A draft of a forthcoming UN Panel of Experts report has accused the Rwandan army and its allied rebel groups in the DRC (including the AFDL) of committing genocide against Great Lakes-region Hutus between 1993 and 2003. The findings are seminal for confirming the long-debated existence of a genocide against ethnic Hutus occurring at the same time as the Rwandan genocide, in which Hutus perpetrated mass killings and abuse of Tutsis.

About 20 human right officers have documented, through hundreds of pages, what they call widespread and systematic attacks by the Rwandan army and the Congolese AFDL rebel movement.

Those targeted were Rwandan Hutus who had fled into Congo after the genocide against ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda.

But the report says that attacks against Hutus who were not refugees seem to confirm that all Hutus were targeted.

In some regions, it says, checkpoints were used to identify people of Hutu origin and eliminate them – estimating that tens of thousands had been killed.

The report is expected to severely tarnish the international image of Rwandan president Paul Kagame, who led the Tutsi rebellion against the genocidal and predominantly Hutu government of Rwanda in 1994, which ended the Rwandan genocide. However, recent election results in Rwanda that saw Kagame win 93% of the vote with allegations of significant political oppression of opposition groups would suggest this is an image that needs tarnishing if the international community is serious about ending conflict and mass human rights abuses in Central Africa.

The big question is – will Kagame be indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity??

Bookmark It

Last week, the US Senate passed the Wall Street Reform Bill, embedded wherein lay provisions for the tracing and monitoring of conflict minerals. This provision was prompted by recent media attention and global outcry relating to the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo – the deadliest war since WWII. Waged since 1998, the war in the DRC has seen nearly six million people killed and hundreds of thousands of women raped.

The war is entirely caused and supported by the illegal trade in ridiculously valuable minerals. Minerals needed for the production of consumer goods, electronics, mobile phones, and, of course, military technology and weapons.

Since the enactment of the Bill, some have expressed concern for the future of Congo’s fragile economy if murdering rebels can’t illegally sell these precious minerals to major Western corporations. In the lead-up to the legislation, Motorola spent $880,000 to lobby the government in relation to the regulation of conflict minerals.

I think fragile economy is a misnomer. Non-existent is probably a more accurate portrayal. Congo’s current debt sits at $10.9 billion. Just last month, at Canada’s request, The World Bank postponed a meeting that was set to forgive nearly $8 billion of that debt.

Yet, according to the naysayers of the bill, hundreds of Congolese civilians may be left vulnerable with the closure of these illegal mining operations should the bill be effective in limiting the purchase of illegal conflict minerals. This is a plainly false argument.

Firstly, Western corporations and governments are so desperately dependent on these minerals that no law will affect that demand. More likely, innovative new solutions will arise to hide the true source of the minerals, or, preferably, the law will have its intended effect of ending short-term purchase from illegal mining sources and encourage more legal, above-the-board development, perhaps putting an end to the brutal war in DRC.

Secondly, those working in the illegal, rebel-controlled mines of eastern DRC are not just poor, hard-working peasants. Often, they are slave-labourers, kidnapped from neighbouring communities and forced to work without reward by the armed group in control of that mine.

Given the extent and pervasiveness of the networks of power with interest in the conflict minerals of the DRC, there is heavy vested interest in the maintenance of the conflict for cheap and steady access to resources that have otherwise been promised to China in a multi-billion dollar bilateral deal between the governments of both countries. Addressing the demand for illegal minerals may be the only available mechanism for actually ending this long and bloody war.

Bookmark It

I’ve wrote about the issue a few times already and still haven’t quite settled my position. Still, I won’t deny the rush of pleasure I felt when hearing that France’s lower house has passed a bill banning the burqa.

In a near-unanimous decision, the National Assembly voted 335-1 to ban the Islamic face coverings in public.

The legislation imposed a $185 fine or citizenship lessons — or both — on women caught outside their homes wearing the full-face coverings known as a burqa in Afghanistan and a niqab in North Africa. It set a fine of $38,000 and a one-year prison term for anyone convicted of forcing women and girls to wear such veils, reflecting a widely shared conviction here that Muslim women are forced to cover their faces by their fathers or husbands.

The bill is supposed to also pass easily through the upper house, but before being enacted into law, the bill will also be submitted to the Constitutional Council to ensure it meets commitments to human rights outlined in France’s constitution.

