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World Refugee Day

In Africa, Being a World Citizen, Current Events, Europe, Fighting Racism, Human Rights, Humanitarian Law, Middle East & North Africa, Migration, NGOs, Refugees, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, Track II, United Nations, World Law on June 20, 2020 at 4:01 PM

By René Wadlow

 

June 20 is the United Nations (UN)-designated World Refugee Day marking the signing in 1951 of the Convention on Refugees. The condition of refugees and migrants has become a “hot” political issue in many countries, and the policies of many governments have been very inadequate to meet the challenges. The UN-led World Humanitarian Summit held in Istanbul, Turkey on May, 23-24, 2016 called for efforts to prevent and resolve conflicts by “courageous leadership, acting early, investing in stability, and ensuring broad participation by affected people and other stakeholders.”

If there were more courageous political leadership, we might not have the scope and intensity of the problems that we now face. Care for refugees is the area in which there is the closest cooperation between nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the UN system. As one historian of the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has written “No element has been more vital to the successful conduct of the programs of the UNHCR than the close partnership between UNHCR and the non-governmental organizations.”

The 1956 flow of refugees from Hungary was the first emergency operation of the UNHCR. The UNHCR turned to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Societies which had experience and the finances to deal with such a large and unexpected refugee departures and re-settlements. Since 1956, the UNHCR has increased the number of NGOs, both international and national, with which it works given the growing needs of refugees and the increasing work with internally displaced persons who were not originally part of the UNHCR mandate.

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Hungarian refugees outside a building at Charleston Air Force Base in 1956.

Along with emergency responses − tents, water, medical facilities − there are longer-range refugee needs, especially facilitating integration into host societies. It is the integration of refugees and migrants which has become a contentious political issue. Less attention has been given to the concept of “investing in stability”. One example:

The European Union (EU), despite having pursued in words the design of a Euro-Mediterranean Community, in fact did not create the conditions to approach its achievement. The Euro-Mediterranean partnership, launched in 1995 in order to create a free trade zone and promote cooperation in various fields, has failed in its purpose. The EU did not promote a plan for the development of the countries of North Africa and the Middle East and did nothing to support the democratic currents of the Arab Spring. Today, the immigration crisis from the Middle East and North Africa has been dealt with almost exclusively as a security problem.

The difficulties encountered in the reception of refugees do not lie primarily in the number of refugees but in the speed with which they have arrived in Western Europe. These difficulties are the result of the lack of serious reception planning and weak migration policies. The war in Syria has gone on for five years. Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, not countries known for their planning skills, have given shelter to nearly four million persons, mostly from the Syrian armed conflicts. That refugees would want to move further is hardly a surprise. That the refugees from war would be joined by “economic” and “climate” refugees is also not a surprise. The lack of adequate planning has led to short-term “conflict management” approaches. Fortunately, NGOs and often spontaneous help have facilitated integration, but the number of refugees and the lack of planning also impacts NGOs.

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Women and children among Syrian refugees striking at the platform of Budapest Keleti railway station in 2015.

Thus, there is a need on the part of both governments and NGOs to look at short-term emergency humanitarian measures and at longer-range migration patterns, especially at potential climate modification impact. World Refugee Day can be a time to consider how best to create a humanist, cosmopolitan society.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

Sudan’s Recovery Crippled by U.S. Sanctions Policy

In Africa, Being a World Citizen, Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Human Rights, Middle East & North Africa, NGOs, Solidarity, Sudan, The Search for Peace, Track II, United Nations, World Law on June 15, 2020 at 8:54 PM

By René Wadlow

 

Economic recovery from decades of stagnation and misuse of resources during the 30-year dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir is critical for Sudan’s civilian-led transitional government.

Since August 2019, Sudan has been led by a Council made up of six civilians and five members of the military with a cabinet of liberal civilian administrators headed by Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, a former economist with the United Nations (UN). Elections are scheduled for next year, time for civil society to organize.

Sudan

However, chronic economic problems could lead elements in the armed forces to assert further their influence even without trying to take power. Sudan faces deep economic challenges. There is a backlog of domestic needs. The consequences of the creation of a separate State of South Sudan are still not resolved. The armed conflicts in the Darfur provinces, while not as active as earlier, still exist. Real economic development in Darfur is stopped.

The Association of World Citizens (AWC) was the first nongovernmental organization to raise the Darfur conflicts in the UN Commission on Human Rights in early 2004. Since then, our Association has striven to have negotiations in good faith to resolve the issues. However, the original opposition alliances have broken down into smaller, tribal-based groups and no real negotiations have been able to be held.

A strong obstacle to Sudan’s economic development is the continued United States (U. S.) economic sanctions which impact trade and investment. The U. S. sanctions policy prevents loans from international institutions such as the World Bank. The U. S. still lists Sudan as a “State sponsor of terrorism”. Sudan in an earlier period did house violent Islamist movements which carried out attacks in other countries such as the attack on the U. S. Embassy in Kenya. However, the violent Islamist groups were not “sponsored” by the government of Sudan.

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Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok of Sudan

Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok in his address to the UN General Assembly said that these U. S. sanctions “have played havoc on our people causing them untold misery of all types and forms. We, in the transitional government call on the United States of America to take Sudan off the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.”

