By Anuradha Mittal
OAKLAND, California, Jan 25 2016 (IPS)

With the African Union celebrating the African Year of Human Rights at its 26th summit, at its headquarters in Addis, Ethiopia, the venue raises serious concerns about commitment to human rights.

Anuradha Mittal

Ethiopia’s so called economic development policies have not only ignored but enabled and exacerbated civil and human rights abuses in the country. Case and point is the ongoing land grabbing affecting several regions of the country. Under the controversial “villagization” program, the Ethiopian government is forcibly relocating over 1.5 million people to make land available to investors for so called economic growth. Since last November, the country’s ruling party, EPRDF’s, “Master Plan” to expand the capital Addis has been the flashpoint for protests in Oromia which will impact some 2 million people. At least 140 protestors have been killed by security forces while many more have been injured and arrested, including political leaders like Bekele Gerba, Deputy Chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress, Oromia’s largest legally registered political party. Arrested on December 23, 2015, his whereabouts remain unknown.

Political marginalization, arbitrary arrests, beatings, murders, intimidation, and rapes mark the experience of communities around Ethiopia defending their land rights. This violence in the name of delivering economic growth is built on the 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, which has allowed the Ethiopian government secure complete hegemonic authority by suppressing any form of dissent.

A new report, Ethiopia’s Anti-Terrorism Law: A Tool to Stifle Dissent, by the Oakland Institute and the Environmental Defender Law Center, authored by lawyers including representatives from leading international law firms, unravels the 2009 Proclamation. It confirms that the law is designed and used by the Ethiopian Government as a tool of repression to silence its critics. It criminalizes basic human rights, like the freedom of speech and assembly. Its definition of “terrorist act,” does not conform with international standards given the law defines terrorism in an extremely broad and vague way, providing the ruling party with an iron fist to punish words and acts that would be legal in a democracy.

The law’s staggering breadth and vagueness, makes it impossible for citizens to know or even predict what conduct may violate the law, subjecting them to grave criminal sanctions. This has resulted in a systematic withdrawal of free speech in the country as newspaper journalists and editors, indigenous leaders, land rights activists, bloggers, political opposition members, and students are charged as terrorists. In 2010, journalists and governmental critics were arrested and tortured in the lead-up to the national election. In 2014, six privately owned publications closed after government harassment; at least 22 journalists, bloggers, and publishers were criminally charged; and more than 30 journalists fled the country in fear of being arrested under repressive laws.

The law also gives the police and security services unprecedented new powers and shifts the burden of proof to the accused. Ethiopia has abducted individuals from foreign countries including the British national Andy Tsege and the Norwegian national, Okello Akway Ochalla, and brought them to Ethiopia to face charges of violating the anti-terrorism law. Such abductions violate the terms of extradition treaties between Ethiopia and other countries; violate the territorial sovereignty of the other countries; and violate the fundamental human rights of those charged under the law. Worse still, many of those charged report having been beaten or tortured, as in the case of Mr. Okello. The main evidence courts have against such individuals are their so-called confessions.

Some individuals charged under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law are being prosecuted for conduct that occurred before that law entered into force. These prosecutions violate the principles of legality and non-retroactivity, which Ethiopia is bound to uphold both under international law as well as the Charter 22 of its own constitution.

A few other key examples of those charged under the law, include the 9 bloggers; Pastor Omot Agwa, former translator for the World Bank Inspection Panel; and journalists Reeyot Alemu and Eskinder Nega; and hundreds more, all arrested under the Anti-Terrorism law.

It has been a fallacious tradition in development thought to equate economic underdevelopment with repressive forms of governance and economic modernity with democratic rule. Yet Ethiopia forces us to confront that its widely celebrated economic renaissance by its Western allies and donor countries is dependent on violent autocratic governance. The case of Ethiopia should compel the US and the UK to question their own complicity in supporting the Ethiopian regime, the west’s key ally in Africa.

Given the compelling analysis provided by the report, it is imperative that the international community demands that until such time as Ethiopian government revises its anti-terrorism law to bring it into conformity with international standards, it repeals the use of this repressive piece of legislation.

Case and point is the controversial resettlement program under which the Ethiopian government seeks to relocate 1.5 million people as part of an economic development plan. Research by groups including the Oakland Institute, International Rivers Network, Human Rights Watch, and Inclusive Development International, among others, as well as journalists.

Perhaps there is hesitation to confront this because it would implicate the global flows of development assistance that make possible rule by the EPRDF. Receiving a yearly average of 3.5 billion dollars in development aid, Ethiopia tops lists of development aid recipients of USAID, DfID, and the World Bank. Staggeringly, international assistance represents 50 to 60 per cent of the Ethiopian national budget. Evidently, foreign assistance is indispensible to the national governance. At the face of this dependency, the Ethiopian government exercises repressive hegemony over Ethiopian political and civil expression.

It is the responsibility of international donors to account for the political effects of development assistance with thorough and consistent investigations and substantive demand for political reform and democratic practices as a condition for sustained international aid. This will inevitably mean a new type of Ethiopian renaissance, one that seeks the simultaneous establishment of democratic governance and improving economic conditions.

(End)

Excerpt:

Climate change is melting the Arctic’s ice, and will be on the agenda of the one-day GLACIER summit in Alaska on Aug. 31. Photo credit: Patrick Kelley/CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

By Leehi Yona
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Aug 30 2015 (IPS)

A one-day summit taking place here on Aug. 31 hopes to bring Arctic nations together in support of climate action against a backdrop of criticism of offshore oil drilling in the region.

The meeting on ‘Global Leadership in the Arctic – Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement, and Resilience (GLACIER)’, is being organised by the U.S. State Department and will be attended by dignitaries from 20 countries, including the eight Arctic nations – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and United States. U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are scheduled to address the conference.

The conference comes at a time of significant changes to the ever-shifting Arctic: this year’s forest fires in Alaska reached record highs, blazing so rapidly that many were left unmanaged. Last week, thousands of walruses hauled up on Alaskan shores as the ice they depend on as habitat disappeared.“Arctic drilling is a violation of the human rights of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. Obama and Shell are bypassing many laws designed to protect our coast and our communities” – Carl Wassilie, a Yu’pik activist with ShellNo Alaska

“The evidence for climate change in the Arctic is visible from space as we observed declining sea ice and melting glaciers, and in the lived lives of Arctic residents who see coastlines eroding from sea level rise and reduced access to traditional foods from the land and sea,” said Ross Virginia, Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College and co-lead scholar of the Fulbright Arctic Initiative.

“These changes will be more evident to the rest of us,” he added. “The challenge is to learn from the Arctic and to work with the Arctic to adapt and prevent further climate change.”

The GLACIER summit is also taking place at a time of great public focus on the issue of climate change. Critiques of Arctic drilling, as well as the upcoming United Nations climate change negotiations in December in Paris, have helped bring global warming to the political forefront.

“In visiting the U.S. Arctic, President Obama is clearly demonstrating that the United States is an Arctic nation with a stake in the region’s future,” said Margaret Williams, Managing Director of U.S. Arctic Programs at the World Wildlife Fund. “This trip provides the President with the perfect opportunity to define his vision of how all nations should work in unison to manage and conserve our shared Arctic resources.”

The conference has drawn the attention of environmental and indigenous groups, which both praise the conference’s potential for ambitious leadership but also criticise Obama’s reputation as a climate leader in the face of allowing offshore oil drilling in the Arctic.

Numerous protests and acts of non-violent civil disobedience in recent months have attempted to block oil company Shell from drilling; the company is currently active off the Alaskan coast.

“The recent approval of Shell’s Arctic oil drilling plans is a prime example of the disparity between President Obama’s strong rhetoric and increasing action on climate change and his administration’s fossil fuel extraction policies,” said David Turnbull, Campaigns Director for Oil Change International.

“The President needs to align his energy policy with his climate policy and put an end to Shell’s drilling for unburnable oil in the Arctic,” Turnbull said.

Dan Ritzman, Associate Director of the Sierra Club’s Our Wild America campaign, stressed that the drilling decision “went against science, common sense, and the will of the people.” Many environmental groups pointed to the irresponsibility of drilling in the Arctic, one of the world’s regions most vulnerable to climate change.

A senior State Department official responded to this criticism on Aug. 28 by stating that many “citizens of Alaska, and in particular, Alaskan natives” desire more drilling in an effort to develop their communities.

However, indigenous activists rejected the official statement. Carl Wassilie, a Yu’pik activist with ShellNo Alaska, said: “Arctic drilling is a violation of the human rights of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. Obama and Shell are bypassing many laws designed to protect our coast and our communities. Obama needs to start listening to the peoples of the Arctic who oppose Arctic drilling.”

One of the aims of the GLACIER conference is to be a stepping stone towards COP21, the U.N. climate change conference to be held in Paris in December. COP21 hopes to usher in a binding, ambitious agreement on climate change.

Observers said that GLACIER may be an important moment on the road to Paris because it hopes to bring together a small subset of countries – including China, Canada, India, Japan, Russia, the United States and many European nations – which together account for the overwhelming majority of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Some suggested that the conference could be a moment for these polluting countries to step up their carbon emission reduction commitments.

“On climate change, President Obama has been good, but not good enough,” according to marine biologist Richard Steiner. “The U.S. commitment to reduce carbon emissions by about 30 percent in the next 15 years is about half of what is urgently needed.”

Steiner said: “It is like we are on a sinking boat, taking on two gallons of water a minute, and we are bailing 1 gallon a minute. We are still sinking. We urgently need a U.S. and global commitment at the Paris climate summit of at least 60 percent carbon reduction by 2030. Otherwise, we’re sunk.”

With these challenges ahead, the GLACIER summit has high expectations for international cooperation on climate change. Among the diversity of opinions, one clear message has rung out – the need to engage young people in Arctic climate change discussions

“A real priority should be engaging youth at all aspects of the climate problem – education, research, leadership and activism,” said Virginia. “It is vital that they are ‘at the table’ and that they help shape the questions to be addressed by policy-makers. After all, they have the most at stake.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

By David Kode
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 24 2015 (IPS)

Pierre Claver Mbonimpa is not permitted to get close to an airport, train station or port without authorisation from a judge.  He cannot travel outside of the capital of his native Burundi, Bujumbura. Whenever called upon, he must present himself before judicial authorities.

These are some of the onerous restrictions underlying the bail conditions of one of Burundi’s most prominent human rights activists since he was provisionally released on medical grounds in September last year, after spending more than four months in prison for his human rights work.

David Kode

Mbonimpa was arrested and detained on May 15, 2014, and charged with endangering state security and inciting public disobedience. The charges stemmed from views he expressed during an interview with an independent radio station, Radio Public Africaine, in which he stated that members of the Imbonerakure, the youth wing of the ruling CNDD-FDD party, were being armed and sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo for military training.

The arrest and detention of Pierre Claver is symptomatic of a pattern of repression and intimidation of human rights defenders, journalists, dissenters and members of the political opposition in Burundi as it heads towards its much anticipated elections in May and June 2015.

The forthcoming polls will be the third democratic elections organised since the end of the brutal civil war in 2005.  The antagonism of the CNDD-FDD government and its crackdown on civil society and members of opposition formations has increased, particularly as the incumbent, President Pierre Nkurunziza, silences critics and opponents in his bid to run for a third term even after the National Assembly rejected his proposals to extend his term in office.“The international community and Burundi’s donors cannot afford to stand by idly and witness a distortion of the decade-long relative peace that Burundi has enjoyed, which represents the most peaceful decade since independence from Belgium in 1962”

Tensions continue to mount ahead of the polls and even though the president has not publicly stated that he will contest the next elections, the actions of his government and the ruling party clearly suggest he will run for another term.  Members of his party argue that he has technically run the country for one term only as he was not “elected” by the people when he took to power in 2005.

Civil society organisations and religious leaders recently pointed out that Constitution and the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement – which brought an end to the civil war – clearly limit presidential terms to two years.

As the 2015 polls draw closer, state repression has increased, some political parties have been suspended and their members arrested and jailed. The Imbonerakure has embarked on campaigns to intimidate, physically assault and threaten members of the opposition with impunity. They have prevented some political gatherings from taking place under the pretext that they are guaranteeing security at the local level.

Civil society organisations and rival political movements have on several occasions been denied the right to hold public meetings and assemblies, while journalists and activists have been arrested and held under fictitious charges in an attempt to silence them and force them to resort to self-censorship.

Legislation has been used to stifle freedom of expression and restrict the activities of journalists and the independent media.  In June 2013, the government passed a new law which forces journalists to reveal their sources.

The law provides wide-ranging powers to the authorities and sets requirements for journalists to attain certain levels of education and professional expertise, limits issues journalists can cover and imposes fines on those who violate this law.  It prohibits the publication of news items on security issues, defence, public safety and the economy.

The law has been used to target media agencies and journalists, including prominent journalist Bob Rugurika, director of Radio Public Africaine.

The government does not see any major difference between opposition political parties and human rights activists and journalists and has often accused civil society and the media of being mouth pieces for the political opposition, describing them as “enemies of the state”.

In the lead-up to the last elections in 2010, most of the opposition parties decided to boycott the elections and the ruling party won almost unopposed. However, the post-elections period was characterised by political violence and conflict.

Ideally, the upcoming elections could present the perfect opportunity to “jump start” Burundi’s democracy.  For this to happen, the media and civil society need to operate without fear or intimidation from state and non-state actors.  On the contrary, state repression is bound to trigger a violent response from some of the opposition parties and ignite violence similar to that which happened in 2010.

The international community and Burundi’s donors cannot afford to stand by idly and witness a distortion of the decade-long relative peace that Burundi has enjoyed, which represents the most peaceful decade since independence from Belgium in 1962.

It is increasingly clear that the people of Burundi need the support of the international community at this critical juncture. The African Union (AU), with its public commitment to democracy and good governance, must act now by putting pressure on the government of Burundi to respect its democratic ideals to prevent more abuses and further restrictions on fundamental freedoms ahead of the elections.

