HISTORY: Black Conquistador--16th Century > African American - Latino World

Black Conquistador

—16th Century

He is said to be
the first black man
in North America

As a black American exploring black Latino cultures, I'm not at all proud of his role in American history because he was an oppressed person of color who represented a government oppressing other people of color. He was known as Estevánico the Moor, or Esteban , Little Steven, or Stephen the Black. He was born a Muslim in Azzemour, Morocco around the year 1500, and is said to be the first black man in North America.

 

 

 

 

 


While a teenager he was enslaved by the Portuguese and was later sold to Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, a Spanish nobleman, and the two became close. They went on an expedition to colonize what the Spaniards referred to as the New World. Intending to check out the northern and western shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the Spanish ships were blown off course and landed in what is now known as Florida instead, and traveled on to a territory that eventually became known as Texas.

“He is a large and powerful man,
blessed with a shrewd and quick mind”
--- Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca
Because Estevánico was a talented man who learned five Native American languages and sign language, and because he is a self-made medicine man, the Spaniards used him as a scout and mediator with the natives. In March of 1539 Estevanico and a group of Spaniards went looking for the mythic Golden City and traveled northward to what is now Arizona. He came upon the Zuni settlement where the people suspected that Estevánico was a spy for the Spaniards, and killed him to protect their location. To prove that he was not the god many natives thought he was, they skinned him.

 

 

VIDEO: Paris Blues

Complete movie: ‘Paris Blues’, with Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier

A special treat on the jazzpages YouTube channel today: The complete motion picture ‘Paris Blues’.

The (thin) story is about two American jazzmen in Paris. Ram, played by Paul Newman, is a jazz musician who wants to be a composer, and his fellow musician Eddie (Sidney Poitier) has escaped from America’s racism to a more liberal Paris. One day they meet and fall in love with Lillian and Connie, two American girls who come to Paris on vacation. Ram and Eddie face the dilemma of whether to stay in Paris or go back to America.

The big pluses are a wonderful score by Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong’s amazing rendition of ‘Battle Royal’, a nicely used version of Ellington’s ‘Mood Indigo’, Christian Matras‘s luminous black and white cinemaphotography and a perless cast that brings to the project the needed bite that the script may occasionally lack.

 

VIDEO: The History of Jazz, Animated in Shadow Art > Brain Pickings

The History of Jazz,

Animated in Shadow Art


by Maria Popova

What five rooms and bleeding-edge software have to do with the cultural heritage of music.

We love, love, love jazz. And we have a soft spot for good animation. So we’re all over Silhouettes of Jazz — a brilliant animated short film from SIGGRAPH Asia 2009, outlining the history of jazz in a virtual shadow art museum.

Shadow art is a unique form of sculptural art that exploits the fact that we can recognize objects from their shadows or silhouettes. Improvisation, a key ingredient of jazz music, is mirrored in the ambiguity of a shadow sculpture: many different 3D shapes can cast the same 2D shadow.

The film focuses on five milestone eras in the evolution of jazz — the early music of field workers, ragtime, New Orleans jazz, swing, and bebop — each represented by a separate room, in which 3D sculptures cast complex shadow images in different directions simultaneously, making each form interpretable as multiple symbolic objects.

 

 

The animators used a novel computational method, building 3D shadow volumes through global geometric optimization that allows the artist to later edit the silhouette using 3D modeling tools.

Silhouettes of Jazz does for jazz what This Is Where We Live did for book publishing, a visual and conceptual delight from start to finish.

 

PUB: Clive Cussler Collector's Society - About Us

The Adventure Writers Competition
Home > 2007
 

The 2012 Adventure Writers' Competition

$1,000 grand prize: The Grandmaster Award

Unpublished writers in the adventure genre can vie to be the next Clive Cussler by submitting their original fiction manuscripts for a chance at the $1000 grand prize

The Grandmaster Award

Announcement:
We are pleased to announce the 2012 Adventure Writer’s Competition. This will be the third competition since the announcement of the format at the 2007 Clive Cussler Collector’s Society Convention in Charleston, South Carolina. Since that event, two winners have been crowned: the 2008 winner was Jeff Edwards for his manuscript The Seventh Angel, and the 2010 winner was Ian Kharitonov for his manuscript The Russian Renaissance. A bonus feature to the 2012 Competition is the addition of a Facebook page where news of the current competition, insight to authors and prior competitions, and questions can be addressed for a broader audience. Kerry Frey, our Director of the Adventure Writer’s Competition, will administer the site.

Good luck to all participants – and in the words of the Grandmaster himself Clive Cussler – Here’s to Adventure!


Competition Rules:
Manuscripts will be accepted beginning October 1, 2011. The competition deadline is January 1, 2012 with a maximum of 25 entries/manuscripts. The competition will be closed with the receipt of the 25th manuscript.

Eligibility:

(a) Participants must be 18 years of age by October 1, 2011.

(b) The Adventure Writers' Competition is open only to unpublished writers.*

An “unpublished writer" is defined as: an author whose fictional work has not appeared in book, magazine, or periodical format via a Fortune 500 recognized publishing firm. Self-published/Vanity Press authors are eligible as long as their work has not appeared in any of the formats listed above.

