Is there bood on your hands!

My talk to the Amnesty International Group at McMaster University about the blood diamond trade in Africa.

Is there bood on your hands!

2/25/2008 12:55:00 PM africa, education, human rights

Canada puts US on 'torture list'

The times seem to be changing as this BBC new story shows. Everywhere one looks, human rights seems to be in retreat...even in the great liberal democracies of the West.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7195276.stm
Canada puts US on 'torture list'

The United States has been listed as a country where prisoners are at risk of torture in a training document produced by the Canadian foreign ministry. It also classifies some US interrogation techniques as torture. The manual - part of a training course on torture awareness for diplomats - also includes Israel, China, Iran and Afghanistan on its watch list. A government spokesman said the manual did not reflect the views of Canada, which is an ally of the US and Israel.

"The training manual is not a policy document and does not reflect the views or policies of this government," said a spokesman for Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier. The manual lists US interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and the blindfolding of prisoners under "definition of torture".

It also refers to the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where a Canadian man is being held. Critics say it ridicules Ottawa's claims that Omar Khadr is not being mistreated. There was no immediate response from either the US or Israel.

-----------------------------------------------
GIAZILO'S COMMENTARY

When in 2005, Amnesty International’s Secretary-General Irene Khan described the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay as “the gulag of our times,” it made headlines around the world partly because it was unusual for a powerful Western country to be at the receiving end of such strong INGO criticism of its human rights record. Such uncompromising language had traditionally been reserved for communist and Third World nations.

However, the widely reported human rights abuses associated with the U.S war on terror and in Iraq may well signal the beginning of a new era of change. Major INGOs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch now acknowledge that human rights are in retreat worldwide and that the United States bears most responsibility for this.

Now, the Canadian government had added the US to its list of counties practicing torture. What hope is there for international human rights promotion and protection when the great liberal democracies of the West become complicit on gross human rights violations?.....

Canada puts US on 'torture list'

1/17/2008 11:45:00 PM human rights, war and peace, world

Happy New Year 2008

Happy New Year 2008!

Wishing all of God's children and men and women of goodwill everywhere a happy, healthy and prosperous 2008. One of my new year resolutions is to find more time to update my blog.

Happy New Year 2008

12/30/2007 02:57:00 PM reflections

Inventing Human Rights

Inventing Human Rights. By Lynn Hunt. New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007. 272pp. Index. $29.95. ISBN 0 393 06095 0.

Reviewed by

Bonny Ibhawoh

Contemporary human rights scholarship suffers from two major flaws. First, it is trapped in an intellectual tradition of linear progressivism that tends to hinder proper understanding of the nuances inherent in the idea of human rights. The trend has been to present human rights -- despite frequent setbacks and many contradictions -- as part of the saga of relentless human progress. The second flaw is the overwhelmingly presentist character of human rights scholarship, reflected in an inordinate preoccupation with the here and now.

Lynn Hunt’s Inventing Human Rights addresses both flaws. It marks an important addition to the growing body of scholarly works that seek to bring distinctly historical perspectives to the subject of human rights. Focusing on the American and French Revolutions and the Declarations they inspired, Hunt traces the impact of Enlightenment ideas on the social and political expansion of human rights. The equality, universality and naturalness of rights gained direct political expression for the first time in the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789. These developments underscore a ‘sudden crystallization of human rights claims at the end of the eighteenth century’ (p. 20).

What this book so eloquently reminds us of are the tensions and contradictions that have historically underlined ideas about human rights. Those who confidently declared rights to be universal in the eighteenth century turned out to have something much less all-inclusive in mind. They excluded those without property, slaves, women, and religious minorities from full participation in the political process. Hunt takes the position that while we should not forget these glaring restrictions placed on rights by eighteenth century men, we should not stop there. The book explores how these men, living in societies built on slavery, subordination, and seemingly natural subservience, came to imagine men (and sometimes, women) not at all like them as equals. This, the author argues, is crucial to the history of human rights.

One of the most interesting contributions of this study is the connection that it makes between changes in social attitudes and the expansion of human rights. Drawing on Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (1991), Hunt argues that ‘imagined empathy’ served as the foundations of the social and political transformations that revolutionised the notion of human rights. The notions of bodily integrity and empathetic selfhood have histories not unlike those of human rights, to which they are intimately related (p. 30). Learning to empathize, along with new concern for the human body led to the public rejection of judicial torture that opened the path to human rights.

While most of Hunt’s argument are convincing some seem far fetched. One example is her suggestion that reading of accounts of torture had ‘physical effects that translated into brain changes and came back out as new concepts about the organisations of social and political life’ (p. 33). This claim appears to dabble into the realm of psychoanalysis that is hardly the province of the historian. Another shortcoming that some will find with this book is that it is decidedly Eurocentric. By limiting a discussion on the ‘Invention of Human Rights’ to the history of the Western world, Hunt lends credence to the construction of human rights as a something invented in the West and exported to the rest of the world. Unless used figuratively, the term ‘invention’ clearly gets in the way of a full historical understanding of the complex cross-cultural processes by which human rights ideas have evolved. It implies too one sided a happening. In all however, this book brings a welcome and refreshing perspective to human rights scholarship.

