JAKE FIRED Over comments On Supreme Court Verdict

NPP Chairperson, Jake Obetsebi Lamptey

Robert  I. A. F.  Amisah a writer on legal and constitutional affairs has taken Mr Jake Obetsebi- Lamptey National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to the cleaners over his comments on the Supreme Court verdict on the election petition.

 Mr Obetsebi- Lamptey virtually accused Supreme Court Judge William Atuguba of skewing the courts judgment in favour of President Mahama.

In a widely publicized rebuttal, Amissah claims that Mr. Obetsebi- Lamptey’s Position springs from his ignorance of the law.

 The full text of the rebuttal is published below;

As the fair and calm dust has settled on the Supreme Court verdict on the 2012 presidential election petition, the least one expected was an awakening of the debate on the verdict, let alone a negative twist to it. 

Unnecessary as the petition was, some came to appreciate the need for the case so as to open or expose the bottlenecks in our electoral system and the needed reforms thereof. 

Mr. Obetsebi Lamptey in the past week stated that Justice Atuguba stole the verdict for President Mahama. This can be easily ignored as its a very ignorant opinion, how- ever, knowing who the NPP claim to be and what they are fond of, Its important to "inform" him of the obvious. 

"If Article 49(3) would work in- Justice against the citizenry who registered, queued and voted, it is regrettable that I cannot in holding the very constitution engage in any manipulation of language and deny its effect when it has been thrown to us for the first time". Anin Yeboah. JSC.

“In this case it would be unfair and fraudulent for the petitions to authenticate the results and turn round to seek to invalidate on the purely technical ground of absence of presiding officer's signature." William Atuguba, JSC.

Judges have a significant task to uphold the law through its interpretation, and that is Justice! 

From the quotations above, lets consider the following facts. 

There are various means through which laws are interpreted and modern legal writers usually emphasize on two, the literal and purposive which can be broken down further.

The literal form is a straight forward approach and productive in minor conduct crimes such as traffic offences. It is potentially harsh and can create an absurdity or become an affront to public policy when applied. 

Consider Whiteley V. Chappel (1868) where it was held that as the accused had impersonated a dead person and a dead person did not have the right to vote, he was not guilty of impersonating a voter. 

Mr. Lamptey, some laws are written in plain and very understandable language while others are vague. Either way, a literal interpretation has a high propensity of being an affront to social interest especially in highly technical cases. 

Purposively, laws are interpreted to give an effect to its general purpose or remedy a possible mischief.  This approach has gained a respectable leverage in statutory interpretation and according to Lord Steyn, HL, "the pendulum has swung towards purposive methods of construction." 

So, Mr. Jake Obetsebi, if you can kindly take off your political lens to see THIS! You may revise your note on who stole or at least attempted to steal the true will of the people.

For Justice Anin Yeboah to hide under the guise of literally interpreting the law to secure a mischievous win for the NPP, and Justice Atuguba to feel the spirit of the law to affirm the true will of "the people" PRESIDENT JOHN DRAMANI.

Who is a thief?

By: Robert I. A-F Amissah 

Editorial

GOING TO BRAZIL

Mr. Elivis Afriyie- Ankrah, the Minister for youth and Sports has finally announced that the Government intends to send a few supporters to the World Cup in Brazil.

 He did not say what few means in real numbers.

The point is that many well meaning Ghanaians have asked the Government not to spend the tax payers money on Sponsoring supporters to Brazil.

We agree with them.

 How can the Government be spending millions of cedis to send supporters to Brazil when it is unable to pay newly recruited nurses?

Times are very hard for the people of Ghana and the little money left in the coffers should be spent wisely.

Sending supporters to Brazil is a complete waste of the tax payers money.

PRESS STATEMENT
THE GENERAL ECONOMIC SITUATION IN GHANA

TUC Boss Kofi Asamoah (L) and President Mahama (R)

In July 2013, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) issued a statement on the state of the Ghanaian economy. In that statement we raised serious concerns about the health of the economy and its implications for the working people of Ghana and their families. We expressed grave concern about the nature of economic policies and the quality of economic management. This followed an earlier statement, issued in June 2012, calling attention to the rapid depreciation of the Ghana cedi against the major international currencies. 

Since 2005, the TUC and other civil society organizations have made annual submissions on economic and social policies for the consideration of the Minister of Finance in the Annual Budget Statement and Economic Policy of Ghana. In these submissions, we have offered some recommendations on what we think are the solutions to the socio-economic challenges Ghana is facing. At the heart of all our submissions has been a call for a national dialogue and consensus building on the nature of economic policy and economic management that can create employment and reduce poverty which has afflicted millions of Ghanaians. 

Sadly, the managers of our national economy have chosen to ignore the advice of the TUC and many other brilliant suggestions that have been put forward by other civil society organizations. Instead, those in charge of our economy have chosen to rely on the economic policy advice of ‘experts’ at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Therefore, in the last three decades, our economic policy have been heavily neo-liberal in character - privatization of strategic national assets, unbridled liberalization of international trade, and the ruthless deployment of market forces as evidenced by the removal of subsidies on utilities and fuel. These bad economic policy choices have been exacerbated by pervasive corruption, cronyism, incompetence, and extreme partisanship. 

The chickens have now home to roost. After religiously sticking to this economic management philosophy for over thirty odd years, the jury is still out there. Views are converging that the economy is failing or has failed and times are really hard for ordinary citizens. The economic indicators, as robust as we are told they are, have failed to make any significant impact in the lives of Ghanaians. Good jobs are disappearing faster than they are being created even as the economy registers what is claimed to be ‘impressive’ growth rates. Incomes are falling in real terms for most Ghanaians as inflation rises. The trade deficit has been growing at an alarming rate as imports saturate our markets and stores and as we continue to export our natural resources in their raw form. The national debt has ballooned and continues to soar. The cedi has now found itself in the slaughterhouse having fallen in value against all the major international currencies. And it continues to fall. 

Out of desperation Government has now resorted to increases in VAT which is well-known to be regressive form of taxation. Road tolls have gone up by more than a thousand percent in the last five years. And more roads are being tolled even as our road network deteriorates. At the beginning of this year, nearly all government charges and fees have been increased. There is a now a 17.5 percent VAT on bank transactions and utility consumption. Fuel subsidies have been abolished; government is fully taxing fuel products now. Government has abolished the payment of allowances to Teacher and Nursing Trainees at the time Ghana need more teachers and health professionals to take care of 25 million Ghanaians. Public services are deteriorating. Many schools are operating at the margins because government bursaries are in arrears. Hospitals are stretched to their limits. Private hospitals may soon have to close down because of the huge indebtedness of the National Health Insurance (NHIS).

