HUMAN RIGHTS

Photo: Zimbabwe’s new president Emmerson Mnangagwa (left) with finance minister Patrick Chinamasa (right), who held that portfolio also under former President Mugabe. Credit: zimbabweelection.com

Sparkle of Hope Fast Disappearing in Post-Mugabe Era

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (IDN) – When Robert Mugabe resigned late November as president of Zimbabwe, hopes were rekindled that the country would finally be set on the course of a fresh start after 37 years of widely criticised authoritarian rule of this Southern Africa nation.

For years, under Mugabe's regime, the Southern African nation’s state security apparatus dominated the country and was responsible for widespread human rights violations, with Mugabe maintaining the revolutionary socialist rhetoric of the Cold War era, blaming Zimbabwe's economic woes on conspiring Western capitalist countries.

: Jeffrey Moyo; THE WORLD; Africa; 11 December 2017

COP23 Finally Provides a Platform for Indigenous People on Climate Talks

By Stella Paul

BONN (IDN) – Patricia Gualinga has been coming to the UN climate change conferences for several years. She usually receives 2-3 minutes on a panel of a side event on indigenous issues during which she tells about the struggles of her community – the Kichwas of Ecuador.

The struggles are, typically, of surviving in an environment where water is fast depleting, air is polluted, land is taken away and tribe members are evicted from their homes – all in the name of development. Sarayaku – where Gualinga comes from – is an Amazonian province in which the degradation is often caused by large oil explorers.

: Stella Paul; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 20 November 2017

More Steps Forward on Human Rights than Backwards

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - When Donald Trump stretched his hand across our television screens on Sunday (November 12) to shake the hand of the Philippines’ president, Rodrigo Duterte, and then said he had “a great relationship” with him I felt my gorge contracting.

Having tasted the great, if sometimes flawed, (remember the totally counterproductive policy of arming the Afghani mujahedeen against the Soviet invaders) campaign of another U.S. president, Jimmy Carter, to put human rights at the centre of American foreign, to see this bald regression is a bitter fruit to swallow.