Inventing Human Rights

10/21/2007 11:31:00 PM education, history, human rights

Israel to turn away Darfur refugees

...Where else on God’s earth can the afflicted and persecuted people of Darfur fleeing genocide seek solace and refuge?

By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer

Sun Aug 19, 5:40 PM ET

JERUSALEM - Israel said Sunday it will no longer allow refugees from Darfur to stay after they sneak across the border from Egypt, drawing criticism from those who say the Jewish state is morally obliged to offer sanctuary to people fleeing mass murder. Israel has been grappling for months over how to deal with the swelling numbers of Africans, including some from Darfur, who have been crossing the porous desert border.

The number of migrants has shot up to as many as 50 a day, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, apparently as word of job opportunities in Israel has spread. The rise has led to concerns that the country could face a flood of African refugees if it doesn't take a harsher stand on asylum seekers. But Israel has not turned back refugees from Darfur until now, and last month Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said a limited number would even be allowed to remain in Israel. On Sunday, a government spokesman said all new asylum seekers would be sent back to Egypt, with no exception.

"The policy of returning back anyone who enters Israel illegally will pertain to everyone, including those from Darfur," spokesman David Baker said. He offered no explanation for the change. Overnight, Israel returned 48 Africans to Egypt. An Israeli government official said Egypt had guaranteed that any Darfur refugees would not be forced to return to Sudan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release that information to the press.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told reporters Sunday that Egypt would accept the refugees for "very pressing humanitarian reasons" but that this type of transfer "would not be repeated again." Fighting between pro-government militias and rebels in Darfur has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since February 2003. Most of the displaced people remain in Darfur, but the U.N. estimates that 236,000 have fled across the border to neighboring Chad, where they live in camps. Tens of thousands of others have sought sanctuary in Egypt, which is ill-equipped to provide them with jobs and social services.

About 400 of the Darfurians who reached Egypt have driven and trekked through desert sands to cross the unfenced frontier with Israel, according to the refugees' advocates in Israel.
Israel's response to the unexpected arrivals has been mixed. Threats to expel them have clashed with sentiments inspired by the memory of Jews seeking sanctuary from the Nazis before and during World War II and being turned away. Some volunteers have helped migrants find jobs and housing.

Eytan Schwartz, an advocate for Darfur refugees in Israel, objected to any ban on the asylum seekers. "The state of Israel has to show compassion for refugees after the Jewish people was subject to persecution throughout its history," he said. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said in a statement that it is, "Israel's moral and legal obligation to accept any refugees or asylum seekers facing life-threatening danger or infringements on their freedom."
But Ephraim Zuroff of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center said the Jewish people could not be expected to right every wrong just because of its past. "Israel can't throw open the gates and allow unlimited access for people who are basically economic refugees," Zuroff said.
The Darfurians found sanctuary from the killings in Sudan by fleeing to Egypt, he said, but their arrival in Israel "was motivated primarily by the difficult living conditions and bleak economic prospects in that country."

That the refugees are from Sudan further complicates the matter, because Israeli law denies asylum to anyone from an enemy state. Sudan's Muslim government is hostile to Israel and has no diplomatic ties with the Jewish state. Although the case of the Darfur refugees is unusual, the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin set a precedent in 1977 when he offered asylum to nearly 400 Vietnamese boat people. Israel estimates that 2,800 people have entered the country illegally through Egypt's Sinai desert in recent years. Nearly all are from Africa, including 1,160 from Sudan. Many spent months or years in Egypt before entering Israel.

Israel has repeatedly urged Egypt to step up its surveillance of the border to prevent the illegal flow of goods and people. Egypt has responded by beefing up its efforts recently, with almost daily reports of African refugees being arrested before entering Israel. In July, Egyptian police shot and killed a Sudanese woman who was trying to cross into Israel, the first confirmed death of its kind. And earlier this month, Israeli media reported that Egyptian border guards beat to death two Sudanese men in front of Israeli soldiers. Egypt neither confirmed nor denied the incident.

