Rights Groups Assail U.S. for Withholding Aid to Haiti, Citing Political Motives

 
By MARC LACEY
Published: June 24, 2008

An array of human rights groups has strongly criticized the United States government, saying it withheld money meant to provide clean drinking water to Haiti as leverage for political change in the country.

The activists, in a report released Monday, called the delay of $54 million in international loans to the Haitian government “one of the most egregious examples of malfeasance by the United States in recent years.”

The loans from the Inter-American Development Bank were intended to revamp the water and sanitation systems in Les Cayes and Port-de-Paix, two Haitian towns in dire need of the money to improve their infrastructure. Nearly 70 percent of Haitians lack regular and direct access to potable water, experts say. The lack of clean water contributes to intestinal parasites and amoebic dysentery.

The development bank, over which the United States Treasury Department holds significant influence, approved the loans in 1998. Although payments began to be made several years later, the water projects have yet to be started, the report said, “largely the result of aggressive attempts by the U.S. government to block the disbursement of these loans.”

Haiti’s own political turmoil and financial difficulties also contributed to the delays, the report acknowledged.

The report was prepared by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at the New York University School of Law; Partners in Health, a Boston-based health care provider that does work in Haiti and other impoverished countries; and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights.

The groups went to court to gain access to internal government correspondence saying why the United States sought to prevent the approved loans from reaching Haiti in the years after their approval. The Inter-American Development Bank’s charter states that the bank should not interfere in the political affairs of member countries.

But the delays in disbursing the loans were linked by American officials to their concerns about the administration of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose first presidency was overthrown by a military coup in 1991 and whose return to power in 2001 was cut short three years later with the encouragement of the Bush administration.

Dean Curran, who was the American ambassador to Haiti at the time, said publicly in 2001, “There now are a certain number of loans of the Inter-American Development Bank that are not yet disbursed with the objective of trying to request of the protagonists of the current situation, in the current political crisis, to reach a compromise.”

A top Treasury Department official then sent an e-mail message to staff members that called it a “major screw-up” for the ambassador to explicitly acknowledge a connection between the holdup in development loans and American political concerns in Haiti.

A Treasury Department spokeswoman, Brookly McLaughlin, said on Friday that she had not yet seen a copy of the report but that the United States government and other international agencies had played a major financial role in the development of Haiti.

Martial law creeping up I-95 North

by ALTON H. MADDOX JR.
Amsterdam News
Originally posted 6/19/2008

It is not surprising that the leading Supreme Court cases under the Fourth Amendment are Mapp v. Ohio and Terry v. Ohio. Both defendants were Black. Mapp mandated that the Fourth Amendment applied to the states under the 14th Amendment. Terry subsequently eviscerated the Fourth Amendment. Blacks could be stopped and frisked based simply on reasonable suspicion.

The New York Police Department is seeking to hide its stop and frisk data from the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights among others, even though it had no problem providing the same data to the RAND Corp. which, after receiving a hefty municipal grant, proposed the police use of Tasers in response to the assassinatio n of Sean Bell—despite a jury’s ruling in a products liability case that Tasers are deadly weapons.

A white racist or a self-hating Negro coupled with a high-powered, semiautomatic gun and a badge is a recipe for murder. Racism and self-hatred were the farthest things from RAND’s study, but those ingredients were present in the assassination of Sean Bell. The Queens prosecutor’s office laid the foundation for a cover-up in People v. Oliver et al.

Probable cause and reasonable suspicion are being dishonored by members of the NYPD. These are the respective mandates in Mapp and Terry. There will be at least 600,000 street stops in New York City this year. Racial profiling influences these police stops. Although Blacks make up one-half of all persons stopped illegally, they make up only one-fourth of the city’s population. Nearly 90 percent of all stops in New York City lack probable cause or reasonable suspicion. The Bloomberg administration is, by far, the worst in the city’s history.

Against this backdrop, it is difficult to point fingers for the violence in the Black community. From manufacturing to retail sales, Blacks are absent from the arms network. Possession of weapons provides a pretext for whites to decimate a targeted population.

Since it has been established that law enforcement agencies are dumping illegal substances in the Black community, it is reasonable to infer that these same agencies are involved in smuggling weapons to young Blacks. The Black community is a dumping ground for toxic substances.

