[asia-apec 1805] Food Rights Watch--Focus on Trade and Human Rights

[Anuradha Mittal]

Welcome to Food Rights Watch: Focus on Trade and Human Rights
Food Rights Watch provides information about economic and social human
rights issues in the belief that education leads to action.

Trade agreements such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), have been the institutional
drivers of economic globalization. These trade agreements have attracted 
serious criticism from civil society groups who hold them responsible 
for further weakening of human rights and labor standards, undermining 
public health and national sovereignty, and accelerating environmental 
destruction.

Food Rights Watch with focus on trade and human rights, hopes that
education will lead to action. Please read on, forward to friends, send
story ideas, and most importantly- take action!!!

Food First - For Land and Liberty, Jobs and Justice

Stephanie Yan

Editor

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U.S.

(1) Massive Layoffs in Travel Industry
(2)  Families Question Safety of Alabama Mine
(3) United States Prepares to Steal Indian Nation’s Livestock While 
Western Shoshone Delegation Appeals to United Nations for Assistance

INTERNATIONAL

(4) Poverty deepens disgust at Zimbabwe’s economic policies
(5) Chinese labor activist jailed
(6) Going Hungry is a Violation of Human Rights says UN Agency Head
(7) And So The Babies Die


U.S.

(1) Massive Layoffs in Travel Industry

Early this year, rumors of mergers and consolidation of the airline 
industry ran high because of one of the sharpest revenue declines in two 
decades. In the summer, the top five U.S. airlines slashed air fares in 
domestic and international markets as they struggled to shore up 
crumbling revenues weakened by the plunge in business travel.  After the 
attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, ten major airlines, along 
with aircraft maker Boeing, announced layoffs of more than 100,000 
workers.  

Congress approved a $15 billion bailout last week for the airline 
industry that includes nothing for the estimated 100,000 laid-off 
workers. Thousands of airline workers are let go without severance 
packages included in their union contracts. Carrier’s defend their 
actions citing an emergency clause in the contracts that justifies 
withholding the benefits.  Organized labor is pressing Congress for a 
relief package that would include benefits for the workers.  A proposal 
by Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., is aimed at laid-off airline workers, and 
would extend employment benefits beyond 26 weeks and provide job 
training, health care coverage and relocation benefits.  

Note: Layoffs also with non-U.S. airlines as well. Air Canada announced 
to cut an additional 5,000 jobs to the 4,000 it eliminated in August. 
The airline is also grounding 84 planes and cutting its flights by 20 
percent. Airplane makers are feeling the crunch. Canadian plane 
manufacturer Bombardier sliced 3,800 jobs. Overseas, British Airways has 
had to cut 7,000 jobs while its rival Virgin Atlantic will let go of 
1,200 employees.  However, the British government has no bail out plan 
for their airline industry because European law prevents EU countries 
from providing direct state aid to companies in financial difficulties.  
Alitalia is cutting 2,500, while Belgian carrier Sabena is set to hand 
out 500 pink slips and reduce its staff by an additional 1,500 positions 
through early retirement. SwissAir said it is slashing 3,000 jobs, while 
Scandinavian Airlines is losing 1,100. 

Your voice is needed to make sure that the laid-off workers of the 
airline industries are not forgotten in vying for aid, while huge 
airline companies get their share and to pressure airlines to give the 
workers their severance packages.  Please send emails, call or write to 
your state’s Senators and Represenatative (contact info below) to 
support the proposal by Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo. Include your name and 
address, why this issue is important, and that you’d like a written 
response.  Ask them to insist on an aid package for the benefits of 
laid-off workers that will provide them of extended employment benefits, 
job training, health care coverage and relocation benefits.  Urge them 
to communicate these needs to the Senate Committee on Appropriations 
Subcommission on Transportation Chair, Patty Murray.

