Today's Slavery - Teens and Brothels - from NYTimes

This is part of a whole series of articles - very informative and filled with specific cases and stories - check the NYTimes website - this follows an earlier series done a year ago when he bought freedom for two teen prostitutes and took them home to their villages. Check http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todaysheadlines/

After the Brothel

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: January 26, 2005

Inside a Cambodian Brothel
Nicholas D. Kristof examines the relationship between prostitutes and brothel owners. This feature includes audio and video.
• Series: Freeing Sex Slaves


E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com

OIPET, Cambodia — When I describe sex trafficking as, at its worst, a 21st-century version of slavery, I'm sure plenty of readers roll their eyes and assume that's hyperbole.

It's true that many of the girls who are trafficked around the world go voluntarily or under coercion too modest to be fairly called slavery. But then there are girls like Srey Rath.

A couple of years ago, at age 15 or 16 (she's unsure of her birth date), Srey Rath decided to go work in Thailand for two months, so that she could give her mother a present for the Cambodian new year.

But the traffickers who were supposed to get her and four female friends jobs as dishwashers smuggled them instead to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. There, three of the girls, including Srey Rath, were locked up in a karaoke lounge that operated as a brothel and ordered to have sex with customers. Srey Rath indignantly resisted.

"So the boss got angry and hit me in the face, first with one hand and then with the other," she remembers. "The mark stayed on my face for two weeks."

That was the beginning of a hell. The girls were forced to work in the brothel 15 hours a day, seven days a week, and they were never paid or allowed outside. Nor were they allowed to insist that customers use condoms.

"They just gave us food to eat, but they didn't give us much because the customers didn't like fat girls," Srey Rath said.

The girls had been warned that if they tried to escape they could be murdered. But they were so desperate that late one night, after they had been locked up in the 10th-floor apartment where they were housed, they pried a strong board off a rack used for drying clothes. Then they balanced the board, which was just five inches wide, from their window to a ledge in the next building, a dozen feet away.

Srey Rath and four other girls inched across, 10 floors above the pavement.

"We thought that even if we died, it would be better than staying behind," Srey Rath said. "If we stayed, we would die as well." (I talked to another of the Cambodians, Srey Hay, and she confirmed the entire account.)

Once on the other side, they took the elevator down and fled to a police station. But the police weren't interested and tried to shoo them away at first - and then arrested them for illegal immigration. Srey Rath spent a year in a Malaysian prison, and when she was released, a Malaysian policeman drove her away - and sold her to a taxi driver, who sold her to a Thai policeman, who sold her to a Thai brothel.

Finally, after two more months, Srey Rath fled again and made it home this time to the embraces of her joyful family. An aid group, American Assistance for Cambodia, stepped in to help Srey Rath, outfitting her with a street cart and an assortment of belts and keychains to sell. That cost only $400, and now she's thrilled to be earning money for her family.

Over the last five years, the U.S. has begun to combat sex trafficking, with President Bush's State Department taking the lead. But there's so much more that could be done, particularly if the White House became involved. More scolding and shaming of countries with major sex trafficking problems, like Cambodia and Malaysia, would go a long way to get them to clean up their act.

It's mostly a question of priorities. No politician defends sex trafficking, but until recently no one really opposed it much either. It just wasn't on the agenda. If, say, 100 people in each Congressional district demanded that their representatives push this issue, sex trafficking would end up much higher on our foreign policy agenda - and the resulting ripple of concern around the globe would emancipate tens of thousands of girls.

You'll understand the stakes if you ever cross the border from Thailand to Cambodia at Poipet: look for a cart with a load of belts. You'll see a beaming teenage girl who will try to sell you a souvenir, and you'll realize that talk about sex "slavery" is not hyperbole - and that the shame lies not with the girls but with our own failure to respond as firmly to slavery today as our ancestors did in the 1860's.

Anti Landmine Action Plan & Africa case Study

Africa: Laying Landmines to Rest?

AfricaFocus Bulletin
Dec 9, 2004 (041209)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor's Note

At the Nairobi Summit on a Mine-Free World, held in the Kenyan
capital from November 27 to December 3 to review the Ottawa
Convention to Ban Landmines, Ethiopia became the 144th country
to ratify the treaty. In addition to the signatories, the summit
was also attended by 23 states that have not signed the treaty,
including China, Cuba, India, and Egypt. The United States
did not attend.

Instead, the State Department issued a last-minute statement
wishing the conference well and pledging U.S. support for
humanitarian demining, but reaffirming U.S. opposition to the
treaty. While committing itself to cease the use of "persistent"
landmines by the year 2010, the Bush administration still defends
the wartime use of "smart mines," designed to be deactivated after
combat is over.

Delegates and anti-mine campaigners deplored the U.S. failure to
attend, and the failure of other key nations, including China and
Russia, to sign the treaty. Nevertheless, the conference focused on
the considerable progress made since the treaty went into effect
five years ago, and on formulating a multilateral action plan to
continue with implementation.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains three articles from "Laying
Landmines to Rest?: a Web Special on Humanitarian Mine Action (with
special focus on the 2004 Nairobi Summit of a Mine Free World),"
from the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN). The
full report, which includes both general background and country-
specific articles on Angola, Chad, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, and
Uganda, is available at
http://www.irinnews.org/webspecials/hma/default.asp
Note that IRIN reports do not necessarily reflect the views of the
United Nations.

For full official reports from the Nairobi conference, see
http://www.reviewconference.org

For reports from the September 2004 regional conference of African
experts on landmines, see
http://www.reviewconference.org/regional_conferences/addis.htm

For extensive additional information, including a full 2004 report
on compliance with the land mine treaty in the five years since it
came into force, see the website of the International Campaign to
Ban Landmines (http://www.icbl.org).

For the U.S. decision not to attend the Nairobi Summit, see
http://allafrica.com/stories/200411291377.html and
http://allafrica.com/stories/200411291069.html

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++

Nations Embrace Anti-Mine Action Plan

December 6, 2004

Nairobi

The summit on a mine-free world ended in the Kenyan capital,
Nairobi, on Friday with delegates adopting a declaration renewing
their commitment to rid the world of the weapons and endorsing a
comprehensive five-year plan aimed at expediting the clearance and
destruction of landmines.

"We renew our unwavering commitment to achieving the goal of a
world free of anti-personnel mines in which there will be zero new
victims," the delegates said in their Nairobi Declaration. "We will
strengthen our efforts to clear mined areas and destroy stockpiled
anti-personnel mines in accordance with our time-bound obligations.
We will assist mine victims and vigorously promote the universal
acceptance of the convention [against landmines]."

The summit was the first review conference of the 1997 UN
Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production
and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines, also known as the Ottawa
Convention. The convention was ratified by 144 countries and is
looking for new member states.

The plan of action commits governments to a wide range of measures
to combat mines and provide care for victims of the weapons during
the next five years. Member nations are obliged to promote the
universalisation of the convention, expedite mine destruction
efforts, meet their 10-year, mine-clearance deadlines and continue
providing care to mine victims.

"State parties will enhance the care, rehabilitation and
re-integration efforts during the period 2005-2009," according to
the plan.

"Only action will save lives and restore victim's dignity," Peter
Herby, head of the mines unit of the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC), said. "This plan must now be used by people who
care about mine victims to ensure more and better action and better
resources in the crucial five years ahead." He added, however, that
the plan was "solid".

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) vowed to keep up
the pressure to ensure the universal implementation of the mine ban
treaty. It described the five-year Nairobi action plan as "concrete
and forward-looking".

"The summit has given us renewed energy, focus and commitment for
the hard work ahead," said Jody Williams, co-laureate with the ICBL
of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. "The Nairobi Summit will be measured
by how vigorously the action plan adopted this week is carried
out."

The ICBL, however, noted that some important issues were not
addressed during the summit. They include whether anti-vehicle
mines that have sensitive fuses, such tripwires or tilt rods that
could easily be set off by a pedestrians, are banned.

It also failed to discuss the question of what activities are
allowed during joint military exercises with states that are not
party to the convention and the issue of the number of
anti-personnel mines retained for training by state parties to the
convention, according to ICBL.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said anti-vehicle mines were also
a threat to human beings.

"We cannot rest until all landmines are cleared and these
indiscriminate weapons [are] banished forever," Annan said in a
speech telecast from New York to delegates at the end of the
summit. "We must persuade more states, including some of the
world's largest, to become parties to the treaty."

Hailing what he described as a "resounding success of the
conference", the president of the Nairobi Summit, Wolfgang
Petritsch of Austria, said the convention was "an outstanding
example of multilateralism working the way it should".

Anti-landmine campaigners were encouraged by the participation of
23 states that are not party to the treaty, including China, Cuba,
Egypt, India, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and Sri Lanka, according to
the ICBL.

"Even countries outside the Mine Ban Treaty are taking steps
towards it and are complying in many ways," said Stephen Goose,
head of ICBL's delegation in the Nairobi Summit. "This shows that
an international norm that rejects landmines is taking hold."

Handicap International said more resources were needed to ensure
the success of mine-action programmes.

"Without increased and sustained resources, and lacking better
prioritisation of mine action, many states will not be able to meet
the 10-year deadline for clearance provisioned by the treaty," the
aid agency said in a statement. "This would potentially translate
into the death and maiming of thousands of more mine victims."

According to the Landmine Monitor Report 2004, published by the
ICBL, there are currently 300,000 to 400,000 mine survivors. In
2003, 86 percent of the new casualties reported were civilians and
23 percent children, according to the report.

**************************************************************

Africa: Well-known and invisible killer littered throughout Africa

26 November, 2004

They threaten the peace, stability and development of the world's
poorest continent and kill or mutilate 12,000 people each year.
This was the reason that African governments agreed recently to a
landmark initiative aimed at eliminating an estimated 40 million
landmines from the continent.

At the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa, a new
"common African position" was unveiled on 17 September 2004. It
aims to ensure that the continent becomes an anti-personnel mine
(APM) free zone, with a framework largely centred on the 1997
Ottawa Convention. The initiative also stresses inter-African
cooperation as a vital issue in successful mine clearance and calls
for more support for victims and greater transparency by
governments.

Among the innovations that were agreed on was a call by African
nations to countries which have laid landmines throughout the
continent during World War II to "devote a reasonable percentage of
their military budgets" to clearing them.

In Egypt, for example, some 17 million landmines remain buried in
the desert, a deadly legacy of World War II.

The new position was agreed ahead of the Nairobi Summit in November
2004 on a Mine-Free World that will look at the progress made in
the last seven years since the Ottawa Convention was drafted.

Under the convention, which came into force in 1999 and was signed
by 143 countries, nations that are party to the treaty must not
use, stockpile, produce or transfer APMs. Still, even though
African governments had backed the common strategy and some 48
joined the Ottawa Convention, a number of nations have not yet
ratified the treaty. These include Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Morocco
and Somalia.

Ethiopian officials told IRIN that ratification was in the pipeline
and a draft was expected before their parliament meets in the
coming months. They said delays in ratification had stemmed largely
from security concerns along their borders due to conflicts against
neighbouring countries like Eritrea in 1998 and Somalia in 1977.

However, Egypt, whose country is infested with an estimated tenth
of the world's 200 million landmines, is still reluctant to agree
to the convention.

"We do not believe in a total and free ban of landmines as long as
many actors, including the major producers, are still out of the
convention," an Egyptian diplomat told IRIN recently.

"There are three major shortcomings in the Ottawa Convention as far
as we see it," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "There
should be a real obligation, not moral obligation, to demine.
States should have the right to get assistance where their
countries have been mined and we also need to differentiate between
landmines for protection, for national security and those landmines
used for other purposes like terrorism. You should be given the
right to defend yourself."

Some 30 countries in Africa report being affected by landmines and
unexploded ordnance and 10, including Angola, Mozambique and Sudan,
say they suffer a high level of casualties.

Said Djinnit, head of the Peace and Security Council at the AU,
described the devastating effects of landmines on the continent and
their impact on development at the conference.

"We have seen innocent people, women and children amputated, lose
their limbs and other vital parts of their bodies - and end up
handicapped," he told delegates. "We have also seen landmines
destroy the healthy and productive part of our active population,
destroy fertile land for agriculture, destroy transport networks
and destroy important natural resources that support life."

Djinnit also told the conference, attended by diplomats, landmine
experts and other officials, that the AU had been at the forefront
of the campaign to ban landmines. Nonetheless, he said ending the
scourge of landmines on the continent had "not been pursued with
all the needed vigour and determination in Africa".

"Landmines continue to be the main impediment to post-conflict
reconstruction and development in our countries," the AU official
added. "Ridding the continent of this invisible and indiscriminate
weapon is crucial for creating conditions for peace, security,
stability and development in Africa, as well as reconciling and
healing societies from the trauma of conflict."

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told IRIN that
the convention, seen as one of the most successful global treaties,
could also be a template for other weapons legislation. The
organisation believes a similar treaty could be designed around
small or light arms proliferation, a major factor causing
instability on the continent. The convention also contains the
potential for enforcement.

Under the Ottawa Convention, a system of verification exists,
whereby countries believed to be using AMPs, could be subjected to
international inspection. So far, said the ICRC, the verification
system has never been triggered.

The ICRC also stated that sanctions could be imposed on countries
where major concerns of non-compliance exist. While significant
progress has been made, UN landmine experts also noted caution.

Phil Lewis, of the UN's Mine Action Service and also in charge of
mine clearance for the UN peacekeepers monitoring the ceasefire
between Ethiopia and Eritrea, spelled out key concerns that need to
be addressed in adopting a common position. The geography, size and
number of landmines pose tremendous problems, Lewis said.

"Within these huge distances, the actual number of mines laid may
be few, but their effect is often disproportionate to these
numbers," he said. "The fear of entering areas affected by a few
mines remains psychologically the same."

He also noted that non-military forces have laid some mines with no
record of where they were placed. Medical facilities are also weak,
Lewis added. However, he praised the significant progress made in
mine clearance and stressed that the continent has a huge movement
of people willing to help demine.

Austria's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Wolfgang Petritsch, said
progress made in the fight against landmines meant total
eradication could be achieved.

"This is doable," Petritsch, who is president designate of the
Nairobi Summit, told IRIN. "With the achievements we have made in
the last five years, we can rid the world of landmines and make a
significant difference."

**************************************************************

Kenya: Treaty signatory and host to the 2004 Summit

November 22, 2004

Kenya, the host of the upcoming summit of parties to the Ottawa
Convention - that calls for the ban of production and use of
anti-personnel mines (APMs) - has been one of the most active
parties to the Mine Ban Treaty. Kenya completed the destruction of
its stockpile of 38,774 APMs in August 2003, four years ahead of
the 2009 deadline stipulated in the convention, according to
Michael Oyugi, head of the secretariat of the committee organising
the summit, to be held in Nairobi from 29 November to 3 December
2004. Some 3,000 mines have been retained for training purposes, he
added.

The decision to hold the summit in an African country is also
significant because the continent is most affected by the hazards
of landmines, according to Oyugi. Although Kenya does not have a
landmine problem, it has - over the years - emerged as a "hub for
humanitarian activities", a factor that makes Nairobi an
appropriate choice as host of the summit, which will also address
the humanitarian dimension of landmines, Oyugi said. Most of the
240,000 refugees in Kenya come from countries affected by the
landmine problem, including Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The refugees include some of those who have lost limbs to landmines
in their countries.

