Why does PayPal discriminate against Palestinians?

Palestinian entrepreneurs at the University College of Applied Sciences Technology Incubator in Gaza City, in October 2016. Palestinian tech startups and freelancers face a major disadvantage because PayPal refuses to serve them.Ibraheem Abu MustafaReuters/Newscom

Jesse Rubin-30 May 2017

Dalia Shurrab, a content writer and translator based in Gaza, receives payment for her work through online money transfer platforms, like many freelancers around the world.

But she can’t use PayPal. Despite serving nearly 200 million users in 203 countries, PayPal denies its service to Palestinians – though not Israeli settlers – in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“PayPal’s restrictions majorly disadvantage Palestinian startup and tech companies,” Shurrab told The Electronic Intifada, “essentially rigging the game in favor of their competitors in the rest of the Middle East and North Africa.”

The company cites regulatory concerns as the reason it denies service to Palestinians, although this ignores an established working relationship between the US Treasury and the Palestine Monetary Authority.

It also works in jurisdictions far less stable than Palestine, including Somalia and Yemen.

PayPal’s policy involves discrimination. Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank can use PayPal, while Palestinians are unable to. All of Israel’s settlements are illegal under international law.

The company did not respond to The Electronic Intifada’s repeated requests for comment.

Shurrab, who lives in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, is – like Gaza’s two million other residents – subject to Israel’s 10-year blockade of the territory. This makes it almost impossible for her to leave Gaza through any Israeli-controlled checkpoint.

With draconian restrictions on freedom of movement and the import and export of goods and basic materials, Gaza’s economy has tanked, leaving the coastal strip on the brink of collapse.

According to the World Bank, Gaza’s general unemployment rate was 42 percent in 2016 and soared to 58 percent among youth.

To Shurrab, this stark reality also presents an opportunity.

“Entrepreneurship in the Gaza Strip, and generally in Palestine, is growing so fast,” Shurrab said. “It’s opening closed doors for these youth to find new experiences and to live their passion and make their dreams come true and be their own bosses without contributions from other governments or the private sector.”

Shurrab got her first break at Gaza Sky Geeks, an incubator for startups, tech innovation and education.

Half of the startup founders supported by Gaza Sky Geeks are female, a proportion the company aims to increase to 80 percent.

Shurrab considered one day launching her own startup, but was forced to abandon the plan given lack of access to payment.

“Because PayPal does not operate in Gaza,” Shurrab said, she rarely receives payment for her freelance work.

Heavy international anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering restrictions imposed on Hamas-governed Gaza make regular bank-to-bank transfers expensive and cumbersome, as they are subject to monitoring by Israel and the United States.

Other money transfer platforms such as Western Union or MasterCard’s Payoneer are accessible to Gazans, but high transaction fees discourage their use.

Despondent

Despite the surge of Gaza’s startup industry, PayPal’s refusal of service inhibits the potential of so many like Shurrab. The freelancer, once chosen to represent Palestine at the sixth annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kenya, told The Electronic Intifada that she is despondent.

“Unfortunately, my business has stopped.”

Since 2015, Palestinian business representatives have insisted that PayPal provide services to the West Bank and Gaza.

Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy, an organization that advocates for investment in Palestine, penned a letter in August 2016 to PayPal CEO Dan Schulman urging the company to extend its services to Palestinians, thereby “removing a major limitation on the Palestinian technology sector.”

It noted that tech is “one of the only sectors with the potential to grow under status quo conditions of the Israeli occupation.”

The letter was signed by 43 Palestinian companies, primarily from the startup and tech field.

Today, Gaza Sky Geeks manages 27 startups, although the total number of Gaza-based tech companies is presumably higher.

Fadi Saba, a California-based organizer of the PayPal for Palestine campaign, likened PayPal’s refusal to onerous Israeli restrictions on the Palestinian economy.

Palestinians need permission from countless Israeli authorities just to transport produce a few miles, a lengthy customs procedure that has caused exports to spoil.

“The lack of PayPal access to Palestinians is similar to the tactic of stopping Palestinian produce exports,” Saba told The Electronic Intifada, “or [like] those physical checkpoints.”

