Martha Thompson, UUSC program manager for human rights in emergencies and disasters, is currently visiting regions of Sri Lanka affected by the December 2004 tsunami.

In Massachusetts, you need to watch out for deer on the highway at dusk; in southern Sri Lanka, it’s elephants. As we drove down to Panama in southern Ampara last night, we ran into a line of cars backing up from an elephant who had taken over the road and was not giving way.

Our first impulse was to get out and see it, but Nalaka, a social researcher from our program partner Sewalanka, looked horrified. "No," he said. "Wild elephants kill people, you mustn't go near them!"

The elephant incident stayed in my mind, as we work on unraveling the complexities here to understand what lies behind the confluence of war and tsunami recovery in the tense eastern area of Sri Lanka. We have to change the lens through which we see things (elephants are cute versus elephants can kill) to understand the many tensions here between Muslims and Tamils, between the government and the insurgency, between Sinhala and Tamil, between war-displaced and tsunami-displaced.

We want to make sure that our support reaches all the different groups -- Muslim, Sinhala and Tamil -- who have been affected by the tsunami and who are working so hard to reconstruct their lives in the midst of conflict and tension. And we want to make sure that support will not exacerbate tensions.

Deciding which organizations UUSC will partner with under these conditions becomes very important. Sewalanka is our main partner here, and is one of the only Sri Lankan organizations that can work with all groups in the conflict. Sewalanka has worked in the east for eight years previous to the tsunami, particularly with the war-displaced, and have a historical perspective on the conflict in the area that gives us a wider lens to understand how assistance for the tsunami can or cannot exacerbate some of the tensions.

In our meeting yesterday, they continued to bring up the issue of the war-displaced who are crowded into temporary camps near the tsunami-displaced but receive much less aid. Our lens is focused on seeing only those affected by the tsunami. It is an “elephant moment” when we understand that those displaced by the war -- in limbo and in camps for 15 years -- may see those affected by the tsunami as essentially having more options and possibilities than themselves.

Sewalanka staff is concerned about the long-term effects of that tension. They want to develop more joint work with both groups to bring them together in training and leadership development, using tsunami aid to build bridges for the future.

With low expectations for a major new trade deal, the world's most influential economic policy makers have begun a ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization in Hong Kong.

All of us interested in the right to water should pay attention to the proceedings in Hong Kong as the delegates discuss a General Agreement on Trade and Services. If water is included as a service in such an agreement, it will become much more difficult for people anywhere to challenge water privatization agreements worked out by local, state or national governments.

Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based NGO, is providing excellent daily reports on events inside and outside of the meeting.

According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the world's only imprisoned Nobel peace laureate is about to be given her freedom.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been under detention, usually house arrest, for most of her days since 1990. After winning the democratic election in Burma in 1990 with 82 percent of the vote, the losing side -- the military regime -- consolidated power and tried to marginalize her.

A year later, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Her fame and courage quickly won her many supporters outside of Burma.

For years, UUSC has supported Suu Kyi and the work for democracy in Burma through advocacy work in Congress and with constituents. In 2005, more than 15 youth groups who visited UUSC prepared special birthday cards honoring Suu Kyi's 60th birthday that were presented to the Burmese embassy in Washington, D.C.

Shalini Nataraj, UUSC's former interim director of programs, visited Suu Kyi in Rangoon in 2000. At that time, Suu Kyi expressed her appreciation for the work of activists here in the United States. UUSC also supports the work of EarthRights International, a colleague organization that is documenting and seeking redress for human rights and environmental abuses in Burma.

The possible release of Suu Kyi comes shortly after a November decision by the Burmese government to extend her house arrest six months. Many immediately criticized the decision, including the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States.

Meanwhile, the military regime is solidifying its power with a new constitution. Aung San Suu Kyi's release will be great news, but only if her safety is guaranteed and travel and speech restrictions are not imposed. A generation has passed since her initial imprisonment, a generation of tyranny, with closed schools and repercussions for political activity. How Suu Kyi is allowed to continue her work will be the next test for the military regime.

UUSC Program Assistant Anna Bartlett is currently visiting partner organizations in Sri Lanka with Martha Thompson, program manager for human rights in emergencies and disasters.

In a little more than a week, we will reach the one-year anniversary of the South Asian tsunami. Its impact was so devastating that it killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced even more, ruined lives and livelihoods, destroyed infrastructure and local economies, and caused stress and trauma in nearly everyone it touched.

For the first weeks and months after the tsunami hit, news coverage was extensive, updating us on new casualty numbers and endeavors that were being undertaken to help alleviate the suffering. Since then, coverage of the situation on the ground has dropped off in the wake of other world events such as the war in Iraq or Hurricane Katrina.

Despite the recent lack of press coverage, the battle for reconstruction continues to be fought. Issues such as the right to return to land and home continue to be a source of conflict and stress so long as constructs continue to be enforced, such as a prescribed buffer zone that prohibits people from rebuilding anywhere between 65 to 200 meters from the coastline. Violence, domestic abuse, and an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness continue to be a pervasive element among those still living in camps for the internally displaced. It is a particularly harsh environment for women and children, and with so many people prohibited from returning to their land, many have no option but to stay in the camps, no matter the conditions.

Many of the initial scars that were left when the water receded have been covered up, but many more still remain. The question now becomes can life ever return to the way it was before December 26, 2004, and should it?

There have been a number of important articles during the last few days on the subject of torture. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, in his speech for International Human Rights Day, declared that torture is not an instrument for fighting terror, but rather is itself an instrument of terror. Meanwhile, British playwright Harold Pinter, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, has blasted U.S. torture practices.

In addition, British courts have ruled against the use of any confessions derived from torture as evidence. This is not to punish the interrogators who obtained the confession, but rather is based on the fact that people will say anything at all under torture, true or false. The information is thus totally unreliable. Our own courts of law held this to be true, until the recent case of Abu Ali, an U.S. citizen tortured in Saudi then turned over to the United States. His “confession” was allowed as evidence and he is facing many years in prison as a result.

Meanwhile, a particularly interesting article, "Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited is Tied to Coercion Claim" came out recently in the New York Times. The article states that a detainee named Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi had initially given good information, but that after he was sent to Egypt and tortured, he gave false information about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

If we look back to a number of earlier articles, it is clear that a major split between the FBI and the CIA began with the treatment of Mr. Libi. The FBI had used their time-tested methods, not torture, and felt that Mr. Libi was starting to cooperate. Hence the good information. Later, the CIA arrived, taped up the detainee, insulted and humiliated him and sent him to Egypt to be tortured. Hence the false information, which lead us to war in Iraq. If there was ever a case that proved the madness of torture, this is the one.

Doesn't the idea of a Human Rights Day mean something different when the U.S. Congress is debating whether or not habeas corpus applies to a whole class of people in detention? When we have a vice president who wants to make of the CIA a sanctuary for torture? As some of the most onerous aspects of the USA Patriot Act are extended as the law of this land?

One human rights activist is marching against torture on Human Rights Day. We should all be with her, regardless of where we are.

Why is there a "torture debate" on Human Rights Day? That debate is finally getting the attention it deserves from the best journalists of the political left. In this week's issue of The Nation, Naomi Klein offers an important reminder that the issue of torture did not emerge in the United States after the 9/11 attacks.

On this Human Rights Day (or any day that works for you), take a few minutes to let someone know what you think about torture and human rights. Attend a HRD event in your community, write a letter to the editor, or join activists from around the country in contacting Congress to influence the current discussion on torture.

The film Schindler's List brought to light the stories of non-Jews who made the decision to help Jews and others escape the Nazi terror during World War II. The Yad Vashem Memorial has honored more than 20,000 heroic people as Righteous Among the Nations. These are non-Jews who risked their own lives to help Jews escape the Holocaust.

As of January of this year, Yad Vashem had extended that recognition to 20,757 people. Exactly *one* of those is from the United States, a man named Varian Fry. Ponder with me the meaning of that number.

And then there were three . . .

This week, the Yad Vashem Memorial has announced that two more U.S. citizens will be named Righteous Among the Nations. They are Waitstill and Martha Sharp, two of the people who founded the Unitarian Service Committee (later UUSC). When the Sharps decided to go to Czechoslovakia in 1939, they lived in Wellesley, Mass. Waitstill was the minister of the Unitarian church of Wellesley Hills.

They left planning to go for short-term service, but ended up staying in Europe for most of the war. Yes, they did have a family and the Wellesley Hills congregation raised those children. During that time, the Sharps and their USC colleagues raised funds for relief work and, at great risk to themselves, helped many people escape the Nazis. They lived lives that deserve to be made into a movie (a Hollywood studio has expressed serious interest in the story).

More important, even a quick look at the lives of the Sharps and the others who gave life to the idea of a Unitarian Service Committee shows that they were quite human, with impressive strengths and notable weaknesses. What they had in common was a willingness to take considerable personal risk in order to make a difference on moral issues that mattered most in their time. They deserve to be called Righteous Among the Nations.

And who are the Righteous Among the Nations today? Right now, the four members of Christian Peacemakers Team being held by Iraqi insurgents come to mind. They went to Iraq on a risky mission of peace and now face death as casualties of the war they mean to stop. They are certainly righteous among today's nations and we must all appeal for their release.

And what about UUSC? Our own Atema Eclai and Charlie Clements recently returned from the borderlands between Chad and Darfur with a message that today's Righteous Among the Nations must come together to do something to end the genocide in Darfur. A straight line connects the example of Martha and Waitstill Sharp and the challenges facing us in Darfur and elsewhere.

So what does the debt of nations in the Global South have to do with how much money is left in the pockets of people who live in low-income communities of color in the United States?

Take the following quiz and find out!

The living wage movement gained momentum and even greater legitimacy on November 30 when the New Mexico Court of Appeals unanimously upheld Santa Fe's 2003 living wage ordinance ($8.50 per hour for workers in businesses of more than 25 people).

The Santa Fe Living Wage Network, a UUSC partner, is celebrating.

Living wage opponents have been banking on overturning local living wage ordinances in state courts, claiming there is no authority to make these laws at the local level.

In one of the first cases of its kind, the Court of Appeals ruled otherwise.

The city of Santa Fe is a "home rule municipality," meaning it is free to legislate on local matters so long as the state has not expressly ruled to the contrary.

The Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce and other plaintiffs argued that New Mexico's general Minimum Wage Act ($5.15 an hour) forbids creating any higher wage laws. But the court ruled that the state act simply creates a floor. Nor was it intended to be the final word on minimum wages. For one thing, it was passed at a time when other cities in New Mexico already had higher minimum wages, yet it did not nullify those laws.

This court victory sets a positive precendent for other innovative living wage movements currently underway, including Let Justice Roll, the nation's only coalition of interfaith activists and community groups (including UUSC) working specifically on living and minimum wage work.

Living wage initiatives and ordinances are achieving victories and resisting attacks through sustained efforts by faith-labor-community coalitions. "La Marcha," a film about the Santa Fe living wage campaign, highlights this strategy, and will be available from UUSC in early spring.

This week is going to be critical in the battle against U.S.-sponsored torture. We are continuing our daily vigil in front of the White House, one person standing silently in orange overalls and a black hood, while the other hands out leaflets and talks with the people walking through Lafayette Park.

In the past few weeks, we have become a fixture there with many people stopping to talk and express their concern, and others posing for photographs with us. Meanwhile, even as I write about our efforts, the McCain amendment against cruel and inhuman treatment is on its way to the House Senate Conference Committee, with Mr. Cheney fighting with all his might to have this language removed from the defense spending bill.

While we are in Lafayette Park, please keep all of your calls going to Congress. If you can, call every day this week and ask your friends to do the same.

Our experiences during the last few days have been heartening. As I stood there yesterday, in the overalls and hood, a large group of young people from the Dominican Republic came by to ask questions. They were in D.C. for a course on human rights at the Organization of American States and they were very happy with what we were doing.

After they left, a crowd of foreign journalists arrived. They had just been with Laura Bush to see the christmas tree and other holiday decorations at the White House. This year, the show is called “Pageant for Peace,” and the irony was not at all lost on them. Several journalists from Turkey and other areas interviewed and filmed us, leaving with a wink and a whispered “God Willing.”

After they left, a man rushed up to my side and shrieked, “I hope you get sent back to Iraq and I hope they put you in those overalls.” As I fumbled to take off the hood and look him in the eye, I asked him if he remembered what happened to my husband Everardo in Guatemala. He did not reply, but once I got the hood off, I could see that he was shaking from head to foot, not with rage but with unbearable pain. He was clearly on the verge of tears.

We stared at each other for a brief moment then he turned on his heel and ran from the square. What had caused such obvious trauma? Was he just back from Iraq himself? From his age and bearing, I suspect so. This left me with still another question: What on earth are we doing to our own sons and daughters?