Students at the “República de Venezuela” School in the indigenous Lenca village of Coloaca in western Honduras, where they have a vegetable garden to grow produce and at the same time learn about the importance of a healthy and nutritious diet. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS

By Thelma Mejía
COALACA, Honduras, Jul 15 2016 (IPS)

Barely 11 years old and in the sixth grade of primary school, this student dreams of becoming a farmer in order to produce food so that the children in his community never have to go hungry. Josué Orlando Torres of the indigenous Lenca people lives in a remote corner of the west of Honduras.

He is part of a success story in this village of Coalaca, population 750, in the municipality of Las Flores in the department (province) of Lempira.

Five years ago a Sustainable School Feeding Programme (PAES) was launched in this area. It has improved local children’s nutritional status and enjoys plenty of local, governmental and international participation.

Torres is proud of his school, named for the Republic of Venezuela, where 107 students are supported by their three teachers in their work in a “teaching vegetable garden”. They grow peas and beans, fruit and vegetables that are used daily in their school meals.

Torres told IPS that he did not used to like green vegetables, but now “I’ve started to like them, and I love the fresh salads and green juices.”

Josué Orlando Torres, an 11-year-old student, dreams of becoming a farmer to ensure that children like himself have access to free high-quality food at this school in the indigenous community of Coloaca, where a sustainable school programme is beginning to overcome chronic malnutrition. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS

“Here they taught us what is good for us to eat, and also to plant produce so that there will always be food for us. We have a vegetable garden in which we all plant coriander, radishes, cucumbers, cassava (yucca), squash (pumpkin), mustard and cress, lettuce, carrots and other nutritious foods,” he said while indicating each plant in the school garden.

When he grows up, Torres does not want to be a doctor, engineer or fireman like other children of his age. He wants to be “a good farmer to grow food to help my community, help kids like me to be well-fed and not to fall asleep in class because they had not eaten and were ill,” as happened before, he said.

The 48 schools scattered throughout Las Flores municipality, together with other schools in Lempira province, especially those located within what is called the dry corridor of Honduras, characterised by poverty and the onslaughts of climate change, are part of a series of sustainable pilot projects being promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and PAES is one of these.

The purpose of these sustainable school projects is to improve the nutritional status of students and at the same time give direct support to small farmers, by means of a comprehensive approach and effective local-local, local-regional and central government-international aid  interactions.

As a result of this effort in indigenous Lenca communities and Ladino (mixed indigenous-white or mestizo) communities such as Coalaca, La Cañada, Belén and Lepaera (all of them in Lempira province), schoolchildren and teachers alike have said goodbye to fizzy drinks and sweets, and undertaken a radical change in their food habits.

Parents, teachers, students, each community and municipal government, three national Secretariats (Ministries) and FAO have joined forces so that these remote Honduran regions may see off the problems of famine and malnutrition that once were rife here.

A family production chain was developed to supply the schools with food for their students, who average over 100 at each educational centre, complementing the school vegetable gardens.

Every Monday, small farmers bring their produce to a central distribution centre, and municipal vehicles distribute it to the schools.

View of Belén, a town that is the head of a rural municipality of the same name amid the mountains of western Honduras, in the department (province) of Lempira, where a programme rooted in local schools is improving nutrition among remote indigenous communities. Credit: Courtesy of Thelma Mejía

Erlín Omar Perdomo, from the village of La Cañada in Belén municipality, told IPS: “When FAO first started to organise us we never thought things would go as far as they did, our initial concern was to stave off the hunger there was around here and help our children to be better nourished.”

“But as the project developed, they trained us to become food providers as well. Today this community is supplying 13 schools in Belén with fresh, high-quality produce,” the community leader said with satisfaction.

They organised themselves as savings micro-cooperatives to which members pay small subscriptions and which finance projects or businesses at lowinterest rates and without the need for collateral, as required by banks, or for payment of abusive interest rates, as charged by intermediaries known as “coyotes”.

“We never dreamed the project would reach the size it is today. FAO sent us to Brazil to see for ourselves how food was being supplied to schools by the families of students, but, here we are and this is our story,” said the 36-year-old Perdomo.

“We all participate, we generate income and bring development to our communities, to the extent that now the drop-out rate is practically nil, and our women have also joined the project. They organise themselves in groups to attend the school every week to cook our children’s food,” he said.

Rubenia Cortes, a mother and volunteer cook at the school in the remote village of La Cañada in the department (province) of Lempira, in western Honduras. They cook in a kitchen that was built by parents and teachers at the school. Credit: Courtesy of Thelma Mejía

A 2012 report by the World Food Programmme (WFP) indicated that in Central America, Honduras had the second worst child malnutrition levels, after Guatemala. According to the WFP, one in four children suffers from chronic malnutrition, with the worst problems seen in the south and west of the country.

But in Coalaca, La Cañada and other nearby villages and small towns, the situation has begun to be reverted in the past five years. The FAO project is based on the creation of a new nutritional culture; an expert advises and educates local families in eating a healthy and balanced diet.

“We don’t put salt and pepper on our food any more. We have replaced them with aromatic herbs. FAO trained us, teaching us what nutrients were to be found in each vegetable, fruit or pulse, and in what quantities,” said Rubenia Cortes.

“Look, our children now have beautiful skin, not dull like before,” she explained proudly to IPS. Cortes is a cook at the Claudio Barrera school in La Cañada, population 700, part of Belén municipality where there are 32 PAES centres.

Cortes and the other women are all heads of households who do voluntary work to prepare food at the school. “Before, we would sell our oranges and buy fizzy drinks or sweets, but now we do not; it is better to make orange juice for all of us to drink,” she said as an example.

From Monday to Friday, students at the PAES schools have a highly nutritious meal which they eat mid-morning.

The change is remarkable, according to Edwin Cortes, the head teacher of the La Cañada school. “The children no longer fall asleep in class. I used to ask them, ‘Did you understand the lesson?’ But what could they answer? They had come to school on an empty stomach. How could they learn anything?” he exclaimed.

In the view of María Julia Cárdenas, the FAO representative in Honduras, the most valuable thing about this project is that “we can leave the project, but it will not die, because everyone has appropriated it.”

“It is highly sustainable, and models like this one overcome frontiers and barriers, because everyone is united in a common purpose, that of feeding the children,” she told IPS after giving a delegation of experts and Central American Parliamentarians a guided tour of the untold stories that arise in this part of the dry corridor of Honduras.

There are 1.4 million children in primary and basic secondary schooling in Honduras, out of a total population of 8.7 million people. Seven ethnic groups live alongside each other in the country, of which the largest is the Lenca people, a group of just over 400,000 people.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/ Translated by Valerie Dee

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:

Edinburgh Castle, symbol of the Scottish capital, whose university has just decided not to disinvest in fossil fuels. Photo credit: Kim Traynor/CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

By Kirsty Haigh, Eric Lai, and Ellen Young
EDINBURGH, May 17 2015 (IPS)

The University of Edinburgh has taken the decision to not divest from fossil fuels, bowing to the short-term economic interests of departments funded by the fossil fuel industry, with little to no acknowledgement of the long-term repercussions of these investments.

