Blog for Human Rights

Belfast Murals

2009-05-22T04:41:00.001-07:00

Two months ago (February 27 – March 1), I went on a weekend trip to Belfast organized by my study abroad program. On Sunday, our last day, Bill Rolston offered us a lecture on the political murals that are spread throughout Belfast. Rolston is an expert on the murals and has the largest collection of pictures of murals.

Rolston outlined the political situation, and some of the terms he defined are vital to understanding the political situation in Northern Ireland. As he explained it, Nationalists are those who want Northern Ireland united with the Republic of Ireland; Unionists want Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom. Republicans are militant Nationalists; Loyalists are militant Unionists. I had previously dismissed such terms as politically correct euphemisms, just synonyms for Catholics and Protestants. As I learned more about the conflict, however, it became more and more clear to me that the conflict really was not about religion at all, and the terms were much more suitable for defining the conflict than religious labels (although it is true that the overwhelming majority of Nationalists/Republicans are Catholic and Unionists/Loyalists are Protestant).

Most of the murals do not appeal to religion. Both sides demand “freedom”. Unionists appear to have a definition of freedom that necessarily involves being part of the United Kingdom. Republicans have a definition that necessarily involves being part of the Republic of Ireland. I do not know enough about the conflict to say much more about these differences, but this seems to be the root of the conflict. I also can’t say I agree with either of these definitions, but again, I may just not know enough.

The political murals are at the same time frightening and fascinating. They are a stark reminder, among many in Belfast, of the terrible social strife that took place so recently. Images of masked men with assault rifles point to the viewer, seeming to say, “We’ve killed before and will do it again.” Hopefully the violence in March is not an indicator of anything to come, but seeing these murals, one senses how fragile peace can be and particularly leads me to cherish the tranquility at home in the United States.

Republicans relate a history of oppression into a more global philosophical movement. As such, Republican murals now make statements about causes around the world, linking all those they understand to be oppressed together. Thus, murals might bring up the Basque movement, the plight of Palestinians, U.S.-Cuba relations, the Iraq war, and even Frederick Douglass.

Unionist murals appear to make a case for the importance of British identity. They are now much more likely than others to feature guns. Other prominent themes are major British victories in Ireland.

If the peace holds, the lessons will hopefully be able to guide us as we search for an end to conflicts around the world. At the same time, each situation is unique, and we cannot force a template on all problems. While human rights challenges are all different, the human rights we all hold are universal. This is what we must always remember.

All of my pictures of the Belfast murals are available here (N.B. the opinions represented in the pictures do not necessarily reflect my personal opinion nor any endorsement by the center).

Holocaust Remembrance Day at CMC

2009-04-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

Yom HaShoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day—was two days ago on Monday the 20^th of April. It was a day to remember the 6 million Jews that died in the Holocaust and the approximately 5 million others—ethnic poles, homosexuals, gypsies, and the disabled—that also gave their lives in the concentration camps. To properly observe the holiday, The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human rights at Claremont Mckenna College brought in one of the foremost scholars of the Holocaust and Genocide, Robert Skloot. Skloot takes the issues raised by the holocaust and genocide and looks at them through a very unique lens: theatre.

During his talk at the Athenaeum, he described and presented excerpts from five spectacular plays on the Holocaust, each one offering Holocaust experiences from a very different perspective. His talk was eloquent and emotional, forcing the audience to be truly engaged in a very difficult subject. Moreover, his theme was conveyed clearly throughout the night—that art can at times be the most communicative medium through which to grapple with tough issues. Overall, his talk was the perfect event to remember the lives lost in this horrible genocide, and I am proud to be at a school and involved in a center that encourages students to remember.

The Hope for International Justice

2009-04-16T16:27:00.000-07:00

As time passes and the Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir maintains his security in his home country and among the 22 countries of the Arab League, it has been difficult to have faith in international justice. In fact, I blogged about this very issue in the recent past. But having recently seen the progression of justice that has occurred for the former president of Peru, I am regaining hope.

In September of 2007, Chile’s Supreme Court approved the extradition of Peru’s former president Alberto Fujimori. This was a surprise to the globe considering all of Latin America’s—including Chile’s—history of hesitancy to extradite. Alredo Etcheberry, the Chilean lawyer who represented Peru’s government in this case said that “this is a breaking point in international law.” I hope this is the case.

Furthermore, once returned to Peru, the former president was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He is still being tried on additional charges of corruption. Simon Romero of the New York Times related this conviction to its implications on global human rights: “Specialists in international human rights law closely followed the case because of its implications for other former or current heads of state who might face charges of war crimes and other abuses.”

We can understand how this incident truly might have ripple effects regionally, if not globally. An editorialist also at the New York Times mentioned the criticism that the current president, Alan Garcia, is not much better. The columnist astutely responded by highlighting that in the very least, the current president will need to be aware “that Peru’s citizens and its legal system are watching.” This very fear can be extremely powerful and might be the largest incentive to discourage corruption.

Reproductive Rights in the Developing World

2009-04-13T18:11:00.000-07:00

In 1968, “the right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of one’s children and to have the information, education and means to do so” was added as a human right. Since its adoption, family planning efforts have littered the developing world, attempting to give women the resources to properly control their reproductive health. These efforts have not had the impact one would have hoped, but progress has been made.

Still today, 200 million women have an unmet need for contraceptives—they want to avoid pregnancy but do not have the ability to do so. This means that they either do not have the money to afford contraceptives or they are uneducated about them. An op-ed columnist, Nicholas D. Kristof commented on the results that have been gathered of this problem: “This “unmet need” results in 70 million to 80 million unwanted pregnancies annually, the United Nations says, along with 19 million abortions and 150,000 maternal deaths.” Moreover, these additional births (which predominately, though not exclusively, occur in the developing world) increase overpopulation, strap limited government resources, and lead to the continuation of poverty.

The money that has been spent on family planning has not in the past been extremely effective because of cultural differences that were strategically difficult and were not preempted. For instance, most of the developing world has large populations of people living in rural areas. These people do not have access to hospitals and often get their reproductive health through their local midwives. As such, women in rural villages have been neglected in the past by family planning programs. Secondly, programs have often distributed contraceptives without adequate education about the proper use of them or education about the side effects. Because of this, many women stop the contraceptives when complications arise that they did not expect. Also, they might take it improperly, deduce that it doesn’t work, and never try it, or other methods, again. Finally, too often family planning programs have had a western agenda. They have aimed at intimidating women into choosing smaller families instead of educating them about their options and offering them the ability to choose. As many developing cultures value large families, this can be extremely problematic. Once women feel that they are misunderstood, they stop trusting the family planning experts and continue with their normal patterns.

This issue is one about which I feel very strongly. Not only as a woman do I find importance in the attempt to ensuring that woman has control over her own body, but I have additionally spent a great deal of time in the developing world working with women and have been able to see what a large issue this truly is. Just because family planning has not made the strides it should have in the last 30 years does not mean people should capitulate—these women in the developing world still need help and have not yet received it. In the end it is about learning from our mistakes and continuing to do our best to help the world in a responsible manner. Doing this, I am confident, requires a perseverance to important causes like this one.

I really recommend this article for anyone that is curious about what it might be like to live as a woman in the developing world: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/opinion/05kristof.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=pregnant%20again%20and%20poor&st=cse

Flogging in Pakistan

2009-04-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

A video of a Pakistani woman being flogged was circulated recently, raising anxiety that the Peace Treaty giving the Taliban control over the Swat area in Pakistan was a mistake. The current story is that she was flogged March 7^th on the charge of consorting with an electrician as an unmarried woman, but the stories have ranged from leaving the house unaccompanied by a male to denying the proposal of a Taliban official. Regardless of the reason, she was held down in public and whipped 34 times regardless of her screams and pleas. These acts of brutality against women are egregious. Furthermore, with the Taliban controlling the area as of February, they are only to get worse.

Mr. Afridi, the Peshawar lawyer, has described the Swat Valley since the treaty in the following way: “The most fundamental rights are violated every second of every day. People are being ejected from their houses, courts are closed, 300 schools have been demolished. More than 900 police officers had deserted the force of 1,600 in Swat, and now the Taliban were on the verge of taking over the neighboring area of Dir.”

Many people were critical of the Peace Treaty because they feared these exact consequences and suspect that the Taliban will us this to continue to gain power. The flogging itself was horrible, and further incidents like it will only continue without regaining some control over the area. The Pakistani government should revisit the decision to make the treaty to see if it was really in the country’s best interest.

Torture in Guantanamo

2009-04-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

The torture of war criminals is not only a violation of human rights but also a strict violation of the Geneva Conventions. The Red Cross did an investigation of American “Black Site” prisons in 2006-7, concluding that the US treatment resulted in cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees. The report was shared with the US government but not given to the public due to the humanitarian group's strict policy of neutrality in conflicts. Last week, Mark Danner, a journalism professor, obtained a copy of the report and published extensive experts of it through the New York Review of Books.

The findings in the report are horrendous. The ICRC interviewed many detainees from Guantanamo. They all reported nearly identical treatments though they were questioned separately, adding to the credibility of their reports. Their allegations range from sleep deprivation, intense temperature change, water boarding, and severe beatings. The Washington Post summarized the interrogation reports in this way: “During interrogations, the captives were routinely beaten, doused with cold water and slammed head-first into walls. Between sessions, they were stripped of clothing, bombarded with loud music, exposed to cold temperatures, and deprived of sleep and solid food for days on end. Some detainees described being forced to stand for days, with their arms shackled above them, wearing only diapers.”

These torture techniques clearly had a huge impact on the health of the detainees. In a federal court filing, Abu Zubaida was reported to have had 175 seizures that were directly related to the abuse he suffered. The Washington Post and Danner repeatedly remind audiences that the Red Cross’s use of the term torture has significant weight and should be highly respected. Therefore, their conclusion that the U.S. tortured people in these prisons has huge significance.

People might be tempted to think that we have moved past this issue—that because our new president has outlawed such practices, we no longer need to worry about them or feel culpability as a result of them. Unfortunately, I think this would be a very wrong attitude to hold. Guantanamo has yet to be closed and many other secret prisons have not even been broached to the public. So long as they exist, there is reason to fear that once again the United States could condone acts of torture when circumstances of fear arise.

For more information or to see the report (last one), follow these links: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/15/AR2009031502724_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009031602358
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0316/p99s01-duts.html
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22530

Hope in Haiti

2009-03-31T11:32:00.000-07:00

This blog is frequently littered with reports of suffering, continued inaction and overall bad news, but today I am excited to write of a hopeful message for human rights in Haiti. This country now has special meaning to students of the Center for the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights due to the recent visit of Anne Hastings, the commander of the largest micro finance institution in Haiti. Through her visit, we heard a optimistic message of how non-profits are improving the lives of Haitians. Now, there is reason to dream big for Haiti. After the HOPE II Act passed last year in the House of Representatives, Haiti has begun to show improvements. Furthermore next month, international donors will meet in Washington to talk of increasing aid to Haiti.

As many of you know, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and has long been suffering from famine, corrupt governments and disease. Last year, America proclaimed their commitment to the country by passing a 9 year act that offers Haiti duty-free, quota-free access to U.S. markets (HOPE II). Though this has had an important effect on Haiti, according to Ban Ki-Moon (the Secretary General of the United Nations) with additional aid at this moment in time, there could be a substantial increase in economic development. I found his argument in the New York Times to be quite persuasive. Here is the heart of it:

“HOPE II, as the act is known, offers Haiti duty-free, quota-free access to U.S. markets for the next nine years. No other nation enjoys a similar advantage. This is a foundation to build on. It is a chance to consolidate the progress Haiti has made in winning a measure of political stability, with the help of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, and move beyond aid to genuine economic development. Given the country’s massive unemployment, particularly among youth, that means one thing above all else: jobs.

My special adviser on Haiti, the Oxford University development economist Paul Collier, has worked with the government to devise a strategy. It identifies specific steps and policies to create those jobs, with particular emphasis on the country’s traditional strengths — the garment industry and agriculture. Among them: enacting new regulations lowering port fees (among the highest in the Caribbean) and creating the sort of industrial “clusters” that have come to dominate global trade.

In practical terms, this means dramatically expanding the country’s export zones, so that a new generation of textile firms can invest and do business in one place. By creating a market sufficiently large to generate economies of scale, they can drive down production costs and, once a certain threshold is crossed, spark potentially explosive growth constrained only by the size of the labor pool.

That may seem ambitious in a country of 9 million people, where 80 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day and half of the food is imported. Yet we know it can work. We have seen it happen in Bangladesh, which boasts a garment industry supporting 2.5 million jobs. We have seen it happen in Uganda and Rwanda.”

For further reading, following this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/opinion/31iht-edmoon.html?_r=1&ref=global

I hope that the international donor committee heeds this advice in Washington and capitalizes on this moment to significantly impact the lives of the Haitian people. Haiti has suffered for too long.

Remembering the Rohingyas Refuges

2009-03-26T14:24:00.000-07:00

In recent weeks, Hillary Clinton has become increasingly loud and frustrated in her criticism of Myanmar, a Southeast Asian country formally known as Burma. The country, which has been under military rule since 1962, has been heavily reprimanded for their policies that violate numerous human and political rights. One specific area that the country has shown absolutely no attempt to improve is in their treatment of the Rohingyas ethic group—a Muslim group living in the predominately Buddhist country. For nearly five decades this group has faced radical discrimination—they have been stripped of citizenship, forced into labor, pushed into regions as their land was confiscated without explanation, and denied the right to travel or marry.

This destitute group has come back into headlines this year due to their failed attempt to escape to Thailand. According to survivors, thousands of refugees have in the recent past boarded boats to Thailand in attempts to flee persecution. In December, the Thai government decided this was unacceptable. They gathered these refuges, badly beat them, forced them onto a boat without and engine, limited water and food supply and drifted them off to sea. Three boats and over 800 people have been found, while the other boats are still missing. Thailand has long been a country flooded with immigrants escaping problems in varying countries, yet this accusation rightly caused them to put in a very negative international spotlight.

Yet, there has yet to be a clear solution to the problem. The government refuses to falter on their sharp stance toward this group, while neighboring countries—currently dealing with their own problems of food security, poverty and labor—are overwhelmed with the prospect of taking care of more people in desperate need. Luckily, there has been some help from refugee organizations, but the future still seems bleak. One can understand Clinton’s frustration with Myanmar’s lack of response to any international pressure: “Clearly, the path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn’t influenced the Burmese junta,” she said last month. “Reaching out and trying to engage them hasn’t worked either.”

It is important that we continue to remember this group of people—a group that has long been suffering and is frequently forgotten in the news and our memory.

the Difficulties of Implementing Justice Internationally: Thoughts on Sudan

2009-03-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, President Bashir of Sudan was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for playing an “essential role” in the murder, rape, torture, pillage and displacement of large numbers of civilians in Darfur. This appears to be a great move forward for justice on behalf of the victims of Darfur, but unfortunately justice for the victims does not always entail prosperity for them. As soon as the International Criminal Court—which was established in 2002 to convict crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity—made their decision regarding Bashir, nearly all aid organizations operating in Sudan were ordered to shut down and leave.

To give you an idea of what that will do for the people of this region, I will list some important organizations that currently work there and the extent of their aid. To begin, Oxfam was ordered to leave, which might harm the 600,000 people that currently use its services in that region. The Dutch section of MSF was closed, which offers health care to people in South Darfur—the numbers of people that will be affected by their absence is unknown for the moment. The International Rescue Committee, an organization that also provides medical care—was closed, which currently aids 1.75 million people. Also, Mercy Corps will not be allowed to continue their work in the region, and they assist 200,000 people. Other groups that have been expelled include, but are not limited to, the Norwegian Refugee Council, CARE, and Save the Children (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/world/africa/06sudan.html?ref=world).

As you can see, the effects of the President’s choice to remove international humanitarian aid will be dramatic. The Sudanese people are dependant on it, and very little will remain after the next few weeks. The Christian Science Monitor and others have been asking the question of whether the courts ruling was actually counter productive. If the point of convicting a felon is to ensure he can’t cause more harm, then as of now, it seems the conviction has done very little. In fact, the president now appears to be less likely to speak of peace negotiations and the people will surely suffer more in future months without the humanitarian aid that he has banished.

But, the hope is that with Bashir convicted, the future for Sudan could be brighter. Furthermore, having strong stance now toward corrupt state leaders could offer incentives for future leaders to not misuse their power. Though this is not a completely parallel example, imagine how people would act in individual societies if there did not exist a justice system that could regulate behavior through bad incentives like prison. If we are to be an international community committed to the laws we create for ourselves—such as human rights, rules of war, and crimes against humanity—then I do think we must stand against perpetrators of those crimes. Though it is terribly horrifying that the charges aimed at helping the Sudanese people might actually harm them, the fact that Bashir is reacting to his charges by pulling aid that his people are dependant upon only further shows that the charges the ICC made were correct. For this reason, despite the consequences, I do support the conclusion of the ICC.

Linked below are articles from the Christian Science Monitor. The discussion is very interesting.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0306/p12s01-wogi.html?page=1
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0305/p99s01-duts.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0305/p01s02-woaf.html

The Increase of Modern Slavery

2009-03-04T15:19:00.000-08:00

The United Nations recently released a report on the status of human trafficking in the world. Unfortunately, the results were not promising. Though the number of nations which have agreed to condemn the practices of human trafficking has grown, there is real reason to doubt whether their promises are a real commitment to stop trafficking. 40 % of countries where the problem is known to exist have yet to convict one person of trafficking even though all of them have declared their commitment to the cause. The United Nations claims this is due to a lack the legal instruments or political will in these countries to ensure that perpetrators are punished. In the end, the United Nations fears that the problem is only worsening each year.

This is significant not only due to the severity and brutality of human trafficking for victims, but also due to the sheer numbers of new victims each year. The UN has yet to comment on the number of trafficked individuals each year, but estimates range from 800,000 new victims each year, according to the U.S. State Department, to 2.5 million, according to the International Labor Organization. All we know for sure is the amount of people that are reported, which in 2006 was over 21,400 people.

Human Trafficking is said to be the modern form of slavery—and this description is terrifyingly accurate. 80 % of human trafficking is sexual exploitation, with the remaining 20% being mostly forced labor. Both kinds are horrendous. One article that I have linked below describes the experiences of a former sex slave who was able to escape. She was kidnapped at a young age, and woke up beaten and bloody from a man who had purchased her virginity. From that moment on, she never left the building until her escape. She was beaten until she learned to smile and act flirtatious for customers so that they assumed she was complicit in her situation. When she did not act this way, she was literally tortured in the basement. The torture included beatings, massive electric shocks, and days spent in a coffin with biting ants. Many women died in these torture sessions. Now, as an activist, she works under constant threats. In fact, two of her co-workers have had their daughters kidnapped and subjected to sex slavery.

The problem is widespread and a horribly egregious violation of human rights. Governments can do a great deal to deincentivize people from going into the trafficking business, but another obvious solution to the problem is to stop the demand. I hope that human rights activists continue their work to free young women and children that have been trafficked. Additionally, I hope that they focus some attention on educating people about the tactics used by traffickers to make children and women appear consensual, in hopes that such education will fight the rising demand for trafficking.

Below are two links, one to the report given by the UN and the other to woman’s story of human trafficking:
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/global-report-on-trafficking-in-persons.html
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/global-report-on-trafficking-in-persons.html

Much Needed Inspiration

2009-02-28T05:07:00.000-08:00

As the conflict in Israel/Palestine drags on, optimism is becoming a real commodity. With a right-wing coalition likely to take over in Israel and a Palestinian unity government looking unlikely and problematic, it just does not seem like peace is coming soon. Most likely, we can look forward to more violent conflicts, which will invariably leave many people dead or injured, infrastructure damaged, and hateful ideologies hardened on both sides of the border.

It's hard to stay hopeful in times like this. That's why stories like Elik Elhanan's are so incredibly important to Israelis and Palestinians who want to move forward and live enjoyable lives. This is one of the most inspirational stories that I have seen in a while.

Turning Rage Into Reconciliation In Israel

I was born and raised in Jerusalem. I had a normal, happy childhood. I came from a liberal, left-wing family, which means I knew something of the situation. I was for peace, but I never saw myself as part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My life and dreams were very far away from all that. The reality of Israeli life helped a lot. Even though I grew up in Jerusalem, the biggest Israeli-Palestinian city, I never met with Palestinians and never talked to them. As far as I was concerned, we lived in different worlds.
When I was 18, I joined the army. It was mandatory, but I went gladly. I believed it was my civic duty. I believed one should contribute oneself to one's community. I believed I was going to protect the borders of my country and defend its citizens. But even there I couldn't see myself as part of it all. Again, my dreams lay very far away, and I knew this soldier thing would end one day. But a piece of reality burst my bubble.
I got the news that there had been a bombing while I was training for something or other far from home. My sister Smadar was missing. I remember the long ride home, hoping for the best. But the second I saw my parents, I knew. They had just come back from the morgue where they'd identified the body of my sister.
Smadar died on September 4, 1997. On that day, two Palestinians blew themselves up in the centre of Jerusalem, killing eight and wounding another 50. Smadar was 14 years old. She had gone downtown with some friends to buy things for school. My sister and her friends had the misfortune of being close to one of the bombers. She died instantly, as did her best friend. The third friend was critically injured.
When we're confronted with such a situation, the first question is, of course, How do I go on? How do I deal with the pain? Society offers several solutions to this problem. One is to be sad. Another is to be angry. I refused to take either path.
Life is too precious to be wasted in sombre reminiscence. I thought my sister, who was full of life and love, deserved better than to be remembered in such a sad fashion. I understood that the first victim of my anger would be me. It's easy to succumb to anger, hate and fear, especially when we're hurt by a faceless menace such as terrorism. You can't hate someone so you hate something--not a Palestinian, but the Palestinians, all of them.
But this prospect of living my life as someone who fears everything and hates everyone was unacceptable. The possibility of revenge didn't give me any peace either. Who would be the object of my revenge? Would it make me feel any better? The man who killed my sister was dead.
What was missing from my life was Smadar, my sister, not honour or satisfaction. It didn't matter how many Palestinians would die; she'd never come back. Because of my pain, should more lives be ruined? I decided I couldn't allow it.
What had happened to me was beyond repair. In trying to "fix" it, I'd only destroy myself. My sister didn't die so Israel would be safe; she didn't die because Arabs are naturally bad or because Islam is an evil religion. She died because of a political situation, man-made and solvable.
The events of our time show us there's no violent solution to violence. If you want people to stop trying to kill you and themselves, give them a reason to live. I became aware of the contaminating nature of violence, of its incapacity to generate anything but more violence.
If we really want to stop the violence, to make sure no more innocent lives are lost, we must struggle for a peace agreement. I work for peace in many ways, but the most significant one in my eyes is through the Israeli-Palestinian Families' Forum, a group of 500 families--250 from Israel and 250 from Palestine--that have lost a family member in this conflict. Through this group that I co-founded I've met Palestinians, real ones, not stereotypes or caricatures, but real people like Ali Abu Awwad, who spent four years in Israeli jails. He was shot by a settler, his brother murdered by a soldier. Nevertheless, Ali still wants peace. There are many others like him.
If I can talk to these people, many of them former members of Palestinian resistance movements like the one that killed my sister, and if they can talk to me after losing their family members, no one has a reason not to communicate.
We want to show people in pain that there's another way to deal with it, through hope rather than hate. In our group, we know peace will only be achieved with dialogue. We know it's imperative that each side knows the story, the suffering and the hopes of the other side. If we can speak to each other, anyone can!
Elik Elhanan is co-founder of the Israeli-Palestinian Families' Forum, known as Bereaved Parents for Peace. This is excerpted from a speech published in Occupation Magazine (kibush.co.il).

The Stace of the U.S. toward China

2009-02-27T10:49:00.000-08:00

In recent weeks, I have been watching the oscillation of the United States’ stance toward China. When Clinton first visited the country, she publicly relayed that the United States would place the issue of the economic crises above all others; she spoke of the importance of China and the United States uniting to improve the economic situation. In doing this, she neglected to condemn—or even “slap the wrist” of—China of their numerous human rights violations. Then, shortly after her return, she signed off on the State Department Report that harshly criticized the human rights situation in China:

“The [Chinese] government continued to limit citizens' privacy rights and tightly controlled freedom of speech, the press (including the Internet), assembly, movement, and association. Authorities committed extrajudicial killings and torture, coerced confessions of prisoners, and used forced labor. In addition, the Chinese government increased detention and harassment of dissidents, petitioners, human rights defenders, and defense lawyers. Local and international NGOs continued to face intense scrutiny and restrictions. China's human rights record worsened in some areas, including severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and Tibet."

My concern is that it remains unclear what position this administration plans on taking in respect to human rights. From what we have seen thus far, many things could be concluded. In my opinion, it seems most likely that the stace the United States will take is one that is harsh, condemning human rights violations abroad, only when it is convenient for our own goals. This does not mean that the new administration is making the wrong choice; in fact, upon reflection, I do not know what the right choice should be.

On the one hand, I want the United States to place propagating human rights as a priority that does not come second to economics. I care about the Tibetans and Chinese that are being denied rights while other countries watch and do little to protect them. On the other hand, I know this is naive. I know that we are in the middle of serious times, and everyone’s top priority is moving forward. In times of drowning, values become second to staying above water. And in the end, I don’t know if that is okay or not. The United States would argue that we will only be able to effectively protect human rights when the economy returns to normal, so it is only logical that protecting the economy is our primary concern. Yet, no matter the reasons, it is rational to question if the administration truly understands the importance of human rights if anything is allowed to come before them.

Secondly, I have doubts about the United States playing a moral judge when we are violating many of the rights that we have condemned the Chinese for violating. This was the at the heart of the Chinese's response to our report—don’t criticize us for violating many of the same human rights you are. I have a great deal of sympathy for this reaction. In the end, I think the United States needs to decide how human rights will fit in the agenda during this crisis. Primarily, I hope we take China’s criticism to heart and terminate all of our human rights violations (for instance, closing our secret detention centers that deny people the right of habeas corpus and use torture and coercive techniques to gain information). Secondly, I hope we can find a way to support the termination of human rights violations abroad as we work to improve the economy.

