SARAJEVO, BiH, July 7, 2014 -- Tanya L. Domi, a professor of human rights at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and an affiliate faculty member of the Harriman Institute, called on responsible Serbian authorities today to swiftly investigate and prosecute those individuals who were responsible for the execution of the Bytyqi brothers, American citizens, who were murdered in 1999 near the end of the Kosovo War.
Ylli, Agron and Mehmet Bytyqi, hailed from Hampton Bays, New York. They had returned to Kosovo in 1999 to help family members whose lives were endangered in the midst of a war, when the brothers were executed. According to eyewitness accounts, the brothers were helping people flee a combat zone when they accidentally ventured into Serbian territory on July 7, 1999. They were driven away, hands bound with wire. Today marks the 15th anniversary of their deaths.
Domi issued a statement in support of Congressman Tim Bishop (D-NY), who has offered a Congressional resolution calling for justice in resolving the Bytyqi brothers' deaths. Former U.S. Ambassador (ret.) Robert Barry is representing the Bytyqi family and has called on the Vucic government to take appropriate steps to adjudicate the Bytyqi murders. Rep. Bishop is commemorating the murders of the brothers today in Hampton Bays, New York.
Professor Domi's statement:
"It is imperative for the Vucic government to undertake swift action to properly investigate and prosecute all parties who were involved in ordering and carrying out the murders of these Americans. As Serbia further deepens its EU accession process, it is critical that it demonstrate respect for the rule of law. The just resolution of the murders of the Bytyqi brothers would demonstrate the Serbian government's commitment to the rule of law. It would also remove a stain of impunity from the current government's leadership. To act now to resolve this heinous crime, could not be a better time for the Vucic government to demonstrate its deep commitment to the rule of law by solving the murders of the Bytuqi brothers."
Last week in Belgrade, a consortium of Serbian domestic NGOs , led by the Humanitarian Law Centre, called on the government of Serbia to actively support the EU accession process, by showing particular adherence to and respect for transitional justice within Serbia. The consortium intends to closely monitor the Serbian government and the EU accession process and will issue "shadow" reports in conjunction with the monitoring efforts.
I am very pleased to be invited by the Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which advocates for Bosnian Americans, their families and on US foreign policy on Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It is a honor to return to Washington, D.C. to speak on human trafficking, a terrible and growing human rights global crisis. There is so much work to be done to address the scourge of modern day slavery.
The NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced today a series of sanctions directed at Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team that included the death penalty with a "lifetime ban;" a maximum fine permitted by the NBA of $2.5 million and a directive to the NBA's Board of Governors to force Sterling to sell the Clippers' franchise.
Sterling was outed as a racist when a leaked recording of a conversation he had with a former girlfriend (who happens to be multi-racial) was published by the salacious news website TMZ.com sports.
All these sanctions issued by Silver are appropriate and long overdue for a racist and a hater, who has been previously found guilty of racial discrimination under housing and employments laws and was also successfully sued for sexual harassment in a trifecta of just plain ugliness.
Sterling was a repeat offender, found guilty under law for engaging in racist and sexist practices, but never addressed by the NBA league under former commissioner David Stern. His silence today is deafening.
Although Commissioner Silver said the sanctions he initiated were for a singular event, no doubt he was aware of Sterling's well documented history of systematic discrimination.
Silver's leadership was widely applauded by members of the NBA community and among them included Earvin Magic Johnson:
Commissioner Silver showed great leadership in banning LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life.
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) April 29, 2014
I support Commissioner Silver's actions and comments. Let's support a genuine effort in this country to confront blatant racism institutionally. When I was growing up during the civil rights movement, there was so much peer pressure, most racists kept their thoughts to themselves--they hid their racist attitudes. But not anymore. I am shocked by not only Mr. Sterling's grotesque intolerance of people of color, but also the offensive comments made by the ignorant Cliven Bundy, a rancher who is in violation of federal law by refusing to pay grazing fees. I find their racist views to be repugnant and have no place in our increasingly diverse country. Anonymous on-line communications has emboldened many haters who possess unconscionable views that are blatantly racist and shock the conscience of people who embrace a civil society imbued with respect, tolerance and respect for others. I share the sentiments of the NBA's initial push back to the Sterling revelations:
Today we applaud Commissioner Silver's leadership and we reafirm the dignity of all Americans and all those who seek a legal and safe residence in our country. Indeed, we are one -- out of many -- one nation, a majority united in opposition to hatred of others.
