The Weapon of Rape

Kristof: The weapon of rape
By Nicholas D. Kristof
Monday, June 16, 2008
World leaders fight terrorism all the time, with summit meetings and sound bites and security initiatives. But they have studiously ignored one of the most common and brutal varieties of terrorism in the world today.
This is a kind of terrorism that disproportionately targets children. It involves not WMD but simply AK-47s, machetes and pointed sticks. It is mass rape - and it will be elevated, belatedly, to a spot on the international agenda this week.
The UN Security Council will hold a special session on sexual violence this Thursday, with Condoleezza Rice coming to New York to lead the debate. This session, sponsored by the United States and backed by a Security Council resolution calling for regular follow-up reports, just may help mass rape graduate from an unmentionable to a serious foreign policy issue.
The world woke up to this phenomenon in 1993, after discovering that Serbian forces had set up a network of "rape camps" in which women and girls, some as young as 12, were enslaved. Since then, we've seen similar patterns of systematic rape in many countries, and it has become clear that mass rape is not just a byproduct of war but also sometimes a deliberate weapon.
"Rape in war has been going on since time immemorial," said Stephen Lewis, a former Canadian ambassador who was the UN's envoy for AIDS in Africa. "But it has taken a new twist as commanders have used it as a strategy of war."
There are two reasons for this. First, mass rape is very effective militarily. From the viewpoint of a militia, getting into a firefight is risky, so it's preferable to terrorize civilians sympathetic to a rival group and drive them away, depriving the rivals of support.
Second, mass rape attracts less international scrutiny than piles of bodies do, because the issue is indelicate and the victims are usually too ashamed to speak up.
In Sudan, the government has turned Darfur into a rape camp. The first person to alert me to this was Zahra Abdelkarim, who had been kidnapped, gang-raped, mutilated - slashed with a sword on her leg - and then left naked and bleeding to wander back to her Zaghawa tribe. In effect, she had become a message to her people: Flee, or else.
Since then, this practice of "marking" the Darfur rape victims has become widespread: typically, the women are scarred or branded, or occasionally have their ears cut off. This is often done by police officers or soldiers, in uniform, as part of a coordinated government policy.
When the governments of South Africa, China, Libya and Indonesia support Sudan's positions in Darfur, do they really mean to adopt a pro-rape foreign policy?
The rape capital of the world is eastern Congo, where in some areas three-quarters of women have been raped. Sometimes the rapes are conducted with pointed sticks that leave the victims incontinent from internal injuries. A former UN force commander there, Patrick Cammaert, says it is "more dangerous to be a woman than to be a soldier."
The international community's response so far? Approximately: "Not our problem."
Yet such rapes also complicate post-conflict recovery, with sexual violence lingering even after peace has been restored. In Liberia, the civil war is over but rape is still epidemic.
Painfully slowly, the United Nations and its member states seem to be recognizing the fact that systematic mass rape is at least as much an international outrage as, say, pirated DVDs. Yet China and Russia are resisting any new reporting mechanism for sexual violence, seeing such rapes as tragic but simply a criminal matter.
On the contrary, systematic rape has properly been found by international tribunals to constitute a crime against humanity, and it thrives in part because the world shrugs. The UN could do far more to provide health services to victims of mass rape and to insist that peacekeepers at least try to stop it.
In Congo, the doctors at Heal Africa Hospital and Panzi Hospital (healafrica.org and panzihospitalbukavu.org) repair the internal injuries of rape victims with skill and humanity. But my most indelible memory from my most recent visit, last year, came as I was interviewing a woman who had been gang-raped.
I had taken her aside to protect her privacy, but a large group of women suddenly approached. I tried to shoo them away, and then the women explained that they had all been gang-raped and had decided that despite the stigma and risk of reprisal, they would all tell their stories.
So let's hope that this week the world's leaders and diplomats stop offering excuses for paralysis and begin emulating the courageous outspokenness of those Congolese women.

STOP RAPE NOW
GO TO THIS U.N. WEB SITE AND MAKE THE DIFFERENCE!!



News of the U.N. Web Site STOP RAPE NOW!