Upcoming Human Rights Events

2009-02-10T12:59:00.000-08:00

For Human Rights enthusiasts, here are three events coming up that might interest you:

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 11th of Febuary, Efraim Inbar will be speaking at the Athenaeum. He is the author of five books titled, Outcast Countries in the World Community (1985), War and Peace in Israeli Politics. Labor Party Positions on National Security (1991), Rabin and Israel’s National Security (1999), The Israeli-Turkish Entente (2001), and Israel's National Security: Issues and Challenges since the Yom Kippur War. Currently, he serves on the Academic Committee of the History Department of the IDF and as the President of the Israel Association of International Studies. While at CMC, he will be having two discussions. The first will be at 4:00 Pm in the Freeburg Room and second will be over dinner at 6:00 PM in the Parents Dining Room. Both of his discussions will be oriented around the recent conflict in Gaza, where he will offer students his unique perspective.

Another exciting event will be taking place at Pomona on Tuesday the 17th of February. The event is titled Human Rights in the 21st Century, and it will feature a panel discussion of the genocide and ongoing humanitarian crises in Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Congo, and other nations. Additionally, the panel will discuss the future of human rights in an age characterized by globalization and the rise of China, India, and Russia. The speakers are Mark Hanis, executive director of the Genocide Intervention Network, Jeanette Ndhlovu, South African Consul-General, and Michael J. Bazyler, acclaimed Holocaust and human rights scholar and professor at Chapman University Law School. The event will be at 8 PM in Edmunds Ballroom at Pomona College.

Finally, on Sunday the 22nd of February at The University of Southern California there will be a screening of a recently made documentary called Spell Your Name. The film features testimonies of Ukrainian Holocaust survivors and witnesses from the Shoah Foundation Insititute’s archives. Following the film, their will be a discussion addressing issues of cultural stereotypes and the complexity of the public memorialization of massacres that took place during the Holocaust in Ukraine. The discussion will be moderated by Wolf Gruner, a USC history professor, Sergey Bukovsky, the filmmaker, Crispin Brooks, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute curator, and Michael Renov, a USC cinematic arts professor. This really interesting event will be at the Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre at 4:30 pm. The admission is free and refreshments will be served.

The Hope for Change for Bagram

2009-02-09T16:26:00.000-08:00

Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile

Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11 (1): Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.

Guantanamo has long been the basis of debate for human rights activists. Yet recently, there is an air of relief as our new President has proclaimed that within a year, the prison will close. Though I share this relief, I am concerned with the fate of not only Guantanamo, but also the Bagram Prison in Afghanistan. As of now, Obama has yet to say much on his plans for this detention center. In a very limited time, he must decide if he wants to approve of the 60 million dollar prison complex that Bush proposed to replace the current one, and if he will give four prisoners in Bagram the ability to challenge their detention as has been done for prisoners in Guantanamo.

I am very concerned about these decisions. This detention center has been reported to have worse conditions for prisoners than Guantanamo, and as the Bush administration has allowed no reporters or human rights organizations inside, we can only image that to be true. These prisoners are being held without rights or the ability to question their charges for indefinite period of time. On top of this, with as little transparency into the prison as is currently allowed, one need not question deeply to imagine the conditions the guards have created for the prisoners. As we have learned from psychology, even good people are corrupted under unregulated power. All it takes is looking back on the Stanford Prison Experiment to see that it does not take evil people to do evil things. Situations are very powerful determinants of behavior. Yet if we know this, then why do we continue to put any people—regardless of their values—in situations where corruption is a foreseeable event. At Bagram in 2003, two men were “coercively interrogated” to death, and the prison was known for using many interrogation techniques that many consider to be torture on a regular basis. Though it is said that the prison has improved after 2003 due to intense public pressure, we must foresee similar events in the future, and decide that they are unacceptable. In my opinion, the only way to prevent their occurrences is make the prisons more transparent, where workers are held accountable by public censure, and more just, where prisoners are given the human rights that should never be denied to anyone.

We have seen the atrocities that have happened since 2001 in these secret detention camps, and the wise know that these atrocities will only continue without increased transparency. Yet, we have not put the pressure on our new president to ensure that these violations stop. It is not only in Guantanamo that they occur, it is all prisons where suspects are held secretly without habeas corpus, without trial, and with very minimal rights. President Obama has been given until February 20th the make a decision about the four prisoners seeking to question their detention in Bagram. I hope that he decides, as as was done for prisoners in Guantanamo, that the values that our country were built upon are never worth sacrificing.

The Effects of Aid in Zimbabwe

2009-02-03T13:21:00.000-08:00

Over a month ago, I wrote on the massive turmoil in Zimbabwe. Yet even now, as we sit on the upward swing of the conflict with dual leadership hopefully on the horizon, I remain angry and broken hearted. Recent articles have been published about the ramifications of Mugabe’s rule. Their topics are extremely broad in scope, covering issues in health care, hunger, political angst and inflation. One that I found extremely egregious relates to the abuse that young women—or maybe I should say girls—are experiencing as they flee to South Africa in attempt to find work and send money home. Countless unreported rapes occur each day during this passage. As most of these women cross the border at night, they frequently stumble upon men that have predicted their arrival. They are robed and abused in exchange for passage. Furthermore, once the women arrive in South Africa, the only work that many are able to find is in prostitution.

I am sure that I am not alone in my vehement anger and sadness about Zimbabwe. I desperately want someone to blame for how out of control this situation has become. Clearly, Mugabe is the ultimate culprit, but what about us? Have we been incompetent in being unable to prevent such suffering? I have written about policies and their effects in previous blogs, and I am now interested in their role in Zimbabwe. Currently, NGOs, state aid and humanitarian organizations are vital to the survival of many Zimbabweans. In December of 2008, the United States and the United Nations were responsible for feeding half of the population of Zimbabwe. My first impression is sincere gratitude that these people are being helped. On the other hand, I wonder if in the attempt to help, people are in fact enabling Mugabe’s brutality to reign. As he can rely on others to feed his people, he feels no political or moral obligation to feed them himself. As his people do not need to fight for their own self-preservation, they are not forcing him out. The New York Times quoted an employee of an aid agency who reiterated this idea: "'You’re acting to save lives, knowing that by doing so you are sustaining this government,' said one aid agency manager, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. 'And unfortunately, ZANU-PF is good at exploiting this humanitarian imperative.'”

This issue I find to be extremely tough. My gut tells me that it would be incredibly wrong to act as Mugabe’s educators while watching his country implode. On the other hand, my mind tells me that it is potentially our willingness to clean up after him that enabled his power to be sustained for so long. In the end, I would rather be blameworthy for enabling Mugabe in attempt to relieve the suffering of his people than blameless at the expense of human life. Regardless, we will never be able to juxtapose and judge the outcomes of the two scenarios to get a clear response as to which one would have been best. This means that we are left with our imperfect, real-time responses.

For more recent news articles on Zimbabwe...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/world/africa/22zimbabwe.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123332129713033159.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/world/africa/31zimbabwe.html?ref=world
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/world/africa/24zimbabwe.html

Instabilty in Food: Causes and Concerns

2009-01-30T09:45:00.000-08:00

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says the following: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

In my opinion, the prominent challenge that lies before leaders as we move into the future will be ensuring the access to this right in particular. Though people often assume that resources are the only factors needed to safeguard this right—and they truly are the essential component—the policies supported by leaders might also dramatically affect people’s ability to gain this security. If nothing more, the quality of supported policies clearly determine the amount of resources needed to sustain this right.

One aspect of this very broad right is food security. If people are unable to eat, then their “right to a standard of living adequate for health and wellbeing” is impeded upon. Though leaders can clearly not prevent a famine caused by drought, they can assuage the effects of the inevitable. This is of course done through the agricultural policies that leaders support and proselytize to developing world governments (countries where food shortages lead to starvation). Policies are not innocuous creatures, their impact can be so massive in scope that hundreds of thousands of lives can be saved or ruined as a result of them. For instance, the recommended policies for food production have changed dramatically since the 1980’s, when the IDF and the World Bank recommended to the developing world to reduce regulation and allow the market to play a greater role in shaping agricultural policy.

This recommendation led to the governments in the developing world to sell off food reserves and eliminate their investments and subsidies in agriculture. The result has been primarily positive until recently. Agriculture has been more efficient in the last thirty years, but we are finding that this increase in efficiency might be at the great cost of security. With governments no longer subsidizing their own farmers or keeping food reserves, certain regions have taken on the global burden of production for specific products like rice. When global food prices spiked last spring, chaos and suffering resulted in the developing world due to massive shortages of the exports people relied upon so heavily. And now, further instability—this time in the form of the food prices decreasing—has caused additional problems and fears in West Africa.

Of course, the reason for the increased food prices was unforeseeable at the time—the demand for bio-fuels massively increased demand for corn and other staple products—but should the existence of a crisis ever be unforeseeable? Though we will hopefully learn from our past blunders, there will always come to exist a future one. Whether it be man-made or nature made, we will again run into problems with a system so dependent on the good of so few. And when these problems again resurface, we will wonder again if our efficient system was worth the suffering of so many.

For futher readings on this topic in the news, please refer to the following links:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2008/11/24/081124ta_talk_surowiecki
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/letters/2008/12/22/081222mama_mail1
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/world/africa/26senegal.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=west%20africa&st=cse

New Speaker Series: Holocaust, Genocide, and Race Relations in World History

2009-01-27T12:53:00.000-08:00

On February, 12th at 4 pm, the University of Southern California will welcome Dirk Moses to speak on the topic of "Rethinking the Relationship between Imperialism and the Holocaust." Since the 1930’s, the relationship between Nazism, the Holocaust and Imperialism has been controversial. His lecture will address the question of whether “genocide studies” and the “new imperial history” offer tools to rethink the relationship between anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.

The talk is sponsored through the Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies at the Department of History at USC, and will be located at USC’s main campus in the Intellectual Commons of the Doheny Library. Dirk Moses is an exceptional scholar, and the author of, German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past (Cambridge, 2007). He additionally is the editor of Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation and Subaltern Resistance in World History (Berghahn, 2008), Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History (Berghahn, 2004). Finally, he is the coeditor of Colonialism and Genocide (Routledge, 2007), and The Oxford Handbook on Genocide Studies (forthcoming).

Civilians: the Major Causality of War in Gaza

2009-01-24T12:01:00.000-08:00

Conflict in the Middle East appears constant in recent years, but the problems that are currently dissipating have incurred serious causalities. As most are aware, after the six-month cease-fire between Gaza and Israel ended in December, conflict between the two groups was immediately reignited. Instigated primarily by the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel, the conflict was intensely escalated by the air and ground campaign issued by Israel in response to Gaza’s aggression on December 27^th. The causalities are extensive, and unfortunately, many civilians were lost in the process of the war.

My aim is not to criticize Israel’s decision to attack Gaza; instead, I am concerned with a conflict that left over 1,300 Palestinians dead in less than a month, of which 600-900 are rumored to be civilians. Clearly, Israel intended to make an aggressive statement in attempts to protect their people, but were the methods used to accomplish that task justified? Many human rights organizations think not, and have launched numerous investigations regarding the targets and weapons of attack used by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). At the top of the list is Israel’s use of white phosphorous, of which certain uses were banned in the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in 1980. Though white phosphorus was clearly used, there remains debate in how frequently it was misused, and investigations are currently being undergone on this topic. Additional critiques of Israel have been the frequency of which humanitarian aid resources were harmed in the conflict; UN buildings and Red Cross/Crescent supplies were damaged or ruined in the course of the month long discord. Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for UN Relief and Works Agency said that during the conflict “tens of millions of dollars of aid have been destroyed.” Finally, one must question the motives of a war that ended with a huge percentage of its causalities being civilians. It took Israel four days to allow humanitarian organizations access into the area, which in this situation was horribly detrimental. Not only was the Shifa hospital completely overwhelmed and desperately lacking supplies, but the shortage of power and running water was rampant in Gaza. Both of these things led to increased death and hardship for Palestinian civilians that could have been alleviated or dissipated with increased humanitarian aid.

I am very empathetic with Israel’s need to establish peace for their people, and I think everyone can understand how such an intense priority can bleed the line of right and wrong, but I fear that their actions in the last month have only escalated tensions and angers on behalf of the Palestinians. If this is true, then I fear that many civilian lives were unjustifiably lost for a very short time of peace.

Inaction in Zimbabwe

2008-12-13T19:54:00.000-08:00

Among the numerous human rights violations going on in Zimbabwe, I am left with only a frustration with diplomacy. Zimbabwe is under a major crisis—massive inflation has lead to a valueless currency, cholera is claiming the lives of tens of thousands of people, hospitals and schools have almost completely shut down, and to top it all off, there is a massive food shortage. While I am normally on the side of institutions such as the WHO and UN for their efforts in the developing world, I now find that I want much more action out of them. As we wait for a solution to somehow reveal itself to Zimbabwe (despite what a hopeless idea this seems to be with a militant leader determined to keep his rule) people are literally dying of disease and starvation. Additionally, the problems are spreading to neighboring countries and the WHO has claimed that the Cholera epidemic will have serious regional implications. In lieu of all the acknowledged harm coming to, and already existent in, the region, I can't help but feel exasperation for the lack of action taken by the NGOs. It seems only a matter of time before enough of the right people get desperate, and a bloody fight to overthrow Mugabe begins. If this is the case, then by waiting for that to happen, aren't we simply prolonging the inevitable at the stake of the lives of thousands? In the end, there must exist a point where a country's right to autonomy and self-determination is subordinate to the other—and I would argue, more important—rights of the country's people. Though I do not know exactly where that point is, I am fairly confident that in Zimbabwe, Mugabe has surpassed it.

For more information, I would suggest you read the following articles published on the issue recently:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/world/africa/12cholera.html

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12773105&fsrc=nwlehfree

Support Human Rights from Campus

2008-12-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

There are a couple of events on campus that are giving students an opportunity to help support human rights. Take a study break from finals and come help out. Amnesty International's Claremont Colleges chapter is participating in a global write-a-thon, and the Student Advisory Committee from the Center here is selling goodie bags to raise money for Fonkoze. See more information for both events below:

Global Write-a-Thon
Amnesty International is hosting a short talk from Prof. Crowley on the definition of human rights, followed by question answer session and letter writing session. AI will provide resources to write a letter for human rights. The event will be at the Motley from 7 PM to 10 PM tomorrow, Wednesday, December 10. More info can be found on the Facebook event.

Fonkoze Goodie Bags
Taken from an e-mail sent out by Jim Nauls:

FINALS GOOD LUCK GOODIE BAGS!

Send finals luck to your friends while giving to people in Haiti!

Bags include edible essentials for finals week survival!

SOLD DURING SNACK on

December 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th

All proceeds go to Fonkoze, the largest microfinance institution, in Haiti. (for more information, go to fonkoze.org)

Only $3 dollars each!

Sponsored by Student Advisory Board of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Center.
Send any questions to tmino11@cmc.edu.

The U.S. Constitution and the Defense of Human Rights

2008-12-08T16:28:00.000-08:00

I've frequently written on the topic of torture. Torture is antithetical to the values that America represents and endangers America's security because it is simply ineffective. A New York Times editorial today emphasizes another aspect. Not only is it wrong to do so, it is unconstitutional. Namely, the assertion of a right to indefinitely detain people in the United States without charges violates our right to due process. The belief in such a bizarre doctrine would essentially render the fifth and sixth amendments meaningless:

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

One of the most beautiful things about the U.S. Constitution is how many human rights it legally protects. We must ensure that it continues to do so, and not settle for anything less. The case of Maher Arar demonstrates the immoral abuses we are complicit in if we ignore the issue.

China, Economic Liberalization, and Democratization

2008-12-05T13:54:00.000-08:00

The Keck Center is sponsoring a speaker to address the failure of economic liberalization to lead to greater democratization in China. China's crackdown on civil liberties and other human rights before and during the Beijing Olympics demonstrates the real obstacle towards progress that the Chinese government is . Many theorists argue that despotic governments, upon instituting free market reforms, must eventually give way to democracy. They further argue that democratization can lead to instability when combined with market reforms, which then causes a reversion to despotism. Therefore, they argue that one should simply place their bets on benevolent, economically liberal dictatorships and count on the natural course to lead to improved human rights. However, facts on the ground in China prove that misguided belief in the benefits of dictatorial stability incorrect. Hopefully Dr. Pei can give us a better perspective on why that is the case.

Make sure to check out the talk. Info is below:

The Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies

is honored to sponsor a lecture by

Minxin Pei

Senior Associate in the China Program

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Why Has Economic Development Not Led to Democratization in China?

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Lunch 11:30, Lecture 12:00

Athenaeum, CMC

Minxin Pei's research focuses on democratization in developing countries, economic reform and governance in China, and U.S.-China relations.
He received his B.A. in English from Shanghai International Studies University, Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh, and his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. Dr. Pei taught at Harvard, Princeton, Davidson College, University of Pittsburgh, and Shanghai International Studies University. His most recent publication is China's Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy.

Please join us for Dr. Pei's luncheon lecture.

Reservations may be made online at www.claremontmckenna.edu/mmca

Reservations are not required to attend the presentation only (12:00)

Reservation Deadline Monday, December 8

The Fight of a Lifetime: Making Genocide a Crime

2008-12-01T21:35:00.000-08:00

The CNN article below describes how Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide and worked tirelessly to create a treaty against genocide. He succeeded in the passing of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide...but did he succeed in preventing genocide? That's up to today's generation. To not accept "patience" as a method to stop the killings of people, as President Roosevelt had suggested.
Lemkin posed this question, "Why is the killing of a million a lesser crime than the killing of a single individual?" Murder is a crime, very punishable by law yet punishing the perpetrators of a genocide is much harder. What can be done to change the way those laws are carried out and enforced?

CNN article: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/11/13/sbm.lemkin.profile/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Polish Jew gave his life defining, fighting genocide

Story Highlights
When Hitler exterminated Europe's Jews, the word "genocide" did not exist
It was created by a Polish Jew whose family perished in the Holocaust
Raphael Lemkin combined the Greek "genos" for race with the Latin "-cide" for killing
He went on to fight for the U.N. treaty making genocide a crime

By Jennifer Hyde
CNN Producer

(CNN) -- Paris, 1948. In the shadow of the Holocaust, the fledgling United Nations meets to adopt one of its first human rights treaties.

Applause shakes the room, cameras flash -- and at the center, a single, tired, unassuming man: Raphael Lemkin.

It was, at last, a victory for a tireless crusader who had fought for his entire life against genocide -- and coined the term that describes the world's most heinous crime.

"This new official world made a solemn pledge to preserve the life of the peoples and races of mankind," Lemkin later wrote.

Sixty years ago this month, the U.N. voted unanimously to adopt the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It was ambitious, serious, far-reaching -- and largely the result of Lemkin's lifetime of effort.

A Pole and a Jew, Lemkin had watched in horror as Hitler nearly succeeded in his plan to exterminate the Jews. Six million Jews -- including 40 members of Lemkin's family -- died at the hands of the Nazis.

Today, we call what happened at Auschwitz and the other death camps "genocide." But at the time, there was no name for the Nazis' crimes. The word "genocide" did not exist.

In 1944, Lemkin wrote a book about the Nazis. In it, he combined the Greek "genos" for race with the Latin "-cide" for killing: Genocide. Lemkin had named the crime he spent a lifetime trying to prevent.

As a child in Poland, Lemkin was inspired by the stories his mother told him at the fireside -- stories of history and heroism, of suffering and struggle. As a Jew he witnessed cruelty and persecution firsthand: from the bribes his parents were forced to pay, to a pogrom that killed dozens nearby.

From his mother, and from his circumstance, Lemkin developed early a strong desire to better the world and protect the innocent and the weak.

"The appeal for the protection of the innocent from destruction set a chain reaction in my mind," Lemkin later wrote. "It followed me all my life."

As a teen, Lemkin learned through news accounts that the Turkish government was slaughtering its Christian Armenian citizens. The government claimed it was putting down an Armenian revolt. Over 8 years they killed a million Armenian men, women and children in massacres and forced marches. To this day, Turkey denies a genocide took place. Few of the perpetrators ever faced justice.

"I was shocked," Lemkin wrote. "Why is a man punished when he kills another man? Why is the killing of a million a lesser crime than the killing of a single individual?"

Lemkin didn't have an answer to the question. But, as a young man, he devised a bold plan. He would write an international law that would punish -- and prevent -- racial mass murder.

By October 1933, Lemkin was an influential Warsaw lawyer, well-connected and versed in international law. At the same time, Hitler was gathering power. Lemkin knew it was time to act.

He crafted his proposal making the destruction of national, racial and religious groups an international crime and sent it to an influential international conference. But his legal remedy found little support, even as anti-Semitism was becoming Germany's national policy. When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Lemkin knew his worst fears were about to be realized.

"Hitler had already promulgated ... his blueprint for destruction," Lemkin wrote. "Many people thought he was bragging, but I believed that he would carry out his program."

Lemkin fled Warsaw with only a shaving kit and summer coat. He survived months in the forest, traveling furtively, dodging falling bombs and fighting for the Polish resistance.

He managed to reach his parents one last time -- only to say goodbye.

"Do not talk of our leaving this warm home. We will have to suffer, but we will survive somehow," Lemkin said his parents told him. "When their eyes became sad with understanding, I laughed away our agonizing thoughts, but I felt I would never see them again. It was like going to their funerals while they were still alive."

Reluctantly, Lemkin left his family to their fate and became one of the lucky few to reach the United States, where a friend arranged a job at Duke Law School. Though now safe, Lemkin remained anxious.

"I had not stopped worrying about the people in Poland. When would the hour of execution come? Would this blind world only then see it, when it would be too late?"

Troubling letters arrived from home. His father said they were surviving on potato peels and nothing else. His mother assured him, "What counts is that we are all together, alive and healthy."

"Something ... told me they were saying goodbye," Lemkin later wrote, "in spite of my parents' effort not to alarm me."

Days later, the Nazis took eastern Poland -- a death sentence for Lemkin's family.

By 1942, the U.S. had entered the war, and the Germans had accelerated their deadly work. Concentration camps ran day and night, like assembly lines. At Auschwitz, more than a million perished.

Even though word of the slaughter was reaching America, it seemed of little interest to the press and politicians. Lemkin was outraged.

"The impression of a tremendous conspiracy of silence poisoned the air," he wrote. "A double murder was taking place. ... It was the murder of the truth."

Lemkin tried everything he could to stop the killing, even writing to President Roosevelt.

Roosevelt responded, urging patience.

"Patience," Lemkin wrote. "But I could bitterly see only the faces of the millions awaiting death. ... All over Europe the Nazis were writing the book of death with the blood of my brethren."

Jewish groups pressed Washington to bomb the camps or rail lines. The Americans refused. Although Allied planes took photos of Auschwitz in 1944 as they scouted nearby targets, the U.S. didn't want to divert military resources from winning the war.

Frustrated, Lemkin decided to take a different tack. He would use the Nazis' own words to prove their depravity.

Taking hundreds of pages of Nazi laws and decrees, Lemkin wrote a comprehensive book that laid bare the Nazis' brutal plans. And he invented a word for the crime the Nazis were committing. Genocide.

With the crime named, he hoped the world could no longer turn away. But no help came.

Even the Nuremberg trials were a grave disappointment for Lemkin. They did little to codify genocide as an international crime -- and did nothing to prevent it from happening again.

But Lemkin knew he must keep trying. He revived his 1933 proposal and set his sights on the fledgling United Nations. He hoped this new world body, born out of the ashes of World War II, could create and enforce an international law against genocide.

Lemkin put everything aside and made the passage of a genocide convention the focus of his life. He wrote and rewrote the text of the convention, lobbied delegates, wrote to leaders worldwide in their own languages -- Lemkin was fluent in more than 10 -- to gather support.

On December 9, 1948, the U.N. met in Paris and voted unanimously to adopt the Genocide Convention.

Days later, Lemkin fell gravely ill and was hospitalized. For nearly three weeks, the doctors struggled with a diagnosis. Lemkin finally offered one himself: "Genociditis," he said, "exhaustion from working on the Genocide Convention."

A decade later, Lemkin would die from a fatal heart attack, penniless and alone, having given his life to the fight against genocide.

Aid to Developing Countries: the Failure and the Promise

2008-11-24T16:28:00.000-08:00

A recent article from BBC (N.B. For balance, one should also consult the Ugandan Health Ministry response) focuses on the negative effects foreign aid can have on developing countries. Many of the aid programs create disincentives for developing skills, industry, or agriculture. They "reward failure."

Some look at the corrupt people who take most of the aid and wrongly conclude that aid simply does not work. Such an assumption, however, blanket labels all aid programs and assumes they all work the same. Rather, what these examples highlight is that poorly structured aid programs do not work. Aid programs should give needy people incentives for their work where they live and help them learn skills for the future. In turn, the people helped by such aid programs will be more likely to stay in their communities and then give back to that community, reducing need for aid in the future.

Effective aid is exactly what the Center is encouraging in its work on microfinance. In fact, the article specifically addresses the types of benefits microfinance could bring:

"So you see," Mr Mwenda said. "If aid were to offer this young man support in the form of low interest credit he could not only expand his business offering employment opportunities and a valuable service to his community, he could also eventually pay the money back."

Microfinance loans are making opportunities a reality rather than a dream right now in places across the globe, inbcluding Haiti, where Fonkoze is focusing its efforts. Unlike other types of aid, there is an incentive because the aid is expected to be paid back and is given to people who are working and creating opportunities for themselves and others in their community.

Our work with Fonkoze is helping to build awareness of this issue on campus. In my experience, CMC has been a campus more aware of the ineffectiveness of poorly structured aid programs than the effectiveness of programs like microfinance. Building a base of support for these types of programs will help students focus their efforts on more constructive paths in the future.

Free Screening of the 11th Hour

2008-11-20T15:10:00.000-08:00

This Sunday there will be a free screening of the documentary The 11th Hour at Pomona's Rose Hill Theater, which is in the Smith Campus Center. The film is being presented by a teen environmental group that works with Uncommon Good. They will be making a presentation at 4:00 PM and the film will begin at 5:00 PM.

