GIAZILO

Feb 25, 2009

Like the proverbial gold fish, war criminals who engage in gross human rights violations with impunity will soon find there are no more hiding places for them on God’s earth. These are welcome development and one can only hope that the momentum is sustained.

Sierra Leone rebel leaders guilty of war crimes

By CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) - Feb 25, 2009

The rebels were known for asking their victims if they preferred "long sleeves" or "short sleeves." They then cut off the hands of those who chose the first option and the full arm of those that picked the second. On Wednesday, an international court modeled after the Nuremberg tribunal convicted three top Sierra Leone rebel leaders of crimes against humanity — the closest thing to justice in this West African nation of amputees, orphans and widows.

Revolutionary United Front leader Issa Sesay and one of his battlefield commanders Morris Kallon were found guilty on 16 of 18 counts, including mutilation, terrorism, rape, forced marriage, sexual slavery and the enlistment of child soldiers. Another commander, Augustine Gbao, was found guilty on 14 of the 18 counts.

All three had pleaded not guilty and shook their heads as the verdict was read. About a half-million people were victims of killings, systematic mutilation and other atrocities during Sierra Leone' 11-year civil war, which ended in 2002. Illicit diamond sales fueled the conflict, dramatized by the 2006 film "Blood Diamond," starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Rebels controlled the diamond fields and used the sale of the gem to buy guns. The rebels were allegedly trained and backed by Charles Taylor, the warlord of neighboring Liberia. For over a decade, the rebels roamed Sierra Leone's jungles, raiding villages, vying for control of the nation's diamond fields.....

Day of Reckoning for Sierra Leone War Criminals

2/25/2009 10:52:00 PM africa, human rights, politics, war and peace

Feb 17, 2009

After so many false starts, it is gratifying to see that those responsible for the Cambodian genocide (the forgotten genocide) are finally facing justice. Justice may have been unduly delayed but hopefully, in this case it will be not denied entirely. It serves as a reminder to those rulers and warlords who kill, main and torture with impunity that in the new international human rights order, there will be no hiding place

"Killing Fields" torturer on trial in Cambodia
Reuters; February 17, 2009
By Darren Schuettler

The chief Khmer Rouge torturer went on trial for crimes against humanity on Tuesday, the first case involving a senior Pol Pot cadre three decades after the end of a regime blamed for 1.7 million deaths in Cambodia. Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch and ex-commandant of the notorious S-21 prison, sat impassively in a blue shirt as a judge read the opening statements in court.

Hundreds of victims of Khmer Rouge atrocities lined up to get into court, but the proceedings are mostly procedural, with the main trial starting in March and a verdict due by September. Vann Nath, an artist, managed to get a seat near Duch. He was one of only a handful of people to survive S-21, saved because he was chosen to paint portraits of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. "This is the day we have waited for 30 years. But I don't know if it will end my suffering," he told reporters during a break in the hearing.

Duch, now a born-again Christian, expressed remorse on the eve of his trial by the "Killing Fields" court set up to prosecute "those most responsible" for the 1975-79 reign of terror, one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century. "He said to the victims, 'I ask your forgiveness, I ask your forgiveness'," French lawyer Francois Roux told Reuters Television after visiting his client at a detention centre near the specially built court outside the Cambodian capital. The trial marks a turning point for the strife-torn country where nearly every family lost someone under the Khmer Rouge.

Read more here….

http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2009/02/17/asia/OUKWD-UK-CAMBODIA-ROUGE.php

"Killing Fields" torturer on trial in Cambodia

2/17/2009 12:22:00 AM history, human rights, war and peace

Feb 16, 2009

This is something that many human rights scholars and observers have suspected all along – that the US "war on terror" has served to weaken and erode the global human rights advances that have been achieved in the past five decades since WW II. By my own estimation the so-called “war on terror” has taken global the human rights back at least 3 decades. It will be a hard and challenging task to undo all the damage that has been done.

I personally think that the human rights community could have done a lot more to counter the fear-mongering and warped logic advanced by the Bush team to justify their war on terror in the court of public opinion. “Eternal vigilance”, they say, “is the price of liberty.” We should be ready and willing to pay that price to protect the gains in human rights that many have worked so hard and sacrificed so much to achieve

US 'war on terror' eroded rights worldwide - experts
16 Feb 2009; Source: Reuters
By Laura MacInnis GENEVA, Feb 16 (Reuters)

Washington's "war on terror" after the Sept. 11 attacks has eroded human rights worldwide, creating lingering cynicism that the United Nations must now combat, international law experts said on Monday.