Women targeted or affected by armed conflict:What role for military peacekeepers?
From Ms. Kathleen Cravero, Assistant Administrator UNDP and Director Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery
On behalf of Stop Rape Now: UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict, I want to thank Wilton Park for hosting this important event and for giving me the opportunity to address this conference. (.DOC format)
Security Council Expresses Deepest Concern at Continued Civilian Suffering During Conflict, Condemns all Violations of Humanitarian Law Threatening Non-Combatants
From UN Security Council website
Expressing its deepest concern that civilians continued to suffer the brunt of the violence during armed conflicts, the Security Council this afternoon condemned all violations of international law that threatened non-combatants and reaffirmed the responsibility of States and other parties of conflicts to protect them.
UN: Take Action Against Rape in War
From Human Rights Watch website
(New York, May 27, 2008) – The United Nations Security Council has a unique opportunity to correct its historic failure to address sexual violence against women and girls in conflict, Human Rights Watch said today. On May 27, 2008, John Holmes, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, is to address the council on the protection of civilians in conflict, and is expected to call for more consistent and better coordinated action to prevent sexual violence.
War's other victims - The scale of an unspeakable horror
From The Economist print edition
FROM Bosnia's rape camps and the horrors of Rwanda's genocide in the 1990s to the atrocities being perpetrated daily in northern Congo and Sudan's Darfur region, the tally of body bags runs alongside another grim body count: the numbers of women and girls, but in some places men and boys too, subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence.
Hundreds of thousands of women raped for being on the wrong side
Chris McGreal, The Guardian, November 12, 2007
Rape has been used to terrorise and punish civilians in Congo who support the "wrong side", and it is perhaps no coincidence that it was also a tool of genocide in the mass murder of the Tutsis.
DR Congo: UN official decries sexual violence, urges stronger response
UN News, November 06, 2007
UN member states were Tuesday urged to do more to protect women from pervasive sexual violence in armed conflict and to give them a greater voice in matters of war and peace.
Stop using women's bodies as 'battleground' in wartime: UN
AFP in Turkish Press, October 23, 2007
UN member states were Tuesday urged to do more to protect women from pervasive sexual violence in armed conflict and to give them a greater voice in matters of war and peace.
Security Council Deeply Concerned About ‘Pervasive’ Gender-Based Violence, as it Holds Day-long Debate on Women, Peace, and Security
UN Press release (DPI), 23 October 2007
In a statement read out by Akwasi Ose-Adjei, Foreign Minister of Ghana, which holds the rotating presidency for October, the Council said such acts had become systematic in some situations, reaching “appalling levels of atrocity.
Congo's rape war
John Holmes, October 11, 2007
Despite many warnings, nothing quite prepared me for what I heard last month from survivors of a sexual violence so brutal it staggers the imagination and mocked my notions of human decency.
Rape Epidemic Raises Trauma of Congo War
Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, October 7, 2007
Stephen Lewis calls for a new UN initiative to end sexual violence in the eastern region of the DRC
Press conference, September 13, 2007



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Burma: Was it a surprise?

BURMA: HOPE VETOED
By Brad AdamsIf there is any surprise inside governments or the UN over the Burmese military regime's obstruction of international aid efforts following the devastating Cyclone Nargis, then they haven't been watching the country closely enough.Read more at: http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/06/04/burma19028.htm

Good News from HRW

111 Nations Agree to Landmark Ban on Cluster Bombs
In a major victory, more than 110 nations agreed on May 28 in Dublin to a strong international treaty banning cluster munitions. In February 2007, Human Rights Watch helped launch a global campaign to prohibit the use of cluster bombs. We coordinated international treaty negotiation efforts and defeated attempts to weaken the treaty text. Human Rights Watch also successfully countered US efforts to pressure its allies to undermine the ban. As a result, in a decisive policy shift, Britain and other NATO allies endorsed the cluster ban treaty. Cluster munitions contain "bomblets" that are scattered from planes or by artillery shells and detonate like landmines. Thousands of unsuspecting civilians, many of them children, are killed or maimed by dormant cluster bombs each year. Like the ban against landmines, the cluster munitions ban represents a momentous advancement in the protection of people affected by conflict. Learn more.

Fewer Conflicts Involve Child Soldiers
The number of conflicts in which children are used as soldiers has dropped sharply over the past four years, according to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers’ 2008 Child Soldiers Global Report. Human Rights Watch is a leading member of the coalition, which surveyed military recruitment, policy, and practice in more than 190 countries. The report found that the number of conflicts using child soldiers has declined from 24 to 17 since 2004. Tens of thousands of children have been released from armed groups, as long-running conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere have ended. High-profile prosecutions by the International Criminal Court also seem to have contributed to enhanced public consciousness of child soldier recruitment as a crime. Despite these signs of progress, Human Rights Watch continues to document the use of children in conflict and to advocate that the children who are demobilized should get the rehabilitation they desperately need.Read more.

European Parliament, Belgian Senate, and Liberal International Party Endorse Yogyakarta Principles
In a recent victory for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, Human Rights Watch successfully pushed for the endorsement and use of the Yogyakarta Principles by the European Parliament, Belgian Senate, and Liberal International Party. Human Rights Watch wrote targeted resolutions on the rights of LGBT people for these political bodies. The Yogyakarta Principles were adopted by a meeting of international law experts in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in November 2006 in response to well-documented patterns of abuse against millions of people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Principles set forth legal standards and recommendations for how governments and UN agencies can end widespread violence, abuse, and discrimination against LGBT people worldwide. Read more.


IN THE NEWS - Op-Eds by Staff HRW
After Guantánamo: The Case Against Preventive Detention Writing in Foreign Affairs, Kenneth Roth, executive director for Human Rights Watch, argues that terrorism suspects should be tried in the US justice system rather than languish in preventive detention.
Assessing the Human Cost of Air Strikes in Iraq In an interview with National Public Radio, Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst for Human Rights Watch and former chief of high-value targeting for the Pentagon in 2003 during the Iraq war, reviews the loss of civilian life due to air strikes in Iraq and argues for greater restraint in how air strikes are used.
China Must Expand Press Freedom in Lead-up to 2008 Olympic Games Speaking to the Carnegie Council as part of an expert panel on China and human rights, Minky Worden, media director for Human Rights Watch, discusses the need to extend the temporary press freedoms given to Western journalists beyond the Games and to grant Chinese journalists the same freedoms as their international colleagues.

