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Government lawyers seek to keep lawsuit over secret Libya rendition of prominent Gaddafi opponent out of public domain.

div class="field field-type-date field-field-story-publish-date" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" span class="date-display-single"Tuesday, May 21, 2013/span /div /div /div div class="field field-type-text field-field-summary" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath held a press conference Tuesday to announce her support for the budget put forward by Ontario#039;s Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne. /div /div /div pOntario NDP leader Andrea Horwath held a press conference Tuesday to announce her support for the budget put forward by Ontario's Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne. Horwath thus put an end to months of consultation and negotiation, and weeks of speculation about a possible Ontario election./p pa href="http://ontariondp.com/en/horwath-proud-of-results-new-democrats-have-achieved-for-families" rel="nofollow"A statement/a from the NDP outlined their reasons for supporting the budget: nbsp;/pdiv class="field field-type-filefield field-field-image-for-node" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" img src="http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/imagecache/120-width-scaled/node-images/imgres_25.jpeg" alt="" title="" width="120" height="88" class="imagecache imagecache-120-width-scaled imagecache-default imagecache-120-width-scaled_default"/ /div /div /div pa href="http://rabble.ca/news/2013/05/ontario-election-table-ndp-agrees-to-support-kathleen-wynnes-budget" target="_blank"read more/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=KCTbdag_34I:l3DgqDGKgZY:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=KCTbdag_34I:l3DgqDGKgZY:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=KCTbdag_34I:l3DgqDGKgZY:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=KCTbdag_34I:l3DgqDGKgZY:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=KCTbdag_34I:l3DgqDGKgZY:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=KCTbdag_34I:l3DgqDGKgZY:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=KCTbdag_34I:l3DgqDGKgZY:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rabble-news/~4/KCTbdag_34I" height="1" width="1"/

Military says it will release a number of Boko Haram members, including all women, in what it calls a peace bid.

Seven defendants found guilty of Buddhist monk's murder, which sparked widespread sectarian violence in central region.

div class="story-teaser story-teaser-blog" div class="body" pThe global warming deniers are at it again, and it is high time that the environmental movement in Canada and the United States launched an organized campaign to expose these scientific community charlatans./p pThe mainstream business media, which bows to corporate interests in both countries, is quick to publish interviews and opinion articles by the tiny percentage of scientists who deny that global warming exists. Some say that it has not been proven that human activity damages the environment. Some bizarrely claim that emissions of carbon dioxide are beneficial to the planet./p div class="read-more"/div /div /div pa href="http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/media-watch/2013/05/action-needed-to-stop-climate-deniers-winning-information-war" target="_blank"read more/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=nik1SInuxdA:E4J_Xdj8lmU:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=nik1SInuxdA:E4J_Xdj8lmU:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=nik1SInuxdA:E4J_Xdj8lmU:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=nik1SInuxdA:E4J_Xdj8lmU:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=nik1SInuxdA:E4J_Xdj8lmU:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=nik1SInuxdA:E4J_Xdj8lmU:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=nik1SInuxdA:E4J_Xdj8lmU:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rabble-news/~4/nik1SInuxdA" height="1" width="1"/

div class="field field-type-date field-field-story-publish-date" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" span class="date-display-single"Tuesday, May 21, 2013/span /div /div /div div class="field field-type-text field-field-summary" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" Ottawa is one of the leading cities in Canada when it comes to HIV and hepatitis C infections among drug users, and last year there were at least 36 overdose deaths. /div /div /div p"There's a health crisis in Ottawa."/p pChris Dalton's pronouncement contains not a trace of drama, but it's hard to reconcile with the city I see at the moment. It's springtime in the national capital, and it's beautiful -- the bike paths along the canal and rivers are getting busy, trees are flourishing in greens and reds, and the historical architecture in the core of the city glints beneath the sunlight./p pnbsp;But even in a well-groomed capital city, social inequities are playing out with detrimental health consequences. If you’re paying attention, they’re apparent. As a social worker, Dalton is paying attention./pdiv class="field field-type-filefield field-field-image-for-node" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" img src="http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/imagecache/120-width-scaled/node-images/3098751055_83a0cff628_n.jpg" alt="(Photo: fieldtripp / Flickr)" title="(Photo: fieldtripp / Flickr)" width="120" height="160" class="imagecache imagecache-120-width-scaled imagecache-default imagecache-120-width-scaled_default"/ /div /div /div pa href="http://rabble.ca/news/2013/05/proving-proven-advocates-push-safe-consumption-site-ottawa" target="_blank"read more/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=_oCEV1pyq-0:_OO_W5o2G2Y:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=_oCEV1pyq-0:_OO_W5o2G2Y:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=_oCEV1pyq-0:_OO_W5o2G2Y:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=_oCEV1pyq-0:_OO_W5o2G2Y:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=_oCEV1pyq-0:_OO_W5o2G2Y:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=_oCEV1pyq-0:_OO_W5o2G2Y:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=_oCEV1pyq-0:_OO_W5o2G2Y:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rabble-news/~4/_oCEV1pyq-0" height="1" width="1"/

div class="story-teaser story-teaser-blog" div class="body" pThe Closet Feministemnbsp;is the newest addition tonbsp;/emrabble.ca'semnbsp;blogging network. TCF focuses on the intersections (or lack thereof) between fashion, style, dressing-up and feminism. We hope you like this smartly dressed and smartly written blog that examines the connections between what we wear and what we mean./em/p pembr //em/p div class="read-more"/div /div /div pa href="http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/theclosetfeminist/2013/05/elle-canada-makes-strides-towards-diversity-look-june-issue" target="_blank"read more/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=5D7hA42MvP8:6yDnP1H781k:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=5D7hA42MvP8:6yDnP1H781k:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=5D7hA42MvP8:6yDnP1H781k:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=5D7hA42MvP8:6yDnP1H781k:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=5D7hA42MvP8:6yDnP1H781k:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=5D7hA42MvP8:6yDnP1H781k:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=5D7hA42MvP8:6yDnP1H781k:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rabble-news/~4/5D7hA42MvP8" height="1" width="1"/

div class="field field-type-date field-field-story-publish-date" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" span class="date-display-single"Tuesday, May 21, 2013/span /div /div /div div class="field field-type-text field-field-summary" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" It seems we self-medicate with alcohol to dull the shame, confusion and gender-norms surrounding sex, desires, and sexuality that are so present in ourselves and our culture. /div /div /div pIn every movie I have watched lately, the scene of the not-yet consummated couple binge drinking is quickly followed by the shots of stilettos flying off in darkened apartments, passionate love-making, and sunny mornings in alarmingly clean, white sheets. emVoila!/em Alcohol has once again eased pesky plot line tensions and now romance begins!/p pBeing the enthusiastic party-pooper that I am, I question this./pdiv class="field field-type-filefield field-field-image-for-node" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" img src="http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/imagecache/120-width-scaled/node-images/clay_1.jpg" alt="" title="" width="120" height="140" class="imagecache imagecache-120-width-scaled imagecache-default imagecache-120-width-scaled_default"/ /div /div /div pa href="http://rabble.ca/news/2013/05/sex-alcohol-and-gender-norms-time-sober-look-desire-and-consent" target="_blank"read more/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=IJ6uRKrruF0:2Aopu_DsPfs:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=IJ6uRKrruF0:2Aopu_DsPfs:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=IJ6uRKrruF0:2Aopu_DsPfs:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=IJ6uRKrruF0:2Aopu_DsPfs:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=IJ6uRKrruF0:2Aopu_DsPfs:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=IJ6uRKrruF0:2Aopu_DsPfs:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=IJ6uRKrruF0:2Aopu_DsPfs:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rabble-news/~4/IJ6uRKrruF0" height="1" width="1"/

