as “female symbol” in the words of La Repubblica. “Daughter of the hero of independence, General Aung San, [she] is the bête noire of the military junta,” brings Radio Canada. And it will not probably be enough that the Lady of Rangoon calls Burma’s generals for dialogue “, writes Le Devoir in Montreal. “Behind this joy oh so legitimate,” says L’Express, emerge “power relations which remain very tense.”

This “icon of freedom can do nothing against the junta. Her freedom is a sham. Her release is a [marketing] operation. By maintaining the suspense until the last minute, the Burmese junta has made a huge publicity for the event, ensuring the headlines of international media.” (Slate). Anyway, the military do not think much of the international opinion, even if they may have calculated that her release overshadow the electoral masquerade. In addition, Mrs. Suu Kyi is weak enough to be kept away from public life.

Same analysis backed by Eurotopics: “The main concern of the generals who have ruled the country for 50 years is an end to the unpleasant foreign sanctions.”And above all, “the junta wants to test whether the opposition is strong and whether it can manage to divide it into those who play along with the new parliament’s game and those who could potentially be isolated. But this game of poker is an unequal contest, for the generals can imprison the freshly released dissident whenever they want.”

If The New York Times called it junta’s latest “ruse” and FrankFurter Allgemeine “a gift in exchange for her political abstinence”, El País says she has “hands cut off,” that is to say, she is literally muzzled in a context where it is still far “from the darkness to the light.” Even so, if the opponent said on Sunday (Le Soir, in Brussels), “she would be willing to meet General Than Shwe, the junta’s strongman,” we know well that he “royally hates her [...] and is similarly reluctant to pronounce her name.”

Dialogue is not looking promising…. The New Light of Myanmar, the dictatorship official press organ, indeed barely mentions the events of the weekend.

Related Posts:
· A Shout to Nothing
· The Burmese Junta Steps Back from Aung San Suu Kyi’s Unconditional Release

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Lament for a woman and frivolity of the chorus of nations

“They’ll kill me for being a woman in a country that can do what it wants with women” (Sakineh Ashtiani)

We knew they were going to kill her. When the government of Iran announced it had halted the stoning, the Nobel Prize Shirin Ebadi said: “I do not trust them. They’ll execute her.” And so it was; the Iranian regime confirmed she wouldn’t be stoned, just  hanged. Given that Sakineh Ashtiani was asking not to be stoned in front of their children, the ruling is a step forward.

Of course the regime has assembled a legal corpus to sustain the conviction, but the chronicle of tragedy gives us a measure of the devious perversity of this tyranny. Sakineh is an Iranian Azeri of Azerbaijan hardly speaking Persian. When sentenced to death, she did not even understand the Arabic word used by the Iranian penal code for stoning: Rajam. Her jailers told her she had been sentenced to die under the rocks. Throughout the process, her lawyer was persecuted, harassed and  prevented from being with Sakineh and finally, after many risks for his family, he was able to flee from Iran. Five hours on foot through the mountains and the rest on horseback, to get Turkey, where Amnesty International helped him to obtain asylum in Norway.

In an interview with Bernard-Henry Levy, Sakineh’s lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei defined her as follows: “she’s just a woman, a simple woman, just a woman.” The court that sentenced her to death found no evidence at all, but three out of the five members were radical clerics that condemned her, through their “intimate conviction”, as an adulteress. As Sakineh said: “they will kill me for being a woman in a country that believes it can do what it wants with women.” After an international campaign to save her life, the system charged her with murder (and forced her to confess). Everything else is well known. Gallows will be her fate.

In the prison in Tabriz, two more women await stoning. Azar Baghri is 24 years old, 10 of which in prison. Married at 14, she was accused of adultery and since then she’s waiting to be stoned. For fun, her jailers have done two stoning shams. Maryam Ghobaranzadeh, 25, dreams only to be hanged instead of stoned. She was 6 months pregnant and forced to abort … In Iran women are considered sexually mature at the age of 9 and can therefore be married and adulterous. Nobody knows how many have been stoned to death without having been made it public. The courageous Iranian dissidence speaks of many.

I know this article will not have any effect, just a shout. But it serves at least as a reminder that not everyone is accomplice to the silence which Iran is covering its crimes. This silence is resounding in Europe, not in vain we are not interested in unprofitable victims: Iran does not fit into the phobias of political correctness. Nor its victims. Many countries, organizations or individuals are accomplices to the barbarism that characterizes the government in that country — a country of ancient culture, now led by a pack of male fanatics. The same government of macho fanatics who criticized the U.S. during the 9th session of the UPR in Geneva on 5 November!

By the way, what about Teresa Lewis, the woman mentally retarded who was put to death last October in Virginia? Isn’t there as well a deafening silence? (See the article by Anna North Is Teresa Lewis’s Execution A Gender Issue?)

The very problem is that there is no real respect for women, neither in our western latitudes, nor in many Arab countries where women have their rights, their freedom, their dignity, violated –just for being women.

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U.S. faces criticism from HR abusers at Universal Periodic Review

The detention center at Guantanamo, the death penalty or the non-ratification of treaties deserved strong criticism to the United States on Friday in Geneva at the UPR 9th session (1st to 12th November 2010). For the first time, the U.S. administration backed its record on human rights at the UN.

The UPR is a Council’s major innovation. The Human Rights Council was born in 2006 from the ashes of the Commission on Human Rights – which was criticized for its inability to enforce the fundamental values of the UN. The Council allows the systematic and regular review of the situation on Human Rights in all 192 UN member countries in order to avoid the accusation of selectivity.

Friday 5 November, The United States upheld its record on human rights before the UNHRC – under intense criticism, particularly concerning the detention center at Guantanamo, the death penalty or the non-ratification of treaties.

Opening the meeting, Esther Brimmer, the U.S. Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs, assured that the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) – that the United States faces for the first time before its peers – “represents a milestone in our long commitment to promote human rights.”

Another senior official of the substantial U.S. delegation in Geneva, Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, focused on ongoing improving health systems and education.

“We’re not satisfied with the status quo. We will continue to improve our laws,” he said.

Being the first country to confront the U.S., Cuba requested the end of “the blockade against Cuba,” which it described as a “crime of genocide”– and the release of five Cuban activists in US custody considered “prisoners of war” by Havana.

Venezuela went further, calling on Washington to ratify the UN conventions even now unsigned, to close the U.S. base at Guantanamo, to abolish the death penalty and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, among others.

Iran condemned the U.S. and expressed its deep concern over the “extensive and systematic violation [of human rights] by the U.S. government at both national and international levels.”

China expressed concern over “gaps” in U.S. law preventing full protection of human rights and the failure of the U.S. to ratify all human rights treaties. It expressly condemned the tendency toward “excessive use of force” by U.S. law enforcement and widespread discrimination against minorities and immigrants.

Russia congratulated the Obama Administration for efforts taken to eliminate “some of the most odious violations of human rights which were committed in the war on terrorism” and bring those responsible for torture in secret detention centers and Guantanamo to justice and pay compensation to the victims. It also demanded that the U.S. prohibit the death penalty.

Several countries have denounced the conditions of migrants in the United States, including Brazil, which has appealed  “to consider alternatives” to their detention.

The audacity of some of the aforementioned countries in accusing the U.S. of human rights violations is stunning. While the U.S. is not perfect, it is as respectful and observant of human rights as any state sitting on the HRC and far superior to these countries that perpetrate serious, widespread violations of human rights daily. But to hear comments during the UPR, one would think that the U.S. was the worst human rights abuser on the planet.

Related Posts:
· Universal Periodic Review, A Lukewarm Success
· The United States and the Human Rights Council

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WikiLeaks reveals essentials of the ‘dirty war’ in Iraq

The disapproval coming out of Washington and Baghdad aimed at the publication by WikiLeaks of secret Iraq war documents is hypocritical.

Actually, the secret files made public by WikiLeaks offer little new information. At the very latest, since Abu Ghraib, the international community had come to the realization that the war in Iraq was a ‘dirty war’. There were killings. There was torture. Mercenaries operated as brutal aggressors. Shiites and Sunnis took turns massacring each other.

That one of the most barbarous dictators was overthrown in the process has practically been forgotten.

Instead, the image of a dirty war has now been even more enduringly anchored in our collective consciousness. Thanks to the revelations made by WikiLeaks, we have possibly been given a more accurate insight into the course of events and a more precise figure on the brutal human rights violations and number of deaths.

According to the files, more than 150,000 people were killed in Iraq between 2004 and 2009, if we can believe the documents from US military sources.

Documents appear to be credible
Can we believe them? Yes, we can. The documents appear, in principle, to be credible. However, it is important to consider them for what they are: one source among many, and a one-sided one at that, originally intended for internal, domestic consumption.

Not everything in these documents can be characterized as a bitter truth intended to be camouflaged from public view.

This or that bit of information could be a half truth or ‘pseudo-fact’; for example, when the person reporting draws the wrong conclusions due to their subjective perspective, or wishes to hide personal lapses or errors from superiors.

Few things in life are more regularly “air brushed” or openly manipulated than reports to supervising superiors, and this is very probably no different for the US Army in Iraq.

WikiLeaks also needs monitoring
Critical questions, therefore, are certainly permissible: Did WikiLeaks do everything possible when checking the documents to ensure that no human lives will be put at risk? We can only hope and wait.

And, by the way: where are the checks and balances on WikiLeaks?

The group is going to have to accept questions like these – just as traditional mass media or outlets like Facebook and Youtube have done – in view of the fact that its political influence has much grown.

They all bear a major responsibility, without ever having been elected. Of course, it also depends on who is asking the question and with what motive.

The criticism of WikiLeaks, expressed by Washington and Baghdad, is hypocritical, as described above.

Both are concerned about their reputations. US President Barack Obama only appears to be in a comfortable position. He cannot really sit back and claim that all the missteps and consequences are the fault of his predecessor, George W. Bush. In the selective perceptions of many people – and not just in the Arab world – the United States is once again on the pillory.

Risky files for Iraqi leader
The publication of the documents, conversely, is just as much of a blow to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He now stands there in public as a political leader who condones torture, including the abuse of supporters of political and religious groups, whom, for the last seven months, he has been trying to win over as coalition partners in a new government.

Not surprisingly, al-Maliki suspects intrigue behind the WikiLeak revelations. He knows that the publication of new, shocking details could cost him his political career.

In as far as the documents are not proven to be fake or seriously inconsistent – for which there is no evidence at the moment – then the blame for them lies with him and George W. Bush – and not with WikiLeaks.

As with Vietnam decades ago, the same holds true for the war in Iraq today: Dirty details need to be thoroughly evaluated and dirty truths brought to light with no holds barred. The people of Iraq, in particular, deserve nothing less.

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Obama gives way to recognition of a Palestinian state

Impressive Speech from Barack Obama at the UN on the Israeli-Palestinian issue: either we act as in the past – great speeches without changing anything – or everyone rolls up his sleeves. The whole meanwhile, bearing in mind that in 2011 the UN General Assembly might welcome a new member: the Palestinian state.

“The conflict between Israelis and Arabs is as old as this institution. And we can come back here next year, as we have for the last 60 years, and make long speeches about it. We can read familiar lists of grievances. We can table the same resolutions. We can further empower the forces of rejectionism and hate. And we can waste more time by carrying forward an argument that will not help a single Israeli or Palestinian child achieve a better life. We can do that.

Or, we can say that this time will be different — that this time we will not let terror, or turbulence, or posturing, or petty politics stand in the way. This time, we will think not of ourselves, but of the young girl in Gaza who wants to have no ceiling on her dreams, or the young boy in Sderot who wants to sleep without the nightmare of rocket fire.

This time, we should draw upon the teachings of tolerance that lie at the heart of three great religions that see Jerusalem’s soil as sacred. This time we should reach for what’s best within ourselves. If we do, when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations — an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.”

Palestine at the UN – where Palestinians have just now an observer status – new idea or recycling? This wish of President Obama reminds a provision in the “roadmap“, the peace plan finally endorsed (with reservations) by Israel and the Palestinians. The plan, which would lead to a Palestinian state by December 2005, included in the transition phase (June-December 2003) the following measure:

“Quartet members promote international recognition of Palestinian state, including possible UN membership.”

Then it was about recognition of Palestine in temporary borders, but 2003 passed as 2004 and 2005, and nothing happened. Suffice to say that the wish of the President of the United States, which coincides with the publication in France of a book under a deliberately provocative title – There will be no Palestinian state, Ziyad Clot, Ed. Max Milo – will no doubt be greeted with caution by those most affected.

Related Posts: The Impossible Palestinian State

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France follows a xenophobic logic against Illegal Roma

President Sarkozy has ordered a concentrated effort on illegal camps, calling them a source of trafficking and prostitution.

President Sarkozy has ordered the expulsion of illegal Roma and itinerant immigrants and the dismantlement of their camps in a move that has been labeled by human rights groups as xenophobic and criticized both by his political opponents and even in his own party.

In a meeting late July. Sarkozy ordered the eviction of Roma, with generational roots in Romania and Bulgaria, who had committed public-order offenses and said that illegal camps would be taken down. Legislation would be introduced before the end of the year to facilitate the process “for reasons of public order.”

As a result, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said over the next three months he would use decrees to dismantle about 300 illegal camps, of which 200 belong to Roma. These camps are the source of “illicit trafficking, children exploited for begging, prostitution or delinquency,” he said.

Those in France illegally or who have committed public-order offenses will be sent “almost immediately” back to their countries of origin without the possibility of returning, The use of digital fingerprinting technology to ensure this end will be deployed.

He said the government was not stigmatizing the Roma, also referred to as Gypsies, but rather responding to concerns about public safety.

The move follows several recent incidents that have alarmed the population about public security.

In July, there was rioting in a suburb of Grenoble, in southeastern France, after the death of a local man as he fled the police, allegedly after holding up a casino. There was also violence in the small town of Saint-Aignan, in the Loire Valley, after Roma attacked a police station following an incident in which a gendarme shot and killed a traveler who had driven through a checkpoint. As interior minister under President Jacques Chirac,. Sarkozy had a reputation for talking and acting tough against delinquency. In 2005, as he sought to counter an explosion of youth violence in the suburbs, Mr. Sarkozy fueled anger by referring to the culture of “racaille,” a derogatory term variously translated into English as “scum,” “thugs,” “rabble,” “scoundrels,” “lowlife” and “riffraff.”

President N. Sarkozy

The IFHR (International Federation of Human Rights), said the steps would “reinforce negative repressive measures.” The government is “mixing up the situation of the European Roma with the travelers who have French nationality” and, “as a result of a few cases, developing the idea that there is an ethnic solution to the problem of delinquency.”

Amnesty International estimates that there are 400,000 itinerants or travelers with French nationality, and 20,000 Roma, in the country. They are mainly more recent immigrants with roots in Central and Eastern Europe.

The crackdown on travelers is not in itself new. Since last year, a number of camps have been dismantled. In October 2009, 200 to 300 Roma were expelled by riot police officers from their camp north of Paris on the orders of a judge. The interior minister, said 9,875 Romanian and Bulgarian Roma were expelled from France last year.

Communes with more than 5,000 inhabitants are obliged by law to set aside areas for travelers. According to Amnesty International, fewer than half of them actually do so. As a result, many travelers set up illegal camps, usually on top dirty or waste land on the suburbs of towns. Such camps are a common sight in small towns in the Paris region and beyond.

According to advocacy groups, many legitimate travelers already suffered discrimination before this latest crackdown, for example regularly having to present themselves at police stations, facing steps to deny them their voting rights and having difficultly educating their children.

Compounding the sense of discrimination, representatives of French Roma said that they were not invited to the presidential meeting in July.

Throughout Europe, Roma were persecuted by the Nazis during World War II, with many rounded up and sent to concentration camps. 200,000 were killed in this way; some estimates are many times higher.

Romania has an estimated one million Roma, the most of any other European country.

Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union in 2007, ensuring free movement of people. But citizens from Bulgaria and Romania are subject to transitional provisions in France, requiring them to obtain a permit in order to work in certain professions.

Roma Camps Dismantled

More than 40 illegal Roma camps around the country have been dismantled in the past two weeks, Interior Minister Hortefeux said Thursday 12th. He said that 700 residents of the camps would be returned to Bulgaria and Romania. His announcement coincided with the expulsion of Roma, also known as Gypsies, from a camp in Choisy-le-Roi, outside Paris.

UN Body Raises Rights Issues

A United Nations human rights body strongly criticized France this week, denouncing what it deemed a marked growth in racism and xenophobia. Meeting with French representatives on last week, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, based in Geneva, expressed particular concern over a government-led “debate on the national identity,” Sarkozy’s proposal to withdraw citizenship from certain foreign-born criminals, and a recent decision to dismantle 300 unauthorized Roma encampments. “It’s time you made your dreams of equality and fraternity a reality,” said the committee’s vice chairman, Pierre-Richard Prosper, Le Monde reported. On Thursday, Pierre Lellouche, French minister for European affairs, said the government’s actions were meant to guarantee the “first of human rights, which is the right to safety.”

Other related posts: The Debate on French National Identity, an off-topic nationalist manipulation.

The Impossible Palestinian State

Pulse aquí para la versión en Castellano.

When you look at the vast and unstoppable proliferation of illegal Jewish settlements scattered throughout the occupied Palestinian West Bank, you don’t need to be a specialist in geopolitics to become aware of the problem which lies under the foundation of a Palestinian state.

