Enough is enough. Hate speech and discriminatory policies lead to harassment.

MRG Communications intern Claudia Santoro gets hot under the collar about the violent consequences of stereotyping of Italy’s Roma.

In my previous blog posts I have argued that hate speech in the media and politics is both unfair and exposes the weakness of many democracies. It should also be seen however as an alarm bell; a spark that can trigger a dangerous cycle of violence. Even so, I was shocked to learn that, following a 16 year old girl’s declaration that she was raped by two Roma men(an accusation which subsequently turned out to be false) a group of hooded men set fire to a Traveller camp near Turin.

A camp resident the day after the attack. Credit: REPUBBLICA.

According to reports, after the girl’s claim hundreds of residents of the suburb near Turin where she lives took to the streets to take part in an “anti-Roma demonstration”. A group of the demonstrators later split from the main protest and marched towards a nearby Traveller camp. After driving away the only resident who was in the camp at the time, they destroyed houses, cars, and caravans. Only when the girl admitted she had in fact not been raped but had had sexual relations with a friend and wished to hide it from her family, were the police and her brother able to stop the violence.

This tragic story not only illustrates the dangers of stereotyping certain members of society, but also exposes the harsh conditions faced by Roma communities in Italy and highlights the fact that policy for the integration of minorities has not been effective in the country.

Furthermore, it shows how biased rhetoric about Roma has a deep effect on the public perception of this maligned community. This unacceptable event is the result of discriminatory policies, expressed earlier this year by a series of evictions, and a widespread anti-Roma discourse in Italy, often multiplied in its effect by the media.

Even if just a small group of people are responsible for this attack, it clearly confirms that the Roma minority is seen as a danger by a certain part of the population.

Maybe if both government and local authorities made more responsible and effective decisions rather than just evicting Roma from their camps, people would be less worried about so-called outsiders. And perhaps if the media stopped blaming minorities for the economic crisis and for the lack of security there would also be fewer incidents. What is sure is that racism should never be allowed to raise its head in such an ugly way.

Education against hate

Claudia Santoro, MRG’s Communications intern, continues her series of blogs on discrimination against Roma in Europe and looks this time at initiatives to reverse the worrying trend of increased hostility and hate speech towards the region’s largest minority.

Hate speech used in the mayor of Milan’s electoral campaign was back in the news last week when the Council of Europe published Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg’s report about his visit to Italy.

He expressed his concern about ‘anti-Roma political discourse’, which ‘perpetuates anti-Gypsyism’ and recognised the need for political parties to establish a system of self-regulation to avoid racist behaviour. Among the interesting observations contained in the report, I strongly agree with the need to disseminate unbiased information about Roma, both to be used by journalists as background information for reporting on these issues and also to balance inaccurate coverage about Roma and Travellers, which enhances stereotypes and blocks integration with mainstream society.

Credit: Justice Directorate General of the European Commission

Unfortunately in many EU countries where an anti-Roma/Sinti discourse is present in both the media and political arenas, discrimination follows. In his report Commissioner Hammarberg recalls examples of authorities using hate speech towards minorities in Hungary, Czech Republic, Denmark and France and warns that it ‘should not be underestimated’. It can encourage violence; in the Czech Republic for instance, following the Nový Bydžov Mayor’s public statements on Roma, extremist groups attacked a demonstration of Roma communities.

In the UK, the recent events at Dale Farm, led Janet Burden, the Rabbi of the West Central Liberal Synagogue & Ealing Liberal Synagogue, to compare the current persecution of Roma, Gypsies and Irish Travellers with the discrimination ‘Jews faced in the first half of the 20th century’ and, as reported in a recent Guardian article, she also drew attention to the fact that  the language used about Roma ‘clearly echoes rhetoric of anti-Semitism’.

As Commissioner Hammarberg stated in his speech delivered at the Summit of Mayors on Roma, both media professionals and politicians ‘should avoid using stigmatising speech against the Roma and should not feed the age-old prejudices against this minority. Sweeping generalisations about Roma and Travellers, in particular concerning their involvement in crime, feed the false stereotypes’.

