human rights @de | Christina Felschen

human rights @de | Christina Felschen

Diplomacy, the art of balance

written for the Peace Boat website, Dec 30, 2012 >>

As a student Rafendi Djamin was imprisoned for his human rights activism under the Indonesian military regime – today he was nominated president of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights. But he witnesses how governments and local elites have found other ways to bypass human rights: Often they simply do not implement the laws on the ground.

Identities for sale

published in May 2012 in the book “Peace with the Earth”; deutsche Version hier >>

Sumatra and Papua are paradises for certain investors. The indigenous villages aren’t prepared for corporate deception strategies. Now that Sumatra’s rainforest is mainly destroyed, corporations have a go at Papua. Meet a village whose entire land has just been leased to the sugar industry. Or sold? No villager knows for nobody was able to read the contract.