The Mexico Campaign and Amnesty Ireland

international | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Tuesday May 09, 2006 03:47 by Robbie robbiesin at gmail dot com

an interview with Jim Loughran, Amnesty Campaigns Manager

mp3 12 mins 128kbps phone interview with Jim Loughran on Human Rights abuses in Mexico and on the nature of Amnesty International as an organisation.

The first half of the interview is given over to the rape and murder of Mexican women, and murder of environmental activists, with at the very least, no investigation by Mexican authorities.

The next half concerns the nature of Amnesty.

Is AI a corporate charity?

IS AI apolitical?

Does AI overlook important causal factors of injustice by concentrating on symptoms (Human Rights abuses)?.

For those who won't hear the interview for whatever reason, here's a a bit of a preview to the answers to these questions.

Jim says that Amnesty's focus is on Rights-based law, be that political or apolitical. He recognizes that causal factors must be addressed, but that this is not strictly within Amnesty's remit (paraphrasing him). Amnesty is first and foremost for accountability and equality.

He says that to accuse Amnesty International of being a corporate charity is to indulge in 'doublethink'; since the organisation doesn't get funded by governments and needs to raise money to fund its investigations and Human Rights lawyers (paraphrase).

He does however, recognise that a balance has to be struck and that Amnesty Internationl should guard against becoming a corporate charity.

Interview was recorded live on Near FM's Majority World, last Thursday May 4th, at 4:30pm.

Related events.
Emergency Protest at Mexican Embassy
and
Amnesty International Conference on Mexico