Connections to violence

So anyone who reads this blog probably knows by now that I write a lot about conflict resources. I have been scanning the mining news and other humanitarian sites for many years now, and the more I read and follow, the angrier I become.

I am angry because the abuses are so vast and I am disgusted because we as Canadians are so intricately involved in violence around the world and seem to not know about it, or worse, not care. We focus instead on providing relief from the problems we are helping to cause.

I have finally begun to share some of these news stories regarding conflict resources around the world on twitter (@miningconflict). I hope you will all follow it and send me links to new stories if you find them. This topic is one I choose to focus on, because it is the one place where we as Canadians are involved and I feel can make an actual difference without having to directly interfere in other governments or people’s affairs.

I have issues with “development“. I see it as a form of neo-colonialism. I also have issues with many humanitarian causes that can be unsustainable in the long run, vertical and even victimizing. For me, the best way to be a humanitarian is to change myself. I don’t need to go and help in some orphanage or school, or give money to some charity and often feel conflicted with both. I feel I can do far more with my choices than any money or service could ever “fix”.

By choosing to take a stand against supporting more violence and speaking out against it I feel I can be far more effective. I feel that stopping the problem needs to come to first. The saddest thing to me is that most people in Canada have no idea how much violence the Canadian government or Canadian companies have caused and are still causing worldwide, because I know they wouldn’t knowingly support these abuses. There’s little we feel we can do. There’s really no one-stop conflict-free shop (though that would be wonderful!). The government follows its lobbyists more than its constituents– and our letters seem useless.

Make no mistake about it. Our Canadian mining interests are helping to fuel violence around the world. Our stores are filled with products that have blood on them. Why do we allow this to continue? What can we do to change it? It NEEDS to be changed. And we need to do that from our end.  We need to say, we will not use products that have caused violence and we will tell the company of our choice. We need to say, we will not import products that have caused abuse or violence. We need to say, it will be illegal for our companies (and government) to cause abuse or violence in our country or abroad– and we will make sure that the legalities will actually be enforced.

We do have control over some things here in Canada. We have control over what we purchase. Over who we vote into office. Over what we voice our opinions on. These  far, far away countries are not more violent than Canada by accident. There is no magic separating “us” from “them” that makes Canada less violent. We are not somehow more advanced, or “developed”. They are not more prone to violence because of some inherent violence within them or some longstanding ethnic conflicts that we just somehow avoided here. We are connected to much of their violence. We are part of it with the choices we make each and every day here in Canada. This violence is structured. And it’s all about profit and power. Colonialism never really left us– only new masters are now in charge. Resources are still the main game.

The sooner we realize this, the better off we all will be. As long as incentives to violence remain, the longer the violence will remain. As long as we continue to “develop” countries into one progression of consumption where capitalism reigns, the longer the violence will remain. The longer we interfere and try to “fix” instead of seeing the problem amongst ourselves to “fix”, the longer the violence will remain. The only thing we need to “fix” is ourselves. We in North America need to fix our material obsessions. We need to stop being only consumers of things. Our consumption is ensuring others live in poverty and destruction while we live in luxury. We (our government) need to stop giving endless loans to warlord-like dictators who ensure it will be subsequent generations who will pay for their power. We need to to have accountability for our actions. We need to stop stealing resources away from the earth at alarming rates and funneling the profit to those who bring violence. We need to change our structures so they are fair and equitable to all. So that all have equal voice and say in affairs that concern them. This is not a “third”-world problem alone. It is a world problem. We all are the problem. And we all need to be the solution. We all need to sacrifice and change and make peace within our own lives.

What can you do about global violence? First- Stop consuming so much stuff! Contact the companies you purchase from and ask them to stop buying raw materials or manufactured goods that have fueled violence. Write to the government. Speak out about it. Tell everyone you know! And pass this message on!

Some Canadians are trying to find legal solutions. Bill C-300 is an important step in this direction. Please read up about it and speak out about it!

If you want to write to the government (and I’m hoping you will!), here are some people to try writing to:

John McKay, MP. Liberal Party of Canada, MckayJ@parl.gc.ca- responsible for bringing Bill C-300 to Parliament.

Kevin Sorenson, Chair, Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, SorenK@parl.gc.ca
Angela Crandall, Clerk, Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, faae@parl.gc.ca

or Write to:

House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario  K1A 0A6
Canada

The Prime Minister – pm@pm.gc.ca

The Foreign Affairs Minister- cannon.L@parl.gc.ca

The Leader of the Opposition- Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca

Other party leaders in Parliament-  Layton.J@parl.gc.ca; duceppe.G@parl.gc.ca

Find your Member of Parliament here.

And find your MPP here.

The Least-Worst Option: Statebuilding in Afghanistan via Transforming the Narcotics Industry

By Graham Engel

“But war’s a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.” - William Cowper, The Task, V, The Winter Morning Walk, line 187.

While Canadian troops have been present in Afghanistan since at least 2001, present conditions suggest Canada will not be there much longer. Our current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is calling for an exit strategy¹ while still assuring the US that we will support them in their latest troop-surge, which gives the impression that Canada’s decision to stay in Afghanistan is not one made in Ottawa. This is reemphasized by John Foster, who reminds us that “as part of the International Security Assistance Forces and the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom, Canada has supported US interests in Afghanistan (2)” and will likely do so until told otherwise. The amalgamation of forces are in Afghanistan to address the failed state that it is, and hope to institute a stable and productive apparatus so that Western forces can leave, and the habitual relations between nations can resume; in Afghanistan’s case, habitual relations refer to transport in trade goods and a stable foothold for NATO allies in that region of the world. Building the state of Afghanistan is plagued with enough obstacles to make our stay there ambiguously protracted, and a stay of questionable worth. Yet, this paper will argue not only for prolonged Canadian presence in Afghanistan, but will argue that transforming the drug economy should be their central preoccupation, as it may be the linchpin to a sustaining Afghan state.

Ideally, Canada would need not stay in Afghanistan. The Bonn agreements have established a globally-recognized government, the people have voted their representatives into power, and the task of rebuilding has begun. In the words of Captain Nichola Goddard, whom died on our behalf in Afghanistan, these governments are a reflection of the desires of the people.

“The Afghan people have chosen who will lead them. Their new government is striving to make Afghanistan a better place. I had never truly appreciated the awesome power of a democratic government before. We are here to assist the legitimate and democratically elected government (Outside the Wire, 57).”

Yet, despite Western attestations that the Afghan people have self-selected leadership, real Afghani’s describe the situation in other words. Malalai Joya is an outspoken female politician from Afghanistan, a feat rare enough in itself, but also compounded by her outspoken critique of those who hold power in her country. According to Joya, “…80% of the members of the Afghan parliament are warlords, drug lords, and criminals. The drug lords are ministers, governors, commanders, MPs, and ambassadors; [President] Karzai continues to put these criminals in high official posts and the Afghan people are hostages in their hands (230).” Not only are corruption (Kreutzmann 2007; Berdal 2009), entrenched criminality (Cornell 2007), and political violence (Aras and Toktas 2008) the foundation of the state of Afghanistan, but the international community is complicit in it, accepting its current composition as long as this government is serving Western interests. These individuals are power-holders in the country, those whom fought with the ISAF to defeat the Taliban, and are not really products of a functioning democratic system, but rewards for assistance.

A shuffling of powers such as this is not new in Afghanistan. Indeed, as a country which has been exploited as part of the ‘Great Game’ since it was first recognized, contemporary global history has seen Britain, the US, Russia/USSR, and Pakistan all in some way seek influence on the state. Furthermore, para-state actors in the form of al-Qaeda and now the deposed-Taliban seek to exert their influence on the governance structure of this former Durrani² state. Operating from the North West Frontier Provinces (NWFP) of Pakistan, a region which is violently opposed to external governance structures (and have been historically unmanageable; Omranj 2009; Spencer 2009), extremists are destabilizing not only Afghanistan, but Pakistan as well. This spawns fears of a Talibanized Pakistan (Spencer 2009), as that states incumbent government has neglected to persecute them in their NWFP’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), leaving the possibility open that they may be able to spread all the way to Islamabad.

The issue of a failing Pakistan, a tenuous Afghanistan, and the criminality and corruption which plagues them become compounded by narcotics production and sale. The difficulty of this situation is how entrenched the narco-economy has become, which is likely a direct result of decades of war and degrading infrastructure. Where “more than 70% of the people live below the poverty line” (Aras and Toktas, 7), those who are able to cultivate opium in Afghanistan do. The industry is estimated to be worth US 2.7$ B., and is roughly 52% of the Afghan GDP (Kreutzmann 2009), involving an estimated 3.3 million Afghani’s directly (Berdal 2009). Farmers profit from producing a cash crop which nets $90/kg, substantially better than many of the other alternatives provided³, though it should be said that it is at least suspected that many farmers are forced into opium production. Kreutzmann says “the farmers are often compelled to cultivate poppy and receive only a nominal share of the profits” (6), yet according to Maloney, tribal leaders become involved in negotiations for the wider area, needing to “take a cut of the action to permit the cultivation to be done” (9), as it is a profitable enterprise not to be turned down lightly by any community. While this may represent a “possibility of rising from their abject poverty” (Van Ham, and Kamminga, 2), this seductive enterprise comes with the associated risks of an illicit economy, that being corruption, conflict, and entrenched interests who would seek to maintain this social order.

Domestically in Afghanistan, ties to the Drug Trade extend as far up as the President’s brother, and can realistically be found in many of the state institutions. Berdal states that poppy-growing districts are exposed to endemic corruption, with police posts being “awarded through bidding process[es], with prices reaching as high as $100,000 for a six-month appointment to a position with a monthly salary of $60 (6)”. This is because turning a blind eye to the growth, processing, and transport of opium is highly lucrative due to the bribery that befalls one at that station. Not only is regional governance compromised, but international governance too. The processing and transport phases of opium production, where the real profits are to be made, are not based in Afghanistan, but are “…variably and inextricably linked at multiple levels to the political and economic processes and people that constitute the nation-state of Pakistan – and have been for some decades (Maloney 11).” In the uncontrolled and volatile NWFP’s, the drug processing occurs, and from there are shipped to many regional, and international, clients. These networks “have been players in that scene for decades – far longer than Al Qaeda and the Taliban have existed as organizations (ibid.)”, with these inter-linkages extending as high as the Pakistani Army’s National Logistics Cell (ibid.). Beyond lining pockets and providing incomes for those who need it, illicit trades are notorious for providing armaments to para-state organizations (Aras and Toktas; Kreutzmann). Thus we see in Afghanistan “a power struggle… in which regional warlords challenge the central authority, in which rebels, guerrilla fighters and/or Mujaheddin finance their wars against the center with capital returns from poppy cultivation (Kreutzmann 5).”

Kreutzmann says that “the drug-economy…enables regional leaders to execute semi-independent rule and to establish quasi-autonomous territories under their jurisdiction and economic control (7)”, which is exacerbated by regional interests in this social structure. Drug-moneys undermine faith in the government, corrupt legal authority, enable sub-state social structuring, and yet are absolutely necessary for many Afghani’s to live upon. Further, a historical legacy of turmoil leads to a tribal predisposition to resolving conflicts via violence and usurpation, targeting enemies and praising allies, of acting as their own law instead of following a central governments (Cornell 2007; Omrani 2009). Making it more difficult still are international sanctions against involvement in drug economies, which will force the hand of any internationally recognized government, ultimately driving producers to groups such as the Taliban (Van Ham, Kamminga, 5). Western domestic policy also causes a narrow range of actions to be taken, as permissiveness (of cultivation so as not to alienate rural Afghani’s), transformation, or anything that is not explicitly eradication is met with incredulity and political sanction at home. Dissolving this knot is the key element to Afghan stability.

The only means of eliminating the lucrative narcotics market would be full-out legalization, yet this is not likely to happen, leaving the next best solution to lie in transforming the Afghan opium crop into a legitimate medical morphine industry. While it is nowhere near as lucrative as the illicit trade, growers will find themselves offered a chance to earn a good livelihood and to embrace a peace-economy. Afghanistan possesses the appropriate expertise and infrastructure to begin licensed poppy-growing for morphine and codeine, creating “a humanitarian brand of Afghan morphine and codeine…marketed in developing countries that have a serious shortage of those medicines.” (Van Ham, and Kamminga 6). Christopher Hitchens agrees with this idea, by saying that “the revenue that now goes to drug lords and terrorists could be applied straight to Afghanistan’s reconstruction, while weakening those who benefit from an artificially created monopoly (Foreign Policy, “Legalize It”, May/June 2007).”

Not only would opium be transformed, but the marijuana industry could transfigure into a hemp food and textiles economy. Afghanistan is a prime source of the worlds hashish supply (as seen in Cpl. Pagnacco’s Afghan photos), an industry not as lucrative as opium, but surely profitable. If the conditions are right to grow cannabis for smoking, then the conditions are certainly capable of growing hemp for sustenance. Hemp’s high-nutritive value (Kylstra 2009; Callaway 2004) can be used to ensure a higher quality of life for those whom are brought into the fold of the centralized Afghani state, as marijuana growers would become the food supply for the burgeoning state. When processed, the fibrous material could be used to provide a subsidized source of fabric for all state uniforms – making those uniforms creates labor which could be done by any one in need of a job.

Following the path of transformation offers minimal change for the average Afghani, an opportunity to join a legal enterprise, and the opportunity for local stake-holders to integrate into the central state. Those who are profiting the most from the shadow-economy could be incorporated as a part of this apparatus, as plantation managers or members of the ministry of Medical Morphine or Textiles (becoming no more corrupt than Western politicians); those whom are using it to fund insurgencies would refuse this peace-building option, thus extricating themselves from the legitimacy they experienced as protector of their locales livelihood. Then the state, with its enforcement apparatus, has reason to push them out. Johnathan Goodhand calls this ‘the border effect’, where “through a process of either co-opting or crushing rural outlaws in frontier regions, states…strengthened their capacities (3)” by becoming a force capable of instituting rule of law. These ‘brigands’ would still attempt to coerce communities into funding them through opium cultivation, but “the solution to the dilemma of security and stability lies in the fact that the majority of people in Afghanistan do not want the Taliban regime to return (Aras, and Toktas 10).” If the Afghani people want an established, legal state, then they will stand up to adversity for one. This, coupled with the transit revenue that will be generated by the Turkmenistan pipeline (US$160m./year – Foster 2008), may see the Afghan state in a position to grow and improve the lot of its people.

Critiques say that such a proposal would never work, as no control mechanism exists to ensure only licit poppy/cannabis production is occurring (Berdal), to which it should be said that Afghanistan is a state which is rebuilding and subsequently lacks many mechanisms – just because it fails to have an appropriate domestic monitoring apparatus is no reason to turn down a transformative opportunity that may win many Afghani’s over to the side of the central government. A more dangerous critique will be those disenfranchised regional operant’s whom have been profiting from lawless Afghanistan ‘forever’. Concerted resistance from outside Afghanistan’s borders could see the beginning of interstate conflict with Pakistan, or with peoples of the FATA’s of Pakistan’s NWFP. Another legitimate concern is whether this is approvable by Muslim law, yet Van Ham and Kamminga say “the cultivation of opium [is allowed] when it does not harm but rather benefits society” (10), and in a case such as this, it does.

Transforming drug economies in order to preserve livelihoods while creating new national industries which are enforceable through a legitimate state-coercive apparatus is an exercise in political imagination. The underlying theme of contemplating the Afghanistan state is that, since 1839, the West has been projecting their norms and value-structures onto an area which has resisted them from their inception. While strategies can be suggested, it is like asking “how can we make this work?” when instead we should be asking “what has been work in Afghanistan?” Every interventionist strategy since the British Colonial era has been self-serving and has created blowback which has haunted the West to this day, and Canada’s current involvement is no exception. While this paper has suggested a means by which a state could be built, it has been suggested with the understanding that the strategies being discussed in the popular media involve a troop-surge, an aspiration that Afghanistan will work on its own, and then a retreat by Western forces. Canada should not even be there, as it is not our place to tell the world what to do, but since we are there, the least-worst option would be to build something that could be legitimately sustainable. To do otherwise would be akin to playing a game one intended to lose.

Works Cited

Aras, Bulent, and Toktas, Sule. “Afghanistan’s Security: Political Process, State-Building and Narcotics”. Middle East Policy, Vol. 15, No. 2, Summer 2008.

Berdal, Mats. ‘Chapter Three: The Opium Trade.’ Building Peace after War. Routledge Publishing. London, UK. 2009.

Callaway, J.C. “Hempseed as a Nutritional Resource: An Overview”. Euphytica. Vol. 140, 65-72. 2004. Kluwer Academic Publishers. The Netherlands.

Cornell, Svante E.’Narcotics and Armed Conflict: Interaction and Implications’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 30: 3, 207 — 227. 2007. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.

Foreign Policy. “The Poppy Trade”. Foreign Policy, no 168. 2008.

Foster, John. “A Pipeline Through a Troubled Land: Afghanistan, Canada, and the New Great Energy Game”. Foreign Policy Series, Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives. Vol. 3, No. 1. June 19, 2008.

Goodhand, Jonathan ‘Corrupting or Consolidating the Peace? The Drugs Economy and Post-conflict Peacebuilding in Afghanistan’, International Peacekeeping, International Peacekeeping, Vol.15, No.3, June 2008

Hitchens, Christopher. “Legalize It.” Foreign Policy. No. 160, May June 2007.

Ismi, A. “An Interview with Afghan MP Malalai Joya” from Afghanistan and Canada (eds. L. Kowaluk and S. Staples). Black Rose Books, 2009.

Kreutzmann, Hermann “Afghanistan and the Opium World Market: Poppy Production and Trade”. Iranian Studies, 40 : 5, 605-621. December 2007.

Kylstra, Carolyn. “6 stealth Health Foods”. Men’s Health. Vol. 24, no. 6. Ag. 2009.

Maloney, Sean M.’On a pale horse? Conceptualizing narcotics production in southern Afghanistan and its relationship to the Narcoterror Nexus’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 20: 1, 203 — 214. March 2009.

Omrani, Bijan (2009) ‘THE DURAND LINE: HISTORY AND PROBLEMS OF THE AFGHAN/PAKISTAN BORDER’, Asian Affairs, 40: 2, 177 — 195 July 2009.

Patterson, J & K. Warren, “Selections from Outside the Wire: The War in Afghanistan in the Words of its Participants” from Outside the Wire: The War in Afghanistan in the Words of its Participants. (Eds. J. Patterson, and K. Warren), Vintage Books, 2007.

Spencer, Metta. “Afpak 101”  Peace Magazine. Apr-Jun 2009. Vol 25, Iss. 2. Published by the Canadian Disarmament Information Service. Toronto, Ont.

Van Ham, Peter, and Kamminga, Jorrit. “Poppies for Peace: Reforming Afghanistan’s Opium Industry”. The Washington Quarterly Volume 30, Issue 1. Winter 2006-07.

Zakaria, Fareed. ‘Interview with Stephen Harper’. “Fareed Zakaria GPS”, March 1 2009. CNN.

20 Years After the Fall

On November 9, the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was celebrated around the world.  Many world leaders including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were present at Brandenburg Gate, the former site of the “Iron Curtain” that separated West Germany from East Germany.

Supported by Communist Soviet Union, East Germany began building the Berlin Wall without warning, in August of 1961 to stop the hoards of East Germans who were fleeing to West Berlin.  What began as a makeshift barbed wire fence soon became a 156 kilometre long concrete wall that surrounded West Berlin and was guarded heavily against attempted escapes from East Germans.  In its twenty-eight year existence, more than 130 people are said to have been killed at the “Iron Curtain”.

On November 9, 1989, after weeks of civil unrest amongst Eastern Germans, it was announced on late night news (in a moment of confusion by a spokesperson of the government) that effective immediately, the Eastern German border was open to everyone.  Residents quickly lined up at the Brandenburg Gate, and the overwhelmed guards simply let them through without using lethal force.  East met West on the other side of the Berlin Wall, and citizens from both sides of the concrete barrier began to celebrate their freedom. 

While the celebration that took place this year to commemorate this great event in history was a spectacle with all the bells and whistles, including giant coloured dominoes set up in queue along a 1.5 kilometre stretch where the Berlin Wall used to stand, it did little to take away from the reality that those living in Eastern Germany still suffer poverty and unemployment at much higher levels than their Western counterparts, and that basic freedoms and rights still escape millions of citizens of the world. 

We should take the time to look at an event like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the great impact that the citizens of Eastern Germany had on putting into motion a stream of events that led to the reunification of Germany.  What a great example of how individuals can rise together to make a difference, and how easily governing bodies can turn these moments of freedom and celebration into legacies of poverty.  Perhaps the money that went into the lavish celebration of the 20^th anniversary could have been better spent in rebuilding the Eastern states that are still struggling two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall?  Just one girl’s thought…

hw

 

Money and corporate Rule

Let’s look for a moment at the value of humanity against the value of corporations.

One human, a living breathing organism, is entitled to certain rights under our legal system, usually pertaining to their right to live a happy and healthy existence free from the imposition or coercion of other human beings. Yet corporations routinely infringe upon these rights and are still permitted, if not encouraged to operate.

One corporation, a manufactured entity that creates products or services in exchange for money, is entitled to more rights than a living breathing organism. They are entitled to rights that allow them to infringe upon the rights of a human being in the name of profit or development. That insanity. It makes no sense to value a manufactured entity, a corporation, more than a human life. So why do we do it? Why do we allow them to lobby the government so that they can continue to commit crimes?

How did we get here and why is it that profit comes before human rights?

In a perfect world a corporation would not be allowed to infringe upon the rights of any human being to make their product. They should, in theory, run completely legally without interfering with any rights– or they would lose their right to exist.

Sadly, on our earth as it stands, a human’s value is often only seen as the value of their earning potential and their overall economic belongings– their homes, their cars and their toys. Not their lifestyle and choices, or morality, or work ethic, or any other positive and human quality, but a purely economic one.

Does money rule your life? What would you do for money? Would you steal from another human being? Would you hold them at gunpoint, kill or abuse them? Would you rape them and their families? What if it was for millions of dollars? How about for billions? Would that be enough?

Does money really have the ability to buy everything? Is there always a price?

Money is certainly a motivating factor in many people’s lives. It is next to impossible to live in this society without any money (although some do!). Vagrancy is often not tolerated or even punished, and one cannot always easily grow their own food if they do not own land, which requires money. Freeganism alienates you from society.

Money permeates our lifestyle and helps keep us locked into a cycle of economic violence. We become disconnected from everything else. We become a cog in a very very big wheel. We purchase products made by distant hands unaware of their effect and in doing so, say it’s ok to violate human rights.

After all, how could I “live” without a cellphone, right?

Well, maybe that’s not our intention– but there is reality behind that. To ignore a corrupt system and continue to participate in it speaks volumes.

It says, we don’t care or we don’t know what to do to change it or that we are not willing to sacrifice things ourselves to make the changes.

It can be overwhelming and you can feel like there is no choice. There is.

But you have to care enough to make the changes and sacrifices personally. You have to look into what you are buying, and say, NO. I will not buy this if I don’t know and trust the source and then write to the companies that make the products and demand alternatives. Re-use what you already have, or consider buying it used… you might even get a deal on it.

Are money and material things really worth more to you than someone’s life?

The State of the World

Here is a submission by a childhood friend of mine. I saw this post of his and had to re-print it here:

Sometimes they say “Look at the world today!” and they mean that it’s a mess. Or they say “What’s wrong with people?” and mean that they’re sick; people do sick things, they treat each other like dirt, they steal and rape and kill. They wage war. They consume recklessly and spare little thought for the state of the world, the true state, the damage caused by their actions: the landfills, the mass graves, the extinct species, the genocide.

Sometimes they ask “Why?”

It hit me today that the reason is me. Not all of it, and in fact far from most of it. But I go through my life and in my wake there is negativity and anger and the ripples of those things produce more ripples, and those still more.

I like to think I’m a good person. Most of us do. And in some ways I am. I don’t kill people and I don’t steal. I’m honest. I make sure to recycle and I take public transit. I try to keep in touch with my friends and family, and let them know how much they mean to me. But now I’m thinking that it isn’t enough. I’m thinking of the damage I leave behind me; I went across India and I got into shouting matches with a half dozen people. I told myself it was ok because I was depressed and alone and exhausted, but all I gave those men was the image of an angry foreigner, an angry white person, an angry tourist, and how is that going to carry forward with them? I don’t know why that example came to me instead of a hundred others, instead of something more personal, or darker, but when I look back on that it cuts me. It’s exactly the behaviour I do without thinking that can have the worst consequences, the feelings I’ve hurt without wanting to, the useless products I’ve bought, the packages I’ve thrown away.

I move through the world and because of its nature, the nature of my way of life, the nature of my selfishness and the fact that I am a member of a society dependent on oil and consumption, because of my fucked up psychology, my angst and guilt, my ignorance and stupidity, because of all of these things I leave damage in my wake. Negativity. And it spreads – mine fosters yours. Yours fosters mine. It spreads, ripples on a pond, and the pond is the world and the ripples are history and this has been going on forever.

So fucking of COURSE the world is like this. Of course murder happens. Of course war. They produce themselves. I produce them. You do.

By: Chad Inglis

reprinted by RS

The lack of human rights in refugee camps

Lately certain readings have got me thinking again about the idea of refugee camps and the access the residents of such camps have to fundamental human rights. These camps are most often overseen by the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR), who have registered over 50 million displaced persons or refugees worldwide. Nearly 90% of these registered persons are living within designated refugee camps.

Refugee camps are precarious places, set up in a state of emergency with the intention of being temporary,  leaving the residents constantly unsure of their future. The goal of the refugee camp is to provide displaced persons with temporary shelter, food, and protection until they can safely return to their homes. In practice, many refugee camps are places of immense insecurity where malnutrition and disease runs rampant that remain lasting over many years. Some refugees have lived in their respective camps now for over 60 years, and have raised children and grandchildren within them, who also retain the refugee status. Their rights are limited, and they remain unsure of their future.

Refugees in camps are often seen by the outside world as essentially non-persons in non-places, whose location is not even worthy of recognition on a local map. They have often fled in a hurried situation, without all their legal papers or documents, making travel or relocation almost impossible. This lack of documentation also makes appeals for asylum in places like Canada nearly unattainable. These camps are often located on the outskirts of towns, away from borders and other communities. Some camps have gates, security personnel and barbed wire fences to restrict the movement of refugees outside of the camp and to provide a sense of security for those living inside.  Many of those who have fled their country of origin are essentially illegals in their new countries of residence, and thus unable to work, freely move, or have any political voice. Instead they must idly wait as an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and uselessness take over.

Considering these camps are often set up by the United Nations, the body responsible for creating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), it is startling that the basic human rights of these people are not being met in these supposed “humanitarian” situations. Going through the rights guaranteed by the UDHR, many refugees do not have:

- the right to recognition before the law

- the right to life, liberty and security of person

- the right to equal dignity

- the right to not to be held in arbitrary detention

- the right to freedom of movement and residence

- the right to leave any country and return to their own country

- the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution

- the right to nationality

- the right to own property

- the right to take part in government

- the right to work, to free choice of employment

- the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of themselves and their families

… and this list of  rights denied to many refugees does sometimes go on.

Why is this so? And what can be done to change this? How can the UN overcome the hypocrisy of one the one hand, claiming to help these populations, while at the same time, ensuring that their rights are denied, sometimes for decades?

The way the camps are so often spontaneously set up makes the problem of access to rights one that is difficult to overcome, but I think it is necessary for the international community to begin to give this matter serious weight. National borders and immigration laws also become an issue as these populations are denied access to work and have little possibility of any legal economic activity. Some NGOs have come into camps to help provide crafting opportunities or small loans for small business start-up so as to give the residents a sense of purpose, but it is not enough. The vast majority remain completely dependent on handouts, without any other possibility, since they have no access to money or the networks necessary to support themselves.

These refugees ARE capable and we need to start seeing them in this light instead of merely as victims. They need to have access to the rights they sorely deserve so that they can give their own lives purpose. They need access to education. Access to employment. Access to land. Access to government. They need to be seen as persons with dignity who are fully capable of living their own lives. They have had misfortune in their lives, but that does not negate their abilities. Forcing them into camps that can last decades, where they are denied of basic fundamental rights does little to promote anything other than the idea of victimhood.

Since these camps are internationally bureaucratized, it is a global concern. These camps must be restructured to provide their residents with rights. Without access to these rights, their future becomes nearly hopeless. With these rights, their future becomes truly possible. I think for the most part the intentions of these camps are good, but to be able to truly provide  “humanitarian” assistance, they must be restructured. Otherwise, we merely are creating a larger problem in the long run.

A Look at the My Lai Massacre

Being a Global Studies and History major has allowed me an interesting perspective on the history of war.  One war that I have studied quite a bit was the Vietnam War and more specifically the My Lai massacre that occurred in March of 1968.  I had heard a few years ago that Oliver Stone was planning to bring the horrors of this historical event to the big screen in another one of his epic political films, but recently learned that the production of “Pinkville” (what the My Lai massacre is more commonly referred to) had been halted.  Now whether or not there is any political posturing behind this production delay, I felt that I would bring the story of My Lai to you in writing and allow you to understand not only what happened on that fateful March 16, but also how the American government and their treatment of soldiers led to this horrific event. 

The My Lai massacre was one of the greatest war tragedies of all time.  Hundreds of lives were lost in that small village in March of 1968, and along with them, the souls of countless soldiers went missing that day.  While the American public struggled to figure out why and how this could happen, the soldiers who were involved were asking themselves the same question.  It was a question that would never be answered.  There were many theories as to how such a catastrophic event could occur under American leadership.  Racism was a reoccurring speculation, as many of the soldiers had been trained since day one to hate the Vietnamese.  “The many hours the men spent during combat training listening to their instructors referring to the Vietnamese as ‘gooks’ and ‘slants’.[1]  Another explanation explored was the language barrier.  The army felt that because their soldiers and the Vietnamese could not communicate, there had been a misunderstanding at My Lai.[2]  This theory was quickly quashed by the testimony of the soldiers who had been present that day in the village.  Drugs and alcohol were another possible “reason” for the massacre.  The troops had been drinking the night before the massacre[3], but again the testimony of Charlie Company proved that theory wrong.  It is still hard to say exactly what caused all those soldiers to react the way they did in Vietnam that day, and throughout the rest of the war, but it is safe to say that there are some factors that contributed more than others.  Through conscription and a lack of training of soldiers, as well as jungle warfare involving an invisible enemy, and the need for revenge by the soldiers fighting the war, the My Lai massacre was able to occur, and it became a direct reflection of the Vietnam War in general.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

The Vietnam War was America’s longest and most unresolved military conflict.[4]  As a result, hundreds of thousands of young American men were forced to join the army through conscription, and were provided very little training as soldiers with regard to the Law of Land Warfare and the Geneva Conventions.[5]  While American involvement in the Vietnam War was getting deeper and deeper, the government began to rush to find men to fight the war overseas.  They used conscription as a means to accomplish this feat, and were consequently left with thousands of men who were well below military standards.  “…what came to be called McNamara’s 100,000, the Project 100,000 men well below the Army average in terms of aptitude and intelligence and deemed unlikely to met peacetime entry qualifications.”[6]  The standards for acceptable soldiers in Vietnam were so low, that it was not unimaginable that the My Lai massacre could happen.  Many of these men did not have the capacity to differentiate between right and wrong, and were therefore unable to protest what was ordered at My Lai.  Another problem with conscription was that many young men were forced into fighting the war.  “‘I was scared.  I didn’t want to go, but I had to,’ remembers Bergthold.  ‘Because if I didn’t I’d probably get court-martialed.’”[7]  Unwilling young men across America were drafted into the army, and they could not protest without being put in jail.  When given these two bleak options, most men chose to fight the war, although they never truly accepted that they had to.  They felt trapped and in most cases, did not care about the war at all.[8]  They wanted to go home, and this meant providing the government with high body counts.  “In a war that did not offer territory as a reward, body count became the index of success and failure in the whole war.  Officers who did not achieve satisfactory body counts were replaced; units who performed well were rewarded with leave.  The body count was the key statistic after each firefight and the pressure to produce high figures was enormous.”[9]  These soldiers knew that if high body counts were provided they could go home, and they soon stopped caring about who they were killing.  The Vietnam War had an astronomical amount of civilian casualties and this was due, in large part to soldiers who did not care about or understand the war they were fighting. 

This lack of regard for noncombatants in Vietnam was a direct result of the lack of training that was provided to soldiers before deployment.[10]  While rushing to deploy young soldiers, the armed forces relaxed their training methods with regard to the rules of engagement.  This meant that most soldiers received less than one hour of training on the proper treatment of noncombatants in foreign countries.  “On paper, all soldiers received at least one hour’s instruction on the Law of Land Warfare and the Geneva Conventions.  In practice, it made little, if any, impression on men who were spending hundreds of hours being trained to follow orders and learning how to kill.”[11]  So few hours were spent teaching these men how to deal with the Vietnamese civilians that there is no wonder they showed them no regard in My Lai.  They were not taught to communicate with them, or to understand their culture, and as a result they saw them as less than human.[12]  The soldiers did not have any remorse for killing noncombatants in My Lai, and throughout Vietnam because they were not taught how to treat them as human beings.  “Rules of engagement were designed to limit the risk of civilian casualties.  In theory, they were issued to every serviceman; in practice, they might as well have been written on water.”[13]  Rules of engagement was a term that was rarely heard amongst these soldiers.  Such a miniscule amount of time was spent teaching these men how to behave in a war, that they invented their own rules.  In doing so, they forgot to see humans, and instead saw animals when dealing with the Vietnamese.  In My Lai, they did not see innocent civilians, they saw human scum, something to kill, something to desecrate[14].  This was the case all over Vietnam, where blameless peasants were being killed every day due, in part, to a growing frustration within the army companies.  This frustration stemmed from the massive number of American soldiers the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army were killing[15].  They were fighting a war that the United States was unaccustomed to, and therefore soldiers were losing their friends and fellow fighters on a daily basis.

Jungle warfare was a foreign method of war for the Americans, and they were losing many soldiers as a result[16].  After years of fighting against the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, they were still unable to identify friendly civilians from enemy soldiers.  “In a conventional war, it is clear who are civilians and who are soldiers, but guerillas wear no uniforms or insignia to differentiate themselves from noncombatants.”[17]  These silent forces were killing soldiers each day, and there was no way to stop it from happening.  They simply could not tell who was good and who was bad.  “‘How can you distinguish the enemy?  How can you distinguish between the good and the bad?  All of them looked the same.  And that’s why the war was so different.  You know it wasn’t like the Germans over here or the Japanese over there.  They all looked alike, North and the South.  So how can you tell?’”[18]  This statement sums up the soldiers’ attitudes towards the Vietnamese.  Their confusion was at an all time high, as they tirelessly plowed through the rice paddies searching for enemies.  They saw old men in fields and young children playing in the villages, and everyone was a threat to their safety.[19]  The more unhinged they became, the more dangerous they became.  Being unable to see their enemy led them to fire their weapons haphazardly, to attack without provocation, and to injure the innocent.[20]  These seemingly normal young men were becoming killers and this was never more apparent then when they entered My Lai village. 

Meanwhile, as the American soldiers grew increasingly frustrated, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army grew only in power.  “The Viet Cong meanwhile grew in numbers and confidence and learned how to deal with the tactical innovations of the American advisors.  In spite of millions of dollars of US military aid, and the presence of thousands of military advisors, the Viet Cong had grown steadily stronger.”[21]  The increase in power and number of the Viet Cong only added to the desperation of the American soldiers.  They grew to hate the Vietnamese more vehemently then ever and displayed this hatred through the destruction of their villages, and the rape of their women.  “‘the VC/NVA apparently lose only one sixth as many weapons as people, suggesting that possibly many of the killed are unarmed porters or by-standers.’”[22]  Never was this more apparent than in My Lai village, where hundreds of unarmed women, children and elderly men were murdered.[23]  Being unable to distinguish between the enemy and noncombatants led the soldiers to see everyone as a threat, so therefore, everyone in My Lai village had to die. 

As the assault on My Lai grew closer there was another change in the American soldiers.  More than just not being able to differentiate between the Viet Cong and the civilians, the soldiers sought revenge against all Vietnamese to avenge the deaths of their fellow soldiers.  “There then took shape a terrible psychological sequence in which there were real deaths in one’s unit, as there had been in C Company before My Lai.  There were two central deaths – one of a much-beloved sergeant who was a kind of father-figure.  There was a fierce sense of anger and grief in the men…”[24] Here lays one of the central reasons for the My Lai massacre.  The soldiers felt such guilt and shame for the deaths of their fellow officers and friends that they began to seek revenge against anyone they could.[25]  The Vietnamese were all to blame for the tragedies that befell their troops, and as such, they would all pay.  In My Lai, the soldiers entered a village of noncombatants, but all they saw were enemies, because they had long ago forgotten that there was any good in Vietnam.  These enemies who were killing off their friends one by one with booby traps in the woods, and snipers in the trees had all become a single enemy:  the Vietnamese[26].  Everyone was to blame, so everyone must pay for the deaths within their troops. 

Revenge was a key factor throughout the entire Vietnam War; it was not exclusive to the My Lai massacre.  The rape of numerous women in villages throughout Vietnam quickly became a silent problem for the American military.[27]  Michael Berhardt was a soldier in C Company and he noticed that the soldiers in his troop had adopted a new code of conduct that permitted the brutal rape of civilians.  When he was questioned about whether rape was a prevalent problem by investigators he stated, “I thought it was, sir.  It was predictable.  In other words, if I saw a woman, I’d say, ‘Well, it won’t be too long.’  That’s how widespread it was.”[28]  The soldiers had taken on a new attitude about war.  Instead of protecting the weak and powerless they were exploiting them on a daily basis.  Lieutenant William L. Calley recalled witnessing one of his soldiers raping a civilian and telling him “to get his pants back up and get over to where he was supposed to be.”[29]  Instead of reprimanding his subordinate for committing a crime of war, the Lieutenant casually tells him to stop and does not instill any type of punishment.  The soldiers in Vietnam were not being punished for their crimes, and as a result started to believe that their behavior was acceptable.  These blasé attitudes towards civilians were another contributing factor in the massacre.  When the soldiers stopped behaving like civilized humans, the people who paid the ultimate price were the women, children, and elders of My Lai village.

 There are few people who would argue that the My Lai massacre was a tragedy of unbelievable proportions, although there are not too many people who know that this tragedy occurred.  There was a large effort made by the American government to minimize what actually happened that day and eventually the ‘massacre’ became an ‘incident’ that was quickly swept under the carpet and forgotten about.[30]  The government’s attitude towards the massacre was similar to most of the soldiers of ‘C’ Company who thought they were simply following orders that day.  The lives that were taken that day were not human to them; they were something lower, something inhuman.  This mind frame allowed the soldiers to murder hundreds of souls without a second thought.  Again, this occurred for several reasons.  Racism, language barriers, and drugs and alcohol could all have played a role in the mindset of some of the soldiers, although there are several reasons that play a stronger role.  Conscription and a lack of training of soldiers left the American troops weaker then they had ever been.[31]  The young soldiers did not have the mentality or the courage to stand up and refuse to take part in My Lai because they were scared and inexperienced.  The guerilla war that the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army were fighting was something that the American military was not accustomed to.  This resulted in numerous American casualties, which produced vengeful soldiers on a mission to avenge the deaths of their friends and fellow soldiers.[32]  That being said, through conscription and a lack of training of soldiers, as well as jungle warfare involving an invisible enemy, and the need for revenge by the soldiers fighting the war, the My Lai massacre was able to occur, and it became a direct reflection of the Vietnam War in general.  Thankfully, since that fateful day in March of 1968 many of the soldiers who fought in My Lai have had the opportunity to reflect on the wrongs that they committed against the human race.  Unfortunately, there are others still who do not understand the consequences of the murders they were a part of, because they were never punished for them.  Hopefully, some lessons were learnt from these past mistakes, and the world will never have to witness another My Lai massacre.

 [1] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[2] Gershen, M. (1971). Destroy or die: the true story of mylai. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House.

[3] Olson, J., & Roberts, R. (1998). My lai: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford Books.

 [4] Gershen, M. (1971). Destroy or die: the true story of mylai. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House.

[5] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[6] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[7] Gershen, M. (1971). Destroy or die: the true story of mylai. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House.

[8] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[9] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[10] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[11] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[12] Anderson, D. (1998). Facing my lai: moving beyond the massacre. Lawrence, KA: University Press of Kansas.

[13] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[14] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[15] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[16] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[17] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[18] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[19] Anderson, D. (1998). Facing my lai: moving beyond the massacre. Lawrence, KA: University Press of Kansas

[20] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[21] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[22] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[23] Olson, J., & Roberts, R. (1998). My lai: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford Books.

[24] Anderson, D. (1998). Facing my lai: moving beyond the massacre. Lawrence, KA: University Press of Kansas.

[25] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[26] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

[27] Olson, J., & Roberts, R. (1998). My lai: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford Books

[28] Olson, J., & Roberts, R. (1998). My lai: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford Books.

[29] Olson, J., & Roberts, R. (1998). My lai: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford Books.

[31] Olson, J., & Roberts, R. (1998). My lai: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford Books.

[32] Bilton, M., & Sim, K. (1992). Four hours in my lai. New York: Penguin Group.

Individualistic Climate Change

We all hear about the terrible effects of climate change and environmental abuses on our earth. These are abuses against our human rights and are something that majorly affects peace worldwide. We are all urged to change our individual actions to reduce our carbon footprints and told how this is the best way to stop negative climate change.

Sometimes I wonder.

Now, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t take these measures– I am a hardcore advocate of sustainability who writes about these types of issues frequently and urges people to think of generations to come and our individual footprint on this earth. What I am saying is that I don’t think this is the entire picture of what’s going on in our environment. Why is everything always thrust upon the individual who really has very little say (or none) in what happens worldwide? Where is governmental restraint? Corporate restraint? What other factors are contributing to climate change?

Sometimes I wonder what effect the over 2,000 nuclear bomb tests done globally since the 1940s have had on our environment and how this, in and of itself, has contributed to global climate change and environmental harm.

Let’s entertain that idea for a second.

A nuclear bomb has enormous destructive capability. More modern nukes can have the explosive power of more than 50,000 kilotons (that’s thousands of tons) of TNT. Tests have been done in the atmosphere, underground, in the water and even in outerspace, spewing out tremendous heat, energy and radiation into the air, ground and water; along with creating shock waves carrying immense pressure that is able to take  down buildings. Hmmm. And we are expected to believe that this has had no lingering effect on the climate, weather patterns, or our health? Well, not entirely, but its definitely not in the forefront of our environmental ideology.

A nuclear explosion underwater has the capability to create a tsunami. A nuclear explosion underground has the ability to create an earthquake. A nuclear explosion in the atmosphere rains radiation down to the earth and has enough explosive power to take down large buildings in a massive radius. What long term effects does this radioactive legacy have on our environment and our climate? What cancers and other maladies has it caused in humans and animals? What weather patterns changed on account of these explosions?

They say that simply increasing ocean temperatures by a few degrees can drastically change the weather. So we are expected to believe that numerous underwater ocean tests of nuclear devices that give off extreme amounts of heat and radioactive power have not effected ocean temperature or toxicity at all?

Now, I’m not a scientist. I’m not a nuclear specialist. I’m not a climatologist. But I do think that the entire truth of the situation is being downplayed. How can these explosions NOT have a lingering, long-term negative effect on our health, our climate and our world? How can they expect us to believe that individual actions are responsible for all our climate problems? I think that this shift to the individual helps to dissuade the blame and ensures that states can take the least amount of responsibility and action. If the problem is individual– then the best way to solve it is through individual actions– right?

Treaties have been established by international bodies to try and stop nuclear weapons testing. The Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater and in space (most recently violated by the US), still allowing for underground testing, and was originally signed by the USSR, the UK, and the US. And the testing continued.

Then in 1968, the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty set to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. 189 states became party to the treaty, with five signing states (US, Russia, UK, China and France) already in possession of nukes and unwilling to fully give up their power. Four states have never signed and have also been in possession of nuclear armaments: India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan. And the testing still continued.

In 1996, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty was adopted by the UN General Assembly to ban all nuclear explosions in all environments, yet has not fully entered into force. Tests are still happening. Our environment is still being polluted with radioactivity. And yet, where is the discussion on their effects on climate change and the environment? Why is this not talked about in the mainstream?

And where is the legislation necessary to protect our rights? Why is the individual responsible when it is governments who are letting it happen? When there are no laws to protect the citizenry from major toxicity and environmental harm we all face the consequences. Democracy is supposed to be by the people, for the people. In reality it is by a few individuals, for a few individuals (and corporations) and the well-being of the general population is not what is being protected.  Why are there such lax laws governing corporate or governmental environmental abuses? Why are major treaties not being respected?

