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RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN RIGHTS
E-Newsletter
Vol.2 No.28
July 10, 2000
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Religious Perspectives on Human Rights is now available online at: http://www.rghr.net
Religious Perspectives on Human Rights is a weekly e-newsletter issued by Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic and Christian Groups on Human Rights, initiated by the Asian Human Rights Commission.
1)
MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS DEMONSTRATE NEIGHBOURLY LOVE IN THE FACE
OF ORCHESTRATED RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE
The South China Morning Post reported today [Source: Agence
Frace-Presse] an incident in which a Muslim family whose house
was burnt down by a Christian mob was rescued by their Christian
neighbours. The mother of the Muslim family said "if
Christians came [to my house] I would give them food and drink as
I would anyone else", but said that she realises that the
cycle of violent reprisals means that no Christians will venture
into her Muslim neighbourhood.
The report demonstrates that the violence does not stem from a
true religious hatred, but rather is being deliberately
orchestrated by those who stand to gain politically from the
destabilisation of Indonesia. Ordinary Ambonese citizens
continue to live out their faith in an egalitarian and
compassionate way in the face of unchecked fanatical
violence. This inspires us to do the same in our own (far
less brutal) situations, and to support the efforts of those who
yearn for peace in Maluku.
2)
INDONESIAN CHRISTIANS SEEK UN HELP
Friday, 7 July, 2000 [Source: BBC World Service]
Three Indonesian Christian leaders have gone to Geneva to
plead for United Nations help following the flare-up of violence
between Christians and Muslims in the Moluccan islands. One of
the three, Joseph Pattiasina told the BBC that the Indonesian
authorities are no longer able to curb violence on the island of
Ambon. He said that during an attack by Muslims on a Christian
village yesterday the army did nothing to intervene. Mr
Pattiasina said if no action was taken, there would soon be no
Christians on Ambon.
The Indonesian government has always said it opposes any kind
of foreign interference. But it's said it would welcome
humanitarian aid for the tens of thousands of victims of the
conflict.
3)
UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER TO VISIT INDONESIA
The Asian Human Rights Commission has learnt that the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Mary Robinson, is scheduled to
travel to Jakarta to meet with President Wahid to sign a new
Memorandum of Understand for the promotion of human rights in
Indonesia.
The visit is not related to the humanitarian crisis in Maluku,
but there is nothing to stop Ms. Robinson discussing the issue
and urging Pres. Wahid to seek international assistance in
resolving the murderous situation that has claimed up to 4,000
lives in the past 18 months.
AHRC hopes that many people will write to Ms. Robinson to urge
her to seek President Wahid's blessing for the UN to provide
technical, humanitarian, monitoring and peace-keeping assistance
in Maluku.
Next week's E-NEWSLETTER will provide more details on this
action.
4)
CAMBODIA LEADS MOVE TOWARDS ENDING USE OF CHILD SOLDIERS IN ASIA
Remove Child Soldiers from Armed Conflicts! War Is Not
Child's Play
In the Kathmandu Declaration on the Use of Children as
Soldiers issued at the end of a conference in May,
recommendations were made to end the military recruitment by both
government armed forces and anti-government armed opposition
groups of children under the age of 18, a practice which has led
to more than 300,000 child soldiers worldwide currently
participating in armed conflicts. In Asia, this phenomenon is
evident in Cambodia, Burma, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, the
Uyghur uprising in Xinjiang Province in China, Nepal,
Afghanistan, Kashmir and insurgencies in northeastern India,
according to the Asia report published in May by the Coalition to
Stop the Use of Child Soldiers based in London (see the
coalition's web site at <www.child-soldiers.org>
for a copy of the report).
Since the Asia-Pacific Conference on the Use of Children as
Soldiers brought together government officials and
representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Nepal
from 15-18 May, the coalition has noted that a major development
has taken place in the international community's effort to stop
the use of children to fight the wars created by adults. In late
May, the coalition reports, the Optional Protocol to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly. The first Asian country
to sign the new Optional Protocol, the coalition adds, is
Cambodia, which took this initiative on 28 June. This is a
significant step forward as the coalition's Asia report explains
that child soldiers-girls as well as boys-had their childhoods
destroyed by the country's civil war as they were used by both
the Khmer Rouge and the government to fight the war, a practice
which continued into the 1990s. Today, the report continues,
Cambodia faces the major task of demobilising, rehabilitating and
reintegrating these children back into society, a responsibility
which has not been addressed by any demobilisation plans.
