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EPAF Identifies Victims of Accomarca Massacre
October 7, 2008, Lima, Peru: Twenty-three years after the brutal massacre of more than 50 people in the community of Accomarca (Ayacucho, Peru), the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) has successfully identified the remains of six of the victims.
The successful identifications resulted from DNA work completed by Bode Laboratories and the comparison of data collected by EPAF forensic anthropologists.
“The victims’ remains were found in very bad condition,” an EPAF staff member said. “DNA was the only way to make an identification given that state, and we were worried that even that wouldn't work. It was not possible to identify all the remains, which is sad for the families of the victims, but these six identifications are very important because they prove that the people found in the grave are indeed the people thought to be there.”
The massacre occurred on August 14, 1985. According to testimonies, after arriving to the plaza of Llocllapampa for a community assembly, residents were ushered into three separate houses by the military. Accusing all of membership in the Shining Path, soldiers assassinated everyone, setting every house on fire and throwing grenades inside.
The identified victims include four adult women and two children.
EPAF is a partner of The Advocacy Project.
Dale Farm Update: Judge Grants Injunction to Stop Demolition of Saint Christopher’s Centre
October 6, 2008, Basildon, UK: A British High Court judge granted an interim injunction Saturday night (Oct. 4) that staves off demolition for a community center built by the Dale Farm Travellers.
The injunction is valid pending a hearing of the Travellers’ application for a judicial review of the Basildon District Council's decision to remove the Saint Christopher’s Centre.
The application for a judicial review will be processed this week. The case is based partly on the refusal by the Council to allow any members of the public to attend or speak at a Sept.16 meeting where they voted to demolish Saint Christopher’s. The Council claims the Centre, a log cabin, was built in breach of planning regulations.
Saint Christopher's was built for the children of Dale Farm, many of whom do not attend local schools for fear of prejudice. Computers have been installed in the Centre to allow for information technology (IT) instruction, and Professor Stephen Heppell, a leading online education expert from Anglia Ruskin University, plans to develop courses for Dale Farm residents and children at the Centre. The Centre is also used by the Dale Farm Chaveys Youth Club, which provides the children with leadership training, and for prayer meetings every Tuesday.
In addition to the judicial review hearing, the Travellers also face a Dec. 5 appeals hearing on Basildon’s attempt to evict them from Dale Farm. The Council voted twice, in 2005 and 2007, to evict the Travellers, claiming they are living illegally and without planning permission. A High Court judge halted those eviction orders in May.
The Advocacy Project (AP) has worked with the Dale Farm Housing Association since 2005, and supported the Travellers in their struggle against eviction.
Caribbean Countries Push for Arms Trade Treaty
October 6, 2008, Antigua: Representatives from Caribbean governments and civil society organizations called for the United Nations to begin negotiations of an Arms Trade Treaty after a two-day summit in Antigua last week.
Discussions at the two-day conference (Oct. 2-3) focused on the social and economic impacts that armed violence was having on the region, the challenges to community safety, marginalization of communities, and the loss of young males in urban communities to gun violence.
The Arms Trade Treaty, which would prohibit arms transfers that fuel conflict, poverty and serious human rights abuses, is currently under discussion at the United Nations. States are set to discuss the next stage of the process during October.
Representatives from Guyana, St. Lucia, Haiti, Trinidad, Grenada, Switzerland, UK, St. Kitts, Jamaica, and Antigua and Barbuda attended the conference.
The conference was hosted by Antigua’s Civil Organisation Promoting Peace in Youth (COPPY), the Women’s Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD) of Trinidad and Tobago, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), and Oxfam.
WINAD and IANSA are partners of The Advocacy Project (AP).
Study Shows Guns to be Weapon of Choice in Murders of US Women
October 6, 2008, Washington, DC: A new report by the Violence Policy Center in Washington has revealed that firearms are the most common weapon used by men to murder women in the United States.
The report, titled “When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2006 Homicide Data,” details national and state-by-state information on female homicides involving one female murder victim and one male offender. The study uses the most recent data available from the FBI’s unpublished Supplementary Homicide Report and is released each year to coincide with Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October.
According to the report, a total of 1,836 women in the United States were murdered by men in single victim/single offender incidents in 2006.
For the second year in a row, Nevada led the nation in the rate of women killed by men, with 3.27 of every 100,000 women being a victim of this type of homicide. Nationally, the rate of women killed by men in single victim/single offender instances was 1.29 per 100,000.
Where weapon use could be determined, firearms were the choice of men in 54 percent of murders of women (907 of 1,675 homicides). Of these, 73 percent (666 of 907) were committed with handguns.
In cases where it could be determined if the victim knew her killer, 92 percent
of female victims (1,572 out of 1,701) were murdered by someone they knew. Of these, 60 percent (949 out of 1,572) were wives or intimate acquaintances of their killers.
The Violence Policy Center is a national non-profit educational foundation that conducts research on violence in the United States and works to develop violence-reduction policies and proposals.
The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) is distributing the report to more than 250 members of its Women’s Network in countries around the world. IANSA is a strategic partner of The Advocacy Project (AP).
Bosnian Advocates and AP Launch New Petition to Arrest Ratko Mladic
October 3, 2008, Washington, DC: The Advocacy Project (AP) and the Bosniak American Advisory Council for Bosnia & Herzegovina (BAACBH) launched a new e-petition this week calling for the arrest of Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic.
