It was an unprecedented event in Guatemala, and perhaps in all of Latin America. Alvaro Colom, Guatemala’s President, issued an official apology to the family of former Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. The apology was made 57 years after the US backed a coup d’état by Guatemalan officers that removed him from power. “As head of state, as constitutional president of the republic and as the military commander in chief, I hereby wish to request the forgiveness of the Arbenz Vilanova family for this great crime,” said Colom.

Among new measures announced by president Colom to redress this crime is the redrafting of school textbooks to add a new and more accurate version of the events that took place in the country and of Arbenz’s legacy, and the renaming of a national highway in his honor. “It was a crime against him, his wife, his family, but also a historic crime for Guatemala. This day changed Guatemala, and we still haven’t recovered,” added Colom.

Arbenz was elected President of Guatemala in 1950 to implement a process of socioeconomic reforms that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) called “an intensely nationalistic program of progress colored by the touchy, anti-foreign inferiority complex of the ‘Banana Republic.’” Both the CIA and the intelligence community in the U.S. feared that Guatemala and the Arbenz government were rapidly falling under the sway of the Communists. Those fears were later proven to be unfounded.

Arbenz was overthrown in 1954 in a coup led by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas which was planned and funded by the CIA and that opened the way for a 36-year civil war, according to President Colom. Arbenz died in Mexico in 1971, leaving his widow, children and later grandchildren to fight for his reputation and to try to gain back their confiscated property.

What the coup against Arbenz demonstrates is the complicity of not only the CIA but also of the highest levels of the U.S. government. According to declassified information on Guatemala, the first CIA effort to overthrow Arbenz was a collaboration of that agency with Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza to support a frustrated Guatemalan general named Carlos Castillo Armas in an operation codenamed PBFORTUNE which had been authorized by President Harry Truman in 1952.

When that operation was blown, a new operation, codenamed PBSUCCESS was authorized by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1953. The operation had a budget of $2.7 million for “psychological welfare and political action” and “subversion”, among other components. According to a CIA study, up until the day that Arbenz was forced to resign “the option of assassination was still being considered.” The operation lasted from late 1953 to 1954.

According to Kate Doyle and Peter Kornbluh, senior analysts at the National Security Archives, “Although Arbenz and his top aides were able to flee the country, hundreds of Guatemalans were rounded up and killed.” More than two decades later, Director of Central Intelligence William Colby prohibited any CIA involvement in assassination, confirmed later by an Executive Order.

Arbenz had raised fear in the U.S. because of a series of new policies such as the expropriation of unused, unfarmed land belonging to private corporations such as the United Fruit Company (UFC). Those policies were considered communist in nature. The United Fruit lobbied several levels of the U.S. government to take strong action against Arbenz (both CIA Director Allen Dulles and his brother were shareholders of that company.)

Land redistribution advocated by Arbenz intended to remedy the unequal situation in the country. In 1945, it was estimated that 2.2% of the country’s population controlled 70% of the arable land in the country, only 12% of which was being utilized. In March 1953 uncultivated lands owned by the UFC were to be expropriated under a compensation plan based on the company’s declared taxes and what the company said was the real value of the land. The government’s move triggered the U.S. government’s response.

An invasion led by Castillo Armas was mainly designed to provoke panic in the population and give the impression of insurmountable odds in order to bring Guatemalans to their side, including the military. Arbenz was particularly concerned that the military would strike a deal with the invading forces. When this proved to be the case he resigned.

Most historians agree that this was a serious blow to Guatemala’s democracy and the start of a civil conflict in the country that caused up to 250,000 deaths, according to some human rights activists’ estimates. It was also proved that the socialist movement that had gained influence during Arbenz’s presidency had no ties to the Soviet Union. The coup against Arbenz not only toppled a democratic government. It caused serious damage to Guatemala’s democracy and to the country’s chances for sustained development.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet project

Hamburgers, pizzas, french fries, and sugary drinks-in today's fast-paced world, these foods have become staples for many Americans. But this unhealthy diet has led to an increase in chronic health problems such as obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, and high blood pressure. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 34 percent of adults and 17 percent of children and adolescents are now obese, staggering numbers that the organizers of Food Day, a nationwide event taking place on October 24, hope to decrease dramatically.

But promoting safe, healthy and affordable food is only one aim of Food Day, which is sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit watchdog group that fights for food labeling, better nutrition, and safer food. The organizers also want to support sustainable, humane farming, and fair trading conditions.

Around the United States, cities and communities are coming together to showcase the benefits of eating healthy, locally grown, and organic food. Philadelphia is organizing a city-wide event focused on ending hunger and food "deserts"-areas where healthy, affordable food is difficult to obtain. In California, organizations are building a statewide Food Day partnership to promote new food policies, and in Iowa, conferences are being held to highlight how small and mid-sized farmers can get their produce to markets.

In addition to these forums and celebrations, nearly 400 individual events are being sponsored by communities, groups, and companies across the United States. These include:

• San Francisco. The organization savenature.org is hosting benefit dinners on October 20-22 to show how delicious earth-friendly food can be.

• Boston. Boston Food Swap is organizing a crowd-sourced potluck-where they will provide the venue, and attendees will provide local, organic food to show that responsible food is both nutritious and tasty.

• Phoenix. In a "Lunch and Learn" session for students and the general public, a panel of local farmers and chefs will demonstrate how they work together to provide sustainable food.

• Miami. The city will hold its annual Food & Recreation Expo, offering health screenings, fitness demos, diet and nutrition sessions, giveaways, free massages, and more. The host of "Dinner: Impossible," Robert Irvine, will perform a live cooking demonstration.

• Seattle. On October 24, the restaurant Fresh Starts and filmmaker Severine von Tscharner Fleming will screen "The Greenhorns," a film about the spirit, vision, and stories behind new farmers, followed by an interactive information session on the Farm Bill.

• Universities. Events are being planned at the University of Vermont, University of Pennsylvania, University of Minnesota, University of North Carolina, New York University, Stanford, Yale, and Harvard School of Public Health, among others.

For years to come when Libyans and others are asked where they were when they heard that the Gadaffi regime died and a new Libyan era was born - they will be able to recall with absolute clarity what they were doing and who they were with and at what moment they lost their breath in disbelief.

I was sitting in a production company in Soho working on a sweet rom-com about identical twins when I received the text from my father in Libya “Gadaffi has been captured”. At the exact same moment, in a Dublin university lecture hall, my sister received the text. My mother's phone also bleeped whilst walking past McDaids pub on Grafton Street - the place where my parents first met (and oddly somewhere I’ve always had an affinity with).

My sister, who has never quite known her Libyan roots, leapt in the air in the middle of her lecture and cried out ‘Gadaffi has been captured’. She then had that moment of realisation as she looked around at the bewildered faces at her uncharacteristic outburst, and immediately sat back down embarrased and shocked at her own reaction. For her, the last nine months have been a deeply profound and painful one of self exploration, forcing her to delve into the reasons why our father was largely absent from her childhood and life. She has read my blogs often expressing sadness and wonder at the lack of her own memories. She has come to understand the bigger picture of our family history and how she too has been affected by this monster of a man.

