PERU: Stepping Up Protection for Native Groups in Voluntary Isolation

March 27, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Women and children from a Nanti community in initial contact with Western culture in the Peruvian region of Madre de Dios. Credit: INDEPA

Milagros Salazar

LIMA, Mar 26 (IPS) – In the dense Amazon rainforest of Peru, there are five reserves inhabited by indigenous groups who have chosen to remain totally or partially isolated from the rest of society. But these areas are not officially demarcated as indigenous lands, and only one is protected with a control post.The authorities responsible for them are now attempting to reinforce protection of these vulnerable populations, ignored for years by the state.

“A reserve is an instrument to protect the rights of these communities, who have found themselves obliged to live in isolation due to a series of violations they have suffered, particularly during the rubber boom. We owe them a historical debt,” Paulo Vilca, the general director of intercultural affairs and peoples’ rights at the Vice Ministry of Intercultural Affairs, told Tierramérica*.

Throughout the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the expansion of rubber tapping in the Amazon brought disease, death and virtual extermination to the rainforest’s indigenous peoples, who were forced into slave labour.

Groups living in “voluntary isolation” have chosen to avoid all contact with the rest of society in the countries where they live, for historical reasons such as the extermination described above. Other groups are categorised as living in “initial contact”: while they remain largely isolated, they engage in contact with the outside world for certain concrete reasons, such as health care.

After many years of waiting, a multi-sectoral commission in Peru recognised five reserves in August 2012. Three of them – Isconahua, Murunahua and Mashco-Piro – are in the eastern region of Ucayali. The Madre de Dios reserve is in the southeastern region of the same name, while the Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti reserve is in the southern region of Cusco.

The latter is additionally home to the Matsiguenga and Yora peoples, but it also overlaps with the natural gas fields in Lot 88, an area under lease to the Camisea gas consortium.

All five are currently classified as “territorial reserves” but are slated to be designated as “indigenous reserves”, a category created in 2007 by Law 28.736 to provide greater protection for people living in isolation or initial contact.

In order for this reclassification to be official, the executive branch must issue a supreme decree. The Vice Ministry of Intercultural Affairs submitted the proposal in the first week of March, and it is now under study by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.

The categorisation of these lands as indigenous reserves would mean the official demarcation of the territory needed to provide greater guarantees for these populations who face permanent ongoing threats, said Vilca.

Julio Ibáñez, an attorney with the Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), stressed the need for indigenous organisations to form part of the commission responsible for evaluating these requests, in order for the native peoples themselves to have a say in the decision.

“This would guarantee that the rights of indigenous peoples in isolation or initial contact are represented and protected by genuinely representative organisations,” Ibáñez told Tierramérica.

This commission is currently made up by representatives of the national government, regional governments and universities, but includes no indigenous delegates.

Vilca reported that his department is drafting a proposal for the inclusion of indigenous organisations in the commission.

Since becoming active again in mid-2012, the commission has had to deal with a number of pending issues, such as the evaluation of requests for the recognition of another five reserves, which date back 10 to 14 years.

Vilca is preparing a report on this matter, after receiving the files for these requests in December from the National Institute for the Development of Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Peoples (INDEPA).

He acknowledged that the state has not paid sufficient attention to these populations, but is now trying to rectify that situation.

Of the five territorial reserves that have been recognised, only the Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti reserve is protected with a control post.

The vice ministry has announced the signing of agreements with local governments and the National Natural Protected Areas Service to guarantee the protection of the other reserves.

In the meantime, a whole range of threats loom over them, from illegal logging to oil and gas operations.

Argentine-based Pluspetrol, which heads up the Camisea gas consortium, is seeking to expand its activities in Lot 88 into a section of the Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti reserve – which encompasses three communities in initial contact: Santa Rosa de Serjali, Montetoni and Marankeato – and the buffer zone around Manu National Park.

In 2010, the government agency that promotes oil and gas industry investment accepted the request from Pluspetrol, which presented the terms of reference and a citizen participation plan to modify its environmental impact assessment in order to include the new activities.

In May 2012, technicians from INDEPA and Vilca’s department stated that gas exploration activities would pose a risk to the populations living in isolation.

As a result, the public participation mechanisms should only apply to the three communities in initial contact mentioned above.

Pluspetrol then asked Vilca’s agency if it should present a citizen participation plan to inform these three settlements of its activities.

The response, which came in late August, was that this would not be necessary unless the communities themselves demanded it, and that it should be carried out in coordination with the Vice Ministry, since it would be an ad hoc procedure.

The non-profit organisation Law, Environment and Natural Resources (DAR) questioned this response, since it opens up the possibility of information-sharing workshops in territories that are supposed to be protected.

Vilca replied that the mission of the Vice Ministry of Intercultural Affairs is not to promote investment, but rather “to enforce respect for the rights of the peoples.”

In addition, his team must still evaluate the modification of the environmental impact assessment for the expansion of activities in Lot 88, and in this case, its evaluation will be binding.

After Pluspetrol activities were reported in the Manu National Park buffer zone, the company stated that it would not continue with its plans in the area. But DAR and indigenous organisations believe that the matter is far from settled.

Tierramérica contacted Pluspetrol and the Department of Energy-Related Environmental Affairs for their input on the subject, but neither had responded by press time.

In the meantime, a million dollars in funding from the Inter-American Development Bank will be used this year to step up protection of indigenous reserves, reported Vilca.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Culture, Environment, Human Rights, Justice, Latin America, Lead, Politics Tagged With: ,

Ten Years On: Murder and Mayhem Prevail in Iraq

March 27, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

[Photo credit: bestgamewallpapers.com]

By Ernest Corea* | IDN-InDepth News Analysis

iraq-market_smallWASHINGTON DC (IDN) – Anniversaries are usually treated as occasions for celebration. They are given special names as in “golden” for a fiftieth anniversary and “tin” for a tenth. Goodwill is in the air, food and drinks are brought out, and “don’t worry, be happy” is the overarching theme for all concerned. Not so in contemporary Iraq, where the tenth anniversary of the US invasion of that country fell on March 19, 2013. The event was not commemorated with joyous activity. Instead, murder and mayhem prevailed.

International news agencies reported that Baghdad was wracked by death and destruction on the tenth anniversary of the invasion. Over 50 people were reported dead in a wave of bombings that ripped through the capital and its environs.

