RIGHTS-SIERRA LEONE: Reparations Stretched Thin

October 23, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Thursday, October 23, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Mohamed Fofanah

FREETOWN, Oct 23 (IPS) – ”Eight years ago my husband threw his haversack on his back and bade us goodbye. My two kids and I came out of the house and watched him leave. Water was dripping from our eyes uncontrollably; it was as if we were already mourning his death. He was bound for the war front.”

Fatmata Kallon, a tall, rail-thin woman in her early 40s is seated on the front porch of her shack at Sorie Town, located at the hill top in the west end of Freetown, a fast-growing settlement of tin houses, with no running water.

”About three weeks after he left, we were informed that he was killed in an ambush at the Bo-Kenema highway by the rebels. Osman Kallon, my husband had been the nerve centre of the family. Since his demise things have been hell for us.”

Kallon is among the large group of women described as war widows — their total number is still unknown.

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up in 2002 to investigate the causes of Sierra Leone’s 11-year civil war, a brutal conflict during which all factions were accused of committing gross human rights violations.

The TRC specifically recognised the effects of violence on women and the family structure. War widows — in the words of the TRC’s report, ”women whose husbands were killed as a consequence of any abuse or violation and who, as a result, have become the primary breadwinners for their families” — such women were designated as a privileged categories for reparations, notes the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone, Jamesina King.

The TRC recommended the provision of skills training and micro-credit schemes for these women, defined in its final report as to help equip and empower them to provide for their families.

But the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA), the body that will be implementing the reparations, has no immediate plans to begin these projects.

”Because skills training and micro-credit schemes for these women needs a lot of planning and the money that we have now will be insufficient to take this venture on board, when we have more funding we will consider that recommendation,” the Reparations Program Manager, Amadu Bangura, told IPS.

NaCSA instead has chosen to give priority to the implementation of a housing project, providing housing to only three other categories affected by the war: adult war wounded, adult amputees and adult victims of sexual violence. The housing project which was not a reparation recommendation by the TRC.

”I feel so deprived and the loss of my husband during the war will be more painful to me and my family if the reparations recommendations set out by TRC will not be followed strictly by NaCSA for whatever reasons,” Kallon appealed.

Bangura maintains that the housing project was is in line with the recommendations of the Reparations Steering Committee after analysing the TRC report and finding that 49 percent of victims called for the provision of housing.

He stated that when they did their assessment they found out of the 960 amputees and war wounded had been registered by the Amputee and War wounded Association, 500 of them have already been provided with housing by international NGOs.

”We want to continue with what has been started and finish off the 460 beneficiaries that remain. We intend to start off with 50 houses for amputees and 25 for war-wounded beneficiaries,” Bangura pointed out.

Bangura said that the whole reparations programme is expected to start next year, as soon as the verification process of beneficiaries is concluded. It is expected to last for six years.

Each house will cost $6,500 dollars, taken from the present reparations budget total of three million dollars.

”Housing is the best reparations and I support NaCSA to include housing,” says Jusu Jarka, the chairman of an association of amputees and war wounded who stand to benefit from the housing project. Jarka is the only active representative of beneficiaries in the reparations committee.

”I agree that housing is very good, but if the TRC in their wisdom expressly did not recommend it, they must have taken into consideration many factors like limited budget for the reparations,” said Jariatu Kamara, a war widow. ”So I do not see any justification in providing housing for one set of people and excluding the skills training and micro credit schemes that were directly proposed for us in the report. It is unacceptable.”

Jamesina King said that the TRC Report makes provisions for amendment of the reparations recommendations by the implementing body, but only with the unanimous consent of the members of the Advisory Board to the proposed amendment.

”The HRCSL was not aware that such directions had been followed before the housing decision was taken and at what level.”

She told IPS that they have done a letter to NaCSA to request an explanation and justifications for making the amendments to the TRC reparation recommendation.

$2.3 million is expected to be expended on reparations for amputees, war wounded, sexually violated and children victims in the project’s first year.

Amadu said that the Reparations Committee was expecting funding from the government which is still not forthcoming.

In addition, he said that the committee has developed a five-year strategic funding plan to attract international donors and if they have the funds they will implement all the TRC recommendations before the end of the six year Reparations Programme.

”We have suffered greatly during the war and up till now we are suffering. We are helplessly looking at NaCSA to help us get our lives back. Whatever decision they will be taking on reparations, we hope will be selfless and should be in the spirit of the TRC report that has made provision for us,” Kallon pleaded.

The TRC Report stated that they were enjoined by statute to give special attention to the needs of women and girls because while the majority of victims were adult males, perpetrators singled out women and children for some of the most brutal violations of human rights recorded in any conflict.

The report states that ”it is only when the legal and socio-political system treats women as equals to men, giving them full access to economic opportunities and enabling them to participate freely in both public and private life, that they will realize their full potential.”

Filed Under: Africa, Human Rights, Justice, Politics, Report

AFGHANISTAN: Journalist Serving 20 Years for ”Blasphemy”

October 21, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Tuesday, October 21, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Zainab Mineeia

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (IPS) – International human rights groups have called on Afghan authorities and President Hamid Karzai to free 24-year-old Afghani journalist Perwiz Kambakhsh, who has been sentenced to 20 years of prison after being convicted of blasphemy.

”There are no legal grounds for either his conviction or this sentence,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific director. ”While it can only be a positive step that he is no longer on death row, he should be freed immediately.”

Kambakhsh is a journalism student at Balkh University and a reporter for the newspaper Jahan-e-Naw (”New World”). He was arrested on Oct. 27, 2007, and accused of ”blasphemy and distribution of texts defamatory of Islam”.

Afghan authorities claimed that Kambakhsh downloaded material from the internet that spoke to women’s roles in Muslim societies and was distributing them on his college campus. Kambakhsh strongly denies the charges, stating that he made such confessions due to severe torture.

On Jan. 20, Kambakhsh was condemned to death — behind closed doors and without a defence lawyer — by a court in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. The sentence was later commuted by an Afghan appeals court. However, Kambakhsh would still have to spend 20 years in prison for a crime which, under article 347 of the country’s Penal Code, carries a maximum sentence of five years of imprisonment.

Mohammad Afzal Nooristani, Kambakhsh’s attorney, told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that one of the witnesses called by the prosecution, a classmate of Kambakhsh’s identified by CPJ only as Hamid, told the court that National Directorate of Security officials had visited him a few days after Kambakhsh’s initial arrest and threatened to take his family into custody if he did not make a statement about Kambakhsh’s blasphemy.

