standup.comboniyouth.org.uk

In the previous article we depicted the world, as it is: a looking-glass world, where the Countries that guard the peace also make and sell the most weapons. In this page, instead of labelling any estranged person or group as the enemy, we advocate the rediscovery of a sense of communality (common-human-unity). Our Western culture is imbued with concepts of democracy and the rights of individuals. We ask if our model of society is exportable or buyable elsewhere.

Human Rights above everything else are the right to be a human being. It is not about idealism or some kind of morality. The so-called first generation of HR goes back to the French Revolution. The 'Declaration of the rights of man and citizen' was approved on 26-8-1789. Three French words summarise it all Liberte', Egalite' and Fraternite'. All human beings are by right of birth free subjects and have equal dignity throughout their lifespan.

Just a few years earlier the Declaration of Independence of America, signed on the 4th July 1776, had recognised the inalienable right to life, security, education, food, shelter in what was portrayed as a land of freedom and opportunities. Beside the concept of nation there is the assumption that the State is the guarantor of the rights of its citizen. But this has not always been the case.

Contemporary history is filled with chronicles of inept and corrupt governments over several decades. It deplores the suppression of fundamental human rights and the marginalisation of the young and the poor. It recounts the eventual, inevitable outbreak of hostilities. Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Yugoslavia, Haiti, Congo, El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Angola, Nicaragua, Panama, Palestine/Israel, Liberia, Pakistan, India, Lebanon, just to mention a few. These countries have been in conflict situations in the last 15 years. Almost one million people have lost their lives.

We take an in-depth look at two case States. Guatemala's civil war from 1960 to 1996 claimed the lives of more than 200,000 citizens and displaced millions more, many of them Mayan civilians. During the war, the Guatemalan military killed, tortured, raped and massacred hundreds of thousands of people.

Although the war in Sierra Leone is now over, the country has been left scarred, embittered, traumatised and yet further impoverished. Hundreds of thousands suffered rape, mutilation, torture and the killing of their family members. Millions were looted and displaced from their homes. Children were egregiously abused: boys were drugged, armed and ordered to carry out horrifying acts on civilian communities; girls were abused and forced into servitude as 'bush wives'.

Among the organisations working to stop the brutality of torture there is Human Right Watch and Amnesty International. AI's mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the right to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination.