ONG (Continuación)

Les faux-semblants de l’insécurité des humanitaires

Depuis les années 1990 et la multiplication des incidents de sécurité dans les conflits post-guerre froide en Afrique de l’ouest, Somalie, Tchétchénie, ex-Yougoslavie et dans la région africaine des Grands lacs, les organisations humanitaires déplorent une insécurité croissante. Les récents bombardements des hôpitaux soutenus par MSF en Afghanistan, Syrie ou au Yémen n'ont fait que renforcer les inquiétudes.

Ce constat est aujourd’hui étayé par des enquêtes visant à « quantifier de manière objective » la violence contre les travailleurs humanitaires. Les statistiques sur la violence contre les organismes d’aide soulèvent au moins deux questions : les données quantitatives démontrent-elles que l’insécurité est « réellement » en augmentation ?…  Seguir leyendo »

«Les réfugiés, l'affaiblissement des pays arabes, Daesh et la menace de guerre entre Sunnites et Chiites occupent le monde – et pendant ce temps la politique israélienne, profitant de ne plus être en ligne de mire, prend de plus en plus d'initiatives qui vont à l'encontre des droits humains. Pour faire écho à cette sinistre ambiance, quelques jeunes colons radicalisés qui n'ont rien à envier à l'état d'esprit des djihadistes, ont poignardé sauvagement, lors d'un mariage, la photo du petit Ali Dawabsheh, le bébé brûlé par des terroristes israéliens.

Les récentes déclarations et les initiatives prises à l’encontre des ONG qui luttent pour les droits humains en Israël et dans les territoires palestiniens illustrent ce climat politique délétère.…  Seguir leyendo »

Workers at a supply factory to Honda Motor's joint-ventures in China strike to demand for higher wages, in Guangdong province on June 7, 2010. (Associated Press)

They came for the feminists in the spring. In the summer, they came for the rights-defense lawyers. And on Dec. 3, the eve of China’s Constitution Day, Chinese authorities initiated a widespread crackdown on labor activists in the industrial powerhouse of Guangdong province.

Since they first appeared 20 years ago, China’s labor nongovernmental organizations have suffered regular rounds of repression and harassment, including tax audits, mafia violence and continual interrogation by security officials. But this most recent repression is more serious. It seems that the Communist Party is intent on stamping out labor activism in civil society once and for all.…  Seguir leyendo »

Moscow has released an initial list of “undesirable organizations” that constitute a “threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation, its defense capabilities and its national security.” Along with the Open Society Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute, the list includes the MacArthur Foundation.

The move, part of Vladimir Putin’s campaign to stifle civil society in Russia, comes as no surprise. What is surprising and depressing, though, has been the overall reaction of Western NGOs and Russian academics to the Kremlin’s action. As one who has been closely involved in efforts to improve ties between Russian and American scientists for more than two decades, I’ve seen few signs of serious protest against Moscow’s campaign to end a long and fruitful era of cooperation.…  Seguir leyendo »

A number of strange protests — small, mild and held in a sort of minor key — took place in Russia’s main cities this week.

A bookstore in St. Petersburg wrote in its window on Tuesday, “We are proud to be selling books published by the Dynasty Foundation.” The Dynasty Foundation, a charitable organization that funds research and educational projects, had just been designated by the authorities as a “foreign agent” — contemporary Russian-speak for an “enemy of the state.” In Moscow, a school teacher stood in front of the Justice Ministry holding a cardboard placard. Later, a writer wearing a graduation gown stood in the same spot, holding a sheet of paper in a plastic sleeve.…  Seguir leyendo »

Thirty-five years ago, on Jan. 22, 1980, Andrei Sakharov was detained by KGB agents on a Moscow street and packed off to Nizhny Novgorod, then called Gorky. The decision to send the human rights defender and winner of the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize into internal exile came as relations with the West deteriorated after the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan a month earlier. Today, history is being repeated as the Russian government mounts a legal attack on human rights and civic organizations — including an institution created to preserve Sakharov’s legacy — at a time when Moscow’s relations with the world are strained by its involvement in a war in neighboring Ukraine.…  Seguir leyendo »

Les ONG internationales, largement dominées par des organisations dont les sièges, comme les financements, sont principalement issus des pays occidentaux, sont-elles condamnées – pour cause d’une insécurité motivée par leur ancrage à des pays majoritairement chrétiens – à ne plus pouvoir se déployer? En Irak, en Afghanistan, en Syrie, au Mali, au Niger, en Centrafrique, les ONG occidentales sont-elles ainsi bloquées dans leurs capacités à se déplacer et à intervenir parce que ces terrains seraient l’expression de tensions religieuses?

