Tactical Notebooks, media

Together We Are Stronger

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:19 -0500

Together we are Stronger

By Erika Bocanegra, Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos, Perú
Download full notebook in English and Spanish below.

Peru’s Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos (National Coordinator for Human Rights, CNDDHH) is globally recognized as one of the most successful and effective coalitions in the world. We always talk about the importance of bringing ourselves together in order to have more strength and greater impact, but few have been able to achieve this as successfully as the Coordinadora.

Unfortunately, the global experience of the human rights movement is filled with coalitions that have failed as a result of division as well as lack of advocacy. This notebook analyzes the characteristics of a strong coalition and shows how to successfully fight against an authoritarian government, like that of Fujimori in Peru the 1990s.

The Coordinadora is a coalition of 63 human rights organizations in Peru. Founded in 1985, it has survived by its ability to join together and adapt itself to the changing political environment. The Coordinadora is composed of diverse organizations–urban and rural, Catholic and Evangelical church groups, national and regional focuses, among others. This broad variety in institutional profiles has legitimized CNDDHH at both the national and international level.

Among the strengths that have made the Coordinadora a significant reference point for the defense and promotion of human rights in Peru, and throughout the Americas, is the ability to make innovative political decisions while maintaining its unity, adhering to principles that guide their actions and utilizing mechanisms to find agreement about priorities in order to act with coordination because "together we are stronger."

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The Dilemma Demonstration

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:17 -0500

The Dilemma Demonstration

by Philippe Duhamel

Download full notebook in English and Russian and a brief summary in Armenian below.

In this notebook you learn how Operation SalAMI created a situation that placed the Canadian government in a real dilemma regarding their position and actions in the negotiation process of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). When the government refused to make public the draft documents, hundreds of its citizens showed up at the Ottawa headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade holding "Search and Rescue Warrants" for the release of these draft documents. When the government responded by arresting one hundred citizens for requesting their right to information, the media and general public demanded to know what the government was trying to hide. Behind the success of the campaign was a strategy that included a number of common tactics, including petitions, letter writing, etc., but with the added twists of an unequivocal ultimatum, civil disobedience training on the premises of the Canadian parliament and the drama of the Search and Seizure Operation, a type of nonviolent direct action. Operation SalAMI’s dilemma demonstration tactic, as part of a broader nonviolent campaigning strategy, pressured the government to act according to its professed values and at the requests of its citizens.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Public Audiences

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:11 -0500

Public Audiences: Creating Space to Recognize Victims of Internal Conflict in Peru

By Sofia Macher, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Peru

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The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Peru is one of the most recent experiences of processes of transitional justice, institutionalized with the aim of exploring the truth hidden behind a past characterized by massive abuse of human rights. One of the central activities in this process is the Public Audiences, created with the aim of legitimizing and dignifying the personal experiences of the victims in order to support the therapeutic and recuperative work on their behalf.

The TRC was created by the President of the transitional government in June of 2001. It was made up of 12 commission members, all Peruvians, and duration of two years. It did not count on jurisdictional powers: its mandate was to document the grave violations of human rights committed during the twenty years (1980-2000) of the internal armed conflict. However, the Public Audiences were formal sessions in which a victim or family member of a victim would give an account of what had happened before a group of people that had the ethical authority stemming from the State to listen and express their solidarity and acknowledgement. Unlike other Truth Commissions, the purpose of these sessions was not for investigation, but instead an audience for the restitution of rights, of citizenship, and of dignity for the victim, an audience to listen in respectful silence, lending ears to and giving voice to those who had never before been given such things. All these people were assaulted by the State that had the obligation to protect them, and were later rejected by society. Many of them were displaced to other areas, condemned to fear, to silence that broke with the social support of their own communities. The Public Audiences are, so to speak, a step towards the restitution of this so necessary support. But the audiences also had an effect on society itself. Knowing a personal history, one that is parallel to the official history -- that until that moment everyone had believed and known -- had a much greater impact than the Commission’s final report could have ever had. Having heard hundreds of testimonies from different areas of the country, it put on the table the horror to which no Peruvian could feel unconnected.

