Donna Freitas in the Washington Post: On remaking the Catholic Church

Donna Freitas, another Catholic, writes about how liberation theology can remake Roman Catholicism:


As the Catholic hierarchy sweats in the harsh glare of media scrutiny, as they backpedal about investigations into past and current abuse, and get defensive in all the wrong ways, the question "Should the pope resign?" is valid -- the man at the top has been harboring criminals. There is no defense for this. There is no defense for those who shuffled around priests known to be guilty of rape and assault and other forms of abuse, be you the pope, a bishop or cardinal.

But now is also a moment with extraordinary potential for grassroots reform in the Catholic Church, and Catholic theology offers a powerful history and tradition of ground-up resistance and civil disobedience in its feminist, womanist, mujerista, and liberation theologies.

So what can these theologies offer in response to the abuse crisis?

Well, they call for no less than a revolution.

At their core, feminist and liberation theologies are concerned with the abuse of power, righting injustice and discrimination, dismantling oppressive hierarchies, and clearing space for the disenfranchised to have a voice in the tradition and a central role in its transformation. By their very nature these theologies are grassroots and practical--they start and end with everyday Catholics, the very people who have been denied power, who have been oppressed and silenced. In the 1970's, the liberation theologies of Gustavo Gutierrez, Jon Sobrino, and Leonardo Boff were instrumental not only in addressing poverty, but toppling oppressive governmental regimes that perpetuated poverty and forbade dissent. For five decades feminist, womanist, mujerista, and asian-feminist theologians (all types of liberation theology) like Elizabeth Johnson, Lisa Sowle Cahill, Diana Hayes, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Dorothee Soelle, among many others, have been speaking out about the rights of women and children, and in particular, addressing the problematic implications for all Catholics of an all-male, hierarchical governing body.

For these same reasons--how powerful liberation theologies are in restructuring oppressive hierarchies--the Vatican has issued statements lashing out against them, publicly silencing theologians for speaking out, perhaps most famously with Leonardo Boff. (See the following Vatican documents for examples, "Instruction on Certain Aspects of "Theology of Liberation," "Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation," and "On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church"--all of which came out of the office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith during Ratzinger's tenure.) [Editor: links are in Freitas' blog post.]

Isn't the average Catholic today--those of us still in the pews--now also the disenfranchised in the wake of this second wave scandal? The abuse and criminal negligence rampant throughout the hierarchy has marginalized all of us. Staying Catholic does not equal approval of the pope, does not make someone complicit in criminal behavior. Our faith and our tradition are being stolen out from under us by a powerful few who fear responsibility and are terrified of being held accountable for harboring criminals and perpetuating abuse for decades in the process.

But liberation theologies speak directly to us, the marginalized Catholics, and provide us frameworks to move from disgust, dismay, paralysis, and disempowerment toward transformation and change.

And if the vast majority of us are now the disenfranchised, it is from this place that we can begin to remake the church. The Vatican is so embattled and its power undermined by the scandal that the center of the Catholic Church has shifted sideways as a result--if we claim it from this place on the margins. If we speak in large numbers from this place as Catholics who are the Church.

We have strength in numbers. There are far many more of us than them. And liberation theologies empower the average Catholic to enter into theological discourse. They take theology from the hands of the few, from the pope, the cardinals, and the bishops, and put the task of theology into our hands. They anchor the Catholic Church in the laity and its ordinary priests and nuns, effectively dismantling the hierarchy's power and redistributing it on a grassroots level, where it obviously belongs if the hierarchy's behavior tells us anything at all.

These frameworks of resistance and reform are the very structures that empowered me to stay, to remake my own place and sense of Catholic identity in a way that gave me a strong voice and solid place to stand. I do not speak as a Catholic approving of the hierarchy--absolutely not. I speak as a Catholic disgusted by it, certainly, but who also knows that reform must happen from within and will happen via those of us who stay and make it happen. I speak as a Catholic empowered by liberation theologies.

We are living in a different world than in the 1980's when the Vatican lashed out at liberation theologians, requiring their silence. Between today's technologies and the widespread disgust at the Vatican, the places where and opportunities for lay Catholics and disenfranchised victims to speak up and out are many--and the Vatican can do nothing to stop this.

For the Catholic laity, for the theologians and clergy who want change--in not only leadership but overall institutional reform and what the Catholic tradition stands for--now is the time for us to speak up and loudly.

