Montreal Serai

Rights are hard to locate. One man’s rigorous beliefs in his “cultural” assertion are another woman’s confinement and destitution. The rights of a nation, of a people, run against the path of development chosen by a state. The rights of a majority community overshadow the rights of a minority. The rights of those who are incapacitated or challenged are questioned by those who are described as “normal.” One man’s right to luxury runs a collision course with another man’s tryst with survival.

Rights are for those who have power. Those who have the muscle — the guns, the money and the connections to weave in and out and play games with the tenets of civil law and the ideals of a perfect and fair society, as laid out originally by a band of constitutionalists with dream in their eyes.

Rights are there for journalists who distort, provoke and vitiate hatred by planting misleading stories that are pernicious and provocative and rights are not there for journalists who want to tell the truth, to expose inequality. Rights are there for policemen to plead self-defence after killing kids for playing in the park and not for the families of immigrant communities whose neighbourhoods remain encrusted with blight and neglect and lack of facilities.  This is the way it has been. Rights are defined by the interest you represent. The interests that emanate essentially from economic clout or the lack of them, as the case maybe. Rights are incipient to the conflict between the haves and the have nots.  Between the powerful and rich and the poor and destitute. Between the articulate, educated, noisy and the soft-spoken, resolute and less strident. That is why rights are all about class roots. And cultural differentials cover up everything else. The overlays, the distractions and the disconnect begin! The relational vectors that launch out in different directions as opposed to the mean resolution to overcome poverty and powerlessness. The irrelevance of the price of tea in China is what it sounds like when the question of rights is divorced from any discussion on poverty!

There are civil and equal rights and then there are human rights. The right to survive, to live, comes before even the right to constitutional access. Where there are no human rights, civil rights is a far cry.  The demand for rights are relative. The rights of people in Burkina Faso and the rights of people in Yonkers, NY.   The only common denominator is poverty. The source!

In the last two weeks I have been in New York and Mumbai. Travelling on trains and planes over and past slums, ghettoes and run down neighbourhoods. Two cities, where blight is cloaked by tales of terror that invoke warmongering aggressiveness.

When you want to describe poverty, you have to travel by it by train. Because trains, as we all know, never go through the neighbourhoods of the well-endowed or pass through the backyards of households that have  graded, stepped lawns, households that have butlers and cooks who announce the menu before each meal with a dash of Spanish, Italian or French thrown in demurely. Trains move through abandoned, neglected and forlorn neighbourhoods and dark and dreary underpasses, where blight, collapsing balconies, tin sheds, abandoned container yards and rustic town facades duel with splendidly colourful graphiti-ed walls and children chasing each other behind broken bottle-strewn backyards and cabins with plastic sheeted windows. No I am not travelling the Sealdah railways station corridor, in West Bengal India, but taking an Amtrak to New York along the Hudson from Montreal. Town after town streams by or comes to a screeching halt under the wheels of the Bombardier-made train as one or two passengers get in or get off with their duffel bags and backpacks, mostly students headed for the big city further down south.

And a week later, the sun has not come up yet in Mumbai and I am driving from the airport to my hotel. This is one week after the carnage. There is a huge pile of uncollected garbage on top of a cement platform. It is very large. The platform. On its other side, rows of people are lying down. Not a stir. A large rodent wobbles out of the pile and moves slowly towards the feet of one of the sleepers. My cab slows down in Mumbai and  I feel the train slowing down as it approaches Saratoga Springs. Here are signs that the cars are in better shape at the station parking lot and therefore there are some signs of affluence. More students are seen off by parents who are still clinging on to their SUVS. In the dark, I can see a man slumped on a bench. Further up, I reach my hotel in Mumbai  and a long stream of Mercedes Benzes are lined up and smartly dressed security personnel are running metal detectors over everybody. Rights, you ask? It cuts a swathe through all nations, but poverty is what decides who has it and who does not.

Stella Pace’s concern is humanity: humanity grappling with the difficulties of reality, humanity torn apart by insane suffering. It is a somber and tragic topic that of genocide, a topic that haunts the artist since she saw images of the massacre in Rwanda. The material used for the bodies of the women, cement and straw, underline both the strength and the fragility of human life.

The artist would like viewers to profoundly feel her work, to establish a dialogue with what they see, what they know and what they live.

Artist bio written by: Rene Detroye

Materials: concrete, straw

Size: Between 3 to 6 feet.

Rights are won through popular struggles. But once enacted into law, they have to be enforced.  Governments are usually reluctant to do that. The rights are then just words on a piece of paper. Workers, however, have found that they can enforce the rights themselves – often in creative and unorthodox ways.

In 1979 the Ontario government passed legislation guaranteeing workers the right to refuse unsafe work.  The move was prompted by the wildcat work stoppages over unsafe conditions in the uranium mines in Northern Ontario.  Harmful exposures had caused a “body count” of death and disease from lung cancer and silicosis. The new law allowed Ontario workers to refuse work they considered hazardous.  Management had to investigate the refusals.  Reprisals were prohibited. If the dispute continued, an inspector from the Ministry of Labour would rule on whether the refusal was justified or not. Inspectors had the authority to order a cleanup, or shut down an unsafe operation.  But if the inspector ruled against the worker, he had to return to the job immediately or face penalties.

From the moment the law was enacted, the big companies and their government allies moved to render it ineffective. Management did not respect the refusal procedures on the shop floor.  Refusing workers were often intimidated or fired.  When the disputes continued, the Ministry inspectors charged into the shops hell-bent to support the employers. They were determined to get the refusing workers back to work as soon as possible, whether or not the safety complaints had merit.

At that time I was working in the Westinghouse plant in Hamilton, Ontario, assembling large transformers. I was the union health and safety representative and shop steward. The factory was full of dangers including unsafe overhead cranes, flammable materials, and faulty scaffolds. There were also toxic exposures to asbestos, leaded paint, solvents, oil mists, welding fumes and other substances.

One of the problems we faced early on was a large electric band saw. Its blades often snapped and flew off, cutting the operator.  We complained about it to management; we were told the problem didn’t exist. On a work refusal, the Ministry inspector came in, examined the saw and lectured us that it was perfectly safe. We were told to keep using it, get back to work.

We had no intention of letting that go.  The blades kept breaking.  One day, as someone was using the saw, a group of workers came with me to speak to the Manager. They left their machines, came down from their scaffolds, exited the tanks and descended from the overhead cranes. As safety rep, I informed the Manager that the saw was a hazard.  The safety law had given workers another right, namely the right to report unsafe conditions, without reprisals. When the manager said that the saw had been verified as safe by the inspectors, I said fine, we just wanted to report what we believed to be a hazard.  We went back to work.

Fifteen minutes later, another person was using the saw.  The workers again came down from their work stations. We marched respectfully over to the Manager’s office. I told him that the saw was endangering a worker.  He became impatient, saying he already told us the saw was judged safe by the inspector.  I said ok, we just wanted to inform him of the unsafe situation. That was our right and obligation under the new law. Everyone then returned to work.

This scenario went on all morning.  At one point, management figured out that the band saw was costing it a lot of money in lost production time. The bosses were livid.   Approved or not by the inspector, the simple presence of the band saw was interfering in production.  Before the morning was out the Manager red tagged the machine, then called in the maintenance department to cut the floor bolts holding the saw in place. It was then taken out of the department and kept well out of sight.  A new one was ordered.

In a short space of time, the band saw had become a red flag to the workers in the department.  It had to be removed immediately. Faced with unorthodox collective action on the shop floor, management found it more economical to listen to its workers than to government authority.

We had been frustrated in our attempt to use the new right to refuse, but we discovered another way to get rid of an unsafe machine – well within the law. It was a lesson we never forgot.  We learned that it pays to be persistent, and that if one avenue is blocked we can find another.  We learned to creatively apply the provisions of the safety legislation. We learned to rely on our own strength. If the government won’t enforce our legislated rights, we will enforce them, one way or another.

These lessons served us well later on in dealing with other hazards. Over the following years, we achieved major cleanups and safety improvements in the plant.

Workers found other creative ways to use their rights. In 1986 I was director of a clinic for occupational health.  The autoworkers union at DeHavilland aircraft north of Toronto called us in.  They were frustrated after years of lobbying the company and Ministry over excessive exposures to chemicals, paints and solvents.  Many workers believed these exposures had caused their breathing difficulties, burning eyes, rashes, loss of skin pigment, headaches and dizziness.  The Ministry inspectors came in many times and duly documented violations, including exposures well above the regulations. They noted the violations, ordered the company to clean up and left it at that.  That went on year after year, with no changes made. The government would not enforce its own orders, so DeHavilland ignored the orders.  The health damage continued.

