The Dominion - democracy

War is Peace

Tim McSorley — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:26:04 +0000

Francophonie summit exposes Canada's hypocrisy towards the Congo

MONTREAL—Comforted by the contradictions befitting classic Orwellian “doublespeak,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper attended the Sommet de la Francophonie in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, over the weekend.

Prior to the weekend, Harper had already indicated to the Congolese, with a straight face no less, that they should engage in actions that favour democracy and respect for human rights. Such a posture of talking down to the Congolese allows Ottawa to cut short all legitimate questions concerning the historic responsibility of Canadian businesses and the Canadian government in the Great Lakes area conflict in Africa that claimed millions of Congolese lives between 1996 and 2003.

In the early 1990s, the power hold of Joseph Mobutu's Congolese kleptocracy had begun to waiver. Mobutu, who had ruled the Congo, and before that Zaire, as absolute master, largely by supporting the country's social system with a nationalized mining infrastructure, suddenly found himself cut lose by his former supporters. These included most notably Belgium, France and the United States.

Under pressure from the World Bank, Mobutu opened the country's prized asset, its mining sector, up for privatization. Barrick Gold, the Canadian gold mining outfit, at the time received an exploration lease for a mind-boggling 82 000 km2. Justin Kanhwenda, former assistant to the special representative of the Great Lakes area to the Secretary General of the UN, has noted that the Barrick Gold deal officially signalled to the world that the Congo was open for business.

What followed was the triggering of a bloody and protracted conflict over the country's mineral resources. The High Commissioner on Human Rights, referring to the violation of fundamental rights during this period, summarized the conflict as a clash between armed rebel groups and militias representing the government's interests. Both sides made war to secure mining leases, which they would then concede to international, private enterprises, for the very purpose of continuing to finance their own war.

Yet another UN report on the war-torn Congo, this one published in 2002, highlighted the actions of nine mining Canadian companies in particular, including AMFI, Banro and First Quantum Minerals. The report found that their actions went against the guidelines for multinational enterprises of the France-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, as their dealings in the Congo were considered unethical.

In the mid-2000s, the Congolese parliament had recovered slightly from the shock of years of mineral-driven civil war, and created a commission charged with studying the contracts signed between the government and private industry during war time. The commission, signed-off on by then president Christophe Lutundula, concluded that an impressive number of extremely unequal contracts had been signed between private companies and the government-at-war during the period of 1996 and 2003. These ultra-advantageous contracts involved numerous Canadian companies, notably Anvil and Emaxon. Some of these Canadian companies ratified these contracts via their subsidiaries located in tax-haven nations.

A commission to “revisit” these mining contracts was subsequently put in place to attempt to restructure their terms, at least superficially. Fear of reprisal from foreign investors has limited this commission's strength.

Amidst the UN sources already mentioned, the “expert” report mandated by the UN Security Council on the October 16, 2002 (S/2002/1146) recommended that home nations investigate the companies suspected of having profited from the pillage of resources in the Congo during the war. The report added in no uncertain terms:

“The Governments have the power to regulate and sanction those individuals and entities. They could adapt their national legislation as needed to effectively investigate and prosecute the illegal traffickers. In addition, the OECD Guidelines offer a mechanism for bringing violations of them by business enterprises to the attention of home Governments, that is, Governments of the countries where the enterprises are registered. Governments with jurisdiction over these enterprises are complicit themselves when they do not take remedial measures.”

The UN report mentioned that the experts themselves did not have the legal prerogative to carry out such investigations, or bring private companies to justice.

Canada never capitulated to these demands. It did perhaps win itself some points, and time, by organizing round table consultations with various concerned parties, all within the sterile, and legally-unbinding, environment of determining “good governance.” The “consensus” that came forth from these consultations amounted to nothing, except for Ottawa's nomination of a powerless “ethics counsellor.” For this continued inaction, Canada has assumed the global leadership role as the regulatory and judicial safe haven of choice for mining companies. Today, 75 per cent of mining companies choose to register themselves within the Canadian legislative framework, as the lax system of accountability assists them in their mining endeavours outside of Canadian soils.

Canadians driven by ethic convictions are today at the same point as were Europeans at the end of the 19th Century. All attempts are made by the government to hinder the identification of the individuals responsible for the grave suffering caused to the Congolese people. In the age of Belgian colonial domination in the Congo, the Brit Edward Dene Morel and the American author George Washington Williams, having gathered information from returning Europeans as to the atrocities being committed, drew grave hypotheses as to the true goings-on in the resource rich African nation. Diplomat Roger Casement confirmed these allegations in an investigation undertaken by the British government.

Today, Canada has still not undertaken a similar investigation. Instead, we find ourselves with a regressive government seeking, through any possible artificial means, to create colonial-inspired propaganda that allows Canada to assume the role of a democratic older brother to the Congo. All this, when in reality the pressure should be weighing on Canada.

Alain Deneault's most recent book, written with William Sacher, is Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Choice for the World's Mining Industries (Talonbooks: 2012). He is a member ATTAC-Québec and the Réseau international pour la justice fiscale. Translation from the French by Miles Howe.

Mining and War

Haiti's Void Vote

Moira Peters — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 05:11:00 +0000

No clear winners, many clear losers

"We denounce a massive fraud that is occurring across the country ... We demand the cancellation pure and simple of these skewed elections," the 12 presidential candidates, which included all main opposition groups, said in a statement read to reporters at a Port-au-Prince hotel. They accused the outgoing President Rene Preval's Inite (Unity) coalition of rigging the vote in favour of its candidate, Jules Celestin.
—Rory Carroll, reporting today, November 29, 2010, for The Guardian

This news is an unfortunate but not unexpected outcome of yesterday's presidential and legislative elections in Haiti. Crushed by the January 2010 earthquake and devastated by this month's cholera outbreak, the majority of Haitians couldn't vote for their preferred candidate, as the popular Famni Lavalas party was excluded from elections on a technicality.

Below, a collection of images and analyses of yesterday's election gives a limited view of the election's outcome; this week will be critical as election results will not be released until Sunday, December 5.

Unless otherwise indicated, the photos here were taken yesterday, November 28, 2010, during Haiti's presidential and legislative elections by Jean Ristil Jean Baptiste, a Haitian photojournalist.

Haiti Elections.Empty Polls

Prayers more hopeful

Haiti Elections.Police Van

Haiti Elections.Riot Cop

Haiti Elections.Voting in the Rubble

Haiti Elections.Voting in the Tent

Haiti Elections.Sign

Haitians to Refuse Tomorrow's "Selections"

Martin Lukacs — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 05:36:19 +0000

Living in tents, dying of cholera, the majority can't vote for their candidate anyway

HAITI, NOVEMBER 27—On the eve of presidential and legislative elections in Haiti, skepticism and disenchantment among Haitians is widespread.

"I am not going to vote," said Elause Jacques, a mother of two who runs a cyber cafe with her husband in Port-au-Prince. "I have no candidate."