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Facing America's great immigration panic

Facing America's great immigration panic


Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Someday, the United States will recognize the true cost of its war on illegal immigration. We don't mean dollars, though those are being squandered by the billions. The true cost is to the national identity: the sense of who we are and what we value. It will hit us once the enforcement fever breaks, when we look at what has been done and no longer recognize the country that did it.

A nation of immigrants is holding another nation of immigrants in bondage, exploiting its labor while ignoring its suffering, condemning its lawlessness while sealing off a path to living lawfully. The evidence is all around that something pragmatic and welcoming at the American core has been eclipsed.

An escalating campaign of raids in homes and workplaces has spread indiscriminate terror among millions of people who pose no threat.

After the largest raid ever last month - at a meat-packing plant in Iowa - hundreds of people were swiftly force-fed through the legal system and sent to prison. Civil-rights lawyers complained, futilely, that workers had been treated more as a presumptive criminal gang than as potentially exploited workers who deserved a fair hearing. The company that harnessed their desperation, like so many others, has faced no charges.

Immigrants in detention languish without lawyers and decent medical care even when they are mortally ill. Lawmakers are struggling to impose standards and oversight on a system deficient in both. Counties and towns with spare jail cells are lining up for federal contracts as prosecutions fill the system to bursting.

This is not about forcing people to go home and come back the right way. Ellis Island is closed. Legal paths are clogged or do not exist.

Some backlogs are so long that they are measured in decades. A bill to fix the system died a year ago this month. The current strategy, embraced by Republicans and some Democrats, is to force millions into fear and poverty.

There are few national figures standing firm against restrictionism. Senator Edward Kennedy has bravely done so for four decades, but his Senate colleagues who are running for president seem by comparison to be in hiding. John McCain supported sensible reform, but whenever he mentions it, his party starts braying and he leaves the room. Hillary Rodham Clinton has lost her voice on this issue more than once. Barack Obama might someday test his vision of a new politics against restrictionist hatred, but he has not yet done so. The public's moderation on immigration reform, confirmed in poll after poll, begs the candidates to confront the issue with courage and a plan. But they have been vague when they should be forceful and unflinching.

The restrictionist message refuses to recognize that illegality is not an identity; it is a status that can be mended by making reparations and resuming a lawful life. Unless the nation contains its enforcement compulsion, illegal immigrants will remain forever "Them" and never "Us."

Every time America has singled out a group of newly arrived immigrants for unjust punishment, the shame has echoed through history. Think of the Chinese and Irish, Catholics and Americans of Japanese ancestry. Children someday will study the Great Immigration Panic of this century, which hurt countless lives and mocked the nation's most deeply held values.

At food crisis talks, menu is rich with politics

At food crisis talks, menu is rich with politics
By Elisabeth Rosenthal and Andrew Martin

Wednesday, June 4, 2008
ROME: It was supposed to be an emergency conference on food shortages, climate change and energy. At the opening ceremony Tuesday, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, noted that there were nearly one billion people short of food and called upon countries gathered here to act with "a sense of purpose and mission."

"Only by acting together, in partnership, can we overcome this crisis," he said.

But when the microphone was opened to the powerful politicians who had flown in from all over the world, they spoke mostly about economics and politics.

The U.S. secretary of agriculture, Ed Schafer, talked about the benefits of biofuels and how genetically modified crops could ease world hunger. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil spoke for half an hour about how Brazilian biofuels were superior to the U.S. offerings. The president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, talked about how colonialism had created the food crisis. And President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran spoke of the need to inject religion into food politics.

Everyone complained about protectionism, though not their own.

On Wednesday, food experts as well as many representatives from poor countries wondered whether these divided forces could add up to a solution to a global conundrum: how to feed one billion hungry people.

"What is the common denominator here? It is a food crisis," said President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of Congo. "That is the immediate problem for us."

At the three-day conference put on here by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, there was a lot of argument this week about whether the high food prices were caused by the rush to biofuels, protective tariffs, the soaring price of oil or distorting subsidies.

There has been much less talk about donors developing the new kind of aid program that most experts agree is needed: one that invests in developing agriculture in poor countries and spends less to ship food halfway around the world to feed hungry people.

"The era of food aid is over - there is no more sending food from America to Africa," Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, said in an interview.

Annan was in Rome to announce his latest project, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, a joint program with several UN agencies to assist small African farmers in increasing their output. Donors, he said, need to do more to improve agricultural practice in Africa and Asia, by providing tools, fertilizers, seeds, silos and knowledge.

"Away from the cameras, I am starting to hear the right things," he said, noting that African agricultural productivity has dropped for the past two decades. "I'm hoping they will go home and adopt policies to ensure global food production, on the ground, in Africa, Africa and Asia. It's much more effective."

Indeed, officials from many major donor countries said they had been rethinking food aid policies, if only because food prices are now so high and transport is impossibly expensive, with oil costing more than $130 a barrel. Also, "there are no more surpluses" for food aid, since crops are also used for fuel, Annan said.

Henrietta Fore, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said that transport costs were now soaking up 50 percent of the agency's food aid money and that rising prices of essential commodities like oil were "eating away at our purchasing power."

In the past, the U.S. program was heavily weighted toward sending food abroad, and required that its aid be purchased in the United States and transported on American vessels.