(c) Clive Cussler Collectors Society' Officers, Panel Judges, and their families/relatives are not eligible for the contest.

 

Rules & Submittal Requirements:

(a) Full-length submittals must be original and cannot include characters from another authors' work - i.e. fan-fiction is not allowed.

(b) The length of the manuscript shall not exceed 130K words or less than 50K words.

(c) Format: 12 pt.- Times New Roman font, paginated and double-spaced with one-inch margins, and numbered pages.

(d) Writers may only submit one manuscript.

(e) Submitted manuscripts must be of the action-adventure genre. The story must have action and conflict, and the reader must identify with the character(s) in order to draw them into the plot. Fantasy and Science Fiction entries will not be accepted.

(f) The deadline of the competition is January 1, 2012.

(g) Attendance to the Clive Cussler Collector's Society Convention is not required to claim the Grand Prize.

(h) A minimum of 10 entries/manuscripts will need to be submitted by the deadline for this competition to take place, with a maximum of 25 entries/manuscripts.

 

Judging:

The first 25 submitted manuscripts (which meet the requirements of the competition) will be judged by a select panel composed of recognized authors and members from the Clive Cussler Collectors Society. The manuscripts’ opening chapters will also be posted on the competition’s Facebook page for fans to vote for their favorite Top 5. Voters will do this by hitting the “like button”. The panel members input will be weighted heavier than the votes from the Facebook site. From a compellation of these votes, the 25 will be down-selected to the top three finalists.

Competitors' Rights:

(a) By submitting a manuscript to the competition, the author (i) certifies their eligibility per the contest eligibility rules, (ii) grants the Society the right to publish excerpts on the web site, Facebook page, and in conference material, (iii) grants the Society the right to forward the winning manuscript to participating Literary agents for consideration, (iv) represents or warrants their work to be original and to have not used licensed material owned by someone else - thus being libelous, or infringing or violating the rights of any third parties, (v) and agrees to not submit their work to any other publisher, competition or self-publish until notified of their elimination from the contest.

(b) By entering this competition, the author (i) acknowledges the competition will be conducted in good-faith by members of the Clive Cussler Collectors Society acting as judges and overseers of the process, and (ii) agrees to not hold the Society responsible for violating copyright infringements both during and beyond the competition.

 

The Prize:

(a) The Clive Cussler Award winner will receive a $1000 cash prize and additional amenities to be named at a later date.

(b) The winner will be announced at the 2012 Clive Cussler Collector's Society Convention. The location and date of the event will be announced at a later time.

(c) Dirk Cussler will select the winner from the top finalists.

How to Enter:

Information on the contest can be found on the Adventure Writer’s Competition Facebook page or solicited through Kerry Frey - c/o the Clive Cussler Collectors Society.

 

 

PUB: :: Mslexia Women's Novel Competition - a writing competition for unpublished women novelists ::

 Mslexia news

MSLEXIA 2011 WOMEN'S NOVEL COMPETITION

1st Prize: £5,000

Judging Panel:

Clare Alexander, literary agent
Jenni Murray, broadcaster
Sarah Waters, novelist

The competition is open to unpublished women novelists writing in any genre for adults, including literary fiction, women’s fiction, young adult fiction, science fiction, fantasy, chick-lit, crime fiction, thriller, historical fiction... but not nonfiction or fiction for under 13s. To constitute a novel, your book must total at least 50,000 words.

Closing date: 30 September

Entry fee: £25

Send up to 5,000 words – which must be the first 5,000 words of your novel. Please make sure you have finished the novel before you send your entry.

READ THE COMPETITION RULES

ENTER THE NOVEL COMPETITION

Who is the competition aimed at?

"It doesn't have to be the truth, just your vision of it, written down." Virginia Woolf

  • Women with an unfinished manuscript languishing in a bottom drawer. (Could this be the impetus you need to finish it?)
  • Women who took up the write-a-novel-in-a-month challenge with NaNoWriMo and have a rough first draft. (Why not polish it up and send it to Mslexia?)
  • Women who’ve submitted their completed novels over and over, and have despaired of finding an agent. (If you reach our shortlist, they’ll all sit up and take notice.)
  • Women who’ve always wanted to write a novel, but could never find the time.

Get your book noticed

Because publishers specialise in different genres, we cannot guarantee a publishing contract at this stage. But we can guarantee that agents and editors will be falling over themselves for a first read of the winning manuscript.

What editors and agents are saying:

'When you find a great winner you can be sure publishers will come knocking. I will be first in line, wanting to read whoever wins’
Lennie Goodings, Virago Press

‘It’s exciting to welcome a new prize that shines a light on talented unpublished women writers – I’d love to have first read of the winning novel’
Judith Murray, Greene and Heaton Literary Agency

‘How wonderful to hear about this new platform for talented women writers. I’m really keen to read the winning manuscripts’
Alexandra Pringle, Bloomsbury Publishing

‘If a new writer wins a competition it immediately grabs my attention. I am a big fan of Mslexia and will definitely look at the prizewinning entries’
Madeleine Buston, Darley Anderson Literary, TV and Film Agency

‘I’m committed to discovering new women’s voices, so this is great news. I know there are many talented writers out there waiting to be discovered’
Sarah Savitt, Faber and Faber

 

PUB: Call for Submissions - POWA Women's Writing Project 2011: Sisterhood (South Africa) > Writers Afrika

Call for Submissions

- POWA Women's Writing Project 2011:

Sisterhood (South Africa)

 

Deadline: 15 November 2011

People Opposing Women Abus3 (POWA) is a non-governmental organisation offering services to women in South Africa who have experienced domestic vi0lence, s3xual harassm3nt, or rap3, as well as to adult survivors of inc3st.

