Photo Credit: Beth Garriott

On July 9, 2011, South Sudan gained independence from Sudan after an overwhelming majority of South Sudanese voted to secede and become Africa’s newest country.

Beth Garriott, Global Exchange’s Gifts & Grants Officer, lived in South Sudan from 2006-2007 while she worked with Mercy Corps. She shares her thoughts about South Sudan’s independence.

The birth of a New Nation: South Sudan

Photo Credit: Beth Garriott

“Peace is good. I built a house a year ago, and it has not been burned down like it was every year before.” —Nuer woman, Rumbek, South Sudan – 2006, one year after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed

Watching the celebrations in South Sudan this weekend, I felt a mix of emotions. Mostly I felt incredible joy, relief and satisfaction on behalf of millions of people who had endured more loss and pain than most could ever imagine – after a generation of civil war and the displacement of millions of people. I also couldn’t help but feel a longing to be back in Sudan, celebrating with the friends I made during my time in the country from 2006-2007. And I was cautiously optimistic about the future of this infant nation, given continued conflicts along the border regions between the north and the south, tensions among tribes in the south over land rights and political control, and the poor infrastructure, healthcare options and education system in the country.

Photo Credit: Beth Garriott

That said, sheer delight trumped all other emotions and questions this past weekend while I watched the singing, dancing and festivities online. A world away, I share in their joy. But my happiness about South Sudan’s independence surely didn’t come close to comparing to the utter elation that most people in the country – and South Sudanese around the world – must have been feeling, deep in their bones, on July 9th.

Photo Credit: Beth Garriott

South Sudan is different culturally and religiously from the northern part of the country – it is primarily Arab and Muslim in the north and animist and Christian in the south.

For far too long the people of South Sudan were oppressed. They suffered through violence, displacement and slavery during 22 years of civil war leaving over one million people dead and more than four million people displaced. But finally, in 2005, they got a chance to taste freedom when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed, signaling the start of a six-year semi-autonomous period in which the government of South Sudan would be initiated and power-sharing structures would be established with the North. At the end of the six years, the CPA stipulated that South Sudan would have a chance to vote for independence.

Photo Credit: Beth Garriott

During my time in South Sudan working for a U.S-based non-governmental organization on an initiative to strengthen civil society, most people were not certain whether peace would even last another year, much less all the way through to the election in 2011. One of the least developed countries on earth, the majority of people in South Sudan back then had no access to clean drinking water, electricity or roads. I lived in a mud hut and had it well.

Photo Credit: Beth Garriott

Carrying out an election in such a massive geographical area (the former country of Sudan was roughly the size of Western Europe, the largest country in Africa) without roads, and with a literacy rate of between 20-30%, seemed all but impossible. Additionally, tensions were still high between the northern and southern militaries, and rising between various tribes in South Sudan over land and political representation. But alas, we were all proven wrong when – in January this year – democracy triumphed on a continent where peaceful elections are few and far between. And this past weekend, the long and perilous journey towards a freer and calmer Sudan was complete.

Photo Credit: Beth Garriott

My time in South Sudan was the most seminal and important period of my life. It continues to inspire and ground me in my work at Global Exchange to bring about greater awareness of human and environmental rights issues around the world. If I close my eyes, I can still picture the lush mango trees along the Nile River in Juba, the new capital of South Sudan. I smile imagining the traditional Dinka greeting, which includes a brief clasping of a person’s right hand, then slapping of the other’s shoulders with the same hand – over and over again for several cycles.

Photo Credit: Beth Garriott

I recall the conversations I had with community members in the remote village where I worked for a year – in the disputed region of Abyei, straddling the north-south border – where much of the country’s oil lies (it is unclear whether this small area will become a territory of North or South Sudan). People here talked about their vision for South Sudan – a peaceful, independent and thriving nation.

This vision is now two-thirds of the way there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This alert was originally sent out to our Global Exchange e-mail list. Be the first to get breaking Global Exchange news and sign up for our e-mail lists.

The failure of the Obama administration to swiftly condemn the bloody crackdown in Bahrain that has killed four and injured hundreds points to the ongoing hypocrisy that defines U.S. Middle East policy. When pushed, our government eventually supported the multitudes of demonstrators in Cairo, but not before assuring that the U.S.-backed military is there to manage Egypt’s “transition to democracy.”

Bahrain, the tiny island nation in the Persian Gulf that harbors the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, is a different story. There, demonstrators face a U.S. and Saudi backed monarchy that has just violently broken up a tent city that sought to emulate the actions in Cairo’s Tahrir square. The White House response has been to ask all sides to refrain from violence.

We must encourage the U.S. government stand for democracy and the people of Bahrain by condemning the violence inflicted by the Bahraini government and allow for peaceful protests. As Bahraini human rights activist, Nabeel Rajab, told DemocracyNow! this morning:

[I]f Barack Obama could come out and speak about other countries like Egypt and Iran, so he could speak about Bahrain. Especially we have more dead people here than they had in Iran, that he should come out and speak and say to the Bahrain government, they should stop [this violence against the people]. Barack Obama and the United States are a very influential country here. … They are the people who could speak. But so far, unfortunately, we have not seen any positive statement made by the United States government.

Lend your voice and write your member of Congress and the White house asking that the US use its powerful influence to ask the army to go back to the barracks and allow peaceful protests to continue.

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

I was in the middle of buying some mints from a street vendor on Cairo’s Talat Harb Street—right off Tahrir Square–when the rocks started flying. I had given a 20-cent coin to the vendor. He gave me one pack of mints, and all hell broke loose.