At Lopiding, close to the Kenyan-Sudanse border area of
Lokichoggio, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
runs one of the largest field hospitals in the world, treating
mostly those affected by war in southern Sudan. In 1992, the ICRC
set up an orthopaedic workshop at the Lopiding hospital that makes
artificial limbs for amputees, including victims of landmines, and
fitting those with disabilities with orthoses. Fighting between
Ethiopian troops and rebels of the Oromo Liberation Front has
occasionally spilled over into Kenya, and in the late 1990s there
were several reported cases of the rebels planting mines on the
Kenyan side of the border to prevent Ethiopian forces from pursuing
them. The mines were removed by the Kenyan military mines,
according to Oyugi.

The Convention on the Prohibition on the Use, Stockpiling,
Production and Transfer of APMs and their Destruction, came into
force on 1 March 1999 and has been widely hailed as the most
successful global disarmament and humanitarian treaty ever, having
been ratified by 143 states. According to Oyugi, Kenya will gain
from a "raised international profile" due to the media focus on the
summit as an estimated 1,500 delegates gather to review the Mine
Ban Treaty.

The gathering is widely seen as the most significant meeting of
world leaders to address the global landmine problem since the
historic Convention signing in Ottawa, Canada, in December 1997.
"There is likely to be a tourism spin off from the summit," said
Oyugi, referring to the increased exposure KenyaÆs tourism
industry, one of the countryÆs foreign exchange earners, is likely
to gain during the meeting.

Mereso Agina, the research coordinator of the Kenya Coalition
Against Landmines, hoped that the successful hosting of the mines
summit would lead to the "upgrading" of the United Nations Office
in Nairobi with a view to holding more such international meetings
in Kenya. "That would be a direct benefit to Kenya, promoting the
country as a conference destination with the expected benefits to
the hospitality industry," she said. Nairobi hosts the headquarters
of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United
Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT).

The Nairobi Summit is aimed at reviewing issues critical to the
Convention, including deadlines for mine clearance and destruction
of mine stockpiles by state parties to the convention and providing
help to those maimed by landmines. "Some countries may need
assistance to meet the [mine clearing] deadline, for example Angola
- mine clearing is a tedious exercise," said Oyugi. He said the
Nairobi Summit is expected to come up with two documents. One of
them will be a programme of action on how the goals of the
convention are to be achieved, while the second one will be a
political declaration by state parties re-affirming their
commitment to the convention. "The summit is expected to
re-invigorate the convention - give it a new lease on life," Oyugi
added.

Although Kenya does not have a landmine problem, parts of the
countryÆs arid and semi-arid pastoral north and eastern areas are
contaminated with unexploded ordnance (UXO) left behind by foreign
and Kenyan armed forces carrying out training exercises. Regular
military training exercises have been carried out around ArcherÆs
Post in the Eastern Province and Dol Dol in Northeastern Province,
exposing an estimated 600,000 people to potential danger.

In July 2002, the British government agreed to pay compensation of
4.5 million pounds (about seven million euros at that time) to more
than 200 Kenyan members of the Maasai and Samburu nomadic
communities, who were injured or maimed by UXOs left on their land
by the British army. Britain's defence ministry said it accepted
"limited liability" for what happened during a 50-year period
during which, British forces conducted live-fire exercises on land
used for grazing by Maasai and Samburu livestock herders.

UXO-clearance operations have been carried out in the affected
areas by the British army in conjunction with the Kenyan military.
According to last year's report by the International Campaign to
Ban Landmines (ICBL), UXO-clearance teams working in the ArcherÆs
Post area in 2001 and 2002, found four to five pieces of ammunition
per sq km. A Kenyan army-demining unit, serving with the UN Mission
in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), has been involved in mine
clearance along the two countriesÆ border. Ethiopia and Eritrea
fought a bloody two-year border that ended with the signing of a
peace agreement in 2000.

To facilitate travel to Nairobi for registered delegates who will
attend the summit, Kenyan embassies abroad are issuing visas free
of charge, Oyugi said. Delegates from countries where Kenya does
not have embassies will obtain visas on arrival from a special
immigration counter that will be set up at the Jomo Kenyatta
International airport in Nairobi.

...

The summit's official opening ceremony will be held in the Kenyatta
International Conference Centre in central Nairobi on November 28,
presided over by Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki, a day before
delegates shift to the UN complex for the rest of the conference.
It will be attended by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

According to ICBL, most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the most
heavily mined region in the world, are parties or signatories to
the Mine Ban Treaty. There are 23 mine-affected countries in
sub-Saharan Africa, including Angola, Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia,
Mozambique and Sudan. In 2002 and 2003, new landmine casualties
were reported in 20 of the 23 mine-affected countries, according to
ICBL.

In many of the mine-affected countries in the African region,
medical facilities and rehabilitation services are in poor
condition, mostly due to a lack of financial resources. Armed
conflict, whether ongoing or in the past, has also taken a heavy
toll on the health infrastructure in several countries, meaning
that landmine survivors have had little hope for rehabilitation and
re-integration into society.

*************************************************************
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

************************************************************

Nigeria Human Rights report

Nigeria: Human Rights Report Released

AfricaFocus Bulletin
Jan 26, 2005 (050126)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor's Note

The long-awaited report of the Human Rights Violations
Investigation Commission, completed in May 2002 after two years of
public hearings, has now been made public, not by the Nigerian
government but by civil society organizations. In December 2004,
given the Supreme Court ruling that the panel's original mandate
was unconstitutional, the government said it was not planning to
publish the wide-ranging report, which is popularly known as the
Oputa report after the name of the panel's chairman, retired Chief
Justice Chukwudifu A. Oputa.

The Nigerian Democratic Movement (NDM), based in Washington, in
collaboration with the Civil Society Forum in Nigeria, decided to
take the initiative to make this public domain document available
over the internet. It is now being widely distributed in Nigeria
through copies on CD-ROM as well.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from the NDM press
release on the report's publication, and brief excerpts taken from
the report's overview volume.

The panel's deliberations covered not only specific human rights
abuses, but also responded to a wide variety of grievances and
issues presented by individual and group petitioners. The panel was
most controversial for the refusal to testify of three former
military rulers, Ibrahim Babangida, Muhammadu Buhari and
Abdulsalami Abubakar. The final report included the recommendation
that they be investigated for suspicious deaths and barred from
governing Nigeria again.

The full 7-volume report and summary recommendations are available,
in downloadable PDF files, at
http://www.nigerianmuse.com/nigeriawatch/oputa, which also contains a timeline and an extensive set of links to news articles on the Oputa Panel report. The downloadable files are also available on several other sites, including
http://cddnig.org/oputapanelreport and
http://www.dawodu.com/oputa1.htm
For additional background and links on Nigeria, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/nigeria.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++

National Democratic Movement Releases Full Version of Oputa Panel
Report

Press Release, January 1, 2005

National Democratic Movement (NDM)
Washington, DC, USA.

A/ Release of Unofficial Oputa Panel Report

In solidarity with the Civil Society Forum (CSF) in Nigeria, the
Nigerian Democratic Movement (NDM), a Washington-based
pro-democracy organization since 1993, hereby releases unofficially
the full Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission (HRVIC),
popularly called the "Oputa Panel Report".

...

C/ Un-official Nature of the Report

This report is NOT a leak, rather a determination of the Civil
Society in Nigeria to spend its own money (rather than wait for
government money), time and effort to make it available to the
world at large. The Commission did its work in the public domain;
the report has ALWAYS been available in the public domain, but
Civil Society in Nigeria had been waiting for two-and-a-half years
(since it was submitted to President Obasanjo in May 2002) to have
the Federal Government spend money to publish it. Now that it is
clear that it is unwilling, unable or incapable of spending that
money, we have decided to relieve it of that burden.

There are no hard feelings.

D/ Court Injunctions

We are aware of challenges to the legality of the Oputa Panel
before several courts in Nigeria, all of which, being so far
unresolved, stop the Federal Government from carrying out some or
all of the recommendations of the Oputa Panel report. None of the
injunctions issued from the courts has stopped its publication. We
respect the courts in the country, but are hopeful that the Federal
Government will VIGOROUSLY defend itself in those courts, so that
the time, money and effort spent in all the nation-wide sittings of
the Panel will not be in vain. Otherwise, future efforts to solicit
the participation of the Nigerian public in discourses, for example
the upcoming "National Dialogue," will always be met with
understandable skepticism.

E/ The Duty of Civil Society and Citizens of Nigeria in 2005 and
beyond

The NDM calls upon all members of organized Civil Society and all
the Citizens of Nigeria to re-dedicate ourselves in this New Year
2005 and beyond towards ensuring greater transparency,
accountability and integrity of ALL of our political and public
officials. The wide dissemination of the Oputa Panel Report in
various formats - including translation of its recommendations in
various Nigerian languages - is a good starting point, as well as
support for Electoral Reform, and the recently-announced revenue-
focused "Citizens for Public Accountability and Integrity in
Nigeria (C-PAIN)".

On its part, the NDM promises to re-engage in the dialogue which
must lead to a New Nigeria.

F/ The Press as the Fourth Estate

The NDM particularly urges the Press in Nigeria to do everything
that it can to disseminate these transparency, accountability and
integrity efforts as a public service, and with minimal cost to the
long-suffering citizens of Nigeria.

God Bless Nigeria ! God give its leaders integrity ! [Amen]

************************************************************

List of downloadable PDF files
[links available on http://nigerianmuse.com/nigeriawatch/oputa]

Summary recommendations [612 Kb]
Volume One - Chairman's Introduction, Origins of the Commission,
etc. [461 KB]
Volume Two - International Context [486 KB]
Volume Three - Research Reports [1.0 MB]
Volume Four - Case-by-Case Records of Public Hearings [1.3 MB]
Volume Five - Briefs on Petition Memos [1.2 MB]
Volume Six - Reparation, Restitution and Compensation [6.0 MB]
Volume Seven - Summary Conclusions and Recommendations [8.2 MB]
Appendix: List of Witnesses [1.4 MB]
Appendix: List of Exhibits [3.9 MB]

*************************************************************

Synoptic Overview of Report Submitted by
Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission

May, 2002

Chairman Hon Justice Chukwudifu A. Oputa CFR, Justice Emeritus,
Supreme Court of Nigeria

Excerpts from Chairman's Foreword

1.2 For much the greater part of the period covered by this Report,
Nigeria was under military rule. During this period, most of our
rulers. principal motivation and pre-occupation were not service to
country but the accumulation of wealth and personal gratification.
1.3 This personal accumulation of wealth led to the decay of our
society. Public and private morality reached its nadir; and the
casualties included human dignity, human rights and our basic
freedoms. We also experienced institutional and structural decay.

1.4 This Report has attempted to provide an over-view of the extent
of our moral, physical and institutional decay under military rule.
The proscription and circumscription of our human rights and
freedoms under military rule were symptomatic of a much serious
malaise, the departure from constitutional or limited government
and with it the absence of accountability and transparency in
public life. This was the ultimate decay involving the
personalization of the governmental process around the military
ruler.

1.5 The return to democratic civilian rule on 29 May 1999 provided
the opportunity for us to rise above this decay, to break the
silence of the past and to forge ahead, determined to lay to rest
the ghost of this dark and painful period in our national history.

1.6 But we must be prepared to confront this history, if we are to
forge ahead. We need to understand it, even if it means asking
unpleasant questions and offering blunt answers. Where did we make
the wrong turn? Who was responsible for what? What opportunities
did we miss and why? What are the major lessons to be learnt? What
do we now need to do to put the past behind us and to look to the
future with renewed hope and patriotic zeal? What are the basic
conditions for us to effect national catharsis?

1.7 This is what we have attempted to do in this Report. We have
tried to be faithful to our terms of reference and to our mandate,
both of which imposed on us the obligation .to review the past;.
and to map out or indicate pathways to enable us as a people
.redress the injustices of the past; [and] to prevent and forestall
future violations..

1.27 To forgive and to reconcile is not necessarily to deny
justice. We should not confuse or conflate justice with prosecution
and with criminal or retributive justice. Viewed in the broader
perspective of legal theory or jurisprudence as well as moral and
political philosophy, reconciliation represents not the antithesis
but the triumph of justice.

1.28 Nigeria now has a nascent and fledgling democracy, with all
its imperfections and teething problems. Managing the transition
from military to democratic civilian rule requires deft and
dexterous navigational skill to avoid land mines and treacherous
waters. To manage the transition successfully and to consolidate it
may require that we sacrifice criminal justice for the higher moral
imperative of reconciliation and to avoid the trauma, anguish and
pain criminal prosecution will give rise to.

1.38 As one of our research teams pointed out, quite correctly, our
national experience with federalism shows that the problem of
marginalization is at the bottom of minority ethnic group fears of
the curtailment or violation of substantive human rights. the right
to selfdetermination, the right to the promotion of their cultural
rights, and their citizenship rights, especially the right to
equitable participation in the cultural, economic and political
life of the country.

1.39 Under simple majoritarian, first-past-the-post competitive
democratic electoral processes, and much more so under
authoritarian regimes ethnic minorities all too easily find
themselves excluded by the structure of power and the rules of the
electoral process, making them less competitive and denying them
access to the State and its enormous patronage.

1.40 A refreshing and confidence-building fall-out from the work of
our Commission is the raising of the issue of minority rights as a
core dimension of gross human rights violations and bringing it on
the agenda of national debate. In this way, such public
consciousness may engender well-thought out remedial public
policies and constitutional guarantee of minority rights, thereby
facilitating national reconciliation.

1.49 Unfortunately, our various military rulers, like all
dictators, were unable to draw this distinction between themselves
and the State. Their intelligence outfits danced to their tune and
their agents also saw themselves as beyond and above the law. This
led to the hounding of journalists and those who criticized their
administrations and policies. Intellectuals and human rights
activists, among other critics of military rule, were arrested and
jailed, without recourse to due process, in the so-called interest
of State security.

1.50 This attitude was also reflected in the protection given to
oil companies, which supplied the much of the needed oil revenue to
various military administrations. Their interests became .State
interests,. which must be protected. This logically led to the
systematic and generalized violations and abuses, which occurred in
the Niger-Delta during the dark period of military rule in the
country, as detailed in Volumes One, Three and Five of this Report.

1.54 The non-appearance of three former Heads of State and a number
of former top government functionaries, when summoned by the
Commission, put to test the theory that in a democracy all men are
equal before the law, that the rule of law and not the rule of man
should prevail. In addition to not appearing, these former Heads of
State filed civil actions challenging the Commission.

1.55 The former Heads of State are: Generals Muhammadu Buhari,
Ibrahim B. Babangida, and Abdulsalami Abubakar. The former top
functionaries are: Colonel Halilu Akilu and Lt-Colonel A.K. Togun.

1.56 Many in Nigeria and, indeed, in the international community,
wondered why these highly placed Nigerians, who had held high
public office, refused to appear and testify in person before the
Commission.

1.57 Although the Commission had the power to issue warrants for
their arrest, it refused to do so, in the over-all interest of
national reconciliation.

