DEFINING THE WORLD’S PUBLIC PROPERTY
Le Monde Diplomatique
A global public good

Who does knowledge belong to?

When intellectual property increases the price of vital drugs ten fold, sentencing millions of sick Africans to death, this is not just a hypothetical question. The future of the world economy and of part of humanity now hangs on the answer. Computing, agro-industry, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and communications lead the way in the "information revolution". The rise of these activities has brought with it an ever greater need for a check to be kept on new inventions. If such a virtual product as knowledge, which is by nature copiable, is to be turned to profit, its dissemination must be controlled and an artificial scarcity created that allows a price to be set. Such is the primary objective of intellectual property law, together with a concern to protect the "moral" rights of authors over the future of their works (literary and artistic property), to protect the consumer (trade marks) or to limit recourse to industrial secrecy by publishing the detail of inventions (patents).

In an attempt to keep pace with these developments, following the trend in the United States the World Trade Organisation and the World Intellectual Property Organisation have launched themselves into a frenzy of legal activity to "strengthen" the rights of owners in order to ensure they get a return on their investment and thereby, in theory, stimulate world growth.

But a number of factors stand in the way of this. First, as the United Nations Development Programme points out, many of today’s developed nations which are so keen to see intellectual property rights strengthened had very vague rules when their own national industries were being built. They only changed their tune when they became exporters of technology. By amassing intellectual property rights over the whole of knowledge (from photographic archives to the human genome, from software to drugs), the richest countries, which are also the ones with the most highly developed legal systems (the US employs one third of the world’s lawyers) are making sure they have control over vast swathes of future output.

Secondly, the appropriation of knowledge by private firms is not always legitimate. Both technological research and cultural production feed primarily on knowledge shared by the whole of society. But there are for the most part no mechanisms for promoting and defending the public domain of knowledge, little thought having been given to what might be called "global public goods" (1).

Current thinking about the ownership of this common wealth of humanity is embryonic. The American lawyer James Boyle compares it to 1950s thinking on the environment: a few commentators are sounding the alarm about particular issues but are not yet in a position to make a connection between them (2). But the matter needs to be discussed urgently if we are to put a stop to the sequestration of knowledge by private interests (see articles by Philippe Quéau and Martine Bulard).

Ph. R.
(1) Inge Kaul, Isabelle Grunberg, Marc A. Stern (ed.), Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century, UNDP - Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1999.

(2) James Boyle, "A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism for the Net?", http://www.wcl.american.edu/pub/faculty/boyle/

Bolivia: More Women in Parliament, With Their Own Agenda
by Franz Chávez (la paz)

Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Inter Press Service

An unprecedented 28 percent of seats in Bolivia's new parliament will soon be occupied by women. Female lawmakers have already launched a battle for women to serve in half the posts in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

One indication of women's increased influence was the election Tuesday of Ana María Romero to preside the Senate, the first woman in this country's parliamentary history to do so. Re-elected President Evo Morales said it was a step towards gender parity in the powers of government.

The bicameral Plurinational Assembly is the new legislative branch under the constitution that came into force 11 months ago, and replaces the Congress that met for 184 years. The constitution, re-written by a constituent assembly 33 percent of whose members were women, has re-founded the Bolivian state.

Romero, a member of the governing leftwing Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), was elected by 35 out of the 36 senators, 10 of whom belong to opposition parties, which shows the consensus of support for this veteran journalist who was formerly Peru's first Ombudsperson (1998-2003), another fact mentioned by Morales.

Lidia Gueiler is the only other woman to have attained leadership in Congress. In 1979 she presided over the lower house, and from 1979 to 1980 she was Bolivia's interim president.

Parliament will have its opening session Friday, when 50-year-old indigenous trade union leader Morales, who has governed since January 2006, will be sworn in for a second term as president.

Even before their official installation, the 46 new women lawmakers have been under pressure from grassroots women activists to adopt an agenda in favour of gender parity, including the goal of women holding half the positions in the branches of government, and a series of bills to improve women's lot.

Bolivian women have formed more than 200 organisations that belong to the non-governmental Coordinadora de la Mujer, and are proposing a package of draft laws drawn up by trade unions, campesino (small farmer) and feminist organisations, which the 33 women lawmakers belonging to MAS have already promised to support in parliament.

The other 13 women in parliament were elected by three opposition parties. There are 166 parliamentary seats, of which 115 were won by MAS. The senate has 36 members and the lower house 130, of whom half (65) are elected by direct personal vote, and the remainder from party lists of candidates.

The total number of women in the new parliament will be twice that in the last legislature of the old Congress, which had only 22 women members, equivalent to 14 percent of its 157 seats.

Bolivia has a population of 10.4 million, half of whom identify themselves as indigenous people, and 33.5 percent live in rural areas.

Fighting for their Rightful Place

The Movement of Women Present in the History of the Struggle for Inclusion, Diversity and Interculturalism has worked strenuously since 2006 to promote the inclusion of women in the reconstructed state, and its first achievement was the high proportion of women in the constituent assembly that re-wrote the constitution.

It also managed to secure a measure of equity in the electoral laws applied for the first time in the December elections, which stipulate the alternation of male and female candidates on party electoral lists. However, it failed to achieve nomination and election of women candidates in the hoped-for proportion of 50 percent in the lower house, because of lack of support from the political parties.

The giant leap in women's share of parliamentary seats is the result of the pressure and action of some 200 organisations, Mónica Novillo, in charge of advocacy and lobbying for the Coordinadora de la Mujer, said at a Dec. 14 meeting of women's organisations and new women lawmakers.

But parliamentary action for expanded rights for women and greater equity in public office will still face opposition from lawmakers cast in a patriarchal mould, the substitute lawmaker for the department (province) of La Paz, Elizabeth Salguero, told IPS.

In the previous legislature, Salguero chaired the Commission on Human Rights and she advocated a law against political violence on gender grounds, to protect women elected to municipal and national office. But the bill was not passed.

Meanwhile, representatives of the main women's trade union organisation, the 'Bartolina Sisa' Trade Union Federation of Indigenous Campesina Women of Bolivia, are demanding gender equity in the Morales government to be appointed in early February.

In his first government, only four out of 20 ministerial posts went to women, although the president has promised to increase their share in his new cabinet.

This will be the first test of the executive branch's response to the demands of organised women's groups for a greater share of power and progress towards half the decision-making posts in the state apparatus, the justice system, municipalities and provinces.

'But basically, without education there can be no rights, no creation or defence of human rights,' Cristina Barreto, a leader of the 'Bartolina Sisa' Federation in La Paz, told IPS emphatically.

'We must provide a plurinational education, in several languages,' she urged women lawmakers, exhorting them to work night and day 'until we get rid of consumerist, theoretical education,' in line with Morales' stated vision for change.

'In rural areas, girls attend school up to third grade, but today all children must have the opportunity to complete their secondary education,' otherwise economic and industrial development will be impossible, she said.

Barreto gave several examples of discrimination against women. She complained that teachers expel pregnant teenage girls from school, 'but not the boys who get them pregnant.'

'Some employers make women workers sign a pledge that they will not get pregnant during the period of their contract,' but this must change. The state should give tax breaks to companies who employ the most women and respect their rights, Amalia Coaquira told IPS.