All this have occurred in the context of additional resources from the commercial production of oil, which has added about half a billion Dollars annually to the national purse since 2011. But as we noted in our July 2013 statement, we are gravely “concerned that government and its agencies are not efficiently managing the oil resources for the benefits of Ghanaians. For instance, in 2012, an amount of GH¢ 232,403,269 out of the oil revenues was committed to road infrastructure. But we are yet to be told exactly which roads the funds were applied. Again, in 2012 while an amount of GH¢72,471,824 (14%) was committed to agricultural modernization we used GH¢111,959,738 for so-called capacity building. In its 2012 annual report, the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), the committee charged with monitoring compliance with the Petroleum Revenue Management Act, called on government to indicate how the funding for capacity building was utilized. 

We still hold the view that the economic and social challenges that we face as a country are rooted in the nature of economic policies and the manner in which we have chosen to conduct national affairs. The economic woes we are facing can be attributed to the hands-off neoliberal economic policies and failure on the part of the leadership to do the right things for the country.  

The policy of unbridled trade liberalization or more appropriately import liberalization has compelled us, as a nation, to live virtually on imports. We import practically everything as the manufacturing sector gradually, but surely, grinds to a halt. Our increasing appetite for imports means that our demand for foreign currency particularly the US Dollar is growing exponentially. More than two-thirds of our exports revenues are generated from Gold, Cocoa, Oil and Timber. And we continue to export these in their raw forms earning very little. Policymakers have failed to address the monumental challenges that confront domestic industry compelling many exporters to convert their factories into warehouses as they join the lucrative import trade.  

The problem has been compounded by the over-liberalization of our external payment system allowing for transfer of foreign currency of any amounts out of the country by foreign companies operating in Ghana. The legal limits on transfers out of the country are rarely enforced. There are reports of people and companies transferring millions of Dollars in sacks through our porous borders. In 2012, the Bank of Ghana reportedly sunk about a billion dollars into the economy in an effort to halt the depreciation of the Cedi (Business & Financial Times, 11th April 2012). But this failed to stem the slide of the cedi. 

Foreign-owned companies, particularly those in the services sector such as the Telecoms, dealing in non-tradables and generating so much cedi-denominated revenues are a major part of the constant pressure on the Ghana Cedi. These companies hardly bring in any foreign currency beyond their initial capital investments. At the same time we place our reserves, built through the sweat of our cocoa farmers and the borrowings from the IMF (with all the conditionalities), at their disposal. As the Bank of Ghana injects more Dollars into the economy, these companies quickly buy them for onward transfer out of the country. Their shareholders in South Africa, United Kingdom, United States and elsewhere receive their dividends not in Cedis but in Dollars and Pounds. The US$20 million that the Bank of Ghana says it has injected into the economy is roughly equivalent to what one telecom company will have to transfer out of the country in a month. 

The TUC shares the view that the dollarization of the economy is partly to blame for the current messy situation. But Government itself is most guilty on this. We are in a country where custom duties charged by government are dollar-indexed. State agencies, like the Tema Development Corporation (TDC), sell land at Dollar-indexed prices. The Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), along with other public educational institutions, have indexed their fees to the US Dollar. In such an environment, one can only expect rational economic actors to procure dollars ahead of time to shield themselves from exchange rate losses. Yet, Government turns round to blame innocent Ghanaians for dollarizing the economy. 

With the value of the Cedi declining on a daily basis, the domestic prices of imports keep rising and this has adverse implications for the living conditions of workers whose salaries are fixed throughout the year. And it is not just imported items that experience price increases. Landlords adjust their rents to be able to cope. Lorry fares continue their upward trend. In general, Ghanaians are facing difficult times as nearly all prices are going up. Government functionaries are in the state of denial and are descending heavily and crudely on people who echo the general sentiments of Ghanaians. This may be understandable given that such functionaries live on state resources and they do not have to worry about soaring prices. But the truth of the matter is that the rest of Ghanaians are facing severe social and economic hardships. And it is important that Government and its functionaries wake up to the realities and do something about the plight of Ghanaians. 

The TUC admits that there are no easy solutions to the current situation. The country requires immediate short-term remedial measures to ameliorate the plight of Ghanaians. First, it is important that government rolls back some of the many taxes it has imposed on the people including the downward review of charges and fees. Second, government must consider re-introducing subsidies on utilities and fuel because the rate at which government is raising fuel prices and utilities is neither sustainable nor socially desirable for the country. Third, government must check and rid itself of corruption and corrupt elements to ensure that government services and programmes reach their intended beneficiaries in a timely manner. 

In the long-term, a radical overhaul of economic and social policy is warranted. First, there is need to strengthen the state and its agencies to allow for effective conduct of government and state policies and programmes. This means that while market forces are recognized as important in mediating economic exchanges, the state represented by efficient government institutions must retain the right and possibilities to intervene in a strategic way to achieve national objectives. Second, economic policies must emphasize the centrality of adding value to natural resources and being able, as a country, to produce some of the basic necessities of life. We cannot make any headway in reducing poverty and improving living conditions by living on imports. We need policies and programmes that reward domestic production and penalizes imports. Third, Ghana must offer unalloyed support to Ghanaian businesses. State power must be leveraged to promote domestic industry. The fruitless attempt to destroy businesses perceived to be politically unfriendly must end. Fourth, a review of our capital accounts and external payment system is necessary. Ghana cannot afford to continue to allow foreigners and foreign-owned companies to transfer any amount of foreign currency out of the country. The Americans and the Chinese with all their economic might do not allow that. Finally, government must initiate a national dialogue on the economy to tap into the best brains and ideas on the way forward for our country, Ghana.

Given the hardship facing the working people of Ghana it is unthinkable that Government can even contemplate wage freeze in the public sector. We expect Government to convene a meeting of the National Tripartite Committee to discuss our proposal for upward adjustment of the National Daily Minimum Wage without further delay. Once the consultation on the National Minimum Wage is concluded the negotiation for the review of the Base Pay and relativity on the Single Spine Salary Structure will commence. A significant upward adjustment of wages is required to cushion workers from the economic current economic hardship. Workers of Ghana have been stretched to the limit. We cannot contain any further burden imposed on workers due to economic mismanagement.
SIGNED
KOFI ASAMOAH
SECRETARY-GENERAL
ACCRA, 5TH FEBRUARY 2014

AFRICA`S DARKEST HOUR- 1PM, 2/1/1964

THE VERDICT OF HISTORY

It is erroneously held that revolutions are bloody phenomenon that leaves much blood in its trail and in the end satisfied no one. Re-reading history objectively, one cannot help dispelling this notion as a bourgeois fantasy designed merely to frighten away the people from the only course that will free them from the chains that entangled them.

It is not revolution that breeds violence but counter-revolutions, the act of trying to reverse the verdict of history.

Thus it was not the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 that killed so many people in the soviet Russia but the subsequent counter-revolutionary activities of the Czar and his international feudalist – capitalist collaborators.