This notebook shares the way in which the TRC in Peru implemented its Public Audiences in order to dignify the victims, contributing to the general recuperation of society. Certainly there are similarities with other processes and experiences (South Africa or Nigeria, for example), but there are also new aspects that are important since a new format was created that permitted Peru to begin a process of laying the foundations to generate change in the interior of the State, and also in society itself. The lessons of this experience can be useful for any focused process, more so in reconstructing the psychosocial fabric of the people and the victimized society, than in blaming the perpetrators. It is also helpful here to emphasize the effort of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) to support these learning processes.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Plan B

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:09 -0500

Plan B

By Zorana Smiljanic

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The Otpor! Student movement in Serbia is an example of an organization that used a strategy of continuously innovating and combining tactics in order to break down the fear of its people to speak out against the government. Because of this, they were able to build a broad constituency of support. They mobilized a disenfranchised population, used mass demonstrations and creative nonviolence, and leveraged international support to help bring down a dictator.

This notebook focuses on "Plan B," a tactic to ensure the safety of volunteers and overcome their fear to participate in actions. This tactic turned one of the regime’s strengths against it. When Serb authorities began arresting demonstrators, Otpor!’s support base could have disintegrated out of fear. But Plan B – organizing secondary demonstrations outside police stations where demonstrators were being held – allowed people to overcome their fear of participation and keep activists involved, especially at a crucial point in their struggle.

People in many countries must be concerned about and ensured some degree of safety if they are to participant and must be able to overcome the fear of speaking out or of participating in order to ultimately overcome a repressive regime. Otpor!’s experience allows us to learn about one tactic used to do just that–ensure a degree of safety and overcome fears to participation.In the year 2000, after a decade of horrible wars and internal repression in the former Yugoslavia, the international community was tearing its hair out trying to figure out how to get rid of Slobodan Milosevic. Negotiation, sanctions, and bombing all appeared only to have tightened his hold on power. But inside Serbia, change was brewing. Ten years of war, poverty and isolation had left a generation of young people feeling like they had no future if things continued as they were. They were fed up. And they had nothing, really, to lose. The courageous students of Otpor! ("Resistance!" in Serbo-Croatian) helped turn these sentiments into a powerful national movement. They rallied resources from abroad, including funding, training and manuals, and – just as importantly – drew on the extensive reserves of energy and creativity of the young people of Serbia.

In September and October 2000, much to the world’s surprise, the Serbian people first defeated Milosevic at the polls, and then took to the streets in a nonviolent revolution to force him from power. Otpor! built a national campaign throughout the country, holding hundreds of events, putting up thousands of posters, distributing millions of leaflets. While they did this, they faced a relentless response from the state, including over 2000 arrests of activists. How did they manage to build a movement against such a powerful regime? This notebook focuses on one of Otpor!’s tactics for maintaining momentum and supporting activists in the face of arrests: "Plan B." Plan B is conceptually simple: whenever the police arrested activists in their demonstrations, Otpor! would instantaneously launch a second operation, mobilizing more people to show up at the police stations and protest the arrest. The events at the police station became media showpieces, calling attention to the injustice of the arrests and the illegitimacy of the regime. They also provided moral support and encouragement to the arrested activists, turning them into local and national heroes, rather than forgotten victims. Otpor! thus turned the regime’s policy of arrests to its own advantage and continued to build a movement.

