The trial of former Guatemalan General Rios Montt, accused of human rights abuses and genocide against Indigenous Peoples, displacing nearly 30,000 Guatemalans and overseeing thousands of acts of sexual violence, is underway. Today, the defense asked that the trial be suspended. Follow the trial:

On Twitter:

@xeni

@RiosMonttTrial

@NISGUA_Guate

@PzPenVivo

Online:

http://www.riosmontt-trial.org/

http://www.wola.org/highlight/para_que_se_conozca_blog_covering_the_rios_montt_trial

http://www.ghrc-usa.org/

http://www.awid.org/eng%3D/Library/Guatemala-Genocide-Trial-Begins-Be-Part-of-this-Historic-Process

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2013/0404/Guatemala-Rios-Montt-trial-hears-testimony-on-conflict-era-sexual-violence

I recently attended an event at the 57^th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, on “Women, Peace, and Security: Elusive Opportunity for Afro-Colombian Women in Conflict Zones.” It focused on violence against women and security in times of so-called peace and in times of war. The panel featured four women from four different organizations: Black Communities Process: PCN, Global Rights, The Center for Women’s Global Leadership, and AFAB (Association of Haitian of Women in Boston).

Carline Desire, the executive direction of AFAB, is dedicated to promoting Haitian women’s rights. She reminded us how instrumental the role of women was in the revolution that led to the independence of Haiti in 1804 yet how brutally they were and are treated. A strong wave of women’s rights protests emerged in the 1990s with thousands of women marching through the streets of Port-au-Prince demanding more political representation, only to be violently rebuffed. Rape has been used as a tool of political suppression and a virtual epidemic has emerged since the earthquake in 2010. Economic insecurity has also led to sexual exploitation, as women are forced to exchange sex for food.

Carline added, it is essential to raise awareness and work on providing education for girls, vocational trainings for women and gender education for young boys and girls in the school system.

This was a point of convergence between Carline and another woman on the panel: Charo Mina Roja, the director of PCN. She emphasized the disconnect that exists between different parts of Colombia. Colombia has the fourth largest economy in the Latin American region, yet there are rural areas that are disproportionately poor compared to very rich regions of the country. Colombia has signed all the international agreements on women and children’s rights yet minorities like Afro-Colombians (which she is a part of) are constantly marginalized, Afro-Colombian women are significantly unequal to non-Afro-Colombian women, and Colombian women in general are constantly assaulted. As Charo put it, “women cannot be women” because of the violence imposed by the paramilitaries who constantly use them as targets to prevent any political action.

A woman in the audience posed a thought-provoking and inevitable question: what can we do to change these circumstances? The program director at the CWGL emphasized a principle that MADRE holds dear: she reaffirmed how important it is to partner with local groups and grassroots organizations to help women meet the needs on the ground that they themselves identify. Charo Mina Roja added that raising awareness is essential and international solidarity is very important. Carline ended by reminding us that NGOs cannot intervene in other countries by imposing their own frameworks: women need to be empowered, need to speak for themselves and should not let others speak on their behalf. We need, in other words, to make big international organization shift their paradigm and focus on giving women the help they say they need, not the help outsiders think they need.

The women at this panel were all incredibly inspiring in their commitment to promoting peace and security within their communities. Not only are they dedicated to women’s human rights but they are also proactively fight to give women a voice. As Carline put it, “We do not need charity but solidarity”. At MADRE, we fight every day with our partners around the globe to promote such solidarity.

In Colombia, MADRE partners with our sister organization Taller de Vida to provide resources, rehabilitation, and healing through art to former child soldiers. When our partners gave a group of children the chance to express themselves through drawings, they spoke of their experiences and their hopes in their own unique voices.

Below are a few of their drawings and their thoughts. (Click on each image to enlarge.)

I do not want to go back to an armed group and experience how I spent my childhood. I do not want to go back and be in an armed group or stay on a mountain and endure the cold or listen to the helicopters of the army.