"This crisis has made people think again," she said. "We have a new landscape for food and food needs."

Fore said that in a bill now before Congress, 25 percent of food in a new $350 million aid package could be purchased overseas. But even that has not been approved yet.

In the meantime, many representatives from poorer countries expressed frustration at the tenor of the meeting.

"We believe the problem is much more political than everything else," said Walter Poveda Ricaurte, the Ecuadorean agriculture minister. "We have to differentiate between the countries who are really affected by the food crisis and those who are seeing it as an economic opportunity."

He said that when food prices were low, in recent decades, Ecuador had stopped producing its own wheat, corn and soy, favoring cheap imports instead. Now that prices of these commodities have doubled in the past year, the country can no longer afford them, he said.

The conference has raised money: The Islamic Development Bank pledged $1.5 billion Wednesday. The UN secretary general estimated that $15 billion to $20 billion was needed.

But there was little sign that the economic and political disputes that often took center stage here had resulted in new compromises.

Lula attacked the "absurdly protectionist farm policies in rich countries," a clear reference to the United States, which protects its own corn ethanol from competition with Brazilian ethanol, made from sugar cane.

U.S. delegates attacked barriers to trade in poorer countries, which they said made it harder to send food aid, as well as in the European Union, which has resisted allowing the sale of U.S.-made genetically modified seeds.

China, which has not invested heavily in biofuels, said that "grain-based biofuel has driven up grain utilization and has the potential to trigger more far-reaching problems."

Officials at the Food and Agriculture Organization were sanguine about the results. "Sometimes I think the discussion is not focused on the need of countries and poor people," said José Maria Sumpsi, assistant director general of the organization. "But you have to take into account that you are hearing the positions of the governments - defending their political views - which is different from whether they will fund immediate action."

The conference will issue its concluding statement Thursday, and delegates said the wording of the section on biofuels had emerged as a point of contention. The United States says that only 2 to 3 percent of the global increase in food prices is attributable to competition from biofuels. But other countries put the figure far higher.

"I doubt there will be a positive agreement on biofuels," said Schafer, the U.S. agriculture secretary, though he indicated that some "acceptable" language would be in the document.

Weltbank-Chef auf Welternährungsgipfel in Rom

Drei Schritte im Kampf gegen den Hunger
"Wir sind verpflichtet zu handeln, jetzt und gemeinsam." Der Appell des UN-Generalsekretärs auf dem Ernährungsgipfel in Rom richtet sich an die ganze Welt. Und Handeln sei möglich, da Hunger keine Naturkatastrophe sei, sagte Weltbank-Chef Zoellick. Er nannte drei Schritte.

Von Werner Eckert, SWR, zur Zeit in Rom

Ohne Geld geht es nicht, sagt UN-Generalsekretär Ban Ki Moon. In Rom forderte er etwa 15 bis 20 Milliarden Dollar mehr pro Jahr. Damit könnten Notprogramme für die am meisten vom Hunger betroffenen Länder aufgelegt werden.
Unterstützt wurde der UN-Generalsekretär von Robert Zoellick, dem Präsidenten der Weltbank. Es sei genug geredet worden, sagte der. Der Hunger sei keine Naturkatastrophe. Und alle, die in Rom zusammen seien, wüssten, was zu tun ist.

Erstens, zweitens, drittens ...
Zoellick jedenfalls verlangte drei Dinge ganz entschieden: "Zum ersten schlage ich vor, dass diese Konferenz sich verpflichtet, den 20 ärmsten Länder sofort zu helfen. Das muss bis zum G8-Treffen im Juli passieren." Dann müssten die Konferenzteilnehmer in Rom festlegen, dass Saatgut und Dünger zu den Kleinbauern gebracht werde, damit die nächste Ernte gesichert sei. „Das kann den Unterschied zwischen Essen und Hungern ausmachen“, fügte er hinzu. Und Länder müssten ihre Ausfuhrsperren aufheben, die die Preise hochgetrieben hätten und den Ärmsten schadeten.
Wenn diese drei Dinge passierten, dann habe die Rom-Konferenz ihre Arbeit gemacht, sagt der Weltbank-Präsident. Dossier: Hungerkrise auf drei Kontinenten Reportagen und Hintergründe [mehr]
Es geht nicht nur um Biosprit
Die Chefs der UN-Organisationen versuchen vor allem den Eindruck zu verwischen, dass um Biosprit gestritten wird. Viel mehr sprechen sie davon, dass weltweit wieder mehr Nahrungsmittel erzeugt werden müssten und könnten.
Jacques Diouff von der Welternährungsorganisation FAO verwies darauf, dass in manchen Ländern nur zwei Prozent der Bevölkerung Bauern seien und trotzdem noch Überschüsse produzierten. In anderen Ländern könnten 60 bis 80 Prozent der Menschen die Versorgung mit Nahrungsmitteln nicht ausreichend sicherstellen. Denen müsse geholfen werden, damit sie mehr erzeugen könnten.
Umverteilung in Afrika
Ban Ki Moons Vorgänger, Kofi Annan, hat dazu in Rom eine gemeinsame Initiative vieler Organisationen vorgestellt. Das Programm setzt bei den ertragreichen afrikanischen Regionen an: zum Beispiel Mais aus Südafrika, Hirse aus dem Sahel für den afrikanischen Markt. Sechs Prozent höhere Erträge jedes Jahr sind das Ziel.
Ban Ki Moon zeigte sich zuversichtlich, dass die Konferenz konkrete Ergebnisse bringen werde: "Wir können uns nicht leisten, diesen Kampf zu verlieren, der Hunger ist unser Feind. Hunger zerstört alles, wofür wir in den vergangenen Jahren gekämpft haben. Hunger destabilisiert und schafft Konflikte. Wir sind verpflichtet zu handeln, jetzt und gemeinsam."
Reiskrise: "Jeder Preisanstieg für die Armen gefährlich".
Welternährungsgipfel will Lebensmittelkrise lösen.
Dossier: Hungerkatastrophe auf drei Kontinenten.
Linksammlung zur Hungerkrise.
Erfolge und Sorgen vor dem letzten Gipfel-Tag [W. Eckert, SWR].