Other steps taken by the international community to prevent
children from becoming soldiers include Convention 182 of the
International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Statute of the
International Criminal Court and U.N. Security Council Resolution
1261 passed in August 1999. Under the ILO convention, forced or
compulsory recruitment of children under the age of 18 is
considered one of the worst forms of child labour. In the Statute
of the International Criminal Court, the use or enlistment of
children under the age of 15 in armed conflict is a war crime,
whether they are recruited for an international conflict between
countries or for an internal national conflict. In addition, the
U.N. Security Council, building on last year's resolution, will
once again debate the issue at the end of August this year. The
Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers adds, moreover, that
various regional governmental bodies-the Organisation of African
Unity (OAU), the Organisation of American States (OAS), and the
Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)-as well as
the Nordic foreign ministers have all endorsed measures to stop
the use of child soldiers.
The coalition notes, however, that similar responses in Asia
by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) have not
yet been taken, and it calls upon NGOs and others concerned about
the issue of child soldiers to lobby their governments to not
only take steps to eradicate the use of child soldiers in their
country but, building on the initiative of Cambodia, to push
their government to sign the Optional Protocol to the CRC and to
urge ASEAN and SAARC to take action as well to endorse the
protocol. At the meeting in Kathmandu,
the representative from the Indonesian government indicated that
Indonesia would be willing to bring this issue before ASEAN. In
the opinion of the coalition, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines
and Thailand will be willing to support this initiative while
Burma and Singapore will resist this move. Similar efforts, the
coalition says, should also be made in the SAARC countries of
India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the
Maldives.
By signing the Optional Protocol, governments must set 18 as
the minimum age for recruiting soldiers. These requirements, the
coalition and the Kathmandu Declaration add, must be enshrined in
national legislation and must be enforced. Furthermore, all
soldiers who are under the age of 18 must be demobilised from the
armed forces.
Because the problem of child soldiers is often transnational
in nature as children in one country are recruited for conflicts
in another, the coalition seeks a regional response to the issue,
and thus, ASEAN and SAARC are seen as important forums for
addressing the issue. With the endorsement of ASEAN and SAARC,
this will create additional pressure for member governments of
these regional bodies to sign the Optional Protocol and to take
action to stop the use of child soldiers in conflicts in
Southeast and South Asia.
In addition to these measures, the Kathmandu Declaration, in
promoting mandatory, accessible and quality education for all
children, urges governments not to include compulsory basic
military training into educational curriculums and to adjust
their national budgets to reflect the priorities of education and
development rather than expenditures for the military. The
declaration also encourages communities to create "Child
Solder Free Zones" or "Weapons Free Zones" as a
local response to the use of children as soldiers.
Among the factors leading to the use of children as soldiers,
the declaration lists poverty and economic disparity, injustice,
displacement, a lack of educational opportunities, the
proliferation of arms and a culture of militarisation within
society. Unemployment and the economic conditions just
mentioned-poverty and economic disparity-also generate the
conditions for armed conflict, the declaration explains, as do
intolerance and discrimination and issues related to one's
identity.
To resolve these problems, the declaration calls for peaceful
alternatives that utilise and build upon traditional, non-violent
means of resolving conflicts and to involve children in the
difficult task of building peace and reconciliation in society by
introducing structures and processes for children to participate
in policymaking and in all phases of designing, implementing,
monitoring and evaluating programmes.
As for healing the long-term wounds left by war, the drafters
of the declaration recommend that local indigenous cultures and
belief systems be used to aid child soldiers and their families
and communities to overcome the trauma and pain of their recent
experience with violence. Governments and NGOs must also work to
facilitate reconciliation and forgiveness, the declaration
continues, remembering that child soldiers are victims of
violence as well as tools used in perpetuating it. The
declaration also calls for a holistic approach to reintegrating
child soldiers back into society through strategies that
incorporate education, vocational training, income-generating
programmes and trauma counselling.
The militarisation of the childhood of Asia's youth is, of
course, a reflection of the militarisation of society as a whole.
Its ramifications, however, extend far beyond present conflicts
and involve the determination of values and acceptable levels of
violence in Asian societies in the future as today's child
soldiers become tomorrow's adult citizens and decision makers if
they survive their experience as child soldiers. What, for
instance, will be the attitude toward the use of violence of
those who have killed other human beings and who have witnessed
death as a part of daily life as a child? It is these
implications, as well as protecting the lives of Asia's children,
that call for an urgent response to the issue of child soldiers
by NGOs and other members of civil society, including members of
the country's religious community.
5)
REMINDER: HIROSHIMA DAY - 6 AUGUST TO BE A DAY OF PRAYER
- For the victims of all nuclear accidents.
- For the ratification of CTBT and the NPT
- For the adoption of measures to prevent break-out, nuclear
theft and nuclear terrorism/criminality
- For opposing the production, testing, and the use of weapons of
mass destruction.
Posted on 2000-07-10
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