We set up a clinic in the union hall. Our doctors examined and tested the paint and the plastics workers. In August 1986, I wrote a report showing the medical results: over half the workers suffered significant lung diseases, nerve damage, swollen eyes, skin blotches – all linked to exposures on the job.

When the report was distributed on the shop floor, the place exploded.  Six hundred workers used their right to refuse work because of the unsafe conditions. They kept up that mass refusal for a week. DeHavilland then agreed to spend $15 million to clean up the area of concern, including the removal of many toxic materials, a revamped ventilation system and education for the workers about the substances they were using. It agreed to pay for health examinations by our clinic inside the plant.

What was new here was the collective use of the right to refuse. Rather than one individual doing it, six hundred workers did it at once. That shut down that part of the plant, production stopped and the company began to bleed a lot of money.  All of which was perfectly legal.  The DeHavilland workers accomplished more in one week then they had in years of begging and pleading.

Workers elsewhere took note of this collective work refusal.  McDonnell Douglas Aircraft was close by and experiencing similar problems.  The union called us in. We once again set up a clinic in the union hall, testing over 1,000 plant workers. We researched the chemicals they used, including many that were cancer-causing.  The company’s information sheet somehow left that out.  We found many workers with lung diseases from asbestos and memory loss from solvents and aluminum.

The Ministry inspectors rushed in, now wary of what had happened at DeHavilland. They documented 230 violations of the safety legislation, including a ventilation system that was “a mess” because it recirculated toxins into the plant. But, true to form, the Ministry of Labour waffled on enforcing its orders. The McDonnell Douglas workers were fed up. On November 18, 1987, over 2,000 of them refused to work for health and safety reasons. The huge plant ground to a halt. The work stoppage became a major ongoing story in the newspapers and on television, as had the earlier one at DeHavilland.

The collective refusal was consistent with the rights spelled out in the safety legislation. It kept up for another five weeks. There were not enough inspectors in the whole province to investigate and adjudicate each refusal at the plant. The workers had to be paid while the refusals continued. McDonnell Douglas was losing an estimated $300,000 a day. It eventually negotiated cleanups of many of the problems we had identified.

The rebellions at the aircraft plants sent shock waves throughout Ontario.  It told workers that they did not have to put up with this crap anymore.  They had a way to end it by using, collectively, a right guaranteed by the health and safety law.

The outcome was not all positive.  McDonnell Douglas announced lay offs after the refusals, scaring everyone with job losses.  Soon afterward, the government enacted new amendments to the safety legislation designed to inhibit independent rank and file action over health and safety. It had the full collaboration not only of the big companies but also the top union officials. The latter had not initiated or welcomed the mass work refusals, which were prompted by union leaders at the local level.  The top officials, on the other hand, were frightened of ordinary workers taking things into their own hands. They did not want them straying outside of the long established channels. These channels, however, had disempowered shop floor workers and caused a horrible toll of disease and death.  The union brass was content with paper rights.

The lessons for workers from all this are: don’t be intimidated by authority; never give up; if you are blocked in one way, find another avenue; think creatively and use the rights you have in new ways; treat the established channels with the contempt they deserve; rely upon your own strength.

The struggle continues.

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Stan Gray lives in Hamilton, Ontario, where he represents injured workers and local unions. Stan Gray can be contacted via:  www.stangrayconsulting.ca

Text: Maria Worton

This is a farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.

Here in Montreal, on December 20th, Block the Empire, a local collective working against occupation and exploitation, rallied local people, independent media and activists, to hurl shoes in support of Muntadar al-Zeidi’s right not to tolerate the intolerable:  the one million Iraqis, many of whom children, killed; the millions still suffering the illnesses, displacement, and violence caused by Western weapons and war; the daily plunder of Iraq’s resources. They threw too in protest at Canada’s part in all of this.

At the doors of the US Consulate and the Canadian Forces Recruitment Centre, shoes of all sizes, were thrown with two collective aims: to take apart a war criminal and to directly highlight the Harper government’s complicity in the war.

Current Western military operations in Afghanistan are part of the same war launched with Operation Enduring Freedom in the aftermath of September 11. Canada’s military presence in Afghanistan, under NATO and US command, must share some responsibility for the 11,000 Afghanis killed and the many maimed and made refugees in their own land.  The highly destructive nature of search and kill missions continue to drive villagers into the ranks of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, while Canada’s participation in the occupation of Afghanistan has made more US troops available for the war in Iraq. Now that the Obama administration plans to escalate the military occupation of Afghanistan, the situation for Afghanis hardly appears set to improve.

The war in Afghanistan is the same war in Iraq to secure and plunder resources.  Afghanistan is mineral rich and Canada is a miner in search of rich pickings.  Canada now ranks 6th among NATO’s member states for military spending and is a major military power, ready and able to throw its weight around.  In 2008 Canada’s war spending in Afghanistan amounts to $1.915 billion; only a minute fraction of which has gone to the reconstruction that the Canadian government has promised.

The shoe action of December 20th stood and threw in opposition to the terrible US occupation of Iraq and also to Canada’s participation in waging terror upon local folk in Afghanistan.

Here are photos by Darren Ell of Montreal’s Shoe Action:

All images: © Darren Ell 2008

Purchase  Prints: http://www.redbubble.com/people/elldarren/
Online Archive:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/darrenell/
Wedding Photography:  http://photooxygene.com/

DARREN ELL
T: 514-992-8908
E: elldarren@gmail.com

[Adapted from an article by Warren Allmand in publication "Ideas, Interests & Issues, by George Maclean and Brenda O'Neill 2008 (Pearson-Prentice Hall).  Adapted from an article originally published by Rights & Democracy.]

Throughout the world, it is widely recognized that indigenous peoples are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable.  It is estimated that there are 300-500 million indigenous people in more than 70 countries around the world, representing over 5,000 languages and cultures on every continent.  Today, many indigenous peoples are engaged in a struggle to assert their self-determination, to reclaim their lands and natural resources, to control their own development and to employ their traditional languages, cultures and institutions.  This struggle has led them to the United Nations, the Specialized Agencies, the Organization of American States (OAS) and other international bodies.

While certain indigenous representatives pursued their grievances in European capitals as early as the eighteenth century, the first formal approach by indigenous peoples to have their collective rights recognized by the international community was in 1923, when Cayuga Chief Deskaheh went to the League of Nations as the representative of the Six Nations of the Iroquois in Ontario.  He spent a year in Geneva working to garner support for his cause, but in the end, the League denied him access.  This attempt was followed in 1924 and 1925 by T.W. Ratana, a Maori leader from New Zealand, who travelled to London and Geneva to protest the breaking of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which guaranteed the Maori ownership of their lands.  Like Chief Deskaheh, he too was cast aside.  These and other approaches to international bodies by indigenous peoples were made because they were denied justice at home; their only hope was to appeal to international bodies which they believed stood for fair treatment and human rights.  While the creation of the United Nations in 1945 seemed to offer more hope, the doors of the UN were virtually closed to indigenous peoples until the 1970s.  Finally in 1971, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities made a significant decision to appoint a Special Rapporteur to conduct a comprehensive study of the status of the world’s indigenous peoples.  This mandate was assigned to Jose Martinez Cobo, one of the 26 with the “Sub-Commission.”  Cobo worked for ten years, producing interim reports in the years following 1971 and a five-volume final report between 1981 and 1984.  These reports made a strong appeal for action on indigenous rights and encouraged the opening of the UN to indigenous peoples.

INTERNATIONAL DECADE OF THE WORLD’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

In late 1993, following a recommendation by the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, the General Assembly proclaimed the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous people (1994-2004). Later, the General assembly decided that the theme of the decade would be “indigenous People’s Partnership in Action.” The goal of the decade was to foster International cooperation to help solve problems faced by the Indigenous peoples in such areas as human rights, culture, the environment, development, education, and health. In 1995 the General Assembly adopted the programme of activities for the Decade and identified a number of specific objectives. Among these objectives were the proposals to establish a UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues (PFII) and the adoption of the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DDIP). The most important accomplishments of the decade are the following:

1. Study on Treaties

An important contribution was the final report by Miguel Alfonso Martinez, Special Rapporteur, on 22 June 1999, respecting the study on treaties, agreements, and other constructive arrangements between states and indigenous populations.  This final report was preceded by three progress reports in 1992, 1994 and 1996.

