PepsiCo shareholders to weigh profits, people, and the environment

More great news for the human rights to water! For the past few months, UUSC's Environmental Justice Program has been working with NorthStar Asset Management, a socially responsible wealth-management firm here in Boston, on a shareholder resolution that requires PepsiCo to adopt a human-right-to-water policy for all of their domestic and international operations.

To give some indication of the company’s overuse and abuse of water resources, PepsiCo uses 2.5 liters of water for every liter of soda that it produces. Given that PepsiCo sells around 36 billion liters of soda in an average year, this means the beverage giant consumes over 63 million gallons of water every day.

In 2003, PepsiCo’s license to operate in Puthussery, in Kerala State, India, was revoked after the local community charged that PepsiCo’s bottling operations were committing “water piracy” by depleting groundwater sources in the area. In 2004, the Supreme Court of India ruled that both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola must label all cans and bottles with a consumer warning after tests showed their products contained unacceptable levels of residual pesticides.

UUSC and NorthStar Asset Management have begun a dialogue with PepsiCo about adopting a human-right-to-water policy. We believe this is an important way for the company to show its commitment to respecting the human rights of people in the communities in which they operate and create a mechanism for monitoring the impact of its operations on access to water.

After PepsiCo refused to adopt such a policy, we decided to submit a resolution to PepsiCo shareholders so they could decide what good business practice is when it comes to water use. PepsiCo challenged this resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but UUSC and Northstar prevailed. We will soon be presenting and speaking in support of this resolution at the PepsiCo annual shareholders meeting in Texas. (If you own stock in PepsiCo, you can vote your proxy in favor of our shareholder resolution.)

This does not mean the resolution will be passed, but it does mean that thousands of PepsiCo shareholders will read about the human right to water when the resolution is proposed. They will begin to understand that investing in companies like PepsiCo that threaten people's access to safe, sufficient, and affordable water for daily needs will become increasingly contentious.

On Wednesday in Texas, we hope to show that respecting human rights is the right thing to do, and that good business practice can improve a company’s bottom line. There are strong arguments for a triple bottom line: profits, people, and the environment. If people feel good about your practices, they will feel good about consuming your products. For a beverage company like PepsiCo that relies on the same water resources as the communities around them, it would behoove them to ensure that they protect their most vital ingredient: water.

South Africans Win Landmark Victory for the Human Right to Water

I was up until midnight last night reading a landmark decision from the High Court of South Africa. The case, which our partner the Coalition Against Water Privatisation (CAWP) helped local residents bring to court, affirms water as a fundamental human rights that the South African government must respect, protect, and fulfill. I found the decision inspiring and hopeful at a time when human rights around the world are under threat.

In his decision, Judge Tsoka declared South Africa's prepaid-water-meter system to be unconstitutional because it denies residents access to water by physically shutting off supplies each month when a household’s free basic allotment runs out. He required Johannesburg Water, the municipal water utility, to increase the amount of free basic water per month to 50 liters per person per day, the amount set by the World Health Organization to be the minimum to live a life of dignity.

What I found amazing was that the judge took a further step than most other progressive South African judgments by saying that the human right to water does, indeed, include a “minimum core” responsibility to be met by the state. This idea of a “minimum core,” established in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, has been debated in South African courts. Previous opinions showed discomfort at setting a minimum standard that the state must meet because of a potential-lack-of-resources argument. But Judge Tsoka took a brave step forward by declaring that 25 liters per person per day was a national minimum, but 50 liters per person per day was required for a dignified life, another right in the South African constitution.

Law, and especially international human rights law, is built like a house. Each case is a brick that supports the overall structure and defines the various aspects of the legal framework. The South Africa water case will be a cornerstone in the development of the human right to water. It affirms that international human rights law can, indeed, have teeth. So far, as demonstrated in the South African High Court, it seems that human rights law is most effective when its principles are enshrined in national constitutions.

UUSC has partnered with CAWP for two years. We will continue to support their struggle to advance the rights of all South Africans to safe, sufficient, affordable, and accessible water. We are hopeful that this will be one of many more important victories won by our partners to promote and defend the human right to water.

To watch a UUSC video about the case, click here.

Mi Cometa Visit Connects Ecuadorian Struggle for Water Justice to Boston Struggle

The following post was written by Mary Mitchell, of All Soul's Church in Braintree, Mass.

In November 2007, the Social Action/Environmental Committee and the Religious Education Program at All Souls Church in Braintree, Mass., collaborated on the planning and presentation of a worship service highlighting UUSC’s Environmental Justice Program. It was organized as part of our Guest at Your Table fundraising campaign. In a segment of the service, one of our youth portrayed a 15-year-old boy from Guayaquil named Alexis. He explained how he had contracted hepatitis A from drinking contaminated water at his school, and how UUSC had worked with El Movimiento Mi Cometa (My Kite movement) to help Guayaquil residents take action to get the government to provide the expensive medicine he needed to treat his illness. We never imagined that people from Mi Cometa, who were directly involved in this social-justice action, would actually be our guests here at All Souls just a few months later! But that’s what happened.

On April 20, 2008, our church community welcomed representatives of El Movimiento Mi Cometa, a grassroots activist group and a UUSC program partner based in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Mi Cometa has been instrumental in upholding the constitutional and consumer rights of Ecuadorian citizens to sufficient, safe, affordable, and accessible water. Joining Mi Cometa’s founder, César Cárdenas Ramírez, were César Agosto Parada Campos, an attorney with the group, and Emily Joiner, author of Murky Waters: A Critical and Purposeful Look at Water and Sanitation Service in Guayaquil, Ecuador. UUSC was represented by Rebecca Brown, program associate in Environmental Justice.

During his visit, Cárdenas announced that Ecuador is in the process of rewriting its constitution and has adopted the position that access to water is a basic human right – and the delivery of water must be a function of government agencies, rather than private companies. The group shared stories about the problems that have resulted from the privatization of water and sewage services in Guayaquil.

Foremost is that the private company involved, InterAgua, a subsidiary of Bechtel Corporation, views water as a commodity from which they can make a profit, rather than as an element that is absolutely necessary for people to survive. Because of this perception, InterAgua has shut off water to thousands of citizens without regard to their age, health, or family situation. This forces them either to buy water from tankers that come through town or to beg for water from their neighbors. Cárdenas also cited inequities in billing practices. For instance, InterAgua bills citizens for estimated water use rather than for actual use and tacks on charges for sewage services for customers who did not actually have access to those services. He also cited instances of conflicts of interest and corruption.

