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Arabica Robusta

Women's movement building and creating community in Haiti - 0 views

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shared by Arabica Robusta on 12 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • One of the stories least reported has been the one about Haitians organising for themselves, particularly stories presented within a framework of feminist organising and movement building.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 12 Dec 10
       
      How many years before the Haiti narrative turns from poverty and hopelessness to this, put quite well by Sokari, narrative of "Haitians organizing for themselves"?  From day one of independence, as I understand it, the Haitian people have been relentlessly independent and resilient.  That they have been so badly treated by European and North American states (and oligarchs elsewhere) is a damning testament to this period of human history.
  • Once it was established Rea’s family were all safe – a house just five minutes walk from Rea’s own home collapsed – she set about caring for the many in her community and where ever she was needed.   Everyone was in shock but there was no time to think about what had happened as people were injured.   Many people – students, families knowing about her community work, flocked to Rea’s home and at one point there were some 60 people in her home. 
  • I was surprised when I heard Rea had started a Micro-Credit scheme as there were so many negative reports on schemes which rather than enhance and empower women, ended up impoverishing them even more.   So I was interested to find out more about the SOPUDEP scheme, whether it was working and why it worked and I will write about this later after meeting with the various women’s group.
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  • The elections are a distraction.    Leaders have the power to bring change but no one believes any leader will do anything for the poor.  Everyone I asked about Aristide wanted him back because they believed he was one leader who could change their lives for the better.  Right now the only way is for communities to reach out to each other and create alliances which is what SOPUDEP is beginning to do.  Rea’s vision is one I share.  We cannot fix Haiti, but we can fix our community and help others fix theirs.  Eventually as all these communities build alliances amongst themselves, they will become strong and then maybe begin to fix Haiti.
  • I have spent two days at the school with the freedom to roam.  I came across a class whose teacher was absent and I ended up teaching English for 45 minutes followed by the students giving me a lesson in Kreyol.   Now I have been asked by them  to teach the same class for the next couple of weeks till they break uap for holidays.  The school is truly like  family. Since the Micro-credit scheme, parents and school staff have all been encouraged to open savings account.  
Arabica Robusta

The Year in Revolts: A South American Perspective of the Arab Spring - 0 views

upsidedownworld.org/...perspective-of-the-arab-spring

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shared by Arabica Robusta on 19 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Beyond their diverse circumstances, the Tahrir Square and Puerta del Sol movements in Cairo and in Madrid, form part of the genealogy of “All of them must go!” declared in the 2001 Argentinian revolt, the 2000 Cochabamba Water War, the 2003 and 2005 Bolivian Gas Wars and the 2006 Oaxaca commune, to mention only the urban cases. These movements all share two characteristics: the curbing of those in power and the opening of spaces for direct democracy and collective participation without representatives.
  • Beyond their diverse circumstances, the Tahrir Square and Puerta del Sol movements in Cairo and in Madrid, form part of the genealogy of “All of them must go!” declared in the 2001 Argentinian revolt, the 2000 Cochabamba Water War, the 2003 and 2005 Bolivian Gas Wars and the 2006 Oaxaca commune, to mention only the urban cases. These movements all share two characteristics: the curbing of those in power and the opening of spaces for direct democracy and collective participation without representatives.
  • We live in societies that are “variegated”, an interesting concept developed by the Bolivian René Zavaleta Mercado to describe social relations in his country. These are societies in which many different types of traditional and modern social relations co-exist. The best example of this is the Andean market, or the urban market in the peripheries of cities like Buenos Aires. These are spaces in which many families live together in a small area, with various businesses that combine production and sales in different fields, with diverse modes of employment – familial, salaried, in kind, commissioned – that is, a “variegated” mode that implies diverse and complex social relations that are interwoven and combined. In this way, if one of these relationships is modified, the rest are as well...
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  • I don't believe in virtual spaces, spaces are always material as well as symbolic. It's another matter to speak of virtual media of communication among people in movement.... For me, territories are those places in which life is lived in an integral sense, they are settlements, as we say in Latin America. These have existed for a long time in rural areas: indigenous communities or settlements of Brazil's Landless Movement, ancestral lands or lands recuperated in the struggle.
  • I don't believe in virtual spaces, spaces are always material as well as symbolic. It's another matter to speak of virtual media of communication among people in movement.... For me, territories are those places in which life is lived in an integral sense, they are settlements, as we say in Latin America. These have existed for a long time in rural areas: indigenous communities or settlements of Brazil's Landless Movement, ancestral lands or lands recuperated in the struggle.
  • more that 70% of urban land, and therefore of households, are illegal yet legitimate occupations. In some cases, this marks the beginning of another type of social organization, in which semi-craftwork production – including urban gardens – is combined with popular markets and informal modes of distribution. In the decisive moments of struggles against the State or at times of profound crisis, these territories become “resistor territories,”
  • In some cities, more that 70% of urban land, and therefore of households, are illegal yet legitimate occupations. In some cases, this marks the beginning of another type of social organization, in which semi-craftwork production – including urban gardens – is combined with popular markets and informal modes of distribution. In the decisive moments of struggles against the State or at times of profound crisis, these territories become “resistor territories,”
  • In some cities, more that 70% of urban land, and therefore of households, are illegal yet legitimate occupations. In some cases, this marks the beginning of another type of social organization, in which semi-craftwork production – including urban gardens – is combined with popular markets and informal modes of distribution. In the decisive moments of struggles against the State or at times of profound crisis, these territories become “resistor territories,”
  • Social movement is a Eurocentric concept that has been useful in describing what happens in homogeneous societies that revolve around the capitalist market, in which there is one basic form of social relations. In Latin America, the concept has and is used by academic intellectuals whose perspective is external to popular sector organization.
  • The people in the street are a spanner in the works in the accumulation of capital, which is why one of the first “measures” taken by the military after Mubarak left was to demand that citizens abandon the street and return to work. But if those in power cannot co-exist with the streets and occupied squares, those below – who have learned to topple Pharaohs – have not yet learned how to jam the flows and movements of capital.
  • The Middle East brings together some of the most brutal contradictions of the contemporary world. Firstly, there are determined efforts to sustain an outdated unilateralism. Secondly, it is the region where the principal tendency of the contemporary world is most visible: the brutal concentration of power and wealth....
Arabica Robusta

