Tag: IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse

Latin America Still Has a Long Way to Go to Eliminate Gender Violence — Global Issues

“He who loves does not kill, does not humiliate or mistreat” reads a poster carried in a protest against violence against women in Lima, the capital of Peru, which is part of a slogan repeated in demonstrations against femicides and other forms of sexist violence in Latin America. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
  • by Mariela Jara (lima)
  • Inter Press Service

LIMA, Nov 24 (IPS) – This article is part of IPS coverage of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, celebrated Saturday, Nov. 25.”The Latin American and Caribbean region has made many advances in the fight against gender violence, but now we are facing reactions that show that our rights are never secure and that we must always be on the alert to defend them,” said Susana Chiarotti, a member of Mesecvi’s Committee of Experts.

The Committee of Experts is the technical body of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Mesecvi), known as the Convention of Belem do Para, which will celebrate its 30th anniversary in force in the countries of the region in 2024. The committee is made up of independent experts appointed by each state party.

Chiarotti summed up the regional situation of progress and setbacks in a conversation with IPS from her home in the Argentine city of Rosario, ahead of the United Nations’ Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, commemorated on Saturday, Nov. 25.

Gender violence violates the human rights of one in four women in this region with an estimated female population of 332 million, 51 percent of the total, and escalates to the extreme level of femicide – gender-based murders – which cost 4050 lives in 2022, according to figures confirmed Friday, Nov. 24 by the Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Likewise, UN Women‘s regional director for the Americas and the Caribbean, María Noel Vaeza, told IPS from Panama City that the emblematic date seeks to draw the attention of countries to the urgent need to put an end to violence against women once and for all by adopting public policies for prevention and investing in programs to eliminate it.

She pointed out that Nov. 25 is the first of 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, which run through Dec. 10, Human Rights Day.

Vaeza said that less than 40 percent of women who suffer violence seek some kind of help, which clearly shows that they do not find guarantees in the prevention and institutional response system and therefore do not report incidents.

“This has serious consequences for their lives and those of other women, as the perpetrators do not face justice and impunity and violence continue unchecked,” she said.

Uruguayan María Noel Vaeza, UN Women regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, draws the attention of countries to the urgent need to put an end to violence against women through the adoption of public policies for prevention and investment in programs to eliminate it. CREDIT: UN Women
Uruguayan María Noel Vaeza, UN Women regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, draws the attention of countries to the urgent need to put an end to violence against women through the adoption of public policies for prevention and investment in programs to eliminate it. CREDIT: UN Women

Vaeza said that, despite these worrying trends, there is more evidence than ever that violence against women is preventable, and urged countries in the region to invest in prevention.

“The evidence shows that the presence of a strong, autonomous feminist movement is a critical factor in driving public policy change for the elimination of violence against women at the global, regional, national and local levels,” said the UN Women regional head.

She explained that many studies have shown that large-scale reductions in violence against women can be achieved through coordinated action between local and national prevention and response systems and women’s and other civil society organizations.

So in order to move towards regulatory frameworks and improve the institutional architecture and budget allocations to prevent, respond to and redress gender-based violence, strengthening the advocacy capacity of feminist and women’s movements and organizations is indispensable.

She also mentioned that whenever progress is made, there are setbacks as well, and “unfortunately history shows us that social changes against things like machismo/sexism and violence require the efforts of society as a whole and plans and policies that give answers to the victims today, but also make it possible to improve the system in the medium and long term.”

Vaeza stressed that violence against women and girls remains the most pervasive human rights violation around the world. Its prevalence worsened in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and is growing further due to the interrelated crises of climate change, global conflicts and economic instability.

She also mentioned the proliferation of new forms of violence and the persistence of those “who believe that we do not have to guarantee women’s human rights, and organize themselves, and in the region we have situations such as attacks against women human rights defenders and activists that have become more frequent.”

Vaeza, from Uruguay, underlined that there is more evidence than ever that it is possible to change this reality and that in order to have peaceful societies, reducing inequality and poverty is key, and all this will depend on advancing gender equality and the rights of those who have historically faced discrimination.

They are mainly, she said, women living in poverty, indigenous women, women of African descent, rural women, women migrants, and women and girls with disabilities.

Susana Chiarotti is a member of the Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention, which has been monitoring the performance of States in their obligation to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women for the past 30 years. CREDIT: Cladem Argentina

Strong reactions to progress

Chiarotti said: “I have been with Mesecvi for 20 years and I can see the changes. Let’s remember that it was only in 1989 that laws on violence against women began to be enacted and that we did not have services, shelters, specialized courts and even less a specific Convention to address this issue, which was the first in the world.”

The lawyer and university professor emphasized that in 40 years the women’s movement has put the issue of violence against women on the public agenda and has made such huge strides that “we could be called the most successful lobby in history in positioning an issue in such a massive and global manner.”

And she added that “we did not believe then, in 1986, 1987 or 1988, that the phenomenon had permeated all structures, not only the intimate sphere; there was symbolic, institutional, political and many other forms of violence, which led us to demand more answers, especially from the State, which, being patriarchal, admitted women only with forceps.”

Chiarotti, who is also a former head of the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (Cladem), warns that they are now facing reactions to the extent that unimaginable alliances have arisen to stop them, such as that of the Vatican with conservative evangelical churches and far-right groups.

She also mentioned the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that in June 2022 overthrew the right to abortion in that country, which had been in force for almost 50 years.

“That makes you realize that our rights are never secure, that we must always be on the alert to defend them. And it is difficult for a movement that is cyclical, that has waves, that rises and falls, to be always alert,” she said.

In addition, she mentioned the recent victory of the candidate Javier Milei as future president of Argentina and the dangers he represents for women’s rights, sexual diversity and the historical memory of human rights abuses.

“This will not be the first time that this people, and women especially, will enter a stage of resistance, because we have been resisting misogynistic attacks and fighting for life for centuries, but we have a very hard time ahead of us,” Chiarotti said.

She added that Latin America has fragile democracies that are only a few decades old and in crisis, which impact women’s rights. “Many of our countries came out of dictatorships, the longest has had 50 or 60 years of democracy. We will have to work to defend democratic institutions, to use them to defend our rights,” she said.

Holding up signs demanding “No to violence” and “No to machismo,” women demonstrate against gender violence in front of Peru’s main courthouse in Lima. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

Prevention: a task eluded by the States

The expert argued that since the work of preventing gender-based violence is more costly and time-consuming than that of punishment and less politically profitable, the efforts of countries are weak in this area despite their importance.

“Limiting the work to punishment and addressing incidents is like seeing a big rock that people stumble over and bang up against, and they are cured and taught to go around it, but without removing it from the path. Without prevention we will always have victims because the discriminatory culture that reproduces violence will not be transformed,” she warned.

But even adding up what countries invest to address and eradicate violence against women in the region, none of them reach one percent of their national budget according to the Third Hemispheric Report published by Mesecvi in 2017, a proportion that has apparently not changed since then.

In September of this year, the United Nations published a study showing that an investment of 360 billion dollars is needed to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment by 2030, established as one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This would help to eliminate the scourge of gender-based violence.

© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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A Reinvigorated Regional Commitment to Tsunami Preparedness in Asia & the Pacific — Global Issues

Source: UNESCO-IOC (The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.?)
  • Opinion by Temily Baker, Juliette de Charry (bangkok, thailand)
  • Inter Press Service

BANGKOK, Thailand, Nov 24 (IPS) – Between 1970 and 2022, disaster events in Asia and the Pacific caused 2.04 million deaths and $2.71 trillion in economic damages. ESCAP estimates that among these totals, tsunamis rank as the third deadliest hazard, accounting for 12% of fatalities, and the fourth most economically destructive hazard, comprising 11 per cent of economic damages.

Tsunamis, despite their infrequent occurrence, cause significant damage, with 260,000 fatalities from 58 tsunamis in the last century, averaging 4,600 deaths per event. Vulnerable populations, including women, children, persons with disabilities, and the older persons, are disproportionately affected.

For example, in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, around 70 per cent of fatalities were women, whereas in the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami, 64.4 per cent of the victims were older individuals.

By 2030, around half of the global population will reside in coastal areas vulnerable to floods, storms, and tsunamis. Given the ongoing impact of climate change the need for proactive measures to mitigate these coastal risks is becoming more apparent.

Since natural hazards do not follow national boundaries, regional cooperation plays a critical role in tsunami warnings in the Asia-Pacific region.

Regional commitment, catalysed by the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, has led to significant improvements in multi-hazard coastal preparedness across the Indian Ocean basin. In 2005, a ground-breaking grant of US$10 million from the Government of Thailand established the ESCAP Multi-Donor Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness.

The Trust Fund represents a regional commitment to strengthening early warning systems and the current membership of Italy, Switzerland, India, and Japan with Thailand are evidence of how triangular and south-south cooperation can be mutually supportive.

As a result, 19 countries have directly benefitted through building regional and national end-to-end warning systems for coastal hazards.

The Trust Fund played a vital role in creating the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (IOTWMS), which became operational in October 2011, with Australia, India, and Indonesia as regional service providers. With an initial investment of US$300 million, this system supports 36 countries in the Indian Ocean basin.

These nations now share a Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment, recently updated to include the Makran Subduction Zone in the North-West Indian Ocean. To ensure sustainability, the IOTWMS promotes a multi-hazard approach and encourages governments to formalize financial commitments through legal frameworks and long-term policies. A 2015 ESCAP study estimated that the IOTWMS will save at least 1,000 lives annually over the next century.

Figure 1: Existing services of the Global Tsunami Warning System.
Source: UNESCO-IOC (The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.?)

In May 2023, ESCAP reaffirmed its regional commitment to advance early warning systems, including those for tsunamis. They also resolved to accelerate climate action for sustainable development and mandated the development of regional early warning systems (E/ESCAP/RES/79/1).

ESCAP recognized the Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster, and Climate Preparedness as a crucial funding mechanism to support these efforts across the region (ESCAP/CDR(8)/6).

Advancing tsunami warnings for all

This year’s World Tsunami Awareness Day (WTAD) on 5 November was dedicated to addressing inequality for a more resilient future and focused on raising awareness about the factors that make tsunamis more deadly for the most vulnerable populations.

The theme was aligned with the “Early Warnings for All” global initiative, which aims to provide early warning systems to everyone on Earth by 2027, and Target G of the Sendai Framework, which promotes the expansion of early warnings and early actions for all.

Building on the momentum of the Early Warnings for All initiative, it’s crucial to ensure that efforts to improve early warning systems for climate-related hazards also include those of seismic origin, such as tsunamis.

Through generous contributions to the Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness, UNESCO-IOC and ESCAP have now initiated a comprehensive assessment of tsunami preparedness capacity in the Indian and Pacific Ocean basins.

This assessment will use a standardized methodology based on the 2018 capacity assessment Indian Ocean tsunami preparedness. It will evaluate progress made since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and provide regional decision-makers with insights into the additional requirements for tsunami preparedness, both technically and in terms of policy.

Tsunamis should be treated as multifaceted threats that not only endanger lives but also disrupt livelihoods, industry, agriculture, gender equality, and critical services like education and healthcare.

Access to high-quality and readily information is crucial for supporting regional mechanisms and local preparedness while also increasing awareness of early warning systems.

For more information on World Tsunami Awareness Day, visit: https://tsunamiday.undrr.org/

For more information on the Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness, visit: https://www.unescap.org/disaster-preparedness-fund

For more information on the IOTWMS, visit: http://www.ioc-tsunami.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8&Itemid=13&lang=en

Temily Baker is Programme Management Officer. ESCAP; Juliette de Charry Intern, ICT and Disaster Risk Reduction Division, ESCAP

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Give Wildlife a Seat at the Table — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Gavin Bruce (uckfield, uk)
  • Inter Press Service

UCKFIELD, UK, Nov 23 (IPS) – As we stand at a critical crossroads in climate change, we must recognise the inextricable link between nature and climate. This connection has been overlooked for far too long. IAR’s COP28 campaign, ‘Give Wildlife A Seat At The Table,’ is gaining support from prominent figures such as Joanna Lumley, Peter Egan, and Jo Brand, who are joining forces with the organisation to address the urgent need for wildlife representation.

The campaign aims to push world leaders to seriously consider the planet’s wildlife and the biodiversity crisis during COP28 discussions.

As the world gears up for COP28, the urgency of addressing climate change has never been more apparent. However, it is crucial to recognise that climate change is not a standalone issue; it is intricately linked to biodiversity loss and, ultimately, the health and wellbeing of humanity. It is important to understand the critical role that conserving wildlife, habitats, nature, and ecosystems plays in mitigating climate change and safeguarding our shared future.

The toll on people and wildlife from climate change is not a distant threat; its impacts are already being felt across the globe, affecting both human populations and wildlife. Communities are already experiencing the adverse effects of rising sea levels, extreme weather events, flooding, droughts and severe storms.

Similarly, the changes to global weather patterns due to climate change pose direct threats to ecosystems worldwide. These changes disrupt habitats, pushing hundreds of thousands of species to the brink of extinction. As ecosystems unravel, the intricate web of biodiversity is compromised, affecting the delicate balance that sustains life on Earth.

We are now at a critical moment in global climate action. This urgency is underscored by a year of record-breaking temperatures and extreme weather events across the planet. COP28 serves as an evaluation of the progress since the promises made in Paris at COP21 and how effective these commitments have been in limiting long-term global temperature rises.

At COP28, we are hopeful that world leaders will come together, representing their countries, and step up their commitments to slow global heating. They will also consider the funding and adaptations needed to support the communities most affected.

The central question arises: Is it right that wildlife does not have a voice at the table where decisions impacting the entire planet are made? Wildlife must be given due representation in these discussions. Wildlife must have a seat at the table! International Animal Rescue (IAR) is leading the charge to ‘Give Wildlife A Seat At The Table,’ mobilising 10,000 voices to implore world leaders to prioritise wildlife and biodiversity during the discussions.