The global warming crisis has important consequences for human rights around the globe. It will challenge people's access to food, clean water, and other basic necessities. Livelihoods will be destroyed. Furthermore, the consequences could lead to the destabilization of many governments which are already in precarious situations. Lack of governmental control can lead to serious human rights abuses. Just look at the poor human rights conditions in Somalia and Congo, where governments are abusive, and their loss of control has led to further human rights abuses on both sides of those conflicts and from external sources. Unstable conditions with scarce resources are poor conditions for fostering democratic governments.

In order to be able to articulate the best changes and policies we can make to address these issues, we need to be educated on what is going on, how we contribute to the problem, and what we can do to solve it. The 11th Hour is a powerful film which can teach us about these important points.

Full information on the showing is below:

Pomona College's Office of Community Programs

and

Uncommon Good's Teen Green

Present a FREE movie screening of

Leonardo DiCaprio's

"The 11th Hour"

WHEN:

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 4:00pm

Presentation at 4:00pm

Screening at 5:00pm

WHERE:

Pomona College's Rose Hills Theater in the Smith Campus Center

Produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, written and directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners, The 11th Hour describes the last moment when change is possible. The film explores how humanity has arrived at this moment; how we live, how we impact the earth's ecosystems, and what we can do to change our course. The film features dialogues with experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolsey and sustainable design experts William McDonough and Bruce Mau in addition to over 50 leading scientists, thinkers and leaders who present the facts and discuss the most important issues that face our planet.

FMI: e-mail teen.green@hotmail.com

Chaos in Eastern Congo

2008-11-19T12:07:00.000-08:00

The fighting in eastern Congo has left untold numbers without food or security. The rebels, once they conquer an area, can barely govern it. Meanwhile, the areas between the forces are left without government at all. Schoolchildren, now without a school, are forced to become street peddlers. Government soldiers have raped and looted the people they have been trying to protect, and the rebels are employing children to fight their war.

This disaster poses a serious threat to the lives of many in eastern Congo. With Nkunda, the rebel general declaring his goal of defending his ethnic Tutsis, images of the Rwandan genocide are provoked. In this time of new leadership, the world needs to seriously consider the use of intervention. While its use can be dangerous, there is a moral obligation, not just to the United States, but all countries, to make sure that "never again" means just that. If the situation continues to destabilize, the international community may be obligated to act. The Economist's article regarding this discusses the dangers while recognizing the need to sometimes take action.

Day for Darfur

2008-11-13T15:22:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, the 5-C Peace and Justice Coalition will be hosting the Day for Darfur, a fundraiser and information session for relief towards the still ongoing crisis in Darfur. It will be held at at the Motley from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. There will be two speakers, the CEO of Relief International and a second speaker from the Damanga Coalition. T-shirts and challah will be available for purchase. More information on the event can be found on the Facebook event.

What: Day for Darfur, an information session and fundraiser.
Who: You, the Damanga Coaliton, Relief International, and the 5-C Peace and Justice Coalition
When: Friday, November 14th, 11:00 AM -- 2:00 PM
Where: The Motley, Scripps Campus

Remembering Our Veterans and the Search for Peace

2008-11-11T16:42:00.000-08:00

Today, is Veterans' Day, and we remember the 90th Anniversary of the end of the First World War. Please keep in mind all that soldiers around the world are sacrificing for our human rights and freedoms. The New York Times has an excellent slide show which captures the trauma, pain, and sacrifice that many soldiers are currently going through for us (available here). Let us also keep in mind what our soldiers serve their duty for: not to wage war, but to achieve peace.

I hope that we can come closer to the day where we confidently reject the possibility of seeing again the horrors of trench warfare, concentration camps, or any of the other atrocities that have been a feature of wars throughout history.

Closing GITMO

2008-11-11T15:39:00.000-08:00

Now that the election is over, many are looking to the president-elect Obama, hopeful that he will be a strong voice for human rights. Many political observers are debating whether and how Obama will close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. (It's important to note the distinction between teh detention camp and the Naval Base. Most discussion simply uses the general term GITMO or Guantanamo Bay, but is in fact just referring to the detention camp.)

Politico's Arena has an excellent discussion on the topic. Most of my thoughts here are reflective of various opinions from that discussion.

Advocates have diverging plans, most with the same one or two goals. Those goals are protecting the rights of prisoners and the United States setting an example and sending a message to the rest of the world.

The violation of rights lies in the disrespect for due process that has been given the prisoners. While many of them may be dangerous, just as dangerous is the prospect of allowing a government to imprison a person without giving them a fair hearing. Furthermore, others argue that fair trials will excuse too much evidence, as if the rules are simply meant to be prohibitive for the sake of obstructing prosecutors. Rather, the case for not admitting much of this evidence is that it is unreliable. I've noted before, information gained from torture techniques, such as waterboarding, cannot be counted upon, and hinders further interrogations. So, protecting the rights of prisoners gives everyone a better degree of safety, from strengthening rule of law for when we need it applied to us and from improving our intelligence.

The second reason to close Guantanamo is the message we send to the world. First of all, many countries have begun to look upon America with less respect, especially in light of the
treatment of Guantanamo detainees, among other human rights violations. Closing Guantanamo
will help us improve relationships with the world at large and strengthen our alliances. Second, we can make a stronger claim to the moral high ground and use this to pressure other governments to improve their human rights situations. Finally, respecting the rights of the prisoners ensures greater safety for any of our soldiers who are taken prisoner.

I hope this has adequately addressed the "whether we should" question of closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. I'll make another post soon on how that might be done.

Michael Berenbaum Speaks on Kristallnacht at the Athenaeum

2008-11-05T10:45:00.000-08:00

Monday, November 10th will be the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht. In memory of those who were victims, the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights will be sponsoring Michael Berenbaum at the Athenaeum. For more information, see the Forthnightly's description below:

Kristallnacht: Memory and Legacies, The Synagogue and Its Rabbis under Oppression in Nazi Germany
MICHAEL BERENBAUM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2008

November 9-10, 2008 marks the 70th anniversary of tragic event known as Kristallnacht (Crystal Night). On this evening, 92 Jews were murdered and 25,000 were arrested and deported to concentration camps in Nazi Germany. In addition, hundreds of synagogues were destroyed, and thousand of Jewish businesses and homes were ransacked. Kristallnacht is referred by many as the start of the Holocaust.

Michael Berenbaum is a writer, lecturer, and teacher consulting in the conceptual development of museums and the content and conceptual development of historical films. He is director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust and also a professor of Jewish Studies at American Jewish University. For three years, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. He was also the Director of the United States Holocaust Research Institute at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Previously he served as Director of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, Opinion Page editor of the Washington Jewish Week and Deputy Director of the President's Commission on the Holocaust where he authored its Report to the President. He has taught at Wesleyan University, Yale University and has served as a visiting professor at George Washington University, The University of Maryland, and American University. Berenbaum is the author and editor of sixteen books, scores of scholarly articles, and hundreds of journalistic pieces. His most recent books include: A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of Its Survivors and After the Passion Has Passed: American Religious Consequences.

Michael Berenbaum’s lecture at the Athenaeum is sponsored the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights.

Exercise Your Human Rights: Vote

2008-11-03T15:35:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow our nation has an important decision to make. I feel very strongly about my choice for president, but I'm not writing to endorse him here. I'm writing because it is important for our nation that all eligible Americans vote.

Voting is important because we can use it to protect our human rights and the rights of others, both domestically and internationally. One of the great things about our Declaration of Independence is that it brought the ideas that would eventually tear down the arbitrary rule of tyrants to do whatever they wanted. Let's remember these words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Another Powerful set of principles lies in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Article 21
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public services in his country
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Voting is important for human rights for two reasons. First of all, if government does not have elections, it is not deriving its power from the consent of the governed and is thus violating an entire nation's human rights. Secondly, democracy ensures that people have a voice, thus guaranteeing themselves greater protection against human rights abuses. However, if you don't use that voice to speak up for the rights of yourself and others, those rights remain in danger.

Make sure your human rights aren't violated: vote.

The polling place for any student registered at their 5C mailing address is Edmunds Ballroom, Smith Campus Center, Pomona's campus.

An Evening with Madame F

2008-11-03T15:10:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night, the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights and the Athenaeum are jointly sponsoring Claudia Stevens performance of An Evening With Madame F. The performance, which integrates both theater and and music, has been widely acclaimed. It tells the story of a Jewish musical performer and concentration camp survivor reflecting back on her experiences. See below for the description from the Athenaeum's Fortnightly:

An Evening with Madame F

CLAUDIA STEVENS

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2008

An Evening with Madame F is the internationally acclaimed musical drama created by Claudia Stevens for her performance as pianist, singer, and actor. Adopting the persona of an elderly concentration camp musician who had performed at Auschwitz, Stevens uses music actually played and sung by women inmates there. She draws on first-hand accounts to depict the struggle and moral dilemma of women who survived through performance. And, as a daughter of Holocaust survivors, she also meditates on the ethical problem of treating the Holocaust as the subject for artistic expression. One of the most honored Holocaust-related performances before the public, An Evening with Madame F was produced for television by PBS affiliate WCVE.

Claudia Stevens visit is jointly sponsored by the Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights and the Athenaeum.

Claude Alexandre Speaks at the Athenaeum

2008-10-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

Little coverage is given to the humanitarian crisis going on in Haiti right now. Hurricane Gustav, earlier this summer, killed many, but destroyed the livelihoods and communities of a countless number of more people. Micro-finance institutions had been operating in these areas for a few years assisting in development programs. However, Gustav destroyed the businesses of many of those receiving micro-finance loans. Claude Alexander, from Fonkoze, the largest Haitian micro-finance NGO, will be speaking on the topic at the Ath on Monday night. Here's the description from the Athenaeum's Fortnightly:

Microfinance, NGO's, and the Emergency in Haiti
CLAUDE ALEXANDRE
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2008

Claude Alexandre is a member of the board of Fonkoze, one of Haiti's largest and most influential micro-finance NGOs and a consultant and business adviser to non-profit organizations and NGOs. He will discuss the world of micro-finanace through the prism of Haiti and its attempts to recover from severe damage suffered in a hurricane this summer. More than 18,000 of Fonkoze's clients lost their businesses entirely.

CMC's Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights has begun a Haiti Initiative to aid Fonkoze and its clients in recovery and reconstruction.

Give Troy Davis Another Chance

2008-10-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading the blog, you've read the updates we've had on Troy Davis, a man sentenced to death in Georgia despite a complete lack of physical evidence tying him to the case. He was supposed to be executed today, but on Friday he was given another shot. Read the message below from Amnesty International:

I am delighted to share some good news with you! Troy Davis received a stay of execution based on a new last-minute appeal filed this past Wednesday to the federal appeals court in Atlanta. As a result, he will not be executed on Monday, October 27th, as originally scheduled.

Your action has succeeded in putting a spotlight on Troy's case worldwide and bringing about this victory. At least 300,000 individuals have written letters in support of Troy. Additionally, prominent leaders such as former President Jimmy Carter, the Pope, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have all called for justice in this case.

Yesterday, Amnesty International organized a Global Day of Action in which hundreds of activists in dozens of countries around the world came together to stand in solidarity for Troy. From Atlanta to Seattle, New York to Paris and Milan– hundreds of supporters gathered at rallies wearing T-shirts and holding signs that read "I am Troy Davis." On Wednesday, the European Legislature issued a statement calling for Troy's execution to be halted.

While we pause to celebrate this good news, we cannot forget that Troy still faces the very real possibility of execution—despite the fact that no physical evidence tied him to the 1989 murder of a police officer in Savannah, GA, and that 7 of the 9 eyewitnesses have since recanted their testimony.

This case has taken many twists and turns. On September 12th, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency for Troy Anthony Davis, and scheduled his execution for September 23rd. The U.S. Supreme Court stayed Davis' execution just hours before it was scheduled to take place. But in deciding not to hear his case, the court lifted its stay and a new execution date was set for Monday, October 27th.

Global Day of Action

On Thursday October 23, in 30 cities around the globe, activists stood up for justice and in support of fairness for Troy Davis.

We now await the decision of the federal appeals court, which will determine whether Troy's case warrants a new hearing. We believe their ruling could happen at any time during the next month.

I want to thank you again for playing such an essential part in Amnesty International's efforts to bring justice for Troy Davis. That's why I hope you'll take a minute right now to join Amnesty International and help us keep up this fight.

To stay informed about Troy Davis' case and to find out how to take additional actions, please visit:
www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis

In solidarity,

Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn
Director, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International USA

Human Rights in the News

2008-10-23T15:18:00.000-07:00

NYT -- Hu Jia Wins Prestigious Human Rights Award, Chinese Government Upset.
Hu Jia is a human rights activist in China who has been jailed for his
criticism of China's human rights violations and his testimony before the European Parliament. He is an example on an individual who has rightly placed the value of human rights above others, dedicating his life to help AIDS victims, advocate for the legal rights of political dissidents, protect the environment, and promote democratic reforms.

Market Watch -- Basic Freedoms Threatened in Trial Against Singaporean Opposition Leader
The opposition leader in Singapore has gone on trial for assembly without a permit. This basic freedom is fundamental, and its violations completely inhibit true political freedom. The American Founding Fathers faced similar restrictions from the British, which is why the First Amendment protects the freedom of assembly.

Re uters -- Malaysia Revokes Speaking Invitation to Human Rights Advocate
In face of pressure from the Iranian government, Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, has been denied the previously offered opportunity to speak at the University of Malaya. Ebadi has been a strong, vocal proponent of the rights of women and children in Iran and thus the Iranian government has viewed her as a problem and sought to stifle her voice.

Human Rights in the News

2008-10-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

Newsweek -- Interview with Ali Gomaa on Muslim Extremism
The grand mufti in Cairo was recently interviewed by Stryker McGuire of Newsweek. He is among 138 Muslim leaders who are speaking out for greater dialogue with the world's Christian community. Programs like these are important to dampen the extremism that can lead to terrorism.

Newsweek -- Resolving Environmental Injustice on a Local Level
Seeing new reports that show "localized pollution is the leading contributing factor to disabilities and disease in communities across the world", the study of environmental injustice is becoming more and more relevant. If these issues are not addressed, the basic human right to life is threatened.

The Economist -- Dealing with Israel's Settler Movement
This article by the Economist displays the diversity of problems involving Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The next Israeli administration will have the difficulty of finding a solution to these issues.

Human Rights in the News

2008-10-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

HRW -- HRW Report on Human Rights in Columbia Released
Human Rights Watch has released a report on the human rights situation in Columbia. The article notes that paramilitaries are the main obstacle to progress, particularly because they have been engaged in "mafia-style" agreements with many government officials. President Uribe's majority party has often been an obstacle, however, engaging in often baseless attacks against members of Columbia's Supreme Court.

NYT -- Franco-era Mass Grave to be Opened
A Spanish Judge has ordered that a mass grave, which is believed to be the site of poet Federico Garcia Lorca's body, be opened as part of an investigation. According to the article, however, "[Lorca's] family... believes the reputed grave should remain intact as a testimony to the atrocities committed there."

Newsweek -- Ethnic Tensions Endure Under Government Controlled Jaffna
Security concerns has moved the Sri Lankan government to impose large restrictions on freedom of movement in Jaffna, a Tamil majority area in the north. Tamils claim they are under constant suspicion, and many have "disappeared".

Troy Davis and the Death Penalty Update

2008-10-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

Checking my e-mail, I just received an update from Amnesty International on Troy Davis's death penalty sentence. The grave news is as follows:

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Troy Anthony Davis' appeal. His fate is back in the hands of Georgia authorities who may seek a new execution date at any time.

The Supreme Court's decision to deny Troy Davis' petition means that no court of law will ever hold a hearing on the witnesses who have recanted their trial testimony in sworn affidavits.

Doubts about his guilt raised by these multiple witness recantations will never be resolved. An execution under such a cloud of doubt would undermine public confidence in the state's criminal justice system and would be a grave miscarriage of justice.

The state of Georgia can still do the responsible thing and prevent the execution of Troy Davis:
Write a letter to the editor calling on Georgia to stop the execution of Troy Davis!
Call on the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider its previous decision and grant clemency to Troy Davis.
Urge your friends and family to go to amnestyusa.org/troydavis or text TROY to 90999 to add their voices to the over 200,000 that have already taken action on this case.

Human Rights in the News

2008-10-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

BBC -- Women Recruited for Suicide Attacks by Militant Groups in Gaza
BBC reports on a development in the tactics used by religious extremist groups in Gaza: recruitment of women to carry out suicide attacks. The article, and suicide attacks by similar groups in general, displays the perversion of Islam by a minority of believers that needs to be confronted on the way to peace.

NYT -- Hindu Extremist Violence and Threats Against Christians on the Rise in India
Freedom of belief is a fundamental right that all people deserve. The flaring of religious tensions in India needs to be contained. India has a strong tradition of secularism that has resulted in a rich, pluralistic society. Hopefully, that tradition will be able to overcome the threats posed to all of Indian society by the recent treatment of Christian minorities by radical groups in the State of Orissa.

HRW -- A Call to Defend Human Rights Supporters from Government Encroachment
Human Rights Watch notes the dangers of a new law being considered by Ethiopia's parliament. The statement from HRW notes that : "The CSO law would bar both foreign and Ethiopian organizations that receive more than 10 percent of their funding from abroad from undertaking any activities in human rights, gender equality, children’s rights, disabled persons’ rights, conflict resolution, and strengthening judicial practices and law enforcement, among related activities." Such regulation is unnecessary and its only application will probably be government action against groups seen as a threat to its policies.

Children's Drawings from Darfur Exhibit

2008-10-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

Anne Frank Center Announcement

The Anne Frank Center, USA, located in New York, is holding a special exhibit featuring drawings from refugee children in Darfur. Dr. Jerry Ehrlich smuggled the drawings out of Sudan by hiding them in a copy of the New York Times as he left the country. He spent two months in 2004 providing medical assistance to refugees at a refugee camp.

The drawings demonstrate the profound psychological effects on the children who have and continue to witness the genocide going on in Darfur. Children, given no instruction on what to draw, depict scenes of extreme violence. This speaks to the very heart of the evil behind this crime against humanity.

Thanks to Norine Zapata for the link.

Human Rights in the News

2008-10-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Watch -- Bush Signs Child Soldier Accountability Act
Last Friday, President Bush signed into law the Child Soldier Accountability Act. According to HRW, "The Child Soldiers Accountability Act makes it a federal crime to recruit knowingly or to use soldiers under the age of 15 and permits the United States to prosecute any individual on US soil for the offense, even if the children were recruited or served as soldiers outside the United States." The law was introduced by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL).

BBC -- China and the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize
The Chinese Foreign Ministry recently released a statement that it hopes the Peace Prize will go to the "right person". Rumors have suggested that two Chinese human rights activists top the list of candidates. The award comes recently after many in the international community cry out that the Olympic games in Beijing have only made the human rights situation worse, contrary to the government's promises.

Human Rights in the News

2008-10-02T16:10:00.001-07:00

BBC -- Growing Settler Violence In the West Bank
Olmert's words earlier in the week seem more powerful in light of this article from the BBC. A growing number of Israeli settlers, now a few hundred, in the West Bank are engaging in acts of violence against Palestinians. These acts of violence both contribute to a cycle of violence and hinder the Israeli military by forcing it to divert resources to intervene in these instances of violence. With more resources being spent on policing Israeli settlers, less resources are available to protect Israelis from militant attacks..

BBC -- Congo rebellion expands
A rebel general in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has shifted his goals. Formerly claiming to only seek the protection of his ethnic Tutsi group, he now claims, "We are going to liberate the people of Congo". The general announced he was walking out of a peace deal signed in January. There are 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers currently in the country.

NYT -- Zimbabwe: Life Under Hyperinflation
Zimbabwe's hyperinflation, stemming from irresponsible government practices, has dramatically damaged human rights in a country that was one of the most successful in Africa. The article explains the horrible conditions and denial of human rights that has resulted. Hyperinflation has denied education, health care, food, due process, and fair pay for work to a staggering number of individuals. Political wrangling over control of ministries between President Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, is delaying the process. The Finance and Home Ministry, which might have a shot at stopping the hyper inflation, is among the ministries Mugabe refuses to relase control over.

The Economist -- Somali Piracy, the Need for Government, and Human Rights
The failure of Somalia's government is apparent by the abuse of human rights which now extend from that country. Freedom of travel, and even the right to life, is becoming increasingly at risk because of the lack of government. The Economist provides strong analysis of the situation in this article. The danger demonstrated by Somali pirates seizing a ship full of tanks and other weapons demonstrates that the root of human rights abuses here also presents a threat to people living anywhere in the world.

Troy Davis and the Death Penalty

2008-10-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

Troy Davis's death penalty sentence points to a major inadequacy in our justice system's use of the death penalty. Despite many major pieces of evidence used against him being discredited, he still sits on Death Row, although the U.S. Supreme Court has just issued a stay of his execution. As Amnesty International explains:

Troy Davis was sentenced to death for the murder of Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail at a Burger King in Savannah, Georgia; a murder he maintains he did not commit. There was no physical evidence against him and the weapon used in the crime was never found. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. Since then, all but two of the state's non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony. Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis.
One of the two witnesses who has not recanted his testimony is Sylvester "Red" Coles – the principle alternative suspect, according to the defense, against whom there is new evidence implicating him as the gunman. Nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles.

The case demonstrates the great danger our nation encounters with its use of the death penalty: taking the life of an innocent man. We must not be complicit in such an action and take action to ensure that no innocent people are killed for the crime of another. Our justice system can protect us from criminals without the death penalty, but as experience has proven, we cannot prevent the death of innocent people while we still use the death penalty.

The following is a letter from Troy Davis that Amnesty International sent out in an e-mail:

To all,

I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith.

It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.

As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand. I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy.

I can't even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.



			Join the fight for justice.





			Troy Davis was sentenced to death despite a tainted case and serious claims of innocence. © Georgia Department of Corrections

I cannot answer all of your letters but I do read them all, I cannot see you all but I can imagine your faces, I cannot hear you speak but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world, I cannot touch you physically but I feel your warmth everyday I exist.

So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated.

There are so many more Troy Davis'. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.

I can't wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing, "I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!"

Never Stop Fighting for Justice and We will Win!

-- Troy Davis

Human Rights in the News

2008-10-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

NYT -- J.L. Chestnut Jr, Civil Rights Activist and Attorney, Passes Away
J.L. Chestnut Jr., led an incredible life in the U.S. Civil Rights struggle. The struggle between civil rights and human rights are often one and the same, as is the case in his work defending the lives and livelihoods of the oppressed.

Human Rights Watch -- Missing Rendition Victims in Ethiopia and Kenya
Citizens from 18 different countries were illegally arrested in 2007 while in Somalia and Kenya, then extradited to Ethiopian prisons. In Ethiopia, they were subjected to deplorable living conditions and torture: forced to crawl on gravel. genitals being crushed, and being beaten to the point of unconsciousness. At night they were taken out of the prison and interrogated by U.S. officials for suspected terrorism links. They have been denied access to courts or communication with their families. Many are still held in Ethiopian prisons.

Chicago Tribune -- AIDS Traced Back 100 Years Ago
Understanding the roots of the AIDS crisis is necessary to finding a solution to the humanitarian and human rights problems it causes. HIV/AIDS has led people and governments to desperation in which human rights are often disregarded. The virus has been traced back to the rise of cities and close living conditions, with the disease presenting itself earlier than originally thought.

Human Rigths in the News

2008-09-30T16:27:00.000-07:00

Time Magazine on Olmert's Recent Statement about Israeli Borders

Good analysis of Olmert's comments, where the departing Prime Minister says that Israel needs to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza in order to achieve peace. A major dissent from his previous hard-line views.

NYT -- French Muslims Find Haven in Catholic Schools

Seeking to avoid hostility to their faith, and many just a stronger education, French Muslims are increasingly enrolling in Catholic schools, many of which do not enforce the headscarf ban that exists in French public schools. If religious freedom is a human right, then some level of personal tolerance is necessary between individuals. Does the French government neglect the need for tolerance with the headscarf ban? Furthermore, what roles do religious institutions have in protecting the liberties of others? In this instance, it seems that the Catholic institutions are taking a role in protecting Muslims' religious freedom.

UN to review Israel's human rights track

2008-09-09T09:10:00.001-07:00

Sep. 8, 2008
Tovah Lazaroff , THE JERUSALEM POST
A three-country panel was chosen Monday to examine Israel's human rights record as part of a Universal Periodic Review this year of 64 countries by the United Nations Human Rights council in Geneva.

All 192 UN states are subject to review.

According to Israel's ambassador to Geneva Roni Leshno Yaar, the review will be conducted by Nigeria, South Korean and Azerbaijan at the council's December session.

The council, which opened its September session on Wednesday, offers countries a limited right to replace the panel with alternative countries.

Israel, along with other Western countries, chose to stick with the initial panel assigned to them, said Leshno Yaar.

Turning to the 2009 anti-racism conference, dubbed "Durban II," which was also raised in the council on Monday, Leshno Yaar said he was struck by the positive-sounding statement by Pakistan's Ambassador, who spoke on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Pakistan's Ambassador said that the anti-racism conference "should not turn into an exercise in anti-Semitism and that doing so would be a clear violation of the Durban declaration and program of action."

As plans for the conference proceed, "I hope we will find that the OCI member states will stick to that commitment," said Leshno Yaar.

Israel has said it is likely to boycott "Durban II" out of a fear that it would be a repeat of the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate-fest that had characterized the first UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which met in Durban, South Africa in 2001. Although the follow-up conference is to be held in Geneva, it has been nicknamed Durban II.

Canada has already said that it won't go, and the US, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands have also threatened not to attend.

Speaking Monday, in her first address before the Council since taking up her post at the start of December, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay urged all countries to attend.

"Allow me to welcome the progress achieved thus far in the lead up to the anti-racism review conference... and in particular the productive discussions of the two regional meetings in Brasilia and Abuja," said Pillay.