Your Senator’s contact info, quickly, by zip code:
http://www.congress.org
For more information about labor issues:
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Affairs, 
http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/index.html
AFL-CIO, http://www.aflcio.org/home.htm
*************************************************************

(2) Families Question Safety of Alabama Mine

In Brookwood, Alabama, co-workers and families of 13 killed in mine 
explosions want to know why the mine, described as the nation’s deepest 
vertical shaft coal mine, wasn’t made safer after at least 5 accidents 
last year in which roofs collapsed or rocks fell on workers- accidents 
similar to what caused the deadly blast Sunday evening.   Some miners 
said rising levels of volatile methane gas had been ignored by officials 
at Jim Walter Resources Inc., the mine operator.  Explosions have been 
blamed on methane igniting after a cave in.  Blue Creek No. 5 Mine 
reported 20% more serious, non-fatal accidents last year than the 
national rate of 8.3 accidents.  This is the deadliest mining accident 
in the US since 1984.  

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20010926_953.html

WIRE: 09/26/2001 12:29 am ET, The Associated Press
For more information regarding labor safety and policies, please visit 
these websites:
http://www.labor.org/
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Affairs, 
http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/index.html
AFL-CIO, http://www.aflcio.org/home.htm
********************************************************

(3) United States Prepares to Steal Indian Nation’s Livestock While 
Western Shoshone Delegation Appeals to United Nations for Assistance

As Western Shoshone herdspeople in Crescent Valley and South Fork brace 
for BLM’s attempt to confiscate their livestock, delegation of Western 
Shoshone citizens arrive in Geneva, Switzerland to solicit the UN human 
rights bodies to support the Western Shoshone Land and Treaty rights.  
The delegation will testify before the UN Subcommision on the Protection 
and Promotion of Human Rights as well as educate members of the UN 
Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.  They have 
requested from Elko BLM of documentation of how the US acquired the 
title to Western Shoshone lands.  "The Shoshone delegation is asking 
that the Committee recommend to the US to enjoin immediately all 
impoundment and trespass notices against Western Shoshone people, 
refrain from prosecuting Western Shoshone hunters, take measures to 
ensure mining development and other activities do not impede Western 
Shoshone physical and cultural survival, and to proceed forthwith in 
binding negotiations to resolve Western Shoshone land and resource 
issues with Western Shoshone leaders. For over 100 years since the 
signing of a Treaty of Peace and Friendship with the United States in 
1863, the Western Shoshone Nation has asserted their continuing rights 
to use and occupy their ancestral lands. As part of the agreements 
within the Treaty, the Western Shoshone agreed to adapt their 
traditional lifestyles and become "agriculturists and herdsmen." However 
the U.S has refused to recognize the right to graze animals on ancestral 
land, ignoring the Treaty, and arguing all rights to Western Shoshone 
ancestral lands have been extinguished." 

Source: 
http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/pr_archive/pr010801shoshone.html

To learn more about the Western Shoshone people’s struggle for their 
land and way of life, please contact:
Raymond Yowell, Chief, Western Shoshone National Council 775-744-4381
Deborah Schaaf or Andy Huff, Indian Law Resource Center 406-449-2006
Christopher Sewall, Western Shoshone Defense Project 775-468-0230
***********************************************************
INTERNATIONAL

(4) Chinese Labor Activist Jailed

US-based group, Human Rights in China, reports that Chinese labor 
activist, Li Wangyand, who was jailed in 1989 after setting up an 
independent trade union (the Shaoyang Workers Autonomous Federation) and 
was granted parole in June 2000, has been sentenced to another 10 years 
in prison after reportedly demanding that the government pay to treat 
his heart, lung and back ailments developed while in prison where he was 
held in solitary confinement and regularly beaten severely. 
He was charged with "incitement to subvert state power," says his 
brother-in-law.  Li’s sister, Li Wanglin, was also sentence 3 years of 
"re-education through labor" for helping publicize Li’s 22-day hunger 
strike earlier this year and to speaking to foreign journalists.  Also 
reported by the human rights group, 4 intellectuals are due to be tried 
on charges of subversion Sept. 26 and could be jailed for up to 10 years 
for founding an online discussion group.  