Coaquira is a leader in the Bolivian National Federation of Self-Employed Women Workers, an organisation created in response to the impact of the free-market policies implemented in Bolivia between 1985 and 2005, which forced thousands of women into the informal sector, mainly working as street vendors for the sake of their own and their families' survival.

New labour laws stipulating equal wages for men and women, providing protection against workplace and sexual harassment, including self-employed women workers in the social security system, and recognising the economic value of work in the home, are Coquira's recommendations to the women lawmakers.

'Homemakers never get to retire on a pension, they are just assumed to go on and on,' she complained.

Land and women's aspiration to property titles in their own right are the main aims of the National Indigenous Women's Federation, whose representative Blanca Cartagena placed the issue firmly on the parliamentary list of pending tasks.

According to the government, 10,299 land titles were granted to women between 2006 and 2009, representing a total of 164,401 hectares. But Cartagena underscored the urgent need to give preference to women heads of family, especially those who are without family support or are extremely poor.

'I want to take direct action; I can do a lot and contribute to several development approaches,' the lawmaker for Beni province, Ingrid Zabala, confidently told IPS.

An agronomist ('ingeniera agrónoma') who has specialised in social and agricultural research, Zabala has scored a political coup in an area that is one of the most conservative and least receptive to ideas of gender equity. Not only is she a woman, she also belongs to MAS, which is unpopular in Beni and other eastern Bolivian provinces.

Zabala says she will work in parliament against violence and discrimination, and for equal rights and respect for the environment. She has already proved her tenacity in battles against corruption as a professor at the José Ballivián Autonomous University in Beni.

She says she became aware of the different faces of discrimination from childhood, when her family would not allow her to make friends with campesina girls wearing traditional indigenous skirts, or when she had to change the title page of her thesis where she had used the word 'ingeniera' (a female engineer), instead of 'ingeniero' (a male engineer) to specify the degree she was a candidate for.

Bolivia's new women lawmakers have a difficult road ahead as they continue to seek ways of putting into practice the changes that, so far, have only been written into the constitution.


© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved
Original source: Inter Press Service

US Airways Philadelphia alert sparked by Jewish prayer
- 17:03 GMT, Thursday, 21 January 2010

The plane was met by police and FBI agents

A US Airways flight was diverted to Philadelphia after a Jewish man's prayer items triggered a bomb scare, Philadelphia police said. Passengers grew alarmed when the man used a phylactery - a small black box Orthodox Jews strap to their head as part of their rituals, police said.

The man was not arrested and the plane landed without incident.

US airports are on high alert after a Nigerian man was held over an alleged bomb plot on a plane last month. His device allegedly malfunctioned and he was quickly overpowered by passengers and crew on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

The latest incident took place on a 50-seat regional jet originally bound for Louisville, Kentucky from New York's LaGuardia airport. It landed in Philadelphia at about 0900 local time (1400 GMT). Phylacteries - called tefillin in Hebrew - are two small boxes, usually made of black leather, with straps attached to them. Observant Jewish men are required to place one box on their head and tie the other one on their arm as part of their morning prayers.

Bible codes in Afghan army guns

WASHINGTON — Muslim groups reacted angrily Wednesday after it emerged that the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan were using rifle sights inscribed with coded Biblical references.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) called on US Defense Secretary Robert Gates to immediately withdraw from combat use equipment found to have inscriptions of Biblical references.

It followed a report from ABC television which revealed that Michigan-based contractor Trijicon had sold up to 800,000 of the sights to the US military which were being used in combat.

The report said the religious codes -- referencing passages from the New Testament -- appeared to be a violation of US military rules prohibiting proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan.

A statement posted on the Trijicon website said: "As part of our faith and our belief in service to our country, Trijicon has put scripture references on our products for more than two decades.


"As long as we have men and women in danger, we will continue to do everything we can to provide them with both state-of-the-art technology and the never-ending support and prayers of a grateful nation."

The company told ABC there was nothing illegal in putting the references on the gun sights, but the MPAC protested the moves.

"Having Biblical references on military equipment violates the basic ideals and values our country was founded upon," said MPAC Director Haris Tarin said in a statement. "Worse still, it provides propaganda ammo to extremists who claim there is a ?Crusader war against Islam' by the United States."

According to ABC, one of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament.

The passage reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Other citations are taken from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world."

John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads: "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Weezer, We Are All On Drugs

Second Advent or what is expected in Turkmenistan under Ruhnama?
30.12.2009 10:23 msk

Surat Ajdarova


The second advent of Ruhnama in the socio-cultural area of Turkmenistan makes us think not only about circling politicians, but also what is expected in the country in the future and how the neighbors view such development.

New Turkmen national culture policy is the Niyazov-initiated surgery of lively and diverse Turkmen culture of various groups of Turkmen and other ethnicities to some varnished imitation, substituting genuine culture. Those, who are not aware of Turkmen realities, need to understand the following: titular ethnic group consists of complex tribal structure. The scientist still cannot explain the emergence of many groups. Each group – clan or tribe – has many unique independent features.


Ruhnama (The book of the soul [Turkmen]) is the book, officially written by the first Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov (Turkmenbashi). The goal of the book is to create positive image of Turkmen people, heroic interpretation of its history, the review of Turkmen customs and definition of moral, family, social and religious norms for modern Turkmens. It was mandatory to read Ruhnama in schools, universities and governmental organizations. New governmental employees were tested on Ruhnama at the job interview and even at driver’s test. After the death of Niyazov the book lost its popularity while in the spring of 2009 Turkmen authorities tried to eliminate the books. However, in the summer of 2009 the university applicants had to take Sacred Ruhnama as mandatory admissions exam. In the mid-December Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov one more time strongly recommended the government to use Ruhnama as an instrument of «youth education».
Today, the state policy is oriented at ignorance of this unique feature. One of the proclaimed goals is so-called «the union of nation», assuming weak influence (political) of certain clans.

One of the later innovations, reasoned by the swine flu is the list of «domestic hajj», equal to making hajj in Mecca. Big hajj is de facto substituted by surrogate. Moreover, the government assigns new «sacred places», eradicating sacred places of local clans. Regulation and officialism, in this case, lead to the neutralization of locally unique culture.

The official hajj list is the attempt to force religion to serve national state-promoted idea. Such rude intrusion of the government in the religion may face the opposition from Muslims and build ground for radical attitudes.

It has to be mentioned here that Turkmen version of Islam is quite soft with the number of local peculiarities. These variety and tolerance support stability in the region. Inside the communities there are local mechanisms, supporting social structure and stability. This is the reason why local communities are independent from the state and, of course, the government is concerned about it.

The state forced the leveling of cultural and religious life of the society, limiting access to education and total downgrade of the quality of education, creating obstacles for the visit abroad. The judicial system reminds the gollywog: in the last 15 years it produced no single verdict of not guilty.

Now let us see what is happening in Turkmen society. Under growing state pressure the society is looking to avoid this pressure and forms its own response. The reliable and working mechanism is represented by the clan structure, where everybody is linked to each other by mutual liabilities. In order to avoid repressive judicial system people try to set the conflicts inside the community on the basis of traditional law that leads the community to mediaeval condition.

The leveling of cultural peculiarities and their ignorance leads to cultural vacuum, the emergence of offended cultural groups on the one hand and religious radicalization on the other hand.