Such a realistic request is a necessary first step toward the creation of a stable Sudan which should be able to play a positive role in an unstable part of the world. The AWC will continue its efforts for a Sudan in which all can play a positive role.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

U. S. Measures Weaken the Slow but Sure Growth of World Law

In Being a World Citizen, Current Events, Human Rights, Humanitarian Law, International Justice, NGOs, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, Track II on June 15, 2020 at 8:19 PM

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For nearly half a century — almost as long as the United Nations has been in existence — the General Assembly has recognized the need to establish such a court to prosecute and punish persons responsible for crimes such as genocide. Many thought that the horrors of the Second World War — the camps, the cruelty, the exterminations, the Holocaust — could never happen again. And yet they have. In Cambodia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Rwanda. Our time — this decade even— has shown us that man’s capacity for evil knows no limits. Genocide is now a word of our time too, a heinous reality that calls for a historic response.

Kofi Annan, then UN Secretary-General.

By René Wadlow

 

President Donald Trump’s executive order of June 11, 2020 proposing sanctions against staff and family members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) weakens the slow but sure growth of world law. The ICC and its 123 Member States recognize that individuals and not just States are the subject of world law. The ICC is structured by the Rome Statute named after the city where the governments agreed to the creation of the Court. The Rome Statute system recognizes the primary jurisdiction of the State to investigate and prosecute atrocity crimes – namely genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC is a court of last resort when national courts are unable or unwilling to act.

Although United States (U. S). nongovernmental organizations and legal scholars played an important role in the creation of the ICC, the U. S. Government refused to join. The government defended a concept of sovereignty that maintained that U. S. citizens could be tried only by U. S. courts. Legislation was passed by the U. S. Congress, the American Service-Members Protection Act, to prevent ICC jurisdiction over U. S. personnel.

The role of the ICC has come to a crisis point in the U. S. political system as the Court has started investigations of war crimes in Afghanistan by U. S. military and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials. There are also ICC investigations concerning ICC investigations concerning war crimes by Israeli military in the West Bank and Gaza. The U. S. Government has often played a protective role for Israel in the United Nations (UN) Security Council and other UN bodies.

Many nongovernmental organizations, including the Association of World Citizens (AWC), have expressed regret at this shortsighted and ill-timed U. S. policy. They have pledged themselves to uphold the principle of world law applicable to individuals.

Citizens of the world have usually made a distinction between international law as commonly understood and world law. International law has come to mean laws that regulate relations between States, with the International Court of Justice — the World Court in The Hague — as the supreme body of the international law system. The International Court of Justice is the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice that was established at the time of the League of Nations following the First World War. When the UN was formed in 1945, the World Court was re-established as the principal judicial organ of the UN. It is composed of 15 judges who are elected by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.

Only States may be parties in cases before the World Court. An individual cannot bring a case before the Court, nor can a company although many transnational companies are active at the world level. International agencies that are part of the UN system may request advisory opinions from the Court on legal questions arising from their activities but advisory opinions are advisory rather than binding.

 

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The Italian Foreign Minister, Lamberto Dini, signs the Rome Statute at the Rome Conference in July 1998.

 

Citizens of the world have tended to use the term “world law” in the sense that Wilfred Jenks, for many years the legal spirit of the International Labor Organization, used the term the common law of mankind: “By the common law of mankind is meant the law of an organized world community, contributed on the basis of States but discharging its community functions increasingly through a complex of international and regional institutions, guaranteeing rights to, and placing obligations upon, the individual citizen, and confronted with a wide range of economic, social and technological problems calling for uniform regulation on an international basis which represents a growing proportion of the subject-matter of the law.” It is especially the ‘rights and obligations’ of the individual person which is the common theme of world citizens.

The growth of world law has been closely related to the development of humanitarian law and to the violations of humanitarian law. It was Gustave Moynier, one of the founders of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and a longtime president of the ICRC who presented in 1872 the first draft convention for the establishment of an international criminal court to punish violations of the first Red Cross standards on the humane treatment of the sick and injured in periods of war, the 1864 Geneva Convention. The Red Cross conventions are basically self-enforcing. “If you treat my prisoners of war well, I will treat yours the same way.” Governments were not willing to act on Moynier’s proposition, but Red Cross standards were often written into national laws.

The Red Cross Geneva conventions deal with the way individuals should be treated in time of war. They have been expanded to cover civil wars and prisoners of civil unrest. The second tradition of humanitarian law arises from the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and deals with the weapons of war and the way war is carried on. Most of the Hague rules, such as the prohibition against bombarding undefended towns or villages, have fallen by the side, but the Hague spirit of banning certain weapons continues in the ban on chemical weapons, landmines and cluster weapons. However, although The Hague meetings made a codification of war crimes, no monitoring mechanisms or court for violations was set up.

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Gustave Moynier

After the First World War, Great Britain, France and Belgium accused the Central Powers, in particular Germany and Turkey of war atrocities such as the deportation of Belgian civilians to Germany for forced labor, executing civilians, the sinking of the Lusitania and the killing of Armenians by the Ottoman forces. The Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919 provided in articles 227-229 the legal right for the Allies to establish an international criminal court. The jurisdiction of the court would extend from common soldiers to military and government leaders. Article 227 deals specifically with Kaiser Wilhelm II, underlining the principle that all individuals to the highest level can be held accountable for their wartime actions. However, the USA opposed the creation of an international criminal court both on the basis of State sovereignty and on the basis that the German government had changed and that one must look to the future rather than the past.