POWA is calling for submission for its 2011 Women's Writing Project.

The 2011 POWA Women's Writing Project theme is: Sisterhood. The term sisterhood is often used to express relationships and connections built by women to express love, support and solidarity to one another. These connections may be as a result of shared similar experiences or a collective understanding of 'victimhood' or survival and what it means to be strong, courageous and powerful.

This year, POWA is calling for poems, short stories and personal essays that tell of the experience and impact made through the contribution of women around you - mother, grandmothers, sisters, family members, friend, neighbours, counsellors, partners, colleagues or other women- and the way through which this has changed or revolutionised your life.

Submissions in the following categories will be accepted:

* Poetry: no longer than 60 lines;
* Short story: no longer than 2 500 words;
* Personal essay: no longer than 2000 words.

Writing your own story is very brave and sometimes difficult thing to do. We all have a responsibility to respect and acknowledge bravery, in ourselves and each other. In order to do this, POWA and all of its sponsors will treat each submission as confidential. Confidentiality means that submissions will be treated with privacy and respect.

Submission

To submit, send your story to Nehwoh Belinda at writingproject@powa.co.za or post at People Opposing Women Abus3, PO Box 93416, Yeoville, 2143.

Via: sangonet.org.za

Contact Information:

For inquiries: writingproject@powa.co.za

For submissions: writingproject@powa.co.za

Website: http://www.powa.co.za/

 

 

INFO: New Items of Interest

New Book:

Nigel Gibson’s

Fanonian Practices

Nigel Gibson’s Fanonian Practices in South Africa: From Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo will be published by Palgrave/MacMillan this summer. Written by a leading Fanon scholar, Fanonian Practices has been described as “a sophisticated attempt to examine post-apartheid South Africa through the emancipatory lens of Frantz Fanon’s revolutionary humanism.” 

Description: South Africa has been widely heralded as an African success story in the wake of the 1994 democratic elections. But in recent years the world’s media have too often carried stark images of South African police attacking protestors or scenes of xenophobic violence. Has post-apartheid South Africa been unable to chart a course away from the all too familiar script of a postcolonial crisis, rooted in the narrow nationalism and neocolonialism that Fanon so vividly described?

This is not another meditation on Fanon’s continued relevance. Instead, it is an inquiry into how Fanon, the revolutionary, might think and act in the face of contemporary social crises. Taking Fanon’s passion for freedom and liberation seriously, and Biko’s analysis of the dangers of liberalism, Fanonian Practices looks into the politics of the shack-dweller movements currently gathering momentum in South Africa as important spaces in which to think and construct a truly humane post-apartheid future

Nigel C. Gibson is director of the Honors Program at Emerson College, where he teaches postcolonial, global and African studies, and a visiting research fellow at the School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal. His many published works include Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination, which won the 2009 Caribbean Philosophical Association’s Frantz Fanon Prize.

[Many thanks to the Caribbean Philosophical Association for bringing this item to our attention.]

For more information, see http://ukznpress.book.co.za/blog/2011/02/11/forthcoming-fanonian-practices-in-south-africa-by-nigel-gibson/

For an interview with Nigel Gibson, see http://ukznpress.book.co.za/blog/2011/04/19/interview-with-fanonian-practices-in-south-africa-author-nigel-gibson/

 

__________________________

 

 

 

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Magazine Transition 105

- Blacks, Jews, and Black Jews


The American magazine Transition 105, of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, is teeming with thorny questions about being black in a global context. 

Even the “Black-Jewish Question,” traditionally an American obsession, gains complexity when it involves a half-Kenyan president, Israel, or Igbo Jews celebrating Hanukkah in Abuja. Three writers explore three different intersections of the tribe and the people. 

And the issue follows several more journeys through the Diaspora in search of black meaning. A review of the new biography of Marcus Garvey, transatlantic hero, celebrates ties between Africa and the Americas, just as Bayo Holsey questions Wole Soyinka’s reading of Africa’s role in the slave trade. 

And amid these abstract tides of history, pushing back and forth, individuals are caught in small eddies: an African American anthropologist visits Brazil and has trouble getting back home; an American daughter of South African parents floats like a ghost between different cultures of death; a black writer can’t quite find home in Harlem. With the idea of home in transition, at least all these ideas find a home in Transition.

Born in Africa and bred in the Diaspora, Transition is a unique forum for the freshest, most compelling, most curious ideas about race. Since its founding in 1961, the magazine has kept apace of the rapid transformation of the black world and has remained a leading forum of intellectual debate. Now, in an age that demands ceaseless improvisation, we aim to be both an anchor of deep reflection on black life and a map charting new routes through the globalized world. 

For more information go http://dubois.fas.harvard.edu/transition-105

>via: http://afroeurope.blogspot.com/2011/06/magazine-transition-105-blacks-jews-an...

 

__________________________

 

MaComère Journal

Women Writers & Scholars, are pleased to announce that full contents
of past issues (1998-2009) are available online at the Digital Library
of the Caribbean:

http://dloc.com/AA00000079/00002/allvolumes2.

Access to full contents is via delayed open access, with an embargo on
the contents of issues published in the last two years.

dLOC patrons are invited to subscribe to the journal to gain access to
full contents of current issues. MaComère is published twice per year
in June/July and December/January. Interested parties can subscribe
individually or request that their libraries subscribe to the journal.
Subscription information is available at the journal’s website:
www.macomerejournal.com

Current issues are Volume 12.1 (2010) “Resistant Genealogies,” and
Volume 12.2 (2010), a special issue titled “Women & National Political
Struggles in the Caribbean.” Volume 13.1 (2011) on “Women and Theatre
in the Caribbean” will be available this summer.

>via: http://blackatlanticresource.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/macomere-journal/

__________________________

 New Book:

 “Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment”

Carole Boyce Davies is the editor of a new book entitled Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment. Here’s the publisher’s description of the text:

Claudia Jones was a smart, politically-wise, brilliant, transnational feminist, Pan Africanist theorist and cultural activist who brought together in her speeches and writings the politics that is now seen as a necessary way of intersecting a variety of political fields and positions. Known as the founder of the first London carnival and the editor of the first black newspaper the West Indian Gazette in England, Claudia Jones’s activism bridged US and the UK with the black world politics of decolonization that ushered in contemporary community empowerment. For the first time, in one place, Claudia Jones Beyond Containment… brings together her essays, poetry, autobiographical and longer writings, expanding our knowledge of several fields. Providing us with the clarity of the ideas of a black woman activist-intellectual of her period, for a fuller understanding of Caribbean, African American and the larger African Diaspora discourses. Claudia Jones Beyond Containment is essential reading.

 
Advanced reviews:
‘Claudia Jones is one of my personal heroines. I spent my formative political years in Claudia Jones’s London stamping ground of Notting Hill – it was the classic centre of post-war black activism in Britain. Most West Indian immigrants in the 1950s came by boat to Southampton and the train from there took them into Paddington. Hence the large black community in that part of West London. So I know people who had worked with Claudia Jones and spoke of her with awe. She founded two of Black Britain’s most important institutions; the first black newspaper, the West Indian Gazette and she was also one of the founding organizers of the Notting Hill Carnival.

 
The ‘hidden history’ of women’s contribution to progressive politics has been concealed for too long. This important book is part of the process of putting that right. Claudia Jones was an iconic figure who inspired a generation of black activists and deserves to be much more widely known. This book is a fitting memorial.’
Diane Abbott, MP, Westminster, London.

 
Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment transcends the silencing and erasure historically accorded women of achievement: it makes accessible and brings to wider attention the words of an often   overlooked twentieth-century political and cultural activist, who tirelessly campaigned, wrote, spoke out, organized, edited and published autobiographical writings, poetry, essays on subjects close to her political heart – human rights, peace, struggle related to gender, race and class – this is a collection that unites the many facets of a woman whose identities as a radical thinker and as a black woman are not in conflict.

 
Carole Boyce Davies, author of the acclaimed Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (2008), continues the task of ensuring that Claudia Jones takes her rightful place in the exalted list of twentieth-century Caribbean intellectuals in the Diaspora, including her compatriots George Padmore and C.L.R. James, who engaged with the world to make it a more enlightened place and whose legacy still deserves to resonate.’
Margaret Busby, OBE, Writer, Broadcaster and Journalist, London.

 
‘Carole Boyce Davies’s brilliant book, Left of Karl Marx, did so much more than recover the life and legacy of Claudia Jones.  She threw down the gauntlet, forcing us to rethink many of the  fundamental assumptions and conceits of Marxism and to come to terms with Claudia Jones’s radical critiques of racism, women’s oppression and colonial rule. But Davies isn’t done. In this stunning collection of Jones’s essays, speeches, autobiographical reflections and poems, Davies not only underscores why Jones stands among the world’s most important radical theorists and organizers of the 20th century, but she reveals the Trinidadian-born, transnational intellectual as artist and visionary.’
Robin D. G. Kelly, Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern Carolina and author of Freedom Dreams: The Back Radical Imagination.

 
Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment lifts veils of ignorance and erasure that obscure a brilliant, 20th century human rights advocate. With this Collection of Jones’s writings, Carole Boyce Davies provides the 21st century with an important opportunity to revisit our collective histories and current struggles shaped by feminist, anti-racist, communist Claudia Jones, a Caribbean-born activist and intellectual who influenced international struggles of blacks, women and workers for social justice.’
Joy James, Williams College, USA and author of Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics.

 
‘In Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment, Carole Boyce Davies has uncovered a super-excellent collection…. commendable not only for their breadth-of-scope but largely also for their intellectual sharpness and acuity…. while all based on past events these writings are so very directly relevant today, especially in the manner in which they assist our understanding of contemporary world politics with the US and the Anglo-American bloc playing a leading role. Indeed, Jones’s interventions are as deep and relevant as to provide a direct prognosis of contemporary US imperialism in the era of globalization. There can be absolutely no doubt that Jones was an activist and an ideologue, who used and tirelessly mobilized her identity as a member of the Young Communist League and other organizations to help in the fight to establish a new, more just, equitable and humanitarian social order.’
Dr Kwadwo Osei-Nyame Jnr., Lecturer in African Studies, School of Oriental & African Studies, (SOAS), University of London.