No doubt, the radicalization is fueled by direct interference from abroad. The sources in various regions of Turkmenistan report the emergence of so-called «Wahhabi», the radical Islamists, forming own communities. Such communities offer financial aid and education to their members with the opportunity «to continue education» abroad. On the background of poverty and lawlessness, the Wahhabi community is the only solution.

Therefore, instead of cohesion into single ethnic group, Turkmenistan is under risk to produce even more conservative clan structure, cultural groups, less tolerant to each other, as well as the group of radical Islamists, ready to commit jihad against Disbelievers.

This analysis must warn the current partners of Turkmenistan – the consumers of natural resources of the republic. Needless to say, the totalitarian rule is convenient for neo-colonialists: it is easier to bargain with one person instead of democratic system. If the negotiations fail, it is also easier to replace the single leader. The example is Chile with the rule of Pinochet.

In the pursuit of natural resources one should bear in mind that powerless, financially and spiritually poor society acquires radical features. The main terrorist threat comes from such communities. Exchanging human rights to natural gas, so-called developed countries contribute to the death of the nation with unique and rich culture and the emergence of another «flash point».

Surat Ajdarova, Applied ethnology lab of Turkmenistan

US: Obama Should Join Mine Ban Treaty
November 25, 2009
-- hrw.org --

In a statement issued earlier today, Human Rights Watch criticized a statement made at the US State Department's daily briefing saying that the Obama administration had completed its policy review on antipersonnel landmines and decided not to join the international treaty banning these weapons. The Obama administration has subsequently corrected its initial statement, and indicated that its policy review is continuing. Human Rights Watch welcomes this correction and urges the United States to join the 158 countries - including nearly all its treaty allies - that have signed the landmine treaty.

(Washington, DC) - The Obama administration's decision to continue the Bush administration's policy of refusing to join the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines is a reprehensible rejection of the most successful disarmament and humanitarian treaty of the past decade, Human Rights Watch said today.

"President Obama's decision to cling to antipersonnel mines keeps the US on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of humanity," said Steve Goose, Arms Division director at Human Rights Watch. "This decision lacks vision, compassion, and basic common sense, and contradicts the Obama administration's professed emphasis on multilateralism, disarmament, and humanitarian affairs," said Goose.

The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty has been endorsed by 158 countries, including nearly all of the US military allies. Every other member of NATO has endorsed the treaty, as has every other country in the Western Hemisphere except Cuba. The international stigma against the weapon has become so strong that in recent years the only government laying significant numbers of new landmines has been the abusive military government in Burma. Production of the weapon has dwindled to a few states, and virtually no government still exports antipersonnel mines.

The United States has not used antipersonnel mines since 1991, has not exported them since 1992, has not produced them since 1997, and has no plans for future procurement. President Bill Clinton was the first world leader to call for the eventual elimination of all antipersonnel mines, in 1994. While his administration did not sign the Mine Ban Treaty after it was negotiated in 1997, it set the goal of joining in 2006. President George W. Bush abandoned that approach and said in 2004 that the US would never join.

Some US officials have cited the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq as reasons for not joining the treaty. However, the United States has never used antipersonnel mines in those conflicts - or anywhere else in the past 18 years. Moreover, both Afghanistan and Iraq are parties to the Mine Ban Treaty and have comprehensively banned any use or even possession of the weapon. Those two countries, and the other coalition partners that are parties to the treaty, would violate the treaty if they assisted the US in any way with the use of antipersonnel mines.

News that the Obama administration had conducted a review of its landmines policy and decided not to join the Mine Ban Treaty was conveyed at the State Department's daily briefing on November 24, 2009, in response to a question about landmines. Human Rights Watch said that the decision came as a shock even to those closely following the issue.

The administration had not disclosed that a review was under way, despite repeated calls for a formal review from Human Rights Watch, other nongovernmental organizations, and congressional leaders on the issue such as Senator Patrick Leahy.

"This was a stealth review, conducted in complete secrecy," Goose said. "We can only conclude that this was very hasty and cursory. It's a black eye for an administration that supposedly prides itself on transparency."

It does not appear that in making its decision, the US made any effort to consult meaningfully with outside experts, knowledgeable organizations or institutions, or perhaps even more disturbing, with relevant legislators or foreign allies, Human Rights Watch said. There has yet to be an official announcement regarding the review, its outcome, or the reasons for its conclusions. State Department officials indicated that there is no intention to make the detailed findings of the review public.

The administration apparently rushed to a decision in advance of the Second Five-Year Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty, to be held in Cartagena, Colombia from November 29 to December 4. The US will attend the event, also known as the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World, as an observer, the first time it has officially participated in a formal Mine Ban Treaty meeting.

"The positive aspects of the US participating in a major Mine Ban Treaty meeting will be completely overshadowed by its misguided decision to remain the only country in the world to proclaim that it will never join the treaty," Goose said.

Human Rights Watch is one of the founders of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, in large part for its role in bringing about the Mine Ban Treaty.

"It is painful that President Obama has chosen to reject the Mine Ban Treaty just weeks before he joins the ranks of Nobel peace laureates, including the ICBL," said Goose.

Gnarls Barkley- Smiley Faces

Non-Christians need not apply World Vision hires only Christians under its $250 million in US government foreign aid grants. Obama promised to change that. So why hasn't he?

By Krista J. Kapralos
Published: January 11, 2010 06:30 ET
BAMAKO, Mali — For a year and a half, Bara Kassambara kept his mouth shut.

Every day, all of his coworkers paused for prayer time. There were frequent Bible studies, and constant talk about Jesus. Kassambara attended the required events, but otherwise quietly focused on his work: bringing clean water to rural Mali.

“I think many people at World Vision just believed that I was a Christian,” said Kassambara, a Muslim in a predominantly Islamic country.

Fluent in English and with years of development work on his resume, World Vision hired Kassambara to work on the West Africa Water Initiative — a project to provide safe drinking water to stave off water-borne diseases that run rampant in the region.

It was a rare hire for World Vision, Kassambara said; he only got the job because it was a temporary position. When World Vision stepped down as lead agency on the project in late 2008, Kassambara took a similar job with another organization.

“The goal of World Vision is clearly written: to promote Christianity worldwide,” Kassambara said. “I knew this was going on. I knew the rules of the game. If their goal is to promote Christianity, why should they hire a Muslim?”

World Vision, based outside of Seattle, is one of the largest recipients of development grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the federal government’s foreign aid arm. The organization received $281 million in U.S. grants in 2008, up from $220 million in 2007 and $261 million in 2006, according to World Vision documents. Those grants, amounting to about a quarter of the organization’s total U.S. budget, came in the form of both cash and food.

The organization employs about 40,000 people worldwide.

Charity Navigator, which ranks charities based on efficiency, lists World Vision as a “super-sized charity,” with $1.1 billion in expenses in 2008, and gave it four stars — the best possible ranking. Throughout Mali, Christians and Muslims alike praise World Vision for bringing food and clean water to hungry people — the organization "extends assistance to all people, regardless of their religious beliefs," according to its website. Malians credit the organization with staving off starvation and helping rural villages develop agriculture. If the group ever leaves Mali, people there say they would be devastated.

