tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/impunity-7157/articlesimpunity – The Conversation2023-10-08T08:12:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2151812023-10-08T08:12:37Z2023-10-08T08:12:37ZLiberia elections 2023: three things the next president must do<p>Liberia, Africa’s oldest republic, is <a href="https://www.ndi.org/2023-liberia-presidential-election">about to choose</a> its next president. </p>
<p>On 10 October, <a href="https://necliberia.org/ecal_info.php?&92fe2e1cedf0fff268b812622bbd952ff930c1b2=MjA3">46 political parties</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-06/liberia-s-weah-to-face-19-rivals-in-october-vote-amid-public-ire">20 presidential candidates</a> will compete for two million registered votes at 5,000 polling stations in 15 counties. </p>
<p>But whoever wins will confront a polarised Liberia. </p>
<p>Liberia is more divided than it has been since the end of its <a href="https://cja.org/where-we-work/liberia/">14-year civil war</a> in 2003. The war ended with the signing of a <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/LR_030818_Peace%20Agreement%20btwn%20GovLiberia%2CLURD%2CMODEL%20and%20the%20Political%20Parties.pdf">peace agreement</a>, but its <a href="https://www.huckmag.com/article/photos-capturing-the-invisible-scars-of-liberias-civil-war">scars</a> are still visible across the country. </p>
<p>Frustration around the soaring cost of living, cronyism, patronage, nepotism, and the culture of impunity which triggered the war is once again tearing the country of <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/liberia-population/">5.4 million</a> people apart. </p>
<p>There are also external factors that could undermine Liberia’s recent <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/09/27/liberia-economic-update-prospects-for-inclusive-and-sustainable-growth">progress</a>. For example, the <a href="https://ecfr.eu/special/african-cooperation/mano-river-union/">Mano River Union</a>, a sub-regional body of which Liberia is a founding member, remains volatile. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/11/uncertainty-in-guinea-after-military-coup-topples-alpha-conde">recent military coup</a> in Guinea, the <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/10/deadly-anti-government-protests-erupt-in-sierra-leone">anti-government protest</a> in Sierra Leone and <a href="https://monitor.civicus.org/explore/several-killed-protest-violence-president-ouattara-announces-third-term-bid/">the violence</a> around <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alassane-Ouattara">Alassane Ouattara</a>’s third-term re-election “victory” in Côte d’Ivoire are signals of vulnerability within the Mano River Union.</p>
<p>The next president will have to address three priorities to restore hope and confidence in Liberia’s recovery:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>national cohesion</p></li>
<li><p>corruption</p></li>
<li><p>stronger state institutions. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>My previous <a href="http://cscubb.ro/cop/ro/misiunea-ecomog-reevaluata/">analysis</a> of Liberia revealed the country’s inability to manage its internal conflicts. It also showed how Liberia’s reliance on regional powers like the <a href="https://ecowas.int/">Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas)</a> escalated and prolonged disputes. The next president must recognise these realities and address the three priority areas. </p>
<h2>Falling living standards</h2>
<p>There are growing concerns in Liberia that the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Weah">George Weah-led</a> administration is not doing enough to improve living standards. </p>
<p>There were high expectations of change when the president took office in 2018. Many expected him to lift them from poverty. They saw a real chance for a better future. Today, however, a good number of Liberians feel he has lost his connection with poverty and with the people who elected him into office. </p>
<p>Over <a href="https://databankfiles.worldbank.org/public/ddpext_download/poverty/987B9C90-CB9F-4D93-AE8C-750588BF00QA/AM2020/Global_POVEQ_LBR.pdf">50%</a> of Liberians live below the poverty line. The rising cost of basic commodities prevents families from meeting their food needs. </p>
<p>Weah alone is not responsible for all of Liberia’s problems. His administration inherited irregularities that plagued previous <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/opinion/liberia-george-weah-inauguration.html">governments</a>. </p>
<h2>Endemic corruption</h2>
<p>Corruption shows up in many forms and at all levels in Liberia. It disrupts democratic decision-making processes, weakens public trust in government and undermines the rule of law. </p>
<p>The nation’s integrity institutions lack independence. They include the <a href="https://www.iaaca.net/node/294">Liberian Anti-Corruption Commission</a>, the <a href="https://gac.gov.lr/">General Audit Commission</a> and the <a href="https://www.leiti.org.lr/">Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative</a>. </p>
<p>These agencies were created to curb corrupt practices. But they lack political independence, capacity and resources. </p>
<p>They are further weakened by a <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/316010/in-liberia-corruption-sanctions-are-not-a-deterrent-for-candidates/">culture of impunity</a>. And managerial appointments are often made on the basis of cronyism (jobs for friends and colleagues) and patronage (using state power to reward selected voters for electoral support). </p>
<p>Corruption is prevalent in the judiciary too. Judges solicit bribes in exchange for <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0921">decisions</a> that favour offenders. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-liberia-politics-idUSKBN1FB24B">President George Weah</a> and his <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-19876111">predecessor</a>, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, ran on the promise of fighting corruption. Both failed to live up to their commitment.</p>
<p>In 2017, after her terms as head of state, Sirleaf <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/liberia-leader-acknowledges-failure-anti-corruption-fight/3690703.html">admitted</a> that her government had not done enough to fight corruption. </p>
<p>In 2022 Weah had to suspend three of his top officials after the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/8/15/us-sanctions-3-senior-liberian-government-officials">US imposed sanctions</a> on <a href="https://www.state.gov/imposing-sanctions-on-senior-liberian-government-officials/">them</a> for corruption and abuse of state functions. No investigation has been launched and none has been prosecuted. </p>
<p>Weah himself has faced serious criticism for his refusal to declare his <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2023/10/03/liberias-president-weah-must-be-removed-from-power-democratically/">assets</a> upon taking office and for <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/global-witness-condemns-illegal-interference-liberian-transparency-and-anti-corruption-agency/">violating</a> Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative’s standard procedures. </p>
<p>The country <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/liberia/corruption-rank">ranks 142nd</a> out of 180 countries in the corruption perception index. It could slide back into chaos unless the next leader takes serious actions.</p>
<p>Like Sirleaf, Weah pledged to build an equal, fair and just Liberia. But his lack of action in the fight against corruption sends the wrong message to development partners. And it undermines voters’ confidence in the electoral system. </p>
<p>Voters’ confidence in the upcoming poll is already low. A study by the <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/organisation/center-democratic-governance/">Center for Democratic Governance</a> in Liberia shows only <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/News-release-Trust-in-elections-commission-weak-as-Liberians-approach-elections-Afrobarometer-3april23.pdf">34%</a> of Liberians believe in the ability of the <a href="https://www.necliberia.org/">National Elections Commission</a> to hold a free and fair elections. </p>
<p>The lack of trust in the electoral system is reinforced by the commission’s <a href="https://www.liberianobserver.com/liberia-necs-failure-publish-final-vr-raises-concerns">failure </a> to release the final voter roll 16 days before the elections. This has cast further doubt on the commission’s credibility and neutrality. </p>
<h2>Impunity</h2>
<p>There is also anger over the government’s failure to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/05/briefing-note-call-war-crimes-court-liberia">establish tribunals</a> to try individuals accused of war crimes, as recommended by Liberia’s <a href="https://hmcwordpress.humanities.mcmaster.ca/Truthcommissions/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Liberia.TRC_.Report-FULL.pdf">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a>. </p>
<p>Victims of the war want to see warlords <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67017365">punished</a> for their crimes. But the call for justice is ignored as Weah and politician Joseph Boakai (Sirleaf’s vice-president from 2006 to 2018) forge stronger <a href="https://www.liberianobserver.com/betrayal-trust-weahs-and-boakais-pact-warlords-amidst-liberias-cry-justice">alliances</a> with perpetrators and war profiteers. </p>
<p>Weah’s 2017 election victory was largely attributed to the support he received from warlord <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-liberia-election-idUKKBN1CV2IL">Prince Johnson</a>. Weah was also supported by Jewel Howard Taylor, his vice-president and ex-wife of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2012/4/27/charles-taylor-trial-highlights-icc-concerns">Charles Taylor</a>, Liberia’s 22nd president, convicted for <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2013/11/crc-welcomes-charles-taylor-conviction-deterrent-use-children-armed-conflict">atrocities</a> committed in Sierra Leone. </p>
<p>Weah and Johnson have long parted ways. Johnson has given his <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/10/02/2023/liberia-election-boakai-weah">support</a> for the 2023 general elections to 78-year-old Boakai. </p>
<p>However, Weah is not isolated. He still enjoys popular support from his status as a football star, his coalition with Taylor, and his new alliance with <a href="https://frontpageafricaonline.com/politics/liberia-former-rebel-commander-roland-duo-campaigns-on-war-kills-says-he-fought-more-than-prince-johnson-so-he-deserves-a-senatorial-seat-for-nimba-county/">Roland Duo</a>, a former rebel commander who boasts of his crimes. </p>
<p>Former warlords control large voting blocs, sought after by presidential candidates. Establishing a war crime court would amount to political suicide. </p>
<p>But the new president must introduce genuine reforms and promote good governance if he is to sustain peace or govern a region filled with political backstabbing, resource competition and the struggle for new global alliances. </p>
<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>The next head of state must act decisively on deep-rooted and unresolved grievances. </p>
<p>He or she must address public sector corruption, grant full independence to the nation’s transparency institutions and provide adequate resources for the Liberian Anti-Corruption Commission and the General Audit Commission to hold offenders accountable. </p>
<p>Liberia’s next president must ensure that the recommendations of the General Audit Commission are followed through and empower the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate and indict those suspected of bribery, embezzlement and illicit enrichment. </p>
<p>Low-level corruption should not go unpunished. That includes things like patients paying bribes for medical treatment, and teachers demanding special favours from students to pass an exam.</p>
<p>Liberians hope for a better future as 10 October approaches.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215181/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Wratto does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Liberia’s next president must restore national cohesion, tackle corruption, and strengthen state institutions.Charles Wratto, Associate Professor of Peace, Politics, and Conflict Studies, Babes Bolyai University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2103182023-07-27T16:34:35Z2023-07-27T16:34:35ZIndian women’s struggle against sexual violence has had little support from the men in power<p>Two recent instances of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/india-further-reports-of-sexual-violence-emerge-in-manipur/a-66320674">vicious sexual violence</a> against ethnic minority women in the Indian state of Manipur involving gang rape and murder have highlighted the problems of impunity and weak laws dealing with violence against women in India.</p>
<p>Video footage emerged on July 20 depicting <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/20/asia/india-manipur-sexual-violence-video-intl/index.html">an incident on May 4</a> where two Kuki women were stripped naked and forced to parade in front of a group of men from the dominant Meitei tribe. The footage went viral on social media prompting a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/20/modi-speaks-out-after-video-of-sexual-assault-on-women-in-manipur-emerges">strong response from the prime minister, Narendra Modi</a>. </p>
<p>Referring to the women as the “daughters of Manipur”, Modi said that what happened can “never be forgiven”. He added that the incident had “shamed India” – and that the guilty would be punished. Manipur’s chief minister, N. Biren Singh, echoing this focus on punishment, said strict action would be taken against the perpetrators including the possibility of capital punishment.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, reports of <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/in-manipur-another-fir-on-rape-murder-of-2-young-women-family-in-dark-about-probe-8853540/">another complaint</a> lodged with state police concern the alleged abduction, rape and murder of two Kuki-Zomi women. The complaint says that the women were taken from the car wash where they worked and “brutally murdered” in their rented accommodation on May 5 “after being raped and gruesome(ly) tortured by some unknown persons”, believed to be “about 100-200” in number.</p>
<p>The incidents were part of long-running communal tensions in India’s northeastern state of Manipur over land ownership between the mostly Hindu Meitei majority ethnic group and the mainly Christian Kuki hill tribes. There has been escalating violence in recent months between as the state government has forced the eviction of Kuki villagers from their homes. Kuki villages have been burned down and churches have been <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/294a12ac-26df-11ee-9959-3da1f328ac3c?shareToken=ebb68e4ba724935239e902a1b9258c8e">demolished</a>.</p>
<p>When members of the Kuki and Naga tribes (the two largest minority peoples) <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/india/why-is-indias-manipur-state-grip-ethnic-violence-2023-07-21/">protested against their treatment on May 3</a>, it sparked an orgy of violence, since which more than 140 people have died. More than 60,000 people have lost their homes in the conflict and are living in relief camps. </p>
<p>Local state machinery seems incapable of ensuring the maintenance of law and order. For two months, opposition parties in parliament <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/India-opposition-presses-Modi-on-persistent-Manipur-violence">have been calling</a> for the central government to intervene, but it wasn’t until reports of the video footage of the sexual violence emerged that there has been any significant government reaction.</p>
<h2>Identity-based sexual violence</h2>
<p>Within India, rape as a weapon to inflict harm upon minority communities has a tragically long history – often with distinct caste, ethnic, or religious motivations. During the partition of India in the late 1940s, 75,000 women <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/29/the-great-divide-books-dalrymple">were raped</a> and many were also mutilated in the accompanying sectarian violence.</p>
<p>During Bangladesh’s war of independence in the 1970s, Pakistan’s army raped a reported <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/lets-pay-homage-to-3-million-killed-200000-women-raped-by-pak-army-in-1971-tirumurti/article33287520.ece">200,000 women</a>, often with the deliberate intention of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/apr/03/52-years-bangladesh-birangona-women-mass-rape-surviviors">impregnating Bangladeshi women</a> with Pakistani blood. Meanwhile, riots in the state of Gujarat, along India’s west coast, in the early 2000s were also marked by <a href="https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/rape-2002-gujarat-bilkis-bano">mass rapes</a>, murders, and the extreme mutilation of women’s bodies. </p>
<p>With women being too afraid to speak out, or being too afraid to approach state agencies such as the police – who often comprise officers recruited from the same community as alleged perpetrators – much of this sexual violence was never adequately investigated. Since the 1990s, with a greater awareness that sexual violence was being perpetrated, and conscious efforts to distance victims from culturally constructed notions of “honour”, efforts have been made to support women through a judicial process. </p>
<p>But these efforts have met with <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-66254008">limited success</a>, and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/18/indias-modi-government-approved-release-of-bilkis-banos-rapists">impunity</a> for sexual violence in conflicts continues to be all-too common. </p>
<p>Shame and stigma continues to discourage women from talking openly about sexual violence while intimidation and the barriers to access the justice system remain a disincentive for complainants. Only where there’s a clear political motive for politicians to get involved, have there been moments of success in recognising and responding to sexual violence against women. </p>
<h2>Efforts to overcome impunity</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, women’s organisations united in their demands for better <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/news-archive/web/sexual-harassment-at-workplace/">safety for women</a>. This followed the caste-motivated rape of Bhanwari Devi. Devi was a social worker who prevented a child marriage but was allegedly gang raped by men from the upper-caste community who had arranged the wedding – apparently to both punish her and deter other social workers from interfering in what they saw as their cultural rights. The public response was significant and successfully pressured the then government to introduce guidelines surrounding <a href="https://scroll.in/article/899044/dalit-womans-rape-in-92-led-to-indias-first-sexual-harassment-law-but-justice-still-eludes-her">sexual harassment at work</a>. </p>
<p>But nobody <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bhanwari-devi-justice-eluded-her-but-she-stands-resolute-for-others-101631811309362.html">was convicted of the rape</a>. The court’s reasons for not finding the accused guilty included the idea that higher-caste men cannot rape lower-caste women – and neither could men in positions of power or elderly men.</p>
<p>In 2002, during the Gujarat riots 20,000 homes were destroyed, and around 150,000 people were displaced, with the majority being <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2022/04/they-burnt-my-parents-alive-gujarat-riots-still-haunt-victims/">local Muslims</a>. Between 800 and 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, were <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/india/India0402.htm">killed</a> and there was <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/asa200022005en.pdf">widespread sexual violence</a> and the mutilation of women’s bodies, again with people’s identity, in this case their religion, as the motive. Only one woman withstood social pressure and testified against her attackers. The accused were convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison but served less than ten after the state government <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/18/indias-modi-government-approved-release-of-bilkis-banos-rapists">enabled their early release</a>.</p>
<p>In 2019, in another caste-motivated attack, a lower-caste Dalit woman was gang-raped, assaulted and paraded naked in <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/national/west/four-accused-in-2019-alwar-gang-rape-case-imprisoned-for-life-898148.html">Rajasthan’s Alwar district</a>. The complainant and her husband were verbally assaulted by the police when trying to report the case. But once the news broke, politicians lined up to show sympathy with the survivor – presumably to secure lower-caste votes in the state. </p>
<p>The accused were tried in a fast-track court, found guilty the following year, and <a href="https://theprint.in/ground-reports/manipur-video-sets-alwar-gang-rape-victim-back-by-4-years-she-wants-right-to-be-forgotten/1684131/">sentenced to life in prison</a> – where they remain. It shows that fast and effective state responses can be achieved, particularly when there is political pressure. </p>
<p>But sexual violence against women has been minimised for too long – and responses all-too-often remain inadequate. Governments must make more effort to guarantee justice and eradicate victim-blaming within the judicial system in rape cases. Prosecutions in the two most recent cases in Manipur would be a start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210318/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Severyna Magill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two recent incidents involving gang rape and murder have highlighted the problems of sexual violence against women in India.Severyna Magill, Senior Lecturer in Law and Human Rights, Sheffield Hallam UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2029792023-04-03T13:57:28Z2023-04-03T13:57:28ZMass protests in Kenya have a long and rich history – but have been hijacked by the elites<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518491/original/file-20230330-20-zjju3k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters face off with an anti-riot police officer in Nairobi, Kenya, in March 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga and his coalition party, Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya, recently called for <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/292123/kenya-raila-announces-anti-ruto-protests-with-major-demo-in-nairobi/">mass protests across the country</a>. Odinga and his team have questioned the legitimacy of President William Ruto’s win in the country’s August 2022 election, and taken issue with the rising cost of living. The Conversation Africa’s Kagure Gacheche spoke with Westen K Shilaho, a senior researcher on African politics, who explores the evolution of political protests in Kenya.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>What does the law say about political protest?</h2>
<p>The right to protest is enshrined in the <a href="https://www.klrc.go.ke/index.php/constitution-of-kenya/112-chapter-four-the-bill-of-rights/part-2-rights-and-fundamental-freedoms/203-37-assembly-demonstration-picketing-and-petition#:%7E:text=Assembly%2C%20demonstration%2C%20picketing%20and%20petition,-Chapter%20Four%20%2D%20The&text=Every%20person%20has%20the%20right,present%20petitions%20to%20public%20authorities.">constitution of Kenya under Article 37</a>. It states that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Every person has the right, peaceably and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket, and to present petitions to public authorities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The right to protest is also affirmed by international instruments to which Kenya is a signatory. These include the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/36390-treaty-0011_-_african_charter_on_human_and_peoples_rights_e.pdf">African Charter on Human and People’s Rights</a> and the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a>. </p>
<p>However, successive Kenyan governments have repeatedly criminalised the right to protest. As a result, the police consistently react with <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/au-calls-for-calm-restraint-in-kenya-4175774">brute force against protesters</a>. </p>
<h2>What led to the latest wave of protests in Kenya?</h2>
<p>Kenya held general elections on 9 August 2022, and <a href="https://www.iebc.or.ke/uploads/resources/nJbSsSKxMj.pdf">William Ruto was declared president</a>. The opposition contested the election results and <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/raila-contests-presidential-election-results-supreme-court-3922660">filed a petition</a> before the supreme court, which <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/kenyan-court-to-rule-on-disputed-presidential-election-/6731434.html">unanimously dismissed the petition</a> for lack of evidence. </p>
<p>Raila Odinga, the losing presidential contestant, rejected this ruling and has refused to recognise Ruto’s win. He has taken the dispute to the court of public opinion – the streets. He has made three main demands: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>that the electoral agency’s servers be opened to prove that he won the 2022 election</p></li>
<li><p>that Ruto halts <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/25-kenyans-seek-to-replace-chebukati-as-iebc-chair-895-eye-commissioner-jobs-4177314">reconstitution of Kenya’s electoral body</a> </p></li>
<li><p>that the government lowers the cost of living.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Protests began on 15 August 2022 when the presidential election results were declared. <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/entertainment/national/article/2001453334/bitter-end-chebukati-attacked-as-chaos-mar-bomas-briefing">Hoodlums assaulted</a> the electoral agency’s chairperson and other officials. They are yet to be held to account for these attacks.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-body-choosing-kenyas-election-commission-is-being-overhauled-how-this-could-strengthen-democracy-198798">The body choosing Kenya's election commission is being overhauled – how this could strengthen democracy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>After a six-month lull, these protests recently spilled over onto the streets. The opposition called for demonstrations <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/raila-odinga-calls-for-boycott-of-safaricom-kcb-4167328">twice a week</a> from 20 March until the government accedes to its demands. </p>