The decision, which was announced on May 12, exemplifies the influence that vested interests have gained over academic institutions in the United Kingdom.“Our university has decided to take a reactionary approach to climate change, failing to make any statement of commitment to the staff and students who have been demanding divestment from fossil fuel companies for the past three years”

Collectively, U.K. universities invest over eight billion dollars in fossil fuels, more than 3,000 dollars for every student. The University of Edinburgh has the country’s third largest university endowment, after Oxford and Cambridge, totalling 457 million dollars, of which approximately 14 million is invested in fossil fuel companies, including Total, Shell and BHP Billiton.

Our university has decided to take a reactionary approach to climate change, failing to make any statement of commitment to the staff and students who have been demanding divestment from fossil fuel companies for the past three years.

Announcing it decision, the university said: ”The university will withdraw from investment in these [fossil fuel consuming and extracting] companies if: realistic alternative sources of energy are available and the companies involved are not investing in technologies that help address the effects of carbon emissions and climate change.”

However, given the fossil fuel industry’s continued destruction of the planet, the university’s approach leaves far too much to the imagination and indeed allows for the potential to not divest from harmful industries at all.

We are going to find our existence completely altered – and in a way that we do not want – if   we do not stop extracting and burning fossil fuels, and we know the big fossil fuel companies have no intention of stopping.

Climate change not only poses a massive economic threat but also presents the world’s biggest global health hazard – and its effects are hitting the poorest parts of the world hardest. The University of Edinburgh is fundamentally failing to acknowledge the part it is playing in funding climate chaos.

Our university claims to be a “world leader in addressing global challenges including … climate change” but if the university had any desire to take the moral lead, it would have divested. Divestment would have seen Edinburgh join a global movement of universities and numerous other forward-thinking organisations in divorcing itself from the tightening grip of the fossil fuel industry.

The University of Edinburgh came down firmly on the side of departments funded by the industry which have been scaremongering throughout the process

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests have revealed, for example, that the university’s Geosciences Department has received funding from a range of fossil fuel companies over the past 10 years, including BP, Shell and ConocoPhillips, as well as grants and gifts of money from Total and Cairn Energy.

Sixty-five students in the university’s School of Engineering have already signed an open letter to the Head of the School, Prof Hugh McCann, angered by his public opposition to fossil fuel divestment.

Their letter states: “The School of Engineering has and will continue to have a pivotal role in the university’s future. It is after all engineers who will be on the frontlines of the transition to a low carbon society.

“By basing its argument against divestment on engineering students’ chances of employment in one dead-end industry, the school appears to be failing to prepare its students for careers in the rapidly changing energy markets of the 21st century, whilst neglecting the faculty’s broader responsibility to the student body as a whole. As a consequence, they gamble employment against our common future.”

Divesting is a way of taking on and dismantling the big fossil fuel companies and the power they hold over our society and governments. We rightly condemn companies that do not pay their taxes or who exploit their workers, and so we must do this to the companies who are threatening our very existence.

Divestment is also about creating more democratic institutions where those who are part of universities can have a say in how their money is spent and invested. The university’s announcement has shown that we still have a long way to go in creating transparent, democratic and ethical institutions. It brings into question the validity of the university’s decision-making process.

For the past three years, students, staff and alumni have supported full divestment – yet the University of Edinburgh has ignored their calls. The consultation run by the university found staff, students and the public in favour of ethical investment. A year later we still have zero commitment to change.

A process which began with promise has been allowed to descend into a complete breakdown in communication between students and the university. Serious questions need to be asked about why the decision was taken in favour of the views from the university’s Department of Geosciences, which freely admits its vested interested in maintaining the status quo for financial reasons.

The University of Edinburgh needs to invest in alternatives to dirty and unhealthy energy sources. These alternatives will create new jobs, so that when the fossil fuel industry ceases to exist there is something to replace it and our students are trained to work in it.

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:

In a prepared speech after the murder of dozens of Kenyans last year, President Uhuru Kenyatta declared a national war on terror. “This is a war against Kenya and Kenyans,” he said. “It is a war that every one of us must fight.”

It was a speech he gave in December after the killing of 36 miners working in a quarry not far from the border with Somalia. They were reportedly slain by members of the terrorist group Al-Shabaab.

Once again, a few days ago, Kenyans reeled in shock, but this time at news of the massacre of at least 147 students – nearly all young Christian males – by a small rebel band filtered through the media.Despite its peaceful appearance, the [Garissa] university college was a known target for the fury of the Somali-based Al-Shabaab group which has been at war with Kenya for many years. The fact that only a small handful of security guards were on duty when the attack began shocked many.

The slaughter began in the dark pre-dawn hours of Apr. 2 while everyone slept until they were awakened by the popping sounds of gunfire. The militants urged students to cooperate. “If you want to survive, come out. If you want to die, stay inside,” they warned the still-groggy students.

“I knew those guys were lying,” said a 23-year-old student Elosy Karimi who described to a reporter how she hid in the ceiling above her bunk bed for over 24 hours.

President Barack Obama, still planning a trip to Kenya, commiserated: “Words cannot adequately condemn the terrorist atrocities that took place at Garissa University College, where innocent men and women were brazenly and brutally massacred. We join the world in mourning them, many of whom were students pursuing an education in the pursuit of a better life for themselves and their loved ones. “

“They represented a brighter future for a region that has seen too much violence for far too long.”

Garissa University College lies northeast of Nairobi, near to the border with Somalia. A small school with a staff of 75, it was recently upgraded to give technical and vocational degrees as part of Moi University. Computer science and information technology were introduced last year. But the bucolic nature of the college, highlighted by a flock of sheep, green leaves and natural springs, was apparent on the school’s website.

Despite its peaceful appearance, the university college was a known target for the fury of the Somali-based Al-Shabaab group which has been at war with Kenya for many years. The fact that only a small handful of security guards were on duty when the attack began shocked many.

It was particularly inexplicable as there had been recent warnings of an Al-Shabaab attack at Garissa and other universities. A travel advisory issued by the British government just days earlier had warned against travel to Garissa.

While some foreign media outlets describe Kenya as “powerless in the face of a ruthless terrorist organisation,” Kenya is a major military power in the region, having one of the highest defence budgets in Africa, thanks to two decades of a steady increase in military spending.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an independent research organisation, the country purchased 19.8 billion Kenyan shillings (216 million dollars) worth of advanced weapons in five years between 2010 and 2014, up from 919.4 million Kenyan shillings (10 million dollars) between 2005 and 2009 — marking a huge jump in the period — which is the highest in the East Africa.

Yet four gunmen managed to hold off elite counter-terror police and military units called to the scene while they systematically massacred “hostages.” This is hardly unprecedented,” Patrick Gathara, a security analyst wrote in Al Jazeera news service.

“Much the same happened at Westgate (Mall) where four gunmen supposedly kept hundreds of cops and soldiers at bay for four days, apparently taking time off to pray and relax while the security agents looted the mall.”

“The government responded with a crackdown that targeted the ethnic Somali population within Nairobi – little more than an exercise in scapegoating and extortion,” he recalled. “Similarly, Garissa itself, which is populated mainly by ethnic Somalis, has been the site for ‘security operations’ – another term for collective punishment – for well over half a century.”

Government’s failure to stem the rise in insecurity has not gone unnoticed in the Kenyan community, especially since Kenya’s incursion into Somalia in Operation Linda Nchi in 2011. A reduction of troops was expected in 2014 after complaints by the Somali government.

