NEW DELHI — When world leaders gather at the G20 summit on Saturday morning, the smiles may be more awkward than usual.
While China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin won’t be there, a B-list of strongmen with their own damning human rights records will be ready to embarrass the leaders of Western democracy with some stiff handshakes and fixed grins.
Some of these international bad guys also have played an increasingly assertive role in negotiations on the Ukraine war — interventions welcomed by the Ukrainian government. However unsavory their domestic records may be, that means they can’t be ignored.
Take Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman. According to U.S. intelligence, he approved the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But last month, he hosted a multinational meeting in Jeddah aimed at kick-starting peace talks. He’s also staying on after the G20 for a state visit in India.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has locked up thousands of political opponents and stifled media freedom, met Putin just this week in an effort to unblock grain shipments through the Red Sea.
One official involved in preparations for the summit in Delhi this week joked that the optics will be challenging. “No one wants that photo-op with MBS, let’s face it,” the official said.
But overall, Western diplomats are unapologetic about engaging with the bad boys of the G20 — reflecting a growing realization in Western capitals the battle to win minds on the Ukraine war is not working and needs buy-in from the countries beyond the affluent capitals of Europe and North America.
“I’m not here to issue scorecards,” said U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, when asked this week if President Biden was relaying U.S. concerns about Narendra Modi’s record on religious and press freedoms during his multiple meetings with the Indian leader.
Biden is expected to hold a meeting with MBS, with whom he shared an infamous fist-bump last year, a sign to many that all had been forgiven.
One European official involved in the preparations praised India for its work behind the scenes in trying to get consensus on an agreement rather than settling on different positions.
“If they succeed, it shows that the G20 has a future,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to speak openly due to the sensitive nature of the matter.
Ukraine remained the most divisive issue for G20 diplomats trying to hammer out a summit communique, with negotiations continuing late into Friday night.
U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to hold a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman | Pool photo by Madel Ngan via AFP/Getty Images
G7 countries — and the EU — are demanding that the principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter on territorial integrity and national sovereignty are reflected in the language.
Also weighing on minds is the global economy. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz touches down in Delhi just as economic figures showed that industrial production in Europe’s economic powerhouse nose-dived again in July.
China is battling a slowing economy and a real-estate crisis. But it’s countries like India that are witnessing the kind of accelerated growth levels that suggest it is on the up.
In New Delhi, giant posters of a smiling Modi, India’s prime minister, speckle the routes downtown.
This is India’s moment in the sun. Modi’s government has used its stint in the chair to show it can play a more assertive role in the global order.
India’s self-confidence as it hosts the global shindig signals a deeper geopolitical shift.
Three western officials with direct knowledge of the summit preparations said Brazil and South Africa, in particular, were playing a key role behind the scenes in coordination with India to get consensus on a final summit declaration, the holy grail of gatherings such as this.
A United States federal judge has ordered Texas to remove a controversial floating border barrier from the Rio Grande after the massive buoys and underwater nets came under fire for endangering migrants and asylum seekers as they crossed the river from Mexico.
In a ruling on Wednesday, US District Judge David Ezra said that the barriers could violate treaty agreements between the US and Mexico. He also cast doubt on their effectiveness.
“The State of Texas did not present any credible evidence that the buoy barrier as installed has significantly curtailed illegal immigration across the Rio Grande River,” Ezra wrote. He ordered the barrier to be moved to an embankment on the Texas side of the river by September 15.
Within hours of the decision, Texas had already filed an appeal, with Governor Greg Abbott calling the judge’s ruling an attack on the state’s “sovereign authority”.
“Texas is prepared to take this fight all the way up to the Supreme Court,” Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement on Wednesday shared via social media.
The four-foot-wide orange buoys became the subject of debate after being installed by Abbott’s administration in July as part of a larger migration deterrence effort known as Operation Lone Star.
Critics, however, denounced the barrier as a dangerous political stunt. By the end of July, the Department of Justice — under Democratic President Joe Biden — had sued the state for refusing to remove the barrier, saying the buoys violated federal law.
BREAKING: a federal judge has ordered Gov Abbott to remove his border buoy death trap from the Rio Grande.
They should also remove the miles of deadly razor-wire strung along the river, which continues to pose a life-threatening risk to people & wildlife.pic.twitter.com/EKgC7ReMwQ
In the suit, the Justice Department alleged that Texas had installed the barrier on an international boundary without properly consulting federal authorities.
Abbott, meanwhile, has dismissed the lawsuit as a political attack and blamed Biden for failing to crack down on unauthorised border crossings.
“Today’s court decision merely prolongs President Biden’s willful refusal to acknowledge that Texas is rightfully stepping up to do the job that he should have been doing all along,” Abbott said in a press release.
But Abbott’s administration has come under increasing scrutiny for its tactics along the US-Mexico border.
A letter released in July, reportedly authored by a Texas state trooper, expressed concerns with policies and decisions being implemented to repel migrants and asylum seekers.
The trooper explained he believed in the mission of Operation Lone Star, but that he had grave concerns with directions he had been given to “push” struggling migrants back into the Rio Grande and deny them water to drink.
“I believe we have stepped over a line,” his letter reads.
In August, two bodies were found in the Rio Grande near the border barrier, one of which was tangled in the buoys. Texas authorities said it appeared the two people had drowned in the river, known for its deadly currents.
Questions also arose over whether the barrier violated Mexican sovereignty.
In an August statement, Mexico’s foreign ministry expressed concern “about the impact on migrants’ human rights and personal security that these state policies could have, as they go in the opposite direction to close collaboration”.
While the Biden administration has criticised the barriers on humanitarian grounds, migrant rights groups have slammed the president for enacting policies that they say severely restrict the right to seek asylum.
The administration is currently facing an ongoing legal challenge to a policy that requires asylum seekers to first apply in the countries they pass through before arriving in the US, similar to the “safe third country” rule enacted under former President Donald Trump.
Critics have called the policy an “asylum ban” and a violation of international law.
For decades, critics have likewise denounced policies that drive migrants and asylum seekers to dangerous border crossings by blocking safer areas.
This tactic, known as “prevention through deterrence”, has its roots in the 1990s, but many immigration rights advocates believe it has pushed migrants and asylum seekers to take on greater risks in the absence of accessible legal pathways into the country.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stressed the urgency of addressing these challenges if the country is to move forward, recalling the 2022 anti-Government protests demanding a fairer and more inclusive society.
“But the potential for a historic transformation that would address long-standing challenges is far from being realized.”
The UN rights chief’s message coincides with the launch of a new report documenting the country’s human rights situation. It outlines the challenges and opportunities to address them, in the wake of the 2022 economic crisis.
Families search for truth
Although the brutal decades-long civil war ended more than 14 years ago, tens of thousands of victims and their families in Sri Lanka still seek truth and justice.
While the Government proposed a new truth-seeking mechanism, meaningful and transparent consultations with victims and civil society are essential for the success of any transitional justice process, OHCHR said.
This includes putting an end to all forms of harassment and unlawful surveillance, and supporting initiatives to acknowledge and memorialize victims’ experiences.
“Truth-seeking alone will not suffice. It must also be accompanied by a clear commitment to accountability and the political will to implement far-reaching change,” Mr. Türk said.
Concerns over proposed laws
The report raises concerns over proposed new laws, such as the Anti-Terrorism Bill before parliament and legislation to regulate broadcasting.
It also highlights the need for comprehensive security sector reform, including reduced military spending and a cut in military personnel in areas affected by armed conflict.
The report also calls on the authorities to accelerate investigations and prosecutions into emblematic cases of human rights violations, as well as the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, which claimed 269 lives and injured over 500.
In July 2022, autorickshaws wait in a long queue at a Sri Lankan fuel station, amidst a severe economic crisis.
Economic crisis
The report summarizes the impact of the 2022 economic crisis on the human rights and well-being of Sri Lankans.
The crisis resulted in severe shortages in fuel, electricity, food, medicines, and other essential items. While some stabilization occurred in 2023, many experienced a sharp decline in living standards, and the country still grapples with a heavy debt burden.
Poverty has almost doubled – from 13 per cent in 2021 to 25 per cent in 2022, according to World Bank estimates, and it is projected to further rise to 27.4 per cent this year, and remain over 25 per cent for the next few years.
Women have borne a “distinct impact” post-crisis, as many are primarily engaged in informal sectors of the economy and face limited access to social protection, said OHCHR.
Food and education
Food insecurity and access to health and education also remain major concerns.
Across the country, about 37 per cent of households faced acute food insecurity in November 2022, leading to a significant number of families buying cheaper less nutritious food and sometimes skipping meals altogether, leading to fears of rising malnutrition among children.
Mental health has also been affected as people face multiple stresses due to price increases, scarcity and loss of income.
Access to education is also at risk, amid rising truancy due to competing economic needs, and higher transport and food costs.
Children from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds and girls are particularly vulnerable, OHCHR noted.
Recommendations
The report outlines a series of recommendations, including a call on the Government to guarantee people’s economic and social rights, tackle corruption and create an enabling environment for a successful and sustainable transitional justice process.
