Africa

For two decades, Dickson Kamau only grew maize on his 0.5 hectare (ha) of land earning himself the nickname Kamau wa mbembe or Kamau who owns maize in his native Kikuyu language. “The maize business was always very good. Good production and the profit was enough to provide for my family and educate all my […]

UN Free and Equal postage stamps – promoting LGBT equality worldwide. Source: UNPA

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 15 2016 (IPS)

When the UN Postal Administration recently unveiled a set of six new commemorative stamps — as part of a global campaign promoting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities — it did not expect a furious backlash as it did, mostly from the 54 members of the African Group and from Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council.

Speaking on behalf of the African Group at the UN, Justin Kisoka a Minister Counselor at the Tanzanian Mission to the United Nations, expressed his “very serious” concern at the Secretary-General’s “alarming” introduction, printing and circulation of stamps under the “Free and Equal” campaign.

The release of the new stamps, he said, “contravened the United Nations’ principles, as well as the culture, norms and beliefs of many Member States, casting a shadow on the adherence to rules and regulations governing use of the United Nations logo and resources.”

Addressing the UN’s Administrative and Budgetary Committee (also known as the Fifth Committee) last week, he went one step further “demanding the campaign’s immediate cessation” and also requested implementation of accountability measures, including recovery of the funds used to finance the stamp campaign.

He also demanded that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon provide details on the funds used for the campaign, as well as on the related rules and regulations.

Asked for his comments, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told IPS: “You’re aware of the Secretary-General’s strong and consistent support for the Free and Equal campaign and his belief that the human rights of all people must be upheld.”

Beyond that, he said, “I’d have no further comment on the stamps issue.”

Backing the African Group, Sergey Khalizov of the Russian Federation said the Secretary-General’s activities “had caused serious issues for a range of delegations.”

He said consideration of the use of resources from the UN’s regular budget was a Fifth Committee prerogative.

He questioned the justification of mandates of leading UN bodies and said he was ready to engage in a discussion in the Committee on several issues raised by the African Group.

The campaign for LGBT rights is being led by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva.

Boris Dittrich, Advocacy Director, LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IPS the stamps were published within the framework of the Free and Equal Campaign of the United Nations.

“They reflect that fundamental rights like the freedom of expression, the right to privacy and non-discrimination, belong to each individual, no matter what their sexual orientation or gender identity is.”

He pointed out that the stamps reflect the spirit of two UN resolutions adopted in 2011 and 2015 by the UN Human Rights Council denouncing discrimination and violence against people on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Instead of attacking the UN for publishing a series of stamps, the African group and Russia should focus on eliminating discrimination and violence against LGBT people in their countries,” declared Dittrich.

Currently, there is a list of some 79 countries with anti-gay laws, 34 of them in Africa, including Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Angola, Botswana, and Tanzania.

In an interview, the artist who designed the stamps was quoted as saying he was heavily influenced by art from the first quarter of the 20th Century.

Sergio Baradat, who is of Cuban background, said his style stems from his appreciation for French Art Deco and growing up in Miami, Florida.

“One of the stamps represents someone who is transgender,” Baradat told UN Radio, referring to the stamp that depicts a person with butterfly wings, an image he says represents a person “becoming who they really are, blossoming.”

“We live in a world where even though [developed] nations have embraced marriage equality [and] LBGT equality, we still have a far, far, far way to go, but we are making some strides,” he added.

“There are some countries in the world right now where not only are we not celebrated or respected, but we are beaten and killed. And I thought that it would be a wonderful opportunity using art, to use postage stamps as a vehicle – using art to change hearts and minds.”

He also stressed that LGBT rights are human rights and that all individuals deserve to be treated equally and fairly under the law.

