World

On March 16 police arrested Satur Ocampo, a member of Congress from the left-wing Bayan Muna party list. Ocampo, who had been in hiding for eight days, was taken into custody shortly after he filed a court petition to quash the arrest warrant. He faces charges of killing military spies in the ’80s, according to a March 17 Philippine Daily Inquirer report.

Sekai Holland, a long-time leader of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle and a champion of women’s rights, was detained by police on March 11 in the latest violent crackdown by President Robert Mugabe’s increasingly unpopular regime. Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai was also arrested and later taken to the intensive care unit of a Harare hospital with severe injuries resulting from police beatings.

The small Andean nation of Ecuador is facing a political crisis as the Congress and the courts turn on each other over new president Rafael Correa’s plans for a Constituent Assembly and a “citizens’ revolution” to build “21st century socialism” in the poverty-stricken country.

A March 9 press release by the Washington-based Venezuela Information Office (VIO) pointed out that a US State Department report released on March 6 “reveals that Venezuela strives to guarantee human rights and in fact, is beefing up measures to provide accessible avenues for lodging complaints and holding violators accountable”.

On April 9, East Timor will hold its second presidential election, which will be followed by parliamentary elections. The East Timorese political system combines a president, who is commander-in-chief of the army and who has veto powers over legislation, with an executive cabinet headed by a prime minister who is elected by the parliament.

Suciwati, the widow of Munir, the prominent Indonesian human rights activist killed by arsenic poisoning aboard a plane in 2004, visited Australia in February to call on the Australian government to help pressure Jakarta to resolve the case. Accompanying her was Usman Hamid, the executive director of Kontras — the Indonesian Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence — an organisation set up by Munir.

Two large undercover security guards arrive first in a separate car to survey the parking garage. They radio “all clear” back to the second car, carrying Patricia Isasa and her escort. The first guards then scout out the route to the restaurant and stake out her table according to lowest security risk.

The arrival in February of 85 refugees from Sri Lanka, most of them members of the island’s Tamil minority, in Australian waters near Christmas Island highlights the situation of war and racial oppression in Sri Lanka.

The Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics NV, one of nearly 40 chemical majors sued by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange for supplying the defoliant to the US military, is now also being sued by its insurers. The US made extensive use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

The situation remains tense in East Timor’s capital, Dili, in the wake of the Australian Defence Force-led operation on March 4 to capture renegade East Timorese army officer Major Alfredo Reinado.

Commenting on the natural disaster that has left large swathes of Bolivia’s lowland east underwater after months of flooding, and much of the Andean region covered in ice, in late February Bolivian President Evo Morales called for a global debate on the effects of climate change and environmental destruction on poor nations.

International Women’s Day (IWD) — March 8 — was marked by marches protesting the recent acquittal of former assistant police commissioner Clint Rickards and two other former police officers on charges of rape.