Support campaign for 'climate refugee rights'
November 16, 2009
Dear Friends
Please find the below a call in this regard for your kind consideration,
you hope that you and your organization will be willing to be a
signatory on this campaign, we will keep this collection up to 15th
November 2009, then this call along with your signatures will be printed
and we will launch / circulate that in civil society and official UNFCCC
CoP 15 events at Copenhagen during 7 to 18 December 2009.
Please note that we have organized an event on climate refugee rights in
Klimaforum09 (DGI Byen, Kodybyan, near central station) Copenhagen on
11th December 10 am to 12 noon and also a photo exhibition from 9th to
16th December in the same venue.
You can be a signatory either by organization or by as a person in just
sending a mail to me or you can go to following
link;http://www.equitybd.org/English/campaign/index.html#1
Sincerely
Reza
www.equitybd.org
Climate Change Induced Forced Migrants
We call global leaders to develop a new legal instrument to ensure
social, cultural and economic rights of the climate change induced
forced migrants.
We the undersigned, the NGOs/CSOs (Non Government Organization/ Civil
Society Organization) representatives of professional groups, would like
to draw kind attention of the global leaders on the rights of the
climate change induced forced migrants, who are incorrectly termed as
‘climate refugees’ or ‘environmentally displaced persons (IDPs). The
UNFCCC, which has near universal membership, provides the common
international framework to address the causes and consequences of
climate change, without however mentioning ‘climate change induced
forced migrants’. Given the context, we are calling global leaders to
develop a new legal instrument under a Protocol under the UNFCCC to
ensure social, cultural and economic rights of the climate change
induced forced migrants. Our concerns and demand have been heightened by
the following analysis on the future flood of the climate change induced
forced migrants:
i). Climate change will significantly affect migration in three distinct
ways; i) the effects of warming and drying in some regions, ii) increase
in extreme weather events, and iii) sea level rise. All these effects
will permanently destroy extensive and highly productive low-laying
coastal areas that are home to millions of people who will have to be
relocated permanently. For instance, sea level rise is an impending
threat to the coastal areas in Bangladesh that would force physical
dislocation of more than 35 million people. Most of the Maldiveswould be
turned into sandbars, forcing 300,000 people to flee to India or Sri
Lanka. Vietnamcould lose 500,000 hectares of land in the Red River Delta
and another 2 million hectares in the Mekong Delta, displacing roughly
10 million people. In the Mediterranean, Egypt would lose at least 2
million hectares of land in the fertile Nile Delta, displacing 8–10
million people. In Guyana 600,000 people would be displaced – 80 per
cent of the population.
ii) The First Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC AR1) in 1990 noted that the greatest single impact
of climate change might be on human migration. The report estimated that
by 2050, 150 million people could be displaced by climate change. More
recent studies estimates even more people to be displaced by the same
period; for instance, Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change in
2006 and a Christian Aid report in 2007 estimates displacement of
respectively 200 million and 250 million people by climate change by
2050. Thus, the number of future climate migration shows a ten fold
increase on today’s entire population of documented refugees and
internally displaced persons (IPDs). It would mean that by 2050 one in
every 45 people in the world would have been displaced by climate change.
iii) Although many of scholarly articles warned about future floods of
the climate change induced forced migrants but, still, no policy
measures have taken; even the terms and concepts of referring climate
change induced migrants are found dissimilar throughout the literature.
They are termed as ecological and environmental refugees, climate
refugees, climate change migrants, environmentally-induced forced
migrants etc. In this context, the office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and International Organization for
Migration (IMO) have advised that the terms like ‘Climate Refugees’ or
Environmental Refugees’ have no legal basis in international refugee law
and these should be avoided in order not to undermine the international
legal regime for the protection of refugees.
iv) Considering the legal concern on the limitation of term ‘refugee’,
some international organizations are trying to treat climate change
induced forced migrants as ‘environmentally displaced person’ which is
in line with the mandates of the UNHCR’s Internally Displaced Persons
(IDPs) wherein international communities made less responsible to
mitigate the crisis. Climate induced forced migrants and IDPs falling
within the same category may undermine notion of justice to the climate
change induced migrants and, again, the definition of these two that are
not clearly recognizable may not receive appropriate
assistance.Questioning appropriateness of the terminology
‘environmentally displaced person’ or ‘Climate Refugee’ we urge that –
- Are the environmental factors only driving force of displacement and
migration?
- Are the poor countries individually capable to face the crises that
have been cumulatively build-up by the rich countries?
- Why to fit ‘climate related forced displaced persons’ to the
‘political refugees’ or to the IDPs?
- Why should inhabitants of some atolls in the Maldives and inhabitants
of the coastal areas of Bangladesh receive similar treatment as the
political refugees, which are narrowly defined under the 1951 Geneva
Convention?
vi) Climate change is a consequence of the cumulative build-up of Green
House Gases-GHGs, dating back as far as the Industrial Revolution.
Although the industrialized countries, defined as annex I countries
under the UNFCCC on climate change, have historically contributed most
of the manmade GHGs emissions but the impacts of climate change would be
distributed very unevenly and disproportionately. Those who have
contributed least to the human-induced climate change should accept all
the burden and distress. This unequal distribution of burdens of the
effect of climate changes reflected in the article 3 of the convention
(referred to as equity article).
The ongoing negotiation on this Equity Principle of UNFCCC is focusing
two major strategies to address climate change e.g. mitigation and
adaptation. Although the climate change adaptation includes wide range
of actions and activities including relocating population from the
flood-prone or from the at risk areas but, yet, it has not clearly
defined how to address the multi-causality of forced displacement
largely caused by climate change. There is a growing demand to recognize
climate change- affected populations as a ‘new’ group in need of
protection while existing legal frameworks and conventions are not
sufficient to safeguard them.
v) Considering the notion of justice to the climate change induced
migrants and also taking into consideration the article 13 of the 1948
Declaration of Human Right, the international community and especially
the United Nations must ensure protection of the forced migrants. In
line with the HR declaration and equity principle of UNFCCC a separate,
independent legal and political regime needs to be created under a
Protocol to safeguard the ‘climate change induced migrants ’. This
protocol could be drawn on widely agreed principles such as common but
differentiated responsibilities of the country Parties; also must
consider the 3 basic principles;
a) The legal debate over the issue of climate migrants must take into
account the dignity of the concerned population as their own
responsibilities for the past accumulation of GHGs are small. The people
forced to be migrated due to climate change should bestow a different
status and a different term and they should be given a dignified status
‘Universal Natural Person’ with social, cultural and economic rights,
b) The climate refugees must be treated as permanent immigrants to the
regions or countries that accept them and,
c) The climate change migrants should be tailored as entire groups of
people, such as populations of a village, cities, provinces, or even
entire nation, as in the case of small island states.
Initial Signatories (in alphabetical order) :
Equity and Justice Working Group Bangladesh (EquityBD)
Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF)
LDC Watch
South Asia Association for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE)
Jubilee South – Asia Pacific Movement for Debt and Development (JS-APMDD)
Jubilee South/Americas
Jubilee South
Labels: Climate Change, Human rights
posted by c-info @ 7:56 AM,
What happens to women in Afghanistan is not merely a "women's issue."
November 03, 2009
From: The Nation (in the November 9, 2009 edition of The Nation)
Remember the Women?
by Ann Jones
What happens to women in Afghanistan is not merely a "women's issue." It is the central issue of stability, development and durable peace.
