International Human Rights Day...

is today. It's the 61st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Holocaust and Modern Day Genocide

Foreign Policy has an article by Andrew Stroehlein about what the Holocaust can't teach us about modern-day genocide.

I suspect too many people in the wider international community still only
recognize genocide in this one most specific sense. They are always looking for
Birkenau -- expecting industrialized killing rather than seeing genocide the way
it unfolds today. They ignore the evidence that in the right environment, simple
machetes can be just as effective as rail networks and gas chambers.

"Genocide" is too limiting a term in any case. In recent years,
governments have not necessarily been exterminating entire subgroups en masse
with crystal-clear intent. Yet some governments show no qualms about shelling
huge numbers of ethnic minority civilians trapped in confined war zones, as we
saw in Sri Lanka earlier this year. More common still are governments that kick
one ethnic group off its land and force the people into displacement camps where
they become permanent wards of international humanitarian agencies -- think
Darfur, for example, to mention just one place commonly labeled a "slow-motion
genocide."

Gay and Lesbian Asylum Seekers

Newsweek has an article on the anecdotal evidence that suggests that there has been an increase in sexual orientation-based asylum claims in the US.

"When sexual orientation became an option [as a basis for asylum
claims] in 1994, the Internet was in its infancy, and it was difficult for
people to find out they could seek safe haven in the U.S.," says Rachel B.
Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality [http://www.immigrationequality.org/]. "Now we are seeing a steady
increase." Last week the nonprofit won its 60th case of the year, and it has
several others still pending. Immigration Equality won 55 cases in 2008 and 30
cases in 2007.

Angelina Jolie on Iraqi Refugees

The actress, a UNHCR goodwill ambassador, met with Iraqi refugees in Syria.

"Most Iraqi refugees cannot return to Iraq in view of the severe trauma they experienced there, the uncertainty linked to the coming Iraqi elections, the security issues and the lack of basic services," a UNHCR statement quoted Jolie as saying. "They will, therefore, be in need of continued support from the international community."

International Criminal Court to Address Post-Election Violence in Kenya

After Kenya missed the deadline to address last year's post-election violence, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has said the ICC will now prosecute those believed to be responsible.

"King of Gypsies" Praises Madonna

Florin Cioaba, the self-styled "King of the Gypsies" praised Madonna for speaking out on behalf of Roma people during a concert, saying, "Madonna is the only international personality to have raised the problem of discrimination against the Roma in Europe."

Mali Women's Rights Bill Halted

Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure has decided not to sign the country's new family bill into law; instead he sent it back to the parliament for review. The law was protested by Muslim groups.

Some of the provisions that have proved controversial give more rights to women.

For example, under the new law women are no longer required to obey their husbands, instead husbands and wives owe each other loyalty and protection.

Women get greater inheritance rights, and the minimum age for girls to marry in most circumstances is raised to 18.

One of the other key points Muslims have objected to is the fact that marriage is defined as a secular institution.

According to BBC, this is a political defeat for President Toure, who was a strong supporter of the bill.

Memory in the Aftermath of an Atrocity

In Strength in What Remains, writer Tracy Kidder tells the true story of Deogratias Niyizonkiza, a 24-year-old man who survived the genocide in Burundi and Rwanda. Johann Hari reviews the book for Slate:

Deogratias fled across a river already beginning to choke with Tutsi corpses into the forests. After days hiding out in the woods—to echoed screams—he realized he had to get out of Burundi. He thought he had an option for safety—to make his way across the border to Rwanda. He nearly didn't make it. He was stumbling from one catastrophe to another—straight into the heart of the Rwandan genocide. The president there was murdered, too, and the extermination of nearly 1 million people—mostly by machete, wielded at high speed–erupted. It took 100 days. "Before the end of the night, the cockroaches are not going to wake up again," the mobs would sing on their killing frenzies.

And suddenly Deogratias was standing in an American airport, with $200 in his pocket and trauma cluttering his head, claiming he had work to do in New York City. A friend had pointed him toward Burundi's airport and urged him to get as far away as he could. He slept in boarded-up buildings and in Central Park and marvelled: "Almost everyone looked happy. Or at least no one looked alarmed. And no one looked terrified. These were people just going about their business, greeting their friends and their families, as if they didn't know there were places where dogs were trotting about with human heads in their mouths. But how could they not know?"
-----------------------------
Deogratias seems to have come to terms with his memories of the genocide by convincing himself that the populations of both countries were innocent, and even the perpetrators—who remain faceless and nameless and off-stage for virtually the entire narrative—were simply "misled." They didn't know what they were doing; they were deceived. But this was a grassroots genocide, stoked by governments but carried out—with horrific efficiency—by ordinary people. Those rows of bodies I looked at were carved up by their neighbors, who were staring them in the face. It's hard for the reader to escape the conclusion that Deogratias can live with what happened and build his hospital and do good only by lying to himself about the nature of the recent past.

This raises the chewy problem of why Kidder is telling this story. Is it primarily an inspirational tale of an immigrant-made-good, a repudiation of Lou Dobbs-style bigotry? If so, his book succeeds 10 times over in an uncomplicated way. Or does Kidder believe primarily in the need to record accurately what happened during the darkest moments in human history?

The Right Way to Help

I finally went to one of the few museums in DC you have to pay to enter- the Newseum. It was a terrific experience and totally worth it! There is an interactive exhibit on ethics and one of the questions revolved around this famous Pulitzer Prize-winning photo:




The photo, of a Sudanese toddler on her way to a food distribution center, was taken by South African freelance photographer Kevin Carter. In 1993, Carter made a trip to document the famine in Sudan:

Immediately after their plane touched down in the village of Ayod, Carter began snapping photos of famine victims. Seeking relief from the sight of masses of people starving to death, he wandered into the open bush. He heard a soft, high-pitched whimpering and saw a tiny girl trying to make her way to the feeding center. As he crouched to photograph her, a vulture landed in view. Careful not to disturb the bird, he positioned himself for the best possible image. He would later say he waited about 20 minutes, hoping the vulture would spread its wings. It did not, and after he took his photographs, he chased the bird away and watched as the little girl resumed her struggle. Afterward he sat under a tree, lit a cigarette, talked to God and cried. "He was depressed afterward," Silva recalls. "He kept saying he wanted to hug his daughter."

After another day in Sudan, Carter returned to Johannesburg. Coincidentally, the New York Times, which was looking for pictures of Sudan, bought his photograph and ran it on March 26, 1993. The picture immediately became an icon of Africa's anguish. Hundreds of people wrote and called the Times asking what had happened to the child (the paper reported that it was not known whether she reached the feeding center); and papers around the world reproduced the photo. Friends and colleagues complimented Carter on his feat. His self-confidence climbed.

However, some critics questioned his ethics:

"The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering," said the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, "might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene." Even some of Carter's friends wondered aloud why he had not helped the girl.

Two months after receiving a Pulitzer Prize, Carter committed suicide. The Newseum exhibit asks visitors to choose between two options, if they had been in Carter's position: 1) Helping the little girl and not taking a photo and 2) Taking the photo and not helping the girl. About 70% of the visitors choose the first option. Interestingly, about 70% of the journalists the Newseum polled chose the second option. One of the rationales given is that the awareness raised by the picture likely led to many more lives being saved.

This morning, I heard an interview with R. Dwayne Betts about his memoir, "A Question of Freedom," which recounts his coming of age in prison after he committed a carjacking. When Scott Simon pressed him to discuss what it was in prison that he had seen and could "never really recover from," Betts responded:

In a way it's difficult to talk about it, because, one, it didn't happen to me, so I sort of feel like I'm selling the pain of other people when I start telling all of these stories.