Whatever is happening to the Egyptians? | openDemocracy - 0 views

www.opendemocracy.net/...ever-is-happening-to-egyptians

social movements arab egypt

shared by Arabica Robusta on 07 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • In all cases, empirical evidence shows that the 1952 military-coup was not only rebellion against Egypt’s political regime, but also against the values and norms of its political subjects.
  • If the repugnance or fear of the AUC community about [real] slums can be explained in terms of class tensions or a growing abyss between the classes, the question which prevails is: why would AUC students be entertained by observing a virtual slum? What is the fascination? And what is perceived as particularly “exceptional” about people who, a few years back, were not even perceived as “other”? How, and why, did no one raise this question as the event was being planned and organised? Did no one question the purpose or logic behind the construction of a virtual human zoo of people who are neither less human nor less Egyptian than those coming to observe them? I searched the images and messages displayed and communicated on the day of the event for some answers.
  • Yet, it should definitely be taken into consideration that the struggle between the Nasserist social agenda and Sadat’s Infitah came to the surface in the July coup of 2013. A critical mass of the elites have now decisively aligned themselves with Sadat’s socio-economic policies (reflected in the recent economic forum, the reconciliation with corrupt businessmen, and the embrace of regressive taxation); bringing to the surface the symptoms of Sadat’s socio-economic revolution more vividly and bluntly
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  • The event signals the way in which the socio-economic gap is taking an ideological and cultural form, with implications not only limited to some AUC members, but widely accepted by other elites (in the media, the arts,academe, etc).
  • On Thursday April 23, the American University in Cairo's (AUC) Theatre and Film Club invited the AUC community to an event, where they could watch a simulation of an Egyptian slum, talk to "people of this ghetto", eat "their" food, and shop in places similar to where "they" shop.
  • Entering into this constructed slum, all you can hear are noises in variant forms: the market, the wedding, the beggars, the harassers, and loud popular music. To make it noisier, every few minutes, quarrels would break out here and there. The environment was designed to make one not only feel very irritable, but also unsafe. For how could a person feel safe among those wild barbaric creatures? Anyone who has ever entered a real Egyptian slum would quickly notice how different it is from the AUC-exaggerated version. The markets may be as noisy as portrayed, but only during peak hours (no more than 4-6 a day). Other sources of noise do not reflect reality. For instance, why would a beggar beg in a slum?
  • These were mere reflections of a mental picture of slum-seekers, constructed through their 'othering' by movies, advertisements for gated communities, and other forms of mass media messages familiar in the communications of the upper-middle classes.
Arabica Robusta

At the Mexican Embassy in London: Demand for an End to the Attacks on the Zap... - 0 views

dorsetchiapassolidarity.wordpress.com/...community-of-san-marcos-aviles

social movements intervention development human rights corporate industry mexico zapatista

shared by Arabica Robusta on 27 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Today, 26th April, 2013, the UK Zapatista Solidarity Network held a protest at the Embassy of Mexico in London in solidarity with the Zapatista support base (BAZ) community of San Marcos Avilés in the municipality of Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico. The protestors delivered a letter demanding an end to the threats, aggressions and acts of violence being made against this community by members of the Mexican political parties, with the aim of displacing the Zapatistas from their homes and their lands. This is being done, explained members of the Network, with the full support and backing of the Mexican state, in an attempt to put an end to the advances in Zapatista autonomy.
  • The group ended the protest by saying “We wish through our actions today to send a message of solidarity to our dignified sisters and brothers of San Marcos Avilés. They have our full support.”
Arabica Robusta

Jayati Ghosh, "The Emerging Left in the 'Emerging' World" - 0 views

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social movements intervention human development rights corporate industry socialism