”He was their prime witness; no other was eligible to give testimony,” Nooristani said, according to CPJ.

Yaqub Ibrahimi, Kambakhsh’s brother, told CPJ Tuesday that he was only able to talk to Kambakhsh for a few seconds after the sentencing.

”He was really shocked. He expected his release today but this was a very strong decision against him,” Ibrahimi said.

”Afghan justice has again failed to protect Afghan law and guarantee free expression,” Reporters Without Borders, a journalist advocacy group, said in a statement. ”By sentencing this young journalist to imprisonment, the appeal court has eliminated the possibility of his being executed, but it has also exposed the degree to which some Afghan judges are susceptible to pressure from fundamentalists.”

”Kambakhsh was able this time to be represented by a lawyer,” continued the Reporters Without Borders statement, ”but the appeal proceedings were marred by ideological distortion, a glaring lack of evidence and incomprehensible delays that ended up undermining the court’s serenity.”

Afghanistan’s government and warlords may not be notorious for executing journalists, but they do have a reputation for harassing, detaining, abusing and threatening them, advocacy groups say. The country is generally known as a harsh place for journalists, where they are in danger from harassment by U.S. forces, Afghan authorities, and the resurgent Taliban-led insurgency.

In another incident, Afghani journalist Jawed Ahmad, aged 22, was released from Bagram Air Base north of Kabul on September 21 following a year-long captivity in U.S. custody. He was detained as what the U.S. Department of Defense told CPJ was an ”Unlawful Enemy Combatant.”

Ahmad was never charged with a crime and military officials have never explained the basis for his prolonged detention. He was working under contract as a field producer with the Canadian broadcaster CTV when he was picked up by Canadian troops at the International Security and Assistance Force’s (ISAF — the U.S. – and NATO-led international coalition that invaded Afghanistan in 2001) Kandahar airbase and soon moved to the U.S. facility at Bagram.

Ahmad said he does not know why he was freed and is unclear about why he was detained in the first place.

According to a statement from Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia Programme coordinator, Ahmad had suffered physical abuse during his detention, where he said he was frequently beaten, two of his ribs were broken, and he was deprived of sleep.

Karzai’s government hasn’t shown much openness to freedom of expression, according to the Nai Centre for Open Media, an Afghan NGO supported by foreign funding. The government is responsible for at least 23 of 45 instances of intimidation, violence, or arrest of journalists between May 2007 and May 2008. That is a 130 percent increase over the same period from the year before, the Nai Centre says, according to CPJ.

Kambakhsh described the court’s decision as an ”injustice.” His lawyer said he would immediately appeal to the Supreme Court.

Filed Under: Human Rights, Justice, Politics, Report

ARGENTINA: Menem on Trial for Weapons Smuggling

October 17, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Friday, October 17, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 16 (IPS) – Although he did not show up at court, former Argentina president Carlos Menem began to be tried Thursday in Argentina for his alleged involvement in smuggling arms to Ecuador and Croatia, the biggest corruption scandal during his years in office (1989-1999).

According to his lawyer, Omar Daer, the 77-year-old Menem did not attend the first session because ”he is not in any state to stand trial” as he is suffering from ”stress, severe anemia, diabetes and allergies.”

Seventeen others, including former cabinet ministers, are also facing charges in the trial.

The judges said that Menem would have to show up when the specific charges against him are read out. If he does not, the judges could travel to his home province, La Rioja in the north.

As a senator for the Justicialista (Peronist) Party, the two-time former president enjoys immunity from arrest, but not from trial. He faces between four and 12 years in prison, if convicted, although the Senate would have to strip him of immunity before he could go to jail.

Menem, who is facing several corruption cases, spent eight months under house arrest in 2001 in connection with the same case, but under charges of illicit association, which were eventually dismissed by the Supreme Court, made up of magistrates that he himself had appointed as president.

The case that has now reached trial involves the illegal sales of 6,500 tons of firearms between 1991 and 1995 by means of a series of decrees signed by Menem and several of his ministers, according to which the weapons were to go to Panama and Venezuela.

However, it was proven that they were in fact shipped to Ecuador and Croatia. At the time, there was a United Nations embargo on arms sales to much of the Balkans, including Croatia, due to the wars that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia.

In addition, Ecuador was involved in a border war with Peru, and Argentina, as one of the peace brokers, was banned from selling weapons to either nation.

The middleman for the illegal weapons sales was retired Argentine army officer Diego Palleros, who was also charged in the trial that began Thursday. The retired lieutenant colonel, who was living as a fugitive from justice for eight years, revealed that the operations were worth a total of 50 million dollars.

The money did not go back into the state coffers, and movements in bank accounts in neighbouring Uruguay were tracked.

Also in the dock are former presidential adviser Emir Yoma — Menem’s ex-brother-in-law — former defence minister Oscar Camilión, former air force chief Daniel Paulik, and Luis Sarlenga, former controller at the state-run Fabricaciones Militares weapons factory.

Other defendants are former employees or civil servants of Fabricaciones Militares, the Defence Ministry, and the customs agency.

Furthermore, 40 other people, including former economy minister Domingo Cavallo, are still under investigation.

Ricardo Monner Sans, the lawyer who filed the original lawsuit in 1995 based on information that he received in a document provided to him by an anonymous source, told IPS he was optimistic over the start of the trial, but skeptical that Menem would ever actually sit in the dock.

”I’m pleased to see that the lawsuit that I brought on my own has actually gone somewhere,” he said.

”Menem is one of the main defendants, charged with smuggling,” said the lawyer. ”He and his ministers, who signed the decrees, as well as the military chiefs, could not possibly have been unaware of this big weapons deal, and another question that even arises is what influence did the United States have in the fact that this operation went ahead.”

Monner Sans, a plaintiff in the trial, is also involved in other legal proceedings connected to the arms smuggling case. One is an investigation of a 1996 helicopter crash in Buenos Aires in which 11 people were killed, including two officers who knew about the illegal weapons sales, Juan Carlos Andreoli and Rodolfo Aguilar.

The lawyer also represents Ana Gritti, the widow of one of the seven people killed in a 1995 explosion in a military weapons factory in the city of Río Tercero in the northern province of Córdoba, which occurred just a few months after the original lawsuit triggered the arms smuggling probe.

