Africa

By Herve Verhoosel
GENEVA, Mar 13 2019 (IPS)

The bell rings and the halls erupt with the sounds of chatter and excitement as hundreds of children run to the dusty courtyard for recess. I joined them to play football but the game instead turned into a round of questions.

“What is your name? Do you speak Arabic? Where are you from? Do you support Barcelona or Madrid? Or Manchester? Do you play PokemonGo?”

Where am I from? I’m from Belgium. But I know that if I asked this question to some of these children, their response wouldn’t be so simple.

This Friday marks the ninth anniversary of the start of the Syria crisis and, with an average age of around 9, many of the refugee children I spoke to would have a very limited recollection of life in their home country. Some would have no memory at all of their homeland.

Herve Verhoosel

“I have 693 kids in the morning and 836 in the afternoon” said M. Samia, Director of Abra intermediate school in the governorate of Saida, southern Lebanon. Samia and his team explained that, in Lebanon, the schools have a first session in the morning for Lebanese children, and a second session in the afternoon for Syrian refugees.

“We’re very proud to be one of the schools working with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Ministry of Education for the school snacks programme,” he said.

Each day, the children receive a healthy snack such as nuts or fruit and some milk. Overall, WFP’s school feeding programme reached nearly 1.5 million children across Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt last year.

For most of us, it is difficult to understand what it must feel like to be uprooted by conflict. To flee bullets and bombs and leave behind a life, a house, a job, a family, friends, school….

It is estimated that more than 11 million Syrians have left their homes since the beginning of the conflict. Some of them have fled to Europe but many of them – more than 5.6 million – are registered with the UN in what is called the Syria + 5 region, which includes Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt. More than 6 million people remain internally displaced within Syria.

The Syrian conflict continues to drive the largest refugee crisis in the world, and WFP and partners are committed to supporting them in whichever countries they find themselves.

Within Syria, WFP feeds 3.5 million people every month. In the +5 countries, WFP assists 3.3 million Syrian refugees with a combination of food assistance and cash-based transfers.

Most of the refugees in neighbouring countries do not live in formal refugee camps. Instead, they are interspersed throughout towns and cities. Cash-based transfers, which enable them to make choices about what they eat, have injected more than US $2 billion dollars into the local economies of Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and Syria since 2012.

In Turkey – which hosts over 3.7 million Syrian refugees – WFP and partners support refugee families living outside camps with a debit card loaded with cash each month. This is known as the Emergency Social Safety Net or ESSN programme.

The ESSN has reduced by half the number of refugee parents withdrawing their children from school – and it has also led to many fewer parents cutting meals so their children can eat.

After nearly eight years, many Syrian refugees wish to return home and end the cycle of navigating unfamiliar lands, languages, and cultures. In these cases, any return or relocation must be voluntary, safe, dignified and well-informed and in line with minimum protection standards.

For those who do want to go home, most have no houses or jobs to return to – nor do most of them have the means to feed or educate their children.

Syrians returning to their country and communities need support – and they need to work. Unemployment is running at 50 percent overall and is as high as 80 percent among young people.

WFP is helping Syrians produce their own food and generate incomes in areas that are secure where markets are functioning. More, however, needs to be done. The economy needs to be rebuilt.

In the meantime, we need to maintain the vital lifeline of food assistance on which millions of vulnerable Syrians depend. For this to happen, WFP needs an additional US$116 million from now until June 2019.

As for my friends at Abra intermediate school, I hope that they can continue their education so that one day they may realize their potential. I hope they can overcome the all the suffering they have experienced.

I hope that someday soon they can get to know their country so in the future, if someone asks where they are from, they can give a ready answer.

*The third Brussels conference is currently underway, through March 14, on ‘Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region’ , and the 9thanniversary of the Syrian conflict falls on Friday, March 15th.

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Excerpt:

Herve Verhoosel is Senior Spokesperson UN World Food Programme*

The post Syrian Crisis Enters Ninth Year with 11 Million Refugees Overseas & 6 Million Home appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Kobby Blay.

By Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah and Shari Ankomah Graham
ACCRA, Mar 13 2019 (IPS)

On Saturday 9th March, a small group of activists from Ghana, concerned by the continued incarceration of Ugandan feminist activist Dr Stella Nyanzi, rallied by the symbolic national independence Square to raise awareness on the dangers of remaining quiet to injustice.

Despite living in an era of whistleblowers and pushing to hold our leaders accountable, there has been very little continental efforts to defend the freedom and liberty of activists and human rights defenders from other African countries.

Onlookers appeared puzzled by the “Free Stella! Free Uganda” and “People Power! Our Power” chanted throughout the 30-minute walk from the square to Ghana’s National Theater. Ghanaian police officials who processing the police permit allowing us to march asked, “Why Stella Nyanzi? Don’t you have problems here?”

For some of us with Ugandan ancestry, our relatives were not too sure how to process the Stella Nyanzi case. They are numbed and weary from the daily absurdities of living under Museveni’s regime and disregard of human rights,  but still congratulated us for taking a stand, lifting a bit of the cloak of hopelessness around Stella’s release.

 

Credit: Kobby Blay.

 

When Stella Nyanzi first got arrested in April 2017, legions of her fans, supporters and activists swung into action, demanding that the Ugandan government #FreeStellaNyanzi.

She had been arrested and charged with Cyber Harassment and Offensive Communications under sections 24 and 25 of Uganda’s 2011 Computer Misuse Act. These so called offensive communications included describing Yoweri Museveni, the President of Uganda as a ‘pair of buttocks’.

We recognise and appreciate the activism of Dr Stella Nyanzi. In spite of being personally vilified and professionally sidelined, she does not give up, and stays firm to her values. She has declared that she is continuing her resistance from prison, the least we can do is amplify her struggle from our own locations.

In May 2017, Stella Nyanzi was granted bail. She didn’t remain free for long. In November she was re-arrested under the same charges, appearing before a Magistrate Court on the 9th where she refused to apply for bail, demanding a speedy trial instead. That speedy trial has not happened, and this time round, there doesn’t seem to be a similar groundswell of civil activism demanding she be freed. The reasons for this may be as complex as the case that Stella faces.

Stella Nyanzi is accused of disturbing the peace of President Museveni, and The First Lady of Uganda, Janet Kataaha Museveni, who also serves as the Minister of Education and Sports.

Clearly, offending the most powerful people in the land of Uganda has dire consequences, but should this be the case? We would argue not, but in repressive countries, speaking up and criticising powerful politicians and the elite is dangerous. Repressive governments ensure that their critics disappear.

Just think of Jamal Khassogi and the numerous journalists, activists, and Women Human Rights Defenders around the world who have been murdered, made to disappear or are behind bars for speaking truth to power. For this is what Stella Nyanzi does. She speaks truth to power. She deliberately invokes rudeness, sarcasm and artistic creativity to point out the failures of the Museveni government. She is perceived as a threat by the regime because we recognise the truth in her words. We won’t dare say what she says – we are too scared of the consequences – but she is fearless, and will not allow herself to be muzzled.

We too should not allow ourselves to be muzzled, and that is why in Ghana we marched demanding that all charges under Stella Nyanzi be dropped, and that she be freed. People should be able to criticize their governments. Governments should be able to listen to what their people say – whether that feedback be cloaked in insults or dressed up in pretty clothing. If we allow Stella Nyanzi to perish because of her cyber activism, we too could be next.

We have seen first hand how solidarity beyond borders can boost and nurture a culture of advocacy and global accountability of African leaders. Only a handful of us had marched in Accra to #FreeBobiWine, Ugandan musician and member of Parliament arrested, tortured and unjustly detained in August 2018 and eventually released on bail a month later – this came by after our first march inspired other global marches and outcry in bigger cities. We know that an African leader’s greatest fears are when his people decide to regain their power by any means necessary and when foreign donors threaten to starve national coffers.

We recognise and appreciate the activism of Dr Stella Nyanzi. In spite of being personally vilified and professionally sidelined, she does not give up, and stays firm to her values. She has declared that she is continuing her resistance from prison, the least we can do is amplify her struggle from our own locations. We urge African activists across the continent and Diaspora to also demand with us, #FreeStellaNyanzi.

 

Nana  Darkoa Sekyiamah is Director of Information, Communications and Media,  Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)

Shari Ankomah Graham is an international development consultant currently coordinating the SheTrades in the Commonwealth Program in Ghana.

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Demonstrations have continued despite Abdelaziz Bouteflika saying he would not stand for a fifth term.

