Nigerian women seize another
Chevron facility
Gharamatu women occupying a Chevron oil flow
station in Makarava in the Niger Delta July 21, 2002.
Photo by AFP/Newscom
By Toye Olori
Lagos, Nigeria, July 19 (IPS)— A group
of women protesters, who seized another oil facility in Nigeria
on Friday, is demanding 500-million-naira (about US $3.5 million)
compensation from Chevron for “years of neglect of their communities.”
“If Chevron wants to continue to operate on our
land, our demands must be met,” said Josephine Ogoba, leader
of the Ijaw Women group in the oil-rich Niger Delta Region.
In their 40-point demand, the women, who numbered around 3,000,
said the American company should rename Escravos TankFard and
Terminal — the largest oil facilities in the area — Abiteye
and Otunana Stations to reflect their Ijaw origin.
They also want Chevron to build two modern palaces
for their kingdoms: Gharamatu and Eghema. They want Chevron
to embark on electrification and housing projects in about nine
host communities to improve the environmental and living conditions
of the local people.
“Chevron must demonstrate convincing commitment
to redress the issue of environmental degradation, underdevelopment,
unemployment and marginalization that have plagued the host
communities in the last three decades,” said Ogoba.
The other demands include provision for hostels,
staff quarters, a library and a science laboratory for schools,
and training centers to provide skilled courses for unemployed
men and women.
Ogoba said women took over the campaign from men
because men had vandalized oil facilities in the past. “Women
are level-headed and see no need for destructive actions,” she
explained.
Lt-Col. Gar Dogo, the commanding army officer
in the area, has ordered his soldiers not to molest the women.
“I personally instructed them (the soldiers)
not to harm any of the women, but only to ensure that they [women]
do not destroy any property there,” he was quoted as saying
by local newspapers on Friday.
The four oil facilities, seized by the Ijaw women,
produce about 110 barrels of crude oil per day.
The seizure, on Friday, came just one day after
more than 2,000 women, from the Itshekiri communities, ended
their stand-off with Chevron following negotiations between
the multinational oil company and community leaders.
“We signed an agreement with the protesting women
late yesterday (Wednesday) and they left the facilities this
morning,” said Sola Omole, the company’s spokesperson.
“We expect that the agreement will help put a
permanent end to the frequent seizures of our staff and facilities
by restless youths in the region,” he said.
In the late 1990s such seizures had disrupted
production to such an extent that it sometimes reduced Nigeria’s
daily crude oil output of about two million barrels by up to
a third. The government depends on crude exports for more than
90 percent of its export income.
Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) is the third largest
oil company operating in the Niger Delta Region, exporting 450,000
barrels of crude oil per day. The Itshekiri women, who initially
numbered about 150 when the strike began on Jul 8, occupied
Chevron’s airstrip, docks and stores. With their number gradually
rising to over 2,000, they prevented aircraft from landing and
boats from docking at the terminal, which is surrounded by swamps,
creeks and the Atlantic Ocean.
The women, who were unarmed, had demanded jobs
for their sons and investment in the impoverished Ugborodo and
Arutan communities, which lie in the shadow of the Chevron Escravos
plant. The Ugborodo community has long demanded more access
to employment and funding from the oil firm.
On Saturday, July 20, a lightning strike on an
oil tank at the Excravos facility caused a fire that protesters
there say has polluted the area. The fire at Escravos began
as workers were trying to restart normal production at the plant
after the occupation.
Chevron had to pump about 80,000 barrels of oil
out of the tank that caught on fire after the lightning strike,
and oil workers used remote-controlled chemical cannons to contain
the blaze, which is now said to be out.
But the protesters said the fire had caused a
leak that had contaminated their communities.
“The discovery of oil in our communities has brought
misery and sorrow. Our rivers are polluted and fishes dead because
of the poisons being spilled into the environment,” said Mary
Olaye, one of the protest leaders.
An AFP reporter in the region said he saw large
quantities of crude oil drifting in a river flowing away from
Escravos and into fishing waters.
The disruption of oil operations is common in
the Niger Delta, where impoverished local people accuse oil
companies and the Nigerian government of neglecting them despite
the huge oil wealth pumped from their land. They also accuse
the oil firms of degrading their environments and economic activities,
mainly from fish farming and peasant agricultural activities,
through oil spillage and pollution.
Seizures of platforms or oil production sites
had in the past been undertaken by armed gangs of local youths
who often threaten to kill staff or burn down the plant unless
their demands were met. This is the first time women have taken
over oil plant.
Restive youths in the Niger Delta region, apart
from seizing oil facilities, had often embarked on the tapping
of siphoning of petroleum products from oil pipelines that transverse
the region. The youths are alleged to have blasted some sections
of the pipeline or drilled holes into the pipes from where they
siphon the product for sale.
Bunkering, which is a common practice, had in
1998 led to the death of more than 1,000 villagers in Jesse,
some five kilometers from Warri, Delta State, as they scooped
refined petroleum from a burst pipe, which caught fire, leading
to a huge explosion that consumed them.
The crisis in the Niger Delta Region heightened
in 1995 when the government of the late military ruler, Gen.
Sani Abacha, executed renowned environmentalist and author Ken
Saro-Wiwa and eight of his kinsmen from the oil-producing Ogoni
community, sparking international outcry.