Mary Robinson, who was the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights when al Qaeda militants flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, said the United States caused harm with some of the ways it responded. "Seven years after 9/11 it is time to take stock and repeal abusive laws and policies," the former Irish president said, warning that harsh U.S. detentions and interrogations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba gave a dangerous signal to other countries that could easily follow suit.

While new U.S. President Barack Obama has announced he will close Guantanamo to break from the practices of his predecessor George W. Bush, Robinson said sweeping changes needed to take place to ensure Washington abandons its "war paradigm". "There has been severe damage and it needs to be addressed," she told a news conference in Geneva. "We are not more secure. We are more divided, and people are more cynical about the operation of laws."

Read more here…..
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LG633039.htm

US 'war on terror' eroded rights worldwide - experts

2/16/2009 11:44:00 PM human rights, politics, reflections, war and peace, world

Feb 12, 2009

I participate in and contribute to several listserves and online discussion boards where, I am frankly dismayed by the language and tone of the discussion coming from scholars and activists who I would expect to be more civil, thoughtful and considerate in their discussions. The debates sometimes degenerate into banal name-calling and vulgar displays of “pseudo-erudition” -- some kind of intellectual power tussle that I find stifling of productive debate. I call this pseudo-erudition because I believe that sophisticated thinking is often subtle and tempered. I see these displays of “pseudo-erudition” even of listservs that are supposedly dedicated to promoting peace and human rights. That is not what I think a cyber-community of scholars and thinkers should be.

I share here, the now famous “RULES OF NETIQUETTE” that I have found very useful and which I think should guide all internet discussions.

THE CORE RULES OF NETIQUETTE
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html
Excerpted from the book Netiquette by Virginia Shea. Click on each
rule for elaboration.

Of pseudo-erudition and Netiquette

2/12/2009 09:22:00 AM arts and culture, education, media, reflections

Feb 2, 2009

Witchcraft and Human Rights
It is sad to note that in the 21st century countless number of people around the world still suffer exclusion, social ostracism, violence and even death based on spurious allegations of witchcraft. The victims are often the weakest in these societies – women and children. The moral strength of any society can only be truly judged based on how well it treats the weakest of its members. It is however gratifying that the international human rights community is begining to pay serious attention to these human rights violations perpetuated in the name of witchcraft. The Policy Development and Evaluation Service has created a "Witchcraft and Human Rights Network". It is an informal network where information about new developments, research and news related to witchcraft can be shared.

This Article written in New Issues in Refugee Research by Jill Schnoebelen called "Witchcraft Allegations and Displacement". It addresses the growing and troubling issues from a human rights perspective
http://www.unhcr.org/research/RESEARCH/4981ca712.pdf

A recent movie by the producer Allison Berg also explores the issue. The Movie is titled “Witches in Exile.”
Witches in Exile
(79 minutes) Ghana/USADirector/Producer: Allison Berg
Description:In Ghana, women accused of witchcraft are torn from their families and banished to witch villages. Witches in Exile follows these accused women through their daily struggle to survive in the Kukuo Witches Camp. As government agencies attempt to abolish this age-old tradition, these women find themselves caught between their society's deeply-rooted beliefs and its drive toward modernization.
http://www.unaff.org/2004/f_witches.html

Witchcraft and Human Rights

2/02/2009 12:20:00 PM africa, arts and culture, human rights, media

Feb 1, 2009

Photos from the annual Mahatma Gandhi Peace Festival organized by the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70652&l=73edf&id=673696944

Gandhi Peace Festival 2008

2/01/2009 11:10:00 PM arts and culture, education, media, war and peace

I first met Katarina in 1998 while working at the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) in Copenhagen (then the Danish Centre for Human Rights). Our mutual friend Mark Gibney had introduced me to her. We did not spend much time together at the DIHR as she soon moved to the Raul Wallenberg Institute at the University of Lund, Sweden where she was a professor in International Human Rights Law. Our friendship continued while she was at Lund. Katarina became a close friend, colleague and mentor. She was always willing to lend a listening ear and share her wealth of experience and expertise in human rights scholarship with a new and sometimes clueless researcher. She often invited me and Hashil to her apartment in Copenhagen treating us to her delicious cooking. I loved her soups.

Katarina’s passion was the right to education. She dreamed of the day when all the world’s children would have rights and access to education – a dream she tirelessly pursued in her capacity as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education from 1998 to 2004. Her death in 2006 left a void not only in the hearts of her friends and colleagues but in the international human rights community. It is will be a void that will be hard fill.