It also urges increased women’s participation in political life and decision-making, as well as ensuring free and fair elections at all levels of government.
The report also calls on the international community to support effective and meaningful transitional justice processes, in compliance with international norms, and targeted sanctions against those credibly alleged to have perpetrated gross human rights violations.
Cuba says it has uncovered a human trafficking network operating from Russia that is recruiting Cubans to fight for their longstanding ally in Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Cubans living in Russia and “even some in Cuba” had been trafficked and “incorporated into the military forces taking part in the war in Ukraine,” the Cuban foreign ministry said Monday in a statement.
The ministry gave few details about the alleged trafficking operations, but said that authorities were working to “neutralize and dismantle” the network.
There were no reports of any arrests of people allegedly involved in the trafficking operation. In September, reports surfaced on social media of Cubans who said they were serving in Russia’s armed forces but that they had been tricked into joining the war effort and mistreated when they refused to fight. CNN was not able to independently verify those allegations, and it is not clear how many Cubans may be fighting for Russia.
Cuba stressed in its statement that it “is not part of the war in Ukraine.” The Kremlin has not commented on the allegations.
The report comes amid efforts by Russia to boost its forces in Ukraine, which have suffered heavy losses on the battlefield, and with the future of the mercenary Wagner Group in doubt.
Moscow announced a plan earlier this year to increase the strength of the Russian armed forces by 30% to 1.5 million servicemen. In July, the Russian state Duma voted to extend the military draft age to include citizens from 18 to 30 years old, up from 27.
For much of the conflict, the official Russian army has been bolstered by mercenaries contracted to Wagner. But after the death of the group’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led his troops in an aborted mutiny against Moscow in June, it is unclear whether Russia will rely on Wagner forces to wage its war in Ukraine.
Cuba was a major ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and relations between Havana and Moscow have remained cozy since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Cuba has been a staunch defender of Russia’s war on the country, blaming the US and NATO for the conflict. As Cuba grapples with its worse economic crisis in decades, Russia has supplied the communist-run island with badly needed food and shipments of crude oil. Since the war began the two nations have signed a flurry of agreements promising increased Russian foreign investment in Cuba.
In a rare interview in May, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told Russian state-controlled network RT that Cuba condemned “the expansion of NATO towards Russia’s borders,” echoing one of the Kremlin’s justifications for its brutal war.
Diaz-Canel visited Moscow in November last year to attend the unveiling of a statue of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also traveled to Cuba on separate trips this year and hailed the relations between the two countries.
There are historical precedents of Cubans fighting alongside and on behalf of Russia.
In several conflicts in Africa during the Cold War, “the deal was the Cubans would supply the soldiers, the Soviets would supply the weapons,” Sergei Radchenko, a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told CNN.
Thousands of Cuban fighters intervened in support of communist forces in Angola in 1975, as well as in Ethiopia in 1977, alongside Soviet troops and using Soviet equipment.
“Having Cuban mercenaries – you might call them mercenaries, or at that time it was revolutionary fighters – is a longstanding precedent as far as Cuba and the Cuban-Russian relationship is concerned,” said Radchenko. In Cuba, those military interventions – often fighting South African-trained mercenaries – are celebrated as having played a crucial role in ending apartheid in South Africa.
However, Radchenko said, the statement issued by Cuba’s foreign ministry “sounds like something very different,” due to the suggestion of coercion.
Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said he was not surprised that Russia is seeking Cuban mercenaries to wage its war.
“This is the typical Russian modus operandi of getting mercenaries to do their fighting for them – particularly in desperate states,” Sabatini told CNN, adding that Cuba “is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.”
What was surprising, he said, was the reaction of the Cuban government, which suggests that Russia “touched a nerve.”
“The Cuban government is fiercely loyal to its allies,” Sabatini said. “That they would call this out is an indication that they truly feel humiliated and exploited by what is an ally taking advantage of their citizens – at a time of desperate need.”
Russia has offered foreign fighters more than $2000 a month to fight in Ukraine, a fortune in Cuba where doctors do not earn that much in an entire year. Russia has also reportedly offered citizenship to foreigners willing to take up arms.
“It’s particularly insulting, too, because the way you are rewarding these mercenaries is giving them a chance to flee their country,” said Sabatini. “That hurts.”
In May, the Russian regional newspaper Ryazan Vedomosti reported that Cuban immigrants living in Russia had joined the Russian army.
“Several citizens of the Republic of Cuba went to serve in the Russian army. According to them, the Cubans want to help our country carry out tasks in the zone of a special military operation, and some of them would like to become citizens of Russia in the future,” said the article.
TikTok says operations have started at the first of its three European data centers, part of the popular Chinese owned app’s project to ease Western fears about privacy risks
ByABC News
September 5, 2023, 7:38 AM
FILE – The TikTok logo is seen on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen which displays the TikTok home screen, on March 18, 2023, in Boston. TikTok said Tuesday Sept. 5, 2023 that operations have started at the first of its three European data centers, part of the popular Chinese owned app’s project to ease Western fears about privacy risks. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)
The Associated Press
LONDON — TikTok said Tuesday that operations are underway at the first of its three European data centers, part of the popular Chinese owned app’s effort to ease Western fears about privacy risks.
The video sharing app said it began transferring European user information to a data center in Dublin. Two more data centers, another in Ireland and one in Norway, are under construction, TikTok said in an update on its plan to localize European user data, dubbed Project Clover.
TikTok has been under scrutiny by European and American regulators over concerns that sensitive user data may end up in China. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020.
TikTok unveiled its plan earlier this year to store data in Europe, where there are stringent privacy laws, after a slew of Western governments banned the app from official devices.
NCC Group, a British cybersecurity company, is overseeing the project, TikTok’s vice president of public policy for Europe, Theo Bertram, said in a blog post.
NCC Group will check data traffic to make sure that only approved employees “can access limited data types” and carry out “real-time monitoring” to detect and respond to suspicious access attempts, Bertram said.
“All of these controls and operations are designed to ensure that the data of our European users is safeguarded in a specially-designed protective environment, and can only be accessed by approved employees subject to strict independent oversight and verification,” Bertram said.
GENEVA — Backers of an international agreement that bans cluster munitions, which harm and kill many more civilians than combatants, are striving to prevent erosion in support for the deal after what one leading human rights group calls an “unconscionable” U.S. decision to ship such weapons to Ukraine for its fight against Russia.
Advocacy groups in the Cluster Munitions Coalition released their latest annual report on Tuesday, ahead of a meeting next week of envoys from the 112 countries that have acceded to or ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits the explosives and calls for clearing areas where they litter the ground — often during or after conflicts.
A further 12 countries have signed the convention. The United States and Russia are not among them.
Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch, who has long championed the 15-year-old convention, says the coalition was “extremely concerned” about the U.S. move in July, after an intense debate among U.S. leaders, to transfer unspecified thousands of 155mm artillery-delivered cluster munition rounds to Ukraine.
More than 20 government leaders and officials have criticized that decision, the coalition says.
Hoping to avoid defections from the convention, Wareham says supporters hope signatories will “stay strong — that they do not weaken their position on the treaty as a result of the U.S. decision. And we don’t see that happening yet. But it’s always a danger.”
U.S. officials argue that the munitions — a type of bomb that opens in the air and releases smaller “bomblets” across a wide area — could help Kyiv bolster its offensive and push through Russian front lines.
U.S. leaders have said the transfer involves a version of the munition that has a reduced “dud rate,” meaning fewer of the smaller bomblets fail to explode. The bomblets can take out tanks and equipment, as well as troops, hitting multiple targets at the same time.
But Wareham cited “widespread evidence of civilian harm that (is) caused by these weapons. It was just an unconscionable decision.”
The report says civilians accounted for 95% of cluster munition casualties that were recorded last year, totaling some 1,172 in eight countries: Azerbaijan, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Myanmar, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen. The monitor noted efforts in places like Bulgaria, Peru and Slovakia to destroy their stockpiles of the munitions in 2022 and earlier this year.
Children made up 71% of casualties from explosions of cluster-munition remnants last year, the report said.
It said Russia had “repeatedly” used cluster munitions in Ukraine since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces to invade Ukraine in February last year, while Ukraine had used them “to a lesser extent.”
Washington’s decision “is certainly a setback,” said Wareham, “but it’s not the end of the road for the Convention on Cluster Munitions by far.”
CARTAGENA, Colombia, Sep 04 (IPS) – In the midst of a complex web of crises, spanning climate change, biodiversity depletion, constraints on civic space and mounting debt burdens, civil society organizations and human rights defenders from over 50 countries have united their voices to call for immediate and impactful action from Public Development Banks (PDBs).
The global coalition’s message is clear: when it comes to financing for development, principles of rights, justice, sustainability, transparency, accountability and dignity for all cannot remain mere slogans. They must form the core of all projects undertaken by all Public Development Banks.
The Finance in Common Summit has become a pivotal platform for Public Development Banks from around the world. The fact that this year’s summit is taking place in Cartagena, Colombia, the deadliest country in the world in 2022 for human rights, envrionmental and indigenous activists, development banks must acknowledge and integrate the protection of human rights into their projects.
