Mois : octobre 2007

Linked with The Advocacy Forum, and with Arnold Tsunga – Zimbabwe.

(From Human Rights Watch): The Royal Nepali Army engaged in killing noncombatants, torturing prisoners, and illegally detaining more than 1,200 Nepalis, gaining Nepal the sorry distinction of having the highest number of reported « disappearances » in the world … (full text).

Human Rights Watch Honors Global Rights Defenders, Lawyers from Nepal and Zimbabwe, Fight for Rights of Powerless, October 11, 2007 – Two courageous Human Rights Lawyers, from Zimbabwe and Nepal, have been chosen to receive the prestigious Human Rights Defender Awards, Human Rights Watch said today. The awards will be presented at dinners in London, Munich, Hamburg, and Geneva in November … (full text).

She says: “Human beings do not have the right to kill another human being, nobody has that right, you have the right to do only good things. Sometimes, I think that I have the right to do the same as they did to my father. My father was chopped into 14 pieces and his body was put in a burlap. We did not even get to see him. They started chopping from his legs. I want to chop them into 14 pieces, but I guess I don’t have that right” … (full text).

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Mandira Sharma – Nepal

In 2001, Mandira Sharma helped found the Advocacy Forum, a Nepali NGO that has played a crucial role in defending the rights of Nepali people caught in the brutal civil war between Maoist insurgents and the Nepali government. Mandira has focused on achieving accountability for abuses committed by both sides during the fighting. She and her staff of 21 lawyers at her organization filed lawsuits on behalf of victims of torture by government forces, investigated cases of deaths in government custody, and filed numerous habeas corpus petitions to free prisoners illegally detained by the government. Even under constant pressure and harassment, Mandira led the call for the release of thousands of child soldiers believed to be among Maoist troops … (full text).

Read: gender dimensions of the people’s war, International Commission of Jurists.

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Linked with The Centre for Environment and Food Security CEFS, with Hot Spot of NREGA corruption in Orissa (India), with Rural Job Scam – Survey Report on Implementation of NREGA in Orissa, with India International Centre, and with Invisible Genocide Of The Poor.

Parshuram Tamang, a member of the Call of the Earth Steering Committee, is a Professor of Economics at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu in Nepal. Born on 18 February 1952, Parshuram is of Tamang descent from the eastern part of the region – the Tamang people being one of the largest indigenous populations in Nepal.

He writes: « The idea of Second Green Revolution seems to me an old poison in an old bottle with a new label on it. It will kill farmers and destroy family farms at very large scale with « high efficiency ». This is a blueprint for loot, plunder and pillage of not only farmers but entire rural India » … (full long text, 21 February, 2006).

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Parshuram Rai – Nepal

Read: Nepalese News and Thoughts (only in Hindu script).

Letter to Prime Minister, 3rd September 2007. Dear Pradhanmantri ji, I am writing this letter to you as my last attempt to bring to your notice that it is not the epidemic of cholera but cancer of corruption that is killing hundreds of Adivasis in Orissa’s KBK (Kalahandi- Bolangir- Koraput) region. It may appear as a sweeping and cynical statement. However, I have come to this disturbing conclusion after spending 5 months of sleepless nights and restless days in uncovering the interlinkages between corruption and abject poverty in the KBK region of Orissa … (full text).

He is a human and democratic rights activist and is also one of the leading architects for indigenous movements in both Nepal and Asia. Over the past 30 years his efforts have been instrumental in the:

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Linked with ILGA International Lesbians and Gay Association, with Latest News about Burma, and with UNHRC resolves Burma to allow Paulo Sergio Special Rapporteur.

First to disambiguate: there seems also exist a H E Brig-Gen Aung Myo Min, Deputy Minister for Education, Head of Delegation of the Union of Myanmar, and also U Aung Myo Min, an executive with the government’s mass-movement body, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) in the western delta region. To me it seems there are three different persons.

Executive director of the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma, is a 1993 graduate of the Human Rights Advocate Program at Columbia University. He is the first openly gay man among the democratic movement of Burma and has received numerous international awards for his human rights work and lesbigay work, including the 1999 Felipa De Souza award by the IGLHRC and Honour of Courage award from the San Francisco City Board. He has been integrating LGBT rights into the mainstream human rights through HRE awareness activities and involving in the drafting process of the future constitution of Burma. (ilg.org).

Aung Myo Min, director of Human Rights Education Institute of Burma, said: « the use of child soldiers in Burma is rampant not only in the Burmese military but also in ethnic armed rebel groups ». (full text).

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Aung Myo Min – Burma (in Thailand)

He says also: « The (tody’) demands are exactly the same (as 1988): freedom, democracy but the main difference is that today the whole world has been following the events in the streets. This was not the case in 1988. We had then no way of communicating to the outside world what was happening. At the moment the demonstrations are better organised, the media is better informed and there is an awareness of what this Junta is doing. In 1988 it was the students who led the uprising while today it is the monks … The multinationals should leave the country. They pretend to help the population but in reality they are only keeping the Generals in power. It is these economic partnerships that are allowing the Junta to buy arms from neighbouring countries. The foreign investors should really leave. (full text).

Aung Myo Min also pointed out using the name of ‘Human Opportunities’ instead of ‘Human Rights’ was a human rights abuse excluding the rights concerning government duties in Universal Human Rights Declaration. (full text).

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Linked with Attac weist Versuch zurück, jede Kritik unter Gewaltverdacht zu stellen, and with SOCIALIST POLITICS AND THE CRISIS OF MARXISM.

