|
CHOGM’s lavish fete will be full of talk bridging the digital divide and new business opportunities: its members however preside over the some of the most corrupt administrations and human rights violations. What can the Commonwealth contribute to its impoverished club?
The Commonwealth’s dedication to the pursuit of democracy and human rights will be toasted by some 40 Heads of State in the coming days. Banqueting together will be a desultory assortment of monarchs, despots, dictators and presidents who reign over impoverished African and Asian nations and daily human rights abuses.
It all reads like a catalogue of assorted nightmares: countries were the rule of law and order has been inexistent since their assent to independence, where human rights abuses seem to be the order of the day. The list is endless.
Of the Commonwealth’s GBP38 million budget, just a paltry GBP414,000 are spent on human rights – its main spend, after administrative expenses, are GBP4 million on public sector development: opening up economies to more multinationals. Secretary-general Don McKinnon says it all: the organisation works with “resource-rich countries” to ensure its members do not get squeezed between the world’s economic hegemonies.
It all falls in line with this year’s CHOGM theme: “Networking the Commonwealth for Development”, which focuses on the bridging of the digital divide, “a necessity if such countries are to develop and prosper and the driver of investment in Information & Communications Technology (ICT),” the CHOGM website goes.
But whilst the African continent drowns in a debt of USD300 billion, the CHOGM business forum is welcoming the world’s leading multinationals, some whose GDP far outstrip that of a great number of African nations combined.
In Malta they will be talking about new business and investment opportunities, about who to conduct business with international partners, and network with key government and business leaders. In short, they will be discussing how to penetrate further African markets and getting their leaders to sell off national industries.
Will they talk about how the world’s total income increased by 2.5 per cent a year when the number of the poor in the world has increased by some 100 million? Can Blair promise more debt relief to Africa? Can he match what he and President George Bush did with Iraq when they granted a total debt cancellation in one day of USD31 billion in November 2004 via the Paris Club of creditor nations? Africa’s debt relief was pitiful: just USD15 billion of new money and USD35 billion in funds already promised, of which none of the new money comes from the US. The debt it has offered to write off is USD55 billion, barely 10 per cent of what Africa needs writing off. And the fine print reads with some impervious conditions: developing countries will have to boost private-sector development, both domestic and foreign, which will mean opening up the doors to more foreign multinationals eager to make a killing off cheap industry, cheap land, and cheap human labour in the Africa heartland.
Maldives: journalists under house arrest
In 2002, the three founders, editors and writers for the Dhivehi-language internet publication Sandhaanu were arrested along with their secretary. All three were sentenced to life imprisonment (later reduced to 15 years) and one year of banishment for defamation. Sandhaanu regularly criticized the government for abuse of power and called for political reform. They were not allowed to file a defence. On 9 May 2005, one of the founders, Fatimath Nisreen, was released, while the other two founders remain under house arrest.
South Africa: asylum seekers encounter abuse
Asylum seekers and refugees in Johannesburg often face harassment, mistreatment and extortion by the police, according to Human Rights Watch. Its recent reports claim that despite its “exemplary laws”, the South African government is failing to provide protection to these vulnerable individuals. SAF hosts some 142,000 refugees and asylum seekers, many having fled conflict areas and persecution in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe.
Nigeria: admitting to torture
On the heels of a damning report by Human Rights Watch, Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo reversed a previous government position and publicly admitted that Nigerian police officers have committed killings and torture. This unprecedented declaration followed intense advocacy by Human Rights Watch and massive media coverage in Nigeria. In interviews with more than fifty victims and witnesses, HRW documented the brutal ill-treatment of criminal suspects, including torture and rape by police officers, and found that many suspects in custody have died as a result of their injuries.
Ten years after the executions of writer and human rights campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other members of the Ogoni ethnic community horrified the world, the exploitation of oil in the Niger Delta continues to result in deprivation, injustice and violence. Despite a return to civilian government in 1999 under President Olusegun Obasanjo, those responsible for human rights violations under military governments have not been brought to justice. The security forces continue to kill people and raze communities with impunity. The environmental harm to health and livelihoods that impelled the Ogoni campaign for economic and social rights remains the reality for many inhabitants of the Delta region.