A Twitter feed titled #GarissaAttack quickly filled up with comments and complaints. Ory Okolloh Mwangi, well-known ‘Kenyan pundit’, wrote: “When you look at the resources poured into winning one single seat in Kajiado Central, and then how we are responding to Garissa. Ai?”

Senator James Orengo pleaded:  “We know very well the consequences of a war of occupation. We must withdraw our troops from Somalia to end this. We must rethink our strategy and have a targeted and principled way of engaging Somalia rather than put our people at risk.”

Questions are forming, wrote Gathara, about whether this disaster is just the latest in a series of preventable terrorist atrocities that have now claimed more than 350 lives in the last two years.

An earlier security operation, a week into the Kenyatta presidency, saw the indiscriminate arrest of over 600 Garissa residents, including newly-elected local leaders, by a security team the government itself had described as “rotten”, wrote Gathara.

“Now, after the latest Garissa atrocity, President Kenyatta has issued another directive of dubious legality,” continued Gathara, namely calling up 10,000 new officers despite a court order freezing police recruitment following a corruption-riddled exercise last year.

“What is Kenya’s plan as far as Somalia is concerned?” asked Abdullahi Boru Halakhe, East Africa researcher with Amnesty International, regarding the Kenya’s troops stationed in Somalia. “What does the exit plan look like? Is it two years? Is it three years”?

Edited by Phil Harris    

While millions around the world are celebrating the dawn of a new year and the promise of change, hundreds of thousands of Syrian children have little reason to hope that 2015 will bring better days.

A spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) told reporters in Geneva today that some 670,000 primary and lower-high school students are being denied an education, due to school closures across parts of the northern city of Aleppo and in the Raqqa and Deir-ez-Zour governorates.

Christophe Boulierac said that the order to close the schools was made by members of the Islamic State, though he was uncertain whether or not the militant group had complete control over the areas in questions.

For school-going children and their parents, however, these details are not of the utmost concern. More pressing is finding ways to ensure the education of an entire generation, as the Syrian conflict enters its fifth year.

UNICEF estimates that some 160 students were killed and a further 343 injured in the roughly 68 attacks on Syrian schools last year. These are only the official statistics; other groups believe the real number could be much higher.

“In addition to lack of school access, attacks on schools, teachers and students are further horrific reminders of the terrible price Syria’s children are paying in a crisis approaching its fifth year,” Hanaa Singer, UNICEF’s representative in Syria, said in a statement.

“Access to education is a right that should be sustained for all children, no matter where they live or how difficult the circumstances in which they live,” Singer added. “Schools are the only means of stability, structure and routine that the Syrian children need more than ever in times of this horrific conflict.”

In total, the war in Syria has taken a toll on over eight million children, of which 5.6 million are still living inside the country while 1.7 million are refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere in North Africa.

This past September, Save the Children reported that nearly 2.8 million Syrian students were being kept out of school, since the conflict had destroyed a total of 3,400 schools.

The charity labeled education as a “deadliest pursuit” for children and teachers; schools are often the targets of airstrikes and shelling, while others have been occupied for military purposes, it said.

Enrolment rates have nearly halved from close to 100 percent when the deadly conflict began five years ago. The death toll now stands at some 190,000.

(END)

Ayesha Gullalai (left) from the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf is campaigning for an end to military operations. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 17 2014 (IPS)

Disturbed by civilian casualties and moved by the plight of people living like refugees in their own country, students from Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are demanding an end to army operations against militants on their native soil.

“We are sick of military action in FATA as it has not eliminated the Taliban but killed, injured and displaced innocent people,” Khan Bahadar, president of the FATA Students Federation (FSF), tells IPS.

“The tribal population has been facing a hard time since the Pakistan army took control of FATA in 2004. The army, primarily sent to fight Taliban militants, has caused a mass exodus from the conflict area. The insurgents stay unharmed.”"Of late, the youth have become a voice for FATA people.” -- Ayesha Gullalai, a member of the National Assembly

The Taliban took refuge in FATA near the 2,400-km porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan after their government in Kabul was toppled by U.S.-led forces in 2001. As a frontline state in the U.S.-led war on terror, Pakistan began military action against the Taliban in FATA in 2004, triggering mass displacement.

“About 2.1 million people from FATA are now living in the nearby Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. They are in deep distress as they have had to give up their jobs, businesses and farming activity,” says Bahadar, 19, a student at the University of Peshawar.

Many students from FATA were studying in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

FSF was formed last year to build pressure on the government to end military operations in all seven agencies of FATA and facilitate an early return of displaced people to their homes.

Bahadar says the campaign by students from FATA is gathering momentum.

FSF vice-president Burhanuddin Chamkani says, “We have been holding demonstrations in Peshawar and Islamabad to spotlight the problems of our people. Military operations are no solution to prolonged terrorism.”

Chamkani is from the North Waziristan Agency in FATA. He too says civilians have been killed or maimed in military action but the militants remain unscathed.

“At least five people, including women and children, were killed in an army air strike in North Waziristan Jan. 21 in retaliation for a suicide attack on an army convoy that had killed 22 soldiers a day before,” he says.

Another organisation, the Waziristan Students Federation (WSF), is planning to step up its campaign.

Muhammad Irfan Wazir, an office-bearer of the WSF, says around 20,000 youths from FATA are studying in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Most have not been able to visit their families due to terrorism, he says.

“One has to pass through several army checkpoints before reaching their homes in FATA. They are homesick.”

WSF has planned protests, walks and seminars to sensitise the public, army and government.

“We are demonstrating at the University of Peshawar on weekends,” Wazir says. “We are also holding charity events and musical shows to raise money for displaced people living in camps in Peshawar and other areas.”

The responsibility to stop military operations lies with the federal government which directly controls FATA, he says.

“We have staged at least one dozen demonstrations near the Governor’s House to halt military action, but to no avail.”

Muhammad Javid, a teacher at Gomal University in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa says the continuing military offensive has angered students, who are actively campaigning against it.

“Students are justified in demanding an end to army action as it has not brought peace to these areas,” he tells IPS.

They are campaigning to ask the government to start talks with the Taliban.

The Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI) party, which is in power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, also believes that dialogue with militants can end the suffering of people in FATA.

“We have been a staunch supporter of peace talks with militants,” PTI’s Ayesha Gullalai, a member of the National Assembly, tells IPS.

She says the federal government is oblivious to the woes of people in her native Waziristan.

“It’s the government’s responsibility to evacuate the civilian population before any action. It is in contravention of the United Nations charter of human rights to kill and injure non-combatants,” she tells IPS. The military doesn’t target civilians deliberately but there are incidents of civilian casualties, she says.

“The campaign by tribal students is welcome. Of late, the youth have become a voice for FATA people.”

Sagheerullah Khan, 20, who lives in a local hostel in Peshawar, is a native of Waziristan. “Unnecessary military operations in FATA coupled with U.S. drone attacks in which mostly innocent people are killed have caused the local population to turn against the government,” he says. This only produces more militants, he says.

“The indiscriminate army shelling poses a constant threat to people.”

Youths from FATA who are studying in Peshawar say they have been raising the issue of civilian deaths with their representatives in the National Assembly and Senate.

The fight to end army operations on their native soil, they say, will go on.

As anti-government protests in the Ukraine move into their third week, there are growing concerns among individuals and civil society organisations in the country over the regime’s approach to protestors.