In the meantime, Bloomberg is engaged in a public relations gimmick. We are supposed to believe that these guns are coming from remote locations like Virginia and Georgia. Thus, he is in those jurisdictions suing gun vendors and masquerading as a crusader for gun control. This is misdirection.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is also a crusader for gun control. He is now defending his advocacy for gun control in the U.S . Supreme Court. Bloomberg filed a “friend of the court” brief in support of Fenty. If he were alive today, King George III would be in cahoots with Fenty and Bloomberg. The right of self-defense is on life support in New York City and the District of Columbia.

After imposing a complete ban on gun ownership by the city’s denizens, Fenty has issued an AK-15, a semiautomatic rifle, to every cop on street patrol. The Defense Department, formerly named the War Department, gave those battlefield weapons to the D.C. police for use on D.C. streets. Military surplus is typically given to insurgents around the globe.

Fenty has militarized the police in D.C. without equipping the police with rules of engagement for military action. On the battlefield, the Geneva Conventions are supposed to reign supreme. For Blacks, Dred Scott is still a good law.

On the other hand, foreign enemy combatants have just gotten some relief from the Supreme Court. They, and not Blacks, are en titled to habeas corpus relief. Many innocent Black men are in prison because judges refuse to seriously review their grievances or the judges engage in legal revisionism.

Martial law permeates an area known as Trinidad. Unconstitutional police checkpoints went up resulting in restrictions on travel. Arbitrary stops and frisks became the norm. The right to be left alone and the right to travel are fundamental constitutional rights. These rights no longer exist in D.C.

Martial law arises out of a suspension of constitutional rights and containment of an oppressed people in a militarized zone. Police departments in urban areas no longer exist. They have been militarized and there has been a relaxation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

Blacks are unprepared to comprehend this revived, legal jargon. In the tristate area, Blacks had better get prepared for the McCarran Act, Hirabayashi v. United States and Korematsu v. United States. Martial law is on its way. See, for ex ample, NY Military Law section nine.

Former Mayor Edward I. Koch would have loved these times. He was ahead of his time. Back in the 1980s, Koch had to face off against a battery of Black lawyers bent on securing justice for Blacks. White ambulance chasers replaced them. This was by design. Now, Blacks are losing. Those Black lawyers were disbarred. The Black community attended their funerals. Back then, the future was uncertain.

Dr. William A. Jones was our spiritual guru in the 1980s. “If you eat the king’s meat, you must do the king’s bidding” was his favorite saying. He opposed pimps and prostitutes wearing the collar. Churches are now infested with pimps and prostitutes.

Today, the chief Black leader in New York is eating from both the corporate and political troughs. He is not engaged in extortion, however. This would be illegal. Instead, he is the CEO of a protections racket. He provides racial insurance to corporations and politicians. President Calvin Coolidge said it best: “The business of America is business.”

3 more arrested in Marshfield attack

7 face hate crime charges in beating of black teenager
By John R. Ellement Globe Staff / June 17, 2008

MARSHFIELD – Seven people now face hate crime charges after police arrested three more suspects yesterday in a vicious attack on a black teenager from Boston that one selectman in this South Shore town called despicable.

Tizaya Robinson, 17, was chased and beaten on Careswell Street (Route 139) shortly after midnight Thursday, police said. As many as 12 men and women attacked Robinson with sticks, and kicked and punched him even after he was knocked unconscious, according to police.

Marshfield police officials have refused to discuss the case, but in a report filed in Plymouth District Court they quote one of those arrested as repeatedly using a racial epithet while asserting he was attacked first.

It was not clear whether the victim was attacked simply as he walked along Route 139, or if he had some prior connection to the suspects, many of whom were believed to have attended a party that evening, said Karen O’Sullivan, a spokeswoman for Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz.

But in the police report, Robinson told police he was attacked “because of his race” and used dog repellent to defend himself. He could not be reached for comment yesterday. Robinson was treated for cuts, bruises, and stab wounds at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, police said.

O’Sullivan said that the three new suspects have been charged with hate crimes, attempted murder, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Cruz did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Those suspects were identified by O’Sullivan as Paul Berchtold, 18; Christopher Brattie, 22; and Jeffrey Cappello, 20. Their hometowns were not immediately available. They were scheduled to be arraigned yesterday in Plymouth District Court, but the outcomes were not immediately available.

“It’s terrible; it’s despicable,” Selectman Michael A. Maresco said in a telephone interview yesterday. “This has put a bad mark on the town. This is not the way folks in Marshfield think.”