My mother had also wanted to scream out on Grafton Street at the fellow shoppers about the significance of this moment. I imagine the last forty years of her life flooded her senses – and given where she was standing felt extremely poignant. The good and bad times of love, the harrowing loss of the marriage which caved under the pressure of the regime and the fear it had instilled in her. There were of course other factors but this was one that had largely contributed to the breakdown and reconstruction of her life as a single mother raising children without her husband.

The lovely producer I was working with couldn’t have been more supportive. She asked if I wanted to leave and go somewhere but I wanted to be consumed by what we were doing. It was too huge to comprehend and I had to hold it together. It was still sinking in. I had this awful numbness and a disbelief that it maybe it wasn't true.

Within 30 minutes the media started calling for contacts inside and outside Libya - it was real. The BBC PM show with Eddie Mair called and asked if my mother and I would return to the show for a third interview. We did.

Immediately after I went to the Libyan Embassy where I was joined by my Irish friend Liam. ‘I’m Libyan today, sure isn’t everyone’ he said looking around. It was over. ‘Congratulations’ was the word on everyone’s lips - ‘Mabrook, Mabrook’. It took me a moment realise I was there not to mourn or celebrate his death but to rejoice in the new dawn.

It was at the embassy I first noticed people gathered around their mobile phones fascinated by the pictures of the final moments. I wasn’t quite so keen to look but when someone put the picture in my face, my stomach lurched. I thought I was going to be sick. Suddenly I didn't see his bloodied body image but another nauseating image had flashed in my mind - the one of myself looking at a picture of Tony Blair hugging Gadaffi and welcoming him back to the world stage ten years ago and I thinking he’s never going to go.

For those of us outside Libya we felt helpless, we knew what was happening on the ground and we felt whatever we were doing was never enough – could never be enough compared to what those there were enduring.

On Edgware Road, spirit of the revolution had taken hold and united us with chanting and singing, children handing out sweets and cars beeping wildly as they drove past. Women and men unified in that voice – our own. My new 9 month old friends and I hugged again and sang out hearts out – Libya Horra (with Liam of course and now Guy King, a film-maker friend who came to document this historic moment). I remember thinking I’d never seen so many people with my kind of curly hair. To be on Edgware Road, with the drums playing in the background where the atmosphere was extraordinary. My eyes fell on injured freedom fighters in the UK for treatment, who’d joined us to celebrate the liberation they had fought for. With the help of a delightful ten year old called Talal, who translated, I thanked them for what they did. They in return thanked me and others for never giving up on them. I was gobsmacked by their graciousness. I suddenly thought of the 100,000s of dead, the huge number of amputees and men and women who will have to live with the trauma of what they endured.

It reminded me we were not celebrating the brutal end of Gadaffi but the dawn of a New Libyan Era. The BBC World News approached myself and some friends to do a piece to camera. Ahmed was asked how he felt, Dalal what she thought for the future and I about Gadaffi’s death. My heart sank for I realised that yet again this moment, our Libyan moment, was being hijacked by Gadaffi. I heard myself say ‘I believe in justice and a judicial system and human rights must be given to all individuals regardless of their deeds. We don’t have any control on how this ended and we cannot undo his ending anymore than we had control or can undo how this started. Those that live by the sword die by the sword'.

It's true we were there celebrating not his death but the dawn a new Libya.

I spoke to a Libyan friend, whose family had been brutalised by Gadaffi up and up until 20 August either imprisoned, in hiding or killed. He wanted to know what it was like on the streets and I described the singing and the whirling cheers Arabic women make, of the injured freedom fighters I met and I could hear him smiling on the other end. He said he’d spoken to his father in Libya whilst he stood at the feet of Gadaffi’s whilst his body was being held briefly in his house as they decided upon the safest place to preserve and protect him. We both became silent at the irony of it.

In the shops the papers were filled with the inhuman way Gadaffi’s body had been treated - the pictures were brutal. I didn’t want to see them and if I am brutally honest I would have preferred to see him face trial. Do I have any sympathy for him? No. If anything my emotions are with the survivors, and the families of those dead and missing all over Libya and those who were tortured, maimed and raped on his orders.

As I walked back, I was stopped by a lovely East End pillar of salt neighbour. She was born and bred here and she’s a lovely lady. I don’t think she knows I’m half Libyan but she was ranting. ‘Those poor people’ she said ‘as if they haven’t had enough to endure for 42 years. Let them get on with their lives now. It’s just like those pictures of people jumping out of the twin towers – do we really need to see it’.

She’s right we need to move away from these bloody images and focus on the future. Libyans have not only got to rebuild their society, they’ve also got to create one. There have been no social relationships, civic and social organizations nor institutions that formed the basis of a functioning society. That needs to be established so we can determine the character of the society and its structure so that it is no longer defined by one man and his family.

Every Libyan now can play a role in making this a nation an inspiration to the world – for the power of the people has shown anything is possible.

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Farah Abushwesha is the founding member of the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum. She is a writer and author of the forthcoming book Rocliffe Notes: How to get your Screenplay out there. Her production works includes Late Bloomers with William Hurt, Isabella Rossellini, Scouting Book for Boys, BBC's one part drama Micro Men with Martin Freeman, and has made three award winning short films. Her blog is called the Accidental Activist and focuses on her human rights work..

• Photograph by Flickr user khym54 and used under a creative commons license. •

Festus Mogae who currently is the head of the Botswana government-backed Aids Council approves a decriminalization of homosexuality and prostitution in order to prevent the spread of HIV in Botswana.

With a HIV/AIDS rate of 17%, Botswana has one of the highest HIV/Aids rates in the world. However, Mr. Mogaes views are widely seen as controversial because the majority of the population depreciates homosexuality and prostitution. So far, homosexuality and prostitution is illegal in Botswana and will be until the government decides to change the law.

Nevertheless, Mr. Mogae is a widely respected authority in Africa and even favors distributing condoms in prisons in order to fight the dispersion of the disease. He is one of the first politicians who address this issue in public in Botswana in order to change something.

Can the decriminalization of these circumstances, especially the one dealing with prostitution, really reduce the risk of infection for getting HIV/AIDS or would legalization even worsen the situation in Botswana?

The Pixel Project is a global volunteer-led virtual non-profit organization working to end Violence Against Women (VAW). On 8 October, this organization launched the annual “Paint It Purple” 2011 global campaign, dedicated to raising awareness about VAW around the world and raising funds for the Pixel Project. The campaign is designed to engage the global online community via social media in its effort to “paint” the Internet purple this year. There are many exciting ways to get involved with “Paint it Purple” that span from baking cupcakes and contributing recipes to writing blog posts and joining the viral visual campaign.

“Paint It Purple” also raises funds for The Pixel Project and participating VAW nonprofits worldwide through special cupcake bake sales as well as “Paint It Purple” parties. “Paint It Purple” is open to all VAW nonprofits, grassroots groups, cupcakerie/bakeries and individuals supporting the cause to end violence against women.

“Paint It Purple” will run from 8 October 2011 (Domestic Violence Awareness Month) to 24 November 2011 which is the eve of the International Day of Elimination of VAW and the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence campaign.

