BlackPerspective.net

Today Bloggers are uniting to blog for Humman Rights

In particular I will highlight Haiti and Darfur

Regina at Regina’s Family Seasons says “Today May 15, 2008 some bloggers are involved in a collective effort to bring the issue of HUMAN RIGHTS to the forefront of our minds and hearts. If you for whatever reason do not know, want or agree with the issue of HUMAN RIGHTS let me ask you two questions…

Are YOU human? Do you want, need, or have rights? If you answered YES to either of these questions (If you answered NO than email me and I will definitely pray for you!!) than the issue of HUMAN RIGHTS is YOUR issue too!!”

Charlene, 16 with a month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country’s central plateau.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places such as Cité Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings, and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt, and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

“When my mother does not cook anything, I have to eat them three times a day,” Charlene said.

Haitian Food Crisis

Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt
Jonathan M. Katz in Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Associated Press

It was lunchtime in one of Haiti’s worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud.

With food prices rising, Haiti’s poorest can’t afford even a daily plate of rice, and some must take desperate measures to fill their bellies.

The latest on Darfur from Dream For Darfur

Dear Friends,

We want to keep you informed of our efforts to bring security to Darfur. Here are the latest headlines:

Our Call for Partnerships for Darfur

Dream for Darfur called today for the US government to use its role as president of the Security Council next month to hold a Pledging Conference - a meeting to announce the nations supporting African battalions and providing logistical support for the full UN protection operation of 26,000-troops in Darfur, with an immediate deployment schedule.

Read the op-ed by Mia Farrow and Ambassador Nancy Soderberg in the Wall Street Journal.

The Situation on the Ground

There has been an increase in violence in Sudan and the UN/AU troops on the ground are struggling, under-financed and under-equipped. Read today’s AP story: “Top UN official warns of increasing Darfur violence.”

Best,

Jill Savitt
Executive Director, Dream for Darfur

Different responses to disasters in Myanmar, China
By EDITH M. LEDERER

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Two natural disasters in tightly controlled Asian nations this month have produced two very different responses: Myanmar’s very slow reaction to Cyclone Nargis and China’s speedy response to a killer earthquake [BlackPerspective.net Publisher’s Note: There are some affected victims in China that will dispute that the Chinese government moved quickly in the first couple of ours or so, but otherwise…].

Myanmar’s sparked international outrage. China’s won admiration.

Myanmar’s military government, which has ruled with an iron first since 1962, has barred almost all foreign experts experienced in managing humanitarian crises, saying it would handle relief efforts on its own.

But without the equipment to even lift cargo off Boeing 747s and at least 1.5 million people in need, the U.N. warned Tuesday that Myanmar faces a monumental catastrophe unless relief efforts reach the scale of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

China’s communist government also said it was not allowing foreign aid workers into the area affected by Monday’s 7.9-magnitude earthquake that wrecked towns and killed thousands across Sichuan province though it would accept international aid for the tens of thousands left homeless.

But in contrast to Myanmar, China’s government quickly moved into high-gear, sending 20,000 soldiers and police into the disaster area with 30,000 more on the way. The government was also mobilizing food, clothes, tents and plastic sheeting for the victims and sent Premier Wen Jiabao to oversee relief efforts.

BBC Audio on China and Myanmar Disasters

Click here (or to open in a new window, right click on the link and choose “open link in new window) and you can choose to listen to it in Real Player or in Media Player.

I heard this on may way into work this morning in the car via NPR. They’re discussing the U.N. doctrine know as the “responsibility to protect”; regarding if there should be international intervention to save tens of thousands from dying under the notion that the denial of aid by Myanmar’s government constitutes a humanitarian attack upon those people.

Myanmar’s People May Be getting Rotten Food
Associated Press
updated 5:02 p.m. CT, Tues., May. 13, 2008

YANGON, Myanmar - Many cyclone victims are getting spoiled or poor-quality food from Myanmar’s junta instead of the enriched supplies being delivered by foreign governments and charities, victims and aid workers said Tuesday.