Energy watcher, Sesan Ade, has warned of more
unrest in the region.
“Chevron should be ready for more seizures. First,
it was the Itshekiris. Now the Ijaw women are making their demands
and stopping work on the company’s flow stations. The Urhobos
— the third largest ethnic group in the region — will also make
their demands. That is how serious it is. Chevron should be
ready for a long crisis,” he said.
Additional information from BBC News.
Bush berated for opposition
to International Criminal Court
By Jorge Piña
Rome, Italy, July 17 (IPS)— The Italian
government, human rights activists and legal experts celebrated
Wednesday the fourth anniversary of the signing of the statute
creating the International Criminal Court (ICC), amidst criticism
of the opposition mounted by the United States.
The statute creating the ICC, which was established
July 1 in The Hague, was approved in 1998 in Rome to prosecute
those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Washington fears that it will be used to try
US citizens, even though the United States has not ratified
the statute, and in May it even decided to withdraw its signature.
The United States signed the statute in December
2000, shortly before Bill Clinton turned over the presidential
sash to George W. Bush.
The ICC will be ready to begin operating a year
from now, with jurisdiction over citizens from countries that
have ratified the statute, and over crimes committed in the
territory of those countries, when it deems that national courts
cannot, or will not, investigate and prosecute the most serious
crimes.
Last Friday, Washington was successful in its
bid to get the United Nations Security Council to exempt US
peacekeepers from ICC jurisdiction for one year, after it threatened
to veto the continuity of UN peacekeeping missions.
The US vetoes would have first affected the UN
mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The Security Council decision was criticized in
the commemorative ceremonies organized by Italy’s Ministry of
Foreign Relations and the Italy-based non-governmental organization
No Peace Without Justice.
The ceremonies were held at the headquarters of
the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), where the statute
was adopted in 1998.
July 17 has been dubbed the World Day for International
Justice, and like every year since 1998, civil society worldwide
organized events and activities to mark the special day, which
is described as “a tremendous victory for international justice.”
Critics argue that the agreement with Washington
undermined ICC authority, and rolled back much of the progress
made towards creating an international system of justice.
The statute was approved July 17, 1998 by 120
countries and has been ratified so far by 76, including 34 in
Europe -- among them all 15 members of the European Union --
17 in Africa, 15 in Latin America and the Caribbean, eight in
the Asia-Pacific region, one in North America and one in the
Middle East.
The position taken by the United States creates
enormous problems for the ICC, such as a lack of support from
the country that should contribute the greatest share of the
financing for the new court, said the chief prosecutor of the
UN International War Crime Tribunals for Rwanda and the former
Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte.
But the deal struck in the Security Council at
least guarantees the continuity of peacekeeping missions without
modifying the ICC statute, said Emma Bonino. Bonino, the head
of No Peace Without Justice and the Italian Radical Party, played
a key role in the creation of the ICC.
She added that she hoped the agreement would in
effect be only temporary.
The president of the International Association
of Penal Law, Cherif Bassinouni, another key figure in the creation
of the statute, said Washington was opposed to the ICC for ideological
reasons, and was using “subterfuges” to block it.
Bush is mistaken in thinking that assuming peacekeeping
responsibilities gives him the right to stand above international
law, he said, adding that the stance taken by the United States
would have “a boomerang effect.”
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on the
other hand, said at the closure of the commemorative ceremonies
that it was legitimate to raise doubts regarding the impact
of the ICC on the “concept of national sovereignty,” and that
the concerns of many countries, particularly the United States,
must be respected.
Nevertheless, Berlusconi said he was confident
that the performance of the ICC, the authority and political
independence of its judges, and its impartiality would give
a sense of security to those who have worries or are opposed
to the court.
“The more than 10 years of work that have gone
into making the ICC a reality look like a long time, especially
if I think of the victims of the crimes, but they seem short
if I think about the service that has been done to humanity,”
said Bonino.
Many have greeted the birth of the ICC as the
most important event in the history of international relations
since the creation of the United Nations, she said.
Some are opposed to the very idea of permanent
international legal institutions, and see the ICC as the forerunner
to a kind of evil future “world government,” but the birth of
the court shows that such a dark hegemonic aim has never existed,
she added.
“We must be capable of winning over those who
look askance at the ICC, like the governments of China, the
United States, India and Russia,” said Bonino.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the creation
of the ICC sent “a clear message by the international community
that never again will those who commit crimes against humanity
go unpunished.”
The countries that have ratified the statute will
meet in September in New York to determine the ICC’s budget
and designate its 18 judges and prosecutors.
US role in Lumumba
murder revealed
By Stephen R. Weissman
Washington,
DC, July 22— In his latest film, “Minority Report,” director
Steven Spielberg portrays a policy of “preemptive action” gone
wild in the year 2054. But we don’t have to peer into the future
to see what harm faulty intelligence and the loss of our moral
compass can do. US policies during the Cold War furnish many
tragic examples. One such example was US complicity in the overthrow
and murder of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (pictured
left).
Forty-one years ago, Lumumba, the only leader
ever democratically elected in Congo, was delivered to his enemies,
tortured and summarily executed. Since then, his country has
been looted by the US-supported regime of Mobutu Sese Seko and
wracked by regional and civil war.