Jacques' sentiment is shared by many Haitians, who may be turning away from the polls by the millions in an act of silent protest against the exclusion of Haiti’s popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas (FL), and the spending of millions on elections instead of badly needed healthcare and infrastructure.

The backdrop to the elections is grim: more than a million people remain homeless after the January earthquake, and now the country is confronted by a cholera epidemic that has already taken 1,500 lives.

FL has reiterated its position to boycott tomorrow's elections, after being excluded by Haiti’s Interim Election Commission (CEP), which is hand-picked by the government.

“It [FL] is not supporting any candidate, it doesn't have anybody representing it, and it is not sending anybody to represent it,” said the party in a statement. The statement also criticized the United Nations representative in Haiti, Edmund Mulet, for “having no respect for the Haitian people,” and President Rene Preval for running a "ungrateful hypocritical regime which has come to bury the memory of our ancestors.”

The CEP is facing other problems. In the days prior to the vote, many Haitians have still not received their electoral IDs.

“As President Aristide said, the November 28 elections will not be elections, but selections,” said a unidentified Haitian women, while waiting for her flight to Haiti from the Fort Lauderdale International Airport in Florida.

Former president Jean Bertrand Aristide, interviewed in mid-November by film-maker Nicolas Rossier in South Africa, where he is living under forced-exile, criticized the Haitian government and some of its international allies for betraying the Haitian people.

"When we say democracy we have to mean what we say,” said Aristide, who was deposed in 2004 by the United States, France and Canada. “Unfortunately, this is not the case for Haiti. They talk about democracy but they refuse to organize free and fair democratic elections. It is as if in the US they could organize an election without the Democrats."

Criticism of the exclusion of Fanmi Lavalas has been issued from some quarters.

In a letter sent to the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, Congresswoman Maxine Water and 45 congress members urged the US government to ensure that the elections in Haiti are fair, free and democratic.

The letter called on the US government to "state unequivocally that it will not provide funding for elections that do not meet these minimum, basic democratic requirements."

The members of Congress recalled a previous CEP decision to exclude Fanmi Lavalas: "A previous CEP, with many of the same members, also excluded Fanmi Lavalas and other parties from Senatorial elections in April 2009. Haitian voters boycotted, and most observers estimated a three-to-six per cent voter turnout."

In a report to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Republican Senator Richard G. Lugar called on the Haitian government to reform the CEP.

Meanwhile, President Preval continues to appeal to Haitians to vote while reiterating his support for the CEP.

Eleven months after an earthquake ruined the capital and its surrounding areas, the situation remains dire. Several months after the first cases of cholera were discovered in the Down Central Plateau and Artibonite regions—one of Haiti's few agricultural centres—over 1,500 people have died and over 30,000 have been hospitalized. Haitians' already low trust in the United Nations troops has taken another hit, as mounting evidence indicates Nepalese forces were responsible for spreading the disease.

“Why spend all these millions for these elections while our people are dying from cholera?” said Haitian singer Lord Divers Morsa. “Why don’t we spend the money to buy anti-cholera shots or vaccines?”

Others question the priorities of President Preval and his support for Jude Celestin, the candidate of INITE or UNITY, Preval’s party.

“President Preval is using the state’s resources to back up Jude Celestin, his friend,” said Maude Salomon. “But he doesn’t care for people. Cholera is killing us, but Jude found millions of dollars to campaign.”

The international community has pledged several millions of dollars to organize the presidential and legislative elections. Yet critics point out that the same countries have disbursed only a fraction of the money that was pledged to rebuild the country after the January earthquake.

Another concern cited by critics is that the names of people who died during the earthquake remain as eligible voters on the CEP’s electoral list. This news was disclosed in a meeting in Washington by Chief of the Joint OAS-CARICOM (Organization of American States-Caribbean Community) Electoral Observation Mission in Haiti, Ambassador Colin Granderson. Many are asking the question: to whom will the CEP attribute the votes of dead Haitians?

A day before the elections, the mood seems to indicate that not many will vote tomorrow. And in the face of unfair elections and a growing health disaster, the prospects for the struggle for social justice and a state of law are likely to remain uncertain and fragile.

Wadner Pierre is a Haitian photojournalist who currently resides in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 2007, he won a Project Censored Award for his investigative journalism work on the impact of media and corruption in military policies.

Haiti elections

Honduran election fraud exposed

Van Ferrier — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:36:17 +0000

Honduran coup regime's claims about 60 percent turnout at free and fair elections is revealed as fraud. Also implicated in the video are the wide array of media outlets and governments that have unquestioningly accepted the electoral data of a regime that overthrew the last elected president.

Honduran election fraud exposed

Van Ferrier — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:36:17 +0000

Haiti: Thousands March on July 15 while July 28 Mobilization is Prepared

WadnerPierre — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:35:37 +0000

By: Kim Ives - Haiti Liberte

Thousands of demonstrators marched through Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince on July 15 to mark the 56th birthday of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The demonstration, which was called by and adhered to by two rival factions of the Lavalas Family party (FL), was considered a great display of unity by its organizers.

At 9 a.m. the crowds gathered at the gate in front of Aristide's still gutted home in Tabarre. It was decorated with flowers and large photographs of the party's leader, who remains in exile in South Africa over five years after the Feb. 29, 2004 coup d'état against him.

The multitude then moved, like a great river, towards the capital.

Lavalas leaders said that the demonstration was a birthday present for Aristide. "Long live the return of President Aristide!" read some of the posters in the march. " Down with the MINUSTAH [UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti, the military occupation force]! Release of all political prisoners! Reinstatement of all fired State employees! Down with the neo-liberal plan!"

Demonstrators also bitterly denounced President René Préval for betraying their expectations that he would help return Aristide to Haiti and fight neoliberal austerity and privatization. Tens of thousands of Lavalas partisans voted for Préval in 2006, helping him win the presidency.

"Our political organization will defeat all those who are working for its demise," declared Dr. Maryse Narcisse, one of the members of the FL's Executive Committee at the close of the demonstration at the Place of the Constitution on the Champ de Mars, the capital's central square.

Tragedy at Toncontín

Moira Peters — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:09:31 +0000

Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, the democratically elected president of Honduras, was removed from the country during a military coup on June 28. Major demonstrations have been calling for his return, but the corporate media has virtually ignored them. Transcribed below is an interview from the Real News Network with Dominion correspondent Sandra Cuffe, who was at the Tegucigalpa airport on July 5, awaiting Zelaya’s return.

“When the march was approaching the airport—and at first there was the roadblock set up by soldiers one kilometre away from the airport [to] stop it from getting to the airport, and there were other roadblocks set up on the way to the march, so that people who hadn’t joined the march from the very beginning, this morning at the Tegucigalpa University, and were heading to the airport or to meet up with the march, couldn’t even get that far. So I had gotten through one of the roadblocks and made it to the airport. I was there when the march finally arrived. And the march—which was probably two, three times the size it had been in the past couple of days, so we’re talking, like, literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people—managed to get to the airport, because they actually kept advancing peacefully, slowly, and steadily, and pushing back soldiers and the police all the way back to the airport.