shared by Arabica Robusta on 08 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • For much of the twentieth century, it was easier to talk of an overarching socialist framework, a "grand vision" within which more specific debates were conducted.  Of course there were many strands of socialism, however defined, and there were also fierce and occasionally violent struggles between them.  Even so, they shared more than a common historical lineage -- they also shared a fundamental perception or basic vision.  At the risk of crude simplification, this vision can be summarised in terms of perceiving the working class to be the most fundamental agent of positive change, capable (once organised) of transforming not only existing property and material relations but also wider society and culture through its own actions.
  • But in recent times the very idea of a grand vision has been in retreat, battered not just by the complexities and limitations of "actually existing Socialism" in its various incarnations, but more recently and thoroughly by the ferocious triumphalism of its opposite.  Indeed, it may be fair to say that, insofar as any grand vision has existed at all in recent times, the one that increasingly came to dominate public life almost everywhere in the world by the late 20th century was that of the market as a self-regulating and inherently efficient mechanism for organising economic life.  This idea had already fallen by the wayside a century previously, before it was resurrected and dusted off for use in a slightly more "post-modern" format that became the theoretical underpinning for the vast explosion of global economic integration under the aegis of finance capital that has marked the period of globalisation.
  • The association of the ideology of supposedly free markets with strong tendencies towards greater concentration of capital and the use of the state to further accentuate these tendencies and aggrandise capital has been laid bare for all to see.  That the material processes unleashed by such a trajectory of unevenly shared burdens of crisis are no longer seen as socially acceptable is also becoming evident, in many parts of the developing world that have experienced quiet or not-so-quiet revolutions, as well as currently in the European continent.
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  • A basic lack of confidence in anything other than capitalism as a way of organising economic life still permeates popular protests in Europe and the United States, such that the purpose of the Left is seen to be to somehow exert a restraining influence on the worst excesses of current capitalism -- the Left as a civilising and moderating force, not so much a transformative (much less revolutionary) force.
  • But elsewhere, in Asia, Latin America and Africa, the discourse is becoming quite different.  There is much more dynamism within the global Left than is often perceived, and there are variegated moves away from tired ideas of all kinds.  So the rejection of capitalism also tends to be accompanied not only by imagining alternatives, but also by shifting views about what constitutes the desirable alternative.  This in turn has meant interrogation of some previously standard tenets of socialist understanding.
  • Some critical areas of commonality of these diverse tendencies can be identified.  I would like to point to seven common threads that appear in what I have described as "the emerging Left" in what are otherwise very distinct political formations and in very dissimilar socio-economic contexts.
  • The first is the attitude to what constitutes democracy.  In contrast to some earlier socialist approaches in which the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat was misinterpreted (and, in some cases, still continues to be so used) to suppress formal democracy, there is much greater willingness of the emerging Left to engage with and even rely upon formal democratic processes and the procedures and institutions associated with "bourgeois democracy": elections; referenda; laws delivering rights and related judicial processes.
  • While this tendency is not universal, there is evidence that within emerging Left groups there is increasingly a trend towards the rejection of top-down models of party organisation (such as is exemplified in the idea of democratic centralism in Communist parties, for example) and moving towards more open, democratic forms of parties and coalition building, such that, within an overarching framework and set of goals, a plurality of opinions within the Left is not just tolerated but even respected.
  • The second relatively "new" feature is the rejection of over-centralisation.
  • It is also true that material conditions have changed to make largeness less desirable or necessary in some respects.  First, there is the recent experience of the downsides of largeness (such as banks that are too big to fail, MNCs that become so big that they are unaccountable and untaxable, and so on).  Second, technology -- especially the convergence of ICT and energy technologies -- is opening up new possibilities of productivity growth in decentralised settings, which increase the possibilities for a locally managed, decentralised, but globally connected post-carbon economy.
  • the third major difference of the emerging Left from earlier models of socialism that did away with all private property and only recognised personal property.  New Leftist thinking is generally vague or ambivalent about private property -- disliking it when it is seen as monopolising or highly concentrated (for example in the form of multinational corporations) but otherwise not just accepting of it but even (in the case of small producers, for example) actively encouraging it.  Increasingly there has been explicit recognition or incorporation of other forms of property rights, particularly communal property associated with traditional, indigenous or autochthonous "communities" who in turn are no longer derided as pre-modern relics that have to be done away with.
  • Just as the emerging Left tendencies in the emerging world engage more positively with formal democratic institutions and processes, so they also tend to speak more and more in the language of "rights".  This is the fourth relatively new tendency.  These rights are not seen in the individualistic sense of libertarian philosophy.  Rather, rights are more broadly defined in terms of entitlements as well as through recognising the need for social and political voice -- not just of citizens, but also of communities and groups, in the manner described earlier.
  • Fifth, the emerging Left goes far beyond traditional Left paradigms in recognising various different and possibly overlapping social and cultural identities that shape economic, political and social realities.  The standard socialist paradigm that emerged in the 19th century and was developed in the 20th century saw class as the fundamental contradiction within societies, with imperialism as the defining feature of relations across countries.
  • the resilience of such socially determined patterns, as well as the capitalist system's remarkable ability to incorporate patterns of linguistic/ethnic/social exclusion and discrimination as factors in commercial activity and labour markets, has forced a more nuanced understanding.  This has led to the realisation that addressing issues only in class terms is not sufficient, and many strands of the emerging Left are now much more explicitly (even dominantly) concerned with addressing the inequalities, oppression and exploitation that arise from such non-economic forces.  It is a moot point whether this shift in focus is always justified, especially as class and imperialism still remain such powerful determining forces, but certainly this is an important characteristic of many emerging Left movements.
  • The most significant such social/material attribute is gender, which forms the next important aspect that is explicitly incorporated into many emerging Left tendencies.  
  • Finally, the relationship of human societies with nature is undergoing much more comprehensive interrogation than ever before.  
  • Consider this passage from the new Constitution of Ecuador, which (like Bolivia) grants rights to nature independent of people: "Nature, . . . where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.
  • these seven features of the emerging Left do represent some departures from the traditional Left paradigm in the ways outlined.  But there are some crucial features of strong continuity: most significantly, the attitude to the significance and role of the nation-state, and the attitude to imperialism.  It is intriguing that despite the many economic, social and cultural changes wrought by globalisation, these concerns have remained especially in the developing world.
  • At one level, of course, the focus on the nation state is obvious: the demand for rights of individual or communities or Nature must be defined in relation to the locus whereby such rights will be ensured, and the nation-state remains the basic location for such demands and negotiation.
  • The fundamental premises of the socialist project remain as valid: the unequal, exploitative and oppressive nature of capitalism; the capacity of human beings to change society and thereby alter their own future in a progressive direction; and the necessity of collective organisation to do so.  The fecundity of the socialist alternatives cropping up in different parts of the world suggests that -- whatever we may think to the contrary in what are generally depressing times -- that project is still very dynamic and exciting.
Arabica Robusta

The anti-intellectualism of the social justice community is killing us | openDemocracy - 0 views

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social movements academia

shared by Arabica Robusta on 08 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Over those same years, I've also cultivated a role for myself as a movement intellectual. However small my sphere of influence, however meager my share of knowledge, I share what I know and am coming to know. I read, and write, listen and discuss, and make half-baked proposals in hopes of receiving critiques, choosing, as I do, to view criticism as an ally in my lifelong battle against my own vast ignorance.
  • the anti-intellectualism of the social justice community is literally killing us. We need to invest in intellectuals. Rather than valorize the legitimate frustration people feel when faced with complicated ideas, we could reach for those ideas together, as though we deserve them, as though we believe ourselves to be worthy of intellectual leadership in the world.
  • Their ignorance persists in spite of them being extremely hard working and intelligent, and knowledgeable about many things that are hard to master, proving their capacity to learn. And why? At least in part because the gatekeepers, the leadership, choose to defend a completely understandable ignorance in order to signify that they are not among the privileged (even if, in some cases, they are), and do so in order to claim legitimacy.
Arabica Robusta

La Puya Peaceful Mining Resistance Dismantled by Force | North American Congress on Lat... - 0 views

nacla.org/...ng-resistance-dismantled-force

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shared by Arabica Robusta on 01 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • The Guatemalan government granted permits for the El Tambor mine to KCA, a mining firm based in Reno, Nevada, over a decade ago. Yet the communities near the mine were never informed about the construction. According to Kelsey Alford-Jones of the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, it wasn’t until 2010 that the community learned about the sale and construction of a mine that would affect all of their lives.
  • Further, there was no consultation with the community, and to make matters worse, it appears that the environmental impact assessment was fraudulent. An outside independent assessment found that the original had not investigated the impacts of the mine on social, cultural, and environmental factors.
  • Activists throughout Guatemala risk a lot to maintain their resistance. The heavy-handed response of the Guatemalan government marks a criminalization of protest in Guatemala. “The government has brought back the idea of the internal enemy,” said Alford-Jones. “This idea is what justified torture and genocide during the internal armed conflict.”
Arabica Robusta

