Human Rights

The Bush Administration’s fundamental view that a “shock and awe” invasion of Afghanistan would somehow compel the Taliban into compliance has failed.  Instead the soft power of grass root initiatives are slowly taking shape. It is hard to believe that any progress for gender equality could be made in Afghanistan.

An article in today’s International Herald Tribune caught my attention.  It speaks of the often ignored and neglected power of women to bring about change.  Women who dedicate their lives in the face of all adversaries and somehow through perseverance and sheer determination manage to make lives bearable in the most extreme conditions.

Baiman is a unique region in Afghanistan  where women can at the very least drive and  work. For the past few years the resurgence of the Taliban and the failure of President Hamid Karzai’s government has been a scourge for women.  Eighty percent of Afghan women are illiterate and have a lower life expectancy than men.  But three years ago Karzai appointed Baiman a progressive female governor.

Her name is  Habiba Sarabi and she ran clandestine education schools for girls when the Taliban dominated the area. Local initiatives and development programs run by women in these territories are making positive changes. The steps are small but fundamental.  Women are enrolled in non-governmental education programs. Sarabi says one of the pivotal moments came when men finally accepted the role of women.

Hopefully these changes are permanent and will spread to other areas of Afghanistan. I also hope it’s true. The reports I’ve read coming out of Afghanistan are depressing.  Ultra-conservative judges with religious fundamentalist views are apparently taking over Afghanistan’s judiciary system. If this is indeed the case then movements like Sarabi’s will have to deal with yet another hurdle.

One in three children in the UK live in poverty.  A recent report published by British NGO Campaign to End Child Poverty says this amounts to 3.9 million children. The UK has one of the highest poverty rates in the industrialized world.  The same NGO claims a boy living in Manchester can expect to live seven years less than a boy in Barnet. Poverty in the UK is any household that lives on  £10 per person per day.

See BBC video here.

The fiasco of the 2001 Durban conference against racism is set to extend into Durban II slated for next year in Geneva.  Two weeks ago the current mayor of Durban asked the UN Rights chief Navi Pillay to “rescue” the city’s name from the now discredited UN ant-racism conference. UN Watch is calling on certain offending provisions to be removed from Durban II.   Durban II will be headed by Libya and Iran.

In August the Durban Review Conference in Abuja, Nigeria outlined Durban II’s agenda and issued several reports.  A paragraph in one of those reports “…calls upon states to avoid inflexibly clinging to free speech in defiance of the sensitivities existing in a society and with absolute disregard for religious feelings.”

The United Nations Millennium Development goals are taking a U-turn according to Medical Emergency Relief International. Yesterday, the leaders of the world met at the UN General Assembly to discuss promises made all those years ago.

In 200o, the heads of state promised to halve poverty by 2015, achieve six other quantifiable goals for reducing deprivation, two more general goals and one more multi-dimensional goal between developing and developed countries…also by 2015.

Here are the goals:
1.Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger
2.Achieve universal primary education
3.Promote gender equality & empower women
4.Reduce child mortality
5.Improve maternal health
6.Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other diseases
7.Ensure environmental sustainablity
8.Develop a global partnership for development

So where are we with the first one?  100,000 million more people now face extreme poverty.  Food riots are common throughout the world and for the first time, industrialized rich nations are feeling the squeeze.

In 1996, the Human Development Report came out with a series of predictions of why noble ideas like MDGs are likely to fail.  It writes the failure to achieve goals over a sustained human development hangs on:

- economic constraints or lack of political support within countries
- the total disruptions from civil and political conflict
- failures of international support for the goals
- world recession and wider difficulties and setbacks in the international economic environment.

This last one seems particularly relevant.  A $700 billion bail-out of Wall Street and all the economic crises involved has cast a long shadow over the world’s most desperate. Ministers are doubting the MDGs will ever be met given the state of the global economy.

Even the very first goal of halving the poverty seemed dubious because of poor economic and unsustainable development practices. Both the IMF and World Bank are notorious for focusing on the end result of their imposed economic packages without considering the social impact and widespread consequences.

It is difficult to pinpoint any developing country that followed IMF and World Bank structural adjustment plans and came out on top.  And indeed, floods, droughts, and fluctuating prices of basic commodities and fuel also affect these goals.

