Human Rights in “The Land of the Good People”

Kent Paterson

In April the central Mexican city of Aguascalientes will burst alive with song, drink and dance. Drawing millions of visitors, the San Marcos Fair is Mexico’s annual spring celebration bar none. Extending into May, the three week-long bash is generally a peaceful affair. However, sore spots and controversies do crop up, including allegations of police misconduct.

For the 2015 edition of San Marcos, the official Aguascalientes Human Rights Commission (CEDHA) plans to be on hand observing police as well as informing the public about its rights. We recently spoke with CEDHA President Eduardo Jesus Martin about San Marcos and other themes related to his agency’s work on the human rights front.

According to Martin, CEDHA staff documented problematic policing at last year’s fair. Commission personnel found untrained officers from other municipalities deployed at the fair; patrols carrying assault weapons into extremely crowded quarters; officers failing to inform detainees of their rights; and cops using electric cattle prods on some suspects.

“You can’t enter the fair with long arms because it is a risk in a multitude of people, which can even take them away,” Martin said. “We told the police they have to have action protocols.” Since last year, the CEDHA has met with law enforcement officials, who’ve pledged not to use the electric prods and read suspects their rights, Martin said. In addition to the CEDHA the police department’s internal affairs unit will have a presence at the fair, he added.

Criticized by some and praised by others, the CEDHA is among the state-level human rights commissions that have emerged in Mexico since the 1980s. State commissions like Aguascalientes’ handle cases involving state government agencies and other local institutions, while the National Human Rights Commission focuses on federal agencies and issues.

Budgeted to the tune of about one million dollars, the 50 person staff of the CEDHA processes citizen complaints and issues corresponding recommendations to the appropriate authorities. Among other tasks, the commission inspects local prisons; wages workplace anti-discrimination and other campaigns, participates in an anti-drug program; and gives human rights training to commanders of the Federal Police, which maintains a large base in Aguascalientes.

“Citizens lack awareness of their rights and responsibilities,” Martin maintained, adding that the CEDHA is proactive in publicizing its existence through campaigns such as the mass mailing of flyers tucked into water utility bills to 350,000 state households.

A veteran attorney and long time human rights advocate, Martin was elected by the state legislature last year to a four-year term as the commission’s president. Five councilors also named by local lawmakers function as the board of directors of the organization. Martin said the CEDHA more than doubled the number of complaints it handled from 200 in 2013 to greater than 400 in 2014, while increasing the number of recommendations from 8 to 30 during the same time period.

“On the optimistic side, it is that we are doing well in Aguascalientes,” he said. “The pessimistic view is that we aren’t doing well.”

Like official human rights commissions elsewhere in the country, the CEDHA does not currently have the authority to enact its recommendations or levy sanctions against individuals and institutions determined to have violated human rights after a careful investigation by staff.

But Martin insisted that he is not shy about using the power of public shaming, and will have the CEDHA inform state lawmakers about government agencies and officials that do not follow the commission’s recommendations. In 2014, the CEDHA investigations concluded that several state and municipal law enforcement agencies were likely responsible for committing human rights violations in 67 out of a total of 115 cases examined involving different government and local institutions.

Besides discrimination, the specific violations pertained to rights guaranteeing personal integrity, security, freedom, and private property, according to the commission’s 2014 annual report.

Colloquially known as “The Land of the Good People,” Aguascalientes is not in the category of states with high-profile human rights violations like Guerrero and Chihuahua. Still, the CEDHA documented 40 cases of torture related to the security forces last year. Martin disclosed that the state commission is broadening its definition of torture to conform to international standards, noting that widely accepted definitions of torture include psychological pressures against an individual and/or family member as well as physical mistreatment falling short of popular preconceptions.

The CEDHA president cited a conversation he recently had with a man who complained that police had put him in a cold bath during a detention. Martin said he inquired if the citizen wanted to file a torture complaint, but the man declined.

“’You said you were treated okay?’” Martin asked incredulously.

“’Yes, they didn’t hit me’,” the man replied.

According to the Aguascalientes attorney, reconciling police practices with new legal standards is the burning issue of the times.  Martin cited the Mexican Supreme Court’s ruling that suspect declarations are invalid if they are taken when rights are not respected.

“The challenge for the country is for the police to begin to live with these new rules,” he added.

As a legal benchmark, Martin recalled the saga of Florence Cassez. The French national was arrested along with her Mexican boyfriend and other individuals accused of forming a kidnap-for-profit ring in the Mexico City area in 2005.  Overseen by former federal security chief Genaro Garcia Luna, the arrests of Cassez and the other suspects featured an after-the-fact, staged arrest scene that was sensationally broadcast by the country’s two major television networks, Televisa and Azteca, and later promoted as a stellar example of the Calderon administration’s war against organized crime.

Yet the failure of the Mexican government to provide timely notification to the French government of the arrest of one of its citizens, along with other irregularities in Cassez’s detention, caused serious diplomatic tensions between France and Mexico.

In January 2013, about a month after Felipe Calderon left the Mexican presidency, the Mexican Supreme Court freed Cassez in a ruling that did not address her guilt or innocence but determined that “the process was so contaminated that she could not have a fair trial,” Martin said.

Released after spending seven years in prison and maintaining her innocence, Cassez has filed a $36 million lawsuit for “moral damages” against Calderon, Garcia Luna, Televisa newscaster Carlos Loret de Mola and others.

In a ruling based on technical grounds, a Mexican judge refused to hear the suit earlier this month but Cassez’s lawyer, Jose Patino, told Proceso magazine he would explore other legal recourses. “They destroyed her life,” he said in a separate interview with CNN’s Carmen Aristegui.

For the remainder of his term as CEDHA president, issues of importance prioritized by Martin include winning recognition for same sex marriage, respecting the rights of transgender persons, and passing legislation to give the commission’s recommendations legal teeth.

In his latest report to the state congress, Martin charged that the CEDHA had been the target of telephone espionage, an act which, “apart from moral questions, constituted a federal crime.” He held that the spying was likely done with the intention of gathering information on pending cases and monitoring communications with journalists.

In concluding his report, Martin sketched out a local and national human rights panorama.

“Fortunately, Aguascalientes does not present the grave indices of human rights violations that the rest of the country has, with the exception of 2 or 3 states,” Martin said. “But the task is to struggle for the basic rule of law. Torture is unacceptable, insecurity is unacceptable, violence is unacceptable, corruption is unacceptable, impunity is unacceptable.”

Who Are the Nuclear Scofflaws?

Lawrence Wittner

Given all the frothing by hawkish U.S. Senators about Iran’s possible development of nuclear weapons, one might think that Iran was violating the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

But it’s not.  The NPT, signed by 190 nations and in effect since 1970, is a treaty in which the non-nuclear nations agreed to forgo developing nuclear weapons and the nuclear nations agreed to divest themselves of their nuclear weapons.  It also granted nations the right to develop peaceful nuclear power.  The current negotiations in which Iran is engaged with other nations are merely designed to guarantee that Iran, which signed the NPT, does not cross the line from developing nuclear power to developing nuclear weapons.

