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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 27th, 2008 From: Jeremy.Houssin at erm.com ERM and UNEP organise a training workshop in Dakar, Senegal, from the 8th to 12th of September 2008, to help African project sponsors. You will find below and attached to the mail a call for CDM projects and projects in the Voluntary Market.
A Call for CDM projects and projects in the Voluntary Carbon Market for project sponsors in Senegal who want to participate in a Capacity Building workshop. Types of projects eligible: Workshop financing: For the project sponsors who are already registered by the UNEP for the Africa Carbon Forum, please indicate your UNEP registration number. Pilot projects and case studies in asset classes such as plantation forestry, agro forestry, and bio fuels will open up opportunities for African participation in the CDM and the voluntary carbon markets. In addition, the project will facilitate the establishment of a stakeholder network for technical cooperation and linkages between carbon buyers and sellers. The programme’s findings will also serve to contribute to the policy debate towards a post-2012 climate regime, casting light on key issues such as eligibility of avoided deforestation and land degradation projects in CDM-type initiatives. CASCADe Project in Senegal and Benin: For more information : Houssin Jérémy Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 27th, 2008 From: briefing at unwatch.org
UN Watch Exclusive from Nigeria: Today’s Durban II Text In this Issue:
{See also www.UNWatch.org to get a fill of our indignation at how the UN is being misused by the oil barrons and their friends. Do not expect here Ethics, UN Charter ideas, or UN Human Rights ideals. The only positives come from indignation expressed by a handfull of UN Member States. Even some of these will not speak up all the time - this because of the daze that comes from their addiction to oil.} UN’s ‘Durban II’ African Prep Meeting Slams Israel, Free Speech; But Silent on Darfur Atrocities and African Ethnic Violence.
UN Watch’s Leon Saltiel (right) participated at this week’s conference Abuja, Nigeria, August 26, 2008 — Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch expressed alarm over the declaration adopted today by an African regional meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, which will now shape the UN world conference on racism to be held in April. “The declaration (CLICK FOR TEXT) fails to address racial and ethnic crimes committed by Sudan, tramples international human rights guarantees on free speech, places Islam above all other religions, and targets Israel alone, implying that it is uniquely racist,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer. “Regrettably, Durban II is looking more and more like the original Durban debacle of 2001.” The stated objectives of the African regional conference, which opened Sunday and closed today, were to review regional implementation of the 2001 Durban declaration, and map the way for the UN’s Durban Review Conference on racism set for Geneva in April. But the declaration adopted today “failed to review any African country’s actions, and its inflammatory provisions now threaten to derail the world conference in April,” said Neuer. The Canadian government is boycotting the April meeting and its preparations, saying it will “not be party to an anti-Semitic and anti-Western hatefest dressed up as an anti-racism conference.” French President Sarkozy and cabinet ministers from Britain and the Netherlands have warned that a breach of red lines could also trigger their boycott of the 2009 meeting in Geneva. French Minister Rama Yade repeated the caution in a statement this month to the French parliament. “By failing to review the performance of African countries on racism and related intolerance, the conference is ignoring its primary mission, and squandering a golden opportunity to help Africa’s many victims of racism and xenophobia,” said Neuer. “Apart from UN Watch’s plenary speech on Sunday, neither the conference nor its final declaration addressed the Sudanese government’s crimes against humanity in Darfur, including the ethnic killings of at least 200,000 black Africans, mass rape, and the displacement of over 1 million men, women and children,” said Neuer. When UN Watch representative Leon Saltiel addressed the Darfur atrocities in his speech to the Abuja conference on Sunday, Sudan immediately interrupted with an objection — supported by Algeria and Morrocco — and chairman Martin Uhomoibhi of Nigeria ruled that country situations could not be mentioned. “Moreover, the text fails to review the xenophobic attacks that recently broke out in South Africa — the leading organizer of the Abuja meeting and the overall Durban process — where foreigners, notably from Zimbabwe and Mozambique, were targeted in May during a wave of anti-immigrant attacks in which at least 62 were killed and tens