I want to take a few steps to teach me more about love, happiness, the most important thing for me is to lead a new life, watch the sun brighten more light my path every day. I want to help children and help them recognize the resources they have.

I do not want to go back and live what I lived through. I do not want to shoot others and make them suffer in the worst possible way and feel alone in the world.

The step I would like to take in my life is to take back what I never had. And now I would like to study to move forward and help my family and be happy which is why I do what I can to have moral and strength to be what I want to be: a nurse, and to always have my own thoughts.

I do not want to go back to the hatred, the resentment, to a river of blood, pain, violation. I do not want to go back and see a lot of young people in the war. “The world is full of obstacles that you need to know how to cross”

What I do not want to have to live again is to belong again to the armed insurgency group and have to go back to being separated from my family.

What I want most is to feel as free as the air to take a step forward. And to overcome everything I would like to take a step to enable myself and be a good person. And I hope that tomorrow I can tell my story without fear and without fear and dread.

Former Guatemalan Dictator Rios Montt will finally stand trial for genocide during the Guatemalan Civil War – 30 years after the crimes he perpetrated took place.

The 36-year-long US-backed civil war officially came to an end in 1996. The state-sponsored violence led by Montt in 1982 and 1983 disproportionately targeted Indigenous communities.  The military campaign killed more than 200,000 Indigenous Peoples and displaced one million in Guatemala, as well as driving more than 200,000 to take refuge in Mexico.

MADRE has previously called for Montt’s prosecution following the sentencing of a former Guatemalan special forces member who took part in the murders of 201 Indigenous Peoples to 6,060 years in prison.

In 2011, MADRE traced the origins of an ongoing femicide, in which nearly 5,000 women have been killed, to the conflict that technically ended in 1996:

Multiple human rights investigations have found evidence that this violence against women was part of a systematic counterinsurgency strategy by the government. Over one million members of the Guatemalan army, paramilitary forces and police were trained to attack women with rape, mutilation and torture. Today’s attacks reproduce the gruesome tactics of these wartime atrocities.

Many Guatemalan feminists say that is because the perpetrators were never brought to justice once the peace accords were signed in 1996. They were simply re-absorbed into society, taking on new roles as police or in powerful criminal gangs that infiltrated many government agencies.

MADRE found that the same patterns of intentional, militarized violence against women were repeating themselves in Iraq following the 10 year US occupation. More of that analysis can be found here.

Despite a history of state-sponsored violence in countries including Colombia, Nicaragua, and Argentina, Montt will be the first ex-President to be charged with genocide in a Latin American court.

Since the beginning of this year, Helping Hands has already received over 100 packages from around the world containing contacts, toiletries, school supplies, and medicine. Each donation we receive helps communities meet their immediate needs, aiding in their ability to carry on their extraordinary work to advance woman’s human rights.

We work closely with our sister organizations to provide those items they need the most. Most of the donations we receive from our MADRE supporters are personally unsolicited. This means that people have come across the work that we and our sister organizations do and send in items that are urgently needed.

As a humanitarian aid intern, hundreds of packages come across my desk each month. The generosity I see, not just from the donation itself, but the kind words in the accompanying letters, are inspiring. In the midst of several dozen donations received over the holiday season, two arrived that exemplify the core of our work.

One package contained 72 whistles and lanyards and the other 100 whistles and wind-up flashlights, tools that provide safety and security to women in communities vulnerable to sexual violence. These items were sent in response to the broadcast of CNN Heroes that introduced

Whistles and flashlights for our sisters in Haiti made possible by generous donations!

hundreds of thousands of viewers to the work of KOFAVIV and Malya Villard-Appolon. Not only did these donors learn of the situation in Haitian displacement camps, but they sought out ways after the program to find out how to assist. To see so many people moved to action after viewing the telecast is a testament to the power of Mayla’s story and the courage of those in KOFAVIV.