I think that the need to involve Roma representatives in mainstream societies’ public activities is the most powerful way to actively promote a conscientious approach towards this minority. Surely this must also include the recruitment of journalists with Roma and other ethnic backgrounds in order to contribute to a more diverse, higher standard of journalism?

Credit: Decade of Roma Inclusion

The Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005–2015, aims to improve Roma’s social inclusion through targeted projects such as the Roma Education Fund, which will develop educational opportunities for Roma communities. The guide ‘Beyond Rhetoric’ includes recommendations to the European Commission based on the experience of the Open Society Foundations as well as country-specific recommendations from independent experts.

Finally, Colorful but Colorblind is a project aimed at remedying anti-Roma stereotyping through the creative use of multimedia in European Union new member states in Central and Eastern Europe. It represents one of the many significant projects necessary to generate change which benefits culture and knowledge.

These initiatives turn words into actions: the creation of opportunities rather than discriminatory rhetoric is a path to create a conscious society. Skilled young Roma can help to eradicate stereotypes, but also mainstream society has to play a role in this integration process. Are we ready to end discrimination?

A small contribution

Zulema Cadenas, MRG’s Street Theatre Project Coordinator, is in Rwanda supporting our partner to launch a project that uses drama at a grass roots level to tackle prejudice and discrimination.

On Sunday mornings Gitarama main road looks like a colorful, thick river. People appearing from many paths feed the current that flows to the market square. Women, men, children, elderly people, their heads blossoming with different colours and objects: bananas, yucca, mandarins, carrots, potatoes…

I’m in Gitarama, Rwanda, to support the beginning of MRG’s Street Theatre Project run in Rwanda by YWCA. The aim of this project is to raise awareness of the situation of the Twa minority and to challenge discriminatory attitudes and prejudices held by the majority society against them.

MRG’s Street Theatre Programme simplified

A group of actors from the majority and minority communities will together create a script that will be acted out in the streets. The performances will be followed by a discussion with the ‘spectators’, who will also be invited to perform and try to change the end of the story. As part of the preparations the majority actors will also get to know and understand the lives of the minority actors by joining them in a community visit. They will spend a number of days living with them and sharing tasks.

Zulema on her visit to a Twa community

We take one of those many paths I already mentioned to reach a Twa community we’re working with. After some miles the first family welcomes us.

Traditional Twa cooking pot

 

 

They show us the clay they use to make pottery but explain that making money out of it is becoming increasingly difficult because people are no longer use traditional clay pots to cook with. They say that if they had some money they might also create a cooperative to try to make a better living.

Later we meet Deborah, one of the actors who will take part in the performances. She and her family explain the difficulties they face getting notebooks for their children, and how they try to write in small letters so they can stay at school as long as possible without being sent home due to the lack of materials.

Another man shows us his house, which collapsed after the last heavy rains and he’s now sleeping without a roof over his head.  Sylvere, the Street Theatre Project Officer, thinks that maybe as part of the community visit the group of actors can help him to rebuild his house.

This community is definitely facing serious poverty but is also doing a lot to try to overcome it and is not scared of speaking out. They stress that our project will help them to be more recognized and less marginalized, but that they also need direct help to address their very basic living conditions. They are happy that as part of the community visit something practical will be done and the life of one of them will be improved.

‘Just a small contribution’, says Sylvere in Kinyarwanda. And we head off back to the ‘blossomed’ main road.

Bosnia football ban to level the playing field for minorities? (Part 2)

Part 2 of a blog from Michelle Chan, who interns with MRG’s Legal Cases Programme, on UEFA’s controversial decision to ban Bosnia from international football. See Part 1

UEFA has announced that Bosnia will be banned from international football competitions as of 1 April 2011, due to the refusal of the national football federation (NSFBiH) to change its ethnic-based tripartite system, which mirrors the state system by rotating the presidency between a Serb, Croat and ethnic Muslim. A bold move against a promising team, with little control over the state-wide division of powers borne from the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the brutal conflict in 1995.

