Remembering Tiananmen Square

Thousands of people in Hong Kong participated in a demonstration honoring the anniversary of the crushing of the June 4,1989 pro-democracy movement on the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, reported BBC (Tiananmen protests marked). The march was organized by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China not only to remember the events from 15 years ago but also to remind the people of Hong Kong how frail is the democracy they still enjoy.

For a first-hand account of the Tiananmen events by the Canadian Globe and Mail correspondent Jan Wong, read the second last chapter of Red China Blues. (If you ask me, you should read the whole book by this talented writer. It is a story of China from Mao to post-Tiananmen.)

Read more: Tiananmen Square, China doctor calls 1989 'mistake'

UN Peacekeepers Day

It was the Canadian Prime Minister, Lester B. Pearson, that recommended the establishment of UN peacekeeping missions. The first armed UN peacekeeping force was used in the Suez Canal conflict to supervise withdrawal of invading forces and act as buffer between Egyptians and Israelis. Today, over 50 years later, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations currently has 15 missions on three continents. More than 53,000 personnel - about 49,000 troops and military observers and 4,800 civilian police - serve as peacekeepers alongside 3,500 international civilians, 7,200 local civilians and some 1,440 UN Volunteers.

There are increased demands on the UN's to maintain peace around the world. The number of uniformed peacekeeping personnel could reach 70,000 by the end of the year. A peacekeeping mission in Haiti is set to begin next week, another for Burundi was recently approved and a Sudan mission is in the works.

Related stories: UN Press Release, UN peace troops arrive in Haiti, Sudan "looking to Darfur peace", UN takes over Burundi peace role

Pinochet striped from immunity

Today Chile's Supreme Court voted 14-9 to take away the immunity from prosecution of the former military leader Augusto Pinochet, BBC reported (Court lifts Pinochet's immunity). Although Pinochet relinquished, reluctantly, Chile's presidential post in 1990, trials for his human rights abuses did not start until 1998 when Spain requested his extradition from Britain on torture charges. Previous attempts to bring the General to justice were unsuccessful. However, in November 2003, a fresh attempt to try the general started. This time Pinochet is on trial for his involvement in Operation Condor - a coordinated effort of South American dictators to expunge their opposition.

Read more: Human Rights Watch, Chile: Court Ruling May Define Future of Rights Prosecutions, Key Doctrine on Pinochet-Era 'Disappearances' at Stake

Lethal Injection Challenge

The US Supreme Court voted unanimously that an inmate on death penalty can pursue an appeal on the grounds that lethal injection would be cruel and unusual punishment, BBC reported (Lethal injection challenge upheld).

The US and countries like China and Iran continue to lead the statistics for the number of death penalty executions carried out. According to Amnesty International, in 2003, 65 people were executed, 24 only in the state of Texas. Since the US Supreme Court lifted a moratorium on executions in 1976 a total of 885 prisoners were put to death. Out of those 885 executions 300 were carried out in Texas. International standards for use of the death penalty are violated, including by executing people who were under 18 at the time the crime was committed.

The Amnesty International 2004 Report states that Mexico brought a case in the International Court of Justice on behalf of more than 50 of its nationals on death row in the USA. The US is alleged to have violated the UN Vienna Convention on Consular Relations which requires states to inform foreign nationals upon arrest of their right to seek consular assistance.

But the cup for the highest number of executions goes to China. According to Amnesty International 2004 Report the death penalty continues to be used extensively and arbitrarily as a result of political interference. In 2003, people were executed for non-violent crimes such as tax fraud and pimping as well as drug offences and violent crimes. By the end of 2003, with the limited records available, Amnesty International had recorded 1,639 death sentences and 726 executions, although the true figures were believed to be much higher.

Moving Closer to a New Trade Deal?

Probably not. Since the stall of trade talks in Cancun in December 2003, world trade powerhouses have been exchanging polite letters seemingly making concessions. However, no new framework for global negotiations has emerged. As usual, the contentious points are subsidies on agricultural products, textiles, sugar, cotton, fisheries, and market assess.