Sporadic sectarian violence has continued throughout the post-Saddam period. So has corruption, as near-anarchy continues to dominate post-invasion Iraq. The Washington Post comments that “haunted by the ghosts of its brutal past, Iraq is teetering between progress and chaos, a country threatened by local and regional conflicts that could drag it back into the sustained bloodshed its citizens know so well.”

“Mission Accomplished,” President Bush?

Outcome of “Rash War”

In Iraq as elsewhere, recollections during the tenth anniversary of an invasion that was said to be characterized by “shock and awe” evoked sorrow over deaths and suffering, anger at the launching of a war on false grounds, and baffled introspection over how the US as a whole – the people, politicians, and the press – were bamboozled into supporting a “dumb war” and a “rash war” as then State Senator Barack Obama called it.

Looking back at the US invasion and its aftermath, perhaps the most cogent encapsulation has come from Hans Blix, the distinguished Swedish diplomat who was formerly his country’s foreign minister and who headed the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). In an Iraq retrospective published by CNN to mark the 10th anniversary of a deadly misadventure, Blix wrote:

“– The war aimed to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, but there weren’t any.

– The war aimed to eliminate al Qaeda in Iraq, but the terrorist group didn’t exist in the country until after the invasion.

– The war aimed to make Iraq a model democracy based on law, but it replaced tyranny with anarchy and led America to practices that violated the laws of war.

– The war aimed to transform Iraq to a friendly base for U.S. troops capable to act, if needed, against Iran — but instead it gave Iran a new ally in Baghdad.”

Blix’s pithy summation provides a salutary warning to all those whose reaction to a conflict taking place beyond America’s shores is a yearning for direct intervention.

WMD were non-existent

Many influential supporters of the US invasion of Iraq remain hawkish, nevertheless. They have not shifted from their original positions and some of them are so committed to their own misadventure that they claim they would “do it all over again” if an opportunity arose.

Moreover, some remain faithful to the dubious proposition that the invasion was justified because at the time it was launched, intelligence agencies all over the world were convinced that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Some national intelligence agencies did, indeed, make this assumption from the safety of distance. UNMOVIC, which had deployed inspectors on the ground in Iraq, was not convinced.

As Blix told the UN Security Council and through it the world on Feb. 14, 2003, well ahead of the invasion:

“How much, if any, is left of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and related proscribed items and programs? So far, UNMOVIC has not found any such weapons, only a small number of empty chemical munitions, which should have been declared and destroyed.”

That was not just a “gut feeling,” or idle speculation. It was an assessment based on actual facts.

Evidence of Absence

Knowing that the Bush Administration was inexorably moving towards war although the justification it claimed did not exist, Blix, as well as others associated with UNMOVIC, sought to avert a disaster. They attempted to persuade Western leaders, among others, that potentially cataclysmic decisions were being approached on the basis of flawed assumptions.

Blix records, for instance, that “during a telephone chat with Tony Blair on February 20, I told the British prime minister that it would be paradoxical and absurd if a quarter of a million troops were to invade Iraq and find very little in the way of weapons. He (i.e. Blair) responded by telling me intelligence was clear that Saddam had reconstituted his weapons of mass destruction program.” (Readers will recall that Blair was as gung ho as President George W. Bush about the invasion.)

Blix shared his misgivings with others in high positions who might have been able to halt or slow down the drift towards war. He writes: “…suspicions are one thing and reality is quite another. U.N. inspectors were asked to search for, report and destroy real weapons.

“As we found no weapons and no evidence supporting the suspicions, we reported this. But U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed our reports with one of his wittier retorts: ‘The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’” Verbal dexterity is a helpful trait in a politician but does not supplant the need for realism in the decision-making process. Policy decisions on war and peace require more than comedic talent.

In yet another intervention, Blix writes, “on February 11 — less than five weeks before the invasion — I told U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice I wasn’t terribly impressed by the intelligence we had received from the U.S., and that there had been no weapons of mass destruction at any of the sites we had been recommended (to inspect) by American forces. Her response was that it was Iraq, and not the intelligence, that was on trial.” Oh, wow.

Fake premise, Real problems

A war launched on a cooked-up premise is likely, at best, to have mixed results. On the plus side, Iraq has the benefit of Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical – in some situations, brutal – regime having ended. Few but his closest associates mourned his eviction from power. The end of his regime has not, however, been an unmixed blessing for the people of Iraq.

Over 130,000 Iraqis died as a result of the invasion and its consequences. Families were disrupted as they are in any war, and the hope of a “new tomorrow” remains distant for the nation. Stable, democratic governance is yet to be achieved. Corruption has been woven into the fabric of life.

On the US side, over 4,000 deaths have been reported, with so many more injured. Military personnel have lost their limbs and, thereby, their capacity for employment. They, and many others, have become victims of emotional trauma.

A report on the Costs of War compiled by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University calculates that US war expenditures at over $2 trillion – yes, with a “t.” This upsurge of unfunded expenditure aggravated the recession from which the US has not fully recovered.

The world’s policymakers would be well advised to think deeply on the effects of the Bush Administration’s intervention in Iraq as they consider their responses to other regional and global problems that cry out for resolution.

*The writer has served as Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Canada, Cuba, Mexico, and the USA. He was Chairman of the Commonwealth Select Committee on the media and development, Editor of the Ceylon ‘Daily News’ and the Ceylon ‘Observer’, and was for a time Features Editor and Foreign Affairs columnist of the Singapore ‘Straits Times’. He is Global Editor of and Editorial Adviser to IDN-InDepthNews as well as President of the Media Task Force of Global Cooperation Council. [IDN-InDepthNews – March 21, 2013]

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Filed Under: Commentary, Conflict, Human Rights, Middle East, Security Tagged With: ,

Operation Condor on Trial in Argentina

March 6, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Manuel Cordero, captured on camera in 2009 by a journalist with Uruguay’s Channel 12 violating house arrest in Brazil. Credit: Canal 12

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 05 (IPS) – The trial over a campaign of terror coordinated among the dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America in the 1970s and 1980s began Tuesday in Buenos Aires with former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla as one of the main defendants, along with another 24 former military officers.Under Operation Condor, as the coordination between the military dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay was known, opponents of the regimes were tracked down, kidnapped, tortured, transferred across borders and killed – including guerrilla fighters, political activists, trade unionists, students, priests, journalists or mothers demanding to know what had happened to their missing sons and daughters.