“Run, run,” people yelled at me. I saw a group of men running down the street, carrying a man whose face was streaming with blood. Then I saw the pro-Mubarak thugs, armed with rocks, metal pipes, whips. “Run, Run,” the Egyptians on the street told me. I ran for shelter as fast as I could.

This has become a pattern the past few days. Thugs hired by the regime, many of them plain-clothes police, try to create chaos on the streets just outside the entrances to Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the Egyptian Revolution. They randomly attack people, including us foreigners. Many of us have been beaten, our cameras smashed. My CODEPINK colleague Tighe Barry had been picked up on this very street two days ago, thrown into a car, roughed up, and later dumped out with a warning to stay way.

Tighe refused to stay away, and so did a million Egyptians who, despite the threats of violence, teemed into Tahrir Square today in what was termed the “Day of Departure.” Young, old, rich, poor, religious, secular—they defied the desperate acts of a dying regime.

Ever since this uprising began on January 25, the determination and bravery of the Egyptians has been overwhelming to witness. The democracy forces in Tahrir Square have braved tear gas, water cannons, rocks, sniper fire and mobs storming in on horses and camels. All the while, they have stood their ground and continued to hold on to this sacred square.

Today they were determined to liberate the outside streets as well. While I was running away from the Mubarak mob on Talat Harb Street, a huge crowd came rushing out of the square, running towards the thugs. Just the sight of this oncoming sea of people was enough to frighten the thugs. The Mubarak mob disappeared as quickly as it had formed. Talat Harb Street, the site of street battles the last few days, was once again liberated. People cheered “Horreyah, horreyah”—freedom, freedom.

Out of breath from running so fast, I turned around and saw the street vendor who had sold me the mints. He had run after me. It turns out that the 20-cent coin I had given him was enough to buy two packs of mints, not one. He had come to give me the second pack.

“Welcome to Egypt,” he said, smiling.

 

 

By Shannon Biggs, Global Exchange Community Rights Director (January, 2011)

 

 

Whose Supreme Court?

If the Supreme Court had never granted “personhood” rights to corporations, would they still be trammeling the rights of citizens and riding roughshod over communities and nature?  Would we have democracy?

By deciding 5-4 in the Citizens United case, the US Supreme Court expanded corporations’ ability to spend money to influence our elections, and reignited the controversy over corporate personhood. A bevy of campaigns have emerged to challenge it, through litigation or via a Constitutional amendment.

Abolishing corporate personhood is necessary, but our entire system of law is engineered to keep decision making out of the hands of the people.  The unelected Supreme Court, which created corporate monsterhood, would still exist and wealthy interests would continue to shape that judiciary and the debates before it. The Commerce and Contracts clause of the Constitution would continue to place corporate interests over citizens’ rights. The legislature would still be influenced more by Fortune 500 powerbrokers than voters.  State laws that “preempt” communities from making decisions about their local welfare in favor of corporate interests would still be in effect, and regulatory laws would still be written largely by the industries to be regulated.

Perhaps corporations are not even the real problem. The corporation is just the current tool for exploitation: once upon a time Lords and Barons ruled. After jettisoning them in the Revolution, the Constitution guaranteed the slave system.  And in the same breath that law ended human property, the courts made property (corporations) “persons” as a vehicle for the wealthy to continue to maintain power over the many.

Changing the status quo and creating a living democracy will take grassroots organizing.  Even if we start with abolishing corporate personhood, how will we get there?  Past people’s movements for rights suggest we cannot merely ask for change from those who hold the reigns. The Declaration of Independence says that our rights are inalienable, we’re born with them—they do not come from law. We must not relinquish our rights, but exercise them in the face of unjust laws—what some call civil disobedience. Susan B. Anthony cast her ballot and went to jail. The underground railroad ignored the slave laws, and the lunch counter sit-ins of the civil rights struggle remains a powerful symbol of a movement for change. Today’s movement for the inherent rights of people and nature and against corporate power is no different.

At the forefront of this movement stand communities of people confronted by corporate GMOs, water theft, mountaintop removal, and on and on.  They find that it is the law itself that enables corporations to determine their destiny.

GX’s Community Rights program, in partnership with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), works with California citizens in a growing number of communities to challenge unjust law through local lawmaking.  These local ordinances strip corporations of their legal privileges and assert the rights of people to make governing decisions.

Concerned about water in her pristine mountain community, Angelina Cook of Mount Shasta, CA is one of those leading the charge for rights in partnership with Global Exchange. “Our ordinance is designed to reverse the dangerous momentum of business as usual by placing citizen rights ahead of corporate interests.  Our ordinance will prohibit corporate cloud seeding and ground water extraction for resale within city limits.  In addition to preventing further degradation, it will transform our existing submissive private-public dynamic.”  The citizens’ group formed to pass the ordinance has spent the winter knocking on neighbors’ doors in freezing temperatures to talk about rights, and to gather the petition signatures needed to put the ordinance on the ballot this year.

Citizens in Mt. Shasta are organizing to assert their community’s rights!

Meanwhile, the 125+ communities who have passed these ordinances in others states have begun to take this work to the next level—organizing to create new state constitutions based on the legitimate rights of people, while also stripping unjust laws protecting corporate privilege; and from there, national reform. What will those solutions look like? That is for We the People to decide.

Take action:

 

Interested in Rights based organizing or want to assist the Mt. Shasta campaign? Contact Shannon@globalexchange.org or 415.575.5540