Nine nations, however, have flouted the NPT by either developing nuclear weapons since the treaty went into effect or failing to honor the commitment to disarm.  These nine scofflaws and their nuclear arsenals are Russia (7,500 nuclear warheads), the United States (7,100 nuclear warheads), France (300 nuclear warheads), China (250 nuclear warheads), Britain (215 nuclear warheads), Pakistan (100-120 nuclear warheads), India (90-110 nuclear warheads), Israel (80 nuclear warheads), and North Korea (<10 nuclear warheads).

Nor are the nuclear powers likely to be in compliance with the NPT any time soon.  The Indian and Pakistani governments are engaged in a rapid nuclear weapons buildup, while the British government is contemplating the development of a new, more advanced nuclear weapons system.  Although, in recent decades, the U.S. and Russian governments did reduce their nuclear arsenals substantially, that process has come to a halt in recent years, as relations have soured between the two nations.  Indeed, both countries are currently engaged in a new, extremely dangerous nuclear arms race.  The U.S. government has committed itself to spending $1 trillion to “modernize” its nuclear facilities and build new nuclear weapons.  For its part, the Russian government is investing heavily in the upgrading of its nuclear warheads and the development of new delivery systems, such as nuclear missiles and nuclear submarines.

What can be done about this flouting of the NPT, some 45 years after it went into operation?

That will almost certainly be a major issue at an NPT Review Conference that will convene at the UN headquarters, in New York City, from April 27 to May 22.  These review conferences, held every five years, attract high-level national officials from around the world to discuss the treaty’s implementation.  For a very brief time, the review conferences even draw the attention of television and other news commentators before the mass communications media return to their preoccupation with scandals, arrests, and the lives of movie stars.

This spring’s NPT review conference might be particularly lively, given the heightening frustration of the non-nuclear powers at the failure of the nuclear powers to fulfill their NPT commitments.  At recent disarmament conferences in Norway, Mexico and Austria, the representatives of a large number of non-nuclear nations, ignoring the opposition of the nuclear powers, focused on the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war.  One rising demand among restless non-nuclear nations and among nuclear disarmament groups is to develop a nuclear weapons ban treaty, whether or not the nuclear powers are willing to participate in negotiations.

To heighten the pressure for the abolition of nuclear weapons, nuclear disarmament groups are staging a Peace and Planet mobilization, in Manhattan, on the eve of the NPT review conference.  Calling for a “Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just, and Sustainable World,” the mobilization involves an international conference (comprised of plenaries and workshops) on April 24 and 25, plus a culminating interfaith convocation, rally, march, and festival on April 26.  Among the hundreds of endorsing organizations are many devoted to peace (Fellowship of Reconciliation, Pax Christi, Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Veterans for Peace, and Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom), environmentalism (Earth Action, Friends of the Earth, and 350NYC), religion (Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Unitarian Universalist UN Office, United Church of Christ, and United Methodist General Board of Church & Society), workers’ rights (New Jersey Industrial Union Council, United Electrical Workers, and Working Families Party), and human welfare (American Friends Service Committee and National Association of Social Workers).

Of course, how much effect the proponents of a nuclear weapons-free world will have on the cynical officials of the nuclear powers remains to be seen.  After as many as 45 years of stalling on their own nuclear disarmament, it is hard to imagine that they are finally ready to begin negotiating a treaty effectively banning nuclear weapons―or at least their nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, let us encourage Iran not to follow the bad example set by the nuclear powers.  And let us ask the nuclear-armed nations, now telling Iran that it should forgo the possession of nuclear weapons, when they are going to start practicing what they preach.

Data Retention, Careless Leaks and the Public Interest

Binoy Kampmark

The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 is now Australian law. Despite a few loud voices, the police state consensus barged its way through the lower house and senate. An act that is poor in terms of scope, uncertain in terms of cost ($400 billion is but a figure), and dangerous in creating unnecessary pools of data, is now part of the surveillance furniture of the Australian landscape.

While Australia forges ahead into the barren scape of policy that is data retention, other countries and institutions are finding little to merit it. The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) ruled in April 2014 that European Union laws requiring telecommunication providers to retain metadata for up to six months, and a maximum of twenty-four months were, in their scope and purpose, invalid as a breach of fundamental privacy rights.

Austrian and Irish applicants challenged the respective transpositions of the directive into domestic law, uncomfortable with the fact that the retained data could be used to identify the person with whom a subscriber or registered user has communicated with, and by what means; identify the time and place of the communication; and know the frequency of the communications of the subscriber or registered user with certain persons over a periods of time.

The central law in question was the EU’s Data Retention Directive 2006/24(EC), which replicated, in a sense, the language of the Australian bill. Retaining traffic and location data including material necessary to identify the subscriber or user would amount to a breach of privacy and the right to protection of personal data under the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.

In the Court’s view, the data, “taken as a whole, may provide very precise information on the private lives of the persons whose data are retained, such as the habits of everyday life, permanent or temporary places of residence, daily or other movements, activities carried out, social relationships and the social environments frequented.” In bold emphasis, the Court argued that the data retention directive, which also enabled access by national authorities, “interferes in a particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect and private life and the protection of personal data.”

We could all be in some agreement, suggested the Court, about the fact that retaining data might satisfy an “objective of general interest” – the “fight against serious crime and, ultimately, public security.” But notwithstanding this interest, the EU legislature had still exceeded its powers. Limits must be provided on attaining such data. The principle of “strict necessity,” a point that has totally escaped officials in Canberra, is what is required. The directive, for instance, made no “differentiation, limitation or exception” to the traffic data in question.

In the United States, an eclectic grouping ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the World Press Freedom Committee urged the White House, Congress and the various officials in an open letter (Mar 25) to stop bulk collection as permitted by the USA PATRIOT Act section 215, including records retained under the provision and similarly section 214 covering “pen registers and trap & trace devices.” In the event that these should occur, “appropriate safeguards” were to be put in place.

The gods certainly do have a sense of humour. With the Australian bill still freshly passed through the upper house, it was reported that a high profile data breach had taken place before the G20 Summit in Brisbane. Passport and visa details, including date of birth of 31 international leaders were mistakenly emailed by an official in the Immigration Department office to a member of the Asian Cup Local Organising Committee November 7th last year. The Guardian Australia, after obtaining an email sent from the Immigration Department to the privacy commissioner under Freedom of Information, revealed that the breach was noted 10 minutes after the incident. The Asian Cup Local Organising committee claimed to have no access to the email, or have it stored anywhere in its system.

Stunning indifference accompanied the response to what was deemed an “isolated example of human error,” with minimal consequences. The then immigration minister Scott Morrison was notified, but department officials, in their wisdom, decided to stay numb on the subject. The G20 leaders would be kept in the dark.

