Rohingya people alight from a boat as they arrive at Shahparir Dip in Teknaf, Bangladesh. Credit: IPS

By Naimul Haq
DHAKA, Mar 2 2018 (IPS)

Nobel Laureates Mairead Maguire, Shirin Ebadi and Tawakkol Karman met with more than 100 women refugees in camps in the coastal Cox’s Bazar region of Bangladesh this week, as well as travelling to the “no man’s land” where thousands of Rohingya have been stranded between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland and Shirin Ebadi of Iran spoke to IPS correspondent Naimul Haq in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka.

Maguire is a co-founder of Peace People, a movement committed to building a just and peaceful society in Northern Ireland. She and Betty Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976. She is well known for her work with victims of conflict around the world.

Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, former judge and human rights activist and founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women’s, children’s, and refugee rights.

From left to right (center), Tawakkol Karman, Shirin Ebadi and Mairead Maguire. IPS correspondent Naimul Haq stands behind Ms. Maguire. Credit: IPS

Following are excerpts from the exclusive interviews.

IPS: You have called for trials of the Myanmar leaders in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for committing alleged genocide. How do you intend to seek justice when the world seems to be so divided over the Rohingya issue?

Mairead Maguire: “The leaders in Myanmar have committed genocide and we have all the witnesses for that. We heard women [speak of] being tortured, raped and their homes being burnt.”

Maguire related the story of a woman who was raped repeatedly and left for dead.

“The unconscious woman was later picked up by an elderly woman who took her to safety. That story of that woman being raped can be multiplied many times and you can well imagine the situation. So obviously we can understand that this is a policy of the Myanmar government to terrorize and expel the Rohingya people. They don’t even recognize them as their citizens. So the international community must take steps to do something. And we must take the Myanmar government to the ICC.

“A lot of people are working on this, like international lawyers, and we will continue until this is fulfilled. The second thing that we want to do is that Aung San Suu Kyi is our sister laureate. We believe that as long as she remains silent about what the Myanmar government is doing she is complacent with the genocide. But we want to go and see Aung San Suu Kyi and we want to ask her to break her silence.”

Maguire explained that she and her colleagues wish to speak to envoys of as many countries as possible.

“We would continue to pursue this dialogue with the ambassadors and leaders of the governments. We would also contact the United Nations and the European Parliament until this is taken to the international court.

IPS: What is your opinion on the voices of the global community, especially the influential leaders, remaining silent to a large extent on the Rohingya issue?

“I think many governments have interests in Myanmar, especially economic. In Rakhine state there are lot of resources like diamonds and costly stones. It’s all about money and oil. China also has interests in Maynmar because of these reasons. Unfortunately, many governments put profits before people. It should be other way around – governments should be responsible for taking care of their people. But they don’t want to say anything on human rights and justice because of political interests. However, we have to say as leaders, as Nobel Laureates, people are important, every person is important and it is wrong because of economic and political ties to allow people to be destroyed like this. We have to speak out and move the world’s conscience.

A Rohingya woman and her child at a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Credit: Kamrul Hasan/IPS

IPS: Do you believe that the United Nations has played its due role?

“No, the UN has not done enough. Human beings have a right to life, right to security and the governments must defend those rights of their people. And we have seen what the Myanmar government has done. I was there as part of a Nobel delegation 18 years ago on the Thai border with Myanmar and witnessed Karen people living in refugee camps who had to flee Burma. I had met many women then who were raped and carrying children of Burmese soldiers. So what we have seen in Cox’s Bazar [Rohingyas] the situation is not new. The Burmese military has been doing this for a long, long time.”

IPS: How can media coverage help bring justice to the victims?

“Women told us their stories of children being beaten, women being raped and their husbands being killed and houses burnt, which were absolutely horrific. The surviving women wanted us to tell their stories to the world so that their sufferings are known and they can then seek justice. They can have their national identity and go back to where they belong. So IPS can tell the real stories because when people hear these stories they cannot ignore them. We need the media like you. Because people don’t believe. It is diabolical what the Burmese soldiers have done to the Rohingya people, thinking nobody will know – but when you bring the truth to the light of day they cannot continue like this.”

Asked about the role of Bangladesh in welcoming the Rohingya refugees, she said, “It’s a wonderful example to other countries who have refugees on their borders. You have opened doors for a million or more and Europe is closing their doors. It is indeed a contrasting situation. When we went to the camps I was so astonished to see how well-organised they were. It’s wonderful to see how the government and the NGOs were working together.”

IPS: How can Myanmar be brought before the ICC?