Women are made for homes or graves. -- Afghan saying
Gen. Stanley McChrystal says he needs more American troops to salvage something like winning in Afghanistan and restore the country to "normal life." Influential senators want to increase spending to train more soldiers for the Afghan National Army and Police. The Feminist Majority recently backed off a call for more troops, but it continues to warn against U.S. withdrawal as an abandonment of Afghan women and girls. Nearly everyone assumes troops bring greater security; and whether your touchstone is military victory, national interest or the welfare of women and girls, "security" seems a good thing.
I confess that I agonize over competing proposals now commanding President Obama's attention because I've spent years in Afghanistan working with women, and I'm on their side. When the Feminist Majority argues that withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan will return the Taliban to power and women to house arrest, I see in my mind's eye the faces of women I know and care about. Yet an unsentimental look at the record reveals that for all the fine talk of women's rights since the U.S. invasion, equal rights for Afghan women have been illusory all along, a polite feel-good fiction that helped to sell the American enterprise at home and cloak in respectability the misbegotten government we installed in Kabul. That it is a fiction is borne out by recent developments in Afghanistan -- President Karzai's approving a new family law worthy of the Taliban, and American acquiescence in Karzai's new law and, initially, his theft of the presidential election -- and by the systematic intimidation, murder or exile of one Afghan woman after another who behaves as if her rights were real and worth fighting for.
Last summer in Kabul, where "security" already suffocates anything remotely suggesting normal life, I asked an Afghan colleague at an international NGO if she was ever afraid. I had learned of threatening phone calls and night letters posted on the gates of the compound, targeting Afghan women who work within. Three of our colleagues in another city had been kidnapped by the militia of a warlord, formerly a member of the Karzai government, and at the time, as we learned after their release, were being beaten, tortured and threatened with death if they continued to work.
"Fear?" my colleague said. "Yes. We live with fear. In our work here with women we are always under threat. Personally, I work every day in fear, hoping to return safely at the end of the day to my home. To my child and my husband."
"And the future?" I said. "What do you worry about?"
"I think about the upcoming election," she said. "I fear that nothing will change. I fear that everything will stay the same."
Then Karzai gazetted the Shiite Personal Status Law, and it was suddenly clear that even as we were hoping for the best, everything had actually grown much worse for women.
Why is this important? At this critical moment, as Obama tries to weigh options against our national security interests, his advisers can't be bothered with -- as one U.S. military officer put it to me -- "the trivial fate of women." As for some hypothetical moral duty to protect the women of Afghanistan -- that's off the table. Yet it is precisely that dismissive attitude, shared by Afghan and many American men alike, that may have put America's whole Afghan enterprise wrong in the first place. Early on, Kofi Annan, then United Nations secretary general, noted that the condition of Afghan women was "an affront to all standards of dignity, equality and humanity."
Annan took the position, set forth in 2000 in the landmark UN Security Council Resolution 1325, that real conflict resolution, reconstruction and lasting peace cannot be achieved without the full participation of women every step of the way. Karzai gave lip service to the idea, saying in 2002, "We are determined to work to improve the lot of women after all their suffering under the narrow-minded and oppressive rule of the Taliban." But he has done no such thing. And the die had already been cast: of the twenty-three Afghan notables invited to take part in the Bonn Conference in December 2001, only two were women. Among ministers appointed to the new Karzai government, there were only two; one, the minister for women's affairs, was warned not to do "too much."
The Bonn agreement expressed "appreciation to the Afghan mujahidin who...have defended the independence, territorial integrity and national unity of the country and have played a major role in the struggle against terrorism and oppression, and whose sacrifice has now made them both heroes of jihad and champions of peace, stability and reconstruction of their beloved homeland, Afghanistan." On the other hand, their American- and Saudi-sponsored "sacrifice" had also made many of them war criminals in the eyes of their countrymen. Most Afghans surveyed between 2002 and 2004 by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission thought the leaders of the mujahedeen were war criminals who should be brought to justice (75 percent) and removed from public office (90 percent). The mujahedeen, after all, were Islamist extremists just like the Taliban, though less disciplined than the Taliban, who had risen up to curb the violent excesses of the mujahedeen and then imposed excesses of their own. That's the part American officials seem unwilling to admit: that the mujahedeen warlords of the Karzai government and the oppressive Taliban are brothers under the skin. From the point of view of women today, America's friends and America's enemies in Afghanistan are the same kind of guys.
Though women were excluded from the Bonn process, they did seem to make strides in the first years after the fall of the Taliban. In 2004 a new constitution declared, "The citizens of Afghanistan -- whether man or woman -- have equal rights and duties before the law." Westerners greeted that language as a confirmation of gender equality, and to this day women's "equal rights" are routinely cited in Western media as evidence of great progress. Yet not surprisingly, Afghan officials often interpret the article differently. To them, having "equal rights and duties" is nothing like being equal. The first chief justice of the Afghan Supreme Court, formerly a mullah in a Pakistani madrassa, once explained to me that men have a right to work while women have a right to obey their husbands. The judiciary -- an ultraconservative, inadequate, incompetent and notoriously corrupt branch of government -- interprets the constitution by its own lights. And the great majority of women across the country, knowing little or nothing of rights, live now much as they did under the Taliban -- except back then there were no bombs.
In any case, the constitution provides that no law may contravene the principles of Sharia law. In effect, mullahs and judges have always retained the power to decide at any moment what "rights" women may enjoy, or not; and being poorly educated, they're likely to factor into the judgment their own idiosyncratic notions of Sharia, plus tribal customary laws and the size of proffered bribes. Thus, although some women still bravely exercise liberty and work with some success to improve women's condition, it should have been clear from the get-go that Afghan women possess no inalienable rights at all. Western legal experts who train Afghan judges and lawyers in "the law" as we conceive it often express frustration that Afghans just don't get it; Afghan judges think the same of them.
The paper foundations of Afghan women's rights go beyond national law to include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Treaty of Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). All these international agreements that delineate and establish human rights around the world were quickly ratified by the Karzai government. CEDAW, however, requires ratifying governments to submit periodic reports on their progress in eliminating discrimination; Afghanistan's first report, due in 2004, hasn't appeared yet. That's one more clue to the Karzai government's real attitude toward women -- like Karzai's sequestration of his own wife, a doctor with much-needed skills who is kept locked up at home.
Given this background, there should have been no surprise when President Karzai first signed off in March on the Shiite Personal Status Law or, as it became known in the Western press, the Marital Rape Law. The bill had been percolating in the ultraconservative Ministry of Justice ever since the Iranian-backed Ayatollah Asif Mohseni submitted it in 2007. Then last February Karzai apparently saw the chance to swap passage of the SPSL for the votes of the Shiites -- that is, the Hazara minority, 15-20 percent of the population. It was just one of many deals Karzai consolidated as he kept to the palace while rival presidential candidates stomped the countryside. The SPSL passed without alteration through the Parliamentary Judicial Committee, another little bunch of ultraconservative men. When it reached the floor of Parliament, it was too late to object. Some women members succeeded in getting the marriageable age for girls -- age 9 -- revised to 16. Calling it victory, they settled for that. The Supreme Court reviewed the bill and pronounced it constitutionally correct on grounds the justices did not disclose.