“Development banks are advocating to play an even bigger role in the global economy. But are they truly fit for this purpose? Unfortunately, the stories of communities around the world show us that development banks are failing to address the root causes of the very problems they claim to solve. We need to hold them accountable for this,” says Ivahanna Larrosa, Regional Coordinator for Latin America at the Coalition for Human Rights in Development.
“When PDB projects cause harm to people and the environment, PDBs must remedy these harms. All PDBs should implement an effective accountability mechanism to address concerns with projects and should commit to preventing and fully remediating any harm to communities,” adds Stephanie Amoako, Senior Policy Associate at Accountability Counsel.
The ongoing crises demand a transformation in the quality of financing and a power shift to include the voices of communities. The existing financial architecture not only impedes governments’ ability to safeguard both their citizens and the environment but also contributes to the escalating issue of chronic indebtedness. Policy-based lending and conditionalities enforced by International Financial Institutions have steered countries toward privatization of essential services, reduced social spending and preferential treatment for the private sector. This burdens the population with higher taxes, inflation, and weakened social safety nets.
“The same multinational companies that have polluted and violated human rights in Latin America are now obtaining financing from development banks for energy transition projects. Another example is the development of the green hydrogen industry in Chile, which carries a very high environmental and social risk,” says Maia Seeger, director of the Chilean civil society organization Sustentarse.
Addressing these issues requires a comprehensive and sustainable transformation of the financial architecture as well as holistic reforms and synergies with civil society and communities. Environmental and neo-colonial debts need to be a thing of the past and equitable reforms the thing of the present.
Global civil society, in response to these challenges, demands bold and decisive actions in a collective declaration signed by over 100 organisations. The demands are the result of a 4-year process in which a coalition of civil society organisations has come together to call on all PDBs at the Finance in Common Summit to embrace tangible actions that genuinely prioritize and protect people.
Just last month we have seen that change is possible when communities are involved, as the people of Ecuador voted to ban oil drilling in one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, the Yasuní National Park in the Amazon rainforest.
“The global financial system needs not just a rethink but a surgical operation, and that requires bold action. Governments and institutions such as the Public Development Banks must cancel the debt of the countries that require it and put in place concrete and immediate measures to put an end to public financing of fossil fuels, to have financing based on subsidies so as not to fall into the debt trap once again. It is time for the rich countries, the biggest polluters and creditors, to offer real solutions to the multiple crises we are currently experiencing,” says Gaïa Febvre, International Policy Coordinator at Réseau Action climat France.
“Public and Multilateral Development Banks must divest from funding false climate solutions and projects that harm forests, biodiversity and communities. Instead, they should redirect finance to support gender just, rights based and ecosystems approaches that contribute to transformative changes leading to real solutions that address climate change, loss of biodiversity and create sustainable livelihoods for Indigenous Peoples, women in all their diversities and local communities. Public funds must support community governed agroecological practices, small scale farming and traditional animal rearing practices instead of large scale agri-business which perpetuates highly polluting and emitting industrial agriculture and unsustainable livestock production, the root cause for deforestation and food insecurity,” adds Souparna Lahiri, Senior Climate and Biodiversity Policy Advisor at the Global Forest Coalition (GFC).
The call to action emphasizes that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), effective climate action aligned with the Paris Agreement and successful implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework require Public Development Banks to pivot from a top-down profit-driven approach to one that prioritizes community-led involvement and human rights-based approaches.
“It is important that civil society participation be strengthened at the Finance in Common Summit (FICS). In previous years, civil society has been sidelined. Clearly, there is still some room for improvement for civil society participation to become truly meaningful. The lack of civil society representative on the opening panel this year is just one example of that. PDBs should promote and support an enabling environment for civil society and systematically incorporate civic space, human rights and gender analysis. This year, we are working towards ensuring that civil society voices, including those from communities are heard at the FICS. In collaboration with the FICS Secretariat, Forus seeks to establish a formal mechanism between civil society and PDBs and to ensure that civil society is recognised as an official engagement group,” says Marianne Buenaventura Goldman, Project Coordinator, Finance for Development at the global civil society network Forus.
WASHINGTON DC, Sep 01 (IPS) – In what has become an all too familiar phenomenon, U.S.-trained security personnel have been implicated in the July 26th coup that deposed Niger’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum.
It is the fifth such putsch in the Sahel since 2020, and just the latest to, once again, upend Washington’s expansive counterterror operations in the region that seems to depend on questionable military partners.
As the Biden administration wrestles with how to respond, it should consider how this latest military takeover reflects on years of U.S. security cooperation in the Sahel and the efficacy of the approach that has defined U.S. engagement with the region.
Overview of U.S. Assistance to Niger and the Sahel
Over the last decade, U.S. security cooperation in the Sahel, and the western Sahel in particular, has grown substantially, reflecting widespread concern about the surge in Islamist militancy in the region.
A mix of armed groups, including those with affiliations with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, have proliferated in the region over the years, carrying out opportunistic attacks, engaging in illicit economic activity, and posing acute challenges to state authority.
Elias YousifThe United States has responded to perceived threats in the region by investing heavily in its own counterterror operations and security assistance programs, amounting to more than $3.3 billion in military aid to the Sahel over the last two decades.
Programs like the Trans-Sahara Partnership Initiative, Department of Defense building partner capacity programs, and numerous foreign military training operations have been central pillars of the U.S. approach to the region.
Despite being paired with significant amounts of economic and humanitarian assistance, they have anchored bilateral relations between Washington and its Sahelian partners.
Between FY2001 and FY2021, the United States provided the countries of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal at least $995 million in direct security assistance, a figure which likely excludes much of the aid provided through large but opaque Department of Defense capacity building programs.
And between FY2001 and FY2020, the United States provided training to at least 86 thousand trainees in these countries, including 17,643 from Niger.
Substantial Aid But Little Progress
Unfortunately, this assistance has not resulted in commensurate improvements in the security landscape or acted as an effective bulwark against civil-military strife. Whatever tactical advances U.S. assistance has contributed to, on the part of Sahelian security forces, the presence, activity, and power of sub-state armed groups has continued to grow.
Terrorism-related activity in the region has increased by more than 2,000 percent over the past decade and a half, while militant organizations have pursued increasingly bold operations and pseudo-state activities.
At the same time, U.S. security assistance activities have provided material support to military officers who have both engaged in grave human rights abuses or who have gone on to support the overthrow of civilian governments.
In just the last three years, the Sahel has seen five coups, two each in Mali and Burkina Faso and now one in Niger, each of which has involved or implicated officers that received U.S. military training.
Unsurprisingly, these military coups have reflected poorly on U.S. security assistance efforts and exposed severe shortcomings in Washington’s approach to the region.
Although it would be difficult to identify a causal relationship between U.S. training and coup propensity on the part of recipients, repeated putsches by U.S.-backed forces show a lack of discretion in how the United States selects its security partners.
Indeed, the behavior of many of these U.S.-trained forces is far from unpredictable, especially in places where military figures have long played outsized political roles.
More robust, in-depth, and multidisciplinary pre-assessments should better inform the selection of U.S. security assistance beneficiaries and partners, and policymakers should have the courage to use that information to decline invitations to engage in security cooperation when the risk is too high.
More broadly, the highly securitized nature of U.S. engagement with the region places significant emphasis on addressing the symptoms of insecurity and distracts from other lines of effort aimed at issues of governance, peacebuilding, and conflict resolution.
Moreover, the rhetorical and political emphasis Washington has placed on counterterrorism, in addition to overshadowing significant humanitarian and development investments, can also risk securitizing local politics and elevating the political saliency of military leaders over their civilian counterparts.
Indeed, in nearly all of the most recent coups, their military leaders have cited militancy and counterterror imperatives as justification for removing civilian leaders. Without a greater emphasis on governance, civil-military reforms, and defense institution building as a prerequisite to combat-oriented assistance, the United States risks perpetuating conflict and political instability.
Finally, when U.S.-backed security forces engage in coups or grave human rights violations, the United States should be unequivocal in its response. Too frequently, the United States has been willing to voice rhetorical condemnation while discreetly sustaining security cooperation activities.
Invoking the need to address terrorism or the infiltration of other competing powers in the region, the familiar turning of the United States’ blind eye in the Sahel has both undermined any meaningful commitment to conditionality in U.S. assistance and sent a troubling signal about the consequences of predatory behavior on the part of U.S. security partners.
The United States should re-orient its strategic calculus and right size how it weighs the risks of shedding abusive security partners against the risks of continuing to partner with forces undermining good governance and human rights.
Elias Yousif is a Research Analyst with the Stimson Center’s Conventional Defense Program. His research focuses on the global arms trade and arms control, issues related to remote warfare and use of force, and international security cooperation and child-soldiers prevention. Prior to joining the Stimson Center, Elias was the Deputy Director of the Security Assistance Monitor at the Center for International Policy where he analyzed the impact of U.S. arms transfer and security assistance programs on international security, U.S. foreign policy, and global human rights practices.