of thousands were displaced,” said Neuer. “Nor does the text review the ethnic crimes in Kenya this year that killed 1,000 people, displaced another 600,000 and burnt down 40,000 buildings, in an outburst of tribal bloodletting. Millions of African victims of xenophobia — present and future — are ill-served by the conference’s grant of impunity for racial or ethnic crimes committed in African countries.” The new text calls upon states to avoid “inflexibly clinging to free speech in defiance of the sensitivities existing in a society and with absolute disregard for religious feelings.” Other provisions in the text on “incitement to religious hatred,” said Neuer, “mirror efforts by Islamic states at the UN Human Rights Council to insinuate Islamic anti-blasphemy prohibitions into international law. Yet UN expert on religious freedom Asma Jahangir and other international human rights experts have expressly opposed ‘defamation of religion’ resolutions, which seek to alter international human rights law by defining religions — instead of individuals — as the bearers of rights.” The declaration’s attack on free speech contravenes the Article 19 guarantee of freedom of expression of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose 60th anniversary the UN will be celebrating next week with a major gathering at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. (At the event, UN Watch will be chairing a NGO panel discussion on the UN Human Rights Council.) “The language goes far beyond the recognized norms for balancing prohibitions of racial hatred with respect for free speech, which is the lifeblood of democracy. If the right to express one’s beliefs — to question the dogmas of the day in society, law, politics, art, science, and, yes, religion — is to be restricted by the ‘feelings’ and ‘sensitivities’ of others, this will mark the end of free speech as we know it,” said Neuer. The text’s special emphasis on Islamophobia (paragraph 20) “seeks to impose a hierarchy of religions, placing adherents of Islam above all others,” said Neuer. “This is contrary to the basic principles of equality enshrined in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and undermines the very premise of the global struggle against racism.” The declaration makes only one reference to a country situation, “reiterat[ing] its concern about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupations.” Neuer asked, “Why is a non-African situation mentioned in a declaration about Africa, one that references neither Sudan’s racist killings, nor any other country in Africa?” “The special reference to the Palestinian issue implies that Israel is practicing racism. This reverts to the discredited rhetoric of the UN’s 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution, sponsored by the Soviet and Arab blocs, which was repealed by the United Nations in 1991, and which has since been repudiated by its highest officials,” said Neuer. “Portraying Israel’s conflict as racial is more than political mischief; it’s an attempt to dehumanize Israelis and their supporters as uniquely evil. We regret that African states today allowed the extreme political agenda of certain Middle Eastern governments to undermine their legitimate cause.” The UN, however, today tried to offer a different interpretation. “It is only one paragraph that mentions the Palestinians, so the interest of Israel was never badly damaged,” Ibrahim Wani, from the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told Reuters, after the 3-day talks in Abuja. UN Watch participated at the African conference as an international non-governmental organization. The plenary speech delivered by UN Watch representative Leon Saltiel on Sunday (see below) was interrupted by Sudan, after he addressed the situations in Darfur and Zimbabwe, and described Libyan hypocrisy. UN Watch Defends Principles and Exposes Hypocrisy in Plenary Speech to Durban II Prep Conference in Africa UN Watch Speech to Regional Conference for Africa Preparatory to the Durban Review Conference Abuja, Nigeria, 24 August 2008 Delivered by UN Watch communications director Leon Saltiel (Video of speech will be published soon)
Thank you, Mr. President. We assemble here in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, in the heart of Africa, to discuss how to fight racism, and to prepare for the Durban Review Conference that will take place in April 2009. That I have come here from afar is testament to the great importance that UN Watch attaches to the African cause, to the global struggle against racism, and to the outcome of this gathering. Mr. President, UN Watch has always stood in solidarity with the African people in their struggle for human rights, equality and freedom. A half century ago, UN Watch founder Morris Abram was a leading advocate in the American civil rights movement led by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. It was Mr. Abram who won the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case