Excerpts from historical introduction

6. Despite the lingering multifaceted and complex crises it has
been going through since independence in 1960, the country has
remarkably held together, always pulling away from the precipice,
except for the civil war years between 1967 and 1970. Indeed, many
would argue that perhaps the country's resilience is both its
strength and its weakness.

7. In short, as if in a stupor, the country has tottered on, all
the fears, anxieties and frustrations of nation building,
notwithstanding. Many have concluded that indeed, rather than being
seen as evidence of weakness or fragility, the sense and sentiments
of nationhood actually run deep in the veins of Nigerians.
Nigerians love their country. They want to see it united and
strong. The real problem is, at what cost and who bears the brunt?

8. The missing link appears to be the inability of the ruling elite
and the political class to establish a nexus between the yearnings,
desires, hopes and aspirations of its young and coming generation
and the design and construction of a new future for Nigeria.

9. It is arguable that the continuing frustration about the
character of the polity is not unconnected with the general feeling
among the Youth in the age brackets of 30-40 and below that earlier
generations of the political class have squandered their hopes and
future.

10. There is the feeling that the country's political leadership
has been greedy, self-serving and lacking in serious political
will, contributing in no small measure to the crises of democracy
and development, which have delayed the country's march to
nationhood.

11. When the military seized political power in January 1966, there
was a general feeling in the country that they were motivated by
altruistic intentions and objectives to save the country from
descent into political chaos and instability.

12. As time passed, the country's military rulers and the military
as an institution by and large lost their sense of direction. The
greed of the military dragged the nation further and further away
from the project of nationhood. The result is that by the end of
almost thirty years of military rule, Nigeria is far more
fragmented than it was in January 1966, when the military first
seized power.

13. The democratic struggle against military rule in the country,
whose high water mark was the return to democratic civilian rule on
29 May 1999, symbolizes and marks the return to the project of the
three Rs (Rehabilitation, Reconstruction and Reconciliation), which
the military enunciated after the end of the civil war in January
1970.

Excerpts from findings

90. Clearly, the military are to be held accountable for gross
human rights violations in the country, during the period under
review. This is exemplified by cases of torture at the Intercentre,
DMI headquarters in Lagos and Jos Prison by the military. All the
other prisons in Nigeria failed so far below the standards of the
United Nations that they became torture centres.

91. Oil, one of the greatest blessings God has showered on our
nation, has turned out to be a curse. Instead of providing the
basis for national economic, political, scientific/technological
and social growth and development, cushioning its citizens from the
scourge of abject poverty, squalor and want, oil became, in the
hands of the ruling elite and the political class, an instrument
sounding the death-knell of such key principles of good governance
as democracy, federalism, transparency, accountability and national
growth. Oil was the mainstay of the economy and the junta saw any
inhibition to its flow as a breach of security. Consequently,
legitimate complaints/agitations against oil pollution by host
communities were violently suppressed. We therefore had to pay a
heavy prize in lives and human rights violations.

93. Unable to accept defeat, some politicians often turned to their
military contacts as a means to regain access to political power
and the access to the state coffers flowing from it. Given that
politics is essentially about capturing power, the business class
has often been unable to subordinate its interests to those of the
nation. The result is that wealthy and influential Nigerians have
used their resources to bankroll coup plotters. We therefore hold
that they were accomplices and therefore should be held accountable
for the resultant human rights violations. The politicians should
imbibe democratic spirit. This is because the desperation to win at
all costs propels them to use the army to resolve political
problems through coups with resultant violation of human rights.

94. If democracy is to take firm roots in Nigeria, then the various
segments of the stakeholders in the polity must realize that, no
matter the nature of their interests, such interests can only be
attained within the boundaries of a democratic and stable nation.

95. This means that politicians must learn to accept the rules of
the game. Those who win elections must realize that they have not
won a price for themselves and their party, but that they have won
a national trust. Those who lose elections must realize that it is
easier to go back to the drawing board and wait for the political
calendar to turn around than to resort to the military solution,
which has no timetable, as such.

97. Sadly enough, both Islam and Christianity have never really
been able to rise above the limitations of their intra- and inter-
denominational and sectarian cleavages. The result is that the
country is now caught up in what has come to be known as the
problem of religion in Nigeria. Religious intolerance has been the
main cause of communal clashes with attendant loss of lives and
gross human rights violations. ...

99. However, the religious bodies ought to have done much more than
they did in the struggle against human rights violations,
especially during the dark days of the late Abacha regime. On the
whole, the politicization of religion has undermined religion.

100. A new responsibility has now devolved on both the leadership
of Christianity and Islam to respond appropriately to the
challenges of nation building and to help in laying a solid
foundation for a Nigeria that promotes and respects human rights
under the rule of law.

113. Nigerians agree that corruption in public life, which was
pronounced under military rule, has reached alarmingly pandemic
proportions, and should now be a matter of very serious and
pressing public policy concern.

114. From the evidence, which the Commission received, it is clear
that the quest for political power personal enrichment was largely
the driving force for military interventions in politics. The
military tended to treat the state as a conquered territory and
proceeded to treat the proceeds of state as spoils of war to be
shared among the members of the military, the conquering forces of
occupation.

*************************************************************
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Africa Policy outlook 2005

Dear Friends,

Africa Action this morning released our new "Africa Policy Outlook 2005".  This annual publication, posted below, forecasts the key issues and developments in Africa policy in the coming year, and analyzes trends in U.S. relations with Africa under the current administration.  It is also available at http://www.africaaction.org/  We are also including below the press release on the Policy Outlook, which was released this morning. 

Africa Action
---

Africa Action Releases "Africa Policy Outlook 2005"


Highlights need for action on Debt and Darfur Genocide

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 (Washington, DC) - Just one week after the inauguration of President Bush to a second term in office, Africa Action today released its Africa Policy Outlook 2005, also published by Foreign Policy in Focus. This annual publication forecasts the key issues and developments in Africa policy in the coming year, and analyzes trends in U.S. relations with Africa under the current administration. It is now available at http://www.africaaction.org/

Africa Action notes that, "This year’s calendar of global events and negotiations indicates an international focus on three key issues of importance to Africa - debt, aid, and trade - and some progress is likely on each in 2005. But while a new international focus on Africa is warranted, the sad reality is that 2005 risks being another year of compassionate showmanship rather than a year of sea change."

Director of Policy Analysis & Communications, Ann-Louise Colgan, said today, "Despite their promises to support Africa’s priorities, the failure of the Bush Administration and European governments to join Africans to stop another unfolding genocide in Africa, this time in Darfur, may yet be the darkest stain on their record in 2005."

The debts of impoverished countries will be on the agenda at the G-7 Finance Ministers’ meeting in London in early February, but Africa Action notes, "While some deal on debt is expected in 2005, campaigners will continue to push for 100% cancellation, and will not be satisfied with any new creditor proposals to reduce Africa’s debt burden to so-called 'sustainable' levels, or to merely reduce countries’ debt service payments."

Africa Action emphasizes that Africa’s debt crisis undermines the continent’s efforts to address poverty and HIV/AIDS, and notes that the UN estimates that African countries are still 150 years away from meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The goals, to be reviewed in September 2005, comprise a range of development benchmarks that overall seek to reduce extreme poverty by half by 2015.

Colgan added, "The massive and rapid resource mobilization for the tsunami victims stands in stark contrast to the minimal level of global attention and resources given to crises that are less visible but equally deadly in Africa, such as HIV/AIDS."

As President Bush begins his second term, Africa Action’s Executive Director Salih Booker said this morning, "In measuring the claims events of 2005, we must not be fooled by compassionate charades. The real interests of the Bush Administration in Africa are oil and geo-strategic alliances, and the measure of its commitment to African priorities must be judged this year by its actions on debt cancellation, on HIV/AIDS and on genocide in Darfur."

The "Africa Policy Outlook 2005" is available at http://www.africaaction.org/


####




Africa Policy Outlook 2005


January 26, 2005


by Ann-Louise Colgan


There are some people in the world’s wealthy countries who forecast that 2005 will be a decisive year for Africa.

In the U.S., President Bush begins his second term in office with administration officials and pundits claiming that he has done more for Africa than any previous U.S. President. Britain this year holds the rotating presidency of both the European Union and Group of 8 (G-8) wealthy nations, and Prime Minister Blair has declared that addressing Africa’s poverty will be the centerpiece of his agenda.

In 2005, a confluence of major international events will also spotlight Africa’s poverty-related challenges, and will highlight the need for the world’s richest countries to do more in support of Africa’s efforts. In July, Britain will host the G-8 summit in Scotland. In September, a United Nations (UN) Special Summit will review progress on the Millennium Development Goals, which aim to reduce by half the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. In December, the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) sixth ministerial conference in Hong Kong will reveal whether the Doha round of global trade talks have secured new deals to benefit the world’s most impoverished countries.

Civil society campaigns in the U.S. and in Britain are also pushing 2005 as a special opportunity for rich country leaders to address poverty in Africa and other impoverished regions. They are optimistic about victories on debt cancellation, aid and trade this year.

It is important to note that these international meetings and campaigns are Northern-dominated and rarely include African input. Indeed, they can have the effect of drowning out African voices. Meanwhile, on the ground, African civil society campaigns, and some African governments, continue to demand real action on priority issues defined by Africans.

Then how should we measure the outcomes of these opportunities? For, while a new international focus on Africa is warranted, and while much more can and must be done to address the continent’s challenges, the sad reality is that 2005 risks being another year of "compassionate showmanship" rather than a year of sea change. The poor track record of the U.S. and other rich countries when it comes to Africa requires us to watch carefully what transpires in 2005 and to be clear on how we will measure the success of their actions this year and beyond.

As genocide continues to unfold in Darfur, Sudan, the failure of the Bush Administration and other rich country governments to stop another such crime against humanity in Africa may yet be the darkest stain on their record in 2005.


The Bush Administration: Africa’s Friend?

Over the past four years, George W. Bush has sought to portray himself as a "compassionate conservative" who cares about Africa, and in some circles he has succeeded in displacing his predecessor Bill Clinton as the U.S. President who is considered to have done most for the continent. As we face a second Bush Administration term, such high-sounding claims deserve scrutiny, as do our criteria for assessing the achievements of U.S. Africa policy.

The reality is that there has been a good deal of consistency in U.S. relations with Africa since decolonization and the Cold War. Successive U.S. Administrations have been motivated by calculations of Africa’s geo-strategic significance, with the U.S. seeking to foster military and security relationships which advance its own agenda. U.S. policies have similarly been driven by the quest for Africa’s natural resources, and have sought to promote greater trade and investment ties with key states on the continent.

In the 1990s, through successful public relations efforts, President Bill Clinton became known as a great friend to Africa. He made a much-publicized trip to the continent, the first substantive trip by a U.S. President in American history. Clinton proclaimed great concern for Africa’s challenges and a commitment to enabling Africans to reach the continent’s potential by encouraging trade, promoting debt relief, and supporting democracy throughout the continent. In fact, the symbolism of Clinton’s Africa policy in many ways succeeded in masking the real damage that was done by his Administration, which ignored the genocide in Rwanda, failed to address the growing crisis of HIV/AIDS, abandoned the democracy movement in Nigeria and reconstruction efforts in Somalia, and neglected peacekeeping efforts in West Africa and elsewhere.

George W. Bush stated clearly in 2000 that Africa was not a priority, and the past four years have confirmed that while also maintaining a good deal of continuity with the Africa policy of his predecessor. Indeed, we have witnessed a similar duplicity, with the White House promoting its own economic and military agenda but seeking at the same time to portray itself as a great friend to Africa. The White House emphasizes that President Bush met with 25 African heads of state in his first two years in office, announced new initiatives on HIV/AIDS and aid, and pledged to significantly increase U.S. funding for both. He traveled to the African continent in 2003 for a five-day five-country trip. In 2004, his Administration recognized that genocide was taking place in Darfur, Sudan and claimed to be addressing this crisis.

Again, as under the Clinton Administration, the "compassion spin" has in some ways succeeded in masking the aggressive pursuit by the Bush White House of its own economic and military-strategic interests in Africa, and the consequent marginalization of African priorities. In other words, the Bush Administration’s real interests in Africa are oil and strategic allies in the "war on terror" (see Africa Policy Outlook 2004). Its new initiatives on HIV/AIDS and foreign aid reach very few countries and remain under-funded, and the U.S. has failed to take real action to stop the genocide it has acknowledged in Darfur.

Yet while we have seen similar U.S. policies toward Africa pursued over successive Administrations, what sets the current White House apart, and harms Africa’s interests in important ways, are two key tenets of its foreign policy philosophy. The first is its rejection of the process and principle of multilateralism when it comes to addressing urgent global issues. The second is its embrace of the ideology of the religious right, and the promotion of this ideology in its policies at home and abroad. Both of these tendencies undermine Africa’s priorities, and particularly the fight against HIV/AIDS.

So while the Bush Administration will continue to tout what it’s doing for Africa, it is important to look beyond such quantitative benchmarks as the number of African leaders who visit the White House or even the number of new initiatives pledged to help impoverished countries. These measures reveal little about the substance of U.S. policy toward Africa. Instead, a more sophisticated and qualitative measure is required, which examines the nature of U.S. initiatives and the reality of their implementation.


This Year’s "Hot Topics" - Debt, Aid & Trade

This year’s calendar of global events and negotiations indicates an international focus on three key issues of importance to Africa - debt, aid, and trade - and some progress is likely on each in 2005.

On debt, activism around the world in recent years has led to a growing realization on the part of rich countries that something must be done to address the debt crisis in the world’s most impoverished countries. There has also been an increasing acknowledgment that the current debt relief framework - the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative - has failed to resolve this crisis. African countries continue to struggle under an unsustainable burden of debt, and are still required to spend some $15 billion in debt service payments to wealthy creditors each year. Most African countries must spend more on debt service payments that they can spend on health care and education combined.

Last year, 100% multilateral debt cancellation for impoverished countries was put on the table for the first time during discussions among the Group of 8 leaders in June and then among their Finance Ministers in the fall. While these meetings produced statements in support of 100% debt cancellation, an agreement was not reached on the list of eligible countries or on the mechanism through which this would be financed.

There are still some differences between the U.S. and UK in these regards. The U.S. has claimed that it supports multilateral debt cancellation for 42 countries, to be paid for by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), and that it sees a move from loans to grants at the World Bank as one key to breaking the debt cycle. However, the U.S. Treasury Department refuses to recognize the illegitimate nature of these debts, and has indicated that its main concern is really "debt sustainability". This concept refers to how much debt a country can carry without inhibiting economic growth, but it fails to acknowledge that no amount of debt can be sustainable for African countries at a moment when they face the worst health crisis in human history.

The UK, on the other hand, supports a less-ambitious debt deal for about 20 impoverished countries, but does not want the World Bank to use its own resources to cover this. Instead, the UK proposes that G-7 countries take over debt service payments on behalf of eligible countries for an initial 10 years, but without canceling their debts. The UK launched this new plan in January 2004 when Finance Minister Gordon Brown signed a deal with Tanzania to take over 10% of the debt payments it owes to the World Bank and the African Development Bank for 10 years.

