I am pretty sure anyone reading this newsletter needs a security training refresher. If you don’t think you need a security refresher, that’s actual evidence that you do need one, because, you know, I am ready to bet good money that you don’t actually remember what steps you need to take to stop a major bleed, and in what order (which is kind of important), or whether what you just heard was fireworks or actual gun fire (that could possibly kill you). Which makes you kind of a lousy travel companion for the next mission (or just for taking the subway in New York, for that matter).

Security trainings for human rights organization work like this: you put in a room for three days a bunch of almost burned out researchers (because no one takes three days off actual pressing work and finishing already late reports until they just don’t have the energy to come up with another excuse about why they can’t do the training now). Sprinkle a couple of support staff working in IT and HR (someone at HQ said “statistically people are more likely to die from a car accident than from being shot”—as if it demonstrated some out-of-this-world quality because you know, I am a hard-nosed, data-driven kind of leader). Now, drop in two ex-military guys who have transitioned from the army to the security business and run the training with templates that, looking at the “scenarios”, were clearly initially designed for some evil multinational corporation, or, if you’re really lucky, CNN.

Hilarity ensues.

You see, most human rights folks experience of military types range from spending a life-time interviewing individuals who have gone through very bad things at the hands of police and army types, to being stopped at checkpoints by people who seemly like to give directions by waving cars back and forth with their automatic weapons (“I can’t believe this idiot’s safety is off, but I can’t tell him otherwise he’ll get suspicious about me—Jeez, human stupidity really is a bigger problem than human evil”), to meeting with pentagon-type knuckleheads who treat you and your colleagues as idiots because no, no drone strike has ever killed any civilian, and no, the notorious army elite from Brutalistan we are training has never, ever, committed any human rights abuse in the course of their “counter-terrorism” operations (“they are not the bad guys, here, you know?”).

The trainers are really well-meaning. The senior one, who is in charge and know that the organization who paid for this is a “client”, has been at it for a while, while the junior one has only recently left the army and is still learning about dealing with civvies. The senior one knows from experience that no one in the room actually wants to be there, and that these NGO types are really opinionated and don’t really take to being ordered to do anything. The junior one is about to find out.

At some point (in my experience, towards the end of the morning on day 2) someone finally loses it over the fact that yet another risk scenario is a variation of “civilization-bearer colonizer in jungle faces hostile natives” (that’s the “foreign” scenario), or 1990s Yugoslavia checkpoint (that’s the “European” scenario).

At this juncture the African or Asian or Latin American researcher feels compelled to share their candid sentiments about the fact that they have not flown all the way here with a 12 hour layover in a neon lit airport to be taught a racist curriculum on top of everything because, you know, this is a goddam human rights organization we work for and we’re, like, in 2022, hello?

Which causes the ex-military junior trainer to feel genuinely sorry, but also super confused because he had really been paying attention to the “diversity of staff” thing he had been warned about (i.e. some of the non-white folks in that group could actually be managers), and not implying that women are softer targets. And also the LGTBI stuff, because “nowadays” people can do what they want, and that’s great. He thought he had nailed this stuff because the last training with the Big Network broadcast crew went really well, except that, hum, journos were not that different from the corporate folks, with all the evening drinking and matey lolz. These NGO folks really are prickly.

By lunch time all is forgiven because, I dunno, everybody is actually doing their best? Also, the first-aid stuff is really useful and it’s always funny to see a colleauge pretending to be severely injured but mixing up which limb they had supposedly just lost from one moment to the next.

Thankfully, critical incidents involving international human rights workers have so far been few and far between. Which is not the case for domestic human rights activists and humanitarian workers, who get killed a lot: 358 human rights defenders were killed last year, according to one count, and 43 humanitarian workers have already died this year.

The overwhelming majority of humanitarian workers are from the global south nowadays, so, despite the horrifying statistics, it seems that these incidents only deserve serious attention when some “foreign” (i.e. European or American) aid worker is also killed, like in Ethiopia last year. How about we change that? Seriously. The excellent outfit Humanitarian Outcomes does some serious research about these issues, check it out.

