Palestinian women lead the way
AINE Ní BHRIAIN
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This society is just one way that Palestinian people, particularly women, can confront the abusive policies and poverty that have been forced upon them and lessen the plight of poor marginalised people in remote areas
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The Palestinian Working Women's Society (PWWS) is an independent, non-profit organisation dedicated to empowering Palestinian women.
The group was first established in 1981, and it now has bases in Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem, Toulkaren, Jineen and the Gaza strip, and this past month during the West Belfast Féile, two of its representatives were in Belfast.
Fadwa Qourah and Nawal El Haj attended the Woman of the Year award to show their support for Irish women and raise awareness of their society's work.
The PWWS's primary objectives are much the same as many women's groups; to advocate women's rights, to provide social services to even the most marginalised, and to empower women to participate in the decision making process.
But what makes the society unique is that it also educates women with respect to claiming their legislative rights, provides a specialised counselling programme, encourages women to influence the policies of public and private institutions, and defends the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to establish their independent democratic state.
The ambitious project has an endless list of initiatives and goals, all of which are designed to educate and empower women and their families.
For example, the PWWS was the very first women's organisation to initiate counselling services, which it began in 1993.
Since then, the programme has expanded. It aspires to initiate changes in traditional concepts and the image of women within society. It also provides oppressed women with social support, combats violence against women in all its forms, raises public awareness of women's needs and priorities, and pushes for legislative laws that would protect women's social rights.
The Society not only handles individual cases - through face to face counselling - but also provides support groups, an open phone line to provide any needed assistance, and workshops and seminars within communities.
It has also developed a civil education programme, which promotes women's participation in different sectors of public life in Palestine and the decision-making process.
This programme works with 95 different women's groups throughout the villages, camps and cities of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Its objectives are to raise the legal and juristic awareness of women pertaining to their rights, promote notions of a democratic society, raise supportive public opinion for women's rights as human rights, and highlight violations against women based on gender.
Since 12.4% of women are working within the public labour sector, the PWWS has made a concentrated effort to educate those women, due to the absence of a trade union. This target group of working women suffers regular exploitation by the public labour sector and there is no structure to deal with their needs or defend their rights.
In addition to their many valuable activities, the PWWS also cooperates with other women's organisations in an effort to break down barriers between women. It is the society's desire to reach out to other women and cultures that allows it to benefit from the experiences and outlooks of others, and as part of its vast list of ongoing projects, the PWWS has developed a programme to develop children's mental capacity and defend children's rights.
The children's programme implements an unconventional approach to dealing with child behaviour and physical development needs. It teaches children to read and encourages them to continue to develop the habit. It also pays special attention to the emotional and physical needs of each individual child and offers support for children who suffer from social and physchological problems. It encourages and develops child creativity and raises health awarness regarding children, their families, and the local community.
The PWWS has also taken a special initiative.
The "Chain of Solidarity and Compassion" has a number of aims, all designed to offer help and support to needy people in the spirit of solidarity and national belonging.
It wants to consolidate the notion of give and take by building a self-supportive societal system that relies on human and material local resources as an alternative to foreign aid.
This society is just one way that the Palestinian people, and particularly Palestinian women, can confront the abusive policies and poverty that have been forced upon them and lessen the plight of poor marginalised people in remote areas.
If you are interested in helping with this highly worthwhile cause, are curious about how their approach could assist through your own women's group, or wish to find out more, you can contact the PWWS through their website at: www.miftah.org
Vigils for nuclear whistle blower and prisoner of conscience
Mordechai Vanunu is a name not well known by most people. He is a man who has spent nearly 17 years in prison in Israel. Eleven and a half of those years were spent in solitary confinement, all of this for a crime of conscience.
Vanunu was an Israeli citizen who, after serving in the Israeli army, went to work as a technician in the Dimona Nuclear Facility in the Negev Desert in Israel. For a long time, Israel claimed this was a textile factory. It was, in fact, a plant producing plutonium which Israel was using to build a nuclear arsenal.
In 1986, Vanunu brought evidence to a London Sunday Times reporter detailing the operations of the Dimona Facility. From his evidence (including 60 photographs from inside the plant) experts were able to discern that Israel had approximately 200 nuclear weapons of assorted varieties. It is now estimated that Israel has the sixth largest nuclear arsenal in the world (the largest outside of the five declared nations).