Rights groups say that there are already similarities to the sinister crackdown on individual rights and freedoms that were seen in Belarus following the bloody end to protests there after presidential elections at the end of 2010.

They say students are being targeted by police and prosecutors, and some have been afraid to go to school for fear they could be expelled and cut off from the education system for taking part in protests.“While it is early days there are some disturbing similarities emerging between what happened in Belarus and what happened in the Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, the arrests of ten people so far, with more expected, on apparently fabricated cases of involvement in mass civil disturbances, and their controversial pre-trial incarceration, has given rise to worries that the regime will use them as an example to deter other protestors.

“While it is early days there are some disturbing similarities emerging between what happened in Belarus and what happened in the Ukraine,” Yulia Gorbunova, Ukraine researcher for Human Rights Watch, told IPS.

“The pre-trial detentions of protestors, the reported intimidation of students – these are things that happened in Belarus. We can only hope the Ukrainian regime will not take the same path as the Belarusian authorities did.”

The protests in Kiev, which began following the government’s decision not to sign an EU Association Agreement, have drawn hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to the capital’s main square, Maidan Nezalezhnosti, and other locations in the city.

Initially passing off peacefully, a brutal police crackdown on Nov. 30, which saw riot police indiscriminately attack hundreds of people, beating them and leaving some in hospital, changed the tone of the protests.

Arrests of protestors on charges of taking part in “mass disturbances” came soon after. Lawyers for those arrested, their relatives and local activists have publicly questioned the evidence used to bring the charges against them.

Their pre-trial detention has also been questioned by international rights groups.

Heather McGill, researcher for Ukraine at Amnesty International, told IPS: “These were people taking part in a peaceful demonstration but who have been arrested for taking part in ‘mass disorder’. They were immediately sent to prison to be held in pre-trial detention, despite legal regulations clearly stating that this should only happen in exceptional circumstances.

“They could face a maximum eight-year jail sentence. And things do not look good for them with there being, on average, in the Ukraine, a one percent chance of acquittal once charges are bought.

“We could soon be seeing prisoners of conscience in the Ukraine, which would be a huge step backwards.”

Meanwhile, there have been growing reports of student protestors being targeted by law enforcement agencies.

Some have received anonymous threatening phone calls while prosecutors have allegedly asked universities for lists of student attendance on protest days.

The interior ministry has said there is no truth in the reports while police officials have claimed that they are only arresting ‘troublemakers’.  

With more arrests and detentions expected in the coming weeks, combined with the threats to students, the regime appears to be using similar methods to those used by Belarusian authorities in the aftermath of mass protests following the re-election of autocratic president Alexander Lukashenko three years ago.

In the weeks after the protests in Minsk were brutally ended by police, hundreds of people were arrested and jailed for taking part in them. Meanwhile, students were also singled out by police as protestors and thrown out of universities and denied any further education. There was also a dramatic crackdown on civil society groups in the country, many of whom were accused of helping foment the protests.

“We can only hope that the Ukrainian authorities respect the right to freedom of assembly,” said Gorbunova.

But the authorities’ targeting of protestors appears likely to simply strengthen their resolve. Many locals in Kiev say they view the protests as being as much against the regime’s treatment of protestors and the police crackdown at the end of November as about the government’s refusal to sign an agreement with the EU.

Kiev resident Marina Kovalenko, 26, told IPS: “Many protestors are refusing to go home until there is a full investigation into the police and who did what to the protestors, and why their son, or brother, or friend was beaten up or had their bones broken. They want to see someone held to account for it.”

So far Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko has rejected calls for his resignation over the police crackdown, although an investigation has been promised.

University students in Honiara in the Solomon Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.

By Catherine Wilson
HONIARA, Nov 6 2013 (IPS)

External interference in the awarding of tertiary scholarships in Pacific Island nations such as the Solomon Islands is denying some of the highest achievers among the young an opportunity to contribute to the future of their country and the region.

“The problem is unnecessary endorsements of students who do not have academic entitlement,” Wilfred Luiramo, president of the University of the South Pacific (USP) Solomon Islands Students Association in capital Honiara told IPS. “This is a waste of taxpayers’ money and it is having a negative impact on the human resources of this country and the economy.“Many students who are victims do not continue with their studies. They go back home or apply for low-paid jobs.”

“When those who do not have academic merit are given overseas scholarships, they do not perform well in their studies and are unable to contribute in any meaningful way to the country’s development.”

A report this year by the auditor general on management of nationally awarded tertiary scholarships identified issues such as preferential treatment of applicants and granting of additional scholarships outside the official approval process with “no evidence of selection criteria used for assessment of applications” and “no supporting documentation of reasons for awarding scholarships.”

Forum Solomon Islands, a concerned citizens group, received more than 60 public complaints about scholarship inconsistencies in the first months of this year alone. But CEO Benjamin Malao Afuga says the problem has been prevalent for years.

“We have had reports of this happening throughout the country” in relation to scholarships to international education institutions and sponsorship for further study within the country, a spokesperson for Transparency Solomon Islands told IPS. The anti-corruption civil society organisation believes “the problem is that government ministers have discretion over recommendations and this is being abused.”

General Secretary of the National Teachers Association in Honiara, Walter Tesuatai, identified key factors as “political interference, bribery and nepotism” which he believes are influenced by the ‘wantok system’.

In Melanesia and other Pacific Islands, people traditionally express their first allegiance to the extended family (‘wantoks’), and this can entail relationships of mutual social and economic obligations. Those who attain access to power or wealth are frequently under pressure to facilitate benefits to their closest relatives or associates.

The East-West Centre in Hawaii acknowledged in a report on education that “political and other elites appear to have unfair advantage in accessing publicly funded scholarships for study overseas” in a number of Pacific Island states.

The opportunity that a scholarship confers on students in developing Pacific Island nations, where the cost of tertiary education is out of reach to families on low incomes or engaged in subsistence livelihoods, cannot be overestimated.

“University education is expensive and there is a growing demand for scholarships as more students complete secondary school,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Education’s National Training Unit (NTU), which is responsible for allocating scholarships, told IPS.

The demand will only increase in the Solomon Islands where the youth population is predicted to grow rapidly until at least 2025. Currently 40 percent of the population is under 14 years and only one in six school leavers will join the formal workforce.

This year the education ministry received 1,650 applications from school leavers for 300 government scholarships. To be eligible, students must have completed Form 7, the final year of secondary education, achieved a Grade Point Average (GPA) of at least 3 in their academic results, and be applying to study a priority subject for the country’s development needs, such as medicine or science.

A ministry spokesperson acknowledged that cases of external interference were known to occur after the official selection list by the National Training Council was issued to the public and those who were disgruntled or who had influential connections lobbied politicians to intervene on their behalf.

In a country still striving for reconstruction and socioeconomic recovery following a debilitating five-year civil conflict 1998-2003, this type of corruption impacts a younger generation hoping to achieve a better future through education and merit.

“Many students who are victims do not continue with their studies,” Luiramo said. “They go back home or apply for low-paid jobs.”

A 20-year-old exceptional student from Temotu province who was officially granted a scholarship at the beginning of this year committed suicide after his award was withdrawn and given to the child of a member of parliament.

Afuga emphasised that the future of the country depended on such practices becoming unacceptable. “If people are honest with what they are doing and have a passion for this country, we wouldn’t run into this problem.”