The series is co-sponsored by the permanent missions of Argentina, Australia, Chile, El Salvador, Germany, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, the UK, the United States, and Uruguay, the delegation of the European Union, in addition to OHCHR and the UN Postal Administration.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Xinia Solano and Luis Diego Murillo are one of the families working with the shade house programme in Los Reyes, in the southeastern Costa Rican municipality of Coto Brus. This model of agriculture is being promoted by the FAO, in conjunction with various government institutions. Credit: Diego Arguedas Ortiz/IPS

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz
LOS REYES, Costa Rica, Mar 15 2016 (IPS)

Before they got involved in farming, Luis Diego Murillo and Xinia Solano paid their bills and put food on their table with Luis’s salary as a foreman on construction sites, an unstable job that kept him on the move.

Now the 33-year-old Costa Rican walks along the rows where he and his wife grow bright green coriander and lettuce, and where stalks indicate a handful of radishes under the soil. They share the land with another family, but they are their own boss.

Over Murillo’s head is an enormous roof of black shade cloth which is crucial to his new life because it protects his crops in the community of Los Reyes, in the rural municipality of Coto Brus, Puntarenas province, in the foothills of Costa Rica’s Talamanca mountain range.

“We’re together now, I’m no longer away from my family,” he told IPS, explaining why they decided to dedicate themselves to farming full-time. “You don’t want to be working away from home, far away from your children and wife. You want to be with your family, no?”

Murillo and his wife, the 34-year-old Solano, are among the 74 families who have benefited from the Shade House programme that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is carrying out in southeast Costa Rica. “One of the big advantages is that they can produce year round. Before, in the dry season (November to May), the crops would be burnt by the sun. Besides, the popular idea that only a few things can be grown here has been laid to rest, and a greater diversity of crops is now produced.” -- Guillermo Murillo

In the protected shaded areas, 700 square metres in size, the farmers can manage the quantity and quality of sunlight, the percentage of shade and the impact on the crops of rainfall, which can be heavy in this area.

The families are thus able to grow fresh vegetables year-round, have boosted the quality and productivity of their crops and have even managed to grow vegetables that were unthinkable before, given the normal conditions in this area, such as broccoli and cabbage.

With this system, which began to be implemented in late 2013 on just six farms, the families produce food for their own consumption and earn an income selling the surplus.

“We’re very happy because thanks to the shade houses we don’t have to go out and buy food anymore. If you want coriander or a head of lettuce, you just come out and pick it,” said Solano, whose house is in a village next to Los Reyes, which is a six-hour drive from San José, although it is only 280 km away.

Another of the advantages of the programme is that it improves and helps diversify the diet of rural families in the socioeconomic region of Brunca, the area with the highest poverty level in this Central American nation of 4.8 million people.

FAO expert Guillermo Murillo (wearing a hat) talks to family farmers in the settlement of Los Reyes in southeast Costa Rica about techniques for improving production in their shade houses. Credit: Diego Arguedas Ortiz/IPS

Poverty affects 34.6 percent of households in this region of 300,000 people, compared to a national average of 20.6 percent, and only 51 percent of the economically population is employed, according to statistics that FAO provided to IPS.

This region only produces 15 to 20 percent of the fresh fruit and vegetables consumed here, and the rest is brought in from other parts of the country.

The families with shade houses are now eating better.

“We eat salad every day. We used to buy stuff for salad if we had the money, but now we don’t have to buy it,” said Solano.

The shade houses are also looking at larger-scale production and marketing of their crops, to boost family incomes.

The families participating in the programme already grow more than 25 different kinds of fresh vegetables.

“Some of the farmers have cars and lend them to others so they can sell their produce in nearby towns,” said Solano. “But we’re doing the paperwork to create a cooperative, to get a truck.”

Each shade house costs around 3,200 dollars, and the funds are provided by the Costa Rican government institutions working with FAO on the project, such as the Mixed Institute for Social Aid (IMAS) or the Rural Development Institute (INDER).

The programme, which also has the support of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, is focused on the entire family, and considers women’s contribution as key.

“The women here are very brave, most of them even pick up the shovel and plant. It was my wife who planted all of those plants (that provide shade for the coffee bushes),” Florentino Amador, a 54-year-old farmer, told IPS with pride in his voice.