@ The Far Queue

A West Bank cut, framed by a concrete wall, protected itself by barbed wire with turrets; a territory ran through forbidden roads to the Palestinians and which connect together the numerous Jewish settlements; a space, in short, fragmented and dispersed, can not become the territorial base of any State. And if the territory issue appears as something impossible to sustain a viable state, the issue of capital splits hairs. The eastern sector of Jerusalem –  traditionally Palestinian and occupied as a result of the war in 1967 –  where the capital of the impossible Palestinian state lodged, is being strangled by illegal settlements invariably while the native population is displaced from their homes and an Israeli unstoppable tide is thriving suburbs that were only Palestinians. In such circumstances we do not make out any possibility of creating a new practicable Palestinian state, according to the various peace plans so far devised for solving this complex problem. If Gaza was abandoned to its fate –the exceptional fact that Israeli troops evicted Jewish settlers from illegal settlements – no Israeli leader can promise to evacuate settlements extended over the West Bank without suffering a serious political breakdown. Likewise, no Palestinian leader could accept a state whose capital is not in the eastern part of Jerusalem. There is nothing new or surprising in this situation, visibly outlined after the 1967 war. Do not forget that the State of Israel – possessing a nuclear arsenal and an increasingly militarized society – would not hesitate to ignite the Middle East if its national security is threatened by a little: more than four decades of bloody conflict and increasing risks to international security have shown the need to end this unstable and risky political dynamics. Here comes into play the deciding factor: the U.S., as the historical guarantor and main responsible for the security of Israel. Obama can not keep closing his eyes to this situation, as his predecessor did, whereas he has shown he is determined to address it without delay. The hard part is however deciding how and when. The recent misunderstandings between the U.S. and Israel, during Netanyahu’s refusal to stop building new settlements around Jerusalem, are produced in a moment of weakness for the coalition that governs Israel and serious disagreements within the Palestinian officials. Even after the initial disagreement between the U.S. and Israel, on the occasion of the visit of Vice President Biden – and yet both sides have publicly reaffirmed the validity of the bonds that link both countries – mistrust between them grows and deepens. Does Obama have a concrete plan, with details of boundaries and limits, among other things, to put on the table and enforce its application? Would he dare it? Would he run the risk of bump into a rejection of the parties involved? How would this affect his weakened position against a Congress progressively more openly hostile?

The Palestinian dilemma does not arise in an isolated space. Closely linked to it are other conflicts that shake that critical space between the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and the western frontier of India: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan … This is an open system, in technical terms, where any intervention in one element inevitably affects the others. Moreover, the manner in which such an impact comes about depends on a lot of variables with very difficult — if not impossible — identification and quantification. It seems that the club members of the so-called Quartet (U.S., UN, Russia and EU) have not enlightened any miracle brew, apart from repeating the usual good intentions and some timid threats.

To achieve something new – and not just a minimal agreement – it would be hypothetically necessary to assemble a complete “symphony orchestra”, more than a quartet, where all the musicians who have a voice in this complicated score, and not just four of the many elements that make up the “system” that we have previously pointed out. Things being so, it is not uncommon that discouragement goes widespread, nor that, given the overwhelming complexity of the problem, some resort to the (surreptitiously) old formula “let things settle themselves”. What fatally lead into a new string of failures…

From time to time, further meetings and talks between U.S. and Israeli officials are made known, but it is to be feared that, after any compulsory revenues on image that propaganda would improve both for Obama and Netanyahu (without forgetting the brief visit of Baroness Ashton to the conflict zone, to show the presence of the European Union), everything should go away again as the smoke vanishes – while the Palestinians go on facing the insurmountable obstacles that separate them from their old dream of owning finally, their statehood, free and sovereign, as they quit their status of occupied people, humiliated and hopeless.

Bitter Balance for International Justice

Conclusions from a leading expert on issues of impunity in conflicts (1)

Raymond Depardon · Rwanda. Kigali. 5000 prisoners are crowded together in a former Belgian prison, waiting to be tried for the genocide of 1994. © Magnum

At the time of ethnic cleansing, the international criminal justice is an excellent opportunity to fight against impunity in many societies. But ICJ is also accused of being politically manipulated. This virulent controversy suffers a gap that is now partly filled: a comprehensive factual analysis on the impact of international justice which shows that only 1% of war criminals are indicted by the International Justice. It is not the least of paradoxes that the law professor Cherif Bassiouni, who has dedicated his life to fight against impunity that leads to this result, after conducting an extensive survey involving hundreds of specialists from around the world for two years.

After scrutinizing mechanisms to fight against impunity in place between 1945 and 2007 in the 313 conflicts identified who made a hundred million deaths, the report highlights how, in the past 60 years, impunity remained the rule rather than the exception: 823 war criminals were indicted  in all by international or hybrid tribunals since 1993, most of which were for crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia (about 320), the Timor-Leste (400) and Rwanda (79), for an average cost of 10 million francs per case.

We knew that international justice was expensive and was not intended to charge mass, but rather to charge cases of examples. The facts bear this out. These results are yet to be analyzed carefully, because they conceal as much as they reveal. If, for example, the conflict in Liberia has caused tens of thousands of victims and that impunity was the rule, the fact remains that Charles Taylor’s indictment, arrest and trial before the PCG Special Court for Sierra Leone, has enabled the Sierra Leone’s society to initiate a return to stability. Therefore, the effectiveness of an indictment can not be measured only in quantitative terms. Furthermore, as stated in Christopher Mullins’ contribution (2), 55% of conflicts have given rise to various measures relating to justice in the broadest sense, whatever the issues are essentially national trials, memorialization processes or purge laws.

Regarding truth commissions and investigating committees, the report has enumerated fifty only, despite the high profile given to some of them, particularly the one led by Desmond Tutu in South Africa – The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Also the survey brings to light that only in 16 out of 313 conflicts, victims have received reparations.

But the most shocking figure is the changing ratio of military into civilian casualties in the space of a century: during the First World War, civilians “only” accounted for “only” half of the victims, while the percentage jumped to 90% at the end of the twentieth century. There is a disturbing transformation of the nature of conflicts. And that perhaps gives even more meaning to the need to prosecute the most serious crimes.

Since 1945, over the 100 of millions of deaths, Asia paid the highest price (46 million), followed by Europe (25 million), Africa (15 million), the Arab world (6 million) and Americas (less than 3 million).

Faced with the reality of almost total impunity for war criminals, Cherif Bassiouni stresses the need for a holistic approach in the treatment of serious violations of human rights. It is interesting to note that the debate in the late 1990′s between proponents of trial and proponents of truth commissions is now obsolete. Given the proliferation of internal conflicts and weakening of states, the two schools come together now to use both judicial and extra-judicial means for mobilizing traditional and/or innovative instruments in the crime management.

That is what Louis Joinet – UN special rapporteur for the fight against impunity in the 1990s – had conceptualized when he established the four pillars (right to the truth, right to justice, right to reparations and right to security) intended to strengthen the reconciliation process. But in the same way that politics is a performance art, post-conflict justice is a perilous exercise, forced to take into account what is just and what is possible – in other words, the combination of the ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility.

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(1) Cherif Bassiouni (ed.), The Pursuit of International Criminal Justice: A Study on World Conflicts, Victimization, and Post-Conflict Justice, 2 volumes, Intersentia.

(2) Christopher Mullins, We Are Going to Rape You and Taste Tutsi Women: Rape During the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, British Journal of Criminology  Volume:49  Issue:6  Dated:November 2009

Political prisoners in Indonesia, a brief overview

The history of political prisoners in Indonesia is centuries old. As far back as the days of the Dutch East India Company, unacceptable opinions were harshly suppressed.

Overly critical individuals were locked up before being banished to distant regions. This is what happened at the end of the 17th century to Syekh Yusuf, a Islamic teacher from Makassar who – together with his family – was deported by the Dutch East India Company to South Africa’s Cape colony for his opinions.

Diponegoro, a Javan prince, waged a five-year war in the 1830s against the Dutch rulers. Taken prisoner after being invited to take part in negotiations, he spent the rest of his life in exile in Makassar.

Indonesian nationalism
In the 20th century, the rise of Indonesian nationalism was an obvious source of displeasure for the colonial Dutch-Indonesian government. The leaders of the nationalist movement, Sukarno, Hatta and other were regularly arrested, imprisoned or banished to the remote corners of the archipelago. But it turned out to be impossible to banish their ideals and opinions from the hearts of the Indonesian population.

In 1945, Sukarno and Hatta proclaimed the independent republic of Indonesia. Following a bitter struggle against the Netherlands, which was determined to take charge of its colony after the Second World War, the young republic entered calm waters. Sukarno and Hatta became the country’s first president and vice-president.

RMS
The young democratic republic of Indonesia still had to contend with the aftermath of decolonisation. Regional movements that had no wish to join the republic, such as the Republic of the South Moluccas (RMS) for example, were as good as destroyed by the new government. Participants were locked up for years.

At the end of the 1950s, President Sukarno’s government became increasingly authoritarian. He announced the principle of ‘controlled democracy’ and severely limited the number of political parties. Various prominent politicians, for example Sutan Sjahrir, Indonesia’s first prime minister and the leader of the Socialist Party, were interned with their families. Nor were journalists critical of the president’s politics immune. Mochtar Lubis, editor-in-chief of the Indonesia Raya newspaper, paid for his criticisms with house arrest and many years in jail.

Suharto
In 1965, the up to then relatively unknown General Suharto came to power in a still insufficiently understood military coup that also involved the Communist Party. In a subsequent orgy of violence, hundreds of thousands of suspected communists and sympathisers were murdered.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer, the celebrated writer and prominent member of the artists’ organisation LEKRA, which was also allied to the Communist Party, survived the slaughter. But together with tens of thousands of companions in adversity, he paid for his political views with years of internment. Until 1979, he and thousands of others were imprisoned under harsh conditions on the Moluccan island of Buru. Following his release, he still had to undergo years of house arrest. Others suffered similar fates. For decades they, and members of their families, were branded as (ex-)communists, a title that ensured that good jobs remained beyond their reach.

New Order
Suharto’s military regime, known by its name of New Order, continued to rule with a heavy hand. In 1974, after large-scale riots broke out in Jakarta during a visit by the Japanese prime minister, there was another wave of arrests. Mochtar Lubis, the journalist who had also been arrested for his critical outlook during Sukarno’s reign, was imprisoned once again and his newspaper banned.

Suharto’s resignation in 1998 signalled the end of the authoritarian New Order. Indonesia then entered a period of unprecedented democracy, press freedom and freedom of expression. The strict press laws were replaced and the number of political parties, as well as independent media, exploded.

Unitary state
But giving voice to a dissident opinion is still not, however, totally risk-free. Under New Order, criticism of the government and ‘incorrect’ political convictions were reasons enough to earn years of internment. After the fall of New Order, it became apparent that actions and opinions that threatened the unitary state of Indonesia could also result in harsh punishments.

Supporters of the Republic of the South Moluccas, the movement that emerged at the beginning of the 1950s in the aftermath of decolonisation, paid for a demonstration in the presence of the Indonesia president with years of imprisonment. And in Papua, the Indonesian part of the island of New Guinea, supporters of the struggle for independence have also found themselves in prison.

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The first time I went to Indonesia (autumn 1991) I was surprised by the contrast between the Jakarta’s dizzying activity, the capital in Java — where I inevitably stopped through Garuda facilities — and the tense calm elsewhere, i.e. in Sumatra, South Moluccas or Irian Jaya in New Guinea. The first riots were just around the corner, mostly in Irian Jaya: Sorong schools surrounded by the army ‘serial killers’ while Fakfak and Triton Bay seasides resorts seemed remote from the riots that forced us to run away from the Indonesian side of the island. A wonderful country with lovely people … and a somewhat authoritarian government. Things have been a bit improved but not well enough.

US state of Arizona passes controversial anti-immigration law

US Border Control © The Last DJ

Thousands of people marched peacefully on Sunday 25th in Phoenix, the capital of the US state of Arizona, to express their opposition to a controversial new anti-immigration law.

Opponents argue that the new law discriminates against Latino Americans. In a rare presidential intervention on a state matter, President Barack Obama described the law as “misguided” on Friday. Civil rights organisations have threatened with lawsuits.

The law was signed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer last Friday. The state of Arizona borders with Mexico. Illegal immigrants smuggled over from the sparsely-populated Mexican desert region cause a lot of trouble, say Americans living in the frontier area. It’s a busy drug trafficking route and the Mexican drug barons regularly extend their wars across the border, killing their victims on US territory. Immigration control is the responsibility of the federal government, but a majority in Arizona feel that Washington has failed them.

So, Arizona has acted on its own behalf, passing a law aimed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the US border state. The law requires police officers to question and detain anyone they believe may be an illegal immigrant, even if they are not suspected of committing another crime. It would also require anyone in the state suspected of being an illegal immigrant to show a document proving their legal status.

Racial profiling
But, say critics, if police demand papers from people just because they look Mexican, and they turn out to be a US citizen, their constitutional rights will have been infringed as US citizens are not required to carry ID. Latinos are assuming that only people with an Hispanic appearance will be stopped by authorities, which constitutes an act of discrimination, says one demonstrator in Phoenix:

“That law legalises racial profiling which we fought so hard to end in this country…”

The first anti-immigration legislation demonstrations ahead of the governor’s announcement on Friday ended in clashes with authorities. Empty bottles and lunch leftovers were hurled at the police; supporters of the law were also harassed.

Indignation
Sunday’s organised march denouncing the legislation passed off more quietly. The law has ignited fury among the mayor of Phoenix, Democratic politicians and civil rights leaders who have announced further protests and legal action. Some police commissioners also spoke out against the legislation, arguing that it will widen the rift between police authorities and Hispanics, including the hundreds of thousands of illegal citizens. This in turn will undermine security at the border region, the very argument used by the governor for its introduction.

Illegal Latinos in the US are a bit like Muslim immigrants in Europe. They’re all thrown on the same heap and often the scapegoat for all the woes of society. The passing of the law – just as Democrats are considering launching a comprehensive immigration reform bid – has ensured that the immigration debate will be placed fully under the spotlight in the weeks ahead.

Garzon, an ‘inconvenient’ judge, now sitting in the dock

It seems that some people do their best to keep the impunity of crime during the Spanish Civil War and the Franco’s dictatorship: the 1977 amnesty law is outdated as it comes into contradiction with the regulatory offence of ‘crimes against humanity’, which is not prescribed under any circumstances – this is one of the principles of universal justice, one of the pillars of universal jurisdiction and a basic principle of comparative law.

The celebrated Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzon will be judged for trying to dig into the dirty past of Franco’s regime. On receiving complaints by far right-wing organizations, the Spanish Supreme Court has decided to sit the magistrate in the dock for “misfeasance”.

“Aware of his lack of jurisdiction and that the crimes reported lacked penal relevance when the proceedings began, (Garzon) built a contrived argument to justify his control of the proceedings he initiated,” Luciano Varela – an investigating magistrate on the Supreme Court – said in the ruling.

The decision should result in a quick-fix suspension of Baltasar Garzon from the Audiencia Nacional, the Spanish high criminal court in Madrid that centralizes the issues on terrorism, crimes against humanity and organized crime.

Baltasar Garzon, 54, is accused of having set up a “legal subterfuge” to open an investigation regarding the missing persons during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and general Franco’s regime (1939-1975), ignoring a general amnesty law passed in 1977 by the Spanish Parliament, two years after the death of dictator Francisco Franco. Facing the hard opposition from prosecutor Luciano Varela, Garzon had to abandon the investigation in late 2008.

Considering he had “deliberately ignored” the amnesty law that prevented him to take jurisdiction for the investigation, Luciano Varela refused in early February to close a complaint against Judge Garzon. Garzon’s counsel Gonzalo Martínez-Fresneda, when questioned by the online edition of El Pais, said he would appeal judge Varela’s decision.

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A sad day for Justice
“It’s a sad day for justice,” assured Emilio Silva in the Spanish broadcast corporation. He is the spokesman for the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, the leading association of families of victims of Franco. “Relatives from 113 000 missing people cannot find a place for justice to be done anywhere in this country,” said Silva. “If this trial takes place, this will be the first known case of a judge who tries to get the truth, justice and reparation for more than 100 000 people disappeared and finds himself pursued,” declared Esteban Beltran the Spain Director for Amnesty International.

More than two hundred organizations defending human rights and jurists all around the world, including former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia as for Rwanda, Mrs. Carla del Ponte, recently signed a petition supporting Judge Garzon. They remind that the UN Committee on Human Rights requested Spain in 2008 to revoke the post-Franco amnesty law and “to guarantee the imprescriptibility of crimes against humanity”. “Enforced disappearances” which focused Garzon’s investigation are crimes “that cannot be prescribed or amnestied,” they stated.

Enforced disappearances are among the gravest crimes which cannot be prescribed nor be granted with amnesty without attempting against international law, which is part of the Spanish judicial system.

The crime of illegal detention, without giving information of the detainee’s location, or the crime of enforced disappearances, are crimes of continuous nature, that are ongoing until it is known what happened to the victims; that is why these crimes cannot be object of criminal prescription. When these disappearances have been committed in a systematic, massive and generalized manner, as it occurred during the Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship, they are considered as crimes against humanity and hence cannot be subject of amnesty nor pardon. For this type of crimes, the principle of non-retroactivity in criminal law cannot apply since the prohibition of such crimes already existed under international customary law (jus cogens) at the time of the facts and, the principle of legality, is formed by national provisions and international human rights law.
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An atypical magistrate
As pioneer and advocate of “universal justice”, Judge Garzon had gained worldwide recognition by securing the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998. This atypical magistrate has cornered the armed Basque separatist organization ETA for more than twenty years.

Accused by Spanish conservatives of harboring grudges and seeking the media limelight with his pursuit of high-profile cases, but also as a result of his investigations, Garzon have brought down wrath, both from the very conservative Spanish Judiciary and from the much corrupted Spanish political class (and not only conservatives). If we add the fact that Spanish judiciary is the only non-democratic power in the country with unchanged structures from the dictatorship, now handled by the extreme right… an explosive cocktail is served.

For your information, Judge Garzon is targeted as well by complaints in two other cases: one for the fees he received for lectures in the United States in 2005-2006, the other for his supposed “partiality” in the investigation he has started on the Gürtel corruption scandal that currently splashes the Spanish right .

The Spanish parliament put an end to universal jurisdiction last October 2009 when it approved a bill that narrows the role of the country’s judges in prosecuting crimes committed in other countries.

Sources: Harvard Law Review, Human Rights Quarterly, FIDH, NY Times, Le Monde, El País

Related Posts:

>> The Spanish Law of Universal Jurisdiction, now in Brackets?

>> International lawyers support the Garzon’s cause against Franco’s regime

>> Who Wants Judge Garzon’s Head on a Platter?

>> No todo el monte es orégano (Spanish)

Should we be afraid of China?