In Cuba, few people died in the fighting in the Sierra Mountains compared to the numbers who have lost their lives since the counter- revolutionaries started trying take away what the people had gained by sweat and sacrifices.

Applying this theory to our owned home situation, let us compare the number of people who lost their lives in our almost bloodless revolution in the early 50s when we asserted supremacy of the will of the masses to that of the counter-revolutionary era of the NLM days through to Kulungugu back to Accra and the subsequent incidence that culminated in the desperate attempt of that accused Ametewee on January, 2, 1964,who thought that he could reverse the gains of the African revolution by killing the man who had become its touch bearer – Kwame Nkrumah.

The people of Africa, reorganizing this salient historical lesson have since then become more determined and relentless in their fight to rid the continent of imperialism- the system that kills every child out of ten born in a year before he sees the twelfth month. The system that pegs their average age at 47  instead of the world standard of 65, the system that makes them live poor in the midst of plenty.

Taking their cue from this, the peoples of Angola, Mozambique, the Congo and South Africa now intensifies their revolutionary fight instead of giving up in the face of imperialist brutalities. They recognised that, it will be better to die fighting for a course than to exist under ignominious conditions – hungry, diseased, ignorant and displaced.

This is because Kwame Nkrumah has already shown the way. Every single attempt on his life merely serves to strengthen his faith in the cause that has been trusted upon him by history.

Thus with justifiable pride he told the whole world after the Kulungugu dastardly attempt, “long after I have gone the flame that I have lighted on this continent will continue to burn…”

To this we add our humble line. Long after Kwame Nkrumah is gone, the flame that he has lit on behalf of all oppressed mankind – the two thirds of mankind who because they do not control the means of production suffer depravation and want will continue to burn until this our world is rid of the ignoble system of monopoly-capitalism.

To those in Ghana and Africa who think more of the dollars and the pounds with which imperialism lines their pockets than the honour of their motherland, we wish only to remind them of one fact, the judgment of the masses is never wrong. Because they are the only people in whom real revolution is rotted. All other activities are counter-revolutionary.

On this sad occasion, we, together with all the 7 million people of Ghana backed by Africa’s 250 million wish the leader long life and prosperity so that he might not only live to see the

United Africa whose road he has so ably mapped out but that he might endure to consolidate it into a socialist entity.

(First published in the Evening News of Saturday January 29, 1965)

Torture in the Age of Obama

United States President Hussein Obama

By Eric Draitser

​Article 5 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights expressly forbids that any person “be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

When then-Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama promised to end torture, close the Guantanamo Bay gulag and restore habeas corpus, he was speaking to a fundamental desire within the American public consciousness to restore the ideals upon which the United States is based – ideals which had been all but discarded under the Bush administration. 

Americans wanted an end to CIA torture sites, an end to “enhanced interrogation” and an end to arbitrary and indefinite detention. Once elected, President Obama did his best to present the appearance that the country had restored its humanity by signing Executive Order #13,491, effectively ending the “enhanced interrogation” policies enacted under George W. Bush. 

Yet the United States, under both the Bush and Obama administrations, has engaged in systematic torture and inhuman treatment in blatant violation of international law. Buried in the text of Obama’s Executive Order was the condition that, “an individual in the custody…of the United States Government…shall not be subjected to any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to interrogation, that is not authorized by and listed in Army Field Manual 2 22.3.” Essentially then, the Obama administration began its first term of office by sanctioning the use of the Army Field Manual and the standards, protocols and methods of interrogation outlined within it. Rather than officially ending the torture practices implemented during the Bush years, Obama simply put an end to certain egregious methods while validating others. 

As the Center for Constitutional Rights noted at the time: “While the current Army Field Manual does not allow waterboarding, it does include approved techniques that constitute torture.” Some of these techniques are outlined in the infamous Appendix M of the field manual which describes the use of “Separation” which is applied to the ambiguously termed “unlawful combatants” who, because of their status as something other than prisoners of war, are subjected to gross violations of international law. Appendix M describes techniques such as prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and the use of fear and humiliation of prisoners. And yet Obama claims to have “ended torture.”

 

It should be noted also that, instead of pushing for strict anti-torture legislation that would have codified policies against the use of “enhanced interrogation,” Obama chose to issue an executive order that can be reversed with the stroke of a pen from any future president. Moreover, the he chose to limit the scope of the order in order to provide political wiggle-room for himself in case he was seen as “soft on terror.” It is within this context that one should remember that, despite his promises, Guantanamo Bay remains open, rendition programs continue and not one person from the CIA or any other agency has ever been held to account for their myriad crimes. As Obama said in 2009 “[I have a] belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards…at the CIA you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders.”

In 2013, the non-partisan Constitution Project issued a report that, among other things, documented in painstaking detail many of the ways in which the Obama administration has cleverly manipulated and ignored the laws, not to mention Obama’s campaign promises, in order to continue the torture and rendition programs. The report noted: “Taken as a whole, the lack of successful prosecutions demonstrates major gaps in enforcement of the laws against torture and war crimes, which likely reduces their deterrent effect.” Essentially then, the current administration, by turning a blind eye to crimes committed by interrogators under Bush as well as Obama, has effectively negated any perceived anti-torture stance it might have taken. 

While the president has managed, through rhetoric and spin, to keep up the appearance that he has put a stop to torture when it comes to the so-called “War on Terror,” he has maintained a deafening silence when it comes to torture at home.

Despite managing to lecture countries such as Russia, China and Cuba for human rights abuses and political prisoners, the United States continues to be, by far, the greatest police state in the world. With only 5 percent of the world’s population, the US has 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Within this pervasive prison-industrial complex, many thousands of prisoners are held in extended solitary confinement, which undoubtedly constitutes torture. In fact, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan E. Mendez stated in 2011: 

“Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular, lockdown, Supermax, the hole, Secure Housing Unit… whatever the name, solitary confinement should be banned by states as a punishment or extortion technique… Solitary confinement is a harsh measure which is contrary to rehabilitation, the aim of the penitentiary system... Considering the severe mental pain or suffering solitary confinement may cause, it can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period, for persons with mental disabilities or juveniles.”

 

It should of course be noted that, like the prison population in general, solitary confinement is disproportionately applied to people of color. More to the point, it is most often utilized to break the mind, body and spirit of political prisoners, especially those from civil rights and radical political movements. So, if the president were actually interested in putting an end to torture, not to mention paying attention to the issues most directly affecting people of color in the US, wouldn’t it stand to reason that he might have something to say about this abhorrent practice in the US prison system? Obama meets such questions with silence.