Israel to turn away Darfur refugees

8/20/2007 01:12:00 AM africa, human rights, media, world

Dusk at the Lake

A quiet evening at the lake brings glorious photograph! - Cootes Paradise 2007

Dusk at the Lake

8/06/2007 11:19:00 PM arts and culture, reflections

Of Slavery, Monuments and Commemorations

The contentious issue of Reparations for Slavery seems to be engaging more and more academic interest these days as evident from the following recent publications:

- Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, “Reparations to Africa and the Group of Eminent Persons,” Cahiers d'études africaines

- Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, “Getting to Reparations: Japanese Americans and African Americans” Social Forces, 83, 2 (Dec., 2004), pp. 823-840

- Victor T. Le Vine, Commentary on "Framing Reparations Claims: Differences between the African and Jewish Social Movements for Reparations"African Studies Review - Volume 50, Number 1, April 2007, pp. 49-51

- Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Lombardo, Anthony P. Framing Reparations Claims: Differences between the African and Jewish Social Movements for ReparationsAfrican Studies Review, 50, 1, 2007, 27-48.

- Ricardo Rene Laremont, “Jewish and Japanese American Reparations: Political Lessons for the Africana Community,” Journal of Asian American Studies - Volume 4, Number 3, October 2001, pp. 235-250

- Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, “Reparations to Africa and the Group of Eminent Persons,” Cahiers d'études africaines

Here is an excerpt from the last article on the list:

“There are two major precedents for reparations to Africa. They are reparations to Jews for the Holocaust, and the movement in the United States for reparations to African-Americans. The issue of reparations to Jews for the Holocaust resurfaced in international discussion in the 1990s when Jewish groups began to demand that unpaid life insurance policies on victims of the Holocaust be paid, and that monies deposited by Jews in Swiss banks before and during the Second World War be paid to survivors of murdered Jews (Barkan 2000: 3-29, 88-111; Brooks 1999: 13-81). Increasingly, African-Americans and Africans became aware that “some” people–most especially Jews–seemed to be entitled to reparations for their suffering, while others were not. That in the view of many people in the formerly colonized world, Jews had become colonial oppressors of Palestinians merely compounded the problem. In some African eyes, it appeared that “white” victims of mass atrocities were entitled to compensation, while non-white victims were not. Thus Mazrui (2002: 87) asked: “How do twelve years of Jewish hell… compare to several centuries of Black enslavement?” Abiola (1992: 910) shortened the period of Jewish suffering even further, referring to the “six-year holocaust perpetrated against Jews by Hitler”. Joseph Ndiaye, curator in 1998 of the Maison des Esclaves (House of Slaves) on the Island of Goree off Senegal, from which slaves apparently used to be shipped to the Americas, offered a similar opinion. He said: “We never stop hearing about the Holocaust, but how often do we dwell on the tragedy that took place here over 350 years; a tragedy that consumed tens of millions of lives?”

"How do twelve years of Jewish Hell compare to several centuries ofBlack enslavements."

– Ali Mazrui

I personally find no reason in comparing African slavery with the Jewish Holocaust, save for purely academic and heuristic purposes. There is something about comparing tragedies and the mentality of “My pain is greater than yours” that I find unsettling. However, Ali Mazriu's question speaks to a concern that has been frequently expressed by many Africans and Africanists. It is concern, not so much about reparations for slavery, but about the commemoration of slavery.

How many major Holocaust Museums, monuments and Memorials are there in North America? 20? 40? 50? How many major museums and memorials to the slave trade are there in North America? NONE. I know this because I teach an African Diaspora class where we focus on slave commemorations and memorials. True, there are a few monuments to commemorate slavery scattered across the US and Canada. There are also several slave exhibits in museums across the US (The Smithsonian even has one) but no single major slave museum. There is no national institution dedicated to the documentation, study, and interpretation of Slavery as there is in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
It is only now that efforts are being made to establish a National Slave Museums though the private initiative and funds of some prominent African Americans. http://www.usnationalslaverymuseum.org/home.asp

Even then, the project has been dogged with controversy. Lengthyeditorials have been written about how a slave museum is unnecessarybecause it would open up "old wounds." Others have suggested a"National African American Heritage Museum? Rather than a "SlaveMuseum." So, the question I ask is "Who is Afraid of a SlaveMuseum?" Why does Africa’s pain matter less? Issues like this are atthe heart of the reparations debate? -- An overwhelming sense thatAfrica’s pain, Africa’s experiences and Africans themselves matter lessthan others.

This is what I think this debate should really be about –- not reparations but commemoration. How and why have we remembered or failed to remember slavery in our societies? What have we done to commemorate that human tragedy and honor the memory and contributions of its teeming victims? Why do we persist in giving the unsetting impression that the pains of some matters more than those of others? Talk about the commemoration of slavery must precede any talk of reparations for slavery!

Of Slavery, Monuments and Commemorations

8/06/2007 09:58:00 PM africa, education, history, human rights, slavery

Taking the Reconciliatory Route: Human Rights and Peace Building

Taking the Reconciliatory Route

Ivana Vuco and Bonny Ibhawoh reflect on the Human Rights and Peace Building)
(First Published in Human Rights Dialogue, Winter 2002, "Integrating Human Rights and Peace Work")

Ivana Vaco
Democracy is fragile in Nigeria. Democratic governance has crumbled under the burden of ethnic divisiveness three times in the past forty years; the current democratically elected, civilian regime came to power in 1999, after fifteen years of military rule. The frequency of violent clashes between various religious, ethnic, and geographic communities and their potential destructive impact on the national government have made peace work a necessity for a wide range of local civil society groups.

