Mariam was painfully thin. Several of her 13 children peered out from behind her with hollow eyes. "I am trying to save my children. We are not living. We are subhuman," she told me. Food aid was available in her village in Southern Ethiopia. But not for her children. Her husband belonged to the wrong political party.
Liberia's "big man" surely thought he'd enjoy a comfortable retirement when he left power back in 2003. But on April 26 the Special Court for Sierra Leone convicted Charles Taylor for war crimes and crimes against humanity, proving that even the most powerful aren't immune from justice
Should Vladimir Putin be studying the conviction of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president? What about Henry Kissinger? The verdict marked the first time since the post–World War II Nuremberg trials that a former head of state has been convicted by an international tribunal of war crimes and crimes against humanity. What may be of more lasting significance, however, is that Taylor was not convicted for oppressing his own people—though he did that as well—but for his material support to abusive forces in another country. In that respect, the decision speaks not just to tinpot dictators but to leaders of countries who fight proxy wars by knowingly giving client states or rebel allies the means to commit atrocities.
Les pourparlers de réconciliation tant attendus entre la coalition des partis au pouvoir dirigée par le président Alassane Ouattara et les partis d’opposition se sont, dans l’ensemble, achevés comme ils avaient commencé : le Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) a indiqué qu’il ne participera au dialogue politique qu’à condition que Laurent Gbagbo et d’autres anciens dirigeants du parti en détention soient libérés. Ces conditions préalables révèlent le mépris de l’élite politique du FPI pour les milliers de victimes d’actes souvent atroces de violence politique.
On a sizzling Saturday in January, I visited the home of Dakan G., down a dusty path off the main gravel road running through Wajir, at the heart of Kenya’s North Eastern province. Dakan’s grandchildren milled around outside the tukul’s narrow entryway. Her daughter lingered in the doorway.
Liesl Gerntholtz, the Director of the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, says one of the major problems they have found in their latest research (mainly in Asia and the Middle East) is that labor law does not recognize domestic workers as workers so they are therefore not well protected.
Since the 1990s South Africa has not reduced the number of women who die needlessly each year from preventable and treatable causes linked to pregnancy and childbirth.
The verdict against former Liberian President Charles Taylor at the Sierra Leone Special Court has been eagerly anticipated by many in Sierra Leone. But, as is often the case with abusive leaders wielding power, bringing Taylor to justice was once considered a less than welcome development in diplomatic circles. More than a few feared at that time that bringing charges against a sitting president in the midst of a conflict would do more harm than good.
This week, homophobic rhetoric in Liberia once again reared its ugly head when a flier publicizing a “hit list” of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals was distributed in Monrovia.It appears that “kicking gays out of Liberia” as the flier said, is the latest pre-occupation in a country that has survived almost 20 years of violent internal conflict that claimed many lives and devastated the economy. One would think there would be more pressing concerns in Liberia.
The African Union last month announced a plan to improve coordination to end atrocities by Joseph Kony’s Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Efforts to arrest Kony and other LRA leaders wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to end LRA abuses are urgently needed. But that is only half of the picture; addressing the legacy of the LRA and Ugandan army abuses is the other. This history of abuse also has implications for US and other foreign support to Ugandan-led arrest operations for Kony.
Liberia's "big man" surely thought he'd enjoy a comfortable retirement when he left power back in 2003. But on April 26 the Special Court for Sierra Leone convicted Charles Taylor for war crimes and crimes against humanity, proving that even the most powerful aren't immune from justice
Should Vladimir Putin be studying the conviction of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president? What about Henry Kissinger? The verdict marked the first time since the post–World War II Nuremberg trials that a former head of state has been convicted by an international tribunal of war crimes and crimes against humanity. What may be of more lasting significance, however, is that Taylor was not convicted for oppressing his own people—though he did that as well—but for his material support to abusive forces in another country. In that respect, the decision speaks not just to tinpot dictators but to leaders of countries who fight proxy wars by knowingly giving client states or rebel allies the means to commit atrocities.
Liesl Gerntholtz, the Director of the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, says one of the major problems they have found in their latest research (mainly in Asia and the Middle East) is that labor law does not recognize domestic workers as workers so they are therefore not well protected.
The verdict against former Liberian President Charles Taylor at the Sierra Leone Special Court has been eagerly anticipated by many in Sierra Leone. But, as is often the case with abusive leaders wielding power, bringing Taylor to justice was once considered a less than welcome development in diplomatic circles. More than a few feared at that time that bringing charges against a sitting president in the midst of a conflict would do more harm than good.
The African Union last month announced a plan to improve coordination to end atrocities by Joseph Kony’s Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Efforts to arrest Kony and other LRA leaders wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to end LRA abuses are urgently needed. But that is only half of the picture; addressing the legacy of the LRA and Ugandan army abuses is the other. This history of abuse also has implications for US and other foreign support to Ugandan-led arrest operations for Kony.