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.(AFP Photo / Chantal Valery)

Did you think that the United States only operated secret prisons abroad? If so, you’d be wrong. Under the Obama administration there has been an expansion of the use of so called “Communication Management Units” (CMUs) – secret prisons specifically designed to house political prisoners in isolation and in blatant violation of their constitutional rights. Prisoners of Middle Eastern descent, animal rights activists, environmental activists and others have found themselves locked up in CMUs with little to no contact with family and/or their legal representatives. Naturally, the President has never spoken on this issue as it would once again fly in the face of the picture of the constitutional scholar-cum-president and his image as a defender of human rights.

There has been resistance to these inhuman policies carried out by the United States. In Guantanamo, the world watched as a number of prisoners risked their lives in a prolonged hunger strike to call attention to their continued illegal imprisonment. Similarly, recent hunger strikes in US prisons, most notably at California’s infamous Pelican Bay prison, have attempted to focus media attention and public scrutiny on the continued torture of inmates. Luis Esquivel, an inmate at Pelican Bay, succinctly illustrated the point when he said: “I feel dead. It’s been 13 years since I’ve shaken someone’s hand and I fear I’ll forget the feel of human contact.”

Whether engaging in systematic torture abroad or at home, the United States continues to be a world leader in this regard. Despite the rhetoric from President Obama, substantive changes have not been made to the way in which the US treats its prisoners, nor to the rights afforded them. Indeed, despite the high-minded ideals Obama espouses in speech after speech, the sad reality is that, like Bush before him, Obama is the figurehead of the most aggressive and repressive power in the world today.

The Privatization of War: Mercenaries, Private Military and Security Companies (PMSC)

Beyond the WikiLeaks Files

By Jose L. Gomez del Prado

Private military and security companies (PMSC) are the modern reincarnation of a long lineage of private providers of physical force: corsairs, privateers and mercenaries. Mercenaries, which had practically disappeared during the XIXth and XXth centuries, reappeared in the 1960’s during the decolonization period operating mainly in Africa and Asia. Under the United Nations a convention was adopted which outlaws and criminalizes their activities. Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions also contains a definition of mercenary.

These non-state entities of the XXIst century operate in extremely blurred situations where the frontiers are difficult to separate. The new security industry of private companies moves large quantities of weapons and military equipment. It provides services for military operations recruiting former militaries as civilians to carry out passive or defensive security.

However, these individuals cannot be considered as civilians, given that they often carry and use weapons, interrogate prisoners, load bombs, drive military trucks and fulfill other essential military functions. Those who are armed can easily switch from a passive/defensive to an active/offensive role and can commit human rights violations and even destabilize governments. They cannot be considered soldiers or supporting militias under international humanitarian law either, since they are not part of the army or in the chain of command, and often belong to a large number of different nationalities.

PMSC personnel cannot usually be considered to be mercenaries for the definition of mercenaries as stipulated in the international conventions dealing with this issue does not generally apply to the personnel of PMSCs which are legally operating in foreign countries under contracts of legally registered companies.

Private military and security companies operate in a legal vacuum: they pose a threat to civilians and to international human rights law. The UN Human Rights Council has entrusted the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries, principally, with the mandate: “To monitor and study the effects of the activities of private companies offering military assistance, consultancy and security services on the international market on the enjoyment of human Rights (…) and to prepare draft international basic principles that encourage respect for human rights on the part of those companies in their activities”.

During the past five years, the Working Group has been studying emerging issues, manifestations and trends regarding private military and security companies.  In our reports we have informed the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly about these issues. Of particular importance are the reports of the Working Group to the last session of the Human Rights Council, held in September 2010, on the Mission to the United States of America  (20 July to 3 August 2009), Document A/HRC/15/25/Add.3; on the Mission to Afghanistan (4-9 April 2009), Document A/HRC/15/25/Add.2, and the general report of the Working Group containing the Draft of a possible Convention on Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) for consideration and action by the Human Rights Council, Document A/HRC/15/25.

In the course of our research, since 2006, we have collected ample information which indicate the negative impact of the activities of “private contractors”, “private soldiers” or “guns for hire”, whatever denomination we may choose to name the individuals employed by private military and security companies as civilians but in general heavily armed. In the cluster of human rights violations allegedly perpetrated by employees of these companies, which the Working Group has examined one can find: summary executions, acts of torture, cases of arbitrary detention; of trafficking of persons; serious health damages caused by their activities; as well as attempts against the right of self-determination. It also appears that PMSCs, in their search for profit, neglect security and do not provide their employees with their basic rights, and often put their staff in situations of danger and vulnerability.

Summary executions

On 16 September 2007 in Baghdad, employees of the US-based firm Blackwater[1] were involved in a shooting incident in Nisoor Square in which 17 civilians were killed and more than 20 other persons were wounded including women and children. Local eyewitness accounts indicate the use of arms from vehicles and rocket fire from a helicopter belonging to this company.

There are also concerns over the activities and approach of PMSC personnel, their convoys of armored vehicles and their conduct in traffic, in particular their use of lethal force. This particular incident was not the first of its kind, neither the first involving Blackwater.

According to a congressional report on the behaviour of Xe/Blackwater in Iraq, Xe/Blackwater guards were found to have been involved in nearly 200 escalation-of-force incidents that involved the firing of shots since 2005. Despite the terms of the contracts which provided that the company could engage only in defensive use of force, the company reported that in over 80 per cent of the shooting incidents, its forces fired the first shots.

In Najaf in April 2004 and on several other occasions, employees of this company took part in direct hostilities, as well as in May 2007, where another incident involving the same company reportedly occurred involving guards belonging to the company and forces belonging to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior allegedly exchanged gunfire in a sector of Baghdad.

Also in central Baghdad the shooting of employees of the PMSC, Unity Resources Group (URG)[2], protecting a convoy, left two Armenian women, Genevia Antranick and Mary Awanis dead on 9 October 2007 when their car came too close to a protected convoy. The family of Genevia Antranick was offered no compensation and has begun court proceedings against URG in the United States.

This company was also involved in the shooting of 72-year-old Australian Kays Juma. Professor Juma was shot in March 2006 as he approached an intersection being blockaded for a convoy URG was protecting. Professor Juma, a 25-year resident of Baghdad who drove through the city every day, allegedly sped up his vehicle as he approached the guards and did not heed warnings to stop, including hand signals, flares, warning shots into the body of his car and floodlights. The incident occurred at 10am[3].

Torture

Two United States-based corporations, CACI and L-3 Services (formerly Titan Corporation), were involved in the torture of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. CACI and L-3 Services, contracted by the Government of the United States, were responsible for interrogation and translation services, respectively, at Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities in Iraq.

Seventy two Iraqi citizens who were formerly detained at military prisons in Iraq, have sued L-3 Services, Inc. (“L-3”), a military private contractor which provided civilian translators for United States military forces in Iraq and Adel Nakhla, a former employee of L-3 who served as one of its translators there under the Alien Tort Statute. They allege having been tortured and physically and mentally abused during their detention and that they should be held liable in damages for their actions. The plaintiffs assert 20 causes of action, among which: torture; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; assault and battery; intentional infliction of emotional distress[4].