Since the end of military rule, human rights groups have been reassessing their mode of operation. They hope to establish themselves as a constructive element in the consolidation of democracy. This is a departure from the past, when they were uncompromising critics of the government. As the executive director of the Lagos-based Constitutional Rights Project, Clement Nwankwo, sees it, “Targeting the civilian, democratic government as a human rights offender could be counterproductive, even dangerous and destructive; human rights work now should seek to uphold the government, not overturn it.” In a country where democratic governments have been too weak to sustain themselves in power for longer than a couple of years, such a claim seems valid.

As a result, human rights groups have adopted a multidisciplinary approach to conflict, combining the methodology and perspectives of the human rights field with those of the conflict resolution field. This confluence of approaches has so far evolved only within certain human rights organizations; as yet, no long-term cooperation has been established between the human rights and conflict resolution organizations.

Human rights organizations like the Constitutional Rights Project began to infuse their human rights advocacy with conflict resolution work for several reasons. First, human rights violations are often the root cause of conflicts, and thus the protection of human rights becomes an integral part of peace processes. The involvement of human rights organizations in conflicts can ensure that human rights issues are addressed in a timely and effective manner. Second, the magnitude and scope of conflicts expose the inadequacy of traditional, community-based conflict resolution methods.

Conflicts in which communities turn against each other require strategies tailored to the complexities of the particular conflict, in addition to the traditional approach of identifying and exposing culprits. Human rights groups have thus begun their own conflict resolution trainings and negotiation sessions for the warring communities. Finally, the reconciliatory character of the conflict resolution field appeals strongly to human rights organizations seeking the middle ground in the work of advocating the protection of human rights, without undermining the legitimacy of Nigeria’s fledgling democracy. Thus, unlike human rights organizations elsewhere that emphasize uncompromising justice as a precondition for lasting peace, some human rights groups in Nigeria have made reconciliation and dialogue the basis of their work.

That human rights are an indispensable part of peace processes is best exemplified in the oil-producing Niger Delta. Here, conflict resolution methods alone are plainly inadequate for a number of reasons. Most important, they fail to address the real source of conflict in the Delta: unresolved human rights claims by the local communities. Economic and political marginalization, merciless environmental exploitation, and the destruction of traditional indigenous structures are only some of the most frequently cited reasons communities turn against each other. The government’s tactic of forcefully pacifying the communities under the guise of resolving intercommunal violence has exacerbated the situation; for example, the government killed and displaced thousands of members of the Ogoni and Odi communities in several brutal military interventions in the 1990s.

The human rights community is adamant that halting government brutality is an essential prerequisite for lasting peace. Since human rights groups typically have targeted the government, warring communities perceive them as more neutral; human rights groups have been better able to negotiate the tense security situation an address intercommunal violence. Because conflict resolution methodologies rely heavily on viable social structures and institutions, human rights methodologies have proved better suited to situations where traditional social structures and institutions have been seriously eroded.

The frequency and devastating extent of violent intercommunal conflicts have shown that a traditional human rights approach alone is also insufficient. While lobbying, disseminating information, and exposing the government’s activities all aim to remove the source of the conflicts, these activities do little to repair damaged relationships between warring communities in other regions. In response, human rights organizations are beginning to organize their own conflict resolution workshops for the warring communities. Some of them—for example, the Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta—have made it obligatory for their staff to take conflict resolution training. And they are becoming involved in peace processes through supervising the conflict resolution procedures set up by the government, overseeing the government’s analyses of conflicts, and supervising its execution of a peace process.

How to give human rights activism a more constructive role in society and promote a dialogue with the ruling regime is on the mind of every human rights worker in Nigeria. They all acknowledge that the field needs to use its expertise and experience to bring together different actors in conflicts. In the Niger Delta, for instance, a dialogue can be initiated that includes multiple communities, the oil companies, and the government. Some steps in this direction have been taken already. Some human rights groups have started doing their own independent studies of the conflicts, mediating meetings between the parties, and working to involve the government in the process. Others are working together with the government to instigate official inquiries and set up strategies for resolving the conflicts.

All of this marks a significant change in the work of Nigerian human rights groups. They have become more involved in aspects of conflict extending beyond human rights issues, thus making themselves a more relevant and more visible element of Nigerian civil society. And, whereas some human rights groups still see their role as primarily adversarial, most have opted for a more cooperative stance. Although some have questioned whether such a stance undermines the neutrality of the human rights field, this redefined position of the human rights groups might be just the type of support Nigeria needs at this moment.