I think this is what some people thought Kevin Carter did. But then again, he put himself out there by going to Sudan and taking a picture that ultimately made a huge difference- is it fair to criticize him for not helping the "right" way? Of course, in the end, he could have taken the photo AND helped the child. After doing what his job as a professional photographer, he could have responded with personal compassion...

In a way, this criticism reminds me of this previous post on an op-ed by Marshall Kim, a Cambodian-born American who criticized a trial before the Special Tribunal for Cambodia, saying that it was "too late" for justice. Arguably, it's always too late by the time the UN creates an international criminal tribunal or a hybrid tribunal. This is one of the reasons why I'm drawn to refugee law- the law can be a very powerful tool to help people in real time, rather than just to compensate them for atrocities they have suffered or to punish those who have committed the atrocities. But is it necessarily wrong to eventually try to do the right thing? Maybe it is, especially in a world where resources are finite and could be better spent on "improving the lives of young Cambodians" as Kim suggests.

An International Tribunal to Try Guantánamo Detainees?

Guénaël Mettraux, international criminal tribunal defense lawyer and author of “The Law of Command Responsibility” has a proposal in the New York Times:

Trying these men stateside would necessarily require the compromise of long-cherished principles of American law. Yet continuing to hold them without the prospect of a fair trial or delivering them to undemocratic governments are alternatives not worthy of the Obama administration or of the United States.

America’s own endeavors at Nuremberg offer a way out of this impasse: an international tribunal for detainees. Such a tribunal would allow the Obama administration to finally try these individuals and close down Guantánamo — and it would bring the nation back within the tradition of law and justice that it so forcefully defended six decades ago.

I like this idea. An international tribunal could be a really good compromise between those who would prefer that the Guantánamo detainees be tried by military tribunals and those that would like to see them tried as criminals in civilian courts. Granted, "The War on Terror" is pretty different from Mettraux's primary example, World War II, which had come to a clear end by the time of the Nuremberg Tribunals. However, his other examples, like the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals were created during the conflicts they were to address. The Lebanon tribunal is a good example of how terrorism would be addressed.

Fighting Poverty by Helping Women

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have written a great article for the New York Times Magazine on the importance of improving the lives of women and girls in the developing world. It's adapted from their book, “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.”

In the early 1990s, the United Nations and the World Bank began to proclaim the potential resource that women and girls represent. “Investment in girls’ education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world,” Larry Summers wrote when he was chief economist of the World Bank. Private aid groups and foundations shifted gears as well. “Women are the key to ending hunger in Africa,” declared the Hunger Project. The Center for Global Development issued a major report explaining “why and how to put girls at the center of development.” CARE took women and girls as the centerpiece of its anti-poverty efforts. “Gender inequality hurts economic growth,” Goldman Sachs concluded in a 2008 research report that emphasized how much developing countries could improve their economic performance by educating girls.

Read the whole thing.

World Humanitarian Day...

is today. The UN General Assembly created it to remember those who have lost their lives while providing humanitarian aid.



UPDATE 8/20: On World Humanitarian Day, UNHCR announced the first phase of its plan to relocate some Somali refugees from the Dadaab camp in eastern Kenya to the Kakuma camp in northwest Kenya. The Dadaab camp house 3 times the residents it was intended to accommodate. The US Department of State announced a pledge of $160 million to support international humanitarian assistance.

Event in DC: Documentary Screening and Panel Discussion

I heard about this on the radio this morning:

On Mon., August 24 at 7pm, Woolly Mammoth co-hosts a screening of the acclaimed documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell with a panel discussion to follow. Community Partner co-host organizations include the World Organization for Human Rights USA, InterAction, Peace X Peace, and the Washington, DC Film Society.

At Landmark E Street Cinema (E Street, NW, betw. 10th & 11th). The screening and panel are FREE, but reservations are encouraged at screening@woollymammoth.net

Panel: Dr. Patricia Morris, Exec. Director, Peace X Peace (Moderator), with Piper Hendricks, Int'l. Justice Project Dir, World Organization for Human Rights USA.

Named Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the gripping account of a group of brave and visionary women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to shreds by a decades-old civil war. The women's historic yet unsung achievement finds voice in a narrative that intersperses contemporary interviews, archival images, and scenes of present-day Liberia together to recount the experiences and memories of the women who were instrumental in bringing lasting peace to their country.

This is in conjunction with the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company's world premiere of the play "Eclipsed," which is about the lives of five Liberian women during Liberia's civil war.

ICTY

Again, my apologies for the light posting, especially in the later part of the summer. Unfortunately, my dog had to be put down a few days after the bar exam... he was 16 years old and had cancer, but it was still very difficult.

I am finally back on track and getting ready for what's next. In September, I will be starting an internship with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)in the Hague! I will be working for the Office of the President for about 3 months.

I've been reading up on the Yugoslav wars. I read Zlata's Diary, which is a young girl's firsthand account of how life in Sarajevo changed forever. I'm now reading Emir Suljagic's Postcards from the Grave, which recounts how the author escaped from Srebrenica.

This afternoon, I happened to catch Michele Martin's interview with Bosnian-born author Aleksandar Hemon about his book, Love and Obstacles. The book is a collection of short stories that draws on Hemon's experience in Sarajevo. I'm thinking about adding this to my list, if I have any time left before I leave!

I will be posting about my experiences at the ICTY on this blog, so stay tuned!

Post-Bar Reading

I caught part of a radio interview with Dr. Michael Stone, author of The Anatomy of Evil. He created a 22-level scale of evil, which he applies to murderers in the book. As an undergrad psychology major and soon-to-be lawyer, I thought it sounded fascinating! Dr. Stone also mentioned that he's planning on another book about evil during wartime.

This is definitely on my post-bar exam reading list. Speaking of which, the exam is a few days, so I probably won't be posting again until afterward. Wish me luck!

2 Bosnian Serbs Convicted of War Crimes

Two Bosnian Serb cousins were convicted by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). They were convicted for locking at least 192 Muslims in two houses and burning them alive in 1992.

Yugoslav war crimes tribunal judge Patrick Robinson said burning at least 119 Muslims to death in the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad "exemplified the worst acts of inhumanity that one person may inflict on others."

He sentenced Milan Lukic to life in prison and Sredoje Lukic to 30 years.

Robinson said Milan Lukic was the ringleader in both incidents, helping herd victims into the houses, setting the fires and shooting those who tried to flee the flames. The judgment said his cousin Sredoje Lukic aided and abetted in one of the blazes

Witnesses "vividly remembered the terrible screams of the people in the house," Robinson said, adding that Milan Lukic used the butt of his rifle to herd people into the house, and said, "come on, let's get as many people inside as possible."

Milan Lukic shook his head but looked unmoved as Robinson pronounced sentence. Sredoje Lukic leaned back in his chair, his face blank.

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(Image of Sredoje Lukic from the ICTY)

Event in DC: Spying on Democracy- Colombia's Intelligence Scandal

From the Washington Office on Latin America:

Spying on Democracy: Colombia's Intelligence Scandal

Featuring:

Rafael Barrios, José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Association
Iván Cepeda Castro, National Movement for Victims of State Crimes
Conor Carrigan, Colombian Commission of Jurists
Hollman Morris, Journalist
Danilo Rueda, Intereclesial Commission for Justice and Peace

In May 2009, Colombian media revealed that the Colombian security agency that answers to the Colombian President, the DAS, conducted systematic surveillance against hundreds of persons belonging to human rights organizations, the political opposition, trade unions and judges, journalists and clergy. This illegal operation, which began in 2004, included routine surveillance of victims and their families by DAS agents, warrantless wiretapping, email interceptions, examination of bank and tax records, and break ins into homes and offices. Victims of this intelligence operation apparently were targeted because they were perceived to present a challenge to the Colombian government. Supreme Court judges, for example, were spied upon after they opened investigations into allegations of links between legislators and paramilitary groups. The DAS went beyond surveillance to carrying out acts of intimidation and death threats against those targeted by this operation. This event brings together various prominent Colombian jurists, journalists and others targeted by the DAS operation to discuss this scandal's influence on Colombian politics, the security of the victims and U.S. policy and programs towards Colombia.

