By Marjorie Cohn
Professor Peter Erlinder, noted criminal defense lawyer and past president of the National Lawyers Guild, was arrested Friday morning in Rwanda for "genocide ideology." Erlinder's representation of high-profile defendants before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has incurred the wrath of government officials, who have charged him with "negation of the Tutsi genocide" for mounting defenses of his clients that conflict with the government party line about who was responsible for the 1994 genocide.
The Rwandan government recently blasted the U.S. government for criticizing Rwanda's restrictions on the media and human rights organizations in advance of the upcoming August national elections. A Human Rights Watch researcher had been barred from the country and several independent newspapers had been shuttered. Opposition supporters had been attacked and jailed.
Erlinder had recently filed a lawsuit in Oklahoma against Rwandan president Paul Kagame, which likely angered the government in Rwanda. Erlinder had traveled to Kigali, Rwanda to represent his client, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who is also charged with "denying genocide." Ms. Umuhoza happens to be opposing President Kagame in the forthcoming August elections. Since he arrived in Kigali, the government-sponsored media there has been very critical of Erlinder.
The "Law Relating to the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Ideology," unique to Rwanda, defines genocide broadly and does not require that one have any link to a genocidal act. It punishes legitimate forms of expression protected by international treaties. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the U.S. State Department have denounced the law as a means for political repression.
In an interview shortly before he traveled to Kigali, Erlinder stated that Ms. Umuhoza was not in Rwanda in 1994 and the charges against her are not supported by a verdict of the ICTR.
Regardless of the merits of the case, however, it is unsupportable that an attorney be arrested and jailed for vigorously representing his client. In 1770, John Adams defended nine British soldiers including a captain who stood accused of killing five Americans. No other lawyer would defend them. Adams thought no one in a free country should be denied the right to a fair trial and the right to counsel. He was subjected to scorn and ridicule and claimed to have lost half his law practice as a result of his efforts. Adams later said his representation of those British soldiers was "one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country."
Bar associations including the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) have condemned Erlinder's arrest. "There can be no justice for anyone if the state can silence lawyers for defendants whom it dislikes and a government that seeks to prevent lawyers from being vigorous advocates for their clients cannot be trusted," said NLG president David Gespass. "Government intimidation and interference with criminal defense lawyers is unacceptable in all its forms and it fundamentally undermines justice," according to an NACDL press release.
Erlinder should be released immediately. He should be given immediate access to counsel and the charges against him should be dismissed.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
Rwanda arrests Ingabire's American lawyer Erlinder in Kigali
Rwandan Police have arrested Peter Erlinder, the American lawyer who traveled to Rwanda's capitol, Kigali, on Monday, May 23rd, to join the defense team of Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza.
Ingabire was released after being summoned to a Rwandan police station yesterday, much to the relief of her supporters, but this morning both she and the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported that Erlinder had been arrested and charged with "genocide ideology," a crime unique to Rwanda which Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the U.S. State Department have denounced as a tool of political repression.
Erlinder, a prominent critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame's regime, and of the received history of the Rwanda Genocide, had traveled to Kigali after attending the Second Intetnational Criminal Defense Lawyers' Conference in Brussels.
State run Rwandan media have attacked Erlinder since his arrival and the Rwandan News Agency report that he is now in custody and being interrogated at the Rwandan Police Force’s Kacyiru headquarters.
The RNA also reports that the American embassy in Kigali have taken up the matter, but it is not yet clear in what form. The Embassy is located just meters away from the police headquarters.
Before leaving for Bruxelles and then Kigali, Erlinder notified the U.S. State Department, his Minnesota Congressional Representative Keith Ellison, and Minnesota Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar.
Erlinder bases his critique of the Kagame regime and the received history of the 1993 Rwanda Genocide on the evidence collected in his Rwanda Documents Project.
Ingabire was released after being summoned to a Rwandan police station yesterday, much to the relief of her supporters, but this morning both she and the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported that Erlinder had been arrested and charged with "genocide ideology," a crime unique to Rwanda which Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the U.S. State Department have denounced as a tool of political repression.
