Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch Blog

• News source:
• 20 December 2007
• MSF
• By Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

NEW YORK — People struggling to survive violence, forced displacement, and disease in the Central African Republic (CAR), Somalia, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere often went underreported in the news this year and much of the past decade, according to the 10th annual list of the “Top Ten” Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories, released today by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

The 2007 list also highlights the plight of people living through other forgotten crises, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Colombia, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, and Chechnya, where the displacement by war of millions continues. It also focuses on the ongoing toll of medical catastrophes like tuberculosis (TB) and childhood malnutrition.

The complete text of the list is available at www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/reports/topten/

• News source:
• 19 December 2007
• Christianity Today
• At the first Christmas, the angels proclaimed, 'Peace on earth.' Just-war and pacifist Christians together can make it happen.
• By Ron Sider

The 20th century was the bloodiest in human history. In Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century, Jonathan Glover estimates that 86,000,000 people died in wars fought from 1900 to 1989. That means 2,500 people every day, or 100 people every hour, for 90 years.

In addition to those killed in war, government-sponsored genocide and mass murder killed approximately 120,000,000 people in the 20th century—perhaps more than 80,000,000 in the two Communist countries of China and the Soviet Union alone, according to R. J. Rummel’s Statistics of Democide.

It is ironic, then, that the 20th century also produced numerous and stunningly successful examples of nonviolent victories over injustice and oppression…

Recently, the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), made famous by the kidnapping of four team members in Iraq in late 2005, have been working to apply the nonviolent techniques of Gandhi and King to conflict situations around the world…

For 10 years, CPTers have lived in Hebron, seeking to befriend both sides, accompanying those oppressed by violence, sitting in houses threatened with illegal demolition, and walking children to school in neighborhoods where gunfire has too often struck down the wrong targets. CPT teams are defending the rights of native Canadians and Latin American peasants, as well.

• News source:
• 20 December 2007
• canada.com

TORONTO – Ontario announced on Thursday it is returning to natives Ipperwash Provincial park, the site where aboriginal protester Dudley George was killed in 1995 during a police standoff over disputed lands.

“We are returning Ipperwash Provincial Park lands to the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation,” said Aboriginal Affairs Minister Michael Bryant.

Sam George, the brother of Dudley George, has repeatedly urged the provincial government to hand over the land.

“So for the future, where we can resolve differences without there being conflict and particularly without there being violence, that is the most expeditious way to resolve it,” he said.

Acting Ontario Provincial Police sergeant Ken Deane was convicted of criminal negligence causing death in the shooting of Dudley George. His defence was that he believed George was carrying a rifle.

A resolution of the park-lands dispute was one of the key recommendations that emerged from the Ipperwash inquiry.

• News source:
• 20 December 2007
• International Crisis Group
• Middle East Report N°71

Throughout Gaza’s history, its powerful clans and families have played a part whose importance has fluctuated with the nature of central authority but never disappeared. As the Palestinian Authority (PA) gradually collapsed under the weight of almost a decade of renewed confrontation with Israel, they, along with political movements and militias, filled the void. Today they are one of the most significant obstacles Hamas faces in trying to consolidate its authority and reinstate stability in the territory it seized control of in June 2007.

• News source:
• 20 December 2007
• By Writing by Ari Rabinovitch. Editing by Robert Woodward

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s Housing Ministry backed away on Thursday from a preliminary proposal to build homes on occupied land near Jerusalem that had been criticized by Palestinian and Israeli officials.

“The construction is no longer being discussed,” a ministry official said.

The issue of Israeli settlement building in the Jerusalem area has clouded renewed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians launched at a U.S.-sponsored conference last month.

Disputes over settlements and Jerusalem are central to the negotiations President George W. Bush hopes can be concluded before he steps down in January 2009.

The ministry said on Wednesday it had been discussing the possibility of building homes near what Israel refers to as Atarot and the Palestinians call Qalandia in the occupied West Bank.

Israel annexed Arab East Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East war in a move that has not won international recognition. It regards all of Jerusalem as its capital.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of the state they hope to create in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

• News source:
• 20 December 2007
• Reuters AlertNet
• By IRIN

BARDIYA – Many children in Nepal have mental disorders caused by the decade-long conflict between Maoists and government forces, according to the Centre for Victims of Torture (CVICT), a local non-governmental organisation (NGO).

Western Nepal was the worst affected by the conflict, with the highest rates of killing, forced disappearance, displacement and torture…

The Maoist insurgency ended in November 2006 after the signing of a peace agreement, but child rights activists say the rehabilitation of children has been neglected by the government.

“There is a really crucial need to rehabilitate and heal the children, who continue to be haunted by their terrible ordeals,” said psycho-social counsellor Sukmaya Sunwar.