I say it’s time for states to take responsibility and stop thrusting it all on the backs of the individuals. I say it’s time for the international community to take responsibility. I say its time we started looking into ALL the reasons behind our climate problems and stop blaming the individual for everything. It is not individual changes in and of itself that is going to make a real difference for our future, it is through collective action that difference will be made. If our states are not acting in our collective interests, whose interests are they acting for? Who is looking out for our collective interests and the interests of future generations? We need to speak our voice against atrocities and make change or our voice will be taken away from us.

Nuclear weapons have one purpose- destruction and death. I say its time for those countries in possession of such destruction to become accountable to the rest of the world for their actions. I say its time these countries faced the truth of their actions. I say its time that international bodies and states started actually representing collective interests instead of focusing on their own power and greed. Individual state power is not in our collective interest. If these governments truly represent the people, they should start acting like it and start thinking of all of our futures. It is time the true reason for government– to protect our rights and help keep us safe from abuse– becomes reality.

The United Nations Human Development Report 2009: A Very Brief Look

       On Monday, the United Nations (UN) released their Human Development Report (HDR) for 2009, ranking 182 countries into their respective places based on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Human Development Index (HDI) of these countries.  GDP is defined as the total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year, equal to total consumer, investment and government spending, plus the value of exports, minus the value of imports.  In layman’s terms, it measures a country’s economic performance on a yearly basis.  Since its inception in 1990, the HDR has reached beyond simply looking at a country’s GDP and has created the HDI which measures three dimensions of human development:  life expectancy, literacy and gross enrolment in education, and having a decent standard of living.  While it is easy to argue that these measurements are not an effective way to gauge the success or failure of a country in a numbered ranking system (what of gender, social services, child welfare), for the purpose of this article, let’s just look at the gross difference between those living at the top (Norway, Australia, Iceland and Canada ranked 1 through 4) and the bottom (Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Niger in spots 180-182).

            While it should be noted that this Report was created using 2007 statistics before the current economic crisis, it is still very apparent that there are stark disparities between those countries at the top of the list, and those at the bottom.  For instance, the average life expectancy in Niger is 50 years, which is a full 30 years less than the life expectancy in 4^th place Canada.  For every dollar earned in Niger, eighty-five (85) dollars is earned in 1^st place Norway.  It is believed that more than half the population in the lowest ranking 24 countries are illiterate.  These kinds of statistics put on paper what most students of global studies already know – we do not live in a world of equality and justice.  These yearly reports simply reiterate that while the privileged can expect to enjoy a long life with education and excellent standards of living the poor seem to be destined to remain in a position of poverty, illiteracy and shortened life expectancies.  I’ve provided a very brief background on the UNHDR for you, and I encourage you to click the link that follows and read a bit more on your own…the results will hopefully shock you back into reality – I know it always does for me.

Click here to view the full Human Development Report 2009.

hw

A new Canadian army of peace?

Could it be possible?

Some current legislation could take serious steps towards the creation of a new more peaceful Canada. The Campaign to Establish a Canadian Department of Peace , MP Bill Siksay, many non-governmental organizations, academics and individuals have been proposing new ideas to help establish a more peaceful Canadian culture. How do we create a more peaceful society? A more peaceful image? A more peaceful value system in Canada? Some suggestions have been recently brought to the Canadian Parliament.

In May of this year, MP Bill Siksay introduced Bill C-390 to Parliament which would give conscientious objectors to war an opportunity to divert their tax funding away from military spending. Unfortunately, this Bill will never likely be incorporated into law, especially seeing as it has already been brought into Parliament four times and has not moved forward. It is more of a symbolic gesture and chance to open a dialogue on the issue of peace within the House.

On September 29th, Bill Siksay introduced Bill C-447, which would establish a Canadian Department of Peace to help to create a culture of peace in Canada instead of a culture of war. This department of peace would work in conjunction with the current structures and would dedicate itself to peacebuilding and the study of conditions conducive to peace both domestically and abroad. In essence it would work towards creating a culture of peace in Canada, expanding the scope of peace building, peace making and peace keeping missions of Canadians, and promoting education in peace.

There are many who think this is some huge joke and another pointless waste of taxpayer money, which to some extent I understand and agree with. Our current level of bureaucracy leaves many great ideas bound in discussion and paper-pushing, wasting money but producing few actual results. A Bill becoming a law doesn’t always ensure change– this I can agree on. What I don’t understand is the mentality that violence is the only way to meet violence and that it is not possible to change our culture (and other cultures) to become more peaceful.  I think it is important to entertain the reasons why some think this is impossible and I would love to hear thoughts on the matter who could enlighten me more towards this end.

I am not naive to violence and have experienced the world outside of Canadian safety. I have seen violence with my own eyes in many forms and have lived within cultures of fear and war. So it is not because I do not know about the realities of war that I suggest this is a positive thing.

I have read extensively over the last decade anthropological works that detail the changing cultural forms and structures of different populations over time. These have taught me that many things taken as innate in humanity are actually learned social behaviours. This includes the way we walk, the way we sleep, the way we give birth, everything we take for granted as natural and non-changeable (read Marcel Mauss “Techniques of the Body” if you’d like more insight into this). For example, while we here in North America tend to sleep in beds (on mattresses with pillows and blankets), some cultures actually sleep standing up, some cultures use neck benches, some sleep in hammocks. There is no one way to sleep. All of these “facts” that many of us take for granted as part of  humanity are not facts at all; rather they are culturally learned. The important lesson in this is that these natural “facts” can be changed if the culture itself changes because the people find the change somehow advantageous and worthy of passing on.

Violence is often thought to be an innate human trait. Much of violence, however, is culturally ingrained within us as learned social behaviour. Think about the cycle of domestic violence that we now see as a mostly a learned trait. A child that sees violence in a home thinks that this is normal and will grow up more likely to be violent as an adult. It works the same way on the national and international levels. If a society sees violence in their country, they begin to think that this is normal and will be more likely to be violent in their laws and actions. If the international community sees violence in the world, they begin to think that this is normal and will be more likely to be violent in their actions towards other countries and the international forums.

So can we lessen this massive cycle of violence in anyway? If so, how?

That’s what creating a Department of Peace could help to do. It’s not going to magically transform society into some beautiful utopia, but if we create a discussion on peace, an option for peace, education in peace; we help to create a culture of peace. The more we learn about peace, the more we accept it as culturally normal and find ways to interact with each other in non-violent ways.

The department of peace would not take away from the army. It would supplement it. It could allow for other solutions to be made so that we would not have to send our troops into dangerous situations in the first place and spare their families their loss of life in battle. How’s that for supporting our troops?

It could give another voice a chance to speak. The culture of war has taken over our country, even though the majority of Canadians (69%) consider peacekeeping a defining characteristic of Canada (p.5).  Our army has been given almost an endless budget in recent years to the detriment of our international image, and our national security. Instead of being seen as a neutral party in the world, we now are now classed among the world’s aggressors. This puts all of us in danger of retaliation. It also creates a culture of war and violence that will only be reproduced throughout our culture and among other cultures.

I for one, would like to thank Mr. Siksay for bringing this discussion to light and for trying to make Canada have more of a culture of peace. If you agree, you can thank him too at Siksay.B@parl.gc.ca. I urge you to please write to your MPs and tell them what you think of these Bills and if you would like to live in a culture of peace instead of a culture of war. If you need suggestions on what to write, please feel free to email me at apeaceofconflict@gmail.com.

The Fair Trade Fallacy: The Reality of TransFair Canada’s Impact on the Coffee Industry

In the last post, Heather discussed a fair trade product and brought to light some of the positive aspects of the fair trade industry. I decided to write a counter to her article showing some of the more negative lights of the fair trade industry to get some discussion and debate going on the topic since I have been skeptical of the fair trade industry and of the supposed non-profit business that is Ten Thousand Villages for quite some time.

One problem I have with Ten Thousand Villages has to do with what I see as the immense mark up of their product line.  Have you seen how expensive their products are? How much of that expense is going back to the actual artisan? Many of the products they ship in are priced significantly higher than the price they have been purchased for and my question is, where does their nearly $20 million in profits actually go? I found their annual reports vague in that respect, talking of the need to mark up to cover costs, but not the entire reality of the situation. It talks of profits, but not what happens to them in any great detail, where exactly these profits are reinvested, or what efforts they are taking to reduce their costs and overhead. Their use of volunteer labour must certainly help in this respect, but what other measures must be taken? Mixing business with non-profit status leaves Ten Thousands Villages in a precarious place. The non-profit status afforded to the business makes so that it MUST be under intense scrutiny and I do not believe that it has received enough scruitiny yet to ease my mind so that I can consider them fully “ethical”.

I have decided to take a look at one fair trade product to show the reality of the claims made by both TransFair Canada and organizations such as Ten Thousand Villages about the positive impacts of fair trade products. I chose one of the most popular choices in the fair trade consumption market: coffee. TransFair Canada, the only fair trade certification organization in Canada, attempts to bring equity and empowerment to producers in mostly developing countries through its certification, labeling and promotion of fair trade products. It maintains that it provides “living wages” for producers, sustainability and “addresses the injustices of conventional trade, which traditionally discriminates the poorest, weakest producers” (TransFair Canada, 2008). The niche the fair trade market has created for itself, however, has led to dependency instead of sustainability, the already strong thriving, and excluding the weak and poorest from the marketplace with no guarantee of poverty reduction in the long-term.

Fair trade came out of a response to the capitalist system which favors the strongest over the weakest, leaving many small players out of the international market and unable to receive equitable pricing. It attempts to level the playing field for small farmers based on two principles: paying farmers a “fair price” and providing them with some support to the international marketplace. Fair trade is not without criticism as the fair trade coffee industry demonstrates. Coffee is the second most traded commodity after petroleum in the world marketplace and is the economic backbone of many countries, with over twenty-five million families dependent on it for livelihood. Seventy percent of the world’s production of coffee comes from producers who farm less than ten acres of land, making it difficult for them to compete in the world market alone. The falling market price for coffee has led to devastation for many who were unable to join cooperatives or producing organizations supervised by international fair trade organizations (Utting-Chamorro, 2005).

TransFair Canada is the only non-profit organization in Canada devoted to certification, labeling and promotion of fair trade products. It spouts to incorporate values of equity and empowerment through its assurance of “better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world” by addressing the “injustices of conventional trade, which traditionally discriminates against the poorest, weakest producers” (TransFair Canada, 2008). In reality, the poorest of the poor are being excluded; farmers are becoming increasingly dependent on primary commodities and undiversified crops; and wage increases are being diverted to cover other expenses among cooperatives and producing organizations.

The common perception that fair trade provides a guaranteed “living wage” to small producers and individual workers is deceiving. Fair trade certification ensures a minimum price to the organization of producers but not to individual producers or workers on fair trade farms. Poor management and heavy debts owed by producer organizations can consume much of the higher fair trade price before it ever reaches the growers. Wage standards only apply to employees of the producer organization and not to individual farmers and growers, with specific standards only available to full-time permanent employees. This presents a problem in an industry that is primarily contract and seasonally temporary with very few permanent positions available. In fact, Hal Weitzman of the Financial Times found on a visit to five Peruvian coffee farms that four out of five workers on Fair Trade certified farms received wages below the Peruvian minimum wage, which was not in violation of any Fair Trade standards (Weber, 2007).

The price of fair trade coffee is fixed at US $126 per quintal (100lbs), while the world price of coffee is flexible at around US $56 per quintal in much of Latin America. The reality of wages going to the actual growers is surprisingly similar. Fair trade coffee cooperatives in Nicaragua for instance, found themselves paying out fees of approximately $10 per quintal for processing, $18 per quintal for exporting, $31 per quintal for debt cancellation, $5 per quintal for community development and other monies for capitalization funds, resulting in farmers receiving on average only between US $40 and $85 per quintal for their coffee (Utting-Chamorro, 2005).  This is not significantly higher than the world price and in some cases is even lower. The export and maintenance costs of some organizations and cooperatives have led its member producers to be forced to sell their produce in the local market instead of the fair trade market at times to sustain a living. Most fair trade promotional material has led the consumer to believe that workers on the ground are actually receiving the legal minimum wage, if not higher by suggesting that growers are given “living wages”. Many small producers, although assured more stable sources of income, are still living well below the poverty-line despite the guaranteed price of coffee and “living wages” supposedly guaranteed by Fair Trade standards (Weber, 2007).

Dependency remains another crucial problem within the fair trade industry. The reliance on one product as the main source of income is the main cause of poverty for many of these individual farmers in the first place (Nicolls and Opal, 2005). Some experts have suggested that raising prices or wages in primary commodities for individual farmers makes it harder to move into other activities, preventing diversification, and locking the producers into charity channels that prevent them from truly escaping poverty. The price premium then, remains a charitable transfer dependent on external forces rather than a sustainable source of long-term income (Collier, 2007). The fair trade industry is extremely reliant on international support and aid to maintain pricing standards (Utting-Chamorro, 2005) and therefore is not truly sustainable in the long term.

There have also been complaints that the fair trade industry is dominated by “Northern” interests with insufficient producer representation and input into fair trade standardization. Fair Trade Labeling Organization International (FLO), the main cooperator and collaborator of TransFair Canada, responded to this charge by adding producers, traders and national labeling organizations to it Board of Directors (Taylor, Murray and Raynolds, 2005). The industry however remains mostly dominated and led primarily by “Northern” interests. As such, it is mostly unsustainable for local producers without intense international assistance. The cooperative spirit supposedly embodied within Fair Trade does not always flow through the entire process.

The price floor created by establishing set world prices for fair trade products such as coffee results in increased barriers for entry into the industry essentially excluding the poorest of the poor from participating. The set price leads to an excess of supply, which has been experienced in the fair trade coffee market for more than ten years and creates tremendous imbalance in the system. Fair TradeMark Canada, for instance, found that only around thirteen percent of fair trade coffee production was actually purchased by the fair trade market, with the rest being supplied to the conventional market at normal rates. The increased competition to secure the limited number of contracts within the fair trade industry has threatened to exclude the marginalized coffee growers that it supposedly supports. Obtaining certification requires soliciting organizations to obtain export contracts prior to certification and to find the necessary financing to buy and export the coffee, which often exceeds $15,000 per single exporting container (Weber, 2007), completely out of reach for the average coffee grower.

The excess supply in coffee has increased competition for contracts leading to increasing demands for dual certification; one in organic farming and one in fair trade. Obtaining certification in organic farming is a more expensive and demanding process than the fair trade certification process, as costs can soar to more than one-thousand dollars per producer. As the quality standards have increased, the FLO has also begun charging more hefty prices for its Fair Trade certification and has limited the number of contracts it will provide. This has resulted in the fair trade coffee industry continuing to be primarily dominated by those who were already large and privileged to begin with and not the poorest farmers and trades people made in claims. The most obvious way to increase the sales, so as to reduce the excess supply and elimate the market inequality, is to enlist mainstream retailers into the fair trade market, such as Nestle. This goes against the original design of fair trade and is seen as the biggest threat to the industry by many as corporate priorities overtake social consciousness (Weber, 2007).

There are some positives from all this. Many fair trade organizations are trying to encourage diversity, and the cooperative model based on individual democracy of all involved. All of the small producers asked in a survey among fair trade producers confirmed that they had in fact experienced an improvement in their living conditions as a result of their involvement with fair trade. This allowed many of them to switch from using fuel wood to using electricity, having better nutrition, educational opportunities and improvements for their farms. Fair trade has also allowed for more democratic decision making where small producers are given a chance to participate in community development decisions, and allowing them access to technical help, loans, and safety and quality control measures (Utting-Chamorro, 2005). Fair trade, however, has yet to reach its main stated goals of poverty reduction, sustainability and equity.

It is interesting that such a focus in fair wages and conditions has been directed towards the so-called “developing” nations in regards to agriculture while at the same time these problems are being mostly ignored within Canada. Canadian farm workers remain without a minimum wage, maximum daily and weekly working hours, guaranteed rest and eating periods, overtime pay and many other guarantees offered to workers in every other industry (Ontario Ministry of Labour, 2004). Why fair trade for the developing world has taken off while our own people remain without many of these same guarantees is frustrating, to say the least. If fair trade is the goal, it should be fair for all, sustainable and equitable so that rights are guaranteed to all and all have the chance to participate. I also believe that there should also be more stringent regulations that monitor the human rights situations and ethical claims made by these non-profit industries so that we can truly make an ethical purchasing descision.

Sources Cited

1. “Employment Standards Fact Sheet- Agricultural Workers,” Employment Standards Information Centre, Ontario Ministry of Labour, Government of Ontario, Canada, Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 2004. Retrieved March 12, 2008, from http://www.labor.gov.on.ca/english/es/factsheets/fs_agri.html
2. Chandler, Paul. “Fair Trade and Global Justice,” Globalizations, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2006, pp 255-7.
3. Weber, Jeremy. “Fair Trade Coffee Enthusiasts Should Confront Reality,” Cato Journal, Vol. 27, No. 1, Winter 2007, pp 109-117.
4. Taylor, Peter Leigh; Murray, Douglas L., and Raynolds, Laura T. “Keeping Trade Fair: Governance Challenges in the Fair Trade Coffee Initiative,” Sustainable Development, Vol. 13, 2005, pp 199- 208.
5. “About Fair Trade,” TransFair Canada. Retrieved March 12, 2008, from http://transfair.ca/en/aboutfairtrade
6. Utting-Chamorro, Karla. “Does Fair Trade Make a Difference? The Case of Small Coffee Producers in Nicaragua,” Development in Practice, Vol. 15., No. 3, 2005, pp. 584-599
7. Nicholls, Alex and Opal, Charlotte. “Fair Trade: Market-Driven Ethical Consumption,” Sage Publications Inc.,  2005, pp 242.
8. Collier, Paul. “The Bottom Billion. Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It,” Oxford University Press, 2007, pp163-4.

Cambodia’s Trouble with Landmines – is a Brighter Future Possible?

            For my birthday last week, my boyfriend bought me a beautiful necklace from a great fair trade store called Ten Thousand Villages.  The necklace is called a Peace Dove Bombshell Necklace, and upon reading the literature that came with it, I learned that this piece of jewellery was made in Cambodia by a group of artisans who had formed an organization called Rajana.  Rajana is completely owned and operated by the Khmer people of Cambodia, and offer fair salaries, education, interest-free loans and many other benefits to their workers.  They are working to create beautiful art by turning the ravages of decades of war and tragedy into prosperity for their people.  The Peace Dove Bombshell Necklaces are made from the remains of land mines that litter the land of Cambodia and have led the country to have one of the highest numbers of amputee populations in the world.  This birthday gift – as beautiful as it is – tells the story of a horrific past and the ever-present danger that face the people of Cambodia.

            Between 1975 and 1979 the ruling party in Cambodia was a totalitarian government called the Khmer Rouge.  The party was led by Pol Pot and believed in extreme Communist principles including social engineering and agricultural reform.  Their radical social reform process was carried out by deporting all the inhabitants of major cities to the countryside where they combined populations with farmers and were forced into labour in the fields.  Anyone suspected of capitalism (a group that included teachers, professors, urban city dwellers, anyone connected to foreign governments, and even people who simply wore reading glasses) was arbitrarily executed, tortured or detained.  There is a large range of estimated deaths in the four years that the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia, but most estimates but the death toll at 1.5 million people.  This included those executed by the government, as well as those who died of starvation from lack of experience growing food, and those who died of preventable diseases because of the government’s insistence that westernized medicine be kept out of the country.  Money was abolished; schools, hospitals, banks, industrial and service companies were closed; books were burned and as mentioned earlier, almost the entire intellectual population of the country was massacred.  Most notable in the long list of treacherous crimes performed by the Khmer Rouge was the separation of children from their parents (who were believed to be tainted by capitalism) and their subsequent brainwashing (children were often given leadership roles in torture and execution) into this dangerous form of socialism.  While the Khmer Rouge were toppled from government in 1979, the group itself survived as a group into the 1990s, causing death and destruction throughout these decades.

            It is estimated that four to six million landmines were laid in Cambodia over the decades of war fought there, and every year hundreds of Cambodians fall victim to the lasting effect of these forgotten weapons.  In a population of approximately 12 million people, it is estimated that more than 40,000 amputees are living, or one in every 290 Cambodians.  These amputees are chastised by their peers and have been forgotten by their government, often having to try and make a living selling merchandise on the streets for small commissions.  There are many active mine removal organizations that work within Cambodia that are trying to clear mines in an effort to make the country safer, but this sizable job is nowhere near completion leaving the citizens of Cambodia in constant danger or death or amputation.

            Organizations like Rajana are imperative to the turnaround of countries like Cambodia that are suffering the after effects of decades long war, as they play a role in creating job opportunities and education for its citizens.  By providing fair wages, health care, education and more to their employees Rajana is working to create a different future for Cambodia.  Aside from creating a better social welfare system, it is imperative that the international community become active in the banning of land mines and cluster bombs.  The Ottawa Treaty also known as the Mine Ban Treaty became effective on March 1, 1999, and as of early 2009 had 156 parties to the Treaty.  Once a country has signed, they are required to cease production of anti-personnel mines as well as destroy any stockpile of mines within four years (except for a small number they are allowed to retain for training purposes).  Thirty-seven countries have not signed the Treaty, including the People’s Republic of China, India, Russia and the United States of America, all of whom are some of the largest producers and carry some of the largest stockpile of anti-personnel landmines.  By refusing to sign this Treaty, some of the most powerful countries in the world, namely the United States and China, are perpetuating a problem that has caused countless deaths and produced mass destruction.

            The Peace Dove Bombshell Necklace is just one small way that we can make a difference in the eradication of land mines while at the same time allowing us to contribute to the social development of a nation.  A portion from the proceeds of every necklace sold between the International Day of Peace (September 21) and Remembrance Day (November 11) goes to Mines Action Canada while the remainder goes to the artisans making a change through the Rajana organization.  While I hazard to use this site to advertise for companies, Ten Thousand Villages has spent decades providing international communities with a venue to sell fair trade items and I feel their work should be recognized.  If you’re interested in learning more about Ten Thousand Villages and their fair trade items, visit them at www.tenthousandvillages.ca.  To learn more about the work of Mines Action Canada, visit them at www.minesactioncanada.org.  While it is often hard to read about the horrors occurring in other countries, at times I feel our minds can be eased by trying to make any kind of difference, however small or insignificant it may seem.

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The Global Hunger Crisis – Why Haven’t We Made More Progress Towards the Millenium Development Goals?

It is so easy to forget about the true state of the world when we live our day to day lives just going through the motions.  Here are some statistics to shock you back into reality:

~        1.02 billion people do not have enough to eat – more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union;

~        More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women;

~        Every six seconds a child dies because of hunger and related causes; and

~        Lack of Vitamin A kills a million infants a year.

When I read statistics like these, I actually find it very hard to believe that they are real.  How is it possible that I’ve lived 28 years never going hungry, and yet somehow during my regular 8 hour work day more than 4,800 children die of hunger-related diseases?  Women and children the world over continue to be the most disenfranchised individuals on the planet, and even the most well-meaning organizations, like the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP), are unable to help effectively.  A recent report from Reuters states that world food aid is at an all-time low despite the fact that the number of hungry people in the world soared to its highest level ever, with more than 1 billion people classified as lacking food.  The WFP has barely enough funding this year to help a fraction of these people, which is made more horrifying by the fact that it would take a mere 0.01% of the global financial crisis bailout package from the United States to solve the hunger crisis.  Priorities need to shift in Washington and in neighbouring developed countries, with the eradication of poverty and starvation not only in “third world” countries, but also right in their own backyards moving to the top of the list.

As per the WFP’s website, one of the possible solutions to the world hunger crisis is the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, which are:

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight goals to be achieved by 2015 that respond to the world’s main development challenges. The MDGs are drawn from the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations-and signed by 147 heads of state and governments during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000.

These eight development goals are:

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

The importance of the implementation of the MDG’s cannot be overlooked, but considering we are more than halfway through the fifteen year period that was allotted to make these development goals a reality, how much has really been accomplished?  If the WFP can say that 2009 saw more hungry people than ever before, clearly something is being done wrong.  In an attempt to look into progress reports, I found most sites to be sorely lacking (for instance, the United Nations Development Programme website’s section entitled “Implementation of the MDG’s” last shows an update in 2005), which is beyond discouraging.  The eight goals listed above are so basic, so simple and so easily achieved that is simply doesn’t make sense why there hasn’t been more progress reported.  As a society, we need to hold our government accountable for the commitments they made to the disenfranchised, poverty-stricken people of the world in 2000, and ensure that they are meeting the requirements set out for each country in helping to bring the Millennium Development Goals to fruition by the year 2015.  If you want to make sure they are held accountable, speak up, tell people what you’ve read here and make your voice heard.  Local government representatives aren’t just elected to sit around and look pretty – they are supposed to carry our voices and concerns up to Ottawa and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.  If there’s one country in the world that exemplifies the spirit of helping others, it’s Canada, so let’s make sure when 2015 rolls around, our country has done everything in its power to ensure the full implementation of the Millennium Development Goals.

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UN International Day of Peace

You may not know it, but today is International Peace Day. A 24 hour “platform for life-saving activities around the world and an opportunity for individuals… to become involved in the peace process” created by Jeremy Gilley.

192 member states of the United Nations have since unanimously adopted this day as an annual day of global ceasefire and non-violence. Whether they will respect this ceasefire and how long the respect will last is hard to discern, we can only hope for the best and work at our own peace.

This movement is slowly spreading. While not every nation has agreed, and there are still some non-national entities who will completely disregard it; we can only hope that the message picks up speed to one day be truly recognized universally. It may seem like a worthless venture– the thoughts of dreamers who don’t live in reality… In many areas of the world, for example those from today’s headlines about South Sudan or Somalia, the possibility of a ceasefire seems like an impossibility I’m sure.

But it CAN happen. The more agreed upon a notion becomes on the global stage– the more incentive for people and nations to follow the “rules” and examples set. If this day is treated with respect by those signing nations and peoples, we can create a space for peace to grow. We can create a day to celebrate peace, to explore peace, to study peace, to spread peace…

Cultures change. Looking back even in the last century, the world and our society has changed considerably. The norms of social behaviour have changed. It was acceptable for long periods of time for example, to lynch black peoples in the southern states with no trial of  guilt. It was acceptable for long periods of time to deny woman the right to vote. We have changed these norms. We (as humans) have become more equitable and respectful of other populations in many ways over time. We are far from equitable, but this at least shows us that we have the capacity to change our society, our ways and the thoughts and ideologies that were once ingrained in the cultural experience.

It is not necessarily innate for us to be violent. We need only to look to the peace-loving bonobos who solve their conflict through sexual contact to see that mammals have the capacity to solve conflict in non-violent ways.  We are creatures of learning. If violence surrounds us, we learn violence. We can learn new ways to handle our conflict.

This day is about exploring these options to conflict, and focusing on a more peaceful existence. You can explore this peace by learning. By reading or watching and discovering what is going on in the world. You can explore this peace by taking part in a public demonstration. You can explore this peace through art or writing. You can explore this peace by examining your own actions and reactions to conflict and by learning new ways to resolve it in the future.You can write letters, protest, speak out. You can explore peace in any way you know how. Celebrate non-violence. Celebrate creation over destruction. Celebrate our common humanity and the possibility of peace. And please, share that celebration with those around you.

Today is the day for peace– what will you do to express peace in the world?

The Practice of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting in Kenya’s Meru Society

After briefly reading about the prevalence of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in the Meru tribe of Kenya while updating our website’s Media Watch section, I decided to do some further research on the history of FGM/C amongst Meru women, and what is being done to change these barbaric traditions. 

The tradition of FGM/C in the Meru society dates back to an ancient myth in which all healthy men of the village were sent off to fight enemy tribes, but upon their return from war, found their women impregnated by the weaker men who had been left behind.  The myth continues that from this day forward, women were forced to endure the removal of their clitorises to deplete their sexual desires in the hopes that they would remain faithful to their warrior husbands.  This practice of FGM/C has been carried forward into present Meru society despite the fact that these procedures have been illegal since 2001 under the Children’s Act.  The Act specifically states:

No person shall subject a child to female circumcision, early marriage or other cultural rites, customs or traditional practices that are likely to negatively affect the child’s life, health, social welfare, dignity or physical or psychological development. (Kenya 2001, Sec. 14)

 In an effort to change and modernize Meru society, elders of the tribe have begun to run an Alternative Rites-of-Passage (ARP) program that promotes both knowledge of cultural traditions of the Meru, as well as modern values. 

These ARP programs have been taught in several Meru locations since 2007, and so far more than 2,000 girls and young women have taken these classes as an alternative to the brutal FGM/C.  The idea behind the program is to remain true to the values of the Meru and the idea of preparing girls for womanhood through education rather than physical mutilation.  These young women learn about relationships, marriage, self-awareness, Meru cultural values and traditions, substance abuse and even HIV/AIDS.  While ARP seems like the perfect alternative to FGM/C in the Meru society, there is still a huge amount of resistance to the change and FGM/C procedures are now often performed under cover of night, sometimes by individuals not qualified to perform them.  There are so many risks and dangers involved in the practice of FGM/C (aside from the fact that it is a blatant violation of basic human rights), that these procedures are becoming increasingly dangerous.  Some of the short-term side effects include severe pain, shock, hemorrhage, tetanus or sepsis (bacterial infection), urine retention, open sores in the genital region and damage or injury to nearby genital tissue.  Some of the long-term consequences of FGM/C can include recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, cysts, infertility, increased risk of childbirth complications and newborn deaths, and the need for further surgeries depending on the type of FGM/C that the woman was subjected to.  There are four main procedures used to perform FGM/C and in brief they are:

1)      Clitoridectomy: involves the partial or complete removal of the clitoris and sometimes the prepuce as well;

2)      Excision:  involves the partial or complete removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, which can or cannot include the removal of the labia majora as well;

3)      Infibulation:  the creation of a covering seal to narrow the vaginal opening.  The seal is formed by removing and then repositioning the inner and/or outer labia.  This procedure can or cannot involve the removal of the clitoris; and

4)      Other:  this includes all procedures performed on female genitals not for medical purposes and can include pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterizing the genital area.

There are many organizations including the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund and local NGO’s throughout Africa that are trying to put an end to the practice of FGM/C.  As I mentioned earlier, ARP programs are being created in different regions of the continent, including in the Meru society, but there are still millions of young girls at risk of FGM/C every year in Africa.  Moving towards the eradication of FGM/C will require that education and awareness about the consequences of this procedure to young women (both physically and mentally) be made available to community leaders throughout the many regions in Africa where FGM/C is prevalent.  In the meantime, it will be up to the many women who have suffered this barbaric procedure, and the brave men who support them to bring forward change in local communities through alternative learning programs.  Hopefully the international community will continue to fight for the rights of children in developing countries, specifically the rights of girls, by bringing awareness to the public on such a large scale, that these violations of human rights can no longer be ignored.

Corporate Accountability: Political action to stop human rights abuses by Canadian mining, oil and gas companies.

It is about time!  Finally, the government of Canada is seeing the light and is attempting to mandate the corporate social responsibility of the Canadian mining, gas and oil extraction industries necessary to stop their involvement in major human rights violations around the world. This bill, if enacted, would help to ensure that corporations engaged in mining, oil or gas activities who often receive significant financial and political  support from the Government of Canada act in a manner consistent with international environmental best practices and with Canada’s commitments to international human rights standards. The Act gives the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Trade the responsibility of holding corporations accountable for their practices by submitting annual reports to the House of Commons and the Senate for review and allowing for a formal complaints procedure for those who have been wronged. Essentially, it is enabling a process to help catch Canadians committing crimes around the world and to prevent human rights abuses from occurring by the hand of certain Canadian corporations.

Sadly, this bill almost didn’t make it to the third reading with 137 votes for and 133 against in Parliament… only one Conservative party member voted for this bill while almost all of the rest of the Conservative party (132 of the 137 “Nays”) voted against it.

Profits should not come before people and companies should be held liable if they are committing abuses around the world to make their profits. We have laws against these types of abuses here in Canada and have signed countless international covenants against them, so why should some be allowed to get away with them just because they happen on foreign soil or because they bring in massive profits in tax dollars? Why should the government of Canada support companies if they are helping to commit crimes around the world? This makes us all guilty!

WHY ARE WE CHOOSING ECONOMIC SECURITY OVER THE RIGHTS OF HUMAN BEINGS? THAT IS CRIMINAL!

Why do some stand against this bill? Well, one position is that it will “diminish the international competitiveness of the Canadian mining industry” and possibly “drive Canadian companies to seriously consider relocating their head offices and listing outside of Canada”. Frankly, if companies are not willing to be socially responsible enough to ensure that they are not committing major human rights abuses– then I say– GOOD RIDDANCE to them!

I do not want one cent of my tax dollars going to help support their abuses. It is disgusting to me that we live in a world that gives us little choice but to use human rights abusing products to be part of our society, mostly without our knowledge and I would be thrilled if allowed the choice to choose those that are human rights abuse free.

And as for the claim that it will diminish the international competitiveness of the industry– I say being free of human right abuses gives them a new competitive edge and added marketing capability. How upset are people to learn that their products are made in sweat shops? The mining, oil and gas industries are responsible for much more far reaching and atrocious abuses. Imagine the marketing potential if the government supported the ones who made the effort with a seal of “free of human rights abuses”?  It also will make Canadian industries the new standard for the world and a shining example of what is possible; that the industry does not have to be human rights abusing and that we can buy products such as metals without having to feel guilty.

Do we really want an industry that has a hand in committing awful crimes around the world to continue that practice? Does the profit to be had really mean more than the lives of those who are being wronged? Well, according to at least 133 members of our government (because I would also tend to include those who abstain), it does.

Please take the time to review this issue and write to your politicians about it. You can read about some of the human rights abuses associated with the mining, oil and gas industries here.

If you want to write to the government (and I’m hoping you will!), here are some people to try writing to:

John McKay, MP. Liberal Party of Canada, MckayJ@parl.gc.ca- responsible for bringing the bill to Parliament.

Kevin Sorenson, Chair, Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, SorenK@parl.gc.ca
Angela Crandall, Clerk, Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, faae@parl.gc.ca

or Write to:

House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario  K1A 0A6
Canada

The Prime Minister – pm@pm.gc.ca

The Foreign Affairs Minister- cannon.L@parl.gc.ca

The Leader of the Opposition- Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca

Other party leaders in Parliament-  Layton.J@parl.gc.ca; duceppe.G@parl.gc.ca

Find your Member of Parliament here.

And find your MPP here.

Here are some sample letters for you to use:

If your MP voted for, or abstained on the Bill:

Date:

Dear

Re: Support for Bill C-300 on Corporate Accountability

I am writing to let you know that I strongly support Bill C-300, an Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries.

I am appalled by regular reports that Canadian mining, oil and gas companies are involved in human rights, labour, and environmental violations around the world and by the fact that these companies often receive financial and political support from the Canadian Government. The current government’s response to these concerns is its “Building the Canadian Advantage” strategy. This voluntary approach is completely inadequate.

Bill C-300 responds to the urgent need for a stronger regulatory framework to hold Canadian mining, oil and gas companies accountable, in Canada, for human rights, labour, and environmental violations overseas. Bill C-300 has garnered support across the country and internationally. It is supported by the Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability (CNCA), an organization which includes Amnesty International Canada, the United Church of Canada, the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, Friends of the Earth, the Steelworkers Humanity Fund, the Canadian Labour Congress, KAIROS – Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, MiningWatch Canada and many other organizations. Bill C-300 has my support as well.

I urge Members of Parliament and the members of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development to support Bill C-300, recognizing that Bill C-300 reflects and responds to the recommendations that were made to the Government of Canada by the earlier Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 2005.

Yours truly,

(your name and address)

If your MP voted against, you can try this:

Dear Mr.,

I am writing to let you know that I strongly support Bill C-300, an Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries. I am absolutely appalled and disgusted to learn that you voted against this bill. How can you vote against protecting the human rights of people? How can you choose economic security over human rights? Against what we as Canadians stand for? You do not represent your constituency by this vote, instead, you do us all a disservice as Canadians. This will not diminish the international competitiveness of the mining industry– it will give us a competitive edge and added marketing potential and set us as a standard for the world.

We should not be supporting, either financially or politically, companies that are responsible for major human right abuses around the world. We should not leave this to voluntary cooperation– because it is NOT enough to stop the abuses from happening. If it is illegal to commit these crimes on Canadian soil, then these companies should not be permitted (and even encouraged through our support) to do so on foreign soils. This is absolutely appalling and I am deeply disturbed that you have voted it down in Parliament. I am disgusted at your lack of compassion for the violated and lack of responsibility in this issue.

Bill C-300 responds to the urgent need for a stronger regulatory framework to hold Canadian mining, oil and gas companies accountable, in Canada, for human rights, labour, and environmental violations overseas. Bill C-300 has garnered support across the country and internationally. It is supported by the Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability (CNCA), an organization which includes Amnesty International Canada, the United Church of Canada, the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, Friends of the Earth, the Steelworkers Humanity Fund, the Canadian Labour Congress, KAIROS – Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, MiningWatch Canada and many other organizations. Bill C-300 has my support as well.

I urge Members of Parliament and the members of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development to support Bill C-300, recognizing that Bill C-300 reflects and responds to the recommendations that were made to the Government of Canada by the earlier Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 2005.

Yours truly,

(your name and address)

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MemberByPostalCode.aspx?PostalCode

When is justice violent?

“Justice isn’t justice. It just is.”- Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long.

Who has the right to distribute punishment over others and how did they get this right? Is it even right that people should be able to distribute justice over others?

The concept of justice is an ancient one, based on ethics, rationality, law, fairness and equity. Over time it is taken on many forms and meanings depending on what one is talking about. Often we see justice as the response to crime– the punishment of those who would violate society’s rules that creates a position of relative “fairness” for those who have been violated. If this is the case, is this justice violent– and if so, is this violence justified?

When we think of the concept of justice, especially when it relates to the punishment of crime, many feel that retributive justice is needed. Retributive justice is the type of justice that says an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth– that the reciprocity should be equal to the wrong suffered. This type of justice is usually filled with angry emotion where the violated feel that the only way to right the wrong is to violate those who wronged them in the same manner as they were wronged.

In this case, violations are met with more violations often in violent ways– but a major deterrent to crime is set in place that can possibly reduce further incidences of direct violence. Changes in the behaviour of those in society to be less violent comes only out of fear of punishment and the deterrents are possibly structurally violent themselves.

Some believe that procedural justice- the use of a fair process to decide what punishment shall be distributed, is the most balanced way of justice. In North American society this amounts (more or less) to our court systems where a judge or jury decides the violator’s fate by comparing the crime and punishment to acceptable punishments of those who committed similar crimes in the past. The violator is still punished, society is still more or less safe, and depending on the punishment, less fear produced is less than in retributive justice (although sometimes these do coincide).

Some believe that the betrayed person or persons deserve restitution for their sufferings and to have justice means to have things put back as they should be (or at least as much as they can be). This is considered restorative justice. In some cases, the simplest form of restitution is an admission of guilt and a heartfelt apology for the violation committed. In some cases, payment is made to the betrayed party by the guilty in an act of contrition.

Sometimes this apology is not enough and the betrayed person will seek revenge so that they can get the satisfaction of seeing the guilty suffer. This is often an incredibly violent form of justice as the violated feel that they need to take justice into their own hands and hurt the violators (and possibly their family and friends) in a manner at least as severe as they themselves experienced.

Clearly, some of these forms of justice are more violent than others. The quest for justice is often explained as Nietzsche’s slave-morality of the weak, those in society who harbor resentment for the strong. Justice in this case, is only found in the conditions of the submission of one people over another. The master morality weighs actions on a scale of good (helpful) or bad (harmful) consequence, while the slave morality weighs actions on a scale of good or evil intentions. The slave morality villainizes its oppressors, the masters, who are seen as the creators of morality. Justice seeks to keep the noble man (the master) down and bring about more equality between them to the point where the submission is overcome.

Distributive justice works on this concept as it seeks to relocate the differences between people by means of re-allocation of things such as wealth, power, reward or respect. This type of justice works on balancing the differences between people. Human rights are based upon the ideal of distributive justice– bringing about balance in humanity by providing a distribution of basic human needs.

All of these forms of justice seem to have an obvious or underlying tone of violence (whether it be direct or structural).

So when is justice non-violent? When does one person have the right to distribute justice over another?

There is no easy answer to this. Justice is complicated. Justice becomes less violent when it uses non-violent strategies to distribute punishment, such as a court system (although I’m sure there’s many out there who would argue that there is extensive systematic structural violence that exists within the system that is prejudice against specific peoples). Justice is less violent when the violator and violated come together for a solution that is satisfactory to both. That leaves both in the least violent position possible.

Many conflict transformation strategies in extremely violent societies seek to bring together the violator with the violated. Often they must live side-by-side together after the violations, and therefore must learn to get along with each other and live with each other on a day to day basis. These strategies involve healing and justice processes that concentrate on having the community work together and come together in non-violence. In my opinion– this is the least violent form of justice because it recognizes the need to heal both the violator AND the violated and bring justice to them both.

The need for justice sometimes overshadows the truth behind a situation, that both the violator and violated may deserve justice. The violator might have been a product of extreme structural and social violence and cutting off their hands or throwing them in jail with no thought to reintegration or rehabilitation to society, in this case, would be extremely violent.

When we think of justice, we need to think of more than just making things right for the violated. We need to think much more holistically and look to the systems and situations that created the violations in the first place. Without regard to these, all we will wind up distributing is violent justice.

District 6 – The Real District 9

When I entered the movie theatre to watch the movie District 9 last week, I had no idea what I was going to see.  I had heard hype that it was a great movie, but as far as I knew, it was just another movie about aliens with great special effects.  I quickly realized that this movie had a very important social message and that while it may have been based on events that occurred decades ago, its message is still very much relevant today.

            The movie is filmed in a mock documentary style and begins with numerous people being interviewed on camera regarding the aliens or “prawns” that have inhabited Johannesburg, South Africa for twenty years.  As the story goes, an alien ship landed over Johannesburg in the early 1980s and remained dormant there for months.  Upon investigation, it was discovered to be full of millions of sick aliens who were unable to move their ship.  Flash forward to the present and the aliens have been living on earth in towns and ghettos around Johannesburg for decades, one of these areas being District 9, which has become a degraded slum.  For this reason, the Multinational Unit (MNU), a military contractor, has decided to move the 1.8 million inhabitants of District 9 over to District 10, a tightly controlled camp some 200 km outside of Johannesburg.  The basis for the film was the forced removal of more than 60,000 residents from Cape Town’s District 6 over a fifteen year period between 1968 and 1982.

                        District 6 (Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town) was created in 1867, and quickly became known as a lively area lived in by artists, immigrants, former slaves and merchants.  Approximately one-tenth of Cape Town’s population called District 6 home.  After the Second World War, the area was largely populated by coloured residents (in the South African, Namibian, Zambian, Botswana and Zimbabwean context, the term Coloured refers or referred to an ethnic group of mixed-race people who possess some sub-Saharan African ancestry, but not enough to be considered Black under the law of South Africa) as well as some Muslims, whites, Africans and Indians who all lived together in relative harmony, and the District’s proximity to the harbour brought through many foreigners, making it a truly cosmopolitan hub of Cape Town.

            Beginning in 1966, in an effort to segregate the different races living peacefully in District 6, the Apartheid Government began the forced removal of residents from their homes by declaring District 6 a whites-only area under the Groups Area Act.  The Government claimed that District 6 was a slum unfit for habitation, also making claims that the area was destitute and ridden with crime including gambling, drinking and prostitution.  While residents had to accept these as the official reasons they were being uprooted from their homes, many believed that their land had simply become very valuable to the Government due to its proximity to the city centre and harbour, and that the forced evictions were simply a result of greed and land lust.  For whatever reason, between 1968 and 1982 more than 60,000 residents of District 6 were forcibly removed from their homes (1,800 of which were systematically destroyed) and forced to relocate to the Cape Flats township some 25 kilometres away.

            The homes created for the displaced residents of District 6 in the barren Cape Flats were squalid and meant to contain violence.  There was nothing accessible to the area which contained only one highway in and out of the area so that military reinforcements could easily control any insurgencies.  Poverty soon took over, as there were no increases in salary to compensate residents for their lengthened commute, and families were often split up, which meant women having to leave their children at home in order to work.  This poverty led to an increase in gang violence, and soon, none of the community and togetherness that had once been the core of what District 6 was known for, was any longer apparent. 

            Fifteen years after the fall of the apartheid government, there has been little change in the Cape Flats that still house many of District 6’s displaced families.  While the residents are under no obligation to remain in the area, few have the money to leave the Flats and relocate.  Gang violence is higher than anywhere else in South Africa, with gang rape, murder and robbery at an all time high.  Residents are currently able to submit claims to the Government in order to be returned to District 6 and the new housing that is being created there to house those displaced by the tragic forced removals that spanned more than two decades, but is that really enough to make up for the racial discrimination and alienation that has been suffered by so many for so long? 