He says (about Heiligendamm):  » … Increasingly, the G8 has come to show the strength of opposition to globalization and the desire of many people to see an alternative form of globalization to what we have at the moment. This year the issue of climate change will be particularly important, because it is threatening the survival of mankind. I don’t think we can expect the G8 to really take into account the seriousness of this problem. It is an issue that the anti-globalization movement has to put on the agenda, as a worldwide movement. Otherwise, all we will see are more statements on climate change, but nothing will come from them. (full text, May 18, 2007).

Er sagt: « Der Kapitalismus, davon bin ich … überzeugt, kann nicht durch einen ‘endogenen’ Verfall zugrundegehen; nur ein äußerer Stoß von extremer Heftigkeit im Verein mit einer glaubwürdigen Alternative könnte seinen Zusammenbruch bewirken… ». (full text).
Elmar Altvater – Germany

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Bio on wikipedia: Elmar Altvater (born 24 August 1938) was Professor of Political Science at the Otto-Suhr-Institute of the Free University of Berlin, before retiring on 30 September 2004. He continues to work at the Institute, and to publish articles and books.

As a student, Altvater studied economics and sociology in Munich, and attained a doctorate with a dissertation on « Environmental Problems in the Soviet Union ». At the Otto-Suhr-Institute, he was active in socialist research groups, working with among others Klaus Busch, Wolfgang Schoeller and Frank Seelow, and he gained fame as one of Germany’s most important Marxist philosophers, who strongly influenced the political and economic theory of the 1968 generation of radicals.

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Berlin – One of Germany’s most important contemporary authors, Walter Kempowski, died early Friday at the age of 78, his publisher said. Kempowski, who established himself as a bestselling author and a chronicler of the German middle class, had been suffering from intestinal cancer. He is best known for his series of novels called German Chronicles and the monumental Echolot (Echo Sounder), a collection of documents reflecting the reality of life during World War II. German government spokesman Thomas Steg described Kempowski as « one of the most prominent authors in the German language ». Kempowski’s first success as an author was the autobiographical novel Tadelloser und Wolff, in which he describes his youth in Nazi Germany from the viewpoint of a well-off middle class family …

(full text).See his website, in english. Und auch seine deutschen Internet-Seiten.

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Walter Kempowski – Germany (1929 – 2007)

He said:  » … I’m a participant of the post-war era. I paid the price for the sins of others. My family did nothing awful. My father helped a few Jews escape to Sweden. But he was no hero. Nor was my mother » … (full interview text).

Find: his books on Literaturarchiv; on wikipedia (scroll down); on Google book-search; about him on Google scholar-search, and on Google blog-search; and his publications on his own english website, und auch sein Werkverzeichnis auf der deutschsprachigen Internetseite.

Walter Kempowski is one of north Germany’s greatest writers. Apart from his novels, one of the works which has brought him great renown, is a collection of documents reflecting the reality of life during the Second World War. The title he gives to these works is « Echolot » – echo sounder – as he probes into the past. In his house in the north German countryside, Kempowski is surrounded by thousands of letters and documents he has collected over the years. Among them are diaries, letters, photographs and postcards – most of which come from ordinary people. He bought some of them in second-hand bookshops and on market stalls, while many more are sent to him as unsolicited material. In some respects, he has become the keeper of the national memory. His main work charts five weeks in 1943, when the tide of war was turning against the Germans in Stalingrad. Each week is represented by dozens of quotes from people from all walks of life … (full text).

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Florence Aubenas (born February 6, 1961 in Brussels) is a Belgian journalist, who worked until 2006 for the French newspaper Liberation. She was taken hostage on January 5, 2005, in Iraq along with her translator Hussein Hanoun Al-Saadi. Ms Aubenas travelled to Baghdad last December, and went missing with her Iraqi interpreter Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi on 5 January 2005. Little is known about their captivity … On March 1, 2005, a video tape was found in Iraq, in which Aubenas asked for help. She spoke English and declared she was in bad health. In the end of the 26-second video, she mentioned the name of Didier Julia. The French authorities and Florence Aubenas’ family were given another video (on CD-ROM) a week earlier. Florence and Hussein were freed on June 11, 2005. (full text).

She says: « When you live through something so public, it becomes a communal story. People who recognize me, congratulate me, it’s a little funny. Was I really a hero? For me, a hero is someone who leads a fight, gloriously, with a firm stand. I didn’t fight for anything. I was captured, held and delivered. I was an object » … and: « I might savor my coffee more in the morning, but when it comes to the big issues, I don’t see life any differently ». (full text).

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Florence Aubenas – Belgium

She works for the french journal ‘Liberation‘.

In the course of a 19-year career with the daily Liberation, she has covered many conflicts – including those in Rwanda, Kosovo and Afghanistan. She is a great professional who is used to danger zones, Liberation newsroom chief Antonie de Gaudemar told AFP news agency. Another colleague described her as plucky but not reckless … (full text).

She says also: « I had no stratagems, no tricks. You are simply obliged to put up with it, you have no choice » … and: « Baghdad is at the heart of the major issues of our time. For a foreign correspondent it is a dream to be there » … (full text).

Aubenas, a veteran war correspondent for the daily newspaper « Libération », and Hanoun al-Saadi were abducted on 5 January by unidentified individuals. Dozens of European media organisations and journalists, including 150 news media executives and editors, rallied to support Aubenas and Hanoun al-Saadi and raise awareness of the kidnappings. Hanoun al-Saadi was reunited with his family in Baghdad shortly after his release, while Aubenas arrived home in France on 12 June. (full text).

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