“The draft law could be described as a form of gender apartheid, as authorities appear to be governing through systemic discrimination with the intention of suppressing women and girls into total submission,” the independent experts said.
They stressed that the proposed parliamentary Bill to Support the Family by Promoting the Culture of Chastity and Hijab and existing de facto restrictions are inherently discriminatory and may amount to gender persecution.
“The draft law imposes severe punishments on women and girls for non-compliance which may lead to its violent enforcement,” the experts warned.
It also violates fundamental rights such as the right to take part in cultural life, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to peaceful protest, and the right to access social, educational, and health services, they added.
Mahsa Amini death
“After months of nationwide protests over the death of Jina Mahsa Amini and against restrictive veiling laws, the authorities have introduced a tiered system of punishments targeting women and girls,” the experts said.
The 22-year-old was arrested in Tehran and taken into custody nearly a year ago by the so-called morality police for her alleged failure to comply with the already strict hijab laws.
She reportedly fell ill at a police station with witnesses testifying that she had first been severely beaten, and later died in hospital. Iranian authorities denied that she had been assaulted.
Culture war
The UN-appointed added the proposed new punishments under the draft legislation would “disproportionately affect economically marginalised women”.
The use of culture by the Iranian government as a tool to restrict the rights of women and girls is misplaced, the experts warned, noting that “culture is formed and evolves with the participation of all”.
By using terms such as “nudity, lack of chastity, lack of hijab, bad dressing and acts against public decency leading to disturbance of peace”, the draft law seeks to authorise public institutions to deny essential services and opportunities to those who will not comply.
Directors and managers of organisations who fail to implement the law could also be punished; the independent experts warned.
‘Weaponizing’ morality
“The weaponization of “public morals” to deny women and girls their freedom of expression is deeply disempowering and will entrench and expand gender discrimination and marginalisation, with wider negative consequences for children and society as a whole,” the experts said.
They note that the so-called morality police have also been reportedly redeployed in some areas since early July, potentially to enforce compulsory veiling strictures.
The bill was submitted to parliament by the Government and the judiciary on 21 May. Since then, it has been amended several times, with the latest draft significantly increasing the number of punishments for non-compliance.
“We urge authorities to reconsider the compulsory hijab legislation in compliance with international human rights law, and to ensure the full enjoyment of human rights for all women and girls in Iran,” the experts said.
Experts’ mandate
Special Rapporteurs and other independent human rights experts are appointed to monitor and report on specific country situations or thematic issues.
They serve in their individual capacity, are not UN staff and do not receive payment for their work.
The desperate situation prompted a tweet on Friday from Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths calling for an immediate end to the fighting.
“This carnage needs to stop” said the UN relief chief.
Major escalation
In the past two weeks alone, 71 people have been killed and injured in capital Port-au-Prince, marking a major escalation, according to UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, which Mr. Griffiths heads.
“Entire families, including children, were executed while others were burned alive. This upsurge in violence has caused unspeakable continued suffering of Haitians,” Philippe Branchat, acting UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the country said in a news release on Thursday.
So far this year, gang violence in the Caribbean country has claimed more than 2,500 lives, with over 1,000 injured.
At least 970 Haitians have been kidnapped, and 10,000 forcibly displaced from their homes.
The latest wave of violence has also resulted in the forced displacement of over ten thousand people who have sought refuge in spontaneous camps and host families.
Brazen human rights violations
Also on Thursday, the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) issued a report outlining the dire human rights situation there, including brutal killings and lynchings.
The report noted that frustrated by lack of security and functioning government, residents armed with machetes, rocks, and fuel cans have resorted to brutal measures to prevent gang members and anyone associated with them from entering their neighbourhoods.
Between April and June, nearly 240 alleged gang members were killed by these self-proclaimed “self-defence groups.”
“While some killings appeared to be spontaneous, others were encouraged, supported, or facilitated by high-ranking police officers and gang members belonging to the G-9 and allies,” the report said.
The report also documented horrifying instances of sexual violence, including collective rape and mutilation, perpetrated by gangs to spread fear, punish rivals, and target women and girls under their territorial control.
BINUH expressed concern about the forced recruitment of children by gangs and the severe mental and psychological toll the violence is exacting on the population.
The office reiterated its call to the international community to deploy a specialized international force to address the crisis.
Massive humanitarian needs
According OCHA, nearly half of Haiti’s population needs humanitarian and food assistance.
Despite access challenges due to insecurity, humanitarian partners are reaching the displaced people with immediate aid such as food, water, shelter, sanitation, health, and psychosocial support, particularly for victims of sexual violence.
“The people in Haiti cannot continue to live trapped in their homes, unable to feed their families, find work and live in dignity,” OCHA said.
The relief agency added that humanitarians are committed to stand with the people in Haiti and assist in providing immediate assistance to alleviate human suffering.
Less than 24 hours after the United States urged its citizens to leave Haiti “as soon as possible” due to increased violence, authorities deported dozens of Haitian nationals back to the country, an immigration rights advocate has confirmed.
Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance advocacy group, told Al Jazeera she has been in contact with some of the families of the Haitians who were on Thursday’s removal flight from Alexandria, Louisiana, to Port-au-Prince.
US media outlets, including The Hill and the Miami Herald, also reported on the deportation flight, which Jozef said carried more than 60 people. Several flight-tracking websites showed that a plane was set to arrive in the Haitian capital from Alexandria shortly before noon local time.
Resuming deportations to Haiti is “inhumane”, Jozef said, explaining that asylum seekers and migrants are being sent back to the same conditions they fled in the first place, if not worse.
She compared the crisis in Haiti to a raging fire. “You have a burning house, and you have people, including children, in that burning house,” she said. “Instead of sending the firefighters to save the people, you’re dropping people into the fire.”
One of the poorest countries in the world, Haiti has been facing rampant gang violence. It has also suffered from periodic natural disasters and a longstanding political deadlock made worse by the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021.
On Wednesday, the US embassy in Haiti called on American citizens to leave the country, citing “the current security situation and infrastructure challenges”.
The announcement went a step further than previous warnings against travelling to Haiti. In July, Washington also ordered the departure of non-emergency government employees from Haiti.
“Do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and poor healthcare infrastructure,” a US state department travel advisory for Haiti reads.
Last year, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 1,532 Haitian citizens, compared with 353 in fiscal year 2021.
But the latest removal flight has left Haitians in the US in disbelief, Jozef said, particularly after the state department’s recent warnings about security conditions in the country.
“Everybody’s afraid because they don’t know what will happen. They cannot believe this is happening, that there could be deportation to Haiti right now,” she said.
ICE and the state department did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment by the time of publication.
Asked about US immigration policy more generally during a news briefing on Thursday, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden is seeking to rebuild a “broken” system, highlighting policies designed to stem arrivals across the US-Mexico border.
“The president has done more to secure the border to deal with this issue of immigration than anybody else,” Jean-Pierre said.
But Jozef said that while Biden has pushed for certain reforms, he kept many policies from his predecessor, former Republican President Donald Trump, including deportations.
Rights advocates have long warned against deporting people back to Haiti.
In April, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) called on countries in the Americas to “suspend the forced return of Haitians to their country, taking into account the current situation in Haiti”.
In 2021, Daniel Foote resigned as the US special envoy for Haiti in response to the mass deportations under the Biden administration. Later that year, he told US lawmakers that sending people back to Haiti worsens the situation on the ground.
“Haiti is too dangerous,” Foote said at that time. “Our own diplomats cannot leave our compound in Port-au-Prince without armed guards.”
On Thursday, Jozef also told Al Jazeera that deporting people under the chaotic conditions further destabilises Haiti. “The situation is extremely bad,” she said.
Mushroom workers rally, Sunnyside, Washington, April 18, 2023. Credit: Peter Costantini
by Peter Costantini (seattle, usa)
Inter Press Service
SEATTLE, USA, Aug 31 (IPS) – The Yakima River runs southeast from the Cascade Mountains through central Washington state to merge with the Columbia a little north of Oregon. From the small city of Yakima on down, its course broadens from a winding canyon into a wide valley bounded by austere low ridges of gray-green sagebrush and tawny grasses. In mid-April, the new leaves of the willows and cottonwoods light up the riverbanks with luminous chartreuse.
The valley beyond the river bottom was once mostly semi-arid rangeland punctuated by basalt cliffs. But as irrigation systems spread across it in the early 20th Century, it morphed into rich farmlands. Expanses of vineyards stretch across the valley and climb the hills. One part of the Yakima Valley Highway has been renamed “Wine Country Road”, and at intersections, signs point to wineries and tasting rooms.
Tall frameworks of wood and wire stand waiting for hop vines to grow up them. The Yakima Valley produces more than three-quarters of the hops grown in the United States. Apple and pear orchards are beginning to bloom. In fields of corn and beans, the first green shoots are just poking up.
The town of Sunnyside drapes over a hill about 30 miles southeast of Yakima city. The town’s 16 thousand residents are 86 percent Hispanic, and Yakima County is over 52 percent, in a country where the Hispanic population is approaching one-fifth of the total and growing.
