Day: May 5, 2015

The Andes

Peru: ‘egregious abuses’ by security forces

Peru’s military and police likely carried out extrajudicial or arbitrary killings and committed other “egregious abuses” against demonstrators as well as bystanders during protests that swept the country from late last year through February, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. While some protesters were responsible for acts of violence, security forces responded with “grossly disproportionate” force, including with assault weapons. Forty-nine protesters and bystanders, including eight children, were documented as killed in the unrest. The report emphasizes “the entrenched political and social crisis that is eroding the rule of law and human rights” in the Andean country. The administration of President Dina Boluarte “seems to have looked the other way for weeks as security forces killed protesters and bystanders,” HRW said. (Photo: Renato Pajuelo via Indymedia Argentina)

The Andes

Politicians exploit COVID-19 in Peru, Bolivia

Peru’s right-wing opposition leader Keiko Fujimori, who had been jailed while corruption charges are pending against her, was released from pre-trial detention, ostensibly on fears she could be exposed to the coronavirus. Of course there has been no general discharge from Peru’s dangerously overcrowded prisons, and anti-corruption prosecutors are protesting her release as “illegitimate.” Ironically, Fujimori’s release comes just as the Peruvian government issued a decree authorizing mining operations to resume in the country. Bolivia has likewise ordered operations to resume at the country’s mines—while interim president Jeanine Añez, who came to power after Evo Morales was ousted last year, has invoked the pandemic to indefinitely postpone new elections. (Photo: Diaro Uno)

Central America

Honduras: riots, repression amid neoliberal ‘reform’

In the wake of angry protests that swept through Tegucigalpa, Amnesty International is denouncing attacks against human rights defenders by Honduran security forces during the unrest. Amnesty charged that riot police used tear-gas outside the headquarters of the Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH), where demonstrators tried to take shelter. Members of the group were also detained. The protests, which saw the city’s municipal palace set on fire, were called to oppose a package of bills that aim to restructure the ministries of education and health. Doctors and teachers have gone on strike in protest of the proposed reform, which they say will lead to mass firings in the public sector, and represents a step toward privatization of education and health services. (Photo: Amnesty International)

Syria

Syria: UN ‘betrayal’ of rebel zones feared

Aid organizations are protesting a UN decision to centralize coordination of Syria operations in Damascus—a move they say hands more power to the regime of Bashar Assad, and will make it harder to deliver aid to millions who live in rebel-held areas. UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock’s decision was announced at a closed-door meeting in early April to alter the system the UN has used for the past four years. That system was designed to ensure aid is delivered on the basis of need to both government and rebel-held territories—known as the “Whole of Syria” approach. Facing hunger and desperation, many in besieged rebel pockets are accepting “resettlement” offers from the regime. But they must undergo “security screening” at “transition centers” established for this purpose, where reports indicate men are being separated from their families and detained. The Assad regime has been accused of a mass extermination of detainees, possibly amounting to genocide. (Photo: The New Humanitarian)

Syria

Multiple forced population transfers in Syria

Reports have been mounting for months that Assad is replacing those displaced from his reconquered territories with Iranians and Iraqi Shi’ites, in a form of “sectarian cleansing.” Now come reports that Turkey is replacing the Kurds displaced from its conquered “buffer zone” in Syria’s north with those displaced by Assad—specifically, the Kurdish residents who fled the town of Afrin are being replaced by Sunni Arabs that fled Eastern Ghouta. Since the fall of Eastern Ghouta, the regime has turned its campaign of aerial bombardment on Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus, causing thousands of the camp’s already once-displaced Palestinians to flee. (Photo of Yarmouk via UNWRA)

IS TIBET A COUNTRY?

The Case for a Legally Independent State

by Michael C. van Walt, Free Tibet

Tibetans say their country is an independent nation: the Chinese government says it is part of China. Who is right? Michael C. van Walt is an international legal scholar and a board member of the International Campaign for Tibet. In this analysis, he finds that Tibet’s legal status remains that of an independent state under illegal occupation.

China’s Claims
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) claims that Tibet is an integral part of China. The Tibetan government-in-exile maintains that Tibet is an independent state under unlawful occupation.

If Tibet is under unlawful Chinese occupation, Beijing’s large-scale transfer of Chinese settlers into Tibet is a serious violation of the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which prohibits the transfer of civilian population into occupied territory.

Oceania

Rival trade pacts vie for Pacific hegemony

China is proposing a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) in a race with the US-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) for hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Andes

May Day mining disaster in Colombia

An unknown number of miners—perhaps as many as 40—were buried alive as an illegal gold mine collapsed at El Palmar, in Colombia's southern region of Cauca.

Iran

Iran: May Day marchers defy authorities

Workers in several Iranian industrial centers marched on May Day in defiance of official attempts to shut them down, protesting labor repression and non-payment of wages.

U.S. STILL SUPPORTS HONDURAN DEATH SQUADS

by Lauren Carasik, Jurist

Honduras is plagued by the world’s highest homicide rate. This has been widely reported for the past two years, yet the number of deaths has continued to climb. The UN put the number of homicides in 2011 at 91 per 100,000. The rate has spiked since the illegal coup d’état that ousted the country’s democratically elected president in 2009 and the subsequent breakdown of Honduras’ institutions; in 2008 the homicide rate was 61 per 100,000.

A climate of impunity solidified as the generals and others who carried out the coup were rewarded with appointments in the post-coup government rather than prosecuted for their role in the overthrow.

Contrary to what is often suggested in the press, the violence is not just random or drug- or gang-related; some of the most vulnerable sectors in society are frequent targets — those whose rights the US Department of State tells us it considers to be a high priority—women, the LGBT community, journalists, opposition party politicians and Hondurans who opposed the coup. Twenty-five journalists have been murdered in Honduras since the 2009 coup; all but one of them since the current post-coup president, Pepe Lobo, took office in January 2010. At least 53 lawyers were killed between 2010 and 2012.

Lakota elders march on UN

On April 9, Lakota elders, activists and non-indigenous supporters marched through the streets of Manhattan to the United Nations, where they attempted to present a petition to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Entitled the “Official Lakota Oyate Complaint of Genocide… Read moreLakota elders march on UN

‘GOING EXTINCT IS GENOCIDE’

Lakota Elders Tour to Raise Awareness About Struggle

by Victoria Law, Truthout

NEW YORK — On April 9, Lakota elders, activists and nonindigenous supporters marched through the streets of Manhattan to the United Nations, where they attempted to present a petition to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Entitled the Official Lakota Oyate Complaint of Genocide Based on the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the petition listed the numerous injustices faced by the Lakota people. (Oyate is a Sioux word for “people” or “nation.”)

At the UN, security officers informed them that they would not be able to enter the building and present the complaint to the Secretary General. Instead, the security officers offered to take it to Ban’s office, but refused to give the Lakota documentation verifying that their complaint had been received.

Outside the UN, Charmaine White Face, a Lakota grandmother and great-grandmother, addressed the 60 people who had marched with her. “We come here as a nation. If they won’t let us take our message to them, how disrespectful is that to a nation?”