Those of us who heard this presentation came to appreciate the importance of making water a substance that everyone has access to – not just those who can afford to buy it. We understand that this is important, not just to people in Ecuador or other developing countries, but in our own communities. Locally, UUSC’s Environmental Justice Program partners with Massachusetts Global Action and its The Color of Water campaign, which has found that in the city of Boston, the number of households that had their water cut off tripled since 2003. Imagine what the loss of running water could mean to a household with young children, or where there is illness. We hold those who are working for the human right to water in high regard and appreciate their efforts to make the world a better place for everyone.

Wage-theft Free: A Human-Rights-Centric Labeling Proposal

In the last few years, there have been lots of changes in the dairy and meat sections of my local grocery store. Now, I have the choice of buying “cage free” eggs, "cruelty-free" eggs, “free range” chickens, and “pastured" chicken. These new labels and products reflect the public’s growing concern and alarm over the deplorable living conditions of chickens in factory farms, the tiny wire cages, the lack of sunlight, the overuse of antibiotics, and even the debeaking of chickens as a way to prevent injuries from aggressive behavior.

After spending my lunch hour on Monday listening to Rachel Townsend of Northwest Arkansas Workers’ Justice Center (NWAWJC) talk about the working conditions inside poultry factories in northwest Arkansas, I’m starting to think that we need some more labels for these products. We need labels such as “wage-theft free,” “abuse-free workplace,” and “safe working conditions.”

The northwest corner of Arkansas is home to Tyson Foods, which is the largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork; the second-largest food-production company in the Fortune 500; and a member of the S&P 500. According to USA Today, Richard Bond, the Tyson Foods CEO, made $24.6 million in 2007. By contrast, the average Latina full-time poultry worker earns just $17,700 per year.

Townsend told us that after a worker was killed on the job at a construction site, the workers were given an ultimatum: sign a workers’ compensation-claim waiver or you don't get your paycheck. We heard about one man who refused to sign the waiver for three weeks, until he was told that he would be fired unless he signed. With three children at home to feed, he reluctantly signed the waiver. But only weeks later, while working on a faulty scaffolding rig in the plant, he fell and was paralyzed. Predictably, the company refused to compensate him for his on-the-job injury.

One in five workers in the poultry-processing industry is injured on the job. And because many are undocumented workers, they are hesitant to report abuses to authorities. They fear facing criminal charges on immigration violations and deportation. These threats are part of what fuels abuses in U.S. meat and poultry plants.

For three years now, UUSC’s Economic Justice Program has worked closely with NWAWJC, providing not just financial grants, but also strategic thinking and networking opportunities to help them expand their work. Townsend is also here in Massachusetts meeting with regional worker centers with organizing and movement building focuses to share best practices and develop ways to achieve safe working conditions.

In the meantime, I advocate a new human-rights-centric labeling system for meat and poultry products so that I can know as much about the degrading working conditions inside poultry-processing plants as I do about the living conditions facing factory-farmed chickens.

Winter Soldier 2008: The Human Cost of War

I watched a young man cry the other day. Tears streamed down his face as he described, in vivid detail, the atrocities he both witnessed and participated in, in Iraq. He, alongside other veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, was participating in a four-day conference called Winter Soldier.

The point of Winter Soldier, as I saw it, was two-fold. First, it provided a space for these damaged souls to raise their voices and build solidarity, while painting a picture of large-scale, systemic abuse within the military. Secondly, it aimed to grow the resistance movement within the military, a task that, after listening for four days, I realize is incredibly, painfully difficult.

I think about this today in the wake of Justice Sunday 2008, because, more and more, I am thinking about the value of life, the values of our society, and the moral questions this war raises.

This year, UUSC is asking UU congregations around the United States to examine the question: The Cost of Iraq: Who Pays the Price? I am finding, on close examination, that we are all paying the price, both economically and spiritually, for this ever-shifting mess we call the war in Iraq (part of the larger so-called Global War on Terror). Right now, if you examine the financial debt created by this war, there is no argument that, as a society, we will, indeed, pay an economic price for this war. Our kids, and our kids’ kids, will likely be saddled with the $3-5 trillion of debt created for this war.

But to me, far more distressing than this debt is the human toll of this war – the price that those waging this war, on the ground, are paying. After listening to four days of testimony, one thing is clear to me: when it comes to the war in Iraq, abuses within the military are not anomalous episodes that are limited to individual soldiers. They are the result of orders issued from the highest levels of our government.

Below are just a few of the snapshots from Winter Soldier, an event that should be examined by everyone who wants to understand the toll on humanity that this war is exacting.

*****

Dehumanization – Part 1
It was excruciating to hear soldiers’ first-hand experiences. More than once, I had to look down and focus inward, unable to listen to another story about death, destruction, or dehumanization alongside gross illustrations of ignorance and racism.

Take, for example, the way that four soldiers described in detail how they were forced to take pictures of the dead. Not pictures for documentation purposes or for keeping records of those killed in friendly fire, but what soldiers described repeatedly as “trophy photos,” photos of their “kills.” They described not only being congratulated on their first kills, but also being encouraged to photograph the dead, sometimes in front of community and family members, while other soldiers laughed, jeered, and, at times, mutilated the bodies.

When one soldier refused to take such a picture, he was hazed in a variety of cruel and dangerous ways – as punishment, he was given only a half-empty medical kit and not provided the gas mask that all other soldiers in his platoon carried.

Dehumanization – Part 2

There was the story of an 18-year-old soldier who signed up as a “foreign observer.” On September 11, 2001, from the small community he grew up in on Long Island, he had seen smoke rise from the twin towers. Angry, he made the choice to enlist, to fight for the things he held dear, his family, his town, New York, and America. But now, as I looked at him, he was something else entirely – deadened, quiet, pained. Testifying in front of cameras, he wished he could take that day back, that day of anger, when he chose war.

“I was a great soldier once upon a time,” he said. “But now I stand here doing more for my brothers than I ever did there.”

He told a story about pushing humanity’s limits, about dehumanizing the other, about the place that war can take us. Once, he saw a little boy on the side of the street holding up a small stick, as if to indicate a gun. The boy was about six years old, maybe playing at war the way many children do – a real life Iraqi version of cops and robbers, right there with an American soldier. But for the soldier, it was not a game. This soldier, the young man in front of me, told of his internal struggle not to shoot this boy, a six-year-old with nothing more than a stick in his hand. He was angry at this son of Iraq for things he had never done, for things he had nothing to do with.