IAR envisions a world where humans and animals thrive together in sustainable ecosystems. Conserving biodiversity is not just about protecting endangered species; it’s about preserving the intricate web of life that sustains our planet. Healthy ecosystems, thriving with diverse plant and animal species, act as a natural buffer against climate change.

IAR’s conservation programme, IARconserves, embraces a holistic, one-health approach. By adopting community-centric, grass-roots strategies, the outcomes positively impact people, wildlife and the environment. Through IARconserves, we have improved the health and prosperity of forest edge communities; in turn, this has reduced the environmental impact of human activity.
By conserving wildlife and their habitats, forests are protected, ensuring that millions of tonnes of carbon remain stored in the flora and deep peat below.

As we approach COP28, the call to ‘Give Wildlife A Seat At The Table’ becomes more urgent. The success of this campaign hinges on collective action – individuals, communities, and nations coming together to advocate for a more sustainable and inclusive approach to climate discussions.

It is imperative that the international community recognises the inextricable link between climate change, biodiversity loss, and human health. Conservation efforts must be elevated on the global agenda, with a commitment to preserving wildlife, habitats, nature, and ecosystems. By doing so, we not only mitigate the impacts of climate change but also foster a world where both human and non-human inhabitants can thrive.

The urgency is palpable; the time for action is now. The ‘Give Wildlife A Seat At The Table’ campaign by International Animal Rescue calls for world leaders to consider the planet’s wildlife and biodiversity during COP28 seriously.

With a target of 10,000 signatures on the petition, the campaign aims to ensure that the voices of wildlife are heard in decisions that affect all of us – people, animals, forests, and the entirety of our interconnected ecosystems. You can find out more here.

Gavin Bruce is Chief Executive of International Animal Rescue

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Innovative Gender Bond Series Uplifts Rural Women to Drive Climate Action in Asia — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Christina Margaret Morrison, Natasha Garcha (bangkok, thailand)
  • Inter Press Service

BANGKOK, Thailand, Nov 22 (IPS) – Rural women across Asia play a key role producing, processing, and trading agricultural products, and are often the primary users and managers of natural resources.

Despite this, discriminatory practices and stereotypes all too often limit their access to the technologies, information and economic opportunities needed to build resilience against environmental shocks and increase their incomes.

While women farmers are disproportionately affected by the adverse impacts of climate change compared with their male counterparts, they are also uniquely placed to promote meaningful change.

Research shows that if all women smallholder farmers received equal access to productive resources, their farm yields would rise by 20 to 30 per cent, and 100 to 150 million people would no longer go hungry.

Moreover, it is estimated that by improving the productivity of women smallholder farmers, we could reduce carbon emissions by up to 2 billion tons by 2050.

To unlock this potential, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) partnered with Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) to support rural women entrepreneurs across the region to access affordable and well-regulated financial services through the IIX Women’s Livelihood BondTM (WLB™) Series.

The WLB™ Series, which was the world’s first gender-lens investing instrument listed on a stock exchange, is structured as a set of innovative debt securities that mobilize private capital to invest in a multi-country, multi-sector portfolio of women-focused enterprises that balances risk, return, and impact.

Growing substantially since its first issuance in 2017, the Series so far has impacted 1,300,000 women and girls across Asia and Africa and US$128 million has been mobilized.

Gender bonds such as the WLB™ Series have emerged in response to the growing movement to leverage innovative sources of public and private finance to tackle complex social challenges, providing a source of capital for projects and activities that yield positive social and environmental impacts, mitigate risk, as well as maximizing financial returns.

Through the WLB™ Series, IIX has been able to transform the financial system so that women, the environment, and underserved communities are given a value and a voice in the global market.

While most gender bonds focus on just the microfinance sector, the WLB™ Series recognises the role of in driving solutions to climate change, and achieving multiple crosscutting SDGs. In IIX’s most recent issuance, the US$50 million WLB5, the portfolio featured six different sectors, including clean energy and sustainable agriculture, among others.

Cambodian farmer and single mother of four, Lian, has been supplying rice to a WLB™ portfolio company for the past 6 years, through which she has benefited from access to training on sustainable agriculture, and low-cost organic fertilizers and seedlings.

To date, she has attended more than ten training programmes organized by the portfolio company on preparing soil and fertilizers for farming, plantation techniques and safe use of fertilizers. Previously, she only produced rice, but thanks to the training, she has been able to diversify her crops.

Equipped with advanced farming techniques, Lian has been able to increase her annual rice production by 83 per cent, and her annual income has increased by 70 per cent. With a stable income of US$2,939, Lian can now finance the education of her children, manage her household expenses without hardship, and feels empowered to make decisions for herself and her family.

Similarly, Chhorn has been supplying rice to a WLB™ portfolio company in Cambodia since 2016. Working with the borrower has enabled her to improve her crop yield and has integrated her into a formal agricultural supply chain.

Since attending trainings on sustainable rice production methods and organic fertilizers, her annual rice production has increased by 67 per cent. With her increased income, Chhorn has invested in more land for farming, increased rice production and generated further income increases.

Moreover, she has been able to renovate her home, buy a motorbike for her family, build savings, and support her children’s education.

Chhorn also experienced the health benefits of learning safe practices for using fertilizers. “My husband is also a farmer. Previously, we both used to feel allergic reactions and skin irritations from fertilizers. However, after attending the training on the safe use of fertilizers, we are better equipped to handle fertilizers, and now we do not face those health complications from fertilizer usage,” she explained.

Lien and Chhorn are among 639,887 women who have received loans through the IIX WLB™ Series. With support from ESCAP and UNCDF, the WLB2 and WLB3 raised US$12 million and US$27.7 million in private capital for women entrepreneurs, respectively, and reached close to 140,000 women by the end of 2022.

Building on the success of this initiative, IIX has since established the Orange Movement™, which featured at ESCAP’s Feminist Finance Forum in August 2023. The Orange Movement™ is set to unlock US$10 billion and empower 100 million more women like Lien and Chhorn.

The bonds in the WLB™ Series comply with the Orange Bond Principles, an innovative set of standards that ensure gender lens investing products are empowering women across sectors, integrating gender equality through the investment decision-making process, whilst also mandating impact confirmation and measurement to counter issues such as green and impact washing.

Through ESCAP’s Catalysing Women’s Entrepreneurship (CWE) programme, funded by the Government of Canada, to date, US$89.7 million in public and private capital has been leveraged to pilot, test, and scale innovative financing models such as the IIX WLB™ Series.

Christina Margaret Morrison is Consultant, ESCAP; Natasha Garcha is Senior Director, Innovative Finance and Gender-Lens Investing Specialist, IIX

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What Will Tomorrows World Order Look Like? — Global Issues

Marc Saxer
  • Opinion by Marc Saxer (brussels, belgium)
  • Inter Press Service

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Nov 21 (IPS) – Ukraine, the Caucasus and the Middle East. The latest eruptions of violence mark the end of Pax Americana. The rise of new powers is shifting the global balance of power. Whether tomorrow’s world will be bipolar or multipolar still remains to be seen.

