July 21, 2009, New York, NY: Mira Said of the Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center (DWRC) in Palestine visited New York this week to appear on a morning radio program and will give a talk on the Palestinian labor movement.

DWRC is a partner of The Advocacy Project (AP).

Ms Said was interviewed on WBAI’s “Wake Up Call” this morning, and is scheduled to speak at office of 1199SEIU, a health care workers’ labor union, later tonight. You can listen to a clip of the radio program here.

Ms Said’s visit was organized by Eliza Bates, who volunteered as a Peace Fellow with the DWRC in 2007. The visit produced great publicity for DWRC, which was largely unknown outside of Palestine.

July 21, 2009, Lima, Peru: Three organizations working to identify the disappeared in Latin America have joined together in a regional initiative to share experiences and improve the process.

The Latin American Initiative for the Identification of “Disappeared” people (LIID or ILID in Spanish) focuses on finding a solution for the identification of the remains of thousands of people who were forcibly “disappeared” in Latin America for political reasons. 

LIID currently includes projects by three Latin American organizations that apply forensic sciences to the investigation of human rights violations: the Guatemala Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG), the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) and the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF). 

EPAF is a partner of The Advocacy Project (AP).

Genetic projects that processed large amounts of samples were effectively used to bring solace to the thousands of families of victims from the conflict in the Balkans and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.  The LIID believes it is critical to use these scientific advances in resolving similar problems in Latin America. In addition, considering the existence of the common need in the region, the initiative will help to minimize errors and optimize human and financial resources.

In the United States, the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA) is providing major support to LIID by helping facilitate contacts with donors and policymakers.

July 15, 2009, Washington, DC: The Bosniak-American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BAACBH) is astounded by the announcement that visa travel requirements have been abolished for citizens of Serbia and Montenegro, but not Bosnia and Herzegovina (B-H).

The announcement was made Tuesday by Javier Solana, the European Union’s Foreign Policy High Representative.

Because of ethnic divisions in the region, the move will essentially leave Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) as the only citizens in Bosnia without visa-free travel tot he EU. The majority of Bosnian Croats hold dual Bosnian and Croatian citizenship and Bosnian Serbs hold both Bosnian and Serbian citizenship.

BAACBH, an Advocacy Project (AP) partner, released this statement:

“The decision emphasizes that the European Union (EU) is not taking into consideration the implications this decision will have on B-H. The decision will consequently leave Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) as the only citizens of B-H without the possibility of visa-free travel to the EU. It will fuel ethnic divisions as the majority of Bosnian Croats hold dual Bosnian and Croatian citizenship and Bosnian Serbs hold both Bosnian and Serbian citizenship. Furthermore, it will undermine the democratic process of regional stability and reconciliation as both Serbia and Montenegro have been perpetrators of aggression against B-H.
 
The decision comes only three days after the 14th anniversary of the fall of Srebrenica, a declared United Nations (UN) safe haven, during which the lives of over 8,000 innocent Bosniak victims were brutally taken. BAACBH, a non-profit, non-governmental and non-partisan organization advocating on behalf of Bosnian-Americans, commemorated Srebrenica and the genocide that occurred in B-H, a tragic episode of human history that many said would never happen again. Today, sadly, we see those victims being forgotten, as the exclusion of B-H from the new visa regime means Bosniaks who have survived ethnic cleansing and genocide are persona non grata in the EU. ”
 
BAACBH urges the EU and the international community to examine the grave consequences of the exclusion of B-H from the new visa regime and act to rectify the situation.

July 15, 2009, Washington, DC: The International Criminal Court (ICC) recently held a workshop with  50 leaders representing people with disabilities in northeastern Uganda.

The meeting marked the beginning of an ICC effort to improve outreach to people with disabilities in the communities most affected by the conflict in northern Uganda. This is the first time the court is broadening its outreach efforts to include people with disabilities in order to strengthen its information-sharing process.

The training was initiated after an advocacy meeting that Mendi Njonjo, AP’s Director of Africa Programs and John Francis Onyango, coutnry coordinator for Survivor Corps in Uganda, held with ICC officials earlier this year.

You can read more about the training on the ICC website.

July 15, 2009, Lima, Peru: The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF), an AP partner, has joined Twitter in an effort to stay in contact with its supporters around the world.

EPAF is excited to announce that you can follow its new feed by visitng: http://twitter.com/epafperu.

EPAF is a partner of The Advocacy Project (AP). AP’s twitter feed can be found at http://twitter.com/AdvocacyProject.

You can also fellow the tweets of AP fellows at: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23apfellows.

July 10, 2009, Washington, DC: The Bosnian American Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BAACBH) will commemorate the 14th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide with an event on Capitol Hill today.

More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed on July 11, 1995, when Bosnian Serbs seized the city of Srebrenica, which had been a UN-protected safe haven during the conflict.