Even by Australia’s own paltry standards, this posed a serious breach. In the words the Information Commissioner, a data breach occurs “when personal information held by an agency or organisation is lost or subjected to authorised access, modification, disclosure or other misuse or interference.” Australian Privacy Principle 11 imposes an obligation on agencies and organisations to take reasonable steps to protect the personal information they hold from such misuse, interference or loss, not to mention unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. With rather cheeky disdain, the Australian immigration department decided to conveniently sidestep the relevant provisions, wishing the matter to assume the form of an ostrich and vanish deep beneath the sand.

Such attitudes bode ill for the data retention program. Modification and unauthorised disclosures are genuine risks that only increase as the burdens on agencies increase. If officials of the agency dismiss the disclosure of personal details of world leaders on a summit attendance list as minor aberrations, we can only imagine how contemptuously private citizens will be treated.

Lifting Up the African Poor by Promoting Microcredit Initiatives

Mengsteab Tesfayohannes

Introduction

Microcredit (or Microfinance) has proved its value in many countries as one of the major means of alleviating poverty. It has the potential to change people’s lives for the better as useful innovation and creativity are ubiquitous everywhere. As the reputable thinker the late Prahalad (2002) once said, “The potential of human ingenuity and resourcefulness is abundantly available at all levels of the World So-cio-Economic Pyramid.” I believe that a properly managed and widely out reached Microcredit indus-try can be one biggest contributor to the developmental continuum of the emerging economies such as those in Africa. As a result, successive global summits and conferences with ultimate goals of popular-izing Microcredit activities have continued taking momentum since 1980s (Grameen Bank, 2010).

We can promote it in the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in the way of pulling the African poor out of pov-erty by mobilizing their potentially immense but mostly unused human ingenuities, talents and capa-bilities.If we nurture Microcredit in the desired way by expanding its outreach to the grassroots level, the sunshine of beautiful Africa can reach the majority of its children who currently experience socio-economic hardships.

The vast majority of the population in SSA has continued suffering at the bottom tier of the World Socio-Economic Pyramid as poor and destitute (World Bank, 2012). It is very sad that several African nations have continued engaging excessively in facilitating wasteful and lavish lifestyle of the ex-tremely small elite segment of their population. They have continued doing it by sacrificing the lion’s share of their hard earned resources and capabilities (including foreign currency) that otherwise can be used to improve the productive life of their populace at grassroots level. As Hammond and Prahalad (2003) said,“…if we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open up.”

Indeed, promoting active participation in productive and innovatory activities at the grassroots level is necessary for making Africa a better place for all of us. We can create millions of new entrepreneurs, productive producers and formidable consumers at the grassroots level. The pertinent question is: what should be done to eliminate poverty in SSA?  The expected task is formidable but possible to confront if the available resources and capabilities are smartly mobilized in the best way of optimizing expected outcomes.

The Importance of Promoting Microcredit Initiatives

Since inception by the Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yonus in 1970s, Microcredit initiatives have be-come the popular strategic alternative for fighting poverty around the globe. All concerned stakehold-ers from government, external partners, the business community and civil society at large in SSA and around the globe have already recognized the powerful role of Microcredit at the grassroots level. To-day, there are thousands of Microcredit institutions with millions of clients globally and in the SSA nations such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, etc  (Stwart et al, 2010). The broad Microcredit service outreach initiatives at the grass roots level have brought a signif-icant improvement in the lives of more than ten million poor citizens in Bangladesh alone (The Gram-een Report, 2012). So far, the sources of loans in the form of Microcredit are predominantly from: government coffers, non-profit foundations and other helping hands of successful entrepreneurs local-ly and internationally.Still a lot should be done.

At this time the Microcredit industry has begun attracting the commercial banking industry in certain countries. Some notable multi-national financial institutions like Deutche Bank are now expanding their involvement in the micro lending business to provide opportunities to the poor in their own do-main and elsewhere (Deutche Bank, 2007). This asserts the growing involvement of the private sector in Microcredit activities. SSA nations can create initiatives working with the variety of influential Banks and other financial lending institutions at home and abroad. 

Particularly, local banks should prudently consider engaging in helping the poor by allowing the financial access at that level instead of solely dealing with the obvious conventional banking bureaucracy. Africans have a locally rooted cultural wisdom of helping one another in all dimensions. The local rotational saving associations in many African societies such as Eddir in Ethiopia are worth mentioning (Aredo, 1993).

We need to consider that the definition of poverty is situational and case specific.It depends on: na-tional developmental stages, advancement of the socioeconomic fabric and demographic attributes of a given environment. However, the arduous situation in many SSA nations gives solid evidence of the magnitude of poverty and the damage it has already inflicted on the basic social fabric of the populace with the negative impact on the socio-economic development. Poverty’s apparently detrimental effect, on the societal structural attributes and society peaceful and harmonious developmental life, is massive and debilitating.It should be gradually eliminated by popularizing Microcredit initiatives among others.Viable and dedicated Microcredit initiatives coupled with effective implementation course of actions and modalities can help SSA nations in their efforts to marginalize abject poverty and enhance socio-economic development. Africa has the potential and the ordinary African citizen is hardworking and wise. She or he needs support and demonstrative education that promotes the best way of producing socio-economic values.

Although Microcredit activities in the SSA are progressing modestly, they still have a long way to go.  With proper promotion, development and popularization of Microcredit industry initiatives, thousands of urban and rural poor families particularly the economically active young can gainfully engage in productive self-help entrepreneurial activities. No doubt, the widespread dissemination of this kind of initiative can greatly help to speed-up the developmental continuum.  Indeed, Microcredit has the po-tential to support millions of needy Africans to help themselves by engaging in self-supported gainful activities. As expressed above, Microcredit development in the continent is not as required so far. This is due to multi-dimensional factors pertaining to governance, political, institutional capacity, non-supportive attitude and numerous others (Van Rooyen, Stewart  & de Wet, 2012). Policy makers and other stakeholders are mandated to recognize the potential contribution of Microcredit to marginaliz-ing poverty and promoting economic development in the neediest parts of local communities. There-fore, it is generally possible to popularize Microcredit initiatives in the SSA as part of the efforts to support the broad poor citizens in order to help themselves by mobilizing their capabilities and initia-tives. If this potentially powerful economic engine is properly organized and shaped, its role in mar-ginalizing poverty will grow considerably (Ahlin, Lin & Maio, 2011).

The Challenges of Promoting Microcredit

Unfortunately, the growing formal financial markets in SSA have continued to neglect the majority of the poor in the continent.They do not benefit from affordable credit programs or receive training around proper management of personal finances. This weakness displayed by the limited financial sys-tem of every SSA nation to deliver basic credit outside the mainstream has contributed to the contin-ued aggravation of poverty in SSA. Poverty and economic development are mainly about money, sav-ing and credit availability. Mismanaging one’s meager money, not saving money and not having access to financing and credit are the root causes of many economic crises in the developing nations in general and that of Africa in particular. Therefore, the continued weakness and inability of the financial industry in the SSA nations has created a fertile ground for exacerbation of poverty, so-lidifying duality and socio-economic despair.