The African Union should demand that the government stops extra-judicial killings and conducts independent investigations into members of the security forces and Imbonerakure who have committed human rights violations and hold them accountable.

Further, Burundi’s close development partners, particularly Belgium, France and the Netherlands, should condemn the attacks on civil liberties and urge the government to instil an enabling environment in which a free and fair political process can take place while journalists and civil society activists can perform their responsibilities without fear.  (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris    

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Two Saudi Arabian women’s rights activists are filing an appeal on Friday after being sentenced to 10 months in prison for helping a woman who had allegedly been abused by her husband.

On Jun. 15, Wajeha Al-Huwaider and Fawzia Al-Oyouni were convicted by a district court in Al-Khobar of “takhbib”, an element of shari’a law that states they incited a woman to defy her husband and supported a wife without her husband’s knowledge. A two-year travel ban will follow their prison term.

Saudi Arabia follows conservative interpretations of Islam that often place tight restrictions on women’s rights. Credit: Retlaw Snellac/CC by 2.0

The women came to the assistance of a Canadian woman, Nathalie Morin, who called Al-Huwaider asking for help after being locked in a room by her husband without adequate food or water.

But as the women approached her house they were ambushed and arrested, Suad Abu-Dayyeh, programme consultant on Middle East and North Africa for Equality Now, told IPS. Equality Now, an international human rights organisation, is calling on supporters to send letters in preparation for the appeal deadline on Friday, Jul. 12.

“They did not conspire to turn Nathalie against her husband or attempt to convince her to abandon him. In fact, they have never met her,” Abu-Dayyeh told IPS.

Abu-Dayyeh believes the allegations against the women are false and that Saudi Arabia is instead cracking down on the two women for their history of human rights activism.

“The Saudi government has clearly created a scenario whereby Fawzia and Wajeha, brave women who wanted to help another woman in need, were arrested for the activism they carry out,” Abu-Dayyeh said.

“These two women have been activists for a long time, and the Saudi government has been keen to silence them for a long time. They are now being made an example of to ensure that other activists don’t speak out either,” Abu-Dayyeh added.

Al-Huwaider and Al-Oyouni have been active in a number of human and women’s campaigns in Saudi Arabia, including Women2Drive, which encouraged women to defy Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving.

In a YouTube video filmed on Women’s Day in 2008, Al-Huwaider is seen driving around an empty countryside and talking to online supporters from the driver’s seat. Saudi Arabia follows very conservative interpretations of Islamic law that forbids women from driving.

Last year, Al-Huwaider was listed as number 82 on Arabian Business’ list of the 100 most powerful Arab women, but she was missing from the list this year. She is also the co-founder of Association for the Protection and Defence of Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia."[Wajeha Al-Huwaider and Fawzia Al-Oyouni] are being made an example of to ensure that other activists don't speak out."
-- Suad Abu-Dayyeh

“These two women are being persecuted for their work on human rights and women’s rights,” Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, told IPS. “It’s not a criminal offence.”

The application of “takhbib”, where a man or woman interferes with a marriage or engagement, turning one spouse against another, is curious in this case, and it is possible that it is being used to mask what authorities see as the real crime: Al-Huwaider’s and Al-Oyouni’s activism.

“It seems a little unusual from the point of view of classical Islamic law, which may not line up with current Saudi practice… takhbib is more usually associated with seducing a woman to leave or divorce her husband, or marry somebody unauthorised,” Marion Katz, associate professor in the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies department at New York University, told IPS.

When Al-Huwaider was first questioned over a year ago about the incident, the questions authorities asked were mainly about her work as a human and women’s rights activist, Stork said.

The success of Friday’s appeal, based on Saudi Arabia’s track record, seems unlikely, Stork said.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Stork said. “[Saudi Arabia] has made a decision to really stamp out human rights activism.”

On the ground in Saudi Arabia, gaining support is difficult for Al-Huwaider and Al-Oyouni, as women cannot speak out freely in the country and the government controls the media.

“The rights of women and girls are often deeply compromised,” Abu-Dayyeh said. “In Saudi Arabia, there are no civil society organisations that can pick up such issues.”

Despite recent small glimmers of positive developments to improve and expand the rights of women in Saudi Arabia, including sending its first female athlete, Sarah Attar, to the Olympic Games in London last year and giving girls in private schools the right to play sports, as well as allowing women to ride bikes, the case of the two activists is a step backwards for the Kingdom.

“Saudi Arabia still needs to do a lot more to ensure that women and girls are protected and that their fundamental human rights are safeguarded,” Abu-Dayyeh stated, pointing out, “Allowing this to happen would benefit the entire society.”

A sign put up by activists in Marabá, Brazil demands justice for the murders of Amazon activists José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
MARABÁ, Brazil , Apr 5 2013 (IPS)

Peasants and human rights defenders in Brazil are indignant over the acquittal of the man accused of ordering the May 2011 murders of two prominent Amazon activists, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo.

The trial ended Thursday Apr. 4 with the sentencing of two men paid to kill the couple in the Amazon jungle state of Pará. But the third man held for the crime, the landowner accused by the prosecutors of hiring the other two, was absolved on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

The trial was one of the six slated to take place this year in Brazil involving land conflicts, one of the main causes of violence in South America’s giant.

In the trial, which lasted 48 hours with only a few breaks, a seven-person jury found Alberto Lopes do Nascimento and Lindonjonson Silva Rocha guilty. They were given sentences of 45 years and 42 years and eight months, respectively, on two counts of aggravated murder and cruelty.

Da Silva, 54, and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo, 53, were riding a motorcycle when they were ambushed and gunned down in the rainforest in the northern state of Pará on May 24, 2011. The killers cut off a dying da Silva’s ear.

The murders “used methods that made it impossible for José Cláudio and Maria, killed in a cruel ambush…to defend themselves,” reads the sentence handed down by Judge Murilo Lemos Simão, which goes on to state that the motive was a dispute over land, described as an aggravating element.

But José Rodrigues Moreira, who was accused of masterminding the murders, was acquitted because there were “no concrete elements” proving his guilt, according to the judge. Prosecutors were seeking a 70-year sentence for the landowner.

The trial, attended by the delegates of dozens of national and international social movements and human rights groups, took place in the city of Marabá, in the southeast of Pará, the state that has the largest number of land disputes in Brazil.

Nearly 200 people held a vigil outside the courthouse, next to the Trans-Amazonian highway. When the sentences were read out, activists and rural workers burned crosses and threw stones at the courthouse windows.

“The verdict is more of the same, from Brazil’s justice system: it condemns those who are at one tip of the murder and acquits those who had the motives to commit it,” the head of the Brazilian NGO Terra de Direitos, Antônio Escrivão Filho, told IPS.

Da Silva, known as “Zé Castanha”, and his wife were community leaders and environmentalists involved in a project for sustainable agriculture and the gathering of rainforest fruits in the remote settlement of Praia Alta Piranheira, 500 km from Belém, the state capital.

Since 2005, the couple had been battling the illegal occupation of land on the 22,000-hectare settlement by loggers and charcoal producers. In Praia Alta Piranheira, the trees have been cut on 75 percent of the land.

The catalyst for the murders was the illegal purchase by Rodrigues of a 150-hectare plot in the area where the Praia Alta Piranheira project was being carried out.

Three families lived on half of the lot. Rodrigues tried to evict them, but failed, thanks to the support they received from Zé Castanha and his wife.

In reprisal, Rodrigues decided to hire gunmen to murder them, according to the prosecution. After the two community leaders were killed, the intimidation against the three families continued, and given the lack of police protection, they finally abandoned the land.

The prosecutor, Danyllo Pompeu Collares, announced that he would appeal the verdict.

“Society is not yet prepared to put the blame on the person responsible (for the killings) for fear of his economic power and political influence,” said the prosecutor. “The rest of the family (of the two victims) will continue to be under threat as long as (Rodrigues) is free.”

The south and southeast of Pará is one of the most violent parts of Brazil, in terms of deadly land conflicts. According to the Catholic Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), of 1,645 murders related to land disputes committed since 1985, just 100 went to trial, and in only 22 of those cases was the person accused of masterminding the killings found guilty.

“The justice system in Pará is very conservative,” Marabá Mayor João Salame, who took office this year, told IPS. “I wanted a guilty verdict; any light sentence would be an incentive for hired killings. The punishment has to be stiff.”

Atila Roque, executive director of Amnesty International Brazil, told IPS that “the couple had a history of defending the law and working to pacify the conflict. The state played a role of complete omission…it is shocking and shameful.”

The 200 activists who came to Marabá to stand vigil outside the courthouse starting at 5:00 AM the first day included representatives of Amnesty, Brazil’s National Human Rights Movement, and the foundation that grants the Right Livelihood Award, better known as the Alternative Nobel Prize.

During the trial, activists and local small farmers set up an altar outside the building, with a photo of the victims and offerings of cashews.

“They defended the jungle,” said Maria do Espírito Santo’s brother-in-law, José Sampaio, who was the first to testify at the trial. “In this region there are many ranchers, loggers, charcoal producers and farmers who have settled on land. The couple were ‘agro-extractivists’ and lived off the rainforest.”

According to Laísa Sampaio, his wife and Maria’s sister, the couple had received death threats since 2001.

“They denounced crimes, the charcoal makers and loggers, and illegal occupation of land, and were carrying out an educational process to show people that it was possible to make a living from the jungle,” said Laísa, who also received threats and was forced off the land where she was living.

According to José Batista of the CPT, who assisted the prosecution, abundant physical evidence was gathered by the police, such as strands of hair found in a diving mask that was used in the murder and which, by means of DNA testing, made it possible to determine that it belonged to one of the two murderers.

“The conviction was a sure thing based on the existing evidence, which was compelling and gave us the certainty that the jurors would hand back a guilty sentence,” Batista told IPS.

Despite his health problems, 82-year-old French Dominican friar Henri des Roziers, a CPT lawyer in Pará who is known locally as Frei Henri, made it a point to attend the trial.

He said the case was similar to that of the assassination of legendary environmental activist Chico Mendes, a leader of the seringueiros or rubber tappers who was killed in 1988 in the northwest state of Acre.

“The impunity remains in place; I am leaving with a heavy heart,” Henri said.

“Extractivism and the preservation of nature are still a cause of death,” he said. “These murders were like that of Chico Mendes – the reasons were the same. These people were an irritant for the current model of agribusiness, agrotoxics and scorn for nature.”

A youth delegation from Tunis heads to the countryside to spread the word of the World Social Forum. Credit: Monika Prokopczuk/IPS

By Justin Hyatt
TUNIS, Mar 22 2013 (IPS)

In the final countdown to this year’s World Social Forum (WSF), Tunisian civil society and the country’s capital, Tunis, prepares for an influx of over 50,000 visitors. With the dates of the forum set for Mar. 26-30, uncompleted tasks are being fast-tracked while the university campus that will host the forum is being given a security face-lift.

The biggest question on the minds of the organisers and their international guests is the security situation in the country. It was only last month, on Feb. 6, that popular left-wing politician Chokri Belaid was murdered near his home in Tunis. His death led to political uncertainty and eventually the resignation of Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, as well as protests on the street.

Legitimate concerns that the country might slip into turmoil and instability have spread fast and are keeping visitors at bay.

“We get many emails every day from people who are worried about this,” said Haifa Nakib, who is in charge of logistics and administration of the WSF. “I tell them: ‘Don’t believe all the hype on TV! Tunisia is not at war and the situation here is peaceful. There is no terrorism here, in fact the government is even going to secure the location’.”

The government is indeed cooperating fully with the organisers of the massive gathering, and has even deployed a security team to locations surrounding the campus, which organisers hope will be “discreet”.

Cheima Ben Hamida, a volunteer coordinator, informed IPS that security would also be provided to organisers inside the campus. She is further comforted by the fact that the government “has instructed all its ministries to aid the WSF to the fullest extent possible”.

Meanwhile, enthusiasm over the event is at full throttle. Over 4,500 organisations from over 85 countries have registered. France and Tunisia top the list of participants: each plans to have representatives from over 300 groups present. Brazil, Belgium, Italy and Morocco are also high up, with each represented by at least 50 organisations.

The U.S. is also sending its largest WSF delegation to date. With 66 groups currently registered, this marks the highest level of participation from the North American country. Canada is likewise dispatching a large contingent.

Among the many topics to be addressed and debated are women’s rights, youth and culture. Though the main theme of the Forum is the Arab Spring, other issues — from the global economic crisis to the global ecological crisis — will be given due importance.

Demonstrating their commitment to the success of the event, the Tunisian immigration authorities have made participation accessible to visitors from countries without diplomatic accords or the presence of embassies. Fresh arrivals who produce a letter of invitation will be granted an entry visa. Thus, citizens of countries like Peru or Israel will have no problem attending the meet.

The third edition of the World Free Media Forum (WFMF) will be held simultaneously, starting on Mar. 24 and carrying on throughout the entire duration of the WSF.

Several hundred media representatives are expected to participate in workshops, discussions and media coverage of the forum. A free media village has been set up for this purpose, while non-profit community radio has been targeted as a preferred media format.

Another “forum within the forum” will be an international youth camp, which will bring together young people aged 18 to 30 and provide a space to organise sports, dances, cooking competitions and debates.

Khalil Teber, a member of the youth commission and co-organiser of the youth forum, shared his excitement with IPS: “We are providing the youth with a space of their own. Activities have been planned for day and night – it will be like four days without sleep.”

“Our vision,” added Teber, “is to present Tunisian youth to the world, including the version of the Tunisian revolution as the youth see it. And we want all Tunisian youth there, regardless of their political stripes.”

Besides being a celebration of the birthplace of the Arab Spring, this year’s convergence is significant for another reason: participants plans to discuss, in detail, the future of the World Social Forum.