A longtime foreign resident of Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon, told The Associated Press in Bangkok by telephone that angry government officials complained to him about the military misappropriating aid.

He said the officials told him that high-energy biscuits rushed in on the World Food Program’s first flights were sent to a military warehouse. They were exchanged for what the officials described as “tasteless and low-quality” biscuits produced by the Industry Ministry to be handed out to cyclone victims, he said.

The foreign resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because identifying himself could jeopardize his safety, said it was not known if the high-quality food was being sold on the black market or consumed by the military.

A government spokesman did not immediately respond to an e-mailed query from the AP seeking a comment. The allegations were impossible to confirm independently because of the junta’s restrictions on journalists.

Zimbabwe’s post-election goonery by hero turned thug-tyrant Robert Mugabe is playing out much like the Star Wars film Revenge of the Sith. Mugabe has manipulated an election, cast the people who really want democracy as the villains, declared martial rule, and raided his political rivals headquarters; though at least he hasn’t killed them yet (like the Sith Lord) he’s just had them beaten and arrested.

Now all we need is a “This is how democracy dies, to thunderous applause” moment, and the Revenge of Robert Mugabe will be complete.

Zimbabwe police raid opposition HQ, detain scores
By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) - Armed riot police raided the headquarters of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party on Friday and detained scores of people in the biggest crackdown on the MDC since elections last month, officials said.

The Movement for Democratic Change says it defeated President Robert Mugabe in the March 29 elections as well as ending his party’s 28-year hold on parliament.

A delay to the presidential result and a recount of some parliamentary votes has brought growing international pressure on Mugabe, 84, and stoked fears of bloodshed in a country already suffering an economic collapse.

Dozens of riot police detained around 100 MDC supporters who were bundled into a crowded police bus before being taken away, a Reuters witness said.

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said among those detained were supporters who had come to the party headquarters after being hurt in what the opposition calls a post-election campaign of violence by Mugabe’s followers.

“They took everyone in the building, including those who had come just to seek medical care. They are trying to destroy evidence of their brutality,” Chamisa told Reuters.

He said police also took some computers.

For some time now Mugabe has been working to complete his tyranical take over. He’s manipulated elections before; but now he takes his final dictatoral steps to make sure he doesn’t loose his grasp on power. Like Palpatine in Star Wars, Mugabe has been aided by others in his federation of states.

Zimbabwe’s Enabler
South Africa Falls Short As Monitor of Democracy
By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, April 4, 2005; Page A21

Thursday’s election in Zimbabwe was not merely stolen. It was stolen with the complicity — no, practically the encouragement –of Africa’s most influential democrat. If you think too long about this democrat, moreover, you reach a bleak conclusion. For all the recent democratic strides in Africa, the continental leadership that was supposed to reinforce this progress is not up to the challenge.

The bankrupt democrat in question is Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s president. For the past few years, he’s been promising a pan-African Renaissance, a new era in which Africans would take charge of their own problems. Mbeki led the creation of the grandly titled New Partnership for Africa’s Development, which commits members to the rule of law and other principles of good government; he’s the driving force behind the peer-review mechanism that’s supposed to police compliance with those pledges. The New Partnership’s principles are quoted frequently by Africa sympathizers who advocate more foreign assistance, and they’ve boosted Mbeki’s profile marvelously. Mbeki has become a fixture at the rich countries’ annual Group of Eight summits. He has been treated by George Bush and Tony Blair as a player. He has felt emboldened to advance South Africa as a candidate for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

rest of the article

28 years after Robert Mugabe led Zimbabweans to freedom, they need freedom again; freedom from Robert Mugabe.

Three decades later the people again need to “Liberate Zimbabwe”.

