Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch BlogPeacemakers Trust posts news, reports or announcements of interest to people studying or working in the field of dispute resolution, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Inclusion of an item on the media watch blog does not imply endorsement or agreement of Peacemakers Trust with views expressed by authors of posted items.
Catherine Morris will be on assignment in Rwanda until March 11, 2008.
NEW ON PEACEMAKERS TRUST
A major international conference is being held in Wellington on Monday aimed at getting an agreement to force countries to stop using cluster munitions.
Disarmament and Arms Control Minister Phil Goff says the week-long discussions will focus on developing a treaty banning the use of the weapons, which are deployed from aircraft and cause widespread damage on the ground.
“Too many people are being killed by cluster munitions fired during a war but then acting as landmines lying dormant on the soil until detonated by some unsuspecting civilian, often children,” says Goff.
He says New Zealand was one of seven countries that took this issue out of the Geneva process, which had stagnated for five years, and they are looking forward to getting a binding treaty later this year.
(...more)The Federal Government is preparing to endorse a landmark United Nations declaration on indigenous rights.
Just days after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd led the Federal Parliament in apologising to members of the stolen generations, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith today revealed the Government was consulting with stakeholders about reversing Australia’s opposition to the declaration.
Australia was one of just four countries which last year voted against the non-binding declaration of the UN General Assembly that sets out the rights of the world’s estimated 370 million indigenous people.
The declaration – more than 20 years in the drafting – was supported by 143 nations but the Howard Government refused to support it, arguing it would put Aboriginal customary law in a “superior position” to national law.
That claim was dismissed by Labor, indigenous leaders and law experts.
“We are of course positively disposed to the declaration,” Mr Smith told Network Ten today.
(...more)After days of protest during which Palestinian flower growers in the Gaza Strip dumped their creations at the feet of the closed borders, those flowers that were intended for Valentine’s Day have become food for sheep and cows.
The flowers could not be exported to Europe where they normally go due to the complete Israeli closure of the Strip. Exporting is also difficult, with transportation and tariffs outrageous as imposed by the occupiers, this year was worse.
Some 65 million flowers are normally exported from the Gaza Strip to European countries, but after only 13 million roses were allowed out, farmers began to uproot rose bushes because there is no longer any point.
(...more)16 February 2008 – During a visit to the West Bank today, the United Nations humanitarian chief saw the difficulties faced daily by Palestinian residents due to restrictions on the movement of people, goods and services.
At the Augusta Victoria Hospital, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes heard about the various hardships faced by West Bank patients in getting to hospitals and receiving crucial treatments, as well as the difficulties health workers holding West Bank identity cards encounter in getting to their jobs due to the existing permit regime.
(...more)Youk Chhang remembers being aflame with an all-consuming desire for revenge when he settled into Texas in the 1980s as a survivor of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in his native Cambodia.
The young refugee hated the people responsible for the extermination of about 1.7 million Cambodians – 25 per cent of the population – from April 1975 through January 1979, among them a beloved sister and countless other relatives.
But mostly, Chhang says, he hated them for making his mother’s life a living hell. Now 74, she spent decades as a single mom haunted by the feeling she had failed to protect her children.
(...more)WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s long-delayed parliamentary election is promised for February 18, and it’s not hard to predict how observers will introduce their reports on the country’s charged political scene.
Most will likely begin: “Conditions conducive to holding free and fair elections were sharply constrained by government manipulation of political processes.†A long list of government-inflicted wounds will follow: media restrictions, subversion of judicial prerogative, arrests of lawyers and political party workers, campaign bias toward favored parties and the violation of fundamental rights protections for voters.
No doubt these reports will also detail a tragically dangerous security environment that now colors all of Pakistan’s politics and certainly these elections: border conflicts that pit Pakistan’s armed forces, sub-nationalist militants, religious extremists and tribal leaders against one another; the ever-present specter of global terror; and suicide bombings so frequent that the US intelligence chief now wonders aloud whether the state can survive. It’s hard for the electorate to tell whether these cumulative conditions are the cause or the consequence of a compromised political system. Pakistan’s president, General Pervez Musharraf, seems to interpret terrorism as a circumstance that justifies the indignities of this election year and the grudging election as a way to excuse them.
