For the first time at a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, at CHOGM in Trinidad & Tobago, there was significant representation of GLBTQ (gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/queer) activists among civil society participants, and a concerted effort to highlight issues of sexual citizenship and rights.

A delegation of GLBTQ activists from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean participated actively in the thematic assembly discussions and drafting process in the November 22-25, 2009 Commonwealth People’s Forum (CPF), a gathering of civil society organizations that meets in advance of, and sends a statement to, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

Working in partnership with gender, disabilities and other human rights advocates, they achieved visibility for a number of key concerns, and won inclusion of these issues in the broad civil society agenda for the Commonwealth.

The issues cut a wide swath: repealing laws criminalizing non-normative sexualities and gender expression; preventing and prosecuting bias-related murders and violence, including punitive rape of Lesbians; ending discrimination in accessing health services; creating safety in the school system from violence and bullying; addressing the need for support and resources for parents; and developing training and sensitization for a range of public servants and service providers.

Both scheduled speakers and participants from the floor made moving contributions related to human rights violations on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity in Commonwealth member countries.

Especially powerful speeches came from Ashily Dior, a Transgender activist from Trinidad;

Canadian Stephen Lewis, co-director of AIDS Free World

and former UN Special Envoy on HIV in Africa; and Robert Carr, director of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition.

Together, contributors raised a comprehensive range of concerns in several of the assemblies, particularly those focused on Gender; Health, HIV and AIDS; and Human Rights.

The final Port of Spain Civil Society Statement to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting includes language calling on “Commonwealth Member States and Institutions” to “recognize and protect the human rights of all individuals without discrimination on the grounds of…sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression”; to “repeal legislation that leads to discrimination, such as the criminalisation of same sex sexual relationships”; and for “the Commonwealth Foundation to facilitate a technical review of such of laws”.

(blogger’s translation: for queer/trans afrikan communities this means more funding for more administrative and research positions, more money chanelled through  HIV/AIDS  health networks, more token nominations, and more assistance to escape and possibly attain refugee status based on grounds of sexual orientation and/or gender identity…)

Further, it issues a call for “Commonwealth Member States to ensure universal access to basic” health “services for marginalised and vulnerable groups”, including “sexual and gender minorities”, and to “work to actively remove and prevent the establishment of legislation which undermines evidence-based effective HIV prevention, treatment and care available to marginalised and vulnerable groups, such as sexual minorities”.

Its Gender section includes a distinct item on “Transgenders, Gays and Lesbians” (“We call on Commonwealth Member States to include gender and sexuality as a specific theme on sexualities, sexual and gender minorities, related violence and discrimination, making them no longer invisible”) and echoes the recognition in the human rights section “that gender equity implies equality for all and therefore issues related to non-normative sexualities, such as sexual and gender minorities”.

The Statement also makes reference to proposed “Anti-Homosexuality” legislation introduced in the Parliament of Uganda, home of current CHOGM Chair President Yoweri Museveni. The legislation would require reporting of homosexuals, provide a sentence of life imprisonment for homosexual touching or sex, and the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”, if the offender is HIV-positive.

In remarks in more than one CPF assembly and in a special press conference, Lewis, Carr and a representative of the Caribbean HIV & AIDS Alliance, spoke out forcefully against the legislation, asking Museveni to take a clear position on it, and calling on others to condemn it. The Trinidad & Tobago Coalition Advocating for Inclusion of Sexual Orientation joined these voices, asking its own Prime Minister Patrick Manning, who will assume the chairmanship of CHOGM, and other CARICOM leaders, to do the same.

Eighty-six countries in the world currently have legislation criminalizing same-sex conduct between consenting adults as well as other non normative sexual and gender behaviours and identities; half of them are Commonwealth member states. Criminal provisions in these countries may target same sex sexual conduct, men who have sex with men specifically, or more generally any sexual behaviour considered “unnatural”.

Some countries criminalize other non normative behaviours, such as cross-dressing, or utilize criminal provisions on indecency or debauchery, among others, to target individuals on their real or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.

hese criminal provisions not only constitute a violation of civil and political rights in and of themselves because they violate key provisions established by international human rights law; they also have significant human rights implications, representing a serious risk for the exercise of other fundamental rights, such as the right to association, the right to assembly, and the right to expression, the right to health, the principle of non discrimination, to mention a few.

Furthermore, the mere existence of these laws is in many countries is an avenue for other human rights violations by state and non-state actors.

 We acknowledge and welcome the civil society consensus on the above mentioned issues, and call on Commonwealth member states, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Foundation to implement the recommendations of the Commonwealth People’s Forum.

  You can access the Port of Spain Civil Society Statement to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 25 November at: http://www.commonwealthfoundation.com/governancedemocracy/CPF2009/NewPublicationsCPF/

·     Alternative Law Forum (ALF) – India

·     Center for Popular Education and Human Rights Ghana (CEPEHRG)  – Ghana

·     Coalition Advocating for Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (CAISO) – Trinidad & Tobago

·     Gay and Lesbian coalition of Kenya (GALCK) – Kenya

·     GrenCHAP – Grenada

·     Jamaica Forum for Lesbians All-Sexuals and Gays – (J-FLAG) – Jamaica

·     Knowledge and Rights with Young People through Safer Spaces (KRYSS) – Malaysia

·     Lesbians and Gays Bisexuals Botswana (LEGABIBO) – Botswana

·     People Like Us (PLU) – Singapore

·     Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) – Guyana

·     The Independent Project (TIP) – Nigeria

·     United and Strong – St Lucia

·     United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM) – Belize

·     United Gays and Lesbians against AIDS Barbados (UGLAAB) – Barbados

·     Global Rights

·     International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC

On 11/19/09, InsafRelief <InsafRelief@gmail.com> wrote:

‘Team Mission 6′ yang diketuai Puan Dini Hariah dari ‘Psychologist’ Hospital Banting dan Kaunselor, sdr Shamsul Ariffin Elias dari Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur telah meneruskan program Misi 5 bersama DINAS (Jab. Pendidikan) di Padang Pariaman.

Misi ini yang akan berakhir pada 24hb November akan mempastikan semua program yang telah disusun dan dirancang bersama pihak DINAS ditutup dengan sempurna mengikut kaedah tatacara saikologi.

Disamping itu dengan hampirnya Hari Raya Qurban pada Jumaat depan, INSAF Malaysia dengan kerjasama Yayasan Prihatin Titiwangsa serta individu-individu akan menyumbang 4 ekor lembu dan 4 ekor kambing yang akan diagih-agihkan kepada mangsa-mangsa gempa disana.

Qu’est-ce qu’un nouveau produit?

* IDP Matters: An Update

* Ending Police Brutality: What will it take?

Part One:

Part Two:

* Numbed: An Exhibition by Artist Bandu Manamperi

The long waited day finally came .The citizens of Kenya were anxiously for that day with much zeal and anxiety to vote for their favorite candidates. The following day many Kenyans woke up very early to their representative polling stations to cast their votes.

Coming dawn the ballot paper were already being counted, people all over Kenya were watching their televisions as some listened to their radio to hear their next president .After some days ,Hon Samuel kivuitu who was the returning officer was seen on the television and heard on the radio announcing the winner.

When the clock struck six o’clock the winner had already been announced. Some people were happy as some were sad about the announcing of the winner, there was a rumor allover the country that the winner had stolen the vote’s .in Nairobi at Kibera and also at Kisumu some people started burning things.

They also insist to burn the Eck office. People souls were sold, houses, church and mosques were turned to ashes. People were killed, every day Red floods poured in our country leaving thousands of people homeless. As children’s what we saw made us to be speechless but we prayed to the Almighty.