An Auditor General’s report on corruption in 2007 highlighted that improved internal controls and more effective action to combat corruption was urgently needed to reduce incentive and opportunity for maladministration in the public sector.

According to Transparency International’s 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, 34 percent of respondents in the Solomon Islands reported paying bribes for services. On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the least corrupt, the education system was rated 3 and public officials and civil servants at 3.6.

Transparency Solomon Islands, which says it will support public litigation in future cases of interference with scholarship awards, advocates limits on the discretionary powers of politicians. It says an external independent commission should be tasked with screening applications and overseeing the final selection process.

Students at a post-film discussion on human rights. Credit: Universidad Nacional de Avellaneda

By Marcela Valente
Jul 22 2013 (IPS)

Nine of the 47 tuition-free public universities in Argentina were created in the last decade, with the aim of improving access to higher education in low-income areas. But despite the expansion and strategies to provide support for students, the drop-out rate has proven difficult to combat.

One result of this policy of inclusiveness is that “80 percent of new students (in the new universities) are the first generation in their family to attend university,” Martín Gill, secretary of university policies at the Education Ministry, told IPS.

Five of the new universities are located in Avellaneda, José C. Paz, Merlo, Moreno and Florencio Varela, which are among the most populous districts with the highest number of working-class households and the lowest incomes in the poor suburbs surrounding Buenos Aires.

The other four founded in the last 10 years, during the centre-left administrations of the late Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and his wife and successor President Cristina Fernández, are in the provinces of Chaco (northeast), Río Negro (south), San Luis (west-central) and Tierra del Fuego (far south), where previously there had been no public universities.

“University education is a right and the state must guarantee it,” said Gill.

The government is offering more living expenses scholarships to complement this policy, Gill said. “Although our public universities are free, for too long only better-off students who lived close by could benefit,” he said.

The total number of state scholarships for students from low-income families increased from 2,000 in 2003 to 47,000 in 2013, and half of them currently go to students who have chosen one of 200 scientific and technological degrees prioritised by Argentina’s development programme.

Proximity and quality

Gill said the new universities on the outskirts of Buenos Aires “are small, flexible units” that have a strong local identity while maintaining high standards of educational quality.

He mentioned, for example, the Biotechnology Centre at San Martín National University, “the largest of its kind in Latin America;” the petroleum engineering programme at the new Arturo Jauretche National University in Florencio Varela; and the economics department established at the Moreno National University.

He also highlighted research work at Quilmes National University, created before 2003 but part of the educational expansion plan. Scientists there, working with researchers at other schools in Argentina and in Cuba, have developed a therapeutic vaccine for lung cancer, which will be available from this July to treat patients in addition to radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Gill said that when the policy was launched to open public universities in the poor suburbs known as the “Conurbano”, the idea was to decentralise the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), founded in the capital city in 1821.

While UBA has maintained its enrolment of over 300,000 students because of its high national and international prestige, the new universities and campuses on the outskirts of the city enrolled 67,000 young people this year. “It’s a policy that generates pronounced upward social mobility,” Gill said.

According to the Education Ministry, student enrolment at the country’s universities rose 28 percent in the last 10 years, while the number of students graduating climbed 68 percent. Public spending on higher education increased from 0.5 to 1.02 percent of GDP in the same period, and between 2001 and 2010, while the population grew 10 percent, the number of people with higher education rose by 54 percent.

This South American country of more than 40 million people devotes 6.5 percent of GDP to education, the highest proportion alongside Brazil in Latin America after Cuba, which spends over 12 percent of GDP on education, according to data from 2010 published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

Drop-out rate, a tough nut to crack

Jorge Calzoni, an engineer who is president of Avellaneda National University, told IPS that over 6,000 students have enrolled since the university was created in 2009, including some 300 foreigners.

The university offers two-year programmes, vocational-technical studies, bachelor’s degrees and graduate studies in 25 different subject areas. “We were not created to compete with the large universities, but to complement them,” Calzoni said.

As a result, instead of offering medical studies, which are taught at nearby universities, Avellaneda National University offers vocational studies and undergraduate degrees in nursing, for instance. It also has courses in tourism, sports and recreation, computer engineering and design, among others.

But Calzoni said drop-out rates remained high, in spite of the three catch-up seminars taught to new students “to bring them up to an acceptable level to prevent failure in the first year.” Students are also given support by tutors and teaching assistants.

“Even so, 47 percent drop out,” he said. “Half of the students who enrol do not come back for the second semester.” He said, however, that some of them change subjects or universities, while others return later.

Avellaneda University’s entrance course includes a survey which found that 84 percent of new students are from families where the parents did not attend university – in other words, they are the first generation to attain higher education.

Calzoni said the new university was located in an area with unmet demand, as shown by the age of the students. The first year it opened, the average age was 34.

“These students had not been able to access higher education previously, and now they saw an opportunity, perhaps because of location.” The average age declined gradually to 28, and now to 24, he said.

Gill also emphasised that the policy of inclusion allowed the hearing impaired and other people with disabilities to become students, along with large numbers of young people from other Latin American countries.

“They come from Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru,” he said. “Argentina has a model of higher education with unparalleled access.

“Eighty percent of university students in the country are at public universities,” said Gill.

But he noted that there are also 49 private universities around the country, which offer a great variety of courses.

One of the students at the Gymnasia Herzliya School checks on the plastic bottles containing samples of a blue-green algae called Spirulina. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

By Pierre Klochendler
TEL AVIV, May 12 2013 (IPS)

At the Gymnasia Herzliya School in Tel Aviv, 20 ninth and tenth graders are testing the simplest, cheapest and fastest way to solve the problem of malnutrition among their peers around the world.

Under the guidance of their principal and biology teacher, these Israeli teenagers are attempting to breed a blue-green algae called spirulina, widely believed to contain a miraculous array of vitamins, minerals and nutrients.

Fourteen-year-old Miri Wolozhinski says her involvement in the experiment stems from a desire to help “those in need”, while her classmate, Anouk Savir-Carmon, rails against “the absurdity that in the 21^st century there are still hungry children.”

According to a United Nations report released last October, nearly 870 million people, or one in eight, suffered from chronic undernourishment between 2010 and 2012. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says malnutrition is caused by “inadequate or unbalanced food intake or … poor absorption of food consumed.”

The students here believe they can help rectify this bleak situation. Having studied the various properties of the microscopic algae, Savir-Carmon explains to IPS, “Sixty to 70 percent of its mass is protein; the rest contains carbohydrates, antioxidants, Omega-3 fats, vitamins, minerals – in short, everything needed for nourishment.”

A study published by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in 2008, based on an experiment conducted in Mexico, showed that 10 grammes per day of powdered spirulina supplement were sufficient to combat child malnutrition.

The same study showed that severely malnourished infants admitted to a village health clinic in Togo recovered within weeks of taking 10 to 15-gramme doses of the dietary supplement mixed with millet, water and spices every day.

Known in the scientific community as multicellular photosynthetic Cyanophyceae, the algae is thought to have existed in salt water and some freshwater lakes for over three billion years.

It is considered a “complete protein”, containing all nine essential amino acids that human beings need to survive. Commonly dubbed a superfood, spirulina eclipses all other whole foods such as unpolished grains, beans, fruits and vegetables and non-homogenised dairy products.