English translation will be provided

Thursday, July 30, 2009
10:30am-12pm
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)
1666 Connecticut Ave, 4^th Floor conference room
Washington, DC

Please RSVP to Rachel Robb, (202) 797-2171 or rrobb@wola.org by July, 28, 2009.

Human Rights Lawyer Detained In Iran

According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr has been detained.

Amnesty International said arrests in Iran of civil society activists like Shadi Sadr appear to be intensifying.

"This was an illegal, arbitrary and violent arrest in which no attempt was made by the authorities to show identification or provide any explanation for their action," said Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme.

Too Late

The New York Times has a thought-provoking op-ed by a Cambodian-American on the United Nations trial of a Khmer Rouge commander.

Now I read about the United Nations trial of Kaing Guek Eav, known as Comrade Duch, the Khmer Rouge commander of the Tuol Sleng prison. I read the testimony of victims and witnesses, like me, of torture and murder.

And I find myself asking, what sort of justice is possible now? After ignoring our suffering when action might have saved our country, what does the United Nations expect to do for Cambodia now? Placing elderly Khmer Rouge leaders on trial will not bring back those who lost their lives in the Killing Fields, or bring peace to the survivors. It will only stir more anger and misery and hate. Pol Pot, the chief criminal, is long dead. So are many of the others who killed and tortured at his command.

------------------
I don’t mean to say we should forget. We can’t. Let the horrors be documented in books and films and let the truth be recorded for the entire world to learn. But by pursuing this trial instead of working to improve the lives of young Cambodians, the United Nations demonstrates it still has not learned the lesson of the Killing Fields: Act before it’s too late.

Charles Taylor Takes the Stand

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor took the stand in his own defense at the Hague on Tuesday.

“This whole case against me is a case of deceit, deception and lies,” he told the Special Court for Sierra Leone sitting at The Hague.

It was his first time in the stand. Mr. Taylor — the first African leader to be tried for war crimes — said he had “fought all my life to do what I thought was right,” news reports said.

He called the prosecution’s depiction of him “malicious.”

Wearing a dark suit and dark glasses, he introduced himself to the three judges as the 21st president of the Republic of Liberia.

Aung San Suu Kyi Portrait by Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey, the artist best known for the President Obama "Hope" poster, created this terrific portrait of Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“This Human Rights cause is something I believe in strongly,” said Fairey. “I created this portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi to raise awareness of her on-going house arrest and the oppressive nature of the military regime ruling Burma.”

“Aung San Suu Kyi is the Nelson Mandela of Asia,” said Jack Healey, the head of the Human Rights Action Center. “Shepard’s tribute to her will remind the world she is the rightful leader of Burma in a powerful way. I always felt it was his image that galvanized the Obama movement, God willing, it will do the same for Aung San Suu Kyi and those fighting for human rights in her name.”

An Update

Please accept my apologies for my unannounced absence! My little dog (who will be 16 in a couple weeks) has been very ill and needed a lot of care. He's doing much better now so I should be back soon!

In the meantime, please check out the blogs on my blogroll, which is on the lower right corner. They will certainly keep you up to speed!

“Anyone could be Deng Yujiao”

Chinese citizens have been expressing their anger with official conduct through online campaigns. Deng Yujiao is a 21-year-old who fatally stabbed a Communist Party official when he tried to rape her. Her arrest on suspicion of voluntary manslaughter created an online furor when it was publicized by a blogger. This week, the court ruled that she had acted in self-defense and released her from criminal liability.

“It’s about raising the public awareness of democratic ideas — accountability, transparency, citizens’ rights to participate, that the government should serve the people,” said Xiao Qiang, a journalism professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who tracks China’s Internet activity. “Netizens who are now sharing those more democratic values are using these cases, each time making inch-by-inch progress.”

China still exerts sweeping and sophisticated control over the Internet, employing thousands of people to monitor Internet traffic for forbidden material and using software to spot key words that hint at subversion. But the system is not infallible, and Internet users frequently find ways to skirt the censors.

2009 Trafficking in Persons Report Released

The State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons report was released this week. The full report is available electronically. A column about human trafficking, written by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in today's Washington Post. According to Secretary Clinton,

The problem is particularly urgent now, as local economies around the world reel from the global financial crisis. People are increasingly desperate for the chance to support their families, making them more susceptible to the tricks of ruthless criminals. Economic pressure means more incentive for unscrupulous bosses to squeeze everything they can from vulnerable workers and fewer resources for the organizations and governments trying to stop them.

(Photo: Photo: Robert Giroux/Getty Images)

Iran Election Fallout, Ctd.

Andrew Sullivan's blog continues to be an indispensable source of information on what's happening in Iran. He has a massive number of readers, some of whom are sending eyewitness accounts or translating Farsi sources.

On the theory that the regime has "imported" cops:

If true, another sign of how desperate the regime is. A reader writes:

Just got off the phone with my dad. He leaves in northern Tehran, off Afrika Blvd.

He said that most iranians believe that a lot of the "commandos" on the bikes are Hezbollah arabs brought in to do to the citizens what a Persian cop would refuse to do. Accordingly when the protesters knock one of the biker thugs off they are being particularly brutal, believing that the rider is Arab.

Bank storefronts have been smashed all over northern Tehran. Mousavi, Khatami and Rafsanjani are allegedly meeting at Mousavi's house (who is under house arrest) and are planning their next move. People there are waiting for further instructions from Mousavi. In my dad's neighborhood BBC Persia and Voice of America have been knocked off the satellite but not in all parts. Sorry this is rambling I'm getting constant calls from Tehran. Will speak to my father again in two hours and will let you know anything new.

On students risking their lives.

In this country, we merely have to risk our apathy to vote. These students are risking their lives. They are the heroes of our time [...]

He also linked to this site, which links to English-language Twitter feeds. Some examples:

My Father has a truck load of ballot boxes that were to be burned in the back of his truck.

i eats some pills and wanna sleep and i scared that if they can find me ...i going...thx for your supports....

typing as fastest as I can in bth English&Farsi,Still we need outside help,I really don't want to be captured by Ansar

Once again I thank everyone in the world. No matter if Ahmadi stays or not, I'm proud to have clasped such supportive hands.

URGENT JUST IN, there r TANKS in front of the interior ministry of tehran in valiasr st. & fatemi CAREFUL

I can't find my friends on streets.

Rasht, glass splinters on the streets, riot police not hesitating to beat men, women and even kids

From Enghelab Sq friend just call me, Police & unknown forces beating everybody for no apparent reason!

Correction, no bus burned, but three cars.

dawn is breaking. can hear prayers from mosques.

cousin in tehran is traumatized by the club and baton beatings on tehran streets. eyewitness report of a girl beaten to death.

IRG's helicopter flying low on yousefabadad Amirabad Gisha right now creating a devastating sound and making windows shake

sources from Tehran: ppl are killed, ppl are in blood, tehran is hell.

We witnessed police spraying pepper gas into the eyes of peaceful female protesters

We are here in the dark, all kinds of rumors fly by; nothing is sure.

IRIB TV warned people seriously about going to tomorrow's rally, mobile network might be down for tomorrow's rally.

While there has been a lot of (legitimate) criticism on the failure of cable news networks to cover these events, Fareed Zakaria covered a lot of ground today, interviewing Christiane Amanpour and hosting a panel of experts.

