Africa

An "electricity minister" has been appointed to address the country's unprecedented energy shortages.

How a little-known team that only competed in seven Grands Prix brought tobacco branding into F1.

Kenyan traders accuse a Chinese-owned outlet of undercutting them and threatening their livelihoods.

Credit: UN Women
 
Gender inequality exacerbates the impact of natural disasters, and the consequences of natural disasters compound gender inequality. States must introduce progressive taxation to finance the expansion of rights such as universal access to health care and education, and strengthen women's resilience to natural hazards, including climate change.

By Magdalena Sepúlveda
GENEVA, Switzerland, Mar 6 2023 (IPS)

She will be called Aya. This is the name that nurses gave to the infant baby pulled from the rubble of a five-story building in Jinderis, northern Syria. A miracle. Beside her, the rescuers found her mother, dead.

She had given birth within hours of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on the night of February 6, 2023. Like her, more than 50,000 people died in the earthquake. As tragic as it is hopeful, this story has moved the international media.

It also reminds us that over 350,000 pregnant women who survived the earthquake now urgently need access to health care, according to the United Nations. And this is only one aspect of women’s vulnerability to natural disasters.

Floods, droughts, earthquakes, and other extreme events are not gender-neutral, especially in developing countries. Evidence shows that women and girls die in greater numbers and have different and uneven levels of resilience and capacity to recover.

Of the 230,000 people killed in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, for example, 70% were women. Because of gender barriers, they often have fewer survival skills: boys are taught to swim or read first. This makes it difficult for them to access early warnings or identify safe shelters.

In addition, it is more difficult for women to escape from danger, since they are most often responsible for children, the elderly, and the sick. Heightened tensions and fear, as well as the loss of income provoked by disasters, drive increased domestic violence against women and girls.

They are also the first victims of sexual violence and exploitation when entire populations are displaced – this was one of the first concerns in Pakistan when more than 8 million people had to leave their homes because of the terrible floods in June-August 2022.

Natural catastrophes negatively impact everyone economically, but women and girls are disproportionately affected. World Bank data show that female farmers suffer much more than male ones in rural areas.

Assigned to domestic tasks, they are more dependent than men on access to natural resources and are, therefore, the first to suffer when these become scarce. In every region, food insecurity is higher among women than men.

In 2020, it was estimated that nearly 60% of the people who go hungry are women and girls, and the gender gap has only increased since then. Their lack of access to bank accounts also means that women’s assets are less protected than men’s.

And, of course, recovery from any crisis builds on societal expectations related to gender roles. Consequently, women bear the brunt of the increased domestic burden after a disaster at the cost of missing out on other income-generating activities.

We know that women spend, on average, 3.2 times more time than men on unpaid care work, and the COVID-19 pandemic – another human-induced natural catastrophe – made evident how unequally unpaid care and domestic work is shared, and how undervalued and underrecognized it is.

This is a major constraint on women’s access to education, an obstacle to their entry into and advancement in the paid labor market, and to their political participation, with serious consequences in terms of social protection, income, and pensions.

Gender inequality exacerbates the impact of natural disasters, and the consequences of natural disasters exacerbate gender inequality. An unacceptable vicious cycle. With the world already facing a growing number of climate-related tragedies, governments must take immediate and long-term action to invest in universal access to health care, water and sanitation, education, social protection, and infrastructure for gender equality and the full enjoyment of women’s human rights.

Even in times of crisis, when state coffers are nearly empty, there are equitable solutions to raise revenues to fund the investments needed to strengthen women’s resilience: to make those who profit from the crises ravaging the planet, including from those natural disasters, pay, as recommended by the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT), of which I am a member alongside, among others, Joseph Stiglitz, Jayati Ghosh, and Thomas Piketty. Instead of implementing austerity programs that devastate the most disadvantaged, states can increase their fiscal space by taxing companies and the super-rich more.

It starts with taxing the super profits made by multinationals, and several countries in Europe and Latin America have already begun to do so. This is particularly true for the pharmaceutical giants that have made a fortune selling vaccines against Covid-19, which they were able to develop due to public subsidies. This is also the case for multinationals in the energy or food sector.

Oxfam estimates that their profits increased by more than two and a half times (256%) in 2022 compared with the 2018–2021 average. For the same reasons, it is urgent to tax the richest, who get away with paying hardly any taxes these days.

One cannot accept that, as Oxfam reminds us, a man like Elon Musk, one of the wealthiest men in history, is taxed at 3.3%, while Aber Christine, a market trader in Uganda who sells rice, is taxed at 40%.

Progressive taxation – making the richest people and multinationals pay their fair share – is one of the most powerful tools for reducing inequality of all kinds. As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, let’s keep in mind that it is impossible to build more resilient societies without fighting for gender equality.

Continuing to ignore it is a political choice, and an even more perilous threat to development than natural disasters themselves.

Magdalena Sepúlveda is the Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and a member of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). From 2008-2014 she was the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights @Magda_Sepul

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

Pakistani women peacekeepers in the audience at the National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad, where Secretary-General António Guterres delivered an address on the topic of peacekeeping. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten
 
On the one hand, the special procedures under UN Human Rights focused on women should be re-organized and on the other hand, country level programs supporting women should become more unified. Meanwhile, a new global platform, building on the Generation Equality Forum, could bring these two complementary but vastly different realm of works, together to engage the global public and the leaders.

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Mar 6 2023 (IPS)

If you want to have a good reading on women and young girls’ activism, there is a high chance that you have missed an incredibly interesting report.

Entitled Girls’ and Young Women’s Activism, the publication is a product of the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls, formally a special procedure mechanism within the United Nation Human Rights, officially the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The blueprint offers a real and practical guidance on about how the direct involvement and engagement of women and young girls is essential if governments are serious about achieving gender equality and ends, once for all, any type of gender-based discriminations.

The Working Group is composed by five experts, mostly academician but also practitioners, on women’s rights and despite the low profile, it maintains a real busy annual schedule that makes its work incredibly relevant and valuable.

It does not only meet three times a year for planning and coordination and but also holds a dialogue at the Human Rights Council in June in addition to reporting to the General Assembly in October/November and also participates at the annual March meeting of the Commission on the Status of the Women.