Menem initially declared that the explosion was an ”accident.” But the inquiries prompted by the widow’s insistent defence lawyers proved years later that it was intentional, and that it was linked to the weapons smuggling scandal that had begun to come to light.

The courts in Córdoba, which prosecuted Menem and several of his associates, found that the blast was ”intentional.” ”The order (to destroy the arsenal) was given by Menem,” apparently to destroy evidence of the smuggling, said Judge Oscar Valentinuzzi.

”The weapons were transferred to the Río Tercero factory to disguise them and pack them up. From there they were taken to the Buenos Aires port and shipped out,” said Monner Sans. ”It was necessary to make any traces disappear.”

The explosion killed seven people, injured 300, and destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes in the surrounding neighbourhood.

In a conversation with IPS, Gritti, who is also a lawyer, said she hoped the trial that got underway Thursday would turn out to be the first phase of legal proceedings that would eventually include the Río Tercero incident. ”The arms smuggling was one of the most vile acts of corruption during times of democracy in Argentina,” she said.

Gritti, the widow of Holder Dalmasso, said it would have been good if the trial for the weapons factory explosion had taken place within the framework of the prosecution for the arms smuggling case. But she explained that they were different crimes, which made it difficult to merge the two investigations.

But in less than six months, the case should move into the oral phase of the trial, and Menem will once again be summoned to appear in court, she added.

Filed Under: Justice, News, Politics

RIGHTS-CAMBODIA: Khmer Rouge Trials Bare Sexual Abuse

September 8, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics Viewpoints-  IPS
Monday, September 08, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Andrew Nette

PHNOM PENH, Sep 8  (IPS)  – In a move that could break the silence around sexual violence under the Khmer Rouge, a 68 year-old transgender woman has became the first person to submit a complaint about gender-related abuse to the international tribunal during the group’s brief but bloody reign.

Som Southevy’s story also highlights the contemporary situation with regard to sexual violence in Cambodia, which many observers and human rights organisations believe is getting worse.

Southevy told a press conference this week she had been accused of so-called ‘moral crimes’ and acting like a woman by the Khmer Rouge and incarcerated in several detention centres.

Weeping as she spoke, Southevy said that while she was in these prisons she was repeatedly sexually assaulted and gang raped by Khmer Rouge officials and cadres.

Although she cannot reveal all of the details, many of which are the subject of the official complaint to the tribunal, she was also forced to have her hair cut and wear men’s clothing.

”If I had not followed these orders I would have been killed,” she said. ”I was forced to marry a woman and after ten days they [the Khmer Rouge] investigated whether it was a genuine marriage — that is they tested whether we had had sexual intercourse.”

Forced marriages were a common occurrence during the Khmer Rouge regime.

”I was just one of many transgender victims, a lot of them died during the regime,” said Southevy. ”I am lucky to have survived and be able to tell my story.”

”It is time to dispel the widespread myth that sexual violence did not occur under the Khmer Rouge,” said Silke Studzinsky, Southevy’s lawyer.

”It is my hope that this first complaint will encourage other victims of sexual violence under the Khmer Rouge to file complaints, speak out about their stories and help search for the truth.”

Studzinsky said the acts committed against her client must be considered within the crime of rape, as they were committed without consent of the person concerned and at the coercion of another party.

Although sexual crimes are not specified in the law establishing the Khmer Rouge tribunal, Studzinsky said there was ample scope for the court to hear them as part of crimes against humanity.

Southevy is one of a number of people applying to be recognised as a civil party before the tribunal into the crimes of the Khmer Rouge, whose rule between 1975 and 1979 is estimated to have led to the deaths of nearly two million people through torture, starvation and murder.

All Cambodians are able to file a complaint with the tribunal, volunteer to be a witness and contribute information.

An individual who has suffered significant harm as a direct result of the commission of a crime falling under the tribunal’s jurisdiction can also apply to be recognised as a civil party.

Although the exact details have yet to be worked out, civil parties have full rights to participate in the trial, including having legal representation, accessing documentation and participating in the proceedings.

Much of the process is being by driven by NGOs engaged in public outreach and education activities on how the tribunal works and what rights people have in relation to it. They are also helping those interested draft complaints, which are then processed by the Victims Unit attached to the tribunal.

Tribunal officials are hopeful Southevy’s actions will encourage more people to come forward with stories of sexual abuse during the Khmer Rouge.

Victim’s Unit spokesperson, Constanze Oehlrich, said that as of early September the tribunal had received approximately 1,800 complaints and civil party applications.

To date, 28 have been accepted in regard to the case of against Kaing Guek Eav, otherwise known as Duch, head of the infamous Tuol Sleng torture centre.

The tribunal announced in mid-August it had indicted Duch for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The prosecution is seeking to widen the scope of these charges, which could delay the start of the trial until November.

Duch will be the first of the five senior Khmer Rouge leaders currently in custody to stand trial.

The four others are Noun Chea or ‘Brother No 2′ as he was known in the Khmer Rouge hierarchy, former Democratic Kampuchea head of state Khieu Samphan, former foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, the regime’s minister of social action.

Southevy’s application for civil party status could open up debate about the little researched aspect of gender-based crime under the Khmer Rouge.

”It is an area that is not yet investigated,” said Studzinsky. ”There are some limited studies and interviews with victims of sexual violence, men and women.” ”The problem is no one has asked the people. If you ask them then the story comes out. It is hidden history.”

”The topic of sexual violence under the Khmer Rouge has been taboo for a long time,” said Dr Muny Sothara, a psychiatrist and Project Coordinator with Trans-cultural Psychosocial Organisation, a local NGO contracted to provide psychological support to victims and witnesses taking part in the tribunal.

”I myself know there was a lot of sexual violence during this time but I have not met many of my clients who talk about it freely with me.”

”For woman in particular, the problems of talking about it are twofold: There is the trauma of the event, plus the cultural conditioning which makes something like rape so shameful.”

”Dealing with gender-based violence under the Khmer Rouge can help us deal with the subject of sexual violence in Cambodian society today,” said Studzinsky.

Human rights organisations have reported increasing cases of rape and domestic violence, with many of the perpetrators enjoying impunity in the same manner as that experienced by the Khmer Rouge.

”Increasing cases of rape can be partially attributed to the spread of drug use among youth gangs and to the inability of authorities to crack down on the perpetrators for fear of revenge,” said the 2007 report by local human rights group ADHOC.

