How Human Rights Watch Covers for Companies in Colombia

Down Where the Death Squads Live

Counterpunch

October 29, 2013

by Daniel Kovalik

On the CounterPunch masthead are these words proudly written, “Tells the Facts, Names the Names.” It’s because CounterPunch lives up to these words that I happily write for it and proudly donate to it.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), on the other hand, fails to name the names in its recent report on Colombia entitled, “The Risk of Returning Home, Violence and Threats against Displaced People Reclaiming Land in Colombia.” [1] And, this is much to HRW’s discredit.

Before diving into the report and its grave shortcomings, some general comments about HRW are in order. For years, I have been concerned about what appears to be HRW’s penchant for helping lay the groundwork for U.S. and NATO strikes against claimed enemies of the West. Most recently, HRW’s Executive Director, Kenneth Roth, has been fulminating on his Twitter account against anyone, including the EU, who refuses to acknowledge what has yet to be proven as fact – that the Syrian government was allegedly responsible for the chemical attack of August 21, 2013.

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Emasculation of the African with Awards, Grants and Prizes

From where I sit

October 25, 2013

by Sophia Tesfamariam

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image above: “This past weekend, Hillary Clinton hailed Banda for taking charge in introducing economic reform. Banda passed an austerity budget permitting, Kwacha (Malawi’s currency), to devalue by about 49 percent in order for the IMF to loan it $156.2 million to help the country meet its payments. Clinton also promised to spend over $46 million in the coming three years in the agricultural sector.” “Malawi’s Activists Turned Politicians”, August 7, 2012

 

Iam always amazed at how much time and energy is spent by those of European decent discussing “Africa’s development”. Birgit Brock-Utne, an astute European educator of Norwegian origin, wrote the following in her book[1] about those who insist on preaching to Africa about development:

“… when Europeans came to Africa toward the turn of the fifteenth century, they found a prosperous civilization and enormous wealth. Agriculture and cattle rearing, iron-work, pottery, fishery, salt-mining, gold refining and ornament making, weaving, hunting, and long-distance trading were well advanced at a time and Europe was still relatively backward…From the fifteenth century on, however, the fate of the two continents reversed….Africa stagnated for over three centuries as a direct result of slavery and colonial conquests. This part of global history, for the sake of maintaining a correct historical perspective on Africa and Europe, must always be kept in mind when looking at the contemporary African situation…The bulk of the African people fought heroically against the imposition of slavery and colonialism, though there were some Africans who collaborated with the white slave-hunters and colonialists as well…”

History of post-colonial Africa is replete with shameful stories of African collaborators who worked to undermine the progress and development of their own peoples. The west’s “divide and rule” tactics resulted in intractable conflicts, destruction and devastation of Africa, leaving its people at the mercy of the neo-cons and their political and economic systems that have sustained poverty through poverty perpetuating programs. The Structural Adjustment Programs of the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are an example. →

(ARTICULO) Yasuní: Entre el eco-fundamentalismo y el Socialismo del Buen Vivir

nuestroamericano.org

En los últimos seis años se ha venido impulsando la iniciativa revolucionaria para mantener el crudo en el subsuelo del Parque Nacional Yasuní, reserva mundial de biosfera. Este proyecto tenía como objetivo que los países industrializados, que son los más contaminantes del planeta [1], asuman su responsabilidad para con el calentamiento global y finalmente realicen un aporte concreto y tangible para evitar la explotación de 846 millones de barriles de petróleo del campo Yasuní ITT [2]. La intención detrás de esta iniciativa era recaudar alrededor de $3.5 billones de dólares, suma que constituye un valor ínfimo en relación al potencial económico que significaría la explotación de este campo. Dicha suma sería destinada a programas que fomenten la reducción de la pobreza, la educación y el desarrollo social, así como el de fuentes renovables de energía, mantener los ecosistemas y las áreas Protegidas, reforestar áreas degradadas, generación de empleo sustentable y mejorar la eficiencia energética, por ende, cambiar la matriz productiva del Ecuador. Lamentablemente, solo se logró recaudar el 0,37% de este monto total, es decir, alrededor de $376 millones de dólares [3]. De este modo, el Presidente Rafael Correa anunció la derogación de la iniciativa Yasuní ITT, así como el inicio de la explotación petrolera en la zona. →

Racist Amnesty International Trying to Incite Terror Against Eritrea

TesfaNews | Eritrea

May 12, 2013

By Amanuel Biedemariam

 

It has been a while since the international community has been assaulted by the criminal entity Amnesty International (AI) using human rights as excuse to demonize nations and leaders of specific nations targeted for destabilization in pursuit of US and Western hegemony. The reality however, Amnesty International has taken the amnesty out of humanity and became a killing tool by using criminals they call dissidents, political opposition and human rights activists to do their dirty jobs of terrorizing people, religious and national institutions in countries of interest. 