Vanunu never got to see his story, as on 30 September 1986 (five days before its publication), he was lured to Rome, drugged and brought back to Israel by Mossad agents. He was tried in secret and sentenced to 18 years in prison for treason.
Vanunu has now spent more than a third of his life in prison and has been denied parole time and time again on the grounds that his knowledge is a threat to Israel.
He is currently due for release on 22 April 2004, though Yehiyel Horev, a powerful figure in the Israeli Ministry of Defence, has stated repeatedly that he intends never to let Vanunu leave Israel.
To mark the 17th anniversary of his kidnap and imprisonment by Israeli authorities, people around the world are organising vigils outside Israeli embassies for 30 September.
Despite his long incarceration, Vanunu has stayed true to his original message and has never wavered in his dedication to nuclear disarmament.
"I have sacrificed my freedom and risked my life in order to expose the danger of nuclear weapons which threatens this whole region." - Mordechai Vanunu
More information on Mordechai Vanunu and the Campaign to free him can be found at: http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/
You can sign a petition to free Mordechai Vanunu at: http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/freemordechaivanunu/
Vigils for nuclear whistle blower and prisoner of conscience
Mordechai Vanunu is a name not well known by most people. He is a man who has spent nearly 17 years in prison in Israel. Eleven and a half of those years were spent in solitary confinement, all of this for a crime of conscience.
Vanunu was an Israeli citizen who, after serving in the Israeli army, went to work as a technician in the Dimona Nuclear Facility in the Negev Desert in Israel. For a long time, Israel claimed this was a textile factory. It was, in fact, a plant producing plutonium, which Israel was using to build a nuclear arsenal.
In 1986, Vanunu brought evidence to a London Sunday Times reporter detailing the operations of the Dimona Facility. From his evidence (including 60 photographs from inside the plant) experts were able to discern that Israel had approximately 200 nuclear weapons of assorted varieties. It is now estimated that Israel has the sixth largest nuclear arsenal in the world (the largest outside of the five declared nations).
Vanunu never got to see his story, as on 30 September 1986 (five days before its publication), he was lured to Rome, drugged and brought back to Israel by Mossad agents. He was tried in secret and sentenced to 18 years in prison for treason.
Vanunu has now spent more than a third of his life in prison and has been denied parole time and time again on the grounds that his knowledge is a threat to Israel.
He is currently due for release on 22 April 2004, though Yehiyel Horev, a powerful figure in the Israeli Ministry of Defence, has stated repeatedly that he intends never to let Vanunu leave Israel.
To mark the 17th anniversary of his kidnap and imprisonment by Israeli authorities, people around the world are organising vigils outside Israeli embassies for 30 September.
Despite his long incarceration, Vanunu has stayed true to his original message and has never wavered in his dedication to nuclear disarmament.
"I have sacrificed my freedom and risked my life in order to expose the danger of nuclear weapons which threatens this whole region." - Mordechai Vanunu
More information on Mordechai Vanunu and the Campaign to free him can be found at: http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/
You can sign a petition to free Mordechai Vanunu at: http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/freemordechaivanunu/
Remembering Allende and Jara
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Chile is still failing to come to terms with the impact of the dictatorship in a society that remains very much divided
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It is nearly 30 years since a military coup finished off the democratically elected government of president Salvador Allende in Chile. It was 11 September 1973, and still the victims are claiming for justice. To the deaths of many activists, including Allende himself, should be added the disappearance of around 4,000 people, whose remains have not been found yet. This is the legacy of terror of dictator Augusto Pinochet, who was Margaret Thatcher's best ally in Latin America during the Falklands War back in the '80s, and who evaded justice in Europe on the grounds of failing mental health.
When Pinochet saw that his time in power was ending, he ensured that he would be safe from prosecution. Through his constitution he declared himself senator for the rest of his life - members of parliament cannot be prosecuted. Then, when international pressure forced the Chilean judiciary to consider a possible trial, this was again stymied, this time on the grounds of mental health.
But Pinochet is not the only one escaping justice. In Chile most of those responsible for murders, torture and disappearances occurred during the dictatorship have never been incarcerated. Those who have been sentenced are serving their time in luxury centres run by the army.
Even more poignant is the decision of Chile's political elite to grant immunity to those responsible for the deaths of their compatriots. This is a Chilean version of a "Truth and Reconciliation tribunal", where senior army officers are offering information on the whereabouts of the bodies of the disappeared during the long years of dictatorship in exchange for immunity from prosecution. And there is a growing feeling among the families of the victims of the dictatorship that those in power, some of whom lost political collegues under Pinochet's reign of terror, are unwilling to confront Chile's social and economic elites to bring justice to those who suffered under the dictatorship.
