Human Rights

In Tanzania, the body parts of albinos are believed to possess magical properties.   BBC journalist, Vicky Ntetema, has filmed (see video here) a witchdoctor in Tanzania discussing anatomy for potions.    There are anywhere between 4000 to 173,000 albinos living in Tanzania.

So far this year, a known 25 have been killed for witchcraft, most in and around the Lake Victoria area.  Fishermen weave hair from albinos into their nets.  Albino blood poured into a mine shaft will increase the spoils.

Albinos already suffer from discrimination and are treated as outcasts. Most die of skin cancer before the age of 30.  In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s capital, police are escorting albino children to schools.

Last month,  the New York Times ran a profile of Samuel Mluge, an albino living Dar es Salaam. “I feel like I am being hunted,” he said.

People are turning to the Tanzanian Albino Society for help. But with only $15,000 budget, the aid organization is unable to tackle the problem. The government appointed an albino to parliament to help change perceptions.

“This is serious because it continues some of the perceptions of Africa we’re trying to run away from,” Salvator Rweyemamu, a Tanzanian government spokesman, told the New York Times in April.

The increasing lack of security in Afghanistan is spreading throughout the country.  Even areas of Kabul considered somewhat secure are threatened. On July 7 a suicide bomber killed over 50 people in front of the Indian embassy in the capital.

The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) says some 250 Afghani civilians were killed within a week earlier this month. Various militias, Taliban, and coalition forces are responsible for their deaths.

“Currently some 400,000 people in the country do not have access to basic health services because of attacks on health personnel and health centres, and also due to lack of security for health workers,” Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, told IRIN in Kabul on 23 July.

On July 18, two French ACF (Action Contre Faim - in French) aid workers were abducted by armed militias in central Afghanistan. ACF has since temporarily suspended operations leaving behind 130,000 people who faced acute malnutrition.

The lack of security in Afghanistan is preventing NGOs and aid agencies from delivering services in a time when a severe drought and rising food prices is having devastating affects on millions.

According to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Organisation, Taliban attacks against aid workers is occurring throughout the country and not just in the more volatile south. However, many of the attacks are by unidentified gunmen.

Anja de Beer, director of ACBAR, a network of 100 of local and international NGOs in Afghanistan told IRIN that the current situation could provoke a crisis.  “If insecurity continues to hamper NGO [non-governmental organization] access, and needs remain unmet, we worry that the humanitarian situation will deteriorate into a crisis,” she said.

Child abuse or sexual abuse is an euphemism for what is really happening and has been happening for a very long time.  Let’s just call it what it is - child rape.

The Catholic Church, already having paid out billions of dollars in compensations ($2 billion in the US alone), is having to make some very tough choices.  How much money should one pay for destroying the life of a child all the while maintaining a position of moral superiority?

On Saturday in Australia while addressing the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day in Australia, Pope Benedict XVI made a public apology for the sexual abuse of children by clerics (see International Herald Tribune article here).  The victims were not allowed to attend according to Broken Rites.

Broken Rites, an Australian group that campaigns for the victims of rape by religious authority figures, says 107 Australian priests and clergy (of all denominations) have appeared in courts over sex crimes.

Victims are fighting for compensation but bishops’ lawyers are arguing that the Catholic Church cannot be sued because it does not exist as a legal entity according to Broken Rites website.

The Pope has yet to apologize for how his Australian bishops deliberately covered up these crimes. In 2003, Cardinal George Pell, the Catholic Church’s archbishop in Sydney, wrote a letter to an accuser and dismissed his claim of sexual abuse leveled against a priest.

Pell argued that no similar accusations were made against the priest.  It later turned out that Pell had indeed received a similar accusation from another victim directed toward the same priest. Pell claimed that his letter was badly worded and was not trying to cover up the crime.

On July 1, the breakaway region of Abkhazia was in a state of emergency because of a bomb near the Inguri bridge.  The bridge is a vital trading link for the thousands of Georgians living in the Gali district, a region inside Abkhazia that borders the ceasefire line with Georgia.   Abkhazia is seeking independence from Georgia. For an overview of the conflict, please visit Reuters AlertNet here.

On July 2, I tried crossing this bridge again and was finally allowed to enter thanks to a contact.  However, no one else was on the bridge aside from a handful of people in an UNOMIG (United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia ) bus and the ever present Georgian/Russian/Abkhaz border guards.  The border was officially closed.

On the evening of July 6, a bomb detonated in Gali town center killing four and injuring six and was at the scene on the morning of July 7.  Most bystanders refused to comment. However those who did complained of the miserable living conditions, lack of jobs and lack of development.  Most rely on trade with Zugdidi but with the bridge closed, this has been taken away as well. “We can only rely on ourselves,” one resident told me.

According to an article by medianews published at Human Rights Georgia, Gali district residents are asking the Georgian government for food aid assistance. They also want the bridge opened.