The city we built and they stole | openDemocracy - 0 views

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social movements intervention human development rights corporate industry urban harvey

shared by Arabica Robusta on 21 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • In prioritising the site of production and the industrial proletariat as the revolutionary class, traditional Marxism created a number of problems. To begin with, it excluded all those who did not, or could not work from possessing any kind of agency - with the result that the struggles of domestic labourers (women), the unemployed, the disabled were largely ignored.
  • This is the tragedy of the urban commons – those who “create an interesting and stimulating everyday neighbourhood life lose it to the predatory practices of real estate entrepreneurs, the financiers and upper class consumers bereft of any social imagination.”
  • In South Baltimore, “regeneration” meant the displacement of a lively street life where people “sat on their stoops on warm summer nights and conversed with neighbours” in exchange for “burglar-proofed houses with a BMW parked out front and a rooftop deck, but with no one to be seen on the street.” Unable to reproduce itself, the social life vanished and the communities became inchoate and disparate.
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  • There is a stupid sadness to the whole self-defeating project. Nobody wins.  The slow tornado of gentrification ensures the destruction of the very appeal it markets, borne by a social life which can no longer exist in the conditions it creates. Another small bonanza for the developer; more dead space in cities emptied of all vitality from the centre outwards. Streets become graveyards haunted by their opulent, fleeting residents. Real communities are scattered and disseminated to the outer reaches. Harvey’s famous phrase ‘accumulation by dispossession’ proliferates through the corrupt monopoly of government and capital over the right to shape the city in their own lifeless image.
  • Yes, there is a vacuous nod to local “uniqueness” here, but its a very inauthentic authenticity being cultivated, and hardly one that can be reclaimed or contested in any meaningful way.
  • Harvey concedes the difficulty of drawing universal conclusions from such a contingent example. El Alto’s success not only relied on somewhat unique geographical and political circumstances, but also held vital strategic benefits. 3 out of 4 of the main supply routes to La Paz run through El Alto, allowing the city’s residents to entirely cut off supply lines between La Paz and the West and South of the country through coordinated direct action. Yet El Alto is still instructive on two counts. First it reveals the potential of urban struggle centred around issues of consumption instead of production. Second, it escapes a certain “fetishisation of organisational form” that Harvey sees as an obstacle to the left making a shrewd evaluation of strategies for restoring its relevance.
  • The endless debates about the minutae of organisational form are almost certainly a symptom of this, and it is clear that the left will never mount a serious challenge without building the sort of urban cross-alliances Harvey celebrates. It seems a little odd then that Harvey devotes a fair proportion of the book taking issue with horizontalism, albeit in a constructive rather than sectarian manner.
  • The question is how such an endlessly qualified wishlist can ever materalise around a clear proposal: can an organisation be both hierarchical and horizontal? What does all this look like? Harvey, generally laudable for the clarity of his style, nevertheless has the classic academic tendency to drown us in terminology when he’s less certain what he actually means.
Arabica Robusta

The Politics of Pachamama: Natural Resource Extraction vs. Indigenous Rights and the En... - 0 views

upsidedownworld.org/...e-environment-in-latin-america

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry bolivia evo morales

shared by Arabica Robusta on 26 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Just a few weeks before our meeting, a nation-wide social movement demanded that Bolivia’s natural gas reserves be put under state control. How the wealth underground could benefit the poor majority above ground was on everybody’s mind.
  • I was meeting with Mama Nilda Rojas, a leader of the dissident indigenous group CONAMAQ, a confederation of Aymara and Quechua communities in the country. Rojas, along with her colleagues and family, had been persecuted by the Morales government in part for their activism against extractive industries. “The indigenous territories are in resistance,” she explained, “because the open veins of Latin America are still bleeding, still covering the earth with blood. This blood is being taken away by all the extractive industries.”
  • Part of the answer lies in the wider conflicts between the politics of extractivism among countries led by leftist governments in Latin America, and the politics of Pachamama (Mother Earth), and how indigenous movements have resisted extractivism in defense of their rights, land and the environment.
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  • The environmental and social costs of extraction are still present, but with a different economic vision. “Extractive activities and the export of raw materials continue as before, but are now justified with a progressive discourse,” explains Puerto Rican environmental journalist Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero.
  • As a part of this shift, in 2012, the Argentine state obtained 51% control of the hydrocarbon company YPF, which was privatized in the 1990s. Last year, however, Argentina’s YPF signed a deal with Chevron to expand natural gas fracking in the country, operations set to proceed on Mapuche indigenous territory. In response, indigenous communities to be affected by the fracking took over four YPF oil rigs.
  • Yet while Correa rightfully spoke of the obligations of wealthier nations to contribute to solving the dilemmas of the global climate crisis, at home he expanded the mining industry and criminalized indigenous movements who protested extractive industries in their territories. Under his administration, numerous indigenous leaders organizing against mining, water privatization measures, and hydrocarbon extraction have been jailed for their activism.
  • The government has advocated for a plan to build a major highway through the TIPNIS indigenous territory and national park. Protests against the government plans galvanized a movement for indigenous rights and environmentalism. In response, the government led brutal repression against families marching in protest of the highway in 2011. Government violence left 70 wounded; victims and their families and allies are still searching for justice.
  • Meanwhile, outside of Latin America, governments, activists, and social movements are looking to places like Bolivia and Ecuador as examples for overcoming capitalism and tackling climate change. The model of Yasuní, and respecting the rights of nature can and should have an impact outside of these countries, and wealthier nations and their consumers and industries based in the global north need to step up to the plate in terms of taking on the challenges of the climate crisis.
  • In many ways, much of Latin America’s left are major improvements from their neoliberal predecessors, and have helped forge an exciting path toward alternatives that have served as inspirations across the world. Overall, they have brought countries out of the shadow of the International Monetary Fund and US-backed dictatorships, and toward a position of self-determination. For the sake of these new directions, the neoliberal right hopefully will not regain power in the region any time soon, and Washington will be unable to further meddle in an increasingly independent Latin America.
  • If an alternative model is to succeed that truly places quality of life and respect for the environment over raising the gross domestic product and expanding consumerism, that puts sustainability over dependency on the extraction of finite raw materials, that puts the rights to small scale agriculture and indigenous territorial autonomy ahead of mining and soy companies, it will likely come from these grassroots movements. If this model is to transform the region’s wider progressive trends, these spaces of dissent and debate in indigenous, environmental and farmer movements need to be respected and amplified, not crushed and silenced.
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - The revolution will not be funded - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...68797