>> Haga click aquí para la versión en Castellano

China Town by Bala ©

Inexorably, despite global protests, China goes on with colonization of Tibet. Inexorably China enters the African continent as well by cooperating with countries such as Zimbabwe or Sudan, which West considers beyond the pale. China, which economic dynamism is impressive, helped derail the climate summit in Copenhagen. Because of its energy needs China proved a reliable ally for Iran, despite its aggressive and repressive threat of programmed access to nuclear weapons. Deaf to international pressure, the Chinese government has put to death Amal Shaikh, a British citizen convicted of drug trafficking and suffering from severe mental disorders. Confronted with the former British colonial power, PRC has made it a matter of sovereignty. On Christmas Day, the intellectual dissident Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to eleven years in prison for circulating a petition favorable to democracy. We could go on but we better stop the list here and ask the question: is China dangerous?
China is stronger, more powerful and influential and for that reason the peculiarity of its governance is becoming more visible to our eyes. But China has never been so dangerous for the Chinese than during the Great Leap and in the Cultural Revolution – that is when we were not familiar enough with PRC. Paradoxically, and despite the excesses warned above, there is an even worse and extremely painful point which affects the provocative way China treats the issues on human rights: there are no softer and more peaceful dissident than Liu Xiaobo in his efforts to improve human rights status; just as the Gao Xiaosheng’s evaporation last year. Gao Xiaosheng is a pro human rights lawyer who took on defending victims of earthquake in Xishuang: The Chinese Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, interviewed by foreign journalists on the question where was Gao Xiaosheng last year, replied simply: « He is where he should be » – which represents a denial of rights, even by Chinese standards. These types of harm have always existed but today their impact is amplified.

In addition, there was always a militant Chinese presence in Africa, competing with Taiwan and the USSR, but the means and economic issues are now at a completely different scale, even worse. Think of the Chinese diaspora of more than one million people living in Africa – and not only in Zimbabwe or Sudan. The Chinese method of governance calls ours into question because it is awfully efficient and we Westerners are demoralized by the Chinese resourceful success. The effect of democracy devitalization that follows is even more dangerous because it removes from the Chinese scenario the perspective of improvement on freedoms situation in the short term. There is furthermore its projection capability abroad and the fact that China gives a global dimension to its economic interests – interests that affect the West: oil, Iran, tolerance to nuclear North Korea.
To what extent is China potentially aggressive? By reason of its nationalism exacerbation and the non-compliance to international standards? Think about the repeated humiliations to European leaders – the latest was Gordon Brown’s concern for the execution of British citizen, mentally handicapped, Shaikh Amal.

China has become the world’s largest exporter, the main workshop, the major laboratory, the key farm and the World’s Bank. It takes place in the concert of nations without respecting the rules of the game. So, must we be afraid of China? Is it not an unfair and premature conclusion?

The example of its development is totally new: An asymmetric society whose Leninist system of governance coexists with wilderness capitalism. The emergence of an illiberal capitalism – a non-democratic capitalism – disturbs economists as it worries political experts. Some, resigned, wonder if China has not found even the right formula. Hence, here arises the idea of devitalization of our democratic model, a society that has lost faith in itself challenged by the arrogant success of the unpredictable neophyte.

The issue that harass minds is: an unscrupulous country takes advantage of its special economic status without respect for human rights, while it freezes on a nationalist project that weights international system – not yet a rogue state but deaf to international pressure. And beyond that, is its development socially sustainable and to what extent China is potentially aggressive taking into account the mass effect of its demographic power?

Haiti, Death of Pariah

The difference is not in nature but in the dark nature of money.

Injured children sit along Delmas road, Port-au-Prince, Haiti (AP Photo/Jorge Cruz)

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The historical premises.

A few days after the tragic earthquake that struck Haiti, we should remember the responsibilities from France but also the United States and Spain in the misery of this small Caribbean country.
Christopher Columbus landed on the shores of Hipaniola in 1492, and the native people there were all but wiped out by Spanish settlers within 25 years. In 1697, Spain ceded the western part of the island, now Haiti, to France, which made it into the wealthiest colony in the Caribbean due to thriving forestry and sugar industries, and the heavy importation of African slaves.
But in the late 18th century a slave rebellion under leader Toussaint Louverture was successful and after a long struggle, it became a republic on January 1, 1804.
Haiti is a country towards which France has a debt…  The country gained its independence heavily indebted to France…  Do you know that Haiti has spent the 19th century to pay its debt to the ancient metropolis?  They paid on the nail their independence to France.
Haiti has also experienced the beginnings of American imperialism which has repeatedly invaded this sorrowful country.
We, French, Americans, Spaniards have exploited this people, we destroyed this island…  the best evidence of this complicity is that France has hosted on its soil the fallen Haitian dictator Bébé Doc… Our assistance is a form of payment.  Help them is paying our debt.

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The enormous bearing of indifference.

Nobody can predict natural tragedies, but one can live in a skyscraper in Japan and only have suffered a scratch. Or you can live in any corner of Haiti and die like thousands of fellow men. The difference is not in nature but in the dark nature of money and power, dividing the world between those who have an existence and those struggling to get a sham of living.  Some live, others survive, and if it has always been that way since man is dragged by this suffering planet, this is particularly glaring since science and technology intended to make possible the dream of Michelangelo. This arrogant man who brought his finger to God, and culminated with his daring, the wonder of the Sistine Chapel, was a man who civilized himself wherein through his individual process he civilized the environment. Centuries after these dreams, we know that we have not yet reach God, but rather our delusions of grandeur, and have done with the same clumsiness we stepped on Earth. We are in the 21st century, we enjoy a great technological development, we are surrounded by comfort, we have made progress in the fight against disease, but we have not advanced in the domain of our miseries. If in the 21st century there are countries like Haiti, stranded, with millions of people who do not matter to anyone, who live and die miserably, if that happens, it is not because the world is complicated – and surely it is — but simply because of our very indifference, arrogance and ambition. We do not mind anything.
True, we were shocked with the images on TV news and many countries (i.e. the democratic, because the tyrannical fail to do so) mobilize resources. For a few days, Haiti exists in the retina of the world. But it will take time, the news will be less noticeable, Haiti will no longer be a point of interest and we will forget that we have millions of people abandoned on an ruined island. At the end of the day, why should we change our indifference, if we have always cultivated it with zeal? Of course, this does not fit all, and there are people involved as Doctors Without Borders or religious organizations or volunteers of various kinds, trying to bring some calm to the corners of hell.
That said, I do not talk about solidarity but of collective, structural commitment. If the rich and powerful would do so, Haiti would turn its misfortune. Like many other countries. We have economic and technological capacity. Why do not we go ahead? Because we do not care of the pariah death, the death of those who do not have anything. It does not concern us. We did not make progress to achieve universal justice. We have just moved enough to ensure that the misery of many does not endanger the welfare of some few fellows. Misery is based on that.

Obama’s War

The worst war is the one being fought into our brains.

West is repeating mistakes of the past in Afghanistan

As soon as its terms are acknowledged you can give it for lost. And you have to write it in full: in Europe, the war in Afghanistan is being considered ever-increasing lost.

It is about the culture war (1) wherein violent actions have a dual persuasive function: intimidate the whole population and transfer responsibility — i.e. guiltiness — to those who act in disagreement with radical Islam, thereby becoming potential targets. The result is that they lead to restraint freedom of expression and censorship. This war has many accomplices, because not only radical Muslims ask for a special status for their religion. Ireland enforced this Jan 1^st an anti-blasphemy act which punishes by fine up to € 25,000 those who commit blasphemy publicly. A soldier of this war is the Somali who the Year’s Day attempted assassination — ax and knife in hand — against Kurt Westergard, the Danish cartoonist who published a Muhammad caricature in the Jylland Posten in 2005 — who, since then, is under police protection. Pope, Tony Blair and even George Bush agreed criticizing the cartoons — despite freedom of expression is far better protected in West than in Middle East.

The next battle to fight, waged in view of everybody in the street and in institutions, is not far behind. As the former fight, its identification mark suggests that you are losing it as soon as you accept its existence. The dream of invulnerability can lead to the greatest aberrations. What a hard life will have those who use air transportation! But it happens likewise in trains, buses, subways and even private cars. There is however an inversion of terms in this case. In Europe, for now more familiarized with risk society, the reaction is moderate. In the US, however, where the legend of invulnerability has thrived, even Obama has been incapable to reverse the effects of war on the rule of law and freedoms. The soldier of this war is a Nigerian who tried to blow up the Northwest flight on its arrival to Detroit — from Amsterdam — on Christmas Day. And because of it Guantanamo will remain open. And as a result, imprisoned people without trial will keep on running, as well as secret warrants, eavesdropping without judicial control and everything Bush did at wholesale scale, but now acomplished in retail and with greater care and prevention.

The Culture War of values as shown on a graffiti

Where we are losing the second war at most — the war on values — is inside the third war; the war of real fighters with true clashes, and belligerent general staffs… basically, Obama’s real war. It is a regrettable and revolting war, as any war, but it is more certain and effective. It is waged in secret, without bluster, quietly — although the effects emerge with no little alarm from time to time. Such as, in the recent suicide attack on the CIA base in Afghanistan — a historic setback for the United States who believed getting bin Laden within reach through a double agent when in fact they lost six US agents and one  Jordan’s allied. This action of Al Qaeda is in response to a cyber war through drones, which maintains the CIA in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has killed at least two dozen of prominent terrorist leaders.

Obama has intensified this kind of war, to the point that some experts say it will replace the current massive presence of troops in the conflict zone that spreads out from Pakistan to Somalia. The CIA has accomplished more than 50 attacks from Predator and Reaper drones all through Obama’ first year at the White House – figures that double those of 2008 with Bush on the stage and surpass the whole activity of the Bush 8 year Presidency. Formally it is about a targeted assassinations program that Bush authorized after another Republican president, Gerald Ford, banished it in 1976. Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions and law professor at the New York University, believes that such actions may be legal in terms of “just war” when there are no other means to stop or prevent the enemy to go on with its activity and when every precaution is taken to avoid civilian casualties. But this does not appear to be the case because there is no official information and no possibility of judicial or parliamentary control over such actions.

Bush made a package with all those wars, which he called Global War on Terror — some mistook with a war against the Arabs or against Islam. “Invoices” for those errors, increasingly higher, are still coming now. Obama qualifies and distinguishes amongst them: but this does not make him immune to criticism from the right, for his supposed excessive restraint and, from the left, because of his continuity with Bush’s illegal war.

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(1) Have a look on the clash of ideas over here: The Cultural War

In Iran Power and Opposition Turn More Radical

Iranian officials on Sunday faced a difficult dilemma. If, as announced, they strictly repressed the protests, the risk of dead should further aggravate the fissures that post-election crisis has opened in the Iranian society. If they did not act, the opposition would benefit from the cycle of religious ceremonies — as happened in the months prior to the revolution that ousted the Shah thirty years ago. What is clear is that they could not keep people out into the streets the most important day of their calendar, Ashura , which commemorates the founding myth of Shiite Islam: the death of Hussein, grandson of Muhammad.

Police reportedly detained hundreds of opposition supporters

Often transmitted by mobile on the Internet, the images have turned around the world. Sunday December 27, images showed the violent repression and the determination of the demonstrators in Iran who have transformed the traditional religious commemoration in a day of clashes of rare magnitude.

A targeted killing, a sort of warning to the leader of the protest.

In Tehran there were more demonstrators than penitents. Six months after the opposition accused President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of stealing elections, this pulse tests the upset degree of a good part of the Iranian political system that has led to a political and economic impasse — and in its relations with the world, as well.

And not just in Tehran. Protests in the main cities make clear that the malaise is not limited to urban elites of the capital — the “four rich kids” M Ahmadinejad talked about. The crisis has revealed divisions even among the ruling elites. Former Presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami have shown their support for the opposition. Also leading clerics like Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, whose death a week ago, at age 87, has given fresh momentum to protests by adding young urban activists, older people and further religious men to his followers.

Yesterday, we witnessed tens of thousands of demonstrators in the streets of Tehran and most major cities of Iran: Shiraz, Isfahan, Qazvin, Tabriz and even Qom — the holy city. The videos show live bloody clashes between the multitude and the security forces and militiamen Bassij, sometimes assisted by helicopters, motorcycles and cars on fire. All evoke the dead. The first deceased since the massive protests that had followed the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad June 12, which had resulted in sixty victims and 4,000 arrests, according to the opposition. This time, police admitted five “accidental” deaths and hundreds of “hooligans” arrested. Demonstrators carry this record to 15 dead. The victims included Ali Moussavi, the nephew of Mir Hossein Moussavi. The former prime minister — and unsuccessful candidate of the reformers in the presidential election in June — denounced a “massive fraud” and launched protests. Six months after the election, and despite of severe repression, the movement goes on. Reformers’ websites as Jaras related — mentioning among others filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf – that Ali Moussavi was killed deliberately, his body being transported and kept in the morgue whereas the family asked to remain discreet.

In Isfahan, the brother of former reformist Interior Minister, Abdullah Nouri, was allegedly beaten in front of his children by militiamen who had publicly threatened him before.

Other prominent government critics were taken to jail. This is the case of Ibrahim Yazdi, the old leader of the Liberation Movement of Iran (a nationalist party tolerated intermittently), arrested at home bed at 3 AM. Or Mehdi Arabshahi, the secretary of the largest student organization, Tahkim varDate (Consolidation of Unity), arrested in Tehran. Just as three other closest associates of Mr. Moussavi.

Curfew was introduced in Najafabad, the hometown of the great dissident Ayatollah Montazeri, the figurehead of the religious dispute, with burial under surveillance has led protests against the regime last week.

Meanwhile, the castling of the fundamentalists’ bunker who control the power centers is helping to radicalize protesters.

Prevent too great a radicalization.

Faced with what may seem like a further escalation of repression, voices were raised to prevent too great a radicalization of the protest movement. Ezatollah Sahabi, the leader of a nationalist group of religious appeals to “moderate” not to play in the hands of government: “Be careful not to rush into violence. They are ready — he writes in essence — to kill one million people if necessary.”

Supporters of Mousavi protested the disputed election result in Tehran for nearly two months

However, in the opinion of many analysts and witnesses demonstrators turn radical. Their slogans were aimed very hard not this time at Ahmadinejad, but at the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The guide was also compared to the Caliph Yazid , responsible for the death of Imam Hussein at the battle of Karbala, which commemorates the mourning of Ashura. What is more, without really being armed, many demonstrators have erected barricades in some streets of Tehran, throwing stones at police or fire Bassidji motorcycles — forefront outfielders of repression during the riots in the street.

It appears that the hardline Basij militias were afraid this time. The roles were reversed:  turmoil seemed turn them mad with rage. The power has, indeed, made mistakes, in the opinion of Iranian analysts. The first was probably, not having respected the grief at the death of Ayatollah Montazeri. His supporters have been harassed, those who paid tribute prevented sometimes do. In this, the authority has lost its religious and popular credibility.

The second mistake was to prevent former reformist President Mohammad Khatami to deliver a speech on Saturday. Khatami was chosen to speak at Jamaran, northern Tehran, where Ayatollah Khomeini had lived. A highly symbolic place in these troubled times where government and opposition are fighting the legacy of the founder of the Islamic Republic. But the police did not comply. People come to hear the speeches, were forcibly confined in the mosque, others asked to disperse. This symbolic battle has also been lost by the regime. Some protesters shouted “Khomeini, if you lived, you’d be with us! “…”

Should we expect a further strengthening of repression? The event-repression cycle seems to be now engaged. Ahmadinejad’s government is going to play tight in the coming weeks if it does not want to contribute growing the protest.

Government refusal to engage dialogue with the opposition — as been suggested by some moderate conservatives — has destroyed all the bridges for reconciliation. Demonstrators are no longer calling for repeating elections (the celebrated “where’s my vote?), but the end of the Islamic system. Further problems in perspective…

Sources: NY Times/El Pais/Le Monde/AFP

>>Related Posts: The Political Importance of the Power of Images to Reveal Government Abuse

The United States and the Human Rights Council

The hopes quickly went on smoke at the end of the 12th session marking the official attendance of the United States to the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

H. Cartier-Bresson · Séville, 1933. © Cartier-Bresson & Magnum

When the United States announced their candidacy to the Human Rights Council earlier this year, many had welcomed the decision with the hope that some cases completely blocked under the government of George W. Bush could finally move forward, including those involving Israel, Gaza and the occupied Palestinian Territories. But hope quickly went up in smoke at the end of the twelfth session, which marked the United States official entry to the HR Council. The US administration had sent specially from Washington Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. He defines America’s standing in the council:

We see our role as broadly engaged in a range of issues. Our intention is to address all issues and suggest ways to advance the Council over its program to help the greatest number. We are in new relationships, new alliances. For example, we worked with Egypt on a resolution on freedom of expression that resolves disputes that we had. The Council needs this type of exchange. Our intention is to apply universal principles to everyone, including ourselves. We know that the US must lead by example in its own affairs and participate actively in the Council. Our situation of human rights will be reviewed next year with the procedure of Universal Periodic Review, and we encourage other countries to do likewise.[1]

The intentions were initially positive but Americans have widely criticized the Goldstone report on Gaza and US pressure has resulted to postpone the vote on the resolution at the next session in March 2010. The recommendation of the Goldstone mission to seize the International Criminal Court if no independent investigation is conducted within six months scared off Israel.

In turn, the US, who refused to join the ICC, might be revising its position:

We are currently reviewing our policy regarding the ICC and the ratification of certain conventions, like the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which could pose a challenge for the USA. It’s a fresh start. And we will consider all treaties this way. I think this will be a long process. No doubt, priority will be done to the elimination of discrimination against women. We will create a new dynamic.[1]

But these are all political considerations that have taken hold in the Human Rights Council, although many NGOs have welcomed the opening created by the joint resolution between the US and Egypt on freedom of expression. Other resolutions which have been voted are at least as important as those on the Aboriginal peoples, the right to truth, the effects of toxic chemicals on human rights or access to care.

On the merits, the important thing for Fred Abrahams, senior researcher for HRW on the Middle East, is the implicit message by the reaction of the USA, Israel and the European Union – the latter very discreet on the Goldstone report:

If Europe and the US want to promote justice, for example in Africa, they must apply equally the concept of justice to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Otherwise, there will always be a double standard.

The Human Rights Council is criticised for its too political positions at the expense of serious violations of human rights situations. The United States have disappointed by their position on the report on Gaza. They will be very expected for the next March session of the Human Rights Council.

Related Posts:
· U.S. faces criticism from HR abusers at Universal Periodic Review
· The Spanish Law of Universal Jurisdiction, now in Brackets?

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[1] Véronique Gaymard, RFI – Chronique des droits de l’homme, Paris 3 oct. 2009

Does Russia Really Want to Resume Death Penalty?

As 2009 comes to an end, the clock is ticking for Russia’s constitutional court to reach a decision on capital punishment. The moratorium on the death penalty is currently due to expire with the dawning of the New Year.

A shot to the head was how Russia used to deal with violent crime

It’s a problematic issue, or so the opinion polls would suggest. Recent surveys say that up to 80 percent of Russians are in favor of a return to state-ordered execution, a practice which has been kept at bay for the past decade by a legally-binding document.

The 1999 moratorium on the death penalty was a condition for Russia to become a member of the Council of Europe. And although the Council would have preferred complete abolition, it agreed to the suspension while waiting for Moscow to commit ratifying a protocol which would completely proscribe capital punishment. But this, the Russian Federation has failed to do so far.

What’s more, the constitutional court attached a condition of its own to the moratorium. It stated that no tribunal in Russia would be allowed to hand down a death sentence until such time as jury trial – abolished in 1917 by the Bolsheviks – had been introduced in all regions of the federation.

With Chechnya, which is currently the only remaining republic not to use jurors, on the edge to adopt the practice in a few weeks time, Russia has a decision to make. It can go for extend the moratorium, reintroduce the death penalty or do away with it once and for all.

Mixed opinions

Which way the court will decide is anything but clear. Although many officials and experts addressing the hearings earlier this week spoke out against a resumption of judicial killings, some made cases in favor.

The Ria Novosti news agency reported Communist lawmaker Vadim Solovyav as saying the abolition of capital punishment could “contribute to the growth of criminality in Russia.” And he is not the only one to think that way.

But that line of argument holds little sway with the abolitionists. Friedericke Behr, Amnesty International researcher on Russia said such thinking is poorly-documented: “Research in many countries has shown that having a death penalty makes no difference to crime rates.”

Any decision to reintroduce the death penalty will not go down well in Strasbourg

Even so, President Dmitry Medvedev does not appear to be in a hurry to do away with it. His representative to the constitutional court, Mikhail Krotov, said the Kremlin supported “a stage-by-stage abolition of capital punishment.”

Exactly what that means is unlikely to be revealed before the court rules afresh in the coming weeks. But the pure fact that such masked statements are being thrown about is cause enough for concern, says Allison Gill, Director of Human Rights Watch Russia.

“The signal is that Russia is still holding back from putting itself in with the requirements of the Council of Europe,” Gill says. And that, she believes, stems from a reflex among Russian policy-makers to want to sign up to international and European institutions without wanting to fully commit to them. “I think there is an instinct on the part of certain Russian politicians to maintain a position of Russian exceptionalism,” she said.

Different is not always good

Only being different on this particular issue could have substantial implications for Moscow’s relationship with the Council of Europe. Russia is the only country which has not ratified protocol 6 – the abolition of the death penalty – and has frequently cited public opinion as the reason.

But in a country not renowned for curving to public pressure, such reasoning doesn’t really echo. “If the government has a political will to abolish the death penalty,” Gill said, “they could make a convincing case to the Russian public.”

At present the polls claim one in eight Russians would back the eye-for-an-eye way of thinking. Yet Friederike Behr says surveys on capital punishment are often manipulated from the outset.

“It’s all in the way you ask the questions,” she said, adding that the mention of publicly exposed vicious crime motivates the public to grant pollsters the kind of statistics they have been publishing in the past weeks.

Paradox polls

Russian police fail to inspire a sense of security in the population

Allison Gill agrees that such surveys cannot be taken as gospel, not least because the same public that flies the flag for state-ordered execution is deeply critical of the system which passes the sentences.

“On the one hand, Russians might be in the majority pro-death penalty, but on the other hand they also mistrust their own law enforcement system and their courts,” Gill said. “They don’t think they’re going to get a fair hearing.”

And some clearly don’t. As Behr points out, Russia has got it wrong on many occasions. “People have been sentenced to death and have been executed and then found to be not guilty,” she said. “There are people here who were on death row when the moratorium was introduced and who were then released later on because they were found to be innocent.”

It’s the age-old argument which applies to any state that still sentences its criminals to death, but it seems particularly pertinent in a country where so many people have so little faith in the justice system. As Allison Gill asks “how can that justice system be responsible for handing out the ultimate penalty?”

(Sources: RIA Novosti, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch)

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The debate on French national identity: an off-topic nationalist manipulation

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Who does not perceive that the French government, especially the president and his namesake minister on ‘organized evictions’, is engaged in a great manipulation!

Pétain and Hitler meet at Montoire

First recovering (recovering trends and recuperating far-right voters, this is not brand new), then diverting classic emotions through woolly smoker screen approaches, in the absence of the real deal with economic and social problems (crisis, employment deficit, housing, etc..), instead of facing — together with national representants — local and international challenges of all kinds.

No surprise, of course, we never expected anything from them. Not to speak of those — the government and other relatives — who condone the worst. But the opposition Socialists? Opposed so little that they endorse this false debate, a shameful nationalist manoeuvre, symptom of an opportunist and reactionary policy, rather than strengthen Europe and think and act more internationally yet. French leaders not only go on sinking at high speed into the economic wall but they mostly precipitate the disastrous consequences by a nationalist suicidal policy –worthy of their own incompetence. Promising tomorrows, even if we yet know the song.

By dint of whipping the undocumented, this eternally frustrated France is questioning itself whether it is in order too, and probing if it is able therefore to exhibit the evidence of its identity. M. Sarkozy, have you ever heard of egotism, this narcissistic tendency to be analyzed and to talk about oneself? (Unless you think you are God’s gift to mankind…)

Being myself son and grand-son of Spaniards, I can say that this debate makes me want to vomit because with such approaches, this dear country sinks deeper into the darkest mess conservatism.

Drug trafficking and imperialism

US imperial mentality in the fight against drug trafficking

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At a recent conference [1], the original and always rightly incisive Noam Chomsky, referred to US military bases installed in Colombia, with the official purpose of assisting the Government of Bogotá in the war on drugs.

Mexico's Federal Police officers escort suspects of working for a drug trafficking gang, as they are shown to the media in Mexico City

He called to consider a similar case but with different actors. Suppose, he said, that Colombia, China or any other country claim their right to establish military bases in Mexico, in order to fumigate and destroy US tobacco plantations in North Carolina or Kentucky, traditional breeders of this plant. The plan would be enhanced by blocking the production areas through the action of air and naval forces, while sending inspectors to verify the overall elimination of such plantations. All this would aim to prevent tobacco trafficking towards countries suffering its effects.

Chomsky points out that smoking has provided evidence to be more lethal than alcohol, which in turn is more harmful than the use of cocaine or heroin, and these are, in turn, more harmful than cannabis. If in addition to the number of deaths caused by harmful products inhaled by smokers, we take account of those caused to “passive” smokers – though their number is difficult to determine – it is quite sure that the overall lethal outcome of nicotiana tabacum will exceed that of the remaining drugs as a whole. It would be quite logical to pursue more actively tobacco growers than coca’s.

Clearly this assumption is not plausible in the reality of today, not only because tobacco in most countries is not a banned substance while many drugs are. However, when facing this relentless logic, what should be asked is why this happens. Why the US, who say they feel adversely affected by drugs that come from south of the Rio Grande, naturally attributed the right to deploy their armies in Colombia to combat coca growers in the area, and it is even conceivable that no other country could do likewise when its interests are affected similarly.

For Chomsky, the answer is simple and it has an unquestionable bottom: the imperial mentality that exists in the US, so deep-seated in North American minds that it pass unnoticed. Should we add here that this frame of mind also exists – on a smaller scale – in many Western countries.

However, the results so far obtained seem to justify the effort committed. The “war on drugs” has lasted more than four decades in Colombia and has intensified over the past ten years, neither the food nor drug trafficking have declined. The reasons offered by Chomsky leaves no doubts. Several studies show that well-funded prevention and treatment of drug addiction are much more effective than coercive measures used in this endless war. And the preventive or curative treatment of drug-consumers in this business-has a performance cost-effectiveness improved over 20 times to the attacks against growers supplier-side-in “chemical warfare” waged to destroy the fields of drugs.

According to Chomsky, only two scenarios would explain the current situation: Either the US leaders have been consistently fools for 40 years, or the purpose of the war on drugs is very different than what is proclaimed. If one excludes no further the hypothesis of insanity, then what may be the real reasons for this alleged war?

Inside the US two main facts are obvious: the cleaning of the socially less useful (which has led the US into the world’s first place on top of prison population rate) and, as with the “war on terror”, dependence and subjugation of a population terrorized by the danger of drugs, to stop showing its angry opposition to economic policies that have led to the largest social imbalance that the US has ever suffered.

Meanwhile, abroad, the war on drugs is a way of hiding in Colombia – and other countries –some of the most iniquitous antisubversive operations. Colombia is the second country in the world (after Sudan) with more population driven out their homes, while local oligarchies and multinationals occupy the land abandoned by farmers and transform them into mining, agro-industrial production, intensive livestock or infrastructure for industry – whose benefits hardly benefit to concerned populations.

Now it’s time to ask whether Obama will follow the winding road – yet partly covered by his predecessors but in opposition to which he has not revealed much indignation as he showed with e.g. Guantanamo – or on the contrary, he has enough support, resources and intentions to leave the swamped problem that Chomsky clearly presents and whose resolution is difficult and complex, since it not only depends on the White House decisions, although they can point the beginning of a new path.

[1] Noam Chomsky, Militarizing Latin America. In chomsky.info. August 30, 2009

Dark Memories of the Dirty War

Chronicle of a valient journalist during the painful emergence of the Argentine dictatorship

“ Dirty Secrets, Dirty War: The Exile of Robert J. Cox (Buenos Aires, Argentina: 1976-1983)” by David Cox, Evening Post Publishing, June 2009

David Cox is the Robert Cox’s son, former editor of the Buenos Aires Herald and one of the few journalists courageous enough to report on the many disappearances and horrific violence that took place during Argentina’s Dirty War. David, 13 years old when his father and the rest of the family finally fled Argentina after years of close scrapes and tears, here presents the memoir of his father, writing in the foreword, admits that he still finds too painful to author himself. Punctuating his historical narrative of the escalating conflict with affectionate anecdotes about his large, tight-knit, and literary family, Cox the son wavers between nostalgia for the Buenos Aires of his childhood and flashbacks of the terrifying episodes that ultimately pressed the family to leave. But this book’s true focus is Cox the father, who emerges as an emblem of journalistic courage, suffering anxiety and asthma with silent tenacity while reporting on human-rights violations (and in some cases, causing the disappeared to be freed). An important primary source for Latin American recent history and an inspiring account to prevent future opportunists to take over again.

Robert Cox has risked his life to chronicling the early years of the Dirty War in Argentina (1976-1983), which has caused thousands of deaths. A few decades later he still can not write his own history or describe how he experienced this deadly junta. Now his son David does so, revealing how an editor of a small English-daily in South America, the Buenos Aires Herald, has courageously covered the kidnapping and murder that took place there when most his colleagues were silent.

Evolved into the race leading to the military coup of 1976 and in the chaos that has reigned later in Argentina, the book tells what led David’s father to write about the atrocities that were rampant. “This is the book that I never managed to write,” says the man 75 years in the preface. “Wounds are too deep so that I can write on this dark period.”  A plan backed by the military junta indeed encouraged people to silence real or perceived enemies, and caused that thousands of people were left in clandestine torture centers. Official figures set to have 13 000 people disappeared; groups working for human rights relate more 30 000 people killed instead. “Our family lives with this story for years,” said David Cox, 42, who spent his childhood in Argentina. “We all want my father to write his story because it affected us all one way.”

The Herald has been a pioneer in spreading the alarm. The military “issued him a warning to convince him to rally, but he continued to publish lists providing the names of the disappeared,” reminds F. Allen “Tex” Harris, an American diplomat who was in Argentina at that time. The Argentines went to the Herald when the authorities refused to provide information on their missing relatives, as the newspaper tried to lobby the government on them. There were very few people in the country who dared to speak. But the stories of Cox caught the world’s attention after he became a recognized journalist in the New York Times and The Washington Post.

For some time yet, the junta let Cox and The Herald go on practice their valiant journalism. “He printed a newspaper in English and as few Argentines knew that language, the military could not see him as someone threatening,” [...] “If someone criticized the lack of press freedom, he could always point to Cox,” added Harris. Cox was finally shut up in prison for a day after writing editorials urging the government to release imprisoned journalists. In 1979 he found himself forced to leave Argentina because of death threats against his family. David Cox describes, among other things, that he took different ways to get the school and that his family was traveling in an old Peugeot to avoid attracting police attention. “The feeling of terror now seems remote, but it is still in me.”

Despite all the risks he was taking, Robert remained “a very humble man” who simply reported what was happening in Argentina when others have refused to do so. “In his right mind, he did his job as a journalist.”

A concise, objective and engaging report on a very dark period in Argentine history. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in understanding this very complex yet so attractive country. A first class journalistic job, and homage to Robert Cox, an unrelenting and solitary fighter for freedom and the rule of law when people most needed someone like him.

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Terrorism and Justice

The Need to Compensate Victims of Terrorism

OOOOOO

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Victims of terrorist acts, such as the DC-10 UTA [1], or Baghdad or Kabul have several nationalities: Congolese, Algerians, Spanish, Chad, French, Iraqis, Americans, Afghans… Some have been compensated, others not; some were able to file a claim for civil damages in a criminal proceeding, while others will never have such a chance. It is this disparity between the nationalities that criticizes professor Ghislaine Doucet [2], a specialist in international humanitarian law. Solutions do exist:

The first alternative would be to set up  an international global fund to compensate victims, just like the Fond de Garantie (Guarantee Fund) existing in France. I firmly believe that there are ways for such a fund, so as not to leave the victims in distress. Because too many victims of terrorism, since they are seriously injured, physically as morally, can not find a job – for those who have one – and they are therefore in utter destitution. And then the second option is a universal criminal justice response, because all victims of terrorism have no chance to face the perpetrators of the crimes they have suffered or that their relatives have suffered.

Access to justice is key element but when national justice systems are unable or unwilling to judge the International Criminal Court could take over. However, it has been decided at the ICC’s foundation that it would have jurisdiction to try war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, but not terrorism. However, a crime of terrorism may, in some cases be considered a crime against humanity. Mariana Pena [3], specialist and IFHR/FIDH Liaison Officer with the ICC in The Hague:

These conditions should not be widespread or systematic [...] But an attack should have been instigated against the civilian population – with or without knowledge of the attack, which is often the case when a terrorist hit occurs.

And then the question of defining terrorism has long been an obstacle to further discussions on reparation and justice. According Ghislaine Doucet obstacles to the definition is a false debate [2]:

Terrorism on the international level is clearly defined. In times of armed conflict, acts of terrorism are explicitly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. Beyond the act of terrorism, such as hostage taking, are prohibited. Attacks against civilians are prohibited. So these are prohibited acts and then punishable. Conversely, in peacetime, we have thirteen international instruments [4] which prohibit the use of terrorism. And that furthermore require states that are parties to these instruments to punish these acts. [...]

So if you are able to classify internationally, such as acts of terrorism and therefore these acts were punishable under criminal law, why the phenomenon of terrorism is not defined?

It is however clearly defined because otherwise we would not have all these international instruments. [...] All acts of terrorism in their different facets are almost covered by these international instruments. The crux of the problem is not so much defining but to determine its scope (that is, competency areas). [2]

And that’s what the UN faces for years, seeking to establish an international convention banning terrorism. Some wish that the actions undertaken by the armed forces of a State do not fall within the definition of terrorism. Others would exclude acts of resistance on behalf of the right of peoples to self-determination. These are questions that also face the victims of terrorism and their relatives.

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[1] 19 September 1989 a UTA DC10-30 aircraft,crashed near N’Djamena, Chad, as a result of an explosion in flight due to a bomb. All 156 passengers and 15 crew were killed.

[2] Terrorisme, victimes et responsabilité pénale internationale. (Terrorism, Victims and International Criminal Responsibility). Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 2003

[3] IFHR (International Federation of Human Rights) special representative at the ICC, The Hague

[4] UN Treaties and Protocols

Who Wants Judge Garzon’s Head on a Platter?

Judge Garzon on the Spotlight of the The Spanish High Court

Judge Garzón said Spain learned that torture doesn't work.

The career of the Spanish star judge –who became famous for having ordered, in November 1998, the arrest in London of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for « genocide, terrorism and torture » – is on the edge now. The Court of criminal appeal of the Spanish High Court is about to charge him for « corruption in the performance of his functions ». If indicted, the « super judge » from the Audiencia Nacional – i.e., the National Criminal Court, the highest criminal court of Spain – would be immediately suspended whereas pending for trial.

What was his crime? Unlocking [October 18, 2008] – and at the request of families – an investigation on the ‘forced’ disappearances of 114 000 Republicans – that the judge reclassified then as ‘crimes against humanity’ – during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and Franco dictatorship. Unsurprisingly, this initiative stirred up the far right troops and brought about a mutiny against « reopening old wounds ». But also a part of the government and the Socialist Party, who saw an attack on the shortcomings of the  Ley de memoria histórica (Law on Historical Memory), painfully adopted a year earlier.

The Attorney General, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, has requested the annulment of proceedings as well. He is arguing the incompetence of the Audiencia Nacional on this subject. The prosecution’s appeal was accepted [December 2, 2008]. The case might have ended there if in the meantime Baltasar Garzon did not step down himself |November 18] by returning his jurisdiction to local judges: each of them can therefore arrange the opening of graves and exhumations within their jurisdiction. « He acted as if he was putting aside the atomic bomb – i.e. closing the case –» whereas « he was disseminating a lot of small bombs across the country » [1].

The controversy has shifted from political scope to the judiciary when in January 2009 a criminal complaint was filed by two extreme-right organizations, a ghostly « union of civil servants » called ‘Manos Limpias’ (Clean Hands) and the Association ‘Identidad y Libertad’ (Freedom and identity). [2] The criminal complaint reproaches judge Garzon violating the 1977 amnesty law – based on a tacit « pact of oblivion », supposed to ease the Spanish transition to democracy; and also for his persistent willingness to investigate facts that he was aware they were supposedly prescribed and amnestied by introducing the concept of   ‘crimes against humanity’  which did not exist at the time of civil war.