“[A]gainst having one president of anything in Bosnia, even a beekeeper’s association,” remarked Milorad Dodik, president of the Bosnian Serb region, to reporters after the announcement.

But Bosnia has made significant developments since 1995, joining the Council of Europe in 2002 and ratifying the European Convention of Human Rights and its Protocol without reservation, thus voluntarily agreeing to meet relevant standards including non-discrimination.

In 2008, Bosnia ratified the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the European Union, committing itself to “amend electoral legislation regarding members of [its] Presidency” within one to two years. The European Court of Human Rights in a 2009 judgment points out these developments, suggesting that although the time may not be ripe for single majority rule in Bosnia, alternatives exist to make the system less discriminatory.

Reactions from football fans and commentators have been mixed: some remarking that football bodies should stay out of state politics, while others lament the corruption perceived to dominate the leadership of the NSFBiH.

It seems until some progress can be made towards alleviating Bosnia’s discriminatory power-sharing mechanisms, everybody loses. As coach, Ivica Osim told Bosnian media: “Only in football have we been able to attain a European level but unfortunately, everything else that’s wrong in the country has caught up with the game.”

Kicked out? Football fights discrimination in Bosnia (Part 1)

Michelle Chan, an intern with MRG’s Legal Cases Programme, wishes the Council of Europe could take ethnic-based politics in Bosnia as seriously as UEFA. See Part 2.

The 2-1 win for Bosnia against Romania on 26 March in the Euro 2012 qualifiers may be the last match Bosnian football fans see unless the Football Federation of Bosnia (NSFBiH) ends their discriminatory presidential system, according to UEFA, football’s governing body in Europe.

Although the NSFBiH’s system of leadership mirrors that of the country’s government, a similar threat to the state system is non-existent. Both systems restrict candidacy for the Presidency to a Serb, Croat and ethnic Muslim – the state’s ‘Constituent Peoples’ – and require that each serve a Presidential term of 18 months on a rotating basis. Bosnia’s national minorities – referred to as ‘Others’ – are therefore excluded, including Roma and Jews, who have lived in Bosnia for centuries, and those who choose not to identify as a Constituent People.

UEFA’s warning to suspend Bosnia from football as from 1 April 2011 for refusing to change this discriminatory practice is a noble move to preserve the sport’s values, including zero-tolerance of racism and the prohibition of discrimination of any kind, as reflected in article 3 of the FIFA Statute.

At the state level, however, the Bosnian parliament faces no such pressures, and has rejected proposals to remove the discriminatory constitutional provisions. This is in spite of a groundbreaking ruling in December 2009 by the European Court of Human Rights secured by MRG in favour of Dervo Sedjic and Jakob Finci, Bosnian citizens of Roma and Jewish ethnicity respectively, who are barred from standing for President or a member of the House of Peoples (part of Bosnia’s Parliament), as a result of their ethnicity/religion.

In April 2010, the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly drew attention to the urgent need for constitutional reform in Bosnia through its Resolution 1725 to prevent further discrimination in the October 2010 general elections. Regrettably, no political consensus has been reached on the amendments to date, as the Council’s Committee of Ministers have noted with concern.

But what the Council of Europe has failed to do is take UEFA’s laudable stance of zero-tolerance. It could in theory exercise similar powers to suspend Member States from their rights to representation on the Consultative Assembly (article 8 of the Council’s Statute). Just as the late goal by Edin Dzeko gave Bosnia the win over Romania, maybe UEFA’s threat to suspend Bosnia is the much needed kick to bring about an end to ethnic-based politics in Bosnia.

Join the walking tour – discovering multi-ethnic Budapest on foot (Part 2)

Kit Dorey who interns in MRG’s Europe office, Budapest, shares his experience from one of the activities organized to mark this week. See Part 1.