All SSA nations should treat the Microcredit credit in-dustry as a solid alternative, where conventional finance industry fails or is less interested to provide the necessary services to a significant segment of the population. With full support and commitment of all stakeholders ranging from the governments to each concerned and able citizen, Microcredit can be one of promising anti-poverty strategies in the SSA. Of course, it will be a complex and intricate task to deal with.  Understanding hindering factors in regard to popularizing Microcredit in the appropriate environments should be identified, articulated, and analysed in order to take appropriate action that can help microfinance to grow in the continent.

Conclusion

It is only with these comprehensive efforts we can help to push forward the development and outreach of microcredit at large to serve the broad needs of the appropriately targeted legitimate segment of the population. As I mentioned above, Africa is massively endowed in both human and physical resources and capabilities. Poverty should not be given a chance to flourish in this rich, but forced to remain poor, continent.Concerned stakeholders must join the poverty reduction multidimensional endeavors through the power of microcredit. It should be noted that empowerment of the poor through the power of microcredit initiatives is a formidable task that deserves further study and investigation for continuous improvement.

I believe that it is necessary to initiate and promote noble ideas to help the vulnerable and poor in SSA to transform themselves into potentially productive consumers, producers and self-helping entrepreneurs. All of us, who are able to support microfinance, have a noble responsi-bility to contribute our part towards the realization of this noble objective. No more poverty in the midst of our potentially extremely endowed continent affluence. Entrepreneurial innovation and resource-fulness of the African people should show the magic.Indeed, the future should be for the resourceful poor in this potentially very rich continent.

Kenya-Tanzania Diplomatic Spat Was Unnecessary

Nkwazi Mhango

I don’t need to repeat what transpired when Kenya banned Tanzania’s vehicles from accessing Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA). Tanzania reciprocated by reducing Kenya Airways’ trips to Dar Es Salaam from 42 to 14 a week. By whatever standards, the moves by two countries were totally counterproductive and economically unviable. Thanks to the wisdom of the presidents of the respective countries, the differences were ironed out timely and constructively.

We need one another. Shunning one another won’t do us good. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said, “We need to live together as brothers all die together as fools.” Our regional integration won’t succeed if each country members cling to their narrow views of the future. Mwalimu Julius Nyerere used to say that if African countries keep on thinking individually, they would be doomed. Our nationalities are nothing but a colonial creation. We need to seek our true nationality that is African. Selfishness and a better-than- thou mentality must be avoided at all costs.  We need to cultivate the spirit of negotiating, mediating and compromising whenever differences (which are natural) surface.

We tend to blame colonizers for all our miseries for no reason sometimes.  Instead of thinking about coming together, we’re easily falling prey to redundant divisions based on trivial matters. Conflict among human beings, countries, even animals is a normal thing and inevitable. Instead of using conflict destructively, we need to learn how to use it constructively so that we can forge ahead without harming our relationships and economies. While conflict is unavoidable, it can be productively used to strengthen our relationship and create opportunities.

We need to have economic sense of doing things based on the realities of today. Currently, China is an upcoming global force thanks to her clout in doing business with the world. We can’t improve the lives of our people by avoiding or ostracising one another. This is why the total unification of East Africa – and ultimately Africa based on equality and equity –is sine quo non.

We tend to blame our former colonial masters for exploiting us and dividing our continent. Again, who’s preventing us from reuniting? The answer is obvious: our narrow mindedness and selfishness. I wonder. How much money do we spend hopelessly purchasing weapons for fear of our neighbours? It has is more difficult for Africans to travel in Africa than in Europe or America.  Why’d it be likelier and easier, say, for Tanzania to create more jobs for Chinese through trading with China than doing so for Kenyans and vice versa?

ISIS: Forgiveness Triumphs Over Vengeance

Anayo Unachukwu

The Middle East and North Africa have witnessed a remarkable tempestuous time in the last 3-4 years, leading to epidemic of insecurity and instability in the capricious region of the world. The emergence of a splinter organisation--the Islamic State in Iraqi and Syria (ISIS)--from Al Qaida, last summer, has further compounded the tension and turbulence in the region.

In ISIS, the world has witnessed a level of human depravity that is unprecedented in recent memory. The killing, rape, torture and cruelty inflicted by ISIS on minority groups and those who dared to challenge their vision of an Islamic Caliphate have become a major source of moral panic and outrage across the world.

Concerned political leaders had an initial faltering start; and were incoherent on how to respond to ISIS. However, when the public outcry to the carnage went beyond the region, it decided on a more coherent response. This may have slowed down the advance of ISIS in the region, but has not led to significant degrading and diminishing of the group’s capability--as it envisaged.

The recent gruesome beheading in Libya of 21 young Christian men who were first abducted from their home country, Egypt, is evidence that the violence and activities of ISIS went beyond the borders of Iraqi and Syria. Christians in Iraqi and Syria have largely borne the brunt of ISIS’ brutality. And Christians in the region remain at risk of potential violence from the group.

How should Christians respond? And what could be the potential impact of such response?

The response of Christians, particularly in the region to the callous climate of cruelty and chaos would go a long way to determine and shape future events and development within and outside the region.

We had a glimpse of this in an interview with Beshir Estafanos Kamel, the brother of two of the beheaded Christian men--Bishoy Estafanos Kamel (25) and Samuel Estafanos Kamel (23). Beshir said: “ISIS gave us more than we asked when they didn’t edit out the part where [our brothers] declared their faith.” He went further, thanking ISIS for affording them such a rare opportunity by making available the video. It would be pertinent to note that the last words uttered by some of the Christian men, including the two Estafanos Kamel brothers, just prior to their beheading were “Ya Rabbi Yasou” (My Lord Jesus Christ).

SAT--7, a television broadcaster in the Middle East and North Africa, aptly captured the essence of the horrific event and the response of the Christian men in these words: “With amazing grace comes amazing faith.” In other words, they banished the spirit of fear in the face of an imminent gruesome death.

It’s most likely that ISIS released the unedited video to humiliate and ridicule their belief on Jesus Christ. But in a paradoxical way, ISIS has unwittingly emboldened and bolstered the faith of the ‘remnant’ caught up in the climate of cruelty.

As humans we most often fall into the trap of our emotional opinion and intellectual belief as regards the working of God. But God’s thoughts are not man’s thoughts; and man’s ways are not God’s ways. Out of the evil thoughts and action of man, the Lord can bring to pass what will save much people. The prayer of the Estafanos Kamel’s family that God should open the eyes of ISIS members to see the error of their ways; and that they have forgiven those who murdered their sons runs contrary to our natural instincts.