<p>Ruto and his supporters <a href="https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2023/03/president-ruto-dismisses-raila-call-for-resignation-halt-of-iebc-recruitment/">have been scornful</a> of the opposition’s demands, saying they have no basis in <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/president-ruto-dismisses-raila-s-azimio-protests-as-sabotage--4103666">law, morality or logic</a>. Ruto dismissed the protests as <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/realtime/2023-03-19-i-will-not-allow-you-to-terrorise-kenyans-ruto-tells-raila/">acts of economic terrorism</a>. </p>
<p>After two weeks of <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2023/03/30/violent-clashes-as-kenya-opposition-stages-third-day-of-protests/">violence</a> – where at least three people died, several others injured and property vandalised – Ruto extended an olive branch to the opposition and asked them to <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/eyes-on-raila-as-ruto-asks-opposition-to-call-off-protests-4182346">call off the protests</a>. He suggested that the issue of the reconstitution of the electoral body could be revisited. </p>
<p>In response, <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2023-04-02-my-door-is-open-for-talks-call-off-protests-ruto-tells-raila/">the opposition suspended the protests</a>. </p>
<p>Ruto has previously said he would not be <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/anxiety-as-ruto-raila-harden-stance-over-protests-4172706">blackmailed into a power-sharing arrangement</a> with the opposition. If not checked, power-sharing arrangements – or “<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyatta-raila-pact-will-only-herald-real-change-if-promises-are-followed-by-action-96148">handshake</a>” in Kenya’s political parlance – could become the country’s default arrangement after elections. This would be to the detriment of democratic tenets. </p>
<h2>What is the history of political protests in Kenya?</h2>
<p>Kenya’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-kenyas-constitutional-duels-are-all-about-power-struggles-among-the-elite-147471">political history</a> is marked by mass protests that date back to the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/180739">colonial period</a> and continued into independence. </p>
<p>Amid police crackdowns, Kenyans protested against <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000096439/witness-recalls-the-1969-kisumu-massacre-that-marked-jomo-kenyatta-s-visit">political assassinations</a> and autocracy during the tenures of the country’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, and his successor, Daniel Moi. </p>
<p>Through a <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Constitution/HistoryoftheConstitutionofKenya/Acts/1982/ActNo.7of1982.pdf">constitutional amendment</a>, Moi turned Kenya into a one-party state in 1982, which heightened political tensions. Later that year, Kenyans protested in Nairobi in support of an <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/kenya/article/2001380803/inside-secret-coup-attempt-that-killed-240-in-city-crossfire">attempted coup against Moi</a> as opposition politicians and civil society sought a return to political pluralism. </p>
<p>Countrywide protests were held in <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/features/2020/07/07/saba-saba-and-the-evolution-of-citizen-power">1990</a>. This agitation, coupled with pressure from civil society, religious groups and western donors, forced Moi to accede to <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1991/1204/04041.html">multiparty politics in 1991</a>. </p>
<p>In 1992, <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/entertainment/news/article/2001261426/bare-breasted-crusade-when-mothers-of-political-prisoners-stripped-at-uhuru-park">mothers of political prisoners</a> held an 11-month hunger strike in Nairobi to demand the release of their sons. </p>
<p>Protests against presidential results in 2007 led to a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2013/3/3/kenya-what-went-wrong-in-2007">horrific crackdown</a>. More than 1,100 people were killed, <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=tjrc-gov">several of them extrajudicially</a> by the police. Odinga had disputed Mwai Kibaki’s win. Protests and summary executions also followed the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/17/kenya-riot-police-election-protest">2013</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-history-of-political-violence-colonialism-vigilantes-and-militias-83888">2017</a> announcements of presidential election results.</p>
<p>Protests are important. They can influence a government or a body of authority to respond to popular interests and injustice. Through protests, a government can be forced to address service delivery concerns, corruption, labour disputes, extrajudicial and summary executions and education matters, and to abandon dictatorial tendencies. In some countries, such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Arab-Spring">Tunisia, Egypt and Libya</a>, protests collapsed regimes. </p>
<p>As I discuss in my book, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322174201_Political_Power_and_Tribalism_in_Kenya">Political Power and Tribalism in Kenya</a>, political protests in the country have become insular, sectarian, tribal, unashamedly personality driven and elitist. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-history-of-political-violence-colonialism-vigilantes-and-militias-83888">Kenya’s history of political violence: colonialism, vigilantes and militias</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>My research found that the political elite have used protests for self-preservation and to pursue their interests. Protests have become about getting opposing political personalities to come to an agreement so that election losers don’t lose all the benefits of being in power – but such agreements stifle healthy debate.</p>
<p>Elections must produce winners and losers among the contestants. The citizenry should be the only constant winners. Their concerns must be met regardless of who ascends to power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Westen K Shilaho does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Political protests in Kenya have become insular, sectarian, tribal and unashamedly personality driven.Westen K Shilaho, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for PanAfrican Thought and Conversation (IPATC), University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1992192023-02-08T11:00:18Z2023-02-08T11:00:18ZState capture in South Africa: time to think differently about redress and recovering the stolen loot<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508584/original/file-20230207-13-4il90j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Matshela Koko, former acting group CEO of Eskom, testifies at the state capture commission in 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Luba Lesolle/ Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africans are plunged into darkness daily by <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-12-12-dark-dumb-and-dangerous-inside-south-africas-perfect-electrical-storm/">rolling power cuts</a>. These are a stark reminder of the destruction that years of state capture wreaked on Eskom, the state-owned <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/judicial-commission-inquiry-state-capture-report-part-4-volume-4-29-apr-2022-0000">power utility</a>. </p>
<p>Eskom’s inability to meet the energy needs of citizens and the economy is now the undeniable example of how state capture made parastatals and other state institutions ineffective. The country urgently needs action to recover the stolen funds and fix the economy. </p>
<p>So far, President Cyril Ramaphosa has offered only a few general targets, and outcomes have been dissatisfying. For example, the “<a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/address-president-cyril-ramaphosa-response-state-capture-commission-report%2C-union-buildings%2C-tshwane">total of R2.9 billion</a>” that he said law enforcement agencies have recovered is only a small fraction of the estimated <a href="https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/state-capture-scorecard-r500bn-looted-zero-assets-recovered/">R500 billion</a> stolen through state capture. Impunity lies at the root of this mess.</p>
<p>The culture of impunity has lingered since the presidency of <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">Jacob Zuma</a>. If it is to be replaced with a new era of integrity and accountability, a lot more needs to be done. But what, and how exactly?</p>
<p>In my <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.2989/CCR.2022.0001">paper</a> I answer this question by proposing a workable, constitutionally congruent plan. I lay the foundations for a new anti-corruption redress system which would help government to recover the money and restore dignity to the people of South Africa.</p>
<p>The starting point in my argument is that the constitutional <a href="https://civicsacademy.co.za/what-is-the-separation-of-powers/">separation of powers</a> – the division of state authority and core functions – includes a fourth branch of state. It’s best described as the “integrity and accountability branch” and it should include the <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.2989/CCR.2022.0001">prosecuting authority</a>. </p>
<p>When the special role of the prosecuting authority is thus understood, prosecutorial policy can be harnessed to begin recovering the illegal profits of state capture. This should start urgently – pending the necessary legislative intervention – with the use of the internationally recognised redress tool, the non-trial resolution. This tool can be adjusted to fit the South African constitutional context.</p>
<h2>Non-trial resolutions reimagined</h2>
<p>Non-trial resolutions are mechanisms to resolve corruption cases without the need for a full criminal trial. Criminal trials entail an onerous burden of proof, “beyond reasonable doubt”. They also tend to be protracted and costly to run. Economic corruption cases are especially difficult to prosecute, given the complex nature of the fraud, which tends to cross international borders. </p>
<p>Non-trial resolutions take various forms and are used <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/treaties/UNCAC/WorkingGroups/workinggroup2/2021-September-6-10/CAC-COSP-WG.2-2021-CRP.1.pdf">extensively internationally</a>. They include a plea bargain, a deferred prosecution agreement, a non-prosecution agreement and a more <a href="https://assets-global.website-files.com/5e0bd9edab846816e263d633/5f15e0a4a35dd9b7abd817b1_FACTI%20BP6%20Foreign%20bribery.pdf">informal declination to prosecute</a> (for example, by way of letter).</p>
<p>To ensure localised fit and legitimacy, these instruments should collectively be termed “anti-corruption redress” mechanisms. In my <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.2989/CCR.2022.0001">article</a>, I explain how and why it would be constitutional to start concluding such non-trial resolutions with state capture offenders pending the legislative introduction of the anti-corruption redress system I propose. </p>
<p>For now, prosecutorial policy (for example, by way of directives) could be issued to make use of a potentially valuable section of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/1998-032.pdf">National Prosecuting Authority Act, 1998</a>: section 38. It allows the prosecuting authority to use specialists (such as forensic and legal experts) in “specific cases”. </p>
<p>State capture is surely a “specific case” deserving special attention. Section 38 could thus be used to conclude deferred prosecution agreements, or other types of anti-corruption redress agreements. These would be concluded with people or entities who report their illegal profits themselves, or who are identified by whistle-blowers. This way, money can start flowing back into the public purse sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>These agreements would set out the redress deliverables (such as paying back the money back by a certain date and rehabilitating the pillaged entity) and other rights and obligations of the parties. At this stage, no penalties for wrongdoing should be imposed – that needs legislative backing because the law presumes innocence.</p>
<p>But, to reiterate, recouping the ill-gotten profits of state capture can start (via prosecutorial policy). This component of my proposal is inspired by former Constitutional Court judge Johan Froneman’s formulation of the “no profit, no loss principle” in the <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2015/7hoa.pdf">2014 case of All Pay 2</a>. </p>
<p>The nub of this principle is that although penalties cannot be imposed without the proper application of the law, public accountability means that there is no right to profits unlawfully gained. The Zondo Commission <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/information/reports">reports</a> provide details of who gained illegally.</p>
<h2>Legislative reform</h2>
<p>While the disgorgement (surrender) of the illegal profits gets underway as described above, the foundations can be laid for more comprehensive legislative reform. This is the third component of my proposal. I suggest that the country doesn’t need entirely new legislation on non-trial resolutions as suggested in the <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/files/announcements/673/OCR_version_-_State_Capture_Commission_Report_Part_1_Vol_I.pdf">Zondo reports</a>. </p>
<p>Rather, it should simply amend section 38 of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-prosecuting-authority-act#:%7E:text=The%20National%20Prosecuting%20Authority%20Act,provide%20for%20matters%20connected%20therewith">National Prosecuting Authority Act, 1998</a> to introduce the fully fledged anti-corruption redress system. As part of this system, there would be an anti-corruption redress body – perhaps a commission as a subset of the prosecuting authority’s existing <a href="https://www.npa.gov.za/specialised-commercial-crime-unit">Specialised Commercial Crimes Unit</a>. It would need to be staffed with the right mix of experts. Cases would be determined on the lower civil standard of proof: “a balance of probabilities”. </p>
<p>The legislative intervention should provide for administrative fines (basically civil monetary penalties). These should be a percentage of the unlawful benefit the party gained from the corrupt deal. Administrative fines are already used in the country’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/competition-act-guidelines-determination-administrative-penalties-prohibited-practices-17">competition</a> and <a href="https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Fourie-M-SAJELP-Paper-June-2009-Final.pdf">environmental</a> law regimes. They can improve deterrence and enhance redress. </p>
<p>The proposed commission would determine the appropriate redress measures in a given case. It would weigh factors in the “redress balance” such as the extent of the harm, repeat offending, willingness to make reparations and good faith. So, for example, there might be an agreement to defer (delay) criminal prosecution if the offender displays good faith, cooperates and meets all repayment (and other reparation) obligations. The findings of the commission would be <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.2989/CCR.2022.0001">open to review by a tribunal of record</a> – much like the competition tribunal.</p>
<p>In conclusion, the proposed anti-corruption redress system is fundamentally about the right mix of retributive and restorative justice to restore the dignity of the people of South Africa. It would help rebuild public trust in government, reduce impunity and usher in an era of enhanced integrity and accountability. Now is the time to make this happen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren Kohn received funding from the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust for her Doctoral Project. </span></em></p>The culture of impunity that has lingered since the presidency of Jacob Zuma has to give way to a new era of integrity and accountability.Lauren Kohn, Scholar & Legal Expert: Administrative & Constitutional Law, Department of Public Law (UCT); Attorney of the High Court of SA; Young Research Fellow (UCT); Founder: www.SALegalAdvice.co.za, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1948262022-12-02T13:03:04Z2022-12-02T13:03:04ZCorruption in South Africa: new book lifts the lid on who profits - and their corporate enablers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496463/original/file-20221121-26-3p10v6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The new <a href="https://jacana.co.za/product/the-unaccountables/">book</a> The Unaccountables: The Powerful Politicians and Corporations who Profit from Impunity is welcome for the way it contextualises corruption. It shows how politicians and bureaucrats could not implement corruption without their corporate and professional enablers – the accountants, auditors and advocates who make it all possible.</p>
<p>The book is the result of a decade of research by <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org.za/">Open Secrets</a> and other NGOs. It is edited by Michael Marchant, Mamello Mosiana, Ra’eesa Pather and Hennie van Vuuren (a blend of investigative journalists and activists) and has 11 named contributors. Analytically, it covers four overlapping issues:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>crimes such as stealing public funds and evading tax </p></li>
<li><p>culpable negligence by professionals such as auditors </p></li>
<li><p>serial failure by regulatory authorities </p></li>
<li><p>moral and political issues such as inequality and corporate tax avoidance.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Corporate corruption</h2>
<p>Readers who are diligent in taking in the daily media will remember most of the high profile cases summarised in this book. But not all. It reveals that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-deaths-of-144-mentally-ill-patients-and-south-africas-constitutional-democracy-91433">Life Esidemeni tragedy</a>, in which 144 patients died after being placed in inadequate facilities run by NGOs in 2015, had one apartheid precedent. During the 1960s the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Party-political-party-South-Africa">National Party</a> regime outsourced the psychiatric care of 11,000 patients (9,000 of them black) to the British company Intrinsic Investments: 207 died (p.50). </p>
<p>The book fills some gaps in media reports. These tend to focus on those who are despised by the plutocratic, wealthy establishment – the ruling African National Congress politicians and their cronies. The media are comparatively reluctant to cover crimes committed by fellow denizens of their plutocratic stratosphere, such as auditors, accountants and advocates. For example, global media coverage of Hong Kong focuses on Chinese repression of freedom of expression – but overlooks its role as a tax shelter and corporate secrecy hideout for front companies and money laundering:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a long-running failure to hold the powerful and wealthy to account for the crimes that they profit from. Economic crimes and corruption are committed by a small band of the powerful, but they pose fundamental threats to democracy and social justice. They result in the looting of public funds, the destruction of democratic institutions, and ultimately … the human rights of millions of people. (p.12)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fear of those with money to bring defamation litigation, or who decide on corporate advertising spending in the media, aggravates this situation.</p>
<p>This book is structured around apartheid profiteers, war profiteers, state capture profiteers, welfare profiteers, failing auditors, conspiring consultants, and bad lawyers.</p>
<p>The authors note how over 500 global corporations negotiated, thanks to their tax accountants, with Luxembourg, a tax haven, paying only 1% tax on their profits (p.254). They seem to have missed the case of Ireland, where such tax is one thousandth of 1% on profits. Such tax shelters pervade the west, especially <a href="https://thecommonwealth.org/our-member-countries">Commonwealth countries</a>.</p>
<p>The book calls for action to end such tax avoidance. But it does not spell out what it would entail. It would require the South African government to negotiate an international coalition to campaign through the United Nations, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the African Union, to find enough allies to mitigate such a global power structure – class power in its purest form.</p>
<p>US president Joe Biden’s proposal that globally, corporate tax should have <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/biden-offers-drop-corporate-tax-hike-proposal-source-2021-06-03/">a floor of 15%</a> provides a good start for such campaigns.</p>
<h2>Regulation failure</h2>
<p>This book gives welcome attention to a long-neglected problem in South Africa. That is the serial failure of regulatory authorities to hold companies or professionals to account. One instance too recent for this book to cover is that the minerals and energy minister, Gwede Mantashe, has fired from the National Nuclear Regulator a civil society representative, on the grounds that he is <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/economy/eskom/mantashe-fires-anti-nuclear-activist-from-regulatory-board-20220225">anti-nuclear</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Book cover with the words 'The Unaccountable' over images of several punidentifiable men walking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496457/original/file-20221121-19-rl2eao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496457/original/file-20221121-19-rl2eao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496457/original/file-20221121-19-rl2eao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496457/original/file-20221121-19-rl2eao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496457/original/file-20221121-19-rl2eao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496457/original/file-20221121-19-rl2eao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496457/original/file-20221121-19-rl2eao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p>Since the minister’s portfolio and performance contract require him to promote nuclear power, it is a conflict of interests for him to interfere in the regulator of nuclear safety. The regulator should fall under the environmental affairs department, as in other countries. This is a topical example of the abuse of power, and defanging a regulatory authority.</p>
<p>The book underscores that the Independent Regulatory Board of Auditors (IRBA) refuses to name and shame. It abuses secrecy to protect the names and reputations of auditors guilty of conspiring with their corporate clients to conceal the truth (p.272):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the IRBA’s desire to protect its members overshadows its responsibility. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since at least the first world war, pacifists have denounced the military-industrial complex as the merchants of death. The <a href="https://www.gov.za/national-conventional-arms-control-committee-ncacc-statement-south-african-arms-sales-regulation">National Conventional Arms Control Committee</a> is supposed to oversee South African exports of armaments and munitions. This is to ensure the country does not violate international treaties. It is not known to have refused any permits to export armaments to countries at war, even when they indiscriminately bomb civilians, as in Yemen.</p>
<p>The authors call for its statutory framework to be drastically toughened up.</p>
<h2>Apartheid profiteers</h2>
<p>The historical chapter of the book, on apartheid profiteers, holds no surprises. Of course, <a href="https://www.sanlam.co.za/Pages/default.aspx?gclid=Cj0KCQiA4OybBhCzARIsAIcfn9m5OBZxhgPlZPIjzU68Z0C7CSAqA8Eqkui60NBY7q8qkcX4Hw3vu_UaAlITEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds">Sanlam</a>, the insurance giant, and <a href="https://www.naspers.com/">Naspers</a>, the media behemoth, were always part of the Afrikaner nationalist movement, led by the secretive <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Afrikaner-Broederbond">Broederbond</a>. Of course, individual Afrikaner businessmen donated to the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/national-party-np">Nasionale Party</a>, which formalised apartheid in 1948, as did the military-industrial complex. All those companies manufacturing armaments had only one monopoly buyer – the South African Defence Force:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a significant portion of the business elite kept the taps open to the party at the height of domestic repression and foreign wars (p.25). </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The authors do a thorough job of exposing all the Swiss, Belgian and Luxembourg bankers who comprised the sanction-busting front companies. It exposes the late <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mobutu-Sese-Seko">Mobutu Sese Seko</a> of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) for providing false end user certificates to enable <a href="https://www.armscor.co.za/">Armscor</a>, the apartheid-era state arms procurement company, to smuggle in weaponry (p.42).</p>
<p>The book revisits the controversial <a href="https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/the-arms-deal-what-you-need-to-know-2/">1999 arms deal</a>. It explains how bribes were described in corporate paperwork as consultancy fees. The arms deal was the first opportunity of the post-apartheid military to buy big-ticket weapons after a quarter-century of arms sanctions, which the post-apartheid military lacked the budget to maintain in service. </p>
<p>Since then, the amount wasted in the arms deal has been dwarfed by the billions spent by <a href="https://www.transnet.net/Pages/Home.aspx">Transnet</a>, the rail, ports and pipelines parastatal, on corrupt locomotive contracts. The same for <a href="https://www.prasa.com/">Prasa</a>, the passenger rail parastatal, and <a href="https://www.eskom.co.za/">Eskom</a>, the power utility, contracts.</p>
