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Dilli Chaudhary
Fearing for his safety, Forefront partner Dilli Chaudhary left Nepal to spend time in the United States. During his two month stay, Mr. Chaudhary raised awareness on the crisis and advocated for an increase in humanitarian aid to Nepal by meeting with UN representatives, US senators, US State Department, and various organizations and foundations. In particular, he hopes to shed light on the situation of rural Nepal, emphasizing the vulnerability of civilians who are caught in the crossfire of both government and Maoist forces. Would you please describe the current situation in Nepal? Over 10,000 people a day are crossing the border from Nepal into India, because if these people stay, they are forced to join the Maoist Army. Only senior citizens, women, and small children are left in the
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From the early 1960s to the present, thousands of people around the world have been arrested and tortured. Others As violent periods come to an have been kidnapped and end, authorities are replaced never again seen by their by new officials and victims families. Thousands of bodies families call for investigahave appeared, and continue tions of disappearances and to appear, with signs of gundeaths and for investigations shot wounds, machete of disappearances and wounds, mutilation and other deaths and for trials of reterrible forms of death. In sponsible parties. Truth comhundreds of villages, espemissions either national or cially in remote areas, there international tend to are clandestine mass graves EAAF members working on an archeological exhumation in El Salvador pursue a historical line of containing the bodies of disinquiry, while tribunals are oriented towards the judicial sysappeared persons. Over the years, some graves have been tem. It may also be necessary to establish a reparations proexhumed, but the vast majorities are still undiscovered. In gram. Regardless of the mechanism used, the forensic scicountries like Guatemala, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic ences can play a key role during each step in the search for of Congo and Cambodia, to name only a few notorious cases, the dead and disappeared number in the hundreds of thouthe truth about the dead and disappeared. sands. The scientific documentation of human rights violations is a In most cases, human rights abuse are political in nature, ethnic and religious conflicts deepen the level of complexity. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of these cases is the involvement of governments and of organizations formed or protected by states that carry out policies of kidnapping, torture and executions. While a whole range of armed insurgent groups and movements have also committed these crimes the Sendero Luminos in Peru, for example the responsibility of a government is different, since it is the state which represents legality and is the repository of the legitimate use of force. The effects of violent social processes are catastrophic, not only for victims families, but also for society as a whole. The rupture of the juridical order, the destruction of institutions and the curtailment of freedom of expression are the most well-known aspects of these processes. For the families of disappeared persons, however, the suffering is compounded. From the beginning, the uncertainty about whether a loved one is dead or alive is agonizing. When a disappearance is the result of political violence, isolation is added to this doubt. After an earthquake or a plane crash, for instance, the search for bodies is usually led by the state. In normal times, families turn to state agencies for information and are powerful tool in the fight against impunity and the search for truth and justice. For victims and communities who have lost loved ones and received few real answers from official sources, the possibility of exhuming a grave and finding the remains of a child, or discovering whether a family member was tortured while in prison, can bring some relief to their extended anguish. But science should not be an isolated field of knowledge, known only by experts or prosecutors. Rather, it must serve the victims and provide our global society with the real stories of those who died needlessly. NGOs can use science to pursue their broader mission of promoting and protecting human rights, maximizing the quality of their investigations and bringing solace to victims, relatives and communities. After working in more than 32 countries we have seen that, in spite of amnesties or political calls for reconciliation, what the relatives and communities want is truth, reparation and justice, and to this end, science can play a central role in achieving that. Luis Fondebrider is a Forefront partner and board member. He co-founded EAAF, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team. To view the full tactical notebook, please visit: http:// www.newtactics.org/main.php
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Electronic resources, particularly the Internet, have become a lifeline for many human rights activists around the world who otherwise do not have access to global information networks. Human rights activism centers around two kinds of work: the slow, day-to-day work of fighting for reforms on a larger scale, and a quick response to an emergency. In both cases, the Internet proves its effectiveness by linking people, providing information via reliable institutions and networks, and allowing momentum to build Internet for Human Rights in South Asia. The Internet, as a medium of networking and advocacy, had already made important inroads in South Asia as early as in 1996. I saw the first Internet boom as the coordinator of the Global Reproductive Health Forum in South Asia, an exclusively Internet-based project that aimed to create democratic forums of discussion on health and rights over the World Wide Web. Started in 1997 and funded by Harvard University, the South Asia digital networking project was based in Kathmandu with members all over South Asia and in the North. In 2001, I worked with Forefront. By this time, the Internet had become the driving medium behind communications with far-flung corners of the world. The petitions and advocacy appeals I drafted were most likely to be circulated over the Internet. Many of the activists that Forefront worked with did not have reliable or easy access to the Internet, yet in spite of these difficulties, significant data, especially during emergencies, arrived first via the web. For instance, BASE, an organization that works with former bonded workers in Southern Nepal, was accused of harboring Maoist sympathies and almost stripped of its non-profit status by Khum Bahadur Khadga, the then Home Minister of Nepal. On 5 April 2002, two days after The Kathmandu Post reported it, Forefront sent out an Internet petition to the Prime Minister. Forefront's site also allowed activists in the North to send online advocacy letters to key policy-makers. Partnering with the much more well-known Carter Center,
Sushma Joshi is a former intern of Forefront and is currently a consultant with UNDP's Access to Justice program in Nepal and staff writer at the Nation Weekly magazine in Kathmandu.
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ter to the Brazilian Embassy to the US and joined a group of other NGOs and Indigenous groups to support the court case pending at the Federal Supreme Court in Brasilia. While the Court suspended all appeals against the demarcation of the Indigenous territory in RSS, President Lula stated that once the court makes its decision, he would then take appropriate action. The Supreme Court in Brazil made this possible with their unanimous decision on April 14, 2005 to dismiss all actions questioning the demarcation of the Indigenous territory. This decision came the day after the Minister of Justice, Mrcio Thomaz Bastos, signed Decree 534/05, ratifying the RSS territory and requiring President Lulas signature. Although Decree 534 excludes the Uiramuta community from demarcation, the ratification of this land was praised by the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR) and National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI) (two organizations that have been instrumental in leading this cause), as well as by the international community. For the past thirty years, this conflict has been compromised by numerous processes and judicial actions, violent attacks against the communities, and political crises. President Lulas signature on this Decree finally fulfills one of his campaign promisesto ratify the Indigenous territory of Raposa Serra do Sol, and is a great victory for the Indigenous peoples in Roraima. Ryan Burgess is a Program Consultant.
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Maya-Achi native language as a tool to preserve values and culture of the community that was almost wiped out during the Guatemalan civil war in the 1980s. Spanish is an indispensable tool to connect and participate in Guatemalas political and social life. The New Hope Foundation just finished an extensive strategic planning process and hopes to offer the curriculum at their locally based high school and later on at a college level, as well. Hearing about the success of the New Hope Foundation, the Guatemalan Ministry of Education became interested in the curriculum. Jesus and his organization are invited for talks with the Ministry and are also planning to connect with other schools to further expand the curriculum and adapt it to other Indigenous communities in Guatemala. Rebeca Arteaga is Program Associate for Latin America.
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Forefront Executive Director, Sergio Yahni, with partners, Mimi Doretti, Dilli Chaudhary, and Martin Dunn.
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Indigenous peoples from the Americas participate at the opening demonstration of the 5th World Social Forum in January 2005. Forefront Partner Joenia Batista de Carvalho and Forefront Executive Director Sergio Yahni participated at the forum expressing their concerns about human rights in the era of globalization.
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