Ligia Ruiz, 53, one of the most enthusiastic farmers in the four shade houses in Los Reyes, coordinates sales with her neighbours.

The shade house system makes it possible to diversify the production of fresh vegetables in the southern Costa Rican region of Brunca. Some fresh produce, like lettuce, was already grown in the region, but others, like broccoli and cabbage, are only now being produced, thanks to this farming technique promoted by the FAO. Credit: Diego Arguedas Ortiz/IPS

“On Wednesdays and Saturdays we harvest what we’re going to sell, just here in the community for now. I get the orders and we deliver the produce,” she told IPS.

Although each shade house was originally designed for one family, in Los Reyes the four shaded areas are worked by 10 families, who farm together in a very horizontal process; for example, the income from the sales goes into a joint fund, where they hope to save up for the cooperative.

“If there’s a lot to clean on one lot, one family helps the other, and then they in turn receive support,” said Ruíz with regard to the revival of the rural tradition of communal work.

The FAO’s aim is for the beneficiaries to be organised groups of farmers with access to a collective storage and trading centre, although the families are selected by the Costa Rican institutions involved in the project.

In Brazil and Mexico there are small-scale initiatives similar to the shade house project, said Guillermo Murillo, a FAO consultant who has worked in those countries and suggested the shade house model for Costa Rica.

“One of the big advantages is that they can produce year round,” Murillo told IPS. “Before, in the dry season (November to May), the crops would be burnt by the sun. Besides, the popular idea that only a few things can be grown here has been laid to rest, and a greater diversity of crops is now produced.”

Besides the support for setting up shade houses, the team of representatives of the FAO and the public institutions involved in the initiative give advice on farming techniques, tools, and marketing.

“The seeds that used to come here were the ones used in colder parts of Costa Rica, even though there were ‘tropicalised’ ones in the market,” said Murillo. “We looked for them, and the families started to use them.”

The programme is now being expanded to the northwest province of Guanacaste, where the installation of the first shade houses outside of the Brunca region has been approved.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

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Roberto Savio, founder and president emeritus of the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and publisher of Other News.

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Mar 15 2016 (IPS)

Larry Summers, Clinton’s minister of treasury, has made few friends in life. At that time, he was instrumental in eliminating the Glass Stegall Banking Law, which since 1933 separated the bank’s customer deposits from the financial activities of the Stock Exchange, releasing a flood of money which created the present monster financial system.

Roberto Savio

He was also Chief Economist of the World Bank, a position he left after polemics. He became the President of the prestigious Harvard Academy, but was obliged to leave on a gender issue. He was the Director of the National Economic Council under president Barack Obama, where is pro-business attitude led to new controversies.

Maybe, for all these reasons, very few paid attention to his predictions about “the new economy”. This is a term created after the crisis of 2009, to indicate that unemployment would be normal, and that the market would be the centre of economy and finance, and social and welfare measures were not any longer part of the economy’s concern.

Summers warns about “a secular stagnation”. In other words, anaemic growth will stay with us for a long time. His warnings were about the fact that there is no real political action to create stimulus, and that “in a world that is one major shock away from a global recession, little if anything directed on spurring demand was agreed. Central bankers communicated a sense that there was relatively little left that they could do to strengthen growth or even to raise inflation”.

Summers was commenting on the last G20 meeting of Ministers of Finance( Feb.26), where unable to agree on any action, concluded with a statement that “markets are worrying too much”. The magnitude of the recent market volatility has not reflected the underlying fundamentals of the global economy, declared Lou Jiwei, the Minister of Finance of China, who hosted the G20 in Shanghai.

The inflexible German Minister of Finance, Wolfgang Schauble, did block the plea for accompanying stimulus to reforms, championed by the American Jack Lew, insisting that now is the time only for structural reforms, and not for any fiscal and monetary policy of stimulus. The case of Greece was present in the minds of all. Later Schauble, commenting on the enormous load of refugees blocked in an already exhausted Greece, declared that while this human tragedy needs attention,” it should not distract Athens from implementing it’s program of structural reforms”.