For a particularly powerful, thoughtful, and thorough perspective on reform, please see feminist theologian Mary Hunt's article, "Father Does Not Know Best: How To Fix the Catholic Church" at Religion Dispatches.

The Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI and the child sex abuse scandals

I would like to never mention the Catholic Church and child sex abuse again. However, the issue has thrust itself back into the limelight. While Joseph Ratzinger was Archbishop of Munich in 1980, there are reports from the New York Times that he received a memo recommending that a priest who had reportedly molested several children be transferred. Archbishop Ratzinger denies having any knowledge of the recommendation to transfer the priest, which was approved by his subordinates. Indeed, another NYT article describes him as a theologian more than a manager. He may not have paid attention.

This may illustrate a leadership problem with then-Archbishop Ratzinger, although he wasn't alone in not giving this problem the seriousness it deserved:

Andreas Englisch, a leading German Vatican expert and the author of several books on Benedict, said that Cardinal Ratzinger “was never interested in bureaucratic stuff,” and noted that when he was first asked to be archbishop of Munich, he considered turning down the post because he did not want to work as “a manager.” In his autobiography, Benedict described taking the post as “an infinitely difficult decision.”

That said, as Archbishop, he was ultimately responsible for his archdiocese, including the personnel matters of the priests under his authority. Instead, he arguably abdicated that authority.

Mr. Englisch, the Vatican expert, said that transferring a problem priest was “such a difficult decision” that it would necessarily have required his opinion.

“I think the guy who handled it would have gone to his archbishop and said, ‘This case of transferring a priest is not common, and we should really have an eye on him,’ ” Mr. Englisch said. Referring to Benedict, he added, “I don’t think that he really knew the details; I don’t think he was really interested in the details.”

“As they say in the legal profession, you either knew or you should have known,” said the Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, who once worked at the Vatican Embassy in Washington and became an early and well-known whistle-blower on sexual abuse in the church. “The archbishop is the unquestioned authority in that diocese. The buck stops there.”

The Archdiocese of Munich did as every other Roman Catholic diocese at the time was doing: they cloaked the problem in obscure language and transferred the priest quietly. In many modern churches, that priest would likely be defrocked. We already knew that sexual abuse by priests had been widespread and had been covered up. I would not have mentioned this, because I would like to give the Catholic Church the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are attempting to improve their safeguards of priests who are sexually abusive. However, what is galling is that the Vatican has offered apologies but no consequences. In a normal organization, heads would have rolled by now. Furthermore, the Pope has been on the defensive, saying that he won't be "intimidated". The Catholic Church is giving the impression that it is more concerned about people going after their money and about avoiding scandal.

Now, money does weird things to people. There will always be someone after the church's money. However, their first priority should be to fix the problem and to prove to the public that this will not happen again. The rest will sort itself out. What does it tell the public if they're more concerned about protecting themselves?

The Catholic Church needs to remember that priests, bishops, cardinals and the Pope are all accountable to lay Catholics, and in fact, to the general global public. Jesus did not lord it over his followers, he washed their feet instead. All churches and clergy have leadership roles in society, but they are not kings - and yet the magisterium is acting like they were crowned kings over humankind.

NYT: Australia Apologizes for Child Migrants

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia is not afraid to apologize for his country's past errors. The New York Times reports that he issued an official apology to child migrants from the UK who were sent to Australia and other countries with promise of a better life, but who were abandoned upon arrival and who suffered abuse and neglect. Australia's gesture offers a key lesson to other nations: when you are wrong, apologize.

Smartmoney: Your Health Plan's "Dr. No"

Angie Marek writes a very good article for Smartmoney about utilization review in insurance companies - where the companies basically ration care. Conservatives have made noise about the government using health reform to ration care. Insurance companies do it already.

Smartmoney profiles Dr. Don Liss, a former internist who is now a medical director for Aetna. He basically decides by remote if patients' doctors are over-treating their patients. There are about 1,000 medical directors nationwide, and they get little respect from their former colleagues.