Opposition and government to take part in internationally-sponsored peace conference, Syria peace envoy says.

fieldset class="fieldgroup group-tv-guide"div class="field field-type-text field-field-current-show" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" Is this show currently playing? /div /div /div /fieldset div class="field field-type-date field-field-story-publish-date" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" span class="date-display-single"May 21, 2013/span /div /div /div div class="field field-type-text field-field-summary" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" CAIA protested outside the venue where Morgan Freeman accepted an award from Canadian Friends of Hebrew University, ignoring the cultural and academic boycott of Israel. /div /div /div fieldset class="fieldgroup group-video-information"div class="field field-type-emvideo field-field-embedded-video" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" div class="emvideo emvideo-video emvideo-vimeo"div id="media-vimeo-1" class="media-vimeo" iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/66095551?fullscreen=1show_title=1show_byline=1show_portrait=1autoplay=0" width="562" height="350"/iframe /div /div /div /div /div div class="field field-type-link field-field-where-to-find" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" a href="http://vimeo.com/66095551" target="_blank"BDS groups protest: Morgan Freeman pull the plug, say No!/a /div /div /div /fieldset pBest-of-the-Net video: On May 6 CAIA protested outside the venue where Morgan Freeman accepted an award from Canadian Friends of Hebrew University, ignoring the cultural and academic boycott of Israel launched by Palestinian civil society in 2005. Radio host Jian Ghomeshi was emcee of the event./pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=oJRNGSICwXI:AFzTUg4xSZs:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=oJRNGSICwXI:AFzTUg4xSZs:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=oJRNGSICwXI:AFzTUg4xSZs:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=oJRNGSICwXI:AFzTUg4xSZs:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=oJRNGSICwXI:AFzTUg4xSZs:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=oJRNGSICwXI:AFzTUg4xSZs:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=oJRNGSICwXI:AFzTUg4xSZs:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rabble-news/~4/oJRNGSICwXI" height="1" width="1"/

