MEGAPOLIS PROJECT: CPA IS CONCERNED THAT THOSE WHO WILL BE AFFECTED BY LAND ACQUISITIONS WILL HAVE NO REDRESS.

09/04/2016

CPA is concerned that those who will be affected by land acquisitions due to the implementation of the WRMMP will have little or no redress. Given that many lands that are to be acquired are in areas where several low income communities reside, it is difficult to contemplate how members of such communities will be in a position to seek redress, as the remedies available require both financial and legal assistance.

Therefore, CPA urges that any act of land acquisition for the purposes of implementing the WRMMP – be it under the provisions of Clause 21(1) or Clause 21(4) – must be transparent, while ensuring full compliance with the safeguards recognized by legislation and jurisprudence of the apex courts. In this regard, the Megapolis Authority must follow the judgments in Waters Edge case; where the Supreme Court held that the purpose of acquiring land has as its primary object, public utility and benefit of the community as a whole, and Manel Fernando v. D. M. Jayaratne, Minister of Agriculture and Lands and Others, where the court held that it was mandatory that notice given prior to the acquisition of lands also be accompanied with the public purpose for which a parcel of land is to be acquired.55 Further, persons affected must be allowed access to reasonable remedies if they are affected by land acquisitions, and thus, it is urged that the one month time bar and limited jurisdiction of the courts be reconsidered.

It is also important to note that the State must also be prepared to compensate those who are affected by land acquisitions. In the past, many of the State’s land acquisitions have been marred with numerous accounts of compensation being valued at very low levels.

CPA urges the government to take this into consideration and ensure that all persons affected by acquisitions of land by the State be adequately compensated in adherence to the prevalent safeguards.

The provisions of Clause 21(9) of the Megapolis Bill, which states that persons living in underserved communities shall be treated in a fair and equitable manner and not be impoverished due to development processes is commendable, and it is noteworthy that Schedule E of the Bill introduces a comprehensive compensation scheme.

The scheme allows those affected to make representations on what they believe is an appropriate value of compensation to Land Acquisition and Resettlement Committees (LARC), which thereafter shall be finalized following a hearing before the LARC.56 The LARC will also take into consideration factors such as loss of livelihood, loss of business, loss of wages of employment, existence of vulnerable purposes, as well as replacement costs and ex-gratia payments for buildings and other improvements.

Although this compensation scheme does contemplate payment of compensation based on numerous factors, CPA is concerned that the Megapolis Bill does not contain adequate safeguards to ensure the participation of those affected by land acquisitions.

Therefore, CPA urges that the Megapolis Bill contain provisions that prevent arbitrary decision-making and enforce existing legal and policy safeguards regarding land ownership and compensation, including the policy principles enumerated in the National Involuntary Resettlement Policy.

Read the Full report here as a PDF:CPA – Megapolis-Memorandum

CPA Megapolis Memorandum by Thavam Ratna

Where are Marx and Lenin when we need them?

The rises of financial power in Russia and China has created private power centers in those countries that, like the ones in the US, are independent of the governments. These power centers have the potential to capture the governments and to use public offices to further concentrate wealth in few hands.

by Paul Craig Roberts

( April 9, 2016, Washinton DC, Sri Lanka Guardian) Marx and Lenin were ahead of their time. 

Marx wrote before offshoring of jobs and the financialization of the economy. Lenin presided over a communist revolution that jumped the gun by taking place in a country in which feudal elements still predominated over capitalism. In the 21st century America capitalism has been unfettered from the regulations that democratized it and made it serve society. Today capitalism is being financialized with the consequence that its productive power is being drained into the service of debt.

When I was a young man, an individual with one million dollars was very rich. Anyone with a few millions more was considered richer than rich. Today there are people who have thousands of millions of dollars.

Few earned their billions by producing goods and services sold to consumers.

The neoliberal economists, who prescribe economic policy not only in the West but also in Russia and China, incorrectly claim that money received is money earned. In fact, how did the Less-Than-One-Percent really get their thousands of millions?

They got them through political connections and through purely financial transactions.

When the Soviet Union fell apart as a consequence of hardline communists arresting President Gorbachev, well connected individuals in Russia and the Soviet province of Ukraine, especially those well connected to Washington and Israel, ended up with massive holdings that formerly were state properties.

In the US billionaires result from bank lending for leveraged takeovers of companies. The takeovers produce riches for the takeover person from curtailing company pensions and using the company’s cash to pay off the takeover loan. Often the company and its employees are ruined, but the takeover artist walks away with massive amounts of money. Manipulation of initial public offerings are another source of riches as are securitized derivatives.

Classical economists, and Michael Hudson today, define these profits as “economic rents,” the income from which required no increase in real output to produce. In other words, these billionaire wealth gains are a form of parasitism based on exploitation and not on the production of real output. The gains result from draining income from production into the service of debt.

Today’s capitalist economies are far more dysfunctional than Marx supposed. For the past two decades Western economies have served no one but the very rich, and the exploited masses have submitted to their exploitation. The Western public may as well be slaves.

There is no reason for a person to have thousands of millions of dollars. The money elevates the political power of individuals over the power of the electorate. Indeed, the money becomes the electorate. The money is used to purchase political control, which destroys representative government. Billionaires, such as Sheldon Adelson, George Soros, and the Koch brothers, use their billionaire fortunes to control the US government in their interests. A Republican Supreme Court has made this easier for them.