UN blames rich nations for food shortages

UN blames rich nations for food shortages
By Elisabeth Rosenthal and Andrew Martin

Tuesday, June 3, 2008
ROME: Resolving the global food crisis could cost as much as $30 billion a year, and wealthier nations are doing little to help developing nations, United Nations officials said here Tuesday.

Dozens of world leaders - from President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon - descended on Rome on Tuesday for a three-day conference devoted to food security at a time when food prices are at their highest in more than three decades and food stores are at perilous lows.

Jacques Diouf, director general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and host of the summit, sharply criticized wealthy nations that he said were cutting spending on agriculture programs for the world's poor while spending billions on carbon markets, subsidies for their own farmers and biofuel production.

"The developing countries did, in fact, forge policies, strategies and programs that, if they had received appropriate funding, would have given us world food security," Diouf said, adding that the international community finally mobilized to help only after images of food riots and hunger emerged in the media.

He said there had been plenty of meetings on the need for anti-hunger programs and agricultural development in poor nations in the last decade, but not enough money to make them a reality.

Another major debate at the conference centered on the role of biofuels in producing food shortages. The U.S. delegation here, headed by Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, maintains that only 2 to 3 percent of the increases in food prices are attributable to the biofuel boom. But UN officials said the contribution was much higher.

Biofuel production affects food prices because farmers in many countries have switched from growing crops for food to growing crops for fuel.

Diouf criticized policies like those in the United States that subsidize growing crops for energy. He said that billion-dollar subsidies and protective tariff policies "have the effect of diverting 100 million tons of cereals from human consumption, mostly to satisfy the thirst for fuel for vehicles."

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil argued that some biofuels could provide a solution to world hunger if properly deployed. In Brazil, where biofuel is made from sugar cane, the industry has provided jobs for poor people as well as sustainable fuel, he said.

The idea that biofuels have caused the world hunger crisis is "an oversimplification" and "an affront that does not stand up to serious discussion," da Silva said. He instead blamed high fuel prices for the high cost of food.

"It offends me to see fingers pointed at biofuels, when the fingers are coated in oil and coal," he said.

There was little disagreement at the meeting about what measures were needed to resolve the spiraling costs of food and its impact on the world's poor: more food aid; additional seeds and fertilizer for poor farmers; fewer export bans and tariffs that restrict the flow of trade; and more agriculture research to improve crop yields.

Ban, the UN secretary general, appealed for immediate financial support from wealthy nations.

"I call on you to take bold and urgent steps to address the root cause of the global food crisis," he said. "This will not be easy. It may require big increases in financial support."

Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, said his goal for the conference was to come away with specific proposals for action, rather than its simply being "a talkfest." He emphasized three immediate priorities: helping the 20 most vulnerable countries feed its hungry; providing seeds and fertilizer to small farmers before the upcoming planting season; and scrapping export bans and restrictions.

Some food experts emphasized that high prices reflected global changes that are likely to be longstanding.

"As high as food prices are, I think over time the overall trend will be to get higher," said Cary Fowler, executive secretary of the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

He said that the current food crisis was different from previous food shortages in that it reflected new and long-term trends: dramatically fluctuating climates in major food-producing countries caused by global warming; higher fuels prices; the shift to meat eating in the developing world; and large foreign currency reserves in countries like Russia and China, allowing them to make large food purchases on the global market.

In addition, the United States and others have suggested that genetically modified crops could play a key role in helping poor nations grow more food, a point that some governments and nonprofit organizations strongly oppose. The United States is by far the world's leading producer of genetically modified crops and seeds.

And at a meeting devoted largely to the economics of food, dominated by talk of biofuels and genetically modified crops, many charitable groups said more basic concerns had been overlooked.

Susan Shepherd of Médecins Sans Frontières said that in Niger, where she works, higher prices meant that families bought less food - or less nutritious food - for their children.

"Even Ban Ki Moon was talking about economics. The only one who really focused on hunger and malnutrition - about the people who go hungry - was the pope," she said, referring to a message from Pope Benedict XVI read at the conference.