"This is the first time in Latin America that a trial is being held over Operation Condor, to prosecute those responsible, above and beyond trials held in some countries for specific cases," lawyer Luz Palmas of the Fundación Liga Argentina por los Derechos Humanos (FUNLADDHH), a human rights organisation, told IPS.

The 25 defendants include Videla and other former generals like Reynaldo Bignone and Luciano Benjamín Menéndez. Uruguayan general Manuel Cordero, prosecuted for the role he played in the illegal detention centre at Automotores Orletti in Buenos Aires, was extradited from Brazil for this trial.

Three of the accused were declared unfit to stand trial for health reasons. Another 15 people under investigation died before the case came to trial.

"Orletti was an operational base for Condor. Foreigners who were kidnapped were taken there, which is why it was decided to take both the cases to oral trial together," said Palmas, who represents survivors of the torture centre as well as victims of forced disappearance.

The trial that began Tuesday, which could stretch on for up to two years, is for the kidnapping and forced disappearance of 106 people. The largest group of victims were Uruguayans (48), but there were also Argentines, Bolivians, Chileans, Paraguayans and one Peruvian.

The case was initiated in 1999, when the two amnesty laws that put a stop to the prosecution of members of the military for human rights abuses committed during Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship were still in force.

The lawsuit thus invoked forced disappearance as a crime against humanity that was not subject to amnesty.

After the amnesty laws were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2005, along with the presidential pardons of former members of the military junta, the case picked up speed, more victims were included and more people came under investigation.

In the Orletti case, the crimes are illegal detention and torture. Sixty-five victims were identified, some of whom survived and, like Ana Inés Quadros, a Uruguayan citizen, have already testified in an earlier stage of the trial in 2010 against four torturers belonging to the Argentine intelligence services.

At that time, Quadros declared that she was kidnapped in Buenos Aires in July 1976 and taken to Orletti, where she was tortured and raped by Cordero. She was later transferred to an illegal detention centre in Uruguay, and eventually freed.

However, Cordero is only being tried for illegal detention under Operation Condor, and not for the crimes he committed in Orletti, because the Brazilian justice system did not grant extradition for that case.

In the view of Lorena Balardini, research coordinator for the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), a local human rights group, this trial "is the biggest to be held so far in the region over Operation Condor, and could serve as an impetus for other countries where there have been delays or backsliding," she told IPS.

Balardini said there had been "a setback" in Uruguay. She was referring to a Supreme Court ruling in February this year overturning a lower court verdict to remove the statute of limitations on crimes of the 1973-1985 dictatorship, regarded as crimes against humanity.

"This trial is a way of making these abuses visible and judging them from the viewpoint of coordination between dictatorships," she said. For this reason, CELS, in its capacity as legal representative of several victims, has focused on key cases in which that coordination is proven.

For example, CELS is representing the families of Marcelo Gelman – the son of Argentine poet Juan Gelman – and his wife María Claudia García Irureta. The couple was kidnapped in Buenos Aires in 1976 at the ages of 20 and 19 respectively, when García was seven months pregnant.

Gelman was killed and his body was identified in 1989, but García was taken from Orletti to Uruguay, where she gave birth to Macarena Gelman, who was finally tracked down at the age of 23 by her grandfather in 2000. García’s body has never been found.

Complaints will also be lodged on behalf of Horacio Campiglia and his secretary Susana Pinus, Argentine citizens who were kidnapped in Galeão airport in Rio de Janeiro in 1980 and were presumed to have been transferred to Argentina, where they disappeared.

In the context of Operation Condor, other famous cases were investigated specifically, such as the murders in Argentina of Uruguayan Congressmen Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz in 1976.

Former Bolivian president Juan José Torres, who took refuge in Argentina after being overthrown by Hugo Banzer in 1971, was also murdered there in 1976.

According to lawyer Carolina Varsky, head of litigation at CELS, these murder cases were not included in the Operation Condor trial in order to evade restrictions imposed by the amnesty laws, and only cases of forced disappearance – considered “ongoing crimes” – were taken up.

As for the central role played by Chile’s DINA, the secret police of late dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), Varsky regretted the lack of progress in prosecuting direct or indirect agents of repression who participated in Operation Condor.

Essential evidence came from Paraguay, where lawyer and journalist Martín Almada discovered in 1992 what are known as the Archives of Terror in a police station in Asunción, containing innumerable documents shedding light on the fate of Operation Condor victims from the seven countries.

Further evidence is contained in declassified documents from the United States State Department, such as a 1976 memo from an FBI agent describing the coordinated actions of South America’s military regimes, which could go "as far as murder."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Featured, History, Human Rights, Justice, Latin America Tagged With: ,

Political Violence Grips Egypt From All Sides

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Since the two-year anniversary of the January 25 Revolution, Egypt has seen numerous clashes between anti-government demonstrators and security forces.Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

Adam Morrow, Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Feb 17 (IPS) – Since the second anniversary of the uprising that ended the Mubarak regime, Egypt has witnessed a spate of political violence. Egypt’s opposition led by the high-profile National Salvation Front (NSF) blames President Mohamed Morsi for the bloodshed, but many blame the NSF and its leaders."The NSF’s slowness in condemning recent violence has made it appear to the public as if it were condoning – even inciting – acts of violence and sabotage," Amr Hashim Rabie, senior analyst at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told IPS.

Egypt’s non-Islamist opposition, he added, "may pay the price for this perception in upcoming parliamentary elections."

The second anniversary of Egypt’s Jan. 25 Revolution and its aftermath have been accompanied by outbreaks of violence across the country. NSF-led rallies and marches have led to numerous clashes between anti-government protesters and police that have so far left more than 50 dead, including security personnel.

Monday Feb. 11, the second anniversary of Mubarak’s ouster, saw renewed skirmishes between aggressive protesters and police outside the presidential palace in Cairo. In what has become a new means of expressing political dissent, anti-government protesters also cut Cairo’s metro line and blocked the capital’s busy 6 October Bridge.

In recent months, the NSF – a loose coalition of opposition parties and groups headed by Amr Moussa, Hamdeen Sabbahi (both of whom lost to Morsi in presidential polls last summer) and Mohamed ElBaradei – has taken the lead in articulating the demands of Egypt’s non-Islamist opposition. These demands include amendment of Egypt’s new constitution, the appointment of a new government, and the dismissal of a Morsi-appointed prosecutor-general.