The rights Afghan women stood to lose on paper and in real life were set forth in the SPSL. Parliamentarian Shinkai Karokhail alerted a reporter at the Guardian, and the law was denounced around the world for legalizing marital rape by authorizing a husband to withhold food from a wife who fails to provide sexual service at least once every four days. (The interval assumes the husband has four wives, a practice permitted by Islam and legalized by this legislation.) But that's not all the law does. It also denies or severely limits women's rights to inherit, divorce or have guardianship of their own children. It forbids women to marry without permission and legalizes forced marriage. It legalizes marriage to and rape of minors. It gives men control of all their female relatives. It denies women the right to leave home except for "legitimate purposes" -- in effect giving men the power to deny women access to work, education, healthcare, voting and whatever they please. It generally treats women as property, and it considers rape of women or minors outside marriage as a property crime, requiring restitution to be made to the owner, usually the father or husband, rather than a crime against the victim. All these provisions are contained in twenty-six articles of the original bill that have been rendered into English and analyzed by Western legal experts. No doubt other regressive rules will be discovered if the 223 additional articles of the law ever appear in English.
In April a few women parliamentarians spoke out against the law. A group of women, estimated to number about 300, staged a peaceful protest in the street, protected by Kabul's police officers from an angry mob of hundreds of men who pelted them with obscenities and stones, shouting, "Death to the enemies of Islam!" Under pressure from international diplomats -- President Obama called the law "abhorrent" -- Karzai withdrew it for review. The international press reported the women's victory. In June, when a large group of women MPs and activists met with Karzai, he assured them the bill had been amended and would be submitted to Parliament again after the elections.
Instead, on July 27, without public announcement, Karzai entered the SPSL, slightly revised but with principal provisions intact, into the official gazette, thereby making it law. Apparently he was betting that with the presidential election only three weeks away, the United States and its allies would not complain again. After all, they had about $500 million (at least half of that American money) riding on a "credible" outcome; and they couldn't afford the cost of a runoff or the political limbo of an interregnum. In August, Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, observed that such "barbaric laws were supposed to have been relegated to the past with the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, yet Karzai has revived them and given them his official stamp of approval." No American official said a word.
But what about all the women parliamentarians so often cited as evidence of the progress of Afghan women? With 17 percent of the upper house and 27 percent of the lower -- eighty-five women in all -- you'd think they could have blocked the SPSL. But that didn't happen, for many reasons. Many women parliamentarians are mere extensions of the warlords who financed their campaigns and tell them how to vote: always in opposition to women's rights. Most non-Shiite women took little interest in the bill, believing that it applied only to the Shiite minority. Although Hazara women have long been the freest in the country and the most active in public life, some of them argued that it is better to have a bad law than none at all because, as one Hazara MP told me, "without a written law, men can do whatever they want."
The human rights division of the UN's Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) published a report in early July, before the SPSL became law, documenting the worsening position of Afghan women, the rising violence against them and the silence of international and Afghan officials who could defend them. The researchers' most surprising finding is this: considering the risks of life outside the home and the support women receive within it, "there is no clear distinction between rural and urban women." Commentators on Afghanistan, myself included, have assumed -- somewhat snobbishly, it now appears -- that while illiterate women in the countryside might be treated no better than animals, educated urban Afghan women blaze a higher trail. The debacle of the Shiite Personal Status Law explodes that myth.
The UNAMA report attributes women's worsening position in Afghan society to the violence the war engenders on two domestic fronts: the public stage and the home. The report is dedicated to the memory of Sitara Achakzai, a member of the Kandahar Provincial Council and outspoken advocate of women's rights, who was shot to death on April 12, soon after being interviewed by the UNAMA researchers. She "knew her life was in danger," they report. "But like many other Afghan women such as Malalai Kakar, the highest-ranking female police officer in Kandahar killed in September 2008, Sitara Achakzai had consciously decided to keep fighting to end the abuse of Afghan women." Malalai Kakar, 40, mother of six, had headed a team of ten policewomen handling cases of domestic violence.
In 2005 Kim Sengupta, a reporter with the London Independent, interviewed five Afghan women activists; by October 2008 three of them had been murdered. A fourth, Zarghuna Kakar (no relation to Malalai), a member of the Kandahar Provincial Council, had left the country after she and her family were attacked and her husband was killed. She said she had pleaded with Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of the Kandahar Provincial Council, for protection; but he told her she "should have thought about what may happen" before she stood for election. Kakar told the reporter, "It was his brother [President Karzai], the Americans, and the British who told us that we women should get involved in political life. Of course, now I wish I hadn't."
Women learn to pull their punches. MPs in Kabul confessed that they are afraid of the fundamentalist warlords who control the Parliament; so they censor themselves and keep silent. One said, "Most of the time women don't dare even say a word about sensitive Islamic issues, because they are afraid of being labeled as blasphemous." Many women MPs have publicly declared their intention to quit at the end of the term. Women journalists also told UNAMA that they "refrain from criticizing warlords and other power brokers, or covering topics that are deemed contentious such as women's rights."
Other women targeted for attack are civil servants, employees of international and national organizations, including the UN, healthcare workers and women in "immoral" professions -- which include acting, singing, appearing on television and journalism. When popular Tolo TV presenter Shaima Rezayee, 24, was forced out of her job in 2005, she said "things are not getting better.... We have made some gains, but there are a lot of people who want to take it all back. They are not even Taliban, they are here in Kabul." Soon after, she was shot and killed. Zakia Zaki, 35, a teacher and radio journalist who produced programs on women's rights, was shot to death in her home in Parwan Province on June 6, 2007. Actress Parwin Mushtakhel fled the country last spring after her husband was gunned down outside their house, punished for his failure to keep her confined. When the Taliban fell, she thought things were getting better, but "the atmosphere has changed; day by day women can work less and less." Setara Hussainzada, the singer from Herat who appeared on the Afghan version of American Idol (and in the documentary Afghan Star) also fled for her life.
Threats against women in public life are intended to make them go home -- to "unliberate" themselves through voluntary house arrest. But if public life is dangerous, so is life at home. Most Afghan women -- 87 percent, according to Unifem -- are beaten on a regular basis. The UNAMA researchers looked into the unmentionable subject of rape and found it to be "an everyday occurrence in all parts of the country" and "a human rights problem of profound proportions." Outside marriage, the rapists are often members or friends of the family. Young girls forced to marry old men are raped by the old man's brothers and sons. Women and children -- young boys are also targets -- are raped by people who have charge of them: police, prison guards, soldiers, orphanage or hospital staff members. The female victims of rape are mostly between the ages of 7 and 30; many are between 10 and 20, but some are as young as 3; and most women are dead by 42.
Women rarely tell anyone because the blame and shame of rape falls on them. Customary law permits an accused rapist to make restitution to the victim's father, but because the question of consent does not figure in the law of sexual relations, the victim is guilty of zina, or adultery, and can be punished accordingly: sent to jail or murdered by family members to preserve family honor. The great majority of women and girls in prison at any time are charged with zina; most have been raped and/or have run away from home to escape violence. It's probably safe to say, in the absence of statistics, that police -- who, incidentally, are trained by the American for-profit contractor DynCorp -- spend more time tracking down runaway women and girls than real criminals. Rapists, on the other hand, as UNAMA investigators found, are often "directly linked to power brokers who are, effectively, above the law and enjoy immunity from arrest as well as immunity from social condemnation." Last year Karzai pardoned political thugs who had gang-raped a woman before witnesses, using a bayonet, and who had somehow been convicted despite their good connections. UNAMA researchers conclude: "The current reality is that...women are denied their most fundamental human rights and risk further violence in the course of seeking justice for crimes perpetrated against them." For women, "human rights are values, standards, and entitlements that exist only in theory and at times, not even on paper."