Erlinder, a prominent critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame's regime, and of the received history of the Rwanda Genocide, had traveled to Kigali after attending the Second Intetnational Criminal Defense Lawyers' Conference in Brussels.
State run Rwandan media have attacked Erlinder since his arrival and the Rwandan News Agency report that he is now in custody and being interrogated at the Rwandan Police Force’s Kacyiru headquarters.
The RNA also reports that the American embassy in Kigali have taken up the matter, but it is not yet clear in what form. The Embassy is located just meters away from the police headquarters.
Before leaving for Bruxelles and then Kigali, Erlinder notified the U.S. State Department, his Minnesota Congressional Representative Keith Ellison, and Minnesota Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar.
Erlinder bases his critique of the Kagame regime and the received history of the 1993 Rwanda Genocide on the evidence collected in his Rwanda Documents Project.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
ERI Asks Supreme Court to Hear Case on Corporate Complicity in Crimes Against Humanity in Sudan
As the law in New York’s federal courts stands now, a company can knowingly provide fuel and runways for government bombing raids against civilians and support the murderous displacement of entire communities, without having any responsibility for the injuries made possible by their assistance of gross human rights abuses committed in part for their own benefit. On May 20, 2010, EarthRights International (ERI) filed an amicus brief in the case of Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman Energy, Inc., urging the U.S. Supreme Court to consider and overturn the incorrect and unjust ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that condones such behavior.
It is hard to imagine a clearer case of corporate complicity in human rights abuses than the involvement of Canadian oil company Talisman Energy in the atrocities committed by the Sudanese government against Southern tribespeople starting in the late 1990s. Talisman bought a major share in a consortium exploiting oil near the volatile border between North and South Sudan in 1998, despite knowledge that the Sudanese government was engaged in gross abuses in its suppression of Southern secessionist groups. In the course of its due diligence, Talisman also learned that the government preferred to established a “cordon sanitaire” around oil fields in the area – which meant brutally attacking surrounding villages and driving the survivors out of the area. During the years that it maintained its stake in the consortium, Talisman funded and built bases to provide air cover for bombing campaigns against civilians, and hired and deployed military advisors to work closely with Sudanese military personnel as they cleared the local population from the areas around the oil facilities. Talisman employees refueled Sudanese air force planes to go on bombing raids against the surrounding populace. All this was known at the highest levels of Talisman’s management, including the fact that the air force’s targets were civilians, and not legitimate military objectives.
On behalf of a group of Sudanese victims, plaintiffs’ attorney Carey D’Avino filed suit against Talisman in New York federal court in 2001, charging it with complicity in the Sudanese government’s grave violations of human rights. The case worked its way through the court system for eight years, until it ran afoul of one side of an important doctrinal debate that is currently in front of the courts. Although the legal battle is fought out in highly technical terms, the basic issue is quite real and practically significant. When an individual (either a company or a private person) aids in the commission of grave human rights abuses, knowing that his assistance will contribute to the abuses, is that individual then liable for the abuses? Or does the individual become liable only if it can be proven that he specifically intended for his assistance to lead to the human rights violations – that he shared the purpose of the primary violator? In its own cases and its amicus briefs, ERI has repeatedly argued in favor of a “knowing assistance” rule. Requiring a shared purpose might well exonerate, for example, businessmen who manufactured and sold the poison gas Zyklon B to the Germans during World War II, since they intended not to contribute to genocide but simply to make money; some of these businessmen were in fact convicted at Nuremburg.
In its 2009 decision, the Second Circuit agreed with Talisman that the courts must look to international law for the rules of aiding and abetting grave human rights abuses – and that international law requires a shared purpose. The court found that the plaintiffs had not put forward facts showing that Talisman specifically intended its acts of assistance to contribute to genocide, war crimes, torture, and crimes against humanity, and therefore dismissed the case. The plaintiffs petitioned for a writ of certiorari, asking the Supreme Court to hear their claims and reverse the Second Circuit’s decision. Paul Hoffman, who is ERI’s co-counsel in several cases, presented the appeal to the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court.