Relatives of the people who died on board an Ethiopian Airlines flight have been speaking of their grief.

The post People Affected by Leprosy Still Face Stigma in Latin America appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Executive Director of the Geneva Centre, Ambassador Idriss Jazairy (left), and IPS Inter Press Service founder Roberto Savio

By Ambassador Idriss Jazairy and Roberto Savio
GENEVA and ROME, Mar 12 2019 (IPS)

For over 70 years, the UN system has been perceived as the guardian of peace and development in the world. However, multilateralism today is undeniably under strain. The effectiveness of global institutions and of global policymaking is questioned, and alliances are fraying.

Often, in times of transition, drawing lessons from the past is a good way to find solutions and inspiration for the way forward. In this regard, it is important to remember the inspired leaders of the UN system who have propelled forward the concept of multilateralism over the years. It is therefore important to evoke the legacy of Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Maurice Strong, but also of UNICEF’s Jim Grant, as they all represent visionary UN figures who contributed greatly to the evolution of multilateralism.

The UN started as an alliance of the victors of WWII. Alliances shift. This is a reminder that when war-like situations occur in the real world, power politics of those victors may take over. They may either draw multilateralism to their side as in the Korean War, or go to war without multilateral approval, as in the case of the invasion of Iraq.

In the 1960s, while keeping the structure of a victors’ club, the UN became, for 2 decades, a universal organization defending the goal of self-determination and of the removal of obstacles to development. A significant moment in this regard was the signing of the Principles governing international trade relations and trades policies, which ultimately led to the Final Act of UNCTAD I in 1964. There was a general feeling of « reshaping the international order » and writing history. Indeed Juan Somavia, later Director General of the International labour Organization participated, with one of the co-signatories of this editorial, under the editorship of Nobel Prize winner Jan Tinbergen, in writing an eponymous book for The Club of Rome.

In December 1977, the General Assembly decided to create a Committee of the Whole (COW), to bring back to the fold of the UN the North-South dialogue which had been uneventfully shunted to the CIEC in Paris. Ambassador Idriss Jazairy led the work of the COW as its first chairman COW throughout 1978, with the goal of negotiating on substantial issues and producing action-oriented conclusions on North-South relations. Thorvald Stoltenberg, the Norwegian Minister who passed away recently, succeeded him in this position, and, with his generosity and open-mindedness, successfully pursued the endeavours of the COW towards increased North-South dialogue.

Thus the multilateral climate in the ‘70ies was cooperative. Negotiations were about adjustments to external and international policies. But the situation changed thereafter. Even our solace of a peace dividend after the end of the Cold War as confirmed by the General Assembly Declaration on the Right to Development of 1986, became a chimera.

The UN focus changed later on to respond to the strategic priority of the WWII victors by proclaiming in 1995 an indefinite extension of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), without any counterpart from the nuclear States. The 2005 UN Summit also endorsed the « responsibility to protect » (R2P) leading inter alia to the Security Council Resolution 1973 imposing a no-fly zone on Libya in 2011. States volunteering to implement this resolution exceeded their mandate however, and brought about regime change. Resort to force under Chapter VII, requires henceforth smarter mandates and greater accountability for implementation. Likewise R2P should not be abused, as in Libya, or ignored as in Gaza. Weaponisation of humanitarianism is another wanton outgrowth of R2P.

Both the Millennium and the 2005 Summits concentrated efforts thereafter on domestic reforms of governance including in the field of human rights. Created by the United Nations General Assembly in 2006 by resolution 60/251, the UN Human Rights Council intended to be a more cooperative body than its predecessor, the « naming and shaming »-oriented United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Giving the UN a handle on domestic policies is however a fraught issue. The implementation of reforms domestically, in order to be legitimate, must be a people-driven process. As multilateralism includes domestic policy evaluation in its purview, it must also become increasingly people-driven. In fact, the current outburst of populism springs from the feeling that ordinary people are kept out of the search for solutions that concern them to problems « without passports » as Kofi Annan used to call pandemics, environmental degradation, non-proliferation, immigration etc.

So whither the democratisation of multilateralism? Firstly, through breaking the logjam on Security Council reform. Secondly, through the empowerment of citizens worldwide, in compliance with « We, the people… » of the UN Charter. This peoples’ representation will continue to suffer from legitimacy impairment so long as their entities remain predominantly headquartered in advanced countries. Democracy requires the involvement of a much larger number of credible international NGOs actors headquartered in the South as well.