”Other contributing factors may include lack of attention to complaints and investigations by authorities in order to arrest the perpetrators before they can escape justice or commit other crimes,” it said.

There is also an ongoing controversy about an anti-trafficking law introduced by the Cambodian government, which has resulted in a widespread crackdown on sex workers throughout much of the country.

Sex workers are being sent to rehabilitation camps in which they face rape and violence by the police as part of this crackdown, according to rights groups.

”It is shocking to me to see that after more than 30 years we are again sending sex workers to prisons, starving them and calling it rehabilitation or re-education,” said Southevy. ”This sounds me so similar to what the Khmer Rouge said when they locked us up for moral crimes.”

Filed Under: Human Rights, Justice, Report

RIGHTS: Swazi Law And Custom Under Pressure

September 6, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – Global Politics Online – IPS
Saturday, September 06, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Mantoe Phakathi

MBABANE, Sep 6 (IPS) – When the women’s movement in the southern African kingdom of Swaziland took to the streets in August to challenge what they called extravagance by the royal family, Swazi traditionalists were livid.

It was the first time women openly questioned Africa’s only remaining absolute monarch on his luxurious lifestyle amid grinding poverty where 69 percent of the king’s subjects live on less than a dollar a day.

Swaziland is faced with many socio-economic challenges that primarily affect women and girls. The country has the world’s highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate — 26 percent among the reproductive group of 15 to 49 years old — an under-funded health system collapsing under the strain, and two thirds of the population are dependent on food aid.

On Sep. 6, Swaziland celebrates 40 years of independence; it is also the king’s 40th birthday. Despite pleas from some quarters for fiscal discipline, millions of dollars are being spent on the joint event, dubbed the 40/40 Celebrations.

On Aug. 21, over a thousand protesters, led by the Swaziland Positive Living for Life (SWAPOL) organisation, went to demand answers from the Minister of Finance, Majozi Sithole, and Prime Minister, Themba Dlamini, to protest this perceived extravagance as well as a two-week shopping spree by nine of King Mswati’s 13 wives in the Middle East.

Governor-General Jim Gama — the traditional prime minister in Swaziland’s dual system of government — could not hide his anger, stating that ”these women should have voiced out their concerns through their husbands who are supposed to speak on their behalf.”

SWAPOL Director Siphiwe Hlophe retorted that women have a right to freedom of expression as enshrined in the Constitution of Swaziland.

”People should understand that the Constitution gives us the right to speak for ourselves,” said Hlophe.

However, because of Swazi Law and Custom, Swazi women are far from enjoying their rights as enshrined in the Constitution and other international conventions to which the Kingdom is a signatory.

According to Lomcebo Dlamini, national coordinator of gender rights organisation Women and Law in Southern Africa, the duality of the Swazi system is the greatest stumbling block in the development of the country. Swaziland uses both the Western system (so-called modern law which is based on the Westminster System and Roman Dutch Law) and Swazi Law and Custom. While the Constitution of Swaziland is modelled on the United Kingdom’s Westminster system, it gives the traditional structure marginal precedence.

For example, the constitution gives exception to matters pertaining to cultural activities, such as the reed dance and incwala (an annual kingship ceremony), rights to use Swazi Nation Land, the designation or removal of powers of a chief or traditional authority. These are all regulated by Swazi Law and Custom.

Only last month, King Mswati was present when heads of state from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) signed the Protocol on Gender and Development in Johannesburg at the SADC Summit held on Aug.16-17. The protocol calls for state parties to endeavour to enshrine gender equality and equity in their Constitutions and ensure that these rights are not compromised by any provisions, laws and practices by 2015.

”However, Swazi Law and Custom is not codified and it’s vague and open to different interpretations, which leads to the manipulation and abuse of culture,” said Dlamini.

Dlamini noted that though the country committed itself to international instruments such as the SADC Gender Protocol and the Convention on the Elimination of all Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), women still found resistance from Swazi Law and Custom.

The gender analyst at the Coordinating Assembly of Non-Governmental Organisations (CANGO), Sizakele Hlatshwayo said that the two systems could not work in harmony as the traditional system was retrogressive with regards to gender equality and women rights while the modern government of the country was progressive in this regard.

”The attitude of Gama, who ranks high in the traditional structure and still believes men should speak for women, tells you that the traditional system is working backwards. The Prime Minister (Dlamini), on the other hand, always stresses that the country should achieve gender equality,” said Hlatshwayo.

But does Swaziland want to discard customary law and move forward with modern or Western laws?

”Not really,” said Dlamini. ”It can’t be either or. We derive our identity by being Swazi therefore we can’t drop Western laws or Swazi Law and Custom but we need to harmonise the two.”

She said the nation should devise a strategy where different people, either modern or traditional, could sit down and talk about gender issues so that those cultural practices which were against the spirit of empowering women were discarded.

Hlatshwayo felt instruments such as the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development and CEDAW presented hope to the womenfolk because once a country signs and ratifies that country would be expected to implement.

”For instance, with the protocol you have legal grounds to take your country to task for failing to meet certain articles,” said Hlatshwayo. ”In fact the protocol is more relevant because it is addressing prominent issues within SADC. Article 8 of the Protocol deals with Marriage and Family Rights and it is more relevant because we have customary law that infringes on the rights of women in this regard.”

This year, Swaziland will for the first time report to the United Nations Committee for the Eliminations of all Discrimination Against Women on progress made towards meeting the provisions of CEDAW.

”Governments tend to lie when reporting to the international community and that is when civil society provides a shadow report so that the state may be accountable,” said Dlamini.

Filed Under: Africa, Human Rights, Justice, Politics, Report

RIGHTS-NEPAL: Truth, Reconciliation in Limbo

September 5, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – Global Politics Online – IPS
Friday, September 05, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Mallika Aryal

KATHMANDU, Sep 5 (IPS) – When Nepal’s Supreme Court directed the government in June 2007 to form a commission to investigate cases of forced disappearances, during the 1996-2006 civil war, it extended hope to many survivors. More than a year later the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) is still in limbo.

For Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Nepal’s new prime minister, a major concern is integration of his Maoist fighters with the Nepal Army that he fought bitterly for
ten years. Dahal’s Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) emerged victorious in the constituent assembly elections held in April.

So far the bill to create the TRC, introduced immediately after the Supreme Court ruling, appears to have stalled through poor coordination between the home and peace ministries, preoccupation with the April
elections and lack of sufficient political initiative.

