With the 2008 Presidential election in the forefront of everyone’s mind, the sickening torture tactics employed by the Bush administration to “prevent” future acts of terrorism have been lost in the shuffle. The upcoming September release of The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld, which is published by The New Press, will mark the beginning of a significant campaign led by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) to ensure that our policy makers are forced to confront the issue of accountability.

Written by CCR President Michael Ratner, a long-time friend and client of Riptide Communications, and his colleagues, the book begins with a powerful opening statement for the prosecution of high level officials in the Bush administration, which includes enumerated specific accounts of torture committed by the defendants. Ratner then details the facts, one by one; explaining the role of each defendant (including the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and David Addington) in changing the law so that torture became “admissible.”

The torture tactics are incredibly horrific- I flinch every time I read them. Possibly the most inhumane is waterboarding – “a medieval torture technique in which water is poured over and into the nose and mouth of victims to make them feel as if they are drowning.” Rumsfeld’s attorney-allies in the Bush administration- Gonzales and Addington as well as Jay Bybee, John Yoo, and William Haynes - all defendants in the case against Rumsfeld, consciously drafted memorandums that redefined torture, purposely defied the Geneva Conventions, and made waterboarding “legal”.

Still, as Ratner points out, “torture committed during a time of war is a war crime.” Therefore, Rumsfeld and the other defendants, who are named below, should be indicted for committing war crimes.

Defendants:

• Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
• Former CIA Director George Tenet
• Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Dr. Stephen Cambone
• Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez
• Major General Geoffrey Miller
• Major General Walter Wojdakowski
• Colonel Thomas Pappas
• Major General Barbara Fast
• Colonel Marc Warren
• Former Chief White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez
• General Counsel of the Department of Defense William James Haynes II
• Vice President Chief Counsel David Addington
• Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John C. Yoo
• Former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee

As part of their effort to prosecute Rumsfeld and others for war crimes, the Center for Constitutional Rights has filed criminal complaints in France, as well as in Germany, under those nations Universal Jurisdiction Statutes, which were both denied. If an international tribunal will not consider this case, then the readers of this book will have to be the judges—and the evidence presented speaks for itself.

Although France and Germany have refused to investigate Rumsfeld, CCR is considering fresh approaches to prosecutors in those nations and others.

As Americans, we must remember that no person is above the law. The Constitution clearly states: The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Michael Ratner ends his opening statement with this sentence: torturers should not go unpunished.

He is right. High government officials have committed crimes. We cannot let them slide because of their status in society; they must not go unpunished.

This past Wednesday marked the 10-year anniversary of the fatal Parabe shooting, for which Chevron, the multinational oil giant, faces charges of wrongful death, torture and cruel treatment. Wednesday also happened to be the day of Chevron’s Annual General Meeting. On the occasion, Larry Bowoto, a Chevron victim at Parabe - an oil-platform in the oil-rich Niger Delta - and the lead plaintiff in the landmark case, Bowoto v. Chevron, which will be heard in state and federal courts in San Francisco this fall, issued a statement demanding that Chevron be held accountable for its role in the destruction of the environment and use of force against villagers there. Mr. Bowoto called for the corporation to “give up violence as a way of doing business.” His pleas were met with harsh criticism by Chevron Chairman and CEO David O’Reilly, who, quite remarkably, declared Mr. Bowoto a “criminal.”

Mr. O’Reilly’s remarks only further demonstrate the sheer insensitivity that characterizes Chevron, the insensitivity that has allowed the conglomerate to justify a pattern of grave human rights and environmental abuses not only in Nigeria but virtually everywhere it has a vested financial interest, including Ecuador, Burma and California.  It is that very “mentality of impunity” that Nigerian investigative journalist Omoyele Sowore attributes to Chevron that guided its violent acts in Nigeria a decade ago.