If the Sino-American system rivalry escalates into a new Cold War, we could see a bipolar order of competing blocs becoming reality once again. Should the remaining centres of power manage to retain their strategic autonomy, however, tomorrow’s world is likely to remain a multipolar one.

This global development has fundamental consequences for the world order. Will the erosion of the hegemony of Western liberal democracies mean an end to the liberal world order? Can the multilateral institutions co-founded by the United States, along with their normative foundations, survive if the ‘world’s policeman’ no longer has either the power or the will to guarantee them?

Will universal institutions that are open to all states and whose norms are binding for everyone still be around in the future? To put it even more pointedly, can the universal nature of human rights survive in a multipolar world where civilisations with different values compete against one another?

Marc SaxerThe rise of illiberal particularism

Let us take a look at the ideological dimension of the struggle for tomorrow’s world order. The liberal order is being challenged both domestically and globally by competing concepts of order. In the West, liberal universalism is coming under pressure from different forms of illiberal particularism.

The far right is dismantling the rule of law and transforming liberal republics with strong minority rights into illiberal majority democracies. Their aim is to limit democratic participation and the blessings of the welfare state to a nativist majority. As the ‘America First’ and the Brexit campaigns show, right-wing populists try to break free from the chains of international law which impede their goal of illiberal transformation of the state and society.

Yet, the identitarian left is no stranger to particularistic tribalism either. The incitement of people with different skin colors, origins, religions or sexual identities against one another undermines the egalitarian ethos of the republic. Attempts to limit dissenters’ freedom of speech, to culturally relativize infringements of the law or to bypass the parliamentary system by means of political commissars arise from an illiberal spirit. At the end of the day, selective condemnation of human rights violations makes a mockery of the universalist ideas of equal rights for all.

If these forms of particularism are allowed to affect state policy, the West’s commitment to universal norms is undermined. It is true that China and Russia instrumentalize the Global South’s criticism of the West’s double standards for their own ends. But it was the West itself that damaged its own moral authority by breaching international law in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

This loss of legitimacy and relative loss of power weakens the West’s ability to assert itself. Wherever isolationist or nationalist forces come to power, there is also a lack of political will to advocate for international law and human rights around the world. This is not a good omen for the future of the liberal world order and its universal fundamental values.

Russia and China

The Global South’s criticism of the neo-conservative spread of democracy by force of arms points out that there have always been proponents of an American Empire in Washington, and indeed there still are to this day. In Russia and China, in particular, defensive and offensive varieties of neo-imperial concepts of order are gaining attention.

On the defensive side, Russia and China are calling for the non-intervention of the liberal West in their civilizations’ internal matters. On the offensive side, with recourse to their imperial history, they are laying claim to a position as an independent power center in a hierarchically organized world order.

Russia has ideologically disguised its attempt to use armed force to create an exclusive sphere of influence by drawing a distinction between a vital Eurasian and decadent Western civilization. Ironically, these neo-imperial fantasies are especially popular in nationalist circles in the ‘decadent West’. Perhaps the renewed popularity of the Huntington thesis of a ‘clash of civilizations’ stems from the particularistic yearning to sort a chaotic world into tribes made up of ‘people who are like us’ and ‘people who are not’.

China, on the other hand, promotes, with reference to its millennia-old high culture, the idea that civilizations can live in harmony if their own cultures and traditions are respected. Instead of the universality of human rights, Beijing’s ‘Global Civilization Initiative’ talks about ‘common values of humanity’, which every culture must interpret with respect for their ‘own conditions and unique features’.

Within the United Nations framework, China advocates its own interpretation, which places the right to economic and social development above political and civil rights. Philosopher Zhao Tingyang re-introduces the ancient Tianxia system (‘all under heaven’) as a normative superstructure for a world order with Chinese characteristics. Critics worry that all these rediscoveries of concepts from China’s imperial history conceal an attempt to justify the hegemony of the old and new Middle Kingdom in Asia.

China’s attempts to undermine the equality, sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbors elicit just as much outrage as the West’s humanitarian interventions, which critics castigate as cynical ploys to use universal rights as a pretext to interfere in a country’s domestic affairs. In the Global South, the Westphalian principles enshrined in the UN Charter are positioned against the encroachment by imperial and liberal ideas of order.

Instead of a hierarchical order, in which the vassal states group around imperial poles, they insist that all sovereign nation-states are equal under international law in spite of asymmetries of size and power. The principle of territorial integrity aims to put a stop to violent attacks from the imperial centers.

On the other hand, the principle of non-interference is upheld against the humanitarian interventions of the liberal internationalists and the structural adjustment programmes of global governance institutions. This resentment against external interference is the reason why the Western narrative of systemic rivalry between democracy and autocracy finds so little resonance in the Global South.

Finding consensus in a multipolar world

Since its foundation in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the international system of states has been designed without central authority. The US hegemon selectively performing the role of the ‘world’s policeman’ after the end of the Cold War was always only a poor substitute.

In the future, Washington is unlikely to have either the will or power to sanction violations of universal norms. The crucial question is therefore whether, in a multipolar and thus normatively pluralistic world, in which civilizations with different values and historical experiences, a unilateralist minimum consensus can be formed based purely on voluntarism.

Which concept of order eventually prevails will depend on the balance of power in the struggle for tomorrow’s world order. If the West wants to maintain a liberal order, it will have to refrain from the intrusions of humanitarian interventionism, which are perceived as imperialist, and double standards with regard to the application of universal norms.

This does not mean abandoning the fundamental values of democracy and human rights, but it does mean refraining from disseminating those values by means of armed force and economic coercion. Whether or not the West can bring itself to implement this change, of course, will depend in particular on the outcome of the internal conflict between the illiberal particularists and liberal universalists.

From a progressive point of view, the universalist commitment to equal rights for all is the most effective antidote to the endless zero-sum games between identitarian tribes, which are causing society as a whole to stagnate.

To prevent a global clash of civilizations, where every culture relativises the rules of coexistence, we need to stand by universalist norms. If the norms currently underpinning the world order, with its Christian and natural law connotations, are no longer acceptable for everyone, an equal dialogue between the civilizations is required to work out which universal principles can be agreed on instead.

The concern is, however, that a reasoned debate about the West’s enlightened self-interest in the preservation of an international order rooted in universally applicable norms is in danger of being drowned out by the din of morally charged culture wars.

Advocates of a concert of the great powers remind us that respect of the superpowers’ exclusive zones of influence prevented the Cold War from escalating into a hot war (for instance during the Cuban Missile Crisis). The price of this relative stability in the imperial centers is, however, never-ending proxy wars on the periphery. The rejection of neo-imperialist concepts of order also feeds off the reluctance of the overwhelming majority of states to kowtow to the dominance of one pole.

Large parts of the Global South – including important voices in China and Eastern Europe – advocate for the renaissance of a Westphalian order of equal and sovereign states. If the West lacks the political will and the power to preserve the liberal order, maintaining peaceful coexistence based on the UN Charter’s principles of equality, sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, may just be the best of all worse worlds.

