VOICES - Global Rights

S UPPORTED BY:
V OICES
THE CHARLES STEWART MOTT FOUNDATION
THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION
THE UNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION
THE FORD FOUNDATION
A Special Forum on
Comparative Experiences of Racism
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I NTERNATIONAL
H UMAN RIGHTS
L AW GROUP

CO-SPONSORS OF THE VOICES SPECIAL FORUM
International Human Rights Law Group
Gay McDougall, Executive Director
The International Human Rights Law Group is a non-profit organization of
human rights and legal professionals engaged in human rights advocacy,
litigation and training around the world. The Law Group works to make
human rights real for individuals and communities around the world by
building the capacity of local groups and strengthening human rights protections
through advocacy, strategic lawyering and training. Our work is
focused on four inter-related areas:
• Empowerment Projects
• International Advocacy and Litigation
• Women’s Rights Advocacy Programs
• Rule of Law Programs
South African Human Rights Commission
Barney Pityana, Chair
The South African Human Rights Commission derives its powers from the
Constitution and the Human Rights Commission Act of 1994, and works
with government, civil society and individuals, nationally and abroad, to
fulfill is Constitutional mandate. The Commission also aims to create a
national culture of human rights through its advocacy, research and legal
function, and implements, monitors and develops standards of human
rights law. The Commission’s objectives are to:
• Develop an awareness of human rights among the people of
South Africa;
• Make recommendations to organs of state in order to enhance
the implementation of human rights;
• Undertake studies and report to Parliament on matters relating to
human rights; and
• Investigate complaints of violations of human rights and seek
appropriate redress.
International Human Rights Law Group
1200 18th Street, NW, Suite 602
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202.822.4600
Fax: 202.822.4606
Email: HumanRights@hrlawgroup.org
Website: www.hrlawgroup.org
Copyright © 2001 International Human Rights Law Group
With this copyright, reproduction of this guide for resale is strictly prohibited.
Material contained in this document can be reproduced for the promotion
and protection of human rights. In any reproduction, an acknowledgement
of the authors and the publisher would be greatly appreciated.
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A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Recognizing the enormous collaboration required for the
Voices Special Forum, the International Human Rights Law
Group would like to express our sincere thanks to all those
who worked on the project, including the many members of
the Law Group staff who worked to bring it to fruition. We
would like to extend a special thanks to those who joined the
staff of the Law Group as consultants and volunteers for this
special project, and the many South Africans who lent their
expertise, in particular, Nozipho January-Bardill, and Barney
Pityana, Pansey Tlakula and the many others at the South
African Human Rights Commission, our co-sponsor, and the
energetic student volunteers from the University of Kwazulu-
Natal. We would also like to thank those who served on the
expert panel for the Voices Forum and to the hundreds of
human rights experts around the world who nominated people
to present their stories.
We would like to thank those who ensured that language was
not a barrier to the participation of the Voices, and to those
who helped arrange for their safe journeys.
We gratefully acknowledge the support and assistance from
the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, The Rockefeller
Foundation, the United Nations Foundation and the Ford
Foundation. Without their support, this project and
publication would not have been possible.
Finally, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to all
of the Voices participants who traveled from near and far to
share their personal experiences with racism. We will be
forever touched by their stories and their courage.
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VOICES
Table of Contents
A SPECIAL FORUM ON
COMPARATIVE EXPERIENCES OF RACISM
OVERVIEW 6
STATEMENT BY GAY MCDOUGALL 8
STATEMENT OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER
FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, MARY ROBINSON 9
MANY VOICES: ONE VISION 11
LETITIA MARK Romania 12
IMMACULÉE MUKAMUHIRWA and
FRANÇOIS-XAVIER NSANZUWERA Rwanda 15
SAIKOU DIALLO U.S.A. 30
STEPANUS DJUWENG Indonesia 33
MARIAMA OUMAROU Niger 36
WILLY WEISZ Austria 40
CREUZA MARIA DE OLIVERIA Brazil 44
NUSRETA SIVAC Bosnia and Herzegovina 51
LORRAINE NESANE South Africa 54
MONICA MORGAN Australia 57
ASHID ALI United Kingdom 61
ARTURO GOMEZ GOMEZ Mexico 65
SARAH WHITE U.S.A. 71
TURDI HUJI China 74
JEANETTE PAILLAN Chile 78
MANIMEKALAI MURUGESAN India 84
IBRAHIM ABU SBEIH Israel 88
REYHAN YALCINDAG Turkey 92
ANA DEL CARMEN MARTINEZ Colombia 96
GRIFFITHS MOLEFE South Africa 104
LIST OF PANELISTS 109
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VOICES
A Special Forum on
Comparative Experiences
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Of Racism
United Nations World Conference Against Racism,
Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance
S ince the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the
international community has taken significant steps toward promoting and protecting human
rights; yet many people still face hatred and discrimination on the basis of their race,
color, descent, national or ethnic origin. To help combat the increasingly complex
manifestations of racism, the United Nations World Conference Against Racism was held
in Durban, South Africa from August 31 to September 7, 2001, bringing together
governments, United Nations officials, non-government organizations, and activists from
around the world to develop practical strategies for combating racism.
Throughout the preparations for the World Conference, an essential aspect of the conference
emerged - the need to amplify the voices of those most affected by racism. Indeed,
for the World Conference to develop action-oriented and practical strategies to combat
racism as required by its mandate, the victims of racism and racial discrimination had to
be visible and share their experiences. This could not be accomplished through the
government meetings or the Non-governmental Forum alone.
To help amplify those voices, Ambassador Nozipho January-Bardill and Gay McDougall,
both members of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination (CERD), along with Barney Pityana, Chair of the South African Human
Rights Commission convened Voices: a Special Forum on Comparative Experiences of
Racism. The Special Forum, held September 1-6, featured 21 individuals from around the
world who gave testimony on their encounters with discrimination on the basis of race,
color, descent, national or ethnic origin.

A rigorous nomination process, based on carefully designed criteria and conducted
through broad outreach to members of United Nations Treaty Bodies, United Nations
Special Rapporteurs, international experts and human rights advocates, identified individuals
with compelling experiences of racism. The co-sponsoring organizations
sought individual stories that are representative of larger issues that people everywhere
deal with as a result of racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances to
ensure that many facets of racial discrimination were discussed as part of the World
Conference Against Racism.
Each day of the Special Forum, individuals shared their experiences with racism before
a panel of United Nations officials and experts, including activist Danny Glover.
A complete list of the panelists is included on page 109 of this booklet. On the final
day of the Special Forum, the 21 Voices, who had testified, presented a statement to
Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as part of the
official proceedings at the World Conference Against Racism.
Attended daily by hundreds of United Nations delegates, government leaders and
members of civil society from around the world, the Voices Special Forum captured
individual stories to illuminate the larger picture of systematic racial discrimination.
What follows is a compilation of the testimonies given during each of the six days of
the Voices Special Forum. Together, these individual experiences highlight the point
that racism exists in every society, in every country and in every region of the world.
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Statement of
Gay McDougall
Member, United Nations Committee for the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and
Executive Director,
The International HUMAN RIGHTS Law Group:
F or six days during the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, delegates,
observers and the international media gathered in one of the main chambers of the
conference venue to listen to the testimonies of an extraordinary group of people who
spoke in personal terms about racial discrimination. Twenty-one individuals from all parts
of the world told stories that gave voice to the toll that racism takes in the lives of real,
everyday people. The daily hour and a half of the Voices Special Forum on Comparative
Experiences of Racial Discrimination quickly became a compelling interlude in the ongoing
governmental negotiations that reminded us all of why we had gathered in Durban.
The stories told during the Voices Special Forum, while intensely personal, described at
the same time, the corrosive effects of racial discrimination on the whole of humanity.
The global scope of the problem was made visible: the many manifestations of racism, its
causes and effects. The larger picture of racial discrimination in the 21 st century emerged.
The stories told, the voices heard, spoke about many familiar manifestations of racism,
such as hate crimes and slavery. But there were also stories about more insidious forms of
racial discrimination that are otherwise innocuously embedded in the institutions that
control all of our lives. Most were stories that illustrated the effects of systemic forms of
racial discrimination that plague our societies and limit the lives of millions of people
around the world.
The testimonies helped us remember that racial discrimination is not only the use of
hateful words or even hate-motivated violence; it is not only individual acts of prejudice.
Racism is manifest in the unequal and unfair treatment of entire groups of people, be it in
the form of economic marginalization, bias within the criminal justice system, or the denial
of cultural rights and ancestral lands.
Several of the testimonies also reminded us that racism often intersects with other forms of
oppression, such as gender bias, and this intersection generates unique terrain in which
abuses and marginalization are compounded.
However, the lives of the courageous people who spoke at the Voices Special Forum have
been as affected by the struggle for racial equality as by the injustices that they have
endured. They do not consider themselves “victims”— they are survivors, defenders, and
activists. Their stories recognize and celebrate the human spirit that allowed each of them
to overcome oppression and continue to work for a non-racist society. These are stories of
triumph as well as tragedy.
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Statement of
Mary Robinson,
United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights and
Secretary-General of the World Conference
against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance:
L istening is a form of empowerment. Listening to the
testimony of those who have suffered racism and discrimination
is vital to our understanding of these scourges and to the
search for more effective ways to combat them. It is one
thing to be aware of how widespread racism is, quite another
to place ourselves in the position of those who suffer abuse
and discrimination on a daily basis.
I am pleased that space has been found at this Conference to
hear the personal stories of a wide variety of individuals. I
pay tribute to the International Human Rights Law Group,
the South African Human Rights Commission and all who
have helped to arrange this event.
These stories need to be heard. But it is not enough to listen
and sympathize. The voices of victims are calls to action – to
greater effort on behalf of those on the receiving end of racism,
racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance.
That is the only way we can prove that we are serious about
shaping a world where such abuses of human rights are
eliminated.
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MANY VOICES: ONE VISION¹
Never forget our voices.
As individuals we speak of deeply personal experiences but make no mistake,
these stories are not ours alone. We speak for all of our brothers and sisters who
suffer in every country, on every continent, in every part of the world.
We speak for every child whose days are filled with unspoken fear or who is tormented
by ethnic violence.
We speak for every person living with the constant threat of losing homes, family,
or livelihood simply because of the color of their skin, their ethnic origin, their faith
or identity.
We speak to ensure that globalization does not become the new face of colonialism.
We speak for everyone who is forced to wear physical or psychological chains of
bondage that may enslave the oppressor as well as the oppressed.
With one voice we demand that all nations and peoples of the world work together
to lift the human spirit by recognizing
That TRUTH and an honest accounting of history is the only way to acknowledge
and move beyond the collective pain of our past;
That JUSTICE encourages everyone to be more just when it is applied fairly, and
threatens all of us when it is denied to even one of us;
That LIBERTY inspires all people to create, invent, grow and prosper and can only
enrich the many cultures of the world;
That PEACE among all people and all peoples regardless of race, ethnic origin,
faith or identity should be the paramount goal of the United Nations;
And that RESPECT for diversity should be enshrined in the law of every nation and
promoted in the heart of every person.
¹ Statement of the 21 Voices which was delivered to Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner of Human Rights on
September 6, 2001 during the World Conference Against Racism.
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Letitia Mark gives voice to the cultural and
educational rights of Roma people.
ROMANIA
The Roma have been
persecuted and discriminated
against in
Europe for 1,000
years. They are despised,
ridiculed and
segre gated into
“special” schools.
With inadequate education,
they are marginalized
into only
the most menial jobs.
Letitia Mark has a
fair enough complexion
that she could often
“pass” as not being
Roma, but that
did not stop her from
hearing the insults
others hurled at her people. People always perceived her differently
when she identified herself as Roma. She remembers in
school that non-Roma children had better clothes, food, and “we
just had a frightened look.”
She now teaches Roma children from the kalderas and geambas
groups, the most discriminated against because of their attitudes
against assimilation. The Education Center, which educates 70
children in her home with no assistance from local authorities,
teaches Roma tradition, culture and languages and allows children
to be different and still be respected as human beings.
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The Voice of Letitia Mark
My name is Letitia Mark. I am a
University Latin teacher at the West University of Timisoara and a Roma
woman from Romania. I thank you for this opportunity to have my voice heard.
Like the Jewish people, we died in the Nazi extermination camps, but we were
rejected as legitimate victims. Like the colonized peoples, we have suffered the
pain and the shame of being slaves in Romania up to the nineteenth century
(1860), but no history schoolbooks mention this. Like the Kurdish people, we
do not have a country to call our own; we are chased away from each and every
country, no country claims us and we claim no country. Like the Dalit people,
we are considered an inferior caste everywhere.
In the area of education, Romani children are systematically excluded from
mainstream education. In many countries, Romani children are sent to “special
schools” for the mentally disabled, even though there is no evidence that these
children have any intellectual difficulties. Such policies deny Romani children
the equal opportunity to learn and participate in their larger society, thereby creating
a self-perpetuating cycle of impoverishment and segregation. At the University
level, there have been some laws which provide for affirmative action
policies, but these laws are virtually ignored. Furthermore, the media distorts
these laws to instill further hatred for the Roma.
My white color helped me to pass unobserved, even though I am a Roma. It has
not, however, stopped me from hearing the very ugly words about my people.
When I present myself as a Roma, people see me differently. I don’t want to
deny my heritage even though my white skin would allow me to do so. Indeed, I
have spent my life trying to help Roma children recognize their potential and to
be proud of their Roma heritage.
In my country, I grew up very poor. Our horse had to live in our kitchen. My
mother, my grandmother, all of my female relatives begged on the street. We
had no skills to work and the non-Roma did not accept us. We were forbidden
to use our traditional nomadic way of life. This life was different for us and
difficult. Our identity has been annihilated throughout history.
I was one of the fortunate Romani children that attended school, but the racism I
experienced created obstacles for my education, as it does for most Roma
children. I wanted to leave primary school. There were only a couple of Romani
children in class, and the non-Romani students had better clothes and food. We
were always looked down on and we were always very frightened. I struggled
in school against the stigma of being Roma, of being different, but my grandfather
encouraged me to continue with school despite the difficulties and
prejudices of the teachers. I had the good fortune to meet one kind secondary
teacher who stimulated me and encouraged me to recognize my aptitudes. I saw
that one person can make a difference and, with encouragement, an individual
can overcome obstacles. I eventually went to a University, the only girl in my
community to have such an opportunity.
When I finished University, I started helping Roma women obtain access to
education for their daughters and sons. Without support from the local
authorities, I transformed my house into a little school, a Cultural-Educative
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Center that provides tutoring for 70 Roma children. Most of the children are
from a kalderas and geambas group of Roma who experience the most racism
and discrimination, due to their attitude against assimilation. The Center
engages in cultural activities that preserve Roma languages and traditions and
affirms the right to be different and still be respected as a human bein g. We
demonstrate that our children are not handicapped as the reports of the
Romanian schools state. We advocate that they could have a better future if they
are treated with consideration and respect. We teach the children that they have
worth; that what they know, the values of our community, are important.
As an advocate for the Roma, I would like to offer a recommendation to the
world community. I would like to see compensation for the centuries of
discrimination, including slavery and extermination, that the Roma have faced. I
suggest that such compensation be used for educational programs in order to
fulfill the children’s right to education and a more dignified life. I also suggest
that such compensation be used to provide medical insurance and other
financial help to those in need and sickness, so that they can enjoy their right to
adequate health care. Finally, I also suggest that social insurance be paid from
the kilograms of gold that were unjustly confiscated in the past. Again, I thank
you for this opportunity to have my voice heard.
FACTS
•Roma are often decreed illegal residents on their own property and are
banished beyond municipal boundaries.
•There are 10 million Roma outside of Asia, and between 7 and 8 million
in Europe alone.
•Segregation in schools is often achieved by routing Roma children into
“special schools” for the mentally disabled even when there is no evidence
the children have intellectual deficiencies.
•Racial discrimination against Roma manifests itself in housing, education
and employment.
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François-Xavier Nsanzuwera (Hutu)
and his wife
Immaculée Mukamuhirwa (Tutsi)
give voice to the genocide that occurred in Rwanda and
the racial discrimination that lingers to this day.
RWANDA
The 1994 genocide, which left 800,000
Rwandans dead, is one of the most
horrific displays of racial discrimination
today. Simply for being Tutsi, or
moderate Hutu, people lost their lives,
families, homes and community.
France, the United States, Belgium and
the United Nations, all failed to heed
warnings or act promptly to stop the
genocide.
Immaculée Mukamuhirwa who is
Tutsi, is married to François-
Xavier Nsanzuwera, a Hutu. Their
story demonstrates the horrors of
genocide. Immaculée lost her parents,
four sisters and two brothers.
Her entire family, save one brother,
were killed in the most violent ways
during the genocide.
As a high-ranking government
prosecutor, François-
Xavier denounced the arbitrary arrests
and murders of Tutsis as unjust
and illegal. Due to his moderate
political stance, his father was
killed in April 1994 and he became
a target of both Hutus and Tutsi extremists.
He and his family were
forced to flee the country.
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The Voice of François-Xavier Nsanzuwera
I was
born on March 8, 1956 and my youth was marked by racism in a country where
the minority, Tutsi, were persecuted and yet I wasn’t Tutsi. I am Hutu.
At secondary school, my classmates said that I was Tutsi, I denied it. I understood
it was not a “good” thing to be in Rwanda. I denied it vigorously. My
Hutu friends said, “look at you. You are thin and have big eyes…” They went
so far as to look at the palm of my hands to tell me I did not have hands like a
Hutu. The classmates who were my friends told me there would be bloody
“happenings” and that I was in danger. Despite these discriminations,
frustrations and other difficulties I was able to finish secondary school and
university. I got my law degree as a magistrate in 1987.
When in October 1990 the civil war in Rwanda escalated, I was prosecutor for
the Kigali region. I knew of massive arrests of fighting Tutsi and moderate
Hutus by the Front Patriotic Rwandans (FPR) on October 1, 1990. The arrests
were arbitrary, unjust and illegal operations by the army, the gendarmie and the
police. I had the heavy burden of working on the judicial files of the people
arrested in the city of Kigali. The people arbitrarily arrested were released after
pressure from the international community and the nomination of a new Minister
of Justice who accepted that the conclusions according to those judicial files
contained no evidence. I was accused of havin g destroyed all of it. Certain army
officers and those responsible for the political declarations stated that they were
confident that I was a fake Hutu. To them, I had changed ethnicity.
When the genocide began, I hid with a neighbor who was a policeman for I
knew that I was on the list of people to be killed. I had denounced the climate of
terror that reigned and didn’t comply with the orders of the political and administrative
authorities. I was able to get into the Hotel of the Thousand Hills,
thanks to an escort by the Commander of the Military school, who was a friend.
I stayed in the Hotel for two months under the protection of the blue helmets of
the United Nations Mission des Nations Unies pour l'assistance au Rwanda
(MINUAR). I stayed for the month of June and the beginning of the month of
July 1994 in the refugee camps in the FPR zone. On July 12, 1994, I returned to
the Rwandan capital, Kigali, where I learned that my father, my grandfather,
and my two sisters were killed in April 1994. They paid with their lives for my
positions and declarations. I lost family members, friends that were certainly
killed and others who became assassins.
On July 19, 1994, the national union Government was put in place and I was
recalled to my position as prosecutor for the Republic. It became a very heavy
burden for me to work on the judicial files of the persons suspected of participation
in the genocide. The arrests had a massive and arbitrary quality. I
denounced these abuses and summary executions because I believed that the
victims wanted justice not vengeance. This denouncement of the arbitrary
arrests didn’t please the military imposing the arrests. I was accused by several
high officers in the Army of protecting the assassins of the Hutus. For that, I
was accused of protecting the people responsible for the genocide. In my prison
bureau in Kigali, when I left each day I saw the bodies of the dead prisoners. I
will never forget the image of twenty prisoners trapped like sardines in a can.
They had died from lack of air and I attended to their agony because the
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military refused to take them to the hospital.
Facing never ending death threats and no longer being able to bear the site of
corpses – I have seen many dead bodies during the genocide leave the prison
each morning - I decided to seek exile in Belgium with my wife in April 1995.
At that time in Rwanda, I was in complete despair. I hoped to resume my life
after the genocide and once again I left all behind me. But the courage of my
wife, Immaculée, was my savior. She lost her family; yet she gave me a lot of
support through it all, especially since I had been injured during the unsuccessful
evacuation by the blue helmets of the MINUAR. Thanks to her courage and
her support, I am here to speak to you of this horrible experience.
For many Hutu, I was suspect because I stayed in Rwanda after the genocide
and I worked with the new power. I am a traitor to the Hutu refugee community.
For many Tutsi, I am equally a traitor because I frequently denounce the human
rights violations committed in my country and I left the Rwandan judiciary
because of the contentious work on the genocide. Today, I am rejected by the
extremists of both communities. For the extreme Rwandans, there are two sides:
the butchers and the victims of ethnic violence. The extremists refuse to see the
views of the other side. If I could lose a part of my family in the genocide and
the massacres of April 1994, I believe that those who have lost members of their
families in the refugee camps, in the prison and elsewhere – I think the disappeared
and the summarily executed – have the right to suffer and to justice. I
demand that the assassins are judged and condemned but equally that the innocents
are freed from prison and that they are pardoned.
But these personal demands are not easy. Some days, I get really angry inside –
not hate – it’s difficult to cope with. I haven’t had a chance to find the body of
my father and to give him a dignified burial that he deserves. Since I testify
against the authors of the genocide in the process, no one wants to talk about
what happened to my family members who were assassinated and no one wants
to tell me where the bodies are, even though I am convinced it is possible to
find the bodies. When my dreams aren’t nightmares, I picture my father as he
was when he was alive. That picture of my father who loved me and I did not
have the time to give him all that I wanted to give to him, it reinforces my
convictions that there has to be true reconciliation in Rwanda that when the
victims of both communities will have the right to their suffering, to their memory
and to justice.
Translated from French
La Voix de François-Xavier Nsanzuwera
Je suis né le 8
mars 1956 dans
une famille paysanne et ma jeunesse a été marquée par le racisme dans un pays
où la minorité tutsi était persécutée et pourtant je ne suis pas tutsi.
Je n’étais pas tutsi ; j’étais hutu. Comment le savais-je ? Je me souviens qu'au
cours d’une classe l’enseignant avait demandé aux élèves de lever les bras selon
l’ethnie (Hutu, Tutsi et Twa). Quand l’enseignant a demandé aux Hutu de lever
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les bras, j’ai vu qu’il y avait des amis à moi qui avaient levé les bras et j’ai levé
les bras. Quand il a demandé aux Tutsi de lever les bras, j’ai deux copains à moi
lever les bras et j’ai de nouveau les bras. L’enseignant s’est fâché et m’a frappé.
Il m’a dit que l’on ne pouvait pas être à la fois Hutu et Tutsi. Je suis rentré le
soir et j’ai raconté ma mésaventure à mes parents. Mon père m’a dit : « Ne t’en
fait pas, j’irai expliquer cela à ton enseignant. Tu as des cousins hutu et tutsi. Tu
es les deux. C’est ta famille. Il m’a dit : ta grand-mère est Tutsi et ton grand –
père est Hutu. Suis-je hutu ou Tutsi ? » Et puis il m’a dit que c’était compliqué
pour moi. Alors je me suis souvenu d’un autre événement à l’âge de trois ans ou
quatre ans. On brûlait les maisons et on abattait des vaches et pendant une semaine,
j’ai passé la nuit dans la bananeraie et dans les buissons avec ma grandmère,
seul mon grand-père restant à la maison. Quand j’ai grandi, j’ai su que ma
grand-mère était tutsi et qu’elle devait se réfugier pour qu’elle ne soit pas tuée.
Je me souviens également que la maison d’une tante à ma mère habitant la commune
voisine de la nôtre avait été brûlée et j’avais demandé pourquoi et l’on
m’avait répondu que «sa famille «était tutsi : en fait son mari et ses enfants
étaient Tutsi.
En 1972, je suis à l’école secondaire. Les étudiants sont internes. Mes camarades
me disaient que je suis tutsi et je leur disais que non. Je savais cette fois que
j’étais Hutu même si ma grand –mère paternelle était Tutsi, même si j’avais des
cousins appartenant aux deux ethnies. J’avais compris qu’il n’était pas confortable
d’être Tutsi au Rwanda. Je me défendais en niant de façon virulente. Mes
camarades Hutu me disaient : « regardes toi, tu es maigre, tu as des grands
yeux… ». Ils allaient jusqu’à regarder dans la paume de ma main pour me dire
que je n’avais pas des mains de Hutu. Ceux de mes camarades qui étaient de
vrais amis me dirent qu’il y aura des «événements » et que je serai en danger.
L’un d’eux me conseilla de demander une carte d’identité aux autorités communales
lors des prochaines vacances scolaires sinon j’allais être frappé ou tué
quand «il y aura les événements »…J’étais encore jeune ; les cartes d’identité
étaient nécessaires pour les adultes. Pendant les vacances, j’ai raconté cet incident
à mes parents. Mon père est allé demander aux autorités communales une
carte d’identité pour moi. Comme dans ses propres pièces d’identité, j’étais Hutu.
Effectivement en février 1973, les massacres de Tutsi commencèrent dans
certaines régions du pays ; seule ma région du Bugesera échappa aux massacres.
La commune voisine de la notre séparée par une rivière était à feu et à
sang. Mes parents m’interdirent de regagner mon Ecole. J’attendis un mois ; entre
temps il y avait eu une campagne de pacification de la par des autorités administratives
et politiques. Je retournais dans mon école à 60 KM de chez mes
parents. Les étudiants tutsi avaient été chassés après avoir été frappé ; l’assistant
médical de l’Ecole avait été tué par mes camarades Hutu. Un de mes camarades
qui avaient participé à ce meurtre deviendra Vice-Président des miliciens Interahamwe
pendant le génocide d’avril 1994. J’expliquais à mes camarades que j’avais
tardé à rejoindre l’Ecole parce que j’étais malade et que les chemins n’étaient
pas sûrs. J’ai pu terminer mon année scolaire et aller l’année suivante
dans un collège de la capitale où j’ai terminé mes humanités.
En 1987 après ma licence en droit, je fus nommé Vice-Président du Tribunal de
première instance de Cyangugu à la frontière avec le Zaïre. Mon chef hiérarchique,
c’est à dire le Président du Tribunal de première instance n’était pas juriste.
Il avait son diplôme d’études secondaires. Je faisais partie des 4% des rares magistrats
juristes. Je n’eus pas beaucoup de problèmes de discrimination jusqu’unjour
une affaire de nationalité d’un footballeur appartenant à un club soutenu
par l’ancien numéro du pouvoir (secrétaire général du MRND, parti unique)
suscita l’intervention de colonels de l’Armée rwandaise qui soutenaient
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l’équipe adverse des Forces armées rwandaises. Le Directeur du Service de
Renseignements de la Présidence de la République essaya de m’intimider en
vain en disant que j’avais changé d’ethnie. L’année suivante, je fus nommé Procureur
de la République malgré ce rapport négatif des renseignements. Je fus
nommé dans la Préfecture de Gisenyi, préfecture d’origine du Président de la
République. Chaque fois qu’un homme puissant de la région intervenait dans un
dossier judiciaire, il était question de mon ethnie douteuse.
En 1990, le Commandant de place, un major des Forces armées rwandaises fit
un rapport sur moi dans lequel il disait que j'étais un Tutsi qui avait changé son
ethnie en celui de Hutu, que je fréquentais les réfugiés Tutsi au Congo, que j’étais
un ennemi du pays. Grâce à mes bonnes relations avec le Préfet de Préfecture
et le Secrétaire général du parti unique, je n’eus pas de conséquences négatives.
Mais chaque fois que j’étais reçu dans une famille à Gisenyi, mes hôtes
me disaient que j’étais bon sauf que j’étais Tutsi. Je leur faisais remarquer que
je n’étais pas Tutsi et que les Tutsi étaient aussi leurs compatriotes, que le
Rwanda était une république depuis 1962 mais ils ne voulaient pas accepter
cette réalité.
En octobre 1990, je connaîtrais les arrestations massives qui frappèrent les Tutsi
et les Hutu du Sud suite à l’attaque du FPR le 1 er octobre 1990. Ces arrestations
furent opérées par l’armée, la gendarmerie et les services de renseignements. Je
fus amené à gérer les dossiers judiciaires des personnes arrêtées dans la ville de
Kigali où j’étais procureur de la République. Ces personnes arrêtées arbitrairement
furent libérées suite à la pression de la Communauté internationale et la
nomination d’un nouveau ministre de la justice qui avaient accepté les conclusions
du parquet selon lesquels les dossiers judiciaires étaient vides. Je fus accusé
d’avoir détruit les preuves et que l’on ne pouvait pas me faire confiance puisque
j’étais un faux Hutu.
En septembre 1992 suite aux arrestations opérées par le parquet de la République
que je dirigeais, lesquelles arrestations concernaient les miliciens interahamwe
impliqués dans les assassinats et destructions de maisons et de biens appartenant
à des victimes Tutsi ou Hutu de l’opposition, des manifestants des
deux milices interahamwe (MRND) et Impuzamugambi (CDR) occupèrent le
Ministère de la justice et exigèrent du Ministre de la justice ma démission car
« j’étais Tutsi ». Le Ministre leur répondit que je n’étais pas et que même si je
l’étais je remplissais bien mes fonctions.
En février 1994, au cours d’une émission radiodiffusé en compagnie du Préfet
de la Ville de Kigali, du Commandant gendarme de Groupement de Kigali et
d’autres hautes responsables chargés de la sécurité, je fis remarquer les gens vivaient
dans la terreur, que les forces de l’ordre ne faisaient rien pour protéger
les honnêtes gens. Le rédacteur en chef de la Radio nationale me traita de Tutsi
et prétendit que je favorisais les criminels Tutsi.
Quand le génocide commença, je me réfugiais chez un voisin gendarme car je
savais bien que j’étais sur la liste des personnalités à tuer. Je pus gagner l’Hotel
des Mille Collines grâce à l’escorte du Commandant de l’Ecole Militaire qui
était un ami. Je suis resté deux mois dans cet Hotel sous la protection des casques
bleus des Nations Unies ( MINUAR). J’ai passé le mois de juin et la première
semaine de juillet 1994 dans un camp de déplacés dans la zone du Front
Patriotique Rwandais. Le 12 juillet 1994 j’ai regagné la capitale rwandaise. Ma
maison officielle avait été pillée par des miliciens interahamwe et des militaires.
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Ma maison personnelle en voie d’achèvement avait été bombardée par des militaires
rwandais. J’avais appris que mon père avait été tué en avril 1994, que ma
sœur Angélique, son mari, ses deux enfants dont le petit avait un mois et sa petite
sœur Agnès avaient été massacrés par les Interahamwe. La famille de mon
épouse avait été presque complètement détruite. Nous avions tout perdu mais
nous avions la vie et l’espoir dans un avenir meilleur.
Le 19 juillet 1994 a été mis en place le Gouvernement d’union nationale et j’ai
été reconduit dans mes fonctions de Procureur de la République. Il me revenait
la lourde tache d’instruire les dossiers judiciaires des personnes suspectées de
participation au génocide. Les arrestations furent à une certaine époque massives
et aveugles. Je me permis de dénoncer cela car j’estimais que les rescapés
voulaient la justice et non la vengeance. Cette dénonciation des arrestations
aveugles et systématiques ne plut pas aux militaires auteurs de ces actes. Certains
militaires s’en prirent même aux journalistes. J’ai dénoncé également cette
situation. Quand les auteurs de ces abus se rendirent compte que leurs intimidations
ne me faisaient pas peur ils m’accusèrent de protéger les Hutu assassins.
Pour ceux-là j’étais cette fois-ci un vrai Hutu et j’étais accusé de protéger des
Hutu génocidaires. Pour d’autres au courant de ma situation (l’assassinat de
mon père et de mes sœurs), j’étais un rescapé comme eux ; ils ne comprenaient
pas comment je protégeais les assassins. Ils n’acceptèrent pas mes explications
sur le sens de la justice. Suite à des menaces précises et répétées je décidais de
rester en Belgique au cours d’une invitation à la première commémoration du
génocide en avril 1995. Ma femme restée au Rwanda me rejoindra quelques
jours plus tard suite à l’intervention de certains ministres auprès des services de
renseignements militaires.
Notre vie à Bruxelles ne fut pas facile. Pour les Hutu, nous étions suspects parce
que nous sommes restés au Rwanda pendant le génocide et que j’avais travaillé
avec le nouveau pouvoir. J’étais un traître pour la Communauté réfugiée Hutu.
Pour les Tutsi, j’étais également un traître parce que je dénonçais les violations
des droits de l’homme par le nouveau pouvoir et que j’avais abandonné l’appareil
judiciaire rwandais. Nous étions rejetés par les deux communautés. Ce rejet
devient aujourd’hui plus important parce que je suis allé témoigner trois fois
devant le Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda contre des auteurs du génocide.
Je continue également de dénoncer certains de mes compatriotes qui
sont ici et qui ont participé au génocide. Mais je demande également que soient
jugés les auteurs des crimes contre l’humanité qui seraient au sein de l’Armée à
Kigali. Ces positions ne font que m’attirer beaucoup d’ennuis mais j’estime que
la réconciliation entre les deux communautés (ethnies) au Rwanda passe beaucoup
par la justice.
Même en Belgique, je n’échappe pas à ce climat de racisme. A plusieurs reprises,
j’ai dû changer de trottoirs ou de rames de métro pour éviter les insultes de
mes compatriotes extrémistes ou leurs partisans belges. Pour ces extrémistes
rwandais et belges, il existe deux camps parmi les Rwandais : le camp des bourreaux
et le camp des victimes selon l’ethnie supposée des uns et des autres. Rejeté
par les extrémistes de ma communauté et leurs amis, J’ai aussi des difficultés
de donner confiance aux modérés qui, voudraient se faire oublier en Belgique.
Dans des moments de fatigue, de déception, j’arrive à me poser la question
de mon ethnie réelle puisque les extrémistes des deux communautés (Hutu
et Tutsi) me rejettent et puis je me dis que je suis tout simplement rwandais. Ces
moments d’interrogations me réconcilient avec moi-même et sont pour moi un
rêve pour le Rwanda de demain.
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En 1996 j’ai rejoins la Ligue belge des droits de l’homme où je suis membre du
Conseil d’administration. En 1997, j’ai été élu secrétaire général de la Fédération
Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme. Depuis lors tous les combats
sur le racisme, le droit des réfugiés et des étrangers m’intéressent. Dans
mon travail au quotidien à Réseau de Citoyens/Citizens Network je m’occupe
des programmes de formations de magistrats au Burundi. Je suis sensible à cette
question de discrimination, raison pour laquelle j’ai initié un programme de formation
des magistrats des tribunaux de résidence au Burundi. Dans ce pays la
majorité des juges juristes est Tutsi et dans le cadre de l’ouverture démocratique
le Ministre de la justice a procédé à la nomination de magistrats hutu au sein des
juridictions inférieures et ces magistrats manquent de formation. Le programme
que je supervise et qui est exécuté par mon association avec les autorités burundaises
offre des formations à ces magistrats à majorité hutu qui, aujourd’hui
n’étaient pas suffisamment représentés au sein de la magistrature. Ce programme
participe avec d’autres actions du Gouvernement burundais à la réconciliation
nationale. Je suis donc aujourd’hui impliqué dans des programmes,
des activités et initiatives visant à lutter contre le racisme, l’exclusion et la répression
basée sur des considérations ethniques et raciales. Je crois que le peuple
rwandais pourra se réconcilier avec lui-même et que nos enfants se reconnaîtront
rwandais au lieu de Hutu et Tutsi.
The Voice of Immaculée Makamobinwa
My name is
Immaculée Makamobinwa and I am a 33 year-old woman. I come from
Rwanda, a small country with one thousand hills. Before the genocide, our family
was made up of 11 persons, namely both our parents and my 8 brothers and
sisters. Only my youngest brother and myself survived.
What happened to me that I have come to this point?
I find it very difficult to tell my personal story but I am going to try to tell you
my unique course of events, even though other women have experienced the
same sufferings.
I was born in the military camp of Kigali where I lived until the age of 18 years
old as my father was a noncommissioned officer in the Rwandan Army. At that
time, the Rwandan Army was mostly made up of Hutus. My father, who was a
Tutsi, was from a northern prefecture where most of the Rwandan Army military
came from. He made things worse for himself by marrying my mother, a
Tutsi woman from the south. My bothers and sisters and myself attended the
Kigali military camp primary school; we were side by side with the sons and
daughters of the President of the Republic, of ministers, of ranking army officers,
and of State officials.
While in this school, we were humiliated because we were Tutsis. Even though
we were top students, teachers actually ranked us below the children of the
President of the Republic, of ministers, and of State officials. In school, classmates
insulted us and they beat us up after school. My eldest brother and I were
nicknamed respectively “Musinga” and “Kanjogera” -- evil Tutsi dynasty king
and queen.
In a Hutu majority army, life was difficult for the few Tutsi soldiers. Because of
his ethnic affiliation, my father suffered a lot. He was constantly reprimanded,
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either because he had an altercation with a young recruit who was a cousin of
the major or with a nephew of the President of the Republic. If his beard was
too long by one centimeter, he would get locked up for 15 days; we would then
have to bring him food morning, noon and evening in his jail. This would humiliate
us since everybody would become aware of the fact that our father was
not at home but also and foremost that he was in jail. Bitter and tired of getting
locked up time after time, my father decided to lea the Rwandan Army in 1985.
With difficulty, he managed to get a job at the Department of Youth and Cooperative
Movement where he met a man named Bikindi Simon (a Hutu extremist
performer whose songs exhorted Hutus to kill Tutsis). This man made life difficult
for my father who was transferred to the Annahoro Stadium in a facility
where the Department took care of young Rwandan artists.
Under the rule of Habyarimana - from 1973 to 1984 - ethnic balance in schools
and the civil service was the key. At the end of our primary school years, we
had to take an official test in order to register in a secondary school. To do so,
we had to fill an identification sheet which was supposed to register -- among
other things -- the ethnic and regional background of the parents and of the applicant
child. Because of that, my eldest brother and I had to repeat twice our
last year in primary school. We succeeded in getting admitted in public secondary
school thanks to a friend of my parents’ who worked at the Department.
He took the risk of asking a colleague of his to straighten up our case. My
brother and I were assigned to a vocational grade; its equivalent in Belgium is a
vocational technical school to which mediocre students are sent. During the
summer break, we cried as we explained to our parents that we really were not
interested in such a course of studies but there was not much they could do
about it. Our parents did not have enough money to send us to a private school.
My little brothers and sisters also had to go to a vocational school. Our case is
typical of what would often happen to Tutsi children.
Like many children of my generation, I wanted to go to college but I was not
able to do so as I was denied a scholarship. I had the same problem when I tried
to get a job. As a reason for the denial, I was told indirectly that it was because I
was a Tutsi. I was able to get a job at the Telecommunication Management Office
for the Department of Transportation and Communication. Two months
later, telecommunications were privatized and my boss who decided to keep me
was accused of being pro-Tutsi. He was accused of hiring a lot of Tutsis. The
protection and safety provided by my boss did not last long: On April 6, 1994,
the attempt against President Habyarimana triggered the ensuing genocide.
In the morning of April 7, we saw on the hill across from us soldiers and militiamen
who went into houses; they killed people and emptied those houses. We
were terrified and went to our next door neighbor, a sergeant from the Gendarmerie
and we stayed there until the morning of April 9.
On that day, he came back home and told us that we were on the list of those
who were supposed to be killed. He told us of those friends of ours (and of their
children) who were killed and he ordered us to go back home and wait for our
turn. His wife begged him on her knees to at least take us to a safer place that
we would suggest. He categorically refused. We went back to our house and
spent the night there. On Sunday, April 10, we managed to go to the “Thousand
Hills Hotel” thanks to a soldier friend. We were there under the protection on
the UN. My eldest brother who had decided to stay home was shot dead on
April 12, 1994.
We stayed at the “Thousand Hills Hotel” where, despite the presence of the
MINUAR, soldiers and militiamen came and went at will. Since there was no
-22-

