Training Report 5: Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib

Water Boarding
Headlines in the U.S. news media are currently abuzz with this term as it relates to the nomination of Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey and his refusal to define the practice as torture. The news media seems to have forgotten recent history. In 1968, an U.S. army officer (pictured) below was severely punished for torturing a North Vietnamese prisoner.

Training Report 4: Afghanistan and Women’s Rights

Introduction and Allegations
My expedition to Afghanistan connected me to four courageous women, most notably Karima Bibi as she served as a guide to me. While my report will shed more light on life in post-U.S. invasion Afghanistan, it should also be noted that her armed bodyguards constantly accompanied Karima. It became very clear very quickly that crime and violence were commonplace despite the fact that the Taliban had been routed and removed from power. In fact the crimes against the three women Karima introduced me to are not linked to existing Taliban insurgent forces.

While the expedition began in Kabul, Karima also brought me close to the Pakistani border to meet one of these brave women. Apologies are made for flagrant misspellings of their names (including Karima’s); however, in most instances Karima was protecting their identities by using pseudonyms:

“Jemela”: Marriage was arranged to a 40 year-old warlord at 13. As a victim of constant abuse in this forced marriage, “Jemela” attempted suicide by self-immolation (a practice among victimized Afghani women that has been shockingly on the rise). Threats on her life by her warlord husband persist.
“Gulot”: Daughter was raped by the son of a powerful poppy-field owner. Demanded justice from provincial council. Waited an entire year without justice, but the offender was finally “punished” by demanding him to forfeit land to her that are actually active minefields.
Beloashi Mohammed: Similar to a case involving Ms Malalai Joya, reported by Amnesty International, Beloashi claimed Afghanistan’s new government was “run by a bunch of pigs” in an interview with the BBC. She was arrested for her statements, imprisoned for two days.

In addition to these interviews, the picture of women's rights in Afghanistan was made clearer by coverage in the international press:

• The public stoning of a 29 year-old married woman.

• The killing of Safiye Amajan.

• Afghan teachers are assassinated by Taliban, which contributes to a climate of fear and intimidation where half of all Afghan children are not finishing a primary education.

Conclusions and Recommendations
Based on my interviews on the ground and the attached articles, Afghanistan is in violation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) of which the country has been a signed State party since March 5, 2003. In the first case, "Jamela" was forced into a marriage (violation of Part IV, Article 16) and little is being done to protect her from his persistent threats (violation of Part IV, Article 15). In the second case, the state failed to efficiently and appropriately redress crimes that were brought to the attention (violation of Part IV, Article 15). And finally, in the the third case the state has perpetuated a system of intimidation to keep women out of public affairs (violation of Part II, Article 7).

It is my recommendation that the UJD continue to work with our brave contacts within the country, like Karima Bibi, to monitor and expose these types of human rights violations. Furthermore, I believe the existing U.S. and U.N. peacekeeping forces still stationed in Afghanistan should be made aware of what constitutes a violation of the CEDAW and how to take the appropriate steps to report and redress those violations.

Training Report 3: Sri Lanka and Child Soldiers

Introduction and Allegations
After careful reflection over the matter, my introduction is to summarize the events and concerns that arose as a result of my expedition to the UJD outpost in Colombo, Sri Lanka. While I understand that I arrived into a tense and dangerous situation as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had recently attacked and killed three soldiers, the UJD's Colombo coordinator, Ms. Burn, was very busy and hastily assigned an assistant to "keep me out of trouble". Her name is Mali and I was shocked to discover (mainly because of the broader ramifications of her affiliation with the UJD) that could possibly be a former (or current) LTTE member or, at the very least, a Tamil Tiger sympathizer. She showed me a training camp where young, AK47-brandishing women were running drills and practicing their marksmanship to one day continue their struggle. She bristled at my accusation that children are too young to understand the full extent of their actions. Mali said she was going to show me the faces of those who “truly respect freedom”, but my expedition abruptly ended there. I have few regrets that it didn’t continue. I had already drawn the conclusions that are to follow.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is a radical secessionist movement founded in 1975 by Velupillai Prabhakaran and appears on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations. Their crimes against the international community range from satellite piracy to assassinations, from credit card and charity fraud to human trafficking and prostitution. Meanwhile, the ongoing civil war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government has manifested a long list of bloody atrocities (massacres, suicide bombings, etc.) attributed to the separatists.

