30th Anniversary Special Report
THIRTY YEARS OF WORKING FOR JUSTICE
Over the past 30 years, Inter Pares has had the privilege of working with and accompanying some of the most inspiring social justice activists in the world. In 2005, not only do we honour our friends and colleagues who share this history, but look forward to continued international activism for justice and peace.
Some of our friends and colleagues are gone now. Like Serge Cherniguin of the sugarworkers union in the Philippines, who worked tirelessly to change the conditions of workers despite the daily danger to his life. Like Myrna Mack, murdered because of her efforts to expose the truth about human rights in Guatemala. Or Jeannette Schoon who, along with her little girl, was murdered for her anti-apartheid activities. None of these people would have seen themselves as particularly extraordinary; rather, they were ordinary people who dared to confront the systems of oppression and impunity they saw in the world around them.
Many of our friends and colleagues continue to work for social justice. People like Khushi Kabir of Nijera Kori in Bangladesh with whom Inter Pares has worked for more than 20 years. Like Dr. Cynthia Maung, the refugee physician working on the Thailand-Burma border, developing services for displaced and refugee women, men and children. Like Augusta Henriques, re-building community in Guinea Bissau from the ashes of war. Like Diana Avila and her colleagues of the Project Counselling Service of Latin America, who continue to support the struggles of marginalized people in the region.
As we enter our 30th year, we honour the legacy of those who are no longer with us, as well as the contributions of so many others. We and our colleagues are aware that we need to build institutions so that our activism endures and continues after us. For Inter Pares, this means nurturing an organization that can renew itself with young people who share our values and ethos. It also means establishing a solid financial base for Inter Pares, a goal which our supporters across Canada are assisting us to achieve. These same challenges are being addressed by our colleagues around the world as they strive to develop sustainable organizations to continue social justice work and action in their own places.
This 30th Anniversary Report provides an overview of some of the organizations around the world that we and our counterparts have helped create as our shared legacy to challenging the limits of the possible.
BANGLADESH: NIJERA KORI
In rural areas of Bangladesh, villagers are coming together to collectively improve their own lives. With the help of Nijera Kori, which means "we can do it ourselves", the villagers organize in groups, called samitis, made up of people who have historically been among the most marginalized in Bangladeshi society - the landless and rural wage labourers. Employers set the terms and conditions of their employment, and workers are routinely mistreated and poorly paid, with little say over the decisions that affect their lives.
The samitis meet regularly to analyze current trends, such as comparing the rates local employers are paying for seasonal crops, and monitoring the difference in wages being paid to women and men. The samiti members come to consensus on what the challenges are, and how they can be addressed. During a recent sugar cane harvest, for example, group members came together to demand increases in wages from a local employer.
By going from one samiti to another, building support for their demand, villagers gained the solidarity required to stand strong in the face of employer pressure tactics, ultimately winning wage increases.
Sometimes samiti work is risky, as members regularly face arrest by corrupt officials working on behalf of the local elite; sometimes it is dangerous, as employers engage thugs to oppose negotiation and dissent. But the villagers are seeing results from taking these risks, and newly organized samiti groups are forming in regions all over the country. Through working together, and with support from Nijera Kori, these villagers are claiming their rights, and redefining what is possible.
BURMA RELIEF CENTRE
In the late 1980s, tens of thousands of people from Burma fled into the neighbouring country of Thailand to escape the violent repression against Burma's democracy movement by the military dictatorship. The Burma Relief Centre (BRC) was formed by a group of concerned individuals who began to collect and distribute food, medicine and clothing to these refugees. In the years since, BRC has evolved into an organization that operates on all the borders of Burma, in India, Bangladesh and China, as well as Thailand. BRC not only contributes to the material well-being of refugees and displaced people from Burma, but also supports them in their continuing struggle for democracy and peace in their homeland.
Over the past 15 years, BRC has assisted refugees and displaced people to create their own organizations and implement activities that respond to their own needs. This has included the development of a number of innovative health programs that train health workers to deal with problems facing displaced people. BRC has assisted youth groups from different ethnic nationalities to work in coalition on research initiatives related to the democratic future of their country. With BRC's support, women have formed their own organizations to address women's political participation and to defend human rights. BRC also supports the development of media organizations in order to provide independent information and analysis from every part of Burma.