            The great thing about South African director Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 is the fact that it is bringing awareness to the plight that the original residents of District 6 are still facing despite the apartheid government of South Africa having fallen fifteen years ago.  The movie provides metaphor after metaphor for how damaging racial segregation was and still is, and brings to the forefront a very important social message – this is still going on, and we have to stop it!  If nothing else, I can only hope that movie goers around the world are able to gain from this film what I did, and that the true message behind District 9 is not lost in special effects and a fantastic tale.

2009 Yearbook on Peace Processes

I just came across this document and thought I would pass it along because it is a fairly thorough report on 70 different global conflicts and analysis of the peace processes in place. Please take a look!

http://escolapau.uab.cat/img/programas/procesos/09anuarii.pdf

Why I hate the term “development”.

We throw around many terms in educational circles and spend a great deal of time discussing their value and the implications of their usage and sometimes it seems like a completely frivolous venture. One term that has never sat right with me is that of “development”. Here in North America, we talk endlessly about the “developed” world and the contrasting “developing” world and how to set up humanitarian projects to bring about positive democratic development in those least developed countries. Somehow, through development we will save these “poor” people from their “miserable” existences (*please note the sarcasm).

In my eyes, the term “development” differs very little from the colonial usage of terms like “savage” or “uncivilized”. To me, development is just another way of classifying hierarchies of savagery or civilization (or value in terms of production capabilities). We even classify our development scheme into an almost linear hierarchy of different types much as the “civilized” world did in colonial times; the 1st world (The bloc of democratic-industrial countries of North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia) , the 2nd world (The Eastern bloc of communist-socialist industrialist states of the territory and sphere of influence of the USSR), the 3rd world (the rest of the world–  the developing nations) and even a 4th world (nations of indigenous peoples living within or across state boundaries). The developed 1st world is somehow more “civilized” or “developed” than the rest and thus deserves the first place, right*? The developing world just need to be developed and they will somehow be saved from the misery of their own underdevelopment….??  This echoes to me the work of the missionaries in Africa colonizing the “savages” and saving them from the misery of their own savagery. If only the developing could just get an education like us, they could be so much more civilized and be capable of producing and using endless amounts of material garbage.

Only, the world just doesn’t work that way. It’s not some linear progression of development and the developing world is not on some different branch of development with some common past or future to the developed world. And what will we have them develop into? What is the end desired result of development? Increasing GDP? To what end?

This thinking is severely flawed. It is just as flawed as how we now in academic circles discuss the term “savage” with racial criticisms, with undertones of the necessity of colonial servitude to “civilize”. Those “savages” were somehow otherwise incapable of achieving a “real” life. At least any semblance of one that we in North America can understand.  And so do we now see the developing world, somehow helpless without our development assistance and not able to stand on their own; erasing the fact that we are helping to create their ongoing problems.

We often times don’t understand other ways of life, other cultures, other rituals and so we get lost into judgment based upon the only thing we really seem to value in North America– material goods and money. And that’s where “development” comes in for me. Development projects give us a way to scale countries, weighing their value against each other and encouraging them to try to get a better score to get more assistance. We often see an end result of development that more closely resembles our own because its easier to understand those poor undeveloped people if we can relate to them on our terms, developing them to our standard.

There is no blanket development out there that is going to bring the world into an equal state. There is also no saving that needs to be done. We will not save the world. There is nothing wrong with offering a helping hand to one who is drowning, but when that helping hand leads you out of the water and directly into a fire– it’s not helping anyone. There is also no need to rescue someone that has the capability to save themselves. They may just be splashing in the water trying to learn to swim, and rescue just pulls them out of the water, preventing them from actually learning to swim.

In fact, our level of “development” here in North America is helping to create and ensure the problems in the developing world continue. It is our need for stuff. Tons and tons of material objects and services that fulfill our lives in some way, but all require natural resources and cheap labour to manufacture or produce. To me, “development” seems to come down to a giant production machine, with new colonial-esque masters of corporation raking in record profits. Development ensures we all follow the path of money and that money is the main human value to be judged upon.

The international financial institutions and other major development organizations seek to control those countries they want resources from. The new “colonizers” are coming from a much more varied background than kingdoms or nations; but the control aspect is much the same. A resource has been claimed and the colonizers want to continue extracting it for as long as possible. To continue to do this they must keep the country in a stage of certain corruption. Debt is owed, and essentially being paid out through exploitation of resources (including human labour) through contracts and political manipulations and corporate expansions. Deals are made and people come last.

We need the developing world to stay underdeveloped to continue our lifestyle here in North America. The majority of development seems for the most part  to focus on economic and political projects that rely on the “trickle-down” of wealth and completely ignore well-being or more important human values. These projects are not looking to alleviate the suffering of the poor. They are looking to control them. They are not looking to bring wealth or prosperity or a better way of life to the poor. They are ensuring that some get richer and gain more control, while others continue to struggle so that we can continue to exploit them and their resources.

Our development here in North America is flawed and needs correction as much as any developing nation. We need new terms and new ideas, because development is not working in the best interest of people. We need to change systems. We need to change our ideas to reflect values that are most important on the global scale and create better systems that respect these values. We need to realize that other ways of life are just as good as ours and that material possessions or production capability alone do not equal human value.

And that’s just the start of why I hate the term development and all that it implies…

Descending into madness. Time for change in the DRC.

Ok, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is perhaps not descending into madness. It has already been there for quite some time. Violence there is out of control right now, and things are getting worse not better. Talks of peace are hollow and full of corruption. The international community seems to ignore the problem entirely, instead hoping they can use the corruption to their advanatage to get rights to resources or political support, resisting spending enough money or providing enough assistance to actually make a difference. There seems to be little being offered in the way of real transformations of violence or ensuring lasting peace and most definitely very little hope that it’s coming anytime in the near future.

The population in many areas live in near constant fear. Many more people live as virtual transients, floating from village to village or town to town, displaced from their homes and unable to return. Forced labour (ie. slavery) and torture are on the rise. Rape and sexual mutulation has been a massive tool of the war; affecting both men and women (although women probably in much higher numbers), and is used to demoralize and humiliate. Humiliating and torturous methods of castrations and sterilizations are used to help exterminate populations as reprisals.

A disturbing case of a 3 year old little girl dying after a brutal rape by a group of rebel soldiers sends chills down the spine. Other stories, including horrors such as soldiers digging holes into the ground, lining them with razor blades and forcing the men to self-castrate; or the cutting of babies out of women’s bellies and forcing them to eat their own fetuses make me feel physically ill. Male children have been forced to rape their mothers and sisters; fathers their daughters. It is thoroughly disturbing to think about; but we need to think about this. This cannot continue to happen. Why are we sitting back and doing nothing to stop it?

This war is not about ethnicities. It is not about ancient hatreds or blood-hungry populations. It is about years of political manipulations, massive theft of resources and land, denial of rights and we are all connected to it whether we truly know the extent or not.

Every time we buy an electronic product- we are connected. We are connected through the political choices of our elected leaders. We are also connected because we are all humans. We all share the same blood, the same organs, the same flesh, the same souls… We need to work together to develop solutions to transform this violence. Too many innocent people are dying, being tortured or enslaved, raped or beaten and money is just not a good enough reason for it.

Please. Take the time. When you buy an electronic product, call the manufacturers or the corporations that sell, distribute or produce them. Ask them, just ask them what they are doing to stop war resources from getting into their products. You don’t have to take it much further. When enough people make the connection between what we use, where it comes from and what effect this is having and start to demand that corporations have ethical purchasing– something more positive must come.

Please. Take the time. Write a letter to your government. Ask them to send support, either financially, or in peacekeeping troop personnel to help build peace in this region. Ask them to create policies to ensure corporations are acting in legal and ethical manners throughout the world.

Alone, we do very little, but our voices together can help to make a change.

If you need suggestions on what to write or who you can contact, please feel free to ask me (apeaceofconflict@gmail.com)– I’ll be happy to help!

-RS

Brain on vacation…

So I am back from my extended month long vacation from blogging and I feel like a new person- with a new mission. To create a peace resource that speaks to people and allows them to understand about the underlying causes of conflict, how it manifests the way that it does and the latest strategies in existence to transform the conflict into non-violent forms. To allow them to learn about conflict and peace strategies from the comfort of their own home, wherever they are in the world.

Conflict is my life. I read the newspaper in the morning while watching the international news searching for the latest global strife. I scan through my favorite reporting sites for global conflicts several times a day, and watch my RSS feeder for new stories every time I turn on my computer; I read articles; and I write. Constantly. I find myself distracted from work with thoughts of conflict and sometimes even must take a break from that work to get some thoughts out of my head.

We are about to start two new sections here at A Peace of Conflict. The first will be be a media watch and will be accessible through the top menu bar under the title “Media Watch”. This section will feature links to breaking news as we spot them about conflicts or solutions throughout the world.

The second section will be an ongoing peace and conflict dictionary/glossary of terms. This section will require collaboration and constant updating. We will begin defining some of the most important terms to conflict transformation and peace studies based on our own studies and research. If you feel the terms are lacking/incomplete or inaccurate– PLEASE let us know and we will update them accordingly.

Thank you to all our fabulous readers and your many encouraging comments! Remember, we are always looking for submissions (from everyone, regardless of education/background!) or feedback on how to make our site better! Personal narratives and poetry are always welcome, along with researched pieces, as long as they are original (ie. not reprinted elsewhere).

Hope you will enjoy our new sections! Happy reading!

-Rebecca

Where did the conflict begin?

Lately, a friend and I have been discussing the economic factors of conflict. How does the economy precipitate conflict, and (how) can altering economic factors reduce the fighting? Does economic growth play a role in conflict, and what role does it play?

These are answers that I am neither fully prepared nor educated to give; not that they could even be started to be answered entirely in one tiny blog post… but bear with me.

One thought that came out of the discussion revolved around the idea of conflict being caused by rates of economic growth and trying to trace the “real” origins of a conflict. Essentially, that economic growth (or lack thereof) has the ability to cause or cease conflict. Economic factors definitely play a role, but I don’t think it’s as simple as some sort of linear causality. Without economic factors, there would be little incentive for many players to war (ie. $), and no weapons to do it with. This is true, but it is also dependent on a whole host of other factors.

Where do you trace the true “beginning” of a conflict? It’s next to impossible. If you look around to any of the wars or genocides or mass abuses happening in the world right now, resources are definitely involved, but are they the cause of the conflict?

Economic growth can affect a conflict because a country with poor economic growth has little to pay its civil workers. If you have an unsatisfied civil sector, you have corruption. If you have corruption, you have the ability to underhandedly steal resources from the state or population for profit. It’s all connected, but not always so cut and dry. Sometimes, as can be seen in some parts of North America, highly paid civil workers are still corrupt and stealing resources. In this case, it can be bad leadership, or incomprehensible property rights and legalities, but it is still not just directly economic factors.

A “poor” country with good leadership is possibly much less likely to conflict than a “rich” country with bad leadership. But then again, a richer country probably has developed a more complex legal system, and therefore has more leaps to jump to conflict, or legal ways around the extraction of resources, and apt policing systems that lessen outbreaks of direct conflict.

Clearly, each conflict is complex, and highly individual with many overlapping “causes” and fuels. Trying to find a true singular cause is really impossible. Many of the modern day conflicts are rooted in political/economic choices and decisions that are hundreds of years in the making. Economics can’t be separated from history, which can’t be separated from political choices, which can’t be separated from the daily life experienced by those living in the conflict.

So how do we stop conflict then?

There is not some simple, band-aid solution that can be cast onto each conflict. There is no one way to peacebuilding. It can start with removing incentives to conflict. Reduced incentives means no economic payoff, which means no money to buy weapons, and no money to be made from conflict.

It also takes creating incentives. Incentives to follow laws, incentives to be socially inclusive, incentives to reduce corruption… and so on. But it’s much more than that. It also involves just political leadership. It involves societal healing for past and current wrongs. It involves societal change and education towards conflict mediation and transformation strategies. It involves society become engaged in the peace process and wanting to find solutions that work for them. The list goes on and on.

Economic factors play a role in all conflict, but they should never be the seen as the only cause or solution to the conflict.

Economic Growth and the ever-increasing GDPs

Economic development and growth is basically the prime goal of every nation on the planet. Billions and billions of dollars are been spent annually on economic growth projects worldwide.

In some development circles, there is a thought that if the economy is doing well– the lives of those living in the economy will be better. This is often referred to as the “trickle-down effect”. That prosperity will trickle down to those less fortunate.

Unfortunately, this is not a reliable nor sustainable way to ensure that basic needs are being met or any real indication of anything other than the ability to yield high market value for the goods and services produced.

If the goal is to be ever-increasing– where does it ever end? When do we stop increasing our economies, or does it ever stop? Are we doomed to a never-ending race for the largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP)?

Some of the countries with the fastest growing GDPs are still experiencing tremendous poverty among their poorest inhabitants and the increase in GDP does not appear to correlate with any increase in human rights protection or poverty reduction or any semblance of general well-being. Within the top ten countries with the fastest growing GDP sit Macau, Angola, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Equatorial Guinea, Anguilla, Republic of Congo, Solomon Islands, Mongolia, China, Armenia, Liberia and Peru. Afghanistan currently sits as the 16th fastest growing economy if that gives you any indication of how much economic growth translates into poverty reduction, respect for human rights or general well-being of the population.

So maybe economic growth doesn’t translate into well-being, but what about having a large GDP? Among the countries with the largest GDPs sit China, Russia, and India. Poverty is still a massive problem in all three areas, and human rights violations frequent occurrences. Clearly then, a large GDP doesn’t in and of itself cause the trickle down of development.

So if the ultimate goal is ever-increasing GDP or ever-increasing market value of goods and services produced; who will be the ones consuming this ever-increasing amount, where will the waste go, and where will the raw materials come from to supply this ever-increasing amount of productivity?

Why is the measure of how much can be produced the number one goal of almost every country and enforced as a primary goal in the poorer nations through global development programs by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank? Wouldn’t the measure of general well-being, or respect for human rights, or lack of poverty, or even the level of democracy rank higher than production?

So why don’t governments change this goal to something more sustainable in the long-term?

Mike Nickerson, who founded the Sustainability Project, suggests a different goal for governments; one of long-term well-being.

To get there our activities must:
“1) Use materials in continuous cycles.
2) Use continuously reliable sources of energy.
3) Come mainly from the qualities of being human (ie. creativity, communication, coordination, appreciation, and spiritual and intellectual development).”
*** To which I add 4) Respect the human rights of all affected populations.

“Long-term well-being is diminished when activities:
4) Require continual inputs of non-renewable resources.
5) Use renewable resources faster than their rate of renewal.
6) Cause cumulative degradation of the environment.
7) Require resources in quantities that undermine other people’s well being.
Lead to the extinction of other life forms.”

I like to think of it as respecting the human rights of all those on the planet, as well those who will be here in the future. It’s not about global warming, or native rights, or some isolated issue. It is a holistic issue involving all our rights. If one of our nationals within our country’s rights are infringed upon, then all our rights have been infringed upon. We need to act together, no matter who we are. If we don’t speak up for the rights of others, who will speak for us when our rights are trampled on?

If our air is polluted, our rights are being infringed upon. If our water is polluted, our rights are being infringed upon. This is a global issue. Our actions affect the world, and their actions affect us.

Until our goals become to respect human rights and to have long-term well-being– we will not progress as humans. We will just become more efficient at producing crap that we don’t even really need or want that will in the end just kill us all.

Who cries for the three-year old rape victim?

A three year old girl died this week after being brutally raped by rebel fighters in the DR Congo. Somehow, the last 7 words in that sentence seem to make the rest disappear. A three-year old rape victim dying in North America would be the cover of every news story in the country. A massive campaign would be launched to prevent it from happening in the future and a thorough investigation into how it happened in the first place would be ordered. The public would have no less. They would take every effort to ensure this type of crime never occurred again.

Why is it any different when it happens in the Congo? Why do we suddenly feel it is ok to ignore this problem? Is it because it is happening in a place that is already so violent? Does that somehow make it ok? The child would have probably faced violence her entire life anyway, right?

Is it because we feel disconnected from the violence there? This is interesting, since, as electronics loving Canadians, we are probably more connected to this crime than we might think. We could do something about it. We could protest. We could stop buying things that could help contribute to the crimes (and that list includes most of the electronics and metal products that we use every single day). We could write our government. But most of us never will. We won’t do this because it isn’t easy. Because it would involve some sort of sacrifice on our part.

Ask yourself this: If this rape victim were in North America, and the crime was partially committed by some company whose product you used every day– would you stop using it? Would you write the company a letter to express your outrage? Or would you sit there and do nothing? Why does this victim deserve any less?

Lately, violence in this region seems to be on the rise again. And we are still oblivious. Human rights campaigners and journalists trying to get the truth out are being silenced. Rape is again on the rise. The metal industries (and many many others) are making profit from these crimes. They are supplying massively violent warlords with weapons and money, and sometimes even logistical supplies to commit massacres. When will we stand up against them and say, no more?

Why can’t we all just get along?

So often when I talk to people about war or peace I hear the same lines that seem to be ingrained into people’s minds. One outlook usually goes something like this:

“Ya, well, it’s human nature to war. We will never have peace.”

There are variations on this, but it is usually themed around the thought that there is something inherently violent within humans that makes us incapable of living a peaceful existence with each other.

Now I don’t think that some ultimate Utopian paradise is going to just magically appear if humans strive for a more peaceful existence, but I do think that there is a more peaceful slope we could be lying on. A slope where massive violent conflict no longer exists and where societies are more equitable, at least enough so that we are all given our basic human needs. I do not think that most humans are inherently violent; and I definitely like to think that most are good at heart but are sometimes lured into doing wrong because it was the easiest or most beneficial choice to them. I think we have been conditioned into violence and violent behaviour through thousands of years of fear, warring and violence in our cultures. Cultures can and do change over time, so this gives me some hope that perhaps we are not inherently violent.

Will there always be conflict?

Of course! As long as each human being is different, there will always be conflict. The thing is, it doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. Conflict certainly doesn’t have to be violent either. Conflict is about a difference of opinion. A difference of value. Sometimes it manifests violently. Sometimes, conflict brings about magnificent things. It is certainly necessary for us to learn and grow as a human being. It is the way we handle and look at conflict that is of most importance.

If we disagree with someone on an issue, we can handle it in several ways.

We can discuss it with respect, and listen to why the other feels differently about the subject. We can try to come to an understanding that we can both agree on.
We can state our own opinion and walk away without listening to the other side at all, knowing (or at least thinking) we are right.
We can shout it out full of cursing and insults and maybe come to an agreement or maybe not.
We can punch that person in the face and start a fight immediately.
We can go home and plan some hideous revenge on the other person and their family and friends and any else associated with them or that opinion for disagreeing with us.
And a whole host of other options within that spectrum. Some seem absurdly excessive and unnecessary, yet we sometimes choose to act this way. Why?

It may be easy enough to handle conflict for more minor disagreements, but what if someone violated your rights in grossly vicious ways?

There are always options to violence, even though they may not be the most attractive of option. How we handle conflict is usually based on how we’ve experienced conflict around us throughout our lives. If we have been taught through our culture and our teachings that violence solves problems; then violence becomes an attractive option for conflict resolution. If we’ve been taught mediation techniques in schools and at home on how to handle conflict in our lives, if we’ve learned to handle our emotions; if we’ve learned through our culture that life rewards non-violence– non-violence becomes an attractive option.

One of the biggest lessons society teaches us is taught in the way it treats us. If we are living in a society that respects us, respects our beliefs and our values; we are more likely to respect society. If we are living in a society where violence predominates, we are more likely to be violent.

The direct violence must stop and be contained. The structural violence must be diminished and full accountability and transparency must exist within the governments. And the cultural violence must be shunned and slowed until it no longer exists.

There is a way to a more peaceful slope and it starts with you. You have the power to make peaceful choices in your life. Choose to handle your emotions in productive and peaceful ways. Choose to live your life handling conflict positively. Choose to spread peace and love instead of hate. Choose to speak out against war and abuse. Choose to be at peace.

Yarrr! What’s the deal with Somali pirates?

Piracy off the coast of Somalia has cost the international community as much as $30 million dollars so far this year alone and has once again become an international priority of the moment for many world governments. The term “pirate” itself, is a debatable one, as many so-called “pirates” prefer to call themselves as “coastguards”, and see themselves as protecting their waters from international bodies who are dumping waste or are illegally fishing their livelihood away. Others see them as blood-thirsty thieves eager for profit. Who are these seafarers, and what motivates them to live this lifestyle?

There were at least 165 piracy attacks in Somali waters in 2008, up from the 58 in 2007. There have already been 60 attacks so far in 2009 and more than 200 hostages are still being held here. Acts of piracy off the coast of Somalia really began to rise about 10-15 years ago, as illegal international commercial fishing began plundering the country’s tuna-rich waters following the collapse of the Somali government in 1991. It started as angry fishermen took to the sea in their speedboats trying to dissuade dumpers and trawlers from devastating their waters; expecting a “tax” from the plunderers for the privilege to fish. These acts were often supported by the local communities. In fact, a Somali Wardher News research poll found that 70% of Somalis strongly supported piracy as the best form of national defense; but these tides are changing.

Piracy has been steadily rising as the country remains in chaos under the fighting of regional warlords and a completely fractured state that is incapable of supporting the population. The cities are bombed out ghost towns, as most of the population has fled from constant war, drought and famine. Insecurity has left the country in a constant state of war, where acts of violence are commonplace. Where the average annual income is only approximately $650, a successful pirate raid becomes a great way to get ahead. Pirate bosses have little difficulty recruiting new crews of fresh young teenagers and out of work fishermen eager to make some serious dough. Mostly, they are not heading out in fancy boats, laden with massive amounts of weapons. They are seizing giant cargo ships and tankers in tiny speedboats barely suitable for the seas, loaded with only a few guns, ladders and machetes. International warships have entered the Somali waters trying to stop the bandits, but are really only pushing the problem into the vast depths of the Indian ocean where it is much harder to police. Some say there is a danger of exaggerating the threat of piracy as it is mostly an economic threat, since the pirates “rarely harm crews” and “the actual cost to global shipping is negligible” .

Somalia, one of the poorest, least stable and most violent countries out there, is in shambles. There is no formal government overseeing the country, and almost all services must operate in the informal sector or through international humanitarian aid. There is no effective police force and over half of the population is on food aid, making the draw of up to $10,000 for one raid incredibly lucrative. “Heavy” sentences in Western prison cells that offer regular feedings, quality care and the opportunity of asylum in the new country is hardly a strong deterrent. The international laws are actually so incredibly vague on the subject, that many captured pirates find themselves being released shortly after capture. UN conventions define piracy as a universal crime, allowing each country to arrest pirates at sea and prosecute them at home; however, several countries have difficulty incorporating that into their domestic jurisdiction. Many countries wind up releasing the pirates back because of the potential legal headaches or sending them to Kenya to be tried. Out of 238 pirates captured by international navies, only about half were ever prosecuted. Many that are prosecuted are released shortly thereafter because they are handed over to Somali authorities in Puntland where they simply pay a bribe or use corruption channels to avoid any prison sentences.

And what of the crimes being committed in these waters by international actors? When will the be persecuted for their crimes? Allegations of waste dumping off the coast by European companies was brought to light during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami after hazardous waste containers washed up on Somali shores. Twenty percent of the world’s oil supply passes through this channel, and thousands of cargo ships pass regularly. Illegal trawlers have nearly fished the region dry. The local fishing populations are left without jobs, without livelihoods, without food to feed their families. Their families are left with strange illnesses, death and ailments from the toxic waste that they have been exposed to. What would you do? Where is the justice?

The Somali pirate issue is not merely an economic problem and it is not just a matter of dealing with the pirates. It is a symptom of a much greater social and justice problem that is incredibly pervasive and not going to go away simply because navies will patrol the waters. It will just shift the problem or make it that much worse. Something bigger needs to be done here– and it starts with establishing government and legality within the nation itself.

The United States-led War in Afghanistan and the Implications of the Polarization of the Burqa as a Symbol of the Oppression of Afghani Women

The United States (US) led war in Afghanistan is one of the most controversial current events in today’s world. After the September 11th attacks on US soil, the government of George W. Bush declared war against the Taliban, the acting government of Afghanistan. It was their belief that the al-Qa’eda terrorist network and its leader Osama bin Laden were responsible for these attacks, and that the Afghan government was in support of and harbouring bin Laden. In an effort to justify the mass bombings of Afghanistan in the weeks (and subsequently years) to follow, the Bush administration created a publicity campaign in which they would claim to be declaring a ‘War on Terror’ against the Taliban in an effort to liberate the women of Afghanistan. They claimed that years of physical and structural abuse against women in this country finally needed to come to an end. This campaign centred around the burqa, a restrictive, all-encompassing religious dress that the Taliban forced women to wear every time they left their homes. The US media began bombarding the American public with visions of women trapped underneath these burqas, in an effort to gain support for the continuing war in Afghanistan. This US government campaign would polarize the issue of women’s rights in Afghanistan into an object: the burqa, and would leave the public unaware of the true history of women’s oppression under both the Taliban and US-backed regimes. It would also effectively hurt the progress that could have been made by women after the fall of the Taliban, as little attention was paid to solving the real issues in Afghanistan: gender inequalities and structural and physical violence against women that continue to oppress Afghani women to this day.

In 1964, Mohammed Zahir Shah, the King of Afghanistan created a new constitution for his people that would modernize his country’s political and economic spheres, as well as usher in new democratic legislature that would thrust Afghani women’s rights into the 20th century . The Basic Rights and Duties of the People as listed in articles 25-40 of the 1964 Constitution gave all citizens of Afghanistan equal rights to education, healthcare, and employment. Women were even allowed to enrol with the Armed Forces if they so desired . It was a time for great change and acceptance in the country, and more specifically a time of freedom for women who had been horribly oppressed for hundreds of years. This freedom would not last. In 1973, while Zahir Shah was out of the country for medical treatment, his cousin Daoud executed a well planned out coup d’etat, which would lead to the end of the monarchy that had been established in Afghanistan in 1747 . The end of Zahir Shah’s rein would have terrible consequences for the people of Afghanistan, as only six years after he was ousted from his throne, the Soviet Union would invade the country and the effect of this on the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Afghanistan (especially women) would be disastrous.
It would be during this Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that the United States would become heavily involved with Afghani extremists who were anti-Communist and core fundamentalists . The United States provided these groups with “$30 million in 1980 and increased to over $1 billion per year in 1986-89.” By contrast, opposition groups such as the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), whose aim was “to unite and fight for the independence of our beloved country” were not provided with any funding. While their aim was to bring about a union of the people to create a lasting democracy, the US was more focused on making the Soviet Union pay a price. To accomplish this, they continued to support exceedingly violent parties who were not above imprisoning, torturing, and murdering innocent civilians in the name of their cause . Even after the Soviets retreated in 1989, the US continued to fund the Mujahideen, which was a group of seven Pakistan-based parties who were equated with Afghani resistance . Interestingly enough, these seven parties denounced the return of King Zahir Shah even though many citizens of Afghanistan felt he was the only hope for their country . After the US-backed Mujahideen government took power, the women of Afghanistan were the first to feel the changes after the ‘Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice’ was created. Although often attributed to the Taliban’s reign, this Ministry was in fact created under the Mujahideen and called for women in Afghanistan to immediately begin covering practices . In August of 1993, they took it a step further by imposing the following legislation:
Women do not need to leave their homes at all, unless absolutely necessary, in which case they are to cover themselves completely; are not to wear attractive clothing and decorative accessories; do not wear perfume; their jewelry must not make any noise; they are not walk gracefully or with pride and in the middle of the sidewalk; are not to talk to strangers; are not to speak loudly or laugh in public; and they must always ask their husbands’ permission to leave home.

These decrees were almost identical to those that would be practiced by the Taliban after they came into power, however they are solely attributed to their regime by the US government. In fact, between the years of 1992-1996 before the Taliban took power, Afghanistan was embroiled in a bitter internal civil war in which brutal atrocities were carried out against innocent civilians. Thousands were murdered senselessly, and women were often used as rewards to soldiers who had done a good job for the government .
When the Taliban did take power in 1996, Washington was pleased to finally have a chance to end the anarchy in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, where the Mujahideen had basically reduced the city to rubble . The Afghan citizens were also relieved to have a new government in power, and they prayed that the Taliban regime would finally lend the way for change in Afghanistan. All parties were quickly proven wrong as the Taliban immediately began imposing laws that some considered even more strict than those of the previous regime. Women were immediately dismissed from work, and forced to remain virtual prisoners in their homes. Girls were no longer able to attend school . While the Majuhideen had placed severe restrictions on women, they had still been allowed to work, attend school and leave home occasionally as long as they were covered in a traditional Islamic covering. The Taliban would not tolerate such offences, and the punishment for women offenders was often public stoning and/or death. Even these egregious human rights violations did not bring reprimands from the United States . It was not until the Taliban began actively attacking US soil that they finally acknowledged the terrorist tendencies of the regime and their support of the al-Qa’eda network of terrorists who had claimed responsibility for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Tower complex in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 bombings of US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 1999 attack on the USS Cole. These attacks finally culminated in the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York City and on the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Not since Pearl Harbour had the US felt the pain of an attack on their own soil, let alone in two of the hearts of their great nation. It was time for revenge, and the administration of George W. Bush decided that war was the only way to make the Taliban pay for their attack.

For years prior to the attacks of 9/11 the US had been unsuccessfully attempting to strong arm the Taliban into turning over Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qa’eda network . Their tactics were no different after September 11th, and the Taliban’s response was unfaltering: they would not hand over bin Laden. A war on Afghanistan was almost immediately declared, with the first bombs being dropped October 7, 2001 . Just over a month later, on November 17, 2001, Laura Bush gave the president’s ‘Weekly Radio Address’, and for the first time, the address was given in its entirety by a First Lady . On this night, Mrs. Bush essentially became the US government’s voice against the oppression of women in Afghanistan, and vowed to end the suffering and subjugation of women under the Taliban government . This fight for the liberation of Afghani women was centred around the burqa, an enveloping outer garment that is worn by women of some Islamic faiths when they are outside their own homes . A brief look at the history of the burqa will help to contextualize the arguments put forth in the remainder of this paper.
The Qur’an is the religious text of the Muslim faith, just as the New Testament is the religious text of Christianity. The Qur’an requires that both Muslim men and women dress modestly while in public, however men are only required to cover from their naval to the floor whereas women are required to cover all but their hands and face . This inequality was mutated even further with the Taliban’s requirement of all women to be burqa-clad while in public . The burqa is the most intense form of covering in the Muslim faith. While some women simply wear a hajib, which is also known as a head scarf, others wear the all-encompassing burqa. A full-length dress fabricated with metres of fabric, the burqa completely covers the wearer leaving only a small hole in front of the eyes covered with mesh to see through. It is a very constrictive garment, and the vast amount of fabric makes it very difficult to walk in, let alone communicate through .
The idea of these personal prisons is a completely shocking thought and vision for the population of the Western world, especially for women who feel they have had the privilege to grow up with equality and independence. The Bush administration used its knowledge of this shock to capitalize on the oppression of women in Afghanistan, and created a publicity campaign that centred on the liberation of Afghani women and girls . They hammered the idea of the Taliban’s mistreatment of women into the psyches of the American public, without a mention of the atrocities women had suffered at the hands of US-backed Afghani regimes in the past . In 2002, the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council (UAWC) was formed in what would be the culmination of the publicity campaign. Although this group looks good on paper, it has still done nothing of any major consequence to help liberate the women of Afghanistan. Instead it has focused so narrowly on the burqa and the ‘unveiling’ of Afghani women that the real and still existing problems of social inequality and gender repression are ignored . The US government and the UAWC have chosen a route of educating the general public by selectively placing all of the emphasis on an object: the burqa, rather than examining the deeper, underlying problems that continue to exist in Aghanistan.
While for some women the practice of covering in a burqa may be a demeaning historical practice, for many others the burqa is a religious symbol or a symbol of how hard women in Afghanistan have fought for the freedom that still eludes them . In the religious sense, Muslim people are thoroughly faithful to the Qur’an and that does not end with Muslim men. Muslim women have been raised with the scripture of the Qur’an and just as Westerners have a strong belief in the teachings of the religion they choose to follow, so to do Muslim women. The idea of modesty in clothing and behaviour is what these women believe, and their choice to wear a hajib or a burqa, is just that: a choice. While many Westerners argue that they only make this choice because they ‘don’t know any better’, it is dangerous ground to tread on to assume that one’s culture or religion is superior to another one. There are American Muslim women who choose to cover themselves even after being exposed to a multitude of different cultures, so one should not assume that the women of Afghanistan would choose to change their religious beliefs simply because of a change in government. Alternatively, there were also women who chose to use their confinement in the burqa to further the efforts of organizations attempting to achieve democracy in Afghanistan. Women took to hiding important documents under their burqas, which could easily conceal books, newspapers, and other items due to their masses of fabric . This contraband could then be delivered to others who were part of the resistance to the Taliban. For these women, the burqa became a form of strength, power and resistance, rather than a government imposed personal prison. Many female Afghani activists still believe the burqa is a powerful symbol and are therefore less concerned with the garments they are forced to wear, and more concerned with the democratization of their country, and the hope of equal rights for all . These women do not need to be saved from their oppressors, they need to be given the tools to create a better future for themselves and their families.
It is hard to believe that after six years of US occupation in Afghanistan there have still been very few changes in the social conditions for women and girls in the country . The new puppet government the US imposed upon Afghanistan is still practicing Sharia law, which has an extremely detrimental effect women. Afghan prisons are now full of women who have been convicted of crimes that range from refusing to marry the man their family has chosen, to simply running away from home . There have also been cases of sexual abuse and torture in these prisons. In 2005, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) collected statistics on Afghanistan for the first time, and the results were less than favourable. The country was ranked 173rd of 178 countries in the UNDP human development index, and statistics provided on health, literacy, employment, and lifespan showed that little has changed in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban . The maternal mortality rate is the highest in the world with 1,700 deaths in every 100,000, and if a woman is lucky enough to survive childbirth she will likely not live past the age of forty-five. An average Afghan woman cannot read or write, and even after the fall of the Taliban only 1% of children in school are girls . The question we must ask ourselves however, is not why have there been no changes, but how can we ensure that there will be changes in the future.

The best possible chance for change in the future, is to first open a dialogue about the real history of Afghanistan. This will certainly not be favourable to the United States, but at some point people need to be told the truth about their government’s actions and how those actions have affected other nations negatively. Also, relying on women in the US to run an effective campaign to save Afghani women is not a realistic expectation. There are many capable, experienced Afghani women who have spent their lives dedicated to improving the lives of their fellow female citizens . This is an extremely risky venture to undertake, and many women have been murdered for their involvement in the Afghani women’s liberation movement. Meena, the founder of RAWA, has been touted as a martyr for her work in starting the movement, and she was the first of many assassinated by both the Taliban and US-backed governments . These women have worked on the front lines for decades, and have lived through the constant fear of retribution for speaking out against the government, so who better to ask than them? The difficulty in asking them rests in their total knowledge of the United States’ history in their country. They know of the atrocities carried out by US-supported groups dating back four decades, just as well as they know about the current warlord government of today. The chance of this information getting out is too much for the US to risk, but this truth could truly set the women of Afghanistan free.
Individual activists are also becoming more prevalent in Afghanistan. One of the most famed Afghani women to speak out in recent years is Malalai Joya, who has chosen to tell the true story of the US ‘libertation’ of Afghanistan. She points out that the only success the US has had in their occupation of her country has been to replace one brutal, misogynist regime with another. Joya raised the unspoken topic of the post-9/11 warlord regime and their ruthless abuses of the Afghani people, but was silenced immediately. To date there have been four attempts on her life, as the US-imposed Afghani puppet government continues to try and silence those who speak out for democracy .
A complete attitude shift is required here on the part of the American public. People need to believe that these horrible crimes against humanity are occurring every day. They need to understand that not everyone wants to be an American or live the life of a Westerner, and that we need respect the cultures of others in order to evoke change. It is time for the American public to realize that their government keeps them under a dark cloud of lies and deception, and to start asking the questions that will finally bring truth and democracy to Afghanistan.
-HW

Troops, Possessors de Bleeding Fates

A poem submitted by one of our readers dedicated to the fatalities and survivors of WWII:

Here comes the regiment’s cry,

“Run to the battlefield, despite the weather’s dry”

Stick to the orders like a gum,

“Start moving soldiers, on the beats of drum!”

Cage the fear and escape the trench out,

Major, lieutenant, captain, scout!

No excuse, no decline,

Hand grenade pins in every line.

Booby tracks and traps to unfold,

Ride your fates, written out of gold.

Just crawl down when you get to fall,

Strafe you can, but no escape to the brawl.

Bleeding wounds, bodies bruised and faces grieved,

Dead souls adding to the score of widows and bereaved.

There they live in the photograph,

“Got registered for death”, they sent to life, a telegraph.

Kiss their medals, widows and mothers bereaved,

Compensation worthless, neither sons, nor husbands, nor the tears are retrieved…

-By Farrukh Zafar.
Pakistan

Conflict block.

I’ve been having almost a writer’s block the last couple of weeks. It seems there is only so much conflict a person can read about before their eyes do not want to work anymore. I have also been dealing with some health issues as of late, which has left my mind wandering away from conflict and focusing on my own health. Sadly, the health issues have conflicted with my ethical pursuits.

Reading and writing about mass conflict has been a large part of my life for many years now, but sometimes it becomes almost overwhelming. I get so frustrated watching or reading the news, journals and books; sometimes I find myself venting about the situations to everyone around me in long-winded rants. I also find myself wanting to limit my interactions with society and stop being a consumer almost entirely.

I always considered myself a fairly social person, and I really enjoy positive company around me. The problems is that the more I learn about the connections involved between my lifestyle and the impact on the rest of the world, the more I find I have to limit my own actions and interactions. For example, buying anything with metal in it is now a great ethical dilemma for me. Do I buy things containing metal with the knowledge that I could be supporting human rights abuses and war? It is incredibly conflicting to me. The problems lies in the fact that often, there is no ethical choice to make. The metal industry is set up in such a way that it is currently impossible to trace the metal’s origins. It is a simple choice then, buy or do not buy the product with metal. Sometimes, however, you need metal.

I broke my leg quite severely over the Christmas holidays. Having access to the Canadian health care system, I was quickly sedated and brought to surgery. The surgery resulted in the doctors inserting a metal device to support my bones. Prior to this point, I had not purchased metals in quite some time. Now, I had little choice. Do I want be able to walk again? I need the metals. Do I beat myself up because I used these metals? There is little point in that; but at the same time, I did feel a tinge of guilt.

Boycotting unethical products is a noble venture, but unfortunately, they rule the market. Often there is no ethical purchasing option. It extends far beyond just metals. The list of unethical materials, resources, etc. can quickly be expanded to include almost everything that most people use on a daily basis. So what do we do about it? Do we simply stop buying things completely? Do we all go back to a more “primitive” lifestyle free of modern luxuries? Do we have to grow and produce all our products to be ethical?

I am angered by the false claims of companies. I am angered that government regulations are not ensuring these claims. I am angered that a government that pretends it is ethical allows major human rights abuses. I am angered that “buyer beware” is no longer really an option. We are expected to be part of society, be consumers, be producers… We are not supposed to be self-sufficient. We are expected to purchase things, whether we need them or not. We are told we need these things, and with every purchase we become more complacent. We are led down a marketing spiral into a bed of lies that brands companies as ethical and responsible because they donate to some charity once a year.

Sometimes I want to run away from society and the expectations that come with it, but it is hard. I work in an industry where you must use a computer. Where you must drive a car. Where you must dress professionally. I almost never make purchases other than groceries, and when I do I buy only second-hand goods for the most part. I often long for a society where I must produce all the goods I use. Where I know that they have come from me or my neighbours and are not human rights abusing, but to do that I must withdraw from contemporary North American society almost entirely. I’m not sure I want to make that sacrifice.

The world is so large, but our advanced communications and transportation systems has made that world much much smaller. We cannot continue in the way we are going. We cannot continue to step on others to live in luxury. We cannot continue to allow companies and governments to lie to us repeatedly. We must stand up to the abuses. We must be vocal on how we want our society to run or it will run away from us.

What are conflict resources?

Most have probably heard of or seen the movie “Blood Diamond” starring Leonardo DiCaprio. This movie is about conflict resources, specifically diamonds. The movie traces the path of a man who is embroiled in conflict, forced to be a diamond mining slave and his struggle to find his kidnapped son. Conflict resources, however, extend far beyond just diamonds. They include tin, copper, cobalt, coltan, gold, all the vast mined metals and minerals, and even things like timber. The profits from these resources funds violence. Essentially warlords or brutal armies or corrupt governments overtake mines or resources and begin to sell them on the world market and use this money to fund their violence; buying weapons and power for themselves. The extraction process of the raw materials could have also involved violence, including slave labor, inhumane conditions, massive abuse, intimidation and murder.

One of the best definitions I’ve seen for conflict resources is this one:

“Conflict resources are natural resources whose systematic exploitation and trade in a context of conflict contribute to, benefit from or result in the commission of serious violations of human rights, violations of international humanitarian law or violations amounting to crimes under international law.”

Can you imagine handing a brutal warlord with a massive continual supply of money to buy weapons and power? This is what is happening. We continue and continue to supply and support warlords and then spend great amount of money and effort trying to stop them from warring. We continue to buy products that have supported war, unaware; and wonder what incentive these people could possibly have to war and kill each other. I’d say millions of dollars a month is quite an incentive for many…

The complicated nature of the metals market allows for this to continue. “The metals market can be understood by analogy to a pool of water that is being fed by many streams. Numerous sources, including primary and recycled metal producers, supply the metals market, which is a global commodity pool that circulates and mixes freely. At the same time, numerous buyers withdraw from the pool, often not distinguishing source other than on price. Within the metal pool, metal is metal, where one unit of atoms is substitutable for another.” Something needs to change in the way metals and raw materials are traded and extracted.

Why is this happening? Profit is not enough of a reason, especially with many companies claiming “ethical” business practices. There is nothing ethical about supporting murder, rape, abuse and massive violence. The system is so complicated that most companies no longer have control over their own products. They have no idea what is going into their products and where the raw materials all actually come from. This is unacceptable and the longer we ignore it, the more people will die.

Everyone became aware of conflict diamonds and the Kimberly process was created to try and stop conflict diamonds from getting into the market, but they forgot (or never knew about) the other resources that are creating just as much, or even more violence. There are ways to stop this type of violence, but there needs to be more than voluntary regulations that are not even enforced or are beyond the scope of national legalities.

Please read up on the issue (I write frequently about this topic here), and write a letter/email to the following people (and any more you come across) urging them to stop the violence. You can also post complaints on any company you feel are falsely advertising “ethical business practices” here. A sample letter follows. If you would like more suggestions or need more information, please feel free to contact me at apeaceofconflict.gmail.com.

Some computer companies:

Hewlett Packard dfisher@hp.com

Acer Canada-Sales@acer.com

Toshiba Sherry.Lyons@toshiba.ca

Dell: try writing their corporate office at:
Dell Canada
155 Gordon Baker Rd., Suite 501
North York, Ontario M2H 3N5

Apple: try writing their corporate office at:
Apple Computer
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino California 95014

Government officials:

The Prime Minister – pm@pm.gc.ca

The Foreign Affairs Minister- cannon.L@parl.gc.ca

The Leader of the Opposition- Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca

Other party leaders in Parliament- Layton.J@parl.gc.ca; duceppe.G@parl.gc.ca

And find your MPP here.

Sample letter to computer companies:

Dear________.

I am writing to express my concern over the use of conflict resources in your product line. Many of the raw materials used to manufacture your products could have supported violence. Most metals are said to pass through a minimum of 10 hands before ever reaching the manufacturing stage, making the origins very difficult to trace. Many of these metals have been mined in war zones, some even by slave labour, and are helping to fuel conflict and massive violence in these regions. The current state of the metal industry leaves the source of each metal rather ambiguous. This is unacceptable practice that must stop.

Your company’s current efforts are not enough to stop the violence. Conflict resources are still getting through and into your product line. Voluntary cooperation to minimum standards is not enough. Something more serious must be done.

I urge you to take a stand against the violence and create structures to stop it. I urge you to have an ethical business practice that actually means something. I do not want to buy a product that has contributed to violence.

Yours sincerely,

Where to go from here…

I’ve been incredibly frustrated with the computer industry’s response to my inquiries. I have hit a wall in my research, with little place left to go at this level. I have talked to the people at the companies who are responsible for dealing with human rights inquiries and they have all told me all the information they are willing to give. Their information has left me with many further questions and inquiries into how they are planning to change the problem in the future, and waiting on them to actually implement the changes voluntarily. This could take forever and I’m not willing to wait anymore.

The information they have shared is scary. It’s scary because it makes plain that these abuses are possibly happening in the manufacture of every modern electronics device and possibly far beyond this to include many other metal products that most North Americans use every single day.