Sunwar is among 17 counsellors trained by CVICT, which runs psycho-social programmes helping traumatised children in over 17 districts of the country, with the support of Save the Children-Norway (SCF-N).

• News source:
• 20 December 2007
• Toronto Star
• By Mitch Potter

CAMP NATHAN SMITH, Afghanistan – Lt.-Cmdr. April Inglis is a real-life JAG, which means something slightly less sexy than flying Tomcats between sessions as a military lawyer.

In the case of Inglis, life in the office of Canada’s Judge Advocate General means spending Christmas with the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar city immersed in the task of deciphering the Afghan legal system.

Or, as Inglis puts it, “doing work that has an impact on the Afghan children playing in the streets. Or it will have, someday.”…

Inglis has several roles as legal adviser to the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), counselling her military commander on operational law issues and overseeing contract issues at the camp. But a big part of her job is also to assess the justice system in Kandahar, to “try to see what’s going right and what’s going wrong and to offer potential solutions to these problems.”

• News source:
• 19 December 2007
• UN News Centre

19 December 2007 – The Security Council today called on all sides in Somalia to use peaceful means to consolidate peace in the East African nation that has not had a functioning national government since 1991.

Foreign Minister Massimo D’alema of Italy, which holds the Council’s rotating presidency this month, read out a statement urging “all Somali parties to reject violence and… to enter into substantial dialogue aimed at achieving a full and all-inclusive national reconciliation.”

The 15-member body lauded last month’s appointment of Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, which “offers a renewed opportunity to make further progress on dialogue and political reconciliation,” as well as on tackling the humanitarian crisis in the country.

• News source:
• 2007
• Jura Gentium: Journal of Philosophy of International Law and Global Politics
• By edited by Sara Benjamin

The 2007 edition of the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation’s Cortona Colloquium – War, Law and Global Order, organized in collaboration with Jura Gentium and the City of Cortona, took place in Cortona, Italy from 19 to 21 October 2007…

[T]he 2007 edition of the annual event involved the participation of ten young doctoral students and researchers who presented their work on international law and criminal justice, the protection of human rights, the “new wars” and related topics:…

* Pablo Daniel Eiroa, Justice, Reconciliation, Peace: If and Why Punish through International Criminal Tribunals…
* Stefano Pietropaoli, Defining evil. The war of aggression and international law
* Matteo Tondini, Beyond the law of the enemy. Recovering from the failures of the global war on terrorism through law
* Myra Williamson, The Meaning of “Terrorism”. An Analysis of Developments from Cicero, St Augustine and the Pirate, to the United Nations Draft Convention…

(papers online)

• News source:
• originally published November 2007
• Abstract published on Human Security Gateway
• By Women for Women International

A groundbreaking survey of Kosovar women, the first since the negotiations over Kosovo’s final status began, was released today by Women for Women International and the Public International Law & Policy Group in association with American University. The survey paints a vivid and surprising portrait of Kosovo in transition that dispels the prevailing notions that all Kosovars are ready to take up arms against each other, and that defining Kosovo as an independent country will solve the day-to-day struggles of life in Kosovo.

(Full report .pdf)

• News source:
• 19 December 2007
• Human Security Gateway
• By Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre

Although Algeria has been affected by large-scale internal displacement caused by the internal conflict that has ravaged the country since the early 1990s, very little information is available on the current situation of the displaced and their numbers. The European Union estimated in 2002 that violence had displaced one million people, while others put the number as high as 1.5 million…

While security has steadily improved in the past few years, potential obstacles to finding durable solutions for IDPs seem to persist with access to livelihoods remaining the major concern. Moreover, as confirmed by the April and December 2007 bombings in the capital Algiers and by a number of other security incidents throughout 2007, clashes continue between the Algerian security forces and remaining armed groups, notably the organisation called “al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb”. This latest resurgence in violence seems at the same time to challenge the process of national reconciliation promoted by President Bouteflika and approved by the Algerian people in a 2005 referendum.

Full report
(full report .pdf)

• News source:
• December 2007
• ReliefWeb
• By IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC)

As cities expand, a key challenge is securing water supplies for urban populations and disposing of pollution while minimising impacts on peri-urban communities and the environment. The pressures of urban growth combined with the institutional and policy vacuum associated with management of natural resources in peri-urban areas ultimately often leads to competition, contestation and conflicts over water.

This book is about the dialogues and negotiations underway in many peri-urban cities in the South to address these conflicts.