"I urge those governments that have expressed an intention not to participate in the conference to reconsider their position," said Pillay, adding that their attendance would improve the conference.

"Without that participation, the anti-racism debate and agenda will be impoverished," said Pillay.

Israel remains firm in its intention not to go, said Leshno Yaar. But he added that if significant changes in the conference's stance toward Israel were made, the possibility remained that Israel could change its mind. But at this point, he said, he saw no sign that such a change was in the works.

Lost-boy Lomong to carry U.S. flag

2008-08-06T20:58:00.001-07:00

Wed Aug 6, 2008 3:18pm EDT
By Mitch Phillips

BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States chose former Sudanese refugee Lopez Lomong to carry their flag at Friday's Olympic opening ceremony in a move that could embarrass Sudan and its ally China.

Lomong, who spent 10 years in a refugee camp after fleeing his native Sudan as a child, was given the honor after a vote by the team captains of the entire U.S. Olympic squad.

"This is the most exciting day ever in my life," Lomong said in a statement by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) on Wednesday.

"It is a great honor for me that my team mates chose to vote for me. The opening ceremony is the best day and the best moment of Olympic life," added the 23-year-old, who will race in the 1,500 meters.

Lomong fled on foot from rampaging government-sponsored Arab militias in southern Sudan at the age of six in 1991, becoming separated from his parents.

His escape took place during the height of a civil war between Sudan's Muslim, Arab north and its Christian and animist south.

He eventually reached Kenya where he lived in a refugee camp for 10 years, the USOC said.

Along with thousands of similar children, known as "the Lost Boys of Sudan", he was eventually resettled in the United States and became a U.S. citizen in July 2007.

"I'm here as an ambassador of my country and I will do everything I can to represent my country well," Lomong said.

"This is another amazing step for me in celebrating being an American."

Lomong will be one of three foreign-born athletes representing the U.S. in the 1,500 meters.

World champion Bernard Lagat, who won Olympic silver and bronze in the event for Kenya, and Leonel Manzano, who grew up in Mexico, complete the lineup.

While Lomong will no doubt be concentrating on trying to win his race, his selection is likely to provoke extensive debate about China's relations with Sudan.

China is a major investor in the Sudanese oil industry and sells arms to Khartoum. Critics say self-interest has led China to shield the Sudanese government from pressure over the conflict in the western region of Darfur.

Some 200,000 people have died and an estimated 2.5 million been made homeless in five years of conflict in Darfur, according to international experts.

Khartoum puts the death toll at 10,000.

Human rights campaigners are believed to be planning to highlight the plight of Darfur in the run-up to Friday's opening ceremony.

The United States said on Wednesday it would protest to China over its decision to revoke the visa of Olympic gold medalist Joey Cheek, an activist on Darfur.

Speedskater Cheek is co-founder of Team Darfur, an international coalition of athletes campaign to draw world attention to the humanitarian crisis there.

(Additional reporting by Simon Denyer; editing by Keith Weir)

Seattle Doctor Climbing World's Highest Peaks for Charity, Successfully Completes First Ascent

2008-07-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

By Fred Jacobs

Dr. Boyer on Mt. McKinley

SEATTLE, Wa. — July 15, 2008 — Dr. Thomas Boyer, a physician specializing in emergency medicine, has successfully climbed Mt. McKinley, at 20,320 feet the highest peak in North America, the first in a series of ascents of the highest peaks on every continent in the world, including Mt. Everest. Dr. Boyer is climbing to raise funds to help amputees walk again, through his partnership with Seattle’s Prosthetics Outreach Foundation, an international humanitarian organization headquartered in Seattle. Only 45 other people in history have completed the challenge which Dr. Boyer has set for himself.

Says Dr. Boyer, “I have so much admiration for people who overcome challenges. To an amputee in a poor country with no healthcare system, the idea of walking again is about as big a challenge as climbing Mt. Everest. The Prosthetics Outreach Foundation has provided prosthetics limbs to over 14,000 amputees around the world during the past 20 years. I want to do whatever I can to help.”

On July 2, Dr. Boyer completed the first stage of his quest, with his successful ascent of Mt. McKinley (also known as Denali). The remaining peaks, known collectively with McKinley as “The Seven Summits,” are:

Europe: ............. Mt. Elbrus ................ 18,519 ft. ...... Aug. 2 - 15, 2008
Africa: ............... Mt. Kilimanjaro ....... 19,340 ft. ...... Aug. 16 - 24, 2008
S. America: ........ Mt. Aconcagua ......... 22,841 ft. ..... Nov. 28 - Dec. 21, 2008
Antarctica: ......... Mt. Vinson ............... 16,067 ft. ..... Jan. 2009
Asia & World: ..... Mt. Everest .............. 29,002 ft. .... Mar. - June 2009
Oceania: ............ Mt. Carstensz and .... 16,024 ft ...... Oct. 2009
........................... Mt. Kociuszko .......... 7,310 ft. ....... Oct. 2009

(There is debate over which seven peaks count as “the seven.” Some argue that Kosciuszko, the highest point in Australia, should be included. Others argue that Australia is not a continent, but that Australasia is, and that therefore Indonesia's Carstensz should be included. Dr. Boyer will climb all eight peaks.)

In addition to the above-named mountains, on August 26 - Oct 14 2008, Dr. Boyer will climb Cho Oyu in Nepal, the world’s sixth-highest peak at 26,906 ft., if the Chinese government opens the Tibetan borders.

“When Dr. Boyer said he wanted to make these climbs supporting our work providing prosthetic limbs to amputees in developing countries, I thought, this is going to help a lot of people walk,” said Fred Jacobs, Director of Development at the Prosthetics Outreach Foundation. “The money Tom raises will help war victims, accident victims, and children born with severe deformities. A few dollars worth of metal and plastic lets an amputee walk again, literally picking them up off the ground so they can support themselves and their family. They feel whole again, both physically and emotionally. The transformation is miraculous. I’m so excited about the good which is coming from these climbs. Our goal is to raise $150,000 in this campaign. One of our donors called it ‘unambiguously morally positive’ – I like that.”

........................................................................................................

The Prosthetics Outreach Foundation works tirelessly to promote the right to walk for the underserved in Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, and Vietnam.

This Seattle-based non-profit trains medical personnel in its focus countries to manufacture, fit, and distribute prosthetic limbs to amputees. The staff of Prosthetics Outreach Foundation adapts their methods to the local conditions of each target country, identifying which local materials will create the best prosthetic limbs. This organization also devotes their efforts to the eradication of clubfoot, an immobilizing birth defect, using the effective Ponseti treatment for early stage treatment and surgery when necessary. When medical care alone is not enough, Prosthetics Outreach Foundation offers microloans to its patients.

Bangladesh: Prosthetics Outreach Foundation provides prosthetic and orthotic care to amputees and others with limb deformities.

Sierra Leone: Civil war created thousands of amputees. Mr. Gabrilla Sesay calls the microloan he used to start his bike shop "the life cable of my life."

Sierra Leone: Single Leg Amputee Sports Club, a partner of Prosthetics Outreach Foundation, presents the Makeni Amputee Soccer Team.

Vietnam: A clubfoot patient before and after her corrective surgeries.

How to Support the Campaign
Donations are currently being accepted online at http://www.pofsea.org/ . Click on the “Donate” button at the top of the page. Or, mail donations to Prosthetics Outreach Foundation, 400 East Pine St Suite 225, Seattle, WA 98122

Learn more about Prosthetics Outreach Foundation and see pictures of Dr. Boyer’s Mt. McKinley climb at http://www.pofsea.org/ .

Karadzic Captured in Serbia: Faces War Crimes and Genocide Charges

2008-07-22T07:15:00.000-07:00

Radovan Karadzic was recently arrested in Belgrade, thirteen years after being indicted by the UN War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague. He faces "eleven counts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other atrocities". These charges were made over Karadzic's alleged involvement in the killing of 12,000 civilians in the seige of Sarajevo and the massacre of over 7,500 Bosnian Muslims and Croats. While he is being held now in a special war crimes court in Serbia, he is to be transferred to the UN War Crimes Court in the Hague.

So what does this mean for Serbia and the nations and people of former Yugoslavia?

For Serbia, Karadzic's arrest is part a process towards gaining EU membership. France now holds the rotating presidency of the EU, and French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, has already said that a major obstacle has been lifted. In a country with 18.8% unemployment and only $10,400 GDP per capita, EU membership would provide much needed economic benefits. It also casts a positive light over a country recently marred in its world image by the declaration of independence in Kosovo.

For Bosnians and Serbs, it is a step towards reconciliation. Haris Silajdzic, Chairman of the Bosnian Presidency, said of the arrest, "I am glad that this will now open the way for better co-operation and improvement in this part of the world." There are still Serbian extremists who see Karadzic as a national hero and promise backlash.

For international justice as a whole, this is great news. International courts have faced major difficulties in getting results from their actions. Recently the International Criminal Court released arrest warrants for high up members of the Sudanese government, but the Sudanese have simply ignored them. Having a major war criminal charged with genocide brought to the Hague is a major step. Karadzic himself refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the Hague, telling the Times in 1996, "If The Hague was a real juridical body I would be ready to go there to testify or do so on television, but it is a political body that has been created to blame the Serbs." As the Serbian government sends him to the Netherlands, though, Karadzic will have to cope with the fact the the court he will face is very real, and so are their charges.

Serge Brammertz, head prosecutor for the UN War Crimes Tribunal, expressed optimism for the implications of Karadzic's arrest. "It is also an important day for international justice because it clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law and that sooner or later all fugitives will be brought to justice."

Brown Takes Peace in Palestine Seriously

2008-07-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

By Jackson Wyrick

In a bold step towards peace, United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the West Bank city of Bethlehem and met with Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Brown made some brave statements that aren't likely to increase his popularity in Israel.

Brown pledged the UK's support towards pursuing a peace with Israel based on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem being the capitol of both nations. For Israel, this would mean returning much of the land it seized in the 1967 war. It also leaves major problems to be solved, like sovereignty of holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. Also, this would leave much of the West Bank divided by the Israeli "Security Barrier", which goes far into 1967 Palestine.

The "Security Barrier" is a controversial issue in itself. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled it to be illegal since it de facto annexed large portions of the West Bank into Israel and divided many Palestinian communities. Israel says they need the barrier because it has been effective in preventing suicide bombs, which it has. In general, Israelis prefer to call the barrier a fence, which it is for much of its length. Along major cities, though, the barrier is a 25 foot concrete wall, which is how most Palestinians refer to it. "But today the wall here is graphic evidence of the urgent need for justice for the Palestinian people and an end to the occupation," said Brown.

What is so bold about Brown's talk was that he approached it with one thing in mind: peace for Israel and Palestine. He did not worry about using the politically correct language or avoiding verbal taboos, which are all to common in the Middle East. He simply looked for how to make progress towards peace, and to do that, he was willing to call a wall a wall, or say that peace can't come until average Palestinians see improving economic conditions. He emphasized the importance of providing Palestinians with "jobs, housing, and basic services," something many Palestinians are without.

Another bold statement Brown made was his call on Israel to freeze settlements. In the poverty stricken West Bank, Israeli settlements, equipped with pools, dominate the mountaintops, and the Israeli government has not been freezing settlements. It's hard to imagine peace in the area, though, and few politicians have brave enough to discuss the issue of settlements.

During my time in Israel, I was dismayed by a predominant Israeli ideology that either peace is not possible or that Israel has done all it can towards peace and should do no more. Either way, the peace process is stuck in Israel. Yossi Klein Halevi, senior fellow at the Shalem Center, acknowledged that many Palestinians are being denied human rights, but their leadership left Israel no choice, so, "Too Bad".

Brown doesn't buy the "Too Bad" ideology. He is making bold steps towards reaching peace and ensuring the rights of not just Israelis, but Palestinians as well. It is promising to see a world leader committed to the peace process. Hopefully more will follow.

One Big World

2008-07-17T06:06:00.000-07:00

Written by Jackson Wyrick

What in the world could South Central Los Angeles have in common with Northern Ireland and the Palestinian Authority? A funny question I know, but hang with me. These three far apart places might seem completely different at first glance, but there is more to it.

South Central, the P.A., and Northern Ireland are all prime examples of how a lack of trust in law enforcement leads to a breaking point. In South Central, there were the Watts Riots in August of 1965 and more notably the L.A. Riots of 1992. Northern Ireland saw Catholic resentment towards the Royal Ulster Constabulary boil over in the Battle of the Bogside and Bloody Sunday. In the P.A., Palestinian, rose up against Israel in the first and second Intifadas.

Although all three situations are unique in their own rights, there are central themes that can be drawn out. The first is that these uprisings don't spring up overnight. They are breaking points that follow long periods of perceived human or civil rights abuses. Second, uprisings of this nature are only made when the oppressed group feels that progress is not being made in politics or other important arenas.

Let me also underscore some key words in that last paragraph. "Perceived" human or civil rights abuses is important because it is not always indisputable that abuses are occuring. Whether or not abuses are in fact occurring, though, is not important in explaining these breaking points. What is important is that a group of people feels they are being wronged. I'm not trying to justify the Intifadas or the L.A. Riots, just trying to understand why they happened.

In all three places discussed, a group of people felt, or still feels, that the judicial system was not there to look out for them. In protest, they resisted, first against the RUC, then the L.A.P.D., and now the Israeli army. According to Freud, people submit to the authority of groups and governments because they provide them with a sense of security. In the absence of protection from the government, other groups spring up for protection. The IRA, and later the Provisional IRA, would not have had support if it had not been for injustices against Catholics in Northern Ireland. We think of gangs nowadays as all bad, but long before the Crips and the Bloods, Blacks moving into South Central in the late 1940's were subject to abuse from white gangs, so gangs like the Businessmen sprang up to protect themselves and their communities. Indeed, the Economist reports that the majority of Palestinians who voted for Hamas in the last election did so because Fatah was so corrupt and had failed them.

While South Central Los Angeles, Northern Ireland, and the Palestinian Authority are geographically so far, there are common elements that all three areas share. What you might draw from those ties is a matter of opinion, but it seems clear that people, when it comes down to it, aren't so different after all.

2008-07-16T22:26:00.000-07:00

Child bride gets divorced after rape, beatings

Ex-child bride says, "I didn't want to sleep with him, but he forced me to"
Yemeni girl, 10, say she was forced to marry man three times her age
Now divorced, Nujood Ali is one of the few children to speak out against practice
International aid group: More than half of all Yemeni girls are married off before 18

By Paula Newton
CNN

Editor's note: CNN does not usually identify children of alleged abuse, but in this case the girl and her family gave CNN permission to tell her story and use her name.

SANAA, Yemen (CNN) -- Nujood Ali is 10 years old, but she already has been married and divorced. It was an arranged marriage in which she said a husband three times her age routinely beat and raped her.

"When I got married, I was afraid. I didn't want to leave home. I wanted to stay with my brothers and sisters and my mom and dad," she said, speaking to CNN with the permission of her parents.

"I didn't want to sleep with him, but he forced me to. He hit me, insulted me."

As she plays marbles with her brothers and sister, Nujood is a portrait of innocence, with a shy smile and a playful nature.

But what happened evokes anger and shame. Asked if what she went through was torture, she nods quietly.

Nujood's parents married her off in February to a man in his 30s whom she describes as old and ugly.

Her parents said they thought they were putting her in the care of her husband's family, but Nujood said he would often beat her into submission.

Nujood then turned to her family for mercy.

"When I heard, my heart burned for her; he wasn't supposed to sleep with her," said Nujood's mother, who asked not to be identified.

But, initially, she also told her daughter she could not help her -- that she belonged to her husband now.

Nujood's father, Ali Mohammed Ahdal, said he is angry about what happened to his daughter. "He was a criminal, a criminal. He did hateful things to her," he said. "He didn't keep his promise to me that he wouldn't go near her until she was 20."

When contacted by CNN, the girl's former husband declined to comment.

Nujood's parents, like so many others in Yemen, struck a social bargain when they decided to have their daughter wed. More than half of all Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18, according to Oxfam International, a nonprofit group that fights global poverty and injustice.

Many times girls are forced to marry older men, including some who already have at least one wife, Oxfam said. According to tribal customs, the girls are no longer viewed as a financial or moral burden to their parents.

"There is always a fear that the girl will do something to dishonor the family: She will run away with a guy, she will have relations with a boy. So this is always the phobia that the families have," said Suha Bashren of Oxfam International.

Bashren calls the tradition of child brides in Yemen a national crisis. She works with young girls to protect them from early marriage, abuse and one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

The Yemeni government is holding legal and religious workshops to try to deal with the issue of early marriage. But experts say marrying off a young daughter is generally still seen as the right thing to do.

"A lot of people in the public don't think that this is wrong or that what happened to her was abuse," Bashren said.

In Yemen, there is nothing new or extraordinary about Nujood's story because children have been married off for generations. The country's legal minimum age for marriage was 15 till a decade ago, when the law was changed to allow for children even younger to be wed.

But what is most unusual is that this young girl took such an intensely private dispute and went public with it.

Nujood said she made up her mind to escape from her husband, describing how on a visit to her parents' home she broke free and traveled to the central courthouse across town and demanded to speak to a judge.

"He asked me, 'What do you want?' And I said, 'I want a divorce.' And he said, 'You're married?' And I said, 'Yes,'" she recalled.

What unfolded in those few days in April gripped the country on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.

Nujood got her divorce, but based on the principles of Islamic Sharia law, her husband was compensated, not prosecuted. Nujood was ordered to pay him more than $200. The human rights lawyer who represented her donated the money.

But for this determined spirit, it was still a sweet victory.

"I did this so that people would listen and think about not marrying their daughters off as young as I was," she said with a shy smile.

Now back at the family home, she said she won't go outside to play -- that all the attention bothers her. Some still condemn the young girl for speaking out, believing that she shouldn't have challenged convention.

Human rights advocates said it will take more than a generation if this practice is to change in Yemen for other children.

"These girls are living in a misery that no one is talking about," Oxfam's Bashren said.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/15/yemen.childbride/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail

Holocaust siblings meet after 66 years

2008-07-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

Holocaust siblings meet after 66 years

Story Highlights
Brother, sister meet for first time since 1942, when Nazis separated them
Brother in Ukraine never stopped searching: "Now I truly believe I can die satisfied"
An American Red Cross volunteer helped bring them together
Even after all this time, the siblings don't know what happened to their parents

By Matthew Chance
CNN

DONETSK, Ukraine (CNN) -- A frail Irene Famulak clutched her brother on the airport tarmac, her arm wrapped around him in a tight embrace, tears streaming down their faces. It was the first time since 1942 they had seen each other, when she was 17 and he was just 7.

That was the night the invading Nazis came to take her away from her Ukrainian home.

"I remember it well because I kissed him good-bye, and he pushed me away," she said of her brother. "I asked, 'Why did you do that?' And he said that he doesn't like kisses."

"The Nazis told my mother that I was being taken to work in a German labor camp for six months. But it was, of course, much longer. I was there for years."

Both siblings survived the Holocaust and grew up on different sides of the Iron Curtain, not knowing the fate of the other.

But after 66 years apart, Famulak, 83, was reunited with her long lost 73-year-old brother, Wssewolod Galezkij. They held each other close this time, cherishing the moment. Watch siblings hug for first time in seven decades »

"I don't believe anyone has ever known such happiness. Now, I truly believe I can die satisfied," Galezkij said.

Famulak made the long journey to Donetsk in eastern Ukraine from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after being contacted by the American Red Cross. The organization told her they had located her only surviving sibling.

Famulak said she spent World War II in a labor camp in Munich, Germany, working in the kitchens. She had been taken to the camp with her older sister. When it was liberated in 1945, Famulak stayed in Germany for several years, eventually emigrating to the United States in 1956.

She never saw her parents again after that day in 1942 when Nazis separated her from her family. She and her brother still have no idea what happened to their mother and father. Some of their siblings lived through the war, but later died; others, they never heard from again after being separated.

But her younger brother never gave up hope of tracking his sister down. He, too, was sent to a German labor camp, but after the war, he moved back to Ukraine, then a republic of the Soviet Union. See photos of the "needle in haystack" reunion »

Under Soviet leader Josef Stalin, information on lost relatives was kept sealed, and Galezkij said it wasn't until reforms in the late 1980s, followed by the Soviet collapse, that he started making progress in finding his sister.

Even then, it took him more than 17 years to locate her in the United States. He broke down in tears as he spoke of his overwhelming happiness at finding her.

"When the Red Cross told me they had found her in America, it was such a joy," he said, sobbing.

In fact, he had to be taken to the hospital because he was so overcome when he first learned she was alive. At this week's reunion, there was a doctor on hand at the airport as a precaution.

Back in the United States, there were tears, too.

Linda Klein, the director of the American Red Cross Holocaust and War Victims Tracing Center, said the volunteer who helped the siblings find each other got caught up in the emotion herself.

"When I showed her the picture, she stood there and wept," Klein said. "She was beside herself."

Klein's group has reunited 1,500 families since it began work in 1990. She said the former Soviet Union released records in 1989 of concentration camps it liberated, greatly helping organizers find information on Holocaust victims.

The organization has 100 volunteers -- a third of them Holocaust survivors, Klein said. The group also helps families find information about their loved ones who died during the Holocaust. They have brought together more than 50 families this year. All of their work is free. She says it's often like "looking for a needle in a haystack."

"We're playing beat the clock right now," she said, adding, "It's about families that one day they were together and then they were apart."

"When a connection is made, there are just smiles all around."

That was the case for this family in Ukraine. Years of trauma, of separation, of not knowing what happened to loved ones, have been replaced by celebration.

In a picturesque orchard overlooking rolling fields, Galezkij, his wife and their neighbors laid out a feast for his American sister. As the vodka flowed, he told her how he had survived for a lifetime without her.

"He says he always thought he'd see me someday. He dreamt lots about me," Famulak said, as she sat next to her brother.

"And he wrote a song for me. When he went to sleep, he sang every night and cried."

With that, Galezkij, weakened by illness and age, burst into song. But this time, he sang the words with pure joy.

CNN's Michael Sefanov and Wayne Drash contributed to this report.

original link: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/11/holocaust.reunion/index.html

Human Rights Advocate Silenced in China

2008-07-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

Voice Seeking Answers for Parents About a School Collapse Is Silenced

By JAKE HOOKER, July 11, 2008, New York Times .com

BEIJING — Three weeks after the earthquake in Sichuan Province, five bereaved fathers whose children died in collapsed schools sought help from a local human rights activist named Huang Qi.

The fathers visited Mr. Huang at the Tianwang Human Rights Center, an informal advocacy organization in the provincial capital of Chengdu, where he worked and lived. They told him how the four-story Dongqi Middle School had crumbled in an instant, burying their children alive.

Mr. Huang soon posted an article on his center’s Web site, 64tianwang.com, describing their demands. They wanted compensation, an investigation into the schools’ construction and for those responsible for the building’s collapse to be held accountable — if there indeed was negligence.

A week later, plainclothes officers intercepted Mr. Huang on the street outside his home and stuffed him into a car. The police have informed his wife and mother that they are holding him on suspicion of illegally possessing state secrets.

“They’ve been using this method for a long time,” said Zhang Jianping, a contributor to the Web site who has known Mr. Huang since 2005. Nobody knows the grounds for his arrest, but many people have the same idea. Mr. Zhang said, “It may be because the schools collapsed, and so many children died.”

In the days after the earthquake, the authorities allowed reporters and volunteers to travel freely in the disaster zone. Some commentators even saw the dawning of a Chinese glasnost. In an interview with National Public Radio that aired in May, Mr. Huang said he believed that the human rights situation in China had greatly improved.

“He actually thought things were heading in the right direction,” said John Kamm, who is pressing for Mr. Huang’s release and is the executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation, which has helped free prominent Chinese political prisoners. “That’s one of the tragedies of his detention.”

A volunteer at the Tianwang center, Pu Fei, 27, was detained minutes after Mr. Huang. He said that the officers who interrogated him demanded that he hand over the password needed to post information on their Web site. They also wanted to know whom Mr. Huang had met and where he had gone in the disaster zone. Mr. Pu was detained in a hotel for two weeks and then released.

Mr. Pu and other volunteers said the authorities might have singled out Mr. Huang because he disseminated information about parents whose children had died in collapsed schools — a group whose protests began to snowball into something like a movement in early June.

There is no official figure on how many children died in schools during the powerful May 12 earthquake. Seven thousand schoolrooms collapsed, according to Chinese government estimates. Thousands of students may have died, if not more, leaving behind bereft parents looking for answers.

During the brief period of openness in late May and early June, parents marched with photos of their children and gathered at the wreckage of schools to hold memorial services. They held sit-ins outside government buildings. In one town, the top Communist Party leader got down on his knees and begged parents to stop a march, but they refused.

But with the Olympic Games in Beijing approaching, the issue increasingly looked like a time bomb for the authorities, and they scurried to defuse it. The Propaganda Department banned coverage of destroyed schools in the domestic press. Paramilitary police officers blocked foreign reporters from demonstrations. Activists who tried to gather and publish information about school construction were detained.

On June 2, The Sichuan Economic Daily published an article saying that substandard construction methods contributed to the deaths of 82 students at a middle school in Yinghua Township. Afterward, an editor at the paper said, two reporters and an editor who worked on that article were fired.

Two fathers of children killed in schools said in separate interviews that officials had told them public gatherings and petitioning the government were no longer permitted. Zeng Hongling, a local crusader who wrote three articles lashing out at the government’s earthquake response, was detained on suspicion of inciting subversion, according to the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, a group based in Hong Kong.

Mr. Huang, who was detained on June 10, has not yet been formally charged with any crime. But if he is convicted on the murky charge of holding state secrets, it will not be his first time being jailed for a political crime.

In 1998, he and his wife, Zeng Li, founded the Tianwang Center for Missing Persons, an organization that focused on cases of human trafficking. Its name later changed to Tianwang Human Rights Center as its mission expanded.

In 1999, she and Mr. Huang helped the police rescue seven girls who had been sold into prostitution. The case gained the Tianwang center favorable attention in the state-run news media.

