Activism

This week in Trócaire we were shocked to learn about the murder of Matias Valle, an outspoken human rights leader from La Confianza, the community featured in our Lenten campaign last year. Matias was waiting at a bus stop on route to his community on Friday 20th January when he was gunned down by two hooded men.

The brave father, husband and community leader was a key figure in the struggle for land being undertaken by poor farmers in north Honduras, where corrupt businessmen hold a violent monopoly on agricultural land. Despite regular death threats Matias was outspoken on the need for poor farmers to have the right to peacefully own land on which to live and grow food.

Photos: 

Top Left: Community leader Matías Valle was shot  dead on January 20, 2012. Photo: Giorgio Trucchi.

Top right:  A daughter holds a photo of her father who was murdered for legally challenging a large landowner's right to land in Honduras.

Bottom Left: Martha Julia Lopez holds a picture of her dead husband, Seriseo Munoz, close to her heart. Seriseo (50), was shot dead last year when gunmen, hired by a rich landowner, opened fire on a group of farmers as they worked. This community is one of thousands throughout Honduras whose legal challenge for land has been met with the murder of innocent farmers. Seriseo is mourned by Martha and their four children.

Bottom Right: Pedro Serrano and his daughter, Reina  (3), live in the community of La Confianza. Every day here parents worry about the safety of their children because of the violence and intimidation they have endured. Families are risking everything for the right to own enough land, earn a decent living and give their children a better future. Photos: David Stephenson.
 

Last year when I met Matias he told me that he slept in a different house every night as he knew he was being watched and that there was a very real chance he would be killed. Despite this, he selflessly and publically sought justice for his community. Sadly his time ran out last Friday.

It is outrageous that yet another life has been brutally brought to an end over land in north Honduras. So much blood has been needlessly shed in this small region; in the last two years 45 people involved in the land movement have been murdered and no one has been brought to justice.

We send our thoughts and prayers to Matias’ family and community at this heartbreaking time.
 

150 people blowing Vuvuzelas outside Leinster House, Dublin.

200 people arrive in Durban after a 4,000 mile caravan trip.

From South Africa to south Dublin the UN climate change negotiations are getting people on the streets against climate change.

This week in Durban, South Africa UN climate change negotiations have moved into the critical final week and Trócaire is there because the world's poor, who are suffering the worst effects of climate change can't be forgotten as the talks heat up.

So what's been happening? A few days ago Mary Robinson met with campaigners who travelled over 4,000 miles across 10 African countries from Burundi to South Africa in a ‘Trans-African Caravan of Hope’, arriving in Durban in time for the opening of the UN climate negotiations.

Top and middle: Stop Climate Chaos campaigners outside the Dail in Dublin. Photos: Alan Whelan.
Bottom: 'Caravan of hope' climate change campaigners meet Mary Robinson in Durban, where the latest UN climate change negotiations are taking place. Photo: Cliona Sharkey.

The caravan transported over 200 people - students, pastoralists, farmers, and youth campaigners. They stopped off in every country to tell their stories and raise awareness of climate change.

The caravan's historical journey kicked off in November and crossed Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and into South Africa. Thousands of people joined rallies and marches along the route of the Caravan of Hope, organised by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), a Trócaire partner.

Mary Robinson knew about the Caravan having first met some of the participants at a meeting with Trócaire earlier this year. The former President of Ireland left the confines of the official conference to meet the ‘Caravanites’, most of whom were not able to access the convention centre where the negotiations are taking place.

Paul O Kong’o, a farmer in his sixties from Lake Victoria in Kenya, told her of the changes he has seen in the weather and explained how farmers are the first to feel the changes in the climate.  

‘When I was young the wind over the lake would bring the rains, the farmer-friendly birds were there to eat the insects, and the sun and the rain together ensured the crops would grow,’ he said. ‘But these systems no longer work. With poverty of the mind the environment has been abused, soils are eroded and when the rains come they wash the seeds away.’

Paul was frustrated that having come all this way the Caravanites were not able to tell their stories to the decision makers, instead having to remain outside the official conference.  He said, ‘if even the walls have ears, Mary, you must be our wall and make sure our voices are heard.’

Mailes Zulu Muke from Zambia told Mary how rural women in particular are suffering as a result of climate change.  Without roads and transport, in many rural areas women are extremely isolated.  She told the story of a lady who had given birth in the village next to hers.  She had planted maize and had planned to sell the crop to buy what she needed for the birth of her baby.  But maize is very vulnerable to drought and the crop failed when the rains did not come as they should.  When she gave birth the baby was wrapped in a banana leaf because she could not afford the blanket she wanted.