Mr Mladic, the general who oversaw the 1995 Srebrenica massacre that killed 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men, was indicted for the crime of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and has been on the run for 13 years.
Earlier this year, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was apprehended in Serbia and extradited to The Hague to face trial on charges of genocide and other war crimes.
The new petition is addressed to government officials worldwide and asks that they “use all diplomatic, military, and intelligence resources available to make certain that Mladic is arrested as soon as possible.”
AP has co-sponsored two previous online petitions calling for the arrest of Mr Mladic and Mr Karadzic, in 2005 and 2007. The 2005 petition was co-sponsored by Physicians for Human Rights, the Center for Balkan Development, and the Congress of North American Bosniaks. It attracted 9,976 signatures from people in 90 countries and was handed to the Secretary-General of NATO, who raised the issue with the Serbian foreign minister shortly afterward. The second petition garnered an additional 1,863 signatures calling for the arrests.
EPAF Experts Testify at Fujimori Trial
October 2, 2008, Lima, Peru: Three forensic experts from the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) testified last month at the trial of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori.
EPAF's experts, Jose Pablo Baraybar, Carmen Rosa Cardoza and Mellisa Lund, appeared in court September 10 to present the results of the forensic analysis in the case of nine students and a professor who were kidnapped from the Universidad Nacional de Educación Enrique Guzmán y Valle “La Cantuta.”
The 10 victims were abducted by a government death squad, known as Grupo Colina, in a pre-dawn raid July 18, 1992 and shot in the head. Their remains were later found in an unmarked grave.
The Cantuta case is one of two cases related to human rights violations for which Fujimori is facing charges.
EPAF, a partner of The Advocacy Project (AP), conducted forensic tests and DNA analysis on the remains in 2007 and also gave testimony to the First Anticorruption Criminal Court in Peru. That evidence was sufficient for the court to sentence four members of the Colina death squad to jail terms of up to 35 years.
UN Meets With Civil Society to Discuss Arms, Sustainable Development
September 29, 2008, Antigua: Two Advocacy Project (AP) partners working on arms control issues will meet with United Nations (UN) disarmament officials at a summit in Antigua later this week.
The Women’s Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD) and the International Network on Small Arms (IANSA) helped to organize the meeting, which will focus on the Arms Trade Treaty and the relationship between the arms trade and sustainable development. The meeting comes in advance of a UN General Assembly meeting to decide the next steps for the treaty in October.
Earlier this month, IANSA members held a week of action in support of the ATT.
IANSA, a global network of civil society groups working against gun violence, is a strategic partner of AP. WINAD, a women’s rights group from Trinidad and Tobago, is one of AP’s community-based partners, and is a member of IANSA’s Women’s Network.
News about the summit was reported by the Antigua Sun. Read the full article here.
Roma Event to Take Place During Human Rights and Democracy Conference
September 26, 2008, Warsaw, Poland: Roma issues will have a presence at Europe’s largest human rights and democracy conference next week, with a side event focusing on government policies that impact Roma.
The event will take place Oct. 1 in Warsaw, Poland, during the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s 13th annual Human Dimension Implementation Meeting. The meeting is being organized by the OSCE’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Its purpose is to review progress made by the OSCE’s 56 participating states in fulfilling their human rights and democracy commitments.
The aim of the side event is to discuss the European approach towards Roma and Sinti, in particular the role of national governments. The event is seen as a first step towards more coordination among governmental bodies dealing with Romani issues, and is part of a push for cooperation that could lead to creation of a Roma policy in the European Union (EU). The goal is to follow up and to organize a bigger event during the Czech presidency of the EU in April 2009.
Ivan Vesely, President of the Dzeno Association, and Vice-Chair of the Council for Roma Community Affairs, is helping to organize the event. Dzeno, a leading Romani rights organization, is a partner of The Advocacy Project.
IANSA Speaks Out After Finnish School Shooting
September 25, 2008, London: The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) is among those calling for tighter gun laws in Finland, days after a school shooting that left 11 people dead in the town of Kauhajoki.
On Sept. 23, a 22-year-old student killed nine other students and a male teacher at a catering college before shooting himself. This is the second school shooting in Finland in 10 months, after six students, a principal and school nurse were shot dead in Jokela last November.
“The scourge of school shootings is no longer confined to the United States,” IANSA Director Rebecca Peters said. “European governments must act now to protect our schoolchildren and students from these lethal weapons.”
Finland has the highest rate of gun deaths in the European Union. The Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen has said Finland should consider banning private handguns.
IANSA is a strategic partner of The Advocacy Project (AP).
Civilians in Crisis as Combat Resumes in Congo
September 25, 2008, Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo: Renewed violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is causing a humanitarian crisis and immense suffering for civilians, according to the Congo Advocacy Coalition, a group of 83 aid agencies and human rights groups.
Since August 28, fighting has resumed between the Congolese army and Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), as well as other armed groups, breaking a ceasefire that had been in place since the Goma peace agreement was signed in January.
An estimated 100,000 civilians were forced to flee in the most recent violence, including many who had already been displaced. According to witnesses, some civilians were trapped in combat zones and killed, wounded, raped or detained by soldiers of the Congolese army and other armed groups. The United Nations believes that more than 1.2 million people are now displaced in North and South Kivu
In addition, aid workers have suffered attacks that have forced them to suspend activities in North Kivu and parts of South Kivu, leaving many displaced persons without assistance.