div class=field field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd pThree years after the ECHR's decision innbsp;emOršuš and Others v. Croatia/emnbsp;found separate but equal education to be unconstitutional, the Roma Education Fund traveled to Međimurje County in Croatia to see how the integration of Croat and Roma schoolchildren had progressed./p /div /div /div p class=image-captionimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/02 REF Monitors and Teacher at Kursanec.JPG alt= width=460 height=345 /REF monitors in a classroom innbsp;Kuršanec, Croatia.nbsp;Roma Education Fund/Tom Bass. All rights reserved./ppTo mark the third anniversary of thenbsp;ema href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Or%C5%A1u%C5%A1_and_Others_v._CroatiaOršuš and Others v. Croatia/a/emnbsp;ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, the Roma Education Fund traveled to Međimurje County in Croatia as part of its regular monitoring of preschool integration projects. REF has been in partnership with the county and the Croatian Ministry of Education since 2010 as part of Croatia’s obligation to prevent discrimination against Roma in its school system./ppJoining other landmark decisions by the ECHR in cases such asnbsp;emD.H. and Others v. Czech Republic/emnbsp;and this year’snbsp;emHorváth and Kiss v. Hungary/em,nbsp;Oršušnbsp;found that Romani children’s rights had been violated in the Croatian school system. This judgement also adds weight to the judgments against other states in Central Europe that persist in allowing segregated schools and classes for Roma. If and how the states choose to act is another question due to the Court's limited powers of implementation. REF has been instrumental in providing models and policy solutions to what many people, including state representatives, often presuppose to be an intractable Roma problem./ph2strongČakovec: The county seat/strong/h2pPressed between Slovenia and Hungary is a triangle of Croatian land surrounded by flood-prone river boundaries. Međimurje County is the northernmost, smallest, yet most densely populated Croatian county. It is home to approximately 120,000 people who work primarily in agriculture and also supply western economies with migrant labour. According to a 2001 census, there are less than 3,000 Roma living in the county; although the real number of Roma is estimated to be nearly 30,000 - the highest number of Roma anywhere in Croatia./ppAt the county seat of Čakovec, the prefect and local school officials assure us they are doing their utmost to provide Romani children in the area with quality, inclusive education. This willingness to change is only after much persuasion by REF in the aftermath of the county’s loss of face in the Oršuš case. Their responsibility is to create the preconditions for integration in primary schools within the framework of a two-year REF-led project./pp“We have to live together,” says the prefect, “We have to work with children, parents and the majority population.”/ppThe plants and binders seem to nod in perfect harmony with the lofty school and county officials. Do they really believe their schools to be islands of integration between the Mura and Drava rivers that hem in this region?/pp class=image-captionimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/03 Romani Children and Teaching Assistant in Kursanec.JPG alt= width=460 height=345 /Teaching assistant at a Romani class in Kuršanec.nbsp;Roma Education Fund/Tom Bass. All rights reserved./ph2Kuršanec: the new centre/h2pWe splash down rural roads and round snowy villages until we split off the main road at Kuršanec. A half kilometre beyond the village, with its looming church spire still in sight, we arrive at our first destination, Kuršanec Family Center, a new community facility adjoining the Romani settlement./ppA group of Romani parents greet us inside; their children play in two classrooms across the hall. In the presence of the eavesdropping officials, the mums and dads assure us that they are satisfied with the new family center and the preschool preparation their children receive; indeed, knowing how to read and how to speak Croatian are real achievements for the children of Romani parents, many of whom did not even complete primary school./ppIt leaks out that things are not quite so rosy, especially when it comes to employment. There are few opportunities for any job more sustainable than casual labour in the agricultural sector./ppOne father says, “For them, we aren’t Roma, we’re Gypsies.”/ppApparently, that’s enough in Međimurje to guarantee discrimination in the labour market and to qualify for every other kind of injustice and lack of public service – so much so that one mother claims that a better preschool in another locality demanded payment to enroll her child when absolutely no payment is necessary./ppThe officials point at their watches, declare the meeting over, and hustle us into the two classrooms. Lunch already has been served from the kitchen and the children are playing inside. One room is engaged with clusters of children working with tape, scissors, yarn, paper and glue – on the walls, series of snowmen and bunnies. In the adjoining classroom they’ve set up a store with a till and groceries. The children appear well cared for and the school appears to be comfy and cozy, with all the necessary amenities. But despite the proliferation of toys and learning tools, and the cordial atmosphere, no majority children from the village are enrolled; they’ve got their own school in the village and they are not attending. The teachers and officials smile together, satisfied./pp class=image-captionimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/romani.JPG alt= width=460 height=345 /Croat and Roma children learning together innbsp;spanMursko Središće/spanspan. Roma Education Fun/Tom Bass. All rights reserved./span/ph2Mursko Središće: our dream in action/h2pWe zigzag across the county to Mursko Središće, a small town huddled against the Slovenian border. The school is just seconds away from the border post, from Schengen, the EU and prosperity. Built before the First World War, the Maslačak (Dandelion) kindergarten is housed in an elegant building of large rooms and high ceilings./ppREF’s Country Facilitator Biserka Tomljenović issues a short brief: “This is a great example of cooperation between the local community, REF, the county and the ministry; here, all children from the Roma community have been integrated fully into the city kindergarten since 2005. The city is paying for half of the price of preschool education and the other part is paid by the ministry. REF pays for transportation.”/ppWe’re ushered inside and the school is teeming with a mixture of Romani and non-Romani children. They’re in the halls, in the bathrooms, on the staircase and in the classrooms, which are well-furnished and brimming with the children’s creative output./ppWith 33 Romani and 60 non-Romani pupils, Mursko Središće’s school is what REF speaks about when it advocates for integration and equality in education. And like all cases where improvements have been made, this hinges on local initiative and will, here embodied in the school principal, Radmila Baljak, a former refugee from the Balkan Wars, who wanted to make a difference in her adopted home town./ppWe huddle together with more staff in the teacher’s lounge. The circle is joined by Milorad Mihanovic, an elected representative of the Roma National Council in Croatia, whose children also have attended school here. “She was the only teacher who loved us Roma,” says Mihanovic, nodding at Ms. Baljak who then explains her motivations for leading the integration of the town’s preschool: “In the first month of the first year the situation was very sensitive with the majority parents. For the first two months we kept the children apart in the same building, we must admit, but after that we put them together. Since then it’s been getting better and better each year. In the first year we started with fifteen children, although there were more of them officially on the list but their attendance was uncertain, and now this has improved as well. We’re making great progress and the parents know that.”/ppVice-principal Spomenka Cilar adds, “The majority parents put a lot of pressure on us. Some parents took their children away and enrolled them in a private kindergarten. But they began to change their minds the moment when the children, who were involved in the preschool here, were enrolled in the primary school. When the non-Romani parents saw the difference, how this works better, how there were no problems like they had previously, then they started to see it as a benefit for them, too. The city mayor and the cooperation of the county school officials were also crucial.”