Mr. Huang also exposed a racket through which thousands of migrant workers sent to work on ocean-going fishing boats had been forced to pay for mandatory appendectomies at a government-run clinic. He published an article on his Web site. His wife said that Mr. Huang’s report stepped on the toes of high-ranking local officials who profited from the arrangement.

Mr. Huang continued to post articles about other taboo topics.

In March 2000, he wrote about a practitioner of the banned spiritual group Falun Gong who was beaten to death in police custody. The Chengdu police shut down his Web site days later, so Mr. Huang moved its content to a server in the United States.

Later that year, he posted an account of a 15-year-old boy who was detained in Chengdu during the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing. The boy later died in police custody.

The police arrested Mr. Huang shortly thereafter. He was held for an extended period without trial, and he was ultimately convicted on charges of inciting subversion and was sentenced to five years in prison. Ms. Zeng, who has lived apart from Mr. Huang since 2006, said the experience changed him.

“When he came out, you could see scars on his head,” she said. “He became irritable, and he would forget things.”

To the surprise of some friends, Mr. Huang took up where he had left off when he got out of prison. He revived his dormant Web site, found citizen journalists throughout China to contribute articles and resumed his role as an activist. “He started helping petitioners — people who had been harmed, people whose homes has been demolished, people whose rights had been abused,” Ms. Zeng said.

State security agents watched him, Ms. Zeng said, but they did not interfere with his work.

Then the earthquake hit, and foreign reporters flooded the devastated towns. Mr. Huang knew the terrain of Sichuan well and did his best to help. He accepted interviews with the foreign press. He and his volunteers rented a truck and handed out bottled water, instant noodles and crackers to refugees. In June, he helped reporters from a British television channel contact parents whose children had been killed in schools destroyed by the earthquake. And he began acting as a clearinghouse of information for reporters.

Mr. Huang kept in touch with the five fathers whose children had died at Dongqi Middle School. They joined a group of experts to investigate the wreckage for clues as to why the building crumbled. Mr. Huang posted a short article on his Web site saying that, according to the experts, the school was structurally unsafe.

It was one of his last postings before his detention. Mr. Huang’s lawyers and family said that the Chengdu police have denied their requests to meet with him on the grounds that his case involves state secrets. Officers with the Wuhou District Public Security Bureau declined to comment, saying they were not authorized to speak with the media.

A conviction for the crime of possessing state secrets can carry up to three years in prison.

It is unclear whether the pressure to arrest him came from central authorities in Beijing or from local officials, who regarded his criticism of the collapsed schools as threatening. Mr. Pu said that some of the officers who interrogated him spoke with a northern Beijing accent, which is unusual in Sichuan, an area with a strong dialect.

original article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/world/asia/11china.html?ex=1373515200&en=924048ad56677dcf&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

U.S. distances itself from U.N. rights body

2008-06-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

Original Article can be found at: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN06294689

WASHINGTON, June 6 (Reuters) - In an attempt to further distance itself from the U.N. Human Rights Council, the United States said on Friday it would only engage the body when there was an issue of "deep national interest."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the decision, taken recently by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, reflected mistrust of the 47-member state forum, at which the United States currently has observer status.

"Our skepticism regarding the function of the U.N. Council on Human Rights in terms of fulfilling its mandate and its mission is well known. It has a rather pathetic record," McCormack told reporters.

"We will engage the Human Rights Council really only when we believe that there are matters of deep national interest before the council ... We are going to take a more reserved approach," he added.

Diplomatic sources said the United States had quietly informed Western allies on Friday of its intention to walk away from the council.

"They said they were going to disengage totally," said one representative of a rights watchdog group.

The U.S. delegation has observer status, with the right to speak at the forum when it meets in Geneva. Washington has never stood for election since the council was set up two years ago to replace the widely discredited U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

In a council debate on Friday on the situation in Myanmar, the United States failed to take the floor on a topic on which until now it has always been vocal, a sign that it had little further interest in the body.

Asked about the Myanmar debate, McCormack said Washington would decide on an "ad hoc" basis when to get involved.

The council is seen by critics as having fallen under the control of a bloc of Islamic and African countries, which have a majority when backed by their frequent allies Russia, China and Cuba.

"Instead of focusing on some of the real and deep human rights issues around the world, it has really turned into a forum that seems to be almost solely focused on bashing Israel," said McCormack of the council. (Reporting by Sue Pleming; additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; editing by Eric Beech)
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Human Rights Watch and Human Rights Tribune both condemned the U.S.'s decision in the following articles:
Human Rights Watch Article
Human Rights Tribune Article

Famine Looms as Wars Rend Horn of Africa

2008-05-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

May 17, 2008

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

DAGAARI, Somalia — The global food crisis has arrived at Safia Ali’s hut.

She cannot afford rice or wheat or powdered milk anymore.

At the same time, a drought has decimated her family’s herd of goats, turning their sole livelihood into a pile of bleached bones and papery skin.

The result is that Ms. Safia, a 25-year-old mother of five, has not eaten in a week. Her 1-year-old son is starving too, an adorable, listless boy who doesn’t even respond to a pinch.

Somalia — and much of the volatile Horn of Africa, for that matter — was about the last place on earth that needed a food crisis. Even before commodity prices started shooting up around the globe, civil war, displacement and imperiled aid operations had pushed many people here to the brink of famine.

But now with food costs spiraling out of reach and the livestock that people live off of dropping dead in the sand, villagers across this sun-blasted landscape say hundreds of people are dying of hunger and thirst.

This is what happens, economists say, when the global food crisis meets local chaos.
“We’re really in the perfect storm,” said Jeffrey D. Sachs, a Columbia economist and top United Nations adviser, who recently visited neighboring Kenya.

There has been a collision of troubles throughout the region: skimpy rainfall, disastrous harvests, soaring food prices, dying livestock, escalating violence, out-of-control inflation, and shrinking food aid because of many of these factors.

Across the border in Ethiopia, in the war-racked Ogaden region, the situation sounds just as dire. In Darfur, the United Nations has had to cut food rations because of a rise in banditry that endangers aid deliveries. Kenya is looking vulnerable, too.

A recent headline in one of Kenya’s leading newspapers blared, “25,000 villagers risk starving,” referring to a combination of drought, higher fertilizer and fuel costs and postelection violence that displaced thousands of farmers. “These places aren’t on the brink,” Mr. Sachs said. “They’ve gone over the cliff.”

Many Somalis are trying to stave off starvation with a thin gruel made from mashed thorn-tree branches called jerrin. Some village elders said their children were chewing on their own lips and tongues because they had no food. The weather has been merciless — intensely hot days, followed by cruelly clear nights.

This week, Saida Mohamed Afrah, another emaciated mother, left her two children under a tree and went scavenging for food and water. When she came back two hours later, her children were dead.

She had little to say about the drought. “I just wish my children had died in my lap,” she said.
The United Nations has declared a wide swath of central Somalia a humanitarian emergency, the final stage before a full-blown famine. But Christian Balslev-Olesen, the head of Unicef operations in Somalia, said the situation was likely to become a famine in the coming weeks.
Famine is defined by several criteria, including malnutrition, mortality, food and water scarcity and destruction of livelihood. Some of those factors, like an acute malnutrition rate of 24 percent in some areas of Somalia, have already soared past emergency thresholds and are closing in on famine range. Mr. Balslev-Olesen said Unicef recently received reports of people dying from hunger and thirst. It is hard to know exactly how many, he said, though local elders have put the number in the mid-hundreds.

“We have all the indicators in place for a catastrophe,” Mr. Balslev-Olesen said. “We cannot call it that yet. But I’m very much concerned it’s just a matter of weeks until we have to.”
Many people already consider Somalia a catastrophe. It has some of the highest malnutrition rates anywhere in the world — in a good year. The collapse of the central government in 1991 plunged Somalia into a spiral of clan-driven bloodshed that it has yet to pull out of. The era began with a famine that killed hundreds of thousands of people.

The consensus now is that all the same elements of the early 1990s — high-intensity conflict, widespread displacement and drought — are lining up again, and at a time of the biggest spike in global food prices in more than 30 years. The United Nations says 2.6 million Somalis need assistance and the number could soon swell to 3.5 million, nearly half the estimated population. If there is excellent rain or a sudden peace, the crisis may ease. But weather projections and even the rosiest political forecasts do not predict that.

Whether Somalia slips into a famine may depend on aid, and right now, that does not look so good either. Eleven aid workers have been killed this year, and United Nations officials say Somalia is as complicated — and dangerous — as ever.

Beyond the warlord and clan fighting, there is now a budding conflict with Western aid workers. The Bush administration has said that terrorists with Al Qaeda are hiding in Somalia, sheltered by local Islamists, and has gone after them with American airstrikes. But a recent American attack on an Islamist leader in Dusa Marreb, a town in the center of the drought zone, has spawned a wave of revenge threats against Western aid workers. The United Nations and private aid organizations say it is now too dangerous to expand their life-saving work in Dusa Marreb.

“We’re in a different contextual environment right now,” said Chris Smoot, the program director for World Vision aid projects in Somalia. He said there were anti-Western “rogue elements that can shut you down, in any shape or form, at any time.”

Aid is also a serious problem in the contested Ogaden region of Ethiopia, across the border from here. A recent report written by a contractor working for the United States Agency for International Development said the drought there was “clearly worsening” and that the response by the Ethiopian government, one of America’s closest allies in Africa, was “absolutely abysmal.”

This may be no accident. The Ethiopian government is struggling with an insurgency in the Ogaden, and the report said that “food is clearly being used as a weapon,” with the government starving out rebel areas, while a mysterious warehouse of American-donated food was discovered across the road from an Ethiopian Army base. “The U.S.G.,” meaning the United States government, “cannot in good conscience allow the food operation to continue in its current manifestation,” the report said. “This situation would be absolutely shameful in any other country.”

The report was not made public, though a copy was provided to The New York Times. When asked about it, a senior American aid official characterized the report as “just a snapshot and one person’s observations and impressions.” But the senior aid official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said: “We’re not saying there’s not a crisis in the Ogaden. We’re not saying the Ethiopian response has been satisfactory. But some progress has been made. And we need more.”

Ethiopian officials declined comment and have denied human rights abuses in the Ogaden.
All across this region, one of the poorest of the poor, people are left to the mercies of the desert. In central Somalia, for instance, fewer than five inches of rain have fallen in the past year and a half, aid officials say. The winds are harsh, throats are dry. This area, like much of the Horn of Africa, is too arid for farming. The people here, in lonely outposts like Dagaari, survive by grazing goats, sheep, cattle and camels, selling the animals for money they use to buy food.
“But nobody wants a skinny goat,” explained Abdul Kadir Nur, a herder in Dagaari.

That was about all he had left after the drought killed 400 of his 450 animals.

Not far from the pile of goat bones is a circle of stones. It is the grave of his toddler son.
Mr. Abdul Kadir said the boy had died of hunger and that he had been placed in his grave at an angle, “so he can sleep.”

He walked a few more steps, his flip-flops digging into the crunchy earth. He arrived at Ms. Safia’s hut, where several people were peering in the doorway, watching her sweat on the dirt floor. The nearest hospital was only a half hour away, but nobody had any money to pay for a ride.

“She will most likely die,” an elder said and walked away.

Ms. Safia’s son seemed to sense that. He curled up next to his mother while he still could, his face pressed against the damp cloth that covered her. Her ribs moved up and down, up and down, in quick shallow breaths.

China Investigates Forced Child Labor

2008-04-30T21:06:00.000-07:00

May 1, 2008

By DAVID BARBOZA

SHANGHAI — China said Wednesday that it had broken up a child labor ring that forced children from poor, inland areas to work in booming coastal cities, acknowledging that severe labor abuses extended into the heart of its export economy.

Authorities in southern China’s Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong, said they had made several arrests and had already “rescued” more than 100 children from factories in the city of Dongguan, one of the country’s largest manufacturing centers for electronics and consumer goods sold around the world. The officials said they were investigating reports that hundreds of other rural children had been lured or forced into captive, almost slavelike conditions for minimal pay.

The children, mostly between the ages of 13 and 15, were often tricked or kidnapped by employment agencies in an impoverished part of western Sichuan Province called Liangshan and then sent to factory towns in Guangdong, where they were sometimes forced to work 300 hours a month, according to government officials and accounts from the state-owned media. The legal working age in China is 16.

The labor scandal is the latest embarrassment for China as it prepares to host the Olympic Games this summer. For much of the past year, the country has been plagued by damaging reports about severe pollution, dangerous exports, riots in Tibet and the ensuing disruptions to its Olympic torch relay by Tibet’s sympathizers, among other groups.

The abuses may also reflect the combined pressures of worker shortages, high inflation and a rising currency that have reduced profit margins of some Chinese factories and forced them to scramble for an edge — even an illegal one — to stay competitive.

The child labor ring, which was first uncovered by Southern Metropolis, a crusading newspaper based in Guangzhou, came less than a year after China was rocked by exposure of a similar problem in a less developed part of central China. Last June, labor officials in Shanxi and Henan Provinces said they had rescued hundreds of people, including children, from slave labor conditions in rural brick kilns. Many of those workers said they had been kidnapped.

The earlier case, which local officials initially sought to keep quiet, set off a national uproar in China and prompted a sharp response from President Hu Jintao, who vowed a broad crackdown on labor abuses. Local officials in Guangdong may have moved quickly to acknowledge the latest incident to keep it from becoming a running scandal as the Olympics approach.

The police in Guangdong said Wednesday that they had formed teams to search for child laborers in several coastal cities, including Dongguan and Shenzhen, another big manufacturing center, but disclosed nothing about the companies involved in employing the children, or the extent of the problem.

Officials did not identify the specific factories or products involved, and it is unclear whether any of them were suppliers to global corporations. But many companies in Dongguan and Shenzhen, where land and labor costs are typically higher than elsewhere in the country, are part of the supply chain for the country’s export manufacturers. The authorities have also said little so far about the identities of the children they claim to have rescued.

“These youngsters have no ID cards, so it makes it difficult to identify them,” said Zhang Xiang, a spokesman for the Guangdong Labor Bureau.

In recent years, Beijing has stepped up its efforts to crack down on child labor and labor law violations. Last August, Beijing revoked the license of a factory accused of using child labor to produce Olympic merchandise. Several other suppliers were also punished for labor law violations.

But experts say rising costs of labor, energy and raw material, and labor shortages in some parts of southern China have forced some factory owners to cut costs or find new sources of cheap labor, including child labor.

Even factories that supply global companies, including Wal-Mart Stores, have been accused in recent years of using child labor and violating local labor laws. Big corporations have stepped up inspections of factories that produce goods for them. But suppliers have become adept at evading such scrutiny by providing fake wage and work schedule data that suggest they abide by labor laws. Experts say the labor problems discovered in Dongguan are not uncommon.

“The Liangshan child labor case is quite typical,” said Hu Xingdou, a professor of economics and social policy at the Beijing Institute of Technology. “China’s economy is developing at a
fascinating speed, but often at the expense of laws, human rights and environmental protection.”

Professor Hu said that while Beijing had pushed to improve labor conditions throughout the nation, local governments were still driven by incentives to grow their economy, and so they tried to lure cheap labor.

“Most of the work force comes from underdeveloped or poverty-stricken areas,” he said. “Some children are even sold by their parents, who often don’t have any idea of the working conditions.”

In a series of articles this week, journalists working for Southern Metropolis wrote that they had traveled to Liangshan Prefecture in Sichuan Province, an area of western China populated by ethnic minority groups and plagued by drugs and a lack of good jobs, to pose as recruiters and interview parents and residents.

The newspaper said recruiters and labor agencies working in Liangshan often selected and transported children south, where they were then “sold” to factories at virtual auctions in Guangdong Province.

At some coastal factories, children were even lined up and selected based on their body type, wrote the journalists, who also investigated factory areas in Guangdong.

The newspaper also said that children were paid about 42 cents an hour, far below the local minimum wage of about 64 cents an hour. By law, overtime pay is much higher.

Chen Fulin, a government spokesman in Liangshan Prefecture, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that the articles about child labor in Southern Metropolis were accurate.

“So far, we have detected and found four people in Zhaojue County suspected of luring the youngsters from Liangshan to Dongguan and forcing them to work in factories,” he said. “We are dealing with the illegal employment agencies and the labor dealers, according to the law.”
Officials in the city of Dongguan say they are now investigating all factories in the area to determine whether any are employing children.

In its report, Southern Metropolis said some children were threatened with death if they tried to escape.

The newspaper did not identify the coastal factories where the children worked, but the report said that one was a toy factory in Dongguan and that it had not been difficult for the journalists to uncover the labor scandal.

“Since journalists could discover the facts by secret interviews in a few days,” Southern Metropolis wrote in a separate editorial on Tuesday, “how could the labor departments show no interest in it and ignore it for such a long time?”

Chen Yang contributed research.

From Auschwitz, a Torah as Strong as Its Spirit

2008-04-30T20:33:00.000-07:00

April 30, 2008
From the NYTimes.com
By JAMES BARRON

The back story of how a Torah got from the fetid barracks of Auschwitz to the ark of the Central Synagogue at Lexington Avenue and 55th Street is one the pastor of the Lutheran church down the street sums up as simply “miraculous.”

It is the story of a sexton in the synagogue in the Polish city of Oswiecim who buried most of the sacred scroll before the Germans stormed in and later renamed the city Auschwitz. It is the story of Jewish prisoners who sneaked the rest of it — four carefully chosen panels — into the concentration camp.

It is the story of a Polish Catholic priest to whom they entrusted the four panels before their deaths. It is the story of a Maryland rabbi who went looking for it with a metal detector. And it is the story of how a hunch by the rabbi’s 13-year-old son helped lead him to it.

This Torah, more than most, “is such an extraordinary symbol of rebirth,” said Peter J. Rubinstein, the rabbi of Central Synagogue. “As one who has gone to the camps and assimilates into my being the horror of the Holocaust, this gives meaning to Jewish survival.”

On Wednesday, the restored Torah will be rededicated in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which for more than 20 years the congregation of Central Synagogue has observed in conjunction with its neighbor, St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, at Lexington Avenue and 54th Street. The senior pastor, the Rev. Amandus J. Derr, said that next to Easter, the Holocaust memorial is “the most important service I attend every year.”

The Torah from Auschwitz “is a very concrete, tactile piece of that remembrance — of what people, some of whom did it in the name of Christ, did to people who were Jewish,” Pastor Derr said, “and the remembrance itself enables us to be prepared to prevent that from happening again.”

A Torah scroll contains the five books of Moses, and observant Jews read a portion from it at services. Its ornate Hebrew must be hand-lettered by specially trained scribes, and it is considered unacceptable if any part is marred or incomplete. For years, Jews around the world have worked to recover and rehabilitate Torahs that disappeared or were destroyed during the Holocaust, returning them to use in synagogues.

This Torah remained hidden for more than 60 years, buried where the sexton had put it, until Rabbi Menachem Youlus, who lives in Wheaton, Md., and runs the nonprofit Save a Torah foundation, began looking for it about eight years ago. Over two decades, Rabbi Youlus said, the foundation has found more than 1,000 desecrated Torahs and restored them, a painstaking and expensive process. This one was elusive. But Rabbi Youlus was determined.

He had heard a story told by Auschwitz survivors: Three nights before the Germans arrived, the synagogue sexton put the Torah scrolls in a metal box and buried them. The sexton knew that the Nazis were bent on destroying Judaism as well as killing Jews.

But the survivors did not know where the sexton had buried the Torah. Others interested in rescuing the Torah after the war had not found it.

As for what happened during the war, “I personally felt the last place the Nazis would look would be in the cemetery,” Rabbi Youlus said in a telephone interview Tuesday, recalling his pilgrimage to Auschwitz, in late 2000 or early 2001, in search of the missing Torah. “So that was the first place I looked.”

With a metal detector, because, if the story was correct, he was hunting for a metal box in a cemetery in which all the caskets were made of wood, according to Jewish laws of burial. The metal detector did not beep. “Nothing,” the rabbi said. “I was discouraged.”

He went home to Maryland. One of his sons, Yitzchok, then 13, wondered if the cemetery was the same size as in 1939. They went online and found land records that showed that the present-day cemetery was far smaller than the original one.

Rabbi Youlus went back in 2004 with his metal detector, aiming it at the spot where the g’neeza — a burial plot for damaged Torahs, prayer books or other papers containing God’s name — had been. It beeped as he passed a house that had been built after World War II.

He dug near the house and found the metal box. But when he opened it, he discovered the Torah was incomplete. “It was missing four panels,” he said. “The obvious question was, why would the sexton bury a scroll that’s missing four panels? I was convinced those four panels had a story themselves.”

They did, as he learned when he placed an ad in a Polish newspaper in the area “asking if anyone had parchment with Hebrew letters.”

“I said I would pay top dollar,” Rabbi Youlus said. “The response came the next day from a priest. He said, ‘I know exactly what you’re looking for, four panels of a Torah.’ I couldn’t believe it.”

He compared the lettering and the pagination, and paid the priest. (How much, he would not say. The project was underwritten by David M. Rubenstein, a co-founder of the Carlyle Group. Mr. Rubenstein was tied at No. 165 on the Forbes 400 last year with a reported fortune of $2.5 billion; in December, he paid $21.3 million for a 710-year-old copy of the Magna Carta, a British declaration of human rights that served as the foundation for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.)

The priest “told me the panels were taken into Auschwitz by four different people,” Rabbi Youlus said. “I believe they were folded and hidden.” One of the panels contained the Ten Commandments from Exodus, a portion that, when chanted aloud each year, the congregation stands to hear. Another contained a similar passage from Deuteronomy.

The priest, who was born Jewish, was himself an Auschwitz survivor. He told Rabbi Youlus that the people with the four sections of the Torah gave them to him before they were put to death.

“He kept all four pieces until I put that ad in the paper,” Rabbi Youlus said. “As soon as I put that ad in the paper, he knew I must be the one with the rest of the Torah scroll.” (Rabbi Youlus said that the priest has since died.)

Rabbi Youlus said that nearly half the Torah’s lettering needed repair, work that the foundation has done over the past few years. Thirty-seven letters were left unfinished: 36, or twice the number that symbolizes “life” in Hebrew, will be filled in by members of the congregation before the service on Wednesday, the 37th at the ceremony.

Rabbi Youlus called it “a good sturdy Torah, even if it hasn’t been used in 65 years.” The plan is to make it available every other year to the March of the Living, an international educational program that arranges for Jewish teenagers to go to Poland on Holocaust Remembrance Day, to march from Auschwitz to its companion death camp, Birkenau.

“This really is an opportunity to look up to the heavens and say, he who laughs last, laughs best,” Rabbi Youlus said. “The Nazis really thought they had wiped Jews off the face of the earth, and Judaism. Here we are taking the ultimate symbol of hope and of Judaism and rededicating it and using it in a synagogue. And we’ll take it to Auschwitz. You can’t beat that.”

Chinese Students in U.S. Fight View of Their Home

2008-04-29T19:46:00.000-07:00

April 29, 2008
By SHAILA DEWAN

LOS ANGELES — When the time came for the smiling Tibetan monk at the front of the University of Southern California lecture hall to answer questions, the Chinese students who packed the audience for the talk last Tuesday had plenty to lob at their guest:
If Tibet was not part of China, why had the Chinese emperor been the one to give the Dalai Lama his title? How did the tenets of Buddhism jibe with the “slavery system” in Tibet before China’s modernization efforts? What about the Dalai Lama’s connection to Hitler?

As the monk tried to rebut the students, they grew more hostile. They brandished photographs and statistics to support their claims. “Stop lying! Stop lying!” one young man said. A plastic bottle of water hit the wall behind the monk, and campus police officers hustled the person who threw it out of the room.

Scenes like this, ranging from civil to aggressive, have played out at colleges across the country over the past month, as Chinese students in the United States have been forced to confront an image of their homeland that they neither recognize nor appreciate. Since the riots last month in Tibet, the disrupted Olympic torch relays and calls to boycott the opening ceremony of the Games in Beijing, Chinese students, traditionally silent on political issues, have begun to lash out at what they perceive as a pervasive anti-Chinese bias.

Last year, there were more than 42,000 students from mainland China studying in the United States, an increase from fewer than 20,000 in 2003, according to the State Department.
Campuses including Cornell, the University of Washington in Seattle and the University of California, Irvine, have seen a wave of counterdemonstrations using tactics that seem jarring in the American academic context. At the University of Washington, students fought to limit the Dalai Lama’s address to nonpolitical topics. At Duke, pro-China students surrounded and drowned out a pro-Tibet vigil; a Chinese freshman who tried to mediate received death threats, and her family was forced into hiding.

And last Saturday, students from as far as Florida and Tennessee traveled to Atlanta to picket CNN after a commentator, Jack Cafferty, referred to the Chinese as “goons and thugs.” (CNN said he was referring to the government, not the people.)

The student anger, stoked through e-mail messages sent to large campus mailing lists, stems not so much from satisfaction with the Chinese government but from shock at the portrayal of its actions, as well as frustration over the West’s long-standing love affair with Tibet — a love these students see as willfully blind.

By and large, they do not acknowledge the cultural and religious crackdown in Tibet, insisting that ordinary Tibetans have prospered under China’s economic development, and that only a small minority are unhappy.

“Before I came here, I’m very liberal,” said Minna Jia, a graduate student in political science at U.S.C. who encouraged fellow students to attend the monk’s lecture. “But after I come here, my professor told me that I’m nationalist.”

“I believe in democracy,” Ms. Jia added, “but I can’t stand for someone to criticize my country using biased ways. You are wearing Chinese clothes and you are using Chinese goods.”

Students interviewed for this article deplored the more extreme expressions of anger, like death threats against the Duke freshman and the tossing of the water bottle, and pointed out that Chinese students had little experience in the art of protest. But, they said, they could also understand them.

“We’ve been smothered for too long time,” said Jasmine Dong, another graduate student who attended the U.S.C. lecture.

By that, Ms. Dong did not mean that Chinese students had been repressed or censored by their own government. She meant that the Western news media had not acknowledged the strides China had made or the voices of overseas Chinese. “We are still neglected or misunderstood as either brainwashed or manipulated by the government,” she said.