BRC promotes the development of civil society organizations that will provide the foundation of a democratic future in Burma. These efforts give voice to people who are among the most marginalized and vulnerable, so that they are able to articulate not only what they need today, but what they aspire to for the future. In these ways, BRC is helping to define what is possible for a future in Burma that is just, democratic and peaceful.
MEXICO: FUNDAR
For seventy years during the 20th century, Mexico was governed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). This period, often referred to as 'low-intensity totalitarianism', was characterized by systematic human rights abuses, and a lack of government accountability to its citizenry. Fundar, an analysis and research centre, was founded in the late 1990s as part of a growing social movement demanding structural reform in Mexico, and an increased decision-making role for citizens and civil society. Fundar was created by a small group of academics and activists to develop mechanisms for increased citizen oversight of the role of government and the state. Independent, interdisciplinary and non-partisan, Fundar works to create and sustain democratic practice in Mexico, developing linkages and relationships of dialogue with civil, social, governmental, and parliamentary actors.
Fundar's twenty-two member staff work to find creative solutions to issues of impoverishment, exclusion and discrimination in Mexico, and to formulate policy recommendations for fiscal reform based on solid interdisciplinary research. Fundar monitors public spending to ensure governmental transparency and accountability in health, education and development, and provides citizen oversight to key institutions, including the national legislature and the Human Rights Commission. Staff members also provide advice and training to local citizens' groups on governance issues, in particular, on how to monitor public spending and state institutions. Creating democratic processes and institutions in Mexico is a long-term challenge in which civil society - and Fundar in particular - plays a key role in ensuring that citizens' voices are heard and taken into account.
SUDAN: THE GENDER CENTER FOR RESEARCH AND TRAINING
The Gender Center for Research and Training (GCRT) embodies the dreams and hopes of Sudanese women for a peaceful, democratic and just society, where women are active participants in political, cultural and social life. But the situation in Sudan stands in stark contrast to these dreams. Conflict, displacement, poverty, and religious fundamentalism have all intensified women's oppression. The imposition of Sharia law by the military regime in the 1980s, followed in 1989 by the takeover of power by the current government, drove the women's movement and civil society organizations underground.
In this context, the Gender Center is a beacon of hope for a better future. The women who formed the Center defend and promote basic human and civil rights for all Sudanese women and men. They work to transcend the many obstacles - religious, cultural, and patriarchal - that stand in the way of women's unity, equality and the transformation of society. The women's movement in Sudan is growing stronger and is at the heart of a re-emerging civil society.
The conviction of the women in the Gender Center that such a transformed future is possible inspires others throughout the country. The Center is a locus for women's research, networking and collaborative strategies to confront militarism and violence, economic exclusion and impoverishment, fundamentalism and women's subordination. The Gender Center affirms the dreams and hopes of women across the country that Sudan can become a peaceful society in which women's contributions are welcomed and acknowledged.
GUATEMALA: KABAWIL PEASANT COUNCIL
The Kabawil Peasant Council in Guatemala was formed in the early 1990s by a group of young indigenous activists, to work with indigenous peasants to regain the land from which they had been dispossessed. Over 100 communities in the western highlands joined the Council, including some recently-returned refugees from the country's decades-long armed conflict. For Kabawil communities, their sense of identity, justice and community is rooted in their relationship to the earth. The struggle for land is both spiritual and material. According to Kabawil members, "We cannot be separated from Mother Earth because we are part of her."
Over the past decade, Kabawil members have participated in re-shaping national and community life in Guatemala, holding their government responsible for its commitments under the peace accords signed in 1996, most particularly the agreement regarding the redistribution of land to the marginalized and dispossessed. Over 3,100 families in 112 Kabawil communities submitted applications to the government-sponsored Land Fund.
To date Kabawil has acquired seven farms for almost a thousand families. Most of these farms are old coffee plantations, and the challenge has been to redevelop them to meet the needs of the families living on them, while maintaining a respectful relationship to the land. Organic agriculture has been introduced to nurture land that is tired and poisoned by over-production and intensive pesticide use. Intricate irrigation systems have been designed for food crops, as well as coffee, cardamom and banana groves. Although life on the farms is hard, Kabawil communities are gradually building a future for themselves in harmony with the land that sustains them.