A few days later, Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), did present a very large program of fiscal stimulus, which is bringing the cost of money to zero, while increasing its monthly infusion of money from 60 t0 80 billions euro per month. The markets did react at first positively, then went down, and now are lookingup again.

But Draghi did warn (as he always did), that central banks cannot do the job of governments.

Inflation, which is part of growth as long as it does go beyond 2%, has been until now at 0,1%.

Growth in the Eurozone, is now at 1.4% in 2016, and hopefully at 1.7% in 2017. It is now five years that we are practically in a stagnation, and Europe has not recovered yet to reach the economic level prior to the crisis.

Of course, this has created a strong howling in Germany. Schauble, who has made economy a branch of moral science, declared that “Easy money brings to perdition”. The general lament is that the ECB is making a policy to bail out the indebted countries of the South of Europe, at the expenses of Germany and the other countries of the North of Europe who do not need a zero cost monetary policy. The President of the Federation of German Wholesale, Foreign Trade and Sevices (BGA) Anton Borner, has declared:”for the German population it is a catastrophe. Their savings have been expropriated. This is a giant expropriation from North to South”.

It is a fact the Germans are big savers. There accounts have over two trillion euro, one third of the total of Eurozone. With zero interest, Union Investment has calculated that they will lose 224 billion, compared with what they would have got with the average historical interest on deposits.

The DZ bank has published a study, which according to the Italian treasury will save 53 billion euro, against 9.5 for Germany. Spain would also save a similar amount: 42 billion euro. The director of the prestigious institute of research Leibniz Institute for Economic Research (IFO), stated” we are facing a policy of subsidies to zombie banks, and States on the verge of bankruptcy”.

All this is further proof of how any dream of a European project is fading away.

German complaints are logical, but only from a very short-sighted and egocentric angle of observation.

Germany cannot ignore that to remain an island of prosperity in a region which provides them with a steady superavit in its balance of trade, and a steady revenue in its inferior cost of borrowing money because of its positive differential with other European countries, is not a recipe for the future. If the Euro zone will keep an anaemic rate of growth, and a very low rate of inflation, stagnation will settle for a long time. It is easy to preach economic reforms, but according to the European Union, United States, China, the BRICS, and Germany should use its superavit atleast to invest in structural costs (like infrastructure), to spur growth.

Instead the German government keeps its earnings tight, and considers that its destiny has nothing to do with the others. It is ready to push the European Union to disburse six billion euro to Turkey to keep refugees from coming, and even to reopen the door to admission, something until now rejected by the German population. The North-South Europe’s divide is not only the result of the lack of discipline from the South, it is also the result of a major European country, who is increasingly acting only for its immediate interests.

Summers view looks increasingly realistic. Cost of petrol will increase, according to the International Energy Agency. The oil rig count in the US has dropped to its lowest level in more than six years, as the low price makes the high-cost rigs un-economical.

The number of oil and gas rigs has sunk to 1,761, the lowest number since 2002.

This is not going to help Africa as a whole, the Chinese crucial recovery, and a large number of Latin Americans and Asian countries, as well Europe.

Trade, a vital economic indicator, has been stagnant for the last five years, an unprecedented data. The debate about structural reforms versus economic and financial stimulus look like a stalemate, which is paralyzing the international community. What happens if “the major shock from a global recession” comes now from the European paralysis? We are entering into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the one where robots will substitute workers. According to the latest book of Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum of Davos, in a decade robots will account for 52% of industrial production, up from its present 12%. This will increase concentration of wealth, and social inequality The debate about our future is nowhere in the political circles. We now discuss about saving accounts…

(End)

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Sanjay Wijesekera is Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, UNICEF

By Sanjay Wijesekera
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 15 2016 (IPS)

Last year we watched with cautious optimism as UN chief Ban Ki-moon welcomed the new Sustainable Development Goals, and called upon the world to meet them.