The United Nations has warned that by 2020, Gaza will be uninhabitable should the Israeli blockade continue.

“You will be tested”

In response to a query by The Electronic Intifada, Tura Winery – located in an Israeli settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus – confirmed that it accepts payment for its olive oil through PayPal.

In January 2016, Human Rights Watch warned companies that doing any business in or with Israeli settlements would “unavoidably contribute to Israeli policies that dispossess and harshly discriminate against Palestinians, while profiting from Israel’s theft of Palestinian land and other resources.”

“If [PayPal is] going to be in the same physical area they should make the service available to all people,” Granate Sosnoff, a Jewish Voice for Peace representative told The Electronic Intifada.

Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal, is officially committed to “corporate social responsibility.”

But the language of corporate social responsibility has become so widespread that it can often read as unintentional parody.

A 2016 article by Schulman for Time magazine is a good example.

Schulman wrote that the “questions ‘why do we exist as a company?’ and ‘how do we make a difference?’ need to have the same answer.”

A company will need to turn a challenge into an opportunity: “The opportunity to prove to the world that your values aren’t just something written on a wall – that your mission is not opportunistic – it is the North Star. You will be tested.”

“This is a company that very much wants to be seen as supporting human rights,” Seth Leibson, a spokesperson for the South Bay chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, told The Electronic Intifada, but “they’re clearly failing to do so” in Palestine.

While exact numbers are difficult to ascertain, the number of Gazan freelancers increased from mere tens in 2014 to hundreds by 2015, according to Taysir Shaqalaih from Mercy Corps, a US organization and main backer of Gaza Sky Geeks.

The rapid growth of the Palestinian IT freelance sector has further empowered the campaign demanding an end to PayPal’s discrimination.

Since the initial 2015 meeting between Palestinian businesses and PayPal, a coalition of local and national Palestine solidarity organizations has taken up the issue.

In 2016, the South Bay Palestine Organizing Coalition, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Jewish Voice for Peace and others began an online petition to “Tell PayPal to end its discrimination against Palestinians.”

In November, the coalition launched a social media campaign but the company still refused to make any specific comments.

Finally, two PayPal representatives – Richard Nash and Justin Higgs – agreed to meet activists at the company’s San Jose headquarters earlier this month.

The meeting proved unsuccessful.

Corporate apathy

According to Noam Perry, a campaigner who attended, the PayPal representatives acknowledged that the situation had become a concern and that they have a moral obligation to fight discrimination.

“However, they admitted that they have not made any meaningful progress on this issue, and declined to make any commitments, even remote ones,” Perry, who works for the American Friends Service Committee and is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, told The Electronic Intifada.

On 16 May dozens of activists held a rally outside the company’s San Jose headquarters.

They delivered 15 boxes representing more than 180,000 petition signatures collected online.

PayPal’s Higgs engaged with the protesters outside his office.

“It is a complex issue from a compliance and regulatory standpoint,” Higgs told activists. “But that’s not to say that we’re not serious about our business and democratizing financial services for the people all around the world, not just Palestine.”

Although he accepted the petition on behalf of PayPal, Higgs gave no commitments about when the company would take specific steps to change its policy. Organizers vowed to keep up the pressure, including more protests, until their demands are met.

Meanwhile, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights attempted to deliver the petition to PayPal’s Washington, DC, office but were turned away.

Despite the obstacles that Gaza and West Bank entrepreneurs face, “the tech folks in San Jose are just like those in Palestine,” campaigner Fadi Saba said.

“They want to depend on themselves, they want to be self-sufficient – they want a fishing pole to catch their own fish.”

Jesse Rubin is a freelance reporter and regular contributor to The Indypendent, a New York-based publication. Twitter: @JesseJDRubin.

Venezuelan judge shot dead at barricade as unrest persists

By Andreina Aponte and Andrew Cawthorne | CARACAS- Fri Jun 2, 2017

Gunmen shot dead a Venezuelan judge at a street barricade in the latest fatality of two months of anti-government unrest that has seen at least 61 people killed, authorities said on Thursday.

Nelson Moncada, 37, was killed and stripped of his belongings as he tried to get away from the roadblock on Wednesday night in Caracas' El Paraiso district, the scene of regular clashes, the state prosecutor's office said.