March 20th: The 8th District
The overlooked 8th District was our destination for the second of our guided tours celebrating minority Budapest, for the EU Action Week Against Racism. Overlooked because it is mistakenly presumed by many (tourist and Hungarian alike) to be not worth visiting and devoid of historical interest. The aim of our tour today was to demonstrate that this is simply not the case and, in addition, to meet, in person, representatives of the most numerous minority populations in this region of the city.

Our tour guide Zoltan Nagy

A sizeable group met at ten o’clock this morning, at Blaha Lujza square, the square that was the destination of many of the immigrant populations that began to arrive after 1989, including those from Africa and East Asia. We began by heading straight into the heart of the 8th district, going directly to Köztársaság square, the scene of uprisings in 1956, and the historical setting of a thriving Jewish community, the synagogues of which were dismantled long ago. One of the most tragic aspects of the 8th district is how few synagogues actually remain, in an area that used to host several in each locale. The open space that exists now does not provide much evidence of the thriving markets and settlement blocks that used to fill it up.

It was in this setting that we stopped to talk to Bela Radics, who had accompanied us for the first part of the tour. Bela is an independent Roma rights activist, who took the time to tell us all about the victimisation of his community. The majority of the Roma population in Budapest live in the 8th district, and it is not wholly a coincidence that this is the area of the city that gets the least attention from authorities when it comes to development. Bela spoke to us about the persistent lack of political representation and opportunities that continue to affect the Roma. It was a great opportunity to question an experienced activist in the field of Roma rights, and it was a stark reminder of the difficulties facing the largest minority group in Hungary.

The alter of one of the synagogues we visited

Another excellent opportunity for a face to face discussion was provided by Zoltan, as we were taken to see the synagogue on Teleki square. In contrast to grand synagogue that lies in the centre of the capital, this one was located in a converted apartment within a residential block. Set up at the beginning of the 20th Century by Jewish communities emigrating from Ukraine, Poland and Russia, the decor has not changed since then. The beautiful old benches, books and altars were breathtaking, and, after the men donned their skullcaps, we were able to sit in the pews as our host, Gabor, told us about the history of this place of worship and the revival of Jewish identity in recent years.

We then made our way further away from the city centre, paying attention to the examples of art nouveau on the walls of the buildings that we passed. Our tour culminated with the Józsefváros Market, also called the Chinese market for the high proportion of Chinese-Hungarian shopkeepers there. In clear view of the Chinese University of Budapest, the market is the business place of Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Turkish, Arabic and Roma stall-owners, and is one of the best places to go if you want an overview of the minority and immigrant populations of the city. It is a great shame that it exists so far away from the administrative centre of Budapest and the life of most of the citizens, but an excellent place to stop for some noodle-soup, which is exactly what many of us did as soon as we reached the end of our excursion.

In contrast to yesterday’s tour, which was a valuable insight into the historical influence of minority communities, today was very much about the present . The 8th district is home to a lively symbiosis of many different communities, and the tour we embarked on today showed clearly that it deserves to be seen as a precious and vital aspect of the capital, in a way that it is currently not by the general population.

Our last tour, on Wednesday, will focus on the downtown area of Pest, the home of Serbians, Roma, Romanians, Jewish and Turkish people, both past and present. These tours were developed and delivered by Minority Rights Group, Szubjektív Értékek Alapítvány, and Rockhoppers (please view www.rockhoppers.hu if you are interested in exploring minority Budapest further!).

Stay tuned for news of tomorrow’s exhibition, for “Comics Against Racism”, to be held at the EU-pont in the Millenáris after 7.00.

Kit Dorey

• Continue to Part 3

Join the walking tour – discovering multi-ethnic Budapest on foot (Part 1)

Kit Dorey who interns in MRG’s Europe office, Budapest, shares his experience from one of the activities organized to mark this week.