unning water left, we had to get water from the swimming pool where the soldiers
in charge of guarding the hotel washed themselves and their clothes. On
May 3, there was an attempt to evacuate the refugees. This attempt failed and
we were almost lynched by soldiers and militiamen shortly before reaching the
airport. MINUAR soldiers who were escorting us put their weapons on the
ground and raised their hands as they were ordered to do so by Interahaware militiamen
and Rwandan Army soldiers. The latter had everybody step down and
they started to hit us with rifle stocks, with all kinds of knives, with machetes
and rocks. My husband’s head was whipped by the stock of a gun and he was
bleeding profusely. As they recognized him, they decided to kill him. At that
moment, I tried to figure where the blows were coming from in order to protect
him. Somebody who saw me asked me why I was constantly near him and I answered:
“I don’t know him, I’ve got nothing to do with him”. After that, I felt
ashamed of myself for denying that I knew him. We negotiated that they would
shoot us because we felt that being shot would be quick and a better way to go.
They said that bullets were expensive and that you needed dollars to pay for
them. We reached for all the money and jewelry that we carried but it was useless.
When they noticed that my husband was bleeding profusely, they thought
that he was dead and they started shooting at us. A bullet went through the heel
of my shoe and another one was shot above my shoulder and injured one of the
soldiers. They started to shout: “Oh! The FHR is shooting at us!” They scattered
and this is how we managed to get back into the trucks in order to get back
to the hotel where we came from.
We were transferred to one of the displaced people camps. On June 17, I was
pleasantly surprised to be reunited with my youngest brother who, since he had
managed to escape from the carnage that took place at my parents’ home in
Rubango, had managed to get into the Holy Family Church after a long trek.
He informed me that the Interahaware militiamen went several times to my parents’
house and that they figured that they could not “complete” their job by
themselves. Indeed, there were about thirty people from our hill that our father
had tried to hide. On April 14, the militiamen went to Camp Kanombe in order
to get about thirty soldiers in order to go and massacre everybody. My brother
Pierre Celestin jumped over the fence when he saw that they were shooting at
my brothers, my sisters, my mother and her neighbors. My sister Vénéranda did
not die instantly; she was shot in the chest. Her murderers figured that it would
be great if she died a slow death. She went dying all night till the next morning.
Our servant’s life was spared but she was ordered never to serve the Inkotanyis.
My father and my other brother were ordered to our neighborhood’s primary
school’s playground where they were killed with machetes and clubs.
After the FPR took power, we went back to Kigali, that is to say on July 13.
My husband went back to his old job and I found work at the International Red
Cross Committee. On the first few days, my brother Pierre and myself decided
to go back home in order to find the bodies and a few mementos. We were hoping
that we would be able to bury the bodies. When I saw what was left of the
house, I fell to the ground. Pierre gave me some water and helped me to my
feet; he encouraged me to carry on. I was terrified to keep going. Since it was
destroyed, we rapidly went around the house and we did not find anything. We
went into what used to be rooms and we did not find anything. We went around
the yard and the banana plantation; we did not find anything. Not a photo, not a
teaspoon; nothing that could become a memento. Today, I am looking for the
voice of my mother and of my father; I cannot find them. I close my eyes; I am
looking for the picture of my little sisters and of my brothers; I have nothing.
What shall I do when I shall have to explain to my son William that he once had
grandparents uncles and aunts?
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Shortly after, I found out that my parents’ servant whose life was spared gathered
the bodies of my parents, of my sisters and of 30 other people who were
killed at my parents’ house and put them in a pit that had been dug up to serve
as a latrine. I don’t know where the bodies of my father and of my brother, Pierre
Conisius, who were clubbed to death, and I don’t know where the body of
my big brother who was killed in our house in Kigali is.
We started our life all over again in a country which is not ours. I was blessed to
become a Mother. William was born on March 18, 1999. In order to attend this
conference, we had to find somebody to look after William while we would be
away but we have nobody. If I had a sister or a relative, I would not have any
problem but I don’t have them anymore. They did not die a natural death; they
were savagely slaughtered. William will never know his grandparents. He will
never have an aunt. What gives me hope is that he will be a citizen of the world
and that nobody will ever accuse him of belonging to this ethnic group or not.
And perhaps one day he will go back to the land of his ancestors. His generation
will be not Hutu or Tutsi, he will quite simply be Rwandan.
Translated from French.
La Voix de Immaculée Makamobinwa
Je m’appelle
Immaculée Mukamuhirwa. Je suis une femme de 33 ans. Je viens d’un petit
pays aux milles collines – le Rwanda- qui s’est rendu tristement célèbre en avril
1994 par un génocide qui en trois mois seulement a coûté la vie à plus de
500.000 milles personnes dont leur seul pêché était d’être né Tutsi ou d’être Hutu
modérés. Durant ce génocide, j’ai perdu mes parents, mes quartre petites
sœurs et mes deux frères.
Mais qu’est ce qui s’est passé pour que personnellement j’en arrive là ?
Il est très difficile de raconter toute son histoire personnelle mais je vais essayer
de vous guider sur mon cheminement unique même si d’autres femmes comme
moi gardent la même souffrance.
Je suis né et j’ai habité jusqu’à l’âge de 18 ans) au camp militaire de Kigali
puisque mon père était sous-officier dans l’armée rwandaise. Musicien, il enseignait
la musique aux jeunes recrues qui allaient faire partie de la fanfare militaire.
Mon père était originaire de la préfecture de Ruhengeri, au nord du pays.
Il est entré à l’armée en 1963, à l’âge de 20 ans. Ma mère venait de la commune
Shyorongi, à une vingtaine de Kms de Kigali la capitale. Dans notre entourage
et même au commandement de l’armée, mon père était considéré comme appartenant
à l’ethnie tutsi. Il ne s’est jamais présenté comme tutsi. A nous même, ses
enfants, il n’a jamais rien dit, il a toujours voulu mettre ses enfants à l’abri des
problèmes qu’engendrent les différences ethniques au Rwanda. Peut être qu’il
voulait nous épargner du calvaire qu’il a vécu au sein de l’armée. A chaque fois
que nous posions la question de savoir de quelle ethnie nous étions, il nous disait
qu’il nous dirait plus tard. Nos parents nous disaient toujours :
« préoccupez-vous d’être bons avec vos prochains, travaillez bien à l’école, le
reste aura son temps. » Eh, bien je voudrais vous dire qu’à la date où ils ont été
sauvagement tués, mes parents ne nous avaient encore rien dit.
Mon père originaire d’une préfecture du nord d’où provenaient la majorité des
militaires de l’armée rwandaise avait « aggravé » son cas en épousant une
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« umunyandugakazi tutsi », c’est à dire une femme Tutsi du sud, ma maman.
Mes frères, mes sœurs et moi avons fréquenté l’école primaire du camp militaire
de Kigali où nous côtoyions les fils et les filles du Président de la République,
des ministres, des officiers superieurs de l’armée et des hauts fonctionna ires
de l’état. Nous habitions dans des maisonnettes étroites de la caserne. Nous
avions à peine deux uniformes d’école pour changer. Nous avions un cahier
dans lequel nous condensions toutes les matières. Nous arrivions à l’école à
pied ( mais ce n’était pas loin de notre habitation) tandis que les autres arrivaient
dans de grosses voitures, d’autres avec des gardes du corps. Mais là
n’est pas le problème. Moi, mes frères et sœurs, savions que nos parents nous
donnaient ce qu’ils pouvaient, nous aimaient bien et s’occupaient de nous le
soir. Nous étions de bons élèves, nous avons été toujours parmi les trois premiers
des classes. Mais je sais que mon frère aîné et moi, nous étions les meilleurs,
donc les premiers de classes mais pour les instituteurs, il n’était pas prudent
nous laisser premiers et de mettre les fils et les filles des colonels derrière
nous. Ils s’arrangeaient pour nous donner moins de points dans des matières
dont la cotation était subjective comme par exemple le dessin ou la musique.
Mon père souffrait énormément de son « ethnie douteuse ». Il faisait l’objet de
rapports incessants soit qu’il ait eu une altercation avec une jeune recrue, soit
disant cousin du major tel ou même neveu du Président de la République. Il suffisait
n’ait pas rasé sa barbe à un cm près pour qu’il écope 15 jours de cachot et
nous devions alors tous les matins, midi et soirs lui apporter de quoi manger au
cachot . Les mères de nos camarades originaires du Bushiru région du Président
de la République et Chef de l’armée elles allaient les haricots de la femme du
Général-Président de la République et avaient donc l’occasion de causer avec
madame la Présidente.Notre mère n’eût pas ce privilège. Ces mêmes enfants
nous narguaient souvent en nous disant que quand le jour sera venu de partir
pour l’Ecole secondaire (études d’humanités), nous leur serviront de porteurs de
bagages puisqu’ils étaient sûr que nous n’irions jamais à l’école secondaire. Ces
enfants étaient pourtant les derniers de la classe. Mais comme ils étaient originaires
des préfectures privilégiées et Hutu toutes les portes leur étaient ouvertes.
Ce sont notamment un certain Léon Mbonabaryi, fils de Noël Mbonabaryi, parrain
du Président (qui est plus tard devenu milicien interahamwe), un certain
Eustache Sebutiyongera , fils de l’adjudant-Chef Sebutiyongera qui travaillait
au secrétariat du Quartier général de l’armée et tant d’autres. Ils avaient organisé
un groupe d’enfants pour nous frapper après l’école sur le chemin du retour
parce que nous étions tutsi. Mon frère avait reçu le surnom de Musinga (ancien
roi ) et moi j’avais le surnom de Kanjogera-Nyirabukara (Kanjogera étant le
nom d’une reine-mère connue pour sa cruauté).
Ce ne sont pas seulement les élèves qui étaient racistes, intolérants, les instit uteurs
l’étaient aussi. Je n’oublierai jamais les coups de fouet que j’ai reçu de la
part de Monsieur Janvier, de Monsieur Jean Paul Kamavu et d’autres. Ce sont
ceux là qui n’arrêtaient pas de me montrer les locaux que l’on construisaient
derrière nos classes , locaux destinés à recevoir ceux qui n’allaient pas accéder à
l’école secondaire.
Sous Habyarimana, l’équilibre ethnique dans les écoles, l’administration est
l’un des maîtres mots de la politique de Habyarimana. A la fin des études primaires,
nous devions donc passer un examen officiel afin de nous permettre
d’accéder à l’enseignement secondaire. Pour ce faire, nous devions remplir une
fiche signalétique qui devait renseigner notamment sur l’identité ethnique, régionale
des parents et de l’enfant demandeur. A cause de cela, moi et mon
grand frère, avons doublé deux fois nos dernières années primaires. Si par après,
-25-

nous avons pu accéder à l’enseignement secondaire publique, c’est grâce à un
ami de mes parents qui travaillait au ministère de l’enseignement secondaire,
convaincu de nos capacités intellectuelles et qui a pris le risque de demander à
son collègue d’arranger notre situation. Nous voici donc partis mon frère et moi
à l’école secondaire mais pas pour suivre des options qui nous intéressaient. J’avais
choisi notamment les sciences infirmières, les lettres et le commerce et
comptabilité. Mon frère avait demandé les maths et physiques et les sciences
économiques. Nous avons tous les deux affectés dans une section normale technique,
ce qui équivaut dans certains pays comme la Belgique à l’enseignement
technique professionnel où vont les élèves les moins bons. Pendant les grandes
vacances, nous avons pleuré. Nous avons expliqué à nos parents combien ces
études ne nous intéressaient pas mais ils ne pouvaient pas grand chose. Mes parents
n’avaient pas les moyens pour nous mettre dans des écoles privées .
Après de longues réflexions, mon père eut l’idée de se lever très tôt et d’aller
attendre le ministre de l’éducation nationale, le Colonel Nsekalije devant le portail
de sa maison et essayer de lui parler de ses enfants qui avaient côtoyé les
siens à l’école primaire au camp militaire de Kigali. L’ayant vu à plusieurs reprises,
un jour le Colonel Nsekalije décida de l’entendre. Mon père lui expliqua
la situation et pour le convaincre, lui demanda de se renseigner auprès de son
fils Fidèle et de sa fille Louise qui avaient été nos camarades de classe. Le lendemain,
à la même heure, mon père put obtenir la section économique pour mon
frère aîné. Il ne put pas obtenir un arrangement pour moi mais j’étais contente
de voir mon frère Médard Twahirwa, réputé pour les maths partir vers un enseignement
auquel il avait longtemps aspiré et je n’avais rien d’autre à faire que
d’accepter de continuer dans la direction que le ministère m’avait imposé. Mon
frère a terminé brillamment ses humanités économiques et ce fût une chance
pour lui puisque la coopération suisse qui accordait les bourses d’études dans
des universités suisses a retenu sa candidature et l’a envoyé à l’université de
Fribourg.
Aigri et lassé d’écoper sans répit des quinzaines de cachots, mon père se décida
de quitter l’armée rwandaise en juillet 1985 et mes parents s’installèrent à Rubungo
à 12 Km du centre de la Capitale. Mon père est parvenu avec difficultés à
obtenir un poste au ministère de la jeunesse et du mouvement coopératif et il y
rencontra un certain Bikindi Simon (artiste extrémiste hutu dont les chansons
exhortaient les hutus à tuer les tutsi). Ce dernier lui mena la vie dure et mon
père fut transféré au Stade Amahoro dans un local où son ministère s’occupait
des jeunes artistes rwandais.
Entre temps mes frères et sœurs cadets finirent leur école primaire mais n’eurent
pas accès à l’enseignement secondaire public alors qu’ils étaient brillants.
Mes parents furent obligés de les mettre dans le privé. Nous étions nombreux
( une vraie grande famille africaine !) et le salaire modeste de mon père ne suffisait
pas. Ma mère s’occupait des travaux champêtres et d’élevage. Nous pouvions
manger à notre fin mais à chaque début du trimestre, mon père devait
s’endetter pour nous trouver le minerval ( frais scolaires).
A la fin de mes études secondaires je devais nécessairement enseigner dans un
centre rural d’enseignement intégré, une sorte de formation destinée aux jeunes
qui n’ont pas eu la chance d’accéder à l’enseignement secondaire. Parmi ces
jeunes, on y trouve des tutsi recalés, intelligents mais qui n’avaient pas été retenu
dans les écoles secondaires publiques et dont les parents n’avaient pas des
moyens financiers pour leur payer des études dans des écoles secondaires privées.
On trouvait également des étudiants Hutu moins bons ou alors intelligents
-26-

mais dont les parents pauvres ne connaissaient personne dans le milieu du pouvoir.
J’ai travaillé pendant une année. Je devais aider mon père qui n’en pouvait
plus pour payer les frais scolaires de mes frères et seours.
Comme des jeunes de ma génération, j’avais envie de faire l’université je n’avais
pas la chance d’obtenir une bourse d’étude. Une fois de plus j’allais me
heurter au racisme. Je pus quand même faire le graduat de secrétariat de direction.
J’avais eu la chance d’épouser mon mari qui était un jeune procureur de la
république. Notre mariage même heurta beaucoup de connaissances de mon mari
qui ne comprenaient pas pourquoi il n’épousait pas une fille d’un cacique du
régime alors qu’il le pouvait. Malgré que mon mari connaissait le Ministre de
l’enseignement supérieur, ce dernier refusa de me donner une place à l’Université.
Grâce à un copain de mon mari originaire de Gisenyi, je pus avoir faire un
graduat en secrétariat de direction mais mon diplôme à la main, j’eus des problèmes
d’obtenir un emploi. Les raisons qui m’étaient indirectement données
c’était parce que j’étais tutsi. Je n’oublierai jamais cet employeur qui, après l’interview
me demanda carrément si je m’étais regardé dans la glace le matin. Ce
matin même, se déroulait à Kigali, une manifestation des miliciens du parti
MRND et de la CDR contre les accords de paix d’Arusha. Nous étions en ja nvier
1992. Les manifestants passaient à ce moment même devant le bureau de
l’entreprise où je demandais de l’emploi. Plus tard, j’ai appris que ce monsieur
était l’ami d’un certain Froduald Karamira, Vice-président du parti MDR qui a
appelé les hutus sur la radio RTLM à tuer les tutsi et hutu traîtres.
Je pus obtenir un travail à la direction des télécoms du ministères des transports
et des communications grâce à un ami de mon mari qui était secrétaire général
de ce ministère et qui appartenait à l’opposition démocratique. Deux mois plus
tard, les télécoms étaient privatisés et mon chef me garda et fut traité de protutsi.
On lui reprochait notamment d’avoir engagé beaucoup de tutsi bien qu’en
ce qui me concerne, ce n’était pas lui qui m’avait engagé . J’y ai travaillé donc
depuis le 08 avril 1992 au 06 avril 1994 date inoubliable puisque c’est ce jour là
que fut abattu l’avion du Président Habyarimana , événement qui servit de détonateur
au génocide.
Qu’est ce qui se passe pour moi à partir de cette date? Mon frère aîné Twahirwa
Médard qui était à ce moment là en vacances au Rwanda, mon mari et moi,
sommes à la maison et nous avons la visite d’un couple ami. Vers 21 H 45,
nous nous apprêtions à aller au lit et je me suis dit que je devais écouter la
RTLM et ainsi entendre l’un ou l’autre de ses appels à la haine et savoir qui
étaient visés ce soir là. C’est ainsi que nous avons appris que l’avion du Président
venait d’être abattu. Nous avons réflechi beaucoup et nous nous demandions
ce que nous devions faire. J’ai dit à mon mari que « nous étions finis ».
Nous allions être tués. Je me rappelle ce que me racontaient mes frères et sœurs
souvent. Ces derniers jours qui ont précédé le génocide, on leur demandait
payer pour la forme de leur nez quand ils arrivaient à hauteur de Kimironko sur
le chemin de l’école à la maison. Ce quartier de Kimironko était réputé pour
abriter les miliciens interahamwe et les jeunes de la CDR impuzamugambi.
Je pensais à beaucoup de choses en même temps et j’ai demandé à mon mari de
partir sur le champ même. Je lui ai proposé de prendre la direction de Butare et
à mon avis, le lendemain je pensais que le lendemain matin nous serions arrivés
au Burundi. Là bas, nous allions attendre et voir l’évolution de la situation.
Mais mon mari me dit qu’il faut se calmer, que nous allions passer la nuit à la
maison et que nous verrions comment ça se passe le matin. Très tôt le matin,
nous apprenons que les barrières sont érigés un peu partout dans la ville par la
-27-