So whether you decide to paint your blog, or social media page purple with badges, buttons, banners and wallpapers (downloadable on the campaign website) or organize a “Paint it Purple” party, we thank you for your support.

For more information, please visit the "Paint it Purple" campaign website.

Start Painting!

At an October 2011 meeting at the United Nations in New York, Korea demanded that Japan take “legal responsibility” for Korean women who were coerced to provide sex services to Japanese soldiers. “This systematic rape and sexual slavery constitute war crimes and also, under defined circumstances, crimes against humanity,” said Shin Dong-ik, Korea’s deputy chief envoy to the United Nations, to the Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly. On the eve of his trip to Seoul, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said that war compensation issues regarding Korean “comfort women” had already been “legally resolved.”

Amnesty International, in a 2005 report titled "Still Waiting After 60 Years: Justice for Survivors of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery System," calls on the Japanese government to accept full responsibility for crimes committed against women condemned to sexual slavery by their Japanese recruiters. These so-called comfort women were recruited from several countries, mainly Korea, during World War II, and forced to serve as sexual slaves for the Japanese soldiers.

Among the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 women recruited from different countries, 80 to 90 percent were from Korea. Girls as young as 11 years-old were forced to serve between 5 and 40 soldiers a day, and almost 100 soldiers on weekends. Those who resisted were often beaten, burned or wounded. During the Japanese retreat many were left to starve or were executed to eliminate any trace of the atrocities they were subjected to by the Japanese military.

For many years after the end of World War II, the government of Japan had insisted that the "comfort stations" were in fact private brothels that had been administered by private citizens. Only in 1993 did the government admit that the Japanese military had been "directly or indirectly" involved in establishment and operation of "comfort stations" and in transportation of the women. The Japanese government also said that private citizens, at the request of the military, had been mainly involved in recruitment of the women.

The first Korean former comfort woman to tell her story was Bae Bong Ki, in 1980. After her, Kim Hak Soon, who died in 1997, related in 1991 how she was abducted by Japanese soldiers when she was 17 years old, and forced to carry ammunition by day and serve as a prostitute by night. Her testimony sparked several other testimonies by women who were obliged to work as sexual slaves in military comfort stations. Evidence of such stations has already been found in the Koreas, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, New Guinea and Okinawa.

Illustrative of the ordeal comfort women went through is the testimony of Chung Seo Woon in the book titled "Making More Waves" (Beacon Press, Boston, 1997). Chung was an only child born in Korea to the family of a wealthy landowner. Because of his activities against colonial rule, her father was sent to prison and badly tortured. When she was 16 she was allowed to visit her father. The same Japanese official who allowed her to see her father came later to her house. He told her that if she went to work in Japan for two years her father would be released. Despite strong objections from her mother, she agreed to do so.

Chung was placed on a ship with many other girls and women. She was hopeful that at the end of the two years her father would be released from prison, as she had been told by the officer. After being taken to Japan, the women were sent to several other countries and a group of them left in each country. After reaching Jakarta, the group that included the young Chung was taken to a hospital where she was sterilized.

The group was then taken to Semarang, a costal city in Indonesia, and placed on a row of barracks. From then on they were obliged to perform sexual intercourse every day with dozens of soldiers and officers. In the process, she was forced to become an opium addict. Chung attempted to commit suicide, by swallowing malaria pills.

Two of her friends reported her to the authorities, she was revived, and, she remarks, "It was then that I made up my mind to survive and tell my story, what Japan did to us." When the war ended and she returned home, she found her house deserted. From neighbors who came to help her she learned that her father had died while in prison. Her mother, humiliated by the Japanese soldiers' attempt to rape her, committed suicide.

Chung decided to rid herself of the opium addiction. She managed this after eight months, and she worked hard to regain her dignity as a human being. She was never able to attain a normal sex life, but found companionship and care from a physician who had had a nervous breakdown after serving in the Japanese Army.

In November of 1994, an International Commission of Jurists stated that, "It is indisputable that these women were forced, deceived, coerced and abducted to provide sexual services to the Japanese military . . . [Japan] violated customary norms of international law concerning war crimes, crimes against humanity, slavery and the trafficking in women and children . . . Japan should take full responsibility now, and make suitable restitution to the victims and their families."

In 1995, the Japanese government introduced the Asian Women's Fund as a response to strong international criticism. The fund is widely perceived by the survivors as a way for the Japanese government not to fulfill its legal responsibilities toward those women. Still unresolved, however, is a formal, clear and unambiguous apology to the victims of sexual abuse by Japanese soldiers.

There is an important symbolic meaning related to the issue of monetary compensation. During her testimony at the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995, Chung declared, "I might be poor, but not that poor. I demand the compensation that is rightly due to me, even if I would burn the money after it is in my hand. It is not a matter of money but of principle. The Japanese have defiled my body but not my spirit. My spirit is strong, rich, and proud."

As the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues stated in a letter to the Emperor and Empress of Japan last July, “You are recognized around the world as moral and spiritual leaders of the Japanese people, as well as for your efforts to advance world peace. This letter is a heartfelt appeal to you to exercise your moral and spiritual leadership to speak clearly to your people about one of the cruelest offenses perpetrated during World War II. This offense remains unresolved today.”

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights.

Fall in the Bay Area means two things: unpredictable weather and film festivals. Mill Valley just finished (more on that later) and DocFest is in full swing. I have been at one or the other film festival more nights than I’ve been at home, and this won’t slow down anytime soon.

In case you’re interested in joining me, here are my picks for DocFest:

- Back to the Garden (Sunday 10/23 at the Roxie)
- Being Elmo (Saturday 10/22 and Tuesday 10/25 at the Roxie)
- Circus Dreams (Saturday 10/22 and Wednesday 10/26 at the Roxie)
- Donor Unknown (Tonight 10/20 at the Shattuck)
- First Position (Tomorrow 10/21 and Thursday 10/27 at the Roxie)
- How to Start a Revolution (Sunday 10/23 at the Roxie)
- Peep Culture (Saturday 10/22 and Wednesday 10/26 at the Roxie)
- Unlikely Treasures (Tonight 10/20 at the Roxie)
- The Woodmans (Saturday 10/22 at the Roxie)

And don’t forget the parties! The roller derby costume party on Saturday night and the San Francisco closing party is on Thursday 10/27.

Spanish society is shocked as accusations of child theft and sales begin to emerge.

• Photograph by Flickr user Gonzalo Merat and used under a creative commons license. •

What are the implications of child trafficking in a democratic state?

I am sitting at a coffee place in San Cristóbal de las Casas, a misty town in Chiapas, in southern Mexico. I am told that occasionally Sub Comandante Marcos, the famed leader of indigenous people in the region, used to come here. I wonder if I will see him, although he has not made a public appearance in more than two years. He doesn’t come –or may be I didn’t recognize him without his signature ski mask— so I spend my time reflecting on the consequences or legacy of his movement.