• News source:
• 19 December 2007
• abstract posted on the Human Security Gateway
• Journal of Philosophy of International Law and Global Politics
• By Matteo Tondini

The article attempts to illustrate the poor effects of the application of a ‘law of the enemy’ on a global scale, in order to neutralise or prosecute individuals suspected of being involved in terrorist activities. In this respect, the clear failures of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) show the need for a change of course…

• News source:
• originally published November 2007
• ReliefWeb
• By International Alert (IA)

Climate change is upon us and its physical effects have started to unfold. That is the broad scientific consensus expressed in the Fourth Assessment Review of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change. This report takes this finding as its starting point and looks at the social and human consequences that are likely to ensue – particularly the risks of conflict and instability.

Hardest hit by climate change will be people living in poverty, in under-developed and unstable states, under poor governance. The effect of the physical consequences – such as more frequent extreme weather, melting glaciers, and shorter growing seasons – will add to the pressures under which those societies already live. The background of poverty and bad governance means many of these communities both have a low capacity to adapt to climate change and face a high risk of violent conflict.

• News source:
• 19 December 2007
• Reuters AlertNet
• If you must buy livestock... If goats and pigs seem boring, try giving woolless sheep or a herd of alpacas.
• By Tim Large

Forget goats. If you want to help poor people in developing countries this Christmas, a fly-proof latrine or an elephant-repelling chilli hedge could be just the present to set your mind at rest.

From bicycles for midwives and clearing unexploded mines to beehives and donkey-drawn libraries, charities are offering an ever greater range of novel “ethical presents”.

“The need to innovate is greater than ever, particularly when you’re competing with big brands – and I’m talking about big charity brands as well as big consumer brands,” said Carole Monoyios, head of marketing and communications at aid agency CARE International.

Four years ago, charities like Oxfam and Christian Aid re-energised festive fundraising by encouraging people to give goats and other livestock in friends’ and loved ones’ names.

These days, they’re just as likely to sell buckets of worms for fertiliser, human rights advice for Colombian villagers or horse-drawn ambulance buggies in Ethiopia.

• News source:
• 19 December 2007
• Reuters AlertNet

JERUSALEM – Two Israeli government ministers said on Wednesday they did not rule out third-party mediation with Hamas Islamists who control the Gaza Strip to try to bring an end to rocket fire into southern Israel.

Israel refuses to negotiate directly with Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June after routing forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. But Israel has used Egyptian and other mediators in the past.

• News source:
• 19 December 2007
• Reuters AlertNet
• For the proud shepherds, having to ask for help is not easy. "Since 1948 we never asked for anything from the [UN and aid] agencies. Now we need help," said Khaled.
• By IRIN

IDHNA, SOUTHERN WEST BANK, 19 December 2007 (IRIN) – “The best thing about Khirbet Qassa was the grazing land. We had open spaces. Now we’ve become dependent on other people and their land,” said Abdel Halim Nattah, a shepherd in the southern West Bank.

Several weeks earlier he and all his fellow villagers, 37 families numbering 272 people, were evacuated by the Israeli military from Qassa and told to find a new home somewhere else.

The Israel Civil Administration said the land the Palestinians were living on was an archeological site under state auspices, and the villagers had been given warnings about the impending evacuation…

• News source:
• December 2007
• USIP
• By Daniel Brumberg and Muriel Asseburg, editors

On December 3, 2007, the German Marshall Fund of the United States held an event to mark the publication of a report assembling the results of a conference held in Berlin from September 27-28, 2007, entitled “The Challenge of Islamists for EU and U.S. Policies: Conflict, Stability, and Reform.” Editors Daniel Brumberg and Muriel Asseburg were on hand to present the findings of the report, which highlights the diverse politics in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Horn Africa and North Africa in a series of papers. It also emphasizes the need for a transatlantic approach to tackle the challenge of internal conflict in weak or collapsed states, as well as the growing problem of authoritarian reconsolidation in states that have backed away from political reforms.

Report online.

• News source:
• December 2007
• Responding to Threats of Genocide Today
• audio online

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience was created with the mission to “alert the national conscience, influence policymakers, and stimulate worldwide action to confront and work to halt genocide and related crimes against humanity.” In 2004, the Committee on Conscience established the Academy for Genocide Prevention to help foreign policy professionals better recognize and respond to threats of genocide and mass atrocities.

In September 2005, the Academy, in joint sponsorship with the U.S. State Department and the U.S. National Intelligence Council, convened a two-day seminar in Warrenton, Virginia which focused on the topic “Negotiating with Killers.” Participants included academic theorists along with current and former officials of the U.S. government, the United Nations, and international NGOs who have worked in conflict zones around the world. Together they discussed the diplomatic challenges of responding to genocide and mass atrocities.

• News source:
• 19 December 2007
• United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks

KANDAHAR, 19 December 2007 (IRIN) – Children are being recruited and in some cases sexually abused by the Afghan police and/or various militias that support the police, as well as by private security companies and the Taliban, according to human rights and provincial officials.