Although the algae develops naturally in tropical lakes in Central and Eastern Africa, the derived dietary supplement – sold as flakes, pills or tablets – comes with a hefty price tag and is available only in select natural and health food stores.

Convinced that the prohibitive cost is a result of large-scale and ineffective breeding methods requiring expensive equipment, students at Gymnasia Herzliya are determined to find cheaper ways of growing the cyanobacteria.

They began by diluting a culture sample, obtained from the ‘Adama’ algae farm located in the Negev desert, with chemicals like sodium bicarbonate, potassium nitrate, sodium chloride, phosphate sulphate and magnesium sulphate “for optimal breeding and mandatory alkalinity,” explains a ninth grader named Fea Hadar.

Using the Internet as their guide, students taught themselves everything they could about the algae’s taxonomy, structure, nutritional benefits and growth conditions.

At first, each pupil was assigned the care of one recycled plastic bottle containing a sample of the culture. Since spirulina, like any other plant, needs carbon to photosynthesise, the students would simply “shake the solution every two hours,” recalls Savir-Carmon.

Four months ago, their algae advisor Boris Zlotnikov devised a more efficient system, arranging rows of bottles on a discarded wooden stand and hooking them up to an electric system of pumps, pipes and thin hoses that breathe air into the solution, stirring the algae constantly. “It now grows very fast,” notes tenth grader El’ad Dvash.

Last week, as the solution took on a dense emerald colour, they celebrated their first harvest, drying the biomass outdoors.

“With 650 litres of algae culture, we produced the equivalent of 65 kilos of dry matter,” boasts Dvash.

The class retained some algae in a makeshift reservoir in order to test more archaic breeding methods, without using electricity.

“We’re busy formulating a protocol for ultimate spirulina breeding – in pools, bottles, under various weather and economic conditions, with or without electricity, instruments or resources,” 15-year-old Ori Shemor tells IPS.

“We still have to conduct a series of experiments which will take into consideration light, temperature and humidity variations,” Shemor explains.

Already the project has generated a buzz, with researchers at the Bar-Ilan University’s Algae Biotechnology Centre volunteering to help the budding scientists devise a model to increase the algea’s protein concentration.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has offered to help the students circulate their protocol through its Associated Schools Project, a global network connecting nearly 10,000 education institutions in over 180 countries, while Rotary International has shown a willingness to partially fund the project.

Last month, an Ethiopian education official visited the breeding premises in Tel Aviv. The governments of South Africa and Lesotho have also expressed interest in the project, said Ze’ev Degani, the school’s principal and the brains behind the initiative.

He told IPS the pilot project has the potential to reach between 700 and 1,000 schools around the world. “Half a million children will be growing spirulina in pools and bottles for themselves within two years,” he predicted.

Though the students have registered their experiment under a start-up company entitled Algeed, they are determined to resist the laws of the free market.

Rather than sell the supplement, Savir-Carmon says he and his classmates will “transmit our knowledge to help other pupils around the world grow it for themselves.”

Some have criticised the experiment for having lofty goals, but Degani believes it has a clear rationale – to create a new kind of food chain based on solidarity, until food autonomy prevails and malnutrition becomes extinct.

A student of the renowned educator and philosopher Paulo Freire, Degani is of the firm opinion that teaching and learning must go beyond the walls of a classroom to touch the lives of those who struggle to survive war, poverty, and inequality.

“We’ll make protocols, not money,” he vows.

At prestigious Harvard University, nearly three-quarters of students voted in favour of divestment. The school's endowment is 32 billion dollars. Credit: First daffodils /cc by 2.0

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Feb 8 2013 (IPS)

A months-old national campaign to convince U.S. colleges, universities and city governments to withdraw investments from the world’s largest oil and gas companies has seen some notable initial successes.

On Tuesday, a city supervisor in San Francisco introduced resolutions calling on the city’s retirement fund to “divest” all money it has in fossil fuel companies and gun manufacturers. That followed a significant recent decision by the city of Seattle’s two-billion-dollar retirement fund to actively shed its stocks in companies that contribute to climate change.

And Wednesday, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, a prominent climate activist and Harvard alum, sided with a strengthening campaign to get that school to back out of its oil and gas investments.

“If I were a student, I would support what you’re doing,” Gore told students, speaking on campus at Harvard. “But if I were a board member I would do what I did when we took up the Apartheid issue. This is an opportunity for learning and the raising of awareness, for the discussion of sustainable capitalism.”

In fact, the divestment movement here in the U.S., which has burgeoned following the November presidential election, took its inspiration from the anti-Apartheid experience.

“During the 1980s, 155 schools came out against the South African Apartheid, and so we’re modelling a lot of what we’re doing now on that,” Jamie Henn, communications director for 350.org, an advocacy group that has spearheaded the divestment push, told IPS.

“So, it made perfect sense for us to start with universities, as these institutions have a special responsibility to make their investments live up to their missions. Many have publicly committed to sustainability and solving the big issues of the day, yet many are still putting tens of millions of dollars into companies that are wreaking havoc on the planet.”

Hampshire College, a small school in Massachusetts, was the first to follow the campaign’s lead; in 1979, it was also the first school in the United States to divest from South African holdings. Two more colleges have now followed suit.

While these are each small and notably progressive schools, Henn reports that student groups have sprung up around the issue on the campuses of at least 230 schools, including at each of the elite Ivy League schools and several large state schools. At least 20 institutions have now started processes to look at divestment options.

“We’ve been blown away by how quickly the campaign has spread – right now it’s the fastest-moving student environmental campaign of the past decade, maybe ever,” Henn says.

“And an increasing number of students are also increasing pressure on politicians to take action. Look at these numbers – Harvard’s endowment is 32 billion dollars. That perks up the ears of a lot of people.”

Little risk

The Harvard administration was initially cold on the idea of divestment, however, reportedly refusing for months to agree to a meeting between the school president and student representatives on the issue. But following a concerted campaign – and a campus-wide referendum in which nearly three-quarters of students voted in favour of divestment – recent weeks have seen a significant softening of tone.

“Finally, at the end of the semester, the administration felt enough pressure to agree to a meeting with a couple of members of the school’s board, and that took place last Friday,” Alli Welton, a co-coordinator of Divest Harvard, a student group, told IPS.

“In that meeting, the board members said they were very concerned about climate change, but questioned whether divestment would have a significant impact on the issue. However, they also noted that divestment of direct holdings wouldn’t have a large impact on the school’s endowment.”

Indeed, that latter contention is supported by a recent report by Aperio Group, an investment management firm, which found that divesting of climate change-related holdings would bring with it remarkably little risk for university endowments.

Welton notes that negotiations between students and the administration are going to continue (“That’s pretty good after a semester of not talking to us”), with a decision slated for February 15. While she says she’s “very encouraged” by the administration’s new willingness to talk, Welton refers to a far larger impact on the student body.

“I’ve never seen anything like this happen around climate change on campus – it seems like students know a lot more about this issue and are feeling its urgency,” she says. “It really feels as though divestment is a very clear way that we can effect change.”

Critically for such a large issue as climate change – and one on which many activists have repeatedly felt let down by failures at the national and international levels to agree on substantive long-term solutions – Welton notes that organising around investments makes a massive issue feel more immediate.

