BOGOTA, January 20, 2010 — El Salvador’s Petition of Forgiveness breaks 18 years of total impunity for serious human rights abuses committed during the country’s civil war, the International Center for Transitional Justice said yesterday. “With this act, El Salvador takes a first step to overcome the state of neglect and denial that had characterized the state policy thus far, and, in this way, to move toward a more meaningful agenda on human rights issues,” said ICTJ Americas Director Javier Ciurlizza. As a next step, El Salvador should fulfill the recommendations of the 1993 truth commission, in particular those related to criminal prosecutions for perpetrators of the most serious human rights violations, as well...
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January 20, 2010 Haiti Earthquake, #8 200,000 dead, 1.5 million homeless … and more aftershocks hit Haiti this morning Please encourage people to make tax-deductible donations to Rights Action and/or directly to the groups listed below Re-distribute this information all around To get on/off our list-serv: http://www.rightsaction.org/lists/?p=subscribe&id=3 WATCH NEWS REPORTS 0.43 second, TheRealNews report (January 18): “Haiti: bodies outside the General Hospital”: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4727 Democracy Now report (January 20) with Dr. Evan Lyon of Partners in Health on provision of medical attention: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/20/devastated_port_au_prince_hospital_struggles 3.09 minute, AlJazeera report (January 18): “Disputes emerge over Haiti aid control: Most Haitians have seen little aid. What they have seen is guns”: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4729&updaterx=2010-01-18+05%3A26%3A13 9.57 minutes, TheRealNews report (January 18): “Haiti:...
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BBC News The leading US general in Haiti has said it is a “reasonable assumption” that up to 200,000 people may have died in last Tuesday’s earthquake. Lt Gen Ken Keen said the disaster was of “epic proportions”, but it was “too early to know” the full human cost. Rescuers pulled more people alive from the rubble at the weekend, but at least 70,000 people have already had burials. Relief efforts are being slowed by bottlenecks, and many thousands of survivors are fending for themselves. Many Haitians are trying to leave the devastated capital city of Port-au-Prince, and there are security concerns amid reports of looting and violence.
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By Peter Hallward, January 14, 2010 [An earlier version of this article first appeared in the British Guardian. If we are serious about assisting this devastated land we must stop trying to control and exploit it. Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti’s capital city on the afternoon of January 13, but it’s no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone. Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another thoroughly manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence.
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January 18, 2010 Haiti Earthquake, #7 – ELDERLY AWAIT DEATH AT NURSING HOME Please read and re-distribute these Haiti Earthquake reports and encourage people to make donations to Rights Action and/or groups listed below. BELOW Article: “Elderly await death at nursing home” Article: “Haiti quake toll ‘may be 200,000′” Article: “The west’s role in haiti’s plight” “U.S. General Keen, running the US military relief effort, when asked about death toll estimates of between 150,000 and 200,000 people, said: “I think the international community is looking at those figures, and I think that’s a start point. Clearly, this is a disaster of epic proportions, and we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.” –...
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CALL TO ACTION: Join Witness Against Torture January 11-22, 2010 in a Fast and Vigil to Shut Down Guantanamo, End Torture and Build Justice “I believe strongly that torture is not moral, legal or effective.” Guantanamo is “a damaging symbol to the world… a rallying cry for terrorist recruitment and harmful to our national security, so closing it is important for our national security.” Admiral Dennis Blair. January 2009. On January 22, 2009, after signing the Executive Order to close Guantanamo, President Obama said “This is me following through … on an understanding that dates back to our founding fathers, that we are willing to observe core standards of conduct not just when it’s...
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HAITI Sharing Meager Supplies, as Graves Multiply By Ansel Herz Children in Cité Soleil, Haiti, play with a kite made from a plastic bag among the shanty town’s rubble. Credit:UN Photo/Logan Abassi PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 17, 2010 (IPS) – Millions of dollars in aid are pouring into Haiti. Another head of state visits each day. The misery in Port-Au-Prince dominates the news nearly a week after the 7.0 earthquake struck the heart of this island country. What has changed on the streets of Haiti’s capital city since the tremors? The Haitian people have mobilised, while foreign aid efforts continue to stall. More tents have been erected in the roads where Haitians gathered, away from crumbling...
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January 17, 2010 Haiti Earthquake, #6 Sign-on letter to the New York Times. Reject their “Blame the Victims” analysis Dear friends, we are still only beginning to grasp the extent of death and destruction. Please continue to read and re-distribute these Haiti Earthquake reports and encourage people to make donations. The estimates of people killed are over 100,000 Mass graves are being dug and filled with bodies and covered up, with no identifying process Watch CNN television news for daily reporting from Haiti (though CNN provides misleading analysis of the underlying causes of so much death and destruction) SIGN-ON LETTER Many have heard the racist, denigrating and harmful comments of Pat Robertson and Rush...
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