<p>Overall, it is a book that should be on the bookshelf of every thinking South African.</p>
<p><em>Updated to clear confusion created by the absence of an index in the advance proof sent to the author.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194826/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is an ANC member, but writes this review in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>The new book is structured around apartheid profiteers, war profiteers, state capture profiteers, welfare profiteers, failing auditors, conspiring consultants and bad lawyers.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1692812021-11-04T19:31:16Z2021-11-04T19:31:16ZWhy the Taliban must be held accountable for past atrocities<p>In August, after Taliban rapidly swept to power in Afghanistan, its fighters executed 13 people from the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58807734">Hazara minority</a> in Daikundi province, where I was born. Amnesty International has said these extrajudicial killings <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/10/afghanistan-13-hazara-killed-by-taliban-fighters-in-daykundi-province-new-investigation/">“appear to be war crimes”</a>.</p>
<p>This is just one example of the Taliban’s cruelty. In recent months, a further 20 civilians are thought to have been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58545892">massacred in the Panjshir valley</a> and Hazara farmers have been <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2021-10-05/why-don-t-you-have-mercy-afghanistan-s-hazara-people-increasingly-face-eviction">forced off their lands</a>, all while journalists are arrested and persecuted around the country.</p>
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À lire aussi :
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-jihadism-could-thrive-under-the-taliban-in-afghanistan-169288">How jihadism could thrive under the Taliban in Afghanistan</a>
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<p>Since they first came to power in 1996, the Taliban have enjoyed near total impunity for such crimes. This past impunity has allowed them to continue to commit atrocities without fear of prosecution, punishment or any other form of accountability.</p>
<p>This has serious consequences for the future of Afghanistan.</p>
<h2>Crimes of the Taliban</h2>
<p>The Taliban are well known for <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2005/07/06/blood-stained-hands/past-atrocities-kabul-and-afghanistans-legacy-impunity">grave breaches of human rights</a> committed between 1996 and 2001. These included mass killings of civilians, <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6350172">burning villages and orchards</a>, torturing detainees and displacing civilians by force.</p>
<p>In 1998, one of the worst atrocities took place in the city of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports98/afghan/Afrepor0.htm">Mazar i-Sharif</a> in northern Afghanistan. At least 2,000 civilians were killed when Taliban militia captured the city, with the Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek ethnic minorities particularly targeted.</p>
<p>From January to November 2001, the Taliban carried out several massacres in the province of Bamyan. In one incident, <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/uploads/291156cd-c8e3-4620-a5e1-d3117ed7fb93/ajpreport_20050718.pdf">178 civilians</a> were killed in the city of Yakawlang in a single day.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425721/original/file-20211011-19-16x1aot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Members of Taliban stand in front of the site where the Shahmama Buddha statue once stood before it was destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425721/original/file-20211011-19-16x1aot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425721/original/file-20211011-19-16x1aot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425721/original/file-20211011-19-16x1aot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425721/original/file-20211011-19-16x1aot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425721/original/file-20211011-19-16x1aot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425721/original/file-20211011-19-16x1aot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425721/original/file-20211011-19-16x1aot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of Taliban stand in front of the site where the Shahmama Buddha statue once stood before it was destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bulent Kilic/AFP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>After US invaded Afghanistan in November 2001 and overthrew the Taliban, the group continued to commit crimes during the armed conflict that broke out between the newly established US-backed government forces and its international allies and anti-government armed groups.</p>
<p>During this period, the Taliban <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/otp/161114-otp-rep-pe_eng.pdf">continued to oversee</a> the killing of civilians as well as abductions, imprisonment and attacks against humanitarian personnel and the destruction of protected sites such as mosques, place of worship, hospitals. They also <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/record.aspx?docNo=ICC-02/17-7-Red">conscripted and enlisted children</a> under the age of 15, forcing them to participate in the fighting.</p>
<h2>A collapsed justice system</h2>
<p>Despite the <a href="https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/47fdfad50.pdf">strong desire</a> for justice expressed by victims of Taliban crimes, no accountability mechanism has been adopted either within Afghanistan or internationally to address theses atrocities.</p>
<p>Since 2001, the Afghan judicial system has generally been considered a <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/asa110072007en.pdf">collapsed institution</a>, defined by a lack of resources, the nonexistence of adequate legal provisions and widespread corruption. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2010/03/10/afghanistan-repeal-amnesty-law">Amnesty laws</a> have protected the perpetrators of war crimes, while a lack of impartiality has dogged the criminal proceedings that do take place. At the same time, <a href="https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/PW84-Informal%20Justice%20and%20the%20International%20Community%20in%20Afghanistan.pdf">informal justice systems</a> proliferated throughout the country.</p>
<p>There was very little political will within the government to prosecute the Taliban when they were not in power, with peace and security justifications used to avoid prosecution.</p>
<p>Then, under the <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf">deal</a> struck between the Trump administration and the Taliban in February 2020, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-prisoners-peace-talks.html">5,000 Taliban members were released</a>, among them 400 members linked to major crimes.</p>
<h2>The role of the ICC</h2>
<p>With little hope of justice being served under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, it falls to the international community to provide accountability.</p>
<p>The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/afghanistan">examining the situation</a> in Afghanistan since 2007, and the court’s prosecutor sought permission in 2017 to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/20/afghanistan-and-international-criminal-court">investigate crimes</a> committed since 2003 by the Taliban, Afghan government forces and foreign forces.</p>
<p>Yet, it is unrealistic to expect that the ICC – which is heavily dependent on the member states’ cooperation in issuing arrest warrants, collecting evidence and information and enforcement of judgements – to achieve justice for Taliban on its own. It’s worth remembering that the US, the most important player in Afghanistan this century, is not a member of the ICC.</p>
<p>The case of Sudan demonstrates how difficult seeking justice through the ICC can be. Despite issuing <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashir">two arrest warrants</a> for former president Omar Al-Bashir on allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, the ICC has not yet been able to prosecute him because of years of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trials-war-crimes-middle-east-africa-khartoum-c6698024bdd7f1cade89b9b4101d25c1">non-cooperation of the states</a> to arrest him. It was only in 2020, Sudan’s transition government <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54548629.amp">agreed to cooperate</a> with ICC.</p>
<h2>Alternative justice</h2>
<p>Outside the international courts, members of the international community including national governments, NGOs, researchers and human rights activists can work together to seek accountability for the Taliban’s crimes. This could include measures such as establishing a truth and reconciliation commission, or using customary procedures to raise the voice of victims about past crimes.</p>
<p>In pursuing such an approach, it is important to consider the experiences of countries like South Africa, Uganda, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste in seeking alternative justice solutions. At the same time, the complexity of the political, social and cultural context of Afghanistan should not be ignored.</p>
<p>Accountability for past injustices is vital to prevent future atrocities. Providing ongoing immunity to the Taliban so far sends the message that, in their newly empowered form, they can continue committing the most appalling crimes without fear of prosecution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169281/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Je travaille pour la CPI en tant que stagiaire pour une période de six mois, d'octobre 2015 à avril 2016.</span></em></p>The Taliban is responsible for atrocities dating back to the 1990s, but has never been held responsible. The international community can play a role in ending the impunity.Latifa Jafari Alavi, PHD in international law, Université de StrasbourgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1677242021-09-15T09:07:47Z2021-09-15T09:07:47ZShadow states are the biggest threat to democracy in Africa: fresh reports detail how<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420728/original/file-20210913-16-1legi69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The militarisation of the Zimbabwean government raises serious questions about who really wields political power - President Emmerson Mnangagwa or army leaders.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mujahid Safodien/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The capture of democratic political systems by private power networks is arguably the greatest threat to civil liberties and inclusive development in Africa. That’s the conclusion of two new reports that address the issue of threats to democracy on the continent.</p>
<p>The first <a href="https://www.democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa">report</a> is published by Ghana’s <a href="https://afrobarometer.org/our-network/core-partners/ghana-center-democratic-development-cdd-ghana">Centre for Democratic Development</a>. It focuses on the capture and subversion of democratic institutions in Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique and Nigeria. </p>
<p>These case studies reveal that even in more democratic states such as Benin and Ghana, ruling parties can “hijack” democracy and appropriate its benefits. They do this by capturing the institutions of democracy itself. This includes electoral commissions, judiciaries, legislatures and even the media and civil society. </p>
<p>The net effect is to undermine transparency and accountability. This in turn facilitates the abuse of power, especially in more authoritarian contexts.</p>
<p>The second <a href="https://www.democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa">report</a> was curated by <a href="https://democracyinafrica.org/">Democracy in Africa</a> and takes a slightly different approach. It looks at how unelected networks can infiltrate and subvert state structures. </p>
<p>In particular, it maps the emergence of shadow states in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. These case studies show that networks of unelected businessmen, civil servants, political fixers and members of the presidents’ families wield more power than legislators.</p>
<p>By mapping how these networks are organised across different groups and countries, the report reveals how influential and resilient certain groups have become. It also shows how many shadow states have been integrated into transnational financial and – in some cases – criminal networks.</p>
<p>This is not an “African” issue. Similar processes have been identified in a number of different countries and regions. These include <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00856401.2012.702723">Bangladesh</a>, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3490dbb8-4050-11e7-9d56-25f963e998b2">Brazil</a> and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/5/13/21219164/trump-deep-state-fbi-cia-david-rohde">US</a>. But this does not mean that the need to recognise and confront these issues is any less pressing. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chieftaincy-conflicts-in-ghana-are-mixed-up-with-politics-whats-at-risk-166602">Chieftaincy conflicts in Ghana are mixed up with politics: what's at risk</a>
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<p>States with higher levels of democracy capture are prone to becoming more authoritarian, corrupt and abusive.</p>
<h2>Democracy capture and the shadow state</h2>
<p>According to politics professor <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/emmanuel-gyimah-boadi-178880">Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi</a>, democracy capture <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">occurs when</a></p>
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<p>a few individuals or sections of a supposedly democratic polity are able to systematically appropriate to themselves the institutions and processes as well as dividends of democratic governance. </p>
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<p>In other words, democracy capture expands the idea of “<a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">state capture</a>” to include all political institutions and democratic activities including civil society and the media. </p>
<p>The term is widely used in South Africa to refer to the undue influence of special interest groups <a href="https://www.sastatecapture.org.za/">over state institutions</a>.</p>
<p>Indeed what is striking about this process is the well-structured networks that encompass a broad range of individuals from government to the security forces, traditional leaders, private businesses, state-owned enterprises, and their family members. According to a <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/ivor-chipkin-shadow-state/svsw-5528-g590">separate study</a> by South African academics <a href="http://www.gapp-tt.org/personnel/ivor-chipkin/">Ivor Chipkin</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mark-swilling-213526">Mark Swilling</a>,
what distinguishes these actors is their privileged “access to the inner sanctum of power in order to make decisions”.</p>
<p>One helpful way of conceptualising these networks is the idea of <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191828836.001.0001/acref-9780191828836-e-302">shadow states</a> developed by the influential
political scientist <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429047268-8/business-conflict-shadow-state-case-west-africa-william-reno">William Reno</a>.</p>
<p>For Reno, a shadow state is effectively a system of governance in which a form of parallel government is established by a coalition of the president, militias, security agencies, local intermediaries and foreign companies. In extreme versions such as <a href="https://www.scholars.northwestern.edu/en/publications/corruption-and-state-politics-in-sierra-leone-2">Sierra Leone</a> real power no longer lies in official institutions of government such as the legislature.</p>
<p>This kind of shadow state is characterised by the existence of private armies and a severely limited, almost imaginary, formal state. </p>
<p>More recently, researchers have identified manifestations of the shadow state in <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hussein-Solomon/publication/252882619_The_Shadow_State_in_Africa_A_Discussion/links/5759308008ae9a9c954af80f/The-Shadow-State-in-Africa-A-Discussion.pdf">countries</a> that are not in the middle of civil war and have stronger formal political systems. Good examples include <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">Kenya</a> and <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">Zambia</a>. </p>
<p>In these cases, the shadow state is more oriented towards hampering the activities of opposition parties and ensuring impunity for its members.</p>
<h2>Africa is not a country</h2>
<p>The nine case studies featured in the two reports show that the extent of democracy capture varies significantly. It is lower in states like Ghana, where robust electoral contestation among rival parties has seen multiple transfers of power. It’s much higher in states such as Zimbabwe, where the government has never changed hands.</p>
<p>The shape and resilience of unelected power networks also varies in important ways. In Uganda, the shadow state is run by an axis of President Yoweri Museveni’s family, a “military aristocracy” and interlocutors in the business community. </p>
<p>In Benin, President Patrice Talon has exploited the weakness of the legal system, the judiciary and the legislature to expand his power. Through this process he has turned one of the continent’s most vibrant democracies into a near political monopoly.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guinea-has-a-long-history-of-coups-here-are-5-things-to-know-about-the-country-167618">Guinea has a long history of coups: here are 5 things to know about the country</a>
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<p>The picture is different again in the DRC. International military alliances were critical to the way that former presidents <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/laurent-kabila">Laurent Kabila</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2011/11/22/profile-joseph-kabila-2">Joseph Kabila</a> took and held power. This led to a shadow state that has been more profoundly shaped by transnational smuggling networks and <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">the activities of the security forces</a>.</p>
<p>The situation in Zambia is also distinctive. Under former president Edgar Lungu, the security forces were less relevant than the nexus between politicians, government officials and businessmen. This led to rampant corruption and mismanagement. But it did not prevent a transfer of power <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-edgar-lungu-and-his-party-lost-zambias-2021-elections-166513">in 2021</a>.</p>
<p>In contrast, in Zimbabwe the government has been progressively <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">militarised</a>, penetrating further areas of the state and the economy. This raises serious questions about whether President Emmerson Mnangagwa – or army leaders – holds real power.</p>
<p>It is, therefore, important to map the shadow state on a case-by-case basis because no two networks are the same. The differences between them reveals who really holds power.</p>
<h2>The consequences</h2>
<p>Shadow states have a negative impact on democracy and accountability. But the damage they do goes well beyond this. It undermines inclusive development through three related processes:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>creating a culture of impunity, which facilitates corruption and diverts resources from productive investments </p></li>
<li><p>manipulating government expenditure and other public resources and opportunities to sustain the patronage networks and ensure the shadow state’s political survival </p></li>
<li><p>creating monopolistic or oligopolistic conditions that increase prices and enable companies with links to the shadow state to make excessive profits.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The result is that resources and investment are systematically diverted into private hands. </p>
<p>In Uganda, Museveni issues <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">tax waivers</a> to business allies in return for election support. This denies the treasury hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. </p>
<p>In Zimbabwe, <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/democracy-capture-and-the-shadow-state-in-africa/">companies in league with the ruling party</a> and the military have used these connections to establish near monopolies in key sectors of the economy that exploit the public. In one case, this led to <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/africa/2018-12-13-the-politics-of-petrol-in-zimbabwe/">severe fuel shortages</a> that artificially inflated prices.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-hold-contradictory-views-about-their-democracy-159647">South Africans hold contradictory views about their democracy</a>
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<p>When added to the billions of dollars lost through straightforward corruption, theft and fraud, it is clear that these processes represent one of the most significant barriers to inclusive development in Africa. Unless these networks are challenged, they will continue to keep citizens in poverty while enriching those connected to the shadow state.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://afrobarometer.org/our-network/leadership/henry-kwasi-prempeh">Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh</a>, executive director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, co-authored this article</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167724/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nic Cheeseman has received funding from CDD-Ghana and the Rift Valley Institute.</span></em></p>The extent of democracy capture varies markedly between countries. It’s much higher in states such as Zimbabwe, where the government has never changed hands.Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1580082021-05-27T12:06:56Z2021-05-27T12:06:56ZColombian city beset by crime declares ‘Black Lives Matter’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402694/original/file-20210525-19-16h5jn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5568%2C3700&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A demonstration for peace in Buenaventura, Colombia, where a cartel turf war has left at least 30 people dead since the beginning of this year.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/people-demonstrate-against-armed-groups-that-have-left-this-year-31-picture-id1230988457?k=6&m=1230988457&s=612x612&w=0&h=T125h4MNCaPx0YOo2PwqwzHb8EE6xXU-RpaVFdEuNOg=">Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/urgente-grave-situacion-en-buenaventura-reportan-saqueos-en-el-area-del-puerto/202130/">Chaotic and deadly protests</a> have for weeks rocked the Colombian port city of Buenaventura. <a href="https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/autoridades-investigan-tres-muertes-en-protestas-de-este-miercoles-en-buenaventura/202126/">In mid-May</a> some demonstrators stormed the airport, and riot police responded with force, killing three.</p>
<p>Buenaventura’s demonstrations are a part of the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/11/cali-emerges-as-epicentre-of-colombias-ongoing-unrest">massive, violent national wave of protests</a> over increasing poverty and incessant violence in Colombia. But they actually began well before Colombia’s broader upheaval. </p>
<p>Since early 2021, people in this <a href="https://geoportal.dane.gov.co/geovisores/territorio/servicios-web-geograficos/?cod=049">majority-Black coastal city</a> have been rising up peacefully but insistently against rampant drug trafficking, political violence and cartel infiltration. </p>
<p>Organized crime and illicit economies are both national problems in Colombia. But in Buenaventura, a history of state neglect has allowed both to flourish unchecked, according to <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WvO0RgIAAAAJ&hl=en&authuser=1&gmla=AJsN-F6H25YEpEpLDoeSyz3HJMMO7N6Ww_gzpTquP-RTH1MG-525I5paRUsnNF5eC7lcqiIImFrojBmRGOOv6Bc6BzJ_S7aTgc-cDe3wVElDu-J_rfOwrqk&sciund=5776971038694750573">my academic research in the city</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://pares.com.co/2020/06/03/racismo-y-covid-19-en-colombia-las-vidas-negras-importan/">For many Colombian</a> and <a href="https://www.wola.org/2021/02/colombian-government-us-policymakers-must-protect-black-lives-buenaventura/">international observers</a>, the government’s apparent lack of interest in saving Buenaventura has a clear source: structural racism resulting from <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2021/03/11/afro-colombians-buenaventura-ports-violence">state policies that have long marginalized Black Colombians</a>. </p>
<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=476&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fsoydebuenaventura%2Fvideos%2F2683404115319100%2F&show_text=false&width=476" width="100%" height="476" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share"></iframe>
<figure><figcaption><span class="caption">After a young Black man named Anderson Arboleda was beaten to death by Colombian police in May 2020, a Buenaventura digital news site posted this explainer on racism in Colombia.</span></figcaption></figure>
<h2>Abandoned city</h2>
<p>Black people, or Afro-Colombians, make up approximately 10% of Colombia’s 50 million people and 85% of Buenaventura’s population. </p>
<p>Many residents originally came to Buenaventura – located approximately 300 miles from Colombia’s Andean capital, Bogota – as war refugees from different parts of Colombia’s Pacific region to escape armed conflict. </p>
<p>Colombia is home to a <a href="https://theconversation.com/violence-and-killings-havent-stopped-in-colombia-despite-landmark-peace-deal-111232">half-century long battle among guerrillas, the government and paramilitary groups</a>. The war technically ended with a 2016 peace accord, but Colombia’s ever-changing and complex armed conflict continues to kill and displace scores each year. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/colombia/gener1.htm">Most violent crimes in the country go unsolved</a>.</p>