This information is included in my report in an attempt to shed light on the history and allegations against the LTTE, but concessions should be considered that misinformation and propaganda are often tools implemented by the state-in-power during internal struggles such as this one. The hands on both sides of this civil war are far from clean. Allegations of state terrorism have been levelled against the Sri Lankan government. For every Gongala Massacre (attributed to the LTTE) there is a Allaipiddy massacre (connections made to the Sri Lankan Navy), for every Central Bank bombing (one of the LTTE's deadliest suicide bombings) there is a Padahuthurai bombing (a Sri Lankan security force air raid kills civilians).

Both sides have also been accused of using child soldiers. While these accusations have historically and recently been levelled against the Tamil Tigers, this past year international attention was brought to the Sri Lankan's complacency to activities of the paramilitary Karuna Group. As mentioned in Human Rights Watch's September 2006 report entitled Improving Civilian Protection in Sri Lanka (emphasis added in italics):

Since June 2006, the Karuna group abducted more than 100 boys for their forces from several towns in Batticaloa district. After a decline in reported abductions in July, abductions by the Karuna group rose sharply in August after fighting between government forces and the LTTE intensified. Local human rights groups said that the location, time and manner of the abductions—all in government-controlled territory—strongly indicate that the abductors were from the Karuna group and not members of the LTTE.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The involvement of children in armed conflicts was the subject of a special protocol (then ratified in 2000) to the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court includes the following among its list of activities defined as "war crimes":

Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into the national armed forces or using them to participate actively in hostilities.
(Article 8, Sec 2b, xxvi)

Clearly the international community is unified on the position that children should not be used or forced into armed conflicts. During my expedition, Mali's rhetoric was an attempt to justify the atrocious human rights violation of her "liberation movement". But the use of children in the Sri Lankan civil war is reprehensible no matter which side engages in it.

For the most concisely collected list of recommendations regarding this issue, please refer to another Human Rights Watch document entitled Living in Fear: Child Soldiers and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. In this regard I believe the Center for Universal Justice and Dignity should rally behind and fully support the contributions already made by our peer in the field.

Training Report 2: Thailand and the Sex Trade

Introduction and Allegations
Thailand passed its Prevention and Suppression of Prositution Act in 1996, but clearly (based on the information I gathered in my interview with "Sally Joe" and Mark's article) enough is not being done to curtail underage prostitution. The focus of my report will be on the underage component to this human rights issue. I respect the opinions articulated by Thai organizations such as the Empower Foundation, but it is impossible to determine how many of the thousands of prostitutes working in and around Bangkok are underage and children are afforded special protections and attention by UNICEF's Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Conclusions and Recommendations

• Appeals to the private sector: Encourage businesses to sign the ECPAT, UNICEF, and World Tourism Organization supported Code of Conduct. Expose Thai businesses that cater to "sex tourism" to what is happening in their country. Accor, a major hotel group in Thailand, made positive steps back in 2003 and continues to do so. Accor can be used as a business model to reference as we seek cooperation within the Thai business community. Surely Accor's profit statistics can show that the cost of such programs are inconsequential to the businesses' "bottom-line" and that businesses should exercise their unique position to promote education about this issue.
• Support ECPAT's 2008 World Congress against the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
• Appeals to the international media: The BBC and others should be reporting more stories like this one. The more that is done to expose the "johns", the more will be done to dispell the belief that such behavior is somehow acceptable on foreign soil. I agree that this is a controversial stand to take because no hard data has proven the effectiveness of such "public humiliation" tactics (like the program in Chicago); however, press coverage gives wider exposure to Thailand's issues that it may serve to embolden internal movements to legislate changes.
• Appeals to U.S. law-makers: How much is being done in our own country to curtail the sex trade from Thailand? It is true that violators are currently being prosecuted at the federal level, but are enough resources being allocated to battle this human rights crisis? North Carolina State Representative Ellie Kinnaird passed a Human Trafficking Victims Protection bill this year. I'm proud to know that my home state is marshalling local attention to this cause and taking a stand on this global issue.

(music by Sigur Ros)

Training Report 1: New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Katrina

Introduction and Allegations

On a Monday morning in late August 2005, category-four Hurricane Katrina touched down in the city of New Orleans. The botched relief efforts that followed played out for an international viewing audience, graphically exposing racial and class tensions. As if the causalities and property damage weren’t enough, the hurricane also forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands and created a displaced, disenfranchised migration unseen since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Two years later the city is still trying to recover from the devastation.