Although ERI does not represent the Talisman plaintiffs, the outcome of this debate has the potential to affect almost all of our cases. ERI therefore filed an amicus brief supporting the petition, arguing that this question is so important, and the Second Circuit’s ruling so plainly wrong, that the Supreme Court should grant the plaintiffs’ petition and hear the case. ERI previously filed two other amicus briefs in the same case, and we now hope that the Supreme Court will step in and guide the courts on the proper standards.
It is hard to imagine a clearer case of corporate complicity in human rights abuses than the involvement of Canadian oil company Talisman Energy in the atrocities committed by the Sudanese government against Southern tribespeople starting in the late 1990s. Talisman bought a major share in a consortium exploiting oil near the volatile border between North and South Sudan in 1998, despite knowledge that the Sudanese government was engaged in gross abuses in its suppression of Southern secessionist groups. In the course of its due diligence, Talisman also learned that the government preferred to established a “cordon sanitaire” around oil fields in the area – which meant brutally attacking surrounding villages and driving the survivors out of the area. During the years that it maintained its stake in the consortium, Talisman funded and built bases to provide air cover for bombing campaigns against civilians, and hired and deployed military advisors to work closely with Sudanese military personnel as they cleared the local population from the areas around the oil facilities. Talisman employees refueled Sudanese air force planes to go on bombing raids against the surrounding populace. All this was known at the highest levels of Talisman’s management, including the fact that the air force’s targets were civilians, and not legitimate military objectives.
On behalf of a group of Sudanese victims, plaintiffs’ attorney Carey D’Avino filed suit against Talisman in New York federal court in 2001, charging it with complicity in the Sudanese government’s grave violations of human rights. The case worked its way through the court system for eight years, until it ran afoul of one side of an important doctrinal debate that is currently in front of the courts. Although the legal battle is fought out in highly technical terms, the basic issue is quite real and practically significant. When an individual (either a company or a private person) aids in the commission of grave human rights abuses, knowing that his assistance will contribute to the abuses, is that individual then liable for the abuses? Or does the individual become liable only if it can be proven that he specifically intended for his assistance to lead to the human rights violations – that he shared the purpose of the primary violator? In its own cases and its amicus briefs, ERI has repeatedly argued in favor of a “knowing assistance” rule. Requiring a shared purpose might well exonerate, for example, businessmen who manufactured and sold the poison gas Zyklon B to the Germans during World War II, since they intended not to contribute to genocide but simply to make money; some of these businessmen were in fact convicted at Nuremburg.
In its 2009 decision, the Second Circuit agreed with Talisman that the courts must look to international law for the rules of aiding and abetting grave human rights abuses – and that international law requires a shared purpose. The court found that the plaintiffs had not put forward facts showing that Talisman specifically intended its acts of assistance to contribute to genocide, war crimes, torture, and crimes against humanity, and therefore dismissed the case. The plaintiffs petitioned for a writ of certiorari, asking the Supreme Court to hear their claims and reverse the Second Circuit’s decision. Paul Hoffman, who is ERI’s co-counsel in several cases, presented the appeal to the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court.
Although ERI does not represent the Talisman plaintiffs, the outcome of this debate has the potential to affect almost all of our cases. ERI therefore filed an amicus brief supporting the petition, arguing that this question is so important, and the Second Circuit’s ruling so plainly wrong, that the Supreme Court should grant the plaintiffs’ petition and hear the case. ERI previously filed two other amicus briefs in the same case, and we now hope that the Supreme Court will step in and guide the courts on the proper standards.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Swaziland: trade unionist "killed" in custody
Submitted by WW4 Report on Thu, 05/13/2010 - 14:18.
Local trade unionists are demanding answers following the apparent killing in custody of Sipho Jele, an activist in the Swaziland Agriculture and Plantation Workers' Union (SAPWU) and People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), who was arrested during May Day protests. Swaziland's largest opposition party, PUDEMO is being relentlessly persecuted under the government's notorious Suppression of Terrorism Act. Swaziland has been living under a State of Emergency since 1973. Swazi authorities are calling the Jele's death a suicide.