Right Wing Watch posted a story after attending the panel discussion:
Russia's
ban on gay "propaganda" and copycat laws throughout the region have
created a "license to commit violence against" LGBT people,
"give the permission" for "street violence" and
"create legitimacy for violence," according to human rights advocates
working in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Kyrgyszstan who spoke last night at
a panel at Columbia
University.Russia's
spate of anti-gay laws has quickly influenced neighboring countries, part of
what Columbia professor Tanya Domi called "the Putin project" of
solidifying Russia's influence in the region.
I will be moderating a panel at The Harriman Institute, Columbia University, on Monday, April 14th, 6:15 p.m. Joined by Olena Shevchenko, chairman of Insight, and advocacy organization for LGBTI human rights that is based in Kyiv; Anna Kirey, a researcher on LGBTI human rights, Human Rights Watch and Matthew Schaff, a program officer at Freedom House who reports on LGBTI issues. This is so timely, especially given the xenophobia exacted against the LGBTI community in Russia,which is having a negative effect in the "near abroad" of Russia. If you are in New York City, stop by the Harriman Institute to hear the conversation by these human rights defenders.
During Vladimir Putin's remarks before the Russian parliament this past week to declare his annexation of Crimea successful in the aftermath of a plebiscite with winning results in excess of 90 percent, he revealed a newly embraced nationalism for a resurgent Russia. He also announced his exacted vengeance for Serbia's loss of Kosovo in the crudest terms. Putin mentioned Kosovo frequently throughout his speech; and exacting his revenge for Serbia's loss was apparently a desire he had harbored for a number of years. He crudely referenced the American bombing by referring analogously to it as "screwing everyone" but not asking for their permission. According to journalist Masha Gessen in her Slate report, who wrote: "The expression Putin used, however, was "vsekh nagnuli," street slang for having had non-consensual anal sex with everybody, rather than for having everybody agree." Columbia Professor Kimberly Marten pointed out Putin's unvarnished embrace of Russian nationalism during his Duma speech when he referred to Russians as "Russkii" for exclusively ethnic Russians, as opposed to the customary reference of "Rossisskii" when acknowledging anyone who had a a Russian passport, in other words, a Russian citizen, irrespective of ethnicity. Marten drew a plausible parallel to Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic nationalism project to violently create a "Greater Serbia" as he led Serbs through a series of wars that slaughtered thousands of people and destroyed Yugoslavia. It remains to be seen how far Putin will take his Crimea odyssey. Will he venture into Eastern Ukraine? Will he venture further afield to establish a Putinesque Russian empire? But now a resurgent Russia has fully emerged, led by strong man Putin who appears to be not only omnipotent, but is bent on righting past wrongs carried out against Russia. His paternal declaration of protection for his Serbian slavic brothers was an unparalleled throw down and upends Europe's previous policy overtures to draw Russian into its organizations as a western leaning partner. These revelations should be a wake-up call for the Europeans. Herein lies a defining fulcrum -- that of the historical slavic ties between the Russians and Serbs that runs deep with several centuries shared between them and notable for opportunistic manipulation of one another. Harkening back to the Vienna Congress of 1815, is just one example when Russian Tsar Alexander made clear in a diplomatic note circulated to delegates:
...calling attention to Turkish atrocities in Serbia, Alexander stated that [as] the emperor of Russia [he]was the natural protector of the Orthodox Greek Christians under Ottoman dominion...and the note concluded that Alexander was obliged by his religion and the voice of conscience to go to the aid of the oppressed Serbian people.
Timing is everything in geopolitical affairs. The Crimean referendum was not the only election held on March 16. On the same day a new Serbian government was elected that is expected to be led by Aleksandar Vucic, a populist and a political son of Slobodan Milosevic (Vucic was his spokesperson). Vucic, a former nationalist hawk, ran a campaign that called for Serbia to join with Europe and resolve the Kosovo issue, a sharp juxtaposition with Putin's claims that his violent takeover of Crimea was an action to settle scores over on behalf of Serbia. Will Serbia now choose to move forward and engage in a series of reforms required of future European Union members? Will they make peace with Kosovo while a resurgent, saber rattling, nationalistic Russia patron is on the move? On the issue of Kosovo, the Serbs have always been supported by the Russians as evidenced in the UN Security Council during the Balkan wars where the Russians effectively used their veto powers to block action, or watered down resolutions against the Milosevic regime. Likewise, Russia has played a similar role in the permanent council of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which operates on the basis of consensus. Russia has effectively blocked Kosovo's OSCE membership despite years of reform and international oversight that was carried out before its independence was declared in 2008.