In their report, police said they found a small pool of blood in The Garlic restaurant parking lot and a bloody towel and larger pool of blood across form the restaurant. They also found a bloodstained stick that was 18 inches long and 3 inches thick.

A man who would not give his name but identified himself as the owner of The Garlic said yesterday that none of the suspects had been in his restaurant, which he said had closed at 10:30 p.m.

Police said at least one witness contacted them as the attack was underway and described seeing “a large group of approximately 10 to 12 people, including males and females, beating a black male in the parking lot.”

The report said that the attackers chased the victim down and continued to beat him. The witnesses’ statement “made it seem apparent that the group was acting in concert while chasing this male . . . all while shouting derogatory racial statements,” it said. “. . . One male was using a large stick like a harpoon, spearing Mr. Robinson.”

Three men and one women were arrested in the immediate aftermath of the assault. They have been identified as Jay Rains, 19, of Duxbury; Michael Anderson, 19, of Quincy; Kevin Shdeed, 17, of Marshfield; and Amanda Kelly, 19, of Marshfield.

In the report, Rains told police he was attacked from behind by a black male who sprayed him and others with a chemical. Police said in the report that they thought it was pepper spray.

Police said Rains used a derogatory racial epithet at least 25 times during their conversations with him. Witnesses told police that Rains “instigated the entire fight by calling the victim and another black male, who left the area after an altercation with Rains, a [racial epithet].”

The four were arraigned last week, and all but Rains were released on several hundred dollars cash bail.

Bail was set at $5,000 for Rains, who has other cases pending, including one for assault and battery, records show.

John Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com.

Slavery by Another Name

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the
Civil War to World War II
BOOK EXCERPT: Copyright 2008 • Douglas A. Blackmon

Slavery: . . . that slow Poison, which is daily contaminating the Minds and
Morals of our People. Every Gentlemen here is born a petty Tyrant.
Practiced in Acts of Despotism and Cruelty, we become callous to the
Dictates of Humanity, and all the finer feelings of the Soul. Taught to
regard a part of our own Species in the most abject and contemptible Degree
below us, we lose that Idea of the dignity of Man which the Hand of
Nature had implanted in us, for great and useful purposes.

GEORGE MASON, JULY 1773 VIRGINIA CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

If we all want national sanity will it come?

American self-sufficiency and technological vigor in the intensely competitive world of the mid-21st century, would emphasize the use of domestic ingenuity and entrepreneurial skills to maximize the potential of renewable energy sources, including solar, wind, geothermal, and wave power. The same skills should also be applied to developing methods for producing ethanol from non-food plant matter (“cellulosic ethanol”), for using coal without releasing carbon into the atmosphere (via “carbon capture and storage,” or CCS), for miniaturizing hydrogen fuel cells, and for massively increasing the energy efficiency of vehicles, buildings, and industrial processes.

    All of these energy systems show great promise, and so should be accorded the increased support and investment they will need to move from the marginal role they now play to a dominant role in American energy generation. At this point, it is not possible to determine precisely which of them (or which combination among them) will be best positioned to transition from small to large-scale commercial development. As a result, all of them should be initially given enough support to test their capacity to make this move.

    In applying this general rule, however, priority clearly should be given to new forms of transportation fuel. It is here that oil has long been king, and here that oil’s decline will be most harshly felt. It is thanks to this that calls for military intervention to secure additional supplies of crude are only likely to grow. So emphasis should be given to the rapid development of biofuels, coal-to-liquid fuels (with the carbon extracted via CCS), hydrogen, or battery power, and other innovative means of fueling vehicles. At the same time, it’s obvious that putting some of our military budget into funding a massive increase in public transit would be the height of national sanity.

    An approach of this sort would enhance American national security on multiple levels. It would increase the reliable supply of fuels, promote economic growth at home (rather than sending a veritable flood of dollars into the coffers of unreliable petro-regimes abroad), and diminish the risk of recurring U.S. involvement in foreign oil wars. No other approach – certainly not the present traditional, unquestioned, unchallenged reliance on military force – can make this claim. It’s well past time to stop garrisoning the global gas station.

    ——-

    Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author of several books on energy politics, including “Resource Wars” (2001), “Blood and Oil” (2004), and, most recently, “Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy.” A brief video of Klare discussing key subjects in his new book can be viewed by clicking here. A movie version of his book “Blood and Oil” is now available on DVD.