Arbitrary detention 

A number of reports indicate that private security guards have played central roles in some of the most sensitive activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) such as the arbitrary detention and clandestine raids against alleged insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan[5] and the involvement in CIA rendition flights[6] as well as joint covert operations[7]. Employees of PMSC would have been involved in the taking of detainees, from “pick up points” (such as Tuzla, Islamabad or Skopje) transporting them in rendition flights and delivering them to drop off points (such as Cairo, Rabat, Bucharest, Amman or Guantanamo) as well as in the construction, equipping and staffing of CIA’s “black sites”.

Within this context, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit in May 2007 against Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. (a subsidiary company of Boeing) on behalf of five persons who were kidnapped by the CIA disappearing in overseas prisons kept by USA secret services. Jeppesen would have participated in the rendition by providing flight planning and logistical support. The five persons were tortured during their arbitrary detention[8].

Health

The 2009 annual report of DynCorp International refers to four lawsuits concerning the spraying of narcotic plant crops along the Colombian border adjacent to Ecuador on behalf of 3 Ecuadorian Providences and 3266 plaintiffs[9].

From 1991, the United States Department of State contracted the private company DynCorp to supply services for this air-spraying program against narcotics in the Andean region. In accordance with the subscribed contract of 30 January 1998, DynCorp provides the essential logistics to the anti-drug Office of activities of Colombia, in conformity with three main objectives: eradication of cultivations of illicit drugs, training of the army and of personnel of the country, and dismantling of illicit drug laboratories and illicit drug-trafficking networks.

An NGO report indicated the consequences of the spraying carried out within the Plan Colombia had on persons living in the frontier region[10].  One third of the 47 women in the study exposed to the spraying showed cells with some genetic damage. The study established the relationship of the air fumigations of the Plan Colombia with damages in the genetic material. The study demonstrates that when the population is subjected to fumigations “the risk of cellular damage can increase and that, once permanent, the cases of cancerous mutations and important embryonic alterations are increased that prompt among other possibilities the rise in abortions in the area.

This example is particularly important given that Plan Colombia has served as the model for the arrangements that the United States would apply later to Iraq and Afghanistan. Plan Colombia provides immunity to the employees of the PMSC contracted (DynCorp) the same as Order 14 of the Coalition Provisional Authority did in Iraq.

Self-determination

The 2004 attempted coup d’état, which was perpetrated in Equatorial Guinea is a clear example of the link between the phenomenon of mercenaries and PMSCs as a means of violating the sovereignty of States. In this particular case, the mercenaries involved were mostly former directors and personnel of Executive Outcomes, a PMSC that had become famous for its operations in Angola and Sierra Leone. The team of mercenaries also included security guards who were still employed by PMSCs as was the case of two employees of the company Meteoric Tactical Systems providing security to diplomats of Western Embassies in Baghdad-among which to the Ambassador of Switzerland. It also included a security guard who had previously worked for the PMSC “Steele Foundation” and had given protection to President Aristide of Haiti and conducted him to the plane who took him to exile[11].

Trafficking in persons

In 2005, 105 Chileans were providing/or undergoing military training in the former army base of Lepaterique in Honduras. The instruction consisted in anti‐guerrilla tactics such as possible ambushes and deactivation of explosives and mortars how to avoid them. The Chileans had entered Honduras as tourists and were illegally in Honduras. They used high‐caliber weapons such as M‐16 rifles or light machine guns. They had been contracted by a subsidiary of Triple Canopy.

They were part of a group, which included also 189 Hondurans recruited and trained in Honduras. Triple Canopy had been awarded a contract by the United States Department of State. The strong contingent left the country by air from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, in several groups with a stopover in Iceland. Then reached the Middle East and were smuggled into Iraq[12].

The majority of the Chileans and Hondurans were engaged as security guards at fixed facilities in Iraq. They had been contracted by Your Solutions Honduras SRL, a local agent of Your Solutions Incorporated, registered in Illinois, United States of America, which in turn had been subcontracted by Triple Canopy, based in Chicago, United States of America. Some of the Chileans are presently working in Baghdad providing security to the Embassy of Australia under a contract by Unity Resources Group (URG).

Human rights violations committed by PMSC to their employees

PMSC often put the contracted private guards in situations of danger and vulnerability, such as the ‘private contractors’ of Blackwater, killed in Fallujah in 2004 allegedly due to the lack of the necessary safety means that Blackwater was supposed to provide in order to carry out the mission.

It should not be forgotten that this incident changed dramatically the course of the war and the occupation by the United States in Iraq. It may be considered as the turning point in the occupation of Iraq. This led to an abortive US operation to recapture control of the city and a successful recapture operation in the city in November 2004, called Operation Phantom Fury, which resulted in the death of over 1,350 insurgent fighters. Approximately 95 America troops were killed, and 560 wounded.

The U.S. military first denied that it has use white phosphorus as an anti-personnel weapon in Fallujah, but later retracted that denial, and admitted to using the incendiary in the city as an offensive weapon. Reports following the events of November 2004 have alleged war crimes, and a massacre by U.S. personnel, including indiscriminate violence against civilians and children.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah – cite_note-17 This point of view is presented in the 2005 documentary film, “Fallujah, the Hidden Massacre”. In 2010, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, a leading medical journal, published a study, which shows that the rates of cancer, infant mortality and leukemia exceed those reported in Hiroshima and Nagasaki[13].

The over 300 000 classified military documents made public by Wikileaks show that the “Use of Contractors Added to War’s Chaos in Iraq”, as has been widely reported by the international media recently.

The United States has relied and continues to rely heavily on private military and security contractors in conducting its military operations. The United States used private security contractors to conduct narcotics intervention operations in Colombia in the 1990s and recently signed a supplemental agreement that authorizes it to deploy troops and contractors in seven Colombian military bases. During the conflict in the Balkans, the United States used a private security contractor to train Croat troops to conduct operations against Serbian troops. Nowadays, it is in the context of its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in particular that the State is massively contracting out security functions to private firms.

In 2009, the Department of Defense employed 218,000 private contractors (all types) while there were 195,000 uniformed personnel. According to the figures, about 8 per cent of these contractors are armed security contractors, i.e. about 20,000 armed guards. If one includes other theatres of operations, the figure rises to 242,657, with 54,387 United States citizens, 94,260 third country nationals and 94,010 host-country nationals.

The State Department relies on about 2,000 private security contractors to provide United States personnel and facilities with personal protective and guard services in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Pakistan, and aviation services in Iraq. The contracts for protective services were awarded in 2005 to three PMSCs, namely, Triple Canopy, DynCorp International and the U.S. Training Center, part of the Xe (then Blackwater) group of companies. These three companies still hold the State Department protective services contracts today.