The rise of financial power in Russia and China has created private power centers in those countries that, like the ones in the US, are independent of the governments. These power centers have the potential to capture the governments and to use public offices to further concentrate wealth in few hands. 

Privatizations in Russia and China will strengthen the independent power of narrow private interests as they have in Europe and the UK. Neoliberal economics guarantees that eventaully private money controls the government.

Oxfam, an international charity headquartered in Oxford, England, reports that 62 billionaires own half of the wealth in the world.

It was Warren Buffett, one of the richest mega-billionaires, who said that his secretary’s tax rate was higher than his. If governments do not rectify this, revolution will.

But apparently voters won’t, at least not in the US. Hillary represents the One Percent, as the

Clinton’s $153,000,000 in speaking fees attest, but the 99 percent are self-destructing by voting in support of Hillary’s ambition to gain the presidency. Apparently, H. L. Mencken was correct, the vast majority of Americans are morons.

Britain's Cameron says he mishandled Panama Papers tax scrutiny

BY WILLIAM JAMES-Sat Apr 9, 2016

British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Saturday he should have handled scrutiny of his family's tax arrangements better, seeking to reassert his leadership after days of negative media coverage and calls for his resignation.

After four days and four different statements over his late father's inclusion in the "Panama Papers", Cameron said on Thursday he once had a stake in his father's offshore trust and had profited from it.

"Well, it's not been a great week," Cameron said, speaking in London at a meeting of members of his Conservative Party. "I know that I should have handled this better, I could have handled this better. I know there are lessons to learn and I will learn them."

As hundreds of protesters from rival parties gathered outside with banners demanding his resignation, Cameron said he would publish the information used to compile his annual tax returns, past and present, because he wanted to be "completely transparent about these things".

The protest, in which many waved banners saying "Cameron must go", briefly blocked the street outside the venue, with delegates advised to remove their identification before leaving.

Cameron's candid admission of fault, during which he said he had been angered at how the media had portrayed his late father, comes after a torrid period for the Conservative government.

Divided over a June 23 referendum on whether to remain in the European Union, forced to backtrack on welfare cuts and criticised for not protecting the steel industry, Cameron sought to rally party unity ahead of regional elections next month.

"We have a huge responsibility over the coming months and the coming years to settle this issue over Europe ... to show the discipline and unity and purpose that is vital for government," he said.

Egyptian opposition closing ranks in bid to 

end Sisi's rule

Exiled opposition politician Ayman Nour tells MEE that Egyptian president's sole achievement has been to unite all parties against him 
Ayman Nour waves after registering for Egypt's 2012 presidential race (AFP)

Suraj Sharma-Saturday 9 April 2016

ISTANBUL, Turkey – Egyptian opposition figures and parties are uniting in the face of increased state repression during “a crucial year” for the future of the country’s democracy, one of Egypt’s leading opposition politicians has said.

Ayman Nour, leader of the liberal Ghad El Thawra party, told Middle East Eye that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's leadership had been a total failure, except on one point.

“The only thing he [Sisi] has managed to do is unite the entire Egyptian opposition, which is as diverse as possible,” said Nour in an extensive interview conducted earlier this month.

The fact that Nour is now the chairman of the executive board of the Istanbul-based Egyptian Al-Sharq television station, known for its sympathetic leanings toward the Muslim Brotherhood, is an indicator that a previously fragmented opposition is now closing ranks.

Nour, who took up the position seven months ago, insisted that Al-Sharq was not affiliated with any one group, but was instead a channel representing the Egyptian people, opposition and revolutionary forces as a whole.

“We represent the liberals, the Muslim Brotherhood, and all other points of view,” he said. “I have held a financial stake in this channel right since it started operations in 2014.”

Yet, it is a loosely held secret that many media outlets loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood established bases in Turkey following the 2013 coup, which toppled the elected president, Mohamed Morsi. 

Al-Sharq television counts as one of those channels, according to experts on Egyptian media. Managers at the channel said there is strong interest in their broadcasts within Egypt among all segments of society, but they were reluctant to reveal any information about the channel, including how many staff the station employs beyond saying it was “a sufficient number to run operations".

A savvy and veteran politician, Nour would not reveal the specifics of any cooperation between various opposition groups. He is, however, keen to emphasise that the Egyptian opposition has learned the importance of uniting in the face of the crackdown by Sisi's government on dissenting voices.

“Yes, we are all now cooperating and working toward a better future without Sisi. Everyone from liberals to the Brotherhood to everything else has realised that we have to work together,” he said.

Persecution at home and abroad  

In 2005, Nour was the first politician to run against Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian president, and ended up being jailed for his troubles. Later, after the Sisi-led coup against president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, Nour travelled to Lebanon and stayed there until a tip-off from Lebanese intelligence forced him to flee.

“I had to travel to Turkey in July last year. A senior member of Lebanese intelligence informed me of a plot to assassinate me. I wasn’t given details of whether this was planned by the Sisi regime or not, but it isn’t that hard to guess,” he said.

“In any case, I had been told even before that I should make maximum security arrangements, including travelling in armoured vehicles. It isn’t nice.”