Love from Gondar

Speaking of Ethiopia, Le Monde had an interesting portrait of Demeke Zewdu (available in English here), the warlord from Western Tigray mentioned in a recent Amnesty and Human Rights Watch joint-report about ethnic cleaning and crimes against humanity. (Disclaimer, I’ve worked with both organizations in the past, but not on Ethiopia). From their press release:

The report, ‘We Will Erase You From This Land’: Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray Zone, documents how newly-appointed officials in Western Tigray and security forces from the neighbouring Amhara region, with the acquiescence and possible participation of Ethiopian federal forces, systematically expelled several hundred thousand Tigrayan civilians from their homes using threats, unlawful killings, sexual violence, mass arbitrary detention, pillage, forcible transfer, and the denial of humanitarian assistance. These widespread and systematic attacks against the Tigrayan civilian population amount to crimes against humanity, as well as war crimes.

From Gondar (about 380 km south of the Ethiopian-Erythrean border) Zewu spoke to a gaggle of foreign journalists, including Le Monde’s Noe Hochet-Bodin, about the wonders of the “liberation” of the Welkait district and its return to Tygraian-free rule. Against a background of burned down houses and newly plastered portraits of himself as the “jegna” (“the brave”, “the hero”), Zewdu rejected all allegations of atrocities:

Amnesty pretends that I am slaughtering Tigrayans, but it’s false. Amnesty covertly works for the TPLF [Tigray People's Liberation Front].

I didn’t know that! Did you? Either way Amnesty seems to be doing a pretty lousy job, given that a month earlier they had released a report on Tigray’s forces abuses in Amhara (“Ethiopia: Tigrayan forces murder, rape and pillage in attacks on civilians in Amhara towns”) which surely is not good publicity for the TPLF? It doesn’t seem to matter to Zewdu.

Message to the UN

Last week I wrote about Guterres trip to Russia and Ukraine and mentioned that UN Secretary General trips tend to be super short because their staff worry that something bad happens and makes the SG look bad. Well, what about that (from CBS)?

One of several Russian missiles that hit Kyiv struck near the hotel where the U.N. chief is staying, the secretary-general's spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, told CBS News correspondent Pamela Falk, although the U.N. delegation was meeting with the prime minister in his office and were not in the hotel at the time.

I guess this will make the job of whoever in Guterres team is tasked with writing up the read-out from the meeting with Putin a lot simpler? Maybe? If the purpose of the trip was to make the UN look like a relevant actor in the crisis, the trip seems to have achieved the exact opposite. On the plus side, a number of civilians were finally evacuated from Mariupol, although, according to the ICRC, many still remain trapped there. So one could say it’s a glass half-full/half-empty kind of situation.

Nah, I am kidding, the glass is always at least half-full—it’s the UN.

Foundation Jobs

The Open Society Foundation is hiring a Special Advisor in the Executive Office to “Act as the President’s liaison to strategically advance and coordinate existing and emerging policy priorities, strategic goals, impact investments, and initiatives”. Heady stuff. If that doesn’t appeal enough to you, have a look at the kind of pictures they put on their “Working at Open Society Foundations” webpage.

OSF, the Martha Stewart of INGOs?

The Ford Foundation is looking for a Thematic Area Director, to “lead and oversee its US and international Future of Work(ers) (FoW) portfolio.” Future of Work is a big deal because if we don’t get on it, some other people will, and it won’t be pretty. From the job description:

The ideal FoW Director will be a visionary, proven field leader who has at least 10 years’ experience in strengthening worker movements and economic justice and/or advancing future of work issues through a combination of leadership, policy analysis, advocacy, communications, and implementation experience in the United States and internationally.

Last word

Secretary of State Blinken is about to give a long overdue speech outlining the Biden Administration’s policy toward China on Thursday (May 5) at George Washington University. Hold your breath and of course detailed read out in Rights Stuff after the dust settles.