Caught in the maelstrom of personal, political and military violence, Afghan women worry less about rights than security. But they complain that the men who plan the country's future define "security" in ways that have nothing to do with them. The conventional wisdom, which I have voiced myself, holds that without security, development cannot take place. Hence, our troops must be fielded in greater numbers, and Afghan troops trained faster, and private for-profit military contractors hired at fabulous expense, all to bring security. But the rule doesn't hold in Afghanistan precisely because of that equation of "security" with the presence of armed men. Wherever troops advance in Afghanistan, women are caught in the cross-fire, killed, wounded, forced to flee or locked up once again, just as they were in the time of the Taliban. Suggesting an alternative to the "major misery" of warfare, Sweden's former Defense Minister Thage Peterson calls for Swedish soldiers to leave the "military adventure" in Afghanistan while civilians stay to help rebuild the country. But Sweden's soldiers are few, and its aid organizations among the best in the world. For the United States even to lean toward such a plan would mean reasserting civilian control of the military and restoring the American aid program (USAID), hijacked by private for-profit contractors: two goals worth fighting for.
Today, most American so-called development aid is delivered not by USAID, but by the military itself through a system of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), another faulty idea of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Soldiers, unqualified as aid workers and already busy soldiering, now shmooze with village "elders" (often the wrong ones) and bring "development," usually a costly road convenient to the PRT base, impossible for Afghans to maintain and inaccessible to women locked up at home. Recent research conducted by respected Afghanistan hands found that this aid actually fuels "massive corruption"; it fails to win hearts and minds not because we spend too little but because we spend too much, too fast, without a clue. Meanwhile, the Taliban bring the things Afghans say they need -- better security, better governance and quick, hard-edged justice. U.S. government investigators are looking into allegations that aid funds appropriated for women's projects have been diverted to PRTs for this more important work of winning hearts and minds with tarmac. But the greatest problem with routing aid through the military is this: what passes for development is delivered from men to men, affirming in the strongest possible terms the misogynist conviction that women do not matter. You'll recognize it as the same belief that, in the Obama administration's strategic reappraisal of Afghanistan, pushed women off the table.
So there's no point talking about how women and girls might be affected by the strategic military options remaining on Obama's plate. None of them bode well for women. To send more troops is to send more violence. To withdraw is to invite the Taliban. To stay the same is not possible, now that Karzai has stolen the election in plain sight and made a mockery of American pretensions to an interest in anything but our own skin and our own pocketbook. But while men plan the onslaught of more men, it's worth remembering what "normal life" once looked like in Afghanistan, well before the soldiers came. In the 1960s and '70s, before the Soviet invasion -- when half the country's doctors, more than half the civil servants and three-quarters of the teachers were women -- a peaceful Afghanistan advanced slowly into the modern world through the efforts of all its people. What changed all that was not only the violence of war but the accession to power of the most backward men in the country: first the Taliban, now the mullahs and mujahedeen of the fraudulent, corrupt, Western-designed government that stands in opposition to "normal life" as it is lived in the developed world and was once lived in their own country. What happens to women is not merely a "women's issue"; it is the central issue of stability, development and durable peace. No nation can advance without women, and no enterprise that takes women off the table can come to much good.
Labels: Afghanistan, Womens Rights
posted by c-info @ 10:08 AM,
Stop! Militarization of Democratic Processes and Space in India: A Public Meeting
July 30, 2009
Dear friends,
According to newspaper reports, the Union Home Ministry is planning to finish the Maoists in a military action after the monsoons, a move which appears to have the support of all the state governments. This military model is now being practiced all around in South Asia at huge costs to civilian lives. We have seen this happen in the recently concluded war in Sri Lanka. The operation in Lalgarh seems to be a case of testing the waters. The Maoists for their part are also increasingly resorting to major provocative strikes, in which large numbers of police personnel have died.
While the government and the Maoists are engaged in militarism, the real issues that concern the people have been lost. Apart from the issue of land
acquisition and displacement, food security, education and health, the right of people to live in peace and dignity has been denied through this conflict. The Home Minister says that development will follow security – this is against all the principles of citizenship as well as most expert analysis of Naxalism. The police and security view of Naxalism as purely a law and order problem, which needs more security forces, more police stations and better weaponry ignores the context which gave rise to Naxalism in the first place, including corruption and harassment by the police, especially when it comes to dalits and adivasis. The militaristic approach of the Government of India and of the state governments to a situation which is an outcome of their own systematic and criminal neglect over the years of adivasi areas, cannot be allowed to take centre stage.
In the past similar militaristic approaches have boomeranged at heavy cost to people. The Salwa Judum campaign, used both armed civilians and security forces to burn villages and force people into camps. The Maoists have used the State offensive to further militarization. This massive militarization on the both sides has resulted in loss of lives and has created huge problems for adivasi people. More than 1000 people were killed and many women were raped in the Salwa Judum operations and hundreds of thousands still remain displaced five years after the start of that disastrous
experiment. By appointing SPOs in Orissa and Manipur and transforming the SPOs into Koya Commandos in Chhattisgarh, the government has refused to learn from the failure of this policy. In continuing to glorify Salwa Judum and refusing to compensate and rehabilitate villagers even ten months after its admission in the Supreme Court, the Chhattisgarh government is in contempt of the Supreme Court. The BJP Government of Chhhattisgarh is not interested in health workers, teachers or grain for its population – it only wants police and more police. At the same time huge tracts of land and resources are being handed over to corporate.
As concerned citizens of this country, who wish for a peaceful, democratic and just resolution of conflicts, we invite you to discuss these issues and help to craft a non-militaristic solution.
We call upon all sides to engage in dialogue, specifically putting the interests of civilians and citizens as their top priority, as against the interests of capitalists, the bureaucracy and the party.
In addition we demand that the Government of Chhattisgarh which has been responsible for serious crimes against humanity, make good its promise to the Supreme Court to rehabilitate and compensate people who have been affected by Salwa Judum, and to move security forces out of civilian spaces. We also demand a full enquiry into all extra-judicial killings that have taken place in the former undivided district of Bastar since 2005, and prosecution of all those guilty.
Group of organizations, movements and individuals have called for a public meeting on 04th August 2009 at India Islamic Cultural Center (Conference
Hall # 1, from 3.00 pm to 7.30 pm) Lodi Road, New Delhi. [. . .].
Endorsed & Co- organized by
Campaign for Peace and Justice in Chhattisgarh (CPJC)
People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)
Delhi Forum
The Other Media
Combat Law
Jamia Teacher’s Solidarity Group, New Delhi
Nandini Sunder
Vijay Pratap, Convenor, Socialist Front
Nivedita Menon, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Aditya Nigam, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
Anhad, Shabnam Hashmi
Manoranjan Mohanty, Retired Professor, University of Delhi
Gautam Mody, NTUI, New Delhi
Rakesh Shukla, Advocate Supreme Court
Mamta Dash, National Forum of Forest People & Forest Workers
Subrat Sahu, Independent Film Maker
Sandeep Pandey, Asha
Labels: India, Militarisation
posted by c-info @ 6:20 PM,
Brutal Violations of Human Rights in India Administered Kashmir
May 08, 2009
http://www.mtviggy.com/video/change-kashmir-angana-chatterji-1
Labels: Borders, Human rights, Kashmir, Militarisation
posted by c-info @ 3:32 AM,
India: Chhatisgarh and Assam - human rights trampled at will
May 07, 2009
The Statesman
QUASHING THE VOICELESS WITH STATE RUTHLESSNESS
by Patricia Mukhim
IT is an insane system that puts behind bars a medical doctor whose heart is with the most impoverished sections of Indian society. It is two years since Dr Binayak Sen, the internationally renowned medical doctor and human rights activist has been jailed. He will complete two years on 14 May 2009. Since his imprisonment different groups of human rights activists have been putting pressure on the UPA government to release Dr Sen, whose benign nature is known to all. He would be the last person to be involved in an act of sedition. But that is not what the mighty Indian state thinks. Recently activists of all shades once again petitioned Union home minister P Chidambaram requesting Dr Sen’s release yet again. It is believed that Dr Manmohan Singh had urged the Chattisgarh government to release him but his plea fell on deaf ears. Dr Sen, after all, is a prisoner of BJP-ruled Chattisgarh.