The coalition has called for urgent action to improve protection of civilians and an immediate increase in assistance to vulnerable populations.
Three Advocacy Project (AP) partners in the DRC – Initiative Congolaise pour la Justice et la Paix (ICJP), Centre de Recherche sur l'Environnement, la Démocratie et les Droits de l'Homme (CREDDHO), and Solidarité pour la Promotion Sociale et la Paix (SOPROP) – are members of the coalition. AP recently sent Peace Fellow Ned Meerdink to volunteer in Congo with partners Arche d’Alliance and Bureau pour le Voluntariat au service de l’Enfance et de la Sante (BVES).
Chintan Founder to Speak at Recycling Forum Friday
September 25, 2008, Washington, DC: The founder of India’s Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group, Bharati Chaturvedi, will speak at a forum on informal recycling in the developing world Friday (Sept. 26) at American University.
Chintan works with wastepickers of Delhi, who scour through open trash bins for recyclable paper, metals, glass and plastics, which they then sell. According to Chintan, wastepickers account for almost 1 percent of Delhi’s population and handle about 20 percent of the city’s waste. They earn, on average, one or two dollars a day.
Ms Chaturvedi will be joined by Peter Cohen, an anthropologist and social development consultant from the World Bank, and Sandra Cointreau, a solid waste management advisor for the Bank.
The forum will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the School of International Service (SIS) Lounge on the American University campus.
Chintan is a partner of The Advocacy Project (AP). AP Peace Fellow Paul Colombini, an American University graduate student who volunteered with Chintan in Delhi this summer, helped to organize the forum.
Leading Israeli Human Rights Group Comes to Washington
September 24, 2008, Washington, DC: The director of B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights documentation center, will hold a lecture and discussion today at Georgetown University on the center’s latest findings and new methods of human rights monitoring.
Jessica Montell, the Executive Director of B'Tselem will present the group’s latest report on the settlements and discuss B’Tselem’s pioneering approach to human rights monitoring, including the use of video. The event will also mark the opening of B’Tselem’s new office in Washington, DC.
The event will be held in the 7th Floor Conference Room at the Intercultural Center on the Georgetown campus. It is being sponsored by the Georgetown Human Rights Forum, which is a joint effort between Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) and The Advocacy Project (AP).
Women in Black Condemn Attacks on Queer Festival
September 23, 2008, Belgrade, Serbia: Women in Black-Serbia has joined several other human rights groups in condemning vicious attacks on some participants at the Queer Festival in Belgrade this past weekend, according to Serbian news organizations.
A group of about 20 youths wearing surgical masks and hoods attacked festival participants on September 19, seriously injuring one person, who suffered a broken arm and concussion, and causing minor injuries to several others. The police reacted quickly, arresting one attacker and taking a number of others in for questioning.
In a joint statement, the human rights groups said threats to attack the festival participants had been posted on the websites of some nationalistic organizations a few days prior to the festival, but no action was taken.
Women in Black-Serbia is a partner of The Advocacy Project.
The statement was also signed by the Queeria Center, the Center for Cultural Decontamination, the Humanitarian Law Center, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights and the YUCOM Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights.
IANSA Joins Project to Create Art Out of Guns
September 19, 2008, New York: The International Network on Small Arms (IANSA) has teamed with the newly formed Art of Peace Charitable Trust in an effort to create “peace angel” monuments out of weapons.
The monuments will be crafted from melted-down guns and other weapons collected from around the world.
The first monument, a 30-by-32-foot sculpture, is planned for the city of New York. Future monuments are also planned for Los Angeles, California; Johannesburg, South Africa; Sarajevo, Bosnia/Herzegovina and Jerusalem, Israel.
IANSA, a global network 800 civil society groups working to stop gun violence and the proliferation of weapons, is a strategic partner of The Advocacy Project.
Bosnian Film Highlights Art as a Means Toward Reconciliation
Dzeno Association and International Romani Union Urge Integration for Roma
September 16, 2008, Brussels, Belgium: The heads of two Roma rights organizations released a joint statement today to the speaking out against discrimination and urging the countries of the European Union to integrate Roma people and stop treating them like second-class citizens.
Ivan Vesely, president of the Dzeno Association and Stanislaw Stankiewicz, president of the International Romani Union, wrote the open letter to participants at the European Roma Summit:
“In the 21st century, there are still many Roma who live in the middle of Europe like in the third world. No real houses, no water, no electricity, no infrastructure provided by the state, segregation in school, police excess, and indifference from the local population at best,” read part of the letter.
“Officially, Roma are citizens of the country they live in. In practice, they are often considered to be second-class citizen at best, and administrative discrimination is a fact in many countries. Clearly, some laws have been enacted, some window dressing has been put in place. Policies vary from self-government, reserved seats in parliaments, to minority status, but these are not addressing the fundamental issue of the recognition of Roma as true citizens of their countries and of Europe.”
The Dzeno Association is a partner of The Advocacy Project (AP). AP sent Peace Fellow Colby Pacheco to volunteer with the group in Prague this summer.