In another related development, the recent interview of an eight year old Iraqi refugee girl, Myriam--which has generated a lot of interest in the Middle East--further reinforces the need for forgiveness. In the midst of very difficult and dire social circumstances brought about by ISIS, she has clung to her faith in God. Her rendition of the good old hymn, ‘Nearer My God, To Thee’ has remained a source of inspiration and hope to a life in the Middle East beyond the current climate of fear.

In my humble opinion, this post provides me with a rare opportunity to speak words of encouragement to brothers and sisters in the Middle East, North Africa--and other parts of the world where persecution is rife. It may seem that the world has abandoned you; and it could be that they have. But there are Christians who are standing with you in prayer and are encouraged by your faith. God has not turned away from you; even when you seem not to see the trace of His hand in your current difficult and appalling situation.

Peacebuilding: Role of Youth in Africa

Malusi Gigaba

The late founding President of the free and democratic South Africa, Mr. NR Mandela, once remarked: “We owe our children – the most vulnerable citizens in our society – a life free from violence and fear.” Those of us growing up in Africa have been witness to the deafening thunder of the gun and the terror of the unceasing sound of the canon.

We have been at the mercy of gun-wielding, cold-blooded and heartless killers, terrorising our streets and communities, tearing families asunder, hunting human life and mapping their next kill; arrogating to themselves the power of God to decide life and death, subjecting us to the savage epoch where only the powerful survived and the weaker were decimated in a cold-blooded manner as if they and their lives did not matter, as if they too were not human.

Many women and children have been victims of forced plunder and violation by cruel brutes whose sole purpose is to destroy life and destroy it brutally, indifferent as to the soul that occupies every human body. Innocent boys and girls have been turned into men and women, into warriors, before their maturity and their innocence stolen, converted into heartless savages and beasts that worships only their masters and taught to wield a gun, destroy households and end life.

Many children have grown up without their parents as the tyrants had either killed their parents or forced them into exile or imprisoned them in pursuit, by conflict, of the goals which ordinarily could be pursued by peace and democratic governance, but which the tyrants, because they are driven by greed, had chosen to pursue through conflict, destruction of life and fear. We have seen children flee their homes and their home countries unprepared, in the ‘wee hours of the night,’ forced to travel thousands of kilometres in order to seek refuge in foreign lands and thus start a new life of uncertainty and insecurity in environments often hostile and unfriendly to their upbringing as children.

We have suffered from the disorganisation of societies, communities and families, as families split in the process of running for asylum in different countries and became exposed during the process of travel and even settlement in the countries of asylum, vulnerable to diseases, violence, discrimination, abuse and even exploitation by unscrupulous officials and criminals.

In a split of a moment, a comfortable and secure family is turned into an insecure and vulnerable unit whose members are split in all directions, forcefully separated, others killed and the survivors have to live with the anguish and deep-seated anger all borne of a situation imposed on them by selfish brutes and tyrants.

There can be no doubt that the children are the most affected by the ravages of war, either when violence is visited upon them directly or their families – parents, relatives and elder siblings. They bear the brunt of an unnatural situation which modern and a more humane society must ensure it never exposes its children to but rather must always protect them from.

In our case in South Africa, we have witnessed children thrust into a position of freedom fighters and accordingly many of them killed for daring to dream of and demand freedom for themselves and their fellow humans, sent to apartheid’s jails, and their education disrupted and thus denied the requisite skills with which to get sustainable employment and earn a decent living in later lives.

Violence, conflict and war are not the natural order of things. A different future is not only possible, but it is demanded by the youth of Africa today!

That, which I have described above, which is what we have known for decades, which at some point made Africa the biggest producer of asylum-seekers and refugees, can and must be changed so that the discourse about Africa going into the future becomes not only one of peace, but of peace, development, security and comfort for all her people!

In another speech, President Mandela said: “Peace is the greatest weapon for development that any person can have.” Peace is a precondition for development as development itself is a precondition and guarantee of peace as well as its sustenance. Accordingly, we must pursue both peace and development at the same time, as the two sides of the same coin in the same manner we were exhorted by those visionary South Africans of all races, ages, religions, creeds and ages who met at Kliptown, Johannesburg, six decades ago, on June 26th, 1955, to draft the Freedom Charter, which today stands out as the most significant document that first described the future South Africa we were fighting for.

At this Congress of the People, they articulated a future for our country based first and foremost on legitimate governance where the people themselves would govern and where no government would claim legitimacy unless it was based on the democratic will of the people as a whole.

They proceeded to articulate a view that freedom would be meaningless unless it granted everyone a chance to share in the country’s wealth and its land, and where social freedoms – including the right to “peace and freedom” – would accompany political freedoms because ultimately the people do not eat and sustain themselves, their species and their generations through votes alone.

In this document, they adopted a clause which read thus:

•  There shall be Peace and Friendship!
•  South Africa shall be a fully independent state which respects the rights and sovereignty of all nations;
•  South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiation - not war;
•  Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all…”

We must be of the very firm conviction that the pursuit for peace and development in one country must be inextricably linked with the pursuit for peace and development everywhere, particularly amongst the poor and developing nations of the world, especially our neighbours, if this noble vision and pursuit must be sustainable.

On 14th August 1947, when India became independent, its Prime Minister, the late Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru, said:

“And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also of the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any of them to imagine that it can live apart.”

If the world was interdependent in 1947, imagine how interdependent it is today when the information and communications, as well as the transport revolution has brought us even closer together through the process we now know as globalisation.

It is incumbent upon the youth, the representatives of the future, to become active in this campaign for peace and development so that the interdependence of the world is based on social justice and is fair for all.

You owe it to yourselves, as well as to all of us and most importantly to the future you represent to become active today in defining the future you want and shape it to be what you want. I call on you to reject the notion that the youth are the leaders of tomorrow as if to suggest that you must leave today to somebody else until tomorrow comes.

I subscribe to the notion proven correct by the struggle for freedom and democracy in South Africa that the youth are the most potent force for fundamental change; that without their participation today both as social actors – agents for change – as well as, as leaders, today’s struggles might slacken, lack dynamism and energy, and might become stagnant and result in the type of tomorrow that the youth will not, when tomorrow comes, want.

You owe it to yourselves as well as to those who will come after you to build tomorrow today! Tomorrow must not strike you as a surprise, but you must act today to conceptualise it and bring it about.

Youth leadership must accordingly be nurtured today and they must be assigned responsibilities that will harness their leadership capabilities and all-round competencies so that they can be even more prepared to lead in the future when tomorrow comes, and not be confronted with a new scenario for which they were not prepared.

Consequently, this means that you must even more vociferously advocate for citizen-participation as active and progressive social agents in pursuit of the goals which are uniting and which represent what the future should look like.

