Rwanda
February 23, 2005
The Kigali genocide memorial exhibition and gardens pulls no punches.
On the way into the Memorial Gardens the first sight is of the last of the underground mass grave silos being filled with cheap wooden coffins, covered with thin cotton shrouds. The building is eerily quiet and spotlessly clean as it starts with vivid pictures of Rwanda and its undeniable natural beauty, followed by a series of panels of its history: an African Kingdom occupied by the Germans in the late 19th century as an extension of German East Africa. A sort of neat tidying up of the map of European colonial Africa agreed by Europe and the USA in Berlin in 1884.
To the victors went the spoils after World War I; hence Belgium was “given” this colony in 1922 at the Versailles Conference. Faced with an awkward King who opposed them, the Belgians replaced him with his more pliant son; classic Colonial “divide and rule” tactics took over. The registration for identity cards required those with some wealth (ten or more cows) to be forever identified as Tutsis and those with less as Hutus. Caste rather than race or ethnicity became the order of the day and was to be held by descent.
Meanwhile the colonists made huge wealth from coffee and tea plantations and built opulent properties for themselves in Kigali.
Tensions were inevitable between Tutsis and Hutus, and these erupted several times from 1958 onwards. After independence in the early sixties, following the independence of the Congo under Patrice Lamumba’s leadership, the developing crisis led to instability.
In a sense, the rest is history as the early nineties became the killing fields of 1994. The organisation of the genocide was not wild and vague but carefully prepared, based on Nazi lines with a racist ideology but unlike the Nazi efforts, it was an attempt to involve the whole population, a collective responsibility and therefore ownership of the outcome.
The UN and Belgians who had small forces there were unable to act due to a refusal by the rest of the world to see the looming disaster for what it was, or to send support; indeed the UN force was specifically forbidden from closing the arms caches being prepared for the genocide to come.
The madness that followed resulted in about a million deaths - 10 per cent of the population and in proportion the worst anywhere in the modern world. The orphans, victims and psychological problems will last for a long time.
Now Rwanda is different. Schools are all open and development proceeds. In Tanzania the international trial of the perpetrators goes on whilst in Rwanda the popular courts are held where confessors can be sentenced to half life sentences, which is the subject of much controversy.
Whilst meeting people and visiting schools, it is hard to countenance that the victims are everywhere. One teenager in a school I visited was spared: her family and cohorts were herded together for mass slaughter when the killers became tired and let her go. Somehow she escaped for the next few days and was spared.
Justice is delivered in various forms for the lesser accused, but nonetheless potentially guilty of very serious offences are the Gagacha courts, a development of the traditional community court where an accused can confess in front of the community and be convicted. These can hand out life sentences but are reduced on admission of guilt to 12 years in jail and 6 doing work for the community. More serious cases go to the High Court and the perpetrators are tried at the International Court in Tanzania. There are obvious and real concerns about use of confessional evidence and how accurate the evidence against the accused, is but the other question is that no society has faced this kind of mass terror before.
I attended a two day conference organised by LDGL (Ligue du Personnes de Region du Grande Lacs), a voluntary organisation which does receive international support. The conference was of local volunteers who expressed concerns about intimidation of human rights activists, and serious concerns about centralisation of political power.
Their declaration included calls for formal recognition of the value of human rights defenders, regular meetings with Government, Parliament and legal institutions and, that the formal Human Rights Commission recognises the role of volunteers in the way the UN Human Rights Charter already does.
Aid programmes to Rwanda are enormous, and need to be. All schools are now open but chronically ill equipped. I spent time in a primary school of 1300 pupils, including a group of “catch up” students who were orphaned and had been living as street beggars. In one group of eleven year olds, their plea was not to have to crowd six to a bench more suited for three in a class of over 70. Another, a lovely lively group of seven year olds asked if it was normal to sit on bricks to be taught. In a nearby secondary school for which entry is limited, a bright 13-year-old asked if they could each have a text book instead of sharing between three. None of the schools had running water or electricity and all the primaries work a double shift to try and get some education for all.