On the top of all these tasks and consider that their commitment with the Working Group proceeds along their official and equally demanding full-time jobs, the members also conduct annual visits to member states to monitor and assess their work to protect women and girls against discrimination.

The problem is that its work does get neither visibility nor recognition.

One of the reasons is that the UN human rights architecture promoting and defending the rights of women is too complex and fragmented and requires a drastic overhaul.

There are too many mechanisms often with an almost overlapping mandates tasked to protect women’s rights, perhaps also a reflection on the inevitable rivalries at the UN and the consequent compromises that are always struck by the member states.

In addition to the Working Group, there is also the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, currently Ms. Reem Alsalem, who started her tenure on August 2021.

Her mandate is stronger and certainly more visible than those of the members of the Working Group even though she operates within UN Human Rights.

Though the former mechanism is focused on fighting discrimination and the latter is instead exclusively aimed at assessing cases of violence against women, you might wonder if it could be more effective and value for money to devise a more united approach, a more effective modality to monitor and defend the rights of women around the world.

Certainly, we cannot discount the fact that we are talking about special procedures mechanisms within the Human Rights Council, an intergovernmental body within the UN that is actually the only forum where the member states of the UN discuss, share and peer reviews their human rights.

The special procedures are important because they uniquely involve top experts in matters of human rights and their contributions provide even more legitimacy to the important work that the UN System is doing to uphold the rights of vulnerable persons around the world.

A possibility to strengthen their work could be to imagine a different “governance” that maximizes their opinions and reviews, even with the possibility to provide full time tenures and adequate resources to support their work and give it the visibility it deserves.

Let’s also bear in mind that in matter of women’s rights, there is also the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women that should be considered as the guardian of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women known as CEDAW.

It is composed by twenty-three experts and one of its main tasks is to “assist States parties in the preparation of initial and subsequent periodic reports” and holding constructive dialogue with them and issue the so called “concluding observations” on what the member states present to show their commitment to CEDAW.

To help with coordination among mechanisms, there is actually, at least on the paper, a very lean and weak coordinating mechanism called Platform of Independent UN and Regional Experts Mechanisms on Elimination of Discrimination and Violence against Women, or EDVAW Platform.

Officially started in 2017, the platform aims to “promote thematic and institutional cooperation between the UN and regional expert mechanisms on the elimination of discrimination and violence against women and girls with the view of accelerating domestication of international and regional standards, achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls”.

The reality is that this mechanism never got traction nor got the mandate to truly coordinate among UN and external, autonomous regional mechanisms outside of the purview of the UN system.

Mentioned earlier, the Commission on the Status of the Women is the oldest of all these mechanisms that, while proved to be indispensable over the last decades to mainstream women rights within the universal human rights agenda, is now outdated.

Till now we have been only focusing on mechanisms to uphold, monitor and protect the rights of women.

We have not yet discussed the “program” side of the equation, the work to prevent violence and discrimination against women and promote their empowerment being done by UN agencies and programs, including UN Women the agency that provides the secretariat of the Commission on the Status of Women.

In this respect, there is also, always within the UN System, the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality or IANWGE, bringing together all the main women focal points of all UN agencies and programs.

Under responsibility of UN Women, the Network appears weak and just a formality though we should assume that at country level, all the work related to women’s empowerment is coordinated under the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (formerly named United Nations Development Assistance Framework).

This is a process that itself could require a further upgrade to truly maximize cooperation and avoidance of overlaps between and among agencies and programs.

It is evident that in both domains, on the one hand, the human rights accountability mechanisms and on the other hand, the actions and programs on the ground to change the status quo, there is need of a much stronger synergy and coordination, something that might be objected by several members of the UN that are unlikely to support anything akin to strengthen mechanisms upholding human rights.

Even the Commission on the Status of Women itself, whose upcoming session will be held between the 6 and17 March, should be re-thought.

With a multiyear thematic plan, the Commission, is a toothless and unnoticed advocacy and knowledge creation institution that each year comes up with a topic up for analysis and discussion.

This year, for example, the focus will be on “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls” while last year’s theme was centered around climate change, environment and disaster prevention.

There are no doubts that it is important to have a global convening forum that brings together the top experts on issues that are so relevant to achieve SDG 5. Yet it is not hard to imagine how a stronger, more coordinated women centered architecture in the UN could achieve and produce more while spending less.

Let’s remind ourselves that the Agenda 2030 and the SDGs brought some institutional innovations in the way the UN operates, primarily the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, that is the major SDGs focused platform promoted by the UN.

Besides its usual gathering in July, this year the Forum will also host another SDG Summit in September, the biggest format to discuss about and review the SDGs at the highest levels of political leadership worldwide.

Yet, while we are referring to a strong advocacy and review mechanism with a considerable amount of convening power, the High-Level Political Forum is simply what it is, a review mechanism of countries’ performances towards accomplishing the SDGs and important vehicle for debating them.

A reform of a stronger UN System that is better positioned to truly achieve SDG 5, should acknowledge an existing deep gulf between promotion and defense of human rights focusing on women (as well other human rights issues) and, on the other end, actions on ground at legislative, judiciary and economic and social levels to change the status quo.

For example, UN Human Rights has no formal role in hosting the High-Level Political Forum that is instead organized by ECOSOC and has a very limited presence at countries level.

A better chance at ensuring that the rights of women are defended while their living conditions improve, could be based on two complementary internal reforms within the UN System: an improvement on how Human Rights operates and a drastic rethinking of how the women focused service, advocacy and delivery-oriented agencies of the UN work.

On the former, the UN Human Rights could undertake, with the aim of giving them more voice and authority, a major reform of its “accountability” mechanisms that rely on the professionalism, integrity and expertise of world class activists, advocates and legal scholars.

The role of the Commission on the Status of the Women should also be reviewed. As per now, its outreach and voice are limited within the development sector and it has become almost irrelevant and unknown to the global public opinion.

On the latter, in terms of programs and initiatives supporting women and their rights around the world, only a true One United Nations approach at country level could do the job with ultimately a much better coordination and one unified “delivery” channel.

Both processes of change and their respective spheres of work, accountability and program, could then be promoted through a united “Global Women” platform that could end up with the same visibility that COP process gained for climate action.

