Sudanese President Omar al Bashir is expected in Istanbul, Turkey, this Sunday and Monday for a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Back in March, the International Criminal Court indicted al Bashir on counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which means al Bashir is a fugitive from international justice and that no countries should willingly host al Bashir without taking steps to arrest him and surrender him to the ICC in The Hague.
President Omar al Bashir is a fugitive from international justice, charged with responsibility for crimes against humanity and war crimes against men, women and children, including murder, rape, torture and forced displacement. It would be a disgrace for Turkey to offer him safe haven – Christopher Keith Hall, Senior Legal Advisor, Amnesty International.
According to the BBC, Turkish President Abdullah Gul has no intention of arresting al Bashir, even though the European Union has asked him to reconsider his invitation to al Bashir. Turkey may not have signed or ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but it still has a duty under international law to arrest al Bashir and surrender him to the court in The Hague.
Since his indictment in March, al Bashir has visited seven countries: Eritrea, Egypt, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. Due to pressure from the international community and civil society groups however, he was forced to cancel 2 recent trips to Uganda and Nigeria.
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Even though The Mo Ibrahim Foundation decided no former African leader merited its $5 million prize this year; when it ranked African nations on good governance, five of the top 10 were countries monitored by Amnesty International USA’s Southern Africa Co-group: Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Sao Tome y Principe and Lesotho. Zimbabwe was in the bottom five. (I know: shocking.)
Botswana, which you might only be familiar with through The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, is often hailed as a shining light of democracy in Africa. Last week, Batswanans went to the polls and elected Ian Khama to a new 5 year term as president. Khama assumed the presidency last year when then President Festus Mogae stepped aside for his then-Vice President in order to allow him to run as an incumbent this year. Talk about your smooth transitions of power, right? Except this is the second time this has happened and also ensures that the same ruling party remain in power for the past 43 years.
Update: Amnesty International warns of deteriorating human rights conditions in Zimbabwe.
Amnesty International warned today that Zimbabwe is on the brink of sliding back into the post-election violence that erupted last year, risking the stability brought about by the creation of the unity government in February. The organization called on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) foreign ministers, visiting Zimbabwe on Thursday to assess the eight month-old unity government, not to ignore the worsening human rights situation. Amnesty International also challenged SADC and the African Union (AU) to tackle human rights violations by government bodies under the control of ZANU-PF.
The civil rights boycotts that occurred in the southern US during the 1950’s are some of the most famous and successful examples of this pressure tactic. In the last two weeks, boycotts have suddenly became en vogue again. Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s embattled Prime Minister, declared his political party, MDC-T, would boycott the compromise government formed following contested elections last year. This seemingly courageous attempt to force compliance with the negotiated agreement by his opponent, President Mugabe, was promptly undercut in its significance and boldness when accused war criminal Karadzic declared he was boycotting his trial at the Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague. Awkward…
Zimbabwe – Political Standoff Continues
The situation remains tense in Zimbabwe after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai temporarily withdrew from the governing coalition on October 16th. Following the 10-day standoff, Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) boycotted Tuesday’s cabinet meeting since the party’s outstanding complaints with Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party have yet to be addressed. The initial catalyst for the disengagement of the MDC was the temporary detainment of one of its senior members, Roy Bennett, by government forces. The MDC has continued its boycott on the basis that Mugabe is still not fully implementing arrangements of the Global Political Agreement, that key cabinet appointments remain unsettled and that ZANU-PF supporters and security forces have refused to halt their intimidation campaign of MDC’s lawmakers and supporters. MDC security official Edith Mashaire told IRIN about an assault attempt:
Two other men, one brandishing an AK-47 rifle and another holding a pistol, approached me and threatened to shoot me. They started assaulting me with their weapons while telling me to get into the truck
Since the break between the parties, the MDC has been soliciting support from other southern African leaders asking for their intervention in the standoff. On Thursday, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will hold a meeting in Harare to discuss possible remedies for the political impasse. However, there is concern that if the SADC is unable find a political solution and reach agreement between the two parties, new elections will be the only viable alternative. This could in turn lead to escalations of violence similar to the violence experienced leading up to and after the June 2008 elections.
Mozambique goes to the polls tomorrow in its fourth general election since independence from Portugal in 1975. Parliamentary control and the Presidency are up for grabs. Election observors from the African Union, the Commonwealth and the Southern African Development Community have arrived to monitor the elections. Which is good, because so far things have been a bit bumpy.