Judge Garzon has received cases connected to rights abuses in several countries

Most likely, Baltasar Garzon would not risk his professional future in this business without the excess of zeal of some judicial colleagues. Besides the ideological dimension of the case, there is a suspected game of settling scores – a payback related to Judge Garzon’s personality, whose liking for notoriety and spectacular methods annoys most of his equals [Well, I do not think for that reason his goodwill and performances become worthless... unless they are inversely proportional)

The complaint against judge Garzon was admissible on May 26, by a commission chaired by Judge Adolfo Prego, whose ultraconservative sympathies are notorious. As a member of the Honorary Board of the ‘Foundation for Defense of the Spanish nation’ (Dena), he had signed along with other jurists, a particularly aggressive text in opposition to the Law on Historical Memory, reproving it for « glorifying as martyrs of freedom many of the worst criminals that darkened our history. » [3]

The examining magistrate, who took Garzon’s deposition for nearly four hours [September 9] – and who could make him return to the dock – is on the contrary a man clearly on the left side of the chessboard. He, Luciano Varela, is close to the Vice-President of the Spanish Government, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, and has never hidden his dislike for the ‘super judge’ manners. This high figure is a brilliant lawyer, founder of the renowned association ‘Jueces para la Democracia’ (JpD, Judges for Democracy), nicknamed by his colleagues « O Guerrilleiro » (the ‘guerrilla partisan’) because of his radical sentences. According to journalist Julio Lazaro from ‘El Pais’ Varela  has « an ego as boundless as that of Garzon. » [3]

The defendant’s counsel pleaded the closing of the complaint [October 1] before the High Court. « The assertion that Judge Baltasar Garzon has acted unfairly does not stand – says Gonzalo Martinez-Fresneda. In truth, abandoning the families who demanded justice would have been unjust. » Most analysts think case dismissal is unlikely, because of the fighting spirit demonstrated by Luciano Varela during the questioning of Judge Garzon. At best, Garzon could benefit from a period proviso the High Court demands further investigation.

Civilian refugees from the Spanish Civil War

Spanish journalists seem to anticipate an unfavorable outcome for what they call the «  fallen angel ». The holder of the Fifth Chamber of the National Court, aged 54, is now on its own. As a tireless worker, he has processed about 7 000 cases in twenty years and has imprisoned more than 1 000 ETA activists and supporters –as many enemies.

The rejection of his candidacy for president of the National Court, in March, was a sign of his low popularity in the judiciary. «Whatever the decision of Luciano Varela is, there’s no doubt: the High Court jar has overflowed, and if not this time it will be done the next one.» [2][3] Several other complaints, in further cases are in the waiting room, just in case. The international prestige of Baltasar Garzon, the support of the International Commission of Jurists and the mobilization of Franco victims’ families may not weigh sufficiently. Hopefully not so. Spanish democracy can not (and might not) do without a man as judge Garzon.

It is comforting however to observe that he has not yet thrown in the towel.   Not at all.

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Related Posts:

· Garzon, an ‘inconvenient’ judge, now sitting in the dock

· International lawyers support the Garzon’s cause against Franco’s regime

· The Spanish Law of Universal Jurisdiction, now in Brackets?

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[1]  Spanish Judge Seeks Names of Victims in Franco Era, NY Times, September 1, 2008

[2] La defensa de Garzón pide el archivo de la querella ‘franquista’. El Pais, Oct. 1 & 2, 2009

[3] Garzón, en el punto de mira. El Pais, Sept. 21, 2009

Censorship on the Internet

Be irrepressible, an Amnesty International campaign.

(Versión en Castellano)

Chat rooms monitored. Blogs deleted. Websites blocked. Search engines restricted. People imprisoned for simply posting and sharing information.

The Internet is a new frontier in the struggle for human rights. Governments – with the help of some of the biggest IT companies in the world – are cracking down on freedom of expression …

The web is a great tool for sharing ideas and freedom of expression. However, efforts to try and control the Internet are growing. Internet repression is reported in countries like China, Vietnam, Tunisia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. People are persecuted and imprisoned simply for criticising their government, calling for democracy and greater press freedom, or exposing human rights abuses, online.

But Internet repression is not just about governments. IT companies have helped build the systems that enable surveillance and censorship to take place. Yahoo! have supplied email users’ private data to the Chinese authorities, helping to facilitate cases of wrongful imprisonment. Microsoft and Google have both complied with government demands to actively censor Chinese users of their services.

Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. It is one of the most precious of all rights. We should fight to protect it.

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Database of censored material

Amnesty International is working with the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) to help raise awareness of internet censorship around the world.

The ONI is a collaboration among the Citizen Lab, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, the Advanced Network Research Group at Cambridge University, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School UK, and the Oxford Internet Institute, plus partner non- governmental organizations worldwide.

The aim of the ONI is to document empirically patterns of Internet content filtering and surveillance worldwide behind national firewalls over an extended period of time. The ONI employs a unique methodology that combines in-field investigations by partners and associates within the countries under investigation and a suite of technical interrogation tools that probe the Internet directly for forensic evidence of content filtering and surveillance technologies.

Its 11 country reports have documented the scope, scale and sophistication of numerous filtering regimes worldwide, and have helped verify the use of US commercial filtering technologies, such as Smartfilter and Websense that are used in some ways to underpin these regimes. The ONI’s flash map of global filtering shows the results of these investigations.

The work of ONI is supported by the Information Program of the Open Society Institute and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. ONI’s mapping work is supported by the International Development Research Centre (Canada).

The examples of censored material used for Irrepressible.info have been drawn from websites that have been blocked in one of the following countries – China, Iran, Myanmar, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Syria and Vietnam, and are based on latest testing results available from each country.

Financial Crisis is Delaying African Development Goals

Education needs to be made available to more African children

Many development analysts assumed in relation to the last G20 summit in Pittsburgh that it might not forget about Africa in its talks on the financial crisis. Developing nations on the continent are being especially hard hit at a time when things were starting to look up.

Africa’s developing countries are suffering even more from the financial crisis: not only are they having to make do with less development aid funding, but the amount of money that emigrants are able to send back to support their families at home is much smaller.

The economic crisis will make it harder to reach development aid goals

The crisis is threatening the hard-won progress made in Africa’s developing countries at a time when the situation was starting to improve. African national economies were showing an average growth of 5 to 6 percent in recent years. Kenya, for example, has seen the development of a middle class that invests in its own economy. Outside money, including from newly industrialized countries such as China, Brazil and India, had considerably upped the level of foreign investment. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that foreign investment and credit for Africa increased to $53 billion (40 billion Euros) – five times the amount in 2000. But Donald Kaberuka, president of the African Development Bank, warns that the crisis could unravel this progress.

“We have to distinguish between the financial crisis and the economic crisis,” Kaberuka said. “Until now, (the financial crisis) has not hit a single African bank, but it has affected national economies. For 2009, we’re expecting an average maximum economic growth rate of 4 to 4.5 percent, no more. And it could well turn out to be smaller. We have to mobilize inner-African capital. We have very rich and very poor countries in Africa. On the regional level, the African Development Bank has already managed to mobilize capital, but not for the continent as a whole.”

Fears of a setback

Ad Melkert is a UN under secretary-general and an associate administrator of the UN Development Program (UNDP). He also fears that Africa will suffer a setback.

“This is all happening after a considerable number of African countries have, over the past few years, experienced significant economic growth and an increase in jobs and investment,” Melkert said. “Now, there’s a reversal. That means when the international community – the G20 – meets in April in London for its financial summit, they have to work out an international agenda there. They have to ensure that they factor in Africa, because this is an international financial crisis that is having effects worldwide.”

Growth rate of 3.4 % expected for sub-Saharan Africa

International institutions such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are calling for multilateral risk management for the financial markets. In Davos, some major actors called for the creation of global economic council. The inclusion of developing countries in such bodies will be decisive, says Melkert. The UNDP representative is hoping for a clear statement from the G20, as otherwise, the UN’s development goals will be in danger of failure.

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“The crisis has created a totally new starting position,” he said. “It really does mean a setback, even for really successful countries like China, for example. We’ll have to really go the extra mile now if we’re to reach our development goals.”

Despite the crisis, some industrialized countries as Spain and Germany have committed themselves to raising development aid bit by bit to reach 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product. Melkert advises other wealthy nations to also maintain their development aid goals.

“There’s no alternative to investing in development goals,” he said. “I hope that the G20 summit will help, I hope that the new American administration under Obama will support the Millennium goals even more. I hope that the Europeans keep their promises and invest more in development policies each year. And I hope that the growing middle classes in Africa, Brazil or in India pay their taxes and use this tax money to fight poverty.”

Poverty remains a major challenge

Although the global fight against poverty has made progress, the percentage of poor people in Africa hasn’t gone down at all, due to the continent’s fast-growing population. With a poverty rate of around 50 percent, the share of extreme poverty in the total population hasn’t changed, and Melkert fears it could even get worse.

“We have to be really ambitious here and take the problem of poverty really seriously,” he said. “With this financial crisis, more people will be forced into poverty than in years past.”

There are worries that more Africans will slip into poverty

The IMF has revised its growth projection downwards and has forecast an economic growth rate of just 3.4 percent for sub-Saharan Africa. But all African governments have to take political responsibility, says Melkert. He points to examples from Latin America, saying Africa should learn to also create effective social security systems and incentives for development.

“Good systems have been established in Latin America,” he says. “There, families get money if they send their children to school or get them vaccinated. Africa should follow this example. The World Bank, the UN or bilateral donors could financially support such a system. That would help the poorest people to have a minimal income to buy food, send their children to school or care for their health.”

He advises the international community to be patient and take a long-term view when it comes to supporting development goals – despite the global financial crisis.

“You don’t make development progress from one year to the next – it’s a question of 10 or 20 years,” Melkert said.

French Police to Turn into an Occupation Army

Does the French police behave like an occupation army in the suburbs?

In 2005, just after the urban riots while he was head of the Ethics and Human Rights in Geneva police, a Swiss policeman spent several weeks in a police station located in the ‘93’, the Seine-Saint-Denis county (northern suburbs of Paris, «the most violent county» in France in words of Le Temps, from Geneva; not too far from truth). He looked over the French police and came to the conclusion that it was «an army of occupation. »

Yves Patrick Delachaux, turned into a novelist and screenwriter today, just wrote «Grave Panique» (Severe Panic) to put in picture his experience. The title was found one night when a patrol cop from the anti-criminal brigade was about to run over an old lady while he was driving too quickly and he exclaimed: «Je l’ai grave paniquée la mémé» («I’ve seriously terrified the granny. »)

His book speaks volumes about the state of strain existing between young people and police in the French suburbs, says Sylvain Besson, Le Temps correspondent in Paris. As well as the – now admitted without having to spell things out – complete failure of the policy implemented by Nicolas Sarkozy since his arrival at the Ministry of Interior (Home Office) in 2002.

On the ground, the healing is still far. Two days after his meeting on the theme «learning to live together» between youth and police, the Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, filed a complaint for defamation against two young people who accused police of having hit a pizza deliveryman last August 9, in Bagnolet, in the neighborhoods of Paris. Aged 18, he died trying to escape a police check control when he drove a cross motorcycle – prohibited on public roads. In the suburbs, the dialogue of the deaf between youth and police continue to kill.

Yves Patrick Delachaux understood the problem at the first glance at the police station:

«A square blockhouse, everything is barricaded, wired. It is an occupation army. [...] An atmosphere of barracks, toil, suffering, says the Swiss policeman. We feel that it weighs on their shoulders.»

Policemen hide their function. No sooner have they arrived, than they just call for transfer elsewhere, and they never dwell in Seine-Saint-Denis itself. Delachaux declares that policemen reported him that saying hello to a group of young people means « go in search of clash», in the words of French policemen:

« The Swiss request to see the 4000 City of La Courneuve, become legendary since Nicolas Sarkozy proclaimed he wanted to flush out and get rid of all the trash in the suburbs with a Kärcher [1]. On the way ahead, the tension goes up: it is said to be aware of objects launched from the rooftops, to be ready to call for help … Coming out of their car, policemen deploy themselves in skirmish, ‘as in Afghanistan’. »

When meeting a group of young people of African origin, the atmosphere is icy. Not a word, just dreadful looks. At back of the pack, Yves Patrick Delachaux launches a loud «hello» to the teenagers, which does not receive any reply. Back in the car, the blame rains from policemen: «Never redo it. You’re going to confrontation! »

The culprits in this system are not the policemen themselves, but «the immense organizational immaturity» of a structure where «all the weight and responsibility are placed on 22 years old guys», entangled in a policy of figures imposed by the government (The more they arrest, the better for the government).

The sad thing about this is that this doesn’t happen in France only (a country that proudly proclaims itself «homeland of human rights»). The welcome of customs police in many US airports is really humiliating – I would almost say violent. Not to mention the treatment given to Mexican «wetbacks». Or the discretionary raids by the Spanish police in Basque households.

[Read the full article on LeTemps.ch] in French only.

Related Posts:

Amnesty International reports the impunity of the French police
The road to nowhere

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[1] Kärcher is a well-known German cleaning machine using high pressure water. A Kärcher cleaner is therefore supposed to be powerful for removing dirt. This is quite the reason of the controversy, as Mr. Sarkozy compared some young people to dirt.

NGOs and Microfinance in Africa: the Awakening Experience of ‘Rwanda Works’

Interesting interview that Josh Ruxin–founder of the new NGO Rwanda Works, Professor at Columbia University, and Director of the Millennium Global Village Project in Rwanda, just had with BigThink.

In the interview, Ruxin describes his current work in Rwanda helping to promote access to healthcare and sustainability, as well as his profound insights into the policies that actually work to advance international development. Among the many current practices that Ruxin explains are simply not working, include the widely-praised spread of microfinance loans, which Ruxin believes are not nearly the “panacea” many believe them to be, and are not actually creating any significant progress in much of the developing world–particularly not sub-Saharan Africa: http://bigthink.com/joshruxin/the-case-against-microfinance-loans

Ruxin also discusses the urgency of developing sustainable agriculture in the developing world as a way to solve an array of problems, and describes some of the creative new approaches to affordably promoting sustainability in Rwanda and surrounding countries that currently being refined to meet these challenges: http://bigthink.com/joshruxin/the-key-to-developing-rwanda

Ruxin also examines how an increase in women’s reproductive rights is one of the key issues in international development and why government officials investing in foreign aid should provide far more funding for family planning: http://bigthink.com/joshruxin/the-link-between-womens-rights-and-economic-success

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Spanish version here below:

ONGs y microfinanzas en Africa: la experiencia reveladora de ‘Rwanda Works’

Interesante entrevista (en inglés) que Josh Ruxin ha concedido a BigThink.  Josh Ruxin es el fundador de la nueva ONG Rwanda Works, Profesor de la Universidad de Columbia, y director del Proyecto de la Aldea Global del Milenio, en Rwanda.

En la entrevista, Ruxin describe su trabajo actual en Rwanda para ayudar a promover el acceso a la asistencia sanitaria y la sostenibilidad, así como sus reflexiones lúcidas sobre las políticas que funcionan realmente para promover el desarrollo internacional. Entre las muchas prácticas actuales que Ruxin considera simplemente inoperantes, incluye la propagación del muy encumbrado sistema de microcréditos. Ruxin los juzga de tal forma que cree que no son ni la “panacea” que muchos quisieran, y no son, puesto que no representan en realidad un avance significativo en la mayor parte de el mundo en desarrollo – en particular, para África subsahariana: http://bigthink.com/joshruxin/the-case-against-microfinance-loans

Ruxin también razona sobre la urgencia en desarrollar la agricultura sostenible en el mundo en desarrollo como una manera de resolver una serie de problemas, y describe algunos de los enfoques nuevos y creativos para promover la sostenibilidad asequible en Rwanda y países vecinos que actualmente se está perfeccionando para enfrentar estos desafíos: http://bigthink.com/joshruxin/the-key-to-developing-rwanda

Asimismo Ruxin examina cómo un aumento en los derechos reproductivos de las mujeres es una de las cuestiones clave en el desarrollo internacional y por qué los funcionarios de la administración que desean invertir en ayuda al desarrollo han de proporcionar muchos más fondos para la planificación familiar: http://bigthink.com/joshruxin/the-link-between-womens-rights-and-economic-success

The impact of the global financial crisis on African development (& 2)

The potential recovery from the financial crisis is very limited

In light of the potentially weakening effects, it is crucial both for African and world leaders and policy makers to discuss the possible responses to diminish the impact of crises on the continent.

One way of responding successfully to the crisis is to give priority to building African markets. In particular, policies to strengthen the African markets and institutions necessary to promote growth and ensure that African economies are more resistant to external shocks. There is also a need for tighter regulation of African financial markets. Moreover, creating a more conducive business environment to reduce costs and limitations associated with doing business in African economies to raise their profile as a business destination less expensive, less risky and more profitable, helping to attract more Foreign capital flows and investment in the context of a capital market has become considerably more risk averse following the onset of the financial crisis. The reforms that encourage foreign direct investment and portfolio flows and the measures that raise the level of confidence in financial systems in Africa can have an equally positive impact.

Sub-Saharan Africa is dropping behind in infrastructure

Source: Preliminary results AICD 2008. African Perspectives and Recommendations to the G20. Committee of African Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. 21/03/09

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The expansion of trade with other developing countries represents another potential means to ease the severity of the negative effects of the crisis on African economies. Global trade statistics suggest that trade between developing countries as percentage of total world trade, and therefore world trade has been increasing for quite some time. In fact, trade in goods among developing countries grew at an average annual rate of 13 % between 1995 and 2007 and in 2007, represented a fifth of total world trade flows. It is vital for Africa to increase their share of this link between South-South trade to offset some effects of the anticipated decline in demand for their commodity exports. Along with this is the need to increase intra-regional trade flows and trade in Africa in order to reduce the dependence of African economies in overseas markets. [3]

Similarly, measures to improve South-South economic cooperation, particularly in terms of investment, financial flows and joint efforts to stabilize foreign exchange rates and debt, should be investigated. In particular, South-South several measures to address potentially available for African countries to tackle the worst effects of the global financial crisis. First, the increased funding of regional development banks could offset the anticipated slowdown in international aid and donor funding for African economies. Secondly, regional stimulus packages could be implemented to help sustain the market and sustain economic growth. Similarly, regional agreements could be used that are specifically designed to mitigate the impact of financial shocks through, for example, the provision of international financial liquidity through swaps. Finally, African countries burdened by high debt levels, measures to diversify foreign exchange reserves could be adopted whereby the purchase of other developing countries “that debt.