<p>Activists and <a href="https://www.wola.org/2021/02/colombian-government-us-policymakers-must-protect-black-lives-buenaventura/">human rights groups say Buenaventura’s dismal and dangerous living conditions</a> reflect long-standing disparities between Black and white Colombians. For example, approximately <a href="https://www.justice.gov/eoir/page/file/1277501/download">41% of Afro-Colombians live in poverty, compared with 27% of white Colombians</a>.</p>
<p>All Buenaventura is in desperate need of investment to upgrade its dilapidated or nonexistent infrastructure. Many neighborhoods <a href="https://www.abcolombia.org.uk/emblematic-case-buenaventura/">lack drinkable water, trash pickup and functioning sewers</a>. Sewage runs underneath houses near the port and <a href="https://www.coha.org/colombias-next-pertinent-deal-buenaventura/#_edn10">flows untreated into the Pacific Ocean</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402692/original/file-20210525-13-w1kf1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Soldier in fatigue holds a weapon while a young girl covers her head" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402692/original/file-20210525-13-w1kf1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402692/original/file-20210525-13-w1kf1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402692/original/file-20210525-13-w1kf1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402692/original/file-20210525-13-w1kf1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402692/original/file-20210525-13-w1kf1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402692/original/file-20210525-13-w1kf1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402692/original/file-20210525-13-w1kf1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Colombian marine on patrol in Buenaventura on Feb. 10, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/colombian-marine-infantry-soldiers-patrol-the-streets-of-buenaventura-picture-id1231092379?k=6&m=1231092379&s=612x612&w=0&h=l4ZKcDEHFoZ3PX3VNbiOU_qGlM864yn0IbgDHGQwSFE=">Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Medical care is also poor in Buenaventura. Local clinics often do not have the supplies or capacity to treat many patients, so sick Buenaventura residents are referred to hospitals in Cali, three hours away. Last June, Buenaventura had <a href="https://colombiacheck.com/chequeos/si-buenaventura-tiene-la-tasa-de-letalidad-mas-alta-del-pais-por-covid-19">Colombia’s highest COVID-19 mortality rate</a>.</p>
<p>A chronic <a href="https://colombiareports.com/colombias-failing-state-part-2-who-is-the-boss-in-buenaventura/">75% unemployment rate</a> and <a href="https://www.dane.gov.co/files/investigaciones/planes-desarrollo-territorial/100320-Info-Alcaldia-Buenaventura.pdf">64% poverty rate</a> – twice the national average – make local youth easy recruits for armed groups. The lack of state presence also allows these groups to <a href="https://www.dane.gov.co/files/investigaciones/planes-desarrollo-territorial/100320-Info-Alcaldia-Buenaventura.pdf">threaten and attack locals</a> without accountability. Many residents <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/violence-buenaventura-local-rift/">do not even report such incidents</a> to police for fear of retaliation. </p>
<p>Although the Colombian national government normally has little presence in Buenaventura, it flexed its muscle when protests broke out. In February, amid the outburst of cartel violence, marines were sent to patrol city streets. And in May, when some protests turned to riots, security forces quelled the uprising with deadly violence.</p>
<p>Cries of “Black Lives Matter” – or “las vidas negras importan” – became a <a href="https://www.huckmag.com/perspectives/activism-2/colombia-black-lives-matter-trend-racism/">theme in the city’s protests</a>, as residents in this oppressed city connect their struggles with those of Black people in the U.S. and worldwide.</p>
<h2>Cartel violence</h2>
<p>Despite these troubles, Buenaventura is home to Colombia’s most vital port. Over 50% of all Colombian <a href="https://www.ccbun.org/articulos/ventajas-competitivas">imports and exports move through the city</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402900/original/file-20210526-17-1aog9od.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Large ships with stacked containers lined up in the water" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402900/original/file-20210526-17-1aog9od.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402900/original/file-20210526-17-1aog9od.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402900/original/file-20210526-17-1aog9od.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402900/original/file-20210526-17-1aog9od.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402900/original/file-20210526-17-1aog9od.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402900/original/file-20210526-17-1aog9od.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402900/original/file-20210526-17-1aog9od.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Container ships at the port of Buenaventura, Colombia’s most important port.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Puerto_de_buenaventura.jpg">Jimysantandef via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That includes legal goods such as coffee and mined minerals as well as illegal products such as marijuana and <a href="https://wtop.com/world/2020/03/us-report-colombia-coca-production-still-at-record-high/">cocaine</a>, which is processed in <a href="http://thecitypaperbogota.com/news/colombian-cocaine-exports-increased-during-pandemic-claims-dea/26915">hidden laboratories throughout the country</a>. Cocaine is shipped from Buenaventura to partner cartels in Central America and on to the U.S. or directly to Europe – the world’s biggest cocaine markets. </p>
<p>Each kilo of cocaine that makes it to Europe earns <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/buenaventura-cocaine-path-least-resistance/">approximately US$30,000</a>. Controlling Buenaventura and connecting waterways is a profitable enterprise for Colombia’s many <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/andes/colombia/076-calming-restless-pacific-violence-and-crime-colombias-coast">criminal operations</a>. </p>
<p>For years, a local narco-trafficking group called La Local held a comfortable monopoly on illegal imports and exports, allowing for relative peace. But in late 2020, the group split into factions. </p>
<p>The resulting turf war <a href="https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/la-increible-guerra-urbana-que-tiene-a-buenaventura-sumida-en-zozobra-y-dolor/202154/">led to at least 30 murders and 40 disappearances</a> by February 2021. Another 6,000 people in Buenaventura were forced to flee their homes to escape crossfire. Some fled <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2021/03/11/afro-colombians-buenaventura-ports-violence">besieged portside neighborhoods after death threats</a>. </p>
<p>“There’s collective panic, a generalized sense of insecurity where we can’t feel at ease even in our own neighborhoods or houses or in public spaces,” local activist Danelly Estupiñán told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/colombias-capital-of-horror-despairs-amid-renewed-gang-violence-buenaventura">The Guardian newspaper in February</a>. That newspaper has called Buenaventura “Colombia’s Capital of Horror.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402693/original/file-20210525-19-10gtsr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Warehouse with rows of plastic packages lined up and a caution tape running across foreground" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402693/original/file-20210525-19-10gtsr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402693/original/file-20210525-19-10gtsr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402693/original/file-20210525-19-10gtsr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402693/original/file-20210525-19-10gtsr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402693/original/file-20210525-19-10gtsr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402693/original/file-20210525-19-10gtsr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402693/original/file-20210525-19-10gtsr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Packages of marijuana seized near Buenaventura on March 27, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/colombian-soldiers-organize-seized-marijuana-packages-in-buenaventura-picture-id1231972895?k=6&m=1231972895&s=612x612&w=0&h=P3NKwuJAolJYQ1q9LxPFPKKBMbUtCKlZ89ya_ts9Vq8=">Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Desperate to <a href="https://www.wola.org/2021/02/colombia-begins-2021-alarming-records-violence-urgent-action/">stop spiking violence</a>, which Estupiñán called a “humanitarian crisis,” residents in this city of 450,000 staged large-scale protests early this year. </p>
<p>At one point in February, they formed a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/colombias-capital-of-horror-despairs-amid-renewed-gang-violence-buenaventura">13-mile human “chain for peace.”</a></p>
<p>Buenaventura’s fight for government investment, inclusion in national policymaking and better social welfare programs has had limited success so far. </p>
<p>But locals say something has to change – and they won’t stop marching until it does. </p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158008/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shauna N Gillooly receives funding from the Fulbright Commission.</span></em></p>A lethal turf war between drug traffickers has terrorized Buenaventura, Colombia for months. Now protesters are demanding the government’s help to protect people in this mostly Black city.Shauna N Gillooly, PhD Candidate, Political Science, University of California, IrvineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1482792020-10-18T08:59:10Z2020-10-18T08:59:10ZWhy an amnesty for grand corruption in South Africa is a bad idea<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363935/original/file-20201016-23-au6zjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thuli Madonsela, professor of law and former Public Protector of South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s former Public Protector, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africas-public-protector-has-set-a-high-bar-for-her-successor-63891">Thuli Madonsela</a>, provoked a political storm recently when she suggested that public servants implicated in grand corruption should be given the chance to apply for <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-10-13-a-chance-to-start-with-a-clean-slate-thuli-madonsela-urges-sa-to-consider-amnesty-for-the-corrupt/">amnesty</a>.</p>
<p>Many South Africans, weary of rampant, unchecked and unaccountable corruption, could be forgiven for asking: what on earth was she thinking?</p>
<p>Madonsela won the admiration of many South Africans because of her steely resolve in the face of malfeasance and breaches of the rules of integrity in public office. Her proposal suggested she might be going soft on corruption.</p>
<p>To be effective as the Public Protector Madonsela required many attributes, as I set out in my 2013 book, <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/richard-calland-the-zuma-years/lwlk-1845-g5a0"><em>The Zuma Years</em></a>. These included independence of mind, a very thick skin and a certain contrarian eccentricity that rendered her far less susceptible to the numerous attempts to intimidate her as she took on then president Jacob Zuma and his state capture network.</p>
<p>Her amnesty idea displays all of these characteristics. </p>
<p>It should be taken seriously, if only to affirm the merit of a diametrically opposed position.</p>
<p>It’s an inherently bad idea.</p>
<h2>Bad timing</h2>
<p>Madonsela’s timing is especially unfortunate. It is only in very recent times that <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/dpci/index.php">the Hawks</a>, the priority crimes investigating police unit, and other agencies of the criminal justice system appear to have recovered the institutional capacity to begin prosecuting those responsible for the deep-lying state capture project.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/opposition-parties-welcome-arrests-of-alleged-masterminds-behind-free-state-asbestos-contract-20200930">Recent developments</a> have begun to suggest that the net is finally tightening around the bigger fish that are the true architects of systematic corruption in the country.</p>
<p>This has been widely <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/politics/arrest-of-corruption-suspects-welcomed--sacp">welcomed</a>. Accountability, at last.</p>
<p>Against the grain of this public view, Madonsela, <a href="https://blogs.sun.ac.za/inaugural-lectures/event/prof-thuli-madonsela/">a law professor</a>, entered the fray to suggest that instead of being tough on the perpetrators, an olive branch should be extended.</p>
<p>This is an example of the “independent-mindedness” for which Madonsela was <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africas-public-protector-has-set-a-high-bar-for-her-successor-63891">rightly acclaimed</a> during her seven-year term as Public Protector from 2009-2016.</p>
<p>It is also not only contrarian, but also eccentric in that it makes so little sense. </p>
<p>To be fair to her, she tried to clarify later that she did not mean amnesty for every perpetrator, and certainly not the big fish. Her idea is targeted at those whose “status”, <a href="https://www.702.co.za/podcasts/415/the-john-perlman-show/370859/former-public-protector-prof-thuli-madonsela-calls-for-a-corruption-amnesty-for-public-servants">she says</a>, “in the food chain is quite junior”.</p>
<p>But the first of a series of fatal flaws in her idea is about where to draw the line: on what basis should one distinguish the smaller from the bigger fish?</p>
<p>Those who had played a “minor but critical” role was how she framed her idea. There is already a problem here: is it possible for something to be both “critical” to a (criminal) enterprise and yet still “minor”? </p>
<p>I think not.</p>
<h2>Half-baked idea</h2>
<p>Madonsela confirmed that amnesty should be available on a legal rather than a moral basis. Yet, in a radio <a href="https://www.702.co.za/podcasts/415/the-john-perlman-show/370859/former-public-protector-prof-thuli-madonsela-calls-for-a-corruption-amnesty-for-public-servants">interview</a> after she’d floated the idea, and drawn a lot of flak, she added to the confusion.</p>
<p>At first Madonsela spoke of people who may have “bent the rules” unwittingly, in which case, they may well have a legal defence to criminal conduct. Later, she clarified that she intended to cover individuals with “agency”, even to the extent that their palms have been “greased with money” (which, she argued, they would have to pay back in return for amnesty).</p>
<p>If the right to amnesty was indeed to be a legal entitlement, then the terms on which entitlement to amnesty applies have to be very clearly and carefully drawn. This much has been revealed in Constitutional Court decisions concerning the legal rationality of presidential amnesties or pardons in the case of <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/1997/4.html">women convicts</a> and <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2010/4.html">perpetrators of apartheid era offences</a>.</p>
<p>Madonsela’s public policy rationale appears to be that without an inducement, the smaller cogs in the bigger wheels of state corruption may seek to hide and avoid prosecution when what is required is that they should come forward with information about the bigger fish.</p>
<p>Perhaps, then, an offer of amnesty – in effect, a legal right to indemnity from prosecution – deserves to be given serious consideration. This, especially if it is the case that the <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/66/national-prosecuting-authority-of-south-africa-npa">National Prosecuting Authority </a> is struggling to pull together the evidence to bring strong prosecutions against the most powerful perpetrators of state capture corruption.</p>
<p>But there is no evidence that this is the situation. And, moreover, there are major downsides to be weighed in the balance. </p>
<h2>The case against amnesty</h2>
<p>First of all: deterrence. </p>
<p>The fact that amnesty has been granted in the past may encourage future corrupt actors to take the risk. The corollary is that the successful prosecution of corrupt officials is likely to discourage repetition.</p>
<p>Secondly, the arguments put forward by Madonsela would, in my view, provide grounds for mitigation in sentencing – not for amnesty. One example would be “small fish” cooperating with the investigative authority and providing evidence about the bigger fish. Another example would be if someone could show that they were bullied into bending procurement rules by a superior and more powerful individual in the system.</p>
<p>Another possible avenue – common practice in criminal justice systems around the world – is the use of a “plea bargain”. Here an accused person trades information in return for facing a less serious charge.</p>
<p>Amnesty would, in effect, deprive them of this opportunity and could thereby undermine the integrity of the whole criminal justice system.</p>
<p>The other major consideration is perception – both in the eyes of key stakeholders, such as the investment community and, secondly, the general public.</p>
<p>Investors are especially eager to see if South Africa has the capacity to hold to account those who contaminated the democratic state and so undermined fair competition by enabling a rent-seekers’ paradise. It is about the strength of the rule of law. Investors want to feel confident that this is one destination where the rule of law holds and where, because of state capture prosecutions, there is less risk of a repeat.</p>
<p>And surely, above all else, the public will feel cheated if perpetrators of state capture corruption, however “minor”, get away scot-free. This, more than anything, would encourage a lawless society, steeped in a culture of impunity rather than accountability.</p>
<h2>A dangerous path to tread</h2>
<p>Attempts to trade amnesty for information about state corruption have caused conflict as well as controversy in other countries. One notable example was in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tunisia-politics-corruption-idUSKCN1BO218">Tunisia in 2017</a>. </p>
<p>But the biggest danger is that it simply sends the wrong message. This was aptly spelt out by esteemed South African artist William Kentridge reflecting on a previous attempt at taking the amnesty road in South Africa through the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> process. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A full confession can bring amnesty and immunity from prosecution or civil procedures for the crimes committed. Therein lies the central irony of the Commission. As people give more and more evidence of the things they have done they get closer and closer to amnesty and it gets more and more intolerable that these people should be <a href="https://www.academia.edu/907785/_Learning_From_the_Absurd_Violence_and_Comparative_History_in_William_Kentridge_s_Ubu_Tells_the_Truth_">given amnesty</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Admittedly, Madonsela has a different purpose in mind than the national reconciliation ambition of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process. But, no, Advocate Madonsela, a blanket amnesty would send the wrong message at the worst possible time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Calland is a member of the Advisory Council of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC) and a Partner in political economy consultancy, The Paternoster Group. </span></em></p>The first of a series of fatal flaws in the idea is about where to draw the line.Richard Calland, Associate Professor in Public Law, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1380852020-05-07T20:37:56Z2020-05-07T20:37:56ZThe killing of Ahmaud Arbery highlights the danger of jogging while Black<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333504/original/file-20200507-49542-9audry.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C6%2C1414%2C776&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Footage captured the last moments of Ahmaud Arbery's life.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIve50vSeLQ&bpctr=1588882465">Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Youtube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Unsteady cellphone footage follows a jogger – an apparently young, black man – as he approaches and attempts to run around a white pickup truck parked in the middle of a suburban road. Moments later he lies dead on the ground. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/06/ahmaud-arbery-shooting-georgia">killing of Ahmaud Arbery</a> took place on Feb. 23, after the 25-year-old was confronted by Gregory McMichael, a 64-year-old former police officer and investigator for the Brunswick, Georgia district attorney’s office, and his 34-year-old son, Travis. It took 10 weeks to gain widespread attention with the circulation of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIve50vSeLQ&bpctr=1588880417">video footage</a> on social media, prompting <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/07/ahmaud-arbery-video-shooting-sharing-viral">revulsion</a> and <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/496571-ocasio-cortez-calls-for-justice-in-shooting-death-of-ahmaud-arbery">calls for justice</a>. </p>
<p>Gregory and Travis McMichael were both taken into custody on May 7 on <a href="https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2020-05-06/ahmaud-arbery-death-investigation">charges of murder and aggravated assault</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fIve50vSeLQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Warning: This video includes graphic images.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Death in suburbia</h2>
<p>But the killing of Arbery by people with links to law enforcement raises important <a href="http://rashawnray.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Why-Police-Kill-Black-Males-with-Impunity_Gilbert-and-Ray.pdf">questions over why it took so long to make arrests in the case</a> and the so-called <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/learning/editorial-winner-breaking-the-blue-wall-of-silence-changing-the-social-narrative-about-policing-in-america.html">blue wall of silence</a> that extends from law enforcement agencies to prosecutor’s offices and courtrooms.</p>
<p>But there is a separate question that needs to be asked: Why do these incidents seem to occur in certain types of neighborhoods? <a href="https://www.zipdatamaps.com/31523">Satilla Shores</a>, where Arbery was killed by the McMichaels, is predominately white and suburban. It evokes memories of the killings of <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/what-happened-trayvon-martin-explained/">Trayvon Martin</a>, <a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article9165083.html">Jonathan Ferrell</a>, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-killing-of-renisha-mcbride">Renisha McBride</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/us/fatal-shooting-of-black-woman-outside-detroit-stirs-racial-tensions.html">Tamir Rice</a>.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/experts/rashawn-ray/">sociologist and public health scholar</a>, I have studied physical activity and how it varies by race and social class. I know that the exact behaviors that are encouraged to extend life for all are the exact ones that can end the life of men like Ahmaud – in short, jogging while black can be deadly. </p>
<p>In 2017, I published a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2017.03.008">study on physical activity</a> – focusing on where and how people exercise, and breaking this down by race and gender. I surveyed nearly 500 middle-class black and white professionals around the United States. The research also included in-depth interviews, focus groups and observations of public spaces in cities with varying racial and class compositions including Oakland and Rancho Cucamonga, California; Brentwood, Tennessee; Bowie, Maryland; and Forest Park, Ohio. </p>
<p>I found that race and place significantly inform where people engage in physical activity: White men, white women and black women living in predominately white areas were significantly more likely to engage in physical activity in their neighborhoods. Black men living in predominately white neighborhoods, however, were far less likely to engage in physical activity in the areas surrounding their own homes.</p>
<h2>Good neighbors?</h2>
<p>Black men I interviewed who had jogged in white neighborhoods where they lived reported incidents of the police being called on them, neighbors scurrying to the other side of the street as they approached, receiving disgruntled looks and seeing the shutting of screen doors as they passed. Similar experiences have been documented in public places <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/shopping-while-black-yes-bias-against-black-customers-is-real">like stores</a>, <a href="https://www.phillymag.com/foobooz/2018/06/30/black-dining-philadelphia/">restaurants</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/02/us/starbucks-arrest-agreements/index.html">coffee shops</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333484/original/file-20200507-49538-1i3zydh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333484/original/file-20200507-49538-1i3zydh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333484/original/file-20200507-49538-1i3zydh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333484/original/file-20200507-49538-1i3zydh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333484/original/file-20200507-49538-1i3zydh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333484/original/file-20200507-49538-1i3zydh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333484/original/file-20200507-49538-1i3zydh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A memorial left at the site where Ahmaud Arbery was shot dead on a quiet suburban road.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cross-with-flowers-and-a-letter-a-sits-at-the-entrance-to-news-photo/1212005350?adppopup=true">Sean Rayford/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Black men are often criminalized in public spaces – that means they are perceived as potential threats and predators. Consequently, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674238145">their blackness</a> is weaponized. Moreover, black men’s physical bodies are viewed as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2095676?seq=1">potential weapons that could invoke bodily harm</a>, even when they are not holding anything in their hands or attacking. In fact, black people are <a href="http://rashawnray.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Why-Police-Kill-Black-Males-with-Impunity_Gilbert-and-Ray.pdf">3.5 times more likely than white people</a> to be killed by police in situations where they are not attacking nor have a weapon.</p>