Everybody who’s participating is against the coup, they’re against a rupture of democracy, and therefore [are demanding] the return of the elected president. That’s pretty much clear across the board.”

“The army has shot at a completely unarmed civil population. For more than five hours the people were respectful of the army and of the police. [...] The people were not bringing sticks, were not bringing weapons. [...] There was no need to shoot. Many were trying to remove the mesh [to enter the landing strip], it is not possible to deny that. But it was not necessary to shoot the people with bullets.”
–César Omar Silva, television journalist, Channel 8

James Rodríguez is an independent photo-documentarian currently based in Guatemala. To contact, and for more of his work, please visit www.mimundo.org.

Honduras

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“People’s War” Turns to People’s Vote

hillarybain — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:18:41 +0000

Maoist return to the democratic process

Communism in Nepal is not a new concept. Nepal’s first communist party was created in 1949 and communism has shaped the history of the country ever since. In 1994, a coalition government came together to form one of the few elected national communist-party governments in history. The breakdown of this coalition led to the death of 13,000 Nepalese in a brutal decade-long civil war.

Often portrayed as brainwashed savages holding onto an anachronistic ideology, the Nepalese Maoist movement receives virtually no Western media attention unless blood is shed in the name of the cause. Nepal’s recent election has given Western media another reason to focus on the Nepalese Maoist movement.

On April 10, the Communist Party Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) won a majority of seats in Nepal’s election. The victory has been seen as a cause for alarm for the Bush administration, which sent both military and financial aid to the former Nepalese government in order to fight the Maoist insurgency.

Before the election, in November of 2007, I was brought to a rural Maoist village where I had the opportunity to talk with Maoist leaders and locals. I was able to see the human side of the civil war in Nepal as well as the grassroots organization of Nepal's Maoist party.

The rise of the CPN-M is a success story for grassroots movements. On February 13, 1996, Maoists began what is known at the “People’s War” by taking control of the Small Farmers Development Bank in Gorkha. Bank workers were overpowered late one night, leading to a takeover of the building, the burning of loan papers and a speech that described the bank as instrument of exploitation used by the state. After a brief parting speech, the Maoists left. Thus marked the beginning of the “People’s War.”

Most peasants who witnessed the takeover had no idea who these rebels were, but understood their message and shared their anger. Many villagers were subjugated to cast, ethnic, linguistic and gender injustices and became sympathetic to the Maoist cause.

The CPN-M held political gatherings throughout the “People’s War.” The message espoused by Maoists not only spoke to the outrage felt by the villagers throughout the countryside, but did so in the local dialect. The Maoists respected the local languages, customs and beliefs of various tribes and promised to bring about a secular, democratic state with safeguards for minority rights including language protection. Women also played a vital role in the movement.

It was in the mountainous villages of Lamjung on the border of Gorkha where I was introduced to the Maoists' way of life and the hardships they face. I was first taken to my friend Nanda’s village. The village is ethnically Mongolian and residents hold both Buddhist and Hindu religious beliefs.

The murder of journalist Birendra Shah at the hand of Maoist card holders occurred only one month before my visit. The Federation of Nepalese Journalists had released a statement in the Kathmandu Post warning journalist not to meet with Maoists due to safety concerns. I departed from tourist friendly Pokorah on a seven-hour bus trip and was dropped off on the side of a windy, mountainous road. Two jeep rides and a two-hour hike landed us in Nanda’s village.

It is hard to describe the stunning natural beauty and sense of community one feels when entering such a village. Nanda had recently been paid and we spent the better part of our first day visiting villagers and distributing gifts and money. In the days that followed I travelled to surrounding villages and was taken aback by the communal way of living and property sharing embedded in the culture. Hiking from village to village the sense of collectivism was ubiquitous.

Although the people I met shared what they had, communities were lacking in essential services like medicine. While traveling to a neighbouring village, I met an elderly woman who asked if I had any medicine for her stomach pains. I gave her what medicine I had and through Nanda explained how it was to be taken. Further up the mountain I saw a man being carried on another man's back, clearly in pain. He was being transported to a hospital 10 hours away.

The lack of general social services (including electricity) along with the lack of employment opportunities forces many young villagers into urban areas in search of wage-labour work. In cities one experiences a different Nepal: a Nepal with electricity and paved roads. Once living in cities, the low wages and lack of transportation infrastructure into rural areas makes returning home a onerous task. Nanda’s sister has a one-year-old child. Her husband works over ten hours away and comes home whenever he can. He literally has to climb the Himalayas to see his wife and child. It is within this context of neglect that the Maoists released their 40 demands in 1996.

Of the 40 demands, perhaps six could be seen as communist in nature. The rest focus on basic rights, including: the abolition of the caste system, rights for women, the creation of a constitution, the end of the monarchy and the creation of a democratic secular state with intellectual freedom for all. When these demands were not met, Maoists began their “People’s War.”

The war on terror gave Colin Powell the perfect pretext to visit Nepal in January 2002. He pledged support for the government’s “war on terror,” known to locals as the People’s War. To date, the U.S has donated an estimated $29 million in military aid to Nepal. According to critics, this aid led to the widening of the war and an increase in atrocities on both sides. While surely not Powell’s intent, this military aid also helped the Maoists gain new sympathizers, members and soldiers.

When she was 11 years old, Nepalese police killed Sita Kumari’s brother while he was harvesting potatoes. Quoted in the book When There Were No Men: Women in the Maoist Insurgency, Kumari’s story exemplifies how these attacks helped the party recruit members. “Yes my brother was killed. But we have 1000 brothers of the same kind. We will all come together and take revenge. We will not spare those responsible for our grief.” Before her brother's murder Sita Kumari was not a Maoist, nor were any of her family, however, after he was killed she became an ardent Maoist supporter and her two older brothers became Maoist insurgents.

Maoist military strategy dictates that the rural areas must come under party control before any action is taken in urban areas. After cities are surrounded by Maoist-supported communities, major military offensives on urban areas can take place. While limited-scale attacks took place in Kathmandu and other urban areas during the civil war, no full-scale military assault occurred. Instead, the party chose a different tactic: the CNP-M formed the All Nepalese Trade Union Federation (Revolutionary), and spoke to the needs of the urban working class.

As the party grew in both membership and legitimacy in cities and throughout the country, the CPN-M decided to re-enter the political sphere in January of 2008. It agreed to rejoin the government allowing Nepalese Maoist to be sworn in as cabinet ministers.

I had the opportunity to meet with a Maoist district leader (who wishes to remain nameless) and his second and third in command. All three have been members since the beginning of the civil war. All are in contact with Prachanda, the leader of the CPN-M and leader of People's Liberation Army (PLA), the military wing of CPN-M. All have served in the PLA in varying forms.