Garde présidentielle. Nous apprenons l’assassinat du Premier ministre, du Président
de la Cour constitutionnelle, du ministre de l’information et d’autres. Nous
voyons et entendons les échanges de tir entre le camp militaire et le CND où
étaient installés les militaires et les autorités du FPR dans le cadre des accords
de paix d’Arusha. Dans la matinée, nous voyons sur la colline en face de nous,
des militaires et des miliciens rentrer dans des maisons, tuer les gens et vider
leurs maisons immédiatement. Nous avions très peur et nous sommes allé chez
notre voisin direct Adjudant-chef Mugiraneza. Nous avons demandé à notre domestique
de dire à tous ceux qui téléphoneraient que nous étions avec nos amis
belges. Nous pensions ainsi que nous nous mettions à l’abri de celui qui aurait
l’idée d’être sûr qu’il nous trouverait à la maison s’il venait accomplir la triste
besogne. Nous restons chez l’Adjudant-chef jusqu’au matin du 09 avril.
Ce matin-là, il revient de l’extérieur en nous disant que nous sommes sur la liste
des gens qui doivent être tués. Il nous parle de nos amis tués et il nous demande
de rentrer chez nous et d’attendre notre tour. Sa femme se met à genou pour lui
demander de nous accompagner au moins dans un autre endroit plus sûr que
nous lui proposerons. Il refuse catégoriquement. Nous retournons à la maison et
nous y passons la nuit. Dimanche le 10 avril, il nous vient l’idée d’appeler le
Général Rusatira et de lui dire que nous sommes en vie. Par chance mon mari le
trouva au bout du fil et nous demanda ce qu’il pouvait faire pour nous. Nous
pensions à aller à l’hôtel des milles collines où il y avait les militaires de la MI-
NUAR et où nous pourrions peut être avoir la chance d’être évacués avec les
expatriés. 20 minutes plus tard, sa garde arrive chez nous. Au moment où nous
entrons dans le véhicule, mon frère Médard, pris de panique, se décida à rester à
la maison et d’essayer de se cacher peut être dans le plafond. Comme il avait été
longtemps absent du pays, il trouvait qu’il prenait moins de risques en restant.
De l’autre côté, il pensait que nous qui étions relativement connus dans Kigali,
risquions notre vie plus que lui.
Deux jours plus tard, c’est-à-dire mardi le 12 avril, j’essaie de le joindre au téléphone
sans résultat. J’appris plus tard que les miliciens l’ont abattu lorsqu’il
était descendu du plafond. Il était au téléphone pour essayer d’appeler au secours.
J’ai appris cette mauvaise nouvelle par la domestique d’un directeur au
ministère de la justice, membre de la CDR et qui était notre voisin d’à gauche.
J’appris également que ce directeur procéda immédiatement au pillage de notre
maison.
Nous sommes restés à l’hôtel des milles collines où malgré la présence de la
MINUAR, les militaires et les miliciens venaient repérer leur proie. Comme il
n’y avait plus d’eau courante, nous étions obligés d’aller puiser l’eau de la piscine
où les militaires qui étaient censés garder l’établissement, se lavaient, ou
lavaient leurs vêtements. Nous avions trente minutes le matin. Le 03 mai, il y
eut une tentative d’évacuation des réfugiés. Nous avions demandé à regagner le
camp qui était sous contrôle du FPR. Cette tentative échoua et nous avons failli
être lynchés par les militaires et les miliciens à hauteur de l’échangeur vers Kimihurura.
Les militaires de la MINUAR qui nous escortaient ont déposé leurs
armes et on levé les bras. Mon mari fut sauvagement frappé. On lui reprochait
d’avoir écrit un livre dans lequel il aurait insulté le Président de la République
et puis les militaires disaient qu’il n’était pas un vrai hutu puisque originaire de
la région du Bugesera. Par chance, nous sommes revenus à l’hôtel des milles
collines que nous avons quitté cette fois-ci le 29 mai. Nous avons été transféré à
Kabuga. Le 17 juin, j’eus l’agréable surprise de retrouver mon frère Pierre Célestin
Muhirwa, qui depuis qu’il avait échappé au carnage qui a eu lieu chez
mes parents à Rubungo, était parvenu à rentrer dans l’église Sainte Famille
après un long chemin de croix. C’est lui qui m’apprit que les miliciens intera-
-28-

hamwe étaient venus à plusieurs reprises chez mes parents et qu’ils avaient
trouvés qu’ils ne pouvaient pas « terminer leur travail » seuls. En effet, il y
avait une trentaine de personnes de notre colline que mon père avait essayé de
cacher. Le 14 avril, les miliciens sont allés chercher une trentaine de militaires
du camp militaire de Kanombe qui sont venus massacrer tout le monde. Mon
frère Pierre Célestin a sauté par dessus l’enclos au moment où l’on tirait parmi
mes frères, mes sœurs , ma mère et ces voisins. Ma sœur Vénéranda n’est pas
morte immédiatement, elle avait reçu la balle dans la poitrine. Ses meurtriers
trouvaient qu’il était bon qu’elle mette du temps à s’éteindre. Elle a agonisé jusque
le lendemain. Notre domestique Edouard a été épargné, mais il lui a été demandé
de ne plus désormais servir les inkotanyi. Mon père et mon frère Pierre
Canisius Sebahire ont été conduit dans la cour de recréation de l’école primaire
de notre quartier (Munini) où ils ont été tués à coup de machettes et de massues.
Après la prise du pouvoir par le FPR, nous avons regagné Kigali, c’est-à-dire le
13 juillet. Mon mari a repris son travail et moi j’ai obtenu du travail au Comité
international de la Croix-Rouge. Dénonçant les arrestations massives et arbitraires,
mon mari a été une fois de plus menacé par des militaires cette fois ci de na
nouvelle armée. Suite à des menaces de mort, nous avons décidé de commun
accord de tout abandonner et de fuir à l’étranger. Nous avions tout perdu pendant
le génocide : nos parents, frères et sœurs, nos amis et nos bien et au moment
où nous avions espéré tout recommencer à zero, nous étions obligés de
prendre le chemin de l’exil. Mon mari est arrivé en Belgique le 23 mars 1995 et
moi le 15 avril 1995.
Nous avons recommencé notre vie à zéro, dans un pays qui n’est pas le nôtre et
je peux vous assurer que ce n’est pas facile. Les extremistes des deux communautés
rwandaises nous haissent nous traitant certains de traîtres, d’autres de
complices du régime rwandais mais nous avons décidé de « revivre ».
J’ai repris les études en 1998. J’ai eu le bonheur de devenir maman : William
naît le 18 mars 1999 . En juin 2000, j’ai obtenu le diplôme d’infirmière.
J’exerce dans un hôpital qui n’est pas loin de chez nous. William ne connaîtra
jamais ses grands parents. Il n’aura pas de tante et n’aura qu’un « tonton ». Mais
il sera citoyen du monde et on ne lui reprochera pas d’être de telle ou telle ethnie.
Et peut être, un jour il rentrera dans le pays de ses ancêtres et sa génération
ne sera ni Hutu ni Tutsi mais tout simplement rwandais : tel est l’enseignement
que je donnerai à notre fils.
FACTS
• Within 100 days, more than 800,000 people were killed – nearly
75 percent of the Tutsi population in Rwanda.
• In April 1995, the Rwandan government was arresting nearly
1,500 people per week.
• For the first time in history a conviction on the charge of
genocide was handed down by the an international court for the
Rwandan genocide.
• The dead in Rwanda accumulated at nearly three times the rate
of Jewish deaths during the Holocaust.
-29-

Saikou Diallo gives voice to the rights of people
of color to be free from police harassment,
brutality and murder.
UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
Minority populations
are disproportionately
targeted by law
enforcement, and the
criminal justice systems
are often riddled
by institutionalized
racism. In addition to
overt racism that is
associated with being
part of a targeted
population, there is
insidious covert racism
that can be seen
in the lack of basic
police protections
provided to minority
communities.
Saikou Diallo is the
father of Amadou Diallo
who was killed
without just cause by
police in New York.
In early February 1999, the police were searching for a rape suspect
in a largely minority neighborhood of the Bronx. During the
search, four white police officers unleashed a barrage of 41 bullets
at a young West African immigrant named Amadou Diallo; he
was 22 years-old. He was hit nineteen times by gunfire and died.
He had no gun and was innocent of any wrongdoing, but as a
black man in the United States, he was presumed to be armed and
dangerous, if not guilty. Perhaps more than anything, the shooting
of Diallo has brought about a national debate on police misconduct
and the racial divide between urban officers and the minority
communities they patrol.
-30-

The Voice of Saikou Diallo
My name is Saikou Diallo. It
saddens me greatly that as we forge into the new millennium, racism is still very
much on the throne. I am hard-pressed to name a place where it does not rear its
ugly head. We see it all over the continents of Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle
East, and the Americas, including the United States.
In February of 1999, the hearts of my family and I were torn out by a form of
racism called racial profiling. In early February of 1999, I received a call
informing me that my son, Amadou, had been killed by New York City police
officers.
You see, the facts as we know them to be are that Amadou was on the steps of
his building. He had recently arrived home from work. An unmarked police car
with four white police officers in plainclothes drove past the building where he
stood. They saw Amadou and reversed. They got out of the car. Amadou
continued to go into the building where he lived. The officers opened fire.
In total, 41 shots were fired, nineteen of which struck Amadou. Needless to say,
Amadou died instantly. The police rationalized their actions by stating that they
saw a black item in Amadou’s hand. However, the overall public sentiment is
that Amadou was simply a victim of racial profiling. He was a target of these
police officers because he was a young man with black skin.
There is a phenomenon in the United States, especially in urban areas, where
police officers target young men simply because of the color of their skin.
Young men of color have been shot by police officers after being stopped on
state highways for supposedly violating some traffic law. However, several
government agencies have conducted studies that show that black males are
stopped at a much higher rate than their white counterparts and these studies go
on to state that in most instances they had not violated any laws. Because of the
civil protest by civic leaders and politicians, numerous states have enacted antiracial
profiling laws. The practice, nonetheless, seems to continue.
Racism seems also to have seeped into the criminal justice system. There must
be an effort to see that people of color are given the same treatment by the
system as whites. Often times, the system will treat a white defendant, or a
white police officer accused of committing some atrocity against a person of
color, with kid gloves, while a person of color is generally prosecuted to the
fullest extent of the law.
You see, the police officers who killed my son were brought to trial. It was clear
from the evidence that the only reason he was singled out and shot 41 times on
his doorstep was because he was a black man. The jury which considered the
charges against the police officers, however, concluded that such actions were
not wrong and acquitted all of Amadou’s killers. Sadly, the acquittal of my
son’s killers was not an isolated case, but an example of how the criminal
justice system is full of racism, from suspicion to execution.
Similarly, a white police officer was arrested for driving while intoxicated and
killing four people of Hispanic descent. The judge in that case released the police
officer and did not set any bail. However, if a young black man was ac-
-31-

cused of the same crimes, he most certainly would have been remanded without
bail.
Also, there have been at least three instances over the past three months where
young black males were released after serving at least 14 years in prison for
crimes they did not commit.
Yes, as we continue our fight to protect those subject to ethnic cleansing in
Eastern Europe and from the savagery in Sierra Leone, we must be forever
vigilant to fight against racism that is not as open. You can count on me being a
soldier in the army for human rights.
I wish and pray that God guide us in our efforts. I wish that the end result be
peace throughout the world.
FACTS
•Blacks were 79.1 percent of the drivers stopped and searched by the
Maryland police on US Interstate 95 over two years, although they were
only 17.5 percent of the traffic violators.
•The US war on drugs targets black Americans. More drug offenders are
white than black, but blacks are 62.7 percent of drug offenders sent to
state prison, and black men are jailed on drug charges 13.4 times the
rate of white men.
•From January 1998 to March 1999, blacks were half of all people
stopped by police on the streets of New York City, six times more than
whites, although blacks are only 25 percent of New York’s population.
-32-

Stephanus Djuweng gives voice to the rights
of indigenous peoples to have a role in development
in the face of globalization.
INDONESIA
The Dayak, indigenous
peoples of Kalimantan/Borneo,
are
victims of systemic
racism, discrimination,
stereotyping,
stigmatization, oppression
and exploitation
of their land,
leading to social exclusion
and cultural
genocide. The notion
of modernity that appears
in education,
religions, capitalist
economy and the
emergence of the nation-state
make the
Dayak culture either
invisible or appear to
be inferior. Globa lization
threatens the
Dayak; the encroachment
on lands by
multinational corporations,
deforestation by non-local logging companies, and river
pollution by mine projects as well as the use of chemical substance
in modern agricultural sectors have undermined the phys ical
and spiritual relationship between the Dayak and the land.
Stephanus Djuweng founded the Institut Dayakology (ID) to
document, preserve, revitalize and promote the Dayak culture, and
defend the environment while combating racism by empowering
the victims of discrimination, oppression and exploitation by those
in power.
-33-

The Voice of Stepanus Djuweng
I am a Simpang Dayak
born in a small remote Dayak village and I have come to tell you about my
people whose diverse culture and heritages have been stigmatized as primitive,
backwards, even uncivilized, and whose lives are being destroyed as we lose
our land. I went to a village Catholic Primary School. At that time, my classmates
and I understood that we are the Simpang People, to distinguish ourselves
from the neighbouring ethnic groups. Later on, we got to know that we are the
Dayak. The term Dayak is a collective ethnic label of hundred of ethnolinguistic
groups of the Indigenous Peoples in Kalimantan or Borneo. Simpang
Dayak, to whom I belong, is one of those hundreds of ethno linguistic groups,
each group has different languages, customary law and practices, social structure,
and other cultural elements. However, they have some similarities in the
world view, oral traditions, philosophical views, settlement structure and architecture,
weapon, way of life and sustainable ways in managing and extracting
natural resources.
Our rights to ancestral land and territory, forest, river and other natural
resources have been violated by the State and legal instruments have discriminated
the Indigenous peoples. Notably the agrarian law no 5/1960. The State, on
behalf of multi-national corporations, has been taking over our land without
proper consultation and compensation. When they take our land, they take away
our way of life. This law has demolished the Dayak and other indigenous peoples
ancestral rights over the land. The land and territories of the indigenous
peoples are claimed as State’s lands. Therefore, the State is free to utilise it
without any proper compensation. In this respect, the State does not recognise
the existence of the Indigenous Peoples. The land that is not cultivated is
considered public lands. The Dayak peoples in Kalimantan manage soil fertiliser
by applying a cycle cultivation system. Western anthropologists called it
shifting cultivation. This system is quite different from Java, where land is
cultivated every year. The experience of Javanese peoples and their perspective
are very well incorporated in the basic agrarian law, but those of the indigenous
people are not. This law discriminates against the Dayak and other indigenous
peoples in Indonesia.
Just six months ago, I met with a group of women and children who had been
catching fish in the river that lies in the oil palm plantation. The plantation
security official found them and ordered the group to release the fish. “You
have to throw away the fish. You have no right to catch fish here since this is
not your land anymore. This land belongs to the company and all the fish
belong to the company as well,” he said angrily. And the people stopped these
activities, threw away their fish, then left the river with deep disappointment.
The women did not believe what they had just heard. Since time immemorial
my people had been fishing there. For generations we have been maintaining
not only a physical relationship with nature, but also an emotional and spiritual
one. But once the plantation owners grabbed the peoples’ land, they lost their
dignity as human beings and lost their sovereignty over that land, the river and
the forest – for the women, they lost their sources of life.
Our sustainable ways of managing our forest, utilizing our land and rivers are
condemned to be unproductive. Instead, the government promotes multinational
companies that damage our forests, dig our land, pollute our rivers and
-34-

air; they are taking away our resources, our wealth, even the foods on our
plates. These companies benefit by the national laws and regulations. For
instance, the basic forestry law has demolished our rights over the ancestral
forests. These laws accelerate deforestation. Related regulations prohibit the
people from carrying any wood cutting tools, like parang, a knife used to clear
farmland. How can we farm if we cannot carry tools? Luckily, the government
doesn’t have enough police to apply the law. I imagine if this regulation is
imposed, all the Dayak will be in prison. This is obviously a new form of
colonization, hence, a form of racism and discrimination.
One way to combat racism and other types of oppression is by empowerment of
the victims of discrimination and oppression. I started the Institute of
Dayakology to revitalize our heritage and raise public awareness locally and
globally. I am coming to this important Conference, to tell you, the people of
the world, the human rights defenders, the governments, the United Nations,
particularly the High Commission of Human Rights, to take certain measures to
stop the oppression, exploitation and marginalization toward the Dayak
indigenous peoples of Borneo. I believe the Indigenous Peoples have the right
to maintain their own social structure and cultural practices, to control their
natural resources and land. Indigenous Peoples have been portrayed as
primitive, half-human and uncivilized for so long that sometimes they begin to
believe it themselves. We must overcome this belief. We want to live peacefully,
we wish to live hand in hand, share mutual respect, equality and friendship
with others. Let us, the peoples of the world, build the world anew.
FACTS
•There are 4.1 million Dayak living in Indonesia. Dayak people consist
of many tribes with a diversity of culture, tradition and life-styles. They
are people of the rain forest, typically hunters, and their existence depends
on the rain forests.
•Indonesian law places control of the land and land rights in the State’s
hands. The basic law on land rights limits the size of land holdings by
peasants. The law provides for consultation with customary communities
before land use rights are granted, but the law also contains provisions
that allow the government to issue these rights despite the views
of the community if “the granting of usage rights…are truly necessary
for broader interests.”
•Dayak activists have accused the mining companies and local armed
forces of human rights abuses such as arrests without legal process,
eviction of small-scale miners by force, and burning of homes and shelters
of traditional miners. Some of these miners were even forced out of
their own houses by security forces who fired their weapons when the
inhabitants were eating inside in 1991. At least one person -- Edward
Tarung -- died in custody in 1992.
-35-

Mariama Oumarou gives voice to the right not to
be subjected to slavery and sexual servitude.
NIGER
Mariama Oumarou is
a 17-year old, darkskinned
Tuareg from
Niger. Like her
mother and grandmother,
she grew up
as a slave to lighterskinned
Tuaregs. Her
mother and grandmother
remain slaves.
When she was fifteen,
her master sold her to
a trader in Nigeria for
US$300. At first, she
believed that she was
his wife, but she had a
disproportionate share
of the housework and
under Islamic law, he
could only have four
wives and she would
have been the fifth
wife. When she discovered
she was purchased
as a house
worker/sexual servant, she escaped and returned to Niger. With
assistance from a local NGO, she lured her Nigerian master to Niger
and had him arrested. Before his case came to trial, he bribed
his way out of prison. Today she is free.
-36-

The Voice of Mariama Oumarou
My name is Mariama
and I am seventeen-years old. I was born into a family of slaves belonging to a
chief of a group of Touaregs with white skin. Me, I am a Black Touareg of this
community in which if one is Black, they undergo torture and moral humiliations
of all sorts based on our social position. We are always reminded wherever
we are that we are slaves and we do not have rights other than those
granted by our masters.
The Touareg community is hierarchical, and the group has two principal
subgroups according to skin color: black, majority and white, minority. Among
the Touareg, racism shows itself in its most brutal forms—slavery. Discrimination
characterizes itself by certain degrading treatments that are related to the
color of the skin or social origin. Sometimes with the white Touaregs, all Blacks
are “slaves” and therefore they are treated poorly and degraded.
When I was small I had no knowledge, but as I grew I found myself in the home
of Igdas, a white Toureg who was my master and the master of my mother,
Nola and my grandmother, Amina. When I was a slave, I did all the domestic
work and other work such as herd the goats, transport meals to the farmers,
gather dead wood for the cooking, gather the chore water, watch the children,
and clean the house. I suffered a lot. I was regularly beaten and injured, and my
self-esteem was damaged because of the actions of the members of this family.
One day, my master presented himself to my mother to tell her that he has
found me a husband. He gave 20.000 CFA to my mother, saying “it is necessary
to come to Tambaye-Janao for the wedding of your girl.” My mother and I went
to Tambaye-Janao; we waited seven days and the wedding never took place.
We returned to Madaoua.
Some days after our return, the master and two men returned with the decision
to give me in marriage to a man that I had never seen, who lives in Nigeria. I
began to question this “marriage” without a religious ceremony, without
tam-tam, without dance or henna as is typical on the occasion of all marriages.
I was sent to Nigeria. This supposed husband was named Elhadji, he was Hauossa.
He already had four wives. Generally in Islam, you can have a maximum
of four wives. To be called a “fifth wife” is only to disguise that one is a slave.
The husband can take as much as he wants from the women or girl servants.
As early as the day after my arrival, the first wife defined my work: to crush
cereals, to draw the water from a well, to wash the clothes, to take care of the
cleanliness of the home, and to watch the children. There are also other things I
did not understand. A young girl without a clean room to herself and the
claimed husband does not address a word to me in public.
One day Elhadji invited me in his room and demanded to have sex with me.
This act is repeated at the same hour of every day and always in the same
conditions, this is to say, without my consent. When a master desires to
maintain sexual relations with any of his slaves, he does it without their consent.
The slave does not have the least right to oppose the will of any family member
of the powerful master, especially when it is a question of the master himself.
After ten months with Elhadji, one day I refused to work because I was sick,
and the angry wives told me the truth, “You cannot refuse to work for us, you
-37-

are a slave of our husband, therefore you are the slave of the family. He bought
you so that you work for us, you are not a married woman and you must not
include yourself as us.” All of this was accompanied by insults such as dirty
slave, illegitimate child and threats. Facing my refusal and in the absence of Elhadji
that day, the wives told their children to beat me. The girls found me in
bed in tears and began to hit me. They tore my clothes. I cried all day long in
the room without anything to drink or eat.
Upon the arrival of Elhadji, I asked if it was true that I am not his wife and that
he bought me. I told him his wife and children had beaten me and told me this.
He asked if it was true that I had refused to work. I said I was sick and I had to
go back to Niger. Elhadji told me that he had bought me and he wanted his
money back. I told him I would be going to look for his money. I cried for three
days after my conversation with Elhadji.
The fourth day, Elhadji told his messenger to bring me back to my mother and
to say to Igdas (the former master who had sold me) that he will come next
week to recover his money since “his slave refuses to remain at my place.” With
the messenger, I left Nigeria to return to my homeland. We traveled on foot to
arrive to Bangui, a border town between Niger and Nigeria. We had walked all
day long and crossed several ravines before arriving to this town.
In Bangui, where we were going to borrow a vehicle, we met three persons including
Mr. Anour of the Timidria Association. We returned to Madaoua with
the messenger and told him that he should tell Igdas that Elhadji should be
reimbursed his money. Here is my side of this episode of a Black Touareg girl,
a victim of slavery who was sold to a rich Haoussa merchant of Nigeria.
Racial discrimination in my Touareg community is based on different
complexions that exist: white and black. The common saying of the white
Touaregs is that the whites are superior to Blacks and that this is divine will.
The slave that refuses to work for his master or that serves poorly will be
chastised by God and put into hell the day of the last judgment. When children
play, the children of the master will bully the children of "slaves." Even being in
a Black family (Haoussa), I was reminded that I am an inferior person.
Upon my return to Niger, I found my mother Nola and also Assadek, one of the
members of Igdas’ family who objected to me being sold and had given
information about me to Timidria, an organization that is against slavery
because they are aware of the inhuman conditions of the life of a slave. In May
2001, I accompanied Timidria on a mission to my village, Tambaye-Janao.
I share my story because I hope to raise awareness about this inhuman and
degrading practice of slavery, and eradicate it from our community, our
country, Africa and the world.
Translated from Haoussa
-38-

FACTS
•Tuareg comprise 8 percent of the population of Niger.
•The Constitution of Niger prohibits slavery, but there are reports of
slavery still being practiced in northern regions.
•As many as 20,000 people are held in involuntary servitude.
•Young female slaves often suffer sexual demands from their owners and
males slaves are castrated or branded with hot irons.
•There are three forms of slavery practiced in Niger today:
o Passive Slavery – based on tacit consent of the slaves and involves
no physical coercion.
o Archaic Slavery – involving the denial of humanity of the slave
and permits the master to inflict degrading treatment, treating the
slave as property.
o “Fifth Wife” – This custom calls for the taking of a fifth wife as
a slave. She remains a slave as long as she is childless, or has
one daughter. The birth of a son or second daughter gains her
freedom.
-39-

Willy Weisz gives voice to the modern day threats
of an ancient form of racism --
anti-Semitism.
AUSTRIA
It is impossible not
to see the link between
the recent
rise in anti-
Semitism in Austria
and the increase
of support
for the Austrian
Freedom Party, and
its leader, Joerg
Haider. Haider has
called vetrans of
the Nazi Waffen
SS “men of character”
and espoused
Hitler for having
had “sound employment
policies.”
This, and the use of
other symbols and
terms of the Nazi
era are used to garner
votes among
those in Austria who seek a return to that era.
Willy Weisz has witnessed the rise of anti-Semitism in Austria
first-hand. He speaks about “populist politicians” who exploit ordinary
people’s fear of being at an economic disadvantage and
turn that fear into blame of foreigners, or people who are “other.”
Throughout school, and into his adult life, Willy has experienced
anti-Semitism, now he helps eradicate prejudice by educating people
about the Jewish faith.
-40-

The Voice of Willy Weisz
Even when the Jews are not
physically attacked or the possibility to earn their living hindered, Jews have to
be on constant alert and fight spoken or written anti-Semitic expressions as soon
as they appear. This is the lesson that we have learned from the experience of
our parents and grandparents in the 1930s and 1940s. Within a few years a wellintegrated
part of the popula tion in civilized countries became outlaws and even
pure objects to be destroyed. All this is based on pseudo-scientific and centuries
old prejudices that have been long thought to belong to the dark past.
I was brought up as a Jew, but after the anti-Semitism my parents experienced
in their youth in Vienna, and especially after the ascent to power of the Nazis,
first in Germany and later in Austria, they tried to keep it a family matter, and
not to make it too public.
Remembering their school times, my father decided to chose a school where I
could be spared the confrontation with anti-Semitism. But even though this was
an international school, I encountered some cases of anti-Semitism, first as a
second grader at school, when my mother had to explain the meaning of the
insults to me. At the high school level, I was again confronted with anti-Semitic
insults. This time I reacted immediately.
I also remembered that several times when I was in my parents' shop some
people who disagreed with them started to insult them not on grounds of their
disagreement, but with vile anti-Semitic stereotypes.
The most moving encounter with anti-Semitism I have had was one that I
became aware of only a year or so later. I became friends with the sister of a
classmate when I was about fifteen. When our personal trust had been built up
enough she confided to me the following story. One day during a break, she, her
brother, a few others and I were standing together and I told them that I was
Jewish. This was a shock for her, and for some days she didn't talk to me, a fact
which I was unaware of, as we did not meet so often. But then she started
making up her mind, and asked herself what had changed. I was still the same
person that previously she had found to be sympathetic, and she never
knowingly had met a Jew. Finally, she discovered why my Jewishness had
suddenly erected a temporary wall between us. She was brought up in a little
town where anti-Jewish feelings were planted into the young ones by the
preachers in the church. And now she has understood that a real, living Jew is
something completely different.
But there are also all the others who never get the chance to become friends
with a Jew and by this make up their mind. How easy it is to make monsters out
of people imbued with prejudices has been demonstrated by the atrocities performed
by "normal people" in the death camps of the Nazis.
So I understood that anti-Semitism doesn't start with people being incited to
speak or act against Jews, but with it being instilled into the brains of very
young and unaware people before they even know what a Jew is, or who is a
Jew. It became clear to me that anti-Semitism must be fought by reacting whenever
we are made aware of spoken or written prejudices, not only when actions
are threatening.
-41-