There are around 45,000 Georgians living in the district administered by Abkhazian de facto jurisdiction.  Caught in a conflict between Abkhazia and Georgia, the Gali residents are suffering from a conflict with no discernible end in sight.  However, it is not clear how Georgia could provide the Gali residents with food assistance so long as the bridge remains closed.

Indeed, even if the bridge was open, Georgia has no links with Gali Abkhaz authorities. It is unlikely Georgia would ever attempt to provide food to the Gali district residents given the sensitive political nature of the current crisis.

Last May, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili signed into law a set of three amendments lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12 in direct contravention to UN recommendations.  Children committing major crimes will be tried as adults.

Major crimes include premeditated murder, intentional damage to health, rape, most types of robbery, and possession of knives.  According to a United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child report, a Georgian representative said the implementation of the law would not go into effect until juvenile detention centers were constructed.  This report was dated May 26, 2008.

A month later, on June 25, 2008 I asked Georgia’s current Prime Minister Vladimer (Lado) Gurgenidze to comment on the law.    This is what he had to say…

After a series of bombings in Sukhumi and Gagra, the Abkhaz de-facto authorities closed the checkpoint on the Inguri bridge yesterday. Unfortunately, my permission entry letter to Abkhazia is dated July 1st.  Having come so far, I still tried to cross.

I made it past the Georgian and Russian armed guards only to be stopped by a nervous looking Abkhaz militia with a kalashnikov. A handful of Georgians were grouped near the Abkhaz checkpoint and some are being let through.  According to a source inside UNOMIG here in Zugdidi, a border town, another explosion occurred near the bridge this morning close to a Russian peacekeeping post.  There were no injuries and the local authorities are currently investigating.

The closed border means Georgian “retournees” in the Gali District in Abkhazia are severed from Zugdidi, a vital trading center and link.  Without access to Zugdidi, the Georgian “retournees” cannot sell their produce of nuts and citris fruit.  There are anywhere between 45 to 65K Georgians living in the Gali District, a conflict zone that has seen its share of war, terror, and human rights violations.  In Zugdidi, there are around 40,000 IDPs still hoping to return one day to Abkhazia.  But the current situation is hardly promising.

“IDPs get 15 laris a month,” Captain Davide Caprani, Team Leader and Police Advisor for the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) in Zugdidi told me today. “They try to work but most can’t return  [to Abkhazia].”

I’ll leave it there.  For more information and updates please refer to Civil Georgia.

I noticed this morning that high ranking UN officials have joined the international chorus of voices encouraging the African Union to take the lead in ensuring that there is a negotiated settlement to the Zimbabwe crisis.

While negotiations at the AU level will be necessary, I would like to see the international community play a tougher role. In particular I think that it is very important that the UN Security Council refer the Zimbabwe situation to the International Criminal Court.  Such a move would perhaps increase the pressure on some within the Mugabe government and the Zimbabwean armed forces. The manner in which hundreds of opposition supporters were killed and many thousands displaced, should merit an investigation from the ICC Prosecutor Mr. Ocampo.

The Security Council must act before many more people are killed and injured by a regime that is completely out of control.

Dear all, I’m on freelance assignment in Georgia.  I managed to interview Georgia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Gurgenidze and asked him to explain why Georgia passed legislation that lowers the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 12. 

Human Rights Watch (HWR) issued a report earlier this month and made an appeal to the Georgian government to rescind this controversial legislation.  On June 6, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Child expressed “deep regret” and urged Georgia to increase the age to 14.

“Rather than making plans to lock up 12-and 13-year-olds, the Georgian government should study best international practice on addressing and preventing crime by children. It should develop social support and other preventive services appropriate to Georgia’s culture and conditions and to its responsibilities,” said Mary Murphy, director of Penal Reform International’s South Caucasus Office

The Prime Minister’s response was unequivocal and he deferred the question to the Ministry of Justice.  He would not offer an opinion on the matter either.  I recorded the entire interview and if I manage to overcome some technical glitches, I’ll post this segment online.

Since the 2003 Rose Revolution, Georgia has made remarkable progress.  It has restored its financial order, fought corruption, crime, and made sweeping economic reforms that are transforming this tiny nation of 4.6 million.  As you may know, Georgia is currently embroiled in a tense conflict over its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.  However, this is an altogether different story and probably doesn’t belong in this blog.

Agricultural land once used to produce basic foodstuff is increasingly being used to produce biofuels.  According to a recent report by the aid agency Oxfam,  the production of biofuels has increased food prices by 30% and pushed another 30 million people into poverty.

Compounded by social upheavals, political instability, and drought, the world’s poorest are suffering the most. In Ethiopia, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative says over the past few weeks “the number of children requiring theratpeutic feeding, including stabilization, increase tremendously.”  The cost of some cereals in Ethiopia have increased by 50 to 90 percent.

Globally, according to Oxfam, food prices have risen by 83% in the past three years.  These prices will remain or increase so long as the demand for oil, cereals, and the growth in consumer and biofuel sectors continue.