When he told the audience of not shooting the boy, they stood up and clapped. How far has humanity gone when not shooting a six-year-old with a stick is something we can applaud?

That, in turn, made me cry.

*****

Abuses and the rules of engagement

Over four days, we saw other evidence of a disintegrating moral compass. Take the stories I heard about shovels, which are read by the U.S. military as indicators of Iraqi hostility. According to on-the-ground military protocol, an Iraqi who is simply walking on a road can’t be considered hostile simply by virtue of his or her existence. However, an Iraqi who is carrying a shovel on the road is an entirely different story. The argument is that shovels could be used to bury improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

That’s why, in testimony after testimony, soldiers described how they carried shovels with them, sometimes entire truckfulls. The shovels provided cover in cases where an Iraqi was accidentally killed. By placing one next to him or her, that Iraqi was transformed into a hostile combatant. If the soldiers felt remotely threatened, they knew they could act with impunity – as long as they had a shovel handy. It was that simple.

But, in a country desperately struggling to rebuild, shovels are often necessary. People need to rebuild their homes, their schools, their mosques – and they often have nothing more than the labor their bodies can generate. In a country where shovels are ubiquitous with the effort to rebuild, the idea that a shovel alone indicates hostile intent is more than ironic – it’s criminally absurd.

But what about helping?

Sometimes cruelty came in other forms. We heard testimony about humanitarian rations, which, according to the soldiers I listened to, they were told not to hand out. One soldier told a story of how he was specifically ordered to stop handing out humanitarian rations, and only carry them. At the end of his deployment, on his return to Kuwait, he still had the rations with him. His sergeant told him to bury them. That’s just what he did, heart heavy – he buried the humanitarian rations he’d been carrying around.

Other soldiers told stories of “meals ready to eat,” or MREs, which are equipped with a chemical mechanism that heats the meal. By themselves, outside this meal-heating mechanism, the chemicals are dangerous. Many soldiers talked about giving these chemical packets, without the food, to young children. Others talked about throwing bottles of urine at people on the side of the road, driving their Humvees over the ruins of ancient Babylon, defecating in U.N. headquarters, and, possibly most sad, shooting and bombing mosques for no other reason than that they were there.

*****

Supporting our troops

I also heard the story of attempted suicide. One young man was charged with misconduct when he attempted suicide because, by making the attempt, he prevented his return to Iraq. Once he was dishonorably discharged from service, he lost his ability to get benefits from the army or go to college. He had few options open to him.

He decided to deliver pizzas, but only once a week, because he couldn’t handle more than that. Now, on some days, he gets so drunk he blacks out. That takes care of the pain. Sometimes, instead of going to his job, he spends his day at the VA hospital, begging for help to get him back on his feet. But so far, he’s gotten none.

This was the same man who’d seen the twin towers fall, who on September 11 was looking to kill. And, slowly, he got to the point where the only thing he wanted to do was die. He hated Iraqis, once upon a time. But where is he now?

Our responsibility

Winter Soldier is not a story of good and evil, where everything works out just so. It’s not black and white or us versus them. It’s a story of some of the darkest moments in American history; of systematic racism and imperialism; tradeoffs between human resources and human life; the erosion of faith in the military; and destructive aggression by an occupying power – the United States of America.

But this story is not just their story. It’s our story too, as citizens, as humans. We own this war. We pay for it. We vote for and against it. Few questioned the government when they told us that weapons of mass destruction existed or that Saddam Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda. We listened when they told us that we had to send more troops for the surge. We have failed too.

In the end, this is a story of judgment. It’s a story of coming to terms with anger and frustration towards the troops, who, in many ways, are the machinery that propels this war. It’s the story of my internal struggle with the issue of supporting the troops and what that means. In many ways, Winter Soldier helped me realize that it’s the troops who are leading this movement against the war, that they own this resistance movement.

Bumper stickers and flags are not actions of support; no, supporting the troops means listening to those who have waged this war, and then responding to what they need and what they know.

And, it’s up to us to do this.

So, look at it, watch the testimony, and hear for yourself.

A Beam of Justice Shines Down on Belmont

On an early spring morning, the day outside bright and clear, UUSC Civil Liberties Program Manager Wayne Smith stood at the pulpit of the First Church in Belmont, Unitarian Universalist, in Belmont, Mass., for Justice Sunday. Against the backdrop of a Tiffany window, through which the late March sun shone its beams, Smith got ready to speak, his face and figure limned by the glow of the chalice flame that burned before him.

Reminiscent of a prophet of old, he delivered a jeremiad, asking what we are prepared to do to help those whose lives have been forever changed by the Iraq war. Though he paid a great deal of attention to the people who’ve borne the most immediate costs of the war – members of the U.S. military and their families and the people of Iraq – his overarching point was unmistakable: all of us are paying for this war.

In building his case, Smith cited a list of figures that describe in concrete terms exactly what the dollars spent on the war could have paid for in terms of domestic needs. For the $3 trillion that this war is now estimated to cost, how many millions of Americans could have been provided health care? How many elementary schools could we have built, and how many teachers to staff those schools hired? (Click here to learn more.) Broken down like this, astronomical (and highly abstract) figures like billions and trillions of dollars become more comprehensible, enabling us to grasp the full scope of what has been lost.

*****

After the service, Smith and fellow speaker Camilo Mejía met with interested congregants for an open, back-and-forth discussion. One congregant raised an interesting point: while she noted the effectiveness of describing the financial cost of the war in terms of forgone social benefits, she reminded the group that the government has financed the war using borrowed money. To the extent that these funds are, in some measure, nonexistent, she wondered about the accuracy of drawing comparisons of the kind that UUSC and others have made. These “could-have-been” assessments may give people the impression that, but for the war, the government would have provided social programs.

As UUSC’s communications director, I’ve given a great deal of thought to this point. Intellectually, I agree with her. These social benefits would not have been provided, because the money to pay for them (or the war, for that matter) only exists as a gigantic footprint of debt. Moreover, if history is any guide, it’s highly unlikely that a Republican administration would have engaged in such astronomical amounts of borrowing to pay for social programs.

As a first response, I would say that to preserve intellectual honesty and rhetorical precision, it is important for us to use the operative verb “could have,” as Smith and others representing UUSC have done, and not “would have.”