Response

Bonny Ibhawoh
The role of human rights, Richard Wilson argues, is to create the bedrock of accountability on which democratic legitimacy can be built. But need this be the sole function of human rights? Beyond accountability and retributive justice, is it valid to deploy human rights discourses for the larger ends of social stability and peace building? Today, human rights have become too important to be limited to their legalistic foundations. Beyond law and the quest for retributive justice, there is much that the legitimizing language of human rights can bring to our quest for peace and social stability, as Ivana Vuco’s essay suggests.

In highlighting the limitations of supposedly traditional African models of conflict resolution and restorative justice, the essays by Wilson and Vuco address a growing concern with the construction of localized narratives, which draw on culture and tradition, in human rights and peace work. Much of this concern springs from the old debate over the universality and cultural relativism of human rights, which in recent years has shifted toward a discourse on legitimizing universal human rights and making them relevant to local sociopolitical contexts. The debate reflects the tension between the universal and the local, and the ways in which the language of human rights has been deployed to further nation-building agendas.

When former archbishop Desmond Tutu used the African concept of ubuntu to justify the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s emphasis on restorative justice and social stability rather than retributive justice, he was following in a tradition of African leaders and intellectuals who have articulated distinct cultural interpretations of human rights to meet local political exigencies. In the 1960s, Tanzania’s president Julius K. Nyerere articulated a socialist-oriented concept of human rights, which prioritized social and economic rights over civil and political rights. Like Tutu’s ubuntu, Nyerere’s ujamaa (African socialism) was an attempt to manufacture legitimacy for state institutions using a combination of the language of contemporary human rights and perceived African traditions of communalist/restorative justice. Although such appeals to African traditions are often idealistic, they represent an attempt to legitimize nation-building agendas with the language of human rights.

Wilson clearly does not think that the compromised, nonlegal/juridical use of rights language can ultimately serve the ends of justice, human rights, and peace. He argues that regimes should seek legitimacy not through efforts to forge moral unity and communitarian discourses but, instead, on the basis of justice defined as proportional retribution and fairness. In contrast, Vuco understands the appeal that conflict resolution has to some Nigerian human rights organizations, which are employing the language of human rights as “an indispensable part of peace processes.” These organizations are seeking the middle ground in the work of advocating for the protection of human rights without undermining the legitimacy of the country’s fledgling democracy. In many other African countries, human rights groups have found it useful to draw on traditional community-based resolution methods, with their emphasis on securing consensus and on the reciprocal relationship between rights and social responsibilities, in their conflict resolution work.

The concern about detaching human rights from their legal foundation when they are deployed to legitimize nation-building agendas is a valid one. As Wilson rightly points out, the risk in this approach to human rights is that it obscures accountability and does not particularly serve to promote the rule of law. However, while legal enforcement founded on accountability and retributive justice is a core part of contemporary human rights, the normative traditions on which human rights are built are not solely legal. They are also moral, religious, and philosophical. The language of human rights can contribute a great deal more to efforts to secure peace and social stability when the breadth of its basis is recognized.

The tide of global justice is turning in favor of legality, prosecution, and punishment rather than reconciliation and forgiveness. The TRC represented a shift from this dominant paradigm of retributive justice. But rather than being a deviation from a supposedly global ideal, the TRC in its emphasis on reconciliation and restorative justice might in fact represent an African-inspired normative contribution to the universal human rights corpus. The move by Nigerian human rights groups from human rights advocacy to conflict resolution represents a similar paradigmatic shift. As Vuco notes, by making this shift, they have become more involved in aspects of conflict that extend beyond traditional human rights issues.

This is significant because one of the major challenges of human rights discourse in Africa (at both academic and policy levels) has been the need to legitimize universal human rights within local contexts. One way of doing this is by articulating a sense of human rights informed by local exigencies and perspectives, which the rest of the international community can also use. With the sanctity of the legalistic/individualist paradigm of human rights being increasingly questioned, an African sense of community obligation that goes beyond retribution can serve to strengthen the cross-cultural legitimacy of universal human rights. This may be the most significant impact of the South African TRC and the conflict resolution work of Nigerian human rights groups.

Taking the Reconciliatory Route: Human Rights and Peace Building

7/26/2007 06:57:00 PM human rights, politics, war and peace

Intregrating Human Rights and Peace Work

Intregrating Human Rights and Peace Work
(First Published in Human Rights Dialogue, Winter 2002)

Human rights advocates and conflict resolution specialists share a common aim - building stable societies based on mutual respect and the rule of law - and often work on the same conflicts, addressing closely related issues. Despite the substantive overlap in their work, however, they often talk past each other. At a recent meeting between peace workers and human rights advocates, a rights activist made it clear that her organization "does not do peace." At the same workshop, a peace worker bemoaned the fact that the conflict resolution field has no guiding regime of laws and institutions comparable to that available to human rights advocates, implying that human rights principles were not a resource she could usefully apply to her own work.
This issue of Human Rights Dialogue is the seventh in a series exploring ways to dismantle the “human rights box,” to find creative ways to increase participation in the human rights movement, and to expand access to the benefits of a human rights framework. By exploring the relationship between human rights groups and peace groups in different settings, this issue seeks to shed light on the barriers to the integration of human rights into peace work and on the means to overcome those barriers. Contributors provide insights into the interaction between human rights and peace groups in the countries where they work or have conducted research: Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and South Africa.