It is clear to all those attending and organising the event that numerous other social and grassroots mobilisations – such as the Occupy movement – continue to play a major role. While not able to replace this forum, they do point to the need for the WSF to reflect and then evolve. This entails the integration of sundry movements and initiatives into the evolutionary process of the WSF.

“If the content is effective and the social forum becomes refreshed with this edition, then it will move forward,” according to Ben Hamida.

Romdhane Ben Amor, the man in charge of communication at WSF, stressed: “What is really important is what comes after the forum. A new way of thinking needs to emerge, a new vision of the world. If the forum can help both Tunisian and worldwide social movements to build on their strengths and find new ways of cooperation, then it will have been a success.”

A banner targets Canada's tar sands development, the country's fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. Credit: Anthony Fenton/IPS

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Feb 20 2013 (IPS)

Canada’s police and security agencies think citizens concerned about the environment are threats to national security, and some are under surveillance, documents reveal.

The RCMP, the national police force, and Canada’s spy agency CSIS are increasingly conflating terrorism and extremism with peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights to organise petitions, protest and question government policies, said Jeffrey Monaghan, a researcher with the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Protests and opposition to Canada’s resource-based economy, especially oil and gas production, are now viewed as threats to national security, Monaghan said. This conclusion is based on official security documents obtained under freedom of information laws over the last five years.It is governments and the fossil fuel industry who are the extremists, threatening the prosperity of future generations.

For the past two years, officials in Canada’s Stephen Harper government have been calling environmentalists “radicals” and accusing environmental organisations of money laundering.

“The Harper government has a strong interest in suppressing environmental activism,” Monaghan told IPS.

By branding activists as extremists or radicals, many people will not want to be involved. Surveillance and other security activities will have a similar “chilling effect”, he fears.

“There could be an incredibly profound impact on public participation,” Monaghan noted.

In 2011, a Montreal, Quebec man who wrote threatening letters opposing shale gas fracking was charged under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act. Documents released in January show the RCMP has been monitoring Quebec residents who oppose fracking.

In a Canadian Senate hearing last week, Richard Fadden, the director of CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) said they are more worried about domestic terrorism, acknowledging that the vast majority of its spying is done within Canada. Fadden said they are “following a number of cases where we think people might be inclined to acts of terrorism”.

Canada is at very low risk from foreign terrorists, but like the U.S. it built a large security apparatus following 9/11. The resources and costs are wildly out of proportion to the risk, Monaghan said.

Without a significant foreign threat, security services are looking inside the country for reasons to justify their “bloated budgets”, he said. And the new “enemy within” is environmental organisations, according to the inflammatory rhetoric of Harper’s Conservative government.

A year ago, in a widely-published open letter, Joe Oliver, the minister of natural resources, slammed “environmental and other radical groups” for getting in the way of forestry, mining and energy projects.

“These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda,” Oliver wrote, without naming any groups.

“They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest,” he charged, without offering any evidence.

A few months later, in a television interview, environment minister Peter Kent accused some charitable environmental groups in Canada of being used “to launder offshore foreign funds for inappropriate use against Canadian interest”. Kent went on imply evidence of illegal activity but offered no proof.

Canada’s economy has become increasingly reliant on resource extraction, oil and gas in particular. The Alberta tar sands are the world’s biggest industrial project, sending 1.6 million barrels of tar-like oil south to the U.S. daily.

The tar is too thick to extract with conventional drilling so it is strip-mined or boiled out of the ground, destroying large areas of pristine forest, consuming vast quantities of fresh water and emitting tens of millions of tonnes of climate-disrupting carbon.

Environmentalists’ have labelled the tar sands region “Canada’s Mordor”. The Harper and Alberta governments are banking on doubling or tripling the size of the tar sands and aggressively support new pipelines to ship the tarry oil south to the U.S., west to Asia and east to Europe.

Tar sands oil, natural gas and the pipelines to move them are considered by these governments to be essential to “Canada’s national economic interest”. This has now been directly linked to national security, said Monaghan.

The federal and Alberta governments and the fossil fuel industry are “virtually seamless” in their thinking, said Greenpeace Canada’s executive director Bruce Cox.

“You can’t tell the difference between a government of Canada ad and one from the oil industry,” Cox told IPS.

Canada’s Natural Resource ministry spent nine million dollars in 2012 in advertising to promote pipelines, safety measures such as double-hulled oil tankers and changes to environmental laws. Cox said those changes “gutted” environmental regulations but the government promotes them as a benefit to the Canadian people.

Canadian security forces seem to have a “fixation” with Greenpeace, continually describing them as “potentially violent” in threat assessment documents, said Monaghan.

Cox said he was aware of this attention and met with the head of the RCMP last year. “We’re an outspoken voice for non-violence and this was made clear to the RCMP,” Cox said.

He said there was real anger among Canadians about the degradation of the natural environment by oil, gas and other extractive industries and governments working for those industries and not in the public interest. Security forces should see Greenpeace as a “plus”, a non-violent outlet for this anger, he argued.

“It is governments and the fossil fuel industry who are the extremists, threatening the prosperity of future generations,” Cox said.

Unknown to the Israeli government or the Israeli electorate, hundreds of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza took part in the recent Israeli elections by default thanks to an act of civil disobedience by Israeli peace activists.

Real Democracy, an initiative comprising thousands of Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian Territories and Israelis, decided that the undemocratic nature of Israel and its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory needed to be challenged.

One month prior to the elections the Real Democracy rebellion started on a Palestinian-Israeli Facebook page. Thousands of Palestinians and Israelis joined the initiative.

More than a thousand Israelis decided to give up their votes to Palestinians from the occupied territories in an act of protest against what the participants saw as the undemocratic nature of the Israeli elections and the United Nations system. Shimri Zamaret, 27, an Israeli researcher from Warwick University in the UK, was one of the founders of the Real Democracy movement.

“The idea started in the UK when people there decided to give up their votes to people in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana to protest the stranglehold of Western powers in the UN over less powerful countries,” Zamaret told IPS.

“We decided to start a similar movement in Israel and Palestine. Palestinians live under a double apartheid system. The Israeli Parliament and the UN are based on inequality between citizens – and are therefore undemocratic. The UN Security Council is dominated by the five superpowers which won World War Two and is totally unrepresentative of the international community today,” Zamaret told IPS.

“Israeli citizens elect a government that controls Palestinians, but Palestinians cannot vote and do not have an independent state,” said Zamaret who was jailed for two years as a conscientious objector for refusing to serve in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

“Through the Israeli government (and the undemocratic Security Council), Israelis also have a de facto veto power over the UN Security Council system. Citizens do not have a direct voice in the United Nations, and the Palestinian government’s UN membership got vetoed,” said Zamaret.

“Palestinians therefore do not have any vote in the UN nor any control over their country. So undemocratic Israel’s monopoly of force is supported by undemocratic control over international institutions.”

Zamaret gave his vote to Omar Abu Rayan, a 19-year-old student from Hebron who ironically decided the best move was not to use the vote but to ‘boycott’ the Israeli elections altogether despite a long debate with Israelis over using ‘his’ vote to make a difference.

“I appreciate the move by the Israeli activists to give voteless Palestinians a voice in the Israeli elections but I don’t think this would have made any difference, it wouldn’t have changed anything on the street. The peace parties in Israel are too small and don’t have enough influence. The no vote was a protest vote,” Abu Rayan told IPS.

“We aren’t expecting the Real Democracy initiative to make a big difference. It’s a symbolic gesture and only relevant as part of a larger campaign to de-legitimise Israel on an international level,” said Israeli freelance translator Ofer Neiman, who also gave up his vote.

“What we wanted to do was make a noise about the occupation and the treatment of Palestinians. We have discrimination even within Israel against Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. Real Democracy is part of a broader international movement, specifically the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

“Most of the Israeli activists are involved in other activist movements and we all believe that only international pressure on Israel through sanctions will help bring about the end of the occupation,” Neiman, who was kicked out of the IDF for his left-wing political views and was monitored as a student at university for activism against the occupation, told IPS.

Neiman gave his vote to Bassam Aramin from the West Bank village of Anata. “I am a Palestinian citizen, I live in East Jerusalem. I am 44,” said Aramin.

“I am a bereaved father – my 10 year-old daughter Abir was killed by an Israeli soldier on the 16th Jan, 2007, but I have no control over the Israeli government who sent the soldier there. I live under occupation. We Palestinians have no vote or veto in the UN Security Council or the government that controls us. That’s undemocratic.”

Aramin asked Neiman to use his vote for the left-wing Israeli party Hadash even though he is not a supporter of the party.

Palestinian activist Musa Abu Maria, from Beit Omar in the southern West Bank, is also a member of Real Democracy. He used the vote he was given to vote for leftist Haneen Zoabi, one of the few Palestinian members of the Israeli Knesset or parliament.

“Many of the Palestinians who took part in the initiative wanted to support the efforts of our Israeli colleagues,” Abu Maria told IPS. (END)

The All Obachan Party is attempting to break through old-fashioned, male-dominated politics. Credit: All Obachan Party

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Dec 18 2012 (IPS)

The return to power of Japan’s conservative and hard-line Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Sunday indicates that voters traded urgently needed social and environmental reforms for traditional male-led leadership, according to analysts here.

Youth and feminist organisations who had campaigned vigorously for better environmental protections, labour equality and the upholding of regional peace ahead of the elections, expressed frustration about Sunday’s outcome, lamenting that the victorious LDP is yet to present concrete policies to tackle Japan’s most pressing problems.

Three years ago the Japanese electorate ousted the LDP in favour of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). This year the pendulum has swung back in the opposite direction. “It’s time to give the LDP a chance at tackling national problems. The ruling DPJ was a disaster,” Keitaro Noguchi (34), a company employee, told IPS, summing up the overall post-election mood in the country.

LDP leader Shinzo Abe, whose brief term as Prime Minister ended abruptly in 2007, is now set to take back the reins.

A hawkish politician, he has raised his profile by promising to usher in a militarily stronger Japan – against the backdrop of a simmering territorial dispute with China regarding a cluster of islands in the East China Sea – and rekindle the economy by boosting expensive public works programmes to create new jobs.

The LDP is also faced with the monumental task of addressing the country’s consistently low growth rates – less than two percent for the past two decades, according to the Cabinet’s Office – while simultaneously attempting to reduce a soaring public debt and meet the social security demands of unemployed youth and a rapidly aging population.

But while these high-profile issues will almost certainly receive their fair share of political attention, activists are concerned about two areas they fear will slip beneath the radar of the incoming administration: the country’s nuclear policy in the aftermath of the disastrous accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor following the earthquake and tsunami last March; and job stability for youth and women, both grappling with badly paid or part-time work.

“The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will definitely turn its back on the policies of the outgoing centre-left government, which set a target of eradicating Japan’s nuclear dependency by 2030,” said Koichi Nakano, a well-known political analyst at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Speaking to foreign reporters, Nakano explained that power companies, which have pushed nuclear energy onto the national development agenda, have thrown their support behind the LDP.

“Japan’s green movement, which promotes clean energy as a replacement for nuclear power, has not been successful. A more hawkish regime that commands a strong majority in the Japanese Diet (the upper and lower houses of parliament) will stigmatise anti-nuke protestors as dangerous radicals. I see more arrests of activists,” he said, referring to the Sept. 16 arrests of 16 activists at a large anti-nuke rally here.

The election result has also been a bitter disappointment for women’s groups who have been lobbying for better treatment of female workers currently comprising 80 percent of the country’s part-time or contract labour force; stable childcare; and welfare for the elderly, who are overwhelmingly women.

Professor Chizu Arashima of Kobe Gakuin University based in west Japan, views the LDP election victory as a step back for women’s rights and employment.

“As a working mother of three sons I am bracing for the return of old-fashioned LDP family values that promote divisive gender roles that push women to stay at home, have babies and rely on men,” she said.

Arashima is a member of the three-month-old All Japan Obachan Party – a women’s organisation based in Osaka, Japan’s second largest city – which is now gaining public recognition for helping raise women’s voices on national policies and close the gender gap in the political realm.

‘Obachan’ is a gender-biased term in Japanese that pushes the image of active middle-aged women who are ready to challenge men. Kyoko Tada, a legal expert and a founding member of the organisation, told IPS, “The title (was chosen) deliberately to call attention to a sector that is determined to break through old-fashioned male-dominated politics.”

She said the group has gathered more than 1,000 members nationwide already, and is gaining support for its alternative views, such as its anti-war stance, support for fostering community strength, an anti-nuclear policy and advocating for the use of tax money for social security services rather than public works programmes.

The organisation faces many hurdles in overcoming gender disparities in the political sphere. Only 38 female candidates, from a total of 225, won seats in the parliament during this election, a major dip from the 54 women who won seats at the last poll in 2009.

Already, Japan has been ranked as low as 110^th on the World Economic Forum’s latest gender gap survey, which rates countries based on gender equality in political representation.

Arashima explained that the outcome of this election proves that women have been lured by the hope that the LDP will improve the economic situation and ensure income stability.

“The lack of public discussions that should have highlighted alternative choices for women is a key lesson for activist groups this time. We are determined to address these issues,” she explained.

(END)

A group of activists biked over 1,000 kilometres to spread the word of the WSF in towns and cities across Tunisia. Credit: Aurélie Lecarpentier/IPS

By Justin Hyatt
TUNIS, Dec 11 2012 (IPS)

Following in the wake of the wave of revolutions dubbed the ‘Arab Spring’, which originated here nearly two years ago, North Africa is gearing up to host the World Social Forum (WSF) for the first time.

While Egypt was initially considered for the role, organisers finally settled on Tunisia. Now, this country of 10.7 million people will welcome visitors from all over the world in March of 2013, in a gathering organisers estimate will number upwards of ten thousand participants.

Tunisian civil society is mobilising on numerous fronts. Several large organisations have banded together to design the framework of the event, sending delegates to the steering committee, which serves to guide the preparations.