Opposition spokesmen have been quick to blame President Morsi for the recent bloodshed, along with the Muslim Brotherhood group from which he hails. But according to Rabie, most of the public – weary after months of political turmoil – holds the NSF-led opposition directly responsible for much of the ongoing violence and mayhem.

"Recent opinion polls show that most Egyptians blame the NSF for sowing chaos and inciting bloodshed, damaging property both public and private, and hurting the economy by damaging Egypt’s already-reeling tourism industry," he said.

Rabie attributed this perception to failures by the NSF to speedily condemn recent acts of violence and sabotage. "The NSF has been woefully slow in distancing itself from violent acts because it hasn’t wanted to alienate the non-peaceful activists who answered its calls for anti-government rallies."

Conversations with several average Egyptians appeared to support Rabie’s assertions.

"I had been planning to vote against the Brotherhood in upcoming parliamentary polls, but given the opposition’s recent aggressive behaviour, I’m going to give my vote to the Brotherhood candidate," said Karim, a 39-year-old Cairo physician who preferred not to give his last name.

Ahmed Kamel, spokesman for Amr Moussa (head of the liberal Conference Party and leading NSF member), rejected the notion that the public blamed the NSF for bloodshed.

Describing recent opinion polls to this effect as "unscientific," Kamel told IPS: "The NSF did not call for or incite any of the recent violence, at the presidential palace or elsewhere. The NSF simply voices the people’s demands."

But if the NSF wants to speak for people, "it should focus on electoral campaigning with a view to winning a majority in parliament," said Azab Mustafa, prominent member of both the Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). "Until then, it can’t claim to speak on behalf of ‘the people’."

Mustafa added: "The NSF should be trying to win over voters instead of calling for endless, potentially-violent demonstrations, which only serve to hurt the economy and give western critics a chance to say Egypt ‘isn’t ready for democracy’."

Kamel, for his part, responded by saying that the NSF was "more than ready" to contest elections as long as the polling was subject to "complete judicial and international oversight" and the Brotherhood "reveals all the sources of its campaign funding."

Recent political violence has also featured attacks on Brotherhood/FJP offices and on those of Brotherhood-affiliated government officials, garnering for the group and its party a measure of public sympathy. NSF-led rallies and marches, meanwhile, have frequently targeted the presidential palace, which during one recent demonstration was struck with a petrol bomb.

"Protesters have the right to demonstrate peacefully in public areas," said the Brotherhood’s Mustafa. "But most of the recent NSF-led marches in Cairo have specifically targeted the presidential palace, which Egyptian security forces are duty-bound to protect, and all these have inevitably ended in violence."

According to Rabie, the months-long conflict between the NSF-led opposition and the presidency has seen three major battles for public opinion.

The first over Morsi’s controversial November decree overriding the judiciary, and the second over December’s contentious constitutional referendu. These were, said Rabie, "both won by the opposition, with which much of the public sympathised."

But, he added, the presidency and the Brotherhood appear to have won the third round. "The NSF has succeeded in mobilising mass anti-Morsi rallies and marches, but the Brotherhood has won in terms of broad public sympathy, which could translate into electoral gains."

According to official statements, parliamentary elections are likely to be held in April or May.

Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls in late 2011 were swept by Islamist parties, chief among them the Brotherhood. The assembly was dissolved last summer on orders of the ruling military then, after Egypt’s High Constitutional Court ruled it illegitimate on a technicality.

This time around, Rabie expects Islamist parties to capture a smaller share than they did in 2011, when together they won almost three-quarters of parliament’s lower house. "But due to its superior organisation and electoral experience, especially in the case of the Brotherhood, the Islamist camp will likely maintain a parliamentary majority," he said.

"And if the NSF-led opposition maintains its current strategy of staging rallies that lead to clashes with police and impeding public transportation," Rabie added, "it will pay a heavy price at the ballot box."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Human Rights, Lead, Middle East, Unrest Tagged With: , , ,

Argentine Rights Violators under "House Arrest" Stroll the Streets

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 16 (IPS) – In spite of repeated violations of house arrest by people convicted of crimes against humanity during Argentina’s dictatorship, some activists remain in favour of this lenient alternative to prison, but they want better oversight by the courts.The Prosecution Unit for the coordination and monitoring of cases involving human rights violations committed during the state terrorism indicated that in late 2012, 37.8 percent of the 813 persons detained for crimes against humanity were under house arrest.

Home detention may be allowed by judges for prosecuted or convicted persons over 70, those with terminal illnesses, or with health problems that cannot be treated in prison. But because of the lack of control measures, those supposed to be under house arrest frequently violate its terms.

"You always hear about cases in which victims recognise and denounce them, and if they are not denounced more frequently it is because they aren’t recognised," lawyer Alan Iud, of the Grandmothers of Plaza Mayo, the organisation devoted to looking for the children of the detained-disappeared during the 1976-1983 dictatorship in Argentina, told IPS.

In January, former army intelligence agent Carlos Hidalgo, prosecuted for more than 200 crimes against humanity and convicted for the baby theft of Laura Catalina de Sanctis, the daughter of a disappeared couple, was seen cycling through the streets of Buenos Aires.

Hidalgo, who had registered Laura as his own biological child, was recognised in the street by de Sanctis herself, who denounced him to the justice system. He was supposedly under arrest in a geriatric centre in Buenos Aires, where he lived. The court revoked his privileges and transferred him to a hospital at the Ezeiza Prison Unit, in the outskirts of the Argentine capital.[pullquote]3[/pullquote]

This month, obstetrician Jorge Luis Magnacco, convicted for baby theft and prosecuted for his part in several childbirths at the Navy School of Mechanics, located in a residential neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, home to one of the most notorious illegal detention centres of the dictatorship, was seen strolling through the streets with his wife.

Members of the association HIJOS (Children for Identity and Justice, against Forgetting and Silence) filmed Magnacco entering a shopping centre and then a restaurant.

The court that had granted Magnacco the privilege of house arrest decided to repeal it and transfer the convicted doctor to a correctional facility.

Human rights organisations say they are not against house arrest per se in properly justified cases. However, they say home detention cannot be granted without any control or oversight.