As Africa is all the rage with the Commission for Africa and high profile visits there might reflect that many Governments have been forced onto a course of privatisation and creation of a well off elite, but for many poverty is desperate and grinding with life expectancy around forty and infant mortality desperately high.
Returning from one visit to a chronically ill equipped school I noticed and enormous advertisement hoarding showing the virtues of an English style boarding school in Kenya. The children I had just seen were the sons and daughters of subsistence farmers with no money at all and for them an enormous achievement would be to stay on beyond age 12.
A Farmers Union representative took me well off the main roads to a remote hilltop farm where the family proudly showed me their potatoes, carrots and beans, and their cattle (all confined under cover to prevent erosion from open grazing). The only equipment or implements these people have consist of hoes, sickles and long handled spades. Vehicles are very rare and there are no horses or pack animals. Bicycles which sell for 50,000 Rwanda Francs (£1 = 1,000 francs) are the only form of transport. With a labourer’s wage of 500 francs a day they are an enormous luxury. Market forces mean that the fit and young waylay the tired older women coming to market, buy their products, and re-sell them an hour later for more.
In the background is the looming war in Congo. Three million have died, and Rwanda has sent forces into the Eastern DRC allegedly to deal with the rebels from home, and currently is on high alert as another 70,000 Congolese are displaced by conflict.
It is essential to see the causes of conflict in the Congo. At one level it is presented as a tribal and local series of conflicts which is a convenient label for the West to hang on it. Another is the massive interference from outside, to loot Congo of its wealth. Modern wars are about resources, usually oil or water. In the Congo, coltan, a vital special metal for mobile phones is in good supply. All the smart and very clever advertising for phones and diamonds hide a murky and devastating trail.
Rwanda has suffered like no other. The seeds of the destruction and that of the Congo lie in the colonial past - the wars of today are financed by arms supplies for rich mineral resources; just as Leopold, dreamy of when he grabbed the Congo for himself in the 19th century.
Peace unity
February 16, 2005
Last Saturday the Stop the War Conference was held in Friends House, Euston Road. An appropriate venue as that is where the whole movement was founded in September 2001, shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center.
That meeting was packed to the rafters, the overflow rooms and the streets outside as thousands wanted to be part of the stop the war movement. They had seen the horrors of September 11th on television and had witnessed Bush’s promise of retribution. Tony Blair offered unconditional support for US actions.
A couple of months later the people of Afghanistan learned the price they had to pay - death, destruction and continuous bombardment from the air. However the real target was Iraq and that hove into view in January the following year, with the infamous “axis of evil” speech of Bush’s attempt at a State of the Union address. The military action which followed is now all too well known; the death toll of all this we will never know.
Every crisis creates a reaction. Those who stood for the Spanish republic in the 1930s never forgot the experience - they became iconic figures of the Left the world over. The sense of purpose and unity fired a generation who in turn motivated and inspired the anti fascist movement. We all owe them something of the welfare state and the post war consensus of social cohesion.
The Vietnam generation were in a different and more amorphous way equally inspired and motivated to internationalism, not the defence of US corporate interests or the aggressive pursuit of the cold war.
The millions who marched in February, two years ago yesterday, have not forgotten or given up. Indeed it is a badge of honour to have been there and will be recalled by the young people in particular for the rest of their lives. The movement founded in Friends House has not exactly come of age, but has become a serious forum for all the forces for peace and justice. As a coalition it must be of the willing, and cannot be over prescriptive.
Thus the Stop the War Conference passed a whole series of resolutions which reflected the breadth of concerns on depleted uranium, the arms trade, Colombia, campaigning methods and obviously on Iraq.
The motion from the South Asia Solidarity Forum on Nepal was poignant and timely. Following the coup last week the Defence Ministry announced further military aid from the “global conflict prevention pool” to be used as support for the new rulers in the Civil War. This pool is a handy device for the rapid sending of extra arms without any of the normal scrutiny and examination. Alice Mahon and I have tabled appropriate Parliamentary questions to prevent this going ahead. This is a conflict that has had little publicity but is consuming huge amounts of US and British military aid.