Iran Election Fallout

Andrew Sullivan has been posting all day on reactions and updates. On the count:

Confirmation from al Jazeera:

And with each updated count, Ahmadinjad's lead did not waver from a very stable range of 66-69 per cent, irrespective of which districts were reporting.

This looks like such a crude rigging of the vote that it is either a sign of utter incompetence or profound panic, and probably both. One assumes that the Khameini forces have total confidence that they can suppress any resistance after such a provocation. But what if they are as capable of misjudging that as they were the electorate?

Moammar Gadhafi, Self-Styled Feminist

You can't make this stuff up. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a speech to more than 700 prominent businesswomen and female politicians in Italy. Among his thoughts:

He brought as an example the fact that in some Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive, but added that it's not up to governments to recognize that right.

"If anything, it's up to her husband, her brothers, or the father to give her permission," Gadhafi said, drawing loud boos from the audience.

Event Near DC: Unveiling of Global Refugee Mural

The unveiling of the "Global Refugee Mural" by Joel Bergner will be held at 10 AM Saturday at Kefa Café, 963 Bonifant St. in Silver Spring. The mural tells the story of three refugees living in Maryland.

While the three still fear backlash against themselves and their families, they hope their stories of perseverance and survival, captured in a new mural on Bonifant Street in Silver Spring, will illustrate the struggles of countless other refugees living in America and lead to change in their native lands.

Georges Mushayuma, a former mayor in the Democratic Republic of Congo, fled after finding himself between rival sides in his country's civil war. Mai Kyi, a Burmese woman, is afraid to return to her country after being exposed as a Christian while studying in the United States.

And an Iraqi woman, who asked to be referred to as "Zeena" for fear of backlash against her family, fled her native land after her brother was killed by Saddam Hussein's militia because her family showed loyalty to American troops invading her country.

All three established lives in the U.S. through the International Rescue Committee's Refugee Resettlement Center at 8700 Georgia Ave. in Silver Spring. The mural's artist used contacts at the center to find the three refugees and after interviewing them, immediately felt obligated to share their struggles with the public.

"With something this intense and important you can't just do a sloppy job," said Joel Bergner, a Washington, D.C., artist who spent three weeks painting the mural on the side of Kefa Café on Bonifant Street, using a $3,000 grant from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County. "You have to do them justice."

(Image: Charles E. Shoemaker II/The Gazette)

"Enfants Mauvais Souvenirs"

Slate has an article and slideshow on images by photojournalist Jonathan Torgovnik's of children born of rape during the Rwandan genocide. An estimated 20,000 children were born to Tutsi women who were systematically raped and forced into sexual servitude by members of Hutu militia groups. Torgovnik's images and the testimonies he collected are published in his book "Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape."

The testimonies do not make for easy reading. More than half of the women Torgovnik interviewed are HIV-positive. Most live in dire poverty, ostracized by their own families and communities because of the stigmas attached to rape and AIDS. In Rwanda, a heavily patriarchal society, children of wartime rape are perceived as belonging to the enemy. As Josette, the mother of Thomas, recalls, "My uncle didn't welcome me into his house. He asked me who was responsible for my pregnancy. I said if I am pregnant, then it must be the militias since many of them had raped me. He said I shouldn't enter his house carrying a baby of the Hutus and chased me away. I left, but I didn't know where to go. Later, my uncle told me that I could only enter his house if I agreed to throw away the child."

The women discuss their own feelings about their children with heartbreaking candor. Some confess their inability to feel love or affection for children who are living reminders of the terrible ordeals they endured. Others say that their children are their only source of hope and consolation, that without them they wouldn't have the will to survive. Their stories are stark dramas of evil and innocence, brought to life with horrific specificity.

(Image: "Odette with her son, Martin," Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape, photographs and interviews by Jonathan Torgovnik (Aperture, 2008). From the Slate alideshow.)

Bosnian TV Airs Recent Footage of Fugitive Serb Army Chief

Earlier this week, footage of former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic was aired on Bosnian TV. Mladic is wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on war crimes charges related to the Bosnian civil war.

A Serbian minister said it was "simply impossible" there was video from 2008.

"The material that was shown last night was seized in Mladic's house in December 2008 and handed to the Hague Tribunal in March this year," said Rasim Ljajic, the chairman of the Serbian National Council for Co-operation with the ICTY.

"Not a single shot is less than eight years old."

Mr Ljajic said he believed the videos had been released to increase the political pressure on Serbia days before EU foreign ministers are due to discuss its progress towards co-operating with the tribunal.

"It is obvious that some within the international community don't have the best intentions for Serbia," he added.

Event in NYC: Human Rights Watch International Film Festival

HRW's 20th Annual International Film Festival is running through June 25 in New York City at the Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, Lincoln Center; (212)875-5601, hrw.org/en/

The New York Times has more information on the films.

The Tank Man

Unfortunately, studying for the bar got in the way of blogging today. I did manage to catch Frontline's program on "The Tank Man." The documentary was first aired a few years ago but they showed it again in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The Tank Man was an anonymous protester who became internationally known when he was photographed standing in front of tanks in Tiananmen Square. The version here is from Jeff Widener of AP.

The whole program is available online.

On a related note, check out this post from Matthew Yglesias on China's new requirement that all PCs include internet-censoring software.

This also highlights why political developments in China are so crucial for the entire world. If, say, Iran tried to do this it almost certainly wouldn’t fly. But companies will fall all over each other to cater to the Chinese market. Then, once the technology is in place other autocracies can try to piggyback on work that’s been done in and for China. But absent China, almost all of world output would be happening in democratic nations, and it would be easy to structure the global economy in the kind of way optimists were hoping it would work for China.

North Korea's Labor Camps

As you've probably heard, American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean prison camp. They were convicted of an unspecified "grave crime."

While Pyongyang has not said where the women will serve their time, their future likely includes the possibility of hard labor, starvation and torture in a penal system many consider among the world's most repressive, said David Hawk, author of the 2004 study "The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps."

Ling and Lee may be sent to a "kyo-hwa-so" or re-education reformatory "that is the equivalent of a felony penitentiary in the U.S., as opposed to a county jail or misdemeanor facility," he said.

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North Korean defector Kim Hyuck, who spent a total of seven months between 1998 and 2000 in a "kyo-hwa-so," said that the percentage of prisoners who die from the harsh conditions would be unimaginable in the west.

"It is not an easy place," he said of the camps. "Centers for men and women are separate. But even [the] women's place is not comfortable at all. . . . When I was in the center, roughly 600-700 out of a total 1,500 died."

Hawk said many of the re-education camps are affiliated with mines or textile factories where inmates labor for long hours, shifts that are often followed by work criticism sessions and the forced memorization of dry North Korean policy doctrine.

The literal meaning of a "kyo-hwa-so" in Korean is "a place to make a good person through education," said Hawk, who interviewed a dozen gulag survivors for his study for a group known as the U.S. Committee for Humans Rights in North Korea.

Kim, 28, who now studies math at a South Korean university, said that escape from the camps is nearly impossible.

The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps is available online.

ABC News Interview with Lakhdar Boumediene

While traveling with President Obama to Paris this week, ABC News' Jake Tapper took the opportunity to interview ex-Gitmo detainee Lakhdar Boumediene. (A post on a previous interview with Boumediene, who was the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case, Boumediene v. Bush, that gave detainees the right to seek judicial review of their imprisonment is here.) Blogger Glenn Greenwald makes some important points about what this case illustrates and the issues it raises.

Nigerian Families Settle With Shell

The Nigerian families who sued Shell have settled for $15.5 million. The trial was supposed to begin tomorrow. A previous post on the lawsuit, which was about the execution of protesters in the 1990s, and the Alien Tort Statute under which the case was brought, is here.