It appears that Belgrade is juggling its European agenda while maintaining a friendship with Moscow.
Over the years, but more frequently since 2012 when Putin returned to the Russian presidency, officials from Moscow and Belgrade have been frequent fliers in a concerted effort to curry favor and deepen their ties.
Awkwardly at times, Bosnian Serb interloper Milorad Dodik, the premier of the Serb entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina has also been a presence in Moscow.
In the week before the Crimea referendum, Dodik traveled to Moscow where he was presented an award by the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill "for his outstanding contribution to improving the unity of Orthodox Christian peoples and consolidating and promoting Christian values in society."
Justification for the the award was also attributed to Dodik's leadership of Bosnian Serbs and its relationship to the “Serb Republic [as the only] legal option to ensure safety of the Serbs west of the Drina River, which
divides them, or more accurately connects them to Motherland Serbia.”
Not
surprisingly, but nonetheless bizarre, Emir Kustrurica, the Serbian film
director who is originally from Sarajevo and had once been a secular Bosniak, was in attendance
at the ceremony held in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, along with a number
of Russian diplomats and officials.Kusturcia, who converted to the Serbian Orthodox faith in 2005, has made
frequent trips to Moscow and attended the May 2012 Putin inauguration.
While many dismiss Dodik as desperate to maintain power and should not to be considered seriously, he nonetheless has the attention of major political players in Moscow. So no surprise that he would issue a solicitous statement of congratulations to the people of Crimea, calling the referendum a "legitimate and
democratic referendum in keeping with the Constitution, international law and the
UN Charter on the Right of People to self-determination." Russian ambassador to BiH Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko stood by his side as a proud and grateful witness.
None of Dodik's activities with the Russians advances the interests of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina to be improved, or to enhance responsiveness to the needs of its citizens. Dodik is using these meetings and relationships with Russians to affirm Bosnian Serb autonomy while invoking their "frail" position within BiH who must seek protection from their brethren in Moscow and Belgrade.
A more serious meeting between the Russians and the Serbs took place in April 2013 when Ivica Dacic, the prime minister of Serbia met with Putin to agree to become a "neutral" observer to Russia's Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a post Cold War organization, viewed as a successor to the Warsaw Pact. Other members include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The agreement was hailed as a geopolitical advance in the Russian media and forecasted that when Serbia becomes a full-fledged member of the CSTO, the organization could speak on behalf of Serbia on Kosovo issues.
And while official Serbian soldiers have not been deployed to Crimea, at least for now, Serb Chetnik volunteers have shown up for duty in Crimea. They were interviewed by Vice media journalist Simon Ostrosky, while working at a checkpoint located on a Crimean highway.
Ostrosky approached Bratislav Zivkovic (second from the right) who hails from "central Serbia, where he said "Czar Lazar started his campaign for Kosovo" and was in Crimea to help the Russians because "we have been helpful to each other through the ages." He added: "We have come to help share our experiences from the barricades in Kosovo and Metohija." Enough said. Apparently Kosovo is Crimea now. Just ask Vladimir Putin and Bratislav Zivkovic.
Photograph of Vladimir Putin, courtesy of the Kremlin website. Photograph of Serbian Chetniks, courtesy of Twitter. Tanya Domi is a Fellow at the Emerging Democracies Institute, Washington D.C. She is also an adjunct professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and Harriman Institute.
UPDATE: Politico.com correspondent Maggie Haberman published a story on the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday, reporting that Human Rights Campaign (HRC) donors Paul Singer and Dan Loeb will be organizing two panel discussions at the normally staid Davos World Economic Forum later this month in Switzerland (the panels appear to be "side" events and are not currently listed in the official program) . Singer and Loeb, who are the primary donors to HRC's new international LGBT project are not without controversy. Both made their fortunes from "Vulture funds," and are members of the Republican Party. Nonetheless, the fact that openly lesbian Masha Gessen, a Russian journalist will be speaking on one of the panels is a good development and should really break the mold at Davos in more than a 1,000 ways. Good luck to her continued endeavors to speak out about latest oppression underway in Putin's Russia.