South Africa's powerful trade union COSATU has also taken up the case, issuing a joint statement with the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) pronouncing their "strongest denunciation of the suspicious death in custody of Sipho Jele." Swazi King Mswati has stated he sees "akukhanywane"—throttling or strangling—as the best way to deal with opposition. Several PUDEMO members have been killed in recent years. (Afrol News, May 12)
Local trade unionists are demanding answers following the apparent killing in custody of Sipho Jele, an activist in the Swaziland Agriculture and Plantation Workers' Union (SAPWU) and People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), who was arrested during May Day protests. Swaziland's largest opposition party, PUDEMO is being relentlessly persecuted under the government's notorious Suppression of Terrorism Act. Swaziland has been living under a State of Emergency since 1973. Swazi authorities are calling the Jele's death a suicide.
South Africa's powerful trade union COSATU has also taken up the case, issuing a joint statement with the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) pronouncing their "strongest denunciation of the suspicious death in custody of Sipho Jele." Swazi King Mswati has stated he sees "akukhanywane"—throttling or strangling—as the best way to deal with opposition. Several PUDEMO members have been killed in recent years. (Afrol News, May 12)
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Africa: Oil, Minerals And the Militarisation of Globalisation
by Julius Barigaba
ANALYSIS | This casts a very grim picture on the fortunes of Uganda that struck oil only a few years ago but has since been on the brink of slipping back into conflict.
Nairobi — A new study has linked conflicts in Africa with the continent's oil and mineral resources that Western powers are fighting to control through the militarised foreign policy of the United States in Africa, and geopolitical wars.
The study, Globalisation in Africa: Commercial Wars and State Failure in Uganda, is a University of Malaya PhD thesis by Ugandan scholar Yunus Lubega Butanaziba.
Released in October 2009, it says the West's "imperial" interest in Africa's wealth first led to conquest and more recently the creation of a centralised military force, the US African Command (Africom) to police these resources, including Uganda's oil.
This interest has shaped global geopolitics from pre-World War II through the Cold War to the present in Congo, Darfur, Somalia, Sudan, Angola, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Uganda.
No wonder these countries are among the world's conflict flashpoints of the post-Cold War era.
The study also postulates that commercial and resource wars are a US agenda with its allied Western powers -- all members of the Bretton Woods institutions since 1944 that seeks to weaken internal political systems and take control of resources.
This casts a very grim picture on the fortunes of Uganda that struck oil only a few years ago but has since been on the brink of slipping back into conflict.
When Uganda discovered oil in 2006, the two-decade long war in the north was on the ebb, but since then, there have been flashes of violence -- last year's Banyoro-Bakiga tribal clashes and the clash between Congo and Uganda armies -- which could point to eruption of conflict, this time in the oil fields of western Uganda.
However, it is the creation of the Djibouti-based Africom, based on theories of American political scientist Samuel Huntington that explain why more resource wars are set to unfold in oil and mineral rich countries.
Huntington had taken the global strategy theory to another level in his "Next pattern of conflict" essay that Butanaziba says guided Washington's model of globalised security, which others have called the militarisation of globalisation.
This model saw the creation of four strategic military commands to keep close watch on resources.
Other commands are Eucom (Europe), Centcom (Africa/Asia), Pacom (Pacific) and Southcom (South America).
This stage had been arrived at following years of implementing the global strategy to control world resources that the US political strategists Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman had laid ground for earlier.
It would guide imperial interests in Africa through the colonial, Cold War and post-Cold War periods.
Mackinder argued that whoever rules East Europe commands the Heartland, and eventually, the world and its resources.
Spykman took the argument to taking control of the World Island (Africa and Eurasia) by seizing Eurasia's coastal lands, also known as the Rimland, while in the post-Cold War era, Huntington saw the use of the military to control continents as the perfect way to control global resources.
Batanaziba says events that have unfolded since the creation of Africom confirm that in creating this force, Washington was clearly executing Huntington's post-Cold War theory.