Shirin Ebadi: Unfortunately, Myanmar is not a signatory to the Rome Statute [convention] for the ICC. So the only way this can happen is for the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to decide to send the case of Myanmar to the ICC as they did in the case of Sudan.

What has happened to the Rohingya people is indeed a crime of genocide. In fact, the United Nations, the United States, the European Union has all acknowledged that it is genocide. That is why I am very much hopeful that the UNSC will debate this case but my only concern is China as a member of the UNSC may use its right to veto because of its economic interests in Myanmar.”

Ebadi also called on the wealthy Muslim countries, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, to do more for the Muslim-minority Rohingya.

“They are not giving any assistance, or they are giving very little. They prefer to spend their money on buying weapons which they use for killing people. So, my message to them is come and see the plight of the fellow Muslims and how they are being treated and my message is also to the Islamic countries – shame on you for not helping.”

What message would you give to your fellow Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi? And do you also hold her responsible for the situation?

“I am indeed very sorry Aung San Suu Kyi, a person whom I had campaigned for on many occasions when she was under house arrest to secure her release, has now become complacent in the crime against the Rohingyas. My message to Aung San Suu Kyi is you have to break your silence now. You have to stop the genocide otherwise you would be held responsible and you must answer for your crimes at the international criminal court.”

The Nobel Women’s Initiative, in partnership with the local Bangladeshi women’s organization, Naripokkho, hosted the delegation of the Nobel Laureates to Bangladesh to witness and highlight the situation of the Rohingya refugees and the violence against Rohingya women.

Tawakkol Karman was known as “The Mother of the Revolution” and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 in recognition of her work in nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peacebuilding work in Yemen.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela died at the age of 95 on the evening of Dec. 5, 2013. Courtesy: Government Communication and Information System (GCIS)

By Qaanitah Hunter and Estelle Ellis
JOHANNESBURG/PORT ELIZABETH, Dec 6 2013 (IPS)

As the world mourns the passing of South Africa’s first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela, his close friend and political stalwart Tokyo Sexwale says much needs to be done to honour his legacy.

Mandela, 95, died surrounded by his family at his Johannesburg suburb home on Thursday evening at 8.50 pm.

“We ask people to honour Madiba by living his legacy. We are free today because of Mandela,” Sexwale told IPS after Mandela’s passing, referring to the statesman’s legacy of non-racialism and non-sexism. South Africans affectionately referred to Mandela by his clan name, Madiba.

“Death is a sad thing. But there is a lot we can celebrate of Madiba’s life. It was 95 years well spent,” Sexwale said.

Leaders around the world mourned the Nobel Peace laureate’s death, with U.S. President Barack Obama saying: “We will not likely see the likes of Nelson Mandela again.”

But it was Mandela’s close friend and confidant, Ahmed Kathrada, who brought tears to many with his heartfelt tribute.

“We have known each other for 67 years, and I never imagined I’d be witness to the unavoidable and traumatic reality of your passing…to whom do I turn for solace, comfort, and advice?”  Kathrada, a politicial activist and former political advisor to Mandela, said in an open letter on Dec. 6.

Kathrada told IPS in an interview before Mandela’s death that his legacy would always be remembered. He also pointed out that much had to be done to achieve the ideals Mandela had when he was released from 27 years of imprisonment in 1990.

“There’s a lot that one has to do, because the main message Madiba came out of prison with was that of non-racialism. That means you live in a country of various political beliefs,” said Kathrada.

In Kathrada’s office there is a portrait of him sitting on a couch next to Mandela, his former commander-in-chief, laughing as if they shared a private joke.

“It is time for you to retire, Madala,” wrote Mandela in cursive on the portrait, which he gifted to Kathrada in 2001.

“We called each other ‘madala’. Old man,” Kathrada explained. “The whole world calls him Madiba but he was my ‘madala,’” Kathrada said.

The portrait provides a glimpse of the deep bond the two shared, stemming from the many years they spent together during the struggle for a free and democratic South Africa. Both Kathrada and Mandela had been sentenced to life imprisonment during the 1963 to 1964 Rivonia treason trial – they and other leaders of the African National Congress had been accused of trying to sabotage the apartheid government. They served time together on Robben Island.

Kathrada maintains some five decades later that he shared a very frank and open relationship with Mandela in their pursuit for democracy.

“Madiba was not a saint but he had very redeemable qualities. He did not give up his commitment to fight injustice…he was a tiger.”

“We knew we would win the struggle. That we will get democracy but it didn’t cross my mind that Mandela would ever be president,” he said. Mandela became South Africa’s first black president in 1994 and served only one term of office, stepping down in 1999.

