Alternatives International

Diamonds: a universal symbol of love, or of oppression?

Wendy Papakostandini — 2011-11-30T20:47:48Z

Diamonds are often esteemed as a universal symbol for luxury and opulence. They are regarded as the ultimate expression of love and devotion throughout the modern world, and as such they are in high demand. Men propose with them, women drool over them. They may be a girl's best friend, but are they man's worst enemy?

“Blood” diamonds are making their way back into the international market, despite attempts from the UN and EU to prevent this from happening. A “blood” diamond is a diamond that is used to finance a rebel army, and often their attacks on the legitimate government in that area. These “blood” diamonds are often linked to an assortment of human rights abuses ranging from raping, mutilating and killing women and children, to kidnapping children for the purpose of turning them into child soldiers. “Blood” diamonds are more prevalent in Africa than anywhere else in the world, where about two-thirds of the world's diamonds originate. The civil wars in West Africa from the Cold War until today have almost solely been financed by the selling of these “blood” diamonds.

In 2003, the United Nations established the Kimberley Process of certifying diamonds to prevent “blood” diamonds from entering and being sold in the international market. It is designed to determine where a diamond originated in an attempt to assure consumers that the diamonds they want to purchase are not funding civil wars or contributing to human rights abuses.

As of April 2007, due to the Kimberley Process, 99 percent of the rough diamonds worldwide were considered to originate from conflict free sources. Recently however, new concerns over the effectiveness of the Kimberley Process have sprung up and we have seen an increase in cases of “blood” diamonds being distributed worldwide. A citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Jean Tshimaga, avoided the Kimberley Process and was caught trying to sell “blood” diamonds to a trader in Surat, India. Similarly, in April of 2011, two men were caught attempting to smuggle around 48,000 carats of “blood” diamonds from Zimbabwe to Mumbai, bypassing the Kimberley Process.# This raises the question: how accurate is the 99 percent statistic? Are 99 percent of the world's diamonds really from conflict free zones?

Ian Smilie, would argue that the statistic is in actuality much lower. As a former Kimberley Process officer, he resigned from his position stating that he “could no longer, in good faith, contribute to pretence that failure is success. The government in Congo has no idea where 40% of its diamonds come from – they could be coming from Angola or Zimbabwe or even from Mars.” Smilie was not the only one to resign over these “blood” diamonds. In May of this year, the South African Kimberley Process monitor for Zimbabwe resigned due to increasing pressure to release the damaging reports on the monitoring of diamonds in Zimbabwe to the public, which would result in the country remaining unable to sell its diamonds on the international market. Due to this controversy and continuous reports by human rights groups, the United States will play a major role in the monitoring of Zimbabwe's diamonds starting in 2012, to better ensure that the diamonds being sold in the international market are in fact not “blood” diamonds.

They say diamonds are forever, but in actuality the saying should be more along the lines of “blood diamonds are forever.” The atrocities that arise from the buying and selling of these diamonds are unacceptable, and their effects are everlasting. However, despite these new reports of “blood” diamonds on the rise, Mr. Blom of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses argues that the Kimberley Process does indeed accomplish what it set out to do the majority of the time. But many would argue that “the majority of the time” is simply not good enough. One can only hope that these new reports of the “blood” diamond boom will emphasize the need to amend and improve the Kimberly Process.

Photo courtesy of theappraiserlady, flickr.com

Reproductive Rights Are Human Rights

Wendy Papakostandini — 2011-07-01T15:53:56Z

On the surface, reproductive rights do not seem particularly pressing. More often than not, they are swept under the rug, and rarely are they equated with human rights. I argue however that the death of an estimated “half a million women from preventable complications of pregnancy and childbearing is a significant human rights issue.”1 Reproductive rights have been proven to be critical to families and nations around the world. As such, it is in the best interest of all people, all governments, and all nations that these rights are enforced and adhered to.

In her 1995 speech to the U.N. World Conference in Beijing, the current Secretary of State of the United States, Hillary Clinton, spoke about strengthening families and societies around the world by empowering women “to take greater control over their own destinies,” and called on “all governments — here and around the world — [to] accept their responsibility to protect and promote internationally recognized human rights.” [1] When women are free to choose whether or not to have children, when to have children, and how many children to have, then societies and nations around the world will prosper. It is in the interest of all people and all nations that women around the world are given choices and access to resources concerning reproduction and family planning.

Sadly, women are often the ones denied the right to make these decisions. Reproductive decisions are commonly determined by husbands, families, communities, religions, customs, and governments, instead of the women directly implicated. To add to the problem, there are an estimated “200 million women around the world who would like to delay or end childbearing but have no access to modern contraception.” [2] UNFPA Executive Director, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, says that we must invest in “the resources to enable women and men to have the means to exercise their human right to determine the number and spacing of their children.” [3] By violating the reproductive rights of women, we are going against the human rights of women, children and men.

In short, reproductive rights are “essential to the enjoyment of other fundamental rights.” [4] As such, there must be a greater emphasis on having “sex education and reproductive health programmes” [5] for women and girls, in addition to making contraceptives more widely available. The choices concerning reproduction often concern a “woman's right to life and health,” which further affects families and nations by “compromis[ing] the rights of the rest of the family, as it may lead to families being impoverished, and siblings being obliged to assume household responsibilities and drop out of school.” [6] If a woman dies during pregnancy, often due to complications from her age, lack of proper food, medicine, or medical care, the newborn's health is at risk as well.