Marc Saxer coordinates the regional work of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in the Asia Pacific. Previously, he led the FES offices in India and Thailand and headed the FES Asia Pacific department.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS)-Journal published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin

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The Worlds Right-Wing & Left-Wing Torturers — Global Issues

  • by Thalif Deen (united nations)
  • Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 (IPS) – Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, once made the distinction between “friendly” right-wing authoritarian regimes (which were mostly U.S. and Western allies) and “unfriendly” left-wing totalitarian dictatorships (which the U.S. abhorred).

Among the “dictators” the U.S. shunned in the 1970s and 80s were Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Myanmar’s General Than Shwe, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Libya’s Mummar al-Qaddafi, Syria’s Hafez al-Assad and North Korea’s Kim IL-Sung.

At the same time, successive U.S. administrations cozied up to a rash of right-wing authoritarian regimes and family-run fiefdoms, mostly in South-East Asia, Latin America and particularly the Middle East.

These regimes were widely accused by human rights organizations of instituting emergency laws, detaining dissidents, cracking down on the press, torturing and executing political prisoners and rigging elections. (As a South-East Asian right-wing dictator once said: “I promised you I will give you the right to vote, but I did not say anything about counting those votes.”)

Kirkpatrick’s distinction between user-friendly right-wing regimes and unfriendly left-wing dictators prompted a response from former US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who shot back: “It seems to me that if you’re on the rack (and being tortured), it doesn’t make any difference if your torturer is right-handed or left-handed.”

But some of the Western nations have tried to politically separate “right-wing governments” from “left-wing governments” – the white-hatted good guys from the black-hatted bad guys, as in Hollywood movies of the wild West.

The strongest link between the United States and some of the oppressive Middle East regimes, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, is primarily military.

And Israel’s right-wing government, accused by Amnesty International, of human rights abuses and torture, is a coalition of seven political parties.

The ongoing devastating and one-side battle between Israel, a strong US ally, and the militant group Hamas has underlined a longstanding double standard on torture and human rights abuses.

The US rarely, if ever, is critical of Israel and exercises its political clout to veto any Security Council resolution condemning the Jewish state, as it did last week.

Dr. Simon Adams, President and CEO of the Center for Victims of Torture, told IPS: “Unfortunately, if history teaches us anything it is that most governments are capable of perpetrating torture, regardless of their political complexion.

Some democracies, he pointed out, try to justify torture in moments of extreme crisis, like the United States after 9/11, while dictatorships often commit torture as part of an industrial system of terror and control, like North Korea or the Assad regime in Syria.

“The sad, reality is that authoritarian governments that declare themselves as belonging to the far left or to the extreme right have often committed torture in the name of advancing their cause,” he noted.

“The more deluded a government is regarding the alleged purity of the ruling ideology, the more likely they are to perpetrate torture against dissidents and non-believers. What all authoritarian regimes have in common is disdain for universal human rights” declared Dr Adams.

Meanwhile, in a report released in early November, Amnesty International (AI), a leading human rights organization, says testimony from released detainees and human rights lawyers, as well as video footage and images illustrate some of the forms of torture and other ill-treatment prisoners have been subjected to by Israeli forces over the past four weeks.

These include severe beatings and humiliation of detainees, including by forcing them to keep their heads down, to kneel on the floor during inmate count, and to sing Israeli songs.

Heba Morayef, AI’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa says: “Over the last month we have witnessed a significant spike in Israel’s use of administrative detention — detention without charge or trial that can be renewed indefinitely — which was already at a 20-year high before the latest escalation in hostilities on 7 October.”

“Administrative detention is one of the key tools through which Israel has enforced its system of apartheid against Palestinians.

Testimonies and video evidence also point to numerous incidents of torture and other ill-treatment by Israeli forces including severe beatings and deliberate humiliation of Palestinians who are detained in dire conditions,” says Morayef.

The AI also says the summary killings and hostage-taking by Hamas and other armed groups on 7 October are war crimes and must be condemned as such, but Israeli authorities must not use these attacks to justify their own unlawful attacks and collective punishment of civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip and the use of torture, arbitrary detention and other violations of the rights of Palestinian prisoners.

“The prohibition against torture can never be suspended or derogated from, including – and especially — at times like these,” said AI.

Amnesty International says it has for decades documented widespread torture by Israeli authorities in places of detention across the West Bank.

However, over the past four weeks, videos and images have been shared widely online showing gruesome scenes of Israeli soldiers beating and humiliating Palestinians while detaining them blind-folded, stripped, with their hands tied, in a particularly chilling public display of torture and humiliation of Palestinian detainees.

In one image analyzed, by Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab, three Palestinian men,?blindfolded and stripped of their clothes can be seen beside a soldier, wearing a green olive uniform like those worn by the Israeli ground forces.

A Haaretz investigation published on 19 October found that the image was taken in Wadi al-Seeq, a village East of Ramallah, on 12 October. One of the three victims depicted in the photograph told Amnesty International that he had initially been held and beaten by settlers but two hours later an Israeli military jeep arrived:

“One of the Israeli officers who came, approached me and kicked me on my left side, then jumped on my head with his two legs pushing my face further into the dirt and then continued kicking me as I was head down, into the dirt, with my hands tied behind my back. He then got a knife and tore all of my clothes off except for my underwear and used part of my torn clothes to blindfold me”.

“The beating to the rest of my body did not stop, at one point he started jumping on my back – three or four times – while yelling ‘die, die you trash’ … in the end before this finally stopped, another officer urinated on my face and body while also yelling at us ‘to die’.”

Meanwhile, the UN Committee against Torture is currently holding its sessions, through November 24, during which it will examine Burundi, Costa Rica, Kiribati, Denmark, Egypt and Slovenia.

These six countries are among the 173 States parties to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. They are required to undergo regular reviews by the Committee of 10 independent international experts on how they are implementing the Convention.

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Will the UN Ever be Able to Eradicate Systemic Racism Within? — Global Issues

Credit: UN Staff News
  • Opinion by Shihana Mohamed (new york)
  • Inter Press Service

NEW YORK, Nov 20 (IPS) – In the midst of the Israel-Hamas conflagration, a significant anniversary at the United Nations –October 24th was the 78th year since its founding–went unremarked by the larger world. But the work of–and significant problems with–the UN continues. Among the problems is embedded institutional racism. It’s time that it be deeply addressed–not just by lip service.

The UN was founded in the aftermath of World War II to prevent the recurrence of such catastrophic events, with a commitment to “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, the dignity, and worth of the human person” and, proclaiming “the right of everyone to enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.”

Marking International Day on Eliminating Racial Discrimination on March 21, 2023, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “Racial discrimination is a deeply damaging and pervasive abuse of human rights and human dignity that affects every country. It is one of the most destructive forces dividing societies, responsible for death and suffering on a grotesque scale throughout history. Today, racial discrimination and the legacies of enslavement and colonialism continue to ruin lives, marginalize communities and limit opportunities, preventing billions of people from achieving their full potential.”

There are visible contradictions in how the UN addresses racism and racial discrimination that go against the stipulations of the UN Charter. Some of this is attributable to systemic issues that date back to the founding of the UN.