No matter what China does, these students say, it cannot win in the arena of world opinion. “When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet./ When we tried limiting our numbers, you said it is human rights abuse,” reads a poem posted on the Internet by “a silent, silent Chinese” and cited by some students as an accurate expression of their feelings. “When we were poor, you thought we were dogs./ When we loan you cash, you blame us for your debts./ When we build our industries, you called us polluters./ When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming.”

Rather than blend in to the prevailing campus ethos of free debate, the more strident Chinese students seem to replicate the authoritarian framework of their homeland, photographing demonstration participants and sometimes drowning out dissent.

A Tibetan student who declined to be identified for fear of harassment said he decided not to attend a vigil for Tibet on his campus, which he also did not want identified because there are so few Tibetans there. “It’s not that I didn’t want to, I really did want to go — it’s our cause,” he said. “At the same time, I have to consider that my family’s back there, and I’m going back there in May.”

Another factor fueling the zeal of many Chinese demonstrators could be that they, too, intend to return home; the Chinese government is widely believed to be monitoring large e-mail lists.
Universities have often tried to accommodate the anger of their Chinese students. Before the Dalai Lama’s visit to the University of Washington, the campus Chinese Students and Scholars Association wrote to the university president expressing hopes that the visit would focus only on nonpolitical issues and not arouse anti-China sentiments. According to a posting on the group’s Web site, the university president, Mark A. Emmert, told them in a meeting that no political questions would be raised at the Dalai Lama’s speech. A spokesman said the university, which opened an office in Beijing last fall, had prescreened student questions before the Chinese students voiced their concerns.

Some experts say that colleges feel constrained from reining in the more extreme protests through a combination of concerns about cultural sensitivity and a desire to expand their own ties with China.

“I think there tends to be a great deal of self-censorship,” said Peter Gries, director of the Institute for U.S.-China Issues at the University of Oklahoma, “and not just among American China scholars but among the whole web of people who do business with China, including school administrators.”

At the U.S.C. lecture, the Chinese students arrived early to distribute handouts on Tibet and China that contained a jumble of abbreviated history, slogans and maps with little context. A chart showing that infant mortality in Tibet had plummeted since 1951, when the Communist Chinese government asserted control, did not provide any means for comparison with mortality rates in China or other countries.

One photograph showed the Dalai Lama with Heinrich Harrer, author of “Seven Years in Tibet” and a one-time member of the Nazi Party — hence the question about the Dalai Lama’s connection to Hitler, who died when the Dalai Lama was nine. The question about slavery referred to the feudal system in place in Tibet until the mid-20th century. Another photograph purported to show a Tibetan drum that, according to the caption, was covered with “a virgin girl’s skin.”

The students said they were frustrated by a sense that many accounts of the recent riots did not reflect the violence and destruction by the Tibetan protesters, who vandalized shops owned by Han Chinese (the ethnic majority in China). According to official Chinese news sources, 22 died in the rioting.

Much of the anger has the tenor of disillusionment. During the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, the Western news media was seen as a source of otherwise elusive truth.
“We thought Western media is very objective,” said Chou Wu, a 28-year-old working on his doctorate in material science, “and what it turned out is that Western media is even more biased than Chinese media. They’re no better, and even more, they’re against us.”

Students argue that China has spent billions on Tibet, building schools, roads and other infrastructure. Asked if the Tibetans wanted such development, they looked blankly incredulous. “They don’t ask that question,” said Lionel Jensen, a China scholar at Notre Dame. “They’ve accepted the basic premise of aggressive modernization.”

That may be, some experts suggest, because the students whose families can afford to send them abroad are the ones who have benefited the most from China’s economic liberalization.
Spring Zheng, 27, another graduate student at U.S.C., dismissed the notion that her patriotism stemmed from the government’s efforts to use the schools to instill national pride, particularly after Tiananmen Square.

Rather, Ms. Zheng said, “We have witnessed with our own eyes about the rapid change of China. China is developing fast, and Chinese people’s lives” are “becoming better and better, fast.”

As the U.S.C. session wound to a close, the organizer, Lisa Leeman, a documentary film instructor, pleaded for a change in tone. “My hope for this event, which I don’t totally see happening here, is for people on both, quote, sides to really hear each other and maybe learn from each other,” Ms. Leeman said. “Are there any genuine questions that don’t stem from a political point of view, that are really not here to be on a soap box?”

At that moment, the bottle hit the wall.

Michael Anti contributed reporting from Cambridge, Mass.

Olympic Torch Relay Faces Protests

2008-04-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

April 8, 2008
Olympic Torch Relay in Paris Halted as Protests Spread
By KATRIN BENNHOLD and JOHN F. BURNS

PARIS — What was supposed to be a majestic procession for the Olympic torch through the French capital turned into chaos Monday as thousands of people from around Europe, many with Tibetan flags, massed to protest the passage of the flame. The torch went out several times, and police officers had to put it onto a bus to try to protect it as demonstrators swarmed the security detail. In the end, organizers canceled the final leg of the procession.

A police spokeswoman, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with policy, said the torch went out “for technical reasons” unrelated to the protests, without offering further clarification. CNN reported that the torch was extinguished at least twice amid the melee, and The Associated Press said officials were forced to extinguish the flame five times to carry it in the safety of the bus.

Despite tremendous security, at least two protesters got within almost an arm’s length of the flame before they were grabbed by police officers, The A.P. reported. Officers tackled numerous protesters to the ground and carried some away.

It was yet another unscripted moment in the passage of the Olympic flame, and the second time in two days that the torch relay had been disrupted in a European capital.

Some 3,000 police officers in Paris — on foot, horseback, in-line skates and motorbikes and even in boats on the Seine — tried to prevent a repeat of the scenes in London on Sunday, when the torch’s progression through the streets turned into a tumult of scuffles. One man broke through a tight security cordon in the London protests and made a failed grab for the torch, and 35 people were arrested.

China’s official Xinhua news agency on Monday condemned the “vile misdeeds” of protesters in London.

Before the torch encountered problems in France, a spokeswoman in Beijing for the city’s Olympic organizing committee said at a hurriedly organized news conference that the relay would continue on its international route regardless of protests. “The torch represents the Olympic spirit, and people welcome the torch,” said Wang Hui, the spokeswoman.

The news conference was apparently intended to address Sunday’s protests in London. Ms. Wang blamed the disruptions in London on a “few Tibet separatists” and described their actions as the work of saboteurs. She said Beijing’s Olympic organizers “strongly condemned” the Tibetan protesters.

“The general public is very angry at this sabotage by a few separatists,” she said. “During the torch relay, we met with some disturbances, but we believe that all the peace-loving people in the world will support the torch relay.”

Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, used a meeting in Beijing to criticize the London protests, but also to call for a rapid and peaceful solution to confrontations in Tibet.

French authorities appeared determined to try to spare China — and Paris —embarrassment or disorder similar to London’s, resorting to measures normally reserved for a visiting head of state. A police helicopter circled overhead, for example. Their efforts drew scorn from the French protesters who angrily noted the heavy police presence.

Officers with machine guns guarded sensitive Metro exits along the 17-mile route.

“One would almost think oneself in Lhasa,” said Jean-Paul Ribes, leader of the Support Committee of the Tibetan People in France, who was among the thousands massed on the Trocadero square, across the Seine from the Eiffel tower, where the flame began its passage through Paris. “It snowed last night, now the sky is blue — and police are everywhere,” Mr. Ribes said.

Many protesters — demonstrating against China’s human rights policies in general, or for a free Tibet, or simply for a boycott of the Olympics in Beijing — echoed a headline emblazoned across the front page of the left-wing daily Liberation, under a picture of the Olympic rings restyled as handcuffs: “Liberate The Olympic Games!”

Protesters came from all around Europe, including four busloads from Belgium. Lobsang Dechen, a 29-year-old Tibetan refugee living in Belgium for 4 ½ years, said Europeans should help the cause of Tibet by boycotting the Games. ‘’China does not deserve to be the host,” she said. ‘’They have to first learn to respect human rights in Tibet.’

Kevin Khayat, 19, a design student in Paris and a member of the International Federation for Human Rights, said sports should be separated from politics. “I am against a boycott, and in favor of human rights,” he said. He handed stickers to demonstrators urging: “Let’s keep our eyes open.”

In London on Sunday, the torch was relayed on a seven-hour journey from the new Wembley soccer stadium in the city’s northwest to the principal site for the 2012 Summer Olympics in Stratford in the east.

Along the way, numerous protesters seeking to reach the torch were wrestled to the ground by police officers. One man carrying a fire extinguisher narrowly failed to reach the person carrying the torch, but he set off the extinguisher anyway, dousing police officers with foam.

The torch’s London relay was the fourth stop of a global itinerary that began last month in Greece, where pro-Tibetan demonstrators briefly interrupted the torch’s lighting and its subsequent progress through Athens.

Tibetan organizations have said they plan protests at every stop on the torch’s 21-nation tour. After Paris, it moves to San Francisco, its only American stop, on Wednesday. The monthlong tour is scheduled to end in Vietnam; it is to be followed by a six-week, 46-stop tour of China.

The tour could prove jarring for Beijing. What organizers had billed as an occasion to celebrate the Olympics’ sporting ideals of peace and harmony is turning into a contest between China’s supporters and critics.

In London, more than 2,000 police officers were deployed; the security cordon around the torch was so dense that the flame and those carrying it were often barely visible to crowds.

Caught in the middle are foreign governments. Both Britain and France sought to protect delicate trade and diplomatic relations with China while supporting the Games and yet to also placate those who oppose holding the Olympics in a country with a harsh record for punishing dissent. The centerpiece of the torch parade Sunday was 10 Downing Street, where the Chinese contingent was greeted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Mr. Brown, like President Bush, has said he plans to attend the Games’ opening ceremonies in Beijing in August. That stand has drawn contrasts with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who has hinted he may not attend if China’s recent crackdown on Tibetans does not relent.

Under pressure from human rights groups in Britain, Mr. Brown has voiced sympathy for the Tibetan protests. He has also said that he will meet the Dalai Lama in Britain next month, and that he has informed China’s leaders.

The most intense scuffles in London occurred as the torch moved through the heart of the city. The torch, which was carried by a chain of British sports heroes and television celebrities, was protected by an inner guard of Chinese security men in blue and white Olympic tracksuits and an outer cordon of yellow-jacketed British police officers. Some were on foot, while others rode bicycles, motorbikes or horses.

For one long stretch, where streets narrowed and crowds were heavy, the torch was placed in the back of a single-decker bus and driven past the crowds until the police judged it safe for the runners to resume.

The warmest reception for the torch came as it passed through the Chinatown area of central London -- a diversion adopted to let the Chinese ambassador to Britain carry the torch.

A Chinese spokesman, Qu Yingpu, said Chinese officials were grateful to the police “for their efforts to keep order.” He added: “This is not the right time, the right platform, for any people to voice their political views.”

One protester who broke through the police cordon, David Allen, said his anger flared at the sight of British sports stars being guarded in London by Chinese security men.

“It makes us complicit in the regime’s repression,” Allen said. ”You have to ask: Where were these security men last week? Beating up people in the villages of China, no doubt.”

Katrin Bennhold reported from Paris, and John F. Burns from London. Jim Yardley contributed reporting from Beijing.

Cesar Chavez march

2008-04-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

Cesar Chavez Pilgrimage March on Saturday, April 5

On Behalf Of OPR Pitzer Office of Public Relations

Speakers, Singers, and Music to Highlight Cesar Chavez Pilgrimage March

As part of celebrating the legacy of civil rights leader Cesar Chavez,
the Latina/o Roundtable and LCLAA (Labor Council for Latin American
Advancement) are holding the sixth annual Cesar Chavez Pilgrimage
March on Saturday April 5, beginning at 9:30 a. m., from Pomona City
Hall (Mission and Garey) to Cesar Chavez Park (Valley Blvd. and 57
Freeway). The speakers include: Paul Chavez, son of Cesar Chavez and
President of the National Farmworker's Service Center, Amanda Figueroa,
SEIU United Long Term Care Worker's Secretary-Treasurer, and Father
Patricio Guillen. The musical groups include: La Paz, a hip-hop group
from the farmworker movement; Trio del Pueblo, a group celebrating its
20 years of presentations throughout the Southwest and Mexico; and Las
Hermanas Arteaga, three Latina women singers from the city of Pomona.

Throughout the history of Cesar Chavez's community organizing efforts,
he used long pilgrimages as a means of bringing attention to the many
issues facing our communities. As part of commemorating the life of
Cesar Chavez, the pilgrimage march in Pomona will remember his legacy
through promoting non-violence and peace in our communities and abroad,
using our lives in building unity among people of all backgrounds, and
in supporting legalization rights for immigrants. The march will begin
at Pomona city hall with speakers and music. The procession will
proceed on the sidewalk west on Mission Blvd. to White Ave., North on
White Ave., and East on Holt Ave. (which becomes Valley Blvd. to Cesar
Chavez Park. The march will end at Cesar Chavez park with speakers,
musical groups, and poetry. The celebration is co-sponsored by the
Pomona Economic Opportunity Center and Campus Life Committee.

Modern Slaves: An Interview with Benjamin Skinner

2008-03-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

From Salon.com

Hardly a thing of the past, slavery thrives in our world. Investigative reporter Benjamin Skinner tells Salon the shocking truth about human trafficking.

By Hannah Wallace

Mar. 27, 2008 | During the four years that Benjamin Skinner researched modern-day slavery for his new book, "A Crime So Monstrous," he posed as a buyer at illegal brothels on several continents, interviewed convicted human traffickers in a Romanian prison and endured giardia, malaria, dengue and a bad motorcycle accident. But Skinner, an investigative journalist, is most haunted by his experience in a seedy brothel in Bucharest, Romania, where he was offered a young woman with Down syndrome in exchange for a used car.

"There are more slaves today than at any point in human history," writes Skinner, citing a recent estimate that there are currently 27 million worldwide. One hundred and forty-three years after the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed in 1865 and 60 years after the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights banned the slave trade worldwide, slavery -- or, as it is euphemistically called, human trafficking -- is actually thriving. It is, as Hillary Clinton has said, "the dark underbelly of globalization."

That slavery in its many forms -- debt bondage, forced domestic servitude and forced prostitution -- still exists is, indeed, shocking, mostly because it is invisible to those of us who don't know where to look for it. Skinner's great achievement is that he shines a light on the international slave trade, exposing the horrors of bondage not only through assiduous reporting and interviews with modern-day abolitionists and government officials, but by sharing the stories of several survivors. These poignant tales -- of people like Muong, a 12-year-old Dinka boy from southern Sudan, who is abducted (with his brother and mother) by an Arab slave driver; Tatiana, an Eastern European woman who is tricked into slavery when her boyfriend of six months finds her an "au pair" job in Amsterdam; and Gonoo, an Indian man in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh who inherits a debt from his father and spends his days working it off at a stone quarry -- illustrate the harsh realities of slavery while also offering some hope that former slaves can rebuild their lives.

Salon sat down with Skinner to talk about modern-day abolitionists, what's wrong with redemptions (also called "buy backs"), and why he's optimistic that slavery can be eradicated.

You infiltrated many dangerous underworlds to get these stories, often putting your life at risk by chatting up child slave brokers and negotiating to buy young women from a Russian mobster in Istanbul who'd just been released from prison. Which situation, in retrospect, was the most harrowing?

There were definitely some moments where I felt I'd made a mistake in terms of personal safety. At this point, though, I have to say that the people who are most in danger in these situations are the slaves themselves. My greatest concern going in was not "Am I going to come out whole?" but "Is there going to be some retaliation against the slaves if my cover is blown?"

I had a principle that I would not pay for a human life. You buy a human being and you can't just set them free and dump them on the economy with no resources, no support system, no rehabilitation.

When I was offered this young woman in trade for a used car at the Romani brothel in Bucharest, I could have done one of a few things: I could've paid to redeem her. I was with a couple of guys and I could've fought physically with the traffickers to get her out. Or I could've gone to the police the next day to tell them, which is what I did.

Very unsatisfying, that. You want to rip this guy's head off, right? I was shown this woman who had scars all over her arm -- she was clearly trying to kill herself to escape daily rape, and she had Down syndrome. I was so in shock. I was undercover and I had this moment where I thought, "What would my character be doing in this situation?" So I tried to smile. And I physically couldn't. I was so horrified. I looked at my translator, who had not done this kind of work before, and there was just sheer horror on his face as well. To see somebody who is in such a condition. They had put makeup on her and her makeup was running because she was crying so much.

Did the police do anything?

The response from the police was, "These are the Roma, they have their laws, they have their blood." The Roma are this incredibly oppressed and marginalized community within Romania -- and have been for centuries. That's why, I think, the major human traffickers in Romania over the past several years have been Roma.

I kept thinking of Samantha Power's book as I was reading this because you describe the reluctance of government officials to use the term "slavery" to describe what is obviously exactly that. (Power describes the same studied avoidance of the word "genocide" in "A Problem From Hell.") Colin Powell didn't use "slavery" in 2001 when he released the first Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. Even the major piece of U.S. anti-slavery legislation, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, doesn't use the word "slavery."

There are over a dozen universal conventions and over 300 international treaties that have been signed banning slavery and the slave trade. We've all agreed that this is a crime of universal concern and it requires a robust response to stop it.

The U.S. has actually gotten better at using the term "slavery" when it's appropriate. One group that has not gotten better in this regard -- they've taken baby steps -- has been the U.N. They are so tepid and afraid of offending member states. Even in a case like Sudan, which was as egregious a form of slavery and slave raiding as you've had in the late 20th century. In 1999, at the height of slave raiding, the U.N. Human Rights Commission said, "OK, we will no longer refer to slavery, we will refer to intertribal abductions." And if you talk to U.N. officials behind the scenes, they'll say that the logic behind this is that in order to move the issue forward, we had to be diplomatic and reach this middle ground. The problem with that logic is that you lose all leverage. Abduction is not a crime against humanity -- slavery is. If it's a crime against humanity, you get hit pretty hard.

How would you get hit very hard?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4, says slavery and the slave trade are banned worldwide. But actually, you're bringing up a good point. In terms of enforcement, the U.N. doesn't have the kind of systems built into it which can really deal with this, and that's a problem.

The U.N., which has, as part of its original mandate, the eradication of slavery and the slave trade, finds itself now at a stage where there are more slaves today than at any point in human history. And it really makes you question the viability of the model and the strength of the system.

There are philosophical differences about how to combat slavery. Some people, such as Michael Horowitz (the neocon abolitionist), have focused exclusively on sex trafficking, hoping there will be a "ripple effect" with other forms of slavery such as debt bondage and forced domestic servitude.

Nonsense.

But how do you explain this myopia? You cite so much research that shows that the other forms of slavery are even more prevalent -- in the U.S., you say, less than half of American slaves are forced prostitutes.

I don't think enough reports have come out and the ones that have come out haven't been in the right places. I think when you start getting the 700 Club talking about how the slavery of a young man in a quarry in India -- or in a brick kiln or on a farm -- is equivalent to the slavery of the Israelites and you start quoting Bible verses, then maybe we'll be getting somewhere.

Another philosophical divide among modern-day abolitionists has to do with the role of poverty. The late Senator Wellstone, who co-sponsored the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, was adamant that poverty was a central factor but Horowitz disagreed, vehemently. Why do you think that is? It seems so obvious that poverty is the very reason so many people are forced and hoodwinked into slavery.

Paul Wellstone's view of this was basically that you can't address slavery without having targeted anti-poverty programs. When I presented this to Horowitz, he slammed his desk and said something to the effect of "The Paul Krugmans of the world would love for this to be a means for me redistributing my income to Sri Lanka." And I'll give him this: I understand his point that the end of slavery cannot wait for the end of poverty. That's not what I'm calling for and I don't think that's what Senator Wellstone was calling for.

But if you don't recognize that the primary driver of slavery today is the nexus between withering poverty of extreme marginalized communities with unscrupulous criminals, and you don't address both sides of it -- the criminal side and the socioeconomic side -- you're not going to solve this problem. As long as there's a ready source of people who are so desperate for survival that they will sell their children into slavery, as long as you don't address that, you will always have slavery. And I fundamentally feel that slavery can be ended.

Do you think the TVPA's three-tiered anti-slavery system, which evaluates countries' efforts to eradicate slavery and imposes non-trade sanctions on those who don't do anything to abolish it, works?

I think it's a good thing, but I honesty feel it has outlived its usefulness. You can only slap a country lightly on its wrists so many times and have them notice. After a while it totally loses its effectiveness.

Let's talk about the practice of Redemptions. Are these still going on and is it a viable way to chip away at slavery, buying a slave's freedom one at a time?

There's a long history of it, and not all of it is bad. I find it a very imperfect and unjust way of freeing people. You are essentially acknowledging the right of property in man, by buying them. In recent history, I can't think of any instances where it has worked and been unproblematic.

It's mostly happening in Sudan, right?

New York Times columnist Nick Kristof did it, of course, in Cambodia where he went in and bought two girls in a brothel. And he went back a year later and found that one of the girls was back in the brothel and hooked on methamphetamines.

To take our own history, Lincoln had contemplated buying all slaves from their masters and then setting them free in either Haiti or Liberia. But I think at a certain point -- and I defer to civil war scholars on this -- he realized that this was very much an imperfect justice and what needed to happen was the remaking, through force, of a society that would acknowledge that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, which was the initial promise, of course, of the Declaration of Independence.

What you have in Sudan are these evangelicals coming over with tons of hard currency in the middle of a war zone, going to one of the combatants -- in particular, one small faction of the combatants -- and saying, "OK, here's a ton of money, now go get us some slaves."

Basically funding the militia.

Exactly. And even if every one of those people was a slave and everything was on the up and up ... the devil is in the details.

You'd think that the hardest part would be freeing slaves. But once they're free, their lives are never easy. At one point in the Sudan section you say "free, but free to starve." What seems to you the best solution for helping former slaves deal with their new-found freedom?

Giving them some access to credit, healthcare, property rights and education. And psychological help.

In many of these far-off places where I was, the arbiters of law -- the people who set the rules -- are people who are benefiting from a slave economy. As long as that's the situation, you need to break the grip of those people over the system.

In your epilogue, you say, "George W. Bush did more to free modern-day slaves than any other president." However, you also criticize the Bush administration for focusing on sex trafficking to the exclusion of other forms of bondage.

The bar isn't very high. Only at the end of the Clinton years was there a recognition on the part of the executive branch that this was really an issue. But Bush deserves credit. He did more to free slaves than any president in modern history. But history doesn't grade on a curve on the subject of abolition. And he could have and should have done much more -- there's no question. The fact that there was such a narrow focus really hamstrung his efficacy on this.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has called trafficking "the dark underbelly of globalization."

Which presidential candidate -- Clinton, Obama or McCain -- do you think is most passionate about abolishing modern-day slavery?

Listen, I'm not going to give Obama a pass on this. It's not clear to me that he cares about modern-day slavery -- he hasn't said a word about it. And Hillary has, certainly in the last couple of years. Though not on the trail.

But I think it is a mistake to make this a campaign issue. I think it has to be a big piece of our American foreign policy platform. It needs to be fundamentally a central piece of any meaningful new American foreign policy.

And what about John McCain?

Well, he blurbed my book. John McCain is very close with John Miller, the former head of the TIP office, which is a good sign. But no, he hasn't been a leader on this.

One of the things I found hopeful about the book is that while it's important to make policy changes and create tough anti-slavery laws, NGOs and individuals clearly play a vital role in exposing slavery. People like Rampal in India (the activist who runs Sankalp) and the Amsterdam taxi driver who helps Kayta, a sex slave, buy her freedom. So the role of the individual is important.

It is, it's extremely important. If there's a critical thing from that U.S. chapter that I was trying to get across, it's that this doesn't have to be some kind of neo-McCarthyism where you are spying on your neighbors, but just be aware of what's going on in your community.

I talk about three things that individuals can and should do. The first is becoming conscious of the reality of slavery -- becoming more attuned to the signs of what may be a trafficking or slavery situation. A key part of that is getting educated about slavery. The second thing is pressing elected officials and candidates for office on what they're going to do about it -- what creative approaches they have for combatting modern-day slavery and ending it within a generation. The third things is supporting groups like Free the Slaves (Kevin Bales' group) and Anti-Slavery International.

Abolishing slavery is clearly an all-consuming issue, something that often drives people who are involved with it to burn out or go crazy or both. How have you kept your sanity during the four years of researching this book?

The question is really how these people that operate at the pointed end of the spear keep their sanity. And the people who run trafficking shelters in Romania -- who have weekly or monthly threats from traffickers -- how they keep their sanity. For me it was much easier. You go into these situations and certainly it stays with you. When you meet somebody like this young woman in the Bucharest brothel or Gonoo or the trafficker in Haiti who offered to sell me a child for $50.

What drove you to take on this project?

You could say that abolition is in my blood. My great-great-grandfather fought with the Union Army in the Siege of Petersburg [Va.]. His uncle was a rabble-rousing abolitionist in Connecticut. And I was raised Quaker. The Quakers were the heart of the abolitionist movement in the late 18th century, early 19th century.

Fast-forward to 1999. I read Kevin Bales' "Disposable People," which is an incredibly good, earnest take on modern-day slavery worldwide. Bales' estimate of total number of slaves was 27 million -- a staggering number. The one thing that I wanted to do was to put a human face on that: to tell the stories of the slaves, the slave masters and the slave traders. And to tell the stories of those who try to free them.

Copyright ©2008 Salon Media Group, Inc. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. SALON® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon Media Group Inc.

Help Kentucky Divest for Darfur!

2008-03-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

The Kentucky Senate will vote on a crucial divestment resolution THIS WEEK. We need your help to make sure the Kentucky Senate approves the resolution and passes it into law!

Call 800-372-7181 to send your senators a message TODAY!

24 states have already divested for Darfur and now it's Kentucky's turn!

Kentucky's House of Representatives has passed a resolution to withdraw public funds from companies that work with Sudan's genocidal government. The state Senate must now make the resolution legally binding so Kentucky can divest from genocide.

The Kentucky Senate will vote on this resolution THIS WEEK. Please call your state senator today to help Kentucky divest for Darfur!

