The Dominion - Shaughn McArthur

War, Landmines, and Some Hope of Peace

hillarybain — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:43:12 +0000

Getting a leg up on life in Northern Uganda

Gathered in the shade of a pair of immense mango trees, in a rare opening between a throng of cow dung huts packed so tightly together that their grass thatched roofs almost touch at the eaves, 25 amputees sit in a semi-circle amid a clutter of wooden crutches.

A skinny dog twitches in her sleep, belly pressed against the hard, red earth, where the smell of burning trash and wood smoke mix, carried by a warm sub-Saharan breeze.

These are the sights and smells of sleepy Paicho Subcounty, a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) 23 kilometres northeast of Gulu Town, hub of Northern Uganda.

With a population of about 16,000, Paicho is small relative to the growing number of camps like it and is situated in a region once endearingly referred to as Acholiland. The native Acholi tribe, after which it takes its name, have long since lost energy for such terms of affection. The pride that once characterized the Acholi Kingdom disappeared long ago. The Acholi sense of dignity is as frail as the Acholi elders, who alone in this community can remember times of peace.

Plagued by HIV/AIDS, malaria, malnutrition, rape and infant mortality, camps for internally displaced persons encompass the entire rural population of Northern Uganda, representing some 1.6 million civilians or almost 95 per cent of the region’s total population.

As one NGO chairman put it, “The conditions in these camps are appalling.” Yet it is due to the relative safety they provide that they have sprung up over the past 15 years.

For 21 years, Acholiland has been caught up in of one of Africa’s longest-running and most brutal civil wars.

A war that originally sought the overthrow of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s government by the elusive Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), it has long since devolved into a brutal power play between opposing gangs of armed murderers, kidnappers, rapists and looters, in what Gulu District chairman and opposition member Norbert Mao calls, “a proxy war between the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and the Ugandan capital, Kampala.”

While the LRA receives its funding from the powerbrokers of Sudan, the Ugandan government’s United People’s Defence Force (UPDF) is backed by what last year became an elected dictatorship in Kampala.

In October, President Museveni, though internationally praised for his AIDS initiatives and peace brokering, amended the constitution in order to retain his presidential powers.

As the Buganda of Southern Uganda begin the ascent out of poverty, the Acholi continue to suffer.

In 2001, Christine Omono was abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army. As a healthy 31-year-old woman, her fate was likely a porter and sex slave.

On her first night, she and three fellow female abductees were sent marching ahead of the rebel ranks to act as human shields. When one of the women stepped on a mine, killing herself and one other, Omono’s left foot was severed at the ankle.

Omono’s brother, who had also been abducted that night, was permitted by the rebels to take his sister to the hospital.

In a war in which women and children are commonly abducted and almost as commonly killed, Omono was considered fortunate to have traded her foot for her freedom and that of her sibling. But when she returned to her husband’s family, she discovered her troubles had only just begun.

“People used to abuse me as I walked around the camp,” she says. “My husband’s family was the worst.”

Caving to his family’s pressure and frustrated with a wife that couldn’t work, Omono’s husband left her.

In a community plagued by food insecurity and where most depend on rations from the World Food Programme, those unable to earn their keep are frequently abandoned, even by their own families.

Okot Birigino, 46, emerges from between two huts and hobbles to the centre of the gathering. In 1996, Birigino lost his right foot when a friend set off a landmine as they were walking together down the side of a road.

Taking a seat on a small wooden bench, he lays his crutches on the ground and produces a book of names and numbers. Behind him, the white SUV he has just exited cools in the shade of a mango tree, bearing the maple leaf insignia of NGO Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief (CPAR).

At once, a small crowd forms around him, waving filthy wads of cash. He records the amounts both in his own records and in little pink booklets they each carry.

Birigino is CPAR’s Paicho Subcounty Loan Committee chairperson. He is responsible for monitoring the NGO’s beneficiaries in the camp as part of a microfinance initiative specifically targeting landmine survivors like him.