Sub Comandante Marcos' movement, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) took its name from Emiliano Zapata, the commander of the Liberation Army of the South during the Mexican revolution which broke out in 1910. The EZLN has largely defied political classification, being mainly a movement seeking to redress the unjust treatment by the government -largely in response to the new world economy- of the country’s indigenous people.

The movement went public in 1994. On January 1st, 3,000 armed insurgents briefly took several towns in Chiapas, including San Cristóbal de las Casas, the residence of the late Chiapas Bishop Samuel Ruiz, an almost legendary figure widely respected by the indigenous people in the state. The goal of the insurgents was to dramatize the harsh living conditions, poverty, and lack of governmental response to Mexico indigenous population’s serious situation, which had deteriorated markedly as Mexico rushed to become a player in the global economy.

In an essay written for Le Monde Diplomatique, Sub Comandante Marcos said that neo liberalism and globalization constitute the “Fourth World War,” since he called the Cold War the “Third World War.” “If the Third World War saw the confrontation of capitalism and socialism on various terrains and with varying degrees of intensity, the fourth will be played out between large financial centers, on a global scale, and at a tremendous and constant intensity,” he wrote.

The violent revolt and capture of Chiapas’ towns was met with fierce government response and ended 12 days later thanks to a ceasefire brokered by Bishop Samuel Ruiz. The Zapatistas took heavy losses and retreated to the jungle where they had come from.

Although the Mexican government allowed Bishop Ruiz to mediate its conflict with the Zapatistas, the government accused the Bishop of being the driving force in the rebellion. Bishop Ruiz, however, always advocated non-violence as a way of resolving conflicts, and repeatedly stated that a spiral of violence, once started, cannot be easily resolved once the weapons stop firing.

“This war was not carried out to shed blood and take power but to be heard. When they [the insurgents] were heard they laid down their weapons and chose the pathway of dialogue,” said Bishop Ruiz in a movie called “A Place Called Chiapas.”

After the clashes with the much superior forces of the Mexican army, the EZLN decided to stop using their weapons, and to put special emphasis on the political solution of the conflict with the Mexican government. Ina 2009 article for Le Monde Diplomatique Sub Comandante Marcos stated, “We don’t want to impose our solutions by force, we want to create a democratic space. We don’t see armed struggle in the classic sense of previous guerrilla wars, that is, as the only way and the only all-powerful truth around which everything is organized. In a war, the decisive thing is not the military confrontation but the politics at stake in the confrontation. We didn’t go to war to kill or be killed. WE went to war in order to be heard.”

Sub Comandante Marcos made it clear that he wanted the government respond to what he saw as legitimate indigenous people’s claims for better education, more and better health services, equal work opportunities, and better roads to the indigenous communities. After the government sent an unprecedented amount of funds to Chiapas, and for what I saw during my visit there, most of these goals have, to an important extent, been accomplished.

However, there are still in Mexico 3.3 million indigenous people still unable to satisfy their basic nutritional needs, according to figures from the Ministry of Social Development. And the 2010 infant mortality rate in 2010 among indigenous people was 22.8 per 1,000 live births, compared to 14.2 per 1,000 live births for the population at large, according to the government’s National Population Council (CONAPO).

Although the Zapatista movement doesn’t have the same goals as the “indignados” in Europe who are now becoming every day more numerous in many U.S. cities, they share the aim for a more egalitarian society, where the greed of the few shouldn’t take precedence of the rights of the many. According to the U.S. Census Bureau one in six Americans were living in poverty last year, a situation that is hitting children the hardest.

“Here in Chiapas we have to speak of before and after Sub Comandante Marcos,” said Gustavo Flores Alfaro, a building engineer from this area. When analyzing the beginning of the Twenty First century perhaps historians will also talk of the situation before and after the “indignados” movement that is taking the world by storm.

Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights.

Turkish immigrants recently sued the Dutch government for forcing them to take expensive integration classes before being allowed to immigrate to the Netherlands.

• Photograph courtesy of Flickr user _Pixelmaniac_ used under a Creative Commons license. •

Should countries require immigrants to take integration courses?

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet project

The volatility of food prices, in particular price upswings, represents a major threat to food security in developing countries and typically affects poor populations the hardest. According to the World Bank, during 2010–11 rising food costs pushed nearly 70 million people worldwide into extreme poverty.

World Food Day is a global event designed to increase awareness and understanding and to create year-round action to alleviate hunger. Since 1981, the event has been observed on October 16 in recognition of the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a specialized agency that was established in Quebec City, Canada, in 1945. This year’s World Food Day theme is “Food prices – crisis to stability,” with the purpose of shedding some light on this trend and what can be done to mitigate its impact on the most vulnerable.

Since the inception of World Food Day, organizations have taken advantage of the occasion to inform the public about what they can do to help end world hunger. Although the number of undernourished people worldwide has decreased since 2009, to nearly 1 billion, it is still unacceptably high. According to a recent FAO report, in Africa alone, nearly one-third of the population is undernourished and one child dies every six seconds because of the problem.

On October 16 of this year, countries, organizations, and communities are organizing events to educate and raise awareness, with the aim of addressing widespread problems in food supply and distribution systems. These events are raising money to support projects that focus on initiatives such as measures to ease population growth, boost incomes, and prepare farmers to protect their harvests against the negative effects of climate change, among others.

Throughout the world, organizations and governments are developing and implementing various plans to stabilize food prices and ensure that there is food on every table. Here are just a few examples:

• India. The government is in the process of enacting a food security act that would provide food for nearly 70 percent of the population, specifically targeting the poor, who are often not counted in state surveys and who are denied many benefits.


• Armenia. The government is enacting a sustainable development program that invests in infrastructure improvements, makes financial services and credit available to farmers, encourages the environmentally sustainable use of natural resources, and ensures food safety by improving food standards.


• Telefood. Launched in 1997 by the FAO, Telefood funds micro projects that help small-scale farmers at the grassroots level. The projects aim to help farmers be more productive and to improve both local communities' access to food and farmers' access to cash income. Telefood is involved in 130 countries worldwide.


• World Food Programme. The WFP operates in 74 countries and is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger. Currently, the Horn of Africa is suffering from the worst drought in 60 years, and 4 million people are in crisis in Somalia, with 750,000 people at risk of death in the next four months. WFP is providing food assistance to nearly 1 million people in Somalia and will scale up its operations during the coming months to reach some 1.9 million people.


• Hunger Free World. This Japanese NGO was formalized in 2000 with the goal of ending hunger and poverty through education and awareness around the world. The group supports local initiatives and young volunteers, organizes information programs, and joins forces with national and international networks to make these issues a priority for both citizens and politicians.


• Trussell Trust. This charity works to empower local communities to combat poverty and exclusion in the United Kingdom and Bulgaria. Last year, the group’s U.K. food bank network fed more than 60,000 hungry people.

In 1999, a study called the Rotterdam Study uncovered the strong association between diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. In this landmark study carried out in the Netherlands, 6,370 elderly men and women were followed for an average of two years. In what was perhaps one of the first reports on this issue, they found that having diabetes almost doubled the risk of dementia. Since then, several studies have confirmed these findings, and threw light on the probable mechanism for this connection.