Think about this for a moment. How many electronic devices do you have in your home? How many computers, laptops, cameras, cell phones, game consoles, etc. do you own? How many will you go through in the next 5 years? Each of these products has touched war. They have allowed human beings to be slaughtered, raped, enslaved, abused… They have allowed children to be recruited as soldiers, and forced them to grow up with violence all around them. How can any of these companies claim ethical purchasing policies at all? Why are they not responsible for ensuring their own product line is not causing human rights abuses in other parts of the world? Why are they allowed to sidestep legalities for profit? There is something seriously wrong with the world.

Some companies have taken baby steps to change, but everything is so disconnected that it is next to impossible to prove or disprove anything or to allow for complete change overnight.

My new goal has become to go to the higher source. To go to the metal companies that supply the computer and electronics industries with raw materials for manufacture. I think that these have more of a possibility for answers and success. Voluntary cooperation is not going to stop this violence.

I strive for regulation in the manufacture and extraction of raw materials, so that companies and unknowing consumers are not supporting war in another part of the world. There is no reason this type of violence should continue. There is no reason that we should unknowingly be supplying warlords with massive profits or weapons and allowing them to continue their violence. We need to stop fueling them with money and weapons– otherwise we are are partially guilty of the violence. We need to change our own ways, and voice our opinions to the companies and governments responsible.

Genocide is happening, and we are all part of it. The time has come to stop, and it will not happen through peacekeeping or UN efforts alone. This is only responding to the manifestations and not the underlying causes of the violence. YOU need to change. YOU need to become aware. YOU need to speak your mind to the companies and governments who allow this continue. YOU need to be aware that every time you purchase metals, you might be causing death and destruction through your purchases.

It is an uncomfortable thought, I know, but the longer we go on ignoring the problem– the longer it will continue. Please speak out against the abuses in the production of our luxuries and strive to make real change.

The number of mass violent atrocities since WWII.

Let’s count them up. How long would the list be?

I started thinking about it, and decided to compile the list so that I could see it altogether. It is a rather long list (and entirely incomplete), with millions upon millions dead from violence. Many of these death tolls are rough guesstimates, since incomplete censuses and investigations are commonplace in many of these atrocities.

In 1945, a huge bomb with extensive destructive power was dropped over Japan, spreading nuclear waste throughout the atmosphere and killing 200,000 people instantly. Tens of thousands more died later from radiation poisoning and the after effects. And the world woke up and vowed to ensure it would never happened again. We have remembrance day ever year to allow us to appreciate this message- the sacrifice that is made with war. Never again, humanity vowed. But yet it has happened again and again and again. Perhaps not from a nuclear bomb, but the lesson has clearly not been learned.

Directly after the war, the Chinese civil war claimed some 2.5 million lives (and millions more if one counts the deaths caused by famine and war-related causes). The “Great Leap Forward” to communism in China from 1949-1975 claimed over 40 million lives: 2-5 million dead from rural purges; 1 million from urban purges, 20 million from labour camps…. From 1950 onwards, more than 600,000 people died in Tibet as the result of Chinese occupation. Mao at one point even held the Guinness world record as the Top Dog in mass killings. What an honor.

The Greek civil war from 1943-49 claimed over 150 thousand lives. More than 200 thousand were killed in the Tito regime in Yugoslavia from 1944-80.

In the Korean War from 1950-53 over 4,500,000 Koreans dead, 3/4 of them civilians and 54,000 US soldiers died.The North Korean communist regime killed at least one and a half million people between 1948 and 1987.

More than 200 thousand people died in Colombia from 1946-58 from violence. More than half a million people died in India in 1947 from rioting and dislocation due to the partition of the country. More than 150 thousand died in Romania from 1948-89 and more than 130 thousand died in the civil wars in Burma/Myanmar from 1948 onwards.

More than half a million were killed in Algeria from 1954-62. Another half a million in the Sudan from 1955-1972. Another 200 thousand killed in Guatemala from 1960-1996.

3,000 people gunned down in the street, rising up after a US backed military coup in the Dominican Republic in 1965. Another half a million in the Indonesian massacre from 1965-66. At least 300 thousand dead under Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda from 1972-79.

Reports suggests that more firepower than had been used by all sides in all previous wars in human history was used on Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) from 1964-73 (7 million tons of bombs). 400,000 tons of napalm were used. Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides destroyed millions of acres of farmland and forests. More than 2,000,000 people died (mostly civilians) and as many as 3.5 million people. 60,000 American soldiers died and more than 300,000 were wounded. Another half million died after the war under the Communist regime.

One and half million people were killed in civil wars in Ethiopia from 1962-1992 and more than a million in Nigeria from 1966-1970 because of a coup and the ensuing war that followed.

One and a quarter million people died in Bangladesh in 1971, and perhaps as many as 3 million.

Over one and a half million people died under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia between 1975-78. Over a million died in Mozambique from 1975-1992. Another half million died in Angola from 1975 onwards. At least 200 thousand were killed in the Indonesian invasion of East Timor from 1975-99. At least 150 thousand people were killed in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the Lebanese wars from 1975-90.

Another quarter million dead in the Cambodian civil war from 1978-91. Three hundred thousand more dead under Saddam Hussein in Iraq from 1979-2003 and another 300 thousand killed in Kurdistan in the 1980s and 90s. Another 300 thousand killed in Uganda under Milton Obote from 1979-86.

Almost 2 million people died in Afghanistan from 1979-2001 and more than a million died in the Iran-Iraq war from 1980-88. Almost 2 million died in the Sudan from 1983 to the new millennium. Another 150 thousand dead in Liberia from 1989-97. More than 4 million have died in the DR Congo from 1998 to the present– and probably many many more than this as almost 45 thousand are currently dying each month. More than 350 thousand died in Iraq because of an international embargo from 1990 onwards. At least 175 thousand died in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992-5. Another half million died in the Somalian civil war starting in 1991.

There have been repeated genocides since the holocaust, which have been mostly ignored until millions have died, including at least two that are currently ongoing and being ignored. This list does not even begin to address the smaller massacres (with less than 100,000 casualties), and it has missed many other of the larger atrocities.

This is disgusting. Compiling this list made me angry. It made me angry because there is no reason for these wars and deaths. There is no reason this type of violence must continue. Think about it, if that many died–how many people have been displaced, abused, or forced to witness massive violence. Why do we continue to ignore this type of violence? Why have we not found a better way to settle our differences? Why do we continue with war and when will it ever stop? It seems that nothing has been learned, and we haven’t focused enough attention towards peace. We continue with excuses; allowing lax regulations and underhanded deals. We continue to make and supply weapons. We continue to support massive human rights abusing leaders. We continue to make excuses for war and allow many to profit from it. We continue to be unaware of how we affect mass violence in other parts of the world by our own actions. We are all connected and we are not paying close enough attention to these connections.

Learn conflict mediation and transformation. Stop selling weapons. Stop making weapons. Stop allowing violent parties to profit. Focus on peace. Study peace. Spend money on peace. Give money to peacekeepers-makers-builders. We need to stop warring and start coming together.

The “kindness” of the International Financial Institutions.

“Working for a World Free of Poverty”- The World Bank

“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 185 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.”- The International Monetary Fund

The world is so lucky to have such caring institutions as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. If you can’t tell, that last statement was said in sarcasm. If one were to read these institution’s own boasting they would believe that world poverty has been reduced because of their influence, rather than partially created and continued by them. These institutions, commonly referred to in international development circles as the Bretton Woods institutions or International Financial Institutions (IFIs), have helped to ensure that many countries will remain in poverty through their loans and structural adjustment programs (SAPs) for years to come.

The World Bank and the IMF are responsible for supporting the economic and financial order between governments. They were developed in the 1940s as a way of financing economic development for war-torn Western Europe. Over time, they have extended outside of Europe to any poor or war-torn nations, lending over $330 billion since their inception.

The OPEC oil crisis of the 1970s caused major worldwide inflation, significantly raising the price of gas and increasing the cost of goods produced in the richer nations. Many economies of the poorer nations of the world could no longer afford to pay for their imports and began to run on major deficits, resulting in a significant balance of payment deficit. Due to deteriorating terms of trade, these economies needed to look for more resources to pay for their imports; because essentially they were receiving much less for their products, and paying much higher costs for any manufacturing.

Prior to the oil crisis, the IFIs had “assisted” many of the poorer nation’s economies by offering loans to their governments originally borrowed at minimal interest rates of about 1-2%. By the 1980s these loan’s interest rates had climbed to about 16%, and many of the countries were taking on increasing loans to help pass them through the crisis. The rise in the use of synthetics and new agricultural techniques during this time reduced the need for many of the raw materials and agricultural products; an economic staple of many of the world’s poorer nations. During the early 1970s, more than 80% of these nation’s external revenues were created by the exportation of raw materials, dropping to only 34% by 1993.

Many of the richer nation’s banks were required by the IFIs to open lines of credit for the poorer nations that were in distress, and these commercial banks began giving out more money in loans than they actually had. Many of the poorer countries were now left with extreme debt that was growing larger and larger each day as the interest compounded. Many countries owed millions of dollars per month in interest; money that they could sorely afford and in some cases amounts that surpassed the nation’s earnings. These payments were only touching the interest on the loans and barely cracking the surface of the actual debt, ensuring these countries would owe for the long-term.

By 1985, many Latin American countries were suggesting that they were going to default on their loans and just disown their debts. Scrambling to not bankrupt the richer countries’ commercial banks and cause a massive economic meltdown, the “generous” IFIs decided on a plan to help reduce the poorer nations’ debt; on the condition of structural adjustment. The debtor nations would be required to implement stabilization packages supervised by the IMF, that would dictate their government’s spending.

Several plans were implemented to help reduce debts, and failed miserably; leaving many nations with still massive and overwhelming debt. Interestingly, with all the debt reduction projects during this period, the debt of the poorer nation’s between 1984 and 1994 had not been reduced at all, and was in fact only steadily increasing. It was soon decided by those at the IFIs that state-run services in the debtor countries were the reason for the economic crises and that the solution was to be found in removing all state intervention and socialist/communist approaches to government in these nations. The IFIs began demanding packages of fiscal disipline, trade liberalization, exchange rate adjustments and privatization of state services in the debtor nations as a way to stop the crises.

The removal of trade restrictions, including import licenses, quotas, and tariffs in the debtor nations, allowed the lending nations’ governments to fix their prices and dominate the global markets. The IFIs insisted on the devaluation of the local currency in the debtor nations as an incentive for local producers to produce more export commodities. Massive public sector layoffs ensued, as the governments were required to reduce their spending. All public enterprises were to be sold off and export was to be promoted through incentives such as easier access to foreign exchange.

Many of these loans were (and are still to this day) granted to nations ruled by authoritarian depots who use much of the monies to secure their own position of power or build their armies. Overall inflation in many of the nations was reduced by the SAPs and the nation’s earning increased; reducing their debt to earning ratio. The social costs of these economic changes however, had a devastating effect on the populations. All public services were now gone, or were pay-for-use services. The number of people living in poverty in these debtor nations dramatically increased, as did unemployment.

After much world-wide protest, the IFIs decided they must try to reduce the debts to more sustainable levels and focus more on the poverty and social costs that their decisions were having. Several countries qualified for loan reduction initiatives to help reduce these social costs. A number of initiatives were tried and failed, and all now included a poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP), a plan that would detail what the nations would do with the money they were now “saving” from loan payments. This allowed the richer nations to have a large say in the running of debtor nation’s governments. Many nations, including many of the world’s poorest, found they could not qualify for the loan forgiveness programs and so remained completely devastated with debt payments and running further and further into absolute poverty.

The debt initiatives had the effect of reducing some of the total stock of debt from the qualifying nations, however, it also resulted in successful litigation by commercial and bilateral creditors who sued some of these governments for their debt, despite their promised forgiveness by the IFIs. So the IFIs came up with new and even “better” plans, that would involve mandated country-driven and specific programs that were implemented with the purpose of benefiting the poor. In reality, the nations were often given little say into what programs would actually be implemented and were forced to democratize in a western way and create capitalist economies that would serve the richer nations. It had the desired effect. “Democracy” spread from 27.5% of the globe in 1974 to cover 61.3% of the world’s nations in 1995. By the late 1980s, the IFIs had decided that “good governance” was now to become a condition of any loan and much aid, institutionalizing the rule of law and democracy in debtor nations. Elections became staged affairs in order to meet conditions, often held in the face of intense structural and direct violence that suppressed any and all opposition.

Loans continue to be made, and debt forgiveness of only a handful of nations has had little effect on reducing the overall poverty experienced in these nations. The originally mandate and purpose of these financial organizations has been completely lost, as they are creating more devastation than they are repairing. The poorest populations are those who suffer the most. Many who once had governmentally funded education, water and extensive health services are now reliant on international aid and NGOs for even basic necessities. They are left with nothing and no hope for the future.

The colonial grips have changed. Instead of being held in servitude by imperial powers, regions are now being controlled by the IFIs and are forced to go along with the lender nation’s political agenda. The richer, more powerful nations continue to extract the resources of the poorer nations at a tremendous discount for themselves because of their financial situation, ensuring the poorer nations will always be their cheap supplier and be willing to bend to their demands for many years to come.

For further details on the effects of structural adjustment in some of the more “successful” nations see here and here.

An End to Foreign Rule and Other Ideologies of the Taliban Movement

“I start in the name of God, the most merciful, the most compassionate…” –voice of an anonymous Taliban fighter (Smith, 2008).
This quote seemed the most fitting way to start understanding the mind of a Taliban fighter since it was echoed at the start of almost every filmed Taliban interview and video. The image of the Taliban as a hard-line, ultra-fanatical religious movement has often cast individual Taliban fighters as uneducated, brainwashed religious nuts who are innately violent and destructive. Although the Taliban have an extremely strict and anti-modern ideology based on Islamic Shariah law, many of the fighters are not strict religious adherents and believe indiscriminate violence is wrong.
These Taliban fighters do strive for Islamic rule for the nearly ninety-nine percent majority Muslim population of Afghanistan, but they also strive to stop the occupation and invasion of their country, to restore the security situation of their land, regain economic security for themselves and their families, and to reclaim the territory lost to the Durand Line on the Pakistani border, among other things. The people that make up the Taliban live in an area that has been almost continuously occupied and invaded by several different factions for centuries (amidst incredible local resistance), and which has recently been devastated by almost thirty years of war. The individual reasons for Taliban fighters to join and support a so-called “terrorist” or human-rights violating organization are complex, but are most often rooted in socio-economic, political, historical and cultural reasons and not solely in blind religious fanaticism.
Afghanistan has experienced almost constant restrictive occupation for the last thirty years; first by the Soviets, then by the Taliban, and currently by the Americans since 2001. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, a conflict which has often been referred to as one of the proxy wars of the Cold war. This war lasted until the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, after the Soviet Union had begun to crumble and were no longer able or willing to support the effort. The US government, through the CIA and with the help of Pakistan’s secret police (ISI), channeled money to groups of mujahid warriors in Afghanistan (who included Osama bin Laden) to fight off the communist threat of the Soviets and gain an important strategic foothold in the Central Asian region. The extremist mujahid warriors (along with ethnic separatists) were seen as the best option to oppose the Soviets, not because they could form a stable government, but because it was hoped that they in fact, could not (Kakar, 1995: 147-9; 156).
The lack of local government along with the plethora of scattered, ‘tribal’ leaders left religious scholars with an important role in Afghanistan against foreign invasion and dominance. During the Soviet invasion a decree stating “Now is the time to free your country and wage your holy war against the Russian invader!” (The Final Call, 2001) was declared by many religious scholars, prompting the masses to take up arms and enjoy martyrdom if killed in battle. After defeating the Russians, these religious scholars went back into religious schools and mosques while some of the mujahid warriors began to fight each other for control of Kabul and other resources. For four years the scholars saw fighting, chaos and anarchy with traditional society and culture effectively uprooted, and thousands of refugees fleeing to neighboring Pakistan. In the communist controlled areas, the traditional “feudal” culture had been completely disrupted and replaced with “productive” urbanization, with Kabul swelling to over three million people (Kakar, 1995: 279).
It was in this climate that the Taliban really began to emerge. The term ‘Taliban’ comes from the Pashtu (and Arabic) word for ‘student’, and is used to describe a militant student movement group that grew out of hard-line religious schools in Pakistan in the early 1990s (Reuters AlertNet, Afghan Turmoil: 2008). In the late 1970s and 80s, Wahhabis from Saudi Arabia (a strict religious sect) began joining the mujahid warriors and heavily funding these religious schools (madrassas) to support the many “Afghani Jihad” orphans. These students, most of who were Afghani refugees living in camps on the Pakistani border, were offered free schooling and often even given a meal if they attended classes (Khan, 2003). They were schooled in the evils of non-Muslims, how to resist the Russians and any other occupation, and taught strict Islamic guidelines based upon Qur’anic verses. The Taliban brought possibilities to these students of education, work, much needed money, solidarity with others, and an actual role to play in society to make them feel useful again. It also brought hope for a future (even if only in heaven), something that is very hard for many refugees living in camps to imagine.
The Taliban shifted from these humble beginnings to rule most of the Afghan region from 1996 until their overthrow by US and NATO forces in 2001. They ruled with tremendous religious rigidity, and were condemned by human rights organizations who claimed they implemented the most brutal and strict interpretation of Shariah law ever seen in the Islamic world, which saw the closure of all girls’ schools, the ban of women from leaving their house without male familial accompaniment, as well as the ban of every conceivable kind of entertainment (Rashid, 2000: 2-3). This interpretation is informed by Shariah law combined with ancient Pashtu tribal codes (the Pashtunwali) that stress the right to revenge and to avenge injustice in equal proportion, as well as ideals of hospitality towards guests, asylum, honor and the protecting of Pashtu culture (Mardsen, 1998: 85).
Incessant fighting of competing Mujahidin warlords during the late 80s and early 90s, paved the way for the Taliban to overthrow the government in 1996, a move that was welcomed by many in the Pashtu majority who were happy to again see Pashtu political power in the country and an end to indiscriminate roving violence (Khan, 2003). In fact, Afghanistan’s former Ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, was reported as saying in 2000 that the Taliban had developed “out of public demand” to put an end to the anarchy and chaos and to disarm the unscrupulous militias of mujahidin struggling to fill the power vacuum created by the departure of the Soviets (Global Security, 2000). Under this auspice, many Afghanis joined the cause.
The Taliban ruled until US and Coalition forces invaded in 2001, supposedly in search of Osama bin Laden. The Taliban, using Pashtunwali codes of asylum and hospitality towards guests as their guide, refused to hand over bin Laden without evidence proving his guilt. They actually agreed on several occasions, if evidence was submitted, to capture bin Laden and bring him to justice along with three other alternative options for justice. The US would not accept this offer. Many argue that in fact the US only turned against the Taliban after they refused to sign an oil pipeline deal through Afghanistan, instead offering the deal to an Argentine consortium (Margolis, 2008). The truth lies under much propaganda, and is incredibly difficult to ascertain. The Taliban and much of the Afghani public viewed this new infidel invasion much as they had the previous invasions, believing all Afghanistan’s problems would be solved if foreign interference were to stop immediately. Development projects were seen as a controlling mechanism of the non-Muslims, and were criticized for their wasteful spending. The Taliban also suggested that some UN and international projects were not sincere in their goals of helping the Afghani people, and were exaggerating the situation to continue their financial support and missions (Global Security, 2000).
The Taliban’s original goal, according to Zaeef and Ambassador Abdul Hakeem Mujahid (a Taliban representative to the UN in 2001), was to ensure peace and security in the country. They claim to have tried to solve all issues and disputes “through understanding and peaceful means”, even extending ‘”to the opposition an invitation for peace in an effort to stop further bloodshed in Afghanistan” (Global Security, 2000; and The Final Call, 2001). The main goals after restoring order were national unity for Afghanistan (which included restoring territory lost to Pakistan with the Durand Line in the 1920s); to disarm all the warlords and build a strong central government built on Islamic values. The Taliban claimed they would return to the mosques and schools once this had been attained (The Final Call, 2001).
To the Taliban, western “extremist” visions of their rule as human-rights abusing were unjustified. As repeated in mantra-like form, the Taliban has restored security and justice, along with the idea that education is not a right, but an obligation. Within Islamic-Pushtun principles this obligation means no-coeducation, with females separately educated for their own modesty and to prevent impure thoughts among the males. For the leaders of the Taliban, questions regarding the education of women were defended by showing the hypocrisy of the world for not criticizing the UN and Soviets who did not offer non-coeducational schools, limiting much of the Afghani population from attending. It was seen as offensive by the Taliban to force women into coeducational experiences that would dishonor their culture, and they claim many women who were able to enjoy education under Taliban rule missed out on education under the Soviet and UN systems (The Final Call, 2001).
The Taliban also take offence to the claim of indiscriminate killings and arbitrary violence. Taliban leaders, along with fighters stressed the fact that they were to avoid civilian deaths as much as possible. Certain statistics would seem to back this up. Taliban suicide bombers in Afghanistan are more prone to hit “hard” military targets than civilians with nearly half (43%) of all bombings causing no civilian fatalities. This “low accuracy” rate was attributed to the “amateur” abilities of the Taliban by Coalition troops. The Taliban affirms that this is a calculated decision to avoid killing innocents and inciting anti-Taliban sentiment in the country, a tactic that has proven effective in demonizing the Coalition among the locals for their indiscriminate bombings that have killed scores of innocent civilians (Williams,2007).
Controversy over the makeup of the Taliban is clouded by mass propaganda (American, Russian and local), conflicting accounts and faked reports. The Taliban’s strict ban on entertainment makes video, radio, or local newspaper accounts and debate almost non-existent. Interviews of the Taliban were highly tense situations, evidenced in the fact that every single Taliban member being interviewed other than top officials giving declarations hid their face from the camera with part of their turbans, perhaps in fear of revealing their identities and being punished. The responses were formulaic and expected. Mantras were common among the interviews of Taliban leaders, spokesmen, and fighters, suggesting some level of “brain-washing” or at least preparation and indoctrination before interviews. There seemed to be standard answers for standard questions. Phrases such as “puppets of the Americans” or “slaves of the non-Muslims” were repeated ad naseum (Smith, 2008. Also see list of Taliban interviews in the Bibliography). The difficulty in assessing the validity and motives of the speakers from these accounts is compounded by the fact that most were dubbed into English, and not subtitled, leaving little room for objectivity and verification of translation.
So who is the Taliban really? One side, namely that of Marc Sageman describes the Taliban as conscious actors, who are politically and religiously motivated and do not need brainwashing to take up the Taliban cause (Sageman, 2004: 99-137). He also suggests that they are not uneducated or lower-class individuals, but in fact are represented by many educational and class levels. These types of reports have been contrasted with the more common perception of Taliban fighters as lower-class people who have been seduced, bribed, tricked, manipulated or coerced into blowing themselves up as “weapons of God”. The National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Afghanis intelligence service, has reported apprehending bombers who were deranged, mentally and physically retarded, unstable or on drugs. Several of the bombers caught by the NDS were supposedly carrying mind altering hallucinogens or sedatives to calm their nerves before death. Media and think-tank reports also mention cases of physically disabled suicide bombers, including a blind man, an amputee, and a disabled man whose only motive was to make money for his family (Williams, 2007). Although there are clearly some educated and upper-class Taliban members, the evidence and choice of interviewees seems to corroborate the latter view for the majority of its fighters. All of the interviews of former Taliban members described their motivations to be mostly economic or through coercion (sometimes by force).
Most of the fighters interviewed were former blue collar workers, who took up arms in solidarity with the Taliban against the non-Muslim infidels and their servants (the current Afghani government). High levels of unemployment (as high as 60% country-wide); lead many young men to join the Taliban for pocket money, a mobile phone, or other financial incentives. Where the government is failing to provide basic services for its citizens, the Taliban seems to be jumping in to fill the gap with radical alternatives (IATT, 2008).
Many of those interviewed were former farmers who had been kicked off their land in poppy raids by the current government. They had family and friends who had been killed by invaders, had lost their homes and livelihood to violence and were unable to leave the country. A definite link between the eradication of poppy and the growth of the Taliban in rural areas can be determined (Smith, 2008). The Taliban offered these often lonely, marginalized men a chance to bring security, money, and medical care to their families. It also offered them a chance to belong, and feel like productive members and agents in their own future.
The poppy-Taliban connection is an interesting one, especially when one considers that the cultivation of the poppy for narcotics purposes is strictly prohibited by the Qur’an. All of the Taliban respondents interviewed about poppy cultivation openly admitted this fact, but stated they had been in cultivation for financial reasons. The Taliban seemed to help these former farmers finance their basic human needs after they were stripped of their livelihood. This suggests that Sageman’s proposal that Taliban fighters are mostly religiously motivated is flawed, since so many informants clearly disobey Islamic rules in full knowledge of their own wrong-doings.
Whatever the motivations of individual Taliban members to join, it seems that local sympathies and recruitment for the Taliban are in fact increasing and spreading across the Islamic world. The continued presence of foreign invaders who disrespect local cultures and values jeopardizes the possibilities for peace in the future. Almost all of the Taliban interviewed say they will continue their fight to the last man standing, as long as any infidels reside in and control their territory. A newly signed pipeline deal brokered by the Americans solidifies the “need” for continued American “pipe-line protection troops” in the region for many years to come (Foster, 2008). This means that this war will inevitably continue, and perhaps even intensify in the future.
The Taliban’s negative image has been widely broadcast in North American media. Clearly, the Taliban is guilty of many human rights abuses and atrocities, but theirs are not the only hands with blood on them. Many of the individual Taliban fighters are victims of massive cultural, structural and direct violence that shapes their worldview and in a sense, “legitimizes” their continual struggle against repressive foreign invasion. They are “justified” in continuing their struggle because they see injustice in their lives brought about by foreign powers. More objective research into the mind of the Taliban fighters, their individual backgrounds, daily lives and mindsets would be the first step towards achieving peace in the region, since the root causes of the fight have yet to even truly begin to be addressed. Any justice in the region must be all-encompassing, and include solutions to local structural injustices, as well as the injustices created and continued by American invasion. The foreigners must be reigned in, basic structures rebuilt, local cultures revitalized and reconciliation processes enacted. The Taliban strive for recognition of their values, and until they receive this recognition, they will continue their fight to the death, in the name of Allah.

Bibliography
Foster, John. (June 19, 2008). A pipeline through a troubled land: Afghanistan, Canada, and the new great energy game. Foreign Policy Series. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Vol. 3, No. 1.

Global Security. (November 8, 2000). IRIN interview with Taliban Ambassador. Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved October 4, 2008, from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2000/11/war-001109-saafg.htm.

Internet Anthropologist Think Tank (IATT). (February 28, 2008). Afghan youth join Taliban to escape poverty. War Intel Blog Spot. Retrieved October 4, 2008, from http://warintel.blogspot.com/2008/02/join-taliban-to-escape-poverty.html.

Kakar, M. Hassan. (1995). The Soviet invasion and the Afghan response, 1979-1982. University of California Press.

Khan, Feroz Hassan. (January 10, 2003). Strategic insight. Rough neighbors: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Center for Contemporary Conflict. Retrieved October 4, 2008, from http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/rsepResources/si/jan03/southAsia.asp#references.

Mardsen, Peter. (1998).Taliban: war, religion, and the new order in Afghanistan. Zed Publishers, New York.

Margolis, Eric. (July 30, 2008). Let’s speak the truth about Afghanistan. Huffington Post. Retrieved October 4, 2008, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-margolis/lets-speak-the-truth-abou_b_115591.html.

Rashid, Ahmed. (2002). Taliban: Islam, oil and the new great game in Central Asia. I.B. Tarius Publishers, New York.

Reuters AlertNet. (January 8, 2008). Afghan turmoil. Reuters Foundation. Retrieved October 2, 2008, from http://www.alertnet.org/db/crisisprofiles/AF_REC.htm?v=in_detail.

Sageman, Marc. (2004). Understanding terror networks. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.

Smith, Graeme. (March 22, 2008). Talking to the Taliban. Globe and Mail, CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc., Canada. Retrieved October 4, 2008, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/talkingtothetaliban.

The Final Call. (January 1, 2001). Who are the Taliban? The Final Call On-line Edition. Retrieved October 2, 2008, from http://www.finalcall.com/perspectives/interviews/taliban01-09-2001.htm.

Williams, Brian Glyn. (July 19, 2007). The Taliban Fedayeen: The world’s worst suicide bombers? Global Terrorism Analysis: Terrorism Monitor. Vol. 5, No. 14. Retrieved October 4, 2008, from http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?issue_id=4183.

SELECTED YOU TUBE TALIBAN INTERVIEWS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwwiGXIhnKo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGTRpCmWrxg

International Intervention without Cultural Specificity: The Problems of Aid and Intervention to Russian Health Care

Distributing international aid can prove to be a problematic process if background situations and local considerations are not thoroughly regarded. International intervention within the post-socialist Russian health care system was fraught with difficulties stemming from misconceptions, flawed perceptions and a lack of coordination between locals, international NGO workers and the state. The legacy of the socialist period cast itself on the future of development assistance, as public prejudices regarding expectations were transferred from communism’s failure to the failure of capitalism. How has international intervention and aid to the Russian health care system shaped the relationships between citizens, civil society, and the state; and how has this changing shape been affected by the socialist legacy? How have the concepts of public and private spheres in the socialist context affected the way aid is being received? What are the problems facing international health care aid to this region and what is the best way to overcome these problems?

This paper will explore the transformation of health care services in Russia from the Soviet period to the post-socialist era, detailing the realities of the health care situation on the ground. It will attempt to describe the changing perceptions of public and private space and the expectations that coincide with these spaces, recounting the growing dominance of one space over the other under socialism, and later its repackaged continuance under capitalism. It will then turn to the emergence of international intervention (in the form of NGOs and development assistance) that were focused on transforming the socialist state into a market democracy, and how this assistance was misinterpreted and perceived by many as insulting, damaging the possibilities for overall success. The difficulties facing the depoliticizing of aid are explored, as well as the misconceptions precipitated by the Cold War ideologies. Pro-natalist agendas are discussed as shifting the perceptions and institutionalizing moral responsibilities, a practice that was continued in the delivery of international assistance. The devaluation of Russian skills and knowledge (by Westerners) as a mechanism for change is explored, as well as the disregard and disrespect for Russian input which resulted in the marginalization of the local. The paper will then describe Western attempts at ‘democratizing’ the health care system from the ground up, and how this was limited because of vertical hierarchies in existence. It then details how the perceptions of the socialist state cast themselves on the perception of international aid and intervention, and prevented it from succeeding. The example of Uryupinsk is then described as a type of home-grown “civil society” that is able to meet the needs of its population, followed by recommendations for strengthening the health care system and ensuring aid is better received in the future.

Health Care in Russia

During the socialist period in Russia, there were two phases of health care, the first taking place during the 1920s. This first period was dominated by the Marxist perception that illness within society was primarily the product of sickness (inequality and capitalism) in society and that the “cure” to problems such as alcoholism, drug abuse and prostitution would be socialism. This phase deemphasized the value of scientific and clinical approaches to health care and instead narrowed in on socio-economic factors. Beginning in the next decade, the second phase saw more scientific approaches to care exhibiting a belief that work force capacity was dependent on the health of its workers (Bar and Field, 1996). Poorly managed and poorly funded programs that left physicians without pay, resulted in fees-for-service, extending hospital stays and providing unnecessary treatments as money-making ventures (Rivkin-Fish, 2005:86). After the fall of socialism, a third phase occurred and involved reigning in already minimal payments by the government to the healthcare system and reducing the hospitalization rates and lengths of stay of patients as a means of limiting spending and becoming more “cost-effective” and “efficient” (Rivkin-Fish, 2005: 89).

During the Soviet period, education, healthcare and child care were to be provided by the state at no cost to the citizenry. The health services in particular however, were often under-resourced and segregated based on the person’s position within the Communist Party, their access to extensive personal networks and their ability to pay the increasingly expected fees and tips for supposedly free services. The government publicly prioritized the training and recruitment of doctors and provided large numbers of hospital beds, but often neglected the quality of the personnel or facilities being offered as the percentage of GDP spent on healthcare services plummeted (Bar and Field, 1996).

Professional associations for physicians were outlawed during the Soviet period. This resulted in the removal of an important system for monitoring the quality of care and the chance for physicians to lobby for better working conditions and rights. Claims of bribery, corruption and network favoritism cast shadows on the admission and graduation processes of many physicians, causing their skills to be considered extremely sub-par or non-existent by Western standards. Doctor’s wages came last among state spending, many receiving lower salaries than factory workers, leaving them with little choice but to charge their patients fees in order to survive. Pharmaceuticals and supply shortages lead to a reliance on gray and black markets for the provision of basic materials. Many hospitals lacked even adequate plumbing or sanitation systems, and electricity or the equipment necessary to run basic tests (Bar and Field, 1996). Patients were asked in some cases to provide their own bed sheets, nourishment and even blood for transfusions brought from home if having an operation while in the hospital (Rivkin-Fish, 2005:87) The dissolution of the state after the fall of communism led to a further erosion of these already abysmal services (Hemment, 2004, Spring). The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) restructured loan payments with the government, and advocated for the state to eliminate promises of universally free healthcare and to reign in their health spending, exacerbating the underlying problems and compromising patient care (Rivkin-Fish, 2005: 87-9).

The Changing Relationships between the State, Civil Society and the Individual

Radical economic and social reforms enacted by the new governments, who were under World Bank and IMF pressure, failed to install more equitable socio-economic structures. Rising unemployment, withheld wages, and hyperinflation forced the already poor and desperate to rely on personal networks in order to obtain the social security that the government was failing to provide (Hemment, 2004, Spring). Janine Wedel (1998:3) comments that many Westerners were and still are “naïve to the realities of the Eastern world and the political skills it took just to survive” on a daily basis. The changing relationships between the individual and the state and the growing institutionalization of the private sphere exacerbated the citizen’s distrust for the state. This distrust was later projected from the state onto Western aid and interventions (which will be discussed in a later section).

The public sphere is traditionally regarded as an inclusive space where private individuals could come together as a public to debate issues of public authority such as governance. The private sphere complemented this sphere as an area traditionally outside of the reach of the government or public institutions (Habermas, 1989:27). Civil society was seen to occupy the space between the state, the market and the private; and conventionally consisted of NGOs, associations, community groups, trade unions and social movements (Centre for Civil Society, 2004). The public, private and civil society spheres have been referred to as the legs on a “three-legged stool”, with a separate but equal balance existing between all three legs. In reality, the situation is slightly more complicated as balance is not necessarily equitable, and the legs are not entirely separate. A common neoliberal assumption asserts that there should be a distinct separation between the private, civil society and the state. This assumption neglects to realize that the boundaries between these entities are not always clear (Drue, 2002: 187-200).

Modern housing made available after the fall of communism allowed many citizens their first access to a truly “private” sphere, a location reserved specifically for families that could be closed to neighbours and other uninvited visitors previously forced onto the private sphere by institutionalized situations such as communal apartments during the Soviet era. The “official” or “public” sphere (that being controlled by the Communist party) became increasingly dominant in daily life under socialism, as housing was communalized, and a wide array of topics became too dangerous to be discussed in “public” spaces, which were now extended to sometimes include areas within people’s own homes such as shared kitchens, hallways and bathrooms (Oswald and Voronkov, 2004).

The state privileged the public over the private sphere. Increasing productive and reproductive duties were nationalized and incorporated as individual moral responsibilities making once private issues public concern (Einhorn, 1993:31-3). This private and public tension was further exacerbated by the secularization process undertaken by the state during socialism that strove to limit private influence in the public sphere (Richardson, unpublished, 2008). Destined for disaster, the state increasingly took on more responsibility by broadening its political reach into the private realms, overburdening and overstretching its already thin capacity. The state lacked equitable distribution capabilities, dooming it to be resented by the people whose needs were increasingly being ignored. The increasing control of the private sphere where individual responsibilities became public responsibilities only intensified the already deep resentment towards the state for its distributional failures. The fact that the state lacked the structural capabilities to fulfill its existing promises without taking on increasing responsibilities, made these private intrusions all the more hated (Oswald and Voronkov, 2004).

Gal and Kligman (2000: 39) suggest that the private and public spheres are not mutually exclusive and are more like a nested set of ideologies that are overlapping and malleable, sometimes permitting the private within the public and vice versa. The exact distinction between public and private is completely relative to the interactional situation to which it is applied. Civil society often appears as a sort of public within the private sphere, or as a private interaction between individuals and the state existing usually in public space. During the Soviet era, “civil society” in the western sense was almost non-existent, as its functions were being primarily met or excluded by the state. Thus civil society came to be known as anything not being determined or offered by the Communist Party (Hemment, 2004 Spring). International foundations in the post-socialist context presented civil society as the antidote to the state, which was characterized as corrupt and obsolete in Russia even though the state was needed for these NGOs to gain recognition, practice legally and distribute resources (Drue, 2002: 183).

The growing distrust for all things public, stemming mostly from a lack of adequate resource distribution, favoritism and corruption amongst unequal hierarchies, increased estrangement from the state or public sphere and induced a withdrawal of many citizens from the routinization, institutionalization and standardization that socialism was providing. The boundary between public and private was blurred and permeated by the resource-attaining practice of blat, a collection of personal networks that transcended the private sphere while attempting to obtain public goods (Oswald and Voronkov, 2004). Public space became increasingly masculinized after the fall of communism, as competition for jobs forced many women from public roles and back into the home, leaving little space for female involvement outside the private sphere. These women, barred from the traditional public sphere, often became increasingly active within civil society, organizing associations and NGOs and leading to a feminization of the civil society sector (Hemment, 2004, Spring).

International NGOs Combating Communism

International aid and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) entered the former USSR upon its collapse, with the original intention of combating communism and transforming the state from communism to capitalism (Wedel, 1998). Expanding civil society was seen as instrumental to the development of free markets and democratic ideals (Hemment, 2004, Spring). The main categories of aid and NGO work being supplied internationally to Russia were interested in privatizing former state services, developing the private sector (including private property reform), democratization and basic humanitarian assistance such as health care. A disconnect between the West and the East facilitated by the Cold War ideologies however, prevented this work from being fully effective (Wedel, 1998: 4). NGOs were painted in opposition to the state, as inherently “good” and representing everything the state could not provide in a less bureaucratized, and more efficient manner that was able to reach local populations more effectively than centralized resource distribution (Fisher, 1997).

The West was originally regarded with suspicion, but also lauded as a potential savior whose eventual assistance was never really in question since it was perceived as fully capable of distributing resources. The East considered the West as a kind of rich Soviet Union able to furnish the vast array of products and services not being supplied under communist rule (Wedel, 1998: 22). The West lumped most of the former states of the USSR into the category of “undeveloped”, akin to the Third World, as they began providing aid, NGOs and development schemes to ease the transition from communism to capitalism in the region. This was interpreted by Russians as insulting since many saw themselves as being more or equally “civilized” and “cultured” as the West, needing institutional and social changes instead of economic growth and handouts (Wedel, 1998: 20). The problems in the post-socialist era were difficult to address as Hemment (2004) explains in her example of a highly educated woman with graduate degrees, who lives in a tiny two-bedroom apartment with no hot water, her family of five and her in-laws. The socialist situation was comprised of a highly educated population living in extreme poverty, with few rights and unable to make a living, and differed greatly from the Third World situations.

International anti-communist, pro-natalists intent on transitioning Russia towards capitalism after 1989, were accused by Russians of working to strategically depopulate the country due to their push for abstinence and individual moral changes in the face of existing East-West tensions, perceptions and suspicions (Rivkin-Fish, 2005: 215). Applying pre-existing and inappropriate models of aid in the Russian context had the reverse effect of transference to capitalism by solidifying support for the socialist parties and strengthening “mafia-style” networks that were clinging to resource possibilities and the power vacuum created upon the state’s retreat. The lack of transparency along the aid-distribution channels intensified the connection between the realities of the former socialist state and the realities of capitalism, as Western aid, untracked, was assumed to be in the pockets of the elites, much as under socialism. Many Western aid officials were assumed to be spies sent by the West to evaluate the potential competition of the Eastern producers, with as much as two-thirds of the Russian population believing that the US had a calculated anti-Russian foreign policy (Wedel and Creed, 1997).

Depoliticizing the Political

Perceptions can shape the success or failure of any aid mission, and to be most successful aid must be apolitical, not operating within the standard political debate (Creed and Wedel, 1997). The depoliticization of aid became nearly impossible in Eastern Europe as the socialist legacy ensured the economy was completely controlled by the political apparatus. Personalistic connections were required for the NGOs and associations to distribute, arrange and acquire resources, lending legitimacy to the existing inequalities and undermining attempts at institutional and social reform. Many sectors, such as health care and agriculture were highly politicized. Collectivized farms, for example, were seen as the biggest threat to capitalism, with Communist support being saturated mostly in rural areas. Attempts to decollectivize were promoted as the best way to defeat the remaining Communist influence that was primarily in control of the collective farms, essentially restricting the possibility of production to non-collective means, eliminating a way of life for many and hailing capitalist production as the only possible way (Creed and Wedel, 1997).

In health care during the socialist period, the state largely ignored its purported responsibilities to its citizenry by blaming “low levels of culture” (Rivkin-Fish, 2005:91) and an “underdeveloped sense of individual character” for ill health. It began targeting the individual for moral transformations instead of examining the possibility of structural or policy reforms. This essentially privatized perceptions and shifted the blame from state to individual. The widespread use of abortion during the socialist period offers a prime example of this politicization. The Soviet pro-natalist and state-production agenda originally passed restrictions on abortion, focusing on the size and quality of the population as being most important to national production and essentially making the issue one of national security (Rivkin-Fish, 2005:4-5).

Abortion was later institutionalized as the most accessible means of fertility control with all other choices being almost non-existent. As a result, abortion rates more than doubled the live-birth rate and the population began to decline. Official policies institutionalized the focus onto the individual as potentially antisocial and degenerate, changing health education to conform to standards of ‘proper’ hygiene and sexual restraint and making the problems individual moral problems as opposed to state structural ones such as growing inequality, poverty and the decline in universal services (Rivkin-Fish, 2005: 93-4).

Reinforcing Social Inequalities and Hierarchies

International aid officials decided they had seen the problems of the Russian health care system before and applied inappropriate and existing models from the Third World to ‘fix’ them. They were critiqued as not listening to Russian input or promoting cooperation and sharing of ideas between the East and the West; instead lecturing and devaluing the professionals in existence even though they claimed to be working in a democratic fashion in collaboration with the locals. They assumed total Russian ignorance and ignored the scientific and research opportunities in the socialist context that gave many Russians knowledge and abilities equal to or surpassing Western knowledge and abilities. Aid officials attempted to make appeals to change more receptive to the Russian audience by entirely disregarding their knowledge and former modes of care (Creed and Wedel, 1997). Westerners also completely ignored Russian priorities while claiming to be promoting them. Russian officials in the early nineties placed low priority on the health care system instead focusing on socio-economic and ecological causes of disease, while the WHO (professing to be following the priorities of the Russians) prioritized sanitation and maternal and infant health as the most pressing issue (Bar and Field, 1996).

An anthropologist noted the disrespect offered by many international organizations to local organizations at local-run events. This disrespect was evidenced in their sending low level workers with little decision-making capability that “dressed in blue jeans”, “appeared bored” and were unable to comprehend the language or situation at hand (Drue, 2002: 192). Drue (2002: 205) also illustrated the marginalization of local groups who had to account for their lives and convince sponsors of their social worth in order to receive funding or acknowledgement. This was compounded further by a complete lack of attention from the government and media even after receiving extensive NGO training in media and governmental relations by international parties and attempting to implement this generic training in the Russian context.

Convinced that the Russian health care system was akin to medical practices in the West in the 1960s and 70s, the international community emphasized the Russian’s problems as being “familiar” or “behavioural” and not technological or induced by systemic poverty. They moved away from the original focus of maternal mortality to narrow in on issues such as changing the practice of separating mother and child at birth, promoting breastfeeding over scheduled feedings; allowing companionship during birth, removing the “dehumanized” nature of practices and changing the emphasis from institutional demands to consumer wants and needs. This characterization of “dehumanized care” led the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote the reorganization of post-natal care from concentrating on biomedical expertise to the individual needs and demands of the patients. This essentially recontextualized the original issue of maternal health into a women’s social issue that ignored the local cultural norms and standards. It blamed the physicians while ignoring the role of the state attempting to be apolitical. What the aid officials didn’t realize is that the political was already thoroughly intertwined in the health care system through the unequal hierarchies (where physicians received low status against the powerful state), and the blurred boundaries that existed between public and private spaces that allowed for state control on almost all levels (Rivkin-Fish, 2000: 79-80).