Source: 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_1556000/1556375.stm

Friday, 21 September, 2001, 13:42 GMT 14:42 UK, BBC News
Human Rights in China, http://www.hrichina.org/
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights 2001 Report on China, 
http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/TestFrame/318c37bbea256b20c1256a0700512271?Opendocument

Report on China 2001 submitted by Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental 
organization in special consultative status, 
http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/TestFrame/5ea4adce719d358dc12569eb002f8fc2?Opendocument

*******************************************

(5) Going Hungry is a Violation of Human Rights says UN Agency Head

With the world in turmoil following the recent tragic events on 
September 11 and with attention focused on the poverty and deprivation 
in Afghanistan, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture 
Organization (FAO) has warned that under-nourishment and starvation 
should not be considered less serious than blatant violations of other 
human rights. 

"The state has the obligation, as an instance of last resort, to ensure 
that nobody should die of hunger," said Jacques Diouf, the FAO's 
Director-General. 

Arguing that the World Food Summit had not only reaffirmed the right to 
adequate food, but had also explicitly recognized the crucial link 
between food security and democracy, Dr Diouf called upon the 
international community to assist those states that did not have the 
means to ensure minimum access to food for all their people. "It is well 
known that in the presence of hunger, the ability to exercise other 
human rights is severely hampered," he said.

According to FAO, there is enough wealth in the world to ensure a 
minimum standard of living for everyone and the international community 
should devote its joint efforts to enable the poor to enjoy a free and 
dignified life. "Failure to address the silent under-nourishment of 
millions of children and adults in peacetime should also be regarded as 
a violation of the right to food," he said.Dr. Diouf warned that the 
scandal of hunger merited more outrage than it was getting - not only on 
moral grounds, but because it was a human rights violation on a massive 
scale.  

©EuropaWorld 2001
Source: http://www.europaworld.org/issue49/goinghungry21901.htm
UN Food and Agricultural Organization , http://www.fao.org/
World Food Summit, http://www.fao.org/wfs/index_en.htm
*************************************************
(6) And So The Babies Die

(Excerpts from an analysis of the causes of infant deaths and 
malnutrition by a doctor working in rural South Africa.  Trudy Thomas 
was MEC for health in the Eastern Cape until she resigned earlier this 
year.)

"The Transkei's infant mortality rate speaks volumes about the poverty 
of the people and their services. One in 10 infants in the Transkei dies 
during its first 12 months of life, mainly from starvation, according to 
a study carried out earlier this year by the Health Systems Trust.

More in-depth research was undertaken that clearly implicated migrant 
labor as the culprit. It showed that if babies were cared for by their 
mothers and supported by their fathers they were fat and fit. In 
contrast, mothers of malnourished children were mostly destitute, 
usually due to desertion by fathers. As one woman put it on being 
harangued and "nutritionally educated" in time-honored medical fashion 
on the miserable state of her child: "Doctor, I have no man, no money, 
no milk."

About 60% of mothers of malnourished children had, in desperation, left 
their babies with makeshift guardians - sick or senile or psychotic, or 
even young children - to look for work in the cities…

The research concluded that childhood malnutrition was merely a medical 
manifestation of social disorganization and extreme impoverishment, both 
mainly politically determined -a finding that the Carnegie Poverty 
Enquiry of the Seventies amply confirmed…

The IMR is not only a health indicator but a much-used and accurate 
socio-economic one. With literacy and income levels, through life 
expectancy, it contributes substantially to the Human Development Index, 
which provides one of the best markers of prevailing levels of the 
economy and development and their potential for growth…

In South Africa the IMRs are color coded: 10:25:54 per 1 000 white, 
colored and black live-born children respectively. In the Ciskei in the 
1980s it ranged around 50.

So in this the third millennium, in the seventh year of transformation 
in the new South Africa, an infant mortality rate of 100 out of 1,000 in 
the Transkei is shocking. It speaks volumes about the poverty of its 
people and their services.