Even in Turkey, one of the most vocal opponents of the Sisi takeover along with Qatar, the harassment continued, he said, with the Sisi government refusing to renew Nour’s passport.

The threat of non-renewal had been made by Egyptian officials last year, but now with Nour’s passport actually expired, he and other opponents in a similar position face being made effectively stateless.

“It isn’t up to Sisi’s government to deny Egyptians their passports. I have sued in the past and intend to sue the Egyptian consulate in Istanbul and the Egyptian foreign ministry again,” he said. “Not that it will make a difference when the rule of law and justice is non-existent.”

Shaping the future

The primary question that all the Egyptian opposition groups now need to tackle is how to get rid of the Sisi government, Nour said.

“Most importantly, we first need to decide whether he [Sisi] goes through another people’s revolution, another coup, or some other method. Even his own close circle has lost confidence in him and no longer backs him,” he said.

He warned all opposition parties against looking too far ahead and getting caught up in politics – for example, focusing on who should be the next leader - which he said would only serve to keep Sisi in power.

“Some people would like to see me as the future leader, others would like to see Dr Morsi as the leader again, and yet others would like to see someone else,” he said. “But that is not the issue we should focus on now and waste energy on. Let’s focus on getting rid of Sisi first because it is him who is hurting all Egyptian people.” 

Nour believes that the Sisi government has been steadily losing credibility internationally even amongst its staunchest supporters like Saudi Arabia and the West.

“Contrary to appearances, all assistance and aid now is made with the Egyptian people in mind and not Sisi and his close circle. The West acted out of its own perceived interests and those of Israel mainly, but now even they see that their interest lies in a democratic, stable and free Egypt,” he said.

Nour said even the scheduled visit by Saudi King Salman Bin Abdel Aziz to Egypt this week, the second such visit by a Saudi monarch since Morsi was ousted, did not necessarily imply full and unconditional support for Sisi.

“Even the Saudis no longer support Sisi directly. Any support is for the Egyptian nation. If Turkey and Qatar are not so vociferous in their opposition to Sisi any more, it is not because they have given up, but because they know the international tide against him is turning,” he said.

Nour is adamant that this year will bring vital and a major success for democracy in Egypt. He believes Egyptian democracy will only be strengthened and gain experience from being badly bruised in its infancy.

“I have full confidence that this will be a crucial year in our struggle for Egyptian democracy, and we will make huge strides for a free future,” he said.

Mafia boss's son's interview sparks fury in Italy

 Giuseppe Salvatore Riina, seen here leaving prison, said he loved his father

7 April 2016

There has been outrage after Italian state television aired an interview with the son of one of the country's most infamous Mafia bosses.

Giuseppe Salvatore Riina appeared on RAI to promote a book dedicated to his father, Toto Riina.

He did not condemn his father, thought to have ordered more than 150 murders while boss of Sicily's Cosa Nostra.

Executives at RAI have been summoned to Italy's anti-Mafia parliamentary committee.

During the interview the younger Riina, himself a convicted mobster, said he had a happy childhood, calling his father "an upstanding man who respects family and traditional values".

Riina refused to acknowledge the Mafia's existence, describing it as "everything and nothing at all".

'Blood on his hands'

Italian politicians and victims of Mafia crimes condemned the interview, conducted by veteran talk-show host Bruno Vespa.

Salvatore Borsellino, whose brother Paolo was assassinated on the elder Riina's orders, said he was nauseated by the interview, calling it a "reopening of wounds"in a Facebook post (in Italian).

"I don't care if Riina's hands caressed his children. They are the same hands covered in the blood of innocents," Italy's former chief anti-Mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso wrote.

Mr Vespa defended the interview as a valuable insight into the life of a Mafia family.

Toto Riina was arrested in 1993, and is currently in jail after being convicted of several murders.

A daughter takes up her slain mother’s activism

Bertha Zúniga Cáceres, the 26-year-old daughter of the slain environmental activist Berta Cáceres Flores, reflects after testifying Tuesday at the Organization of American States in Washington. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Surrounded by family and friends, Bertha Zúniga Cáceres addresses a crowd after testifying at the Organization of American States in Washington. Her mother had held a news conference in Honduras — days before she was killed — to denounce the murders of four fellow activists who opposed a huge hydroelectric dam project. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

By Darryl Fears-April 9

The wispy young woman with raven-black hair and expressive brown eyes was introduced to the small crowd as Bertha Zúniga Cáceres, but hardly anyone in her tight circle calls her that. She is known by the Spanish diminutive “Bertita,” an homage to her internationally famous mother, environmental activist Berta Cáceres Flores.

On a windy afternoon in Washington this week, the 26-year-old Zúniga boldly continued the work that many think led to her mother’s recent slaying by gunmen in Honduras. Zúniga faced the gathering at the red-brick entrance of the Organization of American States, lifted a bullhorn and denounced her government for creating a climate that makes Honduras one of the deadliest countries in the world for people trying to protect forests, rivers and other resources.

At least 100 activists were murdered between 2010, a year after an elected president was ousted by a coup, and 2014, according to the international watchdog group Global Witness. Cáceres, a winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize who fought the government’s removal of indigenous people from river communities to pave the way for a massive hydroelectric dam project, was shot March 3 after years of receiving death threats.