Violencia Contra Mujeres - Ciudad Juárez

Violencia Contra Mujeres - Ciudad Juárez
To members of Amnistía Internacional México

MÉXICO Marisela Ortiz Rivera, defensora de los derechos humanos
Norma Andrade, defensora de los derechos humanosMaría Luisa García Andrade, defensora de los derechos humanos
Miembros de Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa
Los miembros de una organización creada para luchar por la justicia para las mujeres secuestradas y asesinadas en Ciudad Juárez, estado de Chihuahua, han recibido amenazas aparentemente relacionadas con el estreno de la película “Bordertown”, basada libremente en las historias de las mujeres asesinadas. Algunos miembros de Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa han apoyado el estreno de la película como una forma de dar a conocer los asesinatos de mujeres en Ciudad Juárez.El 25 de mayo, varias mujeres miembro de Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa recibieron un mensaje de correo electrónico en el que las acusaban de beneficiarse de la película y las amenazaban a ellas y a sus hijas.

El mensaje decía: “Pinchis biejas kuleras con tal de aserse famosas ya dieron las nalgas con la pelicula Bordertaun. No sigan robando a las madres que meresen ayuda, largense de Juaritos si nno les gusta. Dejen en pas a los Juarenses que ya nos tienen asta la madre con sus pinchis kejas de mierda les bamos a dar asta por el culo, por pinchis chismosas y exajeradas. No se estranen ke un dia les cojan a sus hijas y se las regresen en pedasos. Las bamos a chingar dandoles donde mas les duela hijas de la mierda, prinsipalmente a la puta de Malu Garsia y la ipocrita de la Maricela. No se descuiden porke pronto tendran notisias desagradadbles.[sic]”

El 16 de mayo se estrenó “Bordertown” en Ciudad Juárez. Los miembros de Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa han dicho a Amnistía Internacional que, en los días previos, recibieron mensajes SMS anónimos en sus teléfonos móviles, en los que les decían que no apoyaran la película, las acusaban de sacar dinero de la situación y las amenazaban con investigarlas y encarcelarlas.

INFORMACIÓN COMPLEMENTARIA
Más de 430 mujeres y niñas han sido asesinadas en Ciudad Juárez y la ciudad de Chihuahua desde 1993. Aproximadamente uno de cada tres de estos asesinatos entrañaba alguna forma de violencia sexual. En 2003, Amnistía Internacional publicó el informe México: Muertes intolerables
(AMR 41/026/2003: http://www.amnesty.org/es/library/info/AMR41/026/2003),
en el que destacaba el patrón de violencia contra mujeres en estas dos ciudades y la falta sistemática de medidas por parte de las autoridades para prevenir y castigar de forma efectiva estos crímenes. Desde entonces, el gobierno del estado de Chihuahua ha tomado medidas para mejorar las investigaciones, pero muchos autores de los crímenes no han sido procesados y los responsables de la ausencia sistemática de investigaciones no han rendido cuentas de sus actos. Sigue sin saberse nada de más de 30 mujeres presuntamente secuestradas. En 2008, al menos 17 mujeres han sido asesinadas. Los miembros de organizaciones como Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa han estado en primera línea de la campaña por la verdad y la justicia, y han presentado varios casos ante la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. Las organizaciones de derechos humanos que trabajan sobre la cuestión han sido acusadas con frecuencia de beneficiarse de los casos y dañar la imagen de Ciudad Juárez. También han sufrido, en varias ocasiones, amenazas y ataques, cuyos autores no han comparecido ante la justicia.

ACCIONES RECOMENDADAS: Envíen llamamientos para que lleguen lo más rápidamente posible, en español o en su propio idioma:- expresando preocupación por las amenazas contra Maricela Ortiz Rivera, María Luisa García Andrade, Norma Andrade y otros miembros de Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa;- pidiendo a las autoridades que asignen medidas adecuadas de protección a las personas en peligro, conforme a los deseos de las propias amenazadas;- instando a las autoridades a llevar a cabo una investigación inmediata e imparcial para identificar a los responsables del mensaje de correo electrónico y las amenazas por mensaje de texto recibidos por Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa en las últimas semanas, y a llevarlos ante la justicia;- pidiendo a las autoridades que cumplan con las obligaciones contraídas en virtud de la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Derecho y el Deber de los Individuos, los Grupos y las Instituciones de Promover y Proteger los Derechos Humanos y las Libertades Fundamentales Universalmente Reconocidos, y que garanticen que los defensores y defensoras de los derechos humanos pueden ejercer su derecho a llevar a cabo sus actividades sin restricciones y sin temor a represalias.

LLAMAMIENTOS A:
Lic. Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo Secretario de Gobernación, Secretaría de Gobernación Bucareli 99, 1er. piso, Col. Juárez, Delegación Cuauhtémoc, México D.F., C.P.06600, MÉXICOFax: +52 55 5093 3414/15/16 (para confirmar recepción /17)*Correo-e.: secretario@segob.gob.mx
Tratamiento: Señor Secretario

Lic. José Reyes Baeza Terrazas Gobernador del Estado de Chihuahua, Palacio de Gobierno, 1er piso, C. Aldama #901, Col. Centro,Chihuahua, Estado de Chihuahua, C.P. 31000, MÉXICOFax: +52 614 429 3300 ext. 11066
Tratamiento: Señor Gobernador

Patricia González Rodríguez Procuradora del Estado de Chihuahua, Procuraduría General de Justicia del EstadoVicente Guerrero 616, Col. Centro, Chihuahua 31000, Estado de Chihuahua, MÉXICOFax: +52 614 415 0314
Tratamiento: Señora Procuradora General

COPIA A:Dra. Guadalupe Morfín Otero Fiscal Especial para la Atención de Delitos Relacionados con Actos de Violencia contra las Mujeres Procuraduría General de la República,Río Elba, No. 17, Col. Cuauhtémoc, Del. Cuauhtémoc, México D.F, C.P. 06300, MÉXICOFax: +52 55 5346 2540Correo-e.: atencionmujeres@pgr.gob.mx
Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a CasaCorreo-e.: nuestrashijas@gmail.comy a la representación diplomática de México acreditada en su país.