Trócaire has been calling on the Irish government to play its part in ensuring the Durban talks result in a binding legal framework to reduce emissions. With the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol set to expire in 2012, there is an urgent need for action.

Alongside other members of the Stop Climate Chaos group, Trócaire held a vuvuzela protest outside the Dáil two weeks ago in advance of the Durban talks. Using the instruments made famous at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, hundreds of protesters called on the Irish government to play a productive role in ensuring the success of the Durban talks, as well as introducing domestic climate change legislation.

That message has been carried on by the Caravanites. Their message was clear. They had come together - different nationalities, ethnicities and ages - united by the impacts that affect them all.  They have come to Durban to call for a united Africa in the climate negotiations.  Their demands are not for sympathy, but for justice.  

They do not seek charity, only what is theirs in justice - the right to development.  

Take our climate change action here.

Martha was convinced that she was going to die. She had just been diagnosed as living with HIV and considered it a death sentence. When she saw her children she would burst into tears.

Some of her neighbours were angry with her. They accused her of introducing HIV into the area and were cruel to her.

Photos: Martha and Micheal with their son Tapiwa in Zimbabwe. Although Martha is living with HIV, Tapiwa was born HIV free. Photos by Eithne Brennan.

Others were kind, and one neighbour encouraged her to visit the Mashambanzou Care Trust. Here, Martha learnt that she could live a perfectly healthy life despite her HIV status.

Martha soon discovered that she was pregnant and was worried that her child would be born with HIV. However, staff at the centre gave her treatment to prevent the virus being transmitted from mother to child.

Martha’s husband, Michael, was angry when she told him they were expecting.  He felt guilty that the baby could be born with HIV. He thought they should avoid having children altogether because of their HIV status. Martha told him about the treatment to prevention transmission of HIV from the mother to the child, but Michael was still worried.

When his son was born, Michael’s attitude changed. Although they had little money to spare, they bought a chicken and a cake to celebrate Tapiwa’s HIV negative result. 

Now approaching his second birthday, Tapiwa is healthy and happy. He lives with his parents, his brother and sister and two of his cousins, Chipo and Chinga, who lost their parents to AIDS related illnesses. 

Tapiwa is a daddies boy –his hands are often covered in paint from ‘helping’ his dad in his carpentry workshop. Despite his shy character Tapiwa’s parents see that he is a very intelligent and industrious little boy.  They say that his favorite thing to do is to spend the day alongside his dad, working with him. 

An estimated 370,000 children were born with HIV in 2009. In developed countries like Ireland, mother to child transmission of HIV has almost been eliminated. It is possible and cost effective to eliminate mother to child transmission of HIV in low and middle income countries with the right level of funding and the political will.
 

Take action - Send an e-mail to Minister Jan O’Sullivan, calling on her to keep HIV as a priority in Ireland’s development work.


 

Andrew Lodio has nowhere to go. Drought has ravaged his land, bringing dry desert all around him. A sea of dust stretches out before him for thousands of miles.

Andrew can hardly remember the last time he saw rain. His village of Lokitaung in northern Kenya has become engulfed by desert. Where once there were rivers, now there are valleys of dust.

Life in northern Kenya has become a constant search for water. Water for the crops, water for the animals, water for cooking. But there is no water anywhere.

Photo: Andrew from Kenya and Gulshad from Pakistan. Two people, one problem.

“The last two years there has been no rain,” he says. “There have been droughts here before but never like this one. This one is worse because it is all over the region. Normally if it is bad here we can go somewhere else, but now it is bad all over. There is nowhere to go.”

Over two thousand miles away, Gulshad Chandio searches for space in an over-crowded tent.

Eight-year-old Gulshad and her entire family have lived in this tent for a year, ever since floods struck Pakistan and destroyed their every possession.

The floods were caused by melting ice high in the mountains to the north of Pakistan. The melting ice combined with unusually high levels of rain and washed through the country, forcing 20 million people from their homes.

"Before the flood, we were hearing about the threat through the media and through friends," she remembers. "We were very afraid because we knew that it was coming our way."

 "I live in a tent with my parents and three brothers and sisters. It is very hot in the tent so I don't like it. I want to go home because I miss my hometown and my friends, but we are all very scared that the floods will come back this year so we cannot go home."

Gulshad was right to fear further flooding. Three months after expressing her fears to Trócaire, Pakistan was once again facing serious flooding, with five million people driven from their homes.

Huge areas of land throughout Asia were affected. Across Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand and Cambodia, millions of people had to flee as their homes and lives were destroyed by floods.