>via: http://repeatingislands.com/2011/07/01/new-book-“claudia-jones-beyond-containment”/

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

VIDEO + AUDIO: Ghana: "A Self-Invented Bicycle Culture" > A BOMBASTIC ELEMENT

Ghana:

"A Self-Invented

Bicycle Culture"


A short documentary from Accra about the self-taught, self-invented bicycle culture which young people in Accra have created and passed on to their younger contemporaries over time. It follows crews of these young bicycle gurus as they try and use their skills to make money, gain recognition, and live on their own terms/ Bikelordz

Come to think of it, Accra would make for a bewildering bmx obstacle course. Towards the end of the clip below, Wanlov the Kubolor, one half of the Ghanaian rap duo, Fokn' Bois, explains how the architectural layout of the city allows for a maze of shortcuts and backways referred to as lungu lungu:



H/T: Benjamin Lebrave/ Fader

 

 

HAITI + VIDEO: Letter to the UN asking for investigative reports on UN rape - Ezili Danto > Open Salon

NOVEMBER 9, 2009 11:27AM

Letter to the UN

asking for

investigative reports

on UN rape

 

By Ezili Danto

"I am the history of rape...
I am the history of battery assault and limitless
armies against whatever I want to do with my mind
and my body and my soul and
whether it’s about walking out at night
or whether it’s about the love that I feel or
whether it’s about the sanctity of my vagina or
the sanctity of my national boundaries
or the sanctity of my leaders...I know from my heart...
I have been raped." Poem about My Rights
by June Jordan
***

HLLN Letter to the UN asking for investigative reports, specific actions taken and punishment metered, reparations provided to Haitian victims of rape and sexual abuse by UN soldiers in Haiti

In 2005, the Ezili Danto Witness Project reported on a Jordanian soldier's brutal rape and sodomizing a Haitian mother of five in Haiti. The report was sent to the UN, the victim complained to the UN. The investigation process never led to a resolution that was ever revealed to HLLN or the victim. (Read the English transcript.)

In 2007, it was discovered and reported that girls as young as 13 were having sex with U.N. peacekeepers for as little as $1 in Haiti. Moreover, Sri Lankan soldiers were accused of systematically raping Haitian women and girls, some as young as 7 years old.

Today, the UN said that dozens of UN peacekeepers were punished for sexual abuses. (UN peacekeepers involved in abuse are being punished, world body says, UN News Center, November 5, 2009, and Dozens of UN peace keepers punished for abuses, CBC News, November 5, 2009.)

Indeed, what this UN statement reveals to Ezili's HLLN is that if only a dozen UN peacekeepers were punished for sexual abuse and rape, than that means, for instance, most of the 114 Sri Lankan soldiers deported back to Sri Lanka from Haiti in 2007 for sexual abuse and rape in Haiti did not get punished. The Jordanian and other perpetrators we are aware of through Haitian complaints also have not been redressed or punished.

The more important revelation is the UN's continued secrecy on this matter as “no data on the nationalities or identities of the peacekeepers were revealed.”

HLLN is again publicly and via cover of this note to UN authorities requesting the release of the findings of the investigation and report as to exactly what was happening in Martissant, Haiti and other locations at the brothels set up by the Sri Lankan and other UN soldiers in Haiti before they were deported in 2007.

Via-cover of this note, Ezili’s HLLN again stresses that the UN should take a leaf out of Oprah’s book and not run from the allegations of rape and abuse by their employees. When girls at Oprah's school in South Africa alleged sexual abuse, Oprah investigated, apologized to the students, their parents and the entire community that such depravity could have happened in her school, cleaned up the mess and set up new accountability standards and rigors so that such depraved assaults on children had a lesser chance of re-occurring.

The UN could at least do the same with all those international experts and PHDzzzs on its payroll. Investigate, apologize to the people of Haiti, fully and publicly report the result of the investigations, reveal the names of the culprits to the Haitian public, provide relief for the victims, set up new standards and accountability bars for the countries whose soldiers were involved in the rapes and sexual abuses in Haiti, not just release these diluted data where nothing is really revealed.

The UN’s “zero tolerance” is lip service until it is backed up by actions that realistically assures Haitians they are truly concerned about these depraved assaults on minors and women by their UN soldiers, are providing counseling and assistance to the victims, have cleaned up all backlog of complaints and have stopped making the victims who come forward with allegations, for instance, of gang rape by three or four soldiers at a time, feel responsible, terming the acts "consensual" if money was exchanged and/or further making the victims feel responsible for the abuse and exploitation of power with appallingly racist statements to the effect that - “Haitians are natural prostitutes, used to trading sex for food, shelter and education.” What such moral actions, new standards and accounting procedures would signal to Haitians is that indeed this indecency is clearly marked very seriously as a zero tolerance zone by UN superiors.