[‘A lot of people wanted her dead.’ Before her slaying, threats followed Cáceres]

Though still in mourning, her daughter flew to Washington to testify before the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights about deadly abuse in Honduras. She also joined the Center for Justice and International Law and other groups in asking the OAS to appoint a panel of independent experts to investigate the murder of her mother and other activists. There have been few arrests in the cases.

“What we want to find out is who were these assassins,” Zúniga said, her voice booming across two city blocks. “Not the trigger men. We want to know who the intellectual assassins are” — meaning the others, possibly including government and military officials, who had a role in the planning.

That call to action is reminiscent of her mother’s fierce activism, and some worry that Bertita, who is suspending graduate studies to carry on her mother’s work, might also suffer her fate.

“We’re all very concerned for her safety, especially since the same security measures are in place for the rest of the family that were there for Berta,” said her cousin, Silvio Carrillo. Zúniga is the second of four children, “and all of them are speaking out. They’re fearless, just like their mother.”

Zúniga hand-delivered a request to OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, asking him to convene an expert panel to investigate the murders. A similar panel probed the disappearance of protesters three years ago in Mexico and produced a stinging report that thoroughly contradicted the government’s account of how the busload of students vanished. It also implicated police and military officials who were not mentioned in the original account.

Zúniga’s appearance at the OAS did not have the result she had hoped for. Neither did activists’ push for the U.S. State Department to pressure the Honduran government for an independent investigation by a panel of legal experts from other parts of the world.

Almagro asked Honduras to submit to such action, but the government did not respond, according to OAS spokesman Sergio Jellinek. The OAS now plans to deploy international judges and technical experts as part of its newly created Mission to Support the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras.

“The purpose of the mission is to investigate corruption and put people in jail,” Jellinek said. “If there is an angle related to Berta’s case, they will tackle it.”

[A rare conviction for the slaying of an environmental activist in Latin America]

Mark Toner, deputy spokesman for the State Department, said the agency has strongly condemned Cáceres’s murder and extended condolences to the family and people “who have lost a dedicated defender of the environment and human rights.” But, he said, department officials cannot tell the Honduran government how to proceed.

“The U.S. government has no jurisdiction to investigate a homicide in Honduras,” Toner said in a statement Friday. “Several U.S. advisors with extensive experience in criminal investigations and prosecutions are providing technical assistance to the Honduran investigators and prosecutors. We are not aware of any international organization that has the legal authority and technical capacity to conduct an independent homicide investigation in Honduras.”

The Honduran Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment, but sources at the OAS, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because discussions with Honduras are sensitive, said that the government there favored review by the new mission rather than any involvement by the human rights commission.

Speaking through an interpreter, Zúniga called the responses by the OAS and State Department disappointing. That sentiment was echoed by family members and several activists groups that say they have little confidence in the Honduran prosecutors or the mission, which obviously has no investigative track record.

Honduran officials vowed to protect Cáceres, they said, but failed to keep her safe. Now the same government is promising to protect her elderly mother and four children while undertaking an investigation into a homicide that so far has yielded no arrests.

Carrillo, a U.S. citizen who accompanied his cousin during her time in Washington, said the organization that Cáceres led at the time of her death, the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), has stepped in “to fill in the security gaps. The police? Why should we trust them?”

[Suspicions mount in slaying of noted Honduran environmentalist]

Cáceres won the Goldman Prize for the role she played in getting a Chinese company to abandon the dam in 2013, but a Costa Rican firm took over, and the work continues. A Dutch bank suspended its financing because of the recent violence, but that has not stopped construction, either. A completion date has not been set.

Late in the week, Zúniga boarded a red-eye flight back to Honduras and a future, at least for now, as an activist. She said she knows violence often comes with the job.

“We’re not going to deny that we are afraid,” Zúniga said. “But one of the biggest lessons my mom had was not to stop. My biggest fear was that they would kill her, and that has happened. This is an attack against everyone who stands against these actions. We feel a need to make this a calling.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly named the international group Global Witness.

Latin America’s New Turbulence: Crisis and Integrity in Brazil

by Marcus André Melo

Courtesy: The Journal of Democracy

( April 8, 2016, Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian) For Brazil’s young democracy, this might seem to be the worst of times. The country’s once-booming economy has taken a nosedive along with global commodity prices; a monster public-corruption scandal is engulfing much of the political class and infuriating millions of ordinary Brazilians; and a president who barely won reelection only to abandon her basic fiscal-policy approach now teeters on the brink of impeachment and expulsion from office.

Yet these storm clouds have a silver lining. For, grave as they are, they have put on vivid display the strength, independence, and public trust enjoyed by the country’s web of judicial and public accountability institutions and highlighted the free and energetic nature of the media in a country that only three decades ago was held under lockdown by a military dictatorship. Politics and the economy are in a crisis, but looking beneath the turmoil we can glimpse the power of the rule of law and see Brazilian constitutional democracy’s institutional resilience and fortitude.

Read the full paper here;

Melo-27-2.pdf by Thavam Ratna

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Marcus André Melo is professor of political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil. He is the author (with Carlos Pereira) of Making Brazil Work: Checking the President in a Multiparty System (2013).

U.N. Sex Abuse Scandal in Central African Republic Hits Rock Bottom

After more than a year of seemingly endless allegations of sexual exploitation by peacekeepers,the U.N. is finally taking action. But critics say it's too little too late.