Surveys have shown overwhelming support for the ban, as well. A survey by the Pew Research Center conducted in April and May showed 82 percent of those questioned support the prohibition. In addition, the survey found that 71 percent of Germans, 62 percent of Britons and 59 percent of Spaniards would back similar bans in their own countries.

While I think that law can have an important educational effect on changing norms in a society, there will be enforcement issues, as noted by a BBC article on the ban:

Initially there will be a six-month period where women who wear the full-face veil are stopped and told about French laws and the reasons behind them. But after that period a police officer could tell her to remove the veil or risk a fine.

Clearly, in some suburbs of Paris with strong Muslim communities it would be very sensitive to order a woman to remove her veil. It will also be hard to prove that a woman is wearing a veil against her wishes.

Another risk is that the ban will create martyrs. Frederic Lagache of the police union said to me today: “Our concern is that some people will be manipulated by extremists and cause trouble on the streets when we stop them.”

Already a businessman has offered to set up a fund to pay any fines incurred by women.

There are also likely to be a series of legal challenges.

In far less controversial legislation, Ottawa may soon consider adding honour killings to its Criminal Code. Yesterday, Canada’s federal government affirmed its position against the practice, declaring such “barbaric cultural practices” as “heinous abuses” with “no place in Canadian society.”

Rona Ambrose, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for the Status of Women referred to:

“honour crimes and to the subjugation, oppression and repression of women and girls wherever it happens.

“Repression, oppression and violence to maintain a family’s honour may even happen because a girl wants to wear westernized clothing, date a boy who may not be from her own religion or culture or simply wanting to wear make-up.”

These comments come on the heels of a report by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, which documented at least 15 honour killings in Canada since 2002, and issued 14 policy recommendations to the Canadian government to stop the crime.

Here’s hoping.

Bookmark It

In a near-unanimous vote in the lower house yesterday, the Belgian parliament voted in favour of a ban on face veils, and any other item of clothing that conceals the identity of a person, being worn in public places. Though the law must still go through the Senate, the law is expected to pass within a month or two, which will make it the first of its kind in Europe. The vote saw 134 parliamentarians voting in favour, with two abstentions.

The law may seem unnecessary and even deliberately targeting, as apparently only 30 women in all of Belgium’s 500,000 or so Muslim population wear the full niqab.

The Muslim Executive of Belgium has criticised the move, saying it would lead to women who do wear the full veil to be trapped in their homes.

Amnesty International said a ban would set a “dangerous precedent”.

In a statement, the human rights group said it would “violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who wear the burqa or niqab as an expression of their identity and beliefs”.

The ban would be imposed in all buildings or grounds that are “meant for public use or to provide services”, including streets, parks and sports grounds.

Exceptions could be made for certain festivals.

It seems unlikely that the government means this law to be anything more than a statement against the full veiling of women mandated by Islamists, as the fine for wearing face-obscuring garments is 15-25 Euros.

Many people oppose the veil as an oppressive means of subjugating women, and legislation like this are meant both as a statement denouncing this subjugation and as a means of ‘liberating’ women from being forced by their families to cover themselves. However, as Amnesty International points out, it is unlikely to be the repressive political element in European Muslim societies that suffers from this legislation, and it will take more effort to educate women about their rights and social services available to them if they do feel forced.

My own feelings are split on the bill. On the one hand, I applaud any measures taken to combat the extremism of religious fanaticism that has been on the rise over the past decade. I applaud any attempts to ensure the full realization of one’s rights in the face of political and social oppression. But on the otherhand, I worry about unintended effects arising from such legislation, such as warned about by Amnesty International.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Bookmark It

What a buffoon! According to a Sydney-based researcher, the Australian Prime Minister, at an event in January, told her that her PhD was an excuse commonly used by young women “to avoid starting a family”.

Deputy PM Julia Gillard better get on the clean up trail after that one. Apparently Mr. Rudd doesn’t recall making such a comment. I’m sure he did – he’s such a useless goon. I’m also sure he’s not a total misogynist like his rival, Tony Abbott. He’s just an indoctrinated, socialized, mostly-misogynist like most other men. He may not really believe she’s avoiding having babies, but his comment does imply a belief that education is somehow lost on women.

