CNN International Diplomatic Linense

Human Rights Abuses Topic Of International Women's Day

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) EUGENIA PISA LOPEZ, INTERNATIONAL ALERT: We don't want more empty words. We want action now. (END VIDEO CLIP) RICHARD ROTH, DIPLOMATIC LICENSE (voice over): You will not hear any words from these women. They are known as "Women in Black," and it's not a movie sequel. They mourn in silence for the victims of war, past and present. The movement started in 1988 in the Middle East, they hold weekly vigils in Belgrade these days to oppose the Milosevic government. This week, the Women in Black held a vigil at the headquarters of the United Nations. They joined hundreds of other women there who were observing International Women's Day. (on camera) Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth. Women have made great strides towards achieving equality with men in some societies, but they remain a target in a lot of places, including war zones. A flurry of UN agency reports surrounding International Women's Day highlighted poverty, gender discrimination and abuse, more often in countries with male power backed by strict cultural tradition. First hand testimony from women around the world at a UN town meeting. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LOPEZ: As we sit here today speaking of peace, in war zones around the world, women are struggling not only to survive, but to build a secure, just and (INAUDIBLE) future for us all, they need our support and commitment. The time has come for the international community to implement all the pledges it has made to women. PULMA GOBODO MADIKIZELA, FMR. MEMBER, SOUTH AFRICA'S TRUTH AND RECONCILLIATION COMM.: Often, we think that the end of political conflict is the end of violence, and we ignore the fact that the issue of rape against women and all sorts of violence against women are human rights issues, these are human rights issues that have to be taken on by international human rights organizations. MARY ROBINSON, UN HIGH COMM. FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: Merely having women in positions of power is not enough. Women's participation in all levels of government is crucial and must become an unremarkable feature of public life. We will know, in fact, that there is equality when women are as free to make mistakes as men. (END VIDEO CLIP) (on camera) ROTH: Men with guns, boys with guns. Men and boys with machetes. No place for a woman to hide. Live in the African country Sierra Leone, where a civil war raged for nearly 10 years. The recent CNN special called, "Cry Freetown," captured the horrifying level of violence against civilians. A young lady from Sierra Leone, who is determined to change the role of women in her country, told the United Nations what they have had to endure during the conflict between the government and power hungry rebels. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ADIATU TERESA DEIGH, SIERRA LEONE: During a nine-year civil war, which began in 1991, many young girls, were are abducted, drugged, gang raped, leading to HIV-AIDS, brutalized and used as sex and labor slaves, this mirrors the situation of women and children in countries around the world. (END VIDEO CLIP) (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ROTH (on camera): We're here with Adiatu Teresa Deigh, 23-year-old from Sierra Leone, a leader of a group, the Youth Empowerment Organization. What does International Women's Day really mean now to the women of Sierra Leone, a country where women are virtually being terrorized still by rebel forces? DEIGH: Exactly, it's good for women of my country because we came here - I came here to represent the women of Sierra Leone and to explain exactly what the women are going through in my country, and now, we can get support from the women from all over the world so that we can help women in our country and also in the world at large. ROTH: What's the level of abuse of women in Sierra Leone right now? DEIGH: Oh, it's terrible. Women are raped, amputated; some even have their limbs chopped off forcefully, and even they are engaged in forced labor, like cooking, fetching water or food, et cetera, just for the men. ROTH: Wasn't the recent peace agreement supposed to stop this? DEIGH: Yes, it was supposed to stop this, but yet, people are still doing this in the provinces. And these women are vulnerable. They can't do anything on their own. We need the support of the world, especially the UN, to help liberate these women because they are suffering. ROTH: The UN has a peacekeeping force there. They need more soldiers. Why are the rebels able to continue these actions against women? DEIGH: Well, exactly, the peacekeeping forces are in my country, but they are not in all areas, like the suburbs because the rebels are still there and they are still terrorizing the people. And we need people to go there and see the situation themselves, and they'll solve this problem. ROTH: The women must feel so helpless there. DEIGH: Exactly. ROTH: Can you tell us about that? DEIGH: They are helpless because most of them don't have money and they still rely on their husbands to do things for them. And most of their husbands have