But playing bad cop has earned medical directors their share of enemies over the years. At the height of the HMO era in the early 1990s, they denied coverage so frequently—and hounded doctors so often with scorecards comparing their costs with their peers’—that doctors came to see them as antagonists and tormentors. Some directors testified that they got bonuses if they denied more doctor bills. While insurers say those specific practices have long since stopped, physicians in the field remain frustrated with the system; some refuse even to refer to their counterparts on the insurance side as “doctors.” It doesn’t help that as medicine grows more specialized, many of the doctors evaluating claims have backgrounds in primary care (as is the case with eight out of 12 of the members of Liss’s team). “How do you even argue necessity with insurers,” says prominent Los Angeles orthopedist Ralph Gambardella, “if the only time a joint surgery is truly ‘necessary’ is when you’ve got a bone sticking out of your skin?”

After 12 years with Aetna, Liss has gotten used to being on the front lines of this battle. (Even, occasionally, at home: Liss’s wife is a primary-care doctor.) Over the years, he’s had to say no in various tough calls, involving mental health care, injury rehab and more, though he says all those rulings were medically justified. Recently, Liss says, he traveled to New Jersey to defend Aetna’s decision to stop covering home nursing care for a child. He describes the girl as a “neurologically devastated 6-year-old” who was “cute as a button” and “clearly needs care day and night.” But as Liss told her family and its lawyer, because her seizures had lessened recently, Aetna believed that a parent or nanny—instead of a $150,000-a-year nurse—could handle tasks like feeding the child through the tube in her stomach. The family’s reaction, says Liss, was “businesslike.”

There's a flip side to utilization review. Medicine is extremely complex, and doctors are the ones who help the rest of us navigate the system. Patients usually take doctors at their word. Unfortunately, there are financial pressures on doctors, and a general fascination in American culture with technology. In sociology, the latter phenomenon is known as the technological imperative - if something can be done the old way or with a shiny gadget, you must use the gadget. As a result, doctors often use aggressive, high-technology treatments. This drives up the cost of healthcare.

Of all the medical-cost battlegrounds, none are hotter than the ones centered on technological breakthroughs, which generate headlines and hopes long before they become standard practice. For insurers, keeping up with the advances is no easy task. That’s why Liss makes frequent visits to places like the University of Pennsylvania’s proton-beam radiation center, a new facility with a $140 million price tag. During a two-hour tour with other Aetna brass, Liss got a close look at the center’s cyclotron, a particle accelerator bigger than a football field, and listened to a presentation by a guide who spoke of the machine as a game-changing innovation in cancer care. Indeed, many doctors think proton beams could be ideal for treating tumors near the eye or spine, since they do less damage to surrounding tissue than traditional radiation. Prostate-cancer patients want the treatment too, since it may help them avoid complications like incontinence.

But Liss sees two nagging issues here: For most cancers, the medical community is still debating the effectiveness of proton-beam treatment, and it typically costs four times as much as traditional radiation. Aetna staff are continually churning out bulletins outlining the evidence behind new and controversial treatments like this. So Liss was shocked when, at the end of his grip-and-grin outing, a Penn official said the university hoped to put about half their radiation patients through the center by 2012. “I walked out of there a whiter shade of pale,” Liss recalls. (Stephen Hahn, chairman of radiation oncology at the university, says the center will be “prudent” about which patients get the therapy.) Liss says it’s his job to make sure such big-ticket spending has enough evidence to back it up. “You hope at least on the margins you bring some sanity,” he says.

In other words, utilization review is necessary as one thing that can put the brakes on healthcare spending. We need to do it more transparently, and we need to make sure the insurers are using good data to do it.

Medical directors say they’re the ones who can apply the brakes to runaway spending, by monitoring the relevant science and data to decide what kind of care is the most effective. Indeed, even their critics say medical directors are becoming more important players. “We’re all headed for a health care train wreck if things don’t change,” says Shannon Brownlee, senior fellow at the New America Foundation and author of Overtreated.

Single-payer advocates, like President Obama's family physician, Dr. David Scheiner, accuse the insurers of "screwing it up" by interfering with clinical decision making. They say that Medicare for all would be better, but in fact, Medicare doesn't do utilization review well enough. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) often makes recommendations to cut reimbursements for procedures it feels don't add value, but Congress ignores or overrides them.

Going forward, comparative effectiveness research will be a key piece of the puzzle in making transparent which treatments are effective and which aren't. As things stand, the insurers' medical directors may be using internal studies on comparative effectiveness that the public doesn't have access to; for example, Kaiser Permanente, a very well-regarded non-profit insurer and hospital system, is known to have and use a bunch of internal data. Alternatively, medical directors or patients' physicians may be basing their decisions on clinical trials. However, the FDA trials only compare treatments to placebos. They do not generally put treatments or medical devices head to head. Comparative effectiveness research would do that.