”It is the sheer lack of political will,” said Jitendra Bohara of the Nepali human rights group, Advocacy Forum.

The bill for the formation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), drafted by the Peace Ministry, has undergone a fourth revision because of a controversy over a clause concerning amnesty for perpetrators of war crimes.

”You can’t establish a truth commission in a hurry,” warn rights experts. They say that the environment is still not safe for a TRC to begin work. However, other activists say that time is quickly running out and that if nothing is done valuable evidence will be lost. With the Maoists getting a majority in the election and now leading the new government, victims and their families are also afraid the TRC may never be formed.

Ramesh Shrestha, a former Maoist, lost his right arm in a grenade attack in Kathmandu in 2000 and was in and out of military custody for 17 months during the war. He is not hopeful for the families of the disappeared. ”In
the Nepal Army as well as the PLA (People’s Liberation Army), those responsible for war crimes during the war are all high-level officers,” says Shrestha. ”If a disappearance commission is formed they will all be
exposed, the Maoists will never let that happen.”

Bhaikaji Ghimire, managing editor of the monthly Sama Drishti, was secretly held for 15 months and moved between the Bhairabnath, Shivapuri and Nakkhu Prisons in Kathmandu from 2003-2005. He says that it is the responsibility of the state and the Maoists to make public all who were
disappeared, killed and tortured during the war and get the perpetrators to ask for forgiveness in public.

Ghimire adds: ”No one has the right to forgive the perpetrators but the victims.” He was convicted under an anti-terror law, tortured, made to sleep on the bare floor and put through regular death threats and mock
executions. He was freed in August 2005 when Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled that his detention was illegal and ordered an immediate release.

Although the Maoists are now hesitant about the TRC, they did support the idea of a disappearances commission before the election. ”Perhaps the Maoist leaders now feel there is a lot of evidence against them, which is why they want to push this issue under the rug,” says Bohara. The Maoists
have told the families of those disappeared by the state that all such victims will be declared martyrs, and that they should keep quiet for now.

Meanwhile, rights groups are disturbed by a memo from the United States-based law firm of Holland and Knight (H&K) that proposes a blanket amnesty for perpetrators of human rights violations. The memo states that Nepal does not have a ‘clear, binding, general duty’ under international
customary law or Nepali law to prosecute rights violations. It says there is no ‘firm support’ for claims that Nepal must prosecute violations of human rights and humanitarian law. The memo adds that amnesty is common in times of political transition, especially when truth commissions are set up.

Advocate Mandira Sharma says the memo has many flaws. ”Impunity has been the biggest challenge in Nepal, reports like the one H&K prepared can only strengthen this culture,” she says.

But Hannes Siebert, a South African consultant with the USAID-funded Nepal’s Transition to Peace Initiative, says the memo does not state, recommend or imply that international law permits blanket amnesties for
serious crimes.

”That is a terrible misreading, or non-reading, of the report,” adds Siebert, who is also chairman of the Appeal Foundation of the Nobel Peace Laureates, for whom the memo was written pro bono by H&K. The group aims to enable Nepali stakeholders to develop common ground within their often opposed positions and provide support to the Peace Secretariat and political parties.

About the controversy over amnesty provisions in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission bill, Siebert says this should be an internal Nepali debate and ”not the place of international advisers to take positions or prescribe”.

Joint secretary at the peace ministry, Madhu Regmi, says that the H&K memo was an independent study and its recommendations are not binding. ”We did not ask H&K to write a report in our favour, we are not obligated in any
way to implement their suggestions. Since the TRC is a living document we have left it open for experts to comment and H&K’s memo is just that,” he said.

Devi Sunuwar, mother of Maina Sunuwar, who was tortured and killed in 2004 while in Nepal Army custody, at 15 years of age, is outraged at all the talk of amnesty.

”The report says not all crimes committed during the war are eligible for prosecution, they need to clarify what kinds of crimes get amnesty,” Sunuwar told IPS. ”They killed my little daughter, forgiveness is out of
question. If they killed once, they will kill again.”

Filed Under: Human Rights, Justice, News

ARGENTINA: Children of Exile – Strangers Still

September 4, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – Global Politics Online – IPS
Thursday, September 04, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 4 (IPS) – While perpetrators of human rights violations during Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship have begun to be sent to prison, a new study has shed light on a less conspicuous aspect of the regime’s legacy: the problems faced by the children of former exiles who are struggling to integrate into Argentine society.

”To be a child of parents who decided to escape from state terrorism is in itself already a heavy burden, but to be a child of returnees is even harder — especially for one not born in this country — because he or she had no choice in the matter,” says the study.

”El retorno de los hijos del exilio” (roughly, The Return of the Children of Exile), published in book form in Buenos Aires in August, investigates a subject that has been neglected in studies of migration and social impacts during the dictatorship.

”Little enough was known about the conditions experienced by exiles who returned, but there was absolutely nothing known about their immediate family,” sociologist Roberto Aruj, one of the book’s authors, told IPS.

Aruj attributes this gap of knowledge to the social and political context. ”Argentine society has a debt to the processes” of exile and return, he said. In his view, ”a great deal about that period is kept hidden,” there are few memories of what went on, and there is ”discrimination” against those who were persecuted during the 1970s and returned after the fall of the military regime.

At present there are several trials under way of those responsible for crimes committed during the dictatorship, and nearly every month new convictions and sentences are announced in connection with cases of torture, murders and especially forced disappearances. There are over 10,000 documented cases of people who were ”disappeared,” although human rights organisations put the number at about 30,000.

”One of the consequences of the crimes for which members of the military are being tried today was the exile of people, with all that it implied for their children, who had to leave or return without ever having any part in the decisions,” the author said.

With co-author Estela González, Aruj conducted some 40 interviews with the children of exiles who now live in Argentina. ”Some of the children are still afraid that what happened to their parents might also happen to them, and many of them refused to take part in the study,” the sociologist said.

Only 18 percent of the interviewees said it was their ”own decision” to return to Argentina. The young people said they suffer from a sense of rootlessness and failure to adapt, and many said they hide the true reasons for their migration abroad. The respondents were all under 37.

”These young people, who are trying to integrate into a society that is not actually their own but that they have inherited, feel the defeat that weighs upon their families has influenced and marked them with characteristics that they must hide in order to avoid going into explanations about their private lives,” the book says.

”Many children of returned exiles say they have not been discriminated against,” the book says. However, ”the majority, according to the interviews, say that whenever they are asked, they tell people that they were raised abroad because their parents went there to study,” it says.