Despite these disagreements, there are indications that an agreement can be expected in 2005 on some form of debt relief or cancellation for some sub-set of deeply impoverished countries. This will next be discussed at the "Group of 7" Finance Ministers meeting in February, and, if there is no resolution at this point, it is expected to be on the agenda of the G-8 summit in July.

Meanwhile, civil society groups and some governments in Africa and elsewhere in the global South continue to call for outright and unconditional debt cancellation, emphasizing that these debts are illegitimate and should not have to be repaid. They urge the Bush Administration to apply the same standard it has in calling for the cancellation of Iraq’s odious debt to the odious and illegitimate debts of African countries. Just as some creditor countries have offered to freeze bilateral debt repayments for the impoverished countries worst affected by the recent tsunami, campaigners call for Africa’s debt to be written off to enable the continent to spend its own resources on its own urgent priorities. With some deal on debt expected in 2005, campaigners will be entitled to claim victory but will continue to push for 100% cancellation. They will not be satisfied with any new creditor proposals to merely reduce Africa’s debt burden to "sustainable" levels, or to simply reduce countries’ debt payments.

Even after debt cancellation, additional development assistance will still be required for African countries to be able to address the challenges of poverty and HIV/AIDS. 2005 is a benchmark year for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of international development goals that seek to improve health, education and the environment across the world, with the overarching aim of reducing by half the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. When the UN meets in September to review progress toward these goals, it will be clear that while some regions are on track, Africa remains the exception. In fact, an interim UN report has revealed that, at current pace, Africa won’t reach these goals until 2169 - and that will still only have reduced poverty there by half. The United Nations states that meeting the MDGs will require a doubling of annual development assistance from rich countries to impoverished countries throughout the world, to $135 billion in 2006, then rising to $195 billion by 2015. It describes this as "entirely affordable", particularly when the world’s military budget is $900 billion a year.

The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) proposed by President Bush in 2002 was supposed to increase U.S. foreign aid over 3 years by an additional $10 billion, so that by 2007 the U.S. would be spending 50% more ($15 billion per year) on foreign aid than previously. But the MCA is already running behind schedule, and has yet to disburse any funds. In 2004, $1 billion was appropriated for this account, and for 2005 this was only slightly increased to $1.25 billion, which is only half of what the White House requested. This amount remains far short of what the U.S. can and should provide, and is only a tiny fraction of what Africa needs. In addition, the MCA only directs aid to a handful of countries that meet specific political and economic conditions, so this initiative actually does little to support poverty reduction in the world’s most impoverished countries because most are ineligible for its funding.

The UK, for its part, has pledged to double its bilateral aid to Africa, to reach $1.9 billion by 2005. Gordon Brown has also proposed an International Finance Facility, which would allow countries to front-load aid by borrowing against future commitments, in order to support efforts to reach the MDGs. But it is clear that even with small increases in rich country aid budgets in recent years, far more resources will be needed to support African efforts to promote development.

Not only are aid flows insufficient, the patterns in which they are directed increasingly reflect geo-strategic concerns rather than efforts to reduce poverty. An Oxfam report from December 2004 warns that the "war on terror" and related geo-strategic calculations are dictating where aid money is directed in a dynamic reminiscent of the Cold War. Over the past 3 years, flows of aid from the U.S. to Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan were equal to aid to the rest of the world combined. Furthermore, when up to 70% of U.S. foreign aid is tied to an obligation to use that money to buy goods and services from the U.S., this immediately undermines development efforts in African countries.

While to some the MDGs represent a useful political tool to mobilize international support for development, they have been criticized by many groups in the global south as being an over-simplified summary of the development commitments and targets that UN member states have agreed to at international conferences since the 1990s. Groups such as FEMNET (the African Women’s Development and Communications Network) have critiqued the failure of the MDGs to make the correlation between achieving these development goals and the larger structural changes needed to achieve them. The goals may represent some key benchmarks in development progress, but they are all different indicators of the same poverty, and must be addressed at the same time, and at a structural level, to ensure real and sustainable human development.

Although there will be a lot of discussion of the MDGs this year, announcements of new money from rich countries appear unlikely. This despite the acknowledgment that reaching these goals in Africa and other impoverished regions will remain impossible without vast amounts of additional resources.

In a very self-serving way, rich countries continue to argue that integrating developing countries into the global economy through trade and investment is a more effective and sustainable way of reducing poverty than is aid or debt relief, so December’s WTO meeting will be seen as significant for Africa. African governments and civil society organizations claim that developing countries lose more in blocked access to rich country markets each year than they gain in aid. In this sense, the WTO meeting in Hong Kong is seen by some as a real test of whether rich countries are willing to deliver on the promises they made at the 2001 WTO Ministerial in Doha - to move away from protectionist policies and reduce tariffs and agricultural subsidies in order to promote economic opportunities for the world’s most impoverished countries.

Despite the commitments made at Doha and subsequent trade meetings, the U.S. and rich countries have yet to take convincing steps toward fulfilling their promises to reform the global trade system to promote equity and development. While the collapse of the Cancun trade meeting in 2003 indicated a watershed moment in North-South trade negotiations, when developing countries stood together in defense of their development
priorities, it is unclear whether progress made since then means rich countries are prepared to take action this year on contentious issues, such as agricultural subsidies. As a result, some commentators predict that the outcomes of the WTO meeting in December may in fact bring very few benefits, if any, to impoverished countries - a result which would clearly make a lie of previous commitments of rich country governments in this area, and could also threaten the future of the multilateral trading system.

While multilateral trade negotiations prove difficult, the U.S. remains focused on securing bilateral and regional trade agreements that can promote greater access for U.S. corporations to African markets. It continues to pursue a free trade agreement with the five-nation Southern African Custom Union (SACU), which would guarantee preferential access for U.S. companies to this export market. Last year, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was extended and the President announced in December 2004 that 37 countries will be eligible for AGOA in 2005. Since passing in 2000, this Clinton-era policy has become the centerpiece of U.S. economic relations with Africa, offering slightly improved access to U.S. markets to select countries for select products.

The latest U.S. Africa trade profile indicates that two-way trade between the U.S. and Sub-Saharan remains highly concentrated, both in terms of partners and in terms of products. A very small number of African countries account for the lion’s share of total imports and exports. Key U.S. trading partners in Africa are the key oil producers on the continent, including Nigeria, Angola and Gabon, and the largest recipients of investment are also the major oil producers. In 2003, 70% of all U.S. imports from Africa were oil imports, and fully 80% of AGOA imports were petroleum products.

Oil is likely to remain a key motivator of U.S. Africa policy in the coming year. The amount of oil the U.S. imports from Africa will continue to increase, as will the importance of securing that oil supply through strategic military relations.


HIV/AIDS & Genocide in Africa - International Failures

It is not yet clear to what extent African priorities of defeating HIV/AIDS and promoting peace and security will feature on the agenda of rich countries in 2005. But what is already quite clear is the abject failure of these countries to respond to such priorities in Africa with the urgency they require.

The latest annual AIDS epidemic update released in December 2004 reveals that Sub-Saharan Africa is still by far the worst affected region in the world - home to up to 28 million people living with HIV/AIDS, or 64% of the global total. African women, particularly young African women, are disproportionately affected by this pandemic. It is estimated that almost 4 times as many young women as young men now live with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.

U.S. policies on HIV/AIDS in Africa remain completely inadequate in the face of a crisis of this magnitude. The so-called "President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief" (PEPFAR) began disbursing money in 2004, but focuses on only a dozen African countries. For 2005 Congress has appropriated $2.9 billion for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and malaria programs worldwide, which is a slight increase from the previous year but still is far less than is needed and very far from Bush’s original promise of $3 billion per year for HIV/AIDS in Africa alone.

Beyond the inadequate funding levels, the approach of U.S. policies on HIV/AIDS continues to contradict what are some of the most important ways to address this crisis in Africa. Rather than promoting access to cheaper, generic versions of essential HIV/AIDS medications, the Bush Administration places a priority on its ties with the pharmaceutical lobby, and instead approves only the use of expensive name-brand drugs. These generally cost 3 times as much as the generic versions, thereby reaching only one-third of potential beneficiaries.

In addition, the Bush Administration’s embrace of the ideology of the religious right has led it to promote an abstinence-only approach to HIV prevention strategies at home and abroad. This perspective dangerously places a premium on ideology over science and flies in the face of what is known about the most effective ways to stem the spread of this disease in Africa and elsewhere. And abstinence-only prevention programs do little to support the needs of women, when many of those contracting HIV are staying faithful to one partner, and when effective prevention clearly hinges on women’s sexual and reproductive rights.

Meanwhile, the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has proven to be an effective mechanism for addressing this pandemic in some 127 countries, remains under-funded by the U.S. and other rich countries. Despite the demonstrated efficacy of the Global Fund, the U.S. still favors its own unilateral approach to addressing HIV/AIDS in Africa and globally.

HIV/AIDS remains the biggest challenge facing the African continent, but no major new actions are expected from rich country governments in this area in 2005. Britain intends to promote the more rapid pursuit of an HIV vaccine as part of its G-8 agenda, but while this is an important part of the global fight against AIDS, it does little to address the urgent needs of the nearly 3 million people who will die in Africa this year without access to essential treatment.

It is also unclear what action can be expected this year from the international community on the ongoing genocide in Darfur. It is now estimated that as many as 400,000 people have died in the past two years as a result of a government-sponsored campaign of genocide in this western region of Sudan. The U.S. government remains the only country to have rightfully declared that what is happening in Darfur constitutes genocide, but its actions in response have been wholly inadequate, even callous. When declaring a finding of genocide four months ago, Secretary of State Powell also stated that this required no further action on the part of the U.S. Similarly, other UN members have revealed their unwillingness to take action, even as the violence and related humanitarian crisis in Darfur cost an additional 1,000 lives each day.

The U.S. and other countries recently applauded the signing of a peace deal in Sudan that brought to an end the decades-long war between North and South, but they also state that the crisis in Darfur must not be ignored. Negotiations between the Khartoum government and the Darfur rebels are set to resume in Nigeria at the end of January. A UN Commission of Inquiry will report in February 2005 as to whether it believes genocide is indeed taking place. But no urgent international action is on the agenda, and the intervention that is necessary to stop the genocide in Darfur seems unlikely without greater public pressure (which is growing in the U.S.). The limited African Union force in Darfur - only 1,000 troops of a promised 4,000 strong force - remains completely inadequate and overwhelmed, and lacks the troop strength, logistical support, and, most importantly, the mandate to protect civilians. The UN and its member nations will continue to discuss sanctions and embargos in the coming months, but there is no sign of a willingness on the part of any of the most world’s powerful nations to take action to stop this crime against humanity.


Democracy & Peace

The recent signing of the historic North-South peace deal in Sudan brings to an end the longest-running war in Africa, and brings hope for the future democratization, political stability and economic prosperity of that country. Even while the ongoing crisis in Darfur casts a long shadow, 2005 will see some key steps toward the formation of a new coalition government in Sudan, and some observers hope that this may help to resolve the situation in Darfur and Sudan’s larger national political crisis. The U.S. was instrumental in promoting North-South negotiations in Sudan in recent years, though the African negotiators were the most important agents in securing the peace that was signed in January 2005.

In Zimbabwe, elections to be held in March will attract significant international attention and will have major implications for the region and for the continent. It is not yet clear whether the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) will participate in the elections, but there are already concerns about whether these elections can truly be free and in light of government-imposed limitations on campaigning and restrictions on the media, among other repressive measures. These elections are a real test for Zimbabwe’s political future and for African leaders’ willingness to hold each other accountable.

In West Africa, two key elections are expected in 2005 - in Cote D’Ivoire and in Liberia - and both are considered very important for the political stability and economic prospects of that whole sub-region. In East Africa, there are hopes that this year may see the recently-elected government of Somalia move out of exile in Kenya and to the Somali capital, Mogadishu. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the first general elections since independence in 1960 are planned for June 2005, though they may be postponed until later in the year. There are real procedural and logistical challenges to holding this election, and the eastern part of the country remains very unstable. A December 2004 report from the International Rescue Committee reveals that over the past six years, 3.8 million people have died in DRC as a result of ongoing conflict, with most deaths the result of preventable disease and hunger.

Liberia, Somalia and DRC were all key U.S. allies during the Cold War, and the turmoil they have experienced over the past decade or more is in large part the result of the previous destabilizing influence of the U.S. Each country now faces an important moment in 2005, and a new chance to achieve peace and stability, though a sustained commitment from the U.S. to supporting these aspirations is unlikely.


Conclusion

The year has begun with a natural disaster of unprecedented proportions in the Indian Ocean, and, as the world struggles to help the countries of south Asia respond to this crisis, there are fears that this may divert attention and resources from Africa’s needs in the coming year.

What is perhaps more significant is how the rapid and massive resource mobilization for the tsunami victims stands in stark contrast to the minimal level of global attention and resources given to crises that are less visible but equally deadly in Africa. In the first two weeks after the tsunami, international donors pledged more than $5 billion to tsunami relief - an amount almost equal to the total amount that the UN received for all humanitarian relief efforts globally last year. The global AIDS crisis, which costs about 3 million lives each year, received pledges of only $3.6 billion from all rich country governments for the whole of 2004.

If 2005 is to be a decisive year for Africa, the U.S. and other rich country governments must replace compassionate charades with serious action in support of Africa’s most urgent priorities. They must cancel Africa’s debts, greatly increase their funding to fight HIV/AIDS, fulfill their previous promises on trade-related reforms, and support multilateral efforts to promote peace & security in Africa, with the immediate priority of ending the genocide in Darfur.


* Ann-Louise Colgan is Director of Policy Analysis and Communications at Africa Action, the oldest Africa advocacy organization in the U.S.

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Africa Action
1634 Eye Street NW, #810
Washington, DC 20006
Tel: 202-546 7961 * http://www.africaaction.org

USA & torture? Analysis & recommendations

Human Rights Not Hollow Words
Amnesty International Letter

Wednesday 19 January 2005

An appeal to President George W. Bush on the occasion of his re-inauguration.
Mr President,

In your inaugural address four years ago, you promised to be a leader who would "speak for greater justice". Since then, a much repeated promise of your administration has been that the USA will adhere to fundamental principles of human dignity and the rule of law, including in the context of the "war on terror". The National Security Strategy devotes an entire chapter to asserting that in its pursuit of security, the USA will "stand firmly for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity", including the rule of law. The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism concludes that "a world in which these values are embraced as standards, not exceptions, will be the best antidote to the spread of terrorism". Just last month, on Human
Rights Day, you proclaimed that respect for human rights and the rule of law line the route to peace and security. Amnesty International agrees.

Your stated opposition to torture would appear on the face of it to be similarly principled. On 26 June 2003, for example, you issued a statement that:
"Torture anywhere is an affront to human dignity everywhere. We are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law...The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example."

In similar vein, on 26 June 2004, to mark the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, you stated that:
"The non-negotiable demands of human dignity must be protected without reference to race, gender, creed, or nationality. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right, and we are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law... America stands against and will not tolerate torture. We will investigate and prosecute all acts of torture and undertake to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment in all territory under our jurisdiction."