Sanjay Wijesekera

Cautious, because we’d been here before. In 2000, the Millennium Development Goals were set – to try to lift people out of poverty, improve their health, protect the environment, and so on. They focused the attention of the world on clear, achievable targets.

In the area of water, sanitation and hygiene, however, the MDGs did not try to reach everyone. They aimed to halve the proportion of the global population that didn’t have adequate drinking water, and halve the proportion of the population that didn’t have or use toilets.

The water goal was met but left 663 million people without improved drinking water in 2015. The sanitation goal was missed and 2.4 billion people still have no access.

The SDGs set a high bar of universal and equitable access to safe water, and adequate sanitation and hygiene. That is the challenge facing representatives of some 50 countries, the UN, and numerous civil society partners gathered in Addis Ababa this week for the Sanitation and Water for All Ministerial Meeting.

The SDGs force us to move beyond looking at infrastructure, to addressing accessibility, availability and quality of services that were not envisaged under the MDGs. They call for “safely managed” water, sanitation and hygiene services.

They call for extending WASH services, not only to households, but to schools, workplaces, and other institutions. They call for an end to dumping and water pollution; an end to open defecation; addressing water scarcity. This means we have to radically change our way of working.

For UNICEF this is a crucial challenge, because water, sanitation and hygiene underpin so much of the rest of the goals. Those related to nutrition, health, education, poverty and economic growth, urban services, gender equality, resilience and climate change cannot be met without progress on water, sanitation and hygiene.

It is so evident when it comes to children. Some 800 children under 5 years old die every day from diarrhoeal diseases linked to inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene. Around the world 159 million children are stunted, a condition linked to open defecation.

What we have to do is:

1. Focus on those furthest behind. Progress during the MDG era almost as a rule left behind the poorest and most marginalized. Generally, the wealthier groups of the population are served long before the poorest. Those not reached include the rural poor; those who live in urban slums; ethnic minorities; the disabled; and many women and children. We must deliberately target those who have so far been excluded.

2. Ensure good governance and accountability. Good policies, strong institutions, robust financing, competent monitoring systems and comprehensive capacity development are among the fundamental “building blocks” that are needed to deliver results. In Addis, we will agree how to put these building blocks in place and mainstream them within country plans.

3. Address the impact of climate change: Nearly 160 million children live in severely drought-prone areas, mostly in Africa and Asia, where safe drinking water and sanitation are already in short supply. Droughts affect nutrition, but also education, since children and women are the main carriers of water when it is scarce, eating up hours needed for school and other activities. Nearly half a billion children live in flood zones, the vast majority of them in Asia. Apart from the drowning risks to children, floods compromise water supplies and damage sanitation facilities, increasing the risk of diarrhoea outbreaks. Other water-borne diseases which are predicted to increase with higher temperatures include malaria, dengue, zika, and cholera. We must prepare for the consequences of climate change, especially for those already most vulnerable.

4. Use innovation, testing and data. In 2016, we know better and cheaper ways of testing water than we did in 2000, and can ensure that those ‘improved sources’ are also safe sources. We have ways of collecting and disseminating data which can help governments pinpoint the populations left behind. And we can use new technology to bring better and cheaper toilets, and better and safer water to the millions who don’t have them now.

Addis must be our springboard to action, because millions of people should not have to wait for years to have safe water, proper toilets and better hygiene.

(End)

By Ziauddin Choudhury
Mar 15 2016 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

In a surreal digital theft that befits a high octane movie thriller, we were recently informed of the daring heist at Bangladesh Bank in which nearly a billion dollars were siphoned off last month. As if this was not enough, the theft took place over several days early February through a series of about three dozen electronic fund transfers from the Bank to New York Federal Reserve for a total amount anywhere between eight hundred fifty to eight hundred seventy million dollars. All of the looted amount made through dozens of transfers would have been cashed had it not been due to the now famous spelling error in a twenty million check made to a Sri Lankan NGO. The error prompted the routing bank, Deutsche Bank, to seek clarification from the Bangladesh central bank, which stopped the transaction. But the mystery hackers still managed to swipe $80 million, one of the largest recorded bank thefts in history.

