Rights of protesters violated, says Amnesty
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WORLD BRIEFS
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Millions voice outrage at US war on Iraq

Compiled by Nicholas Holt

Apr. 2 (AGR)— Protesters took to the streets across the world once again last week to voice their opposition to the US-led war on Iraq.

On Mar. 25, hundreds of thousands of people Damascus, Syria protested the US-led invasion of Iraq — some burning American and British flags in the streets — and the Syrian government denounced the invasion as “unjustified aggression and a blatant violation of international laws.”

On Mar. 26, about 2,000 anti-war demonstrators carrying mocked-up portraits of the US president dressed as Dracula marched through Multan, Pakistan, many drenched in red paint to symbolize Iraqi casualties.

In the southern port city of Karachi, about 1,000 university students joined by teachers and employees staged an anti-US rally on their campus.

The protesters torched US, British, and Israeli, flags and effigies of Bush, Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Tens of thousands of protesters came out on the streets of Yemen’s capital Sana’a on Mar. 28 to protest the war on Iraq.

The protest was led, significantly both by the ruling General People’s Congress Party and the Islah Party, the main opposition in Yemen.

“Jihad! Jihad! From Sana’a to Baghdad,” the protesters shouted. “No peace, no surrender, America is the enemy of Islam.”

Heavy security steps were taken to protect the embassies of the US, Britain, Kuwait, and Qatar. That follows the shooting of two demonstrators at a protest rally on Mar. 21. A policeman was also killed in violence when protesters marched towards the US embassy.

Also on Mar. 26, police arrested 14 at a “books not bombs” demonstration in Sydney, Australia which had drawn 1,000 anti-war protesters.

One million school and university students participated in anti-war demonstrations in Spain called by the Sindicato de Estudiantes (Spanish Students Union).

The biggest demonstration was in Madrid with around 250,000 students. Other large demonstrations took place in Barcelona with more than 150,000 and Seville with 30,000.

On Mar. 27, police fired rubber bullets and tear gas into a crowd of more than 1,500 demonstrators Thursday who tried to march on the US Embassy in Colombia to protest the war in Iraq.

Bloodied demonstrators were seen being carried away during the melee near the gates of the fortress-like embassy compound in Bogota. Protesters included pupils dressed in blue school uniforms, but most were university students. Some demonstrators hurled rocks and firecrackers at the riot police.

In Tripoli, Lybia and other major cities across the country, students from both public and private schools and universities left their classes around noon to participate in demonstrations against the war in Iraq — more than 40,000 participated in Tripoli, converging from different destinations, including the Mina, Tell, and Malaab neighborhoods.

In Beirut, Lebanon about 7,000 people marched from Barbir toward UN House in downtown Beirut, amid relaxed security measures, which kept demonstrators about 100 meters away from the building.

On Mar. 28, Bangladesh, the world’s third largest Muslim-majority country, saw 10,000 people turn out in Dhaka to demand an end to the invasion of Iraq, torching a large number of effigies of US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Also on Mar. 28, a dozen cars belonging to a Ford dealership on the outskirts of Rome, Italy were set on fire in a protest against war in Iraq, police said.

Nobody was injured in the overnight attack against the US automaker, police said. A banner reading “Sabotage the imperialist war” was hung on the gate of the lot where the vehicles were parked.

Over the weekend, there were more protests in Latin America against the war on Iraq, marked by music and creative slogans, culminating Sunday with a rally in Sao Paulo, Brazil where world-renowned musician and Brazilian Culture Minister Gilberto Gil sang several protest songs.

Between 10,000 and 30,000 people, according to press reports or the organizers, took part in the demonstration convened by the governing Workers’ Party (PT). Many of those present sang along with Gil to “Peace,” one of his most famous songs.

In Mexico, the “Loveparade” peace rally, which ended in an enormous dance, began late Saturday and stretched to seven in the morning on Sunday, drawing around 5,000 young people — very few compared to the projections of the organizers, who hoped for as many as 200,000.

Protesters chanted and carried placards against the British-US invasion of Iraq. In addition, around 100 graffiti artists covered 300 meters of wall space on a Mexico City school with anti-war designs.

Music also formed part of the anti-war events in Buenos Aires, Argentina but with a more formal tone: a performance in the historical Colon Theatre in which a children’s choir and dancers from a school performed along with popular musicians.

In a protest held Saturday in Caracas, Venezuela alongside placards with the usual anti-war slogans “No War” and “No Blood for Oil” appeared a poster with the image of US President George W. Bush as a vampire sinking his fangs into oil-rich Iraq and Venezuela.

