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A bi-weekly audio series and podcast service, hosted by Committee on Conscience Project Director Bridget Conley-Zilkic, that brings you the voices of human rights defenders, experts, advocates, and government officials. Vital voices addressing one of humanity's most vital issues. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not necessarily represent those of the Museum.
Page 4 of 17 pages « First < 2 3 4 5 6 > Last »
2/17/07
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NATO launched an air war against Serbia in 1999 to stop violent persecution -- perhaps even genocide -- of ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo. The result was a UN protectorate. But the province's "final status" remained up in the air. Serbia reluctantly accepted UN administration, while the Kosovar Albanians demanded independence. Earlier this month, UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari, a former president of Finland, presented his recommendation for resolving the conundrum. In not so many words, it described an independent Kosovo. And nobody was happy. Kosovar Albanians protested because independence was not explicit; two demonstrators were killed by rubber bullets in Pristina, Kosovo's capital. Meanwhile, the Serbian parliament overwhelmingly rejected Ahtisaari's plan. Approval of the plan rests with the UN Security Council, where Russia appears opposed, both because of its historical connections to Serbia and because of its concern about recognizing a regional claim to independence. What if the Security Council is paralyzed by a Russian veto? The Economist offers this prediction: [F]ar from saving Kosovo for Serbia, it risks tipping the region back into chaos. Kosovo will declare independence anyway, and many countries (including America and Britain) will recognise it. There will be no extra protection for Serbs, and no follow-on mission to the UN. If so, the two Albanians who died on February 10th may be only the first victims of a new round of violence.
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2/17/07
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 According to the Economist, Turkey's fraught relationship with America is heading into a new crisis. This may intensify anti-American feelings among millions of Turks. It could even hurt America's efforts to restore order in Iraq. What could lead to such a dire situation? Turns out Congress might consider a resolution that recognizes the Armenian Genocide as, well, genocide. The Economist explains: The fate of the Armenians remains Turkey's biggest taboo. Denying the official version, which says that Armenians killed Turks in larger numbers than they were killed themselves, has landed scores of Turkish academics and writers, including a Nobel prize-winning author, Orhan Pamuk, in court. Last month, a Turkish-Armenian editor, Hrant Dink, was murdered by an ultra-nationalist teenager, who accused Mr Dink of insulting Turkey. Americans might not welcome foreign characterization of the unpleasantness that accompanied the conquest of the American West. On the other hand, we're free to argue about that. Turkish citizens don't seem to enjoy the same right. Article 301 of the Turkish criminal code makes it a crime to "insult Turkishness." This provision and others are used against those who raise questions about the fate of the Armenians. Could the Turkish government offer repeal of article 301 and other laws that criminalize free speech as an alternative to foreign resolutions (18 and counting) recognizing the Armenian Genocide? (Headlines from New York Times, December 15, 1915.)
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2/17/07
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 On Saturday's front page, the LA Times explores in depth the allegations by a French court that Rwandan President Paul Kagame was responsible for shooting down the plane of his predecessor, Juvenal Habyarimana. I've touched on this issue a couple of times before. The downing of the plane, of course, was immediately followed by the Rwanda genocide, during which some 800,000 civilians were murdered, including about 3 out of every 4 members of the country's Tutsi minority. Kagame is a Tutsi, and like most of the members of his Rwanda Patriotic Front grew up in exile outside of Rwanda. The genocide was planned and executed by extremist leaders of the country's Hutu majority.
To be honest, I'm not sure that the allegations of the French court have any more validity than Oliver Stone's docu-fantasy JFK, which suggested that a vast conspiracy including Vice-President Lyndon Johnson was responsible for the assassination of President John Kennedy. But what if Kagame did orchestrate the downing of the plane? I think that would raise two separate questions. The first is what it would say about Kagame himself. The second is what it would say about the Rwanda genocide as a whole. As to the first question, it would suggest that Kagame is a ruthless leader, willing to use violence to achieve his goals. That should come as no surprise. He was, after all, a leader of the RPF when it launched an armed invasion of Rwanda in October 1990. And he also ordered bloody incursions into the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1996 and 1998.
But assuming that Kagame ordered the downing of Habyarimana's plane, does that change anything we know about the genocide? Not really. The inescapable fact of the genocide is that it was planned in advance and executed in a most determined manner by identifiable individuals, many of whom are being tried at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. There was nothing spontaneous or organic about the genocide. If the extremists who planned and orchestrated it did not kill Habyarimana themselves as a signal to start the violence, as many believe, they undoubtedly would have found another signal. They were bent on mass murder in order to protect their own power and privilege, and mass murder they committed. The search for truth in Habyarimana's killing is important, but we shouldn't let that search obscure the truth of the hundreds of thousands of killings that followed.