The first thing I was told during our meeting was that if I had any problems I should come to these men; that they were the security in the district. Nanda then told me of the soldiers who patrolled the mountains, going from village to village to ensure domestic peace and to record any grievances. These patrols are organized by the district leader and report directly to him. An hour before we arrived in one village, two soldiers passed through. These routine patrols have caught many unsuspecting trekking tourists by surprise, when the soldiers request a “donation.” The donations cost an average of three American dollars. For the three trekkers I met, the donation experience was not frightening. Of the three, two were issued receipts and one lied and said she had already paid. Maoists feel it is well within their rights to ask tourists for a modest amount for crossing their lands, since the Nepalese federal government charges 1,270 Rupees (20 American dollars) for trekking permits yet provide no services to the areas in return.

As we spoke, some villagers came to listen to our conversation. All showed the utmost respect for the PLA leaders. It was difficult to ascertain whether the respect came from fear or admiration.

“We are confident that we will win many seats,” the leader said. “Our country knows what is at stake and the sacrifices we have given in the name of justice.” While the leader sounded very confident, most prognosticators at the time did not believe the Maoists had a chance at becoming the ruling party in Nepal. “We are on a path of peace, and we feel that this election will serve to prove to the people of Nepal our party is serious about its commitment to peace and democracy.” On that note the three men stood up, gave the Maoist salute and walked off into the valley.

The next day while trekking, I met the CPN-M’s third ranking member, Dubar. He remembered me from the day before and affably invited me to his village for tea. I agreed and we hiked to his village where he put on tea and introduced me to his family. This took longer than one might expect due to the fact that the entire village was in some way related to him. After the introductions, he turned to me and said, “This is the face of Maoism in Nepal.” He took great pride in his village and their accomplishments. He was eager to show me that a few of the younger villagers could speak some English.

I attempted to ask Dubar more about the upcoming elections and the future of his party, but he preferred to discuss politics in my country. He was very excited to hear how communism was progressing in Canada. I explained to him how the New Democratic Party was most popular socialist party in Canada, amassing 17.4 per cent of the popular vote, and that both Communist Parties do not receive one per cent. He was shocked but still in high spirits. His face brimmed with hope and enthusiasm when he asked, “What does average Canadian think of us Maoists? What we have accomplished?” I did not have the heart to tell him that the average Canadian knows virtually nothing about Nepalese Maoists, or that the only way that the average Canadian hears about the Nepalese Maoist movement is when government troops die or when police stations are raided. Instead I told him simply that the movement receives little attention in Canada.

Villager in Nepal

Rural Nepal

All Eyes On Bolivia

hillarybain — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:40:22 +0000

US espionage and aid

Since the election of Evo Morales, an indigenous peasant of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, US involvement in Bolivia’s political sphere has come out of the shadows – if ever there were any idyllic illusions about US intervention in South American politics.

Recent allegations of spies at the American Embassy have the Bolivian media abuzz, and civil society and government alike enraged. Just last week, while strolling with my friend Ramiro in Cochabamba, we ran into an acquaintance of his who took notice of my fair complexion and blue eyes and warned him to be careful around North Americans. Ramiro organizes with Red Tinku, an autonomous group that is heavily involved with grassroots politics.

Ramiro laughed and said I wasn't "one of those gringas," but the woman took a while to be convinced - and rightly so. During the course of her life she has seen perpetual provocation from North American foreign policy that has recently come to a head.

At the end of January, Fulbright scholar Alex van Schaick and Peace Corps volunteers declared publicly that Vincent Cooper, a US diplomat, encouraged them to keep an eye on Cubans and Venezuelans while in Bolivia.

In mid-February, the Bolivian Vice Minister of Government Ruben Gamarra filed criminal charges against Cooper, who has since left Bolivia and may or may not be protected under diplomatic immunity. According to an agreement made February 13 between Philip Goldberg, the US ambassador to Bolivia, and Bolivian Foreign Relations Minister David Choquehuanca, Cooper will not be returning. Investigations against the US will continue, though, and will help determine the next steps to be taken.

On February 15, Alfredo Rada, Interior Minister of the Bolivian government, met with Goldberg to discuss the accusations of espionage. After three-and-a-half hours deemed "difficult" by employees of the government ministry, Rada and Goldberg confirmed the dissolution of the Development of Police Studies (ODEP), formerly known as the Special Operations Command (COPES).

ODEP was an intelligence organization working in parallel with the National Police, and received funding from the US. ODEP received approximately $350,000 per year for ´intelligence´ work. To date, there have been five intelligence organizations ostensibly protecting state security in Bolivia. In light of these allegations their activities will also be scrutinized.

Rada would not speak publicly at the meeting locale, but dramatically rushed journalists in state SUVs with sirens wailing to the now defunct ODEP headquarters, in the wealthy Zona Sur of La Paz.

"After this meeting with Philip Goldberg I am confident that the decision to dissolve COPES is the right one," said Rada once within the walled compound. He added that the dissolution of ODEP had to do with the "structural reorganization of the intelligence section of the National Police.”

"It's the first time as minister I've had to take such a step, and it is to ensure effective work of the National Police concerning crimes, and state security," Rada said.

When pressed for an explanation of how the dissolution of ODEP is related to charges of espionage against the US, Rada said that the matter of espionage is still under investigation and refused to elaborate. He did, however, stress the importance of maintaining good relations with the US, a statement which, in light of such serious allegations, may come as a surprise for MAS supporters who back the government's anti-imperialist agenda

Goldberg was even more reticent than Rada. In Spanish, heavily clad with an American accent, he said slowly and repeatedly, "Neither the embassy nor the United States government is involved with spying […] The majority of our help is against narco-trafficking and terrorism."

Goldberg's statement comes at a time of tense political relations between the US and Bolivia. On the same morning Rada and Goldberg met to discuss accusations of espionage, Morales publicly denounced the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), accusing the agency of supporting Bolivian opposition NGOs.

"The US agency offers money to NGOs on one condition – that they work and mobilize against the Bolivian government," said Morales.

Through both governmental and non-governmental avenues, North American interference in Bolivia is eerily reminiscent of the Cold War era, when the United States sought to undermine Southern governments who rejected the doctrine of free market capitalism.

The Human Rights Foundation, based in New York, recently wrote a letter to the Bolivian government stating that the country's new constitution is contrary to human rights, an accusation the Bolivian government refuted. The HRF website describes the organization's devotion "to defending human rights in the American hemisphere," but focuses almost exclusively on Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba, with brief mention of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

And despite this Fifth Ave, New York City, based organization's statement of commitment to human rights, they make no mention of Guantanamo Bay, of impunity in Guatemala, or of the treatment of indigenous peoples across the Americas.

Contrary to criticisms from the North, Morales did not design the new constitution-- a constitutional assembly comprised of a cross-section of Bolivian society developed it. In addition, two years into his term Morales still has widespread popular support, especially among the poor majority. However, Morales’ "decolonization" project has drawn the attention of US intelligence and aid to right-wing opposition like bees to nectar. As a taxi driver recently told me, "It's like a baby used to getting everything he wants. He is sucking on a candy, and then someone takes it away - of course he is going to kick and scream and cry."

