Refugees and displaced in Chad, Tanzania and Uganda

Human Rights Watch (HRW) publicou antonte un informe sobre os campos de “desprazados internos” no Chad. O informe leva por título “The Risk of Return: Repatriating the Displaced in the Context of Conflict in Eastern Chad”. Copio un extracto da súa introducción:

[...] Fighting between Chadian rebels and government forces in eastern Chad in early May 2009 underlines how the intertwined wars in Chad and Sudan are creating conditions in which farmers and nomads alike continue to be at risk of displacement. The vast majority of the 167,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) already in camps in eastern Chad are unable to return home in safety and dignity. A cocktail of armed groups —Chadian and Sudanese rebel factions, community-based militias, and loosely organized criminal gangs— represent an ongoing risk to IDPs who venture back to their areas of origin, especially in the southeastern area of Dar Sila. Meanwhile, disputes over land access and tenure remain a combustible factor underlying much of the violence, both currently and in the past.

Fighting between government and rebel forces erupted again near Koukou-Angarana in early May 2009, forcing the evacuation of aid agency personnel. Koukou-Angarana hosts approximately 40,000 IDPs and 20,000 Sudanese refugees, yet is an area in which the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT), dispatched to eastern Chad by the Security Council in 2007 to protect civilians and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid, had no permanent presence until shortly after the fighting between government forces and rebel troops in the area had subsided. [...]

Tamén antonte, unha nota de prensa de HRW (“Tanzania/Uganda: Prevent Forced Return of Refugees. Governments and UN Refugee Agency Should Urgently Clarify Refugees’ Options Before Camps Close”) informaba do posible retorno forzado de miles de persoas actualmente refuxiadas en campos de Tanzania e Uganda:

The Tanzanian and Ugandan governments should ensure that refugees living in camps due to close on June 30 and July 31, 2009 are not forcibly returned to their home countries and are immediately given full information about their options, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch also urged both governments to avoid repeating Rwanda’s unlawful forced return of up to 504 refugees to Burundi at gunpoint on June 2, after it closed its last refugee camp for Burundians.

Tanzania, with 36,000 Burundian refugees, and Uganda, with 17,000 Rwandan refugees, have signed agreements with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to facilitate the safe return of refugees who wish to go home, and to find alternatives for those who do not. However, despite the looming camp closing deadlines of June 30 for Tanzania and July 31 for Uganda, neither government has publicly explained the alternatives. Instead, both have threatened the refugees with forced return, saying that after the closures the remaining refugees will be “stripped” of their refugee status and treated as “illegal immigrants.” Both positions would be unlawful under international refugee law. [...]

Refuxiados e desprazados suman millóns de persoas que o perderon todo fuxindo de guerras que descoñecemos. O telexornal preocúpase máis (e entre todos pagamos máis) por unha actriz mediocre ou por un futbolista que pola nosa responsabilidade colectiva neste estado de cousas…

Hundreds of civilians killed in Southern Sudan (HRW report)

Human Rights Watch publicou hoxe un informe sobre os asasinatos de centos de civís perpetrados recentemente por diversos exércitos e guerrillas tribais na rexión autónoma de Sudán do Sur, unha de tantas “crises olvidadas” polos mass media. O informe leva por título “No One to Intervene: Gaps in Civilian Protection in Southern Sudan”. Copio un extracto da súa introducción:

In the most deadly spate of intercommunal violence since the end of the 21-year civil war in 2005, more than 1,000 men, women, and children were killed in attacks in Jonglei state in Southern Sudan in March and April 2009. The attacks starkly demonstrate the failure of both the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) and the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) to protect civilians from violence, in particular from intercommunal violence that appears to be intensifying.

The recent surge in violence prompted UN officials to observe that in 2009 so far the death toll in Southern Sudan has been higher than in Darfur and to warn of its potential impact on elections scheduled in February 2010 and the referendum on southern self-determination in 2011. Both are politically contentious milestones in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the National Congress Party-led Government of Sudan and the Southern People’s Liberation Army/Movement that could fuel local and national tensions and lead to further violence and human rights violations.

This report, based on Human Rights Watch’s research in Southern Sudan in March and April 2009, documents the fighting in Jonglei between two ethnic groups and the failure of both the GoSS and UNMIS to protect civilians. Gaps in civilian protection are not unique to Jonglei. In Upper Nile state, 72 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in May 2009. In Central and Western Equatoria, civilians received little or no protection from Lord’s Resistance Army rebels from Uganda, who continued to attack and kill southerners with impunity in 2009, while civilians in Malakal received little protection from abuses by soldiers in the Sudan Armed Forces and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) who killed more than 30 civilians during and after military clashes in February 2009. [...]

Connosco e convosco: fala viva e etimoloxía (“Ben falado!”)

Neste capítulo do programa “Ben falado!”, emitido pola Televisión de Galicia e dirixido por un ilustre investigador do Centro “Ramón Piñeiro” para a Investigación en Humanidades, o paremiólogo Xesús Ferro Ruibal, falan da actual distribución xeográfica dos pronomes connosco e convosco, fronte ás formas “con nós / con nosoutros” e “con vós / con vosoutros”. Tamén se comenta a súa peculiar orixe latina: mecum, tecum, nobiscum, vobiscum…

Debemos agradecer ó canal en YouTube de BreoganTS por estaren alí á nosa disposición os capítulos deste programa, que tan útiles son na escola (polo menos para min).

Cotovía: Galician and Spanish text-to-speech (“Ben falado!”)

Cotovía é un sistema de conversión texto-voz (text-to-speech) bilingüe para galego e español desenvolvido polo Grupo de Tratamento do Sinal da Universidade de Vigo (España) e un grupo de investigadores da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela co apoio do Centro “Ramón Piñeiro” para a Investigación en Humanidades. Hai unha versión de demostración online de Cotovía para proba-las principais características do sistema.

Aquí vai unha presentación de Cotovía no programa “Ben falado!”, emitido pola Televisión de Galicia e dirixido por un ilustre investigador do Centro “Ramón Piñeiro” para a Investigación en Humanidades, o paremiólogo Xesús Ferro Ruibal:

Debemos agradecer ó canal en YouTube de BreoganTS por estaren alí á nosa disposición os capítulos deste programa, que tan útiles son na escola (polo menos para min).

O folón ou batán no programa “Ben falado!”

Este capítulo do programa “Ben falado!”, emitido pola Televisión de Galicia e dirixido por un ilustre investigador do Centro “Ramón Piñeiro” para a Investigación en Humanidades, o paremiólogo Xesús Ferro Ruibal, fala dos folóns, tamén chamados batáns, que viñan sendo (hoxe apenas se usan) máquinas artesanais para bate-los tecidos mediante mazos movidos pola forza da auga:

Debemos agradecer ó canal en YouTube de BreoganTS por estaren alí á nosa disposición os capítulos deste programa, que tan útiles son na escola (polo menos para min).