It was unclear why Moncada had been targeted.

There was violence around the capital on Wednesday after security forces forcibly broke up tens of thousands of opposition supporters marching on government offices downtown, and skirmishes continued into the night.

Protesters frequently block roads with trash and burning tires, sometimes asking passers-by for contributions toward a self-styled "Resistance" movement against President Nicolas Maduro.

Some local news sites said the incident in which Moncada was killed appeared to be a robbery while others noted he had presided in the controversial case of Bassil Da Costa, a protester shot during another wave of anti-Maduro demonstrations in 2014.

Victims from the violence then and this year have included supporters on both sides, bystanders and members of the security forces. El Paraiso has seen nightly clashes between demonstrators, pro-government gangs and National Guard soldiers.

Venezuela's opposition is demanding new elections to replace the unpopular socialist president whom foes accuse of wrecking the OPEC nation's economy and of becoming a dictator.

Maduro, 54, calls them coup-mongers seeking his violent overthrow with U.S. support akin to the short-lived toppling of his predecessor Hugo Chavez in 2002.

While the state prosecutor's office has noted 61 deaths in protests and lootings that began in early April, Venezuela's state ombudsman Tarek Saab put the figure at 65.

At a news conference, he noted there had been arrests or warrants issued for 35 members of the security forces over the fatalities. Rights campaigners say 3,000 people have also been arrested, of whom nearly half remain behind bars.

Venezuela's pro-government Supreme Court ordered opposition leader Henrique Capriles on Wednesday to avoid roadblocks in the Miranda state that he governs, or face jail.

Miranda includes part of the capital Caracas, and the volatile towns of San Antonio de Los Altos and Los Teques, where anti-government street barricades have been common.

The 44-year-old lawyer narrowly lost a 2013 vote to Maduro after Chavez's death from cancer, and has been at the forefront of this year's protests, calling for civil disobedience.

Authorities have already barred Capriles from running for new political posts for 15 years, on allegations of "administrative irregularities" that he denies, potentially hobbling another bid to run in 2018 when the next presidential vote is due.

(Additional reporting by Eyanir Chinea; Editing by David Gregorio and Bernadette Baum)

Middle East Eye recognised at top media awards ceremony

MEE contributor Peter Oborne won best blogging/commentary and Suraj Sharma was "highly commended" as online freelancer

The Online Media Awards is a major UK awards ceremony that highlights exemplary journalism in digital media (OMA)

Thursday 1 June 2017

Middle East Eye was honoured in two major categories at Thursday night’s Drum Online Media Awards.

The award for best blogging/commentary went to MEE contributor Peter Oborne while MEE's Suraj Sharma was "highly commended" by the judges as online freelancer.

MEE was also nominated for best national news site and breaking news story of the year.

The Online Media Awards is a major awards ceremony that highlights exemplary journalism in digital media.

Peter Oborne

Oborne was the first Western correspondent to be allowed into the Houthi stronghold of Saada in Yemen, speaking to doctors who revealed that babies were dying in their incubators for lack of basic medicines.

He also highlighted the existence of cluster bombs months before the UK government was forced to admit that British-made munitions had been dropped in Yemen.

“I’m delighted to have won this award because Middle East Eye is a new voice about what’s happening in the Middle East; it really gets to the heart of the issues, and it’s an amazing privilege to work for it,” Oborne said after the ceremony.

Oborne exposed last year the claim told by then-prime minister David Cameron about Suliman Gani, an imam from Tooting, who was falsely accused of being a supporter of Islamic State group during the London mayoral campaign.

Oborne’s series of articles eventually forced an apology and retraction from the UK government.

Last year, Oborne won the Online Media Award for best freelance writer for his reporting from Damascus. The other nominees this year included Robert Peston at ITV News and Guardian Opinion.

Suraj Sharma

In a year when events in Turkey have dominated world news headlines, Sharma has established himself as an ever-present, even-handed and authoritative voice in a country where independent-minded journalists are routinely jailed and intimidated.

During the failed July 2016 coup, Sharma filed thousands of words and multiple stories that caught the mood of a nation standing on a precipice. Since then he has covered the purges of public officials, complaints about Turkey’s drift towards authoritarianism and a poignant piece on Turkey’s fractured psyche after the New Year’s Eve bomb attacks.