Evidence of at least two of the survivors’ enterprises are scattered around: Three hardwood tables at various stages of completion; and a foot-operated sewing machine. Having learned tailoring and carpentry through CPAR’s vocational training programme for landmine survivors, Birigino now has his own tailoring business and passes on the skills as a peer-educator.

Christine Omono is also one of the initiative’s beneficiaries. Since December she has used the money CPAR lent her to pay able-bodied workers to lay bricks, which she then cooks and sells for profit. She uses another portion of her loan to pay labourers to help cultivate her small garden, the produce of which she sells at the market.

Today she has come to report on her progress and to pay an installment on her loan.

Still vulnerable as an abandoned wife in this survivalist culture, Omono hopes the small profit she has managed to save while paying off her loan will lure her husband into returning.

Ironically, the increasing number of camps like Paicho that have appearing in the last year, and of landmine victims themselves, are in fact signs of hope for Acholiland. With the Juba Peace Talks in southern Sudan now moving tentatively towards an anticipated peace agreement between the insurgent Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan Government, eight months of “relative peace” since the signing of a landmark Cessation of Hostilities Agreement are beginning to restore popular confidences.

For the first time in over two decades, families broken and dehumanized by war and the desperate conditions of the military-guarded camps are beginning to resettle. As the more daring begin to abandon the camps in increasing numbers for so-called “decongestion sites,” a series of new, less-congested camps are springing up across the countryside, ready to absorb them.

Mostly these bring the largely peasant populace closer to their ancestral lands and away from the claustrophobic conditions of the mother camps. However, they also bring people back to areas that have been abandoned for years and which may be littered with landmines and other unexploded ordinances (UXOs).

“It’s the most critical moment now. People are returning home and mine-risk education is more pertinent than ever,” says Richard Olong, CPAR-Gulu’s economic support officer.

Resources are already stretched thin as NGOs try to cover the range of humanitarian work now needed in Acholiland’s reconstruction and Olong fears that CPAR’s landmine action mandate, due to expire next month, is ending prematurely.

“CPAR is coming in to fill in the gap that the government cannot fill. With landmines...the government doesn’t have enough people to complete the task at hand,” says Olong. “That’s why it’s important to have CPAR and other NGOs.”

Until local and national governments can provide safety and basic human rights to their citizens, he explained, the onus is left on the growing number of NGOs operating in the district.

But while many agencies scramble to dig boreholes to provide potable water and others build churches to soothe the soul, landmine action seems to be falling ever further below the radar screen.

“The capacity of the Ugandan government to cover mine action is not there,” says Olong.

Roadside signs illustrate what to look out for and advise caution, but with low literacy in the region, their effectiveness is subject to much skepticism.

CPAR in UGANDA

Fairytale Squat Faces Political Squalor

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 20:40:13 +0000

Denmark's Christiania prepares to take on the state

The remote areas of Christiania's 85 acres are still dotted with the alternative housing of innovative young families. photo: Shaughn McArthur

There is little heating in the sparsely furnished ex-barracks. The ashtrays need emptying, the tables need customers, and the walls are desperate for a fresh coat of paint, but 22-year-old, Montreal-born Nicco doesn't seem to mind.

It's the end of a day's work at the Infocafé. The Canadian-Dane-Christianite is pouring leftover coffee down the sink. He has spent most of his adult life living and working in the "Free State of Christiania."

Christiania was stablished in Copenhagen 35 years ago when a group of hippies breached fences around disused military barracks, and its land has since been collectively owned and administered. The community began in 1971 as a self–governing safe haven for artists and intellectuals who wanted to live simply, affordably, and by their own rules. Young families moved in, built homes, and declared cars, hard drugs and violence banned within Christiania's borders.

Today, much of the idealism that founded Denmark's famous fairytale squat has faded, and what remains is under threat.

Still a place to escape capitalism yet remain close to its best amenities, the "inner-city," or commercial area, of Christiania is now populated with drunkards, pushers, and outlaws. Gathered around trash-barrel fires and on the verandas of bars, drinking, smoking and dealing their wares, they make the unsuspecting visitor feel unwelcome, to say the least.