While a jury has never found a multinational company to be liable for human rights abuses by a U.S. jury, a few others have settled. In December, a federal jury acquitted Chevron in a lawsuit brought by Nigerians for a violent clash on an oil platform off the country's coast.

From the plaintiffs' attorneys' press release:

Today, the parties in Wiwa v. Shell agreed to settle human rights claims charging the Royal Dutch/Shell company, its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC or Shell Nigeria), and the former head of its Nigerian operation, Brian Anderson, with complicity in the torture, killing, and other abuses of Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and other non-violent Nigerian activists in the mid-1990s in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta.

The settlement, whose terms are public, provides a total of $15.5 million. These funds will compensate the 10 plaintiffs, who include family members of the deceased victims; establish a Trust intended to benefit the Ogoni people; and cover a portion of plaintiffs’ legal fees and costs. The settlement is only on behalf of the individual plaintiffs for their individual claims. It does not resolve outstanding issues between Shell and the Ogoni people, and the plaintiffs did not negotiate on behalf of the Ogoni people.

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Marco Simons, [EarthRights International] Legal Director, stated, “The courts repeatedly rejected Shell’s efforts to dismiss this case, setting important legal precedents for the continued prosecution of corporations in breach of international law. This reinforces the plaintiffs’ demands that corporations such as Shell safeguard human rights and the environment.”

Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon

As the counting takes place in Lebanon's election, Al Jazeera profiles Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

However, of all the Palestinian refugees in the Arab world, it is those who have taken shelter in Lebanon who have suffered the most.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) the international body set up to ensure the welfare of Palestinian refugees, the highest percentage of Palestinian refugees who are living in abject poverty reside in Lebanon.

There are about 400,000 officially registered Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, or approximately 10 per cent of the population. Just under half of the refugees continue to live in camps.

The issue of "naturalisation" of Palestinian refugees has often been used as a political card in Lebanon, a small country built on a delicate confessional balance.

Due to the sensitivity of the issue, there has been no official census in Lebanon since 1932 that could determine the number of Christians and Muslims of various sects.

Mostly Sunni Muslims, the Palestinian refugees are seen as a potential boon to Lebanese Muslim political aspirations, especially Sunni ones.

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However, the future of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will be among the first items on the agenda of Lebanon's new parliament.

The Sabra Shatila Foundation, after consultation with human rights organisations including International Lawyers Sans Frontieres and members of Lebanon's legislature, will table a draft law in parliament which promises, in the words of the foundation, to: "erase, in one vote, decades of illegal and immoral treatment of more than 10 per cent of Lebanon's population".

The draft text reads: "Be it enacted by the Chamber of Deputies ... that all Palestinian refugees in Lebanon shall immediately acquire, receive and enjoy the full faith and credit of all civil rights possessed by Lebanese citizens except citizenship or naturalisation."

The alternative can only mean that Lebanon's refugee camps will be a hotbed for further frustration and disappointment for their residents, and could well prove to be a fertile breeding ground for future extremism.

Clashing and Curfews in Amazonas

The Peruvian army has imposed curfews in the state of Amazonas after violent clashes between police and indigenous protesters. They are protesting plans to drill for oil and gas on ancestral land.

"We are fighting because we fear our land will be taken away," said Denis Tangoa, a protester at one blockade told Reuters news agency.

Fuel and transport blockades have disrupted Peru's Amazon region for almost two months.

The indigenous tribes want to force Congress to repeal new laws that encourage foreign mining in the rain forest.

"We are not going to give up until they reverse these laws that will damage us," Luis Huansi, a tribal leader told Reuters.

Helping Victims of the "Virgin Myth"

This week's CNN Hero is Betty Makoni, a native of Zimbabwe who founded the Girl Child Network (GCN). Many young girls in Zimbabwe are the victims of

a widely held belief that if a man with HIV or AIDS rapes a virgin he will be cured of his disease. This so-called virgin myth, perpetuated by Zimbabwe's traditional healers, has led to the rape of hundreds of girls, according to UNICEF. Some of those victims are too young to walk, much less protect themselves.

Makoni's organization help these girls through 700 girls' clubs and three "empowerment villages" where girls who have been abused receive emergency medication, reinstatement in school and counseling.

Makoni's efforts are feature in "Tapestries of Hope" a feature length documentary on the virgin myth and its victims.

Bad Branding

I've written before about "conflict minerals," i.e. minerals that are tied to armed conflict in the Congo and that are used in computers. AMD has inexplicably named their new chip "The Congo."
On the ENOUGH blog, David Sullivan writes:

Did someone actually think it was a good idea to name a microchip after the Congo? It is, after all, the place where trade in minerals vital to technology like ultra-thin laptops is fueling the deadliest conflict in the world.

Okay, AMD isn’t one of the 21 companies that Enough has contacted about Congo’s conflict minerals, so I can understand that they didn’t get the memo. But apparently Hewlett Packard is one of the laptop manufacturers planning to use the new ‘Congo’ chip technology, and they have been one of the most outspoken companies attempting to address mineral supply chain issues. So maybe the folks over AMD are tracing the supply chains for their minerals as we speak, and we can look forward to a microprocessor that’s billed as ‘conflict-free.’ That or courtesy of a truly egregious public relations error we can look forward to some exciting new entries in the Come Clean 4 Congo YouTube contest… Either way, it should be interesting!

Event in DC: Suman, Anti-Trafficking Campaigner from India

From Change.org's End Human Trafficking blog:

Stop Modern Slavery and Free the Slaves are hosting a speaker from India, Suman, who has worked for more than 25 years for the liberation of child laborers, fighting not only for their welfare but their right to a healthy childhood. She is a pioneer in the struggle to end child labor and trafficking in India, tackling all aspects of the issue including: prevention, awareness, intervention, and rehabilitation.

Apart from organizing nationwide campaigns and creating awareness about trafficking at village level, Suman has been a part of many rescue operations of children over the years. However, Suman‘s most ground-breaking work has been in her development of methods of enabling children to recover from slavery, forced separation from families and experiences of violence and torture. Through the care of Suman and the teams she has led, hundreds of children have re-gained their strength, learned the value of education and become able to assert their rights. Her work with these children has shown that recovery is possible.

Join Suman as she speaks to Stop Modern Slavery and supporters of Free the Slaves on Monday, June 22nd at 7 pm at:
Capitol Hill Tower (www.capitolhilltower.com)
1000 New Jersey Ave SE
Party Room

Getting there: Take the GREEN line to the NAVY YARD metro stop. Exit the Dept of Transportation side (NOT the baseball park side). Once you exit the metro, you will see a CVS across the street from you on New Jersey Ave. Turn left out of the metro and walk one block down. You'll see a Courtyard Marriot on your right and a dry cleaners. Capitol Hill Tower is the next door past the dry cleaners--it's on the corner of K St SE and New Jersey Ave SE. The party room is on the first floor just past the elevators.

Please RSVP to Sally Smith (that's where she lives) at sksmith1881@gmail.com if you plan to attend. Feel free to spread the word!

Samantha Orobator Sentenced to Life in Laotian Prison

Samantha Orobator, a pregnant British woman, plead guilty to drug smuggling in Laos. Previous post here.) While Laotian law would have mandated the death penalty in her case, it also prohibits the execution of pregnant women.

How Orobator became pregnant remains a mystery, although it appears she may have been able to obtain sperm and impregnate herself to avoid the death penalty.

The case appears to be an embarrassment to the Laotian authorities, which also obtained from Orobator a statement that she was not raped and that the father of the child is not a Laotian citizen. “This case is not about babies, it is a case about heroin,” Kenthong Nuanthasing, the country’s chief government spokesman, told the South China Morning Post last month.