Of course, a government should not be assessed on its words alone, but also on its actions. For things may not be as officially described. As you yourself pointed out in your 26 June 2003 statement on torture, "notorious human rights abusers... have long sought to shield their abuses from the eyes of the world by staging elaborate deceptions and denying access to international human rights monitors".

Your administration has as a matter of policy for more than three years denied international human rights monitors, including Amnesty International, access to detainees held by the USA in the "war on terror", in addition to routinely denying detainees access to the courts, legal counsel and relatives. In addition, US personnel have staged deceptions in order to
subvert basic human rights protections and the rule of law. Certain detainees, for example, have been moved around or left unregistered in order that they can be hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The full extent of this practice remains unknown - last September General Paul Kern told the Senate Armed Services Committee that there may
have been as many as 100 so-called "ghost detainees" in US custody in Iraq. An unknown number of detainees are believed to remain held in secret locations by the USA or with its connivance, amounting to "disappearance" in some cases. The Pentagon refuses to give precise numbers of detainees held in Guantánamo Bay, raising concern that this imprecision could facilitate secret detainee transfers. In early 2004, for example, approximately seven detainees remained unaccounted for in the official announcements about transfers to and from Guantánamo.

The USA is alleged to have been involved in numerous secret transfers of detainees between itself and countries known to use torture, or to have employed extrajudicial abductions of individuals in order to subject them to executive detention and interrogation. For example, Khaled El-Masri, a German national of Lebanese origin, told Amnesty International in June 2004
that there had been US involvement in his alleged secret transfer from Macedonia to detention and ill-treatment in Kabul in early 2004. He also told the organization that he had learned of detainees in US custody in Afghanistan being hidden from the ICRC. As has been the pattern with your administration - which claims to be committed to working with non-governmental organizations to ensure worldwide respect for international human rights standards, but which routinely fails adequately to respond to such organizations in matters concerning its own alleged misconduct - Amnesty International is still awaiting a reply to the letter it sent to the US authorities five months ago raising the allegations made by Khaled
El-Masri.

Your administration's pick and choose approach to the Geneva Conventions has caused widespread international concern. Amnesty International believes that this selective disregard for international humanitarian law principles has contributed to torture and ill-treatment by US forces and to the degree of lawlessness which has marked the USA's waging of the "war on terror". It is now known that you were advised by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales in January 2002 that a determination that the Geneva Conventions would not apply to those captured in the international armed conflict in Afghanistan would free up US interrogators and make their future prosecution for war crimes less likely. Since your decision, allegations of torture and ill-treatment by US forces in Afghanistan and Guantánamo - and the subsequent migration of this phenomenon to Iraq - have been persistent, and such allegations continue to emerge from both detainee and non-detainee
sources.

Having taken the decision not to apply the Geneva Conventions to those held in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, you sought to dispel concern about the treatment of such detainees by saying that they would be treated "in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva". However, this assertion has always been qualified with the phrase "to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity". The legal concept of military necessity cannot lawfully be used to override the prohibition on torture or ill-treatment, but there is mounting evidence that the USA has violated this principle under your leadership.

A number of detainees in Guantánamo, for example, have been kept from the ICRC on the grounds of "military necessity". One of them is believed to have been Abdallah Tabarak, who was transferred to his native Morocco last year. Since his repatriation, he has claimed that in Guantánamo he was beaten, given forcible injections, and held in a dark cell which has left him with eyesight problems. He said that he suffers from other physical ailments as a result of his confinement, as well as insomnia and nightmares. In the case of another Guantánamo detainee, Mohammed al-Kahtani, a harsh interrogation plan was developed, apparently justified by the US authorities on the grounds of "military necessity". Mohammed al-Kahtani was reportedly put on a plane, blindfolded in conditions of sensory deprivation, and made to believe that he was being flown to the Middle East. After several hours in the air, the plane returned to Guantánamo and Mohammed al-Kahtani was allegedly put in an isolation cell and subjected to harsh interrogations conducted by people he was encouraged to believe were Egyptian security agents. This interrogation technique is known as "false flag" and has been approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The Pentagon's Working Group report of April 2003 promotes the technique of threatening to transfer the detainee to a third country, "where subject is likely to fear he would be tortured or killed". Released Guantánamo detainee Tarek Dergoul has alleged that his interrogators threatened him with transfer to Morocco and Egypt where he would be tortured. Fellow United Kingdom national Moazzam Begg, subjected to prolonged and cruel isolation in US custody in Afghanistan and Guantánamo, has alleged that he was threatened by US agents with transfer to Egypt and terrified by accounts of what would
happen there. He has said that fear of rendition to Egypt was widespread among prisoners held at the US air base in Bagram in Afghanistan.

For Australian detainee Mamdouh Habib, the threat of transfer to Egypt became a reality. According to a motion filed in US federal court in November 2004, he was secretly transferred from Pakistan to Egypt with US agents involved and knowing that he would face torture. He spent six months in Egyptian custody where he was allegedly subjected to electric shocks,
water torture, physical assaults, suspension from hooks, threats with dogs, and cruel prison conditions. He was subsequently transferred to Guantánamo in May 2002 and held without charge or trial there for more than two and a half years. A released detainee has alleged to Amnesty International that Mamdouh Habib was subjected to a regime of sleep deprivation in Guantánamo that left him with "blood coming from both his nose and ears".

Even in Iraq, where the Geneva Conventions have been applied, US forces have stretched the denial of ICRC visits for reasons of "imperative military necessity" way beyond "the temporary and exceptional measure" envisaged by Article 143 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Torture or ill-treatment have been the result. In January 2004, for example, US authorities invoked "military necessity" when they refused to grant the ICRC access to eight detainees held in Abu Ghraib. One of the eight, a Syrian national, was being held in a tiny dark cell without windows, toilet or bedding. Around 18 December 2003, he was abused and threatened with dogs. During a visit to the prison in mid-March 2004, the ICRC's delegates were again denied access to him, and eight other detainees, on the grounds of "military necessity". By then, the Syrian detainee had been under incommunicado interrogation for four months. An interrogation plan for him is believed to have included the
following:

"For the segregation phase of the approach, the MPs will put an empty sandbag onto the prisoner's head before moving him out... During transportation, the Fear up Harsh approach will be continued... Upon arrival at site, MP guards will take him into custody. MP working dogs will be present and barking during this phase. Detainee will be strip searched by guards with the empty sandbag over his head... Detainee will be put on the adjusted sleep schedule for 72 hours. Interrogations will be conducted continuously during this 72-hour period. The approaches which will be used during this phase will include, fear up harsh, pride and ego down, silence and loud music. Stress positions will also be used... in order to intensify the approach."

Into your administration's "war on terror" detention policy has been added a pattern of dangerous public commentary about detainees by yourself and other officials. For example, repeated assertions that the detainees in Guantánamo are "terrorists", "killers" and "bad people" - has not only undermined the presumption of innocence, but has fuelled the notion that these are people for whom the basic rules of humanity and legality do not apply. It cannot be considered responsible conduct for officials, let alone the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, to inject such labelling of detainees into this would-be unchallengeable regime of executive detentions, safeguards against torture and ill-treatment already lowered.

The struggle against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment requires a government's one hundred per cent commitment and constant vigilance. It requires stringent adherence to safeguards and an absolute rejection of loopholes. It demands a policy of zero tolerance. Mr President, your administration has manifestly failed in this regard. At
best, it set the conditions for torture and ill-treatment by lowering safeguards and failing to respond adequately to allegations of abuse raised by Amnesty International and others from early on in the "war on terror". At worst, it has authorized interrogation techniques and detainee transfers which have flouted the country's international obligation to reject torture and ill-treatment under any circumstances and at all times.

Amnesty International takes this opportunity to list some of the detention or interrogation techniques that are alleged to have been authorized or used by the USA during the "war on terror". Some of the techniques appear to have been tailored to specific cultural or religious sensitivities of the detainees, thereby introducing a discriminatory element to the abuse. Neither gender nor age has offered protection. Children, the elderly, women and men are reported to have been among the subjects of torture or ill-treatment. The following list does not claim to be exhaustive:

Abduction
Death threats
Dietary manipulation
Dogs used to threaten and intimidate
Dousing in cold water
Electric shocks, threats of electric shocks
Excessive and cruel use of shackles and handcuffs, including "short
shackling"
Excessive or humiliating use of strip searches
Exposure to weather and temperature extremes
"False flag", ie making a detainee think his interrogators are not US agents
Forced shaving, ie of head, body or facial hair
Forcible injections
Forced physical exercise
Hooding and blindfolding
Humiliation, eg forced crawling, forced to make animal noises, etc.
Immersion in water to induce perception of drowning
Incommunicado detention
Induced perception of suffocation or asyphxiation
Isolation for prolonged periods, eg months or more than a year
Light deprivation
Loud music, noise, yelling
Photography as humiliation
Physical assault, eg beating, punching, kicking
Prolonged interrogations, eg 20 hours
Racial and religious taunts, humiliation
Religious intolerance, eg disrespect for Koran, religious rituals
Secret detention
Sensory deprivation
Sexual humiliation
Sexual assault
Sleep adjustment
Sleep deprivation
Stress positions, eg prolonged forced kneeling and standing
Stripping
Strobe lighting
Threats of reprisals against relatives
Threat of transfer to third country to inspire fear of torture or death
Threat of transfer to Guantánamo
Threats of torture or ill-treatment
Twenty-four hour lighting
Withdrawal of "comfort items"
Withholding of medication
Withholding of food and water
Withholding of toilet facilities, leading to defecation and urination in
clothing

As the Pentagon's April 2003 Working Group report states, interrogation techniques are "usually used in combination". This can be illustrated by the recently revealed observations of FBI agents in Guantánamo. One reported seeing a detainee "sitting on the floor of the interview room with an Israeli flag draped around him, loud music being played and a strobe light
flashing". Another wrote:

"On a couple of occassions (sic), I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they had urinated or defacated (sic) on themselves and had been left there for 18, 24 hours or more. On one occassion (sic), the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. When I asked the MPs what was going on , I was told that interrogators from the day prior had ordered this treatment, and the detainee was not to be moved. On another occassion (sic), the A/C had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night. On another occassion (sic), not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand
and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor".

Secretary Rumsfeld authorized interrogation techniques including stripping, environmental manipulation, sensory deprivation, stress positions, isolation, hooding, and the use of dogs to inspire fear. A number of detainees have alleged that they were subjected to such treatment in Guantánamo. An FBI agent also tells of having witnessed the use of a dog to
intimidate a Guantánamo detainee, who was also subjected to three months of isolation in cell with 24-hour illumination. The detainee was later witnessed to be displaying conduct "consistent with extreme psychological trauma. Secretary Rumsfeld has also admitted to authorizing the exclusion of at least one detainee in Iraq from any prison register. Amnesty
International has yet to see a satisfactory explanation of what appears to have been Secretary Rumsfeld's participation in a "disappearance", which is a crime under international law.

Mr President, Amnesty International also notes that on 17 September 2001 you reportedly signed a Memorandum of Notification granting "exceptional authorities" to the CIA in the "war on terror". Amnesty International is further concerned by reports that you authorized the CIA to set up secret detention facilities outside the USA and to use harsh interrogation
techniques. As noted further below, it appears that you have granted an exemption to the CIA and other non-military personnel from a 7 February 2002 directive stating that detainees in US custody would be treated humanely. If so, the ultimate responsibility for any resulting torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment would lie squarely at your door. In addition, an FBI agent's email sent from Iraq, recently made public, refers to an Executive Order signed by you which authorizes interrogation techniques which should be considered contrary to international law and standards. Amnesty International is aware that the administration has denied the existence of such an order.

The problem with such rebuttals is that previous denials have been shown to be inaccurate. The stock response of US officials during the "war on terror" to allegations of torture or ill-treatment - namely that all detainees in US custody are treated humanely and with respect for human dignity - can now be seen either to have been a stock falsehood or else an
indication that your administration's view of what constitutes humane treatment and respect for human dignity differs markedly from wider understandings of such terminology. With this in mind, the following assertion may be instructive:

"Of course, our values as a Nation, values that we share with many nations in the world, call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment" (emphasis added).

No detainee can fall outside the prohibition on torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. To suggest otherwise, as this line does, points to a serious gap in a government's understanding of international law and indicates that it views fundamental human rights as privileges that can be granted, and therefore taken away, by the state. The sentence in question was in your memorandum, dated 7 February 2002, classified as secret for 10 years, and distributed to the main office-holders in your administration.

At the 22 June 2004 press briefing at which a selection of administration documents was made public, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales referred to your 7 February 2002 memorandum as the "most important" from among them. He repeated aloud to the assembled media your central holding - that the USA would treat detainees humanely, "including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment" - without any apparent recognition of the disturbing message contained in it. Earlier this month, Judge Gonzales' responses to questions from Senators as your nominee for the post of Attorney General left a similarly troubling impression. Two examples will suffice:

Senator Patrick Leahy: "Do you think that other world leaders would have authority to authorize the torture of US citizens, if they deemed it necessary for their national security?"

Judge Gonzales: "Senator, I don't know what laws other world leaders would be bound by... I'm not in a position to answer that question".

Senator Richard Durbin: "Can US personnel legally engage in torture under any circumstances?... Of course that would include military as well as intelligence personnel or others who are under the auspices of our government".

Judge Gonzales: "I don't believe so, but I'd want to get back to you on that and make sure I don't provide a misleading answer."

As with your 7 February 2002 memorandum, Judge Gonzales' inability to respond with an immediate and simple "no" to either of the above questions fuels concern that your administration's commitment to the international prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment remains less than absolute. Amnesty International urges you to withdraw the 7 February 2002 memorandum and to replace it with an unequivocal public directive against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. It must contain this full-spectrum phrase and not be limited to torture alone. The directive must apply to all officials, all agencies and all circumstances, including international detainee transfers. For example, as
Amnesty International pointed out in its October 2004 report (see below), the existing memorandum only applies to the US Armed Forces - it did not include the CIA or those working with them, and omitted any reference to persons "rendered" to states that use torture for interrogation. In his just-released written responses to questions from Senators at his nomination
hearing, Judge Gonzales has reportedly confirmed that officers of the CIA and other non-military personnel are outside the bounds of your 7 February 2002 memorandum.

Your administration recently replaced the now notorious 1 August 2002 memorandum on torture from the Justice Department to the White House Counsel. This had reportedly been drafted following a request by the CIA for legal protections for its interrogators engaged in the "war on terror". Its contents were shocking, and presumably would still represent the administration's position if it had not been forced to reassess it by the furore that accompanied its leaking and subsequent official release. The 1 August 2002 memorandum drew, inter alia, the following three erroneous conclusions:
- that interrogators could cause a great deal of pain before crossing the threshold to torture. Specifically, it suggested that torture would only occur if the pain caused rose to the level "that would ordinarily be associated with a sufficiently serious physical condition or injury such as death, organ failure, or serious impairment of bodily functions";
- that even though US law makes it a criminal offence for anyone in an official position to commit or attempt to commit torture against a detainee outside the USA, and even though the USA has ratified treaties prohibiting torture, the US President's authority as Commander-in-Chief could override these laws; even if interrogators were prosecuted for torture, there were defences available to them by which they could escape criminal liability, such as "necessity" or "self-defence".