A nine year study published in 2004 followed 842 older Catholic nuns, priests and brothers. Although none of them had any signs of Alzheimer’s at the beginning of the study, at the end of it, 151 of them had developed Alzheimer’s. A statistical analysis found that those who had type 2 diabetes had a 65% increased risk of getting Alzheimer’s. Later, it was also found that this increased risk applies to both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes frequently occurs before the age of 20. It is caused by antibodies destroying the pancreas, the organ that produces insulin. This type of diabetes occurs in 10 to 15 percent of diabetics. In type 2 diabetes, which occurs in 85 to 90 percent of diabetics, the cause is primarily a condition called ‘insulin resistance’ where insulin just doesn’t work as it is supposed to do. Type 2 diabetes has a strong genetic component but, initially at least, can be prevented with changes in diet and lifestyle.

In the U.S., Alzheimer’s disease affects one in 10 Americans over 65 years of age, and almost 50 percent of those over 85. Almost 26 million Americans have diabetes and close to 80 million are pre-diabetic, that is, haven’t developed all the symptoms of the disease. While care for diabetics represents $174 billion in health care costs, the cost for the estimated 5.4 million Americans who have Alzheimer is over $180 billion.

A Swedish study published in 2008 found that men with low insulin production at age 50 were nearly one-and-a-half times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than people without insulin problems. That study also found that the strongest association between diabetes and risk of Alzheimer’s was strongest in people who did not have the APOE4 gene. That gene has been found to increase the risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

Diabetes may also lead to people developing mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which is a transitional stage between the cognitive characteristics of normal aging and the more serious problems resulting from Alzheimer’s or other kinds of dementia. For example, because diabetes damages the blood vessels, it has long been known as a serious risk factor for vascular dementia, manifested by cognitive and memory problems.

What explains the association between these two serious diseases? Studies carried out over the last several years show that both diabetes and Alzheimer’s share some very damaging molecules known as advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Once produced, these substances affect the structure and functions of important proteins in the body.

The connection between diabetes and Alzheimer’s begs the obvious question. Is it possible to affect Alzheimer’s by altering insulin levels? By mimicking high insulin levels in healthy adults ranging in age from 55 to 81, researchers were able to elevate some markers of Alzheimer’s in the brain.

But, how about lowering insulin levels? Would that also have an effect? Researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health reported that individuals who used thiazolidenedione (TZD) drugs to lower their blood sugar levels had lower rates of Alzheimer’s disease. In 142,328 patients who received a first prescription for TZDs or insulin without previous prescription for either medication had up to 20% fewer cases of Alzheimer’s than patients who hadn’t received them.

These important studies suggest that preventing or effectively treating diabetes may lower the risks for Alzheimer’s disease. The positive effects on diabetes of dietary changes, exercise, nutrients and drugs are well known. Now there is an additional reason to put them to use.

Dr. Cesar Chelala carried out research in biochemistry, molecular genetics and pharmacology.

Nou dwe sèl mèt bout tè sa a: We should be the only owners of this land.

This was Haitian protesters’ message at a demonstration last month against the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, known by its French acronym, MINUSTAH. October marks an upswing in press coverage and anti-MINUSTAH activity in Haiti in anticipation of Friday’s UN Security Council meeting, during which officials will vote on renewing the mission’s term for another year. Protests against the 7-year-old force have intensified since fall 2010, with heightened mobilization by grassroots groups calling for the withdrawal of the foreign troops from Haiti. Meanwhile, Brazil’s foreign minister, representing the country that contributes the largest troop contingent to MINUSTAH, has publicly announced a reduction in the number of troops amid mounting discussion in diplomatic circles about downsizing the force.

• Photo: Ansel Herz. From an anti-MINUSTAH protest last month. •

The negligence that led to this outbreak and the UN’s failure to assume responsibility for it were the latest affronts in a string of problems with MINUSTAH’s presence in the country. These include documented human rights violations. MINUSTAH has been ineffective in protecting Haitians from day-to-day insecurity, gender-based violence, and forced evictions from displacement camps. Furthermore, its troops have been active perpetrators of human rights offenses. Sexual exploitation and rape of Haitians, violent retaliations against peaceful popular protest, and failure to investigate charges of murder by its own members have tainted the force’s record. Crackdowns on demonstrations, besides violating protesters’ rights, serve to suppress the grassroots and civil society groups that are struggling to make their voices and vision a part of national dialogue on rebuilding. And MINUSTAH’s public statements of support for recent fraudulent elections – in which the majority of the electorate did not participate – further erode the democratic process.

To take action on this issue and join Haitian groups demanding MINUSTAH’s withdrawal from Haiti, sign onto this open letter.

A white paper co-authored by Other Worlds staff Deepa Panchang and released by HealthRoots Student Organization at the Harvard School of Public Health on October 4, “MINUSTAH: Keeping the peace, or conspiring against it?” enumerates in detail MINUSTAH’s post-earthquake human rights record. It also explains the political context behind the force’s presence in Haiti. Excerpts from the white paper’s executive summary follow.

Excerpts, Executive Summary: “MINUSTAH: Keeping the peace, or conspiring against it?”

In the year and a half since the earthquake in Haiti, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH by its French acronym) has expanded its role in the name of security, stability, and relief. However, since its establishment in 2004, multiple independent human rights organizations have documented myriad violations of the human rights of Haitians. These transgressions have continued unchecked since the earthquake, positioning MINUSTAH as a threat to Haitian stability and security instead of a safeguard.

Accompanying these abuses are domestic and international voices of protest, bolstered by human rights reports and leaked documents and cables demonstrating that the motivations of MINUSTAH and its members are not focused on Haiti. Further, permission for MINUSTAH’s presence was granted by an unconstitutional, unelected government after the democratically-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted from office in an internationally-backed coup. When MINUSTAH is understood as part of a geopolitical strategy rather than a humanitarian peace mission, it is clear why such an unsuccessful and unpopular operation continues to be renewed year after year.

Less than a year after the first soldiers landed on Haitian soil, independent humanitarian organizations documented cases of robbery, murder, assault, rape, and sexual exploitation of minors.[1] Evidence grew that MINUSTAH ignored extrajudicial, paramilitary killings of civilian groups mobilizing to protect their communities. Worse, it sometimes acted as the guerillas’ personal security force.[2] These missions often cost innocent lives, as entire neighborhoods were assaulted by military strikes involving tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, bombs, and armored vehicles. These offensives, conducted by an occupying military force in a peacetime sovereign nation, violate MINUSTAH’s charter and international law. Nevertheless, MINUSTAH’s mandate allows for judicial immunity from Haitian law for its soldiers. Since its inception, hundreds of soldiers implicated in crimes have escaped prosecution because of this clause.[3]

Since the earthquake, these problems have worsened. MINUSTAH fails to effectively monitor internally displaced people (IDP) camps, often only patrolling outside them. In any case, the forces do not speak the language, and often have not arranged for sufficient translation capacity, despite UN presence in Haiti for almost 20 years. MINUSTAH also fails to engage the many grassroots organizations dedicated to IDPs, gender-based violence, or protection against forced eviction. Hundreds of cases of sexual assault, rape, and gender-based violence by MINUSTAH soldiers were reported in pre-earthquake Haiti. After the earthquake, such abuses, often of children, continue.[4]

Ten months after the earthquake, MINUSTAH troops, failing to take basic sanitation precautions by dumping human feces into a nearby river used for drinking, started a cholera epidemic that, to date, has killed more 6,000 people and crossed into the Dominican Republic. Despite eyewitness reports, and epidemiological and genetic studies proving that MINUSTAH was the source, the UN failed to take responsibility for nearly a year.