The same issues arose after the World War II with the creation of two military courts — the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Some have said that these tribunals were imposing ‘victors’ justice on their defeated enemies, Germany and Japan. There was no international trial for Italians as Italy had changed sides at an opportune time, and there were no prosecutions of Allied soldiers or commanders.

In the first years of the UN, there was a discussion of the creation of an international court. A Special Committee was set up to look into the issue. The Special Committee mad a report in 1950 just as the Korean War had broken out, marking a Cold War that would continue until 1990, basically preventing any modifications in the structure of the UN.

Thus, during the Cold War, while there were any number of candidates for a war crime tribunal, none was created. For the most part national courts rarely acted even after changes in government. From Stalin to Uganda’s Idi Amin to Cambodia’s Pol Pot, war criminals have lived out their lives in relative calm..

It was only at the end of the Cold War that advances were made. Ad hoc international criminal courts have been set up to try war crimes from former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. Just as the Cold War was coming to an end, certain countries became concerned with international drug trafficking. Thus in 1989, Trinidad and Tobago proposed the establishment of an international court to deal with the drug trade. The proposal was passed on by the UN General Assembly to the International Law Commission, the UN’s expert body on international law. By 1993, the International Law Commission made a comprehensive report calling for a court able to deal with a wider range of issues than just drugs — basically what was called the three ‘core crimes’ of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

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The defendants at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945.

By the mid-1990s, a good number of governments started to worry about world trends and the breakdown of the international legal order. The break up of the federations of the USSR and Yugoslavia, the genocide in Rwanda, the breakdown of all government functions in Somalia, the continuing north-south civil war in Sudan — all pointed to the need for legal restraints on individuals. This was particularly true with the rise of non-State insurgencies. International law as law for relations among States was no longer adequate to deal with the large number on non-State actors.

By the mid-1990s, the door was open to the new concept of world law dealing with individuals, and the drafting of the statues of the ICC went quickly. There is still much to be done to develop the intellectual basis of world law and to create the institutions to structure it, but the ICC is an important milestone.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

Plus que jamais, créer un Etat en paix pour tous en Libye

In Africa, Being a World Citizen, Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Democracy, Human Rights, Humanitarian Law, Libya, Middle East & North Africa, Modern slavery, NGOs, Refugees, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, Track II, United Nations, War Crimes, World Law on June 11, 2020 at 8:10 AM

Par Bernard J. Henry

 

Dans la Libye où rien ne semble pouvoir éteindre les braises de la guerre civile, l’appel à un cessez-le-feu et à la poursuite des négociations lancé le 6 juin par le Président égyptien Abdel Fattah al-Sissi en présence du Général Khalifa Haftar a vécu.

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Le Général Khalifa Haftar

Le 4, les troupes du Gouvernement d’accord national (GAN) du Premier Ministre Fayez al-Sarraj, reconnu par l’ONU, reprenaient la ville. Une défaite majeure pour Haftar, longtemps vu comme l’homme fort du pays mais dont les revirements sur les accords conclus et le refus d’en adopter de nouveaux ont mené à sa remise en question, y compris par l’Egypte et la Russie qui lui préféreraient, pour représenter la Cyrénaïque qui recouvre le tiers oriental de la Libye, Aguila Saleh, le Président du Parlement hostile au GAN.

Le 9, les chefs de la diplomatie français, italien et allemand, accompagnés du Haut Représentant de l’Union européenne, appelaient ensemble à reprendre les pourparlers et la recherche d’un cessez-le-feu, prenant en compte les discussions du Caire et demandant dans un communiqué conjoint «instamment, toutes les parties libyennes et internationales à faire cesser de manière effective et immédiate toutes les opérations militaires et à s’engager de façon constructive dans les négociations en format 5+5, sur la base du projet d’accord du 23 février».

Néanmoins, la course à l’influence menée par les diplomaties russe et turque menace d’emblée toute recherche de la paix sur ce seul fondement. Comment, dès lors, envisager une paix prochaine et durable dans la Libye qui, depuis 2011 et la fin du régime Kadhafi, n’a plus d’État que le nom ?

Un Etat qui n’a jamais su s’inventer

Avec le retournement de la situation militaire, les espoirs sont ouverts pour des négociations plus fructueuses et, plus encore, afin d’envisager des formes nouvelles et stables de gouvernement.

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Le Premier Ministre Fayez al-Sarraj

De longue date, l’Association of World Citizens (AWC) appelle à la création en Libye de structures gouvernementales nouvelles qui prennent en compte la nature géographique du pays, particulièrement en ce qui concerne la nature tribale de la population.

Après la fin de la colonisation italienne en 1952, la Libye fortement marquée par les combats de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale n’a jamais su se trouver en tant qu’entité étatique, ni la monarchie du roi Idriss Ier, ni la République arabe libyenne proclamée en 1969 par Mouammar Kadhafi et encore moins la Jamahiriya, néologisme signifiant «l’État des masses» et désignant une forme d’Etat minimaliste mise en place en 1977 n’étant parvenues à cimenter le pays.

Depuis la fin du régime Kadhafi en 2011, deux provinces de Libye démontrent cet échec par deux exemples extrêmes.

Un conte de deux Libye – sans grandes espérances

A la frontière sud derrière le Sahara, le Fezzan et ses oasis abritent plus de deux cent mille personnes. La terre de l’ordre soufiste du roi Idriss n’inquiétait guère Tripoli du temps de Kadhafi, qui n’y voyait guère un foyer de contestation. Mais après 2011, le Fezzan s’est trouvé livré au trafic de drogue, d’armes et même d’êtres humains. Il a fallu que ce soit l’ancienne puissance coloniale, l’Italie, qui attire l’attention sur l’anarchie gangrénant le Fezzan – et pour cause, nombre de migrants africains qui gagnent le pays passaient par cet enfer.

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Ibrahim Jadran

A l’est, le Cyrénaïque adossé à l’Egypte a vu se développer dans l’ère post-Kadhafi le règne d’un chef de milice, Ibrahim Jadran. Emprisonné en 2005 avec ses quatre frères pour avoir tenté de fomenter une rébellion armée contre le «guide de la révolution» Kadhafi, il sort avec eux de prison à la faveur de la révolution de 2011. Accédant l’année suivante à la hiérarchie des Gardes de Défense du Pétrole protégeant les infrastructures pétrolières du pays, il se prononce pour un fédéralisme aussi décentralisateur que possible en Libye. L’année suivante, il instaure le Bureau politique de Cyrénaïque et proclame l’autonomie de la province, défiant Tripoli et tentant sans succès de vendre à son seul profit du pétrole à l’étranger. En juin 2018, il fuit la débâcle de sa Force d’autodéfense de la Cyrénaïque, un temps forte de 17 500 hommes devant les troupes de Haftar. Le 12 septembre, le Conseil de Sécurité de l’ONU adopte des sanctions individuelles contre Jadran pour ses attaques armées contre les forces du général.

Si les deux provinces offrent ce que Charles Dickens, auteur d’Un conte de deux cités, aurait pu appeler un «conte de deux Libye», il n’existe dans l’une et l’autre aucune place pour Les grandes espérances, autre roman de Dickens, tant le chaos qui mène au banditisme généralisé et l’aventure personnelle d’un seigneur de la guerre se voulant magnat du pétrole sont deux exemples de ce que l’avenir de la Libye ne doit pas être.

La Libye comme l’Europe, «Unie dans la diversité»

L’histoire l’a quelque peu oublié, mais l’Etat libyen de 1952 se nommait le Royaume-Uni de Libye, à l’image de la Grande-Bretagne. Pour autant, tenter d’unir autour d’une figure monarchique un pays aux identités locales, voire «micro-locales» selon l’expression du chercheur français Patrick Haimzadeh, à ce point enracinées et prononcées relevait de l’utopie, sans une forme de gouvernement à l’image, par exemple, du Royaume-Uni contemporain avec un Parlement en Ecosse, une Assemblée du Pays de Galles et une autre en Irlande du Nord en plus du Gouvernement britannique à Londres.

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L’histoire n’était pas prête, sans doute. Elle ne le sera pas davantage si, au cas où le Brexit tournerait mal, les nations composant le Royaume-Uni venaient à se découvrir plus diverses qu’elles ne sont unies et l’une ou plusieurs d’entre elles plébiscitaient leur indépendance.

Aujourd’hui, le seul salut de la Libye réside dans une structure gouvernementale faisant d’elle un pays qui soit à l’image de la devise de l’Union européenne, «Unie dans la diversité». Désunis, les Britanniques ne se tueraient pas. Les Libyens, oui, depuis près de dix ans. Ce qui leur manque, ce n’est pas un homme pour les diriger. C’est de pouvoir se diriger eux-mêmes, être eux-mêmes et apprendre à se ressembler dans la différence.

Bernard J. Henry est Officier des Relations Extérieures de l’Association of World Citizens.

Au Nicaragua, l’Etat nie la COVID-19 et abandonne les soignants à leur sort

In Being a World Citizen, Current Events, Democracy, Human Rights, Latin America, NGOs, Nicaragua, Refugees, Social Rights, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on June 2, 2020 at 8:03 PM

Par Bernard J. Henry

 

L’une des leçons majeures de la crise de la COVID-19 restera que, malgré ses errements dans les premiers temps de la pandémie, l’Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS) aura agi comme un révélateur de la mentalité des Etats envers cette menace planétaire sans précédent depuis la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. L’enseignement en est clair, autant qu’il est inquiétant : là où, partout dans le monde, le virus frappe sans faire de distinction, certains dirigeants nationaux le croient néanmoins perméable à leurs choix politiques.

Là où Emmanuel Macron, Président de la République française, déclarait à son peuple en instaurant le confinement «Nous sommes en guerre» et son Ministre des Solidarités et de la Santé Olivier Véran faisait sien le mot d’ordre de l’OMS, «Testez, testez, testez», le Premier Ministre britannique Boris Johnson risquait le pari de l’immunité collective, pari perdu qui faillit lui coûter sa propre vie.

Aux Etats-Unis, le Président Donald Trump refuse toute injonction internationale, étant allé jusqu’à interrompre le financement américain de l’OMS puis rompre toute relation avec elle. Au Brésil, le Président Jair Bolsonaro adopte une ligne semblable, rejetant gestes-barrière et distanciation physique. Dans les deux pays, ce sont les gouverneurs des Etats fédérés qui doivent agir, provoquant la colère de leurs chefs d’Etat respectifs qui mobilisent contre eux leurs partisans.

Et toujours sur le continent américain, un pays se distingue plus encore – le Nicaragua, où le pouvoir nie tout bonnement l’épidémie et invite, si ce n’est oblige, la population à enfreindre toutes les préconisations internationales.

Le Président du Nicaragua défend la COVID-19 comme un «signal de Dieu»

Daniel Ortega, l’ancien chef sandiniste du temps de la Guerre Froide, évincé du pouvoir aux urnes en 1990 puis qui y est revenu par la même voie en 2006 et s’y est fait réélire en 2011 avec, pour candidate à la Vice-présidence, nulle autre que son épouse Rosario Murillo, tenait déjà son pays d’une main de fer depuis le 18 avril 2018 et sa répression des protestations populaires contre un projet avorté de réforme des retraites et de la sécurité sociale défavorable aux plus précaires. Des professionnels de tous corps de métier, parmi lesquels un nombre important de soignants, avaient été licenciés. Des militants de l’opposition avaient été emprisonnés. Le Costa Rica voisin connaissait un afflux par dizaines de milliers de Nicaraguayens fuyant la dictature de fait surnommée «Orteguillo» en contraction des noms de Daniel Ortega et Rosario Murillo.

Dans de telles conditions, il n’aurait pas paru saugrenu de voir le pouvoir nicaraguayen prendre prétexte de la COVID-19 pour imposer des restrictions impitoyables, par exemple un confinement sur le modèle philippin avec menace de tirer à balles réelles sur les contrevenants. Contre toute attente, Managua a choisi l’extrême inverse, celui du déni total de la pandémie.

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Après avoir obligé la population à marcher en masse, dans la promiscuité, sous la bannière du Front Sandiniste de Libération Nationale (FSLN) au pouvoir pour célébrer «l’amour et la paix en temps de coronavirus», Ortega a disparu des écrans à partir du 12 mars, à tel point que d’aucuns le supposaient contaminé lui-même. Le 15 avril, il est réapparu sur les antennes de la télévision nicaraguayenne, qualifiant la COVID-19 de «signal de Dieu» et excluant toute mesure sanitaire nationale contre elle.

Le résultat en est dramatique. Au 23 mai, l’Observatoire citoyen du Nicaragua annonçait plus de 2 600 cas dans le pays, où s’enracine à présent la pratique des inhumations nocturnes des victimes de l’épidémie niée par le pouvoir. Le danger est devenu tel que les Etats voisins d’Amérique centrale, Guatemala, El Salvador et Costa Rica, craignent désormais de voir s’embraser toute la région par la faute de Managua.

Malgré tout, la population respecte les consignes internationales, la campagne «Quédate en casa», «Reste à la maison», lancée pour inciter au confinement, s’attirant les foudres d’un Ortega qui insiste pour ne rien faire. Quant au personnel médical, il est au mieux livré à lui-même et au pire réprimé.

Les soignants du Nicaragua livrés à eux-mêmes – et surtout au danger

Depuis avril 2018, au Nicaragua, les médecins sont des ennemis d’Etat. Ces médecins qui ont soigné les manifestants blessés dans la répression des mouvements populaires et qui l’ont payé en nombre de leur emploi. Face à la COVID-19, les derniers remparts d’une population poussée à l’infection par le régime sont devenus pour lui rien moins que des traîtres.

Fulgencio Baez, onco-hématologue hospitalier, confiait à l’association SOS Nicaragua France dans sa Newsletter de mai : «Nous savons que nous sommes dans la partie de la montée exponentielle de la contagion, avec la contagion communautaire. Il y a plusieurs morts, sans connaître le nombre exact. Ce que nous entendons quotidiennement et ce que nous voyons concernant les personnes décédées sont des foyers à Chinandega, Managua, Masaya et Matagalpa».

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Déjà faible auparavant, poursuivait le médecin, le système de santé nicaraguayen n’avait aucune chance contre la pandémie. Privés de tout appui gouvernemental, notamment de toute statistique puisque les quelques tests disponibles restent le monopole de l’Etat, les soignants sont débordés et bien sûr menacés eux-mêmes d’infection à tout moment.

L’ennemi devant eux avec la pandémie, mais aussi derrière eux en la personne de leur propre Président, les soignants du Nicaragua n’ont pas seulement la santé, et la vie, de leurs seuls compatriotes mais aussi des peuples de toute l’Amérique centrale.

Seul moyen de leur permettre de vaincre : les aider directement, en passant outre leur gouvernement. C’est ce qu’a entrepris SOS Nicaragua France, à travers une campagne de dons sur son espace HelloAsso.

L’Association of World Citizens défend l’action citoyenne en plus de celle de l’Etat, voire à la place et, s’il le faut, contre l’Etat. Ici, à la place suffit déjà bien, la société civile devant assumer seule et sans aide, envers son peuple et les pays voisins, la responsabilité que l’Etat ne reconnaît pas. Seule et sans aide, sauf si le peuple du monde vient à son secours.

Bernard J. Henry est Officier des Relations Extérieures de l’Association of World Citizens.

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Education for Global Citizenship

In Being a World Citizen, Conflict Resolution, Human Development, Human Rights, Korean Peninsula, NGOs, Solidarity, Spirituality, The Search for Peace, Track II, United Nations, World Law on April 22, 2020 at 7:59 PM

By René Wadlow

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has taken a lead in Education for Global Citizenship, starting in 2013 with the UNESCO Forum of Global Citizenship Education. Global Citizenship refers to a sense of belonging to the broader community of humanity. Global Citizenship emphasizes political, economic, social, and cultural interconnectedness between the local, the national, and the global. Education for Global Citizenship aims to develop an education based on creative and critical thinking that enables all people to contribute actively to political and development processes in a complex global society.

While it is important that Global Citizenship Education be implemented in the school system at all levels, Global Citizenship must also be carried out by those who are not directly part of the school programs such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Thus, the United Nations Department of Public Information’s yearly conference for NGOs in 2016 was devoted to Education for Global Citizenship. The conference was held in the city of Gyeongju which had been the first capital in 900 AD of a unified Korea. The conference was able to draw on a larger-than-usual Asian NGOs.

The Association of World Citizens (AWC) which supports fully the Global Citizenship Education process was able to play an active role and continues its efforts.

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Prof. René Wadlow, President of the Association of World Citizens, addressing the UN DPI/NGO conference in Gyeongju.

Education for Global Citizenship is an essential strategy to address global challenges as well as to promote gender equality, facilitate the eradication of poverty and hunger, build skills, eliminate corruption, and prevent violence. Education for Global Citizenship promotes truly sustainable production and consumption, mitigating climate change and its effects, protecting our waters and biodiversity.

The AWC stresses that Education for Global Citizenship needs to highlight the importance of the human spirit in educational philosophy and practice. World Citizens hold that there are inter-acting dimensions of existence from the physical to the mental and to the dimension of the spirit. Education should consider all these dimensions and not just the physical and mental which is today the focus of most education systems.

We are still at an early stage in the creation of an Education for Global Citizenship. (1)  Education for Global Citizenship is part of a long-term process to build the defenses of peace in the minds of women and men. The Constitution of UNESCO states “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.”

Education for Global Citizenship often means changing deep-set attitudes and behavior. Yet there is much on which we can build. There is a rich body of knowledge and experience which helps students gain in self-confidence and harmony within themselves, harmony with Nature and harmony with their fellow humans.

Education for Global Citizenship requires a comprehensive system of education and training for all groups of people at all age levels, both formal and non-formal education. This is a process of awakening a sense of responsibility for the destiny of humanity as a whole.

The AWC stresses that our oneness with humanity and our acceptance of the whole planet as our home involves a process of change both in the attitudes of individuals and in the politics of States. Humanity is clearly moving towards participation in the emerging World Society. An awareness of the emerging World Society and preparation for full and active participation in this World Society is a necessary element of Education for Global Citizenship at all levels from primary schools though university and adult education.

The AWC highlights that a World Citizen is one:

– Aware of the wider world and has a sense of his role as a world citizen;

– Respects and values diversity;

– Has an understanding of how the world works economically, politically, socially, and culturally, and is willing to act to make the world a more equitable and sustainable place;

– Participates in and contributes to the community at a range of levels from the local to the global.

Note

(1) See Luis Cabrera. The Practice of Global Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2016)

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

A Day of Mother Earth: Living in Harmony with Nature

In Being a World Citizen, Environmental protection, Human Development, Human Rights, NGOs, Social Rights, Solidarity, Spirituality, The Search for Peace, Track II, United Nations, World Law on April 22, 2020 at 7:45 PM

By René Wadlow

 

International Mother Earth Day on April 22 each year was established by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 2009. Its aim is to promote living in harmony with Nature and to achieve a just balance among the economic, social, and environmental needs of present and future generations. The concept of living in harmony with Nature was seen by the UN delegates as a way “to improve the ethical basis of the relationship between humankind and our planet.”

The term “Mother Earth” is an expression used in different cultures to symbolize the inseparable bonds between humans and Nature. Pachamama is the term used in the Andean cultures of South America. The Earth and the ecosystem are our home. We need to care for them as a mother is supposed to care for her children and the children to show love and gratitude in return. However, we know from all the folk tales of the evil stepmother as well as the records of psychoanalytic sessions that mother-children relations are not always relations of love, care, and gratitude. Thus, to really live in harmony with Nature requires deep shifts in values and attitudes, not just “sustainable development” projects.

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The UN began its focus on ecological issues with the preparations for the 1972 Conference in Stockholm and has continued with the 1992 Rio Declaration followed by the Rio plus 20 conference 20 years later. However, the concept of living in harmony with Nature is relatively new as a UN political concept. Yet it is likely to be increasingly a theme for both governmental policy making and individual action.

Rodney Collin wrote in a letter “It is extraordinary how the key-word of harmony occurs everywhere now, comes intuitively to everyone’s lips when they wish to express what they hope for. But I feel that we have hardly yet begun to study its real meaning. Harmony is not an emotion, an effect. It is a whole elaborate science, which for some reason has only been fully developed in the realm of sound. Science, psychology and even religion are barely touching it as yet.” (1)

Resolutions in the UN General Assembly can give a sense of direction. They indicate that certain ideas and concepts are ready to be discussed at the level of governments. However, a resolution is not yet a program of action or even a detailed framework for discussion. “Living in harmony with Nature” is at that stage on the world agenda. Since the start of the yearly observation of Mother Earth Day in 2010, there have been useful projects proposed around a yearly theme. The 2018 theme is to reduce pollution from plastics. The exponential growth of plastics is now a real threat by injuring marine life, littering beaches and landfills and clogging waste systems. There is a need to reduce the single use of plastic objects by reusing and recycling plastic objects.

However, reducing pollution from plastic objects, while useful, is not yet living in harmony with Nature. There are still efforts to be made to spell out the ethical base and the necessary shifts in attitudes and actions.

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Notes

(1) His letters have been assembled after his death by his wife into a book:

Rodney Collin, The Theory of Conscious Harmony (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 1958)

 

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

Conscience: The Inner Voice of the Higher Self

In Being a World Citizen, Human Development, Human Rights, Humanitarian Law, International Justice, NGOs, Solidarity, Spirituality, The Search for Peace, Track II, United Nations on April 5, 2020 at 8:30 AM

By René Wadlow

 

The United Nations (UN) has designated April 5 as the International Day of Conscience. The first celebration is this year 2020. An awakened conscience is essential to meeting the challenges which face humanity today as we move into the World Society. The great challenge which humanity faces today is to leave behind the culture of violence in which we find ourselves and move rapidly to a culture of peace and solidarity. We can achieve this historic task by casting aside our ancient national, ethnic, and social prejudices and begin to think and act as responsible Citizens of the World.

The useful press kit prepared by the UN Information section for the April 5 International Day of Conscience highlights earlier UNESCO and then UN General Assembly efforts for the Decade of the Culture of Peace and Non-Violence. A culture of peace gives the broad social framework in which the conscience of each individual can be a guide.

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An awakened conscience makes us sensitive to hearing the inner voice that warns and encourages. We have a conscience so that we may not let ourselves be lulled to sleep by the social environment in which we find ourselves but will remain alert to truth, justice, and reason. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says in Article 1, “All human beings are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

There is a need to build networks and bridges among Companions of Conscience. As the Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran wrote, “I believe that there are groups of people and individuals the world over who are kin, regardless of race. They are in the sme realm of awareness. This is kinship, only this.”

Companions of Conscience create a ground for common discourse and thus a ground for common, life-affirming action. The circle of Companions of Conscience is growing worldwide, and Conscience-based actions are increasingly felt.

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Khalil Gibran

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

Libya: The Fairy Godmothers Hoping to Bless a New State Structure Meet in Berlin

In Being a World Citizen, Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Humanitarian Law, International Justice, Libya, Middle East & North Africa, NGOs, Refugees, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, Track II, United Nations, World Law on January 22, 2020 at 9:16 PM

By René Wadlow

The Fairy Godmothers of world politics met in Berlin on January 19, 2020 to assist at the birth of a State structure arising from the currently deeply divided factions of Libya: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres were the co-hosts with the Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, France’s Emmanuel Macron, the United Kingdom’s Boris Johnson, the USA’s Mike Pompeo as well as the less easily recognized officials – the Prime Minister of Italy, Giuseppe Conte, and the representatives of China, Egypt, Algeria, and the United Arab Emirates. There were also representatives of the major intergovernmental organizations involved in Libya: the UN, the European Union, the African Union and the League of Arab States.

The Final Document of the Berlin Conference is an effort to please all participants, but, in fact, on the crucial issue of the creation of a functioning administration for Libya, there was only a broad vision of a desirable future: a single, unified, inclusive, and effective Libyan government that is transparent, accountable, fair with equitable distribution of public wealth and resources between different Libyan geographic areas, including through decentralization and support for municipalities, thereby removing a central grievance and cause of recrimination.

The creation of such State structures has been the chief issue since 1945 when the Allies – Britain, the USA and the USSR – agreed that the Italian colonies should not be returned to Italy, although Italian settlers were encouraged to stay. The Allies did not want to create the structures of the new State believing that this task should be done by the Libyans themselves. Also, the three Allies disagreed among themselves as to the nature of the future State.

King Idris I of Libya

By 1950-1951 with more crucial geopolitical issues elsewhere, the Allies were ready for the creation of a Libyan State. It seemed that a monarchy was the most appropriate form of government as there were no structured political parties that could have created a parliamentary government. Thus in 1951, Idris was made the King of the State. Idris was the head of the Senussi Sufi Order created by his father. The Senussi Sufi Order had branches in most parts of the country. Idriss ruled the country as if it were a Sufi order and did little to structure non-religious political structures. Idris ruled until September 1969 when he was overthrown by Muammar Qaddafi.

Qaddafi was also not interested in creating permanent political parties which, he feared, might be used against him. He called himself “the Guide of the Revolution” not “President” and Libya became the Libyan Jamahiriya, that is, the authority of the people. The closest model to Qaddafi’s vision is a Quaker Meeting, where decisions are taken by consensus and compromise at the local level. These decisions are then sent as recommendations to the next higher level where by consensus and compromise again a decision is taken. Ultimately, these decisions reach to the top of Libya, and the “Guide” sees how they can be carried out.

Muammar Qaddafi

The problem with the governance of Libya was that not everyone was a member of a Sufi order where the search for enlightenment in a spirit of love was the way decisions were to be made. Moreover, there were hardly any Libyan Quakers, and compromise was not the chief model for the tribal and clanic networks which was how the country was structured under Qaddafi.

Since the overthrow and death of Qaddafi in 2011, there has been no agreement on how the country should be structured. The model which is most likely to be followed is that of General Khalifa Haftar, who now likes to be addressed as “Field Marshal”. The model is a military-based dictatorship with a small number of civilians as “window dressing”. The model is well represented through the world although not always held up as a model form of government. Haftar holds a good bit of the Libyan territory, although his hope of a quick victory over the “national unity” government in the capitol Tripoli has not been successful for the moment.

Faiez Sarraj

The National Unity Government of Faiez Sarraj is a civilian-led government but heavily dependent for its survival on tribal militias. The model for the government is that of Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey with a certain ideological coloring from the Islamic Brotherhood, originally from Egypt but whose ideology has spread. What type of structures can be created between these two major models is not known. I would expect to see a Khalifa Haftar-led government with a few civilians brought in from the National Unity Government.

General Khalifa Haftar

The only geographic area outside of the current Tripoli-centered conflict between Faiez Sarraj and Khalifa Haftar is the area known as the Fezzan – the southwestern part of the country on the edge of the Sahara. The area was associated with the rest of the country during the period of King Idriss as there were a number of branches of his Sufi order in the oases where most of the 200,000 people in the area live, mostly date palm farmers. Gaddafi largely left the area alone as there was little possibility of developing organized opposition. However, today, the governmental neglect has opened the door to wide-spread smuggling of people, weapons and drugs. The Italian government in particular has drawn international attention to the lack of administration in the Fezzan as many of the African migrants who end up in Italy have passed through the Fezzan on their way to Europe.

The creation of highly decentralized governmental structures in Libya will not be easy. Nevertheless, such decentralized administration is key to the future, and a challenge to all of us who want to see a peaceful and relatively just Libya.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

A Vibrant World Civil Society

In Being a World Citizen, Conflict Resolution, Democracy, Europe, Human Rights, NGOs, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, Track II on January 4, 2020 at 11:21 PM

By René Wadlow

The term “civil society” came into extensive use especially in Europe in the mid -1970s as efforts to bridge the East-West divide and prevent the dangers of war in Europe. As Mary Kalder writes “A group of us launched the European Nuclear Disarmament (END) Appeal for a nuclear-free Europe. The Appeal attracted thousands of signatures from all over Europe and beyond and was one of the mobilizing documents of the new peace movement which sprang up in Western Europe in the early 1980s. The Appeal called for nuclear disarmament through unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral means, but it was also an appeal to end the Cold War. It accorded responsibility in the Cold War to both the United States and the Soviet Union and insisted on the link between disarmament and democracy.” (1)

Ernest Gellner

The END Appeal looked to positive action from “civil society” within the Soviet bloc which was starting to be vocal outside of the government-controlled peace organizations which largely reflected Soviet government policy in their interaction with Western peace-disarmament non-governmental organizations. As Ernest Gellner writes, “Civil Society is the idea of institutional and ideological pluralism, which prevents the established monopoly of power and truth and counterbalances those central institutions which though necessary, might otherwise acquire such monopoly. The actual practice of Marxism had led, wherever it came to be implemented to what might be called Caesaro-Papism-Mannonism to the near total fusion of the political, ideological, and economic hierarchies. The state, the church-party, and the economic managers were all parts of one single nomenclature… Civil Society is that set of diverse nongovernmental institutions which is strong enough to counterbalance the state and, while not preventing the state from fulfilling its role as keeper of the peace and arbitrator between major interests, can nevertheless prevent it from dominating and atomizing the rest of society.” (2)

Vaclav Havel

Vaclav Havel, although he later became president of a State, was a valuable symbol of the efforts to develop a civil society. “We emphasized many times that the struggle we had taken on had little in common with what is traditionally understood by the expression ‘politics.’ We discussed such concepts as non-political politics, and stressed that we were interested in certain values and principles and not in power and position. We emphasized the importance of the spirit, the importance of truth and said that even spirit and truth embody a certain kind of power.” (3)

Today, more than in the recent past, we are faced with a revival of the Caesaro-Papism-Mannonism States whose interactions, especially in the wider Middle East, could lead to armed conflicts. In addition to the Caesaro-led States, the world society faces terrorism as movements with goals, gurus, ideologues, myths and martyrs. Thus there is a need to develop and structure a world-wide civil society. The concept of civil society is probably the platform for future progressive action. The global civil society is a ‘power shift’ of potentially historic dimensions with bonds of trust, shared values and mutual obligations which cross national frontiers. With the war drums starting to beat, creative action is needed now.

Notes

1) Mary Kaldor (Ed.), Europe from Below (London: Verso, 1991)
2) Ernest Gellner, Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and its Rivals (London: Penguin Books, 1996)
3) Vaclav Havel in Mary Kalder (Ed.), Europe from Below.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.