Globally, according to the World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy said reaching a global trade deal that represent a relatively simple way to alleviate the effects of the crisis. The promise of such a comprehensive agreement “is particularly attractive to African economies, which are perhaps amongst the most threatened by the prospect of increased protectionism arising from the crisis. Specifically, the new national protectionist measures, mainly in the form benign appearance, the political crisis linked to the encouragement of the government and relief campaigns, the exchange rate devaluations, antidumping and countervailing duties and ‘buy local policies that discriminate against foreign firms and workers can suppress the export sectors in Africa even more. It is therefore essential for African politicians to push for a global agreement that keeps opening up markets and prevent a flood of new crisis linked to protectionist measures.

Furthermore, following the emergence of the global financial crisis, it is clear that there is an urgent need to reform the multilateral financial architecture, particularly in terms of ensuring greater representation of African countries in international financial institutions. Despite the financial crisis that originated in Africa, the continent has been excessively exposed to its effects. This has led to strident calls for a more inclusive multilateral governance that provides a greater voice “to African countries in international financial institutions. Countries is important for developing countries, and Africa in particular, to play a role most important of these institutions and the economic crisis management.

Domestic fiscal and monetary policy responses should also be explored by African countries with the capacity to implement them. For example, in African countries with relatively large foreign exchange reserves may be possible to use these reserves to cushion the worst effects of crisis and decline to fund any capital flows. Alternatively, African countries that operate under systems of fixed exchange rate may have some leeway to adopt more flexible exchange rate regimes in order to “allow the nominal exchange rate to absorb some of the impact of external shock and reduce the actual effects in the national economy. “In terms of fiscal stimulus options, the expansionary fiscal policies such as reducing taxes or increasing government spending may help boost demand and employment in African economies. The usual argument against the expansionary fiscal policy – that it crowds out private sector investment – is unlikely to apply, given the climate of reduced appetite for credit and a drastically reduced risk among investors.

Finally, while Africa is certainly feeling the effects of the global economic slowdown, the impact of what is likely to deteriorate further, the credit crunch in the world’s most advanced economies may actually create opportunities in terms movement of capital into emerging economies. For example, sovereign wealth funds before investing in the financial systems of the United States and Europe are now increasingly looking to the developing world to possible locations for investment. However, for this to happen in Africa, the continent’s countries have to implement measures to improve its ratings on investment risk.

Africa is facing a large and growing economic gap

The fact that many African countries are relatively detached from the global financial system has softened the continent from some of the consequences of the global financial crisis. However, the initial view proposed by many commentators that Africa would be “spared” from the effects of the financial crisis that originated in several advanced economies in the world has proven to be unfounded. Prices and demand for African exports of commodities have dropped significantly amid a sharp decline in world industrial output. Moreover, the climate of declining credit arising from the crisis is likely to lead to a substantial decrease in international financial flows to African countries in the form of private investment and capital flows, trade credit, financing donors and remittances from Africans in the diaspora. These factors have led to predictions of sharp fall in growth in sub-Saharan Africa.

It is evident that African countries and their leaders should try to take initiative and economic policy measures and reforms to mitigate the effects of the crisis on African economies. These should include interventions to strengthen the African markets and institutions, expand “South-South trade and economic cooperation, including increase or intra-regional trade to reduce dependence on overseas markets, and implement expansionary monetary and fiscal policies to boost demand and employment. In addition, globally, African leaders must push for reform of global financial architecture to include greater representation of African interests in the forum of the international financial institutions. Furthermore, it is extremely important that the continent supports efforts to conclude a global trade deal that maintains the openness of markets and the safeguards against the proliferation of new crises linked to protectionist measures.

Related Posts: The impact of the financial crisis on African development (Part 1)

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[1] South-South  trade  could  soften  impact  of financial crisis for vulnerable economies. UNCTAD.  2009.

[2] Impact of the crisis on African Economies. Sustaining growth and poverty reduction, African Perspectives and Recommendations to the G20, by The Committee of African Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. 21 March 2009

[3] World Bank to Help Mitigate Impact of Global Financial Crisis on Africa’s Development.  19 November 2008

[4] International Monetary Fund. 2009. What the Global Financial Crisis Means for Sub-Saharan Africa. Speech by Takatoshi Kato, Deputy Managing Director, IMF, 12th AU Summt, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 3 February 2009.

ICTY tryes to silence a troublesome whistleblower: Florence Hartmann guilty of contempt

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted Hartmann of contempt to the court Monday for disclosing confidential information in a genocide case. She was sentenced to pay a fine of 7,000 Euros.

Florence Hartmann prosecuted to have disclosed the existence of confidential decisions made by the Court of Appeals in the Milosevic case.

Florence Hartmann accused the court of ‘trying to silence the truth’.

Florence Hartmann was found guilty of breaching the court’s rules when she disclosed the contents of two appeals chamber decisions from the Slobodan Milošević case in a 2007 book as well as an article she wrote in 2008.  She has been fined 7,000 euros.

Hartmann was spokesperson for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’s (ICTY) Prosecutor Carla del Ponte between 2000 and 2006.

The court dismissed her argument that the information she realeased had already been put in the public domain by the tribunal.

The court said the fact that Hartmann spent six years in the capacity of the spokesperson of the Prosecutor meant that she was well aware of what the confidentiality of a decision entailed.

The Chamber further argued that Hartmann’s conduct could deter sovereign states from cooperating with the Tribunal in providing evidence in the future.

“This…impacts upon the Tribunal’s ability to exercise its jurisdiction to prosecute and punish serious violations of humanitarian law as prescribed by its mandate,” Judge Bakone Justice Moloto, presiding, said.

“Public confidence in the effectiveness of protective measures, orders and decisions is vital to the success of the work of the Tribunal.”

The French journalist was the first former employee to stand trial for contempt before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

Her case was filed under the same number as that of Slobodan Milosevic. But Hartmann refused to sit on the same chair as the tribunals regular suspects since her case was not about war crimes.

Hartmann had publicly accused the UN war crimes tribunal of “trying to silence the truth”.

The tribunal argued that she “knew that the information was confidential at the time disclosure was made, that the decisions from which the information was drawn were ordered to be filed confidentially, and that by her disclosure she was revealing confidential information to the public.”

Hartmann covered the 1990s Balkan wars as a correspondent for the French newspaper Le Monde. She thereafter became spokeswoman for the former chief war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte from 2000 to 2006. She then published a book, “Peace and Punishment: The Secret Wars of Politics and International Justice”.

In 2008, Hartmann wrote an article entitled “Vital Genocide Documents Concealed” that was published by the Bosnian Institute.

In her publications Hartmann wrote that the Hague prosecution was allegedly unhappy with the tribunal’s decision to accept Serbia’s request to have some portions of the state archive documents considered in closed sessions. The judges in the Milosevic case allowed Serbia to censor parts of evidence that was made public. She believes that it was precisely those pieces of evidence that were key in determining Serbia’s responsibility for the genocide in Bosnia.

Hartmann argued that it was thanks to the Tribunal’s collusion with Serbia in the suppression of this crucial piece of evidence, that Bosnia was not able to draw upon the latter in its case against Serbia for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), leading to Serbia’s acquittal.

Far from punishing the perpetrators of genocide in the former Yugoslavia, the Tribunal has helped to shield them, Hartmann said. She accused judges of the Appeals Chamber, headed by former Tribunal President Fausto Pocar, of being “accomplices in manipulation organized by the authorities in Belgrade, so that the International Court of Justice, which heard the Bosnian genocide lawsuit, would be made to make the same mistakes the Hague Tribunal made”.

Her book has received broad coverage, and it kicked off a storm in the Balkans even before translations became available in early November 2007, with local politicians using it to attack the ICTY’s legitimacy. A month after the publication, she received a letter from the tribunal reminding her of her administrative and legal obligations to respect its confidentiality rules.

Related Posts: Tables Turned: Former ICTY Spokeswoman now before The Hague Court

Questions about an execution

Echoes of an umpteenth time tragedy

Henri Cartier Bresson · Cell in Model Prison in the USA, 1975

With 135 death convicted since 1973, it was clear that the evidence would come a day in the United States, that a man has been sentenced to death by mistake and then executed.

That day seems to have happened, if you attend to the opponents of death punishment. Innocence Project co-Director Barry Scheck says:

”There can no longer be any doubt that an innocent person has been executed. The question now turns to how we can stop it from happening again”.

Innocence Project is an NGO dedicated to helping prisoners to use DNA genetic testing.

“As long as our system of justice makes mistakes – including the ultimate mistake – we cannot continue executing people,” Scheck said.

On 23 December 1991, a 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old twins died by fire at family home in Corsicana, Texas. Cameron Todd Willingham, 23 years, the children’s father, who was the only adult present, has been accused of murder. He was found guilty and then sentenced to death in 1992. After twelve years in death corridor and five appeals, Camron Todd was executed by lethal injection in 2004, although he always protested his innocence.

Five years later, an investigation committee on the death penalty operation in Texas established in its preliminary conclusions that the fire could have been a purely accidental origin – that’s what Innocence Project has argued all the time.

According to the weekly The New Yorker, who spent a long investigation on Cameron Todd Willingham’s case, the Commission should deliver its final report in early 2010. It reports a botched investigation, particularly in terms of scientific expertise to determine the origin of fire. For ten years, several states have imposed a moratorium or initiate discussion, after being confronted with legal errors, but none has yet admitted having executed an innocent man.

An ‘affligeant’ indictment

In a 30 August editorial column, The New York Times considered the Cameron Todd Willingham’s case “shocking”, even for those who have

“no illusions about the brutal injustice of the death penalty after all of the exonerations in recent years from DNA evidence. […] It is outrageous that Texas is conducting its careful, highly skilled investigation after Mr. Willingham has been executed, rather than before”,

…reproves the NYT, emphasizing on the fact that the defendant’s trial ran just two days.

Texas remains the state that executes more: 18 of the 37 executions in 2009. But across the country, capital punishment is declining; it has reached its lowest level for thirty years because of so called “crisis of confidence” in the judiciary –in the opponents’ words. Nearly 3 300 inmates are in death corridor now, whereof 53 are women.

International lawyers support the Garzon’s cause against Franco’s regime

The Spanish Supreme Court summons the judge in a lawsuit for ‘deliberate neglect of duty’.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), based in Geneva and made up of 59 presidents and former presidents of supreme courts, judges and lawyers from countries represented at the United Nations, expressed on Tuesday 8 Sept. its concern about the investigation handled against Judge Baltasar Garzón in the Spanish Supreme Court. The ICJ qualified the inquiry as “unjustified interference” in Garzón’s professional competences.

Judge Baltasar Garzón

The ICJ statement of support to Garzón occurs before its imminent issue to subpoena to the Supreme Court on the way to declare as defendant in a lawsuit from the far conservative association called “Manos Limpias” (Clean Hands) for his investigation on crimes against humanity committed during the Spanish Civil War. Manos Limpias filed a criminal complaint against Garzón for knowingly overreaching his jurisdiction (prevarication).

Garzón is under investigation before the Criminal Chamber of the High Court for an alleged crime of judicial misconduct in public office (=deliberate neglect of duty) –to be precise, to take decisions knowing full well that they are unjust. The lawsuit, filed by the obscure far-right union Manos Limpias , which later joined by extreme rightist Libertad e Identidad (Freedom and Identity), was declared admissible on 26 May by the President of the Criminal Division, Juan Saavedra, and four other judges.

The subpoena to testify by Baltasar Garzón – the most prominent Spanish judge abroad – in a criminal case pending against him by the Supreme Court was pending before the summer. The instructor of the high court, Luciano Varela, called Garzón yesterday to appear in court. Judge Baltasar Garzón defended for nearly two and half hour his jurisdiction to investigate the graves of Franco’s regime before the Supreme Court instructor Luciano Varela.  According to sources in the indictment, Garzón firmly denied having committed any trespass and refused to answer the battery of 150 questions introduced by the private prosecutor Jaime Alonso. Judge Garzón responded no more than issues raised by the instructor Luis Navajas and his own defense. None of the prosecutors asked for precautionary measures against the judge.

Meanwhile, the case opened to Garzón has caused concern in international legal forums…

“International Standards on the Independence of the Judiciary prohibit criminal responsibility of judges for controversial decisions and even unjust or incorrect in any case, should be addressed through disciplinary mechanisms established to that effect,”

…said Roicin Pillay, Senior Counsel for Europe of the International Commission of Jurists.

According to the commissioner of the ICJ, criminal investigations against judges “for acts framed within their professional duties are unjustifiable and inappropriate interference in the independence of judicial proceedings and are contrary to Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the principles 4, 17 and 18 of the United Nations Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary “.

The ICJ considers that this attempt to interfere in the judicial process is of “particular concern” since it involves an investigation into crimes against humanity, that “Spain has the international duty to investigate and prosecute.” According to a statement by the ICJ, these crimes have no prescription.

“The investigation of Judge Garzon for crimes against humanity does not correspond to professional negligence that would justify a disciplinary action, much less a criminal prosecution,” said Roicin Pillay.

The ICJ has reported this case to the UN Rapporteur on the independence of judges and magistrates “and hoped that the proceedings against Judge Garzon be dismissed as soon as possible.”

What is the ICJ commission

• The International Commission of Jurists was founded in 1950 and is headquartered in Geneva (Switzerland). It consists of 59 commissioners from the majority of countries represented at the UN. It is composed of lawyers, attorneys and members of courts of justice, among others, presidents or former presidents of the Supreme Courts of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and South Africa.

• The current President is Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

This new regrettable sequel blurs Spanish justice once again. Because the Judge Garzón’s supposed “abuse of power” that sustains this lawsuit, concerns the investigation for the crimes against humanity committed by the regime of General Franco during the Spanish Civil War. Judge Baltasar Garzón had no statutory power to investigate this matter, the indictment said, and therefore committed a criminal offense. As said Emilio Silva, president of an association of civil war victims and their families, this is “justice upside down”: what should be punished is the performance of conservative judges who DO NOT want to investigate crimes under Franco. And that occurs in a country whose courts do have authority to open proceedings against Pinochet’s abuses or other crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world.

Judge for yourself.

The impact of the financial crisis on African development (1)

Because of the existing overall crisis, the projected growth for 2009 should move down to the lowest rate of decrease in 60 years. In 2008, the drop in demand resulting from the financial crisis together with synchronized crashes in manufacturing and industrial production, credit problems in traffic finance and consumer reliance caused a fall by 4 % in the growth of global trade.

Initially, many analysts believed that the world’s emerging economies, mainly those in Africa, would rather be protected from the effects of the crisis that came from the advanced industrialized countries. However, in the developing world the impact of financial instability and uncertainty in industrialized countries are beginning to take hold. Access to emerging markets for trade and investment is unlikely to diminish. In fact, UNCTAD estimates that exports of developing countries could decline by 9.2 % in 2009 [1]. The fall in commodity prices that went along with the downturn is particularly troublesome to African economies, many of which are greatly dependent on fresh commodities and raw material exports as the main source of export income. Moreover, the market for trade finance has seriously declined over the past six months; the crisis has aggravated the lack of liquidity to finance trade credit. Emerging economies are also expected to experience ongoing financial contamination, particularly in the form of capital flight and capital flows.

Even though these potentially weakening effects, the G20 predictions suggest that over 80 % of potential world economic growth depends on emerging market countries. In the same way, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that developing countries will increase by 3.3 % in 2009, it is expected that advanced economies will decline by 2 % roughly [2].

GDP Growth by Country Group

In this context, measuring the impact of the crisis on African economies and the accessibility and adequacy of measures to alleviate the effects of crises on the continent, are decisively imperative considerations for prospect growth scenario in Africa.

The Impact

The impact of the global financial crisis is expected to differ among African countries in line with their exposure to international financial system, its production and export structure and its aptitude to employ policy instruments to lessen the adverse effects. Overall, the short term in many African countries can be mitigated by the fact that most countries on the continent are relatively detached from the global financial system. Moreover, emerging banking systems in many African countries are generally characterized by simple structure, conservatism, the rules of prudent financial management, foreign exchange controls and a very limited exposure to subprime loans and the Credit default swaps, has protected the continent’s financial structures of all the effects of the crisis. In fact, Benedicte Christensen, deputy director of IMF’s Africa Department, went so far as to state in late 2008 that “there is no systemic risk that we see in any African country in terms of banking.” [4]

This does not mean that Africa is immune to the effects of the crisis. It is in the medium and long term effects of the crisis on African economies will be realized. The slowdown in global growth linked to the crisis could drive millions of Africans in the line of poverty. This possibility was highlighted in the report of the IMF, World Economic Outlook April 2008, which stated that a fall in world growth of just one % could result in a decrease of 0.5 percentage points of gross domestic product of Africa. Already, the IMF predicts that growth in sub-Saharan Africa will be reduced from about 5.25 % in 2008 to about 3.25 % in 2009. [4]

The slowdown in global growth, together with a sharp drop in world industrial production, has reduced the demand for African exports, reflected especially in the downward spiral of prices and demand for commodity exports. This is alarming given the fact that exports of commodities represent the main source of export earnings of most African countries. Moreover, the fall in export earnings is likely to have negative repercussions in terms of reduced government revenues, thus. Worsening already precarious budgetary situation in many African countries.

Prices of commodities for sub-Saharan Africa

The global credit crunch following the crisis has also caused a huge reduction in the flow of private investment and bank financing, thereby reducing capital inflows and a restriction on the availability of trade finance. This is likely to be reflected in a substantial decrease in international financial flows to African countries, most prominently in the form of reduced foreign direct investment, portfolio flows and remittances from the Diaspora living in the developed world. Regarding the latter, a long-term reduction of remittances from Africans living abroad is likely to be particularly difficult to feel, as these funding streams currently contribute an estimated $ 10 billion annually across the continent .

The effects of reduced foreign investment in Africa to countries that are funding large current account deficits could be especially devastating. For example, South Africa depends to a large extent, at least in the short term, on private capital flows to finance its large current account deficit – equivalent to about 8 % of the country’s total GDP. The projected reduction in capital flows means that South Africa will be responsible for their substantial current account deficit. Other African countries operated relatively large current account deficits, such as Uganda and Tanzania are likely to be similarly affected. These problems may be compounded by the prospect of expanding the deficit caused by the crisis itself. In fact, the IMF has forecast the current account deficit of the entire sub-Saharan African region will expand by more than 4 % of GDP to reach 6.75 % of GDP in 2009.