For this year’s European Action Week Against Racism (14th-27th March), Minority Rights Group is marking the occasion with a set of three tours that focus on the multiplicity of minority specific influences on Budapest, both throughout history and in the modern day. With the aid of the tour company, Rockhoppers, and the knowledge and experience of Zoltan Nagy, our guide, we aimed to draw attention to the many cultural, religious and international factors that have shaped this beautiful city. Marketed to both tourists and city-dwellers, the tour demonstrates even lifelong Budapestians may not realise how much diversity has enriched their environment and continues to do so today.

March 19th: The Castle District and the Upper Thermal Springs- We began our series of tours, fittingly, with the 1st district, also known as the Castle District. Those who were not put off by the slightly unfortunate weather were not to be disappointed, as we meandered our way through the ancient streets.

The Castle has become a symbol for Hungarian independence and identity, built in the 14th Century, rebuilt many times, reclaimed from the Ottomans in 1669 and surviving 31 armed assaults on its walls. Those with a narrow view of what it means to be truly “Hungarian” could well underplay the influence of minority communities in this part of the city. In fact, from the first, Zoltan made it clear how misrepresentative this impression is. Even the magnificent Church of St. Matthias spent the Ottoman occupation as a mosque, a balcony being built around it so that the muezzin could call people to prayer.

The clear dividing lines within this relatively small area have existed for a very long time. A good example of this is the disparity between the two main places of prayer, St. Matthias and The Church of Mary Magdalene (pictured left), only a short walk from each other. Before Ottoman rule, the congregations were split into German and Hungarian worshippers; afterwards, between Muslim and Christian. Similarly, we were able to stand at the intersection of two perpendicular streets that were designated for the “Germans” and “Italians”, ensuring their separation in domestic life.

The presence of ancient Jewish populations is also surprising for those who presume that the first populations lived downtown, on the other side of the river: in fact, the earliest Jewish settlers, in the 11th Century, lived on the hill that was to become the Castle. Evicted from Budapest in 1360, the (probably quite sheepish) King Louis was forced to officially invite them back a few years later, due to economic turmoil. Evidence of their history there can be seen from the remains of an ancient synagogue, one of the walls of which are still visible on the north eastern side.

Other bits of information, which cannot be gleaned from simply walking through the area, include the fact that the long-standing Hilton hotel was a Franciscan monastery and a Turkish stable in past lives, a fact only in evidence externally from a section of wall on the left hand side of the entrance.

We finished our tour by leaving the castle and travelling down the hill towards the Upper Thermal Springs: the Ottomans left several of the extant baths behind as their legacy, one of which you can see pictured here. The focus of the tour really made it clear, in the most historically preserved part of the Budapest, how much minority populations (especially the Jewish, Italian, German and Turkish settlers) have built the city and contributed to its rich historical background.

Tomorrow, we will travel to one of the least explored parts of the city, the 8th District, to examine the influence of the Roma, Chinese, the Jewish and many others. These tours were developed and delivered by Minority Rights Group (www.minorityrights.org), Szubjektív Értékek Alapítvány (www.szubjektiv.org), and Rockhoppers (please view www.rockhoppers.hu if you are interested in exploring minority Budapest further!).

Kit Dorey

• Continue to Part 2

Mega-Plantations in West Papua: A Growing Problem

Joe Gonzales, MRG’s Media Intern in London, reports back from a meeting discussing the negative consequences of a commercial agriculture project on the indigenous people of West Papua, Indonesia.

While wearing a shirt bearing a West Papuan national flag, and noting that she wears it while abroad because it is illegal to do so in her own country, Rosa Moiwend steadily guides a mostly uninformed yet captivated audience through her homeland’s troubled recent past.

Rosa Moiwend

Moiwend is a grass roots human rights activist from West Papua, the Indonesian region comprising the western half of the island of New Guinea, 200 miles off the northern coast of Australia. It has been occupied by Indonesia since 1963, bringing an end to a West Papuan self-rule that had only begun in 1961, when the Netherlands renounced its colonial authority over the region.