He has also found time to cover lighter subjects, such as tracing Boris Johnson’s Turkish roots to a village in central Anatolia - where the local headman pledged to sacrifice a herd of sheep in honour of the British foreign secretary.

The other nominees were Danielle Rossingh and Motez Bishara, who both write for CNN.

Burma: Suu Kyi govt to probe video allegedly showing army’s torture of civilians

By Caleb Quinley -1st June 2017

AUNG San Suu Kyi’s office says authorities will commence investigations into a video that appears to show members of the Burmese (Myanmar) army kicking and beating civilians, following concerns raised by rights groups.

The violent footage spread on social media last week was the second such clip to emerge in six months that shows the militia beating locals during interrogation in a conflict-region of northern Burma.

SEE ALSO: Watch: Footage shows alleged Rohingya assault by Burmese policemen

“We have found a 17-minute-long video on social media showing four civilians mistreated by some soldiers. International human rights organisations released statements about that on May 28,” Suu Kyi’s office said in a statement Wednesday.

“The government will now necessarily investigate the violations according to the current rules and regulations.”

According to Fortify Rights last weekend, the video surfaced first on Facebook, displaying a group of soldiers savagely beating six unidentified ethnic men held captive for unclear reasons.

The video, 17 minutes in length, reveals graphic moments of intensity where the army conducts a ferocious and shocking interrogation of the ethnic men.

The footage displays military officials continually threatening the captives with death, and abuse. In the beginning of the material, a commanding officer is seen beating one of the captives with the top of his helmet while violently demanding answers.

“Where are the guns?” the commanding officer yells while smashing his helmet into the face of one of the grounded detainees. The restrained man recoils from the blunt force, putting his face down while pleading with the military aggressor who continues to yell threats.

“Even though you don’t have a gun, you are still part of the resistance.” The officer again raises his helmet as he begins to attack the helpless detainee once again.

“If you say you don’t have anything, I’m going to break all your teeth.”

One soldier can be seen using a large machete-like knife to threaten the men who sit still with their hands bound tightly behind their backs.

The same officer additionally wields a knife next the men’s necks, yelling at the men to “speak Burmese”.

Throughout the video, the apparent officer, along with the help of his soldiers, continue to kick the bound men in their heads and faces. The commanding officer then says in a fury,

“If I don’t get [the information], I am going to kill everyone,”

Refusing to listen to captives’ pleading replies, the soldiers continue breaking international human rights laws as they repeatedly torture the men almost unconscious.

Towards the end of the video, not long before the footage cuts to black, the hostile commanding officer utters these chilling words:

“We won’t set you free.”

SEE ALSO: Burma ranked third as global risk of genocide reaches 10-year high

It appears from what the abusers are wearing that they are soldiers in the Burmese army. The footage shows the men wearing military fatigues with military patches that identify their particular unit.

According to Fortify Rights, a human rights group that documents such abuses, the unit’s badge numbers can be traced to their specific operating location. From their insignia, it appears the troops are from northern Shan State, a region also historically exposed to conflict.

The shocking footage reflects findings illustrated in a recent report by the Ta’ang Women’s Organisation (TWO), reopening the discussion of whether or not the army is indeed using torture tactics during interrogations. From March 2011 to March 2016, human rights organisations documented violations in Ta’ang areas of northern Shan State, adding weight to the evidence of war crimes taking place within the country.

According to TWO, the most common forms of torture used involved binding villagers, hitting them with fists or guns, and then kicking them in the face while they are seated.

The new video shows these accounts in detail, while mirroring the allegations in an eerie demonstration.

With more violence coming out of Burma in recent months, international groups have serious doubts about the country’s desire to move towards a position of genuine peace and equality.

“Silence in this case is not an option. Impunity is not an option,” said Matthew Smith, Chief Executive at Fortify Rights. “Perpetrators must be held accountable if there’s any hope for genuine peace in Burma.”

SEE ALSO: Amid mounting criticism, is Aung San Suu Kyi still a noble Nobel winner?