I dedicate this song of inspiration to the Zimbabwean people

“we’re going to fight, fight for our rights”

Zimbabwe court rejects opposition demand
By ANGUS SHAW, Associated Press Writer

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe’s High Court rejected an opposition demand Monday for the immediate release of long-delayed election results, prolonging a political crisis that has paralyzed this southern African nation for more than two weeks.

An opposition spokesman said the party would stage a nationwide “stay-away” from work on Tuesday.

The main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, says he won the March 29 election outright, and has accused President Robert Mugabe of holding back the results so he can orchestrate a runoff and ensure his 28-year grip on power.

Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change had hoped that the court — though stacked with Mugabe loyalists — would force the election commission to release the results.

The commission, which had published results for parliamentary and local races several days after the election, said it was delaying the release of the presidential results so it could verify the votes.

The court accepted the election commission’s explanation that it was investigating anomalies in some of the voting districts, ruling that “it can therefore justify the delay.”

“It’s a very sad day in Zimbabwe,” MDC lawyer Andrew Makoni said. The court “has given the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission a blank check. We don’t know when the ZEC will be ready with results. We don’t know what specific time would be reasonable in the eyes of the court.”

Rest of the article

Also read: Zimbabweans prepare for Mugabe to stay

Today is “In Solidarity: Global Day for Darfur”. I hope you’ll take a little time to educate yourself on the five year genocide transpiring in Darfur, and think about how such atrocities effect humanity. Think about the ramification of having a world where people are willing to do this to one another; and think about what it means to our humanity when we sit back and do nothing as it goes on.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” - Edmund Burke

Before I get off into this post I want to let you know that today we need you to do more than just read; but we need you to take action. You can see what those proposed actions are and links to them towards the bottom of this post, under the Please Act Now section.

The Crisis in Darfur:

The Sudanese Government in Khartoum started a campiagn in the Western Provence of Darfur in 2003, arming a militia known as the janjaweed (the devil on horce back) to raid villages of other ethnic groups, slaughtering them, displacing millions, and burning their villages so that they do not return. The government has used gunships and airplanes to bomb communities as well.

200,000 to 400,000 dead
2.5 million displaced
Thousands of rapes in a policy rape agenda
Ethno-centrically driven attacks; though underlined by other factors
Civilians systematically targeted

On top of the wholesale slaughter, there has been a brutal campaign of “policy rape” ; that is where rape is used as a weapon of war and is conducted as a matter of policy as opposed to a consequence of rouge soldiers individual behavior.

Further, the Sudanese government’s interest in Darfur are not simply a counter-insurgency against outlaw rebels, as it is framed by some; but that the rebels have just been used as an excuse to displace the Darfurian people for economic and ethnocentric reasons. The Sudanese government did the same thing in the Nuba Mountains in the 90s.

This “Genocide: Darfur” video may help you to grasp the crisis more

During this time of the Olympics we want to use attention on the Olympics games to bring the Olympic Dream To Darfur. The Olympics are a particularly potent weapon this year because the host, China, is Sudan’s major military supplier, and major buyer of Sudanese oil; giving China unrivaled influence over the government in Khartoum.

Reading China’s Genocide Games may help you learn more on this point

Please Act Now: Three simple ways

1. Email or call the Olympic Corporate Sponsors.
Send a letter to companies sponsoring the 2008 Olympics, hosted by China. (Dream for Darfur’s email system will let you do this with the touch of a button.)
2. Pledge to turn off the commercials of Olympic Sponsors during the Games.
Olympic corporate sponsors have been silent about China’s financing of the Darfur genocide, even as the sponsors are spending billions to enhance China’s image as Olympic host. If sponsors continue to ignore China’s complicity in the Darfur genocide, we will ignore their million-dollar ad campaigns.
3. Petition the International Olympic Committee.
Urge the IOC to work with the international community to ensure that China uses its leverage with the government of Sudan to help stop the genocide in Darfur, and avoids tarnishing the 2008 Games in Beijing.

