A Voice for the Voiceless

Colombia’s Supreme Court Besieged by Death Threats

By Mario A. Flores
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia — The President of Colombia’s Supreme Court, Augusto Ibañez, said that several justices of the Court received death threats late this week.

The presiding justice of the Criminal Division, Julio Enrique Socha Salamanca, reported that he received a letter containing intimidation and threats to his office. The letter also listed threats against an assistant judge.

Socha Salamanca immediately notified law enforcement and ordered tighter security for each of the judges and their staff.

The authorities disclosed that they had also discovered intimidation schemes against other judges of the Supreme Court, a former peace commissioner and two political leaders.

The Director of the National Police, Oscar Naranjo, confirmed that a number of Supreme Court judges and politicians have been threatened. Naranjo said the police are taking the necessary steps to safeguard the security of those in danger.

The plot involves threats to the lives of chief judge Ibañez, judge Jaime Arrubla Paucar, former peace commissioner Victor G. Ricardo, presidential candidate German Vargas Lleras and one of his staunchest supporters, Senator Rodrigo Lara Restrepo.

The Police are dealing with the threats “with utmost prudence and greatest responsibility, without underestimating them, but without causing panic, verifying all information provided,” Naranjo added. It is not known who sent the threat messages or who is behind intimidation attempts.

Judge Socha said that he planned to meet next week with President Alvaro Uribe to discuss the threats.

Supreme Court justice, Jaime Arrubla, said in an interview that several of his colleagues believed they were being followed.

“We don’t exactly know where they [the threats] come from, we only know that they exist, unfortunately they are intensifying,” Arrubla said. “It appears they want to besiege us.”

For more information, please see:

Colombia Reports – Police confirms threats against Supreme Court judges and politicians – 21 August 2009

The Latin American Herald Tribune – Colombian Police Probe Threats Against Judges, Politicos – 21 April 2009

Colombia Reports –  Supreme Court judges receive death threats – 20 August 2009

Japanese Women Face Gender Inequality

 

By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

TOKYO, Japan– The United Nations has reported that the world’s second largest economy, Japan, is ranked 54th in terms of gender equality.

UN’s Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women is urging Japan to take stronger remedial measures to eliminate gender inequality, because the country’s efforts thus far have been “insufficient.”

The Committee reported that Japan has failed to address problems affecting women identified in a 2003 report and also listed provisions in Japan’s Civil Code concerning unequal treatment towards women in the labor market.  The report also criticized the low representation of Japanese women in high-level elected offices.

Japan gender inequalityUN urges Japan to do more to eliminate gender bias (Source: AP)

The UN is recommending that Japan raise the legal age for marriage for women from 16 to 18 in line with men, abolish the six-month waiting period before remarriage required for women but not for men, and allow a choice of surnames for married couples.  Furthermore, the Committee advised that Japan repeal laws that discriminate against children born out of wedlock and to impose harsher punishment for rape.

The report also reminded Japan that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, to which Japan is a party, is binding.  The Committee’s report said Japan should recognize the Convention as “the most pertinent, broad and legally binding international instrument in the sphere of the elimination against women.”

Fortunately, Japan’s Cabinet has acknowledged that change is needed.  In the general election coming up next week, issues that were traditionally categorized as “women’s affairs” have become mainstream election issues. 

Ikuko Tanioka, the president of Chukyo Women’s University, said, “Parliament can no longer be run according to the armchair logic of old men.”  A professor at Japan Women’s University, Machiko Osawa, also added, “So much needs to change…[w]e need equal pay for equal work, pension reform, daycare reform and infinitely better support for working mothers…the underlying problem for Japan is still one of attitude.”

For more information, please see:

BBC – Japanese women ‘still not equal’ – 21 August 2009

The Japan Times – Do more to ban gender bias, U.N. panel urges – 21 August 2009

Times Online – ‘We don’t count the women’ – gender inequality in Japanese companies – 8 August 2009

Somali Fighting Killed More than 20

By Dahee Nam
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, Africa

MOGADISHU, Somalia – At least 20 people have been killed in heavy fighting between Somali Islamist insurgents and government forces in the capital city of Mogadishu.  Most of the dead were civilians, witnesses said.

Heavy battles broke out after Islamist insurgents launched a pre-dawn raid Friday against government forces and African Union (AU) peacekeepers in the southern part of the capital.  The clashes soon spread to neighboring districts.

“Hundreds of well-armed insurgents came to our district with minibuses and pick-up trucks and immediately they started firing towards the government troops and an AU base,” a local resident told the BBC.

Mortars from both sides slammed into the city’s main market as traders were setting up their stalls for the day, causing severe civilian casualty.

According to the city’s ambulance services, at least 20 dead and 40 wounded people were taken to the town’s various hospitals.  The toll was expected to increase as the fighting continued through the morning.

“Everyone is traumatized by the bombs because they’re hitting heavily populated parts of town,” local resident Ibrahim Moalim said.

Al-Shabab spokesman Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage said the raid was to retaliate against the AU troops for rolling into rebel-controlled areas earlier this week.  The AU said the patrol was a routine military exercise, but the Islamist insurgents regarded it as provocative.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Nine Civilians Killed by Mortar Bombs in Mogadishu – 21 August 2009

AP – 24 Dead in Somalia Violence, Witnesses Say – 21 August 2009

BBC – Somali Insurgents in Deadly Raid – 21 August 2009

Reuters – Fighting Kills 22 in Somali Capital Mogadishu – 21 August 2009

Threat of Forced Recruitment by Rebels Has Colombian Indians Fleeing

By Mario A. Flores
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia — The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that over 100 indigenous families have fled their jungle reserves in Colombia’s southeastern province so far this year, in fear that armed groups will snatch their children for use as soldiers.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is on an aggressive recruitment campaign to replenish their dwindling ranks. The FARC have been weakened by a series of defeats at the hands of government forces in the past two years, prompting record numbers of guerrilla fighters to desert.