The UN was established in 1945 as a solution for countries of European descent as they looked for a stable new international (and European) order. At that time, most parts of the world remained under European colonial domination, so the creation of the UN was led by those colonial and former enslaving powers.

The wave of decolonization between 1945 and 1960 changed the face of the world order as well as the World Body. The membership of the UN grew from 51 founding members in 1945 to 127 by 1970, and currently there are 193 member states. This aspect contributed towards altering the balance of power within the UN. These new member states were not from Europe and not white.

These new members persuaded the UN to embrace the change in the world order and brought new ideas to the General Assembly, the main deliberative body of the UN, which now practices the noble principle of “One Nation One Vote” and with five Regional Groups of member states – Africa, Asia – Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe and Other Group (including North America).

However, a similar transformation did not take place within the staffing of the organizations of the UN system.

In UN organizations, the staff experience or witness workplace discrimination largely on the basis of national origin, race, or skin color, according to the findings of several recent surveys. Most mentioned their lack of trust and confidence in the system, including existing recourse mechanisms and believed that the organization would offer no recourse if they complained about the racism they experienced.

The JIU review on racism and racial discrimination confirms that racism and racial discrimination are widespread throughout the system and the magnitude is high, based on evidence of prevalence, form, and effects of racism and racial discrimination. It further revealed that the “likelihood of experiencing racism and racial discrimination is higher” among black/African descent, Indigenous, South Asian and Middle Eastern/North African respondents.

The review of the JIU found that one in every five surveyed respondents (20 per cent) had experienced racial discrimination or harassment while the 2020 UN Secretariat survey on racism found that one in every three respondents (33 per cent) had experienced discrimination. The recently released findings of the survey conducted by the UN Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI) revealed that three in every five respondents (61 per cent) experienced racism and bias, as well as the distress caused to them in terms of health, career and well-being.

More than half of the staff in the Professional and higher categories in the UN organizations are from Western countries or European descent. Hence, there is disproportionate representation among the five regional groupings. This disparity, directly and indirectly, contributes to the current organizational culture that enables racism and racial discrimination.

All organizations in the UN system should implement measures to reduce the proportion of the most highly represented regional groups and to increase the proportion of less represented regional groups, thereby reducing the overall imbalance among regional groups and making the UN organizations more representative of the populations they serve, including at decision-making levels.

Tackling systemic racism and racial discrimination within the UN system is not only an ethical issue but also a business issue. Racism and racial discrimination cause significant financial losses for all parties. Staff members suffer from loss of income, health, morale, enthusiasm and job satisfaction during their career span, while organizations suffer in terms of loss of time, resources, talent, committed staff, quality of work, timely delivery, productivity and reputation, among others.

It is therefore important to assess the tangible impacts of racism, in monetary terms, on staff, organizations and their capacities for programme delivery, especially the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Such an exercise is critical if the UN organizations are genuinely committed to eliminating racism within.

The world urgently needs the UN leadership to fight systemic racism. Hence, the organizations of the UN system do not have time to spend another year on internal discussions and dialogues. Immediate implementation of the Secretary-General’s Strategic Action Plan on Addressing Racism and Promoting Dignity for All in the UN Secretariat would be a starting point, and similar action plans should follow urgently in all other UN organizations.

The time is now for the UN to act to fully eradicate racism and racial discrimination within its organizations.

Shihana Mohamed, a Sri Lankan national, is a founding member and one of the Coordinators of the United Nations Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI) and a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project and Equality Now.

UN-ANDI is a global network of like-minded Asians of the United Nations system who strive to promote a more diverse and inclusive culture and mindset within the UN system. UN-ANDI is the first-ever effort to bring together a diverse group of personnel (staff, retirees, consultants, interns, diplomats, and others) from Asia and the Pacific (nationality/origin/descent) in the UN system. Please contact via email at UnitedNationsA[email protected] to connect or/and collaborate with UN-ANDI.

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US has Provided Over 130 Billion Dollars in Aid & Weapons to Israel– the Largest Ever — Global Issues

  • by Thalif Deen (united nations)
  • Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 17 (IPS) – As one of America’s closest allies, Israel has remained heavily dependent on the US —politically, economically, and militarily—since its creation in 1948.

US arms supplies, mostly provided gratis, are channeled via US Foreign Military Financing (FMF), Military Assistance Program (MAP) and Excess Defense Articles (EDA).

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the US has provided more foreign assistance to Israel since World War II than to any other country.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) documented that the United States supplied 79 percent of all weapons transferred to Israel from 2018-2022.

No one else was even close – the next closest suppliers were Germany with 20 percent and Italy with just 0.2 percent.

A Fact Sheet released October 2023, by the US State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, provides a detailed official breakdown on the unrestrained American security assistance to Israel.

Steadfast support for Israel’s security has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for every U.S. Administration since the presidency of Harry S. Truman.

Since Israel’s founding in 1948, the State Department said, the United States has provided Israel with over $130 billion in bilateral assistance focused on addressing new and complex security threats, bridging Israel’s capability gaps through security assistance and cooperation, increasing interoperability through joint exercises, and helping Israel maintain its Qualitative Military Edge (QME).

This assistance, says the State Department, has helped transform the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into “one of the world’s most capable, effective militaries and turned the Israeli military industry and technology sector into one of the largest exporters of military capabilities worldwide.”

In the current war, Israel’s overwhelming fire power has resulted in the killings of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the destruction of entire cities—mostly with US supplied weapons.

Dr. Natalie J. Goldring, a Visiting Professor of the Practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, told IPS the October 7 Hamas attacks were horrendous acts and should be condemned as such.

“Even so, the Israeli responses to those attacks have been indiscriminate – intentionally so,” she said.

Two days after the Hamas attacks, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant declared that Israel would carry out a “complete siege” of Gaza, including blocking the supply of water, food, and fuel, while also stopping the supply of electricity. And Israeli forces have done so, she pointed out.

“The US government bears a special responsibility for the continuing Israeli attacks. It has supplied Israel with massive quantities of military aid and weaponry, and Israel has ignored US restrictions on the use of those weapons”.

This supply of weapons and ammunition allows the Israeli military to continue its indiscriminate attacks in Gaza,” said Dr Goldring, who also represents the Acronym Institute at the United Nations, on conventional weapons and arms trade issues.

“A key first step in reducing the human cost of this war is for the US government to call for an immediate ceasefire. The US government should also halt supplies of weapons and ammunition to Israel, whether from the US itself or from prepositioned stocks elsewhere.”

Since 1983, the United States and Israel have met regularly via the Joint Political-Military Group (JPMG) to promote shared policies, address common threats and concerns, and identify new areas for security cooperation.

According to the State Department, Israel is the leading global recipient of Title 22 U.S. security assistance under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. This has been formalized by a 10-year (2019-2028) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

Consistent with the MOU, the United States annually provides $3.3 billion in FMF and $500 million for cooperative programs for missile defense. Since FY 2009, the United States has provided Israel with $3.4 billion in funding for missile defense, including $1.3 billion for Iron Dome support starting in FY 2011.

Through FMF, the United States provides Israel with access to some of the most advanced military equipment in the world, including the F-35 Stealth fighter aircraft.