At his nomination hearing earlier this month, the White House Counsel stated that the 1 August 2002 memorandum "represented the position of the executive branch at the time it was issued", and presumably this remained the case for the next two years.

The revised version of the 1 August 2002 memorandum, dated 30 December 2004, is undeniably an improvement on its infamous predecessor, and Amnesty International broadly welcomes it as far as it goes. It nevertheless leaves a number of questions unanswered. For example, although it says that it "supersedes the August 2002 Memorandum in its entirety", it sidesteps the question of the President's Commander-in-Chief power to authorize torture and immunize a US agent from criminal liability for torture. The new memorandum claims that an analysis of this issue is "unnecessary" as you have directed that US personnel will not engage in torture. The 30 December 2004 memorandum gives as an example of this "unequivocal directive" your June 2004 statement against torture quoted at the beginning of this letter. Yet as already pointed out, you made a similarly unequivocal statement asserting the USA's leadership of the struggle against torture in June 2003, at a time when the then still secret August 2002 memorandum presumably "represented the position of the executive branch". To coin a phrase, one is either against torture or, de facto, one is for it. One cannot have it one way in public and one way in private. Your statements against torture and ill-treatment must be unambiguous, consistent, and matched by actions.

In any event, the spirit of the August 2002 memorandum lives on. Much of it is repeated in the April 2003 final report of the Pentagon's Working Group on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism. For example, the latter states that "[i]n order to respect the President's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign, [the US law
prohibiting torture]... must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority". The Working Group report is believed to remain in force, and its recommendations were adopted by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, whose memorandum of 16 April 2003 doe not rule out any interrogation method that goes beyond those promoted in the report, as long as he authorizes it personally on a case-by-case basis. Amnesty International urges you to ensure that the Working Group report is also withdrawn.

Of course, the withdrawal of the August 2002 memorandum does not delete it or its effects from history. It was in existence for some two years, during which time US forces allegedly engaged in torture or ill-treatment. In his statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee in September 2004, Dr Harold Brown, one of the members of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations, said that the impact of the August 2002 memorandum on the "atmosphere of permissiveness in the field" was "difficult to assess". Certainly, detainees in US custody are alleged to have been subjected to what the memorandum promoted as the "significant range of acts that though they might constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, fail to rise to the level of torture". These include stress positions, hooding, excessive tightening of handcuffs, subjection to noise, and sleep deprivation. Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is prohibited under international law.

Reports that late last year the White House pressed Congressional leaders to drop a provision from a Senate bill restricting the use of extreme interrogation techniques by US intelligence agents is cause for concern. In a letter to members of Congress in October, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had reportedly opposed the measure on the grounds that it "provides legal protections to foreign prisoners to which they are not now entitled under applicable law and policy". On 13 January, your spokesperson, Scott McClellan, explained that the White House "did not view the provision as necessary because there are already laws on the books to address these issues." Yet, in his written responses to Senators, the White
House Counsel has reportedly said that the Congressional ban on cruel or inhumane treatment has a "limited reach" and does not apply to "aliens overseas".

Again, what is needed is an unequivocal directive, free of any ambiguity and carrying legal force, holding that no US government agent anywhere, including members of the administration, the military, the CIA, or any private contractor, may authorize, condone, or engage in torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. It must be made clear that there
exists no executive power that can override this, and no circumstances it which torture will be countenanced. This must then be followed up by action.

Amnesty International has suggested a framework for action for the USA in a 200-page report, USA - Human Dignity Denied - Torture and accountability in the 'war on terror'.(1) In the report, Amnesty International makes more than 60 recommendations structured around the organization's 12-Point Program for the Prevention of Torture by Agents of
the State. A compilation of these recommendations is attached to this appeal. Mr President, Amnesty International urges you to give them serious consideration.

Investigation and prosecution are two basic components that a country committed to eradicating torture must follow. It has recently been announced that the Justice Department's Inspector General will investigate allegations raised by FBI agents of the military's use of torture and ill-treatment against detainees in Guantánamo Bay and Iraq. While Amnesty International
welcomes this development, it does not believe that this and the other investigations and reviews initated and conducted will be enough. They have offered or will offer only a series of snapshots, not the overall picture. Many questions remain unanswered: For example:

None of the investigations have had the power or the independence to be able to investigate into the highest echelons of government, including the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the White House.

Alleged secret transfers of detainees between the USA and countries with poor records of torture have not formed part of the investigations.

The activities of the Central Intelligence Agency remain shrouded in secrecy.

The extent of the role of military doctors in abuses remains unclear but has already raised serious questions of professional ethics.

Numerous interrogation techniques which violate the USA's international obligations, but which have nonetheless been authorized, have not been denounced by the military reviews, let alone by the administration itself.

The United Nations Principles for the investigation of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, adopted by the General Assembly in 2000, state:

"In cases in which the established investigative procedures are inadequate because of insufficient expertise or suspected bias, or because of the apparent existence of a pattern of abuse or for other substantial reasons, States shall ensure that investigations are undertaken through an independent commission of inquiry or similar procedure. Members of such a
commission shall be chosen for their recognized impartiality, competence and independence as individuals. In particular, they shall be independent of any suspected perpetrators and the institutions or agencies they may serve".

Since 19 May 2004, Amnesty International has been calling for an impartial and independent commission of inquiry to be set up by the US Congress to conduct a thorough investigation into the USA's "war on terror" detention policies and practices worldwide. Such a commission, composed of credible experts, could be appointed by Congress, but must be independent of
government. Such a commission should consist of credible independent experts, have international expert input, and have subpoena powers and access to all levels of government, all agencies, and all documents whether classified or unclassified. Amnesty International urges you to support the establishment of such a commission, and to cooperate fully with it when it
is established.

Your administration has chosen to release only selected documentation, and those documents have only been released reluctantly, either under court order or after unauthorized leaks into the public domain embarassed officials into action. The degree of public scepticism that has inevitably been generated by this secrecy and lack of transparency is one more reason
why a full independent commission of inquiry is required to get to clarify what has occurred and on whose authorization, and to show the world that the USA is serious about its human rights commitments.

Along with the rule of law, another of the "non-negotiable demands of human dignity" to which you have made repeated reference is "limits on the absolute power of the state". Yet, more than six months after the US Supreme Court ruled that the federal courts have jurisdiction over the detainees held in Guantánamo, your administration continues to argue for any review of their detentions to be kept as far from a judicial process as possible. Hundreds of detainees remain without access to lawyers. Human rights organizations are still denied access. Precisely what interrogation practices and policies remain in force in Guantánamo or elsewhere is unknown. Secret and incommunicado detentions are continuing. Yet full judicial review, as well as access to lawyers and independent human rights monitors, are basic safeguards against arbitrary detention, torture and "disappearance". The USA's continuing penchant for secrecy in the field of detentions betray a lack of genuine commitment to its international obligations on human rights and the rule of law.

Amnesty International has spoken to many relatives of detainees who themselves are in deep distress from the lack of transparency and information about their loved ones. In November 2004, for example, the sister and brother of Kuwaiti Guantánamo detainee Abdullah Al Kandari told the organization of how their parents "are not the same people they were
three years ago" because of losing their son to the black hole of Guantánamo. Earlier in the year, the brother of Yemeni detainee Jamal Mar'i related how his mother has developed high blood pressure and sinks into bouts of depression from the strain of not knowing what is happening to the son she has not seen for more than three years. In other contexts, the
suffering of the relatives of the "disappeared" has been found by the UN Human Rights Committee to amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Similar cruelty is inflicted upon the relatives of people held in indefinite virtual incommunicado detention without charge or trial. It is notable that numerous relatives of the Guantánamo detainees have referred to their loved one as having disappeared.

Khalid Al-Odah, father of Kuwaiti Guantánamo detainee Fawzi Al-Odah has appealed to you "from father to father". "It's almost three years now we have been suffering and living in misery", Khalid Al-Odah says, and pleads for you to ensure justice for his son.(2) Again, Amnesty International recalls the promise you made in your first inaugural speech to be a
president who would speak for "greater justice and compassion" and urges you at this time of your re-inauguration and beyond to consider the distress of the families of detainees held without charge or trial by the USA.

Amnesty International believes that the USA's detention and interrogation policies in the "war on terror" have flouted hard-won principles of human rights. Individual detainees and their families have suffered, the rule of law has suffered, and the reputation of your country has suffered. The USA's policy and practice have set a bad example to those governments looking for justification to employ their own repressive conduct.

Mr President, Amnesty International urges you to make the eradication of torture and ill-treatment by US agents, and the USA's full compliance with international law and standards for the treatment and trial of detainees, a hallmark of your second term in office.

Amnesty International's recommendations to the US authorities based on the organization's 12-Point Program for the Prevention of Torture by Agents of the State

Condemn Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment. The highest authorities of every country should demonstrate their total opposition to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. They should condemn torture and ill-treatment unreservedly whenever it occurs. They should make clear to all members of the police, military and other security forces that torture and ill-treatment will never be tolerated.

The US authorities should:

Provide a genuine, unequivocal and continuing public commitment to oppose torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under any circumstances, regardless of where it takes place, and take every possible measure to ensure that all agencies of government and US allies fully comply with this prohibition;

Review all government policies and procedures relating to detention and interrogation to ensure that they adhere strictly to international human rights and humanitarian law and standards, and publicly disown those which do not;

Make clear to all members of the military and all other government agencies, as well as US allies, that torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment will not be tolerated under any circumstances;

Commit to a program of public education on the international prohibition of torture and ill-treatment, including challenging any public discourse that seeks to promote tolerance of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Ensure Access to Prisoners. Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment often take place while prisoners are held incommunicado - unable to contact people outside who could help them or find out what is happening to them. The practice of incommunicado detention should be ended. Governments should ensure that all prisoners are brought before an independent judicial authority without delay after being taken into custody. Prisoners should have access to relatives,
lawyers and doctors without delay and regularly thereafter.

The US authorities should:

End the practice of incommunicado detention; Grant the International Committee of the Red Cross full access to all
detainees according to the organization's mandate;

Grant all detainees access to legal counsel, relatives, independent doctors, and to consular representatives, without delay and regularly thereafter;

In battlefield situations, ensure where possible that interrogations are observed by at least one military lawyer with full knowledge of international law and standards as they pertain to the treatment of detainees;

Grant all detainees access to the courts to be able to challenge the lawfulness of their detention. Presume detainees captured on the battlefield during international conflicts to be prisoners of war unless and until a competent tribunal determines otherwise;

Reject any measures that narrow or curtail the effect or scope of the Rasul v. Bush ruling on the right to judicial review of detainees held in Guantánamo or elsewhere, and facilitate detainees' access to legal counsel for the purpose of judicial review.

No Secret Detention. In some countries torture takes place in secret locations, often after the victims are made to "disappear". Governments should ensure that prisoners are held only in officially recognized places of detention and that accurate information about their arrest and whereabouts is made available immediately to relatives, lawyers and the courts. Effective judicial remedies should be available at all times to enable relatives and lawyers to find out immediately where a prisoner is held and under what authority and to ensure the prisoner's safety.

The US authorities should:

Clarify the fate and whereabouts of those detainees reported to be or to have been in US custody or under US interrogation in the custody of other countries, to whom no outside body including the International Committee of the Red Cross are known to have access, and provide assurances of their well-being. These detainees include but are not limited to those named in
the 9/11 Commission Report and in this Amnesty International report as having been in custody at some time in undisclosed locations;

End immediately the practice of secret detention wherever it is occurring, and under whichever agency. Hold detainees only in officially recognized places of detention;

Not collude with other governments in the practice of "disappearances" or secret detentions, and expose such abuses where the USA becomes aware of them;

Maintain an accurate and detailed register of all detainees at every detention facility operated by the US, in accordance with international law and standards. This register should be updated on a daily basis, and made available for inspection by, at a minimum, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the detainees' relatives and lawyers or other persons of
confidence;

Make public and regularly update the precise numbers of detainees in US custody specifying the agency under which each person is held, their identity, their nationality and arrest date, and place of detention;

Either charge and bring to trial, in full accordance with international law and standards and without recourse to the death penalty, all detainees held in US custody in undisclosed locations, or else release them;

Comply without delay with Freedom of Information Act requests, and related court orders, aimed at clarifying the fate and whereabouts of such detainees;

Make public and revoke any measures or directives that have been authorized by the President or any other official that could be interpreted as authorizing "disappearances", torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, or extrajudicial executions.

Provide Safeguards During Detention and Interrogation. All prisoners should be immediately informed of their rights. These include the right to lodge complaints about their treatment and to have a judge rule without delay on the lawfulness of their detention. Judges should investigate any evidence of torture and order release if the detention is unlawful. A lawyer should be present during interrogations. Governments should ensure that conditions of detention conform to international
standards for the treatment of prisoners and take into account the needs of members of particularly vulnerable groups. The authorities responsible for detention should be separate from those in charge of interrogation. There should be regular, independent, unannounced and unrestricted visits of inspection to all places of detention.

The US authorities should:

Immediately inform anyone taken into US custody of his or her rights, including the right not to be subjected to any form of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; their right to challenge the lawfulness of their detention in a court of law; their right to access to relatives and legal counsel, and their consular rights if a foreign national;

Ensure at all times a clear delineation between powers of detention and interrogation;

Keep under systematic review interrogation rules, instructions, methods and practices, as well as arrangements for the custody and treatment of anyone in US custody, with a view to preventing any cases of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment;

Ensure that conditions of detention strictly comply with international law and standards;

Prohibit the use of isolation, hooding, stripping, dogs, stress positions, sensory deprivation, feigned suffocation, death threats, use of cold water or weather, sleep deprivation and any other forms of torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as interrogation techniques;

Bring to trial in accordance with international fair trial standards all detainees held in Guantánamo, or release them;

Ensure compliance with all aspects of international law and standards relating to child detainees;

Ensure compliance with all international law and standards relating to women detainees;

Invite all relevant human rights monitoring mechanisms, especially the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, the Committee against Torture, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (1980) and the Working Group on Arbitrary detention to visit all places of detention, and grant them unlimited access to these places and to detainees;

Grant access to national and international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, to all places of detention and all detainees, regardless of where they are held.

Prohibit Torture in Law. Governments should adopt laws for the prohibition and prevention of torture incorporating the main elements of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) and other relevant international standards. All judicial and administrative corporal punishments should be abolished. The prohibition of torture and the essential safeguards for its prevention must not be suspended under any circumstances, including states of war or other public emergency.

The US authorities should:

Enact a federal crime of torture, as called for by the Committee against Torture, that also defines the infliction of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as a crime, wherever it occurs;

Amend the Uniform Code of Military Justice to criminalize expressly the crime of torture, as well as a crime of infliction of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, wherever it occurs, in line with the Convention against Torture and other international standards;

Ensure that all legislation criminalizing torture defines torture at least as broadly as the UN Convention against Torture;

Ensure that legislation criminalizing torture and the infliction of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment covers all persons, regardless of official status or nationality, wherever this conduct occurred, and that it does not allow any exceptional circumstances whatsoever to be invoked as justification for such conduct, or allow the authorization of torture or
ill-treatment by any superior officer or public official, including the President.