The conventional explanation of Lumumba’s death
has been that he was murdered by Congolese rivals after earlier
US attempts to kill him, including a plot to inject toxins into
his food or toothpaste, failed. In 1975, the US Senate’s “Church
Committee” probed CIA assassination plots and concluded there
was “no evidence of CIA involvement in bringing about the death
of Lumumba.”
Not so. I have obtained classified US government
documents, including a chronology of covert actions approved
by a National Security Council (NSC) subgroup, that reveal US
involvement in — and significant responsibility for — the death
of Lumumba, who was mistakenly seen by the Eisenhower administration
as an African Fidel Castro. The documents show that the key
Congolese leaders who brought about Lumumba’s downfall were
players in Project Wizard, a CIA covert action program. Hundreds
of thousands of dollars and military equipment were channeled
to these officials, who informed their CIA paymasters three
days in advance of their plan to send Lumumba into the clutches
of his worst enemies. Other new details: The US authorized payments
to then-President Joseph Kasavubu four days before he ousted
Lumumba, furnished Army strongman Mobutu with money and arms
to fight pro-Lumumba forces, helped select and finance an anti-Lumumba
government, and barely three weeks after his death authorized
new funds for the people who arranged Lumumba’s murder.
Moreover, these documents show that the plans
and payments were approved by the highest levels of the Eisenhower
administration, either the NSC or its “Special Group,” consisting
of the national security adviser, CIA director, undersecretary
of state for political affairs, and deputy defense secretary.
These facts are four decades old, but are worth
unearthing for two reasons. First, Congo (known for years as
Zaire) is still struggling to establish democracy and stability.
By facing up to its past role in undermining Congo’s fledgling
democracy, the United States might yet contribute to Congo’s
future. Second, the US performance in Congo is relevant to the
struggle against “terrorism.” It shows what can happen when,
in the quest for national security, we abandon the democratic
principles and rule of law we are supposedly fighting to defend.
In February, Belgium, the former colonial power
in Congo, issued a thousand-page report that acknowledged “an
irrefutable portion of responsibility in the events that led
to the death of Lumumba.” Unlike Belgium, the United States
has admitted no such moral responsibility. Over the years, scholars
(including myself) and journalists have written that American
policy played a major role in the ouster and assassination of
Lumumba. But the full story remained hidden in US documents,
which, like those I have examined, are still classified despite
the end of the Cold War, the end of the Mobutu regime and Belgium’s
confession.
Here’s what they tell us that, until now, we didn’t
know, or didn’t know for certain: In August 1960, the CIA established
Project Wizard. Congo had been independent only a month, and
Lumumba, a passionate nationalist, had become prime minister,
with a plurality of seats in the parliament. But US presidential
candidate John F. Kennedy was vowing to meet “the communist
challenge” and Eisenhower’s NSC was worried that Lumumba would
tilt toward the Soviets.
The US documents show that over the next few months,
the CIA worked with and made payments to eight top Congolese
— including President Kasavubu, Mobutu (then army chief of staff),
Foreign Minister Justin Bomboko, top finance aide Albert Ndele,
Senate President Joseph Ileo and labor leader Cyrille Adoula
— who all played roles in Lumumba’s downfall.
The CIA joined Belgium in a plan, detailed in
the Belgian report, for Ileo and Adoula to engineer a no-confidence
vote in Lumumba’s government, which would be followed by union-led
demonstrations, the resignations of cabinet ministers (organized
by Ndele) and Kasavubu’s dismissal of Lumumba.
On Sept. 1, the NSC’s Special Group authorized
CIA payments to Kasavubu, the US documents say. On Sept. 5,
Kasavubu fired Lumumba in a decree of dubious legality. However,
Kasavubu and his new prime minister, Ileo, proved lethargic
over the following week as Lumumba rallied supporters. So Mobutu
seized power on Sept. 14. He kept Kasavubu as president and
established a temporary “College of Commissioners” to replace
the disbanded government.
The CIA financed the College and influenced the
selection of commissioners. The College was dominated by two
Project Wizard participants: Bomboko, its president, and Ndele,
its vice-president. Another CIA ally, Lumumba party dissident
Victor Nendaka, was appointed chief of the security police.
“On Oct. 27, the NSC Special Group approved $250,000
for the CIA to win parliamentary support for a Mobutu government.
However, when legislators balked at approving any prime minister
other than Lumumba, the parliament remained closed. The CIA
money went to Mobutu personally and the commissioners.
“On Nov. 20, the Special Group authorized the
CIA to provide arms, ammunition, sabotage materials and training
to Mobutu’s military in the event it had to resist pro-Lumumba
forces.
The full extent of what one US document calls
the “intimate” relationship between the CIA and Congolese leaders
was absent from the Church Committee report. The only covert
action (apart from the assassination plots) the committee discussed
was the August 1960 effort to promote labor opposition and a
no-confidence vote in the Senate.
How did Lumumba die? After being ousted Sept.
5, Lumumba rallied support in parliament and the international
community. When Mobutu took over, UN troops protected Lumumba,
but soon confined him to his residence. Lumumba escaped on Nov.
27. Days later he was captured by Mobutu’s troops, beaten and
arrested.