Women in Black Condemn Serbian Supreme Court Rulings
September 16, 2008, Belgrade, Serbia: Members of Women in Black-Serbia say the Serbian state is resuming the practice of denying state organized crime, and even vindicating criminals, after the successful appeals of two paramilitaries.
The organization issued a statement following the Serbian Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the appeals of two members of the Scorpions paramilitary group that operated as a Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) unit. The unit had a role in crimes committed in Trnovo in July 1995, when six civilians from Srebrenica were murdered.
“Not content with murdering them, the Serbian state continues to insult their memories and further humiliate the families of the survivors,” reads the statement from Women In Black. “The women of Srebrenica are having to go through their pain again, losing all faith in the possibility of justice being done.”
Women in Black is a partner of The Advocacy Project. AP sent Peace Fellow Janet Rabin to volunteer with the organization in Belgrade this past summer.
EPAF Director Featured in Washington Post Article
September 12, 2008, Washington, DC: The director of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF), Jose Pablo Baraybar, was featured today in a Washington Post piece focusing on the use of DNA evidence to identify murder victims both in the United States and abroad.
In the article, Mr Baraybar talks about EPAF’s work identifying victims from a mass grave at Putis, Peru – the site of a brutal 1984 massacre that killed 123 men, women and children.
According to the article, scientists’ experiences with remains from the World Trade Center – where bones were subjected to intense heat – is being applied to the work in Peru, where soldiers tried to hide killings by burning bodies.
“It's very September 11-like material. It’s very degraded,” Mr Baraybar noted in the article, speaking about the remains of mass graves in Peru. “There are a lot of children. That’s a problem. The bones are very fragile.”
EPAF is a partner of The Advocacy Project, and AP sent Peace Fellow Ash Kosiewicz to volunteer with the group this past summer.
Chintan Teams Up with U.S. Environmental Group to Combat Electronic Waste
September 11, 2008, Delhi, India: A California environmental group is teaming up with the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group to document the impact of electronic waste on wastepickers in Delhi.
To help address the global problem of electronic waste (e-waste) – like discarded monitors, cell phones, PCs, circuits, and keyboards – a team from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) has been visiting Delhi to meet with the wastepickers that Chintan works with. The two groups are hoping to build a case to put better regulations and processes in place to reduce the impact of e-waste on workers and the environment.
Currently, the majority of e-waste collected for recycling in the U.S. is shipped to countries such as China, India, South Korea, Nigeria, Malaysia, Mexico, Vietnam and Brazil. In 2006, California alone shipped an estimated 20 million pounds of e-waste to these countries, according to SVTC.
According to Chintan, men and women pick out, burn and smash with their bare hands the U.S. e-waste shipped to Delhi and Mumbai. This e-waste is often full of hazardous chemicals, including lead, mercury, and brominated flame retardants.
A team from SVTC will be in India until Sept. 12.
Chintan is a partner of The Advocacy Project, and Peace Fellows Paul Colombini and Mackenzie Berg volunteered with the group in Delhi this summer.
Newswire
The latest news from The Advocacy Project partners, updated as it happens:
Coming soon: The Newswire Blog
Within the next week the Newswire will become a blog that can be found in the "Blogs" section of our website. Untill then you can still follow our Newswire stories below.
Women in Black Support Threatened Human Rights Activist
October 7, 2008, Belgrade, Serbia: Members of the women’s peace group Women in Black-Serbia are reaching out to a fellow human rights activist who has come under attack from nationalist and right-wing groups in Serbia.
Women in Black-Serbia has issued a statement of solidarity with Sonja Biserko, the president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia (HCHRS), who has faced intimidation from such groups as well as from some members of the Serbian press.
According to information from Women in Black and Front Line, a group that supports human rights defenders, the HCHRS offices were targeted Sept. 30 by 100 to 130 members of right-wing organizations, including Movement 1389 and Protest.
Protesters gathered outside the office and remained there for approximately 15 minutes shouting threats at the members of HCRHS. Many of the threats were aimed specifically at Ms. Biserko. Before they departed, protesters left a large cardboard swastika outside of the building.
Then, on Oct. 2, the newspaper Tabloid published an article about Ms. Biserko in which her full home address and other private information was included. The newspaper labeled her a “traitor of the homogeneous Serbianhood.” The HCHRS has also received many threatening letters, some of which contained explicit death threats against Ms. Biserko. Despite these threats, she is receiving no police protection.
The intimidation is believed to be linked to the release of HCHRS’s annual report, which addresses crimes against humanity of the Serbian administration in the Balkans during the 1990s. The Movement 1389, a nationalist group, has protested against the arrest of Radovan Karadzic since he was taken into police custody in July.
Women in Black-Serbia has condemned the attacks, calling them an attempt to discredit the report. “The attack on Sonja Biserko is a continuance of the attacks on human rights defenders in Serbia occurring since the beginning of the wars in former Yugoslavia,” the group said in a statement. “During this long period of time, we have all been victims of those attacks directed towards activists advocating for a radical discontinuity with the criminal past.”
Women in Black-Serbia is demanding the government take action to stop these hateful attacks. The group is asking people to send the letters of solidarity to Serbian President Boris Tadic; Dr. Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic, President of Serbia’s National Assembly; and Ivica Dacic, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior.
- Read the statement of solidarity.
- Read Women in Black’s letter to supporters.
- Learn more about the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia.