Some homes were reduced to nothing but a graveyard. Everyday tears rolled down people visage because they had lost their beloved ones and thousand were left helpless

Assembleia Geral do IDP

24 de Outubro de 2009

(24 de Outubro de 2009)

Assembleia Geral do Instituto da Democracia Portuguesa
24 de Outubro de 2009

Dr. Fernando Nobre, SAR D. Duarte Pio e a Drª Luisa Janeirinho

A Assembleia Geral do Instituto da Democracia Portuguesa realizou-se no dia 24 de Outubro de 2009 no FORMAR ,Av. Brasília Pedrouços

Com início formal às 11:00 procedeu-se á concretização da Ordem de
trabalhos.Após reordenação dos orgãos sociais, com a eleição de João Palmeiro, actual Presidente da Associação Portuguesa de Imprensa (API) ,para a Direcção do IDP.

Consequentemente foram eleitos ,por unanimidade ,para o Conselho de Curadores: do Arq. Gustavo Nuno Ariosa Cunha; da Drª Ilda Saragoça da Matta; D. Diana Alvares Pereira de Mello e do Dr. Fernando Carvalho Rodrigues.

D. Diana Alvares Pereira de Mello

Dr. Fernando Carvalho Rodrigues

A apresentação do relatório da Direcção pelo seu Presidente, Dr. Mendo Castro Henriques, constituiu o 2º ponto da Ordem de trabalhos.
Na óptica constante de uma dimensão integrada entre o nível regional,
nacional e internacional veio o IDP desenvolvendo várias iniciativas
como a Wiki Constituição 2.0.
Iniciativa cujos resultados foram pelo Presidente do Conselho de Foruns, Leonardo de Melo Gonçalves

Interviram Almeida Ribeiro e Armando Marques Guedes para falar no
interesse da questão da justiça

Almeida Ribeiro

Armando Marques Guedes

Em debate sobre o lançamento do livro “A morosidade da justiça”, ainda no prelo, e as iniciativas levadas a cabo pelo IDP, como o colóquio com o mesmo nome do livro.

Para elaborar com maior detalhe a iniciativa “Perguntas à Democracia”

Francisco Cunha Rego

sob o formato de Congresso discursou Francisco Cunha Rego.O interesse manifesto de entidades Camarárias para acolher o II Congresso Perguntas à Democracia é um manifesto registo da relevância dos temas tratados

Para falar sobre os meios de comunicação do IDP, nomeadamente o
programa de rádio “perguntas proibidas” falou Paulo Rascão , um dos
responsáveis pelo projecto.

Frederico Brotas de Carvalho revelou o interesse que o IDP apresenta
perante várias instituições, como representações dilomáticas de outros
países (o caso da participação do IDP no colóquio realizado na
embaixada do Brasil é um dos exemplos já existentes) e instituições
nacionais.

Realçando o carácter de parceria institucional que o IDP tem
vindo a capitalizar.

Mendo Castro Henriques finalizou a apresentação e debate do relatório
de actividades com a reafirmação da importância estratégica das 30
NUT’s (nomenclature d’unités territoriales statistiques) nacionais,
como modelo mais relevante do que o conceito de município.
O valor estratégico da divisão territorial permite a mais rápida
identificação de uma rede coerente de cidades que permitam aumentar o desenvolvimento e coesão do território nacional diminuindo o hiato entre o litoral e o interior.

Intervenção de SAR D. Duarte Pio, Duque de Bragança e Presidente de honra do IDP

D. Duarte alertou para o interesse da Galiza, no âmbito da Lusofonia, e dos novos países que aderem à CPLP como a Guiné equatorial, uma antiga colónia espanhola, com a qual a Fundação D. Manuel II coopera para criar um Instituto da Cultura Portuguesa, com vista à formação de futuros quadros técnicos.

O interesse da educação e dos curriculos escolares para o futuro das gerações vindouras foi outro dos temas de interesse focados por D. Duarte, a par da questão ecológica como temas de relevo para a defesa da Democracia

Intervenção do Presidente da Assembleia, Dr. Fernando Nobre

Fernando Nobre, Presidente da AMI, realçou a importância de discutir os temas nacionais .Com a pobreza a aumentar a par do desemprego alinha-se uma alteração no paradigma de cidadania, com um número crescente e sem paralelo de pessoas a querer envolver-se no debate da nação.