BY MARGAUX BENN-APRIL 8, 2016

BANGUI, Central African Republic — A French commander tied up four girls and forced them to have sex with a dog. A Congolese peacekeeper raped a 16-year-old in a hotel room. And soldiers from France, Gabon, and Burundi sexually abused at least 108 women and children in a single province between 2013 and 2015. These are just some of the latest allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by international forces in the Central African Republic (CAR), where the U.N. mission has been roundly condemned for praying on the very citizens it was sent there to protect.

These most recent allegations, first reported on March 30 by the advocacy group AIDS-Free World, stem from leaked correspondence with U.N. investigators. The awful details represent a new low for the United Nations — but also, perhaps, a turning point. After a litany of scandals, the U.N. is now finally taking concrete actions to curb peacekeeper abuse. But critics say it isn’t going nearly far enough.

The U.N. mission in the Central African Republic, known by its French acronym MINUSCA, replaced a beleaguered African Union force in 2014 with a mandate to protect civilians in that country at a time of spiraling sectarian violence and to support a fragile political transition. Since then, it has been implicated in dozens of cases of sexual abuse, including 25 separate allegations lodged in just the first three months of 2016. The mission’s botched handling of these cases, together with earlier allegations of pedophilia by French forces stationed in the capital, Bangui, was later deemed a “gross institutional failure” by a panel of independent experts that excoriated high-ranking officials for deliberately obstructing investigators. In August of last year, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon took the unprecedented step of sacking his special representative in CAR, Babacar Gaye.

“Enough is enough,” Ban declared upon accepting Gaye’s resignation.

Except the allegations kept coming.To date, more than 150 accusations of sexual misconduct, including rape and sexual assault, have been lodged against international forces in CAR, although MINUSCA says it is still assessing whether the latest 108 are credible. (Forty-five cases of alleged abuse have been credibly linked to MINUSCA personnel so far.) As the list of official embarrassments has mounted, the United Nations has scrambled to put in place measures to curb peacekeeper abuse, such as expelling troops accused of misconduct and limiting the amount of contact off-duty peacekeepers have with the civilian population. And in the wake of the shocking new allegations last week, it has proposed setting up in situ military courts and requiring pre-deployment DNA tests for peacekeepers, both of which would require the consent of troop-contributing countries.

“Though the problem certainly did not begin with MINUSCA, our mission is where the scandal really took off, and we have taken it upon us to make it a battleground for the eradication of this scourge,” Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, who replaced Gaye as special representative of the U.N. secretary-general in August 2015, told Foreign Policy in an interview.


To that end, MINUSCA has mandated that off-duty peacekeepers stay exclusively in their barracks, since troops that were not on active duty are alleged to have committed many of the abuses. The mission has also begun patrolling outside its own bases to ensure this new regulation is respected. And in places like Bambari, CAR’s third-largest city, where camps for displaced people spilled over into U.N. bases, physical barriers were set up at the beginning of 2016 to divide the two areas — though not until Human Rights Watch published damning allegations of sexual abuse.

MINUSCA will also benefit from broader measures to curb abuse by peacekeepers in U.N. missions around the globe. In February, Ban appointed former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Jane Holl Lute as a special coordinator to work exclusively on the problem of sexual exploitation by peacekeepers. She arrived in CAR this week. In addition, the U.N. Security Council voted on March 11 to give the secretary-general the right to repatriate entire units if their home countries fail to prosecute alleged perpetrators of sexual misconduct within six months. (Previously, the United Nations could only repatriate individual alleged perpetrators, as it did in February, when it expelled 120 peacekeepers from the Republic of Congo after a string of accusations of sexual abuse.)

“These measures put MINUSCA at the forefront of the fight to end sexual violence by peacekeepers and will hopefully set effective precedents,” Onanga-Anyanga said, adding that expelling entire contingents has its drawbacks since “countries aren’t exactly queuing to contribute troops to peacekeeping missions.”

But not everyone is convinced that such measures will adequately protect civilians. Peacekeepers enjoy immunity from prosecution in the countries where they are deployed, and the U.N. relies on their home countries to mete out justice when necessary. But while U.N. peacekeepers have been accused of everything from human trafficking to systematic rape of women and children, few of them have ever been prosecuted. This week, three Congolese peacekeepers went on trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for crimes allegedly committed in CAR, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

“The main problem is that members of peacekeeping missions who want to commit sexual offenses know that they have practically every chance of getting away with it,” said Lewis Mudge, a researcher focusing on CAR at Human Rights Watch. “They know very well that, legally, the hands of national authorities and the United Nations are tied.”

After the latest round of allegations, top U.N. officials signaled some willingness to remove these legal obstacles. During a visit to Bangui last week, U.N. peacekeeping chief Hervé Ladsous floated the idea of creating special martial courts to try alleged perpetrators in the countries where the abuses occurred (though he didn’t say who would sit on them). He also raised the possibility of requiring DNA samples for all troops set to deploy to U.N. peacekeeping missions in order to “facilitate paternity tests.”

“This would show victims that their case is, indeed, taken care of and guarantee that decisions are made transparently, which might not otherwise be the case,” Ladsous said.