Yearly per capita income in Sunnyside is $15,570 and the poverty rate is 18.6 percent, compared with $43,817 and 9.9 percent for the state of Washington. That means that average yearly income here is a bit more than one-third that of the state, and poverty is almost twice as high.
Sign at mushroom workers rally, Sunnyside, Washington, April 18, 2023. Credit: Peter Costantini
At the south end of town, across Interstate 82, Midvale Road is lined with industrial processing and service facilities: warehouses, pipelines, silos, and tanks for dairy, candy, feed, fertilizer and equipment. At the end of this agribusiness stronghold, rows of long white structures looking like opaque greenhouses are identified by a sign: “Windmill Farms”. Inside, on multi-level bins in windowless, climate-controlled rooms, mushrooms are growing. The delivery trucks parked outside the farm still have “Ostrom Farms”, the name of the previous owners, painted on their sides.
Along the road outside the mushroom farm one April afternoon, workers, their families, and their supporters walk a picket line. Crimson flags bearing a black Aztec eagle on a white circle flutter in a stiff wind. Red, white, blue and green undulate as well: a young boy hoists an American flag as an older man waves the Mexican tricolor. Homemade signs say “We Feed You” and “La Union Es La Fuerza” (“The union is strength”), and “Queremos unión – Protesta (“We want a union – Protest).
From a portable sound system, the Mexican ranchera (country) music of Joan Sebastian and Los Tigres del Norte lends an upbeat accordion and guitar cadence to the proceedings.
These mushroom workers are picketing Windmill Farms to demand that it right some flagrant wrongs that Ostrom Farms, the former owner, inflicted on them before selling the farm. The new owners, they say, have not remedied the problems.
Over a year ago, Ostrom workers began to raise complaints about working conditions, wages, and management, working with organizers from the United Farm Workers union. Getting no response, they voted overwhelmingly to form a union to bargain with the company. Ostrom responded by laying off all its workers and selling the farm to Windmill Farms, which is controlled by an investment firm. Windmill told the former workers that they could reapply to work there, but would have to accept restrictions on their workplace rights.
Before the sale, Ostrom had replaced most of its workers, who were predominantly Hispanic women living in the area, with male “guest workers” brought in from Mexico on H-2A temporary agricultural visas. They have limited labor rights and can easily be fired and deported. A few of the original workers were hired back, but some not at their old jobs.
The demonstrators are demanding that Windmill rehire workers who were fired, address their grievances, recognize their union and bargain a contract with it. Members of other unions have come from around the state to show solidarity.
The president of the United Farm Workers, Teresa Romero, has come up from California. She addresses the crowd in Spanish:
“We’re here today fighting for all of you. But we can’t do this without the leadership, that you’ve demonstrated. It’s not easy. Many of you have been fired for demanding your rights. But we’re going to keep fighting for the workers who are still inside and who are afraid. And the fear they feel is very justified because many of you were fired. … Here we are and we’re not leaving! Thanks to all who are supporting us from outside of the farm workers movement, but who realize how hard it is for workers in the fields to organize.”
She ends her speech with “¡Sí, se puede!” (“Yes we can!”), the traditional farm workers grito. And the crowd continues cheering, “¡Sí, se puede!”.
Next, an animated man with a goatee and sunglasses smiles at the assembly. José Martínez is one of the leaders in forming the union. He was fired by Ostrom, but then rehired by Windmill. His Spanish is hoarse and passionate:
“I want to send a very clear message to the company: we don’t want to destroy you. The only thing we want is that you treat us with dignity, equality and respect as human beings. And to have a union, that’s what we’re fighting for. Thanks to all of you who have come from different places to support our cause. We won’t leave until we reach this goal. ¡Viva la causa!¡Viva César Chávez!¡Viva la unión!¡Siempre pa’adelante!” (“Long live the cause! Long live Cesar Chavez! Long live the Union! Always forward!”)
Daniela Barajas was fired by Ostrom but found a job with a different company. She tells the crowd in Spanish:
“We’ve just begun to fight. Although I haven’t worked in the mushroom farm more than a year – I was one of those who was fired – I continue supporting the people who are there those who don’t have jobs to feed their families. They have a right to better treatment at work. And we’re not going away until they recognize a union there..”
Her speech is echoed by chants of: “¿Que queremos? ¡Unión!” (“What do we want? Union!”).
The union’s Secretary of Civic Action, Juanito Marcial, drove over with some other workers from the Seattle area to offer solidarity to the mushroom workers. The Chateau Sainte Michelle winery there, where he works, is the site of the United Farm Workers’ first contract in the state. Workers won it in 1995 after an eight-year struggle, and it remains in force. Most of the UFW’s membership, however, is in California where the union began.
Marcial recalls that history in Spanish: “We’re here, the comrades who work at Sainte Michelle under a union contract. And I want to tell you that we now have an average of 27 years, the only agricultural site that has a contract , and that we’re enjoying various benefits for workers. We’re saying to you, comrades, that this is just the first step, we can’t weaken. Hasta la victoria siempre! (Until victory always!)”
The UFW regional director, Victoria Ruddy, closes the rally by thanking the workers for a year of struggle. “As don José says, ‘¡No vamos a parar hasta ganar unión!’” (‘We won’t stop until we win a union!’) And the crowd ambles over to a nearby park for a picnic.
“Yes, we can! The union is strength!” UFW rally, Sunnyside, Washington, April 18, 2023. Credit: Peter Costantini
New bosses, but still no union
“Yes, we can! The union is strength!” UFW rally, Sunnyside, Washington, April 18, 2023. Photo: Peter Costantini
Sign at mushroom workers rally, Sunnyside, Washington, April 18, 2023. Photo: Peter Costantini
The road that led the mushroom workers to their April 18 rally outside of Windmill Farms was riddled with corporate switchbacks and legal potholes.
In 2019, Ostrom Mushrooms closed a mushroom farm in western Washington state, laid off more than 200 workers, and moved its operations to Sunnyside. The firm received generous public subsidies from different levels of government for construction of a new $60 million plant.
In Sunnyside, Ostrom hired a new workforce varying between 200 and 300 workers. Most were local Hispanic women. At that time, CEO Travis Wood complained of a shortage of labor despite the advantages of year-round work and controlled-climate conditions inside the facility.
“In mid-2021,” The Washington State Attorney General found, “Ostrom hired new management to improve its production. believed Ostrom needed to replace its largely female workforce because had childcare obligations and could not work late hours or weekends. … anagement decided to replace its domestic workforce with workers from the H-2A guest worker program.”
Consequently, Ostrom employees elected a leadership committee to raise issues about wages and working conditions with management. They began to consult with United Farm Workers organizers and the non-profit Columbia Legal Services.
In June 2022, the workers submitted a petition to Ostrom calling for “fair pay, safe working conditions, and respect”. It alleged that managers had threatened and bullied workers, instituted mandatory overtime shifts and raised production quotas to excessive levels. Workers were overworked and undervalued, said Ostrom worker Joceline Castillo. But Ostrom stonewalled the petition.
Meanwhile, in August 2022, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a civil complaint against Ostrom under state laws. Ferguson accused Ostrom of discrimination and unfair employment practices based on employees’ sex, citizenship, or immigration status, and of retaliating against employees who opposed these violations. Ostrom had gone ahead and replaced most of its local female workers with male “guest” workers brought in from Mexico, whose H-2A temporary visas give them fewer labor protections. However, the H-2A program requires that the employer first demonstrate that it cannot hire enough workers from the local workforce, which was evidently not the case.
The complaint also charged Ostrom with “engaging in unfair and deceptive practices … by misleading actual and prospective domestic pickers with regard to job eligibility requirements, wages, and availability of employment.”
However, Ferguson was unable to directly address retaliation against union organizing or the use of H-2A workers to replace resident workers. These issues fall under federal law, while the state attorney general can enforce only state laws.
The National Labor Relations Act, the 1935 federal statute that regulates union organizing and collective bargaining, excludes farm workers and domestic workers from its coverage. So the Ostrom workers were not able to go through formal legal procedures for union recognition or to invoke the law’s protection against retaliation for union organizing.
Nevertheless, in September 2022 the workers announced their vote, held under UFW auspices: 70 percent chose to form a union. They asked management to sit down and bargain on wages and working conditions. Ostrom refused.
The Ostrom workers and UFW organizers upped the ante in their campaign by marshalling community support. They organized periodic informational pickets at the Ostrom farm in Sunnyside. And in a reprise of the farm worker boycotts of the 1960s and 1970s, they began in November to picket outside of a supermarket in Seattle. They asked consumers not to buy Ostrom mushrooms, but instead to seek out mushrooms from two unionized farms in California.
In November, the State Department of Labor & Industries responded to a complaint and found working conditions at Ostrom that could cause injuries to workers. The agency fined the grower only $4,000, but also investigated another complaint.