"In the thinking of Pentagon and White House officials, the world today is too dangerous a place not to be policed by Washington. The establishment of Africom... is being driven by two main strategic concerns: First, the growing demand for African oil and gas..."
Africom has the force of law to intervene in African security because African states have agreed to it.
American geopolitics analyst William Engdahl wrote in November 2008 that the birth of Africom had more to do with a fight for resources than mere security concerns.
Indeed, in a matter of weeks after President George W. Bush assented to the creation of Africom, a new wave of conflict erupted in mineral-rich eastern Congo to pre-empt the major agenda of the incoming Barack Obama presidency.
To focus the US's military and other resources on dealing with the Congo, the oil rich Gulf of Guinea and oil rich Darfur, as well as the increasing Somali pirate threat in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean waters.
"The legitimate question is whether it is mere coincidence that Africa appears to just at this time become a new geopolitical 'hotspot' or whether it has a direct link to the formal creation of Africom," wrote Mr Engdahl.
This position had been stated by Washington adviser Dr Peter Pham in unequivocal terms in 2007, while justifying Africom's creation before Congress, saying its purpose was to protect "access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources which Africa has in abundance... a task which includes ensuring against the vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no other interested third parties, such as India, China, Japan or Russia obtain monopolies or preferential treatment."
The irony of it is that these countries have enormous resources but they are also saddled with raging poverty hence the dreaded resource curse.
In the thesis, Mr Butanaziba clearly alludes to this failure stated in Uganda's Oil and Gas Policy 2008.
"The reports of the National Oil and Gas Policy of Uganda indicated that oil and gas are non-renewable extractive resources which in addition to having potentially immense benefits to the country, also pose the challenge of insecurity to the country."
Clearly, the military option that the west preaches is no panacea for Africa: it has bred havoc in Sudan, left Somalia split along clan lines and reduced Liberia to shambles.
It has not tamed several midlevel powers like France, Libya and Israel that enjoy impunity in their swash buckling exploits in Africa.
Copyright © 2010 The East African. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
ANALYSIS | This casts a very grim picture on the fortunes of Uganda that struck oil only a few years ago but has since been on the brink of slipping back into conflict.
Nairobi — A new study has linked conflicts in Africa with the continent's oil and mineral resources that Western powers are fighting to control through the militarised foreign policy of the United States in Africa, and geopolitical wars.
The study, Globalisation in Africa: Commercial Wars and State Failure in Uganda, is a University of Malaya PhD thesis by Ugandan scholar Yunus Lubega Butanaziba.
Released in October 2009, it says the West's "imperial" interest in Africa's wealth first led to conquest and more recently the creation of a centralised military force, the US African Command (Africom) to police these resources, including Uganda's oil.
This interest has shaped global geopolitics from pre-World War II through the Cold War to the present in Congo, Darfur, Somalia, Sudan, Angola, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Uganda.
No wonder these countries are among the world's conflict flashpoints of the post-Cold War era.
The study also postulates that commercial and resource wars are a US agenda with its allied Western powers -- all members of the Bretton Woods institutions since 1944 that seeks to weaken internal political systems and take control of resources.
This casts a very grim picture on the fortunes of Uganda that struck oil only a few years ago but has since been on the brink of slipping back into conflict.
When Uganda discovered oil in 2006, the two-decade long war in the north was on the ebb, but since then, there have been flashes of violence -- last year's Banyoro-Bakiga tribal clashes and the clash between Congo and Uganda armies -- which could point to eruption of conflict, this time in the oil fields of western Uganda.
However, it is the creation of the Djibouti-based Africom, based on theories of American political scientist Samuel Huntington that explain why more resource wars are set to unfold in oil and mineral rich countries.
Huntington had taken the global strategy theory to another level in his "Next pattern of conflict" essay that Butanaziba says guided Washington's model of globalised security, which others have called the militarisation of globalisation.
This model saw the creation of four strategic military commands to keep close watch on resources.