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, while it’s true that our government would not have placed a $3 trillion charge on the nation’s credit card in order to provide social programs, that it did so to pay for a war that’s gone terribly wrong is an irrefutable fact. This year, with UUSC’s focus on the Iraq war, on Justice Sunday and at the UUA General Assembly 2008, we are asking Unitarian Universalists, and all concerned Americans, to consider how this reality squares with their values. Does this reflect the priorities of “we, the people of the United States,” to whom is assigned the singular responsibility of ensuring that our government remains by, for, and of the people?

Freedom of inquiry and thought, values of both Unitarian Universalism and our democratic society, oblige us to consider this question – and more: to take action once we’ve found our answer.

What Are Women Worth?

In the wake of International Women's Day 2008, I learned through news stories around the United States that as a high-end prostitute, I could make $5,500 an hour. So, I did the math. For one day as a high-end prostitute, just one day, just 8 hours, I could actually make more money than I will this entire year at my job – a job I love. As a woman, knowing that my value, as society would have it, lies in my body ... Well, that’s a hard pill to swallow.

I’ve heard the arguments before – the arguments that say, “Who is using who here?” and “Those wily women are the ones using the system – look at how much money they're making!” Yes, they're making a lot of money – tons, in fact. Say they decided to work one day a week for the entire year – just one day a week, at 44,000 a day – well, they would cash in at $2,228,000 for a year's work. Not a bad sum of money for working one day a week, I admit.

But here is the thing. What that says to women, all women, is that the most valuable thing they can do, the thing that is worth the most – is their body. The same holds true for strippers. They are not the ones that hold the cards – they are participating in a society-wide presumption that ultimately values their body far more than their mind. And that is extremely problematic. Every time an intelligent woman makes the choice to strip, or to escort, or to prostitute herself, she is reinforcing society’s decision to value her body above all other things. She is making it harder for women like me, women who could choose the route of a body-for-money trade, but who fight that choice, and the resulting social values it enforces.

And, there is more to this story, this story of women’s bodies.

A new phenomenon has emerged in recent months, a phenomenon that puts an alternative price on women’s bodies. It’s the outsourcing of birth, and, like prostitution, like stripping, it tells women that their ultimate worth lies in their bodies. But it goes one step further – it tells some women, like the women in India who are carrying surrogate babies, that they are worth less than the high-end prostitute.

Let’s do the math again. A high-end, western prostitute makes a little over $5,000 an hour. A low-end Indian surrogate, at $7,000 a pop, 9 months of full-time work, 24 hours a day (and, I think we can agree, pregnancy is full time) … that comes down to about $6.50 an hour.

So, what I’m learning, through the prices of prostitution and surrogacy, is not only do we value women for their bodies – we value some women’s bodies far more than others. If you are western, and cater to the New York governor, we will pay you! Your body is worth a lot! But, if you are Indian (sorry!), the best we can offer you is a 9-month minimum-wage job.

Is being paid to carry someone else’s baby the same as being paid to sleep with someone? Well, no … But both acts turn the women in either situation into little more than a physical entity. And that’s the problematic thing.

It’s tragic, what we are saying to women, not just here, but all over the world. All financial arguments fall flat in the face of the larger societal impact – the one that tells women that their value, their ultimate worth, lies in their ability to bodily and sexually serve society. So the question, at least for me, is, how do we create the shift to a society where the mind matters more than the chromosome?

Feminism Is Not an F Word

Last night, I was talking to a man around my age (early 30s) in Cambridge, Mass. I told him that I was attending an International Women’s Day (IWD) breakfast this morning. He hadn’t heard of IWD, so I told him a bit about it. He then asked, “Are you a feminist?” I replied, “Not only am I a feminist, I was a women’s studies major!” His reaction was surprisingly strong — he visibly backed away from me. Evidently, feminism is, for some people, an “f” word.

A heated discussion about the meaning of feminism ensued. He spoke at length about his belief that feminists want to prevent “girls and guys” from behaving according to their “true nature.” This attitude from someone my age surprised me, because I believe that women and men of my generation have benefited so much from the feminist movement. Apparently, those benefits are perhaps now being taken for granted.

For me, feminism is about women and men having the freedom, safety, and opportunity to pursue their dreams and live the lives they want to live, whether that entails taking care of children, pursuing a career, or going to school. Until this becomes a reality, locally and globally, I will proudly call myself a feminist. By doing so, I recognize the struggles of the women who came before me and stand in solidarity with the women who continue to struggle today, hoping that, some day, all women and men will have the freedom to be the people they are meant to be.

When Women Want More!

A few weeks back, I was talking to a friend, a father who, when he reads fairy tales to his young daughter, changes the ending in each one. Instead of marrying handsome princes, each woman in his daughter’s fairy tales becomes a lawyer for Amnesty International, or a doctor with Doctors Without Borders, or a musician playing packed houses – or some other independent, intelligent, powerful woman.

On this International Women’s Day, I think of this conversation and feel hopeful that not only his daughter, but all women, will be able to see their lives as ones of opportunity.

We live in a time, and, here, in the United States, a society, that gives women unprecedented opportunities. For the first time in our political history, we have a female running as a serious contender for president. We also live in a time where we have articles like the one I recently read in the Atlantic Monthly, aptly titled, “Marry Him – The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough.” This article, a microcosm of attitudes that hold women, all women, back, reduces women to little more than objects that put childbirth, and marriage, ahead of all other goals. And that simply is not the case.

International Women’s Day marks the achievements, successes, and power of women, today and throughout history. Right here at UUSC, I hear stories every day of powerful women accomplishing great things. There is the story of Serafina, a 71-year-old grandmother in South Africa who fought both the police and the South African government for her right to equal access to water. Or there is UUSC’s female on-the-ground consultant in Darfur, who is training men about issues of gender-based violence, helping them become leaders in the struggle for women’s rights. There are the leaders of the Rock Women Group in Kenya, amazing women working to improve both their own lives and the lives of children in the slums of Nairobi. There are the women unionists of STITCH in Guatemala, leaders in a movement for economic equality for women.

In a society, and a world, where some would have women reduced to little more than child-bearing entities, often at painfully early ages – International Women’s Day is a big deal. It tells women that they can do, and be, anything they want – be that a mother, lawyer, doctor, musician, political leader, teacher, or, likely, some combination of roles. International Women’s Day celebrates women’s choices – choices that UUSC works every day to grow, in number and in kind.