President Armando Guebuza of the governing Frelimo party is being challenged by Afonso Dhlakama, leader of Renamo, and Daviz Simango, mayor of Beira city and founder of the Mozambican Democratic Movement. Seventeen parties and two coalitions are meanwhile in the running for seats in the Mozambican parliament and, for the first time, provincial assemblies.
So far, there have been several incidents of violence between supporters of Frelimo and Renamo, resulting in harm to persons and property. Several people have been hospitalized or forced to seek medical attention while offices have been vandalized and property stolen. Violence is often a serious issue in Mozambique; Amnesty International has documented many incidents of extra-judicial killings by the police with few prosecutions of the perpetrators and no justice for the victims or their families.
Mozambique has recently been praised by the International Monetary Fund for its economic policies and last month President Guebuza chaired the World Climate Conference, taking a strong stand on the need for new environmental policies to address climate change. Emerging in 1992 from a devastating civil war, Mozambique is now poised to take strong strides in the region and become a leader on climate change, tourism and economic development (despite the nation’s current continuing desperate poverty). Let’s hope a free and fair election unmarred by further violence or human rights violations speeds Mozambique further along this path.
Afghanistan Elections – Take Two
On Sunday, the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) announced the results from its fraud investigations regarding the August 20th Afghanistan presidential elections. The commission’s conclusions invalidated nearly one million votes cast as fraudulent, with 210 out of the 350 polling stations marred by fraud. As a consequence, incumbent President Hamid Karzai’s margin of victory has diminished to below the 50% vote threshold necessary for an outright win forcing him to concede to a run-off election against opponent Abdullah Abdullah on November 7th. (more…)
So it basically goes like this: Angola starts to kick out Congolese citizens living in Angola, almost 18,000 since July. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) says “for reals?” and shows a bunch of Angolan citizens to the door, well, border when it launches its own repatriation operation. So then Angola says “oh, yeah?” and increases the pace of expulsions of Congolese. The DRC says, “yeah,” and sends more Angolans over the border, approximately 28,000 since August. Angola says…well, you get the point.
Angola and the DRC have a long history of porous borders with refugees crossing back and forth escaping internal conflict, citizens looking for employment and best of all, politicians dabbling in each others internal conflicts. But the violence and disregard for the lives of those involved in this latest tit for tat is seriously uncool.
Angolan police, immigration officers, citizens and soldiers have been accused of beatings, sexual assaults and stealing the possessions of the Congolese they are expelling. (more…)
Over the past thirty years, tens of thousands of Zimbabweans have died, faced torture, or been assaulted at the hands of the State. Yet the legal system has refused to hold the perpetrators of these human rights violations accountable. That is, perhaps, until now.
Justina Mukoko, Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, spent ten years documenting such incidents of state-sanctioned violence. On December 13, 2008, she was kidnapped by persons then unknown from her home. She spent almost three weeks in incommunicado detention, enduring long rounds of interrogation punctuated by beatings on the soles of her feet. The purpose of her torture: force an admission she had recruited fellow Zimbabweans for military training in Botswana in order to overthrow Zimbabwe’s government.
The lie that justified her detention might have stood if not for Mukoko and her lawyers. As she went to trial, her attorneys filed a motion before the Supreme Court contending that her arrest, torture, and detention denied her basic rights under Zimbabwe’s Constitution. Further, habeas corpus petitions forced State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa to admit in court that she had been illegally abducted by state agents acting under his direct orders.
On September 28th, the Supreme Court handed down a shocking decision. The justices unanimously ordered the government to drop all charges against Mukoko, ruling that the state’s unlawful abduction, use of torture, and prolonged covert detention was so lawless and reckless that justice demanded that the state drop all charges against her.
For Justina Mukoko, this ruling was not enough, as the individuals who mistreated her remained unpunished. Less than a week later, she filed a $500 million civil suit against her tormentors: Mutasa, Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, and several police officers and members of the Central Intelligence Organisation. Her lawyers may soon add her actual torturers to the list.
It will take years for the politicized judiciary in Zimbabwe to become an independent and objective enforcer of the rule of law. Justina Mukoko, after coming back from the black hole of a Zimbabwe prison, had a tenacity and courage that forced even the justices on Zimbabwe’s highest court to try to reign in President Robert Mugabe’s torturers. If her case is a sign of growing judicial independence, and if individual security agents will be held accountable for their brutality, Zimbabwe may yet start to move toward justice for those human rights defenders who have suffered, like Mukoko, so terribly much for so unmercifully long.