Then on February 14, the campaign hit a roadblock. According to the UFW, Ostrom Mushroom Farms management held a company-wide meeting to tell all its workers that they were fired immediately. As of that midnight, Ostrom’s facility would be sold to Greenwood Mushroom Sunnyside IA, LLC, a new entity owned by Windmill Farms. Based in Ashburn, Ontario, Canada, Windmill also uses the Greenwood Mushrooms label at farms in Ontario and Pennsylvania. In turn, Windmill is owned by Instar Asset Management, a Toronto-based private equity firm.
The fired Ostrom workers were told they could reapply for jobs under the new management. But they would have to fill out new applications, possibly accept different jobs, and sign arbitration agreements that forbade suing the employer or unionizing.
The Windmill and former Ostrom workers, including those now unemployed, pushed ahead with their campaign. Some of the original workers who were rehired complained that they ended up in worse jobs with lower pay.
Under Windmill Farms management, working conditions were still “pretty bad”, according to workers committee leader José Martínez, who had worked at Ostrom for three years. “They want you to go fast” to meet an hourly quota of picking 50 pounds of mushrooms, he told me. “They put you on probation for 90 days. If you don’t make they’re gonna let you go.” The biggest problem, though, is that “there’s no communication with them. Sometimes one supervisor comes and tells you one thing, and then another one comes after and changes the whole thing.” If the company recognizes the union, he said, “everything is gonna be fine.”
Shortly after the rally, though, Martínez was fired by Windmill, which claimed he wasn’t meeting production demands. But he suspected he may have been fired because of his pro-union activism.
Finally on May 16, the Washington State Attorney General’s Office announced that Ostrom and Greenwood had signed a consent decree. Ostrom agreed to pay $3.4 million into a fund to compensate workers who suffered discrimination or retaliation for reporting it – over 170 may be eligible. In the agreement, Greenwood agreed to discontinue the “unfair and discriminatory employment practices” identified under Ostrom, and established a framework for compliance training and monitoring to prevent future violations.
“Ostrom’s systematic discrimination was calculated to force out female and Washington-based employees,” Ferguson said in a statement. “I want to thank the workers who spoke out against this discrimination in the face of so much danger and stood up for their rights. My team fought for them and today we secured an important victory.”
Beyond substantial compensation for the workers, the settlement avoided a drawn-out court battle. But because it was based on state law, it could not compel recognition of the union or rehiring by Windmill of the fired workers, nor could it address the prohibited use of H-2A temporary workers to replace resident workers.
A worker still employed by Windmill, Isela Cabrera, commented: “I am very happy for my coworkers who experienced humiliations and retaliations by Ostrom management.” She said that she hoped the consent decree would help begin to improve conditions, “as this new management continues to commit favoritism and retaliation. We want our fired friends to get their jobs back and for Windmill Farms to recognize our union.”
UFW President Romero explained to me that one focus of the union campaign will be on persuading Instar’s investors, some of which may be union pension funds, to pressure Windmill Farms to recognize the union.
The state branch of the AFL-CIO, the main national labor confederation, announced the formation of a solidarity committee. Its president, April Sims, emphasized: “All workers deserve fair treatment at work and the freedom to join together to negotiate for better wages and working conditions. Workers at Windmill Farms are getting neither of those things. We stand in solidarity with these brave mushroom workers and we will fight side-by-side until we win a union contract at Windmill Farms.”
On August 10, the U.S. Department of Labor announced fines totaling some $74,000 and awards of unpaid wages amounting to over $59,000 to compensate 62 H-2A temporary workers at Ostrom who had been underpaid and misled about housing and meals. But did not announce any action against Ostrom for claiming that they could not find enough local workers, as the H-2A program requires, while simultaneously firing large numbers of them.
Windmill Farms, Sunnyside, Washington, April 14, 2023. Credit: Peter Costantini
Catching a national wave of union organizing
The Ostrom / Windmill campaign joins a nascent national upswelling of union organizing across many industries. These initiatives, however, are swimming against half a century of anti-labor riptides.
Union membership in the U.S. in 2022 was 10.1 percent of wage and salary workers, with only 6.0 percent in the private sector, a post-WWII nadir. In 1955, 33.2 percent were unionized, more than three times as many. Union activists are frequently though illegally fired for organizing, and bargaining requirements for employers are often poorly enforced.
Agricultural and domestic workers were excluded from national labor protection laws in the 1930s, a relic of Jim Crow segregation that has never been remedied. The low-wage workers in those two fields at the time were mostly Black, Mexican or Filipino. Today they are mainly Hispanic, and among those most in need of strong labor protections.
If the former Ostrom workers had been in an industry other than agriculture or domestic work, they would have been covered by a federal law that protects worker efforts to unionize and forbids retaliation. And if rules had been enforced requiring businesses to show a dearth of local workers before hiring H-2A “guest” workers, the resident Ostrom workers could not have been legally replaced.
Despite these obstacles, a labor resurgence seems to be gaining momentum nationally. Mainly in low-wage service industries, most visibly at major employers like Starbucks and Amazon, organizing drives are making headlines. A 2022 Gallup opinion poll found that 71 percent of the U.S. public approve of labor unions, up from 48 percent in 2010 and 64 percent before the pandemic.
The Ostrom / Windmill campaign is also a protagonist in the renewed activism among agricultural workers. The United Farm Workers, founded in the early 1960s in California, reached a zenith in the later 1960s and 1970s, when it won numerous contracts and improved conditions in the fields. Its boycotts of grapes, lettuce and wine focused national attention on the widespread exploitation and abuse of farmworkers.
On the political front, the UFW spearheaded major improvements in labor laws, mainly in California. In 1975, a union campaign won the state’s approval of the landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which recognized farm workers’ right to organize.
Over the next two decades the UFW’s organizing waned and membership shrank. But in this century, membership has reportedly doubled and the union has spearheaded new campaigns for farm worker rights and against wage theft and sexual harassment.
Recently, Washington state’s Democratic government passed legislation guaranteeing farm workers at least the state minimum wage, which is currently $15.74 per hour, and time-and-a-half overtime pay for more than 40 hours weekly beginning January 1, 2024.
The 1995 UFW contract won by workers at the Chateau Sainte Michelle winery is still in force today. And the Sunnyside workers are urging consumers to buy mushrooms grown on two unionized California farms. According to the UFW, over three-quarters of the fresh mushroom industry in California is unionized, as are thousands of workers on vegetable, berry, winery, tomato, and dairy farms.
That black Aztec eagle in a white circle on a crimson flag may have to soar long and high outside of Windmill Farms and its owners’ offices to win a contract there. And many unions may have to walk picket lines outside of other farms, stores, and warehouses – and also city halls, statehouses and Congress – to ensure safe work environments and a decent living for all human beings who do “essential” work.
Yet despite the barriers erected against them, agricultural laborers are pursuing new strategies with old-fashioned grit to defend their workplace rights and build collective power.
UN says increased investments in strong institutions assist in preventing military coups. Credit: Gabon National Television via X
by Abigail Van Neely (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 31 (IPS) – The United Nations says increased investment in the Sahel region will assist in preventing military coups. This after military officers in Gabon announced a seizure of power from long-time President Ali Bongo Ondimba following the results of a disputed election in Gabon on Wednesday.
The proximity of this event to the military coup in Niger one month prior has renewed pressure on the United Nations to address growing instability in West and Central Africa.
In response, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the Secretary-General, encouraged increased investment in the region.
“The best way to deal with these military coups is, in fact, to invest more in preventing them prior,” Dujarric said. “There needs to be investment in developments, in strong institutions. We need to make sure that elections are well organized, that people have the ability to express their will and themselves freely.”
There have been seven successful coups in West and Central Africa since 2020, Reuters reports. The spokesman told journalists that there has not been enough involvement by the international community in the Sahel region, though he cautioned against generalizations between countries.
Secretary-General António Guterres joined various institutions, including the government of France, in condemning the ongoing coup as a means to resolve the post-electoral crisis. Gabon is currently a non-permanent elected member of the Security Council. It remains to be seen how a successful coup will affect the UN body’s work.
New leadership in Gabon could have international economic and environmental impacts. The former French colony is the world’s seventh-largest oil producer. The domination of the Gabonese oil industry by French companies may cease without Bongo, a French ally, in power. Bongo has also been celebrated for his efforts to prevent overfishing and protect the rainforests that cover 90% of Gabon, the New York Times reports. Policy changes could reverse this progress.
Dujarric confirmed that the 776 UN staff members and dependents in Gabon were safe. He expressed a broader concern for the people of Gabon and all people who have experienced violations of their rights as a result of recent military coups.
DHAKA, Bangladesh — More than 170 global leaders and Nobel laureates have urged Bangladesh’s prime minister to suspend legal proceedings against Muhammad Yunus, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for pioneering the use of microcredit to help impoverished people.
In an open letter, the leaders, including former U.S. President Barack Obama, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and more than 100 Nobel laureates, said they were deeply concerned by recent threats to democracy and human rights in Bangladesh.
“One of the threats to human rights that concerns us in the present context is the case of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus. We are alarmed that he has recently been targeted by what we believe to be continuous judicial harassment,” said the letter, dated Tuesday.