Israel is eligible for Cash Flow Financing and is authorized to use its annual FMF allocation to procure defense articles, services, and training through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system, Direct Commercial Contract agreements – which are FMF-funded Direct Commercial Sales procurements – and through Off Shore Procurement (OSP).

Via OSP the current MOU allows Israel to spend a portion of its FMF on Israeli-origin rather than U.S.-origin defense articles. This was 25 percent in FY 2019 but is set to phase-out and decrease to zero in FY 2028.

Elaborating further Dr Goldring said: “Unfortunately, the situation in Gaza bears similarities to the documented uses of US weapons by the Saudi-led coalition in attacks on civilians in Yemen”

She said: “Our response should be the same in both cases. These countries have failed to honor the conditions of US weapons transfers, and should be ineligible for further transfers until they are in compliance.”

“US arms transfer decision-making gives too much weight to the judgment of government officials and politicians who frequently fail to consider the full human costs of these transfers,” she argued.

“Earlier this year, the Biden Administration released a new Conventional Arms Transfer policy. They claimed that arms transfers would not be approved when their analysis concluded that “it is more likely than not” that the arms transferred would be used to commit or facilitate the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law.”

The actions of the Israeli and Saudi militaries are examples of ways in which this standard is not being met, declared Dr Goldring.

As of October 2023, the United States has 599 active Foreign Military Sales (FMS) cases, valued at $23.8 billion, with Israel. FMS cases notified to Congress are listed here; priority initiatives include: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Aircraft; CH-53K Heavy Lift Helicopters; KC-46A Aerial Refueling Tankers; and precision-guided munitions.

From FY 2018 through FY 2022, the U.S. has also authorized the permanent export of over $5.7billion in defense articles to Israel via the Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) process.

The top categories of DCS to Israel were XIX-Toxicological Agents, including Chemical Agents, Biological Agents, and Associated Equipment (this includes detection equipment ((f)), vaccines ((g)-(h)) and modeling software ((i)); IV- Launch Vehicles, Guided Missiles, Ballistic Missiles, Rockets, Torpedoes, Bombs, and Mines; and VII- Aircraft.

Since 1992, the United States has provided Israel with $6.6 billion worth of equipment under the Excess Defense Articles program, including weapons, spare parts, weapons, and simulators.

U.S. European Command also maintains in Israel the U.S. War Reserve Stockpile, which can be used to boost Israeli defenses in the case of a significant military emergency.

In addition to security assistance and arms sales, the United States participates in a variety of exchanges with Israel, including military exercises like Juniper Oak and Juniper Falcon, as well as joint research, and weapons development.

The United States and Israel have signed multiple bilateral defense cooperation agreements, to include: a Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement (1952); a General Security of Information Agreement (1982); a Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (1991); and a Status of Forces Agreement (1994), according to the State Department.

Since 2011, the United States has also invested more than $8 million in Conventional Weapons Destruction programs in the West Bank to improve regional and human security through the survey and clearance of undisputed minefields.

Following years of negotiations with the Palestinians and Israelis, humanitarian mine action activities began in April 2014 – this represents the first humanitarian clearance of landmine contamination in nearly five decades.

Israel has also been designated as a U.S. Major Non-NATO Ally under U.S. law. This status provides foreign partners with certain benefits in the areas of defense trade and security cooperation and is a powerful symbol of their close relationship with the United States.

Thalif Deen was a former Senior Defense Analyst at Forecast International, Military Editor Middle East/Africa at Jane’s Information Group and Director, Foreign Military Markets at Defense Marketing Services.

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The Carnage in Gaza Cries Out for Repudiation & Opposition. Maybe Poetry Can Help. — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Norman Solomon (san francisco, usa)
  • Inter Press Service

SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Nov 17 (IPS) – Two centuries ago, Percy Shelley wrote that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Yet elite power has routinely vetoed their best measures. Still, the ability of poetry to inspire and nurture is precious, including when governments are on protracted killing sprees.

In Gaza, more than 11,000 civilians have been killed since early October. Children are perishing at an average rate of 10 deaths per hour. The ongoing slaughter by Israeli forces — supported by huge military aid from the United States — follows Hamas’s atrocities on Oct. 7 in Israel, where the latest estimate of the death toll is 1,200 including at least 846 civilians in addition to some 200 hostages.

But numbers don’t get us very far in human terms. And news accounts have limited capacities to connect with real emotions.

That’s where poetry can go far beyond where journalism fails. A few words from a poet might chip away at the frozen blocks that support illegitimate power. And we might gain strength from the clarity that a few lines can bring.

Stanley Kunitz wrote:

In a murderous time
the heart breaks and breaks
and lives by breaking.
It is necessary to go
through dark and deeper dark
and not to turn.

“In a dark time,” Theodore Roethke wrote, “the eye begins to see.”

Bob Dylan wrote lines that could now be heard as addressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Biden:

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you sit back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
While the young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

June Jordan wrote:

I was born a Black woman
and now
I am become a Palestinian
against the relentless laughter of evil
there is less and less living room
and where are my loved ones?

In the United States, far away from the carnage, viewers and listeners and readers can easily prefer not to truly see that “their” government is helping Israel to keep killing thousands upon thousands of Palestinian children and other civilians. “I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty / to know what occurs but not recognize the fact,” a poem by William Stafford says.

From Pink Floyd:Don’t accept that what’s happening
Is just a case of others’ suffering
Or you’ll find that you’re joining in
The turning away
. . . .
Just a world that we all must share
It’s not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there’ll be
No more turning away?

Franz Kafka wrote: “You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.”

Norman Solomon is national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of many books including War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in summer 2023 by The New Press.

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Here Are Steps to Rein In — Global Issues

More than half of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip are closed. Those still functioning are under massive strain and can only provide very limited life-saving surgeries and intensive care services. Credit: WHO
  • by Martin Griffith (geneva, switzerland)
  • Inter Press Service

GENEVA, Switzerland, Nov 16 (IPS) – The reason I wanted to speak to you was to outline something very specific about Gaza, of course, which is about the approach being taken and planned by the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies to provide aid to Gaza.

A very specific thing – and the reason why I wanted to talk about this is because, of course – there have been allegations from certain quarters that we aren’t ready, that we don’t have the trucks, that we don’t have the fuel, why shouldn’t we use safe zones, and so forth. So, this is intended to demonstrate and to give some details, and I know that you’ve seen some of this already, of the approach that we plan to do.

Now, number one, we plan to follow the standard experience and procedures that humanitarian agencies have had all over the world. This is not new in itself. The extent of the suffering is insufferable, but the approach of humanitarian agencies, depending on the requirements of international humanitarian aid and support, is going to be the same in Gaza as it might be in Ukraine, in Sudan or elsewhere.

And I will describe what that might look like. And I’m saying this obviously in the context of the increasing flow of population down from the north to the south of Gaza. Clearly that’s the perspective. That’s the context in which I’m speaking.