Burma’s leader Suu Kyi has continually refused to acknowledge the plight of the Rohingya in the country’s troubled Rakhine state, a region where reports of rape, torture, and murder are allegedly taking place in appalling numbers.

And with violence purportedly still continuing around the country, it seems almost certain that Burma will remain in a state of near-perpetual civil war for a much longer time.

Myanmar: Peace Process with Chinese Characteristics

by Dr. S.Chandrasekharan-May 31, 2017

( May 31, 2017, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) One narrative that is all too prominent in the second Union Peace Conference- officially called the 21st century Panglong Conference is the role of China and its proxies before and during the Conference.

In answering a question whether the Peace process relies on China, the Spokesperson of the Burmese State Counselor’s office U Zaw Htay admitted frankly that China plays an “important part” in the peace process.

What is noticed is the “behind the scene” activities of China which appears to be intent on steering the entire peace process away from the influence of UN, Japan and Western powers and take full control of the process. At the same time China is continuing to declare its neutrality in the whole process!

One important development has been that the hitherto passive pro China UWSA is taking a leading role in dealing with the government and in beginning a parallel peace process from the government-sponsored route of National Cease fire agreement and dialogue thereafter.

This process of active intervention of the Chinese proxy UWSA (United Wa State Army) is seen to have begun in February this year almost three months ahead of the Peace Conference at Napithaw, when it backed the offensive of the norther alliance consisting of the Kokang, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the Arakan Army and most importantly the second most powerful ethnic group the KIA in the North East close to the Chinese border.

This offensive though provoked by the Tatmadaw’s (Army) earlier, has been intensified by the alliance with the declared objective of seeking an alternative route from the National Cease fire agreement formally initiated by the government and supported by the United Nations and other western countries.

In backing the offensive, the UWSA formed a new seven party alliance, calling itself “Federal Political and Consultative Committee” marking a paradigm shift from bilateral cease fire to one of taking a leading role in the whole peace process. This shift could not have occurred without Chinese blessings. It is well known by now that the UWSA whose area with Pangshang as Hqrs it close to the Chinese border is the biggest ethnic insurgent unit with over 30,000 fighters supported and equipped by China with modern weaponry. It is said that the Wa territory is a “no go” area and even Tatmadaw will have to inform the UWSA before entering their territory.

Parallel to this development is the unconfirmed report that the KIA/KIO has left the UNFC (United National Federal Council) thus making this organization irrelevant to the entire peace process. Another ethnic unit the Shan State Progressives party has also left the UNFC. Thus the UNFC which had boycotted the second peace conference has become considerably weaker in the absence of the two dominant groups and may no longer be relevant to the peace process.

What will now be relevant to the peace process will be the weak patch work pro government -8 parties who signed the National Cease-fire agreement in October 2015 and the newly formed alliance led by UWSA that has called itself the Federal Political and Consultative committee and had suggested an alternate route to the peace process. This group which is powerful with the coming together of the UWSA and the KIO has other units like the Shan State Progressive party/Shan State Army -North, Tang National Liberation Army, the National Democratic group the Mongla, the Kokang and the Arakan Army in the alliance.

The Tatmadaw had earlier justly opposed the inclusion of the last three- Kokang, TNLA and the AA in joining the peace process without first surrendering their arms as they had sprouted only after the cease fire agreement of 2015.

Chinese intervention was responsible in forcing the Burmese Army and the government with its chief negotiator to relent and invite the three armed groups as “special guests’ to the conference. What is more, the State Counselor was to meet the groups for talks during the conference- a change from total exclusion to one of legitimization with the Counselor herself talking directly to the groups.

The Chinese ambassador to Myanmar- Hong Liang is also said to have attended the closed door meeting of the northern groups with the government’s peace negotiating team.

The Irrawady of 23rd May reported that the Chinese Special Envoy Sun Guoxiang met Suu Kyi, Army Chief Ming Ang Liang and the government’s chief negotiator on behalf of the new groups and to get them invited as special guests. The Press had also reported that the leaders of the three groups- the Kokang (who are still fighting in the north), the TNLA and the AA were kept ready in Yunnan province to be flown immediately to Napithaw once the invitation for the conference was made by the government.