A recently created multi partnership forum could, potentially, become such main vehicle to achieve SDG 5. I am talking of Generation Equality Forum, a joint initiative of Mexico and France that has been facilitated by UN Women.

It holds a great potential to facilitate new collaborations that so far has been convened twice in 2021, first in Mexico City and then in Paris, paving the way for an ambitious global program of action, the Global Acceleration Plan.

The interesting part of it is that the Forum is truly action oriented with its members committing to take action through six sub areas groups, branded as Generation Equality Action Coalitions that include the entire spectrum of areas that would ensure achieving SDG 5.

From gender violence to economic justice, to bodily autonomy and sexual reproductive rights, to climate justice to technology and innovation, to leadership, the coalitions, made up by hundreds of civil society organizations, global foundations and private corporations, can really facilitate partnerships with private sector and civil society, a capacity that the UN System has never mastered.

Can this new and bold attempt to catalyze efforts and investments for the rights of women and girls around the world become the epicenter of a new women focused development architecture?

Can a hybrid vehicle to rally global investments and actions for women help galvanize global attention on their rights and at same time do the job of meeting the targets of SDG 5?

Finally, would a new women focused “governance” of development assistance also force the UN System to change for good its working modalities?

Even if the accountability mechanisms under UN Human Rights would remain formally separated by this process of renewal for women ‘rights, nevertheless the banner of the Generation Equality Forum transformed into a “Global Women” platform could be used to highlight and “empower” their work.

The fact that this year there will be another gathering of the Generation Equality Forum could offer additional new momentum to the initiative though last year only a very low key event celebrated its 1st year anniversary.

Yet it was still an important gathering because it was where the Forum’s first accountability report was unveiled.

In few days from now the Forum will actively participate in the upcoming session of Commission on the Status of Women but with some insights, perhaps, the opposite process should occur.

The Commission and all other women focused mechanisms and programs, at minimum, could become part of a much larger and more institutionalized institution that should also be fully aligned to and possibly become the central pillar for SDG 5 of The High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

We know from the latest Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: the Gender Snapshot 2022 that there is still so much to be done in the field of gender empowerment that urgency and radical thinking should not be discouraged nor set aside.

Rather they should be truly embraced head-on. Meanwhile another great publication on women and young girls’ activism will be read by too few people.

Simone Galimberti is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE and co-initiator of the Good Leadership, Good for You & Good for the Society, both active in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

Map of Eastern Bloc, 1948.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Mar 6 2023 (IPS)

Putin’s regime recently suspended Russia’s participation in a nuclear arms agreement with Washington. After the decision Putin declared that the move was a retaliation for the US’s, France’s and Britain’s “targeting” of Russia with nuclear weapons. He was forced to take action to “preserve our country, ensure security and strategic stability”:

“the West lied about peace, but was preparing for aggression, and today it admits it openly, no longer embarrassed. And they cynically use Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia.”

Such rhetoric finds fertile ground in Latin America and Africa, which suffer from a long tradition of Western exploitation carried out under the false flag of peace keeping, democratization and progress. On 26 February, Putin added that a:

“new world is taking shape, being built only on the interests of just one country, the United States. […] I do not even know if such an ethnic group as the Russian people will be able to survive in the form in which it exists today.”

The statement is part of a recurrent discourse suggesting that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an act of self-defence, an answer to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization/NATO’s expansion. In 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia were added to NATO; in 2009 they were followed by Albania and Croatia, in 2017 by Montenegro and in 2020 by North Macedonia.

In 2014, after Ukraine’s corrupt president Viktor Yanukovych had been ousted, pro-Russian unrest erupted in eastern and southern parts of the country. Unmarked Russian tanks and troops moved into Crimea, taking over government buildings, strategic sites and infrastructure. Meanwhile, armed pro-Russian separatists seized government buildings in the Donbas region.

In 2014 the Donbas was the industrial heartland of Ukraine with 35 per cent of the country’s mining, 22 per cent of its manufacturing industry, providing 20 per cent of energy supply and 18 per cent of water supply. Recently vast amounts of natural gas have been detected underground.

The separatists received considerable support from Russia and Ukrainian attempts to retake separatist-held areas were unsuccessful. In October 2014, Ukraine’s new government made joining NATO a priority. Putin at once declared that the Russian involvement in Crimea and Donbas was a reaction to NATO’s threatening expansion.

Part of Putin’s discourse, repeated by influencers all over the world, is that during a summit in 1990 when Mikhail Gorbachov accepted the reunification of Germany within the framework of NATO, he was given an assurance that NATO would not expand further. The Historian Mary Elise Sarotte has recently tried to disentangle the thorny issue, underlining that no written document of the promise exists. Gorbachov later declared that:

“the topic of NATO-expansion was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. [What was agreed] was that NATO’s military structures would not advance in the sense that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR, after German reunification. Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”

During a 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin declared himself to be a stout defender of democracy, nuclear disarmament and international solidarity. Contrary to the US, which had “promised” that NATO was not going to expand beyond the borders of Germany. Putin stated that:

“unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. […] a situation in which countries that forbid the death penalty even for murderers and other, dangerous criminals are airily participating in military operations that are difficult to consider legitimate. And as a matter of fact, these conflicts are killing people – hundreds and thousands of civilians! […] As Franklin D. Roosevelt said during the first few days that the Second World War was breaking out: “When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.” […] I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself, or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: Against whom is this expansion intended?

The answer is beyond doubt. However, as a proverb states “Evil cannot with evil be defended.” Can Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine actually be defended by alluding to the encroachment and support to brutal dictatorships that “democracies” like the US, France and Britain have been guilty of around the globe?

Putin repeatedly refers to “history”. He labels Ukrainian leaders as Nazis, while stating that Ukraine has always been part of Russia. Glaring exaggerations – if not outright lies.

History tells us that Russia’s past, like that of other nations, has its hidden skeletons. In 1939, the Soviet Union annexed more than 50 per cent of Polish territory. From 1939 to 1941 about one million Polish citizens were arrested, or deported; including approximately 200,000 Polish military personnel held as prisoners of war; 100,000 Polish citizens were arrested and imprisoned of whom approximately 30,000 were executed. The total loss of lives was 150 000.