There are many ways to support the work of KOFAVIV and the other programs of Helping Hands. Not only can you donate material or financial aid, but Helping Hands also calls upon volunteers when packing our larger shipments. That is how I began at MADRE, and it is work I continue during my time here. The other day I packed a bag full of flashlights and whistles to send to our partners at KOFAVIV thanks to our wonderful MADRE supporters. Every donation is not just an act of generosity but a sign of solidarity.

If you would like to donate to any one of Helping Hands programs, please visit our site with our list of requested items.

On January 21, 2013, MADRE called on President Obama to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Throughout this week, we will be calling attention to instances in which CEDAW has made a concrete difference in the lives of women around the world.

On May 10, 2006, Colombia ended it’s previously total ban on abortion. Under the new law, abortion is permitted in cases of rape and incest, if the mother’s life is at risk, and if the fetus is no longer viable. Being allowed to abort in instances where the fetus cannot or has not survived is essential to women’s health and futures. The decision brought Colombia’s law in line with most of South America, where access to abortion is often difficult to come by but is largely legal when the mother’s health is at risk.

The case that changed the law was brought forward on the strength of Colombia’s ratification of CEDAW. CEDAW guarantees a number of other reproductive health freedoms and allows women to pursue their rights with the weight of international human rights advances.

On January 21, 2013, MADRE called on President Obama to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Throughout this week, we will be calling attention to instances in which CEDAW has made a concrete difference in the lives of women around the world.

In 2009, Grettel Rodríguez Almeida survived an attempted murder by her boyfriend, who had previously threatened to harm her and commit suicide. He used a knife to leave deep wounds in her stomach and slashed her face. When she arrived at the hospital, staff began suturing her wounds without anesthesia to save her life. Her boyfriend was caught still holding the weapon several hours later.

Grettel’s attacker’s charges were lessened from attempted murder to aggravated assault, and he served less than two years in jail. Grettel lived in fear that he would come after her. In 2012, she won an extended legal battle in Mexico’s Supreme Court. The unprecedented decision re-opened her case with the far more serious charge of attempted murder.

In a filing that played a significant role in having Grettel’s case re-opened, the United Nation’s Human Rights Office in Mexico drew the court’s attention to its obligations in light of its ratification of CEDAW, noting that “the failure to duly investigate and punish violence in the private sphere sends a message of social acceptance” and that “the administration of justice must avoid reinforcing prejudice and stereotypes that justify, tolerate or minimize the intrinsic gravity of acts of violence against women.” This is one way that CEDAW is used as a tool to make international human rights standards a reality in the lives of oppressed and marginalized people throughout the world.

You’ve heard the story of the butterfly in Asia that flapped its wings and caused a tsunami in North America? In our increasingly globalized world, every policy change is a butterfly wing flap that has the potential to create a chain reaction that can result in food shortages, a climate crisis, or a democratic revolution halfway around the planet. In the case of biofuel, the United States’ purported attempts to cut down on oil dependence and even help the environment are a direct cause of malnutrition in places like Guatemala, where MADRE partners with the Women Workers’ Committee in Barcenas and the Indigenous women of Muixil.

A recent New York Times article observed that:

With its corn-based diet and proximity to the United States, Central America has long been vulnerable to economic riptides related to the United States’ corn policy. Now that the United States is using 40 percent of its crop to make biofuel, it is not surprising that tortilla prices have doubled in Guatemala, which imports nearly half of its corn.

The result has been severe and widespread malnutrition, and an uprooted population as families move to find work.

This problem is not new, nor is it limited to Guatemala. “In a globalized world, the expansion of the biofuels industry has contributed to spikes in food prices and a shortage of land for food-based agriculture in poor corners of Asia, Africa and Latin America because the raw material is grown wherever it is cheapest,” says the New York Times. What long-term good might be done by moving away from fossil fuel dependency is countered by the immediate human suffering of the unexamined consequences of new kinds of consumption. Misael Gonzáles of C.U.C., a labor union for Guatemala’s farmers, noted in the same article, ‘These people don’t have enough to eat. They need food. They need land. They can’t eat biofuel, and they don’t drive cars.’”