For more information on the US undermining democracy in Bolivia, see Ben Dangl's Undermining Bolivia: A Landscape of Washington Intervention.

Mural In La Paz

Reporting on the Ghost of Sankara

dru — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:03:56 +0000

Interview with Journalist Jooneed Khan

[Read part I of this series, an interview with Aziz Fall of GRILA]

GRILA, the Group for Research and Initiatives for the Liberation of Africa, a grassroots collective in Montreal, is leading the international legal charge concerning the case of Thomas Sankara, recently winning a key case at the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations.

According to GRILA, the impunity of those involved in assassinations in Africa is finally being called into question. The Sankara case could set new precedents in an issue of profound importance to a continent with a history of unresolved assassinations of national leaders and political activists.

Jooneed Khan, a reporter on international affairs for Montreal's La Presse, has been covering the case of Thomas Sankara for a number of years. He is one of the few journalists working at a major media outlet to cover this story.

* * *

Stefan Christoff: Explain your accounting of the history surrounding the revolution of Burkina Faso and the assassination of Thomas Sankara. What is the historical and contemporary importance of these events to African politics?

Jooneed Khan: Sankara became president of Upper Volta, shortly after changing the name to Burkina Faso, which translates to the land of people with dignity. At that time, when apartheid in South Africa was still holding sway, Sankara represented a new hope for African development. He advocated simple principles like self-reliance, rooted in the belief that Burkina Faso could not develop if the nation continued to rely on outside support, that the first resource to tap is the internal energies of the country, the energy of the people.

Sankara was also very strongly anti-corruption, cutting back a great deal on government expenses. At one point Sankara was traveling to work on a bicycle, later on giving in to the demands of some within the government cabinet Sankara accepted that government officials use cars. However the government then used very small cars, not the traditional Mercedes that made the African elite known very often known in those days as the new tribe of "wabenzi," [a reference to their preference for the Mercedes Benz car].

In 1987 Sankara was assassinated by a companion in the revolution named Blaise Compaoré, who carried out a coup d'état seizing power, remaining in power for 20 years [until today]. Often we discuss the importance of democracy in Africa, however recently Burkina Faso has been elected to serve a two year term on the Security Council of the United Nations, together with Vietnam, Libya along with the permanent members.

Africa has a long history of national leaders who have been murdered, massacred, or overthrown in one way or another. Beginning with Patrice Lumumba in Congo, in Ghana Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown and died in exile in Egypt, Eduardo Mondlane of Mozambique. Many anti-Apartheid workers, activists in South Africa were assassinated, some by hit-men, some with letter bombs. You could say that Thomas Sankara is one of the last in that long list of great African martyrs.

You have been following the case of Thomas Sankara in relation to the work of a local organization here in Montreal which as been active on the case in recent years. Can you explain Sankara’s case in relation to Montreal?

There is a small NGO in Montreal named GRILA [of the Group for Research and Initiatives for the Liberation of Africa], which was formed in the 1980’s during the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Interestingly, after the fall of apartheid it continued working, as it was clear that the end of apartheid had not liberated Africa; there were still many battles to be fought. GRILA looked to Sankara as a model for African Development and picked up the case aiming to have light thrown on the circumstances of the death, to commemorate Sankara’s assassination every year.

In 1997, ten years after the assassination GRILA managed to lodge a formal complaint with the authorities in Burkina Faso, asking for Sankara’s assassination to be investigated, and it managed to secure the legal move just a few days before the deadline, the local statute of limitation, beyond which the matter could not be raised. There is a limit of 10 years under Burkina Faso law in which one can access legal recourse, after which time the point becomes moot.

GRILA lodged the complaint just prior to the deadline with the support of Sankara’s family, who was living in exile in France successfully raising the matter, which of course irritated authorities in Burkina Faso. The response that they received that this was a military affair, since Sankara had been an army officer and could not be dealt with in civilian courts but within the military courts.

Within these legal proceedings GRILA had the support of twenty-two volunteer lawyers from around the world, in Canada, in Europe and Africa. After failing within the Burkina Faso legal system GRILA took the matter to the UN Committee on Human Rights and they succeeded last year in obtaining a formal denunciation of the Burkina Faso regime of Blaise Compaoré. The denunciation dictated that the government had to throw light on the circumstances of the death of Sankara, had to identify the grave clearly and properly, and also had to pay some form of financial compensation to Sankara’s widow and two sons.

Apparently when Sankara died the death certificate bore the inscription, “died of natural causes”, apparently the authorities have now removed the word “natural” from the death certificate, and offered somewhere near ninety thousands dollars as compensation to the family, which of course the family and GRILA have considered very inadequate.

Until now the grave of Sankara has still not been identified, while the circumstances of the death have not been elucidated and all the obstruction of justice that has taken place around this case has not been looked into. So GRILA is pursuing the case, they are waiting for the UN Committee on Human Rights to react to the Burkina Faso response.

Can you explain the contemporary importance of the case of Thomas Sankara on a global scale?

What's interesting concerning the Sankara case is that the principle involved is the fight against impunity in Africa because there are so many crimes and violations which continue to be committed and go unpunished. The international criminal court on Rwanda concerning the genocide that took place is just a drop in the bucket concerning crimes in Africa. This is an attempt from the international community and the UN to bring the criminals in Rwanda to justice. However, there are many, many other cases in Africa.

Currently Darfur is a very fashionable cause among many people in the West who want to go to protect the people of Darfur. At the same time according to the United Nations itself, five to six hundred thousand civilians die each year in the eastern Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, deaths stemming from a war that is closely tied to the struggle for natural resources by international corporations. This is often forgotten, one of the many forgotten genocides that is going on as we talk in Africa.

GRILA has picked up the case of Thomas Sankara as another example of impunity, wanting those responsible to be brought to account. These are all interesting factors which have kept me interested in the Sankara case. As the Sankara case has evolved I have tried every now and then to try to asses the situation and do a story in order to keep it alive in the eyes of the public.

Sankara

Honk Kong pirate radio station gets OK from High Court

Michael Lithgow — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:57:44 +0000

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The Hong Kong government's attempt to shut down pirate radio broadcaster Citizen's Radio was scuttled in a recent decision of the Hong Kong High Court. In the decision, the Court stated that it did not see how the station's broadcasting could jeopardize public safety.

In a complicated ongoing legal battle, the Hong Kong government had sought to extend an injunction preventing the station from going to air. Citizen's Radio argued that denial of their application for a license violated their freedom of expression.

The unlicensed broadcasts were started in 2005 by a group of pro-democracy activists after their application for a license was denied by the Broadcasting Authority. The station airs phone-ins and discussions about current events and politics, including discussions about Hong Kong's transition to full democracy. In 2006, the station was raided by state agents, members were arrested and equipment confiscated.

After resuming broadcasts, the station got under official skin once again in May 2007 after legendary democracy activist, Szeto Wah, was interviewed about the Tiananmen Square Massacre. After the interview, Wah was charged with "knowingly becoming involved in the use of unlicensed communications equipment in order to transmit radio signals."