Originating in the Soviet-ruled countries, the disguise of anti-Semitism as anti-
Zionism or anti-Israelism transferred to the countries labeled as Western. So we
were forced to understand the new spelling of anti-Semitic slanders.
My personal fight against anti-Semitism now concentrates mainly on informing
people about the Jewish religion in order to make them aware of the falseness of
their - often unconscious - prejudices.
With time, I became aware that anti-Semitism is just one facet of the more
widespread xenophobia, and how populist politicians turn the fear of "simple
people" of being at a disadvantage in their job or their private life into blaming
the "other," the foreigner, the "other looking, speaking, behaving" for their own
failures; all this to gain voters. When I was accepted into B'nai B'rith, I
therefore immediately engaged in its activities to fight anti-Semitism and
xenophobia.
In the last ten or so years, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and racism raised their
head as the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) got more voters. Their
leader, Joerg Haider, openly favored cherishing the Nazi veterans, and even
declared the veterans of the Waffen-SS, a unit internationally branded as war
criminal, "models for our youth." Even though the B'nai B'rith in Vienna presented
the State Attorney with a research conducted on the activities of the Waffen-SS
and on whether Haider's speech was outlawed by the law forbidding
"Nazi activities" — no judicial action followed.
The language of our politicians who want to make their support known to
supporters of all kind of racism is generally not quite so brazen. Instead they use
terms and symbols, partly from the Nazi era, to convey their message to the in itiated.
Even though this symbolism has been researched and made public, it has
never been taken into consideration by the public prosecutors. Xenophobia has
become a major feature in all the election campaigns of the FPÖ in the last
years.
Since the FPÖ has entered the government, openly anti-Semitic speeches have
multiplied. The latest being the attack on the mayor of Vienna (who is not a
Jew) for using the help of "a Mr. Greenberg of the East Coast" (translate to: an
American Jew) in the elections, and the personal anti-Semitic attack on the
president of the Jewish Community, Ariel Muzicant. Requests to prosecute Mr.
Haider on the basis of the penal law were all turned down.
Besides these blatantly anti-Semitic activities, we are also confronted with
people using traditional ways of defaming the Jewish religion, even for attacking
non-Jews. Even so, one could argue that since we are not the target, we need
not be concerned. But this is not true as those texts published in newspapers will
doubtlessly be used by anti-Semitic circles to prove that they are right since
even people above all suspicions of anti-Semitism write that the Jewish way is
intolerable.
A few weeks ago, a bishop, who based his verbal attacks on homosexuals on the
text of the "Old Testament," was challenged in a newspaper by a member of
Parliament, who is not anti-Semite. Probably without being aware of it, she used
the century old tradition of wrongly referencing the texts of the Pentateuch, and
by doing so defamed the Jews who still take these texts as a guidance for their
life. Fortunately, a report that I wrote detailing the fallacy in these references
-42-

was published by the same newspaper. Unfortunately, however, this situation
illustrates how community insensitivity perpetuates anti-Semitism.
But the most virulent anti-Semitic attacks I ever have personally witnessed hit
me in the last weeks and here at this very World Conference Against Racism.
Using the political conflict in the Middle East that opposes two liberation movements,
the 1,800 year-old Zionism and the Palestinian aspirations to the same
piece of land, as pretext to slander the Jews in speeches, pamphlets and
caricatures. Jews are depicted in words and images that could have been copied
directly from the Nazi newspaper of the 1930s and 1940s, the “Stürmer,” and
their complete annihilation is openly asked for. Even in school manuals, the
ideal way of life is depicted as fighting the Jews and becoming a martyr.
In closing, I want to reiterate that we must all be vigilant with respect to
increased racist activity, and we must all speak out against racism however it is
manifested and wherever it occurs, especially when it is used to support
political aspirations.
FACTS
• In 1999, the Austrian Minister of Interior reported an increase of 83
percent in extreme right-wing criminal acts, including anti-Semitic inc idents;
274 charges were pressed under the law against National Socia lism,
compared with 198 in 1998.
• In 1999, the European Union imposed sanctions on Austria after the
election of the openly anti-Semitic Freedom Party joined the government.
• Austria has a Jewish population of 10,000 out of a total population of
8 million. Before 1938, there were more than 180,000 Jews in Austria,
of whom about 65,000 perished in the Holocaust.
-43-

Creuza Maria de Oliveria gives voice to the
right to be treated with dignity regardless of skin color,
and the right of workers to fair treatment,
a minimum wage and social security.
BRAZIL
Like many Afro-
Brazilian children,
Creuza Maria de
Oliveria was raised
to believe she had no
option in life other
than to be a domestic
worker. At the
age of ten, under the
pretext of caring for
her, a white family
brought her in to
take care of their
children. Creuza did
not have access to
educa tion, she
worked without receiving
any wages,
she ate the leftovers
of the children that
she cared for and
suffered physical
violence that increased
over time.
In Salvador, she
worked in other families’ houses where the pattern of racism was
repeated and turned, many times, more perverse. Far from having
all of the fundamental and social rights, such as the right to a dignified
life, a work contract, a minimum wage, and social security,
she was discriminated against for being a woman, for being black
and for being a domestic worker.
-44-

was published by the same newspaper. Unfortunately, however, this situation
illustrates how community insensitivity perpetuates anti-Semitism.
The Voice of Creuza Maria de Oliveria
But the most virulent anti-Semitic attacks I ever have personally witnessed hit
me in the last weeks and here at this very World Conference Against First Racism. of all,
Using I would the like political to remind conflict you in about the Middle colonization East that and opposes slavery two in liberation America move- before
ments, speaking the of 1,800 discrimination year old Zionism and racial and prejudice the Palestinian in Brazil. aspirations This system to the treated same
piece black people of land, as “things,” as pretext oppressed to slander through the the Jews total in absence speeches, of human pamphlets rights. and
caricatures. Jews are depicted in words and images that could have been copied
directly The Brazilian from the society Nazi structured newspaper and of the developed 1930s and itself 1940s, because the of “Stürmer”, the work and of
their black complete slaves. Brazil annihilation received is about openly 4.5 asked million for. enslaved Even in Africans school manuals, and became the
ideal the country way of life that is received depicted the as fighting most slaves the Jews in any and time. becoming Currently, a martyr. slavery is
illegal but descendents of African slaves continue to be oppressed by the lack of
In opportunity closing, I in want all to aspects: reiterate economic, that we must cultural, all be social vigilant and educational. with respect to
increased racist activity, and we must all speak out against racism however it is
manifested My personal and history wherever isn’t it different occurs, from especially other when black it domestic is used to workers support that come
political from poor aspirations. families; it is an example of inequality added to misery. This
dramatic situation obliges families, especially in the inner country, to send their
sons and daughters away to perform hard work. The majority of these children
end up in the capital and in industrial cities. It a common violation of the human
rights FACTS of the child, which are exploited by Brazilian society.
• In 1999, the Austrian Minister of Interior reported an increase of
I became an orphan at an early age. My father died when I was five years old.
83 percent in extreme right-wing criminal acts, including anti-
Unfortunately, when I was thirteen my mother also passed. After my father’s
Semitic incidents; 274 charges were pressed under the law against
death my mother started living with a man that rejected her three children, so
National Socialism, compared with 198 in 1998.
they sent me to another family to be a domestic worker. At the age of ten, I had
to take • In care 1999, of all the of European the housework Union and imposed be a nanny sanctions for a on two-year Austria old after baby. The
people the were election supposed of the to openly send me anti-Semitic to school. Freedom Party joined the
government.
Away • Austria from my has family a Jewish and population loved ones, of 10,000 I soon out felt of the a total discrimination popula- that
marked tion my of 8 life million. forever. Before The bosses 1938, there used were to make more jokes than 180,000 about me, Jews my appearance,
in hair Austria and family. of whom I remember about 65,000 that perished my mother in the once Holocaust. came to visit me and she
spat at the floor in back of the house (a natural attitude for inhabitants of the interior
of Brazil). When my mother left the house, the boss made me wash all the
back area, and later I understood that she wanted to show me how dirty we
were, my family and I.
The boss let me share some experiences with the kids that lived in the house but
I would always feel the different treatment. My meal was composed from the
refuse of others, served with the comment: “You may eat, it is clean.” Even my
plate was different put away from the house crockery, always left under the
sink. I was frequently pointed to as a bad example of what would happen to
their kids if they didn’t want to go to school. They would say, “If you don’t
study you’re going to end up a domestic worker.”
I lived daily with psychological violence. Because I was Black, it was accepted
that I could only be a domestic worker, a servant. I had to maintain a constant
relationship of thanks to my employers. I was totally dependent on them.
My lack of parents, the interruption of my childhood, plus unequal treatment
made me reject myself for many years. The hard work forbid me to attend
school and humiliation blocked my childhood dreams. When my boss took his
wife for a walk on Sundays, I had to walk behind them, carrying and taking care
of the baby, at this time I was only ten years old. I was a child working as much
as an adult, always the first to get up in the morning, always taking care of the
-45-

aby and prohibited from visiting my family, making friends, going to school. I
dreamed that my life would change. I wished to be different. Soon I realized the
dream of leaving my hometown to work at the capital and go to school wouldn’t
come true. My mother only visited me twice a year and received food and second-hand
clothes plus eight dollars as payment for my services.
At that time, I used to be rated dull, an idiot, lazy. Everything was a reason for a
beating, strong physical punishment was routine. Sometimes, I was left alone at
the house with the father of my boss, a sixty-year-old man that used to show me
his genitals, masturbating and asking me to touch him. I had no notion that I
was suffering sexual abuse.
Throughout these three decades as a professional and after a long time building
my militancy through different organizations of Blacks and women and representing
Brazilian and Latin American domestic workers, I realize that we are
still faced with the same practices. Many women and girls are having the same
experiences I had. The workers are still exploited, their rights keep on getting
violated. There is discrimination against domestic workers not only in society
but also in legal instances because it is not considered a formal job position,
consequently it is not legally protected.
Observing this sexist, racist and classist society, to be a domestic worker (an
activity that is socially and culturally associated with women and composed
mostly of black women) is to legally be defined as an activity without lucrative
purpose; it is easy to discern the non-recognition of the social value of domestic
work. This reality is not only verified in Brazil, but also in most of Latin
America's countries.
When I was a child, I couldn’t react and sometimes I thought it was “normal” to
be violated, even so I was wondering and hoping for change. I looked for a way
of fighting against the injustices that I lived. Today I fight in many ways. I
learned to accept myself as a Black woman and not be ashamed of myself, my
hair and skin color. I’m fighting for equality— for recognition of the human and
labor rights of female domestic workers.
Today my objectives are not different from the ones of domestic workers in
Brazil and Latin America. These objectives are what led me to run for the City
Council of Bahia. These objectives are to: combat the exploitation of child
labor; provide childcare in barrios for children of domestic workers; punish
sexual abuse against domestic workers; strengthen the domestic workers union;
strengthen parliamentarians’ commitment to causes of the people; and help
revive Black women's self-esteem.
The discrimination is physical and psychological; the psychological damage is
more devastating because it leaves such deep scars that cannot be repaired without
specialized attention. Domestic workers face violence, many times
unleashed in private space. Most domestic workers live at their place of work,
in inadequate accommodations, at the mercy of their employers, and without a
fixed workday. This situation excludes workers from society. They have no
time for leisure or time to take care of their health. They have no chance to live
life normally or have a family of their own, and are separated from the family
they came from. The dominance and oppression exercised by the bosses, in this
private space, constitutes brainwashing. In their isolation, domestic workers
must accept that every type of information from the boss is true, without opportunity
to analyze or criticize it. When the domestic worker has access to
-46-

schools, always during the night, the schools are of a lesser quality. The school
does not emphasize the value of her human rights, self-esteem or citizenship.
Being exposed to the bosses’ lifestyle makes us dream of a reality that we can
never have. All of this makes us lose our identity.
It is urgent and necessary to establish a commitment among governors and
unions in order to end the injustices and to build a better world. It is our duty to
dismantle a process of 500 years of oppression and construct a civil society for
all people, women and men, Blacks, Indians and whites.
Translated from Portuguese
A Voz de Creuza Maria de Oliveria
Remeto-me à
colonização das Américas e consequentemente a escravidão dos povos africanos
para falar da discriminação e racismo no Brasil. Este sistema que negou a
humanização desses povos submetidos a opressão e tratados como coisas.
A sociedade brasileira se estruturou e desenvolveu graças ao trabalho escravo,
foi o país que recebeu o maior contingente de africanos escravizados, cerca de
4.500.000 de indivíduos, que se perpetua até hoje na desigualdade em todos os
seus aspectos, econômicos, culturais, sociais, educacionais etc.
Minha história não é muito diferente das de tantas outras mulheres negras
trabalhadoras domésticas oriundas de famílias pobres. Expulsa do interior do
Brasil, pela miséria e precárias condições de sobrevivência, estas famílias são
obrigadas a enviar seus filhos e filhas para o trabalho braçal. A maioria chega
nos grandes centros ainda com tenra idade, pois o trabalho infantil é também
uma das chagas da desigualdade e da exploração da sociedade brasileira
Fiquei órfã, de pai, aos cinco anos, e aos dez anos minha mãe foi viver
maritalmente com uma pessoa que não aceitou-a com seus três filhos,
infelizmente ela também veio a falecer quando eu tinha treze anos. Eu já
trabalhava desde os dez anos de idade e após a sua morte, fui então trabalhar na
casa de uma família, com a promessa de colocar-me na escola, e teria como
tarefa fazer todo serviço da casa e ser baba de uma criança de dois anos. Longe
de minha família e entes queridos logo sentiria a discriminação que marcaria
minha vida para todo sempre. Os patrões faziam piadas com a minha pessoa,
principalmente do meu cabelo, e da minha família. Lembro que em certa
ocasião em uma das visitas de minha mãe, ela cuspiu no pátio dos fundos da
casa, prática comum no interior. Quando ela foi embora a dona da casa fez com
que eu lavasse todo o pátio e passasse pano molhado na casa, numa clara
alusão, que vim entender mais tarde, de que minha família e eu éramos sujos.
Convivia com as crianças da casa, mas sentia o tratamento desigual para
comigo, também criança. A minha refeição era feita pela patroa com o resto de
comida do prato se seus filhos, ela dizia: “pode comer, tá limpo”. O prato em
que eu comia era diferente dos outros e ficava guardado embaixo da pia. Davame
como exemplo dizendo aos filhos: “se você não estudar, vai ser graxeira, vai
ser empregada”. Foi um longo processo de negação de mim mesma, da minha
humanidade e a perda da minha infância que foi junto com a morte de meus
pais. Meus afazeres e as constantes humilhações não me permitiam ser criança,
-47-

incar, fantasiar e muito menos ir a escola como haviam prometido. Quando
meus patrões saiam para passear abraços, aos domingos, meu lugar era atrás,
carregando e sendo responsável por uma criança de dois anos, um esforço
sobre humano para uma criança de dez anos de idade.
Eu queria que fosse diferente. Era a primeira a acordar, não podia visitar a
minha família, não podia estudar, fazer amigos e era sempre responsável pela
criança. Era criança, mas trabalhava como se fosse um adulto.
A ilusão de sair do interior, trabalhar na cidade ir à escola não se concretizou.
Ao visitar-me, de seis em seis meses, minha mãe recebia restos de comida,
roupas usadas e cerca de vinte reais (cerca de oito dólares), que era a "paga"
pelos meus serviços.
Neste período o meu maior sofrimento era o espancamento, por qualquer
motivo, sendo taxada de lerda, idiota, preguiçosa etc. Como toda cria nça era
curiosa e quando a patroa não estava em casa, o pai dela, de sessenta anos,
mostrava-me seus órgãos genitais, masturbava-se e pedia que eu pegasse. Não
tinha noção que estava sofrendo abuso sexual.
Nestes mais de trinta anos de profissão, após um período de construção de
minha militância, através do Movimento Negro Unificado, do Movimento de
Mulheres, do Movimento Sindical e exercendo, atualmente, a função de
presidenta do Sindicato dos Trabalhadores Domésticos do Estado da Bahia,
Presidenta da Federação Nacional dos Trabalhadores Domésticos do Brasil e
Secretária de Direitos Humanos da CONLACTRAHO, constato que o trabalho
doméstico continua com a mesma prática, inclusive nos países da América
Latina, como por exemplo: México, Peru, Argentina, Guatemana, onde as
trabalhadoras são pessoas que continuam sendo desrespeitadas, violentadas e
exploradas.
A diferenciação do trabalho doméstico não é somente uma praxis do senso
comum, mas também evidencia-se na lei, pois legalmente o trabalho doméstico
não é considerado nem regido pelas leis trabalhistas. A lei 5858/72 que
regulamenta a categoria trabalhador doméstico define a (o) trabalhadora (or)
como” ...aquele que presta serviços de natureza contínua e de finalidade não
lucrativa à pessoa ou à família no âmbito residencial destas”.
Em uma sociedade machista, racista e classista uma atividade social e
culturalmente associada às mulheres composta hegemonicamente por mulheres
negras, definida como sem finalidade lucrativa, não é valorizada. Esta realidade
não é constatada somente no Brasil e sim na maioria dos países da América
Latina, o não reconhecimento do valor social do Trabalho Doméstico.
Minha história de vida se confunde com minha profissão e está norteia todas as
atividades que hoje realizo.
Quando se é criança não reagimos e as vezes até achamos normal sermos
violadas, porém sempre tive sede de saber e esperança de mudança e busquei
uma forma de lutar contra as injustiças que vivi. Hoje luto, em várias instâncias,
COLATRHAO ( Confederação Latino Americana e do Caribe de Trabalhadores
do Hogar), FENATRAD ( Federação Nacional dos Trabalhadores Domésticos),
Sindoméstico ( Sindicato do Trabalhadores Doméstico do Estado da Bahia) ,
-48-

Movimento Negro Unificado, onde aprendi a aceitar-me como negra e não ter
vergonha de mim mesma, de meu cabelo, da minha cor de pele; e Conselho
Estadual de Mulheres, no sentido de buscar uma igualdade, reconhecimento e
garantia dos direitos humanos, sociais e trabalhistas da trabalhadoras
domésticas.
Enquanto setores organizadas propomos:
• Combater o trabalho infantil, isto pode ser conseguido a partir do momento
em que as famílias tiverem condições mínimas para cuidarem das crianças,
para darem uma condição digna, não sendo necessários iniciarem-nas em
tenra idade ao trabalho;
• Creches/escolas;
• Repressão e punição ao assedio e abuso sexual das trabalhadoras
domésticas, pelos patrões e/ou familiares destes;
• Fortalecimento dos sindicato , para que estes possam além de reivindicarem
melhores condições trabalhistas também possam conscientizar a categoria,
na conquista e manutenção de seus direitos e em um acompanhamento
psicológico.
• O compromisso de parlamentares que estejam comprometido com as
causas populares.
• Resgate da auto-estima da mulher negra
A discriminação que recai sobre esta categoria profissional além de física é
também psicológica, sendo esta última devastadora, pois esta deixam marcas
tão profundas que não podem ser reparadas sem um atendimento especializado.
Violência muitas vezes desencadeada em espaço privado, de forma muitas
vezes “cordial”, traduzida por não ter sua cidadania respeitada, não um moradia,
moram no local do trabalho, muitas vezes inadequado; ficar a disposição do
patrão, não ter jornada de trabalho fixada em lei; em função disto perde contado
com o resto da sociedade, não tendo horário de lazer, de cuidar de sua saúde,
nem para viver sua vida; constituir família. Em uma expressa violação do
direito de ir e vir. Sem contar que a separação e o distanciamento de sua família
já caracteriza uma violência.
A dominação e opressão exercida pelos patrões, neste espaço privado, se
constituindo em uma lavagem cerebral, em um quase confinamento leva a
aceitar todo tipo de informação como verdadeira, sem oportunidade de uma
análise critica, até mesmo da situação em que se encontra. Muitas vezes tendo
como companheiro os meios de comunicação que transmite uma passa uma
imagem irreal de seu lugar na sociedade. Quando tem acesso a escola, sempre
em horários noturnos, esta escola não é de qualidade, não valoriza o ser
humano, não trabalha a auto estima, não trabalha a cidadania. Tudo isto leva a
perda de sua identidade, e os costumes diferentes adquiridos nos locais de
trabalho leva a trabalhadora a sonhar com uma realidade que não é a sua. Ainda
hoje isto acontece.
É necessário um comprometimento com isso os governantes, dos sindicatos no
sentindo desconstruir as injustiças e construir um mundo melhor. Disconstruir
um processo de 500 anos e pessoas que são ricos no poder, exploração do
trabalho de mulheres e de homens negros.
-49-

FACTS
•Between 50 and 60 percent of the total population of Brazil is Black or
mixed-race (African and other). This is an estimate because many Brazilians
of African descent do not identify themselves as black due to the
stigma associated with being black in Brazil. Despite this, only 11 of
513 congressman are black, underscoring the lack of political power.
•As evidence of the systemic effects of racism, the UN Committee on
the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called special attention to the
high illiteracy rate among blacks and expressed special concerns about
the fate of black and indigenous populations that are the most vulnerable
in Brazilian society.
•The high illiteracy rate among blacks relegates many to seek employment
in low paying jobs such as street sweepers and domestic workers.
•While Brazilian law states that racism is a crime punishable by law, few
blacks have the education or economic resources to pursue their rights.
-50-

Nusreta Sivac gives voice to the right to be free from rape,
sexual brutality and the horrors brought about by ethnic cleansing.
BOSNIA AND
HERZEGOVINA
The interlocking oppression
of discrimination
based on ethnicity
and gender is
never more brutal than
with respect to the act
of rape. Rape was
used as a weapon of
war during much of
the conflict in Bosnia.
Unfortunately there
are no reliable statistics
on the number of
women who were
raped, since few
women have agreed to
come forward to speak
publicly on the crimes
of sexual violence that
were committed during
the war.
In February 2001, the
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia's (ICTY) found three Serb
leaders guilty of rape, torture, and enslavement, marking the first
time in history that an international tribunal brought charges solely
for crimes of sexual violence against women and the first time that
the ICTY found rape and enslavement to be crimes against humanity.
Though she was never involved in politics, Nusreta was targeted
as being a Muslim intellectual, who along with Croat intellectuals,
were the first victims of the Serbs. At the Omarska concentration
camp in northern Bosnia, Nusreta Sivac was repeatedly raped and
beaten along with 36 other women. Five women reportedly died
in Omarska. No one has an accurate count of the number of men
who died at the camp.
-51-

The Voice of Nusreta Sivac
I come from Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Until 1992, I lived in Prijedor in the Northwestern part of Bosnia.
In 1991, we had elections and most people voted for independence for Bosnia
and Herzegovina. After the elections, the United Nations recognized Bosnia as
an independent state. But in 1992, there was an aggression by Serbia and some
Bosnian Serbs. And on April 30, 1992, overnight, my town was occupied by
these aggressors. The radio was taken over by the Serbs and on the radio they
proclaimed that non-Serbs must wear white badges on our arms and fly white
flags on our houses. Most of the police in my village were of Serbian ethnicity
and they enforced these rules. They started arresting people. They came to our
houses.
At that time I was a judge and one day when I was going to work I was stopped
by men with guns. They told me -- go home, that my name was on a list that
said I no longer worked there. Then they started burning houses and forming
concentration camps.
Without explanation I was arrested on June 9 th and taken to Omarska concentration
camp. When I arrived at Omarska I was shocked by what I saw-- 1000s of
men and three women, and the guards were people I knew -- colleagues,
neighbors. At the camp, we were ordered around by the guards, we cleaned the
camp and we gave food to the prisoners – one meal for the day and we were allowed
only two minutes a day to eat our meal—the meal was a piece of bread
and a little bit of beans. If you didn’t eat your meal, you would be beaten, sometimes
to death. During the cleaning, we had to scrub the blood off the walls, the
blood of the prisoners who had been tortured and beaten. In the evening, my
former colleagues came to the camp. It was as if they did not know me, had
never seen me.
The camp was made up mainly of intellectual non-Serbs and people who
disagreed with the policies being put forward. Eventually more women came
and there were 36 of us. For the women of the camp, we had just two rooms,
two rooms for 36 people. In the evening before we slept, we had to first clean
the blood and remove the torture instruments. I saw terrible sights there,
torturing and killing. Some people die d of hunger, some people died of the
horrible conditions. I started my day counting the dead.
Also, in the evenings, the guards would come to our rooms and take the women
they wanted. There were younger women so I thought I would be safe, but no.
Every day my colleagues were disappearing. It is still early to say how many
were killed. To this day, mass graves are still being opened.
When the International Red Cross and the international groups found out about
the camp, the guards ordered us to move to another concentration camp where
they registered us. The media was repeatedly claiming that there were no
women prisoners at Omarska, only male prisoners. There I found 1000s of men,
women, children, babies. I spent five days there. During this time, five of my
women friends did not survive and 1000s of men. I had to identify two of my
friends in a mass graves with many other bodies. Even today, they are finding
bodies. Three of my friends, their bodies are still missing.
-52-

When I was released I couldn’t get back to my home. It was occupied by my old
workmate. Changing places in my native home, I was trying and begging to
leave the town. But they asked for money. But I had neither home nor money. I
was in the same dress for two months. I was just praying to God to leave that
hell.
In 1992, there was peace and I succeeded in escaping to Croatia where I was a
refugee for four years. While I was in the refugee camp I began working at the
non-governmental organizations called Bosnia and Herzegovina Women, and
Through Heart to Peace. We started a program to help the refugees, we talked
about the situation in Bosnia to combat the propaganda that was denying the
genocide, and we worked, as women, to build a peace. I survived because of my
friends. When the war stopped, I returned to Bosnia and now I live in a small
town near my native town. I cannot get to my town because I am prevented by
the same people who displaced me, because I speak out, because I testify at the
Hague. I went to the United Nations bodies to ask for my property back. I tried
many international organizations and human rights groups in Bosnia, but I am
still near home but not there.
Translated from Bosnian
FACTS
•Rape was used as a systematic means of torture in Bosnia. The rape had
political purpose, to intimidate and humiliate and degrade the woman
and others by her suffering and to ensure that they would flee and never
return.
•Women report that in addition to the rape they were taunted with ethnic
slurs and cursed by the rapists who said their intent was to forcibly impregnate
women as a haunting reminder and trauma.
•The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia found
that Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac and Zoran Vukovic were
among Bosnian Serb troops who used rape as "an instrument of terror"
in the village of Foca during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, clearly establishing
rape as a war crime for the first time.
-53-

Lorraine Nesane gives voice to the basic right
of human dignity.
SOUTH
AFRICA
Post- Apartheid
South Africa has
many reasons for a
smart fifteen yearold
girl to be
hopeful, but still
many reasons to
be fearful, too.
While shopping
for a new outfit at
the Pep Store in
Louistrichardt on
August 29, 2000,
Lorraine Nesane
was accused of
shoplifting,
though there was
no credible evidence
of a crime.
She was forcibly
taken to a back
room by the white
female sales clerk.
Her money and the items she was going to purchase were taken
from her. A black male employee forcibly removed her shirt and
began painting her face and body with white paint.
The clerk escorted her to the entrance, told her she looked beautiful
and forced her to leave the store, refusing to give her back her
money. Naked, painted white, some people she encountered on the
street just laughed at her. The police did make arrests and the case
went to court, but the trial was conducted in Afrikaans and the interpreter
could not be understood, so the proceedings were impossible
for Lorraine to understand. The trial resulted in minor fines
and suspended sentences for the white perpetrators. The humiliation
kept Lorraine out of school for two weeks.
-54-

The Voice of Lorraine Nesane
My name is Lorraine
Nesane. I am an African girl aged fifteen. I am currently staying at Hamaila Village
in the former Venda Homeland. I am a scholar at Maindi Primary School
currently attending grade eight at Hamaila. I am from a very poor background
and I stay with my mother and my father. My mother is unemployed.
On Tuesday August 29, 2000 at about 3:00 p.m., I went to Pep Store at
Trichardt Street in Loulstrichardt to buy some clothes. While I was in the store,
I took the clothes I wanted to buy. I picked up one ladies short trousers worth
40.00 Rand, a T-shirt that was worth 20.00 Rand and two nail paints. I had
125.00 Rand in my possession. While I was in the store, a black woman came
and took the clothes which were in my possession and put them in the pockets
of the clothes I was wearing. She then called a white man who was in the shop.
A white lady then commanded me to give her money and she later took all the
money which was in my possession.
She then dragged me to the storeroom where there was a black male. By then,
all the clothes I intended on buying were already taken away and were stored at
the parcel counter. The manager was talking in Afrikaans to the lady who took
my clothes. I heard them talking but I could not understand a word. The male
person in the storeroom undressed my T-shirt forcefully. He was ordered to
paint me with a white paint. He started to paint my head. As he finished he
asked if he was supposed to paint my whole body. The manager concurred with
him and directed him to paint my whole body. He then painted my whole body
with a white paint. By then the manager had already left the room. Then I
asked the manager to give me my money back, which she refused. She escorted
me to the entrance. On the way to the entrance she told me that I looked very
beautiful and asked me to leave.
While I was outside I met a few black males who advised me to go to the Police
Station to open a case against the perpetrators. A security guard who was outside
with his friend accompanied me. The distance from Pep Store to the police
station is approximately a kilometer. I felt very embarrassed while I was on the
way to the police station. There were mixed feelings of people I met on the
street. Some were sympathizing with me whereas some were laughing their
hearts out as if I was a thief. I was still not wearing clothes at the time.
I thought that if it was a young white lady in my position, she could not have
done what they did to me. By the time they were busy painting me, I was crying
and also begging them to stop what they were doing and leave me alone. I asked
them to stop painting me as I was not a thief. I did not steal their goods as I had
more than enough money to pay for them.
At the police station, I was helped by a black male. The police took a statement
from me without any intimidation and asked me to go with them to the store to
point out the suspects so that they could arrest them. We then took a ride to Pep-
Store. Upon arrival, the employees of Pep Store started to quarrel with the
police. They were even uttering some vulgar words to the police. Not even one
employee was allowed to come out to the police for identification. It was then
that the police entered the store to search for the suspects. As we could not see
the black male, I advised them to search in the storeroom and as the backdoor
was opened, I though that the suspect may have used it to run away.
The manager refused to be arrested and said she would follow us to the police
-55-

station. She was also shouting at us but she was using Afrikaans. It seemed to
me that she was also quarrelling as she looked to be very angry. Nevertheless,
she followed us to the police station. By that time the female black person who
alleged that I was a thief was already arrested. The manager was later arrested. I
found out through the media that the man who painted me was later arrested.
My case was postponed once. The trial date was set and on the return date the
matter was tried and judgment was reserved for the next day. We were informed
that all three of the accused were found guilty. To our surprise on the day of
judgment we were again informed that the two accused females were found not
guilty. The only person who was found guilty was the person who painted me.
He was fined 1,500.00 Rand and was given a five-year suspended sentence. On
that day we could not hear a word as the proceedings were only in Afrikaans.
The interpreter was talking to himself so we could not hear a word of what he
was interpreting. I was not sure as to what language he was using because his
voice was very low. I could not hear whether he was using English, Afrikaans,
Venda or any other language.
The white presiding officer never made me aware of my rights. The prosecutor
who was a black person was using English which was then interpreted to
Venda. On the last day of judgment, I could not hear the result of the case. I was
only advised by some other people that the case was finalized. The magistrate
also informed the court that Pep-Store had paid me 5,000.00 Rand and that is
not true as the only knowledge I have is of 500.00 Rand which I was paid for
transport from home to court. I felt that all of the accused should have been
found guilty and their sentence be read in the media as it was done to me.
After the incident I always stayed at home as I could not cope with my friends.
At school, I was laughed at by some other students. I felt very embarrassed to
go to school and I spent two weeks without schooling. The teachers tried to
explain to the students that they have to accept me as a human being just like
before the incident.
After the incident, I learnt that I have to concentrate on my studies. I think that
if I become educated, the treatment will be otherwise. The perception which I
have is that all white people are the same - they don’t like black people. I also
believe that if a white person commits a crime, he will never be treated the same
way as a black person would be, especially if a white magistrate is presiding. I
believe that South Africans do not follow the laws. I also believe that if a
person commits a crime he or she must be awarded a penalty which suits the
crime. I also believe that our languages must also be used in courts.
Translated from Tshivenda
FACTS
•In November 2000, state television broadcast a secretly made police
video that showed white police officers encouraging police dogs to attack
three captive black men.
•South Africa continues to struggle with the legacies of apartheid, a system
of legally-enforced racial discrimination that had been declared a
crime against humanity under international law.
•The South African government, parliament and civil society organizations
have been involved in law reform, training and other wide-ranging
initiatives aimed at transforming public institutions and raising awareness
after more than four decades of apartheid rule.
-56-

Monica Morgan gives voice to the right to land
for indigenous peoples.
AUSTRALIA
Australia’s Aboriginalcommunities
have suffered
centuries
of oppression,
forced assimilation
and dispossession
of land.
The Yorta Yorta
people of SoutheasternAustralia
trace their
lineage back
several generations
to twelve
original ancestors,
proof of
rich and strong
cultural bonds
they share. But
the Yorta Yorta have been pushed to the brink of cultural genocide
by colonization and Australian laws that state that any claim to the
land has been swept away by the tide of history. Prior to contact
with colonists, the Yorta Yorta numbered 20,000 people. By the
mid - nineteenth century, their numbers had dwindled to just a few
hundred as the result of racism, sexism and religious intolerance.
Monica Morgan tells this story for her people, the Yorta Yorta,
and for indigenous peoples facing the same atrocities on every
continent around the world. Chosen by the Elders of her people to
represent the Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation, she
works to preserve their culture and promote self-determination for
her people.
-57-

The Voice of Monica Morgan
I am an Indigenous
Woman, of the Yorta Yorta people, situated in South Eastern Australia. I
facilitate the activities of the Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation, a
non-governmental representative body. Our charter is to advance our
sovereignty and self-determination - to be the authoritative voice responsible to
and representing our sixteen Family Groupings on matters of land, cultural and
environmental heritage and compensation.
I am the sixth generation to “Undarnying,” a Yorta Yorta woman who was
present at the time of colonization of our territory by the English in the early
1800's. Since that time until today, our people have struggled to survive the
attempt at genocide by all the instruments of oppression made possible by the
colonizer, men who held a self-righteous, ethnocentric, possessive and
controlled view of the world. The suppression of Yorta Yorta people, occurred
by way of massacres, poisoned water holes, introduced diseases, dispersal, the
abduction and systematic rape and torture of women and children these and
many more acts of violence led to the great land theft by the Europeans. This
theft is today entrenched within Australian law. Before contact with European
settlers, mounted police, missionaries and convicts, the Yorta Yorta population
was estimated to be near 20,000 persons. Our population, by the close of the
1800’s, was less than 100 persons. Today we number over 4,000. The national
Indigenous population is estimated to be just 2.5 percent of the overall
Australian population.
During the course of the last two centuries, the Yorta Yorta have used whatever
actions were and are available for our survival. We have called for justice and
recognition through the use of resistance to noncompliance, by petitions,
occupations, strikes, political and legal actions. Always the actions of the
governments, landlords and traders are the same: to suppress, restrain and
reshape the tools of the Indigenous peoples so as to make their resistance
ineffective. The latest ploy to render our calls for justice redundant was by
enacting amendments to certain national laws. Legislation, established as a
result of the High Court decision within the Australian legal system, declared
that the term “terra nullius” was a fallacy and that the rights of Indigenous
People to land lies within the Common Law - this law being known as Native
Title.
The United Nations Committee to Eliminate Racial Discrimination recently
held the Australian Government to account for their violation and erosion of the
rights of Indigenous Peoples through the passing of special legislation
amending, thus winding back any rights contained within the Native Title Act
and thereby, reducing any justice that may be derived from this law by the
Indigenous People.
What makes the life of my people a special case is the result of the Yorta Yorta
Native Title Application in which a single Judge to the Federal Court of
Australia, assessing evidence from 56 Indigenous witnesses out of a total of 250
witnesses who were represented by 500 respondents and which produced
10,000 pages of transcript and took fourteen months of court time, made a
ruling on the December 18, 1998 that the:
-58-

Evidence does not support a finding that the descendants of the
original inhabitants of the claimed land have occupied the land in
the relevant sense since 1788. The tide of history has indeed
washed away any real acknowledgement of the traditional laws
and any real observance of their traditional customs.
It is ironic that the interpretation of history as told by the Yorta Yorta people, as
one of survival resulting from an adaptation to the effects of colonization,
should be used as the reasoning for denying our identity and existence. That the
judge relied on the writings of an English squatter who gained land from the
dispossession of the Yorta Yorta people; writings that held an ethnocentric and
racist evaluation of our customs, beliefs and traditions, that these writings were
taken as the basis of the judge’s decision; that the oral evidence of the Yorta
Yorta witnesses was not given equal weight can only be interpreted as an act of
genocide. Genocide being the ultimate and final act of racism- a denial to the
existence of a people.
Today my people live in a state of trauma, this is a result of the collective
effects of racism over the last 200 years. Many generations of my people have
witnessed the emergence of policies that legalized the forced removal of over
100,000 children from their Indigenous families within Australia; children
known as the “Stolen Generation.” Incarceration rates for Indigenous persons is
twelve times higher than that of the rest of Australia; 22 percent of Indigenous
youths are in juvenile justice centers, and blacks represent a disproportionate
number of deaths in custody. The prevalence of substance abuse, mental illness
and family breakdowns together with a life expectancy twenty years below the
average are all indicators of the racism and marginalization we continue to
endure.
The Yorta Yorta will continue the struggle for recognition and to be afforded
the right to land and self-determination. There are a number of strategies that
we have established in which to strive for our place: through governance that
empowers our traditional systems of decision making, by taking control of the
education processes of our people, through the development of social and
economic autonomy, and by engaging and networking with political allies in the
wider Australian and global society.
The real solution rests with Federal Government taking real leadership,
leadership that can acknowledge the past not to evoke guilt but to advance real
reconciliation outcomes that will lead to special measures designed to achieve
equality for its Indigenous Population.
There is a recognition in many streams of Australian society today that justice,
peace and the continuance of humanity lies in recognizing, respecting and
advancing the rights of the Indigenous or first peoples. Only by writing a
history of a country that is honest, reflective and inclusive can society hope to
achieve laws that are made for all and rooted in equality.
I speak not only for my ancestors and my people but also for all peoples who
are denied their inherent right to land and an identity.
-59-

FACTS
•Aboriginal people comprise less than 2 percent of the population but account
for 21 percent of all deaths in police custody.
•Indigenous youth are 40 times more likely to be held in police custody.
•Between 10-30 percent of Aboriginal people now alive were forcefully taken
from their families. Many of these people, referred to as the Stolen Generations,
still suffer physically and psychologically from the trauma.
•Aboriginal men have a life expectancy of only 46 years.
•The infection rate for tuberculosis for Aboriginal people is more than 100 times
the national average.
-60-

Ashid Ali gives voice to the rights of minorities to
be free from cycles of poverty resulting from nationalism,
violence and inferior educational access.
UNITED
KINGDOM
Five months ago the
world watched as the
worst race riots in
decades engulfed parts
of Oldham, UK. In the
midst of the tragic riots
emerged a voice
representing the minority
community advocating
for change
through nonviolent
means.
Ashid Ali at just 25
years old was that
voice. He is the third
of six children in his
family and tells the
story of growing up in
a segregated community.
His brothers and
sister attend a school
which is 100 percent
Bangladeshi, while nearby there are schools which are completely
white. The Bangladeshi community experiences high rates of unemployment
and lack of skills that lead to cycles of poverty. His
father was one of many individuals left jobless when nearby mills
closed down. According to Ashid, most of the Asians remained
unemployed, much more so in comparison to their majority counterparts.
He blames this on their lack of skills and a system that
does not give them the opportunity to gain skills. He is chairman
of the Oldham Bangladeshi Youth Association.
Violence is the most damaging result of racism in the United
Kingdom, perpetuating itself as do the cycles of poverty that entrap
minority communities.
-61-

The Voice of Ashid Ali
I am from Oldham, a large town in Greater
Manchester, United Kingdom. I was born in Bangladesh and came to the UK
when I was eight years old. As a young lad in Bangladesh, it was a dream to
join my father in the UK. But because of racial discrimination, growing up in
the UK was not exactly a dream.
Even now, as a secondary schoolteacher, I am saddened to see the struggle I
faced continuing with the next generation. As mentioned, and many of you
perhaps already know, in my town there were massive riots just a few months
ago. As I see it, the riots – or race riots as they are called – were caused by insensitive
and indifferent policing, hyped up by anti-Asian media headlines
which encouraged far-right racist activities, and a history of social and
economic exclusion rooted in racial discrimination.
There has always been tension between the white people and the Asian people
in Oldham. And the police have been part of the tension, rather than the
solution. I remember the days when we couldn’t play football in the local park
without often being chased and stoned by white youths with dogs. When the
police would come to respond, they would scream at us “you Pakis, you Black
bastards, go back to your own country”. This still happens today.
Yet, as such attacks continue against my community, the police said earlier in
the year that it is the whites who are the victims. And in response, the media
created headlines which encouraged right-wing extremist organizations, such as
the British National Party, to target Oldham. The leader of the British National
Party predicted that Oldham would become a war zone months before the riot –
a self-fulfilling prediction, no doubt.
Their propaganda led to a surge of racist attacks in Oldham, mainly on Asian
taxi drivers. In the same week of the riot, four days in a row, racist thugs
attacked a local school with a predominantly Asian population. The police
didn’t come until the fourth day and when they did they arrested four Asians
and no white people.
Then finally, a group of white racists rampaged through a predominantly Asian
residential area causing damage to vehicles, shops and residential property and
in the process injuring a seven-month pregnant woman and a grandmother.
Once again, the police came only to have the first arrested be an Asian youth.
More and more residents came out to see what was happening and in response,
the police drove in with riot vans, batons, and dogs – although we were not
doing anything wrong. Several hours later, the riots began – and police
mistreatment of us continued. Turning victims into criminals.
I could tell you many details of the riots, including examples of racism by the
police and the justice system. But as I’ve said, these riots were part of a cycle of
escalating tensions involving institutional racism and social and economic
exclusion. I would like to focus on this wider context.
When I first came to Oldham, there were only few Asian houses in the area that
I live in. Over the years as Asian families arrived to be united with the father
husband who was usually employed by the textile mills. They ended up living
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in the inner city areas of Oldham which only had old, cheap, small, poor quality
housing. As more Asian families moved in, white people moved out. When this
was combined with local government housing policies, Oldham became racially
segregated. The three wards in Oldham with the largest concentration of Asian
people are some of the most deprived wards in the country. And with poor
housing came poor education.
Growing up in these areas as a young person was very challenging and very
tough at times. I was subjected to racist abuse and violence both at school and
outside. My friends and I were frequently bullied at school, which was treated
as a sport by white racists who called it “Paki-bashing”. Most of us suffered in
silence, which affected our academic progress. My eldest brother and his friends
who had to travel longer distances to schools would end up being bullied on the
bus, at the school playground and as a result they ended up truanting and
missing out on their education. Many teachers treated us indifferently and had
low expectations, which affected our self-esteem. The first time I came into
meaningful contact with white people was when I was at university, but not
everyone is fortunate to get there.
Today the schools are even more segregated and Pakistani and Bangladeshi
pupils are under achieving significantly compared to white students. Over the
years I have seen my old primary and secondary schools become nearly 100
percent Asian.
The other key issue which has affected the lives of everyone in my community
is racism in employment. My father and thousands of Bangladeshi and Pakistani
men, where employed in the textile mills but were made redundant in 1988 and
many of these men have since not had another job, leaving most of us in
poverty. Our fathers didn’t have adequate access to skills and training to get
alternative employment. For the whites, it was easier. To begin with, they spoke
English and were easy to train for new jobs. Also, they had the familiarity with
the culture, which makes a big difference in finding employment. When the
local government was offering job training most of our community could not
benefit from it because of the language barrier, and no effort was made to create
useful alternatives such as English-language classes. All of this, of course, was
added to by the general racism of employers.
In turn, my generation has suffered from poverty and poor education, with few
of us able to get the education we needed to go to university or the skills to do
better-paying work than our fathers. For those of us who did get out, we have
found that as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, who also happen to be Muslims,
there is a lot of discrimination in finding jobs. We have been affected by racism
in all aspects of our lives, employment, housing, healthcare and even socially,
with very little government money invested in youth services for us.
For majority of Asians living in Oldham, Oldham is our only home but we are
still treated as second-class citizens. Most of us were either born in Oldham or
have spent most of our lives there. We are as British as anyone else. The riots in
May, and earlier ones by Asian youth in other parts of the UK, surprised people,
because they have always believed that the Asian community is quiet and nonaggressive.
But the Asians who have been involved in disturbances are a
product of contemporary and racially discriminatory British society. I want to
finish on a positive note. Britain has always been a multicultural society, multiculturalism;
I believe can work and does work. Britain also has some of the
strongest race-relations legislation in Western Europe. But these legislations
-63-

must be implemented effectively in order to move in the right direction of
eradicating racism.
FACTS
•There are 160,000 Bangladeshi living in Great Britain, who, along with
Pakistani, Indians and other South Asians comprise 2.5 percent of the
population.
•The United Kingdom has one of the highest levels of racially motivated
violence anywhere in Western Europe.
•Riots in Oldham were provoked after a gang of white men attacked a
shop window and threw a brick through the window of a house where a
pregnant Asian woman lived.
-64-

Arturo Gomez Gomez gives voice to the rights
of indigenous peoples’ intellectual property rights over
traditional medicines.
MEXICO
Globalization,
modern medicine,
and the question of
ownership over the
medic inal use of
plant life all converge
in the Mexican
town of Las
Magaritas. There, a
United States government
funded project
with the University
of Georgia, a
Welsh Bio-Tech
firm, and the Mexican
Southern Frontier
College work to
discover, develop
and sustain use of
ethno- botanical
knowledge. These
groups seek to patent
the knowledge
gained from the indigenous
plant life
as well as products produced from the plants. Indigenous people
are then prohibited from using their traditional medicines because
others have acquired the patent rights.
Arturo Gomez Gomez is a Tojolabales, who represents the Council
of Indigenous Traditional Doctors and Midwives, a coalition of
twelve organizations with support in nearly 3,000 communities.
Gomez advocates against biological researchers who take advantage
of the local peoples, often through bribes. The indigenous
plants and the knowledge of them passed down through generations
of traditional medical practice should not be patented by
global bio-tech projects with no regard for the people, traditions
and cultures from which they come.
-65-

The Voice of Arturo Gomez Gomez
I am here
because the directive of the Council of Organizations of Traditional Indigenous
Doctors and Midwives of Chiapas (COMPITCH), comprised of thirteen organizations,
has decided that I be their representative. Since the case I am going to
tell you about has affected everyone, I come accompanied in heart by all of
them. I am going to recount a story of discrimination and abuse that we have
suffered.
Our peoples were victims of a case of bio-piracy involving the University of
Georgia, an English laboratory called Molecular Nature Limited, the government
of the United States and the authorities of a Mexican public investigation
center called Ecosur. The project called ICBG Maya, by way of a series of deceptions,
wanted to take advantage of the medicinal plants and related traditional
medical knowledge of our communities.
A government contact sent us the executive agreement of the project, and we
subsequently discovered certain things. For example, they wanted to obtain the
genetic resources of the biodiversity found in Chiapas in order to obtain their
medical applications, patent them and then profit from them commercially; that
the communities would have the right to benefits in the form of projects
destined for continuing production for the consortium ICBG Maya, as well as
phitomedicines obtained in the course of the research. However, their use would
remain subject to the authorization of a consortium named ProMaya, whose
activities remained subject to the federal laws of the United States of America.
Our advisors then looked at the very basis of the project, and we found more
discrimination and abuses. In summary, the central purpose of the entire ICBG
Maya’s project was, and is, to find important medicines for the public health
programs of the United States and other developed countries, but that are of
little importance for developing countries. The medicines found would be
registered as the intellectual property of the consortium.
Upon finding this out, we asked the director of the project to suspend its
implementation due to the fact that, first of all, no law existed in our country to
regulate the commercial profit of genetic resources; secondly, that the project
dealt with universal resources and, as such, it would be appropriate to consult
with all of the organizations in the community in order to decide on the community
level the use and enjoyment of such resources; and thirdly, that the contract
was subject to the laws of another country. Rather than listen to our request,
ICBG Maya proposed the project to other communities who were not aware of
this information. For this reason, we were angered and denounced them to the
environmental authorities, and requested that the project be suspended.
Unfortunately, this authority called us in to pressure us with the aim of
convincing us to accept the project, affirming that it was the best thing that
could have happened to the country.
Implementations of this type of project are increasing throughout the entire
region. Some people, such as the ones that tried to deceive us, believe that since
we cannot read or write well, we are inferior and we are not capable of fighting
for our rights. They believe that this difference between us makes them superior
and gives them the right to exploit our ancestral resources for their own
-66-

interests. However, to us, the traditional medicinal knowledge inherited over
centuries from our ancestors cannot be patented by strangers to earn money,
because it belongs to our culture. At the same time as these transnational
companies, by way of agreements with governments, obtain large economic
benefits, our communities live marginalized in poverty, do not share in the
profits, and are deprived of the use of the medicines they have used for years,
unless we obtain the permission of their new owners.
Translated from Spanish—unabridged Spanish version below.
The Voice of Arturo Gomez Gomez
Les vamos a contar
la historia de discriminación y abuso que sufrimos y a proponer algunas alternativas
para que ya no suceda, ojalá y quepa en los diez minutos que nos dieron.
Ustedes perdonarán si no queda completo pero para nosotros es muy difícil
explicar nuestro caso y todavía presentarles las alternativas en tan poquito tie mpo.
Antes de empezar, les informo a ustedes que yo estoy aquí porque la dirección
del Consejo de Organizaciones de Médicos y Parteras Indígenas Tradicionales
de Chiapas, el Compitch, así lo dispuso y entonces eso quiere decir que la palabra
que aquí yo les hable será dicha por los médicos y parteras que integran las
13 organizaciones del Consejo. No es pues entonces que vengo solo sino acompañado
del corazón de todos ellos, porque el caso que les voy a contar nos perjudicó
a todos, lo que quiere decir que también a las comunidades pues con él se
arriesgaron las bases mismas de la convivencia colectiva de nuestros pueblos
aunque también los derechos de otros pueblos y gentes como ustedes que vinieron
aquí porque de todos es que de por sí son los recursos que se utilizan para el
cuidado de la salud, independientemente de la forma y técnica como se preparen
y del trabajo que lleven pues ese ya es método de cada cultura o camino de cada
quien. Eso quería aclararles para que cuando me escuchen entiendan que lo que
yo les hablo es la narración de un acto cometido, en la raíz, no contra el partero
Arturo Gómez que soy yo, ni siquiera contra el Compitch que me mandó, sino
contra las comunidades indígenas a las que servimos y que nos han entregado
en custodia sus recursos y sus conocimientos para que los utilicemos a favor de
todo aquel que los necesite.
Dos son las ofensas que en directo para nosotros nos hicieron, dos las tristezas y
enojos que guarda nuestro corazón indígena, la primera surgida de un proyecto
de bioprospección que nos llegaron a ofrecer, la segunda, la más grave, nacida
no sólo de la soberbia y el desprecio con que desde hace ya 500 años nuestros
malos gobiernos y sus mandos de grandes empresarios nos tratan sino también
del miedo a perder sus canonjías y sus privilegios si nuestra palabra y camino
comunitario hubieran quedado en su ley como derecho de nuestros pueblos.
El caso del proyecto de bioprospección estadounidense que llegó a nuestra organización
para aprovechar las plantas medicinales y nuestro conocimiento tradicional
asociado, nos llegó con engaños y trampas. Le nombran ICBG Maya, y
sus participantes, la Universidad de Georgia, un laboratorio inglés Molecular
Nature Limited, y las autoridades de un centro público de investigación mexic ano
llamado el Ecosur, nos invitaron a convocar a las comunidades para convencerlas
a que realizaran las colectas, aunque nunca nos dieron razón exacta de los
-67-

propósitos y bases primeras de su asociación a pesar de que les pedimos nos
hicieran llegar toda esa información para saber en detalle de que se trataba el
proyecto y así poder saber por lo claro de qué se trataba y entrarle o no entrarle.
Un contacto en el gobierno fue quien nos hizo llegar el convenio ejecutivo del
proyecto y entonces descubrimos algunas cosas, por ejemplo, que querían obtener
los recursos genéticos de la biodiversidad chiapaneca para obtener aplicaciones
medicinales, patentarlas y luego aprovecharlas comercialmente, que para
ello iban a valerse del conocimiento tradicional de los pueblos, que las comunidades
tendrían derecho a regalías en forma de proyectos destinados a seguir
produciendo para el consorcio ICBG Maya y también a fitomedicinas obtenidas
durante la investigación pero su aprovechamiento quedaría sujeto a la autorización
del consorcio, que la Univesidad de Georgia era la dueña de la producción
intelectual de sus empleados y han de saber ustedes que el doctor Brent Berlin,
quien lleva cuarenta años en Chiapas recogiendo datos y haciendo registros en
campo sobre nuestro conocimiento, es el líder de ese ICBG Maya y empleado
de la Universidad de Georgia, que la versión en inglés del convenio no coinc idía
con la versión en español puesta del lado izquierdo del mismo convenio, y
que en una de esas partes en que no coincidía en inglés se dice que las actividades
del consorcio quedan sometidas a las leyes federales de los Estados Unidos
de América. Entonces nuestros asesores buscaron las bases mismas del proyecto
-el RFA TW 98 001- y encontramos más discriminaciones y abusos; por
ejemplo, que el propósito central de todo ICBG era y es encontrar medicinas
importantes para los programas de salud pública de los Estados Unidos o de los
países desarrollados, pero sólo aquellas de importancia primaria en los países en
vías de desarrollo, que con los materiales colectados se buscarían también aplicaciones
veterinarias, industriales, agrícolas, cosméticas y otras de interés para
los Estados Unidos, que nuestro conocimiento tradicional era parte de su patrimonio
cultural, que cualquier aplicación descubierta con potencial comercial
quedaría en secreto y en depósito en la Administración de Alimentos y Medicinas
hasta en tanto ellos no la patentaran aunque la propiedad de los materiales
biológicos colectados y la información obtenida asociada se la dejaban al país
en desarrollo que de por sí le toca hacer ese trabajo, que entrenarían a sus investigadores
en nuestras tierras en áreas exclusivas de nuestro conocimiento tradicional,
que llevarían sólo aquellos recursos y conocimientos tradicionales de los
cuales pudieran tomar ventaja, que las regalía s a las comunidades irían en forma
de proyectos para que trabajaran en lo mismo, siempre y cuando conservaran y
proporcionaran puntual y eficazmente los materiales que el consorcio les exigiera,
que nuestras autoridades deberían aceptar y reconocer los propósitos y bases
de esa convocatoria a formar grupos que mal llaman de cooperación internacional
en biodiversidad porque sólo es cooperar para su provecho de ellos. Conoc ido
todo esto, les pedimos a los señores del Consorcio –Ecosur y a su líder el Dr.
Brent Berlin- que suspendieran su proyecto en razón, primero, de que no había
ley que en nuestro país regulara el aprovechamiento comercial de los recursos
genéticos, segundo, que se trataba de un recurso universal y por lo tanto correspondía
hacer una consulta con todas y con todos para decidir las bases y los términos
de su aprovechamiento, y, tercero, que su contrato además de abusivo
implicaba sometimiento a las leyes de otro Estado. Lejos de escucharnos se fueron
a sacarles sus firmas a las autoridades de cincuenta comunidades de los Altos
de Chiapas y aun intentaron hacerlo igual por otras regiones como por allá
de donde yo vengo. Entonces nos encabronamos y los denunciamos a la autoridad
ambiental para que suspendiera el proyecto y les pusiera sanción. Pero en
vez de eso la autoridad nos llamó para presionarnos a que aceptáramos el proyecto
diciéndonos que ese proyecto era lo mejor que podía haberle pasado al
país, que era muy justo y provechoso para nuestras comunidades pero que si
-68-