So much for the declared policy of China of non interference in the internal affairs of another country. When Xi Jinping mentioned to Suu Kyi at the OBOR summit that China would provide necessary assistance to Burma’s peace process- what he meant was that the process will hereafter be between the Chinese supported groups and the Myanmar government to ensure peace and stability of the region to the exclusion of other countries.

This means that the parallel peace process now initiated by Chinese proxies with the backing of China may take the centre stage and peace process will now become one with “Chinese Characteristics.”

Trump Won’t Pay a Penny For U.N. Cholera Relief Fund in Haiti

Washington set to reject the U.N. chief’s latest appeal for money to tend to Haiti’s cholera victims.

BY COLUM LYNCH-JUNE 1, 2017

The Trump administration will rebuff a recent U.N. appeal to contribute millions of dollars to a cash-short trust fund established last year to provide relief to victims of a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 9,000 Haitians and sickened more than 800,000 more, according to U.S. and U.N. officials.

The move will be the latest blow to U.N. efforts to raise $400 million dollars from member states to provide assistance to the Haitian victims of cholera. The disease is widely believed to have been introduced into Haiti more than six years ago by infected U.N. Nepalese peacekeepers. Since the fund was set up in October, the U.N. has collected only a pittance, about $2.7 million, from Britain, Chile, France, India, Liechtenstein, South Korea and Sri Lanka.

The Trump administration has not contributed a penny to the fund, and it has no intention of doing so in the future, according to U.S. and U.N. officials. The administration has argued that it is not responsible for the epidemic, which it blames on U.N. incompetence and the Nepalese peacekeepers. Further, the United States already contributes more assistance to Haiti — more than $4.2 billion since the catastrophic 2010 earthquake — than any other country.

But legal experts and human rights advocates say the United States — which led international efforts to send a U.N. mission to Haiti in the first place — is shirking its share of responsibility for the acts of blue helmets.

“The U.S. government has not just washed its own hands of all responsibility, but has been the prime mover in insisting that the U.N. must not accept the legal responsibility which is clearly has,” said Philip Alston,  a professor of international law at New York University who also serves as the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.

Alston, who conducted a lengthy inquiry into the international response to the Haiti crisis, maintains that U.S. urged the United Nations not to accept legal culpability for the cholera epidemic, fearing its could impose billions of dollars in costs on the United States and other U.N. member states.

“By pushing the U.N. from the beginning to deny responsibility [for the outbreak] in spite of overwhelming evidence, the U.S. government has been the key player in denying justice to the victims and in giving the U.N. complete and impunity for clear wrongdoing,” Alston said.

The cholera epidemic could stand as the dark legacy of a U.N. stability effort in Haiti that is scheduled to wrap up in October, when U.N. peacekeepers will leave the troubled island nation.

Haiti had not recorded a single outbreak of cholera in modern times, if ever, when Haitians living near a tributary of the Artibonite river near the village of Mirebalais suddenly began falling sick in October 2010. The disease was traced to a leaky sewage system in the U.N.’s encampment at Mirebalais, which housed a contingent of Nepalese peacekeepers who had recently deployed from Kathmandu Exacerbated by the hemisphere’s worst sanitation system — only 58 percent of Haitians have access to safe water, and only 28 percent have access to toilets — the disease spread rapidly.

Despite evidence that the Haiti’s cholera matched a strain detected in Nepal, the U.N. for more than six years denied responsibility for causing the epidemic. Facing intense pressure to acknowledge responsibility, former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a formal apology to the Haitian people late last year for the U.N.’s role in the outbreak, saying the U.N. and its member states had a “moral obligation” to relieve the Haitian suffering.

To that end, he established a trust fund to prevent the further spread of cholera — through vaccines and improvements of sanitation — and to meet the needs of the victims and their families most directly affected by the epidemic. But significantly, Ban never acknowledged any U.N. legal obligation to compensate Haiti’s victims, leaving it to states to decide on their own whether to provide aid.
That’s made it hard for the U.N. to fill the relief fund.

In an effort to secure money, the U.N. appealed to private donors, even asking U.N. staff to donate money to the Haitian cause.

“The response fund offers an opportunity for each of us to do our part to help end the scourge of cholera and support those Haitians most affected by it,” Jan Eliasson, then U.N. Deputy Secretary General, wrote in a December 2 email to staff. But such private donations amount to just over $6,000.

