international library for a responsable world of solidarity ritimo

Le portail rinoceros d’informations sur les initiatives citoyennes pour la construction d’un autre monde a été intégré au nouveau site Ritimo pour une recherche simplifiée et élargie.

Ce site (http://www.rinoceros.org/) constitue une archive des articles publiés avant 2008 qui n'ont pas été transférés.

Le projet rinoceros n’a pas disparu, il continue de vivre pour valoriser les points de vue des acteurs associatifs dans le monde dans le site Ritimo.

Russia: Stop Syria’s horror hospitals

initiative Avaaz

The Syrian regime has reached a new low — its death squads are using ambulances and hospitals to lure and kill wounded protesters. But Russia, Syria’s key backer and arms supplier, could bring an end to this carnage.

There are two governments that can influence Russia — Turkey and Germany — both of them support the Syrian democracy protesters and have strong ties with Russia. If we call on them to act now, they could weigh in behind mounting regional pressure and push Russian President Medvedev to stop propping up this brutal regime and help urgent global action.

Syria’s horror hospitals are the latest in a string of unspeakable crimes against peaceful protesters. So far, Russia has faced little condemnation for its complicity in these atrocities, but we can change that. Let’s build a massive petition to Merkel and Erdogan now to speak out and work with the Arab League to stop the brutality. Sign now, and share this with everyone — it will be delivered to their Foreign Ministries this week.

Sign the petition on Avaaz

Put a stop to "blood diamonds"

« Blood diamonds » have been used by rebel groups to fuel brutal wars in Africa. These conflicts have resulted in over 4 million deaths and the displacement of millions of people in Angola, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and now in Ivory Coast. These diamonds have been sold to international diamond dealers giving rebels profits to buy large quantities of small arms.

In 1998, the NGO Global Witness began a campaign to expose the role of diamonds in funding conflicts. As the largest grassroots human rights organization in the world, Amnesty International has been instrumental in educating the public about the problem, and pressing governments and industry to take action. Over the years, international pressure has increased from a large coalition of NGOs.

In 2003, the government-run Kimberley Process scheme was launched to stop the trade in conflict diamonds. Over seventy governments taking part in the process are required to certify that diamond shipments through their countries are conflict-free, and they are required to set up diamond control systems to ensure this is true. Governments must pass national laws implementing the Kimberley Process and they must only trade with other participants in the process.

The diamond industry agreed to police itself to support the Kimberley Process by tracking diamonds from mines all the way to retail stores - this is generally referred to as the « system of warranties » or the « system of self regulation ». But this isn’t fully implemented. Every company dealing in diamonds should have a policy in place to ensure their diamonds are conflict-free.

Amnesty International and Global Witness urge you to call for the governments to better enforce its diamond law and for all sectors of the diamond industry to develop a credible, independently-verified tracking system to make sure that conflict diamonds don’t enter diamond markets.

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