Thirteen relatives of the Chilean disappeared are currently on hunger strike, calling on the government to punish those who directly or indirectly took part in the dictatorship's crimes. "For our part, we are tired of lies, promises and disappointments," they said in a statement. "We, who are aware that there is no possible reparation for what happened, because no action or person would be able to return us our relatives, or bring back those fellow citizens who left Chile, start a hunger strike so the country and the world will know that in Chile, the political authorities are resisting to accept these offences as crimes against humanity."
So Chile is - like nearly every other Southern and Central American country - still failing to come to terms with the impact of the dictatorship in a society that remains very much divided.
There is a feeling that the only moves towards reconciliation taken under the democratic Chilean governments - which still run the country under Pinochet constitution and law - have been more a window-cleaning operation than a real attempt to bring justice and honour the victims of Chile's oligarchy.
So there is now a monument to former President Allende, the man who died defending Chile's democracy, erected at the back of the presidential palace of La Moneda, in Chile's capital, Santiago. The houses of Chilean poet and Nobel laureate, Pablo Neruda - who died three days after the coup - and which were ransacked by the military, have been repaired to allow tourists to visit them. And on 20 August 2003, the Sports junior minister anounced his decision to rename the sports stadium where many where tortured and killed Victor Jara, "to honour" the Chilean songwriter, artist and political activist who was killed in that building on 16 September 1973.
Although Jara is internationally known for his songwriting and singing, he started his artistic career acting in the School of Theatre in the University of Chile. From there, he moved towards directing, participating in countless theatre productions. During this time he also began to get involved in the politics of Chile. In 1966, he recorded his first solo record, self titled, Victor Jara. In the following years he continued as a theatre director but began to spend more and more time with his songs and political activities.
Jara's songs reflected his political ideas. He was a supporter of Salvador Allende's policies. Allende's party was a part of the Popular Unity, a left-wing coalition, and Victor Jara, along with other Chilean singers, helped on his presidential campaign. The Popular Unity party had plans to increase the country's social budget, improving housing, health and education. However, it was not his social policies - but his economic decisions - that caused the military coup against Allende. When the elected president decided to nationalise the copper mines - most of them controlled by US companies - the Nixon and Kissinger administration decided it was time to intervene to defend US economic interests and to finish off a socialist government that was setting a bad example to other countries in the region.
Months before the coup, the country had suffered from factory lockouts, transport strikes, and the growing threat of right-wing paramilitary activity. But it was Pinochet, a general who had sworn allegiance to Allende's government, who struck the deadly blow to Chile's democratic dream. On 11 September 1973, army planes bombed the presidential palace. Allende spoke to the people from the palace and told them he would die defending Chile's democracy.
That day, Victor Jara was due to take part in the official opening of an art exhibition in one of Santiago's universities. The president, Salvador Allende, was also due to be there. Hearing on the radio of the military coup and of the trade unions' call for everyone to go to the workplaces to organise the resistance, Jara drove to the university where he worked. Lecturers and students were surrounded by the military and arrested. Jara threw away his ID card, hoping no one would recognise him, as he was already a hate figure for the social, political and economic elites because of his very public support of Allende's government and his constant denouncing of the excesses of previous conservative governments and the very well-off landowners and businessmen.
Jara was seen alive for the last time on 15 September, as he was recognised and taken from the line of prisoners to be transported to the stadium. Those who tortured him, broke his hands, and according to Danilo Bartulin - Allende's doctor, who shared Jara's final days - the torturers taunted him to try and sing and play his songs. Even under these horrible tortures, Victor Jara managed to sing a portion of the song of the Popular Unity party. After this, he received many brutal blows, and finally was killed with a machine gun. In the early hours of 16 September, his body and those of another five people, were found by shanty town dwellers outside the walls of the Metropolitan Cementery.
'AN UNFINISHED SONG - A CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE OF VICTOR JARA'
The National Concert Hall, Dublin. Thursday 11 September
evening of music, poetry and song featuring: Cormac Breathnach, Donal O'Kelly, Michael D Higgins, Tomás McSimóin, Joan McDermot, Hada To Hada, Tommy Sands, Jayro Gonzalez, Eric Fleming
Tickets available at ¤25/¤15
From The National Concert Hall, 01 417 0077 www.nch.ie
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