Other commands are Eucom (Europe), Centcom (Africa/Asia), Pacom (Pacific) and Southcom (South America).
This stage had been arrived at following years of implementing the global strategy to control world resources that the US political strategists Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman had laid ground for earlier.
It would guide imperial interests in Africa through the colonial, Cold War and post-Cold War periods.
Mackinder argued that whoever rules East Europe commands the Heartland, and eventually, the world and its resources.
Spykman took the argument to taking control of the World Island (Africa and Eurasia) by seizing Eurasia's coastal lands, also known as the Rimland, while in the post-Cold War era, Huntington saw the use of the military to control continents as the perfect way to control global resources.
Batanaziba says events that have unfolded since the creation of Africom confirm that in creating this force, Washington was clearly executing Huntington's post-Cold War theory.
"In the thinking of Pentagon and White House officials, the world today is too dangerous a place not to be policed by Washington. The establishment of Africom... is being driven by two main strategic concerns: First, the growing demand for African oil and gas..."
Africom has the force of law to intervene in African security because African states have agreed to it.
American geopolitics analyst William Engdahl wrote in November 2008 that the birth of Africom had more to do with a fight for resources than mere security concerns.
Indeed, in a matter of weeks after President George W. Bush assented to the creation of Africom, a new wave of conflict erupted in mineral-rich eastern Congo to pre-empt the major agenda of the incoming Barack Obama presidency.
To focus the US's military and other resources on dealing with the Congo, the oil rich Gulf of Guinea and oil rich Darfur, as well as the increasing Somali pirate threat in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean waters.
"The legitimate question is whether it is mere coincidence that Africa appears to just at this time become a new geopolitical 'hotspot' or whether it has a direct link to the formal creation of Africom," wrote Mr Engdahl.
This position had been stated by Washington adviser Dr Peter Pham in unequivocal terms in 2007, while justifying Africom's creation before Congress, saying its purpose was to protect "access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources which Africa has in abundance... a task which includes ensuring against the vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no other interested third parties, such as India, China, Japan or Russia obtain monopolies or preferential treatment."
The irony of it is that these countries have enormous resources but they are also saddled with raging poverty hence the dreaded resource curse.
In the thesis, Mr Butanaziba clearly alludes to this failure stated in Uganda's Oil and Gas Policy 2008.
"The reports of the National Oil and Gas Policy of Uganda indicated that oil and gas are non-renewable extractive resources which in addition to having potentially immense benefits to the country, also pose the challenge of insecurity to the country."
Clearly, the military option that the west preaches is no panacea for Africa: it has bred havoc in Sudan, left Somalia split along clan lines and reduced Liberia to shambles.
It has not tamed several midlevel powers like France, Libya and Israel that enjoy impunity in their swash buckling exploits in Africa.
Copyright © 2010 The East African. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Eritrea's Issaias Afeworki world's worst press freedom "predator": RSF
Submitted by WW4 Report
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), in a survey of global press-freedom "Predators" released May 3, ranks Eritrea's President Issaias Afeworki as the world's worst abuser of media freedom. RSF charges that Eritrea permits no independent media and the state-run newspapers and television network do not allow stories that challenge the nation's leadership or its policies. The government has described a free press as "incompatible" with Eritrean culture and last year President Isaias said no Eritrean should want or need to attack their own country.
"Around 30 journalists are currently held in its 314 prison camps and detention centres. Four of them have died as a result of the extremely cruel conditions in these prisons. Others have just disappeared," RSF said in a statement. "Ruled with an iron hand by a small ultra-nationalist clique centered on Afeworki, this Red Sea country has been transformed in just a few years into a vast open prison, Africa's biggest prison for the media."
RSF charges that Eritrea denies the existence of large prison camps in parts of the country off-limits to independent observers, and says international rights groups invent statistics and anecdotes so they can follow their own business interests in Africa.