“We don’t want the outside world to blame us [for the pregnancy]. That is why we asked her to write a letter to certify that she was not raped and the baby inside her is not a Lao baby . . . She did not have intercourse with any man in prison. There is no male close to her during her time in prison. All the prisoners are women and all the guards are female. Maybe it is a baby from the sky like [the Virgin] Maria.”

If both Laos and Britain agree, she may be transfered to Britain to serve her sentence. The prisoners' rights group Reprieve is campaigning for her transfer.

(Image from the Times Online story.)

June 4th: "Just Another Day"

James Fallows is blogging about the anniversary of Tiananmen Square massacre as it's being experienced in China.

In his first post, he discusses walking by the square on the eve of the anniversary:

There are more representatives in all categories -- soldiers, police, obvious plainclothesmen -- than I recall seeing even during the Tibet violence in early 2008 or through the Olympic games. Also many people whom you would normally classify as fruit vendors, tourists from the Chinese provinces, youngish white collar workers male and female, and skateboarder-looking characters wearing cargo shorts and with fauxhawk haircuts, were last night walking up and down the sidewalks with their eyes constantly on visitors and drifting up next to people who were holding conversations.

The way to avoid their attention is keep moving briskly along the sidewalk rather than stopping as if you think there is something particular to look at in the square today. The way to draw it is to stop and look around, to pay attention to the security forces themselves, or to have a camera in your hand. If the camera comes out, it may be pointed at one of the scenic highlights in the center of the square.

In his second post, he gives updates from various sources, including his wife (below). Fallows also notes that in other parts of Beijing and China, everything was "perfectly normal" and it was "just another day."

Lots of groups were obviously deputized young men who stood around watching, staring, following people like me at least 3 on 1 at any given moment. There were no women in this capacity. There was a clear absence of the usual "oblivious" quality of Chinese crowd movement, where people bump into you, brush against you, or cut in front of you if you happen to be in the path of where they're going. Everyone milling about was acutely aware of everyone else in his space. They seemed to have assigned space. Some deputies also wore group-colored shirts, all wore "badges" with the Chinese flag surrounded in gold, Many looked like the kids who volunteered at the Olympics. Clearly nationalistic. All young. I wondered if they were paid for the day.

I would guess about 85% of people on the square were there officially. You could tell that because the security lines were basically unpopulated, while all the "deputies" just walked around the screeners without being checked. There were very few tourists, foreign or otherwise. There were mostly uniformed and non-uniformed police. Some foreigners were taking pictures, seemingly unmolested. Any footage and photos will be dull-looking; the shots would look "normal". It was just the feeling of intense orchestration and deliberate crowd-building that gave it away. And also a distinct sense of high-tension, which carried around the front of the Forbidden City, but evaporated just around the corners.

I found her comment about the young, nationalistic volunteers pretty interesting in light of some statistics I read in the paper today. In today's Express (the Washington Post's free paper) that because discussion of the 1989 events is "virtually off-limits" in China, the 200 million "post-1980" kids are most apolitical. Apparently 75% of Chinese college students hope to join the Communist Party. Of those, 56% think it would "boost their chances of finding a good job." In any case, it turns out that many young Chinese no idea what happened 20 years ago.

Slate's "Explainer" is about what the official government line is on Tiananmen Square.

This week marks the 20^th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Western media characterize the incident as a brutal government crackdown on peaceful protesters. What does the Chinese government say about it?

Very little. Neither the 1989 protests nor the ensuing massacre is included in Chinese textbooks, and many students today have never heard of these events. For the most part, the government avoids discussing the issue at all. The government does acknowledge that the People's Liberation Army intervened after seven weeks of demonstrations and that people were killed. But the official line is that, rather than crushing a peaceful protest, the military simply defended itself—and the country—against violent counterrevolutionary elements. ("Counterrevolutionary" is used in China in much the same way as "anti-American" in the United States.)

Humanitarian Aid Updates

Sri Lanka is forcing international aid workers to leave under strict new visa rules, claiming that the aid workers were sympathetic to the defeated Tamil Tigers.

The US has pledged an additional $200 million in aid for those displaced from Pakistan's Swat Valley.

"The Democratic Spirit" in Iran

Andrew Sullivan has a great post on the election campaign in Iran.

I don't know whether you have been reading the various press accounts of the election campaign in Iran. I know that the candidates' list is fixed, but I can also see democratic spirit when it is bang in front of me. There appears to be a genuine fight for votes; and the images from the Mousavi rallies look more like Obama rallies than assemblies in a totalitarian state. Notice how young these people look, and how unafraid.

Does anyone doubt that if this kid of peaceful campaigning were happening in Iraq, it would be regarded as a sign of a nascent democracy?

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But we should not be blind to change when it emerges. Ahmadinejad has discredited himself in the eyes of many Iranians. They are looking for change they can believe in. This is the target audience for Obama this Thursday. He needs to reach out to the democratic forces in that country and remind them that America is their ally.

(Image from a pro-Mousavi rally from the Charlotte Observer.)

China Censors Tiananmen Information

On the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square revolt, China is censoring information about the event.

Reporters Without Borders said this week that Chinese media cannot refer to the incident, which took place June 4, 1989, and information has been suppressed so effectively that most young Chinese are unaware of the event, which led to the deaths of hundreds of demonstrators.

When Internet users look for information on "4 June," Baidu, China's most popular search engine, displays a message saying: "The search does not comply with laws, regulations, and policies," Reporters Without Borders found in recent tests. Video search for the date leads to a message that says, "Sorry, no video corresponds to your search."

An earlier post about Human Rights Watch's video, "The Tiananmen Legacy," is here. Another post, on the memoirs of a Chinese official who was involved in discussions about the crackdown on demonstrators, is here.

OAS Lifts Ban on Cuba

The Organization of American States (OAS) has lifted its 47-year ban on Cuba, inviting Cuba to return if it meets certain conditions. Nevertheless, Cuba has said it will not return.

The Honduran Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas Baca read the resolution to delegates in San Pedro Sula.

She said Cuba can rejoin after initiating a dialogue with the group and conforming to its practices and principles.

The document says those principles include democracy, self-determination and human rights.

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Venezuela's Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said Cuba and other Latin American nations have suffered a long history of injuries at the hands of so-called imperialism. He told delegates that the United States could do even more to reconcile the past.

Maduro said it should not be too much to ask for an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba. He said Venezuela welcomed the OAS decision but it was not enough.

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In Washington, a group of U.S. congressmen condemned the OAS decision and proposed a bill that would withhold U.S. funding for the group, which is based in the U.S. capital. In a statement, Florida Representative Connie Mack said hundreds of Cubans live as political prisoners and many suffer constant fear and repression.

Post-Conflict Sri Lanka

On Bloggingheads, Mark Leon Goldberg of UN Dispatch and Matthew Lee of Inner City Press discuss the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war.

Darfur Rape Epidemic

A study by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) details the threat of rape faced by Darfuri women, both at home and at refugee camps.

PHR's report, titled "Nowhere To Turn: Failure To Protect, Support and Assure Justice for Darfuri Women," tells the stories of 88 women refugees living at the Farchana camp in Chad, a country that borders the Darfur region of Sudan.

Some 17 of the 88 women -- who were interviewed by four female researchers, including three physicians -- reported instances of "confirmed or highly probable rape" occurring in their Darfur villages during attacks. They and many other women fled and sought safety in neighboring Chad, but did not escape the danger. Another 15 of the 88 women reported being raped in the refugee camp, said PHR.

PHR's press release is available here.