On May 10, the EU trade commissioner, Pascal Lamy, wrote to the WTO outlining a plan to stop subsidizing farm exports. Not even all EU countries, France in particular, were enthusiastic about this move. An accord among WTO members on 50% of the topics in the Doha round of trade liberalization talks is possible by the July deadline, Lamy said on May 14, 2004, reported the BBC.

However, the US is expecting more concessions. Although the US is not expecting concessions on sensitive imports, such as beef, sugar and dairy products from the EU and on rice from Japan, Washington expects more generous liberalization on other imports.
Developing countries still hold a unified front on agricultural issues. The 17-nation Cairns group said it would ally with the G20 group of poorer nations to draw up a proposal they hope will be acceptable to all other WTO members, Canadian Trade Minister Jim Peterson said, BBC reported.

So, will we soon have another trade liberalization deal? It depends whether the trade powerhouses manage to cajole developing nations into opening their borders without doing so in return.

Read more: EU offers to end export subsidies, Endgame near in farm trade talks, Farmers hope for new Europe calm, WTO chief optimistic over talks, Dairy farmers North and South, Renewed Focus on Development? (January 23, 2004 post), Doha Development Round: The Useless Banter Continues (February 14, 2004 post)

Civil Society in the Muslim World: Contemporary Perspectives, Amyn B. Sajoo (Editor)

Civil Society in the Muslim World: is this an oxymoron? According to the authors, the Muslim society historically has had pluralistic tradition and a society that respects human rights and pluralism can co-exist with Islam. This publication of the London Institute of Ismaili Studies is a compendium of articles by Shirin Akiner, Mohammed Arkoun, Aziz Esmial, Tair Faradov, Abdou Filali-Ansary, Ersin Kalaycioglu, Iftikhar Malik, Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Oliver Roy. It was published in response to the growing attacks to Islam as a result of September 11, 2001.

Russia doesn't want to let Chechnya go
and blood continues to flow...

This verse is definitely not Pushkin's, although the Chechen issue was contemporary to the Russian poet. The Russian-Chechen antagonism has exasperated through the centuries, reaching its culmination in the 1990s when Chechnya first tried to separate. During the dark years of the Imperium, Chechens were held tight in the iron fist just like any other minority. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chechnya's hope to gain independence resurfaced, but has been unable to break away from the status of a Republic in the Russian Federation.

The latest setback in the Russian hardliner politics in Chechnya came yesterday when a bomb killed the installed President of Chechnya. Kadyrov, a Muslim cleric who once sided with the separatists before switching to become the Kremlin's favoured son in Chechnya, died almost instantly, reported BBC. Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed revenge for the bombing, which is being blamed on Chechen guerrillas.

Experts believe that the assassination has dealt a death blow to Putin. Kadyrov was Russia's only stronghold in Chechnya and he will not be easily replaced. During the last presidential election any possible successors were discredited to ensure Kadyrov's win. It is also highly unlikely that Moscow will hold peace talks with the rebels, especially with Maskhadov, who has been accused of having links with international terrorism. Since 9/11 there has been very little diplomatic pressure for a negotiated solution. No pressure to resolve the conflict is expected from the Russian community either. The general public is nearly oblivious of the events in Chechnya, as media coverage of the bloody five-year conflict is now sporadic: only major events, not the almost daily killings, hit the headlines.

With Kadyrov gone, the future of Chechnya is uncertain. KavkasCenter reported that Chechens have been waiting for this day for a long time but many are concerned that the unrest in Chechnya will now intensify with Russian troops, Kadyrov's son and his militia out to get revenge on ordinary people. To deal with the latest developments, Russia is expected to add 1,000 more troops to its current 80,000 army in Chechnya.