In 1989, the Economic and Social council (ECOSOC) authorized the “Sub-Commission” to appoint Miguel Alfonso Martinez, a member of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP), as Special Rapporteur, with the task of preparing a study on the potential utility of treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements between states and indigenous populations.  The Special Rapporteur was mandated to give particular attention to universal human rights standards and to suggest ways of achieving the maximum possible promotion and protection of indigenous peoples’ treaty rights in domestic as well as international law.  This report provides us with some useful information and recommendations which are particularly relevant for indigenous peoples in North America and the South Pacific where many treaties had been concluded between indigenous nations and European states through their settlers.  Among the numerous Martinez conclusions, his principal ones are:

In establishing formal legal relationships with peoples overseas, the European parties were clearly aware that they were negotiating and entering into contractual relations with sovereign nations, with all the international legal implications of that term during the period under consideration (par. 100).

In the case of indigenous peoples who concluded treaties with the European settlers, the Special Rapporteur has not found any sound legal argument to sustain the case that they have lost their international juridical status as nations/peoples (par. 265).

This leads to the issue of whether or not treaties concluded by the European settlers with indigenous nations currently continue to be instruments with international status in the light of international law.  The Special Rapporteur is of the opinion that these instruments indeed maintain their original status and continue fully in effect, and consequently, are sources of rights and obligations for all the original parties to them (or their successors), who shall implement their provisions in good faith (par. 270, 271).

These were treaties of peace and friendship, destined to organize coexistence in, not indigenous peoples’ exclusion from, the same territory and not to regulate restrictively their lives under the overall jurisdiction of non-indigenous authorities (par.117).

The special Rapporteur reaffirms the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination (par. 256), their right to their lands and resources (par. 252), and that the treaty-making process is the most suitable way to secure their rights and resources (pars. 260 and 263).  Overall, solutions cannot be achieved exclusively on a legal basis’ considerable political will is required (par. 254).

In the application of treaties, they must be interpreted according to their original spirit and intent (par. 278), with the understanding that indigenous treaty-making was totally oral in nature, and not in European languages and legal systems (par. 281).

2.  Special Rapporteur

In 2001, the UNCHR appointed Rodolfo Stavenhagen as a Special Rapporteur on the situation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples (SRIP).  This was done in response to the growing international concern regarding the marginalization and discrimination against indigenous peoples worldwide.  The mandate, created by UNHCR resolution 2001/57, represents a significant moment for the on-going pursuit of indigenous peoples to safeguard their human rights.  The Rapporteur’s mandate is complementary to those of the WGIP and the FTII and aims at strengthening the mechanisms of protection of the human rights of indigenous peoples.  The Special Rapporteur made an unofficial visit to Canada in 2003 when he met with Indigenous First Nations in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia and an official visit in 2004, when he met with First Nations in Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.  He has tabled special and annual reports with the UNCHR in 2002, 2003 and 2004.

3.  Other Special Rapporteurs

In recent years, indigenous peoples have also lodged grievances with other UNCHR Special Rapporteurs, such as: the Special Rapporteurs on Contemporary Forms of Racism; Religious Intolerance; Summary or Arbitrary Executions; Violence Against Women; and the Right to Development.  These mechanisms provide additional avenues to raise indigenous issues and bring them to international attention – always with the goal of achieving justice at home.

4.  The Permanent Forum

The PFII was first recommended in the Vienna Declaration on Human Rights in 1993.  It was then proposed as one of the main objectives of the International Decade by a resolution of the General Assembly.  In consequence, the Permanent Forum was created by ECOSOC (res. 2000/22) to: a) discuss indigenous issues within the Council’s mandate, including economic and social development, culture, environment, education, health and human rights; b) provide expert advice and recommendations to the council and to the programs, funds and agencies of the United Nations; and c) raise awareness about indigenous issues and help to integrate and coordinate activities in the UN system.

The Forum is made up of 16 independent experts, functioning in their personal capacities, with eight of the members nominated by indigenous peoples and eight nominated by governments.  The 16 members are appointed for three years with the possibility of reappointment.  The Forum meets for ten days each year in New York or Geneva or a location chosen by the Forum.  The first Forum took place in 2002, and each year since that time.  The general theme for the 2003 Forum was indigenous children, and for the 2004 Forum, indigenous women.  With the establishment of the forum, indigenous peoples, for the first time, have become members of a UN body, and as such, help set the Forum’s agenda and determine its outcome.  This is unprecedented within the UN system.

Organizations of indigenous peoples may participate as observers in the meetings of the Permanent Forum in accordance with the procedures that are applied in the WGIP where meetings are open to all indigenous peoples’ organizations, regardless of their consultative status with ECOSOC.  States, UN bodies and organs, intergovernmental organizations and NGOs that have consultative status with ECOSOC may also participate as observers.  As a result, at the first three meetings, there were not only a large number of indigenous organizations but also UN agencies such as the UNDP, ILO, FAO, WHO, WIPS, UNCHR, UNICEF, UNEP and many others which have general or special programs available to indigenous peoples.

The agenda provides time for all of these agencies to report on their programs for indigenous peoples and to answer questions or complaints, which are put to them by members of the Forum or by the observers.  At the end of 10 days, the 16-member Forum draws up a report which includes recommendation.  Since the Forum is relatively new and still unknown to many indigenous nations, it may take some time before it is used to its full potential.

5.  The UNCHR, the OHCHR, and the Sub-Commission

In recent years indigenous peoples have been making greater use of the UNCHR (replaced in 2006 by the UN Human Rights Council), its ‘Sub-Commission,” and the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR).  The UNCHR met annually in Geneva for a six-week session and since 1996, two or three days were usually set aside for indigenous issues – including reports from the Special Rapporteur, the Working Group on the Draft Declaration(WGDD), the Permanent Forum and the Decade.  It provided an opportunity for indigenous organizations and their NGO allies to lobby, make comments and to raise grievances.

The OHCHR, situated in Geneva, also has a special unit dealing with indigenous rights.  While not at large, it is made up of dedicated individuals who support and coordinate the various indigenous programs.  It has also been helpful to indigenous organizations in providing them with information and direction and has carried on constructive relations with the Indigenous Caucus.

6.  Treaty Bodies

The UN treaty-based rights system includes legal procedures through which indigenous peoples can and have sought protection for their human rights.  In this respect, there are six major international human rights treaties within the UN human rights system that deal with civil and political rights, economic and social rights, racial discrimination, torture, gender discrimination, and children’s rights respectively.

There is a supervisory committee (also known as a treaty body) for each of these treaties that monitors the way in which the States Parties are fulfilling their human rights obligations as stated in the relevant treaty.  Indigenous peoples can only make use of those treaties and treaty bodies which have been ratified by those countries in which they are situated.  Canadian indigenous peoples have used the Treaty Bodies in several important cases: the Lubicon Lake case before the Human Rights Committee in 1984 and the Lovelace Case before the same committee in 1977.

7.  Specialized Agencies

As a result of the WGIP, the Vienna declaration, the International Decade, and the increased participation of indigenous peoples in UN Charter- and Treaty-based bodies, all agencies of the UN have become more sensitive to indigenous concerns and have attempted to mainstream indigenous input into their various programs. The Un special agencies, which have a considerable degree of independence, address specific issues such as health, food, education, labour, and development, and include such organizations as WHO, FAO, UNESCO, ILO, and UNDP, each of which has an interest in the situation of indigenous peoples and which now reports annually to the Permanent Forum.

8.  Participation by Indigenous Peoples

One of the greatest accomplishments of the International Decade has been the increased participation of indigenous peoples in the UN system. Not only is there an increasing number of Indigenous organizations with ECOSOC status, which is necessary for participation in the UNCHR and the Sub-Commission, but a great many more take part in the WGIP, the WGDD, and the Permanent Forum without ECOSOC status as  a result of a less formal registration system to accommodate indigenous peoples and their allies. The indigenous representatives at these meetings are able to raise their concerns, lobby government and UN officials, and network with their indigenous organizations and NGOs from all over the world. Furthermore, there are NGOs based in Geneva whose principle objective is to help indigenous participants operate more effectively.  The Documentation Centre for Indigenous Peoples (DOCIP) and the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) provide assistance with secretarial services and translation. Indigenous organizations have also become adept at preparing and submitting formal communications or grievances, making speeches, and in contacting the OHCHR, the Special Rapporteurs and the Working Groups.

THE DRAFT DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

The most significant item of unfinished business resulting from the International Decade was the Draft Declaration. As part of the mandate to develop international standards concerning the rights of indigenous peoples, the WGIP-a group of five experts-developed and wrote the Draft declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DDIP) between 1985 and 1994. In carrying out this task the Working Group consulted closely with Indigenous groups, governments, academics and NGOs.

The Draft declaration consisted of 18 preambular paragraphs and 45 operative paragraphs dealing with the rights to self-determination, nationality, equality, survival, indigenous cultures, traditions, education, languages, media, health and medical care, economic and social systems, the control of their lands, waters and resources and self-government. One of the specific goals of the International Decade was the completion and adoption of the Draft Declaration before the end of the Decade in 2004.

A major difficulty for some governments were Articles 25-30 in Part 6 of the Draft Declaration relating to lands, waters and resources and the rights of indigenous peoples to own, develop, control their traditional lands, and the right to restitution of lands and resources which have been taken, confiscated, occupied, used or damaged without their free and informed consent.

In the great land-grab, which occurred in all parts of the “newly discovered world” beginning in the sixteenth century, land, minerals and timber were plundered from the indigenous populations who were often left impoverished or enslaved. Today, many governments and their citizens are fearful of Part 6 in that it could leave them with less wealth and power than they presently possess. On the other hand, some states already have policies and institutions to deal with indigenous land claims and some settlements have taken place.  On the whole, however, progress has been deplorable.

This, of course, was on e of the arguments by human rights activists for the adoption of such provisions in an international human rights instrument.  The issue of land rights is central to the question of survival of indigenous peoples and their cultures.  The indigenous concept of land as collective property was alien to the new settlers in much of the world; their relationship to the land was deeply spiritual and the destruction of that link was often equally damaging to their identity.  Consequently, the articles on lands and resources were critical to any international instrument on the rights of indigenous peoples.

The most serious obstacle for the acceptance of the DDIP by governments was Article 3 on self-determination.  Although the Article is an exact reproduction of Article 1 in both the Covenant of Civil an d Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ratified by 150 and 147 states respectfully, (including Canada, the U.S., and most of the countries involved in the Draft Declaration debate), many of these same states opposed its application to indigenous peoples.

Since Article 3 was a key provision of the DDIP which is essential to the practice and implementation of the other rights of the instrument, the opposition of governments to this article resulted in a stalemate and as of 15 December 2004, only two of 45 articles had been adopted after nine years of discussion.

On 30 March 2004, anticipating the end of the International Debate and the possible demise of the DDIP, the Grand Council of the Crees (Canada), supported by other indigenous groups and NGOs, made a Joint Submission to the OHCHR assessing the International Decade and urging a renewed mandate for the WGDD and improvements in the standard-setting process.

However, at the beginning of 2005 the UNCHR agreed to extend the WGDD for another year, which resulted in critical negotiations.  As a result, at the last session of the WGDD on 16 December 205, agreement was reached on a large number of articles and there was growing consensus on others.

In these circumstances, the WGDD instructed the Chair to draw up a report on what he believed to be a consensus on the entire Declaration and to submit it to the UNCHR for approval.

This was done on 24 February 2006. However, because the UN early in 2006 decided to replace the UNCHR with the new Human Rights Council, the approval process was postponed until 29 June 2006.  On that date, the Human Rights Council adopted the Declaration by 30 votes to 2.  The only countries voting against were Canada and Russia.  It should be noted that until 2006, Canada was a strong supporter of the Declaration, but with an election and a new government in early 2006, Canada changed its position and voted against it.

Following its adoption by the Human Rights Council, the Declaration was sent to the UN General Assembly for final approval.  However, when it was taken up for consideration by the General Assembly’s Third Committee in the fall of 2006, certain concerns were raised by African countries and approval was postponed until 2007. During this period the new Canadian government, together with the United States and Australia, continued to oppose and lobby against the Declaration.  Finally some minor amendments were made to meet the African concerns and on 13 September 2007, the General Assembly adopted the Declaration by a vote of 143 to 4 (11 abstentions).  The four opposing countries were Canada, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand.  A majority of countries from all continents except North America supported the Declaration.  Canada’s recent contention that the Declaration conflicts with the Canadian Charter of Rights is unfounded.  Article 46 of the Declaration states, “In the exercise of the rights enunciated in the present Declaration, human rights and the fundamental freedoms of all shall be respected.”  Furthermore, the Declaration is an aspirational instrument and not a legally binding treaty. It does, however, provide universal benchmarks for indigenous peoples in all countries including those which voted against it.  Indigenous peoples and human rights organizations will continue to campaign throughout the world for the Declaration’s universal acceptance and implementation.

CONCLUSIONS

The continuing opposition of some governments to the Declaration in general, and to Article 3 (self-determination) in particular, is based on scenarios which are grossly exaggerated and unreasonable.  According to most international legal experts, the right to self-determination is now a peremptory norm of international law (jus cogens) from which there can be no derogation.  This is supported by Article 53 of the Vienna Convention of the Law of the Treaties.

It appears to this author that the fears of governments with respect to secession and territorial integrity are exaggerated, not only because of the limitations to self-determination set out in the above-mentioned international instruments, but also because Article 3 in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDIP) is balanced by Article 4  (which deals with a local self-government as an exercise of self-determination), and by Article 46 (which provides compliance with international human rights standards and which provides that nothing in the declaration would permit activities contrary to the UN Charter).

While most experts agree that the right to self-determination includes secession, it does not automatically trigger secession, and in fact, most international instruments would only permit secession as a remedy of last resort.  Consequently, if a state conducted itself in compliance with the principal of equal rights and possessed a government which respected the rights of indigenous peoples within its state boundaries to determine their unique political status and to pursue their own economic, social and cultural development, then such a state would respect the right to self-determination and have no fear of secession.

Finally, the Declaration is a “declaration” and not a “treaty”.  As a result, it is an aspirational instrument with moral and political value but it is not legally binding.  Regretfully, governments have dissected and opposed it as if it were a legally binding treaty.

Ted Moses, former chief of the Grand Council of the Crees of Northern Quebec, has been a long-time advocate of indigenous rights at the United Nations, having first attended at Geneva in 1981.   On several occasions, he has explained why international law, international institutions and the UNDIP are essential to indigenous peoples.  In 1998 he said:

The Crees brought their issues to the international community as a last resort….it was easier to gain a hearing in Canada by stepping outside of Canada and speaking to the rest of the world, [and] when domestic laws fail to provide adequate protection against racism, the antidote is recourse to international human rights law.

Earlier in 1994, he wrote;

…indigenous peoples must have recourse to a neutral jurisdiction and the possibility of the Draft Declaration which recognizes the dignity of indigenous peoples, their rights to self-determination, their right to land, to control resources, to practice their own religions, to manifest their own cultures, and their right to their own identity…the declaration, in its present form, would be non-binding but it would establish an appropriately high standard, set a principle and place the administration o justice for indigenous peoples on a level with other principles of international law and the aspirations of the indigenous peoples themselves.

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The Honourable Warren Allmand, P.C., O.C., Q.C., was Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. From 1997 to 2002 he was President of Rights and Democracy (The International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development). He is now a Montreal city councillor.

In the course of this year, Tamara Herman has documented impacts of and resistance to Canadian mining in the historic town of Cerro de San Pedro, Mexico.

Daily Life in Cerro de San Pedro

Canadian multinational New Gold Inc. is operating a heavily-contested open pit gold and silver mine in Cerro de San Pedro, Mexico. For over 10 years, the residents of Cerro de San Pedro and the surrounding area have been fighting the mine. Corporate officials have been working closely with the local government to ensure that the mine moves forward, using tactics such as bribery, the repression of dissent, political assassination and corruption. The anti-mine movement continues to grow and gain strength in Cerro de San Pedro. For more info: cerrodesanpedro.org or faomontreal.wordpress.com/

Military-Industrial Complex and Impacts on the Third World – Asia-Pacific Research Network workshop on women and war, 17 June 2008.

The Military and the Monetary,

they get together whenever they think its necessary,

they’ve turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,

they are turning the planet, into a cemetery

(Gil Scott-Heron)¹

In the late 1990s, well before Bush’s ‘war on terror’, New Zealand TV screened a particularly awful US action drama called ‘Soldier of Fortune Inc.’, about an elite team (composed of former US Marines, Delta Force, CIA, British SAS personnel) who performed ‘unofficial’ covert missions for the US Government. They would get a briefcase full of money from a shadowy military liaison and head to the Middle East, Latin America, Haiti, or the Balkans, or smoke out foreign agents and assorted enemies within the USA, missions for which Washington could claim plausible deniability because none were active duty soldiers.  It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it to keep ‘US democracy’ safe, for a price.  Sounds familiar? Truth is indeed sometimes stranger than fiction, and the onscreen adventures of this squad of special operations and intelligence experts pale into insignificance when held up against reality.