The American health system rations care today, mostly by ability to pay. It does so inconsistently and non-transparently. It needs to ration care more, more consistently, by fairer criteria, and more transparently. During the debates on the stimulus bill, which inserted funding for comparative effectiveness research, the Republicans tried to insert amendments prohibiting that research from being used by government insurers (Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration, and possibly the Indian Health Service) to make coverage decisions. The fact of the matter is that private and public insurers need to use CER as one basis for coverage decisions, although they need to keep in mind that not all patients are the same.

One last word about medical directors. The article notes that consumers often appeal denials to state insurance commissioners. In 2006, the most recent year for which figures are available, about 41% of denials were reversed upon appeal. Appeals are costly and stressful, but there is currently a way to introduce some transparency and oversight into the private system. I do not think that Medicare currently has a similar process. In fact, when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services decided not to pay for spinal fusions in Medicare on the basis that they weren't generally an effective treatment, specialty physicians appealed directly to Congress, which reversed that decision. Congress is generally captive to moneyed interests, like specialty physicians. It should not be allowed to micromanage Medicare in this fashion. Additionally, it might be a good idea to subject Medicare to state insurance oversight to give consumers a better, more targeted appeals process.

Prosecuting the CIA: NYT Room for Debate Blog

US Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to appoint a special prosecutor to see if US laws were violated by CIA workers who interrogated detainees is debated on a New York Times blog. None of the opinions listed opposed opening an investigation, but one opinion by Benjamin Wittes, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, caught my eye:

Republicans are calling it a witch hunt. Civil libertarians and human rights activists are calling it a whitewash or, at best, a first step. My best guess is that Attorney General Eric Holder probably acted quite reasonably.

I say best guess, because I don’t know — any more than do all of the people criticizing Holder’s decision — exactly what information led to his move. I am therefore far from sure that I agree that the specific cases he referred to prosecutor John Durham warrant further investigation. Nor is it clear that other incidents that he did not refer to Durham do not warrant inquiry. That said, the broad principles reflected by Holder’s action seem to me correct.

First, Holder is taking heat from the left for not authorizing a general criminal inquest into Bush administration interrogation policies and their development. He is right to refuse. As President Obama has made clear, nobody should face criminal prosecution for following in good faith the law as articulated by the Department of Justice. Nor should lawyers in the department face criminal investigation for interpreting the law, even wrongly, in the absence of evidence that they did not believe their interpretations were reasonable.

But this leaves the question of what should happen to those operatives who acted beyond the exceptionally permissive guidance that the lawyers gave them. Some of these incidents are very ugly. Some detainees even died in custody. And if people acted in violent fashions beyond what the Justice Department authorized and if there is some reason for Holder to be dissatisfied with the manner in which the career prosecutors in the Justice Department previously investigated their cases, it strikes me as appropriate for him to request another look.

The key, it seems to me, is that the investigation should focus only on the specific incidents in which people exceeded the legal guidance they were given. If it spreads beyond those incidents, it risks becoming the witch hunt conservatives are already decrying. By contrast, a failure to resolve those cases credibly risks becoming the whitewash the left has already proclaimed.

It is worth asking, if CIA workers violated human rights and claimed, as a defense, that their orders were legal under the prevailing laws and that they were following those orders, how is this any different from the Nuremburg trials? These workers should have known that what they were doing was wrong and they should have refused. If they did not know, they deserve punishment.

From a pragmatic standpoint, Wittes is absolutely right. Make no mistake, there are people out there who seek to do harm to the West, including the US. Their methods do not fit the conventional warfare for which the laws of war are designed. Nonetheless, they need to be stopped or innocent people will die. From that perspective, CIA officers who acted in good faith and were told they were acting in accordance with the law should not be punished.

The detainees at Guantanamo were being tortured, and their continued indefinite detention is a form of torture. Regardless of whether they were told it was legal, those who participate in torture will answer to a higher court.

The present administration is taking steps to engage with the Muslim world. This is necessary, although it isn't sufficient by itself, to bring us on a path to a more peaceful world. If we stop doing this, if a later, more belligerent administration takes over and undoes this someday, then there will be hell to pay, and the entire country will have to answer to that higher court.