On 30 November 1939 the Soviet army attacked Finland. The war ended after three months. The Soviets suffered severe losses and made little headway. To avoid more bloodshed Finland ceded 9 per cent of its territory. In spite of superior air force and heavy tanks the Soviet losses had been considerable – 168 000 dead or missing. The Finns lost 26 000 dead or missing.

In the previously independent Baltic States the Soviets had during 1940-41 carried out mass deportations. They became even more extensive after Soviet Union finally conquered the area. In March 1949, Soviet authorities organised a mass deportation of 90,000 Baltic nationals. The total number deported from 1944 to 1955 is estimated at over half a million: 124,000 from Estonia, 136,000 from Latvia, and 245,000 from Lithuania. The estimated death toll among Lithuanian deportees had between1945 and 1958 been more than 20,000, including 5,000 children.

When the Soviet Union fell apart and archives were declassified it was revealed that, between 1921 and 1953, 799,455 executions had been officially recorded. Approximately 1.7 million prisoners had died in Gulag camps, some 390,000 were reported dead during forced resettlements in the 1930s, and during the 1940s at least 400,000 persons died during deportations.

After World War II, the Soviet Union subdued several nations in Eastern Europe, introducing a political system aspiring to gain total control of all citizens and backed by an extensive, repressive apparatus.

Opposition was initially essentially liquidated, while steps towards an authoritative communism were enforced. The General Secretary of a nation’s Central Committee became the most powerful figure, while a Politburo held sway over a party machine lacking a popular foundation, since it in accordance to Leninist ideology favoured a group of three to fourteen per cent of a country’s population. Members of this exclusive group enjoyed considerable rewards, like access to shops with a selection of high-quality foreign goods, as well as special schools, holiday facilities, well-equipped housing, pensions, permission to travel abroad, and official cars with distinct license plates.

Suppression of opposition was a prerequisite for retaining power. Citizens were kept under surveillance by political police with raw power and violent persecution of dissidents. In East Germany were Stasi, Volkpolizei, and KdA, in Soviet Union the KGB, in Czechoslovakia STB and LM, in Bulgaria KDS, in Hungary AVH and Munkásörség, in Romania Securitate and GP, in Poland Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego, Słuźba, and ZOMO. Nevertheless, people occasionally revolted.

During one day in 1953 an uprising took place in Berlin. It was violently suppressed by tanks and soldiers of the Soviet German forces. More than 150 persons were killed, or missing.

In 1956, a two day protest in Polish Poznan resulted in more than 100 deaths. About 400 tanks and 10,000 soldiers under the command of the Polish-Soviet general Popalavsky suppressed the demonstration. Among the dead was a 13-year-old boy, Romek Strzalakowski, eventually hailed as a patriotic martyr.

During two weeks in November 1956, USSR troops killed 2,500 revolting Hungarians, while 200,000 sought political refuge abroad. Some 26,000 Hungarians were put on trial by the Soviet-installed János Kádár government, of those 13,000 were imprisoned.

During the night between 20 and 21 August 1968, a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia came to an abrupt end when Eastern Bloc armies under Soviet command invaded Prague. The invasion comported with the Brezhnev Doctrine, compelling Eastern Bloc states to subordinate national interests to a Soviet right to intervene. A wave of emigration followed, with a total eventually reaching 300,000.

The pattern of Soviet invasions of neighbouring states has continued, for example in Georgia and Moldova. In 1991 Tjetjenia declared itself independent and in 1994, 40 000 Russian soldiers invaded the recently proclaimed Tjetjenien Republic. After a year of harsh fighting the capital Grozny was conquered, but another war erupted in 1999. The rebels were vanquished after an effective but exceedingly brutal war. Tjetjenia is now governed by a Moscow-allied clan leader.

Estimated losses of the two wars are 14 000 Russian and 16 000 Tjetjenien soldiers killed, while at least 25,000 civilians were killed and 5,000 disappeared.

One month before the Russian attack on Ukraine, Kazakhstan plunged into political unrest. At the request of President Tokayev, Russian forces headed an intergovernmental Eurasian military alliance, CSTO, which invaded the country. After “pacifying” the protests, CSTO forces evacuated the country after a month.

Considering this history, paired with the Russian destruction of Syrian and Ukrainian towns, it is somewhat difficult to consider Russia as threatened by NATO’s expansion. It is actually not so strange that Russia is feared by its neighbours and that Finland and Sweden are seeking membership in NATO.

The Swedish government is currently supporting an expansion and restoration of Sweden’s once comprehensive, but now neglected network of nuclear shelters, introducing obligatory conscription of youngsters fit for military service, and strengthening the defence of Gotland, a strategically important island located in the middle of the Baltic Sea.

After World War II, the Soviet Union usurped an enclave which actually ought to have belonged to either Poland or Lithuania – Kaliningrad, situated by the Baltic coast and equipped it with the highest density of military installations in Europe. It became headquarter of the large Russian Baltic fleet. In Kaliningrad, Russia has recently built up a formidable military presence encompassing nuclear weapons and tens of thousands of soldiers.

Not being a supporter of policies and actions United States has exercised in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, cannot overshadow the fear that most Europeans nurture while facing the powerful giant of the East, which, admittedly, does not have an impressive record when it comes to protecting human rights.

Some sources: Putin, Vladimir (2007) Speech delivered at the MSC http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/copy/24034 Sarotte, Mary Elise (2022) Not One Inch: America, Russia and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pucci, Molly (2020) Security Empire: The Secret Police in Communist Eastern Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A cell phone gives rural women access to financial services, training, networks, and, importantly, information and knowledge. Credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan (CCAFS)

By Nicoline de Haan
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 6 2023 (IPS)

While 100 million people worldwide are using the AI chatbot ChatGPT to get ahead on homework and try out for top jobs at Google, more than 370 million women in developing countries lack the services of a simple cell phone.

The world may be witnessing a quantum leap in the digital revolution, but cell phones and mobile internet would give these women enough of a foothold to access unprecedented opportunities to improve their incomes, nutrition and health.

For rural women and girls in low-income countries who rely on small-scale agriculture, ICT can unlock financial services, training and networks, and, importantly, information and knowledge. Without these core technologies, women are farming with one hand tied behind their backs, making up just a quarter of registered users of agricultural applications in Africa.