"The judge should regulate house arrest, which is not the same as granting release from prison," said Lorena Balardini, coordinator of research at the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), an NGO working on legal and human rights issues.

"Curtailing the granting of house arrest is not an option, because it is part of the guarantees of due process for any crime. But neither can detainees be left to their own free will," the expert told IPS. "The problem is not the privilege itself, but slackness in its regulation," she said.

In Balardini’s view, house arrest should be terminated when its conditions are violated by the detainee leaving the premises, contrary to what was agreed with the judge.

"Home detention is a privilege because the detainee is living in the comfort of his or her own home, and it is based on legal and humanitarian criteria," she said.

"This implies a commitment on the part of these persons to comply with the rules of the game, but if they do not, house arrest must be revoked because this is another way of making the benefit tangible," she said.

"But one must not fall into the trap of concluding that the problem lies in house arrest itself," she said.

In Balardini’s view, the main thing is that the accused or convicted person is in detention. "The form or method, so long as it is suitably implemented, is not important. As a human rights organisation working with persons deprived of their freedom for common crimes, we do not want to see the eradication of house arrest," she said.

She also warned of the danger of creating special rules just for crimes against humanity.

"These trials are emblematic, but they cannot be played by different rules, because that could endanger their legitimacy. Criminal law ordains the availability of house arrest, and it is the judge who decides when to apply it," she said.

Iud, the lawyer for the Grandmothers association, agreed. "We are not against the institution of house arrest when it is used for humanitarian reasons, which must be studied case by case, but we do believe that once it is ordered, and is strictly justified, oversight should be in place, and there should be controls that today do not exist," he said.

"The judge, or the secretary or other personnel of the court, should be in charge of verifying compliance with the court order. They could carry out surprise visits, or make phone calls, or set temporary guards. A mechanism must be sought, because at the moment there is no control whatsoever, and they (the detainees) know it," he said.

In Iud’s view, judges cannot shelter behind the excuse of lack of resources, because a simple phone call would suffice to make periodic checks that the order is being respected.

If this is not possible, an institution should be authorised to carry out oversight. Iud suggested this could be the Patronato de Liberados (a welfare organisation for released inmates) that comes under the justice ministry and has a budget provided by the judicial branch.

The trials of military personnel and civilians for crimes during the dictatorship so far add up to 1,013 persons prosecuted and 378 convicted. The number of convictions has increased five-fold since 2008 as a result of combining cases and accelerating trials, according to the Prosecution Unit.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

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Filed Under: Human Rights, Justice, Latin America, Report Tagged With:

Indigenous Youth Speak up to Protect Their Roots

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Indigenous people around the world not only face loss of language and culture but are also often deprived of their basic human rights. Above, two indigenous women in Guatemala. Credit: Danilo Valladares/IPS

Marzieh Goudarzi

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 17 (IPS) – Indigenous youth from some of the world’s oldest living cultures are stepping forward to steer their communities past the threat of disappearance and into an age of coexistence with an increasingly globalised world.Approximately 370 million indigenous peoples live in communities around the world – some in urban settings, some on reservations and others straddling both worlds.

They face many of the urgent social problems that exist among other disenfranchised minorities – poverty, lack of education, high unemployment, high rates of crime and a general lack of access to public services and resources.

Other issues are unique to the indigenous experience, including forced separation from homelands, loss of native languages, and histories of injustice, social exclusion and violence that have led to their modern day marginalisation.

In the year 2000, the United Nations (U.N.) created the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), in which a committee of experts, nominated by governments and indigenous civil society, discuss critical issues and recommend actions to the U.N. system.

This year, the UNPFII is highlighting the role of indigenous youth as community leaders. It held a meeting in January where indigenous youth from seven regions of the world gathered to share their insights with members of the Forum and experts from related organisations.

Language, education and awareness

All seven youth representatives expressed grave concerns about the rapid disappearance of indigenous languages vital to cultural unity, and with good reason – UNESCO estimates that every two weeks, one language disappears from the world.

Education systems have historically played a large part in the disappearance of indigenous languages, sometimes even forcing their extinction by severely punishing and shaming children for speaking native tongues or expressing indigenous identity in any way.

In Andrea Landry’s Anishinaabe tribe of Canada, only one fluent speaker of the native language remains. She is about 80 years old and still has not overcome the shame that was instilled in her as a child for speaking her own language, making it difficult for her to pass her knowledge down to younger generations.

Landry, the youth representative for North America, and many of her fellow representatives agreed that ideally, the state would provide bilingual education in schools attended by indigenous youth, though they acknowledged that the sheer number of regional indigenous languages often makes this feat challenging.

Funding community-based language programs through civil society organisations would be a good alternative, they suggested.

The youth were also gravely concerned about society’s lack of awareness and misrepresentation of indigenous peoples’ histories, cultures and current circumstances. They called for education systems to teach history and social diversity more thoroughly and accurately.

Landry told IPS that in studying for her master’s degree in communications and social justice, she was astonished by the absence of material on indigenous issues. She has tried to fill these gaps with supplementary materials but argued, "I shouldn’t be the one teaching these things."

Steven Brown, youth representative from Australia’s Bundjalung and Yuin Nation tribes, raised concerns about the negative stereotypes that grow instead of a real understanding of indigenous peoples. Brown personally experienced the way indigenous youth internalise stereotypes such as being perpetually poor and undereducated.

That message that success is not inherently non-indigenous was articulated by all of the indigenous youth leaders, and achieving success, Brown said, "does not mean I forget where I’ve come from".

Rights to access

In some communities where a large portion of the population speaks only the native language, another issue arises: access to important information on topics such as health care, employment opportunities, legal rights and public services.

Representative Niwamanya Rodgers Matuna, of the Batwa hunter and gatherer tribe in Uganda, described one example for IPS: how a lack of information in his tribe’s native language about medications and their proper usage has led his tribe to not trust drugs from outside of their community, which seem to quickly become ineffective.

Improper use and poor quality of antibiotic medications allow bacterial diseases to develop resistance, a phenomenon that has become a major issue in poverty-stricken countries but could be easily curbed by improving drug recipients’ access to information.

Through forums like UNFPII, indigenous youth leaders and the international human rights community are insisting that when language barriers not only prevent citizens from accessing their essential rights but in fact perpetuate their marginalisation, actions must be taken in conjunction with governments to eliminate these barriers.