A Human Rights Journey

To honor International Women's Day (IWD), a group of us from UUSC are attending a breakfast at Simmons College, where Johanna Chao Kreilick, manager of UUSC's Economic Justice Program, will be a featured speaker. I try to take whatever opportunity I can to learn from my fellow staff members, and this event is of particular importance to me.

I am an alumna of Simmons College and the Women’s Studies and Political Science Department. It will be great to visit my alma mater, and it will be the first time I return as a human-rights worker, a dream of mine.

I entered Simmons college in my sophomore year as a 19-year-old student with idealistic dreams, an activist's zeal, and a thirst for knowledge. I found a home in the Simmons community. I met and worked with incredible women, who taught and supported me. Learning about antiracist activism, the women’s movement, and other social-justice movements, I felt empowered to make a difference in the world. I was armed with the knowledge to forge ahead and do my small part to help bring justice to the world. Now, 10 years later, I have a new family at UUSC, a group of incredibly dedicated staff and constituents who feel compelled to right some of the wrongs of this world.

On this IWD, I want to thank all of the women (and men) who brought me into their lives as a fellow human-rights defender. I want to honor their support, as on every other day, and keep all of those who do not have the privileges and opportunities I have had in my thoughts and prayers. I want to pay tribute to the women of this world who fight to overcome incredible hurdles only to live and love.

On this IWD, I think of the women surviving sexual and gender-based violence in Darfur. I pay tribute to the female street vendors in Kenya who tried to protect themselves and their children as their country erupted in civil unrest. I pray for the mother whose one-month-old baby was killed by a ricocheting bullet in the Gaza strip. I support the fight of single mothers struggling for a living wage. I also keep in mind the reason that I have the strength to grapple with all of this sadness and injustice: I have incredible people with me on this journey, who continue to lead by example. Their work compels me to continue to do my small part to fight for justice.

STITCH Helps Women Open Spaces for Justice in Their Lives

After a slow, bumpy ride on a dirt road that winds up through the lush mountains outside of Guatemala City, I arrived in San Pedro Sacatepéquez. I was on my way to meet UUSC's Economic Justice partner STITCH and the members of its Labor Advisory Group -- women who are organizers, former and current maquila (or factory) workers, and members of agricultural unions from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador. This group acts as the sails and rudder for STITCH's work in Central America, and they had already been holding their meeting for several days when I arrived. I was invited to attend the last part of the meeting, when the Labor Advisory Group discusses its strategy for the upcoming year.

When I stepped into the meeting room, I encountered something unexpected. To ward off the cool mountain air, a fire was chewing on some logs in a big stone fireplace. There were candles lit on the mantel, and soft, lyrical music was wafting through the wood-smoked air. Although I'd never met any of the members of the Labor Advisory Group, nor STITCH's Guatemala City staff, I instantly opened up, ready to listen.

I tossed my shoes into a pile of sneakers and sandals at the entrance and began walking around the room to see what the women were working on. The first thing I saw was a collection of flip-chart papers taped up around the room, expressions of the work the women had been doing in the days before my arrival. Each chart detailed examples of accomplishments the women had achieved in their unions as a result of their involvement with STITCH.

Over the last three years, UUSC has supported STITCH to develop a Women, Labor, and Leadership project, which has culminated in the completion of a training curriculum for women unionists in Central America. The curriculum has four modules -- Gender, Globalization, Women's Leadership, and New Directions in Unionism -- each with multiple chapters that address the unique challenges faced by women workers, that offer strategies and analyses of power, and that expand women workers' ability to address and overcome violations of their rights. STITCH used an extremely thoughtful, participatory process to develop this curriculum, continually incorporating feedback from members of the Labor Advisory Group, who field-tested modules with their fellow women union members.

The most exciting aspect of this curriculum is that it strengthens women's understanding of their rights and boosts women's confidence so much that they take on positions of leadership in their unions. In some cases, they've formed women's committees within their unions and have even ventured out to form new unions. The charts spoke volumes...

We have a deeper understanding of our rights as women in both the labor and private spheres.
We have learned how to plan and give a workshop.
In our lives, as women, we value ourselves and have more confidence.

I walked around some more and began chatting with women who were working in small groups on artistic murals that depicted their vision for future years of work with the curriculum. STITCH plans to launch union schools, which will grow out of a process in which members of the Labor Advisory Group bring what they've learned about women's rights, labor rights, and popular-education methodology back to their own unions and communities. The ripple effect will generate new possibilities for women's groups within their union structures, as well as for advocacy around women's rights provisions in the unions' collective-bargaining agreements.

Using flowers, branches, and pine needles that the group had gathered from a meditative walk through the surrounding mountains, they built an altar -- a practice rooted in Mayan tradition -- to help center their work and impart a spiritual presence to the meeting. Then, they carried out a number of participatory activities, infused with ritual and symbolism, which clearly served to build mutual support and commitment among the women to help them tackle the difficult work ahead. Many of the exercises focused on supporting the women in leaving their fears and obstacles behind and bringing positive energy into their new phase of work.

Although what I encountered was a bit unexpected, it wasn't surprising. It was right in line with the reputation that STITCH has for doing its work in an innovative, gender-focused, and participatory way. STITCH recognizes that acknowledging the spiritual aspect of working for social justice and human rights entails an understanding of our wholeness as people. As part of an interdependent web, we must bring spirit into our work in order to sustain and propel ourselves as we confront injustice. And this must all be rooted in our everyday experiences, with an approach that allows women to begin opening spaces for justice in our lives as a whole -- at home, in the workplace, and in our communities at large.

One Community Gets Its Water Back

After six years without water, the people of Kwamasiza Hostel, a huge low-income housing block in the Vaal region of South Africa, finally got their water back. The news came from our partner the Coalition Against Water Privatisation (CAWP), after their year-long campaign for water rights finally led the municipality to take action.

CAWP had written a letter in January 2008 to the municipality's water provider, Metsi a Lekoa, concerning water and sanitation problems at Kwamasiza Hostel. Instead of sending a customary written response, as so often happens, the municipality actually went ahead and reopened the local water valve, which was closed in September 2001 during an attempted forced eviction of local residents.

Patricia Jones and I traveled to South Africa in November 2007 to visit the community. There, a community organizer, Elliott Nsundu, told us about the day that police, military, and private security were called in and used tear gas and rubber bullets against local residents to clear them out. Refusing to leave, community members fought back. They had no where else to go.

Eventually, the police and military attack was repelled, and the community stayed in Kwamasiza. But as the police left, they cut off all basic services to the community, including water, sanitation, and electricity. Thousands of people living in the 10-story building block were forced to use the surrounding fields for their sanitation needs and buy water from a water-supply truck that came through once a week.