Katarina was an avid collector of ornamental turtles which she collected over the years from around the world during her travels. Her Copenhagen apartment was beautifully adorned with turtles of all shapes, colors and sizes. To me, they reflected Katarina personality in many ways – gentle, endearing and resilient. When she died in 2006 I received 3 of Katarina’s turtles which I cherish and treasure. They sit on my office shelf - a reminder of the inspiration that Katarina provided and continues to provide for me.

Katarina’s Tomasevski memorial:

http://www.tomasevski.net/index.htm

In Memorian: Remembering Katarina Tomasevski

2/01/2009 10:22:00 PM human rights, Tributes

Jan 21, 2009

“The world watches and hopes” This editorial of the Guardian (London) coming a day after the inauguration of Barack Obama is an eloquent reflection on the historic significance of Obama’s Presidency. The Guardian uses some pretty powerful words to describe the event:

“The events of 20 January 2009 are the greatest celebration of a purely democratic achievement in human history.”

"The election of an African-American president marks the symbolic end of one of the most searing racial injustices in the western world."

…few will disagree. This is a worthy read

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/21/barack-obama-inauguration

The world watches and hopes

1/21/2009 12:12:00 PM history, media, politics, world

As Obama is sworn in as President of the United States, there seems to be global expectation that all things will now pass away and behold, all things will be made new. Obama’s administration will no doubt mark a radical departure from the experiences of the Bush years but it would be a mistake to think that Obama can change all that is wrong with the America and the world.
Inheriting two wars and a global economic crisis, the expectations for Obama need to be more measured and realistic. If not, they can easily lead to a stultifying and demoralizing “aspirational gap.”

In talking about the aspirational gap, I am reminded of the stratospheric expectations that followed decolonizing in Africa and other parts of the colonized world. Many in these societies imagined that the end of colonialism would automatically usher an end to the political and economic challenges they faced under colonial rule. Nationalist politicians fanned these expectations. The nationalist leader and prime minister of independent Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah implored his countrymen and women: “Seek ye the political kingdom and all other things will be added unto thee.” This turned out not to be. The expectation and aspiration bar has been set so high that no matter what the first generation of post-colonial leaders did (and they in fact, did not do very much), it was near impossible to meet them. The aspirational gap could never be filled. I have the same fears for our expectations of the Obama administration. The Obama administrations enjoyed an unprecedented measure of domestic and international goodwill from those who genuinely hope it succeeds. But in so doing we must beware the aspirational gap!

Beware the Aspirational Gap

1/21/2009 10:48:00 AM africa, politics, reflections

The Hamilton Magazine asked a panel of scholars to reflect of the meaning of "Change." These are excerpts from my reflections. The full article makes for interesting reading.

http://www.hamiltonmagazine.com/sitepages/?aid=211&cn=Features&an=Change%20Now

“There’s an old Chinese proverb,” reflects Dr. Bonny Ibawoh. “Catch a fish for a man you fed him for one day in his life. Teach a man to fish, he can feed himself for a lifetime.” The Director of the Peace Studies Program and the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University, Ibawoh sees the maxim as loaded with meaning for humanitarian projects. “Maybe we want to continue catching fish because it feels good for us,” he adds. “That says a lot about the way we do things.” Pearson seems to agree, at least when this principle is applied to Hamilton’s Poverty Roundtable. “If you’re talking about an issue of poverty, those most affected by the conditions of poverty have to be heard as well as those in positions to effect change.”

.... Knitting his hands behind his head and leaning back in his chair, Ibawoh recalls one of his favourite experiences of change. Ibawoh grew up in a west-African society that practiced female circumcision – a practice that has garnered a lot of attention and concern from the global society – both for the way in which it was practiced and the long-term effects of the tradition. “A lot of NGOs came to tell people what they were doing was wrong and they gave it a name, ‘mutilation,’ without understanding that this wasn’t the society’s intention,” he says, shaking his head. “It was a rite of passage into womanhood.” While the NGOs were well-intentioned, the society felt demonized and pushed back. Then something happened. “Some NGOs decided to get the society on board. They began asking why the practice was done, what the reason was behind it.” Through discussion, the NGOs and the society were able to begin to work through the issue, finding other options that suited everyone – especially the women. It’s a good story that leads one to wonder if there is enough conversation happening around poverty – a conversation that values input from everyone. Of course, there are many sides to the argument, but according to Susan, as long as there is no place for her voice, or the voice of others like her in greater numbers, the answer is no.