‘Democratizing’ Clinical Practices

The Russian physicians blamed their problems on a lack of proper supplies, equipment, communication and financing from national sources, and placed little value on the institutionalized and medicalized nature of their health system. The WHO’s focus on eliminating embarrassing (by Western standards) procedures such as the forced provision of enemas and pubic shaving, routine in Russian birthing practices, reflected a lack of local cultural understanding of the body and its care in this region as Russians saw this to be an unimportant issue. Westerners assumed the medicalization of health care practices during childbirth equated to the subordination of women as a need for physicians to assert their power, much as doctors had in the West in the 1960s and 70s (Rivkin-Fish, 2005: 60-90).

International bodies assumed that the Russian physicians’ resistance to change was induced by a self-interested quest for power, much as in the West, due to their prestige and position as a physician and the lack of knowledge of their patients. They neglected to realize however, that physicians in Russia were not afforded the same status as in the West. In fact, the deep investment in the ideology of biomedicine, which stressed technology, knowledge and research in medical practices, was rooted in the need for physicians to achieve professional efficacy in a hopeless socio-political environment. Little chance for advancement of material or symbolic power due to low wages and poor status as a physician resulted in many clinging to their knowledge over their patients as a way to express their social dominance and experience social power that was otherwise missing from their lives. In fact, the feminization of the position was seen as caused by declining wages and low political socio-economic status, resulting in more than seventy percent of doctors in Russia being female. The West’s assumption that the Russian present was the same as their past neglected to address the low status to which doctors were afforded in Russia, and prevented the Russians from heeding the advice to individualize and humanize care (Rivkin-Fish, 2005: 60-72).

The international aid community failed to acknowledge the undemocratic position that physicians were accorded due to their limited access to state communication, policy direction and financing. Instead, they plowed along promoting a ‘democratic’ clinic setting hoping it would vertically transcend the hierarchies in existence, but not realizing the physicians didn’t have the technical, political or financial means to make it happen. By “throwing out ideas” at the individual level and hoping that they “plant seeds” into larger structures, the international community essentially commoditized these ideas, making them “seemingly available for any individual to choose according to their desire and whim” and un-attaching them from the structural positions in which they are embedded (Rivkin-Fish, 2005: 61).

Transferring Perceptions

The perception of international aid as being able to actually distribute resources and make changes quickly faded, casting it in much the same light as the former Communist state that was also unable to equitably distribute. The promises of change and lack of actual structural transformations brought about by the promises, only further isolated the population from the hierarchal structures of aid, and made them continue to be reliant on their own networks for survival. Individual blame and expectations of personal change as a way of achieving democracy, with no demands on institutional or structural changes, angered the population into resistance and reminded them of the public intrusions by the state into their personal affairs. The lacking levels of transparency and use of blat networks to distribute resources also painted international assistance in much the same light as the state. These perceptions and associations determined the fate of international intervention and prevented it from being a true success.

Hope for the Future

Is it possible for international aid and intervention into this region to be successful? Is international intervention even necessary and what can be done to ensure that this intervention is not reinforcing current hierarchies? The example of Uryupinsk, a city in the Volgograd region, demonstrates the ability of the community to strengthen itself without international intervention.

Uryupinsk has an incredibly active population with a strong sense of community and incredibly proud citizenry whose needs are being primarily met through local initiatives. The local cell of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) has taken on the role of civil society within the community and has been able to provide quality services for its citizenry. Since the KPRF is no longer the party in charge, it is able to play the role of intermediary between the population and the state. Zhensovets (women’s councils), trade unions and street committees are extremely active and powerful and are being fully promoted and funded by the KPRF.

The street committees are the most power organization at the grassroots level, and are able to deal with about half of the problems, conflicts, sanitary and welfare conditions of its population without using any state judicial or structural authority, literally reaching everyone in the community. They have also been described however, as the political machine of the mayor, as they use his access to networks and resources to negotiate supplying the population with their needs and desires in return for votes in the elections. The people who lead the street committees are actually neither directly imposed on from the state or criminal groups, and are able to use negotiation with these groups to provide for the welfare of their community. Their primary responsibility remains to the population (Kurilla, 2002).

If this is the case, it would seem a local form of ‘democratic’ structure has taken root here, sprung from the communist remains. The politicians are providing the citizens with their needs in return for votes. If the politicians failed to meet their promises, the citizenry could choose to change their votes in the next election, and find other ways to meet their needs. This example shows that the Russians are able to meet the needs of their population by themselves and use the existing networks to negotiate change. It is not without difficulties and problems, but shows that collaborative efforts created specifically for the Russian context by Russians have the ability to work and need to be encouraged.

International intervention would best be served as a two-way, collaborative effort between East and West as opposed to an imposition directly led by the West. Russians should direct their own priorities and be given the voice to strengthen their own structures. The international community would be best to address the issues of socio-economic inequality in the light of structural hierarchies that exist instead of focusing on individual changes to achieve democracy. The Russians have the ability, knowledge and passion to change their own future, but are being denied this possibility because of structural and institutional problems. Changing the role of the state sphere so that it doesn’t interfere into personal freedoms would be the first step for the Russians to attain balance and respect within their own system. International financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF should promote the strengthening of certain state structures, such as the health care and education systems, so that they are functional on at least a basic level instead of trying to privatize all enterprises, to ensure the population is able to be productive and thus pay back their loans.

The governments need to prioritize their spending so that the basic needs of their citizens are being met, and restructure their system to allow for public input and opposition. The individuals need to be empowered by the state to take on this role, so that they are directing the services and in charge of their own future. The state must be supported by the international community in its efforts to be more transparent and accountable to its population. Specific sanctioning and provision of aid given on the conditionality of being as transparent as possible could help push the state towards this goal and help to ensure that aid is being received where it is needed. Investment into proper facilities, wages and equipment within the health care system is necessary for adequate levels of care. The encouragement of physician’s associations who can lobby for better conditions, education and services by the state and international officials, could help to strengthen the health care services and provide the physicians back their sense of pride and status. Most importantly, the Russians should decide how their systems should run, and all initiatives should be on a thoroughly collaborative, Russian-directed and specific basis.

Conclusions

This paper has demonstrated the state’s intrusion into the private sphere under socialism and how this intrusion led to resentment and withdrawal by the citizenry. It has shown that Western intervention and aid was received in this context, using these structures and reinforcing them in the way it structured and provided its assistance. It described the attempts of international officials to remain apolitical in a highly politicized environment and how this reinforced the structural hierarchies and prevented success. It detailed the crumbling health care system in Russia and how the undemocratic structure within the system left physicians with little power to make change. International intervention placed their emphasis for change upon these individual physicians while ignoring the larger structural problems that were preventing actual change. The need for a balancing of public, private and civil society was addressed as well as the importance of cultural specificity in the design, implementation and delivery of aid.

The Russians are fully capable of directing their own systems, and are in the most appropriate position to design programs that will exact positive change within their region. Aid supplied in non-specific, and unaccountable ways will only further exacerbate the underlying problems and provide temporary solutions to short-term needs. The international community would be best to provide assistance in the form of knowledge sharing, technological transfers, promoting localized solutions to problems and the restructuring of the state so that it is able to meet the needs of its population. It cannot do this without transparency in the face of clouded cultural perceptions. The international community needs to learn to work in collaboration with populations, governments and local organizations, in a more secondary or assistive and not authoritative and superior manner.

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Madagascar.

Depending on how involved you are in world affairs, you may or may not have heard about what’s currently going on in Madagascar. Unfortunately, the news has been pretty lax in covering this African island nation’s recent coup d’etat and political uprisings.

Since March 21st of this year, thirty-four year old former mayor, leftist politician and television station owner Andry Rajoelina has been sworn in as president of the Malagasy government (government of Madagascar). Rajoelina came to office after a coup toppled the elected president Marc Ravalomanana from his term, forcing his exile to Swaziland. Rajoelina plans to change the country’s constitutional requirement that a president be a minimum of 40 years old and has claimed that he will hold elections within 2 years time. He has spouted words of democracy, while dismissing the elected Ravalomanana’s calls for a referendum to test his support among the population to help stop the uprising.

In December of 2008, Rajoelina’s outspoken criticism of Ravalomanana led to the closure of Rajoelina’s Viva TV for “security” reasons after a 45 minute broadcast of former president Didier Ratsiraka called for a coup against Ravalomanana. This move was condemned by Reporters Without Borders and instigated massive protests and violence in the country. Rajoelina is said to have called for more anti-government protests after the worst day of street violence in years, only increasing the violence and anger.

Canada’s interests in Madagascar represent the largest category of foreign investment in the country, surpassing French interests with almost $3 billion dollars invested. Toronto’s Sherritt International holds the largest stake in the world’s biggest nickel mine in Ambatovy, as well as large stakes in the country’s cobalt mines. Rajoelina vows his new administration will review all foreign investment contracts to ensure Madagascar is receiving a fair share of the revenues. Somehow, despite the political violence that has been happening in 2009, Madagascar moved up 7 rankings in the World Bank’s 2009 “Doing Business Report” from 151st in 2008 to 144th out of 181 countries.

American Exxon Mobil has operations in Madagascar drilling for oil offshore. Several mining companies have been exploring Madagascar looking for gold, gemstones, nickel and bauxite. The British based mining company Rio Tinto has opened a $775 million ilmenite mine in the south of the country for the production of titanium. Huge investment has recently been poured into the country, almost all for extraction purposes.

Canada has responded to the current political crisis in Madagascar, not by condemning the actions as the European Union, African Union, South African Development Community, United States and many other organizations and countries have; but by appealing for calm and dialogue. Canada did not recognize the current political actions as a coup, nor have they stopped aid or suggested sanctions on the country. Perhaps this has to do with the high level of Canadian investment in Madagascar, but so far, Canada has remained rather tight-lipped on the situation. 70% of Malagasy government spending is currently funded by outside donors, meaning international sanctions have the possibility of going a long way.

Massive protests have left hundreds dead and thousands injured over the last couple of months. Many protesters have been killed by security forces who have fired upon them with tear gas and bullets. Riots and violence have been spurred by these actions. The future remains incredibly unstable for Madagascar.

Coups have been overtaking modern African democracies as of late, with Mauritania and Guinea joining Madagascar in this type of political unrest over the last year alone. The rush for democracy has left politically unstable governments, and corrupt powers vying to sell off their country’s natural resources through privatization schemes introduced with the push for “democracy”. The atrocities currently being committed in Madagascar are said by Rajoelina to be happening in the name of democracy. These atrocities must not go unnoticed, as they have little resemblance to any kind of democracy.

Madagascar remains an incredibly poor country despite its abundant natural resources and tremendous beauty. It is home to some of the most diverse species on the planet, many that cannot be found elsewhere. The lack of infrastructure and poor governance leaves the country unable to transcend its poverty. It is the people who suffer and it is the people (and not the profit to be had) who we should be directing our vision towards.

The normal news media has been vague on Madagascar, so I have taken to following the numerous blogs and tweets on the situation for more insight. Doing so has revealed a larger picture of devastation. Even children are protesting in the streets, throwing stones at their opposing protestors. Independent bloggers have been told to remove any pictures or material offensive to the new government, severely curtailing freedoms of speech. Thousands meet almost daily in the streets to protest. Civil war is not far off as the population divides itself further and further. The angry sentiments can be felt in many of the culturally violent comments. Divisions appear to be widening.

The destruction of several cyclones in the past few years has left thousands in the country homeless and many dead or injured. In fact, relief efforts were hindered for the January 2009 Cyclone Fanele because of the political uprisings, leaving those affected completely reliant on the World Food Programme and international assistance for survival. International assistance becomes more and more difficult to deliver as violence intensifies.

What will become of Madagascar? Only time will tell, but certainly, we in Canada will have an impact through our investments and we must be aware the effect this will have on the population. Our policies should reflect the concerns of the population and not just the profit to be had here. Our extraction of natural resources must not cause greater destruction and must be obtained legally and fairly. Canada must not have a hand in supporting warlords, dictators or despots and must stop contributing to war and destruction through our policies or investments.

A different kind of human right violation.

Environmental issues are often left out of many human rights discussions to focus on more direct abuses. This is an overwhelmingly important topic to human rights, so why is it so often shrugged off? Why do people not see environmental abuses as violations against their human rights? Why are they not more angry at the amount of toxins and pollutions they are subjected to through their daily living practices?

The area where I live (Kitchener-Waterloo region) is reported to have some of the worst air quality scores for ground level ozone in Ontario. Ozone is a key ingredient of urban smog. It is mostly formed with oxides of nitrogen and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), combined with heat. When it forms in the atmostphere it provides a filter for damaging ultraviolet light emitted by the sun. When it forms on the ground, it can have severe health effects for humans and damaging effect for plants and animals. Repeated exposure can cause permanent structural damage to the lungs, aggravated asthma, reduced lung capacity, increased susceptibility to respiratory illnesses like pneumonia and bronchitis and even death. It also interferes with the ability of plants to produce and store food and makes them more susceptible to disease, insects, other pollutants and harsh weather. Plants that are unable to produce or store food are unable to produce food for us to eat.

Burning of fossil fuels is one of the main emittors of nitrogen oxides. In Kitchener’s case, it is reported that over half of our pollutant load comes directly from coal plants in the Ohio Valley across the border. Ontario is contributing to the pollution as well. Ontario ranked 5th highest for pollution release in North America with 184,415 tonnes of pollution released per year, mostly created during the production of electricity utitlities. Our pollution affects more than just Ontario residents, and we are affected by pollution created elsewhere. This is bigger than just a national problem, it is a global one. We are affected by everyone else.

This pollution is causing great harm to people and is even responsible for human deaths (around 2000 per year in Ontario alone). It is costing a great deal of money to our health care system, our lives, and our future. If you doubt this, take a look here. The sad thing is that it is mostly avoidable. There are other electricity production and industrial options that do not have this effect. So why do we continue to allow extremely environmentally damaging industries and production facilities?

The sad reality is that this problem encompasses so much more than air pollution. We are bombarded with toxins and pollution at every turn. In our products, in our homes, in our water… Clean water is a thing of the past, as the levels of pharaceuticals, pollutions and toxic chemcials rises and rises and becomes harder and harder to remove or even test for. In fact, the “acceptible” levels of toxins allowed in our products is incredibly disturbing. Many antiquated laws allow known dangerous chemicals to remain in our products in certain levels.

The US Environmental Protection Agency reviews about 17,000 new industrial compounds each year, with about a 90% approval rate. The 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act requires that any chemicals that display evidence of potential harm to humans must be tested before approval, however, only a quarter of the 82,000 chemicals in use in the US have EVER been tested despite their potential to harm. A similar occurence is happening here in Canada, though perhaps in slightly lower numbers.

Testing the levels of toxicity in humans leads to incredible results. The average person has at least 100 toxins in their body and perhaps even more than this, some in incredibly damaging levels. Unfortunately, the testing is super expensive (like $15,000 to test for only about 300 toxins– and there are literally THOUSANDS upon thousands that we are potentially exposed to). Many of the toxins stay on in our bodies in our fatty tissues and are not removed naturally. They build up over time with each exposure and are passed on to our children at birth. Many of these toxins found in every day products are hormone disrupters, or are incredibly neurologically damaging or carcinogenic (cancer causing). The overall costs of using these type of chemicals is incredibly high.

Regardless of your beliefs on climate change, does it make any sense to continually toxify ourselves with polluting and damaging practices? These practices are interfering with our right to life, and our right to an adequate standard of living and health for ourselves and our families. From a purely economic standpoint, they are costing us BILLIONS of dollars each year.

The current “acceptible” levels of toxins and pollutions are causing us great harm, and this needs to change. Humans are innovators. We have the capacity, skill and determination to overcome many problems. So why are we stuck in the stone age of production, when there is soo much information on the subject and acceptable alternatives to use? Why do we not learn from our studies and use technologies that are already in existence to slow or stop the production of new toxic or polluting substances?

My thoughts on the matter– it comes down to one thing. Money. The profits to be made or lost for corporations, and the overall effect for the economy.

That’s just not a good enough reason for my human rights to be interfered with. I cannot avoid these chemicals, even if I live a life full of organic foods; pollution and toxins still rain down on me. They are still introduced through products with flame-retardants sprayed on them. They are still introduced through everything else I use in my home. They are still breathed in through my lungs, and are everywhere I go in society.

Toxins and pollutions won’t be reduced overnight, but ignoring environmental protection acts or allowing lax policies is certainly not helping. We need to take a stand for our own human rights. Why do we have agencies for our protection, if their number one concern lies with industry and corporate rights and not with the general public? This is a major disservice to humanity and needs to be changed.

It’s time humans wised up to their own stupidity and started to make real changes. Our future depends on it.

My thoughts on anarchy.

Anarchy. I have heard this term thrown around a lot, especially by the “revolutionary” types here in North America. Brought out significantly in modern pop culture through the punk scene, anarchism can be witnessed in symbology throughout our society. Interestingly, anarchy has been labelled as being almost synomous with popular culture in its disruption and envelopment of every day life of those in societies.

I often wonder what people think anarchy really means. I wonder if the people who use this term have ever lived in a lawless, or semi-lawless society. If they have experienced the breakdown of society, or lack of government. I wonder what they envision a “true” anarchist society to look like. What they think will happen on the process towards anarchism. Many anarchists have themselves benefited tremendously from government systems and laws.

Anarchy and anarchism are difficult to fully define, since there are so many different interpretations and visions of what anarchism is ranging from extreme individualism to total collectivism. It ranges from libertarians and hard-core capitalist neoliberals to the most extreme “tree-hugging” environmentalists.

By dictionary definition, anarchy is the state of lawlessness and disorder, usually stemming from failure of government. Anarchism is a political theory that a community is best organized by the voluntary cooperation of individuals, rather than by government systems. There have been many so-called anarchist communities over time, but all of these communities have had some form of laws or policies that are followed and enforced by communal decree and systems that help make them run smoothly. They may not be labelled as “government” systems or laws, but they are definitely heading in that direction. Over time, one would think that communal decisions would lead us back towards creating governments. Essentially, communal decree is how governments in North America are supposed to run; through democracies. The voice of the people, doing what’s best for the people.

So where is the vision of anarchy that anarchists are really striving for? Are they looking for a different type of system than we have that are better suited to the needs of the population? That’s what I’m looking for too, but I would hardly call myself an anarchist.

I try to imagine a world without some form of government and it makes me incredibly fearful. Anarchy, in my eyes, means a lot of death. It means survival of the fittest as the government breaks down and people must learn to live in new ways without it. Those that find a community and are blessed with resources may find happiness, but those who don’t are doomed to live a terrible existence, especially at the world’s current population. Complete individualism to me is a scary existence that I would not want to experience. Anarchism to me always boils down to separation; but I also have difficulty separating the chaotic definitions of anarchy and the breakdown of government. Separating people from other people into small collectives may result in a thriving environment for some, but in the long run, who looks out for the global environment? Or those who do not fit into the collectives? Or those collectives who don’t have access to natural resources?

Some anarchists say they are rebelling from the coercion of the government, while others believe in using coercive measures to bring about anarchy such as mass violence, revolution or terrorism. In collectives there is also a lot of coercion. In most collectives, there is tremendous pressure to fit in and be part of the group, and this pressure can be a form of coercion.

If the government breaks down in a systemized manner that prevents death and destruction, is it still anarchism? Or would this require an altogether new label?

I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts or visions of anarchism, because to me, it’s the furthest thing from what I truly want or envision for the world. I can’t understand the drive I’ve seen among many educated people to be anarchists. Please enlighten me. I’m intrigued.

Social Trust

Social trust is a human necessity if one doesn’t want to live completely isolated and alone. Social trust can be created within a household, a group, a community, a city, a state or province, a nation or perhaps even the world. It is the sense of togetherness, the norm of cooperation between individuals that allows them to work together in their lives. It is reciprocity and exchange.

Our personal levels of social trust may vary, based on our experiences of the world. The world we live in makes it difficult to trust anyone or anything sometimes. So many people have been disappointed or lied to or treated with disrespect or abuse in their lives by systems, groups or individuals. In the wake of this treatment, they lash out or isolate themselves further away from societal norms because they feel they can no longer trust that part of the system or the system as a whole. Sometimes they strike out with violence.

If a system treats you with violence, do you have the right to strike back at them with violence?

Truly, the statement “an eye for an eye makes the world blind” has some validity to it. Violence to solve violence makes no sense. Does inflicting more hurt take away the hurt that’s already experienced? Non-violent strategies can work. Sometimes they are met with extreme violence, and must face tremendous abuse and struggle.

In the last century, we have seen the change in North American society through non-violent means that has altered the status quo so that blacks are entitled to the same legalities as whites, and women as men. We have been moving towards more equity in many of our systems, but others still fail us. Other systems still breed hatred, intolerance or distrust. These systems must be changed. Social trust is lost with each inequitable system, and rebuilding the trust is a tremendous task.

So often, the creation of groups, organizations and associations is seen as the best way to build social trust. It extends so far beyond this. The social trust created must be greater than the social trust lost or we wind up killing and abusing each other en mass. We wind up feeling alone, insecure or angry; often leading to violence or violent thoughts.

The world is so incredibly complicated right now. It is really complicated here in North America because we are almost forced to rely on our systems for our daily survival. We no longer rely on ourselves and our systems are in many ways failing us. This is a scary thought. If we do not start building more social trust on the government and national levels and in our systems, the smaller associations of trust will begin to close themselves to the outside world and we will have learned nothing but distrust.

In many ways, this has already started to happen. Just look to the increase in barter and trade, and those seeking to live off the grid and be self-sufficient. So many want to escape this crazy system and live a more trusting existence, where they are connected to their own life. This new “financial” crisis (and I use that term loosely) has reminded us of the struggle of our parents and grandparents. Those who lived through the depression and scrimped and saved and yet often led incredibly satisfying lives. Many are beginning to see the failings of capitalism. The failings of this over-consuming society. Over the last several decades, we have become immersed into ourselves, increasingly insecure and in need of material goods to fill this insecurity. We need to rebuild the trust in society, and not fill this distrust with things or violence.

We can learn to work together and change, or we can continue violent practices. We have certain agreed standards already in place that are not fully enforced or ratified (such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). These standards were created to change societal norms to be more peaceful, but haven’t been fully incorporated yet into the whole society. They were created so we could avoid some of the tragedies we have seen in the past. A learning tool for us, a framework to start to make change.

If legally agreed upon standards are ignored by our governments, what example does it set to follow laws? Social trust is broken, and society becomes more chaotic. So how do we change this?

Little by little. We rebel against the injustice in peaceful ways. We speak out against atrocities. We change ourselves and our thoughts and behaviours. We change the legalities and systems. We learn from the mistakes of our ancestors and avoid those mistakes for our grandchildren.

The depths of violence.

Violence is more than just physical injuries, killings, beatings and inflictions of pain. It is more than the verbal and emotional abuse as well. This type of violence is referred to as direct violence in peace, conflict and transformation studies. These are clear subject-action-object type of relationships that result in the observation or experience of hurt in individuals or groups, usually happening quickly and dramatically; with possibly life-lasting traumatic effects.

The other types of violence are sometimes much more subtle; and possibly not even considered as violence outside the sphere of peace academics or activists. These types of violence create the conditions for direct violence to occur. The direct violence is most often merely the manifestations of the other forms of violence; the pent up anger, resentment, mindsets and reasons people rage into direct violence. Structural and cultural violence experienced by humans, only reinforces or condones more violent behaviour. If the system can do it, so can I.

Structural violence is the poverty, the hunger, the repression, the social alienation, the denial of educational opportunities, the causing of human misery, and the established patterns of organized society that result in systematic harm to millions of people each year. Structural violence is institionalized. It is rationalized and sanctioned by the state, making it the violence of the status quo. It extends to the systems and practices that allows violence to occur in the supply of products and services that are used by people who are unaware or are disconnected from the damage they cause around the world in their production.

Cultural violence has been referred to as the source of other types of violence because it produces hatred, fear and suspicion that leads to violence or violent policies and practices. Cultural violence engrains itself within us, and is the hardest to contain. It is found in comments, conversations, writing, art, ideologies, even empirical science and religious symbology. It is everywhere. It is propaganda, lies, misinterpretations, and misunderstandings that lead people to violent thoughts or behaviours; to hate other individuals or groups. This is the hardest type of violence to stop, as it is so thoroughly engrained into our cultures. It builds up over time. You can hear a comment here, and see a picture here and after enough “evidence”, you begin to see things in a new way. When spouted or displayed by those in positions of power or respect, cultural violence is its most damaging, because it then becomes “fact”. It is then passed on to many, and over time becomes the new cultural norm.

Stemming violence completely is a lofty goal, but limiting the structural and cultural violent norms is something we can definitely strive for. Doing this will also reduce the incidences of direct violence that occur in society. As the structures become more peaceful and equitable, so does the population living within it.

If peace were truly a goal of the governments in charge, they would take extensive efforts to reduce the cultural and structural violence that precipates the direct violence that occurs. They would restructure their policies and norms that are inequitable and violent. They would limit the amount of structural violence in the systems to create a more viable social trust. They would limit the propaganda allowed in the media and make more stringent policies to discourage violent business practices. The would create a culture of peace, and not a culture of war.

Peace is possibly attainable, despite what most realists will tell you. It is far off from our current reality, but it is possible. Human behaviour and cultural norms have been known to change. In our society, it starts with our systems. If our systems are corrupt and inequitable, our societies will remain violent. If our systems become systems to trust, systems that reward and promote peace, our societies will become more peaceful.

We have focused our energies towards war and profit for so long, it is hard to envison a different society. Peace studies has only recently become an academic discipline. Conflict transformation studies and strategies are still only developing and are given only minimal funding and attention. When put into practice, many conflict transformation strategies have proven somewhat successful. Some have been incredibly successful. The more money, time and energy we spend towards these strategies, the closer we will come to peace.

Iran’s beef with the US.

In most of the news I read or see about Iranian-US relations, it negatively portrays Iran and almost chides it for its hosility towards the States. Anyone who has read about or lived in Iran, knows that there is a complicated history here of betrayal, hostility and distrust. There is definitely little reason for the Iranians to trust the Americans and many reasons for them to be angry. The rise of religious fundamentalism in Iran spawned out of a series of political intervention in the Iranian system by outside forces. Democracy at one time, was developing here, but this was stifled by American and British parties who were striving to keep full control of their colonial resources.

In the 1950s Mohammed Mossadeq, the Iranian Prime Minister, began seeking independence (from Britain) and democracy for Iran. He was loved by the people, and seen as a great hope for the development of Iran. He was overthrown in a coup carried out by the CIA (Operation Ajax) and the British after he cut off their oil profits, seeking to better his population with some of the oil money. After intense hostility, and wanting to receive better shares in their country’s own resources (at least a 50-50 split), Mossadegh decided to nationalise Iranian oil supplies and take full control. Britain put an immediate worldwide embargo on the purchase of Iranian oil and pressured all of its allies to do the same. Only Japan and Italy continued to purchase Iranian oil, and the economy began to go into serious decline.

Assassination attempts on Mossadegh’s life, led him to call a referendum to decide the fate of the government in a democratic way. Overwhelming support in his favor resulted, so he dissolved the house and took control.

The Shah (the monarch of Iran), with British prodding, signed a royal decree dismissing Mossadegh and his cabinet and appointed a new Prime Minister. The legality of this was questionable since a Prime Minister could only be appointed or dismissed by the House and not the Shah according to the consitution. After intense public demonstration in favor of Mossadegh, the Shah fled the country, only to return after the CIA coup that removed Mossedegh from power. Mossadegh was charged, tried and sentenced to 3 years of solitary confinement, after which he would remain under house arrest until his death in 1967. Any opposition to the coup were arrested, with many sentenced to death.

The Shah was placed in charge, and subsequently restored the oil concession with Britain. Under his rule opposition parties were banned, suppressed and closely controlled. Freedom of speech was silenced and the constitution became questionable. The secret police (SAVAK- Sazman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar) grew, as did massive corruption and Shia fundamentalism, rebelling against the growing oppression. The Shah’s regime allowed for US military personnel serving in Iran, their staffs and families to receive full diplomatic immunity; basically allowing them free reign within the country.

Despite the government’s incredible human rights abuses, the Shah was allowed to purchase unlimited quantities of military hardware from the US, in return for two listening posts in Iran to monitor Soviet ballistic missile launches and other military activity in the early 1970s. The government was accused of suppressing the population to such an extent that they actually fired on peaceful antigovernment marches killing at least 87 people in the streets in one attack.

Cleric Ayatollah Khomeini rose up against the increasing American and British presence and control in the country with bitter fundamentalism, pushing towards Islamic rule. He took over the country in a swift revolution and installed himself as supreme leader. The Shah fled for his life, and a brutal regime took hold for many years.

In 1979, the Americans allowed the exiled Shah into the US for cancer treatment, to the great anger of the Iranian people who wished to try him for his crimes against the Iranian people in their own country. They demanded his return to Iran, which was ignored by the US. A hostage situation ensued at the American Embassy in Tehran, where a group of Islamist students held 52 embassy staff hostage for 444 days.

A peaceful, democratic regime overthrown by the US and British, only so they can install their loyal, human rights abusing Shah so that they can keep stealing resources out of the country? If any other country attempted to overthrow a democratic American President or the British PM, only to install a brutal dictator; there would be serious consequences of those actions. Would there not be tremendous backlash and political uprising in the US if this were attempted? Would there not be attempts to overthrow the new dictator? Would there not be hatred towards those who helped to install the dictator? Why would we expect any different in Iran?

These type of practices continue. The plundering hands still reach the world, only now they are better disguised and hidden behind intensive propaganda. These powers still disrupt the democracy of many countries, while attempting to install it elsewhere, severely undermining the sincerity of their attempts.

This should not be permitted to continue. The UN and its Security Council need to be restructured so that this sort of crime will actually be discouraged and punished in the future.

Human rights abuses committed by the Iranian government should not be tolerated, and should be punished; but so should those who would disrupt democracy for profit.

I urge anyone interested in this topic to read “All the Shah’s Men” by Stephen Kinzer. It gives a great view into the roots of Middle Eastern terror and is a great introduction into the region.

Israel-Palestine.

Until you have lived it, it’s hard to really understand the full complexities of this war (or any war for that matter). People read or are told all kinds of untruths about this war and seem keen on spreading them further, with such anger and hate in their voices. There are MANY guilty parties in this war, who have committed tremendous wrongs against other human beings. It is no longer a matter of who started what. Deciding blame is no longer an option. This war needs to stop and some sort of peace must begin to be built. The major human rights abuses need to stop.

What I find so frustrating about the whole situation is the veil of propaganda that surrounds this war, and the way cultural violence is like gasoline on the fire to an extent that atrocities are spinned to be some sort of a positive.

The civilians living in this area, whether Palestinian or Israeli (and others), should not have to live in fear. They should not have to endure bombings or terror attacks or the denying of any human right. These atrocities need to stop.

I feel that I have to say that I was very nervous printing our first Middle East Issue of A Peace of Conflict. It’s not that I don’t really know about the conflict. I have read extensively on the subject for many years now and visited the region, and know some of the destruction that is capable with my own eyes. As a Canadian, it shocked me beyong belief to see the bullet holes and bombed out bulidings on my first arrival. In Canada, I had always lived a peaceful existence, and war was this distant thing I had only really read about or watched on tv. So I asked Heather, my co-editor if she would write the Israel-Palestine briefing for the issue, because I was sure that in the 200 words alloted that I would have trouble staying neutral, which is something we try to do in the country briefings. And I was also very afraid.

I was afraid to write a piece about the conflict directly, because where do you begin? And how do you avoid the angry backlash that always seems to follow any words about this conflict? How do you avoid spreading propaganda, and how do you keep from hurting others with your statements?

I felt it’s necessary to discuss the fear that I feel in writing about the issue, because that’s part of the cultural violence. It stems dialogue. It stops relationships. It closes minds. It needs to stop.

Cultural violence surrounds the people living in this region. It is ensuring the conflict continues. The people face it in the media, at home, at work, at school, on the streets. It propagates and angers and creates hate. Many Israeli and Palestinians are trying to demand more peaceful solutions to this conflict, and their voices must be heard. Our government must listen to their needs and assist them in developing a peacebuilding solution that can be lasting. Transformation processes must be done to simmer the conflict that rages on between the Israeli state and Hamas.

Peace in the Middle East!

What the world needs from you.

The world doesn’t need your charity. It needs your service. It doesn’t need your pity, it needs your understanding. It needs your action and your awareness of your own actions.

Most people in the world mean no harm to anyone. They just want to live their lives in peace. They want to have enough food to eat, water to drink and somewhere warm and dry to sleep at night for them and their families. They want dignity and respect in their lives. People need to feel loved and secure. We all have different ways of expressing our security and love. Some people need things to feel loved. Some people need physical closeness to other human beings. Some need space to feel secure. Some people can feel the love all around them in everything and feel safe in the course that the fates will throw at them. Some people are living in hate, in constant violence and insecurity.

And violence only begets more violence. A mind in constant fear has trouble moving forward to other things. A person who feels unloved is alone, and will have difficulty trusting society. We can stop a lot of violence by our own actions. We can spread love instead of hate. We can change the world by our own actions, little by little.

North American lifestyle is highly disconnected. Most people here do not produce or are not connected to their own food or other necessities and daily living materials. It comes to them neatly packaged on a shelf at a store or even through the convenience of the internet, shipped to our doors. Our houses are made for us, and most people have little insight into the overall structural design or uses of their own homes. Our food comes in neat packaging, hardly resembling the original appearance and not reflecting the process it took to get from farm to home. Who harvested the food? Who processed it? Who packaged it and under what conditions? The same with all our other daily living supplies.

We go to work for a company or business or organization for a certain number of hours daily and make a paycheck. We may have no connection to the overall use of what we ourselves are producing. We are entirely disconnected from everything. We are separated from our needs by many, many layers. Simple products can have travelled to 5 different countries and 10 different plants or factories before ever reaching the store.

The world needs us to pay attention. Writing a cheque to a charity is a noble action, but if you really want to be philanthropic, take a look in the mirror and ask yourself, “how is my daily living impacting the rest of the world?”

If you don’t know the answer, try and find out. Where do your daily living needs come from? How many stops have they made along the way? Who has been part of their production? Have human rights abuses occured in their production? What environmental damage have they done along the way to get to our homes? How can we minimize this damage and abuse?

The greatest way to save the world is to change yourself and your own habits.

HP’s steps

Now I like HP, well, at least I like them the best out of any of the computer companies I have had the (dis)pleasure of having dialogue with. HP and I had a rocky start as I tried to get to someone who could tell me what I needed to know.

Now that I have found that person, the Product Content Manager, things have gone much more smoothly. She has been forthcoming in answering my questions as directly as possible, even when it implicates the imperfections in their own system, and not trying to skirt around the issues with other faulty claims. I can respect this, because at least it means they are being somewhat forthcoming with me and are actively pursuing some answers from their own suppliers. At least I have a better chance of getting to the truth. I would be more likely to buy from them than any other computer company at this point simply for the direct way in which they have responded to me.

I have been told that HP is an active participant in the EICC/GeSI Extractives Working group which is initiating a project this year to develop supply chain transparency models for cobalt, tin and tantalum. This is a positive step (but not yet enough). Several other companies are also on board with this initiative. (see http://www.gesi.org/files/20080620_ghgm_ser_metalstoelectronics.pdf)

I was given information by HP on the specific suppliers that I questioned in my previous emails to them (Kemet and Hitachi) and was told they have assurances from these companies that they are now using conflict-free resources in the form of Letters of Certification for the source of the materials. I was only able to access this information because they allowed their suppliers to be scruitinized and allowed me to look into slightly deeper than other companies into their supply chain. This is great step and means that they are actually trying to get some answers from their suppliers and are actually willing to work with the public to allow some level of scruitiny.

Do I believe their suppliers’ claims to them? No, I most definitely do not. Especially since the two suppliers that I specificially questioned HP about were implicated in a UN report for major human rights abuses less than 10 years ago and have yet to be charged or investigated further for these abuses. No one has yet to be held accountable for the past abuses, and no real structure has been put into place that I can ascertain to prevent them from happening again in the future.

Letters of Certification are not enough, especially since the metal market is so complicated. As the 2008 report Social and Environmental Responsibility in Metals Supply to the Electronic Industry details, “The metals market can be understood by analogy to a pool of water that is being fed by many streams. Numerous sources, including primary and recycled metal producers, supply the metals market, which is a global commodity pool that circulates and mixes freely. At the same time, numerous buyers withdraw from the pool, often not distinguishing source other than on price. Within the metal pool, metal is metal, where one unit of atoms is substitutable for another.”

If this is the case, there is a long way to go to prevent the metals from entering our electronics devices. Hopefully some sort of structure will be put in place to stop these abuses that goes beyond a voluntary basis. These are human rights abuses that are against the law and should be stopped. Resource extraction is one of the main incentives to war and bloody massacres, slavery and abuse happen for this purpose. There is no reason that these structures should not be mandated by international and national laws. Companies should not be allowed to disregard or sidestep legalities because the system is complicated or because they use suppliers in different countries or are disconnected from their own product line. The law is the law, and companies that break the laws should be punished, especially if they are doing so in full knowledge and making no real steps to change.

Toshiba

Toshiba has been a brand much like HP, that makes it difficult for me to discount their claims outright. They seem to actually care, and have some structures in place (a corporate social responsibility framework) to be able to make a change and seem to be willing to discuss (to some extent) their policies. They are also one of the leaders (along with HP) in their overall environmental and social record. After a great deal of searching and prodding I think I have found the person at their company who can really start to give me some answers into the depths of these policies.

The first round of questioning went as expected. I inquired about their ethical purchasing and was sent the stock information on their corporate social responsibilty (CSR) policy which did not answer my questions and which I had already mostly read online before.

The information sent to me talked about their request to the component suppliers to take action against human rights abuses, but not the details of how far this actually goes and whether it is enforced or not in any great detail. It also mentioned that an independent audit was performed by a third party and that suppliers had been monitored, but no word on what the results had been of the monitoring and what actions had changed as a result of the overall policy. It also didn’t mention if this monitoring extended past manufacturers into raw material suppliers, which I am guessing it does not based on its wording.

The woman I had been dealing with eventually got back to me after a couple of weeks, apologizing for the late reply and sent me a link to their Procurement Policy (which I had already read thoroughly), and specified that they cannot disclose details of their suppliers for confidentiality reasons. Along with that she sent me this statement:

“Just for your information, upon our recent investigation/inquiry with
our suppliers(*) of PC components(*), we have been informed that they do not procure/use tantalum (Coltan) sourced from the DR Congo.”

but no evidence or link to where this information could be found or which level of suppliers was contacted and what they are actually doing to ensure this. There was also no mention in her email what the asterixes were implying.

I sent back a letter describing to her that most ore passes through at least 10 hands before it ever gets to the supplier stage and that much of the ore claimed to have come from neighbouring countries is actually sourced in the DR Congo war zones because of inadequate structures in place.

I also inquired why she had included (*) in her statements, because I didn’t read any fine print or addendum to the email that would explain their purpose.

I discussed the competition argument in light of HP’s (mostly) open supplier list and their ability to still remain competitive. I stated that I would like to continue the dialogue to receive more information about what their policy really meant.

This letter was sent 8 days ago and I am still waiting on a further response from Toshiba, which if past actions are an indicator, should be about another week out.

I am sick and tired of hearing claim after claim from these companies with no proof or backing for the claims. Most of the time they don’t even directly answer my questions (like in this email), they skirt the issue with other claims. Transparency is key. You can reveal your suppliers and still be competitive. You can open your company to scruitiny and still be competitive. In fact, I would be more likely to purchase your product if you allowed scruitiny into your product line, EVEN if it was possible that human rights abuses were still happening. The reasoning for this– you are at least making an effort and want the people to actually know what you are doing and not just using another marketing ploy to fool people into buying into your brand.

Evolutions of peacekeeping: The UN’s constraints to global conflict resolution.

The UN’s peacekeeping role in global conflicts has evolved since the first mission in 1948. Since World War Two there has been a reported rapid decline in traditional interstate conflict, which seems to have been replaced by a rise in intrastate conflict (Yilmaz, 2005: 13). There has also been an increased tendency to describe the conflicts occurring after the 1980s as “ethnically-based” (Gilley, 2004: 1155), changing the way collective security forces respond to disputes. This change from interstate political wars to “ethnic civil wars” makes it natural for many outside parties to assume that the warring country will settle the conflict itself, as it is seen as their own concern and business, and based on long-standing hatreds . However, uncontrolled escalations, and psychological components such as increased tensions, lack of trust, suspicion, and biased communication, makes those disputing unable design a solution since they are the least equipped to stop the fighting. A third party, in this situation can be the difference. The UN has increasingly been this party, as the “grand guardian” of international peace and security in the world (Yilmaz, 2005: 14). The lack of success in many UN peacekeeping missions is based on a variety of factors which hinders its capability to fully act and transform the conflict into non-violent solutions. The UN’s evolving medley of structures is currently incapable of dealing with the roots of global violence and must be re-designed to reflect the current realities, focusing on transforming the UN itself and the sources of global dispute into non-violent structures.

The international community expects more from the UN than any other party in solving disputes, even though member states so often ignore their role in keeping this institution alive. Despite these intense expectations and UN involvement in over 60 peacekeeping operations so far, the term “peacekeeping” is not specifically mentioned anywhere in the UN Charter, making the actual concept incredibly ambiguous within the organization. Peacekeeping evolved as a pragmatic solution in the early years of the organization, and is often referred to at the UN as “Chapter 6-and-a-half” since it falls between Chapter 6 of the UN Charter (on Pacific Settlement of Disputes) and Chapter 7 (on Action with Respect to Threats of Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression) and is not specifically outlined or defined anywhere (Yilmaz, 2005: 15). Peacekeeping evolved as a non-coercive instrument at a time when Cold War constraints prohibited the use of more forceful steps permitted by the Charter. Peacekeeping without combat connotations emerged. This called for trained military personnel not to wage war, but to prevent fighting between warring parties, ensure the maintenance of cease-fires, and to provide some stability while negotiations are conducted (Nambiar, 1999).

The non-use of force has been central to UN peacekeeping for many years, with more than half of operations prior to 1988 consisting of only unarmed military observers who were allowed to use force only in cases of self-defense. The non-use of force has been critiqued as making peacekeeping ineffective, but has also been seen as essential to ensuring the legitimacy and credibility of the organization. For example, in Cyprus in 1974 and Lebanon in 1982 the presence of UN peacekeeping troops could not prevent the breakdown of order and the subsequent foreign invasions that resulted in tremendous violence because of their non-use of force left them powerless (Yilmaz, 2005: 16). To keep legitimacy and credibility, peacekeeping at the UN has always been based on a triad of principles: the consent of the parties to the conflict, the impartiality of the peacekeepers and the use of force by lightly armed peacekeepers only in self defense. The reality of meeting these principles in violent conflict is remote. Consent by warring parties to be restrained by the UN is only really possible if there are already negotiations going on and relative peace to keep between the parties. By their very nature, enforcement actions are subjective and biased towards one side. Peace enforcement is no different. Many believe that force must be met with force, and the only way for peacekeepers to keep peace is through intense enforcement and military solutions (Nambiar, 1999).

Certain international actors often feel that the UN’s non-use of force mandate prevents it from making any real progress towards peace. Individual nations have instead taken on military action themselves with the alleged intention of stopping violence, often even with Security Council authorization (for example, Korea in 1950 and Persian Gulf War in 1990). The end of the Cold War saw a removal of the perceived major obstacle to implementing collective security; the end of hostile relations between the United States and the Soviet Union (Clark, 1995: 238-9). The end of the Cold war also resulted in a decline of the use of the veto in the UN Security Council (Yilmaz, 2005: 17), which has in the past few years again started to increase (Global Policy Forum, October, 2008). Some states have been reluctant to trust the UN to act (especially in cases that affect their own interests), and so are increasingly more likely to take matters into their own hands (Clark, 1995: 238-9), as has been the case for the US.

The veto privilege held by 5 permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) works against the UN’s aim to be legitimate and credible. The veto privilege allows these members to stop any action of the UNSC (responsible for global peace and security, economic sanctioning, trusteeship functions and UN peacekeeping initiatives) by exercising their veto. Since the UN’s inception in 1946, there have been 261 vetoes in the Security Council: 124 by the USSR/Russia, 82 by the US, 32 by Britain, 18 by France, and 6 by China. Among the actions vetoed were potential peacekeeping operations, such as the vetoes by the US in 2001, 2004, and 2006 that prevented the UN from demanding a cessation of violence in the Gaza strip and the establishment of a UN observer force to protect Palestinian civilians. Lebanon’s complaints against Israeli violence (1986, 1988); Nicaragua’s complaints against US violence (1984-86); complaints against South Africa of violence by Angola, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe (1981, 1986); Libya’s complaint against US attack (1989); Grenada’s complaint against invasion by US troops (1983); and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1980) were all ignored by the UN because they were vetoed in the UNSC. The veto privilege also resulted in full out war being ignored on several occasions by the UN (in Lebanon, Panama, occupied Palestine, Namibia, Nicaragua to name a few; Global Policy Forum, October, 2008). This has resulted in inequitable structures in a body that is meant to be impartial in maintaining global peace and security. Peace and security is clearly only maintained for some.