Just as Andrew Lodio faces an uncertain future due to drought, the floods which have ruined large areas of Pakistan for two years running mean that 8-year-old Gulshad Chandio does not know when she will be able to re-start her life.

Two people separated by over two thousand miles. Both victims of climate change.

To highlight the issue, two of Trócaire’s leading climate change partners are in Ireland and will give a public talk in Dublin’s Buswells Hotel on Thursday, October 13th.

John Kioli Kalua (pictured right) and Cecilia Kibe Muthoni (left), both members of The Kenya Climate Change Working Group, are in Ireland meeting with the public and speaking at universities. 

John and Celia will be outlining the problems caused by climate change to politicians and will meet with Mary Robinson during their visit.

At their talk in Dublin's Alexander hotel, John and Celia will discuss their involvement in the Kenya Climate Change Bill and the impact climate change is having on rural communities in east Africa.

The talk begins at 3.30pm and will continue to 5.15pm.

If you'd like to help, you can take our e-action to help address the problems caused by climate change.

“Do you think you can challenge our President? If you continue to do this work you will die a slow and painful death. You will be a sacrificial lamb for all those working against the Government.”

Thankfully none of us in Ireland will ever have to face phone calls like Benedicto Kondowe, received last month.

Benedicto's organisation is called CSCQBE (Civil Society Coalition for Quality Basic Education) and with support from Trócaire, it campaigns for more investment in education in Malawi.  It recently called for political and economic reform in the country, focusing on issues such as fuel and foreign exchange shortages and corruption.

The Government of Malawi’s rejection of their proposals led to a National Vigil on the 20th July, which became two days of protests in every regional capital in the country, with hundreds of thousands of people on the streets demanding reform. The Government responded by instructing police to fire live ammunition on protesters, killing 20 people and leaving hundreds injured.

But the backlash did not stop there. The Government then turned its attention to the leaders of local organisations, charities and community groups. Agents and supporters of the ruling party burnt down their offices and houses, beat up some individuals and made threatening phone calls to others.

The organisers of the July demonstrations were accused of treason. All involved in the attacks have acted with impunity - even though they were reported to police, police have not prosecuted.

Worried about his safety, Trócaire invited Benedicto to Ireland to meet TDs, Government officials, and Trade unions and other international NGOs. Benedicto’s powerful and urgent testimony has prompted policymakers in Ireland to call for the Malawian Government to stop its assault on civil society.

Despite Benedicto's efforts, so far there has been very little international media interest in the events in Malawi and certainly very little if any diplomatic intervention.

What next? At the political level no one is too sure. The evidence from other African countries and even the Arab Spring is that Presidents and ruling parties are slow to fall on their own swords. Malawi is referred to as the “new Zimbabwe” by diplomats - this could be a difficult and contested few months.

Meanwhile back in Malawi Benedicto faces assaults on his reputation and his person. The latest slur from the ruling party was that he had gone to Ireland to collect money for another Vigil and that another civil society leader, Undule Mwakasungula, had run away. And while the proposed Vigil in September did not go ahead because of safety fears, a massive stay away strike over three days has demonstrated the widespread demand for reform.

Noam Chayut is no ordinary Israeli soldier. Since leaving the Israeli Defense force, he’s joined Breaking the Silence – an organisation of former combat veterans that talk about how they treated Palestinians as part of a brutal occupation that violated ethical norms.

Noam Chayut was born 31 years after the foundation of the modern state of Israel and 12 years after the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

As a child he remembers his father taking part in military action against the Palestinian people who lived in these areas.

“When I was 10, my father and his comrades in a reserve duty unit forced innocent Palestinians out of their homes and shops and, as a form of collective punishment, sent them to clean the streets of graffiti and placards that were calling for resistance to Israeli rule as part of the first Palestinian uprising,” he recalls.

This summer, we visited a busy marketplace in Jerusalem and asked 50 ordinary people 1 extraordinary question.  Watch this short video to see what they said.

Friday, August 19th, marks World Humanitarian Day – a day when people in Ireland can be rightly proud of their incredible contribution towards alleviating human disasters around the world.

To highlight the issues behind our campaign to help protect Palestinian homes, we visited Dublin, Cork and Galway with two films and 2 guest speakers. Dearbhla Glynn (Director and winner of the  ICCL’s 2010 Human Rights film Award) presented her short film 'Fifty People One Question’.  Inspired by the plight of the Palestinian people and she asked 50 people one question. Beautifully shot, this short film gives an insight into our views as a nation on human rights. Watch it below.