Action Alert

ACTION ALERT The following actions give you an opportunity to get directly involved with Amnesty International's ongoing work. Please write appeals on these cases within a month of receiving this magazine. All letters should be courteous and accurately specify the facts of each case. Under no circumstances should you write to any prisoner mentioned. For our most current actions and to sign up for email action alerts, visit the Online Action Center. You can make a difference. takeaction.amnestyusa.org

»COLOMBIA

Protect Human Rights Defenders

On Oct. 6, 2004, less than a month after Colombia’s official Human Rights Day, paramilitaries shot to death human rights defender Teresa Yarce in front of one of her daughters near their home.

Yarce and her peers at the Asociacíon de Mujeres de las Independencias (AMI), a non-governmental organization in Medellín, had been actively denouncing paramilitary forces for killings and other gross human rights abuses in areas of army control, especially in the Communa XIII district of Medellín. In retaliation, security forces promptly detained Yarce along with her colleagues, Maria del Sorocco Mosquera and Mery del Sorocco Naranjo on Nov. 12, 2002. Authorities soon released them but initiated numerous criminal investigations, alleging that the women were involved in guerilla activities.

Yarce, a vocal critic of local corruption that siphoned off funds earmarked for public services, was due to testify against a paramilitary leader just hours Human rights activist Teresa Yarce was killed by a paramilitary in October 2004. Copyright Private

before she was killed. Other AMI human rights activists, especially Yarce’s AMI colleagues, have been receiving constant threats, and Amnesty International considers them to be in grave danger.

ACT Write to the Colombian government, urging officials to ensure the safety of human rights defenders in Medellín and initiate full investigations into the killing of Teresa Yarce and threats against AMI members. Appeals to: President of the Republic of Colombia/ Presidente de la República de Colombia/ Dr. Álvaro Uribe Vélez/ Palacio de Nariño/ Carrera 8. No 7-26/ Bogotá/ Colombia and Minister of Foreign Affairs/Ministra de Relaciones Exteriores/Dra.María Carolina Barco Isakson/ Calle 10 No.5-51/Palacio de San Carlos/ Bogotá/Colombia. Postage: $0.80. »

Support Treaty for the Rights of Women through National Week of Student Action »USA

March is Women’s History Month in the United States, a time to consider the gains American women have made and the obstacles they still face. The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) represents both victory and challenge; the United States has signed the treaty, but the current administration has it under “review” and the Senate has not moved to ratify it. Most of the rest of the world has ratified this treaty—180 countries in all. The Treaty for the Rights of Women, as it is known, is a “women’s bill of rights.” The treaty provides effective reporting and review mechanisms to ensure equal access to educational, economic and political opportunities. It also lends muscle to global efforts to stop trafficking, slavery, honor killings and other forms of violence against women. In the United States, CEDAW could help improve conditions for women and families, especially the 3 million women who suffer from domestic violence each year.

While some indicators—such as literacy rates—place U.S. women near the top of the charts, others reveal that progress has been wildly inconsistent. Women comprise only 15 percent of elected officials in the United States, a figure that puts it far below many developing nations, including Rwanda, Viet Nam and Pakistan. U.S. ratification would help address such inequities and give CEDAW an added boost around the world. Amnesty International’s National Week of Student Action will mobilize thousands of activists across the country to help educate communities and officials about the Treaty for the Rights of Women. Working in coalition with more than 170 other organizations, Amnesty is part of the movement to seek U.S. ratification of CEDAW.

ACT To join students in the National Week of Student Action: amnestyusa.org/nwsa »

The Witness to AIDS is written by a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa, the highest legal authority below the Constitutional Court. The “witness” is Justice Edwin Cameron, the first individual in any prominent public position to declare that he has contracted AIDS. There are many claims to truth in human existence. One definition beyond question is that of facing reality for humanity’s sake, as Cameron does.

In his words, “I am an African living with AIDS. I form part of nearly 5 million South Africans who have the virus. I speak not as an onlooker.” He writes with the objectivity of a judge and the “somber passion” (his words) of the truth. His words expose how much of the world that professes democracy denies or deals with the truth of the pandemic illness—not only as a manifestation of physical suffering, but as a reflection of race and sex stigmas. This book, though bravely personal, is not a confession. It’s a text to live by, if we aspire to the right to have a full life for all in the world threatened by HIV/AIDS. Nadine Gordimer Reads The Witness to AIDS

Political novelist Nadine Gordimer received the 1991 Nobel Prize for Literature and the 1974 Booker Prize. Of her 22 novels, three were once banned in her native South Africa.

Michael Gaouette Reads The Ambiguous Genocide

Gerard Prunier, an established researcher and writer on East African issues, has put together a timely book about the terrible war in Darfur that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and rages unabated today. The book sweeps through the history of the region, chronicling hundreds of years of political developments, population movements and exploitation by unscrupulous central powers and external interests—some next door in Chad, Libya or Egypt and some worlds away in Europe.

But Prunier does not write looking backward. He is more polemical advocate than historian, and his cause here is to ascribe responsibility for the death and destruction of the last two and one-half years. In his mind, it is clear who the real villains of this terri

ble drama are; according to Prunier, many of them hold senior positions in the government of Sudan and see violence, even with genocidal consequences, as an acceptable means of remaining in power.

Prunier also scorns rich and powerful countries, including the United States, for confused and ambivalent policies that have allowed the violence to continue and Khartoum-based elites to manipulate the situation to their advantage, with terrible consequences for Darfur.

This bleak little book ends by asking whether those responsible for the violence will get away with it in the long run. The answer must be no, and history will judge. The more pressing question—still unanswered—is how to stop the violence now.

Oscar Torres Reads The Massacre of El Mozote

In a remote corner of El Salvador, investigators uncovered the remains of a horrible massacre—a crime that Washington had long denied. The villagers of El Mozote had the misfortune of finding themselves in the path of the Salvadoran Army’s anti-Communist crusade and top-ranking U.S. forces. The Massacre of El Mozote stands as a central parable of the Cold War.

The author, Mark Danner, is an American journalist who writes for the New York Times and the New Yorker. His account of the 1981 massacre begins months prior to its occurrence and continues into the months that followed it, exploring the cover-ups by The U.S. and Salvadoran governments and the aftermath for the survivors.

This book is written by an American journalist whose only agenda is to reveal the truth. It opens our eyes to the atrocities that humans are capable of and the pain and suffering that we are still inflicting upon each other at this very moment.

Oscar Torres wrote and co-produced Innocent Voices, a film depicting how he survived the 12-year civil war in El Salvador. He escaped alone to the United States in 1985 at age 13, and against all odds he was eventually reunited with his mother and three siblings.