Citizen's Radio broadcasts on 102.8 FM from a tiny 150 square foot studio in a warehouse district in Mongok. They also distribute programming from their website.

Echoes of Revolution: Burkina Faso's Thomas Sankara

dru — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 05:02:31 +0000

Part I: Interview with Aziz Fall

Thomas Sankara, the former president of Burkina Faso, a political leader renowned across Africa as a revolutionary, died 20 years ago in an assassination that sent political shock waves across the continent, marking a critical moment for progressive social movements in Africa.

Burkina Faso, a small western African nation formally known as Upper Volta, was renamed Burkina Faso, meaning “the land of upright people,” after the 1983 revolution that brought Thomas Sankara's government to power.

As president, Sankara actively appealed for pan-African self-determination, for the full cancellation of foreign national debts across the continent and for liberation from apartheid in South Africa.

"The question of debt is the question of Africa’s economic situation, as much as peace; this question is an important condition of our survival," Sankara said as president.

"The debt cannot be repaid. If we do not pay, our creditors will not die. We can be sure of that. On the other hand, if we pay, it is we who will die. Of that we can be equally sure."

In 2007, Thomas Sankara remains a powerful symbol within grassroots social movements in Africa, as the 1983 revolution of Burkina Faso catapulted an alternative vision of African development onto the world stage.

Revolution in Burkina Faso led to a national development model rooted in "self-reliance" and social solidarity.

Burkina Faso presented a radically different concept of development to the charity model common today, strongly promoted by international institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), or fashionably displayed through events such as Live Aid or campaigns such as "Make Poverty History."

Independently driven development policies and an anti-colonial political platform brought international attention to Burkina Faso, inspiring grassroots social movements across Africa, and won Thomas Sankara powerful political enemies in France, Europe and the US.

Ten years after the death of Thomas Sankara, the Montreal-based Group for Research and Initiatives for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA) launched an international legal campaign into the circumstances surrounding Sankara’s death. In the courts of Burkina Faso, GRILA put forward a controversial legal challenge to the government of President Blaise Compaoré, a close ally of France who organized a coup d'état against Sankara and who has held power since. Compaoré is widely understood as having a direct role in Sankara's 1987 assassination.

After complete dismissal within the courts of Burkina Faso, GRILA presented Sankara’s case to the UN Human Rights Committee. In 2006, the UN Committee ruled in favour of the International Justice for Sankara Campaign on behalf of Thomas Sankara's widow, Mariam, and his children, Auguste and Philippe.

Aziz Fall is a member of the Group for Research and Initiatives for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA) and the international co-ordinator for the International Justice for Sankara Campaign. In this interview, Aziz Fall reflects on the case of Thomas Sankara 20 years after the assassination and outlines contemporary efforts to seek justice for the 1987 assassination.

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Stefan Christoff: October 2007 marks the 20th anniversary of Thomas Sankara’s assassination, to highlight this anniversary you recently participated in an international speaking tour organized by the Justice for Sankara Campaign, focused on the UN case surrounding Sankara’s killing. In this context, can you reflect on the political significance of Sankara’s case in relation to contemporary African history and also to international movements for social justice?

Aziz Fall: First it’s important to say that Sankara’s case remains relevant and critical to the understanding the current debate on ‘African development.’

This year is the 20th anniversary of Sankara’s death and for 20 years the circumstances surrounding Sankara’s death remain unknown. In this context, GRILA recently won a major victory at the United Nations, in establishing a legal precedent against impunity in Africa. Until today, the official death certificate in Burkina Faso claims that Thomas Sankara died of natural causes and this is certainly not true.

It is the first time within the UN system regarding African affairs that in the investigation of a case in the death of a former head-of-state, a UN body has ruled on the side of justice, outlining clearly [in its recent decision] that people have a right to know the circumstance surrounding Sankara’s death and that the family has the right to be compensated.

In the context of the recent UN decision, why is Sankara’s death significant in terms of struggles for social justice in Africa?

Sankara incarnated the last African revolution, the last radical African experience of the 20th century; today, we can collectively reference no other similar political experiences in Africa. In the Burkina Faso revolution, there was the establishment of self-reliant development. Concretely, this meant there was a serious attempt on a national level to ensure that the peasantry would have the correct amount of food crop to supply the national population with nutrition, prior to considering the possibility of exporting to the international market.

In Burkina Faso, on a national level, there was an effort to establish a model of self-reliant development in regards to food, education and healthcare; within four years, the national political mentality and national production model were shifted in a progressive direction that no other African nation has succeeded in achieving before.

This political process had an enormous impact on the imagination of the youth, while also had an impact in regards to the neo-colonial framework of development within Africa, mainly in regards to the ongoing French influence over African development.

France, in reality, hasn’t granted independence to the former colonies due to the neo-colonial economic development framework that it continues to impose on Africa. France utilizes mainstream development models to smuggle resources from Africa, to have easy access to valuable minerals, to have access and influence over the maintenance of a system of capitalist development in Africa. An economic development system that can only be maintained with the support of local puppets that are totally reluctant to listen to the grievances and demands of their own population.

Sankara’s project in Burkina Faso is certainly a project that is important to consider for Africa because it relates directly to pan-Africanism, the collective integration of the African nation-states, certainly an economic model that advocates something inherently different than NEPAD [the New Economic Partnership for African Development], which is actually a plan that is fostering relations between Africa and western nations. In reality, NEPAD can’t be viewed or understood as an African plan for development.

Today, Africa needs to outline an African plan for development and the development of a local or indigenous definition of development was fundamental to the economic program that Sankara was advocating. This is why Sankara died; this is why Sankara was assassinated.

What has been the echo-effect of Thomas Sankara--the way in which the legacy of Sankara’s alternative economic ideas impacted all of Africa, the political and economic ideas that are being discussed today in Africa within networks advocating for social and economic justice?

In terms of civil-society: I must first admit that I have mixed feelings concerning the role of civil-society today, as major parts of ‘civil-society’ on an international level have been co-opted by the international neo-liberal economic framework and institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, there are still very authentic and participatory elements to networks today in Africa that are labelled 'civil-society.'

In this context, it’s important to note the contemporary recognition of Sankara’s economic and political ideas as models for exploring possibilities of self-reliant development models. It is interesting to note that the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, echoed the African Social Forum in recognizing Sankara’s policies as potential models for self-reliant development.

Today in Africa, there is a growing movement in support of Sankara, with political parties based on Sankara’s ideas in Burkina Faso and Mali; this movement didn’t exist while Sankara was alive, but is thriving today with an amazing number of associations, groups and organizations around Africa and abroad that are very active today.

In 2007, I met with many organizations in multiple countries who continue to work on Sankara’s case while also advocating for the political and economic ideas surrounding development that Sankara pushed while alive. Throughout our recent international caravan from Mexico to Europe, where we visited multiple countries, I was amazed by the crowds that welcomed us and the support and solidarity that we witnessed.