Jamaican Security Minister Withdraws Remark

Last week, Dwight Nelson, Jamaica's Security Minister said that people killed by police are collateral damage in the country's war with criminals. According to the group Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ), in an address to Jamaica's Police Federation's Annual Conference, Nelson said the following:

"I pledge to you today that. I will use every effort to assemble a team of first-class legal officers to defend policemen when they are hauled before the court like common criminals," Nelson told the conference.

"This country must recognise and accept that we are fighting a war, and in any war there will be collateral damage. No policeman should be made to pay for this damage," Senator Nelson said.

"I am prepared to stand by you as you go out there to trample the underground network who have no compunction to dabble in criminal activities," he added. "I want to say to you today, I have the support of this Government, of which I am a part, in my unequivocal support of all policemen and women in the lawful execution of their duty. Inspite of the challenges we face as a nation, we must recognise that we have to provide you with the tools to get the job done."

JFJ condemned these remarks by saying:

"The rule of law demands that those who have acted outside the law are called to account," said JFJ. "Our problem in Jamaica is not that many policemen are "hauled before the courts like common criminals" as the minister is suggesting. Our problem is that our justice system fails to credibly investigate, charge and effectively prosecute those policemen against whom allegations of unlawful conduct are made. The result of these failures is impunity for unlawful police actions, increasing distrust of the police by citizens and increasing frustration by the citizens at the failure of the Government to protect them from unlawful actions by the police force."

Nelson apologized and withdrew the remark. He said that he did not mean that the government should back illegal acts by officers, but that police officers are justified in using deadly force against criminals.

For background, I recommend a couple of useful reports that I have come across or been a part of in my work.

"Killing Impunity: Fatal Police Shootings and Extrajudicial Executions in Jamaica, 2005-2007," by Jamaicans for Justice and the George Washington University Law School International Human Rights Clinic.

“'Let them kill each other': Public security in Jamaica’s inner cities," by Amnesty International. Amnesty International's latest human rights report, which just came out last week, mentioned police killings.

Rwandan Charged in Finland

A Rwandan asylum-seeker in Finland has been charged in connection with the Rwandan genocide. Francois Bazaramba, a former Baptist preacher, has been detained in Finland for more than two years.

On Monday, Finland's prosecutor-general said a pre-trial investigation had found evidence that Mr Bazaramba, a Hutu, had "committed a crime of genocide in the municipality of Nyakizu in April and May 1994 with intent to destroy the Rwandan Tutsis partly or totally".

Mr Bazaramba was also charged with 15 counts of murder, he said.

Rwandan authorities accuse him of having participated in planning, leading and carrying out the massacre of 5,000 Tutsis while the head of the Union of Baptist Churches of Rwanda (UEBR) in Nyakizu.

Finnish prosecutors determined that there was enough evidence to try him in Finland. In February, the Rwandan government expressed disappointment in Finland's decision not to extradite Bazaramba. The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda had said that suspects who are referred to Rwanda may not receive a fair trial.

According to the BBC article, "Finnish law allows prosecutions for crimes against humanity wherever they are committed." A previous post on universal jurisdiction is here.

Pakistan Emergency: UNHCR Increases Aid for Desperate Pakistani Civilians

An update from UNHCR's email list:

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SWABI, Pakistan, May 29 (UNHCR) – Abdulla, 45, is prematurely grey. He begins to cry as he unpacks a package of food and other relief supplies that he and his wife have just picked up from a "humanitarian hub" set up by UNHCR and other agencies to provide assistance to the hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis fleeing the bombs and mortar fire in the north-west.

He says he was grateful for the help from UNHCR and others. "But what we really want is to go back to our home." Abdulla was forced to leave his village in Buner district of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province along with his wife and nine children when fighting intensified nearby last week.

"I was afraid that my children would get killed. But I can tell you that when we were walking along the road and we arrived in Mardan district, all the inhabitants from Mardan were looking at us. I felt so ashamed that we had abandoned our land!"

He had little choice. Estimates provided by local authorities this week put the number of people displaced in and around north-west Pakistan's Swat Valley at 2.4 million, or more than 300,000 families, although the government is now cross-checking and verifying those numbers to ensure there is no duplication. Meanwhile, more and more people are being driven into Mardan and Swabi districts and beyond.

To help them, UNHCR is providing non-food aid. Some of that help is going to people, like Abdulla and his family, who are living outside of camps with host families. UNHCR is keen to reach more of these people with aid.

Many local families have seen the number of people living in their homes double or triple overnight as they provide refuge to new arrivals. Distribution began this week of the first batch of 5,000 tents for the most vulnerable families identified by UNHCR's sister agency, UN-HABITAT, in Swabi and Mardan districts. The tents are intended to be pitched in the grounds of individual homes. UN-HABITAT is also providing hygiene kits and latrines to households and helping with minor repairs to shelters and boundary walls, as well as to hand pumps and sanitation in local mosques.

At humanitarian hubs in Mardan and Swabi districts, UNHCR, through the local NGO partner Sarhad Rural Support Programme, is distributing plastic mats, buckets, jerry cans and kitchen sets to displaced people staying with host families. World Food Programme (WFP) is handing out food rations.

In camps, UNHCR is distributing material to its NGO partner, IDRAK, to provide some shade beside tents. IDRAK is providing the bamboo poles and tool kits for families so they can assemble the shade structures themselves.

Together with local authorities and other partners, UNHCR has identified two potential sites for new camps in Charsadda and Nowshera districts. Private citizens, for their part, continue to display generosity. Businessmen and others are buying food in bulk which volunteers then bundle into portable ration packages that include, for example, cooking oil, tea, sugar, cereal bars, beans and flour. "Drivers stop on their way into the city and give us 5,000 or even 10,000 rupees (US$123)" to buy more food for the displaced, explains one volunteer in Mardan, a local clothes dealer.

Relatively small numbers of families are still arriving in Jamala, Sheikh Shehzad and Sheikh Yaseen camps in Mardan, which are now mostly full. New arrivals are being moved to Yar Hussain camp in Swabi.

Some families say they were given only an hour to leave their homes and have no information about family members they left behind in their villages. They also talk about food and medicine shortages for the people still stranded in their home areas.
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Indian Government Permits British Company to Mine Tribe's Sacred Mountain

The Indian government decided to permit the British company Vedanta Resources to build an open-pit mine on the Dongria Kondh tribe's sacred mountain in Orissa, India. This week, protesters from the indigenous rights group Survival International targeted the Indian High Commission in London.

The Niyamgiri Hills are home to more than 8,000 Dongria Kondh who "lead a self-sufficient life, nurturing the forest-covered region and relying on it for their food, culture, and medicines," writes ActionAid UK, an international development organization. "They also worship the mountain as their god."

"The mine would devastate the ecology of the region and spell the end of the Dongria Kondh's independent way of life, polluting the streams and destroying the forests they rely on," adds Survival International. "Ill health, misery, and destitution already afflict many hundreds of other Kondh people in the area, thanks to the Vedanta [bauxite] refinery at the base of the Niyamgiri hills."

Many people have already lost their homes due to the construction of the refinery and, continues Survival, "the Orissa government's pollution control board has ruled that chemical emissions from the refinery are 'alarming' and 'continuous'."

Survival International has made a ten-minute film called "Mine: story of a sacred mountain" about the situation.

Concerns About Suu Kyi's Health

Aung San Suu Kyi's health is a cause for "grave concern," according to her organization, the National League for Democracy (NLD). She is on trial for violating the terms of her house arrest after an uninvited American man visited her home. Suu Kyi is suffering from cramping in her legs.

Ms Suu Kyi, who is being kept in Rangoon's notorious Insein prison, has suffered from ill-health in the past.

Shortly before her arrest on 14 May she was treated for dehydration and low blood pressure.

The NLD said she was "in desperate need of proper medical treatment".

"We are very much concerned about her health," it said in a statement.

