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Subject: .. the humanitarian times :   Massachusetts Takes Burma to Supreme 

 .. the humanitarian times :   Massachusetts Takes Burma to Supreme
Court!
Date:	10/1/99 11:51:02 AM Eastern Daylight Time
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_________________________________________________________________________
                                                   The Humanitarian
Times
                                                          October 1,
1999

- RUSSIAN TROOPS ATTACK CHECHNYA, DISPLACING 250,000+ EXPANDING CONFLICT
over Dagestan's separatist rebellion.  After bombing the Chechnya
capital Grozny this past week, Russian ground troops invaded Chechnya,
yesterday, establishing positions N & E of Grozny, taking control of the
inner border, not allowing male refugees to cross.  Over 65,000 refugees
have fled Chechnya into Ingushetia, although no aid agencies are
operating there yet.

- INDONESIA AGREED TO RELINQUISH ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL OF E TIMOR
this week, in discussions with UN Sec. Gen, at the same time as 5,500+
UN "Interfet" peacemaking forces expanded west from Dili, coming closer
to potential confrontation with armed anti-independence militia believed
to be amassing in West Timor.  Relief airdrops have been terminated, as
aid groups like MSF, UNHCR & WFP are now able to establish ground
convoys in country.

- BURUNDI: 260,000 FORCED INTO CAMPS NEAR BUJUMBURA AS ARMY SWEEPS AREA

- HAITI's ELECTORAL COMMISSION POSTPONED NATL ELECTIONS UNTIL MARCH.

- $5.7 BILLION OF NEW DEBT RELIEF PROMISED BY PRES CLINTON THIS WEEK
for the world's poorest countries, although it's unclear whether the
Republican Congress will appropriate the necessary resources.  Earlier
in the week, the World Bank & IMF announced a change in the Highly
Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative that will resolve the
remainder of poor countries' debts.  Uganda, Nicaragua, Tanzania,
Mauritania  & 8 other countries are expected to benefit from this
debt relief in the next few months.

- TAJIKISTAN BRACES FOR INFLUX OF REFUGEES FROM FIGHTING IN AFGHANISTAN,
as Taliban forces push north.  Separately, last Sunday, Tajikistan's
citizens voted to approve changes to the constitution that will
solidify the peace agreement, allowing, among other things, the
opposition to set up Islamic political parties.

- NGOs PROVIDING SEEDS, TOOLS, SUPPLEMENTARY FEEDING IN ANGOLAN TOWNS
of Kuito (Care), Huambo (Save the Children, ICRC), Benguela (Catholic
Relief Services), Huila Prov (Norwegian Refugee Council), Uige Prov.
(Danish Refugee Council), as part of overall 1999 relief effort
projected
by the UN to cost $110m.  Medecins sans Frontieres & Intl. Medical Corps
provide health care. Canada has approved $3.5m for food aid to Angola so
far this year.

- EARTHQUAKE (7.5 LEVEL) SHOOK MOUNTAINOUS OAXACA, MEXICO YESTERDAY

- QUEEN NOOR URGED THE US TO RATIFY THE LANDMINE BAN TREATY
this week when meeting with Pres. Clinton, arguing that, unless & until
the US supports it, neither China nor Russia will.

- US SUPREME COURT RECEIVED PETITION SUPPORTING BURMA SANCTIONS LAW
on Sept 17 by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts which modeled its law
(barring the state govt from buying goods or services from companies
doing business in Burma) on the South Africa laws of the 1980s that
catalyzed a peaceful transition to democracy in South Africa.  A US
Federal appeals court had struck down the Burma law on June 22.

- EUROPEAN UNION SEEKS UN GEN. ASSEMBLY TO OUTLAW THE DEATH PENALTY,
on a global basis, building on an April UN Human Rights Comm. resolution
calling for an intl. moratorium on death sentences.

- WORLD BANK WITHHOLDS FUNDS TO ETHIOPIA & ERITREA UNTIL WAR ENDS,
the Bank announced last week, noting that these 2 countries have
deferred
their own anti-poverty efforts.