What happened next is clearer thanks to the Belgian
report and the classified US documents. As early as Christmas
Eve 1960, College of Commissioners’ president Bomboko offered
to hand Lumumba over to two secessionist leaders who had vowed
to kill him. One declined and nothing happened until mid-January
1961, when the central government’s political and military position
deteriorated and troops guarding Lumumba (then jailed on a military
base near the capital) mutinied. CIA and other Western officials
feared a Lumumba comeback.
On Jan. 14, the commissioners asked Kasavubu
to move Lumumba to a “surer place.” There was “no doubt,” the
Belgian inquiry concluded, that Mobutu agreed. Kasavubu told
security chief Nendaka to transfer Lumumba to one of the secessionist
strongholds. On Jan. 17, Nendaka sent Lumumba to the Katanga
region. That night, Lumumba and two colleagues were tortured
and executed in the presence of members of the Katangan government.
No official announcement was made for four weeks.
What did the US government tell its Congolese
clients during the last three days of Lumumba’s life? The Church
Committee reported that a Congolese “government leader” advised
the CIA’s Congo station chief, Larry Devlin, on Jan. 14 that
Lumumba was to be sent to “the home territory” of his “sworn
enemy.” Yet, according to the Church Committee and declassified
documents, neither the CIA nor the US embassy tried to save
the former prime minister.
The CIA may not have exercised robotic control
over its covert political action agents, but the failure of
Devlin or the US embassy to question the plans for Lumumba could
only be seen by the Congolese as consent. After all, secret
CIA programs had enabled this group to achieve political power,
and the CIA had worked from August through November 1960 to
assassinate or abduct Lumumba.
Here, the classified US chronology provides an
important postscript. On Feb. 11, 1961, with US reports from
Congo strongly indicating Lumumba was dead, the Special Group
authorized $500,000 for political action, troop payments and
military equipment, largely to the people who had arranged Lumumba’s
murder.
Devlin has sought to distance himself from Lumumba’s
death. While the CIA was in close contact with the Congolese
officials involved, Devlin told the Church Committee that those
officials “were not acting under CIA instructions if and when
they did this.” In a recent phone conversation with Devlin,
I posed the issue of US responsibility for Lumumba’s death.
He acknowledged that, “It was important to [these] cooperating
leaders what the US government thought.” But he said he did
“not recall” receiving advance word of Lumumba’s transfer. Devlin
added that even if he had objected, “That would not have stopped
them from doing it.”
By evading its share of moral responsibility
for Lumumba’s fate, the United States blurs African and American
history and sidesteps the need to make reparation for yesterday’s
misdeeds through today’s policy. In 1997, after the Mobutu regime
fell, the Congolese democratic opposition pleaded in vain for
American and international support. Since then, as many as three
million lives have been lost as a result of civil and regional
war. The United States has not supported a strong UN peacekeeping
force or fostered a democratic transition. The collapse in late
April 2002 of negotiations between Congolese factions threatens
to re-ignite the smoldering conflict or ratify the partition
of the country.
Source: allAfrica.com
US working to derail another
human rights treaty
By Jim Lobe
July 23— Two months after withdrawing
from the United Nations treaty to create a permanent international
war crimes court, the administration of United States President
George W. Bush is trying to sideline a new treaty to prevent
torture, according to several human rights groups.
The draft Optional Protocol to the UN Convention
Against Torture is due to be considered for adoption by a key
UN committee Wednesday, but Washington has introduced a resolution
to create a special working group to discuss it further, according
to a draft letter from the US mission at the UN obtained Monday
by OneWorld.
Rights groups claim that the resolution is an
attempt to prevent the Protocol’s adoption, even though the
US would not be bound by its terms if it declined to sign it.
“This fits a pattern we’ve seen for some time
under the Bush administration,” said Rory Mungoven, global advocacy
director for New York-based Human Rights Watch. “Yet again the
Bush administration is on a collision course with its allies
over an important new mechanism to protect human rights.”
Among those backing Washington in the effort to
derail the treaty are several states on the administration’s
terrorism list, including Cuba, Iran, and Libya. China and India,
along with the US, also object to the Protocol because they
consider it potentially too intrusive.
The draft Optional Protocol, the subject of negotiations
by the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva for the past decade,
is designed to supplement and strengthen the Convention Against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,
which the US has already ratified.
Put forward by Costa Rica and backed by the European
Union and many Latin American, Caribbean, and African governments,
the Protocol would create an international body of experts attached
to the UN’s Committee Against Torture that would be mandated
to visit detention centers to monitor the treatment of prisoners
and ensure that they are not subjected to torture.
As an Optional Protocol, only states which ratified
it would be required to permit such visits, so it would not
directly affect countries outside its scope.
The draft also provides that visits by the experts
would have to be arranged in advance with national or local
authorities, and its reports could be made public only with
their permission.
A majority of members of the UN Human Rights Commission
voted to approve the draft in March, but it must now be approved
by the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which is scheduled
to take it up Wednesday. If approved there, it will be referred
to the UN General Assembly, the last step before it becomes
available for signature.
Despite the safeguards included in the draft,
the US, which lost its seat on the UN Human Rights Commission
last year, has objected to the draft on the grounds that it
is too intrusive, that it may not be suited to a federal system
like that of the US, and that it may be too expensive for the
UN system to afford.