social movements africa development industry economic crisis us intervention

shared by Arabica Robusta on 20 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • The reduction of western aid, induced by the ‘global’ financial crisis, will challenge the perceived dependency between the global North and South. And, with the rise of the economic and political clout of so-called ‘emerging’ powers in the South, the globe is expected to see significant, if not permanent, shifts in societal order.
  • Widespread understanding of the inter-connection of struggle, the centrality of power in oppression, the necessity to fight all forms of oppression, the ownership of one’s own contradictions and a desire to transform these, indeed, simply the imagination to develop a vision of full liberation is wanton throughout our movements.
  • Nevertheless the recent rise in acts of civil resistance across Africa is indicative of an ongoing powerful force and movement building process.
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  • A social movement is ‘an organised set of constituents pursuing a common political agenda of change through collective action’.
  • The NGO-isation of our movements, accompanied by the pre-requisite ‘professionalisation’ of activism open to the middle-classes with access to formal education and able to operate in Western paradigms of advocacy, has numbed our imagination for transformation. NGOs, somewhat ironically, are registered and legitimised through the State that the movement often seeks to challenge.
  • Often international NGOs have been consumed in service delivery that has meant the effective privatisation (and outsourcing) of African essential services, while local and national NGOs are structurally tied to projects and services without the ability to address need. ‘This has also gradually shifted power away from the constituency that movements organised and into the hands of organisations and organisational leadership that is increasingly less connected and accountable to the constituencies they claim to serve.’[2]
  • Within our movements we must go beyond the donor driven paradigm of thinking about objectives, projects and programs to thinking about principles of unity and collective action. We must stop believing that a single solution, a silver bullet, will fix all but rather be willing to try and test new approaches and take on the difficult, seemingly intractable issues.
  • Due to our over-reliance on organisational structures, and in turn on international or transnational funding, our social justice work has become vulnerable to funding shifts, the fickleness of funding priorities and the empty promises of the aid architecture.
  • Funders, at all levels, tend to ignore our organic institutions, the village assemblies, the citizen networks etc., which lead in supporting whole communities though not necessarily within a social justice frame.
  • Transformative progressive change will not be confined or restricted to logframes, results-based programming or project proposals. Our movements will, however, use resources: relying on non-material resources of peoples’ time and energy, contributions and skills, knowledge and experience, thinking and action, while also relying on material resources offered by the community, members and constituency and provided by allies and supporters and even funded by international or African grant-makers. But, for these resources to be put to the process of social justice change, we will need to begin to ‘understand that our capacity to bring about major social changes is influenced by our capacity for connecting our strategies, for sharing our dreams, for forging alliances and thus going beyond the survival of our organisations [or formation, or even individual leadership (added by author)] by thinking and acting collectively.’[5]
  • Arabica Robusta on 20 Nov 10
     
    The reduction of western aid, induced by the 'global' financial crisis, will challenge the perceived dependency between the global North and South. And, with the rise of the economic and political clout of so-called 'emerging' powers in the South, the globe is expected to see significant, if not permanent, shifts in societal order.
Arabica Robusta

BRAZIL: Women in "Pacified" Favelas Claim Their Rights - IPS ipsnews.net - 0 views

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social movements intervention human rights corporate brazil favelas

shared by Arabica Robusta on 03 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • In December, a police team spent a week at the Complexo do Alemão, taking down complaints, mainly about physical injuries and threats, Rosa said. "The week we were in the favelas many cases were reported, and two aggressors were even caught in the act. Women are starting to claim their rights," she said.
  • The pacification force of 1,700 soldiers has occupied the Complexo do Alemão in the north of Rio for nearly three months. Every two hours, military police patrol the streets, on foot or in vehicles. "Everyone thinks this is an enforced peace. What we wanted was peace without police action, a dream that may come true one day," Andrade said.
  • Fabiano de Carvalho, spokesman for the pacification force, said there were many similarities between the structure and tactics used by Brazilian troops since 2004 in the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, and those used in the favelas.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 03 Mar 11
       
      This comment is terrifying.
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  • "At first we were scared of what the community would think of us because we were working for a government social project. I was afraid to walk down the streets," said dos Santos, who took up this social work in 2008, before the pacification actions and community policing had even begun.
Arabica Robusta