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2/16/07
2/09/07
2/06/07
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While Jerry has already blogged on this, I think the absurd hypocrisy of President’s Jintao’s actions on his recent visit to Khartoum warrants yet another entry. As we know, all eyes were focused on Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent trip to Khartoum with the hope that he might read the riot act to Sudanese President al-Bashir for the scorched-earth campaign he has waged upon his own citizens in Darfur. Perhaps falling into the category of wishful thinking on a grand scale, many had hoped that Jintao would relay to his Sudanese counterpart that he was sick and tired of the complaints he keeps hearing from the international community, so if Bashir could try and put an end to the violence, Jintao would really appreciate it. To show his appreciation, Jintao offered his good friend almost $13 million to build a new palace. I imagine that he hopes for improved accommodations on his next trip. Having lived for two years in Khartoum one could not ask for a better view than that of the mighty Blue Nile. In an effort to reward bad behavior, he also scrapped $70 million in Sudanese debts to China. One can only wonder about the extent of Jintao’s largess when the government of Sudan stops engaging in genocidal acts against its own people.
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2/05/07
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VOGP guest Mia Farrow recounted in Monday's Los Angeles Times her dismay at finding that her investments in Fidelity Investments mutual funds were in effect financing the genocide in Darfur through substantial investments in the Sudanese oil industry. Khartoum is pouring 70-80% of its oil profits into buying weapons, many of which are then used against civilians in Darfur. When Mia complained to Fidelity, its response basically was "not our problem." She doesn't buy that: Well, I disagree. It's true that Asia and the West have failed to take the necessary steps to end the genocide, but that doesn't mean the rest of us (corporations included) can shirk our moral obligations. Fidelity's effort to shift the responsibility away from its own decision to invest in companies that fund atrocities is cynical and hypocritical.
A new public campaign, FidelityOutOfSudan.com, asks Fidelity to own up to its responsibility.
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2/05/07
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 Last week, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Khartoum. China, of course, has been Sudan's "heat shield" in the UN Security Council. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack described the visit as a "mixed bag." That characterization was, well, diplomatic. The Washington Post's Sebastian Mallaby was a little more to the point: Last week China's leader, Hu Jintao, provided Sudan with an interest-free loan to build a presidential palace. With that gesture, Hu demonstrated his contempt for the Western understanding of the world -- and for Western policy toward his own country. Even more to the point? No surprise -- Eric Reeves.
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2/05/07
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The Darfur grassroots movement proves successful on the home front, but only to be stymied by the perpetrators of these heinous acts of violence in Darfur. In a survey conducted by our friends at the Genocide Intervention Network, Americans proved more sympathetic to genocide response than one might have expected, due in no small part to the Darfur movement and the hundreds of thousands of folks it has mobilized across the country. Even with a full agenda of competing foreign policy issues -- such as Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Iran -- Americans still believe that preventing and responding to genocide must be a U.S. priority. We hear again and again from our government officials that we must write letters, call, fax, and take an active role in the decision making process; so listen up!
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2/02/07
1/29/07
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The African Union announced that Ghanaian President John Kufor, has been selected as the new AU president.
Obviously this is very good news. Sadly, one cannot help but think that even acknowledging this as a positive development is a bit odd when Sudan's leadership role in the AU should never have been considered in the first place.
The good thing is that the AU will be headed by someone who has publicly condemned the violence in Darfur. This is key for the AU's own credibility and ultimately its ability to play a constructive and meaningful role in Darfur.
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1/26/07
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The Shia Revival, by Vali Nasr (Jerry Fowler)
Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide, by Linda Melvern (Matthew Levinger)
Two biographies of Slobodan Milosevic, Milosevic: The People’s Tyrant by Vidosav Stevanovic and Milosevic: Portrait of a Tyrant by Dusko Doder and Louise Branson (Bridget Conley-Zilkic)
The Washington Note, a personal blog where Steven Clemons, Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, comments on public policy debates that he believes matter. Hat tip: Politico (David Klevan).
Contemporary Conflict Resolution: The prevention, management, and transformation of deadly conflicts, by Hugh Miall, Oliver Ramsbotham, and Tom Woodhouse (Jackie Scutari)
"Burma 'orders Christians to be wiped out,'" an article in the Sunday Telegraph by Peter Pattisson in Kayin State, Southern Burma (Michael Graham)
Foreign News Coverage: The U.S. Media's Undervalued Asset. Jill Carroll, a Christian Science Monitor reporter, known best for being recently kidnapped in Iraq, reports on the decline in American newspaper foreign correspondents. A good report to read in light of the closing of foreign bureaus at the Boston Globe (Lisa Rogoff).