One analysis the article cited found that corn, which constitutes a large part of the Guatemalan diet and is now prohibitively expensive, cutting some families monetary access by half, would be 17 percent cheaper if the United States did not incentivize biofuel consumption.

As MADRE warned in a 2007 statement:

If we don’t reduce the demand for energy by consuming less, we risk a scenario in which most of the Earth’s arable land will be dedicated to growing ‘fuel crops’ instead of food crops. Growing agro-fuels on a mass scale is already jacking up food prices, depleting soil and water supplies, destroying forests, and violating the rights of Indigenous and local people in areas newly designated as ‘biofuel plantations.’

The Earth itself is, in fact, a finite resource; in order to preserve it, we must address overall energy consumption as well as ways to make the forms of energy we do use more generally renewable.

More than five years ago, MADRE observed that, “We need to consume less, not just differently, and steer clear of solutions that would expand the reach-and all the pitfalls-of industrialized agriculture. Creative and practical solutions for meeting our energy requirements-including some local, sustainable agrofuel programs-are being developed around the world. We can support proposals for developing sustainable renewable energy sources, while recognizing the need to reduce overall consumption .” That need to reduce overall consumption has never been addressed, and the world’s population continues to expand, having recently exceeded 7 billion. The only sustainable solution remains to consume less and in better ways.

Today is the 3rd anniversary of the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti that killed more than 300,000 people and left more than a million more homeless. Our partners at KOFAVIV have released a statement; we share it with you below.

A day like no other, an unforgettable day, a day of mourning, a day of pain, misery and torment. It is a day that we will never be able to forget, where we had to count the bodies of the thousands of our brothers and sisters who died in the January 12, 2010 earthquake. A day where hope had disappeared, a day where Mother Nature was in a fury against humankind.

January 12, 2013 marks 3 years since complete darkness fell on Haiti. We do not have the right to forget  the women who were fighting against violence endured by women in Haiti, especially the members of KOFAVIV who fell that day.  We salute the memory of these brave women, and we also want to take this opportunity to salute all of our friends and partners  who came to our aid :

MADRE, CNN, BAI/ IJDH, Massimo, Henry Mars, Digital Democracy, UNHCR, Heartland Alliance/We-Lead, Limye Lavi, IRC, Haiti Solidarite, Lambi Fund, Seksyon dwa Lom, Network, Beverly Bell and all of our other partners from the United Kingdom. We would like to thank all of our partners and we want to tell them that we would like to keep collaborating because the battle is not yet over.

KOFAVIV will keep fighting to forward the idea of a better tomorrow, to help victims get justice, and for impunity to end.

<< Men nan men san silans ak anpil tolerans nap kwape vyolans>>

Hand in hand, with a lot of tolerance, we’ll break the silence and put an end to violence

The New York Times recently published an article on Haiti’s Silenced Victims. Our friend and partner Malya Villard-Appolon of KOFAVIV wrote to them in response. We have published her letter here.

When a woman here in Haiti is raped, it is very difficult for her to find justice. I am a rape survivor; my friend Eramithe is a rape survivor; many of our friends and family members are rape survivors. But we have found resilience and strength, and learned to fight back. Eramithe and I co-founded KOFAVIV, an organization by and for survivors of sexual violence. In partnership with MADRE, an international women’s human rights group, we help provide medical care and counseling, and work to improve Haiti’s criminal justice system. And we are seeing progress. A new bill that we have worked on would create real changes in the way sexual assault cases are handled, providing relief for women like the one who inspired this article. We need support from the international community to make sure our government does the right thing and passes this bill into law.

Malya Villard-Appolon, KOFAVIV, 2012 CNN Hero