In August of 2010, Gérard Jean-Gilles, a sixteen-year-old boy, was found hanging on a base in Cap Haïtien.[5] Despite a post-mortem examination suggesting that he was murdered, and witness accounts suggesting that he was attacked before his death, MINUSTAH has refused to investigate.[6]

Contrary to its mandate to assist in free and fair elections, MINUSTAH played a role in an illegitimate presidential election in fall of 2010 that saw the exclusion of numerous political parties—including one of Haiti’s largest—and a large part of the population.

MINUSTAH’s continued presence is justified by the levels of unrest, or potential for unrest, in Haiti. In fact, the member countries involved in the mission, such as Brazil, have up to more than triple the murders per capita than Haiti. Since the earthquake, the only significant civil discord in the country has targeted MINUSTAH for introducing cholera or failing to respond to IDP camp conditions, or expressed anger over fraudulent elections. MINUSTAH responded to these peaceful protests with violence, including tear gassing students and IDPs, assaulting international journalists, shooting at children and even killing peaceful protestors.[7]

MINUSTAH has been destabilizing Haiti and violating human rights since its arrival, and has continued this trend after the earthquake. In addition to violent abuses, MINUSTAH’s introduction of cholera and failure to accept responsibility for it demonstrate a systemic problem with the entire mission and the way it interacts with Haiti. Just like the earthquake and the subsequent cholera outbreak, MINUSTAH, as a disaster with widespread adverse effects, has brought Haitians together in nonviolent yet persistent solidarity against it. But these outcries are repeatedly violently silenced by MINUSTAH.

MINUSTAH acts against Haitian interests in order to meet the geopolitical or economic needs of foreign nations or those seeking to ingratiate themselves to those nations. Rather than the instability and violence MINUSTAH uses to justify its existence—which has failed to rear its head since the earthquake—it is MINUSTAH itself that threatens security and advancement.

At such a crucial point in Haiti’s history, and with years of failures, inaction, repression, and human rights violations documented, it is time that MINUSTAH respect the Haitian people’s wishes, and the wishes of many of its members’ citizens, and withdraw from Haiti. Arguments of greater instability cannot justify the current abuse and violence against Haitians. Just as no concern of post-MINUSTAH instability can justify a single violation of a Haitian’s rights by an occupying force, no solution to Haiti’s problems can include foreign armed military on its soil. If the UN and its members want to support Haiti, MINUSTAH’s nearly one billion USD yearly budget should be put toward sanitation, shelter, health, infrastructure, and education, not arms and soldiers that result in death, sexual assault, and the subversion of democracy.

Read the entire white paper here.

[1] Pooja Bhatia and Benjamin S. Litman, Keeping the Peace in Haiti? An Assessment of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti Using Compliance with its Prescribed Mandate as a Barometer for Success, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Law Student Advocates for Human Rights, 2005).
[2] Bhatia and Litman, Keeping the Peace in Haiti?.
[3] Bri Kouri Nouvèl Gaye et al., Haiti’s Renewal of MINUSTAH’s Mandate in Violation of the Human Rights of the Haitian People, March 24, 2011, submission to the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR), Twelfth Session of the Working Group on the UPR Human Rights Council, October 3rd - October 13th, 2011.
[4] “Denuncian a Militaires Uruguayos en Haiti”, El Pais, August 14, 2010, http://www.elpais.com.uy/110814/pnacio-586491/nacional/denuncian-a-militares-uruguayos-en-haiti/. Ansel Herz, Matthew Mosk, and Rym Momtaz, “UN Peacekeepers Accused of Sexually Assaulting Haitian Teen,” ABC News, September 2, 2011, http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/peacekeepers-accused-sexually-assaulting-haitian-teen/story?id=14437122
[5] Thalles Gomes, “Morte de jovem haitiano gera novos protestos contra a Minustah,” Brasil de Fato, September 24, 2010, http://www.brasildefato.com.br/node/233
[6] “What Happened to Gerard Jean Gilles?”, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), September 24th, 2010, http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/what-happened-to-gerald-jean-gilles
[7] Kim Ives, “As MINUSTAH Gasses Students, CEP Sets New Elections for November 28th,” Haiti Liberte, May 26, 2010. “MINUSTAH: Securing Stability and Democracy from Journalists, Children, and Other Threats,” CEPR, October 18, 2010, http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/minustah-securing-stability-and-democracy-from-journalists-children-and-other-threats. “Haiti Cholera Protest Turns Violent,” Al-Jazeera, November 16, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/11/20101115165524154228.html

Deepa Panchang is the Another Haiti is Possible Co-Coordinator for Other Worlds. She has engaged in advocacy for human rights in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake.You can access all of Other Worlds’ past articles regarding post-earthquake Haiti here.

Copyleft Other Worlds. You may reprint this article in whole or in part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Other Worlds.

This month Brooklyn artist Marni Kotak will deliver her first child in a gallery as a work of art.

• Photograph by Flickr user tofslie and used under a Creative Commons license. •

When WIP volunteer Sabrina Brett overheard this story on the BBC's newshour, her intial reaction was shock but then while listening to Kotak's husband Jason Bell's description of the performance and its vision, her interest was piqued.

Is "The Birth of Baby X" performance art at its very best or its very worst?

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

Global meat production and consumption have increased rapidly in recent decades, with harmful effects on the environment and public health as well as on the economy, according to research done by Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet project for Vital Signs Online. Worldwide meat production has tripled over the last four decades and increased 20 percent in just the last 10 years. Meanwhile, industrial countries are consuming growing amounts of meat, nearly double the quantity in developing countries.

Large-scale meat production also has serious implications for the world’s climate. Animal waste releases methane and nitrous oxide, greenhouse gases that are 25 and 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, respectively.

• According to a new Worldwatch report, global meat consumption and production continue to rise. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack) •

• Pork is the most widely consumed meat in the world, followed by poultry, beef, and mutton.


• Poultry production is the fastest growing meat sector, increasing 4.7 percent in 2010 to 98 million tons.


• Worldwide, per capita meat consumption increased from 41.3 kilograms in 2009 to 41.9 kilograms in 2010. People In the developing world eat 32 kilograms of meat a year on average, compared to 80 kilograms per person in the industrial world.


• Of the 880 million rural poor people living on less than $1 per day, 70 percent are partially or completely dependent on livestock for their livelihoods and food security.


• Demand for livestock products will nearly double in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, from 200 kilocalories per person per day in 2000 to some 400 kilocalories in 2050.


• Raising livestock accounts for roughly 23 percent of all global water use in agriculture, equivalent to 1.15 liters of water per person per day.