Just follow these simple steps:

1. Call 800-372-7181 between 9 a.m. and 11 p.m.
2. Tell the staffer who answers the phone that you are calling to urge all senators to:
1. Support H.B. 703, Kentucky's targeted Sudan divestment resolution that the House of Representatives passed two weeks ago.
2. Strengthen the resolution to make it legally binding.
3. Click here to report your call back to us (this step is extremely important for organization purposes. Please don't skip it.)

Strong divestment legislation in Kentucky can create economic pressure on Khartoum to end the genocide. It will require Kentucky's pension funds to divest from companies that have a business relationship with the Sudanese government, fail to support Sudanese civilians, and fail to enact strong corporate governance policies regarding the genocide in Darfur.

Divestment strategies helped end apartheid in South Africa, and they can help end genocide in Sudan.

Make sure the Kentucky Senate meets our responsibility to act against genocide. Click here to send your message TODAY!

After you have sent your message, please click here to ask your friends and family to join you in urging their senators to help Kentucky divest for Darfur.

Thank you for your continued commitment to the people of Darfur.

Best regards,

Colleen Connors
Save Darfur Coalition

The Save Darfur Coalition is an alliance of over 180 faith-based, advocacy and human rights organizations whose mission is to raise public awareness about the ongoing genocide in Darfur and to mobilize a unified response to the atrocities that threaten the lives of more than two million people in the Darfur region. To learn more, please visit http://www.SaveDarfur.org.

Boingboing.net covers Tibet protests

2008-03-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

Tibet: China blocks YouTube, protests spread, bloggers react
Posted by Xeni Jardin, March 16, 2008 9:50 AM | permalink

Here is a phonecam video of protests in Amdo, Tibet, over the weekend.

* According to Shanghaiist (and now, mainstream news outlets), YouTube was blocked in China over the weekend, likely because of content related to the flood of pro-Tibetan-sovereignty protests in Tibet and elsewhere:

International news channels such as CNN and BBC are also getting routinely blacked out. While we think this is a really poor way to deal with all the shit that's going on, we have been there many, many times, and survived. Time to turn on your VPN again, people! An

* John Kennedy at Global Voices confirms the YouTube block:

As Tibet transitioned into total lockdown and videos of the violent situation proliferated on YouTube, people began noticing Saturday afternoon in China that the video-sharing website could not be accessed. Tech blogger Rick Martin on the CNET Asia Little Red Blog has done some tests which confirm what many have assumed.

* Rebecca McKinnon at Global Voices has an excellent roundup of reactions in the Chinese blogosphere:

For those living in the West who didn't realize that there's little sympathy for Tibet independence among ethnic Chinese in the PRC, this blog post on Global Voices will be a shocker. John Kennedy has translated chatter from Chinese blogs and chatrooms that generally runs along the lines of: those ungrateful minorities, we give them modern conveniences and look how they thank us... where have we heard this before? Reuters has a roundup on the Washington Post that begins: "a look at Chinese blogs reveals a vitriolic outpouring of anger and nationalism directed against Tibetans and the West." (...)

"Davesgonechina" at the Tenement Palm blog has been translating the chatter coming from Chinese netizens on Fanfou and Jiwai - Chinese versions of Twitter. Click here, here, and here, specifically. Dave has done more than translate: he points out that this Tibet situation is a real challenge to all people who believe that the Internet can help foster free speech and bring about better global understanding. Here is his challenge to all of us...

* On Friday, protest in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, erupted into violence when police, army troops, and ethnic Tibetan demonstrators clashed. Some accounts place the death toll at 30, some at 100, some at 300. It's hard to separate rumor from truthful first-hand account, and hard to know exactly how many have been killed or injured, because communication in the region is so difficult. Foreign journalists are not allowed in, unaccompanied by official escorts. Internet and phone communications are routinely blocked by Chinese authorities when unrest occurs; some blogging tourists in Lhasa wanting to upload photos of what they witnessed have reported the presence of authorities inside 'net cafes. Pro-Tibetan-sovereignty sites like TCHRD, SFT, and Phayul are posting first-person accounts online. Some of those reports are difficult to independently confirm, given the circumstances. The website of the Central Tibetan Administration (part of the government in exile, led by the Dalai Lama, based in India) posts this update.

* The unrest spread this weekend to regions outside Lhasa: police and protesters also clashed in China's Sichuan and Qinghai provinces, and Gansu province, all of which have large ethnic Tibetan populations. On Saturday...

Demonstrations erupted for the second consecutive day in the city of Xiahe in Gansu Province, where an estimated 4,000 Tibetans gathered near the Labrang Monastery. Local monks had held a smaller protest on Friday, but the confrontation escalated Saturday afternoon, according to witnesses and Tibetans in India who spoke with protesters by telephone.

Residents in Xiahe, reached by telephone, heard loud noises similar to gunshots or explosions. A waitress described the scene as “chaos” and said many injured people had been sent to a local hospital.

* China's government has declared a "people's war" against the Tibetan independence movement, in "propaganda and security" measures, and has implemented what amounts to martial law in Lhasa.

"Fight a people's war to oppose separatism and protect stability ... expose and condemn the malicious actions of these forces and expose the hideous face of the Dalai clique to broad daylight," senior regional and security officials announced after a meeting, according to the official Tibet Daily on Sunday.

* China's governor in Tibet promises harsh consequences for protest participants who do not turn themselves in by Tuesday.

* Speaking to reporters today in Dharamsala, India, the home of the Tibetan Government in Exile, the Dalai Lama called for an international inquiry into the current human rights conditions in Tibet.

''Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place,'' said the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. He was referring to China's policy of encouraging the ethnic Han majority to migrate to Tibet, restrictions on Buddhist temples and re-education programs for monks.

* George Bush removed China from a human rights blacklist just three days before the bloodshed in Lhasa.

UPDATE: Boing Boing reader Adam writes,

I am visiting Beijing on business, and staying at a hotel that caters to Westerners. There have been reports that China was loosening controls on the media ahead of the Olympic games, in order to give visitors the impression that the media is unrestricted, but that is not the case in the last day.

While watching CNN in my hotel room, the station goes dark during the top-of-the-hour news flash on the riots, then returns when the synopsis of "what's to come" is given about other stories, and then goes dark again while the coverage switches to Lhasa.

Coverage returns with the anchor asking users to send in their first-hand reports to ireport.com, after all mention of the incident is over. Same results for BBC as well.

The China Daily newspaper I grabbed from the lounge has a small article on the bottom of the front page, titled "Dalai Lama behind sabotage", and states that his "clique" has "organized, premeditated, and masterminded" the beatings, looting, and arson, which "has aroused the indignation of, and is strongly condemned by, the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet."

* Reports estimate that 20,000 Chinese troops have now been deployed to Lhasa (thanks, Christal).

* UPDATE 2 (8pm PT Sunday March 16): BB reader Nick Dobson says,

Besides Youtube, it appears The Guardian and Boingboing have been added to the blocked list in China. ([I'm in] Suzhou, Jiangsu, China)

Protests in Tibet

2008-03-12T16:33:00.000-07:00

The above video is a rare recording of a protest in Tibet against Chinese rule, taken by a tourist. Check out Students for a Free Tibet for more information.

A Chance to Reclaim Moral Leadership: Vetoed

2008-03-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030800304.html?hpid=topnews

Bush today vetoed a bill that would have explicitly banned the torture technique of waterboarding. I am disgusted and worry about our nation's moral leadership. America grew into a world leader, inspiring the world with our ideals. Human dignity is a chief component of American ideology. We cannot sacrifice an ideal to defend it.

We can redeem our government if we, as a nation, recognize the hypocrisy in the government's actions. We can restore out integrity. Past presidents have done so, including President Theodore Roosevelt. Upon hearing about abuses; the use of waterboarding, actually; Roosevelt investigated, and made sure that those responsible were punished so that others would know that human rights abuses are unacceptable. (see http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6647.html)

A very poignant line in the Washington Post, article, is actually about the security dangers of using such techniques:

"Retired Army Lt. Gen. Harry E. Soyster, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, suggested that those who support harsh methods simply lack experience and do not know what they are talking about. 'If they think these methods work, they're woefully misinformed,"'Soyster said at a news briefing called in anticipation of the veto. 'Torture is counterproductive on all fronts. It produces bad intelligence. It ruins the subject, makes them useless for further interrogation. And it damages our credibility around the world.'"

I worry for our country. Let me end with a Lincoln quote that is supported by Lt. Gen. Soyster's argument:

"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."

Students Craft Internships to Fit Interests

2008-03-06T20:47:00.000-08:00

Today's Wall Street Journal featured the HGHR Center's Student Advisory Board member Ritika Puri. Ritika actually was offered an AnneMerie Donoghue Fellowship grant for this internship but opted to take the McKenna International instead (she won both) so that more people could receive funding from the Center for human rights internships. Congratulations on the article, Ritika, and on creating such an amazing internship!

Job Description? Some Applicants Write Their Own
By ANJALI ATHAVALEY

From The Wall Street Journal

Heather Day's ideal summer internship didn't exist. So she created it herself.

A junior at Connecticut College in New London, Conn., Ms. Day wanted to combine her love for hip-hop music with her interest in helping children. After being unable to find a suitable program, she sent out cover letters and résumés to eight nonprofit art-education groups in New York, Washington and Atlanta, none of which had a formal internship program.

Art Start, a New York nonprofit that educates disadvantaged children about the arts, agreed to take her on as an intern this summer. In addition to planning a fund-raiser and creating a curriculum for the nonprofit's fall session of classes, she will be running a monthlong hip-hop workshop for children.

Ritika Puri interned at Adharshila, a New Delhi-based nonprofit that offers health and education services for residents of a local slum.

"Hip hop is a great way to relate to a lot of people," says Ms. Day, an American studies major with a minor in human development. Although the internship is unpaid, Connecticut College is giving Ms. Day, 20 years old, a $3,000 stipend to help cover her living expenses.

Special Interests

With education growing more specialized, students are increasingly looking for internships that allow them to focus on their specific areas of study. When those opportunities aren't available, they are approaching companies and nonprofits to create their own internships, colleges and universities say.

The option "appeals to almost any liberal-arts student who isn't interested in going the business route because gaining experience in the field that you are interested in is challenging, often," says Beth Ricca, associate director of career services and director of internships and volunteer programs at Claremont McKenna College, a liberal-arts college in Claremont, Calif.

The trend comes at a time when employers are increasingly looking for new hires with internship experience. Often, a summer job can turn into a full-time one. Employers hired 47% of their interns from the class of 2006, up from 36% in 2000, according to a National Association of Colleges and Employers survey released in June. On average, 62% of college hires have had some internship experience in the past, according to the survey.

But convincing an employer to create an internship can be difficult -- especially for students with focused majors and interests. Stew Peckham, director of career development at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, says students often submit proposals to employers stating goals and specific areas of interest. "If the student outlines that a bit, it could get them further along," he says.

While some students sit down with an employer and design a set of tasks, the internship often evolves on its own. Last summer, Ritika Puri, a 21-year-old junior and literature major at Claremont McKenna, wanted an internship related to social and economic development in India. She was particularly interested in exploring the relationship between socioeconomic status and access to education and health-care facilities. Rather than look for an established internship, "I was really interested in designing my own," says Ms. Puri.

Ms. Puri contacted Adharshila, an organization in New Delhi that assists about 400 residents in a local slum, through a family friend. She was hired to assess Adharshila's existing programs and help choose new initiatives for the organization. She went door-to-door to ask residents what services they needed the most. People said they wanted better access to health care and better tutoring services for children, she says. She obtained a $500 donation, which she used to buy school supplies for 100 children. She also helped start a health center, which receives about 20 patients a day. "My role just sort of grew while on the job," she says.

The process of creating an internship comes with challenges, though. For instance, targeting employers willing to offer specialized internships can be tough. Frannie Noble, 22, a government major at Connecticut College, wanted to find a group that would allow her to research children's rights in Africa. She sent out 20 cover letters and résumés to nonprofits in Mali and Senegal. None responded. Then, she went to Mali during the spring semester last year as part of a study-abroad program and visited some of the groups in person, trying to spark their interest.

Working in Mali

In April, the Coalition of African NGOs Working with Children invited her in for an interview and offered her a position for the summer. As part of her internship, she visited nonprofits to gather information about the biggest challenges to children's rights in Mali, including flaws in the education system, child trafficking and child labor. At the end of the internship, she submitted a research paper on her findings.

Finding funding can be difficult because it is far less likely these internships will pay. Some schools provide financial assistance, albeit to only a handful of students. Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., provide funding for select students doing unpaid internships. Individual grants are usually about $2,000 but can range up to $6,000, depending on the student's financial need.

Colleges that offer grants require students to submit proposals indicating what they hope to gain out of the internship and how it relates to their majors and career goals. The schools also help students design their programs and locate companies and groups.

Corporate Prospects

While many of the internships involve nonprofits or small companies, some students have pitched internships to larger employers -- even if their interests are unrelated to the company's core business. David Fine, who graduated last year from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., with a degree in social policy, "was pretty dead-set" on creating an internship in corporate philanthropy the summer before his senior year. Mr. Fine, 23, proposed an internship to companies in the Bay Area -- such as Levi Strauss & Co., Gap Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. -- that listed charitable initiatives on their Web sites. He told employers he wanted to learn how the private sector could address social issues.

He was hired at San Francisco natural-gas and electric utility company Pacific Gas & Electric Co., a subsidiary of PG&E Corp. His task was to restructure the company's employee-volunteer program. He also helped set up an internal site where employees could post volunteer opportunities and worked on a company initiative to help fund the creation of parks in the Bay Area. He submitted a research paper to his school at the end of the summer and received course credit for the internship.

Creating an internship tailored to his interests made him better equipped to find a full-time job in the same field, he says. Mr. Fine now works at the Center for Companies That Care, a Chicago nonprofit that helps businesses become socially responsible. "It helped me realize that this is a feasible interest to pursue and a feasible career field," he says."

Good New: Karlo Will Live

2008-03-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: March 6, 2008
From The New York Times

NUBA MOUNTAINS, Sudan

The farm families living in these rocky hills in central Sudan confront every disease imaginable, from leprosy to malaria, and perhaps one-quarter of children die by the age of five.

Yet this is a “good news” column. Karlo will live.

The number of children who die worldwide each year before the age of five has dropped below 10 million for the first time in recorded history — compared with 20 million annually in 1960 — Unicef noted in a report last month, “Child Survival.” Now the goal is to cut the death toll to four million by 2015.

Think about that accomplishment: The lives of 10 million children saved each year, 100 million lives per decade.

To put it another way, the late James P. Grant, a little-known American aid worker who headed Unicef from 1980 to 1995 and launched the child survival revolution with vaccinations and diarrhea treatments, probably saved more lives than were destroyed by Hitler, Mao and Stalin combined.

One of the lives saved this year seems to be that of Karlo, an 8-month-old baby boy who lives in a thatch-roof hut here. His older brother, Kuti, had died a few days before I arrived: Kuti was taken to the hospital and tested positive for malaria, but the doctor believed that he probably died from meningitis.

Then Karlo fell sick, and his mother was frantic at the thought that he would die as well. The father, Bolus Abdullah, was more fatalistic.

“Many children die here,” Mr. Bolus explained to me as volunteers with an American aid group, Samaritan’s Purse, drove the family to the nearest hospital over a fantastically rutted road. “But if that’s the will of God, then there’s nothing we can do.”

Yet there are things we can do — and that brings us to the American presidential campaign.

African children like Karlo may actually have more at stake in the outcome of the presidential election than children in the United States. Just imagine if the next president were to wage a serious war on malaria. At a tiny fraction of the cost of the war in Iraq (or a war on Iran!) such a campaign would save millions of lives and be a huge boost to African economies whose productivity is sapped by diseases.

The hospital to which we took Karlo is run by an aid group, German Emergency Doctors, and is run by a husband-wife team of physicians, Karl Eiter and Gabi Kortmann. The hospital, whose “wards” are thatch-roof huts with no electricity, is perched on a rural mountainside to protect it from aerial bombings by the Sudanese government. (Sudan’s main involvement in health care in contested areas like this has been to strafe hospitals.)

Dr. Eiter ordered a blood test for Karlo, and it came back positive for malaria. He gave Karlo a medication that is almost always effective against malaria here, artemisinin combination therapy, costing just 50 cents for an entire course of treatment.

Saving children’s lives in rural Africa or Asia, where millions die of ailments as simple as diarrhea, pneumonia or measles, is achingly simple and inexpensive. The starting point is vaccinations and basic sanitation.

“We never have all the vaccines that are required,” Dr. Eiter said.

For years, the rationale for opposing foreign assistance has been that it doesn’t work. It’s true that humanitarian aid is devilishly difficult to get right, money is squandered and the impact of aid is often oversold.

But President Bush’s record underscores that other policies are difficult to get right as well: Iraq is a mess, and social security reform and immigration reform both failed. Mr. Bush’s greatest single accomplishment is that his AIDS program in Africa is saving millions of lives.

That makes it all the more stunning that Mr. Bush’s proposed budget for 2009 cuts U.S. funding for child and maternal health programs around the world by nearly 18 percent.

Fortunately, all the candidates are saying the right things about malaria, AIDS and support for education in Africa (although John McCain is fuzzier about commitments). You can compare the candidates’ positions on global humanitarian issues at www.onevote08.org.

Voters should remember this: A president may or may not be able to improve schools or protect manufacturing jobs in Ohio, but a president probably could help wipe out malaria. Compared with other challenges a president faces, saving a million children’s lives a year is the low-hanging fruit.

Karlo, bouncing in his mother’s lap, underscores the hope. With the medicine, he recovered quickly and was sent home from the hospital after a few days. The news here is simple and giddy ... he’s alive!

China and Human Rights Symposium Starts Today!

2008-03-06T10:00:00.000-08:00

CHINA AND HUMAN RIGHTS: A SYMPOSIUM

Sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies, the Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children, and the Kravis Leadership Institute

To be held at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, Claremont McKenna College

Thursday, March 6, 2008

3:00–4:45 pm: China, Economics, and Human Rights
Panel sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights

William Ascher, Donald C. McKenna Professor of Government and Economics, Claremont McKenna College; How So-Called "Economic Rights" Have Infringed upon Political and Human Rights
Richard Burdekin, Jonathan B. Lovelace Professor of Economics, Claremont McKenna College; Financial Market Fluctuations and Chinese Government Policy Shifts
Jerry Fowler, Executive Director, Save Darfur Coalition; China and Darfur
Jonathan Petropoulos, John V. Croul Professor of European History and Director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, Claremont McKenna College; Moderator

Evening keynote speaker at the Athenaeum, 6:00–8:00 pm:

Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Center for U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society; former Dean (1996–2006), Graduate School of Journalism, U.C. Berkeley; author, Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood (2000) and Mandate of Heaven: A New Generation ofEntrepreneurs, Dissidents, Technocrats, and Bohemians Grasp for Power in China (1995); "The Global Environmental Consequences of China's "Right" to Development." Sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies

Friday, March 7, 2008

9:00–10:30 am: China: State, Human Rights, and the Beijing Olympics
Panel sponsored by the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies

Richard Baum, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles; Human Rights and the Beijing Olympics
Stanley Rosen, Professor of Political Science and Director of the East Asian Studies Center, University of Southern California; Changing State-Society Relations and the Rights of Chinese Citizens
Chae-Jin Lee, BankAmerica Professor of Pacific Basin Studies and Director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies, Claremont McKenna College; Moderator

10:30–10:45 am: Coffee break

10:45 am–12:15 pm: Intellectual Life and Politics in Contemporary China
Panel sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies

Gao ErTai, Writer/Painter/Art Critic; The Artist in Chinese Society
Wang Chaohua, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Civil Rights and Human Rights: Before and After Tiananmen
Lindsay Waters, Executive Director for Humanities, Harvard University Press; Confucianism, Humanism, and Democracy
Gloria Davies, Associate Professor, School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University; Affirming the Human in Chinese Intellectual Discourse
Kang Zhengguo, Senior lector, East Asian languages and literature, Yale University
Theodore Huters, Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures, UCLA; Co-moderator
Robert Faggen, Barton Evans and H. Andrea Neves Professor of Literature and Director of the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, Claremont McKenna College; Co-moderator

12:15–1:30 pm: Lunch

1:30–3:00 pm: Society and Human Rights I
Panel sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights and the Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children

Melinda Herrold-Menzies, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Pitzer College; Human Rights and Nature Preserves in China
Theresa Harris, Director, International Justice Project at the World Organization for Human Rights; China and the Internet
Susan Greenhalgh, Professor of Anthropology, University of California-Irvine; China's "One Child" Policy
Sherylle Tan, Associate Director of the Berger Institute for Work, Family and Children, Claremont McKenna College; Moderator

3:15–4:45 pm: Society and Human Rights II
Panel sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies

Dai Qing, Journalist/Activist; The Three Gorges Dam and Human Survival
Han Dongfang, Workers' Rights Activist; Labor Movements in China
Dorothy Solinger, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Irvine; The Right to Livelihood: Is It Being Met?
Thomas Bernstein, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University; Peasants, Human Rights, and Abusive Officials
Arthur Rosenbaum, Associate Professor of History, Claremont McKenna College; Moderator

Evening keynote speaker at the Athenaeum, 6:00–8:00 pm:

Roderick MacFarquhar, Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science; director, John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University; coauthor, Mao's Last Revolution (2006) and editor, The Politics of China: The Eras of Mao and Deng (1997); "Political Reform: Past, Present—Future?" Sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies

Cuba and Human Rights: A Shift?

2008-02-28T20:10:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7270179.stm

This is good news to hear. Although it leaves me with more questions than answers, a question on the possibility of improved human rights is better than certainty of their denial.

As would be expected, the Cuban government denies this is a shift and asserts this is merely a formality. Of course no government, especially a totalitarian one, is going to admit guilt for a half century of human rights abuses while the same people are in power. So, we can write the denial of shift off as what is actually a mere formality.

So the question has become, was the signing of the agreement a mere PR scheme, or was it the sign that some people in the Cuban administration are actually seeking a change of direction? The release of prisoners might be one test to see if a real shift is in the works. However, perhaps the Cuban government will hold on to these prisoners to save face and be more lax on future dissidents. Let me elaborate: if those in prison are released, it would signify a shift that is being denied. Thus, to "prove" that they were not denied their rights, the Cuban government keep them in jail, with Raul and company claiming to carry out justice. However, they may become more lax on future political dissidents.

All this is mere speculation. Obviously, I would like to see a major shift including the release of all political prisoners. I see this as unlikely, as the shift in power didn't seem to be a very meaningful one. Yet, this article surprised me and caught my attention. These were just some some thoughts on a possible scenario off the top of my head. What do you think? Leave a comment.

Australia Says ‘Sorry’ to Aborigines for Mistreatment

2008-02-27T12:45:00.000-08:00

By TIM JOHNSTON
Published: February 13, 2008
SYDNEY, Australia — Prime Minister Kevin Rudd opened a new chapter in Australia’s tortured relations with its indigenous peoples on Wednesday with a comprehensive and moving apology for past wrongs and a call for bipartisan action to improve the lives of Australia’s Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
A crowd outside Parliament listened to the apology read by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to the Aborgines of Australia.
“The Parliament is today here assembled to deal with this unfinished business of the nation, to remove a great stain from the nation’s soul, and in a true spirit of reconciliation to open a new chapter in the history of this great land, Australia,” Mr. Rudd told Parliament.
This was “Government business, motion No. 1,” the first act of Mr. Rudd’s Labor government, which was sworn in Tuesday after a convincing electoral win over the 11-year administration of John Howard, who had for years refused to apologize for the misdeeds of past governments.
Mr. Rudd’s apology was particularly addressed to the so-called Stolen Generations, the tens of thousands of indigenous children who were removed, sometimes forcibly, from their families in a policy of assimilation that only ended in the 1970s.
In some states it was part of a policy to “breed out the color,” in the words of Cecil Cook, who held the title of chief protector of Aborigines in the Northern Territory in the 1930s.
“We apologize especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country,” Mr. Rudd said as hundreds of members of the Stolen Generations listened in the gallery, some with tears in their eyes. “For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
“To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry. And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.”
The 4-minute apology, and the 20-minute speech that followed, received a standing ovation both inside the chamber and from the hundreds gathered on the grounds of Parliament House in the capital, Canberra.
“I thought it was fantastic,” said Kirstie Parker, the managing editor of the influential Aboriginal newspaper The Koori Mail.
She said that it was not just the apology that was important: Mr. Rudd recounted stories of the victims, Ms. Parker noted, bringing the reality of the misdeeds to light and publicly confronting those who deny what happened.
But for some people, Mr. Rudd’s apology will not have gone far enough because he has ruled out setting up a government fund to compensate the victims of the policies that led to the Stolen Generations.
“There are many people who are saying that they must back this up with compensation,” Ms. Parker said. “I get a distinct feeling among Aboriginal people that they feel that compensation is an absolute possibility, notwithstanding the prime minister’s very vehement statement about not considering it.”
The Howard government had refused to apologize, partially because it did not feel responsible for the misdeeds of past administrations, but also because it feared that the move could lead to sizable compensation claims.
Last year, a court in South Australia awarded 525,000 Australian dollars to Bruce Trevorrow, who was taken from his mother when he was a baby, for unlawful treatment and false imprisonment.
Mr. Howard’s government had been criticized for an intervention in the Northern Territory that curtailed the rights of many indigenous communities, including quarantining half of welfare payments to ensure they were spent on food. Mr. Rudd’s government has promised to review the intervention.
Mr. Rudd recognized that the apology itself was symbolic, and he asked the opposition to move beyond partisan politics.
Mr. Rudd suggested a “war cabinet” on indigenous policy led by himself and the opposition leader, Brendan Nelson of the Liberal Party. Mr. Nelson agreed.
And there are deep challenges. Many indigenous Australians live on the margins of society. Aboriginal life expectancy is 17 years shorter than for other Australians, indigenous unemployment runs three times the rate of the country as a whole and the incidence of crime and alcoholism is significantly higher in indigenous communities.