The Currrent Situation

Deployment of a peacekeeping force was agreed upon and passed in the U.N. back in July; yet the countries that voted for it have simply failed to follow through. The joint UN/AU force has only seen about a third of the peacekeepers deployed, and hence are thus far quite ineffectual. Sudan keeps stonewalling on “allowing” the force to be deployed, and the governments of the world simply keep capitulating. SaveDarfur has more on this, along with a petition to sign asking them to stand up to Khartoum www.savedarfur.org/blog/entries/the_deception_continues/.

The European Union recently took a strong step to impose pressure towards ending the Darfur crisis: “EU turns up heat on China over Darfur crisis and divest from PetroChina”:

“March 17, 2008 (BRUSSELS) — The European parliament took an unprecedented step to sanction China over its unwillingness to pressure Sudan to halt violence in Darfur.
The Independent newspaper reported that the EU divested the shares it owned in Chinese oil giant PetroChina.

The latest move by the EU will likely worry policymakers in Beijing who are desperately trying to contain growing criticism for shielding Khartoum from sanctions in the UN Security Council.”

On April 13, this Sunday, we will be conductiong “In Solidarity: Global Day for Darfur” campaign; and we’d like your help.

If you’re not real familiar with the Darfur Sudan situation, here’s a quick rundown:

For the past five years government backed mercenaries know as the Janjaweed have waged a campaign of genocidal murder, scorched earth, and systematic use of rape as a weapon of war to destroy communities in Darfur.

The Janjaweed are Afro-Arab militia in Sudan, who’ve been on a brutal campaign against ethenic groups they want to displace from Darfur for financial as well as ethno-centric reasons. They’ve chosen a method of utter demorilization, a shock and awe if you will, to accomplish this goal.

As I noted in my March 2007 post, A Million Miles Away the New York Times Described this campaign as being “…very different than opportunistic rape by individual criminals, this is policy rape.”

It’s believed that 400,000 people have been murdered and hundreds of thousands more displaced.

China’s role in Darfur, in short, as stated on this Save Darfur page is that “China’s responsibility and leverage stem from its intricate economic, military, and diplomatic relationship with Sudan. China is Sudan’s largest trade partner, major military provider, and consistent defender of Sudan’s interests in the United Nations.”

The ideal is to take advantage of the olympics and the attention it brings to leverage China and others to act on Darfur.

What We Need You To Do

1. If you’re a blogger, please participate in “In Solidarity: Global Day for Darfur”
2. Email or call the Olympic Corporate Sponsors.
Send a letter to companies sponsoring the 2008 Olympics, hosted by China. (Dream for Darfur’s email system will let you do this with the touch of a button.)
3. Pledge to turn off the commercials of Olympic Sponsors during the Games.
Olympic corporate sponsors have been silent about China’s financing of the Darfur genocide, even as the sponsors are spending billions to enhance China’s image as Olympic host. If sponsors continue to ignore China’s complicity in the Darfur genocide, we will ignore their million-dollar ad campaigns.
4. Petition the International Olympic Committee.
Urge the IOC to work with the international community to ensure that China uses its leverage with the government of Sudan to help stop the genocide in Darfur, and avoids tarnishing the 2008 Games in Beijing.

Comment and let me know if you will be participating.

Once a heroic liberator, now a tyrannical despot; Robert Mugabe has taken his country of Zimbabwe from independence to ruin, as he’s done whatever it took to hold on to power for 28 years.

Now his time has run out. His party has admittedly lost the parliamentary elections; but he seems to have rigged the results to say that his opponent in the presidential race didn’t get 50%, forcing a run off which Mugabe can then also rig. It’s as if he gave the people a bone by letting the parliamentary results mostly stand; but he’s not going to let go of his own position.

