From 23 to 29 January the “policentric” World Social Forum (WSF) was held in Caracas in Venezuela, the country of president Hugo Chavez's “Bolivarian Revolution”. No surprise then that the WSF received organisational and financial support from Venezuelan state institutions -- almost all ministries and the Metropolitan police, plus the nationalised state oil company PDVSA -- and that Chavez addressed the forum, and used it for one of his usual anti-imperialist speeches.
However, not…
PN How are Habiba International Women and Youth Affairs struggling for women's rights?
HI By building Somali women's capacity to know and understand their human as well as legal rights, thereby promoting their self-determination and effective involvement in community affairs.
By awakening, stimulating and empowering the Somali women to systematically and effectively assert, claim and defend their legal and human rights and address, monitor and effectively respond to abuses and…
Passengers hurrying into the main check-in at Edinburgh International Airport on August 22nd were greeted by an unusual sight. A massive banner proclaimed: “MEXICO... Sun… Fun… bloomin’ nice beaches…”, alongside a painting of a palm tree. A somewhat eccentric Mexican tourist board initiative perhaps?
Not exactly. “Torture… Death squads… Human Rights Breaches…” continued the lower half of the banner, with a carefully painted AK47 illustrating the point.
Demonstrators from…
Since the Colombia Project was set up 11 years ago, Peace Brigades International has maintained a continuous presence in the regions most affected by the armed conflicts in Colombia.
PBI's aim has been the protection of internally displaced people and of human rights in general. In order to accomplish these aims, the project uses various different working strands. Some of its main “forces” are the presence of observers/international accompaniers, as well as the provision of mental…
Soraya began her human rights work when she became a lawyer in 1986 -- a period which she describes as “a very hard time in Colombian history; it was a time when political assassinations and massacres of a great part of the people's social movement of Colombia were on the rise”.
The collective has been protected by Peace Brigades International (PBI) volunteers, as Soraya and her colleagues suffer threats and intimidation on a daily basis from Colombia's security and paramilitary…
In early October, Colombian conscientious objector Juan Carlos Montoya Munera was forcefully recruited by the Colombian military in the city of Antioquia, and taken to the barracks of the Batallon Bombona Coronel Diaz, where he is being forced to perform military service.
During the same week the Colombian military forcefully recruited a number of youths in the cities of Medellin and Antioquia, also taking conscientious objectors. On 10 October Alejandro Piedrahita, a conscientious…
The XVII Brigade of the Colombian Army - the brigade responsible for the killing of eight members of the peace community of San Jose' in February and another leader in November - will not receive US military aid next year, or at least not officially.
The US State Department notes an improvement in the human rights record of various units of the Colombian Army, but the XVII Brigade will receive no aid until it has satisfactorily responded to the complaints about its actions concerning…
The settlement that was once at the centre of the peace community of San Jose' de Apartado' is now occupied by police, soldiers and paramilitaries.
However, 15 minutes walk away, the peace community lives. San Josesito de la Dignidad - a new settlement with some 40 wooden houses and around 350 people - has been built up since April as its new centre.
Maintaining daily lifeTimes have become even tougher since the February massacre. Fire-fights between state forces and the FARC…
On 12 October people gathered outside the Colombian embassy in London to protest in support of the strike in Colombia.
The General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), Jeremy Dear, as well as other senior trade unionists and representatives of Justice for Colombia, handed a letter to the acting Colombian Ambassador Cesar Castro to demand that the rights of peaceful protesters in Colombia on the day of the strike be respected and that the security forces not use…
We are all older women here [at Brukman, an occupied textile factory], almost all of us are over 40, and our only source of employment is this factory. What we know how to do is work with the machines that are inside.
Because of this whole experience I have now begun to wonder why the worker always has to keep quiet? The boss doesn't pay you, the boss owes you money, and you're the one that has to leave, to hang your head and go.
Well, we made the decision that we weren't going…
PN: Tell us a bit about yourself, what kind of work you do and what your focus is - in terms of the reports or opinion pieces you write.
BS: I am a full-time journalist with a visual arts background, but over the last decade the painting has been sidelined bymy professional involvement with journalism - as well as activism in human rights issues, which includes, of course, women's issues and peace issues - and, for the past couple of years, television documentary. (I did an…
PN: What is your background in relation to Darfur?
ADW: I travelled extensively in Darfur when I first went as a PhD student in 1985. I wrote my first book on famine in Darfur. Subsequently I've spent almost all of the last 22 years working on the Horn of Africa.
PN: What are the origins of the Darfur crisis?
ADW: The underlying factors are the economic and political marginalisation of Darfur, including both Arabs and non-Arabs. Darfur…
The El Sueno Existe music festival is held from 11-13 August in Machynlleth in the beautiful Dyfi valley. It is a vibrant fusion of Welsh and Latin American music, dance, poetry, film and political discussion, taking inspiration from Victor Jara, the Chilean theatre director and singer-songwriter who has become a symbol of the struggle for human rights and justice across Latin America.
This year, the festival will feature workshops and talks from on the theme Latin America rising: “…
In a meeting of the UN security council in May, Nicaragua’s UN ambassador said that the UN charter does not include any reference to the right of humanitarian intervention, but considers the respect of sovereignty to be paramount. She wondered how civilians will be protected by bombing them. She also asked where the determination of the security council was when it came to protecting the heroic, victimised Palestinian population.
Palestine is a useful way to look at how Latin America…
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is ready to enter negotiations over his country’s nuclear weapons without any preconditions, announced former US president Jimmy Carter after a three-day visit to Pyongyang at the end of April. “The sticking point, and it’s a big one, is that they won’t give up their nuclear programme without some kind of security guarantee from the US,” wrote Carter, who was accompanied by three fellow “Elders”: former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari; former prime…