He is the national vice-president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, one of the oldest civil liberties organisations in India. His area of work centred around issues of basic livelihoods, health services and social justice. While in prison, Dr Sen was honoured with the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights. Yet he became a victim of the very issues he supported. In what can only be termed the most vulgar infringement of human rights, Binayak Sen’s trial came up only one year after his arrest. To add insult to injury, he has been repeatedly denied bail, a plight that even people accused of heinous crimes do not have to suffer. Is this, then, a case of personal vendetta?
Ironically, the prosecutors are hard put to find any tangible evidence to press charges on the list of accusations that evidently are all “trumped up”. But is this not familiar territory? When the state wants to pillory any individual, it can find umpteen ways of doing so, including that of planting ammunition and incriminating documents on the person. In fact, the more depressed the economic condition of the person, the easier it is to concoct charges and make them stick. Is this the kind of justice system we live with? In the case of Binayak Sen, 22 Nobel laureates signed an open letter to the government of India requesting his immediate release and expressing “grave concern” at the contravention of his fundamental human rights. Dr Sen has been suffering from chest pain and has not received adequate treatment. Activists now demand that he should be treated at CMC Vellore, from where the good doctor qualified as a physician.
Dr Sen came into conflict with the authorities for his open criticism of the Salwa Judum movement, a state-sponsored vigilante group that has run amok and taken the law into its hands. The Salwa Judum is the state’s answer to the Maoist movement. Those areas of Chattisgarh now overrun by Maoists are known to be the most backward and deprived areas. This uprising by the peasantry has everything to do with their angst for a better, more equitable delivery system. It has nothing at all to do with secessionism or high treason. That the Maoist movement has been equated to a movement against the state shows how incapable India is of comprehending the plight of its less privileged and marginalised people.
Class struggles are by no means unjust. These struggles are pushed to the limits mainly because the state remains unresponsive until a spate of violence awakens it from slumber. And then you witness a repressive regime trying to contain these uprisings. This is a story that is so familiar for people living in the North-east. In a country that is getting more and more economically fragmented, where the electoral system does not seem to deliver either economic or social justice, what do ordinary citizens take recourse to?
Many of the struggles for greater autonomy in the North-eastern states have turned violent because the state does not understand any other language of discourse. Sadly when the state gets uptight about any issue it tends to go into overdrive. Take the case of Assam, for instance. While it is true that the Ulfa and National Democrat Front of Boroland movement, and many others besides, have transgressed into bloody spasms of outrage, the government of India, which is the sole arbiter of our collective fates, has never tried to understand or has intentionally disregarded the need to analyse the causes for such outbursts. Much less to address them in the right spirit.
The state unleashes its own brand of violence, as if fighting violence with violence is the only creed of justice. Take the case of Prabhat Boro, the owner of a small medicine shop in Dhekiajuli, Assam. He was recently killed in one of the many “encounters” between the state forces, in this case the Assam Rifles, and alleged militants. His only fault was that he was innocuously named by Hiren Nath, an Ulfa intermediary who was arrested some time ago. Boro was picked up only on the strength of Nath’s confession. But since there was nothing at all to link him to any subversive activities, Boro was released on bail. While he was in prison his family comprising his wife and two kids were impoverished. Boro owned a Pulsar motorcycle which he desperately tried to get a buyer for. Rafiqul Islam, a regular law- breaker in the same prison, offered to buy the motorcycle. Islam paid him a token amount and promised to pay the rest in instalments but defaulted.
Boro, in dire straits, naturally pursued the payment matter and went to Islam’s home to get the money. While there, eyewitnesses claim that the Assam Rifles suddenly descended on the scene and killed Boro, his two friends and some other Muslim labourers who happened to be present there. Rafiqul Islam is obviously an Assam Rifles informer who thought the best way to get off paying for the motorcycle was to kill Boro. The latter and his two friends were conveniently labelled NDFB accomplices while the Muslim labourers were tagged as belonging to a Muslim outfit, Multa.
Boro’s widow is seeking justice, but who will listen to this completely disempowered waif of a woman? Such cases are far too many to recount in the conflict areas of the North-east. People like Binayak Sen are at least high profile enough to get the attention of a world audience. But what happens to ordinary, helpless humans whose only fault is that they were born poor, so poor in fact that justice is beyond their reach? Is there any human rights organisation in the North-east that is keeping a tab on all such gross violations of people’s rights? Will anyone take up the cause of the slain men who, without any evidence, were considered sympathisers and accomplices of militant outfits? Will the PUCL step in and do its own investigation into this case which incidentally has received little media coverage because those killed were without any political clout? Let them look at Boro’s antecedents and those of his friends and the three other Muslim labourers and challenge the Assam Rifles.
Incidents of human rights violation escalate each time the security forces are given a free hand to contain militant activities. In the absence of any credible human rights institution and since the Assam State Human Rights Commission hardly ever takes suo moto action, the security forces are emboldened to trample on all human rights. In this act of gross misdemeanour they are covered for all their crimes under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. How long will the people of the North-east put up with this inhuman Act? And how many more people will get eliminated like flies before we wake up to claim our rights to live as free and equal human beings in a just system? Or will this be just a pipedream for all of us living in a blighted region?
posted by c-info @ 12:15 AM,
Neglect of Children Under Six in the Union Budget 2007-8: A letter to India's Prime Minister
March 22, 2007
posted by c-info @ 7:28 AM,
Citizens Appeal for impartial prosecution of Sajjan Kumar, Congress (I) MP
posted by c-info @ 7:27 AM,
Demanding Repeal of AFPSA
December 13, 2006
Dark Act: A torchlight procession in Imphal demands the repeal of the AFSPA (Photo in The Telegraph, 13 December 2006)
o o
The Hindu
EXPRESSING SOLIDARITY: Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi holds a poster, demanding repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Manipur, in New Delhi on 26 November 2006
( Photo: Shanker Chakravarty)
o o o
The Times of India
December 9, 2006
Repeal Special Armed Forces Act in N-E? Yes
Babloo Loitongbam
Executive Director
Human Rights Alert
If performance was the criteria, then AFSP Act should have long gone from the statue book. For, the Act has failed to stem insurgency in the region.
In 1958, when Parliament enacted the Act, there was only one group — the Nagas — rising up in arms against the Indian State.
Today, after half-a-century of the Act facilitating military operations, the northeast is witnessing a million mutinies embracing the entire ethnic community of the region.
If proof was at all needed, this should have been sufficient indictment of the gross inefficacy of the Act in controlling insurgencies, let alone resolving them.
The premise that flexing military muscles will eliminate insurgency is based on a total misreading of the causes of insurgency.
The official thinking seems to be that insurgency is merely a law and order problem which will vanish with the application of military might.
However, it's rooted in historical injustices and deeply felt discriminatory treatments meted out to the people. Imposition of the Act tackles only the symptoms.
It fails to tackle the source of the problem and therefore, has ended up aggravating the feeling of alienation.
In fact, the continued imposition of the Act constitutes a denial of democracy. The UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) has consistently expressed its concern that in imposing the Act, the Indian government is exercising emergency powers without resorting to the procedure laid down by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
And it violates a series of basic human rights listed in the Covenant.