Zen and the art of social movement maintenance | openDemocracy - 0 views

www.opendemocracy.net/...of-social-movement-maintenance

social movements

shared by Arabica Robusta on 28 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Kabat-Zinn’s work appears to vindicate Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s critique of Western Buddhism as a supplement to neoliberal capitalism: “It enables you to fully participate in the frantic pace of the capitalist game while sustaining the perception that you are not really in it.”
  • But Davis has seen the benefits of mind/body practices and is not so swift to dismiss them. How can mindfulness genuinely support social justice? This was the basic question she kept returning to in Oakland.“In a racially unjust world,” Davis earnestly asked Kabat-Zinn, “what good is mindfulness?”
  • While the brief discussion between Davis and Kabat-Zinn remained abstract, actually existing experiments at the intersection of mindfulness and social change are blossoming. Several organizations are now focusing their efforts on the fold between subjective and social change: the Center for Transformative Change, Generative Somatics and the Movement Strategy Center are three leaders.
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  • Practices like yoga and meditation were woven throughout Occupy, and were integral to its endurance and impact; they were not a sideshow.
  • Meditation and yoga, however, do not automatically nurture an anti-racist and egalitarian ethos. If they did, Western practice communities would be sanctuaries from what bell hooks calls “imperialist white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy.” As hooks has noted, based on her experience as a Buddhist and a woman of color, exclusions along multiple axes of oppression — such as race and class — continue to shape the dissemination of meditation and yoga in the West.
  • During conversations with Occupy activists, I learned that, while short meditations like moments of silence were used by assembly facilitators in the early days of the camp, the practice became more common as the occupation continued, and challenges intensified.
  • “As decision-making processes began breaking down,” facilitator Marisa Holmes explained to me, “with more disruption coming from within the camp, from the state, from all angles, we used these practices more and more.”
  • While grounding exercises helped ease aggression and facilitate communication among Occupiers, they could not stop the violent eviction executed by the New York Police Department in November 2011. They were also unable to transform debilitating internal conflicts that weakened the occupation. At the root of these conflicts, many activists believed, was the fundamental disagreement over whether and how Occupiers should engage with structures of power, including more established institutions on the left, like unions.
  • “I think a lot of mistakes resulted from the inability to engage with power, interact with it and build strategies around how to shift it,” said journalist Nathan Schneider, who is an editor-at-large for Waging Nonviolence and the author of “Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse.”
  • Many of the participants in Occupy Manifest became leaders in the Occupy Sandy relief effort after the superstorm hit New York on Oct. 29, 2012. Occupy Sandy was tremendously successful in its response, using social media to quickly raise over $1 million and mobilize 60,000 volunteers — four times the number of volunteers engaged by the Red Cross. A key element of Occupy Sandy’s success was participants’ willingness to work across political differences, coordinating activities with churches, FEMA and other relief organizations that didn’t necessarily share Occupy’s values and horizontalist style of organizing.
  • During their dialogue, Jon Kabat-Zinn noted his original skepticism towards Davis’s radical stance on prison abolition. “But then you gave me your book, ‘Are Prisons Obsolete,’ and I’ve changed my mind. I think it’s a fantastic idea.”Mindfulness alone will not spark a political revolution, but when joined by actual revolutionaries, it might expand all of our possibilities for freedom.
Arabica Robusta

nla.obj-332066213_Akmana_PNG_gold.pdf - 0 views

porgera gold PapuaNewGuinea

shared by Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • cific islands monthly : PIM.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      Doers, not recorders of facts.
  • Pacific islands monthly : PIM.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      Begin here
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      He was to tell them that the stolen goods were to be left on a flat rock on the river below the camp, other wise we would have to raid their gardens for food-and there would no payment this time!
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    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      "All members. masters and boys, were on the alert at all times. Personal boys would see that their master did not move far without weapons and handed them to him in case this occurred. There was no point in tempting the wigmen with our riches of steel and shell."
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      It turned out that back at Akmana Junction while we were on this Upper Maramuni job something was happening. We found on our return that the Akmana camp had been raided and most of our steel and trade goods stolen. As no natives came to the camp with food for trade as usual, we decided to take the offensive. We had very friendly relations with a wigman called Dribau. who had attached himself to the camp as friend and guide. He first joined us on the Baiyer and was a man of influence and obviously highly respected over a wide area. Drihau was now on hand and we asked him to spread the word by hailing across the valleys that we were very angry (we described with actions that our bellies were boiling with anger). He was to tell them that the stolen goods were to be left on a flat rock on the river below the camp. otherwise we would have to raid their gardens for food-and there would be no payment this time! The messages were passed, but by the next day there were no results, so we helped ourselves in the gardens. and put on a display with our .303 rifles, firing them at long range in the general direction of any stray native we saw on watch. sometimes in rapid fire to make the show more impressive. The shots were meant to demonstrate that we were serious, but we were not trying to hit anyone. This got better results. -The next morning there were some stolen goods on the flat rock. About midday we decided we would have to speed things up a bit, so Drihau passed on the news that we would "make thunder without a cloud in the sky" and that they had better watch out! We detonated a big supply of gelignite and made those old mountains echo and re-echo, much to the horror of those visitors who happened to be in the vicinity (who. unfortunately. didn't include any of the miscreants). Those near the camp clung to each other for comfort in their fear (the locals often did this also when they were perplexed and surprised. but not to such a degree of frenzy). They were also much
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      The booming of the dynamite did the job. Next morning most of our goods were on the flat rock and it was not long before we were friendly community again, with business as usual, and quite a few grins.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      "The warriors were curious and friendly. but Beazley had completed his job and wisely retraced his steps to his previous night's camp. There he was met by another 200 warriors. and since the first group had followed him downstream he now found himself the centre of interest of 400 odd Highlanders who had never before seen a white man. After some demonstrations of fire power with his rifle and the magic of matches he returned to the main camp without incident."
Arabica Robusta

Ecuador's Correa Seeks South American Allies in Conflict with Anti-Mining Social Movements - 0 views

upsidedownworld.org/...h-anti-mining-social-movements

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry mining extractive ecuador correa

shared by Arabica Robusta on 06 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • “This is something we have to deal with together, Colombia included, because Peru has the same problems. There have been outbreaks of violence from activists who are full of talk about democracy,” he stated. Correa warned that radical anti-mining groups were contradicting themselves as “they never protest against highly polluting mining,” but instead they protest against “clean mining” that does not harm water supplies or the environment.
  • Correa also strongly criticized the “so-called environmentalists” who are opposed to the development of “ecological mining” and suggested they intend native communities to live in poverty “as part of folklore and the environment.”“When we want to develop good mining practices, these so-called environmentalists come out claiming that human beings are not much more than a nuisance to the environment and that poverty is all part of folklore,” he said.
Arabica Robusta