The potential of digital technology to transform farming and agriculture in countries across the Global South is increasingly compelling. Producers in sub-Saharan Africa who adopted online services were found to increase their incomes by up to 40 per cent while new forecasting and early warning systems can also help farmers stay ahead of climate shocks. Digital innovations are therefore an essential component of agricultural research strategies to strengthen food and economic security around the world.

Nicoline de Haan

Subsidising technologies like cell phones for women can be one effective way for governments and NGOs to start closing the digital gender divide while boosting overall agricultural productivity.

Women in sub-Saharan Africa are 15 per cent less likely to own a cell phone and more than 40 per cent less likely to use mobile internet than are men. Yet when women were given cell phones, SIM cards and time charge cards in one study in Tunisia, 75 per cent said they benefitted either through better connectivity to agricultural information, such as veterinary advice, or greater levels of communication.

Meanwhile, a project to provide app-based drone delivery of livestock vaccines is set to allow women in Ghana to overcome gender norms that dictate men farmers liaise with men veterinarians, and better care for their chickens and goats.

But to ensure that women get maximum benefit, both the technology and the training to use it must be optimized to account for different needs and contexts – and this needs ongoing investment into gender-responsive agricultural research.

While cell phones and SMS have increased the reach of agricultural information services, disproportionate levels of illiteracy among women require innovative forms of delivery to be impactful. For example, developing interactive voice response (IVR) technology and voice messages in local languages can allow women to receive the same valuable information in a format that acknowledges gendered differences in education levels.

Similarly, complementary technologies ensure that greater access translates into greater benefit. Using radio programming in combination with SMS, and avoiding gendered greetings such as “dear brother farmer”, can improve both women’s access to and capacity to leverage information.

Perhaps the greatest barrier when it comes to closing the digital gender divide are the norms that continue to limit women’s access to technology, and the slow social and cultural acceptance of women making use of digital tools in agriculture.

One approach is to support efforts to work with the gatekeepers of technology within the community, whether fathers, clerics or elders, to encourage behaviour change. Another promising tactic is for governments and research partners to develop community-based opportunities for women to access and act upon information technologies collectively.

Radio Listeners Clubs in Rwanda were found to help remove the significant disparities in awareness, access and use of climate information that usually exist between women and men smallholder farmers. The greatest improvements in income and social standing as a result were among women.

Digital innovations can themselves play a part in deconstructing gender norms. #BintiShujaaz (“Heroine Girl”), a social media campaign launched in Tanzania, used posts, videos, comics and two online panel discussions to showcase positive examples of young women in the chicken business. The campaign reached 4.4 million young Tanzanians, with more than 500,000 engagements, to help improve the perception of women in the poultry business.

Access to information through digital technologies can be a powerful leveller and a critical weapon in the arsenal. And when it comes to gender inequality, it can generate multiple benefits, not only for women but for their families, communities and economies.

It is vital that governments, development partners and agricultural research institutes do everything they can to ensure women not only have access to the information and knowledge they need but are empowered to use it in their best interests.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Dr. Nicoline de Haan is Director of the CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform

Queues and frustration met the changes to the currency and withdrawal limits in Abuja. Credit: Abdullahi Jimoh/IPS

By Abdullahi Jimoh
ABUJA, Mar 6 2023 (IPS)

Nigerians confronted by hardships over the scarcity of the newly redesigned naira notes in conjunction with the country’s cashless policy introduced by the apex bank have had a last-minute reprieve from a policy that had disrupted their lives and exacerbated hunger.

On Friday, March 3, 2023, the country’s Supreme Court temporarily suspended the March 10, 2023, deadline for use of the redesigned naira and said the imposition of such a tight deadline was an affront to the 1999 constitution.

Trying to get money from the ATMs of accredited commercial banks had created so many difficulties that people had put their lives on hold. Artisans, teachers, and other professionals could not go to work, many school children were loitering at home, itinerant traders were stranded, and families were now hungry and, on occasion, resorted to violent protests because they had not been able to access their money.

Experts had warned that the situation could trigger a cash-induced recession because the country’s economy is chiefly cash-based.

In October last year, the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele, announced that three major denominations would be redesigned on the Federal government’s orders.

Emefiele announced that Nigeria’s last redesign was in 2014 when the N100 note was redesigned to mark the country’s centenary.

“In line with sections 19, subsection a and b of the CBN Act 2007, the management of the CBN sought and obtained the approval of President Muhammad Buhari to redesign, produce and circulate new series of banknotes at N200, N500 and N1000 levels,” he said.

In November last year, Buhari launched the new naira notes and said they would be in circulation from December 15, and the deadline for swapping old notes for new ones in the Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) was slated for this year on January 31. But the mass objection and the banks’ inability to swap the money forced it to be extended to February 10, 2023. On February 17, the old notes ceased to be recognized as legal tender.

To add to the woes on December 6, the apex bank, in an attempt to push a cashless economy, introduced a cash withdrawal limit and directed the lower banks to limit over-the-counter amounts to be withdrawn by individuals and corporate entities to N100,000 and N500,000 (about USD 207 and USD 1085. 5) per week. This order was expected to take effect on January 9, 2023, and ATMs and point of sale (PoS) terminals would dispense a maximum of (N20,000) (USD 43.4) at a time.

The cashless policy’s first phase was introduced in April 2012 in Lagos to encourage electronic transactions and enhance the efficiency of Nigeria’s payment system. It was successful there, and the policy was then extended to five other states in July 2013. For the expansion of financial access points and financial inclusion and proliferation of electronic transactions, the CBN gave full implementation in September 2019 before the nationwide implementation was recently announced to commence on January 9 this year.

Like many other developing African countries, Nigeria’s economy was greatly affected by the Russian/Ukraine war. In 2016 the country hit a recession, which caused her economy to contract by 1.6 percent due to a fall in the price of oil in the international market.

Also, in the third quarter of 2020, its economy plunged into recession over the negative impact of COVID-19 on travel and the supply chain of goods worldwide.

Moreover, the growth of her inflation rate climbed to 21.82 percent in January 2023.