Despite being part of Indonesia, however, Moiwend claims that the vast majority of ethnic Papuans do not identify themselves as Indonesian.  “It is very clear that West Papua is part of New Guinea, not Asia. We are a Melanesian culture, not Asian.”

In recognition of this, in 2001 the Indonesian government gave West Papua a status of special autonomy, entitling the province to a greater level of self-rule than most other Indonesian regions.  In June of this year, however, the Papua People’s Council rejected West Papua’s status of special autonomy owing to its lack of implementation by the Indonesian government.  Indeed, Moiwend reveals that Indonesia maintains a strong paramilitary presence in West Papua, remarking that one of the militias currently in the state played a large role in the East Timor massacres.

Regardless of the actual effectiveness of Papua’s rejection of its autonomous status, Moiwend points out that West Papua’s standing within Indonesia will be re-evaluated in 2026 (West Papua’s special autonomy was initially agreed upon for a 25-year period, nine of which have already passed).  She fears, however, that as the province’s population becomes ever more comprised of ethnically Javanese migrants who would not think of voting for special autonomy from the Indonesian state, chance for change in West Papua may be fleeting.  As it stands presently, indigenous Papuans only make up 40% of the populace owing to previous waves of migration.

Moiwend is a member of the Malind people, native to the Merauke region located in the central portion of the island’s southern coast, close to Indonesia’s border with independent Papua New Guinea.

In addition to its status as the ancestral lands of the Malind people, the Merauke region is home to the Merauke Integrated Food & Energy Estate, or MIFEE. MIFEE is a project that aims to convert the region into an agricultural super-hub that will supply grains necessary for the production of food and biofuels to the global marketplace.  This transformation, however, is having catastrophic results for the Malind indigenous to the area.

Ms. Moiwend’s London lecture, made possible by War Resisters International, makes the intimate links between the MIFEE project and Indonesia’s occupation of West Papua clear. Alarmingly, she reports that the Malind people’s land is being auctioned off to over 30 commercial investors without prior consent from the Malind landowners themselves. MIFEE aims to convert 1.6 million hectares into commercial farming estates. As such, this is a problem that can only be expected to continue to grow.

Indonesian palm oil plantation on Java (Achmad Rabin Taim)

MIFEE will eventually grow a variety of agricultural commodities, from palm and soy to corn and sugar cane.  Rice production, however, is already well underway owing to the presence of the Merauke Integrated Rice Estate, MIFEE’s predecessor. The paddies necessary for rice cultivation, however, differ drastically from the savannah-like landscape Moiwend depicts when describing the natural state of her homeland.  As such, the hunting, gathering of sago, and all other methods of sustenance known to her people after generations of experience, are being rendered useless, leaving the Malind unable to continue their chosen way of life.

With the forest being cleared to make room for rice fields, crucial elements of Malind culture are also being destroyed. The forest’s role as the foundation of Malind culture is present in the Malind language. Moiwend speaks of the close, generation-spanning links her people have with their land and how, as a child, she learned the Malind language while being guided through the forest by her parents and grandparents. “Our language is inseparable from the livestock and forests,” she notes, and then laments that its use is declining owing to the intrusion of the MIFEE project.  Even the name Meruake is itself an Indonesian corruption of the region’s name in the Malind language, Marokehe.

In addition to the cultural loss, Moiwend suggests that MIFEE will have further consequences that will affect the entirety of West Papua.  The large number of labourers needed to cultivate 1.6 million hectares of farmland means that considerable numbers of Javanese and other non-Papuan Indonesians from the rest of the country are migrating to West Papua.  In doing so, these migrant labourers are causing a momentous shift in the island’s demographics that could have far-reaching effects on West Papua’s political future.

Indonesia’s insistence on selling parcels of Malind land in Merauke to commercial farmers simply confirms a belief that Moiwend holds: “Indonesia doesn’t want our people, they just want our land.” She insists that Papuan self-rule is the only way to resolve the human rights violations that continue to plague indigenous Papuans.