Yet, the denial of democracy for an alien people inhabiting the space called the northeast hardly pricks the conscience of the liberal voices of India.
This is the political paradox which is embedded in the struggles of the people of the region, both armed and unarmed.
The denial of democracy is also demonstrated in the suppression of democratic struggle for the repeal of the Act. A struggle which has been enhanced powerfully by the six-year-old fasting protest by
Noble Peace Prize nominee Irom Sharmila.The Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee, which was set up to review the Act, submitted its report last year. It recommended the Act should be repealed.
It's incomprehensible why instead of trying to engage with the political leadership of the insurgent groups, the government is persisting with a military approach.
India is a member of UNHRC. The denial of democracy and the continued imposition of the Act neither sits well nor carries conviction with our elevation as a full member.
posted by c-info @ 5:23 AM,
India: Forest Rights National Demo - 29th November
November 22, 2006
CAMPAIGN FOR SURVIVAL AND DIGNITY
National Convenor: Pradip Prabhu, 3, Yezdeh Behram, Kati, Malyan,
Dahanu Rd. 401602.
Delhi Contact: SRUTI, Q-1 Hauz Khas Enclave, New Delhi 110 016. Ph:
9968293978, 26569023.
PRESS RELEASE
TRIBALS AND FOREST DWELLERS BEGIN
FOREST RIGHTS DHARNA TOMORROW
NATIONAL DEMONSTRATIONS PLANNED FOR 29TH
Tomorrow, on the first day of the Parliament session, tribals and forest dwellers from Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Nagar Haveli, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Karnataka will begin a dharna to demand the immediate passage of a just and effective legislation for the recognition of the rights of forest dwelling communities.
For too long, this government has sat on the Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, 2005, and the report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee that not only endorsed the Bill but recommended a number of significant changes that would democratise the Bill. The government is instead intent on retaining a Bill that would have clauses that would result in massive corruption, abuse of power and forest destruction, all while claiming that the government is concerned about the environment.
Even as it resists this Bill in the name of the environment, the government passes policies like the new Environmental Impact Assessment notification, policies for privatisation of forests and the Special Economic Zones Act – all of which will result in massive forest and environmental destruction.
The government has shown that it cares neither for the environment nor for forest dwellers’ rights – only for the power of money and multinational corporations.
The dharna will demand the immediate passage of this legislation with the required amendments. We also demand the repeal of these and other policies that will result in massive environmental damage and the loss of our homelands.
On November 29th, in support of these same demands, mass demonstrations will be held in Delhi, Mumbai, Ranchi, Bhubaneshwar, Bangalore and Chennai. More than 80,000 people are expected to participate.
On behalf of the Convening Collective
Bharat Jan Andolan, National Front for Tribal Self Rule, Jangal
Adhikar Sangharsh Samiti (Mah), Adivasi Mahasabha (Guj), Adivasi
Jangal Janjeevan Andolan (D&NH), Jangal Jameen Jan Andolan (Raj),
National Forum of Forest Peoples and Forest Workers, Madhya Pradesh
Van Adhikar Abhiyan (MP), Jan Shakti Sanghatan (Chat), Peoples
Alliance for Livelihood Rights, Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha, Orissa Jan
Sangharsh Morcha, Campaign for Survival & Dignity (Ori), Orissa
Adivasi Manch, Orissa Jan Adhikar Morcha, Adivasi Aikya Vedike (AP),
Budakattu Krishikara Sangha (Kar), Campaign for Survival and Dignity –
TN, Bharat Jan Andolan (Jhar).
posted by c-info @ 3:40 AM,
Illegal actions in Bangalore Mysore Infrastucture corridor project
November 17, 2006
PRESS RELEASE: 17 November 2006: Bangalore
NICE OBFUSCATING FACTS TO DISTRACT ATTENTION FROM THEIR ILLEGAL ACTIONS IN BANGALORE MYSORE INFRASTRUCTURE CORRIDOR PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
Over the past few weeks there has been a vigorous campaign by some to present Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise Ltd. (NICE) is keen to complete the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project while the Government is stopping it from doing so by not releasing lands as required. (Check recent press coverage in this regard at:
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in its decision of 20 April 2006 (in Civil Appeal Nos 3492-3494 of 2005), which has currently the operative final judgment, clearly directed the State of Karnataka to ensure the project was implemented in accordance with project technical designs as approved in the project Framework Agreement of 1997. It thereby upheld all the decisions taken on the basis of the Framework Agreement, including the alignment of Expressway (111 kms.), Peripheral Road around Bangalore (41 kms.), Link Road (9.1 kms. at grade and 3 kms. elevated), interchanges and 5 townships.
At no time has the Hon’ble Supreme Court directed that the Government of Karnataka allow NICE to build the project in variance to these clearances, which include alignment clearances from Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF, per Environment Protection Act and Environment Impact Assessment Notification), Karnataka State Pollution Control Boards (KSPCB, per Water and Air Pollution Control Acts) and Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Area Planning Authority (BMICAPA, per the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act and BDA Act).
In effect, the Supreme Court upheld the right of the State to take any action as appropriate if there was violation of law in the implementation of the project. In case the State or Central Government at any point in time discovered that NICE had not implemented the project as per clearance norms, any appropriate action, including withdrawal of the clearances granted, or even cancellation of the Framework Agreement, are actions that are clearly within their domain to take. Such a process is widely recognized worldwide as implementing the Rule of Law. Thus, anyone arguing in favour of NICE implementing the project in any manner it pleases, especially in variance to law, is clearly in contempt of court and nothing less.
In this context, the withdrawal of the Consent for Establishment (CFE, also known as No Objection Certificate or NOC) by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board has been wrongly interpreted as violative of Supreme Court decisions, without any substantiation whatsoever.
A careful reading of the withdrawal order of CFE by KSPCB reveals that the clearance was withdrawn on 20 September 2006 on the basis that “KSPCB compared the alignment submitted for seeking CFE with alignment approved by BMIC Area Planning Authority (BMICAPA) on 12-2-2004” and found the “latter alignment is significantly different and in variance of that submitted to KSPCB for grant of CFE and environmental clearance from MoEF, GoI”. When compared the alignment of the Peripheral road that NICE is implementing is vastly different from that approved by the KSPCB and Government of India (MoEF). At some points the deviation is more than a kilometer away from the approved alignment, which in some cases is threatening densely populated poor neighbourhoods and villages with needless displacement.
This is not a trivial matter. Faithful adherence to approved alignments of infrastructure project is highly critical to the delivery of stated objectives. Any variance from the approved alignment has to undergo fresh study and analysis on the impacts: environmental, social and economic. NICE has fundamentally altered its alignment to suit the vested interests of powerful and politically connected landowners.
A series of alignment maps (including Survey Nos.) highlighting the extent of violations are enclosed, revealing the exact nature of violations. (These maps will soon be made available on our website.)
Such illegal changes in the alignment also affect hundreds of households and small and marginal farmers, who do not have the influence or the resources to protect their properties to ensure their livelihoods. As these families were never originally thought to be project affected communities, they do not in any manner benefit from any rehabilitation measures as mandated.
In the particular case of the Gottigere Tank, based on a petition (WP No. 17823/1999) by noted film personality Shri. Suresh Heblikar, the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka found it fit to order as follows:
“The respondents are directed not to lay any road bisecting the Gottigere Tank preventing or disturbing the inflow of water into the tank. In case they want to lay a ring road or any other road it is open to them to lay any such road by providing an overpass without disturbing the free-flow of water to the tank. However, it is open to them to dig up the tank bed for laying pillars for providing the overpass”.