• Livestock account for an estimated 18 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, producing 40 percent of the world’s methane and 65 percent of the world’s nitrous oxide.


• Seventy-five percent of the antibiotics used on livestock are not absorbed by the animals and are excreted in waste, posing a serious risk to public health.


• An estimated 11 percent of deaths in men and 16 percent of deaths in women could be prevented if people decreased their red meat consumption to the level of the group that ate the least.


• Eating organic, pasture-raised animals can be healthier and environmentally beneficial compared to industrial feedlot systems.

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet

Policymakers around the world need to step up their efforts to combat hunger, malnutrition, and poverty by providing greater support for agriculture. The winners of this year’s World Food Prize show how policymakers and leaders who invest in their countries’ agricultural futures can make lasting change.

The World Food Prize, awarded each year since 1994 and sponsored by businessman and philanthropist John Ruan, recognizes the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world, thereby helping to boost global food security. This year, the prize will be awarded to John Agyekum Kufuor, the former president of Ghana, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former president of Brazil, for their outstanding achievements in reducing hunger in their countries. The ceremony will take place during the Borlaug International Symposium in Des Moines, Iowa, from October 12 to 14.

Both of this year’s World Food Prize recipients have made considerable contributions to their countries’ agricultural sectors. Under former Ghanaian President Kufuor’s tenure, both the share of people suffering from hunger and the share of people living on less than $1 dollar a day were halved. Economic reforms strengthened public investment in food and agriculture, which was a major factor behind the quadrupling of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) between 2003 and 2008. Because 60 percent of Ghana’s population depends directly on agriculture, the sector is critical for the country’s economic development.

In addition to the economic reforms, Ghana’s Agricultural Extension Service helped alleviate hunger and poverty by educating farmers and ultimately doubling cocoa production between 2002 and 2005. And the country’s School Feeding Program, which began in 2005, ensures that school children receive one nutritiously and locally produced meal every day. The program has transformed domestic agriculture by supporting irrigation, improving seeds and crop diversification, making tractors more affordable for farmers, and building feed roads, silos, and cold stores for horticultural crops.

In Brazil, among the major goals of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s presidency were alleviating poverty, improving educational opportunities for children, providing greater inclusion of the poor in society, and ensuring that “every Brazilian has food to eat three times a day.” The government implemented policies and actions known as the “Zero Hunger Programs” to provide cash aid to poor families (guaranteeing a minimum income and enabling access to basic goods and services); to distribute food to poor families through community restaurants, assisted-living facilities, day-care centers, and related organizations; and to provide nutritious meals to children in public schools. As a result, the number of hungry people in Brazil was halved, and the share of Brazilians living in extreme poverty decreased from 12 percent in 2003 to 4.8 percent in 2009.

Not just in Ghana and Brazil, but around the world, policymakers, farmers, activists, and other leaders are investing in agricultural innovations to reduce hunger and alleviate poverty—although many of these efforts need to be scaled up. In Uganda, for example, Project DISC (Developing Innovations in School Cultivation) is teaching students how to grow, cook, and eat native vegetables, including spiderwiki and amaranth. Not only are the students learning how to cook and provide for themselves, but the classes are giving them a reason to stay in rural areas and become farmers, instead of migrating to the cities. In other countries, including Niger, Kenya, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, farmers are learning how to increase their harvests and get more “crop per drop.” In Benin, the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) has introduced solar-powered drip irrigation that is improving nutrition and raising incomes for farmers. After one year of implementing the innovation, villagers were eating three to five servings of vegetables a day, and children were going to school instead of spending time carrying water to the fields.

Unfortunately, agriculture is not often a top priority for policymakers—in Africa, only seven nations invest 10 percent or more of their national budgets in the sector. The leaders and policymakers—including former presidents Kufuor and da Silva—who have invested in agriculture and helped to reduce hunger and poverty in their countries deserve praise. But with some 1 billion hungry people remaining in the world who have to cope with volatile food prices, climate change, and water scarcity, much greater investment and policy support is needed to boost agriculture and improve global food security.

To purchase your own copy of State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet, please click HERE. And to watch the one minute book trailer, click HERE.

On Monday morning, October 3, ten women stood across the street from the Ministry of Social Affairs, waving their arms, wailing and chanting. They were calling on Osany, of the pantheon of vodou lwa, or spirits, for assistance. The lyrics of their chant, repeated over and again, were patently simple:

Stop stealing this country’s money
This country’s money belongs to the poor.

The Creole word for “poor,” malerè, also means miserable. And the litany of the women’s sources of misery is overwhelming: aging tents, shredding tarps, heat, rain, wind, high blood pressure, colds, body aches, cholera, rats, cockroaches, raw sewage, no potable water, no privacy, no security. One is a single mom with a 2-month old. And they are all facing eviction from Vilaj Fratènite, Brotherhood Village, the displacement camp where they have lived since the earthquake.

Monday was World Habitat Day, established by the UN in 1986. The month of October is annually one in which movements and organizations around the world mobilize for housing rights and in opposition to evictions.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 595,000 Haitians are still living in camps – half of the total number displaced by the earthquake 21 months ago. And, despite last year's ruling by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the Haitian government impose a moratorium on all evictions, the government has not stepped in to keep private landowners and local government officials from forcing displaced people off both public and private land. IOM reported that the number of camps under threat of eviction increased by 400% per cent between July 2010 and July 2011.

Although conditions in the camps are abominable, residents that remain in the camps - facing the challenges that the women from Brotherhood Village enumerated above - do so simply because they have no better options. Summed up one member of the group, “That’s how we live now. But where will we go when we are evicted? We have nowhere to go.”

Homeless people and their allies have begun to vocally insist on their democratic right to participate in planning the reconstruction of their homes, communities, and nations. It is acknowledged in the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement that displaced people should be able to participate in the “in the planning and management of their return or resettlement.” Yet the government has consistently excluded the vast majority, including those directly impacted. Although various housing plans are being drafted by the government and international agencies, human rights lawyer Patrice Florvilus says, “If it’s decided without us, it won’t help us.”

President Michel Martelly’s housing plan, referred to as “sixteen-six,” includes provisions for the relocation of six larger, more visible camps to sixteen rehabilitated neighborhoods. As for how those ten women calling out to Osany might benefit, there may as well be no plan. The same goes for residents of the 184 other displacement camps that are not addressed by Martelly’s program.

Patrice went on to point out that the housing repair projects being led by many international agencies throughout earthquake-damaged areas benefit those who were homeowners before the earthquake. While this is helpful, it does not address the needs of the renters and homeless, who are the most vulnerable. “What housing projects are targeting the people that need housing the most?” he asked.

In response, the Force for Reflection and Action on Housing (FRAKKA), a collective of 30-some committees and associations from displacement camps, formed to advocate for secure and dignifying housing for all, as well as to combat forced evictions. More recently, a group called the Housing Rights Collective, which includes FRAKKA and other organizations, have been attempting to create possibilities for camp residents to organize, collectively determine their needs and priorities, and form strategies to achieve them.