She expresses concern, however, over the previously mentioned nullifying effect continued Javanese migration could have on future votes concerning independence in West Papua. As such, Moiwend worries that the migration swell that projects like MIFEE induce will eventually bring about the end of indigenous Papuan peoples, something she believes has been the goal of the Indonesian government since 1963.  This potential ability of MIFEE to eventually eliminate Papuan culture brings about a strong reaction from Moiwend.  “No one should be surprised when people describe the activity at MIFEE as genocide.  This is a kind of genocide.”

West Papuans protest biofuels in London (Bernard Burns)

Moiwend’s own work consists of coordinating different Papuan student groups in an effort to present a more unified front on threats to Papuan peoples, but she insists that West Papua needs the support of international NGOs and the international community as a whole.  She cites a need for international media coverage to make human right violations occurring in West Papua more ubiquitously known, particularly the negative effects MIIFE is having on her Malind people.

“There is still some time to act,” she optimistically states, because although the Malind people’s land has already been sold, most of them have not been removed from their land as of yet.  That optimism fades, however, when she thinks about where her people will go when the rest of their land is confiscated.  “I don’t know where my people can stay. Maybe they think we should move to the ocean.”

A lesson on justice in Burundi

lucy claridge

Lucy Claridge, MRG’s Head of Law, visits a Batwa community in Burundi and learns that access to justice can seem like a far-flung dream for families struggling to meet their most basic needs. A small group of children peer nervously out at me from behind a clump of trees.  Their parents eventually extend their hands, smile shyly and greet me. “Amahoro!” they say – which means hello or, literally, “Peace”, in Kirundi.

I am visiting a Batwa community who live in Mutaho region, central Burundi.  Originally forest-dwellers, the Batwa are an indigenous group of hunter-gatherers mainly inhabiting Burundi, Uganda, DRC and Rwanda. Routinely marginalised and discriminated against, the Batwa have been forced to change their way of living due removal of their traditional lands and increased deforestation. Like many Batwa, this particular community has been caught up in a land dispute spanning nearly 40 years.

I arrive in the centre of the village, which consists of a group of around 15 very basic, single room, thatched huts.  Our partner organization in Burundi explains that I am here because MRG’s Legal Cases Programme is supporting the community in their attempts to gain back their lands. The women immediately gather round and sing a melodic welcome song and afterwards we discuss their land dispute.

Unlike many Batwa, this particular community has actually had some success. In the 1970s, the local court decided that the disputed area of land belonged, and should be returned, to them.  However, the land was never actually given back, and when one of the community elders went back to the court to try and resolve the issue, she was imprisoned for ten years.

Batwa women in Mutaho

In addition to returning the Batwa property, which would rightfully seem to be theirs, the disputed parcel of land could greatly assist the community in providing further means to cultivate crops.  Four years ago, MRG’s partner in Burundi, UNIPROBA, decided to take on the issue themselves, lodging a further case in the courts.  Yet the case remains stuck in a slow and dysfunctional court system. When I ask if anyone from the community has tried to push forward the issue, I am told that, “Daily life has more pressing issues.” Immediately I understand. With the most basic living conditions, scarce food, ill health, disease, and little or no chance of an education, access to justice rates well below access to food.

The Right to be Cold

Carl Soderbergh

I recently chaired a tribunal called “Humanity on Trial” in Stockholm, Sweden. The tribunal focussed on the human impact of climate change and was meant to be taking place in the middle of this century. It looked back on what the world knew as states gathered for the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark at the end of 2009. Supposing that the delegations were unable to agree on a binding agreement, the tribunal posed the question why so little was done. Indeed, the Swedish press were full of reports the day before that the Danish hosts had finally admitted that the prospects are now slim of achieving a binding successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, at least at Copenhagen.

The panel was composed of human rights and environmental experts from Sweden and other countries, and the eight witnesses were called from some of the most exposed populations of the planet, including Inuit in Norway, the indigenous peoples of Latin America and forest-dwellers in India. As a reminder of the urgency of the topic, groups of children came on to the stage and grabbed the microphones to ask the grown-ups, “You knew – why didn’t you do anything!?!” And to set the scene further, the sun rose as the tribunal progressed, ending up as a searing orb hanging above our heads.