The Human Rights
Campaign announced in November 2013 a new global initiative, but Laura Belmonte and
Tanya Domi raise questions about the priorities and expertise of America’s
largest domestic LGBT organization to engage internationally
Last November, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) launched a new $3
million international campaign that has generated both cautious optimism and
scathing criticism from those involved in the global struggle for LGBT
equality. Both responses are well-founded and the bar is set high for HRC to
distinguish itself in an arena long ago claimed by other advocates.
HRC’s
announcement this week ofa $100,000 contribution to support the Russian LGBT
movementis a serious
illustration of its commitment to this new venture into international affairs.
Madonna, Ricky Martin, Dustin Lance Black and Gavin Newsome, the Lt. Governor
of California, are among the 63 donors. The organization’s ability to
raise substantial sums of money and to promote such efforts with celebrities
situated front and center is one of HRC’s greatest strengths (seecelebrity supporters).
HRC
unquestionably hasmoney (nearly $39 million in gross
receipts in 2012), expertise and connections in U.S. politics and media that
could prove invaluable in gaining attention for LGBT issues abroad. If HRC is
willing to connect grass roots activists with public officials, corporate
leaders, and media outlets that help them make their cases and to provide them
with additional resources or training like theirnew global fellows program,
kudos to them.
But
that’s a bigif.
With many more hurdles to
overcome domestically, is going international now the right strategic move, or
is this HRC hedging its bets and paying it forward to position the organization
for a different kind of future, when ENDA, marriage equality and civil rights
have been secured in a vast majority of states in America? Are the aims of Chad
Griffin, who assumed the presidency of HRC in 2012, really different from those
of his predecessor Joe Solmonese, whose seven- year tenure was punctuated by
allegations that he raised a great deal of money, but pursued an agenda with
little substance?
In
its first move toward international engagement, right out of the starting
blocks, HRC was taken to task foraccepting funding for this initiative from Paul Singer,
a venture capitalist who has profited from the economic distress of developing
nations. Pointing out the devastating effects of poverty on LGBT people in
impoverished nations, Wanja Muguongo, head of UHAI –the East African Sexual
Health and Rights Initiative – told BuzzFeed, “You
cannot hurt with one hand and say you’re helping with another. It is not money
that should be used by anyone for LGBTI work any side of the world. It’s an
insult.”
No matter how
well-executed, the HRC initiative inevitably will generate suspicion among
foreign activists. From Protestant missionary organizations to public health
workers to modernization programs like the Alliance for Progress, there is a
long history of U.S. humanitarian intervention that has veered into
imperialism. While HRC may not see this initiative through such a lens, many of
those abroad will.
As domestic activists of
many years, we are familiar with the HRC mode of operation: From Maryland to
Hawaii, HRC has been rightfully accused of “bigfooting” local activists, icing
out those who are considered experts and running roughshod over people who have
toiled away for years, often ignored with little or no support, only to be
pushed aside when victory is at hand. HRC classically swoops in, grabs the
reins of a struggle and claims another victory, but in the process causes hurt
feelings and resentments that have plagued the organization for years.
A
recent case illustrating our point occurred when HRC staff membersexcoriated a transgender activistwho was holding a transgender freedom
flag behind the rally stage in front of the U.S. Supreme Court last March
during Defense of Marriage Act oral arguments. The staff member repeatedly told
the transgender activist that marriage equality was not a transgender issue.
Although HRC eventually issued an apology, staff members who were managing the
stage committed another faux pas by telling an undocumented LGBT activist who
was scheduled to speak at the rally, to remain silent about his immigration
status. Not willing to accept HRC’s heavy-handed treatment, United We Dream’s
Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project issued a video press release condemning
HRC’s actions and demanded an apology.
If HRC is this
insensitive with transgender and immigrant queers at home, how will they behave
abroad, among people who likely speak different languages, have different
values, different priorities, and their own ideas about how to advance LGBTI
equality in their own countries?
How will they address the
“Intersex” political identification which is excluded in America for all
practical purposes, but commonly addressed in Europe and other regions of the
world?
Indeed, HRC’s entry into
international human rights advocacy is quite late and there are many
international and national LGBTI groups who have been working for years on
these issues, with tremendous experience and expertise. Among them include,
Freedom House, The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Human
Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the more recent and quite effective
Council on Global Equality, which HRC financially supports.
