Womens Work: In post-genocide Rwanda, women play an important role in development

I found a link to this video on my favorite blog, feministing.com. Check it out.

The Rwandan genocide took place in April 1994, when, famously, 800,000 people were massacred in 100 days. "Men were killed in greater numbers during the genocide...Out of necessity, women got more involved," the narrator of this documentary says. Women play an important role in the country now, as it develops post-genocide. This clip illustrates the long-term effect of the genocide on Rwandan society, which has in the past 14 years. It tells the story of a remarkable woman named Jeanette Nyirabaganwa, who lost her entire family in the genocide but who now runs a phenomenally productive coffee farm. It also discusses the importance of women in post-conflict development, something I am going to try to research more over the next few months (as time allows, since I'm finishing school). As Kai remarked on the blog Zuky, "There's some sort of strange, painful, twisted irony in Rwanda's rise from the horrors of post-colonial genocide to become one of the most visibly women-led countries in the world." (Emphasis mine).

I am not an expert on Rwanda nor on Darfur, but I think this model of women in post-genocide development will be central to rebuilding Darfur once the violence stops.

I've also posted this on Protect the Human and will continue to post my pieces about women in development on both blogs.

The Pope and the Holocaust

Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications of several Catholic bishops who have denied the Holocaust, according to an article from the BBC. The article quotes one of the bishops denying the existence of Nazi gas chambers:

Bishop Richard Williamson recently told Swedish TV: "I believe there were no gas chambers. I think that two to three hundred thousand Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but none of them by gas chambers."

His position is less denying the Holocaust than it is minimizing it--we have records of gas chambers and the number I learned in high school was that 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust, in addition to about 7 million Roma, homosexuals, and other marginalized groups. Minimizing the scale of the Holocaust, however, is equally dangerous because it lessens its importance as one of the greatest catastrophes of the last century and it disregards the lives of millions who died. In addition, the Pope is a figure much of the world looks to for guidance and he plays an important role in promoting harmony between religions. This action will likely affect Catholic-Jewish relations in the future.

Says Mordechai Lewy, quoted in the article:

We have no intention of interfering in the internal workings of the Catholic Church, however, the eagerness to bring a Holocaust denier back into the Church will cast a shadow on relations between Jews and the Catholic Church.

The lifting of these excommunications, the article noted, had nothing to do with the Holocaust denial and more to do with the politics of the church. There are repercussions, however, given the personal histories of these bishops, and perhaps this Holocaust denial should be addressed by the church. Certainly, driving a wedge between religions is less than conducive to promoting inter-religious tolerance, at the very least.

Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic "man-made"

Crossposted from Protect the Human.

An epidemic of cholera, a disease caused by bacteria from contaminated water, broke out in Zimbabwe in August. According to CNN, a report was released recently saying that the death toll has now reached upwards of 2,700 victims. This report prompted Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's opposition leader, to comment.

Opposition party leader Morgan Tsvangirai, speaking to reporters, pointed a finger at the Mugabe government. "Cholera in Zimbabwe is a man-made crisis. The problem we have here is coupled with (the) fact of negligence on the part of government to provide the necessary facilities. It shows the collapse of the health delivery system," said Tsvangirai.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 2,755 people have died and 48,623 people may be infected with cholera.

See earlier post: Health care is a human right.

Faxes to end genocide

Obama's president now (that is sooooo awesome to say!) but it's still our job to ensure change really does come to Washington. Number one priority: end genocide in Darfur. Visit STAND's website for information on how to fax a "Checklist for Change" to the White House to encourage President Obama to end the genocide in Darfur. He talked about it a lot as a candidate and had a kick-ass record on supporting anti-genocide legislation as a senator. Let's make sure that, as president, ending genocide remains as important. We can't expect the impossible--you know, peace and prosperity overnight--but we can expect the possible: a real commitment to justice, human rights, and preventing mass atrocities.

Justice coming for Darfur...

I just found this post on the Amnesty International blog (Human Rights Now). It was published five days ago and talks about the possibility of justice, finally, in Darfur. In the upcoming weeks, the International Criminal Court (ICC) should indict Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir. The writer, Denise Bell, warns however:

We need to be wary of using the possibility of International Criminal Court indictments as a carrot and stick in seeking to end the conflict in Darfur. Deferring the case of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir sets up a catastrophic precedent whereby politics dictates the course of justice. Amnesty International has advocated against such interference in the ICC from the court’s inception.

So, justice is more complicated than just handing over the indictment.... We knew that; it's just easier to get caught up in the fantasy that injustice might end. Bell's fear is that the ICC will recind the indictments if Bashir stops the killing. The post seems to raise the questions of what good is justice if the killing does not stop and what good is stopping the killing if there is no justice. Justice is important, she emphasizes, because the Darfuris, those directly affected by the six-year genocide, want it.

Health care is a human right.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote a graphic article, published today, bluntly titled "Zimbabwe Is Dying." Not having much background on the subject of health care or the history and current situation in Zimbabwe, I can't offer much analysis, but the article is too important not to post. Herbert writes that Zimbabwe's life expectancy for men is now 37; for women it is 34--the lowest in the world for both men and women. There is an epidemic of cholera and people have contracted anthrax after eating meat from animals who have died of it. Pointing to the political and economic turmoil in Zimbabwe and Mugabe's brutality, Herbert writes that the health care system is basically falling apart.

The decline in health services over the past year has been staggering. An international team of doctors that conducted an “emergency assessment” of the state of medical care last month seemed stunned by the catastrophe they witnessed. The team was sponsored by Physicians for Human Rights. In their report, released this week, the doctors said:

“The collapse of Zimbabwe’s health system in 2008 is unprecedented in scale and scope. Public-sector hospitals have been shuttered since November 2008. The basic infrastructure for the maintenance of public health, particularly water and sanitation services, have abruptly deteriorated in the worsening political and economic climate.”

(Emphasis mine).

The deterioration of the health care system seems to be both a result of the economic/political crisis in Zimbabwe but with a collapsed infrastructure, the situation won't improve quickly or easily.

Organizations working on this issue include Physicians for Human Rights, Doctors Without Borders, and UNICEF.

Obama shining a spotlight on human rights

I'm going to deviate from our anti-genocide theme for a post and write about another human rights issue that I've been involved with for about three years: Guantanamo Bay. The prison has been in the news a lot lately, as President-elect Barack Obama's transition team tries to figure out a way to close it. According to the New York Times, Obama will announce a plan for closing the prison on January 21, his first full day in office. This announcement raises a host of other questions, many discussed on the NYTs' blog "Room for Debate," including what to do with the prisoners and how to define/redefine detention laws. I'm really skeptical about what he's going to be able to do on his first day in office. Does announcing a plan of action necessarily mean action? If he's too hasty, it might end up being more of an empty, merely symbolic gesture rather than an actual solution to the problem and redefinition of US detention laws.

Despite my skepticism as to Obama's timeline, I don't doubt that he will close the prison and ban torture. I think it is important that his transition team is discussing closing the prison as one of the first acts of his presidency because it signifies that human rights, be it in the form of anti-torture laws or anti-genocide laws, will be central to his policies.

Visit Amnesty International to help ensure that Obama makes closing Guantanamo a priority during his first 100 days in office. In these last five days of darkness, let's all work to keep shining that light on human rights!