The deployment of UN peace enforcement and peacekeeping forces has been moderately successful at resolving disputes between larger players and may be essential to terminate these types of conflict. It is currently not sufficient, however, for the local disputes, long term recovery of a conflict or for addressing the root cause of the conflict. In order for long term recovery to happen, intense DDR (disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants), civilian policing programs, judicial programs, law reform programs and conflict transformation programs must be in place to help re-order society and instill some sense of stability and rule-of-law. Sadly, these programs often receive comparatively meager funding next to other initiatives, such as running “democratic” elections (Global Policy Forum, 2004). The “democratic” push has also had the effect of calling into question the impartiality and motive of the UN and international structures, as the implementation of market democracy through aid programs is often seen as “western” and almost colonial, leading to increased ethnic tension and global insecurity (Chua, 2003).

Inequitable structures that fail to provide basic political and civic freedoms are most often the cause of “ethnic conflict”, which has been on the rise globally since the end of the Cold War (Gilley, 2004: 1162). In the Congo, for example, ancient ethnic hatreds are often cited as the reason for conflict in the region. Colonial and political choices that favored arbitrary groups of people over other groups cemented divisions along “ethnic” lines and ensured one group’s access to resources, opportunities and services over the others. This fueled tensions and led to conflict (Jackson, 2007). Ethnic groups in the Congo lived (and continue to live) in mostly intermixed communities and are not completely homogenous and static (Pottier, 2008). Ancient ethnic hatreds are seen as almost natural and inevitable; making action to stop them unlikely. Rarely are the underlying roots of the conflict (the colonial or political choices, access to resources, etc.) addressed, making continual conflict inevitable. The focus on ethnicity has prevented the UN from taking action in many cases.

When the UN peacekeeping forces are not inhibited by vetoes, ethnicity or other factors and decide to act to keep the peace; they are still incredibly restrained in their capabilities. Member States are important for support, financially, logistically and in troop commitment. The debt owed by the 15 largest payers of the peacekeeping budget is certainly a cause for concern. The US currently owes $1.466 billion in debt to the UN; Japan owes $832 million; France owes $235 million; China owes $213 million; and Germany, the UK, Italy, Canada, Spain, Mexico, Korea, the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland, and Russia are all among the top debtors. These millions of owed dollars prevent the UN from being able to properly implement its missions (Global Policy Forum, November, 2008). Dues for peacekeeping missions are collected separately, allowing for each member state to reject funding for individual projects as they choose (Yilmaz, 2005: 24).Calls for troop support are commonly ignored by international players who are over committed to countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, with priorities of defending “terrorist actions” (Yilmaz, 2005: 21-2). Without its Member States support, the UN is virtually useless to act and prevent violence.

The genocide in Rwanda and massacre in Srebrenica and the failure of the UN to prevent these atrocities, led in 1999 to the Brahimi Report, recommending a funding minimum and personnel requirements for UN peacekeeping missions. New peacekeeping missions grew by almost 50% in the summer of 2006, stretching the peacekeeping resources of the UN to the extreme. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for peacekeeping reform and re-structuring of the UN peacekeeping structures in February of 2007, was at first rejected by the General Assembly. In July of 2007, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) was restructured to focus on operations, leaving management and logistics to the newly created Department of Field Support (Pelz and Lehmann, 2007). This restructuring ignored the other problems faced by the DPKO and left it still incapable of addressing root causes of conflict.

If countries ignore the UN and its missions, it loses its power and its meaning in the international community. The UN is important because it is the only place where all countries can work together and have a voice, and is the best chance for peace in the world. The UN is capable of much more than it is currently doing, but it does not have the resources to do these things alone. It must have the support of its Members in the international community to work, who must practice what they preach and provide their promised share in the international community. The UN can work if it is provided the proper resources and support to actually run. Major violators should not be allowed to decide what methods of peace should be used in an area that they have a hand in violating. This is wrong and is preventing justice from existing in the world. All violators should be brought to justice, regardless of whether they hold a veto power or not.

The current state of the UN is inequitable. How can the UN possibly inspire positive peace, if its own structures are so incredibly unjust? The current international peacekeeping strategy is based on an evolution of changing ideologies and as such, is incapable of truly handling conflict. It must be restructured to address the political choices, colonial legacies, and continuing inequitable structures that enhance tensions and ensure continual conflict. It must also be restructured to address financing and troop support issues. It is time to learn from past mistakes and create a new structure that tackles all of the inequities of the former structures. Without this, there can be no possibility for peace in the near future.

Sources:
1) Chua, Amy. 2003. World on fire: How exporting free market democracy breeds ethnic hatred and global instability. Doubleday. Random House. 329 pages.
2) Clark, Mark T. Spring 1995. The trouble with collective security. Orbis. Vol. 39, No.2. pp. 237- 258.
3) Gilley, Bruce. 2004. Against the concept of ethnic conflict. Third World Quarterly. Vol. 25, No. 6. Pp. 1155-1166.
4) Global Policy Forum. December 4, 2004. UN panel on reforming UN peacekeeping recommends a new peacebuilding commission. Citizens for Global Solutions.
5) Global Policy Forum. October 7, 2008. Subjects of UN Security Council Vetoes. Global Policy Forum.
6) Global Policy Forum. November, 2008. Debt of 15 largest payers to the peacekeeping budget 2008. Global Policy Forum. Retrieved November 20, 2008, from
7) Jackson, Stephen. November, 2007. Of ‘doubtful nationality’: Political manipulation of citizenship in the DR Congo. Citizenship Studies. Vol. 11, Issue 5; 481-500.
Nambiar, Lt. Gen. Satish. March 17-19, 1999. UN peacekeeping operations: Problems and prospects. Embassy of India.
9) Pelz, Timo and Lehmann, Volker. November 2007. The evolution of UN peacekeeping (2): Reforming DPKO. Dialogue on Globalization. Friedrich Ebert Foundation. New York.
10) Pottier, Johan. 2008. Displacement and ethnic reintegration in Ituri, DR Congo: Challenges ahead. Journal of Modern African Studies. Vol. 46, Issue 3; 427-450.
11) Yilmaz, Muzaffer Ercan. June 2005. UN peacekeeping in the post-cold war era. International Journal on World Peace. Vol. XXII, No. 2.

Ethnic Conflict

There is a modern tendency to refer to wars as ethnically or culturally based.  But what is ethnicity really? Is everyone in one group of the same thinking? Ethnicity is fluid, changing and constantly evolving, not something that is static. Ethnicity or culture is something that is self-identified, and has been known to change over a life time. When it comes to conflict, this ethnic label allows for no real political solution to end the war. It is seen as something that must be worked out between the ethnicities, an ancient hatred that is not easily resolved; but what is the reality of this? In most cases where “ethnic” war has been declared, different ethnicities lived side by side in the cities for generations or millennia with little problem. They may have even had high intermarriage and mixing rates in some areas.

I have heard stories from my older Lebanese friends of Jew, Christian, Muslim and Druze all living within one city’s walls as neighbours, sharing and intermixing before the wars (at least to some degree) and how this changed once the wars began. The census statistics would seem to back part of this up.

I have watched documentaries like “We are all neighbours” by anthropologist Tone Bringa (I urge you to watch this!), a sad realization of the situation in the former Yugoslav nations. This movie traces the friendships between the ethnic communities before the war started, and follows the progression as the violence intensifies. It shows once loving neighbours turn against each other in rapid progression in the wake of hostility and propaganda. It shows elderly neighbours, life-long best friends of fighting ethnic backgrounds who turn against each other as fear takes hold. It is heartbreaking to watch, but this type of progression is found in most of the so-called “ethnic” conflicts.

These conflicts are not ethnic; this is merely the manifestation and progression of how the conflicts are shaping themselves. It is not about religion or culture or ethnic background. It is more about inequity within the systems combined with intensive war-time propaganda and political policies that shift the blame for this inequity onto specific ethnic groups or citizenship regimes that reward one population over another. Propaganda gets spread to the populations to engrain this into their heads and becomes the new “truth”. Textbooks and other educational materials made by the governments may even back it up.

A glaring example of these political realities and ethnic labeling can be found in the DR Congo.

As many as 200 ethnic groups live within the borders of the DRC. Divisions in Congolese society, however, run deeper than ethnic heritage, with separations also running along language, class, political, cultural and citizenship lines. Ethnic, cultural or language groups are often allied with other groups, political parties, governments and organizations, blurring the exact lines between warring parties. The continuing conflict in the DRC has often been referred to as “ethnic”, despite the fluidity of ethnicities and the fact that ethnic segregation is something most ordinary Congolese resist, having lived in multi-ethnic communities for generations. Ethnicities in the DRC are incredibly overlapping and heavily inter-mixed by marriage, and continue to be inter-mixed despite the war.

In the DR Congo, colonialization is still playing its role in inequitable systems. Belgian colonial powers attempted to separate the Lendu peoples (a cultural group) from the Hema peoples, giving them strict administrative boundaries (although they had lived together intermixing for generations before this). The Belgians regarded the Hema as a superior race, and gave them privileged access to education, land, administration and commerce. They decided who was in which cultural group rather arbitrarily, sometimes based solely on outward physical features. From the 1930s to the 1950s the Belgian administrators started to deliberately transplant Hutus and Tutsis from Rwanda into the Congo to help and alleviate the demographic pressure in famine-prone parts of Rwanda and to meet growing labor demands in colonial plantations and mines in the Congo. These people, commonly referred to as Rwandophones often stayed on in the DRC and had families here.

At Independence, it was decided by Constitutional decree that only one Congolese nationality existed and only those ethnic groups (not individuals) who were declared as occupying the territory prior to 1908 were granted this privilege. Many Rwandophones whose families had been residing in the Congo since the start of colonialization, were denied citizenship rights on this basis. The citizenship decree was annulled in 1981, and the occupying date was pushed back to 1855, still excluding many. 

In 1973, authoritarian ruler Mobutu Sese Seko began his zaireanization process in an attempt to reverse the colonial policies. Post-colonial reorganization attempts to incorporate another ethnic group (the Ngiti) resulted in depriving them of access to Lake Albert (the main water source) and created ethnic tensions which can still be felt today.

Mobutu also began transferring ownership of ex-colonial plantations in Ituri (in the North of the country) over to elite Hema individuals. He manipulated ethnic divisions over identity and land ownership to reward his political followers. His General Property Law of 1973 allowed land to be privatized (including ancestral land), and sped up the process where Hema cattle herders could displace Lendu agriculturalists. The elite Hema, who dominated local governance, passed this law because it was beneficial to them.

Much of the population wrongly believed they could still inherit ancestral land, but this new law allowed land to be sold privately, without the occupier’s notice. The Law stipulated that occupiers should be given a two year grace period to leave their land, which was subsequently ignored by the Ugandan troops (assisting the Congolese government) in the area who instantaneously evicted mostly Lendu from their lands.

Another deal between Mobutu and Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana allowed one ethnic group (the Banyarwanda) to take over territories in North Kivu. Local chiefs and non-Banyarwanda, fearing encroachment by these land expropriations began forming local militias to protect themselves. Between 6,000 and 10,000 people were killed and more than 250,000 were displaced in clashes in this one area over land in 1993 alone.

A fragile peace was achieved soon after, but was subsequently destroyed when more than one million Hutu refugees (including members of the interahamwe militia responsible for the Rwandan genocide) fleeing the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) settled in the DRC in 1994-5. Many of the refugees were heavily armed and with the help of local Congolese Hutu and propaganda, transferred the conflict and began killing the Congolese Tutsi. The Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire headed by Laurent Kabila, scattered the interahamwe militia throughout the DRC (then named Zaire) and captured Kinshasa in 1997, overthrowing Mobutu from his 32 year rule. Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, angered that they did not receive remuneration expected for helping to topple Mobutu, stayed in the country and began extensively plundering its wealth. In response, Kabila’s new government began arming the interahamwe and other local militias (especially the Mai Mai) in an attempt to drive these foreigners out. Rwanda responded by attacking the largest towns in the Kivus through proxy armies such as the Rassamblement Congolais pour la Democratie (RDC).

This type of political and citizenship manipulation is separating ethnic groups and creating hatreds among them, and is still happening in the DRC to this day. In fact, the examples go on and on.  It is happening also all over the world, in many other countries. The next time you hear a story about ancient ethnic hatreds, think twice and do some digging. You may just find there is much more to the conflict than meets the eye. 

 

 

Africa- the violent continent???

So often I hear people talk about Africa and usually the conversation involves fear and propaganda. Many people seem to think that Africans are somehow hardwired for violence and that conflict rages on while animist heathens dwell in poverty in the background. That we shouldn’t bother to send more peacekeeping troops because there is little point. That these civil conflicts will never be resolved.

The problem with this thinking is that it is severely flawed and missing some very important details. Firstly, the tendency to label conflicts as “civil wars” is quite worrisome. These conflicts are not civil.  For example, the conflict that is raging on in the DRC is connected to the conflicts in Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda (and many other regional and international bodies). This is not a civil conflict– it is a regional and international one. And that being said, it requires a regional solution with international structures to back it up and cut off foreign incentives.

Why do we continue to label conflicts as ”civil wars”?  Simply, because this label gives the international leaders freedom to ignore the violence. A regional or international war requires intervention to stop its spread. The international government has learned their lesson from wars of the past and made structures to stop atrocities, didn’t they? It would seem not. These wars are spreading– rapidly. They cross over into neighboring countries, as inadequate peacekeeping forces are unable to properly secure the areas or implement lasting peacebuilding structures.  So often these structures are based on only one tiny aspect of the overall problem in one country and not the underlying and intensive regional and international dynamics that also play their roles. Sending in peacekeepers is only one piece of the puzzle necessary. We must attack the disease and not just its symptoms. We must address the roots of the conflict, the fire that ensures it continues.

Secondly, Africans are not hard-wired for violence and do not all live an unhappy, impoverished life. There is poverty in many areas, but there is also a lot of hope and happiness, and the possibility of peace. The violence that rages on in many of the African countries is directly related to colonial influence or international pressures. The average person here is not naturally violent. Violence is cyclical. If a child is exposed to constant violence, they are more likely to be violent themselves. If a child is exposed to war and the culture of war– the will be more likely to support war. They will be more likely to be abducted or persuaded into war. If they are constantly exposed to injustice, some will rage. If they are living in poverty, some will steal to survive. Some will steal to thrive. This is the culture of war and injustice.

Colonial powers arbitrarily decided ethnicity in many parts of Africa and gave administrative advantage to those ethnic groups they deemed “superior”. Many of the government structures in these areas still reflect the ethnic advantages bestowed by the colonial powers, or the attempt to overthrow the unbalance after independence. A dominant majority of the population that is subservient to a powerful minority becomes frustrated at the injustice, often leading to conflict, uprising and hatred. Especially when some are denied even basic human rights. Creating more equitable and balanced governments is imperative to peace in this region, overthrowing the colonial shackles of the status quo. Creating just laws that are actually enforced and more equitable systems will only help to build the social trust. Engaging the population in dialogue will not erase the past, but can help in healing.

International powers bestow political advantage and power to certain leaders who have proven themselves time and again majorly corrupt and human rights abusing. The international powers allow these leaders to receive benefits for stolen resources, loans and other incentives with little accountability. Leaders such as Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni (and he is definitely not alone), receive extensive loan packages that have been proven to go almost entirely to violence. The loaning institutions have reports that their loan to Uganda is helping to fund a leader who interned an entire portion of the population. This population is interned in what is called ”displacement camps” where they are denied basic health, water, and freedoms and subjected to continual raids and massacres by rebels and government parties. Yet we continue to supply this leader, who would purposely displace almost an entire ethnic group of his country into death camps, with money, supplies and power. Why are we letting this go on? Maybe we cannot stop the war entirely, but we can certainly stop feeding it.

Africa is no more violent than North America; the only difference is that in North America we hide away our violence and make our wars on foreign soil. We contribute to it through our policies, our lending, and our spending– but distance ourselves just enough to label ourselves as non-violent and democratic.

The other side of assistance: The neoliberal agenda in Uganda

Uganda has been hailed as an economic success story and the “development darling” of Africa by many international donors. Despite successes in certain sectors and the adoption of an official Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) sponsored by the World Bank (WB), the poorest of the poor in Uganda have not necessarily experienced ‘poverty eradication’. Sustained growth in the country has averaged 7.8% since 2000, and official World Bank statistics say that as a result of this economic growth, poverty declined from 56% in 1992 to 31% in 2006 (WB, Country Brief, 2008). Positive statistics are so often used by the international financial institutions (IFIs) to inflate their current projects and to play up the successes of neoliberal reforms to serve their own gain. The focus on economic growth and its ‘success’ in Uganda has resulted in ignoring massive human rights violations being committed by the Ugandan government on its own people (with development overtaking peacebuilding) and the impact that conditional aid has actually had on the poorest of the poor. Loan debts will be paid by the poor and not the human rights abusing government who borrowed it through structural adjustment programs that guarantee the international community will continue to have a hand in Uganda for decades to come.

            Uganda has been embroiled in conflict with regional parties and the cult-like rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army for decades. The 1960s were years of euphoria as Africa experienced its so-called “decade of independence” from colonial rule. A series of successive dictatorships (including Idi Amin and Milton Obote) and their quest for power prompted periods of political instability and insecurity, causing the economy to go into a tailspin. Structural adjustment reforms were first implemented under Obote, who prioritized the external logic of the global markets over the long-term developmental needs of the national economy (Kiiza et al., 2003; 5). Comprehensive pro-market economic reforms were implemented in the late 1980s under Museveni, reducing the onerous taxes and economic restrictions that were in effect (Selassie, 2004; 5).

Uganda experienced declines in industrial production and agricultural output by the mid 1980s as a result of economic mismanagement and the pursuit of interventionist policies that were ill-suited to the level of existing state capacity, skill and political instability (Pitcher, 2004;383). Museveni took over the country in 1985 after a successful coup, and immediately launched an economic recovery program which included a comprehensive package of currency devaluation, control over inflation and spending and a reduction of state intervention in the economy. The Ugandan government haggled over the conditions attached to the loans, reluctant to push ahead with reforms they felt were not designed by them but the IMF. By 1992, the Ugandan government began “owning” its reforms, controlling inflation to achieve higher growth rates and to attract private sector investment[1]. By 1998 the government had mostly privatized its assets, crafting an intense ideological message that emphasized the gains of privatization to improve the perception of the policies among the public. The government even went so far as to hire a drama group and public relations firm to do this (Pitcher, 2004; 385).

The Usefulness of Debt Relief

            Since the 1960s, the WB has made more than $4.8 billion in loans and credits and about $600 million in grants to the government of Uganda (WB, Country Brief, 2008). This aid was often conditional on the implementation of certain structural adjustment programs by the Ugandan government, which involve two main components: macroeconomic reforms and institutional reforms. Macroeconomic reforms include the removal of trade restrictions, the devaluation of local currency, reduced subsidies and public sector wage freezes. The institutional reforms involve the privatization of public enterprises, the trimming of the civil service, and the promotion of export through incentives. Uganda qualified under the WB’s Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative in 1997, making it eligible to try and reduce its debt to a sustainable level. The conditions of the HIPC involved implementing structural adjustment for three years non-stop, at which point debt would be reduced by 67%. The debt payments remained unsustainable, making Uganda then eligible to enter stage two of the HIPC, where it faced another 3 years of structural adjustment. At the end of this adjustment, the debt was then to be reduced by 80%. Uganda at this point was still overwhelmed with debt, making it eligible for the Enhanced HIPC initiative offered by the WB in February of 2000 (WB, Country Briefing, 2008).

After facing criticism from many parties the World Bank revamped its initiatives to be more reflexive of the poverty faced by the supported populations and to include poverty reduction strategies in their plans. The Enhanced HIPC initiative insisted that eligible countries develop a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), a plan showing exactly what the country planned to do with its savings with the poorest of the poor allegedly in mind. The PRSP is mandated to be country-driven, results oriented, comprehensive, partnership oriented and based on the long term perspective of poverty reduction. The PRSP prescribes four broad goals and transformations involved in eradicating poverty: creating an enabling environment for sustainable economic growth and transformation, promoting good governance and security, directly increasing the ability of the poor to raise their incomes, and directly increasing the quality of life of the poor (Nyamugasira and Rowden, 2002). Uganda also received the supplement to the HIPC initiative, the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) in 2006, aimed at providing 100% debt relief by the WB, the IMF, and the International Development Association (IDA) to help Uganda attain its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In reality this 100% debt relief, meant only for loans contracted prior to 2005, left Uganda with an estimated debt service payment of over a million dollar a month that is only steadily climbing with time (WB, Estimated Debt Service Payments, 2008).

The PRSP is flawed, and there seems to be little institutional learning from evaluations of previous SAPs in new policy designs. The PRSP supports major privatization and deregulatory reforms in health, education, water and sanitation sectors, arguably the most important sectors to poverty reduction. New loans extended by the WB and IMF neglected the impact of privatization of water on people’s access to clean water. Privatization led to increased prices of water for individuals, reducing their access, and undermining the health-related poverty-reduction goals of the PRSP. The trade sector was also conflicting as the WB and the IMF lending policies contradicted external processes and institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO). For example, IMF and WB loans insisted that Uganda must privatize key utilities and markets stipulating that regulation “will eventually follow”. WTO rules, which Uganda is subject to, do not permit Uganda to develop the adequate regulation prescribed by the IMF and WB (Nyamugasira and Rowden, 2002).

            Structural adjustment resulted in the IFIs having a permanent hand in the running of the country. The extent of the IMF and WB’s involvement in Uganda went so far as pushing the Ugandan government to refuse program funding from the Global Fund for HIV/AIDs, Malaria and Tuberculosis (Ambrose, 2004). The rationale for refusing funding for a major health epidemic (when at least 6% of the population is still infected by HIV/AIDs, and malaria rates are as high as 396 cases per 100,000 people; Reuters, 2008), is that raising government expenditures on healthcare is thought (by the IMF) to distort internal markets, possibly leading to inflation (Ambrose, 2004). Health care and education declines[2], while the inflation rate has remained below 8% since 1994 (dropping from inflation rates of several hundred percent in the late 1980s). So why has the quest for actual poverty reduction been sidelined for economic growth and the “trickle down” effect usually attributed to this growth? Were the IFIs serious in their claim to want to reduce the poverty in the world, or were fancy schemes made to try to silence the international resistance and continue on with “business as usual”?

A Neoliberal Success Story?

            The government revels in the chance to flaunt certain aspects of its record, such as the increase in primary education enrollment rates from 62.3% in 2000 to 91.4% in 2007, the reduction in the prevalence of HIV/AIDs from 19% (in 1992) to around 6.4% (in 2000; which has since remained stagnant or possibly increased[3]), and the robust growth rate averaging at close to 7% over the 1990s (WB, Country Brief, 2008). In fact, the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network (SAPRIN) which studied the effect of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) implemented in Uganda through PRSP and PRGF (a line of credit to write the PRSP) reforms found otherwise. This study shows that access to affordable quality of services did not improve, and in fact, had actually worsened under SAPs (Nyamugasira and Rowden, 2002).

Privatization reforms mandated by the SAPs exacerbated inequality and failed to contribute to macroeconomic efficiency since the sale of state assets under privatization was marred by corruption. No property-owning middle class was created, as had been anticipated and large shares of former state properties were now in the hands of foreigners. Workers that were laid off during the privatization process suffered from inadequate compensation and retraining, resulting in greater job insecurity and income inequality (Nyamugasira and Rowden, 2002). In spite of improvement in coverage of health care facilities and an increased number of doctors and nurses (which still remains incredibly low and concentrated in organizations caring for ‘popular’ issues such as HIV/AIDs and Malaria to the detriment of general health initiatives; Garrett, 2007;26-8), less than 50% of children aged 1-2 years has been immunized. The current HIV program remains completely unsustainable since more than 94% of costs are covered by floating international donors (Nakkazi, 2005).

Concerns about the public involvement in PRSP policy writing contradicted the PRSP mandate to be country-driven. Ugandan NGOs complain that they were invited to provide input on the development of poverty-reduction goals, but not to discuss the nature of the policies necessary to achieve these goals or to be present during the writing of policies. The actual policies attached to loans were determined by IMF and WB representatives in consultation with small technical teams within the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Uganda. NGOs felt they hadn’t been heard although the IMF had promised that all macroeconomic policies would be “subject to public consultation” (Nyamugasira and Rowden, 2002).

 The proportion of Ugandans living below the $1 per day benchmark for extreme poverty has remained mostly constant (Nakkazi, 2005), even though the WB says poverty has declined (WB, Country Brief, 2008). A high level of population growth (3.2%) means that even though poverty may have declined statistically, the number of people living in extreme poverty has remained relatively unchanged (Nakkazi, 2005).  The provision of teachers and educational facilities has not kept pace with the nearly doubling of students (62.3% enrollment in primary education in 2000 to 91.4% in 2007; WB, Country Brief, 2008), resulting in a decline in the quality of education. Poor completion rates in education are attributed to the introduction of fees for certain services implemented under the SAPs (Nakkazi, 2005).

Privatization, implemented through SAPS, was used by Ugandan government officials to build constituencies of supporters for state policies and to dispense patronage (Pitcher, 2004; 381). Economic elites and political insiders with connections to the state have controlled the entire privatization process, gaining massive advantages for themselves. Yoweri Museveni, the President of Uganda, and his National Resistance Movement (NRM) used the economic restructuring as a chance to distance themselves from past regimes, removing political elites who were entrenched in state enterprises through civil sector layoffs prescribed by the SAPs. In 1996 about 7,000 Asians returned to Uganda injecting over $500 million into the economy. Museveni agreed to return the assets taken from the Asians under the Amin regime in the late 1970s, also favoring them for several large privatization deals to gain personal advantage (Pitcher, 2004; 387).

The Situation in Northern Uganda

The focus on the economic situation by the government, international donors and aid agencies ignores the continuing conflict in the north of the country where close to a million people have been displaced by violence. This continued violence costs the Ugandan economy a minimum of $100 million per year in lost production alone and is preventing sustainable growth. The conflict was entirely ignored by the World Bank Country Brief who referred to the “situation in Northern Uganda” only in passing (Yanacopulos, 2004; 7-9). Museveni and the government of Uganda are guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity with their campaign of murder, torture, threats, bombing and burning down villages which interned of an entire section of the population (mostly Acholi) into displacement camps for “their own protection”. These camps lack even the basic necessities and are constantly terrorized by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) who has abducted more than 25,000 children to be used as soldiers, workers and sex slaves from these camps. More than a quarter of all children in the northern area do not attend school at all because of violence (McCormack, 2006). The WB and IMF are guilty of complicity to these crimes by supporting Museveni and by not recognizing this interned population, and instead hiding the reasons for displacement. Aid comes in to conveniently labeled internally displaced persons (IDPs), instead of condemning the government for its massive human rights violations (Branch, 2008).

Conclusions

            As a land-locked resource scarce country what possibilities does Uganda have for poverty reduction in combination with sustained economic growth in the future? Paul Collier stresses that land-locked resource scarce countries such as Uganda should look to specialize in regional trade, giving priorities to policies on rural development (Selassie, 2008; 6). Conflicts in neighboring Sudan, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have so far not caused significant negative spillovers to economic growth in Uganda; but they have had the effect of limiting regional trade suggested by Collier. Regional alliances also threaten to disrupt trade. Compared to sustainable economic “success” stories (mostly in Asia), Uganda has a per capita income on average 2 ½ times less (Selassie, 2008; 9) at only $370 per year (WB, Country Brief, 2008), limiting its chances for success. The growth rates in the Asian countries have also been significantly higher than Uganda’s, and the level of industrialization in Uganda (up from 12% in 1990/1 to 24% in 2005/6) is still much lower than countries like Chile and China (at around 35%). Urbanization also presents a problem to sustained success in Uganda. Urbanization in Uganda is low at around 12% of the population, not increasing much over the past 20 years despite industrialization (compared to around 40% urbanization in successful Asian economies). The underdeveloped financial sector shows financial liabilities to GDP at around a third of the level observed in successful Asian economies, and private sector credit (the ratio of private sector credit to GDP) stands at one-eighth the level of the Asian economies (Selassie, 2008; 9). These numbers suggest that while Uganda has had reasonable success for an African country, it is hardly to be touted as a “success” quite yet.

            While Uganda has been reasonably successful in sustaining a relatively high level of growth, especially compared to other African nations, it has completely failed in its quest for poverty reduction. The poorest of the poor are little better off than they were decades ago, and although loan forgiveness has been granted; loan repayments remain unsustainable. The government of Uganda is reliant on international donors for about 40% of its budget (Nakkazi, 2005), making sustainability questionable. The lack of concern by the IFIs for human rights abuses by aid-receiving governments is appalling, as the government of Uganda has gained considerable strength from these monies and ensured for themselves and their followers, positions of power and wealth. The debts owed by these loans will be paid on the backs of the poor, and not those who borrowed it or decided how it should be spent. The IFIs’ attempt at ‘poverty reduction’ is laughable, since clearly this is not their main priority. These institutions should be condemned for their lack of concern for their people, and their continual disregard for studies that contradict their desired image. Human rights abuses in Uganda will continue as long as the international community looks the other way and continues to support the government, making long-term poverty reduction and sustainable growth unrealistic.

           

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited:

1)      Ambrose, Soren. April, 2004. Resisting market fundamentalism! Ending the reign of extremist neo-liberalism. Economic Justice News Online. Vol. 7, No. 2. http://www.50years.org/cms/ejn/story/61.

2)      Branch, Adam. June 8, 2008. Uganda’s interned victims living in wretched squalor. Enough. The Center for American Progress. http://www.enoughproject.org/node/1050.

3)      Garrett, Laurie. January/February 2007. Do no harm. The global health challenge. Foreign Affairs. Vol. 86, No. 1; 14-38.

4)      International Monetary Fund (IMF). October 31, 2008. Uganda: Financial position in the Fund. Finance Department.

5)      Kiiza, Julius; Mubazi, John; Kibikyo, D.L. and Kigongo, Aloysius. February 27 2003. Understanding economic and institutional reforms in Uganda. Global Development Network. 

6)      McCormack, Pete. 2006. Uganda Rising. Canadian Independent Firm and Video Fund. Mindset Media. (Film).

7)      Nakkaz, Esther. 2005. Millennium Development Goals in Uganda. OneWorld Uganda Guide. 

      Nyamugasira, Warren and Rowden, Rick. April 2002. New strategies, old loan conditions: Do the new IMF and WB loans support countries’ poverty reduction strategies? The case of Uganda. African Action. 

9)      Pitcher, Anne. July 2004. Conditions, commitments, and the politics of restructuring in Africa. Comparative Politics. Vol. 36, No. 4, p. 379-398.

10)  Selassie, Abede Aemro. September 2008. Beyond macroeconomic stability: The quest for industrialization in Uganda. IMF Working Paper. 

11)  World Bank. September 2008. Country Brief. Development Results. http://go.worldbank.org/8XKQR04V10.

12)  World Bank. September 30, 2008. Uganda: Estimated Debt Service Payments Summary. http://go.worldbank.org/UOAA1W6AH2.

13)  Yanacopulos, Helen. March 17-20, 2004. A think piece in dilemmas in conflict and development: The Uganda Case. International Studies Association Conference. Montreal, Canada

[1] Private investment as a percentage of GDP went from 5.4% in 1986-7 to 13% in 1998-9 (Pitcher, 2004; 383)

[2] Health and education spending accounted for only 2% of WB lending. The other lending went to energy/road development (57%), the agricultural sector (13%), the financial sector (10%), the private and public sector (shared 10%), local governance structures (10%), and social protection (8% ; WB, Country Brief, 2008).

[3] A recent country report on the MDGs warns that there are anecdotal indications of an apparent increase in HIV prevalence and incidence during the last few years despite claims of reducing the rate. American donor presence pushed leaders in 2005 to promote the ABC approach to sex (Abstinence, Be faithful, and Condom use). This placed a greater emphasis on abstinence and restricted the distribution of condoms and has been attributed to the increase in prevalence of HIV/AIDs in recent years (Nakkazi, 2005).

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New Colonies of Death: despair, anarchy and plunder in the Congo.

This is an essay I wrote for a class last year that talked about the conflict in the DRC. It discusses the human rights abuses happening, the main parties involved, and the complicit governments and companies who have a hand in ensuring the abuses continue.

“The deadliest war since [WW2] is starting again – and you are almost certainly carrying a blood-soaked chunk of the slaughter in your pocket. When we glance at the holocaust in Congo… the clichés of Africa reporting tumble out: this is a “tribal conflict” in “the Heart of Darkness”. It isn’t. The United Nations investigation found it was a war led by “armies of business” to seize the metals that make our 21st-century society zing and bling. The war in Congo is a war about you. …These resources were not being stolen for use in Africa. They were seized so they could be sold on to us. The more we bought, the more the invaders stole – and slaughtered.” – Johan Hari, commentator at The Independent (Uhururadio.com, 2008)

 

The massive human rights violations happening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are being perpetuated by a variety of complex and inter-weaving actors both locally and internationally. Multiple militias, armies, and security forces roam the country, wreaking havoc on villages and innocents as they pass. Calculating the exact numbers of victims is currently nearly impossible as many people are simply missing, probably decomposing in the forest, or in mass graves, with no surviving family members left to miss them, and incomplete national registration processes that didn’t even know they existed in the first place. The continual conflict and insecurity also makes it next to impossible for monitoring missions or human rights observers to do their job. As many as 45,000 people are dying per month of war-related causes. These deaths include not only direct violence, but also disease, starvation, and malnutrition (among other things) brought upon by the violence.  These statistics do not even begin to address the psychological abuses, physical abuses, sexual violence, tortures, displacements and destruction of property, let alone the severe and lasting political, social and economic effects that the continued violence has on the country itself.

The DRC is in desperate need of intervention, security, regulation, mediation, negotiations, assistance and structures to help it to stabilize itself before more people are endangered. Too many of the population have been living in constant fear, terror and frustration, in the face of daily bloodshed, destruction and death. They have lived in a virtual hell for over a decade, mostly ignored by the outside world.  We as Canadians are helping to ensure this conflict continues, despite the outward veneer of philanthropy our government and our media would have us believe. The individuals of the world need to wake up and realize the connection that exists between their own lives and the rest of humanity. The media of the “global north” mostly ignore the cries of Africa, and most definitely ignore the connections Canadians have to the bloodshed. Resistance to these atrocities does exist, in the form of certain media, academic scholarship, human rights organizations, awareness campaigns, and individual actions. The possibility for peace in the DRC exists, but it will take an intense combined international and local acknowledgement of the severity of the situation, the complex institutions that reinforce it, and the support and effort necessary to stop it.

The Crimes

Several former militia leaders have been charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes or crimes against humanity committed in the DRC and have warrants out for their arrest (ICC, 2004). The charges include massacres of civilians, systematic rape, torture, murder of UN peacekeepers; along with multiple other war crimes and crimes against humanity including enlisting and conscripting children under the age of fifteen to actively participate in hostilities. Among those charged are Jean-Pierre Bemba (the former VP of the transitional government of the DRC), Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (founder and former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots), General Laurent Nkunda (former leader of the Rally for Congolese Democracy), Bosco Ntaganda (military chief of staff of the National Congress for the Defense of People), Germain Katanga (leader of the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri), and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chiu (of the National Integrationist Front). Many other regional parties, such as Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), are also guilty of war crimes in the DRC (Faul, 2008). Many leaders of the LRA have also been charged by the ICC, but not in connection to crimes committed in the DRC. Although these parties are guilty of numerous atrocities and wanted by the international community, the lack of enforcement capabilities at the ICC means that many of these criminals may remain elusive for years to come (Allen, 2006; 4-9).

The government in the case of the DRC is also guilty, as is its army and its president Joseph Kabila. Although not yet (and probably never to be) charged by the ICC for mostly political reasons, Kabila, his army and his government have been accused of rampant human rights abuses. These include the presence of children in the ranks of the DRC armed forces, the new recruitment of child soldiers, abuses against street children, as well as sexual violence, torture, disappearances, mass murders, abuse of civilians, and the arbitrary arrest and detention without charge of children allegedly associated with armed opposition groups (HRW, August 22, 2008).  Many of these abuses are in strict contradiction to The Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNHCR, 1989) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948); and are considered war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the past 3 months alone, the government has been charged with the murder of at least 20 civilians, including 5 children (HRW, November 7, 2008), and wounding at least 50 civilians by direct violence (HRW, November 7, October 30, 2008). In this same time period, they have been accused of numerous rapes, robberies, as well as the arbitrary detention and subsequent torture of at least 40 Tutsi and other alleged sympathizers of rebel leader Laurent Nkunda (HRW, October 30, 2008). Roadblocks set up by the government have prevented many fleeing citizens from escaping the violence, often forcing them to pay a “tax” or bribe or give up their electoral (and identity) cards to pass through (HRW, September 25, 2008). The government has circumvented the Rome Statute and its obligations to arrest and surrender four leaders of the LRA, instead sending them into the Sudan (which refuses to cooperate with the ICC) where they are sure to evade justice (Clifford, 2007).  The government has also been accused of colluding with the Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda or FDLR (a rebel militia), most notably over the control of the lucrative mineral trade in North Kivu (The Economist, Oct 18, 2008; 57).

More than 20 militias roam the DRC, bringing with them intense violence and destruction. The Hutu Interhamwe militias responsible for the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda have mostly transformed into the FDLR now fighting in the northeastern DRC. The FDLR is guilty of mass human-rights violations, ranging from mass murder, to public gang raping and sexual violence, torture, disappearances, destruction of property (burning entire villages to the ground), and other abuses against the civilian population in the DRC. In only the past 3 months, at least 100 civilians have been killed and more than 200 have been wounded by the direct violence of rebel forces (HRW, November 7, 2008). Nkunda’s forces also encouraged the town of Rutshuru on October 28^th, 2008 to dismantle displacement camps where more than 26,000 people had sought refuge (HRW, November 7, 2008). The FDLR was accused of deliberately killing at least 20 civilians and wounding another 33 in Kiwanja on November 4^th, 2008 during a battle for the town and the “cleanup” operations that followed. The rebels ordered the population of some 30,000 inhabitants to leave the town, while systematically seeking out and killing particularly men, who they accused of supporting their enemies (HRW, November 6, 2008). The Congolese government was supposed to have disarmed the FDLR according to a 2008 peace agreement, but has made no effort to do so thus far (HRW, Oct, 30, 2008).

The Mai Mai, a group of traditional Congolese local security forces that operate inside the DRC, support the government by working as guerillas inside territory held by antigovernment forces. They have also been accused of similar atrocities on the civilian population (Ware, 2001), including recruiting at least 37 children into militias in the last week of October 2008 (HRW, November 7, 2008), and deliberately killing at least 6 civilians in Kiwanja on November 4-5, 2008 (HRW, November 6, 2008). Many of the neighboring African governments (including the Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi) are guilty of crimes within the borders of the DRC. They claim to be protecting their borders from invasion by DRC-based armed groups which legitimizes (in their minds) sending troops to these locations (Essick, 2001).  The list of atrocities committed by all parties is incredibly extensive and entirely incomplete, as the war has raged on for over a decade and the almost non-existent infrastructure makes proper investigating of crimes almost impossible. War-related deaths make it even harder to establish direct guilt of parties. If these numbers were included as specific crimes by individuals, as many as 45,000 people are dying each month because of direct violence, or disease, malnutrition, and starvation brought on by dislocation because of violence (Reuters, 2008). Reports come from a variety of sources including the millions of surviving victims who were first-hand witnesses; the UN’s monitoring mission, human rights organizations, official government reports, NGOs and other organizations, radio, blogs, and newspaper accounts.

The Conflict

            The DRC’s conflict is intimately connected to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Rwanda’s post-war Tutsi government invaded the Congo (then named Zaire) in 1996 to pursue extremist Hutu militias and helped to overthrow leader Mobutu Sese Seko from his thirty two year rule. The Rwandans installed rebel leader Laurent Kabilla, only to later turn against him when he was accused of stirring hatred towards Tutsis in the Congo. Rwanda intervened to try and remove him from power with the help of the Ugandans, and ignited a new regional conflict as Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe joined forces with Kabilla to fight off the Rwandans. Laurent Kabilla was assassinated in January of 2001, and replaced by his son Joseph Kabilla, who set up a power-sharing government and began “negotiating peace”[1] with some of the parties. He was eventually elected as President in 2006 (Reuters, 2008).

            The DRC’s infrastructure is in shambles. At least 5.4 million people are dead since 1998 from war related violence, hunger and disease, and at least 40,000 women and girls have been raped (although the actual number is probably significantly higher than this; Reuters, 2008). This conflict has been called the worst humanitarian crisis ever, with armies and militias increasingly recruiting children for their fighting. A January 2008 peace deal signed between the government and 22 of the rebel groups (but clearly excluding others such as the FDLR; The Economist, October 18^th, 2008; 57) has not been able to contain the violence (Reuters, 2008).

Push for Democracy

            The first “post-war” elections in the DRC were delayed six times in two years, eventually happening in July of 2006 (Clark, 2007; 30). Much of the violence in North and South Kivu during that period was attributed to Nkunda’s rebel forces trying to increase military and political power. Nkunda represents the minority Tutsi (ethnic group) population in the DRC and his attacks have helped to increase anti-Tutsi sentiment while increasing support for Kabila across the country. The elections process was fraught with difficulty as over 26 million voters had to be registered, in an area with very little infrastructure[2] or government capability. The 2006 elections were the most expensive in history with the UN and the European Union (EU) providing almost 500 million US dollars for logistics. The voter turnout was around 75%, and international observers reported only isolated cases of voting irregularities and violence near polling stations. The elections were proclaimed an incredible success, despite the fact that many of the electoral candidates were rebel leaders still involved in violence across the country (Clark, 2007; 32). Joseph Kabila won the elections, but without the majority, requiring a runoff election in October. The runoff occurred between Kabila and his closest rival, Bemba, who was accused by the ICC a year later for crimes against humanity. Two days after the first round of elections, the forces of Bemba and Kabila fought in the streets (Clark, 2007; 33), as if nothing had changed. The war raged on, despite this new found “democracy”, even though the world subsequently forgot about the people of the Congo. The elections processes seem to have been more meaningful to the “western” world who still like to describe them as a “success” (Economist, October 18, 2008; 57) than to local actors who know the truth.

Trade, Investment and Debt

The World Bank (WB) has classified the DRC under its Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC), making it eligible (according to the WB) to reduce the constraints on economic growth and poverty reduction imposed by the DRC’s debt-services burdens (WB, 2006). In reality, the WB and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are providing the human-rights abusing government of the Congo with a continual supply of funding that will eventually be extracted from the people (and not the borrowing government) through Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). One of the conditions of SAPs require the roll-back of state services, such as health care, education, etc. to generate funds to begin repaying debt. The continued financial support for a proven corrupt and human-rights abusing government by the WB and IMF is appalling, especially since it will be the poor and marginalized and not the borrowing government who will be the ones to suffer the effects. Stabilization and welfare spending targets required by the IMF were completely ignored by the Congolese government because of their need for increased military spending (EN, 2008). This internationally funded money then was used to finance the atrocities of the Congolese government instead of its proposed aim to help the people. The IMF and the WB have continued funding, despite receiving reports on the Congolese government’s misspending, and so are complicit in the crimes (EN, 2008). The effect of the WB and IMF’s policy has been said to be “legaliz(ing) the corporate looting of the Congo” with “foreign companies pay(ing) nothing to the government for lucrative mining concessions” (Ismi and Schwartz, 2007)

The Congo has fallen on the Inward FDI Potential Index, which ranks countries by how they do in attracting inward direct investment, from 73^rd (out of 140 economies) in 1988 to 139^th (out of 141 economies) in 2006 (UNCTAD, 2006). The lack of basic infrastructure such as roads or railways combined with continual conflict make investment and trades a difficult venture for many local and international corporations despite the fact that the DRC does have a major deep-water port that is currently not being utilized and is abundant in natural resources. The Congo was ranked 175^th out of 178 countries on the Doing Business report of 2007. The institutional environment is not conducive to business, with the country’s financial sector completely underdeveloped. Real growth in trade of goods and services declined significantly in 2007 from 11.1% in 2005-6 to only 0.7% in 2007, giving the DRC the rank of 151^st out of 160 countries in terms of real growth in trade (WB, 2008).

 

The Complicit

The governments of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi are all accused of supporting rebel groups that fight within the DRC. The government of Rwanda refuses to allow the FDLR’s demands to return to Rwanda and transform themselves into a legitimate political party, and also refuses to negotiate or participate in peace talks with the group. The UN and other governments who backed a January 2008 peace deal addressed Nkunda’s rebellion, but offered no forum for talks with the FDLR, ignoring one of the key actors in the crisis and ensuring the conflict’s continuation (The Economist, October 18, 2008; 57).