World Vision officials say the organization does not proselytize, just that they decline to separate their work from their faith. "We do want to be witnesses to Jesus Christ by life, word, deed and sign,” said Torrey Olsen, World Vision’s Senior Director for Christian Engagement. That wouldn’t be possible, he said, unless the organization’s workers were Christians.

Under U.S. law, World Vision points to civil rights protections that allow religious organizations to hire employees based on their faith. This is an uncontroversial protection of religious freedom, given that churches obviously need Christian staff to carry out their missions, just as synagogues need Jews and Mosques Muslims.

But such religious institutions are typically funded by their followers. The controversial question is whether it’s a violation of the First Amendment to exclude on the basis of religion when U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill, a practice that became increasingly common during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.

As a candidate, President Barack Obama promised to end such discrimination. So far, he has not.

And so for now in Mali, World Vision’s hiring practices mean that for many of the best qualified candidates, most jobs are off-limits.

Kassambara said he didn’t deny being a Muslim when asked, but kept quiet about his faith because a job with a stable, well-funded employer like World Vision is a rarity in this landlocked nation, one of the world’s poorest. There are few decent jobs here, and the government struggles to keep its most educated citizens from moving abroad.

World Vision only hires non-Christians if a qualified Christian can’t be found. According to its website, “World Vision U.S. has the right to, and does, hire only candidates who agree with World Vision’s Statement of Faith and/or the Apostle’s Creed,” referring to an oft-quoted Christian doctrinal statement.

Fabiano Franz, World Vision’s national director for Mali, said that jobs held by non-Christians are considered temporary. “There’s no encouragement for a career here if you’re not a Christian,” he said.

Franz argued that separation of church and state is an American concept that doesn’t translate well to many other cultures. In Mali, and in other countries throughout the world, he said, faith is integrated into daily life. An attempt to separate faith and practice in Mali, he said, would be foreign and confusing to those receiving aid. “If you’re a committed Christian, you shouldn’t have this separation between your faith and your work,” he said.

“We’re very clear from the beginning about hiring Christians,” Franz said. “It’s not a surprise, so it’s not discrimination.”

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a longer article on Passport, GlobalPost’s premium content section. To read the rest of the article, and to learn more about President Obama’s unfulfilled promise to end taxpayer-supported evangelical discrimination, please join Passport. Your membership helps GlobalPost support its worldwide journalism.


This article was supported by a grant from the International Center for Journalists.

"The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;" -- Isaiah 61:1 --

Liberation theology is a Christian theology in which the salvation brought by Jesus Christ is understood in terms of a liberation from unjust political, economic, or social conditions. Infuenced by Marxist social theory, its theologians consider "structural sin" to be a root cause of poverty and oppression, and consider the primary responsibility of the Church to be its "option for the poor". Although liberation theology has grown into an international and inter-denominational movement, it began as a movement within the Roman Catholic church in Latin America of the 1950s - 1970s. It arose principally as a moral reaction to widespread poverty caused by social injustice in that region. It had a widespread influence in Latin America, although its influence diminished after liberation theologians using Marxist concepts were admonished by the Catholic church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1984 and 1986.

--Courtesy of the Catholic Encyclopedia--

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples



Adopted by General Assembly Resolution 61/295 on 13 September 2007

The General Assembly,
Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and good faith in the fulfilment of the obligations assumed by States in accordance with the Charter,

Affirming that indigenous peoples are equal to all other peoples, while recognizing the right of all peoples to be different, to consider themselves different, and to be respected as such,

Affirming also that all peoples contribute to the diversity and richness of civilizations and cultures, which constitute the common heritage of humankind,

Affirming further that all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust,

Reaffirming that indigenous peoples, in the exercise of their rights, should be free from discrimination of any kind,

Concerned that indigenous peoples have suffered from historic injustices as a result of, inter alia, their colonization and dispossession of their lands, territories and resources, thus preventing them from exercising, in particular, their right to development in accordance with their own needs and interests,

Recognizing the urgent need to respect and promote the inherent rights of indigenous peoples which derive from their political, economic and social structures and from their cultures, spiritual traditions, histories and philosophies, especially their rights to their lands, territories and resources,

Recognizing also the urgent need to respect and promote the rights of indigenous peoples affirmed in treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements with States,

Welcoming the fact that indigenous peoples are organizing themselves for political, economic, social and cultural enhancement and in order to bring to an end all forms of discrimination and oppression wherever they occur,

Convinced that control by indigenous peoples over developments affecting them and their lands, territories and resources will enable them to maintain and strengthen their institutions, cultures and traditions, and to promote their development in accordance with their aspirations and needs,

Recognizing that respect for indigenous knowledge, cultures and traditional practices contributes to sustainable and equitable development and proper management of the environment,

Emphasizing the contribution of the demilitarization of the lands and territories of indigenous peoples to peace, economic and social progress and development, understanding and friendly relations among nations and peoples of the world,

Recognizing in particular the right of indigenous families and communities to retain shared responsibility for the upbringing, training, education and well-being of their children, consistent with the rights of the child,

Considering that the rights affirmed in treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements between States and indigenous peoples are, in some situations, matters of international concern, interest, responsibility and character,

Considering also that treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements, and the relationship they represent, are the basis for a strengthened partnership between indigenous peoples and States,

Acknowledging that the Charter of the United Nations, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,2 as well as the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action,(3) affirm the fundamental importance of the right to self-determination of all peoples, by virtue of which they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development,

Bearing in mind that nothing in this Declaration may be used to deny any peoples their right to self-determination, exercised in conformity with international law,

Convinced that the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples in this Declaration will enhance harmonious and cooperative relations between the State and indigenous peoples, based on principles of justice, democracy, respect for human rights, non-discrimination and good faith,

Encouraging States to comply with and effectively implement all their obligations as they apply to indigenous peoples under international instruments, in particular those related to human rights, in consultation and cooperation with the peoples concerned,

Emphasizing that the United Nations has an important and continuing role to play in promoting and protecting the rights of indigenous peoples,

Believing that this Declaration is a further important step forward for the recognition, promotion and protection of the rights and freedoms of indigenous peoples and in the development of relevant activities of the United Nations system in this field,

Recognizing and reaffirming that indigenous individuals are entitled without discrimination to all human rights recognized in international law, and that indigenous peoples possess collective rights which are indispensable for their existence, well-being and integral development as peoples,

Recognizing that the situation of indigenous peoples varies from region to region and from country to country and that the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical and cultural backgrounds should be taken into consideration,

Solemnly proclaims the following United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a standard of achievement to be pursued in a spirit of partnership and mutual respect:

Article 1
Indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognized in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(4) and international human rights law.

Article 2
Indigenous peoples and individuals are free and equal to all other peoples and individuals and have the right to be free from any kind of discrimination, in the exercise of their rights, in particular that based on their indigenous origin or identity.

Article 3
Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

Article 4
Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.

Article 5
Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.

Article 6
Every indigenous individual has the right to a nationality.

Article 7
1. Indigenous individuals have the rights to life, physical and mental integrity, liberty and security of person.
2. Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples and shall not be subjected to any act of genocide or any other act of violence, including forcibly removing children of the group to another group.