Forming the backbone of the steering committee is the Tunisian Platform for Economic and Social Rights, whose president, Abderrahmane Hedhili, along with the group’s project coordinator Alaa Talbi, play key roles in laying the foundation for the massive gathering.

“The World Social Forum will be a great opportunity for civil society in Tunisia,” Hedhili told IPS. “Especially from the point of view of bringing reconciliation to those groups with diverging points of view, finding new solutions for local problems  and helping to establish the democratisation process at every level, we see very strong potential.”

A number of working groups have also been established, overseeing issues such as women’s rights, youth and culture. Hedhili stressed that beyond the ‘showcase theme’ of the Arab Spring, a range of topics are on the agenda, from the global economic crisis to social, cultural, environmental and religious issues.

Amélie Cannone, co-chair of the Paris-based organisation AITEC and a veteran of the WSF, has been following the developments and is moving to Tunis for several months to provide extra organisational support.

She recalled that “during the last WSF that took place in Dakar, Senegal, in February 2011, the fall of Mubarak was announced, and this triggered incredible joy and hope all over the floor”.

It quickly became apparent to all those present – as well as scores of activist around the world who had been closely following the Arab Spring – that the courage and determination of Tunisian and Egyptian activists should be honoured by selecting a North African country as the setting for the next WSF.

As Talbi put it, “the Arab world is the new centre of social movements”. Thus the WSF can help strengthen Arab social networks and serve as a foundation for cooperation with international movements as well.

“From the Indignados in Spain to the student protesters in Quebec and Chile and the Occupy movement in the U.S. or UK – they all drew inspiration from the Arab Spring,” added Cannone.

So far, most of the energy for the upcoming meet has been coming from the capital, Tunis. But Marwen Tlili, a young citizen and social activist based here, felt that other regions of the country should not miss out on the excitement.

He gathered  a small group of fellow activists and organised a bike caravan during the month of October, in an attempt to widely broadcast news of the WSF and reach out to local groups in towns such as Kasserine and the city of Gafsa, encouraging them to make their own contributions to the WSF.

By the end, the bike caravan had travelled over one thousand kilometres and disseminated information about the WSF in dozens of locations around the country.

“I think our caravan had a profound impact on those people we encountered,” said Tlili. “In Tunisia, to see a group of cyclists pass through your town is not as common of a sight as it may be in Europe or Canada. It impressed people and brought positive publicity for the upcoming Forum.”

Organisers also hinted at plans for more bike caravans ahead of the WSF, including possibly one caravan departing from Morocco and another originating in Italy. Both would chart a course bearing towards the Tunisian capital.

Cannone also stressed the importance of transnational cooperation, as well as the urgent need to mobilise youth and women, work that the Maghreb Social Forum  has been doing on the regional level for several years already.

The ecological dimension will not be left out either, according to Cannone.

“The current economic model based on intense extraction of natural resources has been especially prevalent in the MENA (Middle East-North Africa) region,” Cannone stressed.

“Thus the WSF, which has incorporated a lot of people from the alter-globalist movement, will be sure to take the environmental problems seriously, and will promote a paradigm shift to local economies, including new models of production, social protection and decent living conditions for all.”

Tlili shares her enthusiasm about the potential inherent in such a massive event: “The World Social Forum should be an opportunity for people to change their lives. We want to encourage especially the youth, with the revolution fresh in their minds, to get active and to do positive things in their own communities.”

(END)

A fact-finding team from the International Atomic Energy Agency visits Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in May 2011. Credit: IAEA Imagebank/ CC by 2.0

By Kim-Jenna Jurriaans
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 26 2012 (IPS)

For the former industrial engineer Yastel Yamada, retirement does not mean he intends to sit back. Instead, the 73-year-old and about 700 other skilled seniors across Japan are eager to volunteer to tackle the most dangerous part of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant cleanup and spare a younger generation from the effects of extreme radiation.

Yamada and his army of radiation Samaritans are among a growing number of civil society groups across Japan that are taking measures to inform the public about the lingering dangers of radiation and advocate for a stronger government response to the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

“By the time we develop cancer, we will be dead anyways,” Yamada told IPS, following a recent tour through the United States to promote the efforts of his organisation, the Skilled Veterans Corps for Fukushima (SVCF), to gain access to the site.

One of SVCF’s goals has been to build international political pressure to force the Japanese government to take charge of the disaster and bring global experts into the plant recovery process, which will take an estimated 20 years of ongoing cleanup and monitoring for up to 40.

“Chernobyl was bigger, but much less complicated,” Yamada noted.

So far, however, responsibility for the plant remains in the hands of the privately owned Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) – a management company with little expertise in cleanup, Yamada worried.

About 400 companies currently perform various cleanup tasks at Fukushima Dai-ichi, according to the engineer, who explained that the elaborate, multi-layered subcontracting structure remains in the way of the veterans’ efforts to work on the site.

Yamada blames the cosy relationship between the Japanese government and the business sector for the government’s refusal to remove the cleanup process from TEPCO’s control – cleanup whose success or failure will affect future generations around the globe.

Mistrust abounds

Close ties with the industry, changing, safety information, dubious radiation counting and conflicting updates about the status of Fukushima Dai-ichi are contributing to growing mistrust in the Japanese government’s willingness to protect its own citizens.

As doctors continue to dismiss emerging health issues and top researchers refuse to attribute abnormalities to radiation, the Japanese medical establishment, too, has lost the trust of an increasingly savvy sector of the Japanese population.

In a recent example, this month the Fukushima prefecture presented the findings of its latest Health Survey, which showed that over 42 percent of the 47,000 children examined have thyroid nodules or cysts –  far above the 1.6 percent measured in the only other study of its kind conducted in Nagasaki in 2001.

Yet when asked about a link to radiation exposure, Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, a researcher at Fukushima Medical University who headed the survey, suggested to German TV channel ZDF that the findings may instead reflect Japanese children’s seafood-rich diet.

“Suzuki is lying to the Japanese people,” Dr. Yurika Hashimoto, a pediatrician with 15 years of experience, told IPS. “People are not believing them anymore.”

Hashimoto made no secret of her distrust in much of the information issued by government and the highest ranks of the medical establishment. Recently, to limit her own exposure to radiation, she relocated to Osaka from Tokyo, where she was trained and used to run her clinic.

Diarrhea, nose bleeds, skin infections and conjunctivitis are among a plethora of symptoms she has increasingly seen in her patients, both in and outside of the Fukushima prefecture, since the March 2011 disaster.

When they bring these symptoms to other doctors, however, patients are frequently ridiculed or ignored, according to Hashimoto.

Citizens become activists

Shizuoka resident Kazko Kawai, who lives about five hours from Fukushima, felt removed from the nuclear crisis until local government officials near her hometown decided to start burning contaminated debris that had washed up in her region, she told IPS during a recent visit to New York. She has been part of the advocacy group Voices for Lively Spring ever since.

Kawai reached out to a handful of international physicians to invite them on a five-city tour that would serve as a travelling clinic and information centre for concerned citizens.

“It [was] the same symptoms everywhere we went,” said Dr. Doerte Siendetopf, a retired German physician who has worked with children of the Chernobyl disaster for 20 years, in a videotaped interview with Kawai.

In the interview, Siedentopf, speaking alongside American colleague Dr. Jeffrey Patterson, a professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, run down a list of findings that widely overlaps with Hashimoto’s.

While it’s too early to tell which of these symptoms are caused by the nuclear fallout, they demonstrate a need for broader epidemiological research, as well as compassion from primary care physicians, said Patterson.

“It’s not doing any good telling people they shouldn’t worry – these anxieties and concerns are very real.” Instead, doctors in Japan have a unique opportunity to truly establish the effects of radiation, Peterson stressed, in ways that were not possible after Chernobyl 26 years ago.

In a statement issued Monday, Anand Grover, the United Nations (U.N) Special Rapporteur on the right to health who recently returned from an 11-day mission to Japan, urged the Japanese government to monitor a larger section of the population.

Grover, whose full, independent report to the U.N. Human Rights Council is expected next June, met with stakeholders, including government, medical practitioners, civil society and affected residents.

He expressed concern that affected residents “have had no say in decisions that affect them” and emphasised that affected people ought to be included in decision-making processes, including “implementation, monitoring and accountability procedures”.

Meanwhile, sceptical citizens continue to protect themselves as best they can in what has become the new normal since 3/11.

Asked how her daily life has changed since the disaster, Kawai reached into her handbag to pull out a stick-shaped device with a digital display. “It measures gamma rays,” she said with the unfazed demeanour of a TV chef showing a stick of butter to her audience. “Everybody has one now – they go for about 60 bucks.”

A group of women in rural West Africa participate in a traditional ceremony to celebrate a polygamist marriage. Credit: Fatuma Camara/IPS

By Issa Sikiti da Silva
DAKAR, Sep 12 2012 (IPS)

Fatou (40), Awa (32) and Aissatou Gaye (24) sit in a meditative mood on the tiled floor outside their matrimonial home in Keur Massar, a township in the Senegalese capital Dakar.

“These are my three wives and soon I’ll take a fourth to comply with Islamic law,” brags Ousmane Gaye (50), a businessman who has commercial interests in this West African nation and also in neighbouring Mali and the Gambia.

“As you can see, they love one another and live in harmony and peace like three sisters,” he says. But peace and harmony have a strange meaning in Ousmane Gaye’s vocabulary.

“Last night, Fatou and Awa beat Aissatou repeatedly and launched a litany of insults at her,” a family source tells IPS on the condition of anonymity.

“They accuse her of bewitching their husband to make him love her too much. In fact, as you came in, he was busy reprimanding them. Honestly speaking, since Ousmane brought in Aissatou three years ago, his home has not known peace and harmony.”

The women are prohibited to speak to strangers, including neighbours, women’s rights activists or marriage counsellors about their matrimonial problems. They also do not have the right to complain unnecessarily as long as they have “everything”, which includes food, clothes and sex.

“This is the way of life in Senegal,” says Adama Kouyate, an internet café owner in the middle-class suburb of Golf Sud. Two years ago, Kouyate “inherited” the wife and six children of his late brother. He has just had a baby with his late brother’s wife, bringing the number of children under his care to 14.

“This has nothing to do with Islam, but it’s our culture. And no woman has the right to oppose this because she will be harshly cursed for the rest of her life,” he says in Wolof, Dakar’s widely-spoken language.

Aminata* a Dakar woman who secretly counsels and advises wives in polygamist marriages, says: “Polygamy is a form of modern slavery, believe me it’s not easy as it sounds. Women involved in this form of marriage have no voice and no channels to complain.”

Rokhaya*, a 23-year-old university graduate who earlier this year was forced to marry a 48-year-old rich man, agrees: “Polygamy is hell and a pack of lies.”

“Look at me, I am young and supposed to be doing things most girls my age are doing. I had dreams and aspirations to own a small company and travel the continent. I’m trapped and feel I’m going crazy because this illiterate rich man won’t let me fulfil my dreams,” she says, sobbing.

Daya* says she wants to further her education but is afraid that her husband will not allow it. She stopped going to school in Grade 7, at the age of 15, when she was given in marriage to her cousin, a Muslim cleric. Now she is 30 and has seven children.

Aminata, a divorcee who was involved in an 18-year polygamist marriage, says that polygamy violates the principle of equality, promotes gender disparity and compromises women’s progress in society. “And it’s getting worse in Senegal,” she says.

“In virtually every sector of life here in Senegal – in issues of inheritance rights, involvement in business, and access to land and education – women still lag behind, despite our constitution asserting equality between men and women.”

According to the Global Gender Gap Index produced by the World Economic Forum since 2006, Senegal ranks 102nd out of 134 countries. The index measures the position of women relative to men in the areas of economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment, and health and survival.

A “2010 USAID-Senegal Gender Assessment” report, published in April 2012, also points to continued gender disparities in many areas in this country.

“It is widely noted that implementation of the various international and national laws on gender equality and women’s rights is weak and that the government lacks an adequate plan to enact its policies,” the USAID report says.

According to the report, 39 percent of girls in Senegal aged 20 to 24 have been married by the age of 18, while the country ranks 27th out of 68 countries surveyed in terms of girls marrying before the age of 18.

Most young men interviewed at the Place de l’Independance in the Dakar city centre say they would opt for polygamy when they are ready for marriage.

Lamine Camara, 22, a student at the Cheik Anta Diop University of Dakar, says he would rather be a polygamist and “officialise all my relationships instead of taking a string of girlfriends and risking diseases such as AIDS.”

Issa Diop, a 28-year-old polygamist truck driver, says young people like him become polygamists by choice.

“It’s like fashion, you follow the trend. Besides, women outnumber men in Senegal. Polygamy is helping a lot. Almost every man in my area, young or poor, is now a polygamist. So what?”

Slightly more than half of Senegal’s 12.9 million people are women. In the 15 to 64-year age bracket there are 3.6 million women compared to 3.2 million men, according to the country’s demographic profile for 2012.

“The practice, which in the past was widespread in rural areas, has reached urban areas with alarming proportions. And abuse is on the increase, mostly in Dakar, where polygamists are becoming younger and younger,” says Fanta Niang, a social worker and gender activist from Senegal’s third-largest city of Thies.

“There are no official statistics on polygamist marriages in Senegal that I know of. They used to say one out of four marriages in urban areas and one out of three in rural areas was polygamist, but these figures are flawed to downplay the gravity of the matter,” Niang says.

She adds that sadly most wives in polygamist marriages are illiterate and unaware of women’s rights and the right to equality.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization revealed in 2010 that approximately 61 percent lack basic literacy skills.

Senegal’s gender parity law of May 2010, enacted under the Abdoulaye Wade government amid criticism from traditionalists and Muslim hardliners, has paved the way for 64 women members of parliament of a total of 150 under the newly elected government of Macky Sall. The law requires political parties to ensure that half their candidates in local and national elections are women.

“There has been no progress regarding women’s emancipation in Senegal, and polygamy continues to play a big role in that respect,” Niang says. “Women’s empowerment should start on the ground, not at the top. These 64 MPs are just the tip of the iceberg. What about the 61 percent who cannot read and write.

“We interact with these women on a daily basis, and we see things you don’t even want to hear. That’s why I said there is no progress.”

Some argue that polygamy constitutes a threat to Senegal’s constitutional principles of gender equality and the National Strategy for Gender Equality and Equity which was developed in 2005. Moussa Kalombo, a gender analyst and religious expert, tells IPS that polygamy violates the constitutional principles of gender equality in every country.

*Names changed to protect identity.

Rights groups denounced the decision not to pursue prosecutions of CIA officers who may have been responsible for the deaths of two prisoners in their custody. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Sep 1 2012 (IPS)

U.S. human rights groups have roundly condemned Thursday’s announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder that the Justice Department will not pursue prosecutions of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers who may have been responsible for the deaths of two prisoners in their custody.

The announcement appeared to mark the end of all efforts by the U.S. government to hold CIA interrogators accountable for torture and mistreating prisoners detained during the so-called “Global War on Terror” launched shortly after the Al Qaeda attacks on Sep. 11, 2001.

For rights activists and for supporters of President Barack Obama, it was the latest in a series of disappointing decisions, including the failure to close the detention facility at the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba. They had hoped Obama would not only end the excesses of President George W. Bush’s prosecution of the war, but also conduct a full investigation of those excesses, if not prosecute those responsible.

“This is truly a disastrous development,” said Laura Pitter, counter-terrorism advisor at Human Rights Watch (HRW). “To now have no accountability whatsoever for any of the CIA abuses for which there are now mountains of evidence is just appalling.”

“It completely undermines the U.S.’s ability to have any credibility on any of these issues in other countries, even as it calls for other countries to account for abuses and prosecute cases of torture and mistreatment,” she told IPS.

“Continuing impunity threatens to undermine the universally recognised prohibition on torture and other abusive treatment and sends the dangerous signal to government officials that there will be no consequences for their use of torture and other cruelty,” noted Jameel Jaffar, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“Today’s decision not to file charges against individuals who tortured prisoners to death is yet another entry in what is already a shameful record.”

In his announcement, Holder suggested that crimes were indeed committed in the two cases that were being investigated by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham but that convictions were unlikely.

“Based on the fully developed factual record concerning the two deaths, the department has declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

The two deaths took place at a secret CIA detention facility known as the Salt Pit in Afghanistan in 2002 and at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison the following year. The victims have been identified as Gul Rahman, a suspected Taliban militant, and Manadel Al-Jamadi, an alleged Iraqi insurgent.

The two were the last reviewed by Durham, who had originally been tasked by Bush’s attorney general, Michael Mukasey, in 2008 with conducting a criminal investigation into CIA interrogators’ use of “waterboarding” against detainees and the apparently intentional destruction of interrogation videotapes that recorded those sessions.

In August 2009, Holder expanded Durham’s mandate to include 101 cases of alleged mistreatment by CIA interrogators of detainees held abroad to determine whether any of them may be liable to prosecution.

At the time, he also stressed that he would not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the controversial legal guidance given by the Bush administration regarding possible “enhanced interrogation” techniques that could be used against detainees.

Such techniques, which include waterboarding, the use of stress positions and extreme heat and cold, are widely considered torture by human rights groups and international legal experts. As such, they violate the U.N. Convention Against Torture (CAT), as well as the Geneva Conventions and a 1996 U.S. federal law against torture.

Holder’s position was consistent with Obama’s statement, which human rights groups also strongly criticised, shortly after taking office in 2009 that he did not want CIA officials to “suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering” to escape prosecution and that he preferred “to look forward as opposed to…backwards”.

In his first days in office, Obama ordered all secret CIA detention facilities closed and banned the enhanced techniques authorised by his predecessor.

In late 2010, Durham announced that he would not pursue criminal charges related to the destruction of the CIA videotapes. Seven months later, he recommended that, of the 101 cases of alleged CIA abuse referred to him, only two warranted full criminal investigations in which CIA officers had allegedly exceeded the Bush administration’s guidelines for permissible interrogation techniques.

Now that Holder and Durham have concluded that prosecutions of the individuals involved are unlikely to result in convictions, it appears certain that no CIA officer will be prosecuted in a U.S. jurisdiction. Prosecutions of Bush officials responsible for authorising the “enhanced interrogation” techniques have also been ruled out.

In 2006, a private contractor for the CIA was successfully prosecuted and sentenced to six years in prison for beating an Afghan detainee to death three years before.

Some commentators suggested that these decisions, including the dropping of the two remaining cases, have been motivated primarily by political considerations. Indeed, HRW director Kenneth Roth wrote in an op-ed last year that “dredging up the crimes of the previous administration was seen as too distracting and too antagonistic an enterprise when Republican votes were needed”.

In a statement Thursday, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee praised Holder’s decision. Republicans protested Holder’s referral of the 101 cases to Durham in 2009.

But rights activists expressed great frustration. Holder’s announcement “is disappointing because it’s well documented that in the aftermath of 9/11, torture and abuse were widespread and systematic,” said Melina Milazzo of Human Rights First (HRF), which has been one of the most aggressive groups in investigating and publicising torture and abuse by U.S. intelligence and military personnel.

“It’s shocking that the department’s review of hundreds of instances of torture and abuse will fail to hold even one person accountable.”

Similarly, the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) noted that Holder’s announcement “belies U.S. claims that it can be trusted to hold accountable Americans who have perpetrated torture and other human rights abuses”.

It said the decision “underscores the need for independent investigations elsewhere, such as the investigation in Spain, to continue”. Victims and rights groups including CCR filed criminal complaints against former Bush officials in Spanish courts in 2009, launching two separate investigations by judges there.

The Nepali government is receiving significant national and international blowback for a draft ordinance that rights groups, including ones in the United States, say would allow for a widespread amnesty for some accused of human rights and other abuses perpetrated during Nepal’s decade-long civil war.

On Wednesday, Bishal Khanal, head of Nepal’s National Human Rights Commission, publicly complained that the body had not been consulted on the executive ordinance, endorsed by the Maoist-led cabinet and which would finally create a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC). Nepali activists said that government officials had acted unilaterally and failed to engage in public consultations on the issue.

Such a commission has been a longstanding demand following the end in 2005 of the civil war that led to roughly 13,000 deaths and more than a thousand disappearances. But observers are outraged because the proposal would empower the TRC to grant individual or collective amnesties during investigations into wartime atrocities. Those powers would not be contingent upon public input.

On Friday, four international rights and legal groups called on President Ram Baran Yadav to reject the ordinance on the basis that the plan would allow “political expediency to prevent accountability, entrench impunity and deny the right of the Nepali people to justice”. Their letter warns that the plan would violate both national legal decisions and Nepal’s international agreements.

Similar warnings came in a joint statement from the United Kingdom, United States, European Union, and nine other foreign missions in Nepal, pushing the Kathmandu government to listen to both the NHRC and victims groups in crafting the TRC and related decrees. For his part, President Yadav has expressed reluctance to accept the ordinance.

The proposal would set up a single Commission of Inquiry on Disappeared Persons, Truth and Reconciliation, despite the call for two separate bodies. Observers warn a single commission would result in a weakened process.

Furthermore, all of the proposed commission’s members, including the attorney-general, would be “political appointees”, the watchdog letter notes, “and are thus very much vulnerable to the kind of political pressure that international standards explicitly seek to avoid”.

Follow the self-interest

“This is a crucial point on the long and contentious road toward reconciliation with regards to Nepal’s civil war – there is almost a body that can investigate and bring light to a very dark chapter in the country’s history,” says Phelim Kine, a South Asia researcher with Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch, along with Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists and TRIAL, the Swiss Association against Impunity, sent the letter to President Yadav.

“This ordinance is completely against the spirit of the move towards reconciliation,” Kine told IPS, and an amnesty “would undo much of the credibility that the Nepali government has in moving towards creating a body to examine this dark period”.

Impunity and shaky due process have long been grinding problems for Nepal, but they are being highlighted as the country negotiates a post-conflict transition while simultaneously attempting to write a new constitution. The body vested with overseeing the latter, which doubled as the national parliament, was disbanded in May.

New elections are slated for November, but the presence of the former Maoist rebels at the head of government has created widespread mistrust throughout Kathmandu politics and broader society.

The Maoist leadership has never hid its distaste for a truth and reconciliation process that didn’t include some amnesty component – particularly over worries that the top leaders could end up in the International Criminal Court, an option that international observers have repeatedly said would not happen.

Further, any reconciliation process in Nepal would almost certainly implicate prominent members of nearly all of Nepal’s political parties and security forces. Even the Nepal Army has long sided with the Maoists in pushing for a blanket amnesty for war-era wrongdoings.

For this reason, coupled with the infighting and power jockeying that has increasingly characterised Nepali politics during the transition period, those at the centre of power in Kathmandu are some of the least interested in ensuring a robust truth and reconciliation process.

“At this particular juncture in Nepali politics, the opposition will seek to use all issues it can find to build opinion against the government,” Prashant Jha, a political analyst, told IPS from Kathmandu.

“But in fact, even sections of the democratic parties are not averse to amnesty for war-time crimes. The greater opposition, then, will come from the international community, civil society, lawyers and sections of the media.”

Others have gone so far as to suggest that a truth and reconciliation process is being foisted on the country from outside.

“There is generally consensus on the need for a blanket amnesty, while many see the international community as ‘creating problems’ by demanding a powerful TRC, which would be a headache for the parties and the army,” one Kathmandu journalist told IPS on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject.

“Most politicians see the TRC as an alien concept that is being imposed on Nepal by foreigners. It is not and has never been a major issue in Nepali politics.”

Society-wide investment

While each post-conflict situation is different, Human Rights Watch’s Kine says that the evidence from similar experiences around the world is unusually compelling.

“If you look at the record of post-conflict countries that have been wracked by internal conflict, what is unanimous is that there must be some type of reconciliation mechanism,” he says.

“We recognise that internationally there have been other mechanisms that have been put forward to address the issue. But the Nepali government has already embarked on the road of setting up a TRC, and any mechanism that allows for amnesty would only widen divisions rather than heal them.”

Most importantly, the push for such a process has become part of Nepal’s society-wide investment in a post-conflict transition. Throughout this week, public events took place across Nepal, bringing together victims of war, lawyers, activists and politicians to express anger at the ordinance and to try to decide on a future course of civic action.

At an event on Wednesday in Kathmandu, according to a report by a leading human rights group, former Maoist leader Ekraj Bhandari accused political leaders of failing to engage on the issue because they were “focused on gaining power”, adding that the proposed commission “cannot address the problems of conflict victims”.

Ishmael Beah, UNICEF Advocate for Children Affected by War, visits Central African Republic and talks to released child soldiers in Akroussoulback. Courtesy: Brian Sokol/UNICEF

By Kristin Palitza
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Aug 28 2012 (IPS)

The protection of children remains critical in the Central African Republic, where parents willingly give their children to armed groups in exchange for protection and services.

This is according to United Nations Children’s Fund(UNICEF) ambassador Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier from Sierra Leone, who spoke to IPS during his visit to South Africa.

Beah had just returned from a trip to CAR where he witnessed the release of 10 child soldiers in the conflict-ridden, northeastern town of N’dele by the rebel group the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP).

The move comes after the CPJP signed a peace accord with the government on Aug. 25 – yet another small step towards ending years of violence in the country. The release of the children was the group’s show of commitment towards peace. However, more than 2,500 boys and girls are thought to still work for various armed groups in the Central African nation.

Seven years of civil war have led to food scarcity, a collapsed economy and limited access to healthcare and education. Despite its mineral wealth, CAR remains one of the world’s least-developed countries. In 2011, CAR ranked 179 out of 186 countries in the U.N. Human Development Index.

“In CAR, parents willingly give their children to armed groups in exchange for protection and services, even though it’s against the children’s human rights. That makes it very difficult to negotiate the release of children,” Beah told IPS.

One of the armed groups operating in CAR is the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by internationally hunted Joseph Kony. Two LRA leaders under Kony, Dominic Ongwen and Okot Odhiambo, who are sought by the International Criminal Court, are reportedly hiding in CAR.

The LRA has increased its attacks in the country since early 2012 and continues to abduct children as fighters.

Beah was himself forcibly recruited into Sierra Leone’s civil war, in which his parents and two brothers were killed, when he was 13. He fought alongside rebel groups for two years until he was removed from the army and placed in a rehabilitation home.

He now lives in New York, where he works as a human rights activist. His book “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” has been translated into 35 languages and was on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 50 weeks.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Q: You witnessed the release of 10 child soldiers in CAR, one of the world’s poorest nations. What is life like there?

A: The government of CAR only has control over the capital city, Bangui. When you arrive in N’dele you understand how it is possible for an armed group to operate there; it is because the government is not providing social and economic services. Poverty is very stark, there are no resources or opportunities.

So it’s the armed group there, the CPJP, which provides some services. That’s why the group is very entrenched in the community. You see them walk around with weapons everywhere.

Q: Armed groups are part of the social fabric?

A: Yes, exactly. Still, the kids don’t want to fight. Once you take them away from the commanders, they tell you “I don’t want to do this.” But there are no alternatives beyond joining the armed group. The community relies on them. And the rebels have all the opportunities.

Q: How does a release operation happen?

A: The military doesn’t want to release the kids. They hide them. When you arrive at a military camp, the children who were identified are nowhere to be found. There are negotiations with the commanders until, slowly, they bring the kids out. After that, you have to leave immediately, because some of the children’s families live within the communities (and belong to the rebels).

