New Internationalist articles from December 2005

New Internationalist archives from December 2005

Justice after genocide.(Editorial)(Cover Story)
December 1, 2005... As you can imagine, researching an issue on genocide makes for some grim reading. Not exactly a laugh a minute. In fact, one of the more regular complaints we get from readers is that we're too bloody depressing. 'I love your...

Crime & punishment: recent decades have witnessed horrible atrocities. But a new system of international justice is slowly rising from the carnage. Wayne Ellwood looks at global efforts to confront impunity.(KEYNOTE)
December 1, 2005... 'The long arm of the law' is one of those familiar sayings that must be ringing with particular clarity in the ears of Desire Munyameza. After all, when he fled Rwanda five years ago, who would have thought that his past would catch up with him...

Eyes wide shut: these drawings were collected by paediatrician Annie Sparrow and researcher Olivier Bercault for Human Rights Watch. Without instruction children in refugee camps along the Darker/Chad border drew scenes from their own lives of the devastation in Darfur.(Reprint)
December 1, 2005... In 1994 the world stood by while Hutu extremists slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their Tutsi neighbours in Rwanda. The Rwandan genocide is now seen as an egregious failure of the international community. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Whose truth? Truth commissions may not be a panacea. But, argues Mark Freeman, they often do serve the public interest.(TRUTH COMMISSIONS)
December 1, 2005... When Morocco's Fairness and Reconciliation Commission was established last year by King Mohammed VI, the story was virtually ignored by the international media. Too bad, because it's an extraordinary initiative--to investigate thousands of...

A memory of Paine: in June of 2004 the relatives of the disappeared political prisoners of Paine, a rural town 50 kilometres south of Santiago, began work on a memorial in honour of their loved ones. Carmen Rodriguez talks to some of them.(TRUTH COMMISSIONS)
December 1, 2005... 'My dad would be very proud of our mosaic: we're showing the good part of who he was, not the sadness that remains with us,' explains Maria Amparo Gaete. More than 30 years after her father was abducted, Maria has joined with other families in...

Crimes against humanity.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... MURDER, EXTERMINATION, DEPORTATION, FORCIBLE TRANSFER OF THE POPULATION, TORTURE AND OTHER INHUMANE ACTS COMMITTED AGAINST CIVILIAN POPULATIONS IN WAR OR PEACE WHETHER OR NOT IN VIOLATION IS UNIVERSAL AND HEADS OF STATE DO NOT HAVE IMMUNITY....

House of horror: the return of democracy to Latin America has strengthened the drive to bring to justice those responsible for massive human rights violations in the 1970s and 1980s. In Argentina a former torture centre is being turned into a museum of memory. Tomas Bril Mascarenhas talks with Juan Cabandie who only recently discovered his own intimate links to the death squads.(MEMORIALS)
December 1, 2005... It was once the largest concentration camp in Latin America. But on 24 March 2004 Argentinean President Nestor Kirchner confirmed that the Naval Mechanical School, known locally as ESMA, would be transformed into a 'museum of memory'. ...

Battle for the truth.
December 1, 2005... The post-war Nuremburg Trials revealed to a shocked world the terrible details of the systematic genocide that the German Nazi regime had inflicted on Europe's Jews, Roma and others. 'Never again' became the watchword for ensuring that the...

Mothers' courage: Irham Ceco talks to the Mothers of Srebrenica, a group of women who refuse to remain silent in their search for the truth.(FIGHTING FOR TRUTH)
December 1, 2005... Ten years ago Munira Subasic watched her husband and a teenage son being dragged away by Serb soldiers, and has not seen them since. Today, Munira is an activist with the 'Mothers of Srebrenica'--a loosely knit network of determined women...

Trial and error: trials of human rights violators are vital if impunity is to be confronted. But in most war-ravaged countries resources are limited, legal structures inadequate. Fawzia Sheikh reports on Rwanda's community courts experiment.(COMMUNITY ALTERNATIVES)
December 1, 2005... It is not the place where you would expect to find justice in Rwanda: at the end of bumpy dirt road leading to a shantytown of red mud-brick homes. Yet, deep within this labyrinth of buildings, streets and palm trees in the south of the...

'Scare the babies': Lansana Fofana talked to some of the survivors about forgiveness in the aftermath of violence.(COMMUNITY ALTERNATIVES)
December 1, 2005... Jabati Mambu was 16 in 1999 when rebels invaded Freetown unleashing mayhem on innocent civilians whom they accused of backing the regime. By the end of their two-week-long occupation hundreds of civilians had been mutilated. 'I had taken...