Is Obama’s Victory Ours?

[col. writ. 6/5/08] (c)’08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
 
 
    With the attainment of the required delegates to claim the Democratic Party’s nomination for U.S. president, Sen. Barack H. Obama (D. ILL.) has written a new page in American history.
 
    For by so doing he succeeds where Channing Phillips, Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Sr., and Al Sharpton could not – by gaining the necessary delegates to demand nomination.
 
    Of course, there have been numerous Black candidates for president, but these have been third party efforts designed more to raise issues, to organize or protest than to actually win elections. Some of the best known have been Eldridge Cleaver (former Black Panther Minister of Information), Dick Gregory, Dr. Lenora Fulani, and the former congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney.
 
    But this is a different kettle of fish, for Obama’s candidacy is the closest to make it to the winner’s circle.
 
    What also distinguishes Obama from his predecessors is he doesn’t come from civil rights, Black liberation, socialist or anti war movements. (He often remarks at speeches, “I’m not against all wars, I’m just against dumb wars”)
 
    Indeed, although his detractors may try to paint him as a leftist liberal this is hardly true.  On issues both foreign and domestic he would’ve been more at home in the Republican Party of his senatorial forebear, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts. For though he is Black by dint of his African father, he has studiously avoided Black political groups in his long, harrowing climb to the rim of the White House.
 
    He has studiously avoided the very real and long standing grievances of Black America. In fact, he tried to run a ‘post-racial’ campaign until Sen. Hillary R. Clinton (D.N.Y.) (and her rambunctious husband, former Pres. Bill), brought race front and center during the Super Tuesday February primaries, by trying to pigeonhole him as ‘the Black candidate’.
 
    This primary wounded Obama, and as he won in the delegate count, he also lost a number of primary states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, which are necessary for a win in November.
 
    Politics is the art of making people believe that they are in power when in fact, they have none.
 
    It is a measure of how dire is the hour that they’ve passed the keys to the kingdom to a Black man.
 
    As in many American cities, Black Mayors were let in when the treasuries were almost barren, and tax bases were almost at rock-bottom.
 
    With the nation’s  manufacturing base also a thing of history, amidst the socioeconomic wreckage of globalization, with foreign affairs in shambles, the rulers reach for a pretty, brown face to front for the Empire.
 
    ‘Real change that you could believe in’ would be an end to Empire, and an end to wars for corporate greed, not just a change of the shade of the political managers.
 
    That change, I’m afraid, is still to come.
 
–(c) ‘08 maj

Reparations and Human Rights

I’m confident that Americans have heard just about every issue addressing the past, present and future of Afro-descendants (descendants of enslaved Africans, also known in the U.S. as African Americans.) Reparation has been discussed for a while, yet the umbrella under which reparations and all of the other issues are gathered, the umbrella of human rights, is almost never discussed.

 

While we continue to make remarkable strides, we still are not afforded the same dignity and the same freedoms as other human families throughout the world.  Our original identity, carried forth in language, culture and religion, was removed from us during slavery. Today, in the year 2008, despite our heroic struggles and sacrifices, most of us are still unaware that we have a HUMAN RIGHT to our identity, and we were stripped of that right.

 

We were forced to assume the identity of the people who enslaved us, and that rendered us non-existent – not recognized – under international law. That assumption of another’s identity also rendered us 2^nd class citizens, making us susceptible to other indignities such as racism, exclusion, exploitation, discrimination, racial profiling and unequal protection of the law.

 

For the past 15 years, (so-called) African Americans have been represented by a team of delegates at the international level addressing the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Sub-Commission and the Working Group on Minorities. This team stands on the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which envisages human rights for everyone, everywhere.

 

Led by Mr. Silis Muhammad, CEO of All For Reparations and Emancipation AFRE, the diverse team has represented Afro-descendants at UN sponsored forums in Switzerland, Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Canada, and South Africa.  After Mr. Muhammad’s arguments on behalf of Afro-descendants were heard at the UN, experts began to recognize that the UN had an obligation to find a solution us – they had no choice if they wished to uphold human rights for everyone, everywhere.

 

After 20 years of work, and more than 40 occasions wherein Mr. Muhammad spoke at conferences and seminars of the UN, international recognition and establishment of international identity has been accomplished. Using the foundation and legal standing of these achievements, the battle for reparations continues.