queríamos nos mejoraban el precio. Nos negamos a vendernos, a legitimar el
abuso, a darles el aval en nombre de los pueblos del mundo, los poseedores legítimos
de los recursos genéticos. Fuimos entonces a la prensa y a las comunidades
a informar sobre esos abusos y sobre las complicidades de la autoridad,
pero también fuimos a las comunidades ganadas por ellos para saber por qué
habían aceptado el proyecto. En esas comunidades nos dijeron que los del ICBG
Maya habían llegado a ofrecerles curar sus enfermedades pero que para que eso
se consiguiera la gente debía colectar las plantas medicinales de la zona que luego,
los del consorcio, se llevarían para Gran Bretaña de donde, les dijeron, saldría
la mejor medicina, para luego traérselas a ellos; que nunca les dijeron que
los Estados Unidos tuvieran algo que ver en ese proyecto o que esa medicina
encontrada fuera a quedar en Gran Bretaña o en los Estados Unidos.
La indignación y oposición al proyecto empezó a crecer tanto en las comunidades
que la autoridad y el consorcio tuvieron que suspenderlo oficialmente aunque
no se fueron sin antes decir que el conflicto con el Compitch no había venido
de sus médicos y parteras sino de algunos de sus asesores no indígenas. Sobre
ese reiterado señalamiento queremos aclararles que no somos peritas en dulce
ni indios redomados, que nuestros asesores están sujetos a nuestra autoridad,
que nosotros nos fijamos en la orientación que siguen los pasos de las personas,
no en el color de su piel o en su origen, y que fue entre todos, médicos, parteras
y asesores, indígenas y no indígenas, que construimos la estrategia y la propuesta
desplegadas, entre todos, porque de todos es que de por sí es el interés y el
derecho y porque lo mero primero, los principios, esos todos los implicados los
teníamos y tenemos comunes y muy claros. En el racismo y la soberbia tutela nte
hay que buscar los orígenes de los intereses que suponen que los indios podemos
luchar por justicia pero nunca con eficacia, por una lámina de cartón para
tener un techo pero nunca por nuestra liberación. No es de ahora ni sólo por un
asunto como el de la biopiratería o el del engaño o el del abuso neocolonial que
venimos luchando y organizando nuestra resistencia a como las circunstancias y
los medios nos den y nos obliguen a actuar, nuestra resistencia centenaria que se
basa en las decisiones colectivas para seguir juntos, en la consideración de los
otros como hermanos, en las palabras sinceras, en el respeto a la tierra que es
madre y compañera que debemos cuidar y respetar y no ver como un objeto ni
propiedad a explotar y a acabar a como nos dé la codicia y la soberbia. Querían
agarrarnos solitos y sumisos, hacernos cómplices baratos de su saqueo, de su
política de pérdida pactada de soberanía como de por sí vienen haciendo con
otros pueblos, de la reconfiguración de los conceptos de diversidad biológica y
cultural, del previsible derrumbe comunitario a que un proyecto con esas características
nos condujera, sea porque de él se beneficiaran sólo unas pocas comunidades,
sea por consolidar en nosotros el egoísmo utilitarista, sea por integrarnos
socialmente a sus sistemas de patentes, propiedad intelectual y marcas y a
todo lo que esas formas de apropiación y discriminación han significado en dolor
y en desigualdad para las sociedades donde han sido impuestas, en suma,
doblarnos a tomar el lugar en el mundo que ellos nos asignaran y desde ahí recibir
sus instrucciones.
Con el nuevo gobierno federal pensamos que iban a cambiar las cosas porque
así nos lo prometieron las nuevas autoridades ambientales federales en una reunión
que tuvimos el pasado 25 de enero en Palenque. Ahí acordamos que entre
los pueblos indios y la sociedad organizaríamos, sin intervención del gobierno,
reuniones y foros para sacar acuerdo sobre cuáles deberían ser las bases para el
aprovechamiento de los recursos biológicos y genéticos y que el gobierno sacaría
su acuerdo por su lado y luego gobierno y sociedad nos sentaríamos para sacar
un acuerdo de consenso que definiera el contenido de una posible ley de ac-
-69-

ceso a los recursos biológicos y genéticos. Un mes más tarde esa misma autoridad
nos manda decir que el formato cambia: que ahora el gobierno sacará primero
su acuerdo, que luego vendrá el de la sociedad y pueblos pero que el gobierno
también organizará este encuentro en todas sus fases y que la línea de
discusión sobre la cual girará la discusión será precisamente lo acordado por él
gobierno. Le reclamamos el incumplimiento de su palabra pero no nos responde.
Dos meses más tarde y cuatro antes de finalizar los trabajos legislativos el
Partido Acción Nacional, el Partido de esas mismas autoridades, presenta en el
Senado una iniciativa de ley para el acceso a los recursos biológicos y genéticos,
incluido el conocimiento tradicional asociado, sin haber consultado y definido
previamente su contenido con los pueblos y comunidades indígenas, tal y
como lo ordena el Convenio 169º de la O.I.T. ratificado por ese mismo órgano
legislativo .
FACTS
•Approximately 66,280 Tojolabales reside in 184 different communities
in the Fronteriza region of Chiapas.
•Approximately 50 million of the 300 million global population of indigenous
people live in tropical forests.
•Indigenous peoples live in territories owned and used by the community
as a whole, giving neither indigenous or non-indigenous people the
right to sell or dispose of these territories.
•The indigenous communities claim that the research projects steal the
FACTS knowledge and resources of their people.
•Approximately 66,280 Tojolabales reside in 184 different communities
in the Fronteriza region of Chiapas.
•Approximately 50 million of the 300 million global population of indigenous
people live in tropical forests.
•Indigenous peoples live in territories owned and used by the community
as a whole, giving neither indigenous or non-indigenous people the
right to sell or dispose of these territories.
•The indigenous communities claim that the research projects steal the
knowledge and resources of their people.
-70-

Sarah White gives voice to the right for economic
justice, to organize and to attain basic human rights.
UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
Decades after the
passage of civil
rights laws protecting
blacks from discrimination
in the
United States, the
struggle continues.
As Sarah White testifies,
a modern day
plantation mentality
still exists in some
places that allows
unsafe working conditions,
public humiliation,
and harassment
both sexually
and mentally of
minority workers.
Sarah White tells of
exploitation by employers
in catfish plants throughout the Mississippi Delta. The
work at the catfish plant was difficult with people working in
twelve to thirteen hour shifts. They were not allowed to wash their
blood-spattered faces and the bathrooms did not have doors. Many
of the women developed carpel tunnel syndrome but the company
fired women who went to the doctor and refused to pay medical
benefits.
Against these odds, Sarah White organized a union that started
with 40 members and soon grew to 1,100 people, reaching several
plants throughout the Mississippi Delta. Made up mostly of black
single mothers who would rather work to support their families
than collect welfare checks, Sarah White and her union continue
to fight the racism that lingers in the United States.
-71-

The Voice of Sarah White
I live in the state of Mississippi, in
the Deep South in the United States. I can be even more specific. I come from
Sunflower County, a land of cotton and catfish in the heart of the Mississippi
Delta. You might have also heard the name of another Sunflower County
person. A Black woman cotton plantation worker, Fannie Lou Hamer, who
stood up to vicious beatings and demanded the right to vote Her freedom voice,
her struggle, and the uprisings of others, brought out the most powerful movements
in America, the Civil Rights Movement.
Our struggles did not end in the Civil Rights Movement. Today we are facing
new exploitation and dehumanizing oppression on the factory floor. We live in
a poverty stricken area, where Black mothers are stripped of medical care for
their children, and where multi-million dollar corporations pay Black workers
slave wages.
It is a struggle about human dignity in labor, and it is a struggle to be free of
racism. International laws and human rights are being abused everyday in the
state of Mississippi and across the United States. America may be known as the
“richest country on earth” and people may think it is a great democracy. But if
you are a black Mississippian, it is neither.
When Mississippi’s cotton plantation owners started to lose money, they
plowed up the fields for swimming ponds and raised catfish. Then they built a
factory to process the fish and called it Delta Pride. When the factory first
opened, we were excited about more job opportunities. Soon it grew to 1,200
workers. They hired nearly all black women who were often the only support of
their families. We were women who fled the welfare line to a catfish processing
plant in hopes of making a decent living for our families. We were taken out
of the fields on the plantation and put into a modern day plantation.
I started at Delta Pride in 1983, working on what they call “the kill line.” We
worked sun up to sun down, and more. We beheaded, gutted, skinned and
cleaned catfish for 12 to 13 hours a day. We were covered in fish guts and
blood, and we couldn’t even take time to wash the blood off our faces. Sometimes
there’d be no fish to process so we’d have to sit and wait for hours with
no pay until fish were brought in.
Through all this we were harassed both mentally and sexually. The supervisors
would call meetings and tell us we were good for nothing but having babies.
Some of the workers were asked for sexual favors. We had no time to call our
own. We couldn’t even take our babie s to the doctor, or we would be fired.
These are just some of the human rights abuses me and the other women
encountered.
It was hard and dangerous as a Black woman to stand up to these abuses.
Mississippi has a very hostile climate for unions. Many people struggle to find
any work at all. Without many economic and educatio nal opportunities, Black
women are locked into low paying jobs. Black people in general are constantly
confronted by white supremacists. Mississippi is the only state in the US that
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still flies the confederate flag as an official state flag, and there is intimidation
by racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
But Mississippi is my home and I wanted more for myself and for the women
workers like me. With the assistance of UCFW International Union, along with
Local 1529, we organized. In the beginning, the fight wasn’t about wages. It
was about just being treated with respect and letting the next person know that
you were a human being too.
For example, you might think that a bathroom policy is a small thing, but it
turned out to be a big thing for us. The company first told us they would limit
bathroom “privileges” to five minutes six times a week. The bathrooms didn’t
have doors. The men supervisors would just walk in and tell you, “Get up and
go back to work!” Then in 1990, when we were trying to negotiate a second
contract they said, “From now on we want workers to go to the bathroom only
during lunchtime.” That’s what sparked the 1990 Delta Pride strike, the largest
strike in the history of Mississippi by any workers, Black or white. We told
everyone we were striking to let the white owners know that the plantation
mentality had to go.
Today Mississippi is also known as the place where more that 1,000 Black
women catfish plant workers stood up to fight racism on their jobs by going out
on strike. We held out on that picket line for three months. I am proud to be one
of those women. The strike became a national crusade. People came to support
us from all over the United States. When we won that strike it was the biggest
victory workers had ever experienced in Mississippi. It set off many events that
have not stopped even today, with workers organizing themselves.
FACTS
•The catfish industry in Mississippi is a US$40 million industry, but
workers are paid just US$5.35 an hour from which “uniform dues” are
deducted and overtime is non-existent.
•Black women are consistently hindered by double-digit unemployment
rates in the United States.
•The poverty rate for black women is 13.6 percent compared to white
women at 4.6 percent.
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Turdi Huji gives voice to the right to education and
employment based on capabilities, not ethnic background.
CHINA
The Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region
of China is home to
8.7 million Uyghurs,
the indigenous Muslim
population.
Since 1949, the region
has had a growing
influx of Han-
Chinese, the majority
population of China.
The migration of the
Han-Chinese into the
region, unequal economic
opportunities,
curbs on religious
freedoms, and inadequate
government
services increasingly
marginalizes the Uyghurs.
Over the past ten
years, the Uyghurs have experiences increasing infringement of
their social, cultural and economic rights. Severe repression of the
local population and gross human rights violations are fostering
ethnic unrest.
Turdi Huji has fought racial discrimination by the Chinese all of
his life. Despite being one of the top students from his region, he
witnessed racism throughout his education, and in his employment
opportunities. He was continually degraded by his Chinese contemporaries,
abused by Chinese officials and dismissed as having
nothing to offer society as a result of his Uyghur heritage.
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The Voice of Turdi Huji
In 1983, I graduated high school
and took the college entrance exam. For my high score on the exam, I was
among the top 75 students selected by the Autonomous Region government to
be sent to China to attend university.
I was quite excited and full of hope. Since I had my pre-college education in my
native language Uyghur, I had to study Chinese language for two years before I
was able to take college classes in Chinese. Since we were the best students
selected from the high school graduates of a people of seven million population
(at that time), we thought we would be allowed to pick the universities based on
our academic merit once we met the language requirement. All my classmates
studied hard in order to earn the privilege to attend a good school. However, we
were disappointed to find out that we were not given a choice to pick school or
a major. We were divided between two colleges which are not known outside of
their locality: Beijing Teacher’s College (not the Beijing Normal University
whose name sounds similar in Chinese) and Nanjing Teacher’s College, and
among two majors: Chemistry and Mathematics.
The Chinese students, including the ones that came from the same area as us,
had the choice to pick the school and major based on their academic ability.
We were not given that opportunity only because we are from a different ethnic
group. Many of us were not happy with that, nevertheless, we tried hard to get
the best out of it. We finished the college with remarkable grade point averages.
I personally won the first place on a college-wide academic contest.
Every year the human resources department of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous
Region government would send recruiting teams to campuses in Beijing
and other part of China claiming that there was a huge shortage of college
graduates in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Therefore, we thought it
would be easy for us to find a job since we had the advantage of speaking the
local language Uyghur on top of Chinese. But, the reality was far from what we
expected.
We went straight to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Education
Committee Job Distribution Office that was responsible for distributing jobs for
college graduates. The officials there told us that there was no job for us. When
someone asked why did they send recruiting teams to campuses in other parts of
China if there was no job, they said there was no job for Uyghur graduates even
though there was still a huge demand for Chinese graduates. They said most
companies and other institutions specifically ask for Chinese graduates only.
Xinjiang, which we call East Turkistan, is the only homeland we knew. Yet, we
were not wanted on our homeland because we were different from the Chinese
immigrants who control all the jobs and everything else, it did not matter we
could speak their language.
The officials said we can either wait until someone shows up asking for
Uyghurs or go back to the counties that we came from. I was one of the optimist
ones who decided to wait. Every morning we would go the job distribution office
and wait in the lobby hoping someone would need an Uyghur. One day, we
heard a Chinese girl yelling at the officials in the office, we walked up to the
door to find out what was that about. She graduated from a small local college
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and was sent to a small company that she did not like. She was complaining that
they mistreated her by assigning her to such a small company, and she was
demanding to be assigned a better job. I would love to have that job she did not
want. I noticed several of my classmates were trying to hold back their tears. I
knew they wanted that job, too. But, it was not for Uyghurs. We could not even
dare to complain. A major crackdown on Uyghurs protesting against the unjust
treatment of Uyghurs was still ongoing. We could end up in jail instead of in a
company if we complain about racial discrimination.
I always tried hard to keep on the top of class in order to have a better future. I
always believed that I can build my future with my on hard word, but I almost
lost that belief on that day. I felt completely helpless.
I waited one and a half months in the Job Distribution Office in vain, no job
came asking for Uyghurs. The officials in the office finally said if we could find
a company willing to hire us, they would assign us to them. I went out to
companies myself and talked to hiring managers. After several days of
unsuccessful adventure, I finally found a job in a company under the Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region Science and Technology.
Later I found out the reason why I was hired. The Uyghur secretary of the
Uyghur Autonomous Region Government was demoted and sent to the Science
and Technology Committee as a Vice-Chairman. He demanded the Human
Resources Department to hire some minorities. I was luck enough to be one of
the three Uyghurs who benefited from that request that year. I was the only
Uyghur in that company with 70 employees; yet, the Chinese kept reminding
me that I benefited from the “ethnic favoritism” (zhaogu) policy. An Uyghur
simply would not be hired if it was not for the so-called ethnic favoritism.
The Company I worked for grew significantly over the five years I worked
there, but they never hired another Uyghur. The number of Uyghurs in the
Science and Technology Committee did not pass five percent of the 600
employees regardless of the effort of that Uyghur Vice-Chairman. This reflects
the general employment situation in the entire region.
Living with discrimination all around you is hard, but the worst part is you
cannot even mention it because of fear of persecution. I am the only Uyghur
representing the voices of 11.5 million people because I am lucky enough to be
living in the United States so that I do not have to go back to China to face
death for speaking up here.
In 1994, I was admitted to a graduate school in the US with a teaching assistantship.
I graduated with a Master’s degree after two years and got a job in one of
the five most admired companies in my field in the US. I am good enough to get
a job in one of the best research institutes in the world in a foreign country, but I
was not good enough to get any job in my own country simply because I happen
to be an Uyghur.
Most of the world is not aware of even the existence of Uyghurs not to mention
the gross colonial oppression, racial discrimination and marginalization they
suffer. The main reason was that there were no Uyghur communities in the west
until the 1990’s. There were only about ten Uyghur families in the whole
country when I came. I wanted to do something to let the world know what was
happening to us, but I knew that I would never be able to go back to China to
visit my family relatives and friends. I was also afraid that the Chinese authori-
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ties would retaliate against my family. It was a very difficult decision to make. I
tried to look away, telling myself: “I was not made for activism, I was made to be
a scientist, forget everything and go on with your hard-earned comfortable life”.
But, being one of the few Uyghurs who made it to US and who could speak
English, I could not fight off the guilty feeling. A college classmate and close
friend of mine, who came to the airport to see me off when I left for the United
States in 1994, was arrested soon after I left and sentenced for three years along
with his wife for criticizing the government policy at a private occasion. I was
told that when he was released after three years his personality was totally
changed because of torture and threatening. Living in the US, at least I was safe
from imprisonment and torture. The Ghulja incident in February 1997 gave me
the final push to break my silence.
China executes more than 100 Uyghurs and imprisons 1000s every year for
suspected nationalism, separatism and so-called religious extremism. Torture and
disappearance of Uyghurs is commonplace. Amnesty International said in their
report that Xinjiang is the only region of China where political prisoners are
known to be executed in recent years.
FACTS
•Ninety-five percent of the Uyghur population lives below the poverty
line.
•China has exploded 45 nuclear bombs at the Lap Nur testing site in Eastern
Turkistan but has never studied or mentioned the effects of the testing
on the Uyghur population.
•Uhygur are mostly Muslim but China bans religious schools. Most
Mosques are closed and the building of new ones is forbidden. Government
trained Imams have been sent to every Mosque to teach Communist
doctrine during religious services.
•There are numerous reports that Uyghur are being executed or sentenced
to long prison terms, and that these activities are on the rise since
1999.
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Jeanette Paillan gives voice to the rights of
indigenous peoples to native lands
CHILE
As a Mapuche
woman, Jeanette
Paillan grew up in a
poor neighborhood
in Santiago, Chile.
As a professional
working in government
agencies,
Jeanette began to
document, through
writing, photography
and video, the
misery Mapuche
faced living on the
margins of Chilean
society. From deforestation
by industry
to the construction
of hydroelectric centers
in the south,
Mapuche have been
displaced, and suffer
the plight of many
indigenous peoples around the globe of losing ties to the land and
a sense of belonging and tradition.
When her supervisors found out she was documenting these issues
she was told to stop her support for “subversive” activities and her
job was terminated. Even though she was a trained professional,
as an indigenous woman, she found that people always doubted
her capabilities and ethics based on her identity. People simply
find it unthinkable that Mapuche can work in professional pos itions.
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The Voice of Jeanette Paillan
On Sunday, March 16 th , after
the performance of Nguillatun, a Mapuche religious ceremony, the Ranquille
community organized a series of actions, specifically a highway march, as well
as barricades and the arson of a particular galpon, to protest conflicts with the
Minico logging company. I went to film the protests.
The demonstration disintegrated and we decided to go get gas for the van since
we had already promised the logko or the head of the community to leave his
house to the machí, the spiritual leader who had led the religious ceremony.
There were several of us in the press van, including the journalistic team, a
lawyer friend of mine whom we had asked to accompany us in case we ran into
any problems, and some Mapuche brothers and sisters that guided us. We had
been driving for twenty minutes when the police stopped us and asked for our
documents. The cameraperson decided to get out and show them his press
credentials, which I did as well, but they immediately tried to snatch the video
camera from me without even saying anything. I asked for it back, and I think
we both thought that since I am a woman I would get different treatment, but it
wasn’t like that.
The police threw me around violently. I took the camera between my arms and
they threw me to the ground, I protected the video camera with my body. One
of the police stomped on my hand and demanded the camera. I shouted “my
hand!” while at the same time I kept repeating that I was a journalist and I had
press credentials. I asked my friends to help me but they were being kept in the
van.
The police kicked me all over my muscles, back, arms, and also in the head. In
that moment, I thought that they were going to kill me, but I didn’t understand
why. I imagined that something had happened, and that I hadn’t recorded it,
maybe the death of some Mapuche or something. The truth is that many things
passed through my mind.
In the police station, the lawyer asked to speak with the one in charge, but the
police ripped off his glasses and pushed him. We understood then that our rights
would not be respected and that everything was more complicated than we had
thought.
We were interrogated the whole night by men dressed in civilian clothing who
photographed us and read us our past history if we participated in any past
demonstrations. To me, they enumerated on the incidents in which I had been
seen participating and which, according to them, justified signaling me out. To
them it only mattered that I was Mapuche, and that therefore I would have more
information about who were the Mapuche leaders, who organized the movement,
where the arms are, and other critical information.
Women, elderly people and children were detained that day, everyone from the
community. Without a doubt some received worst treatment; the attitude was
clearly racist and the slight worth of our people was evident. Despite the fact
that the detention was very traumatic, I must emphasize that the most painful
part of this was being powerless before the public declarations done on the tele-
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vision by the Canete police commissioner of the seventh region. He said that
they had my videorecordings and that they clearly showed who had participated
in the incidents of that day. They said that it would only be a matter of hours
before everyone was identified. It was not true because they never had the tapes
in their hands as I had given them blank cassettes and had hidden in my clothing
the material I had filmed. Later, I had managed to get it out of the police station.
Unfortunately, some brothers and sisters believed the police commissioner and I
couldn’t immediately make the truth known because I decided to travel to
Santiago to make the incidents known to the foreign agencies and channels. It
was there that I realized that the government had been following me and that
my phone had been tapped. I finally got all of the material out of Chile, but the
tapes were lost. Since these tapes were lost, you will never have the opportunity
to see the abuses that the police committed in those days in the Mapuche
communities.
The case remains open, which is a common practice of Chilean justice, because
this allows them to arrest, at any moment, anyone involved in the process; they
can raze our homes, seats of government, or the communities.
The people are afraid now of challenging what is happening. They are defeated
in this sense, but not completely.
Since 1997, any Mapuche person can be arrested and accused of stealing wood,
of setting fires, for damages to private property, to carabineros, and other
materials.
In the judicial realm, the posture and partiality with which the Chilean justice
system acts to protect the patrimony of the transnational enterprises is clear. It
has militarized the communities and has maintained police presence in the
interior and in the access roads to monitor who comes and goes. At night one
hears shots from automatic weapons.
Dispossession of houses at night by a highly ranked police contingent is a
common practice, such as the case in 1998 in the community of Temulemu,
commune of Traigen, where a strong police contingent razed the house of the
Longko in the early morning, broke the fences, killed livestock, hit their
inhabitants, among them a machí, who was sent to the hospital. They also tied
the hands and feet of children, adolescents and the elderly, as much as men and
women.
In the community of Cuyinco, eighth region of the country, the police gave
supposed orders of razing, “supposed” because the guards of the security
company of the logging companies showed no records of orders.
On another opportunity, the company did its logging in the presence of the
police, despite the fact that there was a judicial order prohibiting the task. In
October of 1998 I was recording this irregular situation when a man dressed in
civilian clothing, but who was in the presence of caribineros, grabbed my video
camera in the presence of the caribineros. In the last five years, more than 2,000
people have been arrested, without a warrant. Approximately 250 are being
processed and ten people are in jails in southern Chile for fighting for our legit imate
right to live on our lands, and for attempting to decide for ourselves our
form of organization and the type of society that we want for ourselves and for
our children.
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The government proposes tables of dialogue as a way of finding a solution, but
the background issues are not addressed: that of the land problems; the presence
of the logging companies, the transnational entities that cut down our trees,
contaminate our water and assault the environment; nor the issues of the
construction of roads through sacred lands or the hydroelectric plants that
attempt to flood the houses of the communities, cemeteries and sacred places,
putting our culture and continuity in this village at risk.
Translated from Spanish– unabridged Spanish version below.
La Voz de Jeanette Paillan
El dia Domingo 16 de marzo, luego de
finalizado el Nguillatun –ceremonia religiosa
mapuche- que la comunidad de Ranquilhue, organizo en terrenos en conflictos
con las empresa forestall Minico se produjeron incidentes, especificamente
una marcha por la carretera, barricadas y el incendio de un galpon a un
particular, hechos estos ultimos que no registre porque estaba muy alejado de la
carretera .
La manifestacion se desintegro y decidimos ir a cargar combustible, ya que nos
habiamos comprometido con el logko -jefe de la comunidad- ir a dejar a su casa
a la machi -lider espiritual- que dirigio la ceremonia religiosa.
En el furgon ibamos el equipo periodistico, un abogado amigo a quien le habiamos
pedido que nos acompanara en caso de tener problemas, porque no era por
nosotros desconocidos que ellos nos seguian , y algunos hermanos mapuche que
nos guiaban . Habiamos recorrido 20 minutos y la policia nos detuvo, nos pidio
documentos. El camarografo decidio bajarse y mostrarles la credenciales de
prensa, accion que yo segui pero ellos intentaron arrebatarle inmediatamente la
camara de video sin mediar en dialogo. Se la pedi, creo ambos pensamos que
por el hecho de ser mujer existiria un trato distinto pero no fue asi.
Los policias se tiraron violentamente sobre mi, yo tome entre mis brazos la
camara y como no podia con ellos me tire al suelo y protegi con mi cuerpo la
camara de video. Uno de los policias me piso mi mano y me exigio la camara.
Yo le grite, mi mano, a la vez que repetia soy periodista y que tenia credencial
de prensa , pedi ayuda a mis amigos pero ellos estaban encerrados en el furgon.
El policia me dio patadas en los muzlos, espalda , brazos y tambien en la cabeza.
En ese momento solo pense que me matarian, pero no comprendia porque,
imagine que habia ocurrido algo, y que yo no habia registrado, tal vez la muerte
de algun mapuche, la verdad es que pasaron muchas cosas por mi mente.
En la comisaria el abogado pidio hablar con el encargado, pero el policia le
quito sus lentes opticos y lo empujo, entendimos que nuestros derechos no
serian respetados y que todo era mas complicado.
Durante toda la noche fuimos interrogados, por hombres vestidos de civil, que
nos fotografiaban, nos leian nuestro historial de vida, si participabamos en alguna
organizacion, a mi me enumeraron en los incidentes en los cuales me
habian visto participar segun ellos, hecho que rectificaba senalando: re-
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porteando para ellos solo importaba que yo era mapuche y que por lo tanto yo
manejaba mas informacion sobre quienes eran los lideres mapuche, quienes organizaban
el movimiento, donde estan las armas.
Ese dia fueron detenidos mujeres, ancianas y ancianos y ninos tambien, todas
personas de comunidad, sin duda alguna ellos recibieron el peor trato, la actitud
claramente racista, el menos precio a nuestra gente era evidente .
Pese a que la detencion fue muy traumatico, debo enfatizar que lo mas doloroso
fue la impotente ante las declaraciones publicas, por la TV que realizon el comisario
de la policia de Canete, VIII region, quien senalo que ellos tenian mis
grabaciones, y que en estas aparecian claramente quienes habian participado de
los incidentes de ese dia. Que estaban todos identificado que era asunto de
horas. Lo que no correspondia a la verdad, ellos nunca tuvieron en sus manos
las cintas, yo les pase cassettes virgenes, yo habia escondido entre mis ropa el
material y luego habia logrado sacarlo de la comisaria .
Lamentablemente, algunos hermanos creyeron esa version, yo no pude desmentirla
inmediatamente porque decidi viajara a Santiago para mostrar los inc identes
a los canales y agencies extranjeras, fue ahi cuando me di cuenta que me
estaban siguiendo y quer mi telefono habia sido intervenido; asi que finalmente
saque todo el material fuera de Chile. Cintas que terminaron por perderse, ustedes
nunca tendran la oportunidad de ver los abusos que la policia cometio por
esos dias en las comunidades mapuche.
El caso permanence abierto, que es una practrica comun de la justicia Chilena,
porque esto les permite detener en cualquier momento a quienes estan en el
proceso, pueden allanar nuestras casas, sedes, o las comunidades .
La gente tiene miedo ahora de retar lo que esta sucediendo, ellos lograron derrotarme
en ese sentido, pero no completamente.
Desde 1997, fecha en que se retomaron la recuperaciones de hecho (la gente
entra a los terrenos y los siembra) cualquier persona mapuche puede ser
detenida , acusada de robo de madera , incendio, danos a la propiedad privada, a
carabineros etc.
En el ambito judicial, es clara la postura e parcialidad con la que actua la justicia
chilena para proteger el patrimonio de las empresas transnacionales, ha militarizado
las comunidades mantiene en su interior y en los caminos de acceso
cuarteles policiales para vigilar quien entra o sale de ellas. Por las noches se escuchan
disparos de metralletas automaticas.
Es una practica comun los desalojos de las casas por las noches con un alto contingente
policial, tal es el caso en 1998 en la comunidad de Temulemu, comuna
de Traigen donde un fuerte contingente policial allano la casa de Longko en la
madrugada, rompio los enceres, sustrayo especies, golpeo a sus habitantes entre
ellos una machi , quien fue a dar al hospital. Ademas amarro depies y manos a
ninos, jovenes y viejos; tanto a hombres como mujeres.
En la comunidad de Cuyinco, VIII region del pais la policia realizo las supuestas
ordenes de allanamiento, porque no exhibio orden alguna, en compania de
los guardias de seguridad de las empresas forestales.
En otra oportunidad la empresa realizaba sus trabajos de arbol en prescencia de
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la policia, pese a existir una orden judicial de prohibia las faenas. En octubre
de 1998 yo registraba esta situacion irregular cuando un hombre vestidos de
civil en presencia de carabineros me arrebato mi camara de video en presencia
de carabineros.
En los ultimos cinco anos mas de 2 mil personas hemos sido detenidos, sin una
orden judicial, aproximadamente 250 estan siendo procesadas y 10 personas estan
en las carceles del Estado chileno del sur, por luchar por nuestros legitimos
derechos a vivir en nuestra tierras, y por pretender decidir sobre nuestras forma
de organizacion y el tipo de sociedad que queremos para nosotros y para
nuestros hijos.
El gobierno como forma de buscar solucion propone las llamadas mesas de dialogos,
pero en ellas no estan los temas de fondo: que son el problemas de tierra,
la presencia de las empresas forestales, entidades transnacionales que cortan
nuestros arboles, contaminan nuestras agues y agreden el medio ambiente, tampoco
esta el tema de la construccion de caminos por lugares sagrados y ni los
proyectos de centrals hidroelectricas que pretenden inundar las casas de las
comunidades, cementerios y lugares sagrados poniendo asi en riesgo nuestra
cultura y continuidad en tanto Pueblo.
FACTS
•The Mapuche of central and southern Chile number between 500,000
and one million – possibly 10 percent of the country’s population.
About half of the Mapuche population live in urban centers and the
other half on communal lands where their subsistence depends entirely
on cultivation.
• Mapuche means “people of the land.” The Mapuche have maintained
their own religion, customs, social organization and laguage, all of
which are based on “belonging to the land.”
• Widespread logging was initiated in Chile in 1986 in order to supply
woodchips to industrialized countries. In this decade, it is estimated lo gging
will jeopardize 2.5 million hectares – 33 percent of all Chilean native
bush.
• Some 300 Mapuche communities of the All Lands Council began recovering
land in southern Chile in June 1992 by occupying it. The military
moved in quickly, detaining 100 people. The offices of the All
Lands Council were raided, the organizations was accused of being and
illegal association and a restraining order was placed on members of the
directorate, forbidding them to leave the country.
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Manimekalai Murugesan gives voice to the
oppression caused by caste systems and
the brutality inherent in these systems.
INDIA
Manimekalai’s
husband, Murugesan,
was
elected President
of the Village
Council in
M e levalavu,
certainly cause
for joy. But because
he was a
Dalit, a group
outside of the
caste system,
members of the
upper castes
said he wouldn’t
last six months
in his new position.
On the day
of his sixth
month in office,
he and seven other Dalit men traveling by bus were separated
from the non-Dalits and brutally murdered.
Witnesses feared coming forward with information and the police
claimed the men responsible disappeared. Only after three years
of protests by Dalits were the men arrested. Manimekalai was left
destitute, and widowed with young children, along with the wives
of the other Dalit men.
While the government of India has put in place a legal framework
to protect Dalit rights, the discrimination against them remains a
cultural reality.
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The Voice of Manimegali Murugesan
My name is
Manimegali. My husband’s name was Murugesan. I am a Dalit from the village
of Melavalavu, India, near Madurai at Tamilnadu. My father was called
Karanthan and my mother Kalyani. They were both landless farm workers. You
may know such workers as “coolies”. I was married when I was fourteen or
fifteen, by which time my mother had passed. I have four sisters and two
brothers. I have four children, three girls and a son. The last girl was born soon
after my husband was murdered.
I have come here to tell you of the racism faced by Dalit people and in
particular, about the murder of my husband on June 30 1997, because he was a
Dalit who won political office.
My husband was not a coolie. He was educated to the 10 th standard and his
parents, who worked on the land, had a small piece of land that they gave him.
He worked sometimes on this land, sometimes was unemployed. But he was a
leader in our village and in our Dalit community. My husband often solved the
fights of other people, he worked for justice. So the people liked him very much
and the uppercaste people were angry that he was becoming so successful.
Our village is one where the President of the Panchayat, for all people, was to
be a Dalit, male or female. The election in 1997 was the first time this new rule
was in place and the uppercastes were angry that they would be ruled by a Dalit.
Originally, there were six or seven people standing for President, but when they
found out Murugesan was also standing, all but one stepped down. When the
election time came, the uppercaste people stopped the voting. hey would not let
Dalits go to the polling booth which were in the uppercaste section of the
village. Dalits who went to vote were met with weapons and attacks. The
election was cancelled. Six-months later, as the law says we must do, a new
election was held. This time the police were there and my husband won the
election and became President of the village Panchayat for all castes.
The Panchayat Board office was in the uppercaste section, but after the election
they would not let him go there, not even for the swearing in ceremony. As a
result, he built an office in the Dalit section of the village. The uppercaste
people were very angry with my husband. We started to receive anonymous
letters saying that they would kill my him and cut off his head. One incident in
particular made them very angry. Soon after being elected, my husband allowed
people from our community to use the wood from the thorny bushes on the side
of the road. Before, only the uppercaste people could make money from the
wood – although it belongs to everyone. Angry, the uppercaste people set fire to
four houses, and two burned down completely.
Finally, my husband took the five people whose houses had been burned to
Madurai to make a complaint and get compensation from the government.
When he was there he also requested protection because of the threats. They
said they would look into it. When their business was done they got on a bus to
come back to our village. On the way they stopped in Melur where my
husband’s brother lives and he joined them. He had also received threats. Two
kilometers outside our village the bus was stopped and men got on and told
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everyone but the Melevalavu Dalits to get off the bus. These people had
weapons and were angry. I am told that my husband begged the attackers to kill
him, not the others because he was the one who was making them angry. They
stabbed him in the stomach and he died there. Raja, his brother, who saw this
screamed and he too was killed. There is now only one brother left and he is in
Madurai. He has received threats also.
Six people were murdered. And when a man in Melur told everyone what he
had heard had happened and asked that they shut their windows and close their
shops, he was killed. Seven people murdered. And they were murdered brutally.
Even those few who survived were badly hurt. One had a finger cut off, another
they put a sickle through his back and another had his face slashed. When they
saw my husband’s body, he had no head. After looking everywhere, they finally
found it in the well. This is how angry and bitter these uppercaste people are. So
bitter that after a man is dead they still cut off head and throw it into a well.
The culprits were not arrested for two years. Forty-eight people were arrested
and until their trial were on bail and free to go around. They would brag about
the murder of my husband. Witnesses were threatened with their lives and none
wanted to speak boldly of the incident. Finally, the Dalit Panchayats of India
intervened and tried to protect them. The trial is just completed and seventeen
have been given life imprisonment. Many of them are not the real culprits. We
believe the final person accused, number seventeen, is very guilty. But we are
sure then after the appeals are made at least the last five or six accused will go
free, as that is how it happens. The others will anyway be let free soon.
Before he died, my husband has been sleeping in different houses throughout
the village each night, to be safe. I did not like that and we argued. Finally, he
agreed to come home. The day he was on the bus, he asked to prepare a special
meal to say that everything was alright in our family. I prepared a chicken in
this honor, but he did not come home. For his murder the government has given
us a house, 200,000 rupees and I have a job as a street repairer. But I miss my
husband. And I miss my family. Since he was murdered, my children have had
to live with different family members in order to attend school, except for my
youngest girl who is too small for school. While we received this money from
the government, we have debts from his campaigns for the election and since
his murder I have been borrowing still to live. My mother in law stays with me
at night so I am not alone. My brother has left the village because he has
received threats to his life and is afraid.
My husband was elected as the President of the Dalit Panchayat. For this he was
brutally murdered. It took three years for the murderers to receive a sentence.
Now they will all make appeals and many, including the real culprits will go
free. My family and I still live in fear. While the laws which let my husband
become President may be good, they are not good if it means that when someone
runs for office they are murdered. There will not be justice for Murugesan
until we can live and lead our communities without fear for our lives. And that
is why I came here to tell you my story.
Translated from Tamil
-86-