Após o fim dos trabalhos procedeu-se ao período de debate para os associados

SAR D. Duarte Pio, Duque de Bragança e Presidente de honra do IDP na Assembleia Geral do IDP a 24 de Outubro de 2009

D. Duarte ao fundo ,antes do início da Assembleia

A falta de cultura politica e cívica em Portugal foi uma das razões que levou SAR D. Duarte a incentivar a existência de uma organização como o IDP, um “think tank” nacional que tem sabido sobreviver face a outras experiências homologas e contribuído de forma intensa e constante para a sustentabilidade da Democracia portuguesa.
A 24 de Outubro de ocorreu a Assembleia Geral, onde D. Duarte discursou

24 de Outubro de 2009

Intervenção de SAR D. Duarte Pio, Duque de Bragança e Presidente de honra do IDP

D. Duarte alertou para o interesse da Galiza, no âmbito da Lusofonia, e dos novos países que aderem à CPLP como a Guiné equatorial, uma antiga colónia espanhola, com a qual a Fundação D. Manuel II coopera para criar um Instituto da Cultura Portuguesa, com vista à formação de futuros quadros técnicos.

O interesse da educação e dos currículos escolares para o futuro das gerações vindouras foi outro dos temas de interesse focados por D. Duarte, a leveza com que se alteram currículos e programas sem ponderar o efeito a longo prazo ou a existência de razões fortes para o fazer tem sido um dos temas que preocupam D. Duarte
A par da questão ecológica como temas de relevo para a defesa da Democracia

Assembleia Geral do IDP de 24 de Outubro de 2009…clicar para ler

Last few weeks have been quite challenging personally, working out what to do next semester. A number of things have come up and it is now decided that I will be teaching at Hsa Thoo Lei and working with BMWEC on funding. The curricula has now been developed at Thoo Mwe Khee and so I have handed the whole thing over to Shirley and Peacefully to manage. Hopefully they will continue to run the school well and the students, who have learnt so much in such a short space of time, will continue to develop educationally and spiritually.

One school which really breaks my heart is Kwel Qa Baung. There umbrella organisation, Help Without Frontiers, stopped their funding in February this year over an argument between staff at HWF and the chairman. I could write pages on how this is unreasonable and cruel and hurts the children who the organisation are supposedly their to protect but I wont. Currently they are surviving on emergency funding which means rent, transport and 1,000B per teacher is paid for by World Education, an NGO working on the border. But it has now been 7 months and they are not really any closer to finding a long term donor who will support the 420 children there! This continues to be the biggest and most challenging task that I work on with BMWEC.

On a positive note some of the schools have found new donors for the next 18 months so the pressure is off their budgets.

Schools need (relatively) little to run and it is difficult to see why it is so hard to fund donors, although many potential people I have tried recently have responded with the inevitable ‘not in this financial climate’ response. The worldwide recession is truly world wide and hits the people who have the least.

We did hold training for some teachers recently and I was really happy tp be able to sit and chat to one from the IDP area (area in Burma where villagers have escaped to after forced relocation by the Burmese army). The money that the CU at Bath raised helped to give each teacher a 1000B stipend. Prior to this they had received nothing for two years. They were so happy that someone had taken the time to try and give them something and were really looking forward to being able to feed their families properly without replying on charity from the parents of the children who they teach.

There is still a little money left from the CU and so I’m hoping to give them all a second pay check in December. 1000B is only £20, and for three months work this is ridiculously little, whether looking at the process in Thailand or the UK! What really amazes me is that even after two years without a single baht salary, they were all still teaching, giving their all to try and help the next generation. Would the teachers in the UK still be teaching if they hadn’t been paid for two years?

Teaching despite not being paid is not just a phenonemum is the 13 IDP schools. Many schools up and down the border often go for a month or two without wages as the donors don’t pay on time, the ate changes or there is simply no donor, as at KQB and yet the children never go without education.

I was her flawless knight,

she, my trusted Queen.