Basic freedoms of the press were officially suspended in 2001 after some former members of Eritrea's ruling party began pressing for more democracy, RSF said. "Any hint of opposition is seen as a threat to national security. The privately-owned media no longer exist. There are just state media whose content is worthy of the Soviet era." RSF has ranked Eritrea below North Korea three years in a row. (Reuters, May 3)
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), in a survey of global press-freedom "Predators" released May 3, ranks Eritrea's President Issaias Afeworki as the world's worst abuser of media freedom. RSF charges that Eritrea permits no independent media and the state-run newspapers and television network do not allow stories that challenge the nation's leadership or its policies. The government has described a free press as "incompatible" with Eritrean culture and last year President Isaias said no Eritrean should want or need to attack their own country.
"Around 30 journalists are currently held in its 314 prison camps and detention centres. Four of them have died as a result of the extremely cruel conditions in these prisons. Others have just disappeared," RSF said in a statement. "Ruled with an iron hand by a small ultra-nationalist clique centered on Afeworki, this Red Sea country has been transformed in just a few years into a vast open prison, Africa's biggest prison for the media."
RSF charges that Eritrea denies the existence of large prison camps in parts of the country off-limits to independent observers, and says international rights groups invent statistics and anecdotes so they can follow their own business interests in Africa.
Basic freedoms of the press were officially suspended in 2001 after some former members of Eritrea's ruling party began pressing for more democracy, RSF said. "Any hint of opposition is seen as a threat to national security. The privately-owned media no longer exist. There are just state media whose content is worthy of the Soviet era." RSF has ranked Eritrea below North Korea three years in a row. (Reuters, May 3)
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
(Mis)Investment in Agriculture
A New Report from the Oakland Institute
"Africa needs investment in agriculture-better seeds and inputs, improved extension services, education on conservation techniques, regional integration, and investment to build local capacity. It does not need policies that enable foreign investors to grow and export food for their own people to the detriment of the local population. I'll be even bolder-such policies will hurt Africa, fueling conflict over land and water. Africa is not a commodity. It must not be labeled "open for business."
-- Howard G. Buffett, Foreword, (Mis)Investment in Agriculture
Oakland, CA--As a major two-day conference on Land Policy & Administration, hosted by the World Bank, gets under way to supposedly "improve land governance" and "contribute to the well-being of the poorest," Oakland Institute's new report, (Mis)Investment in Agriculture: The Role of the International Finance Corporation in the Global Land Grab, exposes the role of the Bank's private sector branch, International Finance Corporation (IFC), in fueling land grabs, especially in Africa.
"Land grabs - the purchase or lease of vast tracts of land from poor, developing countries by wealthier, food-insecure nations and private investors - has led to the acquisition of nearly 50 million hectares of farmland," said Shepard Daniel, Oakland Institute's Fellow and author of the report. "While rising food prices, demand for biofuels, and investors seeking quick returns have been emphasized as the principal drivers of this trend, the role of the World Bank has gone virtually unnoticed. (Mis)advice from IFC's Technical Assistance and Advisory Services (TAAS) and Foreign Investment Advisory Services (FIAS) to developing country governments to spur foreign direct investment in agriculture has fueled the dangerous trend of vast land deals in some of the world's most vulnerable countries," she continued.
"Following the 2008 food and financial crises, World Bank was to play a central role in what was intended to be a massive overhaul in international food policy and a vast improvement to food security in the developing world," said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute. "Evidence, however, reveals that World Bank Group policies and efforts are doing just the opposite. IFC has actually increased the ability of foreign investors to acquire land in developing country markets. It is promoting "products" - such as the 'Access to Land' and the 'Land Market for Investment' whose purpose is to open land access to investors. Further more the creation of "investment promotion agencies" and rewriting of national laws, has provided the institutional back up for such investments. In doing so, it has overlooked the urgent problem of hunger that persists in client countries, and lost sight of its principle mission, which is to alleviate poverty," she continued.
For instance, in Ethiopia, IFC's recommended changes to policy and legislature have completely transformed the landscape of Ethiopian investment climate. Accordingly, huge investments in land market have followed. "Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13 million people in need of food aid," said Daniel, "but paradoxically the government has already offered at least 7.5 million acres of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world's most wealthy individuals to export food back to their own countries."