La question est brusquement et tragiquement réactivée par l’assassinat de Peter Kassig en Syrie.

Face à ce questionnement, chaque pays est un cas particulier.…  Seguir leyendo »

En este nuevo informe del Laboratorio de Ideas de la Fundación Alternativas se pretende analizar la situación de las organizaciones no gubernamentales para el desarrollo (ONGD) en España, entendiéndolas como parte del entramado de instituciones políticas, sociales y económicas que intervienen en la política española de cooperación internacional al desarrollo, y como resultado de la implicación de la sociedad civil española. El escenario del análisis en que se basa no es otro que la crisis sistémica de financiación, donde el modelo social, económico y político está en plena transformación. El marco viene establecido por las dificultades prolongadas, a las que todavía no se puede descartar una intensificación mayor del déficit democrático, la desigualdad y la pobreza en todo el mundo.…  Seguir leyendo »

Très récemment, le député européen Charles Goerens, rapporteur pour Ebola à la Commission du développement du Parlement européen, a déclaré que cette épidémie était «la première grande crise internationale dans laquelle il faudrait donner le lead à une ONG – en l’occurrence à Médecins sans frontières».

Alors même que nous n’avions de cesse de réclamer plus de leadership de la part de la communauté internationale, Union européenne comprise, cette proposition nous a pris de court. Nous avons compris cet appel, venant d’un député qui par ailleurs a publiquement mis en cause l’insuffisante action des Etats européens par rapport à l’épidémie, comme un symptôme de l’échec des mécanismes de réponse publics et plus encore de l’immense difficulté collective à agir.…  Seguir leyendo »

Once again, the news from Afghanistan fills us with sadness and suggests that perhaps we should despair, that maybe it's time to give up hope for the country.

On Thursday morning, an Afghan guard allegedly opened fire at the gates of a hospital in Kabul, killing three Americans, including Chicago pediatrician Jerry Umanos and a father and son, also doctors, visiting the medical facility.

Civilians have suffered the brunt of Afghanistan's decades of turmoil, but when the killers target aid workers, people who have left their lives behind to come and help, their message is loud and painfully clear: "Go away!"…  Seguir leyendo »

Almost a year into the Kremlin’s war on civil society, the legal veneer looked familiar: A May 15 letter from prosecutors informed the Levada Center, Russia’s most authoritative independent polling firm, that in publicizing the results of its polls it “aimed at shaping public opinion on government policy” and was, therefore, a “political organization”. And, as a political organization receiving foreign grants (from the likes of the Ford and MacArthur foundations), it had to register as a “foreign agent”.

Every assault on civil society is a tragedy for Russia. Nongovernmental organizations are, first and foremost, schools of democracy, teaching personal responsibility, self-organization, peaceful dissent and compromise.…  Seguir leyendo »

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempts at comedy have never been particularly endearing. Lately, they’ve been bad enough to turn the country into a pariah state.

This week, Putin embarked on a European image offensive against a background of creeping repression at home, as government agencies started implementing a law requiring nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign money to register as “foreign agents.” Amnesty International and 42 other organizations received visits from law-enforcement officials. One group -- Golos, known for its efforts to expose electoral fraud -- was charged with violating the law.

The crackdown, which Golos head Grigory Melkonyants called a “political contract hit,” prompted the aging rocker Mark Knopfler, founder of the group Dire Straits and an Amnesty International supporter, to cancel upcoming concerts in Moscow and St.…  Seguir leyendo »

When Russian tax and law enforcement authorities recently raided the Moscow offices of Human Rights Watch, they invited a television crew from one of the country’s key state-controlled broadcast networks, NTV, to film the proceedings. State news television cameras similarly tagged along when government inspectors staged raids of other NGOs, including Amnesty International and the human rights group Memorial.

While President Vladimir Putin has described these raids as “routine measures linked to the desire of the law enforcement agencies to bring the activities of organizations in line with the law,” the question must be asked: Why the need to film and then feature in prime time news broadcasts if these measures are simply “routine”?…  Seguir leyendo »

Deep, fundamental changes are occurring in Egypt. The process begun on Jan. 25, 2011, continues. Our friends must understand that Egypt will never be the same, that this is an Egyptian revolution and that the Egyptian people will determine its outcome.