It has asked ECOSOC members to adopt its own resolution
which recommends that the General Assembly “convene an open-ended
... working group ... with the mandate to continue considering
the draft optional protocol, taking into account concern expressed
about the current text and the process connected with it, and
to report to the General Assembly when the working group has
completed its further consideration of the draft optional protocol.”
Rights groups argue that the US resolution, if
adopted, would be the “kiss of death” for the treaty, even in
its present, watered-down form. “By sending this treaty for
more negotiations, the United States would be playing into the
hands of countries such as Cuba and Iran, which want to block
international scrutiny of human rights,” Mungoven said, calling
the move “extremely destructive.”
The groups also believe Washington’s reasons
for opposing its adoption now are specious, particularly given
all of the protections—including allowances for federal systems,
and against capricious or politically motivated inspections—contained
in the draft text.
“The realization of the Optional Protocol is
being jeopardized by a few states...who do not support the text
and wish to continue negotiations in order to water down its
provisions, thereby destroying its effectiveness as a preventive
instrument,” charged the Geneva-based Association for the Prevention
of Torture.
Source: OneWorld.net
Arhuaca Indians denounce
campaign to force them off land
By Yadira Ferrer
Bogota, Colombia, July 17 (IPS)— Members
of the Arhuaca indigenous group in northern Colombia complained
this week that the armed groups involved in the country’s civil
conflict have been waging a campaign aimed at forcing them off
their communally owned land.
The latest incident in the more than 10-year campaign
by right-wing paramilitaries and leftist guerrillas to intimidate
the Arhuaca Indians was the murder of a young community leader
by armed gunmen, after they dragged her off a bus near the northern
city of Santa Marta.
María Torres, 24, a prominent young member of
the Yerwa reserve in the foothills of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada
mountains, near the Caribbean coast, was killed Saturday by
a group of armed men as she was riding a bus to take classes
in Santa Marta, where she was trying to finish high school.
Armed groups have been murdering Arhuaca community
leaders and undermining their culture in an effort to force
them off their land, said a source with the Arhuaca community,
who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a remote
mountainous region rich in biodiversity. The area’s Caribbean
coasts are ideal for use by smugglers of drugs, arms and other
contraband products.
The Arhuaca indigenous council issued a communiqué
Monday asking the armed groups involved in Colombia’s four-decade
civil conflict to leave them out of a war in which they have
not sought involvement.
“We are not part of this conflict,” stated the
local indigenous authorities. “We are in our territory, where
we have lived for thousands of years. We have not encouraged
the presence of armed groups on our land, and we will never
tire of asking to be excluded from the conflict.”
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, declared a
biosphere reserve by the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), is an important strategic
area in this South American nation of 42 million, and one of
the epicenters of a conflict into which the four ethnic groups
living there have been drawn against their will.
That territory, which the local indigenous groups
consider “the center of the world,” is home to around 32,000
Indians belonging to the Kogui, Arhuaca, Arzara and Kankuama
communities, descendants of the Tairona people.
In the 1970s, the Sierra Nevada was an important
area for marijuana growing and trafficking. In the 1990s, coca
cultivation began to spread, with the arrival of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the smaller National Liberation
Army (ELN), and the paramilitary militias, which are fighting
for control over the area.
The denunciation of the murder of the young Arhuaca
leader coincided Tuesday with the release of another communiqué
issued by indigenous organizations from 10 of Colombia’s departments
or states, complaining of attacks by armed groups on the country’s
85 indigenous communities.
The statement protests the murders of members
of indigenous groups, and violations of their social, cultural
and economic rights, said Jorge Caballero, with the Cauca Regional
Indigenous Council.
The declaration states that aerial spraying of
illegal crops like coca and opium poppies with the pesticide
glyphosate in the regions inhabited by indigenous communities,
and the displacement caused by mega-projects and by the armed
groups disputing control over the territory, are leaving the
communities “without a place to live or to preserve our culture.”
The document was approved at a regional conference
held July 6 in the town of Piendamó, in the southern department
of Cauca, said Caballero.
According to the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council,
the Indigenous Organization of Colombia, and the Indigenous
Authorities of Colombia, the Kogui and Arhuaca Indians, and
the Paez indigenous community in the south, “have not lived
in peace since the armed commandos installed themselves in our
territories.”
Other groups, like the U’wa, had to fight to avoid
being driven off their land by the oil industry.
In addition, some communities are held captive
on their own territory, unable to go to town to buy food due
to the paramilitary and guerrilla checkpoints that have been
set up, complained the Indigenous Organization of the department
of Antioquia.
But an Interior Ministry report states that thanks
to a program aimed at providing indigenous communities with
protection, the number of murders fell in 2001 with respect
to the year before, “when the Administrative Department of Security
registered more than 25 homicides.”
According to the Weekly Press Log of the governmental
Observatory of the Presidential Human Rights Program, 24 violations
of the rights of indigenous people were committed in 2001, including
18 murders, four death threats, one kidnapping and one attempted
murder. The Log states that violence against indigenous groups
was at its worst in the northwestern departments of Cauca and
Córdoba. Four murders, three mass killings, one death threat
and one attempted murder were registered in Cauca, as well as
three murders, one death threat and one kidnapping in Córdoba.
Authorities blame 57 percent of the murders of
members of indigenous groups between January 1999 and June 2001
on “unknown perpetrators” and “common criminals,” 27 percent
on the FARC and the ELN, and 17 percent on paramilitary militias.