Multilateralism is, in fact, a vision of international relations, based not of force, but on international law; not on short-sighted economic interests, but on a long-term strategy of international cooperation. It is the quite obvious policy: if we reduce conflict and competition, we reduce tensions, and we push for a civilized world. Competition and force have been the fuel for the last two world conflicts. But as the famous etiologist Konrad Lorenz has observed, man is the only element of the Kingdom of animals who never learns from his mistakes. Nowadays, we do not only have the multilateral system in disarray. We do not have an international system, but we have countries that do not recognize their allies, and are ignoring existential threats, like climate change (“a Chinese hoax”), or nuclear resurgence.

But new waves are appearing, and they are not a repetition of the past. Never had we such formidable women mobilization before. Students are following the example of a young Swedish girl who is scolding the elites in Davos and the chairmanship of the European Union, with regard to climate change, to remind them that they are mortgaging her future. All these new actors in international relations, believe deeply in Peace and Cooperation. A new multilateralism is coming, made by citizens and not by governments. In history, humankind has always been looking for a better world. Maybe we headed towards a new salutary turn, which will save us from tensions and wars.

In short, to paraphrase Churchill on democracy, multilateralism may be the worst form of interaction between nations, except for all the others. The UN has got the principles right as now with the 2030 Agenda. But leadership is crucial to achieve success. Those we commemorate today as great leaders, such as Dag Hammarskjold, stood on the outside frontiers of universalism, erring more, as it were, on the side of General than on that of Secretary, in marshalling innovation towards more human justice and wellbeing. One lost his life for it, another, his second term. They were true leaders.

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New Tunisia coach Alain Giresse has handed recalls to Youssef Msakni and Moez Hassen ahead of the AFCON qualifier with eSwatini later this month.

BBC's Africa business editor Larry Madowo went to meet Sophia, one of the world's most famous robots.

Protesters march again in Algiers despite President Bouteflika's decision not to seek a fifth term.

After missing the last two Afcon qualifiers, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has been included in coach Daniel Cousin's squad for Gabon's crucial final match in Group C.

People were burnt alive and a two-year-old was thrown into a septic tank, a UN investigation says.

Protesters accuse President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of a ploy to prolong his 20-year rule.

After discrediting state-owned enterprises, privatization advocates successfully pushed a broad reform agenda under the rubric of privatization from the 1980s, with the support of the Washington-based international financial institutions.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Mar 12 2019 (IPS)

Privatization has been central to the ‘neo-liberal’ counter-revolution from the 1970s against government economic interventions associated with Roosevelt and Keynes as well as post-colonial state-led economic development.

Many developing countries were forced to accept privatization policies as a condition for credit or loan support from the World Bank and other international financial institutions, especially after the fiscal and debt crises of the early 1980s. Other countries voluntarily embraced privatization, often on the pretext of fiscal and debt constraints, in their efforts to mimic new Anglo-American criteria of economic progress.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Demonizing SOEs
Globally, inflation was attributed to excessive government intervention, public sector expansion and state-owned enterprise (SOE) inefficiency. It was claimed, with uneven and dubious evidence, that SOEs were inherently likely to be inefficient, corrupt, subject to abuse, and so on.

In the 1970s, the motives of many involved in the preceding public sector expansion – enabled by high commodity prices and earnings as well as low real interest rates due to easy credit, with the need to ‘recycle petro-dollars’ (invest revenues from petroleum exports) – were developmental and noble.

Regardless of their original rationale or intent, many SOEs become problematic and often inefficient. Yet, privatization is not, and has never been a universal panacea for the myriad problems faced by SOEs.

Only more pragmatic and appropriate approaches — recognizing their origins, roles, functioning, impacts and problems — can realistically expect to address and overcome the burdens they have come to impose on many developing economies.

Various meanings
Privatization usually refers to a change of ownership from public to private hands. Over recent decades, the term has been used more loosely. For example, it may only involve minority private ownership after the corporatization of an SOE, and the sale of a minority share of its stock, or even a majority share with control remaining in state hands by various means such as the use of a ‘golden share’.