There have also been calls in Latin America to join a new global movement to boycott US products, brands, and companies.

McDonald’s franchises were occupied by nearly 150 student protesters from the movement “No Pasarán” in the Argentine capital, and targeted by stone-throwers in Caracas as well as peaceful protests in other cities in the region over the past week.

In Uruguay, US flags were burnt in a protest Friday that drew thousands of anti-war demonstrators in Montevideo and was planned by the country’s central trade union and student groups.

US embassies and consulates were also the targets of hostility in Montevideo, Caracas and other cities, including Valencia, 120 kms from the Venezuelan capital.

Venezuela’s Arab community, which numbers around one million in that oil exporting country of 23 million, has also joined the mobilizations against Bush.

More than 10,000 people marched on the United States consulate in Cape Town, South Africa on Saturday to protest the war in Iraq, and to call for the expulsion of America and Britain’s ambassadors.

Protesters burned US flags and chanted anti-American slogans outside the building in the city center under the watchful eye of a strong police presence.

More than 100,000 people protested in Germany, half at a rally in Berlin. About 30,000 people held hands along the 50 kilometers between the north-western cities of Munster and Osnabruck — a route used by negotiators who brought the 30 Years War to an end in 1648.

In Stuttgart, about 6,000 protesters encircled the US military’s European Command, releasing blue balloons adorned with white doves as the protesters joined hands to form a chain.

More than 10,000 people marched in Paris, France, watched by 5,000 police. In Arles, on Saturday, 30 anti-war protesters covered petrol pumps at a filling station owned by US oil giant Esso with a massive black tarpaulin emblazoned with the words “the bloody stupidity of war.”

“Covering the symbol of the multinationals in black is an expression of our anger, our sadness and feelings for the innumerable victims,” one of the organizers said.

On Sunday, a thousand young people filled the main square in Athens, Greece to protest against the war, with young Communists waving a swathe of red flags dominant among the participants.

One banner showed the US flag with a swastika in place of the usual stars.

“Faced with the facilities, rebellion is a duty,” a placard said, referring to the Greek military facilities offered to the US army.

In a possible anti-US protest on the night of Mar. 28 , unknown individuals threw a grenade into a McDonalds fast food restaurant in Athens, damaging the interior.

Protesters in York, England held a die-in in the town center with flowers being laid on the “dead.” In Norwich in East Anglia, Stop the War Coalition made a banner drop from a castle coinciding with a noisy protest. Cardiff saw the city center taken over as 500 protesters and a samba band made their way past rugby fans going to watch a game. Oxford had a heavy police presence around their protest, which was attended by 800 people.

On Sunday, in a rare state-sanctioned protest, about two dozen students at China’s elite Peking University held signboards with photos of wounded Iraqi civilians and distributed handbills criticizing the war.

About 100,000 demonstrators joined a rally organized by hardline Islamic leaders in the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar. Thousands more demonstrated in Multan in central Pakistan and Quetta in the southwest.

In South Korea, 30,000 workers demanded the National Assembly reject a government bill that calls for dispatching 600 military engineers and 100 medics to support coalition forces.

More than 2,000 people formed the Japanese words for “No War” in Osaka, Japan then marched toward the US Consulate.

About 15,000 university students in Alexandria, Egypt burned US and British flags and called for “holy war” to help the Iraqis. Another 15,000 people, mainly members of Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party, rallied in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura.

Some 5,000 Greek Cypriots marched on the British air force base at Akrotiri in Cyprus, police said.

On Mar. 31, Police in Malaysia used tear gas to break up a protest outside the Australian embassy.

Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in front of the US embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. Crowd estimates varied, with Central Jakarta police saying 200,000, witnesses saying 300,000 and organizers claiming 3 million protesters.

Thousands more were streaming in from many directions as the organizers officially closed the rally at 2pm AEST, about an hour after it started.

Sources: Agence France Presse, Associated Press, BBC, Daily Star, Indymedia, Inter Press Service, Reuters, www.sindicatodeestudiantes.org,

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Reversing history of exploitation of indigenous peoples

By Mercedes Sayagues

Andriesvale, South Africa, Mar. 28 (IPS)— It looks like an ordinary cactus — thin, thorny fingers growing less than a meter tall in the reddish sands of southern Africa’s Kalahari Desert — but on Mar. 24, the Hoodia Gordonii reversed a worldwide history of exploitation of indigenous peoples.

At a simple but moving ceremony in Andriesvale, a remote corner of the Kalahari, the South African San Council and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of South Africa signed an agreement that recognizes and rewards the San as holders of traditional knowledge.