THIRD WORLD NETWORK AFRICA
Third World Network Africa (TWN-Africa) was formed in 1994 to promote policy research and the exchange of ideas among Africans in the struggle for African development. The organization was launched by a small group of activist scholars in Ghana, along with fellow activists in other parts of the continent from women's movements, labour unions, media, universities and NGOs. Over the past decade, TWN-Africa has become a leader among African civil society organizations, recognized for its original and rigorous policy analysis on issues of trade and investment, aid, the environment, resource extraction and gender equity.
TWN-Africa links African development activists to an international network of organizations and individuals that promotes the aspirations and rights of the peoples of the South, a fair distribution of the world's resources, and ecologically sustainable development that fulfills human needs.
TWN-Africa's staff and members work with civil society organizations and government officials in many African countries to provide research and analysis on international trade and investment. TWN-Africa is also playing a lead role in documenting the impact of resource extraction on local communities, African economies, and the environment.
TWN-Africa's work is based on the conviction that African governments are first and foremost accountable to their own citizens, rather than international creditors, donors and foreign investors. African citizens must be able to hold their governments to account for the choices they make and for the national development policies they promote. TWN-Africa's policy research and advocacy programs provide an important contribution to democratization in Africa and to the creation of a more just world order.
MININGWATCH CANADA
MiningWatch Canada was born out of discussions among Canadian organizations, including Inter Pares, concerned about the effects of mining on the environment, and on the livelihoods and safety of people and communities. MWC brings together scientists, environmental groups, aboriginal organizations, legal specialists and social justice activists from across Canada. With communities affected by mining in Canada and around the world, MWC works toward mineral development practices consistent with sustainable communities and ecological health, and policies that protect people's long-term economic, environmental and cultural interests.
The technical, environmental, legal, social and economic issues related to mining are complex, and dealing with them can seem to be beyond the capacities of small, mostly rural, communities with limited resources. MWC emphasizes the importance of communities learning from others in similar situations - whether it is aboriginal communities in Canada negotiating oversight of mining operations on their land, Filipino fishers concerned about mine tailings in their fishing areas, or rural Nicaraguans protecting their fragile biosphere from mineral exploitation - providing technical and other support for them to design their own responses to mineral development, from their own perspectives and based on their own aspirations.
MWC has prepared a kit in collaboration with communities in Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and other Pacific countries to assist them to resist mining companies' disposal of toxic mine waste in the ocean, a practice effectively banned in Canada and the U.S. In Canada, MWC provides aboriginal groups and mining communities with technical and legal assistance in their negotiations with mining companies and governments on health and environmental concerns, and in their efforts to address the toxic legacy of more than 27,000 abandoned mines.
Across Canada and around the world, ordinary people are engaging in mutual learning, collaboration and policy activism in defence of their future and their communities. MWC supports such people to gain greater control over the impact of mining on their lives and livelihoods.
THE INTERNATIONAL CIVIL LIBERTIES MONITORING GROUP
The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG) is a coalition of over 35 Canadian organizations, created in the aftermath of government reaction to the events of September, 2001. Its purpose is to monitor "anti-terrorism" legislation and other measures that affect civil liberties, human rights, refugee protection, political dissent, and the activities of charities carrying out international humanitarian assistance globally. Inter Pares and several other organizations came together to create the coalition in the conviction that it is necessary to re-assert the primacy of human rights and civil liberty within Canada and the wider international community, and that, with political courage and collective action, such a goal is possible.
To this end, the ICLMG has challenged Canada's new security legislation and other counterterrorism measures, the harmonization of Canadian security policies with the United States, the practice of covert data-sharing among states, the lack of transparency and accountability in the use of security measures, the erosion of privacy rights, the suspension of due process, and the lack of political oversight over security operations. The ICLMG monitors and publicizes measures that contravene the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, other Canadian laws and international human rights standards, including the use of security certificates and secret trials to deport landed immigrants and refugees, and intervenes in individual cases where there have been violations of civil liberties and human rights.
As part of its commitment to resist the affront to rights and democracy that the global security agenda represents, the ICLMG has joined with organizations from the U.S. and around the world in an international campaign on citizen registration and global surveillance, to raise awareness about the worldwide system of "total surveillance" and control of movement, and the negative impact on privacy rights, and freedom of movement and association.
By participating in these actions we hope to promote a world safe for all, rooted not in fear but in fundamental rights and the rule of law.
| Reviewed April 28, 2005 |  |
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