Lack of transparency

The information accessible to the public on the scope and type of contracts between the Government of the United States and PMSCs is scarce and opaque. The lack of transparency is particularly significant when companies subcontract to others. Often, the contracts with PMSCs are not disclosed to the public despite extensive freedom of information rules in the United States, either because they contain confidential commercial information or on the argument that non-disclosure is in the interest of national defense or foreign policy. The situation is particularly opaque when United States intelligence agencies contract PMSCs.

Lack of accountability

Despite the fact of their involvement in grave human rights violations, not a single PMSC or employee of these companies has been sanctioned.

In the course of litigation, several recurring legal arguments have been used in the defense of PMSCs and their personnel, including the Government contractor defense, the political question doctrine and derivative immunity arguments. PMSCs are using the Government contractor defense to argue that they were operating under the exclusive control of the Government of the United States when the alleged acts were committed and therefore cannot be held liable for their actions.

It looks as if when the acts are committed by agents of the government they are considered human rights violations but when these same acts are perpetrated by PMSC it is “business as usual”.

The human rights violation perpetrated by private military and security companies are indications of the threat posed to the foundations of democracy itself by the privatization of inherently public functions such as the monopoly of the legitimate use of force. In this connection I cannot help but to refer to the final speech of President Eisenhower.

In 1961, President Eisenhower warned the American public opinion against the growing danger of a military industrial complex stating: “(…) we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defence with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together”.

Fifty years later, on 8 September 2001, Donald Rumsfeld in his speech in the Department of Defence warned the militaries of the Pentagon against “an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America (…) Let’s make no mistake: The modernization of the Department of Defense is (…) a matter of life and death, ultimately, every American’s. (…) The adversary. (…) It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.

 (…)That’s why we’re here today challenging us all to wage an all-out campaign to shift Pentagon’s resources from bureaucracy to the battlefield, from tail to the tooth. We know the adversary. We know the threat. And with the same firmness of purpose that any effort against a determined adversary demands, we must get at it and stay at it. Some might ask, how in the world could the Secretary of Defense attack the Pentagon in front of its people? To them I reply, I have no desire to attack the Pentagon; I want to liberate it. We need to save it from itself.”

Rumsfeld should have said the shift from the Pentagon’s resources from bureaucracy to the private sector. Indeed, that shift had been accelerated by the Bush Administration: the number of persons employed by contract which had been outsourced (privatized) by the Pentagon was already four times more than at the Department of Defense.

It is not anymore a military industrial complex but as Noam Chomsky has indicated “it’s just the industrial system operating under one or another pretext”.

The articles of the Washington Post “Top Secret America: A hidden world, growing beyond control”, by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin (19 July 2010) show the extent that “The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work”.

The investigation’s findings include that some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States; and that an estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances. A number of private military and security companies are among the security and intelligence agencies mentioned in the report of the Washington Post.

The Working Group received information from several sources that up to 70 per cent of the budget of United States intelligence is spent on contractors. These contracts are classified and very little information is available to the public on the nature of the activities carried out by these contractors.

The privatization of war has created a structural dynamic, which responds to a commercial logic of the industry.

A short look at the careers of the current managers of BAE Systems, as well as on their address-books, confirms we are not any longer dealing with a normal corporation, but with a cartel uniting high tech weaponry (BAE Systems, United Defence Industries, Lockheed Martin), with speculative financiers (Lazard Frères, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank), together with raw material cartels (British Petroleum, Shell Oil) with on the ground, private military and security companies[14].

The majority of the private military and security companies has been created or are managed by former militaries or ex-policemen for whom it is big business. Just to give an example MPRI (Military Professional Resources Incorporation) was created by four former generals of the United States Army when they were due for retirement[15]. The same is true for Blackwater and its affiliate companies or subsidiaries, which employ former directors of the C.I.A.[16]. Social Scientists refer to this phenomenon as the Rotating Door Syndrome.

The use of security contractors is expected to grow as American forces shrink. A July report by the Commission on Wartime Contracting, a panel established by Congress, estimated that the State Department alone would need more than double the number of contractors it had protecting the American Embassy and consulates in Iraq.

“Without contractors: (1) the military engagement would have had to be smaller–a strategically problematic alternative; (2) the United States would have had to deploy its finite number of active personnel for even longer tours of duty -a politically dicey and short-sighted option; (3) the United States would have had to consider a civilian draft or boost retention and recruitment by raising military pay significantly–two politically untenable options; or (4) the need for greater commitments from other nations would have arisen and with it, the United States would have had to make more concessions to build and sustain a truly multinational effort. Thus, the tangible differences in the type of war waged, the effect on military personnel, and the need for coalition partners are greatly magnified when the government has the option to supplement its troops with contractors”[17].

The military cannot do without them. There are more contractors over all than actual members of the military serving in the worsening war in Afghanistan.

CONCLUSIONS OF THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE impact of Private Security Contracting on U.S. Goals in Afghanistan[18]

Conclusion I: The proliferation of private security personnel in Afghanistan is inconsistent with the counterinsurgency strategy. In May 2010 the U.S. Central Command’s Armed Contractor Oversight Directorate reported that there were more than 26,000 private security contractor personnel operating in Afghanistan. Many of those private security personnel are associated with armed groups that operate outside government control.

Conclusion 2: Afghan warlords and strongmen operating as force providers to private security contractors have acted against U.S. and Afghan government interests. Warlords and strongmen associated with U.S.-funded security contractors have been linked to anti Coalition activities, murder, bribery, and kidnapping. The Committee’s examination of the U.S. funded security contract with ArmorGroup at Shindand Airbase in Afghanistan revealed that ArmorGroup relied on a series of warlords to provide armed men to act as security, guards at the Airbase.

Open-ended intergovernmental working group established by the HR Council

Because of their impact in the enjoyment of human rights the Working Group on mercenaries in its 2010 reports to the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly has recommended a legally binding instrument regulating and monitoring their activities at the national and international level.

The motion to create an open ended intergovernmental working group has been the object of lengthy negotiations, in the Human Rights Council, led by South Africa in order to accommodate the concerns of the Western Group, but primarily those of the United States and the United Kingdom and of a lot a pressure exerted in the capitals of African countries supporting the draft resolution. The text of the resolution was weakened in order to pass the resolution by consensus. But even so the position of the Western States has been a “fin de non recevoir”.

The resolution was adopted by a majority of 32 in favour, 12 against and 3 abstentions. Among the supporters of this initiative are four out of the five members of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa) in addition to the African Group, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab Group.