But judge Siraj Desai, who practiced as a legal activist and was closely involved in many legal battles against the apartheid government, said that during that time Mandela, a former lawyer, was able to radically reform South Africa’s legal system.

“His contribution in introducing human rights and a legal framework based on human rights is immeasurable. He changed the way we practiced law completely,” he told IPS. “His legacy is spelled out in the Bill of Human Rights.”

Desai added that South Africans could not close their eyes to the reality of poverty. “The realisation of these socio-economic rights have not happened yet, but I think that it is a question of failed political implementation, not failed legal reform,” Desai said.

South African social justice activist Fazila Farouk said that the issues Mandela touched on in his speech during the Rivonia treason trial were still very relevant today.

“Mandela spoke about people in rural areas, how they suffered through soil erosion and droughts. He spoke about the appalling employment conditions of black farm workers. He spoke about income inequality [in urban areas], a bifurcated education system and the massive impact that poverty and malnutrition have on children’s ability to learn,” Farouk told IPS in an interview before Mandela’s passing.

“The sad reality is that you can cut and paste sections of his speech from 1963 and use it just like that to address the reality that so many South Africans face today,” she said, adding that it was shocking that the lives of so many South Africans had still not changed.

She admitted that access to education has improved radically since South Africa became a democracy in 1994.

“If we look at our country today, we realise what is striking about his speech is that we have, in many ways, failed him.

“Income inequality lies at the heart of many of government’s failures to realise human rights – if we don’t deal with it, we will not overcome our problems,” Farouk said.

However, gender activist Lindsay Ziehl said that legislatively, South African women were significantly better off because of Mandela’s influence.

“He made a significant contribution in levelling the playing field for women. We now have better laws, better training at police stations and the courts. For the first time people understand that domestic violence is not just a matter for married people,” she told IPS before Mandela’s death.

South Africa implemented a Domestic Violence Act in 1998, which recognised economic, emotional and physical abuse in domestic relationships.

She added that there are now more women involved in politics than ever before. South Africa is ranked third in the world in terms of gender representation in parliament.

But Daygan Eager from the Rural Advocacy Health Project told IPS before Mandela’s death that on analysis of health rights for South Africa’s poor “honestly there has not been much of a change – in fact there has, in some areas, been a decline.”

He said that the country’s macro-economic policy was more focused on urban areas while rural areas were very much neglected.

“Immediately after 1994 there was an initial massive increase in the number of health services being built – but there was no focus on service delivery or the sustainable use of resources,” Eagar said.

Eagar said that Rural Advocacy Health Project research shows that at the moment about 15 percent of rural households are impoverished by the “catastrophic effect” of transport costs to get medical help.

As the world mourns Mandela’s death, Kathrada said the precedent Mandela set through his actions and life was enough to create a “world of young Madibas”.

“Remember what Madiba stood for and sacrificed all his life. It is to build one united nation under one flag, under one anthem,” Kathrada said.

President Barack Obama signs executive orders initiating 23 separate executive actions after announcing new measures to help prevent gun violence on Jan. 16, 2013. Credit: Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Mar 14 2013 (IPS)

Eighteen Nobel Peace Prize recipients called Thursday for President Barack Obama to take a leadership role in supporting a “historic” internationally binding agreement that would regulate the global arms trade, including instituting a strict ban on arms sales to states involved in egregious human rights abuses.

The call comes just ahead of a final round of negotiations towards an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), slated to be held Mar. 18-28 at the United Nations in New York. Advocates, particularly in Africa and Latin America, are pushing for an ATT that would fill a longstanding and fundamentally dangerous anomaly – the almost complete lack of international regulation on the international trade in conventional arms, worth an estimated 70 billion dollars a year.

“The U.S. and other arms supplier states have both a moral duty and a national security interest to achieve such a Treaty in order to protect human rights and save the lives of innocent civilians caught in the crosshairs of conflicts fuelled by the irresponsible international conventional weapons trade,” the laureates state in an open letter.

“The absence of effective, legally binding international rules regulating the arms trade represents a colossal failure of the international community. Now is the moment to right this profound injustice. It is time to act to end this humanitarian and human rights crisis.”

The letter is signed by Nobel recipients spanning nearly a century, including Leymah Gbowee, Tawakkol Karman, Shirin Ebadi, Jimmy Carter, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Desmond Tutu, Adolfo Perez Esquivel and others. Pointedly, the signatories address President Obama as a “fellow” laureate.