The San will get up to eight percent of profits from a diet drug derived from the Hoodia, a plant they know well. For thousands of years, the San — the oldest people in southern Africa — have chewed the bitter Hoodia twice a day to suppress hunger and thirst during long hunting trips.

“Our ancestors taught us to survive by being attentive to the land, rain, game, and plants,” says Kxao Moses, a Namibian San and chair of the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa. Even today the San treat hunger, fever, eye allergies, and stomach pain with the Hoodia.

In 1996, scientists from the parastatal CSIR isolated the Hoodia’s hunger-suppressing chemical component, or P57, and patented it.

In 1997, CSIR licensed the UK-based firm Phytopharm to further develop and commercialize P57. The following year, Phytopharm licensed drug giant Pfizer — of Viagra fame — to develop and market P57.

Throughout, CSIR retained the patent. It may be worth billions of dollars. The market for a natural appetite-suppressant drug is huge. In the United States alone there are between 35-65 million clinically obese people. Worldwide, obesity is rising fast.

The San, who had shared their knowledge with CSIR scientists, were out of the picture. To the extent that, in mid-2001, when a Pfizer spokesperson in Britain described P57, the San were said to be extinct.

The San peoples of southern Africa angrily complained. An international scandal ensued.

The timing was right. Back in 1996, indigenous knowledge was an abstruse issue and the CSIR is an institution still shaped by the apartheid regime it had served well for 40 years.

Five years later, protection of indigenous knowledge is debated at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and promoted by the post-apartheid CSIR.

It was a thorny issue at the 2002 Earth Summit in Johannesburg because indigenous knowledge systems clash with Western intellectual property rules (IPR). The latter view knowledge as the property of an individual or a company, while traditional knowledge is collectively owned and handed down through generations.

Under pressure from the developing world the WTO is reviewing the IPR system. Buoyed by international agreements like the 2000 Cartagena Protocol on Biological Safety, an addenda to the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, countries in the South are passing laws to prevent biopiracy.

In 1999, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) approved an African Model Law that comprehensively covers IPR issues for biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. African countries must now pass domestic laws that comply with it. Few have done so.

The South African government is considering a draft bill that requires proof of prior informed consent of communities before granting patents for products or elements derived from their traditional knowledge.

The agreement between the San and the CSIR reinforces bioprospection as opposed to biopiracy.

“Big pharma can’t do business as they did before. It’s payback time,” says Tom Suchanandan, an academic with the Council for Human Sciences Research of South Africa.

He points that “this is no hastily construed document but took lots of time and effort,” one reason being the public scandal, another South Africa’s legal vacuum on this matter.

“The CSIR and the San had to produce an agreement able to withstand international scrutiny and it does,” says Minister of arts, culture, science and technology, Ben Ngubane.

For three years, the South Africa San Council negotiated with the CSIR on behalf of the San in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In a unique novel arrangement, the San will share profits across borders.

The CSIR will pay the San eight percent of milestone payments made by its licensee Phytopharm during the drug’s clinical development over the next 3-4 years. If and when the drug is marketed, possibly in 2008, the San will get six percent of royalties.

“The CSIR, being owned by government, was rather embarrassed and we played that embarrassment hard,” recalls human rights lawyer Roger Chennels, the San’s legal counsel.

Already R259,066 has been paid. Milestone payments for the San could reach 8-12 million rand while royalties could top 60 million rand annually during the 15-20 years before a patent expires, says Petro Terblanche, CSIR Biochemtek Director.

The San badly needs such windfall. Present in the region for 40,000 years, in the last 2,000 they have been dispossessed by several waves of newcomers. Today, commercial ranching, large-scale agriculture, even national parks threaten their hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

“The San’s soft culture does not do well in a Western capitalist world,” says Chennels.

For centuries their culture has been devalued as “uncivilized.” Even their language is on the verge of extinction, squeezed out by Afrikaans and English. Less than two dozen elderly San speakers survive in South Africa. A handful were at Andriesvale to witness their leaders sign the agreement.

Ravaged by low self-esteem, poverty, alcoholism, and unemployment, the San remain marginalized. Only recently a wave of interest is re-valuing San rock paintings and crafts, their harmony with nature, practices of heightened consciousness states, and cultural beliefs.

“This [agreement] is about more than money, it’s about our culture,” says Tina, a trainee tracker at Molopo lodge in Andriesvale.

Asked about their needs, a group of young women quickly say “jobs and education in our language.”

If the diet drug is produced, it is not yet clear whether the Hoodia will be grown commercially or the molecule laboratory-produced. “For South Africa’s economy, it is preferable to farm it. For risk management, to use a reactive in a lab,” says Terblanche.