 

As you know, the trans-Atlantic slave trade scattered our ancestors across the western hemisphere. Today Afro-descendants constitute a human family stretching far beyond the U.S. into many countries in Northern and Latin America and the Slavery Diaspora. The low estimate of Afro-descendants in the western hemisphere is 250 million.

 

 

There is a UN Sub-Commission conference room paper entitled A Regional Perspective on Afro-descendantQuality of Life available at www.AllForReparations.org.

 

 

I recommend that you read it and learn about the struggles of our human family in the many countries in which we live today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tutu’s Trip to Gaza Censored by the US Media

By Mike Whitney

“There can be no justice, no peace, no stability, not for Israel, not for the Palestinians, without accountability for human rights violations.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu

01/06/08 “ICH” — – Why was Desmond Tutu’s trip to Gaza censored by the US media?

When Nobel Laureate and world renowned peacemaker Desmond Tutu goes to Gaza to visit the site of an Israeli massacre; that’s news, right? So why is it impossible to find any account of his trip in America’s leading newspapers? Is it because any information that is incompatible with the territorial ambitions of the Israeli leadership is simply “disappeared” into the media-ether?

Archbishop Tutu was a leader in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. He is neaither a terrorist nor an anti-Semite. His work as a human rights activist spans 4 decades. Like former president Jimmy Carter he was shunned by the Israeli government and refused entry into Gaza.

Why?

Two days earlier author and university professor Norman Finkelstein was refused entry into Israel even though he’s Jewish and had parents who survived the Holocaust. Isn’t that enough to gain entry or must one accept the prevailing doctrine of the far-right extremists in the Olmert government who think that it’s okay to deprive Palestinians of their rights whenever they see fit?

Bishop Tutu had to go through Eqypt to get to Beit Hanoun; the town where 18 members of the al-Athamna family–including 14 women and children–were killed by Israeli artillery fire in November 2006. Tutu said that hearing “from the survivors of the massacre” had left him in a “state of shock”.

Christine Chinkin, professor of international law at the London School of Economics, told the UK Guardian that her preliminary assessment of the attack was that it was a breach of international law.

“Firing in a way that cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants is clearly a violation of international humanitarian law,” she said. “I don’t think that the idea of a technical mistake takes away from the initial responsibility of the action of firing where civilian casualties are clearly foreseeable … it has to be foreseeable when you give yourself such a small margin that any error has the potential to lead to civilian casualties.” (UK Guardian)

Chinkin is right, of course. It was a massacre and should be thoroughly investigated by the international community. The responsible parties need to be held accountable.

According to the UK Telegraph, “No soldiers were ever charged in connection with the incident. Israel blocked attempts by the UN’s Human Rights Council to investigate the shelling, saying that members of the body were “biased”.

So now the members of the UN’s Human Rights Council can’t be trusted either?!?

Tutu ended his three day mission by calling for an end to the blockade of food, medical supplies and economic assistance to the Gaza Strip and by condemning the “culture of impunity” in which one nation arbitrarily imprisons one and a half million civilians who are left to languish in abject poverty and hopelessness.

“We saw a forlorn, deserted, desolate and eerie place,” Tutu said “The entire situation is abominable. We believe that ordinary Israeli citizens would not support this blockade, this siege, if they knew what it really meant to ordinary people like themselves.”

Tutu is right. This is not the work of the Israeli public, which (according to a recent poll in the Jewish newspaper Ha’aretz) 65% want direct negotiations with Hamas. This is the work of fanatics at the top-rung of the political system who—much like the Bush administration—operate without any regard for the will their people and without any concern about the vast human suffering they are creating.

Tutu met with the Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh on Tuesday and told him that, while he was opposed to the Israeli occupation, he condemned the rocket fire by militants into Gaza.

“True security, peace, will not come from the barrel of a gun,” he said. “It will come through negotiation; negotiation not with your friends, peace can come only when enemies sit down and talk. It happened in South Africa. It has happened more recently in Northern Ireland. It will happen here too.”
(UK Guardian)

Tutu went to Gaza for peace and not one newspaper in the United States covered the story. Apparently, the “culture of impunity” extends to America’s media as well as the Israeli leaders who killed the 18 Palestinians at Beit Hanoun.