Hillary Clinton asserts that “it is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families.” Throughout history, people have attempted to shed more light on reproductive rights of women, and find ways to enforce them. The United Nations continually held conferences throughout the 1990s emphasizing reproductive rights as essential to development around the world. We then saw the same trend of advocating for reproductive rights exhibited on an international scale, from the Cairo Consensus of 1994 to the Beijing Conference of 1995, and later the World Summit of 2005. [7] Yet, here we are years later, discussing the same issues, fighting for the same rights, and in many nations around the world, in the same place we were hundreds of years ago. While societies have seen some progress in recent decades, there are still girls being forced into pregnancy shortly after they hit puberty. Others have no control over planning their families simply because of familial power dynamics, or because they do not have access to resources and contraceptives.

One cannot help but sympathize with the voiceless women at the mercy of disempowering traditions. These women often have no say in planning their family and frequently risk their lives to have children based on the requirements enforced by their customs, families, husbands or governments. When we eliminate this prejudice and discrimination, we see that we are all human beings united in our will to live freely and provide the best future we can for future generations. By giving every woman, especially those in the developing world, the right to choose - to chose whether or not she will bear children, when she will have children, and the number of children she is going to have, we will achieve those goals. More importantly, we will show the next generation that their ancestors did all they could to secure a better future for them, and did not surrender to discrimination, ignorance and injustice.

Photo: brains the head, teofilo (flickr)

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Death of Democracy in India, Birth of Censorship

Wendy Papakostandini — 2011-06-01T20:38:00Z

“What are we, Saudi Arabia?” asks Pushkar Raj, the general secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties in India. He adds, “We don't expect this from India. This is something very serious.” What Pushkar Raj refers to is the newly passed, highly controversial cyber law issued by India's Department of Information Technology this past April that restricts what content can be posted or made available to the public on the internet. Free speech advocates argue that these new rules are just excuses for the government to expand censorship in the country and further limit the rights to freedom of speech and expression that are guaranteed by the Constitution to the citizens of India.

These new cyber rules give the government and ordinary citizens the power to remove information that is “grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophiliac, libellous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable, disparaging, relating or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatever” [1] among many others. With the enactment of these new rules, popular sites like YouTube and Facebook must remove content deemed offensive in the span of thirty-six hours, and such sites may soon be blocked all together.

What makes the rules so controversial is the unclear, loose wording that makes them susceptible for abuse and misuse. What material constitutes as “grossly harmful” for example, and who decides what is “grossly harmful” and what is permissible? Due to the unspecific wording, almost anything can be labelled “grossly harmful.” These new rules are very much open to interpretation and the fear is that this flexibility will be misused, or used to suppress opposing views and opinions against the government. With social uprisings currently underway throughout Northern Africa, significantly aided by social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, these new laws could be one way in which the government attempts prevention of a similar uprising in India.

With a booming population of 1.21 billion [2], India is undoubtedly the world's largest democracy. Freedom of speech is often considered one of the main pillars of what defines a democratic country and India's constitution clearly states that every citizen in India “shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression.” [3] However, these new laws bring freedom of speech into question. How democratic can a country be when its constitution promises one thing, but the specific laws and amendments enforce another? How constitutional are new cyber laws when they are in essence, limiting freedom of speech? When did democracy go from rule of the people, to rule of the minority in power?

Many claim that the new restrictions enacted this April will turn free speech for all in India into censorship for all. The new legislation makes it much easier for the government to quell uprisings or protests, for instance if state officials make claims of “harassment.” Furthermore, the government can suppress unwanted information about its actions since government officials can claim “invasion of privacy” or deem something as “hateful.”

In response to the huge wave of criticisms, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in India defended these new rules by stating that “due diligence practices are the best practices followed internationally by well-known mega corporations operating on the Internet.” The ministry added that “the Government remains fully committed to freedom of speech and expression and the citizen's rights in this regard.” [4] However, the statement failed to include possible safeguards against misuse or abuse by the government officials, or the government itself.

In a speech earlier this month, President Obama stated that the United States will “support those basic rights to speak your mind and access information. [They] will support open access to the Internet, and the right of journalists to be heard – whether it's a big news organization or a blogger. In the Twenty-first Century, information is power; the truth cannot be hidden; and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately depend on active and informed citizens.”5 Although his speech was directed to the nations of North Africa and the Middle East, it applies to all nations, including India. India must address the questions of its public concerning the misuse of the new cyber restrictions and the implications it could have on their freedom of speech and expression. India must find a way to achieve the essential goals of the new cyber rules. Furthermore, it must do this without violating the liberties guaranteed to citizens by the constitution. This democratic doctrine is a symbol of India's independence, so tumultuously achieved in 1950, and must be adhered to.

Endnotes

– 1. http://www.mit.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/RNUS_CyberLaw_15411.pdf
– 2. http://www.indiaonlinepages.com/population/census-2011/
– 3. http://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf
– 4. http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2011/05/11/india-clarifies-controversial-web-rules/

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