/ph2Pribislavec: coping with change/h2pA few kilometres across the fields from Čakovec is the village of Pribislavec, home to a prominent Neo-Gothic castle. The tower casts a shadow over the town hall, where two representatives of the local Romani community are waiting. Here in Pribislavec, Romani children are bussed daily from the settlement to the village preschool and back./ppThe words of Kristijan Balog, president of the Association of Young Roma of Croatia, come as a surprise./pp“I think it would be good for the preschool programs to take place in the Romani settlement. I know that the results are achieved here as well, but I think that better results would be achieved there. I think it would be more rational economically to have it in the Roma settlement and use the funds for transportation for other things like meals.”/ppWe try to counter by arguing that if the settlement has few if any public services then, by default, educational services will also be lacklustre. We advise that integration does not equal segregation in the Romani community. REF’s entire existence is based on eliminating the geographical and physical isolation of Romani communities from mainstream schools./ppKristijan says, “The same staff from here would work there. Integration is an ideal situation which we cannot achieve overnight. This group of preschool children is getting preschool or primary education in a class where there are only Romani children anyway, so it is a Roma-only group of preschoolers in the municipality building. I see no difference here. My opinion is that the costs would be lower if the school would be in the Roma settlement. Full integration is a completely different issue.”/ppBiserko adds, “I agree with Kristijan that our people got used to getting things for nothing. Now you give them a bus. Tomorrow they will ask for the teacher to come to their home.”/ppKristijan wants to reassure us. “It may seem that we are against our own people. This isn’t true, we just see that the path we have taken, assuming responsibility as parents, directing our efforts towards our children's education. All other parents should do this as well; this is good for Roma, this will benefit the whole community.”/ppAccording to REF’s experiences, having a local Roma school is a common and contradictory demand from many communities and REF treads a fine line when deciding how to work with a community and how to meet its needs./ppUntil education systems reform, Romani schools in Romani settlements are going to stay Romani schools with inferior services and curricula. Virtually no majority parents will allow their children to attend Romani schools and would rather enroll them somewhere else; nor do they understand the benefit to their children learning in a multicultural environment in mainstream schools – as we will see at the next stop./ppSo far, no state has genuinely implemented such a program, and even the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights cannot persuade politicians held hostage by their constituents to act. What usually follows: lip service to the language of democracy, foot dragging in the halls of power and no commitment on the ground - budgetary, educational, or otherwise. /ppMeanwhile, Romani children face poor attendance, lower teaching standards, missing early childhood development goals, malnutrition, segregated schools or classrooms, culturally biased entry tests for schooling, a high risk of dropping out, and general exclusion from school life./pp class=image-captionimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/romashift.JPG alt= width=460 height=345 /span class=image-captionAfternoon nutrition program at a school innbsp;/spanspanGornji Hrašćan. Roma Education Fund/Tom Bass. All rights reserved./span/ph2Gornji Hrašćan: the spark/h2pThe site of spontaneous protests by disgruntled non-Romani parents at the start of the 2012 school year, the preschool at Gornji Hrašćan is a stone’s throw from the road./ppBiserka Tomljenović describes the conflict: “The preschool start was delayed for two days - two very difficult days - but finally an agreement was made with the non-Roma parents. These were organised protests and the children were not allowed to enter the school. The entire road was blocked, the police were here, and it was a really tough incident this school year, but a lot of effort was made by Sonja Tošić Grlač [county school official], the principal and the county prefect.”/ppThe majority’s grievances have been driven by the economic crisis and the perceived inequality in the distribution of social benefits, along with objections to the “Roma lifestyle,” leading to what is now the third public incident in Međimurje County against Roma integration.nbsp;/ppAfter reaching a compromise in September, the school now works in two shifts. The morning shift for non-Romani children attending primary school and the afternoon shift of mostly Romani children in preschool program. The building, drab and featureless, looks in need of renovation. Inside cheerful children are queuing to wash their hands before their afternoon snack. In another room they’re squeezing one by one into a cardboard house or leafing through photo albums. The shelves are stacked with Duplo blocks, the walls are covered in their vivid pictures – a ghost, a devil, a clown, a troubadour.nbsp;/ppThe pedagogue says, “This is the third year of implementation of the preschool program at our school. This year we have 52 preschool pupils, 44 Romani children and eight Croatian children. They are divided into three groups and start the afternoon at 1 PM. In the morning it is a primary school. There is only one preschool in this municipality and it is too small to receive all the children in need.”/ppShe adds more about the background to the protest, revealing what the conflict boils down to. She says, “The municipality of Trnovec to which this settlement belongs is angered by the fact that the Roma did not pay their communal expenses to take out the garbage.”/ppBut that’s not all: “Many young Croatian parents are not working - they've lost their jobs and are living off a few thousand kuna per month. But the state gives very high amounts to the Roma every month and they are not working at all. This is one thing that causes conflict.”/ppWhat we uncover is a complex story, a protest like any other, its main message supposedly about Romani pupils dumbing down the majority in class, but with another subliminal message in the background, a mixture of envy and entitlement, of disenfranchisement and dispossession, as majority membership is no longer a guarantee in the tough economic realities of today./ppNo one speaks of this, and why would they, if they can claim they are making steps to change the situation.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;/ppThe school principal Božena Dogša wants us to look on the bright side. She says, “There is no single child [from Parag] who does not attend a preschool program. Everyone aged six to seven is here. They are coming regularly by bus. The parents are very satisfied. We organize workshops with the parents in cooperation with ISSA [International Step by Step Association], so we are teaching parents how to be responsible, how to raise their child in a proactive way, and how to work with their children to achieve some skills. So when we compare the situation to ten years ago, it has improved a lot. Two groups come once a week. And four trainers from school, too. We have one group where all the parents are together, Roma and non-Roma. Despite the differences between them, they’re cooperating, they are exchanging their parenting and life experiences, even recipes.”/ppWhen asked if there is any progress, one of the school officials encapsulates the state of affairs better than anyone, “Ten years ago we had no problem because children did not go to school. Now we have them in school.”/ppMaybe so, but by the meeting’s close, no miracle changes the mood from defensive to cooperative; we’re shepherded down the steps and wave adieu, but not without one last word from Sonja Tošić Grlač, “We expect protests here next year. It is too soon, it takes time.”/ppLater, once we’ve been hustled into the school official’s favourite hunting lodge for a meal in Čakovec, one begins to get a sense of the scale of what needs to be changed for all Romani children to have access to inclusive, quality education: from the entire Romani population of Međimurje, only two Roma are university graduates, one of whom is unemployed, and only one Roma is currently attending university./ppFor them, it’s a choice, good will, altruism; for us, we have no other choice but to wrangle concessions in the courts and in the classroom if Romani children are to fulfill their rights to inclusive, quality education./ppemA longer version of this article appears at:nbsp;/ema href=http://www.romaeducationfund.hu/news/ref/news-and-events/what-have-they-doneemhttp://www.romaeducationfund.hu/news/ref/news-and-events/what-have-they-done/em/a/pfieldset class=fieldgroup group-sideboxslegendSideboxes/legenddiv class=field field-related-stories div class=field-labelRelated stories:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd a href=/bernard-rorke/hate-is-where-heart-is-time-for-europe-to-confront-anti-gypsyismHate is where the heart is: Time for Europe to confront anti-Gypsyism/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/valeriu-nicolae/failing-roma-againFailing Roma, again/a /div /div /div /fieldset div class=field field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Croatia /div /div /div