And I don’t fully believe that Rudd wants to see women get a fair go. Otherwise his government would not have just denied any possibility of a quota system for women’s employment. According to a newly released KPMG report, only 54 per cent of employed women are full-time, compared to 84 per cent of men. The findings didn’t seem to phase Minister for the Status of Women, Tanya Plibersek, who sluffed off the suggestion that the government should address this disparity with an appeal to the fact that the report included no formal recommendations to government.

Riiiight, so governments are incapable of analysing data and finding their own solutions, but must rely on recommendations from the private or NFP sector for action?

Bullshit, Ruddy, you just think women have stolen enough rights and should be happy with where they’ve gotten to, right?

Bookmark It

Somewhat good news story of the week: small and stable Central American country, Costa Rica, has elected its first female president and apparently she won by an overwhelming majority, more than 20-points ahead of her nearest contender. The new president, Laura Chinchilla, apparently won on a campaign of continuing economic liberalisation that analysts believe is responsible for the stability of the country that has relatively high standard of living and the longest life expectancy of any country in Latin America.

The 50-year-old protege of the current president, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oscar Arias, promised to pursue the same economic policies that recently brought the country into a trade pact with the U.S. and opened commerce with China.

“Today we are making history,” said Chinchilla, who will be the fifth Latin American woman to be elected president when she takes office in May. “The Costa Rican people have given me their confidence, and I will not betray it.”

The not so good news? Chincilla is a social conservative who opposes abortion and gay marriage. She’s not a woman who represents women or women’s rights. She’s a continuation of the same-old same-old power structures entrenched in Costa Rican society. The Christian Science Monitor mistakenly calls this election evidence of women’s rise in Latin America. But is it really the case if women are only electorally viable if they espouse more conservative values than their male counterparts?

Though there is a growing trend across Latin America of increased representation of women, largely due to affirmative action quotas implemented in more than a dozen countries in the region, I can’t help but feel that if it were up to these women, there would be no quotas or affirmative action. These women sound to me like the Sarah Palins of the Latin region. Is it really progress if, although she’s a woman, she supports and implements more socially conservative laws than we might get from a progressive like Morales or Chavez?

Bookmark It

Four years into its mandate, the International Criminal Court has yet to secure a conviction for those accused of committing horrific war crimes since 2002. Yet again, the court has decided to drop charges against an accused war criminal due to lack of evidence. The latest war criminal to escape justice is Abu Garda of Darfur, who was accused of killing 12 African Union peacekeepers in 2007, and voluntarily turned himself in to authorities last year. However, ICC judges have ruled that there is not enough evidence against Abu Garda to support a trial.

According to the press release, the pre-trial Chamber:

“was not satisfied that there was sufficient evidence to establish substantial grounds to believe that Bahar Idriss Abu Garda could be held criminally responsible either as a direct or as an indirect co-perpetrator for the commission of the crimes”

This is on the heels of the dropped charges against the Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, the first case to go to trial at the ICC, for the same reason – lack of evidence. I had such high hopes for this institution, created as a permanent international court with the power to punish the most serious violations of human rights. The purpose of the court was to take away the ‘ad hoc’ nature of prosecutions of war crimes, which until the establishment of the ICC relied upon the political will of the international community to agree to the establishment of an international criminal tribunal, like the ones for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda.

The situation of Darfur was unique for the ICC as it was the first situation to be referred by the Security Council of the United Nations. Other cases have been referred to the Special Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, by the countries themselves affected. So given the lack of cooperation by the government in Sudan, I can understand the limitations with gathering evidence. However, this is a problem that appears to be plaguing the court.

Understandably, witnesses and evidence is a difficult thing to collect in a guerilla conflict. But is it the case that Mr. Ocampo is just not trying hard enough to gather the necessary evidence to secure a conviction? Or is it that Western legal standards are just unsuitable to trialling international war crimes? We clearly will never get a Law and Order: War Crimes and Atrocities Unit, in which teams of highly specialized forensic technologists scour desert and jungle floors for evidence that this particular armed rebel commited this particular atrocity. I would like to be able to say it should be enough that there is overwhelming evidence proving that you are a person of a particular rank within a particular armed group and that that armed group has been witnessed committing war crimes to convict that person of war crimes. Perhaps there is too much individual agency attributed to violators of international law. But clearly this would be problematic.

I don’t know what solution to offer the ICC and I’m sure their much more qualified legal experts are working hard to address their lack of success. I do hope for a win for the ICC sometime soon, as the institution is quickly losing credibility in the eyes of the international community.