EPAF Identifies Victims of Accomarca Massacre
October 7, 2008, Lima, Peru: Twenty-three years after the brutal massacre of more than 50 people in the community of Accomarca (Ayacucho, Peru), the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) has successfully identified the remains of six of the victims.
The successful identifications resulted from DNA work completed by Bode Laboratories and the comparison of data collected by EPAF forensic anthropologists.
“The victims’ remains were found in very bad condition,” an EPAF staff member said. “DNA was the only way to make an identification given that state, and we were worried that even that wouldn't work. It was not possible to identify all the remains, which is sad for the families of the victims, but these six identifications are very important because they prove that the people found in the grave are indeed the people thought to be there.”
The massacre occurred on August 14, 1985. According to testimonies, after arriving to the plaza of Llocllapampa for a community assembly, residents were ushered into three separate houses by the military. Accusing all of membership in the Shining Path, soldiers assassinated everyone, setting every house on fire and throwing grenades inside.
The identified victims include four adult women and two children.
EPAF is a partner of The Advocacy Project.
- For more information, read EPAF’s press release.
Dale Farm Update: Judge Grants Injunction to Stop Demolition of Saint Christopher’s Centre
October 6, 2008, Basildon, UK: A British High Court judge granted an interim injunction Saturday night (Oct. 4) that staves off demolition for a community center built by the Dale Farm Travellers.
The injunction is valid pending a hearing of the Travellers’ application for a judicial review of the Basildon District Council's decision to remove the Saint Christopher’s Centre.
The application for a judicial review will be processed this week. The case is based partly on the refusal by the Council to allow any members of the public to attend or speak at a Sept.16 meeting where they voted to demolish Saint Christopher’s. The Council claims the Centre, a log cabin, was built in breach of planning regulations.
Saint Christopher's was built for the children of Dale Farm, many of whom do not attend local schools for fear of prejudice. Computers have been installed in the Centre to allow for information technology (IT) instruction, and Professor Stephen Heppell, a leading online education expert from Anglia Ruskin University, plans to develop courses for Dale Farm residents and children at the Centre. The Centre is also used by the Dale Farm Chaveys Youth Club, which provides the children with leadership training, and for prayer meetings every Tuesday.
In addition to the judicial review hearing, the Travellers also face a Dec. 5 appeals hearing on Basildon’s attempt to evict them from Dale Farm. The Council voted twice, in 2005 and 2007, to evict the Travellers, claiming they are living illegally and without planning permission. A High Court judge halted those eviction orders in May.
The Advocacy Project (AP) has worked with the Dale Farm Housing Association since 2005, and supported the Travellers in their struggle against eviction.
- Read more about the injunction.
- Read AP’s news bulletin about threats to the Saint Christopher’s Centre.
Caribbean Countries Push for Arms Trade Treaty
October 6, 2008, Antigua: Representatives from Caribbean governments and civil society organizations called for the United Nations to begin negotiations of an Arms Trade Treaty after a two-day summit in Antigua last week.
Discussions at the two-day conference (Oct. 2-3) focused on the social and economic impacts that armed violence was having on the region, the challenges to community safety, marginalization of communities, and the loss of young males in urban communities to gun violence.
The Arms Trade Treaty, which would prohibit arms transfers that fuel conflict, poverty and serious human rights abuses, is currently under discussion at the United Nations. States are set to discuss the next stage of the process during October.
Representatives from Guyana, St. Lucia, Haiti, Trinidad, Grenada, Switzerland, UK, St. Kitts, Jamaica, and Antigua and Barbuda attended the conference.
The conference was hosted by Antigua’s Civil Organisation Promoting Peace in Youth (COPPY), the Women’s Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD) of Trinidad and Tobago, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), and Oxfam.
WINAD and IANSA are partners of The Advocacy Project (AP).
- For more information, see news coverage of the summit.
- Read the regional statement from the conference.
Study Shows Guns to be Weapon of Choice in Murders of US Women
October 6, 2008, Washington, DC: A new report by the Violence Policy Center in Washington has revealed that firearms are the most common weapon used by men to murder women in the United States.
The report, titled “When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2006 Homicide Data,” details national and state-by-state information on female homicides involving one female murder victim and one male offender. The study uses the most recent data available from the FBI’s unpublished Supplementary Homicide Report and is released each year to coincide with Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October.
According to the report, a total of 1,836 women in the United States were murdered by men in single victim/single offender incidents in 2006.
For the second year in a row, Nevada led the nation in the rate of women killed by men, with 3.27 of every 100,000 women being a victim of this type of homicide. Nationally, the rate of women killed by men in single victim/single offender instances was 1.29 per 100,000.
Where weapon use could be determined, firearms were the choice of men in 54 percent of murders of women (907 of 1,675 homicides). Of these, 73 percent (666 of 907) were committed with handguns.
In cases where it could be determined if the victim knew her killer, 92 percent
of female victims (1,572 out of 1,701) were murdered by someone they knew. Of these, 60 percent (949 out of 1,572) were wives or intimate acquaintances of their killers.
The Violence Policy Center is a national non-profit educational foundation that conducts research on violence in the United States and works to develop violence-reduction policies and proposals.
The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) is distributing the report to more than 250 members of its Women’s Network in countries around the world. IANSA is a strategic partner of The Advocacy Project (AP).