that recognized African-American voting rights, under the principle of “one person, one vote,” and who went on to head the United Negro College Fund. In 1993, guided by the same vision of human rights and equality, Morris Abram founded UN Watch. Since then, we have been a leading voice at the United Nations for victims of persecution—for Africans in places like Darfur and Zimbabwe, as for millions of other victims of racism and intolerance around the world. Mr. President, It is with this legacy, and with these principles, that UN Watch urges this conference to rise to the occasion. Let this African gathering give voice to all who suffer from racism, persecution and intolerance. Let us promise that the crime of slavery shall never be forgotten. That men and women everywhere should be treated with basic dignity and equality. Let us be true to the universal principles of human rights that underlie the struggle against racism. Mr. President, We will only advance toward these goals if we stay on the true path—by avoiding dangerous diversions, and by remedying the wrongs of the past. We must prevent a recurrence of the foul actions of 2001, which paradoxically turned a conference on racism into a platform for racist hatred and anti-Semitism. Let us oppose the campaign by certain governments and lobby groups to distort the language of human rights for a narrow and extreme political agenda, which only distracts from and harms the African cause. Let us ensure that our outcome document—which will influence the final declaration of the April conference in Geneva—will neither single out nor demonize any country or people. Finally, let us keep this conference a serious one. Its credibility is at stake when countries preach one thing while blatantly practicing the very opposite. Consider, for example, the official submission of Libya that is before us today. The Libyan government speaks of racism against the African people and how it confronts, and I quote, “[a] new form of racism related to house helpers [and] (maids).” Yet just last month, when Mr. Hannibal Qaddafi was arrested in Geneva for the crime of beating his African maid and African house-helper, [At this point in the speech, Sudan interrupted with an objection, supported by Morocco and Algeria.] Libya fully supported his actions. Worse, Libya then punished one of these African victims by kidnapping his mother. With this same country being the chair of the committee organizing the Durban Review Conference, what should the world think? Mr. President, The eyes of the world are upon us. When history is written, let it be recorded that in Abuja, in August 2008, the struggle against racism was advanced, and not harmed; promoted, and not politicized. We owe its victims—in Africa and around the world—no less. Thank you, Mr. President.
Writing in reply to a parliamentary question, Rama Yade, France’s Senegalese-born Foreign Affairs and Human Rights Secretary, warned that France will walk out of the UN’s Durban II process if it veers off track. “France will not maintain its participation at any price,” said Yade in her response published on August 5. “The President said at the dinner organized by CRIF, and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights herself said to the UN Human Rights Council: France will remain engaged in this process only if the review conference does not depart from its assigned objectives.” Read More…
The UN Human Right Council’s expert on Palestine yesterday praised a boat trip to Gaza by pro-Palestinian campaigners, without revealing his own close ties to the group. Falk is best known for his repeatedly expressed support for the conspiracy theory that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were an “inside job” by the Pentagon. Read More… Qaddafi Rights Prize Awarded to Former Malta PM for ‘Defending Palestinian and Iraqi Oppressed Peoples’ Even with the Qaddafi servant-beating episode still unresolved, the Libyan human rights prize went ahead and announced its annual award. The International Committee for the Al-Gaddafi Award for Human Rights awarded its prize for 2008 to former Maltese prime minister Dom Mintoff, the Tripoli Post reported. “In their appreciation of those honourable leaders of the North who have stood by justice and rights and who defended the causes of oppressed peoples, especially in Palestine and Iraq, the International Committee of Al-Qathafi Award for Peace of 2008 is awarded to the European leader and former Prime Minister of Malta,” the committee said… Read More… UN Watch Feature Interview in German Weekly
Die Genfer NGO “UN Watch” kontrolliert seit 1993 die Arbeit der Uno im Hinblick auf Menschenrechtsfragen. Sie ist mit dem Ame rican Jewish Committee assoziiert. Ihr Vorsitzender, der Kanadier Hillel Neuer, tritt regelmäßig vor dem UN-Men schen rechts rat auf. In einer Rede im März 2007 kritisierte er sehr drastisch die Arbeit des Rates, der “die Sprache und Idee der Menschenrechte entstellt und per vertiert” habe…” – Feature interview of H. Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, by Ivo Bozic in “Die Atmosphäre ist totalitär,” Jungle World, Aug. 7, 2008. Read More…
