BRITAIN

BRITAIN

The Observer, London, Oct. 18: The exact number of protesters shot dead at a demonstration in Guinea last month is unknown. Estimates vary between 150 and 200. Soldiers of the ruling junta beat and raped survivors.

The massacre was condemned by the EU, the UN secretary-general and the African Union. On what foundations, observers asked, does the Guinean regime stand other than murderous repression?

The answer came last week, with reports that Chinese investors are planning infrastructure, oil and mining projects in the country worth up to $7bn. The deal appeared to confirm a trend: China propping up noxious regimes in Africa in exchange for natural resources, no questions asked.

Near monopoly

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the west acquired a near monopoly in African trade. That it made human rights part of the terms of discussion is laudable; that it failed to make much progress is a tragically wasted opportunity. Now the monopoly is lost. If western democracies want to influence African development they must compete with the offer from Chinese autocratic state capitalism.

It is meaningless just to assert the moral superiority of trade with conditions of good governance and transparency attached. It is time to start proving it with sustained investment aimed at fostering civil society that will yield real political benefits for Africa.

CANADA

The Toronto Star, Oct. 20: Sri Lanka’s postwar human exodus is washing up on faraway shores: Hundreds of Tamils have reached Indonesia and Australia, and others apparently are being drawn here. While authorities are still investigating, the Canadian Tamil Congress says 76 men from the merchant ship Ocean Lady off the British Columbia coast are Tamil refugees.

“Sri Lanka has become hell for Tamils and they have to get out,” says Congress spokesperson David Poopalapillai. Others who fled to Indonesia have made the startling claim that they are facing “genocide.”

Detention camps

While that strains belief, the Sri Lankan military continues to hold some 260,000 Tamils in detention camps, in poor conditions, five months after shattering the Tamil Tiger insurgency in mid-May. The government says only some 30,000 have been sent home. Tension in the camps is reportedly reaching the boiling point.

That leaves Canada and other countries of asylum in a fix. More Tamils are bound to flee if they can’t live normal lives. We can either grant them asylum, or ship them back to a clouded future. The better course would be for President Mahinda Rajapakse to close the camps, restore normalcy and make flight a less desirable option.

In the meantime officials should give the refugees a sympathetic hearing. Some would “draw the line” against taking in the refugees. But provided that they are not Tiger leaders, they should be entitled to temporary sanctuary until Sri Lanka finds a humane way to deal with people displaced by the fighting. Sri Lanka’s defeat of the Tigers should lead to national reconciliation, not indefinite internment.

JAPAN

Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, Oct. 20: When the United States and European nations say that more than 100 children have been “abducted” to Japan, they are not lying.

Troubles involving children of international divorces being taken from their countries of residence by their Japanese parents and brought back “illegally” to Japan are creating an international stir.

More than 100 such cases have been filed in the United States, Britain, Canada and other countries so far. Some people even accuse Japan of “encouraging child abduction.”

Arrest in Japan

Last month, a U.S. citizen was arrested in Japan for attempting to snatch back his two children from his Japanese ex-wife who had returned to Japan with them in August.

The trouble occurred because of differences in the rules for dealing with children of international divorces in Japan and the United States. The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, to which 81 nations are signatories, states that, in principle, when a child has been taken from his or her country of residence, the child must be returned to that country. The convention requires the governments of signatory nations to comply.

Among the Group of Eight countries, Japan and Russia are the only non-signatories to the convention.

The great majority of parental child abduction cases filed in North America and Europe today involve ex-wives who are Japanese. And a number of these women say they have returned to Japan with their children to escape physical abuse by their ex-husbands. How can such women and their children be saved from their predicament abroad? This question cannot be ignored.

The time has come for Japanese society to seriously debate the welfare of children of divorced parents, in Japan and overseas.