Oy veh: Strained by Katrina, a Hospital Faced Deadly Choices (NYT Magazine)

I just spent the morning reading a New York Times magazine article on Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans. When Hurricane Katrina hit, the hospital lost power. As we know, the rescue operation was botched. There was gunfire in the streets and limited supplies. Doctors at the hospital decided that they would triage patients.

In a military setting, casualties are expected to occur en masse and medical and evacuation resources may be limited. Military personnel have to do the greatest good for the greatest number with their limited resources. Casualties who can be saved with immediate care are given priority. Casualties with light wounds are given a lesser priority, as are casualties whose injuries are too severe to help on site. There is basically no choice but to ration care.

In a civilian disaster setting in a Western country, one would normally expect help to come relatively quickly. In Katrina's case, it didn't. The personnel on scene at Memorial also did not have military or disaster experience. They decided to give a lesser priority to patients in poor condition who had standing Do Not Resuscitate orders. Additionally, some doctors decided to administer lethal doses of sedatives to patients who were not expected to live.

There had been gunfire in the streets for days on end, and hospital personnel had had little to no sleep. The hospital was flooded and lost its power generators - this compromised the ICU equipment. Additionally, lines of communication were complicated by the fact that a for-profit hospital operated within Memorial; LifeCare leased some space to provide very intensive rescue care to patients so that they might survive until they could transfer to a nursing home of hospice. The presence of two chains of command and very sick patients was an additional complication.

Mistakes were inevitable, and there was initially enough for prosecutors to seek indictments for murder on several doctors. The criminal charges were dismissed, but there were subsequent civil suits.

Racial relations also complicated things. Most of the clinicians and administrators were White. One Black doctor noted and protested when several Black people attempted to seek medical care several days after the flood and were turned away. One of the patients who died, and whose death might have been averted even with the scarce resources on hand, was Black.

Whether or not mistakes were made, readers should realize that the hospital personnel were in an unimaginable situation for which they had not been adequately trained. They acted as best they could. To the extent that mistakes were made, the families of the victims deserve compensation as appropriate through the legal system. Of course, for the families of the victims who were Black, the situation may merely reinforce their often well-founded belief that the system isn't working.

George Bush - "Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere."

President George Bush said in his farewell address that "Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere." No kidding.

Vincent Bugliosi outlines a possible method for US prosecutors to bring murder charges against the outgoing President, based on existing US law. The legal theory is that 1) he deliberately commenced a war under false pretenses, 2) therefore he deliberately put American soldiers into harm's way, and 3) he is guilty of murdering American soldiers. Sounds far fetched, but Bugliosi is a former LA County District Attorney who won 105 out of 106 cases, and all 21 of his murder trials. It does not matter that he himself didn't kill US soldiers, only that he put them in harm's way. Perhaps this would at least get him convicted for manslaughter.

Other options might be for any country party to the Geneva Conventions to arrest him on travel and charge him there. Singapore is a party to the Conventions and is known to have a rather harsh criminal justice system, so perhaps they might be a good candidate.

George Bush has violated human rights on a massive scale and has permanently tarnished the United States' international reputation. He has not sought forgiveness.

Researchers who promoted use of anti-psychotics in children fail to reveal that they received consulting fees from drug companies

Dr. Joseph Biederman, a world renowned child psychiatrist, conducted studies that helped fuel a significant increase in prescriptions for powerful anti-psychotic drugs in children to combat pediatric biploar disorder. Diagnosis rates have increased 40 times from 1994 to 2003. A total of 500,000 children or teenagers received at least one prescription for antipsychotic drugs last year.

However, it recently came to light that he failed to disclose receipt of $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug companies over several years.

Needless to say, that's a major conflict of interest.

Some have also called into question the quality of Biederman's research.

Successful people apologize more

Anne Fisher, writing for Fortune, says that (financially) successful people are more willing to apologize that those who are not (financially) successful, even if they weren't to blame. Apparently, it "builds solidarity with the troops." Perhaps national leaders should take notice.


(Fortune) -- Market research can be full of surprises. Sometimes, in seeking to find out one thing, researchers turn up a whole different set of unexpected conclusions. Consider: A few months ago, online pearl merchants The Pearl Outlet (www.thepearloutlet.com) noticed that a growing number of customers, when asked the reason for their pearl purchases, replied that the baubles were given as an apology, usually to a wife or girlfriend. Intrigued, The Pearl Outlet hired pollsters Zogby International (www.zogby.com) to find out more.

