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July 30 – August 3, 2001 - Global Policy Forum - Email 'Listserv' News
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July 30 – August 3, 2001Global Compact
“Cooperation with the business community sector must be transparent. Information on the nature and scope of cooperative arrangements should be available within the Organization and to the public at large. UN organizations should post relevant information on the UN/Business website www.un.org/partners/business.” This is what the UN says about its relations with business, as posted on its own website dated July 17 “issued by the Secretary General” But in fact they are some of the most un-transparent. When we called in May to inquire and get a list we were informed that it is a closely-held secret
Afghanistan Sanctions Strengthened
On Monday, the Council approved a resolution authorizing UN teams to both monitor and help enforce existing sanctions against the ruling Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The resolution calls for a 15-member Sanctions Enforcement Support Team with expertise in areas such as customs, border security and counter-terrorism to work in neighboring countries ''as appropriate'' to increase their ability to enforce sanctions. It also calls for a five-member Monitoring Group based in New York, composed of experts on arms embargoes and counter-terrorism.
The Council’s decision to strengthen sanctions against the Taliban coincides with the Secretary General’s report on the humanitarian impact of economic sanctions in Afghanistan, which was released in mid-July. The report noted that “there are adverse humanitarian effects from the current sanctions regime,” as well as mounting evidence of widespread famine conditions throughout the country.
Yet despite the dubious effects of sanctions, the Council passed the enforcement mechanism unanimously.
Sanctions were stepped up last year when the Taliban refused to hand over suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden to international authorities. Resolution 1333 stipulates that sanctions can only be lifted after the Taliban complies with UN demands, which include handing over bin Laden, improving its human rights record, and ending the cultivation of opium-producing poppies.
UN Financial Crisis
The US percentage of arrears due to the UN has increased for both the regular budget (62%), and the peacekeeping operations budget (65%). The US owes a total of $1.95 billion to the UN, a whopping 65% of the total arrears due from all UN member states.
The amount owed by the US to the 2001 budget increased in June by $31 million, 3% of the total amount assessed to all member states. The US had agreed to pay this amount, which will be credited against the assessed contributions of certain other member states, to ease the burden of increased assessments of those states as a result of the agreement in January to reduce the US share of the total regular budget from 25% to 22%.
Other member states have begun to follow the poor example of the US in their payment of dues to the regular budget. Japan is the second largest contributor to the regular budget with an assessment of 19.6% of the total budget this year. Until 1997 Japan was in the habit of paying its dues in full, almost without exception, by June. But since 1998 Japan has not paid its dues in full until September at the earliest.
Violence in Genoa: Where It Came From
NY Times, July 22: Twenty-four hours after the death of the protester, Mr. Bush spoke about it briefly today, saying, "It's a tragic loss of life." But he insisted that protesters who "claim to represent the voices of the poor aren't doing so. Those protesters who try to shut down our talks on trade and aid don't represent the poor, as far as I'm concerned."
But while Mr. Bush insisted that the leaders should be undeterred by escalating protests at these summit meetings, President Jacques Chirac of France, sitting next to him, offered a different view. "Obviously, we have all been traumatized by the events," he said.
Two protesters dead and many injured – these are only the raw facts about the events in Genoa and at the Italian border during the G8 summit. What happened in Genoa?
Part of the explanation is global. The G8 leaders, following their usual practice, excluded the public from their talks. They refused to open their ears to dialogue with their own constituencies. Instead, they ordered extensive police and military protection because they were afraid of demonstrators.
Grassroots organizations went to Genoa to show their discontent with the policies of the G8. After all, the G8 is an extremely powerful group of very few high-level politicians that is not accountable to any democratic control.
Before the conference, many journalists and NGO representatives had discussed the problem of separating peaceful from violent protesters because they had expected that the ‘violent fringe’ would discredit the protest movement as a whole. Some NGOs even decided not to travel to Genoa at all. But organizations like the Genoa Social Forum emphasized that they could only make their argument by protesting at the summit venue itself.