We live and struggle in an era of blatantly militarized capitalism and the violence of capital. War, occupation, national security ideologies and repression of dissent -at home and abroad – make for booming business opportunities the world over. As pro-free market US journalist Thomas Friedman succinctly put it: “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist – McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force and Marine Corp. [2]

Militarized capitalism: The military-industrial complex in 2008

What is the military-industrial complex in 2008? Where is it? What does it look like? I am not even sure if the phrase, used so famously by former US president Dwight Eisenhower[3] in 1961 is the best descriptor to encompass the many tentacles and facets of the war and security industry and the links and connections between capital and its political allies.  Do terms like ‘defence industry’ and ‘arms trade’ adequately encompass the face of today’s war profiteers, whose devastating impacts can equally be found in the high-tech apartheid wall being built by Israel to seal off the West Bank and Gaza[4], and its Western Hemispheric counterpart on the US-Mexico border[5], in the computer flight simulation programs provided to US and British military by Canada’s CAE[6], in private corporate mercenary armies like Blackwater, DynCorp and Aegis[7] in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere[8], in the outsourced intelligence, IT, interrogation and translation services of L-3/Titan[9], in the massive military aid budgets which the US gives to the governments of Israel, Pakistan, Egypt and Colombia[10], among others, and in the ‘hearts and minds’ operations of US Special Operations Forces based in the Philippines doing ‘humanitarian work’ – medical, dental and other social services, including infrastructure projects in many remote communities in Mindanao[11]- services which should be the function of a government, as much as it is in weapons production and arms exports.

Like all transnational corporations, these companies enjoy both patronage and revolving door relationships with the highest echelons of governments and their armed forces, tax breaks, support for exports, and all kinds of other incentives which help them to focus firmly on their bottom line – profit. US administrations, regardless of their party allegiance, brim with politicians with investments and business interests in the defence industry and war profiteers, perhaps most vividly symbolized by Dick Cheney’s ties to Halliburton and its multi-billion-dollar contracts to provide construction, hospitality, and other services to the US military after the invasion of Iraq in 2003[12]. But it is business as usual for US militarized capitalism. An April 2008 Centre for Responsive Politics report states that US Congress members invested US $196 million of their own money in companies that receive hundreds of millions of dollars a day from Pentagon contracts to provide goods and services to US armed forces, ranging from aircraft and weapons manufacturers to producers of medical supplies and soft drinks.[13] To cite a couple of typical revolving door examples, the General Dynamics board of directors includes an ex-Vice Chief of US Army staff, a former US Air Force General, a former Chief of Naval Operations in the US Navy, and a former Chief of Defence Procurement at the British Ministry of Defence[14], while Canada’s CAE’s current and former executives include a former Canadian deputy minister for international trade and foreign affairs, and former PM Brian Mulroney’s head of staff[15].

Hired Guns, Big Bucks, No Rules

Private armies hired by governments and companies are not new. The British East India company hired private mercenaries to fight proxy wars and gain control over India[16].  But the exponential growth, sophistication and globalization of private security industry contractors like Blackwater and DynCorp, both of which derive well over 90% of their business from US government contracts, is striking. If regular soldiers often literally get away with murder, how much more so for private mercenaries given the lack of any oversight of their activities, under no effective regulatory regimes, although they are contracted by governments and paid out of public funds? They operate with impunity and immunity. They recruit and deploy former military and police from around the world, some of them veterans of the most repressive military forces in the world[17]. On their website, Blackwater, whose contract with the US State Department was recently renewed[18] despite outrage at one of many incidents in which their guards shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square, Baghdad, last September[19], claim: “We treat others with the highest degree of dignity, equal opportunity and trust. We respect the cultures and beliefs of people around the world”[20]. On the ground, “Blackwater has no respect for the Iraqi people,” an Iraqi Interior Ministry official told a Washington Post reporter in 2007[21]. “They consider Iraqis like animals, although actually I think they may have more respect for animals. We have seen what they do in the streets. When they’re not shooting, they’re throwing water bottles at people and calling them names. If you are terrifying a child or an elderly woman, or you are killing an innocent civilian who is riding in his car, isn’t that terrorism?”

All dollars, no sense

A February 2008 Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation report notes that, adjusted for inflation, the Pentagon budget for fiscal year (FY) 2009 is the largest since World War II – US $ 515.4 billion[22]: more even than during the Vietnam and Korean wars, or the peak of Reagan’s Cold War spending. The US spends more than the next 45 highest spending countries in the world combined, accounts for 48% of the world’s total military spending, 5.8 times more than China, 10.2 times more than Russia, and 98.6 times more than Iran. The same report cites US Office of Management and Budget estimates that total annual funding for the Defense Department alone will grow to $546 billion by FY 2013 – a conservative estimate. Total Pentagon spending, not including funding for the Department of Energy or for actual combat operations for the period FY’09 through FY’13 will reach $2.6 trillion. Last year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)[23] estimated that world military expenditure in 2006 reached US $1204 billion – a 3.5 % increase in real terms since 2005, and a 37% increase over the 10-year period since 1997. In 2006, the 15 countries with the highest spending accounted for 83% of the world total.

While the US military-industrial complex and military spending dwarfs the rest of the world, it has had a multiplier effect on other countries, coupled with its military aid packages and global ‘security’ hysteria. Japan’s government recently announced major military upgrades while South Korea, China, and Russia have all increased military spending[24]. 2008 is a record year for Israeli defence spending[25]. By 2006, four of the world’s 100 top arms production firms were Israeli: Israel Aircraft Industries, Israel Military Industries, Elbit Systems and Rafael[26]. An October 2007 CBC report, based on customs data only on exports specifically for military use, found that between 2000 and 2006, Canada’s arms exports rose 3.5 times, during which time Canada, the world’s sixth-biggest supplier, exported CDN $3.6 billion in military goods.  But there is little transparency on arms control, and the true picture of Canadian military exports is hard to track since the federal government has not released annual reports providing detailed information covering the years since 2002 to Parliament. A former subsidiary of Montreal-based SNC Lavalin, SNC Tec, for example, manufactures small arms ammunition for US military (SNC Tec was sold in 2006 to General Dynamics, after antiwar activists highlighted the Canadian corporate connection to bullets fired from US guns in Iraq)[27].

A license to kill: The façade of arms control

Identifying and tracking the many tentacles of the weapons and agents of mass destruction is frustratingly difficult.  For all of the criticisms of Third World governments’ secrecy and lack of transparency in terms of defence spending and military operations, so many loopholes exist in so-called First World countries with regard to arms control.  For example, most military shipments from Canada to the US go untracked, since they do not require government permits because of a defence agreement signed between Ottawa and Washington in the 1940s. Some critics have noted that the export licencing requirements are so minimal that it is possible that some of that equipment moves to third parties[28].

Some EU governments have undermined, bypassed or ignored national export criteria and the EU code of conduct on arms exports. Spain and other countries (including Britain, and of course the US) have authorized transfers of equipment and other assistance to Colombia into the hands of state security forces and paramilitaries who have committed major human rights abuses. Italian-made small arms have also been shipped to countries in conflict or where violations of human rights occur, including Algeria, Colombia, Eritrea, Indonesia, India, Israel, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sierra Leone.[29] British activist and writer Mark Thomas[30] illustrates how British high-tech company Radstone does not require a licence to export supplies the computer components comprising the “brains” of the Predator drone, an unmanned Aerial vehicle produced by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, which was used by the CIA to fire missile strikes at Yemen against Al-Qaeda suspects in 2002, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan in 2006, in an  attack killing possibly up to 25 people including 5 women and 5 children, and more recently in the same region of Pakistan. British researcher Anna Stavrianakis[31] argues that “[r]ather than acting to restrict arms exports, the guidelines against which arms export licence applications are assessed are vague and interpreted in such a way as to facilitate exports”. She continues, “the pro-export stance of successive UK governments, the close relationship they have with the arms industry, and the emphasis on military power as an indicator of prestige on the world stage, must all be challenged, as they form the parameters within which licensing occurs”.

According to a 2006 Amnesty International[32] report, over 200 Chinese military trucks – normally running on US Cummins diesel engines – were shipped to Sudan in August 2005, despite a US arms embargo on both countries and the involvement of similar vehicles in killing and abducting civilians in Darfur. Chinese military hardware is shipped regularly to Burma, including the 2005 supply of 400 military trucks to Myanmar’s army. Chinese military exports went to Nepal in 2005 and early 2006, including a supply of Chinese-made rifles and grenades to Nepalese security forces, who were brutally repressing people’s movements. China is also implicated in the growing illicit trade in Chinese-made Norinco pistols in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand and particularly South Africa, often used for crimes like robbery and rape.