Dreadlocked, decked in an opossum tail headdress, beads, and a handmade leather medicine pouch, community leader Jan van der Westhuysen, 47, crouches and gingerly touches the prickly plant. “This is life to us, it gave us energy and sustenance,” he says.

He looks around the dry savannah. Hoodia was plentiful here when he grew up but no longer, he says. “Humans are not taking good care of the world.”

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Rights of protesters violated, says Amnesty

By Sanjay Suri

London, England, Mar. 30 (IPS)— As Iraq faces some of the most grave violations of human rights, anti-war demonstrators around the world are also seeing a violation of their rights to protest, Amnesty says in a report released Sunday.

Amnesty is documenting instances of human rights abuses and the inflicting of war on civilians within Iraq in a report due to be released in a week or so. But it is pointing in the meanwhile to violations of the right just to speak against the war.

“People have been killed in demonstrations in Yemen, three students were killed in police firing in Khartoum in Sudan,” said Judit Arenas. “We believe it is important to highlight this sort of thing so that it does not escalate.”

Amnesty has looked at violation of the right to protest in 14 countries: Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Jordan, Norway, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Turkey, the US, and Yemen.

“Human rights abuses connected to the war on Iraq have not been limited to that country,” says the report “In the Shadow of War: Backlash Against Human Rights.” “The war’s impact on human rights has been seen in many countries around the world. Governments appear to be using the world’s focus on the theater of war to violate human rights shielded from public scrutiny.”

“From Egypt to the US, from Belgium to Sudan, governments must respect fundamental rights and refrain from using the war in Iraq as a pretext for curtailing or abusing these rights,” Amnesty International stated. Many of the countries cracking down on demonstrations have a record of not allowing peaceful protests, Arenas said. “In Athens the police beat up a group of Iraqi protesters,” she said. “That seems drastic and unethical.” In Spain, she said, 34 formal complaints have been made to the courts against police action. “That seems rather a lot over just ten days of demonstrations.”

Many demonstrators were beaten up and three of them are still in the hospital recovering from their injuries, the Amnesty report says.

In Germany, she said, the police used water canons and excessive force on demonstrators in Hamburg. “In very strange action, the police in Belgium have detained 450 people just as a preventive measure. In one village a group of residents was arrested only because they had met to plan a demonstration.”

Amnesty is also very concerned about measures taken against asylum seekers particularly in the US and in Britain. “They are trying to limit the access of asylum seekers,” Arenas said. “This is ironic, because they are the ones who are causing people to flee. They are creating the human rights crisis, and then refusing to accept the consequences.”

Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the UK have frozen decisions on Iraqi asylum claims, the Amnesty report says. In the US, “Operation Liberty Shield” mandates the detention of asylum-seekers from Iraq and at least 33 other, as yet unnamed, countries who arrive in the US and seek asylum at the point of entry.

The Amnesty report says “anti-terrorism” legislation has been used to support these violations in several countries. “The Terrorism Act has been invoked in some areas in Britain to allow special police powers to ‘stop and search’ people without reasonable suspicion,” the report says.

Amnesty is concerned also about police powers to stop and search in Britain, Arenas said. “Such moves have in the past tended to target the minorities, who have found it discriminatory, and complained of ill treatment,” Arenas said. In one instance, she said, a person was arrested for filming policemen trying to restrain a child demonstrator.

In the US, two winners of the Nobel Prize for Peace, Joddy Williams who won it in 1997 for her work against landmines, and Mairead Corrigan who won the prize in 1976 for her campaign for peace in Northern Ireland were among the peace demonstrators detained, Arenas said.

In Turkey, riot police used batons to disperse about 5,000 people who had gathered after Friday prayers on March 21 to protest against the war outside a mosque.

In Jordan, Fawaz Zurayqat, station manager of Arab Television and a leading activist in a local committee for the defense of Iraq, was detained on Mar. 3 at his office. He remains held at the headquarters of the General Intelligence Department in Amman, Amnesty says. Ibrahim Alloush, a well-known anti-war activist, was arrested on Mar. 24. At least 15 other anti-war activists have been arrested.

In Egypt, dozens of anti-war activists were beaten severely and hundreds injured when police used water cannons, clubs, and dogs against demonstrators, the Amnesty report says. Manal Ahmad Mustafa Khalid was severely beaten by security officers when she returned from a demonstration at Tahrir Square in central Cairo, leaving her with a serious eye injury. Journalists were among those injured by security forces as they were covering the anti-war demonstrations.

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