I grew in valor,

She grew in grandeur,

And I blinded her with my light

And so she closed her eyes to me

And the dark ages came.

And she forgot my name.

And the wars I fought,

I fought for her to claim.

Ravaged by battle,

Scarred by misdeeds

My road to heaven

Paved with bad intentions

She then saw my humanness;

In me saw humanity

And she took me back,

like she always will.

The dead Buddha on the stairway of the Jaffna library,
Professor Nuhman,
Is now back ressurected, he returns now with a vengeance.
Every street corner, every junction, near threewheeler stands
He sits as Sinhala chauvinism shits.

The world’s sweated
Ts dropping in murk coloured drips: The lost souls
Who won a leader, now we need a fucking breather.
Now our corn is weighed, settled,
Our cows are counted, marked: ts the end of a battle

The brazen blacksmith knocks on,
His bench shines with burning brittles,
Where the smoke burns out the chimney
The clouds look brown; ts written, ts taught:
“Long live this island nation”,
Undivided through creation,
The cows are herded indoors. Most of
Devoted Hindus: happy homes behind the fences.
The chill cuts through the lenses; ts smokey, As I said.

Herd is marked near the arsehole: Los GOSL –

Gently Oblige Saint’s Leverage. And
Grace Offers Some Leniency to
Good ‘Ombres who Suck Lethal.
That’s GOSL.
As we are.

So, go in peace and hope my chillun,
In that yond shed lives sunshine,
Hay and a million peaces, moonshine-like
Humble teasers. Sons don’t say to Vishnu Mary and Jesus,
Just lift your tails and show your creases,
Hold em erect and up for the caesar,
Present arms with your horns now – bend them,

Pipe ‘moo’ in soft A-major, they’re all your Lords, no minors,
Despicable monsters – fuck you.
Bloody stateless, friendless, loveless, neckless
Medea – that’s you.
You fucking have no chillun,
Your motherland’s closed behind you.
Where your babes once held out seaming,
No dreams there for your springs to woo to.
No streams there to cup in
The blood that is drained you.
Bower stumbles, ts stamped on,
The minds dead that once trained you.

Buddha dead on the stairway of the Jaffna library,
Professor Nuhman,
Is now back ressurected, he returns now, spits with a vengeance.
Been to Kelaniya Nuhman — the message is hoarded:
“This blessed island is Buddha’s land”.
Now, the cattle is herded, taken with care to the indoors,
No show scene for IDPs, instead they screen “Bindu”.
70% at Uva, 67 at the Southern Fort.
“Sure?” said the skeptic joker; “Sure!” the fellows retort.

Ts that some don’t have the choices, where some
Sing songs with their voices. When the ammo
And the last gun is gone, can the maimed spirit still carry on?
For how long, then, for how long
Could the cows’ dung and piss be filled into barrels now wasted
And fill up those holes they’ve drilled; have regent hymns sung,
His body art on streetsides pasted?

I remember Shelley calling out to people
Out of graves for a sepulcher to take by tempest,
Likewise this evil of a wronging nation by lies and bleaching
To tyrants’ ends that tempts us — would those falling tears
After a long 25 years, be enough water to feed that sapling life?
Why blame the believer, if to gun down caesar, that arrogant spirit,
That he used his knife?

Your bridges are burnt – Tamil, don’t look back. Your fences hurt,
Stay caged – don’t shag. Know your real enemy
Now that you’ve come face to face,
Now that your cultural past falls in ashes and ablaze,
Now you face that distant, unknown, unseeming
Masquerade-discarded moustache beaming
And in the water hole where your faces reflect

The unanswered prayers
May the wisdom be brought home:
That your gods are not up there -
New gods rule those reigns – the
Traditional homeland of Tamils.
They ain’t traditional no longer;
They not homelands no more.
Nor are they Tamil — the Tamil’s now
The whore.

The Sri Lankan government is building peace. It is a process with many steps.

2009-10-15

25 years of hardship
90,000 and more dead
271,967 lives stuck in IDP camps
So is it over?

photo from The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office

No, not yet.