When Zogby's researchers queried 7,590 Americans, both male and female, they discovered that people who are more willing to say "I'm sorry" make more money than people who rarely or never apologize.

People earning over $100,000 a year are almost twice as likely to apologize after an argument or mistake as those earning $25,000 or less, the survey found. Respondents were asked to identify themselves as belonging to one of a set of income ranges. They were also asked whether they would apologize in three situations: when they felt they were entirely to blame for a problem; when they thought they were only partly at fault; and when they believed they were blameless.

In all three cases, "a person's willingness to apologize was an almost perfect predictor of their place on the income ladder," the study says.

More than nine out of ten (92%) of $100,000+ earners apologize when they believe they're to blame, compared to 89% of people earning between $75,000 and $100,000, 84% of those who make $50,000 to $75,000, 72% of those earning between $35,000 and $50,000, and 76% of people earning between $25,000 and $35,000. Among survey respondents who make $25,000 or less, just 52% say they usually apologize when they know they're at fault.

And think about this: Even when they believe themselves to be completely blameless, 22% of the highest earners say "I'm sorry," compared to just 13% of those in the lowest income group.

Any statistician will tell you that so direct and consistent a correlation between behavior and income is extremely rare, but what does it mean? Should you practice groveling if you want to make more money? Well, no.

But saying "Oops, I'm sorry" now and then is an indicator of strong people skills, essential for moving up in almost any organization. The link between income and willingness to apologize "shows that successful people are willing to learn from their mistakes and are keen on mending troubled relationships," says British business coach Peter Shaw.

Terry Shepherd, president of The Pearl Outlet, has his own theory: "Maybe high earners apologize more because, as someone once said, it's easier to apologize afterward than to ask permission beforehand - and high earners tend to ask permission less."

Still another possible explanation, according to Marty Nemko, Ph.D., author of Cool Careers for Dummies (For Dummies, $19.99): "High earners tend to be more secure" and less likely to go on the defensive when challenged or criticized. "They realize when they're wrong and know it won't hurt their career much to apologize."

Indeed, taking the high road - acknowledging one's share of blame, or even accepting some blame when it isn't justified - is a trait shared by many great leaders, because it tends to build solidarity with the troops.

Readers, what do you think? Has a well-timed apology at work (or the lack of one) ever had an impact on your career - or changed your opinion of a boss? Post your thoughts on the Ask Annie blog.

UN Human Rights Council facing test in Myanmar/Burma

Nick Cumming-Bruce reports for IHT on the UN's Human Rights Council. PS, Burma is the 'old' name for the country. The military junta (aka the State Law and Order Restoration Council) changed the name to Myanmar in 1989, and this is recognized widely but not universally (the US and UK use Burma, the EU uses Myanmar/Burma). Democracy activists deny that the junta has the right to rename the country, and still refer to it as Burma.


GENEVA: Eighteen months after the United Nations jettisoned its Human Rights Commission, human rights activists say the crisis in Myanmar is testing whether the institution that replaced it, the Human Rights Council, can emerge as a force for promoting human rights or will degenerate into a talk shop.

Eighteen months after the United Nations jettisoned its Human Rights Commission as a liability to its credibility, rights activists say the crisis in Myanmar is testing whether the institution that replaced it can emerge as a force for promoting human rights or will degenerate into a talk shop.

The successor organization, the Human Rights Council, is hoping to dispatch its own investigator even as Myanmar's military junta responded last weekend to calls for restraint and dialogue by arresting even more student protest leaders.

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the council's special rapporteur, is assembling a team to visit Myanmar to assess the state of human rights for a report to the Security Council. His first hurdle will be getting there.

Pinheiro held the same post on the disbanded commission, and Myanmar's generals have not let him into the country for four years. The council is under no illusion that a regime that this year shut down operations of the International Red Cross will warm to independent scrutiny of its policies. At the same time, Pinheiro is clear this is not so much a problem for him as for the credibility of the council.

His mandate comes from a resolution passed unanimously by a special session of the council on Oct. 2. "Myanmar has to pay a price if it does not cooperate with me," Pinheiro said by telephone. "If the council is not able to deal with this, its recognition will be affected."

It would also reinforce concerns among some human rights organizations that the council, far from developing a new resolve and culture needed to fulfill its mandate of protecting human rights, will succumb to politicking, often by states with poor human rights records, which discredited its predecessor.