Kenya: “terrorism” crackdown violating human rights
Amnesty International claims numerous human rights violations are committed against suspects detained during recent "anti-terrorism" operations, including arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention without charge, torture and harassment of family members. The human rights violations occurred during "anti-terrorism" operations conducted since the 2002 bombing of a hotel near Mombasa that killed 15 people. The report’s main findings include: the use of torture and other ill-treatment during detention including physical abuse; detention of suspects without charge in undisclosed locations and without access to a lawyer or relatives; the holding of suspects in degrading and unsanitary conditions without access to medical care when needed; harassment of family members and the arbitrary detention of relatives to put pressure on suspects to hand themselves in; the failure of police to show warrants when arresting individuals or conducting searches of property.
Swaziland: King’s government violates human rights
The government of King Mswati III’s contempt for court rulings and judicial independence has denied people effective legal redress and has allowed impunity for perpetrators of human rights violations. Despite Swaziland becoming a State Party to four key human rights treaties between April and June 2004, there is a wide gap between promises and practices in the southern African country. The abuses of human rights include failure to investigate and prosecute those responsible for torture and deaths in custody and abusive policing involving the use of excessive force; denial of the rights of freedom of association and peaceful assembly to those perceived as government critics; undermining of the role of courts in protecting the rights of women and girls against forced marriages, including by members of the Royal Family; failure to protect women and girls against rape and other forms of sexual violence which has contributed to Swaziland having the highest HIV prevalence in the world; politically-motivated forced evictions without the right to effective legal redress, resulting in violation of the victims’ rights to livelihood, shelter, education and health.
Gambia: Incommunicado detention and ill-treatment
Years after Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil al-Banna were arrested on suspicion of having links with al-Qa’ida, they remain held without charge or trial at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Although both men are residents of the United Kingdom (UK), the UK government is not known to have raised any concerns regarding the conditions or legality of their detention with US authorities. Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil al-Banna were arrested on 8 November 2002 at Banjul airport, Gambia, and were held in incommunicado detention for two months before being transferred to a US airbase in Bagram, Afghanistan. They were later transferred in secrecy to Guantánamo. Before their arrest in Gambia, they had been arrested at a UK airport, purportedly on suspicion of links with "terrorist" groups, but were released without charge.
Cameroon: contracting out human rights
A pipeline transporting oil through Chad and Cameroon brings with it potential threats to human rights in the two Central African countries. A consortium of oil companies is extracting oil from the Doba oilfields in southern Chad and transporting it 1,070 kilometres by pipeline to Cameroon’s Atlantic coast in one of the largest private-sector investment projects in Africa. The consortium is led by the US company, ExxonMobil, and includes Chevron, another US corporation, and Petronas, the Malaysian state oil company. In Chad and Cameroon, the human rights of the population, be it communities living or working in the area of the pipeline or the wider population, are largely disregarded. Ineffective judicial systems in both countries are vulnerable to state interference. They are no match for powerful governments and commercial interests. The courts and the police are ill-equipped to uphold the human rights of the population from adverse effects of large-scale projects for economic development.
Pakistan: Killing of Ahmadis continues amid impunity
The continued violence against the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan has again been illustrated in an attack on worshippers in a mosque in the village of Mong, near the town of Mandi Behauddin in Punjab Province, on 7 October 2005. Eight people were killed and at least 18 injured in the attack. Witnesses report that the men then escaped on the motorcycle leaving eight dead and many people crying and covered in blood. Police investigations of previous targeted killings of Ahmadis in Pakistan have been slow or have not taken place at all. In many cases the perpetrators have not been brought to justice. The government’s consistent failure to investigate attacks and killings of members of religious minorities fails to discourage further human rights abuses against such groups. The right to freedom of religion, as laid down in the Pakistani constitution and in international human rights law, must be made a reality for all religious minorities in Pakistan.
Bangladesh: Harassment of leaders of the indigenous people
Four leaders of Bangladesh’s indigenous populations – three of whom are from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) – have become the targets of official harassment and intimidation for demanding the fulfilment of the indigenous peoples’ rights. According to newspaper reports, Mangal Kumar Chakma, Mrinal Kanti Tripura, Ina Hume and Albert Mankin are to appear before the parliamentary Standing Committee on the CHT Affairs Ministry in Dhaka for comments they made at the United Nation’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York in May 2005. The tribal people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts have for long been the targets of massacres, arbitrary detention, torture and extrajudicial executions during the years of armed conflict (mid-1970s to 1997). However, seven-and-a-half years after the signing of a peace accord, the Government of Bangladesh has failed to implement fully some of the most crucial provisions of the accord, such as the rehabilitation of all returned refugees and internally displaced families, and the settlement of land confiscated from the tribal people during the conflict.
|