been killed. Most of them are widowed and they have to take care of the children and themselves as well. And most of them are amputated. How can they go through this without hands and limbs? It's terrible. ROTH: Your organization tries to help them, but this has to be almost an impossible job, trying to restore their well-being in some manner or form after such abuse. How do you do this, specifically? DEIGH: Well, we are engaging some (INAUDIBLE). We get women together and help de-traumatize them, we have lots and lots of recreational facilities and some just want to tell their stories and feel relaxed about the situation, and also, we want to get support, we can be able to give these women small things so that they can be engaged in income generating activities that will help them take care of themselves and their children. ROTH: How influential is the role of women in Sierra Leone, this West African country, before the eight - nine year old civil war here? DEIGH: It was not clearly, too much. But when the war started and there was lots and lots of (INAUDIBLE) sessions, seminars and workshops, and the women came to realize that their rights and their rules in preventing themselves and their children and most especially the most vulnerable women in society. ROTH: The Security Council, in a statement this week, said that women should share power, should share in everything that government and peace and security provide. Do you think out of the ashes of the war and the terror, there will be a more important role for women, now, in Sierra Leone? DEIGH: Exactly. Women should be engaged in decision-making. Inasmuch as we are women, we have our own contributions to make, so we should be engaging in decision-making and be able to contribute to the economy. If we are involved, we'll be able to make our own contributions so that we can help resolve the conflict in our country. ROTH: Why have you gotten so involved in this? What is it about your own experience that's led you to lead this effort? DEIGH: My experience is terrible. I was in Freetown when the rebels entered the city. And there was no place to hide in that city, especially in the eastern or in the central area. So I saw lots and lots of amputees who were amputated and even a little girl was blind, a bomb was sent and the fragments entered her eyes. God helped me to escape because there was no place to hide, no place to hide at that time. ROTH: What about the amnesty for people who committed these crimes? That can't sit well with women and people in general. People have been given amnesty for any crimes committed before this peace agreement, right? DEIGH: Yes. ROTH: How does that make you feel? DEIGH: Well, they've been granted amnesty - fine. What we are saying now is women, that whatever atrocities that these people commit after the signing of the agreement, should be prosecuted and they should go through the due process of the law, and if they are willing to help us get through our traumatic situation, we'll be happy about that and we are willing to forgive them, but if they are not, we want them to go through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission where they will explain to us exactly why they did such things to us. ROTH: The Security Council, this week, condemned the gross violence against women and said it was viewed with deep concern, what's been happening, especially in the rebel held territory, does that give you any comfort or do you think the UN can do more? DEIGH: Yes, the UN can do more. We don't only want words, words, words, we need action, now - action, not only just condemning it, but they also need to do something extra than that. ROTH: Adiatu Teresa Deigh, thank you very much for coming here, and good luck back in your country of Sierra Leone. You've asked for help from the UN, the Security Council. The Council's British Ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, was in Freetown, Sierra Leone this week. He promises more UN peacekeepers are on the way. Of course, it's a Security Council back here in New York, which has 15 nations on it, 14 ambassadors are male, only one female, we note this during International Women's Day. I asked the President of the Security Council, the Ambassador from Bangladesh about this. (END VIDEOTAPE) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANWARUL KARIM CHOWDHURY, AMBASSADOR, BANGLADESH AND PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL: It's very unfortunate. I wish we had more. We have women colleagues there, but at the ambassador level, I think we, at least, are fortunate to have one, but I strongly believe that member states would take action to nominate women ambassadors who can then represent them in the Council. This can be a message to the countries who are candidates for Security Council membership at the next election. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KOFI ANNAN , UN SECRETARY GENERAL: I'm delighted to be here with you this morning and in this room - you can't hear me. Is it better? OK, I will try and keep shouting and keep at it. (END VIDEO CLIP) ROTH (on camera): Well, hopefully this week, there won't be any twist and shouting during our guest analyst portion of DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. That's because while James Bone of The Times of London is here at our UN studios, his sparring partner on sanctions for last two weeks, Afsane Bassir Pour of Le Monde, is flying around Africa with the United Nations Peacekeeping Director. So joining us here is Rachel Eklou of the BBC World Service. We're going to continue our discussion on Sierra Leone. There were talks there between the government and rebel forces. The United Nations has 6,000 plus peacekeepers there. They haven't really been able to get a hold of the situation. A lot of embarrassing moments where rebels have confronted peacekeepers who have backed down. Now, on Friday they announced the government is in charge of these talks. Should we believe that? What's the status there, politically? RACHEL EKLOU, BBC WORLD SERVICE: It's really the government is not in charge. There is still - the government isn't - the government. ROTH: I mean, there are still parts of the country that are still in rebel hands? EKLOU: Yes, yes. All the eastern part of the country is still in the rebels' hands and there are still some serious doubts on the rebels' commitment to the (INAUDIBLE) peace agreement. ROTH: James, your ambassador was over there this week. What do you think is happening there? JAMES BONE, THE TIMES OF LONDON: Well, I think that the situation is pretty poor. Foday Sankoh was accused by the UN Secretary General in a report this week. ROTH: Now, he's the rebel leader, the main rebel leader. BONE: The rebel leader - that's right. The Revolutionary United Front - is now meant to be part of the peace process. He was accused of having a contradictory and confusing approach to the peace process. The situation is so bad, that the Security Council itself, issued a statement on human rights abuses in Sierra Leone, this week, and made the point that there is no amnesty for any abuses committed since the Lome peace accord. And not only that - the Lome peace accord, which contains an amnesty, doesn't bar prosecution for war crimes for people who committed abuses before the peace accord, so that would include people in the rebel side of that. ROTH: All right. Rachel? EKLOU: Yes, since the rebel leaders are already in charge of the country, how can we prosecute them? ROTH: You don't believe them? BONE: Well, I mean, there is a travel ban, but what happens when the travel ban is lifted and people start to travel? Are they going to get arrested "Pinochet Style," is the question. ROTH: All right. Let's move on to a related issue, peacekeeping. The United Nations Secretary General, at a press conference this week unveiled yet another blue ribbon panel, a follow-up to those independent inquiries on what happened in Srebrenica and Rwanda that have been completed over the last few months. James, what should we know about this? Kofi Annan says it's time to look at the nuts and bolts and beyond regarding peacekeeping. BONE: Well, Richard, I'm getting old because this is the third major review of United Nations peacekeeping that I've reported on over the last 10 years. ROTH: Kofi Annan met with Lakhar Brahimi, one of the main coordinators of this. He's had about 24 different United Nations jobs, but he's involved in these. I mean, they say they're not going to look back at Srebrenica and Rwanda. What can this panel accomplish? BONE: The problem is, Richard, that the weaknesses of UN peacekeeping are intrinsic to the whole activity, for instance, take the new mission in Congo. There's meant to be a clear mandate, that's one of the things Kofi Annan always goes on about, as a former head of peacekeeping. But the mandate in Somalia or the mandate in Bosnia wasn't clear. The UN has just agreed to send 5,500 peacekeeping troops into Congo, and yet its mandate isn't clear and it isn't clear that there's a cease-fire. ROTH: Right. BONE: And yet, the political expediency demands that something is done and so the UN makes a half . ROTH: Yes, Bernard Miyet is in there, the peacekeeping director, saying on Friday, now President Kabila understands, but it seems like it shouldn't take another trip there to have him understand a resolution that he was in New York, so-called fighting for. Rachel, your sense on the UN peacekeeping goals now, for the future of the report and what it might mean. EKLOU: It is more like a reaction to the reports from on the (INAUDIBLE) Srebrenica. And since there is no possibility of future accountability of the UN activities on the ground, I don't think that we can . ROTH: So a sense of without . EKLOU: (INAUDIBLE) ROTH: . the naming of names, there's no accountability and that nothing will ever get it totally right. Well, UN peacekeepers can stop war from spreading, but can they start spreading the AIDS virus? It's an emerging issue at the UN Security Council. In recent Council resolutions, you may note more language focusing on AIDS prevention. The US Ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, says Washington will never again vote for a peacekeeping resolution that doesn't include specific language requiring action to prevent peacekeepers from spreading the disease or getting it themselves. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RICHARD HOLBROOKE, U.S. AMB. TO THE UN: The Security Council must recognize that peacekeepers, UN peacekeepers are at special risk to both contract HIV and to spread it. We, the Security Council, the United Nations, should insist that peacekeepers are not only educated about AIDS, but they are not unintentionally a cause of its spread. (END VIDEO CLIP) ROTH (on camera): All right, James Bone, a little bit more, please, on peacekeepers and AIDS. BONE: Well, Richard, I decided to a bit of ferreting around to see what the UN was actually doing about the problem of peacekeepers spreading AIDS, and I discovered for the last two peacekeeping missions authorized since Ambassador Holbrooke started raising this issue, there has been a separate budget line in the peacekeeping budget for the distribution of condoms to peacekeepers, not only that, the condoms will be distributed at a rate of one condom per peacekeeper, per day, so that's - with a surplus, if there is any surplus going to the local population. ROTH: James, I got to cut you off there. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next week. Rachel Eklou, BBC World Service, thanks for coming by. One of the UN Secretary General's first appointments of the new millennium was with Al Gore, the U.S. Vice-President. In light of this week's primary results in the U.S., Annan might be seeing more of Gore if he is elected President of the United States. No sign of George W. Bush, yet, at the UN. Annan, himself has almost two years left on his term in office, but will it be his first term? And what does a new U.S. President mean to the man who needed Washington's support to become the seventh Secretary General of the United Nations? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANNAN: I hope and believe that whoever wins the U.S. election and moves into the White House would agree with me, that the U.S. needs the UN just as much as the UN needs the U.S., and that will make a difference, whoever wins. As far as your second question is concerned, second term is the last thing on my mind, I know it seems to be more present and more important for others than it is for me. I have work to do and I'm carrying on with it. (END VIDEO CLIP) ROTH (voice over): You haven't called, you haven't written, and we haven't told you where to send your comments in months, so here it is. Jot down a note that FBI experts can decipher and send it to: CNN DIPLOMATIC LICENSE, 5 Penn Plaza, 21st Floor, New York City, NY 10001, United States of America, or get on the road to "Carpal Tunnel Highway" and e-mail us at diplomatic.license@turner.com. Advice, questions and inside UN gossip always appreciated. (on camera): Earlier, we talked of UN efforts to highlight AIDS awareness in peacekeeping and Security Council resolutions. There are other ways to increase public awareness for prevention and help for relatives of the victims. Sub-Saharan Africa is in the midst of an AIDS epidemic. Nearly 70 percent of the world's HIV-AIDS cases are in that region. Huge sections of a productive society are thus, ripped apart. Uganda is one such nation trying to cope. There's a non-profit foundation based in Dallas, which is helping. It's called the Uganda Children's Charity Foundation. They back a three-month U.S. tour called, Children of Uganda: Tour of Light 2000. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ALEXIS HEFLEY, FOUNDER, UGANDA CHILDREN'S CHARITY FOUNDATION: The Children of Uganda: Tour of Light 2000 provides for us the platform to raise a global awareness of AIDS and orphans in Uganda. According to the United Nations, Uganda has the highest number of AIDS orphans of any country in the world. They have an orphan population of 1.4 million orphans, that's out of the total population of 20 million people. A lot of tradition, ritual, history is carried through cultural bands and expressions of art in Africa, and they value them and that's how they teach from one generation to the next what is important in their value system. in fact, they've used that as a way of increasing the awareness of AIDS, how AIDS is contracted. EMMY ANGUYO, CHILDREN OF UGANDA TOUR: Probably what I would like them to see from my performance is that with sharing my culture with them through the dance and singing, so I would like them to really enjoy what I'm doing. HEFELY: The children that are on tour are messengers of hope. They are doing something about not only their present, but their future. And the proceeds from this tour go to support 620 orphans in Uganda. CONSTANCE NAGGAYI, CHILDREN OF UGANDA TOUR: When we are performing, I think it teaches them that if you are (INAUDIBLE) you're not supposed to be feeling bad or sad. If you learn these dances, you can become happier, you can forget all about the pains in the past. (END VIDEOTAPE) ROTH (on camera): The Tour of Light is in Dallas, Texas through March 20. Next stop, Austin, then cities in Arizona and California. And if you're watching in those states, thanks for staying up late. That's DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. Thanks for sharing your weekend with us. I'm Richard Roth in New York. Stay tuned, depending on your region, for the latest news, weather or music. END

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