But reforms like these would require the consent of troop-contributing countries, which have historically been reluctant to concede authority over their solders to the United Nations. According to multiple U.N. sources, they are not likely to change their stance on this issue.

“Everybody in New York is basically trying to cover their backs,” said one U.N. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Measures are evoked regardless of whether or not they are realistic, communication on the subject is strictly monitored, and you can expect a real witch hunt for those who leaked the cables.”

But the focus on military personnel obscures the fact that civilian staff who answer directly to the U.N. have also been implicated in the sexual abuse scandal — and in shockingly high numbers. According to data from the U.N.’s Conduct and Discipline Unit, civilian staff have accounted for as many as half of sexual misconduct cases in some U.N. missions, despite the fact that they are greatly outnumbered by uniformed peacekeepers. In CAR, three civilian staff members have been accused of sexual abuse and exploitation to date. (Unlike peacekeepers, the nationality of civilian U.N. staff accused of sexual misconduct is not made public.)

These staff members should be easier to prosecute in the countries where the missions are taking place, at least in principle. Although they benefit from immunity just like peacekeepers, U.N. missions can request a waiver from the secretary-general for serious criminal cases, such as rape. If the request is granted, the accused staff member would fall under the jurisdiction of the host government. MINUSCA spokesman Vladimir Monteiro would not say whether any such requests for waivers have been made, but to date no U.N. personnel have been referred to local authorities.

“It just seems that the U.N. is more set on protecting itself, gearing up damage control mechanisms and controlling to what extent new cases should or shouldn’t be made public, rather than on protecting the victims,” said Paula Donovan, the co-director of AIDS-Free World.

It is also not clear that MINUSCA has always acted with the victims’ best interests at heart. “There are serious questions as to what the U.N. is doing, and what it can do, regarding the welfare of victims,” said Mudge. “Though it does provide some crucial support, in some cases women and girls may have been re-traumatized following multiple interviews with U.N. and other NGO staff. A woman or girl who has been raped by a peacekeeper should not have to replay it over and over again to various U.N. agencies.”

Donovan pointed to the internal U.N. investigation whose leaked preliminary findings her organization published last week as an example of MINUSCA’s reckless handling of abuse allegations. She said that the investigative team “was not given any formal guidelines on how to operate, how to handle evidence, protect the chain of custody, and so on.” Given the “completely ad hoc fashion” in which they were sent into the field, she said, it is uncertain whether the evidence they have collected will be admissible in court.

Just as worrying, the most recent allegations occurred in a zone where MINUSCA’s regional director, Renner Onana, was accused last year by an independent panel appointed by the U.N. secretary-general of “obscuring” the abuse allegations and of “an outright disregard for his obligations as head of the human rights component of the U.N. mission in CAR.” (Despite these damning accusations, Onana was subsequently promoted to the regional director post.) When asked whether Onana had any role in the investigations underway, MINUSCA’s public information unit said it could not make the names of investigators public.

After more than a year of seemingly endless allegations of abuse, it seems MINUSCA has finally been forced to take some action to halt peacekeeper abuse. But unless the U.N. can get troop-contributing countries on board with the kinds of aggressive accountability measures floated by Ladsous, the organization’s most vocal critics are unlikely to be satisfied.

“Hiding behind existing rules should never be an excuse for inaction,” said Roméo Dallaire, who commanded the U.N. mission in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide and has been a vocal supporter of AIDS-Free World’s campaign to hold MINUSCA accountable. “The U.N. needs to reconstruct its framework so that all those involved in peacekeeping missions, both civilian staff and soldiers, can be prosecuted in a transparent way if they commit a crime.”

Image credit: ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images

No evidence of Mexico's 43 missing students' remains in rubbish, lab finds

Findings ‘do not scientifically support’ government investigation’s claims that bodies of Ayotzinapa teaching students were burned in garbage dump

Activists hold signs outside Mexican attorney general’s office to demand justice for the 43 missing students of Ayotzinapa teacher training college. Photograph: Edgard Garrido/Reuters

David Agren in Mexico City-Saturday 9 April 2016

Laboratory tests showed no evidence that Mexico’s missing 43 students were among the remains recovered from a rubbish tip, where the Mexican government insists the teacher trainees’ bodies were burned in an all-night inferno and the ashes tossed in an adjacent river.

The results, released to reporters late Friday night, dealt further discredit to the official investigation, which the attorney general at the time called “the historic truth”. The report comes as the Mexican government defended its original inquiry from accusations that it undermined the work of international investigators, who considered the fire theory implausible and scientifically impossible.

“These results do not scientifically support the attorney general’s office theory,” said Mario Patrón, director of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Centre, which was worked with the students’ families and the international investigations into the case.

“It was not possible to obtain, at this point, identifications of the genetic profiles in all the samples of skeletal remains,” along with other samples of hairs found on clothing, the attorney general’s office said in a statement. The results of one further process of DNA testing is still pending.

The findings from a laboratory at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, were similar to those of experts from the Argentine Anthropological and Forensic Experts, who found 19 human remains in the rubbish dump, but were unable to identify any of the missing students.

Another group of experts, from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), found weather records registering rain on the night of the supposed fire in September 2014. That team also studied satellite images and found no trace of large fires in the area. No evidence of a controlled burn was found, though the experts said recurring fires – none large enough to burn 43 bodies – were common in the garbage dump.