The unfortunate fact is that both in the field and in the offices of international organizations, human rights groups and peace groups often work on separate tracks and even at cross purposes. Mutual stereotyping by group members is common: Conflict resolvers are characterized as willing to compromise rights or avoid sensitive discussions of abuses altogether to satisfy the interests of the parties and secure a political deal; human rights advocates are seen as idealistic and uncompromising in seeking redress for individual violations, even at the cost of prolonging conflict. In at least some cases, these stereotypes are expressions of a fundamental clash between the human rights groups’ principled, legalistic, rights-based approach to resolving conflict and the more pragmatic and cooperative interest-based approach taken by peace groups.

In general, contributors agree that there needs to be better coordination between peace groups and human rights groups. Peace workers have to be willing and able to design intervention strategies that ultimately promote human rights standards. Human rights workers need to learn conflict management skills in order to address community demands and communicate effectively the relevance of human rights to the parties in conflict.

These needs have not gone entirely unnoticed. In the fall of 2000, major donors funded an institute devoted solely to addressing the problem—the Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution (CHRCR) at Tufts University. Executive director Ellen Lutz describes the CHRCR’s work in developing training and education programs that give peace workers and human rights advocates a better grounding in each other’s concerns and strategies.
Michelle Parlevliet and Ivana Vuco demonstrate that an approach that integrates human rights and conflict-prevention strategies can be both pragmatic and principled. The effective response of the South African Center for Conflict Resolution to an instance of conflict in Cape Town shows that a principled, rights-based stance can be the pragmatic response, according to Parlevliet. Vuco’s study of human rights and peace work in Nigeria describes how some human rights groups are taking a less adversarial approach to their work in a new, more open political environment.

In societies divided by ethnic, religious, political, or other intergroup tensions—Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland, for example—this integration of approaches is harder. In these conflicts, as Jehan Perera and Christine Bell explain, differences in the emphasis each community places on human rights have had the unfortunate effect of dividing them along the lines of the parties in conflict. Comments by Alan Keenan and Jeevan Thiagarajah on the Sri Lankan conflict stress the role of politically powerful actors in perpetuating Tamil-Sinhalese divisions, which makes it difficult for an independent movement to unify peace and human rights groups. In response to Bell, Mari Fitzduff explains that in Ireland rights-based approaches were effective in making claims against the state but did not adequately address nonstate actors, such as paramilitary groups.

The clash between human rights advocates and peace workers is most visible during formal efforts to resolve conflict, when the need for redressing abuses is most pressing. The typical human rights organization’s position is that there can be no peace without justice, in the form of criminal prosecutions for past abuses, and that impunity cannot be tolerated, even if the pursuit of justice prolongs the conflict. Peace groups, especially those oriented toward conflict resolution, are often more forgiving, tending to support reconciliatory approaches and nonpunitive measures, such as amnesty, as a means of ending conflict as quickly as possible.
Richard Wilson, Bonny Ibhawoh, and Vasuki Nesiah and Paul van Zyl offer insights into this debate by discussing different notions of justice—retributive versus restorative, punitive versus nonpunitive—and linking these notions to the cultural sources and legitimacy of the human rights framework. Wilson calls for a vigilant watch over activities conducted in the name of human rights; his concern stems from his observation that political elites in South Africa conflated human rights with "nation building,” which he argues undermined human rights and the rule of law in that country. In contrast, drawing on the case of Nigeria, Vuco and Ibhawoh argue that it is valid to use human rights language in serving the greater goal of social stability. The authors of the two commentaries on Wilson’s essay argue for expanding the notion of justice beyond legal prosecutions and for developing creative ways to achieve accountability that are suited to local capabilities and culture.

International policy makers are also debating what it would mean to incorporate a human rights perspective into conflict prevention and resolution. Looking beyone the question of appropriating human rights strategies (e.g., litigation, maning and shaming, and the like), actors at this level are considering whether human rights can function as a broad framework in which in which to carry out peace. In an interview with Dialogue, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Danilo Türk says that the human rights framework functions best at the level of norm-setting and that the desire for peace should serve as a further motivation for insistence on those standards. In the view of United States Agency for International Development (USAID), according to special advisor for conflict resolution Dayton Maxwell, a “human security” framework that is broader than a “human rights” framework can provide the basis for a more successful collaborative approach.