Welcome to Pakistani political roulette, where the stakes are high, expectations are low, and the whole system is, to say the least, imperfect. Polls will open on February 18th, and the government claims to be able to ensure security; major parties are participating, even while complaining; and observers – some, no doubt, armed with guards and Kevlar vests – are closely watching the game.
(...more)Throughout this election season here in the US, there’s been a lot of talk about the candidates and their skills in, or positions on, negotiating.
Barack Obama took heat for saying he’d talk with Iran, as Republican contenders insisted they wouldn’t negotiate with terrorists, while Hillary kept changing her mind whether she would or not.
Meanwhile from the mediation community we’ve heard Robert Benjamin’s views as a hard core negotiator on one of the candidates, countered by a deft parry from conflict management professor Darrell Puls.
With so much at stake here in the U.S. presidential elections — jobs, the economy, health care, foreign relations, national security, the war in Iraq, civil liberties, education, the environment, you name it — it’s surprising that no one’s talking about the negotiation skills of the one person who matters most here: the American voter.
(...more)15 February 2008 – Decrying the “miserable†daily living conditions inside the Gaza Strip, the United Nations humanitarian chief today deplored the restrictions on the flow of aid and commercial goods in and out of the area and said he would raise his concerns with Israeli and Palestinian officials.
John Holmes, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, made a day-long visit today to assess the impact on the restrictions on Gaza’s estimated 1.4 million inhabitants.
(...more)Abstract : A key question facing democracies emerging from civil conflict is how best to deal with the painful legacy of past—and in many cases all too recent—violence, while at the same time maintaining the fragile social harmony that often characterizes post-conflict societies. Should priority be given to bringing the perpetrators of past human rights violations to justice, thereby combating the culture of impunity that has come to characterize many civil conflicts? Or is it more important to start by focusing on measures designed to ensure that peace and stability, and with them the prospects for a country’s longer-term recovery, are bolstered?
(...more)Summary: This report provides supplementary information on the United States’ initial periodic report on the implementation of the OPAC. It includes information on US deployment of 17-year-old soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan, US detention and prosecution of former child soldiers, misconduct by military recruiters, and treatment of former child soldiers seeking asylum. (full report online)
(...more)Summary: This report provides supplementary information on Canada’s initial report on the implementation of the CRC’s OPAC. It raises concerns about the impact of the Canadian military’s activities on children’s rights and well-being (e.g. child combatants). The expansion of the Forces could engender recruitment campaigns that target vulnerable children. It questions the impact of targeted recruitment campaigns and the ensuing training upon young Aboriginal Canadians. Meanwhile, government programmes do not target children from war-affected countries living in Canada. (full report online)
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How do Iraqis perceive humanitarian aid initiatives? Greg Hansen, a Canadian researcher, who visited Iraq in October 2006 and in May 2007, observed the answer to this question while there. He and Iraqi aid worker Anwer al-Edhari (a Shi’a religious leader) addressed this topic at a meeting co-sponsored by the Institute for Dispute Resolution and Peacemakers Trust in October 2007 at the University of Victoria.
Anwer al-Edhari, who chairs the Al-Noor Humanitarian Organization in Baghdad, described how dangerous the situation is for humanitarian aid workers in Iraq. The polarized political situation means aid-workers are at risk. Many receive death threats and some have been attacked or killed.
The dangers have not stopped Anwer al-Edhari and his colleagues, along with many other Iraqi aid workers, from conducting humanitarian work in Baghdad and other areas of Iraq. Al-Noor distributes food and medicine on a non-partisan basis to both Shi’a and Sunni families in Al-Nasr City, an area within Baghdad, as well as other cities. The organization also works towards reducing sectarian conflict and conducts human rights education for women and for religious and tribal leaders. (read more…)
SYDNEY, Australia: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd opened a new chapter in Australia’s tortured relations with its indigenous peoples Wednesday with a comprehensive and moving apology for past wrongs and a call for bipartisan action to improve the lives of Australia’s Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
“The Parliament is today here assembled to deal with this unfinished business of the nation, to remove a great stain from the nation’s soul, and in a true spirit of reconciliation to open a new chapter in the history of this great land, Australia,” Rudd told Parliament.
This was “Government business, motion No. 1,” the first act of Rudd’s Labor government, which was sworn in Tuesday after a convincing electoral win over the 11-year administration of John Howard, who had for years refused to apologize for the misdeeds of past governments.