Another part of the explanation for the eruption of violence in Genoa is local. The Italian police has a reputation for using unfair and sometimes neo-fascist methods. In Genoa, police beat some of the arrested protesters and forced them to scream “vival il Duce” (long live Mussolini). Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s new Prime Minister, has described his program as “the revolution of Italy”. In effect, this means that he wants to revive the authoritarian state, and civil rights are not his top priority. Police violence in Genoa is partly a result of this (see http://www.zeit.de/2001/32/Politik/200132_1._leiter.html).
However, it is too easy to put the blame on the Italian authorities. The G8 are far removed from their constituencies, and they are not willing to create a dialogue with those who question that the free market solves all problems. The leaders of the world have denied citizens the right to participate in decision-making that has a major impact on their daily lives. This, above all, created the confrontation in Genoa.
First Finding of Genocide
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced Radislav Krstic to 46 years in prison for committing genocide. It was the court's first finding of guilt for the crime of genocide, which has been difficult to prove in earlier cases because the prosecutor must show the defendant had the specific intent “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The mere fact that a military commander spares the lives of some individuals of a particular group in an ethnic cleansing campaign can often defeat a showing of such intent.
Mr. Krstic was second-in-command of the Bosnian Serb army's Drina corps, who killed over 7,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees in the town of Srebrenica in a mass execution, the largest execution to take place in Europe since World War II. In the sentencing judgment, Presiding Judge Almiro Rodrigues explained that Kristic’s deliberate decision to kill all the fighting age men in Srebenica, which Krstic took knowing it would destroy the Bosnian Muslim community in Srebrenica, was sufficient evidence to support a finding of the necessary intent. Radovan Karadzic, first in command of the Drina corps, is still at large.
Welcome to the Whirled Bank Group
“Our Dream is a World Full of Poverty”—preaches Jim Sheepensohn, the High Priest and President of the “Whirled” Bank, as presented at the First Church of the Almighty Dollar. This non-profit, non-commercial site provides information, commentary and humor about the international finance system, especially as it impacts the developing world. Listen to the President’s inspiring words: “Brothers and Sisters, I want to welcome you to our holy temple in Washington DC, a place where the future of the developing will be determined by a bunch of rich guys in suits. It is here in this church that we preach the word of the Bank. And that word is: if the rich get richer, the poor will flourish. It doesn't have to make sense, you just have to BELIEVE! And believe is what we do.”
Visit Whirled Bank Group site: http://www.whirledbank.orgBlood and Tears in a Drop of Chocolate
According to UNICEF, 200,000 children are the victims of traffickers every year in West Africa where they are forced to work in severe conditions. Many of the children are smuggled from the two land-locked, semi-desert nations of Mali and Burkina Faso into Ivory Coast—the world’s largest cocoa exporter. The children usually end up in remotest cocoa plantations, reachable only by driving on flooded and crater-filled dirt roads, and hiking for days through deep forest. A recent report from New York Times, “The Bondage of Poverty That Produces Chocolate,” reveals the brutal working environment in which children of West Africa suffer without their parents even knowing where they have gone to.
In many cases, smugglers tell children that they can earn as much as $160 a year working in a “wonderful” environment. The children, however, end up receiving much less because the smugglers demand the children pay travel fee and other conjured up expenses. A Malian boy who was smuggled by a stranger at age 14 speaks out about his experience at a cocoa plantation in Ivory Coast where he worked for two years. His master promised him to pay him $160 a year at first. But since the worldwide prices of cocoa have reached historic lows, the boy received only $13 for his whole year of toiling.
This week, eight West African countries announced the creation of a new body to investigate child trafficking in the region. An interparliamentary committee representing the eight countries reported that the body “would provide information on child trafficking in the subregion.” The committee’s President, Tiebele Dramele of Mali, affirmed that the commission will make an investigation-visit to different member countries and propose concrete measures to combat child trafficking. The countries involved in the effort are Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo.
It is ironic that this whole issue of child labor has more to do with the issue of poverty and development than with the “custom” of child labor as many people in the developed world assume. Take this case of chocolate. In West Africa, there is no tradition to eat chocolate. In fact, many workers including adults at cocoa plantations have never known that cocoa was turned into chocolate. This extreme Western decadence is made possible through the exploitation of these child slaves. However, if such near-slavery torture to children continues, the West African nations may lose a chance to ask its ex-colonizers for slavery compensation in the upcoming UN conference on Racism
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