- AMREF WINS $1 MILLION HUMANITARIAN PRIZE FROM CONRAD N. HILTON FDNT.
The African Medical Relief Fund, established in 1957 in Kenya, earned
the
annual Hilton award this week for its persistent attention to primary
health problems (including training & radio education) throughout the E
&
C African regions, building on African capacities.  AMREF said it would
devote the $1m to expansion of its HIV/AIDS & malaria programs.  At the
ceremony, UN High Comm. for Human Rights Mary Robinson argued
passionately that "it is time to believe again in sustainable human
development" & that human rights monitors can prevent violations,
illuminate the grievances that lead to war, & help hold accountable
those perpetrating massacres.  UN humanitarian affairs coordinator S V
de Mello focused on the recent crimes against ethnic Serbs in Kosovo
saying that the current intolerance "sows the seeds of future crises."
Ambassador for Religious Freedom Robert Seiple outlined the relations
between religious intolerance & complex emergencies, arguing that
religions' sanctity of life tenet can also be part of the solution,
particularly where NGOs "provide the tangible moments of hope."  Newsday
journalist Roy Guttman said that the public needs to be better informed
about intl. humanitarian law, which should be "common property of
everyone."

- SECURITY MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP IN KOSOVO IN OCTOBER OPEN TO NGOs
contact RED-R:  kirstien@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_________________________________________________________________________
                                        RECENT LITERATURE ABOUT THE
SUDAN

The largest country in Africa, Sudan also has been in the middle of the
most protracted, deadly, expensive & intractable crises over the last 12
years, with hundreds of thousands killed in war, displacement, repeated
famines, disease epidemics, flooding & predatory tribal clashes that
often
abduct women  & children into modern slavery.  Since the military coup
in
1989 that overthrew its democratic govt, Sudan's rulers, notably Pres.
Omar el-Bashir, have continuously been at odds with intl groups -- NGOs,
the Red Cross, neighboring govts, western govts, & has come close to
full-scale war with neighbors Egypt, Eritrea & Uganda.  Sudan's govt
does
not permit freedom of news media, assembly, elections or movement, &
regularly impedes humanitarian aid programs to needy areas.  In 1992
USAID employees working in the south were summarily executed by the
govt.

In the last 12 years, donors have spent several billion dollars on
relief
(primary health care, bulk food, & seeds/tools) in the Sudan, mostly
under the operational umbrella of "Operation Lifeline Sudan" which
UNICEF
coordinates out of Nairobi Kenya, with ongoing airlifts run out of
Lokichokio in NW Kenya.  The August 1998 nigh-time cruise missile strike
against a drug plant related to financial connections with Osama bin
Laden
(who is responsible for terrorist bombings that killed hundreds of
Africans) made more intl headlines than the 30-100,000 starvation deaths
in S Sudan the same year.  Over time, aid agencies have oriented
programs
to restore long-term coping strategies -- self reliance.  Also, intl.
groups have increasingly emphasized conflict mitigation:  in the 1990s,
major mediation efforts have been sponsored by IGAD, (Intergovt
Authority
on Development), though these have been stalled since July.

Recently, Sudan has been in the news over flooding, oil production &
slavery.  Widespread flooding in northern tracts destroyed 15,000 homes
(the city of Dongola was flooded in Sept).  New fighting threatens
newly-productive oil fields.  And, a lively controversy has burned
internationally over humanitarian aid programs that buy slaves in order
to give them their freedom.  Some NGOs claim it is a necessary,
desperate
measure, for lack of other solutions.  Others, including UNICEF, argue
that it fuels the market for slaves, creating incentives for more slave-
taking, & killing, by slave raiders, making the scale of slavery worse
in
the end.  Also,  this week, Sudan & Chad reached agreement on border
security & the return of 20,000 Sudanese refugees.