The adoption of this resolution opens an interesting process in the UN Human Rights Council where civil society can participate in the elaboration of an international framework on the regulation, monitoring and oversight of the activities of private military and security companies.  The new open ended intergovernmental working group will be the forum for all stakeholders to receive inputs, not only the draft text of a possible convention and the elements elaborated by the UN Working Group on mercenaries but also of other initiatives such as the proposal submitted to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Montreux Document and the international code of conduct being elaborated under the Swiss Initiative.

However, the negative vote of the delegations of the Western Group indicates that the interests of the new staggering security industry – its annual market revenue is estimated to be over USD one hundred billion – have been quite well defended as was the case in a number of other occasions. It also shows that Western governments will be absent from the start in a full in-depth discussion of the issues raised by the activities of PMSC.

We urge all States to support the process initiated by the Council by designating their representatives to the new open-ended intergovernmental working group, which will hold its first session in 2011, and to continue a process of discussions regarding a legally binding instrument.

The participation of the UK and USA main exporters of these activities (it is estimated at 70% the industry of security in these two countries) as well as other Western countries where the new industry is expanding is of particular importance.

The Working Group also urges the United States Government to implement the recommendations we made, in particular, to:

support the Congress Stop Outsourcing Security (SOS) Act, which clearly defines the functions which are inherently governmental and that cannot be outsourced to the private sector;

rescind immunity to contractors carrying out activities in other countries under bilateral agreements;

carry out prompt and effective investigation of human rights violations committed by PMSCs and prosecute alleged perpetrators;

ensure that the oversight of private military and security contractors is not outsourced to PMSCs;

establish a specific system of federal licensing of PMSCs for their activities abroad;

set up a vetting procedure for awarding contracts to PMSCs;

  ensure that United States criminal jurisdiction applies to private military and security companies contracted by the Government to carry out activities abroad; and

respond to pending communications from the Working Group.

The United Nations Human Rights Council, under the Universal Periodic Review, initiated a review in November 2010 in Geneva, focussing on the human rights record of the United States. The above article is an edited version of the presentation given by Jose L. Gomez del Prado in Geneva on 3 November 2010 at a parallel meeting at the UN Palais des Nations on that occasion.

Notes

[1] Blackwater Worldwide abandoned its tarnished brand name in order to shake its reputation battered by its criticized work in Iraq, renaming its family of two-dozen businesses under the name Xe’, see Mike Baker, ‘Blackwater dumps tarnished brand name’, AP News Break, 13 February 2009.

[2] URG, an Australian private military and security company, uses a number of ex military Chileans to provide security to the Australian Embassy in Baghdad. Recently one of those “private guards” shot himself, ABC News, reported by La Tercera, Chile, 16 September 2010.

[3]J.Mendes & S Mitchell, “Who is Unity Resources Group?”, ABC News Australia, 16 September 2010.

[4] Case 8:08-cv-01696-PJM, Document 103, Filed 07/29/10. Defendants have filed Motions to Dismiss on a number of grounds. They argue, among others, that the suit must be dismissed in its entirety because they are immune under the laws of war, because the suit raises non-justiciable political questions, and because they possess derivative sovereign immunity. They seek dismissal of the state law claims on the basis of government contractor immunity, premised on the notion that Plaintiffs cannot proceed on state law claims, which arise out of combatant activities of the military. The United States District Court for the district of Maryland Greenbelt Division has decided to proceed with the case against L-3 Services, Inc. It has not accepted the motions to dismiss allowing the case to go forward.

[5] Mission to the United States of America, Report of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries, United Nations document, A/HRC/15/25/Add.3, paragraphs 22.

[6] James Risen and Mark Mazzetti, “Blackwater guards tied to secret C.I.A. raids ”, New York Times, 10 December 2009.

[7] Adam Ciralsky, “Tycoon, contractor, soldier, spy”, Vanity Fair, January 2010. See also Claim No. HQ08X02800 in the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, Binyam Mohamed v. Jeppesen UK Ltd, report of James Gavin Simpson, 26 May 2009.

[8]ACLU Press Release, UN Report Underscores Lack of Accountability and Oversight for Military and Security Contractors, New York, 14 September 2010.

[9] The reports also indicates that the Revenues of DynCorp for 2006 were of USD 1 966 993 and for 2009 USD 3 101 093

[10] Mission to Ecuador, Report of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries, United Nations document, A/HRC/4/42/Add.2

[11] A number of the persons involved in the attempted coup were arrested in Zimbabwe, other in Equatorial Guinea itself the place where the coup was intended to take place to overthrow the government and put another in its place in order to get the rich resources in oil. In 2004 and 2008 the trials took place in Equatorial Guinea of those arrested in connection with this coup attempt, including of the British citizen Simon Mann and the South African Nick du Toit. The President of Equatorial Guinea pardoned all foreigners linked to this coup attempt in November 2009 by. A number of reports indicated that trials failed to comply with international human rights standards and that some of the accused had been subjected to torture and ill-treatment. The government of Equatorial Guinea has three ongoing trials in the United Kingdom, Spain and Lebanon against the persons who were behind the attempted coup.

[12] Report of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries, Mission to Honduras, United Nations document A/HRC/4/42/Add.1.

[13] Wikipedia

[14] Mercenaries without borders by Karel Vereycken,  Friday Sep 21st, 2007

[15] Among which General Carl E. Vuono, Chief of the Army during the Gulf War and the invasion of Panama; General Crosbie E. Saint, former Commander in Chief of the  USA Army in Europe and General Ron Griffith. The President of MPRI is General Bantant J. Craddock.

[16] Such as Cofer Black, former Chief of the Counter Terrorism Center; Enrique Prado, former Chief of Operations and Rof Richter, second in command of the Clandestine Services of the Company

[17] Article published in the Spring 2010 issue of the University of Chicago Law Review, titled “Privatization’s Pretensions” by Jon D. Michaels, Acting Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law

[18] INQUIRY INTO THE ROLE AND OVERSIGHT OF PRIVATE SECURITY CONTRACTORS IN AFGHANISTAN, R E P O R T TOGETHER WITH ADDITIONAL VIEWS OF THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES UNITED STATES SENATE, 28 September 2010

Creating the path as we advance
• Education, one of the pillars of the Cuban Revolution,
has over the past 55 years experienced transcendental
moments of learning, investigation and renovation
• Granma reviews some of these

President of Cuba Raul Castro

By Lissy Rodríguez Guerrero

According to the writer Eduardo Galeano, the Hindu god of intellect Ganesha teaches that the first words of a book are as fundamental as a house or temple’s first bricks. This can likewise be said of the first incipient steps taken in the construction of a society; just as the foundation of a carefully erected building must be laid, in order to later reap the benefits anticipated.

In the case of Cuba, education was one of the areas prioritized as the victorious Revolution was consolidated.

Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro described education in the country before the Revolution during his 1953 defense statement, known as History will absolve me, saying, "Attending the little public schools in the countryside barefoot, poorly dressed and fed, are less than half of school-age children," reflecting the truly alarming situation, also evidenced in statistics which indicate that there were more than a million illiterates in Cuba, with a population at that time of 5.5 million.

Within days of the January 1, 1959 victory, the National Literacy and Basic Education Commission was created and on April 22, 1960, Fidel called on Cubans to form a Volunteer Teachers Contingent. The volunteers were trained at the Minas de Frío camp in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, and went on to impart literacy instruction in classrooms established around the country.

For those who today remember this experience, it was a transcendental moment in Cuban education. Dr. Lesbia Cánovas, president of the Association of Cuban Pedagogues, who as a young woman joined the country’s original literacy campaign, said, "The literacy campaign was a mobilization of the Cuban people. We don’t know who learned the most, the literacy teachers, the families of these teachers or people in the countryside."

"It wasn’t the workbook or the manual. It was learning to live, learning about our country, rural life, its richness and natural resources. It was an encounter with very particular expressions of the same culture in different contexts. The girls had to leave their homes very young. How quickly the impact on behavior appeared, and on the mentality of people, in their ways of viewing reality!"

The Ana Betancourt Plan for young women in rural areas, the Pilot and Conrado Benítez Brigades and the Patria o Muerte Brigades of working women exemplify how the broad social mobilization was realized.

"Cuba will be the first country in Latin America to be able, within a few months, to say that it does not have a single illiterate…" Fidel reported to the United Nations General Assembly on September 26, 1959. The literacy campaign, from January 1961, through December of that year, reduced illiteracy to 3.9%, and initiated a battle to subsequently reach higher levels of education throughout the Cuban population.

In his Educational Message, delivered November 30, 1959, Minister of Education Armando Hart affirmed that reform could not be limited to the eradication of illiteracy, but should be "an effort to elevate the intellectual level and quality of educators, a question of improving teaching technique, elaborating plans and programs, of progress in relations between teachers and students, of constant pedagogical experimentation, study and perfection." The Educational Reform Law was approved by the Council of Ministers on December 21, 1959. 

TECHNICAL, PHYSICAL AND ART EDUCATION

With the triumph of the Revolution, technical-professional education became especially important. In a presentation at the University of Camagüey in 2013, Dr. Aker Aragón, former national director of the sector, said, "The development plans implemented by the nascent Revolution in power, required a qualified workforce."

The Educational Reform Law emphasized the importance of vocational training in Cuba, of trade schools and those focused on agricultural occupations. The nationalization of education in 1961 supported the creation of technical schools to support the country’s industrialization and economy.

"Those were years of many ideas," Aker commented to this reporter, "In 1964, a body called the Technical Education Planning Council emerged, devoted to training workers and technicians for agriculture. More than 20 centers were created throughout the country, until it was incorporated within the Ministry of Education."

Aker, who also served as director of agricultural studies, described the 1980’s as a "golden" age, "The schools became veritable factories, producing millions of pesos worth of replacement parts, accessories, equipment and furnishings. Diverse specialties and entrance levels were offered."

With the collapse of the socialist bloc, however, this educational subsystem faced a difficult situation. Aker recalls two projects undertaken during these years, "One was the assembly of 750,000 bicycles which the country acquired from the People’s Republic of China. More than 30 centers across the country developed assembly lines, with which the lack of practical training was partially alleviated. The other was the creation of some 160 Agricultural Polytechnical schools (IPA), which had the land as the foundation of their studies. In these IPA, 15 guidelines emerged, which were nothing more than the objectives for achieving organic, sustainable agriculture."

Culture and sports were also impacted by educational change. With the creation of the National Cultural Council in 1961, and the emergence of important cultural institutions, the National School of Art was founded, along with a network of institutions of this kind across the country. Additionally a non-professional movement was promoted, which by 1975, included some 18,000 groups.

Among the artists who benefited from the early years of artistic education in Cuba is painter José Antonio Rodríguez Fuster, who additionally volunteered as a young literacy instructor. He commented, "I entered a school for arts instructors in February, 1963. I was there until December, 1965, in some of the new courses Fidel created, where workers and campesinos taught art and culture. I had the best teachers there. When I left, I was an artist."

A similar path was followed in sports. With the creation of the Sports, Physical Education and Recreation Institute (INDER) on February 23, 1961, the Manuel Fajardo National Physical Education and Sports Center was founded to train the country’s first Physical Education teachers and athletic coaches. Another important development was the creation of the Sports Initiation Schools (EIDE) and the National School Games.

CUBA’S ESSENTIAL UNIVERSITIES

When the national reform law was approved, the National Educational System had as its leading institutions three universities: The University of Havana; the Marta Abréu, in Las Villas province; and the Antonio Maceo, in the country’s eastern region.

During the 1970’s, the Central University Council was created to undertake a series of educational reforms, presented in a document entitled Fundamentals of Higher Education and approved January 10, 1962.

Measures were taken to move toward the elimination of repetitive, didactic methods of teaching. Scientific investigation was emphasized as an element essential to the academic process and scholarship programs were developed to allow more humble layers of society to access higher education.

Medical schools were gradually established to train health professionals and subsequently, Pedagogical Institutes, as well.

The Communist Party of Cuba, in its 1975 1^st Congress, proposed the reorganization of higher education to extend university studies across the country.

In 1976, the Ministry of Higher Education was established and with it, 18 universities. This government body was charged with implementing the country’s policy of developing higher education. There are currently a total of 68 universities in Cuba, sharing the mission of preserving, developing and promoting human culture, through the academic process, in conjunction with society at large.

Another significant event in the promotion of universal education was the creation of 169 municipal university sites – directed by centers of higher learning - in 2000, as part of the Revolution’s Battle of Ideas.

CURRENT CHALLENGES & ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Cuba’s accomplishments include the development of special education for children and adults; pre-schools and círculos infantiles, for day-care and early childhood education.

The country’s educational system is also facing challenges. For some time now, schools have been confronted with an exodus of professional educators; the need to improve the quality of instruction and to value teachers, both within society and materially by providing better salaries and conditions. Educators are fully aware of these problems, which are often the focus of debate in forums held for this purpose.

During the most recent session of the National Assembly of People’s Power (December, 2013), Minister of Finances and Prices Lina Pedraza confirmed that the continued provision of universal education, free of charge, for Cuba’s children and youth, is guaranteed. This is not, however, sufficient. Work must be done to address shortcomings, which will depend on the efforts of every educational institution. Strengthening the ties between families and schools, for example, is a much discussed, critically important issue.

According to Lesbia Cánovas, schools learn from communities, and vice versa. Local schools must become the community’s most important cultural center, no doubt one of the many challenges which Cuba education must address.