The terrorist group, financed largely by drug-trafficking proceeds, has waged a four-decade war against the Colombian army in a bid to take power. Recently, the threat of rebels forcibly taking away children to join their ranks has caused increasing numbers of people to flee their homes.

Local non-governmental organizations believe there are more than 6,000 child soldiers, with an average age of 12, in the FARC’s ranks. The rebels commonly use children as messengers and cooks and to plant landmines.

“There’s a very clear relationship between forced displacement and recruitment of children by illegal armed groups,” said Marie-Hélène Verney, the UNHCR spokeswoman in Colombia.

“We’re particularly concerned about the increase in forced recruitment of minors during the summer holidays when teachers are not in schools and when kids are pretty much left to their own devices,” said Verney.

Last year, more than 400 families fled their homes in the province of Vaupes, a large Amazon outpost which is home to 27 different indigenous groups, because of threats and the fear of having their children recruited by illegal armies, UNHCR said. Human rights organizations worry that the new violence is pushing even deeper into the Indians’ ancient lands.

The apparent stability in some largely pacified cities like the capital, Bogotá, belies the conflict in remote areas, where Indians find themselves at the mercy of armed groups.

Indigenous children, often living in isolated and far-flung jungle regions where rebels tend to have more power because the military’s presence is weak and sporadic, are particularly at risk of being forcibly recruited.

“Our rulers in Bogotá prefer to ignore that an entire section of the country is surviving, just barely, as if we are in the 16th century, when plunder and killing were the norm,” said Víctor Copete, who runs Chocó Pacífico, a foundation addressing the violence in Chocó, one of the nation’s poorest provinces.

Rebels in some guerrilla-controlled areas have been known to knock from door to door demanding that families hand over a son or daughter to fight.

Rebel groups even hold propaganda meetings in schools, public squares and host parties in areas they control, luring children with false promises of adventure, food, and money.

“Some children join illegal armed groups because they’ve been talked into it. For others it’s about getting new shoes — some don’t know what they’re getting themselves into,” Verney said.

A school teacher in one of the indigenous communities told UNHCR, “These children have no real hope and it makes them terribly vulnerable to other options some unscrupulous people may offer them.”

According to the United Nations, Colombia has about four million internal refugees, second in number only to Sudan, with Indians bearing a disproportionate share of the suffering. The Colombian government puts the figure at around 2.7 million displaced people.

Colombia2_600a

Displaced women from the Embera indigenous ethnic group.
Photo by Moises Saman for The New York Times

For more information, please see:

Reuters – Colombian Indians flee threat of forcible recruitment in rebel ranks – UNHCR – 19 August 2009

IPS – COLOMBIA: Killings of Indians Continued During UN Rapporteur’s Visit – 29 July 2009

The New York Times – Wider Drug War Threatens Colombian Indians – 21 April 2009

The Los Angeles Times – Colombia is asked to probe slayings of Indians in Narino state – 11 February 2009

Zimbabwe Facing Humanitarian Crisis

By Kylie M Tsudama
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

HARARE, Zimbabwe – According to the head of medical NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Rian Van De Braak, cholera will return to Zimbabwe.  The question is when.

“The threat is definitely not over,” he said.  “Everyone expects cholera to be back, at the latest with the nest rainy season [in September or October], because the root causes of the outbreak [in 2008] have not been addressed adequately yet.”

The cholera epidemic first hit Zimbabwe in August 2008 and lasted almost a full year before it was officially declared over in July 2009.

“Although Zimbabwe is not facing armed conflict, humanitarian threats such as food shortages and outbreak of diseases such as cholera pose a significant challenge,” said Agostinho Zacarias, Zimbabwe’s representative from the UN Development Programme.  “The recent [cholera] epidemic resulted in 98,592 cumulative cases, including 4,288 deaths.”

Cholera is a waterborne disease.  The latest epidemic was caused by broken sanitation and water systems.  As a result, more than half of Zimbabweans rely on unsanitary water systems because they have limited or no access to safe water and sanitation systems.  These problems are not likely to be repaired before the next rainy season begins, leaving Zimbabwe vulnerable to another outbreak.

“Several aid agencies are drilling new boreholes in cholera hotspots, which is an important contribution to safe drinking water.  Dealing with those causes before the next rainy season is a race against the clock,” Van De Braak said.  “The dilapidated water and sewage systems are still a major problem.”

In 2008, President Robert Mugabe had banned many NGOs from operation.  This time, however, the aid agencies are prepared for the worst and will “respond immediately” to the next outbreak.

“There is need for Zimbabwe to move from the humanitarian support stage to the recovery stage.  Zimbabwe is no longer a country in crisis but a country in recovery,” he said.                          

Still, UNICEF’s Peter Salama says another outbreak is “almost inevitable.”

He said, “There is a deterioration of infrastructure in the country and Zimbabwe has not made progress in improving this infrastructure.  This will expose people to another cholera outbreak again.”

Zimbabwe also suffers from food shortages and an AIDS epidemic, which takes more than 400 lives every day.

For more information, please see:

IRIN – Zimbabwe: Return of Cholera Expected Soon – 20 August 2009

AFP – UN Receives Less Than Half of Promised Aid – 19 August 2009

BBC – Cholera ‘May Return to Zimbabwe’ – 19 August 2009

CNN – U.N. Official: Zimbabwe’s Woes ‘Pose Significant Challenge’ – 19 August 2009

MSF (Doctors Without Borders) – Zimbabwe: Beyond Borders – Beyond the Crisis? – 19 August 2009

Reuters – Zimbabwe: Return of Cholera Expected Soon – 19 August 2009