- Read the full report from the Violence Policy Center.
Bosnian Advocates and AP Launch New Petition to Arrest Ratko Mladic
October 3, 2008, Washington, DC: The Advocacy Project (AP) and the Bosniak American Advisory Council for Bosnia & Herzegovina (BAACBH) launched a new e-petition this week calling for the arrest of Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic.
Mr Mladic, the general who oversaw the 1995 Srebrenica massacre that killed 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men, was indicted for the crime of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and has been on the run for 13 years.
Earlier this year, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was apprehended in Serbia and extradited to The Hague to face trial on charges of genocide and other war crimes.
The new petition is addressed to government officials worldwide and asks that they “use all diplomatic, military, and intelligence resources available to make certain that Mladic is arrested as soon as possible.”
AP has co-sponsored two previous online petitions calling for the arrest of Mr Mladic and Mr Karadzic, in 2005 and 2007. The 2005 petition was co-sponsored by Physicians for Human Rights, the Center for Balkan Development, and the Congress of North American Bosniaks. It attracted 9,976 signatures from people in 90 countries and was handed to the Secretary-General of NATO, who raised the issue with the Serbian foreign minister shortly afterward. The second petition garnered an additional 1,863 signatures calling for the arrests.
- Sign the new e-petition.
EPAF Experts Testify at Fujimori Trial
October 2, 2008, Lima, Peru: Three forensic experts from the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) testified last month at the trial of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori.
EPAF's experts, Jose Pablo Baraybar, Carmen Rosa Cardoza and Mellisa Lund, appeared in court September 10 to present the results of the forensic analysis in the case of nine students and a professor who were kidnapped from the Universidad Nacional de Educación Enrique Guzmán y Valle “La Cantuta.”
The 10 victims were abducted by a government death squad, known as Grupo Colina, in a pre-dawn raid July 18, 1992 and shot in the head. Their remains were later found in an unmarked grave.
The Cantuta case is one of two cases related to human rights violations for which Fujimori is facing charges.
EPAF, a partner of The Advocacy Project (AP), conducted forensic tests and DNA analysis on the remains in 2007 and also gave testimony to the First Anticorruption Criminal Court in Peru. That evidence was sufficient for the court to sentence four members of the Colina death squad to jail terms of up to 35 years.
- Read more about EPAF’s work in their newsletter.
UN Meets With Civil Society to Discuss Arms, Sustainable Development
September 29, 2008, Antigua: Two Advocacy Project (AP) partners working on arms control issues will meet with United Nations (UN) disarmament officials at a summit in Antigua later this week.
The Women’s Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD) and the International Network on Small Arms (IANSA) helped to organize the meeting, which will focus on the Arms Trade Treaty and the relationship between the arms trade and sustainable development. The meeting comes in advance of a UN General Assembly meeting to decide the next steps for the treaty in October.
Earlier this month, IANSA members held a week of action in support of the ATT.
IANSA, a global network of civil society groups working against gun violence, is a strategic partner of AP. WINAD, a women’s rights group from Trinidad and Tobago, is one of AP’s community-based partners, and is a member of IANSA’s Women’s Network.
News about the summit was reported by the Antigua Sun. Read the full article here.
Roma Event to Take Place During Human Rights and Democracy Conference
September 26, 2008, Warsaw, Poland: Roma issues will have a presence at Europe’s largest human rights and democracy conference next week, with a side event focusing on government policies that impact Roma.
The event will take place Oct. 1 in Warsaw, Poland, during the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s 13th annual Human Dimension Implementation Meeting. The meeting is being organized by the OSCE’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Its purpose is to review progress made by the OSCE’s 56 participating states in fulfilling their human rights and democracy commitments.
The aim of the side event is to discuss the European approach towards Roma and Sinti, in particular the role of national governments. The event is seen as a first step towards more coordination among governmental bodies dealing with Romani issues, and is part of a push for cooperation that could lead to creation of a Roma policy in the European Union (EU). The goal is to follow up and to organize a bigger event during the Czech presidency of the EU in April 2009.
Ivan Vesely, President of the Dzeno Association, and Vice-Chair of the Council for Roma Community Affairs, is helping to organize the event. Dzeno, a leading Romani rights organization, is a partner of The Advocacy Project.
- For more information on the event, click here.
IANSA Speaks Out After Finnish School Shooting
September 25, 2008, London: The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) is among those calling for tighter gun laws in Finland, days after a school shooting that left 11 people dead in the town of Kauhajoki.
On Sept. 23, a 22-year-old student killed nine other students and a male teacher at a catering college before shooting himself. This is the second school shooting in Finland in 10 months, after six students, a principal and school nurse were shot dead in Jokela last November.
“The scourge of school shootings is no longer confined to the United States,” IANSA Director Rebecca Peters said. “European governments must act now to protect our schoolchildren and students from these lethal weapons.”
Finland has the highest rate of gun deaths in the European Union. The Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen has said Finland should consider banning private handguns.
IANSA is a strategic partner of The Advocacy Project (AP).
- To read more about IANSA’s response, check out their website.
Civilians in Crisis as Combat Resumes in Congo
September 25, 2008, Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo: Renewed violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is causing a humanitarian crisis and immense suffering for civilians, according to the Congo Advocacy Coalition, a group of 83 aid agencies and human rights groups.