FACTS
•There are more than 145 million Dalits in India, comprising 15.8 percent
of the population.
•More than 100,000 cases of rape, murder, arson, and other atrocities
against Dalits are reported in India each year. As many Dalits are reluctant
to go to the police, due to a lack of police cooperation, the actual
number of abuses is presumably much higher.
•The sexual slavery of Dalit girls and women continues to receive religious
sanction. Under the devadasi system, Dalit girls in India’s southern
states are ceremonially dedicated or married to a deity or temple.
Once dedicated, they are unable to marry, forced to become prostitutes
for upper-caste community members, and eventually auctioned into an
urban brothel.
•Officially, one million Dalits are manual scavengers who clear feces
from public and private latrines and dispose of dead animals. Unofficial
estimates are much higher.
-87-

Ibrahim Abu Sbeih gives voice to the rights of
minority populations to be recognized by the state and receive
equal services provided to other villages and towns.
ISRAEL,
(unrecognized
Arab village)
Ibrahim Abu Sbeih
was born and lives
in the same village
his father and grandfather
were born and
lived in, yet Israel
refuses to recognize
its existence.
The plight of the
Arab unrecognized
villages first began
in 1948. Even
though these villages
existed tens
and hundreds of
years ago, the Israeli
governments ignored
the existence
of these villages and
the inhabitants were
denied their rights
as citizens of the
country. For more than 50 years, these villages have not appeared
on any map.
As a result, the villages lack basic infrastructure. Today, there are
approximately 100,000 people who are dispossessed or denied any
basic services such as running water, electricity, proper education
and health services and access roads - constituting a gross violation
of human rights and opposing the values of a modern and democratic
state.
-88-

The Voice of Ibrahim Abu Sbeih
I am an unrecognized
human being. My village does not exist on the Israeli map. My home has
no address. The government deprives my village’s right of being recognized on
my grandfathers’ land.
My name is Ibrahim Abu Sbeih, a Palestinian, an Arab, a Bedouin from Al Batt,
an unrecognized village in the Negev Desert. I am a marginalized Israeli citizen
and the son of the forgotten minority, born in 1953. In this village my father,
grandfather and my great-grandfather were born. My village, home to 1,100
inhabitants, lacks all municipal services such as water, electricity, health
services, schools, streets, and communication. The illiteracy rate in the village
exceeds 30 percent. Our homes are made of metal, asbestos and zinc, which
cause cancer. Hot in the summer and cold in the winter. We have been denied
the right of electing our local representatives for 53 years.
My village is two kilometers away from the closest street. When one of my
children gets sick, we go to Ksafah village seven kilometers away, for medical
care. In case of a health emergency, we transfer our sick in our private cars. My
cousin’s baby died after the ambulance refused to come to our village. Even if it
had agreed to come, there are no road signs to indicate the existence of our
historical village. When my friend, Mohammad, was diagnosed with lung
problems, he stayed at the hospital for many months because his house lacks
electricity and water needed to operate his respirator machine. As for the Jewish
graveyards, there is water, streets and flowers. Because I am a minority, our
children have an infant mortality rate four times higher than that of our Jewish
compatriots and 90 percent of the children cared for in the hospital at the Negev
are our children, while we do not exceed 25 percent of the population
My daughter Sabreen is six-years old. For one year, she has used a bus to go to
school at Ksiefa. The introduction of scheduled bus service came as a result of a
long struggle conducted by all the 45 unrecognized villages, with the 70,000
inhabitants, who do not have one high school. The academic achievements of
our village, like those of the other neglected villages, is very poor and the
dropout rate is very high. My son and I are the only university graduates in the
village.
I was elected as a Vice President for the Regional Council, a non-recognized
organization representing all the villages. It is very ironic for me to say that my
village is, relatively speaking one of the luckier ones, for the suffering of the
residents of the other villages exceeds ours. A dangerous and poisonous
chemical dump was built next to Wadi El Nagim Village. To this day, no
official team has informed or educated village residents about the negative
effects of the chemical waste dump that there are serious environmental risks
threatening our lives.
A large percentage of the inhabitants of my village are unemployed and the rest
work in Jewish cities. Before 1948, people lived on agriculture and livestock.
6,000 dunums (approximately 1,250 acres) were confiscated from our village on
the pretext that the area is a military zone. The remaining land of my village is
under the threat of being confiscated, the village inhabitants are under the threat
of being uprooted and all our homes are under the threat of being demolished.
-89-

In other words, all 70,000 inhabitants of the 45 unrecognized villages are under
threat of being uprooted, their land being confiscated, and their 23,000 houses
being demolished. The laws and the governmental policies are prejudice against
us and abuse our basic human rights.
In 1947, the Arab population in the Negev numbered 110,000 inhabitants. Most
of their land was not officially registered, as was the case with most of the land
of historical Palestine. In spite of that, our legitimate rights like our right to
land, water and housing were respected by the Ottomans and afterwards by the
British authorities. With the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, 785,000
people, among them 100,000 persons from the Negev were uprooted. The
11,000 Bedouin who remained, along with the rest of the new Palestinians
minority, were placed under military rule.
After lifting the military rule in 1966. The Israeli government was partly
successful in implementing its policy of relocating the Bedouins to seven
concentrated townships, following the dislocation of the people and
confiscation of their land. Today, 45 percent of the Negev Bedouins live in
these seven townships that lack economic infrastructure. According to official
statistics, they are ranked among the poorest towns in the State. Today there are
120,000 Bedouins in the Negev living on two percent of the historical land of
this indigenous people. In spite of that, this land is under threat of being
confiscated according to the Israeli strategy of concentrating the maximum
number of Palestinian inhabitants on the minimum area of land and the
maximum area of land to minimum number of Jewish residents. From our work
at the Regional Council planning strategic unit, we know that the “Judaization”
policy of our areas includes more than thirteen national, regional and local plans
that ignore the existence of the 45 villages. For instance, the National Plan for
the year 2020 ignores the existence of the 45 villages with all their residents.
The aim of the regional plan is to transfer the Arab villages and lift the Arab
ring surrounding Beer Sheva and to place the inhabitants into three concentrated
townships. The Local Plans aim for the expansion of existing Jewish
settlements or building new ones at the expense of the surrounding villages.
Military orders, drafted according to the Emergency Law of 1945, which were
used in May 2001 as the basis for the confiscation of 71,000 dunums belonging
to five villages with population of 4,600. On May 15, supported by a large
border police force, the green patrols and Special Forces, together with two
helicopters, demolished two homes at Qattamat village. Twenty people
including children, elderly and disabled suffered among them Umm Ali, who
still suffers from severe trauma as a result of demolition of her home. As for her
son, the ten-year old Ali, he headed directly to the house after coming back
from school to fetch his favorite shirt from among the rubble. With the help of
the surrounding villagers, we started rebuilding the two houses, knowing that
they will receive the new house demolition orders soon. And if they did not
demolish their homes by themselves, they will have to pay expensive fines or
risk detention.
From here, from this stage, I appeal to the world, and state that human
consciousness cannot be selective and should not be limited to this ethnic group
or that. Why should Ali, Sabreen and others live the “Nakba” Catastrophe, like
their grandfathers did and their uncles are currently doing? What fault did our
children commit to be denied a drink of water, a dose of medication and a
schoolbook it is now time for the world’s conscience to have the courage to
differentiate between the victim and the executioner.
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From here, from this stage I say that we the children of the 45 villages, we will
not allow the wiping out of our existence and we will not allow making our
children refugees in their homeland. We will command our children like my
father commanded me “ Ibrahim, plant Al Batt land, be aware, and do not
compromise an inch.” I, my son and my grandson we will stand for our rights,
we will stand for our rights, we will stand for our rights.
Translated from Arabic
FACTS
•There are 130,000 Bedouin in the Negev, half living in 45 settlements
that are unrecognized by the government.
•There more than 100 unrecognized villages in Israel. Residents of the
unrecognized villages pay taxes to the government but are not eligible
for government services.
•Pre-school rates for Bedouin children are the lowest and drop out rates
for Bedouin high school students are the highest in Israel.
•Arabs living in Israel constitute 20 percent of the population. Fortytwo
percent of Israeli Arabs live below the poverty line. Arabs constitute
only 8.7 percent of students at major universities in Israel and hold
only 50 of the country’s 5,000 faculty positions.
-91-

Reyhan Yalcindag gives voice to the rights of
minority populations to pursue basic human rights
and to be free from abuse.
TURKEY
The Turkish government
denies the Kurdish people
their identity. From
basics such as native
language to the rights of
people to participate politically
in soc iety,
Kurds are denied basic
freedoms. Kurdish political
figures associated
with the Democracy
Party, which was shut
down by the Turkish
government, were sentenced
and jailed for attempting
to defend
Kurdish language in
education, politics and
broadcast media.
Reyhan Yalcindag is a
Kurdish lawyer who has
been imprisoned and
tortured for her work on
behalf of the rights of the Kurdish people. Her detention and subsequent
degradation were the result of her Kurdish identity and
her work on behalf of her people. Currently, she takes cases on
behalf of Kurdish people to the European Court of Human Rights
and is the only Kurdish lawyer to make English presentations to
the Court on behalf of victims.
-92-

The Voice of Reyhan Yalcindag
I am grateful for the
opportunity to speak here as a member of the Kurdish people subjected to lifelong
discrimination, a voiceless people whose very existence is not recognized.
I am a Kurd from Turkey. What I would like to share with you here is but a
brief summary of the racist and discriminatory practices I have been confronted
with throughout my life. I am certain that almost all the Kurds of Turkey –over
25,000 million- have similar, if not worse experiences to tell of.
When I started school at the age of 5, the only language I knew was my mother
tongue - Kurdish. The only language used in education in Turkey, however, is
Turkish – which I did not understand. To use Kurdish language is prohibited
under Turkish law in every part of life. My first years in school were entirely
overshadowed by my desperate efforts to give a meaning to these strange
words, and often stifled in tears when I couldn’t.
I was six years old when a military junta seized power in a coup, the ramifications
of which I only understand now. After the coup, to speak Kurdish or even
to have Kurdish music tapes at home, meant to suffer nights of interrogation
and torture. I remember waking up from nightmares in which my parents were
taken away by the police and never came back again -like hundreds of
children’s parents- because I had spoken Kurdish.
For five long years, school children had to line up in the school yard every
morning to recite a military march that goes “I’m Turkish, righteous and
diligent”. There were speeches we had to memorize and recite every morning
for seven years, such as Ataturk’s Address to the Youth, which says that the
force required to eternally protect the Turkish Republic was to be found in the
noble blood running in Turkish veins.
Then I went to study law in the capital city Ankara. Kurdish students there were
treated as potential suspects in any event. Exposed to pressure and attacks from
the Criminal Branch and extremist racist groups, my Kurdish friends and I had
to leave the residents hall and rent a flat. We were under constant surveillance
and time and time again police would come in the middle of the night with
machine guns and walkie-talkies to raid our flat.
In the University, I was a target of verbal abuse and physical attacks of racist
students supporting the Party of the Nationalist Movement, which is today one
of the coalition partners in Turkey. When they injured my head with iron rods,
the security staff of the University did nothing against the perpetrators as they
stood on the sidelines while my Kurdish friends in other faculties were being
attacked or killed during racist attacks. On the contrary, they spent little effort to
conceal that they were themselves involved in organizing such attacks of racist
groups. We were all potential terrorists and personae non grata on the campus.
When I was 21 years old, I was detained by the police along with the other
Kurdish students. First my eyes were blindfolded. I was brought to a place
where I was first hosed with pressurized water, then given electric shocks. Then
they put a plastic bag over my head and deprived me of oxygen until I fainted.
Over and over again they hung me from what is called Palestine hooks until
-93-

lood circulation in my arms ceased and I fainted again. I was exposed to verbal
and physical sexual violence and threatened with rape and killing. They told
me “As we killed Ferhat Tepe (one of the Kurdish journalists who was tortured
and killed during the custody and whose body was found near a lake after) we
will also kill you!” They stripped me naked by force. During the breaks
between the torture sessions, I was kept in a dark cell designed for one person,
one of my hands being cuffed to a high place so that I was forced to stand on
my feet all the time. As a part of psychological torture, they played racist
marches at an extremely high volume. I was supposed to admit to crimes I
hadn’t committed and give the names of anyone I knew. The torture lasted for
eleven days - eleven days in which I was humiliated for my ethnic identity. I
wanted to die during these days of detention. It is by chance that I am alive
because I could have been killed or disappeared during torture and after
detention as has happened to thousands of Kurds. There are a lot of deep
emotions that cannot be put into words. It is a continuing trauma for my family.
The racism has taken place in other parts of my life. Whenever I wanted to go to
my village, where my forefathers have been living for hundreds of years, I
would be stopped by security forces at the district boundaries for several
consecutive identity checks and, just like any other Kurd, I would be treated as
a potential criminal on these occasions. I was in constant fear that our village
would be destroyed and we would be forcefully evacuated, just like the other
villages in the surrounding areas.
In short, the legal system of Turkey provides for discrimination against Kurds in
a blatant way. The provinces mainly inhabited by Kurds are kept under state of
emergency regulations, and the law applied there is different from that in other
parts of the country. From 1984 to 1999, there was conflict that resulted in over
30,000 deaths. Three thousand six hundred and eighty-eight villages were
destroyed and forcefully evacuated. Thousands of Kurds disappeared and were
murdered in extra-judicial killings.
As I speak to you today, the racism is still continuing. Many investigations
related to activities I participated in and statements I made in my capacity as a
human rights activist are pending. The majority of these investigations can be
boiled down to the fact that I am Kurdish. The city where I live, Diyarbakir, is
also one of the provinces under a state of emergency. I cannot read books,
magazines or newspapers available in other parts of Turkey. I cannot listen to
tapes or CDs of music in my own language because access to them in areas
under a state of emergency is restricted. My Association has been closed down
several times under emergency regulations, since non-governmental organizations
can be closed down under the emergency law without there being any
domestic remedy available. I can assure you that Kurdish ethnic identity,
language, culture and the right to mother tongue education are denied under
Turkish domestic law. To publish one’s opinion on Kurdish issues as a lawyer
means to be liable to criminal prosecution.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurdish children now suffer what I suffered in my
childhood, and even worse things. Many had to flee their homeland after their
villages were destroyed by the army, some have suffered the loss of their parents
either killed or incarcerated for a length of time a child cannot imagine.
Children still have to chant that they are “Turks, righteous and diligent.”
Discrimination will only cease when the family of humanity can join hands in
singing “proud to be human”.
-94-

The process of being exposed to racial discrimination and violence on the basis
of ethnic identity, culture and mother tongue, started in my early childhood and
continues unabated. I am yearning for a life in which everyone is different, but
everyone is equal. All I demand is that my language, my culture and my ethnic
identity are no longer denied and discriminated against. That cannot be asking
too much. But unfortunately, attempts to solve the Kurdish question in a lawful,
peaceful and democratic ways are being met by the Turkish State with continued
forced evacuations and food embargoes of our villages, and disappearances
and torture under custody. Finally, as you may have heard, thousands of Kurdish
people tried on September 1, 2001 to go to Ankara to have a peaceful
demonstration. They were violently attacked by the police and many detained.
During this time, one Kurdish boy, who was trying to leave safely, fell down
and was killed.
I call upon the international human rights community, through the United
Nations, to ensure the realization of the Kurdish people’s civil, social, and cultural
rights wherever we may live.
FACTS
•Kurds are not recognized as an ethnic minority because ethno-lingual
diversity is perceived as a threat to a homogenous, Unitarian nation
state. Their language is suppressed and officially denied.
•The Kurdish language is prohibited in education, politics and the broadcast
media.
•Education is permitted in Turkish, English, French, German, Russian,
Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese and Chinese – but not Kurdish.
•There are 13 million Kurds in Turkey comprising 20 percent of the
population.
-95-

Ana del Carmen Martinez gives voice to the
right to social, economic and cultural self-determination.
COLOMBIA
The civil war and narcotics
trafficking that
ravages parts of Colombia
contribute to
the racism that margina
l izes Afro-
Colombians. In February
1997, the Afro-
Colombian communities
of the Cacarica
River Basin
(Department of Choco)
were forcibly displaced
from their lands by
military and paramilitaries
in civil war fighting.
From Ana del Carmen
Martinez’s village
alone, 3,500 people, 90
percent of whom are
Afro-Colombians, have
been displaced. Eighty
people in her community
have been killed or
disappeared since they were displaced.
Ana del Carmen is an Afro-Colombian single mother of seven.
She is one of the 26 community general coordinators and a member
of the Women in Resistance Committee. The community
elaborated a proposal of Return with Dignity to their lands that
includes five principles for their survival in the middle of the war:
Truth, Liberty, Justice, Solidarity and Fraternity. The community
has received a promise from the state to a collective title of
103,000 hectares of land, but even that land is threatened by corporate
development.
-96-

The Voice of Ana del Carmen Martinez
My name is Ana
del Carmen Martinez; I am 39 years old and have a large family of ten people. I
have been a widow for five years. I am responsible for my seven children and
for my mother, who is an invalid. I am both mother and father to my children,
and I am already a grandmother with two grandchildren. I live in Colombia, a
country which is said to be democratic; the State say that the problem comes
from the production of cocaine, that the violence is because of the guerillas and
that we, the victims of the State, are guerillas.
I am displaced because of the war and I am a part of the Community of Self-
Determination, Life and Dignity of the Cacarica River Basin. The organization
is made up of 23 communities. We lived close to the Panamanian border in a
forest zone. Our land is mainly inhabited by Afro-Colombian and Indigenous
communities. The majority of us are black, but we lived with the indigenous
people as brothers and sisters. We also lived with the mestizos that came from
other parts of the country and all of us were united in our desire to live in peace.
Before the displacement, we were never without food or necessities and our
children were always healthy. We lived in peace and without problems.
Our story is one among millions of similar stories suffered by many people in
Colombia. Millions of peasants, blacks, indigenous people and mestizos are
forced to leave their lands.
I am one victim of the Colombian State, of the displacement that occurred after
a military operation, “Operation Genesis,” in which armed civilians, called
paramilitaries, bombed us, machine-gunned us, threatened us and made us leave
the land, after numerous murders and disappearances. All of these war crimes
and crimes against humanity were committed with the knowledge of the
President of the Republic and of high-ranking military authorities. There is only
impunity for those who left us in conditions of misery.
One day in February of 1997, we were woken by the noise of planes and
helicopters belonging to the Colombian Army, which dropped enormous bombs
over the land. At the same time, the armed civilians entered, telling everyone
that we had two hours to leave the zone. They captured one of our brothers, tied
him up, and while he was still alive, they cut off his arms joint by joint, his legs
and his testicles; finally, they cut off his head and played soccer with it in front
of our community. They threatened us and told us that if we made any noise or
spoke then we knew what would happen to us. Afterwards they went to other
communities, saying that everyone had to leave. While they displaced us, there
were three days of bombings by the planes and helicopters of the Colombian
Army.
I was forced to flee on a raft with my elderly parents and my seven children,
parting the vegetation with my arms to pave the way, and with the children
crying of hunger since we left without even a plantain to eat. We had to leave
everything we had behind and I know that they took it all. What they couldn’t
carry away they destroyed.
Many of us arrived at the port of Turbo. There we waited for the police that
brought us to the municipal coliseum where we lived in fear for four years.
-97-