In both establishing the International Peace Youth Group South African Branch as well convening the World Africa Peace Youth Summit, the youth of Africa are taking decisive and proactive steps to build a peaceful, prosperous and better future themselves. They are becoming themselves the harbingers of the better and brighter future the peoples of Africa are fighting for and deserve. The nobility of the objectives of this organisation  speak to the very heart of what we seek as Africans and what we pursue as South Africa.

It is my fervent belief that if the seed of a peaceful, prosperous, non-racial and non-sexist future is planted among the youth, humankind especially in Africa can be guaranteed of a sustainable future that will be cherished by the generations yet to come.

There is only one ingredient or precondition towards the achievement of these lofty ideals; and that is, each and everyone of the youth of Africa, each one of them a torch-bearer of the new type of peace and development, advocates for what our country, continent and world so desperately yearns for and aspires towards. The positive actions of individuals directed towards a common goal will reverberate into the positive actions of humanity that will sweep aside the tide of agony and pain we have emerged from and thrust humankind into the type of future we have thus far yearned for but not achieved.

It is important today, more than ever before, to borrow from some of the principles that guided the struggle against apartheid and colonialism that “the people are the masters of their own destiny,” they are “their own liberators.” This did not only relate to the struggle against oppression, but would be even more relevant in the period following liberation when a new non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, united and prosperous society was being built, a society free of xenophobia and related intolerances.

The challenge I am trying to place before you is this that as students, as young people, you ought to be seized, first, of the highest ideals about this country, our people and future; and secondly, you ought to become social activists for a better country, continent and world.

Peace without development will be unsustainable. We must all be of the unshakeable belief that the economic marginalisation of the majority is unsustainable and creates fertile ground for political and social instability. This cannot be in the best interests of any nation as no group of people can thrive amidst an ocean of poverty and marginalisation.

History has on many occasions before placed upon the shoulders of the youth of our country enormous responsibilities and difficult burdens which required them to commit extraordinary feats in order to bend the arch of history and propel the nation forward; and on all those occasions the youth – your forebears – never declined nor shunned their responsibilities, neither were they daunted by the sacrifices they had to make. Now is your turn!

Finally, let me remind you of what the late Mr. OR Tambo, one of the principal architects of our nation once said: “A nation, a people, a movement that does not value its youth does not deserve its future.”

However, so too must we make the very firm statement that a youth that does not value its nation and people does not deserve its future. This is the question before you: do you value your nation and people? What will you do to propel the nation, our continent and world forward?

21st Century Africa Must Increase its Intellectual Capital or Perish

Okwaro Oscar Plato

I once believed that capital was another word for money, the accumulated wealth of a country or its people. Surely, I thought, wealth is determined by the money or property in one's possession. Then I saw a Deutsche Bank advertisement in the Wall Street Journal that proclaimed: 'Ideas are capital. The rest is just money.' I was struck by the simplicity of such an eloquent and forceful idea.

I started imagining what such power meant for Africa. The potential for progress and poverty alleviation in Africa relies on capital generated from the power within our minds, not from our ability to pick minerals from the ground or seek debt relief and foreign assistance.

If ideas are capital, why is Africa investing more on things than on information, and more on the military than on education? Suddenly, I realized what this idea could mean for Africa. If the pen is mightier than the sword, why does a General earn more than the work of a hundred writers combined? If ideas are indeed capital, then Africa should stem its brain drain and promote the African Renaissance, which will lead to the rebirth of the continent. After all, a renaissance is a rebirth of ideas. And knowledge and ideas are the engines that drive economic growth.

When African men and women of ideas, who will give birth to new ideas, have fled to Europe and the United States, then the so-called African Renaissance cannot occur in Africa. It can only occur in Paris, London and New York. There are more Soukous musicians in Paris, than in Kinshasha; more African professional soccer players in Europe, than in Africa.

African literature is more at home abroad than it is in Africa. In other words, Africans in Europe are alleviating poverty in Europe, not in Africa. Until the men and women of ideas the true healers of Africa start returning home, the African Renaissance and poverty alleviation will remain empty slogans. After all, the brightest ideas are generated and harnessed by men of ideas.

'The power of intellectual capital is the ability to breed ideas that ignite value.' This quote is a clarion call to African leaders to shift purposefully and deliberately from a focus on things to a focus on information; from exporting natural resources to exporting knowledge and ideas; and from being a consumer of technology to becoming a producer of technology.

For Africa, poverty will be reduced when intellectual capital is increased and leveraged to export knowledge and ideas. Africa's primary strategy for poverty alleviation is to gain debt relief, foreign assistance, and investments from western nations. Poverty alleviation means looking beyond 100 percent literacy and aiming for 100 percent numeracy, the prerequisite for increasing our technological intellectual capital. Yet, in this age of information and globalization when poverty alleviation should result in producing valuable products for the global market and competing with Asia, the United States, and Europe shamefully, diamonds found in Africa are polished in Europe and re-sold to Africans.

The intellectual capital needed to produce products and services will lead to the path of poverty alleviation. Intellectual capital, defined as the collective knowledge of the people, increases productivity. The latter by driving economic growth alleviates poverty, always and everywhere, even in Africa. Productivity is the engine that drives global economic growth.
Those who create new knowledge are producing wealth, while those who consume it are producing poverty. If you attend a Wole Soyinka's production of Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart,' you consume the knowledge produced by Soyinka and Achebe as well as the actor's production, much like I consume the knowledge and production of Bob Marley's through his songs.

We will need wisdom, that which turns too much information or information overload into focused power, not only to process, but also to evaluate the overwhelming amount of information available on the Internet. This wisdom will give us the competitive edge and enable us to find creative solutions.

The following story illustrates the difference between information and wisdom. Twelve hundred years ago, in the city of Baghdad, lived a genius named Al-Khwarizmi, who was one of the fathers of algebra. In fact, the word algebra comes from the title of his book Al-jabr, which for centuries was the standard mathematics textbook. Al-Khwarizmi taught in an institution of learning called the House of Wisdom, which was the center of new ideas during Islam's golden age of science. To this day we computer scientists honor Al-Khwarizmi when we use the word algorithm, which is our attempt to pronounce his name.

One day, Al-Khwarizmi was riding a camel laden down with algebraic manuscripts to the holy city of Mecca. He saw three young men crying at an oasis. 'My children, why are you crying?' he enquired.
'Our father, upon his death, instructed us to divide his 17 camels as follows: 'To my oldest son I leave half of my camels, my second son shall have one-third of my camels, and my youngest son is to have one-ninth of my camels.''

'What, then, is your problem?' Al-Khwarizmi asked.

'We have been to school and learned that 17 is a prime number that is, divisible only by one and itself and cannot be divided by two or three or nine. Since we love our camels, we cannot divide them exactly,' they answered.

Al-Khwarizmi thought for a while and asked, 'Will it help if I offer my camel and make the total 18?'