Asia’s youth representative, Meenakshi Munda of the Munda community in India, added that she does not want her people to become reliant on government or international support. Rather, she sought resources for her community to empower them to become self-sufficient.

Finding a balance

Indigenous peoples, especially youth, understand that learning languages and practises outside their communities is often a necessity for academic and professional collaboration with the wider world, and many have benefitted from knowing multiple languages and engaging with the people outside their communities.

They are confident, however, that this learning process can and should be an exchange between equals and should not require the subjugation of a people or the elimination of its culture or history.

The world has much to learn from indigenous ways of life, which, despite their great diversity, share some common central ideas that are absent in most modern cultures.

Perhaps most significantly, indigenous peoples have tremendous respect for the earth and a deep connection to the land on which they live.

"We’re in a relationship with the land; it’s a living thing," said Landry. "It’s not a matter of take, take, take. We give to the land and the land gives to us."

Moreover, indigenous values often maintain great respect for elders and all things that possess the wisdom of time. Some may struggle to understand the importance of protecting indigenous cultures as the ancestors of modern civilisation.

But as Matuna pointed out, quoting an African proverb, "A river which forgets its source, dries soon."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Climate Rally Draws "Line in the Sand" on Canadian Pipeline

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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The tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Credit: howlmonteal/cc by 2.0

Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Feb 16 (IPS) – The largest climate rally in U.S. history is expected Sunday in Washington DC with the aim of pressuring President Barack Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.Activists are calling Keystone "the line in the sand" regarding dangerous climate change, prompting the Sierra Club to suspended its 120-year ban on civil disobedience. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune was arrested in front of the White House during a small protest against Keystone on Wednesday.

"The Keystone XL pipeline is part of the carbon infrastructure that will take us to dangerous levels of climate change," said Simon Donner, a climate scientist at the University of British Columbia.[pullquote]3[/pullquote]

"By itself, Keystone won’t have much of an impact on the climate, but it is not happening on its own," Donner told IPS.

Carbon emissions are increasing elsewhere, and the International Energy Agency recently warned humanity is on a dangerous path to four degrees C of warming before the end of this century. Children born today will experience this. Preventing that dire future is inconsistent with expanding tar sands production, Donner said.

A new study released this week revealed that the volume of Arctic sea ice is declining rapidly. Ice volume has fallen 80 percent since 1980, according to the latest data from European Space Agency satellite, CryoSat-2. Summers with a sea ice-free Arctic are only a few years away, scientists now agree. This will have significant and permanent impacts on weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere.

"Keystone XL is the key to opening up the expansion of the tar sands industry," said Jim Murphy, senior counsel with the National Wildlife Federation.

"By rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, we can keep this toxic oil in the ground," Murphy said in a statement.

Keystone XL is intended to bring 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of a heavy, tar-like oil from the northern Alberta tar sands 2,400 kilometres south to the refineries on the Gulf Coast. Nearly all the resulting fuels are destined for export.

Since the seven-billion-dollar Keystone XL crosses national borders, it is up to President Obama to issue a permit declaring the pipeline serves the "national interest" in order for it to be approved.

"The only way Keystone XL could be considered in the national interest is if you equate that with profits for the oil industry," Steve Kretzman of Oil Change International previously told IPS. Oil Change is an NGO that researches the links between oil, gas, coal corporations and governments.

"It couldn’t be simpler: Either we leave at least two-thirds of the known fossil fuel reserves in the ground, or we destroy our planet as we know it," wrote Sierra Club’s Michael Brune in explaining the decision to engage in civil disobedience.

"That means rejecting the dangerous tar sands pipeline that would transport some of the dirtiest oil on the planet," said Brune.

Tar sands carbon emissions on a "well-to-tank" basis (i.e., production) result in emissions that are on average 72 to 111 percent higher than other U.S. transportation fuels, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Canada’s tar sands aren’t really a "carbon bomb" from a scientific perspective, says Donner. The world’s coal deposits contain many times more carbon. However, the tar sands and Keystone have symbolic importance.

"Climate change is a complicated problem. Lots of things need to be done to address it. We’re at a point where changes need to happen soon," he says.

Writing in the Daily Kos Saturday, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO of the environmental justice group Green For All, writes, "Hurricane Katrina taught us a lesson – and Superstorm Sandy reinforced it. People living in neighborhoods with the fewest resources have a harder time escaping, surviving, and recovering from disasters.

"And they’re more vulnerable to the extreme weather climate change will bring. For example, African-Americans living in Los Angeles are more than twice as likely to die during a heat wave than other residents of the city," she says in a piece titled "Why People of Color Should Care about the Keystone Pipeline".

"To permit the pipeline would represent a heartbreaking acquiescence to climate change on the part of President Obama and our national leaders. It would be throwing our hands up helplessly in the face of one of the biggest threats our country has ever faced. That’s not the kind of leadership we voted for.

"There are certain points in history, like the Civil Rights Movement, when the consequences of inaction are so great that we have to make bold choices," Ellis-Lamkins says. "This is one of those times."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Tenants in Spain Win First Battle against Evictions

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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The ILP calls for “payment in kind", meaning that a person’s debts are written off once they have surrendered their home. Credit: Inés Benítez

Inés Benítez

MALAGA, Spain, Feb 15 (IPS) – Public outcry against evictions this week led Spain’s parliament to accept a popular initiative against mortgage-related evictions for unpaid debts, which in the past seven days have led to four suicides."The banks chase me to pay every cent," while they are rescued with public money, complained Benigno, a 47-year old unemployed man, who with his three children has for nearly a year occupied one of 29 vacant apartments in a building project in the southern city of Malaga, which closed down when the developer went bankrupt.

Benigno has had two houses foreclosed on. He spent three years working for a company with an open-ended contract when he decided to take out a loan to buy a bigger second home, offering the first as collateral.

"Everybody did it (bought property)," he told IPS. "But overnight I was fired. I’ve lost everything and I owe 102,000 euros (135,000 dollars), payable in 28 years."

The Popular Legislative Initiative (ILP), promoted by the citizen movement Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) (Platform for those Affected by Mortgage), is backed by nearly a million-and-a-half signatures.