Saharan Africa: the current versus pre-crisis growth forecasts, 2009

The projected decline in private capital flows can also have a long-term impact on investment in infrastructure projects in African states, many of whom may face funding shortfalls. Since many African capital markets are small, even the relatively limited withdrawal of foreign investment can have a significant potential impact.

Furthermore, African countries may face increased pressure for debt repayment as international institutions and Western banks, not only to strengthen their lending policies, but try to shore up its reserves. Along with this there is the possibility that the global financial crisis will result in a slowdown of foreign aid and development funding to African countries due to the global credit crunch.

Spanish version over here.

Related Posts: The impact of the global financial crisis on African development (Part 2)

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[1] South-South  trade  could  soften  impact  of financial crisis for vulnerable economies. UNCTAD.  2009.

[2] Impact of the crisis on African Economies. Sustaining growth and poverty reduction, African Perspectives and Recommendations to the G20, by The Committee of African Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. 21 March 2009

[3] World Bank to Help Mitigate Impact of Global Financial Crisis on Africa’s Development.  19 November 2008

[4] International Monetary Fund. 2009. What the Global Financial Crisis Means for Sub-Saharan Africa. Speech by Takatoshi Kato, Deputy Managing Director, IMF, 12th AU Summt, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 3 February 2009.

The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ in the spotlight

During a session of the UN General Assembly, held last July, Noam Chomsky presented an interesting paper [1] (which inspired this post) that calls for consideration on humanitarian intervention, so called since the second half of 20th century and now considered under the general concept of “Responsibility to Protect“, which was the focus of that meeting.

This meeting was attended by nearly a hundred countries. Their armed force units have a presence in countries as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Chad and Lebanon and keep observers in UN missions. None of them deploy overseas for wartime missions but essentially to “protect” life and interests of other peoples.

For the eminent linguist, historical precedents for such missions generate a few distrust. He mentions some of the basic principles on international relations, assumed over the centuries, which could be summarized as follows:

• The strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they deserve (principle already formulated by Thucydides).

• Legislators pay more attention to the interests of the powerful than to the common people (suggested by Adam Smith).

• Many military interventions have been made under the principle of protecting the people, but have been characterized by their cruelty. Chomsky brings up three examples: the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1936 and the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938. In all three cases, a bleeding rhetoric on the protection of the own people was invoked, that barely concealed the true motivation, that is a firm imperialist expansion.

Anyone acquainted with the history of colonization realizes that “evangelizing mission” of the Spanish conquerors in the American lands was intended to save the souls of the Indians although that involved the exploitation and exhaustion of people, the occupation of their homeland and embezzling their resources. Not worse than the French, British or Belgian “civilizing mission” with more often than not unmentionable objectives as well i.e. in Africa and India.

Another issue to bear in mind regarding the protection of peoples, is the reason that NATO wielded to fix on that Balkans should be protected, even bombing Serbia in 1999 with a total lack of consideration (remember, incidentally, that the bombing did not alleviate the plight of the Kosovar people but aggravated it) and, on the contrary, it was appropriate to ignore other people, Kurdish, that was suffering –within its own territory under the responsibility of NATO– a brutal persecution by Turkish forces, one of the main partners of the Alliance .

NATO “protective” interventions do not only care about the suffering peoples. Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General announced in 2007 that Allied troops should protect the pipelines transporting oil and gas to western countries and other infrastructure elements of the energy system. For Chomsky, this “opens the door to employ the right of protection as a tool of imperial intervention, as suitable.”

Neither the UN is safe from Chomsky’s criticism: “No one thinks today to protect the Gaza people, which are also a United Nations responsibility (according to the Geneva Conventions), together with other people who lack basic human rights. Nothing serious is considered about the worst catastrophe in Africa, if not the world: the eastern Congo, where several multinationals have been accused of violating UN resolutions on the illegal trafficking of valuable minerals, by which a criminal conflict is funded.

The responsibility to protect does not seem to reach hungry people. They now number about one billion human beings, while the World Food Fund announces a reduction in aid, because rich countries give priority to save their banking systems and there are no funds enough as a result of the crisis, just originated by those same banks. All this shows the validity of the principle formulated by Thucydides.

Let’s not get carried away by the lucid pessimism of the relentless American critic. Keep in mind that this issue has been addressed in an international forum, the UN General Assembly, whose echoes can be extended worldwide. Conversely, a century ago, the Algeciras conference was held to share out Morocco between France and Spain –with the approval of the great European powers. 20 years earlier, these powers gathered in Berlin to share other vast African territories. There was no intention to protect the affected people, though the Moroccan division was entitled as “protectorate”. So it seems we’re making some progress on this issue.

The Responsibility to Protect, Noam Chomsky and Friends part 1

The Responsibility to Protect, Noam Chomsky and Friends part 2

.

[1] ‘Responsibility to Protect‘, by Noam Chomsky (talk delivered at UN General Assembly), 23 Jul 2009

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Noam Chomsky on the Responsibility to Protect

At a session of UN General Assembly, held last July, Noam Chomsky presented an interesting paper that calls for consideration on humanitarian intervention, so called since the second half of 20th century and now considered under the general concept of “Responsibility to Protect”, which was the focus of that meeting.

This meeting was attended by nearly a hundred countries. Their armed forces units have a presence in countries as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Chad and Lebanon and maintain observers in UN missions. None of them deploy overseas for wartime missions but essentially to “protect” life and interests of other peoples.

For the eminent linguist, historical precedents for such missions generate a few distrust. He mentions some of the basic principles on international relations, assumed over the centuries, which could be summarized as follows:

• The strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they deserve (principle already formulated by Thucydides).

• Legislators pay more attention to the interests of the powerful than to the common people (suggested by Adam Smith).

• Many military interventions have been made under the principle of protecting the people, but have been characterized by their cruelty. Chomsky brings up three examples: the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1936 and the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938. In all three cases, a bleeding rhetoric on the protection of the own people was invoked, that barely concealed the true motivation, that is a firm imperialist expansion.

Anyone acquainted with the history of colonization realizes that “evangelizing mission” of the Spanish conquerors in the American lands was intended to save the souls of the Indians although that involved the exploitation and exhaustion of people, the occupation of their homeland and embezzling their resources. Not worse than the French, British or Belgian “civilizing mission” with more often than not unmentionable objectives as well i.e. in Africa and India.

Another issue to bear in mind regarding the protection of peoples, is the reason that NATO wielded to fix on that Balkans should be protected, even bombing Serbia in 1999 with a total lack of consideration (remember, incidentally, that the bombing did not alleviate the plight of the Kosovar people but aggravated it) and, on the contrary, it was appropriate to ignore other people, Kurdish, that was suffering –within its own territory under the responsibility of NATO– a brutal persecution by Turkish forces, one of the main partners of the Alliance .

NATO “protective” interventions do not only care about the suffering peoples. Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General announced in 2007 that Allied troops should protect the pipelines transporting oil and gas to western countries and other infrastructure elements of the energy system. For Chomsky, this “opens the door to employ the right of protection as a tool of imperial intervention, as suitable.”

Neither the UN is safe from Chomsky’s criticism: “No one thinks today to protect the Gaza people, which are also a United Nations responsibility (according to the Geneva Conventions), together with other people who lack basic human rights. Nothing serious is considered about the worst catastrophe in Africa, if not the world: the eastern Congo, where several multinationals have been accused of violating UN resolutions on the illegal trafficking of valuable minerals, by which a criminal conflict is funded.

The responsibility to protect does not seem to reach hungry people. They now number about one billion human beings, while the World Food Fund announces a reduction in aid, because rich countries give priority to save their banking systems and there are no funds enough as a result of the crisis, just originated by those same banks. All this shows the validity of the principle formulated by Thucydides.

Let’s not get carried away by the lucid pessimism of the relentless American critic. Keep in mind that this issue has been addressed in an international forum, the UN General Assembly, whose echoes can be extended worldwide. Conversely, a century ago, the Algeciras conference was held to share out Morocco between France and Spain –with the approval of the great European powers. 20 years earlier, these powers gathered in Berlin to share other vast African territories. There was no intention to protect the affected people, though the Moroccan division was entitled as “protectorate”. So it seems we’re making some progress on this issue.

The Spanish Law of Universal Jurisdiction, now in Brackets?

The Spanish National Criminal Court (Audiencia Nacional), open to individuals supported by combative magistrates such as Pinochet’s antagonist, judge Baltasar Garzón, has ostensibly become a breeding ground for politically-charged prosecutions having little or no connection to Spain. Investigations have been initiated against renowned American officials including Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice related to the torture of terrorism suspects. Seven Israeli politicians and military officers, with former defense minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, are the subject of an explorative investigation because of a July 2002 Gaza Strip air strike that resulted in fourteen civilian deaths. Chinese officials are being investigated for abuses in Tibet and forty Rwandan army officers have been indicted in connection with alleged post-genocide reprisal massacres. Detractors allege that activists going for political purposes and settling scores have took control on Spanish UJ. The Spanish government gives the impression to acquiesce and has been opposed to these extensive global justice efforts. In fact, Spanish public prosecutor’s office has explicitly disputed the UJ power of the Audiencia Nacional. In addition, since the exciting days of Pinochet, only one defendant has been tried and sentenced under the Spanish UJ law (Argentine naval captain Adolfo Scilingo, who turned himself in to Garzón in 1997 and was condemned at last to 640 years in jail for “Dirty War” crimes during the Argentina’s military dictatorship).

Henri Cartier-Bresson · Gestapo Informer (1945)

So what happened? Now the Spanish justice system can intervene only when there are Spanish victims or when the alleged responsible will be on Spanish soil if the country concerned cannot or will not prosecute alleged perpetrators. For Gonzalo Boyé, of the Madrid Bar, working with the Palestinian Center of Human Rights, the NGO that filed a complaint before the Spanish courts for the bombing of Gaza in 2002, in restricting this law it means that the Justice is not the same for everyone.

“Until now, no one in Spain had put back the law in doubt, as it was to pursue criminal Latin Americans or Africans. The problem arose when we had cases involving Israel and China. This means that the government is applying the “double standards”. On the one hand, it deals with crimes against humanity and war crimes or torture, when committed by Africans or South Americans. The other one has a very different situation, where such crimes are committed by countries that are very important in the eyes of the government.” [1]

The political and diplomatic pressures overcame the justice. Foreign leaders abroad have put forth demands on Spain to restraint the Audiencia Nacional jurisdiction and it appears that Madrid, willing to remain a player on the international stage, is ready to do the right thing. This is a deliberate political pressure. We must not forget that on 29 January 2009, the Foreign Minister of Israel, Tzipi Livni, said the Spanish foreign minister, Miguel-Angel Moratinos, had ensured her that the law would be changed and five months later, this legislative change had taken place. We should not be very brilliant to understand that Spain has changed its law to meet Israel demand . Yet conversely, Israel maintains its own law of UJ, which means that while in Spain a war crime is committed, Israel might try it. Why Spain could not judge a war crime committed in Gaza?

Poster by the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo NGO with photos of the disappeared

In 2003 Belgium had to restrict the scope of its own law of UJ, under pressure from Israel and the United States, but the Belgian law was much broader than in Spain, according to lawyer Patrick Baudoin, President Honorary FIDH:

“The Belgian courts were an absolute UJ, as nowhere else. Ie, that a Belgian court could try an Argentine criminal for crimes committed in Peru against nationals of the United States without anyone found on Belgian territory, neither the victims nor the alleged perpetrators. Therefore, it had gone too far [...]. This is not the case of Spain. Here the Spanish judge must ensure that in the country there is no justice who “passes” in a way. In addition, it only then the court can go further because there is no reason for this impunity to prevail. “[1]

The principle of UJ provided in the four Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture, allows any country to initiate, as recalled Reed Brody, European press director at Human Rights Watch:

“There are many European countries that have this in common, that if a victim of their nationality or whether the alleged charge is found on their territory, the country in question is competent. Where Spain had a head start, now we can do nothing unless the person is coming to Spain. However, [...] nobody is in Spain or another country for a very short period, because it does not give the time needed to start proceedings and seek a warrant.”

The Spanish lawyer Gonzalo Boyé must lay an extension to the former complaint on Gaza in 2002 to events earlier and later. It would include the bombing in Gaza in 2008, which made victims of Spanish nationality. A rebound occurred on June 30: The Spanish judiciary has decided to shelve the investigation into the complaint on the bombing of Gaza in 2002. A resolution that does not worry Mr. Boyé. The complainants have submitted an appeal to the Spanish Supreme Court. As to the law of UJ, the Senate will consider it in September 2009.

Related Posts:
· The United States and the UN Human Rights Council
· Garzon, an ‘inconvenient’ judge, now sitting in the dock

____________________

[1] Véronique Gaymard, RFI – Chronique des droits de l’homme, Paris 4 july 2009

The Burmese Junta Steps Back from Aung San Suu Kyi’s Unconditional Release

Myanmar: Appeal to stop the repression

The Nobel Peace Laureate was sentenced today to three years hard labor after the trial for breaking her house arrest. She has been confined immediately to her residence in Rangoon for a year and a half, according to judicial sources.

The authorities allowed the attendance to diplomats at the hearing, held in a wing of Insein prison complex in which Suu Kyi is detained since last May 14. On the occasion of the hearing, about two thousand troops of the security forces were deployed around the perimeter of the prison and at the entrances to the neighborhood of Insein.

The verdict, which in principle should have been delivered on July 31, was postponed until August 11 by the special court because additional time was needed to study the legal arguments connected through a referendum.

Without due process.
The trial was dominated by the secretiveness of the military regime itself, the continuing delays and obstacle course that judges demured to lawyers who defended the opposition leader.

Suu Kyi, 64, -she brings 13 of last 19 under house arrest- was charged with violating the terms of the house arrest when she sheltered two nights Yettaw, an American citizen, who is now tried for violating the rules of public safety. Yettaw, 54, who suffers from diabetes, was discharged last night by medical doctors at the Rangoon General Hospital, where he was admitted a week ago to receive care from attacks of epilepsy he has been suffering for years.

Human rights activists warned before the trial starts that a guilty verdict was inevitable in a country where more than 2,000 political prisoners are behind bars and where the court usually gives in to the generals.

The military junta governs Burma with an iron fist since 1962. The dictatorship chaired by general Than Shwe rejected early May the request made by the National League for Democracy (NLD), Suu Kyi party, for the release of their leader by her deteriorating health status. The Nobel Peace Prize party won the general elections in 1990 by an overwhelming majority, although the results have never been recognized by the generals.

EU announces more sanctions against Myanmar regime. China, Japan, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should work for the immediate and unconditional release of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Burma’s rulers should set her free, and start learning from her example.

Related Posts:

· A Shout to Nothing
· Aung San Suu Kyi lawyers seek emergency UN action

Troubled Waters in the World of Human Rights Watch

 

Some like fishing in troubled waters.

It appears that Ms. Sarah Leah Whitson is the deputy director of Women’s Rights division at Human Rights Watch (as indicated in the English version of the HRW site) and the NGO responsible for the Middle East (as specified in the HRW web site in Spanish). Several journalists have reported a supposed lack of ethics by Sarah Leah Whitson during her fund-rising trip to Saudi Arabia last May. Action that these media use to cheerfully extrapolate to the HRW’s overall activity…

It is curious that, once again, these unconstructive criticisms have just come in recent dates from quite conservative forums as The Wall Street Journal or the Barcelona based La Vanguardia. It is less surprising on other media less conservative but much more implicated such as The Jerusalem Post.

What about the circumstances to keep equity.
On the one hand it is really shocking that an online support clearly linked to the Wahhabi monarchy as Arab News reflects a fund-raising dinner where HRW Global Action in the Middle East is celebrated. I quote it literally:

Human Rights Watch is gaining more recognition and support in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world. During their recent visit to the Kingdom, senior members of the organization were given a welcoming dinner in Riyadh hosted by prominent businessman and intellectual Emad bin Jameel Al-Hejailan [...] Other prominent members of Saudi society, human rights activists and dignitaries were invited to the dinner held to honor the guests.

Could anybody imagine the hilarious scene of an enjoyable party kindly assorted of “prominent members of Saudi society” and human rights activists where the latter receive the HR patent of nobility from the satraps?

It seems that when the NGO Monitor learned about this story at the end of May, they immediately contacted Ms. Whitson or other HRW officials looking for any comments or corrections on the fundraising event:

Neither responded. In any event, Ms. Whitson’s protests to the contrary hold little weight: The Arab News report makes clear that Whitson was seeking donations from the Saudi elite on the basis of HRW’s anti-Israel bonafides rather than on its work challenging the Saudi regime. However, if Ms. Whitson has documentary evidence that this is not the case (unlike HRW’s other reporting on the Middle East), then she should presente it.

It is disappointing that some journalists get on well with the biased Bernstein’s [1] opinions or the much caricatured views of NGO Monitor just quoting words as if they were facts. For the reason that it is certainly easier to a conservative newspaper such as the WSJ,  the ONG Monitor or La Vanguardia, to exploit the misfortune of the HRW’s naive action (otherwise much more independent than some other of higher reputation) instead of coming across more reliable sources. Someone has forgotten contrasting views here. HRW’s action is reprehensible indeed, but it is useless to generalize and cover of opprobrium an NGO whose work is praised by many. Bernstein’s opinion is rather ideological than factual: so it deserves to be compared at least to other points of view, also disagreeing with that organization but more self-controlled, moderate and responsible than the WSJ journalist’s.

The umpteenth David Bernstein’s caricature of Human Rights Watch points this time to a HRW official that had the temerity to criticize Israel in Saudi Arabia during a fundraising dinner:

A delegation from Human Rights Watch was recently in Saudi Arabia. To investigate the mistreatment of women under Saudi Law? To campaign for the rights of homosexuals, subject to the death penalty in Saudi Arabia? To protest the lack of religious freedom in the Saudi Kingdom? To issue a report on Saudi political prisoners?