Diplomats applaud the council's willingness to convene a special session on Myanmar and its ability to achieve consensus on a resolution passed with the support of India and China, key influences on Myanmar but with their own strategic and commercial interests in Myanmar. The special session and the resolution emerging from it, Pinheiro said, represented "an extraordinary demonstration of maturity."

The Myanmar meeting brought to five the number of special sessions the council has held in 15 months, the same as the number held by the commission in 60 years, said Luis Alfonso de Alba, Mexico's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and president of the council in its first year. "It doesn't mean the council is perfect, far from it," he said, "but it shows it has the potential to become much more fair and efficient and much quicker in its reactions than the commission."

Human rights groups are less impressed. Even the old commission had little difficulty achieving consensus on Myanmar, analysts monitoring the United Nations said. The council, to achieve unanimity on its resolution, watered down the text to "deplore" the junta's crackdown, a far weaker formulation than the "revulsion" expressed on Sept. 27 by foreign ministers of the Association of South East Asian Nations.

Moreover, the resolution did not press for any action beyond the special rapporteur's visit. "Without action, they are just a talk shop, and what's the point," said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. "There's a lot going on at the council, but if you stand back, it isn't amounting to anything."

A similar chasm divides views of the council's operating mechanisms that were the main focus of discussions in its first year. Unlike the commission, in which members decided which countries' human rights performance to study, the council has adopted a review process to look at the human rights records of all countries, including the United States, Russia and China, which previously deflected scrutiny.

That should help to address criticisms of the commission that it was selective and thus ensure equal treatment of all states. "We have started to do things that were not done before and that is a good sign," said the council president, Doru-Romulus Costea. "There is nothing like this in the rest of the UN."

The universal reviews have good potential, human rights activists said, but come as part of a package of measures that make the deliberations of the council increasingly state-centered.

"Member states were told by the General Assembly to improve on the commission, but there have been no significant improvements. We either have had regression or an architecture which could still turn out to be ineffective," said Nick Howen, president of the International Commission of Jurists.

"What we've seen in the council is a continuing attempt to whittle down the standing of international experts so that the work of the council becomes increasingly politicized."

The record of the first year adds to concerns of where that will lead a council with a powerful bloc of African and Islamic countries. Three of the council's five special sessions and nine of its 12 country-specific resolutions have targeted Israel, according to UN Watch, while human rights violations in such countries as Iran, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe have gone without comment.

Costea is hopeful that cracks have begun to appear in the bloc culture that discredited the commission. "Some delegations seem more prepared to assume the responsibilities of this body," he said.

The council's critics - the United States among them - remain skeptical. At last month's opening of the UN General Assembly, President George W. Bush accused the council of anti-Israeli bias.

The fear among some rights organizations is that critics will use the council's flaws as a pretext for inaction. "The council could do so much more, we've got perhaps 10 percent of the way," said Julie de Rivero, Geneva advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "But what will make or break the council is the commitment of individual states."

Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Courtesy of IPS News, a report on the vote on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, by the UN. The US (duh) voted no, as did Australia, whose conservative government has been supportive of the US. More surprising are the no votes from Canada and New Zealand. Although its government has become more conservative, Canada has historically faced up to its colonization (i.e., massacre and forced dispossession) of native peoples to a greater extent than the US. My impression of New Zealand was that their process of atonement was even further along; the New Zealand Prayer Book contains options for services (partly or fully) in Maori, for example. Certainly the Anglican church in NZ seemed quite respectful of Maori culture.


UNITED NATIONS, Oct 13 (IPS) - Even though various U.N. agencies have endorsed an international document that calls for full recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples, the United States and a handful of other nations continue to stand in the way of its approval by the 192-member General Assembly.

Indigenous leaders, attending the current session of the General Assembly, told IPS at a news conference here Friday that they hoped that the General Assembly would adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by consensus, but said they were not sure what would happen in light of opposition from the United States and its allies.

"It will be embarrassing for the U.N. if it votes [down] the declaration. It will be shameful," said Aqqaluk Lynge, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, an organisation based in the Inuit territories in Greenland, the United States, Canada and Russia.

The declaration, which has already been approved by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, was put together by the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues last May, following years of intense diplomacy involving governments, native peoples' representatives and numerous non-governmental organisations.