- "BUILDING FOR PEACE IN THE HORN OF AFRICA: DIPLOMACY & BEYOND"
by John Prendergast (1999  USIP, see website www.usip.org) claims that
"the deadliest conflict in the entire world is the sixteen-year-long
Sudanese civil war, in which rebel groups from the south, east & west
fight the govt of Sudan for a mix of agendas including equal rights,
democracy, self-determination for the south, & a secular state."
Prendergast's shows the vital links between the various conflicts in the
Horn region: Sudan's, Somalia's, Ethiopia & Eritrea's, & the protracted
violence in N Uganda: "the legacies of a shoot-first approach, & over-
developed military institutions remain fixtures through the Horn, under-
cutting positive agendas such as those articulated by current govts in
Kampala, Addis Ababa, & Asmara."  He explains how profiteering, asset-
stripping, new upward economic mobility by joining militias, a declining
resource base & divergent taxation policies cause the Horn's violent
conflicts.  Prendergast argues that conventional diplomacy will not
suffice to end Sudan's crisis;  rather, strong multilateral pressure on
the Sudanese govt. to engage in the IGAD peace process.  Prendergast
advocates use of "food and medicine directly to the Sudanese opposition"
as a form of pressure on the govt, and to "enhance the capacity of the
people of the south, the Nuba Mts, & other besieged areas to withstand
attacks against their livelihood bases."  Otherwise, Prendergast warns,
"if the regime is able to capitalize on its internal oil production,
there is little hope that Khartoum will perceive any reason to
negotiate,
& it will be able to carry out its campaign of ethnic cleansing around
the oil pipelines & prime agricultural areas with impunity"  Prendergast
also advocates linking peace efforts in the Sudan with conflict
mediation in N Uganda.

- "INSIDE SUDAN: POLITICAL ISLAM, CONFLICT & CATASTROPHE"
by Donald Petterson (1999 Colorado: Westview Press) in which the former
US ambassador to the Sudan (1991-1994) remembers his rounds of debates
with Sudan's leaders, largely over the never-ended efforts by intl.
groups to help gain access to displaced populations (just outside,
Khartoum, mid-country in transition areas, and in the war-torn south).
Petterson gives a blow-by-blow account of the split in the independence-
minded Southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in 1992, & the
intractable dispute it has with the Khartoum government which won't
relinquish its primary requirements of keeping Sudan a non-democratic
religious (Islamic) state based on Sharia law & customs.  He makes
numerous brief observations on the heroic work of NGOs working in famine
zones, notably Irish Concern, Goal, & the ICRC.  In his account, the
struggle by intl aid groups to eliver life-saving services "was
constant,
requiring a judicious mixture of tact & belligerence."  He also cites
the
work of Sudanese NGOs, cautioning that they sometimes are an instrument
for proselytizing Islam among southerners:  "efforts at forced
Islamization were widespread" using relief supplies as a tool to
Islamize
people in the camps."   Petterson sees the divide between N & S as
mainly
intractable:  "The IGADD mediation attempt had shown that neither the
Sudanese govt nor the rebels were prepared to negotiate in good faith
unless the other side virtually surrendered."

- "SUDAN: CONTESTED NATIONAL IDENTITIES" EXPLORES VICIOUS CYCLES.
By Ann Mosely Lesch (1998, Indiana Press), this text explores the twists
& turns in the conflict between N & S Sudan.  The author examines her
theme -- how minorities seek representation, self-rule, autonomy or
secession  back to British rule in the 1800s, finding that "north &
south
emerge as expressions of unequal relations, divergent historical
memories: ethnic categories can be politicized & hardened, not through a
natural process, but through the manipulation of identity for
instrumental purposes by political movements.  "The bitter struggle has
nearly destroyed the country."

-- For a fuller understanding of the famine cycles in the Sudan, see the
scholarly publications of Alex de Waal, as well as by David Keen.  Also
of interest is Judy Walgren's 1998 40-page photo book "The Lost Boys of
Natinga, A School for Sudan's Young Refugees" (Boston: Houghton Mifflin)
which depicts daily life & realities in school, health, agriculture, &
religion in a displaced persons (not refugee) camp near the Uganda
border.

_________________________________________________________________________
                                                   The Humanitarian
Times

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