In this case, it's important to remember that restricted access to water and housing evictions have a different tone in South Africa, with its recent history of apartheid and the new national constitution that protects the right to water and the right to housing. This progressive legal framework has enabled South African citizens not only to fight for what is morally right, but to fight for what is legally entitled to them.

In Phiri (pronounced "piree), Soweto, the community is waging a battle against prepaid water meters in the High Court of South Africa.

Now, with their water services reinstated, the Kwamasiza community can begin to live their lives again with the dignity, health, and safety all people deserve.

Kenyans Must Demand More Progress on Democracy

After four weeks of political negotiations that were looking more and more like a stalemate, on February 28, 2008, Kofi Annan finally convinced Kenyan political rivals Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga to reach a power-sharing deal. Under the agreeement, Kibaki remains president and Odinga becomes prime minister. Further details remain to be decided.

This is not the first time Kibaki and Odinga are attempting a coalition government. They established a partnership in 2002, but it failed. Yet, with the eyes of the international community on Kenya and a global desire not to let Kenya slide into anarchy, there is hope that this agreement will give the country a measure of stability. It will be up to Kenyans, themselves, to continue calls for true, transparent democratic governance. The role of civil society in supporting such a social movement for peace, justice, and democracy cannot be underestimated.

At the same time, over 200,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) continue to rely on international aid for their daily needs -- including shelter, food, water, protection, and health care. UUSC staff is currently in Kenya talking with IDPs to determine the best way to help meet their needs. We will be updating you on our progress.
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Background
Flawed December 27, 2007, presidential elections in Kenya led to an explosion of political tensions and longstanding grievances. Over 1,000 people were killed, and hundreds of thousands were forced from their homes. Most of the people affected by the violence were already among society's most vulnerable. In January 2008, UUSC sent an emergency delegation to assess the political and humanitarian crisis.

Read more about UUSC's work in Kenya on our Kenya Crisis Portal and our human rights weblog.

Ecuador’s Constituent Assembly Takes First Steps Towards Defining Human Right to Water

Ecuador has taken the first steps towards defining the scope of its constitutional provisions to protect the human right to water. Ecuadorians are currently engaged in a National Constituent Assembly process by which the nation's constitution will be revised. One expected outcome of this effort is the constitutional definition of the human right to water for all Ecuadorians, with special attention to the rights of the poor.

Under the Constituent Assembly process, any citizen can attend the on-going forums taking place in various cities around the country and make her voice heard. Each forum centers on a particular constitutional provision under revision.

I attended one of the numerous forums addressing water. The discussion focused on how to characterize the right to water (as a human right, a communal right, or an economic right), how to protect the environment while doing so, and a plan for development. I was struck by the power of this democratic process and the stamp of legitimacy it placed on the outcome. In the discussion group I observed, indigenous farmers, women, and youth were all vocal participants. The facilitator was even elected to her post. No one can question that the results of these meetings represent the will of the people.

The process works in this sequence: after the discussion group comes to a general consensus on the proposals they would like to present, the facilitator summarizes the group’s comments and presents them to the Assembly at large. After all the forums are completed, the elected facilitators will compile all of the proposals and these will be used to hammer out the final wording of the constitution.

The forum was in Portoviejo and the offices of UUSC partner Mi Cometa are in Guayaquil. On the drive back, we passed miles and miles of flooded land. Many people have been displaced or are simply living in a swamp. Ironically, one consequence of the flood damage is the lack of clean water to drink. It has to be brought in on trucks. The gap between policy and reality opened before me.

Ecuadorians hope that the legitimacy of this comprehensive and democratic process will compel Interagua, a subsidiary of the American corporation Bechtel, either to leave the country or improve its services. They also hope that the government will be invested with sufficient leverage to require these improvements. I too am hopeful.

New Human Rights Commissioner Offers Hope for Guatemalans

The following post was written by Will Russell, of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Arlington, Va. Russell writes from Guatemala, where he is participating in a UUSC JustJourney.

In Guatemala City, we visited the Presidential Commission on Human Rights (COPREDEH) [site in Spanish], where we met with Maria Jose Briz, the newly appointed head of office. She is responsible for, among other things, submitting human-rights reports to international organizations.

According to Briz, the commission serves as the human rights monitoring body within the state, educates government officials on human rights, investigates violations of human rights (e.g., against human rights defenders), and takes key cases forward to the Inter-American Human Rights Court.

The commission also follows up to ensure that government offices comply with their human rights responsibilities. Another area for the commission is insuring against economic exclusion because of gender or ethnicity.

Briz told us that the commission receives varying cooperation from government departments, but that they are moving forward with a national plan for human rights. Once it is coordinated, they believe it will serve as a basis for significant improvements in the country.

They now have a staff of 65 people, but there is a proposal to combine the organization with the Peace Secretary [site in Spanish], which would increase its size significantly.

Briz also told us the commission is concerned about violent human-rights abuses directed at women and children, who are particularly vulnerable to abuse. The commission itself has has been the target of threats: while she, herself, hasn't received any threats, the commission received a bomb threat on her first day at work.

She said that with the recent selection of Ruth de Valle as head of the commission, she anticipates starting consultations with other organizations. In her view, this appointment is cause for hope.

Human Rights Can Never Be Taken for Granted

The following post was written by Sterling Pilette, of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Reston, Va. Pilette writes from Guatemala, where he is participating in a UUSC JustJourney.

On Wednesday, February 20, our UUSC group and others traveled to the indigenous Achi community of Plan de Sanchez, the site of one of the massacres in July 1982. About 18 of us packed into two pickup trucks and traveled up a long, dusty mountain road to the top. We walked to the house of Juan Manuel Jeronimo, president of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation.

Juan Manuel immediately showed us his hospitality by serving us a hot oatmeal, cinnamon, and sugar drink. He then told us the story of the Sunday massacre at Plan de Sanchez of 280 men, women, and children. Very few people survived the attack. He said there was a time when no one could speak of the incident. He himself left the area for a number of years. After that he and others tried to get the Guatemalan courts to investigate and lodge criminal changes but to no avail.

It was only after the International Criminal Court investigated and declared that crimes against humanity had been committed did the Guatemalan Court in 2004 finally acknowledge what had happened. Part of the agreement was that the government had to formally apologize and help build a new community. The apology did occur during a visit by the then-vice president who, it was reported, could not himself hold back the tears. The agreement included other promises by the government – much of which has yet to be fulfilled.