It calls for “payment in kind,” meaning that a person’s debts are written off once they have surrendered their home, and wants this to apply retroactively. It also wants a moratorium on evictions, and the creation of social housing with homes confiscated by banks.

"We are the European country with the most evictions, and at the same time the one with the largest millions of accumulated empty homes," PAH spokesman, Ada Colau, said in a televised interview earlier this month.

Between 2007 and the third quarter of 2012, there were 400,000 foreclosures in Spain, according to data from the General Council of the Judiciary.

"I heard that there were empty houses and I came. I had no other choice. I could not pay rent," said Antonio, a 22-year-old living with his wife Encarni, 19, and their two-year-old daughter. The little he earns as a street vendor, he spends on food.

"I have no electricity and water, but at least I don’t have my daughter on the street," said Antonio, who is a neighbor of Benigno and 20 other families, who make up for the lack of electricity with candles and generators, and fill containers with drinking water from nearby pumps.

The debate over the ILP, which given the social pressure was accepted "in extremis" by the ruling right-wing Popular Party (PP) with a parliamentary majority, "is a first step", said Antonio Alarcón, a core activist of the Malaga PAH, which in four years has stopped more than 500 evictions. It negotiates payments in kind and relocates families into affordable rental schemes.

It remains to be seen whether the measures proposed in the ILP will be incorporated unchanged into a bill on the same subject which is already passing through the parliament.

If by law the banks apply payment in kind retroactively, many people who have lost their homes would avoid facing lifelong debts. "They will save me from a 28-year trap,” said Benigno.

Some in economic circles oppose payment in kind, arguing it will make credit more expensive and hurt the financial system.

"But the fact is that today there is no credit for anyone and the financial system is already broken," Sara Vásquez, an attorney for the PAH in Malaga, told IPS.

For Vásquez, the admission of the ILP project was the result of "arm-twisting " and “marks a milestone in this country". It shows that "the only way out is pressure" by of citizens, who increasingly feel less represented by institutions, and are outraged by the corruption charges shaking the PP and members of the royal family.

"They receive envelopes with money and we receive envelopes with bills," said Azahara, another resident of the occupied building, referring to the alleged illegal payments to members of the PP, as reported by the national newspaper El País.

In the past four months there have been seven suicides of people who were to be evicted, including four in just the last seven days. On Feb. 13, the judicial commission that was to carry out the eviction of a man found him hanging at his home in the southeastern city of Alicante.

Unemployment is now affecting a whopping 26.2 percent of the workforce in Spain, even as there are drastic cuts in key areas such as health and education.

"(The government) is not rescuing people, but the banks," said Alarcon, referring to public money allocated to clean up the financial institutions and the creation of a so-called "bad bank", a manager of unpaid property loans or unsold homes that the banks took from bankrupt construction companies to whom they had lent money.

During the housing boom, "everything in this country was pushing you to buy a home instead of renting… and the banks themselves drafted the mortgage contracts," Colau recalled in the interview.

The PAH has called for demonstrations this Saturday "for the right to housing and against financial genocide".

The Court of Justice of the European Union declared last November that the Spanish foreclosure system is incompatible with the laws of the EU bloc.

In a preliminary ruling, which will serve as a basis for judgment, the court granted national judges the power to suspend evictions until the terms of credit have been reviewed to see whether or not they are abusive.

The debtors come to the PAH with "complete ignorance" about their situation: they don’t know how to negotiate with the bank or how their lawyer can help them, said Alarcon, who criticised the lack of training of lawyers in charge of defending the interests of those affected.

"None of us live here today because we want to," said Benigno. With the help of the PAH, they want to negotiate with the owner and continue to stay in the building, in exchange for its maintenance, for which each of them provides 20 euros per month, according to a list attached to an elevator that never functioned.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Christian or Muslim – ‘We are All Victims of Those Terrorists’

February 11, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Churches in Mopti, central Mali, were looted and destroyed during the Islamist occupation. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS

By Marc-Andre Boisvert

MOPTI, Mali, Feb 11 (IPS) – At the entrance to the Evangelical church in Mopti, central Mali, military soldiers stood on either side of the door as Pastor Luc Sagara greeted his parishioners for Sunday mass.The presence of the soldiers were a stark reminder that less than three weeks ago the town was under occupation by Islamist extremists committed to the imposition of Sharia law in this West African nation.

“We feel safe now. With the French intervention, we are hopeful that the Islamists will not attack us,” Sagara told IPS.

France launched a military intervention in Mali on Jan. 11 at the request of the country’s interim President Dioncounda Traoré after extremists advanced on the town of Konna, 60 kilometres northeast of Mopti. As the Islamists occupied town after town, intent on seizing the capital Bamako, Sharia law was imposed, and Christians and moderate Muslims were persecuted.

Since April 2012, northern Mali has been taunted by a coalition of armed groups composed of Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, and Ansar Dine, an Islamist group among Mali’s Tuareg population that live across the country’s southeast.

The rebels reportedly destroyed religious shrines and church buildings, and imposed extreme Sharia law – engaging in public floggings, executions and amputations.

International rights group, Human Rights Watch, said that the rebels engaged in extensive looting, pillage, the recruitment of child soldiers and the rape of women and young girls. “Armed groups in northern Mali in recent weeks have terrorised civilians by committing abductions and looting hospitals,” Corinne Dufka, senior Africa researcher at HRW, said in April 2012.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, the recent conflict has led to the internal displacement of 250,000 people. Mopti was one of the towns that people from the north sought refuge in – until it too was occupied.

Many of the minority Christians, who constitute five percent of the country’s 15.8 million people, either fled Mopti or were living here in fear during the occupation.

A local Imam from the town, Abdoulaye Maiga, told IPS that no one had been safe from the extremists, regardless of their religious affiliations.

“We are all victims of those terrorists. We are all Malians and we all fled together,” he said. Members of his family had taken flight from northern Mali’s largest town of Gao.

“When my family came here, they brought with them a Christian family, and we loaned them some of our (traditional) clothes so the terrorists would let them travel without problems.”

In Diabaly, another liberated central Malian town, Pastor Daniel Konaté prepared for his first Christian service since the Islamists were ousted. The graffiti on the church wall that read, “Allah is the only one”, and the bullets scattered on the floor served as a reminder of the Islamist occupation.