Police arrests of nonviolent activists, and repression in general, are seldom if ever accidental state strategies. Their objective is to deliberately weaken, frighten and disempower resistance. And it often works. Getting arrested is a frightening, isolating and traumatic experience. If a regime uses such psychological tools strategically, it can often cripple the growth of opposition movements. Repression is thus a common state tool of political-psychological warfare. It is our hope that Otpor!’s success in turning this on its head will provide both lessons and inspiration for other activists around the world. Zorana Smiljanic was one of Otpor!’s student organizers. She lived through the arrest process herself, and she helped Otpor! mobilize Plan B for many other activists. Since the overthrow of Milosevic, she works as a National Democratic Institute (NDI) Regional Trainer. She works with political activists around Serbia and abroad teaching techniques for managing political campaigns.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

International Monitoring Bodies

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:05 -0500

International Monitoring Bodies

by Paul Mageean

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In this notebook, we discover how the Committee on the Administration of Justice succeeded in raising the issue of human rights abuses in Northern Ireland at the international level and, by doing so, brought about significant improvements in human rights conditions. This was accomplished through CAJ’s utilisation of the Committee Against Torture–one of the mechanisms available through the United Nations for monitoring governments that have signed international conventions. In order to use these international mechanisms effectively, a number of supporting tactics were necessary, including writing submissions to the Committee, lobbying in Geneva and monitoring the implementation and impact that the reports and recommendations of Committee Against Torture have had on Northern Ireland in terms of actually improving the human rights situation on the ground. International mechanisms can be a powerful and effective tool for human rights organisations to leverage for change, especially when they have encountered significant obstacles and opposition at the local and national level.

There has been a violent political conflict in Northern Ireland since 1969. The conflict involves three sets of protagonists: the Irish Republican Army and other republican groups that want Northern Ireland to unite with the rest of Ireland; loyalist groups that want Northern Ireland to remain within the UK; and the state. From the beginning of the conflict the forces of the state have been involved in human rights abuses. A key aspect of the human rights abuse has involved allegations of ill-treatment of those in custody. This notebook will outline how the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) was able to successfully utilise the United Nations Committee Against Torture to pressure the UK not only to address the allegations of ill-treatment of those in custody but also to establish mechanisms and standards ensuring protection for the accused and accountability of state actors.

The Committee on the Administration of Justice, the foremost human rights organisation operating in Northern Ireland, had long been concerned with the rights of those in detention. Concerns about the use and abuse of emergency law gave rise to our establishment in 1981. We had devised a set of recommendations to guarantee the rights of those arrested by the police and particularly those held in the detention centres. These proposals included suggestions that interviews be recorded electronically, that lawyers be permitted to be present during the interviews, that there be an independent system of monitoring the detention process, that those detained be brought before a judge or released after a shorter period than seven days and that there be independent investigation of complaints of ill-treatment. These proposals were strongly resisted by the government and the police, who maintained that the exceptional powers granted by the emergency legislation were necessary to deal effectively with those suspected of paramilitary activity. Both the government and police denied that any abuse was taking place even though those who alleged ill-treatment and were released without charge by the police often successfully sued for damages. In addition, it was difficult to get media coverage of the issue because at the height of the conflict much of the media was reluctant to give extensive coverage to allegations of this nature.

We needed to devise a response to this problem that would be effective in terms of improving the situation of those arrested under the emergency laws but would also trigger such a significant news story that the media could not avoid covering it. It became increasingly clear that this response could not be generated internally in Northern Ireland. Although we were still a relatively young NGO (having hired our first staff members in 1985), we had begun to think in terms of the boomerang theory. We were therefore increasingly alive to the possibility of exposing what was going on in the detention centres before an international audience to shed light on the situation from outside the country, which would demand accountability and a response from the government. It was clear to us that, on our own, we were not going to achieve our goal of ending the ill-treatment. We were not able to cultivate media interest in the issue–certainly not in Britain, where the key policy-makers were based. It was also the case that many simply disbelieved what we were saying. It is, of course, often the case that in a society in conflict human rights activists are disbelieved and dismissed as being partisan.