The newly release UN data on abuse falls short of such responsibility and is reprehensible. The investigation into the 114 Sri Lakan soldiers accused of sexually abusing minors and running a brothel in Haiti must be made public to the Haitian people and the victims offered assistance, especially the minors whose childhood innocence cannot be returned.

Humanitarian aid workers and UN peacekeepers accused of sexually abusing and sexual trafficking children in Haiti should have their names and their country’s identities exposed so that this matter may be cleaned up once and for all.

HLLN looks forward to a response to this letter from the UN authorities and a copy of their investigation to share with our Network and the media.

To end, we attach a Final Call article on this same HLLN concern for justice, transparency and accountability from the UN, written more than a year ago: UN peacekeepers and aid workers accused of abusing children, Final Call, June 24, 2008

For a related concern which touches on the UN and other authorities non-transparency and irresponsibility in cases involving the sexual abuse and rape of Haitian people by aid workers, see: No More Secrecy -HLLN on Douglaz Perlitz's new motions asking for secrecy.

Sincerely,

Ezili Dantò/(Marguerite Laurent)
President, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network ("HLLN")
November 5, 2009
erzilidanto@yahoo.com
www.ezilidanto.com

 

*************************************

BBC NEWS SRILANKA ARMY SEXUALLY ABUSE 100s HAITI

 

*************

Shri Lankan Army Peacekeepers Abusing Children in Haiti

*************

Recommended HLLN Links:

 

 


****
UN peacekeepers involved in abuse are being punished, world body says, UN News Center, November 5, 2009


5 November 2009 – Dozens of United Nations peacekeepers implicated in cases of sexual abuse and exploitation have been disciplined and punished, a spokesperson for the world body said today.

The UN has imposed a zero-tolerance policy against sexual abuse and exploitation by its peacekeepers, and senior officials have reiterated in recent years that this means there is no impunity for blue helmets who engage in such practices.

UN spokesperson Michele Montas said that, since January, troop-contributing countries have reported that 33 military personnel implicated in cases of sexual abuse and exploitation while serving in UN operations have been disciplined and punished.

This is according to the Department of Field Support (DFS), which added that the punishments included forced retirement, withdrawal of officer’s commission, various lengths of imprisonment and outright dismissal.

Last year, two military personnel received such disciplinary action and there were 15 such cases the year before, Ms. Montas told reporters in New York.

In addition, disciplinary action was taken, over the past three years, against 20 military personnel for cases involving other forms of misconduct, such as negligent loss of firearms, traffic-related violations and fraud or theft.

Some of the cases involved peacekeepers who served in Haiti, Lebanon, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which hosts the largest UN peacekeeping mission worldwide.

Deployment of UN peacekeepers is at a record high, with more than 113,000 personnel serving in 18 operations on four continents.

While not providing details about those engaged in misconduct, Ms. Montas said there have been a number of cases where people have been repatriated, with follow-up action by troop-contributing countries.

“When allegations of misconduct are substantiated against any military or police serving in UN peacekeeping, the UN repatriates the individuals concerned and then bans them from participating in future peacekeeping operations.”

She added that the UN tries to pursue cases of any misconduct as far as it can. Beyond that, national tribunals and national courts have a role to play.

“The UN is trying to get troop contributors to do more in prosecuting and punishing their nationals who engage in misconduct,” said the spokesperson.

Ms. Montas stressed that there has been an increase in the number of requests and responses to those requests in dealing with the issue.

In 2009, the UN sent 112 requests for action taken concerning all forms of misconduct, including but not limited to sexual exploitation and abuse, and received 14 responses as of 3 November.

By comparison, she noted, the UN sent 192 such requests in 2008 and received six responses on action taken, while 146 requests were made and nine responses received in 2007.

***************
UN: 50 peacekeepers punished for sex abuses By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press, November 5, 2009


GENEVA — At least 50 peacekeepers have received punishments ranging from reduction in military rank to eight months imprisonment for committing sexual abuses on United Nations missions since 2007, the U.N. said Thursday.

The data were released after media organizations asked what measures countries were taking against peacekeepers accused of rape and other abuses in conflict areas such as Congo. The U.N. can investigate allegations of misconduct, but prosecution is handled solely by governments contributing personnel to missions.

The figures show a significant increase in prosecutions and court-martials by national authorities this year. The disciplinary action against 33 peacekeepers in "cases involving sexual exploitation and abuse" through November included lesser penalties from dismissal, forced retirement and withdrawal of an officer's commission to prison sentences reaching eight months.

Only two military personnel were punished for similar abuses in 2008, and 15 in 2007, according to the U.N. data aggregated by the organization's field support department.

"When allegations of misconduct involving military and police personnel are substantiated, the U.N. can repatriate the individuals concerned and ban them from participating in future peacekeeping operations," the U.N. said.

Allegations of sexual exploitation and other crimes have dogged U.N. peacekeeping missions almost since their inception in 1948, with abuses reported in missions from Bosnia and Kosovo to Cambodia, East Timor, West Africa and Congo. The issue was thrust into the spotlight after the United Nations found in early 2005 that peacekeepers in Congo had sex with Congolese women and girls, usually in exchange for food or small sums of money.

In response, the U.N. adopted a "zero tolerance" policy toward sexual abuse and a universal code of conduct that required training for all peacekeepers. But it left punishment for wrongdoers to individual countries, which has been a continuing problem.

The figures show that the U.N. has referred to national authorities over 450 instances of misconduct — sexual and otherwise — since 2007. It received responses in only 29 of these cases.
************************

 

UN peacekeepers and aid workers accused of abusing children

Posted: 2008/06/24
From: MNN

The Save The Children UK research involved hundreds of children in Cote d'Ivoire, southern Sudan and Haiti. The most shocking aspect was that the sex abuse went unreported and unpunished, with children too scared to speak out and little happening to perpetrators of the despicable acts when children did speak up.

(Final Call)

UNITED NATIONS - A European charity organization, Save The Children UK, accused humanitarian aid workers and UN peacekeepers of sexually abusing and sexual trafficking children in several war-torn and food-poor nations.

“It’s hard to imagine a more grotesque abuse of authority or flagrant violation of children’s rights,” said Jasmine Whitehead, of Save the Children UK. In interviews, children said they engaged in prostitution, pornography, traded food for sex and were raped. The report was released in late May.

This report is a blessing, said attorney Marguerite Laurent, chairwoman of the Connecticut-based Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network. “In Haiti, children as young as six were sexually abused by peacekeepers and aid workers, according to the report; and by the lack of media coverage it would seem that the world doesn’t care,” Ms. Laurent told The Final Call.

“Those of us on the ground in Haiti have been saying these things for years, but this report has credibility because of the group putting it out,” Ms. Laurent stressed. The activist attorney added that very little was being done to support victims of the reported abuses.

Some journalists have attempted to alert the international community concerning the persistence of gross human rights abuses in Haiti since the 2004 coup that ousted the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The Center for the Study of Human Rights at Miami University’s Law School published a report on the security breakdown in Port-au-Prince after the 2004 coup, which, according to Brian Conconnon, director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, was ignored by the UN and the international community.

“What the UN Mission In Haiti is doing is not a mission of stabilization,” said Mr. Conconnan. “It is a mission that engages in operations of massacres, assassinations and alleged sexual abuse of women and children more so than activities of reconstruction and peacekeeping,” he said.

The Save The Children UK research involved hundreds of children in Cote d’Ivoire, southern Sudan and Haiti. The charity organization said the most shocking aspect was that the sex abuse went unreported and unpunished, with children too scared to speak out and little happening to perpetrators of the despicable acts when children did speak up.

But, the report found there was an “endemic failure” on the part of the UN and others in responding to cases of abuse. “A better reporting mechanism needs to be introduced,” the report said.

Save The Children UK also noted that the international community has a policy of zero-tolerance toward child sexual abuse, but that stated policy was not being followed by action on the ground. A major part of the charity organization’s critique was aimed at the lack of punishment of wrongdoers in blue helmeted peacekeepers.

“The United Nations has refused to accept moral responsibility for the action of peacekeepers under its control,” Ms. Laurent said.

At the United Nations there was a welcoming of the report. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said the report was “very helpful” and would be studied closely.

The secretary-general’s spokeswoman, Michele Montas, a Haitian, told reporters the report was “largely accurate,” but would not take reporters’ questions concerning the charges it contained. Instead Assistant Secretary-General for Mission Support Jane Holl Lute was sent as a “sacrificial lamb” before the press.

When reporters asked Ms. Lute about the outcome of the cases of the Moroccan peacekeepers repatriated from Cote d’Ivoire accused of rape; or the Sri Lanka contingent repatriated from Haiti on similar charges, she said, “I came down to speak about the report, not those cases.”

But several reporters would not let the issue go and Ms. Lute finally admitted that the Peacekeeping Department had asked the mission in Cote d’Ivoire to respond to charges they were given evidence in child sex abuse cases and did not act.

She said there might be accountability from the mission’s leadership, but was unclear on whether it would be the departed leadership or the present group.

“Holding individuals accountable has been an ongoing problem, because none of the reports mentions names of the organizations the individuals work for; so they just leave one job and get hired by another aid group, and the cycle continues,” said Ms. Laurent.

Larry Holmes, UN under secretary-general for humanitarian affairs told reporters there was a need to boost efforts to make “zero tolerance” of sexual violence a reality by reversing the “continued failure” of peacekeepers and UN police officials to “take sexual violence seriously.”

Mr. Holmes also urged an end to ineffective investigations, minimal prosecutions and interference by the military and other officials in the administration of justice.

Ms. Laurent said the problem is corruption between the international community and local authorities, and whether or not the government takes action against a person depends on where they work.

Save The Children UK agreed, saying the international community is not “exercising sufficiently strong leadership and managerial courage.” It asked for an outside-sponsored watchdog to oversee peacekeeping operations.

Reports from missions continue. In early 2008 the Daily Telegraph in London reported that members of the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Sudan were facing allegations of raping children as young as 12.