Truth and fantasy: twisting history to suit the moment is something the Bush Administration does without shame. Mark Engler looks at how EL Salvador's historic Truth Commission report has once again become a living document.(POWER POLITICS)
December 1, 2005... Jon Sobrino is one of the most respected public intellectuals in EL Salvador. He is also a haunted man. A liberation theologian at the Jesuit University in San Salvador, he was travelling outside the country on the November evening in 1989 when...

Challenging impunity: the International Criminal Court was launched in April 2002. Noah Novogrodsky outlines the goals of the Court and describes the barriers to its success.(A UNIVERSAL COURT)
December 1, 2005... In mid-October this year the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued indictments for the arrest of Joseph Kony and four other leaders of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is notorious for a 21-year campaign of terror in Northern...

On the anniversary of the Tsunami.(Currents)
December 1, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: A graveyard in the sand dunes outside the village of Manatkadu, northern Sri Lanka, containing 73 victims of the Tsunami. Most survivors live in a temporary camp nearby. 'For months afterwards, all you could...

Green house, back door: pros and cons of carbon trading exposed in South Africa.(ENVIRONMENT)
December 1, 2005... PLUNKED in the middle of an Indian suburb, the Bisasar Road Landfill in Durban, South Africa, spreads the odour of rotting garbage over its surrounding community. It's done so for the past 20 years--each year emitting thousands of tonnes of...

Tali's troubles: an Israeli activist takes the heat.(POLITICAL REPRESSION)(Tali Fahima )
December 1, 2005... 'I VOTED Likud my whole life. I was educated to hate and fear Arabs. I thought the occupation was just. But when I discovered that my freedom was assured at the Palestinians' expense, notably those of Jenin, I couldn't live with it.' The words...

Speechmarks.(Currents)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within. Mohandas K Gandhi (1869-1948), Indian nationalist leader.

The language of Iraq.(Currents)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Word power dissect v. to promote intolerance of different religious beliefs. gunpoint n. opinion given greater resonance by the threat of violence if you do not agree. occupation n. full-time job. illUSion n. view of Iraq from the...

Venezuela spreads the oil around.(Currents)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... 'Venezuela is now free and places its oil riches at the service of Latin America, and not under the control of the multinationals.' So says Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, leader of the world's fifth-largest oil exporting country. As part...

The Halliburton hustle.(Currents)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... A study based on confidential reports by the US Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) estimates that Halliburton (the US company that Vice-President Dick Cheney used to head up) has received roughly 52 per cent of the $25.4 billion that the...

No land for Zimbabwe's women.(Currents)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Even though 86 per cent of women in Zimbabwe's 'communal lands' and rural areas depend on agriculture for their livelihood, customary laws do not permit them to own land. Instead, they may farm only at the pleasure of their husbands or, in the...

Just chocolate: revolution in a wrapper.(FAIR TRADE)
December 1, 2005... 'YUMMY,' giggles Christiana, a German medical student who confesses that she has eaten three or more in the past week. Her friend agrees. 'I love the stuff,' says Julia, smiling a naughty smile. 'It's the best chocolate I've ever tasted!' ...

Where do you not want to go today?(Seriously ...)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... OK, so you're a young teenage rebel in China looking forward to checking out Microsoft's new Chinese internet portal where you hope to find out more about those words you heard US President George Bush say on a smuggled tape of news footage....

Michael Ignatieff: Michael Ignatieff, who calls himself a liberal and a human rights campalgner, is a wolf in sheep's clothing.(Worldbeaters)(Biography)
December 1, 2005... This past January, in an article for Britain's Observer, he deplored Western indifference to the Iraqi election. Ignatieff, who supported the invasion of Iraq, lamented: 'The Bush Administration has managed the nearly impossible: to turn...

Tickets.(Movie Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Tickets directed by Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami and Ken Loach Ken Loach's contribution to Tickets is down-to-earth, passionate, deeply committed. Three supermarket workers are travelling to Rome to watch Celtic--they're excitable, loud,...

Ceasefire.(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
December 1, 2005... Ceasefire by Emmanuel Jal and Abdel Gadir Salim (Riverboat/World Music Network TUGGED 1038 CD) For all those jaded with the way that rap's vibrant promise is so often hijacked by a tired litany of 'guns and gangsta' imagery, it's time to...

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days.(Movie Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Sophie Scholl: The Final Days directed by Marc Rothemund In Munich 1943 Sophie Scholl, with her brother Hans, and a handful of fellow students at the university, produced and distributed leaflets calling for passive resistance to the Nazis...