A week or so after the tribunal, the stories of the witnesses remain with me. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, former chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, was the first witness and is justly renowned for having submitted the first complaint regarding climate change and human rights to an international body. The complaint was lodged by her and 62 other Inuit elders with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2005. Sadly, the Commission did not rule on the substance of the complaint, which identified the United States as the respondent. But it did hold a ground-breaking hearing on the matter.

Watt-Cloutier painted in stark terms what is (or rather was – if we follow the tribunal’s fictional timeframe of taking place mid-century) happening to the Inuit because of climate change. Coastal erosion is causing homes to fall into the sea. Deep fissures have opened up in the permafrost, dividing communities and making hunting grounds less accessible. Even more worrying is that the pack-ice is thinning out and coming later, making the traditional means of transport – dog-sledding – ever more precarious. Given that the ice and snow are so vital, Watt-Cloutier said that the issue of climate change had to do with their “right to be cold.”

Watt-Cloutier described how the Inuit suffer “a sense of loss of control over our lives.” Most particularly, the age-old ways of hunting allow each generation to transmit “the wisdom of the land” to their children. Now, the elders are finding it difficult to instil their children with the values and beliefs of their people. Inuit communities have seen rising alcoholism and an increase in the suicide rate as traditional roles are being undermined.

The petition to the Inter-American Commission was submitted because the Inuit did not “want to go down as a footnote in history.” Nor did they want to be perceived as “powerless victims.” When asked how states had responded, Watt-Cloutier replied that US representatives had made arguments based on economic efficiency: it costs too much to stop the damage.

For Watt-Cloutier, however, the responsibility is clear. The industrialised countries and urban populations in particular have lost their connection to the natural world, and we should be looking to minorities, indigenous peoples and other populations who retain the necessary knowledge in order to regain that balance. Indeed, Watt-Cloutier looked upon the petition as the Inuit peoples’ “gift”, intended to raise awareness of this need.

Shankar Gopalakrishnan, an Indian forest-dwellers’ rights activist, pointed out that the rainy season did not come in 2009. Forest-dwellers lead a particularly vulnerable existence, according to Gopalakrishnan, since their environment has already been affected by the depredations of private corporations which have been grabbing forested areas and using the timber to produce commodities. Thus, the forest communities of India face both a deprival of resources as well as a loss of control over their own lives. Gopalakrishnan urged that the forests of India and elsewhere be saved as a way to combat the effects of climate change.

During the break, a member of the audience approached me to comment on the proceedings. Wisely, he noted that perhaps the witnesses from affected populations should have been sitting on the panel and the members of the tribunal, who came from industrialised countries, should have been asked to testify.

Alivio Aruquipa Lazo lives in a village in the Bolivian Andes, where the indigenous population depends on the Mururata glacier for their water. He was elected by the village to come and speak at the tribunal. In 2009, the glacier is already providing too little water, and the village foresees that they will have to move in order to survive. Lazo described how their way of life focuses on the glacier – the village gives offerings to it. If they are displaced, the village’s beliefs and traditions and, indeed, their language risk disappearing.

Sultana Begum, a women’s rights activist in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh, described the particular gender aspect of the impact of natural disasters and climate change. Women are often not informed when floods occur and stay behind to care for their children, thus being at an ever-greater risk of being swept away. Moreover, women are not included when communities discuss flood prevention strategies. Her testimony echoed the information MRG had received from Dalit women in India, following the Tsunami of 2004.

After these and the other testimonies, the panel gathered to deliberate. What was our decision? While we certainly recognised the human rights dimension to climate change, we faced a dilemma as international law is weak when it comes to legal responsibility across borders. Moreover, we felt that all of us – most especially those of us who belong to majority communities in industrialised countries – stood accused. Ultimately, we had to leave it to the audience to decide.

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