div class="field field-type-date field-field-story-publish-date" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" span class="date-display-single"Tuesday, May 21, 2013/span /div /div /div div class="field field-type-text field-field-summary" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" The Indigenous Nationhood Movement quot;aims to begin the process of decolonization through reoccupying, renaming and reclaiming traditional indigenous territories.quot; /div /div /div pemOn Wednesday, an important event will take place in Victoria in support of the Indigenous Nationhood Movement, "which aims to begin the process of decolonization through reoccupying, renaming and reclaiming traditional indigenous territories." The following statement was issued by organizers of a href="http://pkols.org/" rel="nofollow"Wednesday's event/a to reclaim the original name of Mount Douglas.nbsp;/em/pdiv class="field field-type-filefield field-field-image-for-node" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" img src="http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/imagecache/120-width-scaled/node-images/pkols-little.jpg" alt="" title="" width="120" height="76" class="imagecache imagecache-120-width-scaled imagecache-default imagecache-120-width-scaled_default"/ /div /div /div pa href="http://rabble.ca/news/2013/05/pkols-first-nations-plan-day-action-to-reclaim-original-name-mount-douglas-victoria" target="_blank"read more/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=FkE9_7rO6HA:SQdGDq5QfZ4:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=FkE9_7rO6HA:SQdGDq5QfZ4:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=FkE9_7rO6HA:SQdGDq5QfZ4:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=FkE9_7rO6HA:SQdGDq5QfZ4:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=FkE9_7rO6HA:SQdGDq5QfZ4:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=FkE9_7rO6HA:SQdGDq5QfZ4:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=FkE9_7rO6HA:SQdGDq5QfZ4:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rabble-news/~4/FkE9_7rO6HA" height="1" width="1"/

div class="taxonomy-images"a href="/taxonomy/term/1807" class="taxonomy-image-links"img src="http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/imagecache/thumbnail/category_pictures/Final-Matthew%20Behrens.jpg" alt="Matthew Behrens" title="Matthew Behrens" width="75" height="100" class="taxonomy-image-term-1807 taxonomy-image-vid-14"//a/divdiv class="field field-type-date field-field-story-publish-date" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" span class="date-display-single"May 21, 2013/span /div /div /div div class="field field-type-filefield field-field-image-for-node" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" div class="filefield-file"img class="filefield-icon field-icon-image-jpeg" alt="image/jpeg icon" src="http://rabble.ca/sites/all/modules/contrib/filefield/icons/image-x-generic.png" /a href="http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/node-images/cbsa.jpg" type="image/jpeg; length=116957" title="cbsa.jpg"Photo: GRC-RCMP/ Frontière-Border/flickr/a/div /div /div /div pToronto's legendary refugee rights lawyer Barb Jackman has a unique way of framing issues at their most human level, an art often lost by those who spend their lives in courts and immigration tribunals fighting for their clients' right not to be deported to torture and other cruelties. Testifying recently before a Senate committee on a repressive piece of deportation legislation, Jackman aptly summed up the mean political culture that increasingly grips the land./pdiv class="field field-type-text field-field-summary" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" Testifying before a Senate committee on a repressive piece of deportation legislation, refugee rights lawyer Barb Jackman aptly summed up the mean political culture that increasingly grips the land. /div /div /div fieldset class="fieldgroup group-related-items"div class="field field-type-link field-field-related-item1" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" a href="http://rabble.ca/columnists/2012/12/perversions-justice-canadas-cases-inadmissibility" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"Perversions of justice in Canada#039;s cases of inadmissibility/a /div /div /div div class="field field-type-text field-field-related-item1-desc" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" Findings of inadmissibility in Canada#039;s immigration system are condemning growing numbers to endless deportation procedures or decades of essentially stateless limbo. /div /div /div div class="field field-type-link field-field-related-item2" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" a href="http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/michael-stewart/2013/03/harper-government-responsible-cbsa-made-tv-debacle"Harper government responsible for CBSA made-for-TV debacle/a /div /div /div div class="field field-type-text field-field-related-item2-desc" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" As the smoke clears from the CBSA#039;s made-for-TV debacle, it#039;s important to point out that the conditions which made it possible are the direct result of Harper government policy. /div /div /div div class="field field-type-link field-field-related-item3" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2013/04/open-letter-artists-and-cultural-producers-end-border-security-tv-series" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"Open letter from artists and cultural producers: End the #039;Border Security#039; TV series /a /div /div /div div class="field field-type-text field-field-related-item3-desc" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" quot;We write this letter out of serious concern for those already affected and those who may be harmed by future episodes of this show.quot; /div /div /div /fieldset pa href="http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/05/canadas-culture-mean-beating-on-refugees" target="_blank"read more/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=xsssBhQueY4:rGUGobgZ38Q:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=xsssBhQueY4:rGUGobgZ38Q:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=xsssBhQueY4:rGUGobgZ38Q:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=xsssBhQueY4:rGUGobgZ38Q:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=xsssBhQueY4:rGUGobgZ38Q:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=xsssBhQueY4:rGUGobgZ38Q:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=xsssBhQueY4:rGUGobgZ38Q:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rabble-news/~4/xsssBhQueY4" height="1" width="1"/

Round-the-clock curfew in Maiduguri relaxed as military claims gains in battle against Boko Haram fighters.