Sankara’s ideas are still extremely relevant today. Internationally, people are wearing t-shirts and buttons throughout the world, so Sankara is becoming an icon, which is not necessarily a good thing; however, it illustrates the support for Sankara’s ideas today in Africa. Sankara is the Che Guevara of Africa, who died at almost the same age, at 37, accomplishing great things in a short time while operating with political honesty, with a total dedication to the people of Burkina Faso and Africa.

African social movements continue to recognize Sankara’s legacy in terms of the demand for debt cancellation, an unconditional demand for cancellation of national debts, as part of an effort to change the balance of power between modern economic imperialism and Africa, towards the development idea of a true pan-African movement for liberation.

Can you explain for yourself why Sankara’s case is touching for you on a political level? How do Sankara’s ideas strike you? Why are they important to you as a social activist?

It’s simple to understand. GRILA was born the year of the revolution in Burkina Faso, based on the same values that Sankara advocated, as GRILA shared a similar world view, shared a similar dream of establishing a self-governed model for development in Africa, which explains the attachment, the connection.

Self-governed, or managed development, means that nations must rely on their internal forces first, before looking to external assistance. Development must be rooted in creating your own markets of consumption. A nation must feed its own population, which means that all citizens must have access to the national land, while the natural resources and mineral wealth should be owned by the people, not foreign companies.

Sankara advocated for a model of development as focused on first fulfilling the basic needs of the population, including providing access to clean water, to quality education, to housing and healthcare. Once these critical elements are fulfilled on a national level, then you can adapt to modern economic markets and modern technology based on the rhythm of your own society and culture.

Today, most African nations aren’t in a position to compete in the world capitalist market due to realities such as the subsidies within the agricultural market within European countries and the unfair nature of the international economic system. African nations must rely on their own forces first, while co-operating with other nations in the global south.

Sankara did not formulate ideas of economic development in Africa within the charity conception common within wealthy countries as a solution to the gross social inequities between the north and the south that are a pressing reality today throughout the world. Sankara didn’t ask for charity; Sankara demanded social justice, calling for self-determination rooted in a completely different social and economic vision to the charity model often promoted today…

It’s important to remind people that the reality today is that ‘international development’ is strategically assisting northern countries or developed countries. Fifty years after the establishment of the Bretton Woods system of international monetary management, with the creation of the World Bank and IMF, an economic system that still dictates large parts of the international economic system, poverty and inequity has only increased.

In this context, it’s important to note that the majority of development aid granted to southern nations is never truly received because all financing received is returned to the donor countries through debt payments. So the very tiny amounts of aid or charity that is given is returned, which is important to note, while direct aid only makes up only three per cent of the entire balance of international development, anyways. Charity from developed nations to the south, when reviewing the real statistics, has never actually existed.

Additionally, it’s important to mention that if the international economic system was truly fair, charity would not be needed at all. If international policies rooted in fair trade were applied, even in a capitalistic framework, charity would not be necessary as long as you maintain a balanced method to international trade.

Today, the entire understanding of northern charity and the humanitarian framework in which international development is presented is a complete falsity rooted in propaganda, a false message that has been repeated for years. Thomas Sankara never believed in this propaganda, trying to push an alternative to the present model of international development, trying to ensure that international development projects in Africa were undertaken on African terms.

Sankara created a consultation table between international donors to Burkina Faso, forcing Italy, France and England, for example, to sit at the same table and actually co-operate with the local ideas or concepts of development. For this reason, Sankara faced an international aid boycott, which forced Burkina Faso to rely and focus solely on national development, which saw the government begin the construction of national water dam projects, a national railway system using the local energy of their own population, not international donors or advisers.

International development aid pulled out of Burkina Faso because the western donor nations were reluctant to be dictated conditions, because in fact it is the current international development system that dictates the conditions for development. So, for the first time you had a country in Africa putting forward a strong position that international development aid must be delivered and implemented only through the leadership of the local population.

For this reason, Sankara’s government became unpopular with the governments of Europe and North America. As soon as Sankara died, the strong position on insisting that the people of Burkina Faso play the central role in defining national development or the implementation economic assistance was reversed. After Sankara’s death, all the international development agencies returned to Burkina Faso, achieving little in comparison to the major steps forward achieved throughout Sankara’s government.

Many international development organizations exist or thrive on the conditions of our poverty playing a large role in sustaining our poverty in Africa. Current models of international development thrive on creating dependency within the south, a development perspective in which you can’t rely on your own people, resources or skills--a model of development based on reliance, not self-reliance.

International development agencies mushroomed throughout the globalization era due to the downsizing of the state, due to the privatization of the social sector as pushed by institutions like the World Bank and IMF, which saw the creation of the NGO sector.

Today, the NGO sector is unsuccessfully attempting to fill the void of the state, to support the type of social development in southern nations that governments traditionally have taken responsibility for. Development must be viewed as a central responsibility of national governments, not of the private sector, as the private sector exists simply to accumulate economic profit, which is priority number one, not the interests of the people. This is the context in which Sankara’s economic policies for Burkina Faso were not supported by western governments or international development agencies.

Sankara did win the praise of the World Health Organization (WHO) after the government of Burkina Faso managed to vaccinate the entire population for multiple diseases within one week. Sankara, with the exception of the WHO, was boycotted by many international institutions for the alternative or self-reliant development models adopted in Burkina Faso. It is for the revolutionary development and national economic programs that shook the foundations of the traditional economic development models imposed on Africa--which economically benefit European countries--that eventually led to Sankara’s assassination.

[Read part II of this series, an interview with journalist Jooneed Khan about Sankara's contemporary impact]

Sankara

Burma and Democracy Protests: Where is the coverage of Ivanhoe?

dru — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:16:09 +0000

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Burma (aka Myanmar) has been on the front page of the Globe and Mail twice this week, and has been featured by many other publications and media outlets, as monks and pro-democracy protesters are mercilessly killed on the orders of the military junta that rules the country.

This has spawned a whole outpouring of solidarity and concern in various forms, as should be expected.

But the media coverage has been truly bizarre, and it seriously compromises the aims of that solidarity. The massive coverage given to the Burmese crackdown raises two very serious questions, the premises of which are somewhat contradictory:

1. Where was the the media outrage when this was happening in Haiti?

The Damage Done: Canada and the Coup in Haiti

dru — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 16:40:09 +0000

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Independent journalist and occasional Dominion contributor Darren Ell's The Damage Done: Canada and the Coup in Haiti is up on the CitizenShift web site. The documentary (and accompanying interviews, podcasts and weblog entries) looks at Canada's role in the coup against democracy in Haiti and the ensuing human rights catastrophe.

A Mined Democracy

hillarybain — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:44:14 +0000

The Philippines is rife with political violence, but Canadian mining companies don't seem to mind

Ranked second in the world for political killings -- over 800 since 2001 -- it may seem obvious that the Philippines is not a shining light of democracy. Yet many Western nations hold it in high esteem as exactly this, as well as a major trading partner and an ally in the war on terror.

A group of people from Montreal who travelled to the Philippines for the country’s mid-term May elections noticed this contradiction.