It sometimes also refers to contracting out services previously undertaken solely by the government. The definition may include cases where private enterprises are awarded licenses to participate in activities previously reserved for the public sector.

Strictly speaking, however, privatization involves the transfer of at least a majority share of and a controlling interest in a public enterprise or SOE and its assets, or an entity (such as a government department, a statutory body or a government company) previously controlled and typically at least majority-owned by the government, either directly or indirectly.

Mainstreaming privatization
Following the oil price shocks of the mid- and late 1970s, inflation spread through much of the world. US President Jimmy Carter appointed Paul Volcker as Chairman of the US Federal Reserve in 1980. The US Fed sharply raised interest rates to stem inflation, which precipitated the fiscal and debt crises of the early 1980s in many parts of the world, especially in Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe.

The unexpected sovereign debt crises forced many countries to seek emergency financial support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), both headquartered in Washington, DC. The IMF provided emergency credit facilities requiring (price) stabilization programmes to bring down inflation, typically blamed on ‘deficit financing’ due to ‘macroeconomic populism’.

Generally, the WB worked closely to provide medium- and long-term credit to these governments on condition that they adopted structural adjustment programmes (SAPs). The SAPs generally prescribed economic globalization (especially of international trade and finance), national (or domestic) deregulation and privatization.

Since then, these international financial institutions have been more powerful in relation to developing countries than ever before. Soon, privatization became a standard requirement of SAPs. Thus, many governments of developing countries were forced to privatize by the SAPs’ loan conditions.

Many other governments voluntarily adopted such policies which became standard pillars of the emerging ‘Washington Consensus’ associated with the WB, the IMF and the US policy consensus of the 1980s. Privatization in developing countries was preceded by the political ‘counter-revolution’ associated with the rise and election of Margaret Thatcher as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan as the President of the United States of America.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

The post Promoting Privatization appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

After discrediting state-owned enterprises, privatization advocates successfully pushed a broad reform agenda under the rubric of privatization from the 1980s, with the support of the Washington-based international financial institutions.

The post Promoting Privatization appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Ethiopian Airlines plane was carrying 149 passengers and eight crew members, from 35 countries, when it took a nose dive six minutes after leaving the airport in Addis Ababa. Credit: Alec Wilson/CC by 2.0

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 12 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations headquarters is in mourning – and the UN flag is at half mast.

The deaths of 21 UN staffers March 10, on board an Ethiopian Airlines flight in Addis Ababa, is one of the biggest tragedies in the extended UN family—with a flashback to the deaths of 22 people, mostly UN staffers, who lost their lives in the Canal Hotel bombing in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad in August 2003.

The tragedy on Sunday had a wider impact because the UN staffers—enroute from Addis Ababa to Nairobi for the Fourth UN Environment Assembly March 11-15—were from 12 UN agencies and peacekeeping missions, plus representatives of civil society organizations (CSOs).

In the annals of UN tragedies, Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations (1953-1961), paid the ultimate price for peace when he died in a mysterious plane crash back in September 1961, which still remains unresolved after 58 long years.

Addressing delegates, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said; “A global tragedy has hit close to home—and the United Nations is united in grief.”

Extending his deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of all the victims, to the government and people of Ethiopia, and all those affected by the disaster, he said: “Our colleagues were women and men—junior professionals and seasoned officials—hailing from all corners of the globe and with a wide array of expertise.”

They all had one thing in common, he said, “a spirit to serve the people of the world and to make it a better place for us all”.

A breakdown of the number of staffers from each of the agencies and peacekeeping missions, includes the Food and Agriculture Organization(1), the International Telecommunications Union (2), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (3), the World Food Programme (7), UN Assistance Mission in Somalia  (1), the UN Development Programme (1),  the International Organization of Migration (1), the International Labour Organization (1), UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (1), the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (1), UN Support Office for the African Union Mission in Somalia  (1) and the World Meteorological Organization (1).

In a statement released Monday, the World Food Programme, which accounted for the largest number of deaths, said it is in mourning for seven WFP staff members who lost their lives.

“ As we confront this terrible loss, we reflect that all these WFP colleagues were willing to travel and work far from their homes and loved ones to help make the world a better place to live in. That was their calling, as it is for the rest of the WFP family.”