'No, no, no,' they cried. 'You are on your way to Mecca, and you need your camel.'

'Go ahead, have my camel, and divide the 18 camels amongst yourselves,' he said, smiling.

So the eldest took one-half of 18 or nine camels. The second took one-third of 18 or six camels. The youngest took one-ninth of 18 or two camels. After the division, one camel was left: Al-Khwarizmi's camel, as the total number of camels divided among the sons (nine plus six plus two) equalled 17.

Then Al-Khwarizmi asked, 'Now, can I have my camel back?'

These young men had information about prime numbers, but they lacked the wisdom to use the information effectively. It is the manipulation of information to accomplish seemingly impossible purposes that defines true wisdom.

Today, we have ten billion pages of information posted on the Internet more than enough to keep us busy the rest of our lives, and new information is being added daily. More information has been created in the last 100 years than in all of the previous 100,000 years combined.We need the wisdom to sift through and convert these billions of pages into information riches.

The genius of Al-Khwarizmi was not in his mathematical wizardry or even his book knowledge: It was in his experiential knowledge his big-picture, right-brain thinking; creativity; innovation; and wisdom. It was his wisdom to add a camel to make the total 18 and still get his camel back.

Prime numbers are to whole numbers what the laws of physics are to physics. In the history of Africa, only Dr. Philip Emeagwali of Nigeria has used brains to turn round life earning himself ‘’new’’ name of ‘'father of the Internet'’ by CNN and TIME. Twenty four years ago, Dr. Philip used an Al-Khwarizmi approach to solve a notoriously difficult problem in physics. He added inertial force, which enabled him to reformulate Newton's Second Law of Motion first as 18 equations and algorithms, and then as 24 million algebraic equations. Finally, he programmed 65,000 'electronic brains' called processors to work as one to solve those 24 million equations at a speed of 3.1 billion calculations per second.

Like Al-Khwarizmi, Philip Emeagwali managed to derive 18 equations through out-of-the-box thinking in an in-the-box world, adding his metaphorical camel: inertial force. In other words, he applied wisdom to known knowledge to generate intellectual capital.

Unless Africa significantly increases its intellectual capital, the continent will remain irrelevant in the 21st century and even beyond. Africa needs innovators, producers of knowledge, and wise men and women who can discover, propose, and then implement progressive ideas. Africa's fate lies in the hands of Africans and the solution to poverty must come from its people.

The future that lies ahead of Africa is for Africa to create, after the people have outlined their vision. We owe it to our children to build a firm foundation to enable them go places we only dreamt. For Africa to take centre stage in today's economic world, we have to go out and compete on a global basis. There is simply no shortcut to success but like Al-Khwarizmi, Africa must apply wisdom to known knowledge to generate intellectual capital, if not perish.

New discoveries show that Mars may have once been habitable

Bryan Dyne

A recent study using data from NASA's Curiosity rover and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences present data showing the presence of nitrates on Mars. This molecule, composed of one nitrogen and three oxygen atoms, may indicate that there was once a nitrogen cycle on ancient Mars, one of the necessary mechanisms on a planet to sustain terrestrial-like life.

The Mars rover Curiosity. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The research was undertaken with an international team led by Jennifer Stern using Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite. In earlier studies of Martian soils and rocks at Gale crater, nitrogen was detected in both scooped and drilled sediment samples. However, it was not clear whether the nitrogen detected was from the surrounding atmosphere, indicating molecular nitrogen, or from the rocks themselves, indicating nitrates. Using SAM and subtracting out the known sources of nitrogen within the instrument, Stern’s team was able to show that there were still up to 1100 parts per million (ppm) of nitrogen remaining, depending on the sample analyzed. From this, Stern’s team concluded that the nitrogen originated from the sediments and thus from nitrates.

Whether nitrogen is found in the atmosphere or in other forms plays an important role in biochemistry on Earth. While the majority of terrestrial nitrogen is in the atmosphere, making up 78 percent of the air we breath, it is in the inert form of molecular nitrogen (N2). To incorporate nitrogen into more complex molecules—such as nucleobases, amino acids, DNA, RNA and proteins—it must be in more accessible forms. The nitrate molecule (NO3) is one of the most prevalent and useful molecules seen on Earth for this purpose.

As such, the strong evidence of nitrates in a variety of different rocks and sediments on the Martian surface implies that, at a very early point in the planet’s history, there could have been large amounts of biologically useful nitrogen on the Red Planet.

Stern’s research complements a report released three weeks ago in Science which provides strong support for the existence of an ocean of liquid water on the surface of Mars during the planet’s early life. The ocean is estimated to have held more water than Earth’s Arctic Ocean. That is enough water to cover the entire surface of Mars in liquid 137 meters deep. More likely, the ocean covered almost half Mars’ northern hemisphere and reached depths greater than 1.6 kilometers.

This is much larger than previous estimates of a primordial Martian ocean, meaning that the planet’s surface could have been wetter for much longer than estimated, perhaps 900 million years. Combined with a thicker, warmer atmosphere, volcanism on the surface and the presence of nitrates, this likely led to rich reservoirs containing the diverse chemical elements needed for life.

Artist conception of the primitive ocean the NASA suspects once existed on Mars

This second discovery was made by a team led Geronimo Villanueva, working with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, and the W.M. Keck Observatory and NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii. Using detailed maps of the Martian atmosphere, the scientists were able to distinguish the chemical signatures of two slightly different isotopes of water. The first is the familiar H2O. The second is the more exotic form HDO, in which one hydrogen atom is replaced by one its more massive forms, deuterium.

By taking the ratio of H2O and HDO in Mars’ atmosphere and comparing it to those values found in water trapped in a 4.5 billion-year-old Martian meteorite, Villanueva’s team was able to measure the atmospheric change in the intervening time span and determine how much water escaped to space. The forthcoming MAVEN probe will take similar measurements.

These maps were made over the course of three Martian years, amounting to six years on Earth. Beyond showing that Mars once housed a massive ocean, the research also revealed seasonal changes and local weather patterns across what was previously thought to be a mostly homogenous desert climate.

Mars’ polar ice caps were also studied, using the same H2O and HDO ratio, as they are suspected to contain a more direct record of water on Mars from 3.7 billion years ago to the present. The researchers found that Mars once had at least 6.5 times the amount of water currently contained in the ice caps, meaning a volume of water on ancient Mars of at least 20 million cubic kilometers. This is in general agreement with the atmospheric study.

Both the nitrogen amounts and water levels now thought to have existed on ancient Mars lead to the question: Where did this all go? Mars today is a barren world with an atmosphere that is 96 percent carbon dioxide and less than 1 percent as thick as Earth’s. There is no liquid water on its surface and one has to dig before finding any indication of biologically useable material.