This was a phenomenon not exclusive to Northern Ireland, but it did create problems for the credibility of what we were alleging and weakened our chances of creating the necessary momentum to improve the situation. We therefore needed to find a tactic that would address these weaknesses by raising the profile of the issue both internationally and domestically, also lending credibility to what we, as a small NGO in Northern Ireland, were saying. We were fortunate to have a number of academic lawyers familiar with United Nations mechanisms on our executive committee. One of them suggested the use of the Committee Against Torture or CAT (referred to as "the Committee" for the remainder of this notebook). At this stage, we had not accessed any of the international mechanisms at the UN level designed to protect human rights.

The UK signed the Convention Against Torture in 1985 and ratified it in 1988, becoming thereafter subject to the reporting procedures of the Committee Against Torture. Essentially, this meant that the UK had to report periodically to the Committee about the extent to which the Convention was being respected in the UK. The UK must submit each report in written form to the Committee, which then holds a hearing on matters addressed in the report and questions UK representatives. The hearings take place in Geneva. Generally the Committee runs on a three-year cycle, but fortuitously for us, the UK was to be examined by the Committee for the first time in 1991. We consulted with our colleagues in international NGOs to assist us in using this UN mechanism when the UK had to appear before the Committee. We have subsequently been able to utilise such UN mechanisms with increasing success and the Committee Against Torture has been particularly instrumental in pressuring the state to implement actions long-recommended by CAJ.

These examinations by the Committee would have occurred with or without interventions from us. However, the Committee, like other UN human rights mechanisms, tends to rely on NGOs and others to provide it with credible information on which to base its questioning of the country involved. The previous recommendations from the Committee tend to set the parameters for each subsequent examination, so it was important for us to persuade the Committee to pay attention to the issues we wanted highlighted. This was particularly the case in 1991, as it was the first time that the UK had been examined. Increasingly, and certainly in 1998, the Committee would start the session by asking for information on what the state had done to meet the concerns highlighted by the Committee on the previous occasion. The UK has not been examined since 1998, although we anticipate an examination will be forthcoming again in the near future.

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Engaging the Media: Building support for minimum wage reform

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:01 -0500

by Jee Hyeon Kim, Korean Women Workers Associations United (KWWAU)

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The KWWAU and its partners effectively engaged media to raise public awareness and concern regarding the minimum wage system, thereby assisting in the creation of a social movement that has succeeded in changing the minimum wage law to afford greater protections for workers, especially for women.

This tactical notebook shares the efforts of Korean Women Workers Associations United (KWWAU) to engage the South Korean media to build public awareness about South Korea’s unjust minimum wage system. As you will see, this was one of many coordinated tactics employed in their campaign to change the minimum wage law and system in order to provide living wages to the most vulnerable workers.

Successful engagement of the media most often requires many other supporting tactics. KWWAU shares the approaches they found were most helpful in engaging the media: credible documentation of the problem, petitions to demonstrate public interest in the issue, and visually engaging performances and demonstrations that are easily captured by the media. With media interest, our campaign was able to expand, bring in new supporters, and provide us with leverage in our negotiation and lobbying efforts.

In the aftermath of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) crisis in 1997 there was a swift increase in the numbers of poor workers in South Korea and the minimum wage re-emerged as a social issue. The greatest victims of globalization in South Korea were women, like other countries funded by the IMF, many Korean workers were laid off and transformed into irregular workers.

Prior to the use of this tactic, the KWWAU was involved in organizing subcontract women workers to advocate for their rights. In the process of their labor organizing work with this segment of irregular workers in 2000, they discovered the problem of the minimum wage system. The low minimum wage had become an urgent problem, particularly among subcontract workers in South Korea. KWWAU determined they needed to work to raise the increment of the minimum wage so subcontract women workers would benefit. KWWAU began organizing nation-wide campaigns in nine cities, resulting in the first challenge to the Korean minimum wage system since its inception in 1988. Beginning in 2002, other organizations joined the KWWAU in advocating for improvements in the minimum wage system. A "minimum wage network" was established. The campaign expanded to other regions, focusing on raising the minimum wage and transforming the minimum wage system itself.