div class=field field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd pCelebrations to mark the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war perform the function of collective forgetting. If the country looked back at recommendations made in the past, Sri Lankans might understand better how to go forward./p /div /div /div pOn 18 May 2013 the government of Sri Lanka ‘celebrated’ the fourth Victory Day, or as the state-owned newspaper the emDaily News/em referred to it, ‘Humanitarian Victory Day’. On the same day in Vavuniya in the North, members of the public along with politicians organised an event in memory of those who lost their lives during the last stages of the armed conflict in 2009. The government ceremonies were a show of pomp, military might and triumphalism. In these celebrations, although state forces that lost their lives were remembered and honoured, any mention of civilians who were killed and those who are still missing was absent. /p pThis is not surprising. As Marita Sturken states in her a href=https://courses.marlboro.edu/pluginfile.php/45112/mod_page/content/45/Marita%20Sturken%20The%20Wall,%20The%20Screen%20and%20The%20Image.pdfpaper on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial/a and memorialisation in American society, ‘discourses of public commemoration have become inextricably tied to the question of how war is brought to a closure’. The commemoration events held on 18 May are an extension into the post-war era of the ethos upon which the war strategy was founded, and the manner in which the armed conflict was brought to an end. /p pAn example of this is the a href=http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=SandahiruSeyagovernment's plan/a to ‘erect nine monumental Stupas (Buddhist commemorative monument) in each province of the country in appreciation of the noble service rendered by the armed forces and Police to defeat terrorism and bring lasting peace to the country’. The happy union of militarisation and Sinhala Buddhist nationalism is evident in the message posted on the Ministry of Defence website, which calls for donations for the building project and directs those with inquiries about the project to officers at the Ministry of Defence, which is co-ordinating the project. The title of the project is ‘Sandahiru Seya: The triumphant Stupa’./p h2strongForced forgetting/strong/h2 pAt the crux of the government’s theory of reconciliation lies the need to ‘move on’ and ‘bring closure’, all euphemisms for closing off public discussion about violations of human rights and humanitarian law during the last stages of the armed conflict. According to this theory, forgetting is an integral aspect of bringing about reconciliation. On the contrary, acknowledgment, remembering and memorialising are important components of any reconciliation initiative, and should be viewed as forms of symbolic reparation. As the a href=http://ictj.org/publication/we-can%E2%80%99t-be-sure-who-killed-us-memory-and-memorialization-post-conflict-northern-ugandareport on/a ‘Memory and Memorialisation in post-conflict Uganda’, published by the International Centre for Transitional Justice, states, ‘Symbolic reparations aim to show understanding of and empathy with pain and loss and acknowledge suffering and injustice’. /p pArthur Danto, a href=https://courses.marlboro.edu/pluginfile.php/45112/mod_page/content/45/Marita%20Sturken%20The%20Wall,%20The%20Screen%20and%20The%20Image.pdfquoted in Sturken/a, points out that, ‘We erect monuments so that we shall always remember, and build memorials so that we shall never forget. Monuments are not generally built to commemorate defeats; the defeated dead are remembered in memorials. While a monument most often signifies victory, a memorial refers to the life or lives sacrificed for a particular set of values’. /p pThe statues of soldiers, guns and armoured tanks that one sees dotted all over the North are therefore monuments, built to remember the great war victory, not memorials. Scant regard is paid to the need to acknowledge and commemorate the loss of lives, property and livelihoods, and the suffering and trauma of the war affected population, particularly those caught in the last stages of the armed conflict. If anything, the use of the word ‘celebration’ to describe the ceremonies on 18 May, defies the public to even feel grief, let alone express it. Even families of the Sri Lanka armed forces are expected to show only pride in and happiness about the achievements of their departed family members; they too are expected not to express their loss, loneliness and grief. /p pLike in most post-war contexts, the question of who can be remembered is controversial. For instance, can families of slain LTTE cadres engage in private memorial activities to remember their loved ones, not in order to glorify or remember the LTTE, but to remember the individual as a family member? On 18 May, the emDaily News/em quoted the Army Commander of the northern Vanni region, a href=http://www.dailynews.lk/2013/05/18/sec02.aspwho declared that/a ‘Any citizen has the right to commemorate their loved ones but no one can commemorate terrorists who were disloyal to the government.’ Hence, families whose loved ones were members of the LTTE (whether they joined voluntarily or were forcibly conscripted) will likely not observe his or her death anniversary in a visible manner due to fear of state censure and harassment, since the act is viewed as an act supportive of the LTTE, and hence a threat to national security./p pEven within communities the act of remembering and forgetting can cause tension, conflict and animosity. For instance, former LTTE cadres state that during the armed conflict they were willing to sacrifice their lives for the armed struggle, yet now due to numerous reasons, including military surveillance, their sacrifices are not remembered or respected by the Tamil community, and they often receive little community support in re-integrating into society. It could be argued that the sections of the Tamil community which supported the LTTE are ‘forgetting’ due to fear of state retaliation, or did the community always have a utilitarian relationship with the LTTE?/p pMany former cadres claim that at rehabilitation centres they were instructed to forget the past. Yet, constant interrogation by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and surveillance and monitoring of ex-cadres force them to remember their past. Some cadres said ‘they asked us to forget the past and now when we are trying to move forward, they won’t let us. They continue to ask us about our time in the LTTE’. /p pInternecine violence has also not been forgotten by the Tamil people. Even today, there are those who express anger towards the LTTE, as well as non-LTTE armed groups that were responsible for violations in the past; this is often directed towards former members of these groups who now hold positions of power within the government. In terms of reparation, internecine violence raises many complex questions. For instance, who apologises and provides restitution for the violations committed by the LTTE and other Tamil armed groups? Who apologises and provides restitution for the crimes committed against the Muslim community by the LTTE? What is the role of Tamil political parties, particularly members of these parties who were previously members of armed groups? What about the right to reparation of the families of those who disappeared during the JVP insurrection?/p h2strongReparations and reconciliation/strong/h2 pThe discourse on post-war reconciliation has largely been silent on the issue of reparations. According to the a href=http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/ReparationsProgrammes.pdfOffice of the High Commissioner for Human Rights/a ‘it is generally understood that the right to reparation has a dual dimension under international law: (a) a substantive dimension to be translated into the duty to provide redress for harm suffered in the form of restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and, as the case may be, guarantees of non-repetition; and (b) a procedural dimension as instrumental in securing this substantive redress.’ It further states that ‘While, under international law, gross violations of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law give rise to a right to reparation for victims, implying a duty on the State to make reparations, implementing this right and corresponding duty is in essence a matter of domestic law and policy.’ /p pTherefore, not only does the state have to accept that gross violations of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law have taken place but it also needs to acknowledge that doing so is its duty and that persons who have suffered such violations have a right to reparation. Contrast this with the President’s speech at the Victory Day celebration in which he claimed external forces were attempting to destabilize Sri Lanka through calls for a href=http://www.lankamission.org/images/2012images/January%202013/VD_president_speech.pdf‘independence of the judiciary, media freedom and human rights’/a.nbsp; /p pReparation initiatives seek to recognise victims as equal citizens and include a variety of measures, both material (such as compensation for lost property) and symbolic (public apologies and memorialisation), and individual and collective measures. In contrast, the government’s strategy is based on a a href=http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=Children_enjoys_Christmas_Gifts_20121226_03notion of benevolence of the victor towards the Tamil population/a, disregard of the need for a political solution to the ethnic conflict, and the supposed provision of economic benefits. /p pOn 18 May, the Tamil newspaper emThinakkural/em reported that a woman in the North had killed her three young children and attempted to commit suicide due to what appears to be extreme poverty and inability to care for the children. This illustrates the lack of acknowledgment of the continuing marginalisation of the conflict-affected population, which suffers poverty and systemic discrimination. Instead, the conflict-affected population is afforded the opportunity to become part of the state military apparatus, i.e., they are recruited into the army or a href=http://khabarsouthasia.com/en_GB/articles/apwi/articles/features/2012/08/09/feature-01absorbed into initiatives implemented by the Civil Security Department/a that is within the purview of the Ministry of Defence. /p pAccording to the Ministry of Defence, this is proof of peace, reconciliation and a new life for those previously oppressed and impoverished. /p h2strongLooking back to move forward/strong/h2 pThe chapter on Restitution/Compensation in the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission a href=http://www.slembassyusa.org/downloads/LLRC-REPORT.pdf(LLRC)/a, a Commission of inquiry that was established by President Rajapaksa in 2010, is disappointingly short, lacks depth and provides no definition of restitution or compensation. By focusing only on the Rehabilitation of Persons, Properties and Industries Authority (REPPIA) and setting out its shortcomings, including lack of funds, which prevent it from paying claims received, the Commission disregards other forms of compensation/restitution that may be required and desirable. /p pIn this regard, it is useful to study the recommendations of past Presidential Commissions, some of which are surprisingly bold. /p pThe Presidential Commission on Ethnic Violence 1981-1984 which was established in 2001 and published its report in 2002, states that compensation is a right and not charity and must be fair and adequate and not nominal or a mere token. It reiterates that every effort must be made to restore the ‘human dignity’ of victims, and that the victim should not be made to feel s/he is receiving charity but is rightly receiving minimum legal dues. It even recommends that delay in the discharge of this duty by the state should be dealt with by the payment of simple legal interest on the amount of compensation, and urges expeditious payments. /p pThe 2001 Commission warns that, ‘For a nation already confounded by political conflicts, ethnic confrontations and constitutional turmoil, the mood for reconciliation can be unnecessarily edged away, by failing to effectively support national reconciliation at the grass root as an on-going process parallel to the peace negotiation.’ It also calls for the need for public recognition of the trauma and suffering the victims had to endure./p pThe All Island Commission on Disappearances which was established in 1998 and a href=http://www.disappearances.org/news/mainfile.php/frep_sl_ai/reported in 2001/a, focuses on symbolic measures of reparation such as the construction of a wall of reconciliation inscribed with the names of those dead and disappeared, whether victims of subversive acts or acts of the security forces. It does not mention the LTTE or the security forces by name, but lists Maaveerar (LTTE martyrs) cemeteries and the memorial in Embilipitiya in the South to the students who disappeared during the JVP insurrection, as examples of memorialisation. The Commission stresses the need for national acknowledgment of the wrongs done, and recognises that another insurrection is a possibility unless the needs of the affected persons are addressed.nbsp; /ppWith regard to compensation, it makes a bold recommendation that it should be paid to all irrespective of categorisation of the person as a terrorist, and recommends the amendment of the Public Administration Circular that prohibits the granting of compensation if a court has declared a person a terrorist. The Commission states that this is ‘morally incorrect’ as it amounts to segregation of certain families of victims as ‘terrorist by relationship’. It proposes that the entire society should share responsibility for helping families of the affected and recommends a 2% tax towards this. /p pThe Commission on Disappearances in the Western, Southern and Sabaragamuwa Provinces which was established in January 1988 and published its report a href=http://www.disappearances.org/news/mainfile.php/frep_sl_western/in 1997/a notes discrimination in the payment of compensation in cases where a person was thought to be a terrorist and a href=http://www.disappearances.org/news/mainfile.php/frep_sl_western/37/states that/a ‘endemic discriminatory practices are to the detriment of the well-being of dependents of disappeared persons’. It points out that there is no definition of terrorist provided by the state, resulting in the police providing clearance in this regard, i.e., it is not a judicial determination. /p pThe Commission also recommends that those who lost their jobs due to time away from work due to searching for disappeared family members should be re-instated if they could prove the period of absence was spent trying to ascertain the whereabouts of the disappeared person. The Commission calls for the reversal of proof in the case of custodial torture, and urges the recognition of rape/sexual assault in custody as torture. It also notes evidence of sexual violence and points out it is used as a tool to control a community. /p pIn Sri Lanka we might consider beginning our attempts to a href=https://courses.marlboro.edu/pluginfile.php/45112/mod_page/content/45/Marita%20Sturken%20The%20Wall,%20The%20Screen%20and%20The%20Image.pdf‘commemorate a war for which the central narrative is one of division and dissent, a war whose history is highly contested and still in the process of being made…’/a not only by looking emat/em the past – at the violence, loss, violations and grief – but also emto/em the past, at the progressive and rather bold, if unimplemented, recommendations of past Presidential Commissions. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;/pfieldset class=fieldgroup group-sideboxslegendSideboxes/legenddiv class=field field-related-stories div class=field-labelRelated stories:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd a href=/opensecurity/chaminda-weerawardhana/sri-lankas-bbs-old-spectre-in-new-garbSri Lanka#039;s BBS: an old spectre in new garb?/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/opensecurity/kumaravadivel-guruparan-sivakami-rajamanoharan/four-years-on-genocide-continues-off-batFour years on, genocide continues off the battlefield/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/opensecurity/ambika-satkunanathan/militarisation-as-panacea-development-and-reconciliation-in-post-wMilitarisation as panacea: development and reconciliation in post-war Sri Lanka/a /div div class=field-item even a href=/opensecurity/sivakami-rajamanoharan/reconciliation-is-not-happening-in-sri-lanka-and-problem-isnt-quReconciliation is not happening in Sri Lanka, and the problem isn#039;t a question of time/a /div div class=field-item odd a href=/opensecurity/frances-harrison/sri-lankas-policy-towards-witnesses-is-revenge-not-reconciliationSri Lanka#039;s policy towards witnesses is revenge, not reconciliation/a /div /div /div /fieldset div class=field field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Sri Lanka /div /div /div div class=field field-topics div class=field-labelTopics:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Civil society /div div class=field-item even Conflict /div div class=field-item odd Culture /div div class=field-item even Democracy and government /div /div /div