However, international and local human rights
groups hold the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
(AUC) responsible for the lion’s share of the murders and mass
killings of civilians in Colombia.
Bush denies money to UN population
fund
By Jim Lobe
Washington, DC, July 22 (IPS)— In another
apparent bow to the Christian right, US President George W.
Bush has denied $34 million in funding approved by Congress
for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) because of its
presence in China.
The decision, which had been rumored for several
weeks, was announced by the State Department on Monday.
A recent US delegation to China found no evidence
that UNFPA has “knowingly supported or participated in” programs
of coercive abortions or sterilizations. But because UNFPA worked
with Chinese state agencies in some counties where such practices
persist, all US funding had to be cut, according to Bush spokesman
Richard Boucher.
The decision was based on UNFPA’s support for
specific Chinese agencies that oversee coercive programs, he
added. “Because money is fungible,” Boucher said, “we won’t
be giving our money to a UN program that then gives money to
Chinese agencies that then carry out these coercive abortion
programs.”
A 1985 law bans US aid money from “any organization
or program which, as determined by the President of the United
States, supports or participates in the management of a program
of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in the People’s
Republic of China.”
“US funds for family planning and reproductive
health will be spent through the United States Agency for International
Development programs and not through UNFPA,” said Boucher.
Reaction from women’s and population groups was
immediate and harsh, particularly because the State Department
delegation’s report, while noting that “coercive elements in
law and in practice” exist in some counties where UNFPA is involved,
exonerated the agency and called for Congress’ decision to be
respected.
“The administration’s own delegation recommends
that the US contribution to UNFPA be released,” said Terri Bartlett
of Population Action International (PAI), a research and advocacy
group here.
“It’s domestic politics that has prevented UNFPA
from receiving its $34 million, and it is the world’s women
— and their families — who will pay the price.”
UNFPA director Thoraya Obaid was also uncharacteristically
direct. “UNFPA has not, does not and will not ever condone or
support coercive activities of any kind, anywhere,” she said.
“Women and children will die because of this decision.”
She noted that in past years, Washington has
simply withheld from its contribution the amount of money the
UNFPA spends in China, then provided the balance to the agency
for its work in other countries.
“We could have done the same this year, which
could have allowed US taxpayer dollars to provide life-saving
services in the other 141 countries where we work.”
USAID currently has population-related programs
in only 60 countries.
Earlier this month, a British parliamentary delegation,
which included an anti-abortion Conservative Party Member of
Parliament, released its own report based on an eight-day investigation
in China.
It not only found no evidence to substantiate
the charges, but also concluded that UNFPA’s work there was
playing “an important catalytic role in the reform of reproductive
health services in China.”
World activists to issue
peace manifesto
By Raúl Pierri
Montevideo, Chile, July 19 (IPS)— Politicians,
scientists, artists and civil society leaders from around the
world are to gather in Puerto Rico in early August to draw up
a declaration of peace principles to be presented later that
month in South Africa at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
The Puerto Rico conference is to produce a document
exhorting the 150 national leaders who are slated to attend
the Johannesburg summit to halt armed operations during peacetime,
such as those carried out by the United States in its “anti-terror
campaign” and in its military maneuvers on the Caribbean island
of Vieques.
The declaration will also call for a redoubling
of efforts to reduce the gap between the industrialized North
and the developing South, according to the conference organizers.
The International Conference on Peace and Development,
to take place in San Juan on Aug. 12-14, is jointly sponsored
by the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress and the
Senate of Puerto Rico, a free associate state of the United
States.
“The purpose of the meeting is to motivate a global
reflection on the issue of peace in order to handle problems
like terrorism, environment and social inequalities,” said Antonio
Fas Alzamora, president of the Puerto Rican Senate.
It is a preamble, he said, to the drafting of
a manifesto that will be presented at the Sustainable Development
summit to take place in Johannesburg from Aug. 26-Sept. 4, an
event also known as Rio+10, in reference to the 1992 Earth Summit
that took place in the Brazilian city.
The Johannesburg summit will be the third of
its kind sponsored by the United Nations, after the gatherings
in Stockholm (1972) and Rio de Janeiro.
Taking part in the San Juan event will be Oscar
Arias, former president of Costa Rica (1986-1990) and Nobel
Peace laureate (1987), Colombian television writer Fernando
Gaitán, India’s social justice minister Maneka Gandhi, Spanish
judge Baltasar Garzón and US Democratic Party activist Jesse
Jackson.
Also to participate are Guatemala’s Rigoberta
Menchú, Nobel Peace laureate in 1992, Indian scientist Ashok
Khosla, the secretary-general of the Society for International
Development and IPS founder Roberto Savio, Puerto Rican singer
Ricky Martin, Pakistani economist Ayesha Siddiqqa-Agha, and
Ireland’s Betty Williams, Nobel Peace laureate (1976).
Fas Alzamora said that before the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks in the United States, there was an “apparent peace”
that hid numerous conflicts and underlying tensions in various
regions of the world.
“Now it is clearly seen that true peace does
not exist,” the Senate president stated.
The conference’s base document states that the
absence of war is not peace. Wars are the most obvious sources
of chaos and destruction, but they are only the symptoms of
selfishness and of individual interest, which are now driven
by the model of values promoted by world leaders.
Senator Fas Alzamora acknowledged that the Vieques
issue will be included in the deliberations and, despite being
the matter that “motivated the conference,” will be treated
as a side issue.
The US Navy has been using Vieques for military
maneuvers for more than 60 years and considers the island, located
south of Puerto Rico, ideal for war training due to its topography
and because it is far from commercial air routes.
“The Vieques situation is having a dramatic effect
on the lives of our Puerto Rican brothers. It is clearly a case
of military operations in peacetime that are jeopardizing civilians.
However, it is not the only case, but just one of many in which
peace is threatened,” Fas Alzamora said. The protests of the
island’s residents against the military training intensified
after an errant bomb killed a civil guard in 1999.
US President George W. Bush confirmed that he
would allow firing practice on Vieques until next year, in spite
of the fact that 68 percent of the island’s electorate voted
in favor of the removal of the troops in a referendum held in
July 2001.
The participants in the San Juan conference are
also expected to issue a harsh condemnation of the inequalities
and of the “terrorism of indifference” perpetuated by the world
powers. “They prefer to invest in weapons above health and social
development,” said Fas Alzamora.
“Terrorism is not caused only by a bomb, but also
by looking the other way and refusing to see that every day
40,000 children die of hunger or of diseases that could be prevented
if resources were appropriately used,” he said. The organizers
of the meeting state that the 225 wealthiest people in the world
today have a combined income equal to that of the poorest 2.5
billion poor.
Every year, an average of $780 billion is spent
on weapons purchases, $400 billion on drugs, $105 billion on
alcoholic drinks, $50 billion on tobacco, $17 billion on pet
food and $12 billion on perfumes, according to United Nations
figures.
Meanwhile, a relatively scant $13 billion annually
would be needed to satisfy the minimum health and nutrition
needs of the world, $9.0 billion for potable water and $6.0
billion for education.
Fas Alzamora commented that the San Juan meeting
will attempt to motivate all countries, but particularly those
of Latin America, to “review their investments and to shift
their military spending to social problems in order to save
humanity.”
West pays warlords to stay
in line
By Jason Burke
and Peter Beaumont
July 21— Britain and the United States
are secretly distributing huge sums of money to persuade Afghan
warlords not to rebel against their country’s new government.
The Observer has learned that “bin bags” full
of US dollars have been flown into Afghanistan, sometimes on
RAF planes, to be given to key regional power brokers who could
cause trouble for Prime Minister Hamid Karzai’s administration.
Gul Agha Sherzai, the governor of the southern
province of Kandahar, Hazrat Ali, a commander in the eastern
province of Nangahar, and several others have been “bought off”
with millions of dollars in deals brokered by US and British
intelligence.
Many of the commanders benefiting from the operation
have been involved in opium production and drug smuggling on
a massive scale, as well as widespread human-rights abuses.
Without the hand-outs, Western intelligence agencies
fear Afghanistan could collapse, allowing Osama bin Laden’s
al-Qaida terrorist group and former Taliban elements to regroup.
Foreign Office sources in London confirmed last
week they were aware money was being “circulated” to key Afghan
warlords to persuade them to support the government.
“It is certainly true that money has been distributed
— it is the way things work in this part of the world — but
no British money [is being distributed],” the source said.
“In any case, you do not buy warlords in Afghanistan:
you ‘rent’ them for a period. The Russians discovered this to
their cost. They would buy off a warlord and after a while he
would come back and tell them: ‘My men won’t wear this arrangement
any more. You will have to give me more money, or we will have
to go back to attacking you.’”
However, The Observer has been told by reliable
sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan that some UK money is being
distributed, although most of it is American.
Relief workers in Afghanistan have criticized
the hand-outs because they come when funds for emergency help
and reconstruction projects in the war-damaged country are running
low. Cash for road-building, irrigation and power projects is
unlikely even to reach Afghanistan before 2003, and only £3
billion of the estimated £10 billion needed to rebuild the nation
has so far been pledged.
Previous attempts to buy the loyalty of warlords
have met mixed results. During the battle of Tora Bora in April,
local commanders were paid huge sums to send their own troops
into the mountainous cave complexes where bin Laden was thought
to be hiding. The warlords involved in this operation, including
Hazrat Ali, accuse each other of taking bribes from bin Laden
to allow him to escape.
In Paktia province, the Americans paid Pacha
Khan Zardran, a local commander who seized control of the eastern
city of Khost last November, an estimated $400,000 to train
and equip fighters to patrol the border with Pakistan. Since
then, however, the government in Kabul has installed its own
governor and forced Khan into the mountains, from where his
troops have been shelling civilian areas in a bid to destabilize
the new regime.
“You are playing with fire and pandering to the
worst elements in Afghan culture and society,” said one Pakistan-based
Western diplomat. “Afghanistan would be better served by expanding
peacekeeping forces or more aid for ordinary people.’”
Many Afghans in Khost blame the rising tension
on the US. Paying the warlords for their services has triggered
clashes among groups eager to win patronage from the Americans.
In some areas commanders have been told they will receive a
top-of-the-range $40,000 pick-up truck — a local status symbol
— if they can prove they have killed Taliban or al-Qaida elements.