Liberties in the West have been under attack. The 2001 Anti Terrorist legislation has caused problems. Guantanamo Bay is the most extreme but the detention of foreign nationals in Belmarsh without charge or independent trial is an example closer to home.
Last week the Prime Minister announced a full and unreserved apology to the Guildford Four: a remarkable and wholly welcome move. Anyone involved in the campaign for their freedom in the 1970s and ‘80s will recall the abuse and anti Irish hysteria of the time. Successive Home Secretaries told me, on 84 occasions, in Parliament of their guilt. The Court of Appeal freed them in the end.
The lessons of then and now are so similar. Paul Hill, one of the Four had the dubious distinction of being the first ever arrest under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. A further 10,000 were arrested and temporarily detained. It was, in fact, a law to police the Irish community.
The 2001 Act is directed against foreign nationals. The planned control orders come from the same stable and share the same erosion of the right to independent trial with a legal representative, and knowing what the case is against the individual. Executive detention on the basis of secret information from “intelligence sources” is a very dangerous step away from natural justice. Opposition to it is important as it helps to oppose an atmosphere being created in which individuals can be threatened by this legislation, and a climate of fear develops which brings all the anti Irish hysteria of twenty years ago to bear on the Muslim community.
Michael Howard has raised the anti asylum debate to new heights; the tragedy is that the Home Office response is all about who can be toughest against the most vulnerable.
The Stop the War coalition cannot solve or deal with all these issues but is a vital forum for mobilisation.
Faced with mass protests in 2003 Parliament voted for war; and those MPs who reluctantly supported the policy have come to regret it. Whilst the tragedy of Iraq has unfolded before our eyes and the dangerous agenda of the Neo Cons brings havoc to millions, a different voice is needed.
Condoleeza Rice has claimed she wants dialogue with Iran; whilst at the same time threatening military action. The voices against the war in Iraq must be just as strong for Iran. Like an old newsreel the same old arguments about WMDs are being heard.
Many European countries have withdrawn from Iraq believing their presence is not welcome or helpful. Britain and the USA are the main occupying powers and are as much a part of the problem as the solution. Whilst the elections in Iraq were mired in controversy one thing is clear, those who voted and those who did not, by a large majority want the occupation to end.
March 19th will be a day of big demonstrations, not least in London, supporting the call for the withdrawal of troops. More than that it is an opportunity to assert values of peace and international justice.
Make Poverty History – treat humanity properly
February 9, 2005
Last week Nelson Mandela, frail and now elderly, came back to Trafalgar Square and climbed a platform in sight of South Africa House. His strength that sustained him for all those years on Robben Island, returned and he spoke. “Make Poverty History” was his call and he made it with eloquence and determination and then repeated it for the benefit of the G7 Finance Ministers; presumably they were too busy to pop along to Trafalgar Square to listen.
What the coalition of anti poverty and development groups were calling for was an end to the debt burden on the world’s poorest, and trade justice, so that the debt burden did not re-appear in future years.
The G7 were looking at plans being advanced by Gordon Brown for debt write off and a massive aid package to assist with education and HIV/Aids treatment. The G7 is the representation of the world’s richest nations and works out of self interest. Together with the world economic summit that meets in Davos it is hardly a statement of democratic virtue. More breast beating by the rich, with a slight tinge of social conscience.
However the latter proved too much for the USA, which for the first time failed to send their Treasury Secretary, John Snow. He was replaced by a hapless deputy, John Taylor, who was there to question the whole programme.
The fact that debt write off is now so high on the agenda is a real credit to the anti poverty groups and the world’s social movements.
Debt comes from the borrowing of huge sums of money for western inspired, and planned development projects to develop post independence economies. In the case of Africa those plans were thrown off course by rapidly rising oil prices in the 1970s and falling commodity prices. They were also thrown off course by systematic trade barriers to the nascent manufacturing or processing economies.