div class=field field-summary div class=field-items div class=field-item odd pSince 2000, activist groups across India have sought to defend slum communities from dispossession in favour of 'participatory' resettlement on the urban periphery. The popularity of such reasoning has lead to the myth that squatters prefer resettlement to illegality, denying squatters a right to remain and masking the real, everyday exclusions in the lives of the resettled. /p /div /div /div pThe landscapes of Delhi’s urban peripheries are changing. Slowly but surely much of its fringes are being transformed into holding grounds for the city’s outcasts – slum and squatter residents. In particular two villages on Delhi’s fringes – Narela and Bawana, both more than 50kms to the North-west of the city have seen large-scale state sponsored slum resettlement projects. Particularly during the run up to Delhi’s Commonwealth Games in 2010, huge numbers of ‘eligible’ slum residents from Delhi’s prime locations were resettled in these erstwhile agricultural market towns. These new resettlement colonies have transformed slum dwellers’ relationships with the city, with its urban fringes and between rural and urban citizens. /ppSince 2000 successive Supreme Court rulings in Indian cities have labelled slum dwellers as ‘illegal’ and ‘pickpockets’ of urban land and thus ineligible for any compensation or resettlement by law. In this context an emergent social activism led by grassroots NGOs and slum organisations have organised in defence of slum communities, arguing that resettlement should be a mandatory provision if and when slums are demolished. Indeed, survey after survey of slum residents have highlighted that slum dwellers would want to be resettled or compensated for demolition of their homes. This of course is a no-brainer, but it has led to the circulation of a popular ‘myth’ that squatters prefer resettlement to informality or illegality. This myth valorises resettlement as a route to social justice in the absence of right to the city, while masking the real and everyday exclusions in the lives of those who are resettled. /ppIndeed, the valorisation of resettlement both by those for and against demolition serves to bolster the neoliberal logics which drive current urban development policy, as the state charges squatters for substandard urban housing and services (electricity, water, sanitation) in resettlement schemes which they can ill afford. This myth also sustains the pattern of continuous demolition of slums from the city and resettlement to its urban fringes by the state. Narela and Bawana are spaces mapped through these logics of a ‘desire for resettlement’ which justifies the state’s exclusionary practices of demolition of slums from the city and the relocation of ‘eligible’ squatters into its urban fringes./p pUsing the example of Delhi’s endeavours towards a slum-free city, my intention here is to challenge the myth of resettlement and further the pervasive language of ‘participation’ that dominates slum redevelopment policy across the global south. Examples of such experiments exist in India and in the rest of the global south – such as the a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/matt-birkinshaw/battle-for-golibar-urban-splintering-in-mumbaislum rehabilitation projects with Dharavi residents/a. These examples are used time and again to suggest that when resettled through the involvement of residents, resettlement can deliver social justice and a ‘legal’ right to the city. These experiments however perpetuate a violence of law and development that is used by the neoliberal state to simultaneously attract global capital while maintaining authority and control over marginalised urban populations. /p h2The violence of law and urban development/h2 pIn his critique of violence, the German philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) articulated two forms of violence which are perpetuated by law. The first type of violence is that embodied in the process of law-making which reinforces the authority of the state over those within its sovereign territory. Law-making, the writing of national constitutions, legal statutes, regulations and policies gives power to the state to impose particular forms of control and inscribe particular legal subjecthoods upon entire populations. /p pThe second form of violence is embodied in the process and procedure of emenforcing/em laws, enacted by subjecting citizens to bureaucracy, statutory regulations, policing, criminal justice systems and so on. nbsp;For Benjamin, this is a type of law-preserving violence that ‘maintains, confirms, and insures the permanence and enforceability of law’a href=#_ftn1[1]/a. Taking Benjamin’s notion of violence of law forward, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) further argued that law itself is an ‘authorized force, a force that justifies itself or is justified in applying itself’a href=#_ftn2[2]/a and has no connection to justice. Derrida concluded that any interpretation of law by the judiciary in the courts should be understood not as delivering justice, but rather as ‘legal or legitimate in conformity with a state of law’. For Derrida, this interpretation of law itself produces a ‘force of law’ that reinforces the authority and legitimacy of the state in its role of law-making and law-maintaining./p pIt has become imperative to revisit these critiques of law as found in the writings of Derrida and Benjamin since it is the violence and force of law that has become the most potent tool of urban development and slum rehabilitation in Delhi and across India since 2000. With the law on their side, politicians, middle-classes, business investors and multinational corporations have been largely successful in removing the urban poor from the ‘legal’ city. Taken together, law – making, maintaining and interpreting, all serve to legitimise the state’s use of law as an ‘authorised force’ to produce increased uncertainties and anxieties among slum dwellers towards their future, their sense of place, in the ‘legal’ city. /p pimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/datta1.jpg alt= height=315 width=420 /br /smallHomes slated for demolition in an ‘illegal’ settlement in Delhi. Ayona Datta, all rights reserved./small/p pThe violence of law in urban India is enacted through the Slum Areas Act 1956, nuisance and trespass laws as well as through urban development practices in the making and enforcing of master-plans and zoning regulations. This violence produces slums and squatter settlements as ‘spaces of exception’a href=#_ftn3[3]/a whereby special rules, codes, legislations and judicial rulings mark them as ‘illegal’ and hence requiring interventions that are starkly different from the rest of the city. In Delhi this is seen in the use of the Slum Areas Act to demarcate specific (and deserving) slums for legalisation or improvement as well as the numerous schemes on slum improvement and resettlement launched by the state, which construct slums as exceptional and outside the law. It can also be seen in the manner in which private property and nuisance laws are used to criminalise slums and squatter settlements and to legitimise their removal through the judiciary. In doing so, the state retracts from its responsibilities towards those in need of housing and basic services in the city. /p pThese processes reaffirm to squatters, on a daily basis, the precarity of their homes and lives in the city. They reaffirm to squatters that a violence of law is enacted not just in its making, maintaining and enforcing but also through the ‘uncertainty regarding one’s right to habitation’a href=#_ftn4[4]/a nbsp;in the city. Resettlement was never a condition that squatters desired; but in a context where their everyday lives are now increasingly shaped by a violence of law and urban development, they have come to accept resettlement as the only way out of continuous uncertainty, anxiety and temporality. /p h2The myth of resettlement/h2 pimg src=http://www.opendemocracy.net/files/datta2.jpg alt= height=315 width=420 /br /smallRoad dividing a resettlement colony on the left from a squatter settlement on the right. Ayona Datta, all rights reserved./small /ppThe violence embodied in the uncertainty of habitation further perpetuates the myth and valorization of resettlement. This is because squatters, planners, and development professionals all know that the political patronage of the 1980s and 1990s that largely provided informal security and led to the rise in squatter settlements has now shifted to a state obsession with the rule of law. This obsession tends to a form of valorization of a rule of law that Zizek has called tautological – ‘Law is law’ or ‘God is God’ a href=#_ftn5[5]/a. nbsp;In this context squatters can no longer rely on informal assurances made by slum lords or politicians; rather their future in the city is being determined by a force of law produced and perpetuated by the state and judiciary. Thus while state-orchestrated slum demolitions are becoming increasingly common across Delhi and other metropolitan cities in India, the uncertainties and anxieties surrounding squatters’ future home in the city often circulates as a politics of hope. This politics highlights not as a loss but as gain – a legitimate and legal future home in the city via the demolition and relocation of squatter homes to resettlement colonies in the city fringes. Squatters are under no illusion that resettlement means the loss of their current homes in the city, but in a context of a ‘culture of legality’a href=#_ftn6[6]/a pervading urban life in Indian cities, squatters argue for the demolition of those very homes which they seek to legitimise in the future. /p pThis is also the irony of resettlement whereby demolition of one’s home in the city provides moral grounds for squatters to argue for a secure legal home in the urban peripheries. But how secure is this new home; under what conditions is it realised, and what forms of urban citizenship and belonging does it produce? nbsp;/p pThe state ideology of resettlement has often pushed those in state provided ‘legal’ resettlement colonies back into informality in order to meet their basic needs. However, resettlement by the neo-liberal state is more precarious and insecure than it was ever before. In Delhi for instance, Narela and Bawana have become holding grounds of the ‘illegal’ citizens of Delhi who were deemed eligible to receive legal housing on condition that they leave the city. ‘Eligibility’ for resettlement depends upon whether slum dwellers can provide proof of residence before the established ‘cut-off’ periods (1989 and 1991). While in the 1970s and 1980s, ‘eligible’ squatters in Delhi would get a 25sqm plot of land with a freehold title, since the 2000s they receive a 12.5sqm plot of land under a 10 year lease which they can neither sell not transfer to their children. They can also be evicted if municipal inspectors come while they are away from their home or if they are not carrying ID cards. Half of Delhi’s resettlement colony residents do not have individual water connections, there are few individual toilets and community toilet facilities are far from adequate, garbage is rarely collected by the municipality, the roads are in severe disrepair, street lights do not work, and education and health facilities are grossly inadequatea href=#_ftn7 [7]/a. /p pThe Delhi government is now enforcing a new masterplan (2001-2021), which proposes to relocate squatters in high-rise tower blocks in the city. Unlike the earlier resettlement ideology of a plot of land, this new ideology of verticality is neither adequate nor appropriate for the notion of flexibility and incrementality embedded in changing family needs for space.nbsp; /p pResettlement is not an outcome that squatters link in any way to justice, rather they see resettlement as an entitlement from the state which when achieved would acknowledge their inclusion as urban citizens within the ‘legal’ city. To this end squatters use resettlement as a resource/route to make claims for a right to the city, although this claim itself is subject to proving their ‘worthiness’ to the state amidst the impending demolition of their homes.nbsp; Thus while the violence of law produces precarious lives in the city, the same law is often used as a ‘resource’ by slum dwellers to bargain with the state for resettlement. They do this not just through informality and informal networks (as argued by many scholars) but by gaining a working knowledge of the law, through explicit engagements with formal and legal processes, through active engagements with development based NGOs, and through the legal subjecthoods offered by the Indian constitution to campaign for their rights and entitlements to legitimate housing in the city. In doing so, they empower themselves through law as active citizens, but also often ironically align themselves with the very violence of law which they seek to overcome in their daily lives./p pBut what about those deemed ‘ineligible’ for resettlement – those ‘unworthy’ of any form of state compensation? These are the residents of slums and squatter settlements who cannot show any proof of living in Delhi’s squatter settlements before the cut-off dates or those renting rooms in slums, or those without any documentation of their identity as Indian citizens. These are entire populations who are new arrivals to the city, or circular migrants, those who do not possess the ‘right’ documents, or who do not have the means to buy these documents in the informal market. /p pThese are the populations not counted in slum surveys, outside the radar of NGOs and of most urban development policies of slum improvement. While the ‘pioneers’ who settled in the squatter settlements in the 1970s and 1980s have been slowly empowering themselves through knowledge of their legal and legitimate entitlements, it is those without any claims to ‘worthiness’ who usually lose out on state-sponsored resettlement. Continually moving from one demolished home to another in the city, they live under flyovers, next to railway tracks, along sewage canals, and on road verges. So while the politics of hope around resettlement continues to gain ground, we should also ask fresh questions around the violence of law enacted on the lives of those living on the precarious edges of worthiness, law and citizenship. What are the different ways that those ‘unworthy’ of state resettlement respond to a violence of law? How are the links between resettlement and entitlement maintained by those considered unworthy by the state? How is justice perceived through the frame of violence – of law and urban development? The answers to these might help us in exposing the myth of resettlement and present its ideological links with the neoliberal state./p hr / small pAgamben, G. 2005. emState of Exception/em. Chicago: University of Chicago Press./p pBenjamin, W. 1978. Critique of Violence. In emReflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings /embyem /emW. Benjamin and P. Demetz, New York: Schocken Books, 277–300./p pChatterji, R. And Mehta, D. 2007. emLiving with Violence: An Anthropology of Events and Everyday Life/em. New Delhi: Routledge./p pComaroff, J. and Comaroff, J. 2006. emLaw and Disorder in the Postcolony./em Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press./p pDerrida, J. 1992. Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundation of Authority'. In emDeconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, /emedited byem /emD. Cornell, M. Rosenfeld and D. G. Carlson. London: Routledge, 3–67./p pMenon–Sen, K. and Bhan, G. 2008. emSwept off the Map: Surviving Eviction and resettlement in Delhi/em. Delhi: Yoda Press./p pZizek, S. (1991). emFor They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor./em London: Verso./p hr size=1 / pa href=#_ftnref1[1]/a Benjamin, 1978, p. 295/p pa href=#_ftnref2[2]/a Derrida, 1992, p. 925/p pa href=#_ftnref3[3]/a Agamben 2005/p pa href=#_ftnref4[4]/a Chatterji amp; Mehta, 2007, p. 129/p pa href=#_ftnref5[5]/a Zizek 1991, p. 203/p pa href=#_ftnref6[6]/a Comaroff and Comaroff 2006/p pa href=#_ftnref7[7]/a Menon-Sen and Bhan 2008/p/smallfieldset class=fieldgroup group-sideboxslegendSideboxes/legenddiv class=field field-related-stories div class=field-labelRelated stories:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd a href=/opensecurity/matt-birkinshaw/battle-for-golibar-urban-splintering-in-mumbaiThe battle for Golibar: urban splintering in Mumbai/a /div /div /div /fieldset div class=field field-country div class=field-label Country or region:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd India /div /div /div div class=field field-city div class=field-labelCity:nbsp;/div div class=field-items div class=field-item odd Delhi /div /div /div