Since August 28, fighting has resumed between the Congolese army and Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), as well as other armed groups, breaking a ceasefire that had been in place since the Goma peace agreement was signed in January.
An estimated 100,000 civilians were forced to flee in the most recent violence, including many who had already been displaced. According to witnesses, some civilians were trapped in combat zones and killed, wounded, raped or detained by soldiers of the Congolese army and other armed groups. The United Nations believes that more than 1.2 million people are now displaced in North and South Kivu
In addition, aid workers have suffered attacks that have forced them to suspend activities in North Kivu and parts of South Kivu, leaving many displaced persons without assistance.
The coalition has called for urgent action to improve protection of civilians and an immediate increase in assistance to vulnerable populations.
Three Advocacy Project (AP) partners in the DRC – Initiative Congolaise pour la Justice et la Paix (ICJP), Centre de Recherche sur l'Environnement, la Démocratie et les Droits de l'Homme (CREDDHO), and Solidarité pour la Promotion Sociale et la Paix (SOPROP) – are members of the coalition. AP recently sent Peace Fellow Ned Meerdink to volunteer in Congo with partners Arche d’Alliance and Bureau pour le Voluntariat au service de l’Enfance et de la Sante (BVES).
- Read the full report from Human Rights Watch.
Chintan Founder to Speak at Recycling Forum Friday
September 25, 2008, Washington, DC: The founder of India’s Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group, Bharati Chaturvedi, will speak at a forum on informal recycling in the developing world Friday (Sept. 26) at American University. Chintan works with wastepickers of Delhi, who scour through open trash bins for recyclable paper, metals, glass and plastics, which they then sell. According to Chintan, wastepickers account for almost 1 percent of Delhi’s population and handle about 20 percent of the city’s waste. They earn, on average, one or two dollars a day.
Ms Chaturvedi will be joined by Peter Cohen, an anthropologist and social development consultant from the World Bank, and Sandra Cointreau, a solid waste management advisor for the Bank.
The forum will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the School of International Service (SIS) Lounge on the American University campus.
Chintan is a partner of The Advocacy Project (AP). AP Peace Fellow Paul Colombini, an American University graduate student who volunteered with Chintan in Delhi this summer, helped to organize the forum.
- Learn more about the event.
Leading Israeli Human Rights Group Comes to Washington
September 24, 2008, Washington, DC: The director of B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights documentation center, will hold a lecture and discussion today at Georgetown University on the center’s latest findings and new methods of human rights monitoring.
Jessica Montell, the Executive Director of B'Tselem will present the group’s latest report on the settlements and discuss B’Tselem’s pioneering approach to human rights monitoring, including the use of video. The event will also mark the opening of B’Tselem’s new office in Washington, DC.
The event will be held in the 7th Floor Conference Room at the Intercultural Center on the Georgetown campus. It is being sponsored by the Georgetown Human Rights Forum, which is a joint effort between Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) and The Advocacy Project (AP).
Women in Black Condemn Attacks on Queer Festival
September 23, 2008, Belgrade, Serbia: Women in Black-Serbia has joined several other human rights groups in condemning vicious attacks on some participants at the Queer Festival in Belgrade this past weekend, according to Serbian news organizations.
A group of about 20 youths wearing surgical masks and hoods attacked festival participants on September 19, seriously injuring one person, who suffered a broken arm and concussion, and causing minor injuries to several others. The police reacted quickly, arresting one attacker and taking a number of others in for questioning.
In a joint statement, the human rights groups said threats to attack the festival participants had been posted on the websites of some nationalistic organizations a few days prior to the festival, but no action was taken.
Women in Black-Serbia is a partner of The Advocacy Project.
The statement was also signed by the Queeria Center, the Center for Cultural Decontamination, the Humanitarian Law Center, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights and the YUCOM Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights.
- Read the full article.
IANSA Joins Project to Create Art Out of Guns
September 19, 2008, New York: The International Network on Small Arms (IANSA) has teamed with the newly formed Art of Peace Charitable Trust in an effort to create “peace angel” monuments out of weapons.
The monuments will be crafted from melted-down guns and other weapons collected from around the world.
The first monument, a 30-by-32-foot sculpture, is planned for the city of New York. Future monuments are also planned for Los Angeles, California; Johannesburg, South Africa; Sarajevo, Bosnia/Herzegovina and Jerusalem, Israel.
IANSA, a global network 800 civil society groups working to stop gun violence and the proliferation of weapons, is a strategic partner of The Advocacy Project.
- Read the press release.
Bosnian Film Highlights Art as a Means Toward Reconciliation
September 17, 2008, Washington, DC: An Oscar-qualified short film focusing on the lives of two Bosnians during and after the breakup of Yugoslavia will be shown tomorrow (Sept. 18) at the Intercultural Center at Georgetown University.
The film, titled “In the Name of the Son: Using Art to Rebuild After War,” focuses on Tarik, a Bosniak who escapes execution and immigrates to the United States, and Pavle, a Serb who spares Tarik’s life in Bosnia and later shows up on his doorstep asking for a favor.
The film was written and directed by Harun Mehmedinovic, an American Film Institute student who survived the siege of Sarajevo and immigrated to the United States. Mr Mehmedinovic and actor Jack Dimich will appear at the film screening and be available for questions afterward.
