The government of the much-beleaguered country of Zimbabwe has been in a power-sharing agreement between the two opposing factions of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and Tsvangirai’s MDC party. People hoped that such a much-awaited turn of events not too long ago will mean that the country would be able to surmount its massive economic woes, health crisis, and social repression. They hoped too much.

Human rights abuses and repression persist to be prevalent even under the new power-sharing government. The political arrangement has not made concrete progress in political and social reform. Human Rights Watch claims that human rights abuses continue in the country. There is a perceived lack of political will from those in power, even if this time shared between erstwhile overtly warring political parties.

According to Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, “The transitional power-sharing government is a sham. From a human rights perspective, nothing has changed for the better. Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF are still fully in control.” “The power-sharing government experiment is not working. Without political stability and rights reforms, any progress on economic recovery won’t last,” Gagnon adds.

Human Rights Watch in Zimbabwe discloses findings that Mugabe’s party ZANU-PF ‘continues to engage in political violence against perceived opponents.’ Security forces, war veterans, even volunteer youth continue to be ‘instruments of repression.’ Commercial farms are still invaded and violated by the military. Elements that oppose the ruling party such as journalists are toppled via intimidation and arrest. Mugabe’s people continue to hoard revenues from the country’s diamond trade.

The tragedy of Zimbabwe is that it dares to call itself a democracy. The price to pay is the looming possibility of a civil war.

Photo Courtesy AP

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Nisha Varia, senior researcher in the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, says, “Governments seem to forget that when men, women, and children migrate, they don’t leave their rights at home. Instead of protecting people who already are at special risk of abuse, many governments further marginalize migrants, punish them, or push access to services out of reach.

“Migrants form the backbone of many economies, performing the labor and services that people in their host countries depend on but won’t do themselves. Instead of getting respect and the freedom and wages they are owed, they are treated as security threats, and in general, as undesirables to be pushed out of sight.”

Such is the fate of migrant workers who have been deemed negatively by some, but who are actually saving the global economy with their continuous and consistent flow of remittances to their countries of origin while giving their labor, skills, and knowledge in their host countries. To say that migrant workers are not getting the treatment that they deserve is a gross understatement.

In observance of International Migrants Day last December 18, Human Rights Watch specifically enumerated the ills that befall migrant workers worldwide due to skewed policies of governments, especially in 2009: ‘human rights abuses including labor exploitation, inadequate access to health care, and prolonged detention in poor, overcrowded conditions.’ 2009 is a particularly bad year for migrants, the concerned group concludes.

These observations and conclusions can be found in the 25-page roundup of Human Rights Watch reporting on violations of migrants’ rights this year, entitled Slow Movement: Protection of Migrants’ Rights in 2009. The significant report covers migrant workers in China, Cuba, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

Image by David Shankbone
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The United Nations recently announced that internally-displaced persons (IDPs) in Sri Lanka, housed in refugee camps since the time they fled their homes during the final and fatal offensive against the LTTE, can now go back to their homes. The questions are whether they still have homes to go back to and how safe is it for them to go back.

The Sri Lankan government has earned harsh international criticism over the news that the squalid Tamil refugee camps were actually prison camps where harsh interrogation has been conducted on Tamils suspected to have been connected to the eradicated LTTE. Criticism against the country’s human rights abuses have largely come from the West.

‘Despite mounting evidence of abuses in Sri Lanka, the response from Western countries was initially weak, though eventually several governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France, raised their voices. They strongly condemned indiscriminate attacks and urged a humanitarian corridor for civilians trapped in the war zone.’ Sri Lanka, however, has been dismissing such criticism, confident and proud that the government has finally expunged the violent insurgent group LTTE.

Sri Lanka has, instead, turned to mostly Eastern countries for support, while ignoring all criticisms from the West. Countries with significant records in human rights abuses such as China, Pakistan, Burma, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran have been sympathetic to the Sri Lankan government, as well as commending the government’s policies, and pledging to aid the country.

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Via Foreign Policy in Focus

The mindboggling violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the past ten years has seen more dead bodies than the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur and Iraq combined. At the heart of the conflict are the so-called ‘blood minerals’ or ‘conflict minerals’ whose unregulated trade has been ruling the country, enriching its politicians and their crony elite, as well as plunging the Congolese people into the deepest depths of poverty and degradation.

These minerals are the ‘ores that produce tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold.’ They find their way into the world’s cell phones, iPods, computers, and sundry other gadgets and gizmos. They have also fueled ‘a war that has left more than 5 million dead.’

The lucrative path from conflict minerals to western consumer electronics companies starts in eastern Congo. Men and children are ‘forced to pay arbitrary “taxes” to various armed groups and live on slave wages, carving uncertain tunnels into mountains with iron picks, hammers and their bare hands. Deep underground, they sift through mud and rock for valuable ore, much of which is smuggled across the border into Rwanda or Uganda, taken by truck to ports in Tanzania and Kenya, and loaded onto cargo ships bound for Asia, where it is smelted into metal, sold and used by electronics companies to make the microprocessors that power your favorite gadgets.’

About half a dozen armed groups vie for control over the lucrative trade in black market minerals, mined by the so-called artisanal miners whose lives are literally endangered by the mining operations.