Today’s event will feature a clip from the film, “A Cry from the Grave,” as well as remarks from BAACBH Executive Director Elmina Kulasic; Damir Dzanko, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Bosnian Embassy; Bridget Conley-Zilkic, Director of Research and Projects at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Committee on Conscience; Trisha Rines, from the Office of Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson; and Nerina Cevra, International Advocacy Officer for Survivor Corps.

The event will be held from 1 to 2 p.m. in the Rayburn House Office Building. BAACBH is a partner of The Advocacy Project.

As part of the event, BAACBH will also display a memorial quilt made by the women of Bosnian Family (BOSFAM), an AP partner based in Tuzla, Bosnia. Many of BOSFAM’s weavers lost relatives in the massacre and were displaced from their homes after the war in the 1990s. Each of the quilt’s panels honors an individual victim.

July 9, 2009, Belgrade, Serbia: Several Serbian NGOs, including AP partner Women in Black-Serbia, are speaking out against the arrest of Srebrenica massacre surivor Midhat Salihovic, who has been accused of war crimes in the the Republika Srpska (RS).

According to the groups, Mr Salihovic, who lives in Sweden, had traveled to Potocari, Bosnia to attend the funeral of his father and brother, both victims of the genocide. A memorial service will be held this Saturday, July 11, on the 14th aniversary of the massacre.

Instead, Mr Salihovic was arrested on July 5 on a warrant issued by the Bijelina District Court, where he is suspected of war crimes against Bosnian Serbs.

A joint statement from Women in Black, JUKOM, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights called the arrest a “cynical and criminal move” and said RS authorities “are persecuting the survivors of the genocide.” 

In the statement, the NGOs call on the Serbian authorities to “at least distance themselves from the aggressive and dangerous policy” of the RS, and urge the international community to work energetically to prevent attempts to equate crimes and victims, and to put a stop to the dangerous policies pursued by RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik and the remaining RS political forces.

“On behalf of all the citizens of Serbia who have not lost their human dignity, we once again voice our solidarity with the families of the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica, as well as our resolve never to forget the crimes perpetrated in our name,” the statement reads.

July 8, 2009, Kampala, Uganda: Mendi Njonjo, AP’s Director of Africa Programs, was recently the subject of an article in Business Daily, an East African newspaper.

Mendi Njonjo, AP's Director of Africa Programs

Mendi Njonjo, AP's Director of Africa Programs

The article, titled “Kenyan Sees Philanthropic Path in ICT Training,” detailed Ms Njonjo’s efforts to help human rights advocates use technology to get their message out to wider audiences.

Ms Njonjo runs AP’s field office in Kampala, and is also working on a disability rights campaign with AP partner Survivor Corps.

You can read the full article here.

July 8, 2009, Lima, Peru: The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) welcomes the Peruvian Supreme Court’s ratification of the verdict in the La Cantuta case, which affirms the responsibility and sanction of Julio Salazar Monroe, as well as the other accused, in the murders of a professor and nine students from La Cantuta University in 1992.
 
“Today’s decision represents a significant advancement towards justice in cases involving grave violations of human rights,” the group said in a statement. “It also signifies an important step forward in the use of forensic analysis as scientific evidence in judicial prosecutions, and it has been EPAF’s privilege to contribute substantially to this process as official forensic experts in the case.”

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.

EPAF, a partner of The Advocacy Project (AP), conducted forensic tests and DNA analysis on the remains in 2007 and gave testimony to the First Anticorruption Criminal Court in Peru.

Only four of the ten victims could be positively identified, but the evidence was sufficient for the court to sentence four members of the Colina death squad to jail terms of up to 35 years. The case, which concluded in April 2008, was the first time forensic evidence had been used successfully in a trial before a Peruvian court.

The Cantuta massacre has also played a key role in the prosecution of Mr. Fujimori, his advisor Vladimiro Montesinos, and two other members of the Colina squad, who are being tried in separate legal proceedings.

In its statement, EPAF said it hopes the success of the La Cantuta case can be replicated in other cases of forced disappearances in Peru:

“The ratification of this historic verdict fills us with optimism and hope for achieving justice in the innumerable other cases of forced disappearance and extrajudicial killings that continue to challenge us as a society recovering from a prolonged and brutal internal armed conflict.”

July 8, 2009, Washington, DC: The Bosniak American Advisory Council for Bosnia & Herzegovina (BAACBH) will hold a welcoming reception this week for Mitar Kujundzic, the new Bosnian ambassador to the United States.

The reception will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, July 9 at the Rayburn House Office Building. Mr Kujundzic and BAACBH Executive Director Elmina Kulasic will speak.

BAACBH is a strategic partner of The Advocacy Project (AP).