The focus on Washington’s role in the ATT negotiations is particularly pertinent for two reasons. First, the United States is by far the world’s largest producer and exporter of weapons, in 2011 exporting nearly 10 billion dollars’ worth of arms, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Second, it was U.S. negotiators that ended the last round of ATT talks – which stretched for nearly a month last July – inconclusively, stating on the last day of discussions that they needed additional time to study the draft text.

“They’ve had that time now, and during that period more than 300,000 additional people have lost their lives due to violence – time is running out,” Anna Macdonald, an arms control campaigner with Oxfam International, a humanitarian aid organisation, told IPS.

“We really need the U.S. to be a part of this and, really, there’s no reason it shouldn’t support the ATT. The United States already has pretty strong regulations in place on this issue, and there’s nothing in this treaty that could be considered a threat. It’s also consistent with the government’s stated aims on seeing a reduction in armed conflict and violence.”

Politically, however, the issue remains fraught in Washington. The powerful U.S. gun lobby has long used the “threat” of an ATT to raise contributions, warning that the treaty’s passage would infringe on the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, on the “right to keep and bear arms”.

In the lead-up to next week’s discussions, however, ATT advocates have mounted a campaign to assure U.S. gun-owners that the treaty would not impact on the domestic industry. This stance was bolstered in late February when the American Bar Association, the country’s premier legal grouping, published a briefing paper that found that “the proposed ATT is consistent with the Second Amendment”.

Closing loopholes

Next week’s talks will again require full consensus by negotiators, a rule that allowed July’s sessions to be scuttled. In the U.N. General Assembly resolution that mandated the upcoming ATT session, however, countries voted overwhelmingly to require any unagreed-upon text to progress to the General Assembly for a simple majority vote.

For this reason, most observers are expecting a treaty of some kind to be agreed upon this year. As such, advocates say, next week’s talks will be the last chance to close a series of loopholes that could compromise the efficacy of the draft text.

A new brief, released Tuesday by Oxfam and Saferworld, a UK advocacy group, notes that the draft treaty includes “some very positive elements”. But it warns over “numerous caveats and exemptions” that would keep the treaty from reining in the “unscrupulous middle-men who are so often at the centre of illicit and irresponsible international arms transfers.”

The organisations are drawing particular attention to the fact that the ATT draft currently exempts military aid and defence cooperation, and does not cover ammunition.

The defence cooperation exemption was introduced by India during the July negotiations, but reports suggest that many countries are against its inclusion. Oxfam’s Macdonald says that, today, the provision would allow the Russian government to continue to arm the Syrian government, despite the clear human rights implications.

“This Russia-Syria situation is one of our litmus tests: Would the ATT make those transfers illegal?” Macdonald says. “The new ATT needs to be strong enough to be able to send a clear signal to those using weapons for genocide, etc., that the majority of the world’s governments have said enough is enough.”

She continues: “We’ve seen this with other international treaties – for instance, on the use of landmines. Even if governments don’t sign up to the treaty, they still basically adhere because the agreements have created such a high standard.”

Inclusion of ammunition is also widely seen as a crucial provision in the new ATT. Ending this loophole is being actively pushed by African and Latin American countries – those that have been most devastated by gun violence.

“As an African physician, I have seen too much personal human suffering from gun violence,” Robert Mtonga, co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, a 1985 Nobel prize recipient and signatory of the new letter to President Obama, said Thursday.

“Multiplied worldwide, the unregulated arms trade results in a global public health catastrophe. A strong Arms Trade Treaty will be a huge step forward in preventing further unnecessary injury and death from armed violence.”

While Mtonga too is urging President Obama’s support, noting it would “enhance the prospects for achieving this urgent humanitarian agreement”, Washington is actually one of the staunchest proponents of the ammunition loophole. And that does not appear to have changed in recent months.

According to an unusually lengthy statement to the press in late February, a U.S. government spokesperson made a case that ammunition is a “fundamentally different commodity than conventional arms … and cannot be marked in any practical way that would permit it to be tracked or traced.”

Six women recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday lauded the work of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), offering additional high-level support for the institution just weeks ahead of a critical vote on a reforms process that many worry could irreparably weaken the Inter-American system.

In an open letter released on International Women’s Day, the six recipients note the IACHR has been responsible for exposing human rights violations suffered by “millions” of women and girls in the Americas.Our concern is what the impact might be on women human rights defenders, should the powers of the Inter-American system be curtailed.

They also recognise the half-century-old institution as a “pioneer in recognizing and incorporating the needs and suggestions expressed by the feminist and women’s movement, and in capturing them in protective mechanisms, as well as exposing discrimination against women in legal frameworks and in State practices.”