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Ezili Dantò is an award winning playwright, a performance poet, author and human rights attorney. She was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in the USA. She holds a BA from Boston College, a JD from the University of Connecticut School of law. She is a human rights lawyer, cultural and political activist and the founder and president of the Ezili’s Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN). She runs the Haitian Perspectives on-line journal and the Ezili Dantò Newsletter. Ezili’s HLLN is the recognized leading and most trustworthy international voice in Haiti advocacy, human rights work, Haiti news and Haiti news analysis. HLLN’s work is central to those concerned with the welfare of the people of Haiti, Haiti capacity building, sovereignty, institutionalization of the rule of law, and justice and peace without occupation or militarization. Ezili Dantò is also an educator who specializes in teaching about the light and beauty of Haitian culture; the Symbolic and Archetypal Nature of Haitian Vodun; the illegality and immorality of forcing neoliberal policies on Haiti and the developing world... For more go to the Ezili Danto/HLLM website at http://www.ezilidanto.com/

 

ENVIRONMENT: Three-Month Update of Fukushima Accident and the Flood of New Information Coming Out > DiaNuke.org

Three-Month Update

of Fukushima Accident

and the Flood of

New Information Coming Out

 

Dr. Michio Kaku

It has been over 3 months after the tragic accident in Fukushima, Japan, and a flood of new information has been coming out.

1. After months of stonewalling and low balling figures, the utility finally admitted what many US physicists already suspected, that there was most likely a 100% core melt at all three reactors. Physicists in the West, given the meager data fed to the media by the utility, have run independent programs on their computers and have concluded that the accident was much, much worse than the government has been reporting. The new figures, although shocking, now agrees with assessments made in the US.

2. If 3 reactor cores suffered 100% core melts, then why didn’t we have three China Syndrome type accidents? Why didn’t we see three Chernobyl accidents happening simultaneously? The answer is that, at the very last minute, sea water was flushed into the three cores, stopping the melted uranium from melting through the entire containment structure and releasing vast amounts of radiation into the environment. The utility, however, resisted flooding the reactors with sea water, since it would reduce the reactors to junk, while the utility wanted to salvage the reactors for future use. Apparently, the reactor operator disobeyed direct orders. He was ordered to delay any plans to flush the cores with sea water. Instead, he did it anyway, going against his superiors. He should be considered a hero. Any delay back then might have led to an unimaginable tragedy.

3. The utility, under pressure, also admitted that twice as much radiation leaked out as previously suspected, on the order of about 700 trillion bequerels of radiation (or roughly 20% of the radiation that poured out of the reactor at Chernobyl.) Yet the utility, until the last minute, kept insisting that the accident was no worse than Three Mile Island.

4. The reactors are continuing to release radiation. This was a mystery at first, since, if the core melting was under control, then water should not be in direct contact with melted uranium. Many suspected, therefore, that the uranium completely melted and even melted right through the vessel as well. This direct contact between water and melted uranium is probably the main source of radiation still leaking from the reactors.

5. Four hot spots have been identified outside the evacuation zone, causing further evacuations of residents of the area. In one district, 8,000 school children were given radiation counters as they went to school, since radiation levels could be 20 times higher than normal in school yards. Parents, going against Japanese tradition, have criticized the government and utility heavily.

6. Estimates for the clean up vary. Toshiba corporation estimated it would take 10 years. The Hitachi Corp estimated, however, that it would take 30 years. One nuclear engineer estimated that it might actually take 100 years. Remember that it took 14 years to clean up Three Mile Island, where there was no breech of containment. It has been 25 years since Chernobyl, and that accident still has not ended. So 30 to 100 years are not unreasonable guesses for the amount of time the cleanup will take.

7. The utility wanted to go into cold shutdown, so the reactors no longer produce boiling water, by the end of this year – This now seems impossible. The utility has now admitted that it might take until next year at the earliest. Actually, the reactors are like ticking time bombs. Before they go to cold shutdown, there could be another earthquake, a big break, or worker evacuation, in which case the accident starts all over again. So it is a race against time, to reach cold shutdown before the accident begins again.

Meanwhile, with Germany and Switzerland calling for phasing out nuclear energy entirely, and Japan calling for a moratorium, the shock waves from Fukushima will continue to rattle the commercial nuclear market.

 

Source: http://bigthink.com/ideas/38924?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&...

 

 

__________________________

Looking at Nebraska’s

(Soggy) Fort Calhoun

Nuke Plant

1. Talk about “fail-safe,” see what happens when you don’t back up your “aqua berms?”

2. Even if the Nebraska situation is 100% stable, the pictures present an obvious warning about what happens when you cross a nuke plant with Mother Nature. And then, throw human nature into the mix….

3. And the industry folks thought they could confine the post-Fukushima talking points to coastal plants and earthquakes.

4. Insult to injury, still next-to-no coverage of the bleeding, contaminated-waterlogged Japanese plant.

5. Gotta love that juxtaposition of images on the Fort Calhoun Wikipedia page, the aerial shot of the flooded plant (second photo above, the plant at the center between the two lines of trees) along with this ironic pic, a romantic river photo shot seven days ago by the NRC.

(h/t: David W.)

 

(photo 1: Nuclear Regulatory Commision, 20 June 2011.photo 2: Lane Hickenbottom/Reuters.caption: An aerial view of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant in eastern Nebraska, surrounded by Missouri River flood waters June 24, 2011. The Missouri River, swollen by heavy rains and melting snow, has been flooding areas from Montana through Missouri. Residents have been shoring up levees around towns as federal officials widen flood gates to allow record or near-record water releases to ease pressure on reservoirs.)

 

>via: http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2011/06/looking-at-nebraskas-soggy-fort-calhoun-n...