It was May 28, 1998, and a group of over 100 Ilaje villagers had gathered in peaceful protest on the Parabe oil platform in the Delta. They were seeking redress from Chevron for the catastrophic environmental damage that their activities had brought to the region. The protestors’ calls for justice were met with violence. Bullets rained down from the helicopters carrying Nigerian military personnel paid by Chevron, before they had even landed at Parabe. When they did land, a security manager contracted by Chevron used a bullhorn to direct them as they murdered two of the villagers and seriously injuring many others, including Mr. Bowoto.

As a native of the small Ilaje community in the Ondo State of Nigeria, Mr. Bowoto had spent years running a small business selling spare parts for the boats in which his neighbors fished, and experienced firsthand the damage that Chevron caused to their sources of fresh water. As one of the largest coastal wetlands in the world, many of the Niger Delta’s communities can be accessed only by boat. The villagers there rely on traditional fishing techniques as a way of supporting themselves, and Chevron’s activities had poisoned the water, depleted food supplies and raised unemployment. Mr. Bowoto knew that many other villagers were forced to spend hours traveling by boat in search of drinking water and that in some cases, entire communities had been eliminated by erosion. Witnessing these injustices prompted Larry to take action and lead the May 28^th protest – a protest that was brutally suppressed by Chevron.

The Parabe massacre was not the first instance in which Chevron had used violence as a means of protecting their financial interests in Nigeria. For years, they have directly funded the Joint Task Force, a paramilitary force known locally as the “kill and go police,” which brings together the country’s army, navy, and air forces. The “kill and go” have gained infamy for their egregious human rights abuses against anyone who dares to speak out against the widespread political corruption in Nigeria, which has been driven by petro-dollars. Their daily acts of violence go unacknowledged by the Nigerian media. If not for the 1998 radio documentary “Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria’s Oil Dictatorship,” produced by Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill, the brutal nature of the oil business might have gone without large public outcry against the company’s abusive practices. It remains all too real, however, for individuals such as Omoyele Sowore. Sowore also worked on “Drilling and Killing,” and has been imprisoned and tortured eight times for opposing the militarization and violence that multinational oil companies have brought to his country.

In spite of Chevron’s gross record, Larry Bowoto and those he brought to Parabe had no reason to suspect that they would be the oil giant’s next victims. In fact, on May 27^th, as they camped on the offshore platform, they were informed that the onshore negotiations between their tribal elders and Chevron authorities were going well. A positive development in negotiations would have brought the Nigerian people closer to obtaining compensation, including environmental reparations, employment opportunities, medical aid, and scholarships. Hope for those services, which they desperately needed, was lost on the morning of May 28^th, as the protestors awoke to gunfire.

10 years later, Mr. Bowoto’s left arm is permanently damaged. Dire environmental and economic conditions continue to plague his homeland. Yet, Chevron’s oil profits remain at record highs. As Mr. Bowoto recently stated at the Annual General Meeting, Chevron has the resources to do more for people whose lives they have devastated. Chevron must pay.

Tiger Woods is arguably one of the world’s most recognizable athletes.  Woods is anomaly on the green – a young multi-racial golfing phenomenon, swinging alongside middle-aged guys named Jack, Jim and John. The exuberance he brings to the game is contagious, and in many ways he has revolutionized the game of golf, due in no small part to his unofficial standing as “the world's most marketable athlete.” He has been the highest paid athlete for several years now clearing more income by double what any of the other athletes earned, and is currently valued at $100 million; the second “Top-Earning African American Star” according to Forbes Magazine, trailing only Oprah Winfrey.

Woods is the top-earning athlete in sports today thanks largely to his Midas touch with endorsement deals, partnering with companies ranging from Gatorade, Gillette and Nike to General Motors, General Mills and American Express. Earlier this month, The Tiger Woods Foundation, which focuses on development programs for children, announced a five-year deal with Chevron Corporation.  Chevron will serve as the title sponsor of the Tiger Wood’s Foundation World Challenge Golf Tournament and will help fund Tiger’s foundation’s efforts to expand programs designed to “help young people prepare for successful and responsible careers.” In a statement announcing the partnership, Woods proclaimed he was “delighted” to partner with Chevron which “has a track record and a commitment to bettering the communities where it operates.” 