The International Monetary Fund proscription is generally one of re-structuring by selling public assets, charging for services like education and insisting on meeting market rather than social targets. All restructuring has increased inequalities in developing countries and has usually led to the rapid increase in urban shanty towns as subsistence agriculture is forced to compete with European and North American Agri Business.
The very welcome Millennium Goals on development and anti poverty strategy simply cannot be met on current form. Brutal trade regimes, HIV/Aids and lack of investment in education make it impossible. However, in the euphoria of the weekend meeting, we should be cautious of the whole concept of another “Marshall Plan”, as is envisaged for Africa. The post WW2 Marshall Plan was about US loans and investment, but more importantly was about the political and economic structure that should exist. The motivation was to ensure there was seen to be a political and military alternative to the Soviet Union.
So when Tony Blair talks blithely about a Marshall Plan for Africa it should be received with some caution. The history of debt write off is fraught with contradictions where the real price is paid in privatisation and loss of economic control, to the very powers that most African colonies thought they had thrown off forty years ago.
However, credit where it is due. Gordon Brown has made the case for debt write off and made the point that without substantial investment in health, education and infrastructure not only will the Millennium Goals not be met, but the living standards and life expectancy of the poor will continue to fall. His plans were at first rebuffed by the USA, who rather ominously said they had their own way of doing things, but were challenged by the others present at the meeting.
The communiqué that emerged was well short of the pre meeting hype. Full debt write off had become “up to 100 per cent”. “Universal” for all the poorest countries had become “a case by case basis”. Payment (to those who lent the money in the first place) is also vague and includes selling of gold, or front loading future aid programmes or agreement on an aviation tax.
What will now happen is very unclear but will be set by a few months of unseemly horse-trading. Not wanting to leave the warm glow of the moral limelight shone by Mandela, the objectors walked away to fight another day.
Meanwhile, back in the reality of poverty stricken sub Saharan Africa, the rampage of HIV/Aids and malnutrition continues. The war in Congo continues, having already taken three million lives. The only beneficiaries are the arms dealers and the mining companies. Off the coast of the Canary Islands the ultimate price was paid by the desperate, seeking to escape their desperation as they lost their lives in the vain hope of gaining asylum somewhere else.
In the UK, the political and media pendulum has swung again. Public demand for action to help the victims of the Tsunami to widespread reporting of Gordon Brown’s visit to Africa, has reverted to the more usual pre election debate.
The Daily Mail and the Daily Express have been running anti asylum stories for years, and now, as if a coincidence, they claim that asylum and immigration are a big issue. The Tories then propose to leave the 1951 Geneva Convention and cut all immigration and asylum. Charles Clarke then proposes a five year plan. This plan includes reducing numbers, deporting unsuccessful applicants and introducing immigration by skill demand.
As I listened to him on Monday in the House I found myself asking where humanity had gone, as I recall all the meetings I have had with desperately poor asylum seekers living on nothing, and frightened of deportation, to all the violence and brutality they had left behind. But we need doctors and teachers so will entice them away from the poorest and most needy societies rather than train enough ourselves.
Confronting ignorance could start at home.
Executive detention
February 2, 2005
There is always a lurking desire in Government and Ministry Circles to extend their powers to achieve political aims. The Home Office is the most adept at this, with each crisis being met with the demand that they, rather than the courts, should be able to control and detain people they regard as enemies.
During the First and Second World wars, powers of detention were given to the Home Secretary to be used against suspected agents of the enemies.
The problem with these powers was that they became almost arbitrary, as did their equivalents in the USA. Thus Nazis and their sympathisers were detained, but also many wholly innocent Jewish victims of the Nazis were held behind barbed wire in the Isle of Man, as were many equally innocent Japanese Americans held in California and the western states.