The CBN justifies the cashless policy in the banking system, saying it could defuse kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery, graft terrorism financing, extortion, advance fee fraud, and other crimes, while the compulsory withdrawal limit will cause deflation to the country’s economy.

Inflation occurs when there is too much money in circulation. The central bank’s findings showed that as of October last year, currency in circulation was N3.23 trillion naira, but there was only 500 billion naira in various banks’ custody, and 2.7 trillion naira was permanently undeposited. Observers have projected that with the decision to take the money out of circulation, inflation would decrease.

Not Enough Money in Circulation

News analysts questioned whether the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting (NSPM) could print the money. It was created in 1963 with authority to produce currencies and security documents for ministries, agencies of government, and companies.

In addition, a World Bank survey revealed that there were 16.15 ATMs per 100,000 adults in Nigeria in 2021 – which means that for a population of over 200 million people in Nigeria, there are only 32,000 ATMs across the federation. Each ATM would need to dispense a minimum of 1 million naira daily.

But the problem was exacerbated because the commercial banks were short of cash and unable to get the newly printed naira from the central bank because the NSPM could only print 4 billion banknotes per year.

The central bank’s deputy governor, Aisha Ahmad, said in December that 500 million new notes had been ordered, which a financial analyst describes as insufficient.

“The intention for the naira redesign and adoption of cashless transactions is to reduce vote buying and terrorism in the country, but the CBN needs to release more cash into circulation,” a Lagos-based analyst from KPMG Babatunde Babajide told IPS in an interview.

The Vote Buying

As enticing voters with cash was a phenomenon in previous Nigerian elections, the CBN insisted on retaining the notes in the banks and kicking against any further extension of the swapping of the old currency to check vote buying during the February election.

However, many members of the All Progressive Congress (APC), the ruling party, said the cash crunch is a plot against their candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Last week Tinubu was declared the winner of the election – despite allegations that the poll was flawed, and is now contested by both the main opposition leaders Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party’s Peter Obi.

A political scientist from the University of Nigeria, Adilieje Chukwuma, also affirmed that the naira redesign was principally for economic gain but may also have had political undertones.

“Looking at the timing, it could have a political undertone. But I prefer to view the situation mainly as an economic recovery,” he told IPS.

While some believe the programme to replace the naira was designed to impact the poor, Babajide, the financial analyst, views it as beneficial to the majority.

“Nigerians just need to adopt electronic transactions. The CBN action is intentional, mainly to reduce the supply of cash and curb inflation,” Babajide says.

The analyst, however, added that hopefully, after the country’s general election, things would start to return to normal.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Photo of an assembly of members of the Lhaka Honhat indigenous association in the province of Salta, in northern Argentina. Their claim to their ancestral territory has been recognized by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, but they have not yet gained exclusive use of their land. CREDIT: Courtesy of CELS

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Mar 6 2023 (IPS)

In 1994 Argentina recognized in the constitution the ethnic and cultural pre-existence of indigenous peoples. However, enforcement of respect for their rights has fallen short and almost 30 years later the question of land is generating growing conflicts, which sometimes pit native communities against the rest of society.

On Feb. 5, a long convoy of some 500 vehicles driven by agricultural producers drove through the midwest province of Mendoza to defend “the sovereignty of our lands and private property” against growing and increasingly visible claims by indigenous people to their ancestral lands.

The demonstrators said that they do not want the same thing to happen in Mendoza as in the southern province of Río Negro, where there have been various violent incidents in recent years, which peaked in September 2022, when a group of indigenous people claiming their ancestral territory set fire to a National Gendarmerie mobile booth.“Due to economic interests over the land, we do not have a complete survey of indigenous territories in Argentina. That is the basic need, a diagnosis that is indispensable in order to solve this problem.”-- Noelia Garone

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the country’s indigenous communities are still waiting for community property title to the lands they have ancestrally lived on, which they point to as the key to access other rights that have remained empty words in the constitution, such as participation in the management of their natural resources.

“There is no political will to resolve this issue, because there are very powerful interests in the oil, mining, or agricultural industries that oppose it,” Silvina Ramírez, a member of the Association of Indigenous Rights Lawyers (AADI) and professor of graduate studies at the University of Buenos Aires, told IPS.

“This has been aggravated because there is a communication campaign trying to spread the idea that indigenous people want to prevent progress and are the enemy,” she added.

On the other side, Andrés Vavrik, a cattle producer from Mendoza and one of the organizers of the demonstration there, told IPS: “No one is against indigenous peoples, but we are concerned that the national government recognizes the right to territory of anyone who self-identifies as indigenous, because there we enter a very debatable terrain.”

“We came out to defend private property,” he said from the town of General Alvear in Mendoza.

A leading role in the march was played by a group of veterans of the Malvinas/Falklands Islands War, which Argentina lost in 1982 against the United Kingdom, which occupied the South Atlantic islands 190 years ago.

The reaction came after the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs (INAI), the official body in charge of the study and delimitation of indigenous territories, recognized the rights of native communities to over 21,500 hectares of land in Mendoza.

Although the INAI clarified that its resolution “does not imply in any way the restitution or handing over of land,” since the agency does not have that power, the Mendoza government objected to the decision before the Supreme Court.

 

More than 500 vehicles participated in a march in defense of national sovereignty in Mendoza, a province in central Argentina, which culminated in a demonstration in the city of Malargüe. The convoy was triggered by indigenous claims to their ancestral land in that province, to which agricultural producers are opposed. CREDIT: Courtesy of Diego Frutos

 

Land emergency

Argentina is a country that formally promoted European immigration and the exclusion of indigenous people since it became a unified nation in 1853.

In the 2010 census, 955,032 people self-identified as descendants of or belonging to indigenous peoples, just over two percent of the total population. In the 2022 census, which showed a population of 46 million inhabitants, the question was asked again, but the results have not yet been released.

Although the recognition of the rights of native communities in the 1994 constitutional reform was a landmark from a legal and symbolic point of view, implementation has been another question, with the issue of land ownership seen as the central hurdle.

For this reason, in 2006 Congress enacted Law 26160 on Emergency Matters of Land Possession and Ownership of indigenous communities, which banned evictions of native communities for four years, blocking existing court rulings ordering evictions.