Speaking in front of the St. James church on June 3, delegation participant Stefan Christoff summed up this contradiction: In contrast to the “vibrant, thriving democracy” that the United States and Canada purport the Philippines to be, said Christoff, the mid-term elections were surrounded by an atmosphere of “coercion, corruption and violence.” He also stated that in the capital, Manila, the group he was with witnessed vote-buying and interviewed residents who were visited by the military and told how to vote.

The four-person delegation from Montreal was part of the larger Peoples’ International Observers Mission, which was comprised of participants from 12 countries. The effort was initiated in response to calls from Philippino human rights and church groups calling for witnesses for the lead-up to the elections for positions in the senate, congress and municipalities. Observers were positioned throughout the country and accompanied by local counterparts.

Freda Guttman, another member of the Montreal delegation, reviewed some of the hindrances to the democratic process discovered by her group operating in the city of Makati, a suburb of the capital. These included attempts at vote-buying through offers of money or free electricity and massive disorganization at polling stations. She said that buildings were plagued by periodic blackouts, during which time voting was suspended, and that many names were missing from voter lists. During the counting of the votes, Guttman also told of a surprise visit from a prominent businessman with close ties to the president. She stated that he “strode into the arena looking like Mussolini, with armed bodyguards” and “asked people counting which party they were from.”

Despite the fact that it is difficult for foreign observers to witness blatant electoral violations, observations like those of Guttman were common throughout the delegation. Their findings were also consistently corroborated by locals they spoke to, who deal with the forces of political pressure on a day-to-day basis, usually without the mitigating influence of international monitors.

The mid-term elections of the Philippines were of critical importance for the ruling regime’s effort to hold onto power amidst growing dissatisfaction with its leadership. Particularly, a 2005 impeachment effort sponsored by some of the opposition parties could be successfully reinitiated if the ruling government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo loses its control of the senate and congress.

The precarious nature of the government’s position on the eve of the elections led to an increased level of persecution of perceived political threats, with over 20 killings reported in the lead-up to voting day. Among such incidents, Malcolm Guy, spokesperson for the Montreal Centre for Philippine Concerns (CPC), noted the disappearance of Luing Posa-Dominado, a friend whom he first met in the 1980s. Posa-Domingo, a human rights activist imprisoned during the Marcos dictatorship went missing with her partner Nilo Arado on April 12, 2007, and neither has been heard of since. Also, two members of the Kabataan youth party were abducted and killed during the election process.

Due to the introduction of party list proportional representation in 1995, political parties such as Kabataan and Bayan Muna have been able to gain greater representation through the electoral process. However, the growth of these type of reform oriented and traditionally marginalized groups has led to their increased targeting.
being targeted.

There is a lot of enthusiasm in the Philippines for initiatives such as the party list legislation and the potential for change they represent, says Tess Tesalona, former resident of the Philippines, and also with the Montreal CPC. But the social elite are feeling their dominance increasingly threatened and are responding accordingly, she says.

Given the political violence and high levels of poverty in the Philippines, bribery and the threat of violence significantly hinder the possibility of legitimate elections. With 80 per cent of the population living on two dollars per day or less, and the richest 10 per cent of the population earning 21 times more than the poorest 10 per cent, it is no surprise that bribery has proven to be an effective political tool for the wealthy to maintain their power in the Philippines.

Although often characterized by the military and government as the result of political infighting between rebel forces, widespread violence is another important tool of political influence, according to organizations such as the Philippine human rights group Karapatan. Most of the 858 politically-related killings since 2001, when the Arroyo government took office, were church activists, lawyers, union leaders and others working for political change through non-violent means. Karapatan says that culpability for these acts lies directly with the state security forces and associated paramilitaries. Circumstances of death documented show that most were killed through methods of professional assassination or murder, preceded by kidnapping and torture. The fact that only verified killings are used in the figure of 858 makes it likely that the actual number is much higher.

In February of this year, UN human rights envoy Philip Alston conducted an inquiry in the country wherein he concluded that many of the political killings taking place in the Philippines can be “convincingly attributed” to the military. Earlier in the year, the Philippine-based Melo Commission drew similar conclusions, with the head of the armed forces conceding that the military was involved in some of the deaths. Both of these reports lack any form of binding recommendations, however, and neither make a link to President Arroyo, head of the Philippine armed forces.

While the social and political environment in the Philippines remains dismal, the country’s relationship with the West is close. This amounts to a problematic situation, according to the Montreal delegation, since countries that publicly espouse common values of democracy and human rights are benefiting from a relationship with a government that is violating these deeply held principles.

For the United States this relationship has been a long and sordid one, beginning in a brutal military occupation that lasted almost five decades. In early 1991, the Philippines banned American military bases from its territory, but this was rescinded in 1999. The island nation has since been regaining a prominent strategic position in American foreign policy. Human rights organizations such as Karapatan believe that the influence of the US in the Philippines is contributing to a familiar situation in which proponents for social change, whether violent or not, are characterized as variations of communist or Islamic terrorism. This is seen as a mutually beneficial arrangement for protecting the interests of both the US and its client regime.

Canadian trade with the Philippines tops one billion dollars per year, according to Industry Canada, and investment in the mining sector has been singled-out by human rights groups, both within the Philippines and abroad, for Canadian firms’ involvement in environmental and human rights abuses.

A recently released report from Rights and Democracy criticizes the Calgary-based TVI Pacific corporation for its project on the island of Mindanao. The report states that TVI has “deprived thousands of small-scale miners of their livelihood,” and “contributed to a militarization of the area” that has had a “negative impact on the ability of the Subanon [the local indigenous population] to enjoy the human right to security and the human right to housing.” These charges refer to actions by the 160-person security force working for the mining company hired from the Philippino army and given tasks such as the displacement of settlements and manning of blockades.

Other Canadian human rights and church groups have cited Vancouver-based mining companies Placer Dome Incorporated and Crew Development Corporation for their record of environmental destruction and lack of transparency in the Philippines.

In a manner that is even more direct, a number of former members of Canada’s military and police forces are working with Grayworks, a Philippine company engaged in combating the guerilla organizations of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Abu Sayyaf, and the New Peoples’ Army, primarily on the island of Mindanao.

With the elections over, the efforts of Canadian Philippino human rights organizations are being focused on other projects. A national coalition of groups, including the Centre for Philippine Concerns, recently submitted a 5,000-signature petition to parliament calling for a review of all Canadian relations with the Philippines and the impact these relationships are having on human rights in the country. The CPC is also continuing with its demonstrations on the first Sunday of each month, beginning at St. James church at the intersection of St. Catherine and City Councillors Street, in downtown Montreal.

The final tally of the election shows mixed results, with widespread success for the ruling coalition at the local and regional level and opposition parties gaining ground in the senate. In light of the conditions surrounding the election seen by the Montreal delegation, it would be premature to correlate polling results with popular desire and the functioning of a healthy democracy in the Philippines.

Protesting for a Just Peace in the Philippines