In their new book, "The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills," economist David Stuckler and physician Sanjay Basu examine the health impacts of austerity across the globe. The authors estimate there have been more than 10,000 additional suicides and up to a million extra cases of depression across Europe and the United States since governments started introducing austerity programs in the aftermath of the economic crisis. For example, in Greece, where spending on public health has been slashed by 40 percent, HIV rates have jumped 200 percent, and the country has seen its first malaria outbreak since the 1970s. An economist and public health specialist, Stuckler is a senior research leader at Oxford University. Dr. Basu is a physician and epidemiologist who teaches at Stanford University. "Had austerity been organized like a clinical trial, it would’ve been discontinued given evidence of its deadly side effects," Stuckler says. "There is an alternative choice that we found in the historical data and through the present recessions: When we place people and their health at the center of economic recovery, it can help get our economy back on track faster and yield lasting dividends to our society."

div class="taxonomy-images"a href="/taxonomy/term/6669" class="taxonomy-image-links"img src="http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/imagecache/thumbnail/category_pictures/duncan_0_0.jpg" alt="Duncan Cameron" title="Duncan Cameron" width="75" height="91" class="taxonomy-image-term-6669 taxonomy-image-vid-14"//a/divdiv class="field field-type-date field-field-story-publish-date" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" span class="date-display-single"May 21, 2013/span /div /div /div div class="field field-type-filefield field-field-image-for-node" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" div class="filefield-file"img class="filefield-icon field-icon-image-jpeg" alt="image/jpeg icon" src="http://rabble.ca/sites/all/modules/contrib/filefield/icons/image-x-generic.png" /a href="http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/node-images/clark.jpg" type="image/jpeg; length=140050" title="clark.jpg"Photo: BlueAndWhiteArmy/flickr/a/div /div /div /div pThe capitalists won the B.C. election. Extractive industries make big profits in the province, and have bigger plans for its future. More port facilities for coal exports to China, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plants, new pipelines across the mountains, increased tanker traffic in the Vancouver Harbour, and through coastal waters; these environmental disasters in the making represent lucrative ventures to Liberal backers./p pCorporations support the BC Liberals as a form of insurance protecting shareholder privileges. Most of the business and commercial world follows the corporate lead./p pIn B.C., corporations contribute to political parties and have employees who contribute./pdiv class="field field-type-text field-field-summary" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" The capitalists won the B.C. election. Extractive industries make big profits in the province, and have bigger plans for its future. /div /div /div fieldset class="fieldgroup group-related-items"div class="field field-type-link field-field-related-item1" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" a href="http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/mainlander/2013/05/why-did-ndp-lose" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"Why did the NDP lose?/a /div /div /div div class="field field-type-text field-field-related-item1-desc" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" In reality the NDP allowed itself no alternative platform from which to launch a criticism against the BC Liberal record. /div /div /div div class="field field-type-link field-field-related-item2" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" a href="http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/05/after-stunning-ndp-loss-bc-its-time-new-kind-politics"After stunning NDP loss in B.C., it#039;s time for a new kind of politics /a /div /div /div div class="field field-type-text field-field-related-item2-desc" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" The NDP#039;s stunning loss in B.C. is being deconstructed, dissected, analyzed and mourned over not only here but across the country. /div /div /div div class="field field-type-link field-field-related-item3" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" a href="http://rabble.ca/news/2013/05/dont-mourn-organize-bcs-climate-justice-movement-fight-just-getting-started" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"Don#039;t mourn, organize! For B.C.#039;s climate justice movement, the fight is just getting started/a /div /div /div div class="field field-type-text field-field-related-item3-desc" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" Remember that there is no silver bullet solution, the NDP weren#039;t one before this election and there certainly isn#039;t one afterwards. /div /div /div /fieldset pa href="http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/05/capitalists-win-all-others-lose-bc-election" target="_blank"read more/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=akC7iWzEs0o:LBaHcriMGw0:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=akC7iWzEs0o:LBaHcriMGw0:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=akC7iWzEs0o:LBaHcriMGw0:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=akC7iWzEs0o:LBaHcriMGw0:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=akC7iWzEs0o:LBaHcriMGw0:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?a=akC7iWzEs0o:LBaHcriMGw0:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rabble-news?i=akC7iWzEs0o:LBaHcriMGw0:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rabble-news/~4/akC7iWzEs0o" height="1" width="1"/

Dozens have been killed and more than 200 wounded in a devastating tornado in Oklahoma. The storm tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, leveling two elementary schools, a hospital and scores of homes destroyed. Rescue crews continue to dig through the rubble in a bid to find survivors. It was the deadliest tornado to hit the United States since 161 people were killed in Joplin, Missouri, two years ago. We’re joined by two guests: Beverly Allam, an Oklahoma resident who lives a few miles from Moore and lost everything in the state’s tornado in May 1999, and Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground.

• Dozens Dead in Oklahoma Tornado
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• Foreclosed Homeowners Arrested at Justice Department Protest for Bank Prosecutions
• Report: Banks Lagging on Settlement Payments for Mortgage Wrongdoing
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