The letter was spearheaded by Jody Williams, a 1997 Nobel laureate from the United States recognised in particular for her work on banning landmines, and currently chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative. She was joined by Nobel awardees from the past three-plus decades, including Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Mairead Maguire, Shirin Ebadi, Lehmah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman.

“[W]e need the [Inter-American system] to be strong, independent, autonomous, and efficient in order to continue responding in a timely manner to human rights violations,” they wrote.

“Today, we express our gratitude and our most energetic support … [and] call on the governments of the Americas to express their unequivocal support for the Inter-American System for its role in defending the human rights of all.”

Since its creation in 1959, the IACHR has proven to be one of the most effective parts of the otherwise largely moribund 35-member Organisation of American States (OAS). Since 1978, it has been tasked with overseeing the American Convention on Human Rights.

Yet in such work, the IACHR has run afoul of several of the region’s governments. Some – particularly Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as Brazil and Peru – have recently moved to distance themselves from the system’s powers.

This push took on new energy in early 2012, when OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza capitulated to growing frustration and backed proposals for a suite of changes to IACHR rules of procedure. Ecuador is now trying to create a separate system altogether, while Venezuela has said it will step out of the Inter-American system by September.

Meanwhile, anxiety from grassroots organisations has continued to grow. In November, some 3,000 people, including multiple former presidents, signed a petition warning against the reforms.

Particular scrutiny has been given to proposals that could diminish the IACHR’s ability to publish reports on countries’ rights abuses, significantly weaken its rapporteur on freedom of expression, and moderate its ability to demand immediate actions to protect groups or individuals. (More information on the reforms process can be found here and here.)

“Our concern is what the impact might be on women human rights defenders, should the powers of the Inter-American system be curtailed,” Rachel Vincent, a Nobel Women’s Initiative coordinator of the new letter, told IPS.

“Women where we work are on the frontlines of defending their communities against, for instance, large-scale land grabs, and as a result face high levels of violence. But the state actors who should be protecting them are all too often part of the problem.”

Faced with high levels of impunity, she says, the Inter-American system offers such women their only potential avenue of recourse.

“Should this system be diluted, you would be hard-pressed to find another mechanism in the region that could so effectively help human rights defenders on the ground facing impunity in their own countries,” she says. “This is not isolated concern of any one group in any one country – it’s shared at the grassroots level throughout the region.”

Following a series of consultations in recent months, finalised reforms proposals are set to be voted upon on Mar. 22. On Friday, at the end of a two-day session at the OAS headquarters here in Washington, nearly all member states expressed support for the pending changes.

Convention tinkering

The Nobel letter comes the day after civil society organisations were given a third and final opportunity to voice their concerns over the reforms process. While that consultation process has been criticised for being cursory, it does appear that the member states have taken certain recommendations into consideration, including over issues of transparency.

Yet Thursday’s proceedings also included an announcement that reportedly surprised activists and state representatives alike.

The Nicaraguan ambassador, Denis Ronaldo Moncada Colindres, who currently holds the OAS Permanent Council’s rotating presidency, tabled a resolution proposing reforms to the American Convention on Human Rights itself. The proposal, which some say was drafted without the knowledge of OAS diplomats, runs counter to recommendations made by a working group on the IACHR process.

“That was certainly a shock, given that many countries and civil society organisations thought there was already overwhelming consensus on following the working group’s recommendations that there was no need for reform of the convention,” Viviana Krsticevic, executive director of the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), a Washington advocacy group, told IPS.

“To have the president of the Permanent Council come out with a position so radically different from the consensus – that was really out of the blue.”

The draft proposal would call on the OAS secretary-general to draw up proposed amendments to the convention based on recommendations made by states that are party to the convention. That would specifically exclude the United States and Canada among others, as they have not ratified the convention.

“Modifying some of this language could significantly impact the commission’s jurisdiction or procedures, so putting the convention on the table for modification is worrisome, to say the least,” Lisa Reinsberg, executive director of the International Justice Resource Center, a U.S. advocacy group, told IPS.

“It remains unclear why some states consider it desirable to make changes beyond those proposed by the commission itself, particularly when many of the proposals concern aspects of the commission’s work that are not governed in any detail by the … convention, such as the commission’s monitoring and promotion activities.”

OAS member states are now scheduled to discuss the Nicaragua proposal early next week. While a vote on the proposed IACHR reforms is scheduled for Mar. 22, Krsticevic says that thus far members have only engaged in substantive discussion on two out of seven major issues.