The news struck the headlines in the foreign press, particularly in the UK and the US, but what was possibly more puzzling to everyone is how a spelling error stopped a bank heist than the actual massive pilferage of funds from a central bank. The news highlighted the ability of a spelling error to stop the attempted digital robbery. It is through further investigation that news agencies came to know of the successful transfer of at least $80 million to the Philippines. All major news agencies referred to this latest heist as another instance of CEO fraud, a growing threat to world financial institutions that had cost globally $2 billion in the last two years.

So what is actually a CEO fraud, and how does the attack work? The scam is referred to as a CEO fraud because the perpetrator or perpetrators pose electronically as the chief executive or senior financial official of an institution they are targeting. For an attacker to successfully pull it off, they need to know a lot of information about the company they’re targeting. Much of this information is about the hierarchical structure of the company or institution they’re targeting. They’ll need to know who they’ll be impersonating. Although this type of scam is known as “CEO fraud”, in reality it targets anyone with a senior role – anyone who would be able to initiate payments. They will need to know their names, and their email addresses. It would also help to know their schedule, and when they will be travelling, or will be on vacation. Experts say the criminals managed to breach Bangladesh Bank systems and stole the credentials of its senior officials for online payment transfers. (The Federal Reserve of New York stated that the transfers had valid digital credentials of Bangladesh Bank.)

Frauds and scams that target corporations and financial institutions have happened before, but probably it is the first time a central bank was successfully targeted. The most sobering aspect of the heist is the divine intervention in foiling of the robbery in its entirety in the form of a spelling error.
It saved the bank much of the heist amount, and it could possibly recover some of the eighty million dollars that got away. It is also possible that with the help of international cyber security experts, that the bank has engaged, the source of the breach can be identified as well as corrections made in the bank’s system to prevent future breaches.

But the most unsettling part is the apparent revelation to the government by the bank’s news of the breach and heist after a month of its occurrence. There may be defense of some kind or the other for this delay, but it will be ludicrous to assume that the bank authorities chose to go hush-hush, lest the news adversely affects the financial market. A serious crime of this magnitude is not a paltry incident of burglary in a government office that may not warrant waking up the minister at night and reporting it to him. It is a major incident of financial loss just not to the bank, but the country of which the bank is a financial guard. Keeping news hidden from the government is like a house guard concealing the news of theft in the house from his master.

The original hacking of Bangladesh Bank happened between February 4 and 5, 2016, when the bank’s offices were shut. Security experts said the perpetrators had deep knowledge of the Bangladeshi institution’s internal workings, likely gained by spying on bank workers. This is not to say that some bank employees could be complicit, because the CEO fraud, as said earlier, does not necessarily require direct assistance of employees of the institution. They only need to follow the workers closely.

Perhaps in time, we will come to the bottom of this heist and find ways to prevent such occurrences in the future. But these will concern computer systems and digital security apparatus. What these will not do is change the human guards who watch over the institutions and their behaviour and determine how to react responsibly in crisis situations and own up to mistakes. This requires training and change of management of a different kind; one of accountability and leadership and courage to take responsibility for mistakes.

The writer is a political analyst and commentator.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Berta Cáceres on the banks of the Gualcarque River, in the Rio Blanco region in western Honduras that she fought so hard to protect. Photo Credit: Goldman Environment Prize

By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Mar 15 2016 (IPS)

Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores, was in her early 20s when she co-founded the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras (Cophin), a group that campaigned for the rights of indigenous communities in the Central American nation.

Influenced by a mother, who took in fleeing El Salvadorian refugees, Cáceres was fully committed to her cause. She told friends and colleagues that her struggle was against ‘deadly powers’ that put profit before the rights of her people. In the last two decades, she saw colleagues being threatened, attacked and killed, but her work only got bigger.

Twenty three years after she formed Cophin, Cáceres paid the ultimate prize. She was gunned down in her home after assassins had stormed it around 1 am on March 3.