(Mis)Investment in Agriculture concludes that the promotion of investor access into developing country land markets threatens local food security, displaces local populations, and therefore operates in direct violation of IFC's Performance Standards as well as several UN Human Rights Conventions. The Report contends that it is crucial that IFC be investigated and held accountable for the land grabs promoted by its technical assistance and advisory services. World Bank's current practices that promote land grabs must be stopped in order to protect the food security and livelihoods of the world's most vulnerable populations.
(Mis)Investment in Agriculture: The Role of the International Finance Corporation in the Global Land Grab, is a publication of the Oakland Institute (www.oaklandinstitute.org), an independent policy think tank whose mission is to increase public participation and promote fair debate on critical social, economic, and environmental issues.
"Africa needs investment in agriculture-better seeds and inputs, improved extension services, education on conservation techniques, regional integration, and investment to build local capacity. It does not need policies that enable foreign investors to grow and export food for their own people to the detriment of the local population. I'll be even bolder-such policies will hurt Africa, fueling conflict over land and water. Africa is not a commodity. It must not be labeled "open for business."
-- Howard G. Buffett, Foreword, (Mis)Investment in Agriculture
Oakland, CA--As a major two-day conference on Land Policy & Administration, hosted by the World Bank, gets under way to supposedly "improve land governance" and "contribute to the well-being of the poorest," Oakland Institute's new report, (Mis)Investment in Agriculture: The Role of the International Finance Corporation in the Global Land Grab, exposes the role of the Bank's private sector branch, International Finance Corporation (IFC), in fueling land grabs, especially in Africa.
"Land grabs - the purchase or lease of vast tracts of land from poor, developing countries by wealthier, food-insecure nations and private investors - has led to the acquisition of nearly 50 million hectares of farmland," said Shepard Daniel, Oakland Institute's Fellow and author of the report. "While rising food prices, demand for biofuels, and investors seeking quick returns have been emphasized as the principal drivers of this trend, the role of the World Bank has gone virtually unnoticed. (Mis)advice from IFC's Technical Assistance and Advisory Services (TAAS) and Foreign Investment Advisory Services (FIAS) to developing country governments to spur foreign direct investment in agriculture has fueled the dangerous trend of vast land deals in some of the world's most vulnerable countries," she continued.
"Following the 2008 food and financial crises, World Bank was to play a central role in what was intended to be a massive overhaul in international food policy and a vast improvement to food security in the developing world," said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute. "Evidence, however, reveals that World Bank Group policies and efforts are doing just the opposite. IFC has actually increased the ability of foreign investors to acquire land in developing country markets. It is promoting "products" - such as the 'Access to Land' and the 'Land Market for Investment' whose purpose is to open land access to investors. Further more the creation of "investment promotion agencies" and rewriting of national laws, has provided the institutional back up for such investments. In doing so, it has overlooked the urgent problem of hunger that persists in client countries, and lost sight of its principle mission, which is to alleviate poverty," she continued.
For instance, in Ethiopia, IFC's recommended changes to policy and legislature have completely transformed the landscape of Ethiopian investment climate. Accordingly, huge investments in land market have followed. "Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13 million people in need of food aid," said Daniel, "but paradoxically the government has already offered at least 7.5 million acres of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world's most wealthy individuals to export food back to their own countries."
(Mis)Investment in Agriculture concludes that the promotion of investor access into developing country land markets threatens local food security, displaces local populations, and therefore operates in direct violation of IFC's Performance Standards as well as several UN Human Rights Conventions. The Report contends that it is crucial that IFC be investigated and held accountable for the land grabs promoted by its technical assistance and advisory services. World Bank's current practices that promote land grabs must be stopped in order to protect the food security and livelihoods of the world's most vulnerable populations.
(Mis)Investment in Agriculture: The Role of the International Finance Corporation in the Global Land Grab, is a publication of the Oakland Institute (www.oaklandinstitute.org), an independent policy think tank whose mission is to increase public participation and promote fair debate on critical social, economic, and environmental issues.
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