Perhaps a better resort for the MDGs is not to make them absolute.  Instead, emphasis on the partial success of goals may be more pragmatic and achievable.  Making them relative as well would also be fairer.  In other words show the acceleration towards these goals over past trends. (For more reading on this please refer to the Human Development Report 2003 by Richard Jolly.)

North Korea remains veiled in a murky shadow as their laconic leader, Kim Jong il, has taken ill after supposedly suffering a stroke.  No one has seen him since and he was conspicuously absent at a September 9 parade marking the country’s foundering.

No more fan fare, no more god awful spectacles filling stadiums teeming with flag waving worshipers while starvation ravages the countryside.  A country enslaved both physically and psychologically. When his father was born birds apparently sang his praise….in Korean.  Myth is a powerful tool in forging identity.  But let’s take a closer look.

This satellite photo is a fitting metaphor to a man who shrouds his country in oblivion, secrecy, and outright oppression.

How does one confront and deal with human rights issues in a country where access is both restricted and tightly controlled?  And perhaps more to point, why has the world shied away from North Korea?  This  link in the “axis of evil” has slipped away from Mr Bush’s rhetoric.

“The international community has far too long neglected the human rights situation in North Korea because of the nuclear threat,” former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, former Czech President Vaclav Havel and Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel said in the report released last week.

The report “Failure to Protect: The Ongoing Challenge of North Korea” is urging the UN Security Council to intervene in accordance to the “responsibility to protect” doctrine.  We have the moral responsibility and duty as humans to protect and defend people from any wretched regime.  This doctrine was first introduced in 2005.

The last official statement by the United Nations over North Korea’s human rights violations was in May 2006. The statement makes reference to a scheduled execution of a young man charged with treason.   He was tortured and then executed.  Without trial and without, no surprise here, any regard to procedural safeguards required by international law.

The Human Rights Council addressed North Korea and sent out several press releases earlier this year.  Human rights violations range from  “widespread and systematic practice of torture; inhuman conditions of detention; the absence of due process of law; the imposition of the death penalty for political and religious reasons; and the situation of refugees and asylum-seekers expelled or returned to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the harsh punishment of those who left or tried to leave the country without permission.” The press release also condemns the sale of children for slavery and prostitution.

The international community must be proactive in its response to stop the human rights abuses in North Korea.  No amount of diplomacy will keep this megalomaniac and his regime from abusing its people.

Githu Muigai has replaced Doudou Dienne as the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. Muigai addressed the Human Rights Council in Geneva today and was particularly alarmed by the mainstreaming of racism and xenophobia by their adoption of political parties in democratic countries.  Muigai did not specify.

Many EU countries, if not all, fall into this category.  Tougher immigration and deportation policies are popular campaign tools in the resurgence of nationalism in Europe throughout the past several years. Right wing political parties in France, UK, Italy, Denmark and many others have employed techniques generating a fear of the “other.” Racism and xenophobia goes beyond immigrations issues.

Muigai also examined religious discrimination and called for a universal approach in addressing these problems.  Muigai wants member states to promote a dialogue between cultures, civilizations and religions in the hopes of recognizing and deconstructing established patterns of discrimination.

The 9th Session on Human Rights is fond of statements, of pointing out the obvious, the atrocious.  It is its duty to bring world attention to the baser instincts of human nature.  But translated into action these causes often lack the will and sincerity of governments.

Yesterday morning, Hillel Nueur of the United Nations Watch criticized the Council for failing to take action when it learned of gross human rights violations. In particular, Mr Nueur addressed the council’s failings over Darfur.

He also condemned Sudan and the African Group’s desire to eliminate the Special Rapporteur on the situation on human rights in Sudan. He then said the Council had so far only addressed two of the 20 worse human rights abusers.

Last year’s Human Rights Council president Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba of Mexico banned Nueur’s speech from the record.  Nueur’s outrage over the inaction on Sudan was palpable.  “What has this Council pronounced, what has this Council decided? Nothing,” he said.  He also called the Council members despots.  Classic and so so true.  It’s rare indeed when someone stands up to the establishment.

The problem with Mr Nueur is he speaks the truth and exposes the institutional hypocrisy of the Council’s members.  Wait -  that’s a good thing.