The authors remark that there were no ”concrete, effective programmes” to help families settle in when they returned from exile. Bureaucratic procedures to validate educational qualifications earned in a foreign country or to obtain documents took a long time, and there were no employment or housing provisions to help these people, who had left everything from one day to the next when they fled the country.

The book contains no new statistics about the number of people who were forced to go into exile, but it quotes several sources that estimate that nearly half a million people left Argentina for other Latin American countries, the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe, especially Spain, between 1970, when the state began using repressive measures on a mass scale, and 1985.

In contrast, there are no figures for the number of people who returned after the dictatorship.

”The children of returned Argentine exiles are a new immigrant community,” says the book. They are not immigrants in the usual sense, nor are they returnees. As a group, they share a common history of migration, and a place that is paradoxically familiar and hostile at the same time, it says.

Many exiles took their small children with them, and other children were born while their parents were in exile abroad. When the parents decided to return to Argentina after the reinstatement of democracy, their children were already mostly teenagers or young people, and they were generally unable to wield any influence over their parents’ decisions.

Among the consequences of going into exile and returning to Argentina, the authors highlight the break-up of families. The interviews indicated that the parents of 77 percent of the children of the exile have separated or divorced. Half the couples split up during their exile, and half after their return.

Another finding was that sometimes the entire family unit did not return. Some families tried to do so, but then one member would go back to the host country where they had lived.

In 31 percent of the cases studied, the father of the family remained in the country of exile, or returned there after living a while in Argentina. In eight percent of the cases this was true of the mother, and in three percent, one of the children.

”Going ‘home’ was just another forced migration for many children of exile,” said Aruj, a professor at the state University of Buenos Aires. They were born or raised abroad, and after adapting to their own uprooting or that of their parents, they had to drop everything and return to Argentina on someone else’s say-so.

The writers of the study explain that in Argentina, legal nationality is based on ”jus soli” (the right of citizenship derived from being born on the country’s soil). However, in several of the European countries where exiles settled, it is based on ”jus sanguinis” (derived from the bloodline, or parentage).

Thus there were children in exile who ”were left stateless,” the authors say.

Sweden granted Swedish nationality to the children of Argentine exiles who were born there, but this was an exception to its own laws.

In the interviews, 17 percent of the children of former exiles said they had ”no nationality.” Thirteen percent said they had ”dual nationality,” Argentine and that of the host country they had lived in. Five percent said they were nationals of their country of exile, and three percent defined themselves as ”Latin American.”

Filed Under: Human Rights, Justice, Politics, Report

COLOMBIA: Justice on Strike

September 3, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – IPS
Wednesday, September 03, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, Sep 3 (IPS) – Some 34,000 judicial sector employees in Colombia began an indefinite strike Wednesday, demanding labour stability, the enforcement of a new salary scheme, and guarantees of independence for the courts.

Monday’s devastating car-bomb attack on the Palace of Justice in the western city of Cali was just one more reason for the protest.

”All judicial proceedings are being suspendedàin the civil, administrative, labour and criminal spheres,” announced Fabio Hernández, president of the National Association of Judicial Branch Employees (Asonal Judicial).

Eighty percent of the sector’s 43,000 workers are going on strike, ”which will be general and will affect all jurisdictions,” although ”we will continue to attend extremely serious cases,” he added.

The Asonal Judicial presented a list of grievances and demands in November 2007, but ”the government has kept silent,” said Tarsicio Mora, president of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT), Colombia’s main trade union confederation, of which the Asonal Judicial is a member.

”The avenue of dialogue has been exhausted. The workers have no other option than to protest,” said Mora, who added that ”it is clear that there is no dialogue here with the social sectors, and even less in the case of the labour union movement.”

The Asonal Judicial is demanding a new salary scheme, as established by a 1992 law that has only been partially implemented and enforced.

Another problem, said Mora, is that public employees have no labour stability, because they are hired under fixed-term contracts that may or may not be renewed at any given time. ”There are civil servants who have been working for more than 20 years as temporary public employees, even though that is illegal,” he stressed.

Labour instability affects more than 18,000 judicial branch employees. Many have worked for a decade or more under fixed-term contracts that must be periodically renewed. Currently, 4,000 judges and other judicial branch workers are facing the possibility of losing their jobs in December.

Apecides Alvis, president of the Confederación de Trabajadores de Colombia (CTC), Colombia’s oldest central union, founded in 1936, said that reducing the number of judges or appointing new ones would require a period of adaptation for the proceedings presently under way, which ”would clearly generate great difficulties.”

In response to a question from IPS, Asonal Judicial president Hernández said the situation ”undoubtedly” affects the independence of the justice system, ”because the mechanism of temporary contracts is used to pressure judicial branch employees to adopt certain kinds of decisions at a given moment.”

That is a particularly touchy aspect at a time when those most responsible for the massacres and killings committed in Colombia’s decades-long civil war have come under the scrutiny of the justice system.

Colombia has been caught in the grip of an armed conflict since the mid-1960s, when the leftist guerrilla groups rose up in arms. In the 1980s, far-right paramilitary militias emerged to fight the insurgents, in alliance with government forces.

”The country needs investigations and clear, prompt sentences in these questions — ‘para-politics’ and paramilitary activity — that have shaken Colombian society,” said Hernández.

He was referring to the legal investigations and prosecutions of legislators for their alleged ties with the paramilitary groups, which are blamed for the lion’s share of the atrocities committed in Colombia’s civil war, and that have partially demobilised as a result of controversial negotiations with the rightwing administration of Álvaro Uribe.

Nearly all of the roughly 70 lawmakers under arrest or investigation are Uribe allies.

Hernández added that ”society needs responses to the demands of the victims and the population at large — answers that are in line with the magnitude of the crimes committed,” many of which are classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

”If the public employees who have this delicate mission are not even sure of their jobs, it is very easy to pressure or manipulate them,” said the head of the Asonal Judicial.

”We have demanded that the government ensure their labour stability, given the experience, performance and responsibility level of these workers,” said Hernández.

In fact, respect for the independence of the judiciary is the first point on the list of demands presented by the Asonal Judicial.

”A very serious situation has arisen from the meddling of the executive branch in judicial affairs, and from the constant aggression,” he said, referring to Uribe’s repeated verbal attacks on the magistrates handling the cases against dozens of members of Congress who are implicated in what has been dubbed the ”para-politics” or ”para-gate” scandal.