The governments of Zimbabwe, Angola, Chad, Sudan, Namibia, China, Canada, the United States and several other countries are complicit in their support for the human-rights abusing Congolese government.  The United States, along with supporting the human-rights abusing DRC government, paints the war in the Congo as a French issue, refusing to send troops or support the mission in the Congo until France does something about Iraq (Cowan, 2005). Owing over a billion dollars (or 68% of the regular budget arrears) to the UN, the United States’ lack of financial commitment means fewer troops and support for UN missions, which could help alleviate the suffering of the people of the DRC (Global Policy Forum, 2008). The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2005 pleaded with member states for assistance to stop escalating violence in northeastern DRC. Only Uruguay responded, with 750 troops to replace over 5,000 departing Ugandans (Cowan, 2005). Departing a few years later, the Uruguayans were eventually replaced by an Indian contingent of 4,500, only after the Senegalese refused to move in (IANS, 2008).  The international community has failed to prevent these atrocities by their continual inaction and lack of full support for peace processes and so is complicit in the atrocities (Cowan, 2005).

Several other international governments are also guilty of complicity in the crimes of the DRC. The government of Libya provides arms and logistical support to Congolese government forces, while North Korea sent advisors to train government troops. Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe all have supported the government of DRC, financially, logistically and in arms (Ware, 2001). The government of China made a deal with the Congolese government worth $9 billion to get access to several of Congo’s minerals in return for building a highway and a railroad in the Congo (Faul, November 3, 2008). The international community has failed to properly respond to the crisis. International humanitarian aid to the Congo was $188 million or only $3.23 per person in 2004 (with a death toll of about 5.4 million people). Contrast this to the aid received for the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 (with a death toll of about 150,000) which netted over $2 billion in humanitarian aid from the international community (IRC, 2004). International humanitarian aid has been controversial. In fact, the massive influx of humanitarian aid to Rwandan refugees in the Congo following the 1994 Rwandan genocide has been cited as actually strengthening or starting many militias who are now committing atrocities in the DRC (Clark, 2007)

Perhaps surprisingly, Canadians are among these guilty actors. Many Canadians are guilty for purchasing or using products[3] that have components that were possibly sourced in the war zones of the DRC and obtained through illegal or unethical means that support human-rights violating actors who are ensuring the war continues in this region. The retail companies which sell these products are guilty of complicity, along with the individual buyers, buyer companies, distributors and marketers who buy, sell, advertise or use these products. 

The DRC is home to 80% of the world’s supply of coltan (columbite-tantalite), a metallic ore that is processed into tantalite and used in many electronic devices (Dizolele, 2007), and currently supplies at least 15% of the world’s coltan needs (Essick et al., 2001). The world’s largest supply of cobalt is also found and mined in the DRC (Cobalt Development Institute, 2008) along with wolframite, tungsten ore,  tin, and several other minerals (Nolen, 2008). Human Rights Watch researchers claim “there is a direct link between human rights abuses and the exploitation of resources in areas in the DRC occupied by Rwanda and Uganda” (Essick, 2001). Rebels strategically attack coltan-rich villages in the North, causing environmental destruction in the Congo’s protected national parks that have nearly decimated the gorilla populations, and whose profits fund rebel and government projects that are responsible for mass murder, rape, torture, and a plethora of other atrocities in the DRC (Essick, 2001).  

Many of these minerals are smuggled out of the Congo into neighboring Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi to export onto the global market. This is indicated by the increase in official statistics on the export of coltan for these countries following their occupation in northeastern Congo (Essick, 2001), and their official export statistics which include minerals not found natively in these countries (Nolen, 2008). Profits from smuggling often go directly into the pockets of warring parties. Officials and miners would seem to corroborate these accounts, with statements such as, “The armed groups are all involved in mining – even our Congolese armed forces,” and “The FDLR are the ones controlling the coltan mines and they are very strong”. The mining ministry claims that the FDLR controls at least 20 percent of mining in the eastern area of the country (Nolen, 2008). Rebel groups often use forced labor, illegal monopolies and civilian murder to extract these resources, earning up to $20 million a month in profits, making continued war to ensure access to resources incredibly lucrative (Essick, 2001).

The Congolese government and armed forces also serve to profit.  Along with taking bribes at numerous military and police checkpoints that allow smuggled minerals through, the government has also been accused of using “taxation” of minerals to line their own pockets. The armed forces have even been accused of forcing the local population to mine its cassiterite mine at Bisie, as essentially slave labor (Nolen, 2008). This contravenes Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states that no one shall be held in slavery (UN, 1948). The profits from mining, either through bribery or “taxation” of the trade means there is little incentive to move against the rebels and actually stop the war. The cost to bribe a border guard (who are rarely paid their official $40 a month salary) to smuggle a shipment of minerals across the borders is about $350, in contrast to the government’s “taxation” on minerals which makes legal exportation of minerals cost upwards of $17,000 per shipment. Occupation of land by the army is more “acceptable” under war, so mines are simply taken over and exploited. The governments then, along with individual soldiers often serve to profit from continuing conflict. Businesses dealing with the smuggled goods also have little incentive to stop, with statements such as, “it’s not as easy as, ‘get out of the business and wait.’ There’s a huge investment here: half a million dollars” (Nolen, 2008).

Although many of these companies claim to have “ethical business practices”, they are complicit in the war crimes in the DRC by not insisting on regulations that prevent using war-related minerals in their business practices. Tracing the supply chain for coltan is deemed by the mining industry as nearly impossible, as most ore passes through at least 10 hands before it ends up in electronic devices (Essick, 2001). This is interesting considering the Kimberly process was able to overcome this to make regulations in the diamond industry to prevent many violence-related diamonds from entering the marketplace (Kimberly Process, 2008). Most mining in the DRC is done by peasants attracted to the possibility of making a few dollars a day, including children with estimates that suggest that 30 percent of schoolchildren in northeastern Congo have forgone schooling to dig for coltan. This ore is collected by local traders (often rebels), who sell to regional traders located in Rwanda and Uganda. In Rwanda alone, more than 20 international mineral trading companies have been reported by the UN as importing minerals from the Congo. These import companies sell to companies such as AVX, Epcos, Hitachi, Kemet, NEC and Vishay, which manufacture capacitors. These capacitors then go into products manufactured by Alcatel, Compaq, Dell, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lucent, Motorola, Nokia and Solectron, to name a few. Many of the companies claimed to have asked their suppliers whether the minerals supplied to them were mined in the DRC, but the CEO of AVX, Dick Rosen says they “don’t have an idea where (the metal) comes from. There’s no way to tell. I don’t know how to control it”. Epcos denies using conflict resources, despite the fact that their own suppliers A&M Minerals and Metals claim they “couldn’t tell you for 100 percent that this material (from Uganda) didn’t come from the Congo. It could have been smuggled across the border” (Essick, 2001).

At least 10 Canadian mining corporations were implicated for supporting major human rights offenders in the DRC by the UN’s 2000 “Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Congo” (UNSC, 2002) and have yet to be further investigated or punished for these crimes. Anvil Mining, a Canadian copper mining company working in the DRC, was accused of providing logistics to troops in the massacre of close to 100 people; a charge that they vehemently argue was accidental, unknown at the time and forced upon them by local legalities (Anvil Mining, 2008). All of the ten corporations in the report were accused of violating the guidelines of the OECD; some were even accused of bribing officials to gain access to land and its containing resources. Barrick Gold, another Canadian mining business, is supplied by and partnered with Adastra mining, which received a one billion dollar deal for control of mines in the Congo at Kolwezi (for cobalt) and Kipushi (for zinc) from Laurent Kabila’s Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire (ADFL) before they were officially in power and in legal control of said resources (Snow and Barouski, 2006).

The Canadian government is guilty for supporting major human rights offenders, specifically Joseph Kabila and the RPF. They are also guilty of complicity for supporting the implicated mining companies accused of violations, by allowing mining-friendly tax laws (NRC, 2008) and for not further investigating and punishing those implicated in the UN report. The Canadian government is also guilty of refusing the UN’s request for peacekeeping assistance and aid, and instead funneling these resources for the continued illegal war in Afghanistan. Canada has all but abandoned its peacekeeping missions (with less than 56 troops worldwide), despite the fact that peacekeeping was recognized as a strong defining Canadian value by 69% of Canadians in a national survey (Staples, 2006). Canadian troops and support are needed in the Congo to help stop the human rights abuses, but the responsibilities to the international community are being ignored by the current Canadian government.

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Canada’s lead agency for development assistance abroad, committed $33 million for projects and initiatives in the DRC in 2006-7. These projects focused mostly on political and economic governance and access to primary health care (CIDA, 2008), and mostly ignored the broader humanitarian situation. The humanitarian situation in the DRC has been described as “the worst humanitarian crisis ever “(Reuters, 2008). The situation has gotten so bad in recent weeks that thousands of local Congolese demonstrators have taken to physically attacking the UN compound in Goma for what they say is the UN’s failure to protect them against rebel attacks and provide them with the basic necessities of life (AP, 2008). The UN says its first priority is re-supplying clinics that have been looted by retreating government troops. Unfortunately, this means that refugees who haven’t eaten for days are met with shipments of soap and jerry cans (to prevent disease) while they wait for death by starvation. These refugees have recently taken up with the demonstrators in violently attacking anything identified with the UN (Faul, November 3, 2008).

The Silence of the Media

              The mainstream media has largely ignored the Congolese conflict, instead favoring to spotlight more “popular” conflicts and issues such as Iraq, Afghanistan or Darfur. Stories about the DRC are mostly relegated to a small column (of less than 1,000 words) in the middle of the paper, or a quick blurb on the news, that is shorter than the laptop commercial that follows it. None of the stories collected during the past 3 months about the Congo appeared on the front page of the paper, even though the Congo is arguably the most violent conflict and largest humanitarian crisis currently happening in the world. In three major Canadian newspapers (The Globe and Mail, The National Post and The Toronto Star) the conflict in the Congo was reported only about half as much as the conflicts in Afghanistan or Iraq[4], despite the fact that the death tolls are considerably higher in the Congo (several hundred thousand in Afghanistan and Iraq versus the 5.4 million deaths in the DRC). The Congo has just recently started to become the “issue of the moment” and is receiving slightly more press than normal, but still nowhere near the amount that stories about Iraq or Afghanistan receive in the mainstream media. Most of this press focuses on the victims, projects, aid or organizations working to make a difference, or the “tribal” or “ethnic” components fueling the crimes and not the resource extraction or international complicity in the crimes. During the chaotic month of August 2008, the DRC began descending into the highest level of violence it had seen in many years. Despite this fact, the Economist, the Globe and Mail and the National Post did not even mention the fighting in the Congo once during this period, except to mention mineral extraction projects and the profits they were earning (Globe and Mail, August 12, 2008).

              The media keeps highlighting the “successful elections” (Economist, October 18, 2008; 57), talking about the DRC with almost surprise that peace has not yet been found despite its new “democracy”. The journalists predict that things will soon get worse “fear(ing) that huge, frightening massacres could start again…”. This despite the fact that hundreds of people had been slaughtered, assaulted or dislocated in singular events during that same month, which many would consider to be massacres (HRW, November 6, 2008). The Economist reported that more than one hundred thousand people were forced to flee their homes since mid-August of 2008 because of escalating violence (Economist, October 18, 2008; 57), even though they themselves had not reported a single thing about this violence until October.

              Almost surprisingly, the Globe and Mail seems to portray rebel leader Nkunda as almost caring in contrast to incapable UN troops. Statements such as “(Nkunda) declared he was opening a humanitarian corridor to allow aid to get through and refugees to get home. To ease food shortages, rebels… allowed farmers to reach Goma in trucks packed with (food)” and “rebels seem to be holding a self-imposed ceasefire” (Faul, November 3, 2008) are found in the same article which criticizes the UN’s inability to secure food for refugees.  Nothing was mentioned of the UN member states’ lack of financial or troop support, the main reason for the food shortages among the refugees. Most of the Globe and Mail articles completely ignored the resource components to the war, or mentioned them only in passing, such as “(the peace process) threatened to cut off warlords and neighboring-country governments from their access to the illegal mineral trade” (Nolen, October 18, 2008). The majority of columns that did mention the resource component mentioned only the warlords or neighboring government’s role and not that of international companies or governments that are also guilty. One article was even titled “How Rebels Profit From Blood and Soil” (Nolen, October 29, 2008; emphasis added), entirely ignoring the international component. Often, the “festering hatreds left over from the 1994 Rwandan genocide” are cited as fueling the conflict (Faul, October 30, 2008), ignoring the intense structural or economic components that clearly play a role. Few editorials about the Congo have been written in the past year. For example, in the Toronto Star, only 2 op-eds that mention the Congo have been published in the past year; one in March, and one in November (Dallaire, 2008; Goar, 2008). Dallaire’s editorial mentioned the Congo only in passing, saying “We did not intervene to stop the slaughter in the Congo”, and even then only in the past tense, as if the fighting had already stopped.

Resistance

              Mfuni Kazadi, Secretary-General of the group the Coalition for the Cancellation of the Illegitimate Debts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, opposes the WB’s demand that the Congo pay debts accumulated by Mobutu. Kazadi has said,

“The Rwandans were used by the US as puppets to fight for American interests. When the war started, there were American ships that gathered all the communications for Rwanda’s and Uganda’s armies. US authorities said that the Congo is too big and must be divided into four countries. The resistance of the Congolese to this partition has led to the death of (more than) four million people.” (Ismi and Schwartz, 2007)     

The enduring resistance of the Congolese to the balkanization desired by the US is cited by Kazadi as the real reasons for the continued war (Ismi and Schwartz, 2007). Other local scholars, such as Felix Ulombe Kaputu who was wrongly jailed and tortured by the Congolese government, have also spoken out against the continuing violence (Anderson, 2007).  Local resistance seemed to be voiced only from afar, by refugees living in new countries and not by locals still enduring the conflict. Local resistance forces were incredibly difficult to locate, possibly because it is too dangerous for them to speak out in their current situation.

              Some international resistance has been incredibly vocal. Uhuru radio, an “online voice of international African revolution” has been one critic of the international role in the Congo’s conflict (Uhurunews.com, 2008). Many organizations exist with the intention of bringing awareness or support to the plight of the Congolese, most of them based in the “global North” (such as Friends of the Congo; Congo Global Action; Breaking the Silence; Congo Vision; Resistance Congo; Congo Church Association; Ambassador Girls Scholarship Program; among many others). It is in the “western” media, the Socialist Review, that the connection between the peace deals signed and rushed by international governments and the exploitation of resources from the Congo is mentioned. Third World Report reporter Leo Zeilig tells us that the peace deal “triggered two important processes (in the Congo). The first saw the return of some multinational companies…The second process… (saw) rebel commanders responsible for much of the killing and slaughter in the war were incorporated into the Congolese army” (Zeilig, 2006). Sixty-six international humanitarian agencies currently work in the Congo (Reuters, Who works where, 2008). These range from hunger programs to medical assistance, mostly based in the “global North”. The United Nations has sent in over 17,000 troops to help stop the violence (MONUC, 2008). They have also appointed a Special Rapporteur to do a report on the Situation of Human Rights in the DRC (APIC, 1999). Resistance is mostly informal, in the form of blogs, or “leftist” newspapers.

Conclusions

              One of the most frustrating parts of the whole situation in the Congo is separating out those who claim to be helping from those who are complicit in the crimes; often one and the same group or individual. The contradiction of the international community, which on the one hand, sends aid and support to the Congo, and, on the other, exploits its resources and ensures continuing conflict, is staggering. Congo is very much a modern-day colony of the “western” world, used and abused for what it can offer the “west”, and regarded as a backwards place beyond assistance. The “west” will keep “helping”, as long as it serves their interests; and the conflict in the Congo will keep being painted as an indigenous problem in the heart of Africa. This conflict is not an issue of ethnicities, militias or rebellions. It is a continuation of the colonial project that was started by invading Europeans so long ago. It is about extracting resources, gaining profit and power. This war continues because the truth remains shrouded in propaganda, and because the international community is ignoring the underlying causes of the conflict. This conflict must stop, and justice must begin to emerge in the DRC. Too long have these people lived in hell, and too long has the international community ignored our fellow humans’ cries for help.

             

 

 

Sources:

1)      Allen, Tim. 2006. Trial Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Lord’s Resistance Army. Zen Books. London and New York.

2)      Anderson, Stacy. September 23, 2007. Professor who survived persecution in Congo is teaching at Purchase. The Journal News. Scholars at Risk Network. http://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu/News/Article_Detail.php?art_id=582.

3)      Anvil Mining. 2008. Sustainability. The DRC: Working in an Emerging Democracy. http://sustainability.anvilmining.com/go/sustainability/the-drc-working-in-an-emerging-democracy.

4)      APIC. April 30, 1999. Oral Presentation of Report by the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Africa Action. http://www.africaaction.org/docs99/con9904.htm.

5)      Associated Press (AP). October 27, 2008. Protestors attack UN building in eastern Congo. Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081027.wcongo1027/BNStory/International/.

6)      Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). 2008. Democratic Republic of Congo. http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/democraticrepublicofcongo.

7)      Clark, Phil. Winter 2007. In the Shadow of the Volcano: Democracy and Justice in Congo. Dissent. Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas. P. 29-35.

      Clifford, Lisa. September 25, 2007. Plan to Flush LRA Out of DRC “Recipe for Impunity”/Military-Court Trials Worry Rights Activists. The Passion of the Present. http://platform.blogs.com/passionofthepresent/2007/09/plan-to-flush-l.html. (blog by reporter for The Hague).

9)      Cobalt Development Institute. 2008. Sources of Cobalt. http://www.thecdi.com/general.php?r=E6EM5BQBAL

10)  Cowan, Paul. 2005. The Peacekeepers. National Film Board of Canada, 13 Production, and ARTE France. (Film)

11)  Dallaire, Romeo. March 14, 2008. A Leading Middle Power Goes AWOL From Darfur. The Toronto Star. http://www.thestar.com/article/345880.

12)  Dizolele, Mvemba Phezo. August 8, 2007. In Search of Congo’s Coltan. Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting. http://www.pulitzercenter.org/openitem.cfm?id=529

13)  Encyclopedia of the Nations. 2008. Congo, DRC. Foreign Investment. http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Africa/Congo-Democratic-Republic-of-the-DROC-FOREIGN-INVESTMENT.html.

14)  Essick, Kristi; Boslet, Mark; and Grondahl, Boris. June 11, 2001. A Call to Arms- demand for Coltan causes problems in Congo- Industry Trend or Event. The Industry Standard.  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HWW/is_23_4/ai_75669917/pg_2

15)  Essick, Krisit. June 11, 2001. Guns, Money and Cell Phones. The Industry Standard. http://www.globalissues.org/article/442/guns-money-and-cell-phones.

16)  Faul, Michelle. October 30, 2008. Congolese Soldiers Retreat from Rebels. The Globe and Mail. A18.

17)  Faul, Michelle. November 3, 2008. Hungry Congo refugees get soap but no food. The Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v5/content/subscribe?user_URL=http://www.theglobeandmail.com%2Fservlet%2Fstory%2FRTGAM.20081103.wcongo1103%2FBNStory%2Fenergy%2F&ord=2735740&brand=theglobeandmail&force_login=true.

18)  Faul, Michelle. November 8, 2008. Angolans join Congolese soldiers to battle rebels. The Globe and Mail. A20.

19)  Goar, Carol. November 10, 2008. Familiar horror engulfs Congo. The Toronto Star. http://www.thestar.com/article/533207.

20)  Global Policy Forum. 2008. UN Finance. http://www.globalpolicy.org/finance/index.htm.

21)  The Globe and Mail. August 12, 2008. First Quantum Profit Jumps. Report on Business.

22)  Human Rights Watch (HRW). August 22, 2008. Submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child for Period Review of the DRC. Human Rights News. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/08/22/congo19671.htm.

23)  Human Rights Watch (HRW). November 7, 2008. DR Congo: Civilians Under Attack Need Urgent Protection. Human Rigths News. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/11/07/congo20158.htm.

24)  Human Rights Watch (HRW). November 6, 2008. DR Congo: New Attacks on Civilians. Human Rights News. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/11/06/congo20150.htm.

25)  Human Rights Watch (HRW). October 30, 2008. DR Congo: International Leaders Should Act Now to Protect Civilians. Human Rights News. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/10/30/congo20107.htm.

26)  Human Rights Watch (HRW). September 25, 2008. DR Congo: Humanitarian Crisis Deepens as Peace Process Falters. Human Rights News. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/09/24/congo19881.htm.

27)  IANS. October 30, 2008. Army concerned at attacks on Indian peacekeepers in Congo. Thaindian News. http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/army-concerned-at-attacks-on-indian-peacekeepers-in-congo_100113201.html.

28)  International Criminal Court (ICC). January 2004. Situation in Democratic Republic of the Congo. http://www.icc-cpi.int/cases/RDC.html.

29)  International Rescue Committee (IRC). December 9, 2004. IRC Study Reveals 31,000 Die Monthly in Congo Conflict and 3.8 Million Died in Past Six Years. When Will the World Pay Attention? http://www.theirc.org/news/irc_study_reveals_31000_die_monthly_in_congo_conflict_and_38_million_died_in_past_six_years_when_will_the_world_pay_attention.html.

30)  Ismi, Asad and Schwartz, Kristin. April 2007. The World Social Forum in Nairobi: African Activists Lead Resistance to Western Plundering and Imperialism. CCPA Monitor. www.policyalternatives.ca.

31)  Kimberly Process. 2008. What is the Kimberly Process? http://www.kimberleyprocess.com/.

32)  MONUC. 2008. Democratic Republic of the Congo- MONUC-Facts and Figures. UN DPKO. http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/monuc/facts.html.

33)  Natural Resources Canada (NRC). 2008. Mining-Specific Tax Provisions. http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/miningtax/d_inv_2d2_taxcredit2000.htm.

34)  Nolen, Stephanie. October 18, 2008. Rape again rampant in Congo. The Globe and Mail. A22.

35)  Nolen, Stephanie. October 29, 2008. How rebels profit from blood and soil. The Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081024.wcongo1025/BNStory/International/

36)  Reuters. 2008. Who works where. Thomson Reuters Foundation. Alert Net. http://www.alertnet.org/thepeople/whowhatwhere.htm?fb_emergencycodes=ZR_CON&fb_membnetcombocodes=all&fb_countrycodes=214383&x=37&y=11.

37)  Reuters. June 11, 2008. Congo (DR) Conflict. Thomson Reuters Foundation. AlertNet. http://www.alertnet.org/db/crisisprofiles/ZR_CON.htm.

38)  Snow, Keith Harmon and Barouski, David. March 1, 2006. Behind the Numbers: Untold Suffering in the Congo. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Africa/Congo_BehindNumbers.html.

39)  Staples, Steven. October 2006. Marching Orders: How Canada abandoned peacekeeping- and why the UN needs us now more than ever. The Council of Canadians. http://www.canadians.org/peace/issues/Marching_Orders/index.html.

40)  Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center (TIC). “Coltan”, 2007, found at: http://www.tanb.org/tantalum1.html.

41)  Transparency International. 2008. Corruption Perceptions Index. http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/2008/cpi2008/cpi_2008_table.

42)  UhuruRadio.com. November 1, 2008. African Students Demand an End to Imperialst-Driven War in the Congo. Indymedia. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/11/01/18547873.php.

43)  Uhurunews.com. 2008. Online Voice of the International African Revolution. Burning Spear Publications. http://uhurunews.com/.

44)  UN. December 10, 1948. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. General Assembly resolution 217 A (III). http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html.

45)  UNHCR- Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. November 20, 1989 .Convention on the Rights of the Child. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm.

46)  United Nations Security Council. 2002. Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other Forms of Wealth in the Congo. http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/DRC%20S%202002%201146.pdf.

47)  United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. 2006. FDI Indices. http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Page.asp?intItemID=2468&lang=1.

48)  Ware, Natalie D. December, 2001. Congo War and the Role of Coltan. Inventory of Conflict and Environment (ICE) Case Studies. http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/congo-coltan.htm.

49)  World Bank (WB). March 9, 2006. Republic of Congo Reaches Decision Point Under the Enhanced HIPC Debt Relief Initiative. Press Release Number 2006/301/AFR. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTDEBTDEPT/0,,contentMDK:20847652~menuPK:64166657~pagePK:64166689~piPK:64166646~theSitePK:469043,00.html.

50)  World Bank (WB). April 2008. The Republic of Congo: Trade Brief. World Trade Indicators 2008. http://info.worldbank.org/etools/wti2008/docs/brief45.pdf.

51)  Winter, Mark. 2008. Uses of Cobalt. WebElements. http://www.webelements.com/cobalt/uses.html.

[1] I use this term lightly, since I believe Joseph Kabila was only trying to secure more voters and power for himself and not actually interested in peace. This is the term Reuters used to describe the events.

[2] For example there are less than 500 km of paved roads in the DRC (Clark, 2007; 32). The DRC is also home to an incredibly corrupt government and civil service, with a corruption perceptions index ranking of 171^st out of 180 countries in the world (Transparency International, 2008).

[3] This includes laptop computers, cellular phones, jet engines, rockets, cutting tools, camera lenses, X-ray film, ink jet printers, hearing aids, pacemakers, airbag protection systems, ignition and motor control modules, GPS, ABS systems in automobiles, game consoles such as Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo, video cameras, digital still cameras, sputtering targets, chemical process equipment, cathodic protection systems for steel structures such as bridges, water tanks, prosthetic devices for humans – hips, plates in the skull, also mesh to repair bone removed after damage by cancer, suture clips, corrosion resistant fasteners, screws, nuts, bolts, high temperature furnace parts, high temperature alloys for air and land based turbines, gas turbine parts, and strong permanent magnets. It is also used as a pigment in pottery, glass enamels and paints, varnishes and printing inks, among other things. It also includes anything with the alloy alnico, or Cobalt 60, which is a commercial source of high energy radiation used to destroy cancerous tissue or detect flaws in metal parts (TIC, 2007; Winter, 2008).

 

[4] Over a 90 day period, there were 118 stories about the Congo and more than 200 stories each about Iraq and Afghanistan in the Globe and Mail. There were 87 stories about the Congo while there were more than 500 each for Iraq and Afghanistan in the National Post. There were 37 stories about the Congo, 141 stories about Afghanistan, and 88 stories about Iraq in The Toronto Star. This was replicated in major international publications such as the Economist, which had only 28 stories about the Congo, 144 stories about Iraq, and 91 stories about Afghanistan for the same period (The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Star, The Economist, August- November 2008).

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Update on the conflict free-laptop search

So I’m incredibly frustrated.

I have received emails back. After several hours on the phone, getting hung up on and redirected, I am sent some information by email. I have talked to the people whose job it is to secure ethical purchasing (or at least market it) and they are the ones sending the information; so I am hopeful that I will receive answers. I am at this point with several companies.

What they send however, is the same old stock line. I already had most of this information (if not all of it). It is available publicly on their websites, and was already thoroughly researched and looked into– but didn’t answer my questions. In fact, most of my time in this struggle has been spent reading through websites, news, etc. trying to find out the details before I bother calling so that I can ask specific questions once I find who I need to talk to. Digging into sourcing is difficult!

The same stock lines. They don’t seem really willing to give out any more information. I’m sure it must have to clear some board room or get approval first.  Heaven forbid they just tell me the truth (though more than likely, they probably have NO idea what this is themselves). I cannot, in good faith, purchase any of these products at this point. Their claims to me are not enough. Their promise of change in the future is not enough. They might still support human rights abuse. They might still support war. It’s hard to tell the truth.

I’m glad that many advertise themselves as ethical and feel like they are making a real effort to change. Some perhaps are. But most I would suspect, are not. They spew out these fancy claims of responsibility and have NO idea what’s really going on in their own product line. They are taking miniscule steps, and sometimes not even that.

This mess of being disconnected happened over time.  It will take time to fix it, it just won’t happen overnight. I realise this. But with no real regulations in place yet to enforce the “rules” against human rights abuses- don’t expect much to really happen. Some companies may really strive to make change, but many others will do the bare minimum to make themselves more marketable and continue to abuse because it is easier to just do nothing. Where does the abuse stop?

I don’t think there is anyone out there (aside from maybe a few people with some severe mental issues) who would willingly want to commit these abuses with their purchases. But we are often left with little choice, or are led to believe marketing propaganda or ethical claims. So why does this continue to happen?

Admitting you are part of the evil is the first step. This does take courage.  Auditing your suppliers is the next. Taking action to stop the abuses and use non-abusing suppliers is the next step. Incorporating a strategic business policy that will prevent human rights abuses as much as humanly possible– this should be legislated.

I am in the process of making up more detailed questions to send back to the companies, about their continuing abuses and how they are planning to stop it in the future. Hopefully I will get more than the same old stock line this time. Hopefully I will get one step closer to the truth.

Popularization of issues

We are bombarded with images, stories, news, and new information at an alarming rate. How do we handle this information? How can we possibly comprehend the full magnitude of everything we are learning?

We take what we know, and react to it based on our previous experiences and education. We try to address the problem in the only way we know how. Some people try to tackle the whole thing, some try small pieces, some give up and ignore the problem, and some don’t see a problem to start with.

Sometimes we focus in on just one issue at the expense of others. We attach ourselves to some cause, or one issue and think that by this one action we can try and make a difference. It is too hard to comprehend the whole issue. Besides, it is next to impossible to know all the factors; all we can do is make educated decisions based on our personal knowledge. It is so hard to know what to really do in a situation. Who to trust. What’s the “right” thing to do? There are only so many hours in the day. There is only so much that is really humanly possible.

We often don’t take into account the cultural realities or other factors that might be important in our actions. We hear, for example, we should go “green” to be environmentally friendly. So we buy “green” products only to find out they are not that “green” after all and may be quite damaging to the environment. Or that we are a hypocrite in some other way. You can’t win, eventually everyone’s a hypocrite on some level.

Or we give to a charity and find out that over half our donation went to things we may not agree with. Where are the regulations? Who’s tracking which companies and nonprofit organizations are really doing what they say they’re doing? Are there even laws in place to regulate to stop human rights abuses in a product line or service if they are happening half way around the world? How are these laws enforced and what are the punishments?

Abuse= heavy sentence. Murder= heavy sentence. Pre-meditated murder= very heavy sentence. Pre-meditated mass murder/abuse for profit= no sentence or white collar sentence? No law/regulation even to charge them on?  Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

We need to get to the root of the problems, and find out what motivates the main players in a conflict to be violent or abusing. Is it money? Is this money coming from mines or other resources? Then we need to stop buying these resources. Cut off the money, the power, and the prestige, and you cut off most of the motivation.

It is great to make regulations, rules and organizations, but if there is little search into the root of the actual problems and whether the “solution” is actually working over time, nothing will really change. In fact, it will probably only spur more anger and frustration at the injustice that might still be remaining. This becomes another motivation to violent conflict.

Many human rights abuses are for the most part also considered as crimes in the much of the international and national legal systems. Yet much of what we use and consume may in fact be human rights abusing of the highest degree. What we use may be causing murder and war in other places. The companies and governments are telling us that they are ethical and looking out for our best interest, but are they really? Why is this allowed to go on?

If a system allows companies to be so disconnected from their product line that plunder, human rights abuses and destruction are allowed to occur so frequently, there is little social trust. There is little connection to anything. How can a company not know what goes into its products? If they don’t know– who does? Why is the onus to find out on the consumer? We are not even entitled to know about the details of the product line or service for competition reasons. Shouldn’t we be able to trust their claims?

Social trust is important for a thriving civil society, or so the experts say. And so often we focus on the group building and the identity construction and the non-profit organizations that address the manifestations of inequity.  We create associations, unions and other groups to help bridge the gap and build trust among society. But we need more. We need to know that we can trust our systems. That they are not failing us and that there are not unjust structures posing under a humanitarian veneer.

If our systems are breaking this trust because they are inequitable or unfair, grouping and focusing on only one issue or cause will only separate us further. There is still a need for grouping, but it is time to also come together. It is time to stand up against all injustices; to not allow ourselves to be human rights abusers through our purchases and through our everyday practices. Is it hard? It most definitely is. Do you have to change your entire life today? Absolutely not.

Keep using the products you are using until they are finished; if you throw them out now– it is only going in the garbage anyway. It may as well be used. But become aware and ask the corporations and services you use whether they support human rights abuses or not. If they don’t know, send one email (or one a day, or week, or month) until they get the picture. Consider switching brands and switch to more conscious brands or don’t use brands at all.

Send an email or letter or phonecall to your government asking for more stringent regulations on human rights abusing product lines and services.

Take a little more effort when you buy a product to find out whether they can ensure they are not supporting human rights abuses and what they are doing to maintain that.

Use less. Ask yourself do you really need to buy that before you purchase something? If it’s absolutely yes, than buy it. But if it’s maybe or no, hold off. If possible cut down each time you use the product. Do what feels right to you.

But definitely, and above all else, educate yourself and be conscious of what you are using. It took a lot to get here.

Human sacrifice and its connection to democracy

Child abduction in west Africa is a huge problem. Elections processes here can actually increase this problem. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? What does one have to do with the other?

Human sacrifice is still practiced in several parts of the world. Political hopefuls often use traditional myths of human sacrifice to improve their electoral chances. Organs of children are particularly in demand at this time, as children are sliced open for their hearts, kidneys, lungs, genitals and other body parts. Police in Cote D’Ivoire say that child sacrifice always steadily increases around elections, as political hopeful’s demand for body parts and potions increases.

In Cote D’Ivoire (commonly known here as the Ivory Coast), as many as 90 cases of child abduction are reported per month. Most are never found again. The government does very little to stop this problem, as they themselves are often part of the problem.

Human sacrifice is not unique to west Africa. In eastern parts of Africa, humans with albinism (a rare disorder that affects pigmentation) are hunted down to be sacrificed for magic and potions used by shamans or “witch doctors”. Their body parts are sold and fetch a hefty price in certain markets. Investigators say body parts from a single murdered albino can sell for well over $1,000. The skin and flesh are dried out and set into amulets and the bones are ground into powders. Miners in the gold and diamond fields often use these powders to help ensure riches as it is supposed to have wealth-giving properties.

This problem has become so severe as of late, that officials have given hundreds of albinos free cellphones and a number to call if they feel they are being hunted. It hasn’t stopped or significantly slowed the practice.

This practice has existed and continues to exist to this day in many other parts of the world, with cases of human sacrifice in the UK and other parts of Europe. It is also happening in parts of the Middle East, Asia, South America and even in North America.

While shamans or “witch doctors” often use herbal remedies and hands on treatments that are tried and tested for generations, the practice of human sacrifice is one that must change. Not all shamans use these practices, but some do.

Shamanism is an incredibly important practice that should be studied for its medicinal and social contributions and should absolutely continue. It can often have profound effects on patients because it uses techniques that address pychological issues as well as herbal medicines that are often quite effective and not heavily processed or laden with toxic chemicals.

Often those shamans accused of murder for human sacrifice use their magic and mystique to avoid persecution. This must change.

Those intent on rushing democracy into certain areas of the world should be aware of what effect this might have on the population. This should especially be considered when the election process called is neither fair or free to begin with. In this case,  democracy only brings suffering.

some sort of response– finally. HP

So finally… well after this project was started– I get some sort of real response. Finally my inquiry was directed to possibly the “right” person.  After soo many dead ends, redirections and frustrations– I think I finally talking to who I need to be talking to.

I just got a call back from someone at HP who told me she would send me fuller details on their product line and the steps they are taking and was able to talk to me about their supply line in some detail.

After admitting they aren’t perfect, she explained to me the steps they are taking to ensure conflict free sourcing. Compared to the other companies I have spoken to, these measures are far and above… however, they are not totally ensuring that no conflict resources are in the product line. They are working towards this– but they are still a ways off.

This frustrates me because they have been taking steps towards this direction for some time– voluntarily (because nobody is yet to enforce it)– and are still at the point where they are not in full control or knowledge of their product line. This means to me that the others who haven’t started or are just beginning are WAY WAY off. oh dear.

Thank you HP for finally getting back to me with some kind of answer. I am looking forward to going through the materials once they reach my inbox in my email. I also appreciate that you tell you me you are willing to work with me and your apology for my struggle so far to just get a straight answer from your company. I hope you will take further steps and that you can be a company I can feel confident about in the future.

Please, continue. It is not yet enough– but I am happy to see progress.

I will look over the materials, scruitinize and write further at that point.

I’m glad you finally got back to me HP, but I cannot in good faith buy your product just yet or label it conflict-free.

My thorough disgust with Acer corporation

I am so incredibly fed up with Acer. They were my first call. They were my first inquiry more than six months ago and after all this time I am still at the point of talking to customer service at the base level because I cannot get beyond it.

I’ve sent SEVERAL emails to Acer corporation over the past 6 months. Some asked about whether or not they had an ethical purchasing policy and what this entails if they do. Some expressed my frustration at the hassle I have faced with their corporation. Assuming I am a potentially buying customer, you think I would be treated with some sort of respect. This has not been my experience.

I first called their phone number as advertised on their website, only to reach an automated message that only offered limited options that did not cover what I was calling for. I pressed “0″ to try and speak with an operator– and instead I reached an answering machine. I left a message, several days in a row with my name and phone number asking for a call back. No response. No acknowledgement. Nothing.

I called their sales line because I figured I have a question that relates to me purchasing a product (hopefully in the future), so this is slightly sales related. No luck. It was again an automated service and none of the options applied to me. The best option they listed seemed to be sales, so that’s where I went. After being on the phone, put on hold, transferred several times, I finally reached someone. At this point I was redirected to see their website. I said “I have already seen your website. I have read it thoroughly. I did not get my answers here.” and was then hung up on. How rude.

So I called back and tried the option for customer service instead of sales. I was directed to another department, went on hold for about 10 minutes. Then I was asked for a pin number on an automated service. It told me it couldn’t understand my choice, and so I was redirected to a sales representative. I went on hold again for another 10 minutes.

I tried to talk to someone here about the questions I had and expressed my frustration at not being able to reach someone yet after so many calls and emails. I am told to hang up and try yet again another number. I do and I reach another automated service. I am asked for the serial number from my product. Don’t have one. So what do I do? I just say things hoping I will be able to reach an operator or someone live instead of a machine.

Spend the next 10 minutes on hold again. I am then told I will be transferred to “level 2″ whatever that means. I get put on hold for another 10 minutes. It starts ringing, and then the automated message says to me ”your call cannot be completed at this time” and I am hung up on; AGAIN.

So I call back to the last place I was able to speak with a person and started getting really frustrated. It was the same person I had spoken to previously. I asked if I could please speak to a supervisor or manager or some sort of person who can direct me to where I need to be. I am told that there are no supervisors in this department (really– so who’s your boss??) and that I should just check the website. The representative gets really snarky with me, as I again express my frustration at not getting the help I desire.

After about 5 minutes of frustrating conversation with this person, I ask again to speak to a supervisor or manager. Now I am told they are in a meeting and that I should call back later. I ask how long the meetings usually last. He doesn’t know. What time will they be on shift until? He doesn’t know. When is the best time to usually call to speak to them? He doesn’t know.

So I call back again later. And I am again transferred around to several different locations. I am told again that I need to speak to level 2. Again, on the transfer here, I am hung up on. This has only been repeated over and over again, always with the same result.

What the hell Acer? Do you not value your customers? Clearly, you do not. Not only can I NOT get a straight answer– I can’t get ANY answer or even direction beyond what I assume is “level 1″.

I am forwarding my transcribed notes to your listed email AGAIN hoping that this expression of my frustration will get someone to at least call me back.

Acer– I am disgusted. Not only am I disgusted with your clear lack of an ethical purchasing policy, but I am disgusted with your supposed customer service. As far as I can tell– there is NO customer service at your company. Not only have they hung up on me, repeatedly. They have lied to me, spoken rudely to me… and been just downright disrespectful. This is unacceptable business practice and I am ashamed that I ever purchased an Acer computer.

So I have given up all hope on Acer. I will not call them again unless I receive some sort of response from them (which at this point, I highly doubt). I will continue however to express my thoughts about Acer and detail further my notes, as well as contact media representatives and any that will listen on the subject. As far as I can tell, not only does Acer not have an ethical business policy, it does not have any sort of business policy or customer service that I can ascertain.

My struggle with one computer company (but it could be any)

So you can experience some of the process– here are some snipets of my journal to give you an idea of the frustrating process trying to get a straight answer from a company about something that they clearly advertise on their website (corporate social responsibility or ethical purchasing). I have edited out names and numbers, because I don’t think this is necessarily the fault of any of the employees (and do not want them to be punished), but rather a systematic failure on the part of the company and the industry as a whole (and others!). This company and industry are not alone on this— keep reading on for more updates. If you’d like more details or specifics– please feel free to contact me at apeaceofconflict@gmail.com.

 

Day 1

 Called 1-(800)-XXX-XXXX, redirected three times to 3 different locations. Frustrated that in the end I was finally sent to an HR hiring office instead of where I wanted to be, I hung up and called again.

This time was redirected to 1-800-XXX-XXXL. Let’s try here. No answer. Dead line.

Tried the 800-XXX-XXX again- hung up on twice in transferring after being redirected many times

Tried again- spoke to J—told to call corporate affairs 281-XXX-XXXX

 

410pm

First call to corporate office

20 minutes on hold

 

 430pm

Spoke to B, told to call 1-888-XXX-XXXX for info on ethical purchasing policy

Called- spoke to S—“no idea who you would speak to”, being put through to senior case manager who could help me better.

Senior case manager- L directed me to email corporate office- told her I had already emailed corporate and received no response—would like to speak to someone directly if at all possible. Expressed my frustrations that no one can tell me about their corporate social responsibility policy and what this means. Was told she would try to find out and get back to me by phone.

 

445pm

Phoned back to me—asked to give my information to contact back in email. Told they will get back to me with fuller details.

 

Day 3

No word back yet.

Called back and left message with P at last contact point.

 

455pm

Message received from C at the request of someone from corporate.

Told there is no direct extension to reach him at, but try calling 888-XXX-XXXP.

Called and was told it is “not available in my calling area” by an automated service machine message and followed the message to try calling 877-XXX-XXXQ.

Called and reached an automated service:

ONLY menu options- mail in rebates, to order or order status, tech support, shop and purchase new product, shopping, status update, that’s it! Tried to get through to an operator, cannot.

 

Picked shop and purchase new product (what choice is there)—here’s what I get:

J assures me the company uses ethical products, urges me to call 905-XXX-XXXX. It is now past 5pm, and the office is closed. I will call tomorrow.

Also said I could speak to his manger J. He forwarded me to his manager’s

mailbox. Left message. Don’t ever get a reply.

 

 

 

Repeat this process almost daily for six months at 10 different computer companies. No wonder people don’t bother! I should have at least one straight answer by now.

 

 

I feel like saying: How many people (and machines!) do I have to talk to just to get some more information about your products? I keep getting the exact same responses. I have read your websites. I have read your corporate social responsibility or ethics blurb quite thoroughly. It did not answer my questions. It did not tell me I can feel safe about your product. You need to know what happens in every aspect of your product line, not just the certain manufacturing or sales processes that you are a part of. You may not be able to control every aspect– but you can at the very least investigate or request them to change or change to another supplier who meets your standards. I am concerned with more than just whether you use sweatshops in your manufacturing. I want more answers about your product line. You create this product. You control this product. I don’t. You also advertise corporate social responsibility and ethical purchasing. If I can’t go to you for answers about your product line– who should I speak to? Where do I get these details– or is it all just for show? An image to project to make more money? If I do not start getting answers soon, I will take my complaints to the Competition Act, because all I see at this point is misleading advertising.

 

Our systems are failing us. We are forced to put our trust in others to some degree to live a socially inclusive lifestyle. Our systems complicate this trust because we are so disconnected from the world that even the companies that make our products don’t know where the products actually come from and how they were made. Why can’t they tell me more details? I understand the concept of competition, but I also understand the concept of ethics. It is unethical to me to claim corporate social responsibility or ethical purchasing policies and not even know for certain this is true. I feel like they don’t even see the issue exists, and so therefore may be participating in it without even knowing. This is not corporate responsibility.  

 

I want this to stop.

A bit of shining light.

So after 3 hours on the phone today talking to several different computer companies, I had a breath of shining light.  A glimmer of hope that someone on the other end understood what I was saying and was actually concerned about it enough to strike a dialogue with me.

This is rare. The most frustrating part of this whole struggle is that the most common response to my inquiry line is “I’ve never been asked this before”. To me, this means either that consumers don’t care enough to ask about the product line, or they don’t know that this is happening to even ask, or the people at the company are lying to me trying to avoid the question. I’m hoping for the second option. At least this I can try to do something about.

Today, on my 6th set of calls to Dell Computers in the past 6 months (that’s really gotten me nowhere so far) I finally spoke to someone who seemed like they would try and find an answer (or some sort of solution) for me. After 10 minutes of an automated service, being switched to 3 different departments and having to decide which product I wanted information on exactly, and whether it was for home or business use (in fact, it would be for both, so I had to choose); I was redirected to someone who seemed to actually be interested in what I was trying to do.

