The following was published in the Independent on Sunday.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/this-is-no-time-for-the-un-to-abandon-darfur-10334281.html
As Sudan’s president Omar Al Bashir flew out of South Africa on Monday, contrails of the country’s shame left an indelible trace in his wake.
Despite Al Bashir being issued with two arrest warrants by the ICC for crimes against humanity and genocide, South Africa offered him immunity to attend an African Union (AU) conference in Johannesburg last week-end.
As a signatory to the Rome Treaty, South Africa had a duty to arrest Bashir and hand him over to the ICC to face trial. A local NGO secured a court order preventing Bashir from leaving the country but while the court sat to decide Bashir’s fate, the fugitive surreptitiously fled the country.
The world once stood with ordinary South Africans in their struggle against state oppression and brutality. Yet, when their fellow Africans in Sudan cry out in tortured anguish, broken by the serial rape of children, serial murder and starvation of civilians, they are serially, cruelly ignored. By allowing Al Bashir to escape prosecution, the African National Congress (ANC), whose founding principle was “to bring all ordinary Africans together as one people to defend their rights and freedoms”, betrayed African victims of genocide.
The ICC depends on member nations to enforce arrest warrants. Having evaded arrest for 6 years, the court appealed to the UN Security Council, which does have enforcement powers. The ICC has said that the Security Council’s failure to authorize any penalties against the Sudanese regime for non compliance with the arrest warrant, is preventing it from fulfilling its mandate of ending impunity.
In November, the Independent reported on the mass rape of 200 girls and women in the village of Tabit and called on the UN to conduct an independent investigation. It did not. Instead, Human Rights Watch produced a report in February publishing findings which unequivocally impugned government sponsored forces for these rapes. Eight months on and the victims have still not received any support or counselling, the villagers live in fear and in conditions they describe as “an open prison”.
Ten months ago the UN waved through a resolution which potentially paves the way for the withdrawal, or significant reduction, of UNAMID troops in the region. The force has already been reduced, with a mere 15,000 troops responsible for a region the size of France. In February UNAMID and UN officials began meeting to discuss the Darfur exit strategy.
In May, Ban Ki-Moon recommended that the Security Council re-authorise UNAMID’s mandate as it is. A Sudanese official I spoke to said he was not reassured. He is fearful that UNAMID will either be reduced or pulled out when it comes to the Security Council vote on 30th June. A UN spokesperson told me that conditions on the ground did not merit a change in UNAMID’s mandate but confirmed that, “Discussions about an exit strategy are ongoing”. He indicated that the emphasis was more on “streamlining” numbers rather than “pulling out”. A report issued by Ban Ki-Moon on 26 May announced that 790 posts had been abolished.
At an informal meeting of the Security Council on Friday, two Darfur activists spoke of deteriorating security in the region and made a heartfelt plea for members to take tougher action to stop the bloodshed. Afterwards, US Ambassador Samantha Power said. "Now is not the time to abandon the people of Darfur." She also called for sanctions and arms embargoes to be enforced.
More than 3 million civilians in the region have been forced into refugee camps, almost 500,000 of whom were displaced in the last year. International Sudan expert, Eric Reeves, estimates that mortality rates in this region alone could be in the region of half a million. UNAMID is clearly failing in its duty to protect civilians but the answer is not to withdraw. Its’ presence has allowed at least some NGOs to operate in the region. If UNAMID goes or is further reduced, the last remaining lifeline will be severed. Bashir will be free to accelerate, unfettered, his genocidal campaign.
Never before in the history of declaring a genocide has the institution then officially left the perpetrator, indicted by The Hague for genocide, in charge of the victims’ safety. It’s like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. Surrendering Bashir to the ICC should be a condition of UNAMID’s withdrawal.
Fortunately, there is some hope on the horizon, in the form of the UK’s incoming UN Ambassador, Matthew Rycroft. He has publicly stated that, “Now is not the time to withdraw troops from Darfur”, urging instead to re-configure UNAMID to focus on its core mandate, that of protecting civilians. Could Rycroft be the person history credits with bringing the Darfur genocide to an end? God knows there’s a situation vacant.
Sunday 21 June 2015
Wednesday 10 June 2015
TTIP is a Corporate Trojan Horse & it's Rolling Our Way
This was published in today's Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/ttip-heres-why-meps-have-been-protesting-it-and-why-you-should-too-10313239.html
A vote on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in the European parliament was postponed today, sparking protest amongst a large number of anti TTIP MEPs. Earlier in the week, protesters gathered in Bavaria (despite aggressive police tactics) to protest against the G7 proposal to hand yet more powers to corporations at the expense of citizens. This is what TTIP would do and, despite over 2 million Europeans signing a petition to stop it, the G7 leaders have announced their intention to forge ahead with it anyway.
In the quest for profit at any cost, corporations strive for two things, new markets and deregulation. In reality, regulation is what keeps corporations, some of whom are richer and more powerful than countries, in check. The move in the US and the UK to deregulate financial markets was one of the main causal factors of the global financial crash. Regulation, however inconvenient to big businesses, has a crucial role in democracy and economic stability. It provides safeguards against exploitation and protects hard earned rights of the most vulnerable in society.
Critics are particularly concerned about the investor protection clause, known as ISDS. This allows corporations to sue governments for terminating a contract. A US health care provider, for example, could secure a contract to run an NHS hospital, however they want, irrespective of UK laws. If the public objected and the government intervened, they could be sued for the company’s loss of earnings. Running the hospital on the cheap will make more profit but cost more lives. Under TTIP, it’s the profit, not safety, that matters. There are legitimate concerns that this deal could make NHS privatisation irreversible.
It would allow US behemoths such as Monsanto, to put Independent farmers in many developing countries out of business. They cannot afford GM technology and would lose out to the bigger landowners. Eventually corporations like Monsanto will control all food production in these countries and wield far more power and control than is healthy.
MEP Yannick Jadot described ISDS as “a way of privatising justice to the detriment of our citizens". It puts companies above the law and justice system of the country in which they operate.
Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland who are in trade agreements which include this kind of investor-state relationship have been sued 127 times and lost the equivalent money that could have employed 300,000 nurses for a year. The government of Ecuador has just had to pay $2.3bn to Occidental Oil over its lawful termination of an oil concession. A Swedish energy company is using an ISDS clause in an energy treaty to sue the German government for €3.7bn following its decision to close its nuclear power stations in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Last month it was reported that the EU scrapped planned pesticide regulations under pressure from US officials citing TTIP. According to documents obtained by the Pesticides Action Network Europe, a visit from senior US officials to Europe in July 2013 resulted in the EU dropping planned regulations that could have led to the banning of 31 pesticides containing hazardous chemicals. The proposed regulations related to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which have been linked to cancer and male infertility. The health costs emerging from these toxic chemicals has been estimated at €150bn per year.
How will governments and MEPs justify this to their citizens? They don’t have to. Why consult with the public when the decision has already been made. In secret. The sheer lack of transparency surrounding the negotiations of TTIP alone should raise alarm bells. Key components of the negotiations are reportedly subject to a 30-year embargo on disclosure. How can that be possible in a supposedly democratic union? What is so incendiary that cannot be shared with the people on whom it will have the most impact, the public?
MEP Molly Scott Cato attempted to find out. In order to access the top secret TTIP negotiation files she had to sign a gagging clause which prohibits her from disclosing any of the information she unveiled. Something that is in the public domain however, is that 92% of those involved in the consultations have been corporate lobbyists. Of the 560 lobby encounters that the European commission had, 520 were with business lobbyists and only 26 were with public interest groups.