It must be noted that this order was passed after the Court considered various options and expert opinions, and only then found it fit to allow for the road to pass over the tank, rather than around it, or through it. Construction technology is highly evolved today to ensure that not even a pillar be laid on the tank bed (such as by suspension bridges), if NICE so desires to protect this tank. To build the road on the bund or inflow region (as is presently proposed by NICE for many tanks) will effectively destroy the water body.
While a lot of attention has been focused only on Gottigere Tank, at last count at least 20 tanks have been completely or partially destroyed by NICE in the implementation of only the Peripheral Road component of the BMIC project. Excepting in the case of Hosakerehalli tank, where permission was sought for marginal acquisition of tank lands for building the Link Road, the destruction or encroachment of every other tank is clearly in contempt of the direction of the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka in Writ Petition 31343/1995. This judgment required any agency, be it public or private, to seek the permission of the Hon’ble Court before diverting a tank or its bed to any other purpose be it by way of lease or transfer in the Bangalore Metropolitan Area. While the decision of the Karnataka Government to transfer these tanks to NICE prior to 2004 without seeking the permission of the Hon’ble Court is in itself a serious violation, as this order has been effective from 1995, it has further exposed the vacuous arguments of NICE that it is keen on protecting water bodies.
Clearly then, NICE has fundamentally violated both these directions by the Hon’ble Court by building through many water bodies or on their periphery. Ecologically not only has NICE destroyed every single tank that the road passes through, but in turn a whole series of inter-linked water bodies thus causing unthinkable hardship for downstream farming communities, while fundamentally altering the water regime of the region. In the urban context, this can result in unintended and disastrous flooding of neighbourhoods and serious depletion of groundwater reserves in other areas.
In addition, the project as is being built is in many cases hundreds of metres away from the approved alignment. This has resulted in irreparable damage to the environment while also displacing thousands of small and marginal farmers and houses. Excellent wetlands, farmlands, and forest stretches have been destroyed in the process.
Despite many representations by Environment Support Group highlighting this fact over the years, no action was initiated by the Government. In that sense it is a rather belated response, but nevertheless welcome, that KSPCB has withdrawn the CFE. The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) must follow suit and withdraw the environmental clearance it has granted. This is because the very first condition for granting environmental clearance to the project by MoEF reads as follows: “All the conditions stipulated by Karnataka State Pollution Control Board vide their letter No. KSPCB/CFE/DEO-2/AEO-2/2000-2001/208 dated 11th August 2000 shall be effectively implemented”.
It is also stated that “(t)he Ministry reserves the right to revoke this clearance if any of the conditions stipulated are not compiled with to the satisfaction of the Ministry”. It is further clarified that “(i)n the event of a change in project profile or change in the implementation agency, a fresh reference shall be made to the Ministry of Environment & Forests”.
It is a matter of fact that while unilaterally and fundamentally altering the alignment, NICE has not made any fresh reference to the Ministry as is required. This constitutes a blatant violation of clearance conditions mandating withdrawal of environmental clearance. Given now that KSPCB has withdrawn the CFE for fundamental violation of approved alignments, MoEF is found wanting for not following suit by withdrawing the environmental clearance as is required per law and as directed by the Hon’ble Courts.
In the circumstances, we demand that MoEF must take action as appropriate per law, least of which would be to ensure that NICE implement the project as originally approved and as upheld by Hon’ble Courts. Anything less would constitute a grave offence of the law and needless to state, blatant violation of judicial orders.
Leo F. Saldanha
Environment Support Group
105, East End B Main Road, Jayanagar 9th Block East, Bangalore 560069.INDIA
Tel: 91-80-22441977/26531339 Fax: 91-80-26534364
Email: esg@esgindia.org or esg@bgl.vsnl.net.in
Web: www.esgindia.org
Labels: Karnataka
posted by c-info @ 3:55 AM,
Sri Lanka: Women Say No to War
May 15, 2006
Women Say No to War
Call for Responsible Behaviour from the State and the LTTE
15th May 2006
We voice our concern about recent developments which have yet again raised fears of war in the minds of Sri Lankans. It is disturbing to note that while both the Government and the LTTE claim to be committed to the CFA, the ensuing acts of violence diminish the integrity of an already weak peace process.
We say to both parties with no hesitation that despite their constant rhetoric that civilians will be protected their actions have completely disregarded the safety and security of civilian populations. The Government and the LTTE have both failed to give primacy to the situation of civilian populations caught in the midst or aftermath of hostile acts. We call upon both parties to ensure the safety and security of civilians at all times.
The litany of acts of violence over the past few weeks clearly shows that both parties have paid scant regard to the plight of civilians. The LTTE through the suicide attack on General Sarath Fonseka, the recent attack on the Navy ship, the preceding increase in claymore bombs and other attacks on military targets, extra-judicial killings of political opponents and child recruitment, and the Government through its failure to prevent recent attacks by armed groups on Tamils and their homes and businesses in Trincomalee, to investigate and prevent the daily occurrence of extra-judicial killings in state-controlled territory; and retaliatory aerial bombardment in the North and East, have disregarded the security and needs of the civilian population. We would like to highlight that every such violation further erodes trust between parties and makes the path to peace more difficult.
The events of the past weeks and the overall manner in which both parties have conducted themselves in the peace process do not inspire confidence in the general populace about the commitment of either to finding a negotiated settlement to the conflict. As stated in the recent report of Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, the LTTE’s targeting and killing of political opponents raises doubts about its ability to enter the democratic process. At the same time, the failure of the Government to carry through its commitments to peace by preventing acts of violence perpetrated by various armed groups exhibits its shortcomings to fulfilling the undertakings made at the Geneva talks. Further, the inadequacy of Government efforts to investigate as well as prevent the disappearances and killings of Tamils encourages impunity. This situation has led to the re-emergence of the phenomenon of headless corpses and deaths in custody which have not been addressed by the mechanisms put in place by the Government. The existing situation has heightened the capacity for misuse of cordon and search operations, and the indiscriminate detentions of Tamil civilians.
We would like to reiterate, particularly to those who seek to resolve the conflict through war that in cases of protracted conflicts negotiation takes a considerable period of time and often suffers numerous set backs before the issue is finally resolved. The fact that several conflicts all over the world continue today despite armed action by the state proves wrong the notion that military resolution of conflict is possible.
We call upon all parties to the conflict and civilians to remember the period of war Sri Lanka experienced and come to the realisation that a resumption of hostilities will bring about even greater destruction. From human casualties, damage to infrastructure and adverse impact on the economy, to more checkpoints and cordon and search operations, a return to war will result in the suspension of “normality” and adversely affect every facet of life of all citizens of Sri Lanka.
A return to hostilities will also have serious economic repercussions for the country. As a report of the Asian Development Bank points out, the economy continues to be sensitive to the state of the CFA and economic forecasts for the next two years require the ceasefire to be in place and the political situation in the country to be stable, i.e. no outbreak of hostilities.
We therefore reiterate that both parties should abide by their obligations under the CFA and international law, and should do so regardless of the actions/inaction of the other. Duties and responsibilities of each party under the CFA and international law are independent of the actions of the other group and violation by one party should not be used as justification for violations or failure to act of the other party.
Both the Government and the LTTE should desist from further action which erodes the integrity of the CFA and instead strive to find means of common ground and continue to engage in seeking a negotiated resolution to the conflict.
