Catégorie : World People

She is one of the Laureates awarded in 2006 with the Prize for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life, given annually by the Women’s World Summit Foundation WWSF

She says: ”Together we are strong. »

« Mama » Margaretha SAKO – Indonesia

Margaretha Sako (54), usually called Mama Margaretha, is the founder and driver of the Saku Maju Group in the Manumean Village (East Nusa Tenggara Province), which has played a key role in the development of her community and served as a model for other regions of her country.

After completing junior high school, she worked with her family, then later with her husband, using slash-and-burn cultivation. In this system trees are cut down, burned, then seeds are planted for two or three years before one moves on to another area where the process starts again. However, this approach is highly damageable to the land, and after observing other villages where agroforestry was used, she became determined to encourage her community to make changes. She followed courses given by a local NGO, and then decided to start a group in her village.

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Linked with ‘The Vietnam War Crimes You Never Heard Of‘.

He is the associate editor and research director of TomDispatch.com. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, The Village Voice, and Daily Ireland. (See on tomdispatch, see the list of his articles there).

He is also doctoral candidate at the ‘Center for the History & Ethics of Public Health’ in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. He writes on the military-corporate complex. (See Alternet/Authors, see the list of his articles there).

Sorry, I can not get any photo of Nick (Nicholas) Turse – USA …

… but this photo about « war dead » placards (from a page of Washington Post.com, of August 31, 2004): On the second day of the Republican National Convention, Marlene Rocha reads a magazine as George Lee, Ovay Henkel and Max protest deaths in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Members of the small, autonomous protest group sat silently on a subway train going uptown as police followed them.

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He said: « Before Fez, I had never set foot in a city, never observed the swarming activity of the alleyways, never felt that powerful breath on my face, like the wind from the sea, heavy with cries and smells. Of course, I was born in Granada, the stately capital of the kingdom of Andalus, but it was already late in the century, and I knew it only in its death agonies, emptied of its citizens and its souls, humiliated, faded, and when I left our quarter of al-Baisin it was no longer anything for my family but a vast encampment, hostile and ruined ».

Amin Maalouf – Lebanon & France

He is Lebanese journalist and novelist, whose native language was Arabic but who writes in French. Most of Maalouf’s books have a historical setting, and like Umberto Eco, Orhan Pamuk, and Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Maalouf mixes fascinating historical facts with fantasy and philosophical ideas. In an interview Maalouf has said that his role as a writer is to create « positive myths ». Maalouf’s works, written with the skill of a master storyteller, offer a sensitive view of the values and attitudes of different cultures in the Middle East, Africa and Mediterranean world. (Read all on Pegasos).

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Linked with International Alert.

He was not only the first Secretary General of International Alert, he was the source of Alert’s early energy, inspiration and development. His untimely death in 1991 was a severe blow to the organisation – and a great loss to the field of human rights.He was a British human rights activist.

He says: ”Without peace, there is little hope for human rights ».

Martin Ennals – England (1927-1991)

As a pioneer of the human rights movement, Martin Ennals inspired many with his tireless devotion and life-long commitment to individual justice. Throughout his career, he was involved with a wide range of activities in his search for peaceful solutions to conflict and his defence and promotion of equal rights for all. He was instrumental in the founding or early development of many noteworthy organisations including Amnesty International, HURIDOCS, Article 19 and International Alert.

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She is one of the Laureates awarded in 2006 with the Prize for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life.

She says: ”Educate a girl and you educate a nation ».

Margaret Ntuti AKWALU – Kenya

Chairlady of the Kieni Gia Nkoro Women’s Group in the rural district of Kianjai, Mama Ruth (65), as Margaret Ntuti Akwalu is fondly and popularly called, has made tremendous contributions towards community development in many areas. Her teaching in agriculture and development farming methods enabled her to sell the idea of cash crop growing to unwilling peasants in this rural community which resulted in a big increase of coffee plantation acreage. This became one of the greatest economic activities in the area that fed, educated and employed many people. She also uses her agricultural knowledge to improve her own farm that yields today the highest results. Margaret also preaches good hygiene practices and as a volunteer with the Kenya Family Planning Association, she strongly campaigns against retrogressive cultural practices like girl circumcision (FMG) and advocates for smaller families.

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Linked with Children of Chechen « Spetzoperations », and with Nation Non Grata.

She says: “People ask me: ‘Why do you write about this war?’ The reason is quite simple: we are contemporaries of this savage conflict and, in the end, we will have to answer for it”.

Anna Politkovskaya – Russian Federation (1958 – 2006)

Anna Politkovskaya (born 1958) is a reputed Russian journalist. In 1999, Anna started working for the ‘Novaya Gazeta’ newspaper as a special correspondent in the Northern Caucasus. She is the author of several books on the war in Chechnya. Anna advocates for the human rights of Chechen refugees and those who have suffered because of the war. She also investigates cases of corruption among high-ranking military in Chechnya. For her journalistic achievements combined with an active anti-war stand, she has received numerous Russian and international awards.(Read all on 1000peacewomen).