Militarized repression of dissent and imperialist globalization

Many governments, from the Philippines to India to Colombia, are waging overt or covert wars against resistance movements and government opponents, fostering a climate of fear in which arms and equipment are used for containing domestic dissent and security crackdowns against ‘enemies within’ – resistance movements of the poor, mobilizations of women, Indigenous Peoples, the landless, peasants, and workers, movements against free trade agreements and neoliberal reforms.  Conflicts over land and inequitable access to resources are fuelled and exacerbated by the militarization of corporate activities such as mining, oil, gas, industrial farming and forestry industries. For example, a US District court judge has agreed that there is evidence showing that Chevron paid and equipped Nigerian military and police to shoot and torture protesters opposing the oil company’s activities in the Niger Delta region[33]. Freeport McMoran paid Indonesian military, police and private security forces who attacked local communities around its Grasberg gold and copper mine in West Papua[34]. And let’s not forget how the founder and chief executive of Aegis, former British Army Lt. Col. Tim Spicer[35] was also founder of Sandline, another mercenary company contracted by the Papua New Guinea government over a decade ago for US $36 million for an ill-fated attempt to put down an indigenous independence movement in Bougainville, which had shut down the huge copper mine at Panguna, owned by a subsidiary of Rio Tinto[36].  The military and the monetary, indeed.

As Uruguayan analyst/journalist Raul Zibechi notes, urban peripheries in Third World countries have also become war zones where states attempt to maintain order based on the establishment of a sort of ‘sanitary cordon’ to keep the poor isolated from ‘normal’ society[37]. Such militarized containment of the poor reflects political and economic elites’  fear of challenges to state power from poor urban movements. The systematic undermining of states’ capacities to provide for the welfare of their populations, coupled with the disproportionate percentage of national budgets spent on the military militarization has fuelled poverty and conflict.

Kollsman, Inc. a New Hampshire-based subsidiary of Elbit, an Israeli firm involved with building the apartheid wall in occupied Palestine, was contracted by the Department of Homeland Security[38] as part of a consortium that also includes Boeing subsidiary Boeing Integrated Defense Systems Unit to develop SBInet, a high-tech security system for the U.S.-Mexico (and US-Canada) borders, part of the Secure Border Initiative[39]. As New York-based activist groups Ad Hoc Coalition for Justice in the Middle East and Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM) put it, “Elbit will import Israeli military technology, tested on Palestinians, for use against poor immigrants here.”[40]

Militarization and enforceable free-market disciplines are tools to make countries ‘safe’ for foreign investors, at the expense of local communities’ rights to determine their own futures[41].  World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements undermine social and environmental policies, but protect the war industry through a ‘security exception’ in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (Article XXI)[42]. The security exception states that a country cannot be stopped from taking any action it considers necessary to protect its essential security interests; actions ‘relating to the traffic in arms, ammunition and implements of war and such traffic in other goods and materials as is carried on directly for the purpose of supplying a military establishment (or) taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations’. While structural adjustment and trade and investment liberalization are being imposed throughout the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, health, education, and social budgets slashed, and support for most local industries or agriculture dismantled, corporate welfare and subsidies to the defence industry, and high levels of military spending remains alive and well.

Capitalist killing machines get gender-sensitive makeover: Women resist

The burden of war, conflict, violence and militarized capitalism falls disproportionately on women. The impacts of women can be seen not only in conflict zones but through the proliferation of small arms and the creeping militarization of communities and societies at large, leading to more violence against women in domestic and community contexts, rapes, sexual violence, displacement and the exaltation of warrior masculinities. Women are more likely to become war refugees.  Unsurprisingly then, it has also been women who have led resistance against militarization, war and violence, US military bases and the accompanying masculinization of broader society and social behaviour. It is usually women who pick up the pieces in communities ripped apart by war, violence and state repression. Cynthia Enloe notes that social workers who address issues of domestic violence “agree that military service is probably more conducive to violence at home than at any other occupation”.[43] Meanwhile, we are subjected to constant claims that a primary goal of the US-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is to liberate Afghani women. Commenting on this, Sunera Thobani notes, “one battle in the ideological war was to be waged on the terrain of gender relations, … rallying western populations around fantasies of saving Muslim women would be more effective than rallying them around the overtly imperialist policies of securing US control over oil and natural gas supplies.”[44]

Just as purported humanitarian concerns are wheeled out as justifications for thinly-veiled imperialist wars over resources[45], military contractors and war profiteering corporations portray themselves as inclusive, socially progressive and gender-sensitive.  On their corporate websites, these corporations’ core business is painted over with a cosmetic veneer that could cause us to forget that it is for war and killing people. For example, Pentagon contractors like Northrop Grumman boast of their “workforce diversity”[46] and showcase their women executives. The Canadian and US defence industries have set up organizations like Women in Defence and Security (WiDS)[47], signed memorandums of understanding with Canada’s Department of National Defence, and are affiliated with the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI)[48], an industry-led association of more than 550 member firms in the defence and security industries in Canada to “promote the advancement of women leaders in defence and security professions across Canada”. Raytheon, the maker of “Bunker Buster” bombs, Tomahawk and Patriot missiles, lobbed at Afghanistan and Iraq[49], causing many deaths, proclaims: “Diversity at Raytheon is about inclusiveness – providing an atmosphere where everyone feels valued and empowered to perform at a peak level, regardless of the many ways people are different”[50]. Virginia-based Booz Allen Hamilton[51], one of the biggest suppliers of technology and personnel to US government spy agencies like the CIA, NSA, Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), as well as the US Department of Defence and Department of Homeland Security (former CIA director R. James Woolsey is now a senior vice president of Booz Allen), also boasts how it is committed to diversity in the workforce “because we believe that diversity of backgrounds contributes to different ideas, which in turn drives better results for clients. To us, diversity means all the ways individuals differ from one another-race, gender, ethnicity, physical abilities, educational background, country of origin, age, sexual orientation, skills, income, marital status, parental status, religion, work experience, and military service”.  Then there is Aegis Defence Services[52] whose employees were caught on video randomly shooting automatic weapons at civilian cars in Baghdad’s airport road[53], which claims “Our equal-opportunity policy emphasizes our aim to create a work environment that is inclusive and non-discriminatory, where all employees are empowered by their individuality and encouraged to use it in order to achieve success”. Greenwashing environmentally destructive corporations is despicable enough. Yet there is something particularly obscene about the ways in which these corporations hide behind such mission and values statements and commitments to “diversity”, complementing the claims of the militaries in Afghanistan to be liberating Afghani women.

Conclusion

Many NGOs campaign for instruments like a Global Arms Trade Treaty. But when we see the spectrum of industries and political actors which benefit from militarized capitalism, and the way in which the US, Israel, and other leading producers and users of cluster munitions refused to attend last month’s Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions which adopted an international treaty banning cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians[54], it should be clear that we must go beyond these strategies to confront the system that underpins obscene profits for a few, at the expense of the many, through military contracting and war profiteering.  That system is capitalism.  Those of us who research must continue to expose and oppose militarization and the violence of capitalism in all its forms, in our communities, nationally and internationally. In doing so we need to support, build and sustain mass movements that understand the interconnectedness of war, neoliberal globalization, corporate profits, the repression of dissent, “peacekeeping”, “reconstruction”, the criminalization and militarization of immigration, violence against women, and colonialism.