Read more: Enemies catch up with Kadyrov, What next for Chechnya?, The Chechen conflict, Russia to boost Chechnya forces, Mayhem after Grozny stadium blast

On Human Rights and Economic Development
speech by Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize Recipient for 2003
Dr. Ebadi is an Iranian advocate of human rights. In her speech to a World Bank audience she said that protecting human rights and promoting development are intricately linked. For the Bank to implement its development agenda successfully, she suggested it should focus its resources on helping fledgling democracies rather than stabilizing existing dictatorships. Dictatorships, that come to power and rule without giving a voice to its citizens, cannot enact sustainable development policies. Respecting human rights should be a prerequisite for the development institutions when administering loans.
Dr. Ebadi said that under appropriate interpretations, one could be a Muslim and support democracy. She suggested that the rights of women are upheld only in democracies. On the issue of the rights of women in Iran, Dr. Ebadi said women have significantly less rights in Iranian society than men. She acknowledged that current Islamic regimes are repressive of human rights, including Iran's, but questioned whether such repression represented true Islamic faith.

Target Iraq: American Human Rights under Scrutiny
After one of the bloodiest months of the Iraqi occupation, evidence that the US and the UK have lost their cool started to emerge. Last week newspapers printed pictures that depicted alleged abuse of detainees in Basra and Baghdad. A report into allegations of prisoners abuse by US forces in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison has uncovered "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses". The report found that detainees were threatened with loaded pistol, beaten and sexually abused, photographed in humiliating positions, threatened with unmuzzled dogs, and subjected to brutality and humiliation. In a statement on an Arab tv network, President Bush publicly condemned the abuse on inmates, adding: "what took place in that prison does not represent the America that I know." (BBC's Dozens of abuse inquiries under way, Report into Baghdad prison abuse, Bush calls Iraq abuse 'abhorrent', Blair condemns Iraq abuse photos, US troops face Iraq abuse charges)
The UN Commission on Human Rights criticized the tortures and urged the Coalition Forces to apply to detainees the rules and norms enshrined in Articles 9 and 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and 9 and 14 of the civil and political rights Covenant. As for the plans of UN involvement in Iraq, they are still ambivalent. (UN news Iraq: UN human rights body calls on US, UK to grant detainees legal rights; IPS's U.N. Experts Call for Probe of Coalition Abuses in Iraq, U.N. Ambivalent Over its Ability to Salvage Iraq)
Follow up: Embattled Rumsfeld wins support, Bush 'sorry' for prisoner abuse, Action pending on alleged abuse, Commanders blamed for Iraq abuses

More On Sudan's Hidden War
The UN's World Food Programme official James Morris in an interview with BBC said that the situation in Sudan's western Darfur region was "one of the world's worst humanitarian crises" and added that he had never before seen such frightened people. He confirmed earlier reports that more than a million people had been forced violently from their homes. Nomadic Arab janjaweed militias are accused of driving out the African population.
Read more: Darfur crisis 'tragic', UN says, Running from the militias in Darfur, Sudan's Darfur conflict, The New Rwanda: Ethnic Cleansing in Sudan, May 19, 2004 post
Follow up: Chad 'clashes' with Sudan militia

World Press Freedom Day
A free press is one of the most essential components of a democratic society, which in turn is a prerequisite for sustainable social and economic development. Every year, May 3 serves as an occasion to inform the public of violations of the right to freedom of expression and as a reminder that many journalists brave death or jail to bring people their daily news. Last year, for merely doing their job, 42 journalists were killed and 766 were detained, the highest annual figures in the past decade, according to Reporters Without Borders (IPS's Record Number of Deaths in Expressing Ideas).
You want to know how free is the flow of news and information in countries around the world? Check out Freedom House's Map of Press Freedom (2003) and the UN press site.

Religious Clashes in Nigeria
Muslim Fulani cattle herders and Christian Tarok farmers have been clashing for more than two months, the BBC reported. The bloody fights over land and cattle have caused hundreds of deaths and have forced thousands to flee their homes. In 2001, over 1000 people were killed in religious clashes in the state capital of Plateau, Los.
Read more: Thousands flee Nigerian clashes, Nigeria's elections in Plateau State
Follow up: Nigeria town 'calm' after clashes