On July 17, 2008, we will be presenting 30 minutes of scenes from The Reckoning at the UN, during the celebration of the X Anniversary of the signing of the Rome Statute at Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium.

• Posted by Paco
• 19-May-2008
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We walked with Hema tribal spokesman Professor Pilo Kamaragi through the killing fields of Bogoro in the Ituri region of eastern Congo, site of the massacre allegedly perpetrated by local warlord Germain 'Simba' Katanga - human skeletons were strewn throughout the tall elephant grass. Katanga was charged by the International Criminal Court with 3 counts of crimes against humanity and 6 counts of war crimes for his involvement in killings, pillaging, using child soldiers, and sexual enslavement during an attack on the town of Bogoro. From a documentary filmmaking point of view, we (our crew: Pamela Yates, Paco de Onís, Melle van Essen, Susan Meiselas, Leo Franssen, Lotsove Tryphonette and Pastor Marrion P'Udongo) had the serendipity of being in Ituri in October when Katanga, who led the FRPI militia, was taken into custody by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to The Hague, to the same prison where his arch-enemy Thomas Lubanga, leader of the Hema UPC militia, has been since last year facing charges of conscripting child soldiers, a war crime under the Rome Statute which governs the ICC. When speaking to members of each of these alleged warlords' ethnic groups, the Hema for Lubanga and the Lendu for Katanga, they often tell you that their leaders were protectors, not perpetrators. Each group claims to have battled the other in self-defense against genocidal attacks. The tragic result is that tens of thousands of members of both ethnic groups were viciously massacred, raped, dismembered, and a whole generation of youth traumatized by their forced participation in the brutality of war. Until the ICC took Katanga, Lubanga's Hema people complained that the ICC was being unjust in singling out their leader, but it turns out that he was just the first of several warlords the ICC has in its sights.

Now that Katanga is in custody as well, leaders of both groups are claiming that it's their Ituri region that's been targeted, so the conversation has shifted to a national perspective on justice. But they seem resigned to let justice take its course with Lubanga and Katanga, and are actually calling for the ICC to arrest "bigger fish" in Congo's capital Kinshasa, and to intervene in the Lake Kivu region where so much unspeakable violence is raging.

Even though in recent years there has been less fighting in Ituri and its provincial capital Bunia, the region still bears deep scars of war: buildings in collapse, weapons plentiful, and a people living with a legacy of horror - we saw photos of heads on spikes, rows of heads and severed arms held aloft, displayed as trophies of war by smiling victors, taken as recently as 2003. Yet another replay of humankind's capacity for unbounded cruelty. Our hotel in Bunia had a "No Weapons" sign on the gate, and army deserters were assaulting travelers daily a few miles out of town.

We were also accompanied in our visit to Bogoro by one of its former residents, Professor Jean Vianney Tibasima Sahie , who took us to the ruins of the home he had to abandon when his family fled Katanga's FRPI militia attack. The lush verdant growth of the high central African plateau had engulfed the property, and after pushing our way through shoulder-high grass for a hundred yards we came upon the remains of stately stone arches and hardwood balustrades, ringing an elegant semi-circle veranda overlooking Lake Albert in the far distance.

The specter of another time, conjuring serenity, prosperity and aspiration, a world brought down. It also highlighted the fragility and ephemeral quality of communities riven by underlying tribal tensions wound tight for so long, unresolved, and exacerbated by the colonial experience. Even as I write these lines Kenya has exploded along tribal fault lines due to a disputed presidential election. It was sad and sobering to stand in those evocative remains of a home, in the dignified and melancholy presence of Professor Jean.

It will take time to bring Ituri back to the prosperous agricultural and mining region it once was, and ending the culture of impunity is an essential element in the process - the ICC arrests have made clear that perpetrators will be brought to account, which is a major step towards a lasting peace.

The MONUC peacekeepers have played a stabilizing role by administering a Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) program which has helped bring thousands of rebel fighters (many of them child soldiers) back into their communities. After Katanga was taken to The Hague, the last 3 remaining warlords in the Ituri region turned themselves in to accept a DDR offer, apparently no longer seeing any future as rebels and wanting to avoid the ICC.

In the midst of all this catastrophe, we were inspired by local heroes we found working against formidable odds to strengthen justice in the Congo:

Major Innocent, a military judge who keeps a copy of the ICC Rome Statute on his desk to guide him as he judges Congolese military officers and soldiers for human rights abuses. We filmed a hearing at the military tribunal in Bunia, where the defendant had received a life sentence in absentia (he escaped during a previous trial but was later recaptured) for participating in the killing of UN peacekeepers in 2005, and was appealing his sentence. While we weren't there for the final ruling, in our interview Major Innocent told us that he thinks it's important to set an example by imposing harsh sentences for human rights violations, so it probably didn't bode well for the defendant. Even though the defendant was an irregular militia and not in the Congolese army, civilians who commit crimes with military weapons in Congo can be tried under military law. We also met dynamic Richard Pituwa, who runs Canal Revelation, a radio station that has become a crucial forum for talking about justice through "Interactive Radio for Justice",

a program he produces with the irrepressible human rights activist Wanda Hall. Bunia has no newspapers, and electricity is so sporadic that TV is not a strong medium, but radios run on batteries and are ubiquitous, so radio is far and away the dominant source of information in the region. People call in all day long on their cellphones, and we filmed a fascinating program they hosted with ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo phoning in from The Hague to take questions about the Katanga arrest from local callers. Justice on the ground and on the air.