The first three years were to be used to carry out a survey of the lands where indigenous communities lived and promote the issuing of collective land titles.

However, 17 years later the law is still in force, since it had to be extended several times, which demonstrates the failure of its implementation.

 

A photo of Kolla indigenous women in the extreme northern Argentine province of Jujuy. Although the rights of indigenous peoples have been recognized in the constitution since 1994, they have not been enforced. CREDIT: Courtesy of Amnesty International Argentina

 

The INAI completed surveys for only 46 percent of the legally constituted communities, as reported in late 2022. And today the road is much longer than before, because in 2007, when the communities started to register legally and the survey began, 950 registered, and the number has since grown to 1825.

But the survey does not imply that the land titling process is being carried out. This is an even more complicated step, because there is still no law in the country that regulates indigenous community property, which is different from the multi-owner residential development provided for under civil law, when there is more than one owner.

The community property law is another longstanding demand of indigenous peoples and human rights organizations, which Congress has not met.

Although some communities in the country have received their property title from the hands of provincial governments under different legal statuses, it is not known how many there are or what area these indigenous territories cover.

“The indigenous territorial emergency law was passed in a very particular context of expansion of the business of growing and exporting soybeans in Argentina, which caused a serious situation of constant evictions of indigenous communities,” Diego Morales, a lawyer with the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), a human rights organization, told IPS.

“Since then, no government has wanted to hand over land to indigenous people and not even the associated communities in Lhaka Honhat (living in the province of Salta, in the north of the country) have been able to access a community property title and fully exercise their rights, even though they obtained a favorable sentence from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,” he added.

Morales said the situation today is more difficult to resolve, because indigenous communities that have historically been discriminated against and neglected, who in recent years have become more aware of their rights, now not only lay claim to the land where they live but are also making cultural claims to territories from which their ancestors were driven.

 

A demonstration by indigenous Kolla people in the arid, mountainous landscape of northwestern Argentina. The country has declared a “territorial emergency” for indigenous peoples since 2006, but the vast majority of communities do not have title to their lands. CREDIT: Courtesy of Endepa

 

Violence and debate

Diego Frutos, who suffered several occupations and attacks on his property in Villa Mascardi, in the province of Río Negro, by groups laying claim to his property for Mapuche indigenous communities, said there are people who are trying to take advantage of indigenous rights to reclaim land that does not belong to them.

“I do not deny the rights of the Mapuches, but those who attacked my property are not a registered community. They cannot be, because they do not have blood ties and they cannot show that they have had an uninterrupted occupation of a territory. They are a group of young people who seek to take advantage of the umbrella of indigenous rights,” Frutos told IPS from his town.

Frutos is convinced that those who attacked his property are backed by the administration of center-left President Alberto Fernández, who feels pressure from both sides while walking a minefield between indigenous people and the agricultural producers who settled on their lands, with neither side feeling satisfied with what his government has done.

Sandra Ceballos, a member of the Kolla people and vice president of AADI, the association of lawyers for indigenous rights, told IPS that the government is persecuting indigenous people, as demonstrated by the fact that an unusual joint command of federal and provincial forces was assembled in Río Negro, after the acts of violence in September.

Noelia Garone, a lawyer from the Argentine office of Amnesty International, said the lack of recognition of the right to land has triggered multiple violations of other rights of indigenous communities, such as education, healthcare, water or work.

“Due to economic interests over the land, we do not have a complete survey of indigenous territories in Argentina. That is the basic need, a diagnosis that is indispensable in order to solve this problem,” she told IPS.

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Thelma Cabrera and Jordán Rodas launch their candidacy for the presidency and vice presidency of Guatemala in December 2022, which has been vetoed by the courts, in a maneuver that has drawn criticism from human rights groups at home and abroad. CREDIT: Twitter

By Edgardo Ayala
SANTA CATARINA PALOPÓ, Guatemala, Mar 4 2023 (IPS)

Centuries of racism and exclusion suffered by indigenous peoples in Guatemala continue to weigh heavily, as demonstrated by the denial of the registration of a political party that is promoting the presidential candidacy of indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera in the upcoming general elections.

On Mar. 2, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court ruled against Cabrera’s party, the leftist Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples (MLP), which had appealed a Feb. 15 Supreme Court resolution that left them out of the Jun. 25 elections.“There is a racist system and structure, and we indigenous people have barely managed to start climbing the steps, but with great difficulty and zero opportunities.” -- Silvia Menchú

Cabrera’s candidacy and that of her vice-presidential running-mate Jordán Rodas are now hanging by a thread, with their hopes depending on a few last resort legal challenges.

The deadline for the registration of candidates is Mar. 25.

A centuries-old racist system

Guatemala’s political and economic elites “are looking for ways to keep her (Cabrera) from registering; everyone has the right to participate, but they are blocking her,” Sonia Nimacachi, 31, a native of Santa Catarina Palopó, told IPS. The municipality, which has a Cachiquel Mayan indigenous majority, is in the southwestern Guatemalan department of Sololá.

“We would like a person with our roots and culture to become president, I think it would help our people,” added Nimacachi, standing by her street stall in the center of town.

Nimacachi, a Cachiquel Mayan woman, sells “granizadas” or snow cones: crushed ice sweetened with syrup of various flavors, perfect for hot days.

“There is a racist system and structure, and we indigenous people have barely managed to start climbing the steps, but with great difficulty and zero opportunities,” Silvia Menchú, director of the K’ak’a Na’oj (New Knowledge, in Cachiquel) Association for the Development of Women, told IPS.

The organization, based in Santa Catarina Palopó, carries out human rights programs focused on indigenous women.

Santa Catarina Palopó, a picturesque Cachiquel Mayan town located on the shore of Lake Atitlán in the southwestern Guatemalan department of Sololá, is preparing for the upcoming general elections, where voters will choose a new president, vice president, 160 members of Congress, 20 members of the Central American Parliament, as well as 340 mayors. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

“Racism has prevailed, we are mistreated everywhere by the government and the authorities, we are seen as people with little capacity,” said Menchú, of the Maya Quiché ethnic group.

An alleged illegality attributed to Rodas, the vice-presidential candidate, was the cause for denying the MLP the right to register for the elections.