The event will be held from 6:45 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the 7th floor conference room at the Intercultural Center at Georgetown.
The Advocacy Project (AP) worked with the Bosniak American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BAACBH) and the Georgetown Institute for the Study of International Migration and the to put together the film screening. Elmina Kulasic, Executive Director of the Bosniak American Advisory Council for Bosnia & Herzegovina and AP Executive Director Iain Guest will speak at the event.
The event will also feature the Srebrenica Memorial Quilt, which was made by weavers from AP partner organization Bosnian Family (BOSFAM) to commemorate victims of the 1995 massacre. BOSFAM was founded in 1994 during the Bosnian conflict as a haven for refugee women, and many of the weavers lost family members at Srebrenica. Like Mr. Mehmedinovic, the quilt weavers use art as a means to both remember the conflict and promote reconciliation between women of various ethnicities in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
If you miss Thursday’s event, the film will be screened again at 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19 at the Longworth Building near the U.S. Capitol. That event is being sponsored by the BAACBH and the Heinrich Boll Foundation.
Dzeno Association and International Romani Union Urge Integration for Roma
September 16, 2008, Brussels, Belgium: The heads of two Roma rights organizations released a joint statement today to the speaking out against discrimination and urging the countries of the European Union to integrate Roma people and stop treating them like second-class citizens.
Ivan Vesely, president of the Dzeno Association and Stanislaw Stankiewicz, president of the International Romani Union, wrote the open letter to participants at the European Roma Summit:
“In the 21st century, there are still many Roma who live in the middle of Europe like in the third world. No real houses, no water, no electricity, no infrastructure provided by the state, segregation in school, police excess, and indifference from the local population at best,” read part of the letter.
“Officially, Roma are citizens of the country they live in. In practice, they are often considered to be second-class citizen at best, and administrative discrimination is a fact in many countries. Clearly, some laws have been enacted, some window dressing has been put in place. Policies vary from self-government, reserved seats in parliaments, to minority status, but these are not addressing the fundamental issue of the recognition of Roma as true citizens of their countries and of Europe.”
The Dzeno Association is a partner of The Advocacy Project (AP). AP sent Peace Fellow Colby Pacheco to volunteer with the group in Prague this summer.
- Read the entire open letter.
Women in Black Condemn Serbian Supreme Court Rulings
September 16, 2008, Belgrade, Serbia: Members of Women in Black-Serbia say the Serbian state is resuming the practice of denying state organized crime, and even vindicating criminals, after the successful appeals of two paramilitaries.
The organization issued a statement following the Serbian Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the appeals of two members of the Scorpions paramilitary group that operated as a Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) unit. The unit had a role in crimes committed in Trnovo in July 1995, when six civilians from Srebrenica were murdered.
“Not content with murdering them, the Serbian state continues to insult their memories and further humiliate the families of the survivors,” reads the statement from Women In Black. “The women of Srebrenica are having to go through their pain again, losing all faith in the possibility of justice being done.”
Women in Black is a partner of The Advocacy Project. AP sent Peace Fellow Janet Rabin to volunteer with the organization in Belgrade this past summer.
- Read the full article on the case.
EPAF Director Featured in Washington Post Article
September 12, 2008, Washington, DC: The director of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF), Jose Pablo Baraybar, was featured today in a Washington Post piece focusing on the use of DNA evidence to identify murder victims both in the United States and abroad.
In the article, Mr Baraybar talks about EPAF’s work identifying victims from a mass grave at Putis, Peru – the site of a brutal 1984 massacre that killed 123 men, women and children.
According to the article, scientists’ experiences with remains from the World Trade Center – where bones were subjected to intense heat – is being applied to the work in Peru, where soldiers tried to hide killings by burning bodies.
“It's very September 11-like material. It’s very degraded,” Mr Baraybar noted in the article, speaking about the remains of mass graves in Peru. “There are a lot of children. That’s a problem. The bones are very fragile.”
EPAF is a partner of The Advocacy Project, and AP sent Peace Fellow Ash Kosiewicz to volunteer with the group this past summer.
- Read the full article.
- Read Ash’s blog.
Chintan Teams Up with U.S. Environmental Group to Combat Electronic Waste
September 11, 2008, Delhi, India: A California environmental group is teaming up with the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group to document the impact of electronic waste on wastepickers in Delhi.
To help address the global problem of electronic waste (e-waste) – like discarded monitors, cell phones, PCs, circuits, and keyboards – a team from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) has been visiting Delhi to meet with the wastepickers that Chintan works with. The two groups are hoping to build a case to put better regulations and processes in place to reduce the impact of e-waste on workers and the environment.
Currently, the majority of e-waste collected for recycling in the U.S. is shipped to countries such as China, India, South Korea, Nigeria, Malaysia, Mexico, Vietnam and Brazil. In 2006, California alone shipped an estimated 20 million pounds of e-waste to these countries, according to SVTC.
According to Chintan, men and women pick out, burn and smash with their bare hands the U.S. e-waste shipped to Delhi and Mumbai. This e-waste is often full of hazardous chemicals, including lead, mercury, and brominated flame retardants.
A team from SVTC will be in India until Sept. 12.
Chintan is a partner of The Advocacy Project, and Peace Fellows Paul Colombini and Mackenzie Berg volunteered with the group in Delhi this summer.
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