“They made my church a military base,” Konaté told IPS. During the occupation he and his family fled to a village 20 kilometers away, returning only after Malian and French forces successfully repelled Islamists here on Jan. 21.

But Konaté still wonders how the extremists had known that this plain unassuming building, which has no signs to indicate that it is a place of worship, was a church.

“We think some people might have told them that this is a church,” said Konaté as 30 parishioners gathered and the service began with the singing of “It is not God who betrays us. It is men that betray God.”

Ever since locals recognised two former high-ranking Malian military soldiers who used to be posted in Diabaly among the Islamist forces, community members believe the Islamist fighters had local support. Now, neighbours who once lived peacefully together are suspicious of one another.

During the town’s occupation Pascal Touré’s small four-bedroom house on the outskirts of Diabaly hid 27 Christian refugees terrified of being singled out for persecution by the occupying Islamists.

“It seems obvious that some locals reported where the Christians were. Among the locals, everybody knows each other,” he told IPS.

But Touré, a Christian who also teaches catechism, is adamant that seeking revenge is not a solution.

The refugees have left Touré’s house and returned to their own homes in Diabaly “but life in the town will not be the same for Christians.”

Though there are some here who hang on to the memories of a peaceful past, optimistically believing that life will return to what it had been before the conflict. Bakary Traoré, a Muslim and a retired teacher, is one of them.

“Christians were targeted. But all of Diabaly has been a victim. The Islamists did not have the time to impose Sharia, but if they did, everyone would have suffered. They did not succeed. And now we can all live in harmony like we were before. As one people.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Israel Goods Boycott Movement Rises

February 11, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Um Abed plants an olive tree in support of Palestinian farmers. Credit: Eva Bartlett/IPS.

By Eva Bartlett

ZEITOUN, Gaza, Feb 10 (IPS) – Tawfiq Mandil, 45, stands amongst hundreds of Palestinian farmers, activists, and international supporters in the Gaza Strip’s eastern Zeitoun district, about half a kilometre from the border with Israel. They are renewing a call for the boycott of Israeli goods.“The Israeli army destroyed my house and my five dunums of land (a dunum is 1,000 square metres) on the last day of the attacks in 2009, as well as 20 other homes,” he says.

With signs reading ‘Boycott Israeli Agricultural Products’ and ‘Support Palestinian Farmers’, Mandil and others protesting Israeli oppression of Palestinian farmers joined together Saturday to plant olive trees on Israeli-razed farmland and to implore international supporters to join the boycott of Israeli agricultural produce.

Mandil believes that the boycott is his only hope for justice for Palestinian farmers being targeted by the Israeli army and oppressed by Israel. “We hope that it will put pressure on Israel to stop targeting us and allow us to farm our land as we used to.”

With an Israeli surveillance blimp hovering above and a nearby remotely-controlled machine gun tower open and ready to fire, the significance of the rally’s location near the ‘buffer zone’ was not lost. Israeli authorities prohibit Palestinians from accessing the 300 metres flanking the Gaza-Israel border. In reality, the Israeli army regularly attacks Palestinians up to two kilometres from the border in some areas, rendering more than 35 percent of Gaza’s farmland off-limits.

“By engaging in the trade of settlement produce, states are failing to comply with their obligation to actively cooperate in order to put the Israeli settlement enterprise to an end. Therefore, a ban on settlement produce must be considered amongst those actions that Third Party States should undertake in order to comply with their international law obligations.”

The Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq released a position paper last month condemning the Israeli settlement produce trade. The paper, ‘Feasting on the Occupation: Illegality of Settlement Produce and the Responsibility of EU Member States Under International Law’ highlights the means by which Israeli settlements benefit from the oppression of Palestinian farmers.

“While the EU has been quite outspoken in condemning settlements and their expansion, they continue to import produce from these same settlements and in doing so, help to sustain their very existence,” Al-Haq director general Shawan Jabarin notes in the Al-Haq press release.

“More than 80 Palestinians have been injured and at least four Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks in the border regions since the November 2012 ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian resistance,” says Adie Mormech, 35, a British activist living in Gaza. This is in addition to the many Palestinians killed and hundreds injured in previous years of Israeli army attacks on the border regions.

“There is simultaneous action happening in the occupied West Bank,” says Mormech. “They’re planting near Yitzhar colony, which is notorious for its violence against Palestinians. Around the world, an estimated 30 countries are holding actions in solidarity with Palestinian farmers and fishers.”

Um Abed, 65, from Zeitoun is defiant. “Today we’re planting olive trees. God willing next year we’ll plant lemon, date and palm trees. We grow, they bulldoze, we re-plant.”

The boycott action follows a growing number of initiatives emerging in recent years from the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian students in Gazan universities stepped up the Boycott call in 2012, releasing Youtube videos calling for political action, not aid, from international supporters.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has attracted international support, including the backing of numerous UK and North American universities and scholars.

Increasing numbers of cultural and religious associations, such as the Quakers’ Friends Fiduciary Corporation, are divesting from corporations that profit from or support Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. The United Church of Canada endorsed the boycott of goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements in August 2012.

Dr Haidar Eid, professor at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa University and PACBI member, outlines what BDS entails.

“We are calling for implementation of UN Security Council resolution 242, which calls for withdrawal of occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem. The second demand is the implementation of the United Nations resolution 194, the return of all Palestinian refugees to the towns and villages from which they were ethnically cleansed in 1948. The third demand is the end to Israel’s apartheid policies in Palestine 1948. We want equality.”

While civil society and students have been in the forefront of BDS actions in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas government has also taken steps calling for boycott. Joe Catron, an American activist based in the Gaza Strip, explains one recent government-led campaign.

“The Adidas campaign began in March 2012, when Adidas was sponsoring a marathon through parts of Jerusalem, including parts that are internationally recognised as occupied. The Ministry of Youth and Sports here called upon the Arab League to boycott Adidas in response to this, which a number of countries did.”

In September 2012, Gaza’s Ministry of Agriculture decided to ban most Israeli fruits entering Gaza.

“Palestinian farmers can grow the fruits we consume,” said marketing director in the ministry Tahsen Al-Saqa. “We need to support and protect our own farmers. They’ve been economically devastated by the Israeli ban on exporting since 2006.”

“Boycott is the key, and it is growing,” says Adie Mormech. “The momentum is so much now that it is not going to stop. It’s going to be like South Africa.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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