Nevertheless, Christiania retains a certain level of social cohesion. The community runs its own kindergartens, waste management program, successful businesses and a radio show, but citizens must turn to the city for benefits such as higher education and healthcare. When a vacancy arises in the community, the Citizens' Council decides by consensus on the next Christianite from the long waiting list.

photo: Shaughn McArthur

At least, they did.

On January 1, 2006, an amendment to the Christiania Act ended the 'collective right to use' agreement that had allowed the urban commune to exist on the fringes of the free market.

"It's all a dream in my eyes," says Nicco. The self-proclaimed cynic speaks grimly of the impending changes facing Denmark's social experiment.

"They want to make it into a rich people's paradise," he says.

Since the politically conservative Liberal Party--an accepted contradiction of terms in Danish politics -- formed a majority coalition in 2001 with the Conservative Party, Christianites have been fighting to preserve their alternative lifestyle.

"Christiania for them is a symbol of hippie socialism. They just don't like it," says Ole Lykke, 59, a Christianite for 26 years. The editor of Christiania's newspaper, he is part of the coalition negotiating with the state.

Beginning with the crackdown on its multi-million dollar open-air hash market in 2004, Christiania now faces real-estate development and urbanization of the state-owned land it occupies. 'Normalization' is the term the government uses.

"'Normalizing' means shutting us down," Nicco says.

Authorities insist that's not the case.

"We don't want to interfere in the life they want to live in Christiania. They just have to live by the same rules," says Peter Christensen, a Liberal Party spokesperson. "We have said to every man and woman there now that we guarantee them a place to live in Christiania"

Championing a unique consensus democracy, property has always been owned collectively in Christiania. Now, more than three decades later and with a housing crisis skyrocketing prices in the capital, that's all changing.

Last December, residents and business operators in Christiania were required to register the properties they occupy in order for it to be leased back to them individually by the state.

"Now, legally, there's no such thing as collective ownership," says Lykke.

This summer the Palace and Properties Agency will submit a plan to build private housing for up to 400 residents, restore and convert historical military buildings into state-owned social housing, and restore a sixteenth-century rampart along Christiania's waterfront.

On March 16, the Christiania advocacy group to which Lykke belongs will take the Agency to court. "I'm for compromise," says Lykke.

photo: Shaughn McArthur

One compromise both sides of this debate seem to accept is being developed in dialogue with the City of Copenhagen. It is a plan whereby individual residents and business operators in Christiania could maintain a sort of collective ownership by renting their properties from a fund. The fund then leases the land from the state on their behalf.

"Christiania should be a place where all Danes have access to live, without being exempt from the normal laws of the country," said Peter Fangel, team manager in the Planning and Architecture department of the City of Copenhagen.

"Things are going to change," he admits, but "it is important to preserve whatever is worth preserving out there."

Leaving Christiania, a sign over the gate reads like a prediction: "You are now entering the EU."

Shaughn McArthur visits Denmark's Christiania at a time when the struggling, self-governing community is preparing to take on the state.

Denmark's 'social experiment' will likely end

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 16:35:56 +0000

A group representing Denmark's social experiment, the Free State of Christiania, is taking the state to court March 16 in a last-ditch attempt to resist urbanization. The introduction of condos in this unique Copenhagen community founded by squatters in 1971 will mean an almost-certain end to its self-governing status.

"I'm not confident we'll win," says Ole Lykke, 59, a Christianite for 26 years, "but I am confident the state doesn't have the backing not to make a compromise."

On Jan. 1, 2006, an amendment to the government's Christiania Act ended the collective right-to-use agreement that for 35 years allowed this outlaw commune to occupy state-owned land on the fringes of the free market.

"The old act exempted a whole range of legislation; the new act means normal legislation comes back into effect," explains Kristin Alstad-Mathiasen, project manager of the Christiania Plan at the Danish Palaces and Properties Agency.