“These local-level initiatives make climate change more accessible for people, and make it more possible for them to get involved,” she says. “We can see very clearly that we’re part of something gigantic, and that definitely creates identity for a national and even international movement.”

To the cities

According to 350.org’s Henn, the second phase of the organisation’s divestment strategy will focus on city governments and pension funds. In this, Seattle’s actions have already become a model of sorts.

Led by the city’s mayor, Mike McGinn, in turn responding to exhortations by 350.org, last month Seattle’s retirement and pension funds reported that they had some 17 million dollars invested in oil and gas companies. On Jan. 31, those funds moved to create a mechanism to look into how potential divestments could take place.

“This was a critical first step, as there was no such mechanism even in existence,” Aaron Pickus, a spokesperson for the mayor, told IPS.

While no decision has yet been made on how that money should now be used, Pickus says, “There has been a general request that it not be re-invested in companies that are polluting our climate.”

The public response has been positive, he notes, even while constituents understand that the city is at the beginning of a process that could span the next half-decade.

“There is a rapidly growing sense that something – in fact, many concrete things – need to start happening to change the trend on how we approach climate change,” Pickus says.

“That includes how we invest – not just in pensions but also, more generally, how we’re spending taxpayer money. For instance, are we going to invest in new, wider highways or in green transit options?”

Painter Karim Traore, 40, puts the finishing touches on a gate at a newly refurbished university in Abidjan. Credit: Robbie Corey-Boulet/IPS

By Robbie Corey-Boulet
ABIDJAN, Sep 4 2012 (IPS)

Yacouba Coulibaly was pursuing a doctorate in education at Cocody University in Abidjan before Côte d’Ivoire’s post-election violence started in 2010. But his classes were routinely disrupted by armed members of a powerful student federation that wished to hold meetings instead.

Later, the country’s public universities were closed in 2011 at the end of the post-election violence and Coulibaly was unable to continue his studies.

But now he is one of an estimated 61,000 students who are expected to start classes soon in the new academic year, as the country’s five public universities reopened on Monday Sep. 3.

“I hope we will have a peaceful university, where people do not behave like we’ve seen in the past,” he told IPS.

“I don’t want my younger brothers and sisters to suffer this same way,” he said, referring to the West African nation’s future crop of students.

Coulibaly said that the reopening of the universities, marked by a ceremony on Monday at Cocody University (which has been renamed after the country’s founding president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny), would help the country develop.

“When you see a country without universities, there is something wrong. You cannot talk about development without universities,” he said.

Côte d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara is also hoping that large-scale investment in the education sector can help his country’s universities shed a legacy of violence and corruption that contributed to recent turmoil. But concerns persist that higher education could again be corrupted by politics.

Speaking at Monday’s ceremony, Ouattara pledged to nurture a university system that would rival the best in the world, and also vowed to implement reforms at the primary and secondary levels.

“As an economist, I am convinced that investment in universities brings the highest yield in development,” he said.

The president lamented the role universities played in the nation’s 2010 to 2011 post-election crisis. He said they had become places “of violence and corruption” during the administration of former President Laurent Gbagbo.

Ouattara defeated Gbagbo in the November 2010 election, but the incumbent refused to cede office, sparking violence that claimed at least 3,000 lives. Gbagbo, who has since been transferred to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, used to be a professor. He garnered strong support from university faculties and the Student Federation of Côte d’Ivoire (FESCI).

For years leading up to the violence, FESCI had become associated with extortion and racketeering, often resorting to violence. A 2008 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report implicated FESCI members in assault, extortion and rape, saying members targeted Gbagbo’s political opponents with impunity. HRW and other groups have also said FESCI members were involved in the 2010-2011 conflict.

Augustin Mian, FESCI’s secretary general, told IPS the group had been turned into a scapegoat for the country’s past problems, and claimed FESCI members have been targeted for abuse by pro-Ouattara forces since the conflict ended.

“We are protesting against the fact that people say we are militias,” he said. He added that the group would continue to advocate on behalf of students, and planned to protest a pending increase in registration fees.

Ouattara has defended the move to close the universities in the first place, which was unpopular with many Ivorians.

Rene Legre Houkou, president of the Ivorian Human Rights League, was among those who thought the decision wrong.

“For us, this decision stopped the normal process of teaching and training,” he told IPS.

“We thought that this violated the right to education, and we were worried that all of these students would be left doing nothing.”

Houkou said officials would face a number of challenges as the universities resumed classes, including finding replacements for the many professors who were allies of Gbagbo and are now in exile.

Meanwhile, students in Abidjan said they hoped the five university campuses – refurbished at a cost of roughly 210 million dollars – would be peaceful from now on.

Most students said they were just happy the existing universities were open again. Kone Pranhoro, a 30-year-old pursuing a PhD in economics, said it was “a good opportunity for the future generation.”

“We hope that politics will never be involved in the universities again,” he said.

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Aug 31 2012 (IPS)

It is essential for young people in Chile to assume a more active role in politics, especially in two key electoral processes: the municipal elections in October and the legislative and presidential vote in 2013, says student leader Camila Vallejo, who has not ruled out running for a seat in parliament herself.

A media darling who has drawn international attention, Vallejo is the most charismatic face of Chile’s social movement today. As past president of the University of Chile Student Federation (FECH), she played a fundamental role in the movement of university and secondary school students that in 2011 were behind the largest social protests held since the return to democracy in 1990.

Camila Vallejo: Chilean families took to the streets once again, together with the student movement. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

This year, as vice president of FECH – in December she was defeated for her bid for re-election as president by Gabriel Boric – and one step away from earning a degree in geography, she is emerging as the most promising young potential politician of the last few decades.

In this interview with IPS, the 24-year-old member of the Communist Youth of Chile says she is not in favour of replicating models or strategies followed elsewhere in the region, although she does believe that “another world is possible.”

She says Latin America is heading in a good direction, led by progressive governments in a number of countries.

With respect to the student movement, she says it “acted erratically” early this year, which apparently undermined support for the protests. But she says the mistakes were corrected, as demonstrated by the fact that 180,000 people came out on Tuesday Aug. 28 in the latest march demanding free, quality public education for all.

The students are demanding a radical change in the educational system in Chile which, despite the improvements introduced in 2009 after mass demonstrations began to be held in 2006, is still based on a scheme of decentralisation and privatisation put in place by the 1973-1990 dictatorship, with schools governed by the profit motive and which hold entrance exams to select students.

Q: Young people marked Chile’s political agenda in 2011. Do you think it’s important for them to take on a role representing the people?

A: It is essential. That is why I support the (Communist Party) candidature of (25-year-old) Camilo Ballesteros for mayor of the Central Station district. He was an excellent leader and will be an excellent mayor.

Furthermore, the University of Santiago de Chile, where Camilo was president of the Student Federation, is in the heart of the district, and I’m sure he will have a great ability to convey and capitalise on the added value of having such an important educational centre in his area, which the right-wing administrations have never managed to do.

Q: Are you willing to take on a role of this kind, in parliament, for example?

A: I have stated in different national media outlets that yes, I’m willing, although it is far from being one of my goals, in and of itself. My objective is a more democratic country, to put an end to the constitution inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and to elect a constituent assembly to rewrite it.