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[1] Gil Scott-Heron. Work For Peace. Taken from the album Spirits, TVT Records, 1994

[2] Thomas Friedman, 28 March 1999, New York Times Magazine, Manifesto for the fast world

[3] http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/12/documents/eisenhower.speech/

[4] See http://stopthewall.org

[5] BBC News. US-Mexico ‘virtual fence’ ready. 23 February 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7260179.stm

[6] www.cae.com

[7] Jackie Northam. U.K. Firm awarded largest Iraq security contract. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14586525

[8] For example, DynCorp’s employees in Colombia contracting to the US State Department in its so-called War on Drugs, have engaged as combatants in counterinsurgency operations against rebels (see http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia19.htm). A number of DynCorp employees and supervisors contracted to UN peacekeeping operations in the Balkans were involved with forced prostitution rings, including children. (see Kelly Patricia O’Meara. US: DynCorp Disgrace. Insight Magazine. 14 January 2002, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11119)

[9] Pratap Chatterjee. Outsourcing Intelligence in Iraq: A report on L-3/Titan. CorpWatch. 29 April 2008. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15017; Titan, one of the civilian contractors employed by the Pentagon and whose employees were involved in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. See, for example, Peter Beaumont, Abu Ghraib abuse firms are rewarded. The Observer, 16 January 2005. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jan/16/usa.iraq

[10] Center for Public Integrity. http://www.publicintegrity.org/militaryaid/

[11] Roland Simbulan. U.S. Military Forces: Negotiated Subservience by an Illegitimate Government. Bulatlat. Vol. VIII, No. 5, March 2-8, 2008. http://www.bulatlat.com/2008/03/u-s-military-forces-negotiated-subservience-illegitimate-government

[12] http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=15

[13] http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/04/strategic-assets.html

[14] http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/board.asp?symbol=GD

[15] Richard Sanders. We Didn’t Really Say “No” to Missile Defence.

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/MonitorIssues/2006/10/MonitorIssue1457/

[16] Tim Spicer, Founder and CEO of Aegis, (which holds the largest single security contract in Iraq), who prefers the term ‘private military company’ to ‘mercenary’, approvingly cites this as historical model as a precedent for soldiers of fortune today. See Tim Spicer. (1999). An Unorthodox Soldier: Peace and War and the Sandline Affair. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing.

[17] These include former Chilean, South African, Bosnian, Filipino, Salvadoran and Colombian soldiers and police. Bill Berkowitz. Mercenaries ‘R’ Us. AlterNet. 24 March 2004. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/18193/; Danna Harman. Firms tap Latin Americans for Iraq. Christian Science Monitor, 3 March 2005.http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0303/p06s02-woam.html

[18] James Risen. Iraq Contractor in Shooting Case makes comeback. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/world/middleeast/10blackwater.html?ref=middleeast

[19] CNN. Blackwater incident witness: “It was hell”. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/02/blackwater.witness/index.html

[20] Blackwater Worldwide. Company Core Values. http://www.blackwaterusa.com/company_profile/core_values.html

[21] Steve Fainaru. Where Military Rules Don’t Apply. Washington Post. 20 September 2007. http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2008/international-reporting/works/fainaru05.html

[22] Christopher Hellman and Travis Sharp. Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation. Fiscal Year 2009 Pentagon Spending Request Briefing Book

http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/policy/securityspending/articles/fy09_dod_request/

[23] http://yearbook2007.sipri.org/chap8

[24] John Feffer. Asia’s Hidden Arms Race. 16 February 2008. http://www.alternet.org/story/77225/

[25] Another record year for defence spending in 2008. Haaretz, 28 December 2007. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/939217.html

[26] http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL34/006/2006/en/dom-POL340062006en.html

[27] SNC Unloads its ammunition unit. Montreal Gazette.  24 February 2006. http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/business/story.html?id=b1770c43-b9f8-4c6e-bef4-386f75347dd0

[28] Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). News In Depth: Arming The World. http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arming-the-world/

[29] Helen Hughes. Europe’s Deadly Business. Le Monde Diplomatique, 11 June 2006. http://mondediplo.com/2006/06/11armscontrol

[30] Mark Thomas (2006). As used on the famous Nelson Mandela. Reading: Ebury Press.

[31] Anna Stavrianakis (2008).The façade of arms control http://www.caat.org.uk/publications/government/facade-2008-02.php

[32] Amnesty International. China: Sustaining conflict and human rights abuses. June 2006.

[33] Constance Ikokwu. Chevron to Face Trial in U.S. Over Nigeria Killings. This Day (Lagos). 16 August 2007. http://allafrica.com/stories/200708160007.html

[34] Down To Earth. (May 2003). Military protection funds exposed. http://dte.gn.apc.org/57Frp.htm

[35] http://www.aegisworld.com/index.php/tim-spicer

[36] Roger Moody.  The Mercenary Miner. Multinational Monitor. June 1997 http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/mm0697.09.html

[37] The Militarization of the World’s Urban Peripheries, Americas Policy Program Special Report (Washington, DC: Center for International Policy, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4954

[38] Kollsman, Inc. Kollsman to Participate in Homeland Security’s SBInet Program Boeing Team Member to Show Technologies at Border Management Summit, Oct. 23-25. Press release, 31 October 2006

http://www.kollsman.com/company/news/pr_10312006.asp

[39] http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/sbinet/index.html

[40] http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/11/78913.shtml

[41] Aziz Choudry. (2003). War, Globalization and the WTO: Forever New Frontiers. Third World Network. http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/twr151n.htm

[42] General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, art. XXI, Oct. 30, 1947, 61 Stat. A-ll, 55 U.N.T.S. 194

[43] Cynthia Enloe. (1983). Does Khaki Become You? London: Pluto, p.87.

[44] Sunera Thobani. (2007). Exalted subjects: Studies in the making of race and nation in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p.218.

[45] See, for example, Jean Bricmont. (2006). Humanitarian Imperialism: Using human rights to sell war. New York: Monthly Review Press, and Sherene Razack (2004). Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, peacekeeping and the new imperialism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

[46] http://www.northropgrumman.com/diversity/workforce.html

[47] www.wids.ca/

[48] www.defenceandsecurity.ca/

[49] http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=13

[50] http://www.raytheon.com/diversity/

[51] http://www.boozallen.com/careers/a_great_place_to_work/diversity

[52] http://www.aegisworld.com

[53] War On Want. Corporate mercenaries. http://www.waronwant.org/Corporate+Mercenaries+13275.twl

[54] Christian Science Monitor, 30 May 2008. Global cluster-bomb ban draws moral line in the sand. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0530/p04s06-woeu.html

Persepolis, 2007. Animated drama.

Persepolis is an Oscar-nominated film that premiered last year and which I regret not having seen on the big screen. Based on a graphic autobiographical novel by Marjane Satrapi, the author and her studio mate Vincent Paronnaud  created a highly original film of unusual expressivity,  pathos and humour. The voice-overs by Chiara Mastroianni as Marjane, her mother Catherine Deneuve as Marjane’s mother and Danielle Darrieux as Marjane’s grandmother, further enrich the esthetic experience. Filmed entirely in black and white, with the exception of a few flashes of colour  thrown in for contrast, Persepolis is the  Bildungsroman of  a young girl growing up  in Iran during the war between Iran and Iraq. It is also the story of how and why she became a rebel. The young Marjane rebelled against her unimaginative teachers, against the morality police,  against the hypocrisy of Teheran middle-class society, against the execution of  her beloved uncle after a long exile in the Soviet Union,  against the violence she witnessed in the streets, against the bombs that lit up the cityscape,  against a humourless society.  And she did all this under the umbrella of a pampering father, a strict but sensible mother and the instigation of a feisty  and irreverent grandmother with a strong sense of right and wrong.

When her rebelliousness threatened to get her into serious trouble,  Marjane  was sent to high school in Vienna, where she fell in with a group of nihilists and punks who were attracted to her because of her close contact with war and death. Her wake-up call came when she discovered Markus, the “love of her life”,  in bed with another girl. That and near death by hypothermia in the streets after a drug overdose pushed her to phone her parents and ask for a ticket back home.  Her loving family received her with open arms, no questions asked.  There she married so that she could enjoy the “liberty”  of a married woman,  such as sex and greater social mobility. But that, too, proved to be a disaster, so she divorced her husband and then exiled herself to France, where she currently lives and exercises her artistic talents in full liberty.

What this film is all about is freedom of choice and expression, as a woman and as an artist. Marjane does a wonderful job of expressing herself in Persepolis. She does so with a dollop of self-criticism but without a hint of bitterness. Don’t feel bitter if you missed out on the big screen version of the movie, but you’ll regret it if you don’t rush out to rent the DVD.

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Maya Khankhoje is a Montreal-based short story writer, poet, essayist and reviewer. Her English translation of Paulina y la Golondrina Azul, (Paulina Wonders) by Carmen Cordero, was published last November in Madrid, Spain.

Chef by Jaspreet Singh, 2008, Vehicule Press, Montreal.