Unfortunately, this statement couldn’t be further from the truth.

As advocates and lawyers with EarthRights International (ERI) and other advocacy groups have known for years, Chevron is a corporation mired in human rights and environmental problems around the world. Below, excerpts from a letter that ERI sent to Woods and his Foundation last week expressing concern about the partnership:

… Chevron’s presence has proved destructive to numerous communities around the world, and we believe its practices do not reflect the values of the Tiger Woods Foundation….

 
In Burma, Chevron is partnering with the Burmese military regime in the Yadana gas project, which is the single-largest source of income for the brutal regime and which benefits from forced labor and other abuses committed by soldiers guarding the project. Some abuses associated with this pipeline were compensated in a 2005 legal settlement, but recent documentation by EarthRights International and other groups shows that the abuses are continuing… forced labor, rape, and torture on Chevron’s pipeline…

Chevron’s abuses are well-documented and, in many cases, have led to legal action.  The company is facing up to $16 billion in damages in Ecuador after the victims of pollution there took them to court.  In an on-going federal trial in San Francisco, EarthRights International is representing villagers who were shot and killed in Nigeria with the assistance of Chevron. The judge in this trial already found that there is evidence that Chevron’s personnel “were directly involved in the attacks,” because they transported the Nigerian military, paid them, and knew that they “were prone to use excessive force.” 

… Chevron simply refuses to change its abusive behavior in its host communities around the world.  We do not think this is a partnership that will reflect well upon you or your foundation, and we urge you to seriously consider Chevron’s record of irresponsible behavior….

 An icon both on and off the green, Tiger Woods’ celebrity gives him the ability to draw international attention to a range of products and causes.  Unfortunately, his partnership with a corporation notorious for its human rights abuses undermines whatever good Tiger and his philanthropic ventures claim to do elsewhere.  Tiger’s carefully cultivated, and notoriously apolitical image cannot and should not protect him for his alliance with a corporation whose billions in profit comes at the expense of the “communities where it operates.”  Wake up Tiger, its time to tee off for human rights.

Everyday, we are reminded of the ways in which our personal actions and behaviors can impact our health. Dedicate yourself to a new diet regimen, quit smoking or sign yourself up for the gym and you will certainly achieve not only good health but a long life. Or will you?

There have also, of course, been sharp and entirely legitimate criticisms of the U.S. health care industry, aided and abetted by government, for failing  to make health care accessible and compromising the well being of the 47 million uninsured. Indeed, there have been many headlines about people forced to ration critical medication because the cost was too high to maintain proper dosage levels.  

Similarly, the presidential race has brought attention to the issue; Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama have put much of their efforts into convincing Americans that their respective plans are the best suited for the millions currently without health care.

But despite the headway being made to educate Americans about how personal behavior impacts health and a political effort to reform the industry that will care for the sick, we are still left with the question, how did we as a nation get sick in the first place?

Why does one of the wealthiest nations in the world rank 30^th in life expectancy and 34^th in infant mortality?  Why is more than $1 trillion in business productivity lost to illness each year in the nation that spends more than twice per person on health than the average industrialized country?

According to a new four-part investigative documentary series, the medical answer is stress. And while it’s not exactly news that stress impacts our health, the filmmakers go one step further by exploring the relationship between social determinants and ill health.  The result is startling

The documentary series, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?, premiering nationally on PBS on March 27^th, goes to the root of America’s declining health status and challenges widely held beliefs about health, revealing alarming evidence that the jobs we perform, the wages we earn, the schools we attend, and the power we exact (or lack) to control our futures can have more of an impact on our health than diet, exercise and smoking.

And just as social determinants are unequally distributed in our society, so too are patterns of illness. 

Using the personal stories of a diverse group of Americans from across the country the documentary illustrates:

• How the chronic stress of living in a crime-ridden community may exact an even larger toll on cardio vascular disease than smoking or family history.