International activists are
raising concerns about whether HRC will remove more funding than it invests in
the nations where they seek to advance LGBT equality. Given the tensions among
HRC and state and local activists who have experienced this vacuum effect for
years, such anxieties are understandable.
And more to the point, in
the case of Russia, where xenophobia is alarmingly accentuated due to the
onerous crackdown against the LGBT community by the Putin regime, love between
same-sex partners can barely exist, let alone conquer hatred and violence. Such
simplistic campaign slogans fall dreadfully short of addressing daily questions
of life and death that now confront Russian gays.
It is precisely this type
of celebrity-laden self-promotion and resource domination that sends HRC’s
fiercest detractors into fits of sputtering rage and opens it up charges of
exploitation (or dismissal for a lack of understanding about what is actually
happening in Russia for the gay community).
HRC
should play to their strengths and continue its financial support to the newly
launchedRussian
Freedom Fund. They should assist groups like RUSA LGBT, Russians
working from New York and even consider funding an asylum resettling project
for those Russians who will no doubt be seeking a better life in America, but
leave it this work to the groups who have worked on international LGBT human
rights for decades.
For such reasons, we pose
several questions about HRC’s global initiative.
Will HRC actually
collaborate with other organizations with much deeper expertise in foreign
relations, international human rights, and development? Will this initiative
simply export U.S. hegemonic aims, including white privilege and classicism that
has undercut many a domestic HRC program? Is HRC cognizant that this global
campaign sends an implicit “Game’s over at Home” message to activists in 29 states
still working for hate crimes law and protections against employment and
housing discrimination? Isn’t it premature to declare victory and go searching
for international battles before passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination
Act and marriage equality in all 50 states?
The fate of many literally
risking their lives for LGBT equality abroad hinges on how HRC and all of us
who want freedom for LGBTI people everywhere answer these questions.
Image: HRC Love Conquers
Hate Russian T-Shirt via HRC
The original version of this article was published by The New Civil Rights Movement on December 21, 2013
Laura Belmonte
is Professor of history at Oklahoma State University and serves on the national
council for the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR).
Republican lawmakers in the Indiana General Assembly have introduced a proposed amendment to the State's constitution that would ultimately ban same-sex marriage.
I come by this interest in the deliberations of the Indiana legislature honestly -- I was born and grew up there, realizing during my sophomore year at Indiana University in 1974 that I was a lesbian, only five years after Stonewall.
There were no gay community centers, no Ellen DeGeneres on daytime television and gays were banned from serving in the military (antecedent to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"). When I told my mother I was gay, she said: "Oh you will have a terrible life." And when I looked up the definition of "lesbian" in Webster's Dictionary, it was not good, as the writer of the definition illustrated the sorrowful life of lesbians by mentioning Virginia Woolf's tell tale novel "A Room of One's Own."
Thus, I departed the State in 1978, never to return. Not only was my own family homophobic, racist, among other prejudices, but I grew up a state known as a KKK hotbed, that was also anti-Catholic and of course, antisemitic.
Bigotry has a dark history in Indiana lore. And it is currently proving that while the rest of the country is moving toward more fully embracing its LGBT citizens, Indiana's lawmakers seem intent are returning to its destructive past.
But back to the present.
On January 13, the House Judiciary Committee will consider and vote on the measure. At the moment, Freedom Indiana, led by openly gay, Republican operative Megan Robertson, is not saying if her campaign is assured to beat back the vote.
HJR3 (formerly known as HJR6) and a new version of the amendment
language which indicates what HJR3 does and does not do, known as HB 1153.No doubt, different numbers and
versions of the amendment language is causing confusion among opponents, which is probably a pretty good
bet to be the intention of the proponents.
Indiana state law requires a proposed amendment to be passed
by two successive General assemblies, which originally passed HJR6 in 2011.
The language of HJR3 is the following:
Only a marriage between one (1) man and one (1) woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Indiana; and
A
legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals
shall not be valid or recognized.
On January 11, I participated in radio program hosted by Civil Discourse Now, based in Indianapolis to discuss the proposed amendment and all its related issues. You can listen to the podcast here:
Interested persons should check Indiana Freedom for updates on the vote by the House Judiciary Committee hearing which starts today at 10 a.m. But regardless of the outcome, it is truly regrettable that the Republicans have now given new meaning to the term "Hoosier Hysteria,"(which usually refers to Hoosiers love of basketball).