Make your voice heard: visit UN Watch’s new blog and add your comments: http://blog.unwatch.org/. UN Watch RSS Feeds UN Watch is pleased to provide RSS feeds for its content. This feature will keep you up-to-date with UN Watch’s latest press releases, briefings, reports and commentary. You can choose from the different feeds and subscribe to them with your RSS reader. Subscribe. To support the unique and vital work of UN Watch, please contribute here. tel: (41-22) 734-1472 fax: (41-22) 734-1613 Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 27th, 2008 California Presses Its Green Chemistry Initiative. California has undertaken a number of new initiatives in its environmental and product liability laws. One of the most significant is its Green Chemistry Initiative to attempt on a state level to remove or reduce toxic chemicals in products, and to require advance study and disclosure of chemical risks. Introduced by Governor Schwarzenegger in April 2007, the Department of Toxic Substances Control has conducted a series of public workshops, expert panel meetings and electronic solicitations to collect ideas for how to implement the Initiative. These efforts have led to the introduction and recent amendment of Assembly Bill (“AB”) 1879 by our former colleague, Assemblyman Michael Feuer. The proposed legislation would empower DTSC, with the help of a “Green Ribbon” panel, with new statutory authority to adopt regulations by January 1, 2011 to identify and regulate chemicals of concern in consumer products. AB 1879 proposes the creation of a systematic process to evaluate products for green chemistry regulation. The process includes 13 life-cycle criteria to be considered including the product’s manufacturing process, use characteristics, and its waste and end-of-cycle disposal. Based upon that analysis, AB 1879 allows DTSC to adopt a broad variety of regulations that may require: (1) Disclosure of additional information needed to assess a chemical of concern and its potential alternatives, (2) Labeling or other types of consumer product information, (3) Restrictions on the use of the chemical of concern in the consumer product, (4) Prohibition of the use of the chemical of concern in the consumer product, (5) Controlled access to or limited exposure to the chemical of concern in the consumer product, (6) Requiring the manufacturer to manage the product at the end of its useful life, including recycling or responsible disposal of the consumer product, (7) Seeking funding for green chemistry challenge grants where no feasible safer alternative exists, (8) And – in a broadly worded authorization, DTSC would be authorized to seek any other outcome to accomplish the requirements of the law. AB 1879 is joined to a companion bill, Senate Bill (“SB”) 509. SB 509 aims to make more chemical risk information available to the public by directing the DTSC to create a web accessible Toxics Information Clearinghouse of chemicals listing their hazards and toxicological end-point data. Morrison & Foerster is carefully following the Green Chemistry Initiative and participating in the agency process. If you would like more information, please contact Peter Hsiao, the Chair of the firm’s Green Chemistry Group, Bob Falk, or any other member of the Group. *** (1) Disclosure of additional information needed to assess a chemical of concern and its potential alternatives, (2) Labeling or other types of consumer product information, (3) Restrictions on the use of the chemical of concern in the consumer product, (4) Prohibition of the use of the chemical of concern in the consumer product, (5) Controlled access to or limited exposure to the chemical of concern in the consumer product, (6) Requiring the manufacturer to manage the product at the end of its useful life, including recycling or responsible disposal of the consumer product, (7) Seeking funding for green chemistry challenge grants where no feasible safer alternative exists, (8) And – in a broadly worded authorization, DTSC would be authorized to seek any other outcome to accomplish the requirements of the law. AB 1879 is joined to a companion bill, Senate Bill (“SB”) 509. SB 509 aims to make more chemical risk information available to the public by directing the DTSC to create a web accessible Toxics Information Clearinghouse of chemicals listing their hazards and toxicological end-point data. Morrison & Foerster is carefully following the Green Chemistry Initiative and participating in the agency process. If you would like more information, please contact Peter Hsiao, the Chair of the firm’s Green Chemistry Group, Bob Falk, or any other member of the Group. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 25th, 2008 In Ten Years, Russia Has Gone From Bankruptcy to Material Affluence.