Bookmark It

A group of baptist missionaries have been arrested in Haiti on charges of trafficking children for adoption purposes. The group of ten allegedly attempted to smuggle 33 Haitian children into the Dominican Republic to set up an orphanage. The children, aged two months to 14 years, it has been discovered, are not all orphans.

According to the missionaries:

The church members, most from Idaho, said their Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission was aimed at taking youngsters across the border to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, where arrangements can be made for their adoption.

A spokesman for the group said: “In this chaos we were just trying to do the right thing.”

It is not yet known how the group got the children, but since the disastrous earthquake struck Haiti, international adoptions from the country have surged, as well as illegal child traffickers. With high-profile third world adoptions such as those of Brangelina and Madonna have raised ethical questions about the transportation of children from vulnerable situations to the West. In the past few weeks, child welfare organisations have been flooded with offers from families in the US and elsewhere willing to adopt children, something British head of counter-trafficking Richard Danziger refers to as “cowboy adoptions.”

“In these kinds of situations, there are all types of charities and church groups with, to be fair, good intentions,” says Richard Danziger, head of counter trafficking at the International Office of Migration (IOM).

“But that’s not the way to go about it – it doesn’t help an already messy situation. Children with no documentation get whisked away, and their families don’t know what has happened to them. Not only is it against the law, but it is taking advantage of people in a lousy situation,” he said.

Haitian officials have spoken out against the attempted abduction, with Prime Minister Max Bellerive saying these missionaries “knew what they were doing is wrong.” Haitian Social Affairs Minister Yves Christallin said: “This is abduction, not adoption.” Cristalin went on to say, “This is totally illegal. No children can leave Haiti without proper authorization and these people did not have that authorization.” Haiti’s government has suspended international adoptions amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to child trafficking.

Another problem being witnessed are children being adopted whose parents are still alive, but in no position to provide for them since the devastation of the earthquake struck.

“Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners,” said Adonis Helman, 44. “I’ve been thinking how I will choose which one I may give.”

“My parents died in the earthquake. My husband has gone. Giving up one of my kids would at least give them a chance,” said Saintanne Petit-Frere, 40, a mother of six. “My only fear is that they would forget me, but that wouldn’t affect my decision.”

International laws exist to protect against child trafficking in international adoption. According to Louise Fulford from Save The Children:

the priority is to keep the children within their “communities, their ethnic group and their cultures.”

Under the Hague Convention there is a preference for family-based solutions, she says. The second preference is to consider national adoptions, and when these solutions are not feasible then inter-country adoption would be a viable option.

Adoption within the country will be hardest to arrange with children who have health problems, such as HIV/Aids, disabilities, or many siblings. “Unfortunately, with inter-country adoption, it tends to be more the parents choose the child. People tend to want to adopt healthy babies,” Ms Fulford says.

UN guidelines stipulate that there should be no national or international adoptions for two years, she adds.

“This provides time to trace relatives. In most emergencies you can trace family members. It will take time. In the meantime, aid agencies are prioritising children who are unaccompanied – they are being referred to interim care centres. Agencies are working day and night to locate children on their own.”

Even before the earthquake, Haiti battled child trafficking, with roughly 2,000 children trafficked from the country every year. According to Unicef’s Roshan Khadivi “These children generally ended up being used as domestic labour, being sexually abused or illegally adopted in the US and Canada.”

Clearly, the problem is that poverty-reduction strategies and aid have not been effective in enabling a basic sustenance level in pre-earthquake Haiti. Funding should be available to communities and families so that giving up children does not seem like the only option available. I’m happy to hear that adoptions have been put on hold by the Haitian government as clearly more time is needed to reunify families before well-meaning but painfully ignorant and misguided fundamentalists fly in and try to save the bodies and souls of these kids.

Bookmark It

I know it’s really en vogue to criticize the UN as a useless institution, but news today of the new special envoy appointed by Ban Ki-Moon to address sexual violence in conflict is a tremendous step in the right direction for international politics. In his words:

“I have informed the UNSC of my intention to appoint Margot Wallstrom, vice-president of the European Commission, as my special representative to intensify efforts to end sexual violence against women and children in conflict situations,” he said.

“We will continue efforts to end the conflicts in the east (of the Democratic Republic of Congo), restore state authority, facilitate the return of refugees, and protect civilians against all forms of violence including sexual violence,” Ban said.

“I’m horrified and outraged by the use of rape as a weapon of war,” he said.

