On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 13:02:39 +0100, mitxel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
... Amnesty Internationalak urtero bere balantzetan ETAren jarduerak
gaitzesten ditu, baina zer esango dut, erakunde horrek ez zuen inoiz
Nelson Mandela preso politikotzat hartu burruka armatuarekin lotuta
zegoelako. Holako gauzak dauzka A.I.k.
Mitxel
Dena dago Google-en, hau helbide honetan
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Govern_Political/mand_amn.html
Amnesty & Mandela
Amnesty International adopted Nelson Mandela as a "forgotten prisoner"
following his arrest and conviction in 1962 for alleged passport
violations. In 1964 he spoke in his own defense at the famous Rivonia
Trial and explained why he had chosen to organize an underground army (MK)
and plan a campaign of violence directed towards the end of overthrowing
the apartheid regime. Mandela's open avowal of chosing to use violence to
further political ends caused a split within the ranks of Amnesty
International, which at the time was very much smaller than it is now. One
group advocated continuing to work unconditionally for Mandela's release,
while the other urged that AI should adhere to its own principle and
restrict it's efforts for unconditional release only to those political
prisoners which they termed "prisoners of conscience" -- those who had
neither used nor advocated violence. This would exclude Mandela from POC
status, but would enable AI to continue to work on his behalf in terms of
fair trial, and against the possibility of the death penalty.
This issue was debated at length at the 1964 congress in Canterbury
England, and it was decided there in favor of the second position -- that
is, not to make an exception for Mr Mandela. I would recommend that
readers interested in the details and in the early history of Amnesty
International should get ahold of a copy of Egon Larsen's --A Flame in
Barbed Wire -- (New York: W.W. Norton, 1979). By the way, Amnesty
International takes no official position on the justification of the use
of violence. It only makes a distinction between those political prisoners
who do and do not use or advocate its use as concerns its internal program
of action on their behalfs.
President Mandela has long since acknowledged that Amnesty made its
decision in good faith, and has thanked the organization for its work on
behalf of thousands of other South African prisoners and detainees. On his
first visit to America following his release he met with a group of AI
members in Detroit who presented him with an Amnesty International
T-shirt. I have a picture of him wearing this T-shirt and waving on the
wall of my study.
So those of you who would like to raise this old chestnut again would do
better to think twice about doing so. Wouldn't it be wiser to devote our
attention to the world's current spate of human rights violations?
Morton Winston
Amnesty International USA, Board of Directors/South Africa
Coordination Group
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http://www.eibar.org/zerrenda
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