Article 8
1. Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture.
2. States shall provide effective mechanisms for prevention of, and redress for:
(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;
(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources;
(c) Any form of forced population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights;
(d) Any form of forced assimilation or integration;
(e) Any form of propaganda designed to promote or incite racial or ethnic discrimination directed against them.

Article 9
Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right to belong to an indigenous community or nation, in accordance with the traditions and customs of the community or nation concerned. No discrimination of any kind may arise from the exercise of such a right.

Article 10
Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where possible, with the option of return.

Article 11
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to practise and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artefacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature.
2. States shall provide redress through effective mechanisms, which may include restitution, developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples, with respect to their cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.

Article 12
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practise, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains.
2. States shall seek to enable the access and/or repatriation of ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned.

Article 13
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons.
2. States shall take effective measures to ensure that this right is protected and also to ensure that indigenous peoples can understand and be understood in political, legal and administrative proceedings, where necessary through the provision of interpretation or by other appropriate means.

Article 14
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.
2. Indigenous individuals, particularly children, have the right to all levels and forms of education of the State without discrimination.
3. States shall, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take effective measures, in order for indigenous individuals, particularly children, including those living outside their communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in their own culture and provided in their own language.

Article 15
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the dignity and diversity of their cultures, traditions, histories and aspirations which shall be appropriately reflected in education and public information.
2. States shall take effective measures, in consultation and cooperation with the indigenous peoples concerned, to combat prejudice and eliminate discrimination and to promote tolerance, understanding and good relations among indigenous peoples and all other segments of society.

Article 16
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to establish their own media in their own languages and to have access to all forms of non-indigenous media without discrimination.
2. States shall take effective measures to ensure that State-owned media duly reflect indigenous cultural diversity. States, without prejudice to ensuring full freedom of expression, should encourage privately owned media to adequately reflect indigenous cultural diversity.

Article 17
1. Indigenous individuals and peoples have the right to enjoy fully all rights established under applicable international and domestic labour law.
2. States shall in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples take specific measures to protect indigenous children from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development, taking into account their special vulnerability and the importance of education for their empowerment.
3. Indigenous individuals have the right not to be subjected to any discriminatory conditions of labour and, inter alia, employment or salary.

Article 18
Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision-making institutions.

Article 19
States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.

Article 20
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and develop their political, economic and social systems or institutions, to be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence and development, and to engage freely in all their traditional and other economic activities.
2. Indigenous peoples deprived of their means of subsistence and development are entitled to just and fair redress.

Article 21
1. Indigenous peoples have the right, without discrimination, to the improvement of their economic and social conditions, including, inter alia, in the areas of education, employment, vocational training and retraining, housing, sanitation, health and social security.
2. States shall take effective measures and, where appropriate, special measures to ensure continuing improvement of their economic and social conditions. Particular attention shall be paid to the rights and special needs of indigenous elders, women, youth, children and persons with disabilities.

Article 22
1. Particular attention shall be paid to the rights and special needs of indigenous elders, women, youth, children and persons with disabilities in the implementation of this Declaration.
2. States shall take measures, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, to ensure that indigenous women and children enjoy the full protection and guarantees against all forms of violence and discrimination.

Article 23
Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development. In particular, indigenous peoples have the right to be actively involved in developing and determining health, housing and other economic and social programmes affecting them and, as far as possible, to administer such programmes through their own institutions.

Article 24
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines and to maintain their health practices, including the conservation of their vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals. Indigenous individuals also have the right to access, without any discrimination, to all social and health services.
2. Indigenous individuals have an equal right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. States shall take the necessary steps with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of this right.

Article 25
Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and coastal seas and other resources and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations in this regard.

Article 26
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.
2. Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired.
3. States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources. Such recognition shall be conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned.

Article 27
States shall establish and implement, in conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned, a fair, independent, impartial, open and transparent process, giving due recognition to indigenous peoples’ laws, traditions, customs and land tenure systems, to recognize and adjudicate the rights of indigenous peoples pertaining to their lands, territories and resources, including those which were traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used. Indigenous peoples shall have the right to participate in this process.

Article 28
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to redress, by means that can include restitution or, when this is not possible, just, fair and equitable compensation, for the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used, and which have been confiscated, taken, occupied, used or damaged without their free, prior and informed consent.
2. Unless otherwise freely agreed upon by the peoples concerned, compensation shall take the form of lands, territories and resources equal in quality, size and legal status or of monetary compensation or other appropriate redress.

Article 29
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of their lands or territories and resources. States shall establish and implement assistance programmes for indigenous peoples for such conservation and protection, without discrimination.
2. States shall take effective measures to ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent.
3. States shall also take effective measures to ensure, as needed, that programmes for monitoring, maintaining and restoring the health of indigenous peoples, as developed and implemented by the peoples affected by such materials, are duly implemented.

Article 30
1. Military activities shall not take place in the lands or territories of indigenous peoples, unless justified by a relevant public interest or otherwise freely agreed with or requested by the indigenous peoples concerned.
2. States shall undertake effective consultations with the indigenous peoples concerned, through appropriate procedures and in particular through their representative institutions, prior to using their lands or territories for military activities.

Article 31
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions.
2. In conjunction with indigenous peoples, States shall take effective measures to recognize and protect the exercise of these rights.

Article 32
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands or territories and other resources.
2. States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources.
3. States shall provide effective mechanisms for just and fair redress for any such activities, and appropriate measures shall be taken to mitigate adverse environmental, economic, social, cultural or spiritual impact.

Article 33
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine their own identity or membership in accordance with their customs and traditions. This does not impair the right of indigenous individuals to obtain citizenship of the States in which they live.
2. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine the structures and to select the membership of their institutions in accordance with their own procedures.

Article 34
Indigenous peoples have the right to promote, develop and maintain their institutional structures and their distinctive customs, spirituality, traditions, procedures, practices and, in the cases where they exist, juridical systems or customs, in accordance with international human rights standards.

Article 35
Indigenous peoples have the right to determine the responsibilities of individuals to their communities.

Article 36
1. Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation, including activities for spiritual, cultural, political, economic and social purposes, with their own members as well as other peoples across borders.
2. States, in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples, shall take effective measures to facilitate the exercise and ensure the implementation of this right.

Article 37
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the recognition, observance and enforcement of treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements concluded with States or their successors and to have States honour and respect such treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements.
2. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as diminishing or eliminating the rights of indigenous peoples contained in treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements.

Article 38
States in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples, shall take the appropriate measures, including legislative measures, to achieve the ends of this Declaration.

Article 39
Indigenous peoples have the right to have access to financial and technical assistance from States and through international cooperation, for the enjoyment of the rights contained in this Declaration.

Article 40
Indigenous peoples have the right to access to and prompt decision through just and fair procedures for the resolution of conflicts and disputes with States or other parties, as well as to effective remedies for all infringements of their individual and collective rights. Such a decision shall give due consideration to the customs, traditions, rules and legal systems of the indigenous peoples concerned and international human rights.

Article 41
The organs and specialized agencies of the United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations shall contribute to the full realization of the provisions of this Declaration through the mobilization, inter alia, of financial cooperation and technical assistance. Ways and means of ensuring participation of indigenous peoples on issues affecting them shall be established.

Article 42
The United Nations, its bodies, including the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and specialized agencies, including at the country level, and States shall promote respect for and full application of the provisions of this Declaration and follow up the effectiveness of this Declaration.

Article 43
The rights recognized herein constitute the minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world.

Article 44
All the rights and freedoms recognized herein are equally guaranteed to male and female indigenous individuals.

Article 45
Nothing in this Declaration may be construed as diminishing or extinguishing the rights indigenous peoples have now or may acquire in the future.

Article 46
1. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, people, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act contrary to the Charter of the United Nations or construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States.
2. In the exercise of the rights enunciated in the present Declaration, human rights and fundamental freedoms of all shall be respected. The exercise of the rights set forth in this Declaration shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law and in accordance with international human rights obligations. Any such limitations shall be non-discriminatory and strictly necessary solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and for meeting the just and most compelling requirements of a democratic society.
3. The provisions set forth in this Declaration shall be interpreted in accordance with the principles of justice, democracy, respect for human rights, equality, non-discrimination, good governance and good faith.


(2) See resolution 2200 A (XXI), annex.

(3) A/CONF.157/24 (Part I), chap. III.

(4) Resolution 217 A (III).

Assassination Is an Issue in Trade Talks
By JUAN FORERO
November 18, 2004

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Nov. 17 - With tears in her eyes, 80-year-old Mercedes Cuéllar wrapped her arms around her son, one of Colombia's top union leaders, and said goodbye as he boarded a flight to Miami and temporary exile from the country's long conflict.

As the secretary general of the union that represents energy sector workers, Francisco Ramírez had survived seven assassination attempts, including one on Oct. 10. He was still alive, but hundreds of his compatriots, victims of the political assassinations that have been a scourge in this Andean country, have not been so lucky.

"I was so afraid for him that I wanted to see him go to another country," Ms. Cuéllar said, dabbing tears as Mr. Ramírez prepared to go through customs on a recent afternoon. "I'm much calmer that he's not here."

As union activists have fallen by the hundreds here, making Colombia the world's most dangerous country for union organizers, their families and those who have dodged assassins' bullets have had little recourse. Practically all killings of union leaders have gone unsolved.

Now, labor rights groups and some members of the United States Congress have promised to do something about the violence and the impunity, using free trade negotiations between Colombia and the Bush administration to prod the government of President Álvaro Uribe to do more to protect union activists and prosecute the killers.

The idea, say labor activists from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and senior Congressional aides, is to make the issue of violence and impunity as important a component in trade talks as the struggle over agriculture tariffs and intellectual property rights. Its failure to protect union members, the argument goes, gives Colombia an unfair edge over countries that do, like the United States.

"A country should not achieve an unfair comparative advantage by willful omission or noncompliance of labor standards," said Stan Gacek, assistant director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s international affairs department, which works with unions in other countries. "The issue of rights is not an obstruction to trade, it is absolutely essential to the success of trade."

An American trade official, who spoke on condition that he remain anonymous, says that Colombia is obligated to enforce its own labor laws, which guarantee freedom of association and other labor standards.

"And how do I know someone is denied freedom of association?" he said. The murder of trade unionists, the official said, is a violation of freedom of association. "So clearly violence against trade unionists or impunity for killers is an issue with Colombia, and we've told them that."

The pressure is already having an effect.

Trying to mitigate the damage, Vice President Francisco Santos in September traveled to the United States to meet with a bipartisan Congressional group and John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. "The government has a right to defend its record and that is the reason for my visit, and surely I'll return several times," Mr. Santos said in an interview.

Mr. Santos says that Mr. Uribe's government, which is widely credited with reducing violence since taking office in 2002, has made the country considerably safer for unionists. While 94 were slain last year, 58 had been assassinated as of Tuesday, according to the National Union School, a research and educational center in Medellín. The numbers are still staggering, Mr. Santos acknowledged, but they do represent a marked drop from 1996, when 222 were killed.

The vice president attributes the improvements to a new emphasis on prosecutions and a protection program that has received budget increases of 45 percent, to $13.8 million, since 2001.

Some rights officials, even those long critical of the Colombian government, said that the government had become more responsive to complaints from unionists fearful of being killed.

"I don't think this is a government where you have to make hundreds of phone calls and lobby them to make a serious case," said José Miguel Vivanco, who oversees the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, the rights monitoring organization based in New York.

But Mr. Vivanco, other rights leaders and the unionists say that impunity continues largely unabated, despite the government's assurances.

The vice president's figures show that the number of successful prosecutions of assassins - 19 - represents a small fraction of all the cases involving murders of union organizers. Nearly 2,100 union members have been slain since 1991, according to the National Union School.

Union advocates in the United States attribute the decline in violence to a cease-fire that Colombia's main paramilitary coalition, the United Self-Defense Forces, declared in December 2002 before embarking on disarmament talks with the government. The cease-fire has been violated numerous times.

Those paramilitary groups - right-wing, antiguerrilla militias financed by landowners and the cocaine trade - have long targeted unions, accusing their members of being rebels or working with Colombia's two leftist insurgent groups.

Asked about the murders of unionists, Rodrigo Tovar, one of the group's most feared leaders, was adamant about the need to ferret out guerrillas from unions.

"We have always acted against guerrillas, armed or not armed," Mr. Tovar, who commands 5,000 fighters, said last week in an interview on a ranch in northern Colombia. "Our war has been against the subversives, against communist guerrillas, however they are dressed."

Mr. Tovar denied that paramilitaries had worked with companies to eliminate union organizers. But few in Colombia dispute that union leaders have made enemies in the country's highly stratified society, both for their leftist declarations and for their harsh criticism of fiscally conservative governments bent on privatizing industries and holding down labor costs.

Indeed, Mr. Tovar, who was a wealthy landowner and businessman before joining the paramilitaries, could not contain his disdain for unions. He said that they had been "a disaster in Colombia for business" and that union activists were "the ones who sabotage, who hurt companies."

The deaths of union members here, particularly those who work for big foreign multinational companies, has become a thorny international problem for Colombia's establishment and the Bush administration.

Five lawsuits have been filed in American courts accusing companies like Drummond, a coal producer based in Birmingham, Ala., and two bottlers affiliated with Coca-Cola of using paramilitary gunmen to eliminate union organizers. The companies strenuously deny the allegations.

But the lawsuits, filed in American courts under a 215-year-old statute, have put an unwanted spotlight on Colombia's problems and irritated the Bush administration, which argues that they interfere with foreign policy and open multinational companies to sometimes frivolous grievances.

It is just the kind of pressure that union advocates in the United States want to increase, using the trade talks as a way of further prodding the two governments.

"They're looking for levers of pressure," said Michael Shifter, a senior policy analyst who closely follows Colombia for the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington group. "And it's not surprising as the United States begins negotiations with Colombia on a free trade deal that they're going to explore the possibility of using this as a way of increasing pressure."

Several recent incidents in Colombia have energized union activists in the United States.

In September, the attorney general's office charged three soldiers with having murdered three union activists, an account that sharply contrasted with the army's earlier claim that the unionists were guerrillas killed in a firefight. And earlier this month, an army major escaped - apparently with the help of other military officials - from a military prison where he was serving a 27-year term for the attempted assassination of a union leader.