• How a manufacturing facility’s closing in a town debilitated a working class community, spurring depression, alcoholism and spousal abuse.

• How a successful, well educated, African American female lawyer can give birth to a premature and low birth weight baby resulting, it appears, not from prenatal neglect or even economic disadvantage, but cumulative effect of racial stress.

• How the wealth/health gradient proves that risk of stress-related diseases, fall not on those in positions of power, but rather on individuals that feel little power to control their lives.  

Leading medical researchers and policy experts contribute to the film offering a consistent response, society policy impacts health outcomes.

So the message is clear, the health of our nation’s citizens is not only be determined by their personal behavior or creating a universal health care system, but rather by taking steps to create a more equitable society  and  by working to improve the debilitating social conditions that create tremendous stress in the lives of millions of people.

Tune in to your local PBS station to get the full story and check out the website for more information on the documentary, http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/.

Well there’s just no getting away from race in America, is there? 

I’m not only referring to Barack Obama’s historic campaign for president, though it certainly is a fascinating prism through which to view race. For example, he believes African-Americans have come “90%” of the way when it comes to breaking the barriers of race discrimination. However, how often do you hear people wondering whether, in the privacy of the voting booth, enough white people will pull the lever to make a Black man president? Makes you wonder how Obama assesses the progress the rest of America has made when it comes to race.

The election aside, there is another important event, one that we here at Riptide are working on, that is all about race. Later this month in Switzerland (ironically a place that could be dubbed whitelandia or le monde de les blancs for our European readers) representatives of the U.S. State and Justice Departments will be questioned by a panel of United Nations experts on our nation’s compliance with an international treaty called the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). Under the treaty the U.S. is obligated to do that which is necessary to “eliminate” racial discrimination “in all its forms”.

Yes, you heard right. The U.S. agreed to be subject to international law on the matter of its own racism.  Before you laugh, gag or simply stop reading, let me say that in fact this is serious business that merits your attention. That’s because a broad cross-section of human rights advocates have seized on this moment to try and focus attention on how the U.S. has an abysmal record on racism and is promoting a new paradigm to not only expose it but remedy it.

On February 21 and 22 the panel of U.N. experts will examine the Bush Administration’s compliance with the treaty based on a report the U.S. provided them with last year. The treaty came into force in 1969, though it wasn’t until 1994 that it was ratified by the United States, giving it the full force of law here. This marks only the second time since the U.S. approved the treaty that it has produced a report and subjected its domestic record on human rights and race to review. The U.S. report, which was, not unsurprisingly, quietly released in April of 2007, precipitated a torrent of criticism and outrage from organizations including our client, the US Human Rights Network (USHRN), a coalition of over 250 social justice and human rights groups across the country. In response the USHRN released a shadow report that documents how the Bush Administration is not only failing to comply with its obligations under the treaty, but charges them with whitewashing the reality of racial inequality in America.

Now of course the Network and its allies face huge obstacles in obtaining tangible results. A large hurdle is the fact that while the Race Convention defines racial discrimination as resulting from laws, policies and programs that have the purpose or the effect of discriminating based on race, the U.S. Constitution requires evidence of a specific intent to treat people differently based on race. So, for example, unless intent can be proven there is no actionable discrimination and no remedy in the U.S. law to offset forms of discrimination that affect the millions of American citizens deprived of their human rights. We need only look at the disproportionate number of people of color in prisons and the numerous others who do not receive adequate healthcare because of the color of their skin as evidence that the current legal framework is inadequate. 

To get to the meat of the matter, here is a sampling of some of the, shall we say, deficiencies of the U.S. report:

• The U.S. government's report does not mention the widely recognized and devastating race and poverty-related effects of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
• The report completely ignores the issue of police brutality.
• The report does not discuss the well documented school to prison pipeline in which discriminatorily applied “zero tolerance” policies and criminal justice based responses to overcrowding and under resourcing of public schools drive children of color out of schools and into the prison system.
• The government's report suggests that stark racial disparities in incarceration rates (African Americans and Latino/as make up 60% of the over 2 million people incarcerated in the United States, but less than a quarter of the population) may “be related to differential involvement in crime” rather than a result of the cumulative impacts of the mistreatment of minorities at every stage of the criminal justice process.
• The U.S.  Report fails to acknowledge widespread racially and ethnically targeted law enforcement practices and aggressive round-ups and interviews of thousands of Non-citizen Muslims, Arabs and South Asians.
• Guantanamo, America’s gulag doesn’t even make the cut.