• Ekta Adhikari (28) from Nepal, whose duty station was Addis Ababa
• Maria Pilar Buzzetti (30) from Italy, duty station Rome
• Virginia Chimenti (26) from Italy, duty station Rome
• Harina Hafitz (59) from Indonesia, duty station Rome
• Zhen-Zhen Huang (46) from China, duty station Rome
• Michael Ryan (39) from Ireland, duty station Rome
• Djordje Vdovic (53) from Serbia, duty station Bangkok, on assignment to Rome

The WFP said: “We also mourn the loss of our colleagues at other United Nations agencies and all of those who died in the crash. Among them was Victor Tsang, a former employee of WFP who moved to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). We ask that everyone keep those who lost loved ones in their thoughts and prayers.”

FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva said: “My heartfelt condolences and sympathies to the bereaved families of the #Ethiopian Airlines #ET302 plane crash”

Among the victims, he said, were UN staff members including one from FAO. “We are working to get in touch with family members and assist them in this time of tremendous pain”

The Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 plane was carrying 149 passengers and eight crew members, from 35 countries, when it took a nose dive six minutes after leaving the airport in Addis Ababa.

At last count, the passengers, included 32 Kenyan citizens, 18 from Canada, nine from Ethiopia, eight from Italy, China and the US, and seven from the UK and France.

Ian Richards, President of the 60,000-strong Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA), told IPS: “Our colleagues are devastated by the loss of life in yesterday’s plane crash.”

He said many knew the victims or were familiar with their work.

“With every hour that passes we are learning more about the amazing things they were doing to make this world a better place, whether working on the environment, migration, humanitarian or other areas, and we won’t forget this.”

“Naturally our thoughts are with their families at this time and we will work with administration to make sure they get all the assistance they need,” Richards added.

At the opening of the UN assembly in Nairobi, delegates paid their respects with a moment of silence, according to press reports from the Kenyan capital.

Siim Kiisler, the Estonian environment minister, said: “We have lost fellow delegates, interpreters and UN staff.” “I express my condolences to those who lost loved ones in the crash.”

Inger Andersen, the incoming UN environment chief, said the organisation was “devastated”.

Among those who died were delegates from the African Diaspora Youth Forum in Europe, the US-based Save the Children and the Norway-based Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators.

Karanja Quindos, a retired teacher from Bahati, in Kenya’s Nakuru County, lost his wife Anne Wangui, his daughter Caroline Nduta, and his three grandchildren; Ryan Njoroge, 7, Kellie Paul, 4, and nine-month-old Ruby Paul.

Also on the flight was Isabella Beryl Achie, from Homabay county about 300 kilometres west of Nairobi. She had been travelling home from Egypt where had recently facilitated a seminar. 

Meanwhile, the Kenyan and Ethiopian governments are planning to fly family members of the victims to Addis Ababa as plans to identify their remains get underway. In a joint press statement, Kenya’s Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia and Ethiopian Airlines’ Kenya country manager Yilma Goshu said that the government has reached out to the families of 25 of the 32 Kenyans who perished in the Sunday morning crash.

Ethiopian Airlines also announced on Monday that the black box of the ill-fated flight had been recovered as efforts to piece together clues as to what may have happened to the plane begin.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

• Additional reporting by Benson Rioba in Nairobi

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Alfred de Zayas at the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry.

By Alfred de Zayas
GENEVA, Mar 12 2019 (IPS)

My mission to Venezuela in November/December 2017 was the first by a UN rapporteur in 21 years. It was intended to open the door to the visit of other rapporteurs and to explore ways how to help the Venezuelan people overcome the protracted economic and institutional crisis.

In preparation of the mission I studied all pertinent reports by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, UN High Commissioner, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Provea, Fundalatin, Grupo Sures, Red Nacional de Derechos Humanos, etc.

During the mission, thanks to the professionalism of UNDP, I was able to meet with members of the opposition, National Assembly, chamber of commerce, churches, professors, students, representatives of OAS, Carter Center, victims of violence, and civil society. Since my mother tongue is Spanish, it was easy to inter-relate with Venezuelans, walk the streets, visit the supermarkets.

I learned about the scarcity of foods and medicines, black markets, smuggling of subsidized petrol, foods and medicines into neighbouring countries. The situation did not reach and still does not reach the threshold of a “humanitarian crisis” as we know from Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Haiti, etc.