Investigate All complaints and reports of torture should be promptly, impartially and effectively investigated by a body independent of the alleged perpetrators. The methods and findings of such investigations should be made public. Officials suspected of committing torture should be suspended from active duty during the investigation. Complainants, witnesses and others at risk should be protected from intimidation and reprisals.

US Congress should:

Establish an independent commission of inquiry into all aspects of the USA's "war on terror" detention and interrogation policies and practices. Such a commission should consist of credible independent experts, have international expert input, and have subpoena powers and access to all levels of government, all agencies, and all documents whether classified or
unclassified.

The US authorities should:

Ensure that all allegations of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment involving US personnel, whether members of the armed forces, other government agencies, medical personnel, private contractors or interpreters, are subject to prompt, thorough, independent and impartial civilian investigation in strict conformity with international law and standards
concerning investigations of human rights violations;

Ensure that such investigations include cases in which the USA previously had custody of the detainee, but transferred him or her to the custody of another country, or to other forces within the same country, subsequent to which allegations of torture or ill-treatment were made;

Ensure that the investigative approach at a minimum complies with the UN Principles on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment;

Ensure that the investigation of deaths in custody at a minimum comply with the UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, including the provision for adequate autopsies in all such cases;

In view of evidence that certain persons held in US custody have been subjected to "disappearance", the US authorities should initiate prompt, thorough and impartial investigations into the allegations by a competent and independent state authority, as provided under Article 13 of the UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Prosecute Those responsible for torture must be brought to justice. This principle should apply wherever alleged torturers happen to be, whatever their nationality or position, regardless of where the crime was committed and the nationality of the victims, and no matter how much time has elapsed since the commission of the crime. Governments must exercise universal
jurisdiction over alleged torturers or extradite them, and cooperate with each other in such criminal proceedings. Trials must be fair. An order from a superior officer must never be accepted as a justification for torture.

The US authorities should:

Publicly reject all arguments, including those contained in classified or unclassified government documents, promoting impunity for anyone suspected of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including the ordering
of such acts;

Bring to trial all individuals - whether they be members of the administration, the armed forces, intelligence services and other government agencies, medical personnel, private contractors or interpreters - against whom there is evidence of having authorized, condoned or committed torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment;

Any person alleged to have perpetrated an act of "disappearance" should, when the facts disclosed by an official investigation so warrant, be brought before the competent civil authorities for prosecution and trial, in accordance with Article 14 of the UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance;

Ensure that all trials for alleged perpetrators comply with international fair trial standards, and do not result in imposition of the death penalty.

No Use of Statements Extracted Under Torture. Governments should ensure that statements and other evidence obtained
through torture may not be invoked in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture.

The US authorities should:

Ensure that no statement coerced as a result of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including long-term indefinite detention without charge or trial, or any other information or evidence obtained directly or indirectly as the result of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, regardless of who was responsible for such acts, is admitted as evidence against any defendant, except the perpetrator of the human rights violation in question;

Revoke the Military Order on the Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism, and abandon trials by military commission;

Expose and reject any use of coerced evidence obtained by other governments from people held in their own or US custody;

Refrain from transferring any coerced evidence for the use of other governments.

Provide Effective Training. It should be made clear during the training of all officials involved in the custody, interrogation or medical care of prisoners that torture is a criminal act. Officials should be instructed that they have the right and duty to refuse to obey any order to torture.

The US authorities should:

Ensure that all personnel involved in detention and interrogation, including all members of the armed forces or other government agencies, private contractors, medical personnel and interpreters, receive full training, with input from international experts, on the international prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and their obligation to expose it;

Ensure that all members of the armed forces and members of other government agencies, including the CIA, private contractors, medical personnel and interpreters, receive full training in the scope and meaning of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, as well as international human rights law and standards, with input from international experts;

Ensure that full training be similarly provided on international human rights law and standards regarding the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty, including the prohibition on "disappearances", with input from international experts;

Ensure that all military and other agency personnel, as well as medical personnel and private contractors, receive cultural awareness training appropriate to whatever theatre of operation they may be deployed into.

Provide Reparation. Victims of torture and their dependants should be entitled to obtain prompt reparation from the state including restitution, fair and adequate financial compensation and appropriate medical care and rehabilitation.

The US authorities should:

Ensure that anyone who has suffered torture or ill-treatment while in US custody has access to, and the means to obtain, full reparation including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition, wherever they may reside;

Ensure that all those who have been subject to unlawful arrest by the USA receive full compensation.

Ratify International Treaties. All governments should ratify without reservations international treaties containing safeguards against torture, including the UN Convention against Torture with declarations providing for individual and inter-state
complaints. Governments should comply with the recommendations of international bodies and experts on the prevention of torture.

The US authorities should:

Make a public commitment to fully adhere to international human rights and humanitarian law and standards - treaties, other instruments, and customary law - and respect the decisions and recommendations of international and regional human rights bodies;

Make a public commitment to fully adhere to the Geneva Conventions, and to respecting the advice and recommendations of the International Committee of the Red Cross;

Ratify Additional Protocols I and II to the Geneva Conventions;

Withdraw all conditions attached to the USA's ratification of the UN Convention against Torture;

Provide the USA's overdue second report to the Committee against Torture, as requested by the Committee;

Withdraw all limiting conditions attached to the USA's ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;

Provide the USA's overdue reports to the Human Rights Committee;

Ratify the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture;

Ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child;

Ratify the American Convention on Human Rights;

Ratify the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons without any reservations and implement it by making enforced disappearances a crime under US law over which US courts have jurisdiction wherever committed by anyone.

Ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Exercise International Responsibility. Governments should use all available channels to intercede with the governments of countries where torture is reported. They should ensure that transfers of training and equipment for military, security or police use do not facilitate torture. Governments must not forcibly return a person to a country where he or she risks being tortured.

The US authorities should:

Withdraw the USA's understanding to Article 3 of the UN Convention against Torture, and publicly state the USA's commitment to the principle of non-refoulement, and ensure that no legislation undermines this protection in any way;

Cease the practice of "renditions" that bypass human rights protections; ensure that all transfers of detainees between the USA and other countries fully comply with international human rights law.

Church Leaders Urge Middle East Peace Effort

 January 21, 2005

TO: Churches for Middle East Peace Email Network
FROM: Corinne Whitlatch, Executive Director

RE: Inaugural Letter to the President and New York Times Ad

This email alert is also posted on our website at:
One of the Catholic signers, Sr. Christine Vladimiroff, OSB, President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious said, “The ancient, unfulfilled vision of justice for all is now within our reach. It is time for us – citizens and elected officials –
to disarm our hearts, speak a word of hope and bring the blessing of peace to the people in the holy land. “Let us, then, make it our aim to work for peace and to strengthen one another.” (Romans 14:19)

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold of the Episcopal Church had this comment:  “Having recommitted himself to a two-state solution with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, President Bush has a unique opportunity to make that vision real – to, as we urged, ‘follow the examples of the great prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, who declared that God calls all nations and all people to do justice to one another.’”
                                              
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Church Leaders' Inaugural Letter to President Bush

January 21, 2005

The Honorable George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President:

As leaders of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Churches and Christian organizations with millions of members across the country, we encourage you to lead a political process that will end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As you begin your second term, the vision of a two-state solution is coming back into focus after having faded into obscurity.  Will Palestinians finally be free? Will Israelis be secure at last? As people of faith and hope, we say yes!

This is the time for you and for the 109th Congress, and for friends of Israel and Palestine, to have the courage to be peacemakers, and to press both Israelis and Palestinians to seize the future; where each recognizes the other's right to exist and is willing to work together for security and economic well-being.

For the sake of our own country as well, Mr. President, we appeal to you. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a threat to the people of the United States. Every day the conflict continues, hatred of the United States government is fueled. With each news report of Palestinian suffering -- whether the death of an innocent child, the demolition of a family's home, or the confiscation of farmland for the separation barrier -- popular support in Arab and Muslim countries for terrorism grows and the threat of attacks directed at the United States increases. The continuing conflict has also resulted in suffering and loss of life among Israeli citizens. We want Israelis, too, to live without fear or threat in their own country.

A hallmark of your campaign was the commitment to defeat terror and make our country more secure. We believe that the promise of peace in Jerusalem is the best defense against terrorism. We encourage you to maintain the faith, the courage and the resolve to work with other world leaders toward negotiations that guarantee two viable states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side and sharing Jerusalem as their capital.

Finally, Mr. President, we urge you to follow the examples of the great prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, who declared that God calls all nations and all people to do justice to one another. We join you in praying for peace in the Holy Land and at home.

Sincerely,
                   
Rev. Dr. Leonard B. Bjorkman, Co-Moderator, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
Marilyn Borst, Director, Global Ministry, Peachtree Presbyterian Church, Atlanta
Simone Campbell, SSS, National Coordinator, NETWORK, A Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Anthony Campolo, President, Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education
Br. Kevin Cawley, Deputy Province Leader, Eastern American Province, Christian Brothers
Sister Ardis Cloutier, OSF, Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, MN
Marie Dennis, Director, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Christopher J. Doyle, President/CEO, American Leprosy Missions
Rev. Robert Edgar, General Secretary, National Council of Churches USA 
Beatrice Eichten, OSF, Vice President, Leadership Conference of Women Religious
Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, General Secretary, Reformed Church in America
Anne Griffis, Chair, Action/Global Concerns, Church Women United
The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, Presiding Bishop, The Episcopal Church in America
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The Rev. Dr. Stan Hastey, Alliance of Baptists
Rev. Wm. Chris Hobgood, General Minister and President, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Rev. Kathryn J. Johnson, Executive Director, Methodist Federation for Social Action
The Rev. Phil Jones, Director, Brethren Witness/Washington Office
Mor Cyril Aphrem Karim, Archbishop, Archdiocese of the Syrian Orthodox Church
Ted Keating, SM, Executive Director, Conference of Major Superiors of Men
Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk, Presbyterian Church (USA)
Abbot Jerome Kodell, OSB, Subiaco Abbey
Thomas Krosnicki, SVD, Provincial, Society of the Divine Word (Chicago)
Donald A. Kruse, Vice-president, Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF)
Rev. Michael E. Livingston, Executive Director, International Council of Community Churches
Dr. Ronald J.R. Mathies, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee
Joellen McCarthy, BVM
Peggy Nolan, BVM
Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM
Leadership Team, Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Rev. John L. McCullough, Executive Director & CEO, Church World Service
Mary Ellen McNish, General Secretary, American Friends Service Committee
A. Roy Medley, General Secretary, American Baptist Churches, U.S.A.
Joseph Nangle, OFM, Franciscan Mission Service
Ron Nikkel, President, Prison Fellowship International
Rateb Y. Rabie, KHS, President, Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF)     
Leonard Rodgers, President/Founder, Venture International
Andrew Ryskamp, Executive Director, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee-US
Metropolitan Philip Saliba, Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese
Rev. Cheryl J. Sanders, Th.D., Senior Pastor, Third Street Church of God, Washington, D.C.
Dr. Robert E. Sawyer, Moravian Church Southern Province
Amb. Robert A. Seiple, Founder/Chair, Institute for Global Engagement.
Carole Shinnick, SSND, Executive Director, Leadership Conference of Women Religious
Ronald J. Sider, President, Evangelicals for Social Action
Rev. William G. Sinkford, President, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
James W. Skillen, President, Center for Public Justice
Glen Stassen, Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics, Fuller Theological Seminary
Richard E. Stearns, President, World Vision
Msgr. Archimandrite Robert L. Stern, Secretary General, Catholic Near East Welfare Association
Rev. John H. Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ
The Rev. Canon Richard Toll, Friends of Sabeel—North America
Christine Vladimiroff, OSB, President, Leadership Conference of Women Religious
Joe Volk, Executive Secretary, Friends Committee on National Legislation
Rev. Dr. Donald E. Wagner, Professor, North Park University, Chicago.
Jim Wallis, Executive Director, Sojourners
Corinne Whitlatch, Executive Director, Churches for Middle East Peace
James Winkler, General Secretary, General Board of Church & Society, United Methodist Church
Bishop Gabino Zavala, Bishop President, Pax Christi USA

To add your name to the open letter, please go to:http://www.cmep.org/Forms/endorsement.html. 
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Formed in 1984, Churches for Middle East Peace is a Washington-based program of the Alliance of Baptists, American Friends Service Committee, Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men's Institutes, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Church of the Brethren, Church World Service, Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Franciscan Mission Service, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Maryknoll Missioners, Mennonite Central Committee, National Council of Churches, Presbyterian Church (USA), Reformed Church in America, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church (GBCS & GBGM) .  For further information, see www.cmep.org  

To remove or add your address to this network, send a note to cmepdc@aol.com


Churches for Middle East Peace
110 Maryland Ave NE, #311
Washington, DC 20002
Telephone (202) 543-1222
Fax: 202-543-5025
www.cmep.org

Middle East outlook entering 2005

Churches for Middle East Peace has a major review of outlooks for peace in the Israel/Palestine arena as we enter 2005. It is titles "Hope Revives for U.S. as honest broker, as palestinean Elections Renew peace Prospects. Condoleezza Rice at the State Department is seen as a possibly helpful presence and other developments are reviewed. See their full December 2004 newsletter at their web site: Churches for middle East Peace

Help End Homelessness in Massachusetts - March 1 event

Attend Panel Discussions on current Massachusetts issues related to homelessness and meet with legislators at the State house on March 1, 2005. The gathering is from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. and the slogan is "Standing Together, Stepping forward" This is sponsored by the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless. For more information, call 781-595-7570

Global Peace with Justice Advocacy Days 2005

Over 30 church denominations and organizations sponsor the 2005 Advocacy Days for Global peace with Justice in Washington, D.C. March 11-14. There are four major speakers and eight tracks to choose from to receive major issue briefings before meeting with Senators and representatives or their key foreign policy staff. There is time for fellowship and networking, a banquet, and an ecumenical worship service. For on-line registration and updates contact Advocacy Days or e-mail Conference Coordinator, Anna Rhee at info@advocacydays.org

Values - from M.L. King, Jr.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
Only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
Only love can do that.
Hate multiplies hate,
Violence multiplies violence,
And toughness multiplies toughness
In a descending spiral of destruction...
The chain reaction of evil--
Hate begetting hate,
Wars producing more wars--
Must be broken,
Or we shall be plunged into
the darkness of annihilation.
by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Eradicating Poverty - how to do it - Oxfam

Africa: Oxfam Poverty Report

AfricaFocus Bulletin
Dec 14, 2004 (041214)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor's Note

In one of the first reports from a global coalition to make 2005 a
year of action against poverty, Oxfam International has called on
rich countries to live up to their promises to provide resources and
opportunities to achieve the "Millennium Development Goals" adopted
unanimously by the United Nations in September 2000. Making this finance
available, Oxfam noted, is "both a moral obligation and a matter of justice."

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from the summary of the
Oxfam report "Paying the Price: Why rich countries must invest now
in a war on poverty."

For earlier Bulletins on related issues, see
Africa Focus

This Bulletin also includes a brief update and references to
several other sites with related reports released this year.


Related Update and References

Easily lost in the plethora of debates about strategies to reduce
poverty is the common-sense notion that providing resources to the
poor, including direct cash transfers as well as investments in
government programs directly benefitting the poor, does actually
tend to work. Of course, the political will to pay for effective
programs - and who should pay - is key to determining how much
impact such programs actually have.