A $12 Billion History Lesson

2008-02-25T09:42:00.000-08:00

A $12 billion history lesson

By Timothy W. Ryback and Elazar Barkan

Monday, February 25, 2008
From the International Herald Tribune

Last week, a senior French official flew to Istanbul to discuss Turkey's exclusion of Gaz de France from an $12 billion pipeline project - designed to bring Central Asian oil directly to European markets - because of recent French legislation making it a criminal offense to deny that the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in 1915 constituted genocide.

The Turkish government clearly takes history seriously. Just last October, when the United States Congress considered a bill similar to the French genocide legislation - without the punitive dimension - Turkey threatened to restrict airspace vital to the American military efforts in Iraq. Washington backed off.

Turkey objects to the term "genocide" to describe the historical tragedy it calls the "events of 1915." Ankara is resolute in defending this stance and has mirror legislation to that of France making it a criminal offense to use the term "genocide." Turkey does not deny that hundreds of thousands of men, women and children perished in a series of population transfers across a rugged mountain region, but it blames the deaths on the tragic combination of bureaucratic ineptness and particularly harsh climatic conditions.

For Armenians, as well as nearly two dozen other countries ranging from Australia to Venezuela, this was "genocide" plain and simple. This clash of historical narratives has become more than academic, as France and the United States have recently learned.

George Orwell warned us about mixing history and politics, but after nearly a century, it is perhaps time for governments and scholars to cooperate in resolving this dispute by establishing an international historical commission to explore these issues in a sustained, comprehensive and, most important, cooperative matter, as the Czechs and Germans did with their joint historical commission in the 1990s when similar tensions strained their relations.

Unlike the Nazi persecution of the Jews, which was determined to have constituted genocide by an international tribunal in Nuremburg, and subsequent tribunals that made similar determinations for Rwanda and for Srebrenica in the former Yugoslavia, the Armenian genocide, or "events of 1915," has never been subjected to similar international historical or legal scrutiny. There have been judgments rendered on the tragedy, including expert opinions by the International Center for Transitional Justice and the International Association of Genocide Scholars. But there has never been a formal independent historical commission that has had access to the complete historical record or involved teams of scholars from Turkey and Armenia, like the Czech-German historical commission established to resolve historical disputes between those two countries or numerous similar commissions.

There have been several attempts in recent years by Turks and Armenians to address the issue collectively. In 2001, a Turkish-Armenian reconciliation commission was launched to great fanfare only to collapse a year later. In 2005, the late Hrant Dink joined 30 Turkish and Armenian scholars and journalists at the Salzburg Global Seminar to explore ways of advancing Turkish-Armenian dialogue. Last April, a group of Nobel laureates led by Elie Wiesel published an appeal for "understanding and reconciliation" that was publicly greeted by Turkish scholars in an open letter.

In a gesture toward dialogue, the Turkish government published full-page advertisements in major newspapers, including this one, calling for a joint Turkish-Armenian historical commission. And just this month, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reiterated this position at an international security conference in Munich.

Perhaps the time has come to take Turkey up on its offer and establish an independent, international historical commission that can explore the historical facts and legal definitions in a neutral and sustained manner and render an independent and informed opinion.

Such a commission would need to have the historical authority and legal expertise to review the historical facts and deliberate on the legal implications. It would need the cooperation of Turkey and Armenia as well as Russia, France, Britain, the United States and other countries to provide access to pertinent archives. And it would benefit from access to private archives that contain relevant documents.

History is best when it is researched and debated before it is lobbied and legislated. It will be a costly undertaking, both in terms of time and resources - there is no question about that - but as France and the United States know, unresolved historic legacies often come with an even higher price tag.

Elazar Barkan and Timothy W. Ryback co-direct the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation.

Rice, in Nairobi, Offers Incentives to End Violence

2008-02-19T10:22:00.000-08:00

NY Times
February 19, 2008

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

NAIROBI, Kenya — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held pointed talks with the leaders of Kenya’s rival political factions on Monday, and said afterward that while their differences were “not unbridgeable,” the two sides must move much faster to accept a power-sharing deal that would lead to a coalition government.

“The time for a political settlement was yesterday,” Ms. Rice said at a news conference at the home of the American ambassador here.

Ms. Rice seemed to be aiming her sharpest comments at the Kenyan government, which has widely been viewed as the obstacle to a genuine power-sharing agreement between the government and the opposition. Kenyan government officials responded by saying that they agreed a solution needed to be found as soon as possible, but sounded increasingly prickly about outside intervention.

“We will not bow down to dictation,” Martha Karua, the minister of justice and constitutional affairs, said in an interview Monday night, after sitting in on a two-hour meeting between Ms. Rice and President Mwai Kibaki. “We can listen to all our friends. We can engage with them. But the decision ultimately will be ours.”

Ms. Karua’s comments underscored the delicate task the Bush administration faces in wading into the crisis in Kenya, which erupted after a disputed presidential election in December and has cost more than 1,000 lives. With Mr. Bush already in Africa on a five-country tour to promote his foreign aid agenda, he had little choice but to make a high-profile show of concern for Kenya and announced before he left Washington that he would send Ms. Rice.

Ms. Rice knew going in that she would have to tread gingerly, and it seemed on Monday that she was bringing carrots, not sticks. As she was flying from Tanzania to Nairobi over the Serengeti, the famous game-studded plains, she insisted that she did not intend to dictate a solution and that she would instead use her meetings to dangle the prospect of additional economic help for Kenya if the rival factions could reach a compromise.

“When Kenya resolves this political conflict,” she said, “they are going to find a very supportive United States in terms of additional work on reconstruction and reconciliation support.”

Power-sharing will have to be genuine, Ms. Rice said. Both sides must have “responsibilities and authorities that matter,” she said. “It can’t be simply the illusion of power sharing. It has to be real.”

Ms. Rice said she did not want to talk about threats, sanctions or provisions that might punish Kenya’s leading politicians, who have been bitterly at odds since the election.

Hundreds of thousands have been displaced in fighting that has followed ethnic lines, segregating many areas of the country into ethnically homogenous zones. Many Kenyans believe that the only solution is for the government and opposition to share power.

Ms. Rice’s promises of more help for Kenya, which already receives more than half a billion dollars of annual American aid, fit in with President Bush’s approach of rewarding countries who embrace democracy and American-approved development programs. Though the president is trying to cement his legacy as a friend of Africa with this week’s trip, he has been criticized for not traveling to Africa’s hot spots, like Congo, Sudan and now Kenya.

Supporters of Mr. Kibaki and the top opposition leader, Raila Odinga, who lost the election amid evidence of widespread vote rigging, have battled across the country. The election dispute has stirred deep grievances over land and economic inequality that have dogged Kenya since independence in 1963.

On Monday, Ms. Rice shuttled back and forth across Nairobi, meeting with Mr. Kibaki, Mr. Odinga and Kenyan business leaders. The country’s economy, until recently one of the strongest in Africa, has been brought to its knees by the turbulence and violence.

Ms. Rice also talked with Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, who has spent the past four weeks in Kenya trying to broker a truce, and told him where she thought there were potential “points of agreement” between the parties.

The opposition has proposed a number of power-sharing possibilities, including having Mr. Kibaki remain the president, head of state and commander-in-chief of the military while Mr. Odinga becomes prime minister and is in charge of domestic affairs.

But members of Mr. Kibaki’s team have forcefully rejected that, saying they will give the opposition some cabinet posts but that the Kenyan Constitution does not allow power to be divided the way the opposition is suggesting. The fear is that unless the government gives the opposition a meaningful role in ruling the country, opposition supporters will revert to violence and Kenya will join the growing club of failed states in Africa.

Mr. Odinga has said the prime minister post is the bare minimum he would accept.
“Beyond that, we will be out of government,” he said in an interview Sunday night. He also said that Mr. Kibaki was not the stumbling block but that the problem was a small clique of “hard-liners” around Mr. Kibaki.

“I’m sure he’s willing for a power-sharing arrangement that would give him a decent way out to get our country out of this mess,” Mr. Odinga said.

Mr. Odinga gave a gloomy prognosis, saying that the negotiations would most likely fail and that Kenya would soon be ungovernable.

“The moment it is announced that the talks collapsed, I am sure there will be an eruption countrywide,” he said. “It will be chaos.”

The government has dismissed those threats and accused opposition leaders, including Mr. Odinga, of inciting their supporters to kill people of Mr. Kibaki’s ethnicity. Mr. Odinga has denied that and blamed the government for failing to protect Kenyans.

On Monday, Ms. Rice said that the back-and-forth had to end and that it was not just the American government that thought this.

“What I hear is the impatience and insistence of Kenyans that this is resolved,” she said. “It is Kenyans who are insisting that its leaders and political class find a solution.”

Kennedy Abwao contributed reporting.

Kosovo Declares Its Independence From Serbia

2008-02-19T10:20:00.000-08:00

NY Times
February 18, 2008

By DAN BILEFSKY

PRISTINA, Kosovo — The province of Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Sunday, sending tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians streaming through the streets to celebrate what they hoped was the end of a long and bloody struggle for national self-determination.

Kosovo’s bid to be recognized as Europe’s newest country — after a civil war that killed 10,000 people a decade ago and then years of limbo under United Nations rule — was the latest episode in the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia, 17 years after its dissolution began.

It brings to a climax a showdown between the West, which argues that Serbia’s brutal subjugation of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority cost it any right to rule the territory, and the Serbian government and its allies in the Kremlin. They counter that Kosovo’s independence is a reckless breach of international law that will spur other secessionist movements across the world.

As Albanians danced in the streets and fired guns in the air in the capital, Pristina, international reaction was sharply divided, suggesting that the clash between the principles of sovereignty and self-determination was far from resolved.

Britain, France and Germany were expected to be the first to recognize the new nation as early as Monday, while other nations, fearing separatist movements within their own borders, have said they will refuse. Russia demanded an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to proclaim the declaration “null and void,” but the meeting produced no resolution.
The United States and additional European Union member states were expected to recognize Kosovo’s independence in the coming days.

President Bush, speaking in Tanzania, said the United States would continue to work to prevent violence in Kosovo, while reaching out to Serbia. He said that resolving the conflict in Kosovo was essential to stability in the Balkans and that “the Serbian people can know that they have a friend in America.”

In declaring independence, Kosovo’s prime minister, Hashim Thaci, a former leader of the guerrilla force that just over 10 years ago began an armed rebellion against Serbian domination, struck a note of reconciliation. Addressing Parliament in both Albanian and Serbian, he pledged to protect the rights of Kosovo’s Serbian minority. “I feel the heartbeat of our ancestors,” he said. “We, the leaders of our people, democratically elected, through this declaration proclaim Kosovo an independent and sovereign state.”

Kosovo, a desperately poor, predominantly Muslim landlocked territory of two million, has been a United Nations protectorate since 1999, policed by 16,000 NATO troops. Its unemployment rate is about 60 percent and average monthly wage is $250.

Electricity is so undependable that lights go out in the capital several times a day. Corruption is rife and human trafficking threatens to entrench a lawless state on Europe’s doorstep.

Ethnic Albanians from as far away as the United States poured into Pristina over the weekend, braving freezing temperatures and heavy snow to dance in frenzied jubilation. Beating drums, waving Albanian flags and throwing firecrackers, they chanted: “Independence! Independence! We are free at last!”

A 100-foot-long birthday cake was installed on Pristina’s main boulevard.
In an outpouring of adulation for the United States, the architect of NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign against Serbian forces under President Slobodan Milosevic, revelers unfurled giant American flags, carried posters of former President Bill Clinton and chanted, “Thank you, U.S.A.” and “God bless America.”

Hundreds of people, many waving Albanian flags, celebrated in Times Square. Revelers in cars drove in circles around the area, leading chants whenever they passed the crowds gathered on the sidewalks.

That spirit of exaltation contrasted sharply with the despair, anger and disbelief that gripped Serbia and the Serbian enclaves of northern Kosovo. In Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, as many as 2,000 angry Serbs converged on the United States Embassy, hurling stones and smashing windows.

In the Kosovo Serb stronghold of Mitrovica, a grenade was thrown at a United Nations building, the police said. No one was injured.

Vojislav Kostunica, the prime minister of Serbia, which has regarded Kosovo as its heartland since medieval times, vowed that Serbia would never recognize the “false state.”

In an address on national television on Sunday, he said Kosovo was propped up unlawfully by the United States and called the declaration a “humiliation” for the European Union. The Serbian government has ruled out using military force in response, but was expected to downgrade diplomatic ties with any government that recognized Kosovo.

Demonstrations were planned for Monday in Serbian enclaves across Kosovo. Serbs said they were under orders from Belgrade to ignore the independence declaration and remain in Kosovo to keep the northern part of the territory under de facto Serbian control, raising questions about Serbia’s long-term aims.

At the Security Council, Russia argued that the proclamation violated the 1999 resolution that established the United Nations mission in Kosovo. “Our position is that the declaration should be disregarded by the international community and declared null and void,” said Vitaly I. Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations.

But Alejandro D. Wolff, the deputy American ambassador, said, “In our view, this declaration is logical and consistent and completely in line with” the 1999 measure.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pleaded with all parties “to refrain from any actions or statements that could endanger peace, incite violence or jeopardize security in Kosovo or the region.”

The Security Council agreed to a request by Russia and Serbia to hold an open meeting on Monday that will be addressed by the Serbian president, Boris Tadic.

Kosovo’s declaration followed nearly two years of United Nations-sponsored negotiations between it and Serbia. Those talks failed, as did a Security Council effort in December to resolve Kosovo’s future.

The European Commission, the European Union’s executive branch, appealed for calm, while NATO’s secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said the alliance would respond “swiftly and firmly against anyone who might resort to violence.”

Kosovo’s sovereignty remains severely circumscribed, making it reliant on the international community. NATO still provides international security, while the European Union has agreed to send an 1,800-strong police and judicial mission to help run the territory after the United Nations leaves.

Ulrich Wilhelm, the spokesman for the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said Germany would decide what to do on Monday.

Kosovo played a central role in the collapse of the Yugoslav federation built by the Communist strongman Josip Broz Tito, who died in 1980. Albanian nationalism erupted in Kosovo in 1981, leading to bloody clashes.

In the 1980s, Mr. Milosevic used Serbs’ enormous sense of grievance that their ancestral heartland was now dominated by Muslim Albanians to come to power in Serbia. By 1989, he had abolished Kosovo’s autonomy, fired tens of thousands of Albanians from their jobs, suppressed Albanian language education and controlled the territory with a heavy police presence.

Ten years ago, Mr. Milosevic’s forces moved against the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, killing a guerrilla leader and his family at their compound. As violence escalated, NATO intervened in a 1999 bombing campaign, causing hundreds of thousands of Albanians and Serbs to flee.

An estimated 10,000 civilians were killed in the 1998-99 conflict, many of them Albanians, while 1,500 Serbs died in revenge killings that followed.

For the ethnic Albanians who make up 95 percent of Kosovo’s population, independence marks a new beginning.

“Independence is a catharsis,” said Antoneta Kastrati, 26, an Albanian from Peja, who said her mother and older sister were killed by their Serbian neighbors in 1999. “Things won’t change overnight and we cannot forget the past, but maybe I will feel safe now and my nightmares will finally go away.”

In Mitrovica, a 70-year-old Serbian engineer who would give only his first name, Svetozar, said: “I will stay here forever. This will always be Serbia.”

Kosovo’s declaration created immediate ripples in the former Soviet Union, where small, Russian-backed separatist areas — one in Moldova and two in the republic of Georgia — have existed since the early 1990s. Two of them — Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia — announced their intention to seek recognition as independent states.

Conversely, several of the European Union’s 27 member states — including Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia and Romania — oppose recognizing Kosovo because they fear encouraging secessionist movements within their own borders.

In Brussels, officials were drafting a statement for a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday. Senior European Union officials said they expected it to acknowledge Kosovo’s independence declaration without explicitly endorsing it.

The declaration of independence raises the prospects of a new constitution and emblems of nationhood, including a new flag bearing a map of Kosovo topped by six stars.

But in a sign of how hard it will be to forge the kind of multiethnic, secular identity that foreign powers have urged, the distinctive two-headed eagle of the red and black Albanian flag, reviled by Serbs, was everywhere Sunday, held by revelers, draped on horses, flapping out of car windows and hanging outside homes and storefronts across the territory.

Warren Hoge contributed reporting from the United Nations, C. J. Chivers from Moscow and Nicholas Kulish from Berlin.

By Making Holocaust Personal to Pupils, Sarkozy Stirs Anger

2008-02-18T08:34:00.000-08:00

February 16, 2008
From the NY Times
By ELAINE SCIOLINO

PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy dropped an intellectual bombshell this week, surprising the nation and touching off waves of protest with his revision of the school curriculum: beginning next fall, he said, every fifth grader will have to learn the life story of one of the 11,000 French children killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust.

“Nothing is more moving, for a child, than the story of a child his own age, who has the same games, the same joys and the same hopes as he, but who, in the dawn of the 1940s, had the bad fortune to be defined as a Jew,” Mr. Sarkozy said at the end of a dinner speech to France’s Jewish community on Wednesday night. He added that every French child should be “entrusted with the memory of a French child-victim of the Holocaust.”

Adding to the national fracas over the announcement, Mr. Sarkozy wrapped his plan in the cloak of religion, placing blame for the wars and violence of the last century on an “absence of God” and calling the Nazi belief in a hierarchy of races “radically incompatible with Judeo-Christian monotheism.”

Education Minister Xavier Darcos explained later that the aim of the plan was to “create an identification between a child of today and one of the same age who was deported and gassed.”

The Holocaust is already taught in French schools, but some psychiatrists and educators predicted that requiring students to identify with a specific victim would traumatize them.

Secularists accused Mr. Sarkozy, who is already under fire for his frequent praise of God and religion, of subverting both the country’s iron-clad separation of church and state and the national ideal of a single, nonreligious identity for all.

Political opponents dismissed the plan as his latest misguided idea, unveiled without reflection or consultation. Some historians argued that the focus on victims could steer attention away from the Vichy government’s collaboration with the Nazis. Still others warned that the plan could backfire, creating resentment among France’s ethnic Arab and African populations if they felt their own histories were getting short shrift.

“Every day the president throws out a new unhappy idea with no coherence,” said Pascal Bruckner, the philosopher. “But this last one is truly obscene, the very opposite of spirituality. Let’s judge it for what it is: a crazy proposal of the president, not the word of the Gospel.”

The initiative has also pitted some Jews against one another. “It is unimaginable, unbearable, tragic and above all, unjust,” Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor and honorary president of the Foundation for the Memory of the Holocaust, told the Web site of the magazine L’Express. “You cannot inflict this on little ones of 10 years old! You cannot ask a child to identify with a dead child. The weight of this memory is much too heavy to bear.”

Ms. Veil was in the audience when Mr. Sarkozy spoke, and said that when she heard his words, “My blood turned to ice.”

But Serge Klarsfeld, a Jewish historian who has devoted his life to recording the list and biographies of France’s Holocaust victims, praised the president for his “courage.”

“This is the crowning glory of long and arduous work,” he said. “To those who say it’s too difficult for young children — that’s not true. What they see on television or in a horror film is much worse. This is not a morbid mission.”

Mr. Klarsfeld likened the plan to a practice by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., which gives visitors small booklets describing the experiences of Holocaust victims and survivors.

On one level, Mr. Sarkozy’s plan is a logical extension of his sometimes sentimental and pedagogical approach to governing. Last year, he enraged politicians on the left, the biggest union for high school teachers and some historians and teachers when he ordered all high schools in France to read a handwritten letter of a 17-year-old student who was executed by the Nazis for his resistance activities.

On another level, it reflects his oft-stated declaration that as president, he is also a “friend” as he calls himself, of Israel. By extension, he is also a friend of France’s Jews. He is, for example, the first French president to address the annual dinner of France’s Jewish community.

But there is something else. Mr. Sarkozy is shattering another barrier in French intellectual life: religion. His public statements on the subject seem to reflect a deeply held belief that religious values have an important place in everyday French society — an iconoclastic position for a French politician.

When Mr. Sarkozy was made an Honorary Canon of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome last December, he proposed a “positive secularism” that “does not consider religions a danger, but an asset.” He was even more provocative in declaring that “the schoolteacher will never be able to replace the priest or the pastor” in teaching the difference between good and evil.

In Saudi Arabia last month, he infused his speech with more than a dozen references to God, who, he said, “liberates” man. He also said last month that it was a mistake to delete the reference to “Europe’s Christian roots” from the European Constitution.

In France, a country where one’s religion is typically kept private, Mr. Sarkozy heralds his religious identity, referring publicly to his Jewish grandfather and wearing his Roman Catholicism on his sleeve.

“I am of Catholic culture, Catholic tradition, Catholic belief, even if my religious practice is episodic,” he wrote in a book of essays in 2004. “I consider myself as a member of the Catholic Church.”

Still, Mr. Sarkozy’s conduct in his personal life seems to contradict the image of Catholic spirituality. Twice divorced, three times married, he has alienated the country to the point that there is widespread disapproval of his behavior in his personal life.

That level of disapproval seems to have made Mr. Sarkozy vulnerable in almost anything he does these days, including his Holocaust initiative.

Teachers defended the current approach to the Holocaust in French schools. Since 2002, fifth-graders have studied the Nazis’ systematic destruction of six million Jews as a crime against humanity.

Older children watch films on the Holocaust, visit Holocaust museums and memorials and take field trips to concentration camps. Schools where students were taken away for deportation hang plaques in their memory.

“The Holocaust has to be put in the context of the rise of the Nazis and the war, not just emotion and dramatic spectacle,” said Gilles Moindrot, secretary-general of the largest union for primary school teachers. “If you do this with the memory of individual Jews, you’d have to do it with the victims of slavery or the wars of religion. We can’t have this approach.”

Some of Mr. Sarkozy’s other political foes accuse him of trying to put his personal stamp everywhere. “One day he is giving us sermons about God,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a Socialist senator on LCI television on Friday, adding, “Now he has suddenly turned himself into a teacher.”

Other analysts blamed the confessional approach of the United States for infecting Mr. Sarkozy’s thinking. “Listen, it’s in the air of the times,” said Régis Debray, the philosopher and author, on France Inter radio Friday. “There is a religious sentimentality, a pretty vague religiousness, let’s say, in the world of show business, in the world of business, that comes from America. It’s the neoconservative wave of the born-agains.”

MRAP, an organization that campaigns against racism, accused Mr. Sarkozy of chauvinism by singling out French victims of the Holocaust for study and excluding other groups, like the Gypsies.

Mr. Sarkozy’s advisers acknowledged that he came up with his Holocaust plan for schoolchildren without any formal consultation. In the face of the criticism, however, Mr. Sarkozy vowed to proceed.

“It is ignorance — not knowledge — that leads to the repetition of abominable situations,” he said during a visit to Périgueux in central France on Friday, adding, “You do not traumatize children by giving them the gift of the memory of a country.”

Spielberg in Darfur snub to China

2008-02-13T09:22:00.000-08:00

US film director Steven Spielberg has withdrawn as an artistic adviser for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

In a statement, he accused China of not doing enough to pressure Sudan to end the "continuing human suffering" in the troubled western Darfur region.

At least 200,000 people have been killed and two million forced from their homes in the five-year conflict.

Beijing has not yet responded to the move, which correspondents say is its first big setback in staging the Games.

This is a noble move by Spielberg - he will certainly go down in history as someone who gave human lives precedence over fame and money
Abdul Wahid Mohammad Ahmed al-Nur
Sudanese rebel leader

A source in the Beijing Olympic Committee said a response was being discussed at the highest levels but had not yet been made public.

But the BBC's James Reynolds in Beijing says the decision will anger and worry the authorities there.

Since Beijing won the right to host the Games it has always tried to keep China's politics and China's Olympics separate, he says, and it has attacked anyone who has tried to link the two.

Boycott call

Mr Spielberg, who had been brought in as artistic adviser for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games, said the cause of Darfur was more important than his role.

"I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue business as usual," he said in a statement.

"At this point, my time and energy must be spent not on Olympic ceremonies, but on doing all I can to help bring an end to the unspeakable crimes against humanity that continue to be committed in Darfur."

OLYMPICS ROW
Famous names involved in advising the Olympics include director Zhang Yimou and Kung Fu star Jackie Chan
Hollywood stars Mia Farrow and George Clooney have criticised China over Darfur
Architect Ai Weiwei, who designed the main Olympic stadium, says the Games are a "public relations sham"

He added: "Sudan's government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these on-going crimes, but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more."

Rebel groups in Darfur said this was exactly the kind of pressure that was needed to get Beijing to change its policy towards the Sudanese government.

"This is a noble move by Spielberg," Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) leader Abdul Wahid Mohammad Ahmed al-Nur told the Sudan Tribune newspaper.

"He will certainly go down in history as someone who gave human lives precedence over fame and money."

Ahmed Abdel Shafi, who leads an SLM splinter group, told the BBC: "I commend him for his strong position. This is a lesson to the rest of the world that people should distance themselves from China."

HAVE YOUR SAY The real question is why the Olympics were awarded to China in the first place Vladi, California
Another group, the Justice and Equality Movement, has appealed to countries sending teams to boycott the games.

The International Olympic Committee said the decision was a personal one made by Mr Spielberg.

"The IOC recognise Darfur is a highly complex issue, with tragic circumstances, but is a matter for the UN to resolve," the committee said in a statement.

'Desperate time'

Sudan, with its vast oil reserves, sells some two-thirds of its oil to Beijing.

In turn, Beijing sells weapons to the Sudanese government and has defended Khartoum in the UN Security Council.

As a result, China has been criticised for its links with a government ostracised by many for its role in the ongoing crisis in Darfur.

Earlier on Tuesday, as part of a "Global Day of Action" focusing on Darfur, an open letter signed by Nobel Peace Prize laureates and former Olympians was sent to China's president.

Actress Mia Farrow, who signed the letter and had pressed Mr Spielberg to end his involvement, said his decision sent out the right signal to the Chinese government.

She said: "I'm delighted by his decision and it's a desperate time for Darfur, so this is a shred of good news in a very bleak week."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7242016.stm

Published: 2008/02/13 11:47:52 GMT