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Via The Root

The social investigation was conducted by Freedom House. The organization’s Freedom in the World report entitled Worst of the Worst: The World’s Most Repressive Societies 2009 enumerates the bottom 21 countries and territories with regards to repression of human freedom. Here are some of the worst of hell on earth:

North Korea is the nadir of freedom in the world. The power resides in one man, Kim Jong Il, who assumed power in 1994 upon the death of his father, North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il Sung. Kim’s communist regime maintains a network of prison camps where thousands of political prisoners are subjected to torture. A North Korean’s social status is based on perceived loyalty to the regime.

Burma’s ruling military junta led by Senior Gen. Than Shwe controls all branches of power. The brutal regime has sunk the country into depths of poverty. Widespread human rights abuses that come with impunity are a mark of the regime.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo enjoys unprecedented political powers in Equatorial Guinea where there have never been credible elections. The oil-rich country is one of the most corrupt regimes in the world. The leader, his family, and cronies have amassed huge wealth from the country’s oil profits. Widespread poverty characterizes the country, along with human rights abuses, torture, detention of political opponents, and extrajudicial killings.

Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian monarchy. The entire political power is owned by the royal family. ‘All Saudis are required by law to be Muslims, and the government prohibits the public practice of any religions other than Islam.’ Women suffer the most from bias and unequal human rights as intrinsically embodied in the Muslim Sharia law.

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Via Foreign Policy

Pyongyang has proven its nuclear doggedness. In spite of tremendous international criticism that puts North Korea in a pariah state, it has gone ahead to test nuclear and ballistic missile weapons. Add to that is its ‘nuclear technology proliferation to terrorist-supporting states,’ plus its mounting human-rights abuses.

Those opposed to North Korea’s ever-heightening nuclear capability are starting to level financial sanctions against the country to pressure the communist regime to renounce its nuclear weapons programs.

The actions are concrete. ‘The U.S. is focusing, for now, on financial sanctions. On June 30, the U.S. Treasury Department froze the assets of an Iranian company that provided support to a North Korean bank involved in proliferation. The U.S. State Department also took action that day against a trading company for its involvement in North Korea’s nuclear proliferation network. But far more promising are actions reportedly planned by the Treasury against 17 banks and companies involved in North Korea’s proliferation enterprise.’

The move towards the denuclearization of North Korea should be armed with a stronger policy based on multilateral pressure. After all, the communist government in Pyongyang has reneged more than once on its ‘predictably false promises’ to disarm. The key to the ultimate objective of North Korea denuclearization is dismantling the regime that runs the country, or at least crippling it financially. ‘Ultimately the threat posed by North Korea will not be relieved until the nature of the regime changes.’

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Via The Wall Street Journal

Since his ascension to the highest office in the land in 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon has deployed more than 35,000 federal troops in security operations around the country. The extensive use of Mexican military in counternarcotics operations has met considerable criticism. Calderon has widely defended his strategy since the drug trafficking crisis has put Mexico on the global crime map.

Drug trafficking is a huge problem in Mexico because it is ‘the primary transshipment point for South American-produced cocaine bound for the United States, the world’s largest market for the drug.’

Mexico is also said to be ‘the largest producer of marijuana and methamphetamines consumed in the United States.’ In 2007, more than 17,000 tons of marijuana were produced in Mexico, according to the U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center. Most of these supplies were smuggled into the United States.

The military duties under the country’s counternarcotics strategy come in the following broad functions: ‘technical intelligence collection and maritime and aerial monitoring and interdiction,’ ‘traditional civilian law enforcement and judicial duties which include actions such as making arrests, prosecuting and convicting defendants and imposing punishment,’ and tasks that ‘overlap between Mexico’s armed forces and law enforcement agencies.’ The last function is known as a ‘gray’ category.

Under the ‘gray’ category, the tasks involve: drug-crop eradication and meth-lab seizures, immigration and customs inspections at points of entry and exit which means either stopping or inspecting suspect cargo, raids and arrests of high-value cartel targets, and general public safety and law enforcement because the drug trade in Mexico has debilitated the country with its attendant bloody violence.

The Mexican military’s efforts, at times successful and at times a failure, have garnered ‘increasing civil rights complaints from citizens.’ The people call for a review of the military’s use in counternarcotics operations due to reports of military abuses.

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Via STRATFOR

However, the government continues to disregard the rule of law and undermine democratic processes. A crisis in the electoral process of the country is steeped in human rights abuses. These threaten the country’s painfully-gained democracy.

“Somaliland has spent 18 years trying to build stability and democracy, but all its gains are at risk if the government continues to undermine the rule of law,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The electoral crisis has laid bare the need to create functioning government institutions that will respect human rights.”

The country’s government has infringed upon the rights of its citizens that should otherwise be protected by local and domestic laws. The current political administration has ‘circumvented the courts and trampled on the rights of criminal defendants by relying on “security committees” that are entirely under the control of the executive and that have no legal basis under Somaliland law.’

There, too, are repressive tactics such as low-level harassment of journalists, opposition activists, and others whose activities run against the dictates of the current government.

Via Human Rights Watch