(...more)Baghdad – Mohammed Omar Ali sits on a bench under a tree in Al-Zawra Park, looking around impatiently for any sign of his friend. Ali, 31, has not seen Ayad Murtadha for almost a year since he and his family, who are Shi’a Muslims, were forced to leave the Baghdad neighbourhood where the two friends grew up together.
Murtadha, 32, is Sunni, but sectarianism has not affected his friendship with Ali. When the men finally reunite with tears, hugs and non-stop conversation, it is clear that the capital’s sectarian battles have failed to break the bond.
According to the United Nations refugee agency UNCHR, more than 700,000 Iraqis have been displaced by sectarian violence since 2006. Many of the capital’s once mixed areas have become either purely Sunni or purely Shi’a after militias forced families out for belonging to the other religious branch of Islam.
Improved security in Baghdad has enabled Sunni and Shi’a friends to once again spend time together in safety. However, many are still reluctant to visit particular neighbourhoods where one sect dominates and are instead choosing to meet in Al-Zawra Park.
(...more)Just as Brazil’s House of Congress discusses lowering the age of criminal responsibility, an innovative experiment in Brazil’s southern state of Rio Grande do Sul has proven that there are more efficient ways to approach youth involvement with violence.
With promising results, and entitled ‘Justice for the 21st century’ the project is the result of the collaboration of entities such as the Ministry of Justice and the Association of Judges of Rio Grande do Sul (Ajuris) with the aim of divulging and applying Restorative Justice in the juvenile justice and in the public school systems.
New pupils are a prime target for schoolyard violence, they often have difficulties adapting and are frequent victims of bulling. In one public school, however, things are different. Located at the outskirts of Porto Alegre, Rafael Pinto Bandeira school members find such episodes to be less and less common thanks to a process that helps youths deal with conflicts, resolving relationship problems before they peak.
(...more)Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) calls upon East Timor parties to take a joint approach to solve land and property rights, in the wake of the recent assassination attempts…
“One of the underlying reasons for this conflict is the lack of a legal framework for land and property rights. NRC is hopeful that this new crisis that the country is going through, will create an opportunity to unite political actors that perhaps otherwise would not collaborate,” says NRC’s Country Director in East Timor, Alfredo Zamudio.
(...more)Today marks the International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers. To mark the occasion the European Commissioners Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Louis Michel have joined forces to call for a more robust international response to the curse of child recruitment into armies and irregular fighting forces.
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, spoke about the “tragedy of lost childhood for thousands of children in conflict zones across the world.” She added: “I am profoundly distressed by the fact that ten years since the groundbreaking study on children in armed conflict by Graça Machel, conflicts around the world are still robbing so many thousands of children of their childhood. While remarkable advances have been made by the international community in developing a solid legal protection framework, on the ground conflicts have impacted children more brutally than ever. They are victims of deliberate strikes against schools and of abductions aimed at forcing them to serve as combatants, sex slaves or servants – but also intended to undermine the will of survival of whole communities. This is a negation of human security of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society which we cannot tolerate.”
(...more)A generation of children forced to fight against their will are being failed and forgotten when they finally return home, Plan, the leading children’s NGO, will say today.
Urgent action is needed to defuse a ticking timebomb of traumatised and alienated former child soldiers who often face rejection by their communities when they return after years as unwilling conscripts with rebel groups or armies.
Early teenage girls return home with babies and HIV/AIDS after being forced to become the “wives” of members of armed groups, offered as rewards to soldiers for victory in battle. They are also forced to fight. Boys as young as 11-years-old are traumatised by their experiences on the battlefield. Boys are also raped by commanders…
The international community must provide additional funding for projects to help former child soldiers to reintegrate into society and to do more to protect children from abduction by armed groups, Plan will say.
(...more)In June 2006, I launched The World Directory of ADR Blogs at www.adrblogs.com as part of my ongoing effort to track and catalog the slowly growing number of blogs discussing dispute resolution, negotiation, and innovations in law and justice.
It’s a project that has put me in touch with dispute resolution professionals, scholars, and students around the globe and has shown me the many faces of negotiation and ADR across time zones and cultures.
Despite the fact that I created the World Directory to showcase ADR blogs and podcasts, oddly enough ADRblogs.com was not a blog itself but a regular web site. That was a shortcoming that I have at last remedied.
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