The Assassination of Martin Luther King and the Peace Movement » Counterpunch... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...er-king-and-the-peace-movement

social movements intervention development human rights corporate industry mlk

shared by Arabica Robusta on 06 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • When Dr. King finally opposed the war on Vietnam he incurred the wrath of liberals in the Johnson Administration, the liberal philanthropic community, and even a significant number of his colleagues in the clergy. The liberal establishment was scathing in its condemnation of his position and sought to punish him and his organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), in a manner similar to their assaults on the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), when it took an anti-war and anti-imperialist position much earlier than Dr. King and SCLC.
  • Today the array of forces in support of U.S. military aggression is similar to what we saw from the establishment in 1968, except for one important factor: in 1968 there was an organized, vocal anti-war movement that applied bottom-up pressure on the liberal establishment in power and on the Nixon Administration. Today, however,  not only have significant elements of the contemporary anti-war and peace movement voluntarily demobilized during the Obama era, many of those individuals and organizations have entered into what can only be seen as a tactical alliance with the Obama Administration and provided ideological cover for imperialist interventions around the world.
  • The murder of Dr. King was not just the murder of a man but an assault on an idea, a movement and a vision of a society liberated from what Dr. King called the three “triplets” that had historically characterized and shaped the “American” experience – racism, extreme materialism and militarism. 
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  • The radical revolution of values that King hoped would transform the country was repackaged by the early 1970s into an individualist, pro-capitalist, debt-constructed consumer diversion.
  • the West has demonstrated that it will use all of its military means to maintain its hegemony. Yet, to realize that shift, the “people” are going to have to “see” through the ideological mystifications that still values Eurocentric assumptions as representing settled, objective realities on issues like democracy, freedom, human rights, economic development and cultural integrity in order to confront the new coalitions of privilege.  Dr. King and the black anti-racist, anti-colonialist movements for social justice brought clarity to these moral issues by its example of movement building that sparked struggles for social justice in every sector of U.S. society. That is why sidelining black radical organizations and the black social justice movement has been one of the most effective consequences of the Obama phenomenon.
  • Today the necessity to stand with the oppressed and oppose war and violence of all kinds has never been more urgent. But that stand cannot be just as individuals. Individual commitment is important, but what Dr. King’s life reaffirmed was the power of movement — of organized and determined people moving in a common direction. That is why the government so desperately attempts to disconnect Dr. King from the people and the movement that produced him and to silence any opposition to its colonialist violence. The example of movement building and struggle is an example that has to be brutally suppressed, as witnessed by how the Obama Administration moved on the Occupy Wallstreet Movement once it became clear that they could not co-opt and control it.
  • Arabica Robusta on 06 Apr 13
     
    ""As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask - and rightly so - what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government. - Rev. Martin Luther King, Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence," Riverside Church, April 4, 1967. "
Arabica Robusta

Discursive Power and People's Movements: Why Chávez's Re-election is Importan... - 0 views

www.scoop.it/...ortant-for-africa-hakima-abbas

social movements intervention human development rights corporate industry africa venezuela hugochavez

shared by Arabica Robusta on 28 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Chávez won a clear majority in elections that were heralded as fair, peaceful and democratic. A stunning 97% of the population (over 19 million people) registered to vote and 82% of those registered, voted.
  • Indeed, President Obama’s domestic and international centrism has drawn much criticism but, with the hope that he embodies, miraculous transformation is still expected of him upon re-election.
  • That as it may be, Chávez was the first president of Latin America to declare himself of African descent, as important symbolically for Venezuela’s often marginalized population of African descent (who make up an estimated 34% of the population) and the entire region’s Afro-American community as Obama’s victory was for African-Americans in the United States.
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  • However, during the oil price slump of 2008, Chávez drew criticism at home for not concentrating on internal Venezuelan affairs rather than drawing the wrath of imperialist states during long international speeches. He heeded this warning and cut back on international engagements and visits. However, maintained an important role in Latin American relations. His leadership of a significant power in the region created a domino effect and enabled the surfacing and victory of progressive parties from Ecuador to Argentina ending the decades of isolation of Cuba.
  • Yet the key to the importance of President Chávez’s re-election for Africa lies strangely beyond Venezuela’s foreign policy and more so at the epicentre of its national struggle.
  • The election in Venezuela stood in stark contrast to the campaigning in the U.S. The ideological differences between incumbent President Chávez and the opposition candidate Radonski is far from a nuance and instead represents clear ideological paths, values, interests, alliances and priorities.
  • Yet Chávez progressive discourse presents an alternative to both. Rabidly anti-imperialist but equally anti-conservative, Chávez offers, particularly to the peoples’ movements of Africa, a discourse that resounds on the streets of Guinea, the farms of Madagascar and the squares of Egypt.
  • Chávez has been reluctant to criticise Global South leaders for any of their failings in leadership, understandably seeking allies amongst the few willing to openly oppose or resist the multiple layers of northern imperialism. However, with another six years to deepen the progressive agenda of not only Latin America and the Caribbean, but potentially the world, it will be critical that President Chávez and his administration consider supporting deepened solidarity between the peoples’ movements of Africa and the Americas to break the bipolarity of an increasingly belligerent world.
Arabica Robusta

http://www.ecprnet.eu/MyECPR/proposals/reykjavik/uploads/papers/2277.pdf - 0 views

www.ecprnet.eu/...2277.pdf

shared by Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12 - No Cached
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      The panel of social cyber-activists analyzed in the aforementioned research indicates  that leftist organizations did not act in coordination with the counterinformation  networks (such as the Nodo50 platform, which had already shown potential on 13M and  in subsequent calls by the MRH) and the campaigning strategies of left-wing parties.  This was not the case for the conservative axis, which the cyber-activists interviewed  felt was "more instrumental in electoral terms and  more effective in their combined  strategies through conventional media, politics and e-politics." (Sampedro, 2010:25).  
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      In 2004, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt launched their vision of a "multitude  project" based on the possibility of a global democratic society, open and inclusive,  promoted by multitudes fighting for justice and a free world. Perhaps we are currently  witnessing its first steps, and the nature of the demonstrations that take place all over  the world may are proof of that. The authors point  that analyzing the nature and  conditions of crowds helps to "identify the real creative forces that are emerging with  the potential to create a new world" (Hardt and Negri, 2004: 95). This new world will  be built over current scenario, the contemporary post-industrial world, which the  theorist Manuel Castells defines as network society, a concept that replaces that of  information (or knowledge) society. 
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      However, above their deliberation potential, ICTs have created a new category of social  movement that is characterized by network organization, coordination and action, as  well as decentralization, flexibility and collective action. New social movements have  managed to mobilize the multitudes (Negri and Hardt, 2004) and have characteristics  that differentiate them markedly from previous social movements.
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    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      As previously pointed out, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri propose the concept of multitude in 2004 and define it as the manifestation of collective intelligence that Lévy  predicted on the fringes of cyberspace in 1995: "The development of computer-assisted  communication and global digital networks appears to be the realization of a more or  less well-formulated project to deliberately create new forms of collective intelligence,  which are more flexible and democratic and based on reciprocity and respect for singularities. In this sense, we could define collective intelligence as a fully distributed  intelligence that is continuously enhanced and synergized in real-time" (Lèvy, 1999:76).  However, Negri and Hardt's concept of multitudes transcends virtual profiles and asserts  its presence in public spaces and offline arenas. It differs from the traditional category  of people in that the people is homogeneous whereas the multitude is plural (2004: 16),  it is not an identity and, in contrast with the homogeneous, irresponsible and easily  manipulated mass, the multitude is plural and highly rational. "The common ground of a  multitude is not discovered, it is built" (Hardt and Negri, 2004: 17).  
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 02 May 12
       