Walter Kälin, the Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), submitted his report of the human rights concerns of those displaced by the 2004 tsunamis almost five months before Katrina hit New Orleans. Using the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, Representative Kälin identified several IDP protection issues that arose in the aftermath of the Asian tsunamis. It is interesting to note that many of those same issues arose almost exactly one year later within the world's richest and most powerful modern democracy. These comparable issues include:

• Access to Humanitarian Aid and Discrimination: There is already strong evidence to support the allegation that the city's evacuation plan fundamentally discriminated against poor African-Americans who did not own their own cars. There are also allegations that the slow government response and stalled relief efforts were due to racism. But an under-reported issue remains the discrimination faced by the mentally disabled.

• Camp Security and Protection of Women and Children: Nine months after the hurricane, sexual assualts against women within Louisiana's temporary housing camps had skyrocketted.

• Access to Education: The Children's Defense Fund reports these statistics illustrating the shocking lack of access:
  

  Before Katrina, New Orleans’ 5,043 teachers served 50,000 children in 129 schools; 80 percent of New Orleans children were below grade level in reading and math; and 61 percent of New Orleans schools were under receivership by the state. After Katrina, as of February 2006, according to the Acting New Orleans Super- intendent, Ora Lee Watson, “Only 9 public schools, 4 recovery district schools, and 4 independent charters were open with approxi- mately 650 teachers serving approximately 8,300 students.” She estimated that 2,000 school-age children were out of school in New Orleans for lack of available public school space.

• Loss of Documentation: The chaos that became the New Orleans prison system was a painful example of the cost of lost records. According to the ACLU report on the matter, some who were imprisoned before Katrina for minor infractions remained in jail for periods of time longer than they would have ever have been sentenced.

• Voluntary Return and Resettlement and Property Issues: Termed by the interviewed "Katrina Specialist" as "the Disnification of New Orleans", there are allegations that an orchestrated land-grab is occurring to radically change what New Orleans will look like. Of the interviews conducted, Kawana Jasper’s words about what she believes will become of the St. Bernard Housing Development were particularly revealing:
  

In July 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Committee issued a Consideration of Reports submitted by the U.S. pertaining to its adherence to international covenant on civil and political rights. These were its assessments regarding Hurricane Katrina:

26. The Committee, while taking note of the various rules and regulations prohibiting discrimination in the provision of disaster relief and emergency assistance, remains concerned about information that the poor, and in particular African-Americans, were disadvantaged by the rescue and evacuation plans implemented when Hurricane Katrina hit the United States,and continue to be disadvantaged under the reconstruction plans. (articles 6 and 26)

The State party should review its practices and policies to ensure the full implementation of its obligation to protect life and of the prohibition of discrimination, whether direct or indirect, as well as of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, in matters related to disaster prevention and preparedness, emergency assistance and relief measures. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the State party should increase its efforts to ensure that the rights of the poor, and in particular African-Americans, are fully taken into consideration in the reconstruction plans with regard to access to housing, education and healthcare. The Committee wishes to be informed about the results of the inquiries into the alleged failure to evacuate prisoners at the Parish prison, as well as the allegations that New Orleans residents were not permitted by law enforcement officials to cross the Greater New Orleans Bridge to Gretna, Louisiana.

Conclusions and Recommendations
Regardless of whether the United States recognizes the efforts of the United Nations Human Rights Committee or whether it even recognizes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, displaced survivors of Hurricane Katrina fit within the criteria of one of its own agencies: the Agency for International Development (USAID) which authored the Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons Policy. The following judgments come by the standards USAID published in October 2004.

It is my recommendation that we support the efforts to have “Katrina survivors” (or “Katrina refugees”) classified as Internally Displaced Peoples. As the Honorable Cynthia Diane Stephens of the Third Circuit Court in Detroit says in the Fall 2006 issue of Human Rights magazine:

Despite $109 billion in allocations from the federal government, much of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast remain physically uninhabitable and uninhabited. The population is scattered throughout the United States in a new diaspora. Litigation continues on many issues ranging from insurance policies to the length of temporary housing payments to the bulldozing of real property in New Orleans. Just as there was no social precedent for the crisis, no legal precedent exists to resolve its aftermath. The results of the litigation are unacceptably unpredictable.

Many have suggested that ascribing the status of IDPs and legislatively ascribing IDP principles could help to resolve the issues efficaciously.

The litigation mentioned pertains to fundamental human rights violations. It is also my recommendation that the UJD join organizations such as the United States Human Rights Network and the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition in championing this reclassification to foster more international support to the plight of these IDPs.

The final word of my report will go to activist/artist Mos Def and his hip-hop response to the government's handling of Hurricane Katrina. It should be noted that Mos Def was arrested for performing this song outside the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards.