Update and Up-Coming

The Update part:

I’m happy to share that Ai WeiWei has been released by the Chinese authorities and is back with his family.  This link will take you to a story in The Guardian for more details. 

The Up-coming part:

This past April we were posting about some of the women who are working towards peace, justice and democracy, particularly in and for countries dealing with genocide and on-going human rights abuses. Of course, we posted about Aung San Suu Kyi, the heart of the Burmese pro-democracy movement.

June 19^th was Suu Kyi’s 66^th birthday, and the first one that she has spent out of prison or house arrest in over 15 years.  In her honor, and also in solidarity with the over 2000 political prisoners still in detention in Burma, our 4^th Sunday bone-making event this month will also be a celebration of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Details:  This Sunday, June 26! If you’re in Albuquerque or Santa Fe, come out to the One Million Bones office at 100 Gold SW in downtown ABQ at 2pm.  We’re making bones (lots of them) and serving cake and we’d love to share both the art making and the delicious goodies with you. It’s free although we suggest a donation of $5.  You can call us for more information at 505-314-1114.

We hope to see you!

World Refugee Day

June 20^th is World Refugee Day.  This is the explanation of the day from the UN website:

“For years, many countries and regions have been holding their own Refugee Days and even Weeks. One of the most widespread is Africa Refugee Day, which is celebrated on 20 June in several countries.

The UN General Assembly, on 4 December 2000, adopted resolution 55/76 where it noted that 2001 marked the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and that the Organization of African Unity (OAU) had agreed to have International Refugee Day coincide with Africa Refugee Day on 20 June.

The General Assembly therefore decided that, from 2001, 20 June would be celebrated as World Refugee Day.

This year the UN refugee agency, in its 60th year, will mark World Refugee Day with a rich and varied programme of events in locations worldwide and the launch of a new global awareness campaign. UNHCR will start rolling out the multimedia "One" campaign next week. Over the next six months it will increase awareness about the forcibly displaced and stateless by telling their powerful personal stories. The campaign will carry the message that "One Refugee Without Hope is too Many." Every day, millions of refugees face murder, rape and terror. We believe even 1 is too many.”

This is a link to the Secretary-General’s message for today.

Here are some statistics from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) concerning OMB’s focus countries:

In Burma (Myanmar) the “total population of concern” is 859,403.

In Sudan it’s 1,958,524.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2,366,035.

The UNHCR’s total population of concern for all countries is 33,924,475. Almost 34,000,000 people. This is a link to a page where you can look at statistics that you have an interest in.  There are documents that break down refugees by country of origin, country that they’ve fled to, numbers of IDPs (internally displaced persons), asylum seekers, stateless persons, etc.

Take a minute to call or email your legislators and tell them that one refugee without hope is too many.  You’re aware of the problem, now let’s make sure our politicians are!

Kickstarter

Today we’re going off topic to ask you to help One Million Bones do our work.  We launched a Kickstarter campaign a couple weeks ago. It’s for an upcoming preview of 50,000 Bones in Albuquerque and to let us film the event. As of this morning we have $2788 pledged and we’d love to have $3000 by the weekend.

So, here’s the link to One Million Bones’ Kickstarter campaign. 

If you don’t know about Kickstarter this is what they say about what they do:

Kickstarter is the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world. Every month, tens of thousands of amazing people pledge millions of dollars to projects from the worlds of music, film, art, technology, design, food, publishing and other creative fields.

A new form of commerce and patronage. This is not about investment or lending. Project creators keep 100% ownership and control over their work. Instead, they offer products and experiences that are unique to each project.

All or nothing funding. On Kickstarter, a project must reach its funding goal before time runs out or no money changes hands. Why? It protects everyone involved. Creators aren’t expected to develop their project without necessary funds, and it allows anyone to test concepts without risk.

Each and every project is the independent creation of someone like you. Projects are big and small, serious and whimsical, traditional and experimental. They’re inspiring, entertaining and unbelievably diverse. We hope you agree... Welcome to Kickstarter!

It only takes a few minutes to sign up and any donation from $1 to $1,000 (or more) is welcome and appreciated. Help us make $3,000 today.  Thank you!

The Details

posted by Susan

Admittedly, what I’m about to post for you is DRY and kind of DULL “wonk” reading, but here’s the thing:  If we, as a world, are ever going to work out the kinks and disagreements on when and how R2P can be used as an appropriate strategy, I expect this is where it’s going to happen. Also, I have to remind myself, and thereby remind you, that the main disagreement seems to come when the use of military action starts being considered.  That’s not to say that disagreements don’t occur between the powerbrokers in the UN over definitions, resolutions and sanctions, but it seems to me the real sticking point, and the place where even supporters of the norm have trouble, is when there is any question that a country’s sovereignty may be infringed upon. And so, if we have an interest in this issue at all, if we believe that we have a responsibility to act or if we believe we don’t, this is how we find out what the people who are making the case are saying. So friend, pour yourself a hot cup of coffee, and read on.

In 2009, the UN General Assembly held the first Informal Interactive Dialogue on R2P.  This is a link to the Secretary General’s report on that first annual event.

The report was followed by the second annual UN General Assembly Informal Interactive Dialogue, a recap of which can be found here.

And now, just around the corner, the third annual — I’ll call it I-I-D on R2P:

“General Assembly informal interactive dialogue on RtoP

The UN General Assembly will convene its 3rd annual informal interactive dialogue of RtoP on 12 July 2011, which will focus on the role of regional and sub-regional organizations in implementing the Responsibility to Protect. 

The dialogue will be an opportunity to advance the General Assembly's consideration of RtoP, specifically regarding the role that regional organizations play in preventing and halting mass atrocities and how to strengthen regional capacity to protect. The dialogue is to be based on a report of the Secretary-General, to be released in the coming weeks. While no details have been released concerning the format of the dialogue, we expect it to feature a panel of experts, including the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng and the Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, Ed Luck as well as other officials from regional and sub-regional organizations. We also expect civil society to be able to contribute to the dialogue.”

Now, if you live in New York or can get there easily, the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect is co-hosting a civil society panel on the role of regional organizations and RtoP. The information is below:

Civil Society Perspectives: The Role of Regional and Sub-Regional Organizations in Implementing the Responsibility to Protect and Reflections on Application of RtoP to Country Cases 

Church Center, 2^nd floor

UN Plaza, 44^th and 1^st Avenue

9:30-2:00

In preparation for the July 12 General Assembly interactive dialogue, ICRtoP, in association with the Stanley Foundation, the Friedrich-Ebert- Stiftung and the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, will host a half day panel open to the general public on 11 July entitled: Civil Society Perspectives: The Role of Regional and Sub-Regional Organizations in Implementing the Responsibility to Protect and Reflections on Application of RtoP to Country Cases. Panelists will examine how RtoP has been strengthened and implemented by regional organizations as well as reflect on the application of RtoP in country situations such as Libya, Cote D’Ivoire, Guinea, and Kenya. Edward Luck, Special Advisor on RtoP will open the event and Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, will provide the keynote address. Other speakers include: 

On The Role of Regional and Sub-regional Organizations in Implementing RtoP:

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

Emmanuel BOMBANDE, Executive Director, West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, Ghana

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

Dr. Pranee THIPARAT, Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

European Union (EU)

Daniel FIOTT, Research Fellow, Madariaga- College of Europe Foundation, Belgium

Organization of American States (OAS) and Union of South American Nations (UNASUR)

Dr. Andres SERBIN, Executive Director, Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales (CRIES), Argentina

African Union (AU)

Don DEYA, Executive Director, Pan African Lawyers Union, Tanzania

Reflections on the application of RtoP to country cases: Libya, Cote D’Ivoire, + non military cases such as Kenya, Guinea and Sudan

Mr. Kenneth ROTH, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch

Dr. Gilles Olakounlé YABI, West Africa Project Director, International Crisis Group, Senegal

Dismas NKUNDA, Co-Director, International Refugee Rights Initiative/Darfur Consortium, Uganda

Dr. James PISCATORI, Professor of International Relations and Head of School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, United Kingdom

For more information or to rsvp, you can contact info AT responsibilitytoprotect DOT org.

Anyone thinking of attending?

Test Case

This article is a very clear and well-written description, not of why we should or should not have intervened in Libya, but rather what the ramifications of success or failure of our efforts in Libya will mean for the R2P doctrine. It comes from North by Northwest, an online independent publication of Northwestern University.

And I'd like to share this final paragraph of a paper, of which you can find the full text here, because it captures what gives me the most trouble as a supporter of the idea of R2P.

“Overall, what does Libya tell us about R2P? Essentially, it tells us that operationalising the doctrine is harder than merely stating it. Critics might well label R2P a hypocritical fantasy. Since Rwanda in 1994 the international community has sat idle while massacres and crimes against humanity have occurred in many other countries: millions starving under the brutality of the North Korean communist dictatorship; tens of thousands dead in Darfur by murder, starvation or disease and millions more internally displaced; and millions dead in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the late 1990s. Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe didn’t attract an intervention. Clearly, R2P was always going to be a doctrine selectively applied. And the test for intervention is high: even in relation to the Middle East in 2011, it doesn’t seem to apply to Syria, Yemen or Bahrain, cases that Secretary of State Clinton has described as policing actions rather than the deliberate waging of war against a population. But selectivity makes R2P look more like a norm of convenience than a genuine doctrine of international responsibility. At the moment, it is hard to tell whether R2P will emerge from Libya with more or fewer credentials than when the international community intervened.”

Selectivity is my problem.

Why not Ivory Coast?

Why not the Democratic Republic of the Congo?

Why not Yemen or Bahrain?

Why not any and all of the other countries dealing with monstrous atrocities? 

Practical and political reasons, I know, but I’ve had a number of interesting email conversations about this issue and what I always come back to is that while I don’t have “the” answer, I don’t even have “an” answer, I will always decide to err on the side of protecting people.  This is a quote by Argentinean playwright Griselda Gambaro that has stuck with me since I was in college. She said, in response to the wheat surpluses in the late 1980s and early 90s,

“Yes, but in a sense art has nothing to do with politics, it occupies a different space, answers to different laws. I don’t have to—in fact I must not—think like a politician or an economist. The responsibility of the artist or intellectual is to refuse to enter into that perverse system of thought in which people become abstractions. My solution to the wheat surplus? Give it all to the hungry. Any other solution is hypocritical and immoral. Let it wreak havoc in the world market, so what. Art’s connection to politics lies in its negation of the coarse and brutal pragmatism that is imposed as “reality.”

Someone must always call for intervention, and why not the artists?