      The area of action in the 13 March 2004 protests was clearly offline, as the streets of  Madrid became spaces for public discussion and hundreds of citizens gathered in  peaceful civil disobedience. This kind of political action lifestyle-based: "Everybody  mistrusted mainstream media and career politicians. To one degree or another, everyone  debated and coordinated the protests in their own name and using their own means. (…)  They positioned themselves in the transformative left or, at the very least, in a state of  vigilant citizenship" (Sampedro, 2005:291-292).  
Arabica Robusta

Peru's great transformation - Opinion - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...2012614113713713304.html

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry peru newmont gold humala

shared by Arabica Robusta on 26 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Since Humala took office, ten people have died in social conflicts in Peru, more than 120 civilians have been wounded, and states of emergency have been declared in two regions. More than 120 farming leaders and human rights defenders are reportedly under criminal investigation for their alleged involvement in protests against foreign mining companies, including one provincial and one state governor, a priest, and two Catholic Church workers.
  • Peruvian groups such as Red Muqui and CONACAMI, a nation-wide coalition of mining communities, say they are not against mining. They want a national zoning plan to designate areas for mining and other industry, agriculture and protected reserves. They're also demanding a moratorium on mining in watersheds and the use of cyanide in gold mining operations.
  • During the strike in November, Humala's prime minister, Salomon Lerner, a left-leaning businessman, was sent to negotiate. He wasn't given much time. One day after Lerner initiated talks, the president trumped him by declaring a state of emergency. This meant that civil liberties were suspended and martial law was in effect. At least 28 people were injured during brutal police repression, including a young farmer who was reportedly paralysed by a rubber bullet fired by police. Lerner resigned, allowing Humala to re-stock his cabinet with a decided shift to the right.
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  • The president's national security advisor is Adrian Villafuerte, an ex-colonel with alleged ties to Vladimiro Montesinos, the notorious security adviser to former president Alberto Fujimori. Both Fujimori and Montesinos are currently in jail for human rights abuses and corruption. Humala himself was an army captain during Fujimori's rule, and had been accused of crimes such as torture and forced disappearances when he was in charge of the Madre Mia military base. The case against Humala was shelved, but human rights groups in Peru are not satisfied and want to see the former captain on trial.
  • In an attempt to end the conflict, Oscar Mollohuanca, Espinar's provincial governor, asked the national government to mediate talks with the mining company. The following day, while Mollohuanca met with local leaders to plan the negotiations, about 50 police commandos reportedly burst into his office in a scene reminiscent of the reality show Cops.
  • Father Marco Arana, one of the protest leaders, says the government finds it easier to look for scapegoats than "to admit it has a widespread social problem". According to Peru's government ombudsman's office, there are 171 "active social conflicts" across the nation, most centred on mining, petroleum and hydroelectric projects.
  • "You were elected to be the champion of democracy, and not plutocracy, Mr President," wrote Gorriti. "There's still time to adjust your path. I hope you do so. Your success would be a triumph for all of us."
Arabica Robusta

Protest Coverage in Haiti and Venezuela Reveals U.S. Media Hypocrisy | North American C... - 0 views

nacla.org/...ela-reveals-us-media-hypocrisy

venezuela maduro chavez social movements us intervention

shared by Arabica Robusta on 23 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Both Venezuela and Haiti have been facing anti-government protests, with the respective oppositions citing poor leadership, corruption, electoral fraud, and a deteriorating economy as their primary motivations in calling for change. However, the international media’s escalation of the Venezuelan crisis and their complete silence when it comes to Haiti, raises some important questions about the United States’ inconsistency in upholding the values of human rights and democracy.
  • As evidence of Martelly’s unbridled commitment to democracy, instead of holding elections for mayors whose terms expired in 2012, he personally handpicked the representatives, appointing them as “municipal agents.”
  • Because the Haitian Senate has only 16 of 30 members currently active, the impeachment vote was not passed on a technicality. This was in spite of the decision, which saw 7 of the 16 members vote in favor of Martelly’s impeachment, with 9 abstentions and 0 voting against the motion. According to the Haitian Constitution, abstentions do not count as votes—with Article 117 stating that “All acts of the Legislature must be approved by a majority of the members present [emphasis added].” Thus, in regular circumstances the decision by the Senate would move forward with the impeachment. Therefore, this purposefully fragmented political system does a great deal to serve the interests of impunity.
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  • This political crisis is especially worrying when the murder of opposition leaders in Haiti has gone largely unreported in the international press. Most recently, on February 8, Daniel Dorsainvil, one of Haiti’s leading human rights activists and his wife Girldy Lareche were gunned down in Port au Prince. While conflicted motives for the shooting have emerged, Haiti’s human rights community fears that the murders were politically motivated.
  • In October 2013, human rights lawyer Andre Michel was arrested by the Haitian National Police due to his initiation of legal proceedings against Martelly’s wife and son related to charges of corruption, which Judge Joseph oversaw before his death.
  • The lack of media attention regarding Martelly’s consistent attacks on popular organizations and human rights defenders in Haiti, in contrast to Venezuela is a stark reminder of how abuses of power can be marginalized if one has influential friends in the right places.
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