Recent strains in the U.S.- Egyptian relationship over unregistered nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in this country are unfortunate. Neither country benefits from these tensions. But a necessary first step to putting these differences behind us is U.S. understanding of the Egyptian government’s concerns, which are shared by the overwhelming majority of Egyptians.

The problem did not begin on Dec. 29, when 17 offices of 10 NGOs operating throughout Egypt were investigated.…  Seguir leyendo »

A months-long campaign against civil-society groups by Egypt’s military leadership came to a head Thursday when Egyptian security forces raided the Cairo offices of Freedom House and several other international and local nongovernmental organizations. These attacks were a major setback to the hopes that emerged this year with the revolution in Tahrir Square. If corrective measures are not taken, the attacks will severely damage Egypt’s long-term stability and prospects for a more democratic future.

The protests in January and February that led to the resignation of Hosni Mubarak offered hope to the Egyptian people for the first time in decades. Coming on the heels of the movement that brought down Tunisia’s longtime ruler, Zine el-Abidine Ben-Ali, the revolution reflected Egyptians’ pent-up frustration with endless human rights abuses, rigged elections and lack of real economic opportunity.…  Seguir leyendo »

Una organización humanitaria, que ocupó la atención mediática, insiste en enviar una nueva «caravana solidaria» en «homenaje» a los tres secuestrados por Al Qaeda en Mauritania. Movilizó durante meses a organismos del Estado financiados por todos los españoles. Muchos nos preguntamos si es de recibo que el Estado tenga que asumir el rescate de personas que se ponen en grandes peligros, que acometen empresas deportivas de máximo riesgo, que se aventuran en expediciones de ayuda a los «pobres» del Tercer mundo sin la debida preparación profesional, sin conocer la auténtica realidad social y cultural de esas comunidades y actuando a veces con un amateurismo obsoleto y peligroso.…  Seguir leyendo »

Twenty-five years ago Saturday, two bombs planted by secret agents working for the French government sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbor, New Zealand, killing Fernando Pereira, a photographer and father of two. This was a desperate move by France to stop the activists onboard from bearing witness to its nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

I remember hearing about the attack over my father’s transistor radio in our township outside Durban, South Africa. The apartheid government had recently imposed a state of emergency and it was not often that international news made its way to us. What had happened with the Rainbow Warrior was so outrageous that even we heard about it.…  Seguir leyendo »

The humanitarian aid industry is big business. According to the Overseas Development Institute it was worth about $18bn (£12bn) in 2008 and employed over 300,000 people – a huge increase in recent years. Aid agencies also have growing political clout, playing a leading role in shaping foreign policies of western governments towards humanitarian crises – sometimes even helping to trigger foreign military interventions.

Yet the industry is subject to very little external scrutiny, lacks accountability and is widely believed to often do more harm than good.

There is a real need for serious discussion of the politics and ethics of humanitarian aid, but unfortunately you won't find it in Linda Polman's new book, War Games.…  Seguir leyendo »

El pasado 4 de marzo, el secretario general de la OTAN, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, retomó una de esas ideas relacionadas con la guerra humanitaria que tanta inquietud nos generan a quienes día tras día luchamos por prestar una asistencia independiente a las víctimas de los conflictos. Jugando a la confusión de principios y de objetivos, defendió la necesidad de que la OTAN y las organizaciones no gubernamentales refuercen su cooperación en el terreno, atribuyendo a estas últimas un «poder de atracción» que complete el «poder coercitivo» de los ejércitos aliados -lo que popularmente se conoce como la estrategia del poli malo y el poli bueno-.…  Seguir leyendo »

Trois ans. Trois ans déjà que nos 17 collègues, salariés locaux d'Action contre la faim, ont été mis à genoux et fusillés, le 4 août 2006, dans l'enceinte de nos bureaux de Muttur, au Sri Lanka. Ces assassinats constituent le crime le plus important en nombre commis contre des humanitaires ; il se définit légalement comme un des actes les plus graves qui existent : le crime de guerre.

Depuis trois ans, Action contre la faim se bat pour obtenir justice pour ces 17 personnes qui n'avaient qu'un seul objectif : venir au secours des populations au coeur de la guerre civile.…  Seguir leyendo »