London Explosions

How incredibly depressing. Not only does this mean that many people have been injured or killed, and many more frightened and shocked, but what is this going to mean in the morning?

I can only think about what happened post-11 September 2001 to world politics, to national 'anti-terrorism' laws, to the talk of 'us' and 'them', and I guess it is only going to get worse. How do we argue that these responses are based on paranoia when things like this happen? It seems that this will only give more power to Bush, Howard, and the politics of the "War of Terror". I just want this era to end.

Back up - virus cleared

So Gleanings disapeared again and it took us a while to do anything about it because I had just arrived in Laos and we weren't really focusing on the Internet... Anyway, turns out we were the victims of a known bug and blogger was able to fix our template back up for us. Thank you.

Hopefully that will be the end of our technical dramas. Most of the gleanings contributors have been updating their personal blogs, so you may wish to check them out (links are now on the sidebar) - Nat's got photos too, including a particularly cute one of some munchkins (Jono included).

Anyone can comment

Just briefly, I changed the comments section so that anyone (as opposed to just members of blogger) can comment. Not sure why it was ever set a different way.

It would be nice if people could try to be civil though. You don't have to agree with us (of course!), but please don't make any personal attacks - that just takes the fun out of things.

Thank you!

Challenging Impunity

The Australian Human Rights Centre is putting on a lunchtime seminar entitled: "Challenging Impunity: Human Rights Violations, Displacement of Indigenous Communities and Corporate Responsibility in Colombia" on Wednesday 25 May 2005 from 12:30pm, in the Law Faculty Common Room (UNSW).

"The seminar will feature indigenous leaders from the Wayuu community who are currently seeking legal redress for members of the community (some of whom have been killed) who opposed the development of the largest open pit coal mine in the world, EL CERREJON, located in Colombia - a joint venture of Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Glencore Intl - many refusing to sell their land to facilitate the EL CERREJON project. Debora Barros Fince, a Wuayuu leader from Colombia and Rosemary Jimenez, a Colombian journalist will address the seminar and Justine Nolan will address questions relating to the corporate responsibility of transnational corporations."

I think it will be a really interesting seminar. Debora Barros Fince was interviewed in The Age last week, and her story is pretty amazing. The issue of the responsibilities of transnational corporations for human rights abuses committed on their behalf has really come into the public eye lately. This has been assisted by a number of successful actions under the US Alien Torts Claims Act, such as the case that Earthrights International ran against Unocol for its complicity in the human rights abuses in Burma.

And another thing about torture

Further to Cristy's post, Professor Bagaric and his colleague may like to refresh their memories by taking a basic course in international law. If they did, they might discover for instance, that the prohibition against torture is non-derogable under both the ICCPR and Convention against Torture (which both Australia and our friends the Yanks have ratified). The status of the prohibition as non-derogable is also customary international law (and unless a majority of states decide to act otherwise is likely to stay that way) and thus applicable to those states that have not ratified the relevant conventions. Arguably, the prohibition also has the status of jus cogens. To clarify, this means that torture is NEVER permissible.

And why is this the case? Even Australia and the USA thought it was a good idea at some stage as they even signed up to treaties saying so. Australia has recently strengthened the case against torture by amending the Commonwealth Crimes Act to incorporate Crimes against Humanity pursuant to its obligations under the International Criminal Court statute. The notion of (legal) torture not only offends notions of decency, but could mark the beginning of the slippery slope - torture for terror suspects today, and small children with a vaguely "foreign" sounding name and the wrong head size tomorrow?

Newsweek's flip-flop

I find it difficult to credit the recent Newsweek admission that the article published last week revealing that soldiers Guantanamo Bay tried to flush a copy of the Qu'arn down a toilet in front of Muslim prisoners.

The article sparked massive protests across the Islamic world and sent the US government into major damage control (again). At least a dozen people were killed in the riots that inevitably occur when angry protesters meet police with something to prove and now Newsweek turns around and says they got their facts wrong!

I saw an interview on the BBC this morning where Daniel Klaidsman, Newsweek's Washington Bureau Chief, tried to play it all down. He said they all felt terrible and apologised to the victims (but not, apparently, their families).

He tried to take the blame, admirably, but something just didn't sound right and his story didn't hold up to the questioning of the BBC reporter.

Smells fishy to me. Apparently, after the US government "strongly denied" the accusations, Newsweek re-checked their facts, and, low and behold, discovered the whole thing had been a mistake. How convenient.

Interestingly, though, even as he was trying to recant, Klaidsman insinuated that there might actually be something to the story after all. Stating that the story had been run past several Pentagon officials before publication - none of whom had made any negative comment on the story that eventually got published.

I wonder how these senior officials could have missed the bit in the story where their officers flushed the Qu'arn down the toilet? Surely someone somewhere would have thought to question its inclusion. Unless of course it actually happened. But who could imagine US soldiers in charge of a military prison engaging in torture? Surely not.

The thing that worries me more than the fresh allegations of torture - there's plenty of evidence around to convict senior officials if only someone cared to do so. What worries me is that a major, and majorly respected, news magazine rolls over and plays dead for the US government when required. It's nothing new, but when it happens so blatantly it's painful to watch.

Should I be surprised? No, probably not, but the stench of empire always brings tears to my eyes.