Tierra que Anda.(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
December 1, 2005... Tierra que Anda by Silvia Irionda (ECM 986 9142 CD) Tierra que Anda, from the acclaimed Argentinean singer Silvia Irionda, describes, as its title suggests, a 'walking land'. The phrase refers to a native Indian way of locating humankind at...

Hope in the Dark The Untold History of People Power.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Hope in the Dark The Untold History of People power by Rebecca Solnit (Canongate ISBN 1 84195 660 0) Poet Olzhas Suleimenov is supposed to be reading poems live on Kazakh TV. Instead he suddenly departs from the script and calls for the...

The Berlusconi Bonus.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... The Berlusconi Bonus by Allan Cameron (Luath Press ISBN 184282 057 5) Allan Cameron's intriguing novel is set in a near future world where the predictions of the US theorist Francis Fukuyama have been taken to their logical conclusions....

Afflicted Powers Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Afflicted Powers Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War by Retort (Verso ISBN 184467 031) This is probably the best set of reflections on not only the meaning of 9/11 but also all the events that have followed and underpinned it. The...

Southern exposure.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Highlighting the work of photographers from the Majority World Poonam, 10, lives in Deroli Ahir village in the north Indian state of Haryana. Her father, who used to trade bulls and drive a truck, is sick and unemployed. Her mother sells...

War on corruption.(View from Lagos)
December 1, 2005... Nigerians have watched with astonishment as a number of public officers have been dismissed or arrested or put on trial on charges of corruption. One of the most sensational cases is that of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, governor of oil-rich Bayelsa...

Brixton blues: Paul Bakalite reflects on the creeping changes to the community he loves.(Essay)
December 1, 2005... Brixton is a multi-ethnic community south of the River Thames in London that, since the influx of West Indians to Britain in the years after the Second World War, has become arguably the most significant centre of Caribbean-British culture in...

Interview with Debra Harry and the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism.(Making Waves)(Interview)
December 1, 2005... To the Indigenous people of Kennewick, Washington, he was Techaminsh Oytpamanatityt--'From the Land, the First Native': the Ancient One. His body was accidentally exhumed from the ground where he had lain for over 9,000 years. The five American...

What's fair about Nestle?(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... Although it may appear to represent a step in the right direction, Nestle's 'Fairtrade' coffee brand sets a dangerous precedent (Currents, Disability in the Majority World, NI 384 and www.newint.org/features/wrong.label/index.html). It will...

Inspirational Greenpeace.(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... Greenpeace inspires me (BINGO!, NI 383). It sparkles up the otherwise morose mornings of our days in Howardian Canberra with such daring innovations as getting the flag of renewable energy on Parliament House's masthead. Greenpeace also...

Ex-BINGO workers write.(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... Your BINGO! edition (NI 383) yanked me back 35 years to my days as Oxfam Canada's education director. Before I fled the scene to devote my development energies to my home environment, I suffered some serious compromises of my beliefs. ...

Faith prejudice.(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... Re: Mat Saleh's letter ('Equivocal Muslims?', NI 383): Can I ask you, if a letter had been submitted in which any other faith group were essentialized as largely violent, inherently tribal and deeply ungrateful for the help granted to it by the...

Unsafe secrets.(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... Your edition Nuclear's second wind (NI 382) was very timely, for it will take a powerful public education process to overcome the lies, deceit and spin of those who would lead us down this track. Most dear to my concern has always been the...

NI vs RD.(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... In May 2005 the Reader's Digest published an article advocating greater use of nuclear energy, claiming that it is 'safe, clean and effective'. The September 2005 issue of NI presents a very different perspective, clearly showing that nuclear...

George Fisher (1956-2005).(Brief Article)(Obituary)
December 1, 2005... George Fisher died at home in Sydney, Australia, on 18 September 2005 after a courageous four-year struggle with cancer. He was 49. George was a stalwart fan, enthusiastic booster and incisive critic of the New Internationalist for more than 20...

Speaking in tongues: the language her daughter speaks causes Reem Haddad a good deal of soul-searching.(Letter from Lebanon)
December 1, 2005... I'm not sure how but I have managed to produce a daughter whose sentences can only be understood by the Lebanese. For only they can understand the bizarre mix of Arabic, French and English. 'Ana going aa' ecole,' (translation: I am going to...

Afghanistan.(Country Profile)
December 1, 2005... Afghanistan is arguably the country that has been most affected by 9/11. Less than four weeks after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the United States began a bombing campaign that toppled the fundamentalist Taliban regime. It...

Advertorial.(Advertisement)
December 1, 2005... Q 'I'd love to be able to live my life without my car but it's just not practical. I live in a rural area with poor public transport and rely on my car. I feel guilty about the damage I inflict on the environment with my driving. Is there a...