I was put on hold while he searched for my answers about their product line. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find the specifics for me in the short period on the phone, but assured me he would find some more useful details on the product line and forward them to my email address. He also asked if he could have more information on the issue so that he could research it on his time off because he was interested. Definitely! R, I hope you are reading this now!

Maybe these companies haven’t heard or been asked these questions– but they should be. Phone the company and inquire about their product line. Ask about their ethical purchasing policies. Ask where they source their raw materials. Ask about whether they support any human rights violations to make their product. The more inquiries they get– the more likely they will be to find a real answer to them.

It takes people caring enough about the issues to say- “I will not support this!”. It takes people looking deeper into each step of a product line. It takes a lot of work, most certainly, but it is worth it if we can stop human rights violations.

If you are a company, you should know what steps have gone into making your product. You should know whether your product has supported human rights violations along the way and you should care enough to say stop if they are! We are soo disconnected from everything we use, we are not even aware of the damage it may cause. This is not right. Many companies are making profits, making HUGE profits. It is time they took these profits and made a real change in their own structures to prevent human rights abuses.

It is not enough for them to give to charity. Especially, if they are the ones who are helping to fuel the atrocities in the first place. If this is the case, charity only equates to guilt money.

So I’m nowhere close to finding the answers I desire– but I am hopeful that I have at least reached one person…. and that’s a start.

My quest for a conflict free laptop: Apple

So one would think Apple  would have an ethical purchasing policy that doesn’t contribute to war, death and destruction, right? I certainly thought so. Especially since I read about the Apple Supplier Code of Conduct and their talk of corporate social responsibility on their website.  To on the one hand cause or contribute to war or human rights abuses, and on the other project an image of humanitarianism and social responsibility would seem quite contradictory, wouldn’t it?

Reading further into their actual code– it states that its purpose is to ensure that working conditions are safe whereever Apple products are made. It doesn’t mention anything about where their raw materials are purchased, and what they support.  It says that they expanded their compliance program to the “next layer” by auditing 34 companies that provide components for them. Again, only addressing some of the plants where components are manufactured and not the places supplying the components with raw materials. Also, what about their supplier’s supplier? Besides which, 34 is only a small portion of the supply companies involved in the process. It’s a start, but clearly not enough to give me peace about their products.

My first contact with Apple was incredibly frustrating. When I asked about whether they had an ethical purchasing or supply policy (even though it IS clearly on their website), I was met with, “what do you mean?” by their sales representatives.  The first sales lady went on to tell me that they build their own keyboards and other products and she doesn’t THINK they use slave labour. After explaining to her what I meant, and why I was actually calling, and telling her about how some of the raw materials support major human rights abuses,  I asked if I could be referred to someone who KNOWS whether this is happening or not for sure, and could explain to me the process they take to ensure it doesn’t there at Apple.

She was horrified and told me how terrible that it was that some products contribute to war and people don’t know. I definitely agreed.

So I was referred to their corporate location. After talking to three different people at this location on the phone, I had gotten no further. No one knew who exactly I should speak to about this, or what I was even really talking about. I was told to send a letter to corporate headquarters, which I then promptly did.

I also sent several emails and suggestions using their website’s feedback mechanism. I sent soo many because it has soo many different sections, and I didn’t know where my question fit in their contact structure.  No definitive word yet on whether Apple is among the guilty or not.

How is the question “does your company have an ethical purchasing policy”  soo difficult to answer? Either the company does, or does not have an ethical purchasing policy. If it does, “what does this ethical policy entail?” should not be that difficult a question to answer– you should be able to explain the steps you take to ensure ethical purchasing without too much difficulty. Come on corporations-get a clue!

How hard is it to get a straight answer?

Do any of your products use raw materials from a war zone? Do they contribute to human rights abuses? Do you use slave labour, child labour, or have unfair working conditions? These are yes or no questions that should be answered.  If no, I will make my purchasing accordingly. Why is it all these companies seem like they have never been asked this before? Why do they not seem to really care? Profits are clearly more important than people, otherwise they would take steps to ensure that they weren’t contributing to this chaos. They would be proud to report the full details that they are not contributing to war, human rights abuses and destruction. They could advertise true coporate social responsibility.

Personally, I no longer believe the claims of corporate responsibility and I don’t know how the companies could ever regain my trust except through thorough structures to stop the atrocities, and full transparency to prove they have actually stopped.

My quest for a conflict-free laptop: Hewlett-Packard and Acer

Many of the resources in our everyday gadgets are mined in conflict zones, by war profiteers. Cobalt, coltan, tantalite, copper, tin, aluminum, diamonds, …. these metals and minerals that are in our cellphones, our computers, our blackberries, our i-pods, our devices, all our everyday gadgets and luxuries could have helped to ensure a civil war continued. They could have helped to ensure destruction, chaos and death continued. For example, the resource extraction of raw materials in the DR Congo which is used in many products is helping to kill as many as 45,000 people a month. It is also happening in many other parts of world, and we are supporting it by our purchases, unaware.

This angered me beyond belief to think I would be contributing to this. So I decided to find just one electronic device that has proven it is not using conflict resources. I started with a laptop computer.

my first email went to Acer, since this is the brand I currently own. This brand was chosen at the time because it was very cheap (like $500). It broke down slighty over a year after purchase (and just after the warranty had expired), and I was told that it would be cheaper to get a new one rather than to fix it. What happened to quality products that last a lifetime? Repair shops are barely used anymore– it is cheaper to just get new gadgets because technology is soo rapidly changing and so our old gadgets wind up in landfills. Some technology is recycled, but not much.

People could have been enslaved at gunpoint to mine the metals used to make this product. People could have died, been slaughtered, attacked and brutalized to make this product.  People could have been thrown off their ancestral land to make this product. It was no doubt an incredibly energy-intensive and waste producing process. It flew around the world, stopping at probably at least 10 sites to get manufactured, creating pollution along the way. It might have supported war, warlords or buying weapons. It might have ensured a dictator stayed in power that much longer. All so I can have the convenience of a laptop computer. How exciting!

I am contributing to war, destruction and environmental degradation by my purchase and I didn’t know it when I made the purchase. And we cast all our gadgets aside thoughtlessly because we want only the latest, unaware the damage we may be causing elsewhere. Why do we do nothing? The structures in place make it very hard to know the truth. I would take having an “ethical business policy” to mean they don’t support these kinds of atrocities. Shouldn’t it mean this?

The trouble is we seem to have little choice. How many brands are entirely conflict free? How do we even know? What body is in place to even check? Should we just trust the claim of  “ethical purchasing policies”?

I emailed Acer a couple of months ago to ask them if they had an ethical purchasing policy at their company, and what this meant in any great detail. I have yet to receive a response. I have just emailed them for a second time, — and am still waiting on a response. They have no mention on their website about an ethical purchasing policy (where some of the others do), so I’m really not expecting much at this point from them.

Hewlett-Packard suprised me. Its website goes into great detail to explain how they express “global citizenship” and environmental concerns. They were also the first company I came across that did have a list of suppliers available for scruitiny– offering some kind of transparency and responsibility. Sadly, there were some of its suppliers who have admitted to using conflict resources (or not knowing where their resources came from) in public media– and only 95% of the suppliers are listed. This leaves 5% unaccounted for. Contacting every supplier on the list, only led to a longer list of their suppliers and more companies to check and inquire. With the possibility of some conflict resources in my computer– my search must go on. I have called HP to ask about what their “corporate social responsibility”, as advertised on their website, really meant. I am waiting on a phone call back, after being redirected several times to different departments, getting hung up on, having to make 4 different phone calls to different offices and waiting on hold for half an hour on each different call.

No wonder people don’t bother to check.

Perhaps this is one company that can be convinced to change– so I will send emails, and hope for the best. Can we convince them that they need to be more responsible– I sure hope so. These companies are all making profits. Can they not use these profits to create structures that prevent conflict resources from getting into the product supply?  Can they not have an ethical purchasing policy that actually means something? Can they not take steps to be more sustainable? It would be in their interest to be more energy efficient– they could save money. It would be in all our interest for them to have an ethical business practice that actually meant something.

Can our governments not tax these companies to ensure they are respecting international human rights conventions instead of giving them great tax breaks?

The most frustrating part of this whole struggle is the never-ending chase that it seems to create. One inquiry leads to 50 inquiries, which leads to 100 more… how many hands does each product pass through before it gets to us, and what happens at each stage?

I’m not sure I’ll ever get to the truth.

The failings of democracy.

Democracy is an interesting concept. To a lot of the world, it is the “best” system we have, the end all and be all; their pride and joy. Almost the “civilizing” factor of the world, making a difference between “advanced” and “backwards”. It gives us all a voice and makes certain that our country is running the way WE want it to. But what is democracy really? Is the Canadian system even really a democracy– the voice of the people? Or is it more of an oligarchy– the voice of only some? Are our voices really heard, and is the current system fair and free?

Democracy has been and continues to be promoted and propagandized, and delivered on the edge of a gun in many places as the ONLY way to “freedom”.  Elections processes are seen as the proof that a country has really arrived on the international stage and become somehow more mature or ready for development, ready for capitalism… ready to be sold material goods. We strive to bring democracy to every corner of the earth– and spend incredible amounts of money to do so.

In some corners of the world, democracy is marketed at all costs. Multi-millions of dollars are funneled through humanitarian channels to ensure the image that the people have a voice. In some countries elections processes are held while violent civil conflict or war rages on in the background. Threatening intimidation pressures the population to vote for an authoritarian ruler, while any opposition is locked up, threatened, assaulted or killed. Demonstrations are forbidden. Corruption runs rampant. The army is in charge. The police may not help you. In some places police officers (along with other civil employees) do not receive a paycheck and so must take bribes to be able to feed their families. Effective courts do not run. So civil law ceases to exist. In certain parts of the world the face of democracy is tarnished with the propaganda and silence over issues of dissent. In certain places, the arrival of democracy has actually brought more oppression and inequity.

In Canada and the United States, we tell ourselves the voice of the people is the way of the land. But is it really? How much money does a political campaign take? How many lies are told, how much propaganda is smeared, how much do they spend to placate the population? It is not about who is best to run the country, it is about who has the best image to project. About who’s team did the best marketing job. It has very little to do with the constituents that voted for them, and even less to do about the voter’s needs or wants. It is about placation. Giving just enough to stay in power, and spending the majority of the concentration worrying about opinion polls and upcoming elections.  

Only about three-quarters of the voting population historically expresses their vote in Canada. The numbers have been low in the past several years. Many of these voters have no idea what they are really voting for, don’t really know anything about the candidates or the issues at all. They vote the way they do because that’s the way they have always voted, or that’s the way their parents voted.

There are many kinds of democracy. Some call for majority win. In some elections the voters must choose only one representative for each category. In other elections, they get to choose their first, second and third choice of representation. Ours is not the only democracy. And some of these systems seem to be more fair than others. The current Canadian system has been called unfair, so much so that many have called for change in the past elections.

Once the representatives get into office, how much do they really follow through with their campaign promises? Do they still listen to the people, or do they make their own choices? What is their prime motivation?

How often do we remove someone from office for not following through on campaign promises? How often do we remove someone for not listening to their constituents? How thoroughly do we even track these things?

How much of the population actually communicates with their government and tells them what they want? What happens to our letters and emails we send? Are they put on an assistant’s desk and filed under “G” for garbage unless they come in large enough numbers to make a difference in the next election or poll? Or do they actually use them in their governing decisions?

Democracy does have many benefits, but we shouldn’t assume it’s the “best” system. We shouldn’t assume that the voice of the people is really being heard. We should adapt it, and change it when flaws are found to make it more fair and more representative. We should mould it together with some of the other systems and take the pieces that work from others to try and make even better systems. We should not be limited in this tiny box. 

If you do not learn from history– you will be condemned to repeat it. We so often see the problems as they exist, yet make little effort to change. It is time we took action to create better systems. If we lessen the inequity on a structural level in society, we can lessen structural violence. If we lessen structural violence, the cultural violence will also lessen. With the lessening of these two underlying violences– the direct, physical violence will also lessen. Cultural and structural violence lead to physical direct violence. The longer our system is unjust, the longer we will remain a violent society.

Constructive Disagreements

You’re never going to agree with everyone. We all have been raised in different ways, with different education, experiences, relationships… and right and wrong are really on a sliding scale. Some things are more acceptable to me (but no more right or wrong), because I can relate to it. I have personalised the issue in my head as right and found some understanding in it.  Maybe you cannot relate to it in the same way I do.  Maybe you have lived a life I have not, and to you the issue is wrong because to you it was personalized as wrong or have experienced the wrong in your own life. This does not mean we can’t both be right.

How do we move beyond the stalemate?

I love to debate, to work through issues, and I’m prime to play devil’s advocate when I can.  To me, it’s incredibly satisfying. It’s intellectually stimulating and I love it. But others do not feel this way. They feel attacked, or rejected, or that they cannot even bare to speak. Some have been altogether silenced. And some cannot even see the issue exists.

I don’t mind disagreements (and sometimes love it cause it really gets a good debate), but judgements are hard. Judgements mean having to remove an oppressive thought that has been cast your way. It hurts, it demeans, it demoralizes. But we are all guilty of it. I am guilty of it. Sometimes it is very hard to avoid. I have made many assumptions in my day, and I’m sure I’ll make some more in the future. That does not make me ignorant. But learn from the assumption. If you are wrong, you have stated wrong, and you realise you’re wrong– you apologize for the assumption.

I had a debate tonight that was most satisfying. Though there were definitely strong opposing opinions on a very personal subject, there was also a lot of attempts at understanding. This keeps the disagreement respectful, and allows for further dialogue. This is of most importance.

So if we have disagreements on how to do things, how can we resolve them? Do we even need to resolve them at all? Is simply opening a dialogue enough?

I think education is the way to everything. Education does not have to mean going to school. It means talking to other people, expressing yourself and hearing other people. It means reading as much as you can and digesting all the material you can possible get your hands on and trying to piece all this crazy stuff that’s flying at us a mile a minute all together.

And we need to speak our voices to each other, and use our voices or our words or our other communications in respectful tones. We must try to understand where the other party is coming from. Why do they feel the way they do? What experiences or education has helped shape their decision this way?

People usually act out in hatred because they feel threatened in some way personally. Once you start chipping away at the objections through open and respectful dialogue, you will unlock the reasons for their objections. You will begin to understand their way of thinking– whether or not you agree with it– you can at least understand why they would feel that way about the issue. And maybe you can put wedges in their thinking to help them to see that they may not have objections to all that you are communicating. Maybe you can both find common ground.

Silencing other’s opinions because we disagree with them is wrong. Disagreement is the way for change. Conflict does not always have to be bad. So let’s make it constructive and start a dialogue! I hope you’ll join me.

Everything I know about water.

Water is our lifeblood. Without it, we will die. More than half of our bodies are composed of water. We drink it. We wash in it. We water plants with it. We feed it to our pets. We use it constantly throughout the day. 70% of our planet is covered in it.  It’s everywhere, but it’s also limited. “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink”… Only about 2% of all water is fresh, with almost 2% of that fresh water trapped away in the ice caps and glaciers.

We currently are transfering the water from one area through bottling processes for our water bottles, soft drinks, and other products–  draining some cities of their local water supplies; and then shipping it thousands of miles away to a different area, and a different water supply, polluting the air in these travels. The rain ultimately brings this pollution down to the ground and back into our water supplies, then it is treated in incredibly intensive processes after which we drink it, bathe in it…

Manufacturing processes for many products (including water bottling) are incredibly water intensive, producing waste water that is undrinkable without intensive cost and energy treatments. Pesticides, oils and other contaminents seep into the water sources. All of these things are incredibly toxic– to humans, animals and plants.

Water is necessary for all life and yet is not once mentioned in the Universal Declartion of Human Rights (UDHR), only indirectly through the mandate of the right to life and the right to a standard of living adaquate for health and wellbeing. This is not really enough. Many people are denied the right to water because of where they born and how much money they have.

Disease is spread through water. Millions die each year from illness carried through untreated, polluted water. Die from illnesses that are very much treatable, or at least preventable.

Canada is abundant in fresh water resources, but we are not protecting our water for our future. It is shared with our neighbors to the south. It is polluted. It is not a top priority and to me, this makes no sense. We all need it to live…

I’ve read that there is sometimes some that escapes the atmosphere and is drifted off into space by solar winds… but I don’t know how big of an issue this really is. I think that’s what happened to Mars over time, so perhaps it could happen to us. But there’s no reason to fear that which we cannot change… so on to other things.

One of the biggest concerns we are not addressing with our water is the pharmaceuticals we are adding to it. We ingest medications; antibiotics, birth control pills, viagra, heart medications, mood elevators, pain medications… some of these medications are excreted through our systems, or flushed into our water systems. Right now this level is relatively low, but if the water system is constant, and we are adding more and more medicines each and every day– the levels will increase. What is the long term effect of constant low level pharmaceticals on the body? No one knows, there haven’t yet been studies. How are these pharmaceticals cleaned out of our systems? They are not all cleaned out, there is no mechanism to even test the levels yet. Is this a problem– I sure think so.

This is not actually everything I know about water… but it’s a start.

My plan to peace

I often sit, thinking of a paradise that only exists in my mind. perhaps it’s the thought of the afterlife, or maybe it’s the thought of hope. but i think of how beautiful the world is. or can be. how everywhere i look around i see art. far surpasing any canvas or show.

Belinda Carlisle sang it best, cause “ooh heaven is a place on earth”. .. just close your eyes and imagine the beauty of the world that exists.  what beautiful skies, and mountains, and prairies, and jungles, and deserts, and plains… the world is amazing. life could be amazing… not in my life time. but i hope that at some point we will change. my study of human behaviour in anthropology has taught me that humans have changed in the past– and are constantly changing and adapting to their environments. 

this does not have to mean there is no God, or Allah, or Yaweh, or Buddha, or Shiva… it frustrates me when people can’t see how beautifully evolution and religion go together. i never understood why people couldn’t see them as one beautiful theory.  i try to explain it- the best that i can. but maybe it only makes sense within my mind. it only shows how amazing and complex life is. how precious life is. who’s to say the big bang couldn’t be the moment God created the world. And perhaps– the six days that God made the world were six long days. that during this time God created different species and made them grow–change; trying to get the world right before God made humanity. people used to live for hundreds of years, so why couldn’t days be longer? clearly all the mysteries of the divine could not be written in one single book. so you have to accept some of it as abbreviated.

i’m not religious. i never have been. i think that all the religions i have read about made good rules to live your life by, but i can’t see how they haven’t been corrupted by humanity over time (no offense meant to anyone who strongly believes in literal translations, this is merely my personal opinion). i often think that we have misinterpreted some of the meanings. i think that heaven and hell exist on earth. we have been given a paradise to live on, we just have to learn to work together to make it a heaven. and if we don’t– it will be hell.

i think all the religions are good messages to us and help to teach us the history of the world. these documents and teachings, whether you believe them or not, are part of the world history. they have influenced massive amounts of people and touched their lives and made them feel whole (or so i imagine). these documents have started wars and inspired leaders. so respect them for that- if nothing else.

human beings have the capacity to change. if you look to the differences between cultures, you begin to realise that the things we take as innate to all humanity, are not. the way we raise our children, the way we treat our old. all the things we take for granted. these differences are not “good” or “bad”, just different.

Some cultural traits rub certain other cultures in wrong ways. perhaps this is because they have a different ecological background and so have had to adapt to the world differently. what’s normal in one society, is abnormal in others. for example, certain cultures have larger needs for personal space when talking to others. in north american culture, we like a lot of space. we feel uncomfortable by the “close-talkers”. but in some societies, a foot of space is plenty in conversation. any farther and they would feel you didn’t like them for some reason. there are tons of non-verbal communication that are personally unknown, culturally relevant and totally confusing. it can spark intense emotions in us and we don’t know why. it just feels wrong.

we are experiencing a massive cultural moment in humanity. for the first time in history we have the capacity to reach the world. we have the capacity to talk and view those in real world time from thousands of miles away.

we can share ideas, and concepts– and learn to work together. or we can keep secrets and make war, and live in fear. there is no need for us to live in fear.

if structural violence is all around us (in the form of corrupt, inequitable or unjust governments), we teach our children that the system is unfair. if the structures we rely on begin acting in fair and humane ways, those living under them will begin to trust the system. they will begin to feel safer from violence.  inequity and violence leads to more violence. the cycle goes on. the longer we allow it to remain– the longer we will go on ignoring the past. and we will remain in violence. we cannot let this go on.

the international government must restructure itself to be more equitable. it must begin to enforce crimes when they happen, and ensure that the well-being of humanity and the planet is respected. national governments must work together. they must begin to scruitinize, and enforce equitable policies. and those that violate- MUST be sanctioned.  we must stop fueling wars and create equitable governments!

transparency is the key to our future. we must remain open to scruitiny and change. if we funneled the resources we are currently using for war towards conflict transformation, towards creating more equitable structures, structures that ensure that human rights are respected; we could possibly find peace. conflict transformation strategies have proven succesful in many cases. why are we not spending more money and effort on these?

non-violent strategies have made many changes in our history. just look to Gandhi or King or the women’s suffrage movements. humans have changed history with non-violence.

have we learned nothing from the past? after WWI, they said “never again”. after WWII, they said “never again or the world will end”. after the Cold War, we said, “never again or the world will end”. and here we are, promoting war. spending money on war. spending efforts on war. clearly, some never learned the lesson.

–RS

my quest for a conflict free laptop

I am just in the process of organizing my journals so that i can tell you what process i have gone through thus far in my quest for a conflict free laptop, a laptop that doesn’t fuel a war or support human rights violations. this struggle has so far been going on for almost 6 months– several letters, phone calls, emails, and research and I am no where near finding a conflict free laptop for myself.  i have promised myself i will not get one until i can find a completely conflict free brand.

i have been told by many that they have “ethical purchasing policies”– but none have so far been really able to tell me what that means in any full details. it’s incredibly frustrating to me. one company that told me that they have “ethical purchasing policies”– turned out to have a supplier who has admitted publicly that they don’t know where their cobalt and coltan comes from and that it was possible that their product was sourced in the conflict zones of the Congo. seems contradictory to me? Most of those i was able to contact however, wouldn’t give me the names of their suppliers, for competition reasons. this makes it impossible to track and verify. i have yet to receive replies from many. and no body yet exists to monitor these atrocities… so how do we know?

i’ve always told myself that i’m a good person. but i feel guilty every single day for the luxuries i have. so i decided to stop buying. i tried very hard to cut down my spending, cut out the excesses and live more simply. violence-free. but i have a long way to go. i am getting closer every day. that type of life isn’t for everyone, but something must change in the way we consume.

the more i try to find out where things come from– the more i find out just how unaware we are of how we affect the rest of the world.  we are each just one person- but together we have a real voice. if we make our voice known, maybe this violence can stop and companies will stop using conflict resources.

write to the brands that you use and ask them where their products come from. who is affected by them? demand they stop using conflict resources. this is the only way it will ever change.

–RS

violence on my mind.

I’ve never understood violence. perhaps it’s because i never had to face it until i was older. not old enough to understand it, but old enough to not be scarred for life. my childhood was happy, safe, loving and with every possible advantage a child could start with. that’s why i’m where i am today.

but many are not so lucky as i. they face danger every day. they know the feel of starvation, their bellies swollen from days without food. violence surrounds them. many children must roam in packs before nightfall to escape their prey by roaving gangs of thugs who would force them into captivity, torture, abuse, violence, and drugs. initiate them by making them rape their own mothers and sisters, then making them slaughter their village in the most degrading ways. then they make them burn the villages down, making them feel they are now alone– with no place to go and no family left to care for them. and they are turned into soldiers, fueled by snorts of cocaine and gunpowder and calmed by weed. feared into submission, eventually they begin to become killing machines on their own people. they are led to slaughter against government and other rebel groups who kill them as though they were adult soldiers.  i climbed trees and played sports and had family and friends…

and those who do manage not to die or hide from the destruction are only spared for so long. the raids will come back. they flee into the forests, facing starvation, dangerous animals, and the continuing violence for years to come. perhaps for the rest of our lifetime. 

we consider ourselves civilized. somehow different from the past. but we are the same– perhaps even worse. because today we hide the shame away. we pretend the problems do not exist and continue with our never-ending consumerism. we use our products, unaware of the effects the resources we use every day have on places on the other side of the world. we are not aware that they come from mines that have been slaved by communities, forced by guns and machetes to dig for copper, tin, cobalt, gold, coltan, diamonds, and all the other minerals that are in our computers, electronic equipment and luxuries. unaware that they have made profits to violently abusing parties making war.  

with as much as $20 million a month in profits from one mine or resource, who could resist? the main perpetrators of these crimes against humanity are profiting from war. the companies who buy these resources, and sell them to other companies are all profiting from war. they are making incredible profits. and are protected from crimes others pay dearly for with white-collar sentences.

if they are all profiting from war– what incentive do they have to make it stop?  there are many of these metals and minerals available in plentiful amounts in Canada. they are also available in Austrailia and several other countries. why do they obtain their resources from the war zones (or neighbouring countries)? because they are cheaper. because the company can then make more profit for themselves.

 the companies may claim that they get the resources from neighbouring countries– but there have also been many companies admit; they can’t be sure where the resources actually come from. smugglers come across the borders and sell them in neighbouring country markets through contacts. there’s no way to be sure. there’s also no structure in place to ensure this. it’s interesting because some of the neighbouring countries listed as supplying resources, do not even have mines for these resources in their own country. clearly, they must be getting it from elsewhere. perhaps from the warring neighbouring country where it is plentiful.

the kimberly process was brought out to stop conflict diamonds and resources from getting into our luxuries; becoming popular with the movie Blood Diamond. and everyone focused their attention to diamonds, unaware of the effect their cellphones, cameras and laptops all had on the world. these goodies that we all trade in so frequently for the latest gadget. unaware that our laptop caused death, destruction and chaos somewhere else in the world.

it’s time we became aware. these companies need to know that it’s not okay for them to continue making profits from violence. they need to hear your voice telling them that they must find a way to avoid using conflict resources for their products.

the market is driven by the demand (well, in theory). we need to start demanding these companies stop using conflict resources or stop purchasing them. these companies should use their profits to create structures  to ensure that they are no longer fueling violence. this will serve far better for humanity than any amount of charity they can give. it is their product line and they should have “ethical purchasing policies” that actually mean something.

if there is no profit to be had for rebels, companies and governments — there is no incentive to continue the violence.

we watch the violence on tv (or perhaps read about it here) and think. there’s nothing i can do. or i give to charity. but we need to do more. we need to write letters to our governments and the companies and tell them to stop fueling violence. if there is no incentive to continue violence– it will not continue. we live in a democracy here in Canada. supposedly. sometimes i wonder. do our politicians listen to us? or is it that we don’t tell them what we want? if we don’t voice our opinion and have it respected– whatever that opinion is– we do not live in a democracy. it is not the voice of the people. it is the voice of some.

we live in an age where communication makes us all soo incredibly accesible. information is everywhere. it is soo easy to write to officials by email. find out what’s going on, and write everyone you can. tell them what you feel, even if it’s- I disagree with this war or this law. you don’t have to go into details. just state your opinion. they must respect our opinion– or else we seriously need to re-evaluate the effectiveness of our democracy. politicians must be held accountable. but so must we.

**Please read the folder- “my quest for a conflict free laptop” if you’d like to follow my struggle to buy a conflict free computer. I have been looking for one for about six months and have yet to find one for sure! this will be a continuing update as i try more and more companies in my quest.

–RS

The “ethnic” side of conflict in the Caucaus.

 

This summer brought to light complicated global hostilities and the probability of continued conflict in the Caucasus region. Russia has sent a clear message to the West, who has been trying to lure away countries on Russia’s western border and turn them democratic and market-oriented, that it will not tolerate excessive signs of independence from its neighbours.

 

For many months preceding the war, Russia imposed heavy sanctions on Georgia and rounded up Georgians in Moscow for deportation. In revenge for Kosovo’s independence, Prime Minister Putin established legal ties with the governments of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on Georgia’s northern borders, two regions who have broken away from the Georgian territory. In early July, Russia staged a massive military exercise on the border with South Ossetia, and many Russian jets flew over the region, increasing tensions. In August, Georgia and South Ossetian separatists exchanged fire and explosive attacks. Expected peace talks were halted, after the Russia diplomat in charge of facilitating the process blew off the meetings. Russia then claimed that Georgia broke the unilateral ceasefire by ordering a massive “ethnic cleansing” offensive in South Ossetian villages. According to Georgia, the ceasefire was broken by the South Ossetians. Georgia then began to shell and invade South Ossetia, leaving the Russian army (who was conveniently nearby after its military exercises) to move in to “protect” the South Ossetians.

 

Blood is clearly on all hands. Civilians are caught in the cross-fire. Thousands have been displaced, hundreds have died, and although a ceasefire has been signed, peace is far from a reality.

 

The region has been struggling to rebuild itself for the past twenty years. Nationalism flourished after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and began dividing the region ethnically and ideologically. Factions that lived in relative peace for centuries, were suddenly ideological enemies, and displaced to their new ethnically fixed territorial regions. Conflicting histories plague the peace process as claims to land are ‘legitimized’ by different regional versions. Massive ethnic cleansing of regions (including forced displacement and relocation) has left pockets of clashing ethnicities eager to slit each others’ throats.

 

The tendency since the Cold War to describe all conflicts as “ethnic” conflicts has left many wondering if these are in fact “ethnic” conflicts at all. If the tensions are a product of ancient ethnic hatreds, then this would assume that there is something inherently conflictual about ethnicity, making conflict increasingly inevitable since we live in such an ethnically diverse world. We often forget that ethnicities are not some homogenous group, but are in fact constantly changing and fluid. The problems have more to do with access to raw materials and political choices that have pitted one group against another.

Separating ethnicities into homogenous enclaves is a dangerous game.

 

Academics claim that the more ethnically diverse a society, the less its propensity towards conflict. In fact the chance for conflict increases the more ethnically singular an area is, especially if the society is ranked. Ethnicities need to be recognized and the rights of all peoples, regardless of religion, ethnicity, race, background, etc. need to be enforced.

 

Violent conflict is always avoidable. There are many ways to transform conflict through non-violent means. Diplomacy must begin to work, and to do this we must demand it work. Our governments must sanction aggressors to the full extent, and ensure that the do not get away with violence. We must write letters, stage protests, and make our voices heard. Violence has no need to continue, but the only way it will ever stop is if we make it stop through international sanctioning, pressures and peace building initiatives. We can transform war into peace, but only through intense solidified effort. We must all work together.

Disrespect for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Human rights abuses run rampant in many parts of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is often considered one of the strictest religious states and largest human rights abusers in the world. Despite this reputation, Saudi Arabia announced it would be sponsoring a discussion at the UN on religious tolerance starting November 12, 2008. Islam is the official religion in Saudi Arabia, with law requiring all citizens to be Muslim, and strictly prohibiting any non-Muslim worship, dress or goods which contradict Islam. Non-Muslims risk arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation and sometimes torture or even death for these crimes. Customs officials routinely open mail and shipments to search for contraband, which includes Bibles or non-Muslim religious materials. Women face incredible discrimination in law, with what has been called a “gender apartheid” system. By law, two women’s testimony is equal to one man’s in court. They are not allowed to drive a car, a bicycle or a motorbike, or be in a car with a non-related male. They are not allowed to vote, have separate buses, entrances, booths or areas in restaurants. They face more difficult and stringent divorce procedures, separate workplaces, and a law which permits polygyny for men. Women are to wear an abaya or headscarf or face possible arrest. Virtual slavery exists in Saudi Arabia, often South Asian “maids” lured with promises of high pay. These abuses are all in contradiction to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and are continually ignored by international governments who make no real move to sanction the government for its abuses.

 

Israel is another major human-rights abusing government in the Middle East. Despite having a majority self-identified secular population (51%), Israel is also a strict religious state. Civil marriage is forbidden in Israel and taxes fund religious seminaries whose students avoid military service. The Israeli army routinely blockades humanitarian aid to occupied territory, worsening an already desperate situation. Israeli authorities restrict movements of the population, including refusing to grant permission for fatally ill children and their parent(s) to enter East Jerusalem for treatments not available in the Gaza strip. They have also been accused of forcibly evicting asylum-seekers and migrants from Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia without an appeals process, sending many of these people back to torture, abuse or death. The authorities have locked down Gaza and cut it off from the outside world, even forbidding students to leave the country for educational purposes granted by international scholarships.

 

The list of abuses is incredibly extensive, but clouded with much propaganda. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was drafted in 1948 as a statement of objectives to be pursued by governments, and in these 60 years since signing, little progress has been made in ensuring the ratification of these basic human rights universally. Saudi Arabia was one of the abstaining countries from the signing of the UDHR, and Israel had not yet formed, but even signing states (such as Canada) have ignored aspects they find contrary to their practices. The UDHR is an important document that needs to be reviewed by the international community and should be a basis for international laws to protect the people of the world. These declarations and conventions are useless unless they have enforcement and ratification capabilities. International institutions such as the UN need to be restructured so that human rights abuses will actually be punished, and so that progress can be made towards positive peace in the world.

Why is the UN failing in many of its missions?

The United Nations is only as powerful as its Member states. It can call on its Members for support: financially, logistically or in troops and hope that they answer the call. If this call goes unanswered (as is currently the situation), what powers does the UN have to ensure enforcement or support?

 

The structures of the International Court of Justice, the UN’s principle judicial organ, are only meant to settle legal disputes between states, and rely on local enforcement structures to arrest and detain crime suspects. The International Criminal Court, which tries crimes against humanity and war crimes, is also reliant on local enforcement structures, which prevents it from trying many international criminals because of a lack of cooperation or capabilities of local enforcement.

 

Five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) enjoy a veto privilege, which means they can stop any action of the UNSC by exercising their veto. The UNSC is responsible for maintaining international peace and security, investigating disputes, recommending methods to solve disputes, regulating armaments, determining the existence of threats to peace or acts of aggression, recommending what actions are to be taken, applying economic sanctions and other measures to prevent or stop aggression, taking action against an aggressor, recommending admission of new Members to the UN, overseeing trusteeship functions of the UN, and recommending the appointment of the Secretary-General to the UN and Judges of International Court of Justice. Since the UN’s inception in 1946, there have been 261 vetoes in the Security Council: 124 by the USSR/Russia, 82 by the US, 32 by Britain, 18 by France and 6 by China. These vetoes have included subjects such as condemning the violence by the government of Zimbabwe against civilians following the elections in 2008 (vetoed by China and Russia), stopping Israeli military operations in Gaza in 2004 and 2006 (vetoed by the US), on taking action against the killing by Israeli forces of several UN employees and the destruction of the World Food Programme warehouse in 2002 (vetoed by the US), on establishing a UN observer force to protect Palestinian civilians in 2001 (vetoed by the US)[1]. Many others operations are never even brought to the table, since the veto will ensure the action cannot happen.

 

It is structures like these that allow major criminals to evade justice and limits the power of the UN. Combine this with incredible budget arrears owed to the UN by its Member states. The debt owed by the 15 largest payers of the peacekeeping budget is certainly a cause for concern, especially considering that peacekeeping support is so desperately needed in many areas of the world. The US currently owes $1.466 billion in debt to the UN; Japan owes $832 million; France owes $235 million; China owes $213 million; and Germany, the UK, Italy, Canada, Spain, Mexico, Korea, the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland, and Russia are all among the top debtors. The hypocrisy that these countries all sponsor intense humanitarian aid (and state loans) to conflict zones, yet cannot manage to pay their promised share of peacekeeping debt should not go unnoticed. Requests for troop support to areas are also frequently ignored by the international community.

 

If countries ignore the UN and its missions, it loses its power and its meaning in the international community. The UN is important because it is the only place where all countries can work together and have a voice, and is the best chance for peace in the world. That being said, it is time the UN lived up to its original purpose, and created some means of enforcing its own legalities. The UN is capable of much more than it is currently doing, but it does not have the resources to do these things alone. It must have the support of its Members in the international community to work, who must practice what they preach and provide their promised share in the international community. The UN can work if it is provided the proper resources and support to actually run. Major violators should not be allowed to decide what methods of peace should be used in an area that they have a hand in violating. This is wrong and is preventing justice from existing in the world. All violators should be brought to justice, regardless of whether they hold a veto power or not.

---

[1] A full list of vetoes can be found at http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/membship/veto/vetosubj.htm

 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Source: United Nations Department of Public Information

Preamble

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, therefore,

The General Assembly,

Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Article 1

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11

1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.
2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14

1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15

1. Everyone has the right to a nationality.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16

1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17

1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21

1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
2. Everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country.
3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25

1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26

1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27

1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29

1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Volume 1, Issue 3

Issue 1 Volume 3

The Middle East Issue

December 2008-January 2009

Volume 1, Issue 2

Volume 1, Issue 2 

The Asia Issue

October-November 2008

Volume 1, Issue 1

Volume 1, Issue 1

The Africa Issue
September 2008

Blood on Canadian hands.

***This is an adaptation of several essays I have written over the past semester. It combines many of the facts I learned in my research in peace with a plea to Canadian people to take back democracy and voice their opinions. Free speech is only free speech if we use it! Peace studies is a rising academic discipline. We need to start spending money on peace studies and conflict transformation strategies instead of war and destruction!
For the record– I’m not anti-Canadian. I love Canada, it is my home.  I just disagree with certain political choices that are in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

 

Several Canadian politicians and companies are ruining our international reputation by their actions that detract from our long-standing position as peacekeepers and humanitarians concerned with human rights and freedoms. They are actually even participating in crimes around the world.

Slowly but surely, we have been lessening our international commitment to peacekeeping. We have dropped from being one of the largest troop contributors–way down to 56th in troop contributions behind Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Nepal, Jordan, Ghana, Rwanda, Uruguay, Italy, Senegal, China, South Africa, Ethiopia, France, Morocco, Benin, Brazil, Spain, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Indonesia, Poland, Argentina, Turkey, Germany, Malaysia, Philippines, Niger, Zambia, Ukraine, Chile, Tunisia, Bolivia, Austria, Korea, Gambia, Belgium, UK, Portugal, Togo, USA, Slovakia, Russia, Romania, Fiji, Mongolia, Greece, Guatemala, Peru, Cameroon, Qatar, Netherlands and Malawi. This despite the fact that 69% of Canadians surveyed nationally recognize peacekeeping as a strong Canadian value.

In place of peacekeepers worldwide, we now feel it is important to give our military an unlimited budget, following the example of the mighty war machine in the United States. Instead of keeping our value as peacekeepers, we are now making one as war-mongers. What sort of response will this elicit from the world? Surely, it only detracts from our longstanding neutrality and makes us targets.

Canada is guilty of helping to support war crimes in several areas around the world, either through aid projects, inaction or direct policies that support major human rights abusing governments. I will profile the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as an example– there are (unfortunately), MANY more examples of Canada condoning or supporting major human rights violations. The Congo is currently experiencing a MASSIVE human rights disaster, with close to 45,000 people dying per month of war related causes. You read right- that’s 45,000 DYING every month.

At least 10 Canadian mining corporations were implicated for supporting major human rights offenders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by the UN’s 2000 “Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Congo”  and have yet to be further investigated or punished for these crimes.

Anvil Mining, a Canadian copper mining company working in the DRC, was accused of providing logistics to troops in the massacre of close to 100 people; a charge that they vehemently argue was accidental, unknown at the time and forced upon them by local legalities. All of the ten corporations in the report were accused of violating the guidelines of the OECD; some even accused of bribing officials to gain access to land and its containing resources from leaders who were not in possession of said land. That’s right- they were accused of bribing rebel groups who were fighting in the area (who often force the locals to mine as slave labor) to gain control of mines so they can make a profit for themselves. These fighting groups are making up to $20 million a month in profits, often with Canadian assistance, to help continue funding their war.

Barrick Gold, another Canadian mining business, is supplied by and partnered with Adastra mining, which received a one billion dollar deal for control of mines in the Congo at Kolwezi (for cobalt) and Kipushi (for zinc) from Laurent Kabila’s Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire (ADFL) before they were officially in power and in legal control of said resources.

The Canadian government is guilty for politically supporting major human rights offenders, specifically Joseph Kabila and the RPF, who are guilty of massive crimes against their own people. Our government is guilty of complicity for supporting the implicated mining companies accused of violations, by allowing mining-friendly tax laws and for not further investigating and punishing those implicated in the UN report. The Canadian government is also guilty of refusing the UN’s request for peacekeeping assistance and aid, and instead funneling these resources for the continued war in Afghanistan.

Canadian troops and support are needed in the Congo (and elsewhere) to help stop the human rights abuses, but the responsibilities to the international community are being ignored by the current Canadian government.

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Canada’s lead agency for development assistance abroad, committed $33 million for projects and initiatives in the DRC in 2006-7. These projects focused mostly on political and economic governance and access to primary health care, and mostly ignored the broader humanitarian situation. Some of these political and economic governance programs that were supported by our politicians contribute to  Joseph Kabila’s governmental control- securing his place in government and ensuring the crisis continues.

The humanitarian situation in the DRC has been described as “the worst humanitarian crisis ever “. The situation has gotten so bad in recent months that thousands of local Congolese demonstrators have taken to physically attacking the UN compound in Goma for what they say is the UN’s failure to protect them against rebel attacks and provide them with the basic necessities of life. The UN says its first priority is re-supplying clinics that have been looted by retreating government troops. Unfortunately, this means that refugees who haven’t eaten for days are met with shipments of soap and jerry cans (to prevent disease) while they wait for death by starvation. These refugees have recently taken up with the demonstrators in violently attacking anything identified with the UN.

This is not the UN’s fault (necessarily). The UN relies on its Member States for support. If they do not provide troops or funding to properly implement missions– the UN has no legs to stand. Overdue arrears are currently worth more than half the entire peacekeeping budget. The largest arrears account is owed by the United States, who is currently behind in their payments by US$1,288 million (total peacekeeping expenditures for 2005 was $4,737 million). No wonder the UN can’t meet the needs of their missions–they are not being staffed or funded to send a properly trained mission!

Why are we not supporting the Congolese and many other peacekeeping missions with the necessary troop support? — because your government has decided that it would rather spend its money on war.

The only way to stop these crimes is to make your voice heard and write to your government today demanding that they respect the Canadian values of peacekeeping and humanitarianism and stop supporting war and terror!
If you’d like more information on where you can find more resources or suggestions on what to write, or who to write- I’d be happy to discuss.

What are they mining in the Congo? The minerals to make sure we have our electronic equipment and luxuries.

This includes laptop computers, cellular phones, jet engines, rockets, cutting tools, camera lenses, X-ray film, ink jet printers, hearing aids, pacemakers, airbag protection systems, ignition and motor control modules, GPS, ABS systems in automobiles, game consoles such as Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo, video cameras, digital still cameras, sputtering targets, chemical process equipment, cathodic protection systems for steel structures such as bridges, water tanks, prosthetic devices for humans – hips, plates in the skull, also mesh to repair bone removed after damage by cancer, suture clips, corrosion resistant fasteners, screws, nuts, bolts, high temperature furnace parts, high temperature alloys for air and land based turbines, gas turbine parts, and strong permanent magnets, among other things.

Our luxuries are fueling this war! Make companies accountable for where their resources come from– demand that they implement processes to ensure this does not continue!

-RS

help us discover peace.

A peace of conflict is a journal about conflict and transforming violent conflict to be non-violent. it’s about showing the violence around the world in its cultural, structural and direct manifestations. it’s about reflection on violence and long-winded rants about political systems, crimes, aid, development and possibilities.  it’s about people and the ways they interact. it’s also about hope. it’s about working together to discuss what we all hope for–peace. so bring your voice and help us discover the way to a peaceful existence.

all violence can be transformed into non-violence, but it takes work to make this happen. it takes study, research and most of all patience. we must all learn to work together– no matter our differences; so that we all can live peacefully. No one deserves to live in poverty: denied of land or work or education or water or any other basic right that any person needs to live. why have documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and display them so proudly as a value; when we don’t respect them enough to ensure that our structures themselves don’t violate them?

the world is a mess right now. it’s near chaos is many places. for others it’s paradise. why is this so? there are some among us who wish for war, who wish for resources and power. they believe they deserve more than others. there are enough resources on this planet for all of us…but we must– like children, be taught to share. we must begin to think of our future.

how can we move to the future if we have yet to learn from the past? we need to look to what has worked- what hasn’t worked, and why it worked in each situation… and LEARN from each other in an honest and open way. sharing our skills, our talents, our experiences, our determination, and our hard work with each other so that we can all have our basic human needs is the only solution i can think of to truly start to solve the world’s problems. why are we so afraid to share our information and our resources? where can we go from here?

We spend so much time and effort on war and violence, but who benefits? it is time to devote resources to peace and conflict transformation instead of anger and destruction. help us find a way! share.

-RS