Prevention works!

LONDON, UK: Once again all eyes seem to be on Britain, concerned emails come from America and Africa and the column inches and TV news fills to the brim with terror plots.

Leaving aside my cynicism for a moment about the media, this episode makes an important point. In NGO circles when conflict prevention is always valued, someone normally points out that governments don't like to invest in prevention because 'you don't get any credit for preventing a war/genocide'. Surely, then, '10/8: foiled' is the exception that spectactularly proves the rule. And again, while I try and put aside my concerns about the arrests of men mainly younger than myself, there's no doubt that if indeed major loss of life has been avoided then the international intelligence services must be applauded for protecting us. It shows the value of intelligence for prevention of violence and the wide value of investing in nonviolent prevention of violent conflict. If the world's media were only so concerned about the thousands of African deaths through armed conflict then perhaps Responsibility to Protect would start getting somewhere.

For me, one of the most intelligent police actions is bringing sniffer dogs into London. After the bombings last year, police with huge guns were bought in to 'reassure' the public, but after the shooting of the Brazilian Menezes it was found that this wasn't very reassuring, especially if you were male, young and dark skinned, but in fact also if you were simply carrying a backpack (as a sidenote, single females are considered as much of a security risk by some security experts since the blowing up of an El Al plane by a young Irish woman who did not know her boyfriend had planted the bombs in her luggage). They also found that a machine gun generally doesn't generally have the heightened sense of smell of a spaniel. The smiling, wagging dogs transform the atmosphere of tension at Euston by being friendly and calming presences as well as reassuring those of us using the trains every day. It's a peaceful, imaginative action.

OK, just one little note of cynicism about the blanket media coverage of these plots. It's August. There is no other news. Well, unless you count the Middle East, those DRC elections, two people blown up in Iraq, peace activists being arrested by the dozen for mischief-making up at Prestwick and, hang on, more than a million people being evacuated and 104 dead in China. Never heard that on the breakfast news while they were listing what you could take on a plane. I could go on, but won't.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

For all our sakes, CEASEFIRE

NEW YORK, USA: Yesterday, Amnesty members and supporters held silent vigils worldwide asking for a ceasefire in Israel and Lebanon. We had about 60 simulateneous vigils in cities all across the United States alone joining together to simply stand with the victims on both sides of the Israel/Lebanese conflict. Our message was:
1) Call for a ceasefire
2) Demand that all governments stop the supply of arms to the conflict
3) Stand in solidarity with victims and survivors on both sides of the Israel Lebanon conflict

Click the link below to see a video of our DC vigil, covered by The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2006/08/08/VI2006080800291.html

I attended one that one of my colleagues organized in front of Penn Station, one of the busiest intersections in Manhattan during rush hour. I have to admit I was a bit unprepared, unlike my Executive Director who donned his Amnesty t-shirt for the event (he usually wears a button-down shirt and tie). But the important thing was that I got out there - I passed out "Urgent Action" flyers asking people to write to the US govt, Israeli govt and Hizbullah and held a big homemade poster that said "STOP the sale of arms" and "CEASEFIRE".

Standing still and silent in a big, loud intersection in a huge city like NY during evening rush hour gives you an interesting perspective of the world:

First, it made me re-realize how silly it is how important we all think our own lives and schedules are, rushing around to get to our destination, totally disconnected from the rest of the world. We plug into iPods earphones or bury our noses in our train reading. I confess, I am one of the biggest offenders of this horrible habit of residents in capitalist, industrialized society. There is just so much information to consume, and in that process, you get disconnected from what the heck you are actually reading or hearing about. Ironic I've spent hours of my life reading about and listening about the Lebanon crisis, but haven't had time to actually do anything about it until Mon night!

The other thing I re-gained an appreciation for is how difficult it exactly is to change the world. Changing the world starts with changing someone's mind - and if you think it's difficult to change President Bush's mind, try a busy New Yorker's! When trying to hand out flyers, the negative reactions I received ranged from annoyance and utter disinterest to anger while the positive reactions included people signing petitions, asking for more copies of our flyers, and thanking us for holding the event. Some people smiled and others looked at me like I was dirt. My biggest frustration was that I only had less than 1 second to make an impression on them; and usually their reaction is dictated by what they already believe, not of the merit of our argument.

It made me really appreciate all of the people who go out to protest what they believe in, sign petitions and write letters. It takes a lot of effort, energy and courage and it DOES make a difference. Even though the prognosis for a ceasefire in the Middle East is grim, I can at least be proud of the fact that we are doing our best to advocate for victims of human rights violations. And that was enough, at least for yesterday.

Common Apathy

MIAMI, USA:In 1915 the Ottoman empire from Turkey wanted to get rid of it's Armenian problem by any means nessarary. That what resulted in the torture, starvation, and murder of over a million Armenians. Despite from the pleas of U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman empire, Henry Morgenthau Sr,to take action, the U.S wanted to keep up with it's friendly ties with Turkey, even if people were being murder. This would be one of the many cases of genocide(the word was yet to be created)and the U.S along with the international community, would simply not be able to stop the mass kilings of a specific race. But why is the international community apathetic to genocide? There are many reasons why no international body would even utter a peep of protest to a goverment that is commiting crimes againest humanity.