ENVÍEN SUS LLAMAMIENTOS INMEDIATAMENTE.

Despite promises, Myanmar limits access for aid agencies

BANGKOK: One month after a powerful cyclone struck Myanmar and 10 days after the ruling junta's leader promised full access to the hardest-hit areas, relief agencies said Monday that they were still having difficulty reaching hundreds of thousands of survivors who are in urgent need of assistance.
Over the past week, they said, the door has opened slightly and a number of foreign experts have been allowed to travel into the Irrawaddy Delta, which bore the brunt of the May 3 storm. A modest flow of food, medicine and other supplies has begun to enter the delta by truck and barge.
But the agencies said that travel permits for international experts are limited and irregular and that dozens of relief workers remained stranded in the main city, Yangon.
"Several have been able to make essentially day trips to work with our field staff there," Paul Risley, a spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program, said Monday. "But access remains a continuing challenge."
A spokesman for the UN disaster relief agency said Monday that as of two days before, 15 foreign experts representing UN agencies were in the delta.
Analysts of Myanmar said they feared that the junta was playing a game of hints, promises and deception that it has used successfully over the years to deflect criticism from abroad.
"In all these crises that the Burmese face, there always is the teaser to take the pressure off the government," said Josef Silverstein, an expert on Myanmar at Rutgers University. "They seem like they are going to cooperate, and just as soon as comment dies down, anything that is going to be useful dies with it," he said. "Look back at the 'saffron revolution,' when they made all kinds of promises about what they were going to do and nothing happened."
He was referring to a peaceful uprising led by monks that was crushed in September. The junta's promises included a dialogue with the democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but it dropped the idea after international attention had moved on.
In Geneva, the outgoing United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, said the failure of the world to pressure Myanmar more strongly on human rights issues made it easier for the junta to keep out cyclone relief. "The obstruction to the deployment of such assistance illustrates the invidious effects of long-standing international tolerance for human rights violations," she said.
The United Nations estimates that 2.4 million people were severely affected by the cyclone and said last week that 1.4 million of those remained in desperate need of food, clean water, shelter and medical care. The government says that 134,000 people died or are missing.
International relief agencies have complained strenuously that the junta that rules the country was barring foreign aid and foreign relief workers from the worst-affected areas and endangering the lives of the survivors.
On May 28 in Yangon, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, said the junta's leader, Senior General Than Shwe, had promised free access to foreign aid workers. Two days later, at a donor conference in Yangon, foreign nations pledged about $150 million in aid but most said it was contingent on access by foreign relief workers.
Returning to New York, Ban said that the government "appears to be moving in the right direction" and that "I hope, and I believe, that this marks a new spirit of cooperation between Myanmar and the international community."
But relief workers said it was precisely the spirit of cooperation that was missing. After a 10-day delay, the junta allowed the first of 10 World Food Program helicopters to carry supplies from Yangon into the delta. The other nine were in Thailand en route to Myanmar, Risley said. He also said that barges and smaller craft were delivering supplies to hard-hit areas.
The government has allowed U.S. aircraft to land with relief materials but has barred American workers from leaving Yangon Airport to deliver them. It has turned away U.S., French and British naval vessels loaded with supplies.
In defiance of the views of the international community, the junta insists the emergency phase of the disaster has passed and according to various accounts has begun forcing survivors from shelters back into the devastated countryside.
According to Human Rights Watch, thousands of displaced people have been evicted from schools, monasteries and public buildings.
Anupama Rao Singh, regional director of the UN Children's Fund, warned after a visit to the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta that any resettlement would be premature, even if it was voluntary.
"Many of the villages remain inundated with water, making it difficult to rebuild," she said. "There is also a real risk that once they are resettled, they will be invisible to aid workers. Without support and continued service to those affected, there is a risk of a second wave of disease and devastation."
The government also said it would reopen schools with the start of the new term this week, though many school buildings were destroyed and many teachers were swept to their deaths. Unicef said that more than 4,000 schools serving 1.1 million children were damaged or totally destroyed by the storm and more than 100 teachers were killed.
"I think the generals are doing what they do best, taking charge of everything, trying to keep themselves in complete control," said Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese political analyst who lives in Thailand.
"The military has this colonial trauma," he said. "They say, 'Under the British for more than a hundred years we were enslaved.' They view the pressure as a new form of neocolonialism."