A major obstacle to solving the problems was the polarization of the population and the dearth of confidence-building measures. I recognized that the government needed advisory services and technical assistance from UN agencies in order to carry out needed economic and institutional reforms.

I convened a meeting with UN agencies in order to explore concrete strategies. In a 6-page confidential memorandum to the government and in my report to the UN Human Rights Council I formulated constructive recommendations, some of which were quickly put into effect. I had requested the release of 23 detainees, 80 were released on 23 December 2017, more in the course of 2018. UN agencies noticeably intensified their assistance, in particular FAO and UNIDO, especially to manage the impacts of the sanctions.

 

Alfred de Zayas with his team at the seat of the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry.

 

Following my visit I continued to follow developments and study documentation, statistics and arguments from all sides. My diagnosis: The crisis is not caused by the ideological “failure of socialism as an economic model” (socialism has not failed in Norway, Sweden, China), but by concrete and palpable causes, the dramatic fall in the price of crude oil, the over-dependence on exports, the failure to diversify the economy, an excess of ideologues and relative scarcity of technocrats in government.

Most importantly, the crisis is the result of the cumulative impacts of 20 years of internal and external economic war, financial blockade, and sanctions. The mainstream narrative attributes the crisis to incompetence and corruption, but these also plague most Latin American countries. Besides, the level of corruption in Venezuela in the 1980’s and 1990’s was higher and Chavez won the 1998 elections on a wave of disgust at the corruption of the neo-liberal governments. I spent two hours with the current Attorney General in Caracas, from whom I received ample documentation on the government’s vigorous anti-corruption campaign, investigations and on-going prosecutions.

US efforts to topple Chavez started early, and the CIA cooperated with the Venezuelan oligarchy in the failed coup against Chavez on 11/12 April 2002. The 48-hour President Pedro Carmona had promptly issued a decree doing away with 49 pieces of social legislation, suspending the Supreme Court, the Chavez National Assembly, dismissing governors, etc. Although there is nothing more undemocratic than a coup – Carmona and the US media spoke of “restoring democracy” in Venezuela.

Back in 1970, when Allende was democratically elected President of Chile, Nixon called in Kissinger and told him that the US would not tolerate an alternative socio-economic system in Latin America and that the US would make the Chilean economy “scream”. When in spite of sanctions the Allende government proved resilient, it was necessary to use more muscle and General Pinochet carried out the coup that ushered 17 years of “democracy” – and torture – in Chile. As we know from the studies of Stephen Kinzer and William Blum, US Military and CIA interventions in Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, Paraguay etc. have cost tens of thousands of lives and brought untold misery to millions of Latin Americans.

“Human Rights” has nothing to do with the US Venezuela policy. As it was in Iraq 2003 and Libya 2011, it is OIL. The US covets the largest oil reserves in the world, as well as the third largest reserves in gold and coltan. If Maduro is toppled, it will be a bonanza for US investors and transnational corporations.

What is sad is that some countries ostensibly committed to democracy, the rule of law and human rights, are supporting the sanctions and the Guaidó coup. We observe a Machiavellian, cynical instrumentalization of human rights and humanitarian aid for purely geopolitical reasons.

A solution of the crisis depends on direct dialogue between the opposition and the government. Such dialogue already took place in 2016-2018. Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero hosted these talks and arrived at a reasonable accord. On the day of signature, 6 February 2018, Julio Borges, the leader of the opposition refused to sign. This augurs badly for any kind of international mediation by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, by the High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet or by Mexico and Uruguay in the context of the Montevideo mechanism.

History shows us that sanctions kill, and when the level of killing reaches a certain threshold, sanctions become a crime against humanity. This is a worthy challenge for the International Criminal Court. What Venezuela needs is an end to sanctions and interference in is internal affairs, an end to the violations of Articles 1-2 of the UN Charter and of articles 3, 19 and 20 of the OAS Charter by the US and its “coalition”. Venezuela needs international solidarity and respect of its sovereignty.

Alfred-Maurice de Zayas (USA, Switzerland), Professor of Law, Geneva School of Diplomacy (J.D., Harvard, Dr. phil. Göttingen) . Former UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, former Secretary of the UN Human Rights Committee, former Chief of the Petitions Department at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Author of 9 books and numerous scholarly articles.

 

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of IPS.

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