This summer the agency will submit its plan to build private housing for up to 400 residents, convert buildings already there, and restore a historical rampart along Christiania's waterfront.

Lykke says the plan not only puts a price tag on the lifestyles of 850 Christianites, but also threatens an important national icon.

"We have to preserve the values that Christiania represents," says Mette Dahl-Jensen, director of public relations at Wonderful Copenhagen, the city's tourism board.

But Liberal Party spokesperson Peter Christensen emphasizes even Christiania must abide by Danish law.

"I don't believe there will be a compromise: no court will find that the land suddenly belongs to Christianites," he says.

Solidarity Soccer

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 20:39:20 +0000

Activists decry presence of Minutemen, demand open border

Montréal activists near the Québec-Vermont border. photo: Stefan Christoff

On the rainy Saturday afternoon of October 15, Montréal's Solidarity Across Borders visited a sleepy border town 150 km southeast of Montréal. Activists from Vermont and Québec converged for a game of "solidarity soccer" in symbolic defiance of a US border patrol militia known as the Minutemen.

Named after elite colonial militia units predating the American Revolution, the contemporary Minutemen are a group of American civilians -- an estimated two-thirds of whom carry handguns -- who this April began patrolling the US-Mexico border for "illegal aliens." They have since expanded their operations north, to the US-Canada border.

The historical Minutemen are known for their role in defeating British forces during the Revolutionary War, but according to USHistory.org, "Native-American uprisings... and potential for local insurrections, social unrest, and rioting" were key reasons for maintaining the hand-picked militia.

Today, the Minutemen are concerned about the "political, economic and social mayhem" they say would result from their nation "devoured and plundered by the menace of tens of millions of invading illegal aliens."

"The Minutemen are basically Nazis, and we're here to show them they aren't welcome," said Henry Harris, standing under an umbrella on the US side of a granite pillar marking the border, with his daughter Louisiana on his shoulders.

Harris was one of about 50 protesters on the Vermont side of the Tomafobia River, in the town of Derby Line, where Minutemen have been operating since last week. A mere 50 metres away, in the granite quarrying community of Stanstead, Quebec, 25 protesters from Montreal chanted their support.

While most stayed safely on the Canadian side of customs, passing out flyers to motorists, a delegation of three crossed into the "no man's land" to meet their American counterparts.

A North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists (NEFAC) member who asked to be idenfied as Benoit said that the simple acts of shaking hands, lighting their US comrades' cigarettes, and partaking in a brief soccer ball rally across the invisible border demonstrated its absurdity.

The game came to an end when an American trooper seized the ball, imprisoning it uncharged in the trunk of a US Border Patrol Canine Unit cruiser to cries of, "we just want to play football!" and "yeah for solidarity soccer!"

"Protests aren't common around here," said an amiable but anonymous Canadian Customs officer. "These guys pretty much broke the ice for that."

Benoit concurred. "We've already made an impact in this village, just by our presence." Within 45 minutes of marching, the group had covered downtown Stanstead, drawing residents to their doors and windows, curious to find out the cause of the uncharacteristic fuss.

"Communities on both sides [of the border] seemed supportive of the protesters," Benoit observed.

"There's an understanding here because this is a community traversing the border," said David Gow, who crosses the border many times every day. The line runs through his house, with one driveway on the American side and another on the Canadian. He said it is not uncommon to get checked ten times while going about a day's business, especially since 9/11.

"This Minutemen thing, this idea they're going to defend this border is absurd. Borders are an absurd concept themselves; the birds don't know about them, the deer know don't know them, but here we're clenching down while in Europe borders are opening up."

Nevertheless, Gow said he wouldn't take his views as far as some of the protestors: "If there were no borders George Bush would be running this place, so borders are good."

The protesters found the strongest show of solidarity in the shelter of Millie's Diner. "My name is Bashar Shbib. I'm an independent filmmaker, and I'm really glad you're here," announced the beaming proprietor, passing out steaming plates of food and cups of coffee at half price or on the house to tables of cold and hungry protestors.