<p>My research highlights that the <a href="http://rashawnray.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/What-If-He-Didnt-Wear-the-Hoodie.pdf">social psychology of criminalization</a> – the inability to separate concepts of criminality from a person’s identity or role in society – is important here. Often, physical features such as skin tone are used to guide attitudes, emotions and behaviors that can <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2332649214561306">influence interactions between people of different races</a> and lead to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103108000401?via%3Dihub">oversimplified generalizations</a> about a person’s character. For black men, this means that negative perceptions about their propensity to commit crime, emotional stability, aggressiveness and strength can be used as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103105000351?via%3Dihub">justification for others to enact physical force</a> upon them.</p>
<h2>Signaling or survival?</h2>
<p>Some black men attempt to make themselves less threatening. When it comes to jogging in white neighborhoods, some of the black men I spoke to wore alumnus T-shirts, carried I.D., waved and smiled at neighbors, and ran in well-lit, populated areas. </p>
<p>This is hardly surprising. Black men do this at work by thinking consciously about their attire, tone and pitch of voice, and behavioral mannerisms. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, many black men are going to great lengths to reduce criminalization by staying in the house, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/editorial/opinion--this-is-why-some-black-men-fear-wearing-face-masks-during-a-pandemic/2020/04/08/5a897b6a-78bf-4836-94cd-c3446dc06196_video.html">wearing colorful masks</a> and even forgoing masks altogether.</p>
<p>Sociologists call it a signaling process. Black men call it survival.</p>
<p>An irony in the case of Ahmaud Arbery is that it has set in motion a campaign that could see more black men putting on their running shoes. The #<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/07/us/ahmaud-arbery-run-support-demonstration/index.html">IRunWithMaud social media campaign</a> is encouraging people to jog 2.23 miles – a reference to the date on which Arbery was killed.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story was updated on May 7 following the arrests of Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138085/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rashawn Ray has received funding from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Brookings Institution. </span></em></p>Research shows black men are less likely to exercise in white neighborhoods. Those who do jog report having police called and neighbors shun them.Rashawn Ray, Professor of Sociology, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1244752019-10-10T17:24:11Z2019-10-10T17:24:11ZUS will send migrants to El Salvador, a country that can’t protect its own people<p>The Trump administration is continuing its efforts to keep Central American asylum seekers away from the United States’ border. </p>
<p>On Sept. 20 the U.S. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/us/politics/us-asylum-el-salvador.html">signed an agreement</a> with El Salvador to accept asylum seekers sent out of the United States. U.S. officials have avoided specifics in discussing the deal and implied that only Salvadoran migrants would be sent to El Salvador. </p>
<p>The actual text of the agreement, however, is vague. It leaves open the possibility that asylum seekers who never set foot in El Salvador – for example, Guatemalan migrants who <a href="https://theconversation.com/dozens-of-migrants-disappear-in-mexico-as-central-american-caravan-pushes-northward-106287">reach the U.S. via Mexico</a> – could be <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/09/23/el-salvador-asylum-agreement/">sent there to wait</a> out their U.S. asylum process.</p>
<p>The deal comes soon after <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2019/08/12/guatemala-%E2%80%9Csafe-third-country%E2%80%9D-disposable-people">similar agreements</a> with Guatemala and <a href="https://www.wola.org/2019/09/honduras-asylum-deal-trump/">Honduras</a>. Those three Central American countries are the main sources of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-court-and-refugees-at-the-southern-border-5-questions-answered-123848">migration to the U.S.</a>. </p>
<p>None of these migration deals has yet gone into effect.</p>
<p>The suggestion that El Salvador can <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/59c4be077.pdf">protect asylum seekers</a> – people who say they were persecuted in their home countries for their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion – is misleading.</p>
<p>El Salvador may be relatively comfortable for wealthy Salvadorans, who frequently live in secured compounds, replete with razor wire fences and armed guards. But it is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-el-salvador-so-dangerous-4-essential-reads-89904">very dangerous country</a> for refugees of violence.</p>
<h2>Roots of impunity</h2>
<p>Roughly the size of New Jersey, El Salvador is densely populated and highly connected by cellphone service and social media. The vulnerable groups <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/glossary/refoulement/">protected under international asylum law</a> cannot easily go under the radar or relocate if targeted by gangs, corrupt police or domestic abusers.</p>
<p>Hundreds of Salvadorans are killed every month. In July, the country went a day without a murder, and it was <a href="https://www.infobae.com/america/america-latina/2019/08/02/el-salvador-tuvo-un-dia-sin-homicidios/">headline news</a>. Murders, disappearances and tortures almost always <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/25/latin-america-is-the-worlds-most-violent-region-a-new-report-investigates-why/">go unsolved</a> in El Salvador. Criminals, especially those with access to power, are <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/EL-SALVADOR-2018.pdf">rarely punished</a> for their wrongdoing.</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=R00JOgwAAAAJ&hl=en">documented this culture of impunity</a> across Central America and Mexico, focusing on the indigenous people, women and political dissidents who are so often victims of political violence. </p>
<p>This violence dates back centuries, to Spain’s bloody conquest of the Americas. As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/18/reader-center/1619-project-slavery-jamestown.html">in the U.S.</a>, colonial-era brutality has lasting impacts on the region’s race, class and gender divisions.</p>
<p>In 1932, the massacre of indigenous Salvadorans and leftists who rebelled against dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez <a href="https://unmpress.com/books/remembering-massacre-el-salvador/9780826336040">left between 10,000 and 30,000 dead</a>.</p>
<p>Communist Party member Farabundo Martí, who led Salvadoran peasant farmers in their revolt against <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17442222.2018.1457006">political corruption and unjust resource allocation</a>, was assassinated after the massacre. But the struggle continued.</p>
<p>By the 1970s, dissident factions had again organized against state oppression. United as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, these groups eventually waged war on the ruling ARENA party, which they blamed for oppressing the Salvadoran working class.</p>
<p>The subsequent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/27/world/massacre-of-hundreds-reported-in-salvador-village.html?pagewanted=all">Salvadoran civil war</a> killed 75,000 people. In 1992, with intensive <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/time-for-a-us-apology-to-el-salvador/">military support from the United States</a>, ARENA defeated the rebels. </p>
<p>The 1992 <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/elsalvador-chapultepec92">El Salvador peace accords</a>, overseen by the United Nations, were meant to bring national reconciliation. A truth commission documented widespread <a href="https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/file/ElSalvador-Report.pdf">human rights abuses committed by state and paramilitary forces</a> during the war. But days after the report was released, in 1993, El Salvador’s ARENA-controlled congress passed an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/21/world/rebuffing-the-un-el-salvador-grants-amnesty.html">amnesty law</a> that excused most government and military officials.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296313/original/file-20191009-3872-1wetz9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">El Salvador’s Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front transformed into a left-wing political party after the civil war.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-SLV-APHS460298-El-Salvador-Civil-Wa-/0db9d5d82047445ab961eeb97cc18d27/134/0">AP Photo/Luis Romero</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result, the root causes of El Salvador’s conflict – particularly, unequal access to insufficient resources – still plague society. So does the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-central-america-gangs-like-ms-13-are-bad-but-corrupt-politicians-may-be-worse-86113">very weak rule of law</a> that allowed civil war criminals to go unpunished.</p>
<p>Neither the rightist or leftist governments that have held power since have managed to change this.</p>
<p>El Salvador’s defense minister recently assessed that there are more <a href="https://www.laprensagrafica.com/elsalvador/Ministro-de-Defensa-dice-que-hay-mas-pandilleros-que-soldados-20151020-0027.html">gang members than soldiers in his country</a>. The resulting dangerous disarray sent <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/201909/el_salvador/23667/El-Salvador-Signs-Agreement-to-Accept-Asylum-Seekers-the-US-Won%E2%80%99t-Protect.htm">46,800 residents to seek asylum in the U.S. last year</a>. </p>
<p>Risking the unknown violence of migration rather than guaranteed violence at home is, for many Salvadorans, a logical decision.</p>
<h2>Human security</h2>
<p>President Nayib Bukele’s new centrist party, the Grand Alliance for National Unity, says combating crime and impunity is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/el-salvadors-new-president-must-tackle-crime-unemployment-and-migration-but-nation-is-hopeful-111499">priority for his administration</a>.</p>
<p>Since Bukele took office in June 2019, murders in El Salvador are down. The president credits his <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/el-salvador-flirts-with-mano-dura-security-policies-again/">tough-on-gangs</a> policing with improving security in the country. </p>
<p>But some crime analysts say the apparent drop in homicides change is actually <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/brief/el-salvador-omit-key-data-homicides/">a manipulation of crime data</a>. The government recently changed how it counts murders, eliminating deaths that result from <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/06/el-salvadors-tough-policing-isnt-what-it-looks-like/">confrontation with security forces</a> – police killings – from the homicide category. </p>
<p>In any case, levels of violence in El Salvador are still <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/el-salvador">among the world’s highest</a>. </p>
<p>Police regularly turn a blind eye to violence by gang members, including both MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, either due to <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2014/05/15/how-gangs-have-become-a-trojan-horse-in-el-salvadors-security-forces-part-2/">corruption or concern for their own safety</a>. As a result, Salvadoran police frequently fail to meaningfully protect people from gang violence. </p>
<p>Often, officers themselves victimize Salvadorans, roughing up <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/parque-cuscatlan-san-salvador.html">suspected gang members</a> who may just be teenage boys hanging out on the street. </p>
<h2>Human rights law</h2>
<p>In these circumstances, sending migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border to El Salvador may violate an international law called “non-refoulement.”</p>
<p>According to the 1954 <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/1954-Convention-relating-to-the-Status-of-Stateless-Persons_ENG.pdf">United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees</a>, which both the U.S. and El Salvador signed, states cannot expel refugees to a territory “where his life or freedom would be threatened.” </p>
<p>Migrants know El Salvador can’t protect them from the dangers they flee. Only about <a href="https://rree.gob.sv/gobierno-salvador-entrega-nacionalidades-naturalizacion-dia-mundial-los-refugiados/">50 people have applied for asylum there in recent years</a>. El Salvador has just <a href="https://elfaro.net/en/201909/el_salvador/23667/El-Salvador-Signs-Agreement-to-Accept-Asylum-Seekers-the-US-Won%E2%80%99t-Protect.htm">one asylum officer on staff</a>, according to the Salvadoran investigative news site El Faro.</p>
<p>The future of the U.S.-El Salvador migration agreement is not assured, as the Salvadoran <a href="https://www.voanoticias.com/a/eeuu-el-salvador-firmar%C3%A1n-acuerdo-sobre-asilo/5092135.html">Congress has not yet approved the measure</a>. But if it goes into effect, migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. may soon become collateral damage from this political deal.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mneesha Gellman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump officials plan to send asylum seekers from the US to El Salvador while their claims are processed. That would expose these vulnerable people to grave dangers, says a political violence expert.Mneesha Gellman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1190762019-06-21T12:13:07Z2019-06-21T12:13:07ZCorruption triumphs in Guatemala’s presidential election<p>The two winners in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48621524">Guatemala’s June 16 presidential vote</a> – former first lady Sandra Torres and former prison director Alejandro Giammattei – will face off in a second round of voting in August. </p>
<p>But already one election loser is clear: Guatemala in its decade-long <a href="https://theconversation.com/guatemala-expulsion-of-un-investigators-drags-country-down-authoritarian-path-102815">fight to root out massive government corruption</a>.</p>
<p>Both Torres, who won 25.7% of a vote split between 19 candidates, and Giammattei, who trailed 11 points behind her, have both been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/world/americas/guatemala-election.html">accused of corrupt practices</a>. Both are also alleged to have links to powerful Guatemalan organized crime groups involved in drug and human trafficking. </p>
<p>Early in the campaign the anti-corruption crusader Thelma Aldana was favored to win. But in May she was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guatemala-election/guatemala-court-ruling-all-but-ends-ex-prosecutors-election-hopes-idUSKCN1SM05L">barred from the race</a> for <a href="https://es.insightcrime.org/noticias/noticias-del-dia/activista-contra-corrupcion-en-guatemala-enfrenta-orden-de-arresto/">alleged financial mismanagement</a> while she was Guatemala’s attorney general. </p>
<p>The judge who disqualified her candidacy is <a href="https://www.prensalibre.com/guatemala/justicia/mp-investigara-supuestos-sobornos-al-juez-victor-cruz-que-ordeno-la-captura-de-thelma-aldana/">under investigation</a> for accepting bribes, and many saw the ruling as politically motivated. As attorney general from 2014 to 2018, Aldana worked closely with the United Nations-backed anti-corruption panel known as <a href="https://dppa.un.org/en/mission/cicig">CICIG</a> and protested when <a href="https://theconversation.com/guatemala-in-crisis-after-president-bans-corruption-investigation-into-his-government-109864">President Jimmy Morales expelled its prosecutor</a> earlier this year. </p>
<p>Since its creation in 2007, CICIG has prosecuted <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/05/18/what-does-cicig-do">three former presidents</a> and dozens of other high-ranking officials in Guatemala for everything from money laundering and embezzlement to ties with organized crime. </p>
<p>Both Torres and Giammattei oppose CICIG’s continuing presence in Guatemala. </p>
<p>Neither is expected to pull the Central American country out of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/central-american-kids-come-to-the-us-fleeing-record-high-youth-murder-rates-at-home-99132">morass of kleptocracy, violence</a> and extreme poverty that sends <a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-migration-from-central-america-5-essential-reads-98600">thousands of desperate Guatemalans fleeing abroad each year</a>.</p>
<h2>Justice no more</h2>
<p>It’s grim but not remarkable that Guatemala’s next president may be in cahoots with organized crime. </p>
<p>Through bribery, coercion and threat of violence, criminal cartels have <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-central-america-gangs-like-ms-13-are-bad-but-corrupt-politicians-may-be-worse-86113">infiltrated Guatemala’s government</a> over the last 20 years. A CICIG investigation found that <a href="https://www.cicig.org/uploads/documents/2015/informe_financiamiento_politicagt.pdf">half of political party financing</a> comes from organized crime and corruption. </p>
<p>It’s not just the president: In Guatemala’s Congress, dirty legislators known to be on the take are locally regarded as the “Pact of the Corrupt.”</p>
<p>As a longtime <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3281991">researcher on post-conflict justice in Guatemala</a>, I see both the CICIG and Aldana’s efforts to root out corruption and end impunity as absolutely critical to stabilizing the country. So this election worries me.</p>
<p>Until her term as attorney general ended last year, Aldana helped strengthen the rule of law in Guatemala. Like her predecessor, she pushed forward <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/23/guatemala-ex-military-officers-convicted-of-crimes-against-humanity">human rights trials of former military brass</a> implicated in the massacres of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans in the decades-long armed conflict that ended in 1996. </p>
<p>This work cost Aldana her presidential run and quite nearly her life: She fled the country in March <a href="https://bbenews.com/watch/ooxzFO0A3o0/thelma-aldana-confirma-amenaza-de-atentado-contra-su-vida.html">after the American Drug Enforcement Agency warned of plots to kill her</a>. </p>
<p>That left Torres as the clear frontrunner to become president of Guatemala.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280585/original/file-20190620-149831-1cbx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280585/original/file-20190620-149831-1cbx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280585/original/file-20190620-149831-1cbx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280585/original/file-20190620-149831-1cbx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280585/original/file-20190620-149831-1cbx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280585/original/file-20190620-149831-1cbx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280585/original/file-20190620-149831-1cbx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280585/original/file-20190620-149831-1cbx4d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poll workers await voters in Chinautla, near Guatemala City, on June 16, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Guatemala-Elections/ec5b0d05830848b0a460b4ef339aeb0c/32/0">AP Photo/Oliver de Ros</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Candidates with shady pasts</h2>
<p>Connections to corruption have dogged Torres’ political career.</p>
<p>Torres, who is on her third presidential run, is the ex-wife and former social affairs secretary of jailed former Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom. He was accused of <a href="https://elperiodico.com.gt/nacion/2018/08/09/el-dinero-de-los-zetas-y-la-campana-de-colom-en-guatemala/">taking US$11 million from drug traffickers</a> in 2007 and is now awaiting trial on separate charges of complicity in a kickback scheme for a new bus system.</p>
<p>Torres herself was accused by Guatemalan prosecutors of <a href="http://www.revistafactum.com/los-enemigos-de-la-cicig-van-por-la-presidencia-de-guatemala/">illegal campaign financing for her 2015 campaign</a>. That charge could have derailed her presidential bid, but anti-Aldana prosecutors are widely believed to have <a href="https://nomada.gt/pais/entender-la-politica/el-mito-del-monstruo-o-la-candidata-que-interviene-ante-dios-por-los-pobres/">slow-walked their investigation of Torres</a> until her candidacy was approved. </p>
<p>Under Guatemalan law, she now has immunity from criminal charges until she either loses the election or finishes her term. </p>
<p>As president, Torres would likely reinstate the popular social welfare programs that characterized her ex-husband’s government from 2008 to 2012. Her campaign targeted voters largely in poor, rural areas of the country who could desperately use more government aid.</p>
<p>Torres’ runoff opponent Alejandro Giammattei, an ally of President Morales, is an extreme right-wing former prison official with known <a href="http://www.revistafactum.com/los-enemigos-de-la-cicig-van-por-la-presidencia-de-guatemala/">ties to old military intelligence</a> groups involved in illegal activities. He was the director of prisons when seven prisoners were killed in jail, in an apparent mass assassination. </p>
<p>Giammattei was <a href="https://lahora.gt/hemeroteca-lh/caso-pavon-infiernito-mp-prepara-170-pruebas/">charged but eventually acquitted</a> of conspiracy in the prison deaths.</p>
<p>He draws his electoral support from the military and Guatemala’s conservative traditional elite. This is Giammattei’s fourth presidential try.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280586/original/file-20190620-149818-jpmcuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280586/original/file-20190620-149818-jpmcuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280586/original/file-20190620-149818-jpmcuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280586/original/file-20190620-149818-jpmcuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280586/original/file-20190620-149818-jpmcuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280586/original/file-20190620-149818-jpmcuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280586/original/file-20190620-149818-jpmcuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280586/original/file-20190620-149818-jpmcuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Despite having 19 options, many Guatemalans were displeased with their choices for president. Several popular candidates were barred from running by the country’s electoral commission.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Guatemala-Elections/c7a81a1093f6481ba743917fcd83fb2f/22/0">AP Photo/Moises Castillo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seeds of political change</h2>
<p>Though the top two vote-getters were political veterans and Torres’ National Unity of Hope party won a majority of congressional seats, new forces on the left made inroads in Guatemala’s election, too. </p>
<p>Thelma Cabrera from the Movement for the Liberation of Peoples, a new indigenous political party, placed fourth with just over 10% of the presidential vote. Cabrera, a Mayan organizer for the peasant rights organization <a href="https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/organization/codeca">Codeca</a>, ran on an agenda of “dignity” and radical change, including a “plurinational” constituent assembly that would better reflect the diversity of Guatemala’s population. </p>
<p>Congressional candidates from her party <a href="https://www.prensacomunitaria.org/violencia-electoral-en-todas-sus-formas/">faced violence</a> throughout the race – a sign that this <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2018/06/21/terror-guatemala">indigenous movement has stirred up fear</a> among the powerful elites who’ve governed Guatemala for decades.</p>
<p>And Thelma Aldana’s young Semilla, or “Seed,” Movement won just over 10% of legislative seats. Semilla will be a vocal opposition voice when Guatemala’s new Congress takes office in 2020. </p>
<p>Between now and then, I expect the current Congress will scramble to restore business as usual in Guatemala. </p>
<p>Free of Aldana’s anti-corruption crusading and of the CICIG’s scrutiny, lawmakers are expected to try again to pass a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/an-amnesty-for-crimes-against-humanity-guatemalan-proposal-stirs-outrage/2019/02/23/bc0fe13e-3481-11e9-8375-e3dcf6b68558_story.html">controversial amnesty law</a>. </p>
<p>That would protect former military officials from being prosecuted for crimes committed during Guatemala’s civil war, including a well-connected <a href="https://www.univision.com/noticias/america-latina/arrestan-en-guatemala-a-exjefe-militar-acusado-de-genocidio-cuando-salia-de-votar">former Guatemalan general just charged</a> with genocide for army operations he oversaw in the 1980s. Luis Mendoza García, who has been on the run since 2011, was arrested on election day while voting in his home town.</p>