”Colombia’s judicial branch is facing a critical situation,” because the president ”is constantly lashing out at the highest echelons of the judiciary, particularly regarding the work of the criminal chamber of the Supreme Court in the ‘para-politics’ investigations,” said Hernández.

He complained that the attacks ”by the president and the executive branch as a whole have been systematic and organised, aimed at delegitimising, at any cost, the judicial investigations” in these cases.

The Asonal Judicial’s list of demands calls for ”the establishment of clear mechanisms for guaranteeing respect for the independence and autonomy of the judicial branch, a normal aspect of any state of law,” he added.

Last week, Argentine jurist Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), raised red flags by making a three-day visit to Colombia.

In the scenario of Colombia’s internal armed conflict, where ”we have an enormous number of crimes and a massive number of criminals,” the criteria being followed is ”to go after the people who may be considered among those most responsible,” Moreno Ocampo said in Bogotá.

Against this backdrop, a car-bomb went off early Monday near the Palace of Justice in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, killing four people and injuring 20.

Ten of the 18 stories of one of the two courtroom building towers were totally destroyed by the blast, including some 200 offices and the computers in them, while the paper files and archives were also damaged.

More than 500 other buildings were damaged by the explosion as well, and the city government declared a state of emergency on Tuesday. Even without a strike, a 10-day suspension of legal proceedings was declared in that city. On Wednesday, the courthouse was surrounded by white carnations, and judges were picking their way through the ruins, to see what could be salvaged.

President Uribe, Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos and national police chief General Óscar Naranjo blamed the bombing on the ”Manuel Cepeda” column of the leftwing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

But ”it was not the Manuel Cepeda column. That has been confirmed,” an analyst who closely follows the war with the FARC told IPS.

The perpetrators must be sought in the drug trafficking gangs that are active in the region, said the expert, with the Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris, a think tank in Bogotá that focuses on peace and development issues.

The president of the Asonal Judicial said that ”we were really struck by the fact that this attack occurred just prior to our strike, which was announced over a month ago.”

”We prefer to wait and see what the investigation reveals,” before reaching any conclusions, said Hernández.

But ”if this was an attempt at intimidating judicial branch employees, they have wasted their time and their criminal act. Because we are going to continue with this movement, which we see as necessary to improve the administration of justice in Colombian society and, of course, the well-being of the judicial sector workers,” he said.

Mora, of the CUT, said the judicial branch ”has been especially beleaguered and harassed, and has been hit hard by the war. More than 26 judges and other judicial sector employees have been killed,” including three so far in 2008, he noted.

The country’s trade union confederations and a number of social organisations have announced a Sept. 11 demonstration in support of the Supreme Court.

Filed Under: Featured, Justice, Latin America, Politics

RIGHTS-SPAIN: Debate Over Investigation of Civil War Victims

September 3, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – Global Politics Online – IPS
Wednesday, September 03, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Tito Drago

MADRID, Sep 2 (IPS) – Internationally renowned Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón unleashed a heated debate in Spain by ordering the authorities to provide information on human rights crimes committed in the 1936-1939 civil war and the subsequent 36-year dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

He will study the information in order to decide whether the National Court has jurisdiction to investigate complaints presented last year by victims’ associations.

Discreet support for the resolution was expressed Tuesday by members of the administration of socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. However, the move drew fierce criticism from the main opposition force, the centre-right Popular Party (PP).

In dispute is whether the 1977 amnesty law and the Law on Historical Memory, passed last year, closed the issue once and for all, as the PP argues, or whether there are still aspects that can be clarified by the courts.

Lawyer Francisca Sauquillo, a socialist lawmaker in the European Parliament, told IPS that although the 2007 law does not allow new trials to be opened on political questions, it cannot stand in the way of investigations on ”crimes against humanity.”

Under both national and international law, no amnesty can apply to crimes against humanity, said Sauquillo, the founder and president of the Movement for Peace, Disarmament and Liberty (MPDL), which emerged during, and in opposition to, the 1939-1975 Franco dictatorship.

Garzón’s resolution is aimed at gathering information in order to determine whether or not the human rights violations in question can be classified as crimes against humanity, said Sauquillo.

She argued that the judge’s plan is only logical, given that there is no list of names of the tens of thousands of victims of the civil war and the dictatorship.

The judge’s decision was prompted by complaints filed on Jul. 18, 2007, the 71st anniversary of the coup d’etat in which Franco overthrew Spain’s Republican government, by the associations for the recovery of the historical memory in the regions of Catalonia, Andalusia and Mallorca.

These associations have collected oral and written testimonies about the victims of the Franco regime, and have investigated unmarked mass graves into which victims’ bodies were dumped.

The president of the Catalonian association, Manuel Perona, said that ”after 70 years of waiting, we now have hope that justice will be done on behalf of thousands of people who continue to demand to know the whereabouts of their family members.”

Paqui Maqueda, vice president of the Andalusian victims’ association, also said she hoped that the cases would finally be opened.

Margalida Capellá, a lawyer who belongs to the Mallorca association, told IPS that the civil registers contain death records for victims of forced disappearance. She said her organisation’s investigation of civil registers has turned up records on 198 deaths and 400 disappearances.

On Monday night, Garzón ordered municipalities, parish churches and war cemeteries to provide him with information on victims of the Franco regime.

The spokesman for Spain’s Catholic bishops’ conference told IPS that he had not yet received any request, and thus declined to make a pronouncement on the issue.

Anselmo Álvarez, abbot of the Valle de los Caídos, told the press that 34,000 people are buried in the cemetery there, all of whom were killed in the war. He added that when he received Garzón’s request, he would study it and decide what to do.

On the other hand, prompt offers of cooperation came from the municipal authorities in two large cities in Andalusia in the south: Granada and Córdoba. In the former, Mayor José Torres Hurtado and the rector of the University of Granada, Francisco González Lodeiro, both stated that they would provide the information requested, although they clarified that they did not believe they had much to offer.

González Lodeiro also said he did not understand why Garzón only asked for information from his university, since there ”are other universities, like the Complutense or the universities of Salamanca and Oviedo, where professors were also shot and killed.”

The associations that presented the legal complaints said that some 2,400 people were shot and killed in the San José cemetery in Granada during the Franco regime and buried there in mass graves.

Córdoba Mayor Rosa Aguilar of the United Left (IU) coalition said her government would cooperate with Garzón to give answers to people who are seeking the remains of their loved ones, in order to give them a proper burial, so that they can ”rest in peace.”