The General Assembly is expected to discuss the issue in coming days. The declaration recognises the rights of indigenous people to their lands and resources and to live as they wish. It states that indigenous people must be protected from forced assimilation and the destruction of their cultures.

Even if approved, the declaration would not be legally binding. Nevertheless, its supporters say the declaration would serve to increase pressure on governments to observe universal principles such as democracy, justice and nondiscrimination.

"This is a declaration, not an international law. This is not something that countries will have to follow," said Kent Lebsock, executive director of the New York-based American Indian Law Alliance, while criticising the role the U.S. and its allies have played in diplomatic talks on the declaration.

"It's a recommendation on how to interact with indigenous people," he added. "It's just the first step, so that we begin to discover how to use it."

At issue is the treatment of disparate indigenous populations who, according to U.N. estimates, add up to more than 370 million people worldwide.

Indigenous leaders said they had been assured of support from many nations, including the European Union, but added they saw no signs of flexibility in the attitude of the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.

The three countries have consistently opposed the text's embrace of indigenous peoples' demand for "self-determination".

"No government can accept the notion of creating different classes of citizens," delegations from the three countries said in a joint statement recently that also described the indigenous communities' demand to determine their own affairs as "inconsistent with international law".

They said the indigenous land claims ignore current reality "by appearing to require the recognition to lands now lawfully owned by other citizens."

Similar controversy has surfaced over the declaration's recognition of indigenous peoples' demand that the holders or seekers of commercial patents on seeds, plants and other forms of traditional knowledge must first obtain consent from the communities that discovered or developed the assets in the first place.

U.S. and other delegates have argued that free and informed prior consent would run counter to the current intellectual property rights regime, which favours commercial development.

To indigenous leaders and advocates, however, such opposition to the declaration is the attitude of colonisers who have yet to face up to centuries of abuse and exploitation.

"The imperial era was largely based on the dispossession of most of the world's indigenous people," said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, an advocacy group based in Britain. "It cannot be considered over until the world accepts these peoples' rights."

Native leaders said recently that Canada has also expressed opposition to the principle of self-determination, although in the past it had lent its unconditional support for the cause of indigenous peoples.

"It did a huge flip-flop, which was most unfortunate, after the election of their current conservative government," Lebsock told IPS. "They are now back squarely in the U.S. camp."

Meanwhile, at the news conference, Enrique Berruga, Mexico's ambassador to the U.N., said his country fully stood with indigenous leaders and that it would rally support for a consensus vote on the declaration.

"We expect the declaration would be adopted with consensus for sure," he told IPS. "We will be pushing for that. It has been discussed long enough. It is high time for it to be adopted."

"Those who have decided to step away, I think, they will have to pay," he added. "They will have to figure it out how to explain it to their own people. There is a cost." (END/2006)

Accountability

From the Wikipedia article on accountability, Schedler gives one definition:

"A is accountable to B when A is obliged to inform B about A’s (past or future) actions and decisions, to justify them, and to suffer punishment in the case of eventual misconduct."

Accountability to the community served is a big thing in Catholic health care, even though the magisterium arrogantly refuses to be accountable to the people they serve. Nonetheless, hospitals are often instructed to be accountable to the community while they try to serve the community's needs. Else, a hospital could refuse to engage community members to find out what their needs are.

Accountability is critical in a representative democracy. If a leader does the wrong thing, they should face the threat of being removed from office, and possibly being subject to criminal charges. I've criticized Singapore's leaders before, who steadfastly refuse to be accountable to the public. If this does not change, the country will go down the tubes eventually.

The Bush administration, it seems, also steadfastly refuses to be accountable. Bush and co act seem to think they are above the law.

There are so many incidents of their failure to be accountable that I could fill a book, but this is the most recent. BBC reports that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is refusing to step down despite pressure from both Republican and Democrat lawmakers. There is evidence that Gonzales fired some US attorneys for political reasons - because they weren't Republican. The White House invoked executive privilege to keep some former counselors and aides from testifying to Congress on the matter.

There's any number of fire and judgment psalms I could quote that castigate the arrogant and mighty who laiugh at God, and the poor whom they exploit. The psalms promise retribution for the arrogant and succor for the humble.

But I've done a lot of those recently. So, I'm only going to say that Christians should consider very carefully whether or not members of the Bush administration are Godly men and women, or not. I think not. And whenever the time comes for us to hold them accountable, we must.