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1/19/07
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George Orwell's 1984 (Jerry Fowler)
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Caldwell (Matthew Levinger)
E.L. Doctorow's, The March; "an Iliad-like portrait of war as a primeval human affliction..." (John Heffernan)
Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide, by Branimir Anzulovic (Bridget Conley-Zilkic).
The Process: 1,100 Days that Changed the Middle East by Uri Savir. The director-general of Israel's Foreign Ministry, who also served as his nation's chief representative in the secret negotiations that led to the Oslo peace accord between Israel and the PLO, offers his insider's account of how the historic agreement came about (David Klevan).
A War to Start All Wars: The Middle East looks like Europe circa World War I by Niall Ferguson for a bit of historical comparative analysis, as well as, Tag Teams by James Fallows and The Digital-Music Mosh Pit by Michael Hirschorn in The Atlantic online to keep up on how technology is changing our world (David Klevan).
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou (Jackie Scutari)
Congo: Staying Engaged After the Elections, a report from the International Crisis Group (Michael Graham)
"Negotiating With Terrorists," an essay in the January/February Foreign Affairs, written by Peter R. Neumann. He discusses the need to get past the myth that democratic governments do not negotiate with terrorists, and instead develop and outline a systematic process of how and when these negotiations will take place (Lisa Rogoff).
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1/13/07
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 This week's Economist has a very insightful article about Rwanda, detailing both the economic progress the country is making and the political perils that accompany that progress: “The view in the past was that it was our fate to be poor,” says a minister. “We don't believe that now. We believe our fate is to be rich.”
Rwanda's government is certainly focused on “performance” and “service delivery”. So while Kenya's talks about computers in universities, Rwanda's is busy installing wireless internet in rural primary schools. The government, still RPF-dominated, says it expects to meet most of the UN's Millennium Development Goals before 2015. Alone in the region, it eagerly promotes family planning. Foreign investors are wooed.
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[The] country still faces problems, especially in politics. [President Paul] Kagame may succumb to the cult of personality that has derailed so many other African leaders. His sometimes sinister secret police may already be more powerful than Rwanda's elected representatives. Crime may be low, but some say that political arrests and assassinations are still common; Mr Kagame rules Rwanda through fear as much as anything. The RPF has marginalised or smeared dissenting voices in the name of “one Rwanda” and the ruling party's supporters are accruing wealth and power. The Netherlands, a big donor, has reduced its bilateral aid budget to the country in protest against political repression. Meanwhile, Paul Rusesabagina, who was depicted in the film Hotel Rwanda, described the current situation much more harshly in remarks made in South Africa. He accused the Kagame government of laying the foundation for another genocide, claiming that "[s]ince 1994, Tutsis have been killing Hutus, and even now there are many who are being killed, or who simply disappear. Everything has been taken over by the Tutsi. The Hutu who are 85 per cent of the population are intimidated." Some background on the war of words between Rusesabagina and the Rwandan government can be found here.
(Photo of genocide survivor holding photos of murdered family members © Kimberlee Acquaro.)
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1/13/07
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 As I've suggested a couple of times recently, Khartoum's diplomatic moves these days need to be seen in part in the context of the upcoming African Union summit, where the issue of Sudan chairing the AU for the next year will be on the table. You'll recall that Sudan was denied the chair at the last summit through a compromise that presumed they would get it this year.
Sure enough, fresh on the heels of Khartoum's no-cost "breakthrough" with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the Sudanese Media Centre (which can be counted on to reflect Khartoum's view of things) reports that "Sudan is preparing to take over AU chairmanship from Congo after holding of summit in Addis Ababa in the period from 22-30 of the current January 2007. . . . According to last year AU summit hosted in Khartoum a recommendation stipulated that this year chairmanship should go to Sudan." The alternative that will be pushed will be for the Republic of Congo to retain the chair.
Needless to say (well, one would think it is needless), efforts to keep Sudan from assuming leadership of the AU (and hence of the AU Mission in Sudan) are not aided by letting Khartoum garner credit for equivocal half-measures, such as agreeing to ceasefire #3,421 or repainting the planes they use to bomb civilians. What were they thinking?
(Photo © eye soup.)
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Page 4 of 17 pages « First < 2 3 4 5 6 > Last »
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