So the USHRN has its work cut out as it seeks to educate the American public about universal human rights standards by building links between organizations and individuals. Its goal is to build a human rights culture in the United States that puts those directly affected by human rights violations in a central leadership role, with a special emphasis on grassroots organizations and social movements

Of course, given Americans paltry knowledge of international law, lack of faith in the UN system and wariness of treaties which they are constantly told threaten our sovereignty, the Network has set itself quite a mountain to climb. 

But then again, wasn’t it Dr. King who memorably said:  And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!

Welcome to our new Blog. Several friends suggested that it’s about time we caught up with the Jones’ and the zillion others who have ventured into the Blogosphere, so here goes. Our intention is to provide updates on the work of our clients, offer comment on the issues of the day and draw attention to stories we think are important. We will also offer tips to visitors on media relations and how you can be most effective in maximizing the visibility of your work for social justice. Your correspondents will be Riptide staff with the occasional post from friends and links to the works of others we admire.

On the home front while nearly 50 million Americans are without health care and despite polls showing 80% of the population support some form of universal coverage, only the wide eyed optimists among us (a label that has occasionally been stuck on me) believe that a “single-payer” system will become a reality even if the craven Democrats take the White House. And all of this - and we can fairly mention Boston here -  underpinned by the human stain known as racism, which to judge by everything from nooses in the halls of academia to the discrimination against the darker-skinned Haitians who happen to live on the slightly lighter, Dominican side of their island, lives intractably on.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) have reported that Mossville residents have elevated levels of dioxin in their blood and environment, although these agencies fail to identify the sources of the dioxin exposure. However, an independent scientific analysis released earlier this year, Industrial Sources of Dioxin Poisoning in Mossville, Louisiana: A Report Bases on the Government’s Own Data co-authored by Mossville Environmental Action Now, The Subra Company, and Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, shows that six industrial facilities operating near Mossville are responsible for ongoing dioxin exposures among residents. Rather than follow up on the Report’s findings, the ATSDR has launched a misinformation campaign, claiming that the elevated dioxin results from their own tests occurred “decades ago” and “were not at levels of concern.”

In Louisiana, historic African American communities are the dumping grounds for some 200 polluting industrial facilities located along the Mississippi River Corridor between Baton Rouge and the Greater New Orleans area, which is infamously known as “Cancer Alley.” Notwithstanding the successful efforts of a few communities to overcome the serious flaws in the environmental regulatory system to achieve protection from toxic poisoning, the overwhelming majority of African American communities remain subjected to an extant environmental regulatory system that has permitted hazardous industrial facilities to operate in close geographic proximity to their homes, churches, and playgrounds, notwithstanding the fact – which is acknowledged by both EPA and industrial corporations – that such operations can kill people residing nearby. To date, through re-location, Louisiana has lost 4½ historic African American communities as a result of toxic pollution and contamination – Revilletown, Sunrise, Morrisonville, Diamond, and the Bel Air section of the Mossville community.

The story of Mossville is a story that is replicated across an America in which poverty, race and pollution collide and communities get sick. The Mossville community is fighting for its health and for what attorneys Monique Harden and Nathalie Walker of the advocacy group Advocates for Environmental Human Rights call the human right to a healthy environment.

We are working hard to bring this story to light…and make no mistake, it is not easy. Presidential candidates don’t go to small, rural communities of color suffering from the twin abuses of corporate industrial pollution and government neglect…they don’t see the votes. But this is what we do and we’ll keep trying…before we head up the mountain. 

Stay tuned.