By Rowly Brucken, AIUSA Zimbabwe Country Specialist
A woman sits in the ruins of houses destroyed in the Cambamba neighbourhoods of Luanda, Angola to make room for a luxury housing complex.
Luanda, Angola hosted World Habitat Day last year. UN Habitat’s Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka called upon President dos Santos to allocate 10% of Angola’s oil income to upgrading vital social services such as housing, plumbing, clean water and electricity and praised Angola’s stated commitment toward a slum revitalization program. Approximately 85% of Angolans live in slum conditions surrounding major cities.
In response, President dos Santos stated his government was waging “a sustained war against chaotic urbanization.” I would agree with that analysis. It certainly looks like a battleground when armed forces enter a neighborhood, raze houses, evict families and destroy their homes and belongings. Since 2001, Amnesty International has documented the forcible eviction of more than 10,000 persons from slum dwellings in Angola, often accompanied by violence including police indiscriminately firing their weapons and beating women and children. And the reason why these evictions have occurred? To facilitate urban development projects and the construction of luxury housing.
In April 2009, Angola announced the creation of a special fund to build one million houses over the next four years. That’s great. But three months later in July, three thousand families were forcibly evicted from the Luanda neighborhoods of Iraque and Bagdad, utterly demolishing homes and possessions.
“Armed police, soldiers and presidential guards arrived in both neighbourhoods at 3am on 20 July and ordered people out of their homes before bulldozers began to demolish the houses. The residents stood and watched as their homes were being demolished. Some of those who tried to stop the demolitions were beaten.”
Well, that’s a little awkward Mr. dos Santos. You say you are following up on your campaign commitment to provide housing because you are concerned about social unrest and then you have your government thugs throw families into the street in the middle of the night in winter, beating them up when they try to salvage a portion of their possessions and dignity. Seems like you might want to consider building those houses at a faster pace than the ones you are tearing down.
Help Human Rights Live in Angola. Stand Up Against Forced Evictions in Africa. Take action now.
Nairobi is the world headquarters for both the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and the UN Human Settlements Program (UN Habitat), which are responsible for promoting green development, sustainable cities and adequate shelter for all. Yet these agencies’ presence hasn’t prevented the widespread pollution of the Nairobi River Basin or the growth of Kibera into the 2nd largest slum in Africa.More than one million people live in Kibera, crowded onto just 550 acres of land, most living in tin shacks without electricity or access to basic services like toilets and clean water.
The Kenyan government, UN Habitat and UNEP have developed ambitious plans to clean up the polluted Nairobi River Basin and restore its damaged ecosystem in order to improve the quality of life for city residents. There’s only one problem: about 127,000 people have settled there. Kibera residents live in uncertainty – they hear rumors that they may be forced out of their homes near the river any day, but they don’t know when it will happen.
Benson has lived near the banks of the Nairobi River in Kibera for 15 years. He runs a small kiosk and his 7 kids attend a neighborhood school. If the government evicts him, he will lose not only his home and all his possessions, but also his business and his children will no longer have access to education.
Benson’s fears are not unwarranted. In recent years, more than 20,000 Nairobi residents have been forcibly evicted from their homes, often with little advance notice. Their homes were demolished and they were left homeless, without compensation or relocation to other neighborhoods. In July 2009, the Kenyan government evicted more than 3,000 people living Githogoro Village and destroyed their homes. Left without shelter or assistance, many were forced to sleep out in the open by the ruins.
Why doesn’t the Kenyan government come to Kibera to explain the Nairobi River Basin project to its residents, inform them of the timeline for relocation, and help them move to alternative homes in other, less environmentally sensitive areas of the city? Isn’t that better than forcing them out and leaving them homeless without livelihoods?
Tell President Kibaki that the people of Kibera deserve dignity. The government should adopt eviction guidelines that respect human rights laws, hold genuine consultations with affected communities, identify alternatives to evictions and develop a comprehensive relocation and compensation plan.
Amnesty International works to protect human rights worldwide. We have more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in over 150 countries, and are completely independent from government, corporate or national interests.
Learn more about us at AmnestyUSA.org »
Kathy Taylor is a member of AIUSA Group 15 in Concord, Massachusetts. She is the group liaison to the Counter Terror With Justice Campaign, and she coordinates Group 15's advocacy work on behalf of the Uyghurs at Guantanamo Bay. Kathy works as a software technical writer. See all »