Jaspreet Singh drips tomato juice from his lips and sucks on mangoes, in a delicious  and  intricate exercise in culinary commitment and infatuation with an unrequited sexuality that runs through his new novel, Chef. Nearly every chapter if not every other page recounts the brush of a fumbling non-performer, the chef-in-training, with the dominationist sexual advances of a counterfoil character, male or female, while the political and debilitating complexity of India, Kashmir race through the novel in all its bleakness. Cuisine as sexual metaphor, the act of preparation of food, as foreplay, has been used indiscriminately over the years both in fiction and cinema, but Jaspreet uses it with a delectable north Indian ecoutez-moi bien rudeness. A precision military foulness makes gali (abusive language) depravedly sexy, lucid and yet poignantly craving for secularity in the cultural mess that is India. Nothing vibrates more in India’s cathartic duel with itself, than the sexual metaphor of communities screwing each other and deriving absolutist pleasure out of it. And the majority Hindu community excels in berating, deriding and generally second-classing all others including of course Muslims, and then Sikhs and then Christians and so on and then lamenting the loss of Kashmir to Pakistan-inspired militants.

The forlorn beauty of Kashmir, so often depicted in photographic essays, has never been portrayed so elegantly as in this novel. And being a despondent Sikh, Kirpal or Kip, the sous-chef on the rise, portrays Kashmir with an intelligent sentimentality. In the final analysis, India’s attempts to cling on to Kashmir while  endlessly and brutally controlling its people has led to all the mindless acts going on in India, including the latest carnage in Mumbai. Jaspreet Singh  meticulously portrays the nearly silly and decadent lifestyle of the British nurtured colonial Indian Army, whose class hierarchy and servant-lord dichotomy remains an impediment to its ability to perform and in effect be taken by surprise by both the Kashmiri militants and the Pakistani military’s hide and seek games.

Somewhere in the Siachen glacier in a dark cavernous black hole, aptly illustrated on the cover, the Head chef ultimately douses himself in kerosene and takes his life, somewhat inexplicably. A suicidal “screw you!” act that could have been better developed.

In essence, an excellently luscious novel that fritters away towards the end with the hope that newer and younger people with intelligent secular notions and a sense of poetry could perhaps turn the tables on the colonel-sahib/saffron nexus that has occupied the Indian mindset towards Kashmir.

Once, Bob Dylan and John Lennon were looked at with the same adoring, hopeful gaze now bestowed upon Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs. Even ten years ago, there was a reverence for artistry that granted the rock star, novelist or filmmaker prominence in the public sphere now granted the venture capitalist or CEO. Cynicism has gotten the better of us-no decimal, no point. The place for the artistic statement has been sadly replaced by brass and taxes. This gloomy truth permeates almost every frame of the films of 2008. Social messages abound, there was no lack of flag waving and chest beating. Yet, it came at no cost: to call George Bush a would-be well-meaning buffoon (W.) is to fall in line with the slew of late night talk show hosts who made the joke eight years ago, for free.

Blockbuster smash The Dark Knight is the epitome of such a stance. Never before has the analogy of good/evil democracy/terrorism been pushed further. Superman Returns reeked of Mel Gibson religiosity though its cartoon-ish presentation pacified its detractors by passing it off as light fodder. But this installment of Batman does its utmost to situate Gotham in our world, our neighbourhood; unlike Nicholson’s mannered portrayal now two decades ago, we see the imperfections in Heath Ledger’s makeup, in his greasy, matted hair-he is a method actor’s villain, rife with empty back-stories. The Joker, now almost overshadowing the film itself, has come to stand for the ultimate evil, one that exists for its own sake; Michael Caine as Alfred informs Christian Bale’s Batman that ‘Some men just want to watch the world burn’. Though this point is laden with superhero dramatic potential, it claims to possess something larger, some overarching commentary on the world’s woes; this is where The Dark Knight falters.

Performances aside, the Joker is on par with all other mentally ill people with violent tendencies, albeit brighter than most. He is devoid of a moral compass like a dictator may be but his mania makes his acts and motives incomprehensible, not terrifying. People like the Joker prowl the streets at night-they don’t run for office. A character like the Joker simply changes the subject, though it claims to stand in for so much else like only a super villain can. He is not Bush, nor Cheney, not even Rumsfeld. Their evil is mannered, calculated, analyzed by a thousand monkeys, that is far more petrifying. The Dark Knight assumes legitimacy by extensive metaphor and in the process nullifies its strengths as an awesome superhero film.

This intrinsic need to break through genre conventions can be seen in countless films of 2008; indeed, one could say that this year popularized the meta-genre more than ever before. The meta-genre uses all of the tried and true formal tropes of a genre while commenting on them; stealing a kid’s lunch money but sharing your sandwich with him is still thievery of the highest order. Now, instead of a straightforward superhero movie, we get The Dark Knight and Hancock.

Hancock is like anyone else: depressed, lonely, an alcoholic… but he is also from another planet with super cool super powers. Gone are the days of the graceful Christopher Reeves or even the mysterious Michael Keaton, today Will Smith is our stand-in, all loud burps and goofy grins. Hancock is hated by the public, so, OF COURSE, he needs a good PR man. This is Reality TV on an inter-galactic level, budget included. Media moguls and conglomerates worship at the altar of Reality TV because it is so cost efficient; such is not the case with Hancock’s 150 million dollar budget, or Tropic Thunder’s budget of 92 million.

Tropic Thunder is the meta-genre incarnate, a parody of parodies (watch out for Not Another Not Another Movie out next year, it’ll be right before the Rapture). It satirizes the movie business but does so at no cost, everyone and their agents get out unscathed. Ben Stiller comments on the ruthless, capitalistic side of Hollywood but concludes by celebrating it. An allegedly unrecognizable Tom Cruise closes the film looking at the viewer while dancing to Gangster Rap-if there is a message here, it certainly is hard to find. This is certainly a far cry from a film of similar themes, Paddy Chayefsky’s 1976 film Network; that film ends with an on-air assassination of a news anchor/delusional prophet, a murder approved by the powers that be to combat sagging ratings. Despite its harsh tone, it somehow rings truer than a Scientologist in a fat suit.

Yet, like Charlie Kaufman’s meta-genre cubed directorial debut Synecdoche, New York, beneath Tropic Thunder’s explosions there is an implicit statement: we’re in on the joke with you, and they almost are. But to chastise your bread and butter morally while benefiting from it financially is not social realism, or political commentary. It’s capitalism. The narrowing divide between art and life, the meta-genre, being in on the joke, call it what you will, is a trope exploited in nearly all commercial movies today.

To recap at warped speed (in no particular order): in Quantum of Solace, Bond is no longer the strong and silent type but has become a brooding Macbeth, confused about the value of a human life and his nonchalance in their taking. M. Night Shamalan’s new outing The Happening manages to forgo a villain entirely, no small feat in a thriller, but does so at the expense of any narrative coherence. Sex and the City had the potential to build upon the gender struggles it explored on the show but instead chose to have a two-hour shopping spree at Tiffany’s. Bill Maher’s Religulous forgoes any cultural criticism (in a film critiquing culture) and instead meanders across the world with an American shrug. Michael Haneke’s remake of his German film Funny Games explores the fear of the Other in the form of two Aryan suburban kids.  And Burn After Reading explores a world it has no interest in; the political sphere is of no interest to the Coen Brothers who are far happier wielding hatchets and pushing people through wood chippers. All of these films employ a tone that invites the viewer to partake, to rejoice in conjoined judgment but does so at the expense of their own narratives: for example, Haneke is so busy playing with the fourth wall that he forgets about the other three. Which brings us to Judd Apatow and his cronies.

In Apatow land, every day is Saturday on the Happy Days set, The Fonz is dead, and Richie is an obese fool who beats bright, beautiful women off of him like he’s paid by the hour. Film is supposed to have a heightened sense of drama where television is allowed to embrace the quotidian but Apatow and Seth Rogen have taken it upon themselves to rewrite the rules of 20th century media (and Aristotle’s Poetics) and turn feature filmmaking into a boys club, two-hour episode of Three’s Company. Apatow is responsible for three abominations this year: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Pineapple Express, and Zack And Miri Make A Porno. In all of these films fat, hapless losers woo women they would not be allowed to stalk in real life. Now, although there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this trend, it is nonetheless a witless ploy to attract these would-be, couch potato lotharios. What ever happened to the Fonz? At this point, I’d settle for Richie…

The Film Noir genre has not aged well over the decades, L.A. Confidential being a prime example of the repetition as opposed to the revolution. But In Bruges is a 21st century, post-modern Film Noir: multi-cultural, ironic, and sadistic. It does not try to include everything like The Dark Knight or Tropic Thunder yet, somehow in the process, manages to leave nothing out-by refusing to take a moral stance, it grants the audience the possibility of creating their own.

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Jesse Klein is a filmmaker and freelance writer. He is currently in development for his feature-length debut Shadowboxing. He lives and works in Montreal.