A young Polish scholar named Raphael Lemkin was apalled from the Armanian genocide. Why was a crime like this not punished by internation law? For years he researched about this and finally in 1943, he came up with took the root words genos (Greek for family, tribe or race) and -cide (Latin - occidere or cideo - to massacre) to create the word genocide. In the original adoption of the Geneva convections, Lemikin explaines the defenition:

"Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups."

Finally in 1948, the United Nation adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide making it a crime under international law. But it wasn't untill 1988 when the U.S sighed the treaty.

The mass murder of Jews by the Nazis during World War 2 was ignored by the U.S. due largely in fact because it didn't want to deal with another problem from Germany, despite reports of Death Camps. In Cambodia Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge killed up to 2 million Cambodians through 1975-1979. With this coming after Vietnam and the fact that that the regiem had a seat at the U.N, nothing was done. The Iraqi Kurds were gased buy the thousands in 1988. The U.S had ties with Iraq up untill the invation of Kuwait. In Bosnia Serbs tortute and killed Non Serbs over an estimated seven to eight thousand men and boys during 1992-1995 which of course the U.S. was slow to respond. Rwanda in 1994 faced a horrific genocide that killed over eight hundred thousand Tutsi by Hutu extermist in just one hundred days. This time the U.S. and the U.N. did know what was happening but did nothing to stop the killings. The Kosovo Albanians in 1999 were killed by Serb security forces. According to The New York Times "On April 19, the State Department said that up to 500,000 Kosovar Albanians were missing and feared dead."

One or the many reasons why the world is leary to responding to genocide is Self Interest. If there is no economic vaule to a country where genocide is being commited, then why bother? Another reason is not starting a big huge war with a country that has good relations just because that goverment is killing it's own people. With the current genocide in Sudan's Darfur region, there are American companies who have deals with Sudan because of oil and China a permanent member of the Security Council, has relations with the Sudanese president, whom is accused of conducting the genocide that are killing more than four hundred thousand Sudanese.

It is no surprise that genocide rages on.

Melanie and Joseph's Internship in Kigali

We are in the midst of preparing for our internship. Clare has been such an immense help! Currently, we are in the process of putting the final touches on our fundraising letters and are optimistically looking forward to an enthusiastic response. We have been already rewarded by the response that has been given by our friends and colleagues to our internship.

One of the first steps on our journey was to get our passport photo taken and have that stamped by the photo shop and signed by the doctor. This morning, we both had our first Twinrix shots, which is a combined hepatitis A and hepatitis B vaccine. The vaccine is administered in 3 doses, so we are looking forward to getting our second dose in another month. Note that vaccines really should be budgeted for because just this one costs $176.59 a pop! (and that's not counting the $18 doctor administration fee). Really, to anyone who is concerned about needles, it barely hurts at all - and this is coming from someone without a high pain threshold. This week, we will be visiting a travel clinic to get all of our other vaccinations up to date. Hopefully, by Monday, we'll have the official go ahead to begin fundraising.

Albert in New York

Our Rwandan director, Albert Nzamukwereka, landed in New York last weekend to spend three months as a guest of the International Center for Tolerance Education. You can read his very first impressions of the city at his blog which he has promised to keep updated.

We're very excited that Albert has had this opportunity. It is the first time that a Never Again volunteer has been able to work full time in a fully supported environment and the New York Never Again chapter are fully geared up to make sure he gets the most from the trip: meeting NGOs, networking, talking to schools as well of course as enjoying New York's vibrant social scene and food!

Bombings in Lebanon... one member's reflection

I have only begun to recover from the initial shock of the fact that these bombings are going on in the last couple of days. The first day it started happening last week, I woke up at my usual time to get ready for work and turned on National Public Radio (NPR) which was playing BBC World News Radio reporting on the bombings. The first thought I had was "Heddy, wake up!" because surely, I thought it could only be a dream. Surely, all this political broo-ha-ha over the captured Israeli soldiers did not warrant killing of innocent lives. It was almost the same eery feeling I had when I was listening to NPR the morning that the September 11th attacks happened right here where I live. Being in NYC, obviously my life is not in danger or anything; nevertheless what's going on makes me incredibly sad and my heart goes out to all the Lebanese, especially those living in Beirut, and everyone in the MidEast that these bombings are going to cause further pain and heartache for... it just seems so senseless. Having worked on human rights violations and genocide issues for 5+ years, you think one would be able to adapt and get de-sensitized but I've never found that to be true in my case. I wonder sometimes whether that's a good or bad thing...

Although Amnesty (where I work) has put out statements and are conducting advocacy around this issue - I can't help but feel powerless to do anything to help, even being a part of an organization like Never Again. We've mostly been internally focused for awhile, or at least from where I sit. Marian and I have been talking about the need for us to internally equip ourselves to better respond to emergencies like Darfur and these bombings in Lebanon. Yes, we are doing a wonderful job given the time and resources we have, but it still doesn't let us off the hook in terms of responding to the needs of the world. How to accomplish all of this without letting the urgent and important tasks (like stopping violence in Darfur immediately) not crowd out the less urgent yet still important tasks (like post-conflict peacebuilding in Rwanda). More questions than answers these days, but at least beginning to search is part of the solution...

For the non-BBC, non-CNN version of things, read here: http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/168619.php

Sorry if this post was not what folks were looking for... I just can't do the clinical, political, emotionally detached analysis right now with people dying and continuing to live under threat.