<p>No matter who wins the presidency in August, Guatemala’s vicious social problems remain deeply rooted. That’s bad news both for Guatemala and nearby countries, including the United States.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119076/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naomi Roht-Arriaza is affiliated with Due Process of Law Foundation as president of the Board. </span></em></p>For their next president, Guatemalans must choose between two veteran politicians with shady pasts and alleged ties to organized crime.Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California College of the Law, San FranciscoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/924762018-02-28T09:28:29Z2018-02-28T09:28:29ZDonors shouldn’t punish NGOs that disclose misconduct – here’s how to help stamp out abuse<p>The NGO sexual exploitation and abuse <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/one-week-on-how-the-oxfam-sex-scandal-unfolded-rdq6qhzgh">scandal</a> has grown ever larger, engulfing many other organisations other than Oxfam, including allegations at the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/24/red-cross-21-staff-members-left-due-to-sexual-misconduct-in-past-three-years">International Red Cross</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/14/french-aid-group-msf-medecins-sans-frontieres-abuse-cases-last-year">Médecins Sans Frontières</a>, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/save-the-children-oxfam-charity-sex-scandal-justin-forsyth-a8220506.html">Save the Children</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43179696">Plan International</a>. Reports have now emerged of women in Syria being <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43206297">sexually exploited in exchange</a> for UN aid. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/oxfam-aid-worker-prostitution-scandal-penny-lawrence-chief-executive-quits-a8206911.html">Heads have rolled</a> at some of these organisations, and it’s likely that there will be more resignations and further recrimination. </p>
<p>Priti Patel, the former international development secretary, <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/foreign-affairs/news/92750/priti-patel-dfid-officials-knew-about-sexual-abuse-allegations">claimed</a> she had raised similar issues with Department of International Development (DFID) officials who failed to support her. She warned that the Oxfam case was the “tip of the iceberg”. As a result, there have been <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/wealthy-charities-need-tougherwatchdogs-7ndqkws67">strident calls</a> for greater regulation of the NGO sector.</p>
<p>Sexual exploitation and abuse has long been a problem in humanitarian work – and detailed regulations already exist to address it. Guidelines produced by self-regulatory bodies – run by NGOs to regulate themselves – include the <a href="https://corehumanitarianstandard.org/news/never-has-it-been-more-important-to-apply-the-core-humanitarian-standard-by-judith-f-greenwood-executive-director-of-the-chs-alliance-1">Core Humanitarian Standard</a>, and <a href="http://www.pseataskforce.org/en/tools">tools and resources</a> of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Task Force on Accountability and the Affected Populations and Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.</p>
<p>But clearly, none of these initiatives seem to have effectively combated the prevalence of abuse in the sector. While these regulatory standards may well need revision, it’s far from clear that yet more regulations are the solution. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/oxfam-scandal-development-work-is-built-on-inequality-but-thats-no-reason-to-cut-foreign-aid-91701">Oxfam scandal: development work is built on inequality but that's no reason to cut foreign aid</a>
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<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/ngos-need-to-step-up-and-keep-children-safe-heres-what-they-can-do-91722">Blame has been laid</a> at the door of NGOs for failing to mount a sufficient response to abuse, and quite rightly so. However, the buck doesn’t stop there. It’s time for some self-reflection at DFID. Its ministers and civil servants, as well as other institutional donors, must consider their part in enabling an environment where sexual exploitation and abuse can flourish.</p>
<h2>When it doesn’t pay to speak out</h2>
<p>Transparency and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14747731.2013.786253?journalCode=rglo20">accountability</a> is upheld as a virtue by donors – yet those NGOs that shine a light on misdemeanours are risking their reputations. </p>
<p>During my own <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jid.3010/abstract">research</a>, I spoke to senior staff in leading NGOs, who told me they harbour concerns over the effectiveness of self-regulation within the sector. Some said self-regulation was partly hampered by fear of donor over-reaction to a “less than perfect” report. One told me: “Donors, whether they are private or government, have very little tolerance for being told that somebody has made a mistake. Another said: "We are terrified of fuelling bad publicity which will directly affect our income.” </p>
<p>NGOs should certainly not be exonerated for any failures to be fully transparent, investigate and press any necessary charges against abusers, or ensure there are adequate measures to safeguard those at risk from abuse. But my research has led me to question whether donors – keen to be associated with “good news stories” – have created the impression that the only NGOs that they will fund are those that provide sanitised reports of success. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208113/original/file-20180227-36677-1v3680w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208113/original/file-20180227-36677-1v3680w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208113/original/file-20180227-36677-1v3680w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208113/original/file-20180227-36677-1v3680w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208113/original/file-20180227-36677-1v3680w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208113/original/file-20180227-36677-1v3680w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208113/original/file-20180227-36677-1v3680w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UK aid delivered to help those affected by Hurricane Irma.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DFID - UK Department for International Development</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>My sources also pointed out the dangers of a bureaucratic approach to accountability that can be associated with certification mechanisms, relied upon by donors. These can reduce accountability to a tick-box exercise, where practitioners are anxious to document impact and performance to meet reporting requirements. To appease the donor, NGOs may be tempted to adopt tokenistic policies such as complaints boxes, which can be portrayed in reports as evidence of good practice. </p>
<p>In the words of one Oxfam official: “It does risk turning into a paper trail auditing exercise and the actual principles of listening to the people that you’re seeking to serve can get a little bit lost.” Being truly accountable to communities entails a deep-rooted change in organisational culture. Challenging the mindsets and ingrained prejudices of some staff about what constitutes exploitation and abuse takes time, dialogue and introspection. Donors like measurable outputs. But the activities needed for bringing about cultural change are not easily quantifiable. Not everything that counts can be counted.</p>
<p>So more regulations won’t improve the situation. The issue is how donors respond if NGOs disclose wrongdoing. </p>
<h2>A badge of transparency</h2>
<p>My sources did not entirely dismiss all self-regulation initiatives, acknowledging some can be an important catalyst for positive change and help the sharing of learning. However, NGOs have been timid in talking to donors about the factors that inhibit the effectiveness of self-regulation within the sector. It’s likely that they will be even more wary of engaging in honest conversation given DFID’s reaction to the Oxfam scandal: the current minister Penny Morduant <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/917651/oxfam-penny-mordaunt-funding-haiti-sex-scandal-charity">threatened</a> to pull all funding from the charity. </p>
<p>DFID and other donors shouldn’t stop pressurising NGOs to do better, but they also need to do more to promote the <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0020852313500599">way organisations learn</a> from when things go wrong. That includes adopting a positive and constructive attitude towards disclosures of wrongdoing. </p>
<p>It’s no secret that aid projects frequently fail and aid workers can commit appalling crimes. The first step towards stopping this is for NGOs to be transparent about transgression. And donors should understand that this is a hallmark of an accountable organisation. They should encourage NGOs to be candid about why failure occurs – which may include listening to explanations that reflect poorly on the donor’s preferred way of giving aid. </p>
<p>Some inconvenient truths may need to be shared, and some humility needed on both sides. NGOs that admit failure, that are genuinely contrite and that seek to provide redress to victims of abuse are abiding by accountability norms that donors claim to support. It would be perverse to punish them for doing so by removing their funding, or dragging their reputation into the mud.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92476/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angela Crack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To stop sexual exploitation in the aid sector, more self-regulation by NGOs isn’t the answer.Angela Crack, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/861132017-10-23T00:41:59Z2017-10-23T00:41:59ZIn Central America, gangs like MS-13 are bad – but corrupt politicians may be worse<p>Is <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/el-salvador-organized-crime-news/mara-salvatrucha-ms-13-profile">Mara Salvatrucha</a>, the Salvadoran youth gang menacing residents in some U.S. cities, really America’s public enemy number one?</p>
<p>For months, the Trump administration has boasted that it would “<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/28/politics/donald-trump-ms-13/index.html">destroy</a>” MS-13. Then, on Oct. 23, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-delivers-remarks-international-association-chiefs-police?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery">announced</a> that he had authorized the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces “to use every lawful tool to investigate MS-13.” Calling the group “the most brutal” of gangs, Sessions also linked the group to the international drug trade.</p>
<p>In my opinion, MS-13 has become the perfect Trump villain not because of its <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21725814-gang-members-often-want-join-one-most-fearsome-reputation-federal">heinous and highly visible</a> crimes or its <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/world/americas/el-salvador-drugs-gang-ms-13.html?_r=0">dubious cartel connections</a> but because its Central American roots <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/06/26/president-trumps-claim-that-ms-13-gang-members-are-being-deported-by-the-thousands/?utm_term=.afb3062587af">play well</a> into this administration’s <a href="http://thehill.com/latino/355654-trump-doubles-down-on-tough-immigration-proposals">anti-immigration stance</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"890942700752654336"}"></div></p>
<p>In dragging Central America into a renewed war on youth gangs, the United States is reinforcing an errant but widely held belief that <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/7-things-trump-administration-wrong-ms13">MS-13 and organized crime are Central America’s most pressing problems</a>. I’ve studied violence and crime in the region for more than 20 years, and while gangs are a serious problem, they’re largely a symptom of a far more critical issue plaguing the region – namely, <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/corruption-index-shows-mixed-picture">corruption</a>. </p>
<h2>Unraveling the gang myth</h2>
<p>Mara Salvatrucha and other criminal groups certainly <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34112.pdf">contribute</a> to the record high crime rates in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Transnational gangs have also instilled fear in some U.S. communities. In Long Island and Virginia, for example, MS-13 has been behind <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/nyregion/long-island-ms-13-gang-killings-arrests.html?_r=0">dozens of gruesome killings</a>. </p>
<p>As part of his anti-immigrant posturing, Donald Trump has zeroed in on the group, asserting <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/28/politics/donald-trump-ms-13/index.html">on July 28</a> that, “We will find you, we will arrest you, we will jail you and we will deport you.”</p>
<p>This strategy of suppression – which targets mainly low-level players, <a href="https://patch.com/new-york/northfork/ms-13-inside-look-brutal-gang-long-island-insidious-spread-sleepy-communities">many of them teenagers</a> – is unlikely to address the crime problem in Central America. In deporting MS-13 members, the president is simply <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/trump-wants-to-deport-ms-13-gang-members-el-salvador-is-dreading-their-return/2017/05/24/1e0ec5ae-39bf-11e7-a59b-26e0451a96fd_story.html">providing seasoned recruits to Central American gangs</a>, which have grown and thrived largely because the region’s political class protects them.</p>
<h2>Strange bedfellows</h2>
<p>The most revealing case of the nexus between corruption and organized crime is El Salvador, home turf of MS-13 and <a href="https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/03/daily-chart-23">of the world’s highest homicide rates</a>. </p>
<p>In August, prosecutors there showed that El Salvador’s two main political parties <a href="https://elfaro.net/es/201708/salanegra/20737/Relato-de-un-fraude-electoral-narrado-por-un-pandillero.htm">had colluded with MS-13 and other gangs</a>, paying them more than US$300,000 for help winning the country’s 2014 presidential election. Party officials allegedly utilized MS-13 to mobilize some voters and suppress others. Still, the attorney general’s office has not indicted party leaders.</p>
<p>Impunity has also undermined criminal justice in <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/05/30/when-corruption-is-operating-system-case-of-honduras-pub-69999">Honduras</a>. A Honduran drug cartel kingpin <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/world/americas/after-78-killings-a-honduran-drug-lord-rivera-partners-with-us.html?_r=0">recently told U.S. prosecutors that</a> drug money had financed past presidential campaigns there and may have helped President Juan Orlando Hernández into power in 2014. To date, <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/honduran-president-denies-bribery-allegations-drug-trafficker">no official probe</a> has been launched to investigate the alleged links between the current president and Honduran criminal organizations. </p>
<p>Amid such visible impunity, <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/guatemala-elites-and-organized-crime-series">Guatemala</a> in some ways stands out. It has had two successive incorruptible attorneys general dedicated to fighting <a href="https://nobelwomensinitiative.org/spotlighting-claudia-paz-y-paz-guatemala/">the country’s systemic corruption</a>.</p>
<p>The current attorney general of Guatemala, Thelma Aldana, has tackled the issue head on with the help of the <a href="http://www.un.org/undpa/en/americas/cicig">International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala</a>, a United Nations-supported body aimed at helping the criminal justice system take up tough crimes – including high-level corruption. The team has had some success in prosecuting powerful politicians, including <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/guatemala-s-government-corruption-scandals-explained">former President Otto Perez Molina</a>.</p>
<p>But its efforts are now being hampered by President Jimmy Morales, who has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/27/world/americas/jimmy-morales-guatemala-corruption.html?_r=0">made repeated attempts</a> to expel the commission’s head, Iván Velásquez, from the country. </p>
<p>Many <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/09/06/guatemalas-president-tried-to-shut-down-a-u-n-commission-that-announced-it-was-investigating-him/?utm_term=.123c39f50f99">observers</a> believe that these attacks are intended to quell corruption investigations against Morales and his inner circle. </p>
<h2>The real problem</h2>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/ab2016/AB2016-17_Comparative_Report_English_V2_FINAL_090117_W.pdf">recent study</a> by Vanderbilt University, a majority of Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans believe that most of their politicians are corrupt.</p>
<p>Citizen distrust, in turn, makes it harder to fight crime and uphold the rule of law. In Central America, so many people are ready to bypass the law to tackle violence that vigilantism and extrajudicial violence have themselves become major <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/06/el-salvador-gangs-police-violence-distrito-italia">causes</a> of violence.</p>
<p>As a result, corruption in Central America has shattered most efforts to build the kinds of criminal justice institutions necessary to support a democratic society.</p>
<p>The Trump administration, however, has opted to renew failed <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/us-reverses-course-central-america-heavy-handed-drug-war">law enforcement policies</a> to tackle the problem of transnational gangs in the region. After homicide rates and gangs spun out of control in the mid-2000s, the Obama administration largely <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/01/15/fact-sheet-united-states-and-central-america-honoring-our-commitments">abandoned heavy-handed policies</a> in favor of a more <a href="https://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/fs/2017/260869.htm">comprehensive approach to foreign security aid</a>.</p>
<p>In a September <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fiusipa/videos/vb.202158559200/10155868612514201/?type=2&theater">joint meeting</a> of Central American attorneys general with the U.S. Department of Justice, held at Florida International University, American authorities praised a recent coordinated anti-gang effort. Some 3,800 Central American gang members <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/3800-gang-members-charged-operation-spanning-united-states-and-central-america">were charged</a> with murders, racketeering and other serious crimes, in both the U.S. and Central America. </p>
<p>The attorney general of El Salvador, Douglas Meléndez, also celebrated the capture of hundreds of gang members in his country. But he said nothing about his office’s inaction vis-a-vis the party leaders accused of conspiring with those same gangs.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"756186395992006656"}"></div></p>
<p>The whole idea that the U.S. government can make America safer by getting tough on crime in Central America is <a href="https://theconversation.com/central-american-gangs-like-ms-13-were-born-out-of-failed-anti-crime-policies-76554">questionable</a>. But if the Trump administration wants to try, it should at least start at the top. </p>
<p>Political institutions in the grip of organized crime use their power to erode <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2011.00132.x/abstract">the democratic rule of law</a> in the region. They shield criminal organizations in exchange for economic support and political backing in gang-controlled barrios.</p>
<p>Root out corruption in the Central American ruling class, and the gangs and crooks will go down with it. </p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to reflect the latest developments in the Department of Justice’s MS-13 policy.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86113/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jose Miguel Cruz receives funding from the Open Society Foundations.</span></em></p>Corruption, not gang warfare, is the root cause of the record violence in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Until public officials stop shielding criminal groups like MS-13, lawlessness will reign.Jose Miguel Cruz, Director of Research, Florida International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/815742017-09-17T10:44:01Z2017-09-17T10:44:01ZBritish policy towards Zimbabwe during Matabeleland massacre: licence to kill<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183734/original/file-20170829-10409-jl5ttt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's clampdown on dissent in Matabeleland claimed up to 20 000 lives. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Aaron Ufumeli/ Pool</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In January 1983 Robert Mugabe’s government launched a massive security clampdown in Matabeleland. It was led by a North Korean-trained, almost exclusively chiShona-speaking army unit known as the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sabelo_Ndlovu-Gatsheni/publication/237426294_The_post-colonial_state_and_Matebeleland_Regional_perceptions_of_civil-military_relations_1980-2002/links/573ddabf08aea45ee842d9ad.pdf">Fifth Brigade</a>. They committed thousands of atrocities, including murders, gang rapes and <a href="http://davidcoltart.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/breakingthesilence.pdf">mass torture</a>. </p>
<p>Mugabe’s government called the operation <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=zi-tWekXbD8C&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=%22the+early+rain+which+washes+away+the+chaff+before+the+spring+rains%22&source=bl&ots=dWX2SIUj7r&sig=0aDLpmmQfN93e_RNJuKcBmGGEYI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwioi-joj6LWAhWE7hoKHRF_C7wQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20early%20rain%20which%20washes%20away%20the%20chaff%20before%20the%20spring%20rains%22&f=false"><em>Gukurahundi</em></a>. This is chiShona for “the rain that washes away the chaff (from the last harvest), before the spring rains”. </p>
<p>It is estimated that between <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07075332.2017.1309561?scroll=top&needAccess=true">10 000 and 20 000</a> unarmed civilians died at the hands of Fifth Brigade.</p>
<p>An <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07075332.2017.1309561?scroll=top&needAccess=true">analysis</a> by the author of official British and US government communications relevant to the Matabeleland Massacres has shed new light on the British Government’s wilful blindness to Operation Gukurahundi, including its diplomatic and military team on the ground in Zimbabwe during the atrocities. The information was obtained via <a href="https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-freedom-of-information/what-is-the-foi-act/">Freedom of Information Act </a> requests to various British government ministries and offices and to the US Department of State. </p>
<p>The unique dataset provides minutes of meetings and other relevant communications between the British High Commission in Harare, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s office, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Defence in London, as well as the US Department of State and the US Embassy in Harare. </p>
<h2>The brutalities</h2>
<p>The attacks’ ramifications continue to be felt by survivors and their families. The children born of rape at the hands of the Fifth Brigade face ongoing discrimination and generally find themselves in hopeless situations.</p>
<p>The catalogue of brutalities committed by the Fifth Brigade include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>One man learned that his child was abducted from school by the Fifth Brigade and forced to catch poisonous black scorpions with his bare hands. He was stung and died before being buried in a shallow grave (interview with survivor TH, 2017). His only “crime” was to be Ndebele. </p></li>
<li><p>Entire families were herded into grass-roofed huts, which were then set alight (interview with survivor AN, 2017).</p></li>
<li><p>In Mkhonyeni a pregnant woman “was bayoneted open to kill the baby”. Also, “pregnant girls were bayoneted to death by 5th Brigade in Tsholotsho”, <a href="http://davidcoltart.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/breakingthesilence.pdf">killing the unborn babies</a>. </p></li>
<li><p>Young Ndebele men between the ages of 16-40 were particularly vulnerable. They were frequently targeted and killed or forced to perform demeaning <a href="http://davidcoltart.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/breakingthesilence.pdf">public sex acts</a>. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Unique dataset</h2>
<p>The data provides a unique insight into the British government’s role in Gukurahundi. It also establishes what information was available to the British government about the persistent and relentless atrocities; what the British diplomatic approach was in response to this knowledge; and what the British government’s rationale was for such policies. </p>
<p>The data evidences, for example, that the British Foreign and Commonwealth offices were aware that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>there was much talk – and evidence – of widespread brutality by the Fifth Brigade towards [Ndeble] villagers. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a cable forwarded to the US embassy in Maputo and Dar es Salaam, then-US Secretary of State <a href="https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/shultz-george-pratt">George Shultz</a> stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>what we are addressing is not simply a bad policy choice by the GOZ [Government of Zimbabwe] to deal with a difficult security situation in a section of their country. What is involved is the very fundamental issue of relations between the two parties, between the Ndebele and the Shona.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The West German ambassador to Zimbabwe, <a href="http://www.ohr.int/?ohr_archive=ambassador-dr-richard-ellerkmann-curriculum-vitae">Richard Ellerkmann</a>, thought it “ominous” that “Mugabe, in his latest speech in Manicaland, had used the Shona equivalent of ‘wipe out’ with reference to the Ndebele people, not just ZAPU people, if they didn’t stop supporting the dissidents”.</p>
<p>However, “most poignant for Ellerkmann was the remark of a German Jewish refugee in Bulawayo who said the situation reminded him of how the Nazis treated Jews in the 1930s”. (Cable American Embassy, Harare to Secretary of State Washington DC, 11 Mar. 1983). </p>