But Garzón has challenges to overcome. In February, the public prosecutor’s office cited the 1977 amnesty law to request that the complaints brought by the associations be dismissed.

A spokesman for the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Juan Pablo
González, said it is not within the competence of Judge Garzón to carry out ”historical investigations” or draw up a census of those killed in the civil war.

Another CGPJ spokesman, José Luis Requero, described what Garzón is doing as a ”judicial show.”

Even Judges for Democracy (JpD), which has a reputation as a progressive association, criticised Garzón, who is internationally renowned for his attempts to bring former military leaders of Latin American dictatorships to justice, including Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), whose extradition to Spain he unsuccessfully sought.

JpD spokesman Miguel Ángel Jimeno said that before he can undertake legal action, Garzón must be looking at a crime to which no amnesty or statute of limitation applies, committed by an individual who can be identified, in order to find out who was guilty, and that for now these conditions do not exist.

Garzón also drew criticism from the press. The director of the Madrid newspaper El Mundo, Pedro Ramírez, wrote in his Tuesday editorial that Garzón ”is not seeking to do justice but to use it for his own personal ends.”

However, Garzón received support from other quarters. The council of National Court judges defended his ”professional integrity” and announced that it would ask the CGPJ to make ”an express pronouncement” with respect to the ”unfair and arbitrary opinions” expressed by the newspaper, one of Spain’s two leading papers.

In the judges’ view, El Mundo’s criticism went beyond the bounds of what is permissible in terms of questioning judicial resolutions, and also called into question ”the professional integrity of magistrate Baltasar Garzón.”

PP president Mariano Rajoy said he did not agree with ”opening the wounds of the past,” and argued that digging around in the past ”will not lead to anything, no matter who does it.”

But in the governing Socialist Party, both Zapatero and other leaders said they respected and would continue to respect the decisions of the judiciary.

Filed Under: Europe, Human Rights, Justice, Politics, Report

RIGHTS-GUINEA: ”We Can Forgive, But We Have To Know The Truth”

September 1, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – IPS
Monday, September 01, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Saliou Samb

CONAKRY, Sep 1 (IPS) – Kadiatou Diallo Sylla shares a shack with her family in Bambeto, a Conakry suburb. She is haunted by memories of her 14-year-old son, an only child: he was killed by the military during anti-government demonstrations in January 2007.

A year after a national inquiry was launched into the killings that took more than 186 lives, Diallo Sylla still doesn’t know who killed her son, Kerfalla. The situation leaves her filled with a burning rage.

”I waited seven years into my marriage to have my only son, Kerfalla. I would have never imagined that he would die like this,” she told IPS with tears in her eyes.

Her husband Oumar Sadio Sylla explained how police shooting from a car killed Kerfalla. He was hit twice, one bullet passing through his neck.

”I was at least hoping for his killers to be put on trial. But we waited in vain,” a resigned Sadio Sylla told IPS. ”I have no faith in the inquiry. For now we just want to know what happened. We can forgive, but we have to know the truth,” he added.

Abdoulaye Diallo, however, is less conciliatory. His 19 year old son was killed with a bullet to the head on February 13, 2007. From his Koloma home in Conakry’s suburbs, he says he won’t rest until he knows what happened to his son — and justice is served.

”I can’t forgive. They killed my son under false pretenses. He was completely unarmed — not a gun, or a rock, or a even a stick. But they shot him,” Diallo told IPS.

More than 186 people died in the wave of repression that followed anti-government demonstrations and strikes in January and February 2007. However the government only acknowledges 137 victims.

In June 2006, at least 13 people, most of them students, were shot in the capital Conakry and two other cities of this West African country.

A national inquiry was launched to investigate the two bloody events. Mounir Hussein Mohamed, lawyer and president of the inquiry, says that the investigation has been obstructed, though authorities deny this.

”Absolutely no progress has been made and we’re at the same point we were at last year. This is unacceptable. The culprit here is the lack of political will,” Mohamed told IPS.

During public consultations held in August, an army spokesperson made a formal public apology. This followed an earlier apology to the Guinean people from General Diarra Camara, head of the country’s armed forces, in the wake of previous clashes between police and the army which killed 20 people in June 2006.

”The (political) will is clear and present at all levels,” says Amadou Oury Bah, Minister of National Reconciliation. ”Military institutions asking for forgiveness is not a common occurrence. The symbolism is very powerful.

”There are different understandings of what justice means. We’re trying to build an alternative to the radical attitude where victims seek revenge by imprisoning the guilty.”

Bah stresses that the best way forward is to lay strong foundations for strengthening democracy and the nation. ”We’re witnessing a historic moment. The whole nation will come to commend the victims for struggling for a vision of Guinea that will bring about an evolutionary change.”

Bah’s statement seems to be an accurate summary of the current government’s position, but its a risky one according to Madani Dia, a political analyst.

”The Prime Minister seems to have chosen to focus on improving living conditions while sweeping the killings under the carpet. If he succeeds in the former, then the latter will be forgotten for a while. However, if he fails, then the situation may get worse than what we saw in early 2007.”

The Prime Minister, Ahmed Tidiane Souaré is a close ally of Guinean president Lansana Conté. He was appointed in May 2008, replacing Lansana Kouyaté — the compromise candidate who took office in February 2007 with a mandate to resolve the crisis.

The investigation into the killings made no better progress on Kouyaté’s watch than under Souaré; it is made all the more sensitive by the fact that witnesses indicted individuals close to the president’s family.

Dustin Sharp, researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW), says the government is being reckless and should make the national inquiry truly effective. ”A very dangerous message is being sent to armed forces: that violence and lack of discipline are acceptable behavior.”

Sharp confirmed to IPS that HRW sent a letter this to Souaré in August stating their concerns about human rights in Guinea.

Souleymane Bah, from the the Guinean Human Rights Organisation (Organisation guinéenne des droits de l’Homme — OGDH), feels that impunity aggravates violence. ”We will be writing a letter to remind the government that the victims of last year’s attacks have not seen justice. We plan to demonstrate if the government does not respond,” he warns.

Thierno Maadjou Sow, OGDH’s president, has called for an international investigative commission, a motion backed by most members of the local independent NGO coalition. OGDH feels so strongly that only an international commission could maintain the necessary independence that it refused to participate in the national inquiry.

Filed Under: Africa, Human Rights, Justice, News
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