The most recent attempts at gaining powers of executive detention have their origins in the 1970s. In response to the Birmingham Pub bombing in 1974, Parliament rushed through the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which allowed detention and questioning of suspects without a Court Order for seven days. About 10,000 Irish people were held at various times under this power; the overwhelming majority were never charged but were interrogated and recorded. In effect, a special police force for the Irish community.
Over the water in Northern Ireland, Parliament gave powers of internment, banning of travel and introduced the (now) notorious Diplock Courts, where suspects could be convicted on the evidence of an anonymous paid informer without a jury. These powers were later modified and a political dialogue did more to improve the lives of people in Northern Ireland than all the attacks on liberty ever did.
In response to the 2001 World Trade Center attack and in the same year, David Blunkett introduced the latest piece of anti terror law which included powers of executive detention. This enabled him to indefinitely detain foreign nationals as terror suspects without access to the evidence or knowledge of the charge against them. The maximum security prison within a prison was used at Belmarsh for this purpose.
Years of dogged legal action finally ended in the historic Law Lords judgement last year when it was made abundantly clear that this was a discriminatory practice as it only applied to foreign nationals and was contrary to Human Rights Conventions. In reality, Belmarsh is the British equivalent of Guantanamo Bay.
Blunkett did not release the Belmarsh detainees and played for time. Indeed time ran out for him and he resigned, this particular poisoned chalice being handed over to Charles Clarke to consume. Charles has duly consumed the potion. Another version of the same power is proposed and Parliament will vote on it within a few weeks.
In his statement to the House of Commons last week, Clarke accepted that the powers were used in a discriminatory fashion and wholly accepted the Law Lords judgement. So far so good.
His response, however, was even more perverse than the powers Blunkett had obtained from Parliament. He set out to end the discriminatory allegation his new power would extend to everybody – equality in injustice – and to try and mollify those who kept calling Belmarsh a British Guantanamo Bay.
His new plan is to introduce ‘Control Orders’ that will allow him to place individuals under house arrest, electronically tag them or restrict their movements or access to others.
The basis for a decision to place one of these orders against any individual will be an ‘intelligence assessment’ provided by the Security Services. Whilst the decision to impose the Order will be the Home Secretary’s, the individual can appeal to a court against it but the security evidence would be withheld. Breaching a Control Order would be a criminal offence and therefore be converted into imprisonment.
If we strip away all the verbiage and niceties of the plan, it amounts to house arrest on unseen evidence from an unaccountable source: just the kind of thing that pious western Governments condemn all over the world.
In a very British sort of way, the powers and operation will be subject to annual review by a judge or a high ranking lawyer.
There is a pattern whereby the legal profession is gradually incorporated into a pattern of state control, and processes that are wholly contrary to the principles of natural justice. The resignation of Ian McDonald from the SIAC (Special Immigration Appeals Court) process which is part of the current Anti Terror legislation has highlighted this.
Last week on BBC Radio Five the former Liberal MP Lord Carlisle who reviews the current act, descended into the whole security state process by defending the Clarke plans on grounds of protecting witnesses (ie the security services).
This argument could be used for ending many jury trials, and convicting on the basis of secret information; it is a dangerous road to go down and a very dangerous power to hand to any Home Secretary.
Ever since Magna Carta the demand for justice has been to remove the arbitrary power of Kings, Courtiers or Government, and establish an independent judiciary system. There are many perversions in many laws but essentially there is supposed to be a separation of the powers to legislate from the powers to implement laws. This plan breaks it.
To plant bombs, kill and/or maim are criminal acts and should be dealt with by the Criminal Law. The experience of Northern Ireland shows us what a dead end road the use of arbitrary power is. It also puts on trust the record and reputation of the security services; on whose unnamed sources we will rely to remove the freedom of individuals.
Let us not forget these were the very people that claimed Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, and in the USA put behind bars the Guantanamo Detainees.
Last week the British detainees finally returned home and have not been charged or detained. They were released not because of repentance by the security services or an apology by Rumsfeld. The endless and determined campaigning by their families and legal representatives did it.
Real justice and rights are not given, but won. And when won, must be defended.