NAME SIGNATURE
1. Agnes Mendis
2. Ambika Satkunanathan
3. Amila de Mel
4. Ameena Hussein
5. Anberiya Haniffa
6. Anita Nesiah
7. Anne Abeysekera
8. Anoma Wijewardene
9. Anushya Coomaraswamy
10. Asha Abeysekera Van Dort
11. Audrey Rebera
12. Bernadeen Silva
13. Bhavani Fonseka
14. Chandani Herath
15. Chandra Hewagallage
16. Damayanthi Muthukumarage
17. Darshi Thoradeniya
18. Dr. Dushyanthi Mendis
19. Dr. Malathi de Alwis
20. Dr. Pushpa Ramlani Dissanayake
21. Dr. Selvy Thiruchandran
22. Dr. Sepali Kottegoda
23. Dulcy de Silva
24. Farzana Haniffa
25. H.M. Dayawathie
26. Hemanthi Goonasekera
27. Indira Gonsalkorale
28. Jayanthi Dandeniya
29. Jayanthi Kuru-Utumpala
30. Jean Arasanayagam
31. Jeanne Samuel
32. Kanchana Kumarasekara
33. Kishali Pinto Jayawardene
34. L.P. Mallika Manuratne
35. Maithree Wickramasingha
36. Manojani Paranawithana
37. Manouri Muttetuwegama
38. Manori Gunatileke
39. Manjula Sirimane
40. Menika Van Der Poorten
41. Menaka Selvaratnam
42. Nazreen Sansoni
43. Nehama Jayewardene
44. Nelika Rajapakse
45. Nelun Harasgama
46. Nimalka Fernando
47. Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham
48. Nimmi Harasgama
49. Pramuditha Buddhini
50. Prof. Neloufer de Mel
51. Prof. Savitri Gunasekera
52. Prof. Nira Wickremasinghe
53. Ramani Muttetuwegama
54. Ranjani Manuelpillai
55. Rasika Deepani
56. Revati Chawla
57. Rosanna Flamer Caldera
58. Rose Fernando
59. Sanjeewani Priyangi
60. Sarala Emmanuel
61. Sarvam Kailasapathy
62. Sharmila Daluwatte
63. Sharmini Boyle
64. Sharni Jayawardena
65. Shermal Wijewardene
66. Shreen Saroor
67. Shyamala Gomez
68. Sithie Thiruchelvam
69. Soundarie David
70. Sr. Immaculate
71. Sriyanie Wijesundara
72. Stella Philips
73. Sulochana Colombage
74. Sumika Perera
75. Sunila Abeysekera
76. Sumathy Sivamohan
77. Tharumini Wijekoon
78. Thushari Madahapolla
79. Tracy Holsinger
80. Vanamali Galappathi
81. Vathsaladevi
82. Velayundan Jayachitra
83. Violet Perera
84. Visakha Dharmadasa
85. Yasmin Zarook
posted by c-info @ 4:45 PM,
India: Text of Protest Memo 6 Jan 2006 on Orissa Firings
January 07, 2006
Copy of Memorandum Submitted at the Orissa Nivas Protest Demonstration Held On 6.2.2006 in New Delhi
MEMORANDUM
6 January 2006
To
The Governor,
Government of Orissa
Through the Resident Commissioner
Orissa Bhavan, New Delhi
Sir,
Re: Police Firing on Protestors in Kalinga Nagar, Jajpur District, Orissa
We are a collective comprising student groups, trade unions, democratic rights organizations, women’s groups, cultural groups, and concerned individuals based in Delhi.
We are deeply shocked by the brutal firing on protestors in Kalinga Nagar, Jajpur district on 2 January 2006, in which, so far, 12 people have been killed, and many others seriously injured. In a horrific aftermath, the hands of five victims were chopped off, a practice that defies comprehension and that has no place in a country that claims to be a modern democracy.
This firing happened in the presence of senior district officials, including the Collector and the Superintendent of Police, Jajpur district. The transfer of Collector and SP merely minimizes the enormity of the crime. Being directly responsible for the brutality and loss of life, they need to be dismissed and face criminal prosecution.
It appears that, on the morning of 2 January 2006, Tata Steel attempted some construction work under the protection of several platoons of heavily armed police personnel. Even as a four-member delegation from the local tribals who had assembled at the spot went to meet these district officials, the police launched an unprovoked attack on the gathering. Tear gas was followed by an indiscriminate firing, which continued for several minutes. Those trying to flee were shot in the back. Others have been shot in the face and on the chest.
For many months, local tribals and other villagers have engaged in a bitter struggle to avoid displacement by the steel project of Tata Industries, a company with a long history of displacing people and exploiting their natural resources. An earlier attempt to start construction in Kalinga Nagar was prevented by local people in May last year.
This refusal to engage with the people’s delegation on 2 January and firing on protestors instead is symptomatic of the refusal of the Orissa government to engage in dialogue with those who have been opposing industrial projects being thrust upon them. Instead the Orissa government is increasingly adamant in using police, special forces and the might of the state to push projects through against the stated wishes of the people, a practice that has grave consequences. In December 2001, three protestors were killed in unwarranted police firing in Maikanch village, Rayagada district. For the last couple of years, the Orissa government has been hell-bent on pushing through numerous projects – be it UAIL, Hindalco, Vedanta Alumina, Posco, or the Tatas in Kalinganagar, among dozens of others.
The government has also been violating all established procedure regarding people’s consent and consultation since it knows, as we all do, that most ordinary people in these areas oppose such projects. That opposition is stems from the fact that mining operations and large industrial projects displace people on a large scale, take away their lands, destroy their homes, forests, means of sustenance, and the environment.
Reliance on this development trajectory can only lead to further impoverishment, peoples opposition, and intensified state violence, for which the government is solely responsible. We unequivocally oppose this pattern of development, which makes the tribals, dalits, and agrarian poor its victims.
We demand that the Orissa government should immediately:
1. Initiate a prompt investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the killings in Kalinga Nagar;
2. Dismiss the District Collector and the SP and initiate criminal proceedings against them and all other officials responsible for the firing;
3. Identify and initiate criminal prosecution against the police personnel responsible for chopping off the hands of the victims;
4. Publish a list of the dead and injured;
5. Award Rs 20,00,000 as compensation to the next of kin of those killed in the firing, and Rs 10,00,000 to those injured;
6. Cease evictions and withdraw all projects in Kalinga Nagar;
7. Put an immediate end to the indiscriminate mining and plunder of people's resources; cancel land leases for all mining in Orissa.
Signed by: Ranjana Padhi, Harish Dhawan, Radhika Menon, Joseph
Marionos Kujur, Nagraj Adve, D Manjit and many others…
for
CAMPAIGN AGAINST POLICE KILLINGS IN ORISSA
ORISSA GOLIKAAND VIRODHI ABHIYAAN (Contact Numbers: 98683-40048, 98116-67776, 98680-38981)
ORGANIZATIONS PRESENT INCLUDED:
AIFTU
AISA
Aman Biradiri
Delhi Forum
Delhi Oriya Students Federation
Delhi Shramik Sangathan
Democratic Students’ Union
Forum for Democratic Initiative
HRLN
Indian Social Institute
JNU Students’ Union
Kashipur Solidarity Group
Krantikari Yuva Sangathan
Lok Sangharsha Morcha
Manipur Students’ Association
Mazdoor Hastakshap
National Alliance of People’s Movements
People’s Democratic Front of India
PSSP (Kashipur)
PUDR
RDF
Revolutionary Democracy
Samajwadi Jan Parishad
SRUTI
Stree Adhikar Sangathan
posted by c-info @ 9:27 AM,