Last month, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres appealed to U.N. members to allow him to redirect into the fund about $40 million in overpayments to the U.N. mission in Haiti during 2015 and 2016.

Guterres was hoping that the U.N. Security Council would adopt a resolution that authorized the depositing of such funds in the cholera trust fund. But the proposal faced pushback from several countries, including France, which has already made a voluntary contribution of over $600,000, and the United States.

“The U.S. has been keeping quiet, and it’s not clear to us what their position is going to be on this,” said one official at the U.N. But two other officials said that the United States has already decided not to contribute.

The United States wants the U.N. chief to issue a formal memo — known as a ‘note verbale’ — inviting states to commit their portion of the money to the fund. That way, Washington could skirt blame for blocking the U.N. Secretary General’s plan outright, while not undertaking any binding commitment to contribute.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers, including Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) had criticized the Obama administration and the United Nations for failing to ensure Haiti’s victims were compensated by the United Nations.

“The U.N. continues to refuse to even discuss providing compensation for the losses incurred by those killed and sickened by the cholera brought to Haiti,” they wrote in a June 2016 letter to then-Secretary of State John Kerry. “We are deeply concerned that the State Department’s failure to to take more leadership in the diplomatic realm might be perceived by our constituents and the world as a limited commitment to an accountable and credible U.N.”

That tottering commitment has only weakened, said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee that funds U.S. foreign assistance programs, including contributions to U.N. peacekeeping and humanitarian relief programs.

“What happened in Haiti was a travesty, and yet even after the U.N. belatedly agreed to provide compensation to the victims, the United States and others that share responsibility for the peacekeepers have done nothing,” Leahy told FP.

“If U.N. accountability, which the Trump Administration has called for, stands for anything, it means helping the families of the thousand of Haitians who died as a result of U.N. negligence and through no fault of their own.

The Trump administration is not alone in trying to sidestep financial responsibility for the Haiti cholera epidemic. Under the Obama Administration, U.S. diplomats in New York made it clear to U.N. counterparts that they would not go to Congress to seek billions of dollars in potential compensation costs.

The message from senior U.S. officials to their U.N. counterparts in New York was “basically, you guys created this problem, you sort it out,” a former senior U.N. official told FP.

That was one Obama policy that found support from the incoming Trump administration.
Though Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, initially said in her confirmation hearings that the U.N. should be held accountable, she quickly walked that back.

In a written response to questions from senators, Haley said that while she would try to mobilize international support for Haiti cholera relief, she needed to “better understand the legal and financial implications of U.N. compensation and restitution before endorsing such a policy.”

Haley declined through a spokesperson to comment. But the United States has made it clear behind the scenes that it does not intend to pitch in.

Mona Khalil, a former U.N. lawyer who serves as a legal advisor to Independent Diplomat, said it is time for those responsible for the cholera outbreak to take responsibility, including the Nepalese peacekeepers, the contractors who built a leaky sewage system, and senior U.S. and U.N. officials who blocked efforts to find a remedy for the victims.

“The Haitian people are owed compensation; they are not owed charity,” she said.

Photo credit: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/Getty Images

America’s mass incarceration problem in 5 charts – or, why Sessions shouldn’t bring back mandatory minimums

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is pushing for stricter sentencing in criminal cases. AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

Tanya Golash-Boza-Professor, University of California, Merced-May 29, 2017

Today, the United States is a world leader in incarceration, but this has not always been the case.

For most of the 20th century, the U.S. incarcerated about 100 people per 100,000 residents – below the current world average. However, starting in 1972, our incarceration rate began to increase steadily. By 2008, we reached a peak rate of 760 incarcerated persons per 100,000 residents.

The increase in incarceration cannot be explained by a rise in crime, as crime rates fluctuate independently of incarceration rates. Incarceration rates soared because laws changed, making a wider variety of crimes punishable by incarceration and lengthening sentences.

This sharp increase was driven in part by the implementation of mandatory minimums for drug offenses, starting in the 1980s. These laws demand strict penalties for all offenders in federal courts, no matter the extenuating circumstances.