Shbib understands borders better than most. "My last film was about borders." An ethnic Syrian and Concordia film school graduate, for eleven years Shbib lived and made films in Los Angeles, until in the aftermath of 9/11 he was forced for into hiding safety. "A Jewish family protected me," he said. "[Arabs] were getting killed and the press wasn't reporting it. Then, when I decided to come home [to Canada] I was strip-searched three times."

For all his support of the protesters, however, Shbib suggested the Minutemen were inviting their own fate. "The stronger a border becomes, the sooner it falls; so in that sense it's good to strengthen it."

"It's a scary thing to see citizens in the US enforcing state policy," said Stefan Cristoff of the Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees. "There is a long tradition of oppression and vigilantes in the States, (but) the Minutemen are aware we were there, and that anywhere they go they face resistance."

So where were the Minutemen? While the group has been campaigning for recruits further south in Newport, Vermont, it seems their presence in Derby Line was limited to what one source referred to as "three old men camping out in Winnebagos."

Shaughn McArthur follows Montréal's Solidarity Across Borders to the US-Canada border, where the Minutemen are now patrolling

Burma and Divestiture

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 07:56:13 +0000

After the Tsunami

The Moustache Brothers are a traditional comedy and A-Nyeint Dance Troupe. Brother Lu-Maw (right) did six years of hard labour on a chain gang after telling political jokes at a pro-democracy rally in 1995. Photo: Shaughn McArthur

Coming from Southeast Asia's most xenophobic military government in the aftermath of the tsunami that caused a wave of humanitarian zeal around the world, a low official death toll in Burma does not inspire confidence or provide consolation.

UN estimates place Burma's tsunami casualties at 90, while the country's military government confirms only 61 casualties along some 2000 kilometers of coastline.

Refusing all international aid, Burma's authorities have not allowed any international monitors to enter its borders, even to assess damage.

Although the figures pale in comparison with those of neighbouring Thailand or India, critics of the State Peace and Development Council (SPCD) -- Burma's ruling junta -- are not concerned with the numbers themselves, but rather the discrepancy between them.

To those familiar with Burma's history, it symbolizes a more complicated conflict, rooted in 45 years of military rule, which over the past 15 years has left the South Asian nation effectively cut off from the world.

The (SPCD) has a reputation for downplaying disasters, and for keeping stringent control over outbound media.

Condemned by critics for outlawing fax machines, censoring television broadcasts and taking prisoners of conscience, Burma has been called the most information-starved country on earth. One example involved an attack on the convoy of Nobel Peace Laureate and democratic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, during her brief release from house arrest in 2003. Eyewitnesses estimated some 60 dead in the ensuing clash, while the SPDC reported only four. The event got little international coverage.

On August 8,1988, at the height of three-weeks of carnage, junta soldiers opened fire on thousands of unarmed demonstrators in the streets of Yangon. Reporting some 500 dead, military officials assured the world that everything was under control and that law and order would soon be restored.

Yet again, their figures differed drastically from those of civilian observers.

Referred to now by its date, the massacre of 8-8-88 is believed by the ambassadorial staffs that witnessed it to have claimed over 10,000 lives -- more, that is, than Tiananmen Square. Following the uprising, the military government embarked on a campaign to "cleanse" its national identity.

'Burma' became 'Myanmar'; and many cities, rivers -- even the SPDC itself (formerly State Law and Order Restoration Council) -- were also renamed. Not everybody acknowledged the changes, however.

In Canada, the colonial name "Burma" still applies.

"The Canadian government does not legally recognize SPDC sovereignty," explained Ranjan Banerji, of International Trade Canada. "Canada doesn't say, 'Myanmar'."

In 1990 the SPDC held Burma's first free election in 30 years. The National League for Democracy had won a landslide victory, carrying 82 percent of the vote, yet the military regime refused to step down.

In August 1997, the government of Canada placed Burma on its Area Control List (ACL) - a position it shares only with Angola -- and encouraged Canadian firms not to do business in that country, until it showed significant improvements. Implicit in the ACL are so-called "selective" trade sanctions, which required Canadian companies to obtain permission for all new exports to the listed countries, with humanitarian goods excepted.