Reports this year making this point from a variety of perspectives
include:

* A report just released by South Africa's Department of Social
Development on "The Social and Economic Impact of South Africa's
Social Security System." (Social security South Africa) shows
that despite the debate about ongoing poverty in South Africa
that country's existing programs of old-age insurance, disability, and child
welfare grants have significant impact on reducing poverty,
"regardless of which methodology is used to quantify the impact
measure or identify the poverty line."

* The Chronic Poverty Report 2004-05, produced by the UK-based
Chronic Poverty Research Centre (chronic poverty) and
including detailed studies on Africa as well as other world
regions, noted that "prioritizing livelihood security" for
chronically poor persons must take priority in order to insure that
they have the minimum resources necessary for survival and taking
advantage of economic opportunities.

* The Shanghai conference of the World Bank in May 2004 on "Scaling
Up Poverty Reduction" emphasized case studies of successful
interventions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, most featuring
effective use of public investment rather than the macroeconomic
prescriptions most commonly stressed in Bank prescriptions for
African countries. See WB Case studies

* A July 2004 paper from the Center for Global Development,
"Counting Chickens when They Hatch,"
(eco aid effects) showed that many
studies of the effects of aid failed to show impact because they
incorrectly included aid for non-developmental or long-term goals.
Limiting the study to short-term development aid that could
plausibly be expected to have such impact, the study showed
significant impact in increasing growth.

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Paying the Price: Why rich countries must invest now in a war on
poverty

Oxfam International
December 2004

[Excerpts from report summary. A press release and the full report
are available at oxfam]

In 2005, the leaders of rich countries have the opportunity to lift
millions of people out of poverty. At the G8 Summit, at the UN
Special Session on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and at
a ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO),
trade rules, aid, and the unsustainable debt of developing
countries - issues critical to the future of the world's poorest
people - will be up for discussion. But will world leaders deliver
on their rhetoric? In 2000, rich countries made a commitment to
play their part in ensuring that the MDGs are met - but their
promises remain unfulfilled. Five years later, they should ensure
that a new round of international summitry becomes a platform for
action.

The Millennium Development Goals, chosen on the grounds that they
were realistic and achievable, are a commitment by global leaders
to halve poverty and hunger, provide education for all, improve
standards of health, halt the spread of major diseases such as
HIV/AIDS, and slow down environmental degradation by 2015.

A vital aim of these goals is that the poorest countries will have
the finance needed to achieve them. To do this, rich countries have
promised to provide a very small fraction of their wealth - just
0.7 per cent of their national income - and to improve the way in
which they give aid, to make it work best for poverty reduction,
and to end the burden of debt which means that low-income countries
must pay out $100 million every day to their creditors. For
rich-country donors, making this finance available is not simply an
act of charity: it is a both a moral obligation and a matter of
justice - born of a collective duty to guarantee the rights of all
citizens, and the responsibility of rich countries to recognise
their role in creating the debt crisis which continues to threaten
the prospects of poor countries. A failure to meet these
obligations also has consequences for rich countries themselves,
with global poverty threatening the prosperity and security of the
entire international community.

Time for action to meet the MDGs is running out, yet progress has
been unforgivably slow. Only one goal halving income poverty
has any chance of being met, but even this is due to progress in
just a handful of countries. The first target - enrolling all girls
in primary and secondary school by 2005 - is certain to be missed.
The poorest people will pay the price for this failure. If the
world fails to act to meet even these minimal goals, and current
trends are allowed to continue,

* 45 million more children will die between now and 2015

* 247 million more people in sub-Saharan Africa will be living on
less than $1 a day in 2015

* 97 million more children will still be out of school in 2015

* 53 million more people in the world will lack proper sanitation
facilities.

Tackling global poverty requires more than money: poor countries'
prospects are also undermined by unfair trade rules, the violent
consequences of the arms trade, and the impacts of global warming.
Poor-country governments must also fulfil their commitments to
fight poverty. But, without finance, these countries will not be
able to take advantage of global trade and investment
opportunities, or protect their citizens' basic rights to life,
good health, and education.

The sums that rich countries invest in global poverty reduction are
shamefully small. At an average of $80 per person per year in rich
countries, the sum is equivalent to the price of a weekly cup of
coffee. What is more, the wealthier these countries have become,
the less they have given in aid. Rich countries today give half as
much, as a proportion of their income, as they did in the 1960s. In
1960-65, rich countries spent on average 0.48 per cent of their
combined national incomes on aid. By 1980-85 they were spending
just 0.34 per cent. By 2003, the average had dropped as low as 0.24
per cent.

It is no surprise that vital poverty-reduction programmes are
failing for lack of finance. Cambodia and Tanzania are among the
poorest countries in the world, yet they require at least double
the level of external financing that they currently receive if they
are to achieve their poverty-reduction targets. Global initiatives
to support poor countries to achieve universal education and combat
HIV/AIDS are starved of cash. Despite the fact that HIV infection
rates are rising in sub-Saharan Africa, the Global Fund to Fight
AIDS, TB, and Malaria is assured of only one quarter of the funds
that it needs for 2005. And poor countries continue to pay out more
to their creditors than they spend on essential public services.
Low-income countries paid $39 billion to service their debts in
2003, while they received only $27 billion in aid. As a result,
countries such as Zambia spend more on debt servicing than they
spend on education.

The price is small

Meeting the UN target of allocating just 0.7 per cent of national
income to aid - a target set in 1970 - would generate $120
billion, enough to meet the MDGs and other vital poverty-reduction
goals. But only five of the 22 major donors - none of them from the
seven most powerful nations (the G7) - are meeting that target. In
the last year, the UK and Spain have set themselves firm timetables
to reach the target of 0.7. But 12 donors still have no timetable
to get there ...

Rich countries can easily afford to deliver the necessary aid and
debt relief. For rich countries, spending 0.7 per cent of their
national income on aid is equal to a mere one-fifth of their
expenditure on defence and one half of their expenditure on
domestic farm subsidies. The USA (at just 0.14 per cent, the least
generous donor in terms of aid as a proportion of its national
income) is spending more than twice as much on the war in Iraq as
it would cost to increase its aid budget to 0.7 per cent, and six
times more on its military programme.

Nor is 0.7 per cent very great when compared with the priorities of
global consumers, who spend $33 billion each year on cosmetics and
perfume - significantly more than the $20 25 billion required for
Africa to meet the MDG targets.

Cancelling the debts of 32 of the poorest countries would also be
small change for the rich nations. The cost to the richest
countries would amount to $1.8 billion each year over the next ten
years or on average a mere $2.10 for each of their citizens every
year. If Italy and the USA were to pay their fair shares, it would
cost each of their citizens $1.20 per year. Meanwhile, the IMF
holds the third-largest gold reserve in the world - a reserve that
is neither needed nor used in full. Revaluation or sale of the gold
could raise more than $30 billion - more than would be needed to
cancel the remaining debts to the IMF and World Bank of all the
countries eligible for relief under the Highly Indebted Poor
Countries initiative.

Aid works

And aid works. Millions of children are in school in Tanzania,
Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia, thanks to money provided by debt
relief and aid. For the same reason, Ugandans no longer have to pay
for basic health care, a policy which resulted in an increase of 50
to 100 per cent in attendance at Ugandan health clinics and doubled
the rate of immunisations. Roads built with foreign aid mean that
Ethiopian farmers have the potential to reach local and
international markets to sell their crops more easily, while
children in rural areas can travel to schools more easily, and
people can reach hospitals more quickly which is often a critical
factor affecting maternal and infant mortality rates. ...

History also shows that aid has been vital in eradicating global
diseases. From the late 1960s, more than $100 million was targeted
to eradicate smallpox a feat achieved worldwide by 1980. And aid
has been essential in rebuilding countries shattered by war. In
Mozambique, financial support from UN agencies, bilateral donors,
and NGOs facilitated a process of national reconciliation,
peacefully repatriating nearly two million refugees, disarming
96,000 former soldiers, and clearing landmines.

Countries now considered 'developed' would not enjoy their current
standards of living if it had not been for aid. After World War II,
16 western European nations benefited from grants from the USA
worth more than $75 billion in today's terms - grants which
underpinned their economic recovery and hence created today's peace
and prosperity. US aid also financed mass education and imports of
essential goods to South Korea and Taiwan, laying the foundations
for their rapid future growth, while European Union Structural
Funds have supported growth in Spain and other southern European
countries.

But today's poorest countries - even those where it has been shown
that aid can be used productively - have yet to see the necessary
aid extended to them. Meanwhile, marginalised from the global
economy, their access to other forms of external finance is
limited. For the foreseeable future, aid will and should be the
means to offset the lack of finance available for the poorest
countries and communities. ...

and it could work even better

However, rich-country donors need to make aid work better if
poverty is to be significantly reduced. Increases in aid budgets
can and must go hand-in-hand with improvements in the way that aid
is delivered.

When aid-giving becomes politicised, poor people lose out - but
many donors' priorities are still determined by their own strategic
interests. Two top recipients of French aid - French Polynesia and
New Caledonia - and one top recipient of US aid - Israel - are
high-income countries. The 'war on terror' threatens to divert aid
away from those who need it most. Aid is again being used as a
political tool, with one-third of the increase in aid in 2002
resulting from large allocations to Afghanistan and Pakistan. ...

Too often domestic interests take precedence: almost 30 per cent of
G7 aid money is tied to an obligation to buy goods and services
from the donor country. The practice is not only self-serving, but
highly inefficient; yet it is employed widely by Italy and the USA.
Despite donors' agreements to untie aid to the poorest countries,
only six of the 22 major donor countries have almost or completely
done so.

The management burden and uncertainty of aid delivery that many
donors create weakens the effectiveness of the governments that
they aim to support. In Tanzania in 2002-03, the government
received 275 donor missions, 123 from the World Bank alone,
demanding time-consuming attention by scarce skilled personnel. An
Oxfam survey of donor practices across 11 developing countries in
2004 found as follows.

* In 52 per cent of reported cases, donors' procedures mean that
government officials spend 'too much' or 'excessive' amounts of
time in reporting to donors. The World Bank and the USA were named
as the worst donors according to this criterion.

* Developing-country governments should expect delays. Only in one
in three cases does aid arrive on time - and the European
Commission is rated the worst offender, with one-fifth of its aid
arriving more than one year late.

* Aid may be here today, but it could be gone tomorrow. In 70 per
cent of cases, donors commit aid for three years or less - even
though, in order to guarantee a complete primary education for one
generation of children, funding would be needed for six years.

The administrative problem is compounded when donors attach large
numbers of detailed conditions to their funding. Oxfam's analysis
of World Bank loan conditions, for instance, found that the Bank
requires governments of countries such as Ethiopia to carry out
approximately 80 policy changes per year. Tanzania's donors between
them dictate that the country should carry out 78 policy reforms in
one year. This practice undermines countries' ability to choose
their own reform paths, meaning that aid money is less likely to
support sustainable reforms, adapted to suit local circumstances.
Such conditions are rarely based on independent assessments of
their impact on people living in poverty. ...

Rich-country and multilateral donors have committed themselves to
change their practices. In 2003 they signed the Rome Declaration:
a clear statement of intent to reform the delivery of aid. Some are
making progress, mostly by collaborating to deliver joint funds
directly to sector ministries or government treasuries; but others
lag behind, as demonstrated by the Oxfam survey. While donors are
quick to hold governments to account for their use of aid, there is
as yet very little done to hold donors to account for their
management of aid. Initiatives such as independent monitoring or
recipient-government reviews of donor practice occur largely on an
ad hoc and voluntary basis.

Ensuring that Southern governments deliver development

Developing countries, as well as donors, have a responsibility to
meet the MDGs. And well-functioning and poverty-focused governments
can of course make the best use of aid. This means combating
corruption, building strong and accountable public sectors which
have the necessary staff to deliver vital services, and ensuring
that parliaments, civil society, and the media can monitor public
spending and act as watchdogs against corruption.

There has been substantial progress in the performance and
accountability of many poor-country governments. Democracy is
taking root in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, with elections
held in 44 out of 50 countries in the past decade, while
independent TV and radio stations are being established across the
continent. And civil-society groups are increasingly calling
governments to account: in Malawi, education groups now check
whether schools receive the textbooks and chalk promised to them in
the government budget, and they report their findings in the media
and in parliament.

But obviously in many countries there is a long way to go:
developing-country governments, for instance, must increase the
amount of money devoted to basic social services, in line with a UN
recommendation to spend at least 20 per cent on these sectors. The
practice of charging user fees for basic education and health
services should be abolished.

Donors can play their part in furthering these developments. This
includes not ignoring corruption, but tackling it by investing in
a strong and efficient public sector and removing the global
incentives tax havens and weak regulation that allow corruption
to flourish. Creating donor-led structures outside governments, or
avoiding certain countries altogether, can be counter-productive
merely serving to weaken them further. And such strategies risk
diverting money away from those in the global community who need it
most.

In 2005, Oxfam will form part of the 'Global Call for Action
Against Poverty' coalition, aiming to make poverty history. The
call unites a huge range of groups from South and North, including
national and regional civil-society networks, trade unions, faith
communities, and international organisations. It is a chance for
millions of people to tell world leaders that poverty is an
injustice that is not inevitable. 10 This report is part of Oxfam's
call to action in 2005. In it, Oxfam's key recommendations in
relation to aid and debt are as follows:

All donor members of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee
(DAC) should adopt the following measures.

Increase finance for poverty reduction:

* Cancel 100 per cent of the debt of the poorest countries where
relief is needed to enable them to reach the MDGs: both bilateral
debt, and the debts owed to the World Bank and African Development
Bank.

* Provide at least $50 billion in aid immediately, in addition to
existing aid budgets, and set binding timetables in 2005 to ensure
that the 0.7 per cent target is met in all donor countries by 2010.


* In addition to giving 0.7 per cent of national income as aid,
support innovative mechanisms such as the International Finance
Facility (IFF) and international taxation to ensure immediate and
sustainable development financing.

Make aid work best for poverty reduction:

* Fully implement Rome Declaration commitments to improve the
delivery of aid and completely untie aid, including types of
assistance omitted from DAC recommendations, namely food aid and
Technical Assistance.

* Restrict the use of conditions to requirements for financial
accountability and broadly agreed goals on poverty reduction and
gender equity.

The World Bank and IMF should take the following actions.

* Cancel 100 per cent of the debts owed to them by the poorest
countries where relief is needed to enable them to reach the MDGs;
finance this measure by revaluing IMF gold reserves and using the
resources thus generated.

* Restrict the use of conditions to requirements for financial
accountability measures and broadly agreed goals on poverty
reduction and gender equity.

Developing-country governments should take the following measures.

* Demonstrate their commitment to poverty reduction by meeting the
UN recommendation to spend 20 per cent of public budgets on basic
social services, and transparently directing the money to benefit
poor people.

* Institutionalise, through legislation if necessary, parliamentary
and civil- society participation in the making and implementation
of policies that will benefit poor people, also guaranteeing civil
and political rights to free and fair elections, freedom of
expression, and the rule of law.

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