Read the BBC News article.
Showing posts with label Genocide in Our Time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Genocide in Our Time. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
U.N. Expert Urges Action to Help Women Victims of Violence in D.R. Congo
New York, Jan 25 2008 4:00PM
An independent United Nations expert today called for international action to help women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who have been victimized by violence, including sexual abuse and rape, perpetrated by both militia and Government troops and fostered by a culture of impunity.
Yakin Ertürk, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, described the gruesome atrocities she witnessed when visiting the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) last year. "I have seen little girls, women whose hands were chopped off, who were abducted, sexually enslaved, forced to eat the flesh of dead relatives, etcetera, etcetera. Things are quite dire."
Eastern Congo in particular has received greater attention because of the presence there of foreign groups which she said were the "main perpetrators of violence against women as well as the civilian population in general."
But she cautioned that the problems are not limited to eastern Congo; in Equator Province "the army and national police are among the main perpetrators." Ms. Ertürk cited a mass rape by soldiers in April, which led to seven soldiers being sentenced to life imprisonment before they later "escaped or walked out of the military prison."
She decried the fact that in the peace process, efforts to demobilize the militia do not include a justice component. "These militants are demobilized and reintegrated either into civilian life or into the army and they continue the kinds of violent acts they were responsible for during the armed conflict, as civilians or as soldiers in the national army."
The focus on disarmament and reintegration of ex-combatants in the peace process "does not take into consideration the sufferings of women or the needs of women,"she said. "Those are missing links in the peace process."
The expert, who serves in an unpaid, independent capacity, urged international help for women who have been victimized. "Many of these women who have survived are today human rights defenders who are working diligently on the ground to respond to the gap created by the State in terms of providing medical as well as other care services to women who are continually being raped,"she said.
"There is an urgent need to mobilize support for these women who are working both under security threats as well as severe resourceâ" problems, she added. "We must support these grass-roots initiatives because that"how the country is going to be rebuilt."
Countless victims are in inaccessible areas with little or no form of redress. "The justice system, the penitentiary system, is in deplorable conditions," she said. Often victims must pay for access to the courts in what she called a "major obstacle to justice."
She called for "urgent measures to address security and justice simultaneously and stressed that women need more than compensation and they need empowerment."
Ms. Ertü'™s report will be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in March.
An independent United Nations expert today called for international action to help women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who have been victimized by violence, including sexual abuse and rape, perpetrated by both militia and Government troops and fostered by a culture of impunity.
Yakin Ertürk, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, described the gruesome atrocities she witnessed when visiting the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) last year. "I have seen little girls, women whose hands were chopped off, who were abducted, sexually enslaved, forced to eat the flesh of dead relatives, etcetera, etcetera. Things are quite dire."
Eastern Congo in particular has received greater attention because of the presence there of foreign groups which she said were the "main perpetrators of violence against women as well as the civilian population in general."
But she cautioned that the problems are not limited to eastern Congo; in Equator Province "the army and national police are among the main perpetrators." Ms. Ertürk cited a mass rape by soldiers in April, which led to seven soldiers being sentenced to life imprisonment before they later "escaped or walked out of the military prison."
She decried the fact that in the peace process, efforts to demobilize the militia do not include a justice component. "These militants are demobilized and reintegrated either into civilian life or into the army and they continue the kinds of violent acts they were responsible for during the armed conflict, as civilians or as soldiers in the national army."
The focus on disarmament and reintegration of ex-combatants in the peace process "does not take into consideration the sufferings of women or the needs of women,"she said. "Those are missing links in the peace process."
The expert, who serves in an unpaid, independent capacity, urged international help for women who have been victimized. "Many of these women who have survived are today human rights defenders who are working diligently on the ground to respond to the gap created by the State in terms of providing medical as well as other care services to women who are continually being raped,"she said.
"There is an urgent need to mobilize support for these women who are working both under security threats as well as severe resourceâ" problems, she added. "We must support these grass-roots initiatives because that"how the country is going to be rebuilt."