“We are confident that any thorough review of the anti-corruption and labor law cases against him will result in his acquittal,” it said.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina responded by saying she would welcome international experts and lawyers to come to Bangladesh to assess the legal proceedings and examine documents involving the charges against Yunus.
“If they send the experts and lawyers, many more things will get revealed, which remain untouched. Many such things will come out,” Hasina said.
In 1983, Yunus founded Grameen Bank, which gives small loans to entrepreneurs who would not normally qualify for bank loans. The bank’s success in lifting people out of poverty led to similar microfinancing efforts in many other countries.
Hasina’s administration began a series of investigations of Yunus after coming to power in 2008. She became enraged when Yunus announced he would form a political party in 2007 when the country was run by a military-backed government and she was in prison, although he did not follow through on the plan.
Yunus has also criticized politicians in the country, saying they are only interested in money. Hasina called him a “bloodsucker” and accused him of using force and other means to recover loans from poor rural women as head of Grameen Bank.
Hasina’s government began a review of the bank’s activities in 2011, and Yunus was fired as managing director for allegedly violating government retirement regulations. He was put on trial in 2013 on charges of receiving money without government permission, including his Nobel Prize award and royalties from a book.
He later faced more charges involving other companies he created, including Grameen Telecom, which is part of the country’s largest mobile phone company, GrameenPhone, a subsidiary of Norwegian telecom giant Telenor.
Earlier this month, 18 former Grameen Telecom workers filed a case against Yunus accusing him of siphoning off their job benefits. Defense lawyers called the case harassment and vowed to fight the allegations.
Separately, Yunus went on trial on Aug. 22 on charges of violating labor laws. The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments brought the case against Yunus and three other people in 2021, alleging discrepancies during an inspection of Grameen Telecom, including a failure to regularize positions for 101 staff members and to establish a workers’ welfare fund.
Yunus and 13 others were also named in a case brought by the Anti-Corruption Commission accusing them of embezzling funds from Grameen Telecom.
In their letter, the global figures also urged that Bangladesh’s upcoming elections, expected to be held by early January, be credible.
Hasina said the elections would be free and fair.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has alleged that the elections will be rigged and threatened to boycott the voting if Hasina does not step down and hand over power to a caretaker government to oversee the balloting. Hasina has rejected the demand.
Csaba Kőrösi, President of the United Nations General Assembly, addresses the General Assembly meeting to commemorate and promote the International Day against Nuclear. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
by Abigail Van Neely (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 (IPS) – The President of the UN General Assembly, Csaba K?rösi, struggled to find a reason to celebrate the 13th International Day against Nuclear Tests. There have only been five nuclear tests, all conducted by North Korea since the day was declared in 2010. Still, K?rösi said he sees a world plagued by more distrust, geopolitical competition, and conflict than before.
“We are closer than at any other time in this century to global catastrophe, and yet we fail to see the terrifying trap that we have set for humanity by betting on nuclear weapons,” K?rösi told the General Assembly.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would ban all nuclear tests and explosions. However, while it was adopted by a large majority of the General Assembly in 1996, the treaty is not yet in force. It must first be ratified by nine remaining countries with significant nuclear capabilities, including China, India, and the United States.
Secretary-General António Guterres called for these countries to ratify the treaty immediately to end the “destructive legacy” of nuclear war.
Izumi Nakamitsu, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs addresses the UNGA to commemorate and promote the International Day against Nuclear Tests. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
Meanwhile, nuclear stockpiles and capabilities are growing. Globally, a record 2.2 trillion dollars went to military spending last year. According to Izumi Nakamitsu, the high representative for disarmament affairs, there are 13,000 nuclear weapons stored around the world.
K?rösi expressed concern that nuclear testing threatens the “newest human right” to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. He called for a “human-centered approach to disarmament” aimed at preventing both human suffering and environmental destruction. As Nakamitsu pointed out, nuclear tests often occur in the world’s most fragile ecosystems.
In the last decade, international monitoring systems have helped increase transparency and promote a “powerful global norm against testing,” Robert Floyd, the executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, said. Civil society has continued to play an important role in advocating for nuclear non-proliferation since the first nuclear test in 1945 and first test ban treaty in 1965.
Still, danger persists. The president reminded member states that a limited nuclear war cannot exist: “It is time to put an end to the threat of our collective suicide.”
BEIJING — Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and her Chinese counterpart expressed support for improving trade conditions as Raimondo on Monday began a visit to Beijing aimed at improving chilly relations.
Raimondo joined American officials including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in July who have visited China in the past three months. They expressed optimism about improving communication but have announced no progress on technology, security, human rights and other disputes that have plunged relations to their lowest level in decades.
For its part, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government wants to revive foreign investor interest in China as it tries to reverse a deepening economic slump.
Beijing is ready to work together to “foster a more favorable policy environment for stronger cooperation” and “bolster bilateral trade and investment,” Commerce Minister Wang Wentao told Raimondo. Wang gave no details of possible initiatives.
Raimondo said the two sides are working on establishing “new information exchanges” for “more consistent engagement.”
“It is profoundly important that we have a stable economic relationship,” she said. “I believe that we can make progress if we are direct, open and practical.”
Beijing broke off dialogue with Washington on military, climate and other issues in August 2022 in retaliation for a visit to Taiwan by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi of the House of Representatives. The mainland’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-ruled island democracy as part of its territory and objects to foreign governments having contact with it.
The state press has given positive coverage to the American visits to Beijing, but China has given no indication it might change trade, strategic, market access and other policies that irk Washington and its Asian neighbors.
Raimondo told reporters before leaving Washington she was looking for “actionable, concrete steps” to move forward in commercial relations but gave no details. She said she was realistic that the ”challenges are significant.”
The visits take place under an agreement made by Xi and President Joe Biden during a meeting last November in Indonesia.
In June, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Xi for 30 minutes during a visit that was postponed from February after a Chinese surveillance balloon entered U.S. airspace. The Chinese leader called on Washington to change policies on Taiwan and other issues and rebuffed a request to resume military-to-military cooperation.
Last week, on the day Raimondo’s visit to Beijing was announced, Washington removed 27 Chinese companies from a blacklist that limits access to U.S. technology.
The decision ”may have helped grease the wheels for Raimondo’s trip,” said Anna Ashton and Kylie Milliken of Eurasia Group in a report.
It suggests Washington “is making modest but measurable progress with Beijing in re-establishing limited government-to-government communication,” Ashton and Milliken wrote. ”Raimondo’s visit could produce additional progress.”
A key Chinese complaint is limits on access to processor chips and other U.S. technology that threaten to hamper the Communist Party’s ambition to develop artificial intelligence and other industries, which the U.S. has imposed on security grounds. The restrictions crippled the smartphone business of Huawei Technologies Ltd., China’s first global tech brand. Washington also has persuaded the Netherlands and Japan to join it in blocking Chinese access to tools for manufacturing advanced chips.
“In matters of national security, there is no room to compromise,” but most U.S.-Chinese trade “does not involve national security concerns,” Raimondo told Wang. “I’m committed to promoting trade and investment in those areas that are in our mutual best interest.”
Raimondo defended the Biden administration’s “de-risking” strategy of trying to increase domestic U.S. production of semiconductors and other high-tech goods and to create additional sources of supply to reduce chances of disruption. Beijing has criticized that as an attempt to isolate China and hamper its development.
“It is not intended to hinder China’s economic progress. We believe a strong Chinese economy is a good thing,” Raimondo told Wang. “We seek healthy competition with China. A growing Chinese economy that plays by the rules is in both of our interests.”
Wang visited Washington in May. The U.S. government invited Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Washington, but plans for that have not been announced.
Raimondo also was due to meet China’s No. 2 leader, Premier Li Qiang, and other officials.
The Biden administration also has taken steps that are likely to rankle Beijing.
In June, Biden added 59 Chinese companies including military contractors and semiconductor manufacturers to a list of entities Americans are prohibited from investing in.
Last week, Washington approved a $500 million arms sale to Taiwan including infrared tracking systems for advanced F-16 fighter jets.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and her Chinese counterpart have expressed support for improving trade conditions as Raimondo begins a visit to Beijing as part of U.S. efforts to improve chilly relations
ByJOE McDONALD AP Business Writer
August 27, 2023, 11:14 PM
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, right, speaks during a meeting with her Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao, unseen, at the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing, Monday, Aug. 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)
The Associated Press
BEIJING — U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and her Chinese counterpart expressed support Monday for improving trade conditions as Raimondo began a visit to Beijing as part of U.S. efforts to improve chilly relations.
Raimondo follows other American officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in July, who have visited China in the past three months. They expressed optimism about improving communication but have announced no progress on disputes over technology, security, human rights and other issues that have plunged relations to their lowest level in decades.
For its part, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government wants to revive foreign investor interest in China as it tries to reverse a deepening economic slump.
Beijing is ready to work together to “foster a more favorable policy environment for stronger cooperation” between U.S. and Chinese businesses and “bolster bilateral trade and investment,” Commerce Minister Wang Wentao told Raimondo. Wang gave no details of possible initiatives.
Raimondo said the two sides are working on establishing “new information exchanges” for “more consistent engagement.”
“It is profoundly important that we have a stable economic relationship,” she said. “I believe that we can make progress if we are direct, open and practical.”
Beijing broke off dialogue with Washington on military, climate and other issues in August 2022 in retaliation for a visit to Taiwan by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi of the House of Representatives. The mainland’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-ruled island democracy as part of its territory and objects to foreign governments having contact with it.
The state press has given positive coverage to the American visits to Beijing, but China has given no indication it might change trade, strategic, market access and other policies that irk Washington and its Asian neighbors.
A key Chinese complaint is limits on access to processor chips and other U.S. technology on security grounds that threaten to hamper China’s development of smartphone, artificial intelligence and other industries.
Wang visited Washington in May. The U.S. government has also invited Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Washington, but plans for that have not been announced.
Raimondo also was due to meet with China’s No. 2 leader, Premier Li Qiang, and other officials during her two-day visit to Beijing and Shanghai.
BANGKOK — BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military-installed government has ordered East Timor’s senior diplomat to leave the country in retaliation for the East Timorese government holding meetings with Myanmar’s main opposition organization, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday.
The statement said East Timor has conducted engagements with Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, which views itself as the country’s legitimate administration after the military seized power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021.
The National Unity Government also serves as an umbrella organization for opponents of military rule.
The Foreign Ministry said it informed the charge d’affaires of the East Timor Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, on Friday to leave the country no later than Sept. 1.
The charge d’affaires is believed to be the first foreign diplomat expelled from Myanmar since the army takeover.
Many countries have downgraded their relations with Myanmar and left behind the No. 2 diplomat in place of ambassadors.
The military takeover was met with massive public opposition, which security forces quashed with deadly force, in turn triggering widespread armed resistance as the country slipped into what some U.N. experts characterize as a civil war.
More than 4,000 civilians have been killed by security forces and nearly 20,000 are imprisoned, said the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which keeps tallies of casualties and arrests linked to repression by the military.
East Timor, Asia’s youngest nation, has vocally criticized Myanmar’s military rulers and shown support for the opposition.
In July, East Timor’s President Jose Ramos-Horta officially invited Zin Mar Aung, the foreign minister of the National Unity Government, to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, a former East Timor independence fighter.
Last week, the shadow government’s human rights minister, Aung Myo Min, was also invited to open a human rights training program in East Timor, where he met with Ramos-Horta.
“Such irresponsible actions of the government of Timor-Leste are not only harming the bilateral diplomatic relations between the two countries but also encouraging the terrorist group to further committing their violations in Myanmar,” the Foreign Ministry said.
East Timor’s government condemned the expulsion of its diplomat. It said East Timor “reiterates the importance of supporting all efforts for the return of democratic order in Myanmar and expresses its solidarity with the Myanmar people while urging the military junta to respect human rights and seek a peaceful and constructive solution to the crisis.”
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A powerful gang opened fire Saturday on a large group of parishioners led by a pastor as they marched through a community armed with machetes to rid the area of gang members.
The attack was filmed in real time by journalists at the scene, and several people were killed and others injured, Marie Yolène Gilles, director of human rights group Fondasyon Je Klere, told The Associated Press.
She watched online as hundreds of people from a local church marched through Canaan, a makeshift town in the outskirts of the capital of Port-au-Prince founded by survivors who lost their homes in the devastating 2010 earthquake.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many people were killed and injured in the attack.
Canaan is controlled by a gang led by a man identified only as “Jeff,” who is believed to be allied with the “5 Seconds” gang.
Gangs have grown more powerful since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and they are estimated to control up to 80% of Port-au-Prince.
Gédéon Jean, director of Haiti’s Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights, told the AP that he also watched the event unfold online and planned to ask the Ministry of Justice to investigate.
He accused the pastor of being irresponsible because he “engaged a group of people and put them in a situation like this.”
The parishioners who clutched machetes and yelled “Free Canaan!” were no match for gang members armed with assault rifles.
“Police should have stopped them from going,” Jean said. “It’s extremely horrible for the state to let something like this happen.”
A spokesperson for Haiti’s National Police did not return a message for comment.
From Jan. 1 until Aug. 15, more than 2,400 people in Haiti were reported killed, more than 950 kidnapped and another 902 injured, according to the most recent United Nations statistics.
Fed up with the surge in gang violence, Haitians organized a violent movement in April known as “bwa kale” that targets suspected gang members. More than 350 people have been killed since the uprising began, according to the U.N.
In October, the Haitian government requested the immediate deployment of a foreign armed force to quell gang violence.
The government of Kenya has offered to lead a multinational force, and a delegation of top officials from the eastern African country visited Haiti recently as part of a reconnaissance mission.
The U.S. said earlier this month that it would introduce a U.N. Security Council resolution that would authorize Kenya to take such action.
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Associated Press reporter Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed.
WASHINGTON — Thousands converged on the National Mall on Saturday for the 60th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, saying a country that remains riven by racial inequality has yet to fulfill the legendary civil rights leader’s dream.
“We have made progress, over the last 60 years, since Dr. King led the March on Washington,” said Alphonso David, president and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum. “Have we reached the mountaintop? Not by a longshot.”
The event is convened by the Kings’ Drum Major Institute and the Rev. Al Sharpton ‘s National Action Network. A host of Black civil rights leaders and a multiracial, interfaith coalition of allies will rally attendees on the same spot where as many as 250,000 gathered in 1963 for what is still considered one of the greatest and most consequential racial justice and equality demonstrations in U.S. history.
Inevitably, Saturday’s even was shot through with contrasts to the initial, historic demonstration. Speakers and banners talked about the importance of LGBTQ and Asian-American rights. Many who addressed the crowd were women after only one was given the microphone in 1963.
Pamela Mays McDonald of Philadelphia attended the initial march as a child. “I was 8 years old at the original March and only one woman was allowed to speak — she was from Arkansas where I’m from — now look at how many women are on the podium today,” she said.
For some, the contrasts were bittersweet. “I often look back and look over to the reflection pool and the Washington monument and I see a quarter of a million people 60 years ago and just a trickling now,” said Marsha Dean Phelts of Amelia Island, Florida. “It was more fired up then. But the things we were asking for and needing, we still need them today.”
As speakers delivered messages they were overshadowed by the sounds of passenger planes taking off from Ronald Reagan National Airport. Rugby games were underway along the Mall in close proximity to the Lincoln while joggers and bikers went about their routines.
On Friday, Martin Luther King III, who is the late civil rights icon’s eldest son, and his sister, Bernice King, each visited their father’s monument in Washington.
“I see a man still standing in authority and saying, ‘We’ve still got to get this this right,’” Bernice said as she looked up at the granite statue.
Featured speakers include Ambassador Andrew Young, the close King adviser who helped organize the original march and who went on to serve as a congressman, U.N. ambassador and mayor of Atlanta. Leaders from the NAACP and the National Urban League are also expected to give remarks.
Several leaders from groups organizing the march met Friday with Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the civil rights division, to discuss a range of issues, including voting rights, policing and redlining.
The gathering Saturday was a precursor to the actual anniversary of the Aug. 28, 1963 March on Washington. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will observe the march anniversary on Monday by meeting with organizers of the 1963 gathering. All of King’s children have been invited to meet with Biden, White House officials said.
For the Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, continuing to observe March on Washington anniversaries fulfills a promise he made to the late King family matriarch Coretta Scott King. Twenty three years ago, she introduced Sharpton and Martin Luther King III at a 37th anniversary march and urged them to carry on the legacy.
“I never thought that 23 years later, Martin and I, with Arndrea, would be doing a march and we’d have less (civil rights protections) than we had in 2000,” Sharpton said, referring to Martin Luther King III’s wife, Arndrea Waters King.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Washington remarks have resounded through decades of push and pull toward progress in civil and human rights. But dark moments followed his speech, too.
Two weeks later in 1963, four Black girls were killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, followed by the kidnapping and murder of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi the following year. The tragedies spurred passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
And the voting rights marches from Montgomery to Selma, Alabama, in which marchers were brutally beaten while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in what became known as “Bloody Sunday,” forced Congress to adopt the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“Unfortunately, we’re living in a time when there’s a younger generation who believes that my daddy’s generation, and those of us who came after, didn’t get enough done,” Bernice King said. “And I want them to understand, you are benefiting and this is the way you’re benefiting.”
She added: “We can’t give up, because there’s a moment in time when change comes. We have to celebrate the small victories. If you’re not grateful, you will undermine your progress, too.”
Saturday’s gathering gave Denorver Garrett, 31, hope.
He walked around the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, carrying a cross with names of victims of police brutality and gun violence. “I’ve lost a lot of friends to gun violence and God put it on my heart to carry this cross and turn my pain into something,” Garrett said. “This fight though, has gotten very hard over time and hearing people who are united for the betterment of our people and communities—it’s recharged me to continue and I’m glad I came.”
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Ayanna Alexander, Gary Fields and Jacquelyn Martin in Washington and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
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