The KWWAU’s efforts have resulted in significant changes to the minimum wage law that improves working conditions for minimum wage earners. Their efforts have also transformed the annual decision of the Minimum Wage Council into an important social issue in South Korea. The KWWAU and its partners succeeded in raising public awareness and concern regarding the minimum wage system, and creating a social movement that has made it possible for many poor women to benefit from increasing minimum wages and greater protections.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

A Mock Tribunal to Advance Change

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:07:58 -0500

A Mock Tribunal to Advance Change

By Mufuliat Fijabi

Downlaod full notebook below.

In this notebook we learn about the creative and effective use of a mock tribunal to change public perceptions and beliefs regarding violations against women, and to change public policy and law. BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, in collaboration with CIRDDOC (Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre), highlighted violations of women’s rights in Nigeria that were viewed by the public as normal or even justifiable abuse. The organization used prominent people–a Nigerian Supreme Court justice, a member of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW) committee in Nigeria, lawyers, and representatives from the National Human Rights Commission–to create a high powered panel of "judges" to draw media attention and hear testimonies by women from many areas of Nigeria. The judges were selected based on their prominence and their concern for women’s rights. The tribunal’s recommendations was instrumental, at both local and national levels, in subsequent attempts to advocate for new laws and for reforms of existing laws related to violence against women. This tactic may provide each of us with ideas for addressing public perceptions and misunderstandings regarding other disadvantaged or abused populations.

On March 14, 2001 the Nigerian public, media, and government witnessed something that had never happened before. In a "mock tribunal" in Abuja, the federal capital of Nigeria, 33 women and girls told a distinguished panel of judges their individual stories of violent victimization. The event attracted ample media coverage and an audience of from 150 to 500 people over the course of the day. It was the first major organized attempt in the country to break the public silence on violence against women. As each woman finished her testimony–or the testimony of her sisters, for the woman who did not survive–the audience was often in tears. At the end the panel of judges retired to deliberate, and returned with a powerful set of recommendations for significant policy changes to protect Nigerian women from violence and human rights abuse.

This mock tribunal was organized by BAOBAB For Women’s Human Rights and by the Civil Resource Development and Documentation Center (CIRDDOC). The idea developed after seeing the impact of tribunals like those in Vienna and Tokyo, and the worldwide attention they attracted. CIRDDOC had itself, in 1999, organized a mock tribunal in Anambra State in South East Nigeria, addressing human rights violations. This event attracted a strong public turnout, and began further discussions on human rights violations in general and those affecting women in particular. Since 1996, BAOBAB had been running workshops and producing radio programs to draw attention to violence against women, and working with women on ways to recognize violence and build defenses against it. Prior to this event, violence against women was given no serious attention in the press, in the halls of government, or in law enforcement. We felt that engaging prominent persons in such a high-profile event would facilitate policy changes. We organized this mock tribunal so that the general public would recognize violence against women and help stop it; so that law enforcement agents would recognize such violence, their own role in perpetuating it, and their responsibility in preventing it; so that the government would agree to play a more significant role in reducing the violence and make resources available to help care for victims; and also so that the government would provide resources to compensate and counsel survivors, helping them integrate back into their lives and communities.

We believe that the tribunal and its associated media workshops influenced the consciousness not only of the Nigerian public, but of bodies such as the National Assembly and the law enforcement agencies (police, army, customs, and the like). At the tribunal itself, legislators vowed to use all power within their reach to fight violence against women, and promised to play a significant role in ensuring that the bill on violence against women was passed into law. The tribunal attracted a great deal of media and public attention, which helped move the problem of violence against women onto the public agenda, opening the way for more effective application of other tactics such as public education and pressure. It also helped empower survivors and give them hope for the future.

Additional Resources:

The International Museum of Women has posted an article on BAOBAB for the March, 2008 focus of Women, Power and Politics! The story has inspired and attracted 1,000 visitors a day to read, comment and take action at www.imow.org.
The website of the International Museum of Women has a new online community allows both individuals and organizations to become a member and connect with like-minded women, men and organizations around the world.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.