The hardest part of the struggle has been addressing the human rights violations, which is necessary to prevent what happened to Manuel's village and 22 others during that period in the 1980s from happening again. He said the struggle continues because the army has been able to walk away from the atrocity with impunity as the Guatemalan courts will not aggressively prosecute those involved. After a question and answer period we walked over to the memorial where several of the massacre survivors told us their story in vivid detail. The brutality that was described left hardly a dry eye in the group. The memorial also is the final burial site for those who perished after they were relocated from their original graves.

Juan Manuel and the survivors thanked us for being there to hear what they had to say. They feel it is important to keep the story alive because the government and army are counting on people forgetting. We expressed our gratitude for their time and for answering our questions. We all left feeling that we have shared in the struggle of these Mayans and that human rights can never be taken for granted.

Justice for Massacres Pits Neighbor vs. Neighbor

The following post was written by Kenny Dolbashian, UUSC senior associate for planned and major gifts. Dolbashian writes from Guatemala, where he is participating in a UUSC JustJourney.

In March 1982, nearly 200 women and children were massacred in Rio Negro, Guatemala. Now in February 2008, nearly 26 years later, six men stand accused of participating in the killings and are being tried for the crimes. The defendants were not generals or captains or even low-level soldiers of the Guatemalan army. Rather they were members of the "civilian patrol" – an organization of local Guatemalans enlisted involuntarily by the army and government to do the dirty work of genocide.

The trial of the six men, who look more like grandfathers than killers, is playing itself out in a simple courtroom before a three-judge panel and surprisingly little security.

On this day of trial, testimony was given by three witnesses. The first was a 65-year-old man who recounted, through an interpreter of his native indigenous Achi tongue, that his 10-year-old daughter had been kidnapped and killed. He indicated that the civilian patrol and one member in particular had committed the crime. He further stated that the civilian patrol had also burned many houses in the area.

The second witness was Carlos Chen, co-founder of ADIVIMA, a grassroots organization that assists communities that suffered massacres during the civil war in the Guatemalan states of Baja and Alta Verapaz. Carlos, now 52 years old, told of the events of March 13, 1982. He was returning to his house after collecting wood and he could hear his wife yelling, "The military are coming." All of the women and children were being taken to Pacox. From the bushes, Carlos could see the women being shot. He later went and saw the bodies, which included his pregnant wife, his daughter and son, and other family members such as his mother-in-law and sister-in-law, as well as many friends and neighbors. Carlos stated simply that he "wants justice for what happened."

Finally the third witness was a 44-year-old woman who testified in her native Achi tongue through the court interpreter. She told of how the civil patrol came to her home on March 13, 1982, entered and grabbed her. She was stripped of her clothes and although she was not assaulted she was ordered to go to a meeting. They dragged her outside and grabbed a number of other women from other houses along the way. "We were all tied together by lasso, but I kept fainting as I had given birth just three days before." Finally they left her. Later she heard that the women who were taken to the "meeting" had all been killed and many of the children in the village were orphaned as a result. She was able to identify two of the six defendants as being involved in the events she described.

This tragic tale is made all the more so by virtue of the fact that those accused of such atrocities were the neighbors of the victims. This was not a case where the military stormed the countryside and wiped out the community. It was more subtle yet no less devastating.

The civil patrollers were basically conscripted into doing the government and army's business through a program where, to get access to food, locals had to serve in the patrols. Such policies served the army well by breaking the bonds between neighbors and communities and fostering fear and intimidation.

The process of justice for the victims and against the perpetrators – both civilian and military – will likely be long and torturous. Only after justice is achieved can reconciliation take place.

Rio Negro Massacre Survivors Build for the Future

The following post was written by Will Russell, of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Arlington, Va. Russell writes from Guatemala, where he is participating in a UUSC JustJourney.

On Wednesday morning, our group heard from Juan, of UUSC program partner ADVIMA. He described their many programs, which include reconciliation (following the Guatemalan genocide and decades of internal strife), scholarships for middle-school children, and micro-finance initiatives.

Later, we visited the new village of Rio Negro. I say new because the original village now lies under a lake, flooded by the Chixoy Dam. Today, 12 families live there, and 21 children attend the grade school. Yet, as far as I could tell, there was no visible means of support, beyond an impressive visitors' center, funded by a German organization. Outside the building, there was a small construction project, as well as a woman vendor selling her weavings.

This is a remote enclave. Getting here requires a 1.5-hour drive on a gravel road followed by a half-hour boat ride. Alternatively, one can hike 4 hours from the nearest road. The village also uses two mules to bring people in over the trail. To get to the visitor’s center from the lake requires hiking up a steep hill, which is perhaps 400-feet high. Another 300-foot vertical climb and a half-mile walk brings one to the school and residential area. While the project [of re-establishing this community] seems a long way off, the people sure have hope.

Early in the evening we met several people from NIGUA, including Sue and Bridgett from the Guatemala City office. After introductions we had a circle connecting our energies for successful programs and then went to dinner.

Tad [our guide] took us to an organic restaurant with great food. We heard a presentation from a group sponsoring organic farming and healthy eating. They told us they ensure farmers have access to supplies of non-genetically modified (non-GMO) seeds. They also work to convince farmers not to use GMO seeds, which are given away for free. Flowing out of their operating philosophy, they are campaigning to include both women and men in their projects. They were quite pleased when I told them that ADVIMA's scholarships encourage girls, as well as boys, to become educated (instead of the tradition of only educating boys).

Women Lead Guatemala's Human Rights Movement

The following post was written by Judy Fincher, of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Arlington, Va. Fincher writes from Guatemala, where she is participating in a UUSC JustJourney.

One thing is striking when you start learning about the human-rights movement in Guatemala: the prominence of women as leaders of human-rights initiatives and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Women also head programs targeted at the poorest strata of society, widows and orphaned children and women factory workers.

We met with Ana Maria Monson, the head of the women´s program at the Center for Legal Action in Human Rights (CALDH), and learned of the activities she sponsors to help women employed in the maquilas (textile and assembly plants). CALDH is pressuring the minister of Labor to open offices for maquila workers to process their claims and address their needs. CALDH has set up legal clinics to help women who are fired from the maquilas without severance pay or benefits. The majority of maquila workers are women of indigenous origin, who live and work in the capital as well as provinces.