Racism Rampant at Alabama School

Racism Rampant at Alabama School
By BY DESIREE HUNTER, APPosted: 2008-05-27 13:50:00Filed Under: Top News

 

 

 

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A south Alabama town that was the inspiration for the setting in Harper Lee’s book “To Kill a Mockingbird” is finding itself as the backdrop for a real-life legal case involving allegations of racism at school.

 

The parents of several black junior high school students have filed a discrimination lawsuit claiming their children are subject to racial slurs and punished more harshly than white students at Monroeville Junior High School.

 

The lawsuit says black students at the county’s only public junior high have been called slurs such as the “N-word,” “filthy trash” and “black monkey.” Their parents also say classes are segregated, with most black students being kept out of advanced placement and honors courses.

 

The action, originally filed in August, was revived this week by the American Civil Liberties Union in U.S. Southern District Court on behalf of nine students. It names the Monroe County Board of Education, Monroeville Junior High principal Lana Wilson, county superintendent Dennis Mixon, and the five-member school board.

 

 

“I just feel like every student should have the right to a decent education regardless of race, creed or color,” said Tangelia Yates, a parent involved in the lawsuit whose son is an eighth grader. “We need to make sure that that happens within the Alabama school system, particularly Monroe County.”

 

 

Monroeville, more than 80 miles southwest of Montgomery, is the hometown of “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee, whose coming-of-age tale discusses racism and injustice in a small Alabama town in the 1930s.

The carefully restored Old Courthouse, which was built in 1903, draws sold-out crowds to its auditorium each spring for a two-act adaptation of Lee’s novel. The courthouse draws tourists who have fallen in love with the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, which looks at racism through the eyes of a tenacious tomboy named Scout.

 

Everette Price, an attorney in nearby Brewton, has directed the “Mockingbird Players” in their springtime productions since 1994 and said it’s easy to see why such allegations would be considered more egregious in a city with Monroeville’s history.

Hotline for modern day slaves

Human Rights Tribune – 5 June 08 -

Carole Vann – Badly treated, humiliated, passports confiscated, forced to work day and night, pregnant and beaten, this is the fate of 2.5 million women worldwide. In Switzerland as in other places many of them are illegal. There is no question of them complaining to the police as they are too afraid of being expelled. What can they do then? In Geneva they can ring a free hotline number 0800 20 80 20 from 14:00 to 19:00 Monday to Friday.

At the other end of the line they will find an attentive listener with some practical advice such as where to find temporary accommodation, get treatment, find social and psychological support or legal advice. And what if the victim is imprisoned and needs someone to come to their aid? Someone will come. All of this will be done in six languages: French, German, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian and of course completely confidentially. It is the first time such a service has been offered in French speaking Switzerland.

The new Geneva hotline is launched this week following the campaign, ‘End Human Trafficking Now!’ and ‘Friends of Humanity’. It will mean that these modern day slaves: men, women, children, whether illegal or not, will no longer feel totally isolated. Already in Geneva, there are posters and billboards on buses and trams, in churches, the red light district, bars and restaurants.

“The human trafficking trade is the third biggest criminal activity, after drugs and weapons, with 2.5 million victims every year” according to Kofi Annan’s former UN spokeswoman, Therese Gastaut, who is a member of ‘End Human Trafficking Now!’. She says that 142 of the UN’s 192 member states are affected.

Switzerland is no exception. A place of destination and transit, it had between 1,500 and 3,000 cases in 2007 according to federal police figures. That said, the Confederation has reacted by every year it investing between two and three million francs in prevention measures and the protection of victims in their countries of origin.

In 2006 Bern ratified the Palermo Convention on international organised crime and an additional protocol that aims to prevent human trafficking, particularly of women and children and punishing the perpetrators. “Our initiative is a model of public private partnership”, says Therese Gastaut. The project, financed by private companies – Elite Rent A Car, Manpower Inc, Foundation for the Child and Family – is linked to a large network of partners including centres for the victims of crime, such as “Au Coeur des Grottes”, the Samaritans, help for sex workers, unions, churches …

The cost is 200,000 CHF for six months. “We are starting in Geneva, but we would like to replicate the idea across Europe and even further afield”, says Anne-Marie von Arx Vernon, deputy director of “Au Coeur des Grottes”. A TV spot is planned to be shown on planes and on TV. At the moment it is broadcast in English and in Arabic on Egypt Air, Emirate Airlines as well as on CNN.