Before her death, Cáceres had received dead threats and had in fact moved house for safety. Recently, she had been in the forefront of protests against one of the biggest hydropower projects in Central America. The envisioned four dam Agua Zarca project on the Gualcarque river was being built by a local Honduran firm DESA but initially had the backing of China’s Sinohydro and the World Bank’s private sector financier International Finance Cooperation (IFC).

Both pulled out following the protests and Cáceres and others had been publicly calling for other backers like the Dutch Development Bank, the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation and Germany’s Siemens and Voith to follow Sinohydro and IFC.

Her work won worldwide recognition. “With her people she made the World Bank withdraw from Honduras. It is precisely because of this struggle of Cophin led by her and for more then 20 years of resistance to new colonial powers that she won the Emma Goldman Prize in 2015,” Tatiana Cordero, executive director, Latin America at Urgent Action Fund, an international organisation that works for women’s rights, told IPS.

Such global accolades only strengthened Cáceres’ resolve to campaign more vigorously against the dam project, but they obviously need to give her more protection. Less than two weeks before her assassination she led a massive march in Rio Blanco that ended in a confrontation with government security personnel and employees from DESA.

“She was a global voice for the rights of indigenous people to water, food, land and life. She bravely challenged those in positions of power to do what was right — instead of what would result in the most profit,” said Terry Odendahl, President and CEO, Global Greengrants that has funded over 3,000 grants in over 145 countries to the tune of over $45 million said.

The brazen murder of a high-profile activist sent shockwaves through the global environmental rights community. UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz said she was horrified at the murder. Tauli-Corpuz had met Cáceres during a visit in November 2015 and had been personally appraised on the threats.

Tauli-Corpuz said that the international community should work together to bring such wanton violence faced by indigenous activists to a stop: “It is time for the nations of the world to bring perpetrators to justice and to protect indigenous rights activists peacefully protesting the theft of their lands and resources.”

That grass roots environmental activists are under threat across the globe has been known for awhile now. Global Witness found that in 2014, 116 environmental activists were murdered, almost double the number of journalists killed in the same period. Over 40 per cent of the victims were from indigenous communities while three quarters of them were from Central or South America. Between 2002 and 2013, at least 903 citizens engaged in environmental protection work were killed world over.

“The case of Cáceres is emblematic of the systematic targeting of environmental defenders in Honduras. Since 2013, three of her colleagues have been killed for resisting the Agua Zarca hydro-dam on the Gualcarque River, which threatens to cut off a vital water source for hundreds of indigenous Lenca people,” Global Witness said soon after the murder. The organisation also found that such attacks do not get much attention in the international press.

Activists say that the international community needs to understand the real dangers faced by the likes of Cáceres and the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators. “There is a difference between realising the danger and holding the people and systems accountable. This assassination took place because of the Honduran government’s inability to ensure indigenous people and women can carry out their legitimate work without fear.” Odendahl said.

Aleta Baun, an Indonesian activist from the western half of Timor, who has been campaigning on behalf of her Mollo people can relate easily to the Cáceres predicament. Baun, who also won the Goldman Environmental Award in 2013, has survived at least two assassination attempts.

“You feel completely alone when such attacks happen,” she said of an attack in when she was waylaid by 30 men. She said that there has been no serious pressure brought on by local governments and international players to curb such attacks.

Suryamani Bhagat an activist with Save the Forests of Jharkhand Movement in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand also shares these sentiments. “I work with a lot of women, so I feel safer,” she said.

But once they are alone, that protective shield shatters and leads to deadly consequences.

(End)

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The United Nations today, in a joint statement with other multilateral organizations, welcomed the final results of the second round of the presidential elections in the Central African Republic (CAR) announced earlier this week, congratulating President-elect Faustin-Archange Touadéra.

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Burkina Faso is making a solid comeback, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today in the country&#39s capital, Ouagadougou, where he praised the Burkinabe Government and people for their perseverance during a series of tests in recent years, and who with UN support, are firmly on a path to consolidating democratic gains and ensure sustainable development.