Intregrating Human Rights and Peace Work

7/26/2007 06:52:00 PM human rights, war and peace

Joint Actions for Hiroshima and Nagasaki Commemorations Across Canada

Following is an up-dated summary of forthcoming peace actions for Hiroshima andNagasaki Day commemorations. Please make corrections and up-dates. The list isnot complete and some cities may still be missing. Please send corrections andevent information up-dates to Anton Wagner, Toronto Hiroshima Day Coalition,awagner@yorku.ca 416-863 1209; fax: 416-863 9973; The suggestion has been madethat groups across-Canada organizing commemorations issue a joint call askingParliament to take a lead on negotiating an international nuclear weaponsabolition convention and to re-establish Canada?s former international role inpeacebuilding by establishing a Department of Peace. Peace actions that we areaware of so far include:

August 2:

Press conference by Halifax Peace Coalition. Contact: Tamara Lorincztlorincz@dal.ca

Saturday, August 4:

Vancouver: David Laskey from Veterans Against Nuclear Arms has arranged to haveMayor Sam Sullivan declare August 6 as Hiroshima Day in the City of Vancouverand for the Mayor to read his Proclamation on Saturday August 4th at theopening ceremonies of the Powell Street Festival, an annual event thatcelebrates the Japanese Canadian contribution to Canadian life. Contact:laskey8824@shaw.ca

VSA9, Vancouver Save Article 9, a group organizing to stop the Japanesegovernment from changing Article 9 of the Japanese constitution that prohibitswarmaking, hold an A-bomb and Humanity exhibition August 4 and 5 in conjunctionwith the Powell Street Festival. Contact: Eiichiro Ochiai eo1921@telus.ne

Sunday, August 5:

Montreal: Hiroshima is Montreal?s twin city and in 1998 donated a Peace Bell tothe Montreal Botanical Garden as a symbol of peace and eternal friendshipbetween the two cities. An annual peace ceremony has been organized by theJapanese Pavillion of the Botanical Garden with the support of the City ofMontreal since then. Often the mayor or a representive and the Consul Generalof Japan are present. The ceremony is held in the evening, August 5, at 7 pm tocorrespond with the commemorative ceremony taking place in the Peace Park inHiroshima, on August 6. The Peace Bell in the Japanese Garden will ring 62times throughout the day of August 6. Everyone is invited to come to the August5 Japanese Garden commemoration starting at 7 pm to remind us of the importanceof world peace. Contact: General information, Montreal Botanical Garden,514-872 1400 or Karine Jalbert, Communications Coordinator, 514-872 1453,karinejalbert@ville.montreal.qc.ca

Midland-Penetang, Ontario: Peaceworks commemorates Hiroshima Day at the PenetangPeace Garden on Rotary Trail. Potluck picnic at 5.30; commemorative ceremony at7.00pm with a presentation by James Bacque, ?A Modest Proposal: Eliminate WarBy Privatizing It,? music and the Orillia Raging Grannies. Learn to make anorigami crane. Contact: Elizabeth O'Connor peace_works@hotmail.com

Monday, August 6:

Halifax: The third annual Peace Day takes place from 3 to 4:30 pm in the WorldPeace Pavilion at the Dartmouth Waterfront Park near Alderney Landing. (In theevent of rain the event will be inside the terminal building of the passengerferry from Halifax to Dartmouth). The program includes a youth performance ofthe play ?One Thousand Cranes,? speakers including MP Alexa McDonough, and theRaging Grannies. Organized by Physicians for Global Survival, Voice of Womenfor Peace and the Halifax Peace Coalition. Contact: Tamara Lorincztlorincz@dal.ca or http://www.halifaxpeacecoalition.ca/

Fredericton commemorates Hiroshima Day with Lantern Night: A Vigil AgainstNuclear Weapons, at 8:30 pm at the Peace Pole, near the Walking Bridge, southside Fredericton. (In the event of rain, the event will be held at ConserverHouse, 180 St. John St.) The program includes speakers from the local chaptersof Project Ploughshares, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms and the FrederictonPeace Coalition, and poetry and music. Contact: info@frederictonpeace.org orvisit http://www.frederictonpeace.org/

Ottawa: A commemoration of the 61st Year Since the Nuclear Destruction ofHiroshima and Nagasaki will be held at 7 pm at the Friends Meeting House.Includes a power point presentation ?Sixty years of Struggles by Canadians toBan Nuclear Weapons,? a general discussion of initiatives being taken today forthis purpose and what individuals can do towards banning the bonb, communitysinging and a walk to the pond by the Canal to float handmade lanterns.Sponsored by the Ottawa Monthly Meeting of Friends (Quakers) in collaborationwith Physicians for Global Survival and the Ottawa branches of ProjectPloughshares and Religions for Peace. Contact: Murray Thomson,mothom@sympatico.ca Debbie Grisdale, pgs@web.ca Jordan Bishop,jordanbishop@sympatico.ca