Oddly, the spokespersons that AI, Human Rights Watch and other Western pseudo-rights groups assign to speak on behalf of Africans are almost always Caucasian, with absolutely no connection to the countries they speak against on human rights matters. Not much is required from these players that are misleading Americans and the world about the issues they research and present. And there are no regulations or laws that govern their activities.

For the most part, all they do is establish expertise in the area of interest by researching these countries based on safety of their homes from schools and universities of the West. And when they go to other countries for research, it is normally a Western puppet country that they use to buttress their credentials. Then, all their work is considered credible and solid. Furthermore, when the so called researchers or employees of AI, HRW, Reporters Without Borders and ilk present their report, it gets special attention from the “mainstream” media. →

Human Rights Watch Lies about Chavez and Venezuela

Answering the slanders

LiberationNews.org

March 21, 2013

Human Rights Watch Official Website & Twitter Accounts Hacked by Syrian Electronic Army

March 18, 2013

Human Trafficking and the Human Rights Agenda Against Eritrea

Above image: Independent Eritrea – Eritrean soldiers march during the country’s Independence Day in Asmara. May 24, 2007.

Photo: Saba (Saba shoe factory), Independence Day carnival, BDHO Avenue Asmara Eritrea.

A Better People | Shedding light on Human Rights, Government, and Politics

by Simon Tesfamariam |  Red Sea Fisher

 March 16, 2013

“Africom has some sort of military “partnership”–bilateral agreements–with most of Africa’s 53 countries” but “the exceptions: Ivory Coast, Sudan, Eritrea and Libya. Ivory Coast is now in the bag. So is South Sudan. Libya may be next. The only ones left to be incorporated to Africom will be Eritrea and Zimbabwe.” Thus, Eritreans must be ready for any eventuality as the external forces that seek regime change in Eritrea–for simply not following their rules or refusing to kneel down–are left with no choice but to pull the human rights card. →

Human Rights Watch in Democratic Republic of the Congo … Watchdog or Master Puppeteer?

The New Times | Rwanda’s First Daily

September 14, 2012

Anneke Van Woudenberg is a researcher for Human Rights Watch.

HERE we go again… Human Rights Watch, true to its mantra of “Hating Rwanda Much” has come up with yet another damning report accusing Rwanda, alongside the M23 mutineers, of a “horrific trail of new atrocities in Eastern Congo” defined as large-scale war crimes. This, of course, reeks of déjà vu… an ‘encore’ of some sort! We have indeed already witnessed the same methodology and media relays with the UN Group of Experts (GoE) report on the matter. Interestingly enough, the author of the HRW report and Senior Researcher in its Africa Division, Anneke Van Woudenberg, was omnipresent in mainstream media, vouching for a report she didn’t author… or did she? The similarities are too striking to ignore. →

FLASHBACK 2007 | Hijacking Human Rights | Human Rights Watch

August 03, 2007

ZCommunications

by Michael Barker

In our increasingly public relations-driven world, it is of little surprise that cynical political elites regularly use the rhetoric of democracy, peace, and human rights to disguise their overtly anti-humanist policies. Why should we expect less of our leaders in a world where the corporate media wages a relentless war to manufacture our consent for ruling demagogues? Thus it seems a logical assumption that budding mind managers will attempt to pervert the very concepts that their voters/targets hold most dearly. That this doublespeak is rendered invisible in the mainstream media is a given, but the lack of debate about this process in the alternative media is more worrisome. →

Editorial: Partners in Crime

Intercontinental Cry

Jan 24, 2013

By Jay Taber

 

With the scandalous abuses of power by US, EU and UN humanitarian agencies over the last dozen years, little attention has been paid to the creation, co-optation and corruption of human rights NGOs that help lay the groundwork for humanitarian intervention using the militaries of NATO to subdue states resistant to US control. Yet, as an increasingly vital element of justifying military aggression for allegedly humanitarian purposes, NGOs like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have become what the Centre for the Study of Interventionism terms partners of the UN Human Rights Council that are in reality, “para-governmental organisations whose goal is to introduce the concept of interventionism in those regions where NATO and its allies want to intervene to pursue their geo-strategic interests.” →