The Austrian laboratory has previously identified two students from remains that, according to the attorney general’s office, were found in the landfill and a nearby river, some 200km south of Mexico City. The Argentine experts, though, say one of the identifications was inconclusive, while the other came from evidence with questions surrounding its chain of custody.

Authorities have theorised that corrupt police officers, allegedly acting with organised crime, attacked the Ayotzinapa teaching students while they were on buses en route to a protest in September 2014. They have suggested that the officers then turned the bodies over to criminals, who burned their remains.

The attorney general’s office said in its statement the results of one final DNA sequencing test on the remains are still pending.

Suu Kyi announces plan to release all political prisoners in Burma

National League for Democracy party (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Pic: AP.

8th April 2016 

AUNG San Suu Kyi announced her government’s plan to free all political prisoners in Burma “as soon as possible.” The declaration is her first act in her newly created position as state counselor, which effectively allows her to oversee the rest of the government.

The declaration, which was posted yesterday on the Facebook page of the office of President Htin Kyaw, described the release as a “priority.” There are about 100 political prisoners left over from the military-backed government that was recently replaced by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

In addition to that, over 400 more are awaiting trial, according to some news outlets which cited the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

“I am going to try… for the immediate release of political prisoners, political activists and students facing trial related to politics,” said Suu Kyi, without providing a specific timeline, reported AFP.

Suu Kyi pointed out that the prisoners could be freed either by presidential amnesty, or by getting prosecutors to drop charges against those awaiting trial.

Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory in last November’s election, ending a half-century of military-backed rule. She is by agreement of her party the de facto head of government, though the constitution does not allow her to be president because her two sons have British citizenship.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press

NHS to recruit Indian doctors to plug gaps in GP services  

More doctors could be recruited from India to work in general practice  CREDIT:ALAMY /ALAMY

Britain relies heavily on doctors from overseas but many leave after training  CREDIT:ALAMY /ALAMY

By Sarah Knapton, science editor-7 APRIL 2016


The NHS has stepped up its recruitment of Indian doctors to plug gaps in GP services, it has emerged.
Health Education England (HEE), the employment and training arm of the NHS, has signed a ‘memorandum of understanding’ with Apollo Hospitals in India which could see hundreds more doctors coming to Britain if they pass rigorous tests.

HEE has been tasked by the Government with increasing GP numbers by 5,000 by 2020 but has already missed targets.

“Ministers need to provide assurances that any doctor recruited from abroad will continue to go through rigorous assessment to guarantee they are able to deliver safe care to NHS patients."

Lord Hunt, Labour Shadow Health Minister

Earlier this week, Oxford University warned that the increase in GP workloads - up 16 per cent over the last seven years - was ‘unsustainable.’

Although HEE say that details have not been finalised, the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin said it understood that the NHS was planning to recruit ‘as many GPs as possible.'

Dr Ramesh Mehta, president of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, told Pulse magazine, “I think it is a pity that HEE have to go abroad to recruit for GP positions. Unfortunately, the training of GPs has not been managed properly over the years.”

He said GPs who come over from India would have to be “given proper support and mentoring so they don't land in trouble, as has happened in the past when doctors are put in the NHS without proper induction”.

Britain relies more heavily on foreign doctors than any other major EU nation, with more than one third born aboard, a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found last year.

The UK is also one of the highest exporters of doctors with increasing numbers of healthcare workers choosing to move abroad.

Separate research found that hospitals with high numbers of foreign-born nursing staff had the highest levels of patient dissatisfaction and received far worse ratings.

The study by King’s College London and the University of Southampton found that patients at those hospitals were more likely to say they struggled to understand staff and were less likely to feel treated with dignity.

Dr Umesh Prabhu, former chair and current member of the British International Doctors Association executive committee, said of the plan: "This is a most dangerous thing, because these doctors are not trained to be GPs in the UK.

"Their training is entirely different. I have concerns for the doctors' safety and the patients' safety."
However Dr Maureen Baker, chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs, said doctors would not be simply "parachuted" into the NHS.

"We welcome any expressions of interest from doctors outside of the EU wanting to work in the NHS - but they would first have to undergo GP specialty training, and pass our rigorous entrance assessment. They would also have to pass the GMC's professional linguistic and assessments board test. "

Lord Hunt, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, said it was vital that doctors from overseas were subjected to stringent tests before being allowed to practice in Britain.

“Ministers need to provide assurances that any doctor recruited from abroad will continue to go through rigorous assessment to guarantee they are able to deliver safe care to NHS patients,” he said.

“The reality is that this short-term fix will do nothing to address the crisis in general practice which has happened on this Government’s watch. GP surgeries have been left underfunded, understaffed and unable to cope with rising demand.”

A statement from HEE, which is currently running a GP recruitment campaign, said: "England and India have signed a memorandum of understanding as a starting point to exploring how both countries can benefit from the mutual exchange of ideas.”

Activists in an international system: pushing for change in Sri Lanka

Flickr/Vikalpa (Some rights reserved)

The strong involvement of mothers, fathers, and wives, coming forward courageously to give testimony to high profile representatives, helped Sri Lanka gain support from intergovernmental bodies.