No, no, no, and no. The delegation arrived to raise money from wealthy Saudis by highlighting HRW’s demonization of Israel. An HRW spokesperson, Sarah Leah Whitson, highlighted HRW’s battles with “pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations.” (Was Ms. Whitson required to wear a burkha, or are exceptions made for visiting anti-Israel “human rights” activists”? Driving a car, no doubt, was out of the question.)

Apparently, Ms. Whitson found no time to criticize Saudi Arabia’s abysmal human rights record. But never fear, HRW “recently called on the Kingdom to do more to protect the human rights of domestic workers.”

In the past, Bernstein has formerly portrayed HRW as “almost cartoonishly biased against Israel.”  The only thing cartoonish, however, is Bernstein’s barefaced distortion of Whitson’s work.  Have a look of her recent comments on Saudi Arabia, which take no more than 30 seconds to find on HRW’s website:

• Criticized Saudi Arabia’s failure to protect rights, including “giving women better access to work, education, health and justice, and easing restrictions on their travel.”

• Urged governments to criticize the lack of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia.

• Criticized Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty for non-serious crimes.

• Demanded that Saudi Arabia release political prisoners.

• Criticized Saudi Arabia for imposing draconian discipline against a lawyer who attempted to represent a rape victim.

• Asked Saudi courts to stop trials for “insulting” Islam.

One cannot assume what Bernstein says in his article is factual. Journalist Pilar Rahola in La Vanguardia, just do it. Echoing the aforementioned article, she sarcastically attacks Sarah Leah Whitson for not criticizing Saudi Arabia for X, Y, and Z during an event, an attack obviously intended to make her seem soft on the Saudis, without mentioning that Whitson has repeatedly criticized Saudi Arabia for X, Y, and Z in the recent past. Arguments spot in situ and ad hominen with a critical eye, not from the easy distance of a fashionable journalist’s office. Here is one of her most interesting releases:

• http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/07/08/saudi-arabia-women-s-rights-promises-broken for the English version.

• http://www.hrw.org/es/news/2009/06/12/onu-promete-arabia-saudita-terminar-con-el-control-de-los-hombres-sobre-las-mujeres for the Spanish version.

Some should note for future reference and occasions instead of playing into the hands of propaganda. And Mrs Whitson should clarify the objectives, circumstances and results of the Riyadh meeting in order to enlight her integrity but most of all,  HRW’s trustworthiness (HRW enlightening here.)

Incidentally, the photo above is from the very same HRW awareness campaign  -both in Israel and Lebanon-  for rights of domestic workers entitled Put Yourself in Her Shoe .  Isn’t brilliant ?

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[1] Not to be confused with Robert L. Bernstein, founder and former chair of Human Rights Watch !

The Political Importance of the Power of Images to Reveal Government Abuse

One of the places where the Iranian uprising against falsified election was given a narrow coverage was China. An attempt was made indeed in PRC to block online images of demonstrations meanwhile official media tried to ignore the clamor.

The reason was clear enough: any mass protest and its brutal suppression raises uncomfortable memories of Tian’anmen Square on the 20th anniversary of China’s nasty crackdown of student movement.
Now China faces itself violent troubles in its Xinjiang western region as Muslim Uighurs confront Han Chinese in what seems to be the worst nation’s ethnic conflict in years. As in Iran, the authorities are trying to repress the protest movement through a combination of technology and force: cutting off cell phone service, blocking the Net, shooting people and sending the riot police.
The Chinese unrest poses an interesting dilemma. What is Iran? An Islamic republic, whose leader aspires to lead the Muslim world, to make of Muslims rising up in an authoritarian state? Islamic commitment requires solidarity with the Uighurs, while repressive solidarity requires pledge with Chinese security forces. The answer in the current Iranian climate has been predictable enough: almost no mention in the official media of the Chinese riots –and no mention that one party is Muslim.

These are both authoritarian states that have generally stopped short of totalitarian control, adapting to the 21st century by limiting freedom and deploying repression where it is critical to the maintenance of the system, but allowing some measure of liberty –to travel, trade, speak out– where it is considered harmless. Call them the new “Red Line” states. Live your lives and make money, they say, but never cross the red lines, which include organizing against the system and denouncing the leadership in place.
These methods have seemed effective but became unsuccessful in recent weeks. The Iranian regime, surprised by a last minute wave of support to the opposition leader, Mir Hussein Mussavi, opted in mid June for a brutal crackdown in defense of an electoral lie. The shift from control to savage repression was abrupt and devastating, pushing many young Iranians from reluctant consent to .total opposition.

Despite this, many young Iranians have borne witness –with mobile video images and photos, through twitter and other shapes of social networking–  and have thus amassed a permanent global act of indictment against the usurpers of mid June 2009. the Neda effect –the image of eyes blanking, life abating and blood blotching across the face of young student Neda– will undermine the regime over time.
China makes no electoral simulation in its one-party system, but it too, has been temporarily undone by the power of word and image spreading across the Internet. The current unrest in the Xinjiang western desert region has its origins in an incident thousands of kilometers away in southern Guangdong province, where a Uighur dormitory was attacked in June by Han Chinese and at least two people were killed.
Photographs appeared online. The government tried and failed to delete them. Calls for protest spread through web sites and instant messaging. Again, the government attempted to block online discussion of the incident. But Uighur rage had gone viral.

By the official count 183 people have now been killed in the protests. As in Iran, images of police officers, confronting weeping women burgeon, carrying emotional charge all through the country and across the world.
Both Iran and PRC have tried to blame people outside the country for the turmoil. They have identified foreign agents they assert are orchestrating troubles. They should look closer to home.

Repression, injustice and brutality have encountered a force hard to control: the empowerment of people through technology. Communication feeds a hunger for freedom that may in the end be stronger than any red line.

In China Uighurs Fight for Freedom. Other People Too.

Uighur riots sparked by fears that separatist dream is dying.
Riots of July 5, between Uighurs and Han in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang in northwestern China, are the most serious in decades. In this region of 20 million people, where the main community is Muslim and Turkish-speaking, the causes of violence are deep …

One of the later news that has convulsed the world last week  -though not as much as the death of Michael Jackson-  has been the strong police repression in Chinese Xinjiang (known as Chinese Turkestan), where several Uighur riots took place. Actually treatment given to them by Chinese authorities in their own homeland as well as in the rest of China, where they often migrate for job purposes is clearly discriminating.

This situation must be put in context. 55 minorities coexist in China and they represent approximately 110 million (2005), on a total of 1.315 million citizens of the People’s Republic. Han are the ethnic majority, equivalent to 91 percent.

Among these 55 ethnic minorities, Uighurs are the largest both demographic and territorial. There are about ten million native Uighurs, 5.5 Tibetans, and 6 million Mongolians. With the particularity that these three ethnic groups represent about 50 percent of the territory of China, and with a low population density, the vast reserves of oil, gas, coal, and large quantities of other raw materials.

Among the 55 ethnic minorities, the Hui and Manchu use to write Chinese characters, while the remaining 53 have their own writings. Since 1950, the Government of Beijing has organized a panel of experts to ‘help’ the creation and improvement of written expression.

In political life, the use of spoken languages is theoretically guaranteed, and when important official meetings take place too. Simultaneous interpretation of the seven major languages are supposedly provided; state laws and transcendent official documents should also be published in these seven languages.

(15 July update)

Meanwhile…

Uighurs who dare to protest the discrimination and abuse are arrested. The protests are brutally suppressed. In Yining in 1997, Chinese police forces responded violently to street riots causing many deaths. After 9/11 attacks persecution intensified. Some Uighur leaders were accused of having links with Al Qaeda and were imprisoned. Repression against any Uighur group suspected of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism is relentless, systematic and ongoing.

All this is happening for decades. What did say politicians or religious leaders from the Islamic world? Not much.

Recently, the Turkish government has shown its concern over the situation in Xinjiang, but without increasing the decibels too much. Better not. This is the reaction of an official Chinese newspaper: “The support of Turkey to the Uighur separatists and terrorists can only cause indignation in China. If [Turkey] does not want to ruin the relationship between our two peoples they should stop supporting these separatist mobs. They must stop being an axis of evil “.

·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·   ·

Three themes outlined below have played important roles in the modernization of the unity of the People’s Republic :

1) A geographical factor. The Pacific Ocean is the East border of the People’s Republic, the desert is at north, while the limits to the west and south are high mountain ranges. In such circumstances, the regional economies tend to converge among themselves.

2) A long history of unification. China is a unified country for almost three millennia, when the Qin dynasty. And in the last 800 years, in contrast to the European trend where the ancient great empires divided into nations, China showed a trend towards consolidation, stronger than ever, over the last Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Be noted that the Yuan and Qing dynasties were established by the Mongols and Manchus, respectively, two outsider peoples that strongly promoted, however, the unification of China.

3) The Han core stability. Their ancestors were called Han Hua, peripherals and other peoples were known as Yi. Hua meant men civilized country’s central and Yi wild men of the periphery. An idea that lasted from generation to generation, making strong distinctions between Hua and Yi, where Hua were not an ethnic affiliation, but cultural. So, Hua population grew to become the largest and core binder compared to Yi. And since the Han dynasty (202 a. C./220 AD), peripheral peoples have called Han those who were living in the central country, abandoning the former used Hua. For over two millennia, the Han have continued to absorb the peripheral outlying populations to reach a rate of 91 per cent of the total population of China today.

In the three most important territorial nationalities mentioned above, there are more or less broad trends towards greater autonomy or even independence. In the case of the Mongols, these features are less intense for their long history of relationship with the Chinese themselves, to the point where there was a powerful Mongol dynasty.

Tibetans, as we know well, have a strong personality, currently represented overseas through the Dalai Lama. And although the progress of Tibet is clear, and the Han are still a minority, demonstrations during the past year there have shown that Tibetans look to keep their ancestral culture on their own standing without impositions from outside.

The Uighurs are less known in the rest of the world than the Mongols or Tibetans. They are far more different than other Chinese citizens for their religious Muslim. Furthermore, the treatment they have received raises many doubts about the supposed equality of every citizen under the Chinese law. Therefore, the outbreak of violence in Xinjiang should help the authorities in Beijing to refrain from punish Uighurs but rather to study the problems in view of satisfaying a mutual cooperation. Additionally, China is an hyper power now and cannot afford to go shooting their own people, creating a feeling of malaise that could turn against the Government of Beijing itself, despite their good intentions and actions in many international areas. It goes without saying that if many peripheral populations of the People’s Republic want more freedom, they are not alone. There are many millions of Han who fight for democracy too…

Software to Help Dissidents

China, Myannmar, Iran: surfing in these countries can be dangerous for political opponents. Psiphon software, developed by a Canadian university, can evade the censors of the Internet in non-democratic countries.

This is a recurrent question of Internet users in China: how to circumvent the Great Firewall , the censorship on the Net erected by the Chinese authorities. They may now acquire Psiphon. This software allowing to evade the Net censors, was developed by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto in association with the Universities of  Cambridge and Oxford, and Harvard University.

Ron Deibert, creator of the system, decrypts how it works:

“The only way to bypass filters is to connect to a computer in a democratic country, then make a request via this computer, which then sends you back the information”.

Clearly speaking, the user in the censored country does not install any program on his PC. The citizens of democracies are the ones who download the software, thus becoming a node connection. Then they quietly pass the necessary information (IP address, username and password) to their correspondents in the countries monitored. They can access an encrypted line, reflecting their messages as vulgar trade, banking or shopping on eBay. Provided always that the volume of on line exchanges are important enough for the user under surveillance to blend easily into the flow of commercial transactions. In other words, as stated Ron Deibert, “if you are a dissident known and there is little exchange on the network, as in Uzbekistan or Myannmar, you’d better not to use it at all.”

Ron Deibert has recently created the company Psiphon Inc., to expand the scope of the project.  “Upon release of the software, we had great media coverage, with CNN, al Jazeera, BBC, and we were bombarded with emails from countries censored saying” please, I do not know anyone in West, connect me to a node “…” says the director of Citizen Lab.

Thus, Psiphon Inc. will install nodes for powerful users (associations, human rights organizations) that can provide service to residents of non-democratic regions. But install and operate thousands of nodes is expensive.  Therefore Psiphon Inc. will market its service to the media and large companies seeking to assist financially this citizen project.

Tables Turned: Former ICTY Spokeswoman now before The Hague Court

Florence Hartmann, former spokeswoman for the UN’s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal stand trial before her former employer. Carla del Ponte’s former spokeswoman is charged with revealing confidential information over the trial of late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

The French journalist, stands accused of contempt before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Hartmann did not wish to state her plea in court, so judge Carmel Agius entered on her behalf that she pleaded “not guilty” in November 2008.

“Silencing the truth”
Hartmann has publicly accused the UN war crimes tribunal of “trying to silence the truth”. Hartmann could face a seven years prison sentence or a 100,000 euro fine if found guilty. The ICTY alleges that she disclosed confidential information in September 2007 in her book “Peace and Punishment”, as well as in the article “Vital Genocide Documents Concealed”, which was published by the Bosnian Institute in January 2008.

Shady bargain
Hartmann covered the 1990s Balkan wars for Le Monde. In her publications Hartmann wrote that the Hague prosecution was allegedly unhappy with the tribunal’s decision to accept Serbia’s request to have some portions of the state archive documents considered in closed sessions. The judges in the Milosevic case allowed Serbia to censor parts of evidence that was made public. She believes that it was precisely those pieces of evidence that were key in determining Serbia’s responsibility for the genocide in Bosnia. Hartmann argues that it was thanks to the Tribunal’s collusion with Serbia in the suppression of this crucial piece of evidence, that Bosnia was not able to draw upon the latter in its case against Serbia for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), leading to Serbia’s acquittal.
Far from punishing the perpetrators of genocide in the former Yugoslavia, the Tribunal has helped to shield them, Hartmann says. She accused judges of the Appeals Chamber, headed by former Tribunal President Fausto Pocar, of being “accomplices in manipulation organized by the authorities in Belgrade, so that the International Court of Justice, which heard the Bosnian genocide lawsuit, would be made to make the same mistakes the Hague Tribunal made”.

The tribunal says that she “knew that the information was confidential at the time disclosure was made, that the decisions from which the information was drawn were ordered to be filed confidentially, and that by her disclosure she was revealing confidential information to the public.”

In the meantime, The Hague Tribunal determined that the former spokesperson’s financial situation disabled her to finance her defence, thus the court would bare all the expenses…

Is this an intentional mistake or the ICTY judges are loosing their north?

May I be polite if I feel revolted by this incomprehensible proceeding? Should one says that it does not sound good, nor even worse, but really inacceptable. The judges in this case must decide which law is more important: the right of victims to access information that has allowed Srebrenica happen, and the right of the ICTY judges to hide this information to victims through a “private” decision? What is the purpose of the international justice if we place in the same indicted dock Florence Hartmann and Radovan Karadzic, even if the charges are different?

If you asked the Czar or Russia right before the bolshevik revolution if he thought people were ready to become a republic he would probably have said NO

If you asked Louis XVI from France, right before his head bounced into the bucket below the guillotine if people were ready to be free he would have probably said NO.

If you ask the ICTY judges if they are ready to risk a lot making a fool of themselves -awfully…. well, they would probably say NO

You can follow the proceedings in Hartmann’s case here.

Bongo Kicks the Bucket: Calm, Luxury and Consternation

President Omar Bongo of Gabon died  on Monday in a  a hospital in Barcelona, Spain, where he was reportedly being treated for cancer. He was 73.

The man was endowed with a prodigious memory, a real political intelligence and cynicism enough to ensure him the necessary longevity to become a true dictator. He has hold forty-one years.

With Bongo, Gabon turned into a strategic oil emirate for France and a stalwart heavyweight pillar of the “Franceafrique“. So, when crude prices quadrupled in 1973, Omar Bongo converted to both Islam and finance.
Money flowed like water. He had therefore the intelligence to protect the money of unhealthy lusts  by diversifying his investments. That is, putting the money aside, I mean at HIS side.

In 1975, he founded three banks:
* The Bank of Gabon and Luxembourg (BGL) in Libreville
* The International Bank (Siba) in Luxembourg
* The French Intercontinental Bank (Fiba) in Paris, the largest one.

The latter will be THE Bongo’s bank and will be chaired by one of his trusted men, Pierre Houdray, until 2000.

Let us continue…

The Head of State had a personal account and a sub-account in which his stepfather, Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso, had a proxy. Those accounts were fueled by (partly public) ELF French oil company by at least $40 million per year. FIBA served as a nest egg to the clan of Libreville: family, relatives, counselors and so.

This opulence is reflected in the Bongo’s real estate assets. For several years, NGOs Sherpa and Transparency International lead a court battle against the money diversion by African heads of state.They had inventoried these dictators’ “ill-gotten gains”, including their real estate in Ile-de-France (Paris region). The President of Gabon and his family figure prominently.

But the Fiba is also the tank which Omar Bongo draws from to “help” his french political friends. The ritual is immutable: when he stops in Paris, at the  Hotel Meurice, it is compulsoty to seek an audience and get the approval from the boss. A phone call to Pierre Houdray and the case is resolved.

Afterwards, one just need to report to headquarters, (avenue Georges-V in Paris) to take delivery of the grant, in cash. Bongo has actively supported Gircard d’Estaign and Jacques Chirac in the 70s, but François Mitterrand’s election in 1981, as well.

According to the men of Elf, including Andre Tarallo, the “Mr. Africa” of ELF Group, all political parties have benefited from this assistance (you know… France & Gabon, brothers in arms), with the exception of the far right National Front.

During the 90s, the proliferation of laws on the financing of political life, the system becomes more complex. More opaque too, using the resources of many tax havens (Liechtenstein, the Caribbean, Bank of New York …) which earned him the wrath of money laundering committee  from the US Congress.

The engineers of power will also be advised to take care of the ethnic balance within the country. For the time being, his family, including his children Ali and Pascaline (candidates for the succession), stand ready to defend the heritage (there’s a big money involved), even at the cost of a war of succession.

Concerns, as in old families plenty of secrets, are left to heirs. Hence, Pascaline’s Missi Dominici would be better-advised to turn into philosophers. (Ali, Pascaline, you must also be aware of the harassment and intimidation that threaten those Gabonese who dare to oppose the corrupt practices encountered there. You know of course that the massive misappropriations of state revenues contribute towards impoverishing the citizens of Gabon and prevent the emergence of normal democratic institutions.)

And Mr Sarkozy would also be well advised not to forget that “the worries of Gabon are also those of France.” Same old stuff…