CALDH also assists women victims of the Guatemalan genocide, which occurred from 1978 to 1983, during the armed internal conflict under the repressive regime of General Ríos Montt and others. (Ríos Montt was elected to the Guatemalan Congress in December 2003 and again this past December. He claims that he has immunity from prosecution as a member of Congress for organizing and overseeing genocide from 1981-1982.)

Women hold prominent positions in the quasi-governmental Forensic Anthropological Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) and COPREDEH, a government institution created to advance human-rights policy.

We met with Alma Vasquez, the assistant director of the forensics lab at FAFG, who showed us a film on identifying massacre and mass-burial sites, performing exhumations, and the painstaking work of identifying remains and returning them to their families and communities. We were all moved when we saw the forensics team at work on the tiny, crushed skeletal remains of an infant.

In spite of government claims that victims were resistance fighters, “guerrillas,” in fact, many, if not most, were defenseless women, pregnant women, and children, as depicted in the Canadian-made films, The Rainmakers and En Toute Solidarité.

We saw stacks of boxes containing unidentified remains, as well as storerooms full of identified remains awaiting their return. We left in a somber mood.

The next day, we met with Maria José Briz, of COPREDEH. As head of the Reports Division, she reports to Director Ruth Del Valle, who has met previously with UUSC and UUCA members in Arlington, Va. Maria José confirmed our impression that women provide most of the leadership of the human-rights movement here. She estimates that 60 percent of the staff at COPREDEH are women, as well as 60 percent of the office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, where she worked previously.

"Do Not Stop Praying for Us”

The following post was written by Kenny Dolbashian. Dolbashian writes from Guatemala, where he is participating in a UUSC JustJourney.

“Do not stop praying for us.”

Those were the words of Claudia Samayoa, a long-time human-rights activist and journalist speaking to a UUSC JustJourney group in Antigua, Guatemala. As she explained, Guatemala’s history is complex – as are the relationships among its people. The struggle between the indigenous Guatemalans and the country’s power elite (i.e., the army and the families of the oligarchy) is a long and tortured tale that continues on, even to this day.

Twelve of us are here in Antigua learning about and experiencing first-hand the human-rights struggle that has been ongoing in this small Central American country since the end of colonial rule in the early 1800s. We are getting a crash course on the history of Guatemala from a variety of sources in advance of our trip to Rabinal, the scene of the genocidal massacre in the early 1980s.

We have learned about the formation of the state in 1821, when descendants of the Spanish took control of the land, effectively disenfranchising the indigenous peoples. We learned how over time, in addition to the indigenous people and descendants of the Spanish, a new mixed group, “Ladinos,” emerged.

Over the next few days, our group will surely see how this history is playing out.

Guatemalan Groups Hopeful of Seeing Their Country Heal

The following post was written by Will Russell, of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Arlington, Va. Russell writes from Guatemala, where he is participating in a UUSC JustJourney.

We arrived in Guatemala on Saturday, February 16, and traveled to Antigua. A small group of us walked to the main square looking for video-recording media and a SIM card for my phone. We were amazed that no one seemed aware of the lawlessness in the state. We felt quite safe, although this may have been wishful thinking.

The next day, we were briefed on the current political and economic situation, as viewed through the lens of history. We learned about the ongoing effects of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and mining activities. We realized that to improve conditions more organizations and advocates are needed, as well as an assertive advocacy program back home. Parts of Antigua show the disastrous effects of earthquakes, which reduced the number of churches in the area from 38 to just 8.

On Monday, we took a bus to Guatemala City, where we visited the Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH). They shared with us their insights and challenges, including their need for more effective prosecutors. They suggested we organize a letter-writing campaign to the Bush administration to call for better investigations. Their youth program seemed well intertwined and important. As with members of the organization who briefed us yesterday, CALDH personnel had been threatened and/or had lost family members. Yet, they had hope and a strong will to help heal their country. Their optimism was infectious.

After a lunch and a tour of the main square, we went to the forensic institute FAFG (La Fundación de Antropología Forense). We watched a video that graphically showed the process of mass-grave exhumation. Afterwards, we toured the lab, where specialists examined remains, including some of a small child, trying to establish his or her identity and cause of death. Although FAFG is experiencing financial difficulties, they hope to incorporate DNA techniques into the investigations. Beyond funding issues, their progress is also being delayed by prosecutors who are slow to authorize and accept their offers of assistance. Still, they have examined the remains of 5,000 to 7,000 individuals.

Later on, our group came together in a group-reflection session to share our feelings about what we had witnessed.

Spielberg and the Olympics

On February 12, 2008, Oscar-winning film director Steven Spielberg resigned as artistic adviser to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games over China's failure to act against the genocide in Darfur. In a statement, he said, "I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue business as usual."

In April 2007, Spielberg wrote a letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao to protest China's involvement with the Sudanese government over the crisis in Darfur. Spielberg asked to meet with Hu, but the president failed to respond, and Spielberg continued “business as usual.” He continued his work on the Olympics as China blocked the U.N. Security Council from making any real inroads to protecting the people of Darfur. He even continued business as usual as China took the “teeth” out of Security Council resolution 1769 of July 31, 2007, which created a hybrid U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur. [China voted for the resolution, but only after stripping it of a mandate to disarm combatants. China also refused to approve any sanctions measure in the inevitable event of Khartoum’s noncompliance with its terms.]

Some have asked why he waited so long to resign from the post, while others have questioned his motivation. Still others believe that his action will be completely ineffectual in ending the genocide in Darfur. Many even question if pressuring China will work at all.

His detractors may be right: resigning his post may not make a difference. BUT it is a step, and an important step.

The Chinese need to understand that unless they take necessary steps to end their complicity in the genocide in Darfur, they will suffer consequences. They need to stop supplying the Janjaweed with weapons; buying 70 percent of Sudanese exports, including oil; and protecting the Sudanese government on the world stage. They need to understand that unless they cease and desist in their collusion, their moment of glory during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will be marred. Those of us who are people of conscience need to demand this!

Yesterday, the Chinese government released a statement saying that “linking the Olympics with the Darfur issue is against the Olympic Spirit.” I would ask them, is it in the Olympic spirit to fund and support genocide?

Spielberg took an important step this week to end his complicity with the Chinese government and, in effect, the genocide in Darfur. His conscience called on him to act, as it should for all of us.

The next step is for us to pressure corporate sponsors to make similar statements so that it's not "business as usual" at the Olympic Games. Corporations can use the leverage they have to pressure the Chinese government to help end this genocide! Those of us who care ab