We have to eliminate the ‘binomial’ electoral system (the two most highly-voted legislators per district are elected), and we need to nationalise our natural resources. We also need free, quality public education and social rights. These are the objectives and I want to contribute to this from wherever necessary.

Q: Some students are calling for a boycott of the municipal elections. What do you think about that?

A: It’s a mistake. By proposing this, the Coordinating Assembly of Secondary Students is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of a defeat, because the elections will be held anyway.

The only thing they might achieve is to keep some young people away from the polls, which in turn is a setback in terms of the influence that the student movement has to gain in the institutional sphere.

Q: Do you agree with those who say the student movement is wearing down, or that people are getting tired because the aims are not being met?

A: In the first half of this year, the student movement acted erratically, and ended up isolating other social actors. But processes of discussion, criticism and self-criticism were carried out, and on Tuesday Aug. 28 many people took part in our protest, demonstrating our strength – it was massive. Chilean families took to the streets once again.

With respect to what to do to avoid wear-and-tear, you have to foster and protect unity with broad sectors of society.

Q: What does it mean to be a communist today in the midst of a social movement that seems to feel distant from the parties and from traditional politics?

A: I don’t share that view of the Chilean social movement. Besides, I’m not a communist inserted in a social movement from which I am detached. I am part of it, as are all my compañeros in the Communist Party’s Communist Youth. We form part of this movement, in all sorts of different places.

At the same time, in every factory, company, trade union, neighbourhood council or even parliament, in every place where there is a communist, a struggle is being waged for this social movement to triumph.

Q: What do you think about the different political models in other countries today? For many, the slogan is “another world is possible” – but how can that be brought about?

A: Each country’s experience is unique, and it’s not good to try to replicate models. For years, the neoliberals have been trying to replicate “the American Dream” in Latin America, which has brought poverty, inequality, lack of education and misery. Nevertheless, there is something to learn from every experience.

Another world is possible to the extent that every society manages to find its own path towards greater democracy and stronger social rights, like free education and healthcare, decent housing, and a lifestyle that is in harmony with the environment.

Q: Your reputation as a student leader has gone beyond Chile’s borders, and you have been able to see the situation in other parts of Latin America. What is your view of the different processes of change?

A: I think the overall situation in the region is quite positive. Progressive governments have managed to move towards greater economic, social and political integration by means of groupings like the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the Southern Common Market (Mercosur trade bloc), and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

Chile, although it takes part in these groupings, runs counter to the majority of the countries in South America, with its populist, right-wing government.

Excerpt:

Sinem Sahin, whose classmates were arrested for political activism, speaks at a solidarity protest. Credit: Lindsay Oda/IPS

By Lindsay Oda
ISTANBUL, Jul 17 2012 (IPS)

Ahmet Saymadi slumps into a cafe, gives a limp handshake to some friends, and then stops at a computer to do some work. When he finally pauses for a tea break, he pushes a CD across the table, which contains the names of all 768 student activists currently imprisoned in Turkey’s jails.

Saymadi has been working steadily for the past year to complete this comprehensive report, during which time the number of politically active youth behind bars has risen steadily.

Rights activists charge that the country’s stringent anti-terror laws are responsible for hounding students protesting human rights violations against the country’s Kurdish minority.

After hundreds of protestors gathered outside Çağlayan courthouse chanting, “Freedom for detained students”, Yildiz Technical University students Baran Nayır and Ali Deniz Kılıç were finally released late last month after spending nearly two and a half years in prison.

Although they are not themselves Kurdish, the two students were prosecuted for protesting the government’s closure of the Kurdish National Party in 2009 for its alleged association with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Nayır and Kılıç were just two of hundreds of students detained for acts of political protest dubbed as “terrorism” by the state.

Academia, human rights activists, and members of the secularist opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) are growing increasingly disconcerted by the number of young people caught up in the government’s aggressive clampdown on perceived opponents.

Between 2005 and 2007, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) amended a series of laws, causing a 2.8-fold increase in the number of people detained on terrorism charges by 2011, according to the Ministry of Justice. This number has continually increased in 2012.

“They (the students) are mostly detained on the basis of our draconian anti-terror law,” Mehmet Karli, professor of international law at the Galatasaray University, told IPS.

“The Turkish state has a history of draconian criminal laws. Under the rule of the AKP this hasn’t changed. Since 2005 it has (been) exacerbated.”

Legal complications

Student arrests began to climb with the creation in 2006 of ‘assize’ courts. These state security courts came under intense pressure from the Europe Union for alleged human rights abuses but instead of being held accountable, they were granted punitive powers by the government to apprehend political dissidents.

“They specialise in trying organised crime, but their main aim is to try political ‘crimes’,” Karli said.

Anti-terror laws have also been used to imprison journalists, artists, activists, and even non-AKP members of parliament for association with or membership in the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK); ties with other Kurdish groups; and for alleged participation in the coup-plotting group, Ergenekon.

A lawyer and activist working on behalf of arrested students, Olguner Olgun, estimates about 90 percent of the imprisoned students are Kurdish, and that most were arrested for demanding Kurdish rights.

“There are serious problems with respect to the rights of Kurds in Turkey. Some (students) expressed discontent, but the fact that there is a PKK doesn’t mean that all Kurds are members of the PKK and engaged in violent activity,” said Karli, who has read over 200 indictments of students detained for terrorism, but has yet to find any connection with violent activity.

Absent any substantial evidence of violent actions, most prosecutors cite an anonymous witness described as a “patriot”, who offers relevant information to the state associating defendants with terrorist organisations.

Anything from Facebook messages to text messages are used as evidence, according to Olguner. Anonymous witnesses can’t be cross-examined, making their evidence difficult to challenge in court.

The majority of arrested students are languishing in pre-trial detention, where they are forced to wait months before they are presented with a statement from police or allowed contact with lawyers. Olguner said that the average waiting time before a first trial is six months.

“They extend the surveillance time so police can better prepare an argument with prosecutors for the first trial,” Olguner contended.

In most countries, a person is innocent until proven guilty. In Turkey, specifically with cases of terrorism, authorities assert a person is guilty and detain him or her until the defendant is proven innocent.

Nayır and Kılıç had a record of about two court hearings per year.  The average minimum of hearings before a verdict is six. Given those statistics, a student may be detained for three years before receiving a verdict.

Arrested students also face disciplinary action by university administration before a final verdict is handed down. Rules overseen by Turkey’s Board of Higher Education, YOK, criminalise “ideological activity”. Students receive warnings and suspensions, and sometimes even risk expulsion, if caught engaging in almost any kind of political activity the government considers undesirable.

Solidarity protests

Across the country, solidarity groups are taking action against student imprisonments. Their campaign strategy is to widely publicise the students’ cases.

Letters students write from jail are posted online, and translated into English in hopes that other countries, especially EU member states, will put pressure on the Turkish government.

“Our biggest difficulty is getting true knowledge of these cases published in Turkish media. The media works for the AKP, and don’t reveal the truth to the public,” Saymadi told IPS.

But the prevalence of independent media has enabled word to spread, with news of detainees appearing on solidarity blogs, Facebook groups, and left-wing news websites.

Solidarity actions continue to take place on university campuses, even though most university administrations disapprove of political protest. Students at graduation ceremonies open their robes in unison to reveal T-shirts bearing the mantra “freedom for detained students” printed in bold letters.

So far, 62 students detained on terrorist charges have been released.

(END)