<p>There could be no doubt in the minds of the British that Gukurahundi was Zimbabwean government policy. On 7 March 1983 Roland “Tiny” Rowland, a British businessman and chief executive of the Lonrho conglomerate with heavy economic commitments in Zimbabwe, met Mugabe. The documents indicate he subsequently reported to the American ambassador in Harare that he was convinced Mugabe was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>fully aware of what is happening in Matabeleland and it is Government policy. Mnangagwa (Zimbabwean Minister of State Security) is fully aware and he was in the meeting when they discussed the situation in detail. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The author’s analysis provides clear evidence that the British diplomatic and military teams in Harare during Gukurahundi were consistent in their efforts to minimise the magnitude of Fifth Brigade’s atrocities.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185858/original/file-20170913-23100-xerxnu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185858/original/file-20170913-23100-xerxnu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185858/original/file-20170913-23100-xerxnu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185858/original/file-20170913-23100-xerxnu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185858/original/file-20170913-23100-xerxnu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185858/original/file-20170913-23100-xerxnu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185858/original/file-20170913-23100-xerxnu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The remains of a victim of the massacre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anonymous/Supplied by author</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is indisputable that this is the general theme of the available cables that were forwarded from the British High Commission in Harare to London during the period analysed. </p>
<p>The analysis also clearly proves that, even when in receipt of solid intelligence, the UK government’s response was to wilfully turn a “blind eye” to the victims of these gross abuses. Instead, the British government’s approach appears to be have been influenced solely by consideration for the white people who were in the affected regions but were not affected by the violence. </p>
<h2>Rationale for realpolitik</h2>
<p>The rationale for such naked realpolitik is multi-layered. It is expressed clearly in numerous communications between Harare and London. One cables notes that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Zimbabwe is important to us primarily because of major British and western economic and strategic interests in southern Africa, and Zimbabwe’s pivotal position there. Other important interests are investment (£800 million) and trade (£120 million exports in 1982), Lancaster House prestige, and the need to avoid a mass white exodus. Zimbabwe offers scope to influence the outcome of the agonising South Africa problem; and is a bulwark against Soviet inroads… Zimbabwe’s scale facilitates effective external influence on the outcome of the Zimbabwe experiment, despite occasional Zimbabwean perversity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One can but assume that “occasional Zimbabwean perversity” refers to Gukurahundi.</p>
<h2>Accountability</h2>
<p>In a more general sense it is quite clear that, apart from the immediate perpetrators, external bystanders also have to be held accountable at least to some extent for the unbridled atrocities that took place in Zimbabwe. </p>
<p>With the end of Mugabe’s long reign drawing ever closer, it is imperative that the international community help develop strategies to help Zimbabweans address the prevailing impunity and lack of accountability for the crimes of Gukurahundi. That is critical for the establishment of truth, justice, and accountability for the victims, survivors and their families.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81574/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hazel Cameron receives funding from the University of St Andrews (a research grant)</span></em></p>The effects of President Mugabe’s post-independence security clampdown that led to the murder of between 10 000 and 20 000 Zimbabweans, known as the Matabeleland massacre, continue to be felt.Hazel Cameron, Lecturer of International Relations, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/782962017-05-26T06:39:57Z2017-05-26T06:39:57ZIn Argentina, the Supreme Court spurs national outrage with leniency for a ‘Dirty War’ criminal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170983/original/file-20170525-23249-dqecra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In post-dictatorship Argentina, citizens, like the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, have been the guardians of justice.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/rh3rrZ">Argentine Ministry of Culture/flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/furia-en-argentina-despues-del-juicio-que-da-indulto-a-un-criminal-de-la-guerra-sucia-98230"><em>Leer en español</em></a>.</p>
<p>The streets of Argentina’s cities went white on May 10 as tens of thousands donned the iconic headscarf of the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who’ve never stopped searching for the sons, daughters, and grandchildren they lost in the country’s “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Dirty-War">Dirty War</a>” (1976-1983) some four decades ago. </p>
<p>Buenos Aires saw one of the <a href="https://www.pagina12.com.ar/36779-la-plaza-del-no-a-la-vuelta-de-la-impunidad">largest marches in recent Argentinean history</a> as human rights organisations, NGOS and citizens of all political stripes flooded into the Plaza de Mayo, the country’s political heart. Organisers say as many as 200,000 people attended.</p>
<p>They came to protest a Supreme Court decision that many feared would reinstate the regime of impunity that once supported Argentina’s six military coups (1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966 and 1976).</p>
<p>On May 3, the court ruled in a three-to-two majority decision to grant leniency to Luis Muiña, a convicted kidnapper and torturer, by <a href="http://www.cij.gov.ar/nota-25746-La-Corte-Suprema--por-mayor-a--declar--aplicable-el-c-mputo-del-2x1-para-la-prisi-n-en-un-caso-de-delitos-de-lesa-humanidad.html">invoking the so-called “two-for-one” rule</a>. The rule holds that each year already served in prison counts as two. </p>
<p>Muiña has completed just six years of a 13-year prison sentence handed down to him in 2011 for his role in the 1976 operation <a href="http://www.hospitalposadas.gov.ar/equipo/ddhh/contenido/chalet_ccd.php">Posadas Hospital</a> in which dozens were detained and tortured. He is now slated for release in November 2017. </p>
<p>The two-for-one law, which was applied from 1994 to 2001, allowed early release of prisoners who’d already served significant jail time while awaiting sentencing. </p>
<p>In granting the benefit to Muiña, the Supreme Court has now expanded its scope <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/es/2017/05/09/el-caso-muina-los-argentinos-rechazan-el-atropello-a-los-derechos-humanos/">to include crimes against humanity</a>. Critics say the decision could effectively commute the sentences of hundreds of people convicted of committing genocide, kidnapping and torture during Argentina’s last military dictatorship (1976-1983). </p>
<h2>‘Nunca mas’</h2>
<p>Argentina’s 1976 coup, in which president María Estela Martínez de Perón was overthrown by a military junta, was the <a href="http://www.cels.org.ar/common/documentos/muertos_por_la_represion.pdf">bloodiest and most devastating in its history</a>. In just seven and a half years, 30,000 people were “disappeared”, 300 dead bodies found mangled, live <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/13/world/argentine-tells-of-dumping-dirty-war-captives-into-sea.html?pagewanted=all">prisoners dropped from planes</a>“ and 22 public officials assassinated.</p>
<p>President Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989), who lead Argentina’s first democratic government, understood this nefarious legacy, and he centred his victorious 1983 campaign <a href="http://www.archivoprisma.com.ar/registro/cierre-de-campana-de-raul-alfonsin-en-la-9-de-julio-1983-2/">on restoring the rule of law</a>. By systematically trying Argentina’s dictators and their henchmen, he hoped to <a href="https://theconversation.com/advice-for-colombia-from-countries-that-have-sought-peace-and-sometimes-found-it-67419">rebuild society’s trust in state institutions</a>. </p>
<p>Later administrations sometimes regressed. In the 1990s, <a href="http://web.archive.org/20020620191418/www.nuncamas.org/document/nacional/indulto_intro.htm">president Carlos Menem</a> granted amnesty to war criminals, and under the <a href="https://www.clarin.com/politica/senado-anulo-leyes-punto-final-obediencia-debida_0_BJvWDdxl0te.html">laws of Due Obedience (<em>Obedencia Debidea</em>, 1989) and End Point (<em>Punto Final,</em> 1990)</a> sentences were commuted and guilty generals set free (the laws were <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3146379.stm">overturned by Congress</a> in 2003).</p>
<p>The Argentinean people, on the other hand, had learned Alfonsín’s lesson: human rights violators must be punished. Since 1983, the majority of citizens have stood by the idea that trials and punishment are critical to reconstructing their republic and righting the democratic sensibility. </p>
<p>From 2004 onward, the courts seemed to be on the same page. Judges across the nation began <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/ideas/2010/11/juicio-y-castigo-nestor-kirchner-and-accountability-for-past-human-rights-violations-in-argentina/">examining the constitutionality of old cases</a> in which amnesty had been granted to war criminals and retrying scores of police, generals and commanders. </p>
<p>On September 6 2004, the Supreme Court of Appeals, Argentina’s highest criminal court, <a href="http://www.cij.gov.ar/nota-4848-La-Corte-ratifico-la-nulidad-de-los-indultos-de-Videla-y-Massera.html">officially declared amnesty for war crimes to be unconstitutional</a>. </p>
<p>The process of ending impunity began in 1985, with the <a href="http://www.memoriaabierta.org.ar/juicioalasjuntas/?p=179">Trial of the Juntas</a>, in which nine members of the military government were tried and sentenced on television; the proceedings were also printed daily in a special newspaper, <em>Diario del Juicio</em>. </p>
<p>The government report that followed, <em><a href="http://www.jus.gob.ar/derechoshumanos/publicaciones/informe-nunca-mas.aspx">Nunca Mas</a></em> (Never Again) memorialised the truth about Argentina’s state terrorism, including names and aliases of those who waged war on citizens, the aberrant forms of torture they employed and the locations of concentration camps.</p>
<p>The indicted generals never repented for their infamous actions: manning <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/13/world/argentine-tells-of-dumping-dirty-war-captives-into-sea.html?pagewanted=all">death flights</a>, stealing newborn babies and appropriating the belongings of the disappeared.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Argentina was quickly developing the field of forensic research and building DNA banks that would make major progress in identifying bodies not just at home but in newly democratic countries across the region. Recently, the <a href="http://www.eaaf.org">Equipo Argentino de Antropologia Forense</a> supported Mexico’s investigation of the 43 students who <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-missing-forty-three-the-mexican-government-sabotages-its-own-independent-investigation">disappeared in Ayotzinpa, Guerrero, in 2014</a>.</p>
<h2>No to impunity</h2>
<p>Many <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21596582-one-hundred-years-ago-argentina-was-future-what-went-wrong-century-decline">economic and political crises</a> have battered Argentina since democracy returned in 1983. But throughout it all, one thing has stayed steady: the critical importance of human rights and the necessity to neither forget nor forgive those who violate them. </p>
<p>This non-negotiable commitment to punishing genocide is the DNA of the reconstructed Argentinean republic and the last bulwark of a people whose democratic governments have made so many mistakes. </p>
<p>Together, Argentina has celebrated as a nation each of the 122 grandchildren <a href="https://www.abuelas.org.ar">recovered by the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo</a>. Together, citizens have raged when <a href="http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1661658-polemicas-declaraciones-de-etchecolatz-en-un-juicio">convicted torturers like former Buenos Aires police chief Miguel Etchecolaz</a>, who has admitted to killing people between 1976 and 1983 but says he cannot recall how many, <a href="http://www.andaragencia.org/el-discurso-de-etchecolatz-sobre-la-defensa-de-la-patria-cristiana/">shirk responsibility for their actions</a> (Etchecolaz said that "the state had the right to use force and [as] in all wars, excesses occurred”). </p>
<p>In a country where laws are systematically violated, one norm persists: no more impunity. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170661/original/file-20170523-5757-1wim7w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170661/original/file-20170523-5757-1wim7w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170661/original/file-20170523-5757-1wim7w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170661/original/file-20170523-5757-1wim7w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170661/original/file-20170523-5757-1wim7w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170661/original/file-20170523-5757-1wim7w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170661/original/file-20170523-5757-1wim7w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1984 report enshrined a culture of vigilance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANunca_mas.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was a foreseeable certainty, then, that Argentineans would repudiate en masse the court’s “two-for-one” ruling in favour of Muiña, a “Dirty War” criminal. As Taty Almeida, <a href="http://madresfundadoras.blogspot.com.ar/">director of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo Founding Line</a>, said at the May 10 protest: “Never again silence. We won’t live alongside the bloodiest killers in the history of Argentina”.</p>
<p>These days, the people have politics on their side too. After the ruling, Congress moved quickly to <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/05/11/inenglish/1494512512_516294.html">pass, with bipartisan support, a bill</a> prohibiting the “two-for-one” rule from being applied in cases of crimes against humanity. </p>
<p>It was approved before the demonstrations took place, allowing Estela Carlotto, president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and a well-known face of citizen resistance, to have hope in repeating her motto of the last 40 years: “<em>Señores</em> judges, never again a genocider set free”.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court erred in siding with impunity. The Argentinean people have made clear that reconciliation is not their chosen path, even <a href="https://www.clarin.com/politica/2x1-corte-historia-mentiras-traiciones_0_Bymp_6Qlb.html">when the idea comes from the Catholic Church</a>. For Argentina, the painful history lesson of the 20th century is this: without justice there’s no republic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rut Diamint has received funding from the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Tedesco does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Argentineans are determined to not forgive or forget the criminals who killed or disappeared more than 30,000 people.Rut Diamint, Political Science Profesor, Torcuato di Tella UniversityLaura Tedesco, Professor of International and Comparative Politics, Saint Louis University – MadridLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/742962017-03-27T03:41:36Z2017-03-27T03:41:36ZGirls killed in shelter fire are the latest victims of Guatemala’s war on women<p>On the morning of March 8 2017, while women around the world were preparing to observe International Women’s Day with <a href="http://www.womenstrike.org/">a global strike</a>, 43 girls <a href="http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2017/03/08/america/1488992167_472533.html">burned to death</a> in a shelter in San José Pinula, Guatemala. </p>
<p>The Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción, located on a hillside 15 kilometres from Guatemala’s capital, housed some 800 girls and boys who’d been abused or neglected in their homes, as well as young offenders of both genders. For months, the girls’ wing had complained about systematic rape and sexual abuse as well as overcrowding, disappearances, murder and generally bad conditions. </p>
<p>The scandal had been exposed in <a href="https://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/el-refugio-del-que-los-ninos-huyen">November 2016 by the investigative reporting outfit Plaza Pública</a> and the home was under investigation. Reporter José David López Vicente wrote that while the shelter is “in theory a state centre for the protection of children and adolescents…in reality it is an inferno where people rape and mistreat those they should protect.”</p>
<p>Residents chose International Women’s Day to demand a safe and decent home. By the end of the protest, the girls had set fire to mattresses and furniture in the dormitories. And, survivors say, instead of freeing them from the flames and entering discussions, shelter officials <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/world/americas/guatemala-city-fire.html">locked the girls in their room</a>, where <a href="https://nomada.gt/estos-testimonios-apuntan-a-un-crimen-de-estado/">dozens perished</a>. </p>
<h2>Who’s to blame?</h2>
<p>“<em>Fue el estado</em>”, <a href="http://demoefe.ikuna.com/60_videos-del-dia/4394596_sexto-dia-de-manifestaciones-por-las-ninas-muertas-en-el-incendio-de-un-albergue-en-guatemala.html">citizens cried</a>, blaming the government for the girls’ deaths. And they’re right. Of course, it was the state.</p>
<p>But as Guatemalan activist Leslie Lemus <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.mx/leslie-lemus/por-que-la-muerte-de-las-ninas-de-guatemala-nos-debe-avergonzar/">recently opined</a>, a general assertion of guilt is not enough: those responsible must be brought to justice. </p>
<p>Three civil servants of the Guatemalan social well-being department – secretary Carlos Rodas, deputy secretary Anahi Keller and shelter director Santos Torres – <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-14/guatemala-arrests-three-officials-in-deadly-youth-shelter-fire/8353424">have been arrested</a>. But society must also hold legally responsible Guatemala’s president, Jimmy Morales, because there is a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/360508890815496/photos/pcb.584487328417650/584487115084338/?type=3&theater">chain of command</a> here that can be traced all the way up to the executive.</p>
<p>Beyond criminal justice, it is also important to place the girls’ sexual exploitation and murder within the broader context of Central American <a href="https://theconversation.com/latin-american-womens-problem-we-keep-getting-murdered-67351">feminicide</a> and generalised violence. </p>
<p>These are related phenomena. Guatemala has an alarmingly high rate of feminicide, that is, the killing of women based on their social or biological gender. From 2000 to 2012 over <a href="http://www.ghrc-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Femicide-FACTsheet-2013.pdf">6,000 women were murdered</a>, and according to <a href="http://www.genevadeclaration.org/fileadmin/docs/GBAV3/GBAV3_Ch3_pp87-120.pdf">the Global Burden of Armed Violence report</a>, Guatemala ranked first in <a href="http://www.genevadeclaration.org/fileadmin/docs/GBAV3/GBAV3_Ch3_pp87-120.pdf">female homicides committed with firearms</a> from 2007 to 2012. </p>
<p>Gender-based violence has been increasing in Guatemala since 2013, together with <a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/news/-Feminicidio-en-Guatemala-aumento-durante-2013-20140303-0030.html">sexual abuse</a>. And the combined threat to women is forcing them to <a href="https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/talking_points_and_stories">flee the country</a>. </p>
<p>The Hogar Seguro deaths also occurs in the context of the lethal gang and criminal violence impacting <a href="http://www.cfr.org/transnational-crime/central-americas-violent-northern-triangle/p37286">Central America’s Northern Triangle regon</a>, not to mention a history of <a href="http://www.insightcrime.org/guatemala-organized-crime-news/guatemala">political violence</a>, civil wars and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-guatemala-drugs-pictures-photogallery.html">drug trafficking-related violence</a> that has <a href="https://atlismta.org/online-journals/human-security/understanding-feminicide-guatemala/">always targeted women</a>. </p>
<p>The girls’ deaths then were not accidental. They form part of a trend in Central America and Mexico, in which women’s bodies are routinely used, exploited, destroyed, possessed, profited from and violently appropriated.</p>
<h2>A necropolitical war</h2>
<p>The murders support an idea developed as part of my research on the causes of and social impacts of drug violence. The “necropolitical war” is a conflict typology that explains criminal and sexual violence as part of a continuum that may include torture, forced disappearance, and sex trafficking. It aims to dominate populations and secure criminal markets, in part by commodifying women’s bodies.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/fracking-mining-murder-the-killer-agenda-driving-migration-in-mexico-and-central-america-67822">frequent assassinations of Latin American environmental activists</a> are part of this strategy, too. Drug traffickers, gang members and security guards, among other armed actors, sell their killing expertise to repressive governments to help secure the domestic business interests of transnational corporations. </p>
<p>In Central America and Mexico’s regime of widespread corruption and impunity, anyone is <a href="https://biopoliticssacrossborders.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/mbembes-necropolitics-notes/">vulnerable to violence and death</a>. Necropolitics, though, particularly impacts society’s most marginalised – not only indigenous activists and but also, quite explicitly, women and girls. </p>
<p>At least two necropolitical wars are currently underway in Central America. The first is that waged by cartels to obtain state “partnership” – that is, to gain privileged, protected access to trafficking routes and other critical business resources. </p>
<p>Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel obtained this elite status during the fiercest years of the country’s war on drugs. From 2006 to 2012, it was <a href="http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2011/04/22/politica/002n1pol">not the target of military operations in the same way as other cartels</a>.</p>
<p>The second war seeks to dispossess women of their bodies. Dispossession <a href="http://isreview.org/issue/95/accumulation-dispossession">in the Marxist sense</a> means taking away one individual’s possessions for another to accumulate capital. In the 19th century, workers’ most valued possession was their labour, as socialist theorists well knew. </p>
<p>Central America’s poor, rural and unemployed women often do not even have that: they have only their bodies to offer. That’s actually a valuable commodity, both in Central America’s highly machista society and in the sex trade. </p>
<p>But bodies can cease to be valuable to the people who hold power. They get old, are unattractive or, in the case of women who refuse to be subjugated, far too rebellious to be worthwhile. Then, they become disposable.</p>
<p>In those cases, women begin to run serious risks. Hence, the violent end met by 43 Guatemalan girls, aged 12 to 17, who, after refusing to be raped and exploited any longer, were burned to death.</p>
<p>While these two necropolitial conflicts have different aims, they share a common feature: a dysfunctional, permanently corrupt and deadly legal-spatial realm in which impunity secures their main strategies – massacre, feminicide and forced disappearances. </p>
<p>This machinery gives the agents of war control over drug markets and the sex trade of women and girls in their thrall, subordinating women’s rights and bodily integrity to the economy. </p>
<p>In Mexico, where criminal violence is part of a dangerous combination that serves to “cleanse” communities of people who <a href="https://theconversation.com/fracking-mining-murder-the-killer-agenda-driving-migration-in-mexico-and-central-america-67822">defend their home territory</a>, this dynamic is clear.</p>
<p>Guatemala’s shelter fire exposes the same malignant logic. <a href="https://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/quienes-cuidan-y-educan-los-menores-en-los-hogares-del-estado">Testimonies and reports</a> indicate that the girls were systematically exploited for many years. Then, on International Women’s Day 2017, they finally fought back, and were summarily disappeared.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ariadna Estévez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Who is responsible when 43 girls burn to death in a state-run children’s home?Ariadna Estévez, Professor, Center for Research on North America, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/612272016-06-26T13:53:30Z2016-06-26T13:53:30ZWhat can be done to stop the United Nations abusing its immunity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127700/original/image-20160622-19777-vj4qrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Outgoing UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's successor faces the challenge of making the organisation more accountable.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UN</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The passage of time can play cruel tricks on noble intentions. The person selected as the new United Nations (UN) <a href="http://www.unelections.org/?q=node/71">Secretary-General</a> later this year should keep this in mind as he or she evaluates how effectively the UN is responding to the challenges of the 21st century.</p>