After spending October filming in Ituri surrounded by the wreckage of war, we headed for Uganda in a small UN plane, bucking like a bronco through massive thunderclouds towering over the Great Lakes of Africa.

On the same day, Patrick Opiyo Makasi, a Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) Director of Operations, arrived in Uganda after escaping from the LRA redoubt in Congo's Garamba National Park. It took some doing, but we managed to interview him and got a first-hand account of mounting tensions within the LRA due to the arrest warrants issued for their 5 top leaders by the ICC. Makasi told us that LRA chief Joseph Kony is fixated on making the ICC warrants disappear, and that it's the only reason he's remained in peace negotiations since July 2006, which has brought the longest relief from violence in the 20-year conflict suffered by the people of northern Uganda. He added that Kony is fully aware of the arrests of Charles Taylor and Thomas Lubanga, and does not want to follow them to the ICC courtroom in The Hague.

Makasi says Kony has no intention of signing a peace agreement even if the warrants are removed, and it is only fear of the ICC that has kept him quiet and at the peace table all this time. Apparently Kony's closest ally, the ruthless Vincent Otti, actually wanted to achieve a peace deal, and it was disagreement over this that led Kony to murder Otti in October. The murder of Otti has not been officially confirmed, but Makasi is sure of it and other LRA fighters that defected after him have all said he was killed in a very brutal way, plus no one has heard a peep from Otti since October - and this silence from a man that used to get on his satellite phone every day making calls to radio stations and political leaders. There are indications that the LRA is under great strain, and MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, has set up stations to receive and demobilize LRA soldiers that defect. It appears the ICC is having a beneficial effect for the people of northern Uganda, by keeping the LRA at bay and weakening its morale. The ICC indictees are finally realizing that amnesty is not an option.

A remarkable effect of the ICC interventions are the fierce debates it has generated about the role of justice in the transition to sustainable peace. When we spent the month of December 2006 in northern Uganda, many local civil society leaders were calling for the ICC to remove the arrest warrants it had issued for the top commanders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), saying that it was hampering the peace negotiations, and that traditional reconciliation mechanisms such as Mato Oput would suffice to achieve justice for the massive crimes committed by the LRA. Now that's changed.

We revisited Pagak Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp leader Dennis Lemoyi and interviewed him again a year later, which gave us valuable insights into how thinking about justice is trending in northern Uganda. Now civil society leaders are recommending that a special national court be created in Uganda to mount a "complementarity" challenge to the ICC warrants, saying that the crimes committed during the war, by both the LRA and the UPDF (Ugandan army) can be judged at home and meet international standards of accountability. We'll have to wait to see how things develop, but that this discussion is even happening constitutes a positive outcome of the ICC intervention.

• Posted by Paco
• 31-Dec-2007
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With New York in the grip of winter, we (Peter Kinoy and Pamela Yates) went out with our union brothers and sisters to walk the Writers Guild picket lines.

From HBO, to Viacom, to the Time-Warner Center, the writers are asking for a fair share of the profits they help create. The principal reason the Writers Guild is on strike is that we want a fair share of the income generated by programs we create that are increasingly distributed on digital platforms like the internet, iTunes downloads, and video on demand. The networks, film studios and media corporations, represented by The Association of Motion Pictures and Television Producers (AMPTP) say that the value of the internet is unknown; that a dollar amount cannot be placed on it. That's what they said about the nascent home video market during the last strike 20 years ago, and the Writers Guild conceded a bargaining position that would temporarily reduce their royalty to only $.04 on every VHS (and later DVD) sold while AMPTP developed the home video market. The market exploded, but AMPTP never increased the writers' royalties again, and now is making the same argument regarding the new digital platforms in order to maintain the same low percentage (fool me once...). The Writers Guild is seeking to double the percentage, which would amount to about $.08 per DVD, not an outrageous request. If AMPTP doesn't see any clear financial potential in the digital realm, how do they come up with the figures for the billion-dollar copyright infringement lawsuits they initiate, like Viacom's against YouTube?

 

When you think about it, the writers' demand for fair compensation in these new markets isn't so different from our negotiations as independent filmmakers for licensing our films in the digital realm. Recently we licensed our film "State of Fear" to US Television, and the broadcaster asked that we throw in, at no extra charge, video-on-demand (VOD) rights. We insisted that it was only fair that we get a share of each VOD sale and after standing firm against the broadcaster's argument that the company did not know what the value of this digital platform would be, we were able to negotiate a per download percentage share. So the precedent set if the Writers Guild prevails will affect each and every independent filmmaker in the form a potential new revenue streams, an additional royalty, and an easier time negotiating our rights.

