New Online Publication: “Human Rights Tribunals in Latin America: The Fujimori Trial in Comparative Perspective”

The Center for Global Studies at George Mason University, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), and the Lima-based Instituto de Defensa Legal (IDL) announce a new online publication, “Human Rights Tribunals in Latin America:  The Fujimori Trial in Comparative Perspective.” 

http://cgs.gmu.edu/publications/hjd/OSI2009RappReportEngl.pdf

 

 

The report provides an overview of a symposium of the same name held in Washington, DC, on October 2, 2008.

  

Fifteen distinguished speakers from Latin America and the United States evaluated the efforts of governments, human rights organizations and civil society groups more broadly, as well as international actors, to combat impunity and to strengthen the rule of law and democracy.  The rapporteur’s report highlights the symposium’s central themes and is an important resource for understanding the role of human rights tribunals in promoting truth, justice and reconciliation in Latin America.  The report is also available in Spanish.

The trial of former Peruvian President, Alberto Fujimori, is nearing conclusion. Fujimori, who ruled Peru between 1990 and 2000, is being prosecuted for human rights violations, and faces further charges for corruption and abuse of authority.  The trial began on December 10, 2007, shortly after Fujimori was extradited to Peru from Chile. 

Fujimori had evaded justice since 2000, when he fled Peru after a series of corruption scandals came to light.

 

Prosecutors and the lawyers representing survivors and family members of victims made their closing remarks in February.  Fujimori’s defense attorney is now concluding his arguments, after which Fujimori will have the opportunity to address the court himself.  The Supreme Court judges hearing the case are then expected to reconvene in late March or early April to announce their verdict.

Several participants in the October 2 symposium have also produced working papers, which analyze in greater depth different aspects of the Fujimori trial, as well as the other human rights trials underway in Latin America.  We invite you to access the working papers available at the CGS website: http://cgs.gmu.edu/publications/ wphjd.html.

Consciousness and Responsibility in the Age of Genocide Workshop

CONSCIOUSNESS AND RESPONSIBILITY IN THE AGE OF PROPAGANDA AND GENOCIDE:

A Workshop with Mr. Keith Harmon Snow

 

Thursday, March 19, 2009

12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

Castleman Room 212

How does the mass media operate? How does one interpret information and determine if, when and how the news is slanted? How do you “read” information that passes your way? What is the value of information and when is information being used against us? Should one be reading the mass media at all?

 

Join Keith Harmon Snow for a workshop exploring the western mass media system. Using specific case studies based in his human rights work and media analyses, Keith will offer insights into the media, including structural deceptions, political agendas, racial biases, stereotypes and corporate seductions. The workshop will address ethical and moral issues and will challenge participants to evaluate truth, justice, equality and what it means to pursue right livelihood in the present era.

 

Keith Harmon Snow is the 2009 Regent’s Lecturer in Law & Society at the University of California Santa Barbara.  Over the past decade, he has been recognized for his work in contesting official narratives on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  He has also worked as a genocide investigator for the United Nations. 

 

Please visit www.unescochair.uconn.edu for more information, or call 486.0647.

African Activist Archive Project at Michigan State

African Activist Archive Project at Michigan State University

 

The African Studies Center with MATRIX digital humanities center at Michigan State University’s announce the launch of the new African Activist Archive Project (http://africanactivist.msu.edu).

 

This project is preserving records and memories of activism in the United States that supported the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s. This is one of the most significant modern American movements having defeated the foreign policy of a sitting President (Ronald Reagan), whose veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 was overturned by Congress, signaling the end of U.S. government support for the apartheid government. And it was based in more than 100 local community, university, religious, NGO, and labor organizations as well as city, county, and state governments.

 

The project is assembling excellent materials for teaching about community mobilizations, including:

 

 

  • an online archive of historical materials – pamphlets, newsletters, leaflets, buttons, posters, T-shirts, photographs, and audio and videorecordings
  • personal remembrances and interviews with activists
  • a directory to the many archives of organizations and individuals deposited in libraries and historical societies that are available for further research

 

The earliest documents on the website are about the 1962 American Negro Leadership Conference on Africa which included Martin Luther King, Jr. and other key civil rights leaders of that time. The website also includes documents of the Patrice Lumumba Coalition, the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement, Winnie Mandela Solidarity Coalition, and the Pan-African Liberation Committee at Harvard University. Among the audio materials is Harry Belafonte welcoming African National Congress President Oliver Tambo to a 1987 reception in New York.

 

The website now contains 1350 items of all types of media, including

 

  • more than 800 documents
  • 19 streaming videos and 11 streaming audio files
  • a new T-shirt collection – with up to four images of each (with more T-shirts coming in the months ahead)
  • galleries of posters, photos, and buttons

 

There is representation from many organizations from across the country – 74 US organizations, most of them local groups, in 21 states and the District of Columbia. We have newsletters from 18 organizations, brief descriptions of more than 100 US organizations, and information about many physical archives.

 

There are many ways to navigate around the site. You can start from Galleries (including Remembrances or types of media, e.g. photos, documents, video) or begin on the Browse page with the organization name, a U.S. state, or the African country that is the focus of organizing. The Advanced Search page allows you to search across all types of media. Also, from each page displaying an item (e.g. photo, document, video), you can link to other items of the same organization or of the same African country of focus.