Nou bouke viv anba tant, We are tired of living under tents, was the slogan for three days of events, from October 1-3, planned by the Housing Rights Collective to mark World Habitat Day. Events included a forum, skits and cultural activities in Camp Corail-Cesselesse, and a rally in front of the Ministry of Social Affairs. Allies from the International Alliance of Inhabitants, the Zero Evictions Movement, COOPHABITAT in the Dominican Republic, and housing cooperative movements in Puerto Rico and Cuba came to Haiti to lend support, reminding displaced Haitians that they are not isolated in their struggle. They also shared strategies from their own successes in winning housing.

Forum participants included approximately 120 camp residents and members of camp committees or associations. An emphasis in the discussion was on evictions. Testimonies from camp residents who have already experienced forcible and often violent evictions resonated deeply with others in attendance. With no clear housing strategy in place, most expressed fear that they will eventually be forced to leave the camps without being provided alternative places to live.

• Residents of displacement camp Vilaj Fratènite protest across the street from the Ministry of Social Affairs in Port-au-Prince, demanding adequate housing and calling on fellow Haitians to stand up for housing rights. •

During the rally, some of that action was visible in front of the Ministry. Spirited protestors, mostly women, including the group from Brotherhood Village, waved hand-written signs:

“We are not made to live under the rain.”

“There is no liberty without well-being. There is no well-being without adequate housing for all. Housing without discrimination.”

“January 12 took most of what we own. We won’t let rain and hurricanes wash us away with the little that is left.”

“We are people. We want homes.”

“Ministry of Social Affairs, fulfill your responsibility.”

As for solutions? A letter drafted by camp committees and other grassroots groups and delivered during the protests requested that the Ministry: help to apply the Inter-American Human Rights Commission ruling to stop forced evictions; take leadership in creating a national housing plan, complete with zoning regulations; begin public housing projects for earthquake survivors; ensure that a housing fund be part of the national budget; and, finally, give the Public Office for Public Housing Promotion (EPPLS by its French acronym) the means and the power to execute a public housing plan.

More advocacy initiatives are being planned, including meetings with the parliament and chamber of deputies to discuss budgeting for public housing initiatives, and meetings with local magistrates to request their assistance in curbing forced evictions. FRAKKA and the newly formed pro-bono legal office started by Patrice Florvilus, Defenders of the Oppressed (DOP), are joining forces to provide legal training to camp residents. The International Lawyers Office (BAI) is carrying out similar work, conducting advocacy for housing rights and fighting forced evictions.

Today the Haitian popular movement (the succession of grassroots groups and progressive non-profit organizations that have led movements for alternative social, economic and political systems) is small and faces numerous challenges. The movement still bears the scars of past political divisions and for many, the risk of being outspoken is great. Despite relative civil liberty in Haiti today, ongoing beatings and arrests of activists at anti-eviction demonstrations have been a reminder of that risk. Progress is also often obstructed by lack of resources.

Given the size and desperation of Haiti’s displaced population, right to housing and anti-evictions work is necessarily one of the main foci of the popular movement. As time passes without adequate solutions from the government and international agencies, camp residents are growing increasingly exasperated.

In her introduction to Saturday’s forum, Lisane André of GARR reminded participants of the proverb, Se kolòn ki bat, It is a column that wins. She explained: “When we are faced with a struggle and we separate, each working individually, it will take a long time to achieve results, if they’re achieved at all. Instead, if we all come together, if we create a chain, if we stick together, if we form a column… We can achieve victory despite the odds.”

“We are a collective,” she cried, her voice ringing out, “And we invite everyone to join us in the movement for housing.”

Click here to participate in calling for an end to forced evictions.

Alexis Erkert is the Another Haiti is Possible Co-Coordinator for Other Worlds. She has worked in advocacy and with the Haitian social movement for the past three years.You can access all of Other Worlds’ past articles regarding post-earthquake Haiti here.

Copyleft Other Worlds. You may reprint this article in whole or in part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Other Worlds.

The increasing war on words between Turkey and Israel not only threatens to deprive Israel of an important ally, but, more ominously, it threatens to engulf the region in an arms race and wider conflict. It is time for both former allies to conduct serious negotiations before the situation reaches a point of no return.

In remarks recently in Cairo and in an interview with TIME magazine on September 26, 2011, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was extremely critical of Israel’s actions with the Gaza convoy. He was also critical of Israel’s refusal to pay compensation to the families of the victims and to apologize for the death of nine Turkish activists when the Gaza flotilla was intercepted by Israeli commandos.

After that incident, in November of 2010, Ankara’s National Security Council named Israel as a central threat to Turkish security for the first time since 1949. “The region’s instability stems from Israeli actions and policy, which could lead to an arms race in the Middle East,” said the report.

During his visit to Cairo, in a 30-minute speech to the Arab League, Prime Minister Erdogan said that Israel had undermined its legitimacy by irresponsible behavior. “It [Israel] acts irresponsibly and without hesitation in smashing human dignity and international law by carrying out assaults on international convoys, which carry nothing but food and toys for children,” said Erdogan.

Israel expressed regret for the loss of lives aboard the flotilla, and said that it was time for the two countries to restore their former close ties. However, the Israeli government has refused to apologize for its actions or to pay compensation to the families of the activists killed during the raid on the Mavi Marmara going to Gaza.

In addition, Israel’s recent announcement approving the building of 1,100 housing units in the Gilo neighborhood in east Jerusalem will not help to improve relations between the two countries, particularly since Erdogan has been a strong advocate for Palestinian rights. “It is time to raise the Palestinian flag at the United Nations. Let’s raise the Palestinian flag and let that flag be the symbol of peace and justice in the Middle East,” said Erdogan.

During a recent interview with CNN, Erdogan accused Israel of using the Holocaust to justify its actions against the Palestinians, as well as to convey the idea that “they are the victims all the time.” Erdogan also said that there were no accurate statistics on the number of Israelis killed in the conflict with the Palestinians, suggesting that there were approximately 200, while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been killed as a result of Israeli attacks on the citizens of Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly reacted to these allegations saying that, “These are outrageous charges against Israel that have nothing to do with the facts.” And Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called Turkey’s leadership radical, extremist and terror supporting. “We certainly respect the Turkish nation and Turkey as a state. Our problem is first and foremost with the current Turkish leadership – the radical and extremist Islamist leadership that supports and nurtures terror,” said Lieberman.

During a recent interview with TIME magazine Erdogan was also extremely critical of the Middle East Quartet. “…you need to take a sincerity test before you even think of accomplishing this: [Ask yourselves the question], do we really want to resolve this issue or not? Unfortunately, I do not see even the traces of this within the Quartet,” said Erdogan.

His point of view may be shared by those who see the Quartet’s biggest achievement as having provided Mr. Tony Blair with free flyer miles during his frequent trips to the Middle East. “He is useless to us,” said Nabil Shaath, senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, assessing Blair’s contribution to peace negotiations in the Middle East.

The situation between Israel and Turkey is now at a stalemate. It is to the benefit of both countries to overcome the issues separating them and renew friendly relations. The alternative could be an escalation of the hostilities and more unrest in that volatile region.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.