Mr. Santos, the vice president, said the arrests of the soldiers showed that the government was serious about pursuing the killers of union organizers. The government also quickly fired four military officers at the prison from which the convicted major escaped.

But inaction, union advocates say, is mostly the norm when it comes to the murders of union organizers like Luis Obdulio Camacho, who once headed a cement workers' local in Antioquia province.

Mr. Camacho had lost a son, also a union member, to paramilitary gunmen in 1991. Then, in 1998, he himself was slain; two gunmen shot him in front of several witnesses.

Today, Mr. Camacho's widow, Sixta Tulia Rojas, 69, lives in a small house in Bogotá, where she fled to escape her husband's fate. She yearns for justice, but long ago gave up on the government ever making an arrest in the case.

"No one saw anything and that's what's so terrible - the silence," Ms. Rojas said. Pointing to a framed poster of 10 union leaders, including her husband, she said: "Look at that photo. All of them were killed and no one was arrested."

Labor Rights and the Peru, Panama and Colombia FTAs
courtesy of PublicCitizens.org

The NAFTA expansions to Peru, Panama and Colombia will decrease job security in these countries and in the United States. Under NAFTA, U.S. wages remain stuck at near-1970s levels, while Mexican wages have actually decreased. More of the same can be expected in these countries if NAFTA is expanded.

In Colombia, the labor rights situation is especially dire. Since 1991, over 2,100 trade unionists have been assassinated, with 72 murdered in 2006 alone. The Colombian army has been implicated in many of these killings, and very few have been prosecuted.

Read the letter from Congress to USTR Portman opposing trade negotiations with Colombia until the Colombian labor rights record improves (PDF)

In Mass., Recording an Arrest May Get You Arrested
by Alexandra Andrews, ProPublica - January 12, 2010 12:18 pm EST

This is one of our editors' picks from our ongoing roundup of Investigations Elsewhere -- ProPublica.org --

Civil libertarians have pitted themselves against Massachusetts police in a battle over citizens' right to record on-duty police officers [2], reports the New England Center for Investigative Reporting. The police are abusing a state surveillance law, they say, and thwarting accountability.

On one side stand people like Jon Surmacz. Inspired by videos seen on YouTube, he used his cell phone to record Boston police officers using what he thought was unnecessary force to break up a party. Next thing he knew, he was arrested and charged with illegal surveillance.

Police, on the other hand, say that being recorded without their consent is a violation of privacy rights and the law. Massachusetts is one of 12 states that require all parties in a conversation to consent to being recorded.

In 2001, the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled 4-2 to uphold the illegal-wiretapping conviction of a man who secretly recorded an encounter with police in 1998. The chief justice dissented, saying: "Citizens have a particularly important role to play when the official conduct at issue is that of the police. Their role cannot be performed if citizens must fear criminal reprisals when they seek to hold government officials responsible by recording, secretly recording on occasion, an interaction between a citizen and a police officer."

Since that ruling, such arrests have continued to occur, according to the article. Those cases are generally determined by whether the citizen has recorded the police openly or in secret. With help from the American Civil Liberties Union, Surmacz got his charges dropped because he had not attempted to hide his cell phone.

Attorney General Martha Coakley, who is running for the U.S. Senate, has not weighed in on the debate, calling it an issue for the courts.


Write to Alexandra Andrews at alexandra.andrews@propublica.org [3].

Guantanamo guard reunited with ex-inmates
By Gavin Lee
BBC News

Why would a former Guantanamo Bay prison guard track down two of his former captives - two British men - and agree to fly to London to meet them?

"You look different without a cap."

"You look different without the jump suits."

With those words, an extraordinary reunion gets under way.

The last time Ruhal Ahmed met Brandon Neely, he was "behind bars, behind a cage and [Brandon] was on the other side".

“ He would say, 'you ever listen to Eminem or Dr Dre' and... I thought how could it be somebody is here who's doing the same stuff that I do when I'm back home ”
Brandon Neely (above, centre)

The location had been Camp X-Ray - the high-security detention camp run by the US in Guantanamo Bay. Mr Ahmed, originally from Tipton in the West Midlands, was among several hundred foreign terror suspects held at the centre.

Mr Neely was one of his guards.

The scene of this current exchange of pleasantries couldn't be more different from where they last met - a television studio in London. Also here is Shafiq Rasul, a fellow ex-Guantanamo prisoner, without whose Facebook page the reunion would never have happened.

The journey of reconciliation began almost a year ago in Huntsville, Texas. Mr Neely, 29, had left the US military in 2005 to become a police officer and was still struggling to come to terms with his time as a guard at Guantanamo.

He felt anger at a number of incidents of abuse he says he witnessed, and guilt over one in particular.

Highly controversial since it opened in 2002, Guantanamo prison was set up by President George Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to house suspected "terrorists". But it has been heavily divisive and President Barack Obama has said it has "damaged [America's] national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al Qaeda".

Mr Neely recalls only the good publicity in the US media.

"The news would always try to make Guantanamo into this great place," he says, "like 'they [prisoners] were treated so great'. No it wasn't. You know here I was basically just putting innocent people in cages."

Hip-hop tastes

The prisoners arriving on planes, in goggles and jump suits, from Afghanistan were termed by then US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld as the "worst of the worst". But after getting to know some of the English-speaking detainees, Mr Neely started to have doubts all of them were fanatical terrorists.

He recalls how when he and Mr Ahmed chatted through the bars at Guantanamo, they had a surprising amount in common.

GUANTANAMO PRISON HISTORY

First inmates arrive at makeshift Camp X-Ray January 2002
Detainees refused rights of prisoners of war and right to a trial
Camp Delta, with more permanent facilities, opens April 2002
Some 700 prisoners eventually transferred to site
Many since been released or handed to national governments
By 2009, 215 men of various nationalities remain
President Obama concedes in 2009 his deadline for closing - January 2010 - will be missed

"It was no different from me sitting at the bar with a friend of mine talking about women or music," says Mr Neely. "He would say, 'you ever listen to Eminem or Dr Dre' and he threw off a little rap and it was just funny. I thought how could it be somebody is here who's doing the same stuff that I do when I'm back home."

Mr Neely was 22 when he worked at the camp and left after six months to serve in Iraq. But after quitting the military his doubts about Guantanamo began to crystallise. This led to a spontaneous decision last year to reach out to his former prisoners.

"I was pretty new to Facebook and decided to type in their names to see if their profiles popped up and I came across Shafiq's Facebook page. I decided to send him a little e-mail," says Mr Neely.

Released in 2004, after being held for two years, Mr Rasul and Mr Ahmed and another friend from Tipton had been captured in Afghanistan on suspicion of links to the Taliban. The three said they were beaten by US troops although this was disputed by the US government at the time.

After all that, the Facebook communique was a shock to Mr Rasul.

Last-minute nerves

"At first I couldn't believe it. Getting a message from an ex-guard saying that what happened to us in Guantanamo was wrong was surprising more than anything."

To Mr Neely's astonishment he received a reply and the pair began an exchange of e-mails. It was at this point that the BBC asked if both sides would be prepared to meet in person.

They agreed.

Several months later the ex-inmates were sitting in the TV studio waiting to be reunited with their former jailer. But Mr Rasul was having doubts. He was feeling conflicted.