Toronto: The Toronto Hiroshima Day Coalition organizes the annual Hiroshima DayCommemoration at the Toronto City Hall Peace Garden from 6:30 to 9 pm withVeterans Against Nuclear Arms. This year?s commemoration, entitled ?Paths toHope? to emphasize concrete steps that can be taken to achieve the eliminationof nuclear weapons, is MC?ed by Phyllis Creighton from Science for Peace.Councillor Raymond Cho will read Mayor David Miller's Toronto Hiroshima DayProclamation. Prayers for peace from Father Damian MacPherson, President of theToronto Area Interfaith Council, Imam Abdul Hai Patel from the Council of Imamsof Canada, and representatives from the Toronto Buddhist Church and the BahaiCommunity will be presented. Physicians for Global Survival will present theToronto launch of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow will read peace poems by Kurihara Sadako.The City of Hiroshima Peace Proclamation will be read as well as the 50thanniversary Pugwash Conference statement. Following speakers from VeteransAgainst Nuclear Arms, the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee and the federalDepartment of Peace initiative, MP Peggy Nash will speak on the federalgovernment and peacebuilding. The Yakudo Traditional Japanese Drummers and theRaging Grannies will perform. A lantern ceremony will conclude the event.Sponsored by the Hiroshima Day Coalition, the Japanese Canadian CulturalCentre, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, Physicians for Global Survival, Voice ofWomen, and the Older Women?s Network. Contact: Anton Wagner, awagner@yorku.caand http://www.myspace.com/hiroshimaday

Winnipeg: Project Peacemakers, the Winnipeg chapter of Project Ploughshares, andthe Peace Alliance Winnipeg are organizing this years event which includesmaking lanterns, a lantern ceremony at twilight, music and speakers fromProject Peacemakers and the Japanese-Canadian community. Contact: ProjectPeacemakers, 204-775 8178, info@projectpeacemakers.org

Saskatoon: Veterans Against Nuclear Arms organizes a screening of thefull-length documentary Veterans Against Nuclear War filmed in Canada and inHiroshima and Nagasaki at the Broadway Theatre at 7 pm. The event is alsosponsored by the Saskatoon Peace Coalition and Project Ploughshares. Contact:Betsy and John Bury, burybjd@sasktel.net

Grand Forks, BC: The Boundary Peace Initiative in the B.C. Southern Interior ishosting a Hiroshima Day Commemoration at 1 pm in Gyro Park (next to theBoundary Museum) with presentations on Uranium Mining and Exploration impactsalong with a fundraiser for our group. The Boundary/Kootenay/Okanagan isthreatened with mining of the known deposits of uranium in our areas. Ouryouth will do chalk silhouettes throughout the downtown on August 5th (it?seasier than the water soluble paint that caused issues with City Council a fewyears ago). We are a member of the B.C. Southern Interior Peace Coalition, the Canadian Peace Alliance, Abolition 2000, Lawyers Against the War, Uranium FreeB.C., Uranium Free Kootenay Boundary and an affiliate of the Fellowship ofReconciliation as well as working with other local, national andinternational groups. Contact: Laura Savinkoff, l4peace@telus.net

Salt Spring Island, BC: Continuing an over 25-year tradition of markingHiroshima Day, this year?s event takes place in the peace park across fromArtspring, 10am-2pm (lanternmaking); 7:30 pm (gathering) Contact: Jan Slakovjs@saltspring.com

Thursday, August 9:

Hamilton: The annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki Memorial Observance takes place at 7 PMin the Hamilton City Hall Council Chamber. The Guest Speaker will be Prof.Graeme MacQueen, Founder, Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University,speaking on ?The Crisis of Civilization and the Need for Imagination.?Presented by the Hamilton chapter of Project Ploughshares and co-sponsored byAmnesty International Group One, the Hamilton Mundialization Committee, UnitedNations Association in Canada, Ghandi Peace Festival, Physicians for GlobalSurvival, Interfaith Council for Refugees and Human Rights, McMaster UniversityCentre for Peace Studies, Hamilton Culture of Peace Network, Operation Lifelineand Food Not Bombs. Contact: Leonor Sorger, lsorger@hamiltondiocese.com

Powell River, BC: Powell River is organizing a traditional Hiroshima-NagasakiCommemoration at Willingdon Beach at 7 pm with songs, a Peace Lantern Ceremonyand a speech by our Mayor who joined Mayors for Peace in 2004 and has beenasked to endorse the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. TheICAN campaign will be launched in Powell River at the same time and petitionscirculated for signatures until the end of September. Contact: Dr. Sylvia Keetsylviak@prcn.org

Joint Actions for Hiroshima and Nagasaki Commemorations Across Canada

7/26/2007 12:23:00 AM