<p>When the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/index.html">UN</a> and its specialised agencies were created after the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/sections/history/history-united-nations/">Second World War</a>, their founders were concerned that they would not be able to perform their assigned functions – to promote peace and security, international economic and social cooperation, economic development and human rights – if they were vulnerable to legal pressure from their member states. For example, the organisations would not be able to perform their assigned functions if a member state could threaten to arrest the officials of these organisations or to confiscate the materials they had collected when they were on official missions to the state. </p>
<p>To minimise this risk, the founders bestowed “<a href="http://legal.un.org/avl/ha/cpiun-cpisa/cpiun-cpisa.html">functional immunity</a>” on these international organisations. This ensured that they would not be subject to the jurisdiction of the member states or their courts when performing the functions for which they were created. This is different from diplomatic immunity, which protects accredited diplomats from the jurisdiction of their host states for all purposes. Thus, an off-duty UN official who is involved in a car accident can be sued for causing the accident, while an off-duty diplomat who causes an accident cannot. </p>
<p>At the time, this made good sense. The organisations were expected to primarily function as intergovernmental bodies. As such they would only interact with the governments of their member states, who would decide whether and how to use their services in their domestic affairs. There did not seem to be any need for them to engage directly with the citizens of their member states or for them to be directly accountable to those citizens.</p>
<p>But, over time, the scope of operations of these international organisations have expanded due to a mix of factors. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the end of colonialism;</p></li>
<li><p>changes in the international economic system;</p></li>
<li><p>our evolving understanding of the development process;</p></li>
<li><p>the evolution of international human rights law; and </p></li>
<li><p>our greater awareness of the environmental consequences of our actions. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Changed roles of international organisations</h2>
<p>Today these organisations play important roles in the governance of some of their member states. Their decisions and actions directly affect the citizens of these states. For example, the UN took over some of the functions normally performed by governments during political transitions in <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/untagFT.htm">Namibia</a>, <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unmit/">Timor-Leste</a> and <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unmibh/background.html">Bosnia</a>. It also did so in the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/">refugee camps</a> for people from countries like Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq.</p>
<p>This expansion in the international organisations’ missions did not cause them or their member states to revise their functional immunity. This meant that their immunity expanded together with their expanding functions. </p>
<p>The result is that international organisations, contrary to the human rights and good governance principles that they espouse for the governments of their member states, are not accountable to those individuals who are adversely affected by their decisions and activities. Instead, they can use the immunity that was intended to shield them from interference by their member states as a sword to ward off claims by those they are alleged to have harmed.</p>
<h2>Acting with impunity</h2>
<p>Two recent examples demonstrate the gravity of this problem. First, in March 2016, Haitian plaintiffs argued to a US court that it should, despite all the legal precedents to the contrary, overturn a <a href="http://www.ijdh.org/2015/01/topics/health/united-states-district-court-southern-district-of-new-york/">lower court’s decision</a> denying their request to lift the UN’s immunity. That would allow them to sue it regarding its negligent actions in Haiti. </p>
<p>They allege that in 2010 the UN mission to Haiti <a href="http://www.ijdh.org/2016/03/topics/law-justice/unofficial-transcript-from-oral-argument-in-georges-v-united-nations-312016/">introduced cholera</a> into the country, which had been free of cholera for about 100 years. The evidence indicates that the cholera was brought to Haiti by infected soldiers who, contrary to good practice, had not been tested for the virus before leaving their home country, where cholera was widespread. Since 2010 approximately 8% of the Haitian population has had cholera and thousands have died from the disease.</p>
<p>The UN, however, relying on its immunity, has not even deigned to appear in the court, which has not yet ruled on the matter. It has also refused to accept any responsibility for the Haitian cholera outbreak, despite overwhelming evidence that the outbreak was caused by the arrival of the UN mission.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127701/original/image-20160622-19777-1r70b1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman infected with cholera receives treatment in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Keith Bedford</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, it has recently been reported that the number of claims of <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/un-peacekeeping-allegations-sexual-exploitation-abuse-20-year-history-shame-1547581">sexual abuse</a> of women and children brought against UN peacekeepers last year increased by 25% over 2014. This should not surprise the UN because for many years it has been slow to deal with <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-un-isnt-winning-its-battle-against-sexual-abuse-by-peacekeepers-52866">such allegations</a>.</p>
<p>In fact, despite a recent <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53430#.V2f5trh97IV">Security Council resolution</a>, it is not clear that those responsible will be held accountable. This situation, in effect, encourages UN peacekeepers to feel that they can act with impunity. This impression has possibly been reinforced by the fact that in 2010 the UN relied on its immunity to block a UN staff member from suing the organisation for the unfair way in which she was treated after she complained about being <a href="http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/08-2799/08-2799-cv_opn-2011-03-27.html">sexually harassed</a> by the head of her UN agency. The allegation was subsequently substantiated by his forced resignation.</p>
<h2>Making the UN walk the talk</h2>
<p>The UN and its agencies can solve the problem created by their reliance on their immunity to avoid their responsibilities. They must establish a reasonable alternative to a court, such as an independent tribunal, to hear the claims of those who allege they have been harmed by their actions.</p>
<p>They should empower the tribunal, when applicable, to award appropriate relief. This action would be consistent with their responsibilities to respect human rights and to comply with international law.</p>
<p>An independent tribunal would achieve two objectives:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>provide the remedies that those harmed by the actions of international organisations like the UN are entitled to; and </p></li>
<li><p>protect the limited functional immunity that the organisations need to perform their mandates. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Setting up a tribunal would not be unprecedented. Many international organisations, including the UN, already have <a href="http://untreaty.un.org/UNAT/main_page.htm">administrative tribunals</a> to deal with <a href="http://untreaty.un.org/UNAT/UNAT_Judgements/Judgements_E/UNAT_01495_E.pdf">employment cases</a>.</p>
<p>Likewise, multilateral development banks have <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/inspectionpanel">independent mechanisms</a> that can investigate the claims of people who allege they have been harmed by the failure of the banks to comply with their operational policies and procedures.</p>
<p>The UN and its agencies can build on these precedents. They can offer those they are alleged to have harmed a chance to have their claims adjudicated in a fair hearing before an independent decision-maker. If they do not, the courts in UN member states should follow the example of <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-58912&sa=U&ei=9GFQU_Y2kPvSBZHzgPAP&ved=0CCYQFjAC&usg=AFQjCNEr0RkRxgik5wAjypvFSjrwYD7exA#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-58912%22%5D%7D">a number of European courts</a>, and strip them of their immunity in appropriate cases.</p>
<p>Establishing this new tribunal should be a priority for the new UN Secretary-General when he or she takes office in 2017.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61227/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danny Bradlow receives funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>The ‘functional immunity’ granted to UN officials made good sense when the body was founded after World War II. But as its organisational functions have expanded, so has this immunity.Danny Bradlow, SARCHI Professor of International Development Law and African Economic Relations, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/381112015-03-04T03:26:11Z2015-03-04T03:26:11ZViolent anti-communism is alive and well in democratic Indonesia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73445/original/image-20150302-5271-1o8rwia.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-communist groups recently attacked victims of Indonesia's 1965 anti-communist purge, unfurling banners with violent messages. This one reads 'Crush the PKI from the motherland!!!'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joint Secretariat on '65</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Gatherings of victims of Indonesia’s 1965 anti-communist purge were attacked by groups of people last week in West Sumatra and Central Java.</p>
<p>A rampaging mob targeted around 200 victims who gathered in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra. The victims were to celebrate the 15th anniversary of <a href="http://www.insideindonesia.org/sensitive-truths">YPKP 65</a>, an advocacy group demanding justice for victims of the <a href="http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:326983/UQ326983.pdf">1965-66 killings</a> and violence. </p>
<p>A few days later, amid protests from some Islamic groups, police in Solo, Central Java, cancelled a meeting planned by another victims’ group. The Joint Secretariat on ‘65 had planned to talk about victims’ health needs and how the state could support them. Among the speakers were representatives from the National Human Rights Commission and the Institute for the Protection of Witnesses and Victims. </p>
<p>The organisation has previously held a number of activities designed to promote reconciliation. But a day before the meeting Solo police told the organisers they did not have permission to go ahead. </p>
<p>Near the location, a banner was unfurled saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Muslims reject the revival of the Communist Party in whatever form. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The police seemed to tolerate the brutal actions of the mobs, which forcibly shut down these gatherings. </p>
<h2>Cutting off community support</h2>
<p>The Solo attack is an attempt to isolate the organisation from community support. Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who gave the green light to activities of the Joint Secretariat ’65 while he was mayor of Solo, has not condemned the anti-democratic attacks. </p>
<p>The Secretariat has worked well with local community organisations and with Solo’s mayors. After Jokowi, as the president is popularly known, his successor, F.X. Rudyatmo, had also supported the group’s activities. </p>
<p>During the 2014 election campaign, Jokowi himself was <a href="https://theconversation.com/spectre-of-anti-communist-smears-resurrected-against-jokowi-28730">accused of being a communist</a>. These attacks against organisations and people accused of being communist are <a href="http://links.org.au/node/427">not unprecedented</a>. Anti-communism is alive and well in Indonesia for several reasons. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73555/original/image-20150303-15950-dn9pms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73555/original/image-20150303-15950-dn9pms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73555/original/image-20150303-15950-dn9pms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73555/original/image-20150303-15950-dn9pms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73555/original/image-20150303-15950-dn9pms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73555/original/image-20150303-15950-dn9pms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73555/original/image-20150303-15950-dn9pms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-communism is alive and well in Indonesia as vigilante groups harass gatherings of victims of Indonesia’s 1965 anti-communist purge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joint Secretariat on '65.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Legal ban on Marxist thought in Indonesia</h2>
<p>A parliamentary decree banning the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and Marxism-Leninism from 1966 remains in place. The PKI was a mass party involving millions of Indonesians in 1965, but they were embroiled in a political rivalry with the Indonesian Army. </p>
<p>When a predominantly military grouping called the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1439203/September-30th-Movement">September 30th Movement</a> kidnapped and murdered the army leadership on September 30, 1965, the army blamed the killings on the PKI as a pretext to destroy the party. Suharto rose to the Indonesian presidency after the party was banned and president Sukarno deposed. </p>
<p>The parliamentary decree exists on paper. Yet books about Marxism and the PKI can generally be sold freely in Indonesia. To stop the arbitrary attacks against people and organisations accused of being “PKI” this decree needs to be repealed to remove the legal uncertainty. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73447/original/image-20150302-5280-1dj16qq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73447/original/image-20150302-5280-1dj16qq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73447/original/image-20150302-5280-1dj16qq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73447/original/image-20150302-5280-1dj16qq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73447/original/image-20150302-5280-1dj16qq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73447/original/image-20150302-5280-1dj16qq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73447/original/image-20150302-5280-1dj16qq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As Indonesian president, the late Abdurrahman Wahid attempted to repeal the decree banning Marxism-Leninism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When the late president Abdurrahman Wahid spoke of his desire to repeal the decree, he was met with fierce opposition. A source of opposition was Nahdlatul Ulama (Awakening of the Religious Scholars, or NU), Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation, of which Wahid was a leader. </p>
<p>NU supported the pogroms. Members of its youth wing, Ansor, were involved in the violence in East Java. Churches and Christian organisations did not categorically reject the massacres either. In some areas, Christian and Catholic youth were involved in various levels of violence or played support roles to the military. </p>
<p>The varying levels of civilian involvement have created additional fears in society about what could happen if the issue of 1965 were to be brought into the open. </p>
<h2>Behind anti-communism</h2>
<p>Just as the army succeeded in eradicating the PKI politically, some – not just the army – benefited materially from the suppression of the Left. As those accused of being communists went into detention or were killed, others took their property and sometimes even their wives in a practice called <a href="http://www.sponpress.com/books/details/9780415838870/">“wife taking”</a>. </p>
<p>There are many interests that have a stake in not opening up the truth about 1965, the role of the military and the PKI. A large-scale redistribution of assets took place in Indonesia as a result of the killings. The taking of schools, hospitals, houses, other buildings and land belonging to leftists and banned organisations like the PKI has yet to be widely recognised and recompensed. The military legalised these thefts through a 1975 decree stating that all PKI assets belonged to the state.</p>
<p>A 2007 decision of the Indonesian Supreme Court upheld a ruling that the Udayana Military Command had unlawfully taken the land of wealthy Balinese businessman I Gde Puger, who was murdered in 1966. That included land now occupied by the military in Denpasar. But Puger’s kin had to prove that the communist accusation against him was false. </p>
<p>For the victims, however, what matters most is the rehabilitation of their names, not compensation. Many former political prisoners and their families have struggled to disclose their “tainted” pasts, because of their extreme marginalisation under the Suharto regime. </p>
<p>Many of them have worked tirelessly to gain acceptance. They will continue to do so, in spite of the anti-democratic turn that Indonesia has taken with the latest spate of attacks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38111/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vannessa Hearman has received funding from the Australian Academy of Humanities in the past. She is Southeast Asia region councillor for the Asian Studies Association of Australia, an organisation of which she is also a member.</span></em></p>Gatherings of victims of Indonesia’s 1965 anti-communist purge were attacked by groups of people last week in West Sumatra and Central Java.Vannessa Hearman, Lecturer in Indonesian Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/180722013-09-12T13:43:07Z2013-09-12T13:43:07ZInternational Criminal Court is not just for hunting Africans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31243/original/m3kfmx3d-1378984941.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Accused: Kenya's deputy president William Ruto in the dock at the ICC this week.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ICC-CPI</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The first of what are arguably the two most important trials in the short history of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have begun. Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto, stood in the dock this week, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24014967">accused of crimes</a> against humanity (murder, deportation or forcible transfer of population and persecution) allegedly committed in Kenya in the context of the 2007-2008 post-election violence. He is the first high office-holder to appear at the court. </p>
<p>In the second trial, scheduled to begin in November, Kenya’s newly elected president, <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-kenya-icc-20130908,0,5992366.story">Uhuru Kenyatta</a>, will also contest accusations of crimes against humanity (murder, deportation, rape and persecution), also allegedly committed in the context of post-election violence. </p>
<p>As a backdrop to all of this, in the week preceding the start of the Ruto trial, Kenyan members of parliament <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23969316">voted to approve</a> a motion to leave the ICC, claiming not only the need to protect Kenya’s sovereignty, but echoing increasingly more regular complaints amongst African nations by accusing the court of an anti-African bias. To what degree are such claims valid? Is the ICC, Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22681894">accused in May</a>, guilty of “hunting Africans”? </p>
<p>And can the court fulfil <a href="http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/about%20the%20court/Pages/about%20the%20court.aspx">its aim</a> of a truly global institution of criminal justice when global powers (the United States, Russia, China) and emerging powers (India, Indonesia) not only <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11809908">refuse to ratify</a> the Rome Statute (the court’s governing treaty), but appear beyond the reach of the court’s justice?</p>
<p>Since launching in 2002, the ICC has opened 18 cases in eight countries (or situations as they are known in ICC jargon): Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, Kenya, Libya and Cote D’Ivoire. These countries are all in Africa, which would initially lend weight to accusations of neo-colonialism levelled at the Court. </p>
<p>However, closer inspection of these cases reveals a much less straightforward state of affairs. Of the eight situations, four - Uganda, Mali, DRC and CAR - are self-referrals; that is, they are states party to the Rome Statute and have referred crimes committed on their own territory to the court. Only two situations - Libya and Darfur - have been referred to the court by the United Nations Security Council, while the situations in Cote D’Ivoire and Kenya were initiated by the Office of the Prosecutor, and only progressed after being approved by an ICC pre-trial chamber. Thus, claims that the ICC is little more than a tool of western imperialism are somewhat disingenuous.</p>
<h2>Gravest crimes</h2>
<p>When one considers that the ICC was established to try only “those accused of the gravest crimes”, the court’s focus on Africa should not be surprising. The conflicts in Uganda, DRC and CAR, for example, have borne witness to some of the most dreadful forms of violence, including <a href="http://unu.edu/publications/articles/rape-and-hiv-as-weapons-of-war.html">rape as a weapon of war</a> and <a href="http://www.unicef.org/sowc96/2csoldrs.htm">forced recruitment of child soldiers</a>, all taking place amidst a complete breakdown of institutional law and order. The ICC provides a legal medium for prosecuting alleged war criminals where none otherwise exists. </p>
<p>Similarly, by indicting Sudanese president Omar Al Bashir and Kenya’s Kenyatta and Ruto, the ICC is aggressively challenging long-evolved ideas of impunity and immunity; heads of government are no longer beyond justice.</p>
<p>A more <a href="http://www.ibanet.org/Human_Rights_Institute/ICC_Outreach_Monitoring/IBA_ICC_Programme_Homepage.aspx">valid criticism</a> of the ICC, however, regards selectivity or “fairness”. The court should be applauded for pursuing the alleged war criminals it has thus far indicted, but the number of alleged war crimes that it has failed to investigate is damning.</p>
<p>These include, but are not limited to, the current conflict in Syria, the civil war in Sri Lanka, the alleged use of white phosphorus against civilians by Israeli in 2008-2009 and alleged war crimes committed by both warring parties during the 2008 Russo-Georgia War. While the restrictions of the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/InternationalCriminalCourt.aspx">Rome Statute</a> limit the court’s juridical mandate, failure to investigate these wrongdoings undermines its claim to try “those accused of the gravest crimes”.</p>
<h2>Justice for all?</h2>
<p>Most problematic, however, is America’s <a href="http://www.globalpolicy.org/us-un-and-international-law-8-24/us-opposition-to-the-icc-8-29.html">continued refusal</a> to sign and ratify the Rome Statute. By remaining outside the treaty, the US has ensured that the court has no jurisdiction over crimes committed on US territory or by US military personal. </p>
<p>Making <a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/jotl/manage/wp-content/uploads/safrin.pdf">arguments</a> that amount to little more than legal exceptionalism, the US continues to resist international pressure to join the court. Had the US not demonstrated such a historical propensity to use military force, this might be of less concern. However, its continued non-membership undeniably weakens the credibility of the court. This is even more so when one considers America’s increasing reliance on the use of UAVs (or drones), weapons that regularly fail to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. </p>
<p>While universal membership of the court would be ideal, the fact that this is not the case should not condemn the ICC to obscurity. Nonetheless, Africans can be justifiably aggrieved that US military personal are not held to account in the same way that African leaders appear to be. </p>
<p>But, in response, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/may/23/chief-prosecutor-international-criminal-court">the words of</a> ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, are especially apt: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The greatest affront to victims of these brutal and unimaginable crimes … women and young girls raped, families brutalised, robbed of everything, entire communities terrorised and shattered … is to see those powerful individuals responsible for their sufferings trying to portray themselves as the victims of a pro-western, anti-African court.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When one considers how entrenched ideas of impunity and sovereign immunity had become in international politics, the ICC’s ability to challenge and indeed undermine this norm, in a comparatively short time period, is extraordinary. Withdrawing from the court, as Kenya is proposing, will not level the playing field. Rather, it will further “normalise” impunity in a region where the existence of the ICC has ensured that this no longer need be the case. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18072/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Killingsworth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The first of what are arguably the two most important trials in the short history of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have begun. Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto, stood in the dock this week…Matt Killingsworth, Lecturer in International Relations, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.