Below is the clip of the “banned” speech from the 2007 session.  Enjoy…

The 9th Session of Human Rights Council discussed  the issue of Darfur.  Yesterday morning Sima Samar,the UN special rapporteur for Sudan, presented her report. Her findings reveal Sudan’s human rights have eroded since the surprise attack against Khartoum on May 10th.

Government crackdowns against supposed dissidents are widespread. Violence against children and women continues unabated throughout Darfur. Impunity, lack of security, and overall chaos reigns in many parts of the country.

Samar’s report covers extensive investigations dating from January to July 2008. She writes Sudan continues to run air attacks on civilians. She also writes that all parties have committed and continue to commit egregious acts of violence.

Children as young as 11 are forced into military service and used to attack the Justice and Equality Movement.

An oral joint statement by FIDH, OMCT, and SOAT during the same session condemned Sudan’s government for not implementing policies to curb the human rights violations. SOAT says they have documented attacks against numerous settlements in Darfur this past year.

Perhaps most revealing was the lukewarm responses of other countries who themselves have histories of human rights abuses.  These countries fear that any internationally sanctioned military intervention by the United Nations or similar outfit in Sudan will potentially place them at odds.

Territorial integrity, internal affairs, and respect for sovereignty are the usual arguments against sending in a strongly mandated UN outfit.  In its place, a weak, underfunded, undermanned, hybrid African Union/United Nations force is having little effect.

7000 African Union forces are supposed to monitor and protect an area that is slightly more than one-quarter the size of the United States!  This was in January, as of the end of July, it had 8,100 military personnel and another 1,900 police officers on the ground.  26,000 AU/UN troops are slated to arrive by the year’s end.  The chances of that ever happening are slim.

At one point, the Security Council came close to sending in the blue helmets.  But the Chinese threatened to veto.  Eventually the resolution was watered down.  China would agree not to veto only if Sudan agreed to the UN force.  Sudan as expected politely declined.

Let us not forget the ongoing tragedy of Darfur.  Countless UN Security Council resolutions, an American administration that rightfully called it by its proper name: genocide…and yet nothing is stopping the humanitarian disaster from unfolding under the world’s spotlight.

Five years of failure.  Early warning signs in the summer of 2003 could have been heeded.  U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Khartoum, Mukesh Kapila, says Khartoum is arming the Janjaweed to do its dirty work, its final solution.

One year later in April of 2004, the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan delivers a powerful speech at the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. Among his many statements on Rwanda  - ‘When we recall such events and ask “why did no one intervene?” we should address the question not only to the United Nations, or even to its Member States.  No one can claim ignorance.  All who were playing any part in world affairs at that time should ask, “what more could I have done?  How would I react next time –- and what am I doing now to make it less likely there will be a next time?’

It has obviously fallen on deaf years. The proclamations following Rwanda was shortly followed by a massacre in Srebrenica.  We did nothing.  And today, it’s Darfur.  The harrowing testimonies, the images, the publicity.  Are we suffering from compassion fatigue?  Or has the realpolitik in the narrow corridors of the UN trumped human dignities?

Aid groups working the region say thousands of people are fleeing the villages after heavy fighting between rebels and government forces this past week in Northern Darfur.

The timing is particularly bad.  Food rations are at the lowest this time of year; just prior to the harvest.  The instability has also jeopardized aid workers.  IRIN reports more than 100 World Food Program vehicles have been hijacked in the past year.

I received information from a source inside Human Rights Georgia that some of the components of the cluster bombs dropped on  civilians may have been manufactured by a German facility that produces decoy countermeasures. These include flares and chaff amongst others.

It is claimed that the said company’s labels were found on unexploded cluster bomblets. The facility has denied the allegations and is threatening legal actions.  For these reasons and because the accusations have yet to be proven true, I will refrain from citing the company’s name.

Cluster bombs are banned under international agreements.  Human Rights Watch has uncovered evidence that both Georgia and Russia used cluster bombs during the war.  Georgia has since joined the 107 other nations by signing a treaty that bans their use.  They have also admitted to using the weapon.

Cluster bombs are indiscriminate killers.  Many do not explode on impact but instead lay in wait like landmines.  Investigations into their manufacture and use needs attention.