It is suspected that Mars lost its atmosphere to space. The results gathered by the Curiosity rover as a whole are in agreement with in situ atmospheric measurements made by the Viking landers from 1976 to 1982, when this idea first gained traction. The three main mechanisms for losing atmosphere include interactions between the atmosphere and the solar wind, a massive impact by an asteroid or other body, and/or the atmosphere escaping as a result of thermal motion and the planet’s relatively low gravity. It is not clear which of these mechanisms (if any) is primary.

The loss of the ocean is somewhat more mysterious. Neither the solar wind nor low Martian gravity can account for the loss of liquid water. As the planet cooled and the water froze, one way for the ocean to have disappeared is for the frozen water to sublime into water vapor in the atmosphere and then into space. A more interesting hypothesis is that the ocean didn’t go anywhere at all, but was covered up by sediment and dirt as it froze. If so, this would mean that a great deal of water ice is under the northern lowlands of Mars, the Vastitas Borealis basin. It is unknown how far down a probe would need to drill in order to test this idea.

A further question is posed: What is the possibility that life developed on early Mars?

While a great deal more research needs to be done on this subject, these two results are further evidence that at the very least, the conditions once existed on Mars for a life cycle to begin.

Further welfare cuts being considered by UK Conservatives

Robert Stevens

The BBC has published leaked documents revealing plans by the ruling Conservative party to further slash welfare spending.

Among the documents that were prepared by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and commissioned by senior Tories, are proposals to slash payments to carers, the disabled and families with children.

The proposed cuts to benefits are part of plans to eliminate £12 billion from welfare, announced by Chancellor George Osborne in his March pre-election budget. The measures equate to a £1,500 cut for 8 million households over just two years, up to 2017-18.

As a result of savage austerity measures pushed through over the last five years by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition, £20 billion has already been slashed from welfare spending. Total annual UK welfare spending, excluding pensions, now stands at just £54.8 billion.

Among the brutal cuts already enforced are welfare sanctions that one religious charity has described as the “deliberate imposition of hunger”. One million unemployed and 100,000 children were targeted by welfare sanctions in 2014, with record numbers of Britons seeking help from emergency food banks. In some cases welfare sanctions have led to starvation and death.

Austerity has been imposed as a direct result of the bailout of the bankers and super-rich following the 2008 global financial crash. In the UK more than £1 trillion pounds was robbed from the public purse. A massive transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest in society was initiated by the Labour Party government and continued by the coalition from 2010.

The latest proposals are particularly sadistic as they target the disabled, with additional cuts to the child benefit system also under consideration.

The BBC outlined cuts to the following benefits:

• Carer’s Allowance, a payment of £61.35 a week to help people look after someone with substantial caring needs, for at least 35 hours a week, could be restricted to those eligible for Universal Credit. Universal Credit is a benefit first launched in 2013 to replace six means-tested benefits and tax credits. The documents explain that if this change were imposed, about 40 percent of claimants would lose out. The DWP predicts savings of £1 billion.

• All disability benefits: Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payments and Attendance Allowance (for over-65s who have personal care needs) would no longer be paid tax free. It is predicted that £1.5 billion annually would be saved by this measure.

• Changes to the contributory element of unemployment benefits Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) are under review. Those who have paid enough National Insurance contributions are currently able to receive these. According to the BBC, the DWP proposals could see 30 percent of claimants—over 300,000 families—lose about £80 per week. Total predicted savings would amount to £1.3 billion in 2018-19.

• Child Benefit is currently paid at a fixed rate of £20.50 for the eldest child and £13.55 per additional child. The proposal is to limit the benefit to the first two children, with possible savings estimated at £1 billion per annum. According to the Guardian, “Many larger middle-income families—1.2 million of them—who were unaffected by the introduction of means-testing for the child benefit, would lose an average of £1,000 a year.”

• The Industrial Injuries Compensation Scheme is also slated for overhaul. The BBC states this “could be replaced by companies providing industrial injury insurance policy for employees. Any that did not would become members of a default national industrial injuries scheme, similar to the programme for asbestos sufferers.” The DWP predicts that £1 billion could be saved by this change.

• The Council Tax Support benefit is payable to some people to help with the cost of local authority Council Tax. A proposal being considered is that it be incorporated into Universal Credit, with the possible savings not yet detailed, according to the BBC.

• Another proposal is for Regional Benefit Caps. In the current parliament, the government introduced a benefit cap of £26,000. Covering 13 different welfare benefits, this is the total amount that anyone can receive in welfare payments. It is proposed that this cap be reduced to £23,000. It “would vary in different parts of the country, with, for instance, Londoners receiving the top amount due to the higher cost of living”, states the BBC. The possible saving is not known and would be “dependent on where levels were set”, said the BBC.

In January, Prime Minister David Cameron declared, “The evidence is that the cap set at £26,000 has worked. Many thousands of households that were subject to that cap have gone out and found work.” With an official unemployment rate of 1.86 million and minimum wage rates of just £2.73 to £6.50, depending on age, Cameron washed his hands of the impact of the cap, stating, “This country is generating jobs at a record rate and there is a record number of vacancies today ... The way to escape the welfare cap is to get the help and training that is there in order to get a job.”

Commenting on the leaked proposals, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) declared that even if all of them were implemented, no more than £2 billion annually would be saved by 2017-18. To meet the target of £12 billion in welfare cuts would require far deeper cuts, it warned. According to Robert Joyce, a senior economist with the IFS, “The easier benefit cuts are the ones that will have been done first, so what’s left will be harder. In addition, the Conservatives want to do this by 2017-18, in the next two years. It means they have to be looking at less palatable options that would involve overnight takeaways from certain families.”

The imposition of further welfare cuts and “overnight takeaways” by the Conservatives is also being planned by the Liberal Democrats and opposition Labour Party. This was the significance of all three parties signing up to the Charter for Budget Responsibility. The charter commits any future government to ensuring the “balancing [of] day-to-day spending.”

In a statement of rank hypocrisy, Lord Scriven of the Liberal Democrats declared that “the Tories are hell-bent on punishing disabled people and working families with crippling welfare cuts.” The Liberal Democrats are widely hated and facing annihilation at the election due to their role in a coalition which has imposed mass austerity.

Whatever welfare cuts are finally signed, they are integral to the government’s statement last autumn that announced slashing public spending back to the level of the 1930s, before the welfare state was introduced.

The Labour Party would make similar cuts or worse. The Financial Timesnoted that the policy proposal for a London benefit cap of £23,000, and a reduced cap in parts of the country with lower housing costs, “was floated by Ed Balls”, Labour’s shadow chancellor. “It is not Conservative policy”, said theFT.

In 2014, Labour voted for the introduction of the Benefits Cap, with Balls stating that “Ed Miliband [Labour Party leader] called for an overall cap on social security spending last year, so we will support the welfare cap in the House of Commons today.” At the same time Rachel Reeves MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, protested that “David Cameron’s Government has failed to control welfare spending. Since 2010 the Government has spent £13 billion more than they planned on social security.”