The children are brought to a transit and rehabilitation centre in N’dele, where they receive psycho-social therapy as well as vocational training or are sent back to school.

Q: It sounds like a long, difficult process.

A: Yes. Added to that is that the rebels have weapons and ammunition, while you don’t have any protection. You rely on them keeping their promises. Everything about the situation is dangerous. When we landed in N’dele, the whole airport was surrounded by rebels with brand-new, sophisticated weapons, guarding the place. You are very exposed.

Q: What will happen to the rest of the estimated 2,500 child soldiers in CAR?

A: Right now, the rehabilitation centre takes care of 35 kids, and I witnessed the release of 10 more. Slowly, more and more are being released. All (three) rebel groups in the country have signed action plans to release children. But if nobody forces them, they will not do it.

Q: Visiting N’dele was to some degree a return to your past. How did that feel?

A: It brought up a lot of memories. I was driving in the car with the child soldiers who had just been released and could feel their uncertainty about being removed from what they know. I was in that same position (when I was a child soldier). I told them: “Things will be difficult, but you’re going to get through this.”

Once they understood that I had the same experience, there was a kinship that helped ease the situation a little. It’s such a daunting situation. You had this power of the weapon – some of them were lieutenants – and all of a sudden you’re just a child again, trying to figure out what to do with your life.

Q: How did they react when they heard your story?

A: They asked me questions repetitively. “Is it really possible to get through this? Can we actually have another life after this?” I was very honest with them. “It’s possible but it’s not easy. You’re going to be frustrated a lot. It’s not going to be as fast as you like.”

They are coming from an experience where they get things as fast as they like because they have a weapon. They understand these things when they come from someone like me.

Q: Are there viable alternatives for children in a poverty-stricken country like CAR?

A: There are viable alternatives, but they require long-term investment. If you want successful rehabilitation, you have to be willing to look beyond one year.

Q: What are the core demands of the CPJP and other armed groups?

A: During my visit, I talked to CPJP leader Abdoulaye Hissene. He said he started his group because of social-economic inequalities in the country. The official demand is for the government to provide services. Of course he is right, but he is using the argument to pursue his own, personal agenda. He is tapping into people’s needs, so they buy into his ideology. But then the only option he provides is armed struggle, which doesn’t solve people’s problems.

Q: What is Hissene’s hidden agenda?

A: He will not tell you, but from close observation you can tell that he wants to benefit from the natural resources in the area, the diamonds, the gold, and so on. In the end, all natural resource wealth goes to the armed groups or the government, but never reaches the people. That’s the problem.

Q: What presence does the LRA have in CAR?

A: The LRA is very strong in the southeast of the country. A lot of work needs to be done in that area to protect children. Since the beginning of this year, there have been frequent attacks and abductions (of children) by the LRA. Already, the government has no capacity to fight the armed groups in the country. Now there is this foreign group that has come in that is even stronger.

Q: Do you see any chance of the LRA agreeing to peace in CAR as well?

A: I am not sure. The LRA is very unpredictable. But what I do know is that many young people from this group would run away if they had a secure place to go to, instead of being arrested by authorities that try to get information out of them.

If there were a place that took them back as children and rehabilitated them, they would find a way to escape. You can’t just tell someone to put down a gun and then leave him out in the cold or throw him into prison. Structures need to be put into place for these children to leave. To get to the heart of the LRA or any other armed group you need to make sure that the candidates who can be recruited are not available.

Excerpt:

A Syrian independence flag painted on on a government school wall. Credit: Freedom House/ CC by 2.0

By Samer Araabi
WASHINGTON, Aug 23 2012 (IPS)

As violence in Syria spikes after a short lull, the prospect of international military intervention appears to be growing by the day. Earlier this week, almost exactly one year after President Barack Obama first called on Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad to step down, Obama warned of “enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons”.

Though the warning hardly indicated a significant policy shift in the Obama administration’s response to the growing catastrophe in Syria, it does represent the latest step in a slowly shifting willingness of administration officials to consider the use of direct military force against the Syrian state.

Early reactions of the Obama administration – and much of the American public – were largely opposed to yet another foreign military intervention.Still reeling from setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, with forces stretched into Yemen, Pakistan, Mali, and elsewhere, administration officials were also discouraged by the lack of political capital gained by the controversial intervention in Libya.

They pushed back against committing the United States to yet another military endeavour in the Middle East, despite strong urging from hawks in both parties that advocated an immediate aerial campaign against the Assad regime.

However, Washington has not been content to sit on the sidelines and wait out the conflict; it has deeply involved itself on all levels of the uprising – from the daily violence to the transitional plans –hoping to mould the process and outcome to suit its own regional geopolitical interests.

Instead of committing U.S. troops, the administration has chosen a different tactic. For months, Washington has been facilitating the arming and coordination of the Free Syrian Army, the loose umbrella group of militia members, foreign fighters and army defectors that has rapidly grown in size and capacity to take on Assad’s security forces.

Reuters recently uncovered covert CIA involvement with the Free Syrian Army in Turkey, and the administration has allowed a U.S. organization to funnel money to Syrian opposition forces. These moves align the administration not only with the anti-Assad opposition writ-large, but with a particular subset of that opposition movement that has prioritised a violent struggle above all other alternatives.

An armed uprising to unseat a dictator is not necessarily an illegitimate course of action; many successful and inspiring revolutions have followed a similar course. However, the armed uprising in Syria is arguably the least legitimate component of the country’s two-year revolution.

From the very outset, “rebels” have had to rely on financing, equipment and even manpower from external sources, often either from other autocratic neighbouring states with non-democratic expectations for a post-Assad Syria, or from international players with disastrous track records of involvement and influence in Middle Eastern political affairs.

In this context, there are no indications that this iteration will somehow be substantively different than the countless others that have come – and failed – before it.

Syrian proponents of international military intervention are well aware of these dangers, yet some have consciously chosen to disregard them. The majority, however, claim that these complications are a necessary price to pay in the absence of any other alternative. Without Gulf and Western involvement, they argue, the opposition is doomed to defeat, which would inevitably result in a bloodbath for the people of Syria.

This claim belies the fact that the conflict does not exist in the black-and-white binaries presented by pro-intervention groups. Armed insurrection is not the only way to bring down the Assad regime, and the strengthening of armed groups directly undermines alternative methods of resolution to the conflict.

The opposition encompasses a number of different forms, with widely divergent tactics, and commensurate variation in efficacy and legitimacy. It is highly telling that popular demonstrations in Syria have all but vanished as the armed insurrection has gained control and prominence.

Anecdotal evidence points to the rapid disillusionment of many Syrians with armed gangs that have “hijacked” their uprising, potentially to advance the interests of some foreign power with designs for Syria. Charles Glass, a former ABC News chief Middle East correspondent who recently returned from Syria, warned that the Syrian popular democratic opposition is being “drowned out in the cacophony of artillery and rifle fire”.

The effects of the armed uprising are also being felt across the region. In addition to sizable refugee outflows into Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq, the Syrian crisis has served as a catalyst to reignite long simmering tensions in its neighbouring states, a particularly dangerous development for the fragile political equilibrium in Lebanon.

In clashes yesterday, at least a dozen individuals were killed in a gunfight between pro-Assad and anti-Assad factions in Tripoli, and Lebanon has been host to a number of kidnappings of Syrian individuals in retaliation for Lebanese kidnapped earlier in Syria.

It is in this context that Washington’s positioning toward the crisis is particularly dangerous; the explicit support for the armed opposition has effectively edged out all alternatives. It has sidelined moderates, nonviolent activists and a large portion of the Syrian population that has no love for Bashar Al-Assad, but no interest in a Qatari, Saudi or American vision for a future Syrian state.

More importantly, it has emboldened the rebels to continue on a course that will inevitably lead to greater bloodshed, animosity and social collapse. The current course of action gives undue power and political legitimacy to outside actors with little to lose in Syria’s continuing descent into chaos; they can afford to hold out for maximalist objectives because they are not the individuals bearing the costs.

The Syrian regime, similarly buttressed by Russian and Iranian attempts to maintain strategic positioning, has openly floated the idea of an Assad resignation, and advocated the beginning of a dialogue with opposition groups.

Based on the regime’s history of reneging on internationally-mediated efforts to end the violence, the sincerity of this pledge is clearly circumspect. It does, however, represent a growing awareness within some Syrian circles that dialogue is the only way out of this stalemate that would keep the Syrian nation intact, a fact that the militarised Syrian opposition refuses to acknowledge.

As the last remaining U.N. monitors depart Syria today amid bombs and artillery fire in Damascus, it seems that the rest of the world has done the same.

LGBT activists, human rights observers and police officers wait outside a courtroom in Uganda's constitutional court. Four activists had brought a case against Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo. Credit: Will Boase/IPS

By Andrew Green
KAMPALA, Aug 21 2012 (IPS)

In the face of rising public criticism over a range of controversial political manoeuvres, the Ugandan government has become increasingly hostile to the work of non-governmental organisations, particularly those advocating for the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch.

The report, released on Aug. 21, said that intimidation and obstructionist tactics have, over the last year, been used against NGOs working across a range of issues.

The report, “Curtailing Criticism: Intimidation and Obstruction of Civil Society in Uganda”, draws on interviews with 41 NGO officials, government representatives and donors in Kampala. HRW found that some civil society groups have started self-censoring in order to protect their staff, reflecting wider concerns that criticism of the government can be increasingly dangerous.

“The attacks on freedom of expression appear to coincide with increasing criticism of the ruling party’s governance,” Maria Burnett, a senior researcher for HRW’s Africa division and the author of the report, told IPS.

“At various times since President Yoweri Museveni took office in 1986, there has been some tolerance for critical or divergent voices. But since the February 2011 elections, government actors have been tightening the controls on both access to information and people’s abilities to express themselves, to obstruct the public’s understanding of the causes of the economic and political turmoil,” Burnett said.

Museveni, who has been in power for 27 years, is expected to run for another term of office in 2016.

“Since his re-election in 2011, political tensions have been running high and public criticism of government has escalated. To better control this environment, the ruling party’s high-ranking government officials are increasingly scrutinising NGOs and the impact they might have on public perceptions of governance and management of public funds,” HRW said in a statement on Aug. 21.

The report’s release comes on the heels of several clashes between the government and local and international NGOs. Officials threatened in May to kick Oxfam International out of the country if the British charity did not retract and apologise for allegations it made the previous September that more than 20,000 Ugandans were the victims of land grabs by a British multinational.

And in June the government ordered the Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment – a local think tank – to stop all political activities.

At the time, State Minister for Internal Affairs James Baba told Uganda’s Daily Monitor that his ministry, which has oversight of the country’s NGO Board – the government-run institution that currently oversees the non-profit sector in Uganda – was “working within its mandate.”

These moves come in the wake of increasing civil society analysis, research and criticism on a range of issues. This includes charges – raised by opposition politicians in parliament last year – of corruption in the fledgling oil sector, high inflation, and poor delivery of education and health services.

Efforts to highlight these issues, including a widely covered Walk to Work campaign organised by Activists for Change, have drawn international attention and – in the case of Walk to Work – violent crackdowns by police.

HRW reported that some of the civil society workers they interviewed said they had received anonymous phone calls encouraging them to stop researching certain issues. Others suspected their phones were tapped or their homes were under surveillance.

Though the number of high-profile incidents has increased in 2012, the government has had a history of obstructing NGO activity in the past – especially groups working around the LGBT and commercial sex worker (CSW) communities.

In 2009, Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), a pan-African women’s advocacy organisation, attempted to hold a leadership training workshop in Uganda for CSWs. Although AMwA organisers said they informed government officials that they were planning the workshop and sent them a proposed agenda, the meeting was shut down the day before it was supposed to happen. The organisers had to shift the workshop to Nairobi.

The workshop was “not about promoting sex work,” Vivian Ngonzi, AMwA’s executive assistant, told IPS. “These were very learned women. They were discussing self-help, learning about their rights… I don’t know what’s illegal about that.”

The government has continued to close down workshops, specifically those focused on members of the LGBT community. HRW’s report highlights the “aggressively homophobic agenda” of Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo who ordered the closing this year of two workshops that included LGBT activists.

In February, he closed down a five-day meeting in Entebbe, Central Uganda, after participants, who included LGBT activists, were told that it was an illegal gathering. After the incident, four of the attendees filed a case against him in the constitutional court, charging him with denying them their constitutional right to assemble.

Declaring the fight against homosexuality a “national priority,” Lokodo also told HRW that groups like Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) were “on a mission to destroy this country.”

Lokodo’s efforts have been made at the same time that a proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda seeks to criminalise homosexual activities and introduce the death penalty in some cases.

The bill – originally introduced in 2009 by member of parliament David Bahati, who claims that homosexuality has been imported from the West – listed the death penalty as punishment under an offence called aggravated homosexuality. This, according to the 2009 draft of the bill, was defined as “repeat offenders” of homosexuality, or when one of the participants in a homosexual relationship is under 18, or has a disability, or is HIV-positive.

The bill was allowed to lapse during last year’s parliament, and was reintroduced by Bahati in February, this time without the death penalty clause.

Pepe Onziema, the advocacy and policy officer at SMUG and one of the plaintiffs in the case, told IPS that the situation is getting “harder and harder” for LGBT-focused NGOs.

Onziema said, in the case of LGBT activists, the government is focusing on “a particular group of organisations to intimidate the rest of society” – something HRW also concluded.

“After the threats of closing down NGOs… things are getting worse,” Onziema said.

Local media organisations reported that Lokodo planned to ban 38 organisations that were sympathetic to the LGBT cause, though no action has yet been taken. HRW’s report found, even among groups not working on LGBT issues, that there is growing concern that any precedent established in closing those groups could later be applied to them.

HRW has called on the Ugandan government to reverse course “to change and improve its terms of engagement with all NGOs.” It noted that NGOs were forced to scale back their work, especially on controversial topics such as LGBT rights, in order to continue operating.