It isn’t just that TTIP allows for further exploitation of citizens by corporations. The process itself, shrouded in secrecy, is sinister and undemocratic. The electorate has a right to understand, scrutinize and obstruct laws that threaten to undermine national sovereignty and erode the meagre citizen protection that remain in a world where governments increasingly dance to the omnipotent corporate tune.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/ttip-heres-why-meps-have-been-protesting-it-and-why-you-should-too-10313239.html
A vote on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in the European parliament was postponed today, sparking protest amongst a large number of anti TTIP MEPs. Earlier in the week, protesters gathered in Bavaria (despite aggressive police tactics) to protest against the G7 proposal to hand yet more powers to corporations at the expense of citizens. This is what TTIP would do and, despite over 2 million Europeans signing a petition to stop it, the G7 leaders have announced their intention to forge ahead with it anyway.
In the quest for profit at any cost, corporations strive for two things, new markets and deregulation. In reality, regulation is what keeps corporations, some of whom are richer and more powerful than countries, in check. The move in the US and the UK to deregulate financial markets was one of the main causal factors of the global financial crash. Regulation, however inconvenient to big businesses, has a crucial role in democracy and economic stability. It provides safeguards against exploitation and protects hard earned rights of the most vulnerable in society.
Critics are particularly concerned about the investor protection clause, known as ISDS. This allows corporations to sue governments for terminating a contract. A US health care provider, for example, could secure a contract to run an NHS hospital, however they want, irrespective of UK laws. If the public objected and the government intervened, they could be sued for the company’s loss of earnings. Running the hospital on the cheap will make more profit but cost more lives. Under TTIP, it’s the profit, not safety, that matters. There are legitimate concerns that this deal could make NHS privatisation irreversible.
It would allow US behemoths such as Monsanto, to put Independent farmers in many developing countries out of business. They cannot afford GM technology and would lose out to the bigger landowners. Eventually corporations like Monsanto will control all food production in these countries and wield far more power and control than is healthy.
MEP Yannick Jadot described ISDS as “a way of privatising justice to the detriment of our citizens". It puts companies above the law and justice system of the country in which they operate.
Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland who are in trade agreements which include this kind of investor-state relationship have been sued 127 times and lost the equivalent money that could have employed 300,000 nurses for a year. The government of Ecuador has just had to pay $2.3bn to Occidental Oil over its lawful termination of an oil concession. A Swedish energy company is using an ISDS clause in an energy treaty to sue the German government for €3.7bn following its decision to close its nuclear power stations in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Last month it was reported that the EU scrapped planned pesticide regulations under pressure from US officials citing TTIP. According to documents obtained by the Pesticides Action Network Europe, a visit from senior US officials to Europe in July 2013 resulted in the EU dropping planned regulations that could have led to the banning of 31 pesticides containing hazardous chemicals. The proposed regulations related to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which have been linked to cancer and male infertility. The health costs emerging from these toxic chemicals has been estimated at €150bn per year.
How will governments and MEPs justify this to their citizens? They don’t have to. Why consult with the public when the decision has already been made. In secret. The sheer lack of transparency surrounding the negotiations of TTIP alone should raise alarm bells. Key components of the negotiations are reportedly subject to a 30-year embargo on disclosure. How can that be possible in a supposedly democratic union? What is so incendiary that cannot be shared with the people on whom it will have the most impact, the public?
MEP Molly Scott Cato attempted to find out. In order to access the top secret TTIP negotiation files she had to sign a gagging clause which prohibits her from disclosing any of the information she unveiled. Something that is in the public domain however, is that 92% of those involved in the consultations have been corporate lobbyists. Of the 560 lobby encounters that the European commission had, 520 were with business lobbyists and only 26 were with public interest groups.
It isn’t just that TTIP allows for further exploitation of citizens by corporations. The process itself, shrouded in secrecy, is sinister and undemocratic. The electorate has a right to understand, scrutinize and obstruct laws that threaten to undermine national sovereignty and erode the meagre citizen protection that remain in a world where governments increasingly dance to the omnipotent corporate tune.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)