Analysts and social organizations perceive obscure maneuvering on the part of the powers-that-be, who cannot accept the idea that an indigenous woman is trying to break through the barriers of the country’s rigid, racist political system.

Cabrera is a 51-year-old Mayan Mam woman who is trying for a second time to run in the unequal fight for the presidency of this Central American country of 14.9 million inhabitants.

Of the total population, 43.7 percent identify as indigenous Mayan, Xinca, Garífuna and Afro-descendant peoples, according to the 2018 census.

In the 2019 elections Cabrera came in fourth place, winning 10 percent of the total votes cast.

In the Jun. 25 general elections voters will choose a new president for the period 2024-2028, as well as 160 members of Congress and 20 members of the Central American Parliament, and 340 mayors.

In Guatemala, the ancient Mayan culture was flourishing when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century.

The descendants of that pre-Hispanic civilization still speak 24 different autochthonous languages, most of which are Mayan.

Years of exclusion and neglect of indigenous rural populations led Guatemala to a civil war that lasted 36 years (1960-1996) and left some 250,000 dead or disappeared.

The presidential candidacy of Thelma Cabrera, of the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples (MLP), must be allowed by the Guatemalan authorities, so that the indigenous population is represented in the Jun. 25 elections, says Silvia Menchú, director of the K’ak’a Na’oj (New Knowledge, in Cachiquel) Association for the Development of Women. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

A blatant maneuver

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s (TSE) rejection of the MLP arose from a complaint against Rodas, who served between 2017 and 2022 as head of the Office for the Defense of Human Rights.

In that office, Rodas strongly questioned alleged acts of corruption by the current government of Alejandro Giammattei, who took office in January 2020.

The criminal complaint against the vice-presidential candidate was filed on Jan. 6 by the current head of the Office for the Defense of Human Rights, Alejandro Córdoba.

After Cabrera and Rodas attempted to register as candidates, Córdoba said he had “doubts” about some payments allegedly received by his predecessor in the Office for the Defense of Human Rights.

His “doubts” apparently had to do with some alleged illegality on the part of Rodas, but since Córdoba has not described it in detail, his statements have been nothing but a weak half-hearted accusation.

However, that was enough for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to reject the MLP on Feb. 2, which triggered protests by rural and indigenous people, who blocked roads in at least 12 parts of the country.

According to Guatemalan law, all candidates for popularly elected positions must have a document that attests that they have no pending legal issues.

But analysts have pointed out that this document should only take into account actual legal rulings handed down by courts, and not “doubts” vaguely expressed by some government official.

By vetoing Rodas, the TSE automatically bars his presidential runningmate Cabrera, who may actually be the ultimate target of the maneuver, since she is the one who is trying, once again, to win the votes of the indigenous population.

On Feb. 15, the MLP runningmates filed a provisional injunction with the Supreme Court, so that it would take effect immediately and overrule the TSE’s decision, while the Supreme Court studied and resolved the matter in depth.

But the injunction was rejected, so the MLP appealed the next day to the Constitutional Court, asking it to review the case and order the Supreme Court to admit the provisional injunction, to allow the fight for the registration of Cabrera and Rodas to continue forward.

But the appeal was denied Thursday Mar. 2 by the Constitutional Court.

However, the Supreme Court has not yet issued a final ruling on the injunction, but only a provisional stance. This means that when it is finally issued, if it goes against the MLP, Cabrera and Rodas could once again turn to the Constitutional Court, in a last-ditch effort.

But it seems as if the die is already cast.

In a tweet on Thursday Mar. 2, Rodas wrote: “The constitutional justice system has denied my constitutional right to be elected and denies the population the right to choose freely. We await the Supreme Court ruling on the injunction and the position of the @IACHR (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights). Our fight continues.”

Guatemala’s political and economic elites are determined to block the candidacy of indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera, says Sonia Nimacachi, a Cachiquel Mayan woman selling snowcones in Santa Catarina Palopó, in the country’s southwest. She would vote for Cabrera again, if her candidacy is finally allowed. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Cabrera’s second attempt

This is Cabrera’s second attempt to run for the presidency. Her first was in the 2019 elections, when she failed to fully capture the indigenous vote.

“I would dare to think that the majority of the indigenous population did not vote for her because of those instilled prejudices: that she is a woman and also indigenous, not a professional, are issues that have nothing to do with the dignity and the quality of a person,” argued Silvia Menchú.

She added that the right-wing parties have been allies of the country’s evangelical churches, through which they keep in submission segments of the indigenous population that end up supporting conservative parties, rather than a candidate who comes from their Mayan culture.

To illustrate, she said that in Santa Catarina Palopó, a town of 6,000 people, there is only one school to cover primary and middle-school education, “but there are about 15 evangelical churches.”

The TSE’s veto of the registration of Cabrera and Rodas puts the credibility of the elections at risk, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) warned on Feb. 27.

In a joint statement, the two organizations said the electoral authority’s rejection of aspiring candidates “is based on dubious grounds, puts political rights at risk, and undermines the credibility of the electoral process.”

“The electoral process is taking place in the context of a decline in the rule of law, in which the institutions responsible for overseeing the elections have little independence or credibility,” they stated.

In addition to Cabrera and Rodas, the TSE also rejected the registration of right-wing candidate Roberto Arzú, because he allegedly began campaigning too early.

HRW and Wola added that “efforts to exclude or prosecute opposition candidates create unequal conditions that could prevent free and fair elections from taking place.”

Meanwhile, the TSE did endorse, on Feb. 4, the presidential candidacy of Zury Ríos, daughter of General Efraín Ríos Montt, who governed de facto between 1982 and 1983.

In 2013 the general was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity for the massacre of more than 1,400 indigenous Ixil people in the north of the country.

He was sentenced to 80 years in prison, but the Constitutional Court later revoked the ruling. Ríos Montt died in April 2018.

Article 186 of the Guatemalan constitution prohibits people involved in coups d’état, or their relatives, for running for president.

Meanwhile, snowcone vendor Sonia Nimacachi said in the central square of Santa Catarina Palopó that she still held out hope that Cabrera would be able to register as a candidate.

“If they let her participate, I would vote for her again,” she said, while serving a customer.

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