There are believed to be about 300 hardcore al-Qaida
fighters still active, almost all in western Pakistan. Bin Laden,
whom most Afghan, Pakistani and Western intelligence sources
believe is still alive, is thought to be hiding among the Pashtun
tribes along the border.
Source: Observer (UK)
WORLD BRIEFS
Ottawa says Bush, US reps
tried to bully G8 host
Canadian officials say George W. Bush’s entourage at last month’s
G8 summit in Alberta behaved like bullies as they tried to take
control of the agenda set by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
Officials said the Americans got into shouting
and swearing matches with their Canadian counterparts over everything
from photo-ops to the topics to be discussed by the leaders
of Canada, the US, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and
Russia.
One official said he began to take it as a “compliment
to be called a ‘fucking Canadian’ by the Americans” after resisting
countless US demands, including special access to Kananaskis
for the White House press corps.
Although the countries had agreed in advance
that African development was to be the centerpiece of the summit,
Bush’s advisors tilted the agenda to the President’s Israeli-Palestinian
peace plan and a US scheme to safeguard Russia’s nuclear weapon
stockpiles, officials say. (National Post, Canada)
Proposed bill makes communism
a crime in Slovakia
Nearly thirteen years after the fall of communism
in eastern Europe, the Slovak parliament has passed a new bill
that makes support for communist ideology a criminal offense.
The proposed law is awaiting approval by President Rudolf Schuster.
The President has indicated he may not approve the law. But
the parliamentary approval has generated a strong dispute that
has seen many human rights groups coming down on the side of
the communists against legislators.
The Slovak Communist Party says the proposed new
law violates human rights. Leaders of the Slovak Communist Party
(KSS) say that if the new legislation is approved by the President
they will ask for asylum in the US or the European Union (EU).
The Slovak parliament voted an amendment to the
country’s penal code on July 10 making the promotion of communist
ideology, or the denial, approval or excusing of crimes under
the previous communist regime punishable by six months to three
years in jail. The proposed law is similar to an existing law
that makes support for fascism or fascist ideology a criminal
offense.
Two other bills were passed along with the bill
on communism. One seeks to ban employees of the former communist
secret police, the StB, from working in the current secret service
(SIS). The second allows StB archives to be opened to the public,
enabling citizens to see whether the StB had files on them.
They could also see names of agents who spied on them. (IPS)
Key committee renews US military
aid to Indonesia
In a victory for Pentagon hard-liners, a key Congressional committee
has voted to drop conditions on providing US military training
to the Indonesian armed forces (TNI).
The Senate appropriations committee went along
with the Pentagon’s arguments that the TNI’s cooperation in
the global “war on terrorism’’ waged by US President George
W. Bush should take precedence over human rights and related
considerations.
“We can provide some of the training they need
so their people can prevent some of the things that happened
to us,’’ said Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens. He, along
with Hawaii Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye, led the effort to
strip conditions on military training for Indonesia that were
included in next year’s foreign aid bill.
Human rights groups said the action was a big
mistake. “This is a huge step backward,’’ said Mike Jendrzejczyk,
an Indonesia expert at Human Rights Watch (HRW). He said activists
hope that at least some of the conditions will be re-attached
when the bill reaches the Senate floor or the House of Representatives.
(IPS)
US activist deported for
protesting Ecuador pipeline
A United States citizen was deported July 18 from Ecuador after
being detained July 16 along with seven Ecuadorans as they engaged
in a protest against the construction of an oil pipeline through
the country’s Amazon region.
The activist, Julia “Butterfly” Hill, best known
for her two-year protest in which she lived in a giant redwood
tree in the US state of California, was taken without prior
notice from the Provisional Detention Center, where she was
held under arrest, to the Quito airport. Two hours later, the
remaining detainees were released.
Hill stated that the proceedings were illegal
and that the rights of the people arrested had not been respected.
But her greatest concern is the violation of “the rights of
the communities devastated by oil exploitation,” said Hill.
The oil pipeline targeted by the environmental
activists is 540 km long and is to transport petroleum from
the Ecuadorian Amazon region to the Pacific coast for refining
and export.
The protesters were detained by the police as
they staged a demonstration outside the offices of Occidental
Petroleum, a member of the Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados (OCP)
Limited consortium, which is building the pipeline. (IPS)
Warrants issued in Mexican
airport stand-off
Six arrest warrants have been issued against leftists and anti-globalization
activists in Mexico City who aided protesting farmers in a five-day
hostage standoff with the government during a dispute over a
proposed new airport, a prosecutor said June 22.
The announcement came just two days before the
start of talks the federal government had agreed to hold with
the farmers, in a bid to reach a compromise over the possible
expropriation of farmland to make way for the airport.
Mexico State Attorney General Alfonso Navarrete
Prida said the new arrest warrants were not issued against the
peasants, eight of whom were released on bail to end the stand-off.
Rather, his office is seeking to arrest leftists
and agitators from outside the village who saw the confrontation
as an opportunity to build molotov cocktails and “oppose world
globalization.”
Citing standard police procedure, he refused to
give the names of those cited in the warrants, until they are
apprehended.
Also Monday, a Mexico state judge ordered the
eight farmers released on bail to stand trial on charges of
assault and rioting. All eight will apparently remain free on
bail during the trial. (AP)
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