“One LGBT organisation had a small project to distribute brochures which carried the message that LGBT people are like everyone else and that God loves them. Because of the government’s obstructions to the work of LGBT groups, the organisers of this project felt that their volunteers would be unsafe and have stopped this work. In order to continue operating and providing services to their community, they have since limited the scope of their work,” the report says.

Specifically, HRW is calling for autonomy for the NGO Board. The organisation is also urging the government to investigate instances of unlawful interference, harassment or intimidation of NGOs, like the workshop closures.

By Carlota Cortes
NEW YORK, Aug 2 2012 (IPS)

Roasted foie gras fillet, with fresh chestnuts and soymilk skin. This dish from Mugaritz, considered the third-best restaurant in the world, sounds exotic. But how this “delicacy” – foie gras means “fat liver” – is produced and at what cost have been unmasked in an investigation led by Animal Equality.

The organisation exposed the internal management of multiple foie gras farms – six in Spain and four in France. In the undercover study, which began in July 2011, activists shot footage and photographs and conducted interviews by pretending to be interested in the industry.

“They want to hide what they do, because foie gras implies so much suffering to animals,” Sharon Núñez, general coordinator of the organisation, told IPS. All the footage was acquired legally because they did not use hidden cameras.

The Committee of the European Convention for the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes established recommendations concerning the welfare of ducks and geese. Adopted in 1999 by the Council of Europe, these guidelines’ key points concerned the health and behaviour of ducks and geese.

Article 7 of the document states: “At the inspection it must be borne in mind that the healthy bird has sounds and activity appropriate to its age” including “clear bright eyes, good posture, vigorous movements if unduly disturbed…good plumage…effective walking, bathing and preening, and active feeding and drinking behaviour.”

Article 10 requires that housing system allow the animals to “flap the wings, turn around without difficulty and stand up in a normal posture”.

But as one of the videos from Animal Equality shows, the animals do not exhibit what is considered appropriate behaviour. Some of them drop their heads in water containers and are unable to move, sometimes due to their weight and at other times because of individual cages.

A European Commission spokesperson, Frederic Vincent, told IPS that according to the recommendations, “until new scientific evidence on alternative methods and their welfare aspects is available, the production of foie gras shall be carried out only where it is current practice and then only in accordance with standards laid down in domestic law”.

But since foie gras farms are apparently not following these recommendations, in January, the European Commission adopted a new strategy where effective implementation is a high priority.

“The recommendations explicitly acknowledge the legality of the production of foie gras as such and only put countries allowing foie gras production under certain obligations,” said Vincent.

Today, only five countries produce foie gras: France, Spain, Bulgaria, Hungary and Belgium. France, the biggest manufacturer, produced around 20,000 tons of foie gras in 2011, according to the report by the ministry of agriculture.

Foie gras in the United States

In the United States, the debate reached the U.S. Department of Agriculture in early July, when the Animal Legal Defence Fund filed a lawsuit.  The key point of the group’s argument is that in order to get foie gras, ducks and geese are force-fed in order to enlarge their livers up to ten times their normal size.

Carter Dillard, director of litigation for the Animal Legal Defence Fund, told IPS, “It’s a simple principle: healthy animals make healthy food, and unhealthy animals make unhealthy food.”

“They are literally willing to torture the animal just to make them taste better and that’s really barbaric,” said Dillard.

On Jul. 1, the state of California banned force-feeding. As a result, foie gras may no longer be consumed, produced, or sold there. Since the closing of Sonoma Farm in California, only two foie gras farms remain in the United States. Both are in the state of New York – La Belle Farm and Hudson Valley Foie Gras.

The organisation Humane Society has been very active in this debate. Paul Shapiro, the group’s vice president for farm animal protection, told IPS that ” cutting off the California market for this cruel and inhumane product is an important move forward for the humane movement”.

The more Americans learn about “how abusive and inhumane…force-feeding is,” Shapiro added, “the more horrified they would be.”

Artisan Farmers Alliance, a group representing American foie gras farmers, has been actively fighting the California ban and supports a lawsuit filed in federal court against the state. This case is led by Association des Eleveurs de Canards et D’Oies from Quebec, Hudson Valley Foie Gras and Hot’s Kitchen Restaurant Group of California.

“The primary effort is a legal effort,” Marcus Henley, the secretary for Artisan Farmers Alliance, told IPS.

The Humane Society, however, has also intervened in this lawsuit. They are working primarily to keep the California ban in force, said Shapiro. On July 18, the judge ruled that the law would remain in force during course of the case.

The latest development in this debate is the amendment introduced by Congressman Steve King (R-IA), to the 2012 farm bill, which will prevent states from imposing their own standards on agricultural products imported from other states. This amendment will affect directly to the foie gras ban.

“California has no right constitutionally to tell a New York farmer or an Iowa farmer that they can’t sell their product, legally produced under federal regulations, in the state of California,” said Henley.

While organisations like Artisan Farmers Alliance or Hudson Valley Foie Gras are trying to fight bans on the consumption of foie gras, maintaining that force-feeding is not a practice that causes animals to suffer, Humane Society and Animal Legal Defence Fund are focusing on the law’s effective implementation, emphasising the cruelty of the activity.

The debate is ongoing. Indeed, foie gras production is not going to stop soon, as there is some evidence of an emergent black market in California. For others, this product has an expiration date.

“I think 50 years from now people will be horrified that we ever did this,” Dillard said.

More than a hundred LGBT people, and various civil and human right organisations gathered in protest against the growing violence, rape, intolerance and the South African government’s failure to address the problem. Credit: Neo Ntsoma/IPS

By Jedi Ramapala
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 19 2012 (IPS)

Wendy Hlophe* is still visibly grieving for her long-term friend, 28-year-old Sanna Supa, who was shot and killed outside her home in Braamficherville, a South African township, two weeks ago.

Tragically, Hlophe blames herself for Supa’s untimely death. Supa, a lesbian who came out about her sexual orientation three years ago, was one of the few openly gay women living in the township. She was a school administrator at Snake Park High School in Dobsonville, Soweto, and was killed as she parked her car at home on Jul. 1.

Hlophe told IPS that she holds herself responsible for Supa’s death because she is known as an openly gay woman in her township and she supported Supa when she came out. Hlophe fears that their closeness may have made Supa a target.

“We grew up in the same street and were often seen together,” she told IPS.

“I was shocked, and I couldn’t believe that she was gone. She was such a sweet person,” she added.

At the time of Supa’s death the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW) had believed the motive for the crime was based on her sexual orientation as neither her vehicle nor her belongings were stolen.

“Are we the only people in this country noticing these killings … are the people being killed not human enough or not citizens enough?” asked FEW in a statement at the time.

The crime is certainly not a new one in South Africa. Supa is one of 10 lesbians who have been killed across South Africa in the past month because of their sexual orientation, said Jabu Pereira, a human rights and gender activist. Gay people are victimised daily across South Africa, activists said.

In February four South African men were sentenced to 18 years in jail for stoning and stabbing to death an openly lesbian teenager, 19-year-old Zoliswa Nkonyana, in 2006. Violence against lesbians is common here, with high incidences of “corrective rape”, where men believe they can “cure” lesbians of their sexual orientation.

So while Wednesday Jul. 18 marked the 94^th birthday of South Africa’s first democratically elected president and world icon, Nelson Mandela, gay rights activists here said they had nothing to celebrate.

And the 67 minutes that South Africans are encouraged to give back in community service on the day, a symbol of the 67 years that Mandela spent fighting for the freedom of his people, were considered a failure.

Gender activists and human rights organisations called the birthday a day of shame for the South African government and the ruling African National Congress (ANC), of which Mandela is still a member, for failing to halt hate crimes against lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

Activists accused the current government of turning its back on everything that former president Mandela stands for during a peaceful demonstration at the Library Gardens in Johannesburg’s city centre on Jul. 18.

More than a hundred LGBT people, and various civil and human right organisations gathered in protest against the growing violence, rape, intolerance and the government’s failure to address the problem. They said that the silence from government amidst the growing wave of hate crimes has exacerbated the situation.

“We are ashamed of our leaders, sick and tired of their silence,” Pereira said referring to the government’s inaction.

Protest organisers also condemned the homophobic comments made by ANC Member of Parliament Nkosi Patekile Holomisa following a submission by the House of Traditional Leaders to parliament’s Constitutional Review Committee that proposed the removal of the constitutional provisions protecting people from discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Holomisa is an advocate at the Supreme Court, a traditional leader, chairperson of the joint Constitutional Review Committee and chairperson of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa.

Holomisa said in a May 2012 interview that: “The ANC knows that the great majority of South Africans do not want to promote or protect the rights of gays and lesbians.”

In the interview he said he did not want to retract his comments and that “where I come from these things are not supported, not condoned.”

The ruling party has, however, distanced itself from the views. “The ANC believes that any law which denies people the right to their sexual expression devalues them in our broader society and as such is an affront to their dignity and a breach of Section 9 of our Constitution.”

Meanwhile, Wandile Ntubeni* sat on the margins of Library Gardens watching the group of protesters singing and toy-toying around the square.

Ntubeni, a 35-year-old father of three, said that what he heard about the discrimination and violence against gay people hurt him. He is a migrant worker from the Eastern Cape, where, he claimed, he had no contact with gays and lesbians. But he told IPS that it is wrong for the government to continue to be silent on the issue.

“I blame the government, they need to play a leading role in the discussion around how to deal with the issue and help us understand how to deal with it. Because some things can only be accepted if government or the ruling party gives us leadership.”

Ntubeni himself found it hard to explain why violent murder seemed to be the only response that some men had to gay women.

“People have a right to decide what they want to do with their bodies,” he concluded.

As he spoke, the director of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Project, Virginia Setshedi, led the chanting protestors to the ANC’s offices, which are directly opposite Library Gardens.

“Enough is enough!” she shouted to a handful of ANC party officials, including police officers, who stood lined up against the building’s walls.

Some scoffed, giggled and whispered, “This is a waste of time” while she read the protestor’s demands, which called for the government to break its silence on the issue.

“This is not a joke!” she screamed, her voice breaking. “This is a matter of life and death and we will not go away.”

The ANC’s elections manager Mandla Dlamini received the memorandum and said that the party would look at the document and formulate a response in due time.

Meanwhile, the tragedy of the often violent and humiliating treatment of LGBT people in South Africa remains a harsh reality.

And Supa’s violent death is something Hlophe will not forget.

“She was a sister to me, I still can’t face her mother,” she said on the verge of tears.

“She was happy after she came out to her mother,” she added.

A night vigil was held on Jul. 18 at the Women’s Gaol museum, at the country’s Constitutional Court in Johannesburg.

It was a time to remember all those who have been killed in vicious hate crimes from 2001 to July 2012:

Ivan Johannes,

Zoliswa Nkonyana,

Madoe Mafubedu,

Simangele Nhlapho,

Sizakele Sigasa,

Salome Massoa,

Thokozane Qwade,

Waldo Bester,

Eudy Simelane,

Khanyiswa Loyi Hani,

Desmond “Daisy” Dube,

Neil Daniels,

Sibongile Mphelo,

Girly S’Gelane Nkosi,

Noxolo Magwaza,

Nqobile Khumalo,

Unidentified,

Nontsikelelo Tyatyeka,

Unidentified,

Thapelo Makhutle,

Phumeza Nkolozi,

Sasha Lee Gordon,

Andrithat Thapelo Morifi,

and Sanna Supa.

*Names changed to protect identity.

A nurse attends to an expectant mother at Walgak Primary Health Care Centre in South Sudan's Jonglei State. Credit: Charlton Doki/IPS

By Charlton Doki
JUBA, Jul 9 2012 (IPS)

One year after the formation of South Sudan, the country’s women say that independence has not resulted in the positive political, economic and social changes that they had hoped for.

Women activists worry that even after separation from Sudan on Jul. 9, 2011, when South Sudan became the world’s newest country and Africa’s 54th nation, the government has not done enough to improve the lives of its women.

But as people across the country celebrate the first anniversary of independence from Sudan, after a 21-year civil war, the year has been fraught with crises.

The country is in the midst of an economic crisis after South Sudan’s decision in January to shut down oil production, which accounts for 98 percent of the its revenue, following a dispute with Sudan over fees charged to use its pipelines.

There is also dire food insecurity here. In June, the United Nations World Food Programme said that more than half of the country’s 8.2 million people would need food aid by the end of the year.

In the country’s Upper Nile state, the Jamam refugee camp is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis. The camp is home to some of the 200,000 refugees who, according to the U.N., have fled the conflict in Sudan’s Blue state.

However, Médecins Sans Frontières has warned that the mortality rate among children at the camp was 2.8 per 10,000 per day. This figure is above the emergency threshold of two per 10,000.

Amidst all of this both women leaders and activists admit that they had high expectations of the country’s first year. Some feel that the reality of independence has failed to live up to the hype and euphoria.

“We had high expectations, but I think they are not unrealistic and should not be pushed aside. Women are doing badly politically, economically, socially and education wise. The government needs to take measures to address the challenges facing women so that they can truly enjoy life in their new independent country,” Lorna Merekaje, of the South Sudan Domestic Election Monitoring and Observation Programme, told IPS.

Others disagree.

The Central Equatoria state Governor’s advisor on conflict resolution, Helen Murshali Boro, said that women’s concerns would be addressed.

“There is freedom of speech to allow women to express themselves and this means women’s concerns will not go off the radar until they are addressed in the coming years of our country’s independence,” she said.

Though the reality still remains far different.

“Like in the past when South Sudan was still part of Sudan, today women live in poverty,” said Lona James Elia, executive director of a local women’s rights agency, Voice For Change.

The National Baseline Household Survey (NBHS), conducted in 2009 and released in June 2012, indicates that over half of South Sudan’s 8.2 million people live below the poverty line on less than a dollar a day. The majority of the poor are women.