[Bob Marley’s 1980 “Zimbabwe” celebrating the country’s liberation]

Zimbabwe opposition leader insists he has defeated Mugabe in presidential election
The Monterey County Herald
Article Last Updated: 04/02/2008 01:50:46 AM PDT

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — The main opposition leader insisted Tuesday he has won Zimbabwe’s presidential election outright and denied persistent reports he was negotiating to ease out President Robert Mugabe, who has led the country from liberation to ruin.

In his first public comments since Saturday’s election, Morgan Tsvangirai said he was waiting for an official announcement of the results from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission before he would enter any talks with Mugabe.

A businessman close to the state electoral commission and a lawyer close to the opposition said earlier the two men’s aides were negotiating a graceful exit for Mugabe, the country’s leader of 28 years. Both sources spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Several diplomats said they had heard similar reports of secret negotiations but could not confirm talks were under way.

Rest of the article

I picked up this story from aapoliticalpundit

From: Nichole Wicks
Date: Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 3:09 PM
Subject: BLACK ACTIVISTS PARTICIPATE IN STORMING NBC/ABC STUDIOS DEMANDING

BETTER MEDIA COVERAGE OF OBAMA

Hello!

I just wanted to let you know that we delivered the 200,000+ petitions with
MoveOn.org demanding better media coverage around the elections – in
particular Barak Obama. We had almost 50 people in attendance and we
anticipate continuing to hold FOX accountable for their racist and
culturally insensitive journalism. I’ve included additional material about
our investigative videos illustrating this problematic coverage at FOX.
Folks – particularly Black folks often think that there’s nothing to be done
about FOX they’ll still continue to be ‘racist’ or ‘bigots’ but we believe
that you shouldn’t let them get away with it, call them out on it their
bigotry, and that you CAN fight back by calling them out on their tabloid
coverage. Take care and please feel free to contact me for further
information.

Nichole

Here’s the Brave New Films Fox Attacks Petition, that I signed yesterday. You’ll want to see their video about the Fox virus that the rest of media is parroting, just like my contention that they parroted Fox on election night 2,000 having called the Florida for Gore and switching only after Fox called it for Bush, and parroted them in the flag waving drumb beat to war in Iraq.

I didn’t see the MoveOn.org petion for this, but here’s another petition regarding Hillary’s threat to the entire Democratic Congressional Caucus.

I wrote a few months ago about how Uganda is Still An Example To The World in the AIDS fight.

The ONE Campaign against global poverty has put out this notice:

In the great American tradition of helping others help themselves, we, the undersigned, ask that the U.S. Senate pass the Durbin-Smith amendment to restore $2.6 billion to the international affairs budget.

Dear ONE Member,

I am writing you from Kampala, Uganda. I just visited TASO (The AIDS Support Organization) Mulago, one of the largest community HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and care centers in the country. Uganda is home to one of the earliest African success stories in the fight against AIDS. The work of groups like TASO cut the number of people in Uganda living with HIV by more than half.

Today is treatment day at TASO Mulago. I took a picture of the line of people waiting. They tell us that often there are more people in line than they have medication for. The need is greater than the funding here.

This funding comes from the international affairs budget. Right now, the Senate is poised to slash the president’s 2009 international affairs budget by 4 billion dollars, which would be a 1 billion dollar cut from this year’s funding.

Thankfully, we’re not the only ones who are trying to stop this devastating cut. Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) have introduced an amendment to restore $2.6 billion to the international affairs budget, to match the House of Representatives funding level.

Here is where we come in. We only have until Wednesday to get a majority of the Senate to support this effort. So we’ve launched a petition asking the Senate to support this amendment.

You can add your name here:
www.one.org/2009budget/o.pl?id=255-1238117-DDPrBe&t=2

Petition text:
In the great American tradition of helping others help themselves, we, the undersigned, ask that the U.S. Senate pass the Durbin-Smith amendment to restore $2.6 billion to the international affairs budget.

Increasing the size of the international affairs budget is vital to increasing the amount the U.S. gives to poverty-focused development assistance. The international affairs budget funds all the proven solutions that we call for time and again: lifesaving AIDS medications, basic education, access to clean water, and many more programs like TASO helping people to work their way out of poverty.