RUKI FERNANDO 7 April 2016

Stephen Hopgood argued several years ago that it is activists, not states, who will make a difference in the future, and to a certain extent this has proved to be true in Sri Lanka. Undoubtedly, the primary struggle for human rights has to be waged at home. But there are also times when international support—such as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is crucial. For us, 2006-2014 was such a time.

In 2005-2006, I was working at the FORUM-ASIA Secretariat based in Bangkok. As the conflict in Sri Lanka escalated in 2006, I decided to go home and came back to chaos. There were large-scale enforced disappearances, extra-judicial executions, mass displacement, forcible recruitment (including of children), and severe restrictions on traveling and communication. It was also a time where human rights activists, including non-governmental organisation (NGO) workers, humanitarian workers, independent journalists, clergy and opposition politicians with critical views of the government, were killed, disappeared, detained or threatened. Domestic human rights protection mechanisms, such as the Judiciary, National Human Rights Commission and the Ad Hoc Commissions of Inquiries, had become completely ineffective.

It was a very dangerous time to be an activist living and working in Sri Lanka, and it is in this context that international solidarity became a crucial element of our struggle for human rights. The primary focus of our international advocacy was targeting the United Nations (UN), and a secondary strategy of engagement was towards the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth’s failure to intervene severely harmed its credibility, resulting in some heads of states boycotting the 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo. And I still believe the level of atrocities we saw in the last phase of the war, particularly in 2009, could have been less if a UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ field presence had been established.

In September 2008, when the government ordered all UN agencies to leave the war zone, the people appealed not to be abandoned. But we failed to persuade the UN to stay. In early 2009, as the war reached its peak and civilian casualties escalated dramatically, we as human rights defenders sought a special session with the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). We finally got it—but only after the war—and the outcome was a disaster for Sri Lanka and the UN.

The internal UN review that followed recognised that “events in Sri Lanka marked a grave failure of the UN” and that “many senior UN staff did not perceive the prevention of killing of civilians as their responsibility.” But in March 2012 and March 2013, with continued pressure from human rights groups, the tide started to turn. In March 2014, the UNHRC passed another resolution on Sri Lanka, asking the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to conduct an investigation into serious violations of human rights and related crimes in Sri Lanka. Though late and limited, this was a victory for survivors, victim’s families and some of us who had long campaigned for this, even when it seemed to be against all odds.

---

In September 2015, the High Commissioner’s office released the report of its investigations. It detailed horrific narratives of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, forcible recruitment of children, obstructions of movement to safe areas, sexual and gender based violence, torture, and arbitrary detention on a mass scale and in a systematic manner. The High Commissioner recommended the establishment of a Special Hybrid Court with international judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators to ensure accountability for the reported violations, along with other international action such as universal jurisdiction and vetting. The “hybrid court” and “international participation” appears to be what has caught the media attention. Going beyond this to address other needs such as truth seeking, reparations, memorialization, constitutional change and introspection is where more local activism is so desperately needed.

The strong involvement of survivors and the families of victims made a huge difference to international advocacy. While the international focus of Sri Lankan human rights defenders was on intergovernmental bodies, such as the UN, the Commonwealth and individual Governments, these would only change course if others—smaller in size but perhaps bigger in passion, determination and commitment—pushed them relentlessly. The strong involvement of survivors and the families of victims made a huge difference to international advocacy. Mothers, fathers, and wives came forward courageously to give testimony to high profile representatives from foreign governments and the UN, in Sri Lanka itself or in Geneva. Amongst those regular visitors and strong advocates was the wife of disappeared Sinhalese journalist, Mrs. Sandya Ekneligoda, and Dr. Manoharan, the father of a teenage Tamil boy killed on the beach in 2006.

Despite the government clampdown on local media, some international media continued to give coverage to stories of survivors of human rights violations and families of victims, in particular their struggles for truth and justice. Though their interest was not consistent and tended to focus on specific events, such coverage was essential since it was an opportunity to share an alternative narrative with the world. Several writers spent significant amounts of time with war-affected persons in the North and wrote books highlighting their stories, while others made films using materials from the last phases of the war and afterwards. They too had to face intimidations, defamation, severe restrictions on travel to the North, and surveillance and obstacles once they got there. Some were arrested, detained and deported. But these stories, through articles, video clips, films, photography and books, went a long way in keeping alive the dwindling world attention on Sri Lanka.

Probably the most controversial group has been the Sri Lankan diaspora. I met with several diaspora groups, some exclusively Tamil and some mixed with Muslim, Sinhalese and Tamil. Some diaspora groups clearly supported and justified the war and tried to cover up violence and abuses by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan Government. But many with whom I engaged appeared to be fuelled by concern and care about what was happening in Sri Lanka, about the survivors and families of victims of human rights violations. Some groups became very influential in lobbying foreign governments and UN officials, and there is no doubt that they contributed to the developments in the UN in relation to Sri Lanka.

For us, the years between 2006-2014 were a time of desperation and emergency, when we local activists, students, artists and many other human rights defenders, needed the international system—but the international system would not have taken action if we hadn’t pushed for it. There is slightly more space now for us to work inside Sri Lanka, but it would be a mistake for our international friends to leave us now, especially after the long journey they have undertaken with us. We can only hope the UN and the Commonwealth step up.

As I give thanks, I look forward to a continuing journey.

*A longer version of this piece first appeared on Forum Asia.