The networks, studios and media corporations have deep pockets. AMPTP has broken off negotiations, and would like to wait out the Guild. It may be a long cold strike, but it will be shorter and it will feel warmer if the independent film community supports the writers. Go to www.wga.org, find out where the next picket line is, and join us. Everyone should share in the proceeds of this brave new digital world.

For all the inside information and news about the strike, go to Nikki Finke's great blog www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com and read the series "Why We Write" by striking Guild members. Here's a video we found on YouTube that explains why we fight:

• Posted by Pamela
• 15-Dec-2007
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Ex-President of Peru Alberto Fujimori went on trial for human rights crimes,

appropriately enough, on Human Rights Day, December 10. He started out with a dramatic opening speech, waving his arms about and yelling "Soy inocente!" (I'm innocent!).

He claims to have safeguarded the human rights of 25 million Peruvians, "without exception".

As the trial unfolds it brings to the fore one of the great debates of our times, how do democratic societies deal with the threat of terrorism and maintain the rule of law? Fujimori supporters believe the rule of law was expendable in light of the terrorist threat that Peru faced, and the Peruvian Truth & Reconciliation Commission, as we showed in State of Fear, concluded the opposite. It is a historic trial, and has already generated a cellphone ringtone that spread like wildfire throughout Peru, that starts with Fujimori shouting "Soy inocente!" followed by the judge saying "Aquí mando yo" (I'm in charge here) and for good measure ends with King Juan Carlos saying "Por que no te callas" from the time he told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to shut up - all of this over Fujimori's campaign song from 2000, El Baile del Chino. Here it is:

• Posted by Paco
• 11-Dec-2007
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After the initial elation of hearing that Peru's ex-President, Alberto Fujimori, was finally being extradited from Chile to Peru to face human rights and corruption charges,

it was shocking but not surprising to see the old thuggish tactics of Fujimori's supporters at work again: "El Ojo Que Llora" (The Eye That Cries), a memorial in Lima to the 70,000 people killed in Peru's war with Shining Path, was defaced with orange paint (the color of Fujimori's party) by a group of vandals. In recent years the memorial had become a gathering place to further peace and reconciliation, where the annual commemoration of the delivery of Peru's Truth & Reconciliation Commission Final Report (on August 29, 2003) is held. El Ojo Que Llora, created by artist Lika Mutal, is in the network of the International Coalition of Historic Sites of Conscience, in recognition of its profound significance as a bastion of the collective memory of a nation emerging from mass atrocities. See it in this video:

Of course the Fujimoristas felt threatened by the serene power of this memorial, it's 70,000 stones laid out in a labyrinth a constant reminder of the reign of terror and corruption that Peru lived during Fujimori's regime, as exemplified by politician Martha Chavez, one of Fujimori's staunchest supporters and allies, who declared that "With pleasure, I would have destroyed the memorial myself."

We sent the following letter to the Editor of The New York Times to critique their coverage of Fujimori's extradition to Peru and the historical narrative he successfully spun during his time in power and that persists to this day. Although the NY Times didn't publish it, we shared the letter with Mirko Lauer, one of Peru's foremost opinion makers, who did publish it in his column:

"To the Editor: It's a shame that in his article (Chile Returns Fujimori to Peru to Face Charges - 9/23/07) Simon Romero reinforces the historical narrative promoted by Alberto Fujimori that he was responsible for crushing the Shining Path movement in Peru. This is a distortion of the facts. In fact, as the Peruvian Truth & Reconciliation Commission concluded in its Final Report, the biggest blow to terrorism in Peru was the capture of Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmn, a capture that was executed without firing a shot after a 5-year police investigation that had started before Mr. Fujimori took power, led by Detective Benedicto Jimenez and his small counter-terrorism team, known as the GEIN (Special Intelligence Group). Mr. Fujimori preferred a military approach to terrorism which led to an increase in the Shining Path insurgency with car bombs exploding in Lima almost daily. Mr. Jimenez treated terrorism as a criminal problem that had to be solved through old fashioned detective work, and was disdained and underfunded by Mr. Fujimori. When the capture of Mr. Guzmán occurred on a Saturday night, Mr. Fujimori was on a weekend fishing trip, completely unaware of the operation, and raced back to Lima when he heard the news. Not wanting to be upstaged by Mr. Jimenez, Mr. Fujimori promptly dismissed him. -- Paco de Onís, Pamela Yates, Peter Kinoy"

As we showed in our film State of Fear, Fujimori was a master manipulator of the media, and nothing makes it clearer than this video clip we edited showing footage shot with a hidden camera set up by Fujimori's spy chief and master of corruption, Vladimiro Montesinos. We call it "Latin America's First Media Dictator" - see for yourself:

• Posted by Paco
• 27-Sep-2007
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