The Russia that we see so sure of itself economically as well as militarily and politically no longer has anything to do with the humiliated and financially ruined power of exactly ten years ago to the day. August 17, 1998, the crisis in public finances that had been brewing for months pushed the Russian government to simultaneously devalue the ruble and declare itself in payment default on its Treasury bonds (GKO). An unprecedented double decision that cost international investors 100 billion dollars and Russia’s middle class most of their savings. The local financial system was paralyzed; households sometimes had to resort to barter to survive; shortages in essential products resurfaced while food prices increased two to three times in a few weeks. The ruble’s 80 percent drop reduced even average salaries to an absurd … 60 dollars a month. ***
Today, it’s difficult to hire someone in Moscow for less than a thousand dollars a month. The advance of material affluence hits you in the face and is not limited to nouveaux riches. Russians are renovating their apartments, traveling, increasing consumer loans and have made their country Europe’s premier automobile market. Six to nine percent growth depending on the year, has allowed Russia to rank 13th globally in Gross Domestic Product. The country now enjoys the planet’s third largest foreign exchange reserves and clears the world’s third largest trade surplus. The ruble, which everyone once fled, is freely convertible since July 2006, and has strengthened 60 percent against the dollar in ten years. Finally, this country which in 2000 still struggled to service its public debt - then 150 percent of GDP - is now virtually debt-free (8.5 percent of GDP).
Beyond the short-term boost of the ruble’s devaluation, the Russian authorities conducted a very effective macroeconomic policy. Rejecting Keynesian recovery measures, Moscow established a free market fiscal reform of the flat tax variety that had the immense virtue of prompting the underground economy to regularize itself. In consequence, the ridiculous tax receipts which had forced the government to resort to the GKO which carried the seed of the 1998 crisis, improved spectacularly, to the point that Russia now regularly clears a budget surplus before debt service equal to five percent of GDP. ***
Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher. ——————===============————— Russian Jerks Meet Western Knee-Jerks, writes Steve Weissman for truthout/perspective http://www.truthout.org/article/russian-… The photo shows: Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and US General John Craddock, head of the US European Command, after a press conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, on August 21, 2008. The Russians can be real jerks, but they are not the only ones dragging us into a cold war redo. Blockheads on all sides are bringing back the risk of all-out nuclear conflict, along with a new arms race and the thrusting of American power from the Russian borderlands to wherever we see a Russian proxy. ***
Sarkozy now insists that Russia can implement these extra measures only in the immediate vicinity of the two provinces, while Western media have talked about a “security zone” on the Georgian side of the administrative borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But none of this appears in the written agreement the Russians signed. Even more to the point, the Russians never agreed in the cease-fire to maintain Georgia’s “territorial integrity.” As Sarkozy well knows, they explicitly rejected any such provision and have openly declared they would now support South Ossetia and Abkhazia in seceding from Georgia, just as the United States and most of Europe supported Kosovo in breaking away from Serbia.
*** If democracy and self-determination are the goal, it would be smarter by far to call the Russians on their bluff as “liberators” and propose an internationally supervised referendum to ask the Ossetians and Abkhazians what they want. But, no. The Western Europeans continue to embrace Saakashvili, even as they put off making Georgia (or Ukraine) a full-fledged member of NATO. No one, either in Europe or the United States, wants to go to war to defend Georgia, not even John McCain, whose foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann was a paid lobbyist for the Georgians. But now that the cold war juices are flowing, very few - left or right - seem willing to step away from Saakashvili’s grasp. This is a particular problem for the Democrats, who are beginning their convention in Denver this week. Barack Obama, the presumptive presidential nominee, has called for costly social programs, from universal health care to the creation of new energy sources. But his vice-presidential pick, Joe Biden, has just returned from visiting Georgia as a guest of Saakashvili, and is pushing a $1 billion aid package for the Georgians. And that’s just the first billion. If the United States leads NATO into a new cold war, the costs could be staggering, which will leave very little for “change we can believe in.” So far, I’m fairly pessimistic. Obama seems to have absorbed Biden’s zeal for Saakashvili, and on the question of Georgia most of the Democratic Party now sounds like secondhand McSame. But there’s always hope. If we can believe Mikhail Gorbachev, the Russians do not want a new cold war, and most Americans would clearly prefer health care to warfare. The question is whether American democracy and a new leader committed to change are strong enough for the popular will to prevail. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 22nd, 2008 The following was published on Japan Times online and we think it is either very naive or somewhere partisan and misleading. Is it possible that Russia took positions on Kosovo, so they van prepare the base for their positions on South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Then, what kind of Russians are the people of South Ossetia? Do they really want back under a Russian roof, or actually they would prefer to have their own State for the Ossetians - North and South United? We can only pray that the Japanese readers will be better informed then Mr. Thakur and those that gave him the ACUNS 2008 Award for the best recent book on the United Nations system think. You have to admire the chutzpah of the neocons for their castigation of Russia for attacking another country and emulating, in the Caucasus, NATO’s behavior in the Balkans. Who does Vladimir Putin think he is — U.S. President George W. Bush? If U.N. authorization is not a necessary condition for waging war lawfully and legitimately, then we must accept the resulting international anarchy and the law of the jungle in world affairs. We no longer cede the right to any one state to use massive force within its borders free of external scrutiny or criticism. Claims for reversing the progressive restrictions on the right to interstate armed violence will be met with even more skepticism. To argue that NATO alone has the right to determine whether military intervention, by itself or any other coalition, is justified against others outside the coalition, is a claim to unilateralism and exceptionalism that will never be conceded by the “international community.” The claim that NATO should be set up as the final arbiter of military intervention by itself and every other coalition is breathtakingly arrogant. In justification, Russia has pointed to Georgian complicity in killing thousands of South Ossetians, the fact that many of these are Russian citizens, the responsibility of Russia to protect its nationals, and the responsibility of the international community to protect South Ossetians from genocidal attacks by Georgia. Moscow is wrong to invoke the norm in this case, but no more so than the Americans and British were wrong in Iraq five years ago. Both actions prove the risks of unilateral interpretations and actions and the wisdom of channeling action through the U.N. Otherwise, the only certain end result is vigilante justice, which is no justice at all. The U.N. Charter encapsulates the international moral code and best-practice international behavior. The urge to “humanitarian intervention” by powerful states, coalitions of the willing or regional organizations outside their own area of operations must be bridled by the legitimizing authority of the U.N. as our only available international organization for this purpose. The second problem is the opposite one — of behaving as if geopolitics and realism belong on history’s shelf and have no relevance or applicability anymore. As Henry Kissinger is reported to have said after the Argentine invasion of the Falklands that roused the slumbering British lion into action to retake the islands by force, “a great power does not retreat forever.” The end of the Cold War saw a very rare phenomenon in human history. Russia acknowledged its defeat and the new world order that came out of it. But instead of demonstrating grace in victory and some sensitivity to Russia’s legitimate fears, interests and national dignity, the West has repeatedly rubbed Russian noses in the dirt of their historic Cold War defeat. Kosovo was detached from Russia’s Serbian ally and its declaration of independence readily recognized earlier this year. Instead of being dismantled with victory in the Cold War, NATO, an alliance in search of a role and mission, has progressively expanded its borders and reach steadily closer to Russia, slowly but surely encroaching on some areas that are part and parcel of Russian historical soul and identity. Great powers have core vital interests that they will defend. Repeated warnings from Russia of red lines that must not be crossed were serially dismissed as the angry growls of a Russian bear in deep and permanent hibernation. Russia has been encircled by Western bases, missiles and allies, while alternately taunted, ignored and dismissed. Champion chess players that they are, the Russians bided their time before checkmating the West brutally but brilliantly in South Ossetia and firing a warning shot across the bows of other former parts of the now forgotten Soviet empire. No two situations are exactly alike. Still, much as most Westerners dismiss any analogy between Russia’s actions to pry South Ossetia and Abkhazia away from Georgia and NATO actions to detach Kosovo from Serbia, most others do accept the basic parallel. Those who wish to back rebel movements and internationalize a crisis by intervening militarily had better be prepared for payback time in other places and conflicts. And for the moral hazards to come home to roost. The wreckage of Georgia’s towns and countryside proclaim the ruins of the Bush administration’s foreign policy that has so recklessly squandered the hard won fruits of the Cold War in terms of both moral authority and geopolitical gains. Ramesh Thakur is distinguished fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Canada. His book “The United Nations, Peace and Security” recently won the ACUNS 2008 Award for the best recent book on the United Nations system. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 22nd, 2008 The Supreme Court In Brazil Setting an Important Precedent for Indigenous Lands. http://www.truthout.org/article/setting-… Boa Vista, Roraima, Brazil - An imminent decision by Brazil’s Supreme Court on the demarcation of the Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous reservation in the Amazon jungle region has the country’s native communities on edge, because of the precedent it will set. Raposa Serra do Sol is in the Amazon jungle state of Roraima at the northwestern tip of Brazil, a land of water and abundance. The 1.7 million hectare reserve was officially demarcated by the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2005, after judicial appeals and debates that dragged on for nearly two decades. The decision was based on the principles laid down in the 1988 constitution. In March, the Lula administration sent in the federal police to evict a group of rice farmers who have refused to leave the land they are farming. The landowners responded with violence, and 10 indigenous people were injured. “They began to shoot at us, they threw bombs and we started to leave. I was hurt on one of my legs, my back and my head,” says a young Macuxi Indian. Santinha Da Silva was also there that day, with her three children. “I’m not going to say I’m not afraid,” she says. “I am scared, but I’m going to confront them. If they want to kill me, then they can do that, as long as they leave the land to my children.” Two weeks after the start of the police operation, the Supreme Court not only called it off, but also accepted a legal challenge which, in the case of a favourable decision, would allow the rice farmers to continue occupying portions of the indigenous territory, setting a dangerous precedent. No rice farmer has paid the fines owed for environmental damages, and none are in jail for the attacks on the local indigenous residents. James Anaya, the recently appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people, is currently visiting Raposa Serra do Sol to assess the situation there. Orlando Pérez Da Silva, “tuxaua” (chief) of the village of Uiramutá, exemplifies that tragic history with his own life. “The non-Indians arrived and invaded our land. They started to hire us on their haciendas. But when an Indian would ask for his wages, he would get a beating and would be thrown out,” he recalls. Da Silva spent six years as a slave: “We were enslaved. To buy a hammock we had to work for an entire month.” One of the organisations helping to coordinate the struggles of indigenous people, the Commission of Indigenous Organisations of the Brazilian Amazon, is presided over by a member of the Sateré-Maué community, Gecinaldo Barbosa, who says the problem goes beyond Brazil’s borders. “Amazonia is in Brazil, but the problem is a global one, of concern to anyone who defends life,” he argues. The pressure of agribusiness and large-scale agriculture on indigenous lands has intensified as a result of the “biofuels revolution” and the need to produce feed for the world’s livestock, says Barbosa. Beto Ricardo, coordinator of the non-governmental Socioenvironmental Institute of Brazil (ISA), says the Lula administration is an economic development-oriented government immersed in a “certain climate of economic euphoria.” “The pressure on indigenous people is multifold,” says Ricardo. “It doesn’t only come from agribusiness, but also from public works like roads, hydroelectric plants or dikes.” For Nilva Barauna, superintendent of the Brazilian Institute of the Environment (IBAMA) in Roraima, Raposa Serra do Sol is “the last agricultural frontier, on which agribusiness has its sights.” But the superintendent of IBAMA says the rice farms actually offer little to the local residents, because “most of the work is mechanised,” the plantations don’t create jobs and don’t pay taxes, and the benefits are concentrated in just a few hands. According to Ricardo, the head of ISA, “indigenous lands will not survive unless there is an ecological and economic realignment of the country and of Amazonia.” As a metaphor for what is happening, he says “Brazil is the only country named after an (almost) extinct tree” - the Brazilwood (Caesalpinia echinata) tree, whose wood provided a highly prized red dye. The species is now on the verge of extinction. In the indigenous world view, there are no borders, or bureaucracy or a concept of private, individual ownership of land. Indigenous people in Brazil are fighting to defend their own model of development at a time when nature “is rebelling against the world,” as native leaders said. |