The Obama administration took some measures to roll back these mandatory minimums. In 2013, Attorney General Eric Holder issued a memo asking prosecutors to prosecute crimes with mandatory minimum sentences only for the worst offenders.

Earlier this month, however, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded that memo and issued his own, which requires prosecutors to “charge and pursue the most serious” offense. The punitive sentiment behind Sessions’ memo is a throwback to our failed experiment in mass incarceration in the 1980s and ‘90’s.

The rise of mass incarceration

According to political scientist Marie Gottschalk, mass incarceration took off in three waves.

First, in the mid-1970s, Congress began to lengthen sentences. This culminated in the 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control Act, which established mandatory minimum sentences and eliminated federal parole.

Then, from 1985 to 1992, city, state and federal legislators began to lengthen drug sentences. This was the heyday of the war on drugs. It included the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which imposed even more mandatory minimum sentences. Most significantly, it set a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for offenses involving 100 grams of heroin, 500 grams of cocaine or 5 grams of crack cocaine.

Two years later, new legislation added a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine, with no evidence of intent to sell. Before then, one year of imprisonment had been the maximum federal penalty for possession of any amount of any drug.

The third wave hit in the early 1990s. This involved not only longer sentences, but “three strikes laws” 

that sentenced any person with two prior convictions to life without parole. “Truth in sentencing” policies also demanded that people serve their full sentences. This culminated in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which included a three strikes provision at the federal level.

Notably, these laws were passed during a time when crime rates had begun a precipitous decline. Today, more than half of U.S. states have a three strikes provision.

By the end of the 20th century, there were an unprecedented over two million inmates in the U.S. That’s more than 10 times the number of U.S. inmates at any time prior to the 1970s, and far more than most other countries.

The beginning of the end

Although the current incarceration rate is still high – about 1 in 37 adults – it is at its lowest since 1998.

Imprisonment has decreased over the past decade for two reasons. First, policymakers have started to realize that punitive laws do not work. Second, states are no longer able to continue financing this massive carceral system.

The Great Recession in 2007 gave elected leaders the political will to make cuts to the prison system. After three decades of prison building, many states found themselves with massive systems they were no longer able to finance, and began to release some prisoners to cut costs. This was the first time in 37 years that the number of prisoners went down. By 2011, one-fourth of states had closed or planned to close a prison.

In 2010, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, repealing the five-year mandatory sentence for first-time offenders and for repeat offenders with less than 28 grams of cocaine.

This change reduced the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine down to 18-to-1. Activists had been demanding this reduction for decades, as the only difference between the two drugs is that crack is made by adding baking soda and heat to powder cocaine. Despite similar rates of crack usage in black and white communities, in 2010 – the last year of the 100-to-1 disparity – 85 percent of the 30,000 people sentenced for crack cocaine offenses were black.

In 2012, after years of steadily increasing prison admission rates, the number of new admissions to federal prisons began to decline. In 2015, just 46,912 people were admitted to federal prison – the lowest number in 15 years.

Crime falls, but public opinion stays the same

When mass incarceration first started ramping up in the 1970s, violent and property crime rates were high. However, even after crime rates began to decline, legislators continued passing punitive laws. In fact, some of the most draconian laws were passed in the mid-1990s, long after crime rates had gone down.

Incarceration has had a limited impact on crime rates. First of all, it is just one of many factors that influence crime rates. Changes in the economy, fluctuations in the drug market and community-level responses often have more pronounced effects.

Second, there are diminishing returns from incarceration. Incarcerating repeat violent offenders takes them off the streets and thus reduces crime. But incarcerating nonviolent offenders has a minimal effect on crime rates.

But incarceration continued to rise even as crime fell, in part because of the public’s demand for a punitive response to crime. Although there is less crime today than there has been in the past, most people are not aware of this drop.

Thus, the fear of crime persists. This often translates into punitive public policies – regardless of declining crime rates and the inefficacy of these laws at preventing crime.

Since the election of Richard Nixon, politicians on the left and right have learned that fear-mongering around crime is a surefire way to get elected. Today, when crime rates are at a historic low, politicians continue to stoke the flames of fear. These strategies may win elections, but the evidence shows they will not make our communities safer.