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kolesnikov) – Anna Politkovskaya’s assassination resembles other high-profile murders of journalists, from Dmitry Kholodov to Paul Khlebnikov.

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Linked with Plan Colombia and its Consequences in Ecuador, with A Human Rights Council’s statement.

She says: “And when we are with the others, on the edge of an eternal morning, will all of us have eaten breakfast?” (Cesár Vallejo, Peruvian poet).

She says also: « The worse attack on human rights is poverty ».

And she says: « The terrible poverty, and the desire that I felt together with the need to try to do something to remedy this situation, developed my religious vocation ». (Read about Sister Elsie Mong).

Elsie Monge – Ecuador

She works for the Ecumenical Commission of Human Rights, and for the Ecuadorian Front for Human Rights (mentionned on Amnesty International).

She entered the missionary community of Maryknoll and worked with people who had gone astray. She denounced a murder during a radio transmission in Panama and was forced to leave the country. Back in Ecuador, her native country, Elsie Monge collaborated with agricultural cooperatives of afro-descendent peasants. Later, she started working with the Ecumenical Commission of Human Rights, which she has directed since 1986.

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Linked with The Global African Congress GAC, with The Global African Congress GAC,  and with The Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome PTSS.

Women Who Are Shaping The World, A Leadership Summit, October 13, 2006, New York City, New York Marriott Marquis. Register here.

She holds workshops, for instance on Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome, on Human Sexuality, or on African-American Male Youth Violence. (Read all on essence.com).

She says: “The nature of this work is such that each group first must see to their own healing, because no group can do another’s work” (about healing the Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, read the whole Interview).

Joy DeGruy-Leary – USA

She teaches social work at the Portland State University. See her new book ‘Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing’. (Read al on inthesetimes.com).

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Linked with Gender as a Tool in Building Peace, with Somalia – profiles, facts and reports; with Save Somali Women and Children SSWC, with Women defending Peace Conference, and with Women Peacemakers Program WWP.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She is a Visiting Fellow, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Member of Transitional Parliament of Somalia, Founder of Save Somali Women and Children SSWC, and Chairperson of The Sixth Clan.

Conference: « The Experience of Somali Women in Peace Building and Political Participation Amid Conflicts », with Hon. Mde. Asha Hagi Elmi Amin, Sunday, October 8, 2:00-4:00 p.m., at the Fluno Center for Executive Education, 601 University Ave., Madison WI 53715 (USA). Come for an Intimate Sunday Afternoon Gathering for Coffee and Conversation. Details on speakers, agenda and registration for the Women’s Executive Leadership Summit are available by calling Mary Corbett at (608) 441-7330. (See on Tempo International).
She says: “Have one voice, and one interest as women”.

Elmi Asha Hagi Amin – Somalia

She works for ‘Save the Somali Women and Children’ SSWC.

Women’s summit features Somali peace-builder: The Hon. Mde. Asha Hagi Elmi Amin, a member of Somalia’s transitional parliament, founder of Save Somali Women and Children and chair of the Sixth Clan, will be a featured speaker at the Women’s Executive Leadership Summit on Thursday, Oct. 5, at the Fluno Center for Executive Education, 601 University Ave., Madison. Elmi, a 2005 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, will speak about her relentless work to empower women and advance their political participation in the Somali peace process.

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Linked with Illicit International Transactions, with Lessons for US Policy in the Arab World, and with undergraduate study of International Political Economy.

He writes on his Homepage: Welcome to my homepage. I joined the faculty of the University of Puget Sound in 2004. I teach courses in international political economy, Middle East politics, and the illicit global economy. After receiving my PhD in political science from Columbia University in 1994, I spent a number of years teaching in Turkey and Egypt. I have also conducted research in Algeria and Morocco. My research interests include Algerian politics, Middle East political economy, and democratization. One of my current research projects is a comparative analysis of the effects of illicit transactions on reconstruction in Iraq, Palestine, and Algeria. I am also editing a special edition of Mediterranean Politics on Crime, Corruption, and the Shadow Economy in the Mediterranean.

Bradford Dillman – USA

• See all about his publications on his website;
• Teachings;
• Current research;
• CV;
• The International Political Economy Program.
• His mail address.

Toward what type of political future is Morocco heading as it faces the democratization challenge? While Arab one-party regimes have clung to power by cracking down on the opposition, Morocco has taken a refreshingly different path. Its 1997 parliamentary elections were exceptionally free and fair, with an opposition-party coalition winning one third of the seats in the lower house.
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