Cluster bombs, made in America

On Friday, 111 nations, including major NATO allies, adopted a treaty that sets an eight-year deadline to eliminate stockpiles of cluster arms - pernicious weapons that scatter thousands of small bombs across a wide area, where they pose a long-term deadly threat to innocents. The Bush administration not only failed to sign the treaty but vigorously opposed it.
After marching in lockstep for years, even Britain broke with America's position and agreed to withdraw its weapons from use. That dealt a much-needed blow to Washington's long-standing opposition to this sort of sensible arms control, and in particular to this treaty-averse administration.
The campaign to ban cluster munitions, pressed by human rights activists, never attained quite the high profile of the one to ban land mines, a treaty that Washington also refused to sign. But the two weapons have this in common: Both wreak more damage on civilians than soldiers and present a threat long after war ends.
Cluster munitions, fired from aircraft or artillery, spray small "bomblets" over an expanse the size of two or three football fields. Many do not explode on impact but can be triggered by unsuspecting civilians. The most appalling of these devices can look like a can of food or a toy.
No one has more invested in cluster munitions than the United States, which Human Rights Watch says has been the largest producer, stockpiler and user, using them in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Others that have used them include Britain, France, Sudan, NATO, Israel and Hezbollah.
United States officials insist the Pentagon must have such munitions. That is what the Clinton administration said when it opposed the land-mine treaty in 1997. It is a weak argument: Cluster bombs are weapons for conventional battlefields. America is less likely to fight big conventional wars than counterinsurgency conflicts in population centers, no place for munitions that kill indiscriminately.

As the main holdout, the U.S. gives cover to countries like Russia and China, which also rejected the ban. The treaty is weaker for it: Together, these three nations have more than a billion cluster munitions stockpiled, far more than the number of weapons to be destroyed. Also weakening the pact is a loophole that will let America continue military cooperation with treaty signers, even if it uses cluster munitions.
At least this treaty, like the land-mine ban, will stigmatize cluster munitions and make it harder to use them. Since the land-mine treaty entered into force, experts say more than 40 million have been destroyed, trade in land mines has virtually ended, and in 2007 only two countries - Russia and Myanmar - used them. The United States has paid $1.2 billion (more than any other nation) to defuse land mines and clean up war zones.
Modern nations need a range of weapons to protect their legitimate interests. Cluster munitions that disproportionately harm civilians are not among them. President George W. Bush must resist the temptation to further sabotage this worthy treaty and let it take effect.
It is not clear where the candidates stand on the treaty, but the next president, whoever it is, should repudiate Bush's opposition and sign it.

Crisis Alimentaria! haz algo

Amig@s,
Líderes políticos de todo el Mundo están reunidos en Roma para encontrar una solución al urgente problema de la alza de precios de los alimentos. ¡Juntemos 1 millón de firmas!
Firma aquí
Los precios de los alimentos a nivel mundial han subido a una velocidad record. Desde Bangladesh hasta Sudáfrica cientos de miles de personas hambrientas han salido a protestar a las calles. Los expertos advierten que 100 millones de personas están al borde de la inanición. La ONU organizó una reunión urgente sobre la crisis alimentaria. Necesitamos asegurar que en ese encuentro se tomen medidas duraderas que respondan a las causas profundas de la pobreza y el hambre y no solo reformas superficiales que perpetúen el actual sistema injusto de intercambio y producción de alimentos. Ban Ki Moon, el Secretario General de la ONU, aceptará nuestra petición personalmente este miércoles en Roma. Esta es una gran oportunidad para hacernos oír directamente por las personas que formulan las políticas agrícolas que tanto nos afectan.

Necesitamos conseguir un millón de firmas para que nuestro mensaje sea lo más claro y fuerte posible, por favor, firma en el enlace siguiente y envía este mail a todos tus amigos para correr la voz: http://www.avaaz.org/es/global_food_crisis/10.php?cl=95297329

200.000 miembros de Avaaz ya hemos firmado, pidiendo medidas concretas como más inversión el la productividad agrícola en los países pobres. Lanzamos esa campaña el mes pasado en respuesta a un llamado urgente de la Ministra de Relaciones Exteriores de Sierra Leona, un país en el que 90% de los habitantes no pueden pagar ni una bolsa de arroz al día.

Haz clic arriba para ver el vídeo. La crisis alimentaria, como el cambio climático, nos demuestra lo interconectados que estamos todos en el Mundo actual. Sólo actuando juntos y con determinación podremos resolverla.

Con esperanza, Paul, Ricken, Graziela, Veronique, Ben, Galit, Iain, Pascal, Milena y todo el equipo de Avaaz. PD: Para saber más sobre las campañas de Avaaz: www.avaaz.org/es/report_back_1Y para leer artículos sobre la crisis del hambre: http://actualidad.terra.es/nacional/articulo/lideres_roma_mundiales_abordaran_crisis_2515547.htmhttp://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/511254.htmlhttp://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/ONU/pide/1100/millones/contener/crisis/alimentaria/elpepiint/20080602elpepiint_10/Tes

Sobre Avaaz…Avaaz es una organización independiente y sinfines de lucro cuya misión es asegurar que los valores y opiniones de la mayoría de la gente sean tomados en cuenta en las políticas que nos gobiernan. ‘Avaaz’ significa ‘voz’ en varios idiomas asiáticos y europeos. Avaaz no acepta dinero de gobiernos ni de empresas y su equipo esta basado en oficinas en Londres, Nueva York, Washington, Ginebra, Paris y Rio de Janeiro. No se te olvide visitar nuestras páginas Facebook y Myspace y Bebo