Countless victims are in inaccessible areas with little or no form of redress. "The justice system, the penitentiary system, is in deplorable conditions," she said. Often victims must pay for access to the courts in what she called a "major obstacle to justice."
She called for "urgent measures to address security and justice simultaneously and stressed that women need more than compensation and they need empowerment."
Ms. Ertü'™s report will be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in March.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Friday, March 9, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
A Proposal Regarding Darfur
By Peter Hall
Background
A recent analysis finds that approximately 380,000 human beings have died as a result of the conflict that erupted in February 2003, and that the current conflict-related mortality rate in the larger humanitarian theater is approximately 15,000 deaths per month.
One estimate speculates that the final toll from genocide in Darfur will exceed the 800,000 who died in Rwanda's genocide of 1994.
The January 2005 Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur failed to identify genocide taking place in the conflict. But the report gives "the most complete and compelling picture of massive criminality in the Darfur conflict, and establishes beyond any reasonable doubt the vastly disproportional culpability of Khartoum's regular military forces and its
Janjaweed militia allies."
Some weeks ago I heard, on BBC 24 hour TV, the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Juan Méndez, say he was not in a position to say whether what has already happened in Darfur is or is not genocide.
John Bolton has been nominated as US ambassador to the United Nations. A resolution that would refer the conflict in Sudan to the International Criminal Court has already been stalled for months by the resistance of the Bolton faction in the State Department.
There is general agreement that a Security Council referral to the ICC is the one sanction actually feared by the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias it has employed
Premises
i) Either genocide is taking place in Darfur or crimes against humanity on a massive scale
ii) The world community is not interested in sending in troops to such a huge and out of the
way part of the world to try to stop the conflict going on
iii) The Sudanese government does find referral to the ICC something they fear
Proposal
There is only one way to stop the conflict in Darfur - force the US to agree/abstain from voting for referral by the SC.
Suggested Method
Persuade human rights organisations to collaborate/cooperate over a campaign to change public opinion in the US so as to force the USG to agree/abstain from voting for referral by the SC.
The motivation to collaborate/cooperate is twofold - to stop the genocide in Darfur and to end the US driving a horse and cart over every international treaty.
Alternative
The human rights community can sit back and let the conflict continue
Background
A recent analysis finds that approximately 380,000 human beings have died as a result of the conflict that erupted in February 2003, and that the current conflict-related mortality rate in the larger humanitarian theater is approximately 15,000 deaths per month.
One estimate speculates that the final toll from genocide in Darfur will exceed the 800,000 who died in Rwanda's genocide of 1994.
The January 2005 Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur failed to identify genocide taking place in the conflict. But the report gives "the most complete and compelling picture of massive criminality in the Darfur conflict, and establishes beyond any reasonable doubt the vastly disproportional culpability of Khartoum's regular military forces and its
Janjaweed militia allies."
Some weeks ago I heard, on BBC 24 hour TV, the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Juan Méndez, say he was not in a position to say whether what has already happened in Darfur is or is not genocide.
John Bolton has been nominated as US ambassador to the United Nations. A resolution that would refer the conflict in Sudan to the International Criminal Court has already been stalled for months by the resistance of the Bolton faction in the State Department.
There is general agreement that a Security Council referral to the ICC is the one sanction actually feared by the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias it has employed
Premises
i) Either genocide is taking place in Darfur or crimes against humanity on a massive scale
ii) The world community is not interested in sending in troops to such a huge and out of the
way part of the world to try to stop the conflict going on
iii) The Sudanese government does find referral to the ICC something they fear
Proposal
There is only one way to stop the conflict in Darfur - force the US to agree/abstain from voting for referral by the SC.
Suggested Method
Persuade human rights organisations to collaborate/cooperate over a campaign to change public opinion in the US so as to force the USG to agree/abstain from voting for referral by the SC.
The motivation to collaborate/cooperate is twofold - to stop the genocide in Darfur and to end the US driving a horse and cart over every international treaty.
Alternative
The human rights community can sit back and let the conflict continue
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)