Unable to punish the firms post facto, the government's sanctions had little effect on companies already invested in Myanmar. The government did not suggest that companies should renege on existing investments, so most of them carried on as usual.

Sears Canada and the Hudson's Bay Company, however, were among the few exceptions.

In 1999 and 1997 respectively, each voluntarily stopped sourcing products from Burma, becoming two of Canada's most important corporate divestures.

Often acting upon the wisdom of Ms. Suu Kyi, Burma solidarity-from-abroad groups have since the early 1990s campaigned against foreign companies operating in Burma, labeling them as the sponsors of state terrorism.

In 2000, the International Labour Organization (ILO) lead a campaign against the use of forced labour in Burma, to which the SPDC responded by issuing an order prohibiting the practice.

Five years later, the ILO say forced labour is still common practice.

Ivanhoe Mines is Canada's biggest investor in Burma.

It wholeheartedly denies any use of forced labour in clearing the way for their two copper mines in central Burma -- "voluntary" labour is the term they used in a statement to their shareholders.

Ivanhoe has also come under scrutiny for the forcible relocation of eight villages in June 2000 to make way for the mine. Company profiles for Ivanhoe point out that over 5,000 local livelihoods depend either directly or indirectly upon the two mines in Burma.

In a joint venture with Mining Enterprise No. 1, of the SPDC's Ministry of Mines, Ivanhoe Mines is soon to be Myanmar's largest foreign investor ever. The mining industry in Burma represents some $523 million in revenues annually. Ivanhoe itself is worth significantly more to that country than the sum of Canadian imports and exports, which in 2003 were worth less than $30 million (US).

Because most of its copper is sold in Japan and Ivanhoe contributes not goods to the project but personnel and money, it is free under Canadian legislation to do business in Burma. The problem in many cases is that companies in Burma have neither environmental accountability nor labour standards to meet, which creates significant opportunities for reducing costs.

Ivanhoe, for its part, is certified ISO 14001 - the so-called "green standard" - for its mines near Monywa, which use organic enzymes to break down the copper. Lacking the infrastructure to extract Burma's resources by itself, the SPDC provides manpower, incentives and 50 percent of the profits to foreign investors with better means.

Canada's selective sanctions are clearly no match for the junta's $7.9 billion annual income -- indeed, even the United States' more stringent policies fall short of starving the SPDC. Occasionally the SPDC grants Suu Kyi her freedom -- aid trickles in, until the coffers are filled - then she is re-sentenced, and foreign aid withdrawn.

Suu Kyi's latest sentence was extended by another year last November. Her phone was reported disconnected, and Democratic Party leaders said they had been barred from visiting since May.

On January 2nd, 2005, two days before Burma's 57th independence day, the SPDC released 5,588 prisoners. Among the prisoners were eight Democratic Party members, at least nine other political prisoners, and journalist Zaw Thet Htwee, 38, sentenced to death for treason in 2003.

Progress in Burma is painstaking, advances intermittent and forced; too often they amount to no more than jest, a minimum response to persistent critical dissent. However, and albeit silently, Burma's popular longing for democracy lives on.

It is unlikely that the SPDC will simply repent, and despite the UN's observances of increased openness of SPDC officials over the past few months, their behavior since the tsunami calls optimism into question.

It is impossible to know the full extent of Burma's suffering -- pre- or post-tsunami -- just as we may never know exactly how many Burmese lives it claimed. In the meantime, tsunami relief funds have been withheld from Burma, with efforts concentrated on Burmese refugee camps in Thailand instead.

As for the peacekeepers distributing aid rations, several reports out of Southern Thailand have accused them of "structural discrimination" against the illegal Burmese population in the region. It is believed that some 120,000 Burmese migrant workers in Thailand have been affected by the disaster.

After the disastrous tsunami, the Burmese government reported only 80 deaths along 2,000 km of coastline. Shaughn McArthur looks closer.