"There's a few people in my family who have said what do you want to meet someone like that for, the way he treated you, you stay away from him," says Mr Rasul. "They say because if it was me, I'd want to beat him up."

Mr Neely had also been feeling uneasy.

He arrived at Heathrow airport ashen-faced, pensive and reluctant to speak much before the meeting.

Mr Rasul and his normally gregarious friend were notably quiet as they sat in front of TV cameras waiting for Mr Neely to enter. No-one knew what to expect, and the atmosphere was tense.

After an initially awkward exchange about caps and jump suits, the conversation turns to the reason for the visit. Mr Neely says he'd thought about the moment a million times. He'd wanted to say how he'd felt complicit in their detention, and acknowledge the wrong they were subjected to.

Smoking dope

But what were the pair doing in Afghanistan in 2001?

They explain that, being in their late teens and early twenties at the time, they had made a naive, spontaneous decision to travel for free with an aid convoy weeks before a friend's wedding, due to take place in Pakistan.

Mr Ahmed admits they had a secret agenda for entering Afghanistan, but it wasn't to join al-Qaeda.

"Aid work was like probably 5% of it. Our main reason was just to go and sightsee really and smoke some dope".

Does their former prison guard believe them? Yes, says Mr Neely, who says he thinks it was a case of "wrong place, wrong time".

Both sides are beginning to bond, yet towards the end, Mr Neely has a confession of his own. It threatens to destroy the mood of reconciliation.

He is deeply ashamed of an incident in which he "slammed" an elderly prisoner's head against the floor.

Mr Neely recalls that he thought he had been under attack because the man kept trying to rise to his feet. But weeks later he discovered the prisoner thought he was being placed on his knees to be executed and believed he was fighting for his life.

Mr Ahmed is speechless, then evidently conflicted as he wrestles in his mind with whether or not he can forgive. Eventually, he says he can.

But should Mr Neely be prosecuted for his actions? Mr Ahmed pauses again.

"He's realised what he did was wrong and he's living with it and suffering with it and as long as that he knows what he did was wrong. That's the main thing."

Afterwards, each say they had genuinely found some sort of closure from meeting. The sense of relief in all their faces speaks volumes, and they leave the meeting closer to one another.

Their story will be featured on BBC Two's Newsnight on Tuesday 12 January at 2230 GMT and in the documentary Guantanamo Reunited on BBC Radio 5 live on Thursday 14 January at 2200 BST.




Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8452937.stm

Published: 2010/01/12 11:25:54 GMT

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Migrants leave Italian town amid racil violence
By Richard Allen Greene, CNN
January 11, 2010 -- Updated 2006 GMT (0406 HKT)

(CNN) -- The message blaring out of the speakers on the van was stark: "Any black person who is hiding in Rosarno should get out. If we catch you, we will kill you."

Abdul Rashid Muhammad Mahmoud Iddris got out. He's one of hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of African migrants taken by bus out of the Italian town over the weekend after violent demonstrations shook southern Italy. The unrest was among the worst of its kind in recent Italian history, said a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration. "We have not witnessed such protests in a long time," said Flavio Di Giacomo. "There were several thousand, but I don't know exactly how many people were involved."

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni got involved Friday, declaring an "immigration emergency" and forming a task force under the authority of regional police to guarantee public order. It was the shooting of an African migrant that sparked two days of protests, Iddris told CNN by telephone from Italy. He said the shooting was unprovoked. Police said they were investigating the circumstances of the shooting. Iddris lived with other migrants in an abandoned factory outside Rosarno, he said. On Thursday, a BMW pulled up outside the factory, a man got out, shot one of the Africans living there, 26-year-old Ayiva Saibou, and drove off.

A passing policeman told Iddris and his friends it was not his job to help the wounded man, so they called the Red Cross to take the man to a hospital for treatment, Iddris said. Press reports said Saibou -- who is a native of Togo with regular working papers -- was shot with a compressed air gun.

A few hours after the shooting, a group of about 300 immigrants poured into to the street where the incident took place earlier. "They put on an angry demonstration, hampering the free circulation in the streets, damaging garbage bins, hitting with sticks and rocks numerous passing cars," according to a police report.

Iddris and his friends then decided to march to Rosarno's town hall to protest.

"About 2,000 people came -- all of us," he said. "It started about 6 or 7 in the evening, a few hours after he was shot." But police forced the demonstrators to turn back, threatening them with tear gas, Iddris said. Six or seven people were arrested, he said. Police attempted talking with the immigrants, but negotiations did not produce positive results, according to a police statement. The next morning, Friday, the immigrants tried again, playing drums as they tried to march from the factory to Rosarno's town hall, he said. That's when they heard the warning.

"People took a van, an information van with speakers, saying any black person who is hiding in Rosarno should get out, if they catch anyone they will kill him," Iddris said.

Iddris -- who is originally from Sudan and has been in Italy for about 18 months, first as an asylum seeker and then without legal documentation, and who picks oranges in season -- said police arrested another 10 to 20 people at Friday's demonstration.

Italian press reports said the demonstrators had burned cars. Later on Friday, Iddris said, police arranged for buses to move the Africans away from Rosarno to another village. But the new location was no safer, he said. Police had to keep locals and migrants physically separated Saturday. "They said they would take us to another place. They said it's dangerous now for blacks to stay there," he said.

Hundreds of people were driven north to Bari on Italy's east coast and Naples on its west coast, Iddris said. He was on one of six buses, each with 45 to 50 people, taken to Bari. "Right now we don't know what is next," he said Monday. Pope Benedict XVI spoke out against the violence in his weekly address on Sunday.

"An immigrant is a human being, different by background, culture and tradition, but a person to be respected," he said. "Violence must never be a way to resolve difficulties," he said, urging people "to look at the face of the other and discover that he, too, has a soul, a story and a life. He is a person and God loves him just as He loves me."

Di Giacomo, the International Organization for Migration spokesman, said Italy has many migrants, often from Africa, living in conditions bordering on slavery. The migrants who demonstrated last week "were exploited. They were just paid 20 euros (about $29) per day and they lived in slums, the same as slavery conditions. A few months ago in (the southern Italian region of) Campagna we discovered a similar situation. It's unfortunately a reality in many places, especially in southern Italy."

Italy is one of the top European destinations for migrants, the migration organization's figures show. More than 3.6 million legal migrants live in the country -- 6.2 percent of the total population -- and Italy has the European Union's highest annual growth rate of migrants, along with Spain. It's hard to know exactly how many illegal immigrants there are in the country, Di Giacomo said.

"It is not controlled in any way. They change the area where they work because of the season of the year -- oranges in the winter, tomatoes in the summer," he said. "With economic migrants, many of them arrive with tourist visas and overstay seeking work. They can arrive in so many ways," including paying traffickers thousands of dollars to smuggle them into the country.

Not all the workers involved in the demonstrations were undocumented, he said -- but the line between legal and illegal can be porous. "Some have lost their jobs, and in Italy if you lose your job you have six months to find work or you become illegal," he said. Italian media have speculated that the Mafia was behind the shooting that triggered the violence. But Di Giacomo said it was not important whether they were or not.

"We don't know if the Mafia is involved, but the point is not really the Mafia," he said. "The point is that the conditions for these migrants are so inhuman that they can lead to some violent reactions."