I know very little about Margot Wallstrom, but in response to her appointment, she specifically addressed what she saw as the problem of people often explaining sexual violence in conflict as a “cultural” phenomenon:

“I say this is not cultural, it is criminal. It is a crime under international law and it is also a war crime,” she told Swedish public radio.

Rape has been a constant feature of war throughout history, used as a tool of communication between groups of men either for the purposes of asserting masculine dominance, of humiliating one’s opponent, or as a reward for good soldiering. Though quantitative data is not available, there seems to be a growing trend in contemporary conflicts to use extreme sexual violence as one of the primary tactics of warfare, and not simply as a by-product of conflict. Hundreds of thousands of women and young girls have been violently and brutally raped in eastern DRC, with most attacks averaging more than 4 perpetrators per victim. Women are being deliberately targeted and destructively abused in what can only be described as sexual genocide.

Though he doesn’t link the processes explicitly in his speech, Ban Ki-Moon speaks also of the economic and criminal activities dominating politics in the same regions witnessing most of the contemporary cases of extreme war rape:

The resurgence of unconstitutional changes of government in Africa is a matter of serious concern. These actions run counter to fundamental UN values, international law, and the AU’s own Constitutional Act. We must also guard against the manipulation of established processes to retain power.

Drug trafficking is also a rising threat to international peace and security in Africa. Criminal networks are very skilled at taking advantage of institutional weaknesses on the ground.

As we address all of these challenges, we must show our determination in the fight against impunity not only in Africa but around the world.

Well, allow me to make it explicit. Though I can’t speak authoritatively for every country, I can say from my research on the DRC and what I’ve read about Sudan that the sexual violence is being perpetrated as a systematic campaign to maintain the chaos necessary to control valuable resources, with the complicity of Western corporations, whose economic concerns clearly outweigh any moral compass they may purport to carry. I can’t help but wonder what obstacles Ban Ki-Moon will face in attempting to implement any recommendations to be found with this new envoy, since the West has already shown reluctance to do anything to address the influence of their corporations on encouraging and exacerbating conflicts in Africa.

I want to stay positive. Maybe with enough attention shone on the international political economy of war rape, something will actually be done to address the crime.

Bookmark It

A report commissioned by the UK government has found that gap between rich and poor is widening to levels worse than it was 40 years ago. The National Equality Panel found that “deep seated and systemic differences” remain between the wages and employment of men and women, and between majority and minority groups in the country.

Below is a graph of the results of the report for gender wage gap:

The report found that despite women up to the age of 44 having better qualifications than men, men are still paid up to 21% more per hour.

The report also found that religion and ethnicity are increasingly factors relating to one’s pay in the UK:

According to Panel Chair John Hill:

“Most people and nearly all political parties subscribe to the ideal of ‘equality of opportunity’, but advantage and disadvantage reinforce themselves over the life cycle. It is hard to argue that the large and systematic differences in outcomes which we document result from personal choices made against a background of equality of opportunity, however that is defined.”

What the report’s findings show is that class divides remain extremely strong in the UK, affecting children as young as 3 years of age. Differences in educational attainment among pre-school children are so stark that researchers believe that each extra £100 a month in household earnings when children are very young is worth a month of cognitive development. Additionally, the report found:

the divisions of early childhood widened as children grew older. By 16, half of all boys receiving free school meals have results in the bottom quarter in England. Once at work, the divisions grow further, with ethnicity and gender dramatically coming into play. Within four years of graduation, boys who went to private schools are earning 8 per cent more than their peers.

Despite girls outperforming boys in education, women earn about 21 per cent less than men hour for hour. The report found that the only women who enjoy any “wage progression” as they become more experienced are highly qualified professionals working in the public sector.

In older age there are large differ-ences in wealth. One in ten households aged 55 to 64 has houses, pension rights and other money worth less than £28,000. The richest 10 per cent have more than £1.3 million.

Income inequality is among the highest in the developed world, with Britain ranked in seventh place behind countries including the US, Mexico and Turkey. At best, Labour has managed only to slow a growing class divide dating back to the 1980s.

This is alarming news, and not just for women, who are doubly disadvantaged by being underpaid regardless of class or ethnic group, but for the very notion of equality in the western world, which is really just an idea sold to the lower classes to convince them to keep working harder for less pay just to fatten the pockets of the people with money and power and influence and, apparently, pensions.

Bookmark It