They murdered more than ten brothers. One of the brothers was grabbed from a
humanitarian shelter; they tortured him and left him on a highway. The life that
we lived there was one of always being overcrowded. In the beginning, 550
people slept on the floor of a basketball court. By the second week of March we
numbered 1,200 and we didn’t have any water or any other service. There was
nowhere for us to go to the bathroom so we had to do that wherever we could
find a piece of land. We had no privacy. We had to put up with being rejected
and seeing the people that displaced us in the streets, armed, near our shelters;
we were afraid and humiliated. Our children were not accepted in the school.
We began to get illnesses that we had never gotten before. The marks of terror
and fear began to grow in our bodies and in those of our children. Others were
forced to remain in other encampments in subhuman conditions where there
were various massacres organized by armed civilians protected by the
Colombian Army.
We were forced to go to places to which we were not accustomed. What we
know is working the land, it is what we learned with pride from the time that we
are very young, it is our ancestral culture. There we started to feel the
discrimination as they treated us badly and blamed us for everything, including
theft and our unhygienic conditions.
At that time we lived in a lot of fear, but with Resistance. We didn’t dare to
leave the encampments, but we struggled to survive with basic nutrition. There
were many sad children but we laughed, we sang and had parties. Joy is
RESISTANCE. We were sure that they wanted to kill us but we weren’t going
to let them and they couldn’t buy our souls. We continue to be very tense because
the armed invaders are on our lands, but we face their bullets and their
powerful arms with RESISTANCE. We lack the solidarity of all the millions of
black, indigenous, mestizo, white, and yellow men and women from
innumerable places around the world that allow us to make our dreams of selfdetermination,
life and dignity; our Life Project, a reality.
Translated from Spanish—unabridged Spanish version below.
The Voice of Ana del Carmen Martinez
Yo soy Ana
del Carmen Martínez, tengo 39 años y una familia grande de 10 personas. Soy
una mujer viuda desde hace 5 años. Soy responsable por mis 7 hijos y mi mama
que es una mujer inválida. Yo soy el padre y la madre de mis hijos, además ya
soy abuela, tengo dos nietos.
La historia que voy a contarles solo es una entre millones de historias semejantes
que padecen, en Colombia millones de campesinos, negros, indígenas, mestizos,
obligados a dejar sus tierras para que en vez de selva y río reinen el concreto,
las represas, los canales interoceánicos, los pozos petroleros, las carreteras.
Para que se imponga el orden económico que pretenden presentar como
nuevo pero que sigue siendo continuación del que se alimentó de la sangre y el
sudor de los esclavos negros, antepasados nuestros.
Hago parte de la Comunidad de Autodeterminación, Vida y Dignidad de la
Cuenca del Cacarica. Vivimos en una zona selvática que hace parte del Pacifico
Colombiano, en el noroccidente de Colombia, cerca de la frontera con Panamá
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que está habitada principalmente por comunidades afrocolombianas e indígenas.
Pertenecemos a 23 comunidades. La mayoría somos negros. A los indígenas,
los sentimos y convivimos con ellos como hermanos. Convivimos también con
personas mestizas que llegaron de otros departamentos del país, en especial de
Córdoba, buscando tierras donde poder ganarse la vida en paz sin la persecución
de los terratenientes y sus grupos armados que empezaban ya a actuar hace unos
20 años.
La tierra en la Cuenca del Cacarica es una tierra fértil. Nunca sufrimos hambre
y necesidades, los hijos siempre tenían buena salud. Yo en mi casa siempre tuve
mis animales domésticos, pescábamos y nos alimentábamos de animales del
monte. Nuestras cosechas eran abundantes y por eso, sobre todo el maíz, lo llevábamos
a vender al mercado de Turbo, una ciudad en la costa atlántica. Esto
nos daba para comprar lo que en la región nuestra no se produce. En este tiempo
nos sentíamos tranquilos, sin problemas, se vivía en paz, compartíamos con
nuestros hermanos.
Cada quien vivía en su casa a las orillas de los ríos Perancho y Peranchito,
afluentes del Río Cacarica. Nosotros mismos construimos, entre todos, la escuela,
el centro de salud, teníamos organizadas cooperativas, limpiábamos los ríos
y los caminos, teníamos grupos de mujeres, teníamos tienda comunitaria, participábamos
en las juntas de acción comunal y en todo lo que fuera para nuestro
beneficio. Trabajábamos muy unidos con nuestros hermanos, hacíamos muchos
eventos, hacíamos mingas (trabajos colectivos).
Realmente al estado y al Ejército colombianos los conocimos cuando en los
años 70 decidieron declarar una parte de nuestra Cuenca como parte del Parque
Nacional de Los Katíos. Eso significó para muchas familias perder sus tierras.
Volvimos a ver al ejército colombiano cuando comenzó el bloqueo económico
en contra nuestra en 1995. Al principio, el mercado más grande que podía llevar
cada familia era de 25 dólares, luego lo redujeron a 5 dólares por familia. Viviendo
como vivíamos lejos de la ciudad comprábamos provisiones para varios
meses. Nos preguntábamos porqué esta imposición que tantos problemas significaba
especialmente para las familias numerosas. Los soldados y los civiles armados
que junto a ellos hacían este control nos decían que no dejaban pasar
más porque eso era para la guerrilla. La gente no podía salir al pueblo para vender
sus cosechas, porque los paramilitares que estaban allá en Turbo los cogían,
los robaban y los desaparecían.
Sabíamos de la existencia de la guerrilla pero nunca tuvimos con ellos relación
alguna. Por eso no podíamos entender las acusaciones de los soldados y los civiles
armados. Ahora entendemos que acusar a la población civil de ayudar a la
guerrilla es parte de una estrategia que busca apropiarse de nuestras tierras.
En 1996 inician las noticias de que nos iban a desplazar. No lo creíamos posible
pero un día de febrero de 1997 fuimos despertados por el ruido de aviones y
helicópteros del ejército colombiano que sobrevolaban nuestros caseríos deja ndo
caer sobre la tierra enormes bombas. Al mismo tiempo los civiles armados
entraron por un punto conocido como la Loma y llegaron a la Comunidad de
Vijao, zona del Cacarica, diciendo a la gente que tenían dos días de plazo para
desocupar la zona. Cogieron a un hermano nuestro, lo mandaron a bajar un coco,
después de que el lo tumbó, lo amarraron, le mocharon (cortaron) la cabeza
y jugaron fútbol con ella. A los otros les amenazaron y dijeron que si hacían ruido
o hablaban, ya sabían lo que les iba a pasar. Insistieron en que teníamos que
irnos. Luego de eso pasaron a las otras comunidades, diciendo lo mismo: que
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teníamos que irnos y que teníamos plazo de 3 horas, en algunos casos y en otros
dos días. Mientras que el grupo de los paramilitares que portaban armas de corto
y largo alcance, estuvieron en la comunidad de Vijao, otros paramilitares estaban
en la comunidad de Salaquí. Al mismo tiempo hubo tres días de bombardeos
en contra nuestra por parte de aviones y helicópteros del ejército colombiano.
Ante eso no nos quedó otro camino que obedecer. Y fue así que cerca de veinte
mil personas, de las cuales 90 de cada cien somos negros nos vimos obligadas a
salir de nuestras tierras con lo que teníamos puesto dejando abandonado nuestro
trabajo de años y años, nuestras cosechas, nuestras casas, nuestras propiedades.
El grupo más grande fue hacia Pavarandó donde el ejército les impidió el paso
obligándolos a permanecer en campamentos en condiciones infrahumanas, otros
hermanos salieron hacia Panamá donde el ejército panameño los obligó a permanecer
en campos en los que los obligaron a trabajar durante varios meses
hasta que por acuerdo entre los gobiernos panameño y colombiano fueron ilegalmente
deportados siendo ubicados en la Hacienda “El Cacique” de Bahía
Cupica, punto alejado en la Costa Pacífica donde permanecieron durante 43 meses;
otro grupo salió hacia Quibdo, capital del departamento del Chocó y un
grupo salimos hacia Turbo y Bocas del Atrato. En el puerto nos esperaba la policía
y nos llevó al coliseo municipal. Allí vivimos con mucho temor la mayoría,
otros se fueron a vivir a barrios donde tenían familias o amigos. La vida que
allí llevábamos era de hacinamiento. Al comienzo, 550 personas dormíamos en
el piso de una cancha de basketball. En la segunda semana de marzo ya éramos
1200, no teníamos agua ni ningún otro servicio. No había un lugar para hacer
nuestras necesidades, nos tocaba en cualquier pedazo de tierra. Nos tocaba estar
encerrados como un pájaro en jaula sin poder ir a ningún lugar. No teníamos
vida intima. En los barrios nos cortaban la luz y el agua, debíamos soportar rechazo
y veíamos a los que nos desplazaron en las calles, armados, cerca de
nuestros albergues; sentíamos miedo y humillación. Nuestros hijos no podían ir
a la escuela. Empezamos a sufrir enfermedades que nunca antes habíamos sufrido.
Huellas de espanto y temor que empezaron a crecer en nuestros cuerpos y en
los de nuestros hijos.
Nuestra vida porque nos hicieron abandonar nuestras tierras, nuestras pertene ncias
y nos obligaron a ir a tierras a las que no estamos acostumbrados. Porque
para nosotros, la ciudad no es adecuada, lo que sabemos es trabajar la tierra lo
que para nosotros es un gran orgullo, lo que aprendemos desde pequeños, es
nuestra cultura ancestral. Allí empezamos a sentir la discriminación. Porque
muchas personas nos trataron mal, nos negreaban, decían: Ah, estos negros, qué
vinieron a hacer aquí, que se larguen de aquí! Vinieron para traer la pobrecia
(pobreza) a este pueblo! Nos echaron la culpa de todo! Que si les dolía la cabeza,
era el dolor de cabeza de los desplazados, que si se perdía algo éramos los
desplazados los que robábamos. En fin de todo lo malo nos echaban la culpa.
Nos trataban de mugrosos (sucios), para muchos habitantes de Turbo éramos las
peores personas. Nos relacionábamos más con nuestros hermanos negros que
vivían en los barrios de Turbo. Había algunos que nos ayudaban, otros que nos
odiaban.
Nosotros al ver eso, nos sentíamos mal. Rogábamos a Dios poder regresar a
nuestras tierras, rápido, empezamos a reunirnos para tratar de entender lo que
nos estaba pasando y ver que podíamos hacer para no seguir en esa situación y
nos enteramos de que días antes de haber sido desplazados de nuestra tierra, el
entonces presidente Ernesto Samper había anunciado la construcción del canal
interoceánico Atrato- Truandó en nuestras tierras y nos dimos cuenta tam-
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ién que la operación militar-paramilitar que nos desplazó era una Operación de
la Brigada XVII del Ejército Nacional bautizada como “Operación Génesis”.
Decidimos entonces no dispersarnos, seguir juntos y negociar con el gobierno
nuestro retorno digno. Si el fue el causante de nuestro desplazamiento era a el a
quien debíamos exigirle garantías para nuestro retorno.
Elaboramos un pliego de exigencias que contiene cinco puntos: 1. Titulación de
tierras, 2. Asentamientos, 3. Protección, 4. Reparación moral y 5. Desarrollo
comunitario. Duramos un año en elaborar ese pliego. Buscamos citas con el gobierno,
pero no fue fácil conseguirlas. Por medio de una comisión de obispos
que fue a visitarnos, por fin logramos acordar una cita con el presidente de Colombia,
en ese entonces Ernesto Samper Pizano. A el le entregamos el pliego de
peticiones y también los nombres de las más de 70 víctimas, asesinados y desaparecidos,
que teníamos, en ese momento, en nuestras Comunidades durante el
desplazamiento y le pedimos Justicia para que nunca más estos hechos volvieran
a ocurrir.
En estos más de cuatro años de desplazamiento a pesar de que el gobierno solo
ha cumplido minimamente los acuerdos, hemos logrado algunas cosas importantes:
una es nuestro retorno, hoy amenazado por la presencia en nuestras tierras
de los mismos que hace más de cuatro años nos desplazaron, la otra es el
título colectivo que nos reconoce la propiedad sobre 103.024 hectáreas de tierra
aunque varias cosas nos impiden disfrutar plenamente de esta tierra, la presencia
de nuestros desplazadores es una de ellas, pero, además, empresas como
Maderas del Darién, de capital trasnacional, aprovechó nuestro desplazamiento
para robar nuestra mayor riqueza: los árboles de Cativo. Y siguen tumbando selva
sin hacer nada para reparar el daño que hacen a la naturaleza sobre todo teniendo
en cuenta que el Chocó por ser una de las más húmedas selvas del mundo
es también una de las de mayor biodiversidad y de enorme importancia para
la producción del oxígeno que tanto necesita nuestro planeta.
Y ahora nos vienen con un proyecto que pretende llevarse toda la vegetación de
las orillas de nuestros ríos, según parece para hacer papel. Si. Están decididos a
destruir la selva y con ella las posibilidades de vida futura en nuestro planeta.
A esto debemos sumar el proyecto que ahora impulsan nuestros desplazadores:
sembrar coca y palma africana fue la orden que nos dieron cuando el pasado 9 y
10 de junio incursionaron nuevamente en nuestro territorio. Igual que en el 96 y
97 soldados del ejército colombiano revueltos con civiles armados, los mismos
de entonces decididos a convertirnos en cómplices de su proyectos de destrucción
de la selva, para después, cuando ya no les seamos útiles, volver a desplazarnos.
Ese es su plan. Contra eso nos enfrentamos y por eso nos vemos obligados
a vivir no ya en las 23 comunidades en que vivíamos antes del desplazamiento
sino en dos pequeños asentamientos: “Nueva Vida” y “Esperanza en
Dios” que ahora nos vemos obligados a enmallar ante la amenaza de nuevos crímenes
y acciones en nuestra contra.
A esos dos asentamientos retornamos 1300 personas. El último grupo lo hizo en
febrero del 2001. Conscientes de que nuestro retorno se ha dado en medio de la
guerra, junto con nuestro pliego de exigencias al gobierno elaboramos un Proyecto
de Vida y unas normas que nos permitan protegernos y avanzar en la reconstrucción
de nuestras vidas, de nuestra economía, de nuestros sueños. Tenemos
cinco principios: verdad, libertad, justicia, solidaridad y fraternidad que son
los que nos permiten vivir juntos negros, indígenas, mestizos sin permitir que
entre nosotros surja discriminación alguna y haciendo posible una convivencia
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pacífica tanto entre nosotros como con la madre naturaleza. El tener un Proyecto
de Vida común y unos principios está la base fundamental de nuestra resistencia.
En este momento, después de la nueva incursión militar-paramilitar vivimos con
mucho temor, no nos atrevemos a salir de los asentamientos a cosechar si no es
con presencia de acompañantes internacionales o de la iglesia, vivimos muy
tensos, incluso ya se murió una señora que no aguantó el susto de esta nueva
agresión. Hay muchos niños que son muy tristes, no quieren salir de las casas,
no quieren comer, dicen que nos van a matar. Mucha gente nuestra se siente
muy enferma, dice que la situación que vivimos, es casi la misma como en el
momento cuando nos obligaron a abandonar nuestras tierras. Seguimos muy
tensos porque los paramilitares están en la zona, en nuestras tierras, porque esta
zona es de propiedad colectiva de la comunidad del Cacarica. Están a tres horas
a pie de uno de nuestros asentamientos, lo que nos preocupa mucho y nos mantiene
en permanente alerta sin poder dormir tranquilos, esperando siempre que
lleguen a nuestras casas a asesinarnos, a amenazarnos, a desplazarnos nuevamente.
Pero seguimos firmes, decididos a defender lo construido en los meses
que llevamos desde que retornamos, a seguir construyendo nuestra opción civil
en medio de la guerra, a seguir construyendo nuestro Proyecto de Vida.
Mil quinientos diecisiete fue el año en que se oficializó la trata y esclavitud de
la población negra en América. Desde Africa millones de hombres y mujeres
fueron llevados a trabajar en las minas, las haciendas, la navegación. A reemplazar
en las más duras labores a los indígenas nativos que morían a miles bajo
el peso de enfermedades y víctimas del abuso de los colonizadores europeos en
extenuantes jornadas dirigidas a garantizar el poderío y la riqueza de España,
Europa y más tarde Norteamérica. El oro, la plata, las especies nativas, gracias
al trabajo de los esclavos negros y a la explotación de los indígenas, produjeron
la riqueza que hoy ostentan quienes pretenden imponer al mundo, como hace
más de quinientos años, un modelo económico sustentado en la exclusión para
las mayorías y el disfrute para unos pocos.
Hoy todo los negros pobres del Choco y de Colombia, los campesinos, los indígenas,
los desempleados, los habitantes de la calle somos víctimas de una polít ica
semejante, por que la guerra que vive nuestro país es una guerra de los ricos
contra los pobres, contra nuestras formas de organización, contra nuestra posib ilidad
de existir, de decidir nosotros mismos lo que queremos ser y hacer, una
guerra para imponer un modelo económico inhumano.
Nos quitan el derecho de ser parte de la sociedad. Como somos campesinos
negros y pobres piensan que no tenemos ni los más mínimos derechos. Por
ejemplo no tenemos el derecho de ser libres, nos desplazan, nos privan de la
libertad, el derecho de vivir en nuestra tierra, el derecho de dar estudio, salud,
vivienda a nuestros hijos, nos quitan el derecho a la convivencia pacifica, nos
persiguen, nos asesinan, nos obligan a abandonar la tierra con toda nuestras
pertenencias e irnos a otros sitios como la ciudad a sufrir el rechazo.
Es que en Colombia, de cada 100 habitantes 26 somos negros, es decir unos 10
y medio millones de personas de las cuales 80 de cada cien vivimos con necesidades
básicas insatisfechas y en condiciones de extrema pobreza, siendo los
municipios donde vivimos los que tienen más bajas condiciones de vida; en promedio
la población afrocolombiana tiene un ingreso anual de 500 a 600 dólares
mientras que el promedio nacional es de 1.500 dóla res y la esperanza de vida de
la población negra es de un 30 por ciento por debajo del promedio nacional. El
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analfabetismo entre la población negra es del 43% en las zonas rurales; solo dos
de cada cien jóvenes negros tienen acceso a la Universidad; enfermedades como
la enfermedad diarréica aguda, la infección respiratoria aguda y la tuberculosis
producen una elevada tasa de mortalidad infantil superior en un 50 por ciento al
promedio nacional.
Gracias a la organización comunitaria impulsada por muchos líderes de las comunidades
negras logramos que la Constitución de 1991 nos reconociera el derecho
a la propiedad colectiva de la tierra, a la protección de nuestra identidad y
al reconocimiento de nuestros derechos como comunidades negras, después de
150 años de haber sido abolida en nuestro país la esclavitud y de padecer, pese a
ello el desconocimiento de todos nuestros derechos.
Los negros en Colombia hemos cultivado la selva, hemos cuidado los ríos y los
mares, hemos desarrollado formas de vida acordes con nuestras tradiciones, con
la memoria de nuestros ancestros africanos que nos ha sido transmitida de generación
en generación y que hemos enriquecido con los aportes de los indígenas
y mestizos. Hemos hecho importantes aportes a la cultura y, retomando la tradición
histórica de nuestros antepasados que, 500 años atrás, impulsaron constantes
rebeliones y conformaron los llamados palenques como espacios de resistencia
frente a la esclavitud, levantamos hoy proyectos de vida digna frente a los
planes impulsados por el gran capital nacional e internacional cuyo único interés
es aumentar sus ganancias sin importar que para garantizarlas se ponga en
juego la vida misma del planeta.
Pero para que esos Proyectos de Vida permanezcan, para que no sean acallados,
destruidos, hace falta el apoyo solidario de todos los millones de hombres y mujeres
negras, indígenas, mestizas, blancas, amarillas, que desde incontables lugares
del globo intentan resistir frente al avance incontenible de un sistema económico
excluyente, capaz de destruir la vida en su ciego afán de mantener el
dominio de una minoría cuyo poderío exige que unamos fuerzas y encontremos
caminos que, por encima de fronteras y por encima de razas, nos permitan hacer
realidad nuestros sueños de Autodeterminación, Vida, Dignidad.
FACTS
•There are currently 1.5 million displaced persons in Columbia, one out
of every 40 Columbians.
•Afro-Colombians represent the majority of displaced person in Columbia
Afro-Colombians find themselves caught between the fighting of
guerilla groups and the paramilitary troops. Economic displacement of
Afro-Colombians is also taking place as developers exploit the land for
their biodiversity, minerals and oil.
•The United States fumigation campaign against narcotic traffickers also
causes suffering for Afro-Colombians as the fumigation contaminates
land, rivers and other water supplies used for farming by this
community.
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Griffiths Aaron Molefe gives voice to a long
life filled with racial discrimination and
its toll on him and his family.
SOUTH AFRICA
At the age of 84, having
worked for white farmers
his entire life, Griffiths
Aaron Molefe is a living
history of racism in South
Africa. Today, and for the
past four years, he has
lived in a small tent and
shack alongside a road
where he was dropped off
after being evicted by the
last farmer he worked for.
He has nothing to show for
his life of hard labor.
During Apartheid, he
moved from farm to farm
trying to keep his family, a
wife and ten children, together.
Finally, after moving
his family many
places, they settled and
worked on a farm for more
than 40 years. He was
paid very little and worked
very hard. He did not
question, simply worked and did as he was told, suffering indignation
and abuse along the way.
According to Griffiths, when Nelson Mandela was freed, the
abuse from white farmers intensified, and escalated even more
when Thabo Mbeki was elected President. When he buried a
daughter on the land in which they worked and lived at the time,
the farmer ordered him to exhume the body and bury it elsewhere.
The farmer’s children taunted his family with rocks and namecalling.
After 70 years of work and having lived long enough to see official
apartheid become a thing of the past, Mr. Molefe continues to
face the reality of racism in South Africa.
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The Voice of Griffiths Molefe
My shack is situated next to
the road, where the farmer threw my belongings. I am eighty-three years old
and had to erect a shack and tent given by the Department of Land Affairs to
make my home. This shack and small tent of about 2 by 2 meters have been my
home for the last four years.
I started working on a farm at Rietfontein 55, around 1925 at the age of seven.
In those years, all the family members were supposed to work for the same
farmer. I worked on the farm and was earning one-half pence per month. Every
time a farmer died, I was forced to move and get a new position. The
continuous movement with family and all was strenuous. I lost many of my
belongings in the move, and this was very disruptive of family. Yet I had to
accept that the only survival was through working for the white man. In this
time, it was worse for we could only depend on cash that was very little to
sustain a family. When this last farmer died, I moved back to the Potchefstroom
area.
I moved to the farm where I was working when I got evicted in 1998. It could
be that I moved to this farm around 1958, because at the time of eviction which
was four years ago, I had worked and lived on farms for 40 years. I was staying
on the farm with my wife and ten children. I was a herd man, looking after his
cattle. He allowed me to keep some limited livestock of my own.
Around 1999, I started having problems with the farmer. I had worked for him
for the last eighteen years, earning 50,000 Rand with no increase in salary. The
relationship with farmers has been that we never use to complain about wages.
If you complain he would either beat you, or dismiss you and kick you off of
the farm. Our relationship was such that you were to listen and do whatever the
white man tells you, without protest. So I could not complain about my salary,
or I could risk losing my job and only home I was given by the farmer.
When Mandela was released, the whites became wild. There use to be rumor
that we would be given farms. They became more abusive. The situation
escalated with the election of Thabo Mbeki as President. Minnie, the farmer,
from this time was more and more becoming abusive. His name-calling, like
bobejaan and kaffir became more frequent. I could not do anything because I
was on his land. I obviously know little about this.
My child died in 1999 and I buried her in the farm. She could not find work and
was living with me and her children. After my child was buried, the farmer
came to me and instructed me to exhume the body and go bury it in Mafikeng. I
was surprised at this and told him I do not know anyone there and that he could
exhume the body himself. We continued to have unnecessary arguments.
My stay at the farm became more and more unbearable. One night when we
were home sleeping, I heard some young whites next to my place. I knew and
could identify them to be the farmer’s children. They hurled stones into the
house breaking windowpanes and damaging some of my belongings in the
house. I reported this matter to the Potchefstroom Police Station, but the police
never came back to me on this case. The farmer tried to make my stay
unbearable in many ways. He even loosened roots of blue-gum plantation
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surrounding my house so that trees could fall on my house. The eviction was
preceded by a number of incidents, which are mentioned below.
The farmer took all my livestock and later denied it when I asked him. This
happened whilst I was away to receive my pension. I reported this matter to the
police and again the police did nothing to help me. I have since heard from
those who are assisting me that I owe the farmer 8,000 Rand. I do not know
how I got to owe him for at no stage was I asked anything in court about this.
One day, in my absence the farmer came with his friends and assaulted my
wife. Again, reporting to the police did not bring any results. As a result of the
harassment she has taken ill and has to attend medical treatment.
I was evicted from the house in 1998. I was never called to court at any stage to
defend myself, or to explain to the court on the case. When the eviction
happened it was carried out very rudely, and some of my belongings were left
on the farm. The police, the farmer and some six white men came to my place
and took my belongings and threw them next to the road where I erected a
shack, and asked Land Affairs to borrow a tent. I was afraid to go back to the
farm and take what was left in the house. The farmer burnt my house down. It
was a house I had built myself and I was living in this house.
I am told that my case was taken to a higher court and I am made to understand
that the court had said that I should be taken back to the farm. It has been four
years since I was evicted from the farm. We have been up and down and
nothing came out of it. There is a case coming up in August 2001, but I have
lost all confidence in the court of Potchefstroom. I think whites will always
decide against me.
It was common for whites to assault us. We had no course to complain because
we belonged to them. In any event the police would arrest anyone complaining
about assault by white man. The police arrest anyone who opposed such
treatment, and assault him or her further. The assaults were ‘lawful’ and we had
accepted this. I was beaten up with fists, and after the assault the white man
would pretend nothing had happened and expect me to continue working.
A farm worker has no private life. The farmers control their workers’ lives
completely and totally. They have the right to go into a home at night and
demand service. They could wake us up at any time. Even till today, my life
was completely under the control of the farmer. This is the reason why young
whites had no qualms to hurl stones at my place whilst I was sleeping, and did
not have problems of being identified. They knew that nothing would happen to
them even if I was to report the matter. The farmer determines who could visit
and who cannot.
I have lived through a number of periods on farms and many laws have changed
whilst I was in the service of farmers. I can say that the laws that deprived us of
land to cultivate, and from owning livestock made us poorer. Though I have
worked all my life on farms, I am homeless at present. The work on farms is
very heavy, a health hazard and there are no guarantees, which make workers
very vulnerable. From a tender age I had to carry very heavy stuff, the crop was
harvested with hands, and I have gone through the searing winters, working day
and night, weekday and weekends with no sick leave, no holiday and no rest.
In all this time, we never had access to schools for our children, no medical
facilities, no religious places, no cultural places, we only had work to do for the
white man. I use to borrow money from the farmer to take my children to the
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doctor. Sometime I would sell some of my livestock. Almost all my children
could not afford to go to school, except the young ones that came after I started
receiving old age pension.
I am staying with my grandson who cannot go to school because of money. His
parents cannot afford school fees. His mother also works on farms. After 1994,
a primary school was built on the neighboring farm, but the high school is not
available.
Though I worked for more that seventy years on farms, I still cannot afford a
house to live in, I am without land and a home. Even the little that I had in livestock
the farmer could take with impunity. Life on the farms is one in which
cruelty to farm workers has been bad. My experiences leading to four years on
the side of the road shows just how life is for farm workers. I worked hard to
make most farmers lead a better life; my life is a misery to the end.
Translated from Sepedi
FACTS
•Land ownership and development patterns still reflect the apartheid era.
Most black South Africans have only informal land rights, living on
land for many decades that they do not own. In most cases, they are on
the land with permission of the owner with informal occupation agreements.
•Most black South Africans remain vulnerable to eviction, or at best live
in a constant state of insecurity, unable to develop or improve their
homesteads without clear land rights.
•Despite efforts to reform eviction laws in 1997, high illiteracy rates on
farms meant that farm dwellers could not challenge eviction orders they
did not understand.
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Panelists Receiving Testimony of the
Voices Special Forum
Ms. Gay J. McDougall, Chair and co-sponsor of the Voices Special
Forum, Member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination, and Executive Director of the International Human
Rights Law Group.
Amb. Nozipho January-Bardill, co-sponsor of the Voices Special Forum,
South African Ambassador to Switzerland and Member of the United
Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Dr. Nyameko Barney Pityana, co-sponsor of the Voices Special Forum,
and Chair of the South African Human Rights Commission.
Ms. Pansey Tlakula, National Commissioner on Equal Opportunities and
Commissioner for the North West Province, South African Human
Rights Commission.
Ms. Charlotte Abaka, Chair of the United Nations Committee on the
Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.
Mr. Prafullachandra N. Bhagwati, Chair of the Regional Expert Seminar
(Bangkok) and Chair of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, United Nations Special Rapporteur on
Violence Against Women.
S.E.M. Leandro Despouy, Chair of the United Nations Commission on
Human Rights.
Professor Yash Ghai, Human Rights Program, Hong Kong University.
Mr. Maurice Glele -Ahanhanzo, United Nations Special Rapporteur on
Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and
Related Intolerance.
Mr. Danny Glover, United Nations Development Programme Goodwill
Ambassador, Activist and Actor.
Mr. Rajsoomer Lallah, Member of the United Nations Human Rights
Committee.
Ms. Awa N’deye Ouedraogo, Member of the United Nations Committee
on the Rights of the Child.
Mr. Paulo Sergio Pinhiero, Member of the United Nations Sub-
Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and United
Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar.
Ms. Gabriela Rodriguez Pizarro, United Nations Special Rapporteur on
the Human Rights of Migrants.
Mr. Michael E. Sherifis, Chair of the United Nations Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
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