Mark Canning, the British Ambassador to Burma, has been posting his observations about the trial. In his latest post he writes:

Suu Kyi has repeatedly made clear her willingness to work with the military government in a process of political reconciliation. She is viewed by them as a threat. But she's actually an opportunity, to the extent that she's declared herself willing to work with them towards the sort of future that the current direction of travel will never deliver.

Updates on Two Alien Tort Lawsuits

A new Alien Tort Statute (ATS) lawsuit has been filed against the Alabama coal firm, Drummond Co., alleging that it made payments to the Colombian paramilitary group, Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). (This blog has had a post on the Alien Tort litigation against Chiquita Brands International for its payments to the AUC.)

The Alien Tort Statute allows non-US citizens to bring lawsuits for certain violations of international law. It has been used to successfully bring lawsuits or in settlement against other corporations (and individuals) including Chevron, Unocal and Yahoo!

According to the complaint in the new lawsuit:

Drummond Co. paid a Colombian death squad millions of dollars to murder and terrorize union workers at its coal mine, hundreds of people claim in Federal Court. They claim the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia used a "scorched earth policy ... torturing and murdering" and displacing thousands of peasants from their homes along Drummond's railroad line in Cesar and Magdalena provinces.
"Almost every family in these provinces lost a family member, a neighbor or friend to war crimes committed by the AUC during its brutal civil war with the FARC," the complaint states.
The plaintiffs also sued Alfredo Araujo Castro, Drummond's "manager of community relations" in Colombia, and James Atkins, its director of security in Colombia.
They claim, among other things, that Araujo committed perjury when he testified in June 2005, in Romero v. Drummond Co., that he had never met with "his childhood friend, Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, alias Jorge 40, the leader of the AUC's Northern Block ... or any other AUC members."
They claim that Atkins and Araujo were present at a meeting with death squad leaders in November 2000 "at the entrance to Drummond's mine in La Loma," and that "at this meeting, defendant Atkins, on behalf of Drummond, approved a payment to the AUC of the assassination of the top leaders of the Drummond union".

Second, on Tuesday, a jury is to be selected in the Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. case. From a previous post on this trial:

A trial against Royal Dutch Shell for its close relationship with the Nigerian military regime is set to begin in New York on May 26. It alleges that Shell was complicit in the Nigerian military's egregious campaign of human rights abuse, including the strategy that led to the executions.

Shell began oil production in the Niger Delta in 1958 and worked with the Nigerian government to suppress opposition to its presence. Nigerian soldiers used deadly force and massive, brutal raids against the Ogoni people (the ethnic group that lives in that region) throughout the early 1990s to repress a growing movement against the oil componsibilityany. This was done at the request of Shell, and with Shell’s assistance and financing.

Law.com has posted an excellent article on the Wiwa case and the state of the Alien Tort Statute when it comes to suing corporations.

"We know that corporations can in principle be liable but of course proving liability at trial is necessarily a different matter," [George Washington University Law School Professor Ralph] Steinhardt said. "We don't have very many examples of these cases going to trial because of very lengthy pretrial proceedings. There has been an effort to wear down the plaintiffs."

Steinhardt agrees that the rarity of cases going to trial also stems from the novelty of the claims and period of adjustment.

"Assuming everyone is working in good faith, it is true that this is the application of ancient principles in new settings and whenever you get ancient principles in new settings" it takes awhile for the law to develop, he said.

Adding to the uncertainty in lower courts, he said, is that, to this point, "the Supreme Court has looked out at this body of jurisprudence and let it stand."

There is another element at work: Plaintiffs' lawyers are gaining more experience and have gotten a much better feel as they have learned from their past success and their past failures.

Drimmer also said that fewer cases are being dismissed on forum non conveniens and other grounds as judges have made the adjustment. [Jonathan C. Drimmer is a partner at Steptoe & Johnson who lectures on the Alien Tort Statute at Georgetown Law School and advises multinational companies on compliance with the Alien Tort Statute.]

"Courts clearly are a lot more comfortable hearing alien tort cases that have no direct connection to United States than they were five years or 10 years ago," he said. "We are still in the nascent stages of litigation on the parameters of the ATS. Twenty years from now, we are going to look back at and see this as the period when the blocks were being built on how this law is going to be interpreted."

Sri Lanka Denies Times' Allegations About Civilian Deaths

Yesterday, I posted about an investigation by the Times that found that more than 20,000 Tamil civilians were killed during the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war. This number is three times higher than the government's official figure.

The government of Sri Lanka has responded by denying these allegations.

A senior official from Sri Lanka's Centre for National Security, Laksham Hullegalle said there had been no shelling or killing in the zone, and that the photographs were "totally unbelievable".

"The decision was taken by the government not to use any heavy weapons from the beginning of this month," he said.

"From that time onwards there was no heavy shelling."

Mr Hullegalle said there was a possibility the photos were fake and that there had been no corroborating evidence from civilians who fled the area and no bodies discovered.

The Permanent Secretary to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr Palitha Kohona, also dismissed the report.

"I am bemused that The Times, like a jilted old woman, is continuing a bitter campaign against Sri Lanka based on unverified figures and unsubstantiated assertions," he said.

"The simple fact is that Sri Lanka eliminated a detestable terrorist group and in the process rescued over 250,000 hostages held as a human shield by the terrorists."

Human Rights and the War on Terror

The UN Dispatch blog has been reacting to the UN Human Rights Council's resolution praising the Sri Lankan government and condemning only the Tamil Tigers for conduct during the Sri Lankan civil war.

Mark Leon Goldberg is hopeful that American participation will improve the Human Rights Council's legitimacy. John Boonstra is skeptical though.

By perversely casting proponents of a commission of inquiry as "trying to undermine Sri Lanka's efforts in countering terrorism," Sri Lanka has created an utterly false dichotomy between combating terrorism and protecting human rights. Its unwillingness to have potential human rights violations investigated only casts doubt on its wartime conduct, rather than exonerating its actions at a stroke, as the government absurdly claims.

For the United States to make a difference in changing this dynamic on the Council, it goes without saying that it will have to accept and embrace what should be an uncontested truism: that effectively countering terrorism not only allows for, but in fact requires, wholehearted defense of human rights. This means, once again, fully renouncing torture and working to undo years of policy and rhetoric that make it little surprise where Sri Lanka's leaders incubated such a supreme self-confidence in their own war on terrorism.

UPDATE: The State Department held a roundtable discussion on strategies for US participation in the Human Rights Council. It was attended by representatives human rights NGOs and US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice. Vital Voices has a blog post about it; I'll post more information if I can find any.

"Hidden Massacre"

An investigation by The Times revealed that in the final phases of the Sri Lankan civil war, more than 20,000 Tamil civilians were killed. This number is three times the government's official figure and most of these deaths were the result of government shelling. The Times was able to establish this through aerial photographs, official documents, witness accounts and expert testimony.

The Sri Lankan authorities have insisted that their forces stopped using heavy weapons on April 27 and observed the no-fire zone where 100,000 Tamil men, women and children were sheltering. They have blamed all civilian casualties on Tamil Tiger rebels concealed among the civilians.

This makes the UN Human Rights Council unwillingness to investigate the Sri Lankan government even more outrageous.

Do the Detainee Abuse Photos Show Rape?

According to Ret. Major General Antonio Taguba, the author of the Abu Ghraib report, the photos that the Obama Administration decided not to release "show rape." (Foreign Policy's Passport blog has some background.)

Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President’s attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.

Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President’s decision, adding: “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.

“I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.

“The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it.”

Blogger Larisa Alexandrovna notes that pictures like these have already been released. On UN Dispatch, Mark Leon Goldberg thinks the victims' right to privacy should be taken into account as well.