More than half of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip are closed. Those still functioning are under massive strain and can only provide very limited life-saving surgeries and intensive care services. Credit: WHO

So, I’ll go through these 10 points:

First of all, to facilitate the agencies’ efforts to bring in a continuous flow of aid convoys safely. The key word here is “continuous.” Aid needs to be reliable, on the day, on the next day, on the next week. People need to know that there will be aid coming tomorrow or the next day. They need to know that they have time to consume these supplies because more is coming at the next moment.

Number two: Crucial, crucial for the logistics – is to open additional crossing points for aid and commercial trucks to enter into Gaza, including Kerem Shalom from Israel. Now, much has been made of the importance of the need to provide opportunities for commercial aid to get into Gaza. By the way, once again, that’s a very common feature of the aspects of an urgent humanitarian program. Sudan was exactly the same, we had very similar points made in the early days, you remember the evacuation from Khartoum.

But it’s particularly important in Gaza because of the total dependency of a population which cannot move outside the territory. So more crossing points, including that Kerem Shalom, which used to carry more than 60 per cent of the truckloads going through before this conflict, this recent conflict started. So please, Kerem Shalom. Please Israel, give us that for our crossing point.

Next, allow the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations access to fuel. Now, you’ve heard a lot about the need for fuel. I believe Philippe Lazzarini has also issued a (statement) this afternoon, saying that they received about 24,000 litres of fuel. I just want to say a couple of words on fuel, probably to repeat what you’ve heard elsewhere.

Number three, fuel is the driver of so many aspects of the humanitarian response. It’s the driver of desalination. It’s the driver of electricity. It’s the driver of effective hospitals. It’s the driver of trucks that will go from Rafah on entry to the distribution points. The 24,000 litres – most welcome, no question about it – is not enough to provide the fuel that we need daily to get to the whole of Gaza.

My understanding is that to cover the whole of the Gazan territory and therefore all of the people in need, we would need about 200,000 liters a day. Now, this has been happening for years. UNRWA has extensive experience in this. UNOPS has extensive experience also in helping make the distribution of fuel. And we understand the need for monitoring.

But the idea that we have been pursuing daily and nightly in negotiation with Israel, Egypt, and with the assistance of the United States, is to replenish the stocks in the UNRWA depot near Rafah and then take it from there to be used by trucks going around Gaza to where people are able to be.

Number four: This is bedrock, of course: enable humanitarian organizations to deliver aid throughout Gaza without impediment or interference. I haven’t witnessed in my many, many decades of dealing with war, an occasion on which so much attention is being paid to the requirements of international humanitarian law, otherwise called the rules of war.

One of them is to allow people to go where they decide to go, they will decide where they’re safe. They will decide when they want to move and not move. And the same goes for us – that we need safety to deliver aid to wherever those people go.

Number five: Allow us – humanitarian organizations – to expand the number of safe shelters for displaced people in schools and other public facilities across Gaza. This is an absolutely central part of UNRWA’s preparedness – UNRWA, which thank God for UNRWA, is in existence and is still the buffer between survival and tragedy for so many people in Gaza. And it needs the opportunity to expand the number of safe shelters across the south.

For example, it could take an agreement with the Palestinian Authority to use PA schools to expand shelters for those fleeing south. We’ve all heard about the way in which UNRWA institutions, schools, hospitals and elsewhere are flooded with IDPs .

We need to expand the numbers of such institutions in the south. I’m not saying that all the people will go all to these shelters where we raise the UN flag to say, this is a UN-protected institution. But it gives us at least a little bit more chance to help people be safe.

Number six: Improve a humanitarian notification mechanism. I expect it’s familiar to most of you. But in all countries in conflict – whether it’s Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, where I spent a lot of time, and indeed Gaza – for many, many years, the humanitarian community has used a notification system, a humanitarian notification system, to deconflict specific places which are protected, either protected under humanitarian law – like hospitals, schools and other places – or to tell the parties this is where we will be moving, from A to B to C, to deliver aid.

We notify the parties, whether it’s in Ukraine, or Gaza or elsewhere, of what our plans are, so that they are on notice not to attack us, to allow what humanitarian law again requires: the safe passage of humanitarian assistance.

Number seven: Part of the approach, in the south, is to set up, establish and work from relief distribution hubs. There will be people who take shelter, as I have already referred to, who can receive aid directly where they are. There will be other people who are in houses or moving around or other places to live in.

And we will need distribution hubs to which they can come or from which we can go to deliver food, medical supplies and other items to them on a continuous basis. I spent some time in the last year in Ukraine, for example, where these distribution hubs, especially through the winter, were key, the key part of a humanitarian operation. It should be no different in Gaza.

Number eight: Fundamental – allow civilians to move to safer areas and to voluntarily return to their residences in the north, if they so desire. The freedom of movement of civilians in war is a fundamental privilege and requirement of international humanitarian law. You will have seen various statements of my colleagues in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee about the idea of safe zones, opposing the idea of safe zones.

The United Nations has a history on safe zones. We remember Srebrenica, we remember what happened then, and we know the requirements – legally and operationally – to make a zone safe, including, by the way, for example, that all parties should agree to this being a safe zone. So, we are not enthusiastic about such safe zones. But we also insist that, in any case, it is not for us or others to decide where people should go.

They should decide, if they want to decide to go to where is designated and is proposed as a safe zone, let it be. Let it be their decision, and we will, of course, provide assistance to them there. But we will not be part of an establishment of a safe zone which does not meet the requirements that we have found, through our own bitter experience, so demanding.

Number nine: Funding, boring as it is, $1.2 billion of an emergency appeal for the operation. I think we are into million so far. I was talking yesterday to Lynn Hastings, the Humanitarian Coordinator, based in Jerusalem, for the Occupied Territory, and I was asking her the question you write, which is: What do you really need now? She said fuel, money – money to fund the operation. We have incidentally around 460 trucks in Al Arish, in Rafah area, ready to go in.

And I am very grateful to hear today through the Secretary-General himself, that the Israeli Government has decided, and we thank them, not to put a cap on the number of trucks going in. We have the trucks, we need the fuel, and we need the money to fund the delivery. And then we can do the job that we are there to do.

Finally: Implement a humanitarian ceasefire. There has been a huge, huge discussion, particularly in the Security Council and elsewhere, on the difference between truces and hudnas and pauses and ceasefire. I have spent 50 years dealing with different words to describe something which is essentially very, very simple: Silence the guns. Stop the fighting to allow the people to move safely.

Do it for as long as possible. Allow them to move safely on their own, not hindered and not pushed. And silence those guns long enough to give the people of Gaza a breather from the terrible, terrible things that have been put on them these last few weeks. This is very, very important.

So, these points together constitute for us an approach which we are applying – it’s been going for some time – which we are applying for Gaza and we would apply elsewhere, if for example, the Occupied Territory became severely afflicted.

It’s not new. It won’t be perfect. It will be messy. It requires from the parties an adherence to humanitarian law and humanity. It requires from the international community funding urgently and quickly and requires from us and my colleagues the courage, which I think they have shown amply in these last few weeks, to go where others would not, but where the Gazans are and where they need their presence.

This article is based on a press briefing in Geneva on 15 November 2023.

Martin Griffiths is UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

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