To save these programs, we’ve set an aggressive goal of gathering 60,000 signatures before we deliver the petition to every senator. Please add your name:

www.one.org/2009budget/o.pl?id=255-1238117-DDPrBe&t=3

The fight over the international affairs budget is the first important step to making sure that we keep our promise to help the world’s poorest people. Later in the year, we’ll work to make sure that enough of the international affairs budget goes to the programs that are making a real difference in the developing world. But that fight will be much more difficult if we don’t get a significant level of funding for the poorest among us here and now.

I was invited to a woman’s home this morning who was receiving AIDS treatment from TASO. I asked what message she’d like to send back to America. She wanted us to convey her thanks to all those people who make it possible for her to be receiving treatment.

Thank you for your voice,

Josh Peck, ONE.org

Update: the amendment we are supporting is now called the Feinstein-Smith amendment. The content of the amendment has not changed.

This blog post also gives good background and explination: Restore cut in Int. Affairs Budget (poverty assistance at risk)

This latest mass bombing in a part of Baghdad that has been hailed by the Bush administration as an example of success in improved security, underscores the persistent propaganda still coming out of Iraq from the White House and allies such as presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee John McCain.

For the last few months, “the surge is working” has been the line; a line that the media has willingly gone along with almost no critical analysis, in their continued neglect and dereliction of duty as the fourth institution of checks and balance. It’s the same dereliction of duty that had the media cheerleading us to war in Iraq in the first place; based on false evidence that was exposable as such at the time.

As Barack Obama has rightly noted when asked about this in debates, they make the claim that the surge is going so well by simply moving the goal post for success. I heard it said on the news last week that we’re having “only less than 50” deaths a month in Iraq now; which was given as proof of the surge’s veracity.

WHAT?

Only about 50??? That’s something to celebrate to these people? So if the surge is working to accomplish the purpose we went into Iraq for, then that means we went into Iraq in March of 2003 so that about 570 American soldiers could die in 2008, 5 years later. That was our plan.

Doing a tad bit better than the terrible we were doing in getting political goals accomplished is not a victory, or something to celebrate. It’s a tactical advance that does almost nothing towards achieving the ultimate goal anytime soon.

Iraq: Shiite stronghold is not safe
By JOHN AFFLECK, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - It was a beautiful evening and the streets of Baghdad’s Karradah neighborhood were packed with shoppers and young people mingling at the start of the Iraqi weekend — then the extremists struck, again.

The death toll from twin bombings Thursday night rose to 68 killed, 120 wounded on Friday and showed just how tough it will be to rejuvenate Iraq’s capital when bombers still hit one of its safer and more vibrant neighborhoods regularly.

The U.S. military blamed al-Qaida in Iraq for the attack Friday, one of the deadliest so far this year. It had all the signs of the radical Sunni group’s previous assaults on Shiite civilians.

A bomb hidden under a vendor stall exploded first, and then in the chaos that followed a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt detonated, Mohammed al-Rubaie, the head of the Karradah municipality, told the state-run Al-Iraqiya TV. Severed limbs rained down on bystanders.

Striking Karradah, in central Baghdad, has a particular resonance that goes beyond the body count.

The neighborhood is mostly under the influence of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the country’s most powerful Shiite party, led by Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim. It also is an area with a beating commercial heart — not so easy to find in Baghdad after nearly five years of war.

Everything from domestic appliances to clothes to fruits and vegetables can be purchased there, and shoppers can grab a bite to eat at its kebab and falafel stands, or a drink at its fruit-juice parlors.

Yet while it has several checkpoints, and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council has a strong security presence, Karradah has been targeted repeatedly. The Associated Press counted at least a dozen attacks that killed seven or more people in the area since last April, most before the so-called surge of U.S. troops took full effect. Thursday’s was the deadliest.

article continued…