Although shocking, these figures -which emanate from work being 
undertaken by researchers and trainers from the University of the 
Western Cape in the Mount Fletcher district of the Eastern Cape - will 
come as no surprise to many nurses and doctors working in poor rural 
communities. They reflect conditions that drove many old-timers, while 
doing what they could to ameliorate its effects, to join the struggle to 
oust apartheid. It saw them standing on the threshold of a brave, new 
land in April 1994, eager to offer their energy, experience and passion 
to help bring about "Better Health For All".

Many doctors have been trying to raise the alarm, especially since 1997 
when the country opted for rapid apartheid debt repayments and the 
"fiscal discipline" of structural adjustment to woo Western financiers. 
This was meant to attract foreign investment that in turn was meant to 
stimulate the growth, employment and redistribution strategy.

A declining economy, deteriorating health services and a tattered social 
safety net provide the circumstances for an entirely predictable, rising 
and unacceptably high IMR. Unfortunately the pleas of health workers 
about this crisis have fallen on deaf ears or - worse - been labeled 
anti-transformational. And so the babies die of hunger.

The infant mortality figures released by the Health Systems Trust have 
added little new information, but have helped to confirm trends. They 
have also succeeded in engaging the media and so finally stung the 
attention of politicians. The provincial health MEC has said that with 
his welfare counterpart he will visit affected areas to see this tragedy 
for himself. He has also opined that "malnutrition is the end of the 
line. It is a manifestation of poverty, unemployment, lack of education 
- social factors that all contribute to parents being unable to 
adequately care for their children."

Many would agree, but if so should he not be inviting those MECs 
responsible for agriculture, public works, education, economic 
development and finance to see first-hand the hunger and poverty of the 
people? For just as in the bad old days of apartheid and migrant labor, 
childhood malnutrition is merely a medical manifestation of social 
disorganization and extreme impoverishment mainly determined by 
(current) political decisions.

Once-off token aid, however well intentioned, is not the answer. The 
problem is enormous and pervasive, deeply structural and systematic, and 
the systems and structures through which help must flow in these places 
are grossly dysfunctional, if they exist at all…

The MEC for Health is also going to intensify the training of nurses to 
feed babies at 2am so that they do not die of cold or convulsions. 
Surely what is actually needed here is to hold someone accountable for 
incompetence, negligence or malpractice. This might be a nurse who is 
sleeping in the bath instead of checking her patients, a matron who has 
allocated only one junior nurse to a ward of 40 babies, or politicians 
who do not allocate enough staff to care safely for patients or who, 
preferring to be applauded by International Monetary Fund-leaning 
financiers, resist releasing enough money to hire them…

Infant starvation and death are among the most accurate indicators of 
poverty and poor services. The bodies of our babies are signaling to us. 
But this is not only a message to the soft-hearted, who are sentimental 
about the suffering of children. It is also for the hard-nosed and 
tough-minded for whom economic growth drives the world. They are 
increasingly being proved wrong, of course, and not only by Seattle 
hotheads but by an ever-growing body of respectable and cool-headed 
thinkers and doers.

Growth by no means guarantees job creation and redistribution and, 
arguably, structural adjustment particularly disadvantages 
underdeveloped societies that lack the skills, systems and 
infrastructure receptors to latch onto or disburse any largesse. The 
enthusiastic cooperation with this adjustment by the political bosses in 
poor provinces, manifesting as the suspension of money from services to 
pay back deficits instead of advocating for the minimum needs of their 
people, also does not help.

The Transkei's IMR of 100 is therefore of the gravest import and an 
urgent call to review our strategies. One of these is that it is being 
resourced in a way that is perpetuating and even increasing the 
inequalities of apartheid. We need to find a financing formula that 
focuses primarily on the poor rather than on bank accounts. We may well 
find that if we look after the health of the babies, the whole economy, 
and not only its growth component, will begin to grow healthier too."

Source: Read the whole analysis at:  
http://allafrica.com/stories/200109260010.html
September 26, 2001, By Trudy Thomas, Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg)


































  

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