Elia added that South Sudan is still unable to provide maternal health services to the country’s women, especially in rural areas.

According to the U.N. Children’s Fund only 19 percent of births are attended by a skilled health worker. According to the NBHS, 30 percent of the population has no access to basic health services.

The few available health facilities lack supplies and qualified personnel to provide the required services. And in some rural areas women cannot receive maternal and antenatal care because they live too far from the nearest maternity clinic. Thirty-seven percent of poor households have to travel for more than an hour to reach their nearest most-used health facility, according to the NBHS.

“Women are still dying while giving birth. They are still not accessing maternal health services. A woman is not supposed to die because she is giving birth to a new life, a new baby. This is not acceptable,” Elia told IPS.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2011 the country recorded that 2,054 out of every 100,000 women died during childbirth. The high mortality rate has not changed much a year later, according to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

In June, Kate Gilmore, assistant secretary-general and deputy executive director (Programme) of the UNFPA, told reporters in Juba that maternal mortality rates in South Sudan remained the worst in the world.

“The latest evidence that we have is that using standard figures in every 100,000 births there are over two thousand women who die from preventable causes in South Sudan. In Afghanistan, which surely is one of the most troubled countries in the world, it is half that. Across Africa it is five hundred,” she had said.

Elia said the government needed to invest in maternal health services to ensure that women could participate in developing the country.

“A mother should not have to travel all the way from Gondokoro to Juba to deliver a baby because there is no hospital in her home city,” Elia said. Gondokoro is about 20 km from Juba and also within Central Equatoria state. She added that because the nearest health care centre was too far, some women died along the way.

However, government spokesman Barnaba Marial Benjamin said that the government had worked hard to improve living standards.
“We have initiated projects, including building schools and health centres, which will benefit all South Sudanese citizens, including women,” he told IPS.

In addition, the government has implement an affirmative action policy that ensures 25 percent women’s representation in all government jobs at national, state and county levels.

“You see after independence the president appointed six women to the cabinet and about nine to 10 assistant ministers. I think with about 16 women in the national government, the government has responded positively,” said Boro.

Currently there are four female ministers out of a total of 29, and eight female assistant ministers from a total of 27.

However, activists say that this has not directly affected the lives of the country’s women.

“When you look at the middle-class women and those at the grassroots they are still not in positions where they can make decisions that benefit women,” Merekaje told IPS.

Boro admitted that women still occupy low entry positions in the work field.

“Although these days you see more women coming to work in the morning, at the end of the day they go home with peanuts because they work in the less-paid, low positions,” Boro said.

Elia said that women were unable to find employment because the majority are illiterate and do not have the vocational skills required by employers. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 88 percent of South Sudanese women are illiterate. In addition, the U.N. says that only one percent of girls complete primary school.

“Women are the most illiterate and because, despite the independence of our country, women at the grassroots level still remain the most underprivileged segment of society as they have to depend on men for survival,” Elia told IPS.

Jerisa Yide is one such example. The 65-year-old grandmother earns a living breaking stones and rocks into gravel, which she sells to builders.

“I used to crash stones before independence to enable me to pay my grandchildren’s school fees. We are now independent, but we are even paying more fees for our children to go to school,” said Yide.

Primary and secondary school education are not free in South Sudan. And as a result of the shut down on oil production, the government introduced an austerity budget in January where it scrapped free university education.

Yide said that when she voted for independence she expected the government to provide better services, including education and health.

Selina Modong agreed that not much had changed. She said that the cost of living in Juba had increased since independence. As a result of the economic crisis, inflation has soared to a staggering 80 percent in May.

“I was eating one meal per day before independence. Today I still eat one meal per day and sometimes we hardly eat good food these days,” Modong said.

“I think independence has not changed anything for us poor people,” Modong concluded.

Elia said that everyone should participate in ensuring that the women’s agenda is addressed.

“If you want this independence to benefit everyone, the issue of women should not be for women alone. It should be for everybody. Let us ensure that our daughters have a bright future. That they will get the education they want, that they will get the employment they want and that they will get the health services they deserve to build healthy families for themselves,” said Elia.

Several dozen protestors who were arrested for taking part in a demonstration in the capital Luanda in November 2011. Credit: Louise Redvers/IPS

By Louise Redvers
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 6 2012 (IPS)

Preparations for Angola’s second peacetime polls scheduled for August are being overshadowed by allegations of electoral fraud, state media bias and growing concerns about a violent crackdown on activists and protestors.

Human Rights Watch has criticised the government for its heavy-handed response to street demonstrations by former soldiers demanding unpaid military pensions, and the lobby group said that it was worried about a series of violent attacks on youth groups known for their criticism of the government.

“The recent spate of serious abuses against protesters is an alarming sign that Angola’s government will not tolerate peaceful dissent,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director.

“The government should stop trying to silence these protests and focus on improving the election environment,” she added.

Meanwhile opposition groups are unhappy about how the elections, which are scheduled for Aug. 31, are being organised. Several parties who were on Friday Jul. 6 barred from taking part altogether – supposedly due to paperwork irregularities – are crying foul.

Of the 27 parties and coalitions who applied to run in the election, only nine have been formally approved by the Constitutional Court.

Among those rejected are the Bloco Democrático (BD), led by leading intellectual and former ruling party member Justino Pinto de Andrade; and Partido Popular, which was formed by respected human rights lawyer David Mendes.

“This is a symptom of Angolan democracy. They have deliberately blocked the parties who campaign for human rights and show solidarity to social causes,” BD secretary general, Filomeno Viera Lopes, told IPS.

The largest opposition party, União Nacional pela Independência Total de Angola (UNITA), has been cleared to run, but it remains highly critical of various aspects of the electoral process, especially around the allocation of tenders for services like the printing of ballot papers.

It is also asking whether it is really the National Electoral Commission (CNE) that is in charge of the election or the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA).

The CNE has refuted the allegations of wrongdoing and its president André da Silva Neto has said the vote will be conducted with “exemption, impartiality, transparency and fairness”.

The MPLA has also denied the fraud charges and accusations that it is targeting critical activists. Several senior figures, including President Jose Eduardo dos Santos himself, have publicly stated that the party was too big and too popular to need to cheat.

“From a judicial point of view, we have a lot of problems because the electoral commission is still violating the electoral law and we plan to formally complain to the constitutional courts about a number of issues,” UNITA spokesman Alcides Sakala said.

He complained about the state media bias towards the ruling party. He also cited a last-minute change to allow diaspora voting, despite the fact that overseas electoral registration had been restricted to embassy staff and MPLA supporters.

Sakala also expressed concern about a plan to allow police officers and the army to vote ahead of polling day.

“How will this process be monitored?” he asked. “No one will be able to control that and that raises a lot of concern from our side.”

While UNITA remains the largest party with 16 seats in parliament, it faces some stiff competition from new kid on the block Convergencia Ampla de Salvação de Angola (CASA-CE).

Formed just months ago by the highly regarded Abel Chivukuvuku, himself formerly of UNITA and with close links to the late war-time leader Jonas Savimbi, CASA-CE brings a new dynamic to the Angolan political scene.

Angolan expert Markus Weimer from London-based think tank Chatham House said that while CASA-CE could only hope to secure a few seats in parliament, its formation was ruffling feathers within the MPLA.

“I think the MPLA is worried by CASA-CE because it is an unknown,” he said. “The party has come seemingly from nowhere and from nothing and they are not quite sure how to handle them.”

Weimer said he was confident the MPLA, which has a firm grip on the country’s economy and media, both state and private, would win the vote. He added that it was crucial that the doubts over the voting process were cleared up.

“The process needs to be seen as legitimate by everyone for the MPLA’s win to be accepted,” he explained.

“The MPLA will be prepared to lose seats if it means the election is regarded as credible and legitimate.”

Angola’s experience of elections is limited, having only previously held two since the country’s independence from Portugal in 1975.

The 2008 poll passed peacefully despite widespread allegations of vote-rigging, but the election in 1992 was abandoned midway and triggered a second phase of the civil war that lasted until 2002. The first civil war began after independence in 1975 until 1991.

There are fears that if opposition parties do not feel the vote is conducted fairly, this could trigger protests and lead to unrest.

“We want to keep a positive approach and avoid this,” UNITA’s Sakala said.

“We will be insisting that the law is followed so that we can avoid other situations that can lead to other difficulties that are not good for the country.”

He said they had been encouraged by the Supreme Court’s June decision to uphold his party’s appeal against the appointment of MPLA member Suzanna Ingles to the presidency of the CNE despite only being a lawyer, and not a serving judge as the law required.

While this is a legislative election, the vote will also decide who will be Angola’s president because a controversial change in the constitution in 2010 means that the head of state is now elected from the top of the list of the party which wins the most parliamentary votes.

With the MPLA on course for what seems like another victory, Dos Santos, who has been in power for 33 years since 1979 despite never being formally elected, will be handed a new five-year term.

The length of the 69-year-old’s presidency, one of the longest in Africa, alongside widespread allegations of illicit enrichment by his family and inner circle, has been a driver for some of the recent youth protests.

Despite the country’s enormous oil wealth and impressive post-war economic growth, between half and two thirds of the population still live in poverty, many in slum-style conditions without access to running water, sanitation or electricity.

As the attention of the world faded away from Azerbaijan after the recent Eurovision song contest, police began targeting some young activists and a journalist involved in protests here last month.

The Eurovision song contest was as much a moment of enjoyment for music lovers as it was a fierce contest between the Azerbaijani government and its opponents to highlight the ‘reality’ of a politically turbulent country; with the former presenting a respectable image to the West, and the latter struggling to expose human rights violations and government suppression of basic civil liberties.

More than ten protest rallies were organised on the eve of the contest.

Human rights defenders and activists had anticipated a post-Eurovision crackdown, when the spotlight had turned away from the country and the government would be free to punish those who had dared to educate the world about the grave situation on the ground in Azerbaijan.

On Jun. 6, the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS), a media rights watchdog, was notified by the Sabail District Police Office that a photo journalist named Mehman Huseynov, an IRFS member, had allegedly insulted police officers during a protest on May 21.

The district police office has now opened a criminal case against Huseynov under Article 221.2.2 of the Criminal Code of the Azerbaijan Republic.  If found guilty, Huseynov will face five years in prison.

Huseynov (23), said the accusation is related to his work, which for many years has entailed photographing events that depict government wrongdoings and disseminating them via social media.

Several months prior to Eurovision, Huseynov actively joined the Sing for Democracy Campaign.

“I was media coordinator within the campaign. My photos and videos were shared in international media.  Of course, they showed the reality of Azerbaijan, (which) is unfortunately not very positive. That is why I am a target now,” he told IPS.

Over 30 human rights organisations joined Sing for Democracy in an effort to pressure organisers of the contest to demand greater democracy in Azerbaijan.

The campaign called for the release of political prisoners, freedom of expression and assembly, protection of property rights and the independence of courts.

IRFS head Emin Huseynov, Mehman Huseynov’s older brother, links the accusation against the latter with his profession. “It is the start of the post-Eurovision crackdown. It is revenge against the IRFS for actively informing foreign journalists and international media on the eve of Eurovision about many harassment cases in Azerbaijan. Besides, during seven years of work, we investigated many cases of pressure on journalists. Now, they want to punish us.”

Before the song contest, Leyla Yunus, director of the Institute of Peace and Democracy, had often warned of a serious backlash after the Eurovision-fuelled tourist season died down. She believes Mehman Huseynov is the first victim of that campaign.

“Mehman’s work has been shared and discussed recently. Besides, he is working for IRFS, which is critical of the government. By arresting him they want to (blacklist) a good photo journalist and put pressure on his brother Emin.”

Various other activists were also brought into police stations this week.

Beyim Hasanli, a member of the opposition Popular Front Party’s Youth Committee was called in to the Sebayil district police station on Jun. 9.

She was asked how she got information about the May 21 protest action and why she attended it. Hasanli was also asked if she ever noticed a media representative being rude to the police.

“After that they showed me a video in which I was trying to help a woman dragged by police. There were many journalists, including Mehman, who tried to film it but police would not let them do so. It also showed Mehman (swearing) when he was not allowed to film.”

After that Hasanli was asked to write a report on what she saw on video.

A week ago, her father was called in to the Absheron district Main Police Office and asked to sign a statement promising to be responsible for his daughter’s activities.

Hasanli claims all this was done to intimidate and discourage her from being an activist.

Natig Adilov, a journalist with the opposition Azadlig newspaper and activist with the Popular Front Party, was called in to the Sabirabad police station on Jun. 13, where he was “advised” to get involved in better activities than participating in protest rallies.

“They do it to scare people so that they stop their public activity. For autocratic regimes like this, intimidation is very important to manage their (stronghold). It is also related to me being very active during Eurovision,” said Adilov.

Ehsan Zahidov, spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said the recent slew of interrogations against activists and journalists has nothing to do with their activity during the Eurovision song contest or their political background but pertained to them violating “rules”.

“To advise people (on how to behave) is part of the job of police officers. They do not care about the political activity of citizens. Natig Adilov was just advised not to violate public order. That is it,” he told IPS.

For Arzu Abdullayeva, human rights defender and co-chair of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, recent pressure on journalists is not limited to Eurovision activity.

“Activists have always been a threat to the Azerbaijani government. By (putting) pressure on activists, journalists, by arresting them, the government (lets potential dissidents) know that they will have the same future.”

Human rights organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch condemned the accusation against Huseynov.

The authorities should “drop the bogus charges against Huseynov and ensure that he can exercise his right to freedom of expression”, Human Rights Watch said in its recent report.

Amnesty International’s statement mentions that Huseynov’s arrest comes amid a worrying rise in police harassment of young activists who participated in protests around Eurovision.

According to Max Tucker, Amnesty International’s Azerbaijan campaigner, Mehman’s arrest signals the start of the widely predicted government crackdown on those they consider responsible for negative publicity during Eurovision.

(END)